I’m here!  Near Santa Cruz, at Mt. Hermon Christian Conference Center.  For a food-related description of my day, check out The Amazing Shrinking Mom. 

It’s only 8 p.m. and I am missing “Survivor” (no television in my rustic room, alas!).  However, I am so tired, which seems impossible since I only washed one load of laundry today (before I left the house) and haven’t made a single snack or meal for anyone all day long.  I really can’t believe that I’m here or that I saw the Pacific Ocean from 30,000 feet this afternoon.  The skies were clear here on the West Coast, so I could see landscapes and sometimes, houses, as we jetted down the coast to California.  I love flying.

When I got here, I was walking up to my lodgings and a voice said from the front seat of a car, “Mel?” and sure enough, there was Barbara Curtis.  We’ve had several quick conversations already and I am so looking forward to talking with her more.  It’s not often that you get to meet a blogging buddy with whom you already have a connection. 

Now, just because I’m down here in California doesn’t mean that I won’t be checking the Internet semi-compulsively, so leave me a comment so I don’t get lonely!  And go over and click on the Amazing Shrinking Mom blog while you’re at it. 

It’s 11 p.m. . . . I never did vacuum.  Nor did I sweep the kitchen floor.  But the laundry is all caught up, my suitcase is packed and I’m ready to go.  I leave at 9:45 a.m.

So, farewell, until I find a wi-fi spot in California. 

And keep up the self-nominations for Blogs in Focus.  We can never have too many excellent blogs to read, can we?

While it’s true that the voices of guilt chant loudly in my ear, it’s also true that I am immune to them.  Mostly.  I have prioritized and here is the main thing I need to do before jetting to California:  buy kitty litter and change the box. 

Also, I need new mascara.

I am indispensable around here, though.  I am the official Toilet Flusher and Light-Switcher-Offer.  Also, I am the only one who ever wipes off the kitchen counter and the only person who ever makes ice cubes. 

 

So, I’m leaving on a jet plane.  On Thursday.

My question for you, O Internet, is this:  can I wear an underwire bra through the airport screening or will the metal set off the alarms and cause me to miss my plane because I’m being strip-searched and detained for questioning?

Seriously.  I need to know.

You know what I hate?  I hate writing a post–with links–and then watching it disappear when I hit “publish.”  That’s what happened last night and that’s why there isn’t a bright, shiny post waiting for you this morning.

I’ll be back later, recreating that post, but in the meantime, we are sluggishly getting started with our school day.  Pre-algebra, anyone?

I’m trying to catch up to my life, running like mad, fingertips almost grasping the bumper.  But it won’t slow down and I can’t hop into the back seat, no matter how I try.

In a little more than a week, I’m boarding an airplane, heading for Californian writer’s conference that I nearly talked myself out of attending.  The days leading up to those five nights and six days away are a jumble of demands:  I need to get my boys through as much schooling as possible and send in our quarterly work samples–we are slightly behind–I need to get laundry caught up, cleaning done, food purchased.  I need to plant the dahlia bulbs I bought last week.  I must send the tax information off to the accountant immediately.  

And all the while . . . there is dinner to cook, children to tend, toilets to scrub.  And other stuff.

Oh yeah.  And writing.  I have to pull together some compositions, essays, articles.  I need to solidify ideas and gather up the edges of my brain so that nothing spills out while I’m sloshing around my house, picking up tiny plastic toy cats. 

At times like these, I wonder what to do with my hair.  Grow it longer or cut it off again? 

Focus.  Focus.  Come on, Mel, focus. 

Friday night, I was sitting in the movie theater and my cell phone rang.  There is only one valid excuse for a ringing cell phone during a movie:  the pregnant woman has gone into labor.  And so it was that I missed the last fifteen minutes of “Premonition” and sped down the freeway to my pregnant friend’s house.  I arrived at 9:30 p.m.  Her contractions were four minutes apart.  I said, “You want to take a walk?” and so we strode for an hour around her neighborhood, gazing at stars and chatting.

At 10:37 p.m., I said to her, “Do you want me to go home?”  and so I decided to go home to sleep while she got some rest.  I never did fall asleep, but at 12:08 a.m., I answered the phone on the first ring.  “Her contractions are a minute and forty-five seconds to two minutes apart.”  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said.

