She's Baaaack!

I'm back from the 3-day Girl Scout camping trip and I survived. Heck, I thrived!

Major Lowlight:

The latrines. Dear Lord. I've traveled the world. I camp. Cold-War era train toilets in Romania? Check. Self-dug poo trench in the Yucatan? Sure. Nothing prepared me for the odor emanating from the latrines at Girl Scout camp.

I am normally one to say, "C'mon, it's really not that bad," in an effort to keep the whining at bay. This time, however, I was the biggest whiner of all. It smelled so bad I could taste it. My eyes burned and teared every time I crossed the dreaded threshold of all that is unholy.

All of my senses were assaulted and insulted by the experience. Some of the little girls tried to hold it all weekend. But a peri-menopausal 40-something mom? Not an option.

Major Highlight:

Getting to know 11 nine year old girls was fantastic! At the beginning they were like (insert skeptical, possibly disdainful facial expression here), "Who is Mrs. See and why is she chaperoning us?!" By the end, they were crushing on me big time, eagerly letting me fill in for the mommies who couldn't be there.

This was such a special opportunity for me. I realized that since I quit teaching, I haven't had the same chances to pour my heart into kids that I used to. I know that sounds weird coming from someone who stayed at home with her kids for 9 plus years. It is weird, but true.

In fact, I think perhaps having my own kids closed me off to an extent toward other kids. It was as if keeping my own alive, and then navigating their highs and lows was all I could manage, and sometimes not so well at that.

Instead of really being able to notice and appreciate most other kids, I've spent the past years assessing how kids are interacting with mine, and being easily annoyed with anyone who is not the fruit of my loins (do I have loins?). Combine that with an unhealthy dash of comparisons and competitiveness, and you can see how a certain brittleness about other people's kids has flourished. Flattering, I know.

This is far removed from my mom's attitude. She always seemed to "get" that giving part of herself to another kid never took one thing away from us. I think that is why she attracted so many "strays" over the years.

So, even though I dreaded going to camp and only did so out of guilt for having been a really bad Scout Mom, it gave me the chance to spend time with the girls and appreciate who they were, not who they were in relation to my kids.

They were charming, quirky, funny and needy. They were spunky, shy and lovable.

Molly's independence and self confidence helped free me to spend time with the other girls. Now before you think I ignored Molly the whole weekend, I will tell you she and I slept together inside one sleeping bag Friday night. Cozy.

And, not only did these cuties teach me more about myself, and how there is much more to give than I think, they taught me how to make my first key chain out of GIMP! Yes way.

By Far the Biggest Highlight:

Last night at bedtime Molly said, "You did GREAT, Mom! You didn't embarrass me or anything."

The Mother of All Compliments

Tom is a bit quiet and shy, so he’s not the most demonstrative guy in the world. Even with me. Before we got married, at our church's 3 hour mandatory communication class (yeah, we rocked that thing!), we had to write down our wants and needs for after marriage.

Here’s my list:

I need to sleep in until 9 a.m. on Saturdays.
I want to be told, on occasion, that I look good.

After 5 years of dating, I knew that I was marrying a morning person, who might be tempted to seize the day and drag me along with him into it, and I suspected he might also need a little nudge when it came to complimenting his wife.

I’m not a prima dona, or at list not too much of one, but we had experienced more than a few ill-fated attempts at compliments in the past. I had read somewhere that men want our needs spelled out for them, which is why I was so blunt. I was looking for-- “You look good. You look nice. You look pretty.”

You see, this is the guy who told me he was attracted to me for my personality. This is not sought-after information when you are 21 and as hot as you're ever going to be. This is the guy who, upon seeing me in my new floral, drop-waisted dress (it was 1992!) said, “You look HOMELY in that dress!”

Silence.

“Uh, it’s just so soft and pretty?”

“Okay, so are you trying to say I look “HOME-Y” in my dress? And if so, is this a good thing?”

“Yes.”

*******
Here’s Tom’s List:

I am not the enemy

Clean counters

Since Tom does not have a blog, and therefore a voice, we will not need to delve too deeply into the first item on his list, except perhaps to posit that w/ five years of dating me he knew that he might, perhaps, be my closest target when I got a teeny bit grumpy.

As for the second item, I guess he desired clean counters. We will not dwell too much on or judge him too harshly for the fact that he answered his questions in a non-standard fashion that deviated from the clearly established I want/ need format.

******

Soooooooo last night, with a newfound resolve to try to improve my self-image, or get some pre-Thanksgiving action, Tom took a deep breath and said, “Kids, you have the most beautiful mother in the world.” He looked uncomfortable, but he got it out just fine.

Molly: “No she’s NOT, I saw a newspaper picture of the best mother and it wasn’t her.”

Tom: “I never said BEST mother, I said most beautiful.”

Gee thanks guys. Kind of makes me what to go smear raw chicken all over the counters.