Let Christmas Begin.

On a crisp, sunny morning, we set out. 

When we arrived, I tried to take a picture of the kids.  My efforts were fruitless.  The children, in all their eagerness, could not be bothered with my attempts at creating memories.   

So, bundled warmly, we began our search.  It lasted nearly 30 seconds.

Seriously. 

It seemed as if a light shone down from above and the angels sang and we had found the perfect tree.  Our Christmas tree. 

I tried to take a picture.  My efforts were fruitless.  The Man, in all his eagerness, began sawing, and could not be bothered with my attempts at creating memories. 

I tried to capture him in action underneath the tree, sawing away.  My efforts were fruitless.  Too many branches down there.

And then we hauled our beautiful tree up to the barn to be wrapped.  Hot apple cider warmed our bellies and our souls were filled with the joy and anticipation that only comes this time of year, as we await the birth of our savior. 

I am ready for Christmas to begin.

A November Day

I walk home from the corner on this cool morning.  Brown leaves spin and twirl and float to the ground where they crunch delightfully under my feet.  Two of the kids are on the bus, on their way to school.  Ella is still in bed, and Henry has just run outside, in his jammies, yelling to me that he finished his homework and now he’s going to play his ds.  Alrighty then. 

It is unmistakably November here in Virginia.  The gray trees painted with lichen are nearly bare now, but for those few brown leaves yet to make their breaks on the wind.  The air is cool.  The clouds are gray and low and cover our little town in a cozy fluff.  Shades of gray.  I love November.

I spend the morning cooking spaghetti sauce and meatballs.  Ella dips her egg in ketchup (ew).  She watches Monsters inc.  She loves Mike.  I know most of the lines in that movie.  She thinks it’s funny when I imitate Roz (I’m watching you Wazowski…).  I have to agree.

After breakfast, we play Caribou and go fish.  We get dressed.  We brush teeth.  I clean up the kitchen.  Contentedness fills me up.  

After lunch, Henry is off to school and Ella and I return to play.  We do puzzles and sing abc’s.  She is tired. 

So the naptime routine begins.  Close the shutters, turn on the fan, and the nightlight.  Read two books.  Olivia is her favorite these days.  She calls her “ia.”  We rock for a few minutes, and she — true to form — fights any type of snuggle I try to provide.  I sigh, and tuck her in bed. 

She delays.  She names all of her dogs.  All of her cats.  All of her babies.  The lamb.  And the bear.  I must repeat the names after her or the fussing ensues.  I realize I am enabling the behavior to continue, thank you.  I covertly remove a few of the aforementioned beings from the bed, kiss night-night, and slip out. 

This is the time of the day that is (supposed to be) my own.  A brief 90 minutes of whatever-I-want.  That usually tends to be laundry or cleaning or something of that nature, but I can do it uninterrupted and in the quiet.  Today, I planned to sit and pay the bills with a hot cup of tea and a soft, fluffy blanket.  I wanted to look out the window and into the deep of those lichen-covered trees.  You can see the landscape clearly now that the leaves have fallen…the hills and the ravines and the fallen trees.  I wanted, today, to enjoy this beautiful gray. 

Ella, unfortunately, is not having any of the nap.  The third time I go in there, I finally understand. Her nose is running.  She is a prickly mess. 

And so I scoop her up.  She says “miss you, Mommy.”  She sweeps the hair from her face, and this time she relaxes in my arms.  She drifts off to sleep so quickly that I want it to slow down.  I hold her, and I watch her sleep.  I watch her eyelids flutter, and I hear her little snuffly breaths puff in and out.  

And I love her so deeply that I can hardly stand it.

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.

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.

The Sprinkler

 

Summer. 

For more Wordless Wednesday photos, click here.

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…

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

Sick and tired.

I mean that in the literal sense.

Last week was just exhausting.  All the ants, and the cleaning, and the ants. 

There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs with me.  It is this:  whenever I experience a cleaning frenzy, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be sick within the next two days. 

And I am sick.  I had the frenzy, brought on by the ants, which incidentally, are all but gone.  (And now would be the perfect time to proclaim a certain someone’s brilliance.  Soliloquy, you are b*r*i*l*l*i*a*n*t.  Soliloquy, of course, being the one that forced me to write that.  ((Woopsies, did I say that out loud?))  Of course what I meant to say was, Soliloquy being the one that suggested the Terro.  Which is da bomb. 

(why do I feel like an idiot saying “da bomb”?) 

Stick with me here. 

I haven’t yet been able to tell whether the cleaning frenzy brings on the cold, or whether my subconscious knows the cold is coming and forces me to whirl around my house like a tornado until I fall over in exhaustion and my body succombs to whatever dirty little virus the children bring home.  Either way, I am doomed. 

So I began the succombing part on Friday.  Saturday was worse.  And on Saturday, there was a pool party for the boy’s baseball team.  I told The Man to go, and leave me with the other three.  I could manage.  I’m not sure what I was thinking.  And then he left. 

Now, you must realize I am only slightly dramatic, and I never exaggerate.  Ever.  In the midst of my virus-induced angst, I said something like “I don’t know how he expects me to survive while he’s gone.”  And I wasn’t really kidding, either.  Which now, seems rather funny.  I sat there, on the edge of the tub, sobbing because there was no food for supper, and whatever would we do?   And I was serious.  Which also seems rather funny now.  (And also, I’m wondering how I came to be sitting on the edge of the tub…)

After the pity party, I sulked downstairs to figure out what we were going to eat. 

And that is when an eight year old little girl and a five year old little boy met me with smiles and told me they would take care of me.  That they would cook supper.  And that I should read my book.

They donned their aprons, and I pretended to read.  But mostly, I watched in awe, as my little girl and my little boy did something kind for their mom.  I couldn’t take my eyes off them, taking care of me.   

