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I am what my friend E calls a “cafeteria Catholic.” I pick and choose what bits and pieces of Catholicism I can agree with and toss the rest.
This drives my mother crazy as she is an old-school Catholic. We’re talking novenas and stations of the cross and ashes on certain Wednesdays.
Growing up, we went to church every Sunday. My father, having been raised Jewish but who has not, to my knowledge, seen the inside of a synagogue in over 30 years, got to stay home. My sister and I were not so lucky. We had to attend even if I feel asleep (which I did often), raised a ruckus beforehand (ditto), or spent the mass doing math (counting how many people I could see, subtracting how many of those people wore hats and so on).
When I was three or four years old, I once crawled forward under the pews while my mother was praying on her knees with her eyes closed, a rosary clasped in her hands. She was not at all pleased when I popped up six rows in front of her and waved. There’s a look that I give the kids when they are misbehaving and I am too far from them to grab hold. It could peel paint from walls – it’s that intense. I learned it from her.
In my mother’s opinion, I have not given my children enough of a religious foundation. And maybe I haven’t. To wit:
An After Dinner Conversation with My Daughter
Nora: Does God have a father?
Me: No. He IS the father. He doesn’t have a father. He has a son, though.
Nora: Only a son? How come not a daughter?
Me: Uh…
Nora: I bet He wanted a daughter, too. Is He married? Who’s His wife?
I start thinking about how to explain virgins, immaculate conception and the progenitor to shot-gun weddings – a visit by an avenging angel on the bridegroom.
Me: Uh…
Nora: You know how Henry and me and Liam were in your body? And then we came out?
Me (cautiously): Yeah?
Nora: Well, I thought you and Daddy made us.
Me: We did. Technically though, God made everyone. He is everywhere.
Nora: If God is everywhere, is he in outer space too?
Me: Yes.
Nora: The earth is in outer space. Does that mean that God is in outer space?
Me: Mmm-hmm.
Nora: How did the earth get into space? Was God there before space?
Brendan (calling from upstairs): Nora, it’s your turn in the shower!
Me: Go ahead honey. It’s time for bed.
Nora (amiably): Ok.
She hopped off the kitchen stool and presented the top of her head to me. I kissed it, as I have done a thousand times over. Raising her eyes to mine she grinned. “I’ll have lots more questions for you in the morning, Mom.”
You keep asking those tough questions, Nora. Even if Mommy doesn’t have all the answers!
Small and I were at the mall today enveloped in consumerism, surrounded by homogeneity and comforted by grease
masquerading as “meals.” Don’t get me wrong. I love to shop. But in a nod to our reduced income over the last year, I have made an effort to avoid places that might tempt me to hand over the plastic.
I discovered today that my not-so-silent struggles to embrace a level of frugality I once eschewed have made an impression, however slight.
As Henry munched happily on his bribe (“If you behave yourself while Mommy tries on these swimsuits, we’ll go to the food court for lunch.”), the frosted blonde sitting at the next table over began rummaging in her large Coach handbag. Coins clanged on the linoleum. Henry froze. “She dropped money!” he mouthed at me. “I’ll get it!” He was out of his chair in an instant and onto the floor.
I made a split-second decision not to point out his unsanitary choice. In that same moment, I overheard the woman murmur to her ringletted, preschool-aged daughter, “It’s just loose change. Leave it.”
But there was no calling him back. For 1) he has adopted his older brother’s selective hearing tendencies and 2) I had already resolved to roll with the situation.
And that is how I ended up watching my four-year-old do the army crawl through flecks of ketchup, bits of lettuce and the mushed remains of an errant french fry or two underneath a strangers’ table at the food court.
Within seconds, he had cheerfully deposited one penny, two dimes and a quarter on the table next to the daughter. The mother barely looked at him when she thanked him. Completely unperturbed by her overly bright tone, he registered only her two-word expression of gratitude. My gratitude was for my compassionate son and his social inexperience.
His brown eyes gleamed with self-satisfaction as he returned to his seat. I leaned forward. “That was a very kind thing you did. You’re very helpful. Thank you.”
Smiling, he returned his attention to his uneaten McNuggets.
Germs be damned. I didn’t remind him to wash his hands.
It’s my least favorite time of year again. Swimsuit season.
Unless you are a woman in competition for your own reality TV show, you know what I mean. I will venture to say, without scientific research, that most women are critical of how their bodies look in spandex. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much you weigh—even bikini clad women (how I envy you!) think they have trouble spots.
I am an average height and have a medium build. I like to eat. I don’t like to exercise. I have a horror of aerobic classes due to a marked lack of coordination and an aversion to perky people. I look decent enough in regular clothes but am reluctant to let myself be seen in skin-tight scraps of fabric that are supposed to simultaneously conceal my problem areas and flatter my assets. Call me a skeptic but that does not seem possible. Catalogues and internet sites are full of “miracle suits” for sale; women’s magazines have swimsuit style guides for all body types. Who do they think they are kidding? Am I really asking too much for a suit that makes me look good, is comfortable, is appropriate for chasing children and yet stylish enough to wear on a cruise? Let’s not forget that I’d prefer it to be affordably priced. My three children may aspire to higher education.
I have been wearing the same swimsuit for seven years. It does not meet any of the above criteria except one. I have tried others: the swim mini (can you say grandma?), the boy short (there’s a reason they call them “hipsters”), and, in desperation, the floral halter top (sing it with me – ‘Do your boobs hang low, Do they wobble to and fro’) but I keep coming back to my plain old one-piece. Now that I am really thinking about this, there were two summers that it stayed bunched in the bottom of my sock drawer. Those summers I was nursing babies and my bosom was a size that could not be constrained. What a shame it was that my stomach was uncontainable too.
About every six months, I swear to myself that I am going to get into shape. It usually lasts a couple of weeks and then I am too (insert any of the following adjectives: tired/busy/lazy/bored) to continue with the program. My biggest success thus far was in January. For my birthday (at my request!) my husband bought me three sessions with a personal trainer. My trainer was awesome and for a month, he really motivated me to work hard. I saw results – my jeans fit better, muscles I had forgotten I had made an appearance, my mid-section started looking less muffinish and more pancake like – and then we got the dog, deconstructed the kitchen, and I just…stopped working out.
This time, too embarrassed to contact my trainer, I joined a gym. Tomorrow is day one (for the 47th time) on my quest for less squishy abs. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted.
Over the kids’ spring break, we took a day trip to Montreal, Canada. We took in the Biodome, the Insectarium (shudder) and part of the Botanical Gardens. We topped the day with a delicious sit-down dinner at a favorite restaurant – big props to the kids who were willing to expand their (rather narrow) palates, if only for the evening.
But really, I wouldn’t be sharing enough if I didn’t share this little gem. On one of many trips to the bathroom with a child in tow, I noticed something unusual about the standard wall-mounted dispenser in the ladies’ room. Translation unnecessary. I think the U.S. should upgrade our dispensers. Much more fun. Now that’d be a party in your pants.
OINKtales 
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