MWLM Blog

The Candy Dance

I guess since it's the day before Halloween, I'll go to dancing. Candy dancing.

You know how it works -- The Halloween Candy Dance. It goes a little something like this:

At the end of August, when the grocers decide it's time to stress you out by making you think you're behind on shopping for some big to-do and start taking down the swim rings and replacing the shelf-space with Halloween candy, you buy a bag. Tentatively. Thinking, "We'll, it's on sale and the price will only go up in October. Might as well get a jump on things."

Then you get home and realize that those candy corns will be so stale by October 31st you could use them as bullets, you eat them. You rationalize this: "I don't want disappointed trick-or-treaters to egg my house after breaking a tooth on a Snickers bar."

That's step one of The Dance.

By mid-September your kids start talking about what costume they want to wear for Halloween and all the talk has you thinking it really is about time to start stashing candy. After all, that candy is darn expensive! You'd better pace yourself!

So you go after the good stuff. You buy Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey's bars (full size) and Milky Ways and (grrrrowl!) Three Musketeers.

And then you have a bad day. And a zit. And PMS. And it rains.

You blow through step two so fast you never even heard the music.

So by the beginning of October you really are stressing. The only candy you have remaining in your stash is a Milky Way wrapper. But you know you have no willpower now, so you can't buy more candy. If you buy any more candy, you'll have to cash in your 401K to pay for it.

But you still have to have something. So you pick up a bag or two every week while grocery shopping. And you make sure that you only pick Crap Candy. Yep, your stash now consists of gummy eyeballs and Mary Janes and black licorice. Even the dog won't touch it.

You've successfully completed step three.

But then the week of Halloween hits. You look at your Stash of Shame. You know that the kids will go away muttering that even the dentist down the street gives out better stuff than you do. Even the old lady next door who gives each trick-or-treater a single penny.

Not to mention, PMS is bound to come back soon.

So the day before Halloween you find yourself standing in the candy section again. By this time, candy that will tomorrow be in The Buck Bin costs more than your first prom dress. But you don't care.

You chew your nail. You bite your lip. Selection is everything at this point. You have to choose something that is not good enough to be gutted in the next 24 hours, yet you would be willing to eat as a leftover.

You pick Crunch bars. Good choice.

You dance home. Your choreography is perfect.

Happy Halloween from freelance writer, Jennifer Brown. Check out more of Jen's humor at www.jennifunny.com. Boo!

"Calgon, take me away!" by Maureen Locher

Oh, how I remember “Calgon-take-me-away days.” Boy, I used to have a lot more of those in years past than I do now, thank goodness. You know those days. You just want five minutes of peace to yourself when you’re raising little ones. You are always on call.  There is not a minute when you are officially off-duty.

When asked for my occupation on forms I was never quite satisfied with my responses. Housewife? I am not married to my house. Homemaker? I do so much more than that. What mom doesn’t? The phrase I finally settled on was “wife and mother.” It actually became easier when my children were all in school and I began teaching again, part-time. Then I had a “real” occupation to write in that little space. Isn’t that silly?

Have you ever listened on various talk shows when a viewer is asked what she does? It seems like whenever a woman responds, “I’m a stay-at-home mom,” the host or hostess nearly always takes on that condescending tone of, “Oh, good for you. That’s a full-time job.” No kidding, Sherlock!

If a woman has no choice but to work when her kids are young, then she must. Her responsibility is to provide for her children, and that’s it. Those who are fortunate enough to have a choice, however, sometimes don’t choose very wisely, in my opinion. Be with your kids. Know them inside and out. Are you working out of necessity or for some luxury? Choose wisely because new cars are mass-produced everyday. Your child’s childhood has a definite end. You can’t get it back once it’s gone, and it goes by so very fast. Anyone who has lived through it will tell you that. 

While you are living it though, you think these people are a little nuts. As you change diapers, make dinners, wash dishes, you wish for it all to go a little faster hoping there’s a bit of a break on the horizon. And then there are no more babies to hold tight. I remember feeling incomplete sitting in a room without a little one on my lap for quite some time after my boys got a bit older.

