::: paul called it :::

Last week, while I was a nap widow, I found myself avoiding life by plowing through StumbleUpon sites. Sometimes the things I find while I'm stumbling amuse me. Occasionally they inspire me. But last week, while I was avoiding life, the things I stumbled upon depressed me.

I guess my first mistake was pausing on a page that boasted 99 things that you absolutely must see on the internet. Well, I thought, if I have the internet, and these are things I should have seen unless I'm a loser or old or something, I suppose I'd better use my time wisely and investigate every single one of them.

The very first link I clicked on was a video of a news person very unexpectedly falling and injuring herself badly. The sounds she made involuntarily upon impact with the ground made me gasp aloud. "My goodness!" I thought. "She must have hurt herself terribly!" My immediate reaction was to wonder what injuries she sustained.

But when I did a search for this woman to find out what had happened, all I found was the image of this video repeated over and over and over again, and each time I clicked to see if I could find further information, the comments I saw instead were heartless and atrocious. Insulting comments about her physical appearance, derogatory comments regarding her gender, mocking laughter about her audible reaction, profanity, vulgarity. Rarely, if ever, was there a comment about the woman's pain or wellbeing.

I found myself empathizing. Truly empathizing. I could see myself easily being that woman, and then, in a flash, I was her. I was hated for my mock cleverness, my excessively wobbly bits, and for being stupid enough to gasp when hurt, cry out when panicked. I actually felt hated by all of those people who left such terribly insenstive comments.

In an effort to cauterize myself from the discomfort I was feeling, I foolishly turned back to the top 99 things one absolutely must see on the internet. With a very few exceptions, one link after another led me to a moment of another human being's downfall, often literal, and the subsequent derogatory comments made by those who gleefully ridiculed the victim.

Only a handful of the 99 internet must-sees were uplifting. The majority of the 99 centered around some type of profanity or vulgarity. Only a couple of the 99 featured any kind of actual talent. This bothered me.

But I think what bothered me more was the ubiquitousness of nasty, prejudice, heartless comments. Are there really that many mean and insensitive people in the world?

I don't know why I'm surprised. After all, someone wiser than I once said:

"Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God."

Still, to see it in action breaks my heart.

Today, I will try to counteract the profane, the contemptuous, the crude and coarse with as much warmth and kindness and goodness as God will trust me with and as my human heart will put forth.

Will you?

::: a letter to my angry son :::

Dear Son,

I'm not sure whose fault it is that we keep having these stupid arguments. I'm not sure it matters who's at fault. All I know is that I don't like it, and being upset with you, or you being upset with me, completely rips my heart out.

The truth is that I'm just as confused about this whole school thing as you are. Most of what you're doing on a daily basis goes completely against my educational philosophies, my hopes and aspirations for you as a person, as a whole person.  But those are ideals, and who's to say they're worth anything? Some days I believe in them. Some days I feel like a failure.

Someone told me recently that anger is a manifestation of fear. When I remember that, I remember that I think it's true. I get angry with you because I'm afraid I'm failing you, or I'm afraid that I'm doing the wrong thing, or I'm afraid I'm making bad choices. When faced with the decision to help you with your homework or make you do it on your own, I become paralyzed. All of these thoughts go screaming through my brain; If I help him, is that doing him a disservice? How am I supposed to know what his teacher wants? What does it mean when he says he doesn't understand? Why am I teaching these concepts at home--isn't that what's he spends the whole day in school for? Does any of this really matter? I mean, really. When is he going to have to know what happened to the Donner Party? How will that apply to his life, unless he becomes a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

But then I think about the struggles we were having here at home, how I was putting so much energy into getting you to do your lessons that I wasn't giving enough attention to the girls and their lessons. So much of the problem stemmed from your stubbornness, your unwillingness to simply do the work set in front of you and your insistence of doing whatever you could to get out of the work instead of just doing the work. Why? Why do you do that? Wouldn't it be better, more peaceful, if you would just trust that the people who are teaching you love you and want you to succeed? Wouldn't you feel better about yourself if you were using your energy to do your best work instead of using that energy to get out of work?

I guess you come by that honestly, though. I often feel so overwhelmed that I don't want to even try to complete a task, no matter how necessary it is. So I understand. And then, after I lose my patience with you, I think about that, and I think, "Man, I could have handled that a little better." But I also think, "Man, he could have handled that better." It's a two-way street, see? And I'm not a child psychologist or an educational expert. I'm just a mom. I'm a confused, frustrated, heartbroken mom, and I'm just trying to get through this thing, too, with the minimal amount of damage to either of us.

