The Talk

Ms. Darla has known my baby girl since the week she was born.

She and her husband, who used to be my husband's boss, were among the first in our community to welcome home the baby girl everyone had waited for and prayed for. Lora was just days old when they dropped by for a visit (bearing gifts!) and to see our new arrival.

It was with such joy and pride that I placed my baby girl in Ms. Darla's arms that day. She was genuinely happy for us.

Since then, Darla has watched my girl grow up.  Her daughters took care of her at the annual high school dance team camp and even babysat the night my stepson, Daniel, graduated. We also bumped into each other frequently, at the grocery store, various school functions, and, of course, at the baseball field where my husband coached her son.

A nurse by trade, Darla also just happened to be on shift in the Emergency Room the day I accidentally and horrifyingly closed the tailgate of my SUV on Lora's 3-year old hand. (I'm happy to report that Lora's still mushy bones suffered absolutely no injury. She wasn't even bruised.)

She also was on hand as the school nurse the day my baby girl started at the local elementary school. Most comforting to a very nervous mom.

In fact, it was Darla who came to our house to recheck Lora's hair after I spent hours picking the head lice and nits from her gloriously long and curly hair, and gave me great tips for treating them so they wouldn't come back (and they didn't!)

So it's only appropriate that I should bring Lora to Ms. Darla now.

My baby girl isn't a baby anymore.  She is a growing-fast-as-a-weed tween, standing on that oh-so-dangerous precipice known as puberty. It's hard to keep up.

She's Godzilla in the morning and Strawberry Shortcake at night. She eats everything that isn't nailed down. And she can outgrow a pair of pants before they get out of the laundry cycle.

She's already a half a head taller than all of her classmates. She's already outgrown all the children's sizes and has moved on to juniors. She already tries to wear my shoes. She has her own razor.

And, yes. She sorta smells.

She also doesn't listen to a word I say. 

But for the last few years, Ms. Darla, now the nursing supervisor for the entire district,  has taught a very special class for young girls, where she teaches them all about the changes their bodies are about to go through and why.  So, I signed Lora up.

And last night she, and about 15 other girls aged 10 and 11 -- and their very nervous mothers -- filled a classroom at the local high school to listen to Ms. Darla dispense her wisdom.

And it worked like magic.  With her sweet sing-song voice and her ever-so-patient ways, Ms. Darla managed to explain the wonders of puberty to a giggling gaggle of girls, explaining -- with video -- exactly what is going to happen to them, how and why, what they are supposed to do about it and how they should prepare.  And what it all means.

"Just breathe," she repeated over and over as we got to the "yuck" part of the video.  "It will be OK."

And they believed her.

Without eye rolls, sighs or stomping out of the room, my girl listened as Ms. Darla explained that she needs  to wash her face, she needs to take a shower every day (or almost every day), she needs to wear deodorant.

"These things are important," Ms. Darla said. And my girl didn't argue once.

She even gave them a lovely little lesson on love: The crush (a little blow-up balloon that fizzles out when you let go), young love (a heart-shaped helium balloon that can be popped), and real love (a beat up old basketball, still filled with air). 

At the end of the program, all of the girls left with a little bag of goodies -- a toothbrush, toothpaste, a very discrete little pad to tuck away in their schoolbag for "that day," and a little pink booklet explaining things in a little more detail.

And a cupcake (Ms. Darla also happens to be a fabulous baker as well!)

Us moms, meanwhile, left with a little peace of mind and a survey. Was the class helpful? Absolutely! Then: "What other classes would you like to see offered at Community Education?" it asked.

While one mom asked if there was a similar class for boys (not yet), I had only one suggestion:

How about a class on "How to listen to your mother?"

Mom

Lora

        

*Original art by Lora.

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Friends like these

I know there are a lot of people who don't understand it. Some who wonder how we do it. And others who think we are flat out nuts.

Mostly, those are the ones who don't know us very well. Those who do have just come to accept it. They still probably shake their heads, though.

That woman over there, sitting on my sofa, eating at my table, picking up my child on Tuesday afternoons just because, helping my husband and me coach our daughter's volleyball team, and giving me high fives when we won one without him? Yes, she is my friend. Yes, she is family. Yes, she is my daughter's Godmother.

She also is my husband's ex wife.

Go ahead.  I'll wait...

Cheryl is the woman my husband fell in love with in college. The woman he married in a big, splashy wedding at St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The woman who bore his two children. Who celebrated his first victories as a coach. Who waited for him at home. And waited.

One day she decided she had had enough of waiting for him to come home. He didn't see it coming.

Then one night I found him. In a bar. Trying to get his feet wet again. We fell in love.

Cheryl and I? Not so much.

