Category Archives: play it again

play it again: freckled love

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originally posted April 8, 2011

A  long, long time ago in a land far, far away called Second Grade, there lived a delightful, red-headed girl with freckles named, Zoë.

Zoë loved Second Grade and all that was there.It was indeed a magical place of laughter, joyful play and discovery all thanks to the ruler of the kingdom, Mrs. Boyum.

Also living in the land of Second Grade was this boy named Chase. Zoë liked Chase. She liked Chase a lot. She liked Chase so much that he was arguably her first crush. But alas, Chase did not feel the same way for Zoë. He explained to Zoë that he just could not love a girl with freckles on her face.

Poor Zoë!

Much time passed and Zoë was now a delightful young lady with auburn curls and lots of freckles. She moved far away to a magical place called Monterey Bay in search of more discovery and adventure. There she met a handsome, young prince named Josh. Josh liked girls with freckles, especially he liked the freckle-faced girl named Zoë.

And Zoë realized that she liked even more the handsome prince named Josh.

Looks like Chase’s loss is Josh’s gain.

Lucky, lucky Josh!

play it again: celebrating the normal no matter how much in need of vodka I might find myself

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Originally posted January 13, 2011

For Daniel’s birthday I asked how would he like to celebrate. Big parties right now are out of the question but I always allow the birthday clown to decide the meal for that day. Daniel’s choice I knew would be pizza…a no brainer…piece of cake. He looked at me thoughtfully and asked, “How about we have my birthday at Chuck E. Cheese?”

Chuck E. Cheese?

The boy has never been to a Chuck E. Cheese. His early medical needs pretty much prevented us from taking him to that Rat’s nest. His sensory processing issues and difficulties over the years practically guaranteed that this would be the LAST place we would ever take him. The last time I had been in a Chuck E. Cheese Jodie was 3 years old. I haven’t missed the place and I certainly was willing to continue to deprive myself of going there for Daniel’s sake over the years. But this year, for his birthday, more than anything in the whole wide world, the boy wanted to go there.

Okay, who planted that idea in his head? Damn you Nickelodeon or any 2nd grade peer running around on the playground. Okay, I take back damnation for the innocent classmates, but I refuse to let Nickelodeon off the hook.

Chuck E. Cheese?

Really?

Why?

But Chuck E. Cheese is the place that Daniel wants to be to celebrate with his family and closest friend sooo….Chuck E. Cheese it is.

Sitting at my table watching kids running amuck screaming and yelling and crying in a child’s version of a Vegas casino, I wonder why doesn’t this place serve vodka for the parents…they should.

Oh lordy help me!

I do love my son and would do anything I could for him but this is so hard. Then I see him having so much fun. He’s playing games and collecting tickets (for cheap awesome prizes) galore and running back to the table to gather up more game tokens to head off to play some more games and win some more…and he is having so much fun. The cardboard with cheese they label as pizza is absolutely delicious he declares. He seems to be oblivious or perhaps thriving in this sugar overloaded chaos of bright, flashing lights, loud bells and whistles, screaming children invading his personal bubble. He is having fun. Mommy wants vodka but my boy is having fun. Even having pop rocks candy explode in his extraordinarily sensitive mouth is the most amazing, delightful sensation ever. My boy is having so much fun. And I find myself having so much fun because my nine year old boy is having normal, crazy, chaotic, hyper fun in Chuck E. Cheese…like the rest of the children in the house.

Okay, perhaps I don’t need the vodka after all.

Life with Daniel has always been about celebrating the normal no matter how annoying or exhausting or mind numbing it can be. The joyful, good things are always good and celebrated but so are the not so good, but normal childhood things. For me, Chuck E. Cheese is not good. But my boy wanting to be there and having the time of his life is good…very good…so typical, so normal and so very good.

Thank goodness on the way home he suggested that next year he would rather party at Boomers playing mini golf and driving go-karts. Because next year he is going to be :::gulp:::ten years old!

play it again: in just 24 hours

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originally posted November 11, 2010

Not last night but the night before…

I love, LOVE spending one on one time with my son. I mean we have the most amazing, funny, thought-provoking conversations when we do so I love to spend time with him. But in an ER? I thought we were done with this?

Apparently not.

I have said that it has been a very long time since he was sick. It has been. I settled quickly in my mommy-nurse mode because that is what I do. Still, I was so worried, so stressed, so scared. Because that is what all of us mommies do.  And then I dug out my old pediatric nursing text and started Googling my son’s symptoms… OMG! Croup versus Epiglottitis…and, well, we ended up taking a midnight ride to the local ER.

