On Friday night, my twin teenagers slept over at someone’s house.  They didn’t return home until Saturday night. I cleaned their room while they were gone, but not until Saturday morning.  (Hint:  DISGUSTING.)

Saturday morning, my husband took our two youngest to an indoor play area.  It was a two-for-one deal, hooray.  While they were gone, I intended to clean for an hour, then head off  to the library to write.  However, one thing led to another and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned for what felt like a million years, but was only three hours.

By 2:00 p.m. I was in my regular spot at the library, writing my faux novel.  I decided by 5 p.m. that I am delusional and what was I thinking?  Also, why am I doing this again?  I struggled to put 800 words on paper, bringing my grand total pretty close to 18,000 words, which is nearly a quarter of the way to completion.  I haven’t looked at it since, but I will resume work this week, plowing toward the finish line.  The whole point of this exercise is to do it.  To write a novel.  To finish a novel.  Whatever happens after that is not my immediate concern.  I really need a girlfriend to sit down with to discuss the behavior of the people in my novel.  I think I need to talk it out.

Saturday night I did absolutely nothing, other than cringe while watching UFC (fighting) with my husband while reading a magazine.

Sunday we went to church, then to Dick’s Drive-In afterward.  When we got home, I took the two younger kids to the pool (which opened the day before) and they jumped right in and passed the swim test.  Grace spent much of her two hours jumping off the diving board and chatting with the lifeguards.  One even let her sit in the tall lifeguard chair during adult swim and then let her blow the whistle when it was Kid Swim again.

When we returned home I cleaned off the kitchen counter.  I found a basket full of Christmas cards.  I saved some and threw the rest away.  I sorted through a stack of papers and threw away coupons that expired in March.  I cleaned out two purses.  All this took an hour and is proof that I ought to be fired from household management.

And then it was time to go to a movie with my husband.  We saw “Star Trek” which was quite entertaining.  I liked it quite a lot.  It was made all the more entertaining by the three soldiers sitting in front of us who got such a kick out of it.

This morning, then, I roused everyone and had us all en route to Wild Waves by 9:30 a.m.  We have season’s passes.  The idea is to arrive as the park opens to claim a spot for the day.  That’s exactly what we did.  We had our four kids plus two extras.   Although I sprayed us all with SPF 50 sunscreen, we are all a little pink from our five hours of fun in the sun.  (My fun involved sitting on the lounge chair reading an Elizabeth Berg novel and despairing over my own novel.)

Back home by 4:00 p.m. and then my husband took four kids (three ours, one friend) to the “Night of the Museum” movie.  In their absence, I cleaned out our big freezer.  Unfortunately I had to discard two turkeys of unknown age.  I hate it when I waste food.  Really.  Hate.  But what can you do?  We bought an eighth of a cow (organic, natural beef) and it’s going in that freezer next weekend. It will keep all my husband’s leftover Jenny Craig food company.

I also vacuumed and cleaned random spots off the carpet.  Although I could not remove the GUM?  GUM?  Who drops chewed gum in the living room and doesn’t pick it up?  Or report it to the proper authorities?  Seriously.

While defrosting the freezer (it’s really bad–it’s still thawing), I went outside and sprayed Round-Up on the stray weeds.  And I noticed how badly our back ivy-covered fence is leaning and wondered how much those neighbors back there hate us and remembered how mad I was when the contractor pulled that fence out of its socket and what a poor job he did fixing it–he just shoved it back up, instead of making sure the end fit into the socket–and I wondered how in the world we are ever going to get that fence down so it can be replaced because the ivy is as thick as small tree trunks and is woven right through the chain link fence.  It’s a mess.

Also?  My boys like to use sticks to shatter plastic things into bits and if they don’t stop it I’m sending them all off to an orphanage.

Also, whoever keeps breaking popsicle sticks and tossing them around the house is on my Knock It Off List.  KNOCK IT OFF.

And now, back to the freezer.

And back to real life tomorrow.

Hope you all had lovely weekends.

