Filbert Books
Dream big. Live beauty. Enjoy
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What Others Are Saying About This Book...
Critics compare Batdorf’s writing to
humorists like Erma Bombeck, Dave Barry and Anne
Lamott Award-winning
columnist, Margie Boule’
says, “Hilarious... Stop and Smell the
Asphalt is simply
hilarious...”
"Stop and Smell the Asphalt is a rare combination: a fun-to-read book that's also thought-provoking. Lindy Batdorf wakes us up to treasure those little moments happening all around us, before they're gone in the blur of life." --John Fornof, Writer/Director of Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey
“Finally...
side-splitting honesty
that will
“This is the BEST book--
Lindy captures so well those
miracles we all feel but often fail to recognize... it
carries the reader the full gamut of emotions from tears to
laughter... This is a ‘must read’ on anybody's
list!” parents of
two. “Lindy writes with humor and heart
in Stop and Smell the
Asphalt. From
the first page to the last, you'll discover insights and
encouragement for your own
journey.”
“Lindy Batdorf has a gift of illuminating life-changing truths in a friendly and passionate manner. ” -- Bill Dolan, President, Spirit Media Inc.
“...has a humor
so refreshing that you'll be going back till the pages are
worn and falling out!” and parent of a 3 year
old “Finally, a 'guidebook' for parents! This laugh-out-loud travelogue of the highs and lows of raising children, will make you say, 'I've been there!' Reading this book is one journey you'll enjoy taking.” --Laurie Dahl, marketing and communications professional, and parent.
“Just thinking of the
book Stop and Smell the
Asphaltstarts my sides aching. Although
hilarious, it is an important tool for frazzled moms who
feel alone... This book validates the noble profession of
mothering.”
“...It was downright
impossible to lay Lindy’s book aside while I did other
things--like eat
!” and mother of two
Stop and Smell the Asphalt: Laughter and Love Along the Highway of Parenthood
by Lindy Batdorf
Copyright © 2003 Lindy Batdorf
All Rights Reserved
First Printing 2003
(c)2003 Lindy Batdorf. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Published by Filbert Publishing, Kandiyohi, MN, USA. FilbertPublishing.com Cover design by Spirit Media: www.SpiritMedia.com Contact Lindy via her website: www.LindyBatdorf.com Or this address: Batdorf & Associates Manufactured in the United States of America. ISBN 0-9710796-4-1 LCCN: 2003110450 Stop and Smell the Asphalt: Laughter and Love Along the Highway of Parenthood
by Lindy Batdorf Dedicated to... ~My handsome, fancy boyfriend and dear husband, Alan Batdorf, the finest man I know~ ~To the two other wonderful men in my life, sons Jody and Andy~ ~And to my sweet mom, Helen Mae Garhan, without whom the very heart and essence of this book would not exist~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Mom, your years of love and sacrifice freely given to all of your children have always been and will always be the wind beneath our wings.
Love Always, Tim, Lene, Cass, Shirl and Lindy
A Most Heartfelt Thanks to:
My family, Alan, Jody and Andy Batdorf who gave their love, laughs and encouragement; my dad, Joe Barr, for lighting the path; my life-teacher and dear friend and mom, Helen Mae Garhan and husband Robert; Timothy K. Barr, for sharing his love of writing with his goofy little sister; my friends-for-life sisters: Leney, husband George and son Erik; Cass and “Billy the Birdman” Vogel; the brilliant Shirley Jo Barr Williams and daughter, Caelyn; and my diligent, dear friend, “Ethel/Barney,” Mary Fuller, without whose help I would be a disorganized mess... Moms and those who paved the road ahead: Dear mother-in-law, Sunday chef and Scrabble pal, Fernie Marie Batdorf; Ellen and the Prichard family; those wonderful Rubley Girls; the Barr family (including moms like Grandma Lena, Betty Lins, Ginny Isabell and Robin Currin...); the Botkin family and especially my dear Grandma, Helene Botkin Friends who traveled the path with me: Buddies Susan “Sooz” Engelfried and family; Laurie "Leedle" Dahl; Debrec Hersel; Joy Olander and family, Robin Nunn; and in loving memory of my funny, sweet mirror-pal, Cathy Jenkins Critique Group Members: Brooks Adcock, Gregory Arnold, Stanley Baldwin, Lenore Buth, Dori Clark, Tom Fuller, Helen and David Haidle, Bob Hansen, Geneva Iijima, Crystal Ortmann, Patricia Rushford, Joseph Ryan and Pastor Randy Sanford Other professionals, mentors and kind friends who have, in one way or another, contributed to this book: Ken and Vicky Adams, Margie Boule’, Suzanne Canifax, Sandy Cathcart, Bill and Camilla Dolan, Mary Lou Donovan, Dr. John Fazio, Dr. Louis G. Foltz, Kathi Kasel, Elsie Larson, Jerry “Chip” MacGregor, Norm Maves, Dee Mitchell, Prof. Charles Nielsen, John R. “Jack” Shields, Steve and Derene Shultz, Mary Starrett, Gail Welborn, Cathy Wegrzyn and W. Terry Whalin Special thanks to: Pastor Edward Grant, the Tuesday night women’s group and everyone at New Life Christian Center of Milwaukie, Oregon; Oregon Christian Writers; Warner Pacific College; Multnomah Bible College; Beth Ann Erickson and Filbert Publishing ...and for those who enhanced or inspired portions of this book and are not mentioned here, please accept my sincere apologies and my deepest thanks. Prologue:
