Rushing to be Late

by Cathy

We have the luxury and the disadvantage of living close to my childrens' school.

Other kids need to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn in order to be shuttled to bus stops where they have to wait to be picked up by the school bus that will no doubt make numerous other similar stops before depositing those kids at the door of the school.

My kids? Have it pretty lucky. Why is this bad? Because with almost certainty, we are borderline tardy every. single.day. It's a bad routine we've gotten ourselves into and we are NOT proud of it. We are, after all, a seven minute commute away.

Let's work backwards:
Eight-thirty is when the final school bell rings, but they need to be in their respective homerooms by 8:25. That means we should leave the house by 8:05 if they want abundant, leisurely time to go to their lockers first, gab with friends and unload/change shoes, etc. The problem is that they don't roll out of bed until 7:30. Therewithin, the problem lies.

We've tried everything. Waking them up earlier is counterproductive because they see they are being awoken early and lounge in bed for those "five more minutes" despite our threats and rants. If I've had a dollar for every time we've said:

They're going to bed too late at night!
They need to get in bed earlier!
We need to wake them up earlier!
Tonight we are going to bed early!

Even *I* am getting tired of hearing myself speak.

Don't get me wrong, we've made concerted efforts where we all really rally together and get to school in time with the rest of America's children. But that lasts for a week, tops. Then we are back to our old habits.

Every morning we screech up to the drop-off door, usually the last car to do so. (The doorman knows our car and patiently waits for it - although we are plowing towards while flashing our headlights from blocks away so he doesn't shut the door and send us the way of the main office, where a tardy slip will no doubt be issued. But the drop-off door isn't always a sure bet.

"I got a tardy today," said Bella to me once.
"But, why? We made it to the drop-off door just in time!" I defended.
"Yeah but mom, I need to be in my advisory room BY 8:25," she says.
"But I thought if you got to the school by 8:30 and you make the drop-off door, you don't have to go through the main door and get a tardy."
"NO! My teacher STILL sent me to the main office for a tardy because I wasn't in the room by 8:25."

Dang. We're Johnny-come-latelys no matter WHICH door we enter. And what's worse? We hustle, bustle, stress, fly, go hungry, forget necessities just to rush our way to school and STILL be late. And by how much? By FIVE stinking minutes. It baffles me - and I've said this over and over as well - that we can't get our shit together by FIVE minutes so that we can be on time.

The other day, I saw a car with these plates:

I laughed out loud at the notion that misery truly does love company. Greeks and Latins are known for being on "their" time (i.e. late) so together, yo, we're definitely tarde. And some are more proud of this than others. 

This is NOT How We Should Roll

by Cathy

"I gotta run," said Joe hurriedly as he crutched his way towards our front door, dressed and ready to go for his client meeting.

"Wait!" I stopped him short. "Are you picking them up and driving them to the coffee shop like you planned?" I reconfirmed, my eyes darting around the room as I thought this through.


"Yeah, that's the plan," said Joe mindlessly as he gathered his portfolios and laptop.

"In OUR car?"

"Yeah."
"Hold on," I said quickly running to get my jacket but didn't bother with my shoes. "I'm coming downstairs with you."
"Why?"
"Where are they gonna sit, in the kids' car seats? You're on crutches, you can't move anything."
"Oh yeah. Thanks."

My intention was to just move the car seats out of the back seat and stuff them in the trunk.
Then I saw this:

Backseat, Crapseat

Holy mother of messes. What's more, when I lifted up those car seats? I found Goldfish crackers, hair ties, more bunched up Kleenex, a tube of Chapstick, a winter glove, stickers stuck to the seat and a crumbs in every sunken leather seam.

Once, my cousin, who is religious about the upkeep of cars and runs a car wash to prove it, flat out told me: "Dayum. I can't believe you roll your ride like that. You have a nice car. You should take better care of it." Those words were ricocheting around in my brain as I nearly donned a hazmat suit to clean out the car. 'I can't believe it, either' I grumbled to myself.

"Jesus," Joe chimed in, gawking at the mess. "What the heck do these girls do back here?"

"Well, we're not any better," I retorted. "Did you see the passenger side?"
 Behold:

Front passenger seat

"That's all your junk," he quickly answered.
"Yeah I mostly drive the car, but that's NOT all my stuff," I said looking at what's made its way from the back to the front. The front passenger side floor seemed to be a catch basin for what doesn't fit in the back seat.

There we were, in front of our building out in the street instead of the private confines of our garage, where we normally park the car. All four doors and the trunk were sprung wide open, exposing our mess, much to the chagrin of our neighbors and passersby. There we were in all our glory: Joe standing on his one leg and crutches watching me diving into the back seat and with my stocking feet, shuffling and shoving what I could back and forth from the car into the trunk, which didn't look any better, by the way:

And lest we forget the trunk. Yes, that's an air cast.

