Pictures of my life in a thousand words . . . more or less.
I’m feeling all neglected and wishing someone would email me . . . because no one has emailed me in the last ten minutes since I last checked. And then I realize that I have 82 emails sitting in my box at this very moment and perhaps it would behoove me to answer one or twenty-seven of them.
Or not.
And why don’t they flush?
Why do boys love to dig holes?
Before guns were invented, did boys turn everything into swords or arrows?
Why do boys smell?
Why don’t boys notice that they smell?
Why don’t boys care if their hands are sticky?
Why do boys hate haircuts?
Why do boys put the empty milk carton back into the fridge?
Why don’t boys notice that they have gunk stuck to their teeth?
Why are boys so gassy?
This morning I was awake at 5 a.m. because I was worried about waking up at 6:15 a.m. I managed to get the 14-year olds up and out the door right on time. I delivered them and their 13-year old friend to the appropriate classrooms for the dreaded state-mandated testing and then I was home again by 7:30 a.m.
You’d think that with the extra hours of consciousness today I would have something to show for my day besides a kitchen full of dirty dishes. At one point I noticed how annoyed I was with myself, how I silently berated myself for not doing anything today, for not producing anything. My day was a haphazard maze of moments tangled together . . . I have the same allotment of time as everyone else, so why do I fall into bed at night without having much to show for my day?
My brain was dull today, glossed over so nothing could stick to it. Not a single thought would line up at the door. I hate that. The noises of children playing thudded in my head and made me wonder why I thought being a mother would be such a barrel of fun. I guess I thought I’d sweep them into a pile and put them away when I was tired of playing with them.
And so it goes. Tomorrow will be another early day. My only goal for tomorrow is to write that long overdue letter to my imprisoned friend and to buy laundry detergent. I fix my hopes on these small goals, which is pathetic, if you ask me.
What a weekend . . . my husband was away, hanging out with ten of his college buddies. They went to Pike Place Market, attended a Mariner’s game, golfed, and dug razor clams at the ocean. Isn’t it remarkable that this group of guys still gets together after graduating more than twenty years ago?
What’s strange is seeing someone you haven’t seen for ten years. That person looks aged, gray-haired, wrinkled a bit, which leads me to believe that perhaps I have aged, too, though how can that be possible when I’m still 22 on the inside?
So, while my husband was gallivanting, I took the kids to the Spring Fair on Friday, then took two of my kids and my mother to the Daffodil Parade on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, I met with someone to plan Vacation Bible School for this upcoming summer. Sunday was church and then my husband returned home with one of his friends in tow. We sat and chatted while a bunch of boys played in the backyard. Since the weather has warmed a bit, swarms of boys prowl in the backyard. The hole they are digging is now big enough to bury a horse or at least a large goat. (This cow does not live in my backyard.)
The other day, my 9-year old son came into the house proclaiming, “Man, I wish I could get paid to dig holes!” His 9-year old buddy chimed in, “Me, too!”
While brushing my 4 and a half-year old’s hair from her eyes today, I noticed a strangely short curl on her forehead. Sure enough, she admitted that she cut her hair a few days ago. I had feared that she would turn her mad-scissor skills upon her own slow-growing hair, but as it turns out, you’d never know that she sheared a bit of hair off. (This picture shows all the hair she’s managed to grow in over four years of life!)
Tomorrow, my twin boys have to be awake, showered, dressed, in their right minds and present at the local middle school where they have to take the WASL (our state test) . . . the fly in this ointment is that they have to arrive at 7:15 a.m. which is agony because they normally wake up at 9:00 a.m. We’ll all be bleary-eyed and crabby tomorrow as a result of that horrifyingly early hour. I hate this particular standardized test for an assortment of reasons, but I might hate it less if it started at 10:30 a.m. instead.
If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know I have died from lack of sleep.
First, we went here:
And I stood in line for an hour so I could take this picture:
And now, I am utterly exhausted.
Mary Winkler was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. She’s the pastor’s wife who shot her husband in the back while he slept, then claimed to have no memory of pulling the trigger. I saw a little of her testimony yesterday on a news channel and saw her explain that the gun went off accidentally and that she ran with her children because she knew no one would believe her.
As a pastor’s wife, I understand how isolated she must have felt. But as a human being, I cannot begin to understand how she thought a gun might solve her problems anymore than I can understand how the Virginia Tech killer thought a gun would solve his problems.
I pity her children. I pity her. But I must admit that I’m amazed that she will serve less than six years for the murder voluntary manslaughter of her husband. (I know her defense was that she was a “battered” wife, but I still don’t understand why she shot him rather than left him.)
Updated to add: I am acquainted with a former Bible College professor who was convicted of attempted murder. She hit the man on the head with a crowbar, doing little damage to him. She is now serving eight years. I find it odd that Mary Winkler–whose victim is dead–will serve less time than my acquaintance, who barely (allegedly) injured her victim. (She maintains she is innocent, but used the Alford plea.)
Tuesday night, we took our twin boys to a Mariner’s game at Safeco Field. I had fun for these reasons:
1) The tickets were free.
2) The kids are old enough (14!) to be set free to hunt and gather their own food (with the money I gave them).
3) My husband was with me.
4) Two women sitting behind me chatted the whole time. (They went to high school together in Walla Walla. One of them has a mother who uses a tanning bed, has fake nails, and never leaves the house without hairspray.)
5) I love to eavesdrop.
The Mariner’s lost the game, but we had a great time. (The boys love nothing better than to eat garlic fries at Safeco Field, followed by a giant soft pretzel with a cup of “nacho cheese”–I use that term loosely, as I’m pretty sure that’s not actually cheese.)
