boxes of treasure and a shout-out to re-ewes gear...

Every so often in my life a box arrives from my Aunt M. From these boxes, amazing treasures are revealed, one by one, adorned with unique ribbons and beautifully penned notes. There is something mysterious and delightful about each item--my family gathers around in wonder as we remove and examine these surprises.

There were boxes in my childhood, but the one I remember most clearly from my adulthood showed up on Christmas Eve, the very first Christmas that David and I were parents. We had journeyed north to visit the family with our tiny, ten-day-old son cradled in his precious car seat, and the trip home through the snow in the dark was especially nerve-wracking for us because we were still quite new to the concept of transporting something so valuable. Also, I'm pretty sure he cried the whole way home.

When we arrived at our little crumbling cottage of a rental home, we found a gigantic box sitting on the back porch--a fine dusting of snow on top giving us an idea of the time of its delivery. A package, arriving late on Christmas Eve? It had to be...Santa Claus, right?

We hauled the package in, and, while Jabber nestled hungrily into my arms and I sank into the permanent divot on the couch (formed by the endless hours of nursing him there and of holding him while he slept and simply staring at him in wonder and amazement), David unpacked it and placed each beautiful box under our pathetic little Christmas tree. It was the most magical box in the universe. It was from Aunt M.

Recently we found another such box (thank you so!), and in it the usual supply of eclectic awesome. Included was a note, in which she expressed her mission to "redirect the society's excesses and rejects: recycling!"

Yay!

And this brings me to my friend Ellie and the business she's been growing--the business that is all about recycling those excesses and rejects...recycling them into the softest, snuggliest, and most amazingly beautiful mittens! Her newish business is called Re-ewes gear, and it makes me so happy to hear about her successes. If I reach for something made of styrofoam, it's Ellie's voice in my head that stays my hand. (I still smile thinking of the day she brought a tub of real dishes, silverware, and cloth napkins to the staff training to protest the use of those throwaway lunch trays and soup bowls!)

Check out her new website to read about her mission, or go to her facebook fan page to look at her inventory...all lovingly made from recycled wool and fleece.

I got my mom and another aunt mittens for Christmas, and I got my Lovely Daycare Provider one of her fantastic oven mitts...though LDP says it's too pretty to use! (I insisted she use it anyway...)


So here's my mom, thrilled with her recycled treasure!

Six Hour Shopathon

For some women, six hours of clothes shopping might be fun. Entertaining. Enjoyable.

For me, the mere thought of traversing the mall makes me break out in hives. But when Mom calls and wants some help picking out some summer work shirts, of course I agree to go along. After all, spending time with Mom is nice, and besides, she sounded so desperate. Since it was past 8:00 pm when she called last night with the idea, it was a surprise to David when I finally rolled out of bed this morning. Surprise! The kids are all yours this morning. Just a couple of hours, though, no biggie.

Six hours later we arrived back at home, finding the house more or less intact and David's left eye only a little wiggly and twitchy. Both boys were accounted for, and neither of them had any major bruising or emergency room stickers. I, on the other hand, had about the worst headache ever and a new pair of jeans, that Mom bought me. I also had the experience of looking at, discussing, and doing a complex materials check on each and every women's shirt for sale in this city. The materials check was important, since it seems that this summer the material of choice for dressy tops is linen, which turns into a big ol' wrinkly mess as soon as you so much as breathe on it. So we did a lot of, "Oh, this one is cute. Wait, let's see how it holds up to this." Then we would grasp a chunk of the shirt tightly in one hand for a bit and check out the wrinkle factor.

Personally, wrinkles don't really bother me. I know I have an iron, but I'm not sure exactly where it is. But Mom takes the wrinkles a bit more seriously. So once a shirt passed the wrinkle test, the next thing we had to determine was whether or not this particular shirt would make a woman with an average body shape look approximately six months pregnant. An awful lot of the shirts did not pass this second test. Finally, before a shirt could make its way into the fitting room, it had to pass the "But is it too low cut?" Mom test. And of course, there was the hysterical "Does it look like I'm wearing bananas for sleeves?" test. I don't pay a whole heckuva lot of attention to the world of fashion, but there's some seriously strange sleeve-work going on out there, let me tell you.

When all that was said and done, we still had to try not to get anything green or lavender, since Mom said everything she already owns is one of those two colors. Then we had to avoid blue, too, 'cause everything she bought at the first two stores was some shade of blue.

I'm sorry, did you get a headache just reading about it?

I did have fun hanging out with my lovely mother, and she did buy me lunch and a pair of jeans. (I happened to tell her that the jeans I was wearing were my only pair, which they were, and that they didn't currently have a button, since it fell off one day and I'm too sewing-impaired to fix it. I think Mom was slightly appalled that I was walking around in public with unbuttoned jeans. No worries, Mom. These hips can hold up anything!)

The Art of Silence

Another post on something I appreciate about my mom.

