Now, here’s the thing.  Another blogger with a lot of readers is asking people to vote for her in the Fruity Cheerios contest.  Clearly, she doesn’t realize how much I need this $500.  If you haven’t already voted today, won’t you vote for me?  Click here and then click on my picture (M. Helms).  And feel free to ask everyone you know and everyone you have ever known and your mailman to vote for me, too.

Thanks!

Hi.  Wouldn’t it be nice if I put up a post that wasn’t begging for votes or indulging in self-pity over a bunch of nothing?  (Teenage angst is so 1980s.)

Well, huh, too bad I have nothing to say.  My biggest accomplishment of the day was putting away seven baskets of folded laundry, including socks.  I actually matched up the socks that languished in the Sock Basket . . . no matter how much laundry I wash, I always have several dozen unmatched socks, leading me to question the symmetry of the universe.

Also, you should know that I inadvertently trained my crooked-tail cat to race to the front door at the sound of the doorbell.  Talk about a stupid pet trick.  Our cats are indoors-only cats, but this one sneaks out the front door at every opportunity, then immediately panics and begins to bang at the screen to be let back in.  But, ding-dong, the doorbell rings and the cat runs to the front door.  I’m forever nudging that cat away from the door with my foot while standing in the doorway talking to a neighbor.

What is distressing about my life at the moment (oh dear, more angst popping up) is how the universe continually collapses on itself.  Nothing stays as it should . . . at the moment, I see five pairs of shoes scattered on the floor (only one pair belongs to me) and a bicycle helmet.  I didn’t get the dishes from dinner washed because I had to rush out of the house to a meeting (of sorts, a sort-of-meeting).  Tomorrow, I’ll start the day with my house in some disarray, which will drive me crazy, but that alone does not motivate me to want to deal with anything tonight.  Why can’t things just stay where I put them?  Why can’t clean things stay clean?  Why, for the love of Pluto, can’t the couch cushions stay arranged on the couch instead of in a haphazard pile?

I know.  I know.  Kids.  I’ll miss these kids when they’re gone.  Yeah, whatever.  If so, I’ll just go over to their homes and drink out of three different glasses, leave them stuck in a sticky ring on the coffee table, take off my socks, roll them into balls and toss them in corners and lose the remote control.  Then I will put an empty milk carton in the refrigerator, smear my fingerprints all over the patio door and pee on the toilet seat.

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Now, time to vote.  Go, click on my picture (M. Helms, scroll down a little) and voila!  I’m a little closer to winning $500!  Thanks!  (You can vote once a day.)

Won’t you go to the Modern Mom website and vote for me?  You can vote once a day.  The one with the most votes wins $500!  It’s really easy to vote–no registration required or anything . . . just click on the picture.  Please, pretty please?  (This post will appear at the top of my page until voting ends in a week . . . but I will be back–today–with a regular post.)

Warning:  Do not read this is you’re eating something and you are prone to sympathy gagging.  I’m telling a gross story here.

*  *  *

No Retreat, No Surrender buy So, last you heard, I was heading upstairs with a roll of paper towels to clean up old vomit.  Boy, was that fun.  I hate to tell the Bounty paper towel people, but I resorted to old cloth diapers because even a fancy, deluxe paper towel couldn’t handle vomit-soaked carpet.

Sunday afternoon, I took my 4-year old to the swimming pool for a couple of hours.  She’s already swimming underwater with no fear or hesitation.  I read my book (Stephen King’s On Writing) as much as possible, which was not much because every two minutes, she beckoned me, “Mom!  Look at me!”

What a lovely afternoon of leisure.  My husband cooked dinner when we returned home.  After we ate, I continued reading.  And then, oh, then the inevitable happened.  My daughter cried out, “My tummy hurts!” and I heard a rustle in the hallway and shot to my feet.  My husband was in the hallway, but I didn’t hear what he said, something about throwing up and I said, “IN THE TOILET!  IN THE TOILET!” and he said, “She already did it!”

Oh.  Yeah.  She was screaming.  A glistening puddle of vomit shone at her feet and I said, “Are you done?” and I lifted her over the puddle into the bathroom and she yurked right into the sink, all the while screaming.  I said, “Okay, okay, are you done?” and she drooled a little and then I directed her to the toilet–at last, a bulls-eye–and she finished her puke-fest, then shrieked and cried some more until I said, “Are you done?” and she nodded and I said with perhaps a bit too much cheer, “Well, then, don’t you feel better?” and she agreed, but she still cried because she had vomit on her legs.

