I’ve been sitting here for a solid ten minutes, wondering if I have anything to say.  I don’t.  Well, I do, but I can’t.

That’s where you come in.  Do you have any questions?  Ask.  I may answer.   I hope you are more creative than I am.

This blog is going down the tubes, and fast.

My son spent quite some time constructing a fake miniature golf course with all the blocks and train tracks.  When he finally finished, he announced with a flourish, “Behold, my super cool maze of awesomeness!”

And from the kitchen, where I stood with my hands in dishwater, a thought nearly felled me:  I’m going to miss that kid.  Even as I type those words, the thought of this boy grown and gone from my house brings tears to my eyes.

Because as surely as a gray hair coils from the part in my hair, he is going to turn eleven and then twenty and before I know it, he’ll be graduating from college and moving all his Calvin and Hobbs books to an apartment.  I’m going to miss his sunny disposition, his hilarious comments on life, his cheery boyhood.

I’m going to miss that kid.  If I could, I’d freeze-dry him, but I doubt he’d be as funny and cute dehydrated and tucked away in a Zip-loc bag.  So I’ll just have to miss him.  (But I think I’ll try to miss him after he’s gone instead of now.)

For the record, I am still not cool even though I now attend a cool church.  Also, I just reread Blue Like Jazz and liked it even more this time around.

I can’t quite decide if I am lazy, overwhelmed or depressed. Or maybe a delicious concoction of all three, with a healthy dollop of exhaustion mixed in. I’m in this constant state of dragging myself along, making myself do things that do not appeal to me. For instance, I love to walk, but lately, I force myself onto the trail, tricking myself into wearing the shoes by promising myself that I do not actually have to walk. And then I have on the shoes and I drive to the trail and I really can’t do anything but walk.

I know that laundry is piled high in the laundry room again, yet I am procrastinating. I don’t want to do it. My head’s ached today with a pesky headache, so maybe that’s why I cannot imagine rounding up enough energy to download photos from the weekend so I can illustrate my blogs. What I want to do is find Zach’s Halloween bucket and eat all the Snickers out of it. Alas, I cannot do that because he carefully cataloged all his candy on a piece of college-ruled notebook paper. (His stash was 109 pieces of candy, just so you know.)

Halloween trick-or-treating on Friday night ended up being a stress-free and delightful as one can imagine. The rain stopped, a gentle fog rolled in, the temperature was mild. We joined our neighbors, so while the children sprinted from house to house, my friend and I chatted. The neighborhood was full of wandering groups of adults and children, unlike many of our previous Halloweens. It was fun.

Saturday found us at Zach’s last football game of the season. (They lost.) We followed that up with a visit to our town’s museum and the much-loved Wagon Shop where the kids climbed into old buggies and used grindstones to sharpen tools. I purchased each of them an instantly-regrettable kazoo. OH THE NOISE.

Last night, my husband took me out on a date to celebrate our 7,777th day of marriage. He also presented me with seven roses, seven chocolates, seven love songs on CD and a gift-card for seven movies. I know! How did I get so lucky to be married to such a guy? I don’t know, but I am grateful every day for having him for my husband.

Today, we went to church at Mars Hill. I was disappointed that Mark Driscoll wasn’t there today–the other pastors who speak are just not as compelling as Mark. (I am sure they are fine human beings and have excellent people skills . . . but I am not an auditory learner and only the very best communicators capture my attention. Alas.) After church, our traditional lunch at Dick’s Drive-In.

And then an hour long drive home through blinding rain. While my husband was dealing with the stress of the driving conditions, I was reading. I’m almost finished with Sue Monk Kidd’s When the Heart Waits. (She authored The Secret Life of Bees.) She is an exceptional writer. (A few days earlier, I read Amy Grant’s

Every year, it’s my job to carve the pumpkins. This year, the teenagers did not choose a pumpkin each, so only two pumpkins demand my attention. I hate everything about carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.

I hate cutting off the tops, scooping out the guts, and carving faces with my gigantic chef’s knife. I have no idea how people make those fancy curvy designs. If it’s not a triangle, I cannot carve it.

And don’t think that I want to, either. Because I do not. I believe that I could master pumpkin carving if I cared enough, but I do not. I clearly don’t own the right tools and I don’t care. (I once saw Martha Stewart make the cutest polka-dotted jack-o-lanterns, using a power-drill with special attachments that dug out perfect circles of various sizes. I have a power-drill, but not those attachments.)

