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A questioning has been burning within my gut. I must know.

Do you or your significant other iron blue jeans?

Here are SG’s answers to my recent interview questions at The World According to Sass. Be sure to go over and say hello to Sassy Girl!

Without telling me, turn off the ringer to the kitchen phone.

Leave three messages on my telephone answering machine. (I’m old-fashioned. What can I say?)

First message: “Hey, I’m at your house, picking up the tape, but it’s not there. Call me. I’m going to XXX this morning, but before I leave town, I want to deliver the tape to my secretary so she can finish typing it today.”

Second message: “Hey, I’m still in town. Call me and let me know if the tape is ready to be picked up. Are you okay? Maybe your husband could deliver the tape to my office if it’s not ready before I leave town. Call me.”

Third message: “I’m in XXX now and my secretary is standing by, ready to type that tape. I hope you are okay. Are you okay? I haven’t been able to reach you all morning. I called your husband and he’s not at his office. Is everything all right? Please call me at XXX-XXXX.”

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At that point (1:24 p.m.), I knew that the reason my boss hadn’t been able to reach me was because someone turned off the telephone ringer downstairs. I knew this because at about noon, the worthless, barely working cordless phone was sitting on the couch and began to ring. But the kitchen phone did not ring. I picked up the kitchen phone, however, to hear my husband’s voice. He told me he’d called earlier, but I hadn’t answered. He was in Portland for the day.

I looked at the buttons on the phone and saw that the “ringer” button was switched to off. I turned it back on.

It was an hour later that I discovered the phone messages upstairs.

At that point, I panicked. Not long ago, I attempted to rewind a cassette tape (which I transcribe as a part-time job). The irreplaceable, valuable-for-legal-reasons cassette tape jammed up and quit working. This time, the envelope containing the cassette apparently disappeared from my front door, where I’d taped it for my boss to pick up. He told me to have it ready by 7:30 a.m. and I’d taped it there at 7:15 a.m., just about the time DaycareKid arrived.

I put Babygirl and DaycareKid to bed, then came downstairs to investigate. I called my boss: “I left that cassette taped to my front door for you to pick up. My phone ringer was off all day, so I didn’t get your message. I’m going to figure out what happened and get back to you.” I left a message on DaycareKid’s dad’s cell phone, “Uh, you didn’t happen to see or accidentally take an envelope off my front door, did you?”

I walked outside and scoured my front yard for evidence of the envelope or the cassette. Nothing, other than TwinBoyB’s socks which are balled up and soaked by rain on the front lawn (and I used the word “lawn” loosely).

Finally, I called my boss’s office to speak to the secretary. She answered after half a dozen rings. I said, “Do you happen to have that tape?”

And she said, “Yes.”

“You do?” I said, stunned and relieved.

My boss had his wife come and pick up the envelope and deliver it to the office.

Now, DaycareKid’s dad will wonder at my extremely bizarre message and my boss will wonder at my groveling message, but I don’t care. I didn’t lose the cassette. A quirky thief is not prowling my neighborhood for envelopes stuck to doors.

The end.

My 7-year old boy has a mysterious illness. When he came through the door Monday after school, his face was flushed. I said, “Are you feeling all right?” and he said he did, but later, he complained that his eyes hurt, his legs hurt, his waist hurt.

I have a cold myself, as does Babygirl, but YoungestBoy gave it to us. This appears to be something new. So I kept him home from school yesterday. We hardly knew he was here–he quietly rested and played, though at one point, he did join us circling the block on his bicycle.

This morning, he came downstairs, cheeks unusually pink and when I asked, “How are you feeling today?” he said, “Well, my ankle hurts.” A bit later, when I asked again, he informed me, “My thumbs are smooth.”

I gave him some ibuprofen (I’m not sure it cures smooth thumbs, though) and plan to send him to school for at least half a day. He excels in school, but maybe he’s just trying to get out of going? Then again, he has those pink cheeks.

The mysteries of childhood lead to dilemmas for mothers. To send or not to send? That is the question.

Sunday morning, Easter, I woke up with a cold. DaycareKid shared his cold germs with Babygirl and with me, so we were both sniffling and crabby. Still, we went to church and did our duty volunteering in the nursery. The children all looked presentable and I teetered on my high heels and my short dress. Twelve children played in the nursery under my care.

And so goes another Easter Sunday. I keep telling myself that motherhood will get easier when my youngest child gets a little older. I’ve been telling myself this for a decade. And then when my twins were about four, I became pregnant, despite the doctor’s prediction that we were “unlikely” to ever conceive. When that miracle baby boy approached three years of age, I told myself, now things will get easier. That was about the time I became pregnant again, which no longer seemed like a miraculous feat, but more along the lines of a divine practical joke.

Not that I wasn’t thrilled and grateful to welcome another child into our world and family. It’s just that the spacing of my children has not been what I might have ordered, had I been able to order them like a Chinese meal. (“And could I have three eggrolls to go with that?”) Some mothers spend a total of four or five years going through the baby/toddler/preschooler stage because they have their children close together. Our kids are almost five years apart and so I’ve been living in baby-toddler-preschooler-land for eleven years.

