I May Be Huffing Glue Soon

It's that time of year again when my bank account starts to weep for mercy.

It's time for back to school shopping. The only thing worse than back to school shopping is Christmas shopping. Except at Christmas I can self-medicate on foil-covered chocolates, an abundance of baked goods and the promise of finding something interesting in my own stocking as I shop to stuff everyone else's.

This time of year? Unless I resort to huffing the fumes of rubber cement while eating paste, there is nothing that will erase the pain of having to fork out for school supplies, clothes and shoes for three kids. All the while reliving my own back to school nightmares of yore.

My kids, however, love, love, love going back to school shopping. Clearly these are not my children. While I admit to getting a little jazzed up over getting a new box of pencil crayons and maybe loving the Trapper Keeper my mother once bought me, I didn't get overly excited about going back to school shopping. Getting new school supplies was just a reminder of having to go back to school to try and avoid getting stuffed back into my locker by a kid named Joe who was half my size but twice as annoying strong.

My children have been known to roll around in stacks of new loose leaf paper while rubbing their scientific calculators against their cheeks and purring. All the while wearing every piece of new clothing I've been forced to buy for them.

Is it just my children who seem to grow five inches each summer rendering the perfectly good clothing they wore only two months ago completely useless? I've talked to other parents who insist they only buy their kids a new pair of gym shoes when school starts. When do their kids grow? Because I swear my kids suck up the sunshine and shoot up like weeds, every damn year.

And don't get me started on buying kids shoes. I used to think it was bad standing in the shoe store with my kid trying to find a pair of shoes that weren't plastered with images of Barney, Dora or Spiderman.

I'd happily go back into time and buy every Barbie, Cars and Batman shoe I could find if it meant never having to pork out money for expensive athletic shoes that won't fit my child's foot for more than three months.

Back in my day, I'd be lucky if my parents would give me a new piece of cardboard and some duct tape to make my own shoes for school.

(Just kidding Mom.)

Then there is my problem with the school dress code. Or lack there of. Walking inside the school and you are immediately subjected to more crack than an addict could want. Boobs. Butts. Skin. It's as though each girl is trying to out skank the next one and each boy is trying to see how low his jeans can hang while walking around looking like the unibomber with his sweatshirt hood pulled up over his head.

Where are these kids' parents? *Read that in the screechiest Sanctimommy voice you can muster. Because that's how I feel about it.*

And the worst part is, my kids want to dress just. like. them.

Over my dead body, I tell ya. Which, surely enough, they've plotted more times than once as I've sent them back into the stores to choose something a little more mother friendly as I stand by the change rooms to wait to see their choices.

If you take my general frustration about shopping for my kids clothes in general and add two teens who are fashion conscience clothes horses and one little boy who refuses to want to wear clothes in general and suddenly I'm wishing that school uniforms were mandatory and school supplies consisted of slate and chalk.

Which is what I'm venting about on my latest Momversation video. Ranting about kids walking around in tank tops with their boobs hanging out. As I'm wearing a tank top with my boobs hanging out.

Oh, hypocrisy, thy name is Mom.

So go ahead, watch it and let me know if you hate school shopping as much as I do. Which team are you on? I will be honest. I'm siding with team School Uniforms all the way.

 



 

It's Only Funny When I Say It

I sent my daughter to art camp last week.

Which is only slightly better than saying I sent my kid to band camp.

Ahem.

Well technically, while I paid for this over-priced teenaged vacation where the hormones ran rampant, I didn't actually deliver my child to a place where she most certainly created teenaged memories I don't really want to know about.

I had my sister take her there. Because I was cavorting in San Diego, creating memories I'm certain I don't want my teenagers to know about. (No, momma didn't shake her thang while wearing sparkles and holding a beer. Don't believe the pictures. They all lie.)

No, I had my sister drive two hours to dutifully attend to my parent responsibilities. All for the cost of gas and a promise of one day returning the favour if she so needed it. It almost made me sorry for the years when my sister and I shared a room and I would graffiti over the fuzzy kitten posters my sister always liked to hang up the wall.

Sorry sis, but kitty posters were never cool. The devil horns and moustaches I liked to draw on them made them somewhat palatable and probably saved you from me smothering you with a pillow after being taunted by such overt cuteness day after day.

