I met a friend for lunch today.  We monopolized the table at Bahama Breeze for a good three hours, reviewing the happenings since we last met.  (Which we think was over two years ago.  Oh, how time flies.)  After our lunch, I headed over to Ikea, managing to make at least four wrong turns and three U-turns in my determination to find that giant warehouse with its meandering paths and cheap tea lights.

I bought my boys two chair-beds, which are exactly what they say.  They will require assembly which I intend to attempt tomorrow when I am better rested than today.  While I have yet to meet something I cannot assemble, occasionally the task is accompanied by some huffing and puffing and maybe a few Christian curse-words:  “Shoot!”  “ARRRRG!” and “I HATE THIS!”  Okay, “I hate this” is not a Christian curse-words, but still.  I use it like one.

My husband took the kids to the pool in my absence.

When I returned home, my daughter crawled into my lap, obviously exhausted.  I begged her to let me comb her matted curly hair, but she refused.  Tomorrow morning untangling that mess will be such fun.  Anyway, she always takes it personally when I go away on a Saturday.  She wants nothing more than to spend every waking moment with me . . . while I need a break from her from time to time.

When I put her to bed, she asked if we could go to Target tomorrow.  I said, “No.”  She wanted to know if we could go to the One-Dollar Store.  I said, “No, but we will do something tomorrow.”  I have in mind that we could go blueberry picking if it doesn’t rain.

Three times she got out of bed.  One of those times, it was to ask me, “But Mom, where can we shop?”  She wants to shop!  Shop until she drops!  None of my other children (read: BOYS) will tolerate even a short shopping trip.  I remember one time that I had to take them to the market to buy a few provisions.  I was eight months pregnant and my three boys were prancing about, putting each other in headlocks, poking each other and generally causing a ruckus.  I stood sweating that August, waiting my turn.  When it came, the clerk said, “Another boy?” and I said with exasperation, “God forBID!”

And sure enough, God gave me a little girl who just wants to have some fun . . . at a store, any store.  Maybe a pet store?  “Mom, can I have a rat?”  I’d rather go to Target!

My children have been enamored with video games forever.  The twins saw their first video game when they were four and they could talk of nothing else.  Mario captivated them.
So, we go to video game stores a lot.  Most recently, I went to GameStop because I was given a gift card so I could visit the store and tell you all about it.  Which I will do, over here.

She’s five (“and a half!” she’ll tell you) and Swimmy the Beta-fish quelled her pleas for a pet of her own for approximately two days. We already have three cats (mutants from the same litter–I am a cat-lover, but these cats are just not right). But each of my three boys has his own cat (all females, despite their names: Roy, Chestnut and Smokey). She wants her very own pet, preferably something cuddly. You can’t cuddle a fish.

When I was her age, I was desperate for a pet, too. I begged for a puppy and to my utter shock, a little black ball of fur wriggled out of a Christmas-wrapped box. I pleaded for a hamster–I really just wanted the Habitrail, because all my girlfriends had one–and I received two hamsters in a stinky wooden cage that was impossible to clean. I had guppies. My black puppy disappeared one day while I was gone at school (my mother had a new baby and the dog had to go, I guess) and a few years later, I received another dog, a Miniature Schnauzer named Mitzi.

So, I get the longing for pets.

And I secretly think that guinea pigs are so cute. (We pig-sat the fourth-grade guinea pig one weekend.)

My daughter cannot stop asking me to go to the pet store. I keep telling her, “No, I’m not taking you to the pet store.” I rue the day her daddy took her into the local Petco while we were waiting to be seated at Red Robin. That’s what rekindled this whole thing.

I purchased a small-creature cage at a garage sale a few years ago. The price was excellent and the cage was brand new (with accessories). I foresaw this day. Because that’s what moms do: see the future.

But we are not going to the pet store. Not yet.

My daughter said to me, “Mom, don’t you understand how important this is to me?”

Oh, I do. I really do. But three cats might eat a rat. And while little white mice are cute, I don’t want them lose in the heating vents. Hamsters sleep all day and make noise all night.

She will continue to lobby . . . and I will resist until I can resist no longer. I hope that day is distant.

As the summer sun faded from the sky, I couldn’t help but think about endings. My youngest children frolicked in the pool and I thought about death. Perhaps my reading of East of Eden cast a pall over the dusk, but I thought about my dad, so long gone, and about his last summer. We had no idea it was his last summer, of course, because we were all so sure that he would outlive the doctor’s predictions (“four months to two years”).

If he’d been in the plastic pool chair next to me tonight, I thought, what would we say? Probably nothing profound. The grief over what was lost already would silence us.

