Month: October 2004

Is That a Tootise Roll? (Or: Don’t Step on the Poop!)

My husband, The Pastor, is sick. He has a cold and has taken to our bed (actually my side of our king-sized bed because it has a better view of the television). Yesterday, he rested most of the day and this morning, he nearly didn’t go to church. As chance (?) would have it, he didn’t have to preach this morning, so he went, faked it and came home, back to bed. I stayed home with all the kids because Babygirl is recovering from her cold and sounds like she is coughing up a lung and her spleen, too.

Meanwhile, I’d invited my sister and her family over for an early dinner and trick-or-treating. This obviously meant that I had to clean off my dresser and pick up all the books scattered on YoungestBoy’s floor. All the toilets needed scrubbing, all the floors had to be vacuumed. The piles of laundry had to be washed and the dishes had to be put away. I had to cook. I had to bake homemade butter cut-out cookies shaped like pumpkins. I was nearly finished mixing the dough (which had to chill for one hour), when I realized I was a quarter cup short of flour.

Please. Why don’t I plan ahead? Check ingredients? Miss Huson, my seventh grade home-economics teacher, would be so disappointed in me. So, I joind a bunch of other people who do not plan ahead at the grocery store this afternoon.

I did have a slow start this morning, but then I worked all day (hello? Day of Rest? Where is my Day of Rest?). How can a medium sized house with only four children and three cats and one husband degenerate so quickly? If only the Second Law of Thermodynamics (The “Law of Disorder”) hadn’t been debunked with statements like this: A typically erroneous quote from a high school chem text is: “The law of disorder states that things move spontaneously in the direction of maximum chaos or disorder.” First of all, there is no such law of disorder for things. But the worst here is how the sentence misleads students about things moving by themselves when the author puts in that word “spontaneously”. That defeats understanding of how the second law works. Molecules tend to become random spontaneously by themselves, but things do NOT.

For one glorious moment, I thought the Second Law explained everything! The reason for scattered socks! For crumbs on the floor! The disintegration of anything resembling order in this house.

I put the boys to work cleaning and running the vacuum cleaner. Everything did come together–even with the unplanned grocery store excursion. My sister and her family were an hour and a half late (typical!) which I had anticipated, so when they arrived, it was 4:30 p.m. and just about time to eat tacos.

I had originally intended to leave Babygirl home with my husband, but since he wasn’t feeling well, I took her trick-or-treating, too. She was enthusiastic about the idea of going outside in the dark. Since the moon eclipse, she wants to go into the night every night.

I dressed her as a Seahawks cheerleader, completely with homemade pom-poms (made from yarn). She even let me put yarn ribbons in her hair. Her pink coat covered her costume, but I took pictures of her first, which really is all that matters. YoungestBoy went as “Flame,” an alter-ego he created himself. He had a black cape with “FLAME” in prominent yellow felt letters. Most importantly, he had red hair, thanks to red hair gel.

We live on a circle, so we hurried from house to house. Babygirl is a cautious soul and has refused to be held by another adult since she was three months old. She scares easily. But not tonight! Tonight she jogged in the dark streets and even went into some homes to snatch candy from their over-sized bowls. She said “trick-or-treat” when we were in the street and then at the doorsteps, she just said “Pleeeease!” And then “thanks!” The people in our circle are generous because we don’t have many trick-or-treaters, so they gave the kids handfuls of candy.

When we came home, we stood for a moment in the doorway, Babygirl and I, and I caught a glimpse of a chocolate colored mound in the entryway. I said to no one in particular, “Is that cat poop?”

Our mutant cats occasionally leave a random log of waste . . . it’s as if it sticks to their posteriors like some kind of stinky velcro and then falls off. I didn’t really think it was poop, but then TwinBoyA said, “Yes!” And I said, “Get me a tissue!”

Then I stood guard, holding Babygirl. The kids–my three boys and their two cousins–were high on the excitement of full candy buckets. They were circling around like vultures, scurrying like ants carrying a giant grasshopper corpse and then YoungestBoy stepped up to me and said, “Look, Mom!” And I said, “No, no, no, no, don’t M O V E!” And then, “NO NO NO NO NO NO! I SAID D O N ‘ T MOVE!”

