Zombies, Motherhood, and a Plain Old Good Time

Last month, the unthinkable happened.  I realized that I had read every book in the house (and we have a lot of books, y'all) at least twice and that I had no desire to make a third round through the bookshelves.  I was looking for something a little bit different from my usual fare, and lucked into being asked to read Karina Fabian's new book.  Who is Karina?  Catholic, military wife, devoted mom, prodigious author.  (I seriously envy her work-ethic.)

What does a Catholic military wife write about?  Zombies of course.

I will admit to not being a zombie fan.  I'm squeamish about gore and close my eyes when movies are bloody, but I loved this book.  It's a great mix of horror, humor, and reality TV that makes it the most fun book I've read in a long while.  I found myself laughing and snorting as people were eaten and zombies vanquished.  I'm pretty sure that means I'm going to Hell, but at least I got to read it first.

Tomorrow is Halloween.  Two days later is the Day of the Dead.  What better way to celebrate that than by reading Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator?  I can't think of a single one.

Want more info on Karina?  Click here

Watch the book trailer?  Click here

Read enough and want to order it already? Click here


Wonder what having a horror writing mom does to the kids?  How warped and twisted are they?  Here's what their mom says:

What my writing has done to my kids

By Karina Fabian

When my husband and I first met, I told him about winning a convention contest with a funny poem I wrote about Klingon eating habits. 

"On Klingon Manners?" he exclaimed.  "I love that poem!  I looked all over for you at that convention.  I still have a copy."

Obviously, we were meant to be.

Twenty years and four kids later, our geekdom and my writing is still a huge part of our lives…and it's definitely affected the children.  Not only have they learned a lot about words and story progression and editing from my example, but they have also developed an unusual humor and appreciation for the bizarre thanks to the odd stuff I write. 

I share my work with my family.  When I'm mulling over a plot, I talk about it to them.  They see the pages of red ink when I'm in the editing phase, and those that want bedtime stories (which includes my twelfth-grade son) will gather in the living room and listen when I do my read-aloud edit.  They're great help, too.  As I read one scene where henchmen were added and removed from a room, Alex realized I had miscounted my minions. 

Rob is my idea man, and always my first source when I have a technical question or need to bounce ideas.  However, the kids are also great sources.  I decided to write a short story based on Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator about taking out a zombie using nothing but janitorial supplies.  I called on my youngest, who was only too glad to give me some deliciously gruesome ideas for what happens when you attack a zombie with window cleaner, a plunger and a mop.  (He gets the tactical mind from Rob.)

Another fun thing about being a writer mom is that the kids take you books to school with them, although I have to draw the line at them doing book reports on them.  ("I read that to you in draft!")  Last year, Liam's teacher wanted me to come talk to his class about adding detail.  Remembering the fun he had adding details to the janitor's battle, I came in ready to have the kids plan out the details of a zombie fight in a grocery store.

The class (five boys) loved it.  The teacher took it in good humor.  I took their notes and wrote it up as a story for them as well.  It was a lot of fun.

I've also enjoyed sharing my career with my daughter, who is working at being a concept artist.  Since I'm in an artistic field, I've been able to get her some contacts for work and experience.  She's also had to learn how to present herself with grace and confidence.

My writing has always brought me joy, and I'm thrilled that it's also brought my children hours of entertainment and teachable moments that they've taken with them beyond story time.

It doesn't matter what you do, however; share your career with your children.  Share the highs as well as the lows, so that they learn that while you can love your work, you must also work at what you love.

..and then you wish the ground would open up and swallow you

My life is not all glamor and wonder.  I know.  You're shocked. 

Friday morning I took the kids to the store to buy Halloween costumes.  Yup.  I'm that organized.  I totally blew it off until the Friday before trick-or-treating.