I miraculously found space to shove the car seats in the trunk and almost had to sit on the trunk lid to lock it closed. "There!" I said triumphantly to Joe, who was already sitting in the driver's seat.

"Wait! One more thing!" I ran around the back of the car. I reached for the cylinder of wet wipes I kept in the back pocket of the passenger seat, snapped out a few and wiped the seats clean of crumbs and sticky substances.

"Now you're ready to roll this baby the way it should be," I said.
"Until tomorrow after school," he joked as he drove away.
Indeed.

 

Slum-thing's Got to Give

by Patti and Cathy


If there is one thing we don't mind saying about ourselves it is that we are some highly resourceful beeyotches. Let's face it: life is dynamic, and sometimes you find yourself in a situation where all you can do is ask yourself, "now what?" For some, those "now whats" are easy to fix. Maybe they have the time. Maybe they have the money. But for us? Time and money are often the scarcest of commodities, and that is when we are forced to MacGyver our way right on through those "what nows".

If we don't get resourceful, it doesn't get done, it doesn't happen, it doesn't change.  And that is how each of our own personal Book of Solutions was written -- out of sheer need, will, must. Sometimes we will go back and read some of the chapters in our books, and even WE cannot believe what has been written -- even though we wrote the stories. Indeed, sometimes these "solutions" of ours end up being more like slumlutions.

Patti
My dear friend Janie and I sang for years together in a society band. The gigs called for formal wear, from flirty cocktail wear to trendy evening dresses. We were working a lot, which meant a lot of outfits that I simply did not have. This is where my resourcefulness came to the rescue. I had a velvet (what? it was the 90's!) top that served me well for a good couple of years, but it was starting to get stale. So I took a needle and thread and created a va-va-voom low-cut neckline by scrunching the fabric into a cleavage-baring masterpiece. When I showed up at the gig, Janie couldn't believe it was the same top I'd been wearing for the past two years. "It looks amazing!" she marveled. Perhaps - but I could only hope Janie didn't lean in too closely. If she did, she might see the multiple colors of thread I'd had to use, and the amateur zig-zag sewing methods I'd used to create this "scrunch". One wrong move and I'd go from va-va-voom right back to Victorian librarian.

A few weeks later, I showed up in a brand new pair of gold strappy sandals. Except - they were actually three-year old black strappy sandals that were worn and tired and reincarnated into sparkly gold sandals via a can of "Hammered Gold" spray paint purchased at Home Depot. "What?" Janie declared me a fashion genius, and I just shrugged my shoulders, knowing that such "genius" was merely a creative flash of resourcefulness that struck my fancy at the last minute. Of course, had I taken off my shoes, she might have seen the "hammered gold" paint crusted onto the soles of my feet. I had spray-painted my sandals in such a hurry, I got paint in all the wrong places. And then, of course, because the paint job has been a last-minute flash of "genius", the sandals hadn't had time to dry. Hence, hammered gold toes.

And I don't know whether I'm proud or ashamed to say this resourcefulness? Runs in the family. M is the King of Resourcefulness. He pulls it off with a bit more finesse than I do, though; being raised in Argentina and having ridden a bicycle with no seat growing up forced him to get pretty creative in life.

Last summer, M and S left the country for two weeks together, leaving me at home. He was a little nervous about leaving me here by myself, and, for his own peace of mind, decided to install an alarm system before he left. Behold:

It's an old-school transistor radio hung by a neon green cord from the outdoor light fixture on our back porch. That radio has been playing day and night since July of last year. Sometimes I come home late at night after a  gig, and as I am walking up the sidewalk to my house, I hear an "Ah - ya - yi!" coming from  my back porch.  As I get closer, I realize it's the "alarm system", set to some Best! Of! Latino! station, blaring out merengues, salsas, and cumbias all night long. M insists this is without a doubt the most genius invention ever, this homemade alarm system, and we are safe as long as Elvis Crespo keeps singing away those intruders.

We may be safe from those intruders, but who is going to save us from ourselves?


Cathy
We had a four poster bed. You know, those Victorian, regal looking beds made of deep, cherry wood with scroll detail on the headboard that sit about four feet off the ground? I say 'had' because that is how our bed started out when we purchased it almost 15 years ago while I was in my antiquey stage.

When Bella was five years old, she discovered that the posts can double as exercise equipment! Onto our monstrous bed she would hoist her little body every spare minute of the day, first using her knee to climb onto the bench at the foot of the bed and then again, leveraging that little knee to help haul herself over onto the fluffy duvet. Then she would grab onto that pole (that's what we called it) for dear life and start swirling around it and climbing it like a rope, her little feet gripped tightly to the beautifully engraved etchings. And every time I would see her do this, I would warn, "Honey, that's gonna break. That's gonna break! You're gonna get hurt!" my voice would rise.