We had hot tea, for our throats.  And it was peppermint.  

And we had oatmeal.  Apples and cinnamon.  

It was the best supper I’ve had in a long, long time.  Oatmeal and peppermint tea. 

***

How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it!
~George Elliston

 

 

     

Okay, maybe I AM dirty.

The ants, they are worse today. 

I am beginning to think that maybe we are a dirty people, indeed.  Because yesterday, I cleaned.  A lot.  And the filth?  It appeared out of thin air I kid you not.  Read on.

I tried the vinegar.  I sprayed vinegar all day long in fact.  The whole house smelled of vinegar.  I even poured boiling vinegar down the disposal, just in case they were in there.  (And let’s just say you shouldn’t get too close to the disposal when you’ve just poured boiling vinegar down it, lest you burn your nostrils with the steam of the boiling vinegar, just FYI.  Not that I would be stupid enough to do that.)

Alrighty.  Moving right along.

So, I sprinkled talcum powder all over the carpets where there have been no ants, but I was in the zone.  (Ants apparently do not like talcum powder.)  Then I vacuumed the entire house.  It was powder fresh.

Then, I scoured the floors.  I swiffered.  I cleaned the floors.  I sprayed vinegar and cleaned again.  I doused the quarter-round with vinegar. 

I scrubbed the cooktop.  I scrubbed the kitchen sink.  I cleaned the coffee maker and toaster and all of the counters.  Everything shined.

I even pulled the fridge out, to make sure there were no ants underneath it.  Just so you know, that is the second time in less than one year that I’ve cleaned behind my frigo.  Before y’all call me dirty, I ask you…when was the last time you cleaned behind your frigo?  Alrighty then. 

I saw more and more ants.  Clearly, they are not deterred by the vinegar and the cleaning.

The funny thing is, I would vacuum, right?  Then, I  would lay on the floor, eye level, and look for crumbs under the island.  No crumbs people.  Five minutes later, there were 10 or 15 ants, hovered around a crumb the size of a small pea.  Now you tell me where they got that crumb.  I could not have missed a crumb that large. 

So I decided to out-clever them.  And I made some peanut butter bait with borax, put it in a jar with a lid poked with holes (so that Ella didn’t decide to have herself a little snack), and baited the little creeps.  Instantly, they swarmed the jar.  Okay, “swarmed” might be a little intense, but there were five or six ants that mounted the jar. 

Then I lay prostrate on the floor and watched their slow march to death.  Yes I did.   

Except they didn’t take the bait.  They turned around and left.  So anti-climactic. 

The ants, they out-clevered me.

So I vacuumed them and the magical, out-of-thin-air crumbs up.

Then the kids came home.  And therein lies the problem. 

They came home.  They broke out the snacks.  And, despite my pleas for cleanliness and neatness, they scatter crumbs everywhere.  There are ants everywhere.  And the children?  They didn’t clean up after themselves. 

Then I threw a bag of cheese.  (It was a moment of weakness.  I had a little  meltdown over the crumbs, the ants, and the boy whining about his spelling homework.  Oh, and The Man who informs me at 4:15 that he cannot go to the boy’s baseball game on time because he’s in a meeting.  Which gives me fifteen minutes to help the boy with his homework, get him dressed for baseball, pack a snack for Ella, get 5 pairs of shoes on, have everyone go to the potty, fill the water bottle, find the baseball glove, bat and umbrellas because it looks like rain).  Mm-hmm, so you can understand the cheese throwing. 

I probably shouldn’t admit to throwing cheese bags around. 

But I’ve already admitted that I have bugs. 

So now, I have the Terro.  Three days.  Three days is the claim they make, people. 

But my ants? 

They are clever. 

And I’m running out of the clever.  And also, the sanity…definitely running out of that.

Ugly Eggs and Such

We dyed Easter eggs today.  Only a few spills.  Only a few stains.  We nearly have the mess-containment down to a science.  It’s only been 8 years, after all.  Although Ella kind of threw us off.  But just a little. 

The Man made his brown/gray/ugly egg.  He makes the ugliest eggs.  Seriously.  He does it on purpose.  To frustrate me.  Because I like the pretty eggs, and that one ugly egg just throws the entire color scheme off.  And that is just frustrating.  I go to great lengths to make sure everything blends.  The brown/gray/ugly egg blends with nothing people.  It’s like the color of playdoh when you mix all the colors up. 

And that is another thing that drives me nuts.  In my quest to have the playdoh colors remain in their original state,  I allow my children to use only one color of playdoh at a time.  That way, you see, the colors don’t get mixed up.  You may call me the playdoh nazi.  I know, I am a bit of a control freak.  Is that so wrong?   

But back to the Easter.  The other day I tried on my new Easter dress.  I haven’t had a new Easter dress in a L.O.N.G. time.  So this year I got one.  And I tried it on.  It was then that I realized…with only two more shopping days until Easter…that I don’t have the right bra to wear. 

The Man suggested I go without.  Fat lotta help he is.

So I had to go to Target — with four kids in tow because it’s spring break — to shop for a bra.  It was going okay until the boys spotted the ruffley see-through mesh crazy panties.  Mm-hmm.  I’ll spare you the details.  I’m sure you can imagine.

So now three pairs of pants, three shirts and three dresses are pressed.  The tiny little gloves and bonnets and patent leather shoes are ready.  The baskets will be filled and we will attend Mass tomorrow through a sugar haze.  Then we will head over to my parents’ home, where we will enjoy an Easter feast and the company of my entire family. 

And I will be thankful for everything.  (Except for possibly the ugly egg.) 

And I will remember I am blessed well beyond what I deserve. 

Happy Easter…