I’ve been a daughter for forty years.
I’ve been an older sister for thirty-nine years.
I’ve been a wife for eighteen years.
I’ve been a mother of boys for twelve years.
I’ve been living in this house for seven years.
I’ve the mother of a girl for three years.
I’ve been a blogger for two years.

I babysat.
I worked on a goat farm.
I picked and planted strawberries (my first “real job” when I was twelve.)
I worked at the “Nutt Hutt,” a natural food store.
I folded soft tacos and fried mexi-fries at Taco Time.
I typed college papers for money.
I worked in the cafeteria.
I was a nanny.
I worked for Heritage USA as a children’s ministries worker and then as a youth ministries intern.
I was a childcare worker at a health club.
I worked as a legal secretary.
I was the office manager/secretary for a social service organization that served widowed people.
I worked for Blue Cross in the customer service department.
I had a home daycare.
I transcribed legal documents.
I have been paid to write a time or two.

But I have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner, even though I assured myself at the grocery store on Saturday that I had a plan for each day this week. It’s 4:00 p.m. Do you know where what your dinner is?

I was about to conclude a long rambling post when my computer shut off again. Same time as last night.

The only thing I can salvage is this thought: I think Oprah is chubbier this season.

Oh. And this thought about the sixteen year old princesses featured on that MTV show “Sweet Sixteen,” a show which features the birthday parties for these spoiled brats. These girls need to be grabbed by the hair and forced to serve the less fortunate. They could serve meals to homeless people or read books to smelly, unruly, underprivileged children. I watched two episodes tonight while I put away laundry and ironed. I couldn’t look away from their complete self-absorption.

That’s all for tonight, lest more of my words disappear in a computer crash.

Tomorrow:
What I said to the lab tech when he asked what I do.
Why I hate cooking for my family.
Rain and weeds.
Songs I sang in the 70s and 80s.
(All ground I covered tonight in the post I lost.)

Last night, my computer began to spontaneously turn itself off. Over and over again. I was prepared for it to spontaneously combust, but it did not.

[This morning, my recalcitrant machine informed me, “The error was likely caused by an unrecoverable system hardware error. These errors are general in nature and can be caused by problems (such as overheating) with one or more of the following computer components:

Random Access Memory (RAM)
System board
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Power Supply

I doubt it. It’s probably just the avian flu and fifteen million of us will die by nightfall.]

Then, after retiring to bed at 11:30 p.m., I watched Ebert & Roeper and finally snapped off the light at midnight. I was mysteriously wide awake (worried about my dreadfully ill computer, sure) and nine minutes later, my 3-year old daughter who never wakes in the night, woke up crying.

Let’s just say it was a long night, featuring a whimpering child coughing in my face and hogging my bed. I gave her ibuprofen at 2:00 a.m. and then we slept until 7:00 a.m. She’s been talkative and cheerful all day. Me? Not so much.

We went to a wedding tonight. I sat in almost the back row, while my husband stood on the platform and conducted the ceremony. I am happy to report that everyone wore shoes.

My mother babysat and although my daughter was thrilled at the idea of Grandma coming to our house, she cried four times in the first hour we were gone. She didn’t nap well earlier today (if at all) and she has a little cold–my daughter, not my mother. I’m not sure who was happier to see me at 8:30 p.m. . . my mom or my little girl.

I saw a woman at the wedding wearing a poncho, much like that one Martha Stewart famously wore when she was released from prison. As far as I can tell, this is an ugly yarn blanket with a hole in it for the head. I can’t believe people are wearing these atrocities. When I was in third or fourth grade, my grandma crocheted me more than one shawl, which I wore to church with my cotton-polyester blend dresses and my white knit kneesocks. If you wore a blanket-like creation in your childhood, you should not wear it again. That’s why you will not find me wrapped up in a poncho or a shawl. Well, that and the ugly factor.

