The Flying Pig

Bedtime at our house is 10 PM. Many times 10:30 and nights like tonight, 11:00. I know that's late. There have definitely been embarassing moments when I've purposely avoided sharing that fact during "mommy talk" on volunteer day at the school. One mom will start with, "Oh, what a horrible night, my kids would not go to sleep. It was nine o'clock before those stinkers finally collapsed." Another might chime in, "Oh, I know! And with daylight savings time they are hassling me so much cause they have to go to bed when it is still light outside. Well I am not giving up my precious hours of alone time." I usually nod, secretly wishing I had some of those "precious hours of alone time" they were talking about, but never outwardly admit our bedtime sins.

There is justification in our late hours, it is quite easily explained with, "my husband is a car salesman." If the kids are lucky, their dad walks in the door around 7:30 or 8:00, allowing only two hours of much needed "dad time". (For the kids and for me.) Sonny gets pulled in lots of directions when he gets home, making the evening come alive with superhero talk, computer games to conquer and imaginitive ways to throw bouncy balls at the kids just the right way to make them squeal in excitement. Tonight was one of those nights, busy, loud, and quick. Around 9:55 my responsible 7 year old told me I needed to "stop watching my show and put him to bed." (nice attempt at precious alone time. I'd already tried to move myself into a different room so no one would find me, but I was met with failure.)

At about this same moment our doorbell rang. A couple we are friends with came over to say "hi" so I sent the boys upstairs with pajama assignmets and teeth brushing orders and walked to our messy kitchen table for brief conversation. After awhile Asher and Beck worked their way back downstairs, loving the attention they were getting from strangers. Asher's little "wow, now I can really get attention!" light bulb must have gone off in his little head because he was instantly monopolizing the wife of our visiting duo. He tripped over his words telling story after story about Fluffy Fluffy mom, dad and baby (3 teddy bears), Thor, Captain America and Spiderwoman's crazy adventures of the day and Turtwig, Squirttle Wirrtle, and Ash ketchum- pausing only to allow our friend to try to repeat the name Squirrtle Wirrtle until she got it right. (A pretty impossible feat with our little four year old's pre-school sounding letter tones).

Around 11:00 a call from the stairs informed us "I should be going to bed at 9:30, not 11:00- your friends are staying way too late. Someone needs to put me to bed." Feeling like my dad had just ordered the party to stop and a little guilty that it was actually my son reprimanding my bad behavior, I excused myself and walked upstairs.

Grayson greeted me with a signature scowl and said, "It's a good thing I had this book to read." I apologized and while he climbed onto his already made bed, not wanting to climb "inside" because that would require him to have to make it again in the morning, he pulled his extra fuzzy WALL-E character blanket over his neon yellow Spongebob pajama'd self and told me about his book.

"It's about this pig who wants to fly- but nobody thinks he can do it, so his one friend is the only one who keeps telling him he can. I think the moral of the story is that if you have a dream, you should try and try to do it no matter what. Just keep trying." (He must be learning about story morals, because he'd asked me what the moral was to the Bee Movie earlier that day.)

"I think you're right. That is a great moral. So, if you had an impossible dream, like this flying pig, what would it be?" I asked him.

He thought for a moment, beginning first with a disclaimer, "Well, I don't know if this could be done until maybe the 22nd century (how'd he know there was a 22nd century?) but, I think I want to invent the first teleporter. See, if we had a teleporter it would help people in so many ways. I would never be late for school, we could jump from one country to another country in a second, you could be upstairs and then downstairs in a flash. Stuff like that."

"Wow, that would be amazing. Maybe we could find some inventing books at the library and read more about what it would take to do that." I wondered if I should point out that his impossible dream was really pretty much impossible. He's a smart kid, maybe I could explain how matter can't be broken up and re-put together in other places like that- but then I'm not a smart enough mom to really know what the heck I would mean by that."

