I think my allergies are acting up or I have a virus or maybe an inoperable tumor or even a rare, yet disfiguring disease. I am weary when I wake up and drag through the days. My tissue box is my new best friend and the children seem oblivious to my discomfort.

For instance, their twin friend (age 9) just came over (minus his twin brother, who is ill). They went straight out the patio door and began messing with the wasp nest in the far corner of the yard. I have told my boys repeatedly to leave it alone. I need to spray those stinging insects before someone gets stung. The boys cannot leave them alone.

So, I actually said this to the visiting twin and my boys: “Do not go near that nest! Do not squirt it, throw things at it or breathe on it! What are you going to do next? Get stung by bees and then set my whole back yard on fire?” (This was in reference to the fact that earlier this summer, my boys and their twin friends actually started a fire in the twins’ back yard, using a magnifying glass.)

Twin friend just eyed me as if I had recently escaped from the local mental ward.

Now they are all in the boys’ room hollering and wrestling and being boy-like. Babygirl and DaycareKid are still sleeping. But not for long.

YoungestBoy is still wearing his zipper-pajamas, the warm, fuzzy, winter kind. It’s almost 3:00 p.m., so I guess he’s not getting dressed, even though I told him to more than once.

The church secretary called a few hours ago. She was really trying to track down my husband–his cell phone was not on–and I think she also wanted to tell me that a church member had died. (She revels in the drama of bad news and of telling other people’s bad news to anyone who will listen.) The secretary said that it took five minutes to figure out who was hysterical on the other end of the telephone line and then she ended up with only rudimentary information. The church lady was at her daughter’s apartment and her daughter had died. I’m thinking the daughter was about my age and she’d had health issues, but still. No one really thinks that one day they will go visit their daughter’s apartment and find her lifeless body.

(Well, no one except me, full of gloom and doom.)

My throat hurts and my teeth ache and the roof of my mouth feel like it was stabbed with one of those cute, tiny forks you use to scrape crab meat out of the claws. Ouch.

Oh, and if you’re keeping track, you are aware that this type of woefulness comes to me in regular four week intervals. I’m so predictable.

Maybe it’s just me, but I am always holding my breath, waiting for disaster to strike. My kids are all healthy at the moment, but sometimes I look at Babygirl and I think of my friend’s mother whose 12 year old daughter said, “My arm hurts” and then died shortly thereafter from bone cancer.

My husband will be a little late coming home with my boys from some adventure and the thought will scroll across my mind: “Perhaps they were in a terrible car crash and they all died.”

I think of when I was a young bride and everything seemed to be going according to my perfect plan and then my dad invited me and my siblings over to dinner. During the meal, my sister said, “So, what did you want to tell us?” and that was my first inkling that he had anything to tell us. My stomach clenched up and I looked from person to person and thought, No. No, no, no. My dad smiled and said, “Let’s clean up the dishes first.”

We sat in the living room afterwards–I can still see the pattern of the sunlight on the carpet, neat rows of sunlight sliced by the mini-blinds–and I can hear my dad explain that he’d gone to the opthamologist for his eye trouble and that the opthamologist sent him right to a neurologist and that the neurologist did an MRI and that’s how he found out he had a tumor in his brain.

And, oh yeah, they predicted he had four months to two years to live.

We cried and then ate a party-sized bag of M&Ms.

For awhile there, things went badly all around us. On my husband’s side of the family, a brother was diagnosed with colon cancer, another brother went to prison for a fatal DUI. His mother’s apartment burned down, his brother died, his other brother had a heart attack, a different brother divorced his wife. My dad died, my sister did drugs and dropped out of high school, we had our bout with infertility, our cars broke down, money was tight and the dog bit the kids. And that was just for starters.

Right now–right here–things are good. And still, I wait. I wait for the phone call, for unexplained physical symptoms, for a freak accident, for sirens, for heart-wrenching loss. I read the obituaries every day in the newspaper and I check the ages and I think, That could be me. That could be my husband. That could be my child. That could be my mother.

Is it that I am accustomed to tragedy? Is it my fatal flaw? Or am I just trying to buffer myself against inevitable loss? I mean, no one lives forever. No life is trouble-free. I have no guarantees. None.

Since I was a child, wishing to be a teen, I’ve been looking forward, scanning the horizon for another life which would soon be mine. I’ve counted the days until high school graduation, looked beyond my college dorm for “real life,” paced impatiently until my wedding date, endured my years of working until babies came to me and now, am I just puttering around, half-aware, waiting for the next thing? This, after all, will be what I miss when my nest is empty. (Should I live that long.)

