Cartoon Couple

Awhile back, I posted a drawing of my 5 boys rendered in pen and colored pencils by my fourth son ("My Pearls of Great Price," March 30). Our whole family has long thought that this boy is such a talented artist and cartoonist, someday we might actually be seeing his name in the funny papers. He is always drawing these original, zany characters that spring from an uber-creative brain, a quick wit, and a somewhat--how to put it?--off-beat sense of humor. (He also has a way of turning a phrase that makes people LOL; I use the term "uber," one of his go-to adverbs, in honor of him.)

This is a cartoon he did of my husband and me a few years ago. He's captured my husband's caricature-worthy features to a T: the Dudley Do Right chin; the prominent space between his two front teeth; the black Converse "Chuck Taylor" sneakers that have been the only footwear he's ever worn (unless the occasion requires something dressier) since I started dating him back in the early 70's; the Western-style jacket with the "sheepskin" lining; and finally, the piece de resistance, the cowboy hat--not exactly a typical wardrobe item in our New England town, but something he never leaves home without. My husband thinks being a rancher would be the coolest thing in the world--if he knew anything about running a ranch. Actually he thinks it would be cool to own a ranch and let someone else run it, and then he could just ride around on a horse wearing a cowboy hat, surveying his land. (His boys have called him a few things on account of the cowboy gear, including "a poser" and "the Under-Armor Cowboy.")

I don't have as many interesting features to spotlight as my adorable hubby, aside from my boring and ridiculous hair-do (should 50-plus women still be wearing headbands?), which hasn't changed in decades. But I do like the way my son has drawn me, for several reasons:

1) Some artistic license was taken so that it appears I'm very slim and have almost no hips. (Guess who's my favorite?)

2) My son decided to give me nice round eyes; the truth is that if I'm smiling at all, my eyes are reduced to nothing more than slits.

3) He's drawn me cradling--practically caressing--a steaming cup of coffee. And my ever-present coffee cup is as much a part of me as my husband's Chucks and cowboy hat are a part of him!

Mary's Life Is An Example

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

I read this article, "Mary's 'Hidden Life' Is An Example for Mothers," in a Catholic newspaper called The Wanderer years ago, and I decided to laminate the beginning portion of it and put it up on my fridge as a daily reminder to myself that the job of wife/mother/homemaker is a truly worthy one. Our Blessed Mother was a stay-at-home mother, after all, and so I can look to Her as a role model.

And yes, I do like to laminate things, as you may have noticed if you've been reading this blog. I keep a huge package of self-laminating sheets on hand at all times.

But back to the subject at hand: Mary, and the example She sets.  As the Holy Father, JPII, said,  "Mary's example enlightens and encourages the experience of so many women who carry out their daily tasks exclusively in the home...It is a question of a humble, hidden, repetitive effort, [and] seen as a mission of service and love, it is of extraordinary value in the Lord's eyes."

Some days, when I'm exhausted and I feel like I'm performing the same dreary tasks over and over (grocery shopping, folding and putting away load after load of laundry, loading and unloading the dishwasher, scrubbing toilets and showers, cooking, vacuuming, running my car from one end of town to the other like a taxicab--if you work exclusively in the home, you know the drill), I start to feel a wee bit sorry for myself and wonder if anyone even notices or appreciates all that I do. Which is really pathetic, because I know they do, whether they say it or not (and actually, my husband voices his appreciation quite often). But still, I sometimes feel like I'm Cinderella, and everyone else is going to the ball but me! At those times, this clipping reminds me that my "mission of service" to my family is one of great value, and it gives me inspiration to keep carrying out those "humble, hidden, repetitive" tasks with a happy heart, in imitation of Our Blessed Mother.

This clipping is just the intro to a long article, but its words, quoted from Pope John Paul II, resonate with me and make me proud of my job. I wanted to share them with other women who, like me, are sometimes made to feel like they aren't contributing enough to the world by working only in the home. Besides, and most importantly, I thought this was a good time to focus on Mary, as May is a month dedicated to Her.

Mom's Valuable Player 2 (The Sequel)

This is my youngest son at his lacrosse game yesterday. By the way, his team won 8-4 (and he got an assist--which is no big deal for the short sticks, but a pretty big deal for a defenseman).

