My Wonderful Kid

I've been doing a lot of thinking about being a mom lately and (obviously) specifically being Lola's mom.

Before Lo was born, I was worried I wouldn't be comfortable with being called Mommy. (For the record, I'm still not "Mommy" but I am a bonafide "Mama.") I'm sure I'm not the first nor last first-timer to have qualms about entering the realm of title vs the more familiar name, I still think it was a valid worry because I'm not so quick to accept change.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when Mama become comfortable but I can tell you that I took me a long while before I could refer to myself as Mama without an inner wince.

Last night I found myself at Panera, alone for once because Tee's mother had Lo. I listened to a little girl calling her "Moooooooooommmmmm" to see what kind of soda to fill their communal cup with. Now I'm not prone to fits or faints or seizures or visions, us sturdy Midwesterners are stoically ANTI that sort of nonsense but I had this weird, dizzy disorientation while watching this child.

"Is that what Lola sounds like when calling me?"

"Is that Lola in a few years?"

"How do I identify with that woman, a mother?"

"Will that be me in a few years?"

I saw myself stacked amongst the rest of the worlds' moms, like still frames in a projector reel.

This got me thinking of images of mothers everywhere, all the same, same name, same post-partum shape, same weary way of responding "what honey?" I actually had to shake my head to dispel this uncomfortable train of thought and allow my rational side to take over.

I don't have to identify with that woman just because we're both mothers. Lola and I are a mother-daughter dream team no matter the parallels we have with others. Despite the fact that I DO carry the same title as millions of other women. I DO have a saggy mom-body and I DO have the habit of absentmindedly answering Lola's many queries with "yes baby...?"

I think I was worried about a loss of self way back when Lo was in utero and I was busy terrifying myself with "what-if's". I saw the similarities of the many many Moms out there but there was one thing I didn't, nay, couldn't have known yet.

While I do share many characteristics with many others, there's one thing I don't share with them... Lola. And this is a major difference indeed. Because Lo is so original in and of herself, I can indulge in some typical mom behavior like forgetting to care about things the used to matter (shaving of legs, styling of hair, clean clothes), having a horribly messy car (mooshed crackers, spilled juice), and looking wildly around a store when I hear a child shouting "MAMA, MAMA!" even when my child is in the cart in front of me.

Lo counteracts this by singing about everyday objects like newts, Nanny-Baby Kitty, Mama, ice and the moon. By being so contemptuous of banana anything that the offending food item will get an icy stare, how dare it be banana flavored? By sleeping with her mouth open, unabashedly snoring. By being Lo.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, a very small but key difference can save you from being just like everyone else. Mine is approximately 29 pounds and is the Lola half of the Lola and Mama dream team.

Borrowed "Humor"

Thanks MB!

Nothing too exciting to write so I decided to post a picture of me and my most favorite of redheads. This picture makes me smile. It also convinces me that I need to tone up my arms.

We Remember

In my small elementary school, we always had some sort of Thanksgiving celebration. Instead of bagged lunches or Marriott Food Service mush, the school would put together a potluck lunch with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, canned cranberry sauce. The festive decorations included turkeys shaped by little handprints and stuck to the gym walls with double sided tape, streamers, and little cartoon pilgrims and indians made of cardboard that you can probably order from a magazine sent specifically to teachers for specifically this purpose. We also got to wear either a handmade pilgrim's hat or a band of construction paper with feathers in the back to represent the members of the original feast, I was an Indian if you were wondering.

Now, I'm a picky eater and it was even worse as a child because I was trapped in my pickiness by lack of autonomy, which sucked. I didn't care for pressed turkey, salty gravy and watery-from-a-pouch mashed potatoes and maybe this disdain for our "feast" food made this cold pit form. It's the clearest damn memory but one particular year I just couldn't eat, I felt out of place and slightly queasy and uncomfortable with the whole celebration. I couldn't wait to escape the gym/cafeteria but I didn't have a real reason to leave if I was stopped by a lunch monitor so I stayed.

I remember talking about Girl Scouts and waving to Miss Krystoviac and realizing that other people were actually enjoying this celebration, with it's lax rules of changing tables (normally prohibited) and the presence of teachers normally teaching during this period who came to nip up some turkey and have a quick gossip.

This is the most uncomfortable moment I can ever remember having. I was an outsider during an event designed to mimic a feast of togetherness.

