It’s so dumb that I am awake, randomly cruising blogs when it’s almost 1 a.m. But this is just about the first quiet moment I’ve had today. On Friday we’re leaving for a week at the ocean which means that I have lists scrolling in my head: spaghetti sauce, tacos, sloppy joes, grapes, strawberries–don’t forget stuff for s’mores . . . beach chairs, towels–is that striped one still at my mom’s house, let me call her . . . what book shall I take to read? Maybe A Prayer for Owen Meany, I’ve been meaning to reread that, or maybe that other Mark Helprin book . . .

And laundry . . . if I wash everything, packing will be easy . . . wonder where that other duffle bag is? I need to find a flashlight to look under the bed . . . don’t forget laundry detergent . . . I wonder if the oven will get fixed before dinner tomorrow and if those pizzas from Papa Murphy’s will make it another day . . . I need to vacuum and scrub toilets before we go. Is there enough kitty litter to change the boxes? Oh, which reminds me, I need to give Swimmy the Beta fish clean water and some food . . . sure hope I don’t catch Grace’s cold.

Why does it take so much preparation to go away?

And then when you get back, you need another week to recover. . . .what’s that about?

I hate mornings. I love the dark quiet hours when the only noise in my house is the dishwasher, the clothes dryer and the distant rumble of my husband’s snores. You can’t love dawn and midnight in equal measures, and so midnight wins. Dawn? I like you, when I see you, but we are incompatible. It’s not you. It’s me.

So, Tuesday, I worked until nearly 1 a.m. My daughter woke me up at 3 a.m.: “Mommy, I had a nightmare.” She woke me up a couple more times . . . then I heard my husband stir. He kissed me good-bye at 6 a.m. I fell into a solid, restful sleep. At 8:30 a.m., my daughter appeared at my bedside. I turned to check out the time and it was . . . . 8:30!!!

My shift started at 8 a.m. I leaped out of bed, grabbed my glasses, socks and my bathrobe and flew downstairs. I’d been working for an hour–teeth still unbrushed, hair disheveled, face unwashed–when the doorbell rang. My daughter answered it and then, “Mom, it’s a lady.”

And so it was. It was a lady from church stopping by to see how we are doing since my husband’s resignation a month earlier.

My fondness for this woman overrode my impulse to slam the door in her face, so I welcomed her, hugged her. I was acutely aware that my morning breath wafted out with every word I spoke. And my hair looked as if it had barely withstood hurricane force winds. My purple bathrobe, while the color of royalty, is not figure-flattering.

I mentioned how I was working–at that very moment–and that we were fine–but really busy, like now, while I’m working–which must have seemed ludicrous as I stood in my bathrobe. But we chatted for quite some time.

Now, if she had stopped by at midnight, I would have been alert, dressed and in my right mind. Let that be a lesson to anyone who is thinking of visiting. Oh, and call first, so I can panic about the condition of my kitchen floors before you appear. Adrenaline is good for the heart.

I took my kids shoe-shopping. The 10-year old needed football cleats, so first we went to a sporting goods store. We had two choices and each box in his size had only one shoe. So, I sent one of my kids to find an employee.

Meanwhile, my 5-year old is running laps. I directed a 15-year old to keep an eye on her and before I know it, they are chasing each other around the store, whooping and hollering and being a nuisance. They were the kind of kids that would provoke a raised eyebrow, an eyeroll and cause me to wonder, “WHERE IS THEIR MOTHER?!” in that special judgmental way I have.

When my twins were younger, they could not be still while shopping. They’d climb under racks of clothes, they’d poke each other, they would disappear. They would tackle each other, shriek and annoy me until I broke out in a sweaty rage. And, lo and behold, great tidings of anything but joy, they still do it. They still joke around and put each other in headlocks and block the aisle.

After an epic struggle, we bought a pair of cleats and headed to Famous Footwear, my favorite shoe-store. I love that store because they have excellent clearance racks and they send me coupons based on how many shoes I’ve purchased. Also, they have a buy one, get on half-off sale. (Once, I bought a $5-on-clearance pair of shoes with a $5 coupon.) Since I must shod eight feet, that’s where we go.