After standing in the costume aisle for close to 30 minutes waiting for my indecisive children to choose between Boba Fett and Spiderman, my sweet #5 scraped his shin on the shelf as he reached for a bloody pirate sword.  (What?  I wasn't going to let him get it.  He's only 4.  That's a costume accessory for a much more mature child..like 8.)  He went into full meltdown and wail mode.  He's loud, y'all...really loud...and people could hear him all over the store.  We were starting to attract stares, whispers and unfavorable attention.  I tried to scoop him up into my lap and console him, but he's heavy and I'm very pregnant.  Ignoring my attempts to pick him up and calm him down, he resorted to the little-kid judo move called going-completely-limp.

I sighed heavily , braced my feet, hooked one arm around his chest and under his armpits and the other between his legs to hoist my limp and wailing son into the cart.  I grabbed hold of the waistband of his jeans to get a grip when my son screamed out to me (and the people who were listening from the nearby rows.)

Hey, you!  Let go of my pe.nis!!!!!!

I heard gasps (or thought I did) from my fellow shoppers. My face flamed red and I hurried the kids to the checkout with whatever costume happened to be in their hands at the moment.  I swore once again to never go shopping with all the children at once...and to teach the 4 year old anatomy.  Because I know where his junk is, and it's nowhere near his waistband.

Yeah...What He Said

My 4 year old asked me "Mommy, why is it raining?"

Seizing the moment for an impromptu science lesson, I explained, "It got colder today.  When that happened, the water droplets in the clouds came together and got heavier and heavier until gravity pulled them out of the clouds and they fell like rain."

"Oh," he replied.  "So, it's because God wanted to water the flowers?"

Yes.  It is.

Terribly Tacky, Wonderfully Fun, Totally Texan

I spent several hours this past weekend making homecoming mums with my eldest.  A ton of glitter, flowers, cowbells and ribbons later we were done.

"These are awful," she said.  "People actually wear them?"

""Yes!" I gasped with glee.  "They wear them and love them.  Welcome to Texas, baby!"

If you've never been to the Lone Star State (and I feel sorry for you if this is true) then you can not possibly begin to imagine the wonder of the Texas homecoming mum.

**************************************************

"We have them, too." A friend of mine from Oklahoma said, clearly tired of hearing me wax rhapsodic about all things Texan.

"Describe them." I challenged her.

"It's a big chrysanthemum with a couple ribbons, a corsage, but kinda ugly."

"Oh," I answered, "then where do you put the battery pack?"

**************************************************

I know what she was referring to, something almost tasteful.  Something a little
like this:

That might be fine in the rest of the country, but any girl in Texas who wore that to the homecoming game would be pitied and her date would find himself single for life.

You see, we don't do small here.  We like tacky and big and completely obnoxious.  Baseball caps should be encrusted with rhinestones, hair should be big and then tease it up a little more...just take your definition of over-the-top and then push the envelope a little further over the edge.

So what are Texas girls wearing to homecoming?  A simple little something like this:

Isn't it fantastic?  I'll bet it has a dozen cowbells in those ribbons.  Spectacular!

It isn't just our Texas belles who wear them.  We couldn't leave the boys out, so they put them on garters and wear them on their arms.

I loved living in Oklahoma for 17 years, and thought it had become my home, but this summer we moved back to Texas and then football season began.  Somewhere between the hot glue gun and the string of blinking lights I realized that I was once again among my people.  The folks here have a healthy appreciation for kitsch and tacky.  They know these things are ridiculous and over the top, and love them all the more for it.  Life needs humor, and nowhere is that more on display that a Friday night game in a small Texas town.

My 7 year old daughter has whole-heartedly embraced this philosophy of life, but the teenager remains a complete skeptic. I give her until the homecoming game next Friday night before she realizes that instead of being embarrassed to wear such a tacky thing, she's be missing out if she didn't.  I hope she learns to relax and not take herself quite so seriously.  She wants to be cool and these creations would not be cool with any of her Okie friends, but she's learning a lesson from the Texas girls she knows.  Life is short.  You can spend it trying to be cool, or you can learn to laugh....so laugh because it's much more fun that way.