I ran the bath and while she soaked in the steaming water, I scooped up the shocking amount of vomit with toilet paper so I could flush it all.

Well, that sounds fun, doesn’t it?  I’m lucky that I have no gag-reflex whatsoever.

This stomach churning continued through the night until 4:00 a.m.  She spent most of the night on her bedroom floor, staring at the television, writhing around to escape her stomach pain, occasionally dry-heaving onto a towel.  I spent most of the night suspended in that state between wakefulness and sleep, running every hour or so to her room to comfort her.  (I realize that I sound like a terrible mother, leaving her to her illness, only checking in from time to time.  I assume that she dozed off between cries.)  At 4 a.m., she came into my room to inform me that her stomach felt better, so I said, “Good.  Go get some sleep.”

I think she did.  When I got up to walk at 6:15 a.m., I could see a sliver of light under her closed door, but she was quiet.  I think she’d fallen asleep with the light on.

I did take a small nap Monday morning after my walk, but despite that, the day was a blur.  Today, still, I’m bleary-eyed and tempted to take a nap, even though I’m not the napping type.

The end.

I’ve been tagged. 

I won’t tag you, either, because I am just too lazy.  But here are eight random facts about me.  

1)  My favorite television drama was “thirtysomething.”  I still miss it.  (This is fresh on my mind because of People magazine.)

2)  I was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, but I have no memory of living there because we left when I was an infant.  My parents moved twenty-five times (or so) before I was five.  And they were not military, either, and had no good reason for their nomadic ways.

3)  I’ve lived in the following states:  Washington, Oregon, Missouri, Michigan, Connecticut, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, Montana, Minnesota (I think), North Dakota (again, I think).  I’ve lived in my current house longer than anywhere in my whole life.  (Also . . . we bought this house sight unseen.)

4)  Next month, I’ll celebrate my 20th anniversary.

5)  I grew up going to old-fashioned camp meetings, complete with sawdust aisles and emotional altar calls.  (Some of you will have no idea at all what that means, but some of you will immediately start hearing “Just As I Am” in your head.)

6)  In junior high, I was gonged off the stage during a school “Gong Show.”  I was dressed as a hippie and singing “The Merry Minuet.”  There were no hippies in 1979, so this was, perhaps, a mistake on my part.  I thought it was hilarious . . . until I was gonged. 

7)  I love to read the newspaper from beginning to end, though I admit to skipping over the business section.

8)  I hate to swim with my face under water. 

The thing about sleep is that once you begin to sleep through the night again, you want to repeat that every single night.  Your youngest child reaches four and a half and the memory of waking every two hours around the clock for eleven straight months seems like a grim fairy tale.  Everyone is capable of sleeping all night long and so you expect everyone to sleep all night long.

Silly you.

This youngest one, the one in curls, she is deaf to your pleas and when you beg, “Please, tonight, stay in your own bed, okay?” she says, “But I want to sleep in your bed.”  And then you warn, “If you come into my room, I will just put you back in your own bed!  So don’t come to my room!”  She says, “Okay.”  And you elaborate:  “When you wake up in the night, say to yourself, Mommy doesn’t want me to come into her bed and then just roll over and go back to sleep.”  

And then, at 2:00 a.m., you hear the door open.  (How is it possible that a door opening can rouse you from a deep sleep?)  You have two choices:

1)  Grab bathrobe and child and march her back to her own bed where she’ll whimper when you say, “NIGHTY-NIGHT!” or;

2)  Say, “All right.  Climb in.  NO WIGGLING!”

Last night, I foolishly chose number two and so, from 2:00 a.m. until 3:00 a.m., I curled with my back next to her as she rotisseried under the sheets.  She claimed this morning that she did not wiggle, but she did.  She wiggled and jiggled and tickled beside me until finally, in a fit of sit-com rage, I jumped from bed, scooped her up and plopped her back into her bed.  Once in my own bed, I felt my heart thumping its adrenaline-boosted huff.  It’s pretty hard to get back to sleep when you’ve just had a sleep-deprived, mini-meltdown at 3:00 a.m.

