Today

Tags

accidents, gardening, messes, time

I am sitting here in the kitchen this afternoon.  Ella has a little friend over here and she is giving her the grand tour…I can hear her up there…this is Kate’s room, and this is the boys’ room.  And I hear her little friend say “Holy Moly that is a mess!”  I wince a little.

The boys’ room is generally very neat.  William insists upon that.  He cannot stand clutter.  But this morning we were in a race to get out the door.  Too much basketball…we had practice last night and didn’t return until after 8:00.  We finally ate, showered and got into bed by 9:30, but that amount of running around just exhausted them all, and they slept late this morning.  I let them.  So there was no time to make the bed, or pick up the clothes, or fold their clean laundry and there it sits in their room.  It does look a mess, I suppose.

This morning Kate informed me that she simply cannot use her bathroom because there are a million tiny bugs in there everywhere.  So I went to look.  Yes, there were bugs.  It looks like someone opened the window in there yesterday and didn’t close it properly and those teeny tiny flying things got in.  I sprayed them and told her I would clean that bathroom up today before her friends came over.  Which I did.

Then as I was checking her ipod for texts, I was horrified to read that she told her friends that her bathroom was infested with bugs and that if they needed to go to the bathroom while they were here that they could not use that one!  Oh the horror.

So clearly I am not earning high marks in keeping a clean house.

The weather is gray today.  It is mild…75 degrees…and I have arranged for William to have rides to and from practice tonight.  I don’t have anywhere to go.  That doesn’t happen very often.  I think I am going to work outside a little if the rain holds off.  I have some basil to plant, and I need to pot up my tomato and marigold seedlings.  There are pots on the deck that cracked over the winter, and I need to clean those up.  We bought some hollies on Mother’s Day that need to be planted as well, which is probably more than I can handle today.

Funny story about the hollies (unless you’re me).  David drove my car home from the greenhouse with the lift gate up because we had the holly trees in the back.  I was a few minutes behind him because I needed to wait for someone to load the dirt into my car.  So when I get home, he comes running out of the driveway to stop me from pulling in and I see millions of shards of glass all over the driveway, because he backed into the basketball rim and destroyed my car, or at least the back window.  So, he spent the next two hours vacuuming that up while I pouted in my room.  When I emerged, he tried to cheer me by informing me that he went to the store to get industrial strength trash bags to tape on the back for when I’m driving around.  His solution, however resourceful it may have been, did not leave me feeling enthusiastic, or thankful, or cheery or anything other than wow.  And not wow in a good way.  More like, wow, I can’t believe I’m going to have to drive around in a car held together with trash bags and duct tape.  But, because it was mother’s day and I was trying to pretend I am a good mother, I got a beer and went outside to look at my flowers and not snap at anyone.

This all reminds me of the (numerous) time(s) I said that the basketball hoop was too low when set on 6 feet, and how I was afraid I was going to hit it and how we really should raise it up, and how someone who shall remain nameless scoffed at all that.  Isn’t that interesting?  Right.

For this weekend we have another 10 games, at least.  After the last game on Sunday, I hope we can cook out.  We will have to use the Weber, because our fancy gas grill has disintegrated and we haven’t ordered the new parts yet.  And maybe we won’t.  I think the Weber might be better anyway…I miss the charcoal.  I miss the smell, and the flames, and watching the coals turn from black to red to gray.  I miss the time it takes to cook.  We hurry everything along these days because we try to get so much accomplished in so little time.  We forget that there is importance in taking it easy and enjoying time spent together, doing nothing at all.  We can watch Poppy run around in the backyard, sip a glass of wine, and dream about all of the landscaping that we’re going to do, someday.  

I don’t know if I could plan a better weekend.     

Will

Tags

Boys, growing up, Will

He goes by Will now.  He told me yesterday.

“I’m going by Will now, Mom.”

“Oh, Okay.  But I might still call you William.  Or Wuh-wuh in private.  Or Little Bill.”

He even signed his love note to me with Will, instead of William.

I’m not sure that I like it.  I’m not sure that I like that he is getting bigger, and changing things on me all by himself.

