Smiling Mom

This was my July 1^st sub­mis­sion for The Blog Exchange.  I thought I’d post it on my site as well! 

I thought a lot about July 1^st’s blog exchange topic, “In my child’s eyes.” The rea­lity is my life is so busy and fast paced that I often don’t slow down and allow myself the time to see, I mean really see, what is impor­tant to my kids.

So I deci­ded to hand my son a camera and let him take pic­tu­res of anything impor­tant to him.

This is what he saw.

Our dog Kayla, one of the most impor­tant things to him.

His Sis­ter, eClaire. They live to disa­gree, with moments of pure love and ten­der moments interspersed.

What boy doesn’t love his Mac truck?

The race­track. Oh the racetrack.

The blan­ket, “It has big holes and little holes. It’ s my blanket.”

This about sums up my son’s favo­rite things. If his Grandpa was here, he’d of pho­to­graphed him too. Life at three is sheer excitement.

All play and no work.

Life is good.

Smi­ling Mom is a stay at home mom 1/2 the week and a teacher the other half. She’s been blog­ging since February and has a par­ti­cu­lar inte­rest in collec­ting and revie­wing easy & healthy reci­pes for a busy mom on the go. If you’d like to sub­mit a recipe. It will be revie­wed and pos­ted on her site.

Please wel­come my guest pos­ter for The Blog Exchange, Vicky from The Mummy Chro­nic­les. After you read Vicky’s entry, please head over to her site to see my entry.

In a child’s eyes she was more than the woman who could sca­rily flip her eye­lids inside out she was the one and only per­son who I would eat Total cereal and unsal­ted potato chips for.

In a child’s eyes she made ‘Mys­tery’ just as much fun to watch as ‘Love Boat’ and the Sun­day night Dis­ney movie.

In a child’s eyes she made swin­ging on the porch the only way to spend an after­noon, going to the gro­cery store an adven­ture with spe­cial treats, and she ins­ti­lled the fine art of French coo­king even the drea­ded Buche de Noel.

In a child’s eyes she would play end­less kid­die bits on the piano for a con­cert of one. In a child’s eyes it was all in good fun and not the glass cei­ling brea­king con­cert pia­nist that she actually was. Her records were more enjo­ya­ble to dance to rather than lis­ten to with awe and admiration.

In a child’s eyes she was and is Memere, the woman who gave me the sense to unders­tand why good man­ners are impor­tant and not just nee­ded. That living is an art and a skill to be acqui­red. Lips­tick should always be worn when lea­ving the house and your purse is meant to bring a smile to your face not just for carr­ying your wallet. Aprons are a must. Sim­ple food is just as good as the fancy stuff and a clean kitchen is the key to hou­sehold orga­ni­za­tion. Deco­ra­ting your kitchen with roos­ters is just an added bonus we both share.

In this child’s eyes she crac­ked me up when she would take out her false teeth and brush them in front of me. Her pink flo­ral bath­room with its spe­cial and equally pink soap enchan­ted me. The black tiles and tiny medi­cine chest glea­med and always held inte­res­ting trea­su­res like pow­der puffs and per­fume in old fashio­ned bottles.

In this child’s eyes now a woman with a child of her own, I can only look back fondly and with great love and admi­ra­tion for what an inc­re­di­ble woman she was and is today. At 87, she is still beau­ti­ful and her smile can light up a room. Des­pite age and its mala­dies she still dazz­les with the piano. I wish I had spent more time simply sit­ting and lis­te­ning when I had the chance. She is more than Memere. She is Bea­trice, one of the role models and men­tors in my life. A woman I res­pect, love, and can only hope to be even a smid­gen like one day.

Vicky, is a free­lance wri­ter and WAHM, who resi­des daily at her blog, The Mummy Chro­nic­les and Mummy’s Pro­duct Reviews. Her daugh­ter, T.D. has the middle name Beatrice.

The Talen­ted Bea­trice, also known as Memere with my daughter-2006

The Blog Exchange is hap­pe­ning today, and I have been pai­red up with Gun­figh­ter. Enjoy his best post below!

Gun­figh­ter lives with is wife and daugh­ter in Northern Vir­gi­nia, and is emplo­yed as a tac­ti­cal firearms ins­truc­tor for a fede­ral law enfor­ce­ment agency. He blogs about the things he sees and what he thinks about them at The View From Here. When he grows up, he wants to be a wri­ter… or hand out balloons at Disneyworld.

Those of you that have been rea­ding my blog for the last seve­ral months, you have been wai­ting patiently for me to tell you about why I wear kilts regu­larly and to post pic­tu­res to go along with.

Well, for you, today is your day.

As you might ima­gine, wea­ring a kilt in 21^st cen­tury Ame­rica, without bene­fit of being in a wed­ding or being an extra in a Mel Gib­son movie…

…is an unu­sual thing… but it is beco­ming less and less unu­sual these days. These days, there are no small num­ber of modern kilt pur­ve­yors pop­ping up all over, and there are many men to pro­vide the demand for their wares.

