I called my friend who is on bed rest. "Do you clean out your disposal?" She is 33 weeks pregnant. She delivered her first baby at 32 weeks. Her baby was in the hospital for 8 long weeks. They're hoping the baby will keep cooking this time until at least week 35. And now, I'm asking her about her disposal. Crazy question, perhaps. But I don't care. I need the answer. It's not so much about life and death but it is about my life as an insecure woman. The answer just might change my life.
"I put a lemon down it every now and then."
"But you don't fully take it apart and clean it out as well as the inside of your sink? You know, like on a semi-annual basis or maybe even annually?"
"No. Who does that?"
"My dad." Enough said. Now you know what it's all about, don't you? I probably don't need to write any further. But I'm just warming up so I must continue.
My parents came for almost a week over Spring Break, mostly to babysit our boys. My hubby and I got to take off on 2 cheap tickets for four long days to Seattle. We stayed at a lovely hotel in downtown. We walked everywhere except when we took the city bus. In the evenings, they served complimentary Washington wine and set watercolors out on the little tables in case one became inspired. We actually did. Hubby colored a beautiful and fiery mermaid with a chili pepper for a tail. He started making his own beer and needs a name and logo for it. This is one idea. The part I like is that he said I was the model for her (small waist, big hips. I'm finally starting to dig my big hips thanks to my awesome hubby!) I painted a gray whale that looked more like a dolphin. We got to go whale watching and saw gray whales that actually looked more like dinosaurs to me. But I'm no artist, nor a whale expert. But I loved seeing them and I enjoyed sipping my chardonnay and pretending anyway.
This was just one happy part of our Seattle get-away. It was so wonderful that my parents could come and that we could do this. They really are wonderful people. With no family nearby these short but wonderful trips are a must!
They painstakingly named themselves Nana and Boppy for their role as grandparents. There was no way they were going to be called Grandma and Grandpa. Our kiddos are 6 (almost 7) and 3 (getting close to 4.)
The thing about having my parents come though, is that I feel I must get my house in perfect condition. I spent about 3 or maybe 4 weeks getting ready. I don't mean obsessive compulsive 24 hours a day re-painting and fixing drywall; but just a little obsessive compulsive re-organizing. And there is a something about this that I do enjoy. There was the linen closet, going through and getting rid of the boys' too small clothes, the 2 bathrooms, our big walk-in closet, the pantry, the one car garage, the "office" which is one small cupboard with phone books, batteries, mail and the like.
Then I felt like the hall bathroom really needed some new towels and a shower curtain. I also bought this cute clock shaped like a frog. The pendulum is his eyes going back and forth. I decided that our room, where my folks would be staying, looked a little bare on the walls. I do have this great Buddha above the bed. On either side of that are two oval mirrors. The opposite wall has the body of a woman in an ornate dress. My paternal grandmother actually did a rubbing of it in Belgium. The walls needed just a bit more. I had this great idea to fill picture frames with pretty material. I love the material of traditional Chinese dresses and also the Indian Sari material that is shiny and resplendent with gorgeous color. I went to JoAnn and bought several pieces of fabric to frame. Of course, when I filled the frames it reminded me of reading about the people who leave their portraits in the Harry Potter books. Hubby said, "Where did the photos go?" Two of them looked quite nice and are actually hanging now in our room. I have some 8x10 photos that weren't my favorite so I changed out some of the scenery pictures and put some new ones in. Makes for a nice change on the wall.
We also got our house painted about 6 weeks ago. This was something we had wanted to do for a long time. Our house is small and was painted a very cold yet bland gray color. Now it is a bright and earthy red. I love it. Not that we got our house painted for my parents, but I'm glad it was going to be ready for them to see.
I felt I had done enough preparation and we were almost ready to have Nana and Boppy come and stay. I hoped they would feel comfortable at our house. I even had Tommy, our cat, go stay with the neighbors because both of my parents are allergic. But really, I think worse than the allergies is that the last time when they stayed in our room, Tommy came into the master bath at 3 in the morning to either scratch and scratch and scratch in his litter box, or to start choking up a hairball. You really can't blame them, can you?
Of course, the day before Nana and Boppy came was going to be cleaning day (since all of the organization was done!) While the 3 year old was at pre-school, it was going to be a wash and clean fest. All of the towels, the sheets, the floors, the bathroom, etcetera. Oh yeah, did I mention we got a new vacuum? Oh WOW! It is about the most exciting thing EVER, next to going to Disneyland and going on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with the 7 new Jack Sparrow statues that your little boys are just nuts about! This thing really vacuums, unlike our old one. What a treat. It even gets dog hair off the rug! It really is fantastic. So it's been like Christmas around here.
