100 Plays

I am taking a play writing class in July. Why plays? That is a good question. Could it be because I am such an attention seeking melodramatic person? Could it be that I love going to plays and always have? Or could it be that that was the only summer class that fit my schedule and I REALLY want some time to myself that is NOT work? Most likely-a combination of all three. So play writing it is. It could easily have been ceramics or auto mechanics, perhaps even yoga. BUT-since this class fit the times, this was the winner.

Here is where my mega memory kicks in. I haven't taken a writing class since high school- and Crying Daddy was in the same class. Maybe that was when we learned our blogging skills. I doubt it, as it was 1991 and who had ever heard the term blog? Sounds like something you would throw up. That creative writing class was interesting. One girl in it grew up to be an English professor at Vanderbilt. I was lucky enough to sit in front of the guy who wrote country music songs for all of his assignments. There was also another girl who saved all of her money to buy a motorcycle and then she dropped out of school and drove off on it. North Carolina sure was a great place to grow up.

The teacher was a little bit better off than the students. She assigned us a short story to write, but BEFORE we could start to write it, we had to read 100 short stories. Yes, that sounds like a treat to me now, but at the time my sixteen year old self did not want to read 100 short stories when I could have been watching Star Trek the Next Generation on the couch. Does anyone else wish they could go back in time and turn in old assignments? Is that way too nerdy of me?

I sort of get my chance. By the end of this summer class, I will have written a play. Please don't anyone spit their drink out of their nose-but yes, I will have one work written by July 31st-I'll give it to Harry Potter for his birthday. I got inspired from the wisdom of the old teacher and her philosophy. I have set a goal for myself. Before I start the class, I need to read 100 plays! That sounds horrible for a working mom of three, but think about it. Plays are short, plays are fast paced, and plays are designed for a wide range of people to come and enjoy. So I can do this. I have already read four in less than a week. Plays are perfect "mommy reading" because they go so fast.

Here are my first four:

1) Our Town. They did this one on Growing Pains and The Wonder Years. I think my 81 year old grandmother played Emily when she was in high school or college. Yes, it is a popular one because you don't need a lot of scenery. We definitely need to appreciate life while we live it, I get it, I get it!

2) Love Letters. I saw this one in high school, my BFF just went to see it a few weeks ago. I loved it because of its simplicity. You don't even really have to memorize it. Just sit there and read the letters. I also like the Forest Gump/Jenny theme it had going on. You are so used to a "good girl" falling in love with a "bad boy" that when the roles are reversed you pay closer attention.

3) How I Learned To Drive. Ok, this is one of those plays my freshman roommate would have looked at me in horror for suggesting we go see. It was really good, although it dealt with sexual abuse as compared to learning to drive a car and who is and is not in control. Very much a "fun" in dysfunctional kind of performance. Miss Weeds herself Mary-Louise Parker had the lead when it opened!

4) The Mineola Twins. Great play about twin sisters that represent different roles women have in three different decades. The writer is Yale faculty. Wish I could meet her!

As I read them, I'll post more of them here and there in between the grocery store diaries. I only ask that people DO NOT recommend plays to me. I want to pick them on my own-and yes, I am going to include some Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neil, and Tennessee Williams in my list. Must have the big wigs represented.

And IF my play is good enough, I'll make my girlfriends act it out this summer and we'll post it on youtube. Just you wait!

Free Therapy!

Now that I have your attention:

My kids picked Shel Silverstein poems for their bedtime story tonight. Talk about the Children’s Literature Canon! I can’t think of another child’s poet off the top of my head this instant. Who doesn’t have some of his more famous poems memorized? When my kids and I read them, we don’t go in order and we don’t stick to one book. We flip through all three and read them out loud based on the title, the picture, or one of mommy’s memories.

To say Shel was talented is to write one of my bigger understatements of the month. Not only did he give us three volumes of incredible poetry, but how many women get The Giving Tree as a shower gift? That one is definitely on top of the “Good Mommy” list. You know I model my daily comings and goings after that tree. Ha! I would have been chucking apples at that kid’s head to knock some sense in him. You know you need a night off when you shriek at the children, “Sit down and listen mommy read The Giving Tree, you little brats!" I know someone somewhere has felt that way even if I am the only one who is going to fess up.

Reading any of those poems is hysterical and I am going to transcribe some poems with my own children’s interjections eventually. but tonight, I had one of my “Epiphanies.” People don’t need to pay for therapy and some of them could possibly skip a religious service if they just paid attention to Shel.