Because I just want to save the relationship. I don't want you to remember your teens years as the years your mom hated you (because I don't) or that you hated your mom (because I hope you don't), and I don't like this stress. If I could do it and would know that it was okay, I'd pull you out of school and let you stay home and create roblox universes all day long. If God would wake me up in the middle of the night and say, "Yeah. That. Go ahead and do that. It will all work out just fine. Trust me. I have a plan for that boy." It would just be nice, God, if you would clue me in on that plan so I could help out a little bit. Right now, I feel like a loser of a mom, and you're not really helping so much, you know?

It certainly doesn't help that you're getting a nice amount of exposure to the F word from your classmates during the school day, or that a good portion of your classes are spent dealing with difficult kids who bring cell phones to school and mouth off to teachers. But did I really expect any differently, just because you're going to a Christian school? Well, yeah. Actually, I did. I expected a higher standard of behavior from the students, and I guess I expected an educational philosophy that's much more like mine.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. Maybe I need to back off for a little while. What I want right now is just to go hug you and do your homework for you and make everything better again. But that won't make things better.

I'm afraid, when it comes down to it, that you have a few lessons to learn about responsibility and perseverance and paying attention and taking pride in your work. You can only get to those by getting through what you're going through now. I can't hand them to you. You have to go get them yourself.

I'll be here when you've decided to move forward.

I love you,

Mom

:: love without inquiry :::

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business.
What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.

~Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)

I have a stack of Thomas Merton books that I have yet to read, but this quote that I found at one of my favorite daily reads, Quiet Life, has me inching my way closer to them. I do have quite a collection of to-be-reads on my nightstand. And in my purse. And on my shelves. And on the kitchen counter. 

Buying books is one of my many weaknesses. When I'm in a thrift store, used book store or yard sale, they call to me. I usually find at least one that is going to either complete or change my life, and into the shopping cart or bag or basket or under the arm it goes. Sometimes I know right off the bat that I'm not going to read it, that I just like the look or feel or smell of it. Sometimes I get very excited and I read the first three chapters before I misplace it or lose interest or another book comes along. And sometimes I do get all the way through. But if I don't even turn the first page, I don't feel badly about buying a book. First of all, I look at it this way: it's kind of like rescuing an orphaned cat; I know that I can give it a good home, adore it, parcel off a comfy place for it to rest, and that will give us both a warm feeling. Secondly, I consider books a very inexpensive decorating tool. What looks more interesting than a wall of books, a stack of books, a book in your hand? What empty shabby chic bird cage or glass urn full of white Christmas lights could I buy that would ooze with as much potential? Because, while I love antique furniture, and ironstone dishes, and porcelain tubs, and blue glass, and old lamps, and just about anything made of real wood, vintage books are fashioned of stuff which actually tells you their story, sometimes in more ways than the story itself.

For instance, when my children and nieces and nephews turn six, I try to make sure they get a copy of Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. When Sweetheart was a turning six, I happened upon two copies of this book, one in a mediocre antique store (you can find bookish surprises everywhere, so I never assume there's nothing!). In the inside cover was lettered the inscription, "Happy Birthday, Jack! Now you are six! With love from Mother and Daddy" and it was dated 1936. So I know now that this book was purchased for Jack on his 6th birthday in 1936. Fun thing is, my nephew's name is Jack, so while he was yet a toddler, I tucked this book onto my writing desk shelf and, miracle of miracles, remembered to pull it out, add my own, "Happy Birthday, Jack!" inscription, and send it to him for his sixth birthday!

I recently became a blogger reviewer for Thomas Nelson Publishers, which is great because I get advanced copies of excellent books, but it's also a challenge because I have a deadline, and that can pose a problem for a highly distracted, slow reader like this gal. It kinda makes me break out in a sweat, but I think I can handle it.

What really makes me break out in a sweat, though, is when someone loans me a book! I gave up on borrowing books from the library long ago, because I'm pretty bad about returning things I've borrowed (remember that when you consider lending me your last copy of...well, just of anything), so when someone loans me a book, I enter into this kind of tug of war with myself. Accept the book and then just give it back a week later, unread? Accept the book and put it on my nightstand where it becomes lost in a pile of other hopeful thinking? Accept the book and lose it forever?

If I had learned anything from my nature, I would simply tell the lender kindly, "No, thank you. Being given a book to borrow is kind of like an arranged marriage for me. My heart's simply not in it, and I'm afraid it won't get the attention it deserves. It will all end in tears, to be sure."