Also, what is the deal with wedding clothes? Not just the clothes the wedding party wears (halter necked gowns which bare shoulders should not be worn by just anyone, you know, especially, say, seven of your closest friends of all body types and sizes), but the clothes which are acceptable to wear to a wedding. I feel like I’m about eight hundred years old, but when did it become okay for women to wear pants to weddings? I wore a dress and pantyhose to the last wedding I attended, and as you may recall (if you have been lucky enough to follow all my utterly boring fascinating adventures, I stripped those pantyhose off in the bathroom at the reception. (Which sounds very exciting, except, I was alone and it was a matter of comfort versus agony.) I noticed then that many of the other women wore pants. Who is responsible for this fashion trend?

I don’t know, but I’d like to thank the woman responsible for my complete and utter comfort tonight. My black pants were quite comfortable and as it turns out, completely commonplace despite the fancy, hoity-toitiness of the wedding. I sipped champagne during the toast, I held a skewered strawberry, banana chunk and marshmallow under a fountain of chocolate and I asked the (retired) military wife next to me if they had children when they were stationed in St. Louis and she replied–to my utter shock–“We don’t have children.” (I’ve known this lovely couple for about five years.)

Someone, please, anyone, stop me from making small talk.

Just tonight, I came home to a comment from Krisco of this blog. Go see for yourself. She is one funny blogger!

The other morning at 4:45 a.m., my husband woke me to tell me he couldn’t sleep, so he was going to work early. He bragged later that he was at his desk by 6:00 a.m. Though the sun slips from the sky earlier and earlier, the days seem longer and longer around here. It doesn’t help when a certain someone keeps waking up early (alerting me to that fact) and when a certain someone else calls my name, “Mommy! Oh MOMmy!” before 7:00 a.m. and when a certain someone else stays up too late writing her blog and reading other blogs.

My 3-year old daughter is incessant, persistent, insistent. Bossy. And she talks, talks, talks. Last night, I had to take her with me to a meeting for school. She kept talking out loud during the meeting, so I would whisper to her, “Shhhh, be quiet.” And she’d retort, “No! You be quiet!” Sometimes, when I tell her, “Stop that!” she’ll say, “No! You stop that!” But usually, she scolds herself and says, “Don’t be mad at me, Mommy.”

My husband tells me that in ten years, he’ll be sitting in a recliner with a Pepsi and a bag of Doritoes, laughing at me and her. He says she is just like me, which is patently untrue because I was a docile, compliant, overachieving child. I never sassed my parents and if I talked in church, my mother would poke my head with her pointed fingernail. I kept my sassiness to myself. And it doesn’t count if you don’t say it out loud, does it? If your sarcasm and bitchiness is contained only in a thought bubble floating over your head, you are innocent, aren’t you?

(In seventh grade, at the beginning of a school year, I raised my hand in my homeroom class and challenged the teacher: “Why do we have to go over every single answer?” I was bored, bored, bored. The teacher sent me straight to the principal’s office for being such a rebellious troublemaker and the principal gave me a little lecture and I never raised my hand in class again. Good job, public school teachers! Way to handle the very bright girl who was bored with worksheets!)

My daughter is sweet. She adores babies and helps me in many ways–some helpful and some not. (Helpful–getting a diaper and the wipes from a diaper bag. Not helpful–“washing” dishes, leaving a puddle in the kitchen floor.) She seems to be very smart and knows the sounds of lots of her ABCs and has a sharp memory. I hope this trend continues because, so help me, if I have another Reluctant Student, I may resign.)

I went to Target tonight in search of activated charcoal, but they didn’t have it. (Pet store, here I come.) I need the charcoal for a science project. Anyway, when I returned at 10:00 p.m., as I was unloading the trunk while holding my keys, I accidentally pushed the panic button.

My car blared: HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! Nothing like announcing to the (quiet) neighborhood that I’m home. I’m unobtrusive like that.

What is it about having children that turns a rational adult (me) into a raving lunatic who acts like a child? Or at least wants to act like a child?

