MotherMorphosis®

Photo Card

2011-11-30T20:39:00.001-08:00

Pictures Galore Christmas

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(Crazy) Hat Day

2011-04-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

Ten minutes before the bus was due to arrive, “Mommommom, it’s Crazy Hat Day today! What should I wear?”

“Oh, yeah…isn’t it just Hat Day? It doesn’t have to be a crazy hat, does it? Just wear one of your baseball hats.”

“Okay, uhmmm...well, do you know where my abc hat is?”

“Not offhand, honey, can you wear xyz hat?

"No."

"How about 123 hat?"

"No!"

"Well, what about -- "

"No! It has to be my abc hat!"

Well...God help me...there are a few places we can check,” I smiled through clenched teeth. It was Friday of a hellish week as I was preparing to go out of town for business the following week and all that entails; it was also the end of the quarter and all that entails; and furthermore, just that morning I had been the lucky recipient of blue screen of death (computer) and black screen of death (iPhone) and all that entails (at that moment, I didn't even know what "all that entails" was -- and was imagining the worst). I didn’t think I could handle anything more outside of the scope of “normal.”

6 = number of places in the house searched, while muttering under breath
24 = number of baseball hats discovered
4 = number of hats tried on and discarded
9.75 = minutes to accomplish all this
0 = number of hats worn to school

“Where’s your hat, honey?” I sighed at my son as he came out the door. After handing him his abc hat, I had stomped out to the driveway to wait with the other kids for the bus.

“I don’t really feel like wearing a hat after all.”

“Well! ...breathe in....breathe out...you better hustle your little self out here so you don’t miss the bus – it’s coming down the street right now!”

The TV in the Living Room

2011-03-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

Two Christmases ago, Santa brought us a flat screen TV. It was a marvelous thing, and seemed to take up an entire wall. Of course, it didn’t, but it’s a small room, so the TV seemed larger than life. The TV we had in the living room at the time (as big as a coffee table) was relegated to the man cave, which really is a cave – our basement is unfinished: you can still see bark on the trees that comprise the ceiling beams, which may very well date back to the 1880s when the house was built. Currently the wii (that Santa brought the next Christmas) is hooked up to it, as well as an older cable box (no DVR).

It wasn’t long before our new TV was “damaged.” The Bigs were throwing Jenga blocks at each other and one hit the TV, leaving a colorful mark behind.

“He did it!” my middle son accused his older brother.

“I don’t care who did it. You were both throwing the blocks so I hold you equally responsible.”

Apparently they had been throwing their best pitches, because the TV was scarred. They had to look at a colored splotch every time they watched. The scar grew until it was a vertical line on the right side of the TV. Then several vertical lines, then horizontal lines as well, and finally, the TV became unwatchable. I removed it from the living room. (The Jenga game had long since been removed, though I did continue to unearth pieces from time to time.) These were the natural consequences of their actions; I did not feel I had to punish them any further.

We had not had a TV in our living room for more than two years. Besides the man cave, there’s a TV upstairs in my room (a cast off from someone who upgraded), again with an older cable box (I don’t even know how DVR works). Whenever we watch family movies, it’s upstairs, since I do not enjoy spending time in the man cave. Until now.

This weekend I went to the local cable office and picked up a new cable box (with DVR, the woman assured me if I could use a VCR – I don’t even have a VCR anymore, but I do remember how to use one – I could figure out the DVR). I hooked it up to an old, no-frills TV we had in the attic, that has no remote and won’t work with the cable remote, so you actually have to push a button on the TV to turn it on (imagine – I remember having to turn a knob, which was also the volume control).

Well, after two years of going without, my boys were thrilled. They did point out that the color was not the same as on our other TVs (“It’s, like, black and white, Mom…but-that’s-okay,” they were quick to assure me, lest they appear ungrateful. “Kids, this is not at all like black and white.”)

An added bonus is, that I had to move my furniture around and now there’s a couch blocking the double-wide doorway through which the boys used to race cars, play soccer, and run through before they took a flying leap onto the couch, ramming it into the wall: the configuration of the couches seems to keep everybody contained in that particular area.

Tonight we all ended up sitting together on the love seat watching The Laughing Show (America’s Funniest Home Videos) and The Regular Show.

Maybe someday we’ll get a flat-screen TV (and I told The Bigs it’s their job to figure out the DVR).

Rich is a relative term

2011-03-20T03:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a story from my book, Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tales.

“Mommommom! Pick a color!” My middle son thrust a cootie-catcher at me. I was folding laundry on the dining room table.

“Orange.”

He studied the word momentarily and then spelled out, “O-R-A-N-G-E.” as he worked his fingers back and forth, opening the cootie catcher first one way and then the other, six times to correspond with the letters in the word “orange.”

“Pick a number.” He showed me the number choices inside the cootie catcher.

“Two.”

“One-two.” He moved the cootie catcher back and forth again.

“Okay, pick another number. This is your final number…” he said gravely, to underscore that I should choose wisely.

“Five.”

He lifted the flap where the number five was written so he could tell me my fortune. “You are rich,” he announced with a big smile.

“Ummmm…well…” and my mind wandered to my post-Christmas credit card bills and to the camp brochures that had arrived the previous week necessitating that I begin planning how to finance my summer childcare plans. And then to the oil delivery that was certainly imminent because it had been so cold this winter, save for that one week where we had a couple of 50-degree days. I lamented that my grocery budget seemed out of control and that every morning I counted out small coins (doing my best to limit the number of pennies because my oldest had informed me that nobody at school has time to count pennies) for milk money.

“…do you think we’re rich, honey?”

“Of course, Mom. You have alotta money!”

I smiled back at him and reflected with much gratitude that my boys don’t know what it’s like not to get relief from their hunger or cold, and that they weren’t yet too cool to eschew hand-me-downs. And that we had made it through the year that I coughed up one-third of my income for childcare – and all that entailed. That year there were times that I wondered why I bothered working at all, and cursed the powers-that-be that I could only claim $5K of that money as tax exempt – don’t “they” know that if I didn’t have childcare, I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the economy at all?

“Hmmmm. ‘Alotta’ isn’t exactly a number, but it’s enough to get most of what we need and some of what we want…” I contemplated how one year rebuilding the front porch trumped our vacation plans, but the next year the trip to Disney and some white duct tape kept our bathroom on the deferred maintenance program.

The boys and I frequently talked about needs vs. wants. I remind them of one of my favorite sayings, “Happiness is not having everything you want, but wanting everything you have.”

“…so, if you think we’re rich, we are,” I confirmed.

People often say to me, “God bless you,” when they find out I have three sons. This usually occurs when they witness me herding them through the supermarket, church, or the airport when I flew them across the country to visit Grandma and back. I tell them, “He already has.” Richly.

Haikus for the homework challenged

2011-03-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

My oldest has to write a poem for one of his classes and he has been telling me about this for what seems like weeks, and I think to myself, just do it already! but say to him, "Do you need my help?"

He says he does but then all he can tell me is it has to be at least two stanzas. I'm like, uh huh, but instead I suggest, "why not write two haikus?"

He didn't really like that idea. I said, "Well, write four then!"

"Mah-ahm! I just don't really want to write haikus..."

What is it against haikus? I remember one time about a year ago when my middle son had to write a haiku or two and he flipped out about it. He just couldn't bring himself to do it and tortured himself (and me) for days and when the final hour came, when he couldn't put it off anymore, I had to leave the room. I told him, "I'll be happy to help you when you quit yelling at me," and stalked away -- far, far away. He was being a wretch.

Later, when I returned, he was morose. As soon as he had an audience, he began his, "This-is-stupid-I'm-stupid-I-can't-do-this routine.

"Sure you can. Let me write a couple to get you started."

Homework can be hard

Only when you think it is

Attitude is key.

If you think you’re smart

Your vision becomes real and

“Smart” becomes your truth.

You are very smart

You must believe it is so

And you will succeed.

I don't think he was amused.

My oldest's poem is due on Tuesday, the same day he starts MCAS. Maybe I'll suggest my oldest write a limerick...

The choices we make (and the ones we don’t)

2011-03-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Last year's minor league summer team.
Dad was coach and youngest was bat boy.

I was sitting alone -- cross legged on the floor in the “skybox” overlooking the gym in the high school with my forehead pressed against the Plexiglas for the second time this week.

Tonight was my middle son’s baseball evaluation (my oldest's was two nights ago.)

The custodian said to me, “You know, So-and-so is downstairs tonight, giving a talk…”

I said, “Oh, yeah, I read about that…”

“You’re welcome to go down, she’s in the theater right downstairs.”

“Oh, thanks, but I can’t. I want to watch my son bat,” even though “An Evening with So-and-so” was touted as a highlight of Women’s History Month featuring So-and-so – Host of her own travel series on the Travel Channel. As a strong woman of today, she will discuss her career, her travels, and the strong women who have inspired her in her success. There will be an opportunity for questions and answers following her presentation.

I actually had to watch my son bat. He kept looking up to make sure I was watching him, whenever he was waiting his turn at each of the stations.

“How did you do, honey?”
“Okay. I missed the first two pitches.”
“Yeah, I saw. But if you were in a baseball game, I bet would have got on base – you hit the third pretty well.”
“Pitching was when I was in really in my baseball zone. I felt like everyone around me was Jacoby Ellsbury and Josh Becket.”
“Yeah, I saw that, too. Well, good – I’m so happy it’s baseball season!”
"Me, too, Mom."

Though, I didn’t know how I was going to juggle three teams (majors, minors, and tee-ball). I had hoped that my older two could be on the same team, but that would mean once again, my middle son would have to play up. He’s 9 and even though a few of his classmates, at age 10, were eligible to try out for the next level, most of the other players are 11 and 12. Would that be the right thing to do for my convenience? He had already played on three teams (last spring and summer) at the minor level…though, maybe it would be better for The Bigs to be on separate teams, with separate friends, and separate identities (and not competing against each other for the coveted pitching spot). I had hoped that we could have at least one of the same coaches from last year (if the boys were on the same team) and both coaches (if they were not), until I found out that one of my sons’ friend’s dad was coaching... Too much orchestrating! I talked with both boys tonight and we decided that whatever happens, happens, and we’ll be alright with it.

Peer pressure and the need to fit in

2011-03-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

My youngest asked me tonight to do his hair in a “faux-hawk” (he had wanted to get a mohawk the last time we went to the salon but I convinced him that if he didn’t have the sides shaved, then he’d have a choice about how he wears his hair.) We have some super-stiff hair gel that “makes hair obey” and his hair will look pretty much the same tomorrow morning as it did tonight when I tucked him in. He’s worn the faux-hawk on and off during the past month or so since he had his hair cut. He’s never mentioned anyone making fun of him. I don’t know if it’s because no one has or if he just hasn’t noticed.

However, if we back up five years, it’s another whole story. My youngest was just a baby and my oldest was in kindergarten, and my middle son was four years old, in preschool. It was “picture day” at school and we had begun talking about it at least a week in advance. The year before (when he was three) picture day was traumatic for my middle son. I am not sure why, but he just wasn’t okay with the individual picture (not only could I see in the final product that he’d been crying, but also all his teachers made a point of mentioning it). The sibling picture had been the best of the bunch, though.

That year there would be no sibling picture because even though my youngest would be there at the preschool/daycare center, my oldest would already be at school by the time the photo would be taken, and I didn’t want to do a sibling shot unless all the brothers could be in it together. So, I was trying to get Middle Son psyched up in advance, since he’d be on his own.

The night before we chose a cool “party” shirt and practiced doing Middle Son’s hair. What that meant was combing it, because he had an overgrown buzz cut and the front hung down in straight bangs across his forehead. He wanted me to comb it to the side, and that entailed hair spray to make it stay put, but he was disappointed because he didn’t have “the wet look.” So I got out my gel. When I went on and on about how handsome he looked, he wanted to carry the mirror around with him until bedtime.

The next morning he was let down because his hair was dry, so we rewet it (which cured the bed head, too…I really needed to cut the hair of my children who had any and had bought a clipper set to do so…but wanted to wait until after picture day in case I goofed up) and reapplied gel. Middle Son and I watched the photographer setting up that morning before he joined all the other kids in his class (all with dress shirts and combed hair). That evening he reported back to me that he did a good job on his picture – that he “wasn’t even shy.”

The by-product of picture day that Middle Son became very interested in “doing” his hair. My oldest “got to stay home sick” the next day, so while we were at the pharmacy getting medicine, we bought Middle Son some special hair gel as a consolation prize. I think it actually said “hair glue” on the label. Middle Son was very excited about using it the next day and decided he wanted me to help him spike his hair like the dude on the package. I told him, “Sure, honey, that will look really cool!” And it did. He looked so cute (though I did not say that word to him), and a good deal more like Dennis the Menace than usual.

We got to school and everyone we passed on the way in told Middle Son they liked his hair…the director, some of the moms and dads, and all of his older brother’s classmates. Then we went to drop Middle Son off at his class, and…some of his friends laughed at him. Several of them were crowding him, wanting to touch his hair. Not wanting his “do” to get mussed, he wound up backed into a corner. He got upset and kicked over the block tower his friends were making and stomped back over to a table, voluntarily putting himself in time out, folding his arms in an exaggerated sulk. I had been standing with my youngest, talking to one of the teachers, and excused myself mid-conversation. I pulled up one of the pint-sized chairs right next to Middle Son, switching my youngest to my far knee when he, too, began grabbing at Middle Son’s spiky hair. I told him his friends were just jealous because he was so cool, that he had hair long enough to spike. No dice. Still fuming.

The teacher followed shortly after. She told him that the only thing that mattered was that he liked his hair. Scowling and hmmphing, he said that he did, he just didn’t want his friends to laugh at him.

I piped in and reminded him that God made him special and unique, and that God makes people in all colors, shapes, and sizes. I never want Middle Son (or any of the boys) to squash his individuality so he can be just like his friends (though I know from personal experience how easy it is to do that and even though it seems like each generation is more “enlightened” than the past, is wanting to fit in ever going to change?). This is why I let him wear his cowboy boots with any outfit he chose – even shorts, wear his Incredible Hulk costume to our first day at our new church, and wear his rocket-ship pajamas all day on his older brother’s birthday, even when all his older brother’s friends were there for the party. They didn’t laugh at him – perhaps six-year-olds had already been introduced to the concept of diversity.

Middle Son did wear his hair spiked again the next day, despite telling me that he hated his friends “ ’cause they laughted at me!” (adding that syllable that he always did to verbs in the past tense). I hoped and prayed that he continued to feel secure enough as a well-loved child of God to be himself as long as possible. But within a week, the do was done. He just wanted to fit in.

The eye of the storm?

2011-03-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

It does get easier. I noticed this recently when I was able to take a shower one morning without having anyone barge into the bathroom or hearing anything crashing or anyone yelling downstairs.
This morning, for the first time, not everyone came bombing upstairs the moment they woke up. I was happy about that because I’ve had a rough time adjusting to the time change. Because I can’t seem to get to sleep as early as I should, it has been hard to get up the past couple of mornings.

Today, when I shuffled downstairs to get my coffee, I noticed that my middle son’s light was on. I went into his room and discovered that he was reading (!).

I went in to tell him good morning.

“Can I read by myself, mom?”

“Oh, sure. Of course!”

"No offense, Mom."

"None taken, honey."

I had lunch recently with a mom who has older kids. Her advice: “Cherish these moments. You’re on the cusp. It gets hard again. Wait until you don’t know where they are, and you’re waiting up for them to get home safely…”

I know she’s right. I know this is “it.” What is it? It’s the time where they’re old enough to go outside by themselves and shoot hoops or play in the back yard or with kids in the neighborhood. They can get dressed by themselves, albeit they are often challenged to figure out where their clothes are (“If you put your clean laundry away, you’d know,” I remind them). They can get their own snacks. I don’t have to do everything for them, but some things they like me to do. “Read to me, Mom?” (Even The Bigs ask). “Watch my baseball practice, Mom?” “Can you study with me, Mom?”

It probably won’t be long before they don’t want to me around so much anymore.

“At least you still have Youngest,” my middle son’s teacher said to me, when I told her “This is it.” Middle son will be off to middle school next year. I didn’t mean, “this is it in terms of volunteering at school (since no one really wants you at school when they're in middle school!), but this is “it,” this is our life, it’s happening right now, it’s not a dress rehearsal. I better pay attention because I the blink of an eye everything could change.

One day recently, one of the Bigs came bursting through the door after school, “Where’s the phone book?”

“What phone book?” I imagined I'd probably recycled the one that comes in the mailbox, since I usually look everything up online.

“You know, the school phone book.”

“Oh, the directory. I have it in my office.”

He bolted up the stairs, while tossing over his shoulder, “I know who so-and-so likes. Well, I know her initials, anyway…”

Homework, cartoons, Watson and the Sox

2011-03-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

“Yay! That only took you two hours! And how many days of obsessing about it?”

“Three days, Mom.”

I had just finished editing (the run-on sentences out of) my oldest’s journal entry for language arts. He was supposed to write about a book he was reading, which happened to be a treasury of fairy tales. There were tons of different choices for types of journal entries. We had toyed with theme, compare and contrast, summary, and character. He seemed to need to make this harder than it had to be. We had discussed it almost every night since last Thursday. “Will you help me with my journal entry, Mom?”

“Of course, what story are you going to write about?”

We’d never gotten farther than that.

I dashed back upstairs to check on the Red Sox-Yankees game that we were planning to watch. We’d watched about an inning with my middle son while we were looking up what comprises a plot diagram. One might think I am familiar with these literary terms, but I am really not. Nor does it bother me the way it does his teacher that my son writes like he talks, since I do that all the time.

A cartoon was on.

“Oh my gosh, why aren’t you watching the Red Sox? What’s the score!?” I was aghast.

“They made fun of Watson, Mom, and I switched it off,” my middle son informed me, matter-of-factly.

“Well, press ‘Last’ on the clicker honey. Let’s just check the score.”

Look, Big Papi’s up, it’s like déjà vu (since that was who was up the last time we was watching, in the third inning. Now it was top half of the fifth and the score was still 1-0 Yankees.

It is amazing to me how people like to find faults with Watson, a customized computer system designed by IBM researchers to answer questions in natural language, who defeated the two reigning Jeopardy! Champions. “Watson thinks Toronto is in the U.S.!?” someone texted me when Watson gave the wrong answer in Final Jeopardy! I pointed out that Watson wouldn’t have offered an answer if he didn’t have to; that his level of certainty was low, but in Final Jeopardy, you have to answer. “That sounds like an IBM party line,” was the reply. I chose to end the conversation. Why argue with someone so focused on the negative, they can’t see any of the positives. Plus, I work for IBM, so it’s hard not to take that personally.

After a bit my middle son said to me, “ ‘Regular Show’ is gonna start soon, Mom. Yankees are up now, anyway.”

“Well, we can click back and forth, then.” “Regular Show” is my favorite of the kids’ shows now, even surpassing “iCarly.” We even watched two of the 15-minute episodes On Demand yesterday afternoon.

We never did finish watching the Sox, because the evening dissolved into a big pillow fight at about 9:15 (when the Sox were up 2-1) and I shut the TV off and sent everyone to bed, and by the time I finished tucking everyone in the game was over and I missed seeing the Sox win, still at 2-1. I checked on “Sports Tonight Live” but switched that off as soon as someone started ragging on Matsuzaka; after I had seen his picture in the Lowell Sun, alongside his Japanese teammates observing a moment of silence in Sunday’s game, and the relief efforts he is leading for his homeland, how can anyone speak negatively of him?

We got our share of Lowell Spinners tickets today…

Car talk

2011-03-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve started letting the Bigs take turns sitting in the front passenger seat of my car. I’d held off as long as possible, because that’s my territory and I liked being able to put my stuff all over that seat. But having a kid in the front does have its upsides.
First of all, they don’t sit all in a row in the middle back, so they’re not touching each other (it’s rare that anyone likes to sit in the wayback anymore, with its rear-facing seats), unless someone wants to sit in the middle of the middle back so he can a) see out the front or b) watch whoever’s on either side play video games on his iTouch. I had to explain just this morning that you can’t sit in the middle unless there is just one person in the middle back or three people; that if you were using any mode of public transportation, you wouldn’t choose the seat right next to someone else if there was another one open; personal boundaries, blah blah blah.

“What’s ‘mode,’ mom?”

“ ‘Type,’ honey. Type of public transportation, like a bus or a train where you don’t already have assigned seats.”

Another bonus is that I get to have “special” time with the boy who’s in the front. Sometimes he’s reading or playing his iTouch, but often times we chat about things, like how to drive, how I know where to get where I’m going, what all those buttons on the dash are for (we discovered we had fog lamps recently, and I had to employ my son’s help to figure out how to turn them off – he enjoyed reading the owner’s manual and instructing me).

“Why is it called a 'glove box,' mom?”

“That’s a good question, honey. I think it’s because it’s where people used to stash their gloves, you know – like driving gloves. It was the style when cars were first invented.”

“That was before you were born, right?”

“Yes, a long, long time before!”

A bonus in disguise is that I get to listen to songs they pick out on the radio. I cringe when they scan past Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, consistently choosing to “ay-oh, baby let’s go na na na na everyday with their iPods stuck on replay, replay, replay…” (Dynamite, Replay) – catchy little earworms that revisit me when I least expect it. I am sure my own mother couldn’t stand the stuff I listened to either, just as her mother no doubt didn’t like Elvis or The Beatles. I tolerate their music because it offers me an opportunity to see into their world, and to find a way to relate with them on important subjects like why brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack (Tick Tock) is not really something desirable and certainly something you should be belting out in public and how taking a bullet straight through your brain (Grenade) doesn’t prove how much you love someone, it just proves you’re stupid and dead.

“But Mah-ahm! It’s just a song…”

“I know it is, honey, but I just want you to know that waking up in the morning and drinking hard liquor is not a good way to start the day, and if your girlfriend really cares about you, she’s not going to expect you to sacrifice your well being, and certainly not your life, for her.”

Whereas last summer, the mere mention of a girlfriend would induce dramatic, fake gagging noises, now the reply is either thoughtful silence or an embarrassed “Mom! I don’t want to talk about that!”

“Alright,” I don’t press them. “I’m just sayin’…”

Nothing, really

2011-03-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I was doing some online financial management while my older two worked on their homework. I realized I didn’t have the budget to do any type of dog-and-pony-show activities this weekend (“We wanna go to FunWorld, Mom!” “Yeah, can we go to Chunky’s after?”). I’d had plans to get together for “Pizza Night” with a friend and her kids, but they were all sick and had to cancel. I also didn’t really have the inclination to throw a dinner party for my kids and their friends, so I put the pizza dough in the freezer for some other time.

Our big excursion in the morning was going grocery shopping. I managed to bribe 2/3 of my kids to go with me with the promise of breakfast at McDonald’s. We actually had a nice time, and it was a heck of a lot more affordable than the trip to Parker’s Maple Barn we made two weeks ago. An added bonus at the supermarket was returning our empties. My younger two were thrilled to have $4.00 to spend on candy and gum and spent most of the time in the supermarket dancing through the aisles, playing a game where they were only allowed to step on certain colors of tiles. My oldest was thrilled to have the house to himself for two hours while we were gone, though “starving” when we got home because apparently he couldn’t take the initiative to eat if no one was around to hand the food to him on a plate, even though I have taught him how to make a bagel with cream cheese, he’s capable of opening a yogurt, and I had baked chocolate chip muffins the night before.

When we got home, I put the groceries away and then called my sick friend while I cleaned the kitchen.

“I don’t really feel like arranging playdates for them…” I confessed. “But anyway, why should every moment have to be planned out?”

“It doesn’t,” she consoled me.

Instead, we just hung out. I took care of a couple of pressing work things but then shut that computer down. I wrote some greeting cards and worked on my taxes. We talked about the Flat Stanley that we needed to send back to the cousins in Utah. We made a pie. The boys played games together and not all of them were electronic. I did three loads of laundry. The kids all went outside and my younger two found friends to play with in the neighborhood. My oldest and I set up the SKLZ Hit-A-Way baseball swing trainer on our basketball hoop. We decided we’d watch a movie together at 8:00 p.m., so we planned our evening around that.

And that was it. Why should every moment have to be planned out?

It doesn’t.

Testing, Testing

2011-03-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

“My language arts MCAS is coming up,” my oldest announced. We were standing at the bus stop. We got back in the habit of waiting together when the iceberg next to our driveway got so big the driver can’t see him waiting in the driveway (this happened once and the bus passed him by, which was horrifying for him). As soon as I see the bus’s flashing lights, I head back in.

“Are you worried about it?”

“No, not really.”

“Good, you shouldn’t be. The test really isn’t about you so much…”

“It’ll help me get into a good college, won’t it?”

“No, no one looks at that for a college application. I think you have to do well enough on them before they let you out of high school, though.”

“Then why do we have to take them?”

“So the school system can prove how good it is to the state – it determines the level of funding…I think.”

“Did I get good scores on the ones from last year?”

“I don’t know. I forget. I am sure you did fine. I’ll dig up the results if you really want. It doesn’t matter that much to me, either. I care more about the quizzes in tests you bring home from your own teachers, and your report card.”

“Did I get in the 90s?”

“Really, honey – I don’t remember how they score them.”

<><><>

I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink (my dishwasher is still broken) and my middle son sidled up next to me and said in a small voice: “Don’t be mad at me mom, but I have to tell you this. I got a 60 on one of my spelling tests.”

I shut off the water and turned to face him. “When?”

“I think it was last week.” Apparently he’d put off telling me.

“Well, where’s the paper?” I grabbed the dishtowel to dry my hands. “Do I need to sign it?”

“Yeah, but it’s still at school.” His shoulders sagged. “I’m such a failure!”

“Oh, lovey, you are totally not a failure! You’re one of the smartest and most talented and loving boys I know!”

“Am I one of them, too, Mommy?” My youngest chimed in, having crashed our private party when he realized we were talking quietly.

“Yes, of course you are, lovey.”

My middle son was still standing in front of me hanging his head, “I’m so stupid.”

I hugged him close and said, “You don’t really believe that, do you? You are not a failure and you are not stupid. It’s just a sign that you need to prepare better. We can study together...”

We had actually just finished reading The Report Card by Andrew Clements in his literature circle in school. The story is about an off-the-charts smart girl who purposely gets bad grades just to prove a point: that grades don’t necessarily measure how smart you are.

We had talked in class about that, and also if you lose a soccer game, does it mean you are a failure or a loser? No, you lost the game. I thought about a couple of times recently when I had messed something up at work. Does it mean I am a lousy employee? No, I actually got the best review I’ve had since I’ve been in this job. When we make mistakes or get a bad grade, the most important thing to do is correct it, learn from it, and move on.
My middle son got much better grades on his next two spelling tests.

Both of my older two will be taking MCAS at the end of the month.

Top 10 Countdown: Signs of Spring

2011-03-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

10) It’s only in the 30s, but my boys have begun wearing shorts to school. “I didn’t know it was shorts weather,” a dad at the bus stop commented.

“I don’t have any shorts!”
“Yes, you do – what about your favorite basketball shorts?”
“They’re too short!”
“Since when, you wore them all season?”

“Mom, where are my shorts!”
“Uhhhm, in your closet, where they always are?”

Today, they pulled shorts out of unwashed laundry.

9) The iceberg in our front yard is receding. In some places we can see the grass. My oldest no longer wants me to wait for the bus with him (since now he is sure the driver can see him over the snow banks).

8) Baseball is top of mind:

“Mom, did you know Lowell Spinners tickets go on sale March 15?”
“Mom, did you know that the Red Sox are already playing pre-season games?
“Mom, did you know the Red Sox beat the Yankees?”

7) Road closings because of rivers cresting: the buses are all parked at the school complex instead of the usual lot, since no doubt any day now the road it’s on will be flooded.

6) There aren’t any snow pants, mittens, hats and boots drying on all my dining room chairs in front of the fireplace.

5) The trees are beginning to morph from gray and brown to the gold color that precedes green.

4) We’re going to change our clocks to daylight time this weekend (Spring Forward)

3) I caught one of my sons whistling to the mourning doves while waiting for the bus a few days ago. (People have told me the mourning doves are around all year, but I have only noticed them this week.)

2) It’s in the air. What’s that smell – mud?

1) The number one sign – the “strike zone” on the utility pole across from our bus stop.

