Move Over Modern Family

If only my family and friends would let me tell the truth, I am pretty sure we could have our own TV show.  But sadly, they are all so mean and have recently begun to refuse to allow me to use them as fodder for my own fun and amusement in my writing.  For some reason, they seem to think that the things I write about are humiliating.

Selfish?  I should say so!

Here is the recent exchange between me and my sister Lucy as we sat talking about my daughter, CeCe's debutante dress.  (If this was not the EXACT conversation, it was a close as I could remember it...)

Lucy (looking  at a picture of CeCe in her dress):  "Hey, I bet it was hard to go to the bathroom in that.
Me: "Yea.  You should have seen her yelling at me to hurry up and finish undoing all the buttons on the back so she could pee."
Lucy: "I just thought of something brilliant.  We could invent Debutante Depends.  The girls could wear them under their dresses and then drink as much as they want and not worry about having to pee." 
Me: "We could even get my Bedazzler and put monograms and decorations on them and stuff."
Lucy:  "Yea, and then in their later years as they are reliving their glory days of being a Deb they will be looking through their memory box and pull out the good old Debutante Depends and remember that special evening."
Me: " I bet you could even do some for Brides and maybe those Toddlers in Tiaras and shit.   We could make a lot of money."
Lucy: "Hey! Don't steal that for your blog.  You are always taking the good ideas I have and putting them in your blog."
Me:  "Well yea, but that's because you won't put them in yours."
Lucy:  "That's because I don't have a Blog."
Me: "See? So that's why I put it in mine.  Well, that and because it makes me look funnier."
Lucy: "I don't want other people to know things about me. That's why I don't put all that stuff like you do on Facebook.  Don't you ever get embarassed telling everyone all that stupid stuff? I am not like you.  I like my privacy."
Me: "Then why do you care if I steal all your good ideas and put them in my Blog and pretend like they are mine?"
Lucy: "Because I want people to know that I am the one that is funny.  If you were really funny, you would be the one who comes up with Debutante Depends."
Me: "But no one would even know you were funny because you wouldn't put it on Facebook or in your Blog and stuff because you would be all like "OHHH.  I'm soooo private. I don't want anyone to know about me." 
Lucy: "That's right.  I don't like people all up in my bidness."
Me: "So that is why I am doing you a favor.  I am stealing all your stuff and making sure that the world gets exposed to people.   I mean seriously.  People think some of the stupidist shit our family does is really funny..."
Lucy: "But wait.  It's not always you who is so clever.  You steal my good stuff sometimes. "
Me:  "Yea, but you don't want anyone to know you might be talking about something as UNCLASSY as Debutante Depends, so you won't even put it on your Facebook or your non-existent Blog or Twitter, so I have to."
Lucy:  "That's right.   I don't like people to know we talk about stuff like Debutantes peeing in diapers.  That makes us look bad.  I mean we should really have more important things to talk about than how hard it is to pee in a big white, puffy, long dress." 
Me:  "Even though it is really humorous?"
Lucy:  " It is funny, but I just don't want people to know I say things like that.  So don't put that in your Blog."
Me:  "Ok,  I won't."

LOST!

Not the TV show - me.

My friends always have the latest gadgets that they can’t seem to live without and everyone I know touts their car Satellite GPS navigations systems as lifesavers. Not to be high maintenance, but after last week that is just, quite frankly, not enough for me. If I can’t have my own personal navigator (note: translate that to my husband!) willing to stay glued to a cell phone answering it at my beck and call, then I am jus not going to drive anymore.

When man first roamed the earth, travelers found their way by using the stars and sun to guide their journeys. During ancient times they used land markings such as Mountains shaped like eagles or rivers with three forks to mark the route. Later travelers got their directions through listening to stories told by brave explorers around the campfire and scratching notes on bark. Maps actually came into existence in early Greek times with the first ones made of clay, progressing onto paper rolls, to the fold up maps of today.

In the 21st Century man has gotten increasingly sophisticated with satellite technology, GPS tracking, and talking navigation systems and such – none of which I can use.

Just as it is certain the sun will come up tomorrow or that Winter follows Fall or that two plus two always equals four it is also certain that if there is chance of choosing the wrong way while driving to a location it can be certain that I will choose it.

I have spent a good portion of my life wandering around in the state of being lost. I am convinced that this is not my fault. It is a genetic flaw, passed on to me by my mother and father which is, in itself, quite ironic since my Dad spent his whole adult life traveling all over the world. You see, my parents ran a travel agency which ,in it’s hey day, planned thousands of trips all over the world for people to all types of destinations. All of which required some sort of attention to geographic orientation.

To illustrate. I can not remember one single childhood trip – even the ones we took twice a year to the Beach in Port Aransas, Texas where we even stayed in the same condominium year after year – that did not involve at least one major episode of getting lost. Actually, I can’t remember a single vacation anywhere that did not involve major map hysteria - with my father screaming at my mother or my mother lecturing my dad while the four of us just sat in the back holding in our pee, because there was NO way Daddy was going to stop now; we had already been lost once and were behind schedule.

