Don't Blame Me for My Musical Taste; I Grew Up in the '90s

Other than certain smells, nothing triggers memories for me like music. A song from my younger days can take me right back to a time of Taco Bell nachos, big hair, stonewashed Guess? denim, and unrequited (usually) love. Every boy I pined for had his theme song, which would a few months later, be replaced by another boy and another song. Here, for your amusement, are some of my musical memories. Try not to be too disgusted at my musical taste. (I stand by the Natalie Cole song, though. I still sing it to my baby.)

"Into the Night" by Benny Mardones (who?)
She’s just sixteen years old, leave her alone, they say
Separated by fools who don't know what love is yet
But I want you to know

If I could fly, I’d pick you up
I’d take you into the night and show you a love
Like you’ve never seen, ever seen

(I HOPE she’s never seen that kind of love, if she’s just sixteen years old. Put that love AWAY, dude, or you’ll get arrested!) I fervently wished the object of my adoration felt this way about me. Except I wasn’t even 16: I was 13, and I had a crush on my 23-year-old volleyball coach. Despite my attempts to seem mature beyond my years when he was around, I think he probably knew how I felt about him because I kept getting hit in the head by the volleyball because I was staring at his wavy black hair and blue eyes. My crush died a natural but painful death when he got married (to a girl from my future husband’s home town.) He is now a physical therapist and I am not attracted to him at all.

Unforgettable, by Natalie Cole
Unforgettable, that’s what you are
Unforgettable, though near or far
That’s why, darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable too

This song was popular the summer that I got my first kiss. I was almost fourteen, at a church camp meeting. (In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a week of church services attended by members of a denomination in one state, and at least in our case, none of the young people thought about Jesus or anything other than how to get a date.)

All week, I had been going out with the son of one of my dad’s friends whom I’d long thought was cute, and we were having a good time. We were actually going out on dates, as opposed to just holding hands at the concession stand, because I had a 19-year old friend who wasn’t dating anyone and who was a terrific sport about driving younger kids around town. The last night, when we had to return to our separate towns and visiting each other was out of the question, we were in the back seat (ooh la la) and when Gina was distracted because she was talking to Michael’s friend in the front, Michael leaned over and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you, okay?” and did so, without waiting for an answer. I’ve always thought that combination of chivalry and confidence was perfect for a young girl’s first kiss. And I discovered I liked kissing. A lot.

P.S. Just to show how small a world our denomination is, Michael and my husband were pretty good friends after Michael moved to a town close to Justin’s. Michael married a girl Justin knew very well and never quite dated. So there you go. It’s a wonder I didn’t know Justin from birth, really.

How Am I Supposed to Live Without You? by Michael Bolton
Tell me, how am I supposed to live without you
Now that I’ve been lovin’ you so long
How am I supposed to live without you
And how am I supposed to carry on
When all that I've been livin’ for is gone

Yes, I owned not one but two Michael Bolton albums [adult me cringes in shame]. There was a guy who liked me but all my friends thought I’d never go out with him because he had a reputation for being “a bad boy,” while I was so innocent I should have been called a Goody-Goody-Goody. This guy (let’s call him Grant because that was his name) let me know that the song that most reminded him of me was this one. I gasped, “I like that song too!” Bad boy reveals softer side = Alison accepts his offer of a date to Homecoming. And then we dated for several months. Several astute people said this was a horrible choice to be Our Song, but a frizzy-haired screamer brought us together and that was just…so romantic to me.

He wasn’t really that much of a bad boy, but we made out a lot. However, I was almost as much of a goody-goody when we broke up (on Valentine’s Day, which was not nice of me, but I just couldn’t take his temper tantrums any more). And then Our Song was a lot more appropriate.

Wow, this is getting really long. I have a few more I’ll write up and post another day.

Week in Review: 2/3--2/9

This is an idea I got from Cathy Zielske: to list 5 things that made me happy this week and 5 things that I didn't like. I'm trying to do this every week to capture little details of our lives. And I thought I might as well post it here. I like that it's so random, which I love reading when others do it, but my little anal-retentive brain finds it hard to be random on purpose. So here ya go.

Week in Review

5 things that made me happy

1. Mr Blue saying “Tank you Mommy” without being prompted. This means he is 1 for 2,877,523 in the manners department. Victory is in sight!

2. Finding pants that fit me well at NY & Co.—on sale. And also a necklace. Now I SWEAR I will not buy myself anything else for at least two months! (I also got some crosstrainers--totally necessary because my others had no support left--and a dress from Target.)

