It’s 5:45 p.m., that odd time of day when sometimes we pause. My husband’s gone to a meeting–he’s on a Rescue Mission board and he won’t be home until after the kids’ bedtime. The boys are in the backyard wandering around with sticks and having an imaginary adventure. The sun shines, still and it’s warm. I think it reached 80 degrees today, but our backyard always has a nice breeze and shade in the afternoons.

Babygirl was laying on the floor, watching Teletubbies. Lately, she has to have all the “bee-bees” (the blankets) on her at once. That means three afghans and three fuzzy pink blankets. But her bladder distracted her and she wanted to sit on the “pobby” (the potty), so she insisted that I strip her clothes off (which reminds me of George Costanza–fans of Seinfeld know what I’m talking about). Today, she shocked me–and herself–by managing to make her first “deposit” (if you know what I mean) in her little potty. We greeted it with great acclaim and carried it with deep respect and love to the regular toilet where we bid it adieu. “Bye-bye poopy!”

When my twins were her age and older, they always denied that they had a dirty diaper. They had no interest in using the toilet–despite our repeated viewings of “It’s Potty Time!”, a hilarious video which includes the song we still sing today (and by “we”, I mean my husband and me): “He is a super duper pooper! He can potty with the best! No more diapers to get in his way! We are very impressed!”

Anyway.

Only two hours until bedtime and then the debate: Do laundry? Straighten up the house? Vacuum? Work on VBS project for church? Exercise? Or just sprawl in the recliner and watch Fear Factor and eat fat-free Kettle Korn?

I checked out my curly hair in the mirror this afternoon and saw an errant, weirdly textured hair on the top of my head . . . I plucked it out for examination.

It was gray.

That was my first one. I really am getting old.

Being a stay-at-home mom is not what I am. It’s what I do.

YoungestBoy loves pets. Unfortunately, he has lost three pets in his short six years.

Millie the Cat was dispatched to Kitty Heaven shortly after Babygirl’s birth. Millie the Cat developed some kind of neurological condition which required Kitty Antidepressants. I’d shove the pills down her throat and she would vomit them up and then scratch herself until she bled. We agreed that sending her to Kitty Heaven was the most compassionate thing we could do for her since there was no cure for her mental illness. None of the boys noticed that Millie the Cat was missing for about three months.

Greta the Dog was a furry, sweet Newfoundland. We raised her for two years. Then she nipped at TwinBoyB and a week later, nipped at YoungestBoy, drawing blood on both of their faces. She was returned to the breeder and placed in a new home. We just couldn’t take the chance of having 100-pound Greta nip at a baby.

Fred the Snail was captured on our driveway in May 2002. He lived a happy, uneventful life in a vented pet box, hidden under the long drapes in the dining room. Then over a year later, he was moved to an upstairs window and the afternoon sun boiled him in his shell.

YoungestBoy cried hard when he lost each pet. We replaced Millie the Cat with Shadow the Cat. Greta was replaced with a giant stuffed animal. But snails are hard to find around here.

And then, a miracle! After dinner yesterday, we were hanging out in the backyard. Babygirl was riding her trike over the grass, TwinBoyB was using a giant magnifying glass to turn a slug “inside out” and YoungestBoy was hunting for more slugs. He came running around the corner shouting, “Mom! I found a snail!”

Clutched in his chubby hand was a snail half the size of my pinkie-fingernail. Its shell was translucent. While we watched, the tiny head stretched out of the shell. I couldn’t believe it! In my 39 years of life, this is the second snail I’ve seen in the Pacific Northwest. (Other than snails that live in the water, of course.) What a lucky boy!

I said, “What are you going to name him?”

YoungestBoy thought for just a moment and said, “Replacement Fred.” He went inside, got a Mason jar and put a few tasty leaves in the jar for Replacement Fred.

Awhile later, YoungestBoy says, “Oh no! I dropped my snail!”

“Where?” I ask.

“In the grass somewhere. I was running and holding him in my hand.”

Sigh. Then we squatted on the grass and tried–in vain–to locate tiny Replacement Fred. YoungestBoy cried. I said, helpfully, “Well, maybe you can find another one.”

YoungestBoy said, “Mom, that was just a lucky stroke. I will never find another snail.”

We looked under the rocks where YoungestBoy found Replacement Fred, hoping Replacement Fred had a brother or a sister. Nope. Replacement Fred must have been an orphan or a runaway. YoungestBoy spent a great deal of time in the backyard before lunch, hunting. He found a bunch of potato bugs (he calls them roly-poly-olies). One even hung upside down from a stick, wrapping its teeny little legs around it.

But it’s not Replacement Fred.

Replacement Fred! Come back! We promise not to forget you in a sunny windowsill!

Mr. Know-It-All-TwinBoyB and his twin, Mr. Know-It-All-TwinBoyA

My twin boys have reached that magical age where they know everything. I figure this stage probably lasts until they are well into their college years. As a reasonably intelligent 39-year old woman, I regard their superior knowledge with great hilarity.

Last night at the dinner table, they explained to me that God created two eggs and that’s how we got chickens. He didn’t create just one egg, or two male eggs, or two female eggs, but a male and a female eggs so chickens would result. Always playing the Devil’s Advocate, I said, “Well, maybe God created the chicken and the chicken laid the eggs?” They dismissed my folly without even a pause. Their knowledge was unshaken.