Then there was the case of our weekly Junior High carpool. My friend, Julie Little, was in my carpool for several years and every single week on my Mom’s carpool day, she would say “Now girls, be on the lookout so I don’t miss Julie’s house this time... Which house is it?” And about half the time she would have already driven by it. Sadly, I seem to be carrying on the tradition, I pass Jackson's house at least half the time I am driving carpool and he always has to say "It's here Mrs. Collins."

As I said, I don’t blame my parents. Based on the number of family stories I have heard about my grandparents on both sides, it is obviously not Momma and Daddy's fault. This affliction was clearly passed onto them through some sort of defective genetic line. First let’s examine my mother’s ancestors – the Hopkins. According to my mother and her sisters, my Grandmother (who coincidentally is named Irene like both my mother and me) was quite well known for her traveling exploits throughout South Texas.

I often heard them tell the story about the time my Grandmother wanted to treat my mother and her two sisters to a shopping trip to San Antonio. Because my Grandfather, Dr. Joe, was a physician in the town of Victoria, he often had emergency patients and on this particular day he had to cancel the trip to see a patient. Rather than wait for Dr. Joe, my Grandmother decided to drive the girls herself. This was in the early 1940’s, and while women were driving independently by then, it was not a very common sight to see women driving on the highway out of town. And certainly not alone with three children.

I can just picture them. Gran in her best dress, gloves and hat - she was big on hats. My mother and her sisters dressed in their finest, climbing into the black Plymouth Sedan (I have no idea if this was their car, but it looks like it should have been!); starting out from their home on Lantana street and going through Victoria to the edge of town and heading out toward the highway to go South in the direction of San Antonio. The only problem was that apparently Gran had never actually driven there by herself and did not have a map to consult, because since she could not actually read one, she saw no need to own one!



The first thing she did was to stop at Mr. Murphy’s’ gas station at the edge of town to ask him how to get to San Antonio. The story gets a bit murky here, but according to family lore, the directions should have been fairly simple. Just take a left out onto the highway and follow Gonzalez Street (or US 87-N) to the loop around and then get on I35 South which goes straight to San Antonio. Alas, due to that pesky genetic way finding deficiency, it was not to be. There was something about a map and some words exchanged about south and then east. But apparently Gran never confessed to Mr. Murphy that she did not have a map (because she couldn’t read one) and also never told him that she was not sure which way was south!

The next thing that is remembered is that there was some commotion over whether or not they were actually going the right way and my Grandmother very smartly announced that she did not know why anyone was worried, “I’m just following that man in the black car in front of us.” When the girls asked her why, she said, and I am quoting here, “he looks like he would be going to San Antonio.” About two hours later when the man stopped at a diner in Hallettsville it became apparent that this nice man was not going to San Antonio and another plan of mapping must have been implemented. I am not quite sure if they ever did get to San Antonio that day, but I do know that the day went down in Hopkins History as “The time Momma followed that man all the way to Hallettsville thinking he was going to San Antonio.”

Now I don’t want to leave my Dad’s genes out of this line of blame since there is also very clear evidence that his Family Tree was also defective. Growing up in the South Texas town of Harlingen, my father’s parents, who we called Nana and Da, lived very genteel lives and often had a driver to take them where they needed to go. I do know that my grandfather, Winston Harwood (who my father, brother and son are named after), also never owned a road map. Why should he, when he couldn’t read one either?

Who knows how far back this thing goes? For all I know, instead of being a proud fifth generation Texan, maybe I was supposed to be a fifth generation Michiganite or something. My great, great, great, great grandfather might have intended to head off for a totally different climate only to end up in Texas with his wife screaming at him "Pa, I TOLD you to stop and ask that Indian for directions." And to save face, he tells her "Dag nabbit womman! YOU'RE the one that told me to turn left at the prarie."

How the State of Texas ever allowed these two grossly deficient, genetically disadvantaged people to marry, much less reproduce, is beyond me. But the result is certainly evident today. Three out of the four Harwood children my parents produced exhibit some form of this debilitating and life limiting affliction. My oldest sister, my brother, and I all have had to live with the results of being “directionally challenged," My youngest sister, Lucy, can read a map and she never lets us forget it.

Luckily for my children, I think I may have broken this multiple generations long curse. My husband, Kent, is blessed with an extraordinary inner compass. In fact, I use him as a kind of extended personalized GPS, calling him regularly to ask him which way is east or asking him to tell me how to get to 12th. Street or wherever else it is that I need to know how to get to.

It doesn’t matter that often he is not even in the same city or that since he can’t actually see me, how could he be expected to know which way is east - I still expect him to be my own personal map. And, I must say, that over the years he has been trained to keep the incredulity out of his voice as he patiently asks me to explain exactly what I see in front of me as I scream “I don't know, why would I call you to ask if I knew that? Don’t’ tell me to go EAST, just tell me to go right or left or turn around, but don't say east. How in the hell do I know which way east is?”