If my mom said it once, she said it a thousand times, “These are the best years of your life.” I listened but I had my reservations. My mom would say it again and again until I finally opened my eyes, ears and heart to the true meaning of her words. Those were the happiest times of my life (so far, anyway!) Thank goodness I finally realized it before it was gone. Thanks, Mom.

©2006 Maureen Locher

Maureen is copy editor for Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine as well as holding the most dubious titles of wife, and mother to four boys aged 17 – 22.  She hopes you enjoy the upcoming antics of her life with her five men.

Have you ever forgotten your way? by Maureen Locher

Have you ever forgotten your way? Remember when you were younger and you may have accidentally popped into the wrong classroom – or worst – the boys’ bathroom. You quickly righted yourself and went on your merry little way.

But that was then and this is now. Losing your way as an adult isn’t comical. It can be very scary. People rely on you. Children, spouses, parents, friends. Everybody wants a piece of you, but you are so tired of paring yourself away bit by bit.

Chop up an apple to make a pie and what’s left? The core. Do you still have your core? Or has it been sliced and diced? Have the demands of motherhood, wifehood, daughterhood and sisterhood left you ready for the garbage disposal?

Don’t despair. If you have found the time in your non-stop frantic frenzy of a life to read these words, you’ve clutched onto hope. You said “no” to the children or husband to carve out time to read this - you just said “yes” to you.

Congratulations! You’re reclaiming a bit of your core in the reading – and I, in the writing. Sounds like a good partnership to me.

© 2007 Maureen Locher

Maureen is copy editor for Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine as well as holding the most dubious titles of wife, and mother to four boys aged 17 – 22. She hopes you enjoy the upcoming antics of her life with her five men.

Three more years until Disney World

I sent my husband to a Halloween party with my three daughters last night.  We were invited to the party by another family on the street next to us.

We had a great time at the party last year.  They had pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, design your own scarecrow, mummy creations with toliet paper and lots of kids dressed in costume.

But this year I missed the party completely.  I was supposed to come to the party late, but instead my soon to be three-year-old came back home to me.  The hosts of the party were dressed in wigs and face paint...one was the Grim Reaper and the wife was his bride.  My daughter kept repeating....."he's too scary....he's too scary....."

I am not surprised.  When our oldest daugther was three, she had a phobia of people in costumes. This meant we never went to see a Wiggles show or Monsters on Ice.  And it  definitely ruled on Kings Island as well.  Of course, we saved a fortune.

We tried everything to help her our daughter.  But time was the only thing that worked. After three years she finally got over her fear and I have a picture of her with Strawberry Shortcake to prove it.

It was right at that time that our middle daughter developed the same problem for about the same length of time...three years.

Our oldest (who will be in 9 in the spring) began asking when we could make a trip to Disney World.   I explained our family phobia and told her that it may be soon if her youngest sister somehow missed the curse.

But yesterday made me realize that it must be a genetic thing, and we have three more years until we see Disney World.

Kathy Schlaeger lives with her husband and three daughters near Cincinnati, Ohio.  She will be home on Halloween night shielding her almost three-year-old from other children in costumes.

School Pictures and the one sentence letter

Last week the girls got their school pictures while I was still playing hostess to my mother-in-law.  I sent pictures off to grandma (my mom) right away.  I folded them in a piece of paper just in case one could view them through the envelope.  Being who I am, I couldn't mail off a blank piece of paper.  So I wrote, Here are the girls pics.  I probably would have written more but I didn't have the time, and I wanted to get the pics to my mom.

When I called a few days later, my mom commented, I couldn't put the letter down it was so wordy.  You're the one who says she's a writer?

Ha-Ha very funny.  Well here is a something short to prove I may still be able to call myself a writer.

                                                                 The Little Pearl

           Once upon a time there was a princess named Gretchen Sophia.  To become queen she had to go on a quest for the little pearl of wisdom.  It was said the pearl could be found inside an oyster in the Astoria Sea of blackness.  Now princess Gretchen had a problem; she was afraid of the dark.  And she couldn’t swim!

