My laundry is finished, except for the load still in the dryer.

This can only mean one thing.

What?

Hint:  You should know that we have a large, vicious dog named Spike and he will gnaw off your face should you attempt to break into our house.  Also, please join me in a chorus of “It’s a Small World After All. . . ”

Don’t you hate it when that song gets stuck in your head?  The only thing worse is when the Elmo’s World song gets lodged in your brain and when you wake up to pee in the middle of the night, Elmo’s sing-song voice belts out a chorus:  “That’s Elmo’s world!”

Because just running Avalanche Ranch isn’t stressful enough (though I have to say it’s going so smoothly that I have nothing to complain about), sirens rang out, a police car appeared in the parking lot, then a firetruck rolled up.  My husband went out to investigate and the police officer told him he was managing a crisis and couldn’t talk then.  I walked around outside, saw the construction workers all drift down the street, assured myself that the kids playing outdoors across the street were all well and returned inside.  Then a Puget Sound Energy truck drove up.  An aid car completed the traffic jam on the street in front of the church.

The construction guys hit a natural gas line, poked a 2-inch hole in it, so the emergency management people arrived to manage the potential emergency.  We had to direct all the parents around to the back of the church to pick up the children.  That was pretty exciting.
But all’s well that ends well.  Nothing exploded, no one caught on fire.  Crisis averted.

In other news, it was blazing hot today in the land of the mild summers.

That is all.

*whew*

You know what drives me crazy?  I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again:  seeing a child in a movie theater watching a movie that is completely inappropriate for a child.  Why in the world are parents in such a hurry to expose their children to adult themes and images?  And I’m don’t just mean gore or sexuality . . . I think children should be protected from ideas with which adults must grapple.  I don’t want my kids to worry about things that adults worry about.  I take my job very seriously and a large part of my job is keeping my children safe, both physically and emotionally.  Thus, I guard their minds and hearts and eyes.  Judging from the local theater, not everyone thinks like me.  Shocking!  (No, really, how can that be when I am so smart and . . . well, so right?)  You might call me overprotective, but I prefer to think of myself as the protective wall between my kids and harm.
That’s one reason I appreciate the newly launched website “We Believe in Girls.” I can stand behind a site that says:

We also believe that the pressure on girls to grow up fast, to dress up “fast,” to cut the midriff shorter, pout the lips out further, pierce everything earlier — that all this mad, headlong rush toward early sophistication* may have gone a bit too far.

I believe that, too.  I want my daughter to play with dolls, to be oblivious to teenage concerns (make-up, boys, high-heels, shorts with words written across the backside!), to be as unselfconscious for as long as possible.  I don’t want her to want highlights in her hair and lipstick on her mouth and a sparkly cell phone with which to call boys until she is . . . well, twenty-three.  Or at least thirteen.  What’s the rush?

The 300 Spartans the movie

When my daughter grows up, I want her to have choices, true choices about what she wants to be and do with her life.  I  hope I can give her the tools and education and confidence to become a doctor . . . or an artist . . . or a stay-at-home mother . . . or a secretary . . . or an accountant . . . whatever she wants to become.  I want her to understand that you don’t have to do it all, be it all or have it all at the exact same time.  Life is a journey with many stops along the way . . . but if you are lucky, you choose a good companion and fill your suitcase with stuff that will help you along the way (excellent reading material, a great education, solid friends, a sturdy belief system, confidence).

Anyway, join in on the conversation.  Take the poll.  Poke around on that website and see if anything resonates with you.  I know it did with me.

Linda has a great list of things she wishes . . . I wish I had time to think of an excellent response to leave in her comment section, but alas, I do not.  Do you?

I wish I had more time to leave comments wherever I go!

Those of you who have never had the responsibility of planning a church event don’t know what you’re missing.  I’m at that stage where my head aches and I’m immobilized by the weight of details tangled together like the world’s largest rubber band ball.  Only fifty-three children are signed up, which can mean two things:  1)  Our event will be smaller this year than normal (to which I would say YA-HOO!) or 2) Forty children plan to sign up at the last minute on Monday morning (to which I would say NO!  JUST NO!).

And, just for the fun of it, I’ve agreed to let my boys have two friends “sleep” over tonight . . . and I do use the word “sleep” very loosely since they fully intend to stay up all night long giggling and playing games.

. . . so much time passed since I wrote that last sentence that I realized I have nothing more to say tonight, other than this simple declaration:  I HATE SLEEPOVERS.

Also?  I HATE SLEEPOVERS.  Oh wait.  I already said that.