I can still remember the time early on in our marriage, when we were living in Los Angeles, that I called him crying from a pay phone (yes, we HAVE been married that long) telling him that I knew I was in our neighborhood because I could see the top of our apartment building, but I had been driving around for 30 minutes and still could not find our street. He kept telling me to go South on Ventura Boulevard and I kept yelling at him which way was South - to the right or the left? - and he kept patiently telling me that since he was not with me he couldn’t say which way to turn. Finally, he had a flash of brilliance and told me to look for the mountains. “Do you see mountains? Head for the mountains.” I eventually made it home but not before I had made at least three stops to different convenience stores and used up about a quarter of a tank of gas. And to this day, I wonder if he was literally telling me to head for the mountains...

Just the other day, my son reported to me through the phone as I was talking to his father (during one of my multiple, frantic emergency phone calls to his Dad to ask for yet a fourth repetition of how to get somewhere that I had been before. Anyway, he reported that, “Daddy is rolling his eyes and snorting.” Quite frankly, I think this is unnecessarily cruel, and insulting. I mean after all, I can’t help it. I am handicapped. He could show a little compassion here.

If I tallied up the hours, possibly days, I have spent being lost I am sure I could add a few extra months onto my life. I know that if I factored in the toll that the stress of driving by the same landmark for the third or fourth time in a row and still not finding my destination has taken on me, I would add another a year or two to my life.

Not to mention my poor children. If only they had a dollar for every time they heard me shriek “Quiet! Not one word. Mommy is LOST. I have to figure out where we are.” Or “What did that sign say? Is that South?" Or “Didn’t we just pass by this place a few minutes ago?” Poor guys they always sounded so serious as they would ask, “Are you lost AGAIN? “ Or “Mommy are we going to be late to the birthday party? I thought you said you KNEW where Blakely’s house was.”

Again, let me remind you. This. Is. Not. My. Fault.

I totally blame my parents. The stories of their travel travails are legendary. I bet they got lost in every major city in the world. As I said, I still can’t believe that they made their living planning out travel itineraries for people when neither one of them could read a map to save their lives.

So, sorry Kent, but you are going to have to remain my own personal Mapquest; available at all times, regardless of whether you are running on Lady Bird Lake, or in the middle of a business negotiation or sleeping. I'm directionally challenged. Or Map deficient. Or have Maplexia, or you can call me a Special Needs Direction Way Finder. Whatever you want to call it, it's really not my fault. Blame it on the progenitors. (That's ancestors in the direct line or your forefathers for those of you who might need to go look that word up.)

Maybe there might be some advantage to this. I am wondering if I could get a 504 for my directional issues and be declared as having an official disability? Maybe get SSI money, or my picture with President Obama, or at the very least get put at the front of the line at Disney World?

My Thoughts on Snow Days

I got a little nostalgic today as I woke to one of our rare Texas Snow Days and my 11 and 13 year-old sons were already outside sledding dangerously down the hills without parental supervision, and my 16 year-old daughter called in tears to say that she slid the car into someone else, and then my husband yelled that a pipe burst at our house… It seemed fitting to re-post what I wrote four years ago when my children were still small (12, 9 and 7 years old) and those days were REALLY special.

Snow in Austin, Texas is almost unheard of and as lifelong Texans my children have only seen snow a few times. So on February 24, 2007 when I was awakened by my middle son, Winston, shouting “Snow everybody. No School. Snow Day! Snow Day!” I knew it was going to be a great day. We all got up and went downstairs to a world covered with white and full of the sparkle and hush that snow brings to every surface of our world. This was going to be one of those memory days that Gloria Gaither talks about, something we could all look back on and recall with a smile. “Remember that year in Austin when it snowed and you all got to stay home from school and we...”

Request number one. “Mom, can you make us all hot chocolate? Not the instant kind, but the real kind?” “Of course, I sweetly replied,” and just as I was pulling out the ingredients for the cocoa and homemade sweet rolls, I heard a voice calling from the other room. Request number two. “Mom! Can you light a fire?” “Mom, we NEEEEED a fire, right now.” As I was going into the den to start the fire, I heard shouts from upstairs. Request number three. “Mom! Where are my gloves? Winston stole my gloves. Make him give them back.” “I can’t go outside without my gloves. I won’t wear the Spiderman gloves those are for babies….” And so the perfect snow day begins.

Ok, friends. Here’s the deal. I know for sure that I will NOT survive any type of nuclear or bio-warfare attack where our family has to hole up inside our home or some other type of confined “safe” place for any length of time.

We have only been home for the snow day for 24 hours and I have already done about 2,000 loads of wash for children who have cried because they wanted to go outside and needed warm dry clothes, then cried again because the wanted to come inside and take off their wet, cold clothes to put on some new warm clothes, and on again, and off again, and on again, and off again for the clothes rotation. I swear my children have been in layers of clothing that I have never even seen before. I am not sure which is worse, having children crying because I say they can not go outside again or crying because when they do go outside and then come back inside again they are too cold and their hands hurt. My washer and dryer has been going non-stop almost all day.

