The school nurse called me this morning at 10:18 a.m., to inform me that my son was in her office with a temperature of 100.8, a cough, and a headache and would I please pick him up?

You’d think I’d sent him to school with the Bubonic Plague. It was a just headache treated by ibuprofen when I sent him at 9 a.m.–and he wanted to go to school! He just didn’t think he could handle recess, so he ended up being sent to the office where the nurse got him.

He’s still ill with what seems to be a virus, though for five minutes this afternoon I was absolutely convinced it was probably meningitis, the only question being: viral or bacterial and would he lose his limbs?

I thought tonight for a second, “I just can’t do this,” and then I had this whole conversation in my head about how you don’t really get a choice about continuing your current direction when you are in the midst of life. Not if you have kids, anyway, and common sense. And summer will eventually arrive, right? Summer means no more school lessons and the possibility that I will catch up on my laundry.

Why do all the light bulbs burn out at the same time? I have no overhead light in my family room, no light in my laundry room and no exterior lights in two of my light fixtures. And no bulbs because I am just not that good at being a homemaker.

Last week, someone from church called exactly at 6:00 p.m. and said, “Oh, wait, did I catch you at dinnertime?” and I said, without pause, “No, but you would have if I were a better mother.” She laughed, but I was not joking.

Pretend it’s not actually 12:05 a.m. That way I can talk about what happened five years ago today and we can all agree that I mean Tuesday, February 28.

Do you know what happened five years ago today? Anyone? Anyone?

That’s right! The Nisqually Earthquake, magnitude 6.8 on the Richter scale shook our house and caused me to run upstairs to my son, instead of crawling under a sturdy piece of furniture as I suppose I should have. My son, then barely three years old, had been playing “Yoshi” on Nintendo 64 and frankly, couldn’t have cared less about the shaking of our house. I felt like I was in a snowglobe and not in a good way.

But nothing broke and that crack in the ceiling? We ignore it. Perhaps it was there before, right? Normal house settling and all.

Also, today is Fat Tuesday (as well call it in Seattle) or Mardi Gras. Last hurrah before Lent and everything. I did not grow up around the Lenten traditions and the first time I saw ash smudged on foreheads when I was a new bride living in New Haven, Connecticut, I eyed people curiously. Growing up in a Pentecostal tradition means you lack liturgical observances. Sure, people would hoop and holler in church and once, I saw a group of people trying to cast a demon out of a girl who was simply having an epileptic seizure, but no one ever mentioned Lent. Or Ash Wednedsay. (Or Fat Tuesday, of course, because everyone knows that drinking alcohol is a sin if you are a Pentecostal Christian, at least it was in the old days.)

So I enter the season of Lent without any preparation or plans. I regret that, too. I wish my life were more measured and solemn and observant. And I wish I got out of the house alone more often and I wish I had more Diet Coke with Lime and I wish it were not so late. I wish I were not so distracted and I wish I hadn’t waited until the last minute to do my little writing assignment because I missed watching the last half of “American Idol.” I wish I knew what to make for dinner tomorrow and I wish the taxes were already done.

And just because I want to make a note of it, I have to tell you that my husband and I were laughing over the fact that four cars sit in our driveway tonight. The one that drives the best doesn’t even belong to us and it has over 250,000 miles on it. That says something, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does. It says “L-O-S-E-R-S.”

[But at least we don’t have a baby rat in our house. Read this and laugh!]

This reentry week has been difficult in many ways. The transition from the roar of the ocean to the roar of children arguing has made me squint and yell. I’ve been ignoring the increasing soreness in my throat. I can’t seem to keep the dishes all washed and the kitchen clean for even thirty minutes at a time.

Tonight, I am up too late, watching Olympic figure skating and cringing when Sasha Cohen fell on a couple of her jumps. She won the silver, but still. How devastating.

My daughter has been wearing old swimsuits for the past three days. She’s even wearing one to bed at night and switching into different ones throughout the day. I cannot understand this. Yesterday, she played in the backyard in this crazy outfit–a swimsuit and sneakers–no jacket, no coat, no hat in the nippy February air.

Oh! Tonight, my son told me he was a fun boy. I said, “Are you one hundred percent fun?” and he said, “No. Seventy-five percent.” Yesterday, when I begged him not to grow up (his 8th birthday is Sunday), he said, “Mom, it’s the law of physics!”

So it goes. The kids keep growing up and I can’t stand to lose them and I can’t wait to push them out the door.

I took each of the following photographs at Long Beach, Washington, last weekend, using my trusty pocket Olympus (because I haven’t figured out the intricacies of the Canon Rebel someone gave me).

I had my day completely planned, but strong winds blew my plans away! The trees fell on my neighbor’s homes (no joke) but not mine. Still, the weather disrupted everything today.

