This Conversation Actually Took Place...

Sweetheart: Can I have more cake?

Loving Mother: No.

Sweetheart: Grandpa eats more bad food than I do.

Loving Mother: Not true. You would eat a lot of bad food if I didn't follow you around the house saying "No, no, no."

Sweetheart: He does too eat more bad food. That's why his teef are rotten.

Grandpa (who was not in any wars): The war did this to my teeth.

Sweetheart: You didn't have any wars.

Monet: Yes, he did, too. He was a submarine.

I kid you not.

::stretch: for my pregnant sisters ::

It was the first thing I noticed.

Pink lines marched along my skin as my body made room for each pound that I gained.

Everywhere.

My thighs,
my breasts,
my butt
and my stomach.

The pregnancy books talked about these lines, these marks that would never tan and would never go away. My body was changing,

and it would never be the same.

My tummy was bigger now, bigger every day. Yet it never seemed big enough for that life inside of me.

Sitting on the couch, I would feel the pressure--
a foot jabbing into my ribs, kicking me from the inside out,
or a shoulder rotating against my hip bone,
or an elbow poking at my side.
I could recline,
reposition,
realign.

There wasn't enough room in there. No matter how much I would stretch myself.

The pains crept in--those crampy, achy, here-it-comes pains. I could close my eyes and try to envision it--
the stretching that would bring this sweet, new life into the world,
into my arms,
the stretching that was going on all through my body.

It was only through that stretching that my little girl child would find her place, cuddled in the safety of the family bed,
a little nursling at my side.

Sweet, sweet baby, with rosebud lips and glowing cheeks.
I know you.
I know who you are, as you've grown inside of me,
built me up,
and helped me to grow.

You're the one who has changed me from a selfish girl into a hopeful mother. I want to be more for you, better for you. I want to be the very best you could ever have.

No one has ever made me feel this way, though many have tried.
Teachers,
parents,
friends,
preachers,
lovers.
No one has caused me to want to be as much as I want to be for you.

Sweet, sweet baby, I watch you sleep for a moment, and then, blinking your eyes, you look at me and lift your little balled hands high above your head, pushing your toes as far as you can push them from your fingers...

And you stretch.
You stretch.
You stretch
me.

Each day, child, you stretch me. There's more of me than I ever thought there could be.

I am more flexible,
more pliable,
more malleable than I could have forced myself to be.

I stretch out my hands to hug you after you fall.
I stretch out my mind to understand you when you're so very teenaged and I'm so very not.
I stretch my love to add another child.
And another.
And another.
And another.
I stretch out my trust in God to protect you when you're away from me.

My body will never be the same. The silvery-gray lines that will never tan--they were just the beginning.

You've stretched me, Child
--my body,
my heart,
my mind,
my spirit.

It was the first thing I noticed...

Finished!

We finished reading The Boxcar Children yesterday. It was kinda sad to see it end, but I really, really enjoyed it while it lasted.

Monet and Sweetheart have been playing Boxcar Children ever since we started reading. Today, while they were playing with the treehouse thingy they got for Christmas, they were looking for Benny. Monet, being Henry, asked Sweetheart, who was being Violet, if she'd seen Benny lately. Sweetheart, being Violet, said, "No way, Jose!" Bard and I verbally doubted if Violet would have said such a thing, but Sweetheart insisted she would have.

So, what to read next?

Trouble Posting...

I've been experiencing some server troubles, which are driving me nuts. Quick notes in case this is the only post I can make for a few days (these notes are mostly to remind me what we've been doing, so don't blame me if they bore you).

Bard had her hair cut and colored. Pics to come
Houdin did a magic show at the nursing home. Prep was a nightmare. Show went fine. They invited us back every two weeks.
Bard is going to start a poetry reading group at the nursing home. She starts in two weeks.
The Baby, who will be two next week, can count to 13 by herself! The laundry awaits, but my child is a genius.

More as I can connect.

Changed. Forever.

Okay, I know it's banal, but I, too, have watched Super Size Me.

