Guest Post from my Son

Gregory wrote this during our deep freeze weather. This is a child who has been known to weep over a one-sentence journal entry, so I was a bit surprised at the rapidly scratching pencil. When I read his story, I remembered what he shared with me just a few days ago. “Mama, if I daydream all day long for about 3 weeks, do you know what happens?” Of course, I knew some things that happen, like a very exasperated mother trying to get his attention, but actually, I didn’t know. “Well, if I do enough daydreaming, I don’t dream at night! It’s like I used up all the dreams!” It does make sense, doesn’t it? I give you his story, titled:

The Polar Regoin

I knew it would be a very unusual day. When I woke up and felt how cold the floor was. I walked over and opened the door and saw before my astoinished eyes a……… penguin demolishing an icicle!!!

I heard a growl. And looked over and locked eyes with a polar bear! My first thought was (I knew my dad had got lost wen we moved!) fortunately I had a baseball bat at my side!

To bad he didn’t have time to tell his fellow bears about the strange thing on two legs with a stick that he swung on him nearly nocking his head off! (I did nock his head off!)

I guessed the bat was going 90 miles an hour.

Then I woke up! To bad.

Why I Need Coffee Today

This morning I stirred a bit and mumbled a good bye when Gabe left for work at 5:15. It may have been a little while before I got up and thought about the day. This is what I thought, “I need coffee. Nice and strong. Coffee.” I have a percolator just like this, and I really like it because it fits into my cupboard, thus saving valuable counter space. When I picked up the stem thingy that holds up the cup for the grounds, I discovered that the spring thingy that keeps the cup at just the right level so that the hot water runs over the grounds and not straight down the sides was missing. Wait, what did I just explain? Oh, yes, the spring was missing, which causes the end-result of coffee to be weak and sorry.

So there was nothing for it but to ask the children, one of whom was already awake and said she saw Gregory playing with it. Here is what I did. I woke Gregory and he said, “No, it was Rita, and she was playing with it when she was making stuff with clay and all I did was put it back on the counter.” I kneaded the clay, but didn’t find the missing part. Rita was still pretty sleepy, but she insisted that she had no idea where the spring went. I gave up on their dubious trail of breadcrumbs and brewed without the spring. It was weak and sorry. When Alex emerged for breakfast, he remembered having played with the spring last night before we went to church. I assured him that he would be spending some time looking for it before school.

Everybody ate their eggs and toast like the chipper little devouring chickies that they are. All except me, since you may recall that I am on a diet that says toast is bad. Coffee, yes, toast, no. And then Alex did find the spring and he also gathered the dirty laundry, of which there was a considerable amount, what with church twice yesterday. There were also a number of perfectly clean things that got chucked into the girls’ hamper when someone zealously cleaned up their room.

We started school with me checking the last three days’ worth of assignments and especially tests. I discovered that my 6th grade boy totally did not get the chapter in History on the government with its three main branches and numerous obscure sub-branches, therefore bombing the test. I feel really bad about this because I had planned to tutor him on it before he does the test, since he had also bombed the quiz, but I forgot and what’s more: I never really understood it myself. DVD school does not fix all problems, that is for sure. There was also the little matter of skipped stuff in math lessons for both boys, necessitating penalties and a pep talk.

The wind is not in my sails this morning, so I am at a dead-calm, sitting in the water, writing. I have encountered 2 little clay snakes placed in strategic locations by my second boy and I have not even blinked, much less screamed. This is his idea of a joke, but it isn’t working on a half-asleep mom with only weak coffee. I am on the third load of laundry, resolutely plowing through the loads, grateful for a dryer on this damp and raw day.

Eventually I will deal with the watery tea party that the little girls set up on the sofa while I was busy checking tests and feeling bad. We will likely be sitting on towels for a few days. I will put away the dishes that they cleared out of the dishwasher and I will supervise a major clean-up of all areas, but especially the places where I like to walk. Tripping does tend to hamper progress and frustrate productivity, I have found. In due course I will fix my bed and figure out lunch and dinner.

Probably what I will do next is go fix the children mochas with the weak coffee and I will put whipped cream on top. They will think it is amazing and give me lots of compliments. I may just feel a gust of airy ambition flowing toward me; the sails are starting to flap.

Anybody else need coffee today?