I need to stop and to be. And I need to put aside worry. Because the thing is, tragedy has a way of finding you, even if you aren’t by the side of the road, flagging it down. In the meantime, close the drapes, lock the front door and party on! We have this moment, now. That’s all that’s guaranteed. That must I know for sure.

Back in May of 1989, my dad was diagnosed with metastacized melanoma. The doctors announced he would die in four months to two years. The week before his diagnosis, my husband and I moved into his house–a money-saving maneuver following my husband’s graduation from Yale Divinity School. We were going to save money to buy our own home and get established in our newly married life together. (We celebrated our two year anniversary that summer.)

My dad immediately quit his job and my husband got fired from his new job (at a bank, which is hilarious, looking back). My husband could not find a job in his chosen field (church ministry). I worked full-time while my dad and my husband–the two men I loved most in the world–puttered around the house, got on each other’s nerves and waited for me to get home.

My husband and I had planned to wait two years before we had children. I had the whole thing planned–we wanted to have five children, evenly spaced three years apart. I even picked out their names. During my long, boring hours at an office, I dreamed of staying at home and taking care of the babies.

That summer, as we watched my 47-year old father decline, my husband and I decided to go ahead and try to get pregnant sooner rather than later. I wanted desperately for my father to see his first grandchild.

The first month, my period was late. I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. From the very first month, I knew deep down inside that we would not get pregnant. My regular gynecologist brushed off my concerns, looked at my cervical mucus, declared I was ovulating at that very moment and sent me home to conceive. When my period failed to materialize and the pregnancy test remained negative, the doctor gave me birth control pills to bring on menstruation and then scheduled me for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG).

Boy, that was fun. I’d been a modest patient prior to my HSG. On that day, I was placed in stirrups and then introduced to the male doctor who proceeded to pry open my cervix and place all manner of contraptions inside . . . and I still remember that the equipment broke and I had to wait while they scrambled for a new package. Then, in this awkward position, stuffed with hard instruments and tubes and balloons, I scooted down the table and my uterus and fallopian tubes were flooded with dye and photographed. And lucky me, I got the all clear.

And they told me, “You have a great chance to get pregnant now, after this procedure.” I knew a girl at my workplace who actually got pregnant after her HSG. I had great hopes.

Which were dashed. Next up: a post-coital test, which required my husband and I to do the deed at 6:00 a.m., so I could go to the doctor and have the little swimmers analyzed. That test was inconclusive.

So, the doctor put me on Clomid, since my irregular cycles seemed to be the source of our problems. Perhaps I was not ovulating.

I spent every month waiting, anxiously, going to the bathroom stall repeatedly, counting down days obsessively, crying. Oh yeah. Did I mention that my dad died, only two months into our attempts to get pregnant? He only got four months. He was 47. I was 24.

It was only after several cycles that it occurred to the doctor to test my husband. And then, Houston, we have a problem. The doctor said, “Well, it appears that you have a count of one million.” We were exuberant. One million! That’s a lot! Well, actually, no. The low side of average was 20 million. We were missing about 19 million of the little dudes.

We had a choice, then. Proceed with intra-uterine insemination, hope for the best, spend money we didn’t have, look towards IVF, hope for the best, spend money we didn’t have, go through the emotional torture of not getting pregnant while every single woman of child-bearing age that I knew was pregnant or lactating–including two friends who got pregnant despite birth control and one sixteen year old who terminated her inconvenient twelve-week pregnancy . . . or just stop. And adopt.

My husband would say things like, “Well, maybe this is a sign from God. Let’s just wait for five years and if we’re not pregnant by then, we can adopt.”

I sobbed and stomped and carried on and questioned the very foundation of my faith. Why would God deprive me of the one thing I ever wanted? Why would God deny me the experience of being a mother? What horrible thing had I done in some previous lifetime that I was being punished in this way? Five years might as well be five thousand. I could not live that long.

My friends said things like, “Do it in a hot tub” and “Just relax.” I cried a lot. I tried to pray, but I wasn’t so sure God heard me or that He even liked me. My husband thought I was over-reacting. He didn’t understand that I would fly to the moon to have a baby. I wanted nothing else but the ordinary miracle of being pregnant, the miracle that so many millions of women just took for granted and even despised.

