My little big leaguer

- Posted by Michael

Wherein I discuss the really important things... My hair

I blame it on the eighties. Actually, I blame it on the seventies, because really, can’t everything, at its origin, be blamed on the seventies? But I only lived through half of that infamous decade and during those years I wasn’t in a decision-making capacity, so I’ll have to blame the eighties. So what precisely am I blaming on an entire decade? My hair, of course. Isn’t it always about my hair? The eighties was the big hair decade, for both men and women. One’s success in a myriad of industries – rock ‘n’ roll, stage and screen, modeling, etc. – was in direct proportion to the size of one’s coiffure. This worked for me. You see, I matured early. Unfortunately, my ass just kept right on maturing while the rest of me, brains included, stopped. So even in high school, I packed a lot of junk in my trunk. The big hair balanced me out. When that wasn’t enough, enter linebacker shoulder pads, a la Joan Collins. But being in high school where a T-shirt and jeans was the established uniform, shoulder pads weren’t entirely practical, although certainly not unheard-of. But this isn’t about shoulder pads, this is a discussion about hair. Specifically, my hair. Because as previously stated, everything pretty much is. So, I had big hair: winged out, blown back, gelled up big hair. And damn did I look good. My big hair coupled with my Guess jeans which had those tiny pockets in the back that made even the biggest of butts look small, or at least normal sized, and I was killer. I even wore make-up back then. Oh, the energy of youth.
Then came the nineties. Dressing down was in. Naturale was the look. It was a horrifying decade for us Southern girls, I can tell you. We didn’t do natural. Not in Kentucky. We concealed, rouged, shadowed, lengthened, lifted, and separated. We didn’t think much of nature when it came to personal beauty. I was in college in the nineties. Just as the fashions changed for me, the boys too changed. In high school, the more work you put in, the more you were rewarded with the attentions of the opposite sex. Coming to school clean faced and in sweats was akin to showing up in a nun’s habbit in terms of garnering male attentions. In college though, it was like the less you tried, the more guys took notice. Apparently, aloof was the buzz word for sexual relations for Gen X-ers. It took me until junior year to catch onto this sea change. Old habits die hard I guess. For two years, I religiously blow dried and made up, ridiculous given that I lived in an unair-conditioned dorm. By the time my second class rolled around I looked like nothing so much as an oil slick with a cheap wig. It all changed during junior year. During junior year, my suitemate was from Michigan. Michiganders, apparently, were not raised to worship at the altar of Paul Mitchell and Max Factor. Molly was the embodiment of the natural movement. She came all the way from Michigan with just the clothes that could fit in her Mom’s car. That’s it! I, on the other hand, hauled a carload of crap back to the dorm every Sunday afternoon. And Molly got guys. Molly got a lot of guys. So, I thought, let me get this straight. Molly does little more than crawl out of bed and throw on a cap, and guys just can’t get enough of her. Well, Mama didn’t raise no dummy, and I had two years of fine public postsecondary education under my belt. I ditched the make-up, ditched the tights (yes, I was still wearing tights in 1995) and set forth into the world in Levi’s and a ball cap. And whadoyaknow? Guys started paying attention to me. The less interested I seemed, the more they showed up. Well hell!
Now at thirty-five and happily married for nearly fourteen years, getting a guy bears no weight in my hairdo decisions. As long as Michael doesn’t have to dodge flying brushes or flat irons, he’s not all that concerned with my hair. Nowadays, with a toddler in the house and another baby on the way, my hair decisions are based on one thing and one thing alone: Ease. What is the absolute minimum amount of work I’ll have to do to look presentable on the off chance that an opportunity to leave the house presents itself? That’s the style for me. I couldn’t care less about whether it accentuates my eyes, flatters my bone structure, or hints at the latest celebrity style. And I certainly don’t expect a hairstyle to make my ass look smaller. Honestly, that ship has sailed. I just want to be able to leave the house and not be mistaken for an escapee from the “Home.”
People, those with a death wish, like to point out to me that there are strands of grey showing at my temples. Honestly, Being able to successfully delude one’s self about the existence of grey hair and fine lines is pretty much the only upside to being blind. Really, and I mean this in all honesty, it is not information that I need to know. If there’s spinach in my teeth – sure, tell me that. Toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Absolutely, I’d love to know about it. My socks don’t match? Feel free to tell me, although I probably already know and don’t care. But grey hair and wrinkles? Just keep that information to yourself thanks. As obsessed as I often am about my hair, particularly in regard to what torture methods to employ to make it conform to my will, I am not so obsessed, nor so vain, nor so interested in what others think to invest the vast sums of time and money required to fool absolutely no one into believing that I am younger than I actually am. Especially when you consider that I won’t even get to enjoy the fruits of those tortuous labors, being entirely visual as they are. It’s maybe cliché, but I did in fact earn every one of those grey hairs. They are the product of surviving many a brain surgery, enduring frequent nights holding my beloved but sleep apathetic child, and of being thirty-five years old and pregnant. Those grey hairs are my battle scars from wars well fought and won.
If you know me, know of me, or have even passed by me in a hall somewhere, you are aware that a fashionista I am most certainly not. So from whence comes this hair obsession? Being blind leaves one in a desert wasteland of style and fashion. 1989 was the last year in my sight memory; thus, I will forever harbor an unnatural fondness for tight-rolled, stone-washed jeans and electric blue eye liner. See the problem? Unless I want to rely on my husband or my mother for style advice (and who would want that?) hassling my friends, blog readers, and Facebook pals about modern fashion is pretty much the only way I can get the information. So, my friends, I implore you to patience. You can rest assured that you are free from my incessant questions for the time being at least. I have reached the blissful state of having hair long enough to wear in a ponytail. That, coupled with the pending new baby’s arrival, and does anybody have a doubt as to how I’ll be wearing my hair for approximately the next year? I’d ask if ponytails are “in,” but honestly, I don’t care. If they’re not, and I break down and ask – as you know I am wont to do – then please, just lie to me.