Parenthood is like a high-speed race down a frantic freeway with bad tires and no brakes. Sometimes it’s a difficult and thankless journey filled with ups, downs, potholes, break-downs, speedbumps and fog banks; at the same time, if we allow it, it will also be the most exhilarating, miraculous ride of our lives. Most of us, in the middle of the race, tend to forget the ride is so brief; we forget how quickly little ones grow into big ones and how valuable every single moment can be. It’s for times like these this book was written. Sometimes, on this frenzied track called Parenting, there just aren’t any roses to stop and smell. Sometimes, the best we can do is crawl out of bed, wipe someone’s dripping nose, change someone else’s pants, wipe our own dripping nose and find something somewhere that looks like breakfast for the howling horde. I contend even on days like these, during times when the only thing there is to sniff might be our own armpits and that smelly asphalt, there are still miracles to behold; there is still magic in the eyes of a child; and there are still wonders around every corner--if we only slow down and look for them.
Happy trails, Lindyb
CONTENTS
One Detour: It’s called Parenthood 17
Two Bump Ahead: I’m what... PREGNANT? 23
Three Slippery When Wet: A humiliation called “pregnancy swim class” 29
Four Road Construction: Nine months of rough road 37
Five Quiet, Hospital Zone: ...and baby makes three 41
Six Gas Ahead: So, now what? 47
Seven No Outlet -- No U-turn: The first night home 57
Eight Curves: Adjusting to parenthood 63
Nine Dip(s): Neurotic parenting 67
Ten Be Prepared to Stop: What do I do about my career? 73
Eleven Slow Down: Learning to parent at the speed of child 81
Twelve Two-Way Traffic Ahead: What the...? Another baby on the way? 83
Thirteen Hard Hat Area: When Mom works at home 93
Fourteen Soft Shoulder: A look back -- When I met the man of my dreams 103
Fifteen Cattle Crossing: Now there are two kids in the house 109
Sixteen Dump Station: The quest for the perfect babysitter 113
Seventeen Playground Ahead: The gut-wrenching First Day of Preschool 119
Eighteen Blasting Zone: A nightmare called “The Birthday Party” 125
Ninteen Congestion: Moms may not get sick 131
Twenty Historical Marker Ahead: I might be aging, but I'll never grow old 137
Twenty-One Downgrade: The horrors of perusing old photos 141
Twenty-Two Danger, High Voltage: Mom vs. video games 149
Twenty-Three Campground Ahead: Vacations and carnivores 155
Twenty-Four Tow-Away Zone: Mom is now an embarrassment 165
Twenty-Five One Way: When parenting views collide 171
Twenty-Six Wildlife Refuge Ahead: "Can I keep him Mom, can I?" 179
Twenty-Seven Danger, Falling Rocks: ...in the tunnel called adolescence 183
Twenty-Eight Cross Walk: Parenthood, a walk of laughter, love and faith 185
“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”
Chapter 1 Detour: It’s called Parenthood... In the life of a parent miracles are everywhere. You are holding a time capsule, a trip through the seasons of parenting beginning with a new mom’s first moments of “I’m what... I’m pregnant?!” following the flow of time toward the tunnel of baby’s growth and adolescence. Through these years I’ve laughed until I've cried and cried until I've laughed; sent thousands of hours in rock-a-bye reading times; given and received countless hugs, kisses, pat-a-pats and hand-print pieces of art--and I’ve grown up a little bit myself. One priceless little tad of information I’ve gleaned along this road is the fact that every single good or bad moment spent being someone’s parent holds a precious piece of wonderful--if I just shut up, look and listen, I will find the spectacular within the mundane. I’m also delighted to report there will always be joy in the journey even if the asphalt is as good as it gets for a while; because when I remember to simply enjoy the ride while it lasts--flat tires and all--even in the middle of my worst day that old hot asphalt actually smells pretty good.
