We are inspiring our children to greatness around here.
Here’s how I know.
Lucy informed us last night, “I’m going to be a comedian when I grow up.” (I’ve apparently screwed her up sufficiently.)
“Or….” she hedges… “a chicken hypnotist.”
Hmmmmm. Not sure what that is, but I’m thinking those jobs might call for very similar skill sets.
That girl’s going places…the barnyard maybe, but still.
It’s a place.
I just bought new lipstick, which I clearly haven’t bothered to wear in WAY TOO LONG.
I know this because my kid says to me (with something akin to utter shock): “You have on lipstick today! You look like an ice skater!”
Ummmm…not sure what that means. But weirdly enough, after digging a little deeper, I think she meant “glamorous,” like I was some kind of tarted-up Tonya Harding.
I’ve decided my next additions to the bus stop wardrobe must henceforth be (from top to bottom): 1) lacquered bun pulled so tight it provides a free face lift; 2) plunging neckline with skin-toned webbing bedazzled with Swarovski crystals; 3) head to toe body glitter; 4) preternaturally dark suntan hose.
(I will still wear duck boots.)
This could be the start of a whole new “ice skater” me — a transformation of Olympic proportions.
And to think it all began with a little gloss called “Blushing Nude.” I sure hope the Romanian judges approve.
My daughter may not look it, but she’s a genius. She invented a time machine.
(This Patriots helmet protects her oversized brains.)
She has singlehandedly transformed a cardboard box crammed with pillows and stuffed animals into an intergalactic time traveler, capable of transporting her to other realms and bygone eras (and occasionally Disney World).
In this box, she can go back in time to witness the dinosaurs in mid-death scene (which she tells me she’s already done) or she can just fly wherever she feels like spending the afternoon. She tells me the flying part’s not as exciting since planes already do that, but it’s a nice side benefit.
These photos represent her travels thus far — including the Triassic Era, colonial America, and wherever the penguins live (the Arctic or is it Antarctica? Who can keep it straight?). Now that’s a bucket list.
She has wisely equipped her time machine with a handy carrying case for gum, pencils, and whatnot, fashioned from a discarded box of Klondike bars. You never know what the Dark Ages may lack in the way of snacks.
Don’t be confused by the “No Sugar Added” label. These were purchased for Bill’s diabetic dad. Normally we welcome any and all sugars here.
I wish I had one of these babies. I would be logging some serious Frequent Flier miles right about now.
Because there are just times in this mind-bender of a life when we would give anything to go back in time, even for just one teeny-tiny moment. To change the order of things, to take those words out of the air, to do that thing that never got done, to undo that thing that changed everything, to avoid that unfortunate haircut before it’s too late.
But no matter what my kid and her cardboard box can do, we mere mortals can’t go back. There is no reverse. Only forward.
Personally, I like reverse so much better. I can see those land mines so clearly back there. I can recognize a flaming turd of a mistake before I step in it.
But I have to keep telling myself that our mistakes (how we recover from them, how we keep from making them again, how we try to put distance between us and them) are all paving stones in the crazy, zig-zaggy, imperfect, improbable road that leads us where we’re meant to go.
That road isn’t glittery and shiny and easy to follow like bright yellow brick. (Dorothy had it so easy — except for that wicked witch part).
There will be wrong turns. And there will be no time machine for undoing them.
But on those days when I think I’ve somehow taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque, I have to trust in Someone bigger than me — like my own personal GPS in the sky, standing by with alternate routes and traffic alerts.
It’s not like He didn’t see this coming. He’ll get me there — in spite of my best efforts to screw it all up.
I can just hear that refined British accent emanating from heaven right now.
Recalculating…recalculating…recalculating.
This was the best New Year’s EVER.
You really have to try this for yourself next year. Here’s what you do:
1) Conspire with friends to pretend it’s midnight at 10:15 p.m.
2) Swig a quick glass of champagne.
3) Go home and get into your best chubby couch-sitting pants.
4) Fall asleep while the ball drops.
Take that, Ryan Seacrest.
Champagne was poured. Glasses were clinked. Count it.
Maybe you whooped it up with the masses and your favorite air horn. Maybe you cozied up by the fire with some lobster tails and that special someone. But as for me and my New Year’s Eve, eh, I’d rather sleep through it.
I mean, really. All those glittery hats? All those Times Square nut jobs? And all the noise?
All the noise, noise, noise, noise!
(Oh. I hear it now.)
Look at me being a New Year’s Grinch, when I long to be Cindy Lou Who.
I honestly wish I was that person who welcomes each new year with bright-eyed wonder, who turned the page on her 2015 calendar of motivational sayings just bursting with hope, daring, and to-do lists.
“Yes!” I would repeat to myself in the mirror. “In the confrontation between the river and the rock, I WILL BE THE RIVER that wins, not by strength but by perseverance!” (You can actually buy that poster at a website actually called www.successories.com. Not even kidding.)
Oh, just drink in that Grand Canyon at sunset. Consider yourself MOTIVATED.
But for me, all the New Year’s hype seems to have the reverse effect.
After the confetti falls, there I stand on the same messy carpet in the same messy house with the same messy family that somehow, some way, needs to clean up its act. Instead of invigorating me, New Year’s gets me all angst-ridden and weary and forces me to vacuum. (This is not my idea of fun.)
New Year’s also weirdly compels me to clean out drawers, where just yesterday I found a long list of my 2011 resolutions. Oh man, I was hard-core that year. Everything was detailed and plotted out to the nth degree in an effort to be über-intentional and not my normal wishy-washy back-sliding self.
Back then, I’d wanted to help the kids be more self-reliant, grow a strong work ethic, be mannerly, be more active and creative and not addled by screen-addiction, to grow in their faith. As for me, I wanted to use wrinkle cream now and then and dress better and eat my veggies and grow professionally.
O-kayyyy. Seems I have all the same resolutions these four years later. I mean, to the T.
Guess that could mean one of two things: I am stuck. I am no better than I was four years ago. Nothing will ever change. I am a failure. (Those messages are playing on a really loud loop on my internal mix tape.)
OR it could mean: Most of those things I’m working toward are hard. They are important. And they take time (sometimes years, sometimes a lifetime) to attain. And I’ll probably need help — from above and from down here, too. I may have to ask.
Just because I haven’t won yet doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve lost. It just means there’s more to do.
Can’t you just see the motivational poster now? Something about life being a journey, not a destination? Picture a canoe on a riverbank. And oh yes, picture a sunset.
And then picture me paddling that infernal canoe until my dying days. That’s how long it’ll probably take me to start eating my veggies.
Tales from the Crib 