Fun times.

I started feeling perhaps I jumped the gun a little. But the D.O. did find his ariway to be quite swollen so he gave him a racemic epi treatment, a dose of decadron and something for pain which all worked just fine because he did fall into an exhausted, wheezy sleep. I love how he was surrounded by his NICU lovies (he dug them out of their keepsake box) and Curious George. Seeing the friends who have been with him through his NICU days and frequent re-hospitalizations somehow made it seem like he was surrounded with all the luck, love and prayers that sustained him back in those days. It was all going to be okay, they seemed to reassure me.

And just twenty-four hours later there he was last night, all curled up sleeping so much more peacefully, softly snoring with just occasional coughs and wheezes, in his own bed.

Mom’s breathing easier too.

Thank you.

play it again: yesterday I sucked, really sucked and today I’m kind of pretty good

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originally posted October 22, 2010

Motherhood is awesome but, at the same time, it is so bone crushing, soul killing hard. We do and we do and we do and we do and there are some days where we wonder if all this doing is really doing something. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this blog post by Chris over at AlphaMom. I cried when I read it because it has been that kind of day/week/month/several months being a mom.

Agggghhhhh!

Yesterday, right before I headed off to work to earn the bacon to bring home because my family seems to need so much bacon, my son, my beautiful boy, told me that I am the best mom in Manteca.

So wonderful!

A couple of weeks ago I was the best mom in the whole, wide world and now just Manteca? Really? Still I am the best in Manteca. All the other moms around here can just go and cry their eyes out and be jealous because I am the best because the best son ever has declared it to be so.

I headed off to work feeling buoyed just a little. I needed that just as much as I need his hugs and unconditional love and worship. It keeps me going. Don’t judge. Right now my half marathon training and my son’s mommy-worship is what keeps me going.

But soon enough I crashed and burned. Checking my current account balances on my smart phone, I realized that there was no way in hell I could make my tiny dancer’s opportunity and dream come true. I probably knew this a while ago because I am the only one bringing home the bacon, but c’mon, this is Radio City-freakin’- Music Hall and training and dancing with the Rockettes for a whole week next summer for the kid whose passion is dance, whose dream is to dance in New York City at Radio City Music Hall with the Rockettes. I had to try. Try and worked my ass off I did. But it wasn’t enough and checking the finances it was painfully clear. I sent a message to her dance coach, heaved a heavy sigh and headed into work for the night.

And then I fell apart and cried like a baby in front of everyone in my workplace.

Great! Just great!

Thank goodness for hugs…for big, warm hugs…and for the charge nurse to tell me to go home…after she held me and hugged me. Thank goodness for hugs.

Coming home I cried some more and dreaded facing my daughter and smashing her dream into teeny-tiny bits and pieces. You have to know her passion and her dreams to get it. I’m not a dancer but I get passions and dreams and once in a lifetimes opportunities. This was hers and as her mom I worked hard to make it come true. I worked my butt off. But it wasn’t enough. I suck at fundraising, especially during a recession. And during a recession when I am the only paycheck coming in to the Big Top, I suck all the more.

It is what it is.

I waited for my daughter to come home from dance feeling like a major failure and dreading the moment where I stomp on her dancing dreams. She came home and, as best as I could without crying again, I told her. There would be no New York, no dance classes with the Rockettes’ choreographers, no dancing at Radio City Music Hall. She nodded and hugged me tight telling me that it was okay.

Of course I cried again.

She then asked if I would help her braid her hair for the Homecoming Rally tomorrow.

I cried even more.

I have to say that there is something zen-like braiding hair. It’s calming. My tears slowed and eventually ceased. I began to think how lucky I am. This daughter of mine is amazing!

Even better was to see her Facebook status before she turned in for the night.

‎& in the end, its really just the little things that matter♥

and then to read her sister’s response

Baby sister, you’re adorable.

Still wallowing, because sometimes it feels good to wallow just a little when you are down, I found a friend of mine feeling like a Mommy-fail as well. I invited her to join me on the Mommy-fail bench for the night but I promised her this:

@MsV1959 today we feel like we suck and we are likely right. tomorrow we get a do-over and we will be awesome! #motherhood

Hurray for do-overs! Hurray for tomorrows! Hurray for awesome kids like mine to reassure me that even when I am absolutely certain that I suck, I do not. I mean how could I suck when they are they way that they are? Yesterday I did suck. I really sucked. But today I am pretty good because my kids are damn awesome!

play it again: paid forward in my own dysfunctional way

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originally posted September 21, 2010

I have on occasion written about my tumultuous, tormented upbringing. It started out as therapy for me which really help me to come to a place of acceptance. Yeah, a lot of my past sucked, it sucked donkey balls but it is what it is and I am who I am because of a lot of it. One thing most certainly helped me to get to where I am today. That would be the night that my Uncle kicked me out of his house in the middle of the night.