Things are gonna be different around here from now on.

Searching for Answers in a Pile of Laundry

Again, I'm wondering about the wisdom of focusing on just one area of one's life. It seems that when one does that, one ends up losing control of every other area. Big time.

Yesterday was my "clean the bedroom/get laundry done" day. Except my "laundry day" takes about a week. I spent the majority of the day upstairs, and in spite of the jug of laundry soap and the amount of time I spent, I didn't get all of the laundry done.

It. Just. Keeps. Coming.

So, today, I'm doing laundry AND cleaning out my pantry, which contains about fifteen opened bags of chocolate chips (NOTE: It honestly was NOT me), twelve opened bags of chips, six opened sleeves of crackers, seven opened bags of nuts, and three opened bags of sugar.

I did not do this. I did not open all of these bags. But who is cleaning up all of the spilled contents? Who is trying to figure out which ones are stale and which ones are edible? It ain't the opened bag fairy, I'll tell ya that.

It's me.

And so, I'm a grump. A total, honest to goodness grump.

In addition, Monet has decided that he's going to pull out his "I can't do anything and I don't remember what you just told me to do" routine. I've told him six times to load the dishwasher, eight times to put away the groceries, fourteen times to sort the socks, and five times to put away his jacket.

These are the days that make me want to run screaming to the local public school and demand that they take my child. Now.

The worst part about my frustration is that I feel like there should be SOMETHING I could do about it.

Am I using the wrong educational approach? Did I have too many kids? Am I disciplining too much? Too little? Expecting too much? Too little? Do I try to hard? Not hard enough? Is it their diet? Is it allergies? Is it too much sugar? Too much wheat? Too much caffeine? Too much white flour? Too much TV? Not enough reality? Do they need more hobbies? More chores? Should their dad be home full-time? Should I go to work full-time? Should they be in school? Should I unschool more? Is their life too structured? Too permissive? Am I too demanding? Too relaxed? (Nope. That's not it.) Do they need more friends? More exercise? More fresh air? Do they need better vitamins? Do I need more vitamins? Do they need Ritalin? Do I need Prozac? What am I doing wrong? What? What??? WHAT???

God, can you just give me an answer? A symbol? A sign??? Anything?!?

Ah. There's the dryer buzzer. I see that God has a sense of humor.

Maybe he'll share.

Our First Cache

Get this:

You tell a bunch of kids that you're going on a treasure hunt. Suddenly, they're jumping up and down, they're all excited, they're ready to get out in the cold, winter air and get some exercise.

And then they stop and stare at you with that "What are you trying to pull?" look on their faces.

"What are you trying to pull?" They ask.

"Nothing," I say. "Absolutely nothing. It's a wonderful Sunday morning, and I think it would an excellent day for a treasure hunt." I look at my husband.

"Don't you, Bo?" Aforementioned husband nods.

"So we're going out in the yard to find some treasure you buried. Is this like the time you hid our christmas gifts in pirate chests and told us that Black Beard the Pirate left them behind?"

"Um, no," I say. "It's not at all like that. We're not looking in our yard. And I didn't hide the treasure. In fact, I don't even know exactly where it is."

"Is this like the time that you hid the dollar bills in the yard so that we would be motivated to pull weeds, and you told us that Black Beard the Pirate left them behind?"

"Um, no," I say. "This actually has nothing to do with Black Beard the Pirate at all."

"Okay, then what's the catch?" They ask, their eyes narrowed in disbelief.

"There's no catch. There's only a cache," I say, trying to be clever.

"A what?"

I point Houdin to the computer, where I have pulled up the FAQ for Geocaching. "Read," I say.

Before long, Houdin and Bard have read about geocaching, and we're in the van and on our way. Our whole clan went, including The Baby, Sweetheart and The Grandpa, which is unusual because The Grandpa doesn't go very many places.


We head to the first cache of the day, and Monet immediately takes to the GPS, letting us know how rapidly we're approaching the cache. It's not far from our house, so we don't take a long time to get there. It's a good thing, with all of the "Are we there yet?" and "It's my turn to hold the CPR!" "It's a GPS, Silly!" "Whatever!"

We're looking for a mini-cache, hidden in a tiny painted Altoids tin, and we've looked all over the destination. The kids are about to give up, but I'm not. I look over there. I look under that. I look up there...AHA! I walk away from the hiding place.

Bard catches the goofy grin on my face.

"You found it, didn't you?" She asks. I nod.

"Where is it?" She asks. I shrug.

We play a game of "hotter/colder" and, soon enough, everyone has found it.

Everyone, except Sweetheart.


Sweetheart wasn't very happy at all. As a matter of fact, I think she was about as unhappy as a treasure hunter can be. Even after we gave her the cache tin to open, she cried. She was, in a word, bummed.

We replaced the cache exactly where we found it (and I'm not tellin') and set the GPS for the next cache search. This time, the cache was along a walking trail, so we got a nice little hike. This time, Houdin was the first to find the cache, hidden in an ammo box. We sat at a picnic bench, read the log, and looked through the treasure. The premise of geocaching is that you can take something from the cache box, but you have to leave something behind. The kids had all brought a little something to leave, and they each took something that connected with them: Sweetheart and Houdin took fishing lures, Monet took a baseball. I can't remember what Bard took. What DID you take, Bard?

Night was falling, but we still had enough time to place our own first cache.

Today's Lessons: Mapping coordinates, hiking, visual observation, latitude and longitude, following directions, reading, writing and sharing.

The Queen of Our Village

Silly me. I opened the bottle of frozen Cherry Coke (What? Cherry Coke? Who was drinking Cherry Coke? Not me. Huh uh. Not after I resolved to replace my daily Cherry Coke intake with water).

The Cherry Coke that I wasn't opening not for me overflowed all over the counter.

Sweetheart: Mom, why did you do that?

Me: Because I'm not very smart. You should know that by now.

Sweetheart: Yes, you are. You're very smart. Because you're the mom.

Me: Is that so?

Sweetheart: Yes. You're like the queen. The queen of our village. And you teach us, so you have to be smart.

Me: Aha. I'll remember that next time I try to do something stupid.

Dangerously Beautiful...

This is a photo from my front porch of the ice storm of 2004 that I talk about in my Broken Branches, a Plea to All Fathers essay. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Unfortunately, thousands of people went without power over the Christmas and New Year's holiday anywhere from a few hours to almost two weeks. We were without power from the day before Christmas eve through the day before New Year's Eve. Now the area is dealing with massive flooding and evacuation from their homes. Since we're up high on a hill, and we don't live in a valley area, we're not affected, other than a change in certain driving routes.

Going on a Treasure Hunt...

Last Sunday, we made our first attempt at Geocaching. We both found and hid treasures, and we all had a lot of fun. Plus, it was great exercise!

We plan to go again today, and then we're taking the boys to see, what else-- National Treasure!

I hope to post some photos from our last hunt and today's hunt later on this evening.

Pottymouth downgrade...or upgrade? Not sure...

If you look at my blogroll, you'll see that I have an asterisk beside each blog that I know to contain any four letter words (actually, four-letter-word is an archaic term. Dooce can turn out some pretty creative fourteen-letter-words). While I believe myself to be forward-thinking, I cringe when I hear a woman swear. Must be all of those years with my pottymouth mother are embedded in my brain. Plus, I think it's only polite to warn my friends and family about the language rating of the blogs I recommend.

Chris just appealed to me from her Big Yellow House . She says that she's not actually a pottymouth. She believes she's more in the bathroom vicinity and not in the actual toilet. I agree.

Therefore, I'm downgrading (or upgrading?) her pottymouth status. I suppose the only fair and right thing for me to do is to put a number of asterisks next to a blog based on how much...um...colorful language the blog contains.

For what it's worth, I think Dooce is absolutely hilarious, but I guess I'm a bit of a prude (or still have very clear visions of my chronically depressed, manic depressive, abusive mother and her derogatory vocabulary)...I can't in good conscious recommend Dooce's site because of her prolific profanity, no matter how creative.

