We Also Went to the Coffee Shop

Adelaide received roller blades for Christmas.  She previously did not own any, but had used my old pair over the summer, back and forth on our sidewalk.  There was a lot of squealing, and arms windmilling as she fought for balance, and yelling at any brother who came within two feet of her whilst rolling.  Her brain interpreted this as fun, and luckily for her her grandparents came through.

A couple days after Christmas we enjoyed some unseasonably warm weather- we're talking highs in the 40's, the kind of temperatures that pull roller blading mothers and daughters out of doors to take their questionable ability to balance on wheels out to public places, where the promise of being humiliated not just in front of our neighbors, as we're used to, but by scores of strangers, proved too enticing to be ignored.  Simply translated:  Adelaide and I went to a park.  We brought our roller blades.

 After donning our blades (by how many points, I wonder, does my coolness factor drop when I refer to them as 'blades'?  I've been in the red for so long I suppose it doesn't matter, as is evidenced by my unironic use of the term 'coolness factor.'  Maybe we'll just go with inline skates.) Adelaide wasted no time in pointing out how pretty her skates were compared to mine, and how quiet, and how none of her plastic straps were broken.  I told her none of those things really mattered when I was the one who wasn't afraid to use both feet while skating- there at first she kept one foot firmly planted and just pushed herself along with the other foot, like a skateboarding trainee.  All my taunting/instruction ("pick up your left foot, Daughter- your LEFT FOOT, pick it up!") kind of fell apart right about the same time my roller blades did, though.

I kept stumbling and couldn't figure out why things kept getting stuck in my wheels, but as it turned out, it was the outer black layer of the wheels themselves peeling off and exposing the ridged inner white part.  My skates were literally falling to pieces around my feet.

Really, though, who could have seen this coming?  I mean, I've skated miles on these wheels, they're twenty years old and have been just fine up 'til now (except for that broken ankle strap, of course).  So... me.  I should have known better than to skate on twenty-year-old cheap plastic roller blades.

Thankfully, a quarter mile walk back to the van in socks really drove that lesson home.  Either that, or it was Adelaide cackling as all the international students from Iowa State politely averted their eyes and tried to hide their smiles as we passed them.

"Well, just imagine what we look like, Mom!  The young, graceful girl gliding along on her new roller blades, the middle aged woman carrying her roller blades next to her daughter.  You know it looks like you just can't roller blade and got tired of trying, right?"  I told her that if I'm truly middle-aged, then it looks like I'm only living to the age of 68, and NOW DON'T YOU FEEL BAD FOR WISHING AN EARLY DEATH ON YOUR MOTHER?

Judging by her lack of reaction, I need to be a little more selective about when and how often to employ my special brand of motherly histrionics.

Adelaide on roller blades, communing with geese. 

My chosen method of revenge was to drag her along to Target to look at their newly-clearanced Christmas decorations.  Judging by the amount of feet-dragging she did down those 70% off aisles, my retaliation scored a direct hit.

Things You Must See

• If you have small children, you might know about the Jesus Storybook Bible, which is wonderful and entertaining and doesn't make me roll my eyes like half the children's bibles available in Christian bookstores.  (Dear Christian publishers:  What on earth do pink sparkly princesses have to do with the Bible or what I hope for my daughter to learn from it?)  I recently did a google search for the audio version of the Jesus Storybook Bible, and stumbled upon some videos made by the publisher:

We've watched four of them so far, and every time I mean to take advantage of the five minutes' worth of my childrens' undivided attention these videos afford, but I'm always sucked in by the narrator, David Suchet.  Naturally he has a pleasant enough voice, but it's his gift of story-telling and humor and emotion that he packs into the telling of these stories that won't let me walk away.  It turns out he also narrates the audiobook, which means I know what Caedmon is getting for his birthday in... let's see... seven months.  Because there's no way I'll forget in that space of time.  

• This video that shows how a woman takes hyper-sexualized dolls- you know, those things our little girls are supposed to be playing with?- and makes them look, as one young girl in the video puts it, "...Nicer to play with-you can kind of think they're the same age as you."  

• I am currently reading this book, and it will not let me go.  It is officially a hostage situation.  Send help.

How Dare You?

"Mom, could you please stop breathing so much?"


Honestly, I didn't think I'd have to deal with half of this stuff until Adelaide was a teenager.  Or, in Derek's mind, until she was in college; he's still holding out for a raging awkward phase that will last until she graduates high school.

Last week at the supper table she announced that she has two boyfriends, but hey, it's okay- one is in India and one is in Iowa.  I reflexively started to jump out of my chair, preparing to administer the heimlich on Derek, but there was no need- he wasn't choking; on the contrary, his face was set and stony.


This week, however, she's focused on me- specifically, on me breathing.  I put that word in italics because every time it comes out of her mouth it sounds italicized.

"Do you have to breathe like that?"

"Why are you breathing so much right now?"

"I can't sit next to you anymore if you're going to keep breathing."


My first reaction, of course, was a snarky comment on how I would be happy to stop respirating, and was there anything else I could do to accomodate the princess?

After the second or third comment, however, I was reminded of my childhood best friend and how she frequently talked about how much she wanted to smother me with a pillow the morning after sleep-overs.  Apparently I'm one of those creepy mouth breathers.

I then remembered a visit to my allergist in elementary school and hearing him talk about how my nasal passages are chronically swollen, which obstructs air flow, and how there's pretty much nothing I could do about it.  I'm taking that diagnosis with a grain of salt, though- this is the same man who, after making a lovely grid of pinpricks that quickly morphed into hundreds of hives (you know, because I'm apparently allergic to nearly everything) had the nerve to lie and tell me that the cream the nurse was slathering on my back would soothe the flaming, maddening itch that was threatening to take over my sanity.  All I wanted was a couple sets of well-filed fingernails raked down my back, but no- I got a tube of glorified Jergens lotion.

Anyway.

So yes, perhaps I do breathe a bit more deeply or loudly or whatever than the average bystander.

Then I saw something about misophonia, and decided instead that our daughter is suffering from a neurological disorder.

Because the problem can't be me.