The Sounds We Hear

They bound off the bus and over to me.  The boys still fall into me as I give them hugs and plant kisses on their tousled little boys heads.  When will that end?  I wonder when will they feel too big to hug me in front of their friends…

They run all the way home…can’t slow these boys down. 

I made brownies this afternoon…the boys cannot sit still while they eat them.  Wiggling.  Kicking their feet.  Bobbing their heads.  Giggling.  I don’t understand the need for constant motion.  But now and then I like it.  Right now, I like it. 

The house is quiet.  The normal sounds…

the washing machine…

the children playing football in the basement (even though they know they’re not allowed to)  Blue 42…

and someone crying because he was playing football in the basement (even though he’s not allowed to) and ran into a wall…

Ella, taking out all of our cups and spoons for tea…

footsteps thumping up and down the stairs and through the house on hardwood floors that echo more than I ever would have imagined possible…

Ella screeching because someone took away the DS (that she’s not allowed to play with)…

little boy whispers about spying…

and complaints from little girls about little boys who are spying on them…

and laughter.  There is a lot of laughter, too. 

Those normal sounds are hushed. 

I hear instead the dreams of a little boy.  Remember when we dreamed of what we would be? 

William says

Hey Mom…  This is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to retire from football when I’m 38 and then I’m gonna be a secret agent.

Then he slips on his secret agent sunglasses (which remind me strangely of a pair that I had when I was about 15), gives me a hug, and sits down to do his homework. 

So I write, while he writes.  And I answer questions like “Hey Mom, how do you spell nocturnal?”

I hear Henry in the basement playing with his friend.  Ella sleeps upstairs.  And Kate is at Art class. 

This is just how I thought it would be–motherhood.

My life.

What You Don’t See

Thirteen years ago, I woke up to the gray pattering of rain.  Yellow leaves spun and twirled to the ground.  I sipped my coffee and prayed for the rain to stop.  I had a big day ahead. 

Just a few hours later, I married The Man.  And now, I sit here, trying to think of some way to put thirteen years into a few paragraphs.  That is rather impossible, I suppose. 

I could say that a snapshot of my life looks rather what I imagined it would look like…  The house.  The kids.  Me and The Man.  But that snapshot is just a picture.  And behind that picture is a story of all that two people go through to come to the point, thirteen years later, when that picture is taken.     

It is Barbados.  Cobbler’s Cove.  Rum punch.  And nothing to do all day.

It is Coco, who really taught us how to parent. 

It is Hokie games. 

It is dreaming of our children.  And the birth of those four children. 

It is watching your toddler son recover from a stroke.  Learn to roll over again.  Learn to sit again.  Learn to walk again.  Learn to run. 

It is the special need of another son.  Helping him to hear.  To speak.  To listen.  It is watching him soar. 

It is miscarriages. 

It is losing Coco. 

It is our first home.  And leaving our first home. 

It is finding our forever home.  And trying to rid that forever home of it’s ant infestation.  

It is families.  And it is saying goodbye to some of those that we hold the most dear.

It is friends.  BBQs.  Fireworks.  Happy hours. 

Vacations at the beach.  Camping.  The cabin. 

Collecting acorns. 

Spiders in our ears. 

Carving pumpkins. 

Jumping in piles of leaves.  And being stung by bees for hours afterward.

Turkeys.  Cutting down our Christmas trees.  And decorating them.

And Christmas Eve masses. 

And paper valentines. 

And Easter egg hunts. 

And Easter Sunday bonnets and gingham bow ties.  

It is spring walks to the river.  

It is first steps.  First words.  Lost teeth.

And oh the tantrums.  And the kisses.  The hugs.  Tears.  Laughter.

The soccer games.  Baseball games.  Football games.  Basketball games.

The flu. 

It is coming to compromises.  You get your hoop in the driveway…I get my dog.

It is sipping wine on the stoop and together, watching the neighborhood nod off. 

It is all the dreams I have of a future with him. 

We are different now, thirteen years later.  Our life is different.  It is not exciting…it is not flashy and new.  It is worn, and comfortable and it fits.  It is soft.  Mostly, this life brings the greatest joys I have ever known. 

