THE SLEEPOVER

Ahhhh, weekends. A time to veg-out, catch up on all the shows on my DVR (really Ben...Courtney? ) and of course, re-connect with the hubs.

Weekends.Rock. Some more than others...



Last weekend was a 180 decibel weekend. The Dickman and I were knee deep in noisy G-babes while their sainted Mama enjoyed a short getaway.

I always look forward to getting those tasty little nuggets all to myself, but this time was different. This was the first time 20-month old Michael had spent a night away from his Mama. And let me tell you folks...Michael reeeeeeeally loves his Mama.

I knew I had to bring my A-Game. For two days I would be responsible for keeping three small people alive, fed and clothed. And hopefully, happy.

I prepared carefully for the 48-hour marathon, stocking my kitchen with gluten-free cookies, loading up on hiney wipers and making sure the 5-Hour Energy drinks and hemorrhoid cream were placed carefully out of reach of curious little hands.

----------

My just-turned-four-year old Mattman required the least amount of energy. This little guy spends a lot of time inside his own adventurous head. Pin a belt onto his shorts for a tail, and he becomes an elusive tiger prowling stealthily through the house. Tie a towel around his neck and he instantly becomes a crime-fighting super hero, leaping tall ottomans in a single bound.

Mattman spent most of the weekend reminding me what a big guy he is, now that he is four. He informed me that his 'privates' were bigger as well, cause he could now reach the toilet without standing on my feet. I am crazy about this boy.

Five-going-on-17-year old Mandie Lee is a bit more high maintenance. But ridiculously cute. So cute she should have her own Disney Show. Really.

In spite of all that cuteness, there is just no getting around the fact that She.Is.A.Girl. Complete with all the drama and eye-rolling that comes with the double-X chromosome. It is hilarious to catch this pint-sized powerhouse rolling her eyes at me as though I could possibly be irritating her - much like I used to irritate her Daddy.

Mandie Lee is magnificent. She is a big sister, entertainment director, and star diva all rolled into colorful leggings and sparkly shoes. I couldn't love her more if I tried.

And then there's Michael...melt me to my toes Michael. An angel baby with his Daddy's face and his Mama's sweetness. Perfection in footie pajamas. Even though he is the smallest, he is in fact the black hole that sucks up all the energy. He opened my kitchen cabinets and refrigerator door no less than eleventy million times and hid bottles of canola oil and jars of jelly all over my house. I could not take my eyes off this tiny tornado for a second. We even played peek-a-boo while I was on the toilet.

When I wasn't wiping hineys or filling sippy cups, I spent the weekend totally enchanted by these three little munchkins.

[Okay, there was that one tense moment when Matthew felt the need to let me know that I have a 'really big belly'. But seriously, who can trust the judgement of a kid who draws stick people sporting HUGE heads with teeny arms. He clearly has a skewed perspective of body proportion. Besides, I had just eaten half a pan of Rice Krispie Treats which totally bloated me up.]

I did feel a little sorry for him when we headed out in 17 degree weather and discovered that while he had remembered to pack seven of his favorite stuffed animals...Mattman had forgotten to pack a pair of pants.

----------

I was prepared for baby Michael to miss his Mama. As it turned out, Mandie Lee was the melancholy one. When I tucked her into bed Saturday evening her eyes filled with tears and she said, “I really miss my Mommy.” I wrapped my arms around her and told her that was a sure sign she was growing up.

I said, “Your brothers are too little to understand time. They don't realize it's been awhile since they've seen their Mom, or wonder how long it will be until she comes back. They only think about Right Now. But you are older and wiser. You are learning that two days can be a very long time when you're away from someone you love.”

“So...I'm getting smarter?” Mandie asked.

“Yes you are.”

“And getting smarter makes me miss my Mommy more?” she reasoned.

“Yes, it does, love. That's exactly how it works.”

----------

Michael began coughing in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I picked him up and tucked him into bed beside me. A short time later, as the sun began peeking through my bedroom curtains, I felt his small hand roughly patting my face. “Mama?” he asked.

“No baby, it's MiMi.”

“O-tay. I wuv yoo, MiMi.”

My heart exploded like the sun, into a bajillion pieces. And at that precise moment, every single piece belonged to the baby snuggled in my arms.

----------

After they left I headed over to see my own Mama.

She opened the door to her pretty little apartment and I pulled her into a hug. I breathed in the smell of her, reveling in the feel of her familiar hands patting me comfortingly on the back. She didn't notice that I held on a little longer than usual, but waited patiently for me to settle onto the sofa, seeming to understand that what I needed was a good dose of Mama.

“I'm so mad at Whitney Houston...” she began.

For the next 20 minutes, I listened to all the words she had saved up to share with me, nodding and uh-huh-ing when she paused for a breath. All the while aware of the painful squeezing going on in my heart.