Sleeping Sprout

This is What Passes for Exciting in My Life

I love going to the grocery store on Saturday mornings. It’s crowded, sure, but there’s a sense of optimism to the crowd. We have an entire weekend ahead of us. The possibilities seem endless. I love the commradery, like all us shoppers are in it together, working toward the common goal of feeding our families. It’s different from the mood of, say, a Thursday night. Thursday nights are crowded, but the crowd is different. We’re all tired from the events of the day. We’d all really rather be at home, or anywhere really. Saturday morning is a hopeful time. Sure, let’s go ahead and get that rack of lamb. There’s plenty of time to learn how to cook it between now and Sunday dinner. And just think of the leftovers. Ahh, what sweet optimism is Saturday morning.
The beauty of this past weekend’s grocery outing begins before I have even entered the bakery-scented doorway of our local Kroger. Standing outside, fresh faced and eager, are none other than the Girl Scouts of America. And bless their darling little hearts, they want nothing more in the world than to offer me cookies. Would that everyone I encountered in daily life be so accommodating. Michael rushes us past as if we were fleeing a burning building. This could be because I have already threatened to buy a dozen boxes of Tagalongs and consume them all in the car on the way home.
So into the grocery store we rush. When you think of it, the grocery store really is an embarrassment of riches. I sometimes feel guilty about how easy it is for us Americans to get food. There are places in the world where people have to beg, steal, or even kill for food. It’s a sobering thought. I make yet another mental note to donate to some international food bank, but then proceed to assuage my guilt with Cadbury eggs. Have I mentioned how much I do love March? Girl Scout Cookies and Cadbury eggs. Could life get any better?
Of course, grocery shopping is always a more pleasant experience sans the two year old. He brings an element of unpredictability to the venture that is unsettling at best, and can be outright embarrassing at worst. Then there are those times where Michael and I tend to disagree over food choices. This is most starkly illustrated in the cereal aisle. My husband loves cereal. I mean, he could eat it everyday. Sure, I like cereal. Cereal is fine. But I sometimes like to get wild and crazy and mix it up a bit. Say, have a bagel for breakfast. Or even more scandalous, a muffin. But it’s not even that Michael loves cereal. It’s that he loves boring cereal. When I say he could eat cereal everyday, I mean he could eat Corn Flakes everyday. Or Shredded Wheat. Or some other high fiber horror. I mean, with all the vast, nearly endless, cereal choices – Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Honey Smacks – why in the world would you choose Corn Flakes? I don’t know, but that’s just what Michael does. Then I get his silent disapproval when I pick Count Chocula. This has really become a problem lately when, due to the high cost of food, we have to eat the same cereal. Honestly, I’d rather share a toothbrush than eat his cereal.
So once the cereal debacle is over, my euphoria in the grocery outing is vastly diminished. By the time we get to the dairy case, my good mood has vanished altogether. Here’s something else about my husband: He can read on the grocery list: cream cheese, sour cream, whipping cream, and creamer - and it all registers as the same thing to him. If those four items are on the grocery list, I’ll get home to find that I have four containers of just one of those. Four sour cream tubs for example. Or four cartons of whipping cream. And you know, I’m already pissed off over the cereal selection, so this dairy product SNAFU never helps my mood. Lately, my mood has also fallen prey to the rising price of groceries. I’m not one of those people who believes that food should be cheap. I know what goes into the growing, making, and transporting of our food supply. But as a stay at home mom, I consider one of my primary duties to be planning healthy meals for my family while remaining within the limits of a budget. When the weekly grocery bill continues to register in the triple digits, I can’t help feeling like I’ve failed somehow.
I think it is unfair that once the groceries have been bought and paid for, one still has ahead of her the putting away of said groceries, which inevitably necessitates the cleaning out of cabinets and the refrigerator. There are few things in life I enjoy less than cleaning out the fridge. Being blind lends an element of surprise to the contents of food storage containers. These surprises are never pleasant. ‘Nuff said?
Even though I know how the grocery errand will play out, I still get a thrill every time we pull into Kroger on Saturday mornings, especially on a sunny March morning.

