What this blog needs is a little drama.  And so I offer “alma’s” comment on this post from 2005.  As you can see, I felt like leaving “alma” a little comment of my own since her email address was fake and I wasn’t able to email her directly.  Seriously, what kind of moron leaves comments like that on a perfect stranger’s blog?  I’ll tell you what kind:  a coward.  I can’t stand a coward.  If you want to insult me, at the very least, leave me your actual email address and your blog address and, what the heck, your social security number. 

So, last night, the face-numbing drugs finally wore off at about 7:30 p.m. . . . at the moment I realized I had sensation in my face again, I was in a racquetball court with my 4-year old daughter who thought that throwing the ball and then flinging her body to the floor was the very pinnacle of hilarity.  I played my own private game of keep-away . . . whenever I got my hands on the ball, I hit it to the wall until she’d grab it again.  We only stayed in that room for twenty minutes–the rest of the hour we pranced around the track, drank from the drinking fountain, watched kids swimming in the pool before we sat down to watch the last fifteen minutes of Judo. 

When my daughter sits on my lap, her fuzzy curls are right in my face and if I move to one side, she moves that way, too.  If I move to the other, she veers.  Then she wiggles and squirms and leans and frankly, it’s very unpleasant as she is not a cuddly, still child.  So, I did not enjoy holding her bony butt as I perched on the hard metal bench while she threw herself toward the floor, depending on me to stop her from cracking her skull open.

However, we were home before the college championship football game was over, so I was able to catch the last minutes of Florida State wiping up the floor with Ohio, which was rather delightful because our youth pastor (who is from Ohio) has been insufferable all fall as he’s boasted about his team.  I think I speak for many of us when I say that we look forward to harassing Jeremy and taunting him with the same measure of venom that he has taunted us (and when I say “us”, I mean a random collection of us, we know who we are).  All in good fun!  Gotta root for the underdog, you know.  (GO BOISE!)  Most of you are looking around wondering what I’m talking about.  Okay, moving away from football and onto other topics.

Uh, other topics. 

Let’s see. 

Weather:  We had a storm today, one of those blustery, rain-beating-sideways, cold, please-trees-don’t-fall kind of storms.  The stars are visible tonight, but supposedly, snow is falling somewhere in this area (but not at my house) and then tomorrow, our high temperature is supposed to be thirty.  Which is cold for those of us with webbed toes who live in the rainy Pacific Northwest. 

Television shows:  Only five days until “24” starts!  “Apprentice” . . . how annoying is that Frank guy?  Will “The View” survive the Rosie/Trump/Barbara Walters debacle? 

Today’s lunch:  Canned tuna.  Triscuits with melted cheese.  Walnuts.  Orange.  Diet Coke.

Reading:  Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides.  (For the second time.)

Last movie seen:  “Children of Men.”  Disappointing, but I ordered the P.D. James book to read, hoping to redeem the experience. 

Tolerance for anonymous commenters:  Zero.

What I did today:  Oversaw math, grammar, literature, history, science, art lessons.  Babysat two kids.  Answered a ton of email (except for those who don’t leave an address, YES, I MEAN YOU, ALMA).  Washed laundry.  Dried laundry.  Cooked dinner (chicken, roasted potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes).  Exercised 45 minutes.  Shopped for groceries.

People I like:  Everyone but “alma,” Osama bin Laden and Borat. 

What I’m wearing:  Ralph Lauren khaki-colored denim pants, long-sleeve t-shirt with tiny black, brown and khaki stripes.  Tan sweater from Lands End. 

Why I allow stupid comments on this blog:  I must be bored.  Also, sometimes I like to provoke people who sit in judgment of me because oddly, I find those dimwitted people amusing to watch when they realize they just threw a rock at the wrong target.  And, also, this is a fair and balanced blog where we offer the opposition a chance to make fools of themselves at no extra charge. 

If you could hear me speak now, you’d think I am recovering from a major stroke.  When the dentist jabbed my gum-line and said, “Can you feel that?” I yelped out an indignant “YES!” and so he asked for the long needle and stuck me again.  That’s why my whole face, including tongue, is numb.  It’s 5 p.m. and the appointment was at 2:30 p.m.  Will I ever have feeling again?  

And while he was drilling on my right bottom molar (the unequivocal Worst Sound in the World), my left ear canal tickled and itched.  My hands went to sleep, I reclined so long with them folded on my chest (like a corpse in a casket).  My neck popped like someone’s knuckles when I was finally able to move again.

All in all, what a delightful day!

My husband ordered pizza for dinner.  He wants to watch some sporting event (football, most likely) and thus, has asked me to take our son to Judo.  And he actually suggested I might want to take our daughter and the boys so we can all swim.  Uh.  No. 

I’ll take our daughter so she can chatter and run and beg me for a treat out of the vending machines.  I mean, I’ll take her because I’m a kind, giving, generous wife who will do unto him as I would have him do unto me.  (He’ll owe me.)  I’ll take her because she’ll think it’s Fun and I want to make sure she has enough Fun in her little life. 

If I were a kid, someone would have bought me a milkshake and let me watch television for the rest of the day. 

Those were the good old days.

The problem is that I suffer from a lack of imagination.  While women are rising through the ranks of government, I can’t stop wondering whether growing out my bangs was really such a great idea.  While some women believe they can make eggs looks like festive little packages, I consider whether mopping the floor really matters when you have four kids and half the neighborhood running through the kitchen.  While yet others open schools for underprivileged children (spending forty million dollars in the process), I decide to let sleeping teens lie at least a little longer before forcing them to confront math and their arch-nemesis, composition.

