...its epic, isn’t it?

That blissful moment when you catch yourself and realize…it isn’t the nudge of spring (don’t get me started on Mother Nature, clearly she was out too late last night). It’s not that world peace is near…not that all of the kids are asleep…not that you have mastered liquid eyeliner at the age of 41. The one quiet moment when you realize…you have all of the laundry caught up. It is a glorious feeling, so glorious so when I caught myself realizing it, I had to sit down and share…because it won’t probably last for more than an hour or so.

My life is filled with laundry…mine, theirs and at times the random Lego or action figure. I used laundry as an ever-present escape for a while, going to the basement to lug/fold/pretreat, time alone to my thoughts and the monotonous action of keeping my offspring clean looking and not smelling. As children grow, so do their clothes and this one time escape became almost an upper body workout of lugging, folding and pretreating. When my oldest children like to have about 4 wardrobe changes a day…not because they have that delicious B. O. that for some reason I can only smell, I went on strike. But I’ll get to that.

Then Mother Nature. As I afore mentioned, clearly she was tying one on last night, as we went from 60 degrees to a real-feel-temp of 22. Really? Just yesterday my children were cheering my name, honestly cheering, as they woke up in the morning because I declared it was a “short day”…obviously our kicks come easy around here. This morning? I was suddenly, enemy number one. Okay, well whatever you are all learning in your science classes at school? Yeah, the jig is up…that’s right, I CONTROL THE WEATHER…just one more perk of my “smother” title. But back to the bliss…

I miss the days of school uniforms. Polo shirt, khaki pants, white socks and done. The most I had to do was put them out and they would do the rest. But when you have a child, who thankfully buys most of his own clothes, but steadily mentions, “…um, that sweatshirt belongs on the gentle cycle, 20 minutes in the dryer with a dry towel and then hung to dry…”. UM….WHAT? I am sorry, I am not your maid or your entertainment director on this cruise ship of life. When it comes to laundry, I don’t sort, I don’t bleach and everything in the dryer if you are not of voting age. That is when the strike began.

Now, my OCD when it comes to life is sometimes like a mole on a person’s face. You see it, you know it is there, but eventually you don’t even notice it because of their sparkling personality or dazzling wit. So laundry was, my monkeys- my circus. But then, in hind sight quite symbolically, on Martin Luther King Day, it hit me…I want to declare, I need to declare, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last…” And the craziest thing happened…it worked. Now we tweaked some things, I’ll be damned if I let a kid wash four things and call that a full load! I collect or ask for collection. I don’t sort. I wash everything together. And the only special attention goes to the ladies in the house and their unmentionables…because that crap isn’t cheap.

It took about a month but a strange realization set in. Suddenly, a few people in my house began to realize that the laundry is like a 24 hour factory, without the OSHA check-ins and the union meetings. Why were they folding laundry so often? How was it possible? They just folded laundry yesterday. As they were asking this, most appropriately it was cocktail time and as I answered them, looking over my cocktail, I responded with, “Welcome to my LIFE…its epic, isn’t it?”

Now, just to be clear, I’m not running a sweat shop out of my home. I just know that at times I’m spread thin, and any little task, otherwise known as a chore on the mean streets of America, that can offset my most convincing “Mommy Dearest” impression is for the greater good. And it was good. It was bliss. Did I mention that it is an early-out today? Someone walked in the back door, and immediately put something in the washing machine…nice while it lasted.

...waiting on the Mensa application

We learn more from what we get wrong in life than what we get right...

If this phrase is true, which I believe it is, I am figuratively preparing my Mensa application as we speak, because I must be a fragging genius, teeming with knowledge. The adage of we learn from our mistakes holds true of course, but what if you cannot afford the mistake? Everyday life hands you something you can get wrong, but what if want to see your gaffe before it is too late? Welcome to parenthood.