Now, after enduring a class which focused on the plight of the Native Americans after the relations turned sour with the Europeans, maybe I was right to be uncomfortable. I was 19 by the time I was educated on the atrocities committed against our land's native people. Call me naive, call me ignorant but I just didn't know.

I learned all about the systematic, purposeful slaughter of the Native Americans mostly through surviving first-hand letters and diaries of monks and these monks didn't pull any punches or leave out any details. It hurt to read this stuff, I felt betrayed by my lack of knowledge and the thing that horrified me the most was my age. How, after all the Thanksgiving celebrations I'd gone through, had nobody mentioned this. As a kid we were fed a story line that went something like this: The pilgrims and Indians sit down and have a nice feast, which is good, because otherwise those pilgrims would've starved. Trading with those nice Indians brought them knowledge of this New World, how to survive. Now we live here, the end.

So, starting this Thanksgiving, I'm going to start remembering and sharing more of the story. When we go around the table and tell what we are thankful for, I'm going to tell my family an anecdote about how blankets infected with smallpox were sent to Native Americans as a gift, and I'm thankful for knowing this happened so that I can remember it.

A simple remembrance in one person being passed on to seven more. An acknowledgment of the horrors our Natives endured and a thankfulness that they are still here today.

Salivating...

1. Tonight I'm dining with a Lola fan, Beth. I'm going to give my Matogarzella foccacia one more tweaking tonight before unveiling it for a large crowd at Italian Night (#3). I'm going to pair my yeasty-wonder with stir-fry veggies and some tortelleni, not to impress my dinner date but because it sounds real good. Jeez, what a gracious hostess...

2. On Wednesday there is a Dylan tribute concert at Linnemanns in Riverwest. My famous second cousin and my father will be playing there, I'm skipping half my class and I'm going! I normally would count this as the most exciting thing to happen on my Wednesday: 20 bands! great cause! Bob Dylan songs! my family doin' some singing! BUT then I think about what awaits me after this concert... Upon returning home, I get to help my mama cook a Thanksgiving feast with lots of delicious meat-free recipes that I can't wait to try out: dilled green beans, cornbread, chard ravioli salad, golden-crusted brussel sprouts? I'm about to nut in my pants.

3. On Saturday, Meg and I are hosting Italian Night, in which she makes a few pans of meaty lasagna, and I make a pan of meatless lasagna with cottage AND ricotta cheese AND green pepper AND onion AND a few dollops of spinach. We'll whip up some salad a la Olive Garden, throw together an Oreo cheescake and round II of Matogarzella focaccia (hopefully prefected by then, crossing fingers!) and we'll have "food so good, it make you wanna slap yo mama!"

These three chow-days have got me so pumped! I can't wait to make a huge mess in the kitchen and hopefully have lots of glorious food emerge from the banging of pots, the "helping" of Lola and the swearing and laughter of yours truly. Tee hee, I sure love food.

Fastidious Lo

Lola is very different from me. Yes, we both think other people getting injured (we're talking a sharp blow to the funny bone, we're not sadistic!) is extremely funny. We both like cartoons like the BackYardigans. We both smile at men, a lot. BUT, Lo has some very girl-girl qualities that I lack. It might be that I have plenty of masculine qualities (read: low voice, ironic sense of humor, no girly squealing, no-strings mentality) and she's the normal one, I've no idea.

Some of these traits are ok. She doesn't like wind blowing her hair around. I enjoy the windows down, even far into the winter (with the heat BLASTING) but it's no big thing, when Lo's in the car, windows up, air on. Mildly annoying, but do-able.

She loves gaudy shit in her hair. My mom tells me I was attracted to the full-out sequins EVERYTHING during my 80's childhood. Ok, maybe she'll grow out of it. When she comes home from Tee's parent's with four pounds of ribbon, clips and do-dads in her hair, I inwardly groan but no harm done.

She hates poop. We're still trying to work with this one. Not that I love it or anything but her reaction to poop can get messy...

She hates being dirty. This kid will start taking off her shirt after a minuscule splash of juice gets on it, outside, in November, in Wisconsin. See also: batshit crazy idea. This still isn't horrible, some people must be clean. I don't, but I get it.

The deal-breaker is with traditionally "icky" things. I like slimy things. Scratch that, I LOVE slimy things. Not slimy edible things like raw calamari, more like fish and worms. Catching frogs in the smelly shoreline muck, hurray! Things that slither, my favorite! I get a goofy-ass grin and tingles from things that crawl like crabs and inchworms and tarantulas. Things that not everyone likes. Guess who else doesn't like these things?

