I wish I could hire someone to impersonate me for a few days.

Don’t ask.

It’s complicated.

I would tell you how I spent my afternoon (cleaning my 12-year old’s room, buying ten pairs of shoes, driving behind slow cars to pick up an extra kid because FOUR IS NOT ENOUGH).

But I don’t have time.

More details tomorrow.  If I survive it.

UPDATE:  Too exhausted.  Maybe tomorrow.

My parenting style may be described as benign neglect.  Or, as I like to think of it:  Preparing the Kids for Real Life.

I tend to think that good moms make a nutritious well-balanced lunch for their children each day, using homemade bread and organic produce . I wish I were that good mom.  But I am not.

My twelve-year old son left the recliner where he’d been viewing “Dog the Bounty Hunter.”  As he passed the computer chair where I sat working, he said, “Mom, thank you for neglecting me.  Now I will cook my own lunch.”

I replied, “You are a bad person.”

So, that explains why he was in the kitchen.  He is neglected.  But resourceful.  See how beautifully this is working out?

He decided to scramble some eggs.  So I double-checked to make sure our eggs weren’t on the recall list and he and his 7-year old sister began cracking eggs.  He added pepper to the pan and some bacon bits and some cheese.  “What temperature should this be on?” he asked and I told him medium.

Some time later, he’d gone into the back yard to check on something and I wandered into the kitchen (probably for more Diet Coke) and I noticed the eggs looked awfully runny.

That is because he’d turned on the back burner but the pan was on the front burner.

A big glass mixing bowl was on the back  burner.  I’d put it there after washing it the night before so it could dry.  Someone had perched a large pot (also clean) on top of the glass bowl.  And both of these items were quite warm since they’d been sitting on a heated burner for awhile.

I turned on the front burner and turned off the back burner.  Then I moved the pot.  I used a potholder to carefully move the hot mixing bowl to the other back burner.  I stepped a few feet back toward the sink, hurrying to I could get back to work.

And then I heard an explosion.

I screamed.

On the stove, the bowl had completely exploded.  It looked like a large quantity of giant diamonds had been dumped on the stove top.  It looked like the ice covering a pond in the winter after children stomp on it.  It looked like the aftermath of a windshield following a collision.  It looked like a disaster.

I stood and stared and felt my arms to make sure they were free of embedded glass.  Most of it stayed on the stove, but there were shards on the floor and on my daughter’s little table and on the counter and in the pan of eggs.

Then I swept.  And vacuumed.  I had to leave the sparkling glass bits on the stove until they cooled.

My son was quite impressed by this unintended science experiment.  He informed me that the bowl would not have exploded if I’d left it on the hot burner.  So it was my fault.

Also?  If I’d been a good mom and just made a homemade nutritious lunch in the first place, none of this would have happened.  But then my son would be utterly unprepared for Real Life and I would have nothing to blog about.  So, there’s that.

I was minding my own business, throwing together a salad for a late lunch when I heard a loud thumping crash.  I rushed to the foot of the staircase and shouted upstairs, “What WAS that?”

I fully expected a dismembered child to come limping out of a bedroom or for someone to explain that they accidentally blew a hole in the roof while combining a super-secret, yet lethal combination of Axe body spray and spoiled milk.

But no child appeared.  And no one shouted back.

And then a second house-shaking boom exploded, causing me to shriek again, “WHAT WAS THAT?!”

My daughter appeared at her bedroom doorway on the verge of tears.

“It’s okay.” I said.  “Sit right there.”  I motioned at the foot of the stairs.  A sleepy-looking teenager appeared from his room.

“Stay here!”  I said.

I went outside to see if a car had crashed into our house.

Nothing.

I accounted for the other teenager and ascertained that everyone was alive and well. (The 7-year old was at a neighbor’s house.)

I went into the back yard to scan the house to see if maybe the chimney fell off.  I walked into the front yard to see if I could see smoke.  Maybe something exploded somewhere, I thought.

