A window into my world (please refrain from fake snoring noises)

You know you’re a mom when you download a dozen photos from your camera and you just can’t possibly decide how to narrow down the cute ones to two or three to post on your blog, because they’re just ALL so darn cute you can hardly believe he’s your son.

Yes, I realize I am a walking (OK, not really walking, more like sitting on my comfy chaise typing while watching the “Reaper” season finale) cliche.

Regardless, here are a few snapshots of the most common things I see every day:

1. Kostyn with his tongue stuck out. I don’t know why this is a thing for him right now, but it is. And as you can see, it’s not the run-of-the-mill “I can see the tip of my tongue if I stick it out in front of me” thing. It’s the full-on Gene Simmons “I can touch my chin and possibly my chest with my tongue” thing.



2. Kostyn shutting me out of a room. Prepping me for the teen years, I suppose. Except now he does it with such a huge smile on his face I could just kiss him every time. (If only I wasn’t on the other side of the door.)



3. Kostyn crawling around with something in his hand — usually something wooden that makes a nice echoing “bang bang bang” on the floor as he wanders around the house. The overprotective mom in me worries that he might slip and do damage to his wrist. The lazy mom in me likes having a sound effect that lets me know where he is at all times. For example, “Bang...bang....bang...[silence]” = Kostyn just entered the dining room and is now playing in the cat’s water bowl.



4. And this is one of my favorite sights. No matter where he is in the house (or on the screened porch, as you can see), when he sees me he usually has the same reaction: First a smile, then a full-body turn in my direction, a pause for effect, and then a head-down, eyes scrunched, babbling-smiling-giggling race-crawl toward me to be scooped up for a hug and kisses. Ain’t nothin’ better.

Soy Mocha Guy

While running some errands this afternoon, I pulled through a drive-through coffee joint (not Starbucks) at my husband’s request. I was asked to bring him a mocha. As soon as I ordered it — “I’d like a medium decaf mocha with soy, no whip, please” — the young woman’s face lit up.

“I know who this is for,” she practically purred, all smiles.

Huh.

As she rang me up: “Ya know, we finally got him to tell us where he works, so I told him I’d be scouring the Gazette for errors from now on.”

Huh.

As she poured the drink: “Um, what’s his name? We’re gonna be starting a ‘Customer of the Month’ thing, that’ll give him discounts and stuff for that month, and we’ll put his picture up, and we’ve been trying to figure out the names of all our favorite customers. We only know him as Soy Mocha Guy.”

Huh. I’m married to Soy Mocha Guy.

I recently discovered how often he’s been running by this place to get what appears to be his signature drink, which I found funny, mostly because people I know who frequent coffee joints usually are jonesing for caffeine and need their daily fix to fend off headaches and sleepiness and life without a chemical dependence. But Soy Mocha Guy has been off caffeine for over a year now. He doesn’t even really like soy milk all that much.

Huh.

Is it wrong that, because the giggling girls there weren’t attractive, I found the whole thing quite amusing? If they’d been little hotties, would I be having a talk with Soy Mocha Guy about his newfound habit, and his new chatty little fans? Perhaps.

I wonder if anyone's ever referred to me as Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard Girl. Maybe I should have Chris head to the DQ drive-through and find out...

Setting the bar, high

So, my first Mother’s Day was pretty spectacular. When Chris asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, I told him the only thing I really wanted was a good night's sleep. I got that and much more, with him surprising and pampering me all weekend long. A few highlights of what I “got,” just for being mama to my little guy:

• A bouquet of tulips delivered with a card from my son that I will cherish forever. “Mommy, You’re the best mommy in the whole wide world and I love you so much! Happy Mother’s Day! Love, Kostyn Orrie.” Only 11 months old and already spot-on with his grammar and spelling. It’s in the genes.

• A morning (and into the afternoon...) out alone on Saturday, treating myself to a haircut, pedicure, walk downtown, coffee and cinnamon bun, and lots of sitting on the waterfront engrossed in a book. I missed my boys, but the quiet time away was
heavenly.

• A night out (babysitter and everything!) for a fundraiser/cocktail party on Saturday night for which my husband dressed up in a coat and tie and didn’t complain once.

• Blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast this morning. Mmm.

• A gourmet dinner lovingly prepared by my husband.

• A cool new shirt and sandals I would never have splurged on for myself, wrapped up in the prettiest paper I’d ever seen.

• A brand-new digital camera.

• An uninterrupted night’s sleep!! Of course, Kostyn cooperated with Daddy and only woke up once for 15 minutes, but still. I didn’t have to leave my warm, soft, gorgeous bed for 7 straight hours.

• Too many hugs and kisses from Kostyn to count. It’s his latest favorite thing ... as soon as I lean toward his face, he leans into mine. So, so sweet.

What a weekend. I’d better start planning Father’s Day now.....

Mothers: Deserving of so much more than one day...

Mom and I, circa 1974, makin' funny faces at each other.

I woke up this morning to my first Mother’s Day feeling pretty awful. Not because my husband and son aren’t recognizing the day as special. They are, big-time.

I feel awful because the card I bought for my own mother last weekend is still sitting on my kitchen counter, unsigned and unsent. I don’t know if it’s a character flaw or mental block or some deep-seated emotional hangup I have that keeps me from sending cards to loved ones on time, if at all. It’s embarrassing, the collection of brand-new, unsigned cards I have for every occasion, hidden in desk drawers and dresser drawers and amid stacks of bills around the house. Birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, anniversaries, sympathy cards, “missing you” cards. I think of friends and family, buy cards for them, and never send them. I don’t know why. Maybe subconsciously I am most comfortable wallowing in the guilt and shame it brings out, this not-sending-the-cards thing, always wondering whether those I love know I love them, and remember them, and miss them.

Anyway. This post is not supposed to be about my character flaws. It’s supposed to be about my mother, and how I’ve never felt closer to her than I have this past year.

It’s amazing to see your mom in a different light than you had before, a phenomenon that happens a few times over the course of one’s life. It happened for me that time she came to visit me at college and asked to come to the party my friends and I were headed to one Saturday night. I was taken aback by that request but obliged her curiosity. She didn’t stay long, and was welcomed with open, drunken arms by my pals, who tried to teach her whatever drinking game they were playing and offered her some beer from the secret keg in the back bedroom with the slightly better beer than the one out on the balcony for public consumption. (I’m sure she declined.)

She wasn’t there to check up on me, or try to live vicariously through me (okay, well, maybe just a tiny bit). She was there because she wanted to peek through a window in my life, a life that was now being led seven hours from hers. Something about the way she interacted with my friends that night made me think of her as a person, not a mom, which is weird considering the venue. You would have thought her presence there would have screamed MOM, not the opposite. She was just cool, joking with people and talking about the football game we’d all been to that day. I remember being so proud to have her there with me. I loved her that night for not making me feel like a kid there with her mom. I felt like an adult, introducing an old friend to a bunch of new ones.

She probably doesn’t know how much I still think about that night.

My view of her shifted again this past year, as I lived my every moment as a mother and finally felt the echoes of her actions as a mom to my newborn self, 35 years ago. Over the years I’ve thanked her again and again for all the support she’s given me in life, for all the chorus and band recitals she sat through, for the birthdays and holidays she made special, for pushing me to be my best, for allowing me to do more and be more and experience more than she was allowed to do and be and experience as a kid.

But until this past year, I never knew enough to thank her for the less noticeable “mom” stuff, the stuff I don’t remember or couldn’t understand until I experienced it firsthand.

So thank you, Mom, for enduring the anxiety and discomfort of pregnancy, and the pain and uncertainty and exhilaration and terror of labor, to bring me into the world. Thank you for all the nights you got up from your bed to come to mine and soothe me back to sleep. Thank you for the million tiny prayers you sent up on my behalf, every day, even now, whenever you read or saw something about a child being sick or lost or hurt or, God forbid, killed. Thank you for all the times you surrendered yourself into fits of silliness, making funny faces and blowing raspberries on my tummy and dancing around the living room to make me giggle.

