stephanie2morrow – Page 5

award-winning cockroaches and beached manatees

Posted on May 21, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

This is my bedroom. e2626-mybedroom
I like my bedroom.
It’s dark and cool.
It’s comfortable.
The mattress is firm.
The pillows are fluffly.
Getting into bed is a wonderful end
to most days –
not generally an olympic event.

However, while we were in Fort Worth for the cowboy’s “Sadde Boy” competition, we bunked in the horse trailer. (No, not WITH the horse…the back 9/10 is the horse part, the front 1/10 is “living quarters”) I use the term “living quarters” very VERY loosely. It was akin to sleeping in an aluminum shoebox on wheels. The floor section, shaped like the state of Nevada, only had enough room for Kevin’s military-style cot, the step stool, and one standing human. As you can see from the picture, the interior has been gutted, so the walls were bare except for the lovely remnants of brown wood glue. Everytime we turned on the light it threw a breaker. Our “camping spot” was on the gravel parking lot wedged between dozens of $200K motor homes. We looked like the redneck MIssissippi cousins.

One aspect of the weekend I found particularly enjoyable was the 2-block hike to the bathroom located upstairs and inside the dormitory of the Fairground Swine Building of the Will Rogers Equestrian Center across the street from the National Cowgirl Museum. Yee. Haw. When I first stepped into the dark, abandoned concrete shower, which was creepy enough to be the setting where my horror movie doppleganger will die gruesomely, I was startled by an enormous hog left behind from last weekend’s judging – no wait, that’s just a prize-winning cockroach. He and I did NOT get along. It was a quick shower.

The most entertaining part of the weekend, for those lucky enough to witness it (my 14-year-old son), was me, trying to get into the sleeping bunk of the trailer. Even with the step stool, I was only chest-high to the metal platform. After numerous and wildly unsuccessful attempts to fling my leg up onto the platform, I finally had Kevin stand on his cot, and lift the air mattress up to the ceiling. This allowed me to bend to a 90-degree angle, then roll my entire body onto the platform under the air mattress, much like an injured manatee rolling herself onto the beach. I then spun the opposite direction until I was against the wall, allowing Kevin to drop the mattress. At this point I got onto my hands and knees and crawled onto the mattress. Lying down, there was a good 7 inches between my face and the ceiling. Now to get undressed. Uh oh. I couldn’t lift my legs – no room. Tried lying in a fetal position and wiggling. No luck with that either. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to manage the removal of my clothing. Why didn’t I get into my pj’s BEFORE I clamored up there? I DON’T KNOW. But I sure as heck wasn’t getting back down and then up again! So I called down to Kevin,
“Kevin, help me pull my pants off.”
“Yeah, right, mom.”
“Please, Kevin, I can’t do it.”
“Like that’s gonna happen. I don’t think so.”
“But Kev, I need help!”
“Suck it up and sleep in your clothes, mom!”
“Kevin, please please.” (Imagine a whiny, cartoony voice at this point.)
Kevin begins to giggle hysterically at the thought of my not having enough room to perform this function for myself, and at the audacity that I would even dare ask his help with undressing. Then, of course, there was the mental image of him actually helping me with this, which, I have to confess, was really really funny.
“Keeeeevvvvviiiinnnn, pleeeeeaaaaassssseeee!!!!!”
More giggling. This time from both of us.
This went on for about 20 minutes until we were in tears.

After we fell into a good sleep, probably from the exhaust fumes of all the other motor homes, we were awakened by an 8.3 earthquake – a crash, a jolt and the sound of breaking glass. Oh wait, that was just the cowboy backing his truck INTO our trailer. Luckily, the only thing he broke was his passenger side mirror.

Extreme Mustang Makeover – reservations for next year have already been secured at the Hyatt Regency downtown Fort Worth.

Hippy-Dippy Stuff, Quirks and Other Weirdness, Starting Over

the eyes have it

Posted on May 15, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

So…over the course of a single weekend I became legally blind in my right eye. The toddler and I were playing and being silly, and generally having fun jumping off tables and running with scissors when the fused fontanelle of Charlotte’s cute little cranium crashed into my delicate ocular socket. It was like the infamous iceberg against the hull of the TItanic (which shattered on impact, much like the lens in my eye). Tears of laughter and excruciating pain ensued. Mostly the pain thing, though.

tombstone (2) After the collision, I excused myself for the evening with an “I just need to lie down” song and dance. Then I kept singing and dancing the same routine for several days. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. It will go away soon. It’s merely a flesh wound.” That’s just how I roll.

