Epiphany

I hate my body. Except I love it.

These are the warring factions that have been inside me for pretty much ever. I know there’s a whole movement about body image. I get that. I don’t really care because I’m talking about me. And you, because you feel the same way I do, you know you do. All my life I’ve struggled with my weight. When I’m overweight, I let that fact dictate how I feel about everything. And I do mean everything. What I weigh impacts whether I want to go out or stay in, participate or not, get naked or not.

And don’t even get me started on the self-loathing that goes along with it; the running commentary in my head. I don’t want you to see me naked, I’m fat. I can’t wear that dress, I’m fat. Why do I have no self-control? Why am I eating this again? Well, I’ve already ruined today, I might as well really ruin it. Why can she eat anything she wants and I can’t? I wish my stomach looked like that. These pants used to fit. Dangit. I’m worthless.

That was in my head for about 25 years. Until, by the grace of God, I came to understand the value of myself in a different way. It took a loooong time to get here. I’m not “there” yet. But I’m not where I used to be, which you might recognize.

I was a chunky kid. Big thighs, big ankles. Not athletic by any stretch of the imagination. I’d rather read. I don’t know when I started eating to feel happy. I just remember doing it. And yet eating makes me big and being big makes me sad so I guess I’ll eat. Why not, let’s just throw in the towel. WHY is the way I feel about myself tied to my body? Why should it be? It makes no sense.

I have a scar on my right hand where I was getting my bike out of the shed one day when I was probably 12, 13, something like that. The shed was really just a lean-to; covered on the sides and top with corrugated tin because we stored firewood and the mower under there. And the bikes, to keep everything out of the rain. Anyway I was getting my bike out one day and sliced my hand down the corrugated tin and it eventually healed into a perfect little raised line about a centimeter long. I remember it very clearly for whatever reason; maybe because it sliced my skin so perfectly (up until then I’d only scraped knees and elbows; no real injuries) and it was kinda fascinating to see inside there, and maybe because it happened before I’d really even realized it. My Uncle Hubert and Aunt Marcelle were over for coffee that evening. Mom and Dad used to have them come over for coffee every so often and they would sit and chat and it made me happy to know that they were happy. Sometimes I’d listen to their conversation, even if I didn’t understand it, and sometimes I’d stay in my room and just hear them laughing and talking, and sometimes I’d go outside and leave them to it, like that evening. They were good friends and it was comfortable, hearing them laugh and talk together.

I tell you this because it’s part of me. I look at that scar and I remember Uncle Hubert and how I loved to smell him smoking his pipe, before he got smart and quit. It’s not pretty, but it’s me. I have a spot on the bottom of my right foot that hurts sometimes when I step on it wrong; it’s from when I stepped on a cigarette butt in front of the old Kmart one night while Mommy was shopping and Daddy and I waited outside so he could smoke. It wasn’t his cigarette butt; he was still smoking his, but somebody else had thrown theirs to the ground and I walked my little bare feet right over it. I cried and Daddy picked me up and held me and I could smell his t-shirt with the dirt and oil and grease on it from having changed the oil in the blue truck earlier that day. He let me “help” him do that; crawl underneath the truck and watch the black black oil drip down into the pan.

Carter asked me what the scars were on my hip last week. They’re stretch marks and they are totally unfabulous. If he’d come out when he was supposed to come out, a week and a half earlier, I wouldn’t have had them. But he didn’t, and I got bigger, and bigger, and I have the stretch marks to prove it.

My mother makes carrot cake like you have never tasted carrot cake. Seriously, whatever way you think yours is good, hers is SO SO much better. She does this thing where she sugars the pan, and then when the cake bakes it comes out all wonderful and sweet, and then the icing. Oh. My. Gosh. The icing. Only Mom can make cream cheese frosting like this, and you put it with the carrot cake, and it’s unreal. I eat far too much of it, and I can’t resist it when she makes it. She makes me this fudge-ribbon cake for my birthday that’s all chocolatey goodness and cream cheese ribbon (holy cow, maybe there’s a theme here) and I can eat that whole thing with no help. My thighs are a testament to that carrot cake, and that fudge ribbon cake.

These hands have caught vomit, wiped away tears, checked for fevers, and sewn Halloween costumes. My boobs are pathetic floppy reminders that I couldn’t breastfeed my own children, yet they drive my husband out of his mind. My booty is rife with cellulite but my booty has sat on hard bleachers through baseball games, and on horses, and through cold nights around bonfires. My tummy has rolls. So. Many. Rolls. My rolls actually have rolls. My children made those rolls and stretched out my tummy and left their mark, and they lay their heads on my soft tummy now when we snuggle in the bed reading books. The skin under my arms? My bat wings. Flap flap flap. These arms have held cranky babies, crying loved ones, and toted groceries to feed my family. They’ve hauled firewood to the truck from the woods and they’ve had kitty cats fall asleep in them.

