My Real Life

So, I’ve been sick.

Sinus infection and something weird rumbling in my lungs, so I’m on a strong antibiotic and steroids and need to lay low.

So, on Saturday, I spent the majority of my day just chilling and catching up on shows that I had saved on the DVR and watching some things on Netflix.

One by one, the monkeys began to join me, and, eventually, I had everyone on the couch with me, under a blanket, watching episode after episode of “Clean House” on Netflix.

It’s a version of the show “Clean Sweep” that used to be on TLC.

The show comes to the house, which is always completely trashed, and they go through, help the homeowners purge and get over their issues, and then they have a yard sale, the proceeds of which are used by the designers and professional organizers to redesign the space.  There is a big reveal and it’s over.

I love those shows.

So, we’re watching, and Baby Monkey keeps saying things like “I can’t believe how must junk they have.  Don’t they know how to clean up?  They must not appreciate how hard their Mom works to keep the house clean.”

It cracked me up for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the whole “They must not appreciate how hard their Mom works to keep the house clean.”  Adorable.

Secondly, Baby has the least chores out of all the monkeys, and sometimes, getting him to do those chores is like pulling teeth.

“Baby, can you please put away the remotes, which is your job?” is often met with “I DON’T KNOW WHY I HAVE TO DO ALL THE WORK AROUND THIS HOUSE!”

So, his remarks made me laugh out loud on several occasions.

I’m feeling a little better now, and life goes on, but I gotta tell ya, if being sick gets me all the monkeys on the couch with me and Baby making me laugh with his innocent comments, I’m never washing my hands again.

A funny thing happened last night.

Real Man wound up getting stuck late at work, and so the kids and I wound up eating dinner (roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans) and having dessert alone.

We chatted and had a nice meal, and then, since they had all finished their homework, they asked if they could go to the basement and finish watching “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.”

Monkey in the Middle is a bit obsessed with Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

He’s read all the books and owns all the movies, and over the weekend, finally sucked his siblings into watching with him.

So, the three big kids started heading downstairs and suddenly, Tiny turns to me and starts yelling “Movie!  Movie!”

So, I said, “Okay, you can watch for a little bit,” and he turned, opened the basement door and backed his way down the stairs, into the basement, climbed up on the couch between his siblings, and happily sat and watched a movie where he probably had no idea what he was seeing.

He was happy as a pig in a mud puddle.

And suddenly, I was alone in the kitchen.

It was quiet, and I had an hour before I needed to put Tiny to bed and start reading books with Baby and got MITM and Monkey Girl to start reading theirs.

I cleaned up the dishes, and then decided to go ahead and brown some ground beef so I could make chili in the crockpot for dinner today.

While I cooked the ground beef, I read The Racketeer by John Grisham, and just felt myself relax.

And I started to realize that as much as I get teary and sad when I think about my babies growing up on me, perhaps there are some perks to their independence and maturing.

Because, I’ll be honest, it was nice to have that time to do a little prep work for tomorrow and, most importantly, to have a few minutes to read and relax.

I’m still weepy and horrified at the thought of my babies growing up and leaving me, and when I heard Tiny announce, “All done movie,” and heard his little thumpy body making it’s way back up the stairs, I got a huge smile on my face because I had missed him while he was down there.

But tonight, I think I took a little step forward and I’m realizing that it might be okay to let go…just a little.

Let me begin by telling you that I fell in love with Les Miserables when we read it in eighth grade English.

The story utterly captured my imagination, my heart, my soul.

I knew, at 14, that this was a story that would stay with me forever.

And yet, I was fairly surprised when I heard that it had been made into a Broadway musical.

Such incredible sadness in this story.

Hard to imagine how they would put this story to music.

Genius.

I have seen Les Miserables on Broadway six times and have sobbed my way through every single show.

The story, the unbelievable music.

The unbelievable music and the voices that have brought it to life.

Another disclaimer…I’m a musical crier.

Just the right voice hitting just the right note.

Music swelling to reach the point of no return.

It makes my breath hitch in my chest and I can’t breathe for a few seconds.

I’ve been known to even cry while singing beautiful pieces in church, not at my own part in it, but in being a part of the whole.

So, as soon as the trailers started hitting the internet for the movie version of Les Miserables, (not the Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush version that came out a few years ago, although that was pretty good for a non-musical version of the story), I was very excited.

Then, I saw the trailer that showed that the actors were actually singing as they were being filmed and that was what was going in the movie.

