Dairy Barn Lament

This week I am lamenting the loss of my local Dairy Barn.  Prior to moving to this town I had never been to a Dairy Barn. (It's a drive thru mini mart.)  At the time, as the mother of 5 and 2 year old children (plus one still cooking), it was a delight to learn all the benefits it had to offer.  That little red barn was a lifesaver... Of course the prices were higher than those at the supermarket but desperation tolerates price gouging.  

How wonderful to not have to unbuckle three carseats in sleet or rain just because you ran out of milk.  And if someone feel asleep in their car seat? Bonus! 

Forgot to bring flowers to someone's first school concert? (Forgot or just didn't want to make an extra stop with a toddler and a baby? Shhh...) We'll drive thru Dairy Barn for congratulatory ice cream sundae fixin's!  (Way better than flowers anyway.) 

Desperately trying not to drag everyone screaming through the grocery store aisles when Dad was away for an extended business trip, I could make dinner (binner) from milk, eggs and bread.  Yes the Entenmann's donuts in the window sometimes made for uncomfortable scenes of begging at the window but sometimes giving in could extract some good behavior- especially when I was feeling lousy.

And there were always really interesting people working at the Dairy Barn.  I wonder who did the hiring- maybe the king of the interesting? (What would happen if a preppie tried to apply for a job?  Or would that just not happen?) 

When I first started going, there was Grumpy Girl.  (That was how many of the moms in town referred to her.) She always seemed to work the hours I went.  I'd first get cash from the ATM drive-thru and then head to her.  When I handed over my $20 she would always snarl, "Do you have anything smaller?" I think she watched the cars at the ATM so she would have her snarky retort ready.  And if I DID have smaller bills,  I'd somehow expect her to smile or be pleasant.  Bizarrely seeking her approval. Or just craving the feeling of victory if I actually got her to be nicer? Never happened.   

Or the man who was just sooo happy.  Too happy. Though I couldn't imagine there would a better place to be than Dairy Barn if you were chemically impaired, I would imagine that the register report would be interesting on those nights.  A few trips to that man and even the kids noticed, "Mom? That guy was kind of weird..." "Hmmm...  I guess he was in a really silly mood tonight." (All kinds of talks that Dairy Barn could've opened the door on in the future...  Tattoos, piercings, drugs.  Opportunities lost…) 

Now, the little red barn is dark and it's marquee is blank. No Ben and Jerry's specials posted to surprise and dare me to jerk the wheel to the right at the last minute on the way home.  No possibility of a tedious chore being redeemed by the delight of a two-for-one deal on Phish Food.  

So sad but my heart especially goes out to the mothers of the little ones...  Back to dragging screaming children through the grocery store AND no surprise pick me up of deliciousness to perk them up during the drudgery of a day filled with waiting on ungrateful little people and eating their leftovers while standing over the sink...

No Silliness Today

I had a silly post scheduled for today.  My regular type of dopy first world lament.  I like to talk about nonsense because it is fun and light.  There are so many heartaches and trials in the world- I like the superficial and silly distractions...  

But today I just can't post something silly.  As I am writing this, it's actually early Monday night and the news is on.  The story is the mile-plus wide tornado devastation in Oklahoma.  The wide swath of homes and buildings and town gone.  A school destroyed.  Too many children presumed dead.  The reporter sadly and wistfully hoping aloud that what they are reporting will prove to be wrong when they have more facts.  But the pictures... The pictures make you wonder how anyone could survive...  What the numbers will be...

So, while silliness might be needed, I just can't bring myself to post anything daft today.  I know there are individual sad stories every day.  People lose the ones they love.  Accidents, illness, sudden tragedies or drawn out tragedies. Sometimes, we are the ones suffering.  At other times, we are helplessly watching others in our lives suffer.  

I guess what is striking me today is that usually we are there to help each other out.  Lend an ear.  Drop off food. Help with the kids. Translate medical jargon. Or just be on call.  During my hard times, I was blessed with a wonderful husband AND family AND a family of friends AND neighbors.  An embarrassment of riches.  I knew I had people to lean on if I needed.

I can't imagine how it would be for so many people in a concentrated area to be personally destroyed.  I cannot imagine the breadth of grief if my town AND my friends AND I was so horrifically devastated. Would we be able give any help to each other?  Would it help to have someone who understands? Would it all be too much to bear?  Even the slightest imagining of the horror they must bear is too terrifying for me.  To live the reality? But for the grace of God...

