My youngest son likes to be a good boy. Last year, in kindergarten, the only time he got his “happy” symbol changed to a “sad” symbol when was Dominick got him in trouble and made him yell during class. Other than that, perfect behavior.

Now, in first grade, the children have four different colored cards. Yellow is good, pink less so. Green and blue are downright bad, involving missed recesses and visits to the principal’s office and other horrors.

This afternoon–after a half-day of school–I say to my chubby kid, “So, how was school?”

He says, “Grrrrrreat,” sounding exactly like Tony the Tiger.

I say, “Hey, have you had you card moved?” I expected him to say, “no.”

And he said, “Yes!”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise and said, “You have?”

He said, “Psych!” And I said, “You have not?” And he said, “Psych!” We went back and forth like that for a minute.

Turns out, he did have his card moved a few days ago. I said, “What happened?”

He reported, “I got my mind lost and did crazy stuff.”

I almost broke the first rule of mothering and fell to the floor laughing. But I did not break character and with a completely straight face, I said, “What kind of stuff?”

“I acted like it was recess and stuff.”

I immediately grabbed pen and paper to write down “I got my mind lost,” before I forgot. He said, “What? Mom! Are you going to take my allowance? What are you doing? Mom! Mom!”

I said, “No, I’m not taking your allowance. You got your card changed. That’s punishment enough.”

Then he went into the backyard to pick peppermint leaves for his big brother’s mint potion (a muddy mixture in a lidded glass jar–it looks like poison, but smells minty fresh).

At one point today, I had eight kids in my house. And it’s not even 3:00 p.m. yet. At least Babygirl napped today. The sun is shining, it’s Friday, I get paid today and I survived my first week of schooling at home.

Hooray.

Babygirl has potty-trained herself. She used her potty all day today, which is fantastic. Except that each time she tinkles, she says, “I peed in the potty!” I might be making lunch or teaching the boys literature or folding clothes or washing dishes or arguing with one of the boys about whether or not there truly are too many zeroes in math . . . and I must drop everything, because after she pees, she squats and peers with her face actually in the hot pink plastic pot until I come to admire her accomplishment.

Then, we must follow these steps:

1) Remove pot from potty chair.
2) Carry pot to bathroom. (“Don’t spill!”)
3) Dump contents.
4) Rinse pot with water.
5) Wipe pot clean with toilet paper.
6) Flush toilet.
7) Close toilet.
8) Wash hands with big bar of orange soap.
9) Dry hands on towel.
10) Replace pot in potty.

Then she immediately sits on the potty chair again to see if she can repeat these glorious steps!

She was dry all day today, no accidents. I cannot believe it. She even puts on her own pants and shoes. If I’d had this girl first, then my boys, I would have thought my boys were brain-damaged for sure.

This has been our first full week of schooling at home. TwinBoyA is a willing, eager, competent student. He hurries to do his best work and does a funky little dance whenever he gets a “100%”, which is pretty much every time he completes something.

His brother greets every new assignment with cries of “It’s too hard! I’m stupid! I hate math! It has too many zeroes! Do I have to do it all?” He spent two hours on a math assignment which was simple enough to complete in one hour. The thing is, if he were in a public school classroom, he’d be slacking, unnoticed by the teacher until test-time. By then, it would be too late and he’d fail while the class moved on to another concept. It’s happened every fall for a few years now.

So, schooling at home is great for him. He is required to do all his work and if he fails an assessment, he redoes it until he gets it right. I think he might be actually learning, despite his grumbling and whining and dramatic complaints. I think he’ll soon realize that it’s to his advantage to pay attention to details, proofread and do things right the first time.

Babygirl has been more cooperative than I expected. When I sit at the kitchen table at 9:00 a.m. with both boys to introduce the day’s math concepts, she comes running to sit, too. She has her own notebook and pencil and she “works” right along with us. I introduce the assignment, then the boys work on problems. We repeat that scenario until we work our way through math, language skills, spelling, literature, science, vocabulary . . . and next week, art and music. We’re missing our history kit, so we’ll be adding that when it arrives.

Generally, they are finished by about 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., though when we add art, music and history, we’ll work later in the day.