And just like that, no fever.  My 6-year old woke up ready for action, only there was no kindergarten today since it’s a half day.  (They go on alternate half-days since everyday is a half-day for her.)  I was not so ready for action, so after taking the neighborhood boy to school, I went back to bed.  Going back to bed makes me feel slothful and lazy.  But eight hours of sleep?  Kind of important, if you ask me.

When I woke up, my day began in a hurry-hurry-rush-rush fashion.  I kind of hate it.  I started working at 1 p.m., finished at 5 p.m., had her at the T-ball field by 5:50 p.m., finished watching T-ball at 7 p.m., stopped by the grocery store on the way home and returned home with five minutes left until my last shift of the day.  I finished working at midnight, wrote a few blog posts (apologies for them, but I do so like Amazon gift cards) and read a few blogs (Annie, Sarah, Linda and now it’s shamefully late.  Ridiculously late.  So late that I will waste my morning by sleeping in again tomorrow.

And the cycle continues.

But the weekend is coming.  And I’m taking Monday off.

In my next life, I am not going to complain about being too busy when I’m in high school and college and in those years before I have kids.  Seriously.  I had no idea what busy meant until now.

When I picked up my daughter from kindergarten at 11:47 a.m., she clutched her head and said, “I don’t feel good.”  She went straight up to her bed after school–a sure sign of doom–and stayed up there a few hours, finally coming downstairs with flushed cheeks to report that she still didn’t feel good. They she crawled onto the couch where she huddled under a blanket for a few more hours, insisting that she felt FINE and that she wanted to go to McDonalds and could she please call her friend JUSTIN because she was ready to PLAY.

She felt a little feverish.  Little known fact:  I don’t own a thermometer.  I trust my hands to tell me the severity of a fever.  Plus, I believe that fevers are a sign the body is fighting off infection, so I don’t panic.  She felt a little warm, but–as I said on my Twitter account–she was not oinking, so I figured she doesn’t have the Swine Flu.

Just call me Dr. Mel.  Just don’t call me past midnight.  Or on weekends.  I’m too busy not cleaning my house and not ironing pants to talk right now.

(Anybody besides me dying to get on a plane and go somewhere, anywhere?  Why am I the only person who is stuck at home for endless weeks and months?)

We skipped church yesterday to sleep in.  I felt a pang of loss at missing church, not because I’m being graded on church attendance, but because I do hate to miss Mark Driscoll’s preaching.  (And, yes, I could listen to it online, but I know I will never find time to do so.)  But half of us have a half-hearted cold and our twins had a “sleep”-over.  So, we slept in.

Later in the day, we rounded up everyone, including an extra teenager, and drove twenty minutes to Wild Waves, our local waterpark/amusement park.  The waterpark won’t open until next weekend, but this weekend was an opportunity to get our permanent season pass i.d. cards.  While we were there, we set the teenagers free and took the littler kids on rides.

The elusive sun shone on us all day yesterday, reminding me that the gloom does not last forever.  The first two weeks of May were our wettest and coldest in history and seriously, felt like Groundhog’s Day, February 2 itself, repeating over and over.  Cold, gloomy, rainy, cold, damp, cloudy.

And wouldn’t you know it . . . the rain has returned.  Looking outside at the sky gives no clues to the season.  It could be November.  Please, Weather, have pity on us!

Since our youngest child is now six and a half, I notice a big difference in the difficulty-level of family outings.  When she was younger, we’d had to tailor everything to her appetite, energy and likelihood to throw a fit.  Now she goes along with the program mostly, adjusting to most disappointment with calm acceptance.  We can reason with her.  She can steer herself now, whereas before she was at the whim of her emotion, likely to go off course or capsize anytime, anywhere. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we had a baby now?  It would!  And although that would please her no end, that’s not going to happen.  Maybe a puppy.  Or a rat.  But no babies.  I’m getting old.  But hey, not as old as that 66-year old woman who is pregnant.  Did you hear about her?

When I am sixty-six, my daughter will be 28.  I’m going to leave the child-bearing to her.  But not for a long, long, long time.

Tonight my husband and I were exchanging bits of news and happenings from our lives.  I started telling him about “Grey’s Anatomy.”  He used to watch it, but doesn’t anymore.  I still watch it because I work from my living room every night until midnight and the television keeps me company.  He gets up very early these days, so he goes to sleep early.

