Gut Genug

I keep hearing gut genug (good enough in German) in my head this week.  I always liked this saying. I like that there are three hard g sounds in two words and that when you say it, it sounds final.  Like there are no questions to be asked once it is said.  Of course, that applies to a lot of things said in German, even the pleasantries.  Germans are generally not a people to leave things at good enough so the fact that they have a saying for it makes me feel like sometimes gut genug really is gut genug.

Bill has been on the road for the past eleven days and it will probably be four more until he is actually home. This is not new to us, he has travelled a lot in the past, but it has been a long time since he was gone this long.  There was one time he was sent to NC with a one way ticket and I lost my mind and put my two year old and baby in a car and drove to Chicago to stay with my sister.  So, it could be worse but this is also the first time he has been gone more than a few nights since I started working full time.  

I am a little weary.  Single parents and military husbands and wives, you people are heroes.  I get worn out being the only adult in the house, the only one thinking that things should not be this dirty or chaotic or that there should be food other than Cheese-Nips in the pantry.  I have shuttled kids back and forth and back again until I dread getting in the car.  Of course everyone had a million appointments or field trips or things to do these past 11 days.  Naturally we would be busiest when down to one driver.  

I was feeling overwhelmed and sorry for myself until I started hearing gut genug and gut genug gave me a whole new mind set.  It tells me that things aren't the same when Dad is away, so stop killing yourself trying to keep it up.  House is dirty?  Is it so dirty that someone will get sick?  No?  Run a vacuum around, clean the counters and declare it GUT GENUG!  I did wash the kitchen floor at 9pm the other night but only because I was tired of sticking to it.  I really weighed the pros of cleaning it - no longer sticking - to the cons - didn't want to- and the pros won out.  So in this case, slightly better than gut genug.

I find that gut genug really applies to eating.  The boy is a TERRIBLE breakfast eater on school days. I have to stand over him and say "Eat.  Eat.  For the love of God, EAT."  I took this 15 minutes of horror away by deciding that bars can be breakfast. Not only can they be breakfast, they are a great breakfast!  No plate, no mess and best of all, I can press it in his hand on his way out the door and he can eat it on the bus.  

it's a breakfast gut genug!

Plus, now I know he is eating at least 200 good calories and not the 7 he got from his three bites of waffle.  Dinner?  Dinner can be sandwiches!  Throw some veggies on the side and feel like a good mom.  You know what else can be dinner?  Food someone else makes and you drive through and purchase!  This is brilliant!  M started texting me repeatedly the other day to stop and get Torchy's, stop and get Torchy's. I told her no the first three times and then stopped to think why was I telling her no.  Why not stop and get food and not spend the next hour cleaning up the kitchen, cooking and then cleaning it again?  So I did.  And we sat and ate and laughed. A lot actually.  She regaled us with music that I am sure the boy will end up in trouble for at school, but it was in the moment.  She was sharing!  Gut genug wins again!!!

Finally, gut genug applies to laundry.  I refuse to buy the boy more long pants because he will not need them in three more weeks and he is growing like a weed.  Normally, I try to get a load of laundry done midweek so he has clean pants.  This time I looked the other way as he wore the same pants a few times.  Clean underwear?  Yep.  Gut genug.

I really feel that gut genug has kept me from crawling into the fetal position and weeping while chewing my fingernails off.  I find that weekends are very hard to fill the time without Dad.  Today I went to kettlebell while the kids ate carbs and watched cartoons.  Everyone was happy.  Later we are going to see the Lego movie.  Two hours of not answering to "Mom?"  "Mom?!?!"  "MOM!!!!" will be great.  Plus, it is a late afternoon show and I plan on buying the large popcorn in the hopes it will fill them and no one will ask what is for dinner.  GUT GENUG!!

Did I Enjoy My Day?

Did I enjoy my day?  This is a great question being that today is Valentine's Day and we all know how I really feel about Valentine's Day.  

Subtle, right?

So, I did giggle as I wrote this poem and stuck it with some candy in SG's lunch.  I pictured her opening it and rolling her eyes, maybe smiling a little and then sharing the candy with her friends.  She would know I loved her and was thinking about her, even if it was in a lame poem kind of way. The boy got some too and he told me that I "Wowed!" him with that.  This was enjoyable.  I also like that a friend plagiarized my poem for her own kids' scavenger hunt.  It made me feel famous!

