Faith

"You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." -E. L. Doctorow

Remembering Challenger

Every December 7th, my grandfather would make weepy mention of the bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor. That event has never moved me. It is simply a fact, something to read in a history book. I have imagined my mom as a young woman living in Dallas in the early 60s, hearing for herself the horrifying news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, not so far from where she was working at the time. That event has also never moved me. It, too, is just a fact in a history book. But January 28, 1986, I was moved, and I remember.

It was a Tuesday morning. Just an ordinary Tuesday, except that I was home from school. My third-grade classroom had one empty chair that day. I can't remember actually being sick, so I wonder in retrospect if I had really faked a stomach ache because I wanted to see the rocket launch. While all my friends were sitting as quietly as eight-year-olds can, listening to Miss Curtis blather on about multiplication tables or spelling words for the week or something, I was at home getting an education of my own--an education in loss, finality, and national tragedy. It was the first national tragedy for Generation X, and I witnessed it right there on my grandparents' big-box, furniture-style Zenith. I'm pretty sure I tuned in for the big launch, as I ordinarily would have been watching Cartoon Express on USA network or Pinwheel on Nickelodeon. They were sending a teacher into space that day! I had a teacher...I could relate to that, and it seemed really cool. I remember how Krista McAullife looked with her permed brown hair. She seemed like a nice lady. I thought she was probably a nice teacher. I wondered how she got to be the teacher chosen for such a cool thing.

I was sitting on the end of the coffee table, two feet in front of the television. The room was dim. The only lights on were in the adjacent kitchen and dining area, and it was overcast that day, so there wasn't much window light. I watched. I waited with thousands of other Americans. The house was quiet. Dandy was in his bedroom making usual noises like swishing his keys or rattling change. Mema wasn't around; she must have been in the back room piecing a quilt. I was all alone in that dim room watching excitedly. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, lift-off!" I think I even said it out loud. It was thrilling! There it went up, up into the blue sky! And then... It blew up? It's not going up anymore. And part of it is going over there. There was sudden fire and white smoke, and then just falling debris and the stammering voices of stunned reporters. My heart was pounding as I ran to extract Dandy from his monotony. "It blew up!" I called. "The Challenger exploded!" Dandy came with me back to the den, telling me that the fire and smoke are just what happens when they launch a rocket. No, it didn't blow up. But I had seen it with my own eyes. I knew it had in fact blown up, and those people were dead. Instantly. And there were their children and wives and husbands and parents standing right there watching when it happened. I had family members. I could relate to that. What if Ms. McAullife had been my teacher...or worse, my mother?! I knew something terrible had just happened, and I heard words like "tragedy" make tangible sense to me for the first time in my short little life. National tragedy. And then I sort of understood, young though I was, why Pearl Harbor day may never move me, but it will always make Dandy's voice crack.

Veteran Mom? Not quite.

Today I embarked upon a project to scan the important articles in all my old parenting magazines so that I can donate the magazines to a women's shelter or something and get them out of my house. In the process, I found a couple of gems that inspired a chuckle. The article gives one funny anecdote about new moms and counters it with what the veteran mom would do instead. I think I'm somewhere in between on the new mom - veteran mom scale. I bet by the time the next child comes into our family, I will totally understand what all my veteran mom friends have been telling me. (So much for doing things better the next time around!)

A new mom signs up for the IQ-Booster Toy of the Month
Club because she dreams of her burgeoning genius playing for hours each month
with the educational toy the mailman brings.

A veteran mom knows that the only thing that occupies her child for hours is playing with that string of dust flapping at the bottom of the fridge--and, frankly, she isn't abou tto clean it. However, he will enterain himself for a good ten minutes with the box that the IQ-Booster toy comes in.

A new mom will go to great lengths to split everything evenly among her child and his playmates. If there's only one chocolate chip cookie, she'll divide it into equal portions.

A veteran mom will eat the extra chocolate chip cookie faster than the kids can yell "No fair!" Moreover, she won't feel even one iota of guilt.

from American Baby January 2005

I could add one of my own to these: A new mom keeps all the old parenting magazines to preserve access to all the wonderful bits of parenting information in them. A veteran mom knows better than to think she'll actually spend precious seconds of free time reading parenting magazines, when she knows she'll figure relevant things out as they come anyway...probably on the internet or on the phone with a fellow veteran mom friend or the doctor's office. So what do I do? I split the middle and scan the interesting articles. See? I'm not quite a veteran mom. Or maybe it's just my personality. Either way, I've just been inspired to pitch the magazines and rely once again on Google to get me through my parenting questions. Graduation to veteran motherhood must not be far off...

Stolen randomness

I found this on Makeshift Mom's blog, and tagged myself "it" against better judgment.


Four Jobs I've Had:
1. Babysitter
2. Student secretary
3. Administrative Assistant
4. "Domestic Engineer"

Four Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:
1. Know my kids as adults
2. Learn to play an instrument
3. Learn to swim without fear
4. Have at least one more positive childbirth experience

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
1. Return to Me
2. You've Got Mail
3. Sweet Home Alabama
4. The Parent Trap (1960s version with Hayley Mills)

Four Things I Can't Do:
1. Swim
2. Communicate in or understand a second language
3. Reach my nose or chin with my tongue
4. Eat watermelon without feeling nauseated

Four Places I've Lived:
1. Waco, TX
2. Charlottesville, VA
3. Colorado Springs, CO (if you can count 7 weeks as "living" somewhere)
That's it.

Four Things That Attracted Me To My Spouse:
1. Looks
2. Intelligence
3. Easy conversations, good communication
4. Gentleness/likelihood of being a good spouse and father

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Gilmore Girls
4. House

Four Things I Say Often
1. More bread? You already had some bread. Let's think of something else to eat.
2. Are you really still hungry or are you just bored?
3. Super!!!
4. I love you SOOOO much!

Four Places I've Been on Vacation
1. Orlando, FL - Disney World
2. Colorado Springs, CO
3. New York City
4. San Francisco

Four of My Favorite Foods
1. Chippey Cheesies (chocolate chip cookie bars with a cheesecake layer in between!)
2. Fresh, ripe peaches
3. Mashed potatoes the way Mom made them when I was a kid
4. Mrs. Baird's brand brown-and-serve dinner rolls

Four Places I'd Rather Be
1. Texas, except in the summer time
2. Colorado Springs in the summer time
3.
4.

Four Vehicles I've Owned
1. 1990 Pontiac Grand Am (my first car)
2. 1999 Saturn SL1 sedan
That's it.

Tag yourself if you wish...