My fourth son was already in college before this son even started high school, so throughout his high school playing days, he hasn't had to share Mom's Valuable Player status with anyone else. When the others were in high school, I sometimes had 2 or 3 MVP's out on the field at one time; but for the past 4 years, it's been all about my baby.

I love taking pictures at football and lacrosse games. Everything happens so fast, though, that I often miss the big moments. When by some miracle I do manage to get a decent picture, it's very satisfying. I like this shot. If you click on it to enlarge it, you can clearly see the expression on my son's face. (In the top lefthand corner of the picture, you can also see my husband, the team's defense coach, in his signature black Chuck Taylors with the laces untied.)

In a month, this son graduates from high school and the era of watching our kids play sports will come to an end for my husband and me. That makes me a little misty-eyed. After all, that has been a huge part of our life for many years. Ah well, your kids have to grow up and move on; there's no stopping it. But for the rest of this lacrosse season, I'm going to snap away and get as many pictures as I can!

Happy Birthday to My Beloved Middle Child

My third son--our middle child, as he likes to remind us, tongue-in-cheek (whenever he wants to make it seem as though he suffered special privations as a result of being sandwiched between 2 older brothers on one side and 2 younger ones on the other)--turns 25 today. This is how he looked yesterday. At least that's how it seems to me. Where do the years go?

This boy was 22 inches long, 9 lbs. 13 oz. at birth; today, he is a great big guy: 6'3" and somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lbs. He's grown a tad.

He was a happy baby and a happy child; and he's a happy man now: thoughtful, loving, funny, and just delightful. Wherever he is at the moment is his favorite place to be. He sees the joy in every experience, the best quality in every person. The glass is always half-full with this one. (Unless, of course, he's watching a Notre Dame game, and the Irish are losing. Or he's watching a Red Sox game, and the Sox are losing--especially to the Yankees! He can get a bit testy in those situations. But otherwise...)

Happy Birthday, my sweet middle child! I love you more than you could ever imagine.

My Dog's Better Than Your Dog, My Dog's Better Than Yours...

( FYI: those are the lyrics to a very old televsion commercial for Kennel Ration dog food, in case you're too young to remember. )

Okay, so this is not technically my dog; it's my middle son's dog, Allie. If you read this blog on a regular basis, you already know that, because Allie has made several appearances here already.

She's not mine, but I love her as much as if she was! She and my son lived with us for a few months last summer and fall, and during that time, I became hopelessly attached to her. (My husband did, too; don't let him fool you--he's a total softie.) I cried when she and my son left for their new home in VA and began to yearn for a dog of my own. I even made a few trips to the local humane society to check out some dogs that resembled Allie in pictures; but when I met them "in person," they didn't begin to stack up. The problem was, what I really wanted was not any old dog, but this particular dog. My husband comforted me with assurances that we would probably be seeing Allie again. He believed we would have plenty of opportunities to take care of her, as our son can't bring her along when he does his two weeks of Army Reserve work in MD or when he has to travel for work.

Well, my husband was right. Sure enough, this son called us last week to ask if we would be able to keep Allie with us for the month of May, as he was going to be on the road for the Army and his job, and then for a Las Vegas road trip to meet up with one of our other sons over Memorial Day weekend. I really wanted to do it, but I wondered how in the world we were going to get her. It's such a busy time of year for us, with our youngest son's lacrosse schedule and about a million other things. "I don't know, honey," I said hesitantly and apologetically into the phone, "I don't think there's any way I can talk Dad into driving all that way..." And then my husband piped up, "Tell him we can do it. We'll go down and get her." (By the way, did you know my husband is my hero? "My husband's better than your husband, my husband's better than yours"...but I digress.)

So yesterday morning, we headed down to the D.C. area to pick Allie up. We got there 11 hours later, had a nice dinner last night with our son and our lovely niece and her husband; then we got up today, went to 7:30 a.m. Mass in Georgetown with our boy, and then we turned around and came back home. The traffic wasn't as bad on the return trip, so it only took 10 hours. (Only!) And for that whole 10 hours, Allie was just lying there, with most of her body on a doggie bed in the back seat and her head resting on the arm rest between my husband and myself. She was a perfect angel and didn't make a peep the whole way. When we walked her at rest stops, she did her business and hopped right back into the car and got settled back into position. Aside from picking her head up from time to time to see where we were going, she was about as still as a statue.

