Saturday morning means donuts at our house. My husband usually heads to the hole-in-the-wall donut shop and brings home a dozen warm donuts, which our kids then pounce upon. Babygirl ate the frosting off three of them this morning. Sometimes, there are a few left over for breakfast on Sunday morning.

This morning, my husband delivered the donuts, then went to the church for a pre-marital counseling appointment. I decided–what in the world was I thinking??–to sort through the storage room (10 x 10 feet of stuff) to find cast-offs I could donate to the church rummage sale, which takes place in two weeks.

Anyone with children understands the freakish nature of clutter. You have a child–or twins–and then suddenly, your garage is full of carseats and booster seats and outgrown toys and boxes of baby clothes and random wire hangers and ten thousand boxes of junk you can’t quite figure out how to handle. Not to mention four years’ worth of Martha Stewart “Living” magazines.

My parents saved everything–which explains why my mom has a stash of about ten boxes of worthless junk in my storage room. She lived with us for almost two years and left a trail of her belongings when she went. When my dad died, I held the Mother of All Garage Sales to get rid of the accumulated jetsam and flotsam of his forty-seven years of life. He was a ham radio operator and a computer fanatic from way back in 1977, when he built a computer from a kit. In those days, he actually programmed the thing using cassette tapes. He died before The Internet became what it is today, which is unjust. He would have loved The Internet more than anyone alive. He’d just been accepted into a program to study writing technical manuals at the University of Washington. Anyway. Apparently, I have become sidetracked.

Junk, clutter, stuff. It’s everywhere now that we have kids. This is particularly troubling to my husband because his idea of perfect interior design is a dorm room. And not a fancy-schmancy dorm room with a built-in loft. No. He’d love nothing more than to live in a room with bookshelves, a bed, a refrigerator (for his beloved Dr. Pepper and rootbeer popsicles) and a television. All this other stuff–the stuff that keeps us afloat, like winter coats and toys for the children and a bike rack for the car we keep just because some day we might actually take the bicycles somewhere and ride them, the mostly used buckets of interior paint–all this he considers worthless junk. He wants to live in austere simplicity.

But we have kids. And we have kids’ stuff. And we have a house. And Christmas decorations.

I do my best to weed through the excess now and then. This is the first time we’ve actually lived in a house longer than four years, so I haven’t had the built-in pressure to throw dead weight overboard so we can sail to another port. This time, I just have to fling open the closets and toss stuff into black garbage bags and ditch it before the kids notice.

Which brings me back to the storage room. I thought Babygirl might be distracted enough and cheerful enough that I might accomplish sorting through at least the surface layer of debris in that room. I started–and handed her a bin of Fisher-Price Little People, the old kind that are choking hazards. She busied herself and I plowed forward, throwing stuff into a bag. Then she returned the bin to me and I found a play-toolbox for her to look at. That bought me another few minutes.

Then she saw Mr. Snowman.

Mr. Snowman is a plastic Christmas decoration that stands about four feet high. It plugs in. I figured she wouldn’t remember about the plug since she hadn’t seen Mr. Snowman since Christmas-time. She wanted him, so I carried him to the family room and plunked him on the floor, plug-side in, out of sight.

Next thing I know, TwinBoyA has plugged him in. Babygirl is thrilled and I peek in to see her hugging Mr. Snowman. I hurry back to the storage room, sort through eight-hundred Play-doh related toys, then hear shouting. Mr. Snowman is broken.

YoungestBoy has been smacking Mr. Snowman with a pillow. I told him to stop once, but he ignored me and now Mr. Snowman no longer lights up. This is a crisis for Babygirl, and how do I handle it, being the mature mother of four that I am?

That’s right. I yell. I yell things like, “Why can’t you just listen to me? Why did you have to plug in the snowman? Babygirl didn’t even know it would light up! Arg! Why didn’t you stop hitting it? Arg! I can’t get anything done around here! Arg!” (Yes, I say “arg” just like a pirate.)

Okay, fine. I call Babygirl into the storage room. She notices a package of markers–extra school supplies from last year. I have a serious addiction to school supplies and always over-buy. I say, “You already have some of those. Here, how about this?”

