I feel so much better today. I’m post-scratchy throat and I finished reading a novel (The Secret History). No more headache and I didn’t even cry once today, this despite the fact that my daughter did not take a nap–again. She stomps her foot once while saying, “I don’t want to go night-night!” That’s what she says in the mornings, too, when I open her bedroom door to find her standing in her crib with her denim Old Navy baseball cap sitting backwards on her blond head.

She’s a cute one, that girl.

Tomorrow is my Friday with no DaycareKid and I have hatched a plan to go to the consignment store to pick up my loot–cash and clothes they won’t take. I’ll bribe the boys to “do” school efficiently and whisk us away from our house on a little outing. Boring for them, change of scenery for me.

And we all know I need a change of scenery, coupled with a change in attitude. And more change in my pockets wouldn’t hurt, either.

My husband took YoungestSon to his soccer game at 5:10 p.m. Earlier in the afternoon, I had searched fruitlessly for a soccer sock. Last week, I’d discovered one between the sections of the sectional and it smelled all musty, sour actually. I figured that sooner or later, the match to this poor, unfortunate sock would show up.

How wrong I was. At 4:00 p.m., I searched through the dirty laundry. I picked through the sock basket. I looked through the sock drawer. No matching soccer sock. So I called my husband on his cell phone.

“I just want you to know that YoungestBoy will be wearing green soccer socks tonight because I can’t find one of his white ones.” The boys wear blue shirts and black shorts.

My husband took this in stride, then suggested he could buy a pair of black socks, which is really what he should have had in the first place. “Okay,” I said, “and since you are out and about, will you please bring home Papa Murphy’s pizza?”

He brought pizza and soccer socks and soccer shorts and then whisked away YoungestSon to his game.

I realized at that point that I needed to pee.

I said to Babygirl, “Hey, I’m going to pee. I’ll be right back.” She began to cry and scurried to follow me. “I pee, too,” she said.

So, we raced upstairs and she had to sit on the toilet first. She finished, got herself a wad of toilet paper and flushed and I said, “Okay, now it’s my turn.” She said “NO!” I really, really, really needed to pee. Normally, I need to pee for an hour before I actually find myself in a bathroom.

For a moment, I argued with her, but then I remembered she’d had no nap. She’s not reasonable when she hasn’t napped. So, I said, “Fine,” and I strode to the other bathroom where I took care of business without delay, despite the ruckus coming from the pants-around-her-ankles Babygirl.

She was outraged to find me sitting on the toilet, finishing up. I said, “Okay, shall we pull up your pants now? Are you done?” But she just screamed and cried and stomped. I attempted to find out what her problem was, attempted to be loving and rational and reasonable and all, and then I said, “All right. I’m going downstairs.”

I went and cut the pizza. I cut one piece into small squares for Babygirl, while she stood at the top of the staircase shouting and crying with her pants still down. When I finished my task, I went back upstairs and said, “Hey, are you ready to come downstairs?” She said, “Zes.” And I said, “Can I pull up your pants?” and she said, “No!” So I carried her downstairs and plopped her down on the couch and sat down next to her.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But after a day full of small people talking all at once, and small people complaining and whining and fussing at me, and small people needing, needing, needing me, I’d just had enough.

So I stared at “Zoom” on the television with my arms folded across my chest. When “Zoom” ended, without moving a muscle or taking my eyes off the television screen, I mentioned to the boys that they had exactly forty-five minutes before their ride to youth group would pick them up and that they’d better eat and brush their teeth and get ready. They bolted off the couch and tromped into the kitchen while I still sat, arms crossed, not speaking to Babygirl.

She leaned closer and closer to me. “Teletubbies” came on and still I stared at the television set. Finally, she got off the couch and pulled up her pants. She looked at me and I looked at the television. She crawled to the other side of me and the first tears rolled down my cheeks. I let them fall and pretty soon, I was crying and thinking how easy it would be to fake a catatonic state. As I sat, a weeping statue, exhausted from all the neediness around me, wondering if I would ever feel refreshed and if I could run away without anyone noticing, I heard a buzzer.

The dryer buzzer. And like some Pavlovian dog, I abruptly stood and took the load from the dryer out and replaced it with the wet clothes from the dryer.