3. Miss Pink’s teacher saying she is “a little learning sponge” and “a joy to teach.”

4. Miss Pink telling us last night that she wants to be an astronaut and a scientist who cares for tigers. You go, girl!

5. Finding out I have somehow reached my goal weight after not working out for two weeks when we were sick. Apparently the Death Virus wasn’t so bad after all.

5 things that bothered me

1. Finding out Miss Pink can’t play soccer in our town’s soccer organization because the teams are already chosen and registration is closed. What? It’s only February! (She wants to try gymnastics instead.)

2. Spending the money on the pants and jewelry.

3. Knowing that the next two weeks are going to be tiring. This coming week, Justin will be home late (around 8:30) every night except Thursday, including Saturday and Sunday, because of a class he’s taking. Then the following Tuesday he will leave for Louisiana to install a set of cabinets in his brother’s house, while I am here preparing for Mr. Blue’s birthday party on Saturday, which Justin will be back for, but not until Friday night or Saturday. Oy. I take back #2—I totally deserve those clothes.

4. That’s really all—I am so blessed!

You're Thankful for WHAT?

Justin and I don’t tend to be all stuffy and formal in the way we teach our children about God. Mostly because that’s not how we experience our relationship with God. We want our kids to think of God and church as a natural, interesting part of our lives rather than something Serious that is No Fun at All for Kids. So I’m not very rigid about the way we pray: do their eyes really have to be closed? Not at this age, for sure, but they like folding their hands, and chubby toddler hands folded in prayer are adorable. Also, Miss Pink’s bedtime prayers usually sound more like we’re talking on the phone to a friend. “Excuse us, Lord,” she’ll pipe up in the middle of my prayer if she wants to tell me something. “Okay, Lord, we’re back,” I’ll say when she’s done.

But the other night she went too far.

She was sitting on the bed talking to the Creator, thanking him for…farts.

“Thank you, Lord, that we can toot,” she said. “Thank you for the smell.”

The SMELL? She’s thankful for that? I’ve always thought God could’ve spared us that.

Justin told her that was enough, that she was being silly and we don’t need to bring up farts in our prayers. Even if we’re appreciating them.

Then he went into another room and had a good laugh. I’m sure God did the same.

Because our God is not stuffy at all. I know He has a sense of humor. If He didn’t, He couldn’t have created this daughter of mine.

Hungry All the Time

Mr. Blue is eating us out of house and home. Dude must be due for a major growth spurt. If we had the pantry space, I’d just order a grocery truck to unload at our house.

It’s mostly healthy stuff, but…it just surprises me that he can fit all of that inside himself and still be hungry. Here’s what he had last night just from supper on (because I can’t even keep track of what he ate earlier in the day): at least a cup of steamed broccoli; several bites of steak Parmesan; a piece of garlic bread; half a banana; two clementines (seedless mandarin oranges); a piece of Valentine’s chocolate; two bowls of cereal; and a sippy cup of milk. He was asking for peanut butter crackers after that, too. We didn’t have any, so I said, “No, bud. You’ve had enough.” Then I felt like a bad mom, because maybe SOMEHOW he was still hungry, and he would wake up in the middle of the night crying from horrible hunger pains—but seriously, we had to leave some food for breakfast. And he didn’t wake up until his normal time, but he had one and a half toaster strudels, another clementine, and some raisins before 10 am. Oh, and more milk.

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that his current favorite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

5 Going On 15

Miss Pink has decided she wants to be just like her mommy. This is not entirely new, but her desire to look exactly like me at all times is. It’s sweet of her, and I will wax nostalgic about it someday when she scorns my mildest fashion suggestions, but it can pose problems when we’re getting dressed. For one thing, she has a lot more pink clothes than I do. Today I had to wear a green T-shirt because that was the theme of today’s clothing. She was sad that I didn’t have green pants like hers. I was not sad about that. Thank goodness she can be persuaded that certain colors go together even if they don’t exactly match. (Thank you, Clinton and Stacy.)

It's part of wanting to be grown up. I get that. To her it seems like grown-ups have all the fun. She doesn't know there are days I'd trade places with her in a heartbeat, if it weren't for having to grow up all over again.

She even wants to shave her legs like Mommy. I don’t give her an actual razor. It’s a bladeless plastic razor that came with some depilatory foam. She lathers up her tiny leg and goes to town scraping the foam off. It cracks me up, thinking that someday this is going to be a chore she hates and now she thinks it is just the coolest thing.

