Letting the Days Go By: Even More Candy Wrapper Wisdom

I have David Byrne stuck in my head. As voices in my head go, the lead singer of the Talking Heads isn’t bad. In fact, given that “Once in a Lifetime” is the song he’s singing, I’d call him downright insightful. “You may ask yourself, how did I get here?” You got that right, David Byrne. I have been asking myself that.

Next week I’m heading to the infamous Halloween party I attend in Houston every year. My favorite weekend of the year, hands down. But this year it’s yet another thing that I shared with Troy that I’ll be doing solo. Another thing I believed I would be doing with a partner this year. And next year, and the year after that too.  Instead it’s yet another time I’ll explain to friends why the man I was sure I’d grow old with—the man who told  everyone closest to me that he was in my life to stay—is not with me.

How did I get here?

Since our breakup, I’ve flown solo for my summer trip to Dallas and the Autism Walk. Next is the Halloween party and then Thanksgiving and Christmas—all things we shared last year. Things we shared with the promise that each would be the first of many. Once I make it through these milestones I’ll have done without him all the things I did with him that were so meaningful to me. I’ll be one year removed from the memory of how good it felt to share these things with him. One year removed from the feeling of contentment and security I felt when I was with him. One year removed from that wonderful feeling of being part of a team. And one year removed from the intoxicating feeling of being loved.

I hope the distance created by that one year will provide clarity and some measure of peace. But for now, I’m just letting the days go by (at the suggestion of the song stuck in my head) and letting the distance unfold.

Last night while I was doing just that, I figured I might as well eat some chocolate (I could tell you that I also figured I might as well drink some wine, but that probably goes without saying). So I sipped my wine, unwrapped a Dove Chocolate Promise and checked the inside of the wrapper. It said, “Chocolate won’t let you down.”

Normally I feel gypped when I find some bullshit about the wonders of chocolate where my pithy pearl of wisdom ought to be. Normally I would read “Chocolate won’t let you down,” and say, “I’m sorry…what?” to no one in particular, “What kind of crap is that?” But last night I looked at that tin foil square and thought, “Whoa. Dude.” (And I wasn’t even high.) Chocolate won’t let me down. Ditto wine and far too much coffee. A true friend. Hugs from my kids. (And let’s face it, a certain battery-operated appliance, provided I keep enough batteries on hand.)

                                                                              

Armed with the knowledge that I would not be let down, I opened another chocolate (and poured another glass of wine). The wrapper on this one read, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” I looked at this tin foil square and thought, “Seriously?” Because if you’d asked me a year ago, my idea of “where I’m supposed to be” would have looked nothing like this.

However, I’m not one to doubt the wisdom and insight dispensed on the inside of a Dove Chocolate Promise wrapper (lest you forget, I once checked the car’s glove box and under my bed when one suggested I look for love in unexpected places). So at least for the time being, while I’m letting the days go by, I have decided to sit very, very still.

Y’all be careful not to jostle me, OK?

Some Things I Found

Recently a flash drive containing, “like three hours of work,” on a science fair project was lost in the Crandler house. We tore the house apart looking for it to no avail, but during the search, I did find the following in the depths of our sofa: 4 hair ties, a pink plastic bracelet, a fake quarter, an actual dime, binder clip, bouncy ball, pair of scissors, broken purple crayon, big gold plastic Mr. T-style neck chain, brown marker, 5 pencils, small Ziploc of googly eyes, a pair of purple Barbie pants, three Nerf darts, an old cell phone, Bridal Barbie’s wedding bouquet, a Bluetooth earset and a fake centipede. I was so proud of my haul from the sofa that I lined it all up on the coffee table and sought out someone to whom I could show it. Dylan happened by first and marvelled at my haul.  “Dude! You found all of this? Whoa.” Then Ben walked in.  He surveyed the scene, shrugged his shoulders, said, “I’ve been looking for that Mr. T chain,” with complete nonchalance, scooped it up off the table, put it on and walked out of the room without even looking at me. (Suppressing my giggle required  considerable effort.)