Babygirl and DaycareKid nap at about 1:00 p.m., so I’ve been able to have a little break. Today, though, I put Babygirl to bed much to her dismay. She cried and screamed with complete outrage. After an hour, I rescued her, thinking maybe she’d fall asleep on my bed with me. Wrong, so wrong. She watched Winnie the Pooh, then took a shower (she’s obsessed with showering) while I read A Secret History, which enthralls me. I love it when I am in the middle of a really good novel.

Anyway, I’m exhausted. (Can you tell from this rambling entry?) I have started exercising again (riding our fancy recumbent exercise bike for forty minutes each night). I’ve been trying to get the dirty laundry off the laundry room floor, where it has been overflowing for two weeks. Today, I finally achieved that goal, but alas, everyone wore clothes today, so I’m right back where I started. The housework cycle wears me out–the wrinkled clothes calling for an iron, the kitchen counter clutter piles, the floor which will not stay clean, the bathroom mirrors with spatters on them. I don’t spatter the bathroom mirrors–why does everyone else in my house? I don’t pee on the toilet seats and rims–why does everyone else in my house? I don’t leave laundry on my floor–okay, well, actually, I do. Never mind.

Babygirl takes the following items to bed with her:

1) White rectangular calculator.
2) Red oval calculator, designed to clip onto a backpack.
3) Gnome.
4) Medium sized bear.
5) Two tiny bears.
6) Dolly, with hat.
7) Her own denim baseball hat.

When I open her door in the morning, she greets me wearing this baseball hat backwards, inevitably saying, “I poop in my diaper again!” She seems happily surprised every morning by this event.

It’s quite a way to start a day. And that will happen in approximately eight hours. If I were actually sleeping right this second, I might not wake up with complete despair when the alarm rings at 6:25. And 6:34. And 6:42.

But when I go upstairs, I’ll pick up that book and before I know it, midnight will arrive and I’ll be sorry that I didn’t go to sleep earlier, just like every night. Why are the days so long and the nights so short?

Way back in the forties, when my dad was young. . . 

Twenty-one years years ago, I went away to college. My parents–mother, father, stepmother–and siblings and even my grandmother converged on the Everett, Washington, Greyhound bus station where I boarded a bus for Springfield, Missouri. I traveled for four days, three interminable nights on a bus, journeying to the distant land of Central Bible College, where I sought my destiny. I’m not sure why my parents put me on a bus, rather than an airplane. The cost was not much different. I wonder if it was a test of my resolve, an attempt to deter me from going so far from home? I was desperate to leave, though, eager to shake free from my parents and the mess they’d made of my life and yearning to distance myself from the pain and heartache of my broken family.

When I arrived in Missouri, I had actual sores on my posterior from riding so long. I was bleary from lack of sleep. Buses tend to stop in the dark hours of early morning at random, rural places for extended periods. I hadn’t bathed, I hadn’t slept well, I hadn’t eaten much in those four days.

I didn’t even bother to call my dad to let him know I had arrived safely. How inconsiderate, I think now, but at the time, I didn’t think. I didn’t think he’d worry, I didn’t think he’d care, I didn’t think he’d notice. Eventually, he reached my dormitory phone and assured himself that I had, indeed, survived the grueling ride.

On Saturday, September 17, 1983, he began writing a letter to me:

Dear Mel,

I sure hope you appreciate this. You know how much I hate to write letters.

It is now 10:20 p.m. I’m just sitting in the living room writing this while KBRD and the ticking of the clock make up for the silence.

Hope all is going well for you. I can remember when I left home to go to North Central [Bible College]. When I left, it didn’t bother me and it didn’t bother me being away from home, either. It never dawned on me that my mother missed me or that she was sad when I left.

The night you left, I realized what my mother must have gone through twenty-one years before. When that bus pulled away and you disappeared, I felt all the sorrow and loneliness that I am sure my mother felt.

That night I crawled into bed, and cried a river of tears. I cried not only because you were gone and you would not be coming back for a long time, but I cried because of the failure I was as a father.

Here you are, grown and gone from home and I can’t even remember being a father to you. I can’t remember playing with you, holding you on my lap or ever doing anything with you. I can’t remember taking you to church, reading you a story of any kind, let alone a Bible story, or doing anything that would make a little girl happy.

I guess I haven’t been much of a father. But I do love you and I am proud of you for the beautiful young lady you have chosen to become. I am thankful for all the good influences of your mother, grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles.

