One of Those Moments

Yesterday we happened to be at the doctor’s office, waiting for a sinus infection verdict (which was, thankfully, negative) on both Daphne and Shaggy. Velma and Freddy were out in the waiting room reading, or otherwise occupying their time. We were sitting inside an examination room, Shaggy and Daphne perched up on the exam table, a long sheet of paper crinkling under them with every move. I was sitting beside them in a chair that was designed for utility rather than comfort, counting the minutes until the doctor would arrive.

We could have covered a thousand topics in the time we sat. I covered at least that many in my head. Shaggy kept up a constant stream of chatter, interrupted every now and again by a question or sarcastic comment from Daphne, the quintessential pre-teen, while I wondered why so many doctor’s offices seem partial to the foamy shade of mint green that covered the walls. After several minutes, Shaggy got a thoughtful look on his face and asked me how I had come by my curly hair. Was it Grammy? Or Grand-grand that had passed it along to me?

It was a little out of left field, but Shaggy is not so much a linear thinker. Used to his “all over the map” questions, I shrugged and said, “Well, Grammy used to have VERY curly hair, but it was not Grammy or Grand-grand that passed it along to me. I don’t know who it was that gave it to me because I’m adopted.”

We have talked about it before. It’s not a secret in our household. It’s not something I’ve kept from them, or have even talked about with discomfort. It’s just a part of my life, like having brown eyes or size 7 feet, so I haven’t discussed it often.

“Right,” he replied as he remembered that fact. “Do you know who your Mom and Dad were?”

“I know who my Mom and Dad ARE,” I explained. “Grammy and Grand-grand are my Mom and Dad. I don’t know who my mother and father are, though.”

He nodded. “Do you even have a picture?”

I shook my head no.

“Do you want one?” he inquired.

“Not really,” I said. “I’m pretty happy with the family I have. I don’t feel like I need to know who they were. I’m thankful that they chose to give me life, and that they chose to give me to some people who really, really wanted me. I don’t think I need much more than that.”

He looked a little puzzled, like it was tough to reconcile the not knowing, and Daphne chimed in. “Yeah, my friend Carla is adopted. And she doesn’t really talk about it either.”

“Does she not talk about it because it’s no big deal, or does she not talk about it because it makes her uncomfortable?” I asked.

Daphne shrugged her shoulders and picked at a hangnail. “I don’t really know.”

“Hmm,” I mused. “I think she’s pretty comfortable with her Mom, don’t you? I don’t think she has issues with it, really.”

“Nah, not really,” Daphne said.

I went on. “Because you know that parents aren’t just people who give birth to a child. They’re the people that are really there for you for your whole life, who love you no matter what. Grammy and Grand-grand did everything for me. I don’t remember anything else.”

“How old were you when you were adopted?” Shaggy interrupted.

“Three weeks,” I answered.

His eyes opened wide. “They changed your diapers and everything?”

I smiled. “Yes they did. And they were there when I learned to ride a bike, when I went to my first day of school, when I graduated from High School and college, when I had a baby. I never knew anyone else. They loved me. They provided for me.”

A couple more minutes went by as Shaggy moved on to another topic and chattered along. Daphne was quiet as he rambled. The conversation we just had got stowed in the back of my mind as other things fought for attention. Bills, school starting, scheduling physicals, work. The list is never-ending and I spend my downtime (e.g., in doctor’s offices or waiting rooms, at stoplights, in line at the grocery store) organizing my thoughts and my to-do lists. Deep in thought about the best way to pack our trailer for our upcoming camping trip, I almost missed Daphne’s soft voice as she looked up from her hangnail and into my eyes.

“So…,” she said, pausing as if she was unsure how to proceed, “Being a Stepmom is kind of the same thing as adopting kids, isn’t it?”

I hastily looked down at my shoes so she she wouldn’t see the tears that suddenly filled my eyes and nodded. “Yes it is, sweetheart. Just like that.”

As I looked up to meet her eyes with a smile I hoped imparted the depths to which her comment penetrated my heart, I thanked God for giving me this bunch. No matter the pain, the cash, the frustration, the heartache… this is why I’m here.

More than just giving them to me, I thanked God for preparing me, for the experience of being an adopted child, so I could understand a love that rises above biology…

So that she could, too.