I'm telling you, Allie has got to be the best dog in the world. Your dog may be good, but--no offense--this dog is better.

Mad Hatters

Well, if you've been watching any of the coverage today of the royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, there's one thing you've figured out about the British: they're mad about hats! I have found it so interesting and amusing to watch all the female guests streaming into Westminster Abbey with those huge, colorful, ostentatious concoctions perched (some of them very precariously, it appears) atop their heads. Many of them I find simply adorable, some the height of elegance, and others just plain ridiculous looking; but overall, I love the idea of wearing hats! There's something about the wearing of a fancy hat that adds such pinache to an outfit. It's such a retro thing, a throwback to other eras when there was no such thing as unisex dressing and women celebrated their femininity through fashion.

Several years ago, I decided to start covering my head again for Mass, as we used to do in pre-Vatican II days. My reasons for doing so will be a topic for another day; but in any case, this led to a new preoccupation with hats. I began by wearing lace mantillas and chapel veils, and at first this was very hard for me, because I like nothing better than to blend in and call no attention to myself. Once I got comfortable with the veil, though, I thought it might be fun to wear a hat every now and then. I've never been a hat person--again, because you don't see a lot of people wearing them, and I don't like to stand out--but gradually, I grew to love them. My husband gave me the beautiful hat pictured above two years ago on Mother's Day, and it is my very favorite. There's nothing that will make you feel more feminine than donning a charming hat festooned with a huge silk flower! I wore it on Easter Sunday, and I overheard one of the old gentlemen who greets people at the door saying, "I love to see a woman in a hat!"

There must be a thriving millinery industry in England, if today's samplings are any indication. I still can't believe the diversity I saw in those hats the English ladies were sporting for the big event: every color of the rainbow imaginable; small pert ones and gargantuan "look-at-me" ones; some stiff and others floppy; some wide-brimmed and others brimless; all of them decorated with feathers, flowers, rhinestones, bows--it was simply amazing. Some of them were so large, though, that they looked almost too dangerous to wear. You could poke someone's eye out! But it won't surprise me a bit if suddenly, our stores over here are flooded with similar headwear. That would actually please me very much, because it's hard to find a really great hat.

As a sidenote, there was another thing that pleased me, fashion-wise, about the royal wedding, and that was Kate Middleton's very tasteful, modest, absolutely beautiful wedding gown. If you've looked at a bridal magazine lately, you know that about 90% of the wedding dresses these days are strapless, and this young bride (who will no doubt be copied ad infinitum) chose to wear long lace sleeves. Maybe this fashion trend, like hats, will hit the states, too!

Men Are from Mars, Women Love Shoes

Women love shoes. And men don't understand why women love shoes.

Years ago, someone e-mailed us this hilarious document called "THE MAN RULES," a list of some things women should know about the way men think (and some things men wish they could say to women without ending up in the doghouse), which I laminated and posted in our ultra-manly "sports room." One of the humorous rules is: "Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!" Another good one is: "If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you angry or sad, we meant the other one." And then two others with more than a grain of truth in them are: "You have enough clothes" and "You have too many shoes." (It's good when we can laugh at ourselves, girls.)

In my younger days I was never much of a shoe person; but as I got older, they suddenly became one of my favorite clothing items to shop for. That's probably because nothing from my feet up looks the way it used to, and outfits viewed in full-length dressing room mirrors under harsh fluorescent lighting can sometimes look rather frightening. But my feet, God bless them, are just about the same as they've always been, so shoes are a safe and satisfying purchase.

I know I already have more shoes than I actually need, but I keep seeing styles I like and finding myself tempted to bring them home with me. So I've come up with a way of turning one pair of shoes (in this case, inexpensive black flats from Payless) into three different pairs. I found these "Fab Feet" clip-on shoe embellishments at Target, and I just love them. They don't cost much--certainly not as much as a new pair of shoes--and, as you can see, they transform a plain pair of shoes from drab to fab in an instant.

My husband insists that men don't really even notice women's shoes; but shoes are fun for us girls. And to quote one of my favorite bloggers, Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman fame (http://thepioneerwoman.com/), "I enjoy being a girl."