I threw on a sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers and my glasses.  When I arrived, the dishwasher was swishing and the husband scurried around gathering stuff while the pregnant woman leaned over the couch, captive to her contractions.  They left and I curled onto their bed with my own pillow, settling down to rest.  In the other bedroom slept their 2-year old.

At 1:30 a.m., the phone rang.  They were admitting her to the hospital.  I told him to call me when the baby was born.

At 6:00 a.m., the phone rang.  The baby girl had been born, 8 pounds, 1 ounce, 21 inches.  Mom and baby were fine.

At 7:30 a.m., the 2-year old woke up.  When he saw me rather than his mom, he cried hysteric tears for about two minutes until he caught a glimpse of his new baseball and mitt on his dresser.  He grabbed them and stopped crying.  We went downstairs for television and breakfast.  (I, still wearing my sweatshirt and jeans, now looking rather disheveled.)

At 8:30 a.m., the phone rang.  We agreed that I’d take the 2-year old to the zoo and bring him back home at 11:30 a.m. to meet his dad. 

I picked up my daughter, put on my contacts and off we went to the zoo.  (I apologize to anyone who might have seen me.  I know I was frightful.)  Fun was had by all, including the elephants.

At 11:30, dropped off 2-year old at his home. 

At noon, back home to send off my 9-year old to a birthday party.  Bade farewell to my husband who needed to go to church to work.  Then, took other kids to Trader Joe’s and Burger King. 

I spent the afternoon cleaning my house (so cluttered!  so distressing!) until it was time to go on a date with my husband.  And where did we go?  That’s right:  to see bull-riders!  (That link is accompanied by sound, loud sound.)  I only have pictures taken from a great distance, but trust me, we had fun.  Doesn’t this look fun?

Afterwards, appetizers and dessert at a waterfront restaurant.  Wow, we’re actual grown-ups, my husband and me!  On a date! 

Today?  Today we had church and I snapped this photo of my kids in front of church.  Spring is in full-bloom at the moment here. 

This week’s goal is simple.  Talk my way into the last fifteen minutes of “Premonition.”  But for now, I have to think up something to make for dinner before everyone simple dies of starvation.

This week during school-at-home, we have encountered semester assessments.  Also known as “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”  We spent the whole day today reviewing history from 1865 through about 1920 . . . and then they had to take the assessment.  One student passed easily with a 96%.  The other, my Reluctant Student, received a 76%, which frankly, is a huge success considering everything.  If he doesn’t get 80%, he is supposed to bring his score up to 100%, so we discussed all his wrong answers and that’s that.  Enough.  Enough. 

I had lunch at 2:00 p.m. and since my case of Diet Coke was in the back of the van (I never brought it in from the store the other night), I was unintentionally caffeine-free.  Not a good thing.  At all.

This afternoon, twelve boys played baseball in my front yard, which is not equipped for baseball games.  Home-plate was right in front of my overgrown boxwood hedge which is right in front of my plate-glass window.  I envisioned the baseball flying through my window and into my head, but it did not.  First base was a hedge.  Then, the player had to jump a three foot rock wall to get to second base, the mailbox.  To reach third base (a spindly tree), the player would jump down the three foot rock wall, cross the ivy and grab the twigs of the tree.

TWELVE BOYS.  I had my fingers ready to dial 9-1-1 knowing that one of them would smack another of them in the head with a metal bat at any moment.  But no one did.

You should see what happened to my daisies though.  The new green growth was pulverized by boy sneakers.  I am the kind mother who pops open the front door and shrieks, “HEY, GET OUT OF MY GARDEN!” to no avail.  All the boys just stare at me as if I have a lilac bush growing out of my forehead.

My daughter insists on being a part of the boy bedlam.  I do not enjoy this at all because that means I have to sit where I can see the front yard and exactly who is cooking dinner while I’m supervising?  No one, that’s who.  (The same person who is doing the laundry:  No One.) 

Anyway, the boys are arguing right now about some imaginary game and I just might lose my mind if I have to listen to this discussion one more second.  So, farewell.  I cannot stay in this room because my precarious mental health is at stake.

(Oh, by the way, my 9-year old son and his 9-year old friend say, “Hey, should we play wall-ball old-school?”  As if they are cynical and weary from their long tenure on this earth.  It never fails to crack me up.  “Old-school” indeed!)

