Movie and a Makeover

Wow have I got something good to hold over Chris’s head now. Not only did I catch him watching Zoolander on Movie and a Makeover today, but then he went out and bought the brand of shampoo they were using during the makeover part of the show. . . He may never live this one down. :)

Buzz cut for the boy

William has always had a hair fixation, since the first minute he could control his hands. As soon as he could put them where he wanted them, they were in my hair. Then when he started growing hair, they were in his too although evidently it was a little too thin and fine for his taste, since my hair was still the preferred choice. When Will was a few months old, he actually started pulling his hair out on one side for a while. We bought him a Barbie, which he loved and carried around everywhere for a while, much to Chris’s dismay. She’s now this naked doll (we did manage to keep clothes on her for a bit) with dreadlocks that stand literally straight up—but he loved that silky blond Barbie hair while it lasted. And she did help him stop pulling out his hair, which grew back eventually.

He still twirls his hair around his fingers—his favorite spot is the crown of his head for some reason—but it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, though, that he started pulling it again. I have to say that this really freaks me out. I had this friend in seventh grade who pulled her hair out—she had emotional problems—and her hair never grew back right. And my first thought when Will was little was what kind of terrible mother was I that my little only-months-old baby was so stressed that he was—well, not exactly mutilating himself, but that’s what it feels like when you’re watching your own child do something like that. His daycare has had some staff changes lately, which I think I’ve talked about here before (I have got to find some better blogging software so I can figure out how to index old posts, by kid or something), and he has a very strong preference for one teacher over the other, and so I wonder if it’s got something to do with that now. I don’t know. All I do know is that I told my little three year old that if he didn’t stop pulling his hair out, I would cut it all off.

Well, of course he didn’t stop. He has this little monk’s tonsure at the crown of his head—a clean ring all around a little tuft of short hair in the middle. I did warn him several times. I got out his old Barbie and his fuzzy lion and all his hairy animals (and he has many, many hairy animals). And then last weekend Chris and I buzz cut off all his hair.

For the last couple of years Chris has been having me cut his hair, something I resisted very strongly at first because you can always gripe about your haircut when it’s not your wife who does it, you know? He bought one of those electric razors with the different attachments so your hair can be luxuriously long at 3/4 of an inch, or you can have more of a military precision cut with the 1/4 trimmer. We compromised on Will at a 1/2 inch. Chris started out while I was holding him, and then when Will got wiggly, I took a turn with him still on my lap (and I had to sing five little ducks about a million times during it—Jacob duck when outside to play, Blake duck, Peyton duck, all his friends at school. You know the lyrics? “Five little ducks went out to play, over the hills and far away. When the mother duck said quack quack quack quack, only four little ducks came back” What is this fascination kids have with people going away and not coming back? And is this related? He learned that song around the time the hair pulling started.).

We ended up with a soft fuzzy headed boy. I must have missed one tiny tuft of hair that’s a little longer than that rest—that’s all he has to hold onto. Luckily I had his three-year-old pictures taken just before all this started, because he looks like we’re about to ship him off to military school (although he’s a very cute little cadet). Fortunately he’s handled it better than I hoped, and in just a week, his bald spot (ring?) has already started to grow back. This is one of those things I imagine us telling him about at the family reunion when he’s brought his new wife for the first time, you know? Hopefully by then it’ll just be a funny story and not another indication that he inherited his mother’s obsessive compulsive tendencies.

Very excited child

Laura got her copy of the literary magazine her poem was published in!

From: Mrs. H
To: Lisa
Date: 4/28/2005 8:56:51 AM
Subject: from Laura

Gess what, OK don't gess let me tell you. I made it into sourthen sampler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got my own copy of the book, a tee‑shirt and an invatation to an aouthers party! I didn't get to hear the anocments on DNN so when i walked into the room the lights were off and nobody was there and then eveybody jumped out from somwere and shouted surprise!!! It was so cooooooooool!

very excited child,
Laura

Essays essays everywhere

The essays are just piling up. I had to write one for Will’s class, my students wrote a million of them, and now it’s Laura’s turn. Here’s her latest effort.

