Reflections on Mother's Day, 2013

"The story is told of a woman who rushed up to the late Fritz Kreisler after a concert and cried, "Oh, Mr. Kreisler, I'd give my life to play as you do!" and the great violinist replied, "I did." The true professional gives everything, his very existence, and what he gets in return is nothing less than himself.  He - or she - finds out who he is and what he is made of.  There is no guarantee he will like who he is, but he will know something the amateur never learns.  It is the old, old law that so exasperates amateurs:  the only way to gain one's life - one's identity, oneself - is to lose it, to risk it."  - from "Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress."

That loss of self - that sacrifice - is what I was thinking about this Mother's Day:  even a Utopian Mother's Day Fantasy - mine would probably include a Venti Soy Extra Hot White Chocolate Mocha delivered bedside, and then six hours or so to go a-spa-ing or a Nordstrom-ing, followed by a chi chi dinner with PVT - is a meaningless stamp on the hand if you're showing up at all for this gig.

Because we lay down our very lives for this motherhood bit, don't we?  We don't do it to be thanked (although, sure, a bit of recognition would be nice here and there).  No one does this for the quid pro quo, because there are not enough days for breakfasts in bed in one lifetime.  No, I do this because this is the work I feel in my bones is the work I'm supposed to be doing.  I don't know that I do it very well, either.  I yell a lot.  There's too much screen time.  I may have even remembered to pack wine this weekend, but Gatorade for soccer players?  Nope.  Or a hat to protect my bald, albino baby's tender fair head from the midday sun?  Oops!  Nope.  AARGH.  But all I know is that this work feels more natural and right, to me, than going to an office to be a CPA, or working out, or volunteering for some worthy cause.  Or even - gasp - SHOPPING.

So, oddly, it felt right this weekend to be in KANSAS - at a SOCCER TOURNAMENT - with my husband and children.  It felt right to be frantically buying ibuprofen at 6 am at a foreign Walmart with Margaux on my hip, wearing high heels and a dress, looking like I was a Lady of the Evening returning from my night shift.  (Why was I wearing high heels?  Because I couldn't find my flip flops.  Why did I even PACK high heels to go to a soccer tournament in Kansas?  Well, you never know when you might need to channel your inner SJP, right?)

Instead of the little Nordstrom excursion I had planned, I was administering to a feverish, croupy Colette, and a grumpy, feverish Margaux, who had been diagnosed with an ear infection on the sidelines by an angelic Dr. Soccer Dad.  Sylvie, who is recovering from ear infection, was still was hacking so hard that she threw up in my hands.  And:  all of that felt just right.  Well, maybe not the barf in the hands, but you know.

No one does this for thanks, or a really excellent brunch with mimosas.  No one even does this to be loved in return (gah.  All those decisions I make where I am the MOST HATED PERSON on the planet.  And that's even before I forgot to pack the Gatorade).  While I fervently hope I will raise good, hard working, contributing members to society, there are no guarantees.  Right now, my gifts are this:  a husband who knew it was challenging for me to go that far with all the little babies, especially when they became sick, and who is with me every step of the way.  And the gift of knowing that while I may be screwing up left and right, I'm trying, dangit.  I hope my kids will at least grow up secure in the knowledge that I was there, and I cared, and I TRIED.

But you dorky children - I need to guilt you into actually SAYING Happy Mother's Day next year.  And no, Rory, carrying a rose given to you by the soccer tournament people to give to your mom - looking completely forlorn and embarrassed to be carrying a FLOWER - does not count.

I love you all, you little monsters.

That's Life Flying Right At You!

This weekend I started feeling sorry for myself.  For no real reason, except a) dang house is still on the market; b) a quick 90 minute dinner with PVT, that required two babysitters, endless strategizing and planning STILL ended up in many, many tears from many, many children and was just so stressful to be just NOT WORTH IT, or that c) a new friend texted me to come meet her for a pedicure with contraband wine in a thermos and I just couldn't make it happen!  Oh boo, poor me.

And then I found this, and it was the kick in the butt I needed.    I'm not supposed to have it easy.  I'm not supposed to be able to drop everything and play tennis.  I have a lot of "birds" flying around, and the attendant bird shit to go along with it.

That's exactly how I wanted my life:  the real thing.  A little wild sometimes, sure.  But it's better than just the painted pretty facade.  Give me my wild birds any day.

Oh, but the house on the market thing really IS a nausea-inducing, nerve-jangling pain in the arse.

Anyhoo, luckily this weekend we are going away!  To a soccer tournament!  What, you say?  That doesn't sound like, erm, something that I would be anticipating?  Well, you might be right.  Except the soccer fields are minutes away from here:

Yes, that is the Oak Park Mall Nordstrom in Kansas City.

Suddenly I am the world's Best Soccer Mom Ever.  So bring it all on:  the games, the sunscreen, the dirt, the carsickness.  I'm ready, baby.