Although we always were civil to and with each other, there were some awkward moments, especially at first. We are women, after all. No woman wants to see her man -- even the ones we don't want anymore -- with someone else. We want them miserable and missing us forever. Right?

So we had our tussles and our dustups. Nothing major. No shouting matches. No fisticuffs. Most involved the care and feeding of the children.

But it was the children that brought us together.

Besides coming from the same home town, Cheryl and I both are products of divorced parents wh didn't get along. We remembered the pain and angst of the anger in the room, and we both decided we didn't want that for our kids.

Yes, our kids.

Her children, Daniel and Courtney, are my kids too. I never asked them to choose between me and their mother. There was no choice. She came first, as it should be. They had their parents. And they had me. A bonus mom. Actually, in the early days they called me their "Semi-Mom."

Although, I have to say, I don't understand the whole stigma that goes along with the word "stepmom."  I'm proud to be one. A wicked one at that. And I don't mind the word at all.

Eventually, Cheryl and I figured out our pecking order. We found a comfort zone. Then we found that we genuinely liked each other. We formed a friendship.

When Courtney and her friends had to go see The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync at the Superdome, I was invited to go too. There, Cheryl and I made a pact. If Donny Osmond ever went on tour, we were going. Together.

When I heard the news that he indeed would be playing nearby in Mississippi, we did go. Together. Our husbands went to dinner.

One day when Daniel was playing baseball, Cheryl and I were sitting in the stands together. He was in the dugout and needed a Gatorade. He called to his mom. He called to me. Neither of us heard him, until he shouted, "Would ONE of my moms please get me a drink?"

And on the day of his wedding, I was on the front row, right next to his mother. And halfway through the mother-and-groom dance, she stopped, called me over, and oh-so-graciously passed her son -- our son -- on to me for my turn.

Lora's Christening

And when, after six years, Marty and I finally received our miracle child from God (and a woman named Gail), he and I barely had to discuss who her Godparents would be. Cheryl was an easy choice. First of all, her faith is inspirational. But more than that, we wanted -- no, needed -- to include her in the family circle. I didn't want her to call Lora, "their" child. I wanted her to have a "my."

And it was the best decision we could have made.

Not only does Lora adore her "Nanny," but Nanny loves her right back. And she and the children were the first to welcome us all home from the hospital.  And since then, this oh-so-creative kindergarten teacher has filled my house with handmade treasures for every occasion, all made with footprints and handprints of all three of my children.

She comes to our parties.  We go to hers.  We have sat together at weddings. And funerals.  Lora stayed with her when Marty and I went away for an anniversary weekend.

Like many of our acquaintances, Lora doesn't quite understand the complete dynamics of this relationship. (Daddy used to be married to Nanny?)

And, late to the party, Cheryl's husband, Henry, needed a little time to figure it all out himself. He has since come around. Lora calls him "Uncle." I call Henry's kids my step-step kids.

But people do question our little arrangement.  During our evacuation to Houston for Hurricane Ivan, my friend Janine introduced me to some of her book club members. Their jaws definitely dropped when I told them that my husband's ex wife was my daughter's Godmother. But not as wide as when I told them that I didn't have a dishwasher.


We even were included in a USAToday article a few years ago on blended families inspired by Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.  We are in good company, apparently.

Cheryl, Lora and me. Mardi Gras 2011

We certainly didn't do this to be role models for anybody.  We know that not everybody gets it. And we know that not everyone can do it.  Some hurts and anger can't be put away.  And we didn't do it to be on Oprah.

We just decided we would rather all be friends. Life is so much easier.  And much more fun. For us and our children.

Plus, she makes a mean pineapple dip for my luaus.

The Lyons DEN

There still are a couple of Barbie houses tucked away in one corner. And a shrine to a wizard named Harry Potter in the other.

Behind the door is a bookcase filled with the leftovers from her obsession with The Wizard of Oz, an assortment of books she may or may not have read and a huge collection of board games thanks to Santa (and mom's idea that we should have Family Game Night like the folks on TV).

And there still are a few teddy bears and Beanie Babies gathering dust.

But the rest of it is mine.

After several weeks of contemplation and two weekends of perspiration, I finally have a room to call my own. Sort of.

"We're sharing it," says my 10-year-old daughter. "It's still mine."

Yeah well kid, it was mine first.

When we first discovered our antique little cottage nearly 17 years ago, this was just a quirky little spare room. Emphasis on the quirky.

There is one door that opens into the hallway and another that opens onto the side porch outside. Windows overlook the driveway.  Then there is my one sheetrocked wall (the rest are plaster), behind which is the steepest, narrowest, scariest set of attic stairs you've ever seen. Guests have taken one look at these things and balked. My own mother hasn't been up them in 10 years.

