I’ve heard a lot of my friends talk recently about how they’ve made resolutions to keep their houses cleaner.  These are ladies with more kids and less time then I have.  One of these ladies told me her goal was to have all the toys put away before she goes to bed each night.   Another lady told me how she’s trying harder to not leave dishes in the sink over night.  One friend said her goal is to not leave anything on the stairs and instead “just take it up the darn stairs!”

While my house isn’t 100% spotless all of the time, you’d be hard pressed to find dishes left in the sink overnight.  And I’ve never left anything on the stairs to be taken up later.  And Babboo’s toys are typically in his room, put away.  This might have to do with the fact that we just don’t spend as many hours in the day inside our house so it has less of a chance to get dirty.  Or it might have to do with the fact that my mom taught me how to clean at a very young age.

While visiting my family in Utah this past July, I got up from the dinner table and started picking up the dirty dishes and putting them into the dishwasher.  My dad, The King and Babboo headed outside to enjoy the cool evening breeze and watch the sun set.  I was happy when my mom stayed behind in the kitchen to help me clean up.  We were only going to be there a few days, so any time alone with my mom was good for me.  She put the food in the fridge while I continued to load the dishwasher.

There were still dirty cups on the bar and pots on the stove top when my mom unbuttoned her apron and said, “come on, we’re going outside to see what the boys are up to!”

I was shocked to hear my mom say this and I responded as such.  “But the table isn’t cleared and we need to get the pots soaking!”

“If we don’t go outside now, we’ll miss it.”

“But the kitchen is a mess!”

My mom turned to me and offered one of the few pieces of motherly advice she’s ever given me; “they grow up so fast and you don’t want to miss it just because there are dishes to do.”

She’s right, you know.

I followed behind my mom as we walked through the garage and into their backyard.  The King and Babboo were playing in the grass while my dad sat on the porch swing and just watched them having fun together.  My mom plopped down next to my dad and they held hands while I joined my boys out in the grass, chasing the chickens.

In the  thirty months that Babboo’s been around he’s grown and changed more then I would have ever imagined.  And for the twenty four hours in each of my days, Babboo’s only physically with me for a few of those.  And during those few hours I’m also cooking dinner and cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry and loading the dishwasher and mopping the floor and picking up toys.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this little piece of motherly advice from my own mother (a women not prone to advice-giving).  To add to that I recently read a post over at loraleeslonneytunes about the short life of her precious baby Matthew.  In this post Loralee discusses the day (and subsequent days after) her son passed away.  There is a specific passage in her post that I can’t get out of my mind:

The day Matthew died was an ordinary Tuesday, except it was really, really busy. I ran a lot of errands and my parents came over to help me with fall cleaning. I still have the “To do do” list I planned for that day tucked away in a journal. Bleaching the grout in my shower was on there but “have your life shatter into a billion pieces because your baby will die today” was nowhere on it.

For a long time afterward, I would stand with water streaming over me in my shower and stare at that grout and feel grief that hours I could have spent with my son on the day he died were taken up cleaning that dingy grout in my shower with a Clorox bleach pen and a toothbrush.

It so wasn’t worth it.

Reading this reminded me, by kicking me square in the face, that life is short and that we just never know.  And that yes, the grout and the dishes can wait.

So to the couple that showed up to “check out your house” this last Sunday and only gave us a two minute warning, sorry the bed wasn’t made and the kitchen floor hadn’t been swept.

I had better things to do.

The first thing I do when I get to work every morning is make myself a cup of oatmeal. Okay, it’s really the second thing I to. First I turn my computer on. Wait, really it’s the third thing I do. I turn my computer on first and then I change my shoes and then I make my oatmeal.

So I make myself a cup of oatmeal every morning.

About three months ago I noticed one of Babboo’s little boxes of raisins in my backpack and thought to myself, “I should add his raisins to my oatmeal. I bet it would taste yummy!” And so I added them to my oatmeal. And it did taste yummy. I’ve since bought my own supply of raisin for the office and use them liberally every morning.

(My Weight Watcher total for this morning meal: 3 points!!)

It wasn’t until just this week that I realized something about my oatmeal and raisin delight….

IT’S THE SAME THING MY MOM EATS FOR BREAKFAST!

For as long as I can remember my mom wakes up and puts a kettle on the stove to make water for her oatmeal. She then gets a scoop of raisins out of the same mason jar she’s always kept them in and adds the raisins to her oatmeal (along with a little butter and some brown sugar, which I do not add to mine).

I’m not sure what aspect of this discovery was more alarming to me; the fact that I’m becoming my mother or the fact that it took me so long to realize that I’m becoming my mother.

So tell me, have you discovered something that you do the same as your mom (or your dad, or aunt, or grandma, or some other adult in your life)? And are you okay with the discovery?

I mean, I guess it could be worse then eating a few raisins in my oatmeal, right?

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Check out my latest post over at SeattleMomBlogs about sexual harassment at the office and what to do if you are being sexually harassed.

