Heels to Toes

Hillary is always doing crazy stuff for her college art classes...hanging mirrors from the ceiling...popping paint-filled balloons with darts...forcing me to frolic through a cotton field while she takes film shots of "movement". But this week she came home with an assignment that had her head over heels.

She was supposed to make a shoe out of paper. 

It had to "represent" her personality.

She couldn't use any tape, glue, or other adhesive.

She had to be able to WALK ACROSS THE ROOM in them.

It sounded impossible to me, but Hillary was undaunted.  She took to the challenge like a true Disney heroine, optimistically declaring that she would make a high heel shoe which would impress her teacher and be the envy of all the other lazy students making moccasins by wrapping brown paper bag around their feet.  I'm pretty sure there were bluebirds flying around with ribbon in their beaks and mice marching behind her armed with needles and thread.

She set about cutting her Cosmo into strips and rolling coils of paper into a sturdy sole.

She spent hours over the next several days, curling and coiling, planning and pleating, trying and tweaking, only to find it wasn't working and start all over again.

Her spirits flagged, but only a bit.

Like any good American, she believed with enough determination and hard work, she could spin straw into gold...or at least bend this paper to her will.

 But the due date loomed and she still had nothing but a shabby sole.

I've gotta tell ya, by this point I would have been cheating.  A little glue...a staple here and there...or maybe I would have used envelopes and claimed it wasn't MY fault if they already had glue on them and they accidentally got wet while I was cobbling and helped my shoe stick together.

But, ever obedient, Hillary hobbled on, determined to finish the assignment.  

Eventually she did prevail and made it to class with these...

I don't think Jimmy Choo is calling anytime soon.

Later, Hillary was telling her dad and me about the other student's shoes.  No one else had even attempted anything other than a flat piece of paper held on to their feet by a couple of stringy strips.  They explained it by saying things like, "I made a sandal.  It's open because I'm such an open person."

These are the kind of people who go into politics.

"And the lesson learned today is...?" I prompted.  To which Hillary replied, "Don't be an overachiever?"

"Exactly!  Sometimes you just do what it takes to get by and BS the rest until it works!" 

She laughed.  Which was kind of the point.
While I am proud of her ambition, I also know that she (like her mother) has a tendency to set impossible goals for herself, hoping to impress her teachers/friends/the world.
We both know how to make things way harder than they have to be. Sometimes pouring all your energy into the wrong thing makes your high-heel dreams turn out to be more like a ratty house slipper.
Lesson learned...
Heels or no, this college thing is keeping us both on our toes!

Good Talk

When your kids are little, it's easy to check off the developmental milestones.
Crawling...check.
First steps...check.
Potty training...check.
First lost tooth...check.
But as they get older, the changes are more subtle.  And more embarrassing to talk about.  It would be easy to just let it go and pray that the kid who still occasionally calls me "mommy" will magically avoid the complicated desires of young adulthood and keep his innocence even as his body morphs into Man.  But "easy" very rarely coincides with "parenting".
And so I found myself opening a conversation with Parker as he was standing in the kitchen waiting on his pizza to finish baking.
"I'd like to talk to you about some stuff.  And it's probably going to be embarrassing, but its important."
A light flush of pink began to creep up his neck, but he said ok.
I kept my eyes on my popcorn so as not to be intimidating, and asked him about his thoughts on facing certain temptations, and if he had a plan on how he might handle them.
To his credit, he took a deep breath...and answered me.
His blush went away and my eyes found their way back to his face and we had a nice conversation about the things he believes about himself and others...goals in life...hopes and dreams...and the very practical steps it would take to help him live out his beliefs and reach his goals.  The oven timer went off, but the conversation didn't end.  And over pizza we chatted about everything from sex to alcohol to peer pressure to relationships. The boy who answers texts with one-letter responses had a lot of surprisingly grown-up things to say.
When all that was left was pizza crumbs and a few popcorn kernels, Parker stood up and stretched.  But before he sauntered off to watch tv, he gave me a quick hug and said, "Good talk, Mom."
And it was.
This isn't the first time we've talked about things like sex and drugs.  And it won't be the last.  And that's the point...I want my children to be able to talk to me about whatever is happening in their lives, without giving any particular topic so much tight-lipped weight that it can't be lifted into words, silently crushing us before we acknowledge it.
So I'll listen.  And occasionally I'll bring it up.  And every talk may not be easy.
But any talk is Good.

Picture This

No better friend.  No greater enemy.
That's the only way to describe the relationship between my children.
Publicly they get along fine.  They know how to play the role of Good Children.
Sometimes they even fool me.

They go on Happy Hour runs to Sonic together.  They share new music with each other.  They laugh together...mostly while making fun of their dad's clothes or my attempts at Pilates in the living room.
But sprinkled generously between bouts of goodwill are sparks of annoyance that occasionally produce wildfires that require me to do some stomping out.
They fight over who sits where in the car...in the living room...even in church.
They blame each other for eating all the cookies.  (Even though in reality, it was probably their dad)
They almost come to blows over who is going to do really hard chores around the house (like turn the light off in the kitchen).
So when I catch them in a moment like this... I have to document it.

Photography is one area where they ALWAYS get along.  Hillary loves taking pictures and Parker just happens to love looking cool.  She tells him what to do...and he does it.  She gets to practice doing something she loves...and he gets tons of cool facebook profile pics.  They spent lots of time doing this when we were in Memphis last weekend.

And when we were walking back to the car, I turned around to catch this moment...

It didn't last long...(I didn't get a picture of them glaring and whisper-fighting over who had to sit in the back seat when we got back to the car)...but it was real and spontaneous and lovely.  And I choose to believe that as they get older, the friendly moments will outweigh the fights.
But until then...I think I'll stand between them!