And if I weren’t breathing through my mouth because my nose is congested and if I weren’t so tired from waking up at 5:30 a.m. (yes, even this morning, sick and despite the rain) to walk . . . well, I might be concentrating on the sunshine and rainbows that dot the landscape when you live with a small child. I’d regale you with tales of Babygirl’s hearty laughter when my mother popped Babygirl’s bubbles with a stuffed bunny. I’d smile as I’d tell you about Babygirl’s tilted head and her squinted eyes when she questions me. I’d describe the joy of holding her long-legged body against mine and rocking, even though she won’t let me sing to her.

But oh. I am just so tired of living with smallish people. I want to move on to the next stage, though as I move on, I’ll find myself living with two teenagers and I hear that teenagers and toddlers resemble each other in many ways. Lucky me.

And then, I will close my eyes and dream of the days when I had a houseful of sweaty, noisy, giggling little children. And I’ll miss this, just a little.

Or a lot.

To him, words are a particle of sand stuck in his eye.
To me, words are soothing eyedrops.

To him, words are sharp rocks digging into his bare feet.
To me, words are soft mossy green carpet.

To him, words are shards of glass, drawing blood.
To me, words are smooth pearls slipping through fingers.

To him, words are a slap on the face.
To me, words are a touch, gentle caress.

To him, words are slimy slugs, leaving a sticky trail.
To me, words are butterfly wings, dancing in the breeze.

To him, words are a tangled tight knot.
To me, words are a satin cord tied in a bow.

To him, words are a paper cut.
To me, words are a band-aid.

To him, words are a sharp stick in the eye.
To me, words are a flagpole displaying a flapping flag.

To him, words are the grime remaining in the tub.
To me, words are the foaming, scented bubbles.

To him, words are playing cards, refusing to stack.
To me, words are perfectly weighted blocks, towering into the sky.

To him, words are an overdraft notice from the bank.
To me, words are a fortune bequeathed.

To him, words are a toothache.
To me, words are a Farrah Fawcett toothy grin.

To him, words are a straightjacket, escape impossible.
To me, words are a vibrant silk gown.

To him, words are a noose.
To me, words are oxygen.

To him, words are the enemy with rifle drawn.
To me, words are the faithful friend with icy drink waiting.

No wonder my son hates to write. Words trip him, confound him, confuse him, push his face into the ground. Composing words together for him is like riding a ski lift into the mountains and getting tangled when he tries to leap off. Then, to add insult to injury, his ski pops off and an avalanche buries him.

This boy just can’t write. He hates words . . . my beloved words.

At Target this afternoon, my shopping cart kept getting log-jammed by inconsiderate shoppers who clogged the aisles. So many people were crowded into the Easter candy section, bunched together like platelets that I, the red-blood cell, could not push my way past them, so I kept backing my shopping cart up and circumventing the clot.

I found a rectangular block which will allow me to buff my own fingernails. It cost $1.87. I felt so smug, so vindicated when I purchased it and shined my own thumbnail.

I am the Queen of Bargains. Really. I’ve never been one of those women who can buy two grocery carts full of food and pays with $2.32 and ten thousand coupons, but I do know my way around a thrift store and the Marshall’s clearance racks. Tomorrow, Easter Day will find us clothed head-to-toe in bargain apparel. The beauty of it is that no one will know that my twin sons’ brand new Ralph Lauren striped polo shirts cost $3.00 and $5.00 each. I splurged on YoungestBoy’s shockingly bright yellow Gap shirt ($12 on sale), but I found a pair of Gap khakis at Value Village for only $2.99. The twins will wear new jeans from Nordstrom ($11.00 each).

I’ll be wearing a lilac silk frock ($40–original $159.00 tag still on it) and Ralph Lauren patent leather pumps ($18.00). Babygirl’s hot pink linen dress with its white Peter Pan collar and belt cost $3.50 at Value Village.

The challenge tomorrow will be to say “thank you” when people comment on our appearance. What I want to say is, “Three-fifty, Value Village,” when the Church Ladies compliment Babygirl’s dress.

The most holy of all Christian holidays will find me in the church nursery tomorrow, hobbling on my spiked heels. It’s my day to be the official volunteer attendant, so I’ll be watching over fifteen to twenty little ones dressed in their Easter finery. After church, I’ll create a fancy dinner just for us. My husband will nap with Babygirl and the children will nibble at their solid chocolate Easter bunnies. The mundane mingles with the breathtaking memory of that morning so long ago when the woman crept to the tomb, only to find it empty.

Tomorrow, serving is my spiritual worship, and I will do so with the full awareness of my risen Savior, even though I am so easily distracted. I will not complain (as usual), but I will remember that Jesus paid full price when He paid the ransom for me. I will miss singing hymns and hearing the choral arrangments during the worship service, but my service in the nursery and in the kitchen will be my personal worship service, a celebration of Life’s triumph over death and the grave.

Rejoice.