I know y'all are itching for one more picture, so here's the homecoming court:

Don't you wish you were here?

Stay a While Longer

I know the little time keeper on this blog says that I have 5 weeks until my due date, but if the past is an indicator, I actually have 2-3 weeks until #7 makes her debut.  When I was at this point of pregnancy with my other babies, I couldn't wait for the day to arrive.  I repeatedly told the little guys that they were being evicted and they needed to "get out now!"

I don't feel that way with this baby at all.  Perhaps it is because we have been so busy with moving, settling in and life that my focus has been on things other than being pregnant which hasn't made it seem unbearably long.  It could be that she's nestled in in a way which is much more comfortable than the rib breaking positions of their brothers.  Or...could it be that I have at last learned patience?  I have finally learned to accept that things happen within their own time and that the planning is God's and not mine?

It's possible.  I doubt it, but it's possible.

I've actually sought peace this pregnancy.  In the past, I've seen pregnancy as a way of marking time until the new baby arrives. It is the reason for my frenzied activity and not an escape from it.  That's what makes this time so different.  This time I can forget that I'm pregnant for hours at a time, and it's only when I stop to rest that the gentle (and recently less gentle) movements of our daughter remind me of her presence.  She's not the cause of my business, but my companion in rest.

That will change once she is born and her demands to be fed, held, and changed assert themselves in my life and become the focus of my day's planning.  Our schedules will be reworked for her nap times, adjusted for her feedings, but not just yet.  Today she is still the spot of quiet and peace, my moment of zen and hopefulness.  I'm not ready to let that go for the bustle of new baby.

So, stay a while longer, sweet #7.  Rest under your mother's heart.  Soon enough you will rest in my arms.  But let's give it a week or two before we give up the bond we have today.  Let's learn a bit of patience, shall we?

Today I Forgot How to Pee

I admit it.  This afternoon, I forgot how to pee.  I knew I had to go.  Trust me, at 34 weeks pregnant with a baby who likes to jump on my bladder, I have to go a lot.

This afternoon she must have been pressing on a nerve because the message was not getting down to the right part to relax and just let go.  I sat there for about 5 minutes with my eyes closed mentally searching for the muscle that was holding it all in.  I couldn't find it!

I found and relaxed one pelvic area muscle after another.  Who knew there were so many?  I've never had to think about them one by one before.  I just took for granted that they would do their jobs without too much interference from my conscious thought.

My 4 year old wandered into the bathroom as I was sitting with my eyes closed.  "What are you doing, Mommy?" He asked.

"I'm trying to pee," his dumb mother told him.

"Oh." He said.  "Did you forgotted how?"

"Yes." I sheepishly replied.  "How do you do it?"

"Well, first you have to have a pe.nis....." he told me.  Yeah kid, you're really no help.

I finally found the all important muscle and relief never felt so good.  I'm so grateful for the dumb kegels that my midwife forever nags me about doing.  I don't know that I could have found all those muscles without that practice.

The moral of the story is, do your kegels no matter how dumb you feel.  And I'm not the only person who's ever run into this problem.  I remember from back in college that Beavis and Butthead once had the same thing happen to them. 




It's Beavis and Butthead.  Watch at your own risk. It's stupid and juvenile, but I once was 18 and found this hilarious.

Just Wondering...

#2 and I have been going over first aid for Boy Scouts.  Which led us to wonder  "How do you do the Heimlich Maneuver on a 9 months pregnant woman?"

Missing my Beloved

For the past week, my sweet husband has been in Turkey.  The computers are having issues in the Istanbul office so they called in the Computer Guy.  (Doesn't that make him sound like a super hero?)

It was his first time out of the country, other than college trips across the border but that doesn't count when you're from South Texas, and my first time to have him so very far away.  While he's been gone for a week or more in the past, there's a difference in his being a 14 hour plane ride away, literally on the other side of the planet.