Adoption is not as easy as people think. Even now, I hear people say, “Well, someday if we want a daughter, we’ll just adopt.” Or, “I had my tubes tied, but if we decide to have another baby, we’ll just adopt.”

Just adopt. Hardy-har-har. As if it’s that easy.

First of all, it costs a ton of money.
Secondly, your entire fate rests in the hands of a birthmother who decides whether or not to choose your family based on your names. Or your hair color. Or the kind of dog you have. If you are uncomfortable with that, you can choose international adoption, which can cost even more, plus you get the added benefit of having no history of the child whatsoever. I mean, obviously, it’s way more complicated that I can even convey here. It’s not “just adopt.” No way.

We waited and waited and waited. Rejection, rejection, rejection. Then, after several potential adoptions fell through (more tears, more snot, more lying on the bathroom floor in mourning), a birthmother chose us for her twins. Hooray, much rejoicing, woo-hoo, and hallelujah! And then a week before we expected them to be placed with us (it was all very complicated since they were already 5 months old and the birthfather chose not to cooperate), we received a call. Birthmother changed her mind. Sorry.

I have never had a blacker night, a more hopeless pit of darkness. I truly thought God hated me. Despite that, I decided I would trust Him. What else could I do?

Several phone calls, much holding of breath later, those twins became ours after all.

Fast forward four years later. I have moved on from my longing to be pregnant. I grieved the loss of the experience of feeling a baby squirm within my body, of nourishing a baby at my breast, of participating in the labor and birth of my own genetic offspring. And then, I found myself pregnant.

Against all odds. I was eight weeks along before I even tested. My entire nine months was perfect. I threw up twice, I slept a lot, I reveled in my enormous belly and my waddle. I winced at the smell of eggs. And nine days past my due date, I labored for 43 hours and gave birth in my bedroom, surrounded by a team of women and midwives and my very shell-shocked husband.

The experience was everything I knew it would be. Even the agony, the pain, the “I can’t do this”, the sweat, the tears, the hours without sleep, the shaking during transition and the screams during the birth.

I had a baby boy.

Four years later, lightening struck again and I became pregnant with my daughter. At 38, my body groaned and creaked and ached more than my prior pregnancy, but my birth was a delicious painful six hour roller-coaster of hollers and hoots. I hadn’t planned to labor that day since I wasn’t due for another three days. I ignored the contractions for hours, denied that contractions every three minutes were really labor and the midwife arrived less than two hours before my baby girl wriggled her way out in a big hurry.

Here’s the thing.

My happy endings do not negate the grievous pain of my infertility. I know, I know, what it feels like to cry every month and to withdraw into the sanctuary of my bedroom and to practically drool with envy at the pregnant bellies in grocery stores. I never, never, never take my pregnancy and my blessings for granted.

I do wish now that I had been able to somehow enjoy that childless stage of my life more. I wish I hadn’t spent so much time wallowing in the pain, but on the other hand, it was necessary for me to really experience the experience. Perhaps the dismal times make my life now seem sweeter.

When I was infertile, I was hostile. A lot. A woman I met once had adopted nine children and they were all teens and it was going badly and she had nothing good to say about parenting. I wanted her to shut up. A woman told me about her neighbor who adopted a baby and then got pregnant with twins. I wanted her to shut up. A woman I met had three kids in three years and belly-ached about the trauma of dealing with them. All the feel-good–or feel-bad–stories of well-meaning friends and acquaintances did not make me feel good. They made me feel ungrateful and wrong. And furious.

I did not want to hear happy stories.
I wanted to talk about my sadness.
I wanted someone to listen.
Not to give advice.
I did not want the burden of educating people about infertility and the statistics about exactly how many will conceive spontaneously versus how many will conceive after adopting (the same percentage, of course).

And now I find myself in a weird no-man’s-land. I am infertile, yet I have four children. After dabbling in the world of doctors and medicines, I chose to birth at home. Now, we are in the bizarre position of wondering if a vasectomy is in our future.

I never had a miscarriage, nor a stillbirth. I never lost a baby or a child. I have friends who did–one lost a baby nine days before his due date to a freakish cord accident. Another lost her baby on the way to the hospital when her cord prolapsed. One lost a baby at 37 weeks due to an undiagnosed blood disorder.