I’ll be gone for a few days, heading to Long Beach, Washington, again, with five other moms. My children have made it possible for me to not miss them one bit by being loud and messy and particularly annoying during the seven hours in which we had no electricity. Good times.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Be good. And if you can’t be good, be careful.

While I sat here at my desk, my daughter crawled beneath it on a hunting expedition. She pulled up a plastic dolly she usually plays with in the bath, a Barbie from McDonald’s, a perfectly sharpened Ticonderoga pencil (the only brand worth buying), a piece of a wooden zucchini from the velcro set, a plastic hairbrush, my NIV Bible, a calendar, an old photograph, foil wrappers from Hershey’s kisses (how’d that get there?) and more. I really had no idea a hidden treasure trove existed under there.

My daughter started using the phrase “okey-dokey” yesterday. When I ask her or tell her something now, she sings, “Okey-dokey!” sometimes adding the rhyming “pokey” or “smokey.” I’ve been using this phrase with my kids for years and years and years and this is the first time anyone has caught on and played along.

Finally, I just remembered something from a few hours ago. My kids received Valentine cards from their out-of-town relatives. I had the boys immediately write thank-you notes because otherwise, it would never get done. I had my 3-year old daughter draw a picture of herself on her card. She scrawled a circle, added some eyes, eyeballs, legs, arms, a mess of hair and then finally, a “vul-va.”

I hope her grandparents don’t ask what “that” is. I’m not sure they’ve ever used that word out loud.

I uncovered this in my storage-room clean-up last weekend, and so, while I type, my daughter is behind me, pressing buttons, switching from one Mozart tune to the next.

Meanwhile, one of my sons watches Cartoon Network while his twin plays on the other computer. My third son is at school for another thirty-minutes. And the two babies are sleeping. In the distance, the clothes dryer squeaks with every revolution.

My daughter keeps asking, “Can I watch the glue dry?” This morning, we cut out a red construction paper heart and wrote a message for daddy in glitter glue. She climbs onto the table to watch the glue dry from time to time. I think we’ll make heart-shaped sugar cookies soon.

I declared today an official sick day so we didn’t do any school work. My daughter woke up screaming at 4:44 a.m. She sobbed, “I am so sick!” but went back to sleep after a trip to the bathroom and a few minutes of rocking. I, however, struggled to fall back to sleep as I am suffering from cold symptoms myself.

And the two babies have snotty noses and I knew everyone would want attention and rocking. So, no school. The boys made their own Valentine hearts while I rocked with my daughter and one of the babies.

I must note that we have blue skies and sunshine today. Also, the purple crocuses and one yellow crocus are blooming. How I love the reliable surprise of spring bulbs. Oh! And while I stood at the kitchen sink, a raccoon waddled across my small back yard in plain view.

I remembered another Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s Day, 1996, my twin boys had chicken pox. The worst symptoms had passed, but on that day, they were pockmarked and spotted and horrific. I tried to find a picture that wasn’t already fastened into a scrapbook, but I was unsuccessful. I did, however, find a lot of unorganized photos which made my head sort of explode. I intend to spend my evening sorting and organizing pictures and wondering why I wasn’t thankful for being young when I was young.

Incidentally, I have always had a warm spot in my heart for Roseanne,yes, that Roseanne, mostly because my dad thought she was funny (way back in the stand-up days, before her show). And she was funny. I remember the line about why men think women can find things because, “Like, they think the uterus is a tracking device.” But this “Rockin’ With Roseanne” DVD made for children scares me. All that based on some clips I saw while she was making the talk-show rounds.

You know me. I like to share the judgmentalism whenever I can. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.

The sun shines today in Western Washington. Glory be!

(Picture is of North Cascades – Newhalem, WA– courtesy of webcam located here.)

(By the way, my statcounter at the very bottom of this page indicates that I’m reaching the magic 100,000 mark–I took a picture of it at 99,273. If you happen to be my 100,000th visitor, save a picture of the statcounter and let me know.)Update: You have to scroll way, way, way down to see the actual statcounter. Sorry about the confusion!

Some have cried out in dismay about my stance on Valentine’s Day. You’ll notice that I didn’t say I don’t bake heart-shaped cookies and put up a few decorations and teach the little ones how to cut out hearts. I just don’t need a big production for my own benefit. That said, I do my best to notice and celebrate the holidays as they rush toward me.

I really don’t need or want a giddy celebration of Mother’s Day, either. I tell you–I’m low-maintenance and unimpressed with the demands of society which tell me I must celebrate in a certain way on a certain day or else be branded a curmudgeon. Or a bad mother.

Don’t you wish you could live here, too?