What’s fun is waking up in the darkest of dark nights and realizing two things:

1)  You are still cold, even though you’ve been huddled under the covers since 11:00 p.m.

2)  That sound you heard was the sound of someone coughing and vomiting.

But, good news!  Although she’s only 4, I found her standing over toilet, retching and vomiting into the toilet bowl.  Hooray.

But, bad news.  “Did you throw up anywhere else?” I asked. 

“On the floor,” she said.

And then I stepped in it.

But, good news!  She settled back into bed and went right to sleep.

But, bad news!  She woke up a few hours later, thus waking me up.

But, good news!  She did not throw up again!

And more good news:  I went back to bed after my 8-year old left for school.  

But, bad news!  One of my 13-year old twins woke up in the dark hours of the night and threw up.

More bad news:  he threw up on the bathroom floor.

But, good news!  He cleaned it up!

But, bad news!  He did not flush.

More bad news:  The toilet was clogged.

But, good news!  I plunged it and the water receded.

But, bad news!  The bathroom stunk.  (Stank?  Stunk?  Stank?  Huh.  I can’t decide.)

But, good news!  Now it smells better because I bought a new mop the other day and a quick mopping and toilet cleaning worked a miracle.

And more good news!  I declared this a sick day.  And worked on taxes.

But, bad news:  My 13-year old felt ill all day.

But, good news!  My daughter felt much better and begged me for Cheetos.  (Uh, no.)

But, bad news!  My 8-year old complains that his stomach hurts.

But, good news!  Soon, I get to drop into bed and sleep, hopefully all night long.  And I feel great!

My life is so balanced, is it not?

Now, pass the hand sanitizer and spray every surface in your house with Lysol, just in case.

I’ve talked about this before, but . . . oh, how I hate trying to teach my children composition.  Writing comes as naturally to me as breathing.  I compose sentences and paragraphs in my head.  I sit down at the keyboard and phrases appear as if by magic on the screen, directly from my brain without even pausing in my fingertips.  I can’t stop writing and my boys can’t begin. 

I wonder if they really think in the limited vocabulary that appears on the page when I ask them to write something.  Do they notice any details as they careen through life?  Do they have an interior life in which they actually contemplate things and consider ideas? 

For this assignment, they were to write a “compare and contrast” essay.  I suggested the topic: comparing school at home with public school (because they couldn’t even come up with a topic–they acted as if I demanded that they come up with a solution to the unrest in the Middle East or solve the mystery of orphan socks or to create a new color for Crayola).  Doesn’t that topic I suggested sound easy?  

They did all the pre-writing, had their points lined up in columns.  Then, they committed words to paper and again, the question came up:  does one sentence make a paragraph?  Oh no, it does not, if you are a 13-year old boy.  (You must know the rules and be able to follow the rules before you are allowed to break the rules.)  Today they were to proofread and polish their work. 

Here are the final two sentences as written by my Reluctant Student:

“Woke up time what you eat and how fast you go but.  You learn in both and accomplish in both.”

That was after he proofread and polished.  Oh, my aching head.  And how about this paragraph/sentence by my other student:

“For example when I went to public school I had to get up really early to get ready now I can sleep in to a later time.”

When I suggest that details would, perhaps, be required, my students react with astonishment and horror.  When I point out that a sentence fragment is, perhaps, nonsensical at best, my students respond with the defensiveness of a politician caught with a mouthful of lies.  By the time I am frothing at the mouth, shouting, declaring my superior writing skills and yanking at my hair, they are falling to the floor and crawling under the table to escape my frustration.  Really, one prone on the floor and one hiding under the table. 

Oh, yes, I am a very effective teacher of composition.  And Mother of the Year.  Ha ha ha.

So, what a day full of frustration.  Tomorrow, no more composition.  I’m going to have to work up the courage (and possibly get a prescription for muscle-relaxers or hallucinogenics or both) before we tackle the next composition assignment, a persuasive essay dealing with United States history after the Civil War but before the Great War.  Tomorrow, we focus on reaching our required percentages of completion for all subjects before February ends (lots of grammar, a little science, some history and a touch more literature). 

Or die trying.

Note to self:  Never become a junior high composition teacher.