My coworker is a nut about Valentine's Day and she took it upon herself to make me just love the day.  Beginning on Monday, every time I left my desk when I returned, I would find Valentine's gifts on my desk.  Candy, candles, notes which read "Rebecca, Happy Valentine's Day!", but the best were the pick-up lines.  She turned my desk into a display of pick up lines.  They were funny, they were terrible, they were printed on pink paper and they were everywhere!  My favorite?  "My love for you is like diarrhea, I just can't hold it in."  By the end of the week, my desk look liked I was the one who loved Valentine's Day.  The fact that she had one of our office aides hang all of these ridiculous styrofoam hearts directly over my desk did not help.

This one says "Marry Me."  I threw out the one that said "Boy Toy".

Alright, slightly enjoyable.

Our group of favorite kids alternated between dressing up for the day and dressing in black for the day.  They all looked great and complimented each other on their outfit, red or emo, and made each other things. (Me?  I went emo.)   They made me stuff too and not only did I enjoy that, I LOVED IT.  I also laughed that kids I don't know all that well knew my feelings about Valentine's Day and gave me candy with the same rushed remarks about "too bad about not liking Valentines." I also got some quality time with a few of my favorites and got to dispense my wise advice and they made me laugh and, yes, I did enjoy that too.  

There were a lot of romantic gestures of love out there in high-school land today.  Boys strode in with their arms loaded with flowers, candy, stuffed animals.  Our library gets crowded in the morning - 300 kids on average - but I watched one boy with a giant bear get across the sea of people like he was walking on air because his eyes were focused on his girlfriend the whole time.  Beautiful until the PDA tongue kiss I had to shout down.  I heard one boy who is not one of my favorites encouraging another boy to write what was in his heart.  What?!?!  Interesting, I thought.  I did not see anyone crying in corners or openly weeping as I had feared.  Of course, I did not get out of the library once today, so who knows what went on in the hallways.

My own romantic gestures of love will have to wait as Bill is stuck in Dallas for awhile and having a bad time of it.  He has had a terrible day and I am not enjoying that.  I did promise him a new juicer as a token of my love and his voice perked up a little.

We had a dance in the library for our Life Skills kids  (Special Needs) and their Amigos.  These are regular kids who make a point to get to know the kids in Life Skills and say hi to them when they see them in the hall and spend time with them when they can.  It was awkward, like any teen dance.  We had a few dancers, but mostly some standers and some huddle up and gigglers.  Did I dance?  You know I did.  One boy made me a Valentine that said I was nice and pretty.  Enjoyable.  The absolute best part though?  There is one boy who doesn't talk, doesn't do much and has a bathroom incident at least a few times a week.  This absolutely beautiful girl came up and asked him to dance with her and he shot out of his chair to comply.  The look on his face was so happy I had to walk away to my desk for a minute because, um, I may have been moved to tears.  But just a little.  Don't worry, I was back chasing down kids who were skipping and trying to hide out in the library and was kicking them out within a few heartbeats.

I know, you are waiting to see if the Grinch's heart grew three sizes today.  Drum roll please.............. No. I still hate Valentine's Day.  I still hate red roses, I still hate convenience store stuffed animals and the absolute canned and forced romance and I definitely hate thos hearts above my desk.   However, I do love the crazy people I work with who go to great lengths to show me up and laugh while doing it.  I like that showing up with lipstick on makes people react as though I am wearing a crown.  I love my group of kids who make me laugh and teach me new words and how to really use the apps on my phone.  I love that my boy thought I was "impressive" during my workout and I love waiting for SG to get home from her dance so I can hear all about it.  I love my wonderful husband and hate that he is out of town period, not just that he is out of town on Valentine's Day.  

But, the question that was asked was did I enjoy my day?  Yes, I did. I did enjoy my day.  And I will really enjoy taking those damn hearts down on Monday too.

Shot Through the Heart

I think that one of the best parts of my job is that I get to do different displays each month about world events, local happenings, things that interest me or holidays within the month.  This month I was especially pleased as I got to do a display highlighting my intense dislike for Valentine’s Day.  It actually made me giggle to staple a large, broken heart to my bulletin board and surround it with other hearts that were emblazoned with the best break-up lines ever.  Oh don’t worry, I made it educational by tying books to it by saying that sometimes love bites and making sure our vampire love books were displayed below. 