That is thirteen years.

Monday

Well, it was a weekend full of yuck.  I felt miserable.  Luckily The Man came home early on Friday to help me make his birthday dinner.  I started on the dessert and realized that there was no way it was going to be ready to eat with our supper–it had to chill for 4 hours after cooling to room temp (which took three hours).  So we had brownie sundaes instead, and told ourselves we would eat the pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust for breakfast on Saturday.  Which we did.

Then Ella threw up because I gave her a bite of shrimp and I forgot that I think she’s allergic to shrimp because she always throws up when she eats it.  Brilliant deduction, right?  So we were both up half the night with vomit and vomity laundry. 

Saturday morning the weather was gorgeous.  I went to Henry’s t-ball game (picture to follow), and felt gross.  It actually took my mind off of being sick for an hour though, watching Henry instruct each of his teammates to throw the ball to him if they got it, so that he could get an out.  He’s nothing if not confident.  Good for him.

I came home, ate some lunch and put Ella down for a nap.  Then I watched the Hokies online because the game wasn’t televised.  They won.  It wasn’t the best performance.  But they won. 

Then I took Kate to a party where they did her hair all cute and funky with twists and braids and sparkles.  And there was some blue eyeshadow involved.  A little thick, imho, but it was cute for a little girl playing dress-up.  I was exhausted.  While the party was going on, I did a little shopping.  And I coughed a lot.

Sunday morning I felt gross.  Or gross-er if that is possible.  I did some laundry, made a grocery list, hung a fall wreath and took a nap.  (It wasn’t really a nap.  It was more like rest.  And it wasn’t even very rest-y.  Because I couldn’t breathe.)

Then I went grocery shopping.  That was un-fun.  I have to do it, though, because I’m a freak about the food we buy, and I get annoyed when The Man shops because he gets the wrong stuff.  I make life so easy for myself, don’t I?

Then I came home and did more laundry and read books with Ella while The Man made supper.  We ate, showered the kids, read more books and tucked them in bed. 

I searched for about an hour on this computer for a folder of pictures that is apparently gone.  (Did I mention that I have a new computer?  Yeah.  I have a new computer.  The other one croaked.)  I read blogs and went to sleep.  

Today, I woke up with a headache.  I’m tired.  I don’t feel well.  And I have a full week of stuff to do, not the least of which is restoring a bunch of accounting programs.  Which I have been putting off because I dread it.

Before school, William argued with me about wearing a coat.  It is 52 degrees.  I said wear a sweatshirt or a light jacket.  He couldn’t find his sweatshirt.  So he had to wear a jacket.  (I guess that is another instance of how I ruin all the fun around here for him).  This was like a repeat performance of Friday morning.  Only this time I kept it together and hugged him and told him I loved him and completely ignored his anger.

Then I got home from the bus stop, and the first thing I notice is Kate’s homework folder that she was supposed to bring to school.  And I think very briefly about bringing it up to the school for her.  But then I decide that she has to take responsibility for her work.  And it makes me almost cry because she is typically so responsible.  And I think she left it out for me to sign so it’s half my fault.  But she should have completed it before this morning, 5 minutes before we’re supposed to leave. 

Now I’m sitting here, and the reality of it being laundry day creeps in and I know I have a lot of laundry to do.  The washing, the drying, the folding.  The piles of laundry everywhere.  I am swimming in the every-day mundane tasks of motherhood.  Normally, I feel joy in the mundane.  But today, it just feels overwhelming. 

Ella is beside me.  I watch her squeeze her bagel and make a complete mess of the cream cheese and think she is just the most precious thing in the entire world.  And my.heart.leaps.  Wow.  I am lucky to be her mother. 

And then Henry asks me if I want to see his muscles.  How glad I am that I am a mother of boys. 

That was what I needed.  A God-sighting.  Right there.

Perhaps I’m a Bit of a Nutjob.

Tomorrow we leave.  Again.  Heading to the cabin.  (That makes it sound like MY cabin.  It’s not my cabin, just fyi.  I like to pretend.) 