I've
had a lot of asphalt-sniffing
days.
Even
as a child, I remember sitting under a piano bench in a
back room of our farmhouse crying and thinking of
parenting as a difficult, overwhelming and quite
inconvenient thing to do with one’s life. As a child of 7 or so, I remember sitting there in Mom and Dad's room, crying about the whole complicated concept of adulthood. Even as a freckled, scrawny little girl with a Joan of Arc haircut and no front teeth, it felt as if time were whizzing past like a car spinning out of control on a frantic freeway--and it has always seemed as if parents, especially Moms, never got any rest stops at all. Part of my childhood was spent on a 42-acre farm near a little logging community in the Northwest. Mom worked from sunup into the wee hours of night just about every day. She got up, rousted the rooster, chopped wood like a logger, started a nice fire in the wood stove, made five kids and Pop, her dozing husband, a hearty four-course breakfast, trotted out to the paper box, got the paper, and tip-toed it--along with a cup of freshly brewed coffee--up to Pop as he lay snoring in bed. Honest. And I never heard her back-breaking work praised at any city gates, either. Mostly, we whined. “Mom, Tippy puked up a sock!” “Mom! Did you get Cathy's gum off my band uniform? You're a chaperone at the parade today and I need money and an orange shirt for....” “Mom! Shirley's snake is loose and it's crawlin' off the table and into your old....” “Mo-m-m-m-m, Dad says his shirt stinks...” Her chosen career seemed to be a slice of the nether hereafter and I decided then and there, under that piano bench on a rainy Oregon afternoon that I was never gonna be anyone's mom because moms get a raw deal. Think about it. Mothers have horrible hours and get little respect. They work for no pay, they can't walk away from work and the only little extras they get come in the form of children's bodily fluids, additional laundry and apparently, a life-long battle against excess body fat. Not only that, but when a woman is with child her body balloons, someone's feet kick her from the inside out, and as for the birth thing, I had heard a rumor of some mom-parts possibly ripping in the process. No, thanks. Not for me. It seemed like a miserable life and I wanted nothing to do with it. Yet that sense of time rushing past never left me. I remember as teenager, staring at an open suitcase thinking, What's the point of going on this vacation? In a week we'll be home and I'll just have to unpack this stupid thing. I was the only weenie in my high school graduating class who sobbed and sobbed at the whole idea of graduation. I was not ready for the real world. I knew perfectly well that a life of football games, dates with cute boys, and being wholly consumed with my hair would all come to a screeching halt once I had that diploma in hand, and other, hideous things would take their place. Things like knowing about the IRS; that a car needs oil in it; dishes don't wash themselves; bills are things that accumulate and get nasty if not attended to; that a “job” is not just something your grandma links somehow to activities in the restroom, and you really will be sorry if you don't floss. Graduating from high school was like the passing of a prison sentence. Time simply refused to slow. When my name was called, I soberly shuffled up to get the judgment. I could almost hear the judge whack his gavel “Guilty of now being an official adult who has to go to work for a living! You are sentenced to life!” Just like my under-the-piano-bench-moment, graduation was a dreary day. At least, I thought, now that I'm out of the nest, Mom will have her life back. Later, I saw Mom crying and I just didn't get it. Not until I had children of my own and caught myself doing the same on that first day of preschool after watching my little ones race decidedly away from me did I have even the slightest inkling of how she felt.
