It's my blog, and I'll rant if I want to

On Sunday nights I enjoy listening to Focus on the Family Weekend Magazine. It plays on our Christian radio station, and I either find the week's topic enlightening or offensive, and both make great food for thought. I've greatly enjoyed the recent discussions of adoption and how it parallels our relationship with Christ, we being fully adopted into his family. On the other hand, of particular offense to me are the weeks when a woman gets on the radio and talks about submission to one's husband as taking care of all the laundry and cooking so that when he gets home from what was no doubt a difficult day at the office he can sit quietly and not be bothered with household chores, and she then frets over us poor souls who are forced to work outside the home. I do my best not to scream at the radio, but I'm not promising I don't.

One of the evening's topics tonight was teens and movies.

A listener had written in for advice. The scenario: she thought her teenage daughters should be able to see movies with a little profanity and maybe even some sexually suggestive stuff, but she always researched movies before taking them (she used the Plugged in Movie Review, which I love). Her husband, however, did not allow them to see anything with even one word of profanity, and if he heard it in a movie he would get up and leave every time. What were they to do?

My thoughts are plentiful on the issue, including 1) the woman is rude to her husband for taking the girls to movies he is vehemently against (which she admitted to in the letter), and she had to know of his extreme views before she married him, so she kind of signed up to live with those extreme views, and 2) I hope those kids are home-schooled because if I stormed out of a room every time I heard profanity I would have to flee from my school building about forty-seven-thousand times a day. That doesn't mean I like it, but it does mean that I live in reality, 3) Who actually writes letters to strangers for random advice on movie watching? Did she call her friends tonight to gleefully explain that they had actually read her letter on the air? Lame.

The oh-so-wise Focus on the Family advice guy (whose name I do not know) had a very different take on the situation. His response to the woman was something to the effect of "Your marriage is in trouble! If you and your husband can't compromise on this movie issue then there must be much bigger issues lurking there, waiting to jump out and cause you to disagree. God forbid!"

Yes, I'm paraphrasing. But it gets better.

"You should run out right now and purchase This Random Marriage Book from Focus on the Family to save your marriage! Hurry! There's no time to waste!"

I wanted to scream.

Thanks, Weekend Magazine for taking a little issue of life and calling it a marriage in trouble. Thanks for explaining to what is likely millions of listeners that if you disagree with your spouse, something must be terribly wrong. Thanks for trying to sell your book instead of actually answering a question.

It frustrates me to no end when Christian organizations put forth this super-human expectation of perfection when life is so far from perfect that it's not even funny.

End of rant.

Where are your hands right now?

I'm just going to guess, okay I'm going to hope, that your hands aren't in your pants. And I'm going to assume that the reason your hands aren't in your pants is that your mom diligently reminded you (and nagged, and yelled, and scolded) that polite little boys and girls don't walk around with their hands in their pants. And it worked for you, didn't it? Please tell me it worked.

You see, my oldest child has developed the habit of going through life with his hands down his pants. Now don't get ahead of me here because there's nothing vulgar about this. It's just a bad habit that I WILL BREAK.

I'm no stranger to bad habits. I think I started chewing my nails in the womb, and on any given day I will have one beautiful, well-manicured nail just to prove I can grow nails. My small victory. And for a short period of my life I had those fabulous solar nails that looked perfect and couldn't be chewed, but it's just not economically feasible for me to buy nails when God gave me the ability to grow them. So I chew them. All the time.

I also have the fabulous bad habit of munching (on food, not nails) when I need to do a mundane task. Jelly Belly jelly beans are my favorite, and I can go through an average sized bag of them every time I give a TAKS test. While I "actively monitor" students, I eat jelly beans one at a time, and sometimes I count to a certain number in between beans. Or I park the beans at one area of the room and allow myself to have one on every third pass. I usually end up with a little stomach ache, but I keep my sanity during four hours of watching people take tests.

I also need to munch when I'm trying to focus really hard something tedious. I tried to buy lots of almonds last year when I was working on the English department master schedule because I knew I would need to munch. Peanut M&M's work well, too, but I have to eat them in three steps each. You know, take a bite, eat it, eat the peanut from the middle, then eat the other chocolate candy half. Everyone does that right? Somehow it makes me focus - like my chewing jaws are a little motor for my brain. Now that I think about it, munching might give me genius superpowers.

