Chapter One on Judgement

A few months ago, one of my girlfriends was in the waiting room of her vet's office with her children in tow. She has three of the yummiest, most fantastic kids ever -- a 3-year old girl, 2-year old boy, and an infant boy. As she describes it, her infant was in his car seat, being an infant and doing nothing, and the two older kids were playing quietly beside her. Everything was cool. 

My friend goes out with all three kids all the time, never batting an eye. It's not always a calm scene, like the other day, when her 2-year old was at the top of a playscape and decided to remove his pants and Pull-Up and sit naked on his older sister's face while the infant began howling for his bottle. Yet my friend handles it all with the greatest of ease.

On this particular day, on top of three kids, she had a large dog in the mix. An older woman in the waiting room observed my friend and her children, looked at my friend and said, 

"I think it's time you stopped having kids."

Wow.

When I heard this story, I was absolutely livid. The nerve!

"What did you do!?" I asked,  "How in the world do you respond to something like that?"

My friend is polite to a fault and simply smiled and said nothing, probably the best way to handle a bitter old bat like that. And while she surely came up with a lot of responses after the moment, in the end, she simply ignored it and went on with her day.

This reminded me of when my daughter was an infant. Though I'd had lots of practice with children because I have two stepchildren, I didn't enter their lives until they were 4 and 5, so going out into the world with a newborn was extremely intimidating to me.

When my daughter was about 2 months old, I was shopping and minding my own business when she began to cry. Never one to let a baby cry it out, I grabbed her out of her car seat and began to pat her back and try and comfort her. A woman (perhaps the exact same woman my friend encountered at the vet's office), approached me and said, 

"She's hungry. That's the kind of cry they cry when they're hungry. You should feed her."

What this ballsy woman didn't know was that I had been having a terrible time with breastfeeding, to the point where our daughter was actually losing weight instead of gaining. It was scary. She was born right before Mother's Day, and to this day I will not show anyone the photographs my husband took of  my exhausted, overwhelmed fake smile as I held our frail, underweight baby. It's just too painful.

What this ballsy woman also didn't know was that I was unknowingly moving around in a pretty serious state of postpartum depression. So when she came to me and gave me instructions to feed my daughter, I didn't respond with the grace that my good friend used at the vet's office.

"Really?" I asked, biting and sarcastic, "She's hungry? Well breastfeed her yourself, then!"

Looking back, I'm kind of proud of myself for being crazy and quick enough to respond in that manner, but at the time, her remark struck a painful chord that just made things seem worse. And now that it's been nine years and I can reflect on how difficult that time was, it makes me realize just how much judgement awaits us when we become parents.

I label this post "Chapter One on Judgement" because I can't address all of the levels on judgement in one piece because there is so much of it out there. So for today, let's just consider the judgement placed upon the parents of infants.

I read very few parenting books before having my daughter for a variety of reasons -- time, fear, stubbornness -- but the primary reason was because there was so much information out there it felt overwhelming. So when the baby came, I ventured out on walks in the neighborhood, and learned a lot about parenting from other mothers with babies. One of my neighbors was that enviable kind of mother who pops out a kid without drugs (I had a scary emergency C-Section), loses her baby weight the same day she delivered (I have baby weight 9 years later), and produces enough breast milk to fatten up her happy little baby and have enough left to donate to the Mother's Milk Bank so 16 other babies could eat as well. I kind of hated her.

One muggy afternoon at the park, I sat with my friend and some of her other marathon-running moms, cross-legged and sweaty as my baby cried the "I'm hungry" cry. My friends gracefully whipped out full, non-sagging breasts ripe with nourishment, and their plump babes ate peacefully while my daughter screamed and grimaced as I shoved an empty boob at her red, angry face.

"You're having a tough time with breastfeeding?" my neighbor asked, concerned.

I nodded shamefully as I fought back tears and my daughter wailed, and briefly considered begging her to breastfeed my baby just to give us both some relief. She gave me some tips, suggesting that I try to relax first (yeah, right), and invited me to join her at a mommy meet-up group. I know that she could see I was desperate for help.

I put off going to the meet-up group until I worked out the breastfeeding issue, and after several lactation consulting home visits and doctor's appointments, learned that it simply wasn't in the cards for me and that formula was a better solution. Though I felt like a failure in the breastfeeding department, things were getting much better at our house, and the baby was gaining weight like a champ. So I decided to venture out to the meet-up group and spend some time with some moms. I didn't ask questions before hand. 

I should have asked questions.

I won't reveal the name of this particular group, because that's ugly, but I learned quickly that I was out of place in a big way. I arrived with my daughter in her car seat, completely unaware that nobody else had a car seat in sight, as if their babies flew there on magic hippie love clouds. After settling in, I noticed that everyone wore a sling. I'd already given up the battle of the Baby Bjorn, so a sling was nowhere in my vision of how to schlep a baby. 

The topic of the day was toys, with tips and advice on where to find wooden toys. I swiftly buried the plastic teething ring underneath a blanket in the carseat and listened while I learned how terrible plastic toys are. Don't get me wrong; I knew very little about BPAs and the dangers of plastic then, and if I could go back I would make some different choices, but at the time, my biggest concern was getting my baby to eat, so banning plastic toys was really low on my priority list.

While I learned about wooden toys and resisted the temptation to ask, "But what about splinters?" I looked around to see all sorts of full breasts feeding all sorts of rosy-cheeked babes. And toddlers. And kids that might have been a little old for the breast? But if I'm discussing judgement, I guess I shouldn't be judging.

I prayed that my daughter would wait to cry her "I'm hungry" cry until the meeting was over. Of course that didn't happen, so I sheepishly whipped out a plastic bottle full of formula and began feeding my happy baby.

"Oh," said one of the moms, eyeing me with a mix of sympathy and distate, "You don't breastfeed?"

"No," I said, "It just didn't work out for me..."

And with that, I began to cry. I apologized for crying, scooped up the baby, carseat, plastic teething ring and bottle full of formula, and excused myself and left. And I never returned. And for me, that was a good thing.

