Deer Lakeland!

Once upon a bright and sunny November day, one mom got dressed and asked her daughter to put on some hiking clothes.

Her daughter took a long look at her mother and headed upstairs to her room to change.

She came downstairs (like a freaking hour later...why do kids take soooo long to get dressed?) wearing a proud smile, a matching outfit, and shouting "TWIN BEARS WHAT WHAT!", and then insisted she take a selfie of the two matching girls.

Her technique could use some work.

So blurry. Can't see faces. Oh well.

And off they went, on their merry way to Sky Meadows State Park for a brutal hike. (All walks in our family, regardless of length or difficulty, are referred to as "brutal hikes". Even walking to school 0.3 miles is a brutal hike.) Their one and only goal: to touch the Appalachian Trail.

Upon arrival, the young girl bounded through fields and posed for majestic pictures.

She also walked through a pricker bush, which made her itchy and incredibly whiny.

"Mom, how much longer is this brutal hike?"

Once the two had traveled approximately 70 feet, they encountered a few giant swarms of those black gnats that fly directly into your eyeballs and also some starving mosquitoes trying to get their last meal before winter, and the child upped the whining to straight up crying. The exasperated mother took a video because, well, someday perhaps the daughter will think it's funny. Maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smq1dD0TnJ4

It was clear pretty early on that this brutal hike wasn't going to last long. The mother tried encouragement. She tried distraction. She dug deep and told stories of her own misadventures on the trail, including whipping her bloody hiking boots off the side of a boat. Eventually though, the whining daughter wore the exhausted mother down.

They were so close to the AT, but seriously - look at the child's face... There could be no more hiking.

Fully lacking a decent attitude, though the AT is less than a mile away.

As the two girls lugged their matching selves back to the car, the best and most magical thing happened, which totally saved the day and made driving 126 miles round trip for a 23 minute walk totally worth it all.

THIS guy!

And then the mom took this hilarious and poignant photo.

"Lakeland! Deer!!"

For real. Look at her face. AND look at the deer's face. Best. Hike. Ever.

OK, not ever, but this moment? SO GOOD.

Parking Lot Provocation

So yeah. 

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a bit of a scuffle in the parking lot of a grocery store.

It all started over a parking spot, as I imagine a large percentage of confrontations in parking lots do. I had pulled my car into a spot, turned off the ignition, taken my seat belt off and was gathering my things when I realized that someone was incessantly honking their horn. At me, apparently. So I looked up and there's this guy wildly gesturing and yelling at me: "Hey, I want to park my car there!". Confused, I sort of threw my hands in the air in the universal "what gives?" sign, and yelled (to myself really, since my windows were rolled up) "Are you serious?", and he made a back up motion with his hands, shouting "Yeah, move your car back a spot so I can park there!" (I'd nabbed a pull-through spot, so there was an empty spot in back of me.)

I was stunned at the hilarity of his outlandish request for my spot which, by the way, was a relatively shitty one in the back of the lot.

In a very un-Erin-like way, and as if propelled by some unknown force, I found myself calmly getting out of my car with the intention of actually speaking to this lunatic. I walked over to the passenger side of his car and, in as even keeled a voice as possible said: "Listen. I'm happy to move my car back 5 feet (a bit sarcastic - yes) so that you can park your car there, but I think you are being ridiculous.  Are you really, seriously beeping your horn at me? PLUS, there's a spot right. there." I indicated with a sweep of my arm an empty spot 2 or 3 down from where I'd parked. Then, to this man in his mid-40's with bursting biceps, I continued in an almost complimentary way: "Sir, you are clearly an able-bodied, fit person who can walk from your car to the store. There's really no need for this. But yeah, let me just move my car for you."

People keep asking me, "Why did you move your car for this jerk?" and the only reason I can come up with is that it was clearly more important to him to have that spot than it was to me. I don't actually have a good answer, because on any other day, I would have ignored the guy entirely. I'm not sure why I reacted the way I did.

He pulled his car into my vacated spot, and I got out and started walking toward the store. That's when I heard him, from 20 or so feet behind me, say:

"Someone isn't so fit - looks like you could use an extra walk."

And at that moment, I completely lost my mind. I'm not particularly confrontational, and I'm certainly not one to physically challenge anyone, especially very muscular men, especially in parking lots, especially when I'm six months pregnant. It's just not my style.

I suspect part of my very aggressive reaction is due to my growing a tiny but fierce pair of balls in my uterus, though that fact is unconfirmed at this time.

Anyway, I immediately whirled around and launched myself at him, grabbed him by the neck of his too-tight t-shirt, yanked him toward me, and succinctly let him know exactly what I thought of his comment. Which was that he had no business talking to me that way, had no business talking to ANYBODY that way, and (though really, this is entirely beside the point...) by the way you fucking asshole, I'm six months pregnant.