She will not be deterred. She wants those markers. My frustration level has reached orange now. Is that the higher level where you should look out for terrorists? That’s the level I mean.

I say, “FINE” and swoop her up, stomp into the kitchen, plop her into her high-chair, realize I can’t find paper, rip off some freezer-paper for her to use, tape it to the high-chair tray, open the drawer to get a bib so she doesn’t write all over herself and–HEY! The entire drawer front comes off in my hands.

Now I am really mad. I wonder for a second if I could be suffering from my week of PMS already. No, not possible. I am just angry because I can’t get any task finished. Babygirl is crying and rejects the marker after all that.

I take her out of her seat, comfort her and sit down with pliers and a hammer and Liquid Nails to repair the stupid drawer. This is the second drawer to break in my kitchen. I fix it, then retrieve the other broken drawer from the storage room and fix it, too. By the time I finish, I am calmer. I return to the storage room. Babygirl fixates on Mr. Snowman again.

So, I get a screwdriver and replace the bulb in Mr. Snowman. It still doesn’t work. I investigate further and conclude that Mr. Snowman has blown a fuse. As I am doing this, the boys are in the next room goofing off. I tell them to be quiet, to stop, to STOP! Moments later, YoungestBoy is crying because TwinBoyA did not stop and now he’s hit YoungestBoy in the eye with a stuffed Barney–the purple dinosaur.

Alert! Alert! I’m immediately back at Orange Level, yelling stuff that sounded to my kids like “Wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk” just like in a Charlier Brown special. I should be carried off to solitary confinement and have my vocal cords severed. I have blown a fuse of my own.

I give up. I fix lunch for the younger kids and the older kids make themselves something. By the time my husband returns home, I am normal, no longer frothing at the mouth and convulsing, but my kids gleefully tell him, “Mom is having a bad day.” I feel like I’m going to be sent to the Principal’s Office at any second.

That’s what I get for attempting to accomplish anything.

I managed to fill my trunk with donations for the garage sale. After I put Babygirl to bed, I delivered the bags to the church basement, then went to Target to buy more school supplies. My addiction to spiral notebooks (10 for $1.00) needs professional attention. When I returned home, we went to the pool where we met my mother and my neice and nephew. We swam until we were water-logged.

The warning level has returned to purple, or wherever it is that all you have to be concerned about is someone giving you a dirty look. Tomorrow morning, leftover donuts and then we head to church, where hopefully I can be redeemed.

Five things I am thankful for this Friday:

1) My Babygirl’s new soft-shoe routine, where she swings her arms together, forward and back, as she taps out a barefoot dance. Out of nowhere, she’ll break into this joy-filled routine.
2) Books. I’m reading three books at once at the moment and finished two others this week.
3) My husband’s steady presence in our home–and his sense of humor.
4) The upcoming weekend which is completely void of obligations.
5) Cooler weather!

Here is irony: reading a chapter in a book about mindful parenting while I ignore the children playing nearby and when they interrupt me, offering them distractions of television or a snack.

I do have to make note of the remarkable appearance of the moon tonight. I left the house after Babygirl went to bed (clutching dolly and her blanket) tonight. My mission: to return two videos and one Nintendo game and to stop by the grocery store.

The benefits of running errands after bedtime are as follows:
1) Listening to Laura Ingraham’s radio show is hilarious and fun.
2) Shopping without children is soothing and hypnotic.
3) Occasionally, the moon makes a guest appearance in the sky and I remember the perfect October nights of my college days when I realized with a start: There will never again be an October night as beautiful and magical as this night, right now. And the melancholy of that thought–or maybe the heartbreak of homework or the loneliness of being human–made me want to cry. And I was right. That October night is long gone. So is my youth!

But tonight’s moon just made me think of a glowing stone nestled on a navy-blue velvet expanse. The moon is a little more than a half-moon tonight, and because I am a mother of a toddler, I thought to myself: Moonbear loves the moon. He loves her when she’s new. He loves her when she’s half. He loves her when she’s three-quarters. He loves her when she’s full. Moonbear loves the moon . . . all the time.

I do, too.