It's so easy for all of us to judge. I do it constantly. In the car the other day, I told my husband that more than one bumper sticker on a car is a good indicator of a crazy person. But the problem with rushing to judgement? I have one school bumper sticker on my car now, and another one waiting to go on for my stepdaughter. As soon as I start judging, I have to turn around the finger I'm pointing and point it at myself.

So what became of the frazzled mother, riddled with postpartum depression, guilty for turning to formula and plastic toys?  Once she gave up breastfeeding and stopped worrying about what other people thought of that, she turned out just fine. And most of all, so did the baby.

A Professional Makeover

My entire career - which has spanned several decades and has included a wide, random variety of jobs - has been spent in a customer-facing role.

In my early 20's, I worked as a cashier at my hometown's local music store. The store is family-owned, run by a traditional, hard-working East Texas family, and has always been a bit of a time capsule. The male employees dominate one side of the store, selling guitars, drums and joking around with the customers, while the women on the other side of the store wear aprons and sell sheet music to the legions of piano teachers who live in East Texas. My mother is one of those teachers, and I would never have gotten the job without her connection, so I'm not complaining, but I was never a great fit there, mainly because I was a distracted, often overwhelmed employee, and one of the youngest people who worked there. There was nothing I could do to avoid looking elderly wearing that stupid apron. But while I didn't mind helping my customers, I was much more interested in the teenage boy customers who came in to murder "Stairway to Heaven" on every guitar in the store.

I would have been a great employee if it weren't for the cash register and a little thing they used to call making change. Our boss, a painfully shy and serious red-faced man, felt it was extremely important for his employees to know how to count change. When a customer would come up to pay, I would carefully key in their items and pray they would write a check. (For you who kids under 30 who don't know, people used to write checks and pay in cash.)

"That will be $19.52," I would say, beads of sweat forming at my hairline, "Will that be cash today?"

The customer would hand over a crisp $20, and I would start counting with my fingers (math is totally not my thing), frantically trying to figure out the proper change, when out of nowhere they would shove a nickel in my hand, and throw a complete wrench into my change-counting. It was torture.

To keep my job and thwart a nervous breakdown, I avoided the register whenever possible. Then I discovered a switch on the register that would tell you how much change to give back. Amazing! This system worked flawlessly for about a day, until our boss discovered that someone had messed with his register. I fessed up, and he became so angry he clenched his teeth, flushed into an unhealthy maroon shade, and promptly wrote me up.

Those extra pennies and nickels ultimately marked my decision to leave retail for good. Yet, somehow, despite my inability to count out change correctly, the customers loved me. I would patiently listen to endless stories of their little students, and go out of my way to find back copies of books we thought were out of print. At an early age, I learned that to win a loyal customer, the key is to win that customer's heart.

The same went for waiting tables. I've said this before, but I believe firmly that anyone who dines out should have a restaurant job at least once in their lives. For starters, it will make you a lifelong good tipper, but it will also give you the right to have an opinion on the level of service, because let me tell you, that job is not easy. It will earn you the right to judge if the server did a great job, or if they were terrible.

For the most part, I was beyond terrible. I required assistance constantly. My skinny spaghetti arms weren't strong enough to carry large trays of food, so I had to get the busboys to help. I had to write everything down in my illegible handwriting because I could only retain a few orders without spinning into a mental frenzy. I couldn't open a bottle of wine without shoving it in between my legs and yanking on the corkscrew until I turned purple. Because of this, I convinced the owner, a beloved Chinese man named Tommy, that I needed him to present the wine to the customers because they enjoyed the attention. And the customers did love it, which was great, because it helped my tips.

Yet somehow, even though I was the worst server in the place, I figured out how to keep the customers happy. I had a trick where I would remember the salad dressing and adult beverage choices of the regulars. That way, as long as I got those two things right, the rest would work itself out. Mrs. Lanier, for example, a woman who lived next door to my parents, will forever be associated with Parmesan Peppercorn on the side, and a glass of White Zinfandel. And even though my service was less than adequate, the regulars began to ask for me.  For some reason, the personal touch made a difference.

Through the years, no matter what the job, I would work hard to ensure that my customers were happy. Then somewhere along the way, people became angrier, and more vocal with their frustrations, and I was forced to learn how to handle unhappy people.

My first experience with angry customers was when I was in my mid 20's, and worked as a telephone operator at a medical answering service while I was finishing up my degree. The hours were flexible, the pay was good, and we got discounted Six Flags Fiesta Texas passes, one of the most hilarious perks ever.

The job sounds easy but was definitely one of the most challenging of my life. Medical answering service operators spend their days fielding calls from worried, frazzled parents calling pediatricians, mentally ill patients calling from the day rooms at state mental health facilities, begging to be released, petrified husbands calling their wife's obstetricians when the first signs of labor appear, and the occasional country bumpkin who saves their bowel movement in a Mason jar to show to their family practitioner. That really happened! Once, a woman called in and asked to page the doctor because she had a "shadow in her panties." Don't ask me; to this day I still have no clue what that was about.

The nature of a medical answering service job is that your day has stressful peaks and valleys. Office opening and closing times were the busiest. These were the days when doctors wore pagers only, and few carried cell phones, so we paged the doctor with the telephone number they needed to call. For medical answering service operators, your customers are the patients,  but your customers are also the doctors and nurses who rely on your service as well. 

One particularly stressful day, I had many calls on hold and was struggling to keep up with the pace, and in the chaos, paged an incorrect number to a doctor who specialized in critical care. Unfortunately, he had a reputation for being a bit of a hothead, and it was no wonder, given that his job was tremendously stressful. He called in, asked to speak with the person who paged him, and proceeded to cuss me out while I sobbed/begged for forgiveness.

Months later I was promoted to supervisor, and one of the operators on my shift made a mistake with the same doctor. Stepping to the operator's rescue, I offered to take the angry call, and listened while he cussed and yelled. But this time, I didn't let him get to me. I knew by that point that when you encounter an angry customer, the best thing you can do give is them time to say what they need to say. Angry customers need to feel heard.