It took our poor dogs forever to master them. Can't say I blame them. They have to perform a near circus trick to come down, their bodies nearly vertical in the air.


It took us a while to master them as well. Although the quirkiness of our house continues upstairs, where the attic has been converted into two bedrooms, a closet that would make you jealous, and a tiny bathroom with ceilings designed only for short people, Marty and I chose to put our bedroom up there. The bed is in the middle of the room, loft-style. And Marty knows when he needs a haircut when his hair touches the ceiling.

The cool thing is, if you don't know those stairs are there, you'd never know they were there. I count on that anyways in case we ever have a home invasion, imagining the intruders looking around dumbfounded and asking themselves, "Where in the heck did they go?"


The previous owner had set up a huge garment rack in this room and used it as a giant closet. Although necessity is the mother of invention, I say she had no imagination.

When we moved in, I turned it into a study. A home office. I bought white bookcases and filled them with all my books -- my Civil War collection, my genealogy collection, my Stephen King collection. I spent many sleepless nights tracing my family tree and puttering.

And waiting for the day I would finally be able to transform it into a nursery.

That took six years.

But finally the day came. Anxious. Terrified. I deliberately waited until 10 weeks before the date she was due to get started, to repaint the walls, to clear out my books, to set up the crib my sister-in-law had stored away for me, to buy the white wicker rocker just like my grandmother's.

And it was perfect. Airy and light, filled with white eyelet and tulle and carousel horses because Marty had proposed to me on the antique carousel at City Park.

Then, 19 days before she was due, her mother changed her mind.

For the next two months I was forced to walk through this beautiful nursery every day, on my way to my own bedroom and back -- this beautiful empty nursery -- wondering if it ever would be filled.

Of course it was, in January of 2001, with the most perfect angel of a baby in the world, the one I was supposed to have. This is the room where I rocked her to sleep in my white wicker rocker, where we sang along to Linda Ronstadt's lullabies, where I picked her outfit of the day, where we danced to Patsy Cline, where we had our first tea party on a blanket on the floor.

When she grew out of her crib, we decided to move her upstairs with us, painting the walls of the other tiny, tepee shaped bedroom bubble gum pink because that's what she wanted. And the nursery was converted into a toy room, where all the kids could gather and play to their hearts content then leave the mess for me.

Then she got older. And I had one sheetrocked wall to play with.

Lora loved to sing, so one day I decided to turn it into a rock star's room. I hung pink and purple sheers on the wall (stapled them) and some cool star Christmas lights, and her uncle made her a real stage and stained it to look like hardwood. And it was good. We had several karaoke parties on it and some good times belting out Garth Brooks as a family.

Then she moved on to something else.

Just a few months ago I took her to Big Lots and let her pick out this crazy bed-in-a-bag set -- orange and green and purple, of all colors -- and we turned it into a "Tween Cave." She loved it. Spent one or two days in it. Then she moved on to something else, and spent most of her time in the other spare bedroom -- her Dad's Cave -- in the recliner or in the bed. Space was being wasted.


So I staked my claim. I took my room back. And now it is mine again. I raised the stage on top of two sets of plastic drawers to make a desk, repainted the wall a bright white, hung up a shelf, gathered all of my favorite blue beach-colored items, brought that ugly orange and green stuff up to her bedroom and moved in.


And I love it. I spent hours last night just looking at everything, taking it all in, finding my Zen.

"We need a name for my room," I said to Lora. "What are we going to call it?"

"Duh," she said, rolling her eyes at me. "The Lyons Den."

And so it is.

It's a place I can sit, relax, write, sleep (as I did today), watch my TV shows,
dream, love, hope and remember. Even if I do have to share with Harry Potter.

*editor's note... the photos would be much prettier if I had my desktop, but it's in recovery. Sorry.

Coach of the Year

He's known for his withering stare.

Right eye squinted closed, left eye barely open, it is known simply as "The look," to those who have seen it and become well-acquainted with it. It has brought generations of baseball players -- and a few football players -- to their knees.

And then there is that voice. It's a coach's voice. A teacher's voice. Loud. Harsh. Grumbling. More than a little scary at times. It can boom across a playing field, freezing players in their tracks, making umpires think twice before making their calls, letting them -- along with parents and fans -- know when he is not happy with the way things are going.

But neither of those seem to bother his latest team.

If he gave them "The Look," they didn't seem to notice.

He definitely didn't use "The Voice." Not yet, anyway.

Not on a bunch of 9 and 10-year-old girls who make up our daughter's volleyball team -- The Shockers.

This is Lora's third year of playing volleyball. One of the tallest kids in her class, and the daughter of the former organizer of the major metropolitan daily's high school volleyball coverage, it's no wonder she was drawn to it. So we signed her up.

