An Example of Why One Must Always Understand Exactly What Children Are Asking Before Offering an Answer:
Alexis: “Mom, I’ve always wondered how I was made…(pause)…how was I made?”
Me: “Ha. Um. Yes. Well, you see…(mumble, mumble) cells…egg…er…huh.”
Alexis: “I mean, which part did God make first? My head?”
Phew.
Alexis and I are fighting over clothes. Actually, I’m surprised we’ve made it six years without this being a problem…but here we are.
It all started on a P.E. day. On P.E. days she is not supposed to wear a dress. She’s supposed to wear clothes and shoes appropriate for running and other P.E.-related activities. So I picked out some jeans and a shirt she refused to wear because “it looks like a dress.”
Me: “It’s not a dress, it’s a shirt.”
Alexis: “It’s made like a dress but it’s shorter. I’m not wearing it.”
Me: “It’s called a blouse and okay, we’ll find you another one.”
But she didn’t like any of the other ones, either. By the end of the morning, she had rejected every shirt she owned as unfit for P.E. day. I could have given her the official outfit of the Olympic Women’s Soccer Team and she would have told me it wasn’t allowed in P.E. Just to be extra sure, I asked her teacher (once she stomped angrily into class, wearing a formerly rejected shirt and really, really mad about it) about the dress code. She looked confused. “Shirts? Well…I guess the straps can’t be skimpy…?” Six year olds can’t wear skimpy shirts to school? Oh, very well.
So that night I got wise. I figured we’d avoid all the before-school drama and pick out clothes the night before. Since we’d have plenty of time, Alexis could spend as long as she liked picking out whatever she liked. Accessories, even. Matching shoes and leggings. Or un-matching, for that matter, I don’t care. I just want her wearing something when it’s time to leave the house. So we planned ahead. Such a good solution. A sensible solution. A logical solution. Which means, of course, that it didn’t work. The next morning she changed her mind. “I’m not wearing this.”
Me: “You’re wearing it. You picked it out last night. It looks very nice. Put it on.”
Alexis: “No. It looks stupid.”
Me: “You spent a lot of time thinking about this last night. You made a good choice. Now you need to wear it.”
Alexis: “NO!! It’s ugggglyyyyyy!!”
At which point it all disintegrated again and she slammed her door. For ten minutes I heard muttering and the words “stupid,” “ugly,” and “never.” She emerged from her room, with red eyes but wearing the offending clothes.
Me: “You look very nice.”
Alexis: “Humph.”
Really. I didn’t know kids actually harrumphed.
Caleb’s birthday is this week. With the first two kids, I pretty much know what they’d like for their birthdays…in Timothy’s case it’s because he starts a list about three weeks after his last birthday. Everything is written down in descending level of preference, accompanied by brand and model names and sometimes a catalog with things highlighted and circled. I like to think this is just because he is very organized, rather than very greedy. I can guess what Alexis would like because I vaguely remember being a six year old girl and I know what sorts of things she likes. By the time we get to poor Caleb, he has inherited a bunch of toys from both older siblings and it’s hard to think of something unique to get him. So this year, I flat out asked him what he wanted. He responded, “I thought it was supposed to be a surprise.” “Well,” I said, “it is. But if there’s something special you know you want, you can tell me and I could think about getting it.” “Nah. Make it a surprise.”
His dad cheered when he heard this. Chris has always maintained that the only people who should be buying you presents are those who love you well enough to know what you’d like without being told. It’s a beautiful theory, but he abandoned it the year he got three copies of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for Christmas because everyone knew how much he liked it.
So then I asked Caleb what sort of party he’d like.
Me: “We could have a Cars party…or a truck party. Maybe a sports party like baseball or basketball. Or a bug party.”
Caleb: “I want a tree party.”
Me: “A tree party? Like that grow in the ground? Trees?”
Caleb: “Yep. Tree party.” Then he shot me this look like he was just realizing his mom might not be as bright as he thought because she was having trouble with something as simple as a tree party.
I have a four year old tree-hugging hippie. Looking back, I should have known by his refusal to wear socks and shoes. Or pants.