But I never put my hands down my pants. That's just weird.

Tuck's a pretty smart kid, and I think he's decided that pants without pockets can have make-shift pockets if you stick your hands down the waistband. It's been colder lately, so perhaps he's trying to keep his hands warm while wearing pocket-less pants.

Either way, I find myself constantly saying, "Get your hands out of your pants." I thought the problem was confined to home, but yesterday we were Christmas shopping and I caught him with his hands warming just under his waistband. I called him over, grabbed his little face, and whispered, "You do not want me to scream at you across the store to get your hands out of your pants. You will be very embarrassed. It's just not polite." That seemed to fix the problem for the rest of the shopping trip.

But it didn't stop the problem. And it didn't stop me from thinking about him being the weird kid at school who the girls describe with a disapproving scowl: "Tucker always has his hands in his pants. It's sooooo gross." Just ask Wesley Green, the kid in my third grade class who picked his nose. He could tell you. I'm sure he ended up as a social outcast who had to get a job at the North Pole because everyone knew he picked his boogers in the third grade and he couldn't stand the humiliation.

So I persevere. "Get your hands out of your pants," I say, and I mean it. Then five minutes later I say it again. And again. And again.

So this holiday season, thank your mom that you're not reading this post with your hands in your pants. Trust me, it was no easy job to get you here.

It's me again!

Whew. It's been a long time without a blog post. I've been busy, but I'm well aware that my busy isn't any more than anyone else's busy this time of year. I just got a little bit behind in my life, and it didn't seem like catching up was possible. (As a side note, the Hickman family Christmas card hasn't been done, so it's just turned into the Hickman family New Year's card, and you can expect it in January.)

Now that things have calmed down, I would like to extend a special bit of gratitude to those of you who kept me sane when I edged myself closer to the brink in the last week and a half or so. You know who you are because you ran scantrons, wrote me a nice note, stayed married to me, attended interviews with me well after you were supposed to be gone home for the holidays, checked email on your day off so I could turn my homework in, and/or listened to me whine (gasp! not me! whine? I'm so ashamed, but it happened, and I think it happened a lot. Foxy could tell you for sure.)

Anyway, I work with the gosh-darned awesomest people on the planet and my husband is a saint, and I thanked God for you all lots and lots of times last week when things got crazy.

Now on to the blogging part. These are unrelated items that need to be documented here for posterity.

1) Keaton is certain that all angels have names, and he is downright offended when we don't call them by their names. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing? There are angels in that nativity scene? "Which ones?" he wants to know, and he isn't satisfied until we throw out names that seem fitting for angels. In addition, we always have to mention Gabriel. If we don't, he'll add, "And Gabriel. I think it was Gabriel, too."

2) Tucker's random fact-ness is getting a little out of control. As usual, he entertains us during breakfast each morning with sports facts from the night before. Unfortunately, all sports in the world don't end when he goes to bed, so he has to read all the updates on ESPN.com and YELL THEM AT US while we get ready for school/work/church. It usually goes something like this:

"MOM! DAD! [RANDOM FOOTBALL PLAYER] HAD TWO INTERCEPTIONS IN THE GAME LAST NIGHT! THE [RANDOM FOOTBALL TEAM] WAS OUTSCORED IN THE LAST TWENTY SECONDS TO LOSE THE GAME BY TWO! BY TWO! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? DO YOU THINK [RANDOM FOOTBALL TEAM] WENT FOR TWO AT THE VERY END? HERE, YOU GOTTA WATCH THIS CLIP! IT'S AWESOME!"

Trey and I pretend to care for a few minutes (because that's what good parents do, right?) and then when I reach my breaking point I have to tell him to use his inside voice and STOP YELLING SCORES AT ME BEFORE BREAKFAST! After all, his inside voice is much easier to tune out before 8:00 a.m. (and that's what great parents do, right?).

On the way to church yesterday morning, we sat quietly in the car listening to softly playing Christmas music when Tucker screamed, "LAWRENCE TAYLOR WAS BORN IN 1959! HOW OLD IS HE NOW? FIFTY! LAWRENCE TAYLOR IS FIFTY!"

Is there a version of Turrets for sports fan? I think Tucker has it.