And then he pranced, mushing that cat poop into about five different spots which I hollered, “WHERE IS THAT TISSUE!” I keep a tissue box as mere six feet from the front door and TwinBoyA had been gone for a long, long time, much longer than necessary. I didn’t dare grab a tissue myself because I was guarding the cat poop–and doing a–excuse me, I can’t resist–a crappy job of it.

My husband crawled out of his sick bed and came downstairs to see why I was yelling. I explained that there was CAT POOP all over now and I was waiting for a tissue–and here TwinBoyA calmly walked up and handed me a measly wad of toilet paper–not a tissue, as I had requested–and I made some kind of gutteral animal noise of disgust and horror and pain.

Then I took the smelly cat-poopy shoes to the bathroom and scraped them and cleaned them and rolled my eyes. I cleaned the carpet (yes, carpet in entry way, how stupid, huh?).

When I went upstairs, my husband said, “Are you finished yelling?” And I said, “You would have yelled, too!” He denied that. I contend that it’s only natural–and right–to yell when you have kids milling about a live grenade “cat deposit” and when you can see with x-ray vision that someone will STEP IN IT and the universe holds its breath for just a second while it waits for you to intervene. Yelling is a perfectly appropriate response.

You try it. And let me know if you yell. Place a chocolate-colored roll of cat poop in your entryway as five children stomp about and the doorbell rings and you are holding a two year old and a candy bucket and then let me know if you YELL when someone steps in it and grinds it into the carpet five times before he stands still while you wait for a tissue which should have arrived in seconds, not minutes.

Yeah. See? I’m right again.

And thus ends another Day of Rest. Bring on the week! I’m so refreshed.

Out To Dinner

Last night, we had dinner with two other couples at someone’s house. Everyone was older than me and, in fact, it seemed that one of the men has had nine lives. Each story began with a different description, like “My roommate at Dallas Seminary . . . ” Or “When I lived in New England . . . ” Or “Back in Seattle . . .”

I felt so completely beige, as if I had nothing interesting to say because I’ve had no interesting experiences (which is not true, not really, but “interesting” is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?). And when you are a mother who stays home and takes care of her children, people assume you are a blank, dusty chalkboard. Sometimes you are, but I like to think there is more to me than fixing grilled cheese sandwiches and refereeing fights over Nintendo.

Fortunately, I have a stock answer to the question he asked: “What is your favorite movie?”** And I hated both of his favorite movies (“Somewhere in Time” and “Chariots of Fire”), but I wisely kept my mouth shut.

The conversation was lively and soon we’d spent three hours chatting and so my husband abruptly said, “Oh my, it’s 11 p.m., we must get home to our babysitter.” And we all left at once since we rode in the fancy-schmancy vehicle belonging to our dinner companions.

Tonight, I went to dinner with three women friends from church. I was by far the oldest at this dinner. I could be the mother of one of the women, in fact, if I’d had a child while I was a teen. Because I have a two year old, I find myself rubbing shoulders with other mothers of two year olds, but they are usually more than ten years my junior. I am so haggard and aged.

I asked S., “How long have you been married?” And she said, “Ten years.” D. has been married seven years, and A., a mere one year. I’ve been married seventeen years. That’s a long time.

After dinner, I ran a few errands and ended up shivering at the local outdoor produce store, searching for a pumpkin to carve. From the road, it looked like there were a bunch of pumpkins, but upon closer inspection, they were all rotten and cracked and mushy. I had neglected pumpkin hunting earlier, so I settled on two medium white pumpkins and one oblong orange pumpkin. The pickings were mighty slim, which is what happens if you wait until October 30th to find a pumpkin. Lesson learned.

We may or may not go to church tomorrow. Babygirl is recovering from a sudden and vicious cold. I think she’ll be all right, but you never know. But this is my favorite night of the year, better than Christmas Eve! It’s the night we get an extra hour of sleep . . . or in my case, an extra hour to read! (Now, please, someone send the memo to my children. They usually fail to observe the “extra hour of sleep” rule and just get up at the regular time (which is now an hour earlier!).

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**My favorite movie? “Schindler’s List,” which is profound on so many levels. I love the story of redemption it tells.

Show Me the Money

At this very moment, I have four extra kids in my house. All four of them have working mothers.

The neighbor boys are always here, unlelss they are at daycare. I found out their daycare provider is a the same woman who always brings ten kids to our church’s summer program–which on one hand, is great. On the other, critical, pessimistic hand, I calculated that she is making an estimated $70.00 for each day they are at our program. And our program is free, so she’s earning at least $350.00 that week while doing nothing at all.