Even though as a father and a spiritual example I was a failure, I hope that you will understand that I did work hard and tried to provide as best I could.

I have a tremendous amount of love for all of you kids, it’s just that the only way I knew how to show it was to work hard. I gave everything except the most important thing, myself and my time.

Forgive me for being the way I am.

[Then he stops writing, and resumes writing on September 25 . . . general chit-chat about the weather and my siblings. He finishes the letter . . . ]

Well, it is now 11:55 p.m. and it is time for me to get some rest.

Study hard, but don’t study so hard that you miss out on having some fun in life.

Love, Dad

Fifteen years ago, I arranged to have my dad discharged from the hospital where he’d been hospitalized for eleven days. He’d made it clear that he did not want to die in the hospital, so I brought him home.

My great aunts said, “What will you do? You have to go back to work sometime,” and they suggested a nursing home. I said no. I wanted him home. The ambulance brought him into the house on a stretcher, but he had to walk the final few steps to his bed, which was in the lavender room where I spent my teenage years.

The last thing he said was to the ambulance drivers, an impossibly young man and woman who said to him loudly, as if he were deaf and not just dying of cancer, “SIR, YOU MUST WALK TO THE BED! SIR! SIR!” And he said with great irritation, “I KNOW!!” I stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, clutching a pillow helplessly, watching, terrified of this drama.

Then he baby-stepped his way to the hospital bed that waited for him. He never spoke again. I could see his pulse racing in his neck and his breathing was rushed, but he lived through the night.

The next morning, I dressed and went to work. My aunts were staying with us for a few more days. I peeked into the room and Aunt Lu told me he’d had a restless night, but that he was calm. When I called at noon, she told me he was stable.

When I arrived home at 4:00 p.m., Aunt Lu met me in the driveway and told me it was time to go get my sister. She said he was failing quickly.

I drove a few miles to KFC, where my sister worked. She was almost seventeen and had worried aloud about this moment. Who would tell her? Who would get her? I walked into the restaurant, asked for her and when she appeared, I couldn’t speak. I just held out my arms and choked on the words, “It’s time.” We wept right there in front of the refrigerator case.

When we walked into the house, Aunt Lu said he was having seizures, that we should not go into the room. I pushed past her, my sister behind me and when I saw him convulsing, arms and legs straight and shaking, I turned and led my sister back to the darkened living room. By the time I walked back down the hallway to the bedroom, he was dead.

My mother was on the other side of the bed, weeping and saying, “Into Your hands, we commit his spirit.” My three great aunts were in the room and they hugged me and we cried. I touched his cheek, the rough reddish beard that was so full of gray and said, “Poor Daddy.” He was forty-seven years old. I was twenty-four. Melanoma had killed him.

I went through the house, then, to find my husband. He was in my dad’s office in the garage, waiting with my stepmother (my dad’s ex-wife) and my dad’s best friend. I said, “It’s over,” and then my husband held me and I cried some more.

The day only grew weirder then, as we sat and waited with mostly dry eyes while the men from the funeral home struggled to carry my tall, hefty dad out of the house. This time, they couldn’t persuade him to walk just a few steps around the problematic corner. My husband helped carry my dad away as I sat and tried not to listen to them grunt and gasp under the weight of him.

I wondered then and I wonder now, “What will we do without him? How will we go on? What happens to us now?”

And I’m still not sure. But this I know beyond any doubt: He loved me. What more could a little girl need?

He would have adored being a grandfather. My Babygirl would have been the most spoiled, cherished, worshipped baby girl who ever walked this earth. My boys would have thrived under his tutelage–they would be computer experts, radio-repair hot-shots, video-game partners, jokers extraordinaire.

I still need my dad.
I still miss my dad.
I still love my dad.

I hope I told him enough.

2:53 p.m. Just as I am about to write a touching, moving, hilarious yet dignified entry about the fifteenth anniversary of my dad’s death–his deathday, as I like to call it–my baby woke up.

This schooling at home stuff is cramping my style. Next thing you know, I’ll be putting up homegrown peaches in sparkling canning jars and wearing long, full skirts I sewed myself on my treadle sewing machine. What have I become?

I’ll be back later.