* * * *
When I became a mom myself I learned that even the worst day--the kind of day on the Highway of Parenthood when the only thing to smell IS the asphalt--there can be magic and miracles, if we simply allow them in. I remember one rainy day in particular when my oldest boy, Jody, was about one and a half years old. He hadn't been overly cuddly before, and this day was no exception. In fact, he was particularly aloof. Not only did he shove me away when I attempted to hug him, but he swatted at me in anger. So there I sat there on the dirty carpet with tears streaming down my face wondering what I'd done, giving up my full-time career in the wonderful land of television promotion to care for this ungrateful little child who, at the moment, didn't even seem to like me. A child who today, was giving me no encouragement--so I was busy feeling sorry for myself and getting progressively more depressed. About that time a friend called and before long, she was at my door. After I finished pouring out how bad I felt and the rest of my pathetic little story, Mary just looked at me and shook her head. She sighed and began to tell me her story--a story she had never shared before. Seems my friend had gotten pregnant after being date-raped when she was a teenager. She held her dark-haired daughter just once before the child was whisked away, put up for adoption and never heard from again. Until today. She had never stopped looking for her little girl, never stopped wondering how she was, or what she was doing. She had even kept a room in her home all these years, decorated with carousel horses, and pictures of pianos and things she thought her daughter would like. Her story confounded, moved and amazed me. After years of searching and wondering where her baby could be, an attorney found her daughter in a loving home in California. Her little girl wasn't quite ready to meet my friend, her birth mother, but Mary knew where she lived, and miracle of miracles, she was even allowed a picture of her. Mary could only pray that one day her child might want to meet her, hug her, hold her and make up for just a little of all their lost time. “Lindy,” my friend said to me after telling her heartbreaking story, “You say you've had a bad day with your little boy.” Tears rimmed her dark eyes. “...but what I wouldn't give for even a moment of your worst day with my little girl.” I can't tell you the depth to which I felt her words. They remain in my heart even though more than a decade has passed since she spoke them. After Mary left that day, I sat down on the grimy carpet again and thought about the fact that before she had come, I was tempted to believe I was somehow lacking by wearing the title “Mother.” After speaking with her, I realized that no matter how my boy responds to me, I have a hand in the future by how I act, what I say, and how I walk today. My chosen, God-given career as mother is a noble one, and a way of life in which I can be forever proud. Suddenly, my little boy turned to me, pointed to the window and said, “Abba, Mommy! Abba!” Abba was Jody's word for rainbow. To me, the word meant God is my Dad up there who always loves me, looks out for me and has promised to never flood my life with more than He and I can handle. I walked over to my smiling child, picked him up, and held him tight as together we stopped to enjoy the rainbow right along with the rain.
Chapter 2 Bump Ahead: I'm what... PREGNANT? When a woman finds out for the first time that she is pregnant it is a wholly numbing experience. Images of every ill-mannered child she has ever met suddenly pop into her mind. Thoughts of lazy Saturday mornings smooching hubby and reading the paper in bed are replaced with visions of herds of screaming, filthy children bouncing noisily off the bed while squirting sad, repentant parents in the eyes with noxious liquid and chocolate syrup from squirt guns the size of bazookas. I remember distinctly the moment I found out I was with child. I even kept the little yellow sticky note I had written the word YES on and circled over and over again. In the old days called the '80s--it was usually considered best to get your pregnancy results right from the horse's mouth after taking a long and tedious trip to the doctor. Take-home pregnancy tests were, if you pardon the expression, in their infancy and most of us didn't really trust them. So, not only did mothers-to-be have to endure waiting rooms filled with screaming infants and other worried women, but she had to be poked, humiliated and made to give up bodily fluids for testing. She was then, as usually done with most scary medical tests, instructed to wait longer than humanly reasonable for the results. I think doctors used to time this and wagered on an estimate of the absolute maximum amount of time most anxious women could hold out and then added a dozen or more hours. I was at work when I made (insert drum roll here) The Call. Not wanting to share my suspicions with my co-workers, I thought I had slyly managed to hide my nervousness about making The Call. But when I tried to speak in a sneaky, raspy whisper to my doctor's nurse, two co-worker heads