The other boys who are here today have a working mother, too. She pays her nanny $10.00 an hour. That means, her nanny is earning at least $20.00 while I am watching her kids.

How is this fair?

Signed,
The Big Whiner

Tell Me More! Tell Me More!

At 5:40 p.m., I was hunched into a small, blue, first-grader-sized chair. Next to me, Miss B. sat quite comfortably. She is the first-grade teacher, a small woman with a quick smile and teeny-tiny little hands that reminded me of my college roommate. (My college roommate was 4 feet 10 inches tall and wore a size 3 shoe. I am 5 feet 7 inches tall and there’s nothing size 3 about me.)

Miss B. began by telling me what a joy it is to have YoungestBoy in her class. She told me how once, at the beginning of the school year, she found him disoriented in the hallway, lost. She reminded him where the room was and he laughed and said, “Oh yeah! Short term memory loss.” We both laughed out loud.

Then she pulled out a paper which listed an assessment of his knowledge so far. He excells in every area–except penmanship. He needs to work on that. But today, he received a Student of the Month award for “Amazing Writing.” He loves math and shows an unbelievable aptitude for numbers.

All too soon, it was over and she asked if I had any questions. I didn’t. But I wanted to clutch her half-sized hand and beg her to tell me more about my brilliant, darling son. I wanted to sit on that little chair and compare stories and discuss his cuteness, his charm, his unintentionally hilarious comments. I told her one story about last Friday. I’d rented a video game for him the night before, so Friday morning he came to me and said, “Mom. My nose is stuffy. And (small fake cough) I think I should stay home.” I said, “Really?” and kind of laughed and he said, “Okay. Well, that cough was fake.”

I told Miss B. that I’ve come to the conclusion that if I only had YoungestBoy, I would be a smug parent, a condescending parent, one of those mothers who thinks she is the reason her child is so . . . everything.

But, I have the twins, and they have challenged me every step along the way. They hate to write, their handwriting is illegible, they dragged their feet through every grade. The other day, they actually came to blows over Play-doh. They are average. Average is all right, but average is not perfect. And that’s okay. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

If I only had YoungestBoy, I would claim credit for him. But I have his brothers. They keep me humble, while he buoys my spirits.

And it’s not all about me, anyway. My job is to keep them safe, to nourish them, inside and out, and to help them reach their potential. Sounds simple, right? If only.

I sometimes think I’m the only mother who looks around at the bedlam and the mess and thinks, Am I doing all right? Is this how it’s done? Have I ruined my children already? Is it too late? Why did I ever think I would be good at this? Would they be better off without me? Sometimes I long for the days when I worked for Blue Cross–at least then, I got a regular job review and a raise. I could measure my productivity against the company standards. At the end of the day, I could walk out to my car and not look back. Of course, back then I was a clock-watcher and I yearned for the days I have now.

I just thought I’d have perfect children who would love to play checkers (without fighting) and read by the fireplace and sit quietly at the dinner table where they’d eat brussel sprouts and discuss scripture verses. I thought they’d be darling marionettes and I’d be the master puppeteer, handling all those strings without ever getting tangled.

It turns out that life can’t exactly be planned, children are individuals, not accessories, and the kitchen counter will always attract stacks of paper. And that’s okay. As long as some of those papers have YoungestBoy’s name on them and a shining star from his teacher to show that she is extremely impressed. (He’s mine! I gave birth to him! Isn’t he sweet?!)

Lunar Eclipse

At 6:45 p.m., I said to my mother in the kitchen, “We have to go check the moon.” And I snatched up Babygirl and we hurried outside. When I saw that the moon was partly obscured by a shadow, I ran back down the driveway and alerted the boys so they, too, could see the last lunar eclipse until 2007.

We stood in the street and watched the shadow creep so slowly across the nearly full moon. Babygirl was not content to sit on my hip, but wanted down. Disregarded good sense, I placed her on the street and she toddled off in her footy-pajamas to peer at the moon from a closer vantage point.

The boys sat in kitchen chairs they’d carted outside. They kept up a steady, inane chatter. Behind us, the twin girls who are seniors in high school snapped photographs and the flash illuminated the shrubs and probably our backsides, too.