I'll embrace my daughter's uniqueness, I DON'T want a clone copy of myself! Shit, I even buy her babies and hair things sometimes because I know it makes her happy but I'm going to take her fishing and I'm going to get her a pair of thigh-high waders and we're doing to catch us some slimy animals. We're going to visit the reptile room regularly during her childhood and we're going to buy some reptile friends.

I won't have a daughter who screams at the sight of a spider if it kills me! This weekend, I'm going to take Lo and Tee to get some firebelly newts, my first step towards converting Lola to the slimy side.

Postscript: Not ALL creepy-crawlies give me the jollies... Keep your centipedes at home people, or I'll unleash my inner girly-girl and jump onto your back until you "killitkillitKILLIT!"

Oh, My Achin' Tear Ducts!

I've been really weepy lately. Not in a droopy, moping weeping-willow sort of a way but more like a crazy pregnant hormone kind of way. Which thankfully isn't possible. Hurray for IUD's!

I attended my Literature about the Morality of War class on Wednesday and we had two speakers who came to tell us about their experiences in the Vietnam War. Ouch. For the record, I am against war. Easy to say right? I can also say that I'm still supporting our soldiers but also, it's easy to make a statement and a whole different thing to "live it" if you will. So now is when I make a confession: for all that I say I support the soldiers, I scoff at the magnetic "support the troops" bumper stickers. I inwardly sneer at recruitment officers. When I hear how someone enlisted because "it's their duty" I roll my frickin eyes.

Passive-aggressive bad attitude? Oh no doubt. But I was raised in a family that actually would've moved to Canada if any the children were drafted and any mention of joining the military was met with a vehement discouragement. So with that back story, I listened to these two men talk about their war experience:

One had a florid face and was loud and outspoken about his service. He was traumatized from the horrors witnessed and came back to a different America from the one he left. The lack of news halfway across the world kept him in the dark about the social revolution going on at home. He went from 70 degrees in Vietnam to 12 degrees in Chicago and got spat on leaving the train station. He couldn't understand the hatred people had for him, he was called a baby-killer, he couldn't get out of that uniform fast enough.

Now even me, with my inbred suspicion of all things military think that's overboard. Yeah, enlisting was dumb, volunteering for Vietnam while stationed in Germany originally was incredibly dumb but this is one of ours. Hate the war not the soldiers.

He also spoke of his family issues after returning home. He didn't talk about the war until 10 years ago. His guilt and and shame and disappointment and silence eventually turned him to booze, he admitted to our entire class that he became a mean drunk. His wife divorced him, he thought of suicide. The one thing that really stuck with me was that "this ordeal he went through was 30 years ago, why couldn't he just get over it?" and "how could he come out and talk about it now, 30 years later and blame his problems on it when it's been so long."

He created a war veteran's outreach program, kicked the alcoholism and now speaks and speaks eloquently about his experience. I bit my cheek three times in 30 minutes trying not to cry.

The other speaker was shy and nervous and had the nicest smile I've ever seen. If he were 30 years younger... Back on track, he was a chaplain for the Marines and spoke more on moral issues. He was enrolled in a Morality PhD program at a liberal school in Chicago when he decided to go to Vietnam. When asked his reasons by his incredulous colleagues, he said "I just want to help people." My kind of man.

He spoke about commanders having to make difficult decisions on whether to evacuate displaced villagers via helicopter or abandon them to certain slaughter. (He abandoned them as they might have had enemy placements in the group.) He spoke of a time when his father went to a six grade class with him and listened to him speak. When a child asked how his service affected the family back home, he redirected the question to his dad. His father mentioned a time when the family was watching the news and heard a chaplain in his battalion was killed but no name was mentioned. He discussed the uncertainty they lived in, the fear they had and the shameful hope that it wasn't their son, but someone else's. Shit, I was crying now.

Those two men really hit home that people are out there suffering from these experiences, that even if they come back whole and alive, they come back changed. I think that I've always been preoccupied by the returning-hero fairytale where men go off, do manly, war-like deeds and come home to their fresh-out-of-high school wives and make zillions of army brats. Cliche, cliche, cliche but I think that's the pit I've been falling into. One encounter with charismatic speakers won't undo a lifetime of anti-military conditioning but it can make me think things over...and cry.