This time, Grace veered immediately toward the girl shoes, so I gave the teenage boys instructions: “First, check the clearance rack for your size. If they don’t have what you like, check the regular shelves. But watch the price.” They were to each get two pairs: one for gym class and one for every day.

To my surprise, they each picked out reasonable shoes at reasonable prices without my assistance. This was a first. Meanwhile, Grace found two pairs she liked, so all in all, I purchased six pairs of school shoes, plus a pair of cleats. And I will not have endure that again for another year.

* * *

Last night, Grace and I were watching “Unwrapped,” a show about how snack foods are made. The segment was about beef jerky. “Beef turkey,” she said and I corrected her. “No, it’s beef jerky.”

She paused and said, “Beef jerky? What is that? Beef that is a jerk?” And then she laughed and laughed a contagious laughter that had me giggling along, wiping my eyes at her hilarity. When she simmered down I said, “And there’s also turkey jerky.” She found that equally amusing and we laughed some more.

She’s been having nightmares lately and has been waking me up two or three times in the pre-dawn darkest hours. I am not Ma Ingalls of Little House on the Prairie fame and I do not respond with any sort of grace in the wee hours of the night. I’m not sure what incentive she even has to wake me up repeatedly because I am not happy at all to see her before 8 a.m., and at 3 a.m., I am downright annoyed. Last night, I stepped on the pointy end of a plastic doll pacifier and screamed in pain. I fell asleep to the rhythm of my throbbing arch.

I wonder what Ma Ingalls would have done? She wouldn’t have left scattered toys on the floor, I bet.

If you could be a mom of literary, television of movie fame, who would you be? And why?

I met a friend for lunch today.  We monopolized the table at Bahama Breeze for a good three hours, reviewing the happenings since we last met.  (Which we think was over two years ago.  Oh, how time flies.)  After our lunch, I headed over to Ikea, managing to make at least four wrong turns and three U-turns in my determination to find that giant warehouse with its meandering paths and cheap tea lights.

I bought my boys two chair-beds, which are exactly what they say.  They will require assembly which I intend to attempt tomorrow when I am better rested than today.  While I have yet to meet something I cannot assemble, occasionally the task is accompanied by some huffing and puffing and maybe a few Christian curse-words:  “Shoot!”  “ARRRRG!” and “I HATE THIS!”  Okay, “I hate this” is not a Christian curse-words, but still.  I use it like one.

My husband took the kids to the pool in my absence.

When I returned home, my daughter crawled into my lap, obviously exhausted.  I begged her to let me comb her matted curly hair, but she refused.  Tomorrow morning untangling that mess will be such fun.  Anyway, she always takes it personally when I go away on a Saturday.  She wants nothing more than to spend every waking moment with me . . . while I need a break from her from time to time.

When I put her to bed, she asked if we could go to Target tomorrow.  I said, “No.”  She wanted to know if we could go to the One-Dollar Store.  I said, “No, but we will do something tomorrow.”  I have in mind that we could go blueberry picking if it doesn’t rain.

Three times she got out of bed.  One of those times, it was to ask me, “But Mom, where can we shop?”  She wants to shop!  Shop until she drops!  None of my other children (read: BOYS) will tolerate even a short shopping trip.  I remember one time that I had to take them to the market to buy a few provisions.  I was eight months pregnant and my three boys were prancing about, putting each other in headlocks, poking each other and generally causing a ruckus.  I stood sweating that August, waiting my turn.  When it came, the clerk said, “Another boy?” and I said with exasperation, “God forBID!”

And sure enough, God gave me a little girl who just wants to have some fun . . . at a store, any store.  Maybe a pet store?  “Mom, can I have a rat?”  I’d rather go to Target!

My children have been enamored with video games forever.  The twins saw their first video game when they were four and they could talk of nothing else.  Mario captivated them.
So, we go to video game stores a lot.  Most recently, I went to GameStop because I was given a gift card so I could visit the store and tell you all about it.  Which I will do, over here.