I had to recently explain the idiom, (to) squeeze water from a stone, to my 5 year old. He heard me read this to him from an Irish folklore book. The fact that the characters were talking to leprechauns didn't throw him, but this idiom did. I attempted to muddle through with examples, hoping I didn't have to Google it to actually have it make sense. The best I came up with was it was it was difficult to get something from someone or something if they were unwilling. Blank look from Atticus...I think I even heard a cricket chirp. Okay. A further attempt to explain it involved the notion that sometimes things are hard, and no matter how hard we try we wouldn't be able to accomplish it. Hell, now I'm depressed. I broke it down finally like this...Remember the other day, when EVERYONE was in a bad mood? Even me? Yeah, well getting everyone happy on that day, was like trying to squeeze water from a stone. He nodded his head, I'm not sure if it was that he understood or he was just trying to get me to shut up.

Then, as I am trying to pull my thoughts from my cluttered head onto this laptop, I was asked by my precious flower of a daughter, if I could help her flush the toilet. Really? We live in a 130 year old house, the pipes are old and the last time the plumber was here he explained that I needed an industrial plunger...INDUSTRIAL? I really don't want to make that kind of commitment. What I do want for this specific child to understand that a "courtesy flush" is not a frightening thing. It won't suck her into the 130 year old pipes. It will help her when she is flush-ready, and she is 7 years old and should be able to flush a toilet. Alone. So, instead of trying to squeeze water from a stone, she learned from what she got wrong in her bathroom solitude (seriously envious of the free time my children spend sitting on the toilet). She flushed it and plunged it. Herself. If she is ever visiting any of you reading this, I pre-apologize.

I was talking to someone who was expecting their fourth child this morning. I remember thinking what she was thinking, and while we were talking I had a strange feeling come over me. It was one of fear but also smugness. The fear was what I felt when I had no idea how I would parent four children at once...how would I meet to all of their needs? The notion of being outnumbered, and a mutiny could arise at any moment? The smugness was in the form of self-satisfaction or pride in knowing that I've been there and done that, I don't need a t-shirt, I don't remember every detail, and thankfully I am not a card carrying member of Betty Ford. This woman's story is just getting started. She has years before...puberty.

I talk about it ad nauseum, but here is some more for you. I cannot wake up my children, a few in particular, without saying a prayer, taking a deep breath, and mentally thanking my own mother for not selling me to the circus. I HAD TO ACT JUST LIKE THIS? RIGHT? Oh, don't answer that right away, I would almost start crying. Between my hormone imbalances and my teenager's? I mentally see us in a UFC ring, the chain link all around, poised and waiting for the bell to start our verbal skirmishes. I don't want to fight. Honestly, I don't. I mean I honestly DON'T. I wish there was a pill, homeopathic of course, that you could just take to deal with the fact that your teenager was all knowing. I could take one in the morning with my coffee, by the time said teenager came into view the effects of said pill would already be in your system. You could hear all about how he knows this, or how his siblings are doing that wrong or how dumb it is that he can't wear shorts to school when it's 32 degrees out. You would just nod your head, kind of like being explained an idiom, and your lack of response/expression would almost calm him as well. He's a good kid. We'll get through this. It is just a phase. But clearly, I'm learning from what I'm getting wrong in this situation, because to him I rarely do anything right.

I took Atticus to his kindergarten screening today. How is that even possible? Really? I was nervous for him, I didn't want him to be shy under pressure. I was handed forms and he sat down and started answering questions. As I was filling the forms out, it was odd to hear his little voice, explaining this and that or not quite understanding what he was asked. I am grateful that I got to spend this last year home with him, like I did all the rest of the kids. A silver lining, an occasional cocktail and the notion that every morning when I start the coffee, starts another day I get to learn from my many mistakes and be grateful I'm here to make them. If I got any of that wrong, I guess in this case, I don't want to be right.

...hello...