Working for the Weekend: first day of Lent story

2011-03-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

"I don't know, I haven't thought much past today. Let me look at my calendar..." my friend had just called me to ask what was up for the weekend.
"Oh, wouldja look at that!? I don't have anything on Saturday.

"Really!?" my friend was incredulous. "Nothing!?"

We each have three kids so usually we're running around somewhere, be it sports or shopping or a church thing or playdates (even though big kids don't call them playdates any more, we moms still do.)

"Well, there was something there but it's whited out. I don't even remember what it was..."

It has been a particularly busy time so it's kind of a thrill to have a day with no obligations. My friend and I decided to get together. In honor of the first day of Lent, here's my latest church column.

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When I woke up, it took me a few moments to remember that it was Presidents’ Day. I reached for my phone and saw that it was 6:15. As I shut off the alarm, which was set for 7:00, I noted how much easier it is to get up early when you have a choice in the matter.

Then I looked outside and noticed that it was snowing – big beautiful flakes falling lazily from the sky, and thought how much more lovely it looked when I didn’t have to be in a rush to “shovel out,” since it was a holiday and no one had to go anywhere. There would be no mail delivery so I didn’t have to worry about chipping away at the iceberg in which my mailbox was buried (so the mail truck could pull up), either.

I rejoiced and was glad for the third day of a much-needed long weekend. It was the first day in at least a month that my left eye had not twitched, whether from stress or too much coffee, I do not know. Stress and too much coffee are like the chicken and the egg, anyway, and symptoms of a much larger problem, which is too much to do because of circumstances out of my control.

I could not control the fact that we hadn’t had a full week of school since Christmas break, because of snow days, weather-related school delays, and regularly scheduled half days. My work has been particularly busy as I’m preparing for an event and since it is global in nature, it doesn’t stop because we have a local weather emergency. I work at home, so “I couldn’t get into the office” is not a valid excuse. Plus, if I put off the work, no one else is going to do it. Working around my kids is one of the most taxing things I have to do, and anyone who thinks differently is welcome to take my kids to their office and see how much is accomplished.

The previous weekend, we had the grand finale of basketball (two jamborees and my oldest son’s championship win, which was a welcome but unexpected addition of two games to our already crowded schedule), lacrosse (for which we had to rush out of church on Sunday), and the culmination of five years’ worth of Boy Scouts where my oldest earned his Arrow of Light (he had to finish his final lesson for one of his religious emblems that week, serve in church, and then we all attended the Blue and Gold banquet for the awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon), as well as a benefit event for which I was volunteering. To top it off, my youngest became sick (an unwelcome, unexpected addition to our plans). I was able to get help with the benefit event, but the other agenda items required my full presence and participation.

I had to pick my youngest up from school twice the following week because he was too tired to go to extended day. The second time that happened, he had a fever so I brought him to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, which meant he could not go to school the next day – a day where I had six conference calls scheduled.

“Depleted,” crossed my mind several times, usually accompanied by the eye twitch. I felt like I had nothing left to give or even any choice in the matter – everything I was doing was important to my family; it just so happened to be occurring concurrently and in some cases simultaneously. I was unable to take my regular walks with friends, which was particularly disappointing, since we were having unseasonably warm weather. I hadn’t make it to choir practice in longer than I could remember. And I wasn’t writing, which is for me, ignoring a vital part of reflection and prayer, gratitude, and introspection.

I recalled a book from my childhood, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, about a boy and a tree. The tree gives the boy shade, apples, branches, and finally its trunk, “and then the tree was happy... but not really.” At the end of the book, when the boy, now an old man, returns to the tree, the tree tells him, “I wish that I could give you something…but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry…”

Oh, God, I prayed. Please don’t let me become a stump!

Just hold on until the weekend, I told myself. The unscheduled time during the long weekend was the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Indeed, there were plenty of things I coulda, shoulda, or woulda done during Presidents’ Day weekend. Instead, I reveled in the possibility of doing nothing or anything I chose, at my own pace. As best-selling author, Dr. Kirk Byron Jones says, “there are few things in life more dynamic than a rested soul.”

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ~Matthew 11:28

Why it takes half an hour to put groceries away

2011-01-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

“And then by the time I put the groceries away, it was already 8:30…”

“It took you half an hour to put groceries away?” my friend asked, incredulous, and no doubt wondering why it had taken me so long to return the call. As it was, I was shouldering the phone, doing the dishes while I dialed back, since mom always said, “don’t return calls after 9:00 p.m.”

“Well, yeah…” The 30 or so minutes had flown by with a flurry of activity. First of all, the shopping trip was much needed as I had put it off due to a snow day and a weather delay day, which in their very nature offer more times for kids to be eating and inviting their friends over to eat, which means additional depletion of the pantry. So truthfully, I had much more to put away than usual.

The timing of the trip was another factor. My younger two and I had dropped off my oldest after extended day at about 6:00 p.m. He didn’t want to come with us, even though we were going out to eat first (“Can you just bring me back a hamburger?” “Okay, honey.”). After dinner out and shopping, by the time we got home it was nearly 8:00 p.m. and the first time all day that my younger two had been home. Aside from all the bags of food for which I had to enforce carrying-in assistance, the kids were schlepping in their backpacks and accessories from their long day at school (which wasn’t as long as usual, since they’d had a two hour delay).

Basically what occurred during the subsequent 30 minutes was tripping over numerous bags, backpacks, coats, and boots as I tried to explain how to microwave a hamburger and fries as well as sort out the food and put the frozen stuff away first, all the while enforcing showers, since (thankfully) bedtime would “be here before you know it,” then shooing the two who weren’t in the shower away from the bags, since they were pawing through them to see if I got any cookies or ice cream; either picking up discarded towels and dirty clothes or chasing after the culprit to do it himself; unpacking the lunch boxes while making a mental note of who ate what and whether anyone would even qualify or cookie or ice cream; confirming that everyone did their homework at extended day and then snooping through their agenda books and folders anyway, since my middle son alluded that he “might” have a chorus concert the very next night and surely that couldn’t be the first he’d heard of it. Finally, all the food was in its proper place, treats doled out, lunch boxes lined up on the counter for morning repacking, water bottles and plastic containers added to the sink full of dishes (since our dishwasher is still broken), laundry in a pile by the basement door, kids upstairs with their respective cookies and ice cream, my fingers crossed that they didn’t spill anything on my bed, since surely that was where they were watching TV.

I finished the dishes and told my friend I had to go. I needed to tuck everyone in (before they fell asleep in my bed and I had to carry them, which is not even possible in some cases anymore, and) before starting a load of laundry and ensuring that the coats, hoodies, mittens, hats, and boots were where everyone could find them in the morning.

Weather or not

2011-01-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

“What if I don’t finish it?”
“What do you mean, ‘what if I don’t finish?’ ”

“Well, what if there’s not enough time?”

I remained neutral, even though I felt alarmed. “How can there not be enough time? You’ve known about this project since before Christmas.” And he’d complained about it every time we talked about it since then.

“Well, I’m just wondering what would happen if I didn’t finish it by tomorrow?”

“You’ll get points off,” his older brother interjected, as he walked by, on his way down to the man cave to play wii. A grade ahead of his brother, he’d had the same assignment and even the same teacher the year before, though that didn’t really matter – the whole 4th grade has to do the same project: interviewing someone about their weather experiences.

“That’s not an option.” I said matter-of-factly. “You have to finish it, no matter how long it takes, even if you have to stay up all night to do it.”

“Yeah, okay. I can do it.”

“I know you can, honey. I trusted you to manage your own time, so I’m counting on you to get the work done.” I’d talked about the project with his dad the Saturday before, explaining the email I had written to the teacher, expressing my concerns. She said she’d go over the project with the kids again before the weekend. Dad wondered if it was a good idea to let Middle Son go to a football playoff party the next day, if he hadn’t finished the project. I assured Dad that the consequences of procrastination were going to be a last-minute rush and the dark cloud of undone homework hanging over Middle Son’s head for the long weekend and that would be enough. I hoped that was still the case.

I had discussed the project with my middle son on Friday when he didn’t want to work on it Friday night. “Mrs. So-and-so talked about it with us today. I’m good.” I asked him for his proposed homework schedule. He told me he’d do his math worksheet Friday night, and that he’d work on his project on Tuesday morning (since Monday was a holiday), Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning (the day it was due) before school. We get up pretty early around here so doing homework in the morning is not really a big deal, but I was not all that comfortable with the extreme procrastination of this project. Still, all I asked is “Is that going to be enough time?”

“Yes,” he assured me.

I told him okay, and that he needed to be respectful of my time if he was going to need my help, and that I wasn’t going to be willing to work with him if he was going to yell at me, or have face-plant rants wherein he threw himself onto the couch complaining about how “stupid” or “unfair” the assignment was, both of which had occurred numerous times during the preceding month or so.
Since we’d had a snow day Tuesday, my middle son had bailed on working on the project that morning. “I’m not doing homework on a snow day, mom!” he’d asserted in the “duh” tone of voice he saves for replying to what he considers to be really stupid questions, like "What about your homework schedule?". He stayed out in the snow and freezing rain for most of the day, avoiding the project (which, in my opinion, was what was “really stupid” – I’d had enough after an hour and a half of shoveling). Finally, at about 5:30 p.m. when I was just wrapping up the bulk of my work day, he announced that he was ready to work on his project, and the question was posed, “What if I don’t finish...?”

But he did. Cheerfully, even. We spent more than three hours, which included a working dinner, together in my office. We had to enlist the cooperation of his two brothers, who stayed out of our way and managed the cooking of a pizza. I sat at my desk, tying up some loose ends from the day’s work, since I’d had to take time out to shovel and manage the 2/3 of the kids who weren’t avoiding their homework by staying outside all day. I enjoyed his company. We discussed scenarios, such as what if he fell asleep while he was doing the report, and my reply, that I’d wake him up and he could start working on it again. He confessed that what he was really worried about was the oral report part. “First things first,” I told him. Then we imagined what it would be like to give a report on Jacoby Ellsbury or how to throw certain kinds of pitches, like curve balls. (“But I don’t know how to do that yet.” “So, wouldn’t it be interesting to research?”) We shared a laugh over the idea that if he had spent as much time working on the report as he had complaining about it up until now, he would have been done already.

“I’m so glad I got this over with – now I won’t have to feel guilty about it the next time we have a snow day!” which I am sure he hoped would be tomorrow.

"Enjoy the Snow Day!"

2011-01-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

“Enjoy the snow day!” My middle son’s teacher had closed her email from the evening before with this good wish. Yeah, I thought…I’m sure she’s gonna enjoy the snow day…

Once I got the call from the superintendent that school was cancelled, I began feeling gloomy about a day with a packed calendar, a project deadline, and having to juggle three very energetic boys. I didn’t want to be too grumpy about it though, lest I put a damper on my boys’ good mood. What kid doesn’t enjoy a snow day? I told them they could stay up as late as they wanted.

On the bright side, because we found out the evening before, I could stay up until midnight working, since I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to get done the next day.

I suggested to the kids, “Don’t get up too early, you don’t have to go anywhere,” but they were up at least by 7:00 anyway. To their credit, they did try to be quiet, but their excitement over dueling tops couldn’t really be contained.

When I emerged to get coffee a few minutes past 7:00, my middle son immediately asked if we could go to Target. He wanted to spend some of his Christmas money on new Beyblades (the dueling tops).

“Uhmmm, honey…the town is kind of shut down today. No one is on the roads except the plows. Did you see the driveway? I don’t think we’d be able to get the car out any time soon anyway. Besides, I’m working today, remember?”

“Well, then can So-and-so come over?”

“Hello, look at the time – do you really think So-and-so is up yet?” But he probably was, and no doubt his mom was having the same conversation with him.

“Anyway, weren’t you planning to go skating this morning?” and the countdown began until 9:00 a.m. when they could go to our neighbors’ house – they’d built an ice rink in their back yard.

At 8:30 we began round one of dressing up for outdoors, which entailed much ado about “where are my gloves! No not those ones, the ‘good’ ones!”

Not long after 9:30 my middle son came stomping back into the house holding a wad of paper towels up to his face, blood gushing out his nose. I shoved my conference (wireless handset phone) call into my hoodie pocket and rushed to meet him, “My God, honey, what happened!?”

“Oh, nothing. I just faceplanted on the ice.”

“Are you okay?” I was relieved there were no other people involved, no teeth knocked out, and nothing that needed stitching.

“Yeah, but it just won’t stop bleeding.” End of round one. I helped him take off his clothes and put them in the dryer. His boots went in front of the electric fireplace, “good” gloves on the radiator. He went to lie down while I fixed hot cocoa for him, and mopped up the foyer where the snow (and blood) he tracked in was starting to melt. I set him up in front of a movie and returned to work.

Not long after his brothers filed in. I repeated the clothing removal, dryer, fireplace, mopping, and snack detail, and they joined their brother in front of the show.

At about 11:30 we began round two. Except for a few trips in and out to exchange gloves complain that something didn’t fit right or someone stole my gloves or “I can’t find my hat,” have a snack, and use the bathroom, the boys toured our very quiet and unusually traffic-free neighborhood with their friends until 2:00 when the ice-rink neighbors took them sledding. I was able to actually participate in two meetings during this time, and follow up with associated action items, as well as chip away at a project whose deadline was that day (and ultimately, was finished before midnight, which still counts as “that day,” since some people in Hawaii might still in the office at that time). They got back right in time for my 3:00 conference call, which I left on my credenza and went downstairs to repeat the clothing removal, dryer, fireplace, mopping, and food and beverage infusion again.

My youngest took a nap and my older two had So-and-so over. When So-and-so’s mom called to ask him to come home for dinner, my older boys began round three. By then it was past 5:00 p.m. I figured I’d call it a day soon. I needed to shovel, and was counting on doing that in order to burn off the cookies I’d enjoyed with my afternoon coffee.

But just then, the phone rang. I recognized the number and snatched it up immediately. It was the superintendent again, speaking agonizingly slowly. C’mon, c’mon, out with it, I thought, praying it wasn’t another cancellation (fortunately it was just a two-hour delay, but I groaned as I checked my calendar and saw that I had two meetings scheduled first thing in the morning, and that is why I wound up working again until nearly midnight after shoveling out and dinner).

I can’t say there was really anything about the day that I enjoyed as much as watching the snow fall from my office window, against the backdrop of the town clock. But I was glad my kids enjoyed it, and I could think of a lot of bright sides, such as my kids are old enough to play outside by themselves now, a benevolent couple in a plow came by and scooped out the end of my driveway where the street plows had piled and packed snow about two feet high, and with all the mopping up after my kids, my floor is a lot cleaner than it has been in a long time.

The 180

2011-01-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

“Get away, Cat!” my youngest nudged her off the couch where he was sulking after I refused to let him walk out the front door shoeless and in pajamas. There was snow on the ground. He was mad at me that I wouldn’t let him have just mini donuts for breakfast. I had insisted he eat some “protein on the side” and he didn’t like any of the choices I’d offered: milk, cheese, or yogurt.

“Awww, the poor kitty…” I had been hovering nearby and clearing fragile items from his warpath. He can actually reach the deadbolt on the door and I wouldn’t have wanted him to stomp off “looking for a new family” while I was showering, even though I assured him that probably any other family he’d find that would take him in would insist that he eat a balanced breakfast before church. Nor did I want him destroying any of his brothers’ carefully built Lego creations or paper airplanes, or disrupting any of their artfully arranged personal belongings that were strewn about in locations only they could imagine were strategic. He had already trashed the bedroom, when I’d suggested he take a break and play Nerf basketball after getting into an argument about the Beyblade tournament he was having with his brothers. He’d been up since 6:15 and been on edge much of the time.

“What!? I don’t want her near me!”

“Well, that’s too bad – she’s apparently the only one that wants to be.” His older brothers were still watching the Sunday morning cartoons I’d let them turn on after “The Exercise Show” – it was about 8:15 a.m. I picked up the cat, who rarely extends herself to any of the kids unless I am right there with them. She is somewhat skittish still, even after living with us for nearly three years since being rescued by one of my brother’s friends. She used to be called “Dryer Kitty” because she would not leave my brother’s friend’s laundry room. She actually let me hold her without flexing her claws while I stage-whispered, “Don’t take him personally, Dee – he’s just having a grumpy morning.”

“Hmmmph!” My youngest, of course, had heard me, even though he’d removed himself from the couch and assumed the position of self-imposed exile under the breakfast bar.

“Listen, honey, you really need to start your day over. You can do that any time, you know.”

“Duh, mom. How do you think I’m gonna do that? It’s already light out.”

“Well, I don’t mean literally. For real. I mean in your imagination. Although…you could go get back into bed now, wait a few minutes while you think about things, and then get up on the right side of it…that would be one way to start over. And don't say 'duh' to me.”

He tucked his chin and glared at me with angry eyebrows.

“Okay, then, push the imaginary reset button. Whatever you have to do. I have to go take a shower now. I don’t want to be late for church.” I hoped that he’d quit being such a pill if he didn’t have an audience.

“What – you’re just going to leave me down here?”

“No, you can go hang out with your brothers. Just don’t start anything with them.”

I showered quickly and went back downstairs to refill my coffee cup. My youngest had relocated, but not without tearing apart a floor puzzle of the solar system that my middle son and I had put together. It was a good thing my youngest had moved on, because that was about the last straw and I wouldn’t have wanted to yell at him.

Instead, I stalked back up to the bathroom and shut the door firmly. As I was getting ready, I heard the side door slamming a few times. God help me, I thought.

“Mom?” My oldest knocked on the bathroom door.

“I’ll be out in a few minutes. Can you use the one downstairs?”

“Oh, okay. No. I just wondered where you were.”

“You found me. Where are your brothers?”

“They went outside. They’re looking at the glow sticks.” The boys had constructed a snow structure the day before at dusk, complete with about 40 glow sticks.

“Did they put clothes on?”

“Yes.”

I relaxed a little.

When I went downstairs I practically collided with my youngest, who was doing a happy dance in the dining room. “Oh, look at you…”

“Hi Mommy!”

“Hi,” I said back. And to my middle son who was close behind him, “How?”

He just shrugged and hummed, “I dunno.”

“THANK YOU!” I pantomimed exaggeratedly, and then out loud, “Okay, everybody, turn around and walk right back out that door – it’s time to go to church!”

A gift from a stranger

2010-12-23T20:08:00.000-08:00

Note entire can of decorator icing used on this train wreck

At the supermarket tonight, the woman in line before us said to me, “My, what polite children!” I looked at her blankly for a moment and said, “Thank you – we left the rude one at home…” and quickly added, “No, I’m just kidding. We left the mature and responsible one at home because he’s old enough to stay by himself.” My middle son was at the express register two lanes over using his allowance to pay for some gum. My youngest was helping me unload our cart.

We had walked around the corner to the store, but my oldest didn’t feel like joining us. Truthfully, I had wanted to leave all of them behind – we needed just a few things, including icing for a birthday cake, since all my icing had been depleted at our gingerbread house party the weekend before – and if I had gone by myself, I could have accomplished the whole expedition in under 10 minutes, since I wouldn’t have had to debate or negotiate about why something is or isn’t a good value and whether or not we really needed any more candy than the Life Savers I had chosen for our stained-glass window cookies we’d be making the next day.

I’d also felt that we’d had ample togetherness today, starting at 6:15 a.m. when everyone got up and began jockeying for position, bickering, teasing, tattling, sulking – oh, the drama! At 8:00 a.m., I thought I might tear my hair out. At 8:30, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. The school bus’s arrival was imminent. At 8:45, I breathed a sigh of relief as I waved goodbye to the bus. At last, I could work in peace. A well-meaning friend reminded me that my children are my joy. I replied, “Today they’re my job.”

I know that’s just how it is in the days leading up to Christmas, though. The boys all know to the hour how much longer it is until Christmas. I was actually able to complete all my card sending, gift making, and present wrapping today. Usually I am up until the wee hours of Christmas morning completing everything. As one of my colleagues pointed out, “It does get easier.” Does this mean I’ll just try to do more tomorrow? We’ll see…Good stress is still stress. It had taken a lot of energy for me to ensure that the kids weren’t at each other’s throats all afternoon since the school bus returned them to me.

My middle son and I were both carrying grocery bags and I held my youngest’s hand with my free hand. “Boys, do you know what the woman in line ahead of us said about you?”

My middle son said, “That we’re really stupid?”

I raise my eyebrow at him as I said, “Uhm, no…guess again…”

“What did she say, mommy?” my youngest piped up.

“She said, ‘My, what polite children!’ ”

My youngest squeezed my hand.

My middle son said, “Oooh, that makes me feel all Christmas-y inside!”

Yeah, I thought. That was like the best gift I could have received today…

Boy to the World!

All wrapped up

2010-12-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

“Why are you late, Mom?”

“Well, hmmm, I really can’t say…and anyway, we’re not late yet. Technically we have one minute to get your brother to practice…”

It was 5:44 p.m. My middle son has basketball practice at a building within the same complex as the extended day program; my oldest has practice at the elementary school gym in the next town over. Both practices are at 6:00 p.m. My middle son’s coach is there 15 minutes early so it’s okay to drop my son off then. We really need the whole 15 minutes to get to my oldest’s practice; we have been on time once. Every week I think I am going to leave my office by 5:30, but that is rarely the case. On two out of three of the occasions that I did, I got held up at extended day for one reason or another.

“..so, let’s get a move on, boys!”

My older two hustled out to the car, but my youngest was not on board. He was upset that he hadn’t been able to finish a craft project. He knew we had basketball, though: he was the one who delivered my oldest’s change of clothes to him in the middle school room. As of 7:15 a.m., when we were gearing up for another week – making lunches, taking out trash, digging the favorite shirt out of the dryer – I had forgotten we had practice.

“C’mon, honey. We really don’t have time for this right now. Your brothers don’t want to be late.”

Rather than endure the wrath of his brothers, he complied.

So, why was I “late?” I decided that I would take inventory of all of the Christmas presents I had bought for my kids this morning during one of my conference calls. I put the phone on speaker (and muted it), hauled everything out from the various hiding places, and spread it all over my office/bedroom floor. Then I pulled out all the wrapping paper, tape, bows, ribbons, gift tags and boxes. Then I got overwhelmed. I spent most of the day walking around or stepping over little piles of gifts. At lunch time, I wrapped the kids’ gifts that they had chosen for each other. Mid-afternoon, I had my Santa gifts wrapped. When 5:00 came, I realized that I better at least organize everything else before I put it all back in my luggage, hanging next to my garment bags, in the eaves of the attic. I spent the next 25 minutes sorting the stocking stuffers, making sure I had the right number of Santa gifts for everyone else, and trying to balance out the items I was giving to my kids. I considered holding some of them back for upcoming birthdays, especially when I realized I had bought two of exactly the same Lego Hero Factory sets. Then I just tossed everything together in one bag. I’d have to defer that decision to another day. I had to be sure I hid all the wrapping paper, too – I wouldn’t want Santa paper to be found anywhere, not even the scraps that were in the trash.

By 5:25, I was ready to go pick up my kids and begin the Monday evening routine, but it took me more than five minutes to warm up the car (thankfully I had filled the tank earlier); organize the sneakers, basketballs, snacks, and drinks; back out of my driveway (which is close to an intersection); and get in line with several other vehicles trying to make a left turn on Main Street, which brought me to the point where my oldest asked me, “Why are you late, Mom?”

Perhaps I just sounded like absent-minded mom or like I was still wrapped up in work, but the truth was, I couldn’t say. I know that the mere mention of presents triggers a) 20 questions (“what did you get me,” “what did you spend,” “what did you get my brothers”), b) the temptation to snoop, c) the inquisition about whether or not Santa Claus is real.

Boy to the World!

Dream Big

2010-12-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

I had left a Toys R Us catalog on the dining room table and told my boys they could circle the items they liked. My middle son went first. He chose red pen. Then my youngest, with a green pen. All the while, my oldest was peeking over their shoulders, censoring them.

“You can’t circle that!”
“You’re never gonna get that!”
“That’s way too much!”
“You don’t need that!”
“You can’t have that – I wanted that!”

I had to keep reminding him that I had only asked them to circle the things they liked. Not once did I make any promises about what they would actually get, and oh-by-the-way, “how would I know anyway, what Santa might be planning?”

When it was my oldest’s turn (in brown pen), he circled a few things of his own, along with some Barbie and Hello Kitty items (with “J.K.” written next to them). I also noticed that he had crossed out some of his brothers’ selections, further editing their choices.

I told the boys, while looking pointedly at my oldest, “It’s okay to both want the same thing. It’s okay not to want the same thing. You're not in charge of deciding what someone else does or doesn't want."

They all proceeded to vie for additional turns with the catalog, which is how it attained its "well-loved" look.

"It’s also okay to want something even if you have no idea how you might get it. How are you ever going to get what you want out of life if you don’t know what you want?”

Alone at last

2010-12-05T18:37:00.000-08:00

“Well, why don’t you just leave the other two here…”

I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, because the dad continued, “…and go have some time…to yourself?”

The idea grew on me quickly. “Okay…are you sure you don’t mind?”

“No, they’ll keep each other entertained – they won’t bother me at all.”

I had showed up at our friends’ house to pick up my oldest with my younger two in tow. These friends have two sons: their older son is my oldest’s age and their younger son is in between my younger two. Earlier, I had dropped my oldest off to do his tour of duty with the boy scouts selling Christmas trees (with my friend's older son) before taking my younger two shopping. He was planning to walk home (since it was about four blocks) because I didn’t think we’d be back before his shift was over, but it wouldn’t be so much later that he’d be alone at home for very long.

As I was in the checkout line, he called me from his friend’s mom’s phone.

“Hi So-and-so,” I answered, thinking it was her.

“Hi Mom, it’s Oldest. Mrs. So-and-so says I can go home with them.

“Okay, great. We’re just finishing up here. I’ll be there in a little while.”

We stopped at home to put the frozen food away. My middle son snagged his basketball, since these friends have “thee-most-AWEsome!” basketball net at the end of their driveway, which is on a private road (unlike our street, which is actually a portion of a numbered route on which there’s a good deal of traffic).

But when I got to the house, the dad was surprised to see me. “Uhm…how are you?” My oldest and his friend were both sitting at the breakfast bar with their shirts off. I quickly realized they were having “man time.”

“Well, I think I’m just a little shell shocked after taking these Middle and Youngest shopping….” I’d said, probably staring at him vacuously. While the kids had all been reverent at church, it seemed that every moment in the last three hours since then had included potty words, raucous songs (replete with potty words), poking, hitting, mocking, producing body noises, getting in each other’s space, and looking at each other “the wrong way.” There was the “let’s regurgitate water in the car” game followed by a hefty dose of “let’s trash the living room.”

“Ah…well…what’s up?”

“Oh, I just came to pick up Oldest.”

“I thought So-and-so was going to bring him home?”

“Oh, really… uhm…when?”

The older two quickly disappeared, so even if I had wanted to bring anyone home it would have been difficult, which it so often is when picking one of my boys up from “hanging out” (we’re not allowed to say “playdate” anymore after Diary of a Wimpy Kid).

“After she comes back from the market.”

How I wish that I could have shopped solo. I had even thought to myself when we were at the specialty grocers, Next time I come here I’m coming by myself.

“Well, alright then!” And I slipped my shoes back on as we walked out.

My youngest was thrilled with the impromptu idea of hanging out with his friend. My middle son only wanted to know how to adjust the height of the basketball net. “Bye mom!”

So, I went home, calling a friend on the way to share the news of my good fortune and heated up a cup of coffee. I lounged on the couch in the quiet living room with my toy-blinders on (since there were still Hot Wheels and Bakugan cards strewn on the floor, which I vowed to put in the good will bin if they weren’t cleaned up by bedtime, and this time I’d really do it!), and I read a book. Not a business book or a how to book, but a novel: The Nanny Diaries , which underscored both my need for alone time and my gratitude and appreciation for my children.

And I wound up having a whole hour and a half to myself before I took the kids back to church for the tree lighting on the nearby common, the arrival of Santa Claus, and cookie decorating. Boy to the world!

Crossing over

2010-11-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

My oldest crossing over from elementary to middle school

For the second time that day, I stood in my driveway watching one of my boys cross Main Street. My middle son was waiting at the crosswalk for someone – anyone – to stop so he could walk his bike across. It was late afternoon and he was going to ride the half mile to the elementary school where he would meet a friend and his mom, and they would all ride back together. I watched as cars sped past him and one of them whipped around the corner onto our street. I felt like shouting at the guy to slow down, but I just looked at him. Okay, maybe I gave him the angry eyebrows. The speed limit on our street is 25 m.p.h., but it’s the rare driver who actually sticks to the limit, though the cones we put out while waiting for the morning school bus do give some people pause.