When I let go of his shirt, (I think both of us equally surprised and perhaps him rethinking that "not-too-fit comment"), he skittered backwards like a cowardly dog, sort of bent into himself and, maybe (probably not) embarrassed that he'd acted like a prick, mumbled that I had an anger problem. 

And I guess I sort of do, when some fool calls me fat in a parking lot on a perfectly lovely, sunny Saturday afternoon.

The truth is, almost immediately after that impromptu and kind of bad-ass reaction, once I'd removed myself from the vicinity of the offender, I essentially crumbled. I felt bad about my growing body and all the parts of it that have gone soft or lumpy with pregnancy and I felt bad that I had offered as an excuse to this had-no-business-knowing stranger the fact that I was growing a human. I felt bad that someone had spoken to me in that way, and that it had the power to hurt me. I felt bad for losing my temper and acting trashy in a parking lot. I felt bad for putting myself in a position that could have been potentially harmful. And I felt bad that I had to walk all the way back to my car, leaving the store without buying anything, and I showed up at my friend's house for dinner, sobbing and empty-handed.

I've no moral to this story, no new wisdom to impart. After this happened and I decided to write about it, I did about 10 minutes of research before coming to the very obvious conclusion that I'm one of millions of women who've been subjected to inappropriate comments and body shaming. Unfortunately my case is far from unique.

What I can say is that I'm proud of myself for not letting someone get away with speaking to me in that way. I'm glad, overall, that I was able to stick up for myself. I'm able to find a bit of humor and it makes me smile even, when I think about the look on his face when he was in my strong and capable grasp. 

And while I don't recommend physical altercations in parking lots, I think in my case, it was necessary.

Lastly, if you find yourself in a situation like mine, and I really hope you don't - know that you can call me and I'll help you protect your shitty parking spot.






 

Well...I'm not NOT pregnant.

Did anyone see that cute couple on Buzzfeed or Huffpost - the one where the pregnant girl took her unsuspecting husband to a photo booth and, as the camera clicked away, showed him a baby hat? At first he looked all confused, and then suddenly he understood what she was telling him and he sort of fell apart...crying and spluttering about...and then they kiss.  Anyone??  Did you guys see that?

Here they are:

Awwwww.  Seriously.  Awwwwww.  How cute are they??

Yeah.  When I found out I was pregnant with Lakeland and told Seth, he said "Holy shit."  The was his entire reaction, explained in precise detail.  "Holy. Shit."

I mean, I didn't expect him to start weeping and get down on his knees, throwing his arms around my waist while pressing his cheek gently against my precious womb.  Of course not.  But a pat on the back might have been nice.

I know now that he was truly happy, but that at the time, the news had so utterly shocked him, he couldn't spit out more than two words.  So maybe he was thinking "Holy. Shit. That's. Awesome!" but only the first part came out?  (He totally got over that initial astonishment and was entirely on board by like, the seventh month though.)

In early January this year, I was fairly sure that I'd gotten pregnant sometime over the holidays.  Not eager to catch him by surprise, I thought it best to break the news gently.  It went like this:

Me (on a Monday morning - 24 full hours in advance):  Hey.  I'm late.  I'm going to take a pregnancy test tomorrow morning.

Seth:  K.

Me (Tuesday morning, on the phone, after having peed on a stick):  Blah, blah, blah...mundane morning conversation, la-di-da...

Seth (matching my humdrumness): Blah, blah, blah...

Me (because he didn't ask and who has time for BSing on the phone all morning?):  So...I took that test...you know?

Seth:  Yeah...?  And...?

Me (In my most neutral "do-not-frighten-the-animal-that-you-unexpectedly-came-upon-while-walking-in-the-woods" voice, with just a hint of Homer Simpson humor in case the news needed further padding):  Well, I'm not NOT pregnant.

Seth (not sounding amused in the least):  Ummm...what? 

Me (Nonchalantly...casually...shoulder-shruggingly):  Well, there were two lines, but that second line was barely noticeable.

Seth:  Oh, OK.  Cool.  See you after work?

Me:  Yep.  Have a good day.  Bye.

"Holy. Shit." - successfully avoided.  "Oh, OK.  Cool." - unexpected, but better, I think?

Two days went by with zero discussion of my imminent barfing period followed by weeks of candy and bread inhalation - two FULL days, with only one offhanded comment from Seth about the hardly positive pregnancy test.  He said, without introduction or fanfare of any kind, "You know that a line, even faint, means it's probably a positive test, right?"

Yes.  Yes I do.  Glad you do, too.

By Friday, I was pretty well over trying not to spook him, and far more interested in entertaining myself, so I took a digital pregnancy test and sent him the following email*:

And while he didn't reply to the email, he did come home from work that night with prenatal vitamins, kissed me on the top of the head, and said "Congratulations, babe".