3) Keaton was nicely dressed for church yesterday morning in jeans, boots, and a blue long-sleeved collared shirt. It wasn't until we got into the car that I realized he had added a giant sun hat and a green plastic lei to the ensemble. When I asked him about it, he told me he wasn't going to wear the hat into church.

Great. So he was planning to wear the lei? I let it go until we were getting out of the car at church, and then I gently took it off of him and explained that he couldn't wear that inside either. He huffed at me a little, "Ooookaaaaay."

That didn't, however, stop him from trying to wear both accessories into the restaurant after church. God help us when this kid is allowed to dress himself.

Creeper Santa

We were having one of those mornings.

Okay, we were all fine, but Keaton was having one of those mornings.

He woke up early and announced, "I am not eating at home this morning. You will stop and get me breakfast." You know I LOVED that.

Then he started with "I'm not feeling well. Mommy! I'm not feeeeeeliiiing welllllll. I'm siiiiiiick. I want to stay home." I told him he was welcome to stay home all by himself, but there was no one to stay with him because we all had things to do.

Things progressed as expected with significant crying, screaming, demanding, etc. As I picked him to take him in our room to get him dressed, he began squirming and kicking. So I held him out away from me, my hands under his armpits, his skinny little body flopping around in a full-on temper tantrum.

I've learned that Keaton reacts if I react, so I pretended it wasn't happening until the time came that I couldn't get his pants on his squirming little legs. In desperation and frustration, I blurted out, "SANTA IS WATCHING YOU!"

And there was silence. Immediate silence. Surprised, he finally asked, "What did you say?"

Me: I said Santa is watching to see if you're a good boy or a bad boy.

Keaton: He's watching me right now?

Me: Yes. He's always watching you.

Now this is where Bad Santa comes in. I had this evil moment-slash-moment of genius when I realized the Wild Thing was paying attention. I realized it and I used it. I used it good.

Me: You know what happens to bad little boys?

Keaton (not sure he wants to know): What?

Me (in my super-scary voice): They get rocks in their stockings. (This was followed by Vincent Price-style evil laughter in my head, and I am only a little ashamed.)

Keaton: Rocks?

Me: Yes, rocks. Only the good boys and girls get toys, and Santa is always watching so he can put you on his good list or his bad list to see if you get toys or ROCKS.

We finished getting him dressed in total, compliant silence, and I felt I had entered a new world. I realized this is it. This is THE YEAR that I can use this. It's never worked before, and it will never work again, but THIS YEAR I will use it until bedtime Christmas Eve. I wondered if it would be possible for Santa to mail a behavior report card to Keaton just to let him know that the Big Guy is keeping tabs. I pictured myself slipping a ten to the mall Santa and whispering in his ear whatever boyish trouble Keaton had gotten in that day so he could have a little heart to heart with the kid. This is big, I thought, and I'm a freaking genius for figuring it out.

After a reasonably quiet breakfast at home (turkey bacon and juice, the breakfast of champions), Keaton was climbing the ladder that's still in the living room along with the half-displayed Christmas decorations and their boxes. "Mommy?" he asked in a sweet voice, "is Santa outside the window right now?"

Sensing his timidity, I responded kindly, "No, baby. He's not outside."

Keaton shrugged his disbelief and turned his freaked out little face to the window.

And that's how I made Santa a creeper. Will that get me Mother of the Year?

One time there was this goat, The Finale

Before you read this, you should check out part one and part two.

As I stood in my friend's classroom in my pleated black slacks, fitted blouse, and fabulous Steve Madden pumps with my new goat under my arm, the plan began to formulate. One of the ag teachers offered for the vet tech kids to help take care of the goat during the day, and I must have looked like she offered me a million bucks because I agreed so quickly!





It was Wednesday, which meant that the boys had to be picked up from choir at five. As soon as I could get away from school (about 4:15), I sped to the feed store in Wellborn, waited impatiently behind a man buying some sort of livestock feed, and then asked the cashier for a bottle to feed a baby goat. Up until then we'd been using a nipple on a water bottle, and it leaked terribly.





The nice young man got me a bottle, and I flew home to change out of my dress clothes and into my goat-handling gear. I tossed the dog's kennel (now a makeshift goat kennel) in the back of the Prius and headed to church.





