My Mexican Souvenir

After my last blog was featured in the Daily Tidings I read that someone's advice to me was to go somewhere different than Ashland. I have, in fact, spent time in a place very different from Ashland. After high school I moved to Mexico City and lived there for almost two years. After two years of long work weeks and midnight tacos I moved back to Oregon with just two souvenirs to show for my time spent south of the border, a pair of leather boots (please don't throw blood at me) and a son. Of course I love my son, Bilbo (of course not his real name), but he also causes me to envy people in vegetative states or those who are lost adrift a raft made of dead seals in the Artic. Today we went to gymnastics, where he spent the entire class trying to escape from the teacher in order to attempt to poke me in the eye, and later we went to get him a haircut at Supercuts. We left Supercuts after having to leave a 50% tip to make up for his behavior, though what method erases parental embarrassment I don't know. I am often proud of my son. I'm proud of him when we eat out at someone else's house and he proclaims how much he loves chard and broccoli, I'm proud when he's helping younger children at church feel more comfortable, and I'm proud he's my son when I peek in on him while he's sweetly sleeping. Don't get me wrong, I love my child, but there are many times I wish I could pretend he wasn't mine, or if not sell him to the gypsies, at least rent him out to them for a while. These include the usual meltdowns at the grocery store, when he rats me out to his grandma about what kind of words I've been saying, and when he proposes to random stranger on my behalf. Apparently Bilbo doesn't believe I will ever get a date, let alone get married, without his intervention. Any male that Bilbo finds to be a desirable match for me, and Bilbo's interests run along the lines of Star Wars fans, bald heads, and people who cook, gets a proposal from him. "Will you marry my mom? She's all alone and doesn't have a husband." Granted it's not a bad ice breaker, but I really only share one of Bilbo's interests. I probably could have got things in Mexico which would have worked better in the world of getting a date - a belly button ring, a tequila shot glass, a T-shirt that says "what happened in Mexico stays in Mexico." Time to lash myself to a dead seal and set myself adrift into the world of dating.