There I was, standing there in the kitchen minding my own business when he goes and makes a new name for himself without even consulting me.  And then feeling secretly proud of him that he’s going out on his own here, and secretly kind of torn up because these little decisions he makes are his baby steps away from me.

And then I watch him.  Quietly, I watch him.  He fixes his water bottle for football practice with his mouth guard hanging out of his mouth and I watch him with this intense love for him that he will never understand.

I love this boy differently.  I notice this more often lately…

Not more.  Not less.  Just different.  He is different.  He is intense.  Everything is intense.

I want to remember him this way…in his long athletic shorts, his purple Nike shirt and his new elite socks that he bought with his own money.  I want to remember how he looked as his little hands turned the lid on his water bottle, and how soft his hair felt as I hugged him.   I want to remember his little voice.

I want to remember him just like this, before he changes anything else.

My little William.

Poppy

Tags

beagles, Dogs, Poppy, tennis balls

I love this dog.

A life without a story.

Tags

hard days, love notes, motherhood

There often seems to be no point to my writing, which is I guess why there is so little of it these days.  If I write about the good things, I feel like I’m bragging.  If I write about the bad things, I am complaining.  What is left is the plain old nothing to tell days.

I have a cold.  It is not terrible, but it makes everything feel exhausting.

I spent the entire morning on accounting, and then I picked Ella up from the bus stop.  We had to go grocery shopping.  We have had so many football and basketball games in the last couple of weekends that just filling our bellies was in itself an accomplishment, forget about grocery shopping.

When we got home and got all of the groceries unloaded and put away, it was time for the boys to get home from school.  William came home with an attitude.  I don’t know why.  The boys got ticked off at each other and it went downhill from there.  The attitude.  The defiance.  The hateful words.

I am trying.  I am trying to be a good mother.  I am trying to feed them well, and teach them well, and be a soft place for them to fall.  But it feels like an argument all day long.  Why can’t we get this cereal, why does everything always have to be healthy, why do you have to care so much.  Why can’t I have safari, why can’t I watch this movie, why can’t I play on the ipad for 4 hours today.  Why do you have to care.  

Because I care.

I forgot today was the day my children were supposed to bring a flower to their teacher.  I am trying so hard to remember everything, but I always forget something.  My inability to accomplish the list of things I assign myself is a constant downer.  There is too much to do, so I pick the immediate needs…what can we not live without?  And the rest gets left for another day.  Only that day doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to arrive.  I look around and feel a little overwhelmed at what needs doing around here.  I try to ignore the dust, and the fingerprints and the crumbs.  Some days I convince myself that I did enough…I give myself the pep talk that I’m doing great.  

Some days I don’t.  And this was one of those days.  The words didn’t roll off my back.  They were absorbed.  They feed the worm inside my head — the one with all the insults.  The one that tells me I am never going to be the mother I wanted to be.  How can I be?  How can I ever be the perfect goal I had set for myself?  I have the Hallmark version of motherhood in my head, when in reality, I am a mom sitting in an 11 year old car (which is not smelling real good at the moment), in an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, with makeup that is half cried off, a dog on my lap that is howling at the passers-by and feeling rather beat up by this cold I have.  

I must look like a train wreck.  Do they notice?  Do the kids notice that their mother is a mess?  Some day they will.  Some day they will see.    

I go into the den to get my computer, and there are love notes from my boys.  I keep all of these notes.  Sometimes I read them…they’re tucked safely in my purse…in the zipper pocket…in my calendar…in my bureau…in my drawer filled with love letters and special cards and things I never want to lose. Some of them just say “I love you.”  Some are drawings.  Some tell a story.

Maybe I save them because they make me feel like I’m not such a bad mother after all.

They love me.

When You Think You Have Everything Under Control

Tags

ballet, laundry, riding lessons, sports, Sunshine

I’m sitting here drenched in sunshine.  Some days, it’s the only way I can seem to get warm.  This is my favorite spot in the morning, here in the kitchen right across from the window.  Sometimes I catch myself staring out into the woods…everything still gray and bare.  Woodpeckers skimming up and down the trees and above them, a very large bird circles.  Today it is breezy.

We are in the flux between winter sports and spring sports.  Somehow our schedule doubled between last week and this week.  That both thrills and concerns me.  We have started spring basketball, and flag football starts next week.  Unbelievable as it may be, there are very few practice conflicts and I think someone up there had a hand in this scheduling perfection.

