In 2011--Thou Shall Not Compare

It was a drizzly, dank day in early October, 1987 when we returned from our 2-week honeymoon to Acapulco and Disney World learning what true intimacy really meant after succumbing to a colorful stomach virus on stop one in Mexico—close quarters and newlywed dysentery are not a pretty sight! Wanting to get our new homestead up and running, I sauntered into the grocery store to grab a few pantry essentials and left with two carriages full of everything from Cornish game hens (no clue what they even were) to SOS pads (does anyone even use those today?).

As a 23-year old newlywed, I quickly learned that grocery shopping for two did not entitle me to spend nearly $300 a week for extra lean hamburger and other incidentals. After a few months of fresh veggies rotting faster than I could dice them, I swiftly mastered the brave art of consumer comparison shopping, which served us well because we were able to upgrade from our sweet, cottage starter home to a full-blown 6-bed Mediterranean Contemporary in a few short years. Oh, how I would give my monthly root touch-ups for all that closet space now!

That was one of my first vivid experiences with making comparisons. While noting the savings between one and two-ply toilet paper certainly paid off during the past 20 years, I found that some things just cannot and should not be compared—starting with spouses.

I’ve made it no secret that my handsome husband brought many things to the table when we become a couple, but being handy sure wasn’t one of them. On any given weekend, I’d see the other husbands in the neighborhood, tool belts armed and ready, tackling rickety gutters, securing loose shingles or even changing the oil in their own lawnmowers. Not my guy—bless his heart though, he would spend our days off accompanying me on shopping excursions, staying out of my way while I tackled home projects, or even visiting my family! Just because he will probably never own a ratchet wrench, so what, he’s a keeper!

Also keepers were the two cocker spaniels we got during the first month of our marriage. Never in a million years did we think we’d own a dog, never mind two, that would cost as much as one mortgage payment. But my heart couldn’t stop beating when I first laid eyes on them. Brian knew he was in trouble and didn’t even bother trying to talk me out of them. We were soon the proud parents of two yippy, nippy dogs that wet the floor the second anyone walked in the house. Although all the other pups in the hood seemed to actually obey commands and never stole food from the table, Chloe and Ashley were my special slices of comfort during six long years of infertility—so you know what—I wouldn’t have traded them for the best-behaved pooches in the world.

Now then, about that infertility bout I battled for years. Isn’t it always the way that when you want something so badly, everyone else around you seems to get what you want—effortlessly? While all my friends, family and every stranger I encountered at Wal-Mart was eagerly awaiting a visit from the stork, I was home making deals with the man above that if I were to get just one chance to become a mother, I’d never complain about anything, ever again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had the world by the tail. We both had great jobs, a dream home (including a pool boy!) and vacationed anywhere we wanted to for all those years that I spent crying beside an empty crib.

Ask and you shall receive. After the blessed adoption of our beautiful oldest daughter, and then seven babies later, my mission to become a mother was finally accomplished. Now what? Well, downsizing our living arrangements for starters. Losing one hefty income yet super-sizing our family in ten short years meant that designer dream home had to go. We moved to a simple raised ranch, and though we did lots of renovations and such, it wasn’t the mansion we had owned years earlier. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that families with one or two children had their own walk-in closets while we were wondering where to stack the next bunk bed, but what a great problem to have, more family members vs. available square footage.

And last, but not least, the children that I cried to have for all those years—they now have friends, cousins, and teammates that are superstar athletes, stellar students, gifted musicians, don’t have learning disabilities, and sport the latest electronic gadgets all while wearing the latest designer labels. You know where this is going, right? It’s hard to avoid noticing how everyone else’s kids don’t have the same struggles my kids do. Or do they? What a bummer to fall into the trap of wanting to make a child be something other than his own unique self.

Thankfully, a brand new year has arrived offering us yet another opportunity to mold and shape it with our dreams and goals but above all our actions. I know that I will have more ideas and desires than time will permit, but hopefully, in 2011, I will save my need to compare for when I am carousing the aisles of the grocery store, not when I’m thinking about my own or my family’s past or present accomplishments.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Chapstick!