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Check out my latest New Thing.  I tried out a few of those beachy-hair-type products.  And guess what, I like them!

Babboo and I met my older brother Biff for sushi last night. It was a good evening stuffed full of raw fish, seaweed, chopsticks and sticky rice. There was also some good conversation. Although I do admit that most sentences started with me saying “you’ll never believe who I found on facebook” and ended with Biff saying “I don’t remember that person.”

I spent a bit during dinner updating my brother on our recent trip back to Utah to visit the family. Biff hasn’t been back to Utah in probably seven years. In that time a lot has happened.

And by a lot I mean there are like sixteen new Wal-Marts.

And an IKEA.

After dinner we decided to walk off our sushi by walking over to the grocery store. I needed some milk and Biff wasn’t done playing with Babboo. (It must be noted that Babboo has a hard time pronouncing “uncle”. My brother is now referred to as “Awful Biff”. I haven’t tried to correct it. It’s just too funny.) Babboo got a little sucker from the restaurant. He took turns between licking the sucker and dripping the juice all over Awful Biff, who was nice enough to carry Babboo for most of our walk.

We got to the grocery store and I quickly grabbed some milk while Biff got a paper towel and proceeded to clean off all the sticky sucker juice. By the time we got in line to pay for my goods, I was too focused on Babboo and Biff to notice who was in front of us in line.

I was a little shocked to hear someone say “hi” to me in the grocery store. We’re still new to our little neighborhood and I never expect to see anyone I know there. But alas, we were standing in line behind a super cool family from our congregation at church. We started chit-chatting, there in the line at the grocery store, while my milk was rung up and I paid. Somehow the conversation turned to how Babboo had managed to cover my brother in sucker excrement. This was the point when the husband said, with relief in his voice “Oh, this is your brother?!” And then his wife said, “I thought maybe you had a new husband!”

“Oh right, this is my brother Biff.”

This isn’t the first time Biff’s been confused as my boyfriend or husband. My problem is that I’ve always just assumed that people know he’s my older brother. We look like brother and sister. I think we act like brother and sister. It just seems obvious.

Problem is I guess it’s only obvious to me.

We continued laughed about this and the conversation went back to the previous discussion. As we said our good-byes and headed on our way the wife brought up again how confused she had been when she saw Babboo and I with another man.

“Don’t worry. He’s really just my brother. Or maybe I’m just telling you he is.”

Yeah, maybe that last part wasn’t such a good idea. I wonder if this will get back to The King.

An E-mail thread between my younger sister, who lives in Utah, and me yesterday:

Sister: Do you have tomorrow off from work?

Isabel: Why would I have a random Thursday off?

Sister: My husband has it off. I thought maybe you and The King would too.

Isabel: (confused at this point.) Yeah, we don’t have it off. We’ll both be working on Thursday this week. As per usual.

Sister: But it’s the 24^th of July tomorrow.

Isabel: You’re right, tomorrow is the 24^th of July. And today is the 23^rd of July. So what?

Sister: The 24^th of July is Pioneer Day. Remember?

Isabel: Now I remember. But you realize Pioneer Day is strictly a Utah holiday. And more importantly it’s strictly a Mormon holiday? Nobody outside of Utah has any idea that the 24^th of July is a real holiday.

Sister: So you don’t have tomorrow off from work?

Isabel: (shaking my head as I type out my response to her!) Yeah, I don’t have it off from work.

Sister: And The King?

Isabel: Yeah, he’ll be working too.

(Lil Isabel on Pioneer Day, 1978)

Happy Pioneer Day, bitches!  And to quote my friend Becky, “remember to thank your ancestors for coming here today!”

Will do!

I’ve had the same older brother since I was born. I’ve had my same younger brother for twenty eight years. My baby sister? Well, I’ve had her as my sister for almost twenty six years. When I think back to my childhood, there are very few memories that don’t have one of them as my co-star. And if they weren’t staring in one of my memories, they were there as supporting characters or maybe even a member of the choir.

I spent the first twenty five years of my life living within a two hour drive of my parent’s house. I never went more then a week without seeing some member of my family. When my older brother moved three hours away to go to college, I would drive out to see him once a month.

I wouldn’t say that my siblings and I were particular close, but we were around each other a lot. Especially since both my parents worked full time and the older siblings (me) had to babysit the younger ones. A lot.

As a teenager I don’t think I could have imagined a time when my siblings wouldn’t play a major role in my life. They were just around and I assumed they would always be there.

I’m thirty three now. I talk to my sister on the phone, probably, every other day. We e-mail numerous times during the day. While we have nothing at all in common, she’s one of my closets friends. I talk to my younger brother on the phone every few months. It’s not that we don’t like each other. I think we don’t talk more simply because he’s a boy and I’m a girl. When I do talk to him I love it. But neither one of us makes the effort to talk more. My older brother lives 4 blocks from our new house. It takes less then five minutes to walk to his apartment. I’ve seen him twice in the last year.