Thank you for wondering “Is this right? Am I doing okay?” about a thousand times in quiet moments right before you fell asleep at night. Thank you for overcoming your frustrations when I was clingy or whiny or overtired or sick to keep caring for me with tenderness even when you felt like your mother’s deep well of tenderness had surely run dry. Thanks for putting up with every diaper change I squirmed through, every bit of food I threw at you, and every time I spit up on a clean shirt you’d just put on.

Thank you for giving up your free time, surrendering your privacy, and setting aside some of the dreams you had as a person to make room for all the new dreams you carried as a mother. Thank you for all the warm baths and bottles, all the practicing you did with me to say “Dada” and “Mama” and “milk.” Thank you for holding onto my chubby fingers and helping me take my first steps. Thank you for all the hugs and kisses and smiles you showered me with in that first year, and know that those tiny acts of love created the foundation of love and independence and happiness on which I built my life.

Mom, I always appreciated you as a mother but I couldn’t fully understand who you are — who you’ve been — to me until now. Now I get it. Now I realize that all those years when you hinted and asked and practically begged me to tell you whether I was ever going to “start a family,” it wasn’t because you merely wanted to be a grandma. It was because you desperately, secretly wished for me to experience the same blessings of being a mom that you’ve experienced.

There is no card on the shelves at Hallmark that conveys all of this and more. Perhaps that’s why I never sent the card I bought. Still, I’ll give it to you when I see you in a few weeks, along with the gift sitting beside it that was too heavy and breakable to send through the mail.

I’ve learned this past year that parenthood sucks up your time and money and patience, but in their place it leaves this warmth and richness that is quite indescribable until you feel it yourself, from the bottom of your heart to the top of your soul. I hope when I was a baby, and a child, and perhaps even now, I added some of that warmth and richness to your heart, Mom. It’s the least I could do, for all you gave to me.

Happy Mother’s Day; I love you.

Needed: New Duds

I loathe shopping for clothes, which is why I rarely do it. On Saturday, for example, I’m going to a cocktail party for which I’m quite certain I should wear a cocktail dress. However, I do not own a cocktail dress, nor will I buy one. Why? Because it would involve too much time wasted in front of full-length mirrors in bad lighting, which usually ends with me in tears and empty-handed. Instead, I’ll dig something out of the back of my closet and try to dress it up with jewelry. (FYI, this rarely works well.)

The other day it struck me just how infrequently I shop and just how desperately my wardrobe needs updating. I was looking at old photos from a college party, and I realized with horror that I had on the same shirt I was wearing in the photo. From college. Taken circa 1995, meaning the shirt was at least 13 years old. That’s longer than the entire time I spent in elementary, middle and high school.

Oy.

Then on Monday I was wearing a sleeveless shirt around the house and Chris remarked, “That shirt still looks good on you.” Still? I thought. Wait, how long have I had this shirt? And then it hit me: I bought it (and pants to match) at a Lerner NY in the Aviation Mall sometime in the early ‘90s. That store moved out of the mall a decade ago.

Oy, again.

So. I decided I should throw out (and by that I mean give to Goodwill, pipe down you Greenies...) most everything that was in my closet before I got married. That’s nearly nine years, which, ya know, is still sort of pathetic but, hey, Stacy and Clinton aren’t here to tsk, tsk, so neither should you. Plus, some stuff is timeless. Get off my back.

Anyway, that’s why I headed into the nearest Belk department store yesterday armed with a “Get $10 off when your purchase totals $50” coupon and a mission: Find some new summer shirts.

I don’t usually shop at department stores; I rarely shop anywhere but the outlets, actually. But the coupon wooed me, as did the fact that Belk is 3 miles from my house and with an 11-month-old whose afternoon nap time was closing in, the proximity of the store to the crib was key.

As with everything in life now, bringing a baby on an errand adds a whole new dimension of low-level stress. Kostyn was happy to sit in the cute little umbrella stroller we’d bought recently, but the thing was built to complement a person whose frame is no taller than 5-foot, 5-inches. I’m 5’8”, and trust me when I say that three inches makes a big difference when it comes to stroller handle height.

So, hunched over and pushing a babbling baby, I entered the store and headed straight for some clearance racks, which I hate picking through. Two minutes in and I was already grumbling.