My Favorite Form of Transportation

When my dad takes me kayaking, it feels calm and peaceful, like it’s where I’m meant to be. In my opinion when you look forward when you’re in the kayak, it looks like one big arrowhead. When I’m in the boat I listen to the sounds that surround me, like the birds singing their beautiful songs, or the soft splash of the paddle against the water, or other boats passing us. When we’re out there not only do I concentrate on the sounds but also the smells. If you put your hand in the water and then pull it out again and smell it, it smells like a dirty child, and occasionally whenever we go fishing in it, it smells like a fish. Also the pine trees that surround you make a fresh pine smell. The reason I think it’s fun to travel in this kind of transportation is because I get to spend time with my dad and because I get to see wild life including an otter and beaver signs. I also like it because I actually get to get into the water and because it’s a real challenge when you’re paddling against the current. And the most recent trip was when we actually paddled on very choppy water to an island that had tons of rocks and while we were there . . . I . . . stepped in a dead fish that apparently a bear caught. That’s one reason why it smells like fish. I just really love this way of transportation and I hope you will too.

Family traditions

I had a homework assignment for the week—Will’s class at school has a new theme for May: “The Glow Worm Family Traditions.” I have a meeting (of course) the day that Will’s family tradition is scheduled, so since I can’t go, I had to write a description for them to read instead. I can’t write it in any voice but my own, so I don’t know how they’ll read it, but for what it’s worth, here’s my homework (very originally titled).

One of Our Family Traditions

Every year in the summer we spend vacations with our family at Georgetown, South Carolina. Usually my parents are there—Grandma Netta and Papa Teddy—and my brother and his wife, Uncle Matt and Aunt Shari; they both have houses just down the road from each other on Catfish Lane. Often my uncle and his family will be there too. We go down for weekends in the summer pretty often and always for about a week at the Fourth of July.

The Fourth is always fun—that night we ride the boat down Six-Mile Creek to Black River and then to Winyah Bay just outside the Georgetown Harbor. We’ll take bubbles in the boat and hold the wand up in the air as we ride to the Harbor—the bubbles stream behind us. When we get there, we’ll sit in lawn chairs on my father’s pontoon waiting for the fireworks to start, but they’re always late, so it gets darker and darker while the boat rocks back and forth at anchor. Finally the fireworks will start, and the display always lasts a long time—you can see them so clearly from the water, with none of the smoke or lights or mosquitoes on land that interfere, and reflecting on the surface too. On the way home, it’s always cold from riding in the boat in the dark and wind, so we bundle up in blankets. William usually falls asleep on my lap afterwards.

That week we take the boat to the sandbar in one of the bends in the Black River, where you can stand in the middle of the river—although William is still too short even at low tide to walk on the bottom. We swim at the sandbar and sometimes eat watermelon there. Of course you have to watch out for the little shrimp that will jump on you while you swim—surprise! At low tide we also play in the boat ramp; Will and Laura love to try to catch minnows and fiddler crabs. Will likes to throw sticks out into the creek for Ginger, my parents’ labrador, to fetch. She will chase those sticks all day. If it’s the right time of year, the kids will chase those giant grasshoppers—the ones that are three and four inches long. My brother won a most-unusual-pet contest with one of those grasshoppers one year when we were little.

I usually take Laura and Will to the beach one day too while Chris goes kayaking. I try to time our beach trips to low tide because Will’s afraid of the ocean still. We’ll go to Huntington Beach State Park where the tide pools stay on the beach at low tide—Will can actually sit in the pool like it’s a bathtub, and they’re full of little minnows and sometimes even big starfish. We’ll walk down the beach and pick up shells—although Will prefers chasing seagulls—and before we go home we usually walk down the beach to Atalaya, the Huntington’s old home. Huntington Beach is the only place I know where you can see a Spanish-style castle in the South, although it’s a very small one. The rooms are arranged one after another along four long halls that run in a square with a courtyard in the middle. Laura and Will run down the halls from room to room yelling to hear the echo.