My Reluctant Student, the one the public school assessment team declared was “just a normal sixth grade boy” continues to push me right to the edge. Sunday night, I literally forgot all about watching “Grey’s Anatomy” because I was busy organizing the school work for the week. I printed out a list, I ripped the necessary pages for each subject out of the book, highlighted the parts I required done, stapled them together, put everything in labeled folders for each day of the week which fit neatly into a binder. I put Post-it notes on pages to explain when further explanation was needed. (To this point, they’d been referring to the online schedule each day and working directly out of their individual student guides.)

All this to avoid the problem I was having with the boys not completing each day’s assignments on each day. When they don’t, the assignment is automatically rescheduled for the next day by the computer and pretty soon, the work that should have been done this week has been pushed to next week. I figured if the day’s work was waiting in a folder, they would work through it, one subject at a time and I’d easily be able to tell what was left undone. That’s what I would do, after all, if I were the student.

The Reluctant Student spent the first hour this morning working (and I use that word loosely) on an art assignment. Then he spent forty-five minutes holding his literature book while demanding to be allowed to do his literature in another room with his brother. I refused, so he yelled and shuffled his papers and tossed them across the table and then declared that this system doesn’t work and how can he possibly do his work when it’s so confusing? All this in an effort to avoid doing the writing portion of his literature assignment, which lies abandoned on the table.

The Reluctant (non-sequential) Student decided to do math instead, so off he went to the computer to do his “Study Skills Update.” I sneaked into the doorway to watch and the first problem popped up. He clicked on his keyboard to enable the calculator feature. I startled him when I said, “What are you doing?” He was annoyed that I wouldn’t let him use the calculator to work on the math skills exercise.

When he flopped back to the table, he began to fret and whine and carry on. He criticized the system of folders and blabbed on and on and on. Inside my head, I’m thinking, I am not speaking to him anymore today. But the provocation finally led me to scoot my daughter off my lap and stride into the kitchen. When he said, “I just want to work out of the books!” I made his dreams come true. I taped the math pages right back into his book and I did so with fuming righteous indignation. Then came the last straw.

He asked if I had activated charcoal, a required element for our science experiment. I don’t. I haven’t been able to get to the store to buy that ingredient, so the science lesson has been postponed more than once. When I said, “No,” he began to whine, so I saved him from the next step, which was the fit. Sacrificing myself, I threw myself (gently, I am forty) to the floor, where I kicked and flailed my arms and did a fake cry. I thought a little exaggeration would be funny. He did not laugh because he has no sense of humor.

I picked myself up, dusted myself off and told him in no uncertain terms that I reached my limit, that he pushed me to the edge and that I would no longer be dealing with him today. “So, get to work!” Then he cried, as he usually does when he’s made me furious.

I was panting when I reached my bedroom. I took out my frustration on my sheets and made the bed. Then I sprawled out, face-down and explained to God that I can’t possibly meet the needs of this child. I stayed there until I could breath normally and the urge to rip up papers and snap pencils in two passed.

When I returned downstairs, he was quick to apologize. I directed him back to his math and sat with him to verbally correct each one he did wrong (the majority). He was told to do his assessment, but he’s disappeared into the living room again.

Because I am mean, I said to his brother, who was on his stomach playing with the cat (ostensibly, he was practicing his speech), “Hey, when your brother goes back to public school, do you want to still do school-at-home?” He looked at me, wide-eyed, aghast. I winked. Then, without skipping another beat, he said, “Yes.”

A few minutes later, a pitiful voice floated out from the living room. “But I don’t want to go to public school!”

And I said firmly, “Then get to work.”

I am so fancy. Tonight at 6:00 p.m., my colorist came to my house to touch up my highlights. I have a personal colorist! Who does housecalls! As well as a personal veterinarian! Who does housecalls! What’s next? A personal chef? A maid? Someone whose sole purpose in life is to give me pedicures?

My colorist also gave haircuts to my three boys, so we all look quite dandy.