I gave Babygirl pizza for dinner.
I asked the boys if they brushed their teeth.

It’s normal to cry while you watch “Teletubbies” because you are so overwhelmed by the demands of all the people around you. Right? And it’s okay to think that if I had a do-over, that I probably wouldn’t have chosen this day, today, this life, this moment, this family. And it’s all right that when my son said (over Language Skills school work) “I wish I was dead” that my immediate gut instinct response was “I do, too.” I didn’t say it, if that counts for anything. And I didn’t mean it, either, but goodness gracious, great balls of fire, it was one of those mornings. Followed by the lack of naptime. Coupled with this cold that has given me a headache and a continuous scratchy throat.

It’s over for tonight.

Do you ever feel like complaining when technically you have no right to complain? I’m sitting here with all my limbs in working order in my sturdy house with its newly painted living room in my historic town with its good public schools while the sun is shining on a fine autumn day and I feel whiny and fat and irritable.

At 4:00 p.m., my fabulous husband took our healthy twin boys to an honest-to-God Boeing flight simulator where a friend of ours teaches pilots how to fly airplanes. But my house is still filled with the bickering of small boys because the neighbor boys are here and they are poor sports and big whiners. Kind of like me.

There is really only one cure for this attitude problem of mine. I must go straighten up the living room, tidy up the kitchen, pick up all these toys in the family room, fold a load of laundry, change the kitty litter and snort some cocaine.

Okay, only kidding about that last part.

Methamphetamines are really the way to go.

Okay, joking again. I’d better get busy so when my husband returns, he’ll think I’m a better housekeeper than I really am.

Monday is the Pastor’s Day Off.

Today, the Pastor dug a ditch all day. Well, not exactly, but he assisted a man who dug a drainage ditch on the church property. When he dropped off YoungestBoy after school, he came inside for a second and said, “Come and see my big truck.” I followed him outside and there in my driveway idled a very large, manly truck, borrowed from the Chief Ditch Digger (who is a fire fighter in his real life).

My sweaty, suddenly blue-collar husband thought he was quite the stud, driving this testosterone-fueled vehicle.

He came home more exhausted than ever at about 5:00 p.m. and by 5:30 p.m., he was gone again, this time to sit in an overly long board meeting for a Rescue Mission. He came home at 9:30 p.m.

Now, on the Pastor’s Day Off, what did the Pastor’s Wife do?

Today, I agreed to watch another toddler while her mother had a job interview. So, while three toddlers careened around the house and twirled, yelped and watched Sesame Street, I guided my eleven year old twins through their school courses. Babygirl was particulary needy and kept begging for Momma Milk and I kept offering her pretzels instead.

The extra toddler was supposed to be picked up at 1:00 p.m. (otherwise known as Naptime), but at 1:53 p.m., her father called to say that her mother wouldn’t be here until 3:30 p.m. No problem, I said, and I promptly put her down for a nap, too, where she shrieked for half an hour and then slept for half an hour.

Her mother finally arrived at nearly 4:00 p.m., and then at 4:30 p.m., DaycareKid’s mom arrived and by 5:30 p.m., my children and I were sitting around the table having dinner (thank God for my crockpot and chicken on sale for 59 cents a pound). The kids all went outdoors to play in the waning light and by 7:00 p.m. I called them in to shower and bathe. How can it be getting dark so early now? So soon?

Finally, at 8:10 p.m., I put Babygirl down for the night. I read until 9:00 p.m., then put YoungestBoy to bed after reading him a story. My husband arrived home to find me in the recliner, reading in front of the television and he probably thinks I had such an easy day–compared to digging a ditch, maybe I did.

All the same, I caught a cold from the babies. Babygirl still sounds like she’s been smoking cigarettes for twenty years and DaycareKid’s nose is goopy. So, far, my throat is just scratchy and I’m keeping a tissue box close by for my overly active nose.

But aren’t we refreshed, now that we’ve had a Day Off?

(p.s. Suzanne asked “why the three hour delay?” in picking up the extra toddler. Well, the mother of said toddler had a marathon job interview, lasting from 9:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. . . . and it was forty-five minutes away. She didn’t realize how extensive the interview would be. The mother’s due date was yesterday, too, and she plans to start her new job on November 1. And I thought I was busy! She’ll soon have an almost-2 year old, a newborn and a full-time dull job.)