            

           Nonetheless the princess headed out on her quest.  As she was walking, pondering her dilemma, she came across a crying baby.

            

           “How am I suppose to think with all this caterwauling,” thought the princess.  “Where is this baby’s mommy?”

          

           The baby told princess Gretchen she would stop crying for one minute and one minute only.  The princess thought, “I could get her to stop longer than a minute if I threw her in the sea of blackness.”

(This was written while playing school with the girls.  That is as far as I got before it was due.)

Veronica Hosking

Poetry editor

Talk to the Hand

One of the most gratifying things about being a grandparent has got to be those moments when life comes full circle -- when your grown children, those who gave you so much grief as teenagers – find themselves raising teens of their own.

I have no memory of being anything other than delightful as a teenybopper. But I do remember vowing that I would never, ever repeat the fatigued phrases my mother seemed so fond of using when I was growing up.

A few years ago, a friend gave me a humorous plaque that read:

My parents have had several of these satisfying occasions, especially since my daughter crossed that turbulent threshold into adolescence. Being old and obviously with failing memories, they are under the inaccurate impression that I was sometimes rather difficult to deal with when I was 13, and they seem to feel that I’m getting my just desserts.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

I am my mother after all.

I hung this highly amusing piece of absurdity in my bathroom and looked at it whenever I needed a good laugh. Definitely not going to happen to me, I can recall thinking.

But then my sweet little girl -- the one who always thought I hung the moon, who used to imitate everything I did -- turned into a hormone hurricane and made a direct hit on my heart, not to mention my sanity. One day, in response to a perfectly reasonable request from me, this angst-ridden alien flicked her hand in my direction.

“Talk to the hand, Mom,” said the creature, “cause the ears ain’t listening.”

To say that I was dumbfounded is putting it mildly. And that’s when it happened. My mother invaded my body, and out of my mouth came one of her favorite sayings.

“I am sick and tired of your attitude, young lady,” I said to my daughter, even shaking my finger at her.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I am my mother after all. Ouch.

Teenage girls live on an emotional roller coaster of extremes. It can be the best of times and the worst of times, all in one day, sometimes all in one hour. Eyes are often rolling; heads are often tossing. And those hands that just yesterday clutched a beloved doll or clasped a parent’s finger suddenly seem stuck on hips in protest at the injustice of existence.

“OMG!” proclaimed my daughter the other day for what seemed like the thousandth time, “it’s so not fair!”

That’s when the mom gene manifested itself in me once again, and I found myself spouting an oldie but a goodie.

“Life’s not always fair,” I said to her. “Get over it.”

My mother happened to be there, and she laughed heartily, reminding me that I’d often blown my top when she said the same thing to me.

Automatically, my hand came up and flicked toward her.

“Talk to the hand, Mom,” I said in a very mature, if slightly hysterical, tone, “cause the ears ain’t listening.”

© Jackie Papandrew 2007

 

Read more of Jackie's award-winning humor at JackiePapandrew.com

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I want to be that little girl I saw swinging on the underbranches of a large shady tree this early Sunday morning.

Her hair was held back by a loose, cloth headband and the dress she wore had to be patterned after the Gunne Sax dress I had in third grade...pink and ivory in color, gathered waist and billowy skirt. She didn't care what she had on, but was pleased with the fact that it allowed her to play carefree on the tree without the cloth getting caught on the rough pieces of bark. She leapt from branch to branch like she weighed mere ounces, like a fairy would, and giggled the way only a child can, one who doesn't have to worry about getting up for work tomorrow, who doesn't sweat the mortage payment or wonder if she defrosted anything for dinner.

I watched her play with my own daughter for a bit, they made friends immediately without questioning each other's motives or assessing the other's social status. They shared a common interest - having fun - and that was ample to begin a temporary, yet sweet friendship.