Then there is the matter of the 30 or so individual dishes that I have had to pick up today from unique places such as the bathtub, behind the computer, underneath the bean bag chair and from virtually every flat surface in my playroom and den (AND THAT DOES NOT COUNT the meal dishes from our three “regular” meals). I have run my dishwasher 3 times today and it was full each time. NO LIE.

Next I can tell you about the number of times I have screamed at the top of my lungs “Take off your wet shoes and leave them by the door!” Or “Hang up those wet coats; don’t just throw them on the floor.” I am not sure, but I think those words must be coming out of my mouth in some sort of foreign language because not once today has anyone actually listened to them and understood them.

Then there is the small matter of our pets…. Yes, I am sure many of you have worried about our chickens (as well as our three dogs, one cat, chinchilla, and guinea pig) but don’t worry, I made a little space for them right beside my husband’s side of the bed because he loves them so! Ha!

Actually, it is quite hilarious to see chickens strutting around in the snow – they don’t seem to mind and our chicken coop is heated and protected from the wind so that is ok. The only problem is my having to venture out in the cold several times a day to make sure their food and water is not frozen. And, as for the rest of our four-legged family members, they have had a wonderful day all warm and cozy by the fireplace. But, did you know that dogs don’t like to get their paws wet from the ice and so try to do their business inside where you can’t find it? In fact, mine are so smart that I can put them outside for an hour and they will wait until they come back inside where it is more comfortable!!

One of my favorite things about all being at home for such an extended period of time is the joy I find in relaxing in my home. With three children at home and a variety of neighborhood kids coming through the house, it is just a wee bit untidy….. but I have just been sitting around eating chocolate and reading books while these kids have dutifully picked up and put away every game they have taken out, every book they have looked at, every video (about 3,796 - I know. I counted. ) they have looked through to find that one special one they have not seen since last year, every crayon they have taken out and used in drawing snow day pictures, and every toy they have pulled out to play with because “I’m BORED Mom, there is NOTHING to do!”.

Last, but not least there is the minor issue of bickering among my children. Mind, you I say bickering because my sweet little darlings rarely ever fight and it is 9:30 p.m. and since they are all still breathing and all seem to be in full possession of their limbs, I am sure the screaming and yelling I heard at various times today came from some of the neighbor children. Mine get along so well.

Oh yea,and did I mention that my husband went to work today right away, first thing?He is such a good provider for our family and we are so grateful that he works so hard! Come to think of it, he was awfully anxious to go and seemed determined to get there even if he had to hike………

Seriously, it is so wonderful to remember the JOY of being a child and being granted the wonderful miracle of a perfect snow day! I can still remember my first snow day in Austin, around 1969 or 1970 where we spent the whole day rolling down the hill at Tarry Town United Methodist Church and sneaking around the grounds of the Catholic Convent at the corner of Exposition and Westover because they were still pristine and no on had walked around on them yet. Then walking back up Exposition to Holiday House to drink Hot Chocolate and eat French fries.

It remains in my memory as a “perfect day” almost 45 years later and I hope my children will also treasure their memories of that one perfect snow day or of any other special day that I can help them create. And those are my thoughts on snow days.

Pandemics, Panics and Peanut Butter

All this Swine Flu panic has made me miss my Mom so much. She died May 6, 2009 and I miss her every single day. No, she did not die of Swine Flu, but she was the world’s foremost authority on anything that might be even remotely dangerous, scary or possibly some sort of conspiracy. And my phone line would have been burning up with calls from her over this Swine Flu scare. She would have urged me to buy masks, take our temperature and worried over whether we had enough food stored up in the house just in case we needed to quarantine ourselves. She was always big on having made preparations for potential world disasters.

My Dad still bears the scars from the time during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1964 when my mom was pregnant with my brother and she became convinced that there was going to be Nuclear War and she needed to store up food and water. She made Daddy go out and buy a bunch of those huge water bottles - the 100 pound kind that go on water coolers – and he threw his back out and crushed vertebrae in his neck and had to have emergency surgery. He says he may have made sure they were prepared to make through a food and water shortage but Mom’s extensive preparations kept him from being able to help her out with any childcare duties for her 7 year old, 4 year old and newborn for the next six months while he was recovering from his surgery! Not that he would have been much help any way, this was the 1960’s after all. But it still makes a good story.

When the big SARS scare occurred in 2003 I very distinctly remember her calling me up at work one day, telling me I had to come over right away to check out this package they had received from China. She left a message for me that went something like this “Reenie, I need you to come over to the house right away. Your Daddy got that painting he ordered from China today and we are worried that it might have that SARS thing so we left it out on the front porch and we need you to come on over here and check to make sure if it is safe for us to bring in the house…”

"Right. Uhmm well, let me see, I can use my super powers and x-ray vision to check out that package and certify it to be SARS free. Oh, yea and never mind the fact that Mom does not want to touch it in case she contracts SARS, let me go ahead and open it up to make sure it is safe!” Have I mentioned before that my family is just slightly insane?