That's why I don't post a list of what I'm currently reading. It would be a huge list, and it would rarely change. As a matter of fact, I have a friend who talked me into joining GoodReads, and I'm ashamed every time I see her name pop into my inbox with a new update. She reads circles around me! Book after book after book, fiction, non-fiction. One or two a week! And as much as I'd like to say that I have a good excuse, I have children and a husband and a busy life, even when I've been virtually childless for three weeks, I've not managed to reduce my reading pile.

Perhaps I should work harder on applying my love without inquiry to people as I do to books. It's what I've been commanded to do, right? Even those difficult people who chew me out, make me feel like poo, then drop out of my life or pretend like nothing ever happened? How hard would it be to tuck those relationships under my arm and bring them home, give them a nice, sturdy shelf on which to rest, and revisit them as I'm able, as I'm called to them? Maybe I need to crack some of the older ones, the neglected ones, open, see what kind of history they have, what stories and lessons are there to be shown to me, to marvel at their illustrations and dog-ear their pages with my attention, to make notes in their margins. Not to borrow those friendships to be returned another day, to be penalized for their loss, but to accept them for keeps, to treasure them and look at them as my life's best adornments, digesting every word, even if the endings are not how I would like them to be.

Perhaps then I would be rendered worthy.

::: i like less than half of you half as well as you deserve :::

I'm becoming a hobbit.

Minus the hairy feet. 

I'm not sure if this is a medical condition or a sign of old age, but every day, I find that I'm more and more happy just staying home and being alone.

It's not that I don't like people.

Okay, yes it is.

But not always! There are some people I can tolerate being around. And there are some I actually like a lot! But there are those few darn people who make it pretty doggone hard to keep oneself from being a mistrustful misanthrope, and it's those people who make me break out in hives when I hear their ringtone on my cell phone, or send me hiding in my closet when there's a knock on the door.

There are people I truly like, though, but I find myself less and less inclined to just hang out with them, even though they've done nothing wrong and they're very fine people with no visible signs of wanting to devour my soul. There are simply more days that I'd like to be alone, or with my husband and kids, than out socializing and schmoozing. Part of it is fear of judgment. Part of it is the avoidance of banal small talk.

But part of it is my own failure to meet my expectations of myself.

I fantasize a lot. I dream of being well-liked, or well-known, or well-achieved. I plan amazing things and become delusional about their success. I devise grandiose schemes and wonder why I'm disappointed when they don't work out. I like the thought of perfection. I like the thought of success. I want an amazing garden, and an amazing house, and amazing kids, and an amazing marriage. Heck, I'd settle for an amazing blog! But when it comes right down to it, I don't really have the tools necessary to achieve greatness, like discipline and money and talent.

That can be a problem for someone like me. 

See, if I'm not living up to my own standards, which are pretty flippin' high, how do I think that other people are going to accept me, or, even more desirable, admire me, like me? And when I think someone's just on the verge of liking me, I can't handle the impending criticism that I just know is hanging on the very tip of their tongue. I don't need to hear how my storage container cupboard isn't as organized as it could be, or how I could keep my recipes in a binder instead of in a kitchen drawer, or how I'd be able to save more money of I used more beans and rice, or how my dogs are scaring the deer away or how I sabotaged the family event by showing up late or how I borrowed the electric skillet and it wasn't as clean as it should have been when I returned it. And since I've had my share of people chewing me out for being inadequate or being suspicious of my intentions, regardless of how hard I tried, I kind of seize up, feel like the trying itself is completely futile. When what I thought was my best wasn't good enough for others, or when I don't feel that I'm doing my best regardless of what others tell me, the very best plan I can come up with is to just hole myself up at home and avoid the rest of the great big ugly world and all of its crazy inhabitants.

That's the plan for today.

I stayed home from church. I'm not going to the grocery store. I won't set foot in a restaurant. I don't plan on leaving my room much. My biggest goal for the day will be to put food in my mouth and fold a pile of underwear. Today, my DVD player is my friend. My bed is my habitat. Neither delusion nor grandeur will be a part of my plan.

See? Don't attempt much and disappointment is nearly impossible.

Now, that's not how I generally live my life, but, for today, it's what I need.

Or at least it's what I'm doing.

::: we'll dress him up warmly and we'll send him to school :::

Well, here I am, going on Day 3 of having two children who've left home, Bard away at college and Houdin at training for his year-long trip to Africa. Did I really just write that? Is my son going to *live* in Africa for a year?