I don’t know that pain. True.
But I know the pain of infertility and I know the joy of adoption and I know the miracle of birth. All of it fills me with compassion and knowledge and speechlessness, for there’s nothing you can say to an infertile woman without her wanting to slap you.

So be it. I was there once and I understand, despite now living in a shoe with so many children I don’t know what to do. Sometimes pain is all you have to hold on to, it’s all that buoys you along until you reach land and if someone pipes up with a story, you want to swat them away like a mosquito. That’s okay. I understand.

This afternoon, my husband took the boys to see the worst movie ever made: Yu-Gi-Oh. I told him before he left that he’d probably want to kill himself during that movie, but he did not believe me. Until afterwards.

They left right before the babies’ naptime and it occurred to me that I’d actually have two hours of solitude in my house for the first time in a long time. I put DaycareKid to bed. I put Babygirl to bed.

Then I did something I rarely do. I put my head on my pillow and closed my eyes and said, “Just a little rest.”

Then, I heard Babygirl. “MOM!”

Not possible. “MOM!”

I rolled over, lifted one eyelid and saw that I’d been resting for twenty-five minutes. Babygirl, however, had not.

When she started to really scream out my name, I realized the sad truth: No nap for Babygirl today.

That explains what happened at 5:00 p.m.

DaycareKid left with his Grandfather. I was still embarrassed from this morning and did not look Grandfather in the eyes. I think we agree that we will never speak of me coming to the door in my threadbare bathrobe and wild hair.

Babygirl wanted to go in the front yard. She wanted to walk. So, we did.

We live on a circle and she headed right. It’s a billion degrees here today and I was hot. And tired. I tried to hurry her along, but she is almost 2 years old and 2 year olds do not hurry. We spent a good ten minutes at the neighbor’s house where she attempted to pick up their kitty. The kitty swished his tail at her, in the classic “attack-the-child” pose, and I finally shouted, “No! The kitty will BITE you!”

We moved on. At the critical intersection where the road leads out of the circle, I managed to distract her until we were again heading back towards home. Home-free, I thought!

Then, what should appear but the Gnome Yard.

The Gnome Yard is a ghastly yard with red rocks instead of a green lawn. There are flowers planted randomly, roses bushes in full bloom, and painted, ceramic gnomes. Everywhere.

Babygirl decided she wanted to hold a gnome. I said, “no,” and she whined and I said, “Okay, you can’t hold it, but you can touch it. Okay?” She said, “okay,” and headed up the gravelly slope of the yard towards the nearest gnome.

She touched one and said, “three” and then another and said, “seven,” and then another and another. I said, “Yes, good girl, you’re counting the gnomes.” I did my own count and figured there were about twenty gnomes total, maybe more. She’d touched a dozen of them and was crossing the sidewalk near the front porch to touch the final gnomes when J. drove her SUV to the house across the street.

J. is the most darling Army officer I’ve ever met. She is reserved and blond and soft-spoken and married to an Army Ranger officer and pregnant. They attend our church. Their baby–a boy they’ve named Luke–is due in mid-November. Her husband is scheduled to deploy between October 4th and 6th and he will miss the birth of his child. Instead, he’ll be risking his life in Iraq.

So, I turned and spoke to J. for a few minutes and asked her how she’s doing, if she could use a bassinet, what they plan to name the baby, if her mother’s coming for the birth, etc. Then I glanced back at Babygirl and saw that she’d gathered three gnomes in her arms and was heading back towards me.

Oh, Gnome! I mean, oh, no! I rushed toward her, visions of crumbled gnomes in my head and said, “No, you can’t hold the dolls!” She immediately began to wail and I placed the gnomes near the front door, fully aware that the occupants of the house were probably watching this small drama in their own front yard.

Babygirl was outraged. She began to scream and I smiled and said to J., “Well, I’m going to have to carry her home, kicking and screaming now.”

Babygirl threw her first really impressive big fit. My husband was standing in the driveway as I approached, holding Babygirl sideways to keep her from leaping out of my arms to her death on the road below. She shrieked and screamed and thrashed about. He took her from my arms, which infuriated her even more, so he handed her back to me. I took her into the house while she screamed, “Outside! Walk! Outside! Walk!”

She would not be consoled and she would not stop screaming, so I calmly placed her in her crib and let her work her anger out for five minutes. Seriously, I did. This is my fourth child and I know what to do with tantrums. Ignore them at all costs. After five minutes, she was agreeable to sitting with me in the rocking chair and within another ten minutes, she was all sunshine and rainbows.