She’s five (“and a half!” she’ll tell you) and Swimmy the Beta-fish quelled her pleas for a pet of her own for approximately two days. We already have three cats (mutants from the same litter–I am a cat-lover, but these cats are just not right). But each of my three boys has his own cat (all females, despite their names: Roy, Chestnut and Smokey). She wants her very own pet, preferably something cuddly. You can’t cuddle a fish.

When I was her age, I was desperate for a pet, too. I begged for a puppy and to my utter shock, a little black ball of fur wriggled out of a Christmas-wrapped box. I pleaded for a hamster–I really just wanted the Habitrail, because all my girlfriends had one–and I received two hamsters in a stinky wooden cage that was impossible to clean. I had guppies. My black puppy disappeared one day while I was gone at school (my mother had a new baby and the dog had to go, I guess) and a few years later, I received another dog, a Miniature Schnauzer named Mitzi.

So, I get the longing for pets.

And I secretly think that guinea pigs are so cute. (We pig-sat the fourth-grade guinea pig one weekend.)

My daughter cannot stop asking me to go to the pet store. I keep telling her, “No, I’m not taking you to the pet store.” I rue the day her daddy took her into the local Petco while we were waiting to be seated at Red Robin. That’s what rekindled this whole thing.

I purchased a small-creature cage at a garage sale a few years ago. The price was excellent and the cage was brand new (with accessories). I foresaw this day. Because that’s what moms do: see the future.

But we are not going to the pet store. Not yet.

My daughter said to me, “Mom, don’t you understand how important this is to me?”

Oh, I do. I really do. But three cats might eat a rat. And while little white mice are cute, I don’t want them lose in the heating vents. Hamsters sleep all day and make noise all night.

She will continue to lobby . . . and I will resist until I can resist no longer. I hope that day is distant.

As the summer sun faded from the sky, I couldn’t help but think about endings. My youngest children frolicked in the pool and I thought about death. Perhaps my reading of East of Eden cast a pall over the dusk, but I thought about my dad, so long gone, and about his last summer. We had no idea it was his last summer, of course, because we were all so sure that he would outlive the doctor’s predictions (“four months to two years”).

If he’d been in the plastic pool chair next to me tonight, I thought, what would we say? Probably nothing profound. The grief over what was lost already would silence us.

I watched my children, soaked in the moment and wanted to cry. The moment couldn’t last. Even now, summer flees and my baby girl has lost two baby teeth. On the way home, Zachary quizzed her, checking to see if she believes in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Cupid. (Cupid?) He scoffed at his friend who believes in all the mythical childhood characters–and I said, “Don’t spoil it for him.” And he said, “I won’t.”

I thought how my dad’s life never intersected my children’s lives. How sad that they never met. He died four years before my oldest children were born.

The vivid sense of the momentary nature of life reminds me that all this–the endless laundry, the Shasta daisies smiling in the corner of the yard, water droplets dripping from my tan children–all of it will be gone. I think of my grandmother, lying in a bed in the center of my cousin’s family room, clinging to life, barely, on her 102nd birthday–the challenges of raising six children during the Depression, the delight of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the sorrow of watching her husband of 62 years die from the ravages of bone cancer–all of that burned away like fog on a summer day. Momentary troubles, momentary joy.

I know I am mortal. I don’t mind getting old, except for the age spots on my hands, the hairs sprouting on my chin and the touchiness of my lower back, but I don’t want to die. I want to gather my life into my arms, greedy for more, and refuse to loosen my grip.

Monday:  Who knows. I worked six hours at home, then took the kids to the pool. Glorious weather.

Tuesday: My four children, my mother, my nephew and I ventured to Mt. Rainier for the day. I thrilled the children by providing a picnic full of processed foods, including those cans of cheese and fruit roll-ups (which contain no fruit, as far as I know). The snow fell so deeply last winter that the trails were still under four feet of packed snow, so we attempted a hike, but turned back after much slipping and sliding. The children delighted in the steams of melted snow rushing along the paths and in the weirdness of throwing snowballs in July. [I would insert a picture, but my blog is uncooperative.]

