My Happy Place

On April 7, 2015January 30, 2016 By aftheadIn stories6 Comments

The log house sits at the end of a long gravel driveway. After four hours of driving I welcome the colorful flags of Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, and Mardi Gras fluttering hello as we drive past. I park between the garage and the bunkhouse and open the car door to breathe in the humid fresh air.

The simple house blocks our view of the lake, as my daughter and I unpack the car, but the mosquitoes and horse flies nibbling our DEET free ankles remind us where we are. We rush in to hello kisses and hugs and then down the stairs to the walkout basement where our bunk bed waits in the middle of the family room. We open our suitcases and strip down to nothing and then shimmy into our stiff clean swimsuits. No matter what time we show up the first thing we must do is jump in the lake. Traditionally it is evening. The setting sun makes long back lit tree shadows stretch up the hill. Minnows dart around our feet and bald eagles soar overhead. Laughing we look for the three loons that inhabit the lake every year. Loons mate for life, so why are there three? Two wives and one husband? One wife and two husbands or something even more exotic? Three husbands?

Every year, and it has been five now, the passage of time is clarified. My two year old daughter with her sand filled diaper has grown to a long lean girl on the edge of bravery. Each year she stretches farther and risks more because at the lake parent worries are leeches and ticks between toes and not the unspecific fears of city life. Wonders await: berries are plump waiting to be picked; frogs are hiding in the twilight waiting to be grabbed; sunfish after sunfish fly out of the lake on shimmering lines waiting to be fried up for dinner by grandpa.

Some traditions are made, Easter brunches, Passover senders, Christmas Eve and Day all have their arbitrary flow. Other traditions just happen when the “if we are going to the lake this year” becomes a foregone conclusion of when. When will we pick berries? When will we picnic on the pontoon boat? When are the turtle races? When are we going to light the bonfire and have s’mores? The magic is new every year as the kids grow and the families change and the tradition morphs to a new fun. Every year we stay a little longer and every year we wish we had just one more day.

Nightmare of a Working Mom

On March 22, 2015March 22, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized6 Comments

This Thursday it happened. I was walking from my office to my car reveling in my accomplishments of the day. I’d given a great presentation. I was creating a valuable partnership with our CIO. My curling offsite the day before had been a really great team bonding event. Kudos were flowing. Yep, I was pretty awesome. Then my phone rang. It was my husband asking if I had remembered to pick up our daughter. Our daughter who had finished play practice 15 minutes earlier at school, 40 minutes away from where I was. Our daughter who I hadn’t forgotten in 6 and a half years.

My stomach dropped as I realized what I had done. The other line rang. It was a friend of ours who’s daughter was in the same class. (We’ll call our friend E.) I clicked over. E was calling to tell me that another mom, S, had called her because S didn’t have my number. My daughter was with S, and S was willing to take her home, or E offered for my daughter to go to her husband’s classroom to wait for me. (His name is K.) I took her up on the offer of going to the classroom. I called S, thanked her for saving my daughter and asked her to take her up to K’s classroom. S agreed and said she was happy to help. I then called my husband who headed out to get our daughter from school. All this happened in less than 10 minutes, and by the time I was in my car, 30 minutes from school, I knew she was safe.

As I drove home I felt horrified at myself, awfulized what could have been (my own specialty), and then realized that it was all okay: really honestly okay. The village had made sure my kiddo was safe.

This is the schizophrenic life of a working mom. There are a lot of balls in the air. In one half of your life you are a rock star and in the other half you cut corners. Then you flip it. This week I missed my daughter’s weather presentation and forgot to pick her up. The week before that I skipped out of work two days to help take care of my sick brother. Two weeks from now I’m missing spring break for a work trip, but that Friday I’m skipping another work meeting to spend the last day of spring break at home. It’s constant negotiation, and I am so lucky to have a job and a family situation that gives me this kind of flexibility. My mantra is “You can have it all, but you can’t have all of it all the time.” That’s easy to say and hard to live. I make mistakes. I cut corners. Sometimes I totally mess up. I am way too hard on myself, but I’m working on it. Perfection just isn’t a reasonable expectation anymore.