I thought I was doing a decent job of holding it together, although it has made blogging hard since I promised not to write that he was gone and it's all I wanted to write about, until late last night.  I had one of those pregnancy dreams.  No, not the wake-up-with-a-smile-and-a-certain-glow kind of dreams, the other kind.

I dreamed that he left us.  He stood right in front of me and said he was done, it was over and that he was leaving.  I awoke in a complete panic which only intensified as I realized he wasn't in bed with me.  I ran out into the living room and called his name and he didn't answer, at which point I collapsed on the floor sobbing.  Where was he?  How could he leave?

Then I woke all the way up and remembered....Turkey.  He's in Turkey.  I talked to him yesterday, and he'll be heading for the airport and home in just a few hours.  I peeled myself off the floor and headed back to bed to attempt to calm my rapidly thudding heart.

As I lay there clutching my pillow, I realized that I don't tell him often enough what he means to me.  We are years past the excited blush of new love and sappy endearments.  We long ago reached a place of quiet companionship and deep love and affection.  There are so many words which no longer need to be said out loud.  We communicate them silently with a certain smile, that knowing glint in the eye or a million other non-verbal gestures which only we understand.

But I don't tell him.  I never say that I love him with all of me, that the thought of his not being here leaves me completely undone.  The crying last night was not mere grief, it was more primal than that.  He has become a part of my very being, the way the readings at our wedding promised but I didn't believe was possible at a naive 21.

There is God, and then there is my beloved.  Everything I have and love comes from these two loves, and I don't tell either one that nearly enough.

and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one.  Mark 10:8

I should so do that....

Earlier this week, my neighbor told me "I could talk to you all day.  You know, you should really write a blog."

I should probably look into that.

Today's Moral Dilemma

This morning I logged onto our bank account to balance the check book when I saw over $300 in charges I know we didn't make.  In a couple hours of online shopping, according to the transaction time stamps, my check card shopped at 2 match making services, amazon, and proflowers.com.

I immediately called the bank and cancelled the card, then started calling the online retails since the charges were still pending to see if the transactions could be cancelled.  I didn't want to pay for the items which were charged to me and I didn't want the crook to get them in the mail.  There was no reason to reward his bad behavior.

My last call was to proflowers.com where I spoke with a flamboyant young man named Hunter.  He had a few choice words to say about people who steal credit card info and then told me that my card had been used to purchase 3 bouquets (all identical) for 3 different women.  He even read me the cards because as he said I had paid for them so there was no reason I couldn't know what I had purchased.  The three cards read:

Sierra,

I had a great time last night.  I can't wait to see you again.

James

L,
I'm looking forward to seeing you this weekend.  I have plans for us.
James

and

Katie,

I miss you so much.  I wish you were here.  I'm counting the days until I get my hands on you again.

James

Hunter and I laughed at the audacity of sending identical flowers to three different women who probably all thought they were "the one."  Then I had a brain storm.  "Hunter," I asked, "how hard would it be to switch around all the cards so they all go to the wrong girls?"

"I love you." His voice sang out.  "The orders haven't been precessed yet so it would be no problem at all.  Want me to do it?"

I really wanted to do it.  You have no idea how much I wanted to screw with this punk's dating life, but then I realized that the bank would lose the $150 that the flowers cost because they would have to eat the charges.

"No." I sighed.  "We'd better not.  It would be dishonest to send the flowers and not pay for them."

"You're a good person," my co-conspirator said.

There was a pause where we both sighed a little sadly.  Then he said, "I'm here until 4.  If you want to call back, I can give you my extension.  You won't send the flowers but I'll give you their addresses and maybe you could send them a little note."

"I think I love you, too." I told my new bff, and then I spent the day off and on composing my notes to these women in my head.  Hunter's still working for the next hour.  I could totally do it.  I'm thinking something simple like:

Dear _______,

Yesterday James decided to send you flowers which is really sweet except he stole my credit card to buy them and the identical bouquets he ordered for _________ and _________, so even though he's sending you flowers you're not the only one.  Luckily, I caught the charge before it went through but not before he also purchased a member ship at Christian Singles and Catholic Match.  He's not just into the three of you, he's still trying to meet other women. 