The first time was at the earlier end of that day. My oldest had come bombing back into the house, slightly breathless, “Mom, I think I missed the bus!”

I was standing at the kitchen counter making his brothers’ lunches. One brother was in the bathtub; the other was sitting at the kitchen table, undressed, agonizing loudly over his homework. I turned and squinted at the clock in the dining room. It was 7:48 a.m.

“You’re still here?” I have been instructed not to “stalk” my son at the bus stop, which is right at the end of our very short driveway, thus my surprise. “You must have.”

Silence.

“Well, you better start walking.”

“I don’t want to be late.”

“You won’t be. You have 12 minutes.” Technically middle school doesn’t start until 8:08 a.m. according to the handbook, but apparently those eight minutes between their 8:00 a.m. release from wherever it is they assemble after getting off the bus and homeroom are important.

He turned abruptly and walked back out. “Okay, bye,” he tossed over his shoulder without looking back. He must have realized that even if I were willing to rally both of his elementary-school aged brothers into the car, he would get there sooner if he walked.

I followed him out and stood on the steps as he crossed the street briskly.

“You could always flag down another bus – they’re all going to the same place…” but I knew he wouldn’t. I doubted he would consider that “cool” or even “normal.”

He raised his hand to wave (dismissing the suggestion, confirming the ‘goodbye,’ or both?), as he race-walked quickly down the block to Main Street.

“Bye, honey.” I stood in the driveway and watched as he crossed over safely and disappeared from my sight (still not looking back), consoling myself that of course I’d receive a phone call if he didn’t show up in homeroom. This was the first time he’d ever walked to school by himself.

That afternoon, as my middle son finally negotiated Main Street in one piece, he turned back to give me the thumbs up. I waved at him. How did he know I’d be watching? I wondered. And how long would it be before he – like his brother – didn’t look back?

To everything there is a season

2010-11-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

I was sad when football ended. The first week after our last game, I felt empty. We had three extra hours on Tuesday and Thursday to…not get ready for football, not play football, and not talk about football on the way home from football. I don’t remember what we did.

Basketball is underway, we’re already talking about baseball, and my oldest will be trying winter lacrosse this year. So there are other sports, and other seasons to look forward to. My older two currently want to be MLB players when they grow up so we actually don’t put away the baseball gear at all. It sits on our porch year round (and this winter, I’ll have to make sure the gloves don’t spend the season in the back yard buried in snow).

But there’s something about football. It’s not just something special for the kids, but also special for the parents and fans. The boys have a brotherhood like I have yet not seen in other sports. My kids have learned a new language, which I don’t understand: “wishbone 33-blast,” “jumbo wing right 38 power sweep,” and the like pepper the conversations I hear in the back of the car on the way to and from practice.

Both of my older boys became much more disciplined (doing all they could to be on time for practice, making sure their uniforms made it to the laundry, studying the playbook) and “manly” (able to endure a two hour practice with full pads in 90-degree heat, needing to use antiperspirant).

I remembered the day when we picked up our gear and the boys had no idea how to attach their chin straps, and I had no clue where to put all their pads – in the pants or the girdle. What’s a girdle? I wondered to myself, but found out soon enough at the sporting goods store. I asked a lot of questions. Veteran football parents told me how to wash the equipment (or not), and what kind of extra accessories we might need (spare mouthguards, personal chinstraps, OxyClean and Febreze). By the end of the season, we could get those pads stuffed in under ten minutes. No one wanted my help with their chest pads, shirt, or anything at all (in public anyway). No one wanted me to even get out of the car at practice anymore, as long as I was waiting at the shed at 7:30. Sometimes I stayed at the whole practice and watched from a distnce; and sometimes my youngest and I would go have special time together, shopping or eating dinner by ourselves.

There were times when kids got hurt. Time stood still as everyone took a knee. The field and the fans became quiet except for the continuous buzz of the sibling club who shared their snacks, stuffed animals, and Silly Bandz as they did at every game. We knew that the bond the kids had with each other enabled them to feel the same pain that their teammate did, just as the bond we parents shared had us standing in the shoes of the mom and dad as they flanked the paramedics caring for their sons.

Ultimately the boys would be fine: I imagined when the news reached us, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Boys who were injured still came to the games even when they couldn’t play; still very much a part of the team.

We had final get togethers at the coaches’ houses. The kids all ran around playing football. The parents stood around a bonfire (slightly reminiscent of football afterparties when I was in high school) and talked about the season. When it was time to go, we bid each other farewell with “see you tomorrow at the basketball jamboree,” or “see you at baseball.”
To everything there is a season. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

School Daze

2010-11-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

Going back to school can be humbling. Never mind lunch in the middle school cafeteria with my oldest and six of his friends or playing “pin the spider on the web” with 40 or so sometimes-reluctant-to-be-blindfolded-and-spun-in-circles kindergartners at their Halloween party – last week I went in for 4th grade recess duty.

Normally this means I’d hang out with them and remind them of playground rules (which no doubt they know better than me to begin with), but since it was raining, the kids had indoor recess in their classrooms. The teachers took their breaks while aides watched the classes, and they didn’t really need me in the room, though my son’s teacher told me I was welcome to stay in the class if I thought my son would like it.

“No, that’s okay, I am sure he’s just happy that I’m nearby. Do you need me to do anything else…?”

And that is how I became acquainted with the school copier. After conferring with the teacher across the hall, it was decided that they needed 4 x 30 booklets of six pages, collated and stapled and could we double side some of the pages, but not these two pages…

I must have looked blank because my son’s teacher said, “Never mind, that’s too complicated. You can do the whole thing single sided.”

So, I went into the copy room to make the originals from the teacher workbook, but then spaced on whether the booklets were supposed to be four pages or six pages…

I stepped out of the copy room, and fortunately ran into the across the hall teacher. Not only did she set me straight, “You are right, it’s six,” but also she helped me figure out how to program the machine to go from six to four pages by double siding two of them.

I said, “Oh, great! So, I can just press that green button again to repeat the sequence for the other three batches, right?”

“Yes,” she assured me, and left to escort her class to lunch.

I admired how the machine chugged along, and how fast it was. And how the papers came out the other side stapled into tiny stacks, until…

…the copier jammed.
Oh, no! I thought about the potential waste of paper, the big mess, having to start all over, other people potentially waiting to use the copier, and realized how hot it was in that room.

Okay, don’t panic. The LED screen on the machine was coaching me on what to do.

I followed the instructions, opening door A, and panel B, and pulling out this tray, and unlocking that. I ended up on my knees in front of the machine. Please God, let this work…

…eventually I pulled out two or three jammed pieces of paper. I realized that the paper tray was nearly empty and refilled it. And presto, everything began working again. I babysat the rest of the batch to make sure the pages weren’t off. They weren’t. That machine is smart!

But then it beeped at me again. It was out of staples. God help me, I thought. Where in the world are the staples, and even if I could find them, where do they go?

I sighed and took off my hoodie. It sure was hot in there. Then I poked around the copy room for a bit and noticed that there were several staplers on the table behind me – of course! I can staple the old fashioned way. I pressed buttons to continue this batch without staples.

For the final two batches, I had to figure out how to reprogram the whole job because the machine wouldn’t accept the pre-programmed “collated/stapled” request with no staples.

I glanced at the clock. I had a 1:30 conference call to discuss (confidential work things that I can’t write about here), and there I was trying to outwit a copier.

It took me a very long time, but I emerged from the room triumphant, with my four stacks of booklets, my hoodie slung over my shoulder…and a note to let the teacher know the machine needed staples. I walked quickly back to my home office and made it just in time for my meeting, grateful that for the previous 45 minutes -- despite being humbled by the detour from my comfort zone (my copier at home is one with my fax machine and scanner) -- all I had to worry about was making copies.

Fruit smiles

2010-11-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

“Oh! Look what I found!” I said, forcing my enthusiasm just a little. I pulled a package of Fruit Smiles out of my pocket. We were on our way out of the school gym where my oldest was having basketball practice.

Truthfully, I hadn’t just found them – I realized they were in there this morning when I put the coat on for the first time in God-knows-how-long (I remember wearing it to a Red Sox game in 2009 but not since).

My youngest son perked up a little.

I examined the package to make sure they weren’t expired or anything. “Would you like them, honey?”

“Okay, Mommy,” he said as he took his thumb out of his mouth.

We were standing outside the car in the drizzle.

I opened the package and squeezed one of them. Yup, still soft. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, lovey.”

I continued, “You’re not feeling so great about yourself, are you.”

“No,” he answered in a small voice.

I opened the car door and helped him climb in.

He had gotten into some trouble at extended day today, and we’d had to stay a little later than planned when the director needed to speak to me about it. My older two both had basketball practice at 6:00 p.m., and they were in two separate gyms in adjacent towns. Our schedule was tightly orchestrated where one boy would be early, and one would be pushing the threshold and we really didn’t have time for any variance. The discussion with the director threw things off, and my older two had been terse with him. I counted on their support to enforce that what he did to get in trouble was wrong, but defended him when they tried to blame their tardiness on him.

To my middle son I’d said, “You’re not late. You won’t be late. You’ll be ten minutes early. Stop obsessing! Slow down!”

To my oldest, “I’m sorry. It was important for me to have that discussion. I already told your coach and so-and-so’s dad that we might be late. Yes, I have to go in with your brother, I haven’t met his coach yet! It’s a minute past the last time you asked me what time it was. No, I can’t drive any faster – it’s raining!”

I started the car. “Can I hold your fruit snacks while you buckle up?”

“No,” he sighed. “I can do it.”

I told him, “Honey, we all make mistakes. I wasn’t feeling too great about the way I handled a couple of things at work today…”

“Really, mom? Did you get in trouble?”

“Well, no…hang on a second, I have to make this left turn…I was just worrying about some situations where I thought I could have been more considerate…one was because I was in a hurry to finish something…”

And I had been beating myself up over it, probably a lot like my son was doing.

“Honey, God still loves us, even when we mess up. I still love you – no matter what. Just try not to do that again, okay?”

“Okay, mom.”

We drove along in companionable silence for a while, on the way back to my middle son’s practice, since he’d be done in about 20 minutes. Then we’d all retrace our route to pick up my oldest, since his practice was a half an hour longer than his brother’s – fortunately, otherwise I’d be juggling on the back end, too. I thought about my job, and how if I hadn’t been worrying so much about things, I likely would have left earlier to pick the kids up to begin with, and if I had done that, I could have had the discussion with the director earlier, my kids would have had their clothes to change into earlier, we wouldn’t have been rushing around, it’s all my fault, loser parent, blah blah blah…

My son -- thankfully -- interrupted my thoughts. “Hey, Mom, do you want the last yellow one?”

Alone in the pew

2010-11-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

“Can we sit up in the balcony, Mom?” I had been sitting in our church pew for a good five minutes after choir practice, waiting for the kids to come up from Sunday School.

I must have looked a little hesitant, because he continued, “we’re old enough!”

“I know you are…” And what was it our pastor had just been saying about friendship and fellowship? My kids just wanted to sit with their friends.

“C’mon, mom!”

“Okay, honey. But if there’s any trouble up there, you’ll be back down here next time.”

When we first started attending this church, my sons were five, four, and three months. We sat in the balcony the first few times, maybe the first month or two. On our debut at the church, my older two were dressed up like Incredible Hulk and SpiderMan (it was two months before Halloween) with noisy little cowboy boots that made the stairs creak as they clomped up and down them. “I’m thirsty,” “I have to go to the bathroom,” “Can I get crayons?” The day that my middle son was sick to his stomach and hurled all over the balcony (the one positive aspect is that that section is uncarpeted) was the day that I decided, that was it. We could not sit up there anymore. It was too noisy, too distracting, for them and all the others who frequently turned around to look at us.

“Oh, kids, Mommy didn’t realize, but you have to be eight years old to sit up in the balcony…we’re gonna need to find different seats downstairs.” I asked the pastor to back me up on this.

I figured the best place to sit would be right up front, and we’ve sat in the second row in front of the lectern for the last five years. That way if anyone was looking at us, I surely wouldn’t know about it.

More than two years ago when my oldest turned eight, he announced, “I’m old enough now, so I’m going to sit in the balcony.”

“Okay, honey,” I’d said.

He did it once, and realized it wasn’t so fun to sit alone up there. There was no way I’d let my middle son up there with him, since he was only six at the time, and not only would that be “not fair,” but also, I didn’t think he was mature enough then. So, for two more years, we all sat together, except when my youngest went off to sit with his “big friends.”

“Why does he always sit with them,” my middle son had asked one time.

“Because they’re nice to him.” It’s the phenomenon where older kids are able to be nice to other kids’ younger siblings, but not their own (if they even have any).

Today there was no trouble at all. My younger two came forward for the children’s sermon, and after that my youngest went back with his big friends and my middle son sat with me until it was time for communion, and then he sat in front of me with the kids who had come back from bell choir practice (and did his very best to remain reverent, despite all the other squirming, poking, and bread ball rolling in the pew, one of the deaconesses kindly assured me). My oldest remained in the balcony for the entire service.

It felt weird not to have to wrestle with someone, hush anyone, or insist someone get up off the floor and out from under that pew right now. (“No, I don’t care if the ministry dog is on the floor. You are not a dog.”) I thought about whether I should insist that we all sit together as a family, but realized that the whole congregation is, indeed, our church family.

I want my kids to have friends at church, and I want them to enjoy being at church. So, as long as there’s “no trouble up there,” I’ll let them sit wherever they want.

Children of the corn

2010-11-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

“And Heavenly Father, thank you that we got out of the corn maze…”

Amen, I said only to myself, because my middle son wasn’t done with the dinner prayer.

“Yeah, and that we got our coins!” my youngest chimed in.

“It’s not your turn!” my oldest scolded.

“Boys!” I gave them both the eye.

We’d spent a rough couple of hours in a corn maze today.

My oldest was in a hurry and the rest of us had to keep admonishing him to slow down. He and his Cub Scout den mates had only just that morning gotten “lost” in the woods because they’d gone too far ahead of the den leader and parents. I wondered, what’s the rush? – There were plenty of fun things to do inside the corn maze, like basketball, mini golf, giant puzzles, and quizzes. And besides, the quicker we got out, the higher the cost per minute. I’d had to whip out the plastic to pony up the entrance fee, and no, we were absolutely not buying any souvenirs.

Their arguments over whose turn it was to lead the way and who was being pokey where interspersed with, “You’re kidding me!” when we reached another dead end or “We’re never gonna get out of here” or “My legs are so tired they won’t move anymore!” or “All I wanna do is get that gold coin…”

Anytime someone leaves the maze, they can bang a gong at the exit. The sound of that gong did not go unnoticed by my kids, who initially were inspired (“They did it, so can we!”), then antagonized (“How come those people figured it out and we can’t?"), and then suspicious (“They must’ve cheated!”).

God help me, I’d said to myself numerous times. There were even a few times when I imagined myself charging through corn stalks like a madwoman, farfaraway from my kids. However, the fine for damaging the maze was stiff, as I repeatedly reminded my youngest, who was trudging along with his hand out tugging on stalks as we passed.

Frequently the kids just plowed ahead. They were looking for “the scorpion bridge,” one of many bridges in the maze that you could either go under or over, punching a circle or making an imprint on the field guide each time. My middle son was convinced it led to the way out.

I cringed as we bypassed paths with no consideration. “Boys, this is an option…” but once we passed it by, we may never figure out how to get back to it. I am sure we walked in circles countless times because we ended up at the same familiar landmarks repeatedly, as noted in our guide. We were fairly certain that route waschanged dynamically by moving sawhorses from time to time to mix things up. One of my older two was fairly certain that the guides were watching us and moving the sawhorses just to throw us off.

“No, honey, I am sure it’s nothing personal,” I assured him.

When the complaining got to be too much, and my oldest had asked me what time it was for the umpteenth time (we had to make it back to town for his basketball jamboree), I asked them, “Should we give up and ask the guides how to get out?”

My youngest was on board, “Yes! I just want the gold coin…”

“But honey, everyone gets the gold coin eventually. Is it going to mean as much if we don’t solve the maze by ourselves?”

My older two could see my point, but my youngest confirmed, he just wanted the coin. I refused to carry him because I was already schlepping almost everything in my backpack, except for one of my older boys’ sweatshirts which I insisted he tie around his waist.

We carried on. I bristled every time I heard the “You’re kidding me!,” “We’re never gonna get out of here,” and “My legs…” chorus.

Finally I’d had it and just in time spotted a potential way out, “Look! Emergency exit! Is this an emergency?”

My youngest looked at me imploringly.

My middle son didn’t want to give up. “Let’s just ask for a clue to the scorpion bridge…”

Relieved, I agreed, “Good plan!” And my youngest appeared shored up with new hope.

We got our clue and it included going through a “do not enter” path. Would we be okay with that, the guide wanted to know. “If you say it’s okay, then it’s okay, right boys?”

They agreed that we could ‘break the rule’ if we had permission.

So, in a matter of moments, we were leaving the maze, banging the gong, and collecting our gold coins. We went our separate ways in the courtyard. My youngest went into the bouncy house, my older two went into the gift shop to look, because I reminded them that I was absolutely not buying any souvenirs, and I walked at my own pace and alone through a stone labyrinth.

On the way home in the car, we debriefed.

“That was hard and sometimes frustrating, wasn’t it, boys?”

“Yeah…” my middle son answered. My oldest already had his nose in his book.

“Well, kind of like life, you don’t always know what’s coming around the next corner.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Well, I’m just happy I got my gold coin!” my youngest piped up.

“Honey, what do you think is more important, the gold coin, or the accomplishment?” I thought about how on his soccer team everyone got a medal for participation. I suppose at age 4 that’s a good thing, but the world doesn’t work that way forever.

“The accomplishment,” my oldest said. Apparently he was listening.

“What if there was no gold coin, would you still feel good about the accomplishment?”

“Yeah,” my middle son said. “I’d have a gold coin inside.”

“It’s okay to ask for help when you’re stuck, you know.”

“Okay, mom.”

They were mostly quiet for the ride home, no doubt worn out from the combination of yard work I’d enforced prior to our excursion (my oldest had done his the afternoon before) and traipsing in circles through three miles of corn stalks for two hours.

In the silence, I was alone with my thoughts. How many times in life does it seem that we are walking in circles? How many times do we look back and wish we had taken another path, one that may no longer be available to us? How many times do we actually ask for help?

I love you, man

2010-10-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

My older two were bickering and wrestling in the kitchen and they had started to kick and get rowdy. Even as I inserted my presence between them, they continued to flail at each other and hurl insults. I told them, as I separated them, one boy in each headlock, “You know, I read about a mom who had her kids sit down across from each other and write down five nice things about each other if they were arguing like you two are.”

They didn’t ask me where I read this tidbit; I’m glad I didn’t need to disclose the fact that I regularly peruse parenting experts’ websites and books for guidance, as well as frequently poll other moms.

I could tell by the exaggerated pained expression on his face that my oldest thought the idea was ridiculous. My middle son, however, slithered out of my grasp and sat down at the kitchen table. He immediately started writing on the mini whiteboard that we use to leave notes to each other, such as “I am on a conference call” (for my oldest who gets home from school at 2:35 or so a couple of days a week) or as a math homework scratch pad (rather than loose leaf notebook paper that ends up crumpled into balls, and thrown God only knows where, like any other ball in the house).

My youngest joined his brother at the table and watched silently, as he wrote without hesitation.

I had relaxed my grip on my oldest and now held him in a firm hug. “You can’t think of anything nice to say about your brother?”

“Nope.”

“C’mon…look at all the nice things he has to say about you! He loves you!”

My middle son was writing fast and furiously.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Of course he does! Just last night I heard him tell you, ‘I love you man,’ at the dinner table.”

“Hmmmmph!” My oldest wouldn’t budge.

His brother, on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat. His “love tank” must have been pretty full. He continued writing steadily until he had filled the white board with the requisite five items (“you’re cool,” “you’re sometimes nice,” “you’re awesome,” “you’re smart,” “you’re sometimes kind”) and he didn’t even get mad at me when I corrected his grammar from “your” to “you’re.”

Because his older brother wasn’t doing it, my youngest and I began singing my middle son’s praises.

“He has a loving heart,” I said.

My youngest looked at me as I continued, “He’s quick to forgive.”

“Yeah, he’s awesome,” my youngest joined in.

“He’s a good athlete.”

“Yeah, he’s awe some.”

“He has really good handwriting, too.

“Yeah, his writing is…awe SOME!”

My oldest started making grumbling noises, so my youngest and I tossed a couple of compliments his way.

“You’re good at sports.”

“Yeah, you’re a really awesome football player!”

“You’re an excellent student, too.”

“Yeah…”

For his grand finale, my middle son summed up our last two comments about his brother, and wrote, “you’re good at both” for a total of six compliments – 20% more than the requirement.

“I have to do my homework,” my oldest said, and disappeared into the living room.

Later, I asked my middle son, “How did you go from fighting mad at your brother to being so nice? It was like you flipped a switch and your love tank was full again.”

“It got full because you and my brother were standing there saying nice things to me.”

“Hmmmm…” I wasn’t so sure that’s all there was to it. I thought about when I have nothing but fumes in my own love tank, and how those are the times that it seems my boys are the most demanding. Because I usually don’t have anyone ‘standing there saying nice things to me,’ I can’t think of any other explanation than the simple act of being loving towards others is a way to fill one’s own love tank.

And until my kids realize that fact for themselves, I’ll continue cheering them on. I'm already their #1 fan.

“…since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” ~ 1 John 4:11-12 NIV

Now available on Amazon.com

2010-10-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

After five years in the making, Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tales, has been published!

Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tales is a compilation of previously unpublished stories as well as some of my best-loved columns including:

~ "What Mommy Says and What They Hear: Our Morning Routine"
~ "To T or not to T"
~ "Schtick and Tired: Comic Themes Related to Sleeping - Or Not"
~ "I Hate You! Wanna Do DS Download?"

And as one reader mentioned previously, the cover does indeed accurately reflect my house (minus the dog).

"Every mother, and every grown child who made her a mother, should read this funny and inspirational book. With many of the stories, you'll wonder whether Poser was in your house taking notes." ~ Angie Mangino, editor and book reviewer

Please share this link with your friends who could use a laugh and a little inspiration.

Thanks, everyone, for your support and encouragement along the publishing journey!

Cone head

2010-10-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

The speed limit sign is above the black mailbox on the left.

“What are those cones for?” a driver asked as she slowed down at the end of my driveway. I was standing there chatting with a dad from the bus stop.

“I see them there every day,” she continued, her car actually having come to a complete stop.

“They’re to warn people to slow down,” I told her. “This is our bus stop. People coming the other way really whip around that corner…” I gestured to the bus that was still at the intersection just up the street, waiting to make a left turn.

“Oh,” she said, noncommittally, as she powered the window back up and took her foot off the brake. The bus had turned and cars were advancing.

The dad and I walked out to retrieve the cones, as one or both of us did every morning. My use of cones is not officially sanctioned by any local authorities; it’s just something I decided to do in my fourth year of waiting at this bus stop and watching people drive too fast, distractedly, or both. I bought the cones in the sporting goods department of Target – they’re the same kind of cones soccer coaches use.

Kids from two other houses come to our bus stop and play basketball in our driveway while we’re waiting for the bus. For the most part, they know not to cross the white line that divides the road from the thin no-man’s-land strip of pavement before our lawn and driveway. (We have no sidewalk on our side.) But sometimes they get overly enthusiastic about chasing a ball and don’t stop short enough for our comfort.

“What? I didn’t go in the street. I was just near the street!” Technically that’s true, and kids are always looking for that little loophole, aren’t they?

The speed limit on our street is 25 m.p.h. Most people going east, will naturally slow down, because there’s a stop sign at the end of the road, or sometimes traffic is backed up a little, as we live one house away from the intersection. But people traveling west, have just come off of Main Street where the speed limit is definitely not 25 m.p.h., and whatever it is, no one seems to care anyway. If it’s past 8:30, which it is when we’re out at the bus stop, if commuters are not driving fast, they’re probably going to be late for work, if they aren’t already. Many of them are talking on their cell phones.

I am not spotless here. Before I was the one waiting with kids at the bus stop, I was the one rushing to get to work. Prior to my becoming a telecommuter, I had to drop my kids at daycare/early start (in the opposite direction as my commute) and then make a beeline for work. I remember being annoyed if I got stuck behind a school bus, thinking, “Why does the bus have to stop at every single house? When I was a kid…” Of course I knew not to pass a school bus, but I am sure there were times that I was following too closely.

And I talked on the phone. There was a Monday morning conference call that I had to be on every week at 7:30. There was no way I could do that from the office as I couldn’t drop my kids off early enough to get to the office in time. It would have been a career-limiting move not to “show up” for the meeting. There were other times that I called the traffic advisory, so I could be sure to choose the best route to get to my destination: sometimes the highway was backed up. I am grateful I no longer have to make this choice. If I have an early conference call, which I often do, because I work with people in geographies with eight-and-a-half to 10 or more hours ahead time differences (please don’t ask about the half hour, I still don’t get it), I don’t have to be in the car. The biggest mistake I’m likely to make is putting the wrong yogurt in someone’s lunch or forgetting someone else’s sandwich altogether (which I did last week).

According to AAA, distracted driving – including the use of cell phones – is a major contributor to automobile crashes. Between 4,000 and 8,000 crashes related to distracted driving occur daily in the United States. In a year, they contribute to as many as one-half of the 6 million U.S. crashes reported annually.

Regardless of whether or not our kids are aware of bus stop safety, accidents can still happen. When I bought the house that we live in now, the woman who owned it previously handed over a dossier of photographs. The house used to have an enclosed front porch. When I asked what happened to it, she told me that one night, someone had sped around the corner from Main Street and driven into it, destroying it. If someone were to drive around the corner from Main Street into our front porch now, our bus stop would be in the line of fire.

AAA states that distractions can include anything from eating a sandwich, tending to small children, conversing with a passenger or gazing at objects outside the vehicle. Some of these are activities I participate in regularly. Who doesn’t? Most of the time I’m in the car is because I have to take the kids somewhere and usually we’re talking. But why complicate things further with speeding or cell phone use?

Did you know that October 4-8 was National “Drive Safely to Work Week”? Please consider sharing this message to increase awareness of the dangers of distracted driving. Make every week “Drive Safely to Work Week!” Thank you!

The office visit

2010-09-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

I glanced at my cell phone and saw that it was my kids’ elementary school calling, so I muted my conference call and answered the phone.

“This is So-and-so, principal of the abc elementary school.”

I knew exactly who she was. “Oh, hi!” I said. Was I being too cheerful? While we had chatted cordially while I was at school for one thing or another and I had received many a recorded message from her over the years, the personal call felt a little ominous to me.

“We have a problem.”

“We do? Who is we?”

“Your youngest. He’s sitting in my office."

“Oh, no! Really? Him?”

“Can you come in?” I had told my son’s teacher during our conversation after the last almost-office visit (averted when my son decided to make a “better choice” at the last minute while on the way to the office) that I was just up the street and would be happy to come in and support any sort of disciplinary action.

“Okay, I’ll be there in 5 – no 10 – minutes.” I remembered I wasn’t all the way dressed in leaving-the-house clothes. I picked up my office phone and realized that the conference call was about to conclude anyway so I hung up, and sent an IM to the moderator to apologizing for the premature hangup, since I know how rude it is to hear people beeping out at the conclusion of a meeting before it’s actually over, and set my online status to “stepped away.”

I slipped on a jean skort and changed from my athletic slide shoes to a pair of “dress flip flops,” rearranged my hair and was on my way. When I got to the school, I realized I better get rid of the gum I was chewing, but added lip gloss to my otherwise un-made up face. (My mom never went anywhere without lipstick, and while my brother and I used to bust her about it, now I have become her.) I felt like I was the one in trouble.

I got to the office and the office ladies said, “No need to sign in!” Apparently they all knew I wasn’t there to volunteer that day.