I thought I would share this scene from "Snowman." He wants to experience all the summer has to offer:

Seasons come and seasons go,

And the greatest ice must crumble

When it’s flowers’ time to grow.

And as one thing is beginning

So another thing must die,

And there’s never been a snowman

Who has ever seen July.

This is my problem. This sums me up. I'm never ready for the next phase of my life when it happens. What do you mean we are moving? What do you mean autism? What do you mean the boys need distance? I want a snowman in July. I have always wanted a snowman in July. I used to wear jeans in the North Carolina summer-you can ask all the kids in the neighborhood that used to tease me about it. Of course now that I live in Connecticut, I might see one in July yet.

I remember in the novel Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs talked of "Bible Dipping." That is when you ask a question, flip through the bible, and point anywhere inside it. Then the line you landed on answers your question.

I'm going to try this with Where the Sidewalk Ends and get back to Y'all....

God bless...

1) Friends that will drop what they are doing and pick up your child from school when you are hysterical.
2) Coffee-Starbucks, McDonalds, Instant, whatever...
3) High School Musical and its ability to keep my children engaged when I have to do the bills, the taxes, or any other paperwork that requires my undivided attention.
4) Oatmeal with walnuts, craisins, and a little vanilla yogurt.
5) Last but not least...LITERAL VIDEOS!!! Nothing can make me laugh harder on a bad day. I recommend Total Eclipse of the Heart.

The BEST of the WORST

God laughs at plans-even blog plans. I was planning a "State of the Union of Motherhood" kind of post today and it was going to have people rolling on the floor laughing. As I was working on it-I'm not kidding, the timing was perfect, I got a call from someone to discuss my son's behavior. I don't want to say too much because I don't like to violate anyone's privacy but my own, but he hurt his best friend's feelings and I'm terrified the damage is done. This also means the damage is done between me and this mother-and I considered her one of my best friends in Connecticut. After I hung up with her, I wanted to drop kick him all the way back to North Carolina and be an uber cool "double income no kids" couple again. Actually, I don't think we ever were that couple because we had the kids the minute grad school was over.

Anyway...

I'm sure when she is done reading this, my mom is going to send me an email and rattle off every little thing I ever did to make her look like a fool. Including, but not limited to, the blue dress I wore on May day that was two sizes too small for me and ripped half way around the May pole. There was also the Christmas day I spent in my room for refusing to apologize to my father's sister. (I told her to shut up-and to anyone who knew her, I was a brave little preschooler, wasn't I?) I haven't even gotten into all the damage I did at my house or other people's. I mean come on, so I opened all the Christmas presents at a play date when I was three? Buy gift bags next time...

The other factor is no matter how many adults come and go from someone's life-people turn to mom first. Last summer when my daughter sneaked out the back door there were four adults in the house and all of us thought someone else had her, but when the cops brought her back from a neighbor's house, I was the one they shot daggers at. Ugh....if I had known the police were going to hate me eventually anyway I would have partied harder in high school.

Crap is going to happen no matter how hard you try to keep it going smoothly. Why? Because our kids are humans. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just lug around little cabbage patch dolls that did exactly what we asked? That would wear the clothes we picked out for them? That would say "Yes please" and "Yum, those carrots were delicious, thank you." Every time we served them?

Um, no-where is the fun in that? One of my mottoes for life comes from Woody Allen. Woody says that Comedy = Tragedy + Time. He has no idea how right he is. Time is one thing we definitely have. This is why we parents get our own special days. We need them to recover from the lows that come with it every now and then.

No worries please-I'll save the belly laughs for tomorrow.

Does size really matter?

My son is so competitive it drives me crazy. We can’t play games at all, ever. He melts down and the afternoon is ruined. I have tried a lot of creative things to handle this. I started with the Yo Gabba Gabba song, “Sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose.” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know it.” Then I thought we would role play “losing” and saying congratulations to the stuffed animals. He threw them across the room. I don’t know how long this phase is going to last. I even tried the “When we compete we don’t complete” line I heard on Dharma and Greg. I gave up. We just can’t pick plastic cherries off a cardboard tree right now.

I decided that this was a male thing because Frances hadn’t done this. I was grateful that women didn’t act that way. We love each other, we support each other. No one would ever cry and pout forever over having to slide down a chute instead of going up a ladder-right? Right? Who is with me girls??????

Anyone who says “Heck yeah!” has not been pregnant and given birth lately.