My body has stories. My body has been USED, people. It’s not pretty. It’s not skinny. It’s too lumpy in places, too fat in places, too wrinkly in places, too rough in places. But it’s beautiful, because it’s what God gave me to walk around in, to love in, to help in, to comfort in, to be happy and sad in. Love your body too, no matter what shape it is. Stop trying to make it fit into whatever size you think will make you happy. If it feels good to exercise, then do it. If you have a few more pounds this year than you did last year, then so be it. Buy bigger pants. Look at what God has given you in this body and what you’ve done with it. It's a beautiful, strong, amazing body.  It doesn't need to "look good" in pictures.  It's too busy living life.

Absorbing the Blow

As a mom, and a daughter, and a female, all of those things put together, I’m continually struck by how much we as our gender in each role, endure. How much we balance, and juggle, and attempt to be all things to all people; especially to our own families. I’d like to say “well, that’s just how it is in my family, we ladies are very giving people,” except that I see it in all of my women friends, relatives, co-workers… I think it must be a singularly female thing, or maybe it’s maternal, since a lot of the women I can think of who are like this are moms, or maybe it comes with age. Like mold. I don’t know. Maybe boys are like this too, or would be, you know if they didn’t have penises that took over their brains and laser-focused their entire existence down to a razor-sharp pinpoint of hormonal urgency.

I have always heard it said that you should “turn the other cheek.’ Yes I know it comes from the Bible, I even Googled it so I could tell you where it was. Matthew 5:39: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” God said it so you have to do it. But if that’s not enough, if Kenny Rogers can put it in a song then there’s probably something to it that should be heeded, much like knowing when to hold things and fold things.

But with me, and some other females I know and love, I don’t think it’s so much turning the other cheek as absorbing the blow. We aren’t solid, steadfast pillars who take adversity and unkindness and ingratitude with no discernible surface impact; it’s more like we’re air bags. We kind of catch the unkind remark, the additional burden, the carelessly-tossed backhanded compliment like a football, absorbing that impact of that blow instead of having it glance off in a funky-angled trajectory to ricochet into somebody else. And it might leave a mark.  Not to say all women are like this, or that we’re like this all the time. You do have your Jerry-Springer-tennis-players who take every insult, perceived or otherwise, and fling it back toward the sender with equal fervor and vitriol. Everybody has one of these inside them, the knee-jerk reaction of “you hurt me, I’ll hurt you,” the toddler-mentality of “if you break my toy, I’m breaking yours.” I’m talking about the kind of catch that comes with age, maybe with mommyhood, maybe just as your relationships stretch from grades to years to decades and you realize what really matters in life.

It’s a kind of grace, really. When I was a teenager in the throes of my hormonal angst and I would rail against my mother’s carefully constructed safety barriers, she would endure my blasts, buffeting them off to the side like ineffectual clouds. She’d stand there weathering the storm until I blew myself out, realized she was right to begin with, and moved on. Not saying anything about it, just gathering herself quietly, knowing there was going to be another onslaught at some point for which I would not apologize, but taking a breath after having withstood this one in preparation for the next. It’s kind of like how you envision following a toddler around when they’re learning to walk – you’re right behind them, ready to catch them if they fall, but not actually touching them. Even as they grow, not offering any advice (unless they ask) or guidance (unless they ask); your arms are out wide to keep them on the path and prevent things from ramming into them, but they’re going in their own direction and all you can do is follow and hope they remember all the good advice you gave them, back in the beginning when they actually thought you knew what the heck you were doing. Before they figured out that you’re winging it like everyone else. That’s one of the things I imagined would be hardest about being a parent, based on how I saw my own parents as I grew into adulthood. How do you walk the line between being there when they need you, but not parenting them? Catching them when they fall – letting them hit to see what it feels like but not so hard that it leave scars – after all, that's your baby - and setting them back on their feet, but not carrying them forward? It’s a narrow line, people. A line my parents somehow managed to navigate throughout my life but one which mystifies me as much now as I walk it as it did then, watching them walk it.

