Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Archives for May 2017

I’m Sorry, Tired Baby Mamas, I Forgot

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I woke up this morning feeling twice as tired as I’d felt when I went to sleep. My eyes were blurry. My head felt stuffed with cheese. I wasn’t thinking clearly. In fact, the only clear thought in my head was a strong urge to never leave my bed again.

I had been up in the night with a sick kid.

And I don’t really do that anymore. Maybe three times a year. Usually, they tell me in the morning, “Mom, I felt sick last night.”

And I, fresh and chipper as a non-morning-person can be say, “Oh man. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help you now, today, in the beautiful light of actual morning?”

All is as it should be.

But last night, my 7-year-old was up with a bad cough. And, after I’d had 4 hours of sleep (which I realize is a long stretch to most moms of young babies) she came to the side of my bed, coughed wetly into my face and said, “Moooom. I feel awful. Can I sleep with you?”

Sure. Why not? Awful is my favorite kind.

She then proceeded to sniff loudly every single time she breathed in and cough explosively every fourth time she breathed out. She shifted around and asked for water… with ice… and begged me to take her temperature. She hugged me and pushed me away and smushed up against my back.

Now there’s something cute in all this. There’s something fun about being needed. But, a few hours later, when my alarm went off and I felt like dead trampled dog meat, nothing was cute.

She sat up cheerfully and hopped from the bed.

“Get back here,” I said, “I can’t justify staying in bed and not helping the middle schoolers get ready if you are no longer sleeping. And I am incapable of moving because my brains are missing. We will sleep for two more hours.”

She sighed and climbed back next to me.

**SNIFF**SNIFF**SNIFF**COUGH!!

Right now it’s noon and I’m still in my pajamas.

The breakfast dishes are undone and I can’t quite wrap my head around showering.

And I think of you, moms of babies. And I realize that I forgot. Many things.

I remembered the cuteness and the squishy thighs. I remembered the closeness of nursing a sweet little baby in the peace of the dark night. I remembered everything wonderful about my little sweet snuggle lumps.

But I forgot the brain fog. I forgot the intense, all-consuming desire for sleep and the way your days are ¼ as long because you are not mentally aware enough for the hours to count as “waking”. I forgot what it’s like to sit and wonder whether your eyes are all the way open because everything is such a blur.

I just forgot.

And I salute you. Whenever you get dressed. Or show up on time for your older kids’ music class. Or make something for dinner that’s not cooked in the microwave. You are rock stars. And don’t let the fact that no one else remembers what it’s like make you feel bad.

I’ve often thought it would be cool to go back and write a time management book for new moms, now that I’ve got things figured out a bit more.

This morning I realized that the book would have to read something like this:

How to Get Your Crap Together as a New Mom

1. Wait 6 months until you can get more than 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
2. Take a shower.
3. Resume normal activities.

As for today, I will accomplish… Octonauts.

Awesome Lyrics – The Probability of You and I Resuming Our Courtship is Extremely Low

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Awesome Lyrics is a series where I make sense of popular songs through a comprehensive translation.

Today I tackle a lyrical translation of “We Are Never Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift.

I recall when we originally stopped seeing each other. I communicated that I was fed up because we had been separated for several weeks when you told me you wanted some time apart. This made no sense.

But then you returned and told me you had longed for my company and gave your solemn promise to mend your ways. You asked me to have faith in you. But, if you’ll recall, it was not 24 hours before you violated the very trust you had so desperately pleaded for.

I voiced my anger and dislike in the strongest possible terms. We terminated our relationship. But then you reached out to me via telephone and my amorous feelings returned.

Sadly, yesterday evening, we were forced to cease our association once more.

I’m finally at a place where I can communicate with utmost assurance that the probability of you and I resuming our courtship is extremely low. EXTREMELY, extremely low.

You may want to have a dialogue with your network, or correspond with my associates, or even interact with me personally. But the fact remains that the probability of you and I resuming our courtship is exceedingly slim, exceedingly.

I may look back with fondness on the times you sought to engage me in verbal conflict and I was duped into participating loudly and indignantly. At these times, you would withdraw and seek personal clarity through listening to independently-produced music, which you felt was superior to the recordings I have made.

This evening, I received another telephone call from you. However, it pains me to inform you that the probability of you and I resuming our courtship remains extremely low.

As stated previously, whether you discuss it with me or with the people with which either of us closely associate, the chances of a reconciliation are close to zero.

I previously entertained the notion that our relationship would last indefinitely. And I formerly said I could not close the door completely on reuniting with you at some juncture.

[He reaches out to me via telephone and pontificates that he still feels an amorous connection to me and it wears me out to the point where my energy is depleted entirely. This is likely due to the fact that I am convinced there is no longer any chance of a reconciliation, really any chance at all.]

The probability of you and I resuming our courtship remains practically non-existent.