I wouldn’t trade it though. I wouldn’t give up my job to ensure that I never missed a pick up from school. (Because the truth is, I probably would forget her at some point. My mom forgot my brother once and she stayed home with us.) I love my daughter, but I know if I was home all the time I would get sucked into her life. I’d become a helicopter parent because I wouldn’t be able to separate my life from the most important person in my life. I also know that one of the things that helps me be the best mom I can is my mom network and lots of those ladies are in the office. I couldn’t give up my deep, meaningful conversations about our families in the 2 minutes it takes to pee.

Stall 1: “My daughter was diagnosed with a severe learning disability.”
Stall 2: “Oh no, how did you find out?”
Stall 1: “Testing at school” FLUSH
Stall 2: “Do you have someone you can talk to?” FLUSH
Sink 1: “No. This really sucks.”
Sink 2: “I am so sorry. I have a friend who is a child therapist. Do you want her number?”
Sink 1: “That would be great.”
Sink 2: “I’ll send it before my next meeting starts.”
Sink 1: Drying her eyes with the wet paper towel, “Do I look okay.”
Sink 2: “A little red-eyed, but no one will notice.”
Hugs

Being a mom is hard. I have harshly judged others for mistakes I then made. I strive to be patient with myself and all the other parents I know because all the choices are hard. All the decisions have upsides and downsides. We all do our best, and then help others when they aren’t doing their best. A working mom, a stay-at-home mom, another working mom, and two working dads all helped make sure my kid was safe this week. While I don’t EVER plan on doing that again I’ll sleep a little better knowing that my nightmare actually had an okay ending.

Being a Grown-Up

On March 15, 2015August 20, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized7 Comments

Remember when all you wanted to be was a grown-up? People would stop telling you what to do, what to wear, and how to act and you would be in charge? Well, I hate being a grown-up. Some weeks I’m okay with the fact that when I’m lying in bed throwing my booger filled tissues on the floor that two days later, as the grown-up, I am going to have to pick up the remainders of my cold. Some weeks I can deal with the fact that I can’t blame anyone else when my sweater shrinks, we run out of diet Dr Pepper, or when the back door is left unlocked. My husband and I use grown-up as the code word to tell our kid she can’t do something she wants to, like sliding down the booth to the floor of the restaurant to enjoy a fine whine. “Be the grown-up,” the one sitting across from her will snark at the one sitting next to her. The grown-up will have to haul her up, lecture her, and be the bad guy for the rest of the day.

This week grown-up went a little too far. Do I go to my friend’s dad’s funeral or go visit my brother in the hospital? Do I keep my cat on dialysis, at the cost of $1000 per day, or do I let the 7 year old feline we adore die a slow painful death? Do I go see our family shrink so she can shed some light on familial turmoil or do I make that critical meeting at work that will build bridges and may set me up for my next promotion? Oh, and the damn dishwasher broke, so I have plenty of time to ponder these decisions while I scrub gross cat food bowls and egg crusted pans. This morning while I was scrubbing I really should have been working on that $700,000 proposal for work, but whatever. The manual labor grown-up task won.

I don’t want to be 18, or 23 or 30 again, but I want one day as not a grown-up. I want to go lay in the hammock because it’s a nice day. I want to go meet my girlfriends for happy hour and not worry about when I need to get home. If I decide I want to get drunk I want to get drunk. I want someone else to pick up my snotty tissues for me if I do the not-grown-up thing and cry about all this crap going on.

Now, I have to stop playing on my blog and go do some dishes, or write a proposal, or call my brother. Ugh! Grown-up sucks.

Afthead Mardi Gras – Best Day Ever

On March 3, 2015March 16, 2015 By aftheadIn Best Day EverLeave a comment

I missed posting for a week. Well, I can’t say I missed posting, because I was at Mardi Gras with my husband and my daughter. Yes, we took our daughter to Mardi Gras, for the second time. Now before you call child protective services and have her taken away from me, let me tell you, Mardi Gras isn’t how you are imagining it in your head. We saw no boobs. Yeah, we saw some drinking, some public affection, some R-rated costumes, but we didn’t see the stereotypical Mardi Gras.