Maybe it was seeing Mandie Lee miss her Mama...I'm not sure. But an awareness came over me that this was what I would someday miss the most. The simple joy of sitting at my Mama's feet and sharing life – from the mundane to the extraordinary. It was all I could do to finish our conversation and get back into my car before the tears began to flow.

Because I, too, am smart enough to understand the concept of time.

I whispered a prayer, a plea..."Thank you God for my Mama. Please let me keep her for a long, long time. Please, please, please, pretty please."

Then I wiped the tears from my eyes, and put the car in reverse.

As I drove away, a piece of Rice Krispie Treat fell out of my hair and into my lap...

...and I couldn't help but smile.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~ Mother Teresa

All Dogs Go To Heaven. Some Go To Aruba.

My friends are often surprised to learn that I'm not really an animal person, but it's the truth. In all honesty, I have not really had a mutually satisfying relationship with an animal since I murdered my pet duck, Butterball.

My Daddy gifted me with the little bit of yellow fluff as an Easter present when I was 6 years old. And I literally loved that duck to death. I held him (her?) so much that he/she died from it. I was devastated beyond belief.

To try and console me, my family gathered together in our backyard to give Butterball a proper send-off. He/she was lovingly placed in a brightly decorated shoebox lined with fluffy cotton and buried in a shallow grave marked with a pitiful cross made of twigs.

The following day, I remember wishing I was brave enough to exhume Butterball's casket for a quick peek inside to ensure he/she had found his/her way to heaven. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I kept remembering how my brother Dale had made the mistake of digging up a bird we had buried in similar fashion. When he opened up the shoebox, the bird was still there. Dale went crying to Mom, who told him that God was just very busy and had not had time to pick up the dead bird. So my brother carefully reburied the bird, waited a more respectable amount of time, and dug it up once again. This time the shoebox was empty. [I've always figured my Mom was somehow in cahoots with God on that deal. I'm just smart that way.]

So even though I determined at a very early age not to give my heart away to anything that had more than two legs, there has always been a steady stream of four-legged beasts coming in and out of my life.

The first dog I can remember Daddy bringing home was Tar Baby. She was an enormous, sad-faced basset hound who produced copious amounts of saliva and ate our neighbor's chickens. I steered clear of Tar Baby and was admittedly relieved when she went to live on a farm with some chicken-less friends.

My memories of Lightnin' the Wienie Dog are brief. Months after coming into our home, she lived up to her name and disappeared - quick as that - into the West Texas mesquites, never to be seen again.

Shortly after we moved to Borger, my sweet Daddy walked into the house with a fat little Dachshund named Sugar. I don't know if Daddy just had a broken picker when it came to dogs, but with Sugar he hit an all time low. That sassy hound turned out to be the neighborhood slut and a pathetic mother, to boot. I don't remember exactly what happened to Sugar, but I'm pretty sure my Mom sent her off to a doggie convent to find salvation.

Then there was Tuffy. Apparently Daddy had finally reached his limit with dysfunctonal b*tches (so to speak) and shelled out good money for a beautiful, sinewy, testosterone-laden Boston Bull Terrier. My Dad and brothers loved Tuffy. Mom and I merely endured him. I swear this dog was hell-bent on embarrassing me. Not only did he fart around my male suitors (silent, toxic ones that made everyone in the room shift uncomfortably and avoid eye contact with each other), he also loved to chew the crotch out of my panties. Nothing mortified me more than coming home from a nice romantic date, only to find my favorite panties laying in shreds on the front porch. Needless to say, Tuffy lived fast and died young.

For my 18th birthday, my parents gave me my Very Own Dog. A precious little fur ball named Bo. She was a teacup poodle, and I really did my best to bond with her. I would hide her in my shoulder bag and sneak her into class with me at Frank Phillips College. But as Bo got bigger, my attention span for her grew smaller. Before I knew it, Bo and my Daddy had fallen deeply in love. So had I. I got married a few years later, and left Daddy and Bo behind.

And then I discovered babies. Baby boys, to be exact. Two of them.

Just like dogs, they needed to be fed daily and produced ridiculous amounts of poop. But they were oh so much more fun to take care of. I had absolutely no hesitation in giving my heart away to these wonderful creatures.

Funny thing about boys...they go together with dogs like the Lone Ranger & Tonto, Mario & Luigi, Donny & Marie. As my sons grew bigger, their requests for a puppy dog became more frequent, as did my constant refusals.

While I felt somewhat capable of keeping two small boys and a goldfish alive, the thought of having to be responsible for One More Thing held little appeal for me. Even if it was something that didn't require stretch marks.

But with their Dad's help, they finally wore me down.