Tonight. Only five hours until the baby’s bedtime.

Sunshine.
Cigarette smoke.
Clouds like cotton candy.
Dizzy pass ride bracelets.
Rides.
Funnel cake.
Elephant ear.
Caramel apple rolled in tiny M&Ms.
Crowds.
Babies.
Tattoos.
Fat women in spandex.
Adolescent girls with low slung pants and bare bellies.
Carnival games.
Cheap toys.
Cotton candy.
Ice cream.
Droning noise.
Screams.
Aching feet.
Sticky fingers.
Chapped lips.
Strollers as big as ice cream trucks.
Waiting in line.
And waiting.
Stuffed purple dragon.
Stuffed ducky.
Empty pockets.
Silence of the car.
Home again.

Although a commenter suggested I need a margarita, I believe I had something even better today. Today, I had a lot of laughs, unexpected laughs, at the baby shower I attended. Who wouldn’t laugh at the military wife mimicking her Ranger husband’s terror during her impending birth? Oh my. Funny, funny women!

And tomorrow I’m taking my boys to the fair, where we will ride the scary rides, eat junk food, waste our money on carnival games and avoid all agricultural displays. Alas, the boys don’t care about how perfectly the 4-H clubs can arrange produce, nor do they want to watch a wool-spinning demonstration or marvel at the tall horses.

Babygirl will stay home with my husband for her third day in a row. She’s too young to remember and she would be overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and smells of the fair.

So, if you don’t hear from me, you’ll know I joined the carnival. Or I’m stuck on the very tippy-top of a ride. Or I’ve taken the commenter’s suggestion and I’m completely intoxicated on margaritas, too intoxicated to write.

I will not name names.
I will not name names.
I will not name names.

But some people just don’t understand PMS. Some people in my house, I mean. Not that I would name names.

The unnamed person said, “I can always tell when you have PMS because you yell a lot more.”

And I said, “Yes, I am very crabby and that’s because it’s Day 28 in my cycle and I should be sent away on this day, left alone, not bugged on this day.” (Add this to the fact that my baby woke up extremely early this morning. I stumbled from place to place, curling up, attempting to sleep again this morning, after that rude awakening–I crashed in my bed, the couch, the recliner, my son’s bed, the gliding rocker–while she played or watched television, but it was no use. I didn’t get any more sleep.)

And the one who shall not be named said, “But we have to live with you. And you are the only one who can control your own behavior.”

It’s hopeless, really. For seventeen years, I’ve lived with, oh, well, someone who shall not be named, and yet, even after all this time, all this predictable, cyclical time, this anonymous one does not understand.

I’d like to see how men would handle their daily lives if they woke up at 6:16 a.m. on a Saturday on the crabbiest day of their month and then had to change a smelly diaper, clean up a disgusting mess (kitty poop), launder dirty sheets, staighten up a stinky kid’s room and wash dishes from last night (because I left the house for that Bible study) and then had to go to a birthday party–after driving an hour in the rain, in heavy traffic, with a child in the front seat who would not stop asking questions that started, “Mom, what if . . . ?”

Pray tell, how would a guy handle that kind of situation?

I’m waiting.

And waiting.

Oh, yes, I know. They would say, “Hey, I need to go run an errand. I’ll see you later.” Or “I have to go catch up on work. I’ll be gone less than two hours.” Or “Hey, I’m going to lay down and catch the second half of that game, if you don’t mind.”

Women should be sent away, far away from their families on these irritable sorts of days and given vast quantities of chocolate (without calories, of course) and a complete absence of questions. (“Mom, where is my Gameboy?” “Mom, can I have a snack?” “Mom, can we play checkers on the internet?” “Mom, are we getting donuts today?” “Mom, do you think I can have a new video game for Christmas?”)

Personally, I haven’t had a decent “day off” in a few weeks and tomorrow will be no better. In the morning, we have church. After that, lunch and Grace’s nap. Then, at 3:00 p.m., a baby shower for two pregnant church friends. That will be fun, but there goes the last window of time I might have had to get out of this house, alone, without an agenda, for another week.

Maybe it’s just me, but I crave time away from this house, these kids, the neverending laundry. If I don’t have a regular break, or at least the prospect of an impending break, I start to feel trapped, imprisoned, crazed, like I want to cut off my arm like that hiker did to escape his entrapment by a boulder.

