Rediscovering My Roots.... And I Don't Mean My Hair

Let's face it. I'm a bad Southerner.

I don't watch Nascar. I prefer drinking water over Dr. Pepper & Ice Tea. And the only reason I know who Tony Romo is is because he's dating Jessica Simpson and I've seen pictures of them together on People.com.

He plays for the Stars, right?

Can ya'll just hold on a second while I make sure my doors and windows are locked? I think the Southern Police might be coming to evict me from the great state of Texas and I want to make sure I finish this blog post first.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I'm a bad, bad Southerner. I've even been told I have a mid-West accent.

I may spontaneously combust into flames at any moment.

However, and this is my redeeming quality, I have discovered that since I had kids I have slowly started returning to my roots. And let me tell you.. those are some major country hick roots.

I have found that I want to recreate certain childhood memories for my own kids and, therefore, am slowly turning into my parents.

First of all, there is my return to country music. I absolutely hated it growing up, but now I'm finding that I can't handle hard rock anymore. My ears have become sensitive. Plus, I have to be careful what I listen to with the kids in the car. So, I've discovered that most country music is pretty alright.

A big shout-out to Trent Wilmon for putting out the best country album I've ever heard and to Billy Currington for doing THAT video.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!

I am converted.

Second of all, I have rediscovered my undying love for duct tape and bungee cords. Duct tape is awesome. I would wager that it could fix and hold together anything. It is pretty much the greatest thing this world has seen since John Cusack taught teenage boys everywhere that the way to a girl's heart was to stand below her window and hold a boombox over your head.

And bungee cords? Well, what can they NOT do? They can tie down the trunk of your car. They can hold a suitcase together. They can secure a kid to the back of a chair.

Everyone should own a few.

Now, third on the list of Leslie Is Rediscovering Her Roots is the fact that I'm contemplating introducing my children to the world of sports.

Currently, I'm reviewing the alphabet with Eli and the other day we did the letter "F". His little workbook had a picture of a football in it and I asked him what it was.

Ya'll, he did not know.

His eyes got big and he started to panic (he hates getting the answer wrong).

"It's a ball!"

"Yeah, but what kind of ball?"

"Ummm.... ummmm... an inflatable ball?"

"Do you know what kind of inflatable ball it is?"

"No"

"Well, guess."

"A basketball?" "A baseball?"

"It starts with the letter F".

"A fishball? A... a.... a...fanball? "A flowerball?"

Ya'll, I was stunned. I may have the only 5 year old in the entire United States of All That Is Good and Great America who cannot recognize a football - or even conjure up the word football - but can sing every word from every song on Josh Groban's entire Christmas CD.

Clearly, this calls for Early Childhood Intervention.

I contemplated signing him up for sports, but then visions of spending the next 7 years of Saturdays sitting on a fold out lawn chair on the sidelines of some field eating stale nachos and drinking tepid lemonade put me off the idea so fast you wouldn't believe it.

I think I'm going to have to buy myself a football and teach him how to throw it in the backyard.

Simeon, God Bless Him, is a fantastic father, but he is the least athletically inclined man I've ever met. He's more cultured than sporty. I mean, come on. He grew up a country that produced Shakespeare and Dickens and the Spice Girls. So I'll take care of the sporty things and leave the more refined, delicate, cultural lessons for Sim to tackle.

Such as teaching the kids how to make a really great cup of tea and how to hand roll their own cigarettes.

Now, football is HUGE in the south (or is it just Texas?) and the fact that I am acknowledging and actually contemplating buying a football means I'm one step closer to making my Daddy really proud of me.

And last but not least, I realized that I should be able to get back my "I'm a Proud Southerner" card after I watched Talladega Nights the other day and thought it was The.Funniest.Movie.Ever.

Ever.

I loved it. And that is huge for me. Huuuuuuuuuuge! I am much more of an indie film and foreign film lover. But I absolutely loved this movie.

My mom hated it. She found it incredibly offensive. But my dad loved it. Which means while most girls grow up to be like their mom, I'm slowly turning into my father.

Case in point...the other day, I actually told my 4 year old to come over and pull my finger.

Now, I didn't actually do anything because that would be gross and I'm much more refined than that. But the words pull my finger actually escaped from my lips.

Anyway, I loved the movie. I thought it was hysterical. Sim, however, was horrified that I found it so humorous. I think some of the American humor must've escaped him or something. In fact, he looked so horrified that you would have thought I'd just sprouted 16 heads and told him I wanted us to start watching WWE Smackdown.

I couldn't quite understand why I liked the movie so much. It just felt familiar to me.. like home.

And boy howdy, you should've seen Sim's face when I told him that. Clearly, I am not the woman he thought he'd married and I could practically see him doing mental math in his head to determine how much child support he'd have to pay if he started divorce proceedings.

So there you have it. I don't gag at the sound of country music. I understand that boy butts do look good in a pair of wranglers. My beloved birks are now held together by a mixture of gorilla glue and duct tape. I have at some point in the past 12 months used a string of bungee cords as a laundry line. I might -gasp! - buy a football. And I watched - and adored - Talladega Nights.

I may even see if I can find my old orange sateen "Von Erich Country" jacket for Nandini to wear when she gets a bit older.

Shoot, I might even take the kids to Pancho's so they can fight over raising the flag for another basket of sopapillas.

We might even buy a tetherball.

I am Southern. And I'm proud of it.