Unfortunately, the night before cleaning day, I began throwing up. I hate throwing up. It makes me want to cry. In fact I did cry. The 3 year old doesn't even cry when he looses it. The 6 year old who is tough and sensitive doesn't cry either. They're like Obama and I'm like Hillary. Oh well, it was no matter. Really, I am much better about these things. It only happened twice. The boys got off to school the next day and I was able to do the cleaning. Throwing up, fever, and chills are no match for a clean house. It HAD to be clean. This is the mind of the obsessive compulsive. Actually though, I was just a little tired. Which was fine.
My parents complimented the cheery red paint job. They told me I must have worked hard, the house looked so clean. This was nice of them to mention. My dad, especially, does not compliment all that easily.
It was when we came back from our trip that I noticed the kitchen sink was absolutely spotless. Not a blemish within or around it. Never before had my sink been so clean. I think I really could see my reflection in it. Then my mom, said to me, "Liza." She said my name with such seriousness, such finality that even though she has said my name like this to me before, even though I KNOW she has this way of telling me small things quite dramatically, I still think that something really terrible has happened. The cat got eaten by a raccoon at the neighbors. My sister, a terrible driver, was in a horrible car accident and it wasn't even her fault. The pipe in the crawl space burst and they had to pay a ton of money while we were gone to fix it.
"What's wrong, Mom?"
"I got a spoon caught in your disposal. I'm so sorry. Do you want to see it? I kept it so you could see how beat up it got. I don't know what happened, I just didn't know it was down there." She continued to tell me more about the spoon in the disposal. She also mentioned that they put the coffee pot through the dishwasher, she thought I might like to know. Then my dad picked up where she left off and told me how he had to take the disposal apart to get the darned spoon out. How he then cleaned it out. How it was quite a project.
I said, "Wow. That must have been really gross."
My dad said, "A little. It might be a good idea to clean it out every once in a while."
My immediate thought was, Ohmigosh, I'm so lazy. I'm disgusting. I can't believe I didn't clean the disposal AND the coffee pot before they came. I thought I went over everything. I thought I did a GOOD job!
But I had to stop myself. I had to REALLY stop and think about this. These are very familiar thought patterns for me. The organizing and cleaning of the house before they came was NOT all that unusual for me. For them not to notice some of the good things and to remark on the negative things is how we bond. Because then they can say, "Oh, you should have seen what happened to the wall in our bedroom! The crack that just appeared-we had to call the builder of the house!" And we can talk like this for a long time.
What was unusual, was that after talking to my hubby, and thinking about it some more, I realized, that they really don't think I'm lazy or disgusting. That's not what they mean when they tell me these things. They really don't mean to be negative. They really are just trying to help. It's just normal for them to focus on things that need fixing. My dad IS retired after all. Life seems just a little bit different once one is retired. Having a project for my dad is key for his life! However these kinds of interactions are illustrative of times when I start thinking negatively about myself; how I get insecure about how I look, how my house looks, how my material things look. I've been insecure all of my life and I'm tired of it. Just because my parents don't tell me how proud of me they are, how I did such a great job organizing the boys' toy boxes, or whatever doesn't mean I have to focus on those negative things. I think I realized that (again, with the help of my therapist a.k.a. my my husband) it's actually a bit funny that this is how my parents communicate. My mom even mentioned this trip how HER parents never praised their kids and that they didn't want their kids to have "big" heads. But my mom is probably just as insecure as me, perhaps even more so. So isn't it a good thing to tell your kids that you're proud of them? And isn't it important that I have realized this at 31 years old? It could have taken me a lot longer. And what's most important is that I realize that my thought patterns can change. Isn't it wonderful?
The day after my parents left, the boys and I went to visit my bed rest friend. Her mom was staying to help while she had to be on bed rest. My friend told me, "I'm sorry I didn't say more when you called. I had you on speaker phone and my mom was standing right there. But that is EXACTLY something she would say. In fact she told me this morning, "You really should re-grout around the kitchen sink." This to the 33 week pregnant bed rest mom. Geez, are our moms related or what? Maybe it's a generational thing, as well as a retired thing. My friend told me she's not going to worry about it anymore. I'm not either. I'm done being insecure even if my disposal isn't clean.
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