I saw my son sitting in the inner sanctum of the office eating his lunch. Mrs. So-and-so headed me off and debriefed me. I imagined he was having a hard time getting back into the swing after being out of school sick for four days during his second full week of kindergarten. Or maybe he just really didn’t feel like doing the work. Or both.

We sat down and together with him and I listened as she gave me the little-ears overview of the situation: my son has a disrespectful attitude and refused to do his work, and some of the things that he had told her, such as, “My brothers want me to get in trouble.”

And though I had the sense that my comments hadn’t been necessary up to that point, I chimed in, “Of course they don’t, honey – do you know neither one of them have ever had an office visit?” I wasn’t going to let his brothers be the scapegoats, a recurring theme in our family in which he reveled and through which I had begun to see.

Ultimately, my son’s teacher came in to join the meeting. When he apologized, they returned to class together, and I returned to my home office for my 12:00 p.m. conference call, feeling once again like “the worst mother in the world.” In fact I obsessed about that for the whole hour with my walking buddies later that afternoon.

That evening at dinner, before I could bring it up, my youngest blurted out the story of his office visit to his brothers.

“Wait, what?” his oldest brother perked up.

“No, you didn’t! Really? What did you do?” my middle son asked.

“I didn’t want to do my work and I pushed the papers off the table. I said ‘whatever’ and ‘I don’t care’ to Mrs. So-and-so.”

And, because my youngest had dragged his brothers through the mud, I added, “He told the principal that you guys wanted him to get in trouble.” The ensuing conversation went something like this.

Oldest: “We do not!”

Middle: “You can’t tell her that!”

Oldest: “Oh my gosh, I’m embarrassed that you’re my brother!”

I gasped inwardly and put my hand on my youngest’s knee. “See, they definitely don’t want you to get in trouble. I don’t want you to get in trouble either!”

Middle: “Geez, just because you don’t wanna to do something doesn’t mean you don’t haveta do it!”

Oldest: “Yeah, and you can’t talk back to your teacher! That’s like, really bad.”

Middle: “Yeah – really, really bad!”

My youngest looked at his brothers with wide eyes and said nothing, but the gears must have been turning because it’s been a week and I haven’t received any more phone calls from school officials.

The Dish About Finding Time with God

2010-09-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

“I’m sorry he hasn’t had time to look at your dishwasher…” my friend told me. She had volunteered her husband to fix my leaking appliance about a week prior.

“Please don’t give it another thought,” I told her. I knew they were in the midst of their own home improvement project, which had become more pressing as they discovered hazardous materials that needed removing.

Truthfully, there is no hurry on my end. I don’t welcome the idea of allocating a line item on our household budget to an appliance repair (after financing summer childcare and a subsequent huge car maintenance fee).

And while I do like the ease of putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I’m not a big fan of taking them out and putting them in the cupboards. There have actually been clean dishes sitting in the dishwasher since last time I ran it, which was easily more than three weeks ago, maybe even a month or more – I’ve lost track of time during the back-to-school rush of middle-school homework (I learned that I am not smarter than a fifth grader, but I do know how to look things up), making lunches, processing all the paperwork that comes home in three sets of backpacks, and working around a kindergartner who was sick for the entire second week of school – just the other day we found our missing 8th spoon, in the dishwasher (#s 5, 6, and 7 turned up outside, in the man cave, and in the boys’ room respectively).

The other night as my oldest son and I were discussing the bonus incentive part of the kids’ allowance plan, he suggested that loading the dishes could be one of the chores he did. I reminded him, “Our dishwasher’s broken, remember?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been using it.”

“Then how do you do the dishes?”

“The same way I did them as a kid. I fill up the largest container with soapy water, like a pot or bowl, depending on what was cooked. Then I put all the silverware and small items in there. Then I wash all the dishes with the blue sponge – the yellow sponge is just for counters. When I have finished all the dishes…”

“Yuck – that sounds awful!”

“Well, it’s not, really,” I realized as I was explaining this to him. I began to reminisce about my own childhood, when homework and chores were my only concerns. I didn’t tell him about the summer I lived up in Maine and had to heat the water that I had called forth with a large cast iron hand pump on the propane stove in order to do the dishes. The water from the deep well was so cold my hands would ache if I didn’t heat it. I knew my son wouldn’t be able to relate, just as he has no concept of life before cable – or even color – TV, or of when no one considered leaving home with their phones in their pockets because they were hardwired to the wall. “The way I do it probably uses less water than the dishwasher…”

“I don’t think dishes should be one of my chores. Not until the dishwasher’s fixed, anyway. But actually, I hate unloading it!”

“Yeah, that’s not my favorite part, either.” Normally I suggest a different word than ‘hate’ but this time I did not. I guess it runs in the family. “I can teach you how to do the dishes by hand…uncle and I used to switch off every other night…”

“No – I think I’d rather learn how to do laundry.”

That was an intriguing thought. Lately, with football season in full swing, I had started separating the laundry – not the usual way, by colors – but by his and hers. I wasn’t going to put any of my fine washables in with football girdles and socks and the like. I remember thinking in early August when the season started that I had finally discovered something stinkier than a diaper that needed changing.

Plus, I decided I didn’t want to give up doing the dishes: it offers an opportunity to stand in one spot for ten minutes at a time, being alone with my thoughts, and looking out the window over the sink – a break in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

If I choose to look at doing the dishes as an opportunity to re-set, re-focus, and even pray, rather than an unpleasant chore I have to rush through before I move to the next to-do, I can stop feeling guilty that I don’t start my day with devotional readings and that I never seem to find that half an hour of uninterrupted time during the day to mediate or “sit with God.” Standing with God works. For that matter, kneeling on the floor while I clean up the latest mess, whether it be purple grape juice splattered on my white cabinets or the shattered window from the front door that one of my football players stiff-armed, if done prayerfully (“Thank you that I remembered to get Mr. Clean Magic Sponges last time I was at Target” or “Thank you that he didn’t shred his arm”), is time with God. Just a moment – if spent with God – can be the eye of my hurricane.

“He doesn’t need to rush on my account,” I told my friend. “I don’t really mind doing the dishes by hand.”

Be still, and know that I am God. ~Psalm 46:10 NIV

The first will be last

2010-09-08T20:45:00.001-07:00

Well, alright -- this is the rather free-associative post I just published on Working Mother.com. I haven't been "thinking in stories" lately, which is likely par for the course during the whirlwind first week of school with my oldest going to middle school, and my baby going to kindergarten without looking back -- literally (note photo). Nope, don't want to address that "mothermorphosis" at all right now.

My next story will likely be about our visit to the dentist yesterday and how one of my sons actually told the dental hygienist that he doesn't have time to brush, and her very amusing reply, which prompted him to brush upon arrival home prior to football practice. I had to leave the room when I heard it. We love our dentist's office because we can schedule three appointments simultaneously and they have a big fish tank. The time-crunched son ironically has no cavities. One of my other two does, and we go back for the filling tomorrow.

Sports nut

2010-09-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

“If I die, I hope I’m playing a sport.”

“Huh?” My son had just collapsed into the car after a two-plus hour football practice in full pads in 90 degree heat. He was soaking wet and his pads were stinky. I knew this because he needed me to help him shrug them off. (And I learned early on to spray the pads with Febreze and leave them out on the porch.) I hoped he didn’t feel like he was actually going to die.

“Even if I’m old, I want to be playing a sport.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad you’re that psyched about sports.” And I was. They burn off boy energy and enable on-time bedtime. They virtually eliminate food arguments because kids work up enough of an appetite to eat without being too picky. They build character: the coach told the kids they could wear their game jerseys to school the next day, and he “better not hear about anyone wearing a number getting into trouble.” (I heard the coach say this but I let my son repeat it to me.). They also provide community: my oldest entered a new school this year and didn’t have anyone he knew in class except for two kids on his football team. I asked him who he ate lunch with today, and he said, “other kids from the team.”

“Yeah, and if I’m really old, I could be watching a sport. I could be sitting in my minivan, watching sports on the DVD player.”

(I know he doesn’t think our station wagon is all that cool – he’s told me we should paint racing stripes on it.)

I could tell he was blissed out by the mere idea of that. Or maybe he was a little dehydrated.

"Want your Gatorade, honey?"

The best part of the day

2010-08-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

“What was your favorite part of the day?” I asked my middle son from behind the curtain as he was showering. He doesn’t like to be in the bathroom alone so I had the human towel rack job.

“The batting cages,” he replied, without hesitation. He was the one who had reminded me that we needed to squeeze the batting cages in one more time before school started, even though we’re now entering week four of the football season. We went to a local place with many other premium attractions vying for our dollars. At the end of the day, when I tallied up all I had spent, I realized that I probably could have paid for half of a pitching machine instead. And so began the debate in my head about buying "things" versus "experiences," which is why I was asking the question to begin with.

I knew the batting cages were the worst part of the day for my youngest. He had brought his own bat this time, but couldn’t find a small enough batting helmet that didn’t have a face mask on it among the rental helmets (he does not have his own; he hasn’t even played a season of t-ball yet…as if anyone needs batting helmet in t-ball, anyway). He refused the face-mask helmets because he knew they were for softball, which is a “girl sport,” even though we always set his pitching machine on “slow pitch,” which means it spews out softballs. We finally convinced him to wear one of his older brothers’ helmets, but when he stepped into the batters box, it was too sunny, and he refused to swing the bat after his first strike. I yanked him out in a hurry and shoved one of his brothers in to finish his turn. We’d bought enough tokens for nearly 200 pitches and while his brothers alternated turns in the cage, I tried to console my youngest. It got old after about 50 pitches when every time I told one of The Bigs, “Wow, nice hit!” or “Waddaya know – another home run!” his piped up with something along the lines of “I stink” or “I’m a loser.”

Finally, I got fed up with the wah-wah and I told him, “Look. You are not going to be able to change the world to suit your needs, so I strongly suggest you change your attitude to get along in the world. Maybe next time you’ll think about bringing sunglasses along.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Of course you do. You have so many you can’t keep track of them.” I could think of at least three pairs offhand: Spider man, Power Rangers, and Cars – one of which was on the floor in my room.

When it was my oldest’s turn in the shower, I asked him from behind the closed door after I heard the water stop (he likes his privacy but still wants me nearby), what was his favorite part of the day.

“You are, mom,” he said.

“Awwww, you’re such a nice boy.”

“Really, mom, I love spending time with you,” he said as he came out of the bathroom dripping wet with one hand clutching his towel around his waist and the other holding his bundle of dirty clothes.

“Thanks, honey. I'm glad I took the day off,” I said, kissing his wet head.

But then I felt a twinge of guilt, because I did look at my work some in the morning and while doing so had been annoyed with my kids. They were just doing normal things kids do, like trying on all their costumes and running around the house shrieking; shooting Nerf guns at each other; eating chips and soda in their room while they finished a movie we had rented from the kiosk in the supermarket the night before, which resulted in crumbs and spillage. Alliances changed a few times, which resulted in some name calling, tattling, my middle son cutting out the gum that he stuck on my youngest’s hair (so much for the professional back-to-school-haircut); my numerous thwarted attempts to divide and conquer; and at last, my giving up trying to work (which, when I put in for the day off, I knew would be impossible, since camp was over and school hadn’t started yet, so by what reasoning I should attempt to accomplish anything this day, I do not know) when my youngest somehow got a bloody head wound, for which his brother was truly remorseful. After cleaning him up and doling out a Diego bandage, I told the boys we’d leave as soon as they got the place in order and oh-by-the-way, if they left any Nerf gun darts lying around, they were going in the trash (ultimately I threw out nearly a dozen).

“Can you take your clothes downstairs and throw them in the machine and start the wash, please?”

“Okay, mom.”

A little while later when I heard the washing machine buzz, I went downstairs to move everything into the dryer. As I passed through the man cave, I asked my youngest what was his favorite part of the day.

“Oh. When we were golfing. And we got to hit the ball through water."

“Oh, yeah…what was that, the 14th hole?”

“No, mom, that was at the end when the balls get returned," my oldest chimed in.

“Oh, no, I think he means that hole where you’re supposed to hit the ball into the water and it gets carried to the right place on the green…if you’re lucky…you know, your brother’s favorite hole…”

“Huh?” his brother took his eyes off the TV.

“It was the last hole you played,” my oldest informed him. Mini golf was probably the least favorite part of my middle son’s day. He spent a good portion of the time complaining about how crowded it was (and truthfully, I am surprised it wasn’t regulated with staggered start times the way California highway on ramps are with signal lights to moderate the flow of traffic) or how thirsty he was. He couldn’t stay focused and had begun splashing in the waterways that surrounded the course. He lost his ball, and after returning from getting a new one, began complaining in earnest with great dramatic flourish about how dry his throat was. I thrust some money at him and told him to go get something to drink when he insisted that it was because they didn’t have water fountains in the office that he came back thirsty. He held out to play his “favorite hole” with the built-in waterway, but then never returned, which was actually fine by the rest of us. We found him later watching the bumper boats.

In case anyone is wondering, my favorite part of the day was going to the playground in the early evening not long after we got home. My oldest convinced my middle son that they could indeed ride to the playground on their own: he had just two days prior taken his first solo trip to meet a friend “halfway” on the rail trail and had brought his own spending money for a foray to the Dunkin’ Donuts downtown, which is just a block off the trail. He’d had a taste of freedom. The Bigs rode ahead while my youngest and I trailed behind, not necessarily together, as he is also testing his “wings.” Eventually we all wound up in the same place, and on the same page – no one whined, fought, or complained for more than an hour – family peace and harmony is my favorite part of any given day.

Choose Joy

2010-08-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

“Make sure you choose Joy®…” I called after my son. We were in the supermarket and his assignment was dish soap. His brothers had been dispatched in different directions: one’s mission was milk and the other was headed to the bakery.

“Uh huh,” he said, without turning around. I say the same thing every time we need dish detergent.

We always get Joy dishwashing liquid. I like the orange kind (because the color goes with the walls in my kitchen) but will buy the lemon variety if that’s the only kind available. Even though I have a soap dispenser built into my sink, I keep the bottle out so we can see the label.

It’s a good reminder for my family and me to think about joy. Joy is a choice. We may not be able to control everything that happens in life, but we can control our attitudes about it.

Not long ago I came across a speech my late mother had delivered one year at a Relay for Life event. My mom was a cancer survivor. She talked about that and mentioned that she had “also experienced the terrible disappointment of divorce – and financial disaster, too.” But she didn’t want to focus on the hardships. She challenged us to choose our attitudes, choose our experiences, choose to be the best people we can be, choose to create the life that we want to live.

And she concluded with “Choose joy! And let your light shine brightly in the world.”

Everyone experiences hardship in life. God allows trials and tribulations to help us grow into the people we were meant to be, to draw us closer to Him. He will never give us more than we can handle with His help.

I can choose to be happy even if I don’t get the raise I’d hoped for. My kids can endeavor to be good sports even when they lose a baseball game. We can find moments of joy even during times of great sadness like loss of a loved one.

I remembered the time when I had flung myself face down on my bed, sobbing, lamenting that I felt completely alone and resentful that I was in charge of “everything.” I could no longer call my mom to ask “How do you cook leftover lasagna without drying it out?” Or “Can you take so-and-so to soccer practice?” Or “Do these shoes work with this skirt?” Or “Do you want to come over for dinner and ‘Family Movie Night?’ ”

But I couldn’t indulge in self-pity for too long; I know I’m not really in charge anyway. That much was perfectly clear when my mom, who was healthy and vibrant just the weekend before she was hospitalized, became sick overnight, slipped into a coma the next day, and passed away less than two days after that. People asked me, “How?” “Why?” “Had she been sick?” “I don’t know,” “I don’t know,” and “No,” were all I could answer. Doctors couldn’t explain it either. Only God knew. It is through trials that we learn to have faith, to let go and let God work in our lives.

One of the joys during the time of my mother’s passing was witnessing God’s children come together for a common purpose. It didn’t matter what religious denomination they were or whether they were affiliated with any church at all, they allowed God’s love to pour through them to my family and me, and each other, as we tried to come to terms with a sudden and unexpected loss.

One day recently when I was wondering if I really was “the worstest mother in the world,” I was trudging along the rail trail with the proverbial dark cloud looming overhead. It had been a thankless morning. However, if I hadn’t been walking so slowly, I wouldn’t have noticed that the black raspberries on the bushes alongside the trail had begun to ripen. This was enough of a bright spot in my morning: a seed of happiness that led to hope, that restored my joy and my faith that everything will and does work out for the good.

Sometimes sadness or pain is a little wake up call that something needs to be changed, such as our approach to solving a problem or even just our attitudes.

Because the detergent my son chose that day proclaims that it’s not only “Ultra Joy” but also antibacterial soap, we’ve been using it for bubble baths. My boys bathe regularly in “out-of-the ordinary, extreme” joy.

As my mother said, “Choose joy! And let your light shine brightly in the world.”

Cleaning house

2010-08-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

Housework as a form of meditation?

(My recent blog on WorkingMother.com)

Brusha brusha brusha

2010-08-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

This picture really has nothing to do with the story.
“Mom, can I have a mint?”

“Oh, me, too!”

“Yeah, and me.”

I handed the little jeweled tin back to the boy who asked me first. They all managed to help themselves without arguing or spilling the mints.

One of my sons, who will remain anonymous, told me, “I have four mints in my mouth.”

“Wow!" I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, yet wondering what was the big deal for someone who regularly has twice that many pieces of gum in his mouth at any given time. "Is that some sorta record?”

“No. I just forgot to brush.”

“You forgot? How do you forget to brush!?”

“Well, I got up late…” I recalled what time he got up and the things I witnessed him doing in the 45 minutes between then and when we left for camp, which included watching a T.V. show, and admiring his silly band collection.

I asked one of his brothers, also unidentified, “Did you brush?”

“Uhhhhhm…”

“I brushed, Mom!” The last unnamed brother announced proudly.

“Yes, I’m glad to know that, honey.” He and I had a conversation about brushing the night before, when I had quoted a phrase from my former dentist’s wall, “God gave you teeth; you best take care – you’ll have to buy the second pair.” (The “pair” part always bothered me but I like the gist of it.) He’d told me he was “too tired” to get back up and brush, and promised to do it in the morning, which he did – I saw him.

To the other two, I asked, “When was the last time you brushed?”

“Uhhhhm…”

“Do you even remember?”

“Well, maybe two days ago?”

“Gross! What about you?”

“Yeah. It was two days ago,” he confirmed, but I wondered if that was an under-estimate akin to the answers we give when the pediatrician asks how many hours a day the T.V. is on, or when the treadmill at the gym asks “body weight.”

“Boys!”

What? We were busy!

“Yeah, we’ll brush tonight. We promise.”

“No matter how busy I might be, I still make time to brush.”

“But you get to stay home all day, Mommy!”

Do they assume I am sitting at home in my pajamas watching Nickelodeon and eating toaster pastries (which is what they would be doing if they could)?

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

2010-08-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Photo caption: Candle light does nothing to improve the ambience of summer math homework.

I got this voicemail today:

“Good afternoon this is So-and-so on behalf of middle school math department. I’m calling to remind you to be working on your summer math packet. I hope that you’re getting close to finishing it and have enjoyed your practice time…”

On the last day of school, my oldest had been assigned homework for the summer. Aside from summer reading, he was given four pages of 100 math problems and nine pages of more word problems than I felt like counting. I have nudged this normally proactive and intrinsically motivated child several times to do this homework. It’s a really sore subject around our house, and the only contentious thing that I can recall discussing with him all summer.

I did a triple take with this message before I decided to delete it. Clearly it wasn’t meant for me, since it’s not my summer math homework. (Technically it’s not mine, but I’ve probably looked at it, worried about it, and moved it around the house more than my son has. I even lost it once; currently it is in my room.) But there was no way I was going to torture my oldest with it. Who enjoys summer math homework?

Students are instructed to show their work, which is something we debate hotly every time we got out the homework in addition to whether or not he should do the challenge questions. The first set of challenge questions I looked at with him was interesting and fun (I tried to make it seem that way, anyway); the second set was horrifying. I couldn’t imagine how any 5th grader could figure out the answer to one of the questions. I hoped it wasn’t just me, so I brought it up with a couple of other moms at baseball one night and we all agreed that it was, indeed, an extra challenge.

Tonight while The Bigs were at football, my youngest and I were having dinner and talking about kindergarten and his first day of school.

“I hate school,” he told me. I wondered where he got that idea. Thanks a lot So-and-so from the middle school math department.

After football practice, shower, and snack, I asked my oldest if he wanted to look at his math homework with me.

“No!” he snarled, and looked at me like I was an alien who had just arrived from a galaxy far far away.

“Do you want me to organize a ‘math party’ with your friends?” The helpful hints in the math packet suggest “you might consider having your child complete the packet with a friend – perhaps a “math study group” would be in order!!” (Note two exclamation points for extreme emphasis.)

“No!!” he looked alarmed. “They’ve probably all done it already, anyway.” The poor kid is in his own personal hell with this homework. Thanks a lot So-and-so from the middle school math department!

"I just want to hang around with you, mom." So we sat in my room and looked at a photo album with pictures of him from babyhood through preschool graduation, while his brothers watched a Jackie Chan movie from the BlockBuster kiosk. I imagine that starting middle school is probably daunting enough in itself without the summer math homework looming on the horizon.

<><><>

Extra challenge problem #1 (optional)

Each of the numbers 0 to 9 is represented by one of the letters A to J. Figure out which letters represent which numbers. As you find a value for each letter, write it in the key.

E-F = B
J-I = F
E+E = FH
E+E = FH (I am not sure if this is a mistake or we are intentionally being thrown a curve ball here, but why repeat the same equation?)
I+J = FE
GEG- FDA = EAA
DA+H = DA

A =
B =
C = (not actually on the list, again are we being thrown a curve ball? It can be calculated by process of elimination, though.)
D =
E =
F =
G =
H =
I =
J =

<><><>

Extra challenge problem #2 (not optional)

School starts two weeks from tomorrow. My son has seven pages left to finish. How many more arguments are we going to have before the first day of school?

Thanks a lot So-and-so from the middle school math department!

Man up

2010-08-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our first football practice. Because of that, I told the boys they should sleep in this morning -- that there would be no TV -- and eat a good breakfast before camp. My youngest was unhappy with the no TV idea and pitched a fit – he would have “run away” if I hadn’t stopped him from going out the door. Other than that, the morning was smooth without TV.

After camp, they ate a healthy snack and then got their equipment ready. Then they went out to play kickball in the back yard.

When I told them it was time to go, they did not argue or procrastinate. They filled their own water bottles.

There were some nerves and uncertainty, since they had missed the first night of practice because they’re wrapping up their summer baseball season, but I pointed them both in the right directions and propelled them forward.

I wound up staying for the first hour of practice, mainly because there were so many other moms I hadn’t seen in a while. (Most of my social life revolves around my kids' sports). My youngest was climbing a tree with the sibling club.

Then my youngest and I went to the supermarket, brought all the groceries home and put them away, and got back to practice about 10 minutes before it ended. More socializing ensued.

When The Bigs were done, they dropped their gear at my feet and went off to run around some more. My oldest told me he thought he’d work on his summer homework tonight (without mentioning how much he hates school and how stupid his homework is).

We got home at 8:15 after recapping the practice for the whole ride. One of our neighbors came over to visit for a bit (and my middle son demonstrated some of his new skills, like the right way to recover a fumble), but I had to send him home so that my boys could have showers and dinner. We ate in the living room and worked on a puzzle together. The boys cleaned their plates.

The TV was not on all day, until after dinner when I told the boys they could watch a movie in their room as soon as they put their laundry away, which they did without complaining or bargaining. (We recently hooked up a DVD player to a second-hand TV so they don’t have to watch movies in my room.) (Despite his good intentions, my oldest put the summer homework off again.) They chose The Polar Express.

They were out like lights within 15 minutes, in their own room!

I love football!

White what?

2010-08-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

At camp pick up recently, the counselor handed me a folded piece of paper as I was signing the kids out. I thought, uh, oh, did someone get in trouble today? Because those are usually the only occasions I get notes, unless it’s an injury report, which is also not uncommon.

“What’s this?” I asked as I was opening it. We were double booked for baseball and football that evening, and baseball was starting half an hour earlier than usual, so I really didn’t have time to deviate from our agenda, even if it was only reading and digesting this piece of information.

“Oh, we’re going to tie dye tomorrow. The note says you can bring in a pair of socks, since we didn’t give that much notice and you might not have time to get a white shirt if you don't have one you want to tie dye.”

I folded the note back up. “Oh, well…they don’t have any white socks. Actually, they don’t have any white anything. My boys wear black socks, black underwear…

“Mah-ahm!” one of them interrupted. “TMI!”

I learned a long time ago that if any of the boys’ clothes ever were white, they weren’t going to stay that way very long. Their socks and unmentionables are indeed black, for the most part, and there are a few gray, blue, and red pieces in the mix. Their shirts are the same. Not only do stains not show, but also I have the added benefit of not having to separate my laundry, unless it's mine from theirs (I don't wash my stuff with their sports uniforms).

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2010-08-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

My blog on WorkingMother.com

Breakfast of Champions

2010-07-31T20:08:00.001-07:00

“I don’t feel like playing baseball anymore.” My middle son was playing with toy soldiers on the floor in my office.

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Well, just summer ball, really…I mean, I like baseball...”

I wondered if he didn’t feel that he had enough free time in the summer. As it was, his baseball and football seasons would be overlapping.

“Oh, well, your season is just about over. Today is your first tournament game…”

My sentence trailed off as I realized he was probably worried about the pressure of competition. The tournament had actually started last week, but the top three teams (his was #2) didn’t have to play the first round.

“Yeah, who are we playing?”

“You’re playing abc team. They finished the season 5th overall.”

“Well, if we beat them today, then who are we playing?”

“Let’s look it up. I think they update the standings every night.”

He came over to my computer. I navigated to the tournament website. “You’re playing the winner of the game at 1:00 today. Let’s see who those teams are.”

When I pointed out that he had already beat both of those teams, told me, “Yeah, well, I hope xyz team loses. I don’t want to play them again.”

“You had a great game that day!” Xyz team finished the season in first place; their one loss was to our team.

“I hope I can pitch today.”

“You will be, your coach already told me.”

“I hope I can pitch three innings.”

“The more strikes you throw, the longer you can pitch. Just do your best.” There’s a 50-pitch per game rule.

“What if…”

“…we just focus on today’s game. You can’t win Monday’s game today.”

He went on, “They were really hard to beat. I hope they lose today. I’d rather play the other team.”

“You never know, but really, I wouldn’t waste time worrying about it now. Just do your best today and listen to your coach and I’m sure you’ll have a great game. Remember, you had 'Breakfast of Champions' today."

My son had recently graduated from Cocoa Krispies® and other pre-sweetened cereal to Wheaties®. I was certain that no matter how many spoonfuls of sugar he added, it would still be less than what he was consuming with the other cereals, plus the first ingredient on the box is “whole wheat.” I leveraged the sports-themed marketing campaign to convince him.

“You have to tell me as soon as you know who wins that game. Check the website at 2:30,” he instructed as he left the room. “I’m gonna go have more Breakfast of Champions now.”

Aye aye, Cap'n. Uh huh. “Well...I'm not so sure they’ll update the website again until tonight.” I wasn’t planning to tell him anything either way about the other game. Why add fuel to his worry-about-the-future fire? “And anyway, wouldn’t that be ‘Lunch of Champions?’ ” Then I realized the game wouldn’t be over at 2:30 – in fact, it would probably still be going on when we arrived at the field for warm-ups.

Not much later he came back upstairs fully dressed in his uniform and started obsessing again.

“We can pray about it if you want.”

“I already did.”

I was momentarily impressed. I imagined him sitting with his bowl of cereal thanking God for his gifts and talents and asking Him to help him use them to glorify Him in the game today and so on…”

“I prayed that xyz team would lose today.”

“Oh.” More discussion ensued, along with additional review of the entire season (the whole season was documented online), further analysis of standings, and subsequently predictions about possible outcomes, during which time his brothers had gravitated to my office. “What are you doing?”

“Talking about baseball.”

My middle son chimed in, “The team we play Monday is the team we beat by one. It all came down to that last pitch...we barely won.”

My oldest asked, “Yeah, well, who are you playing today?”

“Abc team. They finished 5th overall,” he answered, parroting the answer I had given him earlier.

“Would you encourage your brother, please? He's obsessing.” I enlisted his older brother to give him a pep talk.