Although it is nice to get the sand washed out of everything, it’s always hard to come home afterwards—we never spend as much time outside here as we do down at the coast. Sometimes I think the time we spend at Georgetown will be some of the most memorable events our children have when they grow up, between the alligators and fiddler crabs and whatnot. We’ll see.

Almost done

In the meantime, another quote from The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. I am damming up tributaries now just as hard as I can. I have half an actual blog entry written, but haven’t had time to finish it. Should be soon . . . maybe while my students are taking their first exam.

For me it is often a lack of focus, allowing my energy to run out in dozens of directions—many of them silly tributaries of distraction—rather than setting priorities and funneling my energy toward the project at hand. Part of women’s genius lies in our ability to make multiple commitments, to do many tasks, and to live with ambiguity and multiplicity. It’s true that power can come from the flexibility of doing many things, but sometimes that multiplicity, the moving from one thing to another, is overdone and we diffuse our power. There are times it is best to dam up the tributaries and send the energy thundering in just one direction. All great things are launched on big rivers. (208-209)

Refusing compromise

Another quote from The Dissident Daughter: “if an awakened woman forgoes innocence and denial, if she refuses to make compromises with herself and defect to patriarchy, then her only option becomes deviance. I chose deviance.” (192)

Me too.

One of those days

I got a notice in our mail today that the road construction people will be widening the road in front of our house—there goes our front yard. We went to the library book sale and got there an hour after the start—too late to beat the book buyers to the new trade paperbacks. I took the kids to McDonalds on the way home to get them happy meals—one kid was crying because she didn’t get a toy in hers (and yes, that was the ten-year old) and the other was crying because I couldn’t open his toy that second in the car. This has been in the last hour and it’s very typical of my past couple of weeks, which if you’re reading this blog you should be happy I’ve spared you. Privileged troubles, I know. But if I could move to a cave in the desert tonight for a while I would.

And just another indication. I went to post this and Blogger was down. I emailed it to myself to post later. Always assuming I remember (which obviously I did). It’s been that sort of end of semester.

One weird dream

I just had this bizarre dream. Already I can’t remember it clearly, and I can only write for a minute because I have to get dressed and leave by 6:00—I have a faculty senate meeting halfway across the state today. Thank God it’s my last one as chair; I am handing the gavel over today. But I’m still reading that Kidd book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, since I can barely read a page or two every night at bedtime before I pass out, and the section I’m almost finished with is all about dreams.

In this dream, I am working two jobs. One is my regular job, and apparently I am some sort of police officer, so every night I am out there busting criminals, running around a lot, danger and adrenaline all very normal. During the day I am working undercover, apparently trying to help arrest this group of criminals who are preying on housewives. So every day after work, I come home to this suburban neighborhood house and clean house and garden. And somehow part of this is that I am watching children who don’t belong to me. In this dream, I am very conscious of being exhausted and frustrated and having no time to myself because I am always shuttling back and forth between these two jobs, both of which are demanding. One is stressful and fearful, and the other stressful and tedious.

I’m not entirely sure where it was all going, because finally my undercover job was working and I had somehow convinced the neighborhood criminals that I was stupid enough to load up boxes and boxes of “stuff” into my own car. I knew at least one box held guns, but I was evidently persuaded that this was all in a benign cause and could just go right along, no worries. I was about to close the trunk when I looked up and noticed one of the hoodlums videotaping me from a distance, me by myself closing a car full of contraband. And then (as the classic dream lines goes), I woke up.

So what does all this mean? Probably some parts are obvious. I am really tired. I do feel like I have two jobs. I have all this service work at school and it is just nearly impossible during the day to do anything other than go to class, go to meetings, finish reports that are urgently due, etc. I haven’t been able to grade a thing in the past three days—and I have quite a few things that are overdue. So then I go home. Maybe, as a matter of fact, I have three jobs. Senate/service. School. Home. Chris has been taking care of all the kid transportation this week, and so I’ve actually had a fairly light home workweek—the last two nights we’ve taken these lovely walks after dinner and I’ve actually had time to talk to my family. But then we get back home and I need to grade. But I swear, I just can’t. I am so tired by then. I’ll get a lot of it done this weekend, but there goes the last weekend of Laura and Chris’s spring break, and nobody gets to have any fun because I need to go back to work and grade papers.