Hello. I know it's been a while since I've written you, not for the lack of trying. I've just been trying to figure things out. I noticed this morning that I saw a picture of you, and I didn't get emotional. It wasn't some grandiose picture, you were cooking, but I felt a strange feeling at the lack of feeling, you know. There was a time when your picture hung everywhere in this house. Not sure if I just didn't want to change things, or make sure that you were honored. It was hard. Seeing you was hard. It sort of ripped out stitches of a wound you knew you had to let heal, but couldn't stand the itch. The pictures came down, and instead of being everywhere, I thought it best for everyone to put up the ones they wanted in a special place, for just themselves. I couldn't bring you back, but I didn't want to have to be reminded of that fact either.

It is interesting the pictures the kids picked of you. Some are stoic, others are silly ones that you would probably delete off your phone if you needed to free up some space. But for whatever reason they picked the pictures, it is all their own. Nora's collection is most pronounced. There you are on her bulletin board, making silly faces or snuggling the tiniest version of her, and I chuckle when I see them. But they are all she has...a piece of time captured with a short story to go along with it. We talk about them from time to time, and you would love the twinkle she gets in her eye while doing it.

It isn't for the lack of wanting to talk to you. To glean some sort of insight on our offspring that are very uniquely us in so many different ways. I wonder, and at times yearn for, what your thoughts are on so many matters, our kids, politics and frankly life. I'm not going to stroke your ego and assume you have all matters of life figured out on the other side, but who the hell knows, you might. I see you a lot in Abe lately, he has the same dead-pan sense of humor, and I can't imagine how much you would laugh at his delivery of some of the things he says.

I hear you a lot when Oscar is talking. I crack up at the fact that when his voice cracks, he'll actually correct himself and say whatever he said all over again, as if to reaffirm that it was just a glitch in the matrix. Today, he was all dressed up and he physically looked like you, not a moment after I thought that Nora commented how adult he looked. I pray that he and I will live to see the end of the puberty tunnel, and desperately wish you were here to talk him through that.

Every time I meet someone new or someone hears Atticus' name, there is always the same comment, "What an interesting name..." I think of you instantly, trying and lobbying for his name that at the time sounded so odd. You would bring up the Romans, Harper Lee and say it with our last name and comment at how cool it sounded. He still looks just like you, but every once and a while a little of me shines through. He can't recall any story about you other than the ones he's been told. He is as tough as nails and his favorite thing to do? Dance every Saturday night to the Lawrence Welk show. His moves? They are all you.

I was told the other day, something you said about me while on a family vacation. I was correcting our kids for something that probably amounted to nothing, and as I flew out the back door, you turned to my mom and said, "She's a bit of a bulldog, but she's my bulldog." I hope one day someone else understands me like you did. More importantly, I hope that I can let someone in to know me the way you did. I have a problem of suddenly shutting people out for fear that they'll find out how crazy I actually am. Maybe I should have gotten some therapy after you passed, for that matter all of us. I guess I just thought I could make up the difference, be enough for everyone. When I fall short of my own goals it is one thing, when I fall short where our kids are concerned...well, it is painful. I wish that you would just show up and tell me where to turn next. Funny, I wouldn't have so easily let you boss me around when you were here.

I also saw a picture of me this morning, and I honestly didn't recognize myself. I wondered if the person in the picture would be anyone you would recognize. So much has changed, and keeps changing that I wonder if this is how it is supposed to go. I thought of the old line from that chick flick you couldn't stand, "Honey, time marches on, and eventually you realize it's marching across your face." Thank you, Truvy, from Steel Magnolias. What I saw was a mixture of time and an innocence that I didn't remember having. The anniversary of "writing to quiet the voices in my head" was just the other day. I remember feeling the need to write because you and I were going through different stages of grief after losing baby Thomas. But unknowingly, maybe I was setting myself up for other voices that would be babbling around my head today.

So, I'm not sure how to end this. "Take care and have a great day..." doesn't seem appropriate. I guess I just needed to take a minute and talk to you, hoping for a little guidance or a little wisdom. Maybe I've just hit my “middlescence,” ironically my word of the day. Please know that we are doing well, we've had no visits to the ER yet this year and I can hear you laughing every morning while I'm cleaning the litter box that our kids talked me into getting a damned cat. Until next time...