Kate will be moving into the advanced riding lessons.  This is both good and bad.  Good because she is advancing.  Bad because we are changing instructors and I have a particular fondness for her current instructor, and a particular nervousness about her future instructor.  She kind of terrifies me.  But she doesn’t seem to bother Kate much.  Perhaps I am a bit of a weenie.

Ella could not be any cuter in her ballet class.  Not even a pinch cuter.  She’s still trying to get the hang of it…the straight legs are really throwing her for a loop.  She continues to feign illness at school.  It is humorous only because I know the look she can put on her little face that makes her look as though she is dying.  She is quite a good little actress.

I tore the carpet off the stairs a couple weeks ago.  Once the runner was off, and the tacky strips and the staples were all removed, they looked pretty good.  They needed paint on the rises though, and I realized that the woodwork along the steps and up the walls also needed repainting and recaulking, so it took a few days but they look nice now.  We had some wall repairs to make as well, so we spackled those up and when we weren’t looking, Poppy licked every ounce of spackle right off the walls.  So we re-spackled and painted while she hung around, licking her chops.  It all looks quite nice now.

When you think you have everything under control, and you’re just going to spend a quiet day doing laundry, your washing machine breaks.  And not only does it break, but it breaks mid-load, full of clothes and soap and water.  You would not believe how much water those things can hold.  If your washing machine breaks mid-load, you will find out that they can hold buckets upon buckets upon buckets of water.  I took the washing machine apart and ordered the part that is most likely broken (I don’t have a tester thingy to be certain) and tomorrow I shall fix the washing machine.  Hear me roar.

Poppy is pacing around whining because normally during the day when she is not perched on the back of the sofa looking out the window like a cat, she is sleeping in the laundry room on the sunny patch on the floor.  Only today, there are laundry machine parts all over the laundry room, and there is no place for her to lay down.  It is very distressing to her.  So she comes over and stares at me and whines, which is very distressing to me.

She has found a patch of sun in the kitchen now, right next to me, that did not pass muster the first time she tried it.  She slipped into the laundry room again, and finding that the situation in there had not improved, has decided this spot is as good as it’s going to get, and has relented.  Her feet are curled under and the sunlight bounces off her whiskers.  Around me all I hear is her slow, deep breathing and the steady hum of the refrigerator.  

It’s How You Play the Game

Tags

basketball, how you play the game, losing

Afterward, you buried your face in the bend of my elbow as I hugged you.  I knew you were crying.  I knew that my chance to console you would last only a few seconds, as your teammates would be passing.  You wanted to collapse, but you would not.  You would not want to look weak.

The truth is, you were weak today.  You spent yesterday nauseous and feverish and achy.  Today, you felt ready, but I wondered how you would hold up.  You played your heart out, but this was not your game.  Your defense was good today, but your shots were uncharacteristically off, and by the look on your face it was plainly evident that you were frustrated.  How my heart ached for you.  How I begged for those shots to fall…

The ride home was silent.  I think everyone felt it…the hard loss in the last minute of a playoff game.  A season over.  A boy that is sick.  A boy that is heartbroken.  A boy that is mad at himself.

You ran straight up to your room and when you came down, there were tears streaking your face.  I told you that everyone has a game like this…where your shots don’t fall…when your best is just not quite enough.  Your daddy says you will grow from this…you will be better because of this.

I know that right now you just feel crappy.

Me too, buddy.  Me too.

But you know what else I feel?  I feel proud of you.

You never gave up.

I wonder if you’ve ever heard that saying…it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game…

Maybe this time, that really is what matters…how you played the game.

This is Life

Tags

life, spring, the best laid plans, winter

I worked really hard this week.

I figured if I put in a little extra time each day this week that I could spend the day, today, doing a little shopping.  I would take this morning off.  It’s been quite a while since I’ve been out.

But, then.

Last night, William came home from basketball practice at 9:30, shivering and freezing and head hurting.  And I knew that instead of shopping, I would be here with him today, watching movies and Spongebob and Good Luck Charlie, and sipping Ginger Ale.  