I always assume the _______________ (fill in the blank)

chronic migraines
dirty kitchen
broken heart
embarrassing gossip
North Atlantic iceberg

will just magically go away if I ignore it.

It almost never does.

The Titanic took 2 hours and 40 minutes to go down. Took me several stubborn days. By the time I signaled SOS and had someone drive me to the optometrist’s office, I could no longer see the enormous E at the top of the eye chart.

Okay, so I could no longer even see the eye chart.

I was, in the words of Dr. M., “hours away from permanent blindness” in that eye. SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH. Apparently patience is not always a virtue. Sometimes it’s downright stupid. Next time I will signal for help before the situation becomes critical, as I have no desire to be scared half to death… twice.

Nine ophthalmology appointments, two surgeries, one pirate patch, seven prescriptions, three mascara-less weeks, and a few thousand dollars later and I’m incredibly grateful I don’t have to “see your face” with my hands. Especially those of you with oily T-zones.

So here’s what Aesop and I have learned from this adventure:

Icebergs and toddlers are never as harmless as they appear.
Going down with the ship is pointless when there are plenty of empty seats in the optometrist’s waiting room.
Mom was right, if you have too much fun, somebody’s going to put an eye out.

Parenting

525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?

Posted on April 1, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

Listen??? Hear that?

No?

Yeah, me either. Isn’t is fabulous?

I’m home alone for the first time in 12,963 minutes…but who’s counting?

And I may just have alone time for an hour or two, but the silence is ~~deafening~~ definitely glorious.

I am currently sharing my life, my house, my free time, my quiet time, noisy girls my empty nest, and my secret stash of organic chocolate and cashews with my daughter and her two babies. Boo is 4 years old. We’re still counting Latte’s age in months.

(I tried doing that too, but 619 months doesn’t help me sound younger.)

Anyway, the girls are pure joy and giggles. Life and light. Beauty and spontaneity. Wonderment and love.

And THEY. JUST. NEVER. STOP. TALKING.

Latte has a vocabulary of 35 words, most of which sound like “MINE!” and “BITE” and “AH AH AH!!” and unless you are reading her body language, it’s hard to decipher which is which. Boo, the 4-year-old, serves as the younger one’s commentator. She has a vocabulary of 3,000 words, but 1/3 of the time she relies on “actually” and “amazing” to make her point.

“Emmy, Emmy, Emmy, Emmy, peeze, Emmy” says the toddler while poking my leg with a purple ink pen. “Emmy I uh uh uh I peez half?”

“Hey, um, M.E. (pronounced “Emmy”, my g-mother name), Charlotte actually wants to have your lotion. Can she have your lotion? The one that smells like coco oil?” says the commentator.

Continuing from the toddler, “Emmy, Emmy, Emmy” as the leg poking turns to more of a leg slapping, “Emmy Emmy Emmy, I I I I uh I I I I uhhhhh… PEEEEEEEEEZE!”

“M.E., Charlotte actually said please. She really wants your lotion. It would be amaaazing if you would actually give her some of your lotion. I think she actually wants to try the coco one,” the narrator insists.

As I pick up the coconut-scented lotion to squeeze a dab onto her tiny pudgy little hand, the toddler begins to hyperventilate from excitement. Bouncing up and down, flapping her arms like a wounded albatross trying to take flight she exclaims, “YA! YA! Emmy, YA! YA! Peez, ya! Emmy, YA, Ta tu!”

Boo’s commentary continues: “M.E., Charlotte said ‘ta tu’, that means ‘thank you’. Isn’t that actually just so so sweeeeeet? How did you know Charlotte actually wanted lotion? Why do you think Charlotte wanted lotion? I think she actually likes the coco oil smell. I like the coco oil smell too. It smells amaaaazing. Do you think I could actually have some coco lotion too??!!”

This encounter lasted exactly 51 seconds. Similar encounters occurred 257 times today alone. 483 if you count the ones they had with their mom.

In between the jabbering conversations they sing. And by “sing” I mean they sing ‘Annie’ songs. Exclusively.

Thank you, Pandora.

Lyrics like, “The sunna come out tomorrow, hetcha bottom dollar then tomorrow” and “It’s a hard nuck life.” The toddler also knows every word to the entire Broadway soundtrack, but it sounds something like, “ToNOOO ToNOOOOO, AAAAHHHHHH AHHHHHH….OH! LEE! DAY! A! WAY!!!”

It’s precious. And wonderful. And entertaining. I wouldn’t trade this time for anything. But I won’t lie – I was 8 seconds away from a core implosion when they pulled out of the driveway.

And the silence is, actually, amazing.