I have low standards.  I wasn’t always this way, but I have sunk to this level after time and kids have eroded the walls surrounding my long-nourished perfectionism.  Now, the flood-waters of mediocrity have seeped in and I have flung myself into the murky soup in complete resignation.  Face it, I’m not raising the singing Von Trapp family or managing an obedient houseful of seventeen children like Michelle Duggar.  I’m just flailing around, trying to stay afloat.

A greater imagination would elevate me above my current cluttered surroundings and into the realm of accomplishment.  Remember that saying you probably encountered in high school:  “If you can believe it, you can achieve it”?  Do you believe that?  I don’t.  But then again, I suffer from a lack of imagination and even worse, a healthy case of pessimism.

I really did think I’d be a better mother than I am.  (I believed it . . . did I achieve it?  See how that saying breaks down under scrutiny?)  Now, midway through the years of having children at home, I wonder if I’ve squandered the teenagers’ childhoods.  Did I do all I could do?  Do they have enough happy memories to sustain them through the rigors of adulthood?  Is the foundation of their childhood strong enough to support the rest of their lives?  When you have a 13-year old, are you supposed to be able to peer into their eyes and see a successful adult lurking somewhere in the shadows of their futures or do all mothers despair of their kids ever voluntarily wearing deodorant and putting their shoes away?

These thoughts brought to you by a mean headache gripping my forehead, jarring my brain and reminding me what happens when I run out of Diet Coke with Lime.

Updated:  What do you know?  Someone knocked at the door, just after lunchtime, and it wasn’t a neighborhood boy.  It was a friend who brought me a 12-pack of Diet Coke with Lime.  What a delightful surprise!  Thanks, friend.

We’re back to our normal routine.  Waking early, shuffling one kid off to school, sending off two to P.E. at the YMCA, dodging the preschoolers and toddler as they careen around the house, doing laps.  Laundry, more laundry, dirty dishes, literature, math, grammar, neighborhood kids who just walk in the front door without even knocking, rain hurtling itself at the ground with such vehemence and force that I have to wonder why the weather is so angry with us.

Meanwhile, a high school kid in Tacoma shot and killed another high school kid in the school hallway. 

Unthinkable.  Incomprehensible.  Tragic.

Last year on this day, I wrote this totally entertaining description of our lovely time at the shore with our perfectly adorable and bestest friends in the whole world who had invited us to dig razor-clams over the New Year holiday.  This year, I have no such tale to tell.  We’re home.  And in fact, the boys aren’t here at all–they’ve all gone to play with friends, so they are making noise in someone else’s house.  Which is awesome, if you ask me. 

My daughter woke up at 6:40 a.m. for no apparent reason.  I rocked her for a few minutes, intending to return her to bed, but she asked in a sweet little voice, “Can I sleep in your bed?  I will not wake you up.” and I answered with some relief and utter fatigue, “Sure.”  She snuggled next to my back for about five minutes, then whispered, “I’m hungry.”

And her day began with a crunchy granola bar and television while I returned to bed for sporadic stretches of sleep until 9 a.m.  Predictably, she was crabby midway through the day and fell apart entirely when her adored brother left her to go play with his friend.  She couldn’t stop crying, so I persuaded her to lay down and watch Spongebob.  A while later, she drifted into my room where I was perusing my bookshelves, weeding out books I’ve already read and preparing a stack to give away on this very blog.  She sprawled out on the floor, right where I’d been standing, and fell asleep with her face tucked neatly under the bed. 

In the subsequent quiet, my husband said (from the comfort of the bed where he was watching football), “So this is how it will be when the kids are gone, huh?” and I said, “Yes, except you’ll be asking me every fifteen minutes what we’re having to eat.”  And he said, “What are we having to eat?” and I . . . well, I can’t tell you exactly what gesture I made, but those of you with impure minds can guess.

(We’re having leftover lasagna, which he won’t eat because of its heavy cheese content.  I’m having salad.  I guess he’ll starve to death.)

The stillness in the house is broken only by the tick-tocking of the kitchen clock and the phantom sounds of the Nintendo Wii bowling game which seems to play itself in the absence of children.  I hear the faint rumble of a football game on the television upstairs and the reedy hum of an airplane flying above the dark grey clouds outside.  And the heat just clicked on.

I could get used to an empty nest.

(Don’t tell the kids.)

My Fairy Blogmother (the one who got me started in this whole blog-thing) tagged me to do a meme and how can I resist when it comes from her?  So, Brandie, this is for you!

I’m supposed to list six weird things.  I believe I’ve done this before, but off the top of my head, here are six weird things about me that you might not know.

1)  I have a huge head.  Hats never fit me.

2)  Hearing silverware click on teeth drives me insane.  God gave us lips and tongues for a reason–to stop the tooth-silverware click!

3)  I hate playing board games, with the possible exception of Blokus which has been fun both times I’ve played, even though I’ve lost.  I also like Cranium played with adults.  Perhaps the truth is that I just hate playing board games with kids.

4)  I don’t listen to music much and can’t imagine why I’d ever need an iPod.  Yet, I love music–I play the piano, I sing.  I just can’t stand competing noises and in my house, there’s too much noise to appreciate music.

5)  I go to movies alone.  In fact, I prefer going alone.

6)  I’d rather shop in a thrift store than a department store.

There you go, Brandie!