Auntie Chelle's Favorite Things

Growing up, I was one of those kids you used to see piled up with pillows and blankets in the back of a station wagon.  (Okay, showing my age, this was way before car seats.)  I saw most of the South and the Eastern Seaboard as we left it over the back of a pop up camper.  Additionally, my mother was, and still is, one if those people who always has a million different projects going on.  So, even if we weren’t taking a trip to Visit Aunt Morna and Uncle Frank in New Jersey, we could still be in the back of the station wagon all day just running errands.  Usually, she’d have one of her friends with her and that woman had her kids with her, so the station wagon was a packed house. 

You can imagine what came next:

“Mom, he’s touching me!”

“Mom, she touched me first!”

“Mom, is it okay to hit a girl if she hits me first?”

“Mom, are we there yet?”

“Mom, I have to pee.”

“Mom, how much further on the map?”

“Mom, he’s touching me again!”

“Mom, I’m not kidding, I really have to pee!”

My poor mother.  For that matter, my poor brother.  For whatever reason, he was usually out numbered four to one.   My point, and yeah, it’s buried in here, but I do have one, is that to keep us all quiet, and I’m sure herself sane, she used to have us sing.  We sang for HOURS.  Which is why I know every bible school song, church hymn, all of John Denver’s songs, and the words to every show tune ever written before 1982.  To this day.  Once John Denver gets in your brain the only way to get him out is electro shock therapy.  I’m convinced of it. 

Anyway.

One of her favorite sound tracks was The Sound of Music, and my favorite song was My Favorite Things.  This was back before this became a Christmas favorite.  It’s one of those songs that makes me happy.  And, unlike most songs with a melody that will stick in your head like a screaming two year old clinging to his mother, since I know the words, it doesn’t make me crazy if it gets stuck in my head.  It’s one of those songs that brings back warm summer days and kool-aid and cookies at the park.  One of those Good Memories From Childhood. 

So, I’ve decided to ignore the fact that Oprah beat me to the punch and every month I’m going to do a list of Auntie Chelle’s Favorite Things.  Because it’s my blog and I can, that’s why.

And, here’s my inaugural list:  (Drumroll Please!)

Auntie Chelle’s Favorite Things November 2007:

1. Burt’s Bee’s Miracle Salve.  This stuff is amazingly versatile and useful.  It comes in a small round shoe polish type tin and costs around $8, if I remember correctly, which is a bit pricey in my opinion, but I can’t deny the stuff works.   I use it everyday for my hair, although it also has many other uses.  My hair is very fine and all the heating products I use on it give me tons of breakage, especially from my curling iron.  I put a little on my fingers and run it through the ends of my hair and, ta -da!  my hair doesn’t stick to the curling iron or curling brush anymore.  Wuuuunderful!

2. LO JACK for Laptops.  If you travel like I do, you NEED this.  They now make it for Mac’s and PC, which means I have another layer of security surrounding my Sophie Mac (my laptop).  This helps me sleep at night when I’m on the road.  Plus, at $49.99 for a one year subscription it’s very reasonable.

3. FRESH Rice Saki Bath.  I don’t know if there’s really Saki in this and it’s making me drunk during my bath or what, but this stuff is YUMMY.  My skin is soft and smells beautiful.  My friend Mary gave me a sample to try and now I know why she’s my friend.  She has EXCELLENT taste.  At $80 bucks a bottle, it’s not cheap, but it’s worth it.

4. Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby Ice Cream.  Dove ice cream notwithstanding, this is still my favorite.  I’m a sucker for peanut butter and chocolate and caramel all in one place.  To DIE for.  And won’t break the bank at $6.99 per pint.

And last, but not least, because five seems like a good number,

5. Life’s Little Instruction Daily Calendar.  My aunt gives me one of these every year and I look forward to pulling off the old one and reading the new one every morning.  The best one’s I save, and I have several tacked to my bulletin board.  But, my all time favorite one is “Don’t feel you need to attend every argument you’re invited to.”  Excellent wisdom.  I think these are somewhere around $10, and it’s definitely the gift that keeps on giving.