The Only Tsunamis in Oklahoma are In My Brain

Goodness it has been boring around here lately, hasn't it?  I know, I know.  PVT remarked this weekend that he used to bring work home on the weekends - with the intent of having eight minutes here or there to, you know, WORK to support this writhing mass of humanity.  And while he continues to bring the work HOME, he just doesn't have the time to actually work.  It's the same with me:  it is all I can do to keep up with my one measly Tulsa Kids article (yes, here is the latest:  the Tulsa staycation!).

I am not sure what has put us over the edge on feeling like we have any sort of free time, or any sort of control over our time at all:  is it our sixth kid?  Is it having older kids doing more?  Is it just having produced Sylvie Maria VanTrease?  Is it (OMG don't get me started) having the house on the market?  I don't know.  Perhaps a combination of all of the above.

Because of course she has to wear full on ballet attire despite the fact she does NOT take ballet yet

We are all good.  It is all good.  Yes, there is little time, there is a lot of chaos, screaming, poop and snacks.  Oh the snacks.  But last Friday PVT and I somehow stayed awake for this rather gripping flick, and I am pretty sure that having a lot of kids and a house on the market ranks super super low on the global scale of Stressful Stuff.

Thankfully we have wonderful neighbors who ply us with stuff like this:

But how are we to cope with the other five children?  

Amid the whackness and chaos, though, of course there are lots of good times:

Proof, Will, that you occasionally had fun in Chinese

My parents were here for eight minutes last week..  Woo hoo!

Sylvie has finally figured out that Margaux is sort of OK.

Thanks for checking in, you all.  Be patient with me while I moan and groan about my insurmountable first world real estate drama.

For Sale By Owner: My Very Questionable Sanity

After a showing and another open house this weekend, today I am lying around, eating my weight in pistachios and Spongebob Pirate Booty, while the girls dump blocks all over the house, color and set up tea parties.

I am never, ever going to clean again.

Also, a tip:  should your 4 and 6 year old clamor to be involved in the pre-showing process, and want to clean alongside you, give them something that smells nice.  Will and Colette were going through the spray bottles so quickly, I resorted to giving them some carpet stain remover.  When they were done I am sure the prospective buyers thought we were trying to eradicate the stench of a dead possum in the closet, so chemical-ish did the house smell.

And while I'll admit my knee-jerk reaction to soccer tournament weekends is to hop on the next plane to Paris, run to the nearest Left Bank cafe and hide behind a large pair of sunglasses and a pack of Gauloises, I am a bit sad I missed all the drama:

Banished to the soccer field during the open house

This one won his tournament!

My son in the goal.  I can promise you I would never, ever dive like that in my life unless I was falling into a duvet.

So while I recover from the weekend (PVT, alas, is consigned to recover at work), my thoughts have turned to something much more frivolous:  you may have heard that Lily Pulitzer died last week.  Boo!  I adore Lily clothes ("really wearable by only the few who were so rich they could afford to have bad taste"), the Lily ethos ("The young (Pulitzers) settled among the citrus groves of the Pulitzer estate, holding wild parties and generally ignoring whatever what was expected of them from their society peers"), and the Lily obliviousness to money ("A budget?  How embarrassing.").  Somehow the Nordstrom brothers KNEW about Lily's impending death, because in the catalog I got a few weeks ago - before Lily died - there was a free (OK, OK, "free") Lily gift with a $45 Estee Lauder purchase!  I tell you those guys' premonitory skills are uncanny.

So if you too adore Lily, go on over to Nordstrom and pay your respects.

(And now a just a bit of snark:  I'm obliged for the time being to love my current hometown, given that we will be living here FOREVER.  But sometimes I have to rebel a bit:  when I stumbled upon this piece, I was dumbfounded at first:  who is this recently transplanted girl who just LOVES Tulsa?  She loves the "hills?"  The dining establishments?  The shopping?  What?  And then I finally got it:  OH.  She's from WICHITA.  THAT makes more sense.)  

Where I Make Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" Seem Really Sweet

Do you ever have days where you just plain suck?  Please say yes so I don't feel so very shitey and alone.  It was supposed to be a good day:  the sun came out; a dear friend offered to pick up the girls from school so I wouldn't have to wake up the baby from her nap (a dear friend who has five kids herself!  Oh my own generosity towards others just pales); no one was sick; PVT and I were going to sneak off for an quick  (and hour and fifteen minutes, driving included) dinner since a confluence of events (no piano!  Rides to soccer!) all converged.