Every kiss does not begin with K

What is wrong with me, you ask?  Nothing!  Or what is wrong with my husband?  Again, nothing.  He is a romantic and thoughtful man.  I just really hate the saccharin forced romance of Valentine’s Day.  I groan at the red candy boxes everywhere and the combo stuffed animal/Mylar balloon that seem to be in every store.  Gentlemen, if you are buying your woman a fair-quality stuffed animal at the gas station, that is not romance, that is convenience.  Ugh and the red roses.  I hate red roses.  I hate the smell of decaying youth that they give off, I hate the baby’s breath they surround it with and I just hate the sight of them.  I had a man in my life that bought me red roses for everything. I smiled nicely the first few times before I told him I really do not like red roses.  Guess what I got for the next Valentine’s Day?  Yup, red roses.  They were not just any red roses, but roses that were mostly dead because he waited until the last minute to buy them.  Oh, and he used my credit card.   Bill was well versed on this story when we got together and I proudly say he has never succumbed to buying me red roses, or any roses for that matter.  I think that my favorite flowers are those picked by little hands out of the grass and presented with a beautiful smile and pride.  Now that says love!

They say it is romance, but I think disappointment is the main theme of Valentine’s Day.  I dislike it most for its promise that big things are going to happen today!  If you are in a relationship, you will feel entitled to a wonderfully romantic day and if you are single, you can’t help but hope someone is going to notice you and surprise you with declarations of love.  I remember both my sister and I being sad at home one Valentine’s Day where we were not expecting anything but we couldn’t give up the hope of expecting anything either.  When the doorbell rang about 5pm, we started a stampede to the door that took down everything in its path.  I don’t think I had ever run that fast!  It was a flower delivery man!  It’s for me! I know it’s for me!  Was it from the guy in ECON?!  How did he find my address?! I knew he liked me!! Oh, wait, they were for her.  Sniff.  I am sure I spent the rest of the day writing bad poetry in my room.  Even grade school children are not protected from this bitter disappointment.  Sure, everyone has to bring a Valentine for everyone else which is nicer than it was when I was a kid.  However, then there are the moms who know their Valentine’s Day is going to be a wash so they project their need for a beautiful day onto their children.  They have their sons take flowers or candy or something special to a girl at school.  Great for that girl but what about the other girls who get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Valentine like everyone else?  That kind of disappointment should not be felt so early on in life.  I remember holding a sobbing SG after her 4^th grade Valentine’s party where she was not one of these singled out girls.  I regaled her with my own horrible Valentine’s past and at the end she felt better and I needed a drink. 

I fully expect a lot of high school relationships to start breaking up next week.  I am prepared for weeping and wailing come Tuesday as young men panic at the thought of being romantic or buying a gift and decide it is easier to just break up until after February 14^th.  Apparently there is some sort of carnation sale going on as well and you know there will be hurt feelings, sadness and what?  Yes, disappointment.  There will be kids with armloads of flowers and kids with none.  There will be the girl who bought a flower for some guy who doesn’t even know who she is and the guy who bought one for a girl who just told him that she likes him but only as a friend.  Ouch. 

I am sure there are a lot of wonderful stories out there about Valentine’s Day.  I am sure people fell in love, or were reunited or proposed to and that they hold a special place in their heart for Valentine’s Day and think that I am somehow damaged by my dislike for it.  Maybe I am who knows? I just don’t think Hallmark should be the one telling me when I should be romantic, or making me feel bad because I have just read through thirty cards and there is not one that truly conveys my love/lust for my husband in prose.  I am truly grateful that they do not celebrate Sweetest Day in Texas the way they do up north and that I don’t have to go through this forced romance twice a year.

Guys, you are kind of damned if you and damned if you don’t, so at least be original.  No red roses and no gas station purchases.  And if you girlfriend sends you a Valentine’s before the actual day it is because she knows you are busy and will forget and you need to send something right then, don’t promise something big later.  (Sigh, another of my Valentine’s past).  Ladies, guard your heart.  We have been beaten down with the imagery and Kay jewelry ads for so long that even the hardest heart among us is expecting big things.  Go gentle into Valentine’s Day.  It is not going to be your best day ever.  It is not going to be so romantic that people sigh when you tell them.  And for heaven’s sake, if your man buys you an outfit for your personal time together, do not tell me.  I won’t be able to look either of you in the eye ever again.