You can find a lot of things in the Crandler house (maybe not a flash drive with your science fair project on it, but lots of other stuff). Sometimes you might even find a strawberry stuck to the bottom of your foot when walking through the dining room. If a kid finds that strawberry first (as was the case this weekend), you can bet it will be kicked off that kid’s foot (after a loud, “Eeewww!”) to be found in the exact same way by another kid (with another, “Eewww!”)… and another after that. Why deprive others of the thrill of discovery? (That’s what Maggie’s dad said when I mentioned this phenomenon on Facebook.  Easy for him to say - he's not cleaning our dining room floor.) Sure, I could have picked it up myself, but each kid finding that strawberry stuck to the bottom of their foot kept me giggling for the better part of the morning. And what could be better than that?

After this weekend of seemingly endless discovery, I arrived at work Monday morning and dug around in my purse hoping to find a bank receipt from a deposit I had made on Thursday afternoon. I never found the bank receipt, but I did find a half-eaten, three-day-old donut wrapped in a paper napkin. I’m not sure which I found more amusing - the ridiculousness of that donut being there in the first place, or the fact that I was not particularly surprised to find a three-day-old, half-eaten donut in my purse. But either way, finding that donut made me smile that day and sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.

I sometimes run across a Dove Chocolate Promises wrapper that advises me to look for love in unexpected places. Lucy and I routinely mock the advice dispensed on that particular candy wrapper by thinking of the most outlandish places we can look for love. Under the bed? Glove compartment of the car? And while looking for love in those places may be absurd (and therefore hilarious), I routinely find my joy in the most peculiar places.

Like most parents, the place I most often find my joy these days is with my kids, but not just in the, “I love yous,” hugs and hand-made Mother’s Day cards. I find it there, to be sure, but I also find it in places far more unconventional - in the silly, strange, weird and wonderful, sometimes chaotic, often ridiculous details of our lives together. Just look where I found my joy last weekend: deep in the cushions of our sofa, stuck to the dining room floor and wrapped in a paper napkin in the bottom of my purse.

Maybe under the bed and in the glove compartment of the car are perfectly reasonable places to look for love after all.

More Candy Wrapper Wisdom

This morning Lucy came to me and said, "Hey mom, when I got my toothbrush out earlier I knocked Ben's into the toilet, but it's OK, I got it out." Maintaining my composure, I raised my eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously, "Hmmm... after you got it out, where'd you put it?" She took my hand and led me to the bathroom where the door to the medicine cabinet was standing open. “Right there,” she said, pointing to a shelf where my toothbrush lay…with Ben’s right on top of it. I smiled weakly, told her thanks for fishing it out of the toilet and that if it happened again, she should just throw the toothbrush away (all the while desperately trying to remember the order in which everyone brushed their teeth this morning).

In the small bathroom that the kids and I share, the medicine cabinet spans the entire wall above the sink and the toilet. Since moving to this house I’ve asked the kids easily a hundred times to keep the toilet lid closed to avoid the exact scenario that happened this morning, to no avail (obviously). When I sat down at the end of the night with a sizeable glass of wine, I unwrapped a Dove Chocolate Promise. I figured a day that began with a toothbrush in the toilet warranted a little indulgence. The advice dispensed on tonight’s candy wrapper couldn’t have been more fitting: “Set your goals high but not your expectations.” Who’d have thought at this point in my life, though, my loftiest goal would be a consistently closed toilet lid?

My roommate contends you must tell a child to do something one thousand times before they will do it without being told and she swears she has empirical data to support this contention. (I’m suspicious of her research methods, though – when questioned, she’s dodgy and vague.) One thousand times seems high to me, but what if she’s right? I estimate I’ve told those kids three times a day since moving in to close the toilet lid. At this rate, that toilet lid won’t be closed on a regular basis until sometime around August of 2011.

Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll heed the advice of my Dove Chocolate Promise wrapper and keep my expectations low.

Tomorrow I plan to stock up on toothbrushes.

Looking For Love In All the Wrong Places

Lucy and I have been fighting lately. I don't really know why, but it seems every request I make recently is met with, “But I (insert excuse for not complying with request here),” my every look in her direction answered with a snippy, “what?!” and every suggestion met with a steely glare. I’m certain seven years old is too young for this child to be hormonal, but she certainly seems like a surly teenager. On the bright side, I feel as though I’m getting a glimpse of things to come and while it may be ugly, I’ll take the devil I know versus the devil I don’t any day of the week.