I watched my children, soaked in the moment and wanted to cry. The moment couldn’t last. Even now, summer flees and my baby girl has lost two baby teeth. On the way home, Zachary quizzed her, checking to see if she believes in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Cupid. (Cupid?) He scoffed at his friend who believes in all the mythical childhood characters–and I said, “Don’t spoil it for him.” And he said, “I won’t.”

I thought how my dad’s life never intersected my children’s lives. How sad that they never met. He died four years before my oldest children were born.

The vivid sense of the momentary nature of life reminds me that all this–the endless laundry, the Shasta daisies smiling in the corner of the yard, water droplets dripping from my tan children–all of it will be gone. I think of my grandmother, lying in a bed in the center of my cousin’s family room, clinging to life, barely, on her 102nd birthday–the challenges of raising six children during the Depression, the delight of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the sorrow of watching her husband of 62 years die from the ravages of bone cancer–all of that burned away like fog on a summer day. Momentary troubles, momentary joy.

I know I am mortal. I don’t mind getting old, except for the age spots on my hands, the hairs sprouting on my chin and the touchiness of my lower back, but I don’t want to die. I want to gather my life into my arms, greedy for more, and refuse to loosen my grip.

Monday:  Who knows. I worked six hours at home, then took the kids to the pool. Glorious weather.

Tuesday: My four children, my mother, my nephew and I ventured to Mt. Rainier for the day. I thrilled the children by providing a picnic full of processed foods, including those cans of cheese and fruit roll-ups (which contain no fruit, as far as I know). The snow fell so deeply last winter that the trails were still under four feet of packed snow, so we attempted a hike, but turned back after much slipping and sliding. The children delighted in the steams of melted snow rushing along the paths and in the weirdness of throwing snowballs in July. [I would insert a picture, but my blog is uncooperative.]

Wednesday: Our town shut off the electricity at 8:00 a.m. . . . a planned outage scheduled to last twelve hours. We knew in advance, so I planned another outing: this time to Wild Waves, our local water-park. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and left at 6:20 p.m., and I was nearly dead from a fun overdose. Too much sun, too much noise, too many people, too much. But my daughter had a fantastic time, especially compared to last year when she was too frightened to go on any kid-sized waterslides. This year, she slid and swam and splashed. Sometimes, I even participated, floating around in an tube and jumping waves in the wave pool.

My head ached by the time we left, but my daughter has asked every day since to go back. And we might: in a week because–wouldn’t you know–I found a coupon on last week’s Sunday paper for $15 off each ($35!) ticket. If only I’d had time to read the Sunday paper a week ago, I would have been able to use that coupon and not felt compelled to go back again. (Oh, the kids loved it, except for one of my 15-year olds who chose instead to stay home in a house without electricity–he and his friend down the street played their guitars and walked to 7-11 for snacks.)

Thursday: Worked for eleven hours.

Friday: Worked for nine hours. Hey, this was my anniversary, twenty-one years! No time to celebrate!

Saturday: Worked three hours, then ran errands (without kids, glory be!). My husband of twenty-one years and I went out to dinner at a lovely waterfront restaurant that was so noisy we had to shout to communicate and the service was slow, but we forgave these faults because we have enjoyed eating at this particular restaurant for many years. And the food was delicious.

Sunday: We skipped church. So many activities took place in Seattle and Tacoma today that we feared traffic would be exceptionally bad. (Which is saying something. Seattle’s traffic is notorious.) I just heard on the news that in addition to the Bite of Seattle, there was also a parade in the International District, complete with a Chinese dragon and a big Native American celebration in Discovery Park. And down near Tacoma, a big air show. (All day long, I’d hear a roar in the sky and look up to see planes flying in formation or curving around the sky in a white smoky circle.)

I did housework. I ran a few errands. I ironed.

And now another week begins. At least my husband has enough pants to wear to work and a bounty of socks in his dresser.

Today we attended Mars Hill for the second time.  The kids are still quite resistant, but this time, we bribed them with lunch afterward at Dick’s Drive-In, a famous Seattle fast-food place where they make burgers, fries (from real potatoes, as you watch) and old-fashioned milk shakes.  Aside from a little difficulty with directions  (we will not go into that), the day was a success.

For the record, our teenagers will still be attending youth group locally.  And our children went to VBS at our (former) church last week.  Mars Hill may very well be our “interim” church as driving an hour each Sunday morning may get to be too much, but you never know.  Meanwhile, I want to make our drive to Seattle each Sunday worthwhile and so, next week, I would like to drag the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo.

* * *

My daughter and I spent the afternoon at my mother’s house, sitting on her front porch.  Grace and her cousin picked blueberries from the newly discovered bush while my mother and I chatted.  We’d had such perfect weather and the view from her porch of the Puget Sound is so lovely.  My mother has a vast bounty of junk food, so the kids ate Oreos, jelly-beans, Pringles snack-sticks and washed it all down with cans of lemonade.