Just as quickly as the young girl had become enchanted with the large, shady tree, she dismounted the center from which all of the branches seemed to be borne, and ran to hear the nearby band playing. She changed her mind without consequece, guilt, or confusion and then began tapping her Mary Janes into the wet grass, hands folding ladylike behind her back where her sash was tied in a bow.

When I grow up I hope I have freedom like that again. Because I think you're not really a grown up until you carry your adult responsibilities while recapturing your child-like fearlessness. Kids assume the sun is going to rise again in the morning. Adults can think of reasons it might not. But a grown up takes advantage of the sunshine on this day, because this day is really all there ever will be.

~ Samantha Gianulis

Writing.

Anne Lamott really pisses me off. In fact, when I saw her Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year in the parenting section a couple years ago at the Harvard COOP, I actually gave the book the finger. Such was my resentment at some writer journaling in public about motherhood, like I could. Or, like I should.

It must be trite, it must be drivel, it must be painfully common. How presumptuous to think she had something unique and fascinating to say about parenting.

The fact that my resentment blossomed and exploded with physical force (the middle finger jammed up at the softcover book) didn't elude me. I recognize jealousy. I recognize fear: Afraid. Really, really afraid. Here was this dream and someone else was living it and how could I possibly ever do it if other people already are. I only want the path less traveled on; I won't be a sheep or a lemming.

So it required great bravery on my part last week to pick up the book, purchase it, and open the cover to read. I finished it in 36 hours which says a lot as a parent of a 4 year old.

That weekend as I read, I began feeling rumblings in my body. Discomfort. A loosening of my glue.

I turned to the wisest person I know. I turned to this four year old who has spent her life facing her fears and asked, "Sweetie? There's something I really, really want to do but I'm scared to do it. But I want to do it, but I'm scared. What should I do? How can I do this thing? How do you do it when you feel this way?"

Very seriously and with several long long seconds of contemplation, she looked at me with those ocean-deep eyes and gave me the answer. "Mommy, I listen to what my body is telling me. I might need to give myself more time with my Mommy first, but when my body tells me I'm ready, I just do it."

Later that day, lying on my back finishing up the Lamott book I spilled empathetic laughter every few minutes. With my four year old audience demanding it, I read the funniest portions out loud (meatball-like poops rolling away, slapping an infant for fear it wasn't just sleep overcoming him but rather a seizure). Most items made Maya giggle, too.

Years ago (1996 to be exact), I began writing a weekly column and posting it online. This was before I knew the term "blogging," and certainly the activity of blogging hadn't reached the masses. My self-imposed deadlines kicked my ass, really. I took them so seriously. I remember many a Wednesday evening sweating and twisted at the computer screen researching "What in the hell is going on with the Hutu and the Tutsis?" Or simply commenting on my latest self-revelation that I somehow imagined might interest someone.

For the past year, I've known an intense magnetic pull bringing me back to writing personal essays. I left them when I became suddenly embarrassed at how self-obsessed I knew I seemed to some.

I've found the courage to begin reading these kinds of things again, Anna Quindlen, Barbara Kingsolver, (and of course that beastly and fabulous Anne Lamott), most recently. In their words I've found not only camaraderie but also inspiration. Much of why I drink their words with such abandon are the feelings I get of a Shared Experience. As I approach my own writing, I feel a permission to address the day-to-day.

Each essayist has a unique voice and experience, no matter how common the theme. Knowing I can say "what's already been said" and have it still be new and unique simply because it comes from me frees me from the sheep and lemmings fear. Any path I choose will be less traveled because the path belongs to me.

I'm falling apart from the inside out. I'm unhinged, unglued, and frighteningly free floating. My writing days return like a herd of buffalo. Knowing I seem just fine, perhaps a little tired, but as if I'm a functioning member of our simple world, well, that's just craziness at it's strangest. How these feelings can be mauling my insides while I stroll through the pumpkin field with my darling daughter and my dreamy husband? I know it's all because the writing is coming.

I know it because my body says I'm ready.


Heather Denkmire is a freelance writer and small business owner living near Portland, Maine with her daughter (Maya) and partner (Josh). She invites you to visit and read her regular "personal essay column."