Saturday

Husband took YoungestBoy to soccer game at 10:00 a.m.

Husband went on an outing with church volunteers to dump old furniture. Why, please tell me, why do people donate their ugly 1970s couches to church youth groups? Those couches are now at Goodwill.

Husband returns home at 2:00 p.m., exhausted. I leave, saying, “When do you want to see my cute face again?” He says, “It’s up to you. Whatever you think.”

As I drive off, I think, well, I’ll aim for 4:00 p.m., though if I get home by 5:00 p.m., that’d be okay.

I drop off film to be developed at Costco, then head over to the children’s consignment shop where I drop off a huge, black trash bag full of clothes to sell. Then I browse the racks and find new clothes for Babygirl. Since she’s decided to be potty-trained, I cannot dress her in overalls and shirts that snap. Oops. That’s what I get for shopping in advance.

I return to Costco to pick up film, then drive toward home, stopping at the spur of the moment at Bargain Street Liquidators, which is going out of business. By the time I get home, it’s 4:45 p.m., and when I walk through the door, husband says, “Why didn’t you have your cell phone on?”

I never turn it on when I go out for a few hours. I have it set so my home telephone is forwarded to my cell phone and my husband hates that I get those calls instead of him. So, he usually tells me not to turn it on. He was annoyed because apparently he’d had appointments set up–one for 5:00 p.m. with a young couple who is joining the church, and one for 6:00 p.m. for a hospital visit.

Well, uh, hello? Why didn’t you say so when I left? He was unhappy that he hadn’t taken a shower yet, but uh, hello? When I’m home, I take a shower while the baby sleeps or while she watches television. It’s not exactly a Fear Factor stunt to shower while you have a house full of kids.

I could tell he was annoyed, so I just went about my business, feeding kids, cleaning messes, showering kids, putting stuff away. There was a bit of confusion about whether or not we were going swimming–the pool was opened for two final days, a sort of bonus this year–and I asked the kids, “Do you want to swim?” and they said, “Yes!” and then husband said, “I need the car,” and then he said we could drop him off.

I did not want to go to the pool with all four kids. Although the temperature might have reached seventy degrees and the pool is heated to eighty-six degrees, Babygirl is a slender thing without any body fat to keep her warm. I worried that she’d get chilled. But we went.

We only stayed an hour and a half or so, and most of that time, we were the only people at the pool. The boys had a great time, swimming, putting each other in headlocks, fighting over rules in their made-up games. Babygirl spent the whole time in the wading pool, so I didn’t have to actually immerse myself in water, which made me very happy.

I found being at the pool at this late date an odd experience. At one point, a “V” of ducks flew overhead, migrating south, I suppose and the dichotomy of this autumn ritual combined with the smell of chlorine gave me the sense of being in a time warp. I felt sad for what’s behind us, melancholy about the chill in the air and the darkness of the early evening.

But the kids frolicked and spent all their money on goodies from the vending machines–all items were twenty-five cents off, so they thought they had scored. The left with a renewed stash of candy.

So that’s that. No more summer. No more swimming. Ahead of us: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas–which will be here before we know it–and my 40th birthday. I can hardly stand this sensation of time rushing past my head in such a loud roar.

Sigh.

Today, I almost played hooky from church, but at the last minute, decided to hurry and go. Babygirl went in her underpants–the first time in public without a diaper. How odd that my baby has decided to be so grown up. She threw a huge fit on the way home. She did not want to get into her carseat, so after I gave her a choice (get in your seat or I’ll put you in your seat), she cried pitifully all the way home. She’s hoarse from the cold she’s getting over, so she sounded especially sad. Then, when we got home, she wanted to go for a walk and hung on the doorknob and wailed at the injustice of life until I said, “Well, I’m going upstairs,” and then she followed me and eventually–after more tears and foot stomps–consented to let me rock her and put her to bed.