I apparently also love the colon tonight. I may have used my colon-allotment for the next three years. (Yeah, that would be “colon” as in the punctuation mark, not “colon” as in the digestive organ.)

I read a whole book today. I finished Anne Lamott’s Blue Shoe last night, so this morning I picked up the used copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret that I bought at Goodwill recently. I read the whole thing today between changing diapers and fixing lunch and watching babies and cleaning the kitchen and folding laundry.

When I was going into sixth grade myself, I remember my new friend, Misty Frizzell, telling me about this book. Back in the day (1976), Judy Blume’s book about a sixth-grade girl’s yearning for her menstrual cycle to begin and her search for a religious identity was scandalous. I thought it seemed very tame today, as I read it in this century as a 39-year old woman, but back then it was a book you read secretly, so your mother wouldn’t notice and ask questions.

Misty Frizzell was an exuberant new friend. I met her at the local Assembly of God church and as quick as a wink, I was spending days and nights at her house which was at the far edge of our town. Her dad, Doug, looked like Survivor’s Rupert. He had a hearty laugh and a shaggy beard and Misty told me in a stage-whisper that he had a hairy butt. She knew this because sometimes he would walk around naked. I couldn’t recall seeing my own father without his shirt and shoes on, so this bit of information scared the beejeebies out of me. Would he prance around in his birthday suit while I spent the night? I kept my eyes averted when I walked to their bathroom.

I remember they had wicker furniture in their living room. Misty had naturally platinum blond hair and a horse she kept out behind her house. Her parents were funny and played jokes on each other. I couldn’t believe my good fortune in finding a friend like Misty. I needed a dependable, fun friend to pal around with when we all went to middle school.

And then, sixth grade started and I wasn’t in the “cool” group of kids and Misty abandoned me like some kind of reptile skin she outgrew and shed. Throughout the rest of our school years, we never really spoke again. But I thought of her today when I reread Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Misty was so much like the protaganist of the story–longing to develop, longing for her period, longing to kiss boys and willing to follow the crowd. No wonder she loved the book and wondered if I did, too.

Now. I finished Blue Shoe last night and can give my hearty recommendation. Here are my favorite two lines:

“She did not mind this weather, and certainly preferred it to the tyrrany of a bright blue day, when old voices told you to get off your duff and go outside.”

“And by God, ten minutes later, Mattie was gently bathing one of Abby’s feet in a salad bowl of warm soapy water, wiping the grime off her ankle and heel and toes with a dish towel and Ivory soap, working the cat litter out of the cracks in her sole.”

This morning, I sat outside while Babygirl and DaycareKid played. I didn’t see it happen, but Babygirl apparently gave DaycareKid a little shove and he landed with a little splash in the small, orange wagon that contained a small puddle. When he stood up, I saw his backside was wet. I said, “Bummer!” Babygirl eyed me, surveyed DaycareKid’s soggy britches and said, “Bummer!” Then she gave an evil little chuckle and said, “It’s funny!”

“Bummer” is her newest word. “It’s funny” is her best new phrase.

This afternoon, the boys’ twin friends came over. All five boys immediately headed for the backyard, where they proceeded to work on their new creek. The backyard slopes a little, so my boys discovered quite by accident that if you water the flowerbed closest to the patio, the water heads downstream along the edge of the flowerbed. The boys worked with a shovel and hoe, taking turns to dig and hack at the hard dirt so the dribbling water would pool in their hole.

Periodically, one of them would spray the hole with water, which is why they all have dirt in their hair. At one point, I glanced out the kitchen window to see one of my boys dangling his feet into the “creek.”

Then YoungestBoy came rushing inside. “Mom!” He had a smear of dirt on his forehead, a scowl on his cherubic face and was drenched. “Mom! They sprayed me and now I’m going to have to take a bath!” Babygirl stopped dancing, gazed at him and said, “Bummer.”

YoungestBoy growled at us and stomped upstairs to change clothes. Babygirl resumed her crazy, whirling dance, clad only in a diaper.

I noticed something during the week of Vacation Bible School. For the first year in quite a few years, my role was completely behind-the-scenes. I didn’t speak into a microphone even one time. I did not lead a song, I did not shush a crowd, I did not appear on stage.