...uncomfortable segue...

"But life doesn't often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn't be called life, it would be called a vending machine."

 ~ Lauren Graham, Talking as Fast as I Can

 

I read this last night, and I found it to be possibly the most profound analogy on life I had ever heard. How many times a day to I hear one of my kids complain about most certainly nothing? Um, well four kids x 24 hours x the distance of the sun from the moon x the dew point/ barometric pressure...this is starting to sound like a calculus question I do not have the brain capacity to answer. In short, A LOT. But really, they shouldn't know any better, they haven't dealt with as much hardships as an adult...who knew adulthood could be spun into such beautiful splendor? Too many questions not enough answers.

Life really isn't that cruel...you can usually glean a silver lining, somewhere. That is until you find "the sock" on the floor, which belongs in your brother's drawer...in the other room. UHG. Do I have time for this? Could this be just one of the mistakes of the house keeper? PLEASE LET IT BE SO....please let it be so. Or, could this be my "Road Not Taken"? I found it interesting, even mentioning to another mother and great friend, that I walked into the room and found a sock, the aghast reaction from her. No other details than, “I found a sock..." and she too knew where the rest of the story may be headed...no folks, you won't hear this ending on Paul Harvey.

So, I am there. I am at that smelly, hairy, confused, rank, self-conscious, voice-cracking cross road of PUBERTY. I knew it was coming...but I sort of hoped that it wouldn't happen until my kids moved out of my house or I could have afforded military school. Just sort of emailing Dr. Ruth Westheimer, I need to get my ducks in a row. I need to prepare my conversation segue (as if there actually IS one?). I need to stack my deck. I need to make sure I know what I am talking about and have the ability to be audible. I need to do some research, because I am in way over my head. I don't even have these parts and let's face it, he is a smart kid and probably could correct me if I tried to start the conversation today. How much is military school really?

So...flushed with the enthusiasm of THAT conversation, that will have to happen in the not so distant future, there are of course a few others. I am not a health fanatic, but my kids would eat a pile of dirt if it was fried and in nugget form or some strange orange color not ever found in nature. NO. No longer. No longer will I have to actually listen to my children try to debate that ketchup could really be considered a vegetable. No longer will I basically feed them a meal based on the argument/gag ratio. It is a new day, and dammit you will eat a color found in nature. Not just on holy days of obligation, but every fracking day you live under my roof.

The other conversations? Well they vary but are not limited to the following: No, Nora, you cannot have your best friend who is a boy spend the night. No, Abe, brushing your teeth last night does not take the place of this morning. No, Atticus, you cannot get on the PS4 at 6:30 a.m. These days filled with questions, most of which asked knowing I didn't just drop acid, yet the utter disgust of my inevitable response leaves me but one answer, "I know, it's horrible. I'm not a vending machine..." Don't live for the vending machine, learn from it and the uncomfortable segues.

...the anvil of parenthood...

Its official...I have something. Between the migraines, the snotty nose and now the inability to open my eyes without wanting to rub them out of their sockets...I have developed some sort of crud. I'm not dying, and I know people get sick, but currently I just don't have time to enjoy the cold medicine buzz, I have things to do.

I have been mentally carrying around a lot of crap. Maybe it is why I picked up some sort of germ strain when I wasn't thinking and let my Petri dish offspring drink my water...and probably because I was to lazy too get them their own drink when I just sat down with mine. I deserve it I suppose. But the crap I am carrying around I just can't shake. I'm not sure if I need intensive therapy or if single motherhood is catching up with me...I'm worn out.

We said good-bye to the ever present veggie tray yesterday. I'm the one who ends up eating it, and it is too costly to watch a beautiful tray of Gods Greens get overlooked. I guess it was inevitable, out with the old and in with the new, right? Yeah, I haven't figured out the new but I'm working on it. With the spring temperatures in the air, there is bound to be some change in this house...I guess I just wasn't ready with an alternative in time. It will come to me, but first I need to find the Kleenex.