Wow.

I was once accused of being "provincial," and, while I don't think I am, it's still pretty amazing to me when my kids leave the country, considering that the only country I've ever gone to is Canada. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm also nervous.

But even more than that, I find it so strange to be without two of my arms. This week has been especially strange since I have no children in my home during the day. I know I keep saying that, but it's like, Oh. My. Gosh. This house is SO weird without kids hopping all over the place!

And I'd like to say that it's cleaner, but it's not. I've been spending so much time running around that I haven't really had any time to clean, and that was one of my top priorities. Maybe tomorrow, huh? I guess other things are just more important.

I met with Monet's math teacher, counselor and tutor today about his difficulty with math and his general assimilation into the school environment. I felt pretty good about the meeting, and I felt good about his participation in tonight's soccer game, but after having a good talk with him on the way home from soccer, I'm more frustrated with the way other kids are behaving. I had thought, naively, perhaps, that the adjustment into this school would be easier because it's a Mennonite school, and there would be a strong focus on care and compassion. Unfortunately, some of the kids, particularly some of the Mennonite kids, are pretty disappointing to me. Monet shared with me tonight that when they're on the soccer bus, he sits alone because the other kids don't want to sit with him. One kid told him he couldn't sit in the empty seat next to him, and one kid actually asked someone else to trade places with Monet so he wouldn't have to sit with him. Monet told me that he feels like he has to apologize to the other kids when there's nowhere else to sit and he has to sit next to someone. He feels like he has to *apologize* to them for them having to sit next to him! The best advice I could come up with was to tell him to find something to do that he could do alone, like reading a book or playing with his iPod. But he didn't have his iPod tonight on the soccer bus, he said, because he let one of the other kids play with it on the way home. It made me want to hug him, but it made me want to cry. He would never think of treating someone the way these kids are treating him, and he's even going so far as to share with them one of his prized possessions. I don't really understand what they find so repulsive about him. He's smart, he's talented, and he's funny. I suppose it's because he has struggled with math and soccer, and so he's one of the weak ones, the low man on the totem. I pray that he finds a friend who will accept and appreciate him for who he is. Doesn't everyone deserve that?

I guess the comfort comes in the knowledge that people make fun of what they don't understand. I guess right now, Monet isn't even human to these kids, doesn't even have feelings, because they don't know him. Part of me wants them to know him, and part of me thinks, "Wow. You don't really deserve this boy's friendship." Today, one of the kids I had thought was going to be a friend, walked by Monet's locker and called him a failure. Monet said it was a joke, that the boy was only kidding, but why kid like that? Why? And since this is a boy on Monet's soccer team, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of team sports?

And I suppose that's another reason I'm feeling frustrated. Monet *chose* to play soccer. He's only one of 32 boys in the whole school who have chosen to play soccer this season. It's been a hard adjustment for him, but he has stuck with it, and he's improving. He wanted to quit, but in the end, he chose to stick with it. He goes to every practice, every game, and sits through the varsity games, too. And yet he would be less ridiculed had he chosen not to play a sport at all. It's almost like there's a kind of humiliation and punishment that comes from putting in the effort. If you're not good enough, the message seems to be, don't even try. We don't want you.

But he's continuing on, and I'm proud of him for it.

I wish human beings would just learn to behave, to be kind to one another, and to treat other people with the same respect with which they'd like to be treated. You'd think that, in a Christian school, a school of Monet's own denomination, that wouldn't be too much to ask.

Let's hope it's not.

::: if i get there before you do, i'll cut a hole and pull you through :::

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

~Robert Louis Stevenson

This is one of the girls' favorite poems, and when we read daily from The Child's Garden of Verses, this one is almost always read. The older children sang a version of it for choir.

Isn't swinging one of those simple, lovely things that makes childhood grand? One of my favorite memories is of my dad pushing me on my little metal swingset in the back yard, me soaring, he loudly singing, "Swing lo, sweet cherry-ought. Comin' for to carry me home." I can remember how I would rush to the swingset at the school next to my aunt's house, even into my teens, when my friend and I would pump our feet to the rhythm of our own voices singing The Steve Miller Band's Fly Like an Eagle.

It's great fun as a child. But somewhere along the line, we decide, or someone tells us, that we're too old for it, and then, when we want to return to it, our bottoms are too big for the seats, or our feet drag on the ground. But if we can get past those parts, it's still a simple, lovely thing to do.

And swinging in sync with a friend? Ah. Magical, isn't it?