Today, I can't post silly.  I am praying for those who are grieving in Oklahoma.  For communities devastated by nature-caused and man-made tragedies.  For grief that will be borne but never recovered from...


And,
for those struck by tragedy everywhere.  I hope they are blessed by a network of people and love...


And,
selfishly, today I am grateful.  Grateful that I am blessed enough by chance to live here.  Not there. And that, right now, at this moment, all is okay in my world.  Today I am going to thank God (or the fates or chance or whatever you want to call it) every moment of the day.  I am ALWAYS grateful for what I have in every moment.  Watching my parents leave this world before I was ready taught me that it all goes too fast.  And that we have to appreciate what we have.  To count our blessings. Today, I am EXTRA, EXTRA grateful...

Bad Doctor Mommy

On the heels of Mother's Day, I have been thinking about what a terrible mom I have been lately.  When my kids were little, I would drag them to the doctor for fevers and earaches.  Now that they are older, they seem sturdier and I am less likely to take them...

It seems reckless to say but it's just a pain to drag them to the doctor in the few hours at the end of a school day.  (If they were really sick, I would keep them home and take them.). To sit in the office surrounded by sick toddlers for a rather minor complaint doesn't appeal to me.  I play doctor, wait it out or we write it down on a post it to ask the doctor the next time we go.  I can't believe I am 'fessing up to this because this is exactly the type of thing that I would judge another mother harshly for.  And, since I am being overly honest here, how harshly I judge depends on how much I like the mom. You know, sometimes you are just looking for a reason to give out mental demerits...

If I feel like being charitable to me, I guess I would qualify my terribleness with the belief that a mother knows her own child.  You know when something is really wrong and you know how each child's body works.  My kids all feel pain differently.  When one says their ear hurts, I give them a warm washcloth.  When another child's ear hurts, we hasten to the doctor because an eardrum rupture is imminent.  Once, a child of mine walked into the doctor and answered the pain level question with "Um, a ten."  Really? You walked in here!  (The stories about the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" don't seem to sink in.)  Another child is usually pretty accurate about their condition.  My point is- if I was really worried I would take them.

The reason why I am feeling terrible is that one of my children has recently been diagnosed as lactose intolerant.  Diagnosed by me, the said child and the Internet.  And I have yet to take her to confirm it.  Let me 'splain.  She has had stomach aches for a while. (And we did talk to the doctor about them!). But we couldn't seem to find a pattern to them.  They seemed to mostly be school days so the doctor and I agreed that it must be stress.  But it wasn't always.  (I have always said that I am so clueless that if I threw up every time I ate strawberries, it would take me years to make that connection.)  Recently,  my daughter had a particularly bad episode and I said, "That's it. We have to go to a gastro guy. But first we need to make a food diary because we need to know the pattern."  Did we go to the gastro guy? No.  Because writing it all down, we realized she'd had an awful lot of dairy.  I bought lactase and said let's try this for 2 weeks and, boom, stomach better.  

And now that we are looking at the dairy, it all made sense.  School days she'd have a big glass of milk with breakfast.  (Way to poison her, mom!) But not always on the weekend.  Logically, if lactase fixed the problem then she must be lactose intolerant.  Right? But I still feel terrible for not having someone with a degree confirm it.  And I will.  Soon -I swear. But since she now feels fine, I keep forgetting.  Don't judge me!  Ok, you can. But just a little.

This weekend, the same child had a friend over who is gluten free.  As a wheat addict, I didn't quite know what to offer her.  It's so hard for my brain to process.  There is flour in everything.  Or at least, everything that matters to me.  I was so grateful that mine is only lactose intolerant (according to doctor mom) and that a pill makes it all better.  

I don't know if I'd ever even take my kids to get evaluated if I suspected a gluten intolerance.  I might just never admit to the symptoms.  I don't want to know! They might just have to suffer until they move out...  How would we go on without wheat? Damn.   See,  I was going to take her to the doctor just to double check my diagnosis but now I am afraid.  What if it's not milk at all? What if I am deluding myself.  Maybe I'll wait a little bit longer.  Okay, you can judge me.  I guess I deserve it...  

(I'll just be waiting here as I enjoy a bagel...and some ravioli and some pizza and some cookies...)