Today, I found myself in the church bathroom standing next to my 4-year old daughter as she rubbed a fist into her eyes to stop herself from crying. And then, from inside the stall, we heard the toilet flush and she burst into fresh tears because inside that toilet was the hot pink plastic ring she wore on her thumb to church. A few minutes earlier, while using the toilet, she dropped the ring with a plop into the toilet.
A church lady brought her to me and explained that the ring was in the toilet. I said, “No problem. I’ll get it out.” She said, “Don’t you want some gloves?” I said, “No. I’ll just use this straw.” And then I got a plastic fork, too. Germs, schmerms.
But we were too late. The toilet stall door was closed and as we stood waiting to fish for the ring, we heard the aforementioned flush.
She cried and cried because, of course, the ring was long gone. I did wave a plastic straw in the blue water, just for effect, I guess, but it was hopeless. We hurried to the Dollar Store which had no rings, though we did buy five bucks’ worth of consolation junk.
Later tonight, at Fred Meyer, I thought I’d check to see if they carried plastic rings for little heartbroken girls. The lost ring came from a game called “Pretty Pretty Princess,” but I found the game at Value Village, the thrift store. But hope propelled me down the toy aisle at Fred Meyer and there I found plastic treasure: the very game in question.
My daughter will be so thrilled tomorrow morning when she finds not just one replacement ring, but five plastic rings with matching plastic necklaces and bracelets.
I wonder if she’ll remember the lost plastic ring in the flushing disaster of 2007? I know I will never forget her devastated face when she heard the flush of the toilet. And now that I’ve came up with replacement rings, I can stop feeling guilty for laughing just a little inside at the absurdity of it all.
I consider it akin to a miracle when I open my eyes in the morning, peer at the clock and realize it is 8:35 a.m. Even though I escorted my 4-year old to the bathroom at 4:00 a.m. and spent a couple of minutes rocking her, a night with only one interruption and a wake-up time after 7:00 a.m. is a delight and also more proof that I have very low standards.
What’s lovely about my youngest child reaching the age of 4 and a half is that she no longer demands that I rouse from bed at an ungodly hour. She didn’t sleep through the night until she was eleven months old. My twins used to wake up every morning between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. which is just wrong on so many levels. My husband had mercy on me in those long-ago days and would wake up early so I could sleep longer. He rocks.
Today, after “sleeping in,” we finally got moving after 9:00 a.m. My husband went to get donuts (around here, Saturday is called “Donut Day”) and I showered. While still in the shower, the phone rang and my daughter, the self-appointed phone-answerer around here, brought me the phone. I asked the woman on the phone if I could call her back. I was sure she could hear the showering water, but she told me later that she did not. (I wonder if talking on the phone in the shower could electrocute me. Anybody know?)
My husband has learned after many years together (almost 20!) that I require some time alone each week for optimum mental health. Back when the twins were babies, I had a local friend who had given birth to three kids in three years. She told me that her husband set her free for six hours each Saturday . . . and I remember being so jealous and wondering why my husband didn’t understand that I needed six hours away each Saturday. As it turns out, he just needed more time to understand. Also, when I was gone for six straight days (my longest absence from home ever), he experienced what it’s like to be stuck in a cycle of satisfying the needs of four kids hour after hour, day after day.
Now, he really understands, even more than he did before.
So, he doesn’t make me grovel and beg. He just assumes that I will leave the house and I will stay away as long as possible. Which I do.
Today, I went to three thrift stores where I mainly bought books. I love books with an irrational love, with an addictive love, with a love that cannot be satisifed with a library card. I also saw the worst movie in recent memory: Perfect Stranger with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis. Horrible screenplay, silly dialogue, inconsistent characters, awful acting, stupid plot, ridiculous dialogue . . . only the popcorn was good! Save your money . . . watch it free on television in five years. (How can a woman who is so beautiful make such a lousy movies?)
So, when you feel completely overwhelmed and so tired that you think that a nap at 7:00 p.m. is a good idea, you might be getting sick.
That partly explains my previous post about motherhood making me tired. As it turns out, being sick also makes me tired and thus, for the past two days, I’ve been slogging through my life with a head full of wet cement.
No Retreat, No Surrender the movie But it’s only a cold. And I’ll feel better soon.
I do have to say that watching MTV’s “Real World” cheered me considerably tonight. Brooke, one of the young women on the show, completely lost her mind and went berserk with crazed grief and anger because her roommate, a cute boy whose name escapes me, insulted her behind her back.
She finally confronts him (in a bar, where all confrontations ought to take place for maximum drama, I guess) and he repeats the insult to her face.
She storms home, locks herself in the bathroom and weeps. Her sobs turn into screams and soon, she’s marching through the house, scrawling a note on three separate pieces of paper (“You are the nastiest human being ever. I will never trust you again. Rot in hell. Love, Brooke.”) Then she strips his bed of sheets, strategically places the notes on the bed, knocks over a lamp and collapses in her closet, arms flung over her head, face blotchy with tears, her head on a stray plastic hanger.
She’s gasping and crying when her friend, Colie, comes in and asks, “Are you okay?”
Brooke says, “No!”
Then Colie asks what happened and Brooke says that she had a conversation with the boy roommate. She sits up, runs her hands through her hair and blurts out, “He said I have a double chin!”
Blink. Blink. Blink. (That’s me.) Cry. Cry. Cry. (That’s her.)
“I will never trust him again! Why does this always happen to me?” And she sobs into her hands.
And I burst into laughter.
Perhaps this means I’m cruel, but it also means I’m old and I know that a double chin is nothing to cry about. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, a double chin is the equivalent of stepping on a pebble with your bare feet–you might flinch but you don’t limp or break your stride. I only wish that having someone notice my double chin were the worst thing to ever happen to me.
What hilarity.
Actual Unretouched Photo 