“You’re gonna win today,” was the extent of his input.

“I’m not worried about today’s game…” he snapped at his brother, who was taken aback by my middle son’s huffiness.

“You can’t win Monday’s game today,” I sighed.

Thought Power

2010-07-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

“There sure are a lot more VWs around these days,” my middle son commented.

“You think so, honey?” The kids had learned recently how to play Punch Buggy and had extended the game to include all versions of Volkswagens. They are in their glory (and I hold my breath) when we drive down Daniel Webster Highway past the VW dealership.

“Punch Buggy Red! No punch backs!”
“VW! Blue one.”
“Green one.”
“Black one.”
Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!
“Hey” – whack – “I said no punch backs!”
A melee usually ensues.

“Yeah, I never used to see them before,” he replied.

“Well, does that mean they weren’t there? Or that you just didn’t notice them?” Volkswagen reintroduced the new beetle in 1998, so while there was a period of time in my lifetime where you didn’t see too many, they have always been around for his.

Silence.

I continued, “This is just like the idea that if you think everyone is grumpy and miserable, you’re going to run into grumpy and miserable people. But if you think most people are happy and cheerful, those will be the people you encounter. It can really color your outlook.” I used that as an example for my youngest’s benefit. He had the dark cloud over his head that morning.

More silence.

“Okay, here’s another example. Before I was a mom, I didn’t think so much about babies. But after I became a mom, I saw babies everywhere! And now that I don’t have any babies anymore (also for my youngest’s benefit) now I don’t see babies so much, I see all big kids.”

Silence again.

“Okay, let’s look at a more similar – and perhaps relevant – scenario. Jeeps.” The Bigs, especially have become super aware of cars these days. So much so that I have begun similarly raising their awareness of what kinds of jobs they’d be qualified for as young teens in order to begin financing the cars of their dreams.

“Why don’t you see what happens when you affirm, ‘I will see a Jeep wherever I go.’ ”

Silence.

“Go ahead. Say it.”

My youngest went first, “I will see a Jeep wherever I go.” I could hear his eyes rolling in the tone of his voice.

“Oh, look at that – a Jeep, right in CVS parking lot!”

“Oh! Yeah!” my youngest said, excitedly.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed my middle son perk up and acknowledge the Jeep. “Your turn, honey.”

He said, reluctantly, “I will see a Jeep wherever I go.”

As we turned down the street towards their day camp, we did, indeed see the Jeep parked in our friends’ driveway. (Luckily this was my ace in the hole because we didn't see one before that.)

Beep beep beep. I honked as we drove by.

When it was time to go to baseball practice that night, I asked the boys to repeat their affirmation. Lo and behold, on the way to practice and in the field of dreams parking lot itself, we saw more Jeeps than we could even count. After practice, were escorted all the way to our next destination by a Jeep that had pulled out in front of us.

“I guess it works,” my son concluded.

“Yes, honey, it definitely works. Not always within the time frame you expect (sometimes it was a few minutes after affirming that he would see a Jeep before he actually saw one) and sometimes not in the form you might want (sometimes he saw the SUV variety as opposed to the roofless and doorless ATV style that he preferred).

I have begun teaching my children to apply the principles of the law of attraction to other life situations.

“I can’t do this stoopid math homework!”
“If you think you can’t, you can’t. If you think you can, you can.”

“I can’t hit past the short stop.”
“If you say so…”

“I can’t reach the faucet.”
“If you…”
“I know, I know…you don’t haveta say it! I’ll get the stool.”

We’ve also become wary of using the words “always” and “never.”

“Our team always loses” might become “our team has lost up until now, but the past is history and tomorrow’s a mystery.”

“I never get to go first” could be “My turn to go first will come.”

I want my boys to know that they have the power to create their own reality, depending on how they think and where they direct their energy. The mind is a powerful force. As Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

I will see a Jeep wherever I go.

Just show up

2010-07-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

My middle son had a terrible sun burn after apparently spending a good portion of the day shirtless at an amusement park, complete with enormous blisters on his shoulders. Two days later, he had made it through his first day of summer camp, but was adamantly opposed to going to his baseball scrimmage that night because the blisters had begun bursting. I told him he owed it to his team to show up, whether he played or not.

I had called the pediatrician that day for advice on how to treat the burn – after doing too much internet research, I had mixed messages. So when we got home from camp, as the doctor suggested, I gave my son an ibuprofen, had him take off his shirt (which was an agonizing ordeal, complete with much wincing, since he “couldn’t move” his arms), and rest in the recliner in the man cave (our basement where the TV is). I sprayed him with the aloe vera spray I bought on the way home from camp (as opposed to the spray I bought on the way to camp that contained lidocaine, since I imagined that would sting where the blisters had popped), and then put ice packs on his shoulders.

I checked on him a couple of times during the next 45 minutes while I was moving laundry around. I noticed his spirits improve, but am not sure if it was from the pharmaceuticals or the attention. He became more amenable to the idea of putting on his uniform, with the caveat that he remain “on the disabled list.”

I helped him dress. It was difficult to persuade him to do this expeditiously, not only since he had convinced himself he wouldn’t be playing, but also because he was being dramatic, and “couldn’t move” his arms. “You gotta show up, honey. On time.”

We got to the field with just minutes to spare. I bent over and tied his shoes for him (because he “couldn’t move” his arms) and then propelled him in the direction of his team.

As it turned out, he was slated to be the opening pitcher that night.

He made a miraculous recovery. Good thing he showed up.

Double booked

2010-07-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

“Can’t I just skip the concert?”

We were at the town field picking up a pair of tickets for the Lowell Spinners home opener that night. My oldest’s whole team was going – in fact, they’d be leaving in just a few minutes. He’d be joining them later, after his band concert.

“Nope.”

“Aw, c’mon mom! I don’t want to go to the concert.”

“Honey, we talked about this already.”

“But I’m going to be doing band next year. There will be another concert.”

“Yep, and there will be other baseball games, too. And anyway, you thought of a good solution. This is all gonna work out.”

“Awwwww…”

“Please.”

“So-and-so’s missing the concert…”

“Let’s not talk about this any more,” I said through a smile plastered over my clenched teeth.

“Mah-ahm!”

I glared at him. “You will feel good about yourself when you do the right thing. This is the right thing to do. It was your idea. Now let’s go get your brother.” I had left his brother at extended day because he wanted to play basketball.

My oldest had missed his last baseball game of the season because he was away that weekend with his dad, so going to the Spinners game with his team would be an important “last hurrah” for him and his dad.

The concert was also an important event, since he’d been taking clarinet lessons all year and it would be his first opportunity to perform.

Even though it would have been easier to just send him along with the rest of his team, I wasn’t going to do it. We went to get his brother and then went home to eat dinner and change into concert-wear. My oldest was morose and flung himself face down on the couch, which is uncharacteristic for him. He wouldn’t eat. Eventually, I presented him with a choice of two “party shirts” alongside his khaki pants and dress shoes. Then we worked out how he could change his clothes and hand off the clarinet for a quick getaway.

“Will you help me talk to Mr. Band Director?” he looked up at me with wide brown eyes.

“Of course I will, honey,” I said, squeezing his hand. This concert had already been rescheduled twice, and if it had just remained where it was on the calendar after the first reschedule, we wouldn’t be double-booked.

Arriving at the performing arts center early, we saw Mr. Band Director setting up chairs on the stage. I took a program as we marched into the hall, and noticed that fortunately, my son and his group were slated to play early in the performance.

“We’re supposed to meet in the cafeteria, Mom.”

“Yes, honey, I know.” That is standard operating procedure for all of the kids’ events. “But Mr. Band Director is here and we can go up on stage and talk to him and then you can get comfortable with where you’ll be sitting and how you can off the stage discreetly.”

We walked up on stage. I could tell my son was a little nervous, so I began explaining, “My son’s baseball team was awarded these tickets…the game is tonight…so he has a conflict. He wants to perform with his group, but needs to leave right afterwards…”

I was glad that Mr. Band Director addressed my son directly. “That’s fine, son. You’ll miss the combined performance but I understand completely.”

Later, when the kids began filing on stage, I chuckled at where my son ended up sitting. It was the farthest possible seat from the exit-stage-left. Oh, well, so much for a discreet departure.

Another post on WorkingMother.com

2010-07-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

On Common Ground

Happy Independence Day!

My blog on WorkingMother.com

2010-06-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

No more teachers, no more books

More on brotherly love

2010-06-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

I was on my way downstairs after church, headed into the kitchen to make English muffin pizzas for the next activity – a Boy Scout meeting to work on one of the kids’ religious emblems.

As I passed through the children’s fellowship area, there were a couple of teen-aged brothers rolling around on the floor with my youngest, who likes to sit with his “big friends” during the service.

“Why does he always sit with them?” My middle son had asked me just that morning. “Oh, probably because they’re nice to him,” I answered matter-of-factly. He just looked at me.

The Bigs were tossing balloons around.

I don’t remember why, but when my oldest approached me with a “Hi Mama,” I asked, “Who do you think felt worse – Abel, Cain, or their parents?”

“Abel.”

“Well, I wonder…he’s dead. Do you think he felt much of anything?”

“Oh, I mean Cain!”

“Yeah...I wouldn’t have wanted to be him. But I can also imagine how sad their parents would be…” I kept walking towards the kitchen as my oldest bopped my middle son on the head with a balloon.

I was poking around the kitchen, trying to get organized and find all the ingredients and tools I’d need. I’d only cooked in this kitchen once before and wasn’t sure where everything was. Not long after, one of the big friends came in with my youngest who was crying.

“What happened?” I asked.

My youngest sobbed, “My brother…pillows; on top of…breathe”

His big friend tried to fill in the blanks, “sat on him with…his face; he couldn’t.”

“Oh,” I said as I scooped my youngest up onto my left hip. “Thank you,” I said to the big friend and abandoned him and the project in the kitchen, while my youngest clung to me like a little koala bear. “Are you okay? Where’s your lovey?”

“Yeah-ah-ah…” he said as he popped his thumb in his mouth. I spied his lovey in the bench in the children’s hall and snatched it up as I stalked through looking for his brother.

I saw him sitting at the craft table with his forehead down on his folded arms.

My pace slowed and I whispered to my youngest, “It looks like your brother’s in self-imposed exile, honey.” It appeared that my middle son was, indeed, very remorseful. I slipped my right hand around his little bicep. He did not move or look up, but instead sniffled.

“Are you okay, honey?”

“No. He always…everyone said…no one likes…”

“Hmmm.” I sat down in the chair next to my middle son facing away from the table with my youngest in my lap. We sat in silence for a good while – my hand remained resting on my middle son’s arm, my youngest’s face now nestled against my neck. Our breathing became synchronized even though other children in the room were making a joyful noise with balloons and pillows.

Momentarily, I said, “It sounds like you two have something to talk about,” as I stood up and slid my youngest off my lap and into the chair next to his brother. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

When I returned, there was another mom bustling around. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I am not sure who needed comforting more...and it just breaks my heart to see how my kids fight sometimes, when other times they can be so sweet together…”

The end of an era

2010-06-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

“I don’t want to go to soccer!” my youngest declared.

“Oh, c’mon, honey. You love soccer.”

“No, I yousta love soccer. Now I don’t.”

“Okay, well, just show up. You can get your medal.” It was the last day of the season. Was it just the transition from one activity to the next? He and one of his brothers had been engrossed with sorting through Pokemon cards for a good portion of the morning. This activity included unearthing them from all the crevices of our home, leaving all sorts of examined-and-discarded items in their wake, and some drawers dumped out, too.

“Oh, all right!” Grumble, grumble, as he stalked off to finish getting dressed. “But don’t sign me up for soccer again!” he huffed over his shoulder. Was he serious? Once we got to the soccer field, my son seemed to enjoy himself.

I couldn’t even imagine no more soccer at all, but it was not the first time he said this to me. Two weeks prior he’d added, “I always lose!” (which is ridiculous, because “everyone’s a winner” in U6 soccer – they don’t even keep score). This launched a conversation about how even if you lose you can have a winning attitude and be a good sport about it, specifically applicable to his older brothers’ baseball games – and thus discussed within their earshot – where the competition is often intense. Learning to handle disappointment is also specifically applicable to life, where can't always get what you want.

It had already been bittersweet knowing that the Bigs were giving up soccer – this spring, there was no way I was going to do soccer and baseball since that would mean four different teams in addition to my youngest’s – and I have already signed them up for football next fall.

“Well, you’ve gotta pick a sport. I can’t have you sitting around all season.” I wondered what else he could do in the fall. Karate? Swimming? I’m fairly certain if there was a baseball program anywhere, he’d be all over it. His lamentation this spring had been that he was not old enough for a t-ball team, though he regularly participates in family baseball, especially as the “empire.”

I relayed this conversation to one of the other moms at the soccer field. We both knew things are likely to change once school starts (yes, my youngest will be in real school next year) and “all the other kids” are playing soccer. We giggled over the projected, “Why didn’t you sign me up!?” But maybe not. Just because the Bigs played two seasons of soccer a year since they were four years old, and sometimes had private coaching, doesn’t mean that their younger brother would want to. I, personally, cannot imagine why not, but to each his own.

In all truthfulness, given how much whining occurs on a regular basis, how the kids swarm the ball and forget in what direction they’re headed, or how they just stop and wander off the field, starting over with U6 soccer this past year had been not the best kind of “remember when.” But it was a right of passage of sorts, for all of us. Now the Bigs had to be dragged to their younger brother’s activities, where previously he’d been the tagalong. And as he attended his kindergarten screening at the elementary school this past week (while I sat in the library and waited with the other parents), it was becoming apparent that my baby isn’t a baby anymore.

Nothing better to do

2010-05-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

“Don’t you have anything better to do on a Saturday morning at 8:30 than play baseball?”

“Well, not really…we were already here. My oldest has practice.” I pointed to the far field where we had arrived at 8:00.

We had been playing family baseball and had incorporated one of my middle son’s friends and his holder brother, as well as a few of the friend’s teammates who had shown up for practice early.

We were just doing some fielding drills.

When the coach arrived (and asked me if we didn’t have anything better to do), we moved to the adjacent field after a short foray into the lacrosse field while we waited for a dad and his son to finish batting practice (no one liked my idea of offering them outfield help – I don’t think they wanted to chase a bucket of balls). At that point, we just had our team of four -- my two younger sons, my middle son’s friend’s brother who plays in the majors, a division above my oldest’s, and me.

I pitched. My son has told me I’m pretty good – “for a lady.” I imagine that is a compliment. We both giggle at my rainbow pitches that arc real high before they land in the modified (no one can afford to be picky when there is no catcher and we only have two balls) strike zone.

We could all feel the love that day. My youngest got six “home runs,” all because the rest of us had so many “errors.” My middle son did not pitch a fit about anything and in fact, cheered his brother on. Our major-league friend congratulated me when I pitched successfully to him (I had never pitched to a lefty batter). I didn’t bat other than to whack balls at the three of them. Depending upon where my youngest was standing, either of the other two would back him up, because he missed just about everything I hit at him.

The funny thing was, all we had was a t-ball bat, which is really light and short. But my youngest was delighted that he could supply it. He doesn’t even play t-ball yet, but I let him get a bat while we were shopping for helmets for his older brothers.

I had a small cooler of snacks, and there was just enough to go around. My youngest split his bakery-sized chocolate chip muffin with our major-league friend. I had enough drinks and I don’t even know what else was in the small cooler but no one went without.

I couldn’t really imagine what would have been better to do than hang around at the ball field early on a Saturday morning – before it got too hot, and before the bugs came out (which it was, and they were when we returned to the field that afternoon for soccer).

The new currency

2010-05-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

“Mom, mom, mom! Did you see my bracelet?” my middle son asked me urgently. He was packing up his things for school.

“Uhm, I think I saw it on the counter downstairs last night…”

“No, no, no—I had it when I was watching the movie last night.”

“Oh, honey, no. I don’t know where it is then.”

He looked miserable, but I knew he didn’t want to walk to school (i.e., miss the bus) so he trudged out the door to wait for the bus.

Later that day I found the twisted up gnarly little blue bracelet that had a piece of fuzz stuck to it. If I hadn’t known he was looking for it, I would have thrown it out.

I shoved it in my pocket so I’d have it when I picked him up that day. “Thanks, Mom!” His eyes lit up as he pulled it over his wrist.

“You’re welcome, honey.”

“So-and-so gave it to me. He has a whole ton of Silly Bandz. Can we get some Silly Bandz? They have them at the Exchange.”

“Uhmmm…Whoa! What’s special about it?”

He took it back off his wrist and showed me how (when it was untwisted) was the outline of a dog.

“Ohhh, yeah. Well, look at that! How much are they?”

“I think they’re only like $3.00.”

“For one!?”

“No – for a whole package!”

“Well, you have money, right?”

“Yeah. Can we go?”

“How about tomorrow after I pick you up?” We had already arrived home and it was past 6:00.

“Okay.”

Well, the next day when we stopped at the store, they were all out of them. My son’s dramatic disappointment seemed way blown out of proportion to me (and likely the clerks who told me they were expecting a delivery of them the next day). He had a dark cloud over his head as he stomped out of the store.

After we returned home and he had time to calm down, we talked a little about what was “so important” about these bracelets. I still didn’t really get it, but apparently they had Sports Bandz and Rock Bandz and some other bandz. “All the kidz” had them. And they liked trading them with each other. Apparently this fad started sometime when I was out of town, and now a week and a half later, the bracelets have been banned from some classrooms because their popularity was causing a distraction. They kind of reminded me of the black plastic bangles of the 80s, but I don’t recall coveting those gasket-like bracelets the same way.

The next day, before we went back to the store, we discussed how we would handle our disappointment if the shipment to the Exchange was delayed. As it turned out, it was. The kids used some of their money to buy Big League Chew for the evening’s baseball games. Fortunately, I had ordered some bracelets online, just in case this very phenomenon occurred.

The owner of the Exchange told us that he was certain the bracelets would arrive the next day. Just to be sure, I checked another store and found that they had a few packages on hand (since the online bracelets wouldn’t arrive for five whole business days – I wondered if the fad would even last that long, or if what I ordered would still be “cool” by that time). However, they were not Silly Bandz brand, and thus not the right size for big-kid wrists, so we wound up back at the Exchange for the third time in three days.

This time we hit the jackpot, and The Bigs could afford one package each after the gum they had bought the day before. So, they were ready for trading with their friends. The next day after school, I got a full report of who traded for what, how many regular bracelets you had to trade for the two-tone ones, and whether the fruit-scented ones still smelled like anything.

“Mom, do you want one of my bracelets?” my oldest said to me.

“Oh…well”….I was going to say, ‘no, thanks’ but realized that it would be best to receive the gift graciously …”sure honey! Can I have a pink one?”

“Well, as long as it’s not the hippo. I had to trade a pig for it. But you can have a purple one, too…”

“Thanks, honey,” I said as I slipped the two unidentifiable animal-shaped bracelets on for a twisted and gnarly fashion statement.

The moment of silence

2010-05-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Recently when we were on the way to the baseball field and I had a captive audience in the car, I finally got around to asking The Bigs what the moment of silence was all about after the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

“How long does it last?”

“If you’re in charge of the announcements, how do you know when it’s over?”

“Has anyone ever offered you any guidance about what to do during the moment of silence?”

“I don’t know…”

“The office ladies tell us…”

“Why are you asking us all this stuff?”

“Well, I’ve been meaning to ask you since that day I heard you do the announcements,” I said to my oldest. To my middle son, I said, “Have you ever done the announcements?”

“Yeah, we all get a turn.”

“Well, what do you do during the moment of silence? Do you think about anything or do you just…look around?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

"So, it’s like waiting for it to be over?"

“Yeah,” replied my middle son.

“Usually during the announcements we’re finishing up our morning work,” offered my oldest.

“What morning work!? The announcements happen right when school starts…”

I don’t know that I ever got a clear answer to that one, but what ensued was a conversational foray into the subject of multi-tasking.

“You know, doing more than one thing at the same time…like playing D.S. and watching TV or trying to do homework and watching TV. Or talking on the phone while doing dishes.”

My boys didn’t think that was any big deal. I realized that multi-tasking is probably a given, a way of life for them. So I asked them if they could think of times when it was impossible to multi-task.

“Playing baseball,” they both answered.

“Yeah, you’re right. You can’t play DS and baseball at the same time.”

“Well, you probably could if you were in the outfield...” one of them answered.

“And some people can’t multi-task when they’re reading,” my middle son commented pointedly to his older brother, who, when he gets his nose in a book, will only reply, “Wait, what?” after several attempts to get his attention, even if we mention candy, money, or the Red Sox.

“Do you think you might consider praying during the moment of silence?”

“Hmm mmm,” they both answered noncommittally.

I mentioned I was amazed that The Pledge of Allegiance is even said in school anymore.

“Why, mom?”

“Because it talks about ‘one nation under God.’ I didn’t think you were allowed to mention God in school. Maybe that’s why no one suggests what to do during the moment of silence.”

“So-and-so’s a Christian.”

“Well, you don’t have to be a Christian to believe in God. Remember, ‘one God, many ways to worship’,” I reminded them with some song lyrics.

“And anyway, our money says, ‘In God We Trust.’ ”

“Yes, it does. So, you could always pray that you have a good day in school that day.”

“I always have a good day in school anyway,” my oldest stated. My middle son, who has had several "worst days of his life" in recent memory, was silent.

“Okay, well, you could pray about a test you might have. Or you could pray for your friends.”

“Hmm mmm,” they both answered noncommittally. We had arrived at the field.

“Alright, boys! I’ll be back after I get your brother!”

Conversations with my sons this evening

2010-05-11T21:34:00.001-07:00

“How was Imagimotion today, honey?” I asked my youngest. He takes a preschool gymnastics-dance-movement class on Tuesdays.

“Good.”

“Well, what did you do? What songs did you hear?”

“I dunno. I forget.”

“You don’t remember anything? Did you have class today?”

“Yeah, mom. Can’t you just read about it on your phone?” (I get email on my phone.)

“Uhmmm, well, yes, I imagine I can, but I just thought it would be nice if we talked about it together.

“Well, can you read it to me when you get it on your phone?”

<><><>

“Mom, can you type my paragraph for me?” my middle son asked me as we walked out of extended day. We had just written the paragraph together this morning. We spent a full hour doing this homework which he swore up and down was only just assigned, and I had not checked his day planner as I was out of town last week.

“Well, I don’t know, honey…”

“Oh, c’mon, Mom! You’re a much better typer than me.”

“Yeah, well, what would your teacher have to say if I typed it?”

“Oh, Mrs. So-and-so says it’s okay if parents type it…”

I wondered when it was due and if I’d have time to ask Mrs. So-and-so if that was really the case.

“How are you ever going to get good at typing if you don’t practice? Don’t you think you could do it?”

“Mah-ahm, it’d take me – like – a week!”

“Yeah, and I know – I could do it in like five minutes, right? But how do you think I got so good at typing?”

He looked at me blankly.

“It’s because I’ve had years of practice.”

He picked up the ball and ran with it. “Yeah! I’m only 8, and you’re like – 15!”

<><><>

My oldest asked me tonight if we could play catch during his younger brother’s Boy Scout den meeting.

“Well, honey, we’re supposed to be building rockets. Don’t you think he’d need my help?”

“Awww, Mom, you know you’re not that good at wood crafts…”

“What!?”

“Well, you know…you’re good at other things, though…”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, like the computer, like being a mom, and…like…baseball! So, can we play catch?”

<><><>

Countdown

2010-05-08T13:55:00.001-07:00

I was at a conference in Fabulous Las Vegas. My colleague told me her kids didn’t really want to talk to her when she had called that day. I was telling her that my kids didn’t want to talk to me that day or the day before; and that they probably didn’t even miss me at all, and as if on cue, the phone rang.

“Oh, whaddaya know? Excuse me,” I said to my colleague. It was my sons’ cell phone calling me.

“Hi honey,” I said, not knowing which of my older two would be on the other end.

“Hi Mommy.” It was my middle son.

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“There are 77 hours until I can see you again,” he said, with an Eeyore twang to his voice.

“Oh, sweetie, that’s not really so long…do you miss me?”

“Yeah. I forgot what you look like!”

“Oh, go on. You did not.”

Silence.

“Alright then, want me to have my colleague take a picture with my phone and I’ll send it to you?”

“Okay, mom. Also, our baseball game got cancelled.”

“Yeah, I heard. I got the email from your coach and forwarded it to Dad.”

“I never get to play baseball!”

“Sure you do, honey. The season has only just begun – I am sure they’ll schedule a make up game” If I recalled correctly, he had a game the next night anyway.

I talked to my middle son a bit more about what I was doing, what he was doing, what my hotel was like and so on. I realized I better not make it sound too great. But truthfully, even though I am working long hours at a business event, this is probably the closest thing to a vacation I’ve had…since last year when I worked at the same business event.

Mainly, it was a vacation from juggling work and parenting. I had someone else doing all the cooking and cleaning and I wouldn’t have to deal with laundry until I got home. I wasn’t in charge of parenting tasks including making lunches and helping with homework or chauffering.

After a while I asked my son if I could talk to his brother.

“Okay, mom.”

To my oldest, I said, “Your brother is sad.”

“Yeah, he misses you.”

“Can you go and give him a big hug and kiss for me?”

“Mah-ahm!”

“Alright, never mind. Just be sure you’re extra nice to him. It won’t be long before I’m home.”

Then we talked about baseball a little bit, what I was doing, what he was doing, what my hotel was like and so on. “Oh, well, you know. It’s a hotel. No, I have no idea how many stars it has. It’s a nice hotel. There are three TVs in my suite.” I figured that would be the best way for the kids to understand how nice it was. They weren’t going to care that the bathroom was far fancier than our own, with two sinks, a separate tub and shower, and a private little room for the toilet (that included one of three phone extensions), very flattering lighting, a vanity, and one of the three TVs. Or that there were two sitting areas – one of which was a large L-shaped couch with a pull out bed – and an office area in the sunken living room. Or that the bed was big enough for a family movie party with the flat-screen HDTV. Well, they probably would care about that, since we don’t have any flat screen TVs in our house, due to the unfortunate “accident” with the Jenga blocks, that ruined the flat screen TV that Santa brought just weeks after Christmas a couple of years ago.

The next night, though, it was me who was lonely. I decided I needed to get away from the hotel and its artificially perfumed air that barely covered the stench of the casino and from the 6000+ attendees at the conference, and took a long walk down Las Vegas Boulevard.

I walked out of the hotel and fell in with the masses. But all I could see in on the crowded sidewalks were families with children, which is strange, because the ratio of children to adults in Las Vegas is surely much smaller than it is in some other popular vacation destinations. It just goes to show that you see what you are thinking about (“…seek and ye shall find…” ~ Matthew 7:7)

I missed my children. I counted the hours until I would see them again. There were 36. It wouldn’t be long before I was home…

Forgetful

2010-05-04T22:04:00.001-07:00

My oldest forgot his recorder one day last week. I could have been annoyed because he had forgotten his clarinet two days prior, but I chose not to be. I needed to drop off my youngest at preschool that day, so I figured I’d just stop in at the elementary school on my way back and use that opportunity to deliver a note about childcare arrangements while I would be out of town the following week.

I walked into the school at 9:05. Because it was before the official start to the day, the doors weren’t locked yet. I went straight to the office.

When I walked in the door, there was my oldest, along with a classmate, standing next to the vice principal’s desk.

“What are you doing here?” we both said to each other at the same time. Then we both laughed.

“I’m doing the announcements today,” he told me. I waved his recorder at him and set it down on the front desk in front of the secretary.

“Oh, can I listen?”

He looked at me blankly.

“Or would that be weird?”

Still no comment.

“I’ll go out in the hall...”

So I went and parked myself in one of the chairs in the “waiting area” in the front entrance.

The secretary popped her head out and told me that I’d be able to hear better if I stood in the doorway to the gym. While I was waiting, one of the ladies I know from the morning welcoming committee finished her shift and came over to stand with me. Together we listened to my son and his class mate tell how it was a half day, and if anyone brought a lunch or lunch money they needed to come to the office (since that meant their parents did not remember it was a half day), wish happy birthday to a couple of kids, and then say the Pledge of Allegiance and have a moment of silence. (I’ve been meaning to ask my son what they think about during the moment of silence and if their teachers had ever offered any guidance on that.)