I probably should have been nicer to my sister back then. That was a serious lack of forethought on my part, seeing how she now bails my arse out of a pickle more often than naught. If I had known, I'd have tormented her with slightly less frequency.

Maybe.

While I missed dropping my kid off at her camp, her father and I were both around to make the long drive to pick up our child and bring her home. Like the good parents we ought to be.

After reuniting with our daughter in the parking lot (when did she start to become so womanly? Damn you Co-Ed Art Camp!) my husband and Fric took to the dorms to pick up all her luggage as I wandered about the art gallery high-lighting the fruits of week long labour.

I ogled the serious talent some of these teens had, while privately judged others as not being up to snuff and when I came across my daughter's work, I stood in front of it and just oozed parental pride.

Oh yeah. My kid is good. She totally takes after me. (Or so I like to delude myself.)

As I stood marvelling at some of the pieces in front of me, a lady walked up next to me and asked if that was my kid's work.

"Yes, my daughter, Fric's," I smiled as I pointed over to where she and my husband now stood, across the room.

"She's very talented," this lady replied.

Yes. Yes she is, I thought as I puffed up with pride.

"I don't recall meeting you last week at the beginning of camp," this lady continued and then introduced herself as one of the chaperones of the camp.

"Oh, I wasn't here. I had her aunt drop her off. I was away at a conference," I prattled on, suddenly nervous that I was being judged. I quickly ran my tongue along my teeth to make sure there was nothing stuck in them, and stood a little bit taller.

"Oh, a work conference?" She pried.

"Yep." At this point I was trying to make eyes with my husband so he could come and rescue me from this awkward social encounter. I don't like small talk at the best of times while my husband can talk the ears off a tin can. He's very useful like that.

"What is it you do?"

"I'm a blogger."

"I'm sorry, a what?" The confused look on her face would have been comical except for that vibe she was sending out that screamed judgement.

"A blogger. It's a term for internet writer."

"Oh! You're a writer!" I nodded and smiled, while scanning the room for my family.

"What do you write?"

At this point, had she not been sending out condescending bitch vibes, I'd have happily engaged with her a lengthy explanation of who I am and what it is I do. But seeing as how her voice was just a tad too loud and her looks more pointed than I felt comfortable with, I floundered.

I gave her a pat answer, my elevator pitch, while looking around desperately for any of my kin to step in and save me. The voices inside my head were screaming "make a break for it!" but my manners my parents instilled in me seemed to override the flight response my instincts were demanding.

"You write about your life?" She repeated, dryly. As though she had read my blog already and found it lacking.

"Well, yes. You know, stuff I experience and all the stuff I want to do." And with her less than enthusiastic response to my career choice I finally gathered my courage and decided to make a break for it. Two minutes too late, granted, but still.

"It was lovely meeting you, but if you'll excuse me, I see my family over there." I didn't stick around to get her permission to leave. As I hot footed it over to my husband and daughter I breathed a sigh of relief.

Judgy women just don't do it for me.

"You guys ready to go? Some of the people here are freaking me out a bit." I nudged my chin in the direction of my new friend.

My daughter looked at the woman I was referring to and started to laugh.

"Oh, that was my dorm mother!"

"Ya, well I don't think she liked me too much. Didn't seem to think very highly of what I do for a living. Plus she kept looking at me like I had a booger hanging out of my nose."

Frac suddenly looked a little guilty. No, a lot guilty.

"Ummmm," she stammered.

"What? What did you say to her?" I demanded to know.

"Nothing really, it's just a few days ago after dinner we were all talking about our parents and she wanted to know what you did for a living. You know, typical camp talk, Mom."

"Uh huh. What did you say?" My kid's skin was suddenly going a lovely shade of red.

"Well, I may have made a small," she held her fingers up, "joke about what you do."

"Really? What kind of joke?" My husband and I both peered down at my daughter.

"Something about mumble, mumble..."

"What?"

Frac looked at me and I could see her weigh the outcome of her answer in her mind. "I was trying to explain to them about what you did for a living and I may have made a crack about it. I was just trying to being funny," she hurriedly tacked on as a personal defence.

"What crack?"

"That you write internet porn for a living?"

Ahhhh.