The boulder that I push up a hill every day starts to feel heavier and heavier until I am pinned beneath it. That’s how today is.

That’s how PMS feels.

I wish I could explain that to those who shall remain nameless.

And yes, I know, I truly do need a break. And it’s not my husband’s fault, exactly. People have died. People have been married. It’s his job to be there for these things and sometimes, that affects me. I’m just feeling particularly used up at the moment and time will pass and I’ll feel better.

Unless, I run away to reunite with Jean-Claude in Tahiti, the 17 year old boy who thought he loved the 17 year old me. In which case, you can still reach me at my current email address.

It’s 10:58 p.m., Friday night. Today, I took care of two toddlers all day, coaxed my 11 year old twins through their first internet school lesson, did several loads of laundry, made a nutritious dinner (chicken in the crockpot, baked potatoes for them, a baked sweet potato for me), showered Babygirl and sneaked away from the house at 6:45 p.m. I went to our church’s Young Couple’s Bible Study, which amuses me because I am neither young, nor do I attend the group as part of a couple. My husband stays home with the extremely skittish Babygirl who would surely scream until her head actually popped off and then fly around the room like an inflated balloon when you let go without tying it.

During the meeting, my mind drifted. At the other end of the table sat a young military couple. She is seven months pregnant and possibly the most beautiful pregnant woman I’ve ever seen. She’s tall and thin under normal circumstances, blond and fair-skinned and now she has this gorgeous baby-filled belly, exactly like Midge, only my friend has shorter hair. She’s an officer in the military herself, having graduated from West Point, which still surprises me because she is such a soft-spoken, gentle woman.

Her husband is a quiet man, not very tall, but a Ranger in the Stryker Brigade which is going to replace the unit that is currently serving in Mosul, Iraq. Not long ago, I found a blog by a soldier serving in Mosul, and quickly became enamored by his writing. I wasn’t alone, alas, and soon enough the chain of command caught wind of it and effectively shut down his blog, but not before I got a glimpse into life in Mosul for American soldiers. He still writes, but nothing personal, no details, no clues about what’s really happening in Mosul. Still, it’s worth checking out the blog to see the few archived posts that still remain on the site. (Most of them were removed.)

So, I looked down the table tonight and thought that this man would soon be taking the place of CB (the blog-writer) or a soldier exactly like him. I hope the fighting eases soon in Mosul. I hope the entire country of Iraq settles down. In the meantime, while he’s deployed, his first child, a son, will be born.

The meeting ended with a sudden hilarious change of topics in which someone said, “speaking of urination and feces” and I said, “Oh, are we sharing poop stories now?” and the woman next to me said, “Oh, I have one!” and proceded to tell how her now 3-year old, newly potty-trained son, made a deposit in his pants and then–in the midst of our town’s lovely, quaint, old-time soda-fountain restaurant, shook the poop out of his underpants and down his pant-leg and onto the floor. Meanwhile, his mom is feeling his bottom to see if the smell came from him, but felt nothing. A bit later, she glanced down and saw evidence of the smelly deed on the floor of the restaurant.

Really, doesn’t everyone have a poop story? Although perhaps not as dramatic as the story dooce tells, or as funny as marbles of the brown stuff on a restaurant floor, but we all have a story.

Am I right? Or am I right?

Good grief, I need to go to bed. This makes two unsavory posts in a week. My sincere apologies.

My daughter could put John Travolta to shame. She has an innate talent for disco dancing. She bounces, jives, shimmies, raises her arms, one at a time, over her head. Her fingers are pointed and a small smug smile lights up her face. The twins put on music just to watch her dance–it’s actually some kind of contemporary Christian music, rappish in nature, which makes me say “turn that down!” I am such a sorry old fogey. But my daughter–she is a dancing fool!

There are three toddlers sitting on my couch at the moment, eating dry Cheerios. Barney is on the television. I have an extra toddler to watch while her 9-months pregnant mother has a telephone interview for a job. They are feeling the pinch of living on one income and think there is no alternative but for her to work.

Yesterday was busier than usual. My twins worked on a math during the morning and then did a lot of reading. I did not torture them with writing assignments. Only one more week until the curriculum is supposed to arrive.