I wonder how we get like that. There are so many beautiful women I know that have endured such trying circumstances (read: having me for a teenager) and yet still come through it with this patient, beatific look on their face like, “Yeah, I got that one, what else you got? I can take anything you dish out, and I’ll still be standing here, and I’ll still love you afterward.” I’m not even talking the big guns -- ladies who’ve been left without moms too young and had to pick up the slack; had to deal with poverty, alcoholism, and abuse. I’m only talking about the day-to-day minutiae of LIVING. We take on school PTOs, handmade Halloween costumes, the pain-in-the-butt project at work THAT WILL NEVER END, the laundry, the ring in the toilet that. Will. Not. Come. Out, no matter what caustic military-grade solvent you put on that sucker. The dog with the bee sting who can’t breathe and has to be rushed to the vet and the little soul that needs to be soothed because the birdie fell out of its nest and “we just found it like that.” We take on the smart mouths, the eye rolls, the hair that gets dyed pink and green and then has to be fixed at the salon, the questionable fashion choices, the sarcastic comments, the judgment in that other mommy’s eyes because OUR yogurt is SMACK DAB FULL of red #5 and HERS was organically grown in a star, nay, coaxed to life fairly nestled in a fairy’s bosom. We endure the “we didn’t do it like that in my day” and the “give that kid to me for a week, I’ll straighten him out.” We deflect well-meaning comments from friends and relatives that we take wrong; surely they didn’t MEAN to make me feel like an ineffectual dunce who can’t connect two bumps on a pickle, and WHAT THE FRESH HELL IS THAT SMELL COMING FROM THE WASHER?!   I didn’t mean for something to come across that way – and holy hell they are totally letting me have it and I didn’t mean that at all but can’t they see I frickin’ LOVE THEM?

And there you have it. There are so many women that I know that love even when it isn’t deserved the tiniest bit. Who keep taking what gets dished out, absorbing blow after blow from every conceivable direction, and are still standing there ready to pick up whatever pieces fall and hand them back over whenever the circumstances dictate. They get their feelings hurt and they swear they’re not going to fall for that again; they’ll be tougher next time and they WILL NOT be there to catch the next free-fall… and still there they are. Right when you need them before you even knew it.

If you are one of those women who are patiently buffeting blows or waiting to catch the next stumble, understand how much you’re appreciated even if you never hear it. Seriously, you may never EVER hear it. Understand how WE are able to toddle off into the great unknown because we know you’re right behind us. If you’re one of the toddlers who are railing against someone who’s in your face and up in your grille and has GOT A FRICKIN’ OPINION ABOUT EVERY LIVIN’ THING YOU DO – take a minute and be grateful for their interest and concern. It is so good to be loved. To be loved and watched from afar, but also to be smothered under the 3-inch quilted cotton oxygen-sucking monstrosity that is whatever your most difficult relationship is right now. God made us to love each other but He in his infinite yet unfathomable mind-numbing wisdom didn’t make us all the same way and so we love each other differently – and that is also why there are bell-bottoms and gauchos. Because somewhere out there some idiot thought they were beautiful fashion choices to be embraced. Go embrace all the strong women in your life today and tell them you appreciate them, and thank them for loving you when you were a pain in the arse.

Bad Words

Yesterday we were on our way to school in the car, it’s about 7:30am, and Carter says from the back seat, “Mama, is F@#K a bad word?”

Um.  Yeah.

So I said, “Well, it’s not a nice word, so we don’t say it in conversation.”

“What does it mean?”

Well, I didn’t go THERE.  But I said people use it all kinds of different ways; as a verb, a noun, an adjective… you have to admit, you can't beat it for versatility.  Personally I say it quite a bit, usually in my head, occasionally alone in the car, but not within earshot of the kids.  I find it very satisfying and at times, the only word that fits the situation perfectly.

“Well, is sith a bad word?  Siht?  Something with an S.”

“S@#T?”

“Yes, that one.”

“That’s not a very nice word either, so we don’t use it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s rude.  Remember how I told you that holding up your middle finger means that you’re telling someone they’re useless, they’re lower than dirt, and that’s why we don’t do it?  Using those words make people feel like that too sometimes.  So we don’t use them.  You’ll probably hear other people using them, though.”

So I asked him if he’d heard someone saying those words recently.  He said there were two boys in his class that were talking about it at lunch and they were trying to think of all the bad words they knew.  “They said there was an f-word, two s-words, three e-words, and a c-word.”  Little boys, you BETTER NOT teach my kid the c-word.  (I can't think of what the e-words must be.)  I’m not upset that he knows those words.  I knew it was just a matter of time and I’m amazed we made it this long.  I learned the s-word earlier than he has; in second grade when Justin Lavoie wrote it on a desk.  It didn’t mean anything to me then, just like those words don’t mean anything to Carter now, he just knows they’re “bad.”  But, he said, “I didn’t like that conversation very much.”

