Hello, Karma

I can't say that I have a favorite song now. But as a little girl I did. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head. I know it's an unusual kid pick and that it dates me, but still, it was my all time favorite and I knew all the words. So when I heard it yesterday, I ran into the living room to see where this blast from my past was coming from. It just so happened that it was playing on one of the kiddy channels and my five year old daughter was already center stage.

"This is the greatest song EVER!" she remarked as she twirled around, tittering to a stop in an almost arabesque-like pose. "How do you know it already?" she asked, astonished. "Well, that was my favorite song when I was your age" I said. "I thought so" she stated serendipitously "I'm the same as you".

It was a warm and fuzzy moment. Then, like a needle screeching across a record, it was interrupted. If we are the same, I thought to myself, I'm in for it. I should have named her Karma.

Just to clarify, I'm an optimist. So why does Karma have such a bitter taste when it rolls off my tongue? After all, I've done my share of good deeds. But still, it's the seedier traits that are seeming to take root - and at an early age.

She's already started to lie, a craft I perfected during my teenage years. I got my first taste of it just days earlier when I was frantically looking for my wedding ring. "Jacqueline, have you seen Mommy's ring?" "Well, maybe" she replied. She's learning, I thought. Just months earlier she had answered, "It's not in my ballerina jewelry box", blowing it all together. A rookie mistake.

The scheming has begun also. "OK, when she's not looking we'll sneak a cupcake and hide it under the bed, OK Salem?" she whispers in her brother's ear "Yeah, hide it." "Shhhhh...just talk normal, here she comes."

Is it possible that I'm using up my bad Karma first? That must be it. Whew, I was worried there for a moment. I'm sure by the time she's sixteen my Karmic retribution will have been exacted - leaving only the good. Karma Hello. It's kind of catchy!

See, I told you I was an optimist.

Shoe in the Road

On a day like today and like yesterday too
Marcy Hello saw another lost shoe

It lay there alone without its sole mate
She thought a size ten - perhaps maybe an eight

On the side of the road or the middle sometimes
They're easy to spot, not hard to find
They're everywhere, anywhere all of the time
Shoes of all makes, all sorts and all kinds

She saw one today and yesterday two
She sees them most days
If you look, so will you!

There must be a story
There just has to be
Shoes don't just fly off ones feet to be free

Shoes don't belong on the side of the road
They should be on feet, that's what she'd been told

And then a small voice from in-side her head
piped up and she listened to what the voice said

There must be some meaning to why this is this
There must be some reason for this to exist

So THINK
Use your noggin
That's what you do best
You must find the meaning
There's no time for rest

Her mind started ticking
A retort must be found
As to why these stray shoes lay alone on the ground

So she asked the one person
She thought might just know
Of course he thinks like me
He's my mate of soul

But as soon as the words left her lips-hit the air
He rolled his eyes 'round and then paused in mid stare

Why do you always think

There has to be more?
It's like what I've told you

And told you before

You dig for something that's nothing at all
You look for meaning in things big and small

You women need answers when there really are none
It's too much to handle
It ruins all the fun

A shoe's just a shoe
There's no story to be told
A shoe's just a shoe on the side of the road

Quit wondering and guessing
Don't analyze so
There's no time for this
I have to go

At first she was hurt that he didn't much care
She started to argue then out of thin air
A notion emerged-she clung to it tight
The shoe did have meaning
She knew she was right

Just because I like him
Well, most of the time
We're nothing alike inside of our minds

A shoe is to foot as a man is to chair
But women all know there's more meaning out there

The Ides of March

It's one of those phrases that I always saw on bulletin boards in grade school, but was never quite sure what was really meant....The Ides of March. Really, it shouldn't have intimidated me so, it is, after all just a day. The 15th day, to be precise and nothing really spectacular to warrant a 14th century phrase. Except for the fact that there is some UBER Dazzling jewelry to be gained from it, and what woman doesn't need that on a just another middle of the month day? A little bling here and there could be just the thing to get you through the next fifteen days of March!