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The Guns

When I woke up this morning, I heard lots of thudding and clanking coming from the basement. Since it was only 6:30, and I had… um… sort of a long, busy weekend, I wasn’t really all that together yet. I briefly wondered if the dog had gotten out of her crate and squeezed through the cat door to wreak her own personal brand of havoc on my Christmas decorations, or if the cat might be stuck underneath something down there, but I put it out of my head in favor of a couple of more minutes of snuggling my pillow.

When my eyes finally opened for real, the sounds were still there. But I needed the hot water blast from the shower more than I needed to know what it was, so I stumbled into the bathroom to do that instead.

When I got out of the shower the sounds were gone, and my mind was a million miles down the road already. As I exited my bedroom door, bathrobe and slippers on, to see what the rest of my family members were doing (read: to keep the rest of my family members on track so we might have a shot at leaving the house prior to the year 2010), I was pleasantly surprised to see both boys in the kitchen, freshy scrubbed, completely dressed, making lunches. They both turned as I wandered in to survey their lunch-making efforts, and Freddy immediately put my mind at ease about the noises from basement.

“We worked out this morning, Mom,” he said proudly.

Let me explain that it’s the beginning of football season and both boys just finished up a week of conditioning camp. They’re both athletically inclined (which is great because I have the athletic ability of an overripe cantaloupe on a hot day), and conditioning camp inspired them to greatness. Freddy has done at least 7,985,432 pushups in the past four days, dropping to his hands and toes to “give me 50″ with a look of intense concentration in the most unlikely places–like our living room floor in the middle of Spongebob, the Wal-Mart parking lot, the entryway to our neighbor’s house, and the driveway. Shaggy has been the same, doing sprints and agility exercises every time he can squeeze them in.

“Great honey,” I replied, hunting for the Diet Dr. Pepper and a glass. “What kind of workout did you do?”

“We lifted weights!” he continued, his eyes sparkling.

Suddenly I knew exactly where the sounds in the basement had been coming from and, like any mother would, I was worried about him using the weight bench that’s been gathering dust in the cobwebbed corner down there since, oh, 2003 or so.

“Excellent,” I said cautiously, not wanting to destroy his enthusiasm. “Were you careful? Which weights did you use?”

“We were careful,” interjected Shaggy, “And we only used the two and a half pound weights.”

I nodded. “Good.”

“Do you think if I keep lifting weights I’ll get really buff, Mom?” asked Freddy.

I bit my cheeks to keep from smiling and said, “You’re nine years old. You’re not supposed to be BUFF. But exercise is good for you. Everything in moderation, OK? Let’s not get too carried away with this.”

Shaggy nodded and Freddy flexed both arms to show me the progress he’d already made.

“See Mom? These are my guns.” He nodded toward his left arm and said, “I named this one Rifle ’cause it’s not very big yet,” then nodding toward his right arm, “But this one… I named it Bazooka. It’s got potential.”

I couldn’t stop the smile this time as I nodded and then shook my head. Visions of Mr. T filled my head and I thought to myself, “It’s been a LONG time since the A-Team was on TV.”

“Yeah,” he said, still flexing as I turned back to grab my Diet Dr. Pepper, “My guns are SO big… I should be illegal!”

Illegal, indeed. Where do they come up with these things?

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The Case of the Crappy Underpants

I woke up this morning, prior to the alarm going off, to the sound of knocking on my bedroom door. I am a sleep craver, so I’m not so much excited about the knocking, particularly because I know what the outcome of the knocking will look like. Inevitably, the little voice on the other side of the door will tell me at length about some transgression visited on the owner of the voice by one of three other parties living in our home. It will be a serious transgression, one that requires instantaneous action on my part, and typically one that requires a remedy of some sort to make the injured party feel like all is right with the world again.

In the past, we’ve had knocking over what kind of sandwiches must be packed for lunch, whose turn it is to wear (insert important shared item of clothing here), who should get in the shower first, whose responsibility it is this particular morning to put the milk away since all four of them used it, and other earth-shattering and life-altering decision-making opportunities. We’ve also had knocking for bloody noses, tripping, high-sticking, goalie interference, and other sibling issues that really do end with someone in the penalty box.