***Oh, before I forget, Ella can say her name.  You should hear her.  I have never heard anything so cute in my entire life.  En.Tire.Life.*** 

So anyway, for the next week, there will be no internet.  No phone.  No television.  No VCR.  No nothing.  It’s kind of freaking me out.  Me and technology kind of hold hands, if you know what I mean.  So I have packed some wine (me and wine hold hands, too).  Actually, I haven’t packed any yet.  I haven’t packed anything yet.  (Again, looking forward to the freak out).  But I plan to pack some.  And some games.  And some books.  It’s going to be good.  I think. 

And I’m looking forward to waking up to bacon, eggs and coffee every morning. 

And not getting up early unless it’s to watch the sunrise.

And grilling every night. 

And s’mores.  And sticky, dirty children, exhausted from a day of playing outside.

And the smell of my boys hair after they’ve been outside all day. 

And walking with my girls.

And fishing.

And swimming in the lake.

And enjoying time with my mom, dad and sisters and their families.

And watching the sun set on the lake with The Man and The Cabernet.

And going to bed at a reasonable hour, because I am without blogs. 

I’m totally not thinking about any of the tantrums that may or may not occur.  In a tiny little cabin. 

And I’m totally not thinking about where in tarnation Ella is going to sleep, and that she is going to wake up at early o’clock every morning.

And I’m totally not thinking about this.  Yep, those were some good times.

Because if I were thinking of any of those things, I might think myself a bit of a nutjob for going back.

__________________________________________________________

The Outfield

The outfield doesn’t see a whole lotta action in kickball…

_____________________________________________________

Sunshine, Sandcastles, Ice Cream, Laughter

It was a ten hour drive to the beach.   A Ten.Hour.Drive. 

That was sucky. 

And as we entered the Outer Banks, mother nature blessed us with a downpour.  Wind.  Torrential rains.  

So to recap:  trapped in car for ten hours;  rain. 

Then we arrived at the house.  We let the kids run around for an hour and then tucked them snuggly in their beds.  Luckily, we brought the pack-n-play for Ella, because the crib that was supplied was not assembled.  Isn’t that useful?  So I layed Ella in the pack-n-play, and closed the door.  Fifteen seconds later I could hear her screaming at the door.  Because she just climbed right on out of that pack-n-play.  The pack-n-play was also, clearly, very useful.   

So she slept in the bed with me that night.  And to be honest, I’m rather thankful for that crib being disassembled that night.  Sleeping with that little redheaded cherub by my side was not really restful.  But lying there watching her sleep and feeling her curled up next to me was nothing short of wonderful.   

I awoke to the sound of that little girl, two inches from my face, saying “Mommy.  Hi.”  She makes my heart come all undone…      

Then The Man put the crib together. 

And it rained some more.  And was cloudy.

But on the third day, the clouds parted and the sun fell on our faces and warmed the sand.  We did very little but play all day.  And eat ice cream.  All week. 

(Look at his round belly…he’s just all sorts of cute…)

This week was sun-bleached hair, freckles, pink shoulders and pink cheeks. 

And sandy little feet.     

And building sandcastles. (Which William takes very.very.seriously.  Don’t mess with his castles). 

We collected shells.  We chased sandpipers.

 

We played in the surf.

 

We laughed. 

(There may have been a couple tiny little tantrums.  Or something.  But whatever.)

Four little children, drawn to the swirls of foamy surf.  Squealing with delight and fear and anticipation of the sea, crashing on their little feet.    

This past week at the shore reminded me what childhood should consist of…sunshine, sandcastles, ice cream, laughter.  

It was lovely.

____________________________________________________

The Thesaurus Is Not Terribly Useful.

So yesterday was s.t.i.n.k.o. pretty much.  I think it started off with the coffee. 