I just thought you should know the caliber of man you're dating.  We girls have to help look out for each other.

Better luck next time,

Rebecca

 What do you think?  Should I send it?  I would want to know if I were one of them.  On the other hand, he might be a loony who took more than just my credit card # and I don't want to invite crazy to my house.



****I sent the letters.  Anonymously.  From the Dallas post office.  I included the phone number for proflowers along with the cancelled transaction # so that they could verify what I told them.  I made sure to give them Hunter's extension.  He's my new bff after all!

The 10 Commandments According to My 7 Year Old

***** #4's assignment was to write the 10 Commandments in her own words.  Here they are:

1. There's only one God.  You should listen to Him.
2. Don't say God's name like it's just a word.
3. Go to church on Sunday and don't work.
4. Obey your parents.
5. Don't stab or shoot anybody.
6. Love your husband. 
7. Don't take anything from anybody.
8. Tell the truth and don't say you did something when you didn't do it.
9. Your neighbor's wife isn't your wife.  Don't look at her like she's yours.
10. Don't be jealous of other people's stuff.  If you want it then you should get a job and buy your own.

I Don't Want to Be "That Mom"

I'll admit it - I had a bit of a reputation as a trouble maker at our previous parish.  I own up to it and admit that I did a bit of rabble rousing.  I made phone calls and wrote emails.  I left notes for people and called things to their attention.  I tried very hard to ignore the small stuff, but teaching the Protestant 10 Commandments in CCD or selling Native American fertility idols in the parish gift shop were too big to ignore.

When I volunteered to help with the Confirmation classes, the Youth Director was warned that I was trouble.  He told me so.  I was militantly orthodox and stirred up controversy, they told him.  Luckily, he chose to talk to me before dismissing me entirely, and we worked well together well for 3 years.

I hate being that mom, the mom whose name makes people sigh.  I want so badly to be the nice mom, the mom who smiles and the CCD teachers are glad to see in the halls.  I'm not destined to be, but I want it so badly.

This past weekend at my eldest daughter's Confirmation class, her teacher repeatedly called the Mass boring.  She wasn't just making a personal opinion statement, she was teaching it as fact.  She told her students, "I was born in 1960 when all the Masses were in Latin. The people hated it because it was so boring. Eventually the Pope saw reason and let us have it in English so that the people could hopefully be interested and be able to pay attention instead of falling asleep"

Not only is that wrong in so many ways but I think (and I could be wrong here) that it's blasphemy.  ( I looked it up and the 2nd definition in Mirriam Webster is  "irreverence toward something sacred or inviolable.")  It's one thing if she's bored at Mass (that's between her and God), but to actually teach it to a class of teenagers is wrong in so many, many ways.  As a friend of mine said, "If you were the devil and wanted to attack the souls of these children, what better way than to tell them that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is boring and not worth their time?"

The teacher topped off her discussion of the Mass this past Sunday by asking the kids to stand in for key people in the Mass in order to teach them the different parts.  She asked one of the girls to come forward and take the part of the priest.  "Pretend that it's 1000 years from now and you're the first woman priest. We finally get to do it," the student was told.  When my daughter told me this, she asked "Mom, isn't that kinda like heresy to say that someday a woman could be a priest. ."  No, it's not kinda like heresy - it is heresy.

I really didn't want to be the mom who wrote emails and made phone calls, but this is only the third class and I can't imagine that there will be a conversion here without some outside influence.  I guess that's me, so I sent a short email to the priests at our parish and asked for their guidance.  My daughter needs to be Confirmed.  She needs to take this class in order to be Confirmed.  I can't see how a year of blasphemy, heresy and undermining her faith are going to help her in any way.  What, I asked them, should I do?  I'm still waiting for their reply.