popped up like gophers caught in the headlights of a golf cart and froze. Thinking I was being nonchalant as I removed a staple from my wrist, and since my husband worked just downstairs in the same building, I said perkily, “I'll just jog on down to engineering and see if Alan--the wonderful man I've been married to for four, count them four whole joy-filled years--can take this call. Be back in a jiff!” Laurie and Cathy nodded like wise old owls to each other and winked, knowing I never used words like “jiff,” they both knew something was afoot. Staggering down to the engineering department, concern over anyone else knowing anything about a person growing in my internal organs vanished and was replaced with indigestion, uncontrollable shaking and a strange sense of angst. At 4:35 on January thirteenth, 1986, I stood in the engineering department at the television station where I worked with my husband and again attempted to make The Call and ask The Question: “Uh-h-h... I took a pregnancy test you see and I was just wondering if I was, or could there be a chance that, well if you know what I mean about, I was just wondering casually if I was, uhhhh....” “You sure are!" barked a snip-snip-snappy voice at the other end of the line, “...about 8 weeks along. You know, you're the second one today, I just knew you’d both be pregnant.” I got the details regarding future appointments and what I was to do next--as I jotted the information down, feeling as if I were living a scene straight from “Mission Impossible,” I stared at the phone for a moment, certain it would self-destruct any second. I wanted to scream our news to the world. I wanted to keep it to myself. I wondered about the other woman, the other one who got the same news. Did she feel like I did? Did she feel like a bug plastered in the grill of a semi truck one minute and like the space shuttle at liftoff the next? Was she devastated? Elated? Excited? Mortified? Was she trying to figure out who and what she is? Had she figured out why buttermilk and apricots had tasted so good together lately, too? What seems odd to me is the fact that no one has the remotest clue as to how a phrase like, “You sure are!” will feel until someone blurts it at you. Even then, you aren't quite sure what the feelings are or where they come from. All of a sudden you feel fat. You start trying to remember what the schools in the area look like and you gasp as you contemplate your bank account. $42 in savings was O.K. until today. So many have felt exactly like I did at that moment and I never knew it before. Like some kind of weird secret club where for the first 48 hours you and your husband just wander around thrilled one moment and terrified the next, shaking your heads in unison saying “A b-baby...a real b-baby...” Almost immediately, my pregnant body began sucking fat from the very air. Seven days after getting The Call, I felt as if I was in some horrible old sit-com acting the part of the incompetent, ill-informed and incoherent neighbor. You see, one week after getting The Call, Alan and I went to my Dad's to give him a gift license plate frame that says “Happiness is being a grandpa... again .” It was so clever he didn't get it. He wondered why I would give him such a goofy thing. His granddaughter was in her twenties. It had been so long, he figured he was done with this grandpa stuff. Then my sister Ilene explained it to him and he just sat there with his mouth open like a trout. Right after I gave Pop his edgy gift I began to feel ill. Some kind of hideous sick-bug hit me, complete with a fever and chills. I wasn't done doing cute-cute things to tell family we were having a baby yet. I still had pickles and ice-cream for mom Helen and mother-in-law, Fernie--and to say I was feeling lousy was an understatement. The worst thing was, for the first time in my life, I couldn't take any medicine to stop the headache, the fever, or the aches. I just had to fidget and contort there and not-so-silently suffer. I tried to focus on positive things like baby furniture and Pablum but that didn't make me feel any better at all. For the first time in my life, my body was not my own. What I ate, a little tiny guy doing the polka in my abdomen was also eating. The little tiny guy was in the busy business of having his brain put together and other important parts. So not only was he eating what I ate, but what I filled my face with had the potential to actually damage this little Ginger or Fred Astaire. It wasn't fair. By the time I was done being sick, I still wasn't done feeling sorry for myself--but my Mom came to the rescue as usual and not two days after I told her about the baby, Mailman Bob greeted me with a package from soon-to-be Grandma Helen. It was the most adorable little handmade jacket and booties I had ever seen. She must have really cranked on the crochet hook to get those out so fast. One great part about being pregnant is all the neat little presents. The bad part is, all of a sudden the presents you get are not for you, they're for this unknown little goober who's doing that fandango on your bladder.
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