It was hard to not feel frustrated until I saw his little shivering face.  As quickly as those feelings of frustration arose, they acquiesced.

Then there was this morning.

You know that sound a dog makes when it is barfing?  Yeah.  We heard that at 3:00am.

And at 4:30am.

At 5:00am one of the children woke up hungry.  Only I think it was not hunger.  I think it was that ache you get before you barf.

At 5:30am, another child wanted to climb into bed with us.  We said no, because we could still squeak out 45 minutes of sleep.  But not with her in our bed because she fidgets, and kicks off the covers, and chatters.

At 5:48am, she needs a tissue.  Then she blew her nose and it was seriously the cutest nose-blowing sound that I’ve ever heard.

Then at 5:55am one of the children wakes up with a wet bed.  We haven’t had a wet bed in, like, two years.

At this point, I throw in the towel and just get up.  I will have to cancel dinner plans for Saturday because of the barf.  And the boys’ basketball games…I wonder if William will be able to play…

I make the coffee.  I make the kids’ lunches.  It is 6:30 and three children are already up.  One sipping Ginger Ale, one making his own bagel, one sitting patiently with messy hair and her jelly cat, waiting for me to make her breakfast.

This is life.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
And lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promised joy! — Robert Burns

Yes.  The best laid plans.

David and I get the kids off to school.  I watch from the window as Kate walks to the bus stop.  It is not okay for me to walk with her now that she is in middle school.  So I watch from the window.  I wait until she is there, with her friends, and then I tell her I love her as the big yellow bus pulls away with her.  After 6 years of watching the bus drive off with my heart held captive inside, I still ache every time.

It is gray this morning.  I think they’re calling for flurries.  The trees are bare, scrawny and gray.  Even still, I can see the buds beginning to bulge from slender branches.  It won’t be long now before that spring green hue is cast over the woods, dotted with white dogwood and magenta redbud flowers, and spring beauties emerge from the russet-brown earth.  March.  March is when the spring beauties come.  But today it is February.  Today it is cold.

Inside, the fire is burning.  Poppy sprawls next to it.  Next to freaking out over the squirrels, I think it is her favorite thing to do…sleep by the fire.  The washer is washing, and I’ve put on another pot of coffee.  William wants quiet…he doesn’t want to watch anything that has food in it, he is so horribly nauseous.

There is an enormous pile of laundry to fold, which seems to be growing by the hour.  The floors need cleaning, the furniture needs dusting, there is a large water spot on our carpet downstairs that I should try to clean.  And there is a boy that needs lovins.  I think somehow this might be an even better way to spend the day, if only it wasn’t at the expense of Little Bill.

 

First Ballet Lesson

Tags

ballet, ears

I don’t know about you, but I think those just may be the most precious ears I’ve ever seen.  I love you, Ella Lou.

What Today is Like.

Tags

gluten sensitivity, squirrels, today

It is a cold and rainy day.  Right now, though, I can see a baby blue sky through the gray clouds.  And the sun is shining on the bare redbud branches outside my window.

Poppy is attempting to drive me fully insane with her whining.  All day she whines.  All.  Day.  It used to be that she watched the squirrels on the ground as they skittered around looking for acorns in our yard.  Once they got up the trees, I guess she lost sight of them.  But now.  Now, she like to stare at them high up in the trees.  And whine.  There is one tree that sits about 15 feet from the house, right in front of a window.  And in that tree sits a squirrel every now and then.  It sits eye level with Poppy.  It stares at us. I’m not even kidding.  It nibbles on it’s little acorns with it’s cute little hands and it’s fluffy little tail and it looks smack in our faces and Poppy goes absolutely bat-sh*t crazy.  I mean crazy like she is going to kill someone crazy.  I believe the squirrel does it on purpose.

The kids are playing here and there.  I took away the video games, ipods, computers and televisions for the rest of the day.  Too much of that goes on lately.  So they are playing with cars and apparently William is posturing in front of the mirror, talking smack to himself.  ”You talkin’ to ME?” and stuff like that.  Kate thinks it’s funny.