We meandered for a bit, searching aimlessly for my “section” and realizing that it doesn’t exist. I’m not a “Junior” or a “Young Miss,” but I’m not a “Today’s Woman” or a “Petite” either. Where are the clothes for fairly fit 30somethings??? I’ll tell you where they are not: They are not in department stores. I’m not sure they exist at all.

I was starting to realize why I’d hung onto the clothes I owned for so long.

But then I had some luck, plucking a few tank tops off the racks to try and finding a display of $10 T-shirts in the Juniors department that looked like they’d fit. I grabbed one and steered Kostyn into a dressing room.

I took off my shirt (which I’d calculated earlier that day to be a respectable 3 or so years old) and Kostyn kicked his legs excitedly, momentarily thinking he might be getting a snack. He was not. Instead he got a hanger to play with as I tried on the few things I’d found. One tank top fit. Success! Tried the T-shirt and it fit, too. Long, but not too long. Form-fitting, but not too tight. V-neck, cap-sleeved. Not trendy, but stylish. 100 percent cotton, machine washable. Manufactured in this decade. And at 10 bucks, it won’t matter much if my son stains it with his slobbery, mealtime strawberry hugs. Sold!

This isn’t bad at all, I thought as I put my (not too terribly) old shirt back on.

As if reading my thoughts, the baby started to whine and squirm. I wrapped a toy around the harness of the stroller and wheeled him back toward the T-shirt display to pick up one more T. While I studied the colors, he detached the toy and threw it on the floor. Back in the purse it went, and out came another toy, which immediately made the same journey: Kostyn, floor, purse.

The whining got louder. I gave him a cracker. Picked a second T. Slightly bent over, hanging onto three shirts, a purse, a baggie of crackers and an increasingly annoying stroller, I headed for the tank top rack. I wanted to grab one more of those, too, but the only other one in my size was a shade of green I didn’t trust. I hadn’t worn that shade since I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and it wasn’t a good look.

I gave Kostyn another cracker and debated. Another cracker. Searched through all the other tags, just in case I’d missed another Small.

Another cracker. Brought the green shirt over to a mirror to hold up in front of me. Didn’t help. Gave Kostyn a Cheerio, which he did not want. At that point he didn’t want a cracker, or Mommy’s keys, or a toy off the dirty floor. He wanted out of the stroller.

He started to cry. Loudly. I took him out of the stroller, piled the shirts into the stroller, grabbed the green tank (reasoning that I’m 30 pounds lighter than the last time I wore this color, so it has to be better) and headed for the register. Hunched over.

I gave the girl my four shirts and fished the “$10 off” coupon out of my purse. She rang everything up and looked at me apologetically.

“I’m sorry, but the coupon is to get $10 off a $50 subtotal, and your subtotal is $49.96.”

I said nothing, just stared back at her waiting for her to say “Just kidding! I’ll give you the discount.”

She didn’t. So I said, “Are you serious? I’m four cents under, so you won’t honor the coupon?”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can’t.” I stared again, waiting for her to put either her customer service cap on, or her common sense cap on. She did neither.

“What I can do for you is give you 10 percent off the T-shirts, that’s a separate promotion we have going in the Juniors department. So that would be about the same thing.”

“The same thing?” I asked. “Ten percent is not the same as $10. The T-shirts are $10 each, so that’s a buck off each shirt. Two dollars off is not the same as $10 off.”

She looked at me like I had three heads and was speaking a foreign language.

“I’m not sure what it would be, let me ring it up and see.” She rang it up, then looked back up at me like I was a math genius. “You’re right! It would be $2 off.”

Kostyn dropped my sunglasses on the floor, ripping out several tangled hairs from my head in the process.

“I think I’ll just go get another T-shirt, that way it will basically be a free T,” I said.

She clearly didn’t comprehend this logic either but said, “Um, ok, I can hold these shirts for you here.”

Swell. Did I mention how much I hate shopping?