And maybe I sort of do feel like the police at school too, trying my damndest to convince my composition students that their research papers will be abysmal (if they ever finish them) if they don’t work a little on them along and along, not saving it up til the last minute. Of course, how convincing am I on this subject, when I’ve done virtually all my grading at the last minute? I am sure they’re tired of listening to me lecture.

So I am the police. And a housewife. And pretending to be stupid. My second shift and third shift jobs are wearing me out. I am trapped in a world of criminals?? Hm. I am going to take a shower.

No licking allowed

What Chris said
To William tonight:
Do not put your finger after the cat licked it.

What Lisa said
To Laura many years ago:
Do not lick the boat.

I sense a theme.

Fe Fi Fo Fum Finalist

Well, I’m all sad today because I entered this chapbook contest . . . my manuscript placed as a finalist last year, so I had high hopes for this year. Lo and behold, I’m a finalist again. Alas. I did get a nice letter from the editors of the press and specific mention of several of my poems, which they described as “solid and accomplished.” I must say I’m liking that. But I would’ve liked it better if I’d won. Maybe next year. . . .

Clean up, clean up

Today my happy feelings will have to come from cleaning house, which is my plan for the entire weekend. Our house is disgusting right now. The fuzz that was growing in the bathroom is definitely something gross—fortunately when I shower I can’t wear my glasses so I can’t really see whatever it is. And Will just crawled under the kitchen table to pet Kitty and backed right out saying, “Ew, Mommy, it’s dirty under here.” Pretty bad when even the three year old notices.

A girls' night out

I really need to be getting out more. One night last week I drove down to Columbia to see a screening of five student films produced during a media arts class last semester—a concurrent class with environmental history. The showing was called Tales of the Tidelands, and all the films were documentaries about the natural history of Georgetown—although they seemed to me more about the history of the region’s people. I imagine those histories can’t be separated. I picked my sister-in-law Shari up from work and we went together to the screening, which was surprisingly crowded and very interesting. There was a small reception afterward, with really good food (petit fours and strawberries in chocolate, yum), and then Shari and I went to dinner at a brick oven pizza place and talked. I was driving home and thinking to myself, my lord, I feel relaxed. And happy. What a bizarre sensation. That’s really just too bad. Maybe things’ll calm down when school ends—I certainly hope so. I’d like to feel that way more often.

Winding down the birthday week

We had birthday parties #2 and #3, and they were also just fine and dandy—days and days ago, weren’t they? I have been frantically running to class and meetings and grading papers and finally resorted at work to throwing everything on my desk into big piles on the floor because I lost a couple of important things. Poor William. His birthday comes at a rather busy time of year—the research paper and my sweet William. Laura’s not much better off with her just when classes start birthday. Maybe it’s just as well neither of them have summer birthdays, because maybe I’d turn into one of those psycho clown-hiring moms then. : )

Will’s three now (although he still says he’s two if you ask him). He seemed to feel that the festivities were over after his big party last weekend—he walked around the whole afternoon of his actual birthday telling anyone who wished him happy birthday: “It’s not my birthday. I already had my birthday.” So evidently the cupcakes and candles were not sufficiently convincing.

Laura had her overnight field trip and came back unscathed. She was in the school musical tonight—they have this huge production where every grade sings about three or four songs and the kids introduce the music (very scripted) and it lasts about an hour and a half. I just couldn’t make it through the whole thing. Laura’s part was first, and the whole fourth grade did great, and then those kids marched offstage to the upstairs of the church (it’s so big they can’t have the musical at school) and then I sat there with a squirmy William for another grade or two’s songs before I just had to bail. Chris stayed to pick Laura up at the end, and I got to come home and grade papers instead. Long day.