After the doctor stopped yelling, I calmly apologized and assured him that I would speak with the employee. He said another few choice and unpleasant words, and hung up the phone.

A few days later, the same doctor called in to pick up a page. By this time, he remembered my name, and after he jotted down the notes, almost meekly asked,

"You must really think I'm an ass, huh?"

I resisted the temptation to shout, "Totally!" Instead, I admitted that he could be intimidating, and that his strong reactions were not easy to take. I also added that because we had a phone relationship, that we should all be reminded that a human was on the other side of the phone. I was pretty candid. From there, we had a pleasant conversation. The doctor apologized, and admitted that his job was hard because he saw so much death. After that, our relationship was a much better one. By the time I finished my degree and put in my resignation, the doctor offered to write reference letters for me.

Fifteen years later, I'm still working on fine-tuning my customer service skills. I recently switched roles from a sales position to a customer success role at my company. My job is to ensure that our customers are happy, and that they remain customers for life. I love this job, because most of my day is spent helping educate customers on why our product, a sales enablement software application, can make their jobs easier. I'm constantly being challenged by unique situations, different customer needs, and I get to problem-solve and help companies discover strategies to meet their goals by using our product.

The other day, I spoke with a customer who wanted to cancel his service. Because I was new to the account, it was a unique situation, because we didn't have an existing relationship. The customer wanted to set up a call to discuss the cancellation that Friday, and no later, as he wanted to finalize things, had upcoming travel, and was unwilling to drag it out. As luck would have it, I was fully booked with scheduled customer meetings, and was therefore in something of a professional pickle. I managed to cut one call short and shuffle things around to accommodate the customer's schedule, and holed up in a conference room, prepared for a tense conversation.

My goal was to listen more than talk, and given that I am chatty, this is always a challenge. But I bit my tongue as the customer explained the various reasons for his decision to cancel. The reasons varied -- some were legitimate frustrations, and others were more of a misunderstanding and lack of communication on the part of both parties. I waited for the customer to finish, and channeled the energy of one of my former sales managers, a woman who had a unique talent for disarming even the angriest customer by using her smooth Texas drawl.

"Do you know what I like to do in my personal time?" I asked. "You're going to think this is silly, but I like to watch makeover shows. I absolutely love to see a transformation."

He sat silent. I could feel him rolling his eyes through the phone.

"So here is what I'm going to propose. I would like to make-over your company. I want to help transform this experience and do everything I can to help your team see the value in our product. I want to hear about their frustrations, and help offer advice to make their experience a better one. I commit to taking great care of them, if you will give me a chance to makeover this situation."

This cheesy makeover analogy certainly wasn't planned. I must admit, it's actually quite goofy, and I wondered if I was going to make the tense situation even worse by using such a silly comparison. However, by the end of the conversation, the customer had agreed to take the weekend and sleep on it. By Monday, he emailed me with plans to let me speak with two of his sales reps about their experience, with the hopes that I can help work on a solution to their problems.

For me, this was a big victory. My job title - Customer Success Manager - is a perfect description of what I'm tasked to accomplish. I want my customers to be successful. But most of all, I want them to experience excellent customer service, because more and more, I find that customer service is on the decline. I believe firmly that our product is the best solution on the market, but I also believe firmly that part of why we keep our customers is because we take such great care of them.

I'm not really offering up a big moral lesson here, but perhaps the way to deliver stellar customer service is actually quite basic. To some level, we all have customers - whether they are external or internal ones - so perhaps it's worth noting that even if at some point in your career you're just a few levels above being a mediocre employee, that if you focus on allowing the customer to feel heard, that customer is likely to stick around. 

Keep on the Sunny Side

A few weeks ago, the unimaginable happened at the Albuquerque International Airport.

My mother, sister and I were on the final day of a fantastic girl's trip to Santa Fe to celebrate my sister's  college graduation, acceptance into grad school, and my recent 40th birthday. While we were there, the temperature in Santa Fe hovered around 14 degrees, so we were bundled up like Eskimos as we approached security. We somehow split into two lines, Mom on one side, my sister Emily and me on the other. Emily and I passed through our checkpoint with flying colors, charmed by an ancient TSA clerk with a freshly-dyed jet black comb-over.

Meanwhile, we were completely unaware that Mom was digging frantically for her driver's license in the other line. While we approached the tables to begin stripping down for the metal detectors, we heard Mom's name paged overhead. My first inclination was to worry that something had happened to one of our family members, and that somehow the police were calling our mother overhead at the airport. We soon realized, with some help from another TSA agent, that Mom had dropped her license somewhere between ticketing and security. We watched as Mom went to a strange wall phone and received instructions on how to find the lost and found. She took off to what she later described as an endless maze of hallways, where she knocked on a door and someone stuck their hand out and handed over her license. All the while, Emily and I waited in a self-made TSA holding area where I flirted with an agent young enough to be my son. In other words, we were a big help to my poor mother, who was navigating a concrete maze and fretting about where she'd left her license.

By the time Mom got back in line, she was understandably frazzled, so she asked for some time to gather her thoughts and her belongings, and went ahead of us through security. Emily approached the security table first, and began shedding layers of Eskimo garb. I followed behind. A young, pimply-faced female TSA agent motioned for my sister to go through the metal detector. As I finished up unloading my gear to the table, the agent looked at me and said, 

"So you're the mother?"

Let me repeat that. The female agent looked at me and said, 

"So you're the MOTHER?"

In other words, this girl thought I was my sister's mother. Her mother!

I will resist writing the rest of my thoughts on this in bold print with italics, because it's hard for me to accurately describe how upsetting this was to me.  For those of you who don't know, I'm four and a half years older than my sister. When I tell this story, everyone says, "Oh my GOD, what did you say?" 

I'm not sure how I delivered it, because my jaw was on the ground, but I said something sarcastic and biting like this,

"No, I'm her SISTER," I said as the agent began to look fearful for her life, "But thanks for ruining my day! You know, you really shouldn't say that to anyone....."