It’s possible this tension between us is causing me to drink a slightly larger glass of wine after she goes to bed at night, and maybe even eat an extra Dove Chocolate Promise. You just never know when the snappy advice dispensed on those tin-foil wrappers might prove to be something useful.

Just the other night, in fact, while I was enjoying my (sizeable) glass of cabernet, I unwrapped one of these little treasures and found something useful. This particular wrapper was one I’d never seen before and it said, “Look for love in unexpected places.” Maybe it was the size of my glass of wine, or just a much-needed release of tension, but that little nugget of wisdom tickled me. I posted a Facebook status repeating the wisdom of that wrapper and stating my intention to immediately look for love under my bed. For some reason this cracked me up and my mood was lightened. (I do crack myself up sometimes.)

In honor of its mood-lightening power, I took that Dove Chocolate Promise wrapper and stuck it to my bathroom mirror next to a host of other treasures including:

• A post-it note from a neighbor and Facebook friend that came on a bottle of wine he graciously left on my porch one night when I posted a status about being out of booze.
• A florist’s card about purple sparkly blankets of love from a friend so cherished I share a tattoo with her.
• A truly beautiful “friendship” plaque from my soul-sister, Traci.
•  My “I Voted” sticker from the 2008 elections.
• The “Designed by Kristi” tag that came attached to a treasured necklace and earrings from an old friend.
• A card that inspires me daily from a wonderful friend who does the same.

When Lucy came to my bathroom the next morning to brush her hair, she noticed the addition to my eclectic, little collection immediately. She read the wrapper aloud, smiled a conspiratorial, I-have-a great-idea smile and left the bathroom. To do what? Do you really need ask? To look under my bed. For the love. In the unexpected places. Exactly as I had.

Could we really be that much alike? This pint-sized, mini-me with the mouth and the attitude with whom I butt heads so frequently? And if so, would it be the end of the world if she grew up to be just like me? OK, maybe a better-educated, in-a-blissful-relationship-with-a-loving-partner, insanely-successful-at-whatever-she-chooses-to-do version of me. But that wouldn’t be so bad...right?

Remarkably, she and I came up with the exact same way to mock the self-righteous, preachy platitude on the tin-foil wrapper of a piece of chocolate yumminess. Clearly, she is her mother’s daughter. I guess she’s OK after all.

I think I’ll keep her.

Candy Wrapper Wisdom

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I have never once asked myself, “What would Jesus do,” but have, on more occasions than I’d care to admit, asked myself, “What would Pats and Edina do?”


If you’re not familiar with the British comedy, Absolutely Fabulous, Wikipedia’s description of the plot tells you pretty much everything you need to know: “Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone are two immature, chain-smoking, alcoholic, prosperous but preposterous substance-abusing fashion and fad-obsessed Londoners who value fame and style over substance.” Hilarious, irreverant and altogether fantastic – my (farcical) idols.

Parenting is not for sissies and the world of a single mom is far from glamorous. Throw a dash of autism into the mix and life in the Heagler house often borders on the ridiculous. Fortunately I have a few things going for me: fabulous friends, a good sense of humor, a finely-honed ability to laugh at myself, the comfort of knowing I’ll never be as absurd as Patsy and Edina, Dove Chocolate Promises and wine. Lots and lots of wine.

The wrapper of each Dove Silky Smooth Chocolate Promise is printed on the inside with inspirational life advice. One such wrapper advised me to believe in and act on my dreams. And while it may seem silly to take life advice from a candy wrapper, I’m currently trying to do just that. If advice this compelling was written on wine corks, I’m certain I’d have taken over the world by now.

Another wrapper recommended I be a role model to someone. Admittedly, I question my merit as a role model to anyone, but who am I to challenge the wisdom of a Dove Silky Smooth Chocolate Promise wrapper? So, anyone seeking an example of a borderline lush who has somehow managed to raise pretty good kids (so far), is a (reasonably) functioning member of society and (mostly) doesn’t hurt anyone, look no further. For better or worse, I’m your girl. Me, Pats, Edina, and all the other Boozy Mommies out there. Getting the job done, day after day, against all odds, sometimes even admirably… with a glass of wine in our hand.

Here’s to us, ladies – cheers!