Time...there just isn't enough of it. The time spent doing things to keep my house in order, sometimes I find, is getting in the way of the things I should be doing with my kids. Currently, I have the next two hours to myself, and I keep thinking...get up and clean...but I don't want to. I have a few kids that love to clean, I can use that to my advantage right? Or is that just some sort of child labor law that I am knowingly breaking. I find myself wondering what anvil of parenthood will fall on me next. I never have to wait long, they run like a European train, right on time and nearly every 45 minutes.

After some discussion amongst my children and me about happenings at their school, I felt somehow defeated. I wondered, why in the world is there this much drama for a bunch of kids? When did we stop allowing our kids to enjoy their childhood and not have to be worry about being hurt walking home from school or playing outside? I needed at "parenting tap out"...but it's just me around here. Then I found out that one of my kids was brave enough to go and talk to their principal about something they heard said from one of their classmates. I was speechless at first, very rare for me. Then I bawled in my bathroom for about 3 minutes, okay, not so rare for me. Among the discussion, hours before, they hadn't said a word about it. They had possibly the best poker face I had ever seen, of which I was in awe and terrified simultaneously.

Bottom line, I was proud of them for doing the right thing, and immensely proud of them for not feeling the need to broadcast what they had done. So many things people do in life, ultimately are done for the feeling they get doing it, not for the fact that it is just the right thing to do. I went up to them, and gave them a hug, for which they immediately said, "WHAT DID I DO?" I said you did the right thing, and I need to hug you to make sure that you remember this, because I will not forget it. Sometimes, when I am at my wits' end, I need to remind myself that the crap I carry around, not visible to the naked eye, might be just what I carry around, forever. However, I need to remember that I shouldn't let what I carry, cloud my vision of what is in front of me. It's not a cold medicine buzz, but it might be a parenting anvil that I will willingly take to the head.

Thank you!

Not sure if it is spring that is knocking at the figurative door or not. The temperature is warming, the wind is gentle...it actually SOUNDS like spring outside, it is good for the body and soul and I'm not going to question it...at least not fully. With this burst of spring come along all of the things you almost forgot how to do all winter long. Like riding a bike, you hop back on and suddenly it comes to you...peddle, peddle, and peddle.

Today was actually beautiful enough for the kids to ride their bikes to school. Preteen hairdos conflict with this notion, so Nora was the only one who took me up on the offer. She mounted her bike and said, “I’m going!" For a moment, I was scared. She knows what she's doing, but that mom gene kicked in subconsciously as I remembered a dream I had of her falling off the monkey bars and I couldn't get to her to help. Don't you hate those dreams? They leave you feeling weak, helpless, terrified and knowing that you cannot be everywhere at once. Cut to me circling the block after dropping off the Talls to see if she made it to the school's bike rack...whew, relief!

But this spring, or nearly spring as I know I am getting ahead of myself, strange things are happening. I suddenly have these baby soothing urges. I see or hear a baby crying, and I'm oddly drawn to them. I literally had to audibly talk myself out of helping a grandmother in church the other day who was having a tough go at soothing her grandchild. I didn't know this kid. I didn't know what it liked. But out of nowhere I was flush with feeling the urge to pick this baby up and shush it to sleep...? What the what?

I love my kids, but I don't know if I ever felt like I knew what the hell I was doing when they were tiny. I tried something, crossed my fingers that it worked and prayed I remembered it for the next time it happened. Maybe because my half decade old baby isn't needing lulled to sleep in church? Maybe because I know my baby making shop is definitely CLOSED, never to be reopened? Maybe because I have the confidence mixed with hindsight that I never had when I needed it? Maybe because I could literally hand the child off to their rightful parent when I was finished? It all struck me as odd, I mean I know I'm odd but definitely out of the norm at least for me.