If you have never been you should find a friend who grew up in New Orleans, or went to college in New Orleans, or lives in New Orleans and schedule a trip. It is the closest thing to pure fun I have ever experienced. It’s marching bands, and dance troops, and old guy dance troops, and floats. The floats are like nothing you have ever experienced. They are huge and satirical and filled with men and women throwing presents at you. Yes they throw beads, but also stuffed animals, footballs, Frisbees, toys, hats, costumes and instruments. There are little kids sitting safely in these awesome ladder seats. There are bigger kids on their parents shoulders reaching right up to the float, and there are slightly bigger kids running after the float cheering, yelling and screaming, “Throw me something mister!” and normally the mister (or misses) throws something.

Yeah, the crap is made in China. Yeah, the guys on the floats look a little like KKK members. Yeah, there is a very obvious class separation. While I can recognize those unsavory details today, when I am at the parade I just don’t care, because it is so much fun. Do I really want that white feather boa my daughter begged for? No, and neither does she. It is itchy and sheds feathers. But at that moment it was the best catch of the day. It was glamorous and envied. Right now I look at the giant beads hanging in my studio, and I marvel that a 40 year old woman (and her 42 year old friend) could have received such attention. (I did not bear my breasts for them, thanks for wondering.)

At Mardi Gras we stood side by side with strangers and we had fun together. A lady I’d never met and never saw again picked up a special bracelet thrown to me, because I had a 45 pound kid on my shoulders. A family who had been holding their spot at Bacchus for ten hours welcomed us to their tent. We caught beads for their kids and they gave us frosty cold beers. We shook our heads together when the twenty year old threw up in their tent. I laughed with the woman next to me when someone threw beads onto her outstretched arms. She was dancing not asking for beads, but it was a great shot. We had a spaghetti dinner at our friend’s church for $10 (which also gave us the use of their bathroom all night) and then they sold us $3 wine and beer to enjoy while watching the parade. Having fun with strangers is even better than having fun with people you know.

There is magic at Mardi Gras. We had a dragon breathe fire at us, causing a white out in our vision, but not burning us. Our kids ran up to huge floats blind to their tiny frames and they didn’t get run over. Doubloons are thrown, and those gold, red, purple and silver coins are more valuable to my 6-year-old than the real dollars the tooth fairy brings. If I hold them now their clinking and glinting brings back the magic and the fun.

The Tooth Fairy Correspondence – Tooth Seven

On February 23, 2015February 23, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Our family has a running correspondence with The Tooth Fairy (TTF). Ever since the first tooth fell out on a family vacation my daughter has needed to write to Ms. Fairy. She’s made presents and asked questions. Every time, Ms. Fairy is kind enough to respond. The seventh tooth was lost this weekend and as I was reading the first solo-child-written note and the response from Fidget, our Tooth Fairy’s name, I thought it would be fun to share our correspondence. So without further ado…

Tooth Fairy Note — Letter to The Tooth Fairy for the seventh lost tooth.

In case you can’t read first-grader here is a translation:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I made this necklace for you and this picture for you because I love you.

P.S. Will you put 2 extra $1 and my friends pillow? Thank you.

In case you don’t understand the above translation, let me translate. My daughter made a tiny rubber band necklace for TTF, and drew a picture of a bloody tooth (so sweet) for her. We happened to have friends spending the night, so she also secretly asked for TTF to bring additional $1 coins for her two friends. She wanted to surprise her friends (so sweet). The note, tooth and bloody picture all went under her pillow and she and her two friends went to sleep hoping for a visitor overnight.

The next morning we found the following note from TTF:

The girls were delighted to all get gold coins from TTF and, as always, TTF was great at telling my daughter what she really needs to hear right now: she’s brave, she’s doing great at school, and she’s thoughtful. We are so lucky to have such a great Tooth Fairy at the Afthead house!

A mom is born

On February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I remember being a new mom. Not in a sharp focused kind of way but in a hazy overwhelmed kind of way. It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. This tiny, tiny, tiny person I had been growing in my belly was now one hundred percent dependent on me to live. I mean, it had been that way from the get go, but all I had to do was eat and sleep and, let’s face it, take care of myself and she grew and did all the development things she was supposed to do. Then she came out and the tide shifted. Her entire existence was dependent on me being able to figure things out: how to get her to take nourishment from my body; how to wake her up to take nourishment, and how to keep stuffed animals out of her crib (because they would surely suffocate her). I had no idea what I was doing, but I felt the importance of figuring it out every moment.