We’re out of cream, so I had to drink it black.  Which I can do, but I don’t prefer it.  In fact, I don’t really like it at all unless it’s paired with a bowl of ice cream.  Or chocolate.  But I’ll drink it just to avoid the certain headache that I will get if I don’t drink it.  (And yes, I know I’m an addict.  Leave it.)  Now that Ella drinks skim milk along with the rest of us, I can’t even use whole milk as a back-up to cream.  And I ate all the ice cream, so there’s none of that, either.  (Once I used cool whip as a substitute for cream…not good, just fyi.  I do not believe there is anything dairy about cool whip.  ((Which would explain the “nondairy topping” label I guess.))  Anyway, the cool whip melted into an oily looking substance which floated atop my coffee.  So instead of black coffee, I had black coffee with oil.  Which imho is decidedly worse than just plain ol’ black coffee.  So I won’t be doing that again.) 

After the bad coffee, we did a science experiment where I was an idiot and took a piping hot glass out of the dishwasher and put ice into it and actually said (yes I did) “I hope it doesn’t crack.”  And then it cracked.  So I said “wow kids, look at that, bla bla bla.”  I taught them all about how to crack a glass.  Enriching their lives, that’s what I do.

And then one of the children, who shall remain nameless, was a complete pill for pretty much the entire afternoon.  The source of frustration?  A duplo lego window.  After several hours of fretting over this duplo (I do not even want to elaborate on the ridiculous nature of the problem) we tried to sit and do some enrichment activities.  I told you, I am all about the enriching.   

Anyway, for one of the activities, we were working with colors.  Two colors to be specific, garnet and fuchsia.  Which incidentally, fuchsia was misspelled as fuchisa.  (I find it ironic that “enrichment activities” sent home from school for summertime fun would have misspellings in them.  But anyway…)  Fuchisa was humorous.  For the rest of the activity, I called it fuchisa (foocheezuh).  And Kate thought I was just terribly funny.  But the other, aforementioned child did not.  Moving right along…)

So the aforementioned child didn’t know what garnet and fuchisa were, and I wanted him to figure that out–I didn’t want to give him the answer.  So being the very clever person that I am, I decided to teach them how to look a word up in the thesaurus.  Oh yes, Roget’s thesaurus!  I love the thesaurus, seriously.  I use it nearly daily, to be honest.  (I’m actually not kidding).  So anyway, we couldn’t find garnet in the thesaurus, so I figured we would try fuchisa.  So I go to the index.  And I’m looking up fuchsia…and I get to the fu words and lo and behold what do we have but no fuchsia. 

Let me tell you what they DO have, in lieu of fuchsia.  They have “f*ck.”  They have “a f*ck.”  They have “f*cked up.”  They have “f*ck off.”  They have gathered together what seems to be every single variation and expression you could come up with that includes the f dash dash dash word for our reading pleasure.  (Really Roget?  Seriously?) 

I tried to strategically place my hand over the queen mother of all cuss words, but Kate was standing there with her nose about three inches from the page all engrossed in how you look up a word (she is so much like me) and I couldn’t cover them all and I quick closed the book and said “well this thesaurus is useless.”  And that was pretty much a big fat “F” in the Good Mom Department for me.

Then Ella woke up screaming which is always fun.  So I drank some wine.

The end.

Twenty Little Things

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

Inspired by this post at whatever, I’ve created a list of twenty little things I’d like to do this summer:

I resisted the temptation to write things on the list that I’ve already done.  It’s a rather strong temptation for me, in case you didn’t know that. 

And I promise to not treat this as a “to do” list.  You know, to prove that I did stuff.  That, unfortunately, is another one of my lovely tendencies. 

If we do half the things on this list, it will be a wonderful summer…

Pink Jobs, etc.

Catchy title, don’t you think? 

Moving right along.

This weekend we had some friends over for a happy hour.  Oh how I love the happy hours.  Really.  

Outside.  Sunshine, warmth.  Chalk, bikes, bubbles.  The kids play.  The kids eat.  The adults talk.  The adults eat.  The margaritas flow.  Good times.  Sigh… 

Where was I?  Oh, right.  Happy hour.  So we’re all enjoying each others’ company and I totally missed the front end of this conversation but I did manage to hear the “…that’s a pink job” come out of the mouth of one of the men in our midst.  Let’s just call him Mr. Pink from now on.   