Shortly thereafter, my son and his classmate walked out of the office and towards the classroom and I was still standing in the gym entrance with the other mom.

“Nice job!,” I said as I waved to the kids.

“Uh huh. Bye mom,” my son answered. His classmate didn’t answer at all.

I have no idea if they thought it was weird that I was there. Perhaps I’ll include that question when I remember to bring up the moment of silence. I was glad I was there, though.

Field trip

2010-04-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

My middle son’s teacher called me one recent afternoon.

“Oh, hi!” I said as I realized who it was. I realized I didn’t know her first name; I always called her Mrs. So-and-so, as my son did. Then, “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” she probably had to preface most of her calls to parents that way. “I just wanted to let you know that there’s a permission slip in your son’s take home folder. We have a field trip tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s right!” I remember putting that in a pile of papers before vacation.

“Yes, so I’m just calling parents…”

“Oh, good, so I’m not the only one.”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure he brings it in tomorrow.”

“Will you be walking?” The kids were going to the town library, which is possibly a half mile or so from the elementary school.

“No, we’ll be taking a bus.”

I told Mrs. So-and-so about the time when my son was in kindergarten and they had walked on their field trip to a local destination. And because they would be going right by our house, I put balloons on our front door. When my son had come home that day, he told me he had been embarrassed. “It was the worst day of my life!” (Since then he’s had many more worst days.)

Mrs. So-and-so suggested maybe I could stand outside and wave at the bus.

I told her I thought that would be embarrassing, too. I gathered that the intersection of public and private was what was uncomfortable for my son.

The next morning I asked him if he put the signed permission slip in his folder. He said he did, and informed me that they were taking a bus. I told him I knew that, and it was too bad they weren’t walking (thinking these kids need to spend all the time outside that they can). He told me he thought they were taking the bus because it might rain.

I said, “Remember that field trip when you were in kindergarten, and I decorated the door, and you told me it was the worst day of your life?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.” At one time, this had been a very sore subject, something I couldn't even bring up.

“No, mom, it was just the worst day of my life because we had to walk.”

Surely my son’s increased maturity and understanding led to his historical revisionism and thankfully, I no longer have to bear the burden of guilt of embarrassing him in front of his classmates. Glad I mentioned it!

Vacation Hangover

2010-04-27T20:28:00.001-07:00

Our preschool director called me this morning, saying my youngest was having a very hard day and was currently having an office visit.

“I think he has vacation hangover.” He’d had a rough day yesterday, too. The note that came home said, “During lesson he got mad and decided to scribble o his paper and make a paper airplane…he threw his cup and the crayons went everywhere…” Ultimately he had two office visits and a bunch of broken crayons.

Today, the director told me, “He’s taking off his shoes and socks.”

“Oh, he’s doing the ‘I’ll-show-you! I’m-gonna-get-naked” routine?”

We both giggled. The director has two sons of her own.

I couldn’t imagine what had happened. I was sure he was going to start off his day on a better note. I had talked to him about how he might apologize to Ms. So-and-so and how the conversation could go: “I’m sorry for my behavior yesterday” or “I’m sorry for how I acted.” He informed me that he thought “I’m sorry” would do it.

I told him, “I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, she’s Christian.” And for another, she isn’t going to take your tantrum personally, I thought.

“Oh. Right.” And all Christians are nice and all not-Christians are not-nice.”

“No, no, no, honey. Being Christian doesn’t necessarily mean being nice. It just means following Christ. We try to be nice but no one is perfect. And, there are also a lot of not-Christians who are perfectly nice.”

I continued, “I just mean that you know she knows the Lord’s Prayer: ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ ”

“Oh. Right.”

So, I couldn’t imagine where things could have taken a turn for the worse. It was only 10:30 when the director called me.

“Can I talk to him?”

She handed him the phone.

“Hi, honey,” I said.

He began to sob.

“Are you having a hard day?”

“Yeah-ah-ah,” he wailed.

“What happened? You started off great today…”

More sobbing.

“Honey, you can start your day over any time. Just start over.”

The sobbing continued.

“I love you. Ms. So-and-so loves you. God loves you. No matter what.”

The director got back on the phone, “I feel so bad for him.”

“Yeah, me, too. But I am not coming to get him.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t recommend it!”

“Giving in to that manipulation would set a bad precedent. Can you just let him have his lovey?” I asked. He usually only has it at nap time. “And please let him know I’ll be in a little early today. 5:00ish. We have baseball.”

When I arrived at the school that evening, it was closer to 5:30 since baseball had been postponed because of the rain. And when I walked into the classroom, my son was sitting on the floor defiantly with his shoes off.

“Uh oh…” I said.

He saw me and burst into tears. Apparently he was refusing to clean up a bin of plastic dinosaurs he had dumped out. He ran towards me and I lifted him into my arms. “I never have a good day at school,” he despaired.

I sat down in one of the pint-sized chairs next to the table where all the dinosaurs were strewn, and held him and rocked him, wordlessly.

After a few minutes, “Let’s go get lovey and he can help you clean up the dinosaurs.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Dog story

2010-04-24T21:44:00.000-07:00

“What’s this?” my middle son had just got the mail and there was a card on top of the pile. Card sometimes equals invitation, so I am sure his interest was piqued.

“Oh, it looks like a condolence card. From the vet.” I said.

“A what?”

“Open it, you’ll see.”

He studied the cover and the insides and then read aloud, “We are so very sorry for your loss, Dr. Hummina, Hummina, Hummina and Hummina.”

“Oh, that’s really sweet of them,” I assured him, and put my arm around his shoulder.

“Yeah.” He handed me the card.

Our dog had just died, two days before.

I will never forget how it happened. I had just returned home after leaving our little Lhasa Apso (inherited from Grandma when she passed away a little more than a year prior) at the vet’s office. He would be staying overnight for tests, treatments, and observation. He had some significant health issues anyway, which I managed with diet and medication, but when I brought him in that day, he was just not himself. He was not eating, was a bit shaky (which I had initially attributed to the fact that he had just been groomed and was probably cold), and had begun breathing shallowly and rapidly.

The microwave was humming, heating up a cup of coffee. I tossed my keys in the drawer and fished my phone out of my purse before tucking it into the cabinet. The red light was blinking, indicating that I had missed a call. Oh yeah, I remembered. I had silenced the ringer while I was at the veterinarian’s office.

The message was actually from the vet. I returned it immediately. She told me, “He crashed.”

“What? What do you mean?”

I don’t exactly remember everything she told me about the tests they had started to run, or exactly what happened, but the bottom line was that he was in a coma and only alive because he was on oxygen.

I thought about how eerily similar his illness was to my mother’s (part of me wonders if the dog ever got over my mom’s death.). Lhasa Apsos are an ancient breed from Tibet and considered very sacred dogs because the Tibetans believed that when the master of a Lhasa Apso died, his soul would enter the Lhasa’s body.

I had mentioned that to my pastor just the day before. She told me our Christian faith doesn’t believe that. But I couldn’t help thinking that this belief began way before Jesus’ time.

I told the vet, “I don’t want you to do anything heroic; I don’t want him to live an undignified life.”

She explained what would happen when they removed the oxygen. Because he was already in a coma, he would slip away peacefully. Then she suggested I give a call back when I had collected myself in order to make final arrangements.

It was not easy to break the news to the kids.

My youngest said, “I feel bad for Benji.”

“Why, honey?”

“Because he died.”

“Yes, but he was old. It was time. He'd had a good life with us and spent his last days in the garden, the same garden that Grandma had planted, in the same area where Grandma used to sit. He’s probably in heaven now, with Grandma.”

I don’t know if that’s true, but the movie “All Dogs Go to Heaven” came to mind. A smile spread across my son’s face slowly.

My boys and I are planning to put the dog’s ashes along with some forget-me-not seeds in the garden near “the three soldiers” – the pine trees Grandma had helped them plant the summer before she passed away. This will also probably be the right time to get the St. Francis of Assisi statue that I have wanted for the garden, as he was the patron saint of animals, as well as the author of one of my all time favorite prayers.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith ;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Experiencing technical difficulty

2010-04-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning at baseball camp I was talking to some other moms about what it's like to telecommute. I mentioned one of the drawbacks being the necessity to perform one's own tech support. Well, wouldn't you know, an hour later, during my 10:00 a.m. conference call, when we decided it would be a good idea to collaborate online, my computer told me I needed to restart in order to launch NetMeeting. So, I told my colleague, "I'll ping you when I reboot; ten minutes, tops." I shut down. But I couldn't reboot. So, by the time I picked up the kids and I saw these moms again (one of whom told me I must've jinxed myself), I had been through tech-support hell and by that time was resigned to the fact that I couldn't work until I got my emergency replacement computer, which was promised "before noon the next day."

The one benefit of that experience was that I did not have to work around the kids that afternoon and could actually hang out with them and get the laundry taken care of and prepare for Pasta Night without being in a rush. (I tried not to think about all the work backlog that would await and the fact that I am preparing for an event less than two weeks from now.)

Fast forward to this morning, when I'm shooing the boys around the house, trying to get them out the door, so I can get back in time to wait for the UPS delivery, for which I'd need to sign. I figured before noon meant between 10-12, so when I got back at 9:20 and saw the notice stuck to the door, I was crestfallen. More than that, really. I got out of the car and stomped up the steps and snatched the note off the door, cursing.

I trudged upstairs and signed on to UPS.com and tried to track the package with the new number on the notice. There was no information available. I figured it would at least say, "delivery attempted." I looked up the original tracking number at it indicated the package was still out on the truck. I cursed some more. I was hoping I'd be able to schedule my day around a trip to the UPS facility, but not if the package was still in limbo.

I checked online several more times before I trudged back downstairs with the signed notice to stick back on the door to ensure that -- if I couldn't figure out how and where to pick up the package -- that when the UPS man came back tomorrow he'd just leave it.

When I got out to the porch, I saw the UPS truck pulling around the corner. The driver parked across the street. He had a package. For me! "Oh my gosh," I said. "You came back!" And I went on about how I telecommute, I can't do much of anything without my computer, thought I'd have to ... didn't know what I was gonna do...blah blah blah." I imagine he figures we telecommuters really need to get out more, but really don't know what he thinks given his equaniminous demeanor.

That really made my day, even though I spent most of this afternoon in tech-support hell again, because this machine currently can't read my hard drive, which contains some sort of vital email client information that I need to access all my mail files and my calendar. As soon as I know the kids are in bed for keeps tonight, I'll be back on the phone with tech support. (And I'll try not to think about all the work backlog that would await and the fact that I am preparing for an event less than two weeks from now.)

Good sports

2010-04-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

"They're on the Phillies, I think. And so is so-and-so, and he's like one of the best players! I don't think they did the teams very well..."

"Oh, honey, I am sure the teams were fair based on what the evaluators saw at try outs." My middle son was talking about two of his best friends who were not on the same team as him. "And anyway, aren't you 'like one of the best players,' too?"

I had just picked up The Bigs from their second day at the baseball camp that they were attending during school vacation week.

"I dunno..."

"Well, think about last year -- your team made it all the way to the final game of the playoffs."

"I hate the Cubs!"

"Is that the team that beat your team in the final game?"

"Yeah!" he spit the word out with contempt.

"Well, you can't always be number one. But no matter where you end up you can always be a good sport."

"Hmmmph."

"Seriously. I saw Dustin Pedroia strike out looking yesterday. I could tell he was furious. I am sure he wanted to whack the umpire with his bat. The pitch was way inside."

Silence.

"The point is, you can feel however you want, you just can't..."

"...kill someone?" he interrupted. I imagined he was reliving the pain of not winning the championship game last year. It had been a lot of pressure for several of the kids, some of whom, like my son, were only seven, and some of whom may have been younger. Some, fortunately for them, didn't even realize that the game was the grand finale.)

"Uhmmm, yes, well..." I hoped he meant that figuratively and wondered if I needed to review his Nintendo DS games. I don't think anyone in Mario Hoops 3 on 3 actually dies, and I am certain that in the Pokemon games the battles end when one of the characters "faints." I was going to say 'act in a socially inappropriate manner.' And having a hissy fit on the baseball field is not socially appropriate. That's why Dustin Pedroia didn't have a hissy fit."

The conversation moved on.

I am glad for the backdrop of sports in my kids lives. It gives me a context for discussion and them a context for understanding how to get along with others, how to do your best, when to be a leader and when to be a follower, and how to handle things when they don't go the way you think they should. The "with grace and dignity" part will come as they mature, I am sure.

Helping hand

2010-04-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

"I don't really feel like helping my brother," my oldest said, as I asked him to carry my middle son's baseball bag in from the car.

It was just the two of us and there was a lot to bring in. We had just come from middle school orientation, which had necessitated leaving my middle son's baseball practice 15 minutes early in order to attend. My middle son had pitched a dramatic, morose, and melancholy fit for a good half hour, including much foot dragging, dirt kicking, shoulder slumping, and the ultimate, "I don't even know why I am playing baseball if I can't be at practice." Never mind the kid spent a good portion of time in the yard pitching before we even went to practice.

"This orientation is important to your brother. We can't miss it. I only found out about your baseball practice less than 24 hours ago. We're lucky we could go at all!" It was true, the practice had been rescheduled because of anticipated bad weather during the weekend. And both of these activities had trumped my standing Thursday night plans.

"And you're playing baseball because you love baseball." Duh, I thought.

Midway through the orientation, I sent my younger two home with Daddy, who swung by the school after his commute, so it was just my oldest and me divesting the car of the backpacks, lunch boxes, papers, dinner remnants, and sporting equipment.

"Well, I need your help..." was what I told him. I didn't feel like helping my middle son, either, and the idea of interrupting him from doing whatever he was doing to get his stuff out of the car was even more distasteful.

"He was being really jerky about leaving practice."

"Yeah, he really was. Sometimes it's hard to be nice to people when they aren't being nice to you, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I think he was feeling miserable so he wanted all of us to feel miserable."

"Yeah. Probably."

"Well, let's do the loving thing and help him anyway." I thought about how my middle son will hold the door open for me even when I'm the 'worst mother in the world.' He might not make eye contact with me, but he still does it.

My oldest groaned as I tried to hand him the baseball bag. "He's gonna owe me..."

"Oh, nuh uh uh," I cut him off. "Don't keep score. Don't expect any particular outcome..."

"Well, he does! If I do this for him, shouldn't he do something for me?"

"Like what, carry in all five bags of groceries so you don't have to carry any?"

I could see the light-bulb moment reflected in my son's eyes.

"What goes around comes around, honey. Just do the right thing."

Without another word he rearranged the other things he was carrying and took the bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

"Thank you for your help."

Because I can

2010-04-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

"Why do you stay?" one of the other moms said to me at my middle son's baseball practice the other night, after I told her I'd drive her son home if she was leaving.

"He likes me to watch...and...it seems like by the time we got home, I'd only have a little while before I'd have to interrupt the other two to rally them back into the car...I don't know, really...mainly the watching, I guess. And we all brought our gloves..." I didn't have my elevator pitch down pat, obviously.

We did bring our gloves and a couple of balls that seem to roll around in our car regularly these days. And a Nintendo DS or two, and a bunch of snacks. And books. There was plenty to do. And my cell phone reception isn't that great at the ballfield, so at least I wouldn't be doing much of anything electronic.

It was 6:00 p.m., not too buggy out, and my oldest (with much eye rolling) and I coaxed my youngest out of the car to play catch. It worked just fine for a while until my oldest got impatient and decided he'd go hang out in the dugout with his brother's team, but not before instigating a boy spat by taunting his brother, who threw his glove, stomped over to it, threw it again, stomped again, on an on until he was sitting with his back against the fence pouting. I rolled the ball over to him and it landed next to his glove.

"I don't wanna play anymore, Mom!" he insisted. "I stink at this game!"

"You don't stink. Everyone has to start somewhere! Practice makes perfect!"

He gave me the angry eyebrows.

"Okay, you want to go sit in the car? We can have a snack and watch the practice."

I am trying to help my youngest understand and like baseball so that when we go to local Minor League games it will be fun for him.

I opened the cooler and saw that my middle son had forgotten to take his water bottle. I asked my youngest if he'd go bring it to my oldest in the dugout. "What's a dugout, mom?" That was one of our lessons that night.

For the remainder of the hour-and-a-half practice, my youngest and I hung out in the car together. He played his brother's DS games and I leafed through a magazine. We talked intermittently.

So, why do I stay? Because, for now, I can.

It's the same reason I brought my oldest's clarinet to school yesterday when he forgot it.

One day they'll thank me

2010-04-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

“Chicken and potatoes again?”
“You didn’t go to the store yet? We’re almost out of milk!”
“What are these stacks of clothes on my bed?”

I don’t know what my kids think I do all day.

My column, "One day they'll thank me" was published today in Mamazina magazine. Click here to read it.

Mending fences

2010-04-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Late yesterday afternoon my middle son had a boy spat with one of his neighborhood friends. He had already stomped back home a few times for this or that reason and this last time I told him that was enough. Just call it a day. It was close to dinnertime anyway. I asked the friend's mom to send my oldest home, and thanked her for having them.

Come to find out, there was some sort of "brother's triangle" going on, where the friend and my middle son had a disagreement, and my oldest still wanted to hang out with him, even though the neighbor is more my middle son's friend than my oldest's.

This prompted another discussion about family unity and "boyalty" -- loyalty among the brothers.

Today, the neighbor knocked on the door not long after we came home from church to ask if my oldest could come over and shoot hoops. I told him that might be a nice idea, but he was across the street with another friend. He said he'd come back later. I did not offer my middle son at the time, because he was doing something with his younger brother, and I didn't want him to even think about ditching his little bro.

A while later, I called the two of them downstairs to help me in the back yard. They were reluctant, but I felt shored up by a conversation I'd had with a friend yesterday about not letting them off the hook regarding pitching in. Besides, it tied into the conversation I wanted to have about family unity and teamwork.

My youngest flat out refused to pick up any sticks. I told him his consequence would be loss of DS privileges. He opted for that choice anyway and went over to the swing sets, so I had one on one time with my middle son.

I told him, "So and so came by asking for your brother. How do you feel about that."

"Did he say I could come, too?"

"No, but did you forget that you told me you never wanted to see him again? That's why I didn't bring it up."

"Well, that was yesterday...what if he says I can't come over today?"

"Well, he might. Then neither of you will go."

"What if my brother still goes."

"Honey, I won't let him. When he gets home, I'll talk to him about it."

About the time my oldest came back over, and I integrated him into the backyard cleanup, our neighbor was out in his back yard. He came over to the hole in the fence when I was passing by with the wheelbarrow and asked me if my oldest could come over. I told him we were doing a chore first, and that he and my middle son needed to talk. So, I sent my middle son over to the fence. Soon enough I heard laughter and other sounds of camaraderie. I never heard, "I'm sorry," but is it even necessary? Boys don't seem to waste time on grudges. It's either, "You stink" and move on no longer friends. Or "What argument?" and move on, same as it ever was.

My oldest asked me, "How come he's not doing anything?" and pointed to his youngest brother on the swings. I told him that he would rather not play his DS than help us with the chore, but that if he could find a way to encourage him, I'd be more than happy."

My oldest went over to talk to my youngest and shortly thereafter my youngest was throwing twigs into the wheelbarrow. He announced, "Mark says I can play Mario Cart!"

"Oh, what great news, honey! I'm so glad you decided to help!" as I smiled at my oldest.

My oldest said, "Mom, it works better when you give him something rather than take something away."

I had no clever reply to that.

After we finished cleaning up the yard, I sent The Bigs over to the neighbors' house to shoot hoops in their driveway, and pitched baseballs to my youngest.

Sticks and Stones

2010-04-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last time I wrote about this I was all for letting the kids address the name calling and work it out themselves (with a little coaching and encouragement from me), since ultimately that will be what has to happen in the real world.

However, my middle son came home with hurt feelings too many days this week. Apparently the name calling has escalated from the typical "jerk," and "weirdo" to "fat" and "wide." My son is off-the-charts large for his age, which has proven to be an asset in sports, particular basketball, and hopefully will be in football next fall, but I wouldn't call him fat. Nor would his pediatrician.

My mama-bear instinct emerged: I will do anything it takes to protect my young. However, one of the things sets people apart from animals is that we are able to think and reason in order to solve problems in a civilized manner, so I knew I needed to do just that. To be empathetic. To be compassionate. To look at the whole situation.

My son admitted that he had called names back, in retaliation. Additionally, I know he tends to adopt the "class clown" mentality thus by "laughing it off," may have been unknowingly condoning the behavior.

I thought back to my own childhood. Kids call each other names, give each other nicknames. I wondered if its just a natural rite of passage of childhood? But if that's the case, does the hurt go away when we grow up? Or do we still remember that elementary school nickname. I know I still remember my high school nickname, and my brother's, and cringe at the thought. I bet my brother does, too. Oftentimes nicknames can be embarassing or downright hurtful. Where should the line be drawn?

I decided yesterday it should be drawn right then and there, before anything escalated further. Before anyone made a threat, made physical contact, or used "sticks and stones" -- the kinds of behavior that would not only cause more hurt feelings, but possibly bodily injury or being kicked off the bus or suspended.

Since my son had said it was okay for me to handle it, I did. I wrote the bus driver a note, just to let her know what was going on and let her know my son and I would be discussing strategies about how to deal with it. I asked her to keep an ear open for it, since I am sure most name calling happens under the radar. I wrote short emails to two of the other parents. I was hesitant, because it's a touchy subject and I didn't want to cast blame.

Because my oldest had a playdate yesterday, I had one-one-one time with my middle son while their younger brother was still at preschool extended day. Some of the strategies we talked about involved my son just sitting with other kids, or sitting with his brother.

He told me he liks his friends, and he just wishes they would stop calling him names, especially one kid in particular, who he thought would laugh at him if he told him "it's not cool to call me names." I asked him, "If he did that, is he really your friend?"

Later, that particular friend's mom called me and we had a positive and productive conversation. She told me her son was very upset about things and she wanted him to talk to my son and me. My son declined, since he's not much of a phone person, and said he'd talk with him on the bus. I did speak to the boy and then relayed the message to my son that he's sorry and didn't realize he was hurting feelings.

My son was relieved. He told me he had thought his friend considered him a loser. My heart broke to hear him say that and I embraced him in a big mama-bear hug.

Names do hurt.

2010-04-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

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Laundry: not part of the job description

2010-04-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

My middle son was walking around this morning with just one of his new t-shirts on. I knew he wanted items that were recently washed, yet not put away.

"Hmmm, I said aloud. "If I were a basket of laundry, where would I be?"

My oldest ventured, "On the dining room table?"

I almost snorted coffee out of my nose. I had whisked all the partially processed laundry off the dining room table last night just prior to "Pasta Night," so that our guests would not have to share table space with little piles of shirts, pants draped over the backs of chairs, or our centerpiece of socks-and-underwear.

I couldn't remember exactly where I put the basket, and told my middle son I needed to get a coffee before I did anything else, which is why he was walking around naked from the waist down in the first place.

I sighed and said to my oldest, "Oh, geez, I'm not a very good housekeeper, am I?"

He answered, "That's okay, Mom. You already have a job."

I had actually moved my laptop to the kitchen table on my way to get the coffee; my middle son and I were planning a working breakfast since he hadn't finished his homework from the night before. My to-do list flashed before my eyes.

"Your job is being our mom."

I stopped in my tracks. How validating, I thought and considered making a witty comment about how part of being a mom is actually doing all that housework, but who says? It so happens that in our house, it's me who does it or delegates it. But in some households, maybe Dad or Grandma does it, or maybe they have a cleaning service. Doing laundry is not actually part of the job description of mom. I imagine in the grand scheme of things, when my sons grow up, they will care more about my having spent time with them: cheering them on, helping them with homework, making them go to church, and as long as they have clean clothes to wear, they will care less about whether they get them out of their drawers or closet, out of the basket, or off the dining room table. Furthermore, I doubt it will really matter if I bought them at a store or acquired them via the hand-me-down network, as long as they think they're cool.

I decided to simply accept the compliment. I hugged my son and thanked him, before I set off to find the laundry basket.

It turned out to be in my room, camouflaged by the bins of summer clothes I haven't fully integrated yet. I recalled my reasoning was that if I left it in any area where kids might be, during which time their friends had joined them in their practice of running around the house like a small troop of monkeys, I'd be back to square one with the laundry as it would likely end up strewn across the floor (along side the Pokemon cards and Nerf gun bullets) and disguise itself as dirty.

Obviously (as my H.S. Social Studies teacher used to say)

2010-04-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 3:16

My friend sent this to me today. I chuckled when I got it and sent back, "Or at least share our DS games with them!"

I was thinking of our ride to preschool this morning. Because of my work schedule, I needed to get my youngest to school before his brothers went to school. And they had to go to school early because I was doing the greeting job today.

My middle son wanted to play a particular Nintendo DS game that belonged to his older brother. "Mah-ahm! He's not letting me play Mario Cart and he's not even playing it!"

I said to my oldest, "Why can't you let him play the DS game if you're not even playing it?" (Nothing like restating the obvious.)

"It's in my backpack. I don't feel like getting it out."

All three of my sons were sitting in a row across the back seat, the youngest in the middle and the older two with their backpacks crammed between their legs and the front seats.

"I'll get it out," my middle son offered.

"No," my oldest said.

"Why not?" I interjected over my middle son's complaining. I knew I needed to eliminate any possibility of escalation since my youngest was in the line of fire.

"He played it yesterday on the bus."

"So? You're not playing it now..."

"I just don't want him to play it."

"That's ridiculous. You're not playing it. Just let him play it!"

"Awww...."

"Is there a problem with letting him play it or are you just being controlling?"

"I'm just being controlling."

"I see. Do the right thing. And while you're at it, give me the box of games you took off the kitchen counter yesterday, please. I don't think you should cart our entire collection of DS games to school again."

I reached my hand around behind the seat so he could give me the little box; who knows what kind of nasty look he gave the back of my head -- I never took my eyes off the road. I thanked him.

"Here you go," he grumbled at his brother.

I did not hear my middle son say thank you.

"Honey, thank your brother."

"No, why should I?"

"Because he just gave you something that you asked for." (Nothing like restating the obvious.)

"So, he didn't want to. You made him do it."

"Right, but he still did it and you still need to thank him. It's good manners."

"Thanks," he mumbled.

When we got to preschool and I leaned in to help my youngest get out without climbing on anyone, I said to my oldest, "Thank you for being generous. Don't you feel better about yourself for sharing?"

"Yes, I do," he answered, matter-of-factly, confirming the obvious.

Easter egg hunt and baseball opening day

2010-04-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

What an exciting night around here!

We did our Easter egg hunt this evening, so I didn't have to sneak out last night as I have done in the past: prowling around my yard wielding a flashlight, trying not to trip over anything or make too much noise as I traipse through dried leaves and fallen twigs while hiding eggs in the dark.

Even though I did count the total number of eggs, I didn't wind up telling the kids they could each only have xx number of them or that each kid could only have certain colors. In addition to the traditional pastel-colored eggs, this year I used camouflage eggs (that looked like stones, grass, or bark) as well as sports-themed eggs (that blended in nicely with our existing yard decor of soccer goals, baseball gloves, and the like so the playing field was pretty even among my three boys.

I save the eggs from year to year and some of them were still filled with trinkets and candy from last year. I figured the Laffy Taffy was probably still good (completely sealed) but tossed the Reese's mini peanut butter cups (loosely wrapped).

Four Easters ago, the Easter Bunny left pictures of Mickey Mouse and The Magic Kingdom in the kids' Easter eggs. We packed our bags that day and left for Disney World. Today no one mentioned the Easter Bunny.

How times change.

After surveying their loot, the boys showered (proactively), put on pajamas and settled themselves in front of the TV with their baskets of candy and turned on the Red Sox home opener. I scolded them for their comments about the Yankees. "Boys! If you have nothing nice to say..." I am not a Yankees fan, but I still respect them as fine baseball players (though I wonder why they don't have their names on their shirts -- do they think we all know who they are?). Both of The Bigs rejected a Johnny Damon hand-me-down shirt because "he's a traitor!" Calling someone a "Yankees fan" is one of their cleverest insults.

Top of the fifth inning, my oldest and youngest lost interest (or maybe just couldn't bear to watch) as the score was 5-1 Yankees. But my middle son and I chewed our gum frantically, on the edges of our seats.