Old Dog Up To His Old Tricks

excerpted from Linda Sharp's Don't Get Me Started blog

I love this story.

I read about this guy roughly a month ago and swear I smiled for two days.  Not because it was gross-out funny, as in getting-his-freak-on-with-a-dead-deer.  It wasn't smile inducing in a saved-three-dozen-kittens-from-a-rabid-pack-of-marauding squirrels kind of way either.

Rather, the smile was plastered to my face because the gent I had read about was daring to do what so few in this life have the stones to do:  fulfill a dream.

Meet 59 year old Mike Flynt.  Husband, father, grandfather...  An all around great guy, business man, an entrepreneur who created a piece of fitness equipment, so effective, he numbers among his clients the United States military.

He's a man with a happy life, family he loves, who love him dearly.  A man who should be contemplating retirement, fly fishing, Sansabelts...

Nah.  Not Mike.

At age 59, when most men are fretting over their 401k balances, receding hairlines (Mike avoids this panic by embracing the follicularly minimalist look), and Viagra prescriptions, Mike decided that he wanted to reach for a brass ring which had eluded him as a younger man.

So instead of pursuing big mouth bass on quiet Sunday mornings, Mike is roughing up big mouthed ass on Saturday afternoons.

Mike is playing college football.

Yes, that's right, he started in his first game in 37 years when he took the field with his Sul Ross State teammates Saturday afternoon against Texas Lutheran.

With his family, including wife, kids, and a grandson in the stands, Mike returned to the gridiron, older - yes, but wiser and I dare say, much more physically fit than he ever was back in the day.  (I mean, look at those guns, will you?)

So how did he come back to the game he loved in his youth?  Well, apparently it stemmed from the equivalent of a dare at a reunion.  But that dare planted a big enough seed in Mike - a seed that began to grow as he wondered - Do I dare?  Do I even qualify??

Sure enough he did - on both counts. 

Returning to the school he played for in 1969 and '70 (he led the team in tackles), has been a thrill. (He was on course to be a team captain in '71, but was ousted during two-a-days - twice daily practice sessions for the uneducated - or those who have not yet discovered the mind broadening powers of Wikipedia.)

Was there cynacism when he walked onto campus and into the locker room?  Of course there was.  Young people are stupid. 

Until they get their ass smoked by grandpa on the 40 yard line.  They tend to get humbled by that rather quickly - respect soon follows.  Mike is now just "one of the guys" and is expected to play in each of Sul State's remaining four games.

Again, his story just makes me smile.  I may have many miles to go before I hit lap 59, but it give me hope. 

Hope - that life is what you make it.  (Sing it Hannah...)

Hope - that all this time I spend running to nowhere on my treadmill will keep me active, engaged in life, and standing upright as the years attempt to tackle me.

And finally, hope - that when I am 59, I, too, will have the courage to attempt a Hail Mary pass with one of my own dreams.

Because as Mike is showing us, if you don't take the chance, you can never score the touchdown.

I love this story.

I read about this guy roughly a month ago and swear I smiled for two days.  Not because it was gross-out funny, as in getting-his-freak-on-with-a-dead-deer.  It wasn't smile inducing in a saved-three-dozen-kittens-from-a-rabid-pack-of-marauding squirrels kind of way either.

Rather, the smile was plastered to my face because the gent I had read about was daring to do what so few in this life have the stones to do:  fulfill a dream.

Meet 59 year old Mike Flynt.  Husband, father, grandfather...  An all around great guy, business man, an entrepreneur who created a piece of fitness equipment, so effective, he numbers among his clients the United States military.

He's a man with a happy life, family he loves, who love him dearly.  A man who should be contemplating retirement, fly fishing, Sansabelts...

Nah.  Not Mike.

At age 59, when most men are fretting over their 401k balances, receding hairlines (Mike avoids this panic by embracing the follicularly minimalist look), and Viagra prescriptions, Mike decided that he wanted to reach for a brass ring which had eluded him as a younger man.