I was just about to make my escape, head to Costco with half my kids (I love being able to leave the teenagers at home!) when the doorbell rang.  Oh, hello, neighborhood brothers.  Then, I thought, okay, another hour and I’ll leave.  Ding-dong.  Hello, neighborhood kid and his friend.

So, now all my kids are playing with all these kids and I’m going to read the newspaper and eat lunch and enjoy the semi-quiet while kids are all making noise outside.

Yesterday, I forgot the sunscreen and so today, I have a sunburn on my right knee and my left forehead.  Everything else is pink but doesn’t hurt.  My kids have pink cheeks but seem otherwise unscathed.  Never before in my memory have we watched a Fourth of July parade in such heat and bright sun.  I failed as a mother and brought no cold water.  Alas.

After the parade, a little synchronized swimming at the pool.

And then, much later, waiting for fireworks to begin.

When we got home?  The air conditioner (heat pump, actually) was lagging and I knew that meant it had frozen which meant the filters were disgusting which meant I stood at the kitchen sink cleaning them for an hour, maybe more.

And just now?  The doorbell rings.  But at least the air is working again.

(What do you know?  It’s another neighborhood boy.)

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . .

Today was the first day it felt like summertime.  It even smelled like summertime, a mixture of cut grass and dirt and chlorine.  I sat by the edge of the pool, curled into a plastic chair, holding my book open, but my eyes were fastened on the sleek body of my almost 5-year old daughter as she jumped into the pool.  She’d bob out of the water, wipe her eyes, smooth back her hair and pull her ears, then climb from the pool without using the stairs.

She’s beautiful but completely unselfconscious, at that perfect age when competence and achievement have not yet met with self-doubt and failure.  She pinches her nose closed, dunks her head and kicks her legs in perfect rhythm, reaches with one arm for the edge of the pool.  When she clears the water from her face, she looks to me for approval and says, “Did you see that?”  She is proud of herself.  She is entirely in the moment.

I wonder if song lyrics dance in her head or if she hears just the rush of water and the patter of the other children?  She has no soundtrack in her head that says, “Be careful!” or “Do I look fat in this outfit?”  The sun warms her tan shoulders and the only thing she worries about if whether she might jump on someone.  So, she stands and watches and waits patiently for her turn and then:  SPLASH!  “Did you see that?” she says.

I grin and give her the thumbs-up signal.

This is the last summer of her fourth year.  The only summer of her fourth year.  She is so beautiful and she has no idea.  And I am trying not to forget.

And today, because I am just that fascinating, I went crazy with Liquid Nails and fixed a gliding footrest, a door, a drawer, and a piano bench. (I even used my staple gun on the piano bench. Bam! Bam! Bam!)

I drilled a hole in the ceiling and installed one of those fancy, heavy-duty hooks.

Then I drove to Lowe’s where I bought a new doorknob for the screen door. I used my drill again and installed the new doorknob. We’ve been sticking one finger into the empty doorknob hole for about, oh, two months, to open it up. And only one of us got a gaping, bleeding wound in all that time. Still. I replaced it. (Cost: eight bucks.)

Just call me Mrs. Fix-It.

(I know. How much more boring can I be? Could I just slap some wet paint up here so you could watch it dry?)

I caulked my bathtub.  I took my four year old with me to Home Depot, bought the necessary supplies, returned home, stripped off old caulk, washed the tub, wiped down the edges with bleach, wiped down the edges with rubbing alcohol and caulked.

This chore has been urgent for about two years.  Maybe more.

And now it’s done.

Please buy me a treat.

What I’ve discovered is that a digital camera with a roomy memory card is an excellent way to entertain a four-and-a-half year old child.  She took all these pictures, including the self-portrait.  I love seeing the world through her eyes.

All my boys are gone tonight, sleeping over at their friends’ houses.  This means that the kitchen is still clean.  The floor hasn’t collected cereal in the corners since I swept and mopped after dinner.  No popcorn kernels have been dropped on the family room floor.

And honestly, it’s too quiet.  Having my children away worries me . . . yet, ah, blessed silence.  Sooner or later I’ll have to accept that they will not always be safely ensconced under my roof . . . but I’m kind of glad it will be “later.”  I like knowing they are safely in their rooms, even when they are talking when they should be sleeping.  I miss them when they’re gone.  (I can’t believe I just said that.  Remind me when I complain about THE NOISE, THE MESS, THE NOISE!)
*  *  *

Now, look away if my incessant begging troubles you.  (Are you gone?  Really, look away because–for the last time–I’m going to ask for a favor.)

Please, will you vote one last time for me in the Fruity Cheerios contest?  Click here, scroll down and click on my picture (Melodee H.).  The deadline is Saturday night at 11:00 p.m.  Thank you!  (You know I’d do the same for you.)