So, that’s it.  My First Auntie Chelle’s Favorite Things List.  Enjoy!

And I thought Kindergarten was hard…

So, today, I let Sunshine, my one and only chick, drive herself to school for the first time.  Damn that was scary.

Although, I can’t claim to be “cool Mom”, send her off and don’t look back.  Nope, I made her call me as soon as she got to the school parking lot.  Yes, I’m overprotective.  So?  Did I mention she’s the only chick I’ve got?

Man, this was hard.  She and I were laughing about it last night.  She says that I’m like the mother bird that encourages the chick to fly. “Okay, honey, put one foot on the edge of the nest.  No, no, don’t look down yet, it’s going to be okay.  Now, put the other foot up.  Flap your wings a little, feel the air? Now, off you go….”

But, her father is more like “You got wings.”  Gives a good shove.  “Better use ‘em!”

And to a certain extent, she’s so right.  But, and don’t tell her, her dad wanted me to call him and let him know she got there all right.

Not *quite* as heartless as he seems, eh!

Anyway, now I’m sitting here remembering her face when she got on the bus for kindergarten.  She was so scared and afraid and she didn’t want to leave Miss Manoo’s class or her cubby.  And, then, when she got home that afternoon, she stood on the top steps of the bus, threw up her arms up in the air and said.  “Mom, kindergarden was fantastic!  I love it!”.

I realize, now, that the first day of Kindergarten is a very important step.  It’s the first step our chicks take away from us and it’s the first step of us letting them go be those wonderful, special, strong, self-sufficient people they are meant to be, and that we want them to be.  It’s also the first time our heart breaks, just a little, because  as mothers, we all realize that this first little step is the first step on their road away from us.

I think life prepares us for these steps away from us all the time.  There are the days our kids take little steps away from us as they grow up, beginning with that first step they take all by themselves with mom and dad on either side ready to catch them. Then there is the first time we let them go down the stairs by themselves without holding onto mom’s hand, the first time they dress themselves, their first sleep-over, the first time we let them take a field trip where they will be more than an hour away from us,  the first time they want to give out candy instead of dressing up for Halloween, and their first date. 

All these tiny, insignificant, oh so important, steps on the path of growing up and becoming adults.   Which we  *want * them to do.   Which we know they *need* to do so they can grow up and live their dreams, and even as  we don’t want them to have to.  Because we know, intuitively, with that mother’s instinct that told us when they were drawing on the wall in the other room when they were three, that these little steps are leading to the inevitable Big Steps.

The days like today.  The Big Steps kind of day.  The first day of Kindergarten, the first time they fly on a plane by themselves to go visit their grandparents.  For three weeks.  And, the first day they drive themselves to school.  Just another step, albeit a Big Step, on the path away from us, where we get to see them and watch over them everyday. 

I guess the next Big Step is the day she leaves for college.  Only eighteen short months away.

I’m going to cry that day too.

Home Again

Yeah, sorry it’s been so long since I posted.  The last three weeks were amazing, hectic, tiring and wonderful.  But, I’m finally back home and very happy to be sleeping on MY pillow again! 

Cherry Con was amazing and I’ll write more about that later.

My quarterly trip to California was hectic and tiring, but very productive.

AND,  even with all the traveling I’ve done, I still managed to write another 6000 words!  Yeah ME!  I’m still flailing a bit, but I’m trying to keep my eye on the prize of a finished first draft and ignore that Bitch of an Internal Editor that makes me want to rewrite the first act as naseum.  I’ve also been reading a lot, choosing what to read by publisher rather than author.  I’m trying to get an idea of the differences each publisher requires.  I’ve found some very interesting nuances in the writing from publisher to publisher, as well as author to author.  Again, I’ll post as I can.

Okay, so back to work.  I’m in the home stretch for the GH and although I don’t expect to be any where near finaling, my goal is to have a finished first draft and I’m damn well going to make it.

Tune in later this week for Auntie Chelle’s Favorite Things.  Something new I’m planning to do each month!