My Plan

Throughout the last couple of days Atrain and I have continued to tell each other our plans for the day (something the husband and I do quite often). It has been fun to hear his plans and help him with them. Monday Atrain's plans consisted of preschool, running with momma, star wars, buy a car charger for dadda's trip to texas, have dinner, then play soccer with dada. Yesterday his plans were to help momma help dadda get his car ready to drive 4000 miles over the next few months. So, we drove dada’s car to our trusty mechanic in Spork to have it checked over.

I was surprised the car completed the 48 mile trip to the mechanic. I was almost eaten alive by the monster living beneath the mess in the back seat as I cleared space for the car seats, the starter hiccupped, and the wiper blades flapped in the wind as I drove. I caught myself praying that the billowing clouds would hold onto their rain. After two hours at the mechanic, a new battery, a fixed fuse and a safety inspection to renew the registration that was two months over due, the car felt like a new machine. My credit card, on the other hand, felt like it was going to go into a state of anaphylactic shock. But, I came prepared to swallow the cost of the husband’s safety while driving thousands of miles alone across the country—always a worthy expense.

And that’s when something completely unplanned happened. My mother (aka Nana who met us at the mechanic and kept us entertained through the endeavor) slipped something into my back pocket. It took me a moment to figure out why she was suddenly interested in testing out how (un)firm my buttocks are these days, but then she said, “Strange, that’s just the amount of cash I grabbed from home today,” as she slapped the wad of money in my jeans. My throat tightened and my eyes filled with tears as I tried to figure out how to thank her for her selfless gesture. Part of me cringed with embarrassment and self-loathing, being 26 years old and still so obviously in need of a hand out; but I was also overcome with gratitude that somehow during our peripheral brunch conversation she read into what was weighing on my mind: parenting without my better half, paying for car repairs, airplane tickets, rent in two different apartments, food, loans, bills, etc.

The other part of me threw my arms around my mother and cried. It felt good—familiar, like curling up to the bends of her body on the couch on a cold winter’s day. I spend so much time thinking about being a mom that sometimes I forget how wonderful it feels to be a daughter; to be her daughter.

It’s good to plan. It keeps me steady. It keeps each day relatively on track. It keeps our finances in some sort of order. It keeps my emotions mostly in check. But every day I find that the things shuffling into the unplanned category are what make me think, help me to cry, and prod at my resolve to become a better me and more like my mom.

Supermom Moments

I had a few supermom moments today: breastfeeding my baby while buttering 8 pieces of toast, driving an SUV with 6 children inside, letting my husband catch up on his sleep (undisturbed) after a night in the hospital, managing tantrums without getting frustrated, and getting my running pace back down to 8 minutes/mile on the treadmill (impressive for me). I’m choosing to ignore the fact that I never got in the shower, the piles of laundry that remain untouched and all of the dirty dishes lounging in my sink. I’m not going to let them ruin my supermom day.

Good Old Greenie

Today I wore my green dress to church. I’ve been wearing this dress since I was sixteen and every time I put it on it feels comfy and familiar, like having a long, meaningful conversation with an old best friend. My green dress technically wasn’t even mine until I moved away from home and officially stole it from my mom’s closet. It’s hard to sneak an outfit from your mother when you don’t come home at night to put it back. So, I stole the green dress and eventually mom gave up trying to get it back. Some teenage girls were boyfriend stealers. Maybe I was a bit of that too, but I mostly stuck to stealing dresses. Now I use much more civil methods—like begging—to obtain clothing from my mother’s closet. Mom is a stylish softie who loves to shop and loves to give me clothing hand-outs.

Someday I’ll have a little more money than I do now. Someday I won’t need my mother’s hand-outs (though I’m sure I’ll still want them). And I wonder if, when that someday comes, I’ll still wear my old green dress. I know that it’s not as stylish as it used to be, and some may even consider it ugly these days. The style gurus from “What Not to Wear” certainly would. They would take one look at it, scoff at me for still wearing something that I stole from my mom’s closet in high school and toss it directly in the second hand bin like an old VHS tape. I don’t really care what they would think. I hope that money doesn’t make me the kind of person who would stab my old green dress in the back. Besides, there’s got to be some kind of rule about how many times a hand-me-down can be handed down.