I loved watching Sweetheart, The Baby, and their friend Lydia fly through the air, giggling, trying to slow down and speed up to match each other's flight. And even the competition that took place was interesting to watch. The synchronized swinging almost became an obsession with some, and a non-issue with others, and for those some who took it seriously, the fact that no one would sync with her was a great insult to her psyche.

Life is like that. There are things I take way to seriously, and someone might be able to say to me that it's no big deal, that I should just shrug it off, that it doesn't really matter anyway. But that doesn't erase my human emotions, my desire for relationship, my confusion when someone I love, or someone I try to love, rejects me, deals with me callously, or misunderstands my intentions. Why does it matter? Why does it bother me so? Why, when people who love me, people who really know me, people I respect and admire, tell me to forget about it, shrug it off, can't I do so?

I must not be the only one. I was listening to a repeat show on This American Life, an NPR radio program that I download as a podcast each week. This week's theme was The Kindness of Strangers. In it, Brett Leveridge tells the story of his experience of standing on a subway platform. A stranger, which, of course, means someone Brett doesn't even know, probably someone that no one waiting on the subway knows, meanders along the platform, and chooses people as if choosing players for a kickball game: "You're in. You're out. You can stay. You have to leave." But it wasn't like the people who were told they had to go left. They just ignored this strange person. Not Brett, though. For some reason, as the guy approached Brett, all he could think about was how he hoped the guy would approve of him. A guy he didn't even know. A total stranger.

So if, as humans, it matters to us that a total stranger approves of us, how much more important must it be that someone we know, someone who at least in modicum knows us, rejects us?

This is why, I believe, the person of Christ is so compelling. He was, and is, what we long to be. Perfect. Without sin. Blameless. And we long so much for that perfection and blamelessness, for that relationship and acceptance, that it's almost unbearable when someone rejects us for reasons we can't fully understand, even if it's a person we don't particularly like. Even if it's a person we can't really stand at all.

But here was Jesus, and, yeah, like I said. Perfect. Without sin. Blameless. And still, He had enemies. He was despised and rejected. Those He loved denied Him, betrayed Him, doubted Him. What must that have felt like for Him, who didn't just feel He hadn't done anything wrong. He really hadn't done anything wrong!

And so I know that, with all of my flaws and failures, I can't expect to be unconditionally loved by anyone but God, but this feeling of swinging so high, of laughing and and feeling that weightlessness, and laughing, and then falling and scooping so low, and reaching out my hand to sync with someone who chooses to keep theirs death-gripped tightly on the chains, pumping their feet so that they can rise higher and higher and higher than I, is always a bit of a shock to me. Hey, I think, wasn't this supposed to be fun?

And on the worst of days, I just want to jump off of the swing altogether.

My son told me recently that it takes seven positive comments to counteract one negative one. Seven. For every. single. negative. So if you get totally chewed out by someone, told in every way how you've failed, what a loser and terrible person you are, just imagine how much encouraging and building up your loved ones have to do to cancel out what that one uncaring, selfish, unthinking person did.

Wow.

No wonder it's so hard to love. It takes persistence, doesn't it? We have to keep undoing all that's been done, not just by us, but by others, too.

I guess that's why I want to be the one who swings next to you, who, when you reach out your hand for someone to sync with, grabs that hand and sticks right next to you, keeping time with your rhythm, no matter how high or low you go.

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down
Coming for to carry me home
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
Coming for to carry me home

The brightest day that I can say
Coming for to carry me home
When Jesus washed my sins away,
Coming for to carry me home.

Ain't no cure for the summertime blues...

Once the weather gets warm, and the trees jump into greenness, and the dirt invites a spade and some willing fingers, our family can be found outdoors at every chance.

Every year, I've taken a little more time and a little more effort to plant a vegetable garden and a couple of flower beds. This year, with gas prices being what they are, and food costs skyrocketing, I decided that it would be necessary to grow as big of a garden as I can possibly get, and that everyone in the family will work in it, no exceptions. So far, that plan has worked out, with just a few hitches.

The hitches are the computers. My boys, in particular, don't seem to be able to function properly if there is an electronic device within a hundred feet of them. I can assign them a chore and, as soon as I'm not looking, they disappear. I'll spend a half-hour pulling weeds, or hoeing a row, or hauling mulch, and then I realize that someone's missing. It seems that I spend half of my work day playing hide and seek, though it's never very hard to find them.

Usually the reason is that they had to go to the bathroom, or change their shoes, or get a drink. And once they're in the house, that computer is just too strong of a pull. They're sucked in to Frets on Fire or facebook. It's almost like they don't even know they're doing it.