When I stop to think about this I get sad. How can these people who played such a major role in my life make only sporadic guest appearances now that we’re older? Is it because they are the one who know my secrets? Do I not talk to my younger brother more often because he’s one of the few who can remember all my slimy boyfriends? Do I distance myself from my older brother because he knew me when overalls were the crowing moment in fashion?

My dad is one of nine siblings. He’s one of the older siblings, so when his mom died he and my mom ended up with five of his younger siblings. They raised the two youngest brothers from the time they were eleven. While they were all born in West Virginia eight of the nine siblings live in Utah.

And yet, there are some of my dad’s siblings that I’ve never even met. I wouldn’t recognize most of them if I passed them on the street. I might be able to name most of my cousins, but I’d never be able to pick them out of a line up if my life depended on it.

My dad’s been trying to get his siblings all together for the past six months. Last Friday five of them met at my parents house. They sat under the tree, eating BBQ and sharing stories most of them had long forgotten. All of them showed up with a few precious pictures from their childhood. Most of the pictures had never been shared. They passed the pictures around while they laughed and cried about the years long gone. My dad scanned every last picture and made a disk for all of them to take home. He’s mailing me my own copy.

I talked to my mom last night about the family reunion. She said it was magical. Some of them hadn’t seen each other in over thirty years. Four of the nine siblings decided not to show up for the reunion. When my mom called one of them earlier in the week to remind him to come, he told my mom he was happy in his life and didn’t feel the need to mess with that. She understood. Another one is too sick and frail to travel. One said she would be there, and then never showed up. And one of them, well, nobody’s heard from him in over ten years. They assume he’s dead, but they don’t know.

I can’t imagine not seeing my brother in over thirty years. I don’t want that. I want Babboo to know the wonderful people that I lived with during my younger days. Heck, I want to know them too.

I guess that means I need to pick up the phone and make more of an effort.

So tell me, what are your thoughts on your relationship with your siblings?

Like most college aged girls I spent most of those years making out with loads of different fellows. As in every weekend I was macking on a new boy. This is totally normal, right? And totally fun, right? And totally how every girl should spend her pre-married days, right?

When I say I was “making out” with these boys you understand that I mean “kissing”, right? I was, by no means, doing anything more with these boys.

Simply, innocently kissing.

(Okay, maybe “innocently” isn’t the right world. But you get my drift.)

During this time I felt the need to tell my mom about all the fun I was having away at college. I would call her and tell her about the latest weekend fun with the latest new boy.

“Mom, I totally got with this cute boy from the drama department on Friday night. His name was Jim and he was blonde. Dreamy.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun Isabel.”

And then we’d talk about something else. While I may have been dumb enough to tell my mom about making out with boys, I was smart enough to not give her details. That would have definitely been crossing the lines.

The next week an identical phone conversation would take place:

“Mom, I met this cute Hispanic boy and we totally got together this weekend.”

“Oh lovely. I made pizza for dinner tonight.”

And so the story continued like this. For years. I would call and tell my mom about my latest kissing partner and she would offer support and then move on to a new topic.

Eventually I got older and wiser and stopped making out so much with random dudes. And I got married. I was now an adult and could have real live adult conversations with other adults. Like my mom.

One day we were discussing how silly I was when I was younger and kissing all those different random boys. My mom looked at me with shock in her eyes.

“You were only kissing those boys?!”

“Yes mom! Only kissing! What in the crap did you think I was doing with them?!”

“I thought you were having sex with all of them!”

“FOR THE LOVE OF PETE! I was only kissing them.”

And then my head exploded.

What kind of Slutty McSlutterson did my mother think I was?  Dude, no girl would have been sleeping with the amount of boys I was kissing.  Really, the number is astounding.
It was bad knowing that my mom had thought her daughter was ultra-loose for so many years. What made it even worse was the fact that NOT ONCE did my mom ever say, “You know, I’m really not comfortable hearing about your sexual escapades.  But, are you using protection?  Are you being careful?”

Dude, she totally just blew the whole thing off.

FOR YEARS.

I don’t know how the rest of you were raised, but where I come from we do not have sex before we are married.  We just don’t.  It was probably bad enough that I was kissing so many boys.  There was no way I was sleeping with all of them.

Holy crap, mom.

I’m sure my mom worried and fretted about the state of her daughters eternal soul.  And yet, she never talked to me about this.  Heck, she never even wrote me a letter discussing her concern.  (She didn’t even send me an anonymous card with a copy of some scriptures.  Or a pack of condoms.)  Nothing!

I’m not sure what I would have wanted my mom to say to me back during those days.  I wish she would have said something, just so I could tell her it was all a communication problem.  That would have saved her years of fretting and worrying.

Or maybe, she wasn’t worried.

Crap. That might be even worse.

So tell me, what’s the worst communication problem you’ve encountered?  And, like me, did it involve your parent being a dumb a@@?