My Mother earned her degree from The University of Texas around 1945 and I think she majored in Worry with a minor in Paranoia and probably did her dissertation on Identifying Suspicious Persons. I honestly can not remember a time period of my life that she was not obsessing over something. Because worrying was a part of her genetic DNA, she unfortunately passed that along to her children – well three of her four children - I have refused to succumb to the constant temptation of potential danger lurking in every corner. My siblings on the other hand, well, let’s just say each of them has their own struggles with this worrisome gene that seems to have been passed down by Mom’s side of the family.

I remember growing up and hearing all kinds of helpful warnings and advice. Things like, “Watch out for people who drive around in cars with tinted windows. Those kind of people are up to no good.” “Never put a cat around a baby. It will suck their breath right out of their mouth.” My personal favorite was not exactly a particular warning; it was the way my Mom would take little notes on suspicious people she saw around the neighborhood just in case she found out later some sort of crime had been committed so she could turn in her notes to the police!

Now here’s a handy little tip I learned from my childhood - never put your arm out of an open window when driving around in a car. There might be a wreck and the car could tip over and land on the side that had the open window your arm was hanging out of and your arm would be cut off! According to my Mom, she saw that very thing happen so all throughout my childhood whenever one of us would hang our arm out of the window she would tell us that story. Personally, I think she made that one up because she thought it looked tacky to drive around with your arms hanging out of the window.

I can’t even begin to remember the number of times she would call me to tell me about some horrible disease or accident that had happened to the second cousin of a friend of a friend's ex-wife or some such and how I needed to now add whatever calamity that had befallen to them to my long list of things to be on the lookout for. I am pretty sure my Mom is probably personally responsible for at least several dozen of the Urban Legends currently floating around the Internet.

All of this came from the same woman who one time I found scraping mold off of some bread as she was making sandwhiches and when I asked her if she was actually going to eat the bread, she said that a little mold never hurt anyone and didn’t I know penicillin came from mold? There was really no way to understand the convoluted way her brain worked, but it made sense to her.

My mother, who when she died at 83 was still called Puddin by everyone she knew, did not like to turn left when I was growing up. Whenever possible, she preferred to take multiple right hand turns until she was headed in the direction she wanted to go. Why? Well, that was easy. Because it was dangerous! Same thing with driving on the freeway. Dangerous! There is a legendary story among some of my childhood friends about the time my mother accidentally got on I-H35 (imagine that last word being said in a horrified voice!)- I-H35. She had a car load of 14 year old girls all going down town to Town Lake to enjoy the Battle of the Bands Night at the local Aqua Festival. Well, somehow, and to this day we still don’t know how such a mishap could have occurred, somehow Puddin got onto THE FREEWAY by accident. My friends still imitate her saying “Girls. Girls. Be quiet. Did I just get on I-H35? Is this THE FREEWAY?” “Yes, Ma'am.” Next thing you know we were not only on the freeway, but we had somehow been diverted to the UPPER LEVEL of I-H35. Suddenly, she was explaining to my friends that she just could not drive on I-H35. It made her too nervous. So, she just pulls over to the side of the road near a police car that happened to be stationed there to direct the traffic flow and says, “Girls, Girls. Get out of the car now. I have to get off this freeway. You just go on over to that policeman and get in his car and tell him to drop you off at Aqua Festival.” So we did. And he did. And she got off.

Can you imagine a policeman today seeing a group of five or six teenage girls walking up to his car parked on 35 and having them explain that they just needed a ride on over to the festival area because "Mrs. Harwood gets too nervous to drive on the freeway" and agreeing to take them like it was nothing out of the ordinary? Somehow I just can't see that going over too well today, but I guess in 1974 it must not have caused much of a stir because he did drop us right off at the front gate!

You should have been with us the first few years MoPac (the freeway that was built in Austin in the early 1970’s) was built. I had to suffer the humiliation of her driving across town using only the feeder roads. THE Mopac, as she called it, just went too fast. But hey, she loved us and was determined to keep us safe, right?

She also gave me helpful advice like whenever you are traveling out of town and someone you meet in that new city asks you where you are from, you always say “Dallas.” Never say Austin. “Why?” you might ask. Well that’s simple. If you tell a stranger you are from Austin they might figure out your, name, address and phone number and send someone to rob you while you are out of town. Or even worse, travel back to your hometown later and murder you in your sleep! I will never forget the time when I was right out of college and we were in New Orleans and this darling guy I had met at our hotel asked me where we were from. Just as I was about to open my mouth and say “Austin, Texas” in my cutest little Texas Drawl, my mother shot me The Look, stood lightly on my toe and said “Dallas” in her haughtiest voice. You all know The Look. It’s the one that all mothers can shoot to their children across a room that immediately and telepathically imports into their minds words like DON’T. STOP. JUST WAIT UNTIL WE GET TO THE CAR… So there I was probably missing the opportunity to meet my future husband, all because this boy might, just could perhaps, possibly, maybe, track me down to Austin, Texas ("Please God", I prayed!)and do who knows what.