Occupational Hazards of Parenting

About the time my first born turned two, old enough to trundle things around, we became aware of a facet of parenting that we hadn’t considered before. It became clear to us that we would have to become comfortable with mystery. Up till then, the screws had their own designated spot in the organized utility drawer, the flashlights stayed in the closet, the pens in the tin can designated for pens, not pencils or markers or stray tinker toys. Oh lovely adage: a place for everything and everything in its place. Now five children later, the mysteries have deepened and surround all of life.

It is a little exasperating that, despite having very keen hearing and the use of a proverbial set of eyes in the back of my head, I simply do not always catch on. It is humbling to acknowledge that they probably are smarter and faster than I am.

When I was a child, our family would kneel at the couch to pray every evening at bedtime. The little ones would kneel beside our parents and my brother Nate and I got the outside edges. We hit upon a conspiracy to back slowly into the middle of the living room while my dad was praying, then creep forward again, suppressing giggles. I don’t know how many times we did this before we got found out but I do remember how daring it felt to do something so utterly unapproved of and be undiscovered. Boy, did we ever think we pulled it over our parents.

Now our children do it to us, and sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is really irritating. Just the time we think we have things figured out, they change it up on us. I give you Conundrums in the Kitchen:

Just yesterday you hated tomatoes, and today you are picking them off the salad before I get any. What is up with that?

Why is there a can of worms in the fridge?

Who drank my coffee?

How come it isn’t possible to eat a cookie without 299 crumbs on the floor?

Who let the cat(s) into the house?

How did that box of Cheezits get empty so fast?

Then there are the Black Hole Mysteries:

Does anybody know what happened to Rita’s fuzzy brown boots?

If you had five pairs of undies last week, they must still be somewhere. ???

Where in the world did that Popular Mechanics library book go?

What can possibly have happened with my sister’s prized Cricut cartridge?

Where is all the toilet paper going?

Has anyone seen my driving gloves?

I also have a category of Generally Inscrutable Events:

Who splattered the bathroom mirror with toothpaste?

How did the new colored pencils get so short?

Why are there rocks in your bed?

How can you possibly be hungry when we just ate supper an hour ago?

How did we bring home “Baby Easter Bunny” from the library without my knowledge?

Where did you learn that word?

How do you know how to type and print a document?

What happened to the chocolate chips that were on the pantry shelf?

When did you get so tall?

And last, but not least, there are the Lovely Surprises:

What did I do to deserve a child who loves to sort all those screws and thumbtacks and assorted beads and marbles in the utility drawer?

Who passed on the cleaning gene to the little girl who runs for the vacuum cleaner when the house is a wreck?

How is it that the child who ate all the chocolate is so adorable in his contrition?

Who can resist the mischief-maker who cuts hair, snips sheets, shears stuffed animals, and doles out hugs that nearly crack the ribs?

How can the baby of the crew be so grown up and articulate, yet such a total mush pot who wants to be rocked with her blanket?

How could this life get any more interesting?

EDIT… One final whodunit:

Who published this post before I was done?

Overheard at my House

The 4 year old: I feel deep down in my heart that I am a big girl.

Little A: But, Mama, I already went potty… last week!

G: I tell you, Alex, skunks are not related in any way to civets!

A: So why do they have musk glands?

G: I don’t know, but I read it in the encyclopedia! No matter what anybody says!

O. haltingly sounding out: The… bad… pig… sat… on… the… cat. Hahahaha.

R. out of the blue: You know what? I am gonna be true to the end!

Me: True to what?

R: To God, of course!

Two little girls looking at an American Girl doll catalog: We will probably never get dolls like this…But sometimes when little girls don’t beg and just be sweet, they get what they want for Christmas.

R. dreamily: There must be something inside us, like in our hearts, that makes us just love things.

G: If anybody ever says they want a female cat, we could just tell them our story.

Me: I love my life!

External Vexations Vs. Eternal Verities

Sorry about the ponderous title. It was fun to extract it word-by-word from the Thesaurus, especially now that it sounds like some sort of article from the 1800’s . 🙂

I wouldn’t really say it was a good day. But it wasn’t a bad day, exactly. I sometimes think I am getting more skilled at rolling with the punches, but occasionally the punches come more fast and furious than usual. It leaves me feeling, at the end of the day, like I have not lived it very well.