But the girls? Well, when they're in the garden with me, it's right where they want to be. They will do whatever it takes to make the yard look pretty, and just to spend time with mom. And if they aren't working with mom, they're swinging on the swing, or playing with the animals, or pretending they're fairies, or picking flowers to weave into each others' hair. Bard will spend the entire day weeding, mulching and identifying emerging perennials in her garden.

Is it a hard-wiring thing? Are girls so programmed to nest and create environments that they aren't even tempted away?

Are boys so programmed to hunt and gather and protect that they'll drift away from their household duties in order to virtually hunt and gather and protect?

Whatever the reason, it causes some friction in the Thicket Dweller household. The girls, even though they love being with mom and enjoy housework to some extent, dont' appreciate it when they have to do all of it, and the boys get to run off and "play." And I, who have always intended to raise boys who can cook and clean just as well as they can work on cars and gather firewod, am simply maddened by their distractedness. It leaves all of us feeling resentful and trodden upon.

So I'm looking for solutions. I know that I can do some things in a very analog style, like taking the power supply or the wireless keyboard and mouse and locking them in the locker. But that doesn't change the heart issue, and that's what I need to address now.

Any commiserations or suggestions that you have would be warmly welcomed. Does anyone else deal with these issues? How do you handle them? Do you see a difference between boys and girls in this area?

I'll be staying tuned, but I won't be standing right by my computer. If you need me, I'll be in the garden.

How People Affect Me, Part Three

I had only been wandering around the bead shop for a half-hour or so when I heard a siren sounding, the kind of wail that emits from an ambulance and causes every mother to stop dead in her tracks. I tried to ignore it, but my mother-heart kept hurling itself into terrible fits of imagination. It had me convinced that my four-year-old was dead in the middle of town square, that she'd slipped from her older brother's clutches and had darted out into traffic.

Or that the eleven-year-old had been too exuberant with his new Heelies and ended up on the sidewalk in some unnatural position, his head cracked open, calling my name with his last few breaths.

I tried to fight these thoughts. I tried to tell myself that I was being ridiculous. I tried to concentrate on the beads before me, to focus on the beautiful hummingbird earrings I was attempting to create. But I couldn't do it. All of the "what-ifs" piled on top of my head and I just had to find out if my children were okay.

Setting my tin full of beads aside, I nonchalantly announced, "I have to go check on my children. I'll be right back." And then I stepped out the door onto the sidewalk and strolled ever-so-quickly towards the bookstore. Bard told me later how priceless was the expression of the bead shoppe woman.

I didn't see a crowd gathered along the sides of the road, so I felt a bit reassured, but then my mother-heart was nagging me with other, more probable scenarios. The bookstore was being torn apart, shelf-by-shelf, but my littlest darling while the boys fought over a comic book. Or the uptight bookstore clerk was timing my absense, prepared to call children's services any moment. Or the children hadn't gone into the bookstore at all. They were instead doing a standup routine on the corner with their hats out for tips. My busking boys.

I couldn't believe how long of a walk it was to the bookstore. It hadn't seemed that long before, and now I was questioning my sanity at letting my children walk so far away from me. Anything could happen in the time it takes a person to walk two blocks!

And then I was at the door of the bookstore, holding the handle in my hand, swinging it open, casting my eyes about the intimate bookshelf-lined room. I heard no shrieking. I saw no glaring employee. This was almost more eerie than my nightmarish thoughts.

When I rounded the corner, I found fifteen-year-old Houdin curled up on a chair with a big, thick book. A few feet away, The Baby was cuddled up on a couch next to a neatly-dressed woman who couldn't have looked more like the kind of lady who would work in a bookstore. Beside them stood a stack of books, and it was clear that had read or were intending to read every one of them. Dramatically.

The Baby barely noticed my entrance, and I'm not sure the bookstore lady gave much pause, either. They just read merrily along so that I almost wondered if I were having an Ebeneezer Scrooge moment.

But when the book was finished and the covers snapped shut, I was acknowledged ever-so-slightly. And then another book was begun.

A second bookstore lady stood in a little island in the middle of the store, near the register, and called to me that they'd been happily enjoying the children's company, and I knew then that I was in love. At that moment, I would have handed them my entire life's savings, I was so grateful. I took my time browsing the books until a nagging feeling overcame me. My beads were waiting. I had to return to finish my bead transactions.