"Well that explains the looks she was giving me." My husband was howling with laughter while my kid was giving me puppy dog eyes in hopes of me not beating her to death with one of the odd abstract statues we were surrounded with.

As we walked out, I could feel that woman's eyes on me.

So I blew her a kiss.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Next year, we're finding a different art camp. And I'm duct taping my kid's mouth shut for the length of her stay.

It's All In The Cards

She was packing up her table filled with tarot cards and crystal balls when we walked past her just as the sun started sinking in the sky.

I've never been a believer, not when my mom used to go for tea readings and played with runes, and not now with my very own personal ghost. The last thing I need is to be told there is a five year old boy haunting me from beyond. I don't need to pay money to know that. He sits on my soul like a heavy weight as is.

"Do you want to?" Shan asked. "Let's do it." Why not? I thought to myself as we wandered over and sat at this woman's table, her office on a sidewalk.

I listened as she prattled off my friend's future and fortune, just accurate enough to make me listen, completely absurd enough to make me smile and then our new psychic friend asked if I wanted my cards read.

No, not at all, I thought to myself as I heard myself saying, "Sure," out loud. I'm my very own personal traitor.

As I pulled dog eared tattered cards and palmed dingy crystals this woman told me how my dead son would live to be 'older than dirt', how Jumby would be obnoxiously over educated, become fabulously wealthy and father two very white daughters. She spun stories of professional jealousy rearing it's head and how my life was at a cross roads and spoke of a great true love.

Her hands animated, her eyes cloaked, filled my head with the shadows of wishes and yet all I thought about as she prattled on, clutching my hand, was 'he can't live to be older than dirt when he already has been reduced to dirt.'

The word 'dumbass' rang in my head over and over as the frayed cards lay spread out on the table, mocking me.

We thanked her, paid our pennies for our wildly ridiculous fortunes and strolled down the boardwalk, hand in hand.

I'm still very much a non-believer and 20 dollars poorer for the experience.

It's all in the cards.

I was in San Diego for a conference, one I've attended before with various levels of success, and unsure of my reasons for attending. Unlike years past, this conference felt more personal to me. For the first time since I started this blog, I know who I am. I'm no longer clinging to who I once was before my great tragedy and I'm not struggling to define who I want to be.

I didn't need Redneck Mommy for the first time in years. I am finally at peace with being just Tanis.

Which would have been great if everybody didn't think I was Mr. Lady.

I don't see the similarity. 

Since this isn't the first time Shannon and I have been mistaken for one another, she came armed with cheeky business cards. Because she is clearly smarter than me. And much more of a smart ass. See exhibit A:

*reads: Mr Lady, Not Redneck Mommy since 2005*

It's all in the card.

Like conferences before, there was drunken revelry, but unlike the years past, it didn't involve me. I watched as people around me danced in a thrum of community and drank in each other faster than they could redeem their free drink tickets and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I somehow managed to find myself as a last minute speaker replacement and pretended I knew what the hell I was doing as I listened to others prattle on about the powers of twitter. I learned then the smartest thing I ever did was surround myself with intelligent friends, and as they sat in the front row to heckle me they ended up being the best contributors of the session.

My momma was right after all when she said having smart friends will make you seem smarter. Thanks boys. You all made flying by the seat of my pants a whole bunch of fun.

Like so many others, I connected with old friends, acquired a few new ones and generally enjoyed the hell out of myself. It's hard to write a recap of this experience when it is still burned so freshly into my soul and I just want to wring the last drops of joy from it while savouring the deliciousness of the moments we all shared.

I was just one more blogger in a sea of so much talent and having taken a moment to just examine where I've been and how I got there as everyone bustled around me, I realized something. It didn't matter who knew who I was and who didn't and what I was invited to or wasn't.

Over these past years as I've struggled to find myself I've been collecting a rag tag motley crew of talented people who have all helped bring me to the place I am now.

I'm so very proud of us. Each of us has struggled to create, to examine, to thrive in a world where creativity is often undervalued next to marketability. Talent everywhere, both female and male, and it was hard not to be excited and inspired while walking down a hotel hallway.

With a fist filled with cards from new writers and old who inspire me to be me, I feel really damned blessed about the cards I hold.

*A heartfelt thank you to the Diva Cup company who made my trip possible with their sponsorship.