It wasn't an awwww-worthy acknowledgement in the same way that revealing you're expecting by way of a Homer Simpson joke and a "pregnant as shit" email isn't cute.  That's just not us. 

* "Pregnant as shit" is a phrase I hi-jacked from my hilarious friend Amy Murphy.

Wrong number.

I saw that my friend Melody, a very funny girl, 'liked' on Facebook an article entitled "My Vagina Is All Over The Place".  I immediately clicked on the link; that title was too much to ignore. 

The piece held up satisfyingly well to the promising title.  The writer, who is a British woman I think, captures in a highly descriptive way how I believe many women feel after giving birth.  I mean, I specifically remember my midwife saying, on high authority, that I was not, for any reason, to look upon my nether regions on any reflective surface whatsoever,  for a very, very, VERY long time.  (It's been almost 5 years, and I've yet to break that promise.)

The writer sort of goes on to explain the things that happened during and after the birth of her child and how, now that she's basically hanging in tatters, she's finding it difficult to explain to prospective lovers why her parts look as if they are migrating south for the winter. 

And then, to my horror and delight, she used the phrase "meat curtains" to describe part of her female anatomy.  How truly disgusting and hilarious.  I texted my friend Melody at once, saying "OMG MEAT CURTAINS!??!! That is SO GROSS.  I cannot stop laughing!!"

Probable recipient of my text.  "Huh? What are meat curtains??"

A few hours later, I got a text back with one simple question.  "Who is this?"

And I thought "Oh, she must have lost or deleted my number", so I responded "It's Erin."

"I don't have any friends named Erin.  You have the wrong number." was the brisk retort.

I was somewhat mortified by this text exchange, but at the same time, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I'm probably the only person to ever send a text about meat curtains to a stranger.  I guess that's something.

Also, below is the link to the article and I have no idea if it's legal for me to do that or not, but if not, sincere apologies to Lottie Lomas.  And feel free to link any of my blog posts to yours, because that's probably the only way I'll ever make it to Huffpost. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lottie-lomas/my-vaginas-all-over-the-p_b_6615086.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Sunday Family Fun Day

So here's pretty much how Sundays at my house play out:

Lakeland wakes up all early because she knows it's "TV day".  She scampers into our room, sticks her face nose-to-nose with my face, yells "MOM!", and the next thing I know, I'm standing in the living room in front of the TV, shivering in my underwear, with the Netflix remote in my hand.  She then takes a painstakingly long time to choose a show, (and I really can't blame her, since she only gets to do this once a week) directing me to scroll slowly through season after season of the blazing neon "My Little Pony" titles.  It's the part of my weekend that feels sort of like climbing a mountain in soapy flip-flops; never ending and completely maddening.

At some point, I hear myself yelling "Oh my GOD, just PICK ONE" and that startles her enough to make a selection so that I can schlep back to bed.  Then I lay in my room and listen once again to "The Fox and the Hound", which she chooses basically every week, while thinking about what we should do for Sunday Family Fun Day.

You might know that Seth works a weekend job as a mover, and most Saturdays, he burns in the ballpark of 6,000 calories carrying the belongings of families to and from a truck.  That means that on Sundays, he wants to kind of lay low and have what he calls "a good eating day".  He walks around, moaning about his sore muscles and showing off new bruises, while repeatedly rubbing his belly and mumbling "today's gonna be a good eatin' day."  (Which often translates to me having a good eatin' day too, though I definitely didn't earn it...all I do on Saturday mornings is attend a one hour fitness class and then go home and take a great big nap.)

I've come to think of these Sunday binges as Sunday Family Fat Day.  Eating at a pizza buffet, for example, is exactly the type of place where I have zero self-control; it combines my great need of "getting the most for my money" with my "if it has melted cheese on it, I'll eat it until it's gone" mentality, and all is lost.

One Sunday, a while back, I came up with this brilliant plan to combine Sunday Family Fun Day with Sunday Family Fit Day, and in the spirit of this, asked Seth and Lakeland if they wanted to go to the driving range* and hit a couple buckets of balls.  Not exactly a cardio workout, but still, it met my lone criteria, which was to be "active".  Lakeland agreed to go in a way that made it seem as if I'd offered her a trip to Disney World, while Seth balked.  However, once he was aware of the whole picture - that the driving range serves chicken wings...in buckets - he quickly jumped on board.

The morning was sailing along smoothly until Seth got an even better idea for Sunday Family Fit Day, which was to go ice skating.  Perfect!  I got all excited, and peeled Lakeland's eyeballs off of the screen just long enough to ask her if she thought that ice skating sounded fun.  She did not.  She emphatically did not. 