I had jury duty today. Fortunately, I was only there about an hour before the clerk told us to rip up our summons and go home. I should have been there for about ninety minutes but I was late…which means I also missed most of the video they were showing — “The Colorado Juror.” By the time I came in, I think they had covered all instructions and prohibitions and were to the part where people beam at the camera and talk about how they were annoyed at being summoned but by the end, felt a real sense of accomplishment (over what? Voting “guilty” or “not guilty”?)
I discovered, in the sixty minutes I was waiting in the jury room, the following people:
The Irritated Businessperson — came armed with computer. Ignored everyone. Snaked computer cord across the aisle, hunched over in tiny plastic chair and got to work. Looked vaguely discumbobulated…I’m thinking because he was prevented from also being on his cell phone.
The Bag Lady — came armed with…everything. If the jury room is suddenly quarantined due to infectious disease or tornado, you want to be in the pool with the Bag Lady. She arrives with two large shoulder bags holding granola bars, water, 3 paper books, an e-reader and knitting yarn with needles. At some point during the morning she will need to empty one entire bag to search for a pen, which is the only thing she did not bring. And yes, all you suspicious types, I’m a Bag Lady. I revel in it and I will not be ashamed.
The Unencumbered Man — came armed with nothing. Absolutely nothing. No bag. No book. I didn’t even see his juror summons, which we were told to bring. Perhaps he presented it to the clerk, then ripped it into tiny pieces and ate it. The form said to be prepared to stay until 5pm and at 8:30 this morning The Unencumbered Man was leaning forward with his head in his hands and his eyes closed. He did not change position for the hour we were there. Was this his game plan for the next nine hours? The only drawback from being released early is that now I’ll never know.
What was I thinking??? I’m supposed to run a 13 mile race in less than 12 days. Who runs 13 miles? For fun? I’ve never run that far in my life. I might actually die. Seriously — I felt this pain in my left side the other day while running…I could maybe have had a small heart attack. I think I did. I’d better take it easy for a few days.
I panicked like this once before — right before I ran my first 10k a few years ago. I said all of the above to Chris, who told me that it didn’t matter if I finished or not. That I had worked very hard and that everyone would be proud of me and love me regardless of whether I ran the entire thing or walked it. A very compassionate response. A loving, understanding response. A totally, totally wrong response. He has since been made to understand that it is his job as Head Cheerleader to lie, lie, lie. His new response when I start saying these things is “I have no doubt you can do anything you set your mind to.” If I told him I was going to run Pikes Peak tomorrow before breakfast, I’m pretty sure this would now be his response. Smart man.
Though come to think of it, when he told me it was okay if I didn’t finish, I thought to myself, “What? You don’t think I can do it? I’ll show you, you….you!” Yep. He was all nice and encouraging and I was all snippy and mad. But if nothing else had gotten me across the finish line, that did. So perhaps he knew what he was about after all.
I’ve been sending notes in the kids’ lunches since they started school earlier this week. Alexis loves getting notes about how much we love her and how much we miss her. Timothy, being older and more cynical (no idea where that came from), would mock any sort of emotional display or hide under the lunch table in embarrassment. So the first day, I sent him a charming little limerick about a guy running away from a bear. He informed me it was not funny. I tried again the second day with the classic guy from Kalamazoo who found a large mouse in his stew. When I asked how he liked it, he rolled his eyes and told me I just wasn’t funny. He said I should include jokes like the one his friend told:
Tim: “Are you PT? (say ‘no’, Mom)”
Me: “Nooooo.?”
Tim: “You’re not potty-trained?”
Then he laughed for ten minutes.
Today’s limerick:
There once was a young boy named Tim,
Whose mother wrote poems for him.
He would often complain
That her poems were quite lame
So she gave up. The end.
Love,
Mom
We took our first road trip with four kids, that’s what we did. When we lived in California, a road trip was a six hour drive from Southern California to San Jose with a max of two stops if things were really getting crazy. Now that we live in Colorado, a road trip is a 16 hour, thousand-mile trek that requires spending the night somewhere in the desert and packing with the economy and precision I’m pretty sure my dad employed when he built space shuttles.
I always have a momentary freak-out as we’re leaving. I worry that I’ve forgotten something and I continue to worry until I remember something I actually have forgotten and then I can deal and move on. Unless it’s one of the kids, we can improvise. I also panic briefly when I realize I’m in a car for two days with five other people and only one of them is really very responsible and exactly none of them agree with me that farting is not funny (this includes the baby. She thinks it’s hilarious.)
