Mar 31
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person.
He believed in me.”
Jim Valvano
Number 37 is standing in the on-deck circle. Watching the new pitcher; swinging at each practice pitch. His father leans into the fence. “Don’t go out there and look stupid!”
Number 37 stops swinging. His dad snaps a picture.
In a flash, I hear something from ten years ago… Me grumbling during one of Marissa’s 5th grade volleyball games. I turned to Ken griping that Marissa’s team was playing like a bunch of girls. Of course, they were a bunch of girls.
I wanted to tap number 37’s dad on the shoulder… I wanted to share how I nearly lost my daughter by becoming bleached out by things like bleachers. But I didn’t have the courage my 14 year old had. After the shut-out game which his team won 31 to 0, Ken asked Kyle what the coach was saying to him on the pitchers mound.
“He asked me why I didn’t pick off the runner. Why I didn’t even try.”
Ken let Kyle know that he too was wondering the same thing. Kyle smiled one of those half-grins while tossing his baseball gear into the back of our car. He rested his elbow on the cooler; took a swig of water then wiped his chin. “I told the coach I didn’t pick him off because it was morally wrong. I couldn’t do it.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 27
“What was I thinking when I wasn’t thinking?”
Easter 2008
“Mommmm? Where’s the volleyball net? The one we bought in Paducah?”
“You mean the one we never took out of the box?”
Kyle’s idea for us all to play volleyball together seemed like a bad one at first. I had not played this fingernail breaking game since 8th grade. There was a reason for this. I am not good at it.
“Have we ever played volleyball together?” Ken gives me a few pointers. “It’s our serve.” He sails the volleyball over the net. Marissa smacks it to our weak spot — me. I duck. Get it! Get it! But Ken doesn’t budge. Instead he gives me a blank stare. Marissa and Kyle crack up.
“You’re supposed to hit the ball not duck!” Their laughs get my adrenalin flowing. It is now Marissa’s serve.
BLAM! Little Miss Volleyball Queen punches the ball. I lay my palms together the way Ken showed me. This time I hit the ball — right into my nose. Ken breaks into a laugh. Are you okay? I tell him I am good — then I deepen my voice, telling my kids that I was just warming up…..
Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 25
“At some point in life, our very life becomes an everyday way of life…”
Oprah Winfrey with Mary J. Blige
Grocery lists.
Thou shalt not alter grocery lists. Wasn’t this one of the original ten comandments? If, I — your wife, have written a specific brand upon my grocery list then that is what you — thy husband, shalt bring home.
Ken yelled across our living room. “Debbie, come here. I want to show you what I bought at the store.”
Of course this meant he did not get something on my list. Immediately my heart sunk to my shoes.
Ken was standing in the kitchen, waving an exaggerated box of something wrong in the air. I grabbed my stomach, I sucked in a deep breath. My knight and shining armor, the man whose children have given me gray hair, has come home with a super gigantic deluxe box of plain Strawberry Jell-O. Yes indeedy he did. He has taken my blessed grocery list and modified it. I sputter but, but, but my list said strawberry banana!
Ken gushes a totally theatrical Houdini “Aha!” He twirls a teensy-weensy box of sugar-free strawberry-banana Jell-O on the tip of his pinky.
I explain how his shmeensy trick is not working. Strawberry Jell-O without banana tastes entirely different. Then I pretend to be completely grossed out by the after taste sugar-free leaves in your mouth so that he understands why my grocery list clearly said Regular strawberry banana Jell-O.
Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 24
“What was I thinking when I wasn’t thinking?”
Have you ever thought it was Wednesday? But it was Thursday? Thankfully I remember when Monday is and where I was— at the TV station. Click here for the inside scoop.
Mar 19
“What was I thinking when I wasn’t thinking?”
So there I was. On my knees in a bathroom stall telling Marissa to give me more toilet paper. While she pulled I wadded. We were determined to make Kyle two inches taller so we could get onto some ride at Disney World. Poor little Kyle was not happy about our ingenius plan. He wanted to put his light up shoes back on. Finally when his shoes could not hold any more toilet paper we stuffed his feet back into them. Quickly realizing his weight was smashing the toilet paper back down, Marissa whisked him up. “We can’t let him walk, mom.” I carried our little soldier until we reached the ‘you must be this tall’ sign. That’s when (thank God), the lightbulb went off and I realized this sign was there for a reason. Thank you God for forgiving goofy mom’s like me. Happy Easter everyone!
Mar 17
“Boo!”
“Boo Who? It’s Easter!”