Happy Mother's Day!

Recently, I told someone one of my new parenting tricks and she said, "You're like Supermom". What?!  She totally missed the point. This tip (that I will share later) was born out of slacker tendencies.... But such is the brain of a mom...

Being a mother means, among many other things,  ALWAYS feeling insufficient.  We NEVER look at what we do well with honest eyes AND we magnify all of our perceived failings. Screwed all around...  We could list every way we "fail" our kids each day in the most minute detail. But ask us what wonderful thing we did?  It'll take a while to think of one. (If we even can!) I am going to give this a "new" name- Mom Dysmorphia.  

[Sidebar- I put *new* in quotes because the Internet has convinced me there is nothing original anymore. Every time I think I'm the first person the think of something and google it- BAM!  Someone else already said it. Sigh.  Not like I am going to get rich off of coining a new term but I want the "fame, glory and immortality" and the geeky satisfaction... Maybe "MD" will make it into the DSM-V.]

Anyhoo, back on topic please, lady- Mom Dysmorphia. ..

Body Dysmorphia is a term used to describe a problem that some people with eating disorders have. They might be skin and bones and yet when they look in the mirror, they just see fat or their (perceived) problematic body parts. Obsessing over their imaginary flaws.  Just replace the physical flaws with parenting ones and you have Mom Dysmorphia!

You could be the most fantastic mother. Spectacular even. Someone even Freud couldn't find fault with! And yet you would still be obsessing over how you failed your wunderkind yet again by forgetting what their favorite colors are this week. (How could you?! Don't you even know them?!)

A working mother feels guilt over the time she misses with her kids. A stay home mom worries that her kids are too dependent and that she isn't demonstrating a strong enough female role model. Yes, I'm talking about me. My kids don't think I can do anything but serve and clean up after them. And I used to be a mechanical engineer! (Ok- I'm totally lying. But I could've been! They don't care to ask or even think I existed before them!)

With our MD (Mom Dysmorphia), we look at the other moms who have the skills we are missing and think they are so much better than we are at parenting overall. 

For example:

1. Just because that lady can run a marathon, I feel bad because I am not modeling an active enough lifestyle. 

2. Just because this mom is a vegetarian, I feel terrible because #2 demolished his Easter candy in one day.

3. Just because they make beautiful scrapbooks, I feel like my kids won't have beautiful memories of their childhood. 
4. Just because everyone else likes to cook, I feel like my kids aren't having good meals.  Ok.  That one might be true. [Chagrin]

I am going to stop now because the ideas of insufficiency are rushing in and I'm just proving my point to myself. (And getting depressed.)

So, here's the new trick that made someone think I was a great mom.  I make a loaf of PB & J sandwiches and freeze them. Then, in the morning,  I throw them in lunch boxes and they defrost and are perfect by lunch. The MD  made the other mom think, "She's sooo organized." But the truth is -- I'm lazy. Pull out the ingredients every day or once a week? Once a week seems easier. And staying in bed 5 extra minutes? Priceless. Not organized- stealth laziness. (And I read about it in a magazine.  I didn't invent it.  Again, there is nothing original anymore and, to prove it, I just googled freezing PB & J.  Way more links than I even imagined!)

Here's another one.  I buy snow cone syrup in the summer and save it for winter. This one started because I saw the syrup in the summer and thought, "Ooo- the kids would love snow cones".  But there was NO way I was shaving ice for them.  (Remember that Snoopy snow cone thing?  It sucked.) I was lazy enough to wait 6 months for Mother Nature to provide shaved ice.  But pull out that syrup in January when another mom is over? Her MD tells her you are more fun and creative than she is. So untrue- just lazy enough to wait 6 months rather than shave ice.

So, stand up to your MD!  There might be some things that I or another mom are better at than you. But YOU are better than us at others.  No one is perfect.  All the seemingly "perfect mommies"  are big, fat (sub)urban myths.  They are only showing us their "good side".   And the ones that actually think they have achieved  "mommy nirvana"? Psst, they are bat-shit crazy.  Sooo they may do everything "right" but the dysfunction and the amount of therapy their kids will need?  Oy vey... I  may not be an ubermom but I am a good enough mom.  Maybe even a great one---from certain angles...


P.S.  How awesome is this??

Happy Mother's Day!!