Dinner smells good.  I made french dip sandwiches.  I’ve seen that idea around a lot lately, and figured I’d try.  Only I am attempting to go without gluten these days, so I guess I’ll just have a plate of beef.  I’ve been tired.  For about 10 years.  Not just regular tired, but crazy tired like there is something wrong with me.  I thought it was my iron level.  Nope.  Thought it was because I wasn’t getting enough sleep.  So we bought a ridiculously nice and expensive mattress and now I sink into a cloud of loveliness every night and I am still tired.  And then the headaches started.  And they got to be so bad that I couldn’t do anything but lay down and try to sleep it off.  But even that didn’t really help, except it got my mind off the tired part.  And then the mild depression started.  And the leg aches.  Aching and aching and aching.  So I decided to try to go off the gluten.  Headaches are gone.  Energy level up.  Not sad.  Legs still ache but I think that may be a function of how much I am standing all day.  Plus my shoes are awful.

So it could be in my head.  Or it could be gluten.  I miss cookies.  I miss crackers.  And bread.  Oh how I miss the bread.  I opened a bag of whole wheat rolls yesterday and the smell was absolutely intoxicating and I think I drooled.

Henry has an orthodontist appointment tomorrow.  Number three at the orthodontist.  I get a sibling discount, but I am thinking that it should be more of a buy two get one free deal for me on this.  Anyhow, that poor boy has no idea what he is in for.

Ella has ballet tomorrow.  This will be her second class.  Be still my heart.  She is seriously cute in her little leotard and tights and ballet slippers.  I even figured out how to put her hair in a ballet bun and it was precious.  She looked at herself in the mirror and when I thought she was going to smile and think how pretty she looked, what she said was “I hope no one laughs at my ears.”  I told her I loved her little ears.

David has a meeting tonight, so I will get the kids in bed and maybe I’ll finish my book.  I’m reading Crossing to Safety.  At least it will be quiet tonight.  Poppy can’t see the squirrels to whine at them once it gets dark, and I suppose they’re all in their snug little beds anyway.  I’m looking forward to it, I guess.  Getting everyone cleaned up and in their jammies…settling down to read together.  I hope it’s not a mess up there.  There is nothing that spins me out of control at 7:00pm like a few messy bedrooms.

Night-night world.

This is why.

Tags

homework, losing my mind, nonsense

She is doing a worksheet.  It is a sheet of paper on which she is to trace and then write the months of the year.  That is all.  No talking necessary.  And yet, we have this…

March March.  That’s what it says.

Mmmmar.

Feeeb.  UUUUUU.  AAAAAAAr.  YYYYYYY.

MAAAAAAR.   CHHHHHHH.

AAAAAAAp. PPPPPPppp.  RRRRRR.  IIIIII.  APRIIIIII.  LLLLLLL.

APrilllllll.  April.  Come here April.  Come here.  APRIL COME HERE.  Hahaha. 

APRIL COME HERE!

Hahahaha 

APRIL!  Come here or I’m sending you to your room! 

Ape. Ril.  May.

May.  (Jellycat falls off the table) Oop! (she makes a surprised gesture)

(She repeats surprised gesture.)

(Surprised gesture again.)

(And again.)

(A pencil falls.)  Sorry.

She laughs.  She says something inaudible.

APE.  I’m watching you. Vector.  (from Despicable me).

I’m watching you.  Always watching.  Remember that? (From Monsters, Inc.)

RRRRrrrrRRRRRRil.

MMMaaaaAAAAAy.

Mahahahay.

I’m almost done.

Me:  Keep up the good work!

I *will* keep up the good work.

At this point she spots the camera and sees that the red light is on and she asks why it is videotaping and I lie and say it’s only on standby.  She is savvy though, and she knows I’m lying.  She comes around to look for herself.

It’s videotaping!!!

The End.

There are a few points to make here.

1. This type of dialogue goes on every single day.  Not with the months of the year, specifically, but it could be anything…it could be song lyrics, or a book, or a tv show or A.NY.THING.  Today she was saying her teacher’s name over and over:  Calvitti.  Cal. Vitti.  Caaaallllviiiiiiitttiiiii.
2. I am not even exaggerating.  Not even a little.
3. I think Ella may be watching too many movies.
4. This is hilarious.
5. Is this normal?
6. This is why.  This is why I’m slowly losing my mind.