High School: Miss Bashful

During my senior year of high school, I had senioritis. Big time. I was so ready to move on. I never liked school, and high school was no exception. In fact, it was actually the hardest of all the school years. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all bad. I was a good student, I had good experiences, and I grew a lot. I was close to my family, and I enjoyed being in the band (as in, marching band...yeah...I'm that cool). But it was a very hard time for me. I hated the strict structure of everything. I was awkward and shy and peculiar. I wasn't close to very many people outside my family.  

My high school did senior superlatives. The senior class voted for a girl and guy to award the titles of "Best Smile", "Most Athletic", "Class Clown", etc. One of the categories was "Most Bashful". When I started high school, I vowed to myself that that would not be me. I hated being shy. I was given that label at a very young age. It was accurate-I was shy. But that wasn't the whole story. When I was younger, the perceived shyness was partly due to my being quiet and wanting to observe and warm up to a situation I was unfamiliar with. Sometimes I just didn't know what to say. When I got older, I really wanted to talk and have friends. I wanted to socialize. But by then, I had that label. Everyone knew me as shy. People didn't talk to me. Whenever I did say something, everyone would stare at me, shocked, and say, "She talks!" That's not exactly encouraging for someone who's trying to open up more. It brought a lot of the wrong kind of attention to me and made me want to crawl back in my shell. Sometimes I didn't say much because I couldn't hear very well. It's hard to join in a conversation when you're only catching bits and pieces of it. (More about the social awkwardness of hearing loss here.)

By the time that last year of high school rolled around, I had given up on my determination that I would not be picked as "Most Bashful". I figured it was probably inevitable. I soon found out that I was one of the three "finalists". Fantastic. So a fierce competition ensued. Just kidding. A quiet, subdued non-competitive wait ensued. When I got my ballot, I marked my vote for one of the other people on there, and turned it in. The votes were counted, and lo and behold, I was crowned as Miss Bashful. (No, I wasn't crowned, and I wasn't given the title of "Miss Bashful". But it's the closest I'll come to being a glamorous beauty queen, so just go with it.) I went outside with my male counterpart to get a yearbook photo taken, during which we were told we needed to smile more and stand closer together. The resulting picture was a very stereotypical view of two bashful people.

Despite what you might think from my description of this senior superlative experience, it really wasn't a huge, defining experience in my life. It was more amusing than anything. The month after I graduated high school, I moved to the other side of the country to attend college. I had a fresh start. I opened up. I made friends. Some people hardly believed me when I revealed the fun fact that I was voted "most bashful" girl of my senior class. I wasn't life-of-the-party outgoing, but I was definitely not so bashful. I still get a bit shy in certain situations now, but nothing like before.

When my older daughter was three years old, she was told she was shy because she was being quiet in a new situation. That made me really upset because she is usually quite social, but when someone gave her that label, she used it to retreat in situations she normally wouldn't. Let's be careful with labels! People tend to live up (or down) to labels and expectations.

During my last year of high school, the principal was talking to a bunch of seniors and said that we'll look back and realize that those high school years were the best years of our lives. I remember thinking, "Wow. What does that say about the rest of my life? If that's true, I must have a terrible life in front of me." Fortunately, I didn't take that personally, and I didn't believe it. And it's not true for me. I had a wonderful, albeit challenging, time in college. I have many dear friends from that time. I married the man I love. I have two sweet daughters. Things are still hard, but in very different ways. High school years weren't the best years of my life. Teenagers may have a hard time seeing a life past high school, but it's there. And it's promising. High school years are important and influential, but it doesn't have to define you or what the rest of your life will be like. Part of who I am is because of my high school experience, but most days, those years don't even cross my mind. It was ten years ago that I graduated high school, but it seems like high school was a different lifetime. Things are so different now, and I am so different now.

5 Unique Ways to Have Fun Cleaning Up

Toys. Books. Clothes. Shoes. Spilled food. All over the floor. All the time. At least it seems that way. Even as I try to teach my young children to pick up after themselves, I still bend over and pick things up approximately 1,473 times a day. As I've done so, I've come up with a few ways to make it more interesting.