For the most part, the suc­cess of the modern, casual kilt, the world over, can be cre­di­ted to one man; A Mexican-American in Seattle Washing­ton, named Ste­ven Ville­gas was wor­king on a motorcycle (one of his many pro­jects) wea­ring a pair of shorts made from old, camou­flage cargo trou­sers, but found them too res­tric­tive to move the way he wan­ted to… so he took a scis­sors to them, applied some sewing, and the first Uti­li­kilt was born.

I have been wea­ring Uti­li­kilts since 2001, and the second most com­mon ques­tion I get asked is: “Why are you wea­ring a kilt? You aren’t from Scot­land!” or words to that effect.

Well here are the answers:

1. Because I can.
2. Because I look great in it (I have great legs).
3. Because I’m not a com­plete con­for­mist.
4. Because a kilt is almost as cool as a Super­man suit.
5. Because my wife likes it.
6. Because fric­tion is bad (figure that out for your­self).
7. For good repro­duc­tive health (although I am out of that busi­ness).
8. Chicks dig it (they do, trust me).
9. Because men envy me for doing what I want without regard for what others think.

Where does all of this come from? Oddly enough, the idea was plan­ted as a result of rea­ding a Science Fic­tion novel when I was a young Marine, in about 1986. The name of the novel was “Methuselah’s Chil­dren”, by Robert A. Hein­lein. One of Heinlein’s favo­rite cha­rac­ters through seve­ral novels is a fellow named Laza­rus Long. No need to talk about the book, or this cha­rac­ter other than to say that this guy could usually be found wea­ring a kilt, which I thought was very cool.

Fast for­ward nearly twenty years: Mrs Gun­figh­ter, Oli­via and I were atten­ding the Vir­gi­nia Scot­tish Games in Ale­xan­dria, Va. in 2001 (I think) and were having a great time watching the pipe bands, dan­cers, and sam­pling the various crafts and foods that were avai­la­ble. While we were brow­sing about, I remar­ked to Susan how much I would like to wear a kilt on a regu­lar basis. Pro­blem was, they are rather imprac­ti­cal. Not only are they made for a Scot­tish cli­mate (made from heavy wool), they don’t have poc­kets and are prohi­bi­ti­vely expen­sive (a tra­di­tio­nal kilt would cost me around $600).

Well, being that it was mid-June, here in Vir­gi­nia, and hot­ter than hell, I took an oppor­tu­nity to get some lemo­nade for us, while Susan wai­ted in the shade. While I was stan­ding in the line, I noti­ced a guy in the line at the next booth, wea­ring a kilt. Which wasn’t uncom­mon, con­si­de­ring where we were, but the thing that made this guy so UNcom­mon, was that his kilt was black! and it had large cargo pockets!

When I got our lemo­nade, I noti­ced that logo over the back poc­ket (it had back poc­kets, too!) said “Uti­li­kilts”. I was deter­mi­ned, there and then, to find out more.

A few days later, I did a search (was there even a Goo­gle, then?) for Uti­li­kilts and found their web­site, and the rest is his­tory. I now own 5 Uti­li­kilts, and plan on orde­ring a new one (this one in leather) some time soon.

If you are won­de­ring about the reac­tion I get to wea­ring a kilt, I’ll tell you this, and my wife will attest to it if you ask her: Women I have never seen before have follo­wed me in the mall; have been bra­zen enough to ask if I was wea­ring any under­wear; have come up to me and flat-out ask if I was married; have loo­ked me in the face and said “I wish my hus­band was half the man you are”; have said to me: “Ohmy­God! That is the sexiest thing I have ever seen!, can I borrow you for a while?” I must say, I find it hugely flat­te­ring. I get this kind of a reac­tion from women when I am rapidly approaching (well, OK, IN) middle age, get­ting fat­ter by the minute, and am only so-so good looking.

Men react in a range of ways. Some tell me how cool it looks. Some tell me they wish they had the nerve. Most are neu­tral, although many men ask this ques­tion: “Aren’t you afraid someone will give you a hard time about it?” To which I ans­wer: “Nobody has ever given me any grief about wea­ring a kilt… after all, who wants to have his ass kic­ked by a man wea­ring a skirt?”

So there you are.

Most often, when peo­ple think about kilts, they have this sort of image…

…in their heads, but today, kilts can be found in lots of pla­ces, from ath­le­tic events…

To hiking…

To a rock and roll band at Disneyworld…

To the war in Iraq.

To selling a kilt to a woman so she can molest her man while he wears it

At least, that’s what she told me (that is me, on the left… oh God, it was so hot that day!)

Any­way, that’s my story.

Oh, the MOST com­monly asked ques­tion is: “What do you wear under your kilt?” My usual ans­wer is: “My boots and my socks”

You can purchase modern kilts here:

Uti­li­kilts
Ame­ri­kilts
21^st Cen­tury Kilts
Sport­kilts
Free­dom Kilts