Tonight, my husband and I went to see “Collateral”, the new Tom Cruise movie. I liked it, despite the death and killing. There were laugh-out-loud moments.

On the way home, we saw the flashing lights of a police car. No, two police cars! Wait, is that a rifle? I think that guy’s holding a rifle, pointing it at the head of the–no, wait a second! That’s no rifle! That’s . . . that’s . . . a microphone? And there’s a television camera? The news? No! No way! That’s COPS! (Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you?) Two police cars, one suspect’s car, and we passed two more police cars heading towards the scene, looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. We considered going back just to stand in the background and wave (“Hi, Mom!”) but instead, we laughed and kept driving.

Because, after all, there’s gnome place like gnome. (Groan. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

My husband returned home yesterday afternoon. He’d flown to Houston for his 25th high school class reunion and during the week he was gone, he also visited with his Texan relatives. His entire family–four brothers, two sisters, three sets of parents (don’t ask) all live around Houston or Corsicana. He ate at restaurants, drove a lot, talked a lot, and shopped a little with his mother.

That explains the gift he brought home for me. Normally, he doesn’t bring me gifts and I don’t expect them. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a very Low-Maintenance Wife. He thrust a small bag into my hands, which contained a jewelry box. Inside the box sat a silver pair of thick hoop earrings, which are quite lovely. And on the card holding the earrings was the price tag: $50.00.

He knows me so well. He was in the next room as I was opening this gift and as I stared at the price tag, he said, “You should be proud of me. My mom wanted me to buy these earrings that cost $399.00. And I told her, ‘Mom, you don’t understand.'”. When they walked in the store, he looked at earrings beginning at $19.99, but his mom tried to talk him into opening an account and spending a whole lot more.

Just so you know, I don’t wear jewelry, other than the thin gold hoop earrings I bought in memory of my dad after someone gave me $100.00 when he died and told me to buy something in his memory.

So fifty dollars on a pair of earrings is a lot. This is the most expensive jewelry I own now, other than my wedding rings and my normal gold hoops.

I slept really great last night and only woke up once at 3:00 a.m. I wake up so often during the nights any more. I can’t decide it that’s because I am getting old or if it’s because I have young children and I’ve lost the knack of sleeping all night.

My husband left the house at 6:30 a.m. and I heard nothing. I was submerged deeply in a dream when I heard “ding-dong.” Time? 6:59 a.m.

I fumbled for my glasses, threw on my tattered lavender bathrobe and ran downstairs, hoping that it was my husband who’d somehow locked himself out of the house. No such luck.

I opened the door to find DaycareKid and his grandfather–a nice man, an ex-Navy seal, a strong, silent type–staring at me in horror. The look on Grandfather’s face was one of shock and confusion. Raising one hand, I mumbled, “I know, I know. My husband left early and he didn’t set the alarm and . . . I know.” DaycareKid’s mom told me specifically that Grandfather would definitely not be at my house before 7:15 a.m. and that it might even bit later than usual. So, I wasn’t really planning to open the door in my sloppy bathroom and just-woke-up face.

I took DaycareKid out of his arms and waited for him to get DaycareKid’s backpack.

That dumbfounded look on Grandfather’s face will remain with me for some time. I look pretty scary in the mornings with my crazy hair and my glasses and my old-as-the-earth robe. Bet he won’t be looking at his pastor’s wife in quite the same way on Sunday mornings. Shoot!

YoungestBoy acted so weird this morning. Normally, he prefers hanging out all day in his pajamas. He plays in the backyard in pajamas and occasionally, if he’s really lucky, he’ll spend his whole day without putting on clothes. Yesterday, he was wearing long, zip-up, footed pajamas, the winter kind, and after I told him six times, he finally got dressed at about noon. In a yellow turtleneck and gray sweatpants.

Yes, it’s still summertime here in Washington state. Yesterday, we had warm, sunny weather, probably 85 degrees.

So today, I was surprised to see him totally dressed (short-sleeved shirt, sweatpants) before 8:00 a.m. Puzzled, I said, “Are you dressed? Or did you sleep in that last night?”

He said, “I’m dressed.”

I said, “Why?”

He said, “Because I want to be ready for the Yu-Gi-Oh movie when we go.”

For at least a week, maybe two, he’s been asking me the date. Turns out he’s been privately counting down the days until this movie opens and he simply assumed that we would take him. So, he was ready. Because he planned to go to the movie. With or without us, I suppose.

