Monday, February 20, 2006

My mom the golfer


Mom Golfing
Originally uploaded by Geeky Mama.
This is my beautiful mom. I can't believe how beautifully she's aged. She really takes care of herself, and is very fit. She and her hubby went away to golf for their anniversary (and my mom's birthday). I hope I'm as trim, fit and healthy as my mother at when I'm the same age (late fifties, closing in on 60).

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Losing a year of my life..

We had just finished dinner. Lucy (nearly 5) asked to be excused from the table while I finished eating dinner with our youngest (now almost 19 months old) - who likes to eat almost as much as I do, and tends to take his own sweet time at the dinner table.
Lucy yelled something up to me asking for permission. It didn't quite register but I think I yelled back: "Yeah sure" ..knowing I'd go find her in a minute. After washing up the little one and clearing the table a bit I noticed that Lucy hadn't touched her glass of milk. I called her name. No answer. I stepped to the edge of the staircase and yelled up towards her room: "Lucy, come here." Still nothing. After three loud attempts I figured she either had her door closed and couldn't hear me or was ignoring me - so I began to yell "mommy threats". "Lucy Grace you come down here right now or you'll have a consequence!!" Still not a peep.
This was not like her. I decided to go see if she was playing in her closet unable to hear me. No sign of her upstairs. In fact, all the lights were off. Hmm. That's odd, I could have sworn she'd be upstairs with all her toys.
A cold shiver of fear passed over me and I remembered something that had struck me as odd.. When we got home I noticed that a couple of things had moved. I'd left something on the bed (a buzzer that scares the pets off the bed so that they don't leave the bed hairy - a bigger deal to my hubby than me, but it's routine now - I always set it on the bed before leaving for the day) - and it had been moved, it was sitting on my alarm clock now. I started to worry. I grabbed the baby - didn't want to be away from him. We went to the lower level. I was shrieking now, my voice panicked as I was calling Lucy so that she'd KNOW I wasn't kidding. "LUCY! LUCY WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!"
My voice sounded hysterical. I turned on every light in every room we entered. I turned on the light in the crawl space. I kept shrieking: "LUCY!!! LUCY!!!" Now I was really scared. Our house is small. Maybe 1400 sq. feet. I had looked everywhere and she was nowhere to be seen. I ran to the garage. No Lucy. Opened the garage door and looked out into the darkness. Could someone have slipped out with her while I had my back turned? How? It hadn't been 10 minutes since I'd seen her last.

I grabbed the phone and debated: 911 or my husband on his business trip in Chicago?
I called my husband and said: "Lucy's gone missing! I am SO not kidding." He insisted it wasn't possible and told me to look again. I looked again. Each inch of the upper level, back to the garage - where I decided seemed safest (although it's cold out) because what if whoever took Lucy is still in there? By now I'd been searching and screaming for 5 or more minutes. Again at my husband's urging I went down to the lower level, into the crawl space.. the entire time holding a squirming (25lb) toddler who didn't understand why I wouldn't let him down to play. I was just about to hang up on hubby to call 911 when I went to set baby boy down on our bed.. and noticed the lump in the sheets. There she was. Sound asleep in my bed. So deeply asleep she hadn't even noticed my panicked shrieks just feet from her ears.

When my heart stopped racing I was very relieved. Most of all relieved that I hadn't called 911 to report a missing child..a missing child who was merely asleep in her mama's bed. Hubby didn't miss a beat: "You have to post this on your blog." Apparently, he likes me to share stories that embarass me.

Tonight I feel sure I took a year off my life and at least 10 new gray hairs have sprouted. What they don't tell you about having children (before you have them) is that once they're born it's like your heart is walking around outside your body. No one told me that hearing my baby cry would sometimes hurt, physically. No one warned me that everything else would seem far less meaningful compared to the whims and judgements of my young children. And clearly no one warned me they could sleep so deeply that it might nearly give you a heart attack!

Meme

There's a meme that's floating around - and I love to make lists.. so I decided to try it myself.. but then had to edit it. See, everyone else is using "4" things. But, that is a very inauspicious number. Scares me. (It goes back to the Japanese thing - 4, 9 and 13 are not good numbers.) So, I changed it a bit..

Five jobs I have had

1. Pizza Delivery / Donut Maker for the university food service / Flower Delivery / Direct Mail worker drone -- all 4 at the same time, while attending college fulltime! Until I became very very ill from not sleeping.
2. 1-900 Phone "chat" person. For one night. Until I figured out the job wasn't just "chatting". (Why yes! Yes I AM guillible. What was it I said that gave me away?) My first clue in might have been that they suggested I pick a psuedynom. When I suggested "Buffy" jokingly, they said: "Yeah, that's good. That'll do."
3. English Teacher (TEFL) in Japan
4. Vertical Market Manager (ha! during the dot-com bubble)
5. Localization Engineer

Five movies I can watch over and over

1. Until the End of the World (Wim Wenders)
2. Any John Hughes movie of a certain era (e.g. Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club)
3. Truly, Madly, Deeply (British film - major tear jerker. Good when feeling PMS-y)
4. Any of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series
5. Any Studio Ghibli / Miyazaki movie that the kids like (Spirited Away, Nausica, etc.)

(Does admitting to number 4 mean I am a geek? At least it wasn't Star Trek..)

3 places I have lived

1. Ohio (in at least 4 diff. cities, no less than 12 different mailing addresses)
2. Japan (2 southern prefectures, 2 diff. cities)
3. Minnesota (so far 2 different suburbs, 2 diff. mailing addresses)

Interesting observation: I have not moved at all since just before marrying hubby (over 5.5 yrs. ago). Since I tied the knot, apparently I have also grown roots... Considering how frequently I've moved in the past - that's rather impressive.

Three TV shows I love

1. Extreme Makeover Home Edition (another tear jerker - obviously I like my entertainment to move me to tears?!?!)
2. Any TV news or talk sort of program (PrimeTime, 60 Minutes, Oprah, Dr. Phil)
3. Sunday Morning (CBS, with Charles Osgood)


Three places I have vacationed

We don't really vacation places too much. We tend to use up all our vacation time going back to Ohio to see the grandparents, or some other family reunion type of activity.

1. Beaufort, SC
2. Maui, Hawaii
3. Bad Aibling, (near Munich) Germany (though hubby was working)


3 of my favorite dishes

1. Southern Fried Chicken Salad from Cheesecake Factory (though it's not currently on their menu. I'm waiting for them to bring it back!)
2. Anderson family version of "yakiniku" (rib eye w/ yakiniku no tare and Japanese rice)
3. strawberry pretzel salad (strawberries in strawberry layered on bed of sugar sweetened cream cheese and a crust of crushed pretzels with butter. To die for.)

3 sites I visit daily

1. Shelli's (http://seriously-silly.blogspot.com/)
2. Holly's (http://blackwhiteandcolor.blogspot.com/)
3. Pounds2Go (http://www.pounds2go.net/)

5 places I would rather be right now

1. home with the kids
2. in bed asleep
3. at the Y working out
4. in my rocking chair hand piecing a quilt square or doing Sudoku with a nice fire in the fireplace
5. in a hammock on vacation in a warm place, perhaps coastal New Zealand