So I let The Baby choose her favorite book from the pile they'd read, laughed as she and the bookstore ladies fought noisily over The Baby's purple shearling coat, and made a mental promise that I'd be back soon.

Those ladies were a balm to my soul. I want to be like them. I want to take life like they do, happily drinking it up and being right where they are, loving what they do. What could be more important than being kind to little girls and teenaged boys and tired mamas?

We finished our bead transaction and returned to the bookstore, where the second bookstore lady plopped herself right back down on the couch and read more books to The Baby and Sweetheart. Not lightweight books, either. These were long, wordy, time-consuming books. And the girls listened to every drop.

And I shopped.

As a thank-you for being such wonderful people, I made a large purchase at the bookstore. Large for me, that is.

Considering the service, I think it was the best deal I ever got.

How People Affect Me, Part Two

I wasn't all that interested in letting a grumpy hotel clerk deter me from having a splendid birthday mini-vacation with my five loverly children, so on Thursday morning, we gussied up and headed into town.

I knew a bit about downtown because we were once accidental tourists to Mt. Vernon, stranded there several years ago when our radiator blew enroute to Cincinnati. Since all of the repair shops were closed for the evening, we'd bummed a ride with a couple of women in a huge passenger van who took us into town to find a place to stay. Only after they drove us around for about forty five minutes to find a hotel that wasn't full of college-aged soccer-tournament guys did we find that they were headed to the hospital because the quiet boy in the back seat was bleeding from his ear.

The whole thing had been an adventure, and we'd made the best of it, with a visit to the cafe and a funky museum and an architectural salvage warehouse and a little independent bookstore and a bead shoppe. The bead shoppe alone could have distracted me for days.

So it was that very bead shoppe that I was seeking on our sojourn to downtown. On our first drive through, I saw that the cafe had moved, that there were a few more antique stores, that the funky museum was gone, and that the bead shoppe did, indeed, remain. I parked the car, extracted the five children from it, and down the block we walked, three months worth of stashed-away mad money jingling in a little black drawstring bag in my pocket.

When we stepped inside the bead shoppe, it was just as I remembered it. Table after table after table of colorful, sparkling beads carefully separated into their own compartments. The shopkeeper slid her eyes our way, and I saw a look of nervousness that immediately soaked into my skin and saturated me from head to tow. Thousands and thousands and thousands of tiny beads. Hundreds of organized compartments. And me, with two teenagers. And two young children. And one toddler. A whole slew of accidents waiting to happen.

I felt it upon impact. The nervousness became me, and I couldn't shake it. I suddenly felt like I was the most irresponsible mother in the world, though I'd not been in the shoppe for more than three minutes. That nervousness must have oozed out of me and found its way directly into four-year-old The Baby. But with toddlers, a mother's oozed nervousness soaks in and morphs into something else, something insidious. When a mother becomes a frazzled mess, a toddler becomes...Demon Child.

I don't know why this happens, and I don't know how God thought it was at all funny to make things this way, but the more nervous I became, the more fingers The Baby grew; the faster she became; the more curious and hands-on. And when she found something sweet and quiet to do, the shopkeeper found a reason why she shouldn't be doing it. And she told me about it.

"She shouldn't be sitting near that window display..."

"Come on, Baby. Let's look at something else...

"But I like the butterflies! I want to look at those pretty butterflies!"

Hands and fingers and knees and elbows were everywhere. The shopkeeper's eyes were in one place. On me and my children. She hovered near me, and I began to feel as if she had mistaken me for the local bead shoplifter.

My long-awaited foray into beading was being thwarted.

Finally, I looked pleadingly at sixteen-year-old Houdin, a teenaged boy who really has no great interest in beads, and begged him, "Could you please take her down to that cute little bookstore and see if you can read her a book?" I scooped up The Baby, shifted her into Houdin's strong arms, and watched nervously as he bounded out the door with her on his hip. Eleven-year-old Monet followed, gliding on his Heelies out the door.

Now I had two things to worry about; recovering my reputation from this reluctant shopkeeper and the safety of my precious, precocious daughter in a strange town with my two young equally precocious boys.

I turned my gaze back to the hundreds of tiny compartments and tried to find beading inspiration.

But it's hard to make a delicate pair of dazzling earrings when your hands are shaking like you've just downed a double espresso, a Live Wire and a Red Bull.

How People Affect Me, Part One

It amazes me how deeply I'm affected by other people's attitudes.