So, I finished one jack-o-lantern. The other is gutless, sitting on the kitchen table awaiting the knife of doom. I am hopeful that I will not cut off any fingers, especially my own.

Grace is going trick-or-treating as a skeleton. Zachary is going as a . . . ninja? Some guy dressed all in black with a glowing eye mask. Who cares, really? The point is candy, glorious candy, hopefully without added melanine. (Don’t eat the coins. Okay, okay, we know. Do you know? If you don’t, just Google it. And rethink eating chocolate manufactured in China.)

Oh, and

I picked up my six year old from school and we drove to Trader Joe’s for a few supplies. The fifteen minute drive took us past trees with fiery leaves, blood-red leaves, golden leaves and leaves the color of the stripe running down the middle of the road. Leaves were literally falling as we drove past, touching my windshield before swirling in a happy little dance by the side of the road.

The weather has been uncharacteristically dry and so piles of leaves flutter under the trees. They cling to branches like flashy Hawaiian shirts. The lack of rain means they haven’t yet formed a soggy, slimy pile. A furious wind hasn’t flown into town and swept the trees clean. Yet.

But as I drove along today, I thought this might be the best day, the last day so many orange, yellow, red, and wine colored leaves will decorate the trees. I’m trying to notice and I pointed out the trees along the way. I want my daughter to notice the fleeting beauty, too. “Look at those yellow leaves, Grace!” I say, and point out a particularly vibrant tree. “Look over there! It’s orange!” “Isn’t our red bush beautiful today?”

Of course, my kids are like those road-stripe colored leaves, clinging to the branch before drifting away on a gust of wind. I hardly want to blink because I know that while my eyes are closed, even for a second, everything might change. Everything will change. It’s just a matter of time. So I try to notice. I try to see. I try to remember.

Tomorrow, the branches may be bare.

Who is this singer?

Tonight, I arranged for my mother to take my son to football and my daughter to her house.  I finished my work shift at 5 p.m., and by 5:21 p.m.,  I was on the road, heading north.  I picked up my sister at 6:01 p.m., and headed further north to see the mystery singer (pictured above) in concert.

Who is it?  I’ll give you a few clues.

I first saw this singer in concert in 1979 when I was 14.  She was 18 and had been singing professionally for less than a year.  I remember her saying during that appearance at Jesus Northwest something about how cute her blouse was but we couldn’t see it because she was cold and wore a jacket.

I used to have (okay, I still have) song books of her songs.  I’d accompany myself on the piano as I sang her songs, but only the slower ones.

She divorced her first husband, which caused much consternation among some Christians, especially when she turned around and married Vince Gill.

So now you know, right?  Not long ago, a young man was making a DVD for my husband.  The friend wanted to know if my husband had any favorite songs and I said, “Uh . . . well, he likes Amy Grant.”  And our young friend laughed, he scoffed . . . but that’s because he’s young.  Amy Grant was The Singer for my generation of Christian kids.  We still like her and we don’t care who mocks.

Although even I had to laugh at the hilarity of watching old white guys bop along to the music at the concert tonight.  We are old.  We are not hip.  And perhaps we should not be caught dancing in public.  I’m just saying.

(But I had fun.  I hope Amy had fun.  It seemed like she did.)

When I was a teenager, I had a piano in my bedroom. I expelled a lot of angst and emotion by playing the piano and singing along. Somehow, I believed that no one could really hear me since my bedroom was the last one at the end of the hallway.

From time to time, my dad would tap on my door and howl like a wolf, teasing me as he had teased me all my life. I would abruptly stop and wait for silence. When I was sure he was gone, I’d resume, but quieter. How embarrassing to be caught emoting!

Blogging is like singing in my bedroom with the door locked. Only, obviously, everyone can hear what I’m writing. It’s the World Wide Web, for goodness sake. There’s no lock on the door . . . in fact, there’s no door.

What was I thinking?

* * *

And now, on to self-disclosure or at least weekend disclosure.

Saturday morning, our 10-year old had a football game in Seattle and luckily for me, I’m married to a swell guy who does football duty. They were gone until 1 p.m. While they were gone, I did my best to sleep in. Then I took Grace to Value Village, my favorite thrift store, where we shopped. I’m explained to her what color tags were half-off that day. She’s totally catching on.