Poor Mom and Emily had to deal with the aftermath of this ugly little scene. They patiently sat through my sudden need to plop down on a bench and cry large, dramatic tears. I believe I said the big "f" word several times, loud enough for others to hear. Classy. While I put on my shoes and cried/cussed, I considered going back in line to sock the poor unsuspecting agent in the jaw. Emily, who possesses an incredible gift of taking a terrible situation and softening it, noted that surely the girl wasn't even paying attention and it was all a misunderstanding. Mom sat wisely on the sidelines until I got my act together, probably wondering how in a matter of seconds I was able to out drama her driver's license ordeal.

After processing this tragic event, I have come to a conclusion. People should never assume. People should know better than to make assumptions about people's age, relationship status, pregnancy status, and in some cases, even the sex of the person. When in doubt, do yourself a favor and do not ask.

I spent the plane ride home in self-pity misery, wondering if I should submit my photo to one of those companies who guesses your age by how you look, then smartly reconsidered. I wondered about my wardrobe, as I work hard not to be the kind of 40 year-old who looks like Steinmart is her only option. I thought about how I've gone on and on about not wanting to try Botox, then wondered if I should jump on the bandwagon. I avoided mirrors for the rest of the day. 

And then I thought about Sunny.

Sunny was the mother of my Mom's dear friend Claudia. She was one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and I never once thought of her as old, even though she was in her 80's. Her full name was Mary Sunshine Davidson, perhaps one of the most fantastic names ever, but her nickname "Sunny" fit her perfectly. She radiated a positive glow that's hard to describe. She embraced life with an energy that was contagious to those around her. If you were talking to her, she listened as if you were the only one in the room. The first time I met her, I was captivated by her energy, and at that moment decided that I wanted to age like Sunny. 

I mean, look at this woman! Wasn't she a beauty? And even though she was certainly blessed genetically, I can assure you that her beauty was magnified tenfold by what radiated from her soul.

Certainly part of Sunny's outlook on life was that she wasn't a whiner. I realized by thinking about Sunny that the experience that took place in the Albuquerque airport was a moment I could have blown off, or taken less seriously, and not spent valuable time with my mother and sister whining about it.

For me, this is about how we choose to age. Do we take on aging with a groan? Do we choose to look at aging as something to face with a strained expression, with resistance and negativity? Or, could we consider aging as a beautiful process, one that we handle with grace? 

I am totally not there yet, just so we're clear. I strive to age like Sunny, because she did it so fabulously, but since I just hit 40, I get the feeling that this aging thing is a process that I'll need to constantly revisit, learn from, and embrace. And I am slapping on moisturizer like a maniac, trying to walk every day for my health, and forcing myself to drink more water. It's all a process.

Lucky for me, the Universe sent me a gift this week. I went to Central Market to buy wine to take to a girl's night, and while in the checkout line, the clerk, who looked to be in her 60's (though I certainly wouldn't have asked!), saw the wine, looked at me, and said, 

"Are you 30 yet?"

"No," I exlaimed, elated, "I'm 40!! But you have NO idea how great you just made me feel!"

The mere idea that a stranger made an assumption - believed or not - that I was not yet 30 completely undid the damage done in Albuquerque. It did wonders for my confidence, which had been suffering for a few weeks. I nearly went around the counter and kissed her. But instead, as the young bag boy asked me if I needed help to my car, I happily declined, flashing a Sunny-like smile at him, elated that at this point in my life, I'm young enough to carry my groceries without help.

Two Kinds of People in This World

Children have an uncanny ability to need a bathroom when one is farthest from reach. This was the case one dark night several years ago when we were on a family road trip, miles from the nearest town. Our daughter Emily Rose was about four, and announced from the back seat that she needed to go to the bathroom. Knowing we were at least fifteen minutes from a viable option, we explained that she could either wait it out, or we could pull over so she could go outside. Her response was quick and decisive.

"There are two kinds of people in this world," Rosie said,  "People who go to the bathroom on the side of the road, and people who don't. I am the second one."

Once we recovered from laughing until our sides ached, I began to think about how Rosie's philosophy could apply to many different situations. From that point on, I have mentally created all kinds of categories about people, narrowing them neatly into two buckets, those that do "X" and those that don't. People who will clip their nails at their desk. People who won't kill spiders. People who will tell you if you have black beans in your teeth. People who won't.

Up until today, I fell under the category of "a person who will not do crafts." I'd rather drink a glass of clumpy milk than set foot inside a Hobby Lobby. It's hard for me to even say those two words together without faking some kind of weird, Fargoesque accent where I say, "Habbie Labbie" and make a gagging signal. The few times I've been inside a Habbie Labbie, it's been due to a school project meltdown, or a sudden urgent need for a glue-stick, but it's never because I'm there to bedazzle a sweatshirt. The few times I have forced myself to enter the terrifying doors of a Habbie Labbie, I've been thoroughly overwhelmed by it. Between the mysterious wooden cutouts of cats and the like, to the unnecessary amounts and sizes of easels, to all of that scrap-booking nonsense, I have to practice deep cleansing breaths of foul potpourri and eucalyptus just to get out of there without a full-fledged panic attack.

And then you have the women with curious choices of accessories (hair and otherwise) who actually go there for sport, dragging around little bedazzled kids hyped up on Sour Patch Kids. Those women sniff me out, scanning me from head to toe, wondering how I had the audacity to enter their place of worship without a single bit of bling on my person, or at the very least a baseball cap with a glittery cross on it.

So I keep my head down and wander the aisles, humming along nervously to the canned contemporary Christian/patriotic music, winding my way through aisles of fuzzy pompoms and fluorescent poster board, clueless to the whereabouts of the gosh-darned glue-sticks. Finally I locate a spinster wearing a Habbie Labbie apron and flashing, four-leaf clover earrings, and she carefully leads me through a sea of craft crap to the vast selection of glue-stick options. By the time I check out, I've developed an eye twitch that lasts for days, reminding me never to return.