He then asked me, "What's your impossible dream mom?" Hmmm. My impossible dream? I knew what it was at age 7, (to be an olympic gymnast-I got far, but no where near there.), I knew what it was at age 24, (to be a successful business owner, I started a yoga business, but found out it was harder than it looked and sold it. I support my husband with Hardman Car Co. but right now I don't think we could call that successful). Hmmm. Can you even have impossible dreams after the age of 30? I was actually a little surprised by the answer, I told him, "I want to write." Really? I do? This writing thing is new to me. I have only basic college English under my belt, know very little vocabulary words, and spend almost zero time practicing- but that is what I said.

So as my responsible 7 year old laid his head on his pillow, dreaming of teleporters and time machines, I thought about how I could be a writer. Remembering my neglected blog, (this is only the 3rd of the month) I excitedly went downstairs and grabbed my laptop. I know it is just a beginning, but I feel better when I at least try to write something. So at 12:14 AM, I am now going to say good night hoping this entry will get me a little closer to becoming a flying pig myself someday.

A Sign that Sells

How often do you hear "It's a sign - his hair is brown, I'm suppose to marry him." or "It's a sign, I'm wearing blue and that puppy has blue eyes- I am suppose to have him."? We can think of all kinds of reasons to do or not to do things. This cosmic theory that somehow our destiny is being told to us through "signs" is a common one. Whether we believe events that occur in our lives tell us the path we should take or not, this week we've found that they certainly might help when selling a used car.

Sonny greeted a couple looking at a Mercedes on our lot just last week. They seemed impressed by the car, took it for a test drive, and after handing the keys back told Sonny, "we'll let you know." Saying "goodbye", Sonny went back to his office and his customers went to their car. While sitting by the security camera feed, he watched as the Mercedes customers sat. They sat, and sat in their car. After awhile Sonny decided there must be something wrong, so he walked out and gently knocked on their window, asking them, "is everything okay?"

"Oh, ya, we're just looking up some comparison prices on our phones. No big deal." They responded.

"Ok, sounds good, let me know if you need anything." Sonny left them to sit in their car. He returned to his office and watched as they sat some more.

Eventually, they exited their car, and came into the building. After greeting them again, they explained to Sonny that their car would not start. "We've decided it is a sign, we want to buy your Mercedes."

It looks like the cosmic world aligned for all parties involved. They got a great car for an awesome price, and we got a chance to move some inventory and make space for more "signs" in hopefully a lot more customer's lives.

In Like a Lion

The bulletin board in my Kindergarten classroom was covered in green paper on the first day of March. Clovers and leprechauns with cheery faces digging through pots of gold at the end of a rainbow bordered the words that read, "MARCH- It comes in like a lion and out like a lamb."

Being in Kindergarten, I could hardly read the words, let alone understand what they meant. We shared the classroom of my country school with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders so sometimes our decorations were a little "above" the two of us in the Kindergarten class. I remember Mrs. Buessing taking us over to the board and talking to us about the month of March. She had put these words there as a metaphor for what the weather is usually like during the month. "March usually starts out cold, snowy and windy. Kind of like a lion's roar, it comes in scary and strong" My favorite grade school teacher explained, "But when March comes to end, spring time begins and we hope that the weather turns gentle and warm like a soft baby lamb would be." Though Nebraska weather is a kind of mystery and did not always follow Mrs. Buessing's bulletin board statement, I always hear her say it in my head when the month begins.

This March 1st holds true to the metaphor, racing in like a lion but hopefully going out like a lamb. February was one of the worst months in Hardman Car Company history. Full of stress, low customer numbers, and even more bad news in the automotive industry. Sonny has worked hard, long hours that have not gone unnoticed by his family. As a wife I've tried to make it more bearable but sometimes feel sad that I can't help even more.

Last night, as our weekend closed, Sonny said, with as much positive vibe he could muster, "March 1st..." Instead of his prior first of month positive statements of "It's going to be a good month!" he just recognized it is a new month.

It always helps to put rough times behind us (the month of February) and see the new month as a potential new beginning. Even though it is a month roaring in with scariness and fury, there is a small hope instilled by a country school teacher that it will calm and hopefully end quietly, softly and lamb like.