I really love a lot about my mom, especially now that I'm an adult. I try telling this fact to the middle school girls who confide in me how much they hate their mother. "Yes," I say, the voice of wisdom. "You hate her now, but someday she'll be so important to you." I share a few details with them, the truly explosive period during my own middle school days when it seemed my mom and I would just as soon kill each other as talk to each other. "Parents are just learning as they go along," I tell the girls. "They want to keep you safe and whole, and they also have their own stuff to deal with. Sometimes it all comes together into a big mess, especially for moms and daughters."

Most of them deny that it will ever get better, and I just smile and assure them that I would have said the same thing at their age, or even at age 18. Age 22.

Then, it happened. My mom let me grow up. She decided that's enough, Elissa's an adult now. Either that, or she was just so preoccupied with my younger brother (who was in the midst of his own adolescence at that time) that she couldn't spare the worry for me as well. Or, as I've sometimes thought, maybe she realized in raising a wild boy how easy it was in comparison to parent such a sweet, intelligent, wonderful, self-sufficient daughter like me.

Whatever the cause, the result has been wonderful. My mother has perfected the art of silence when it comes to my life and my choices. She does not criticize my decisions or cast doubts on my parenting methods. She keeps quiet while I vent about my problems and doesn't give advice unless I ask a specific question. She refrains from telling me about her own methods in a way that would suggest they are superior to mine. She has never said a word about my cluttered, dusty home, even when she has shown up unannounced, with the house in a shambles. She hasn't asked when I'll be getting Monkey baptized. She hasn't suggested that I should really plant something in the empty flower pots that are sitting in the backyard. She never said a word about Jabber's potty learning schedule. She hasn't ever raised an eyebrow about me still breastfeeding either child, even though she weaned me at four months. She doesn't question my decision not to feed hamburger to my children. She didn't even really raise much of a fuss when I told her I was getting married on the other side of the country in a purple dress with my best friend officiating outside in the forest and no family invited.

I think I appreciate this most of all about my mother, and I sure hope this is something I can remember to do when my own sons are making their way into adulthood. I hope my middle school girls' moms learn it, too, so they can someday experience the joy of a respectful relationship with their mothers, as friends and equals.

One thing I love about my mom...

In honor of Mother's Day and my mom, I'm going to do a couple of posts about things that I really appreciate about my mom. This is not Hallmark sweet. There won't be poetry or any of that mushy stuff. Just some things I think are swell about my mom.

So, today's post: birthdays and other special occasions. She never misses one. Every birthday, anniversary, and minor holiday, a card arrives in our mailbox, flowers are delivered, she sings on my answering machine, cake is served, and there is a party. I am 32 years old, and I have been given a birthday party by my mother every single year except for the two that I lived in Oregon. There is cake. There are presents. There is wacky singing of the Happy Birthday song by my family, only one of which has any vocal talents, including a boisterous verse about living in a zoo and acting (or smelling, depending on who is singing) like a monkey. There is tea served in my mother's yellow china cups and just right for dunking her delicious chocolate chip cookies. We play pool, table tennis, and darts in the basement or slap mosquitos on the back deck or sit around the fire pit in the backyard.

It would be enough if she just did this for me, but she actually throws a birthday party for every member of my extended family, most of whom live close by (my own family lives an hour away and doesn't make it to every single one...I also appreciate that the guilt trips about not attending have become less and less of an issue!) Some months there are three or more birthdays, and I can't think of a single month that has none. For my kids, she takes the party on the road and brings elaborate cakes in the shape of race cars, fire engines, and this year TWO cakes for the two boys: a motorcycle and a teddy bear!
The boys' cakes this year

She's amazing about special occasions, and I wish that as a mother I could be counted on to be like that, too. However, I'm the one who is at Target at 9:48 pm on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday, picking up the leftover baskets and a few treats because it slipped my mind that a bunny should probably make a stop. I never send birthday cards, and I get Mother's Day and Father's Day greetings out in the mail on time about every other year. I rarely manage to get them a gift, or flowers, though I almost always call. Almost.

You see, somehow my mother's incredible conscientious knack for celebrating did not get handed down to her only daughter. Instead, I got my dad's gift for non-communication. From him, I have always received more random cards or gifts...sort of a "hey, we've been thinking about you for the last couple of years and I've been meaning to get this in the mail for you..." I joked with him last summer because he called to see what sizes my sons were, saying, "Well, should I just tell you a couple sizes bigger so they'll fit when we actually get them?" I hope he's okay with the joking, and realizes that I'm not any better. Heck, I didn't even send a card when his daughter, my little sister, turned five last month. (I did send an email, but that's not quite up to Mom's standards, that's for sure!)

So I guess I feel some Mother's Day guilt, since I'm SO not good at this special occasion thing, but I do really cherish the thoughtfulness of Mom. And I did get her a card this year. That's worth something, right?