Sorry, Dooce.

Besides, I can only imagine that my little voice won't in the least detract from your massive place in the blogosphere anyway.

You expected oatmeal, maybe?

I thought about this. I really did.

See, I read recently that it's very important to eat breakfast, and that a lot of weight problems stem from not eating breakfast. Skipping breakfast lowers your metabolism, then what you eat later just converts to fat. I can't find the article, so if you read it, too, remind me where it is.

So, I've been making a point of eating breakfast. Some protein, some grains, a big glass of water or a little glass of juice. I feel better. Honestly. And I've even been taking my vitamins every day, just like I promised.

When I awoke this morning, I started thinking about breakfast before I even got out of bed. I knew just what I would have. Mmm. Yummy. Pecans...Milk. Protein. Calcium. And best of all, no cooking necessary.

Breyer's Butter Pecan. It's not just for midnight snack anymore.

This was written for me...

Okay, maybe it wasn't. But it certainly could have been. Thank you to Lonna at Mom and More for posting this wonderful affirmation.

"They may see the good you do as self serving.
Continue to do good.
They may see your generosity as grandstanding.
Continue to be generous.
They may see your warm and caring nature as a weakness.
Continue to be warm and caring.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It never was between you and them anyway."

Author Unknown

Should I or Shouldn't I?

It's 1 A.M and Sweetheart just asked me to read a chapter of The Boxcar Children. I told her that we got to stay up late, eat subs and watch movies, to which she replied, "But you read to us EVERY night."

"We'll see..." I said.

So, what do you think I did?

A Date with Bard

What's more wonderful than spending a day with your daughter? Spending a day with your daughter, who you think is REALLY cool!

Bard and I headed out for our date on Thursday, and I have to say that she looked stunning. I couldn't believe that she was really my little girl, this tall, beautiful young woman. I know it's banal, but I'm saying it anyway. She's becoming a lovely young lady.

Our first stop was to be lunch at the newest Chic-Fil-A in our area. On our ride there, Bard gave me a book report about her new favorite classic book--To Kill a Mockingbird. She decided to read it because a group of bibliophiles were discussing whether their favorite book characters wore boxers, briefs, thongs or went commando and one of the girls said, "Atticus, boxers or briefs," and no one knew who that was. No one, out of the 20 or so avid readers, had read To Kill a Mockingbird. Bard decided, as part of her 101 in 1001, to read one classic a month. To Kill a Mockingbird was the first one on her list.

We arrived at Chic-Fil-A on their opening day and were greeted by our good friend and fellow homeschooling parent, Dr. Don Bartlette. Don was handing out samples of Chic-fil-A's delicious brownies! It was a wonderful surprise to see him, and we had a great time catching up with him. He reminded us what an adventure, what a miracle it is just to open your eyes every morning to a new day!

After Chic-fil-A, we headed to the movie theater, where we eagerly bought tickets to see Finding Neverland. It was very moving, very magical, and managed to make me cry. I hate it when the last scene in a movie is a tearjerker, and is immediately followed by a HUGE, WHITE SCREEN so that EVERYONE in the theater can see what a BIG BABY you are. Sheesh.

We ended the evening with a visit to a friend's scrapbooking party. I'm not a scrapbooker (GASP!) but I knit for a while and helped Bard with her scrapbook pages.

Bard spent the night at Kat's house, so we gave our hugs and parted ways. I then headed to Borders to drool over the knitting books, look, with no success, for a good family Bible Study guide, and to find journals for each of the kids for our co-journaling project.* I found a really awesome one for Monet, one with a marble-looking cover, irridescent page edges and a ribbon bookmark built right in. He loved it. For Houdin, I found one that looked a bit more bookish, and we immediately began to co-write a fictional story.

I miss Bard, as she's still not home from Kat's house, but I look forward to seeing her tomorrow. She's an awesome girl and a wonderful friend. It's a miracle to behold her face each day.