I've promised my husband and myself to ignore the clueless and dumb things and only speak up when things are morally wrong.  It's hard to learn to be silent when you're used to being the loud voice, but I'm working on it.  It's even harder to learn to be the gentle voice when something you love so passionately is being degraded and torn apart from the inside.

I keep reminding myself that God wins in the end.  I know because He said so.  It is not my job to be the sword of wrath but the quiet voice and the gentle nudge.

The Wages of Sin....The Cost of Carbs

When I was a young girl in Catholic school, I was terrified of Hell.  (I'm still terrified of Hell, but I was preoccupied with my fear as a young girl.)  I had countless nightmares about burning lakes of fire and coming face to face with the devil himself.  For a long time when I was young, it was the fear of burning that motivated me to be good.  It wasn't love of God or my parents, but a desire to avoid going "the other way."

I eventually confided my fears to a priest who was a friend of our family.  I'll remember forever the look on his face in the confessional as I cried out my fear to him.  (It was face to face, no partition.  It was the 80s.)  He smiled at me and said that while being good was good, doing it to avoid burning was not the right motivation.  Our resolve runs out when it's motivated by fear, but if we do something for love we can do it forever.

Last week my typical pregnancy heartburn returned with a vengeance.  Sugar or carbs will trigger an instant burning in my chest.  It's horrible and painful and every time I swear that I will never do it again.  I return to an Atkins-like carb-free diet and the pain disappears.  Eventually the fear recedes and chocolate chip cookies or homemade bread appear in my kitchen.  My resolve weakens, my mouth waters and before I know it, my chest is on fire again.

The pain from carbs is close to instant, and yet I can't resist it no matter how hard I try.  I summon all my resolve, and then find myself nibbling thoughtlessly as I make dinner.  The taste is too good and pleasurable for me to give up completely, and the fear of fire is too weak.

Fear can't motivate us to change our habits forever, but love can.

Sin is no different from craving that piece of chocolate cake.  If it tasted disgusting there would be no temptation at all.  It is the momentary pleasure, the remembered attraction which overwhelms our fear of fire and lures us in.  The devil is no fool.  He knows our weaknesses and plays into them.

My eldest daughter asked me yesterday, "The carbs and sugars hurt you, but you still eat them.  If they were bad for the baby would you give them up?"  Of course, I told her, I love the baby.  "But you don't love yourself?"  I simply sat dumbfounded by her question.  If I were my child I would do a better job of protecting me.

I try not to sin because I love God and because I love the people my sin would harm.  I don't want to hurt anyone, and so I pray and ask for help with my areas of weakness.  I work and pray on it daily.

I've never asked anyone in my family to help me deal with the physical side effects of pregnancy.  I choose to carry this burden alone.  Why shouldn't I ask them for help?  They could be the food conscience I have obviously not formed well in myself.  Because these kids can nag like nobody's business.  I just have never wanted to ask the whole family to change the way they eat for me.  I've seen that as somehow selfish, which is ridiculous.

The food on my table is something which is completely within my control.  I am the master of the pantry, and yet I still fail daily to avoid temptation and the suffering which results from it.  How much more difficult it is to maintain my fear of the fires of Hell.  The truth of it all is that I am a weak human being and am not so great at avoiding temptation.  I couldn't even avoid the bite of doughnut my 2 year old offered me this morning.  Temptation doesn't come in ugly packaging, it comes wrapped in sweetness, covered with sprinkles and delivered with a smile.  The trick, I think, is to know our weaknesses and avoid them at all costs (like not buying the doughnuts to begin with) and to fight our failings not with fear but with love.

We have to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves.  We have to love ourselves in a way that allows us to die to the desires of the flesh and turn consciously to the way we should go.  We need to learn to reach to God and each other in our weaknesses and ask for help.  In asking, we are not placing a burden on other people, we are giving them a chance to love us in return.  Whether it is the food in our pantries or the sin in our hearts, the temptation is the same, and the weakness is the same.  The burning is not inevitable.  We just have to remember where to turn for help.