And it was strange. Surprisingly, I missed it.

I am a good administrator, an excellent detail person. Yet, when I was in college, I discovered my talent for communication–especially with children. I worked as a Children’s Ministries intern for Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker at Heritage U.S.A., in Charlotte, North Carolina. My boss was a goateed man with black hair that was firmly Aqua-netted into place. His wife was a short, squat woman with matching black hair. He was a ventriloquist and a puppeteer and he was kind of forced to accept me as an intern because I had inadvertently weaseled my way past Human Resources and into a job by introducing myself to Dick Dortch, who ended up being not only an old family friend, but also Jim Bakker’s right hand man.

Boy, was the woman in Human Resources mad at me.

Anyway, instead of working on the grounds crew, I ended up working in the children’s department and that’s how I ended up on a stage in Heritage U.S.A. entertaining the passing crowds. Speaking into that microphone and performing the little skits we created and telling crazy knock-knock jokes energized me, thrilled me, gave me confidence that I didn’t even know I lacked. It’s wacky to find out that you happen to be good at captivating a crowd, especially when you are a solitary soul at heart who prefers to sit home than to mingle and make small talk.

When you speak into a microphone, people notice your work. They pat you on the back and write you thank-you notes and tell you what a great job you’ve done. When you spend hours at home with spreadsheets and registration forms and to-do lists and self-created forms, no one notices. It’s like housework: people only notice if your floors have not been mopped.  They see smudges on your mirrors, but don’t notice the absence of smudges.  If those forms had not been created, if the children had not been organized into acceptable crews, if people had not been recruited and trained and if the supplies had not been ordered, people would notice.  But a smooth-running organization is like the skeleton–invisible, unless, of course, you are Mary-Kate Olsen (sorry, anorexia joke just popped in there).

Really, though, the invisible work makes an event run smoothly and so people notice the things they are supposed to notice–the public speaker, the music, the decorations, the happy faces of children. It’s strange, though, if you are used to being noticed.

This year, we have a new youth pastor and I immediately assigned him my usual role. For the past two years, I’ve done the closing program, the twenty-five minute wrap-up at the end of the day. I wanted to pass along the burden, but also, I wanted to see how he handled the microphone and the challenge of speaking to 80 children. He did a fantastic job and I was really thrilled to hear him keep the attention of the children while teaching and entertaining them. And I am relieved to not have the job myself. But I did notice that I noticed the lack of attention.

And it’s always a little weird when you see your own foibles, when you notice the 14-year-old inside who clamors for attention.

So, to answer my question–yes, without a microphone, I am invisible. Does that make my work less valuable? No. Do I mind? Not so much. Well, okay. Maybe a teeny, tiny bit. Will I reclaim the microphone next year? No. It’s all right to be see-through. I always thought that transparency would be a cool superpower to have. Although, I’d really rather be able to fly. Or spin straw into gold. Is that a superpower?

Today, the temperature nearly reached 100 degrees. I know that’s just summertime for some parts of the country, but for us, it’s a new record high. This is Washington, the Evergreen state. We depend on overcast days and frequent drizzle to maintain our greenery. And even though July is our driest month, normally our temperatures are milder–like 75 or 80 degrees, tops.

We have air conditioning–which is rare in these parts–but tonight, when I walked into our house after running late errands, it was warm inside–warmer than the night-air outside. Our poor heat pump was just tuckered out from trying to combat the hot air, I guess. I turned everything off, cleaned the filters and opened the windows. Overnight temperatures are supposed to be in the 60s, so hopefully we don’t spontaneously combust in our sleep.

My husband returned home safely yesterday. He says he never plans to move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The kids took his return in stride and then resumed bickering. We expected to get together with our vacationing friends last night, but they stood us up. We figured that’s what was happening, so we waited until 6 p.m. and grilled burgers at home and stayed put all night. This morning, our friend, David, called to apologize. They remembered about our plans last night at 1:30 a.m. on their drive back to their hotel. No problem, I said. Don’t worry about it. I did clean my house for four solid hours, but no problem. I needed the motivation to pick up Legos and vacuum and deal with the kitchen-counter paper piles and scrub the sink and wash the bathroom mirrors and put away folded laundry and on and on.