Tonight, I had a rational conversation with her and explained that mommy cannot sleep when the pink-pajama’ed one is near and she seemed to understand.  She will understand when I fly from my bed at the first door-knob click and deposit her back into her own bed without enduring the hour-long aggravation of Princess Wiggles demonstrating her Kung-fu kicks while I pretend I am asleep.

I am in a fragile decade, the decade of the forties when I am still able to sleep all night long without my bladder knocking at the door or my joints creaking me awake.  I want to sleep while I am able.  She wants to be with me twenty-four hours a day.   

I am so tired of being adored, especially in the middle of the night.

While driving to the grocery store at 9:15 tonight, I was startled by the moon.  It hung low in the sky like a battery-operated coin.  I was a hazard while driving along, because not only was I staring at the moon but I was also digging in my purse in search of my camera.  (It was not there.)

When I finished shopping, the moon had risen higher and shone bright white.  I admired it while I drove.  I walked the length of my driveway to catch one more glimpse of the moon.

Then, I said goodnight. 

Goodnight nobody.

Goodnight mush.

And goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush.”

Goodnight stars.

Goodnight air.

Goodnight noises everywhere.

* * *

As some of you mentioned, the moon is a blue moon tonight . . . the second full moon in a month.  Last time a blue moon appeared was in June 2004, I think. 

Won’t you click on my other blog, The Amazing Shrinking Mom?  I write there nearly every day . . . and for some reason, my traffic has fallen off this month (all those New Year’s Resolutions have lost their power?) and I’m feeling a little neglected. 

How pathetic I am.  But still.  Click for me?

So, Memorial Day weekend has passed and all I have to show for it is one right sunburned shin and one left sunburned forearm.  That’s because on Saturday, I sat on one side of the pool and on Monday, I sat on the other.  On Monday, the wind fluttered all afternoon and the sun kept ducking behind clouds and I was cold in my short sleeves, so when the sun appeared, I scooted my chair right into the burning rays to warm up.  I have no regrets.

I cleaned out my storage room on Sunday while my husband took my youngest daughter to visit some friends.  When I say “cleaned out,” I don’t mean cleaned out as in Clean Sweep.  Oh no.  Who has the time to do such a gratifying clean up in a stray hour or two?  I merely sorted through the piles of junk that has accumulated in the middle of the floor.  I loaded up a bunch of garbage bags to unload at Goodwill.  Good riddance.

I also walked a nearby 3.3 mile trail with views of the Puget Sound and wind whipping up the winding pathways.  I walked alone, which is good because any of my children would have whined and complained like the Children of Israel heading for the Promised Land.  (“My legs hurt!  I’m thirsty!  I want to go home!”)  I walked briskly, congratulating myself on my superior cardiovascular system.  (That’s what daily exercise will do for you.  I haven’t missed a day of exercise since August of 2006.  Be impressed.  Be very impressed.)

My daughter has decided she wants to live with Mr. and Mrs. S., an empty-nester couple from our church who have a dog.  (They aren’t much older than us, but they started reproducing while they were still young, whereas it took us quite a while to produce offspring.)  Anyway, she came home tonight after an hour’s visit complaining bitterly that she still wanted to be at their house with their dog.  In fact, she said, “I want to live with Mr. S.”  I said, “Won’t you miss me?” and she said, “No.”

Well.  Okay.  Same to you, kid!  Actually, this change in her personality is such a shock to me.  She was such a clingy baby, not even letting her grandmother touch her . . . and now she’s ready to move out thanks to a cute Schnauzer. 

Oh, and she swims underwater, just as she did at the end of last summer.  I thought it would take her some time to get acclimated to the water since she hadn’t swum all winter . . . but no.  She just bobbed right under without hesitation.  She paddles from one edge of the pool to the other. 

I just finished reading Peace Like a River.  I cried at the last paragraph.  What a book.  I recommend it with my whole heart.  By the way, if you click on “What I Read” over there under my picture, you can see a list of the books I’ve read recently.  I love Librarything.com . . . it’s a great way to keep track of what you’re reading, what you want to read, or the books you own . . . whatever works for you.  I own too many books to catalog, so I’m just adding books as I read them.

Isn’t it lovely that we’re almost halfway through the week?  I am thrilled . . . already, I need a weekend! 

Here’s more about the spaces after periods.  (And we’re not talking menstruation.)  Some of you asked.