A couple of weeks ago, they were explaining HIV to me. They were learning about AIDS at school. I was probing to see what they were being taught and said, “So, how do you catch HIV or AIDS?” And one of them answered with a twinge of disdain, “You don’t catch it! You just have it!”

This morning, while we were staring at the tea kettle, waiting for its whistle, TwinBoyB remarked that he wanted to see the “vapor.” I said, “Well, look, there’s the steam now!” And he said, “No, Mom, you can’t see steam. You can only see vapor. Steam is invisible.”

I started to argue, then stopped myself. What is the point in pointing out fact to a kid who already knows it all?

It’s going to be a long decade.

Finally. The perfect picture of irony.

The CEO of McDonald’s dies of a heart attack at age 60.

Oh wait. Is that irony or just inevitability?

Carry on. I might be confused.

That’s right. Did you know I was a Queen? Yes-sir-ee-bob, I’m the Queen of Laundry and I’m married to the King of Naps.

How can a person nap when he’s slept until 8 a.m.? How can he nap in the morning and then nap in the afternoon? How can he fall asleep at 10:30 p.m. when he’s napped half the day?

If I nap, it means only two things: I am pregnant or I am sick.

If I nap, I will be unable to sleep well at night.

If I nap, I will wake up grumpy and out of sorts and dazed.

He is kind of cute, though, stretched out in the recliner, mouth agape, hands folded on his stomach as if he’s laid out in his coffin, escalating snores. Long Live the King!

Update: I feel perfectly fine today. Weird, huh?

We went to The Fair today. Not the big fair, but the Spring Fair, held on the same fairgrounds as the regular fair. Earlier in the week we’d talked about going, but then I decided it was just going to be too expensive and the kids already did a lot of fun things this week.

But this morning, my husband returned from taking Babygirl for a ride in the car and reported that the weather was nice and that he was thinking about taking the boys to the fair. So we all went.

Admission: $26 (And that was half-off)
Ride Tickets: $15 for 20 (4 or 5 tickets necessary for each ride)
Lunch: $26.25 (for me and three boys)
Games: $13.75

The kids each had between $10 and $15. They were eager to spend it on games, but I insisted that we first watch a demonstration. We walked all the way across the grounds, found Barn J and arrived in time to watch Border Collies demonstrate how they herd animals. In this case, they were herding about five ducks with great stealth and skill.

The woman asked if any child would like to volunteer to herd the ducks–to demonstrate how difficult it really is to get the ducks to go through the various obstacles. YoungestBoy raised his hand and was chosen along with another boy in a red shirt.

Watching them chase the ducks was worth the price of fair admission. Ducks quacking, kids laughing, ducks scattering. When a duck is separated from the remaining ducks, they call it a “duck split”, which YoungestBoy thought was very funny. He pictured the duck in a bowl with whipped cream and chocolate syrup on it.

But enough educational stuff, Mom. There were games to play, rides to ride!

I went on a ferris-wheel type ride with YoungestBoy and TwinBoyB. TwinBoyA opted not to ride. He is not fond of rides at all. While we rode, TwinBoyA played a game involving a dart and won himself a stuffed animal. YoungestBoy and I played a game involving balls and racing horses. I won, but of course, gave him the animal (an orange monkey). Then we had a string of bad luck and lost dollar after dollar after dollar playing games. In disgust I said, “We may as well just toss our money down that drain!” (We conveniently passed a storm drain at just that moment.)

Kids are optimists, though. I wasn’t, but most kids are. They were sure they’d win, so they kept spending until their pockets were empty. Even my pockets were empty by the time we left. We did manage to bring home four little stuffed animals and one poster.

My husband pushed Babygirl around in her stroller the whole time–he mostly just kept her moving and that kept her happy. She put on her very sad face when we first entered the fair gates, but when she spotted the animals–llamas, sheep, dogs–she cheered up. She’s a slow-to-warm-up baby. (She immediately went down for a nap when we got home. I’d like to nap myself, but I have other kids to take care of and a mountain of laundry with my name on it.)

YoungestBoy and I rode one more ride–some contraption that circled around and then swung up and down. I think it was called a “hurricane.” I don’t know, but the centrifugal force kept YoungestBoy plastered to my side and caused an ache in my neck. At the peak of the excitement, I had a sudden vision of the cars being flung into the air and grabbed the bar a little tighter. YoungestBoy thought it was great fun.

When we left, YoungestBoy said the day had been the best day of his life. I guess that was worth $81.

On the way home, my husband’s cell phone rang to report that our friend in the hospital has been moved from one hospital to another. He’s undergoing emergency surgery for a brain-bleed. This does not look good. So, my husband’s at the hospital. I feel so sad for our friend and his family. Sigh.

I have a sore throat. And I think I have Babygirl’s tummy bug. And I don’t even believe in karma.

Secretly feel annoyed that your husband, the pastor, is going to visit a church member (who happens to be a close friend) in the hospital tomorrow. So what if it’s Saturday and he’s supposedly taking the week off and you’ve been with kids non-step for days, weeks, months, years? So what if the man is recovering from surgery so he can then undergo intensive chemotherapy? So what? What about you?

See how easy it is to feel like a jerk? Pout invisibly (of course) a little about being unimportant to your husband and remind yourself that you will never again leave the house in the daylight without kids. Think about not going on vacation in approximately 15 years. Ponder the injustice of your life.

Then remind yourself that the Hospital Guy is in worse shape than you are and kick yourself in the pants. You big jerk.