How you give birth has become our pissing contest. It is our version of “size ” if you know what I mean. You see a woman with a baby snug in a sling around her front or you see her with a sweet little baby in the car seat carrier being pushed in a stroller and you wonder. You wonder if she gave birth in a tub of water while her closest friends danced outside in the moonlight. You wonder if she scheduled a c-section and was able to get her hair done, her toes painted, and a good night sleep the night before. You wonder how long she held out at the hospital before she begged for an epidural. You wonder if it took less than five hours on a birthing ball. All of this from one sweet little baby….

At the time of this writing, I have four girlfriends who have successfully given birth at home. Hurray for them!

At the time of this writing, I can’t count all the other women.

Some did it the normal way without any pain medication-hurray for them!

Some did it the normal way with pain medication-hurray for them!

Some of them had c-sections-hurray for them!

Some of them had VBACS-hurray for them!

Some of them had repeat c-sections-hurray for them!

Maybe I’m being too much of a socialist for some of my friends, better knock it off, but remember what I told my son, when we compete we don’t complete.
What we need to do is share our own experiences, articles, and blog entries that were helpful to us. Then all the other women can take what we used and form their own opinions.

I’ll use myself and one dear friend quite different from myself as the examples. Yes, I have her permission.

I had three c-sections. My first child was breech. I did anything and everything I could do to get her to turn. I lay upside down, I played music and flashed lights in the direction I wanted her to go, I rocked out the pelvic tilts. You can ask my husband-I did it! Then we scheduled the external cephalic version-and she still wouldn’t budge. (BTW-I consider that morning to be my labor-another post another day.) I scheduled the c-section. With the next two babies, my husband and I decided that the repeat c-sections worked best for us-but I did let both babies go into labor, so I knew they were ready to arrive.

That is MY story. I personally did not pursue VBACS. But, if you are going to look at the pros/cons to VBAC or repeat, here were MY thoughts:
1) Are you going to have help with your older child or children? You can’t do anything else but take care of that baby for two weeks.
2) How many children do you want? If you want a big family, c-sections might not be the best thing for your uterus.

So, in case anyone was wondering about the “size” cough, cough, of my birth, that was it.

Now, I have a girlfriend with three children. Just like me, she had her girl first and her boys came later. She did it all at home. She trusted her body, lit the candles, pushed the munchkins out, and then ate mac and cheese in her own bed. Wowsa. If you asked her what she would do, she would give you a different story. Even with the breech babies-she knows competent professionals prepared to deliver butt first.

Which one of us is bigger? In my mind-we are the same size. You take my story, you take her story, you take hundreds of other stories, and then you write your own. Just make sure you educate yourself and always consider the sources. Most importantly, avoid the “haters.” There are people out there that are going to share their stories not to help you write your own, but to judge you and pressure you to do things you might not feel comfortable with. If you aren’t comfortable giving birth at home don’t do it. If you aren’t comfortable having your stomach cut open over and over again, don’t do it. Ignore the haters and trust yourself to make the right choices FOR YOU.

The bottom line is there are lots of ways to give birth and while all ways are rewarding miracles, none of them are completely pleasant. Twilighters? Think about Bella’s pregnancy in the first half of Breaking Dawn. I have said it before, Meyer is the ultimate “Mommy blogger.” You can read that book like one big tribute to motherhood. Pregnancy can suck, other women love and hate you for it, and your worst enemy can have your back while the men sit around dumb founded and yell at each other. Brilliant when you think about it. I am thrilled no vampire ever got ME pregnant…

None of it, and I mean none of it, is going to matter when that angel that you snuggle up close to or drag around in the car seat has his/her first tantrum. “Oh Mommy! Did you labor for 48 hours in our living room until Daddy finally caught my head with his own bare hands? Let me quit coloring on the walls right now!” If your child does that give him/her a gold star from me.

Please stop wondering about my size -save that for the men.

Now I must go let my four year old kick my ass at UNO so he won’t cry later….

The Grocery Store Diaries 9

You've got your hands full: two
Dirty looks: five-we had a bad day
Damage control: We made it home without any broken jars or cracked eggs

You know how much I would enjoy being able to sit down and be pushed around a store? Just once, maybe I could climb into the race car and they could push me around like I pretended I could drive? Yeah right....