"How many pieces of gum do you have in your mouth, honey?"

He held up four, then five fingers. Apparently he had too big a wad to speak coherently.

(I was chewing two pieces of the egg-shaped bubble gum that I used in lieu of jellybeans, since no one but me will eat jellybeans, and I am the last person that needs to eat jellybeans, or any candy, actually, but it seems to me that gumballs are the least of all the evils).

We both noticed and coveted the enormous bucket of Dubble Bubble gum in the Red Sox dugout, and we also both noticed how validating it was to see how Mike Lowell chews gum. ("Look, honey, he lets it hang out of his mouth, too!")

I made everyone go to bed in the sixth inning and was adamant about toothbrushing. My oldest asked if I could leave the TV on so he could at least listen to the game (I tried to report Dustin Pedroia's homer in the 7th inning, but he was already fast asleep). My younger two needed a fan, a foot rub, a drink, a different pair of pajamas, and Advil, and so on..and on and on.

I felt kind of guilty that they missed Steven Tyler singing "God Bless America" (since my rock and roll education efforts continue) and Neil Diamond singing our fave "Sweet Caroline." And they missed Jonathan Papelbon "save" the game. But I'm sure they'll have ample opportunities to watch coverage of it tomorrow morning on any of the myriad sports channels we have, and hopefully I won't hear anyone gripe about "Monday."

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P.S. My middle son liked all the t-shirts I picked out for him and has them lined up in the order in which he plans to wear them this week.

Church shirts, t-shirts, and candy

2010-04-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

When trying to find something for my middle son to wear to church with his grandparents tomorrow, I realized that none of his "church shirts" fit anymore. He doesn't have any party shirts (Hawaiian shirts) or polo shirts that would work, and God forbid, regular button-down shirts. I don't think we have many of those left anyway, just a few that I've hung onto for my youngest, but he really doesn't like them either.

Since our church is a "come as you are" church; my middle son typically wears a tie dye shirt that he made at church on Rally Day. As it turns out, he's not going to go with his grandparents after all, but I realized now that the warmer weather is here, he needs some new short sleeve shirts to add to the tie dye, the Mystic Pizza "slice of heaven" and the new Destination Imagination shirts he wears.

I went to Target, because I needed more Easter candy -- not only because I broke the candy I had already cleverly bought out last Sunday during egg coloring with friends, but also because we had an egg hunt with some other friends on Wednesday. In addition, I have sampled far too much of it!

But for the first time that I can remember, I stood in the boys' department and actually had trouble figuring out what to choose for my son. I probably could have bought him all Patriots and Red Sox licensed team apparel and he would have been happy, but it also would have been costly. I didn't want to buy him anything with trucks, superheros, skateboarding, soccer, or skulls. That left stripes. Too risky. No collar shirts or polo shirts. And I didn't want to get generic shirts that said, "College Athletic Dept." I had whizzed right through every other department I visited in the store, except this one. I was stumped.

I looked around to see what others were looking at. There were not too many other shoppers there -- and the Easter candy shelves were practically bare, too -- no doubt because it was late on the eve of a holiday weekend, but a pair of women were looking at "church clothes." I decided I'd just have to trust my judgment and picked out four shirts -- two blue, one white (probably going to regret that), and one black -- various sports themes and one of the blue ones had a quote from Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Tomorrow I will see how closely aligned my judgment is with my son's taste. That is, if he can see anything at all past the Easter candy, much of which I still have to divvy up into the plastic eggs and hide on behalf of the Easter Bunny, in whom my kids all still believe (or want to, anyway, in the case of my oldest).

Workaround and WifeSwap

2010-04-02T20:17:00.001-07:00

Today I worked around The Bigs til 3:30 when I just couldn't listen to them telling me they were bored anymore. My middle son was up before 7:00, since there was no school. My youngest actually went to school because the roads were open again. Fortunately there weren't too many people working so I didn't have a busy schedule and was able to nearly complete a project that I had back-burnered for two weeks, and only had to chase the kids out of my office maybe three times. Then we went out in the back marsh, I mean, yard. I cleaned up sticks and debris while my middle son lounged on a chair and my oldest threw a ball up on the roof and watched it roll down. I was happy to see that plants and flowers are already emerging and blooming in our yard. I guess March showers bring April flowers.

We went to get my youngest and stopped at McDonald's before we got back home. And then, this evening, I had a whole hour and a half to myself. I went to the gym where I have a good excuse to watch TV (what else am I gonna do while I'm on the cardio machines?).

There are six TVs. On one side is sports and news and on the other is entertainment and one of the major channels. I chose the entertainment side. There was a choice between some reality show with elite and IMHO - spoiled - teenage girls and "WifeSwap," which is what I chose to watch. I was amazed. I imagine they must pick very extreme families for the show, for contrast. In this show, both families had three kids. One family did not have any rules or boundaries for their kids and their 19-year-old son sat around on the couch all day aimless while the mom spent all the money the dad made on clothes and a doll collection, and didn't do a lot of parenting of her real kids. The other family had a really strong work ethic but had a business that wasn't viable supported by another business and the dad was really indulgent towards his wife (wanting her to have her dream business even if it was a money sink), but not at all loving towards his sons, who were home schooled, had no time for friends, and worked in both businesses.

So, the moms switch houses. At times it was painful to watch. But ultimately, the strict mom who moved into the house with the aimless 19-year-old helped the dad grow a backbone and insist that his son mow the lawn and get a job. His son didn't like it (who would, after 19 years of sitting around on his butt) and gave his dad a lot of flack, but ultimately turned his attitude around and helped. At the end of the show he was even looking for a job. They also put away the doll collection and cleaned out the mom's closet. She was so not happy when she returned. This mom helped the other family see that the business didn't make sense, that the kids needed a social life and time to be kids, and that the dad needed to be more loving to his sons. The dad said his own father only told him twice in his own life that he loved him, but by the end of the show he was tucking his own children in at night, kissing them, and telling them he loved them -- with a smile! That part actually brought a tear to my eye.

My children are my #1 priority and just about everything I do is because of them. Yes, I requested they leave my office today...sometimes other things have to come first -- other things I do because of them or for them. (And of course some things I do for myself, like go to the gym or paint my toenails, and it is true, I did tell my middle son he'd have to get his own drink or wait because my toenails were wet!) But I make sure to show and tell my kids I love them daily.

WifeSwap reminded me that there are all kinds of families out there and while some of the things that go on in other people's houses are not things I would want in mine, you can still learn a lot from other parents. The lenient, doll collecting mom was very loving and the very strict mom had clearly defined boundaries, goals, and discipline. In fact, I'll take a lesson from her next time I'm out in the back yard with my sons and insist that they help!

Can't get there from here

2010-04-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

"My calendar says I'm due in your classroom today, honey," I said to my oldest this morning as I was packing his lunch.

I had checked it and rechecked it the night before, and even had the original schedule his teacher had sent home that outlined the dates for the book studies I was leading in the classroom.

Yet, earlier in the week, my son had been certain that "literature circle" wasn't resuming until next week.

"Oh! Oh, sorry!"

"What are you sorry about?"

"I forgot to give you the book!"

"Well, when did you get it?"

"Yesterday."

"Hmmm...." I wondered how in the world I was going to find time to review a book before lunchtime when the book group meets, especially since it was looking increasingly likely that I would be keeping my preschooler at home that day because I'd just found out that the second of the three roads that lead to his school were closed (due to heavy rain and flooding), and I couldn't afford the time to go the long way there and back and repeat on the back end (since last time I did that it wound up being a three-hour tour), that is if the remaining road would even be open. If it wasn't, I couldn't even imagine what route I'd have to take to get there. Likely it would involve an enormous circle through 4-5 towns and back again. Far less desirable than working around him for the day, even if that meant I had to take him in to my oldest's classroom.

My son handed me the book. "Thanks, honey." I looked at it briefly and set it aside. First things first. I could either check out the school website for the contingency bus plan for getting The Bigs to school or I could take a shower. I chose the shower, thus was surprised when a different bus coming from a different direction -- that was ten minutes later than usual -- stopped for the kids.

My youngest was delighted (but tried not to smile too big) when I told him I had decided to keep him home. He really has his phone manners down, so when I told him I had to make or take a call, he took the initiative to mute the TV or his Nintendo DS (he also learned how to use the "guide" and "info" buttons on the cable remote, not that he can read much more than the words on the buttons...).

At lunchtime, he accompanied me to the elementary school, a little bit to his brother's chagrin, but not at all to his teacher's; she was very warm and welcoming, as were his brother's friends, some of whom gave him high-fives or asked him about the DS game he was playing. He sat quietly either near me or on my lap while we read and discussed the book. (I was able to wing it after sneaking in a few moments to scan the book in between calls.)

When were were done, I told my oldest, "I know some kids invite their parents to eat lunch with them in the cafeteria -- and paused so I could revel in the horrified look on his face -- but I'll see you at the bus stop this afternoon."

Relieved, he said, "I'll be on bus xx today, make sure you tell my brother."

"I can't tell your brother, he's not in class right now. Whenever I finish literature circle the lights in his classroom are off."

I confirmed that as we walked by. My youngest has only been that far into the school on one other occasion, during a parent teacher conference where he tagged along, and so I took the opportunity to show him the music room, library, computer room, and gym, in addition to my middle son's classroom, since this will be his school next year when he goes to kindergarten.

I mentioned the bus situation to the ladies in the office, who said, "No, they'll be on their regular bus going home today." They told me that they had to start school ten minutes late this morning because of the messed-up bus routes; that buses were just picking up kids where they saw them in order to help each other out. I asked them if they would be sure to clarify which bus to get on with the kids. I could imagine there might be some confusion on the way home, too, given there still are five roads just within our town closed, never mind the roads out of town.

Later in the day, sure enough bus xx (not their regular bus) roared around the corner coming from the opposite direction more than ten minutes after the time their regular bus comes. I am still not 100% clear how the kids got on that bus or if they were actually supposed to be on it but the important thing is that they got home. And that they could amuse their younger brother -- outside because it finally stopped raining!

The secret

2010-03-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

My oldest was bugging me about whether or not he made the baseball division he tried out for. He was annoyed that his brother had already found out the day before and began going down the path of doom and gloom, "I probably didn't make it. I'm no good..."

I couldn't bear to see him dejectedly banging the rocking chair in which he was sitting rhythmically against the wall, so I told him that I had "unofficial news," that "under no circumstances" would it be okay to share. He perked up.

I told him that I had exchanged emails with his brother's division coordinator the day before and asked that if my sons were both placed in that division, could they be on the same team.

"Uh huh. Uh huh...so...we're on the same team? That's not good news for me..." he slumped a little.

"No, no, no! I heard back from the coordinator. He said 'they're not in the same division,' which means that you made it" (into the division he tried out for).

His face lit up again.

"The only thing is, you can't tell anyone until we get the official word."

"Well, when's that gonna be?" he hmmphed, shoulders sagging again.

"I don't know, honey. I imagine it will be soon."

He thought for a moment, smiled, and did a little happy dance as he headed towards the bathroom where his brothers were taking a bath.

"Hold on," I stepped into his path. "When I said you can't tell anyone, that means your brothers, too."

"Awww, Mom..."

"I'm not kidding, honey." I looked him in the eyes. "This is between you and me. You can't tell your brothers, your classmates, anyone...until we get the official news. You can't even hint around about it or allude to it or say anything that will cause people to guess."

"Wouldn't that be lying?"

"No, honey. Just don't bring it up. And if someone else brings it up, you can simply say, 'I haven't got the official word yet' and leave it at that."

Then I wondered if the secret would be too much of a burden for him. This is why I do not burden him with details about our family finances, my political views, my age, or my weight.

Fortunately, about two hours later, we got an email from his coach that said, "Welcome to the Angels." Subsequently we received a team roster. There was one kid on the team who he played with last year and a few others that he knew that were in the same grade.

Mainly, the fact that he was on a team that included some of his peers was fortunate for me. I had been worried about him trying up for this division because he hadn't finished the season last year due to an injury; worried that he'd be playing (or not) alongside all older kids. What if he didn't get much play time because this division is more competitive? Well, what if...?

I had exchanged other emails with both division coordinators where I explained that my son really wanted to play up in the next divison and that 'we would be fine with whatever the evaluation scores determined.' Apparently they determined that he 'was drafted to the minors.'

I don't ever want to be the one to tell him, "No, you can't." Because if you think you can, you can, and if you think you can't, you can't. And he thinks he can.

The boys on the bus

2010-03-31T18:06:00.000-07:00

My preschooler on the bus

This morning my youngest needed to be at school before 8:00 a.m. because he had a field trip and would be riding "the big school bus." He was very excited about this, so much so that putting his clothes on and eating breakfast seemed to be a challenge. I don't know how many times I asked him if he had his socks on yet. Then he told me he needed to wear a specific shirt, the one with the name of his school on it. God help me, why didn't I think of that last night? It's not like I haven't done this before! (In fact, the specific shirt had been handed down from either or both of The Bigs.) After tearing through his bureau and his bin of summer clothes, I could not find it. But I did find Curious George and Nemo-Disneyland shirts that were the same color, so I could offer him a choice. Fortunately, I did not have any trouble finding his raincoat and rain boots. It is pouring here, so much so that I was concerned we would not be able to find a way to get him to school (roads closed due to flooding), and I knew I had to keep my eye on the river conditions to ensure I did not do another three-hour tour of duty on the back end during kid roundup, since I was planning a dinner party and Easter egg hunt. Prior to sending him off with his dad, I asked him if he'd gone potty since he got up. "Oh. No." "Well, you're probably going to want to do that before you get on the big school bus, honey." "Oh. Right." Finally, I sent him off with his dad and his breakfast to go.

The Bigs on the bus

There has been some name calling on our school bus lately. One of my neighbors brought this up yesterday and it turns out that one of my sons isn't spotless. After discussing it with him and his brother a couple of times, he first enlightened me to the bigger picture of the specific episode where he repeated the name someone else had called his friend (his friend was stabbing my son with his Nintendo DS stylus -- yes, friends (and brothers) do sometimes do things like this) and then to an ongoing trend with a particular kid who's calling a lot of people names, including calling him "fat." (My son is large like a St. Bernard puppy and sensitive about it.) His brother chimed in with, "Yeah, he called so-and-so's brother "$$&%~~ *&%!!"

"Well, what did so-and-so do?"

"He told him, 'Stop calling my brother names!' "

"Uhhmmm...do you think you could say the same to him about your own brother?"

"Well, I didn't hear him say it."

"It doesn't matter if you heard it or not. You know he's calling names. Perhaps you and so-and-so together, as the oldest kids on the bus, could talk to him about it. I don't mean gang up on him; I don't mean be aggressive. Just tell him it's not cool."

This particular name-calling kid was on my middle son's basketball team. I went to get the team photo, which I had recently framed and placed on our mantle.

"Look. He looks like a nice boy. He's just doing a not-nice thing. Do you boys think either of you could just tell him to stop calling people names?"

They seemed uncomfortable with the idea, but neither of them wants to "tattle" to the bus driver. I asked them if they wanted me to do it. They said that would be okay. But this particular morning, I was still writing out the check to accompany an order form when the school bus pulled up. I thrust the order envelope and check at my oldest, "Here, honey, can you take care of this, please?" as the school bus was waiting, and exchanged smiles with the bus driver. No chance to talk to her about the name calling.

It's probably a blessing that I didn't talk to the busdriver, though. First of all, I can't imagine it's all this one kids' fault. I know how kids can be; I was one once (as I often have to remind my sons; they seem to think I was born a mom) and it was in the very "politically incorrect" 1970's and '80's when parents didn't wait at the bus stops with their kids or even walk them to school (since people who lived within a mile of our school were not bussed!). Secondly, I think the kids need to figure out a good way to solve this problem themselves. They are only in elementary school. They still have to get through Jr. High, High School, before arriving in Real Life, ideally without excessive name calling or hitting.

Noteworthy

2010-03-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

My son asked me this morning while I was waking up his brother, "Mom, did you see the note I wrote you?"

"Not yet, honey, where did you put it?" wondering when he might have written a note; it was first thing in the morning.

"Right, here. I wrote it on a Pokemon card...with a pencil. "

I glanced over at his side of the room, which was strewn with an array of Pokemon cards (with a few Duel Master and probably Yu Gi Oh! mixed in ) as well as Nerf gun bullets.

I looked up at him blankly. "Well, what did you write?"

He selected a card out of what seemed to me to be a morass, but apparently he had some sort of strategic arrangement going on; there was order to his chaos.

He apologized in advance for not writing please. "There wasn't enough room."

"When did you write it?"

"Last night, when I heard you in the bathroom. I wanted a drink of water."

"Well, honey, why didn't you just ask me? I was right around the corner." Fuming and stomping because I had noticed the dog pee on the floor after I traipsed through it (fortunately with flip flops on). The only reason I was up was because the dog let me know he wanted to go out after he peed on the floor.

I looked at the note, squinted, and thought about how I wished I made coffee before waking up my offspring. "get me water." "to mom," was added as an afterthought along the side. I guess he had to get realistic: who else besides Mom would cater to such a whim?

But, what I don't get is, if this child could get up, find a pencil, write a note, and place it somewhere strategic so I'd find it (which in all honestly was unlikely, even if I had done anything more than a visual scan to ensure everyone was still tucked in, since I don't normally turn on lights when I'm strolling through the house at midnight; if I had, I would have seen the dog pee in the bathroom before I stepped in it), why can't he get his own cup of water?

What I said was, "Oh, honey...uhmmm, now that you're up, do you think you can get your own drink?"

Ode to my middle son

2010-03-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

This morning the dark cloud was over my middle son's head, but just for a few minutes. He tried to get everyone on the grumpy-wagon with some sort of comment about Monday (didn't even mention the rain) but I told him "this is the day the Lord has made, just rejoice and be glad in it and help me get the trash out." So, he did. Somewhere along the line he got the giggles and instigated a lot of roughousing with this brothers and there was happy chaos in my house, but I can't say I wasn't counting the minutes until the bus came.

He decided to wear shorts and a t-shirt today because he said he had no clean pants. I told him, "Wear whatever you want, but you do have clean pants in your drawer -- the dining room table does not represent your entire wardrobe!"

When I picked him and his brother up from extended day, they were sitting on couches opposite each other, mirror images of exhaustion. Apparently they had just had a "smokin' basketball game" with one of their friends and his dad. (My youngest wanted to know if anyone was smoking anything.)

When we arrived home, I noticed he had an enormous bandage on his shin. "Honey, what happened to your leg?" He launched into a detailed discussion about scabs, scab removal and blood gushing enough that scabs can't form, and told me in all he had been to the nurse's office three times today.

He bargained with me to let him eat some of the cookies I had made before dinner (I wound up making 8 dozen cookies in all today, for scouts, my kids, and the "neighborhood supper.")

We went to scouts after having a quick candle light dinner (I lit a stubby candle to dress up the fact that they were having "the usual"). My middle son asked me to turn off all the other lights.

My younger two hung out with the sibling club at scouts and when it was time for snack, ate more cookies.

I found out tonight that my middle son made the baseball division that he tried out for last week. He was very happy.

When we got home (after stopping at the supermarket for more cookie dough, which necessitated a little scolding and eye rolling and my apologizing to the clerk for coming in at 8 minutes before closing), he read Diary of a Wimpy Kid to his younger brother. It was sweet.

But then things started going downhill. In addition to our nightly argument about whose turn it is to go first in the shower, my younger two began arguing about a DS game. My middle son shoved his brother, threw the stylus and thrust the DS and game at him carelessly so that it landed on the floor. My oldest and I intervened. Oldest helped youngest find the stylus and told him, much to my middle son's chagrin, that he could borrow his Mario Hoops game. I told my middle son he wouldn't be playing any DS at all after that behavior and he stalked off to sulk.

My oldest went first in the shower. I quizzed him on his spelling words. Soon my middle son was waiting at the bathroom door with his spelling words. He needs work on a few of the challenge words and was down on himself. "Don't be ridiculous, honey! You got all the regular words right!" The dark cloud was back. (I think he was just tired after a long day.) His moods run the gamut from wretched to joyful, with a detour through mischievous and a pitstop in silly. He's generous and helpful and loving, but he can also be shy and his perfectionism makes him hesitate sometimes.

"Tomorrow is a new day!" It was nearly 10:00 by the time I chased him and his brothers up to bed. And now I am tired after a long day. Would it be a better investment of my time to work or sleep...?

Girls, girls, girls

2010-03-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

Today we went to a family comedy-hypnotist show in the afternoon and when we got home, even after goofing off quite a bit with a bunch of other kids outside the performing arts center, there was plenty of daylight left for hanging out in the back yard. For my older two, anyway. My youngest wanted to finish the movie that I made him pause in order to go to the event in the first place.

The Bigs and their friend who had come over were talking to (taunting and teasing) girls over the back fence. The girls were their friend's sister (in the same class as my oldest), and her two friends (a year and maybe two older). I had to yell out the kitchen window a few times, "Put that bat down!" "Don't climb on the fence." "Get off the shed." These were all admonitions while they were in our yard.

Then they migrated next door with their friend. I was cleaning up the kitchen, washing dishes and such, and I could see into the neighbors yard. My oldest was hanging on something that looked like a dog run, which was attached to the railing of the porch on one end, and my middle son was "high sticking" a rake.

I yelled out the window again. "Don't hang on that!" "Put that rake down!"

One of the older girls said to me, "Your son has really soft hair!"

Fortunately they all moved over to the trampoline, where my two and their friend proceeded to show off for the girls. God help me, was all I could think. My Bigs think they won't be ready to have a girlfriend until they're in sixth grade, at least. Sixth grade! We were still going on group dates in high school!

Anyway, the kids came back to our house with their friend and I fed them chicken nuggets and smiley fries and they played wii.

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My boys asked me after the show, "Mom, how come you didn't want to get hypnotized?"

"I couldn't imagine leaving the three of you sitting alone in the audience while I was up on stage." (Especially after the way they behaved in church this morning. Actually, my oldest is okay, but my younger two are very busy, and it's my middle son who can't stay on the pew, but still rolls around under them and in the aisle.)

Actually, after the show, I couldn't imagine myself singing, dancing, or talking gibberish like the people up on stage. I had tried being hypnotized once, and it didn't work. I was considerably younger, I think high-school age. Is it because the young are not easily hypnotized that the hypnotist preferred older candidates? Otherwise I would have sent my sons up to see if they could be hypnotized into doing chores or their homework, or taking showers without arguing. One of the other parents and I shared a chuckle over this at the end of the show.

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My sons' friend's sister came over after dinner with cookies and joined us for egg coloring. It was impromptu and I hadn't even boiled the eggs yet. I hadn't even bought all the eggs yet (I only had a dozen), and I pressed another neighbor into service while I dashed across the street to the convenient supermarket. I let all the boys play wii in the basement as long as possible while this lovely young lady helped me measure out all the food coloring and vinegar (she counted drops and used a teaspoon). We discussed her friend's comment about my oldest's hair. She agreed that it was soft. I told her he uses conditioning shampoo. She said most boys don't have soft hair. I told her I didn't think most boys had long hair.

My middle son came up a few times to help. First he wanted to drop the pellets in. I told him we didn't have pellets, we were doing it the old fashioned way, with food coloring. Then he called doing the red so he could pretend he was bleeding and freak out the other boys. He wanted to be first to use the clear crayon. I told him there was no clear crayon, we were doing it the old fashioned way, with Crayolas, but he could be first with the white one. I think he suesequently drew war scenes on his eggs with crayon before he dyed them...red.

When we were all done, we broke out the Easter candy.

Holey!

2010-03-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

My oldest was standing in the kitchen, about to put on his black sneakers, the ones that I have been asking him -- for - what seems like - ever -- to stop wearing (or at least rotate with other shoes so I can "misplace" them for him).

"Stop. You can't. We've talked about this. There are at least two other pairs of sneakers you could be wearing right now -- that you should be wearing -- before you outgrow them."

"But I like these sneakers."

"I like them, too, but I can see your socks through them." I had told him this the night before when he had his feet up on the console in between the front seats of the car. The bottoms were completely worn though on the sides.

"Put your feet down, honey, it's safe to sit slouched down like that while I'm driving." Truthfully, I wanted to put my elbow there, and I think his feet smelled kind of ripe.

This brought up the conversation again that he hates his turn in the middle.

"Then sit in the wayback." That is always the option for the one whose turn it is in the middle.

"Why can't I sit in the front?"

"You know why. Because you're not old enough. You have to be 12. I mean 13."

Thirteen is what the doctor told us when my son sought a second opinion to my edict last week when he was at his annual check up. The doctor had asked him if he had any questions, and my son glanced at me before he asked, "Am I old enough to sit in the front of the car?"

Then the doctor launched into an even better lecture than I could have delivered about if there's a choice, the safest place is in the back seat -- how he'd rather be in the back seat if there was an accident -- and how he really shouldn't plan to sit in the front seat until he was 13."

"But my mom said..."

I cut him off. "Apparently Mommy was wrong!" And I smiled and thanked the doctor. I thought the age was 12, though I do imagine it has to do with size, so it's likely my 8 year old will be eligible by the time he is 10 because he already outweighs my 10 year old by 25-30 pounds easily, and is taller.

Either way, I can enjoy another 2-3 years without them in the "grownup space."

"You really need to throw those shoes out," I continued.

He groaned and then literally threw the shoes at the trash can. One of them bounced off, but the other swooshed in, as the lid swung in circles and the trash can banged against the stove.

"Hmmm. Nice shot. Why don't you wear your basketball sneakers? There's no point in saving them for next year; I'm sure they'll no longer fit by then."

Momentarily, he emerged wearing the pristine sneakers, which had never been worn outside of the school gym. I wondered if he would purposely try to "dirty them up a bit," since they were in such stark contrast to the familiar black ones.

(I had to get a pic of the sneakers before I took the trash out!)

Bedtime...at last!

2010-03-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

As I double checked the locks on the doors and turned the lights off, I thought about how happy I was that the kids were FINALLY tucked into bed with the lights dimmed, but not all the way off...that they'd bathed and brushed their teeth (I asked them to do this, anyway -- but I didn't check to see if their toothbrushes were wet) and that their laundry was all in the washing machine, and I had actually done the dishes (well, the dishwasher is doing most of them; I just did the ones that wouldn't fit). Even the dog had a bath.

It reminded me of a parenting humor book I read called 14 Hours 'Til Bedtime -- the title itself says so much. Who among us hasn't counted the hours until bedtime?

Today felt like the longest day, and then tonight we had my oldest's chess club meeting. Usually I drop him off, since no one else in the family plays (though next year at least one of his brothers will), but it was the grand finale where they gave out trophies and had a beautiful cake shaped like a chess board, complete with white and dark chocolate chess pieces. It was a good time, but I probably would have fared better at home with my feet up.

My older two were picking on their younger brother. This is one of their behaviors that I absolutely have no patience for. My oldest is "six years older, you should know better! Set a good example for your brother, would you!?" and my middle son, "weighs easily more than three times as much as he does; you're far too big to rough house with him like that." The worst is their psychological torture, which basically is increasingly sophisticated ways of calling him a baby and otherwise attempting to make him feel inadequate. My youngest was in tears more than once and I growled at my older two like a mad mama bear.

In all fairness to my kids, they were helpful at the supermarket tonight.

So, here I am with precious time to myself and it's almost 11:30 p.m. and there are so many things I could do, like finish moving the winter clothes into storage (since the boxes are in abeyance in my room), editing my manuscript, working (I did send a few emails), catching up on reading anything in the stack of books and magazines I've got set aside...but what will I do? Probably nothing. Maybe channel surf. Likely fall asleep.

I told all of my kids, "Don't get up early! We don't have to go anywhere right away tomorrow -- let's sleep in." We'll see. (I hope I didn't jinx myself by saying that. This morning they were up before it was light out.)

The surprise

2010-03-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

When the boys got off the bus today I told them I had a surprise for them.

They asked, "What!?" "What is it!?" "Tell us!"

I said, "Well, what would be the most happy piece of news you could get today?"

Without hesitation, "We're going to the movies?"

"Yes! How's you guess?"

"You're the awesome-est mom in the whole world!" (Not to be confused with "the worst mommy ever," which I have also been called.)

I ushered them into the house and told them we'd be picking up their brother at the normal time and then head straight to the movies from preschool, "so please go amuse yourselves constructively -- yes, you can have some cookies -- while I go take my 4:00 call and wrap up my work day."