Villagers One and All

I was reading a collection of articles from the Oprah magazine yesterday. One of the articles was an interview Oprah did with a mother of nine kids. What struck me about the article wasn’t how the woman did it, or how she managed to find any time for herself, or how she kept her figure. No, I was struck that there was no mention of the woman’s support network. The woman said how great her husband was, but she didn’t mention the support or help she got from family members, friends, community or church groups. Maybe during the course of the interview this woman gushed at length about how awesome her mother has been about helping, or how much she appreciates the local mom’s group, but those comments didn’t make it into the final interview, and I have my suspicions about why that is.
We are living in a time of epidemic perfection. Unless you are a reality TV star, you are supposed to exude confidence, poise, contentment, and self-possession. Absolutely no negativity allowed. In short, you are supposed to be perfect. Oh sure, everybody knows you’re not, but there is no excuse for not keeping up the pretense. This seems especially true for women. My own peer group being moms (and there was a time I’d have cringed at the thought of ever writing that sentence) I see it mostly in that group. Our children are perfect. Our husbands are perfect. Our dinners are perfect. Our homes are perfect. Our sex lives are perfect. It’s just us Stepfords here, hanging out, being perfect. Well ladies, I’m about to crash the party.
I have been laboring under a semi-serious depression for about six months now. You cannot imagine how hard it was for me to write that sentence. For twenty years now, I have styled myself as the epitome of independence. I was like the terminator of achievement. Give me a goal and watch me obliterate it. I eat goals for breakfast. Grrrr. When I lost my sight, I heard nothing but “can’t.” You can’t do this. She’ll never do that. So I, unwittingly, set out to prove the world wrong. I’ve only recently realized that the world really doesn’t care what I do. But still, old habits die hard. I carried this perfection mania into my life as a mother. I would not only manage to be a mother, and a blind mother at that, I was going to be the best mother ever. I would know everything and do everything. Sleep was for wusses. Honestly, I don’t think I fooled anybody, but that didn’t stop me trying. My delicate house of cards started to slant, then crash right about the time Sprout turned two. He needed to be around other kids. He needed new experiences. I couldn’t give him that. I couldn’t drive him to play groups. I couldn’t take him on educational outings. I couldn’t even play match-the-color games with him. Depression doesn’t often jump out at you from behind doors or ambush you in dark alleys. It creeps in when you’re safe behind locked doors. It’s like a slow drip, eating away at your defenses little by little. That’s the way it was for me. I was trucking along, Ms. Perfection atop my homemade parade float, waving to the crowd. Yes, it’s me, managing to do it all and love it. Then we hit heavy traffic. My float stalled. Then the rains came. Then I was just trying to hide from onlookers underneath the ruins of the tissue-thin facade I’d built.
This is the part where I tell you what turned it all around for me, where I recount the story that brought me to the point of self love. Except I’m not there yet. Every day is a struggle with my own emotions, with my feelings of inadequacy, with my guilt over not being over-the-moon joyous at this awesome life I have. Because don’t get me wrong, mine is an awesome life. It is possible to know that on a cerebral level and not feel it in the soul.
Continuing with the honesty, I started this blog as a way to show everybody that a blind woman could do it all. I wanted to share my struggles, but more honestly still, I wanted to share my triumphs. Triumphs were what I was used to. But I’m tired of faking it. I’m tired of this perfection game that nobody, not me, not you, not any of the moms who appear to have it all wins. I’ve had to reassess who I am these last few months, and frankly, I’m still not sure I know. But then, I’m not sure we ever know. The very act of self examination changes who we are. All we can ever hope for, all we should strive for, is self acceptance. That means acceptance of our lives, our weaknesses, and our own emotions. It’s okay not to be perfect. It’s okay.
I write this for myself. It’s something I needed to say. But I hope other women will benefit from it too. It’s not my place to tell you you’re not perfect. Hell, up until a few months ago I thought you were. But I’ve taken a long look at my own charade, and I think I see the signs of similar pantomimes in yours.
I think it must have been the Mommy Wars, the stay at home moms vs. the outside the home moms, that forced women to feel like they had to choose sides in a battle that most of us think is ridiculous and care not a wit about, but having chosen a side, we had to play hard for our team lest we be blamed for the loss. Whether your work is primarily inside the home or you spend much of your day outside your home, raising kids is hard work, physically and emotionally. I don’t know everything, but one thing I do know is that nobody raises a kid alone, and you sure as shit don’t raise nine alone. If that’s your propaganda, you’re hurting yourself, but more importantly, you’re hurting your daughters.

