Something spicy was cooking this morning on Fox & Friends Weekend, and it was not just the turkey leftovers. In Rick Reichmuth’s “Talking Turkey” segment with Chef Alex Guarnaschelli (host of Alex’s Day Off on the Food Network), Alex complimented Rick’s skills in the kitchen. When she  asked him to spoon the hash he was mixing into her pan with frying eggs, she exclaimed, “Oh, fantastic! Look at you! I think you have a future. I think you have a calling. Let me know if you ever need a new gig, you know.”

Joking, Rick rejoined, “I very well might.” Off camera, someone jested something unintelligible to the audience but heard by both Rick and Alex. When Rick laughed heartily in response, Alex, apparently, abashed with arched eyebrows and a raised palm, asserted, “I’m not going to touch that one. I’m just here to cook eggs and talk about leftovers.” Rick chuckled knowingly.

As Amy Vanderbilt might say, “It’s not polite to whisper.” Sub rosa Rick, care to share?

*Fox & Friends Weekend (11/28/09) – @7:42 a.m. ET

For some strange reason, I have been spending a good deal of time reflecting on my most challenging, most rewarding, and the absolute hardest job of my entire life…being Mom. I’ve kept this gig for my entire adult life…quickly approaching my 21st anniversary as being Mom. That could be the reason for the overwhelming rush of flashbacks from the past 21 years or it could be something else entirely different.

Either way…as I sit and think back where this wild and crazy ride I’ve called  life has taken me…parenting has been hands-down the coolest thing I have ever done. By the way, it also happens to be the only thing in this world that I have committed to other than eating, sleeping, and breathing. And yet somehow, being Mom feels equally a part of living as any of those things do.

Anyway, during this journey down memory lane…I have remembered things that I had long forgotten and some things I will never forget. I thought it might be a good idea to sit still for a minute and jot some of them down before I get busy with living life and forget them all over again and possibly even lose some that I haven’t lost quite yet. I know I could never sit and type 21 years of stories and life in one night, but this is definitely as good a place as any to start.

Before I get started though, a little background information might help to understand the possible “how’s” and “why’s” I may have done things the way I did or it may just simply reinforce that there is a God because even after being raised by me…my kids have turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

The most important thing you should know is that I became Mom at the ripe age of 19. Seems I was in a bit of a hurry to grow up, huh? Which would explain the first rule that I taught my kids when they had a gripe or complaint…which was simply a response from me for them to “Put it on your list.” What list…you may ask? Well, that’s what they asked the first few times, too…to which I responded, “The list you’re gonna give your therapist when you grow up.” Cause even back then, I knew they were going to need professional help.

By the time I was twenty-three, I had three kids ages 3 and under. Yep, I had a three year old, a fifteen month old, and a newborn all by the time I was 23. It was funny…being raised in a Southern Baptist home and all…my Mom told me when I got pregnant with the third one, “I know we raised you to believe that God’s word is the truth, the light, and the way…but when God said to be fruitful and multiply, he wasn’t just talkin’ to you!!”

To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement, but somehow I managed to keep it together long enough to just about get them raised. I knew my greatest challenge and duty was to keep them safe from harm and alive. Through many trials and tribulations, it looks as though that leg of my journey is rapidly coming to an end.

I can remember this one absolutely picture-perfect summer day when I was living in Missoula, Montana…God’s country…living and loving life under that Big Montana Sky. It was a Saturday afternoon…1993. My girls were about four, two, and one years old…we were sitting in the car outside the hardware store while their dad ran in to pick something up. As we sat there, a lady came out of the store with three teenage girls. I was totally fixated on them from the time they walked out the door of that hardware store until they had made it to their car. I looked at my girls and thought to myself, that’s forever from now. Boy, was I ever wrong! I blinked and when I opened my eyes…I was that lady coming out of the hardware store with three teenage girls…no matter how hard I tried to put the brakes on it.

We spent four years in Montana. I wouldn’t trade those four years for anything in the world. I was afforded the opportunity to continue my job as a stay-at-home Mom while we were there and that gave me a whole lot of time for nurturing and teaching my children everything that was important to me that they learn from me. When we moved to Montana, it was only two weeks after my youngest was born. So the years spent there were primarily the girls’ preschool years although the oldest did begin kindergarten there.