Thank you, God, for my daughter Bard.

*The journaling project is that I write them a letter in their journal each night and put it on their beds, and they write a return letter to me, and put it on my desk. Houdin and I are writing a story instead of simply writing letters.

The Boxcar Children

This was one of my very favorite books as a child. When I found it again as a parent about ten years ago, I had to have a hardcover copy, so I ordered one immediately (a very special treat for myself) and insisted on a copy with the original cover. Bard read the book as soon as I brought it home, and then I placed it on a shelf with my "special" books. It hasn't been touched since.

I know this is very wrong.

Two night ago, Sweetheart was having a hard time sleeping. Usually, Bohemian does all of the tucking in and reads from What a Fourth Grader Needs to Know. On this particular night, I decided to read to Sweetheart and Monet while they were waiting for Bohemian to arrive.

"How about The Story of Ping?" I offered.

"Sweetheart doesn't like that one," Monet answered. "She thinks it's too sad." Sweetheart nodded in agreement.

"Okay, then how about George Washington's Mother..." I began to regret my choice as soon as I said it, flipping through the pages and remembering that it's not exactly a short story and maybe a little over the head of a five-year-old.

"I don't like that one, either," Sweetheart announced, saving me from some exhausting reading and certain doom.

"Ah!" I saw it sitting there on the shelf--the wrong shelf, as it wasn't supposed to be in Sweetheart's room at all--but there it was, nonetheless. "How about THIS one?"

"Uhhhh..." Sweetheart moaned. "Not THAT one."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Have you ever listened to this one before?"

"Nooo," she admitted, "but it LOOKS boring."

I'll show her, I thought. "Oh, but it isn't boring at all. This was one of my very favorite books when I was a child." With that, I turned to page one and began to read.

As soon as Sweetheart heard about the baker's wife who didn't like children OR doing dishes, she broke the silence. "I think I'm beginning to like this book!"

It's just magical. The milk and blueberries. The salvaged dishes. The motherly way Jesse cares for her siblings. It's just simple and inspiring.

Now the whole family is hooked. We've been reading two chapters nightly, and not one person is bored, from Bohemian down to The Baby.

This just proves it. Classic literature rocks.

Welcome to my home gym

What this house needed was some good, old-fashioned exercise. And where in the world but Wal*Mart to buy it?

I found a mini-trampoline or rebounder for $19.99 and a jump rope for $2.94 (the kind in the sports department, not the kind in the toy department). I could have splurged for the $4.96 model, with ball bearings for faster, more fluid movement, but I chose the budget route.

Add a book of jump rope rhymes from the library, and VOILA! Home gym! As in, this is my home, AND it's my gym!

The kids have been jumping and hopping and bouncing for three days. They were actually sore when they awoke this morning! Houdin is the sports-oriented guy, and the one most prone to competition, so he challenged everyone to a competition to see who could jump rope the longest. Currently, he has me beat...55 jumps to my 39.

With all this jumping, I hope my bladder holds up.

Here's a bad idea...

Eleven boys.

A sleepover.

Lots of sugar.

Just wait. I haven't come to the bad idea yet.

No, I'm not kidding.

Here's the bad idea. Maybe the very best bad idea I've ever had. Give each of the boys a disposable camera. Tell them to take pictures of anything they want. Here's what they take pictures of:

Me waking up in the morning.
Me in my pajamas.
Me without make up.
Me giving my husband a stern look.
The backs of my arms. I didn't know they were that fat.
Me, from behind, from the waist down. Just my butt and the backs of my legs. I didn't know they were that fat.
A very closeup picture of the back of my waist. I think you know how I felt about that.
Fourteen pictures of the baby chicks. From 15 feet away. I got doubles.
A picture of my very messy pantry. Seven times.
Me with my mouth hanging open. Wide. Just like the closeup of my waist.
Thirty-two extreme and very blurry closeups of each boy's ice cream sundae creation. Again, doubles.

I did get several pictures of both of the birthday boys blowing out the candles of their cakes. Several, because I got doubles.