She also talks like a teenager sometimes. (This is one of the things that surprised me most about preschool-age girls: I thought all the flouncing and eye-rolling and sarcasm came later. But no.) Her little brother (like most two-year-olds) has a favorite saying: “My do it!” He will back up this assertion with temper tantrums if he doesn’t get to do whatever it is (like, say, pour his own milk). This weekend Miss P said with world-weary scorn, “He says ‘My do it’ for everything.” Like, whatever.

Watching her grow up and getting to fix her hair just like Mommy's every day is one of the best things about my life.

What I'm (not) reading

I always forget to tell y'all when I write a new book review. This time I could barely think of a book I read last month that was worth writing about. So I wrote about that.

I really do think that we should read what we like. Why? Because we like them--that ought to be reason enough. Once upon a time I would have said that I think good books can make you a better person, but I'm not sure I believe that now. A really well-written book in any genre is a joy, but I don't think I'm a better person because I've read a lot of books. In fact, I wish I could get a time refund on some.

The best book I have read in a long time: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I don't know why I waited so long to read this. It's just...beautiful, and the most complex, nuanced portrayal of a Christian character I've ever read.

A book I started and decided to abandon: Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley. I've enjoyed a lot of her other novels, but couldn't get into the story of a teenage boy raising a dragon in secret. I'd think I've outgrown the teenage fantasy genre, but if something as good as Harry Potter came out, I'd be all over it.

Thus endeth the book talk.

Wonderful Counselor

Not surprisingly, I’m tired of writing about sickness (although not as tired as you are of reading about it, I’m sure.) Justin is better—he went to work today. But Mr. Blue can’t shake the bug yet: he’s still vomiting. It’s down to once a day now, which the nurse said was normal—little ones often do this for a week or more—but that means I can’t take him anywhere he could give this wonderful gift to others. So we’ll be mostly staying home for the next few days, after a week of being housebound. You can imagine my enthusiasm at this news. I’m ready to get back to the gym, to playgroup, to normality, to Target! Our version of normal may not be perfect, but I would like to order some now, please.

Yesterday I was feeling anxious, like panicky butterflies were flapping around in my chest, getting caught in my esophagus. I couldn’t identify a reason—Mr. Blue wasn’t even acting sick, Justin was getting better, so what was wrong with me? Since I’ve been on medication to treat the anxiety, it’s become an unfamiliar feeling, so I get alarmed when it shows back up. Plus I didn’t sleep well the night before, which is what happened before the Episode occurred, and oh God what if I can’t sleep tonight and what if I get that bad again, I can’t DO that again, what if….

You can see the problem. Any anxiety causes me to feel anxious about the anxiety, which increases my anxiety level and so on. It doesn’t take long for it to spiral out of control.

Except that I WAS able to talk myself down from the mental ledge last night by reminding myself that a certain amount of anxiety is normal (true); that of course I was worried about my baby boy (I hadn’t yet talked to the nurse). I also admitted to myself that I was feeling overworked, although it was nobody’s fault because Justin had been so very sick, sicker than I’d been, and in fact had passed out in the shower while I was trying to help him get out and if it doesn’t scare you to see all the color drain from your spouse’s face while his pupils are fixed and dilated, then I don’t know what will. And then there were the endless cups of Gatorade and every time I sat down, somebody handed me a book to read. Everybody needed Mom, even when Mom didn’t have anything to give. And that’s the exactly the place I was in when I got swallowed up by the Black Hole of Anxiety and Depression. Thinking about it, the physical sensation is a lot like claustrophobia—feeling smothered, hyperventilating, yelling “Let me out”—and all of that makes sense since what was being smothered was my sense of self.

Last night, I reminded myself that it was not going to get that bad again. The virus would eventually loose its evil grip on my family. And until that day arrived, I had drugs to help me cope. Drugs my doctor gave me to get through times just like this.

So I took a pill last night to help me calm down enough to sleep, and Mr. Blue didn’t wake up until 6:30. Which was a little earlier than usual, but no sheet-changing was involved, so no complaints.

It’s not all about my medication, though. I do believe I am on the appropriate medicine for my condition. If I hadn’t been on these meds, I wouldn’t have been able to reason with myself at all. I would have just headed straight to Freak-Out City—do not pass go, do not collect $200. But reason is not enough. I read a devotion titled “Wonderful Counselor” this morning, and it reminded me that Jesus is always with me, and that he can give me wisdom; and besides that, He’s the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace as well—everything we need, He’s got. So I put my head down on the desk and I asked Him to breathe some peace into me, help me to remember to breathe and stop choking on invisible butterflies, and to remember that it came to pass, as my dad says, not to stay.

And He did. Wonderful Counselor.