Picture Day

My ex-husband is a really amazing photographer. He's always been a a really good one, but the past few years he's dedicated a lot of time to it and gotten professional equipment (and training) and now he takes pictures that will absolutely take your breath away. So, when he asked if the kids and I would model for him this weekend, I was all like hell yeah cause a) I have no pictures of me with my/our kids and I knew his pictures would totally capture our personalities, b) my parents would so love to have these for Christmas, c) I like to say I "modeled" cause it makes me feel all young and skinny and d) I like hanging out with him because he makes me laugh and makes really good pork chops. The pictures turned out way better than anything I could've imagined and I thought there were way too awesome to keep to myself. Yes, it is your lucky day, because I chose to share them with all y'all. So, drum roll, please:

If you want to see even more of his stuff (and you totally do, trust me because he has some super cool, creative pictures on his website), click here. If you're local and you likey, if you ask real nice, he'll hook you up, too. I'll also add his link to my blogroll cause, well, cause it's my blog and he used to be my husband, so I can.

Yes, This Conversation Actually Happened as Written

Me: Gracie, guess who's going to be on "Good Morning America" tomorrow?

Grace: Dolly Parton.

Me: Isn't it exciting?!?!? Your maw-maw's gonna be on the television!!

Grace: Dolly Parton.

Me: Your maw-maw.

Grace: You mean Dolly Parton.

Me: I mean your maw-maw. Say it! Say she's your maw-maw!!!

Grace: Dolly Parton.

Me: You better not let your maw-maw hear you call her that. Do you know how hurt her feelings would be if she could hear you right now? I just can't even believe you. Ungrateful is what you are.

(Insert dead silence and the cold stare of a 12-year-old girl child here.)

And Grace isn't invited cause she won't say maw-maw. So there.

Eye Opener

Have you ever been in a situation you know is bad- a relationship, a job, a person that is a suck on your life-but you tell yourself it's probably not any worse than what anyone else deals with and it will eventually work itself out? But then you have an experience outside of what is your "normal" and it makes you realize that not only is your situation much worse than what other people probably deal with, it really, really sucks and maybe you need to get out of it? Yeah, I totally had one of those moments yesterday.

For the first time in longer than I care to think about, I saw my kids happy and their little faces lit up. We laughed and played and we not only participated in life, but we were eager to do it and try new things. We got to talk to friends without being nervous. No one was tiptoeing around worried about doing something "wrong" that would upset someone else and the kids didn't even fight. We even felt at home, even though it wasn't our home (it used to be). We were relaxed and there wasn't one iota of tension anywhere around us. We actually felt like a normal family. I'd forgotten that normal not only existed, but I could actually be a part of it. It was eye opening.

I've put my little people in a situation that isn't healthy for them or me and I didn't realize how much it effected them or how bad it was until I saw how happy they were yesterday. Grace spent an hour throwing a football and loving it! A football! My child has never thrown a football in her life, much less done it and had a blast doing it. Also, the Dallas Cowboys could totally use her because apparently her amazing softball arm carries over into the football. She could totally be a (insert position of person who throws the football and catches it a lot here). Max and I, who are far less athletic (thank God he's smart) played a game with a ball from a kid's meal because our football attempts were sad and we lost our football tossing privileges. It was fun and we all laughed and joked with each other and we were able to breathe. I didn't know we weren't breathing until yesterday, but we haven't been because we've been too busy waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Somewhere along the way I think I decided to settle. I gave up, really, and figured what I'm doing is the best I could do for my kids and me. Maybe I thought it was all I deserved for the many mistakes I've made. But yesterday made me realize it's not. Yesterday was the kick in the butt I needed to make me open my eyes and realize I need to make some changes because no matter how much I try to convince myself that things will work themselves out or it's just a period of adjustment but eventually it will be okay, the fact is I'm doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result and that ain't gonna cut it. I've been making the same excuses for far too long. Now, I have to stop making excuses and do the right thing. It's not going to be easy and it's going to mean more changes, but I finally know what changes I need to make, so we can only go up from here, right?

Something tells me things are about to get interesting.

It's Hard to Drive When You're in the Fetal Position

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before or not, but Grace has an older half brother. It's not my child-it's her dad's because, obviously I'm barely old enough to have a 12-year-old, so it would be physically impossible for me to have a child older than that, much less a 17-year-old child. Well, said older brother that I couldn't possibly have mothered due to my youth had a wreck. It was a pretty bad one that required his being transported from the hospital in the town where he lives to a hospital in Ft. Worth. Being the loving and caring mother I am, I decided to keep Grace out of school yesterday and take her to visit her brother in the hospital in Ft. Worth.

I made my first mistake when I opted not to look up directions to the hospital on Mapquest. No, instead I decided that since I've driven by it so many times, I could count on my stellar sense of direction to lead me there. I'll wait while those who know me stop laughing. Choosing which highway and exit to take to get to your destination by saying, "I'll just follow the Ft . Worth skyline" is actually a really bad idea because there are a lot of highway and exit options along the Ft. Worth skyline and the exit that will actually lead you to the hospital is not clearly marked, dammit. Driving 70 miles an hour down the interstate screaming to your child, "Where are the blue hospital signs?"and "Oh my God, we're going to die!!" won't actually help you arrive at your destinaton, but it will lead them to mock you.

