or

changing diapers in
public embarrasses not
Mom: Won, Poop: Zero.

smell your neck as safe
in your lap, I snuggle, warm
and then I can go.

blood on your mattress
new sister for us. And then
another brother

belly breast and brain
cradle manna character
her Self became me

Your face is the home
barometer. Your wooden
spoon was always fair.

There’s a 1000 dollar giveaway over at RIMD today. I know, makes all those other giveaways look pretty darn skimpy. Deadline is 8 pm CST (those Okies!) to submit your Mom haiku (5-7-5 syllables, usually about nature). If I get a brain transplant (preferably from a non-percocet-abusing person) before tonight and think up some good ones, I’ll update this post. Meanwhile, I am pretty happy to have one poem with an alternate version. Very Emily Dickinson, don’t you think?

10 things (not people or immaterial concepts) I cannot do without:

10. Thanks to our spending moratorium, I was able to weather the Self-Sufficiency lesson yesterday in church. Dick said he started feeling a little guilty over our car (since it is a debt). I did not. I am confident that this beautiful little minivan would come down to the depths of hell for me, were I to be consigned there for my blatant idolatory.

9. Did I mention that my minivan has a portable DVD player?

8. Oh, and Barbie (yes, Barbie) dvd’s to go with it. (The Princess and the Pauper is the best — so far).

7. Chapstick. Surprisingly still quite necessary in humid Florida. Now more than ever. And sometimes I have to put vaseline all over my hands and cover them with baggies overnight because Utah = Arid.

6. All other grooming/hygiene products, including concealer and some lipstick, but not including any other make-up or torture devices.

5. My Nike zip-up vest that I wear sometimes if I’m around people who might be offended or might get the wrong idea if I were to want to be comfortable and able to breathe freely for some freakish reason (i.e. if I’ve already taken off my bra because I have been home for … oh, 5 seconds).

4. The Kids Korner at the YMCA (even if they have succumbed to that awful forced visual alliteration and don’t know how to spell “corner”).

3. Whipping cream and hot chocolate. Which I would be happy to give up if caffeine-free Mountain Dew were available. Oops. Now I’m drinking lots of both, so I guess I lied about that.

2. The Internet. Too bad computers (or computer-like gadgets) are necessary for the internet — talk about satanic in origin.

1. Guidebooks to Africa. Or France. Or South America. There are six kinds of people in the world. Those who don’t want to travel, those who think they are too cool to want to travel, those who think travel is a waste of time and money, those who want to travel someday, those who want to travel but get almost as much of a thrill planning trips and reading guidebooks, and those who think travel means going to Hawaii. Me, I have to know that there are places I could go. Places I might see, any day now.

Today she’s having a Wii (that’s dubya I I, right?) giveaway, and she only had two million entrants at one hour to closing, so naturally I felt bad for her and entered. As we (all two million and one of us) described in the comments section, here’s my most embarrassing moment that is relatively fit for public consumption:

When I was thirteen I went to math camp at the University of Utah.

I learned about the Fibonacci sequence, played my final piano recital (after that I gave it up as a dead-end talent-wise), switched from Pepsi to Coke (a new vending machine contract was negotiated mid-week), and snuck out with friends to swim in the fountains on campus.

Check a few off the old life to-do list.

Boys weren’t allowed in our dorm rooms, so we only snuck them in once, or maybe twice.

One morning my roommate (Andrea — don’t worry, I didn’t put her name in on the other blog; wanted to preserve her anonymity, you know) snuck some in while I was in the shower. It was really early, like 9:40 or something, so he lay down on her bed to snooze while the others left for breakfast.

I came back from the shower and dropped my towel, turned around, and . . . jumped in the closet.

Luckily it was the short sidekick boy rather than the tall hot one (Lincoln — didn’t list him by name either, same reason) who (years) later asked me out on my first date.

If only I’d known then what I know now — I had one fine body at 13!!

My favorite story was from a man named Aaron. I wish I could link to him and give him credit, but he didn’t leave a link. Maybe he doesn’t even have a blog of his own. Weird. Well, it’s on the internet, so that’s fair use, right? I’ll paraphrase a bit just to make sure (so if it sounds kinda choppy, don’t get mad at Aaron):

When I was young my mom would never buy me underwear with characters on it…only [tighty whities]. So, when a friend came over to spend the weekend . . . I . . . stole a few pairs of Snoopy underwear. And wore them for a few happy weeks.

Until my mom walked by me one day while I was wearing shorts and had my feet propped up on the coffee table. She saw my colorful underwear and knew it hadn’t come from her.

I had to knock on my friend’s door, tell his mom what I had done, and hand her a brown lunch sack with her son’s stolen underpants in it.

What a great mom to teach honesty like that.