One of my favorite things about marriage is experiencing the different stages. Right now I’m going through a stage where I can’t stand to be away from Josh. This actually goes against my natural temperament. I usually enjoy breaks from all human interaction so I can “unwind.” But, I think this new attachment has a lot to do with the fact that we got back from a vacation a week ago and I was spoiled by him being with me the entire week with no break. Now that we’re home from vacation and Josh is back at work, I’m having a tough time. I miss him during the day and want him home. I’ve tried tricking him into coming home for breaks during the work day. For example, I’ll IM him and tell him I can’t figure out how to work the coffee pot and I’m desperate for coffee. Sometimes he falls for my manipulation, but most of the time he sees right through my trickery.
Josh gets one day off a week and that is on Fridays. We try to keep Fridays free so we can spend time together as a family, but sometimes unavoidable things come up. Yesterday was Josh’s day off; however, he had a meeting in Portland he had to go to. I talked him into letting the kids and I tag along. We all piled into the car and I turned on the DVD player for the kids and Josh and I had great conversation on our 3 hour trip. Actually, we didn’t talk the entire time…there were some quiet moments. But, I was happy just to be with him.
We got to Portland, grabbed some lunch and then Josh dropped us off at a mall so he could get to his meeting. The kids and I wandered around for a bit. They were the first to spot the Disney Store, but I’m still in a Disney mood and was more than happy to explore. They had a bunch of T-shirts on sale for $5 each, so I let the kids pick out a few. I hunted down a Jasmine T-shirt for Lilly, but she said she wanted a Minnie Mouse shirt because she knows that I adore Minnie Mouse. Titus went straight for the Bruce the shark shirt. Only manly man shirts for him…don’t even bother with Mickey Mouse or Pooh…they’re for sissies. LOL!!! We met a lady in the store who used to drive the horse-drawn carriages at Disneyland. She was so sweet and even took the time to look through the kids’ autograph book of Disney characters that I still had in my purse.
After our Disney fix, we went back out into the mall and found a kids-play-while-mommy-takes-a-break area. The kids emptied my purse of all my quarters and rode some rides and emptied the gumball machines and played in the play area.
I was watching them play and make new friends and all of a sudden a mom came in with her 18 month old daughter and I watched her with her daughter and had to laugh. I laughed because I realized that moms with their first-born daughters between the ages of 1 and 2 are a different breed. I know, because I was one about 4 years ago. The mom of an 18 month old daughter thinks that her princess is the most adorable thing that anybody in the entire universe has ever laid eyes on. She protects her mini-diva by doing the mommy-hover. The mommy floats over her daughter and watches her every move, ready to catch mini-diva if she happens to trip and fall on her precious padded princess bum. The play area is the princess’ castle and all other children are evil fire-breathing dragons that could swoop down at any moment to do harm to the little princess.
As I mentioned before…I know this, because I was one of these moms at one time.
After playing for awhile, the princess and her mommy left and then two more mini-divas showed up. I overheard the moms comparing notes and found out that both princesses were 17 months old…although one was almost 18 months…according to grand-mommy. The exact same thing happened. The mommy-hover started. I was laughing inside and wondered if anybody else observed this phenomenon. It was all fine and dandy until the grandmommy of one of the princesses started to treat my son like the evil fire-breathing dragon she believed him to be. My 3 year old climbed up the slide and took a second to stand up on the top. He stood there for no more than 3 seconds when grandmommy told him that he needed to get down so that other kids could play on the slide (i.e., move your fire-breathing face off the toy that queenie wants to play in, because this whole world was created for her and not evil boys like you.) This was actually the second time princess’s grandmommy addressed my son, so I took the opportunity to relieve her of the pressure of having to protect princess from the evils of the world and take my fire-breathing dragon out of the play area. It was about time to meet up with Josh anyways. I still thought my new observation was funny and realized the cure for this disease is the birth of a second child…especially when the second child is a boy. God knew what He was doing by giving me a son…and I couldn’t be more grateful.
I remember one time I was at the library when one of these mini-divas and mommy where walking around after toddlin’ tales story time. This mommy watched her princess take another child’s toy right out of this poor victim-child’s stroller and walk off with it. Victim’s mommy had a shocked look on her face and got ready to snatch it back from the thief, until she realized that the thief/mini-diva’s mommy was watching the whole thing with a isn’t-my-daughter-the-most-beautiful-thing-you’ve-ever-seen look on her face. Mini-diva walked off with the other kid’s toy and eventually dropped it, only for it to be scooped up quickly by victim’s mommy.
Anyways…back to yesterday. I dragged the kids into Starbuck and ordered two child’s hot chocolates for my mini-diva-in-recovery and my fire-breathing dragon, a grande two-pump, extra hot mocha for Josh and a grande blackberry green tea frappuccino for myself. Josh picked us up and we hit the freeway, only to find out that there had been a car accident and we were stuck in slow-moving traffic for almost an hour. We stopped in Woodburn and grabbed some dinner and then took some extra time to browse the outlet stores.
While I was there I was reminded of the last time I went shopping at an outlet mall. I was in Seaside with some girlfriends. I remember being in one of the stores…back in the dressing room. I watched helplessly as a lady come out of her dressing room wearing a dress that would cause Clinton and Stacy to fall over backwards. It was one of those “sack” dresses that don’t look flattering on anybody. NOBODY should ever wear a dress in this style…unless they’re in prison doing time. This dress hung from the woman’s shoulders straight down to her ankles. There was no shape to this dress and made her look as if she had the figure of a log. She asked her friends what they thought and they both said the dress looked cute! I was shocked at their blatant lies towards their friend. Friends do not let friends dress like that! I would dump my friends in a heartbeat if they lied to me like that. I had an ethical decision to make. Do I tell a complete stranger not to listen to her friends and save her from wearing the sack in public, or do I keep my mouth shut and not interrupt her shopping? I chose the easy way out and ignored the situation. I had another opportunity to stop her later. I was sitting on a bench waiting for my friends to finish their shopping and I watched this poor misguided girl check out. Again, I said nothing and watched in silent horror as she actually paid money for the dress. The funny thing is that the cashier told her that she bought several of the same dresses because the price was so great. She proceeded to tell her she was able to make several pillows out of the material from the dresses, because there was so much fabric on the dresses and the cost was much cheaper than buying fabric from the fabric store. Maybe this was the cashier’s way of giving her a subtle hint that she should re-think purchasing the dress.
Oh well…we all make mistakes.
I’m just so glad that one of my mistakes wasn’t passing up the opportunity to marry Josh. He’s in the other room right now and I can’t stand it. I’m going to stop blogging right now so I can go and be in the same room with him. Actually, I really just need to stop blogging right now because I’ve already exposed too much of my superficial side today.
How come nobody’s commented on my global warming entry? Are y’all chicken?!?