1. THE BOW. You've done a great job. Take a bow. Imagine roaring applause, all for you, as you pick up that toy.

2. THE CURTSY. The ladylike version of the bow. Curtsy down to pick up the freshly-made sandwich a certain small person decided she didn't want. It will make you feel more like a princess and less like a slave.

3. CURTSY-JUMP-SPIN. This is my favorite. Curtsy, pick up the item, and then jump out of the curtsy as you spin slightly so that your feet land side by side, ready to stroll.

4. THE GYMNAST. After you lean over, jump up and try to stick a perfect landing: feet together, both arms proudly up high in the air, topped off with a handful of dirty clothes you'll then throw into the laundry hamper, like a basketball in a hoop. There-now you're a world-class gymnast AND a champion basketball star.

5. BEND AND SNAP. Ok, so this move in Legally Blonde was meant to attract a crush, but it might be fun to incorporate it into housework. There's a tutorial (with pictures) you can look at if you're not familiar with it. Or you can Youtube it. Just be very careful-we don't want any broken noses.

Have fun!

Kids Eating on Carpet

We moved into a new place several months ago. The kitchen is more spacious than what I've had in the past, and our kitchen table has a room of its own. Our "dining room" is only separated from the kitchen by a countertop with cupboards underneath it. The only drawback of this space is that it is carpeted.

I actually like carpet. Even with children. It's comfortable, homey, softens the sound of toys clattering about, and keeps me from having to sweep 14 times a day. So carpet is good. Except in rooms dedicated to food. That, I don't like. I have a five-year-old and a one-year-old who is particularly prone to throwing and dropping food. For the first few months, I vacuumed and hand-picked food up off the floor after each meal. Our carpet cleaner made an appearance several times.

I searched online to try and find a suitable floor covering. I couldn't just replace the carpet with hard flooring because this is a rental home. I didn't like the many suggestions to use a blanket, tarp, tablecloth, or thick plastic sheet underneath the baby's highchair. Those things would bunch up and just get obnoxious to work around and wash or wipe down each time. I had a big rug I could use, and that would save the carpet underneath. But the rug itself would get nasty unless I got on my hands and knees all the time to get stuff out of the fibers and then pull the carpet cleaner out...so that wasn't much better than what I was already doing. I considered one of those plastic mats used under wheeled office chairs. I remember that my family used one of those under my sister's highchair long ago. But I couldn't find one in the right size or shape (and they were getting pricey). I wanted something to go under the whole table and all the pulled-out chairs. My baby's highchair isn't really a highchair. It's a booster seat and tray that's strapped onto one of the chairs at the table. Plus, she's not exactly the only one who spills. I wanted good coverage for everyone. I initially wanted a bamboo rug, which would look the nicest, but those are rather expensive, especially in the size I wanted it. Plus, I was worried that, although you can wipe bamboo rugs clean, things would get lodged between the slats. Sigh. So I didn't know what a good solution would be.

Then, one day, we were shopping in our local home improvement store. I walked by the flooring section of the store and noticed that there were some laminate flooring on clearance. The flooring was sold in packages of slats that you could sort of snap together. Maybe this would work! We purchased two packages (and later a third) and started working on it. It took both my husband and I quite a bit of adjusting and pushing before it all clicked together and looked right. We just put it right on top of the carpet, with nothing in between. It does slide on the carpet a tiny bit over the course of a month or so, but that's not a big deal to me. For a while, we were debating whether or not it looked ghetto, but finally decided that it looked fine, and it was the best option for us. I like it. Now, I can sweep it and mop it just like a kitchen floor. Once, one of the girls spilled some water and I didn't realize it for a couple hours. After I cleaned it up, the edge of one of the boards puckered up a bit. You can see it in the picture, but that's mostly because of the angle of the camera. When you're standing up, it's really not that noticeable. I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but I believe it was $40-$50 for the whole thing. Totally worth it. And it doubles as a dance floor. Well, I haven't done it yet, but I plan on moving the table and chairs and using the thing as a dance floor sometime.