So instead of pursuing big mouth bass on quiet Sunday mornings, Mike is roughing up big mouthed ass on Saturday afternoons.

Mike is playing college football.

Yes, that's right, he started in his first game in 37 years when he took the field with his Sul Ross State teammates Saturday afternoon against Texas Lutheran.

With his family, including wife, kids, and a grandson in the stands, Mike returned to the gridiron, older - yes, but wiser and I dare say, much more physically fit than he ever was back in the day.  (I mean, look at those guns, will you?)

So how did he come back to the game he loved in his youth?  Well, apparently it stemmed from the equivalent of a dare at a reunion.  But that dare planted a big enough seed in Mike - a seed that began to grow as he wondered - Do I dare?  Do I even qualify??

Sure enough he did - on both counts. 

Returning to the school he played for in 1969 and '70 (he led the team in tackles), has been a thrill. (He was on course to be a team captain in '71, but was ousted during two-a-days - twice daily practice sessions for the uneducated - or those who have not yet discovered the mind broadening powers of Wikipedia.)

Was there cynacism when he walked onto campus and into the locker room?  Of course there was.  Young people are stupid. 

Until they get their ass smoked by grandpa on the 40 yard line.  They tend to get humbled by that rather quickly - respect soon follows.  Mike is now just "one of the guys" and is expected to play in each of Sul State's remaining four games.

Again, his story just makes me smile.  I may have many miles to go before I hit lap 59, but it give me hope. 

Hope - that life is what you make it.  (Sing it Hannah...)

Hope - that all this time I spend running to nowhere on my treadmill will keep me active, engaged in life, and standing upright as the years attempt to tackle me.

And finally, hope - that when I am 59, I, too, will have the courage to attempt a Hail Mary pass with one of my own dreams.

Because as Mike is showing us, if you don't take the chance, you can never score the touchdown.

My Barrel Overfloweth

I think that I can officially say that my work barrel is overflowing!  Since I came back from my vacation (which you might have seen from my latest column, was not restful in any way), I have not stopped.  I have a contract with an engineering firm to develop technical training manuals for a minimun of 25 hours a week, but these days I am working more like 35+ hours a week. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the work I am doing and certainly don't mind the extra money that goes hand-in-hand with extra hours (especially when the bills from the trip to California still seem to be trickling in, and the kids all need new winter coats, and the brakes on my old wreck of a minivan had to be replace, disks and all...).  The problem that I have is that I am running out of time...no matter how I count it, my 24 hours a day seem to be running low.  Since I have to get the work done for work, and I have to make sure that my family has clean clothes, and I have to make sure that my family eats...the only place I can cut is on me time (otherwise known as sleep!).

We had a family meeting last night.  My husband called it and explained to the kids "that we all have to start pitching in so that Mom has less to do and can have time to ...well, sleep".  The kids all nodded their heads, "But what more can we do?" they chimed in. The girls share the vaccuuming of the ENTIRE house on Saturday morning, Nick does some dusting and picks up the playroom, Rudy does the garbage routine, lawn work, and, God bless his soul, cleans out the cat's litter box.  All of them make their beds after I yell at them often enough to do it.  What more can they possibly do??  They all need their "Me time" too, right?

They all find that they are pitching in plenty.  I mean, really, what am I complaining about?  All I have left to do is cook every day (and wash the dishes if I don't feel like begging someone else to do them), do the laundry for 5 (which pretty much means washing, folding and ugh, ironing most every day), do the grocery shopping, taxi the kids to activities that are too early for Rudy to tend to...oh and of course, wash to toilets - apparently no one can do that as well as I. Nothing to it, right?

So last week, I got this wonderful email from a woman who was looking for a children's writer to work with her on a project.  She wanted me to write - get this - 48 books, with target audiences ranging from toddler to middle grade. I actually thought about it before I came to my senses and said "No!".  As much as I would love to fulfill my dream of being a published children's book author, I think it is more important to leave some time in my life to actually dream.  Nite-nite!! Zzzzzzzzzz!

Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi

Regular Columnist, All in a Mom-day's Work