Not only did I have no idea what I was doing, but upon the birth of my baby, no one cared about me anymore. The metaphor for this was the doctor appointments. At the end of my pregnancy I went to the doctor every week. They’d weigh me and make me pee in a cup and listen to the baby’s heart and tell me how dilated I was and how well baby was growing. Then she was born and it was “we’ll see you in 8 weeks,” but the baby, oh the baby had to go to the doctor all the time. She wasn’t growing. She was failing to thrive. We went to lactation clinics at the hospital. She got a birthmark at four weeks: a horrible raised blood red blotch that I thought I caused and knew would make “them” take her away from me. (I still don’t know who “they” are, these baby-taker-awayers.) At my 8 week appointment I was told I could have sex again, how to check my IUD, and “See you in a year!” I did not want sex. I wanted a shower and a hug and a daily recognition of the amazing work I was doing because my daughter was still alive.

I remember walking into my in-laws house and having my mother-in-law swoop up my baby girl to adore her and not even say hello to me. I remember my dad, my dad who loves me more than anything, turning to my daughter first when he visited. Thank goodness for my mom who loved my baby girl, but I know loved me more in those early days. Without her adoration and attention my loss of self and my daughter’s birthmark would have driven me over the edge. I was so inexperienced and so ignored.

Now when a new baby comes into my world I head straight to the hospital. I bring a gift bag filled with “People” magazine, chocolate, Skittles, the new mom’s favorite beverage (yes, I have brought wine and beer) and maybe a little something for the baby. I walk in and go right to the dazed woman in the bed, who is desperately checking to make sure her pained and engorged breasts aren’t showing, and I ask her, “How are you?” I don’t even bother to look at the baby. Besides, the infant is surrounded by a phalanx of grandparents, friends and relatives, because everyone wants to see the baby that’s been born. Me? I want to see the mom that’s been born, because that is a miracle too and she should be celebrated.

The Death of a Matriarch

On January 15, 2015January 15, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I was looking through my closet tonight trying to decide what I’m going to wear to the funeral this weekend. l have a hard and fast rule that I only wear things to a funeral that I am willing to never wear again on the off-chance that it becomes “the dress/pants/sweater I wore to Emily’s funeral”.

Funerals make me sad, and that’s hard as part of my husband’s family. They are quiet-solemn sad people. I am a blubbering red-swollen-face sad person who blows her nose, a lot, and they tend to avoid me at funerals. I do acknowledge that in this situation, my awkward fear of sobbing in front of them is nothing compared to their pain. Emily was their matriarch: mother of four, grandmother to seven, great-grandmother to my daughter and three others with three more great-grandchildren on the way. Her 95 years on this planet were full of learning, creativity and love.

Emily was an inspirational, story-telling, life-loving matriarch. I am jealous of my husband, and my in-laws as I see the Facebooked and e-mailed pictures of Emily. In one, she is pulling her grandkids on a sled dressed like Jackie O. In another, she has two kids on her back playing horse. My husband is unusually sentimental when he talks about his summers with Emily: eating fudge swirl ice cream and sugared cereals. She loved her family ferociously and they loved her.

I didn’t know her like they knew her. Our relationship was focused in short intense visits with my husband where we would sit and talk with her for hours. She awed me with her experiences every time I saw her. I remember clearly the day I said to her, with the hubris of a 21st century mother, “I just don’t know how you did it, having four kids.” She replied, “We didn’t have any way to stop them from coming.” Her stories of boiling diapers and feeding two babies with one bottle – because when you can’t stop pregnancy the babies come close – they weren’t just nostalgic stories: they were her life. Her stories about boarding with a family and cleaning their house so she could go to college to be a math teacher put in perspective how much she valued education and what she had to sacrifice to do what I took for granted.

On Saturday I will go and mourn with Emily’s friends and family, and celebrate her life and how she enriched our lives. I will shamelessly cry for her family and what they have lost. I will cry for the end of her stories. I will bring extra tissues in case this time the loss is great enough to open other’s flood-gates. Today though, I write to remember her and to bring her essence to a few more people, because not long ago she said to me that I should be a writer. While I never told her about my novel or my new writing avocation, her words inspire. Today I write a little of her story to thank her for the extra confidence she gave me, because I never thanked her in person.