I was blown away by the possibility.

It gave them freedom to really feel the songs as they went and guide the music to the emotion and play off of the other characters.

Brilliant.

Last night, Real Man and I finally got to the theater to see it.

We figured that, since it’s been out for two weeks, we’d be relatively alone in the theater.

We wound up in the 2nd row.

Definitely not alone.

However, I have never been in a quieter theater.

From the moment the first note was sung, the audience was completely silent.

I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

I thought Anne Hathaway was phenomenal.  Fantine was always one of my favorite characters and Anne Hathaway brought her to the screen perfectly.

I thought everyone else was also well-cast, and I loved the way some of the scenes were created to be expanded a bit to show things that you just can’t show on the stage.

Here’s what I missed.

The volume.

There is something about Broadway that utterly surrounds you with the music, and you just don’t get that in a theater.

And maybe it was the theater we were in, or maybe the good speakers were a few rows behind the second row, but I missed the volume.

When the music swelled, it didn’t really…swell.

When those beautiful voices were hitting those impossibly smooth notes, it didn’t quite hit my eardrums loudly enough.

“Do You Hear the People Sing” should be rocketing me out of my seat.

“One Day More” should make my skin wrinkle with goosebumps at the power of those voices coming together.

Yet, while the voices were all they could be and they were amazing, it just wasn’t loud enough for me.

It was almost like background.

And that took some of the enjoyment out of it for me.

When it eventually comes out on DVD, I’ll blast it.

Heck, maybe I’ll even buy surround sound just for that DVD, because that’s how this music is supposed to be heard.

But, even with that, the story remained the same.

It’s a story about loyalty, redemption, and the inherent goodness of people.

It’s about love.

It’s about friendship.

It’s about bravery.

There just isn’t a character in the story that you don’t want to embrace and say “It will be okay…I promise, it will.”

And for most of them, it isn’t okay, but then, there they all are at the end and suddenly, it is.

It is inspired and it reminds me, once again, that there is something inside all of us that strives for greatness and goodness, and if we go for it, we will be rewarded.

27 years ago, I encountered this story for the first time, and I have read it many, many times since then.

I have watched it live six times since then.

I have now watched it on film, and I have a feeling, I will do so many times again.

Victor Hugo…I wonder if he had any idea.

Lately, my kids (really only Monkey in the Middle and Monkey Girl) have gotten into “saving” their food and their drinks.

It came from the fact that when we would go out to dinner, Monkey Girl would always suck down her drink before her meal arrived and then would be upset that we wouldn’t let her get another drink except for water.

So, we would say, “Save your drink until your meal comes.”

Monkey in the Middle grabbed that and ran with it, always making sure he was the last one to finish his drink.

“Look guys,” he’d declare when Baby had taken his last sip.  “I still have a full glass!”

Then the others would be kicking themselves that they, too, didn’t still have a full glass of whatever it was they were drinking.

A little healthy sibling competition is not a bad thing.

However, it’s gotten a little out of control.

My Dad took us out to lunch at a local diner the other day and as we were putting our coats on, I realized that neither Monkey Girl nor Monkey in the Middle had even taken a sip out of their orange juice.

“You didn’t drink your orange juice!” I said.

“I didn’t want him to win,” Monkey Girl responded.

“Me neither,” Monkey in the Middle countered.

I made them guzzle it right then so it wasn’t a waste of my father’s money, but I realize it was getting out of hand.

Tiny, of course, has no clue what’s going on, and Baby Monkey stays true to himself and eats and drinks at his own pace, but the other two?

Savers.

I mean, I get it.

When I was a kid, my Mom used to always do that to my Dad and I.

We’d be sitting, eating Oreos and we’d each have three.

We’d chat and eat and my Dad and I would be done, and then boom, my Mom would have two more.  Turns out she had shuffled them off to the side where we hadn’t seen them and now we had to watch her eat hers and wish we still had ours.

We’d get ice cream pints and my Dad and I would eat ours in a reasonable amount of days and then, bam, my Mom would pull out an almost full pint and we’d have to watch her eat it, again.

(Yes, perhaps the Oreos and ice cream weren’t such good ideas anyway in light of the fact that my Dad and I later developing diabetes…anyway…)

So, I get it.

I do.

The other day, we were all sitting at the table, eating and I suddenly noticed that Monkey in the Middle wasn’t eating at all.

I said, “Aren’t you hungry?”

He replied, “I’m going to wait until everyone else is done.”

