In Which I Am A Calm Mom

So, I'm standing in Winners. I need a new hair dryer because my old one started shooting sparks at my head while I was using it.

(Sully walked past the bathroom and exclaimed, "Mom! There's fire in your hair dryer!" And I was like, "No, it's just very hot air." And he was like, "NO! There's actually fire!" And I was like, "No, it's just very hot air." And Sully was like, "LOOK MOM THERE IS FIRE IN YOUR HAIR." Long story short, there was, indeed, fire in my hair. I went hair dryer-less for a while, like a pioneer woman. But Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't have to walk her kid across the school yard when it was -50 with dripping wet hair, did she? I bet not. After doing that a time or two, I decided I needed a hair dryer again.)

So. I'm standing in Winners. I need a new hair dryer. I have two children with me, and it's almost lunch time (which also means that it's almost nap time). This is the worst possible time of the day to go to Winners. Scarlett and Sullivan are hungry, Scarlett's exhausted, I'm about ready to tap out.

But I need a hair dryer.

I have located a hair dryer mountain (because it's Winners and everything's just stacked up in piles everywhere with the cheapest things at the bottom of the piles so as to reward a careful search). I'm sifting through the boxes, trying to figure out which one is the cheapest (my only requirement for most hair products, which is probably why my hair looks the way it does). Scarlett is doing that thing where she inches away from me with a big grin on her face. She wants to see how many miles she can get before I notice she's not standing obediently at my side like Sullivan. Sullivan is annoyed. His conscience won't let him mess with me like Scarlett does, but he's kind of bitter about it. If he can't have fun, she shouldn't be able to have fun either.

So I'm bent over a stack of hair dryers, and Scarlett's drifting away and Sully's tattling on her and I'm shushing him and calling her back and I'm sure everyone around us is annoyed but whatever, we'll be gone soon.

"Mo-omm! Scarlett's going over there again!"
"Scarlett! Get back here."
*Shrieking and laughing*
"No, seriously, Scarlett, come here."
"Mo-ooowwwmm-mmmmmm she's not listening to you!"
"Scarlett? Do you need a time out when we get home?"
"No! I tumming!"
"Excuse me, how many centimeters are in an inch?"

Heh?

I look up and there's this lady hovering above me holding a tourmaline curling iron. She is very tall and very expectant, all full of confidence that I am the exact right person to answer this question right at this very moment.

"How many centimeters are in three inches, do you know?"

I have no idea and I, apologetically, tell her that. And I tell Sully to stop tattling on Scarlett and I tell Scarlett, once again, to come back here and I tell Sully that, yes, I'm hungry too, we'll be on our way in, like, two minutes. I've lost my place. I have looked through ten of the twenty or so hair dryers in this stack, and so far the cheapest option is $60. I can do better.

"Mom! Look at Scarlett! She's touching something she's not supposed to!"
"Scarlett, come here, hun, I need you to stay close, just for one more minute."

Scarlett makes a quick assessment of my situation. I am holding five hair dryers. She knows I'm helpless. She makes a break for it.

"Scarlett! Come! Here!"
"Mom! She's running! In the store," says Sullivan, very concerned, from where he is perched almost on my shoulder, like one of those little shoulder angels you always see in cartoons.
"I wunning!" says Scarlett, gleefully, from Paris.
"Scarlett, come back here, NOW. Sully, please stop telling on Scarlett," says I, trying to sound like a calm mom.
"I think it's something like 2.5. I'm fairly certain there are 2.5 centimeters in an inch," says the woman, who is, last time I checked, not my child.

I'm cramming hair dryers back onto the pile haphazardly, one eye on Scarlett, who's peeking at me around a corner.

"Um...maybe?" I say. I really have no idea. I'm the worst at conversions, especially since I got an iPhone. Ah. "Did you ask Google?" I say. And then I tell Sully to stop tattling and I go get Scarlett and tell her she can't run away in public and she's appropriately remorseful but so, sooooooo hungry, mom, and Sully is also so, sooooooo hungry mom, and I'm also so, soooooo hungry, everybody, but I need a hair dryer! And that's the only reason I drug everyone out of the house!

So we! Are going! To get! A hair dryer!

And we! Are going! To pay less than $60!

I have, like, five more boxes to check. There has to be a cheap hair dryer in here somewhere. There just has to. I don't like being a pioneer lady.

"Mom, what does that say?" Sully is tapping me on the shoulder, trying to read the back of a conditioner bottle on the next shelf over. "Con...di...con...di...ti..."
"Conditioner," I tell him.
"Mommmmmmmm..." Scarlett is leaning against me, her little head on my shoulder, her little mouth agape. "I soooooo hunnnnnnng-yyyy..."
"Mom, after we're done here, can we go to McDONALD'S?" Sully is jumping up and down.
"YEAH! MCDONAH'S!" Scarlett is jumping up and down.
"YEAHHHHH!!" Sully is still jumping up and down, but higher now.
"I was right!"

There is, all of a sudden, an iPhone in my face, 2.5 centimeters from my eyeballs.

"2.5 centimeters in an inch! I was right! Good old GOOGLE."
"Mom, when we get home, can we read my library book?"
"I love Google."
"Mom, when we get home, ten I has a YOGUT!?"
"I don't know what we'd do without Google. Fahrenheit to Celsius. Tablespoons to...you name it."