Time. Where does it go? It sure flies. It seems like only yesterday I was waiting until the last minute to carve pumpkins. Now I am trying to dodge white vinegar and color fizz tablets.
Kyle is reminding me that I have this terrible habit… that at Halloween I tried to escape the great pumpkin… tippy-toeing through the house when he caught me inches from my bedroom door.
“Mommmm! Don’t go to bed! Draw a picture on the pumpkin so dad can carve it.”
“Ohhhhhh Kyle — it’s late, it’s bedtime, can’t we do it tomorrow?”
“Nope we can’t do it tomorrow. It’s tradition to do it the night before.”
(Poor kid — doesn’t realize that some households actually have jack-o-lanterns on the porch for a week already.)
“Kennnn” I plead but it’s pointless, I’ve been doing the pumpkins for decades. “Can you draw the picture this time? I’ve been doing it for 23 years.”
Kyle freaks out. “Daddd!!! No way!!! Dad can’t even write cursive!!!”
(It’s true — Ken is a lefty and can barely print. When Marissa was in fourth grade he wrote her teacher a note and the teacher sent it back home with a detention– insisting Marissa wrote it herself.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 16
AOL Images
Politicians…… what were they thinking when they weren’t thinking?
Laundry baskets. Big white plastic things with square holes all around the circumference. In my house, these things are rarely empty. The other day I was sitting with a woman I had recently met, when her laundry basket scooted itself across her living room floor. Upside down no less. Her three year old son, thoroughly amused with himself, popped out from beneath it to greet us. We smiled (for a second) then continued talking about the presidential spin. He curled back into a ball, scooting back up the hallway. We giggled how Hot Wheels were apparently more interesting than politics. Later that evening I was watching the news….getting frustrated with the political spin of guns shooting (or not shooting) at people exiting airplanes….pastors spouting over who knows what then disappearing into who knows where….Anyway, it made me wish I had one of those magical laundry baskets that scooted itself into greener pastures. I eyeballed Kyle’s old collection of Hot Wheels wondering if the batteries were still good….I love the chargeable ones that zip across the floor like mice. Kyle??? Can I play with your cars????
Mar 13
“What was I thinking when I wasn’t thinking?”
I admit it. Sometimes words just fly out of my mouth — often they are followed by a crazy idea. Like this one a couple years ago… I told my kids to climb up a ladder — in the middle of our woods of all places. “Drape grandpa’s American flag over the top of it.” I remember Kyle laughing his head off when Rissa asked me why we were doing this and I responded, “because I think your heads will look good in the trees…”
Click! Snap! Flashback!
Mar 10
(Disclaimer: This hilarious post contains a toddlers mis-use of a very simple word that when mis-used could be misconstrued as “slang”. Because this mis-use is so incredibly innocent and precious, we left it in all of it’s toddler glory.)
“Sometimes we talk to each other. Sometimes we talk past each other. Yesterday we were talking all at the same time.”
“Wait! Wait! It’s my turn! Remember when Kyle was 3? And he put his ‘Pippy-Scottin’ basketball jersey on…..?”
“Yeah – with a bunch of t-shirts underneath it and a denim vest on top?”
“And rain boots with no pants…..”
“Just a bare butt!”
“What? What about my butt?”
“You walked into my bathroom — I was curling my hair. You asked if you could wear that outfit to a wedding we were going to.”
“Wait! Wait!” “Then you came running into the kitchen. You threw your hands on your hips and all I saw were these toothpick legs sticking out of boots that you had on the wrong feet.”
“He still wears his shoes on the wrong feet.”
“Do not, Ris!”
“Do to!”
“Well,,, they were on the wrong feet and you were super mad. You said, DAD!!! Do I look dickless to you? Mommmm said I look dickless!”
Read the rest of this entry »
Mar 04
“I bet Einstein turned himself all sorts of colors before he invented the light bulb.”
Homer Simpson
Lipstick, high heels, vanilla pudding…. Most mothers would agree we instinctively know there is a high price for perfection. What I never dreamt however, was that during my daughter’s formidable years she was the equivalent of a micro-chipped chalkboard. Everyday storing bits of anything I said - even dumb things… Allow me to share a snippet from our early cooking days….. It is 1990. My precious kindergartner is standing on a chair beside me. We are making homemade plum jelly. She has the task of stirring.”How many more minutes Mommmmy?”
I did not know. I had never made jelly before. But I wanted it to be perfect. The purple goo was almost thick so I said, “stir-stir-stir……”
“But Mommmmy! My hand is falling off!”
“Doesn’t matter Rissa, just stir-stir-stir…..”
Read the rest of this entry »