I was only about five minutes late picking up the boys, and on the way out of the church I whispered to them that we had to hurry because we had to go get the goat. I thought Keaton's head was going to pop off because he was so excited! He must have said the word "goat" one hundred times on the ten minute drive to my school.





Because this story is getting a little too long, let's just say we loaded up Goat in the kennel and headed home.





I had already decided that she could live on the tile floor in the entry until I could get her to mom, so I asked the boys to make a wall to keep her in. Here's what they did:

Yes, friends, those are football helmets. It only took Goat about two seconds to escape from that impregnable fortress.

There were two "best things" about having the goat.

The first is that even Trey (clearly not a natural goat-lover) got into the fun. He called my niece Jodi to say, "Hey. Are you going to come see my goat?" Not long after that phone call there were pictures on facebook of Goat posing with Jodi and Goat posing with Tiffany.

Also, when Goat got restless, Trey picked her up and held her really close, and she was instantly quiet and still. It reminded me of when the boys were babies. For some reason when I held them they would just get wiggly-er, but he has such a calming effect on people (and goats). It was sweet.

Best thing number two was Farmer Keaton. In case you didn't know, Keaton tells people that he is a farmer and has a farm. He has named most of my dad's cows, has deemed his black boots his "farmer boots," and often talks about his tractors (some real, some not-so-real).

He was so darn happy to have that goat. He decided to train her to stay in the entry, and he was so patient in dealing with her. I was completely shocked because, let's be honest, I would never use the word "patient" to describe him and if you've met him you wouldn't either.

When she would get out of the entry, he would gently pick her up and put her back. Then he would stroke her back and quietly tell her, "Marion, this is your room. See the brown walls? The brown walls are your room, and you have to stay in here, okay?"

Of course, she'd get right back out, and he'd repeat the lesson all over again. It was amazing to watch.

(Sidebar: Mom named her goat Marion despite the fact that she will forever be Ethel to the English department of A&M Consolidated High School. Why Ethel? Why Marion? I have no idea what the answer is to either question.)

One time Marion peed on the carpet (because Tucker let her out when I said not to), and before I could get to the mess, Keaton had cleaned it up. For real! I think this little farmer is ready for his own pet.

Each morning I would get up, feed the goat, get dressed, and load her in the car to take her to school. During my conference period I'd feed her, and at the end of the day the goat and I would head back home. It must have been quite the picture to see me bringing my goat to school every morning.

On Friday after school, something came up and I needed to meet a friend in Bryan. Believe it or not, Trey suggested I just drop off the goat at the bank rather than trying to get her home and being late to my engagement. So not only did this goat go to school every day, she also went to the bank one afternoon.

Saturday afternoon Trey and I met my parents in Jewett to pass off the goat. We also decided to loan them Keaton until Thanksgiving, so he could "do some farmin'" and help out with the goat. I don't know how much help he was, but he had a great time.

And so the saga of the goat begins. She now lives on the farm with Grandma (who insists the goat can be house trained but Daddy won't let her even think about trying). I think Marion may have even gotten a goat friend or two today so she won't be too lonely.

I love that my kids will always remember the day their mom brought home a goat. I want them to know that sometimes I did (and let them do) something crazy just for the adventure of it. I want them to find exciting things everywhere they look and jump at opportunities to do the unexpected.

If they look really hard, they just might find a goat.

One time there was this goat, part 2

When I learned that the goat had survived the night and made it to school, I sent an email to my friends: "So I have this goat..." Of course, wit and hilarity ensued via email, and we made all of the applicable jokes:

• "Stormy has a new kid!"


• "Who is going to get your goat?"


• "Did it follow you to school one day?"(okay, that one was about a lamb, but remember this was hilarity, so it didn't matter)

During lunch we all decided to go see the goat, so my friends and I traipsed down to the ag department kennels and found this:

I know what you're thinking. That goat is pretty darn cute, right? Well, she was cute, and "oohs" and "aawwws" commenced as soon as my friends and I saw her. Someone asked her name, and I was very clear that this was grandma's goat so grandma would be naming her. I decided that for the time being she could just be called "Goat."

So then word was out about Goat, and I had to show her off so as not to leave anyone out. I decided to first take her to the yearbook lab because it's very close to the ag rooms, and I knew my yearbook peeps would love to see her.