Sure enough, one day as she was twirling around it, the pole broke. It snapped. And of course, Bella got hurt. And of course she cried. And of course I had to tell her so.  The fourth pole had broken right at the base of the footboard and a sad, puny little fitted piece was all that was left. After I lamented the death of my four poster bed, I took charge. I grabbed a hacksaw (my neighbor had this) and sawed that little sucker right off. I then sanded down the stump gave it a few good coats of wood stain. Voila!

I stepped back and admired my...limpy three poster bed. I knew what I had to do. I secured myself into my gym shoes, stepped back and let at it. Tae Bo had never come in so handy. My roundhouse kicks were the bomb and my ass was getting a good workout to boot! I switched legs for an even workout, loosening that third post, cracking away, by the second. Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma'am. Down it went. I repeated the process on the other side and now admired my symmetrical bed. I was happy and well, proud.

What I wasn't so proud of? The time I came home from midnight mass one chilly Easter. It was a challenge just to bring the lit candle home, as that is our tradition on the night of the Resurrection; we bring the light of Jesus back to our house and keep it burning all night. What I didn't count on was not being able to find a suitable candle holder - or even A candle holder - at 1am and half asleep. Looking around my kitchen, I spotted my food processor. Ding! I unscrewed the lid and popped that candle in there for the night. Done and done.

It took me a while to get all that hardened wax unglued from my kitchen appliance, but you know what? Whether we are faced with half-sewed Victorian shirts or half-posted Victorian poster beds, we make it work. And it works.

Falls of Shame

by Cathy

As mothers raising babies, we've all done things we are not proud of.

These could have been intentional/purposeful (letting your baby cry while you...gasp! finished a much-needed shower) or accidental (locked your baby in the car with your keys on a hot summer day.) I am ashamed to say, I have done both.

The car incident was particularly scary; thank goodness for my chance encounter with a police car that happened to be cruising the store parking lot that day.

However, I've had two moments of motherhood shame that, for a long time, I didn't even tell my husband about for fear of being reprimanded because I wasn't with the baby 1,000% of every second of every minute of every day.

Bella was about four months old and we had one of those wind-up swings in our kitchen to entertain her, which she looooved. She was such a good, quiet baby for the most part and this night, I was having a particularly good time with her - we were playing, singing and having typical mom/baby fun.

It was time for her to eat. I placed her in her swing (basically a chair with a lap strap to hold her in while she rocked back and forth) and turned to reach for the can of formula.  At that precise moment, I quickly realized that I didn't strap her in. Before I could turn, I heard a thump that made my stomach sink, followed by her baby wail, all within seconds. As I turned towards her, of course milliseconds too late, I saw her laying on her back on the hardwood floor near the metal tubing of the base with the swing swaying gently above her.

I lunged towards her and carefully scooped her up in my arms. She was screaming and wailing as I walked her around the house examining her head, pacing, crying, apologizing, crying, worried, distraught, pissed, replaying how it happened in my head over and over. I concluded that she must have leaned forward, causing the swing to inch backwards and fallen directly onto her head, flipped, and landed on her back. I got sick to my stomach picturing that fall. I wouldn't put her down the rest of the night and even slept with her to make sure she didn't have some sort of internal head injury. I didn't sleep a wink as I wept over her, praying she was okay. And I never told a soul - except, of course, my mom. I knew she could commiserate with me.

Arianna was eight months old and much fiestier than her sister. I had put her down to sleep for the night in her playpen, which was in our bedroom. Her sister slept in the other room. I was also 'training' her to fall asleep on her own, (i.e. without us laying in the room with her). So I said 'nite nite', closed the door and went into the kitchen, which was adjacent to that room, to wash the dishes. I heard her crying, then wailing and I remember going in there a few times and saw her little fingers gripping the sides of the playpen as she stood and peeked desperately over to me with those big,watery, brown eyes. I comforted her but still wanted her to fall asleep on her own. So I just let her cry it out until she got tired and fell asleep. But she didn't fall asleep.

She fell OUT. Of her playpen. And onto the floor. She pushed on those little toes with all her might, enough to position her upper body over the railing, lose her balance and somersault out and land hard on the carpet - thank God for the carpet.

I ran from the kitchen and burst in to find her in eerily the same position as I had found Bella when she fell. I felt horrible. Once again, I scooped her up, reliving the same physical motions and sickening emotions as that night with Bella. I cried, I kept checking her head, I paced, I didn't tell my husband. I layed with her to sleep that night, and again, prayed.

The other night there happened to be a report on the news that highlighted the dangers of playpens and cribs and how some babies fall out of them. There was even a little girl who had gotten terrible internal head injuries from her playpen fall. I froze as I watched that segment, knowing full well that something horrible like that could have happened to one of my babies, and worse, on MY watch. Thank God it didn't.

Regardless, the mom guilt of having those instances even occur, will never leave me. And if you don't understand that, then well, you must have been dropped on your head as a child.