So this morning at breakfast, as I retold the story of a good friend who's boyfriend made home-made sugar scrub for her for this Christmas, Emily Rose, now 9, perked up.

"Oooh, let's make some!" she said, clapping her hands.

Inside, I cringed, fearful that this journey would land us inside a crafts store, searching for gingham jar covers. But it's the holidays, and what I felt I missed out on this year was enough travel-free, tv-free, noise-free time with my daughter, so I took this as a sign.

We started poking around online and found a few simple recipes, all easy enough to make, and presented in simple jars with simple labels. Hmm. Getting a little ballsier, I ventured over to Pinterest for a quick peek. I'm terrified of this Pinterest. The last thing I need is another thing to suck away more of my time and, God forbid, invite me into the dark world of crafting. Yet, we found some extremely cool salt scrub photos. Things seemed doable and even - dare I say it?- cute. Hmm...

I ventured out to our neighborhood grocery store and purchased 3 huge boxes of coarse Kosher salt, a large bottle of olive oil, and several lemons. Rosie stayed home with my husband to prepare our work station, and when I returned, we walked across the street to snip rosemary from our neighbor's massive rosemary bush, vowing to return the favor of stolen rosemary with our first batch of salt scrub.

Exhibit A: Emily Rose grates up lemon zest like a pro, having the time of her life. For those of you observant enough to notice that she's wearing a shirt with a glitter heart on it, please note that the glitter heart was not a result of a Habbie Labbie t-shirt project. You love it? I love it. I got it at Ross.

Exhibit B is the finished product. Emily Rose made the labels, which read: "Cozy Rosie's lemon rosemary salt scrub." At this point you're probably wondering if Rosie is wearing a glittery hair accessory. No, friends, that is our Christmas tree, which we may just leave up all year. (My husband actually suggested that today, and I think he was partially serious).

We took the first batch across the street to give to the two girls that we steal rosemary from on a regular basis. I strutted like a proud mother hen, instructing Rosie to be careful with the glass jar as if she had a mason jar filled with liquid gold. I sort of regret not walking over in an apron.

One of the neighbor girls answered the door as we were about to leave the jar at their doorstep. Her hair was wet and she'd just hopped out of the shower, a little startled at our random visit. Rosie explained what we'd made, touting the benefits of skin-softening while also making one's house smell wonderful, while I considered Rosie's promising future in Mary Kay sales. When the girl asked Rosie where we got the recipe, Rosie proudly said, "The Internet!" before I could answer, "Oh, it's an old family recipe we've been making for years." We strutted back home, my chest still puffed up from the Norman Rockwellian feeling of it all, and proceeded to make several more batches until we drained the house out of olive oil and lemons.

At one point during our assembly-line production, I asked Rosie what she liked about our project.

"It's an exercise in bonding!" she said, then scrunched up her brow and laughed. "But wait, we've been bonding for the past nine years. It's not like we need it!"

But we did need it. We had a wonderful time working together, and figuring out something new. Not to mention, I was the first to sample our finished product, and my before and after elbow softness test tells me I should have been salt scrubbing a long time ago.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who will dip their toe carefully into the world of home-made projects, and those who will not. While you won't see me prancing through Habbie Labbie any time soon, you may see me poking around a little on Pinterest.

A Time to Heal

We've decided to take a break from the news.

Friday, when the tragic news from Newton, Connecticut broke, I called my husband to discuss how we would handle sharing this news with our fourth grade daughter. Like so many of my friends, who posted on Facebook and Twitter that they wanted to pick up their children right that minute, my first inclination was to drop everything and go to my daughter's school, hold her tightly, and not let go.

My husband -- always a voice of reason during times of tragedy and emergency -- suggested that we wait until school was out, and not do anything too disruptive to our daughter's normal schedule. We considered that it was unlikely that the school would share the news with the students, but that we didn't want her to hear the news from other children or parents who might be discussing it in the hallway after school let out.

When we arrived at the school, it was a typical Friday afternoon, children running through the hallways, screaming and laughing, digging money out of their pockets for our school's weekly candy sale, a fundraiser for the school's 5th grade class. I went inside to find our daughter, and spotted her bouncing down the hall, talking and laughing with a classmate. Oblivious to the horrors being reported on the news, the children were the picture of innocence.

"Mommy! You're here early.." she said as I hugged her so tightly she wiggled free, embarrassed, "A lot of parents are picking up their kids early today. Weird.."

And it was true. The school seemed unusually busy for a Friday afternoon, likely because other parents wanted to get their hands on their kids and hug them tightly as well.

We walked together to the cafeteria where the aftercare children meet. A group of kids were lined up to carefully pour a cup of hot chocolate, a special holiday treat. Others worked busily on art projects. Others were tossing binders and backpacks on the floor, a week of school behind them. Several of our daughter's friends ran up for a hug, or to show me something they'd drawn. I paused for a moment and just watched the scene, groups of children on a Friday afternoon, just being kids. I felt immensely grateful, yet painfully aware that nearly 2,000 miles away, another elementary school was the scene of something unimaginable. 

 As I went to sign our daughter out of aftercare, the aftercare teacher and I exchanged a controlled, yet tearful look.

"You're early today," she said, equally surprised to see me before 5:00.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing the head of one of our daughter's classmates as he walked by, "It just felt like a good day to pick her up early.."

At home, the weekend began like any other weekend, except it was several hours earlier and the television was intentionally off. This is unusual for us. We're a news-watching family. Each morning, two televisions - one in the living room and one in the master bedroom - report on a combination of local and national news.   My husband, a political junkie, irons his shirt in the living room as he talks back to the commentators on MSNBC. I dress based on my local NBC weather report, and time my morning around the opening music of The Today Show.

But this time, in an effort to protect our daughter from disturbing information, images of violence, or the sensationalism of a tragic event, we opted to explain the situation by talking. As we had hoped, our daughter had not heard the news. As parents, Tim and I did our best to explain the news to a 9-year old, offering her solace only in the fact that what had happened was so far away, perhaps the distance would make it seem less real.