Off I went, hunched over, looking like some sort of dyslexic mother with the baby in my arm and my purse in the stroller. Back to the Juniors department clear on the other side of the store. Picked another T-shirt, threw it in the stroller, wheeled the whole thing back to the math-deficient cashier. My back was starting to hurt. She rang everything up again and looked at me like I’d just done a magic trick for her.

“You’re right! It’s almost the same exact total as it was without the other T-shirt. It is like getting a free shirt!”

In an unbelievable display of restraint, I managed to not roll my eyes, snicker or raise one eyebrow at her. This, to me, was just as impressive as me finding five shirts to buy. I simply smiled, put the baby back in the stroller (with my sunglasses — and large chunk of hair still attached to them — as distraction), punched in my pin number and high-tailed it out of there.

The baby fell asleep on the way home, then woke up and refused to nap in his crib. But I got five new shirts, which shatters my previous record of three articles of clothing purchased in a single day.

Lessons learned: 1. Shopping sucks, but once in awhile it’s really, really necessary. 2. For the love of God, try out a stroller before you buy it.

(Seriously, though, if you see me in 10 years wearing a gray cap-sleeved, V-neck T-shirt, you have permission to kick my ass.)

Moments of Zen

One thing I miss about being in the newsroom is the daily banter between editors about stupid things their writers/fellow editors/prospective employees/random callers just wrote, said or did. Usually it involves a word or turn of phrase used horrendously wrong. We call these "Moments of Zen," and they often were the only thing that made me smile during an otherwise exhausting 12-hour day.

Here's an example of a typical Moment of Zen, sent to me today from a fellow editor who will remain nameless to protect the offending party's privacy:

"Some local nonprofit is giving away a custom-made bike tomorrow to a disabled kid. We’ve written about this group a couple of times in the past, so I told Cub Reporter to just assign a photo, leading to the following conversation:

Cub Reporter: So there’s more to this. The guy who’s going to present the chair is a former NAVY Seal and elite wheelchair racer. He apparently was injured in Noriega and had his legs removed.

Seasoned Editor: WHAT IN THE SAM HELL? He was injured where?

Cub Reporter: In Noriega.

Second editor, chiming in: Noriega is a person.

Seasoned Editor: He was injured ousting CIA operative Manuel Noriega?

Cub Reporter: (Blank stare)"

Now that you've had a primer, you can enjoy my all-time favorite Moment of Zen, which involved myself and a former editor, who I'll just refer to as Dimwit, and whose intelligence was as questionable as her work ethic:

I was proofing one of Dimwit's pages with her column on it, and in it she was dispensing etiquette advice for office Christmas parties. So one tip she gives is to "keep your right hand clean and empty at all times" so you can shake people's hands. She goes on to say that you should hold your plate of food, drink and napkin all with your left hand, so that your right hand is free and shakeable. (We're not even gonna get into the intricacies of how food and drink are supposed to make it to your mouth with no help from your right hand, which you are, remember, keeping "clean.")

Juggling all this in the left hand, she says, might take some practice. "Especially if you're left-handed."

Being a left-hander myself, I circled that comment because I'm thinking, 'Clearly, she meant to say EXCEPT if you're left-handed.' Because we left-handers are used to holding everything with our left hands. It's what's most comfortable. Piece o' cake.

But when I asked her about it, she actually argued with me that no, Silly Robyn, she meant what she said because left-handers shake with their left hands. Wuh? She actually believed that left-handers shake with their left hands, and right-handers shake with their right hands.

She did not believe me when I tried to correct her.

Dimwit: "Well how would you know? We need to ask a left-hander."

Me: "I am left-handed."

She still didn't believe me. It was not until I literally (swear to God) reached out my left hand, and had her reach out her right hand, as if we were going to "shake," and I said "Has anyone in your entire life tried to shake your right hand with their left hand? Do you know what would happen? We would just end up ... holding hands."

Her eyes bugged out of her head at this sudden revelation.

Good times.

Holy Crap

In just under a month, I'm going to have a 1-year-old on my hands. No idea where the last 11 months went, but if the rest of his life moves as fast as the first year did, I should probably start shopping for my mother-of-the-groom dress now.

('Cause you KNOW these sweet eyes will sweep some lucky gal off her feet)