I was thinking about this in the shower, and suddenly I just burst out laughing. Gabe has a week of night shift, so I shall tell you about the day.

It started last night with a late iced coffee, and it was so good, so very effective at wiring me that I stayed up until 1 AM catching up with ~~Facebook~~ posting our checking account and credit card data in our budget program. At that hour I even entertained a brief notion of surprising the boys with a day of school today! Haha. We have all our supplies, all our books, shiny new desks that Gabe made. Everything is ready except the teacher. I decided to wait another week or two, make tomato sauce instead.

We all had breakfast together before my hubby needed to go sleep. Then it was daily chores, little girls getting dressed in whatever picturesque outfit tickled their fancy, boys cutting up tomatoes. Everything went just fine, except for the fact that doing food preserving in a small kitchen, where every time you turn around you stumble over a fresh configuration of the chairs and people, becomes a little wearing. Also there was a small matter of literally sticking to the floor when I walked. I am trying hard to break the habit of saying, “That gets on my nerves,” because my children repeat it. But I will just tell you, in confidence, a sticky floor really gets on my nerves.

Lunch was very dry sandwiches lovingly prepared by the little boy who hates mayo. And a bit of chocolate on the sly for me. Then I shooed them all out while I washed up all those dishes and the sauce simmered on the stove and burned slightly on the bottom for lack of stirring. About then the littlest tot complained, “I NEEDS to go to bed!” Me too, tot, me too! Not an option, of course, but a nice thought.

We needed to go pick up milk from our friendly farmer. Even though Gabe was fast asleep, I took just one person with me. The van didn’t start, but the car worked. All but the AC. While we were over in horse and buggy country anyway, I had some kind of lapse and thought we should maybe do some sweet corn for the freezer yet today, the floor being already sticky and all… But God was merciful and the produce stand was sold out of corn. When we got home, I discovered the food coloring/homemade paint project crossed with cleanup involving a new white towel.

The house was hot and reeked of garlic and tomatoes. Unfortunately, our AC unit fried. All the females around here had a bad hair day due to the humidity. I found it mildly depressing to know that I looked exactly the same sort of hoodlum as my girls. 🙂 Then it rained and poured. Somehow there were two carseats out in the lane that got soaked. The little girls listened to the same story CD for the tenth time and I was feeling ready to write a scathing letter to the producers. The kiddos ran in and out, let the flies in. It was just drip, drip, drip. On and on and on my nerves. Oops.

Two hours after lunch everybody was hungry again. The tot bit chunks out of all the plums. The self sufficient little girl found a lunch box, filled it with an apple and pretzels. Then she poured milk and cleaned up her drips with a tea towel.

They were bored. They were housebound. They dragged folding chairs into their bunk beds. So I set them on the couch and they howled mirthfully at Dennis the Menace until a very uninspired supper of spiral pasta and fresh tomato sauce. But the sauce was really good!

I sent my man off again with a lunch packed for his midnight snack. One boy took out the trash and folded the laundry while the other washed the kitchen floor. He missed a few spots, but it was a definite improvement.

Someone emptied a can of shaving cream into the tub. The baby deliberately puddled onto the floor. And they were all hungry again after our bedtime story. The tot got out of her bed five times. The girls were hot with their hair on their necks and giggled while I made them really high pony tails.

Downstairs there were dehumidifiers to empty and reset, some last instructions about the proper placement of dirty clothes, and NO, you may not wear that shirt again tomorrow, even if it is your favorite. And then…

There was the kitten under the blankets. That was the last, the final drip that turned it all from just driving me nuts to hilarious.

What was that I read just this morning? It sounded so ideal, so peaceful… I just found it again in Isaiah 54:13.

“And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord;

and great shall be the peace of thy children…”

I ask myself, in this very ordinary, hilarious, sometimes frustrating life…when at times I am ashamed to hear my voice, provoked to high pitchedness about food coloring on a white towel and chairs in my way… how does He turn my very flawed efforts into children “taught of the Lord…”?

I asked God the same question, and this is what He said, “My grace is sufficient for you… really. Not just sufficient in the middle of a hard place, but sufficient, too, at the end of the day, when you have messed up and been impatient and irritated. My grace is sufficient for you… and your children!”

Here are some more of the verses in Isaiah 54. They make a very fine resting place, even a reason to laugh in the shower!

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;

and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,

and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”