Anyway, we are now playing musical chairs and "hokey-pokey" with the grocery cart cars. The baby has discovered how much fun it is to drive instead of sit up front with mommy. Sometimes if I am shopping with just him, I grab a regular cart and throw him in it. Major oops. He screams bloody murder all around the store. People stare. They stare a lot. You can always be flippant and say, "What do I care what they think?" But you know that you do. You also know there are cameras everywhere filming you pushing a screaming child around the store. So it is a given that he will get one of the two steering wheels and the other two will have to fight it out for the other. That is when "musical seats" kicks in.

Today Kenneth got in next to his brother and Frances sat up front. Half away around the store she wants down. I tell her no and she screams yes and I keep thinking about those cameras and let her out. Then she tries to climb into the car with her brothers, who start yelling at her to get out. So now she is hanging off the side of the cart.

In the mean time, the boys are doing the "hokey-pokey" sticking their arms and legs every way they can in and out of the car. Lowell has perfected sneaking his little hand in between the silver bars for a grape. Kenneth will wait until we are in the most crowded aisle in the store, usually the most judgmental too, and put his head thru the front and scream "LOOK AT ME!" Apparently I don't give him enough attention for doing the right thing.

I feel like a skipping CD. "Put your arm in." "Put your leg in!" "Why is he crying?" "Don't pull things off the shelves." "Stay in the cart!" "I mean it this time! We will go home." This just makes people crack up as they walk by. Then sure enough, no matter how many times I say don't stick your hand out, someone gets a finger pinched, and then they are screaming again.

Now Kenneth is out of the car to "help" me and Frances is in the car to "help" Lowell. Neither of us need help from either of them. So I start snapping at Kenneth and Lowell starts screeching at Frances. One of these days I'm going to end up on an HBO episode of In Treatment.

Check out, sweet check out. How I love to check out. Today we got behind an older woman who had coupons and was paying in cash-which means she counted out her change in pennies. Sure enough, my mascot decided to pull all of the Suns off the magazine rack. I guess he wanted to read about how Aliens from Mars are secretly taking over the world.

Kenneth wants to help bag. Actually, he is quite good at it. He matches the boxes with boxes and the jars with jars and knows that cleaners should have their own bag. This takes longer than it would if the bagger and I just threw everything wherever. Before anyone emails me, I use plastic. I know, someday I will buy and bring my own canvas ones. Cut me some slack until then.

As we are walking back, all is well. I buckle all three of them in, start the car, get the DVD player going, and pull out of the parking spot.

With the cart still full of groceries behind me.

Enough said?

The best planned day.....

My husband is out of town, spring break for the kids is coming to an end, and the weather has decided not to cooperate. Last night I made a plan to have today go smoothly. I had even planned to write a kick ass blog entry. What is the saying about plans? No need to really remind me.

This was the schedule as I went to bed last night:

1. Work while sitter takes older kids to gymnastics and baby has early intervention therapy.
2. Mail off expense report with time at the library.
3. Home for a play date with one of my daughter's special friends.

This is what happened:

1. Sitter called from gymnastics and said "Open gym" was "Closed." PDD-NOS daughter is having meltdown in the parking lot because of this. They go to an in door playground instead, but daughter keeps telling sitter, "I want to do gymnastics. There is no room for gymnastics." Bummer for her.

2. Son comes home starving because the peanut butter had jelly on it and the goldfish crackers were pizza instead of plain. I thought only "only children" could be so freaking picky.

3. I am ready to take everyone to the post office for the expense report and then a quick trip to the library, and I can't find my car keys. Where the hell are my keys? Keys? I better find those keys. Like I said, my husband is out of town and if I can't take the kids anywhere this weekend Jack Nicholson will look like father of the year and you will see a blog post that says, "All work and no play make Pagie go crazy" over and over again. Maybe one or two blog posts that way...

4. Found the keys but had no time to go to the library. I promised them we could go tomorrow if they were good at the post office. Then I thought, why drive to the post office now? We can do it all at once tomorrow.

5. The little girl never shows up for the play date. I call her mom who didn't get my email with directions to our house. She IS coming tomorrow, but still, tell my child her plan has changed AGAIN. She had already laid out all the dress up princess clothes and printed out the Disney Princess coloring sheets. It wasn't fun this afternoon.

So out of three plans made, none of it came to pass-even though they did have fun at the indoor playground. That is why in the north, we say "It is what it is," and THEN you don't have a southern girl hissy fit if it isn't exactly like your check list.

On a positive note, I did get all of my school work done, caught up the laundry, and made a wonderful dinner that involved no microwaving. The kids ate it too!

Did this blog post kick ass? Not sure, but I'm sure someone somewhere can relate.