But I, now motivated by an oddly intense desire to go ice skating, came up with an award winning idea to use Emma the Elf (on the Shelf) to help me convince Lakeland that ice skating was the clear winner in family fun.  I drew a picture of Emma wearing appropriate ice skating attire and put it on the bathroom counter.  Then I pretended to find Emma there, pencil still poised in her mitten hand, and called out to Lakeland that her elf drew her a special self portrait and that she was trying to convey a secret message just for her!  Yes.  I am that good.

Lakeland read the secret message and then picked Emma up, bringing the elf's bow shaped mouth to her own ear and listened, nodding her head in understanding.  And then, aloud, Lakeland said "What's that, Emma?  OH, you say you want to go golfing?  Oh, OK!"  Then Lakeland looked right into my eyes and, with that perfect mixture of sweetness and I-am-not-going-to-be-manipulated-by-this-mischievous-elf-or-my-mother, said "Did you hear that mommy?  She definitely wants to go golfing."

The next thing I knew, Lakeland had drawn a rebuttal picture of her own self, standing next to Emma, both of them holding golf clubs and smiling.  


Seth saw Lakeland's drawing on the dining room table and poked so much fun at me for what I thought was a highly clever attempt to get Lakeland to change her mind, that I'm pretty sure he cracked one of my ribs.

So...we went golfing for Sunday Family Fit Day.  And we finished off a bucket of chicken wings, because that's what we do...keep traditions, like Sunday Family Fat Day, alive.

* Driving ranges in D.C. are heated, so you can swing away regardless of weather.  It's weird.

Hey, I volunteered...once.

I volunteered to assist in Lakeland's preschool classroom this week.  I was given the simple task of helping the children create a little craft using their initials.  Lakeland's teacher gave me very clear instructions, which I relayed to each kid as they made their way to the table.

The instructions:

1.  Pick a color of construction paper.
2.  Pick a color of marker.
3.  Write your initials on the paper.
4.  Miss Erin will trace with glue the letters you wrote.
5.  Place puzzle pieces over the glue.
6.  Done.  Go play.

Here's how it went down:

Me: Ima, your turn!  Hi, I'm Miss Erin.  Nice to meet you.  We are going to do a craft together using the first and last initials of your name.  Do you know what your initials are?

Ima:  Yes.  My name is Ima McPreschooler, so I'm going to write "I-M".

Me:  Yes, good job!  OK, pick a color of paper and a marker, and let's get started.

Ima (carefully choosing one color from the package of markers and writing her appropriately sized initials on the paper in legible handwriting, all while holding the marker the way a regular person holds a writing utensil):  All done!  Now what?

Me (glue-tracing the "I" and the "M"):  See these puzzle pieces?  You get to glue them down over your initials and it's going to look really cool on the paper!
 
Ima (completing the entire task in about 3 minutes):  OK...what's next?

Me:  Nothing kiddo, that's it.  Go play.  Thanks for hanging out with me!

Me (feeling pretty good/cocky about my mad skills as a preschool teacher helper):  Skip, your turn!  Hi, I'm Miss Erin...blah blah blah...Do you know what your initials are?

Skip (watching some kids playing nearby):  What are they doing?

Me:  They are playing, and it's your turn to do a craft.  Do you know what an initial is?

Skip (Dumping out all 16 markers, taking the tops off the ones that didn't roll on the floor and, holding them like weapons, violently scribbling on every piece of construction paper on the table):  Cha!  Boom...blah!  Rizzo!

Me (WTF???):  Skip, can you pay attention and put those markers down?  So your first name is SSSSssssskip.  Do you know what letter Sssssskip Ssssstarts with?

Skip (swinging his legs back and forth as if pumping on a swing set, but 1000 times faster):  "S"?

Me:  YES!  GOOD JOB!  Skip starts with an "S"!  What's your last name?

Skip mutters something unintelligible that only his mother would be able to interpret...

Me (looking up Skip's last name from the list the teacher gave me):  It looks like your last name is Allcrafts.  Is that right?  Skip Allcrafts?

Skip shrugs and then bolts from the table to go play with some superhero figures.  I wrangle him back to the table and just flat out tell him what his last initial is, because I cannot do that sound it out thing again.  Then I direct the kid to write "S-A" on the paper in very large font.  He writes "Spak" in microscopic letters.  I resist the urge to ask him what his problem is, then flip over the paper, re-instruct him on what he should be doing, and he responds by swiping all of the markers and papers from the table and declaring that he will now build the puzzle.  I close my eyes and breathe deeply, because it's really all I can do.

Anyway, after getting my ass handed to me in just 75 minutes, I knew in a concrete and special kind of way that I was meant to never, ever be a person who hangs out with large groups of children for any substantial amount of time.  The people who choose to hang out with tiny humans all day long should win major awards and make wads and wads of money, because they are heroes - like actual warriors who go up against these fearless little armies and somehow come out champions.