Small Things

Ain't no party like a chipmunk party, cuz a chipmunk party don't stop.

My daughter has been watching the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks almost every day since we bought the DVD two weeks ago. She asks for it as soon as she wakes up, she wants it as soon as she's home from preschool, and every evening around dinner time. I'm afraid it's a bit too easy to turn to when I desperately need her to sit still and not make messes.

I actually think it's maybe half enjoyable for a grownup who grew up with the Chipmunks Christmas LP. The CGI chipmunks are more smart-mouthed than the originals, and I don't like that Alvin makes some leering noises about a maid in one scene--this is a movie for the kinder set, after all. But there is a groovy new version of the Witchdoctor song, as well as some other new covers.

My kids know some lines by heart, and they just quote them randomly when we're out and about. Mary likes, "HO-leee Nuts! Am I crazy or did he just say family?"  Jimmy's favorite is, "Our parents were hippies. They left early to join a commune."

Oh, yeah . . . we have the soundtrack, too.

Looking forward to R&R

I had a pretty rough time this week, not sleeping well and single-parenting 3 little ones doesn't make for good mental health. On Wednesday, after a few melt-downs on my part, I had a Jesus-take-the-wheel moment. I really was in the car, and laid my head on the steering wheel while the kids whined and fought in the back seat.

Well, I think He was listening, because yesterday I had a tighter grip on my sanity, and that is very, very good for my oldest daughter.

While I was folding laundry upstairs, she sugared herself. She got a stool and a measuring cup and opened the sugar canister and poured cups and cups of sugar on the countertop, played in it, and when I found her it was covering her from head to toe. She had sugared eyelashes. If I had the presence of mind, I could have taken a very artful picture and used it at Christmas with something about sugar and spice and everything nice. But I was not feeling very nice. So I carried her to the tub, and went back downstairs to clean up.

It was a good time to finally clean my kitchen, and as I was scooping muck out of the broken garbage disposal, I temporarily forgot it was broken and flipped the switch. It actually turned a bit, I could hear it. So I felt for the jammed penny, and it moved a little. Perhaps the gunky slime had loosened it? So then I had a great idea (because I am a GENIUS) and I poured some canola oil in there. Then I grabbed a spoon, to try and pry the penny upwards, but instead the penny slipped down completely. I tried the switch, and it worked! So I got that goin for me. Which is nice. (Btw, the guy who invented tiled countertops? NOT a genius.)

So I’m still cleaning sugar, talking to my sister on the phone, when water starts trickling out of the ceiling vent in the living room. Yeah, that’s what I said. Ran upstairs, and Mary had dumped buckets of water out of the tub and our bathroom had about an inch of standing water. An entire basketful full of towels later, it was soaked up, and Mary was in bed. Hey, now our bathroom floor is clean. Which is nice. (Jimmy’s comment: I guess Mary is in a bucket of trouble! Get it mom? A bucket?)

Had a decent dinner of leftover spaghetti, walked the kids to the park to kill time, since Mary took such a late nap, and let the kids watch a movie while I put Katy to bed. Came downstairs to find Mary trying to mix her own chocolate milk, with a gallon of milk and the squeeze bottle of syrup, at the COFFEE table.

I don't remember exactly what I did, I know I yelled just a little, and put Mary to bed. But there was not even the slightest mental image of spanking her. And I think we may have Jesus to thank for that.

Mary doesn't stay in bed very well, however. I am currently holding a pink pony, a pink puppy, and a pink carebear hostage, because every time she gets out of bed, I take a buddy. If she stays in bed until my ten minute check, she gets a buddy back. I am about to go for the first ten minute check.

But I am feeling very curiously serene. Somehow this is all ok. In a few days, we leave for a lengthy visit with my parents, so I think I am going to make it. And the girl will live to see another day.

With a little help from my friend

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

But a close second is one's friend borrowing your car to move some stuff, and then returning it after getting it washed and vacumed, the oil changed, and the tank filled. Jill, just when I think I understand how generous a friend you are, you do something that makes my jaw drop again.

This going-it-alone thing is a little less hard . . . when you don't have to go it alone.

Thanks, friend!

Sarah's interview with Michelle Obama

A few weeks ago I posted that my friend Sarah Smiley was invited to talk to Michelle Obama at a round-table milspouse discussion in Virginia, and then I went and neglected posting about the actual interview! What can I say, I'm lazy. (So lazy, I desperately want to skip inserting all the hyperlinks in this post.)

Sarah's inital write-up in her Shore Duty column was unsatisfying to me, I'm afraid (though I like that you used my pony comment, Sarah!). It wasn't funny enough. Yes, she was interviewing a potential first-lady, and I am sure she wanted to be Serious and Respectful. But at Milspouse.com, Sarah does what Sarah does best, and that is make me laugh out loud:

All morning, I had been trying to connect with my point of contact within the campaign, but she and I were playing phone tag. Finally, I received the call….when I was using the toilet. I cupped my hand over the receiver, trying desperately not to give away my location with an echo. Then the woman in the stall next to me flushed her toilet.

Somehow, I felt even shorter just then.

I think she's saving the meatiest parts for her article in the October issue of Military Spouse Magazine. For now, you can read this much more satisfying prelude to her interview here at Milspouse.com. (And thank you, Sarah, for finally telling me what you wore!)

Flashback to 2001

My husband just emailed me to ask if I've reflected on 9/11 this year, considering that he is once again on an aircraft carrier, in exactly the place he was on that day seven years ago, doing the exact same job. I imagine that since his scenery is suddenly exactly the same as that morning, he is reflecting on what is different about his life now.