Would someone–anyone–please explain to me why the hours from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. go by so S-L-O-W-L-Y and the hours from 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. speed by in a flash?

Also, why am I the only person who notices trash on the floor?

Did someone elect me Queen of all Flushing? Because I seem to the only one managing the toilet handles in this house. And why do my kids put the toilet paper on upside down? Haven’t they noticed how it’s always been done?

And one more thing. Did Hillary really stop reading my blog or did she just stop commenting? I think of her now, whenever I iron my husband’s pants. (I’d insert a link here, but my head hurts, it’s almost 11 p.m. and I will be up and ready to walk in six and a half hours. But good news: Today, I didn’t throw anything!)

Where’s Babygirl?  

Apparently, she’s practicing her technique for avoiding the paparazzi.

You know how you like to look as if you have things together? Or at least you try to keep from looking like a lunatic? You might be frothing at the mouth, screaming at your kids, but the phone rings and you say, “Hello?” in the sweetest voice imaginable? Or someone says to you in public, “How are you?” and you say, “Oh, fine. Busy, but fine!” when you are really thinking, “I’m drowning! If I have to wipe one more nose or smell one more stinky kid, I will throw myself out the window!”

Mostly, I strive to appear like a sane woman who has it sort of together. I mean, most days I don’t wear foundation and mascara and blush, so my face is bleary and lipless and blotchy which is always embarrassing when someone unexpectedly stops by. And recently a mom-friend told me she’d never seen me in jeans, only sweatpants, which is purely coincidental, because I don’t wear sweatpants all the time. Really. I don’t. But I don’t look like Sar*h J*ssica Parker, dancing my way through a Gap commercial, either. (Everytime I see that, I think, she’s my age, which is clearly wrong.)

But I know people think I am calm and sedate and rational. And today I wasn’t. At all.

I shouldn’t even say this–after all, what will you think–but today my twins made me furious. All I wanted them to complete for school was one unit of spelling and a few vocabulary lessons. Simple, right? They both woke up with the emotional stability of a teenage girl experiencing premenstrual syndrome. TwinBoyA actually narrowed his left eye at me while snarling through a curled lip when I went over his science assessment from yesterday. Both twins refused to do their spelling. Their defiance is what set me off.

Pretty soon I was gritting my teeth and demanding that they work. They dug their heels in. The baby was fussing in my arms while Babygirl and DaycareKid squabbled over toys. At some point, TwinBoyA expressed his displeasure with me by walking through the kitchen and casually knocking a high chair tray and a couple other items to the floor. He has been throwing things in fits of anger since before he could walk. He used to throw furniture–the child-sized rocker was a favorite–but now, he just slyly displaces things–I will find a stack of CDs on the floor or a pencil snapped in two and discarded behind a chair.

When he purposely tipped things onto the floor, I went berserk inside my head. I pursed my lips into a tight line and then went to his room and opened his headboard and threw his stack of playing cards on the floor. I dumped his bedding (unmade bedding) on the floor. I tossed some books on the floor. I emptied a plastic container full of blocks on the floor. TwinBoyB watched me do this. He was completely shocked. I did not care. I took the folded laundry from the couch and deposited it on the floor between their beds.

Both boys went upstairs and I found them playing Nintendo. I took the controllers out and told them to finish their lessons. They tried to make deals with me: “We’re not doing spelling. How about if we do music instead?” No. No. No.

I was so angry that I fantasized about grabbing the car keys and leaving the house. I imagined enrolling them back in public school next year. In fact, I called TwinBoyA over to me and I informed him how very close he was to returning to school. I said, “So if you’d like to be back in the halls of school, having people make fun of you, just go ahead because that’s where you’re heading.”

I thought of Mt. St. Helen’s . . . how it explodes when there is no easy outlet for its molten lava. I was like that volcano today–bubbling with fiery hot fury.

I thought I was such an easy-going, calm, patient, loving person. And then I had kids. Motherhood is a continual lesson in disappointment with myself. I thought I’d be better. I thought I’d have more control over how this situation turned out. I thought my kids would be more like me and less like themselves. I thought my kids would want to please me.

I thought parenting would be a stroll through a flower-filled park (quit laughing) and instead, it turns out to be an uphill climb in the rain. At night. Carrying four kids on my back. Without adequate footwear. Or a light. Or food. And all the while, they are chattering in my ears and arguing and calling each other “Stupid.”

My kids are more like magnifying glasses than anything else. They have supersized spotlights which peer into the very corners of my being, illuminating the cockroaches and dust and mucky ugliness that lurks in me. I much preferred the public me that I used to know, the unruffled person who was unchallenged and unquestioned, the person who excelled at things she tried. My kids will never know that person. They only know the screaming me who retaliates like a child and who says things like, “STOP. TALKING. TO. ME.”

For the record, I did clean up the mess I made. So did TwinBoyA. They also both finished their spelling units and we discussed their behavior later. They promise to be better, to do better, to work harder tomorrow.

When TwinBoyA said I overreacted, I peered at him and said, “Child, if you light a fuse, you just might set off a bomb.”

I need a vacation.