Living in Montana also gave my children the opportunity to spend a small portion of their growing up years in a place where the only thing I had to worry about was possibly a bear eating them or that old bat across the road who so obviously hated children would say something mean to them…but even then, we only had one close call with the bear and that was the Easter that their grandpa bought them a sandbox…and the old bat…well, we just chalked that up to a life lesson learned…there are just miserable people in the world…not a darn thing you can do but to behave better than them and pray for them.

The bear incident though…the girls had gotten a sandbox from their grandpa for them to play in at his house for Easter and they were down by the creek playing in it. The phone rang…it was the neighbor that sat behind grandpa’s house on the other side of the creek. He was just calling to let us know to quietly get the kids in and not to make a ruckus. He calmly explained that he and his wife had both bears sited in. GULP!!

That wasn’t the only event that transpired that fateful day either. Nope, it didn’t stop there at all. In addition to all that great excitement…that was also the day that grandma’s duck ate my middle daughter’s pacifier. She was already walking and talking and really needed to get rid of it anyway and as fate would have it…that was the day it happened. After the day spent with family, we arrived home and as I was getting the girls ready for bed, the middle one wanted her pacifier. I checked the diaper bag, my purse, my pockets and finally the car…but no luck.

I explained to this two year old in front of me who was sleepy, crying, and only wanted her passy and to go to bed that I didn’t have it but that I would call grandma and grandpa and see if they had it and would keep it safe for her. If worse came to worse, I knew either her dad or I could make a run to the store. However, when I called her grandparents, her grandpa answered and being the character that he is, he told me to tell her that grandma’s ducks ate it. So, I looked at her and told her just that. She said, “Okay” and went to bed and that was the end of that. No trauma. No crying fits. In a two year old’s mind, grandma’s duck eating her beloved pacifier was alright with her.

Alas, a couple of the many animal adventures we have had over the years. Once, before my youngest was born and shortly after the middle daughter was born, the oldest and I would go on “nature walks” every day. We would load the baby in the stroller and go for a walk in our apartment complex. My oldest was two years old at the time and was born a lover of ALL creatures big and small…ugly and smelly. The girl has never met an animal that she didn’t like.

Anyway, on these little “nature walks” we always found the most amazing things…like ants, worms, caterpillars, butterflies, birds, and even an occasional beetle. One day as we took our walk, I was walking towards the mailbox and she was running towards a grassy area next to the mailboxes yelling for me to come over there. I told her to check it out while I grabbed the mail and I would be right there. She was literally maybe five feet from me; however, there was a huge stand of apartment mailboxes between us.

I was talking to her while I was unlocking the mailbox and I asked her if she saw anything good. She replied, “Oh Mommy, I found a worm!” She was so pleased and obviously delighted with this grand find. She squealed for me to come and see it! I was looking through my mail and said something like “Oh cool! A worm! Why don’t you play with it.” She said, “But Mommy…it’s a BIG worm!”…with a whole lot of emphasis on the BIG. I do believe I must’ve cleared those mailboxes in an almost perfect leap-frogesque sort of jump. Just to land in time to swoop her up in my arms and quickly retreat to the baby awaiting us in the stroller. Her “big worm” was a copperhead snake…and here her Mommy, the person she trusted more than anyone else in the whole, wide world told her to play with it. Ugh…can it get any worse than that? Why, yes…yes it can!

Another fine day while living in glorious Montana, the girls were playing right outside the house and I was in the house doing something…I don’t even remember what. I only remember that the windows were open and I could hear the girls talking and laughing and playing so all was good in my world.

From where the sounds came, I knew that the girls were playing in the driveway up next to the house. I also knew that my van was parked in the driveway blocking anyone from getting anywhere near them. They liked to play in the driveway because it was gravel. They had one particular area that somehow all the rock disappeared and it became the perfect place to make “cakes and pies and cookies” and whatever other imaginary foods that they could dream to make.

I had gotten a little preoccupied with something and the next thing I knew I got jerked back to reality by someone yelling at the girls. I ran to the door and slung it open just in time to catch their aunt saying, “What in God’s name are you girls doing?!?!?!”  Then, I heard one of the girls proudly exclaim “Hey Aunt Nicole! We’re making Montana mud pies!!” I turned to see one of the girls with her panties down around her ankles peeing in the dirt while the other two had sticks and were stirring just as hard and fast as they could to “make mud” to fill up their little plastic cookware. Ugh!

You would think that being raised in the south by a true southern mother who made me read Amy Vanderbilt’s Book of Etiquette, take piano lessons AND ballet lessons, and took me to the theater, the symphony, and any other place to give me a little culture…you would think that I could have done a better job than that, huh? Nope…there is more.