We decided to get Lucas a rescue puppy for his 9th birthday, thinking that it would help to teach him responsibility. He picked out a beautiful dog and named him Max. Two days after we brought Max home, I discovered deep scratches all over Luke's arms. After changing his story several times, he finally admitted the wounds were from Max. When Dickie took Max to get his shots, the vet expressed concern to learn we had gotten the dog for our son's pet. It was our turn for concern when we were informed that Max was half Siberian Husky and half Doberman. Not exactly the warm and fuzzy lap dog we had envisioned.

Max was given to a friend who later used him as a ferocious guard dog. We returned to the dog shelter and adopted Sam, a sweet mix of Dachshund and Beagle.

Sam, I learned to love. We all did. She was sweet and loyal and brave. And though Sam definitely favored Dickie and the boys over me, she and I had our moments of shared estrogenal awareness. I, alone, understood why Sam would bury a perfectly fine piece of pizza in the back yard. Some things can only be explained by PMS.

We had Sam for 17 years. When it came time to put her down, I was the one who took her to the vet. I did it because I thought I would be able to handle it better than my tender-hearted guys. Boy, was I wrong.

Telling her goodbye...looking into her sweet,trusting brown eyes for the last time...absolutely gutted me. I came home and cried for two days. Nobody was more surprised than me to learn just how much of my heart Sam had managed to take with her when she left.

Because of Sam, I understand why it's so hard to let our favorite dogs go.

The reason is simple: it's because of the way they love us unconditionally. Even if we're tired, even when we're cranky, their love for us never changes. It is a rare love, almost impossible to replicate in human form. We could learn a lot from our dogs.

Because of Sam, I was able to understand my friend's pain when her dog became critically ill, right before we planned to leave together on a cruise.

**********

Oddly enough, Vicki was never was much of an animal person either.

Although extremely loving and giving, Vicki's Circle of Trust is very limited. She lost her Daddy when she was only sixteen, learning too young how much it hurts to love someone and have them leave you behind.

It took me by surprise when I visited her about 15 years ago and found her to be completely smitten by a four-legged creature named Bailey. Vicki, the OCD housekeeper. Vickie the Ice Princess. Her heart had been melted by a mere rag-a-muffin of a dog.

**********

Vicki and I met in Florida on Friday to leave for our cruise and she sadly told me about Bailey's illness.

“I almost didn't come. My Bailey Boo-Boo is dying...I don't know if she will be there when I get home.”

“She will wait for you,” I said, hoping to encourage my my friend, feeling more thankful than guilty that she had chosen me over Bailey.

As soon as she got up Saturday morning, she called home to check on Bailey. Her husband reported that the little dog was in constant pain and had stopped eating. He told Vicki he couldn't stand to watch her suffer and was going to take her to the vet to be put down.

Vicki understood, but was devastated to realize that her dog would not be at home to greet her when she returned. I hugged her tightly, this woman who had asked for so little in life, who had fought so hard for what she did have. And because she has been a part of me for as long as I remember...I truly felt her pain in my heart. We cried together for the little dog that had been her companion for 15 years.

“I wanted to be there for her. I needed be the last person she saw before she died, so she would know how much I loved her.”

I understood. There was a part of me that felt bad for taking Vicki away from her last moments with her beloved Bailey Boo Boo. But because I've learned not to believe in coincidence, I truly felt that Vicki was exactly where she needed to be.

I listened as my heartbroken friend gave final instructions to her sweet husband. “...please make sure you wrap her up in the blue blanket...that one was her favorite.”

**********

Now, Bailey Boo...I know you can't read. Even so, I just wanted to write and tell you thanks. I know that you could've gone straight to heaven on that Saturday in January, but you didn't. Instead of heading 'up', you detoured east to spend a few more days with your girl, Vicki.

You were there in every miraculous Caribbean sunset. You were watching hungrily as Vicki cleaned the meat off those ribs at the island barbecue.

I know you had to laugh the day you saw her come really close to paying big bucks for a pair of diamond earrings, only to see her get pissed off at being charged fifty cents to use the restroom.

And just so you know, it was totally my fault that she went postal on that party bus in Aruba.

Seriously, how much did you smile your little doggie smile when you caught your 'straight-laced' mistress on the dance floor shaking her groove thang with me, or River Dancing down the hall to our cabin, or taking pictures of our fugly feet?

But when it really mattered --- on those misty mornings when Vicki sat alone on the balcony grieving for you, remembering you as she gazed towards the endless sea --- I know she felt your presence out there, somewhere.

Bailey Boo, I'm sure by now you've happily bounded your way through that golden doggie door in the sky. But I just wanted you to know how much it meant to our girl that you stopped to say goodbye.

Catch you on the other side...

Bailey Latham 1-21-12

For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God ~ Job 12:10