A Musing Mother 6

Hidden Wives authors response: So, I was sitting down with my double-espresso, fat-free, mocha-green-tea, soy-thingy when I stumbled upon a post where apparently I'm giving away my new novel, "Hidden Wives". Yeah! And in case there's identity confusion, I am one half of Claire Avery. Michelle to be exact. Mari is really boring, so you really don't want her to reply back to you (should you decide to write to us on goodreads) because you may find yourself in a boredom induced coma. She really comes in handy for serious literature, oh wait, "Hidden Wives" is a pretty serious book. So, it all kind of works out. And she's an ace when it comes to angst. Since Mari (the boring one) just leaned over my shoulder, I'm forced to get serious and tell you how excited we are to be involved in this AWESOME giveaway. Thanks everyone for participating! And thanks Nancy for hosting this swindle (oops, I mean giveaway). Shhh, she left the room. Regards to all, M

Little known fact here - I graduated from Utah State University in 1988 in the ever-so job abundant bachelor's degree in Sociology. Very proud day. I wore my shoulder pad dress cut too tight to take large steps and wore my impractical high heels. Too much make-up, bangs ratted to heaven and far too skinny to be considered anything but a threat to any woman in my age group. I was a force to be reckoned with. I spent the next two months looking for a job. Proudly, I was hired to be a sales associate (clerk) at JCPenney.  After a year of eating humble pie, I stopped telling people I was a college graduate and I entered a more marketable graduate program. I was much more subdued at my graduation two years later, although my shoes were still impractical.  I had also learned to not take myself so seriously. The robes for a master's degrees have funky sleeves. I stuffed them with treats for my friends and even a copy of Reader's Digest. Ever been to a university graduation? Then y

10:30 p.m. Everybody in bed.  I go to my reading spot. I read. 10:45 p.m. Crave cookies.  Open mix, bake cookies.  Read more.  Eat a cookie 12:00 a.m. I yawn. I really should stop.  Eat another cookie 12:30 a.m. Get to stopping point.  Close book. Hear footsteps. 5 year old has to poo.  Then he needs a drink of water.  Can he have a cookie?  He talks and talks and talks.  Resume reading. 1:30 a.m. 5 year old goes to sleep.  Get to stopping point in book. 2:00 a.m. Carry 5 year old to bed.  Eat another cookie.  Return to reading spot to turn off light.  Find 12 year old girl with big brown eyes looking at me.  She can't sleep. Sigh. Follow 12 year old down to room to help her get to sleep.   2:10, 2:15, 2:30, 2:36 Cat walks around daughter's room and meows, sharpens her claws on easel, runs away when I stand up. 2:45 a.m. Throw cat outside Eat another cookie 3:00 a.m. Sneak back upstairs.  Eat another cookie 3:05 a.m. Brush teeth Climb in bed fully clothed. 6:45 Open one eye.

So I have a fascination with polygamy. Not the I-want-to-join fascination but more of a train wreck I-can't-stop-staring fascination. It was really a problem when I lived in St. George, Utah when the plygs would come to town. My roommates would have to hit me on the arm and lead me away. I don't know why, either. There's a new book out that I have been dying to get my hands on called "Hidden Wives." It's a work of non-fiction but based on real experiences by women who have left polygamy. As I was leaving my house to go to work today, I checked the mailbox and found it had arrived.  I grabbed it and hoped I'd have some down-time to start reading it. My Texas colleague has a son who married a girl whose parents have gone totally wacky. They've shored up their resources and bought food for a couple of years and firearms. They are currently holed up in a little town in Utah and we were discussing the possibility that they've gone fundamental when we we

John and Sarah have been friends of ours for years. We met in a student ward early in our marriages. We shared little but friendship at the time. Within two years both Sarah and I disappeared from the life grid while we paid homage to the porcelain god and gave birth to our first daughters within two months of each other. My husband and I moved to a house in their neighborhood and we soon enjoyed a full friendship with John and Sarah.  Sarah and I grappled with working and parenting. We took our children to the park. Our daughters danced at the same studio. We met with another family for Sunday dinners. We shared our thoughts, processes, theories, parenting practices, time and love. It was an accidental friendship with a purpose. We moved from that city nearly 11 years ago. We tried to keep up on occasional Sunday dinners but I could see us drifting apart. It was a natural conclusion to our friendship. Then I started dancing in the adult dance class where, coincidentally, Sarah was als

12 year old girl calls her dad while he's out on Friday running errands. Dad: Hello? Girl: Hi, Dad. Dad: What's up? Girl: I was just wondering where my Wookie was. Dad: Your Wookie? Girl: You, Dad.

The 5 year old boy enjoys certain privileges not previously extended to his older siblings. Mainly, he sleeps with his parents a lot. When I say a lot, I really mean that he falls asleep in our bed, he's carried to his own bed, and sometime during the night he wanders back to sleep on his mother. Tonight he climbed between us again and, with sleepy eyes, he yawned and started climbing back out of bed. "I'll be right back. I'm going to the bathroom to get a tissue for this booger on my finger. "Hey. Where did it go?"