Just that morning my middle son had told me he really wanted to see this particular movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I knew he did because his classmates had started seeing it. Both of the Bigs have read all the books on which the movie is based. I saw part of an interview on TV and thought they'd like it, as well as having seen the preview to the movie itself. So, I wondered when during the weekend we could squeeze it in. My youngest had a birthday party on Saturday afternoon, and our Sunday was booked, so I figured Saturday morning might work, but then realized that's probably what everyone else would think, too. And then come to find out the movie wasn't playing in our theater-of-choice until Saturday afternoon.

So, while I was disappointed to find out this morning that my regular Thursday night engagement was cancelled, and very worried about the reason why, I knew right off the bat what we could do instead. Not that we actually had to do anything (we had already been out all of the previous nights this week, but fortunately since it's MCAS week, no one has homework), but I had coupons for our favorite theater for two free admissions and three free popcorns that could only be used on week nights.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare, and the theater was sparsely populated. The kids tried to lure me over to the video games but I made a beeline for the ticket-taker, who happened to have this enormous binder -- it had to be six inches thick -- full of Duel Master cards. I think they were Duel Master, anyway. They weren't Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokemon: he assured me he had grown out of those in elementary school. I asked him what grade he's in now and he said he's been out of school two years. I wondered if my kids would still be interested in these types of cards when they're that age. Currently their collection of Japanime cards is displayed on my younger two's bedroom floor (I am happy to say that our baseball cards are safe and secure). I have been wading through it for days, maybe even a week. I muttered at them the other day, "I think I'll just throw out everything on this floor -- what a pit." But if I actually did that, I'd have to pick it all up first.

The movie place where we go is actually a dinner theater with big comfortable reclining chairs, so we had dinner in addition to the show tonight. Or, my youngest and I had dinner and The Bigs picked at their food because they had eaten too many cookies after school. They were so apologetic I didn't even need to deliver the lecture about wasting food and money.

The movie was good but I can tell it stirred up a considerable amount of angst for The Bigs who are on the verge of middle school. In fact, my oldest's orientation is in two weeks. We talked about the importance of being true to yourself and how stuff that happens in Jr. High and High School seems so important at the time, but once you graduate, it's a whole new ball game.

Natural consequences of forgetfulness

2010-03-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

My youngest's preschool called shortly after he arrived and informed me that my son showed up without his lunchbox today. I was five nines (99.999%) certain that I had sent him off with it, so I called his dad who had taken him to school this morning. No answer. I texted him. No answer. Well, what difference would it make, anyway, I thought to myself. It was going to work with his dad.

The school director mentioned that it was pizza day, but since we both know he doesn't like pizza, he could eat Froot Loops, and that he said he was okay with that.

Two thoughts about this: I wish my son liked pizza. I wish my son wouldjust try pizza. I mentioned that to him one night recently and told him, "Normal kids eat pizza!" He informed me that he was normal and he did not like pizza. I asked him how he knew that, since he has never tried it, while admitting, "you are right, you are normal, except for the fact that you don't like pizza." He told me he knew because he had tried ketchup once (and I do remember this monumental event) and that it was too spicy for his mouth.

He doesn't like ice cream, either. I don't think that's "normal" but I don't want to be responsible for undermining his confidence and creating "issues." And anyway, what is normal, besides one of the settings on the washing machine? Which reminds me...

But the more important thought is, I couldn't bear the idea of my son sitting at the little lunch tables with all his friends, when they all had their lunch boxes and maybe a slice or two of pizza (since I am fairly certain most kids his age eat pizza) and he was eating dry cereal with a side of Goldfish crackers. Oh, and he'd probably have some juice, because even if they had milk to offer, he would not drink it as that is not on his list of acceptable things to consume either. (He gave up milk when he gave up his baba.) So therefore, he would be eating sugar and carbs all day, unless I delivered a lunch box that included all the food groups in acceptable forms, e.g., yogurt, apple sauce, pretzels, and orange juice.

So, I did. I figured I'd move around my schedule a little and I'd have just enough time to drive to preschool and back before my next call. The natural consequences of his forgetting his lunch box were simply far too undesirable.

Fast forward to this evening. We were on our way home from a pizza party (where my youngest son did not partake) to celebrate our team's successful Destination Imagination event last weekend. It was a lovely evening where we didn't have to do any projects or work or planning or discussing anything besides normal kid and mom things. Our team leader has an awesome apartment over her family's garage, and the grownups had secured the downstairs while the kids were upstairs via a spiral staircase. Much thumping, giggling, and music was heard overhead -- normal kid noises that apparently girls make, too, since the team was 2/3 girls -- while the moms talked about kids, health, diets, exercise, aging, the school play, teachers, and homework.

When we had bid our host adieu and were at the end of the long, rocky driveway, I asked my youngest, "Honey, do you have your lovey (teddy bear/blanket combo)?"

His was focused intently on his Nintendo DS.

"Honey, you have your lovey, right?"

No answer as I turned out of the driveway onto the street.

"Do you care?"

"What, mom?"

"Did you bring your lovey into the house?"

"No."

There had been much shuffling and jockeying for position in the car as we were packing up and leaving, so I really wasn't sure.

Later this evening after showers, my son asked me, "Where's my lovey."

I said, "Wherever you left it."

"Oh, great! Now I'm never going to find it!" Oh, woe -- the drama!

I didn't bite. "You left it at so-and-so's, didn't you."

"Yes, I think so," he said in a small voice, muffled because his thumb was in his mouth. His shoulders slumped. He looked up at me and I could see the half moons under his teary eyes. He was tired and he wanted his lovey. But it was past 9:00, too late for me to even call our friends.

"Good thing you have two other loveys you can use..."

"But I don't like..."

"...to get you through the night."

I am certain he was very disappointed, devastated even, but he did not argue with me. Whether it was because he was too tired, or he had accepted responsibility for the fact that he left his lovey behind, I do not yet know. The natural consequences were painful even for me, as I have gone through great lengths in the past almost-five years to ensure that he does not have to go without his preferred lovey for any great length of time (sometimes it is the lovey I have delivered to school), usually only long enough for it to go through the wash. Which reminds me...

Do your best

2010-03-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight was my middle son's baseball evaluations. He is trying to play up a division (to the first level of kid-pitch) because his birthday is so close to the cut-off date. I really hope he makes it -- he's already had two seasons of T-ball and a season of coach-pitch) and he's in 3rd grade and most of his friends are already in the division he's trying out for.

Originally I thought all the eight-year-olds who wanted to could play up, but then I learned that there were a limited number of spots. I spoke to one of the dads in the beginning of the "try outs" and we agreed it was a lot of pressure for young kids.

My sons and I talked about this on the way over to the school where the evaluations were held. I told my middle son, "I know you're a good baseball player, and I am sure you'd do fine in D1, but there are only so many spots. There may be a lot of other good players, too..."

"Did you hear that, honey?" I said to my oldest who had his nose in a book. "The same goes for you. You did great last night, and at the same time, you were one of the youngest kids there. Some kids at your evaluations were 12." I had also exchanged emails today with his division coordinator and the bit about how you didn't finish the season last year came up (he had broken his arm).

"Awwww! I really wanted to play in this division." (I was actually imagining both boys on the same team -- this would be my dream come true!)

"I know, honey, I haven't heard either way yet. I'm just letting you know, there's a possibility that because of the population that tried out, you might not. It wouldn't be a bad thing; I am sure there are other kids you know playing at this level."

"I stink," he moped and slumped in his seat.

"Don't be ridiculous! Of course you don't stink. You did your best. You did a good job. Just leave it in God's hands." (We had actually put it in God's hands prior to the evaluations when we prayed, and we did the same tonight for my middle son.)

We were early for evaluations tonight and my son took his assigned pinny and joined a mob of kids who were throwing a ball back and forth. It didn't look like there was any rhyme or reason to this game, but I am sure there is because I have seen kids do this with footballs, too.

They did all the same drills as my oldest did last night, except for the baserunning. I followed my son around from station to station, sometimes with my other two by my side, and sometimes not (depending upon if they were running around with the sibling club). I am fairly certain my middle son was happy that I was watching, because he checked to be sure I was from time to time. Yes, I see you, I indicated with a thumbs up or a wave. It reminded me of basketball season when he wanted me to actually watch his practice, even though he is old enough to be dropped off while I run to the supermarket. So, I would spend the hour watching, as I did tonight. I am sure it won't be long before he prefers me to watch from a distance, and then maybe not at all.

When we were done and on the way to Boy Scouts, he said, "Mom, I think I made it!"

I told him, "Well, you never know. We didn't see how everyone else did. But you did a good job. You did your best. That's the most important thing. Let's leave it in God's hands."

Sports psychology

2010-03-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had my oldest's baseball evaluation. His younger brother hung out with the "sibling club" in the school where tryouts were held. This just means he ran around loose with a bunch of other kids who tagged along, until he met up with my youngest and me, who were watching the first part of the evaluations from an elevated track-balcony that overlooked all the stations. I had brought dinner in a cooler, since we were planning to go straight to Boy Scouts after, but as it turned out, it was cancelled because some kids were sick, we were going to be late, and actually everyone has MCAS tomorrow. My youngest played his DS and I did a little editing, and then I timed the kids (my middle son had sought us about by then) running around the track a few times. No wonder everyone's tired tonight (well, actually, I don't know why I am...could it be a rainy Monday?).

On the way home, my middle son and I were talking with my oldest about how he did, since we watched all of the drills. I told him I was amazed at what a good pitcher he is, and how he hit just about every ball. My middle son said, "Yeah, you were like the only one pitching right," (which I am sure is an exaggeration, but they've both been attending a pitching clinic and have learned some very specific things). I said, "Oh, and I noticed how fast you are." (Baserunning drill.) My oldest said, "I didn't do so great at catcher..." I hadn't actually seen that drill, but added, "And you were better at infield than outfield -- but that's why they have evaluations, so they know what your strengths and weaknesses are." My youngest, wanting to participate in the conversation, said, "Yeah, you're just really awe SOME!"

We'll be repeating this scenario tomorrow night for my middle son's evaluations. He is trying to play up in a new division; his birthday is so close that he doesn't automatically qualify.

Because we didn't go to Boy Scouts, we had a little extra time this evening to hang out. My oldest and I were in the kitchen and his brothers were off doing who knows what -- but it wasn't showering, because it was a full hour later before I could convince anyone to do that ("I'm not going first!" "Well, I'm not, I went first last time!" "I always go first!") -- and we talked about all the good things you learn in sports: teamwork, taking turns, how to handle winning and losing (some members of our family need a little more practice with the losing half of that aspect)...and my son said something about not being afraid to get dirty or hurt. I suppose those are important lessons as well, and though I don't like to think of my boys getting hurt (which reminds me, I need to register them for football), though the dirty part is old hat. We have been coexisting quite nicely with laundry all over the dining room table for the past week or more (I am trying to decide if I should put winter clothes away yet; I have already begun getting out the summer clothes.). I actually said to one of my sons (who saved his weekend homework for this morning), "Does it bother you to have all that laundry all over the place, or are you grateful for clean clothes?"

Quickly he replied, "I'm grateful for clean clothes." (Thus ensuring I wouldn't ask him to carry his share up to his room.)

I've also adapted the "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song to address the parts of the body that must be washed in the shower, and I do sometimes sing it to the boys from the other side of the curtain, and remind them to "use soap!"

Phone manners

2010-03-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

My youngest snuck up on me this afternoon when I was on the phone. I didn't hear him until he was right behind me and I turned around with a start. I had been sitting at my desk, so he figured I must be working. Apparently the time he spent at home last week when I couldn't get him to school because of the closed roads was not for naught. He began whispering to me. I asked my friend to hang on a sec and put my hand over the phone, as I whispered back, "honey, you don't have to whisper..." So why was I whispering? And then in a normal voice, "I'm not really working right now; what do you need?"

I took him by the hand and told my friend that she was taking a walk with me while we went to find the red sweatshirt instead of the blue and gray striped one.

The ironic thing is, I was really working. It was a beautiful, sunny early spring day...and I was downloading materials from a vendor site that I would later need to publish elsewhere. I trudged back up to my office after I sent my youngest off with his dad and thought about the saying, "why put off til tomorrow what you can do today?" and weighed the fact that it was Sunday against the fact that I had already put this project off for quite a while.

Sometimes work permeates my life and sometimes life permeates my work. I have given up on trying to achieve work-life balance. The boundaries have become blurry thus it's more like work-life blending. Last week when I had children home for three of the five days, it was occasionally work-life battle. But, like how do we learn to practice patience if we never have opportunities to test it, how are kids going to learn their phone manners if they don't have a chance to use them?

Free play

2010-03-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

Today was our day-long Destination Imagination tournament, the grand finale of all of the boys' hard work along with their team since the team-based, problem-solving challenge began in last fall. The Bigs and four girls, plus two siblings (including my youngest) met on a weekly basis to create a skit that showcased the their chosen challenge (robotic technology). Grown ups aren't allowed to help at all. They built scenery, wrote the scene, planned their costumes, and practiced, practiced, practiced.

I could tell both of the boys at times during the season felt like they had signed up for more than they could handle. My oldest had basketball practice for that overlapped with DI for the first couple of months. My middle would sometimes gripe and complain that "you always sign me up for things I don't want to do!" This is the farthest from the truth. We were sitting at the orientation meeting with one of his best friends who also participated, but just wound up on a different team. My sons were initially the ones that wanted to do this; I was concerned about the commitment (especially because we met on the night when we used to have Pasta Night!). As of this morning, neither was sure he wanted to participate again next year but both could honestly say they were glad for the experience.

The event began at 7:00 a.m. and we arrived right about on time. Come to find out, that is just when registration actually began. We had a lot of time to "kill" before our first mandatory activity at 10:45. By the grace of God, it was a sunny and warm first day of spring. We still had all of our baseball equipment in the car, and the basketball. We had a blanket. We signed in, read the rules, got our tee shirts, and then made a beeline for the baseball diamond. We claimed our spot as though we were on a beach. Our team leader and her daughter joined us. Soon thereafter the rest of the team convened.

We wound up watching a few other teams' skits and our team had to participate in an "instant challenge," which we adults had nothing to do with and were not allowed to discuss. But other than those events, and getting some pizza in the cafeteria, we spent the entire day outside.

When I first saw the agenda, I was dreading all the downtime in between mandatory activities, but it wound up being a wonderful blessing. I brought the manuscript I am working on so I could steal a few moments here and there to edit. The kids brought their Nintend DSLites but they didn't use them much: it was too sunny!

Our team all had the same shirts on; and our school all had the same color, so when the kids took off inside the fenced-in track area, I was not at all concerned, in fact I was rather relieved since some of the other kids had been forbidden to play baseball -- some other team-manager-moms didn't want anyone to get whacked with a ball or a bat. True, the area behind the plate was teeming with children, but the actual baseball diamond was pretty much free and clear.

The kids made up some sort of game that involved a very large mat (probably used for pole vault or high jump). A few moms were in attendance; they admonished the kids a few times about not jumping on top of each other ("One person on the mat at a time!") .

I thought about how structured kids' lives had become and how having this free time built into the schedule was actually quite liberating. Time to do nothing in particular. What would you do on a sunny and warm first day of spring if you had seven hours free? (We weren't at home so no one had to think about any chores.) Now go right ahead and do it.

I consciously chose to let the boys run free. I remembered how it was when I was a kid and could go outside and just hang around. I was right nearby in case anyone needed something to eat or a bandage. But otherwise, I knew the boys could use a good dose of downtime built into their schedule for free play. They had earned it.

Basketball: the cure for the baseball blues

2010-03-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Late this afternoon, the Bigs and I went to the town field to play our little family version of baseball. (The promise of this excursion was what finally motivated to pick their toys up from the back yard -- it was done before they came in from the school bus.)

Even after all the rain we had, the front field wasn't swampy, and that's my personal favorite field because the other one abuts the woods and is usually marshy and buggy. Plus, the nearby field has the pitching screen.

My youngest was still at preschool, so we were down a man. Today's version of the game started out with me as catcher and my oldest pitching to his younger brother, who had already complained that it was too bright. I informed him, "No, you cannot have my sunglasses. They're prescription."

His grouchy demeanor was mere foreshadowing. After his brother threw two pitches that nearly clocked him, he, griped, "You stink! I don't want you pitching to me!" As he dramatically launched himself out of the imaginary batters' box.

"He doesn't stink. No one in this family stinks. Just go to first base then," I told him. "Pitch to me, honey," I said to my oldest.

I swung and missed three times. True, I'll swing at just about anything, which we do when there's no catcher and we have two novice pitchers (and me who never even aspired to be a pitcher until pressed into service last year by my sons) and only three baseballs...but even still didn't feel so great about my inability to hit the ball. My middle son out-hit me several weeks ago when we went to the batting cages, too. And I can try to convince myself that I have better aim than he does with the pitching machine, but I don't know...

"Never mind pitching, let me just hit balls to you guys. Fielding drill."

We did some scenarios where we had plays at first and then at second, ground balls, fly balls, pop ups. Then we talked about whether anyone should try to throw the ball all the way from second (I don't think so) or use a cut-off man. And whether it makes sense to throw the ball high into the air or straight like an arrow. And how far should you go to catch a foul ball? And just how far away from the plate is the catcher supposed to go, anyway? (I was "at bat" and catching; the Bigs were alternating between first, second and infield/outfield).

Then they both wanted to hit and this is where things went downhill. Middle son insisted he wanted to use 2nd base as home (which we started doing last year when playing on the swampy back field, rather than stand in a mudpuddle at home plate) so the sun wouldn't be shining at him. My rules-based oldest wanted to do it the right way, at home plate. So, they each took their bases on opposite sides of the pitchers mound. I was stuck in between the two of them with three balls. (Granted, we all saw the tennis ball on the field that someone had left behind, but we all knew that it was not the same and none of us even bothered to pick it up. Not once even just to look at it or toss it off the field.) If I threw a good pitch to one and not the other, it's not fair. If one hit the ball farther than the other, it's not fair! If I caught one ball and missed the other, it's not fair! If one of them had to wait and the other didn't, it's not fair! Three balls, two kids...it WOULD NEVER BE FAIR!

It wasn't long before my middle son was stomping around and pitching a fit, as well as his bat and glove.

"Alright, boys... I can see it's time to go."

Much complaining and a small pity party ensued, with my middle son dragging his feet morosely. My oldest was compliant, and that rubbed his brother the wrong way. He moped all the way to preschool. I dreaded taking them into the supermarket on the way to our friends' house for dinner, but I did anyway, because I had told my friend I'd bring salad (and we picked out some cookies, too).

Fortunately, when we arrived at our friends' house, I pointed out that there was a basketball hoop in their extended driveway area and propelled them towards it with the ball that someone had left in the car two nights ago. The misery of the baseball diamond was quickly forgotten.

Back to normal

2010-03-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

For some of us, it was business as usual today. For example, my middle son told me at 8 a.m. that he had homework.

"Whaddaya mean you have homework? Homework from when!?" I asked. We haven't had school in two days! Come to find out, he had saved this homework since Monday night.

I suggested -- strongly -- that he sit himself down and get started while eating (he could not afford the luxury of monotasking this morning) while I went upstairs to drag the kids' summer clothes out of the attic, since the temperature was supposed to be 70+ degrees.

I had an offsite appointment at 9:00, so that necessitated that the Bigs take the bus. I had packed their lunches and delivered their clothes and told them I'd be right back, I was going up to get dressed. But I got sidetracked with their younger brother trying to find the D.S. games (that I had confiscated, because while I can tolerate Nerf gun bullets and the like all over the couches and floor, I do not like finding $30 DS games).

When I came back downstairs and flew out the door, they were gone. I felt kind of bad about that because I normally wait with them, or at least usher them out the door as the bus is rounding the corner of our street. No matter what, waving goodbye is part of the deal. But today, a day when the town was still in an uproar about roads being closed to all but the buses, it was not. I consoled myself with the thought that certainly even though there were reports of fish swimming across the roads, that the buses would drive safely over them and deliver the kids to school, as they do every other day.

For the others of us, it was not business as usual. My youngest could not go to preschool because the roads were still closed until later in the morning, but I was booked pretty much solid with calls from 10:00 to 1:00 (I guess that part is usual) so unless I wanted to bring him in right in the middle of naptime, what was the point? I wasn't going to risk another end-of-day fiasco.

He was my constant companion all day: he accompanied me to my appointment and was by my side during all five of my conference calls. At one time, shortly after he had come over to me to ask me which of the five construction machines on his shirt was my favorite (I chose the bull dozer), I had to explain to one of my colleagues that he was "still learning how to respect Mommy's job," while giving him the eye. He nodded silently. I realized that the disadvantage of having just one at home is that he doesn't have anyone else but me to hang around with.

Hanging around with one or more of my kids is a heck of a lot more fun when I'm not trying to hang around with my colleagues at the same time!

When The Bigs got off the school bus, I asked our bus driver how were the roads. "Awful," she said. My middle son told me that he'd had to hold the bus for his brother this morning; that indeed the bus driver was early, and about the unusual route they'd had to take to get to school. Then I sent them all out to play in the backyard (and asked them yet again, to make sure they picked up all their toys -- the ones that are still there from Tuesday night!). Of course they were in my office within minutes (and the toys are still on the lawn. My middle son looked at me with angelic blue eyes after he took his shower, "do you want me to go get them now, mom?" knowing full well I wouldn't make him do it in the dark!) (Is this like reverse emotional blackmail?)

There's always tomorrow... when I expect we'll all be back to normal! Routine is good!

Togetherness

2010-03-17T19:11:00.001-07:00

School was closed again today. This time I knew ahead of time. I found out during my three-hour tour through the detour from my house to the Bigs' baseball clinic to my youngest son's preschool -- right when I didn't think things could possibly get worse. I saw the number on my cell phone, and I thought, Oh no! I take it back, it can get worse. Please don't let it get worse! before I answered.

Today, again, I only had four meetings. I chased the kids out of my office a few times and suggested they go outside because it was warm. My youngest was home, too. His preschool wasn't closed, but as the saying goes, "you can't get there from here." Two out of the three roads that I could take are closed and the third still has water all over it and the going is very slow (according to local lore on the town newslist). There was absolutely no way I was going to even take the chance of repeating what I went through last night.

No matter how many times I suggested things for the kids to do in other parts of the house or yard, they ended up back in my office. I had been dodging bullets (literally, there are Nerf gun projectiles all over the downstairs), bakugan, and Play-doh wads. As soon as the dishes were cleaned up from one meal, someone was hungry or thirsty again. Cups, plates, wrappers, chip bags littered numerous surfaces.

Midday the boys tagged along with me to my hair appointment. I had tried to reschedule it last night after I got the call from school, but my hairdresser convinced me that she could see me in the backroom and the kids could hang out there. "Hmmm." I knew it would be no picnic, but I really needed to have my hair done so I agreed. Fortunately my hairdresser is also my friend, and she has two kids near the ages of mine, so she mothered them while I was under the dryer and couldn't hear anything (it would have been a more blissful experience if it weren't so hot!). My oldest also got his hair cut, though I doubt anyone will be able to tell -- he's wearing it long like 1970's-David-Cassidy-long ("Who's that, Mom?"). All in all they were very cooperative so I took them to Dunkin Donuts afterwards.

Back to my office to work for a few more hours and then to our Destination Imagination meeting, which was held outside on the school playground because the school was closed today, but we really needed to meet one more time before the competition this weekend. We went to the supermarket on the way home to get things for dinner and everyone showered in the downstairs bathroom adjacent to the kitchen while I cooked.

After dinner, I left the dishes in the sink and went upstairs to watch a movie with the boys in my room. We spent a lot of time together today; our house is very "lived in." (The dishes remain where I left them.)

Supposedly there's school tomorrow, but I don't know how that's going to work if the buses can't travel into entire neighborhoods...

Schtick and Tired -- Reprise

2010-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

I got the call very early this morning. School was cancelled because of flooding. My youngest's preschool is never closed so I had to get him up, but when my other two stirred as I passed their rooms, I went in to whisper to them, "You don't have to get up, there's no school today."

Of course, my middle son shot up in bed like a bolt of lightning. "No school!? Yessssss!" I probably shouldn't have said anything. If he thought there was school, he wouldn't have got out of bed!

My oldest said, "Thank you, Lord! Now I can sleep!" I covered him back up and closed the shade on the window next to his bed.

Yeah, right, I thought to myself. True, it wasn't the "buttcrack of dawn" (as it has been called in our home, "snicker-snort-heh-heh-heh"), but I knew they'd be up early anyway.

I shuffled downstairs with my youngest after helping him dress. I packed his lunch, made a coffee, and ventured into the basement to see the state of affairs (not bad, thank God the sump pump works fine when it's plugged in, even though it smells kind of dusty, likely from lack of use -- we haven't had this much rain in I can't remember how long). After I'd sent my youngest off to school with his dad, I checked in with work. Hmmm, not a lot of action overnight. Then I remembered that it's a holiday in India today, so it's no wonder I didn't hear from many of my colleagues.

Thankfully, I only had four meetings on my calendar, and my the Bigs have learned to be relatively respectful of my job...and of course, there's always the mute button!

Because of the irony of everyone getting up early when they don't have to, I wanted to share one of my favorite columns today. This is one that will be included in my upcoming book, Snakes, Snails and Puppy Dog Tales, due out this spring.

Schtick and Tired: Comic Themes Related to Sleeping – Or Not

In the morning, on a school day

“Rise and shine boys, it’s already 6:30!”
“Is it a school day?”
“Yes! Time to get up, get going, get your spirit showing!” (I was a cheerleader at one time in my life).
“If it’s a school day, I’m still tired!”

In the morning, on a weekend

“Mommy.” Poke, poke, nudge. “It’s time to get up!”
“No, it isn’t honey,” I whisper. “We’re all still sleeping.”
Urgently: “Mommy! It’s five-four-four.”
“That’s okay, honey. It’s Sunday. We don’t have to go anywhere until church.”
Silence. Then, “But I want to get up.”
“Shhhh.”
“Mom-mee-ee-ee!” he nudges me again.
“Get up then. Go ahead, honey.”
“But I want you to come with me!”

In the afternoon, any day

From the second-floor bedroom: “Mah-ahm…”

“Oh, dear God. Why isn’t that kid asleep?” I dread the idea that he won’t nap, because that means he’ll be really cranky in the evening. Or else, he’ll have a late nap, be cranky when I wake him up for dinner, be up too late (making me cranky), and thus be cranky the next morning.

“Mommy?” he calls again tentatively.
I consider ignoring him, praying that he’ll give up, roll over, and snooze.

“Mommy!”
“Mama!”
I consider too long.

“MOMMEEEEE!”
“MA! MAAAAAAH!!!”
He’s increasingly impatient that I have not yet arrived.

“What is it, honey? You can’t be yelling like that! What is it!?” I ask, somewhere between a whisper and a hiss, so as not to wake the sleeping brother in the next bed.

“I’m hungry. No, I’m thirsty. No, I’m…”
Right. He’s probably just tired.

At night, on a weekend

“Can we stay up as late as we want?”
“Sure, boys! Why don’t you see if you can stay up until midnight?”
“Awright! Thanks, Mom!”
Both are asleep before 8:30.

At night, on a weeknight

“Boys, time for bed.”
“Awwww. Ten more minutes?”
“No, it’ll be ten minutes by the time you’re ready for bed.”
“But we’re not tired.”
“You still need to go potty and brush. So, let’s go.”
“We don’t wanna!”
“Yeah, we’re NOT going.”
“Boys, if you don’t go willingly, there will be a consequence. You know the deal. It’s the same every night. Get up off the couch. Go in the bathroom. One of you go potty while the other brushes. Then switch.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We’re too tired!”

Later, on a weeknight

Mommeeeeeeee! Calling from upstairs.
“What? what is it!?” Me running up quickly, thinking there’s something dire going on / not wanting the baby to wake up.
“Can you turn the light on more?”

“Mommeeeeeeee!” Repeat the drill three more times.
Insert: “I’m thirsty.” “Can you cover me up?” “What are you doing down there?”
“That’s it. You.Must.Go.To.Sleep.Now.Tomorrow.Is.A.School.Day. If I have to come up here again…”

The next morning, my son asks, “Is it a school day?”
“Yes! Time to get up, get going…”
“If it’s a school day, I’m still tired!”