Fortunately, his dad is back in town and when I told him about YoungestBoy’s plans, he said he could leave work and take him to the movie and then go back to work. Because that’s the kind of guy he is.

Superfluous earrings and mid-day movies. I’m a lucky girl.

Here are the kids at Mt. Rainier.  

My mother dropped off my pictures tonight. She had to take a roll of film in for developing, so she took mine, too. As I looked through the pictures, I realized how brightly dressed everyone was last Sunday. The pictures were so colorful.

My mom said, “That was such a good idea you had to dress the kids in bright colors. You know, when I saw them Sunday, I thought, if a helicopter had to search for them on the mountain, they would be easy to spot.”

I had to laugh, though, because not only did I not dress them to match (as I sometimes do when I know an event will be a real photo op), I didn’t even notice what they wore, aside from sleeve length. Being in need of a helicopter rescue on the slopes of Mt. Rainier never occurred to me. I was more concerned about surviving the two hour drive with a two year old in the car.

Only ten more minutes until the kids are in bed. Not that I’m counting.

I’m out of milk.
I’m out of space.
I’m out of Miss Meringue cookies (four for 2 Weight Watchers points).
I’m out of ideas to keep children occupied and quiet.
I’m out of time.
I’m out of Diet Coke with Lime.
I’m out of shampoo.
I’m out of patience.
I’m out of my mind.
I’m out of time.

But I have plenty of clutter! And noise! And grime! And children! And housework!

I stood in my grimy-floored kitchen, washing dishes, feeding toddlers lunch, looking out the window, and thinking. I thought, How did my grandma (now 98 years old) manage? How did this mother of five boys and finally, a girl, wife to a traveling husband grow her own vegetables, can them, sew everyone’s clothing, wash all the laundry, cook, clean, kneel by her bed in prayer, morning and night, and attend church every time the doors were opened . . . how?

I thought of my friend who homeschools her six children and teaches the girls know how to embroider and sew and knit and creates scrapbooks for her families and cans her own home-grown peaches and directs a choir and I thought, How?

Then I thought: Moms like that run a tight ship.

Their children have chores and rules and actually know how to scrub a toilet. Their children go to bed on time and read classic novels and put their laundry in hampers. Their children do not “back-sass,” as my children would say. Their children eat homegrown vegetables and don’t screw up their noses and make vomiting sounds when they find out they are having a well-balanced meal for dinner.

Then there is me. If those moms run a tight ship, then I’m the kind of mom who runs a . . . well, a wobbly dock. At best.

We don’t sail the harbor, let alone the seven seas. My kids kind of perch on the shaky, splintery dock and watch the other ships sail. My kids sit on the edge of the rickety dock and try to touch the salty sea with their toes. My kids accidentally drop stuff into the water and pretend like they’re going to shove each other into the waves below and complain “he won’t stop touching me” and “the sun is shining into my eyes.”

I don’t run a tight ship.

I think it’s probably in my nature to run a tight ship, though. I was a perfectionist in high school. If I did not make the highest A in the class on a test, I said the following spiral of things to myself: “I can’t believe I missed an answer. I’m so dumb. I knew that answer. Why did I make that mistake? I know I will probably get a B in this class or I’ll probably just fail because I’m so incredibly stupid and I’m fat anyway and my hair will not stop frizzing, no wonder no one likes me–well, sure they like me, but that’s only because they have to like me and just wait. Just wait. I will probably fail this class and end up with such a low grade point average that I will not get a scholarship and I won’t get into the college of my choice and I’ll definitely never get married or have a meaningful career or kids and I may as well just go live under a bridge alone, of course. I’m so stupid. I may as well kill myself right now.”

As you can see, my “self-talk” was fairly dismal. When I realized what I was doing to myself, I stopped. Not immediately, not without pain, but I stopped. I stopped being illogical and crazy and jumping to insane conclusions. And I stopped expecting myself to be Perfect because I realized that no one is Perfect (for awhile there, I thought Martha Stewart was, but hello? She’s divorced–hardly a perfect story-book ending to a life–and she’s going to prison.)

I call myself a Reformed Perfectionist, and I give myself permission to just let some things slide. Thus, my grimy kitchen floor. And the toilets which could use scrubbing and the kids who have not yet started piano lessons. I’m just not going to spend my life, my home-making years, pressuring myself to be Suzy Homemaker with a hollow head who smiles vacantly and never complains and hasn’t read a novel in ten years since she left college. I’d rather my mind function with robust health than for my couch cushions to be spotless.