Chris wins the vote for funniest remark of the week. We were driving home from eating out the other night, about a thirty minute drive, and Laura decided that she would recite The Incredibles to amuse William. So she literally started reciting it, I swear word for word (and the worst part of this is that I am pretty sure I knew enough of the words myself to know she was right on). For practically the entire trip. While I internally bemoaned how I have handed my children over to Disney capitalist culture, Chris was sitting over there just laughing. At the end of her monologue, here’s what he says to her: “I’m so proud of you! You do have a memory and now you can use it for things like multiplication tables.” Or perhaps finding her tennis shoes in the morning? I think Chris and I enjoyed that rather more than Laura, but we certainly had a good laugh.

Harry Potter is coming

The countdown has begun.

Birthday party #1 (a good time had by all)

I am pooped. It’s almost 10 (which means really almost 11 since Daylight Savings starts or ends tomorrow, whichever), and we’ve been having birthday practically all day long. We started at the zoo, actually for Laura, who won second place in the statewide fourth grade category for her Garden Club poster contest (we are really not so hoity toity as to be big Garden Club people, but Oakdale has a really nice club that plants at the school, and you don’t have to wear a hat and dress and gardening gloves). It was windy windy windy and cold, and the award ceremony lasted about forty-five minutes. We’d originally planned to have Will’s birthday party afterwards at the zoo picnic area, but relocated the party to Matt and Shari’s house after Shari offered to be our rain location. I still felt guilty about taking advantage of my poor sister-in-law this morning until we froze our behinds off at the zoo, so now I’m over it (although I will owe her a really nice favor soon). We walked around the zoo afterwards for a while, nothing special, except of course for the ménage a frog that we saw in the monkey pond. Just a little reminder from Mother Nature that spring is here, and not everybody conforms to the norm, I guess.

We had just family at the party, aunts and uncles and Grandmama Kathy and a passel of cousins. We had (really delicious for a grocery store) Buzz Lightyear cake and grapes and cheese and crackers. We had no major incidents requiring parental intervention, even after Will opened the Buzz Lightyear shootin’ gun Grandmama Kathy gave him for his birthday. We had a big laugh when Will opened the first present too—Matt and Shari bought him an Incredibles scooter (yes, the whole party was a Disney marketing dream) which was pretty good sized, so big they had to wrap it in one of those giant garbage-bag sort of gift bag (which of course was decorated with Incredibles because Shari is one seriously excellent gift giver). Will made a beeline to the biggest present, naturally, and sort of dragged it over to where I was sitting. As he pulled it over, he said “Wow! This must be a really big book!” Everybody had a good laugh at the geeky book loving family. (This is what happens when your primary family entertainment is going to the bookstore for an hour or so after dinner.) Only two more parties to go now—Will’s school party with his friends and then his tiny little nuclear family only party on his real birthday. Wonder if it’s really necessary to have three or four parties for every birthday?

I am feeling parenthetical tonight (which is generally a good indication that I’m getting too tired to think in organized ways). Or perhaps parenthetical will become my new organizational strategy. Meantime, though, I think it’s time for bed.

Bring over the bones

Last week was Career Day at Oakdale. Laura has decided that she wants to be a scientist, which is news to me, seeing as how she’s never mentioned this idea before. Since the kids are supposed to dress up as their future career, I loaned her a white shirt to be her lab coat, we dug out one of the skulls from Halloween, and I borrowed a pair of lab goggles and a beaker from Todd’s lab. She looked good! She didn’t win the costume contest, alas, but I suspect it was because she did win the drawing contest for Career Day, not any flaw in her excellent costume (and since all the winners go to an ice cream party, the competition is stiff).

Her illustration shows I probably need to talk to her a little more fully about how she’d have to dig up her own bones if she were to be a paleontologist, but it’s pretty good. The woman in the red shirt is calling my lovely daughter in her lab 10,000 miles away, saying “Dr. R, we found a new species,” to which my budding young scientist naively says “OK, bring over the bones and I’ll study them.” What a hoot.