This morning I did not have to get up and be ready by 7:15 a.m. because my DaycareKid’s mom has the day off. When my husband nudged me at 7:18 a.m. and asked if I wanted to shower before Babygirl awoke, I mumbled, “No.” And that’s how I ended up half-asleep in bed until 8:15 a.m. when Babygirl called out.

When I got her up, I decided I’d take the kids and do the grocery store run I didn’t manage last night because the movie I saw (“Ray”) went on and on and on and on and by then the grocery store was closed.

By 10:30 a.m., I was finally showered and ready. Babygirl was dressed with her jacket and shoes on and the phone rang. While I was on the phone, cutting out a coupon for ham, Babygirl came running through the kitchen saying, “I NEED TO PEE!” I could see that she already had peed, judging from the looks of her pants. She rarely has accidents, but when a mom is trying go move the troops out the door, these things happen.

By the time I finished my phone call, changed her clothes, folded a load of laundry, put laundry into the dryer, and fed and watered the cats, it was 11:00 a.m. So much for my quick, first-thing-in-the-morning grocery run. I’d also decided we should buy the twins new shoes since their old shoes are so raggedy.

First, the bank.
Second, the shoe store. We discovered the boys are now wearing men’s shoes, not boys’ shoes. We end up with more expensive shoes than I had hoped for–my boys shoes cost more than I’d ever spend on my own shoes. The experience frustrated me because all the kids kept wandering away from me while I contemplated sizes and prices. Then a helpful sales associate came to help, but freaked out Babygirl (she is generally afraid of people), so then I had to hold Babygirl as I circled the shelves full of shoes. When we left, Babygirl insisted on carrying the bag, which was too heavy for her to lift, so she cried.

She cried the “I need a nap very soon” cry and I aborted my attempt to grocery shop with four children. Instead, we went to a drive-thru and got lunch and came home.

So, I still have some final shopping to do tonight, right after the Christmas pageant practice.

As I sat here typing, YoungestBoy strolled by and said, “Hey, Mom.” I said, “Yes?” He said, “I found a dime in my underpants.” I said, “You did, huh?” He said, “Yes, and now it smells like my butt.”

I never ever thought I’d tell a child to go wash a dime with soap, but I did.

Having kids is nothing like I imagined. Now you know why your mother told you to never put coins in your mouth.

Early last night, while I was spinning around in the kitchen trying to get dinner prepared, the phone rang.

The woman identified herself, “Hi, I’m Military Wife’s mom.” I caught my breath. Her son-in-law, the Military Guy Down the Street, is stationed in Mosul. The woman hurried on to say that her daughter, Military Wife (also a West Point educated soldier herself) was in the hospital with an infection, probably caused by the intravenous line she had during childbirth a month or so ago. She needs continuous antibiotics for a few days to combat the infection.

The woman flew out to care for the month old grandson while Military Mom is in the hospital.

And, she said, Military Guy called yesterday and he’s fine.

Then I breathed again. He’s fine. He wasn’t killed in the attack on the mess tent in Mosul. What a relief to all of us who know this brave little military family.

And yet, someone got a phone call yesterday with horrible news, with the worst ever news. And for those people, my heart aches. It’s odd to feel relief that it was no one we know, yet sorrow for those we didn’t know.

Last night, while my husband was visiting Military Mom in the hospital, my phone rang again. This time, a church man called to let me know that another church man had died a few minutes earlier. My husband had seen the dying man that morning and told me he thought he didn’t have much longer to live. The breathing pattern of a dying person is distinctive and over the years, my husband has become familiar with that labored breathing.

Death doesn’t take a holiday. All the more reason to hold each other tight and thank God for another day.

My 6 year old son said after dinner, “Mom, can I have some dessert?”

I said, “Like what?”

He said, “It starts with C and ends with Ookie.”

Christmas is coming and I’ve reached the stage of “in a week, this will all be over.” That always comforts me. I think I’m done shopping. I sort of have Christmas dinner planned. I probably have to go buy more things to stuff in stockings, but all in all, I’m ready. I hope. My Christmas tree looks more and more ragged as the days go by, thanks to the cats and the toddlers.

I feel the burden of making this The Best Christmas Ever for my children. I want their eyes to shine, I want them to smile and laugh, I want them to remember forever what a great Christmas this was. That’s no easy feat. It’s so much more difficult being a mother than I ever imagined. I didn’t really see past the fog of having a baby to cuddle when I dreamed of motherhood. I didn’t see this distant Christmas when the entire event depended on me.

Today, I rounded up the twins and we did a music lesson, which involved listening to a few songs and using our hands to beat out the rhythm. Babygirl and DaycareKid sat right on the floor with us, slapping their knees in glee. When we finished that, we moved on to a craft–creating igloos from sugar cubes and royal icing. The igloos are half-finished now. They have to dry so the boys can finish constructing the walls without collapsing them.

I left the boys sitting at the table, frosting and sugar cubes all around, while I went upstairs to put the babies to bed. Babygirl has been falling asleep in fifteen minutes or less these days, even though she cries when I tell her we’re going to sleep. Today, just as she was settling down, one of my boys knocked at the door. TwinBoyA said, “The neighbor boys are here.” I said, “Tell them to go home.”

Just as Babygirl was settling down a few minutes later, another knock at the door. This time it was YoungestBoy, “Mom, can the neighbor boys stay?” I said, “Yes, but they have to be very, very quiet.”

Then, a while later, just as Babygirl was settling down, another knock at the door. YoungestBoy again, reporting, “Mom, I was putting frosting around my igloo for snow and it collapsed.” I told him to fix it.

Then, just as Babygirl was settling down again, another knock at the door. This time it was the neighbor boy. “Mrs. X, my mom is here with something for you.” I said, “Tell her I can’t come downstairs. I am trying to get the baby to sleep.”

As Babygirl finally settled down, I thought about how rude that was of me. But I didn’t want to disrupt the nap any more than it had already been disrupted.

Still, Babygirl wouldn’t settle down. Finally, I said, “Babygirl! GO TO SLEEP!” And then I gave a hearty pirate yell, “ARRRRRRG!”

Right after that, she went to sleep. I’d been upstairs with her for almost an hour and a half.

When I came downstairs, I found a humongous platter of cookies, courtesy of the neighbor boys’ mom. That explains why I have no appetite for dinner.

So, my house is a wreck. Half-built and much-licked sugarcube igloos sit on the kitchen table. But isn’t it festive? I wonder what’s for dinner? Yesterday, I completely forgot to feed YoungestBoy lunch and my husband told him at 3:00 p.m., “That’s okay! Today is National Cookies for Lunch Day!”

Half an hour until dinner time. Where’s Alice when I need her?

Saturday, I found myself standing in a non-moving check-out line at Toys R Us. I always pick the line that doesn’t move. It’s a gift, really. The clerk had no gift receipt tape in her register.

So, as I stood, now blocked by the crowd, unable to move to another line, holding my two pathetic items (half-off), I stare off into the distance and realize that I am staring at myself in a mirrored window.

I hardly recognized myself. When did I turn into a middle-aged woman? How did my hair get so dark? Why do the circles under my eyes look so pronounced when I used concealer and foundation? Where are my lips? I remember when I was 28 and a friend of mine who was over forty told me that her lips had no color anymore. I thought that was odd, but here I am, on the brink of forty with colorless lips.

I’m beginning to see a disconnect between what I look like and how I feel. I don’t feel like that pale, weary, frazzled woman. My grandmother is 98, almost 99 now and I’m guessing that she feels the same way. Our souls stay so much the same while our bodies morph into someone we don’t recognize.

It’s funny because I see my husband as the same man I first eyed nearly twenty years ago. Sometimes I consciously note his balding head and the gray on the sides and the wrinkled spot right above his ears, but mostly, I see him without really seeing his outer shell. He looks the same to me, even though he is twenty years older.

Madeline L’Engle points out that when we are in the midst of creating something, we become entirely unself-conscious, in the way that children are unself-conscious. Children do not ponder the shape of their noses or the symmetry of their faces. They have the gift of unawareness of their appearances. I wonder if the older you become, the more childlike and therefore, the more unself-conscious you can become.

With unself-consciousness comes freedom to really develop the person you are when your looks don’t matter. . . which, if you are me, is most of the time.

The turkey didn’t get cooked. I wonder if I can cook it tomorrow? It’s been thawing since Tuesday morning. What do you think?

I finished addressing and stamping all the Christmas-letter envelopes. The letter is written, too, and pictures ready to insert. My husband is going to copy the letter for me at his office tomorrow–it’s his day off, but he has a funeral to conduct, so he’ll be working most of the day.

I am delighted that there is no school tomorrow, even though the kids will probably drive me crazy with their excess energy. At least I don’t have to force them to do multiplication or writing!

Is it a bad sign that I am already looking forward to spring when we haven’t even officially started winter yet?

This morning, we met my ex-stepmother for breakfast. My mother was also there. Divorce creates such odd situations, sometimes. My parents became friends after they were divorced. And then my stepmom and my mother became friends while my dad was married to my stepmom . . . and then they had something in common after he divorced my stepmom, too.

We used to have the weirdest Christmases. One Christmas, right after my parents’ divorce, my dad brought his new wife to our house and my mother’s boyfriend was there, too. At least that’s how I remember it. We poor children practically huddled in the corners of the rooms, trying to make sense of the broken pieces of our lives. The next year was the Christmas when my dad thought it was a good idea to drive to Ohio. From Washington State. In a compact car with a faulty heating system. During the Christmas season . . . do you know how cold it is in Montana during December? Cold enough to freeze off your bippy, that’s how cold!

Anyway. So, my ex-stepmom lives a few hours away. Last night, she made the drive and spent the night at my mom’s house. As I started to say, we met them for breakfast. Even though my stepmother is extremely frugal, she likes to splurge on the rare occasion. Several years ago, she decided to take our little (big?) family out to breakfast for Christmas. So, we carry on this tradition.

Unfortunately, we were unable to linger over breakfast because the kids had to practice for the Christmas pageant. None of my kids has ever been in a Christmas production of any sort. This is the first year this particular church has had this type of event for many years. So, we walked over to the church and then stood around while children made a lot of noise and expended a lot of energy by fake karate chopping each other. (That would have been my son doing the chopping.)

Babygirl was especially pleased because the baby playing Jesus in the pageant was present. We held the baby several times–she’s not quite three months old. Babygirl adores babies. It’s a shame that she is my youngest child. Motherhood might have been so much easier if I’d had a girl first to help me mother!

At long last, the adults managed to organize and line up the children. I ended up being in charge of two “angels” and had to follow a script so I could send them onto the platform at the appropriate time. The pageant director had hoped Babygirl would be an angel, but Babygirl wanted only to sit on my lap.

When we returned home, I escaped as quickly as possible to go do some Christmas shopping. My quests were successful and I even managed a quick stop at the grocery store before returning home. The boys were eager to spend their allowance on an absolutely “necessary” GameCube cord, so I loaded up all the kids in The Deathtrap and we headed off to the video game store. We stopped first at Walgreens’, where they purchased Christmas gifts for their dad. (Chocolate bars and a giant, really gigantic, Hershey’s kiss.) We came home to find my husband making dinner–hot dogs and fries, my original plan. While we waited, I sat with Babygirl in the rocker and suddenly, I heard police sirens.

Way, way, way in the back of my mind, it registered. That is the sound of Santa Claus! Santa always comes through our neighborhoods in the days prior to Christmas. I startled Babygirl when I practically yelled to tell my husband, “Santa is coming! Get the boys!” Babygirl was shirtless, so I grabbed a jacket for her and carried her out to the driveway just as a police car with flashing lights passed in front of our house.

Slowly driving up our street was Santa’s sleigh, decked out in Christmas lights. Santa and Mrs. Claus sat up high. On his right stood a snowman (someone in costume) and on the left was a reindeer (again, someone in costume). A bunch of teenage elves jumped from the sleigh, ran to their children and gave them gifts–matchbox cars, candy canes and for Babygirl, a stuffed bear.

After Santa came two fire engines, sirens blaring, lights flashing. Babygirl stared at this nighttime flashing parade with wide eyes. When we went back inside, she said, “Santa Claus! Scary!” The rest of the evening, she said with wonder, “Santa Claus is scary.”

After I put her to bed and finished writing my Christmas letter, I went to a movie. Some years I attempt to see all the films nominated for Academy Awards (and/or the Golden Globes). This year, I think I might actually be able to achieve that goal. I saw “Closer” tonight in a theater that was fairly full. The couple right in front of me–a baldish man and a blond woman–were nuzzling each other, giggling and rubbing noses. I thought to myself, “Definitely not married.” To my right, the girl kept laughing inappropriately during somber, wrenching scenes. It reminded me of junior high kids who laugh during certain parts of biology class because they are so uncomfortable. An older couple came in at the last minute and next to the Nuzzlers. They smelled like an old couch, like one you might find in Goodwill.

At a particularly intense part of the movie, Gramps got up and I thought, “I can’t believe he’s leaving during this part of the movie, this most important part!” And then he walked two steps down and said in a loud voice right into the faces of two young women, “You are very rude to talk during a movie!”

Wow. Good for him.

It’s part midnight now and my stagecoach has turned back into a pumpkin. Tomorrow I am making a full turkey dinner with my unexpectedly thawed turkey. It’s always an interesting proposition to cook while at church, but hopefully I will get up early in the morning and become Martha Stewart.

Or not.

I’ve been composing my annual Christmas letter. I present, the rough draft of my first paragraph:

“I don’t know about you, but I’m in some kind of time warp. Wasn’t it just Christmas ten minutes ago? Didn’t we just pack away the lights, shove the ornaments into a box and celebrate the New Year? I’m mixed up, a hybrid of Rumplestiltskin and Rapunzel (growing my hair rope-long again so I can dangle it out the castle window as a means of escape). My scheme is not working, though. I just wake up every morning, twenty years old with an unruly tangle of hair on my head and kids underfoot, no Fairy Godmother in sight.”

It’s not beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. Today, while I shopped, the parking lots were jammed with cars, but the skies were blue, the sun shone in my eyes and no one wore a jacket. Mt. Rainier was “out,” looking postcard perfect. When I returned home, I noticed bulbs beginning to grow in a pot on my front porch.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, though, the time when the school schedule relaxes and I don’t have to harass anyone about homework or pack any lunches.

I do, however, have to finish that Christmas letter tonight or the line about “wasn’t Christmas just ten minutes ago” won’t make any sense . . . when the letters arrive after Christmas! I’m blaming the time warp.

So, I’m sitting here at the computer at 11:00 p.m., checking email one last obsessive time before bed. Ah, peace and quiet, just the television news to keep me company.

And one of my boys comes out of his room (adjacent to the family room where I sit). I say, “CLOSE THE DOOR! THE CATS WILL GET OUT!” And he quietly informs me that the toilet has overflowed.

I rush in to find a gigantic puddle of water in the bathroom, laundry room and main room. I grab towels from the ever-present laundry pile and begin to soak up the water. I flush the toilet and work the plunger and think horrible Non-Mother of the Year thoughts like, “My children are so stupid!” But what I say is, “Please! Please! I am begging you: FLUSH THE TOILET WHEN YOU FINISH!”

Here’s the recurring problem. My boys do not flush. Their (a-hem) waste products congeal in the toilet, forming a water-tight seal. The next person who unsuspectingly pees in that toilet (in this case, me) and then properly flushes it ends up causing a flood because the dam in the toilet is now impassable.

So, technically, I made the toilet overflow when I flushed after using the toilet and left without watching the disgusting contents of the toilet disappear. I never would have guessed how much poop is involved in motherhood.

I thought about forbidding them from using the toilet. Yeah, like that would work.

The worst part? We are low on toilet paper and earlier (one of about five times one of the boys came out of his room) one of them went upstairs to retrieve a roll. That roll–largely unused–was sitting on the flooded bathroom floor, completely ruined.

It’s the little things that annoy me.

TwinBoyA’s history journal was sitting on the floor, under the computer desk. It’s now contaminated with poopy water. Very lovely. I just shake my head.

The boys tried to talk to me during my sopping frenzy and I said in a firm voice, “DO. NOT. TALK. TO. ME.” So they talked to each other, each blaming the other for not flushing, each denying that he did not flush.

They are still awake. It’s 11:30 p.m. In the morning, when they wake up, they will be tired and grumpy and then we’ll have to work on composition–their worst subject, God’s mean joke on me. Today, they were so difficult to work with that finally, I just said, “Fine,” and walked out of the house. I went and sat in the van for about five minutes. (Babygirl and DaycareKid didn’t even realize I was missing.) When I returned, I calmly replaced all the school books in the school cabinet and didn’t mention another word about school. They said, “Why are you mad?” I said, “I’m not mad. I’m just finished working with people who don’t want to work with me. But don’t worry. I’ll be here all week next week and you can do your work then.” (Next week is supposed to be the first week of Christmas break.)

Amazingly enough, they finished their work.

What is getting me through this week are the Crosswicks Journals by Madeline L’Engle. I am on the second volume called “The Summer of the Great-Grandmother”. As I read them, I think about all the people I know who must read these books.

And now, I have to go to bed so I can do this all again tomorrow. I just hope that tomorrow the toilet doesn’t overflow and that no one sneezes on me. And I hope that I win the lottery, even though I don’t play, and that Oprah calls and offers me a makeover.

A girl has to have a dream.

When I came downstairs this morning, crabby and bleary-eyed, I found the living room lights on. On the kitchen table sat two syrupy plates and on the counter was a thawing box of waffles, and open peanut butter jar and the almost-empty syrup bottle. Clues.

I am always the first person up in our house–except on Saturdays when cartoons beckon and the kids don’t want to waste a second of their day-off sleeping. So, what did this mean: the lights, the limp waffles, the sticky plates?

One of the twins woke up at 5:00 a.m. (or 6:00 a.m., it depends who you ask) and couldn’t sleep, so he woke up his brother and they had breakfast. Then they played their Gameboys. Normally, I have to coax them out of bed at 8:30 a.m., sometimes 9:00 a.m.

When I walked into the laundry room to start my first load of the day, I found my gigantic freezer standing with its door open, counteracting the furnace. The boys sneaked freezer-pops last night and didn’t push the door closed behind them. A puddle had already formed on the floor and the turkey I had stashed for Christmas dinner was already mushy.

That’s why there is a chicken in the crockpot. That’s why we’re having turkey on Sunday night. That’s why I have a plastic container full of freshly cooked chicken tenders. That’s why I’m defrosting my freezer–with its lentils and oats now utterly unfrozen and destined for the trash. Is it serendipity that my boys left the freezer open on the night before the night before trash-day? Indubitably.

I will start the new year with a cleaned out freezer, like it or not. Sometimes a girl just has to be forced into facing the drudgery.

Last night, I spent hours, literally hours, reading my blog. How self-centered, right? Well, my search was threefold:

1) Find blog entry which might be editable into something for the newspaper column try-out;
2) Get inspiration for annual Christmas newsletter;
3) Discover if I have, indeed, portrayed my husband as a “boob.”

After reading from January to September, I must report that my search was two-thirds successful. I found several entries to edit, rearrange, fix and send off to the newspaper, there to be soundly ridiculed and rejected, just in time for my fortieth birthday. I also found very few references to my husband, and none that seemed to me to color him with a boobish brush. I do take my readers’ comments seriously and was distressed to think that I had somehow inadvertently made my husband seem like a dorky character on a sitcom. But I don’t see it, so I shall shake off the dismay and carry on.

Unfortunately, I did not find inspiration to write my annual Christmas letter, so this year–as I do every year–I will just write and hope for the best. People tell me throughout the year how much they look forward to reading my Christmas letter and for that reason, I worry that this year’s letter will be a failure, a flop, a boring ramble through a dull year. I fear that people will roll their eyes and tear up my missive.

Besides that, procrastination cripples me.

Want to know what’s funny? I was just interrupted and when I went through the laundry room, I noted that the top shelf of the freezer is still coated with a thick layer of ice, though the rest is puddlish and damp. I puzzled over it for a few seconds and then went DOH! I never unplugged the freezer when I began defrosting it this morning under duress.

I am so sequential that if I jump into the middle of a task, sometimes I forget the first step. For instance, if I were going to defrost the freezer without being prompted, I would first unplug it. Then I would open and unload it, then put towels to catch the drainage, etc.

Today, it was open, so I just put down towels to sop up the water. It never even occurred to me to unplug it. Who’s the boob now?