This reminded me of a friend of my parents, who, despite his profession as a photojournalist, made a conscious decision to stop watching the national news many years ago. It was simply too depressing and overwhelming. Feeling helpless, he decided that the only thing the national news could do was make him fearful of things out of his control. So he chose to only pay attention to local news stories, and felt that by doing so, he could choose to impact things in his own community. And when he made this decision, he felt more at peace. Perhaps it's the ultimate exercise in denial, like those who choose not to vote because they don't feel their vote counts. Yet, I relate to his decision, and wonder if there's a way to stay informed, yet be shielded from the sense of overwhelm that comes from so much tragedy and sadness.

Because the constant reminders of Sandy Hook have been so painful, I decided to step back from social media a bit this weekend as well.  I tried to do my part in sharing some coping tools with my Facebook friends, posting a wonderful article by Fred Rogers on how to talk to your children about unsettling news events. I also stumbled across a post written by a man in Vancouver that was falsely attributed to Morgan Freeman, wherein the author blamed the media for sensationalizing stories of  mass violence, and rewarding those responsible with a celebrity status. In this post, the reader was advised to stop watching the news. And because when Morgan Freeman tells us something, we can't help but think it's coming from God, we pay attention.

As parents, we will never be able to adequately explain to a child why things so tragic happen. We can talk about our opinions on how society cares for our mentally ill, we can share out thoughts about guns, or our thoughts about violence. We can tell our daughter to cover her eyes when a violent scene comes up as we're watching a movie. As parents, we can do our best to protect our children, including our two teenagers who, because of easy access to the media through their smart phones, are more aware of the darkness in society. And while we know that all of our children will lose that sense of wide-eyed innocence soon enough, as parents, we do our best to provide shelter from the news that will forever change them.

So this weekend, we did what we could to help guard our daughter from the painful reality of the tragedy in Newton. And by turning off the news, we blocked ourselves from the pain as well. Friday night, we buried our heads in Technicolor, decorating the Christmas tree, and watching the fantastically innocent "White Christmas."  Saturday, we slept in and stayed home all day, enjoying a day with no schedules and no commitments. Today, we'll attend a holiday party with friends, and as the adults mingle and the children run around making merry, we'll look at it all a little differently, knowing that what we have is something truly precious, and something that we cherish, and that the news will be there tomorrow, if we choose to turn it on.

Celebrating The Original Emily

My sister Emily is graduating college today!

With a ceremony to attend, family and friends to shuffle around, and a celebration of two-stepping at the legendary Broken Spoke tonight (a place where my sister once worked and is famous for being "High Kicking Emily") this will be a busy weekend. Before the revelry begins, I'd like to take a moment to brag on my sister and best friend.

Back in 1976, my parents sat me down to tell me they were having a baby. I was four years old, and instead of expressing excitement, I burst into tears. Assuming I was like a car, I thought my parents were trading me in for a newer model and getting rid of me. Here's an awesome yet blurry pic of my mom, wearing a really cool 1970's pregnancy shirt explaining her bump. What a great shirt! If more pregnant women wore shirts like this, it would avoid a lot of awkward questions. The only shirt that would be better would be the one my friend would design that would say, "Food Baby," another shirt that would avoid a lot of awkward questions. But I digress.

Inside that tummy was the amazing Emily Susan Underwood. We fell in love with her immediately, and my fears of  being replaced were replaced with the joy of having an instant best friend. She was one of those perfect babies who was soft, cuddly, and squeezable. Who needed a doll when you had a real one to play with?  Pardon my bowl cut, sleepy morning eyes and the glare of the hideous wood paneling that screams 1976 and check out that baby. Could there be a cuter baby? I'm pretty sure in this picture, Emily knows that she has a friend for life. That, or she's filling up a diaper.

Our parents divorced when I was 9. While I know the event rattled our world to some extent, I've always felt that both of my parents ended up with wonderful people who were better matches for them in a million different ways. Together, Emily and I navigated the sudden reality of living in two homes, learning how to adapt to two houses with polar opposite philosophies, food choices, schedules, etc. I don't recall ever feeling like I had to take care of Emily, though I was several years older. We took care of each other. While I was the chatty kid who wore her emotions on her sleeve, Emily was a calming force who observed things quietly and seemed to possess a deep insight on people and situations very early in life. It's not surprising that today she'll graduate with a degree in Sociology. 

Em was an awesome little kid. Wildly creative, she created and designed a playhouse in our backyard, using a wooden theater set from a children's play on Noah's Ark, and re-purposing it into a fantastic 80's Party Ark, where she and her friends would hang out and create plays and musicals. Because she didn't have a little sister to boss around, she took ownership of our unusually patient cat Georgia, dressing her up in doll clothes and pushing her around in a cart. During our teens, while I clung desperately to maintain popularity, Em stayed true to herself, rocking unique fashion choices, unafraid to stand out by being different. While I went to prom in sequins, Emily went in leather. She and her date rode to prom on a motorcycle. Emily was the essence of cool, and still is.

Instead of going straight to college after high school, Emily and I both spent a year abroad as exchange students. Emily lived in Switzerland, and while we missed her desperately while she was away, we knew that the experience was life-changing, and would impact her view on the world. She worked in a day care, and the children she cared for taught her French while she took care of their basic needs. It was a perfect fit for Emily's nurturing spirit and amazing connection with children. She returned from Switzerland more beautiful than ever, more mature, and fluent in French.

Then came the Los Angeles years. Emily moved there in the late 90's when she was dating a musician, and for all of us who love her, the sense of loss when she moved was intense. Yet, Emily has always made choices that are well-thought out, and part of her decision to move was to support her boyfriend's dream, but also to experience working and living independently in a huge city. She met great friends, carved a niche for herself in advertising, and was the picture of success.

I moved out to LA in 2000 after finishing my degree. Emily invited me to move in with her, and it was one of the best years of my life. Inspired to be healthy, we jogged together on the beach, bickering in the cold morning air, and rewarding ourselves at the end of the run by swinging on the large swing set facing the beach in Santa Monica. Once, while jogging, we saw Crocodile Dundee. Or not. (Inside joke). We sang Karaoke so often that we referred to it as "Vitamin K". Miles away from our home town, we made lifelong friends in LA, and will always feel like we're a little bit California because of it.