Amazingly enough, I did not end up with a single picture of any boy's private parts. Not enough sugar, I guess.

A Natural Interest

Monet is 9. He's the first child I've had who I didn't insist on "teaching" him to spell. But somehow, he has this natural interest in spelling that amazes me. Right now, he's writing a miniature book about Christmas, and as I sat across from him, eating my lunch, he asked me to spell some of the harder words for him.

"How do you spell "straight?"

"S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T."

"I know how to spell 'said.'" He says.

"You do?"

"And I know how to spell 'by,' like 'by Monet,' and 'bye' like 'goodbye,' and 'buy,' like 'buy something.'"

"You're very smart!"

"So are you. You're the one who taught me."

Awwww. :-)

Hit the Ground Running

There are days when you wake up and you hit the ground running. Today is one of those days for me.

It's amazing how fast things can pile up. It seems that everywhere I look, there's a reminder of what I didn't do, can't do, should do, must do. For some reason, no matter how much I DO do (did I just say do do?) it's not enough. I go to bed exhausted every night, and I wake up exhausted every morning. Sometimes, I wonder if sleep is real, or if it's just an illusion and cruel joke that gives mothers hope for rest.

Yesterday, I spent the day working towards fulfilling one of my 101 in 1001 goals, to clean my room to my satisfaction once a week. I like the fact that it's to MY satisfaction, because that means I can stop whenever I'm satisfied. That means I can clean it until all of the underwear is ironed and folded, or I can stop when I've cleared a walking path to the computer. Since I worked at the local cheesehouse just about every weekday from early November on through the first of this year, and since we went for a week without electricity over the Christmas holiday, I haven't had a chance to clean my room to my satisfaction in about two months, even if that means clearing a path to the computer. So I put it on my list of things to do consistently for the next 1001 days.

I can't believe it's taking me so long. I worked on it on Monday. I worked on it most of the day on Tuesday. It's still not done. What are the main culprits? Laundry. Clothes that need to be stored. Even in this big, new house, I don't have enough storage, and the storage I do have isn't organized well enough to be perfectly useful. Don't let anyone fool you, even those slick "101 Tips for Organizing Your Life" magazines at the Wal*Mart checkout. There is no perfect storage solution. Well, there IS one. Don't own anything.

After lots of Windex, vacuuming, folding laundry and dusting, I finally got the majority of my bedroom clean. It's not to my satisfaction, yet, but I still have a few more days before the week is over. Besides, if I wait until tomorrow, my standards may have changed, and it may be just right.

In the mean time, the rest of the house is coming tumbling down.

Do you ever feel like you're just struggling to keep your head above water? Do you ever feel like you're constantly just trying to catch up?

Granted, I spent a lot of time yesterday just playing and laughing with the kids. Bard, Houdin and I spent a good hour just laying on my bed and laughing, laughing, laughing. I spent a lot of time working on my blog and updating my 101 in 1001 list. But not so much that I should have a sink full of dishes, a stack of laundry ten feet high, and a bed that STILL isn't made at 3:00 in the afternoon!

Sigh.

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who made a list of things he wanted to do to better himself? Wasn't he the one who found that, no matter how hard you work to perfect one area of your life, another area suffers?

My bedroom is (mostly) clean.

The rest of my life is totally and completely suffering.

Maybe I'll spend the rest of the day in my room. Or at Wal*Mart. I could always use some more stuff I can't store. Or right here in front of the computer. Maybe I should have put that on my list. "Sit in front of the computer for six hours straight every day." I bet I could have met that goal easily. But then...

How long do you think it would take before my family actually got sick of the messes and cleaned them up...[gasp]...INDEPENDENTLY?!? Without being told?

::Looks around the computer room:: I don't have enough food and water in this room to survive that long. I'm not sure I have enough food and water IN THE HOUSE to survive that long. As a matter of fact, I don't know if there's enough food and water AT WAL*MART to survive that long.

Maybe I should just go back to laughing with my kids.