Then there was the time during my high school years when I seemed to have been involved in quite a few accidents in a short period of time and my mother and her sisters got together to discuss my many calamities. Shortly thereafter, it was determined that I had begun wearing some opal jewelry recently and that "everyone" knew that wearing opals was bad luck unless they were your birthstone. So off came my two opal rings and my opal necklace. And sure enough, all that bad luck that had been the cause of my misfortune just stopped. I ran across that jewelry the other day in my parent’s safety deposit box and thought they would make a wonderful gift for my 14-year old daughter, CeCe, but I just couldn’t quite bring myself to give them to her. She was born in June.

So what does all this have to do with Swine Flu? Well all this panic over the potenial pandemic, got me to remembering last year when the Salmonella outbreak happened with peanut butter. It was all over the TV News just like this Swine Flu thing and of course my mother called to tell me about it because she knew my kids ate a lot of peanut butter. She had very carefully written down the lot numbers of the bad jars and gave them to me over the phone. Because by this time she was in the nursing home and really very,very sick and I knew that writing down those numbers must have been excruciatingly hard for her, I decided to humor her. I actually wrote them down too instead of just saying "uh, uh" and pretending that I was going to follow up like I ususally did.

Since the peanut butter in question was Peter Pan brand and Peter Pan Peanut Butter is the kind my kids eat, and since I had actually written down the serial numbers she gave me, I figured I might finally be able to put to use that ability to be on the constant lookout for possible danger that my mother so graciously passed along to me and my siblings. I decided I really would take that slip of paper downstairs and check out the Peanut Butter.

Amazingly, I remembered to take the slip of paper with me when I went downstairs to go to work, and then I actually remembered to look in our pantry, pull out the peanut butter and peruse the top to see if my jar was one of the polluted ones. I could not believe my eyes. Right there right in front of me was Potential Peril! Looming Danger! Advancing Doom! My Peter Pan Peanut Butter actually had the recalled serial numbers on it.

Finally! After 47 years of vigilance I had actually averted danger. I was so excited I even took a picture of the jar so that I could show everyone how heroic I had been. I could not wait to tell my mother how all her paranoia had finally paid off.

I then left the jar on the counter and raced out to work feeling like such a great mother for having saved my children from sure death or worse.

Later that day as I rushed back in the door to start dinner I saw Tye, our 7-year old, sitting happily at the kitchen table eating his afternoon snack complete with a huge spoon, some crackers and the jar of Peter Pan Peanut Butter.

House of Vomit

The most horrifying weekend tale of all time. Not for the squeamish or the faint-hearted. Warning! Nothing Like this in all the history of motherhood. Horrible. Terrifying. Gruesome. See the viscious vomit in action. Hear the screams and moans and retching. Experience the nausea. Feel the pain.

Banned in many homes due to the extreme terror that ensues from imagining the experience. Men all over America have run screaming from the room after being confronted with these true tales from the house of vomit….


In case you can’t tell our family just spent the weekend together bonding in a way that only the vomit virus can achieve.

Now, we are no stranger to the joys of vomiting. A lot of families have traditions and experiences that are repeated year after year and told lovingly at family gatherings. These tales often achieve mythical status in family traditions to such proportions that children of later generations repeat them reverentially wishing for the good old days. “Remember when Daddy and Uncle Jeff used to go to work with Grandy at the local Post Office in Satin which also doubled as the grocery store?” Or what about the story of “When PawPaw got home from World War II he got the only new convertible in the State of Texas because he was considered a War Hero.”

But back to our family traditions. A couple of years ago I noticed a strange coincidence that has since turned into a pretty sure thing. On almost every Holiday (this week counts as one since Easter is this week) at least one person in our family throws up. I think the curse first started Spring Break 2003. Kent and I took the kids and our Nanny, Ale, to Florida for a week of fun and relaxation. CeCe was 8, Winston was 5 and Tye was 3. We were staying in a house that had a master bedroom downstairs and the kids and Allie were upstairs with two bedrooms on either side of a bathroom. The upstairs area was actually fairly small with just a tiny landing area at the top of the stairs and a very small bathroom and the two bedrooms. We thought it was ideal. The kids would sleep upstairs all nestled together, safe and sound with Ale to watch over them and Kent and I could have some much needed alone time together downstairs.

Alas, this was not to be. The first night we discovered that this house must have been built during a time when building codes were more lax because the curving, metal staircase had treads and railings that our children could easily slip through making it impossible for us to allow them to go up and downstairs by themselves. So the first night I spent worrying that one of them might wake up and try to come down to us by themselves. The second night was when the tradition was born. We had spent a fun, if hectic, day out at the beach which had culminated with a family dinner of fried fish, hush puppies and cole slaw at this awesome restaurant right on the beach. After dinner we got the kids to bed and Kent and I were enjoying the peace and quiet of our own room downstairs away from everyone.