If it weren't for men, Emily and I would be those sisters who live together forever. We're pretty much those sisters anyway, reading each other's thoughts and sharing countless obnoxious inside jokes. We geek out and sing in harmony together, using years of church choir experience to figure out harmonies to all sorts of cornball songs. And since we're Amy and Emily, call ourselves the Indigo Squirrels, named after Amy and Emily of the Indigo Girls. We share a strange language we created based on the movie "The Ladies Man," to the point where I'm sure some people we know think we both have lisps and were raised in Harlem.

We love attending weddings together, where we feel like the oddball Southern sisters in "My Best Friend's Wedding". Here's a picture taken at a friend's wedding in Los Angeles. Shortly after this picture was taken, we were nearly electrocuted/arrested for taking our shoes off and dancing in the waters of the lighted fountain behind us. This is the wedding where we became known as "THOSE sisters." We're proud of that title.

I moved back to Austin in 2001, madly in love with my now-husband, Tim, and we married in 2002. A naturally-talented event planner, Emily planned our wedding from her desk in Los Angeles, generously funding many of the necessary items for our intimate, backyard wedding at my mom and stepfather's home in Tyler. While my stepdaughter Stephanie was my Maid of Honor, we bucked tradition and invited Emily to be the oldest flower girl in history. And as always, she did it with grace and a sense of humor, and she was beautiful.

When Tim and I had our first child together, we chose not to find out the sex of the baby. We had a few names picked out, and had decided on the name Dorothy Eileen if it was a girl. My paternal grandmother's name was Dorothy, my husband's mother's name is Eileen. My grandmother, while flattered, said that naming a girl Dorothy was cruel because it would only conjure up Wizard of Oz references. Still, we liked the name and went to the hospital with that in our back pocket.

When the baby was born, she came out looking exactly like my sister. Drugged up from an emergency C-section, I stayed behind to get stitched up while Tim greeted the family through the glass wall of the hospital nursery. When the family mouthed, "What's her name?" Tim simply shrugged a question mark. Tim brought the baby back to me and asked, "Is this a Dorothy Eileen?" to which I groggily replied, "No, she's an Emily Rose."

I'm not sure where the Rose came from, since my sister is Emily Susan, but I was all sorts of out of it, and I did grow up in Tyler, where roses are kind of a thing. As soon as Emily Rose was introduced to the world, we arbitrarily removed Emily's given name and began calling her Tia. We gave her zero choice in the matter, but Emily Rose and Tia are truly two of a kind. Here's Emily Rose on her 5th birthday, wearing a hand-made cowgirl outfit that Tia designed.

Emily left her life in Los Angeles to move to Austin to be near us, and for that, I'm forever grateful. My kids had an opportunity to be close to their aunt, and each of our children have had the extreme benefit of her influence. She has been there for all of us during celebrations, dramas, birthdays, holidays, and has offered all of us a sense of calm in our otherwise wild life. We couldn't have done it without her.

A few weeks ago, my sister was proposed to on the beautiful beach in Mexico by her soul mate and best friend, Rocky. I was lucky to be there to celebrate in this huge moment. In the essence of full disclosure, this news is still settling in, as for the first time in my life, I am going to have to share the person with whom I've been closest to since we were kids. But take a look at how happy they are! I can't possibly not be cool with sharing with someone who cares about my sister that much.

Emily's choice to finish school when she was sure about what she wanted is another prime example of how she thinks through life's big decisions, and takes them seriously. Through a combination of student loans and financial support from our selfless, hard-working mother, Emily will walk the stage at the Frank Erwin Center today, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She can get over my head very quickly when she talks about theories on populations, crime and other Sociology-related topics. She's a sharp cookie. In January, she'll begin graduate school at UT, to earn a Master's in Social Work. And then, she'll marry the love of her life.

For me, all of this big news for my sister is hugely exciting, and also bittersweet. But I can promise this: when my sister walks the stage today, it will be her moment, and I'll be cheering for her the loudest.

Emily, congratulations on this amazing accomplishment. I love you, Thupa Thquirrel!!!!

Relax? Can't Do It.

Relaxation doesn't come easy to me. In fact, thinking about relaxation makes my palms sweat. It's just too much work.

I'm that girl in yoga who, while everyone else is deep in Shavasana and all connected with their third eye, is having a one-sided internal conversation that goes something like this:

"Hmm, I wonder if the guy next to me has ever tried deodorant? Surely if he spends that much time working on shoulder stand, he could take a little time to consider how he smells. I wonder what his house looks like? Ooh, maybe he's that guy my friend went out with that had a tent city in his living room! Did she say he had a beard? I wonder what Tim would say if I told him I wanted to build a tent city, ha! God, I'm hungry. A burger sounds good right now. Without the bun. With the bun, that's more calories than I just burned. But it would be better with bacon. Everything is better with bacon. I hate this music. This song sounds just like the Monday Night Football song, played with a sitar. Where do you buy a sitar? Do they have sitar stores in India like we have piano stores? OMG, Amy, you're supposed to be relaxing..."

If I'm not having some crazy internal stream of random thoughts, I'm completely asleep and drooling. I once had a yoga teacher tell me that if I can't stay awake to meditate, I'm not truly meditating. I'm guessing my snoring was a little offensive to the rest of the class.

Several years ago I was the recipient of a sales award where the prize was a trip to Aruba. Part of the experience included a choice of special events for the recipient and their guest. I selected a massage; my husband opted for deep-sea fishing.  As luck would have it, my massage was performed by a large Aruban woman who apparently mistook me for an ex-husband that she hated.  What should have been a gentle Swedish massage became more like a 90-minute Aruban Assault, and I left her weird little massage room sore, confused, and a little fearful for my life. It was not exactly the relaxation I was seeking.