I’m not thrilled he knows those words now, just like I won’t like it when he no longer believes in Santa or the Tooth Fairy.  But I know those days are coming too.  In some ways I wish I could keep them both little forever, homeschool them and control everyone they meet and insulate them from all the bad in the world.  Last week these same boys asked him if he was friends with another kid they thought was weird.  Carter struggled with that, because he thought the weird kid was just fine, friendly even.  But he could see what those boys were asking, “Are you friends with the weird kid?  Because if you are, you’re weird too.”  We talked about that, and I told him he’d face that problem all his life.  Even as an adult you face that, adults are just more subtle.  “I don’t like that person, so you don’t need to like that person.”  

He asked me what he should do about it.  I asked him if he liked the “weird” kid.  He does, so I asked him if he thought it was a good enough reason to not be friends with him just because the other kids thought he was odd.  And I told him that if he stopped being friends with the odd kid, it would probably hurt his feelings.  But I didn’t tell him what to do; I asked him what he was going to do.  He said he was going to invite the boys to play with him and the weird kid, and they’d see how much fun he was. 

Yesterday I asked him what happened with all of that.  He said he introduced them all, and they played tag, and he doesn’t know if they all like each other but they all played together.  My boy the peacemaker.  I asked him what he’d do if those boys started up the “bad word” conversation again.  He said he sat with somebody else at lunch so he wouldn’t have to be a part of that conversation.

I’d really like to save him from that crap.  The peer pressure garbage and the do-you-like-me-I-like-you-but-different-is-bad idiocy.  There were some people I was friends with in school that weren't exactly scholars, nor were they the best-behaved people, but there was something to them I liked.  One girl had (and still has) the absolute best sense of humor; she wasn’t exactly brilliance personified but dang, she could make me laugh.  Another girl I knew used every expletive there was in every sentence she spoke – but she WAS brilliant and probably one of the kindest people I’ve had the good fortune of knowing.  I’d hate to know I’d have missed out on them if I’d been “saved” from the peer pressure of being friends with them.

I don’t know how I’m going to help these kids navigate this world.  It’s ugly.  As Christians, we need to be in the world and not of it.  That’s hard.  When you’re in the world you see all the ick and you have to deal with it.  People will hurt you, influence you for good and bad too, make you uncomfortable, and force you to make difficult decisions.   They make fun of you for being different.  You get labeled as a prude because you don’t do the same things they do; if you do the same things they do to “fit in”, you’re a hypocrite.  I don’t want anybody to teach my kids the c-word, offer them drugs, or tempt them to steal.  I don’t want them to be put in the morally-questionable yet socially-defining position of “let me copy.”  But neither do I want to completely insulate them from it, because the awful people of the world, that’s who we’re instructed to tell about Jesus.  To show them Jesus, because that might be all they ever see of Him.  How will they ever understand what people are going through, the temptations they face, the trouble they’re in, if they never have to see it?  How do they ever have an “I’ve been there, and this is how my faith in God helped me through it” conversation? 

I’m trying very hard not to keep all the bad things from reaching my kids; I AM trying very hard to warn them before they get blindsided with something, and to help them face the tough stuff.  To know where they stand on things before they’re challenged, so they’re confident about their opinions.  I worry those challenges will come before I’m ready.  I want them to be able to make good decisions when I’m not around to tell them what to do, and to know that awful things are out there and will have to be dealt with, one way or another.  I shudder at the mistakes they’re going to make, the temptations they’re going to fall prey to, and the horrible things that may befall them.  I can only pray that God will protect them and save them from themselves and the myriad bone-headed decisions they will inevitably make.  When I think of all the times I did something that could’ve gotten me maimed, beheaded, or killed… well, they say God protects fools and children and at any given time in my life, I’ve been one or the other.

So as much as I totally didn’t want to have to explain the word f#@k to my 8-year-old with my 5-year-old in earshot, at least we got the chance to talk about it.  Frankly I’m just glad he didn’t hear it from ME.  

Conflict Sucks

I can be a weepy. sobby, emotional mess.  I know this.  But let me just tell you what these past few weeks have been like. 