About 2 am I heard it. That unique cry of a child who has just thrown up all over himself in his bed. It starts out with the first moan and quickly crescendos to a shriek of “Mooooommmmmyyyyyyyy…I throwed up!!” So much for a good night’s sleep alone with each other. Coming up the stairs I was met by CeCe who had just gotten up from her bed to rush to the bathroom, looked straight at me as I hit the top of that tiny landing and hurled all over the floor and me, then as I am trying to grab her to get to the bathroom, she throws up again all OVER the toilet. After about an hour of cleaning. Cleaning her off, cleaning me off, cleaning the rug on the floor in the hallway and scrubbing down the toilet and the bathroom floor, I got ready to put her back in her bed when I discovered that she had also thrown up IN her bed. So I had to clean all that up too. By this time it is around 3:00 am or so and I decide to take her down to our bedroom to sleep with us. We had been downstairs just about an hour when I heard the same cry coming from upstairs and Winston had begun throwing up. As I started through the same routine of cleaning him off, our Nanny races by me to the bathroom where she too starts to vomit.

And guess what? Sure enough, as I check in on the baby sweetly sleeping through all of this, I see that he has also hurled in his own bed only being the considerate child he is, he has gone back to sleep IN the middle of all his throw up. Resigned, I start over again cleaning him up and throwing all his bedding and Winston’s bedding into the wash. Because I am so tired and I figure that everyone will probably start heaving again I decide to just wrap them all up in layers of towels and as they throw up into the top layer of towel, I just strip that off and put it in the washer and let them go onto the next layer of towel. And the cycle of vomit repeats itself…

Now by this time you may ask yourself where is my husband? What is he doing? Did he too get sick? Was he tirelessly working by my side as together we confronted the horror of cleaning up all this vomit? Well, not exactly.

Somewhere around the time that the second child began blowing chunks, he declared in a sincere voice that he was just going to sleep in the other room by himself “…Because someone around here needed to get some sleep.” After I had finished cussing him out in my head (the children were still up so I could not really say what I needed to right at that moment) I asked him -- just as sincerely as he had mentioned his plan to me-- if he HAD LOST HIS MIND? Did he really think that he should go to bed and leave me to clean up what had now become copious of piles of vomit? Well apparently, Yes, he did. He sincerely believed that it would be best for him to go ahead and get some rest so that in the morning if I was really tired he could take over and let me rest! After all, there was no reason in his logical mind that both of us should have to stay up and be tired. After all, one of us should get some sleep! And apparently, that one of us was HIM!

Of course, as these things usually do, by morning everyone had stopped vomiting and the kids were soon feeling much better and ready to go to the beach. As Daddy gathered them all up and, oh so graciously, offered to go ahead and take ALL the children with him to the beach, he did mention a few times that he would be by HIMSELF and asked what time did I think I would join them. And when I did come, would I go ahead and bring an ice chest with some more drinks and a few more chairs as he had too much to carry by himself. I sweetly assured him I would be there shortly, just as soon as I finished washing every single towel and sheet and comforter that house had stocked.

Needless to say I have one very vivid memory of that trip. In fact it is seared into my brain.

It is not what you might think; a memory of vomit. Oh no! It is the memory of me standing on the beach later that afternoon with cell phone in hand dialing every single mother that I had programmed into my cell phone and asking them one simple question -- “What would you do if all three of your children were vomiting and your husband announced that he had better go on to bed to get some sleep because someone ought to be refreshed in the morning so they could help take care of everyone?” You see, I had promised Kent that if I could find one person, just one person, who would agree that his logic was sound, that I would never as long as we lived, mention this story again…

From Florida, the Curse continued. Memories of a Christmas where Kent gave me a gorgeous white sweater which I immediately put on only to have one of my children walk into the kitchen, reach his little hands up to me and begin vomiting. Instead of reacting with the natural mother instinct of grabbing them up and helping them make it to the restroom, I quickly backpedaled away and shrieked, “My sweater. Don’t throw up on my sweater.” I will never forget the slightly horrified look on the face of my sweet, angelic cousin Charlotte as she witnessed this episode.

Another time as we were driving to Lake LBJ for a Fourth of July Family Reunion, we arrived at the cabin full of multiple families, lots of kids and few bathrooms, when Kent started vomiting only to have it spread to two of our other children during the trip. Once, after a New Year’s Holiday tradition of going to the Hill Country to celebrate with some other families, I remember thinking, we had made it. It was January First and we were driving home and no one had gotten sick that entire weekend. The Curse was broken! Sadly, about 15 minutes from our house I heard this little voice from the back of the car saying “I don’t feel so good, I need to movit.” We pulled over and sure enough, Tye threw up on the side of the road.