(Hi Mr. Pink!  Are you reading this?)

So yes, he said that pink job thing.  (I wish I could remember what job it was that he called “pink.”)  Anyhoo, there was a discussion that ensued, and I don’t really remember all of it.  Or any of it.  Except the pink comment. 

The idea is, I guess, that some jobs are “pink” and some jobs are “blue.”  Now, in this house, I don’t believe there are any pink or blue jobs.  There are jobs that I prefer to do myself for one reason or another, and there are jobs that The Man prefers to do himself.  Some jobs require strength that I don’t have.  Like mowing the lawn.  The Man likes to mow the lawn.  I concede that to him.  (If there IS a blue job, mowing the lawn is it, imho).   

So I’m just wondering.  Are there pink jobs and blue jobs?  Or am I just kidding myself?     

Oh, and we must all overlook Mr. Pink’s unfortunate position on pink jobs.  Because he makes the nice margaritas.  And if I’m being honest, I don’t want those to go away.  And also, he’s really a pretty nice guy.

***

In other news, one of the jobs ’round here has been claimed by Henry.  It is the “beer stocker.”  He has made it his number one priority to make sure the frigo is always fully stocked with beer.  I caught him doing it one day.  I walked into the kitchen and nearly tripped over a case of beer on the floor.  I wondered what the four little hoodlums had been doing with it, until I realized Henry was standing there, unloading beer from it and putting it in the frigo.  One small step for Henry, one giant leap for Mama.  Next I’m going to teach him how to pour a beer without a lot of head.  I’m kidding, of course.  He needs to know how to frost the mug before pouring.   

***

At what age do the table manners kick in?  Seriously, when? 

***

Ella throws her drinks.  Every single meal.  Every snack, every meal.  Everytime.  You should see her.  It’s rather comical if you’re not actually the one living through it.  She takes her sippy cup, turns it upside down and sucks furiously on it, and then chucks it across the table when she’s had enough.  I don’t get it.  Could she not set it down nicely? 

***

I’m featured over at 5 Minutes for Parenting’s A Dose of Humor!  Because I’m so very humorous.  Check it out!

Pretty Stories

Henry set the table on the patio that evening with an assortment of placemats and mismatched napkins.  I liked it that way…nothing matching…and little seashell napkin rings.  The six of us crowded around that table, enjoying the grilled steaks, and shrimp cocktails, and corn on the cob and tomato-basil salad.  And then we had rootbeer floats in those fancy soda fountain glasses. 

I looked around at one point, and thought what a pretty story it was…the six of us, together, on the patio on Father’s Day.  The sunshine was warm.  There was a breeze ruffling the leaves in the trees.  It was like one of those snapshots in your mind…how you think your life will be but rarely ever is.  Peaceful.  Happy.  Pretty.

The Man and I put the kids in bed that night, and then sat on the front porch with a glass of wine.  We watched the fireflies.  We listened to the crickets.  (We came inside when someone began blasting the crazy indian music.)  ((Not that I have anything against crazy indian music, per se, but it doesn’t really go with the crickety-firefly kind of evening we were having.))

We went to bed feeling like the day had been a really good one.   A really pretty one. 

And then the barf started.  (Do you see what I mean when I say it always comes back to the barf?)

It was the two year old this time.  (Their aim with the barf is real bad.)  ((Actually, they have no aim.  It just bursts forth.))  So I cleaned her up, The Man changed her sheets and I rocked with her for a while, then put her back in her bed, where without delay, she barfed.  Again.

So I bathed her while The Man changed her sheets again.  And I rocked with her again. 

We sat there in that rocking chair with the sour smell of barf still lingering in the room.  Her soft ringlets fell on my neck as her head rested against my temple.  I could feel her breath on my cheek and her tiny little body curl up into mine, just the way she had done when she was an infant.  Me and Ella, there in the small hours of the night. 

And right then, in the midst of all that ugly barf, I remembered how pretty my life is. 

“our lives are made
in these small hours
these little wonders,
these twists & turns of fate
time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain” — Rob Thomas