But here’s the weird thing. Tell me if I am judgmental. You will, won’t you? (Snicker, wink, giggle, hardy-har-har.) I noticed this last time, too. The colorist wears an earphone in one ear and listens to AM radio while working on my hair. Last time, I was puzzled at first, by how quiet she was. Then I realized she was listening to her ear. This time, I again noticed and thought, how rude. Don’t you think it’s rude to be covertly listening to talk radio while you are working on someone’s hair? It would be different if we were both listening to the radio, but for her to listen in her ear? I can hear the buzz of voices and I’m not blind. I could see the ear thingie. (That’s a technical term.)

I thought it was odd. And unprofessional.

However, she charges only $50.00 for a really nice highlight and $10 for each haircut, so who am I, Miss Manners?

While she was here, she commented on my kids’ good behavior and I thought, well, if you were here a little earlier, you, too, could have enjoyed the drama of one kid stealing the computer mouse from another kid and the ensuing attempted strangling.

(Edited to add: The colorist has been doing my hair for five or six years. She’s always been extremely chatty, probably to a fault. This is a new thing, this radio earpiece. In a salon, I prefer a quiet stylist–I like a grocery checker who concentrates on her work, too, without making small-talk–but when someone’s in your home, working on your hair, someone you’ve known for a fairly long time . . . if she’d said, “Hey, do you mind if I listen to the radio in an earpiece?” I would have said, “No problem!”

Would it be all right if your doctor had an earpiece in, listening to talk radio while examining you? Or a chiropractor? Or the manicurist or grocery store checker?)

Roy the Stupid Cat peed on my leg tonight as I was attempting to hold him for the vet (who makes housecalls). When I felt the warm wetness on my jeans, I dropped the cat and yelled and stomped upstairs. Stupid cat!

The vet, my calm friend of twenty-plus years, said that peeing is the cat’s last defense.

But I didn’t hate Roy the Stupid Cat any less.

While I found clean pants, my vet friend quietly moved aside my son’s bed to get at the cat and managed to pry her (yes, Roy the Stupid Cat is a female) mouth open and pop the pill in. My vet friend rocks.

After all the drama, we ate Mexican food and compared stories of our dad’s deaths and funerals and wondered how it can be possible that we are forty. Then we promised not to wait another year before getting together again.

And when I got home, my husband was cleaning up cat poop and cat vomit and hating cats in general almost as much as I hate Roy the Stupid Cat specifically. Stupid cat.

(Edited to add: We have three cats. They all needed their routine vaccinations and flea treatments and *blech* as it turned out, pills for tapeworms.)

Last night, at midnight, I sat here composing a post while half-watching Steve Carrell on Saturday Night Live. I had just clicked “publish” when the television picture turned into static. A moment later, it occurred to me that my computer is connected to the same cable as my television.

Which explains why last night’s post vanished.

Well, it wasn’t that exciting anyway. Yesterday, my husband worked all day. I lingered in bed until 10:00 a.m., which is a feat in itself when you consider that I have a three year old who woke up early and spent her morning begging me for goldfish crackers and donuts and jumping on my back. Somehow, I kept drifing back to sleep, over and over until I was shocked into full consciousness when she began to scream.

Her brother had come up to ask me if Dad was getting donuts. (“No,” he’s working.) Then he saw his sister in the bathroom, so he peeked in and grabbed the yo-yo she’s been playing with for a day or so. She responded with an outraged sob and was so hysterical that I immediately checked for blood, bones poking through her skin, and missing teeth. She was fine, just furious and her clothes were on backwards.

When my husband returned from preaching the funeral and working on his sermon at 5:30 p.m., I exited stage left. I attempted to run two errands (both places closed), bought one Christmas present at Toys R Us, then went to a movie which was as sweet, cute and substantial as a cupcake. (Any guesses?)

Afterwards, I went to the grocery store. The sheer number of fellow shoppers surprised me. I even had to wait in line–on a Saturday night at 10:30 p.m.! I was home by 11:00 p.m.

And that’s how I spent my Saturday.

I have been sentenced to spend this afternoon at Chuck E Cheese’s. My son’s entire second-grade class was invited to a birthday party. I wonder if I could be completely anti-social if I pretended not to speak English?