I nod at my children, all three of them, one of them who is even taller than me, and I am very tall for a girl. Yes, we can read a library book, yes, we ten has yogut, yes, I don't know what we'd do without Google.

They all grin back at me, pleased, and we have a moment of perfect silence. Ah. We are all happy. We are good at shopping. I am a calm mom.

I pick up the last box. $30.

Mission accomplished. 

Baby's First Threat

Yesterday afternoon, Sullivan asked if he could borrow my phone and when I got it back I saw that he had texted my parents their address and then typed, "YOU WILL PAY. I AM JUST KIDDING BYE BYE."

I feel as though I'm on the outside of something fairly important.

2020: A New Year's Resolution

It's February 5, which means that I've missed the whole New Year's Day Blog Post thing by a considerable margin—but I'm still going to do it, you know why? Because I actually have a new year's resolution this year. Like, a serious one. And I want to DOCUMENT it. And I want people to WITNESS it. And I want you to YELL AT ME ABOUT IT if you see me breaking it.

(Actually, don't. That'll probably stress me out. But if you are a super close friend and you want to take me out to coffee and buy me a donut and gently tell me you've noticed me breaking my new year's resolution, like, yeah, do that.)

So, okay. Here's my New Year's resolution for 2020:

This year, I am going to be brave. And (this 'and' is maybe the more important part because I suspect it should directly affect the aforementioned statement), I am going to stop saying—to myself and to other people—that I'm not brave.

I think I've been talking myself out of bravery. You know how, when you're a parent, you're careful about what you say about your kids in front of your kids? Because you understand that what you say about a kid in front of them shapes their perception of themselves and can either be a help or a hindrance as they grow up. Self-confidence goes a really long way, and you know it's your job to build into it. So why would I think that talking negatively about myself in front of myself(?) wouldn't negatively affect...myself?

I know this isn't a new concept—people have been rambling on about negative self-talk for ages—but I've actually been noticing it in my own life this year.

Every time someone asked me how I was feeling about my book or an upcoming event or whatever, my usual answer was, "I'm terrified," or, "It's really scary," or, "I'm so nervous." And I noticed myself really dwelling on that even when I was alone. I'd be brushing my teeth the morning of an interview and looking in the mirror and thinking, Why did I say yes to this? I'm terrible at public speaking and I'm so shy and I'm so afraid... 

Basically the opposite of a motivation speech.

I don't know when this started! I used to be a brave person—kind of to a fault sometimes. I'm the same exact person who snuck into a journalism class once because they were running the media room at the Junos and I wanted to run the media room. And I did. I ran the media room! And I was not afraid. I'm the same exact person who had a weekly music segment on a little cable show. And I was not afraid! I'm the same exact person who walked around CMW with my little tape recorder asking for interviews and meeting new people—just for fun! And I! Was not! Afraid!

But I'm also the exact same person who, for all of 2019, was just basically Jello.

And I'm not saying that 2020 is the year I start climbing up on my bathroom vanity and shouting affirmations at my reflection—oh no, no, that's not happening—I'm just saying that I'm going to catch myself when I start talking about being a scaredy-cat, whether in conversation with another person or just in my own head, and I'm going to cut it out.

I'm thankful, actually, that I have another shot at this whole book release thing. I did it really poorly last time because I was so (whispers) afraid and I kind of cheated myself out of what could've been a fun experience. Like the Junos or the cable thing or CMW—those aren't, like, huge big deals to other people, but they're personal touchstones for me, tangible things for me to look back on when I wonder if I could be brave. I can be because I have been. And I will be!

Okay. That's my resolution. I resolve to do that.

Goals! Lists! Calendars!

Everyone keeps saying how slow January was. Generally, when someone comments on the speed of the passing of time, I find myself agreeing (and obsessing over how WEIRD it is that the speed of a fixed amount of time, like a minute or a week, can be perceived to be slower or faster and that people can reach a consensus on that perception)—but this time, for once, I disagree. I feel like I woke up on January 1 and it was January 31 when I went to bed that night. January was like a short, quiet old lady who shuffled through the room without saying anything to anyone and later no one will remember what she looked like or if she even existed. Maybe we imagined her, we'll all say to each other. None of our descriptions match.

But if January was short and old and quiet, February is a hyperactive child with no boundaries or volume control. It jumped on me while I was sleeping, 3 AM, screaming incoherently into my ear so that I knew I should be freaking out about something but am undecided as to what, exactly. This is my least favorite feeling.

I need—need—February to chill out. There's not even anything happening in February. I don't know what its problem is.

In an attempt to keep this ridiculous month—and all of its potentially even more ridiculous successors—in line, I've finally purchased a 2020 calendar and a dayplanner and have plans to sit down at the beginning of every week and structure my life like a I'm a time architect or something, like the week ahead is a massive skyscraper that will topple and kill hundreds of thousands of people if I don't pay attention to every detail and get it all exactly right. Not to sound dramatic or anything. I might even get really annoying about it and set some kind of overarching goal for every week. Maybe I'll make lots of goals! I do like crossing things off of lists. 

I fully expect this newfound organizational verve and swagger to last for all of three weeks before it completely wears me out and I remember that I am disorganized because I don't have time to be organized, not because I simply didn't know what I was missing, but I expect those three weeks to be productive and calm and I will look back on them fondly and think, I should do that again someday.