After moving from Montana back to the Atlanta area, I quickly saw a difference in my children in comparison to those who were now their peers. Boy, my kids were heathens! lol They had been raised in a much simpler place and out of the rat race of the city. They had a slightly difficult time getting accustomed to their new life. I learned quickly that I might be able to physically take the girls out from under that big sky, but I sure couldn’t take the big sky out of the girls.

One summer, the girls had built a fort out in the back corner of our yard in Lawrenceville, Georgia. We lived in a quaint little house behind the Kroger store on Hwy. 20. The girls spent every waking moment out in that fort. They took their lunch out there…had their snacks out there…I rarely saw them at all. Funny part was…I never questioned any of it. I just thought they were having fun.

That was until one night, they came in and I noticed after about 15 minutes or so that all three of them just couldn’t quit wiggling and scratching. More specifically, they were scratching places that ladies weren’t supposed to be scratching in public. This was so not what I was working hard at correcting. I immediately scolded them and told them to knock it off and that if they had an itch to take care of it in the restroom. They sat still briefly…but a few minutes later, maybe they forgot or maybe they had no control, the itching resumed.

I told them to line up so I could do a full-body check…something had to be wrong. As I started my inspection, each pair of panties I pulled down revealed the angriest, reddest rash I had ever seen from their belly buttons down and back up to their lower backs. I started asking questions, when did it start itching…what have you been playing in…what’s out in that stupid fort?!?!

It took some great investigative work, but I finally managed to get to the bottom (ha ha…no pun intended) of this mystery. The one thing I should have thought of but never did…where were they going to the bathroom and what were they using for “toilet paper”? Hmmm…when I asked the right questions…I got the right answers…what a concept, huh? So, I asked them, “Where have ya’ll been going potty?” Their chins instantly hit their chests in shame. They mumbled, “Outside.” I responded, “Oh. Hmmm…so what did you use to wipe?” And one of them looked at me and said “Leaves!” with a big smile. I said, “Well great! Ya’ll have managed to get poison ivy from one end to the other!” To which the same child said, “But Mommy, we ONLY used the soft leaves!” Ugh!

The past 21 years has been an absolute blast! I am grateful for being allowed to be part of my girls’ lives…that God saw something in me that I didn’t even know I had in me.  I know that I am  so very blessed to have my girls. They have been more fun than I could have ever imagined.

I remember one time my oldest daughter looked at me with the most serious look I have ever seen and she asked me, “Mom, was I a mistake?” I knew what she meant…but even then I could never allow any of my unplanned children to think they were a mistake. So, I looked at her and said, “Absolutely not! You were a surprise!” She said, “What’s the difference?” I told her, “Well, a mistake is something that you end up with that you wish you hadn’t. A surprise on the other hand is something that you never knew you wanted until you got it.” I thank God daily for all my surprises!

As I sit here barely able to keep my eyes open, I know this blog must come to an end for today; however, I hope to sit and type up more of these stories for my girls soon…these are not just my memories but this is also their history. It is my wish to create more stories with them in the future as we come to the end of this chapter of our lives and on to our next exciting chapter chopped full of equally as breath-taking moments, tons of laughter, and slap full of  life adventures. Here’s to the first 21 fantabulous years of being Mom and, God willing, here’s to at least 21 more!

Last summer, another Devil-Ette, The Spitfire, picked up a swell collection of pamphlets from the Alameda Flea Market. We shared a bus home from practice, and we spent one lovely ride home reading through selections from The Amy Vanderbilt Success Program For Women. Back in the 60s, it was apparently a book-of-the-month-like club in which women could receive said pamphlets in the mail, offering advice on outdoor entertaining, developing poise and confidence, home safety, etc. She was the Martha Stewart of her day, only she wasn’t a Jersey-born Polish Barnard graduate so much as a Vanderbilt.