Week before last, I was at the rescue mission and I stopped by the men's side to drop off some sugar in the kitchen.  I said hello to one of the guys.  One of the directors saw me, called me into his office, and proceeded to rail at me, basically accusing me of trolling for dates.  I left in tears and didn't go back to the mission, and I was miserable for a week.  I finally decided the next week I had to talk to him.  I had to confront his accusations because what he said wasn't fair.  He didn't even know me.  Everyone I've talked to, except him of course, appreciated me being there, and since I go with my entire family, they know I'm not trying to hook up.  So I called every day and left a message.  I never could get him on the phone.  By the end of that week I was a basketcase.  So the next week, I showed up on his doorstep, even though I was scared to death about how this next conversation would go; the first one had tanked in the first 10 seconds.  We ended up having the type of discussion I think God had in mind in Matthew:

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.” (Matt. 18:15-17)

I REALLY just wanted to walk away and not talk to this guy again, like ever.  But the people who would be hurt by that are the people we were both (theoretically) trying to help, and I can't help anyone if I'm not at the mission.  So I walked in his office and sat down, and we prayed together, I told him how hurt I was by his statements, he apologized all over himself for hurting me, and then he told me what he'd REALLY wanted to say and failed miserably at.  During all of this of course I was a weepy mess again, 'cause I'm a girl, and I'm embarrassed at not being able to control myself, but here's the thing.  I was proud of myself -- of US -- for handling a conflict the way God intended.  It wasn't pretty.  It made me vulnerable and it made him have to step up and admit he was wrong, and ask for my forgiveness.  It required me to be brutally honest to a virtual stranger and set myself up for probably being hurt again, since I didn't know how it was going to turn out.  At the end of the discussion we parted as friends, brother and sister in Christ, and partners in the effort to help people who are going through the worst challenges of their lives.  The crapstorm of the week before was gone.

I wanted to tell you this because if you're struggling in a relationship, I want to encourage you to speak up.  I want to encourage you to resolve the conflict and go to the person and say, "You hurt me" or "I know I hurt you and I'm asking for forgiveness."  The conversation I had required that I bare myself and confront someone I barely knew about an incredibly sensitive situation.  I hate confrontation.  When I first married Dallas, I couldn't talk to him about anything emotional unless it was in the dark and I couldn't think too hard about what I was saying -- I just had to blurt it out real fast before my brain could catch up.  (You'll be glad to know I'm past that; yes, over the last 12 years I've improved.  Slightly.)  Suck it up, buttercup, and say it and let the chips fall where they may.  God wants us to resolve conflict, admit when we're wrong and ask for forgiveness.  

So what do you do when your situation doesn't turn out like mine?  When the person you're confronting says "I didn't do anything wrong, I'm not admitting to anything, and I don't care whether you're hurt"?  Beats the heck out of me.  I don't know where you go from there, I guess it depends on whether you have a blunt object in your hand and whether they'll fit in your trunk.  All I'm saying is that if you want to have a relationship with someone, you've got to at least try, do your part, and be honest with them.  All you can control is your own actions.  When you've hurt someone, you've got to acknowledge it, however difficult it is to admit you're wrong (and believe me, it's difficult).  I respect the man I argued with for owning up to handling the situation badly, and repairing the relationship in a Godly way.  He said he respected me for coming back to confront him and not running away with my tail between my legs, badmouthing him to everyone else.  I screw up so often it was nice to feel like I was doing something the right way for a change.

Unfortunately I have other crapstorms I'm currently dealing with, where I feel like I'm being treated unfairly.  I desperately want to call up some people and give them what for, use some very satisfying words, throw things and stomp my feet.  However, I'm trying to handle it like an adult (being an adult sucks) and like a Christ-follower should.  To be a doer of the word and not a hearer only.  I don't know if these other situations will turn out as well but I'm just praying for some divine guidance, as usual, and trying to do the best I can.  Onward and upward, as Mom says.

And the Mother of the Year Award goes to....

Yesterday I was in Target, and I was right behind a lady and her son in the checkout line.  This lady was BEAUTIFUL.  I mean visually stunning; somewhere a magazine was missing its cover model.  Her son was freaking adorable, in a little jon-jon and saddle shoes (SO CUTE!).  She was dressed to the nines and had perfect hair.   And I was thinking, "I bet she's patient too, and never yells at her kids."  And sure enough, here she goes, "No, buddeeee, we're just going to give all these things to the nice lady here, not throw them, okayyyy?"  While her son continues to throw all the things she's brought to the checkout out of the cart and onto the floor.  Fling.  Fling.  Flingy fling.  So then she starts looking around at the cashier, and then me, and then the lady next to her, and then the other cashier, and everywhere but this little boy.  Like any of us are going to do anything; heck, we're waiting to see what SHE'S going to do.  Maybe we'll learn something.  And he's just happily throwing things to the floor while she's flipping out.  She's smoothing her hair and crooning to him, "Now let's just let Mommy have that, okayyyy, honeyyyyy?" while he's totally getting into the flinginess and is now jumping up and down vehemently in the back of the cart. In the middle of all this she stops to tie his little saddle shoe that's come untied and smooth his hair back down, because believe me, he's totally feelin' the moves.  And this goes on and on until she and the cashier finally retrieve everything, she pays for it, and off they go.  