Me and My Dinosaur

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As we were preparing for the elementary school musical last night, Wanda said, “I want to have my hair down for the show.”

This is code for, “It would be my greatest pleasure to look like my mom forgot to comb my hair tonight. She is bad at hygiene.”

“You’re supposed to look like an animal. How about if I put it in two little buns that look like ears?!”

“No.”

Somehow, I convinced her to let me try it and see if she liked it. Messy buns. She loves messy buns because they make her look like a high school volleyball player. She doesn’t know that’s why. But, that’s pretty much why.

Not this time. This time, the messy buns  made  her sob.

“Please, Mom, please. Don’t make me wear my hair like this!”

“But it’s the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“I KNOW!! I LOOK LIKE A TODDLEEEERRRRRRR! WAAAHHHH!”

We compromised with a Rey-From-Star-Wars-Style mohawk, like a mane… to go with her bat costume. And then this morning I wore my hair in two cute buns to the bus stop. I guess I showed her… something.

Our amazing school music teacher puts on about a million musical productions at the end of each school year. She. Works. HORD.

So hard, in fact, that the kids get confused by it.

Tonight at dinner, Wanda said, “Our music teacher lives at the school, like actually lives there. She eats her meals there. She sleeps there. It’s her home.”

While Laylee and Magoo tried to convince her there was no way this was true, I preferred to ask for details.

“Really? That is so interesting. Do all your teachers live at the school?”

She looked at me in disbelief. “No, mom! Just the music teacher.”

“Who told you this?”

“Pretty much Mrs. Q.” (the first-grade teacher)

So I asked Mrs Q about it at the performance tonight. She laughed and said we need to teach Wanda what an “idiom” is. When we say, “The music teacher lives at the school, it is not, necessarily, literal.” Maybe some teachers do. But ours doesn’t. Some men live in airports. Their names are Tom Hanks.

Anyway, the show tonight is one that’s been recycled every few years and it turns out to be the same one Laylee performed in her early days of elementary school. It also turns out that both girls had a solo in the same song. It is our family legacy.

Laylee:

And 7 years later, Wanda:

The force is strong with these two.

I will point out a few of things.

1. Laylee’s costume is better because parents weren’t in charge of finding costumes that year.
2. Wanda’s costume was made for three-year-old Magoo and it’s riding mighty high on her, but she refuses to relinquish it. She treasures it greatly
3. Wanda was robbed of a dramatic exit when the music teacher told her to stay at the mic until the end of the song and I feel that most keenly. The exit was really where Laylee got the chance to establish herself as a consummate performer on the elementary stage. Wanda, alas, may never get that chance.

The Birthday Bird and Other Gifts of Love

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Last week we celebrated the day Dan’s mom went to great pains to bring him into the world. His birthday’s always close to Mother’s Day so I always think of his mother. Bearing and raising kids is no joke. Raising good ones is miraculous.

He’s a good one.

And thusly do the peasants rejoice.

We rejoice with songs and cakings and trappings of all kinds. This year I gave the kids complete freedom in their gift giving. Well, with one exception. I did point Magoo in the direction of the T-Rex salt and pepper shakers and he was more than happy to ride that train to the last stop.

They were a perfect gift because Dan loves salt and pepper and he wears bowtie and… T-REX! Appropriately these came from Magoo, Magoo for whom Dan composed and performed a special dad song, entitled, “There’s a Big T-Rex Coming Down the Mountain to Eat Me,” nearly every night of his young life.

Wanda’s gifts were not song-related, unless you’re referring to bird song. She gave Dan this.

If you guessed that it’s a motion-activated singing plastic bird in mini real estate fashioned from reclaimed barn wood, you are correct. We found it at a craft fair. Bird $12. Bird WITH real estate? $15 A no-brainer, really.

But the bird + house was not quite enough for Wanda so we stepped into a local gift shop where she saw this and her eyes lit up.

“You know, how sometimes in church, you want to say something to someone on another bench but you’re not supposed to talk? This would be perfect! We should get it for him.”

And so we did. And a shiny rock from a shiny rock bin. The rock is not pictured here, as I was unable to locate it. Most likely Dan has spirited it away to his collection of very special things and it is therefore beyond my reach.

Dan wrote the current note on the sign to wave at recent dinner guests as they left, as to avoid verbal communication. Wanda thought it was for when you “aren’t supposed to.” Dan prefers to use it when he’d “rather not.”

And finally, Laylee Practicing-Is-Lame Thompson came up with the idea for this awesome gift.

He loves Laylee. He loves hearing her play. He loves jamming and talking music with her. So, she with her tenor saxophone and he with his alto, can duet the night away in dad and teenage daughter musical bliss.

Seriously though, how thoughtful is that? I could not think of a better gift idea. The girl has skills. For reals.

We’re glad he’s alive. He’s probably the best one that I know of.

And now any time he or anyone else steps on our front porch, they hear this: