I’m out of milk.
I’m out of space.
I’m out of Miss Meringue cookies (four for 2 Weight Watchers points).
I’m out of ideas to keep children occupied and quiet.
I’m out of time.
I’m out of Diet Coke with Lime.
I’m out of shampoo.
I’m out of patience.
I’m out of my mind.
I’m out of time.

But I have plenty of clutter! And noise! And grime! And children! And housework!

I stood in my grimy-floored kitchen, washing dishes, feeding toddlers lunch, looking out the window, and thinking. I thought, How did my grandma (now 98 years old) manage? How did this mother of five boys and finally, a girl, wife to a traveling husband grow her own vegetables, can them, sew everyone’s clothing, wash all the laundry, cook, clean, kneel by her bed in prayer, morning and night, and attend church every time the doors were opened . . . how?

I thought of my friend who homeschools her six children and teaches the girls know how to embroider and sew and knit and creates scrapbooks for her families and cans her own home-grown peaches and directs a choir and I thought, How?

Then I thought: Moms like that run a tight ship.

Their children have chores and rules and actually know how to scrub a toilet. Their children go to bed on time and read classic novels and put their laundry in hampers. Their children do not “back-sass,” as my children would say. Their children eat homegrown vegetables and don’t screw up their noses and make vomiting sounds when they find out they are having a well-balanced meal for dinner.

Then there is me. If those moms run a tight ship, then I’m the kind of mom who runs a . . . well, a wobbly dock. At best.

We don’t sail the harbor, let alone the seven seas. My kids kind of perch on the shaky, splintery dock and watch the other ships sail. My kids sit on the edge of the rickety dock and try to touch the salty sea with their toes. My kids accidentally drop stuff into the water and pretend like they’re going to shove each other into the waves below and complain “he won’t stop touching me” and “the sun is shining into my eyes.”

I don’t run a tight ship.

I think it’s probably in my nature to run a tight ship, though. I was a perfectionist in high school. If I did not make the highest A in the class on a test, I said the following spiral of things to myself: “I can’t believe I missed an answer. I’m so dumb. I knew that answer. Why did I make that mistake? I know I will probably get a B in this class or I’ll probably just fail because I’m so incredibly stupid and I’m fat anyway and my hair will not stop frizzing, no wonder no one likes me–well, sure they like me, but that’s only because they have to like me and just wait. Just wait. I will probably fail this class and end up with such a low grade point average that I will not get a scholarship and I won’t get into the college of my choice and I’ll definitely never get married or have a meaningful career or kids and I may as well just go live under a bridge alone, of course. I’m so stupid. I may as well kill myself right now.”

As you can see, my “self-talk” was fairly dismal. When I realized what I was doing to myself, I stopped. Not immediately, not without pain, but I stopped. I stopped being illogical and crazy and jumping to insane conclusions. And I stopped expecting myself to be Perfect because I realized that no one is Perfect (for awhile there, I thought Martha Stewart was, but hello? She’s divorced–hardly a perfect story-book ending to a life–and she’s going to prison.)

I call myself a Reformed Perfectionist, and I give myself permission to just let some things slide. Thus, my grimy kitchen floor. And the toilets which could use scrubbing and the kids who have not yet started piano lessons. I’m just not going to spend my life, my home-making years, pressuring myself to be Suzy Homemaker with a hollow head who smiles vacantly and never complains and hasn’t read a novel in ten years since she left college. I’d rather my mind function with robust health than for my couch cushions to be spotless.

As for the kids, their childhoods are short. I know some moms feel like they need to rush, hurry, cram as much information into their kids as is possible before releasing them into the blue sky like a helium balloon. I’d rather just let them hang out and eat popcorn in the middle of the day and then swim under the clear blue sky with its sliver of moon and lowering sun. It’s summertime still, for just a few short moments on this wobbly dock, and I say, “Who wants a popsicle?”

I am a pastor’s wife. Guess what I did today? That’s right. I skipped church. Even though it was my day to be the nursery volunteer. I traded spots with someone and at 9 a.m., loaded Babygirl and TwinBoyB into my car, and followed my mom’s car (carrying TwinBoyA and YoungestBoy) to Mt. Rainier.

We took two cars because, although each of our cars would fit six people, neither would have been comfortable. And I thought Babygirl might fuss or scream the whole way there (two hours) and I wanted to spare my mother the agony. The older she gets, the more she winces when the kids made kid noise. I hardly even notice it, but then her face squinches all up and then I say, “Hey, you guys! Keep it down!”

Finding a place to park was a little tricky, but at last, we each found a place (at opposite ends of the unbelievably long parking lots). We sat and ate lunch right outside the Visitor Center. Babygirl spent much of her time chasing a pigeon and then squatting just feet away from a hungry and brave chipmunk. We finished eating our picnic lunch, took photographs and then headed for the trails.

The last time we went to Mt. Rainier was four years ago–how does time get away from me?–and it was misty rain then and there was still mushy snow on parts of the trail. This time the only snow was high up on the peaks. Babygirl insisted on walking most of the time, then she would plop down on the side of the path, gather some gravel and fling it onto the paved walkway. Then she’d run some more. The boys mostly wandered up ahead until the trail started to slope upwards. We were heading for a waterfall, only half a mile up, but they all began to complain as the path climbed sharply. I encouraged them to keep going, even though my mom had to sit and wait for us at a bench. I was determined to see that waterfall!

And we did. We went down a stairway, gazed at the cascading waterfall and a woman volunteered to take a picture of all of us with my camera. How nice! Then, we climbed back up the stairs and the sweaty, red-faced boys wanted to just sit and rest. Just a bit further was a bridge over the waterfall and I urged them to come with me and look. They did, but then they returned to the benches. I took more pictures and turned to go, but Babygirl had other plans. She wanted to “hold it”–hold the water! Impossible, of course, so I stalled for time by pushing her stroller to the center of the footbridge. I took more photographs, moved her off the bridge and while she protested, took more photographs.

Then she yelled and cried while I pushed her back down the path. She screamed all the way down, more than half a mile. I’d smile sheepishly and say with false cheer to those coming up the path: “She really liked the waterfall!”

She quit her bellyaching as we reached level ground when she saw a dog on a leash–a really poofy small dog. The owner said Pumpkin was friendly, so Babygirl sat and communed with Pumpkin. And then complained loudly–“one more time, puppy, one more time!” as we headed to the car.

When we got to the car, she shrieked when I put the buckle on her. But it was a naptime and I thought she’d drop off to sleep as soon as I started the car. I was wrong.

My mother took the boys in her car, so it was just me and Babygirl and the demon that had taken over Babygirl’s body. Babygirl screamed and cried and sobbed and said “hold it.” I distracted her with grapes at some point, but that turned out to be something of a mistake when she resumed crying so hard that she vomited a chewed up grape.

I remembered then why I normally just stay at home when my kids are this age. They are not good travelers. They are the linen suits of traveling wardrobes. Wrinkled, impractical, unkempt. Best to be kept at home. Not good in cars, buses, planes, trains.

She cried off and on for an hour and a half, then–blessed quietness–fell asleep half an hour before we got home. She woke up the last five minutes of the journey, remembered why she was so upset and worked herself into a fit again. When we pulled into the driveway, she wouldn’t get out of her carseat, so I left her in the car, screaming, while I took in my picnic bag, washed my hands, hung up the car keys, and had a drink of water. When I went back to the driveway, she was still crying and I had to pull her out of her seat, much against her will.

And now, a list:

When My Husband Is Gone or Why I Would Be A Horrible Single Mom

When he’s gone, I plan to paint the living room.
Instead, I leave toys in the living room overnight and dishes in the sink.

When he’s gone, I envision eating salads every night for dinner.
Instead, I eat all the potato chips I bought for the picnic. At 11 p.m. With a Diet Coke.

When he’s gone, I think I’ll catch up on my sleep.
Intead, I stay up all the way through David Letterman.

When he’s gone, I intend to finish my paperwork.
Instead, I find more blogs to read.

When he’s gone, I look forward to having quiet evenings.
Instead, I get sloppy with the kids’ bedtime and end up shouting at 10:45 p.m. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS? GO TO SLEEP!”

When he’s gone, I imagine ironing all his clothes.
Instead, I don’t. He’ll have to go to work in his swimming trunks when he gets back.

Or I’ll have to get motivated here real quick. Send more caffeine! Send a maid! Send a self-addressed stamped-envelope and I’ll send you a kid, free-of-charge! Remember: no returns or refunds!

I hate spiders. Really, really, really hate them. I know they are good creatures with merit and they kill bad bugs. Right. I get all that. But they give me the heebie-jeebies. I know it’s irrational. But I’m a girl. So spare me the lecture. (Once I received an anonymous email from someone in response to a post I made about killing a spider. She thought I should gently relocate spiders from my home to the Great Outdoors.)

Despite that suggestion, I hate spiders and they scare me. But I am a grown-up. I have to act like it. At least while the kids are watching.

My husband (aka The Spider-Killer) is out of town for a few days, so it’s up to me to handle each crisis as it pops up. Two nights ago, a jumbo-sized spider was minding its own business in a corner of the boys’ room. They freaked out and I was forced to pretend that I didn’t mind slapping it down with a fly-swatter. ::::shudder::::

Yesterday, I moved three backpacks from a corner and out scurried an even bigger spider. I shouted to the boys, “QUICK! GET ME A BIG SHOE!” They couldn’t translate my frantic English into . . . well, into Boy Talk, and they did not give me a shoe in time and I was forced to stomp on that spider in my bare slipper. Only a slipper and a sock shielded my delicate skin from that scary old spider.

This morning, I reached for a pair of jeans on a high shelf and as I carried it out of the closet, I came eyeball to eyeball with an enormous spider. I did what any mature, almost forty-year old woman would do. I screamed and flung the jeans onto the head of my almost-two year old daughter. The spider disappeared.

Until tonight. I started the baby’s bath and she climbed into the tub and then said, “Spider.” I said, “What?” She pointed to a huge spider trying to hide under an empty bottle. Right in the tub. I snatched Babygirl from the tub, stifled a scream and tried to think. What to do? This spider was big. Really, really big. At least two inches from edge to edge. (Hey, that’s big for the Pacific Northwest.)

I hate spiders.

Did you know that if you squirt baby shampoo directly onto a spider, it will first attempt to outrun the tear-free cleanser and then it will shrivel limply and die? Well, now you know. I asked my six year old to use a wad of tissue to transport the dead carcass of Mr. Scary Spider to the toilet.

Enough. Do you hear that, Spiders? I’ve had enough. Don’t make me get the pesticide out!

This reminds me of Branson, Missouri. When I was 19 years old, I worked as a nanny and lived in a small, furnished apartment on the shores of Tablerock Lake. I would come home from a long day of minding bratty kids and when I switched on the lightswitch, cockroaches would scurry back into their hiding spots. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in the suburbs, in a tract home with wall-to-wall carpet and I had never actually come face to face with cockroaches before.

My solution? Well, I couldn’t stomach the sound of crunching insect bodies, so instead of killing them with forceful smacks, I put drinking glasses over as many as I could, trapping them. Then, I carefully slid a heavy piece of paper under the cockroaches and carried them one by one to the bathroom, where I dropped them one by one into the toilet. Very efficient, yes?

Did you know cockroaches can swim?

I discovered that a squirt of Dawn dishwashing liquid seemed to stun them–paralyzed? dead? Who knew? Then, I’d flush.

This worked great until a particulary large cockroach startled me just as I reached the toilet. I screamed and let go of the glass, which fell into the toilet and broke.

You just haven’t lived until you’ve picked glass shards out of a cockroach-infested toilet.

Oh, and that reminds me of one more thing. I heard once that every person will eat eight spiders in their sleep during the course of his or her lifetime. Urban legend? I hope so. Just in case, I now wear pantyhose over my head while I sleep. A girl can never be too careful.

Mark Hacking: The most unfortunate name possible for a man who obviously hacked up his wife and threw her into a landfill.

I always notice names which are weirdly prescient or incongruous. Don’t you? But at the moment, only the name of Mark Hacking comes to mind. Help me think of more real names.

Tonight found me in the aisles of the local home improvement store. I went in search of bee-killing spray, paint for my living room, and hair-clog removing chemicals. While wandering around with glassy eyes and sticky contact lenses, I remembered my drippy faucets (two different bathrooms) and asked a man in the plumbing section, “Excuse me, do you know about faucets?”

He straightened up and said, “Uh, no, not really.”

I said, “Oh. Well, I figured that you had to know since you are a man.” Was that insulting? Sexist? I don’t know, but he did lead me to the section where I would buy the replacement part, if only I knew exactly which replacement part it needed. So, he did know. He was just holding out on me. Turns out, though, that I need to disassemble the faucet to find the faulty part before I can replace it. Like that’s going to be a priority.

I walked miles back and forth, looking for these little pegs that hold shelves up in my five-by-six foot shelving unit. The boys knocked a shelf down and the peg went flying out, so now the shelf balances on three pegs, rather than four, which is simply unacceptable.

Even more unacceptable is the fact that the little replacement peg-thing-a-ma-jigs are not in stock at the home improvement store. I asked the man in Lighting about them and he made a phone call and then directed me to Kitchen Cabinets, where I found two young men building a whole set of cabinets in a pretend kitchen for the imaginary family who’ll be frying up invisible bacon and putting away invisible dishes overnight. One of them with a scarred-up face said, “Oh, I have my own stash,” and he disappeared and reappeared with a handful of various pegs. He said, “Here, put these in your pocket and take them home and try them out.” I was ever grateful and only felt a teeny-tiny bit like I’d just completed a drug transaction. I kept fingering the goods in my pocket as I finished shopping.

The other night, the boys’ shelf had fallen down again. I keep their shorts and shirts neatly folded and piled on these shelves, rather than in a dresser because I am occasionally a frugal type and we are making do with what we have rather than buying stuff that isn’t absolutely necessary. My husband thinks it’s unconscionable that the boys don’t have a dresser, but if they have shelves, what’s the difference? At least for now, anyway. Well, the missing peg led to the unstable shelf, which collapsed, leaving all the clothes in a big jumble. This happened two or three times in as many days, so this particular night, as the boys were stretched out in bed, I went in to say good-night and found the mound of formerly-folded clothes and said in a fit of frustration, “I bet this doesn’t happen at ___________’s house!”

And TwinBoyA said, “No, because they have a walk-in closet.” (Of course they do. They have a view, too, and a hot tub outside of their French doors. Their family home is being remodeled to the tune of $200,000. Their addition costs more than my entire home.)

Well, aren’t I just the worst parent possible? Pardon me for not providing you with a walk-in closet!

I have to say, I do hate that I cannot provide everything for my kids–I mean everything. I wish they had grandparents living across the block and their own rooms. I wish we took vacations by airplane every year and furthermore, I wish we had a vacation home by the ocean. I wish I could purchase their clothes without making sure they have a “clearance” sticker on the price tag. I wish we had a brand new vehicle big enough so one of the kids didn’t have to sit between my husband and me in the front seat. I wish we had college funds for them and I wish they could go to summer camp and have a season’s pass to Wild Waves. I wish they each had their own walk-in closet and their own bathroom and their own balcony and–why not?–their own butler who could do their homework for them before driving them to school in their own SUVs.

But, that’s not how things work here in our humble home. And I hope they don’t resent it and compare their lives and find our family lacking. At least here they are free to dig a creek in the back yard and to eat popsicles in their dresser-free bedroom. And they have me to yell at them, not a nanny who makes $10 an hour.

Anyway, back at the home improvement store, the paint guy mixed me some eggshell paint, Caramel Honey, which sounds like a cross between an adult film actress and dip for Granny Smith apples. I may or may not paint while my husband is away for a week. I actually like painting once I get started. It’s the getting started part that I hate–the cleaning the walls and the taping.

I lost track of time in the home improvement store, dreaming of shelving units and brand new carpet and lighting–oh my, the lighting. My dad was a handy guy and instilled in me the belief–okay, the delusion–that I could do anything at all if I could read. Then I married a man whose idea of home maintenance is to ask a friend to “help” him. Then he holds the hammer and cracks jokes while his friend does all the work. That in itself is a skill, but it won’t get me any track-lighting installed.

I will never die because I just have too much to do.

My husband is going out of town again–this time to his 25th High School Class Reunion. He leaves on Friday and returns the following Thursday. Before he leaves, I’m trying to prepare myself so I don’t have to take the children into Target to buy laundry detergent or to the grocery store for milk and bread. It’s such an ordeal to take four kids shopping–especially boys who hate to shop–and it’s so much more expensive.

So, tonight, I went to Target in search of spray to kill the bees that have taken up residence in the corner of my back yard. This has been a particularly bad year for bees and their cousins, the wasps. I did not find bee killing spray, but I did buy enough M&Ms to get us through the week. And I bought three white shelves on clearance for $2.97 each and a Captain Feathersword feathersword on sale for $3.97 (for Babygirl for Christmas) and ninety large trashbags. I hope to paint my living room while my husband is gone and I want to throw away a lot of trash and I want to bag up even more stuff for the church rummage sale.

Tomorrow night, then, I’ll buy paint. Thursday night, I will grocery shop. Depending on the weather, I may take the kids to Mt. Rainier Saturday or Sunday.

Oh, I finished another book–“Left Behind” by Tim LaHaye and . . . uh, I can’t remember the other guy. Jerry Jenkins? At any rate, it was less horrible than I expected. That’s the best recommendation I can give. I’ve read it. Now I can feel free to never read another one. I’m not a big fan of “Christian fiction.” What is that, anyway? Why the big divide between the secular and the sacred? That has always bugged me. At any rate, it was a quick read, fairly entertaining and I can see why it was a best-seller. That’s all I’m saying.

Five things I am thankful for this Friday:

1) My Babygirl’s new soft-shoe routine, where she swings her arms together, forward and back, as she taps out a barefoot dance. Out of nowhere, she’ll break into this joy-filled routine.
2) Books. I’m reading three books at once at the moment and finished two others this week.
3) My husband’s steady presence in our home–and his sense of humor.
4) The upcoming weekend which is completely void of obligations.
5) Cooler weather!

Here is irony: reading a chapter in a book about mindful parenting while I ignore the children playing nearby and when they interrupt me, offering them distractions of television or a snack.

I do have to make note of the remarkable appearance of the moon tonight. I left the house after Babygirl went to bed (clutching dolly and her blanket) tonight. My mission: to return two videos and one Nintendo game and to stop by the grocery store.

The benefits of running errands after bedtime are as follows:
1) Listening to Laura Ingraham’s radio show is hilarious and fun.
2) Shopping without children is soothing and hypnotic.
3) Occasionally, the moon makes a guest appearance in the sky and I remember the perfect October nights of my college days when I realized with a start: There will never again be an October night as beautiful and magical as this night, right now. And the melancholy of that thought–or maybe the heartbreak of homework or the loneliness of being human–made me want to cry. And I was right. That October night is long gone. So is my youth!

But tonight’s moon just made me think of a glowing stone nestled on a navy-blue velvet expanse. The moon is a little more than a half-moon tonight, and because I am a mother of a toddler, I thought to myself: Moonbear loves the moon. He loves her when she’s new. He loves her when she’s half. He loves her when she’s three-quarters. He loves her when she’s full. Moonbear loves the moon . . . all the time.

I do, too.

I apparently also love the colon tonight. I may have used my colon-allotment for the next three years. (Yeah, that would be “colon” as in the punctuation mark, not “colon” as in the digestive organ.)

I read a whole book today. I finished Anne Lamott’s Blue Shoe last night, so this morning I picked up the used copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret that I bought at Goodwill recently. I read the whole thing today between changing diapers and fixing lunch and watching babies and cleaning the kitchen and folding laundry.

When I was going into sixth grade myself, I remember my new friend, Misty Frizzell, telling me about this book. Back in the day (1976), Judy Blume’s book about a sixth-grade girl’s yearning for her menstrual cycle to begin and her search for a religious identity was scandalous. I thought it seemed very tame today, as I read it in this century as a 39-year old woman, but back then it was a book you read secretly, so your mother wouldn’t notice and ask questions.

Misty Frizzell was an exuberant new friend. I met her at the local Assembly of God church and as quick as a wink, I was spending days and nights at her house which was at the far edge of our town. Her dad, Doug, looked like Survivor’s Rupert. He had a hearty laugh and a shaggy beard and Misty told me in a stage-whisper that he had a hairy butt. She knew this because sometimes he would walk around naked. I couldn’t recall seeing my own father without his shirt and shoes on, so this bit of information scared the beejeebies out of me. Would he prance around in his birthday suit while I spent the night? I kept my eyes averted when I walked to their bathroom.

I remember they had wicker furniture in their living room. Misty had naturally platinum blond hair and a horse she kept out behind her house. Her parents were funny and played jokes on each other. I couldn’t believe my good fortune in finding a friend like Misty. I needed a dependable, fun friend to pal around with when we all went to middle school.

And then, sixth grade started and I wasn’t in the “cool” group of kids and Misty abandoned me like some kind of reptile skin she outgrew and shed. Throughout the rest of our school years, we never really spoke again. But I thought of her today when I reread Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Misty was so much like the protaganist of the story–longing to develop, longing for her period, longing to kiss boys and willing to follow the crowd. No wonder she loved the book and wondered if I did, too.

Now. I finished Blue Shoe last night and can give my hearty recommendation. Here are my favorite two lines:

“She did not mind this weather, and certainly preferred it to the tyrrany of a bright blue day, when old voices told you to get off your duff and go outside.”

“And by God, ten minutes later, Mattie was gently bathing one of Abby’s feet in a salad bowl of warm soapy water, wiping the grime off her ankle and heel and toes with a dish towel and Ivory soap, working the cat litter out of the cracks in her sole.”