Here is the time where I judge.  But no, I'm not judging HER.  I'm busy judging ME.  Seriously, if that was my kid, I'd 'a whacked him on the behind LONG AGO, maybe 2nd fling.  And I think, "Geez, could I really be that patient, as patient as HER, with my kids when they're misbehaving like that?"  The answer is no.  And I know, I've read all those articles about how mommies should stop judging each other and give each other a break, we need to lock arms ladies, SOLIDARITY 'TIL EIGHTEEN, we will prevail, these children will not break us.  But the thing is you are CONSTANTLY comparing yourself to each other and your kids to each others' kids, to figure out if yours are average, or above average, or freaks of nature.  You can't help it; it's ingrained in you from grade school when you all start comparing report cards.  It's like that in adulthood, only your kids and the way you keep your patience is what you're grading each other on.  Old ladies judge you.  People without kids judge you.  And even if they don't say it, you KNOW they're thinkin' it.

So compared to this lady, I'm wondering about myself.  You know I'm not a fashion plate.  If I never had to wear a dress again that would be A-OK.  I will take my jeans and my Converse ANY DAY.  She's fashionable AND in public.  WITH a kid.  I run to Target in mini-bursts when I don't have a child with me, even if it's 8:45 at night, if that's what it takes.  I have got the speed trip DOWN.  Plus she's totally not losing her temper even though her son is acting like a rabid animal.  People, I just cannot put up with crazy.  If my kids can't behave in public, we are totally leaving, I don't care where the cart has to go, we are GONE.  But the thing that gets me is that in the middle of this awesome display, she's worried about his tiny little SHOE and whether his hair is in place.  NOW I feel like a jackalope, because MY kids ate dinner butt naked last night at the dinner table because they'd just gotten out of the pool and we hadn't yet made it to the bath and everybody was hungry.   Sometimes I KNOW they forgot to brush their teeth but I'm just too freakin' tired to get everybody out of the bed again.  I've fallen asleep in the middle of a story.  I've fallen asleep in the middle of a story I WAS MAKING UP.  I've let them swim when the pool was green.  They've had processed, sugary, diabetes-inducing sugar-crashing powdery-heaven donuts for breakfast BECAUSE KRISPY KREME.  I've let them run around the yard in their underwear in a rainstorm and jump in puddles probably full of every horrifying microorganism there is, even the ones with fangs.  I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE TOOTH FAIRY.  

But I am seriously learning to embrace all the differences between us mommies, and when I hear of a cool new idea that I think could really help me, I give it a whirl.  When somebody lets their kids talk to them in a way that I know I would have gotten the crazy-eyes-defcon-8-look from my mother for, I just tell myself, "nope, couldn't take that, but you do your thing, girl."   I AM NOT OPEN TO CRITICISM, lady in the bathroom with the opinion I didn't ask for.  The answer is, "You're doing a beautiful job."  That is always the answer, lady.  Just like when you're pregnant.  "You got a basketball under there?"  I'M TRYING TO STEAL A BAKED HAM AND THANKS A LOT FOR DRAWING ATTENTION TO IT.  "You are beautiful."  THAT is the answer.  I try to keep them from breaking necks and having any organs visible on the outside, but I also try not to hover or gasp audibly every time they jump into the pool or balance on the curb.  It's a fine line, people.  I have children with no fear, no visible trepidation of any kind.  I'm trying to not impart my crazy on to them but let them take their own path to the therapist.  We are stringent about the basics but we're a little lackadaisical if nobody's eyes are going to get poked out.  I try to let them reason out how to handle things on their own and I try to think of times growing up when I had a similar problem, if it'll help.  And sometimes I lay down the BECAUSE I SAID SO because that's the answer.  

So I snapped out of my Target envy and got up to the cashier, and she said, "Can you BELIEVE that lady?"

Sigh.  I am so FREAKIN' glad I left my kids at home with Daddy.