I mean, when someone doesn't treat me warmly, my first and very immediate thought is to wonder why they don't like me. Generally, if I've not even opened my mouth, I tend to believe that a grumpy person dislikes the way I look. I'm no Andi McDowell, after all, so I suppose a real aesthete would be put off by my face. This makes me feel very self-conscious.

If I have my children with me, I immediately assume that my progeny are piglets and the person has determined that I'm a terrible mother/they're terrible children/both. This also makes me feel very self-conscious. And much like a failure.

If I've asked a question and the person is short-tempered or unkind, I just know it's because I've asked the stupidest question on the face of all existing planets and the person is merely tolerating my existence. This makes me feel like an idiot.

It takes several encounters with a grumpy person before I begin to realize that I'm not the problem. This makes me feel dense. But better.

One of the adventures of our recent mini-vacation began with the phone call I made to our hotel the day before our departure.

"Would it be possible for us to store an ice cream cake somewhere at the hotel?"

A high-pitched elderly voice that sounded very much like Minnie Mouse responded, "No. That won't be possible. Our freezer is full."

H-okay. "Um...I have another question. We will be having pizzas delivered to the hotel on Friday night. Our forensics group will be arriving back at the hotel at around 9:00. Would it be possible to use a breakfast area or common room to eat?"

"No, I don't think so. You can call back tomorrow and ask to reserve a meeting room, but it will cost extra."

This one suprised me. We've always been welcomed to every hotel we've gone to for speech tournaments. Sometimes our name is on the marquee. Sometimes the hotel actually foots the bill for the pizza. I shrugged, thanked the Minnie Mouse voice and figured I'd ask someone else when I arrived the next day.

But when I arrived the next day, I had the opportunity to put a face to the voice. A woman with very stiff, teased hair and a stiff-looking face to match stood behind the counter.

"I'm here to check in," I said. "I have a reservation for today through Friday night."

A few keystrokes, and a response, "I don't have a reservation for you for tonight. I have one for tomorrow and one for Friday, but not for tonight."

I was struck dumb. How could this be? I'd driven over and hour and had five tired kids in the car. I had definitely made this reservation, and I had definitely been told that my room would be ready when I arrived. I had also definitely failed to bring my confirmation number.

"There's nothing I can do." This, even though the parking lot was practically empty.

I didn't want to have to strangle this woman, so I took a deep, deep breath, wondering what I'd done to deserve this treatment. I'd been nice. I had showered. I hadn't even brought my kids into the foyer with me. What had I done that would cause her to be so mean and unaccomodating?

"Can you cancel my other reservation and just make a new one including tonight?"

"I could, but I'd have to charge you $14 per night more," she squeaked, glaring at me over her bifocals.

I stood for a moment looking at her, then I put my head in my hands. "I'm kind of at your mercy here. I have five kids in the car, and I'm tired. Is there anything you can do?" Having already gathered that this woman was the type to flaunt her lack of authority, I totally expected her to say, "My hands are tied," but she surprised me.

"Well, I can put you in a vacant room for the night..." (Thank goodness. A vacant room, I thought. I certainly wouldn't want an occupied one. What a favor she's doing me!) "But you'll have to check out of it and check into a different one in the morning."

I sighed.

"Isn't there any way you can put me in a room that will be vacant tonight and Thursday and Friday? Is there a way you can check to see what rooms won't be filled this weekend?"

She shook her head.

But then, with the push of a few buttons, she did just that.

"You'll have to stop down here at the desk at 7:00 tomorrow morning or your card will expire."

Let it expire, I thought. I'm not coming down her in my jammies at 7:00 during my vacation.

And I hauled my children to the third floor.

For the remainder of our stay, this woman was a thorn in my side. When taking our microwave popcorn to the front desk for my son, my friend Marcella was told that there was no microwave in the hotel (came to find out later that it wasn't true). It was then that I started to realize that it wasn't I who was the problem. If this woman could be difficult with Marcella, it had to be that she was quite simply a difficult woman.

We were able to get a room for our pizza party by asking a reasonable human being for help. We were able to get permission to store our cake by talking to a sane human being. And when Minnie Mouse approached a couple of the quietest kids in the club and I in the lobby telling us that we were being too loud, that guests were complaining and that one guest had already left because of us, I was able to look her straight in the eye, ask her to repeat what she'd just said, and then boldly respond to her by saying,

"Oh. Okay. I'm sorry."

Okay, so I wasn't so bold.

But at least I had realized that it wasn't just me. In my heart, I knew that this woman would be short-tempered and unaccomodating with anyone with whom she interacted.

But it still bothers me how deeply her attitude affected me.