Any motivation to clean house is good motivation, I say.

Today, I informed my newly returned husband that I would be leaving the house when Babygirl went down for a nap. He’s such an easy-going man. I couldn’t decide where to go or what to do. I ended up at two different thrift stores for a little “retail therapy.” I bought books, some Legos made just for babies, a doll for Babygirl, and a few items of clothing. Oh, and “new” sandals. I love a bargain, though I have to say that my fellow-thrift shoppers sometimes scare me. A man totally invaded my space at the checkstand and tried to engage me in conversation. I completely ignored him with the same steely determination I use with street people or obviously insane people. And then I made sure I was in my car with the doors locked when he came into the parking lot. I blame this weirdness on my mother.

Babygirl has been talking a lot these days. Her first real sentence was “I got it!” She says that frequently. When I gave her the “new” doll today, she looked at it and said, “OH!” Pause. “OHH!” For the past few days, she’s developed a new attachment to a stuffed dog and a pink blanket. Puppy and blankie. My twins (now 11) still sleep with their baby blankets. (Shhhhh, don’t tell.) YoungestBoy was never very attached at any particular objects, but he did bite his nails from the time he had teeth.

I sense that I’m beginning to ramble, so I think I’ll head to bed and read another chapter of Anne Lamott’s fabulous book, Blue Shoe. Why am I so tired when I have so little to show for my time?!

My husband returns tomorrow. He’s been out of town since Monday. Since he was gone, I accomplished a few things:

1) Kept all children alive.
2) Fed all children.
3) Washed laundry, lots of it.
4) Took children to beach on Monday.
5) Went to meeting about k12.com on Tuesday. (Took Babygirl. Left big kids with a babysitter.)
6) Took kids to Weight Watchers meeting on Wednesday, but weighed in and missed meeting part so they could play on slides afterwards. Bribed them with ice cream to leave play structure, ensuring future Weight Watchers customers who have Food Issues. I didn’t lose weight, nor did I gain, which I consider a victory considering I went out to eat twice this week, then had a small skirmish with a carton of low-fat ice cream in my husband’s absence.
7) Scrubbed my shower stall and cleaned bathroom sink. Vacuumed family room, though why? There are popcorn crumbs and kernels scattered everywhere, just from tonight. A family of mice could survive for a decade on the provisions found on this carpet.
9) Cleaned the twins’ room and washed their bedding more than once. (Don’t ask.)
10) Met my mom at the swimming pool tonight. Ate dinner and swam for almost 3 hours.
11) Cared for daycare baby a total of 36 hours.
12) Went to the zoo with five children.

What I did not accomplish:
1) Mopping floor.
2) Writing thank-you notes to volunteers from last week.
3) Ironing of any sort.
4) Eight million other things that nag at me every day–from smudged windows to grimy floors to scattered toys and the ever-present pile of papers on the kitchen counter. The very idea of the clutter in my storage room drives me to distraction. My living room cries out for paint. The back yard needs mowing, the front yard ivy needs trimming.

I did not exercise.
I did not make any overdue appointments with the children’s doctors.
I did not arrange for the kittens to get vaccines.
I did not scrapbook.
I did not find the cure for cancer, nor did I compose a heart-wrenching love ballad to my husband.

The thing about being a mother and being me at the same time is that I cannot work in the manner that is comfortable for me–working sequentially and systematically on projects. The “me” part needs to work in order. The “mom” part of me is constantly interrupted, day and night. A constant stream of noise squeezes the thoughts out of my brain. Tonight, on the way home from the pool, all four of my children were making noise at the same time, talking, chanting, babbling. And the radio was on. I clicked the radio off, because that was the only noise I could silence.

I often feel like I’m not getting a thing done. So why am I so exhausted?

I just finished reading Candace Bushnell’s Four Blondes.   She’s the author of Sex and the City, which I have not read, nor have I seen the show.  She talks about Four Blondes here.