My husband had returned home from church by then, so I left to go buy flowers for my porch and entryway. The summer Gerber daisies and petunias have died. I ended up at the grocery store which has an attached nursery where I purchased a few groceries and enough flowers to repot everything. When I returned home, Babygirl was awake, so I brought her and YoungestBoy into the front yard with me while I worked. (The twins had gone to their twin-friends’house.) YoungestBoy pushed Babygirl in the stroller–up the driveway and then down, really fast. Then they rode bikes up and down, Babygirl demonstrating courage I didn’t realize she possessed.

I mowed the lawn, planted the flowers, trimmed the ivy, swept the walkway, cleaned the porch, rearranged everything and by then, my husband was awake from his nap and he ended up finishing the driveway sweeping. Babygirl needed some attention by then.

So, the day flew by. The weekend whizzed past. The summer went by in a blink. And now my evening’s almost gone, too, and I haven’t even had a chance to read. But at least my porch is full of purple mums and lively pansies and yellow flowers. Hidden deep in the pots is the promise of spring–mini-daffodils which will cheer me on the cold, damp, dark days of March, which should be arriving in approximately 23 minutes.

“I’m cute and my hands are sticky. Back off.” 

Here is my youngest son, at the fair. Cute, huh?

And how about this baby girl, dancing in the newly painted living room.

Babygirl 

And last, but not least, here are the boys at the fair:

The boys 

My youngest son likes to be a good boy. Last year, in kindergarten, the only time he got his “happy” symbol changed to a “sad” symbol when was Dominick got him in trouble and made him yell during class. Other than that, perfect behavior.

Now, in first grade, the children have four different colored cards. Yellow is good, pink less so. Green and blue are downright bad, involving missed recesses and visits to the principal’s office and other horrors.

This afternoon–after a half-day of school–I say to my chubby kid, “So, how was school?”

He says, “Grrrrrreat,” sounding exactly like Tony the Tiger.

I say, “Hey, have you had you card moved?” I expected him to say, “no.”

And he said, “Yes!”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise and said, “You have?”

He said, “Psych!” And I said, “You have not?” And he said, “Psych!” We went back and forth like that for a minute.

Turns out, he did have his card moved a few days ago. I said, “What happened?”

He reported, “I got my mind lost and did crazy stuff.”

I almost broke the first rule of mothering and fell to the floor laughing. But I did not break character and with a completely straight face, I said, “What kind of stuff?”

“I acted like it was recess and stuff.”

I immediately grabbed pen and paper to write down “I got my mind lost,” before I forgot. He said, “What? Mom! Are you going to take my allowance? What are you doing? Mom! Mom!”

I said, “No, I’m not taking your allowance. You got your card changed. That’s punishment enough.”

Then he went into the backyard to pick peppermint leaves for his big brother’s mint potion (a muddy mixture in a lidded glass jar–it looks like poison, but smells minty fresh).

At one point today, I had eight kids in my house. And it’s not even 3:00 p.m. yet. At least Babygirl napped today. The sun is shining, it’s Friday, I get paid today and I survived my first week of schooling at home.

Hooray.

Babygirl has potty-trained herself. She used her potty all day today, which is fantastic. Except that each time she tinkles, she says, “I peed in the potty!” I might be making lunch or teaching the boys literature or folding clothes or washing dishes or arguing with one of the boys about whether or not there truly are too many zeroes in math . . . and I must drop everything, because after she pees, she squats and peers with her face actually in the hot pink plastic pot until I come to admire her accomplishment.

Then, we must follow these steps:

1) Remove pot from potty chair.
2) Carry pot to bathroom. (”Don’t spill!”)
3) Dump contents.
4) Rinse pot with water.
5) Wipe pot clean with toilet paper.
6) Flush toilet.
7) Close toilet. Wash hands with big bar of orange soap.
9) Dry hands on towel.
10) Replace pot in potty.

Then she immediately sits on the potty chair again to see if she can repeat these glorious steps!

She was dry all day today, no accidents. I cannot believe it. She even puts on her own pants and shoes. If I’d had this girl first, then my boys, I would have thought my boys were brain-damaged for sure.

This has been our first full week of schooling at home. TwinBoyA is a willing, eager, competent student. He hurries to do his best work and does a funky little dance whenever he gets a “100%”, which is pretty much every time he completes something.