When the moon was fully engulfed by the shadow of the earth, we waved bye-bye and went back inside where we warmed our noses and toes. Except for me. My toes stayed perfectly toasty in my black scuffs, which are perfectly acceptable to wear in the street while watching a lunar eclipse. Trust me. I know.

I Missed the Memo About Pink Scuffs

A few weeks ago, I herded my kids into the car to go to the bank and realized a few miles down the road that I was still wearing my black suede scuffs, a distant cousin of the house-slipper. They are all cozy and lined with something a sheep probably lost its life over. I wear them all day to keep my feet warm and my socks dry. But when I leave the house, I change into actual shoes with laces. It seems only right.

But maybe not.

Apparently, it has become acceptable to wear slippers in public. Did I miss a memorandum or something? Last night, I stood in line at the video store behind a woman in scuffs that appeared to be crocheted out of pink yarn. In walked another young woman wearing hot pink leopard print plush scuffs (paired with some clown-like spandex–we all turned to watch as she sauntered by). In Target the other night, I saw another pair of slippers–and not in the shoe department, either, but on a harried-looking woman’s feet.

Is it just here? Is it just me? Or are people everywhere throwing caution to the wind and wearing their slippers in public? What’s next? Pajamas?

If you see a woman in a battered, lilac-colored robe with gigantic pockets full of tissues, that would be me. Testing the new boundaries of fashion. Check out my slippers! They almost look like shoes!

About the Socks. And a Little About Trains.

Marguerite wants to know what is holding the socks onto the fireplace eight feet up. Good question.

My boys have discovered that cloth will cling to the fireplace bricks–kind of a velcro effect. They also figured out that the teeny-beeny-baby snake will also stick and have spent many happy moments flinging that snake at the fireplace wall.

Today was my husband’s day off and I was truly jealous gratified to see him sleep in and laze around until 10:00 a.m. At that point, he came downstairs showered and bright-eyed and announced he’d be leaving to run errands. I gave him film to develop and TwinBoyB’s broken glasses so he could see if Costco could fix them. (They could not.)

I kept the coughing and sneezing YoungestBoy home from school today. The twins worked extremely hard on their math assessment and then worked even harder on their writing. I gave the toddlers Brio train tracks and trains to occupy them. They hadn’t seen them before, so this tactic was good for about twenty minutes of peace. The phone rang. And rang again. I have never been so relieved to lay down with Babygirl for her nap as I was today. Schooling kids, feeding kids, doing laundry for kids and trying to get kids to pay attention is wearing me out. Especially because I must stay up until midnight reading Jane Smiley’s Good Faith. (Jane Smiley is a genius and worth losing sleep over.)

Then, the phone rang twice, the doorbell rang twice and my husband peeked in to tell me that the newspaper delivery-girl was at the door and needed a check and someone please explain to me why the newspaper can’t seem to get my subscription information correct. I WANT TO PAY BY MAIL! I switched places with my husband, so he tricked Babygirl into finally falling asleep and then I discovered DaycareKid was softly crying as if his heart was broken. I paid the newspaper-girl, held DaycareKid awhile and then convinced him to sleep.

My husband had teased me with the tantalizing prospect of leaving the house for a bit when the toddlers napped, but as it happened, it took Babygirl so long to finally fall asleep that I ran out of time. At 2:45 p.m., I was sitting with my twins in a conference room with their “mentor teacher”, a man with copper hair on his arms, dull copper and gray hair on his head and a beard that reminds me of my dad. He’s a coach and science teacher and thwarted writer. He tends to go off on many tangents, which causes my boys to go off on many tangents, which causes me to wish I had my novel in my bag so I could open and read at such times. Today, at least twice I had to stop myself from breaking eye contact to dig in my purse for my cell phone so I could check the time.

I wanted to go to the library before returning home, but it was too late.

I am becoming convinced that TwinBoyB has some kind of neurological processing disorder. He’s a smart boy, but his work does not reflect that. In addition to that, my boys require so much direct supervision. If I am not monitoring every move, they revert to smacking each other or sword-fighting with pencils. They can’t stay on task. If they were a train, they would be forever falling off the tracks, spilling hazardous chemicals and shutting down neighborhoods.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is a photograph of our three mutant cats, enjoying the view from our hideous hand-me-down-couch.  Posted by Hello