The boys went on a fathers and sons campout this morning. They called from their tent. It's raining and they're playing Sorry. The girls went to a neighbor's house to hang out. The dog is pacing.  The cat is antagonizing the dog by being in her way. I have no responsibility except to clean up the hairball the cat just gifted to me. I'm lonely.

The women in my family possess a certain family trait. Our communication with one another is often haphazard and we fly by the seat of our pants. We also have no concept of time or space. It is endearing at times. Not so much for others. When I insist I can fit the car into that little teeny, tiny parallel parking spot and my husband insists I can not, I am not to be trifled with. I will try until bumpers lock. When I say I'll be home in 45 minutes, my husband responds, "See you in two hours!" and he's right. When my children call for a ride home and I say that I'll be there in 5 minutes they ask, "Nancy 5 minutes or Dad's 5 minutes?" Somehow that one insults me more than the others. When I say "women in my family" I mean my mother and sisters. Far too often we forget to tell all of the siblings we're having cake and ice cream for a birthday until that family hasn't shown up and everybody else thought the other had told them. Three

I love my job. Have I ever told you that? I really do. I know, it's ordinary and unremarkable but, after 20 years of doing it, I still giggle when I get a check. But back to being boring. My most remarkable summer was the summer my friend, Michelle, and I went to Europe with nothing more than a passport and Eurail pass. Note I didn't include common sense. Three months after we came home, Michelle got married. Six months later I did, too. We just haven't seen each other much besides sporadic Christmas cards. Today Michelle, the middle age mom registered her oldest boys for summer school. I began making the appropriate forms while asking after her family. That's when it went downhill. She made a little remark about France and I snickered. I reminded her of getting stuck in East Berlin and how she handled the gang of boys following us and cat calling on the dark streets. She called me Nance from France. I called her Michelle from hell. She reminded me I went skinny dipping

I found a new way to inflict guilt upon myself. Self published memoirs. They're absolutely awful. The cover offers an engaging teaser about how the author spent years in an abusive and loveless home, damaged beyond all repair yet, in the end she triumphed and became normal, after all. It's not that I like to read about children being mistreated, mind you. I like reading about parents who are more incompetent than I am so I can feel superior. Is that so wrong? I thought not. Instead I find grown women with little insight who suffer from some psychological malady and their therapists have encouraged them to keep a journal. "Start at the beginning of your life and describe your life," they might say. Once completed and still lacking insight, the patient decides to publish it, somehow believing it is poignant and life-changing. Which it is. To them. Only them. The most recent one I started reading was written by a mentally ill woman who wrote every little detail from her

That Lisa Rosenberg is popular? That her son makes incredibly deep conversation for a 4 year old? It's not like I want to compare myself with her or anything because there's no way I could. But compare Bob's discussions regarding God, the nature of God, etc. and my boys (the girls stayed out of this one). I made brownies. When I say "made brownies," I mean I opened the box and added water, oil, and egg. Against my directive, they helped themselves to them before they had properly cooled. My 5 year old brought me his plate with the squished up brownie and said, "Look Mom! It's brownie poo! Brownie poo! Brownie poo!" Now he's running around with a bucket on his head and he keeps running into the wall. The bright side is that I don't have to answer any hard questions (unless we go out in public). Thank you, Bob.

My girls are at camp. Do you think they'll notice if I clean their rooms? (I already cleaned off the desk)

"Go potty and then we'll go," I told my son before leaving daycare. He dutifully went to bathroom, splashed water around, squealed a lot and returned to tell me that he didn't have to go. Learning absolutely nothing from the previous three children, I allowed this excuse and helped him buckle in his seat. Turning onto a main corridor for home, I noticed him wiggling. "Do you need to go potty?" I asked him. He then directed me to a church lawn we have used previously. Outdoor plumbing is incredibly advantageous. There is no squatting or (as much) peeing on oneself. Generally speaking, I choose a location not easily seen from the street then use my body as a shield, helping him pull his pants down just enough to relieve himself. But now he's too big to warrant assistance. He insisted he do it all by himself. He positioned himself in the most prominent area of the lawn and turned toward the road and me, and with his pants and Spiderman underpants at his ank

I'm going to go ahead and be transparent here. I love books. I love the smell of books. I used to try to sneak a smell of my brand new books from Scholastic book orders at school before anybody caught me and called me weird. I got caught smelling the brand new math textbook on the second day of school. It was mortifying. I love to read books. Some people prefer cocaine, alcoholic beverages, or just old fashioned heroine. My addiction is books. I am completely addicted to reading. I also love free books. There are actually companies that prey on those of us in book depravity. Give me a book for free and I'll give it a review. I am a book whore. It didn't even start out innocently. I saw a book I really wanted to read but couldn't justify paying the $26 for hardback and I knew my little small town library would never spring for it so I contacted the publisher. My email was somehow pushed over to someone who may not have had great faith in the book because she agreed to le