As my husband left for his fishing trip, I took a few magazines, a book, a journal, and an iPod with headphones, and headed to the pristine beach, where I found a perfect spot under an umbrella. It was early still, so nobody was around, and I had my pick of all of the beach chairs. I got situated, applied sunscreen, surveyed paradise, and took a deep breath. It was time to relax.

And then I got antsy.

With nobody to talk to, no kids to feed, no customers to help, no television or gadget to amuse me, the mere act of relaxation made me anxious. I needed someone to talk to.

Right away, a scraggly, dentally-challenged boat captain walked up, and offered to take me on a private boat trip on his dingy little speedboat. And of course I went, not just because I'm wildly trusting, but also because he had a sun tattoo on his upper arm with the word "Namaste" written above it, so I assumed he wasn't a serial killer. The boat was primitive to say the least, and didn't even have a seat for the guest. The captain pointed to the front of the boat, where the only way to secure myself somewhat safely was to grab on to a large blue rope and sit cautiously without flashing onlookers my unfortunate thighs. Without warning, he started the boat and whizzed at ridiculous speeds through the choppy waters of Aruba. Clutching the rope with all my might, I screamed for mercy as we bounced up and down over the waves, the scraggly boat captain laughing loudly and completely ignoring my pleas to slow down. Right about the time I convinced myself that my boat captain was either a serial killer or the ex-husband of my large Aruban massage therapist, he brought me back to shore safely. Yet somehow, the experience was exhilarating and I don't regret it one bit, mainly because it's such a great story, and I love telling people I had a private boat captain in Aruba. (I just leave out the missing teeth and unsafe boat portion of the story). I waved goodbye with rope-burned hands, feeling happy. And somehow, I felt relaxed.

Last week, I tried to relax again. I went to Tulum, Mexico, to attend the wedding of our friends Michelle and Todd. Because my husband stayed behind to take care of the kids, I roomed with a friend that I've never roomed with before. Before the trip, I emailed my roomie, jokingly telling her that I enjoy spooning to romantic comedies dubbed in Spanish, and if she wanted to skinny dip with me in the evenings, I'd like to hold hands while doing it because I'm afraid of seaweed. I used that opening to soften the blow of the challenging part of being my roommate: my snoring problem.

My roomie came prepared with earplugs and her iPhone, loaded up with apps to help her sleep. On the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, we bonded over our choices of iPhone apps, and the sounds we prefer to use to help us sleep. These apps are a godsend on work trips. I once drowned out the sound of a screaming infant on a flight from San Francisco to Austin by playing the sounds of a driving rainstorm. Another time, the man in the hotel room next to me watched Pay-Per-View porn until 3:00 am, so I drowned out the moaning with the gentle jingle jangle of a passenger train. 

As we talked about sleep issues (everybody seems to have them), we suddenly came up with a brilliant business plan. (I'm convinced that many brilliant business plans happen on airport shuttles in Mexico while the passengers are throwing back Coronas). 

What if we invented an app that had the sounds of someone talking to put you to sleep? Personally, if I had a recording of my husband explaining the relationship between a flywheel and a clutch plate, I'd be asleep in seconds. And I'm sure that if my husband could have a recording of me recanting the time I had a panic attack at the top of Chichen Itza, he'd be out in minutes. 

We brainstormed ideas for Boring Sound Selections. Imagine if you could have your freshman History teacher lecturing on the Battle of Antietam? If it put you to sleep 15 years ago, I'm sure it would do the trick now. My friend took it to a whole new level, suggesting foreign language recordings, so that you'd wake up fluent in French.

When we arrived at the hotel, energized from our great shuttle conversations, the hotel was postcard perfection. Here's the view from our room:

Perfect place to relax, right?

Because I'm an old married, several nights on the trip, I opted to go to bed earlier while my roomie stayed out to make merry with the other wedding guests. Our room was modestly appointed, and did not have a television, so the prospect of watching rom-coms dubbed in Spanish was eliminated from my option list. I had grand illusions of writing. I didn't write. I brought a book about writing that I planned on reading cover to cover. It bored me, but not enough to make me sleepy. I'd already resigned myself to turn off my phone while in Mexico because of my mobile provider's exorbitant international rate plan. I opened the door, got in bed, and listened to the waves crashing on the beach. 

Now, wouldn't you think that because I'm able to fall asleep to the sounds of a beach on an app on my iPhone that having an actual beach with actual crashing waves right outside my door would do the trick? 

Nope.

The only thing that helped me fall asleep properly was to wait for my roomie to come home, and as we flipped off the lights, I talked. And talked. And talked both of us to sleep.

When the trip was over, I couldn't wait to tell my husband about our brilliant business plan. Many Thursday nights, we meet a friend for Mexican martinis and dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. I decided this was the perfect time to spill the frijoles, and shared the idea as my husband and friend listened. They did not appear enthusiastic about the plan. Perhaps my husband was not amused at my using his discussion on economic policy as an example of something that could bore you to sleep, but still. I expected enthusiasm, and I didn't get it.

It didn't take long for my friend to burst my bubble, stating that most nights, he falls to sleep to classic books on tape (books on iTunes, to be more exact). Evidently, you can download all sorts of classics because of copyright laws that I don't understand. So while we were in Mexico, conjuring up recording sessions of government teachers lecturing on the Legislative branch, my friend was being lulled to sleep by the soft strains of A Tale of Two Cities.

But even better than classic books on tape? A few sips of Mexican martini later, and my friend confessed that some nights, he falls to sleep to the Bible. My friend is not the kind of guy I imagine cozying up in an easy chair for some Deuteronomy, so this cracks me up to no end. He admitted that he doesn't retain much, as it only takes a few chapters for him to fall asleep, but that it works wonders to prevent insomnia. Still, I can't help but wonder if he's earning eternal salvation simply by sleeping to Ecclesiastes.

So while my friend and I likely won't become billionaires with our fabulous app idea, I'm looking forward to downloading Ulysses, because it certainly put me to sleep the first time around. And the next time my husband starts to explain Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Don't be surprised if I'm on the edge of my seat, iPhone behind my back, as I listen intently and secretly record him.