After a groan and a sigh, and a peek at the clock through one mostly closed eyelid, I answered in my most patient, kind, good morning voice…

“WHAT?!?”

“We’re having an argument about underwear,” came the rather timid voice of Shaggy through the door.

“What?” I threw back, wondering if I heard him correctly. “Underwear?!? Are you aware of what time it is?”

“Yes,” he said, almost in a whisper, which is also a pet peeve of mine. If you’re going to knock on the door, loudly enough to wake me from a sound sleep, then for the love of GOD and ALL THAT IS HOLY, at least speak so I can actually hear you. My bionic ears are just not awake enough to catch everything the way they normally do… at a reasonable hour of the day… say 10 or so… after caffeine. “But we can’t agree on whose turn it is to wear the crappy underwear. I wanted to do Rock, Paper, Scissors but Freddy wouldn’t do it.”

By this point I’m shaking off the sleep and I’m valiantly trying to process this issue. Did he really just say that my involvement is required to mediate who needs to wear the crappy underwear? At 6 in the morning? Am I dreaming this? Nah, couldn’t be. I couldn’t MAKE this up.

“The crappy underwear?” I replied, feeling a little like there was an echo in our household.

“Yes,” he said again, a little more forcefully. “There’s only one pair of good underwear left and we can’t decide who should have to wear the crappy ones.”

Now let me give you a little background on this fascinating underwear issue. Shaggy and Freddy are 8 and 9 years old, respectively. They grew out of character underwear a couple of years ago. No more Scooby-Doo, Spiderman, or Spongebob for them. They became too “grown up” for that kind of nonsense. Nope, they wanted plain old solid-colored underwear. And not briefs, mind you. In fact, any color but white, and definitely not briefs. During our outing to Target to replace that “little kid” underwear with something much more mature, I was informed, in indignant tones, that tightie-whities were just not for them.

So we didn’t buy tightie-whities. And we didn’t buy any with Spongebob, superheros of any nature, or any other cartoon characters. We bought boxer briefs… in young man colors like olive green, dark blue, and black.

No white.

No briefs.

Mature colors.

I thought we had it goin’ on. So I bought, like, 752,000 packages of boxer briefs. Because two boys can wear some serious underwear. I don’t know if it’s like the disappearing socks in the dryer, or what, but it never fails that it’s Wednesday morning, we’ve done 75 loads of laundry in the past two days, and no one can find clean underwear. The obvious solution to that problem is to, you know, buy a lot more. And that’s what I did.

As they grew over the past year? I bought even more. Their drawer was practically brimming with underwear. And it seemed that I had solved the case of the missing underwear. No more knocking, early in the morning, complaining that the drawer was empty. Either they had plenty, or they learned the art of inside-out reuse… and either way really, I was fine with that. Things went along swimmingly, right up until a couple of weeks ago when a trip to Wal-Mart netted a new kind of underwear that THEY. MUST. HAVE.

Those boxer briefs? The 752,00 packages that I bought? Out. For little kids. Completely unhip and uncool. Boxers… those were the ticket. I had concerns. Boxer briefs are soft and not, uh… floppy. You know, they keep everything where it’s supposed to be, not just out there… freewheeling, for lack of a better term. Anyway, I agreed to let them try one package–three pair.

“Try them. See what you think,” I said, like any good mother would. “And then we’ll see if we want to buy more.”

I heard nothing. Not one word. Not a peep. Two full weeks have gone by and I’ve been blissfully floating through life thinking those old boxer briefs were doing the trick, thinking I’d saved myself tons of grief by not just going off half cocked and buying 752,000 packages of plain old, scratchy, floaty boxers. I was pretty proud of myself, truth be told, for not being swayed by the Wal-Mart conversation. You know the one… “I NEED TO HAVE (insert impulse buy here).” Saved lots of green… the whole deal.

We… he… hell…..

Little did I know that behind closed doors, those boxers were causing quite the issue…

Quite the issue that resulted in the knocking on my door this morning at some ungodly hour.

Back to groggy, sleepy, grouchy me. “Seriously? Are we fighting about underwear at this hour? Really? Because you couldn’t find something better to argue about, like who to vote for in the next election, the best way to solve world hunger, or something? Anything? Besides underwear?”