As for the kids, their childhoods are short. I know some moms feel like they need to rush, hurry, cram as much information into their kids as is possible before releasing them into the blue sky like a helium balloon. I’d rather just let them hang out and eat popcorn in the middle of the day and then swim under the clear blue sky with its sliver of moon and lowering sun. It’s summertime still, for just a few short moments on this wobbly dock, and I say, “Who wants a popsicle?”

I am a pastor’s wife. Guess what I did today? That’s right. I skipped church. Even though it was my day to be the nursery volunteer. I traded spots with someone and at 9 a.m., loaded Babygirl and TwinBoyB into my car, and followed my mom’s car (carrying TwinBoyA and YoungestBoy) to Mt. Rainier.

We took two cars because, although each of our cars would fit six people, neither would have been comfortable. And I thought Babygirl might fuss or scream the whole way there (two hours) and I wanted to spare my mother the agony. The older she gets, the more she winces when the kids made kid noise. I hardly even notice it, but then her face squinches all up and then I say, “Hey, you guys! Keep it down!”

Finding a place to park was a little tricky, but at last, we each found a place (at opposite ends of the unbelievably long parking lots). We sat and ate lunch right outside the Visitor Center. Babygirl spent much of her time chasing a pigeon and then squatting just feet away from a hungry and brave chipmunk. We finished eating our picnic lunch, took photographs and then headed for the trails.

The last time we went to Mt. Rainier was four years ago–how does time get away from me?–and it was misty rain then and there was still mushy snow on parts of the trail. This time the only snow was high up on the peaks. Babygirl insisted on walking most of the time, then she would plop down on the side of the path, gather some gravel and fling it onto the paved walkway. Then she’d run some more. The boys mostly wandered up ahead until the trail started to slope upwards. We were heading for a waterfall, only half a mile up, but they all began to complain as the path climbed sharply. I encouraged them to keep going, even though my mom had to sit and wait for us at a bench. I was determined to see that waterfall!

And we did. We went down a stairway, gazed at the cascading waterfall and a woman volunteered to take a picture of all of us with my camera. How nice! Then, we climbed back up the stairs and the sweaty, red-faced boys wanted to just sit and rest. Just a bit further was a bridge over the waterfall and I urged them to come with me and look. They did, but then they returned to the benches. I took more pictures and turned to go, but Babygirl had other plans. She wanted to “hold it”–hold the water! Impossible, of course, so I stalled for time by pushing her stroller to the center of the footbridge. I took more photographs, moved her off the bridge and while she protested, took more photographs.

Then she yelled and cried while I pushed her back down the path. She screamed all the way down, more than half a mile. I’d smile sheepishly and say with false cheer to those coming up the path: “She really liked the waterfall!”

She quit her bellyaching as we reached level ground when she saw a dog on a leash–a really poofy small dog. The owner said Pumpkin was friendly, so Babygirl sat and communed with Pumpkin. And then complained loudly–“one more time, puppy, one more time!” as we headed to the car.

When we got to the car, she shrieked when I put the buckle on her. But it was a naptime and I thought she’d drop off to sleep as soon as I started the car. I was wrong.

My mother took the boys in her car, so it was just me and Babygirl and the demon that had taken over Babygirl’s body. Babygirl screamed and cried and sobbed and said “hold it.” I distracted her with grapes at some point, but that turned out to be something of a mistake when she resumed crying so hard that she vomited a chewed up grape.

I remembered then why I normally just stay at home when my kids are this age. They are not good travelers. They are the linen suits of traveling wardrobes. Wrinkled, impractical, unkempt. Best to be kept at home. Not good in cars, buses, planes, trains.

She cried off and on for an hour and a half, then–blessed quietness–fell asleep half an hour before we got home. She woke up the last five minutes of the journey, remembered why she was so upset and worked herself into a fit again. When we pulled into the driveway, she wouldn’t get out of her carseat, so I left her in the car, screaming, while I took in my picnic bag, washed my hands, hung up the car keys, and had a drink of water. When I went back to the driveway, she was still crying and I had to pull her out of her seat, much against her will.

And now, a list:

When My Husband Is Gone or Why I Would Be A Horrible Single Mom

When he’s gone, I plan to paint the living room.
Instead, I leave toys in the living room overnight and dishes in the sink.