The drive was surprisingly easy considering we had a baby, two older kids and a halfway potty trained kid. He would wait until about 20 miles after the “No Services for 100 miles” sign and then announce loudly he had to go to the bathroom. By the time we got him to one, he would go in, spend about ten minutes inspecting it, then decide he didn’t have to go anymore. Once he was back in the car and we were on the road again, he’d have an accident.
The week at Tahoe was wonderful, which means I don’t have many stories. I have a theory that the worst trips make the best stories. The trips my parents and siblings and I laugh about include the camping trip where my parents forgot the tent poles, tied the tent to a tree and then kept snickering because they could tell everyone walking by was dying to point out they had gotten this whole tent thing wrong but no one did. And my personal favorite — the trip where my parents tried to find everything from a campsite to a place to eat to an ATM in the state of Washington, found none of those things, decided they hated the entire state and drove through the night from Canada to Oregon just to get out of it. As a final grand gesture, they let my seven year old brother go potty against the side of a park restroom at 2 am because they couldn’t find any open bathrooms either. So you see my point — good stories.
I did get a run in while I was up there, which was beautiful. It was sunset and the boats on the water were silhouetted against the orange sky. So pretty. And I got a huge boost from a group of people sitting on the pier who cheered me on and yelled, “Get out of her way! She looks like she could run a marathon, that one! Go, go, go!” My ego was not at all deflated when I realized they were completely high and probably went on to cheer the geese for their amazing swimming as soon as I was gone.
So we had an awesome time that week, hanging out with my parents and getting the kids to the lake every day for swimming and some serious sandcastle building. If it all falls apart for us here for some reason, you’ll find us at the cabin. Unless it’s lunch time in which case I might suggest checking the In-N-Out.
Dear Kids,
For the past eight and a half years, I have shared my home with you. I have shared money, food , energy and my impressively large store of knowledge and advice. I have shared time with you I previously reserved just for sleeping. I’ve shared my dinners and every dessert I’ve ever eaten in your presence. For nine months, I shared my actual breath and blood with you.
So I don’t feel at all bad when I tell you to leave my new Nook alone.
Today is my birthday. The kids have been celebrating for the last few days by selecting random objects from around the house, handing them to me with a flourish and yelling, “Happy Birthday, Mom!” I want to applaud the sentiment but really it just means they’re getting out more stuff for me to put away. And I’m still trying to understand the thought process behind giving someone a plastic tomato for her birthday.
I decided we’d go out for Birthday Bagels this morning and since I’m the only one around here at that hour who can drive — I took them out for my birthday (note to kids: if you are reading this in ten years, I hope you have stepped up and are now treating me. Moochers.) It took them exactly twelve minutes to go from watching cartoons in their underwear to dressed, brushed (teeth and hair), shod and in the car. For the last nine months I have been complaining about getting the kids out the door on time for school. They have no problem getting up. They get up at 6:30. Every. Single. Morning. But somehow in the ninety minutes between getting up and leaving, the wheels fall spectacularly off the bus and then run us over so that by the time we go I am pleading, threatening and employing every manner of trickery to get them to the car. What I was lacking, it seems, was the proper motivator. Bagels. If we’d spent the last year heading every morning to a Giant Bagel Emporium, this story would be a lot different.
I should have known food was the answer. It usually is.
The following list is not all-inclusive and will most certainly be added to as summer continues:
1.) If you are climbing the tree in the backyard and I can look you in the eye from the second floor window, you are too high.
2.) Never again fill your cup from the ice dispenser with so much ice that it backs up, causing the next person who gets a drink to be bombarded with 50 cups of ice.
3.) If your baby sister is sleeping, do not stick your face in front of her and yell, “Are you sleeping? Are you?!?!”
4.) Before going in any body of water, check with me. Shopping mall fountains, certain creeks, sewers and puddles are not for swimming. Do not repeat last week’s indiscretion of climbing into the decorative pond at the house of someone kind enough to invite us over for a barbeque. It’s rude.
5.) Anything you take apart because “I just wanted to see how it works” must be pre-approved by me or have a total cost of less than $10 and belong to you in the first place.
6.) No bleeding on my stuff. If you need a band-aid, stay outside and I’ll come to you.