Weird.

Today is my birthday.

Today I’m 41.

I think it’s going to be a good year.

I decided that, today, I would try to come up with 3 (since my birthday is on the 3rd) things you don’t yet know about me.

Considering I’ve been writing this blog for three and a half years, I don’t know how easy it will be, but I’m going to try.

So, here we go:

1.  My two favorite classes in college were “Children’s Literature” and “The Old Testament.”

I took “Children’s Literature” one summer when I stayed on campus to make up some extra credits because I was doing a double-teachers certification program, both Elementary and Secondary Social Studies, and that meant extra classes and if I wanted to graduate in four years, it meant some summer classes.

So, I stayed in Ohio one summer, on campus, and took two classes…”Children’s Literature” and another one that I don’t remember.

It was a great class.

I spent my summer reading books like “Harriet the Spy” and “The Westing Game” which had already been favorites of mine as a kid.

I babysat for a family who lived near campus every day from 8-3, then I’d come back to the dorm and read until class, go to class, talk about the books, go eat dinner, go back to my room and read some more.

I know it’s not most college kids idea of a great summer, but it really was one of my favorite summers…ever.

“The Old Testament” was a class that was as straightforward as the name.

Now, not being a particularly religious girl, you may be surprised to hear that this was my favorite class, but it was.

Being a minister’s daughter, I know my Bible inside and out, so there were no new stories for me to hear from this class, but the discussion surrounding the readings were really fascinating.

It was another way of looking at the Bible and I was hooked.

I remember sitting in the laundry room with my roommate, DeeDee, highlighting the Bible for my homework, and getting different insight into the stories that it told.

I did not enjoy the class “The New Testament” nearly as much.

2.  I’m addicted to two reality shows.

I don’t really love reality television and don’t watch much of it.

I do watch “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” but that’s about it.

I used to watch “Big Brother” but I got bored with it, as it just seemed like same stuff, different day.

However, I cannot stop watching “Hardcore Pawn” and “Oddities.”

“Hardcore Pawn” is a show about a pawn shop in Detroit.

I have always loved anything dealing with money with regards to saving money, making money, and selling things.

I worked in retail through high school and college and I loved it.

So, I’m a huge fan of “Hardcore Pawn” because it’s all about people coming in with their nonsense and selling it.

For the same reason, I love “Oddities.”

I recently discovered “Oddities.”  It’s about a store named “Obscura” in New York City that specializes in rare objects.

People come in and sell strange things and buy strange things, and the people on the show are just interesting people.

I have the DVR scheduled to record all new episodes of both of these shows, and when I can, I just sit and catch up on the episodes.

One day, I’d love to hit both of these stores…just ’cause.

3.  I want to be a foster home to children who need one.

This is my own desire that I have never actually discussed with Real Man, so this may come as a surprise to him when he reads it, but since he knows me so well, I have a feeling it won’t really be any sort of surprise at all.

Unfortunately, I know myself well enough to know that I don’t believe my heart could take it.

I had thought, years ago, about becoming one of the families that raise Seeing Eye puppies, but when I did the research, they were very clear on the fact that you are just getting to keep the puppy for a short period of time and then they would be leaving you.

It broke my heart.

And if I felt that way about having to give up a dog, I know how I feel about children in general, and I know that it would be impossible for me to let these children go, once their time with us was at an end.

I have a hard enough time letting my students go at the end of the year.

I think it takes a special kind of person to be a foster parent, and I truly wish I had it in me.

Also, I’m not sure how fair it would be to that child or to my children since there are already four children living in this house.

I fear that, with five children, no one would get the attention they deserve or need.

It’s part of the reason why I got my tubes tied after having Tiny.

But still…

I wish I could be that person because there are so very, very many children in need of good foster homes and I know there are so very, very many bad foster homes out there.

Good ones, too.  But, there are the bad ones and it just breaks my heart into a million pieces when I hear stories about the children who are placed in those homes.

I haven’t shut the door on this.

Maybe when the monkeys are grown and out of the house.

I don’t know.

—–

So, there you go.

Three things that you may not have known about me before today.

I hope you really didn’t know them and I hope that you found them at least a little interesting.

So, happy birthday to me, and I hope that you will celebrate my birthday by doing something special for yourself.

As for me, after work, I’ll be enjoying my Mom’s super spicy sauce with meatballs, sausage and spaghetti for dinner and not lifting a finger to prepare it.

Ahhh…