Let me just say how thankful I am that I purchased it at a garage sale for a quarter, because that’s exactly how much it was worth.  She should pay me for the time I wasted reading it.  I read the entire dreadful book–which I don’t always do.  When I was young, if I hated a book, it didn’t matter.  I had to finish it, according to my self-imposed standards.  Not any more.  Now I will abandon a book without a flicker of guilt.

But I kept reading Four Blondes, thinking it would get better.  It did not.  This book purports to be the tales of four different New York women.  It read more like a rough draft of a college creative writing project.  No plot, no theme, no underlying meaning to her stories of shallow women living sorry lives.  As far as I’m concerned, Candace Bushnell owes me $28.00–minimum wage for four hours of time I spent reading this book.

Now, I’m reading Anne Lamott’s Blue Shoe.  The writing is beautiful and stands in vivid contrast to the clunkety writing by Candace Bushnell.  Anne Lamott rocks.

I’m also re-reading A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle.  I love this book so much.  I penciled in comments the first time I read it.  Everyone who aspires to write or create should read this book–even though it was written in 1972, it’s timeless and inspiring. 

I feel so much pressure this week to do something fun with the kids. My husband left early Monday morning and returns Friday afternoon and while he’s gone, I have the car. And the kids. Normally, I only have the kids, so I wanted to take advantage of the situation and seize the day.

Only two things stand in my way. Okay, three things. The first obstacle is DaycareKid. It’s tough to go anywhere with a toddler, but add an additional toddler and truly, you have double the trouble. Or triple the trouble. For instance, there is no way I’d take him to the ocean or up to Mount Rainier. I just couldn’t. The second obstacle is nap-time. Nap-time is sacred around here. So, we can’t be gone for longer than three hours. We must return home by noon. We can’t go after nap-time, either, because that’s when DaycareKid’s mom comes to pick him up. These two obstacles alone leave me pretty well boxed in.

And then, admittedly, the last obstacle is one of my own making. The last obstacle is my inertia. An object at rest stays at rest, right? That’s me. It’s just easier to stay put than it is to muster up the momentum to get us all moving forward in the appropriate direction. It’s easier to just watch The Wiggles, then go outside to play, then watch Sesame Street while playing in the family room, then having lunch, then watching more Wiggles before nap-time. Taking a toddler anywhere is like plopping a live grenade in your purse and just hoping no one jostles you. Too many things can nudge a toddler into a full-blown tantrum. It’s a chance I am loathe to take.

But this morning, I propelled us out of our normal orbit and off we went to the zoo. We left before 9:30 a.m., which seems like a minor miracle since I didn’t decide we should go until 8:30 a.m.

The zoo is on the smallish side. They’ve just redone a habitat featuring tigers, but my kids loved watching the elephants eat hay and spray dirt all over themselves. We spent a good deal of time watching sharks swimming by in the South Pacific aquarium. The bigger kids loved the dark tanks full of jellyfish and mysterious unfamiliar fish in the lower aquarium, but Babygirl was not so fond of those eery, spooky places, so we hurried through that part.

Half-way through our adventure, Babygirl decided she would no longer ride in her stroller. She wanted to walk and push her stroller herself. So, she did. Fortunately, the zoo wasn’t crowded or she’d have been bashing into people every two minutes. Thus, we entirely missed the polar bears and the penguins and scarcely glanced at the beluga whales and–my favorite–the grotesque, pinkish, gigantic walrus. He floated between two submerged stones, as still as a stone himself, but for the flaring of his nostrils and the flickering of his whiskers. Normally, he does a ballet around and around his tank.

It wasn’t until we left the zoo and I buckled Babygirl into her carseat–overriding her wishes to do it herself–that she screamed and cried. I thought that was pretty lucky since I had five kids with me and anything–literally anything–could have gone wrong at any step along the way. My big kids were very, very cooperative and helpful. Some days they are like that. I should fall on my knees and thank God.

We went through a McDonald’s drive-thru on the way home, thus accomplishing two goals: feeding the kids and keeping the little ones awake. When we got home, it was just about nap-time.

And during nap-time today, I was a responsible grown-up and I balanced the checkbook. I know. I should get a medal of some sort. Or a brownie. Or a day off.