His brother greets every new assignment with cries of “It’s too hard! I’m stupid! I hate math! It has too many zeroes! Do I have to do it all?” He spent two hours on a math assignment which was simple enough to complete in one hour. The thing is, if he were in a public school classroom, he’d be slacking, unnoticed by the teacher until test-time. By then, it would be too late and he’d fail while the class moved on to another concept. It’s happened every fall for a few years now.

So, schooling at home is great for him. He is required to do all his work and if he fails an assessment, he redoes it until he gets it right. I think he might be actually learning, despite his grumbling and whining and dramatic complaints. I think he’ll soon realize that it’s to his advantage to pay attention to details, proofread and do things right the first time.

Babygirl has been more cooperative than I expected. When I sit at the kitchen table at 9:00 a.m. with both boys to introduce the day’s math concepts, she comes running to sit, too. She has her own notebook and pencil and she “works” right along with us. I introduce the assignment, then the boys work on problems. We repeat that scenario until we work our way through math, language skills, spelling, literature, science, vocabulary . . . and next week, art and music. We’re missing our history kit, so we’ll be adding that when it arrives.

Generally, they are finished by about 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., though when we add art, music and history, we’ll work later in the day.

Babygirl and DaycareKid nap at about 1:00 p.m., so I’ve been able to have a little break. Today, though, I put Babygirl to bed much to her dismay. She cried and screamed with complete outrage. After an hour, I rescued her, thinking maybe she’d fall asleep on my bed with me. Wrong, so wrong. She watched Winnie the Pooh, then took a shower (she’s obsessed with showering) while I read A Secret History, which enthralls me. I love it when I am in the middle of a really good novel.

Anyway, I’m exhausted. (Can you tell from this rambling entry?) I have started exercising again (riding our fancy recumbent exercise bike for forty minutes each night). I’ve been trying to get the dirty laundry off the laundry room floor, where it has been overflowing for two weeks. Today, I finally achieved that goal, but alas, everyone wore clothes today, so I’m right back where I started. The housework cycle wears me out–the wrinkled clothes calling for an iron, the kitchen counter clutter piles, the floor which will not stay clean, the bathroom mirrors with spatters on them. I don’t spatter the bathroom mirrors–why does everyone else in my house? I don’t pee on the toilet seats and rims–why does everyone else in my house? I don’t leave laundry on my floor–okay, well, actually, I do. Never mind.

Babygirl takes the following items to bed with her:

1) White rectangular calculator.
2) Red oval calculator, designed to clip onto a backpack.
3) Gnome.
4) Medium sized bear.
5) Two tiny bears.
6) Dolly, with hat.
7) Her own denim baseball hat.

When I open her door in the morning, she greets me wearing this baseball hat backwards, inevitably saying, “I poop in my diaper again!” She seems happily surprised every morning by this event.

It’s quite a way to start a day. And that will happen in approximately eight hours. If I were actually sleeping right this second, I might not wake up with complete despair when the alarm rings at 6:25. And 6:34. And 6:42.

But when I go upstairs, I’ll pick up that book and before I know it, midnight will arrive and I’ll be sorry that I didn’t go to sleep earlier, just like every night. Why are the days so long and the nights so short?

Way back in the forties, when my dad was young. . . 

Twenty-one years years ago, I went away to college. My parents–mother, father, stepmother–and siblings and even my grandmother converged on the Everett, Washington, Greyhound bus station where I boarded a bus for Springfield, Missouri. I traveled for four days, three interminable nights on a bus, journeying to the distant land of Central Bible College, where I sought my destiny. I’m not sure why my parents put me on a bus, rather than an airplane. The cost was not much different. I wonder if it was a test of my resolve, an attempt to deter me from going so far from home? I was desperate to leave, though, eager to shake free from my parents and the mess they’d made of my life and yearning to distance myself from the pain and heartache of my broken family.

When I arrived in Missouri, I had actual sores on my posterior from riding so long. I was bleary from lack of sleep. Buses tend to stop in the dark hours of early morning at random, rural places for extended periods. I hadn’t bathed, I hadn’t slept well, I hadn’t eaten much in those four days.