I had either moved to California to get away from the crazy, turmoil that was my home in Pennsylvania, or I was forced to leave by my mother because it was the best thing she ever did for me…my recollection versus hers, regardless, I got out and thank goodness I did. My mother’s brother and sister, bless them, took turns taking me in not fully knowing what kind of mess they were taking on. For the first time I did not have to take care of siblings or a mentally unstable mother or a drunken step-father. I was only responsible for me, myself and I. Of course I went wild. I went a little crazy too. Unfortunately, my mom’s family really wasn’t ready to deal with a late adolescent rebellion.  In spite of their concerns, their long talks and even their threats, I continued to act out and enjoy the freedom that I finally had. Being nineteen I just did not see my behavior as rude, inconsiderate and perhaps, a little dangerous for my mom’s family who had taken me in.

But I soon woke up to the reality of it all late one night when I dragged my sorry butt in well past the hour that my uncle had asked me to come in. He and I had many “discussions” before over why I really had no business running around the streets of San Jose after midnight but to no avail. Honestly, I was nineteen and well, the parties were just getting started after midnight. So when I came home one night around 3:30 AM, I found my uncle waiting for me…with my belongings packed up.

Harsh. I know.

I needed harsh. I needed to grow up and realize that there was a life and a world waiting for me beyond my part time job at Montgomery Ward and running around like I was. I also needed to find out that the people whom I declared were my best friends were no friends at all. Being kicked to the curb and living in my car for a couple of months taught me that.

Still it was pretty harsh. I honestly hated my uncle for a time…for a long time.

The years moved on quickly with a change in jobs, getting my own place, marriage, a baby, college, a new career, more babies and on and on until I came to here, to this place in my life. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be here in this same spot were it not for my uncle’s harsh wake-up call. I needed it. I am grateful for it. I consider myself very fortunate that he had the balls to do that to me.

About five years ago, Holly had a friend who was forced out of a very similar home life. She was just weeks from graduating high school, pregnant and nowhere to go. We took her in hoping to give her at least an opportunity to exhale, collect her thoughts and try to figure out what sher was going to de because she obviously had some big decisions to make. During her stay with us she graduated from high school and was even the valedictorian of her class. She miscarried. She found a job. She also settled back into some of the same behaviors that got her in the position where she found herself homeless. Some of her choices were definitely dangerous for her and potentially for our family. Her behavior began to have an affect on Holly as she was finding herself also wanting her friend to just move on. Things went from bad to worse until one day where I found myself having no other choice but to ask her to leave. As she angrily packed her things up, I tried to tell her that there was no other choice for me, for my daughter, for my family, for her. I told her that I knew in that moment that she would not see that this was the potential to be a very good thing for her. This was an opportunity for her to begin to really move past the pain and dysfunction of her childhood. I knew she didn’t see that nor understand that. I  told her so too. I also told her that I knew at that very moment she hated my guts and she would likely hate me for a very long time. I was okay with that…as long as she went out there into the world standing on her own two feet and take responsibility for herself, who she was and who she certainly had the potential to be. I did not see her again after that day. I heard how she was doing and I heard how much she hated me. But I also heard that she found and accepted opportunities that were beneficial to her in reaching her potential.

Fast forward five years and who should land in Holly’s stylist chair but this young lady, a beautiful, accomplished grown woman. As Holly made her even more beautiful, they caught up with each other and reminisced about the good ol’ D-Force days. How far both girls had come! Thank goodness they did. Holly’s friend had one thing to pass on to me and that was “thank you”. She told Holly that I was right, she hated me for kicking her out but she was so thankful that I had the guts to stand up to her and do just that. It was precisely the wake-up call that she needed and for that she was forever grateful to me.

And so I have paid forward probably the best thing that happened to me as a young adult…were it not for that moment I would not have all the breath-taking moments that I am so fortunate to have enjoyed and continue to enjoy. I don’t celebrate the moment when  I kicked Holly’s high school friend out of the Big Top but I do celebrate the life she has, that she has made for herself. You are welcome, Suzette! God bless you and your family and all that you do.