When we all converged at home, I abandoned the family for some much-needed free time. I went to the bank, then to Costco, then to see “The Secret Life of Bees.”

Where I encountered Popcorn-Bag-Crinkling-Woman to my left and directly behind me, Snoring-Man/Woman (I couldn’t actually tell, but my money is on “man”). The movie followed somewhat close to the book–which I am halfway done rereading. Dakota Fanning was simply amazing. Watching the movie over the sounds of the Popcorn-Bag-Crinkler and the Movie-Snorer demanded a bit of concentration, but even they could not distract from the emotion of the movie. The only thing that did distract me was what appeared to be Spanx lines on the thighs of Queen Latifah’s character’s khaki pants.

Today, we went to church at Mars Hill, then to lunch at Dick’s Drive-In. I spent my entire day diligently working on laundry, clipping coupons, cleaning the kitchen and squandering a really lovely autumn day. But tomorrow everyone will have clean underpants and socks and my lucky husband will have pants to wear.

Tomorrow, everyone is back in school.

That one?

Yeah, well, my hair does not look like that anymore. It’s long and kind of out of control now. But my husband finally expressed an opinion (he likes it long) and so I’m resisting the urge to hack it off.

Eyes closed, hair overtaking the world. But isn’t my daughter cute?

That is all. I just thought you should have an accurate mental image when you read this blog. And I don’t really look like that any more. (Oh, and yes, my face is chubbier than it was a few months back. I blame my job. And processed foods. And the stock market.)

Carry on.

If I only had one child–my 10-year old–I would be a smug parent. I’d congratulate myself on raising a self-reliant boy, one who does his homework without supervision, wakes up when his alarm rings at 6:36 a.m. and earns excellent grades and praise from his fifth grade teacher. I would think that I made him like this, that his cheerful attitude and zest for life are somehow my doing.

I would narrow my eyes in judgment at other parents with their children who cry during homework and refuse to rise from bed in the mornings and avoid shampoo. I’d think they were doing something wrong and I’d probably write a book called How To Raise A Great Kid. I’d feel sorry for other parents who just had no clue.

However, I have four children. And without naming names, I’ll just say that my other children keep me humble. My other children received more attention, more devotion, more nurturing since they were my only children for almost five years. I fretted about and tended to those boys with whole-hearted devotion because I thought back then that my actions would determine their course. How silly.

I believe nature guides human behavior more than nurture does. You can disagree with me–and you probably will if you have children you gave birth to who are turning out so much like you or your spouse or maybe like no one you know, but still. You think that what you do, what you say, how you discipline, what you read and how much candy you allow is making all the difference. After all, look at how great your kids are! All due to you, or so you think. You are all about the rules and control.

My daughter is 6 and she’s nothing like her brothers, either. She’s been raised by the same parents and we’ve all lived together in the same tri-level house for eleven years now. And she is her own person, a hilarious person who likes to draw and paint with watercolors and print out the alphabet in tiny rows on college-ruled paper. She collects stuffed animals like my boys used to collect Pokemon cards. She told me today she’d like to be a singer, you know, with a microphone. She’s a lot like me, but not because of all the time we spend together. She just happens to have inherited a lot of me.

Before we adopted our twins, I was convinced that all I had to do was be a Good Mom and my boys would turn out pretty much like me, only male. Or they’d be like my husband. I never considered that they might be just like their birth parents, other than in looks. When they were babies and toddlers, I’d catch glimpses of myself in them, or so I thought. I think I saw what I wanted to see. I believed that love and nurture would chart the course of their lives. And in the fifteen years since, I have changed my mind.

Now I am convinced that behavior (and accomplishment) is driven almost entirely by nature. Genetics are very powerful.
Sure, I can guide, I can influence, I can provide the right environment. But I will never change the essence of who my children are. Instead of building them from the ground up, I am discovering them day by day. I am not making them. I am watching them become themselves. It’s the difference between fashioning a rose from silk and watching a rosebud unfurl.

I want them to have smooth paths, easy journeys, lives full of love and laughter. But they will live their own lives, ultimately. Good or bad.

All the same, when the teacher explained how smart my boy is, how well he works with his classmates and what good grades he is getting, I wanted to take credit. At least I contributed my genes and housed him in my uterus for nine months. The rest of it is a miracle unfolding every day and has very little to do with my mothering skills. So there will be no book unless it’s called Nature Will Win So Stop Building on a Flood Zone or something like that.