When he’s gone, I envision eating salads every night for dinner.
Instead, I eat all the potato chips I bought for the picnic. At 11 p.m. With a Diet Coke.

When he’s gone, I think I’ll catch up on my sleep.
Intead, I stay up all the way through David Letterman.

When he’s gone, I intend to finish my paperwork.
Instead, I find more blogs to read.

When he’s gone, I look forward to having quiet evenings.
Instead, I get sloppy with the kids’ bedtime and end up shouting at 10:45 p.m. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS? GO TO SLEEP!”

When he’s gone, I imagine ironing all his clothes.
Instead, I don’t. He’ll have to go to work in his swimming trunks when he gets back.

Or I’ll have to get motivated here real quick. Send more caffeine! Send a maid! Send a self-addressed stamped-envelope and I’ll send you a kid, free-of-charge! Remember: no returns or refunds!

I hate spiders. Really, really, really hate them. I know they are good creatures with merit and they kill bad bugs. Right. I get all that. But they give me the heebie-jeebies. I know it’s irrational. But I’m a girl. So spare me the lecture. (Once I received an anonymous email from someone in response to a post I made about killing a spider. She thought I should gently relocate spiders from my home to the Great Outdoors.)

Despite that suggestion, I hate spiders and they scare me. But I am a grown-up. I have to act like it. At least while the kids are watching.

My husband (aka The Spider-Killer) is out of town for a few days, so it’s up to me to handle each crisis as it pops up. Two nights ago, a jumbo-sized spider was minding its own business in a corner of the boys’ room. They freaked out and I was forced to pretend that I didn’t mind slapping it down with a fly-swatter. ::::shudder::::

Yesterday, I moved three backpacks from a corner and out scurried an even bigger spider. I shouted to the boys, “QUICK! GET ME A BIG SHOE!” They couldn’t translate my frantic English into . . . well, into Boy Talk, and they did not give me a shoe in time and I was forced to stomp on that spider in my bare slipper. Only a slipper and a sock shielded my delicate skin from that scary old spider.

This morning, I reached for a pair of jeans on a high shelf and as I carried it out of the closet, I came eyeball to eyeball with an enormous spider. I did what any mature, almost forty-year old woman would do. I screamed and flung the jeans onto the head of my almost-two year old daughter. The spider disappeared.

Until tonight. I started the baby’s bath and she climbed into the tub and then said, “Spider.” I said, “What?” She pointed to a huge spider trying to hide under an empty bottle. Right in the tub. I snatched Babygirl from the tub, stifled a scream and tried to think. What to do? This spider was big. Really, really big. At least two inches from edge to edge. (Hey, that’s big for the Pacific Northwest.)

I hate spiders.

Did you know that if you squirt baby shampoo directly onto a spider, it will first attempt to outrun the tear-free cleanser and then it will shrivel limply and die? Well, now you know. I asked my six year old to use a wad of tissue to transport the dead carcass of Mr. Scary Spider to the toilet.

Enough. Do you hear that, Spiders? I’ve had enough. Don’t make me get the pesticide out!

This reminds me of Branson, Missouri. When I was 19 years old, I worked as a nanny and lived in a small, furnished apartment on the shores of Tablerock Lake. I would come home from a long day of minding bratty kids and when I switched on the lightswitch, cockroaches would scurry back into their hiding spots. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in the suburbs, in a tract home with wall-to-wall carpet and I had never actually come face to face with cockroaches before.

My solution? Well, I couldn’t stomach the sound of crunching insect bodies, so instead of killing them with forceful smacks, I put drinking glasses over as many as I could, trapping them. Then, I carefully slid a heavy piece of paper under the cockroaches and carried them one by one to the bathroom, where I dropped them one by one into the toilet. Very efficient, yes?

Did you know cockroaches can swim?

I discovered that a squirt of Dawn dishwashing liquid seemed to stun them–paralyzed? dead? Who knew? Then, I’d flush.

This worked great until a particulary large cockroach startled me just as I reached the toilet. I screamed and let go of the glass, which fell into the toilet and broke.

You just haven’t lived until you’ve picked glass shards out of a cockroach-infested toilet.

Oh, and that reminds me of one more thing. I heard once that every person will eat eight spiders in their sleep during the course of his or her lifetime. Urban legend? I hope so. Just in case, I now wear pantyhose over my head while I sleep. A girl can never be too careful.