DaycareKid’s mom called to say her sister would be picking up DaycareKid. We talked about what time it would be and she mentioned that her sister would be a little earlier than usual because she’d pick up her kindergartener and be right over. That’s when I remembered that her kindergartener has been longing for a “playdate” (his word) at my house. I suggested that maybe Auntie could drop her kids off here (kindergartener and 3 year old sister) and run an errand or something until DaycareKid finished his nap. Sure enough, right at 3:30 p.m., she dropped off her two kids, so at that point, I had seven kids at my house.

They left at 5:00 p.m. and in their place came the two neighborhood boys who like to play Nintendo here and watch television since they have no cable at their house–thus, bringing the total number of kids in my house yesterday to nine.

My midwife in Michigan was the mother of nine children. They lived on a dairy farm in Amish country (they weren’t Amish, though) and the five oldest children were girls. She once told me, “I thought I had parenthood all figured out and then I had a son.” Anyway, the first day I met her–I was already in my second trimester–serenity filled her house. She was also pregnant, three months further along than I was, and her rosy cheeks glowed. Straight bangs, a cherubic face and a thick braid hanging down her back made her seem younger than she was.

I only saw one of her children that day, a messy-haired blond girl, but during the course of my pregnancy, during my check-ups, I’d catch a glimpse of her industrious, obedient girls, and I’d hear them at the piano, competently playing classical pieces. Her kitchen always shone with cleanliness and the long solid wood kitchen table gleamed.

She homeschooled all of her children, although her mother-in-law, a former schoolteacher, taught the youngest children. She also said everyone should have a newborn and a teenager in the house at the same time. She grew her own vegetables and a lush flower garden. She sewed and I’m not sure, but I think she spun straw into gold.

Anyway, I’m not that kind of mom, even on days when I have nine children in my house. I did manage a turkey and mashed potato dinner last night (thank you, Crockpot), but other than that, I just tread water, do what has to be done. Moms like the homeschooling farmer’s wife in Michigan make me feel inferior, like I’ve obviously done something wrong along the way.

On the other hand, my daughter is a disco-dancing fool, so I must be doing something right.

This afternoon, Babygirl woke from her nap a little early. So I sat her on my bed with a snack and the television set on Boohbah and ironed a few shirts for my husband. I’m old-fashioned like that.

At one point, I was in the closet, putting away clothes, when Babygirl stepped inside with me and said, “I peed on the floor!” And remembering last week when she did indeed pee on the closet floor, I said, “Yes, you did, didn’t you?” Then she cackled and said, “I pee on daddy’s shoes!” And I said, “Oh no, don’t pee on daddy’s shoes.” And her eyes widened, she crouched, waved her arms dramatically and said, “That would be bad!” She said “baaaaaad” like she was in a music video.

It’s so funny when she says, “I’m tired,” because she drags out the “i” sound and sounds like she’s from the Deep South. She says, “Ah’m tahred.”

Tonight after dinner, we were sitting in our newly arranged living room and Babygirl decided to get off my lap. She turned and made a sudden movement and before I could say “be careful,” she clunked her forehead right into the corner of the coffee table.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the pain was too great, so she just clutched her forehead for a long moment and finally the sound came and then she screamed.

My husband rushed down the stairs to see what happened. There was no blood, just an indentation in her little forehead, which immediately began to swell and bruise.

He looked at me as if I had body-slammed her, forehead first, in into the wooden corner on purpose. He asked, “What happened?” and I said, “She slipped and fell–could you get me some ice in a washcloth?”

He delivered the ice cubes, but before that, Babygirl sat up and said, “I okay.” That didn’t stop my husband from questioning me as if I were Ted Bundy, on death row, accused of a yet another felony. Over and over, I told him how she hit her head before I could stop her. I’m not sure he’s convinced of my innocence.

But I have two words for him: fractured collarbone. When TwinBoyA was three years old, he fell off the couch while my husband was the parent in charge. He couldn’t exactly explain how it happened, but the kid ended up with a fractured collarbone and it wasn’t my fault!

Babygirl will have a big, purple bump on her forehead. And yeah, I wasn’t able to save her. Time for the full-body bubblewrap, including padded helmet for twenty-four hour use.

If my husband keeps looking at me like that, I just might pee in his shoes.