Now I’ll go pack my favorite grey sweater and black boots for the funeral, because remembering Emily often might be an okay thing.

The Magic of Christmas at Six

On January 8, 2015March 16, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The holidays are over but next year, I beg you, go find a six-year-old to spend Christmas with you. It’s the closest thing to magic I’ve experienced in my adult life.

The wonder starts from the moment elves on the shelves start their creepy spying from bookcases and shower heads and ovens. (No elf on the shelf at our house: too beady-eyed stalkerish for me thanks.) The parental threats of “Santa’s watching” with every misdemeanor cannot squelch the excitement. Santa’s watching is a mystery to be explored. He knows if you’ve been bad or good is a rule to ponder. Santa Claus is coming to town is a fact full of anticipation. Rudolph’s colleagues would be sued for discrimination in this day in age – shun the different guy – is a parental minefield.

At six though, the magic isn’t just in the belief; it’s in the new-found logic ability.

“Mom, that Santa at the mall, he’s not the real Santa. The real Santa is too busy getting ready for Christmas at the North Pole. Why is that fake guy here? He’s scary.”

“Why do you think he’s here honey?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you believe in him last year?”

“Yeah… oh… he’s there for the little kids. The ones who don’t understand that Santa is real and needs to be at the North Pole with the elves. They need to see him, even if he is scary. I’m a big kid now, so I know better, but I won’t tell the little kids.”

The joy of that interaction: the unquestioning belief in the real Santa and all the work he needs to do; the logic of the scary fake Santas; the pride of figuring things out; and the understanding that you don’t ruin it for the little kids. That my friends is a Christmas present of joy wrapped in belief wrapped in magic wrapped in logic wrapped in empathy in a box of parental astonishment right there.

I was almost sad to see Christmas morning knowing that six won’t last until next year. There were only a few pictures as I immersed myself in the moment.

“Mom! Santa gave me coal in my stocking, but I got other stuff too. I bet I got it because he knows I love rocks and would want to study it.”

“I’m sure you are right sweetie.”

Merry Christmas wishes from the Afthead family to you and yours. Wishing you and us magic at the holidays for years to come.

Introductions

On January 6, 2015 By aftheadIn Uncategorized5 Comments

I guess the first step here is to introduce myself. So far I’ve been yammering on like a new hire at orientation without the good sense to tell you a bit about myself. By now you are probably rolling your eyes and wishing you had sat next to someone else. My apologies for being rude and self absorbed. I’ve never been much for small talk. So here goes:

I am a manager of a team of 13 web developers, database administrators, analysts and projects managers and have a degree in chemical engineering
I am a mom to a first grader which means I am also a soccer coach, a working mother, a doer of laundry, and owner of two cats, one hamster, about 50 snails and a host of roly polies.
I am a crafter with a primary focus on knitting, but also enjoy sewing
I am a reader, currently engrossed in John Scalzi’s “Lock In” and listening to Stephen King’s “On Writing”

While I think this all makes me a fascinating well rounded person, it does not explain why I am publically entering the blogosphere. I am also an aspiring writer and novelist (holy crap it is scary to write that out loud.) My first book is about half done and was abandoned because my second book couldn’t be ignored. It flew out of me in a frenzy, and the story took my breath away. I was about three quarters done when my husband suffered a major depressive episode. (He doesn’t believe in half-assing anything.) I sporadically worked on my book, but life took so much out of me that I had no emotional energy left to give and the project languished.

In November my husband was declared cured, for this episode, and I had my own mini-breakdown. Then, my characters started calling to me again, so it’s time to start writing. This time I’m going two directions: the blog and the novel.

Why the blog? Well, it’s really because I could buy the afthead domain and I love the idea of aftheads. I also have the occasional story that has nothing to do with my novel. I am not really sure what I hope to get out of the blog. I make a good living, so I don’t need to make money from it. I guess I’m looking for some virtual companionship while I go on this new journey into the writing world.

Nice to meet you!