And The Coach, who has spent more time than he probably ever cared to in bleachers watching volleyball thanks to me and my former job, volunteered to be the coach of a bunch of 8-year-old girls who had never played the game before.

It certainly was an experience.

They played bounce ball the first year; real volleyball the second. In either game, it's really all about the serve. Serve it over the net and you're likely to score because teams rarely, if ever, hit it back.

But they certainly did get better throughout the course of that first season. By the end of the season they were almost playing volleyball. At least they were volleying.

We even made it to the championship, losing a hard-fought Saturday morning match to Destrehan. The girls were sad. Really sad -- until they saw the trophy. The really big trophy.  They all ran and gathered around it, each grabbing hold.

"Take it to show your parents," The Coach told them.

And they did. As a group. With grins miles wide. Not a one of them ever letting go as they carefully walked their trophy over to where us parents waited with camera and hugs.
 

"I'm The Coach's Daughter," took it home.

Last year didn't go as well. Our trip to the everybody-makes-the-playoffs was brief. But the volleyball got a little better.

When we signed up this year, The Coach once again volunteered to help. And when last year's coach's daughter got moved up to the higher age group, he got the call.

His first game was three days later. After one too-brief practice.

So Thursday night of last week, while the rest of south Louisiana was wearing purple and gold and watching LSU and Mississippi State on ESPN, The Coach was running around a gymnasium trying to get a group of little girls to listen to him, to follow his directions to hit a big white ball over a net. With their eyes open.

It wasn't too bad. We lost both games, but we scored twice as many points in the second game as we did in the first. And more than once they played actual volleyball. With volleys.


And he never used The Look, or The Voice.

And his little girl was very happy.

 

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Wordless Wednesday -- Rock and Roll "Journey"

A 9/11 story

And then there are the days I get to tell stories like this one:

9/11 victim hailed as a hero.


I'm proud of this one. I hope I did it justice.

Back on the horse -- sorta

I actually sent this IM to my ex-, well, still-sorta boss the other day:

"If I were sitting next to you, I might hug you."

And he didn't take offense.

For the first time in a year, the man at the desk in New Orleans was my boss again.  And, a day later, for the first time in a year my name was back on the sports page again.

It's been a very long 12 months since two men in ties sat me down in a coffee shop (without even offering to buy me a cup) and broke my heart by telling me that I was no longer what I was, no longer who I was, and would no longer be doing what I had been doing for the last 24 years.

No longer a sports writer, covering the games young people play --  yes, even soccer. Now I would be a receptionist, answering phones, writing receipts, trying like hell to make correct change for a 20 and ordering toilet paper.

And instead of  writing wonderful features on the stars of tomorrow, I would be covering crime -- murders and armed robbery and battery and rape. The things nightmares are made of.

It's the new reality for journalists these days.  We learn new words, like "buyout" and "furlough." We recalculate our insurance premiums. We spend hours of company time filling out health questionnaires and reaffirming that we are contemplating starting a diet and exercise program.

And female sports writers get turned into receptionist/crime reporters. 


My first week on the new job I spent hours with a bunch of Sheriff's deputies waiting out a man who had shot his girlfriend in the head, left her body in a car in a hospital parking lot and then barricaded himself in his shed-turned-house.  He came out with a self-inflicted bullet in his head. Last I heard, he was still on life-support.

Since last summer I've covered a teenager who was brutally murdered in her home, an elderly double-amputee who died in a fire that was deliberately set in her home, two more murder-suicides, a string of drug-related murders in one tiny neighborhood and countless robberies and assaults.

Yes, the stuff nightmares are made of.

But my name still appeared on every sports writing award last year. As the current president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, my name appears on every certificate handed out this year and next.

But then a dream came true.  Someone, somehow, for some reason decided I was missed.  Or needed.  Or both.  Or something.   They opened the door to the sports section and let me walk in.

Or at least put a toe.

I'm allowed to write features and game advances.  No games. No stats. No capsules. Just stories. (Not a bad gig, actually!)

And it was good.

So last week, for the first time in a year, I got to go talk to a coach.   About a game plan.  About offense, not offenses.  About defense and not defensive wounds.  About football.

And I got to interview a hard-working, well-spoken quarterback determined to bring his team back to glory and write a fine story about him.  (You can read it here).

Strangely enough, my byline also appeared on the front page of the paper that day, on a story about the recovery of the body of a murder suspect who leaped to his death from atop a Mississippi River bridge the week before.

Still ... 


"You're back in the saddle," said one of the coaches I used to call on a regular basis.

"Well, sort of," I replied. "I'm kind of side saddle."

"Hey. It's better than nothing," he replied.

Yes indeed.



Linked up with Erica and friends at FreeFringes.