Anyone who can create beauty like this deserves to be sainted. See for yourself and enter for your chance to win one of Liz Santucci's original designs.


http://uberchik.blogspot.com/

In the Bag

Every mom has a bag of tricks. It's the one accessory she would never leave the house without because in it are the essentials for survival. I fancy mine to be a Hermes-classic in style, hand-crafted to withstand the rigors of everyday use. It seemed a bit over sized when the kids were babies, because really, you just don't need that many gimmicks to get by those first couple of years.

But as my kids grow, so does their willpower and with it the contents of my bag-at an alarming rate. When I find a trick that works well, I tend to use it until the newness wears off. This, I'm finding out is not best practice, because once a trick is used up, you must find another to replace it with. My daughter no longer believes that if she eats all her broccoli, her eyes will shine like a pony and my son has dismissed the idea that superheroes indeed take naps.

On occasion I've borrowed [stolen] tricks from others. The poop monster is alive and well and has my daughter flushing the potty on a consistent basis these days. I've not witnessed a floater since I fleeced him from my good friend and co-momma Cynthia. And I still can't believe this jig works, but it does. When it's clean-up time and my pleas for help are as impotent as a Charles Schultz adult character, I reach deep into the bag until I feel her jeweled crown and ermine cloak. Yes, the Queen Mum herself beseeches her subjects to make tidy the royal palace. Her subjects, not wanting to displease the Queen, work fervently to stay in her good graces.

I carry my bag with confidence these days, who knows, maybe in a couple of years I can downsize to something a little less bulky. But for now, bigger is better.

The Party Favor

It's occurring to me, with each milestone of Mommydum, that I live in the moment. Really, it's just almost impossible not to. Keeping up with the day-to-day goings on and trying to stay on top of the business of growing children leaves little time (or energy) for retrospection or future mapping. Of course, I have the obligatory baby books, which I cram full of artwork, well-check updates and class pictures. I also dutifully contribute to the college savings fund; (or as in my half Lebanese daughters case, the 'Eyebrow Waxing Fund', whichever proves most beneficial at her eighteenth birthday). But still, I have this gnawing feeling that I'm forgetting the here and now, even as I am experiencing it.

There's always a trace of truth in sayings that have become commonplace. Things like, Don't look a gift horse in the mouth or They grow up so fast. Sometimes they don't impact you until you hear them in just the right context or time in your life.

When my first was still in infancy, I would mentally roll my eyes each time I heard it. Surely they had no idea what I was going through, I thought. The long sleepless nights, the frustration and constant search for the perfect soothing method, the seemingly endless days of diaper changes and spit-up stains. Time was definitely not zipping by, in fact, it had slowed to a snails pace with each day oozing into the next.

As a mother of toddlers, I became accustomed to hearing the words, "Kids these days" or some variation of it....."I don't remember you acting that way".....blah blah blah. As if children today where completely unrelated creatures to those of us who grew up in the previous generation and time had mercurially leaped forward, leaving in its wake a generation of heathens. Did she truly not remember the endless bickering and constant whining? She said it so convincingly, I too began to wonder if it had at all happened.

But, as my three year old started his first day of preschool last week, wearing his 'big boy underwear' it dawned on me that time had indeed flown by. Gone are the days of diaper changing and bottle making. And in the blink of an eye, I am entering a new dimension. It's as if becoming a mom has somehow changed the very essence of time. It no longer follows any logical pattern. It's slippery in substance, bittersweet in taste.

I choose to look at it as Gods little party favor. As I turn to leave the 'Baby Party' that seemed as if it would never end; I am handed a neat little package. Its contents are the moments in time that defined an era, first smiles, words and walking. The editing room floor strewn with those frames that didn't make the cut. And my mind, trying in vain to grasp, the ever evolving definition of time.