A neighborhood kid rode by on his bike.  “Did you feel that?” he said.

“I did.”

I thought maybe a car had crashed a few roads over.  Or there’d been a natural gas explosion.

Google suggested that there had been explosions somewhere.

Twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes later, the actual report came out.

Apparently, some clueless float-plane pilot didn’t realize that there were temporary flight restrictions in the entire region because President Obama was in the area.  Mr. Float-plane flew through the restricted area and two F-15 military jets were scrambled.  They created sonic booms as they raced from Portland to Seattle (in eight minutes, or so I heard).

That was just about enough excitement for one day.

Thank you, Mr. Float-plane.  I almost died from heart failure.

But at least none of my children were crushed by a falling bookshelf.

I have arranged my work schedule so I have Mondays off.  Well, mostly off.  I work at 9 p.m. until midnight.

During the summer, I try really hard to do something fun with my kids on Monday.  Since we have season’s passes to the local waterpark, that often means I drag myself out of bed (after finishing my Sunday night shift at 1 a.m.) and head to Wild Waves.

That’s what we did today.  The weatherman said the temperature would reach over ninety degrees (we’re having a little heat-wave here in Washington).  Perfect day, right?

We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and though the park had only been open for thirty minutes, every single lounge-chair was in use.  I usually spread towels out on a couple of chairs so we have a home-base, but that was impossible today.  A million people and their children and neighbors were all at Wild Waves today.  Were you there?  Because I think the entire population of earth was at Wild Waves.

We stayed for two hours and then headed home.  Even the kids were ready to go because it’s no fun to be at a waterpark when there are long lines everywhere.

Who wants to be outside in a heat-wave, anyway, when you can be home in the air conditioning?

I had a hair appointment this afternoon, but both football practice and soccer practice were canceled.  That’s good because  I was exhausted.  After a quick trip to the grocery store, I took a nap.

Then I worked and now here I am, about to sleep.  (I. Am. Boring.)

And tomorrow is a Sleep In Day.  I have declared it and thus, it shall be.

Sometimes I am too aware that my blog is on the Internet.  I am tongue-tied with sudden shyness and want to duck into the other room so I don’t have to talk to anyone.  I want to type something here before I go to bed, but as I scroll down the list of potential topics, I discard each one.  Too personal.  Can’t talk about that.  Wouldn’t want to mention that.

I’m aware of eyeballs watching, afraid of silent judgments, unwilling to discuss the real life I’m living right now.

So.

Hmmm.

What do you want to talk about?

I know!  Let’s talk about shopping.

Last night at about 1 a.m. I started shopping online for a dress to wear for an upcoming occasion.  I’d like to know why almost all the available dresses are sleeveless?  What are middle-aged women with mushy arms like me supposed to wear?  And the necklines . . . hello?  Am I the only woman in America who does not want to reveal my cleavage to the general population?  Let’s not even talk about belts that hug the upper ribcage which make you look like you’re wearing a maternity smock.

I shopped and shopped and shopped . . . and gasped a little at the dresses that cost more than my couch . . . and finally ended up with a few things in a virtual shopping bag.  I am going to go check tonight and see if I still think those dresses would work.  If they don’t, I’ll return them.

And on Saturday, I’m going to the mall, which is probably the dumbest place to go on an August afternoon.  The guys at the kiosks accost me every time.  I feel like I’m walking down a metropolitan sidewalk, avoiding panhandlers. But maybe I’ll find something that makes me look cuter than I feel and will make a good first impression.

Where are Stacy London and Clinton Kelly when you really need them?

Before summer ends:

1) Picnic at Mt. Rainier
2)  Ride Bremerton ferry to Seattle
3)  Buy shoes for kids
4)  Lament end of summer
5)  Sleep in as much as possible

We have only have three weeks . . . time’s running out.  Time’s always running out, if you really stop to think about it.  But who has time to think?  And why would you want to ponder your mortality when there are things like mountains and ferries and shoe stores?