Maternity

I am seeing a pattern to my food cravings. As with my first pregnancy, I am craving dairy products, smoothies, Big Macs, and blueberries. The last two are significant because I don’t even like Big Macs or blueberries. I mean, my craving for Girl Scout cookies and Cadbury eggs is completely understandable. I’d be craving those pregnant or not, but Big Macs and blueberries? How strange. One big difference from my first pregnancy is that I’m not craving meat. Actually, I can’t even stand to eat much meat this time. With Sprout, I’d have sausage for breakfast, a chili dog for lunch, and barbecue for dinner. Michael began to wonder if we’d have to become ranchers just to keep me in beef. I think he’s a little relieved that the meat craving is absent this time, excepting the Big Macs.
There are other differences between this pregnancy and the first one too. I’m more emotional this time. Way more emotional. Yesterday, I cried all day. Apparently, just because it was Tuesday. With Sprout, I’d cry over commercials, or songs, or movies (Michael absolutely forbid me from watching Steel Magnolias), but this time I just cry for no discernable reason. Frankly, I’d rather have the meat craving. I’m also a lot bigger than I was at this point in my first pregnancy. It’s like my body said hey, I remember this, and in classic overachiever mode, began enlarging to support the ninth month. Problem is, I am only four months pregnant. It’s going to be a long five months.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the horror that is maternity clothes. They come in either two styles: tent or tramp. I prefer the tent, although I reserve the right to change my mind if this summer is miserably hot. I know, right? It’ll be August in Kentucky, of course it’ll be miserably hot. Well let me just tell you now that I will be purchasing that maternity spaghetti strap top and Daisy Dukes for those dog days. But I assure you, I won’t leave the house so clad. Except maybe to venture into the backyard to have Michael spray me down with the garden hose. Actually, maybe I’ll just lie around in Sprout’s kiddie pool. Either way, we have a tall backyard fence, so it’s all fine. Speaking of maternity tramp, I really don’t care how cute some 18-year old size 2’s baby belly is, I think I speak for most everybody when I say, we don’t want to see it. You can just keep that belly all good and covered up sweetie pie. But apparently, maternity slut is just all the rage when it comes to fashion. That’s right up there with the bodysuit and short sleeve sweaters in terms of ridiculousness, I’m thinking. But then, my phone isn’t ringing off the hook from all the people wanting fashion advice from me, so there you go. ‘Sokay, I’ll console myself with a blueberry smoothie.