But then:  Margaux, who is proving to be a bugger to wean (oh who am I kidding!  I don't need to wean her; I just want her to sleep in her own crib or take a bottle sometimes!), did not want to detach from my boob when the alarm went off.  I had to get up, so she screamed.  PVT yelled (at me, or Margaux, or both).  My hair was bad.  Fights and complaints at breakfast.  Then after I dropped off the girls at school, a litany of errands:  buying more stupid FSBO signs at Home Depot; washing windows, picking up dog poop; washing the floors - all things that maybe I should have just skipped,  because when the children came home - all with terrible cases of Thursday angst - I was already spent.  And then the dinner fell through, due to a variety of calamities.  I couldn't deal with Sylvie's tantrum to play in the front yard with alacrity.  I couldn't take this one shoving that one, or the talking back over 4.6 minutes of piano practice, or the fact that my progeny had eaten an ENTIRE box of Oreos over 18 hours.  This one whining; that one using me as a scratching post - AAAAAH.  In a short time I because a screeching harridan, unrecognizable to myself.  .

Why, how is it that, I love my children so passionately, but then I yell at them when their plans diverge from my own?  And why do I forget that, despite this whole selling the house thing and the attendant nightmares that whole enterprise entails, sometimes the right answer isn't to go home and dutifully clean and check and declutter and make sure the baby is getting a good nap.

Sometimes you can't be so darn practical with your spare time.  Sometimes you have to say eff it, call a friend, go to lunch and have a glass of wine and laugh.  Then you won't care so much when your kids suck donger - because you have a little life outside of them.

That's what I plan on doing next time.

My beautiful girls.  It's obviously not all bad.

And help with the whole pesky real estate conundrum is on the way.

Come on St. Joseph.  Help us out!

The Rack Comes to Oklahoma

So look at this little tidbit.  Yes, my store is coming to Oklahoma.  Sort of!  But it actually kind of sucks.  Because it's a Rack.  Racks are great - I would love to have one down the street.  But - like any discount store - it's always a bit of a crapshoot what you're going to find there.  Sometimes I go and I feel like I've landed in an alternate nirvana, where there are cute, excellent shoes for next to nothing; cheap, adorable kiddie things; and trendy jeans and blouses that I want to wear out of the store.  And even some random home decor!  Other times, though, I feel like everything is total crap made in China (hi Neiman Molly!) and it's just a sad, sad place.

In the end, though, a Rack in OKC does me no good, because how often am I going to be in OKC?  And now Nordstrom will have tax nexus in the dang state, which means I will have to pay sales tax on all my shipments here - so all this wonderful Nordstrom-ness is just making all of my purchases 8% more expensive.

GAH.

Humph.

And I'm going to stop now before I start talking about even scarier things, like hosting Open Houses when you have had the audacity to procreate beforehand.

I'm not even going to go there.

Just an Incoherent Mess of Random Stuff

Northeast Oklahoma has been experiencing a severe drought for the past couple of years, or so the weather dudes on TV like to drone.

On Monday morning, we put our house on the market.

And then it started raining.

Finally, this morning, the rain stopped.

Oh the MUD.

Everywhere.  Mud, wet, mud.  Six kids is nothing compared to the mud.  Sisyphus ain't got nothing on me with the whole rock bit.

Unfortunately it was the poor dog upon whom I unleashed my pent up hysteria; he was absolutely wet and covered in mud after cavorting outside, and he snuck in before I had a chance to wipe him down.  The poor dog, for eff's sake.  He doesn't care that the owner of the local sushi joint might drop by spontaneously to look at our house (which happened, by the way.  One of our more metrosexual children is hoping Mr. Sushi Hana does buy our house and throw in free sushi for a year.  We can only hope).

***

Oh this baby.  She is a delight.  Even more so now that she is only waking up once (I think?) to eat at night.  It still takes me about 50 minutes to feed her, but oh - paradise.  And look at that hair!  It is growing straight up.  Every time I take her out I am mobbed by ladies old and young with severe cases of baby lust.  If they get to close to her, however, or look at her funny, in an manner not quite to her liking, she cries.

She is very discerning, you know.

***

In a great twist of irony, it is my dear Dad who is keeping me abreast of Nordstrom goings-on - my Dad, who would rather make small talk, pay an extra 3 cents per gallon for gas, get pizza delivered, or eat expensive organic food, than walk into a Nordstrom and pay full retail.  But he knows how I miss and adore the Mothership, so he carefully clips out articles and mails them for me to peruse.  His most recent article detailed Nordstrom's revamping of the Savvy department.  Savvy was originally a very chi-chi, expensive department aimed towards higher end rich chicks with money to incinerate; now it is geared towards more affordable items.  In fact, Savvy's average item is now a mere $50 - down from $150.  Wow!  The back story?  Most of us can't afford gorgeous clothes AND our dang phones.  We young women* now have to spread our frivolity budget over our delightful gadgets and their accessories, so clothes have to become ever more affordable.  I can certainly attest to that:  my own desires for an iPhone 5 and this case rival the most ardent of shoe lusts.

Fascinating.  

The end.

*OK, yes, I included myself in the "young" category. Shush.