But my scenery is dramatically different than it was then. On September 11, 2001 I had no kids yet and was between jobs, I had a lot of time on my hands to email my husband and watch the news.  On anniversaries of that day, what I think about most is the horror we all felt watching the news coverage and thinking about the people in those buildings. That's what I reflect on each September 11th, those minutes of terror and fear, courage and humanity, the value of each life lost that day. And what it was like to stand in front of the television, watching it happen live.

I just dug up the first email I sent Jamie that day, and thought I would share the flashback. I was not sure what kind of news coverage he was getting on the boat, so I was trying to tell him what kinds of reactions were going on here.

From: Kristi P. Vega

Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:03 PM

To: LT James Vega

Re: craziness

 

Jamie,

 

What a crazy, terrible, terrible morning.  I just called the Care Line and heard that you all can receive messages, you just cannot send them.  I would've emailed you sooner if I'd known that, but I had assumed that all email was down.

 

This really is a frightening situation.  As far as scaring and panicking an entire nation, the terrorists have definitely succeeded.  Not only have large areas of Washington and all of Manhattan been closed down, companies everywhere are closing and buidings are being evacuated.  Your dad, my mom, Lori, shan, Barbra, Megan--all have called me saying their companies have closed.  Your Dad even told me to go get supplies at the grocery, get cash, and fill the gas tanks.  Sarah has called me countless times, occassionally sobbing. 

 

Baby, what is going on.  We have to do some serious stuff, because people can no longer live their lives.  Your parents are canceling their plans to go to Mike's parent's day weekend next week.  I do not want to fly anywhere this fall for vacation--we will definitely be driving.  Disneyworld closed down today!!!!  You have wondered aloud in the past what exactly is our way of life that we are protecting anymore--surely if anything, it is freedom from fear.  Freedom from the fear we felt in Mexico that night, freedom from the fear that makes your dad get water and food and cash and gas.  Freedom to travel, to conduct business, to feel secure in your home and neighborhood and city.

 

There have been clips of Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank celebrating.  Up til now, I have been dismayed at terrorist acts over there, on both sides of that dispute, but I at least understood how they could be motivated to do that.  But this . . . 120,000 people in the World Trade Center.  I watched the towers fall, live on television.  I saw it as it happened, just as family members of workers in there saw it live on television, the entire buildings collapsing.  Several hundred people from those four hijacked flights.  And Arabs are celebrating.  I don't care what they think their holy cause is.  That is just evil.  How can anyone be so misled to think that this is some kind of holy war.  120,000 civilians.  A whole nation panicked, fearful, terrorized.  Terror is not war.  How can anyone think terror is justified.  I do believe there can be "just" warfare.  And maybe the idea has been hard for me to get my mind around before, but it is suddenly crystallized for me that NO terrorism can be "just."  

 

I am praying for all those people.  Those families.  All of us.  And all of you.  We have got to do something. I wish I could do something.  I hate to sound like a WWII poster, but if I were a man, I just might join the Navy!!

 

But don't worry about me, I am not afraid or anything.  And I am trying to reassure your family and whoever else calls to keep things in perspective.  But I am mad.  And I am anxious about what we are going to do about this.

 

I love you, baby.  Take care of each other, and be careful.

All my love,

Kristi

I think it was almost 2 weeks before Jamie was able to send a message back to me. Each day I wrote to him about what people were doing and feeling back here, because I felt like he was missing a major event in our nation's collective experience. I wonder how different the view was for him. His carrier was on it's way home from the Gulf, and Jamie was on duty in the ready room, watching the news. Very soon after the towers fell, the carrier made a hard u-turn, and they were very busy for awhile.

 

For the record, Jamie's parents changed their minds and did indeed fly to my brother-in-law's parents day weekend at the Coast Guard Academy the following week. I guess it's hard to scare a Vega for long. ;-)

Why does Palin make me cry?

I've been very emotional about Sarah Palin since her announcement a week ago, and I have genuinely tried to examine why.

I like her, I identify with her loving a big family, I appreciate that she lives unapologetically. I deeply, and very personally, celebrate that she is a high-profile example of how we should value all babies, even the inconvenient and the imperfect. Even when it changes your life and breaks your heart.

I don't agree with everything she says. I don't even always like her tone, though speakers at both conventions used sarcasm and condescension to play to their crowd. And that's her job, to be the pitbull and appeal to the people to whom that tactic appeals. (I am not one of them.)

For a few years now, while struggling to hang on to my identity and at least few IQ points while raising babies and preschoolers, I have said the words "I can't" way too often. I can't take that job, I can't take that class, I can't volunteer right now, I can't go to an HOA meeting, I can't even go to the movies. Because I have small kids. Because right now, I have babies, no childcare, no nearby family, a husband deployed . . . oops, I'm getting myself emotional again, let me get through this to the good part . . .

The peptalk I often give myself is that I chose to be a stay-at-home mom, and right now, this is exactly what I want to do for my kids. And someday, when they are older, when they need me less, I will be able to go out and do more, get involved, improve the HOA, grow my business, get an MFA, volunteer at my church, go to a Feminists for Life conference, take guitar lessons . . .

And I think that deep down in my sub-concious, I worry, what if I'm kidding myself? What if this is what I am, and choosing to be a stay-at-home mom, and for so long, will erode the . . . potential for me to do more? Will my abilities, my "talents" if you will, whatever gifts I have to bring to the table, atrophy if I have another kid and keep choosing to stay home?

I say Sarah Palin is my new hero, because the day I saw her for the first time, she made me stop saying "I can't." I'm not going to run for PTA president or city council anytime soon, because my choice is still the same--I want to stay home with my babies right now. But it's not because I can't. It's because I just won't. Not yet.