Tell me, please.  What would you do with $20 and a free afternoon?

My sister helped me clean out my closet.  And by “helped” I mean she laughed at my fashion disasters, kept her judgments about my shoe collection to herself and gave me permission to get rid of old clothes that have no stains or holes.

My daughter has been sorting through her stuffed animals and toys and clothes, purging her belongings.  I did not prompt her to do so and so I’m amazed at my pack-rat daughter.  “Mom, I just can’t believe I had so many ugly toys!” she said.

I have a scary storage room that will need my attention, too.  And closet shelves and dressers and cupboards and drawers full of the accumulation of twelve years in this house.

This is the longest stretch I’ve ever lived anywhere.  My childhood years were spent in many houses, but during my school years (kindergarten to graduation), I only lived in two houses.  After I was married, we managed to move every two or four years . . . until we landed here.

So, not only do we have roots, we have clutter and stuff and too many boxes of Christmas decorations.

The start of every school year feels like the start of the year to me . . . so it’s time to sort, purge, clean, organize and get ready for another year to begin.

Anyone need a Halloween costume?  A lampshade without a lamp?  Eighteen thousand Golden Books?

When I was ten or eleven, I started babysitting.  The penny-pinching people I babysat for would count out my pay in nickels and dimes, never, ever rounding up.  I made twenty-five cents an hour.

From the time I was eleven until I was eighteen, I worked in the church nursery as the helper.  I earned a dollar per church service, which ended up being three dollars a week (Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night).  Sometimes we’d have twenty-some babies under the age of two.

When I was twelve, I started picking strawberries.  A dollar a flat.  We’d wake up early, ride our bikes down the street, then up the hill, then around the bend.  We’d get our punch-cards and be assigned a row of strawberry plants and begin picking.  We could stay as long as we wanted, but I rarely lasted much past lunch-time.

When I was thirteen, I was chosen to plant strawberries.  The strawberry-farm people thought I was fifteen and that’s why I was offered the job.  I rode in a pick-up truck to the field near the freeway where I saw on the back of tractor where I plugged baby strawberry plants onto a wheel that automatically stuck the plants into the ground. I made minimum wage, which was $2.65 an hour (I think?)

When I was fifteen, my stepmom helped me get a job at a health food store.  The owners left me entirely in charge sometimes, which was a mistake since I told a customer looking for vitamins, “Oh, I don’t know.  They don’t tell me anything here!”

When I was sixteen and a half, I was hired by Taco Time.  I worked there until I graduated from high school and moved away.

When I was eighteen, I worked as a nanny for a family in Branson.  They lived on Table Rock Lake.  For the first time in my life, I met a child who hated my guts.  That was a long summer.

In college, I had several jobs: babysitting, cleaning the dorm, assembling the salad bar in the cafeteria.

The summers I was nineteen (and twenty), I worked for Heritage USA, the place Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker founded in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I worked in the children’s department the first summer and the youth department the second.

When I graduated from college, I worked for a women’s healthclub in the childcare room.

After I married my husband, I worked for a law office.  The practice handled real estate law and personal estate planning.  The office was a mile from our apartment in New Haven.  I walked to work many mornings and wandered the New Haven Green and the Yale campus during lunchtime.

When we moved back to Washington, I worked for a non–profit agency.  I managed the (very small) office.  I had an amazing boss, but I needed more than thirty hours of work per week, so I got a new job.

I worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Washington in the Customer Service Department.

Then I worked for an office supply store (retail at Christmas, totally fun).

We adopted our kids and I did childcare in my home off and on over the years.

I did some legal transcription.  I did some medical transcription.

I sold some articles.

I wrote a blog for a now-defunct website.

Now I work from home from a great company.  I feel really lucky to have fallen into my particular career.  You just never know where life will lead you.

And I am super grateful that I no longer get paid in nickels and dimes and that I don’t have to scrub giant refried bean pans or clean the bathrooms in a fast food restaurant.

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How many jobs have you had?  What was your favorite?