I didn’t even bother to call my dad to let him know I had arrived safely. How inconsiderate, I think now, but at the time, I didn’t think. I didn’t think he’d worry, I didn’t think he’d care, I didn’t think he’d notice. Eventually, he reached my dormitory phone and assured himself that I had, indeed, survived the grueling ride.

On Saturday, September 17, 1983, he began writing a letter to me:

Dear Mel,

Forgive me for being the way I am.

[Then he stops writing, and resumes writing on September 25 . . . general chit-chat about the weather and my siblings. He finishes the letter . . . ]

Well, it is now 11:55 p.m. and it is time for me to get some rest.

Love, Dad

Fifteen years ago, I arranged to have my dad discharged from the hospital where he’d been hospitalized for eleven days. He’d made it clear that he did not want to die in the hospital, so I brought him home.

My great aunts said, “What will you do? You have to go back to work sometime,” and they suggested a nursing home. I said no. I wanted him home. The ambulance brought him into the house on a stretcher, but he had to walk the final few steps to his bed, which was in the lavender room where I spent my teenage years.

The last thing he said was to the ambulance drivers, an impossibly young man and woman who said to him loudly, as if he were deaf and not just dying of cancer, “SIR, YOU MUST WALK TO THE BED! SIR! SIR!” And he said with great irritation, “I KNOW!!” I stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, clutching a pillow helplessly, watching, terrified of this drama.

Then he baby-stepped his way to the hospital bed that waited for him. He never spoke again. I could see his pulse racing in his neck and his breathing was rushed, but he lived through the night.

The next morning, I dressed and went to work. My aunts were staying with us for a few more days. I peeked into the room and Aunt Lu told me he’d had a restless night, but that he was calm. When I called at noon, she told me he was stable.

When I arrived home at 4:00 p.m., Aunt Lu met me in the driveway and told me it was time to go get my sister. She said he was failing quickly.

I drove a few miles to KFC, where my sister worked. She was almost seventeen and had worried aloud about this moment. Who would tell her? Who would get her? I walked into the restaurant, asked for her and when she appeared, I couldn’t speak. I just held out my arms and choked on the words, “It’s time.” We wept right there in front of the refrigerator case.

When we walked into the house, Aunt Lu said he was having seizures, that we should not go into the room. I pushed past her, my sister behind me and when I saw him convulsing, arms and legs straight and shaking, I turned and led my sister back to the darkened living room. By the time I walked back down the hallway to the bedroom, he was dead.

My mother was on the other side of the bed, weeping and saying, “Into Your hands, we commit his spirit.” My three great aunts were in the room and they hugged me and we cried. I touched his cheek, the rough reddish beard that was so full of gray and said, “Poor Daddy.” He was forty-seven years old. I was twenty-four. Melanoma had killed him.

I went through the house, then, to find my husband. He was in my dad’s office in the garage, waiting with my stepmother (my dad’s ex-wife) and my dad’s best friend. I said, “It’s over,” and then my husband held me and I cried some more.

The day only grew weirder then, as we sat and waited with mostly dry eyes while the men from the funeral home struggled to carry my tall, hefty dad out of the house. This time, they couldn’t persuade him to walk just a few steps around the problematic corner. My husband helped carry my dad away as I sat and tried not to listen to them grunt and gasp under the weight of him.

I wondered then and I wonder now, “What will we do without him? How will we go on? What happens to us now?”

And I’m still not sure. But this I know beyond any doubt: He loved me. What more could a little girl need?

He would have adored being a grandfather. My Babygirl would have been the most spoiled, cherished, worshipped baby girl who ever walked this earth. My boys would have thrived under his tutelage–they would be computer experts, radio-repair hot-shots, video-game partners, jokers extraordinaire.

I still need my dad.
I still miss my dad.
I still love my dad.

I hope I told him enough.

2:53 p.m. Just as I am about to write a touching, moving, hilarious yet dignified entry about the fifteenth anniversary of my dad’s death–his deathday, as I like to call it–my baby woke up.

This schooling at home stuff is cramping my style. Next thing you know, I’ll be putting up homegrown peaches in sparkling canning jars and wearing long, full skirts I sewed myself on my treadle sewing machine. What have I become?

I’ll be back later.

Tonight. Only five hours until the baby’s bedtime.