We actually call vomit “Movit” because when Tye was little he often got words mixed up and somehow when he heard the word Vomit it became “Movit” and so that is what we call it.

In fact, our Holiday vomiting tradition has become so well known among my friends that, they will often call at random times during a holiday and ask “Has anyone thrown up yet?” And among my germ phobic, more than slightly neurotic family, there is a never ending quest to keep my family from getting sick. I get all kinds of advice ranging from simple reminders to wash our hands frequently and to not allow my kids to drink or eat after each other (duh!) to suggestions that we get rid of our cats because cats can carry disease (huh?). Or helpful queries like “Who do you think they caught the virus from?” (Gee, I don’t know. I say we blame Tye’s friend Ivan. Do you want me to call his mother and yell at her?). Or comments like “Your kids sure are sick a lot, do you think you have a good doctor?” (Well, no actually we picked a bad doctor, but he is real cheap). My poor family. They just don’t seem to believe in the Curse.

So this weekend, we had yet another family bonding experience. This time Winston did the honors of kicking off yet another incident in the House of Vomit. Thursday night he woke me up complaining that his stomach hurt real bad. Half asleep, I rolled over and told him to get in bed with us and try to sleep. Mistake number One. About an hour or so later after off and on waking me up and moaning about his stomach hurting, he jumps out of bed and races toward the bathroom. Just about there he lets loose on the floor creating a line of vomit from the dressing room area all the way to the toilet. From 3:00 am – 6:00 am he “commenced to throwing up regular like clockwork” as my grandmother would say, every 30 minutes. He continued to be sick for most of the next day with little sympathy from either his sister or his brother. Later, Friday I get a call from his sister, CeCe, asking me to pick her up from school – she does not feel well. After she gets home she seems to feel a bit better, leaving me wondering if this was just a con job or if she was actually sick. At about midnight on Friday, she wakes me up saying she thinks she is nervous about riding a new horse on Saturday and that her stomach hurts. Half asleep, I rolled over and told her to get in bed with us and try to sleep. Mistake number Two. Shortly thereafter, she wakes me up by rushing into the bathroom and throwing up. This seems to be a one time deal and we both agree that it is probably nerves and she goes back to sleep. The next morning she says she is feeling ok, and eats some breakfast and keeps it down. I continue to question her about how she feels and she very condescendingly assures me that SHE does NOT have Winston’s virus! She is 14 after all and would never succumb to the common virus. She was just overly nervous about riding a new horse. So we decide to send her on out to the barn, which is 45 minutes out of Austin, to ride. Mistake number Three.
Just as I was getting into the shower to dress for a Tea I had to attend I got a phone call from her, punctuated between retching sounds and toilets flushing, asking me to come and get her that she was sick. By the time she got home she was feverish and shaking and was in bed all of Saturday. By this time Winston has recovered, is fever free for 24-hours and assures us he feels good enough to go to his friend, Blakely’s birthday party. We talk with Blakely’s parents and they say they are comfortable with his coming, so we send him. Mistake number Four. At around 10:00 pm Kent and I get a call to come and pick him up -- his stomach is hurting. We get him home and while he does not vomit again, it is clear he is not feeling well.


Later Saturday night, after Kent and I have been asleep for an hour or so, Tye very quietly and calmly comes into our bedroom to announce that he too, has Movit….in HIS BED! And climbs into bed with us. Mistake number Five. Tye then proceeds to immediately vomit in MY bed. Luckily, I had gotten a few towels around him and he threw up into those and not on our bed linens, so all I had to do was put those in the bathroom and wrap him up in more towels in case he got sick again. Just as I was preparing to very loudly and very martyr like suffer through yet a THIRD night of cleaning up after yet another vomiting child, I heard something that literally stopped me in my tracks. It was an unearthly sound. Terrifying in its strangeness. One never before heard in the walls of our household.

Now here is where the tale takes a strange, strange twist. I have been married to Kent for 20 years and we have had children for 13 of those years. In all those years I can not remember a single time that he has been the one to get up in the night to clean up the vomit. In fact, most of the time he has slept right through it. Before I could wake up enough to get up and go into Tye’s room to clean everything up, Kent gets up and says “Honey, let me clean that up for you. You were up the past two nights.” I froze. This was NOT my husband. Aliens must have come down in the night and switched out his body. Slowly, carefully, I rose up to investigate. It looked like Kent. Maybe I was hallucinating from lack of sleep the two previous nights. So I asked him if I had heard correctly. But he assured me that he could do this and then he proceeded to clean up the entire bed. He stripped it, washed out the sheets in the sink first and then proceeded to put them in the washing machine. He even washed the mattress pad and the comforter separately.

And I did not get up even once to supervise or to help. I just went back to sleep and let him do it. Mistake number Six. And perhaps the biggest one of all.

For the next 20 years or so whenever someone vomits and I have to get up and clean it up, Kent is going to remind me that he “does too get up to help when the kids vomit”…

Now what am I going to complain about?