I started describing the ending scene and to my utter horror, fell apart.  I snatched a tissue, but thankfully, the tears did not fall.  I could have collapsed into the “ugly cry” but instead I took several deep breaths to compose myself.  I was so keenly aware that these aren’t even real people, that this is just fiction, but I couldn’t help it.  (I won’t tell you what happened, exactly, but it was sad.)

Tonight, I watched most of the Farrah Fawcett special about her struggle with anal cancer.  I cried.  A lot.

Last Sunday (Mother’s Day!) I cried when my kids wouldn’t be nice to each other and me.  My teenage son, the one who caused me the most distress, had been performing a dramatic monologue, waving his arms with theatrical flair, demonstrating his vast vocabulary and said, “WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?”  And without intending to do so, I burst into tears.  He stopped, stared at me, then walked straight toward me, stooped down and hugged me.

At that point, of course, I cried more, but I also congratulated myself on raising a boy who responds to female tears with a hug, not words or defenses.  It was actually very sweet.

I cannot seem to stop crying at the most inopportune times.  I cry while watching “Survivor.”  I wept during “The Amazing Race.”  I’m tearing up just writing this about how much I cry.

I know it’s hormonal.  I think it has something to do with age.  Most of my life I have had easy access to a deep well of sadness.  Loss will dig that well in your heart.  I’m not sure you can ever really fill it back in once it’s been dug–and I don’t think I’d ever want to.  That’s the melancholy speaking in me.

I’m thinking I could hire myself out to cry for people who don’t have time or inclination to cry for themselves.  I am turning into a quite excellent crybaby.

But it does kind of make my head hurt.

If you slid open my shower door, you’d find an amazing array of bottles, tubes and cans.  I counted twenty-one the other day, a clear violation of bathroom protocol.  Who needs more than one shampoo, conditioner, kid’s shampoo, shaving cream and maybe a fancy tube of facial cleanser?  Five items, right?

Twenty-one is excessive.

Unless, of course, you are six years old and possess a healthy imagination.

Grace produces, writes, directs and stars in dramatic productions in the shower.  She acts out the parts played by various empty containers.  I can hear her reciting the parts, wholly present in her imaginary world while water sprays down on her.  (We waste so much water.  Please do not tell the Environmentalists.)

And so I can’t throw away any empty bottles.  (Look!  I’m saving the landfills!)  I know that one day my shower stall will feature a tidy collection of full containers because my little girl will have abandoned the pretend world of empty shampoo bottles who talk to empty conditioner bottles.

As we meander through each stage of childhood and parenthood, I try to notice the good parts.  I try to savor the joys.  I try not to scream my head off unless it’s absolutely necessary.

And I retrieve the empty shaving cream can from the trash so Grace will have a trio of shaving cream cans.

My husband thinks Grace and I are both a little nuts.  (We creative types baffle him.)

The children.  They are driving me crazy.  The 6-year old wants to play with the 11-year old boy and his pals.  They tolerate her but only barely and so she cries periodically.  She insists on running around after them in the backyard and so her clothes are filthy and she fell on her knee.  Earlier, a bumblebee had the nerve to chase her around and she came in crying about that.  Weeping may last for an afternoon, but joy comes at bedtime.  (For mom anyway.)

The 11-year old boys are upstairs playing video games.  This activity involves screaming and yelling and bickering (with the 6-year old).  STOP HOLLERING.  Why must they screech?  They are boys.  I thought boys just wrestled until someone broke their arm?

The teenagers are in their room, arguing with each other.  Or talking.  I can hardly tell the difference.  You’d think that twins would be on the same wavelength, but they are fraternal twins, different in every way from their eyes (brown and blue) to their interests (reading and not reading) to their personalities.  And they left their lunch dishes in the family room.  Again.