And then, I took Grace and her cousin to swim.  The teenagers and my 10-year old stayed home, playing video games all afternoon.  They have no idea that they just squandered a perfect, beautiful summer day that they will never get back.  When you’re a kid, the string of sunny blue days seem infinite–but I know better.  I know that we will never get this perfect summer day back with its gentle breeze as the sun set.  They will never see the golden slant of sunlight on their sister’s five year old face.  Blink.  It’s gone.

But they sure made a lot of progress beating that Nintendo GameCube game.  (Oh, and my husband napped the day away.  And the 10-year old was conserving his energy for football practice tonight.)

Ever wonder what happens to the plastic you put into the recycling bin?

Wonder no more.  Recycline produces toothbrushes (and other things) made with recycled yogurt cups.  And when you finish with it, the toothbrush itself is recyclable with a postage-paid mailer (available at stores or from Recycline).

If you’d like to try out a toothbrush, leave a comment here.  I’ll pick two people at random and send you your very own toothbrush.  I know.  You can’t believe how lucky you are, being here, reading this.

Check out the Recycline website for more information.  (They make all kinds of stuff, available at Target and there’s a coupon on the website.)

Tonight, at 10:15 p.m., I telephoned my neighbor down the street to ask her to send my boys home.

A bit later, the doorbell rang.  Her son was at my door asking if I found the boys yet.  “They didn’t come out with me,” he said.

That’s when I realized they must be upstairs, quietly playing the Nintendo Wii with their younger brother.

Way to keep track of the kids.

Tomorrow is the last day of Vacation Bible School at church.  The kids have all gone every day–the teenagers have helped and the younger two have participated and everyone seems to have had a great time.  I know I’ve had a great time having the house to myself for almost three hours each morning.

That’s something I could get used to.  (And next fall my baby girl goes off to kindergarten . . . I know I should feel nostalgic, but at the moment, all I feel is happy anticipation.  I will cry later.)

My daughter has been lobbying for a pet of her own ever since my husband took her window-shopping at a pet store last Sunday while we waited for a table at Red Robin. She declared that she’d really like a mouse. “Mom, I know it’s a big responsibility,” she said, “But I am five-and-a-half! I know how to take care of a pet!”

The truth is, I have always had a fondness for animals. However, I am not willing to take care of a small pet, especially a small pet that might be mauled to death by our three mutant cats in an unguarded moment.

So, we’re trying to convince her that a fish would be Fun with a capital F.

Anybody have advice? I am thinking that a Beta fish might be easy to keep alive? Easier than a goldfish?

That’s just what I need: something more to tend.

The kids are going to Vacation Bible School this week–and I am not in charge for the first time in six years.  Believe me, it’s odd being one of those mothers who signs in her kids and then walks out footloose and fancy-free.  I squandered my free time cleaning my house and packing a picnic lunch.

I picked up the kids at 12:03 p.m. (my son was on the phone, calling me because I was “late”).  We picnicked at the grassy park overlooking the Puget Sound.  The weather could not have been more lovely.  The children were even sweet, raving over the sandwiches (sliced leftover chicken breast, bacon and cheese).  My 10-year old wanted to see the local town museum, but it was closed.  Instead, I took the teenagers (aka Party Poopers) home.  The littler kids changed into swimsuits and we went to our town beach.

Grace sampled all the activities: climbed the playground equipment, swang on the swing, and then settled on throwing rocks into the Puget Sound and collecting crabs into a purple Easter bucket.  Zach spent all his time turning over rocks in his quest to find crabs.  He waded into the cold water a bit, too.  Grace got her Converse high tops wet, then wanted them off (against my judgment), then wanted them back on her sandy feet.  The beach is rocky, full of barnacles and hard on the feet.  She learned that the hard way.

After two hours at the beach, we headed directly to the pool where they swam for another two and a half hours.

When we returned home, the house appeared to be in the very same condition it was in the morning–before I spent two hours cleaning up.  Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but the boys had snacked and left a mess in the kitchen and devoured more than their share of the packs of M&Ms that I bought to put into the pool bag.  And then they discarded the wrappers on the floor.  I was not happy.

Also, I was very tired after the day full of fun.

(As an aside: I am currently reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  I’ve never read it before.)

I ironed a bunch of pairs of pants for my husband, then worked for four hours.  If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep by 1:00 a.m.

And sadly, tomorrow I begin work at 8 a.m. and will put in 12 hours on the computer before my day is done at midnight tomorrow night.  (Three separate shifts.)

But, boy, did we have fun today!   Why is having fun so exhausting when you’re the one in charge of packing the picnic, driving the car and keeping watch?