The Spitfire gave me one of the pamphlets — “Organize Your Life” — as a surprise gift. Her advice, in most chapters, is quite useful, even today, but the beauty of it is in the presentation. Take this paragraph from the section called “Organize Your Possessions”:

Out with the Gimcracks

Are you one of those people who attracts unwanted gifts? If you have the kind of house everyone admires, you are often, I am sure, the unwilling recipient of house gifts that just do not belong in your house. Through a sense of guilt, do you display these things you don’t like? And are these objects the very ones the cleaning woman never manages to break? (But look at the crack in your Wedgwood pitcher.) There is such a thing as mistaken sentimentality. I am convinced that well-meaning friends go into gift shops and buy blindfolded just for the sake of bringing a gift to someone. When you receive such an inappropriate addition to your household, display it while the friend is present, then put it out of sight until her return… Soon it will be forgotten by everyone… In your annual, semi-annual or quarterly cleanings-out (and these should be a definite schedule) send that angel nightlight or automatic card shuffler or whatever to the always-grateful Salvation Army (and indicate a fair value for what you are giving, asking for a receipt for tax purposes). Try then to educate the constant givers among your friends… Your friends frequently pick up these little clues as to what will please you with relief, and you will be relieved, too, that they are no longer spending good money for what is, after all, in your eyes, trash — and embarrassing trash at that.

Miss Vanderbilt excels at many pursuits in her life and in this series, but she excels at nothing so much as giving permission to be a first-class snob. You’d think, though, that she would’ve had the foresight to give a wink and a nod to the cleaning woman to knock over the tasteless gimcrack, and hide the Wedgwood pitcher lest the woman’s sticky fingers abscond with the goods.

The brilliant point about this particular passage is that, later in the book, she recommends keeping a “present drawer” as a time-saver. Having so many delightful friends means so many parties, and a woman just simply doesn’t have the time to shop for a gift every single time, does she? So buy generic occasion cards, and a few well-tried gifts, and keep them in a drawer for easy access. It is my secret hope that she found one such generic gift on one of her trips to Salvation Army, and stayed up for several nights wondering which of her friends pitched the crystal-cut vase for tax purposes.

(By the way, I really do think the advice is great. In his book Storage: Get Organized, Terence Conran advises that the #1 item to purge is anything guilt-inducing. Especially in small spaces, you just can’t afford to keep all the stuff you have forever, so the “quarterly cleanings-out” are pretty well necessary. We have a charity bag or box always waiting in our closet for when we finally give up on anything, whether it’s clothes, an item we bought, or a gift. Stuff goes out, stuff comes in.)

My favorite passage in the pamphlet comes on page 50, only four pages from the end, in a section entitled “How Are You Organized for Emergencies?”

I hope that you have fire extinguishers in your house, but having them is not enough. They must be checked periodically. I think I am careful about this, but recently a kind gentleman fixing himself a drink at my bar came downstairs to the kitchen and said, “We are out of vodka and your fire extinguisher needs refilling.” Fire extinguishers are not forever. This man was kind enough to look before our regular check-up time came about.

She’s an excellent hostess, Miss Amy Vanderbilt, despite not being well-stocked in vodka. Was Miss Vanderbilt’s only reaction, “Why, thank you, sir, for telling me about the extinguisher; you may have saved our lives!”? Or might she have reacted the way I would have, which would have been to say, “How the fuck do you know the fire extinguisher is empty? And what happened to the vodka? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HOUSE, YOU DRUNK FUCK?” before pushing past him (fire extinguisher and empty Ketel bottle in each hand) to examine the vodka-sodden burn spot on my green shag carpet. Which is why, I suppose, I require the advice of The Amy Vanderbilt Success Program for Women.

How does one develop Impeccable manners if not raised at the knee of a Southern belle like your own Miss Impeccable? While challenging, all of us can strive to become a ladybelle, even in these modern etiquette-challenged times. If you are not a lady now, don’t despair. Books, my dear, are your little pocket-sized Southern mamas.

My suggestions:

The classics are classic for a reason-

• Etiquette, by Emily Post (Miss I. has a first edition, but you can do just fine with this newer version)
• Amy Vanderbilt’s Everyday Etiquette (mine is (c) 1954- this one is a good new edition)

And some more modern ideas:

• The Art and Power of Being a Lady, by Noelle Cleary and Dini Von Mueffling
• Better than Beauty: A Guide to Charm, by Helen Valentine and Alice Thompson
• How to Be a Lady, by Candace Simpson-Giles

In the coming weeks, Miss I. will be providing reviews and useful tips from all of the above and more. In the future, I hope you will all join me in my Ladybelle Book Club, where we will choose books on modern lady-hood and get our brains wrapped around the challenges of seeking style, grace, and class in these busy times.

If you need manners and you need them now, go here where you can read Miss Emily’s original book in its full text online. While you may not need calling cards or guides to how to treat “the help” (and if you do… bless your heart), the basics haven’t changed- thank you cards are non-negotiable. Period.