I scooped the sweet, quiet little thing up into my arms, and she immediately began screaming like her tail was on fire. I don't know how else to describe the sound except to say screamed. Perhaps bleating is appropriate goat-lingo, but that doesn't capture the sound made by a two-day old goat in a high school being carried around like a baby. In hindsight, I'm just glad Goat didn't pee all over me.

We "oohed" and "awwed" over her in the yearbook lab for a moment, and then I returned her to the safety of her kennel and got back to work. Right away I learned that some of the life skills students had come to see her, so I grabbed her up to take her to them for a quick visit.

But I couldn't handle the screaming the second time around. She screamed so much and so loud that in a moment of panic I just deposited her on the floor, at which point she immediately quieted. In fact, I'm pretty sure she smiled a sweet little goat smile. Trust me, I was there.

Not sure what to do next, I called to her, "Goat. Come here Goat. Some kids want to meet you," and she followed me through a classroom and across the hall, skipping and jumping all the while. The life skills kids petted her and spoke to her, and then Goat followed me back across the hall and classroom to her kennel where she calmly stayed the rest of the day. Her willingness to blindly follow me over the river and through the woods, so to speak, led to my new title of Stormy the Goat Whisperer.

However, at some point in the afternoon it occurred to me that I needed to get her home, but I also realized that the Prius isn't really made for hauling goats. In addition, the fact that she needed to be fed every 2-3 hours the next day became problematic because I have this job that they liked me to show up for, and I'm pretty sure there's no button in our absence system that says, "out for goat care."

Clearly, I had not thought this completely through. I needed a plan, and I needed it to look like a simple, flawless plan so that Trey wouldn't have me committed for bringing home a baby goat.

It's a good thing I'm really good at making plans...

One time there was this goat, part one

It all began on a Tuesday during lunch. Morgan, a friend and fellow teacher, came into our lunch-eating area and asked, "Does anyone know of somebody who would want a baby goat? We've got one that lost her momma, and she needs to be bottle fed." I offered that my mom had been talking about getting goats, and that I would ask her if she was interested.

On way home, I made my daily phone call to Mom (on the bluetooth in my car which I'm pretty sure irritates her but that I have to use because I'm in a school zone when I call) and when I asked her about the goat, she said, "Sure. Yeah. I'd like to take the goat." I did a little cheer inside as I became excited about the possibilities that were beginning to unfold.

I called Morgan and made arrangements for her to bring the goat to school with her the next day. Then I called my favorite ag teacher and asked if there was a place to keep the goat for the day until I could take it home. I made all of the appropriate arrangements. Except one.

Later that evening Trey and I stood next to each other at the kitchen counter making dinner. Here's how the conversation went down.

Me: Anything exciting happen today?
Trey: Not really, just ___________

(See, here I was trying to think of how I was going to tell him that we were getting a goat. I'm sure I was listening carefully to what he was saying, but I don't actually remember it.)

Me: Well...so...there's a possibility that I'll be bringing a goat home from school tomorrow.

Trey (without looking up from what he's doing): What are you going to do with a goat?

Me: Well...bottle feed it.

Trey (now he looks up because he realizes that I'm seriously talking about a real goat): Why?

Me: It's only a couple of days old, and its mom died, and Morgan can't care for it because it has to be bottle fed every couple of hours. (Clearly he wasn't asking why the goat would need to be bottle fed, but why I would be bringing home a goat. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one yet, so I skimmed past it.)

Trey: What are you going to do with the goat?

Me: Mom wants it (good thing he loves my mom), and we'll just have to keep it until we see her. But it's an orphan and may not even make it through tonight, so we'll just see, okay.

Trey (with "that" look): okay

And so I began wondering what in the green earth I was going to do with a goat in my house. I wondered if the goat would live. Okay, I secretly prayed that the goat would live because I would be the coolest mom in the world if I brought a goat home to Keaton. I thought of the memories my kids would have, and I thought of how much my mom would enjoy watching a goat act ridiculous (WAY more fun than chickens, if you ask me).

At school the next morning, I waited anxiously for Morgan to arrive so I could determine if I would actually get to take the goat home. But it was meeting day for me, so I left a note asking her to take the goat to the ag shop if she had brought it and went on about my morning.

When I returned to my classroom, I learned that I did, in fact, have a goat.