Wednesday: Our town shut off the electricity at 8:00 a.m. . . . a planned outage scheduled to last twelve hours. We knew in advance, so I planned another outing: this time to Wild Waves, our local water-park. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and left at 6:20 p.m., and I was nearly dead from a fun overdose. Too much sun, too much noise, too many people, too much. But my daughter had a fantastic time, especially compared to last year when she was too frightened to go on any kid-sized waterslides. This year, she slid and swam and splashed. Sometimes, I even participated, floating around in an tube and jumping waves in the wave pool.

My head ached by the time we left, but my daughter has asked every day since to go back. And we might: in a week because–wouldn’t you know–I found a coupon on last week’s Sunday paper for $15 off each ($35!) ticket. If only I’d had time to read the Sunday paper a week ago, I would have been able to use that coupon and not felt compelled to go back again. (Oh, the kids loved it, except for one of my 15-year olds who chose instead to stay home in a house without electricity–he and his friend down the street played their guitars and walked to 7-11 for snacks.)

Thursday: Worked for eleven hours.

Friday: Worked for nine hours. Hey, this was my anniversary, twenty-one years! No time to celebrate!

Saturday: Worked three hours, then ran errands (without kids, glory be!). My husband of twenty-one years and I went out to dinner at a lovely waterfront restaurant that was so noisy we had to shout to communicate and the service was slow, but we forgave these faults because we have enjoyed eating at this particular restaurant for many years. And the food was delicious.

Sunday: We skipped church. So many activities took place in Seattle and Tacoma today that we feared traffic would be exceptionally bad. (Which is saying something. Seattle’s traffic is notorious.) I just heard on the news that in addition to the Bite of Seattle, there was also a parade in the International District, complete with a Chinese dragon and a big Native American celebration in Discovery Park. And down near Tacoma, a big air show. (All day long, I’d hear a roar in the sky and look up to see planes flying in formation or curving around the sky in a white smoky circle.)

I did housework. I ran a few errands. I ironed.

And now another week begins. At least my husband has enough pants to wear to work and a bounty of socks in his dresser.

Today we attended Mars Hill for the second time.  The kids are still quite resistant, but this time, we bribed them with lunch afterward at Dick’s Drive-In, a famous Seattle fast-food place where they make burgers, fries (from real potatoes, as you watch) and old-fashioned milk shakes.  Aside from a little difficulty with directions  (we will not go into that), the day was a success.

For the record, our teenagers will still be attending youth group locally.  And our children went to VBS at our (former) church last week.  Mars Hill may very well be our “interim” church as driving an hour each Sunday morning may get to be too much, but you never know.  Meanwhile, I want to make our drive to Seattle each Sunday worthwhile and so, next week, I would like to drag the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo.

* * *

My daughter and I spent the afternoon at my mother’s house, sitting on her front porch.  Grace and her cousin picked blueberries from the newly discovered bush while my mother and I chatted.  We’d had such perfect weather and the view from her porch of the Puget Sound is so lovely.  My mother has a vast bounty of junk food, so the kids ate Oreos, jelly-beans, Pringles snack-sticks and washed it all down with cans of lemonade.

And then, I took Grace and her cousin to swim.  The teenagers and my 10-year old stayed home, playing video games all afternoon.  They have no idea that they just squandered a perfect, beautiful summer day that they will never get back.  When you’re a kid, the string of sunny blue days seem infinite–but I know better.  I know that we will never get this perfect summer day back with its gentle breeze as the sun set.  They will never see the golden slant of sunlight on their sister’s five year old face.  Blink.  It’s gone.

But they sure made a lot of progress beating that Nintendo GameCube game.  (Oh, and my husband napped the day away.  And the 10-year old was conserving his energy for football practice tonight.)

Ever wonder what happens to the plastic you put into the recycling bin?

Wonder no more.  Recycline produces toothbrushes (and other things) made with recycled yogurt cups.  And when you finish with it, the toothbrush itself is recyclable with a postage-paid mailer (available at stores or from Recycline).

If you’d like to try out a toothbrush, leave a comment here.  I’ll pick two people at random and send you your very own toothbrush.  I know.  You can’t believe how lucky you are, being here, reading this.

Check out the Recycline website for more information.  (They make all kinds of stuff, available at Target and there’s a coupon on the website.)