Typically, I don’t get overwhelmed very easily, I mean the fact that I forgot one of my sons at church last year and didn’t realize it until we were seated at home eating lunch only jangled my nerves for a few seconds and nearly a year later, he’s finally speaking to me and doesn’t feel the need to leave a poster-sized photo of himself on the dashboard. But during this time of year, when the pressure to pull off the most dazzling holiday your friends and mother n law will ever see, is thrust upon us even before The Statue of Liberty can put away her red, white, and blue—it’s nearly enough to bring me to my breaking point.

Each November I sit myself down for my annual self-to-self pep talk. With only three items on this morning’s to-do list--unclogging the blades of the dishwasher, making sock monkeys to give as gifts during these hard times (kidding, just kidding) and heading down to the drugstore to pick up some Chapstick for my son—non-flavored would be preferable he scribbled on a reminder note across my Centrum coupon, it seemed like I could get myself back on track by lunchtime.

Depending on what kind of a hair year I’m having or whether my extra chin can be disguised in a gently stretched out turtleneck, determines if this conversation will take place in front of a mirror or in the corner of my darkened laundry room. But wait, the laundry room is out this year because I’m holding a grudge against mine at the moment. Nothing big mind you, just a small inconvenience with our top-of-the-line front loading washer machine, the flapper on the pump, I believe went kaput. In my experience with this luxury contraption we’ve owned for a couple of long years, when something malfunctions it requires that the part be ordered from some remote warehouse in the farthest corner of the country, never someplace local. So this was the first test in the “Is she losing it yet?” department for the 2010 Holiday Season.

Surely it’s ok to start feeling a few little pangs of losing control when you have ten family members that need to be kept in clean underwear and other incidentals like sports uniforms, white socks, and fine jeans and you become so exhausted from farming out six loads a day that you turn your dream Jacuzzi into a makeshift Laundromat!

Back to that annual pep talk of mine. The bad hair year and the resentment I am still carrying towards my washer machine lead me to the next best place for this important conversation—my car. Here I could lock myself in, turn on some peppy rendition of jingle bells and start feeling the holiday love once again. Oops—I Forgot! I now have two teenagers who drive. Suddenly, mom’s minivan is a super cool set of wheels, especially when it has a full tank of gas and can be driven with me left far behind. Sigh.

Not one to give up, I decided to give my bathroom a try—a tranquil place I could spend a few therapeutic moments alone. It’s the last place anyone would look for me because in 23 years, I’ve probably only spent a grand total of an hour in there for whatever reason. Drat—that’s no good either. The master bath is where I hide many of the Christmas gifts. Why do you think we paid good money for an oversized Jacuzzi? If it weren’t for the use it has gotten as a washer machine or a stellar hiding place for a solid six weeks every year, then I think my husband would still be crying over that installation. With stocking stuffers and a gazillion rolls of wrapping paper peeking at me, I couldn’t possibly have a heart-to-heart with myself about how to sit back and relax during this holiday season in there.

After the dinner dishes were done, compliments of the newly, unclogged dishwasher blades, I sat down to look at our family holiday greeting cards that I picked up when I forgot to buy the non-flavored Chapstick earlier that day. Eerily, there wasn’t a single child, husband or pet trying to get my attention while I admired my painstaking handy work of getting 8 children to smile at the same time during this year’s obligatory family pose.

Despite the craziness this time of year brings, I have always enjoyed handwriting nearly 100 Christmas cards to friends and family for the sheer reason of wanting to stay connected during the holidays, not to brag about my Ivy League ability to jerry rig the Jacuzzi into our second washing machine. For me, taking that time to reach out to people I really care about (ok, well, most of them) defines the true meaning of the season.

My son walked in just as I tucked the photo cards away and I realized that I had just managed to pull off my annual pep talk without even trying. I may have forgotten to buy his Chapstick but I was relieved that I hadn’t completely forgotten why this time of year is so special. Before I know it, the holiday tunes will be gone, my sacred hiding places will be empty, the last of the decorations will be stowed up in the attic, and sooner than I care to think about, my family will be grown and gone and these harried holiday rushes will be just a memory.

On that note, I headed straight to the drugstore to buy a few tubes of Chapstick. One non-flavored for my son, and some extras to keep around as a reminder that the holidays aren’t about rushing around and putting on a good show, they are about spending time with those that you care about.