One of them came in earlier to report to me that his new bike is  breaking down.  I was working at the time.  I already know about his issues with his bicycle . . . as soon as he got it, he started fiddling with the brakes and one thing led to another and now the bike needs to get to the shop.  This is an extremely low priority for me.  In fact, find my lowest priority (dusting?) and you’ll find “take bike to shop” beneath it.  I need to do it, though.  This week.  However, this boy would not stop repeating himself about the bike.  He disagreed with me, even when we were in total agreement.

Now, in the midst of this chaos, I am juggling my writing (I must send in my sample chapters and synopsis this week) and my full-time job (which is complicated by my computer which is driving me crazy).  Add to this the chores that keep a home running and you have me wishing I was running, too, far away from here.

How do people do this?  Work full-time, pursue outside interests, take care of children, keep a household running without looking like they let a tornado dry their hair?   (When I say “they”, of course I mean “me.”  You should see my hair today!  And I have to do something about it before I take my daughter to T-ball practice or risk arrest for vagrancy.)   I don’t know.

Meanwhile, I’m preparing a delicious an healthy meal of frozen pizza ($3.99 a piece for DiGiorno) before we rush off to T-ball practice.  Then I will return with less than an hour until I start working again until midnight.  THEN, and only then, will I have time to write.

Yeah, I sound like a whiner.  But, hey, at least I blogged!  Two days in a row!  That’s got to be good for a sticker.  Or something.

The petals from the flowering trees flutter in the autumn-like breeze.  The seasons seem as mixed up as I feel.  Rain pounds down.  The sky miraculously turns blue and the sun shines until the wind blows clouds across the sky again.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find a light dusting of snow in the morning, though I do believe we are past that annoyance.  After all, the dandelions are in full bloom, though my neglected lilac bush displays my negligence.

Do you ever have to ask yourself what season it is?  Maybe that’s just me.  Autumn and spring resemble each other so much.

I’m simultaneously locked into three separate seasons of parenting life, too.  My teenagers inhabit that moody, occasional surly stage.  Sometimes they shock me with their helpfulness and sometimes they make me wonder what I was thinking.

My 11-year old never wants to grow up.  He’s Peter Pan in a chubby body with freckles on his pert nose and a tendency to annoy his sister until she cries.  But this child is smart and funny and sweet, even though he “forgets” to use shampoo on a semi-regular basis.

And then there’s the 6-year old who loves kindergarten and gives me a full report almost every day when I pick her up.  “Matthew talked about violence again today.  Angelina made me sad, but Alyssa cheered me up.  We had a substitute in music class today.  I had to sit on the wall at recess.”  (“Sit on the wall” is the punishment given to children who stray beyond the boundaries or disobey the rules.)  “But I didn’t mind because I just talked to the other kids on the wall.”

Every other time I had a kindergartener, I had a baby at home.  This is the first time I have a kindergartener with teenagers instead of a baby.  (Teenagers are easier, only because they sleep until I wake them.)

I’m planning our summer vacation.

Enrolling my teenagers in virtual school for next fall.

I’m living in different seasons and trying to keep myself from flying away in the tornado of it all.

(And my kitchen sink is full of dishes, the dirty laundry needs attention and all I want to do is float in a bathtub and read a novel.)

Tonight at 8:15 p.m., my 6-year old daughter came to me and begged.  “Please, will you make me broccoli?  You promised!”

I told her I did not promise and that it was far too late for broccoli.

Five minutes later she came back.  “It’s not that hard to make.  All you have to do is wash it, put it in the microwave, cook it and then put some cheese on.  That’s easy!”

I sighed heavily at the craziness of her asking for BROCCOLI right before bedtime.  I couldn’t believe that I was actually having a conversation in which I was refusing to make broccoli.

So, I went downstairs and microwaved her some broccoli.  I shredded some sharp cheddar cheese over it and she ATE EVERY BITE.

Just when you think you have heard it all as a mom, someone says something nuts like, “Please, please, I need some broccoli.”

(When my 16-year old twins were young, they refused to eat all fruits and all vegetables.  On occasion, they’d eat a bowl of ketchup for lunch.  Just ketchup, so you can understand my confusion at a request for broccoli as a bedtime snack.  Also?  My teenagers now eat pretty much everything, including couch cushions and stale potato chips.)