The Chick Problem

Will is finishing a string of night shifts tonight, which means I watched a few movies during the past few days after putting Owen to bed. It just so happens that two of them were chick flicks. And after watching the second one tonight, I had the same fleeting thought that occured after the first one....something along the lines of, "I wish Will would do that." And immediately after the thought, I became aggitated with myself. Because I know that these movies are not REAL! And then I felt compelled to send out a message to all of the women who might be reading this: chick flicks are porn for women. I didn't invent this idea. One of my good friends and I have discussed this before. But it is so true. These movies do not present men in a realistic fashion. Yet we watch them and yearn to have the same things said to or happen to us. Don't get me wrong, my husband is a wonderful man. God has blessed me with an exceptional marriage. But Will does not write me love poems, light candles all around our house, confess his feelings for me to strangers in eloquent ways, and rush towards me across a room to kiss me with supreme gusto. I watch these films, and part of me becomes unsatisfied with the amazing relationship that I have with my husband. This is not Will's fault. However, I'm sure there have been times in my life when I've ended up going to him in tears to tell him that I need him to be more romantic, most likely because I recently received some false notion from Hollywood of what defines love.

I Corinthians 4-7: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Nowhere in there does it say anything about flowers, candles, gifts, grand romantic guestures, or waxing eloquent. My husband loves me in ways that I can't describe. And ways that the Lord already put on paper for me in the above verse. Yet I find myself yearning for what the world defines as love. Silly me.

Angry Baby

I thought the vomiting had ended. It had been about nine days since the last unfortunate episode. However, Wednesday morning I was brushing my teeth, and as I went to spit out my toothpaste, I got more than I was expecting. Owen was right outside the bathroom. He walked to the doorway and asked suspiciously, "What are you doing, Mommy?" I told him I was sick, and he declared, "I'm going to shut the door, so I won't be scared." When I came out out he asked if I was still sick. I explained that I was fine, but that sometimes when mommies have babies in their bellies, it makes them throw up. His next question was the kicker..."Is the baby still angry?" This led to discussion of the fact that the baby isn't angry with me, it's just the way God made pregnancy. Thus Owen's next associative declaration..."God is in my belly." I know this sounds strange, but lately he asked where Jesus lives and my answer was "our hearts." He knows that the baby is in Mommy's "belly." Bellies and hearts aren't very far apart, so you can see how this might confuse a two-year old. Big questions for such an early age. We'll be discussing politics next month.

Television

Owen loves watching television. As his mother, I'm doing my best to keep this under control. I'm one of those moms who is super grateful that he will indeed sit down and watch something when I'm desperate for half an hour to get something done, but try very hard to limit this obsession. So we have an arrangement...one tv show in the morning, one after nap (God bless the people who invented tivo). Which leads to my story. Saturday morning Owen awoke early, ate breakfast, and watched Thomas the Tank Engine. Will got up soon thereafter, so I took the opportunity to go upstairs and shower. As I was walking around upstairs, getting ready to go shopping, I heard Will and Owen discussing watching tv, so I called down to remind Owen that he had already watched his morning program. He then said, "Hey Daddy, how 'bout when Mommy goes shopping, we can watch a tivo show. That's a good idea." Hilarious. I don't think he was trying to be deceptive. It's not like he tried to whisper it. But he's learning to work the system. Of course, when I got home, he immediately said with a big smile, "Mommy, I watched Bob the Builder!"

Work on the House

We're having a little work done at our house. Nothing huge, just a couple of ceilings being replaced. Apparently the former homeowners thought that if you have a giant hole in your plaster ceiling, the best way to repair that is to throw quarter-inch plywood over the whole shebang and roll it down with some textured paint. Seriously. The comment from one of the workers was, "I've been doing this for a long time, and I've never seen anything like this." I'd love to have a chat with the do-it-yourselfers who used to live here. Find out if they were doing drugs at the time. But anyways...Owen loves having people working in the house. He would sit and watch them for hours if we let him (and probably run and get his "tools" to help). Today after we arrived home from the grocery store, I ran upstairs to put some clothes in the wash. I came back downstairs to discover that Owen had gone out on the deck where the guys were eating lunch. They had given him a cookie. He was happily showing them his Thomas book. He looked at me and said, "Mom, why don't you go back inside." This brought hardy laughter from the workers. One declared, "He wants to hang out with the guys, Mom." My son cracks me up.

She-she poo-poo

One of my best friends uses the above phrase occasionally. Being able to understand context clues, I have come to interpret her use of it to mean what us country folks might call high falutin'. So for some reason, I was thinking about this tonight and wondered, who originated this phrase? I assume my friend didn't make it up all by herself (though her family does have a history of making up words ;-) To the internet I ran. Isn't it amazing what you can learn on the internet?! And so I found a website started by a Ms. Taylor Sparks, which contained this heading: "What is She-She/Poo-Poo Time™ ? She-She, is for women, grown women, only. Poo-Poo, is all about Rest, Relaxation and Replenishment." You might note that she has trademarked this phrase. Amazing. I also noticed that many of the uses of the phrase on blogs and other websites seemed to use it the same way my friend does. So how did that happen? Apparently she didn't intend it to have this definition. However, I couldn't find an actual definition anywhere else. Not even urbandictionary.com. Do any of you have any information about this phrase? You might be thinking that I have way too much time on my hands, but cut me some slack. I was an English major. Stuff like this fascinates me.