Stories, reading, and my mom.

Posted by random olio

I never remember my mom reading books, and yet I think she would if she had the time. Often she worked all day, had a second job, helped us with our homework, made our meals, cleaned the house. As many moms out there know, it is a thankless job, and yet I never remember my mom complaining. She stayed up all hours of the night for months to make our Christmas presents so that we would have something to unwrap under the tree. I did not know that at the time, and yet thinking back on the gifts she made for us I know the countless hours it took for her to pull it all off. If she was purchasing the gift she would put it on layaway months and months in advance and diligently go and pay a little more each week until it was finally paid off. This was before she had a credit card so it was the only way she was ever able to get gifts under the tree.

She was the epitome of stretching things to make ends meet. While I never saw her reading books, I always saw her studying the Bible, our church books, and praying. She read those periodicals voraciously. She was adamant that we all read well and, while I do not remember when I started to read, I rarely got in trouble for staying up to read with the flashlight. She must have known that one day I would figure out that I could either get sleep and feel rested or not and pay for it the next day.

While I do not remember my mom pushing me to read, I think she gently encouraged reading and knew I escaped into a book often as a kid. My home life was not the greatest place, and somehow I would jump into the plot of a book, and I could transport myself into a whole different realm. We were her guinea pigs while she was getting her Masters degree in Education. We would read excerpts and have to answer questions and I absolutely HATED the reading comprehension tests she made us take for her classwork. I hated it just as much on the SATs. I like reading, but I hated regurgitating it later with a list of questions.

As I think about storytelling, reading, and the passion I have for stories, I have a smile on my face. My brother-in-law makes up stories for my 2 month old niece and I know that she will have the adventure of story in her life. While I will not make her take practice reading comprehension tests, I know she will carry on the tradition of voraciously reading, like her mom and my mom. Stories let us live an entirely different life, if even for just a few moments.

My mom was a badass. I only wish she knew it. Maybe she did, I will never know.

I’m only speeding because I have to poop.

Posted by random olio

I was the kid on the road trip that constantly whined: “Dad, I have to go to the bathroom.” Sometimes there was an urgency that my father did not share with me. Maybe I have a small bladder, but I struggled to be able to hold it in for a long period of time. At times I think my dad was frustrated with me and the constant hourly announcement that I needed to bless a gas station or rest area with my presence. Maybe it is a girl thing, but when I have to go, I have to go. As a kid I know my father’s impatience with me occasionally meant I missed my window. Yes, I am going where you think I am going. I had a few “I pooped my pants” moments. You know you all had those moments as a kid. For those of you that are parents, if your kid tells you they have to go, just trust them.

On our way home from work the other day, I took a photo of this great bumper sticker that says: “I’m only speeding because I have to poop.” If I was a woman who cared to cover her car in bumper stickers (I am not one of those women), this would be on my bumper. I cannot tell you how many times I have headed to the airport in the wee hours of the morning only to think, “Crap, I gotta go. Where the hell am I going to stop?”

Apologies for the grainy photo. It was taken through the windshield.

As you read this, you might be thinking, wow, Tami will talk about anything, and yes, there are a lot of things I will talk about, but I have to say why is pooping and farting so taboo? We all do it, so why is it such a big deal? At the end of the day, I can imagine that all of us have sped because we had to poop. It is just that some of us will admit it and others will not.

So where do you stand on the subject?

Gnawing or biting?

Posted by random olio

I was a biter. I told you all about it in my blog post: “I Was a Biter” almost two years ago. Over the weekend I got to hang out with my almost 3 month old niece, Charlie. In the two days I got to spend with her, she liked to gnaw on my finger. She does not have teeth, so it was more a gummy gnaw. How could I resist the drooling, gnawing cuddle muffin?

My niece has the nickname of Charlie, and since I was a biter, we were talking this weekend about whether Charlie will be a biter. My sister then brought up this video from 2007, and we laughed, and yes we had tears in or eyes, because quite frankly, Charlie in the video has this sort of snarky laugh that we can all relate to. I had forgotten about this video but love it. If you have not seen it, it is of two English boys, Charlie and his brother, Harry. Well, I can relate to Charlie. I was the youngest of three and whenever I could get just a second ahead of my sister or brother I felt like I had caught up, only to then have to run fast again to catch up again. Somehow when I struggled with communicating, and when I got frustrated I would resort to biting.

This video, per Wikipedia: “As of March 24, 2014 it has had 682,138,599 views and remains the most viewed YouTube video that is not a professional music video.” I have added to the views since March, as it is now at: 707,959,985. Crazy. Go Charlie, keep holding your own. Bite away.

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Posted by random olio

For many years after my mom was gone, my sister was like a mother to me. I loved and hated it about her. She is older, so it was natural for her to step in and be the older, wiser sister, and I often resisted it. We fought a lot, which often ended in tears. Yet we also laughed a lot, which also ended in tears. I did not want to be mothered, and yet we both in our own ways, wanted to be mothered. We wanted that connection of family. There were ebbs and flows of times when we yearned to have our own family. We always had different individuals in our lives that were an inspiration to us, maybe not mother types, but individuals (yes I did not say women, because mothering can come from a man too) who gave us the mothering that we needed.

Each year as Mother’s Day comes and goes I have to say it is a strange day for me. It has been 20 years since I saw my mom’s face, held her hand, or gave her a hug. I have lived more years of my life without her than I had with her. Some years are tougher than others. On years when my sister and I lived in the same city, we would often have a sister brunch on Mother’s Day. Other years, I just go about my day as though it is just any other Sunday in May.

This year, my sister became a mother. Sunday will be the first Mother’s Day for her as a mom. While Charlie is too young to dote on her mom, I hope my sister cherishes the day. I hope she remembers that while she has had extremely less sleep, and most likely not much of a life in the past few months, it has all been worth it. I know she will say it has been.

Love the hell out of that precious little baby. Enjoy every moment as a mom. I only wish our mom could be with you on your first Mother’s Day, she would love the crap out of, lil Charlie.

Happy Mother’s Day, Sis.

Missed moments

Posted by random olio

By the mere fact that you are reading this blog it means you are on a smartphone, an iPad, or on your computer. A device that lets you connect to the Internet and go to a webpage. I love all my blog readers and followers, but for today I am going to tell you, read this blog today, watch the video below, and then turn it off for the day, or better yet, pick a day of the week to put your phone away, or a day a month, or if that might be hard for you, start by putting your phone down for an hour a day, and maybe gradually increase that to more and more time.

Some of you might have already seen this video, or it has been displayed on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Regardless I encourage you to watch it again and think about how many opportunities have you lost because you were too busy reading emails, scanning your Facebook feed, sending a tweet, or posting to your Pinterest board? I am just as much to blame. Yesterday I was at a conference and found myself in and out of a distracted mind between work emails, the presentations, and feeling completely out of it. I took ideas away from the day, but what if I had just turned my phone off? How many times are you in meetings and you see the same behavior (yourself or others) throughout the day?

I have written before about Sliding Doors moments, and I wonder if our phone is often that train that means that because our head is down, or our focus is off, that we miss out on important eye contact, fun moments, and maybe worse of all I wonder if our distraction actually makes others not trust us. Do we ever lead people to think that our phone is more important than they are to us? Yikes. There are times when Chris and I will go out to a nice restaurant and have somehow over time built a pact that we are there to be together – aka – no phones.

Watch this poetic way of getting us to realize how many moments we miss each day.