Had I looked up the actual address and procured directions to my destination, I may have also learned that the name of the hospital had changed since I last drove by it. That would've been good information to have because then I would've known that the building I flew by twice was indeed my destination even though the blurry letters on the side did not appear to spell out it's name. Yes, I know I should probably go ahead and make that appointment with the eye doctor. By the time we finally got there and parked I was drenched in sweat. I'm just thankful my hair held up through all that mess. Grace visited with her brother and we left the hospital in good spirits because he was being moved from the ICU into a regular room.

One would think heading home would've been easy. Yeah, not so much. Not because I didn't know where I was going. I actually did thanks to Grace's dad. But because of NASCAR. Damn you, NASCAR and all your travel trailer having fans. Damn you straight to the hell. Traffic was backed up for miles and miles. I don't do so good with merging which you have to do more than once between Ft. Worth and Denton. Trying to merge when traffic is bumper-to-bumper and a whole bunch of Dale Jr. fans (Nothing against Dale Jr. or his fans.That's just the only NASCAR driver name I could think of off the top of my head.) don't want to let you in because that will mean one more car standing between them and Texas Motor Speedway and a big smoker full of meat will give you the shakes. Doing it with your eyes closed doesn't actually make it any easier. But your child will, again, mock you.

I was never so happy to park my car in this driveway as I was last night. This trip reinforced something I've (and many others who know me) believed for a long time: I should not be allowed to drive in the city. As a matter of fact, I should not be allowed to drive in any town that has a population of more than about 50,000 people. Maybe less.

And, in case you're wondering, it feels kind of weird when you realize you're turning into your mother.

I Got a Letter from AARP. I Blame the Local Oldies Station.

A few months ago I was driving Max to school when, much to my delight, "Footloose" came on the radio. I was all like, "Footloose/Footloose/Kick off your Sunday shoes/Puhleeze, Louise/Pull me offa my knees!!" There may have also been dancing. I was very pleased. Max was decidedly less pleased because I sing really loud and really bad. I was like, "Hey, Buddy, you can't be angry when Footloose is on the radio because Wren took on the whole town and their stupid ban on dancing and they got to have a prom!" and he was like, "I'm six. I don't even know what you're talking about. Is this from that movie with Duckie and the pink girl?" But I never answered him because the song ended and Jody Dean came on my radio and I was confused. Jody Dean is on the KLUV morning show and KLUV is he oldies station. My music isn't oldies, so, of course that could only mean one thing-they'd changed formats.

It was crazy to think about them changing formats because they'd been an oldies station for as long as I've lived in the Dallas area, which has been 27 years. I'm sure they were before then, too, but I can only account for the years Joy Fay subjected me to Ricky Nelson, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, which always led to complaints from me about how old and lame she was and how my music would always be cool and I'd never listen to all this old cheesy crap. Here's kind of a cool side note on that whole oldies station thing. KLUV had a DJ named Hubcap Carter that my mother just loved. She thought he had the smoothest voice and was totally sure he was sexy. Well, when I got my first paying radio job, it was at an adult standards station and none other than THE Hubcap Carter worked there. He was not sexy, but he was the kindest man ever. He hired Grace, who was like three at the time, to be his "producer" and she pre-recorded liners for him like, "Hubcap Carter has left the building". He paid her in Oreos.

So I was kind of sad they'd changed formats but I was super happy that Jody Dean had stayed because they are totally my favorite morning show. Did I mention that I'd decided it was actually cool to listen to the oldies station because the music these kids listen to today is just too loud and angry? Yeah, well, as I continued to listen after I dropped Max off at school, I came to a horrible realization: They hadn't changed formats. They'd just added music from the 80's because now my music, the music I grew up with, the music I used to listen to on my pink boom box while wearing a huge lace bow in my hair and dancing like Madonna, is now oldies. I had officially turned in to my mother. I arrived at work with a sudden hankering to play Bingo and eat supper at 4:30 with all the other old people that lived there. Awesome.

I've had a few months to adjust to hearing John Mellencamp and Huey Lewis and the News alongside he Beatles and Carly Simon. I was almost to a point where I accepted it. Accept is a strong word. I'd almost reached the point where I could listen to it and not say, "Holy hell, my music is oldies. That is so wrong." and not take a swing at Grace when she said something like, "Oldies for the oldie!" and cracked up. Then, last Friday night around midnight (you know, the night I said I planned to be in bed by 10:00), they played "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." What the hell? Cyndi Lauper on the oldies station? OMG!! OMG!! OMG!! It was just. so. wrong. Any shred of coolness I still retained was gone in that moment. Right then and there I said, "Great. Next thing you know, I'll be getting an invitation from the AARP."

It came in the mail yesterday. A small tear slid down my cheek and on to the letter telling me about all the exciting benefits the AARP has to offer.

I wonder if this is how my mother felt when Elvis first appeared on the oldies station. I'll have to ask her the next time we're visiting over a nice big glass of prune juice and talking about how ungrateful our kids are. Oh wait, I am her kid. Scratch that last part.



Kevin Bacon is so dreamy.