Instead my new norm is wondering, puberty, who's ready? Hormones are raging here and you are lucky if to just stay out of the line of fire. Between the combined hormones of the Talls (terrifying and served chilled straight up) to Nora's new hormones, that somehow have a habit of coinciding with mine...she and I might be a force to be reckoned with one day. Whatever the case, I feel like all the times I was feeling "in over my head..." Yeah, that was just an entry level course. I'm currently enrolled in Parenting-456...an advanced course where the lecturer speaks entirely in a language you can't Google the translation. The constant dance you mentally make of asking questions, but knowing that by asking too many it'll blow your mom-cover. Ignorance is said to be bliss, I’ll get back to you on that.

I found myself smiling yesterday, when I was being assisted in house work by Atticus. Not sure where he was formally trained, but his attention to detail will get him at least a salary increase one day. We moved through the house cleaning and him nearly through a bottle of Windex. When we were finished inside he said, "Next, we need to get out on the porch and get the table cleaned off, we need a veggie tray out there later…" Oh spring, your allure isn't lost on this family and your arrival is just what we needed to quiet the abnormal urges and wicked mood swings. Thank you.

 

...interspersed with sarcasm and mockery

Well, you might not know this…but we have been chosen. We are special, and not like “eats paste” special. Yeah, it is a pretty big deal. I can hardly believe it myself. I’ve woken up every morning for the last week and nearly pinched myself. My family, has been chosen, out of millions of other families and households in the United States…to be a Nielson Rating family. Was it the vast responsibility? Was it the very crisp $7 I was sent in the mail? What was it that made them choose us?

I have literally spoken with someone from Nielson more times in the last 3 weeks more than I have spoken to family members over a year. They are concise, informative and if I wasn’t willingly doing it, I would be terrified as they almost have risen to that of the Columbia House Music Club in their ability to track me down. So, yes, Brenda, Todd and Alex, I appreciate your calls and I will let you know if I somehow lose the ability to write down what I am watching for the next week.

We are driven by TV in this house. I’m not proud of it, but especially during the topsy-turvy mid-west winter season, it is all we have. However, I was blissfully unaware of the fact that we are “flippers.” We like to channel surf as much as watch shows. Cut to me yelling from the kitchen sink the first morning of the TV diary, “What are you watching NOW?? I have to write all of this down!!”

Seemingly, since this week of writing down every damn thing we watch, the TV has barely been on…Odd but good. The lofty responsibility of being informed humans weighs heavy as you don’t want the shows you do watch to really say that much about you. Do I watch HGTV this much?! How is it possible that I watched “Say Yes to the Dress” this much? We need a little PBS in this diary to make sure we don't look like we are watching Cops, Jerry Springer and the Kardashians...thankfully we do not watch any of those, but I digress. Being chosen? How did that happen and is there a lesson here to learn?

We admittedly watch a lot of cooking competitions. It's entertaining and educational if we ever decided to cook duck confit. We also admittedly mock the contestants and their willingness to throw out some sob story when they need to. Oscar actually said last night, "Is it a qualification to get on these shows if your mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/aunt/cat died? It is the same sob story, just different species!" His statement, which not far from the truth, really got me to thinking.

Why are we chosen? Not just for Nielson, but even the bigger picture. Why are we chosen to experience the lives we do? Is it nature or nurture? Is it predestined or do we always make the bed we have to lie in? As a parent, you hope and pray that your best is good enough, and that you have the ability to recognize when it is not. Oscar's statement said a lot more to me about how he views the path that was chosen for him. Clearly, he doesn't hold being the oldest male in this house as some sort of sob story. Clearly, he understands that life happens, and blaming it will get you no further through it. It was eye opening, this little comment, interspersed with sarcasm and mockery, as most things in this house.

So, thank God for HUMP DAY, as it means we have less than 48 more hours to be part of a Nielson Rating Family...please don't invite us to the reunion this year. Was it worth the $7? Not really sure that it was. We're never going to cook duck confit or stop channel surfing, but thankfully, I paid attention to a few nuggets of wisdom from my overly opinionated 12 year old, and that was totally worth being chosen.