I wracked my brain for a workable solution to this problem. I could force the Rock, Paper, Scissors issue. I could cut the non-crappy underwear in half and make each boy wear one side. I could make them flip a coin. I could try to figure out why there were no more pairs of non-crappy underwear available when laundry had just been done. I could make them search the dryer…

As my grouchiness increased, my husband, never one to mince words, and the King of Sibling Rivalry, solved the whole thing for me. He rolled over, magically awakened from sleep (since he could sleep through all manner of craziness–loud parties, the ransacking of our home and the theft of every item in it save the bed, a complete house fire, you know the drill), and yelled…

“Both of you wear the crappy underwear! Problem solved!”

And he rolled right over and went back to sleep.

Next, I think I’ll have him tackle that world hunger thing.

God’s Country - Part Five

We spent lunchtime in the tiny town of Story, at a quaint little restaurant called the Waldorf A’Story, nestled inside the Piney Creek General Store. The store front boasts a large sign that reads “The Story Real Escape Co.” and looks a lot like the Alamo would look it it were made from river rock instead of adobe. The grocery side was about 1200 square feet, packed full of treasures and sundries. The area around the single checkout counter was filled with freezers full of ice cream and directly across from the ice cream were shelves jammed with toys of all shapes and sizes.

Further down, one aisle was all specialty Asian cuisine–I guess there’s a market for it there. Another was full of tin signs, rusted horseshoes and mismatched weathervanes–I bought one for my husband, the Green Thumb, that says “Experimental Dandelion Farm - Do Not Disturb Weeds”–and in the back was a small room filled to the gills with wine from all over the world. None of the aisles were large enough for more than one person to walk down at a time, but even the chaotic shelves (packed with gourmet food items and dog food in the same area) seemed to jive with the overall feeling that this place had it all–with no worries.

The “Restrunt,” as it’s called, was tucked into the corner of the store, separated from customers making their purchases by a double doorway. The interior was all rough-hewn log walls and ceilings, keeping corrugated aluminum in place, the logs reminiscent of the fort we had just visited. One giant log–split in half and polished to a sheen so clear I could see my face reflected in it–served as the long bench in front of the bar.

On the walls were chotchkies of every shape and size–a lifesize mannequin of a hockey player, complete with helmet and an open mouth that contained a bottle opener; hurricane lanterns; an old sled; a giant carved Indian; hot sauce labelled “Smack my Ass and Call me Sally”; and in one corner a giant buffet–deep brown mahogany, ornate and mirrored, glass figurines covering every square inch. The bathroom was far back in one corner and was the type that you had to step in, suck it in, and shut the door before you could even sit down. The kids each took a turn and each one came out laughing. It was completely charming.

The menu was just like the rest– laid-back , friendly, unhurried… like you might be having lunch at your long-lost friend’s house instead of someone’s “establishment.” Some of the culinary options were the Yullno-u-ata hoagie; The Piney Creek Soup Fer Shur (cuppa or bowla); Nuthin Butta Haffa Samich; the Mother of All Salads; and the kids’ choice… the plain, ol’ BLT. I had the Alaskan Creamery, a grown-up version of the PB&J, stuffed with smoked salmon and the cremiest Cream Cheese I’ve ever had.

We spent an hour relaxing in the tiny eatery. I let the kids drink their fill of soda, which I rarely do, while we chatted. When everyone was finally sated, we left the red and white checkered tablecloth behind and moved out front to the rocking chairs and picnic tables.

We sat for awhile in the sun, feeling full and happy, and watched the kids play in Piney Creek (that’s Piney Crick, if you’re from there). There was just enough cool breeze to make it a heavenly afternoon and the kids came back from the banks of the creek with handfuls of wildflowers–red, yellow, deep blue, purple, and white. I threaded the tiny white flowers through the braids in the girls’ hair and we sat awhile longer, listening to the sounds of the creek babbling by, and the wind whispering through the treetops.

We laughed with my Grandad and drank in the amazing scenery around us. It was good to just be with him, out in the warm afternoon sunlight. It was good to hear him laugh, that laugh that I remember from when I was a child. I wondered why I hadn’t done more of this with him over the years and vowed to get back up that way before too much more time passed.