"I Knew He Would Use Pliers!"

I felt a blog post welling up inside me this morning and thought about just how long it has been. So long, that apparently I forgot my log in information, and I don't know how use Blogger anymore.

Too many moments have escaped the written log in past year and more. I watch my kiddos grow up by the month, week, and day, and can't seem to get enough them. Well, except for those moments that have been too frequent at times where the Girl-Child, in all her budding 'tween attitude, makes her little brother the constant subject of her disdain and criticism. She is very good with words and uses them as a source of meanness toward her little brother. While she only does this to her little brother because he is an easy punching bag, I've been working hard with her to stop this. Meanwhile, her little brother is as boy as a boy can get, and when he gets fed up to the point that he can take no more of his sister, he just pops her one. It's imperative that I succeed in putting a stop to this at the first glimmer because it rolls downhill fast. The more annoyed Daughter gets with her little brother, you know-for breathing or just simply existing-her little brother finds even bigger and intentional ways to annoy her even more to get back at her for displaying such disdain towards him. Yes, this is the season we are in. No more poopie diapers, but still a lot of "crap" to deal with.

Usually, though, my heart swells with that indescribable something when I have the gift of time to just enjoy being with my kids with no pressures. When I can take a step back and just really notice them--still young and childish--but growing up so quickly. I was enjoying one of those peaceful kick-back mornings with my kiddos today--at least as peaceful as a morning can be when it includes my Girl-Child having a tooth extracted. She has always been an amazing trooper when it comes to the dentist. There was the event of the previous baby tooth extractions in 2009. There was also the dental surgery of 2008.

The Girl-Child seems to have a recurring issue with baby teeth just not coming out properly before the permanent ones feel like they need to come in. This time the offending loose tooth managed to become wedged between the molar on one side and the new permanent tooth that had erupted at a strange angle adjacent to the molar. I came to the conclusion last Sunday that the only way this tooth was coming out was if her dad took his needle-nose pliers to it or if we took her to the dentist for the job. Since Daughter has no issues with the dentist, and has even been known to LIKE going to the dentist, I made the appointment as soon as possible to get 'er done. Our dentist is actually an hour and half away (that's another story), but her orthodontist is near, and he was able to do this job for us. We were cautioned that he did not have nitrus gas, however. Daughter has never had nitrus gas, so all would be fine unless I was going to need a toke or two to get me through the ordeal.

All the talk of a "tooth extraction" at the dentist office had the Boy-Child intrigued and excited, as seven-and-a-half-year-old boys tend to get. He asked with great enthusiasm and excitement if they were going to use pliers to pull his sister's tooth. None of us knew. The Girl-Child didn't seem to remember exactly what the tool looked like the last time she needed to have a tooth pulled. I asked her if she was nervous about what tool may be used for this procedure, and she nonchalantly said, "No. I mean, I just can't wait to get this thing out of my mouth!" and she went about happily skipping around the house. That's my girl, happy and skipping about at the idea of getting a tooth pulled.

The orthodontist is really laid back and welcomes me, and the Boy-Child, into the exam/treatment room whenever he works on the Girl-Child. The previous dentist who did the previous extractions required me to be in the lobby while they did unknown procedures on my then six-year-old daughter, so it's a good thing my girl likes the dentist and had no issues with me being in the lobby while she had "procedures" done on her teeth. It is also no wonder why the dentists always love her. What dentist wouldn't love a six-year-old who sings and hums happily with a mouthful of bloody gauze after having two teeth pulled? Meanwhile, I would be in the lobby having anxiety attacks, worried about what was being done to my daughter and how she was handling it. The dentist has that effect on me whether I'm in the "torture chair" waiting for my dental cleaning and looking at all those posters of dental diseases and rotten and misaligned teeth, or sitting in the lobby watching videos on proper brushing techniques and looking at close ups of tooth plaque.

Today, I tenuously asked Daughter if she would like me to stay in the room. While I didn't want to suggest or imply that this was going to be horrifying and scarey for her, I also wanted to offer my support (even though it could be horrifying and scarey for ME). She said she'd like me to stay, which meant the Boy-Child would be with us as well. He was really excited to have a front row seat to the dental torture of his big sister. He perched on the edge of the chair closest to her, his face radiant with curiosity, and waited with great anticipation to see what would happen next. I felt like I needed to offer him some popcorn and a soft drink to add to the ambiance of his entertainment. He is such a boy.

The numbing swab came first. That was the part the Girl-Child later said she disliked the most. Really? Big needles, pliers, numb jaw, and she hates the swab the most? Then the needle. The thing was HUGE! The doc always chats with me about politics, gardening, or professional stuff as he knows I'm a licensed health care provider myself. I was thankful that today he chose gardening. My weak stomach was in no position to jaw about politics today. We chatted about heirloom lettuce while Daughter waited patiently for the shot to take its numbing effect, and Son waited impatiently, ready for something to happen that involved more action.

Next thing I knew, the doc turned around with the tooth held in his long dental pliers. Son beamed with excitement and exclaimed loudly, "See! I knew he would use pliers!" Something about his excitement over watching the dental chair torture on his sister felt simultaneously amusing and macabre.

Daughter skipped happily out of the dental chair and out to the car as pleased as she would have been if she'd just eaten an ice cream cone. I gathered my weak stomach and shushed Son who continued to jabber away enthusiastically about the pliers he knew they would use, paid the bill, and met up with my happy girl at the car.

Daughter had asked yesterday if we could go to the library today, and I had told her we could after the dental visit if she felt up to it. She commented on how weird her numb jaw felt, but she was simply not going to miss an opportunity to get books from the library. Like most library trips, the kids each snatched books off the shelves like they were candy. I interrupted Son snatching up and stuffing book after book in the bag and pointed out to him the two large Star Wars anthologies he had missed on the shelf just above his eye level. Son paused, completely enraptured, gazing at the Star Wars books on the shelf. It was like a moment suspended in time. Then he snapped to his sensed, grabbed them both, hugged them close to his chest, and announced that he was now ready to go. He carried them to the counter and laid them down in a most decided fashion, waiting for the male librarian to check them out to him. He became even more pleased, if that could be possible, when the librarian went into the same enraptured trance that Son had fallen into when he first saw them on the shelf. Mr. Librarian thumbed through one of them longingly and started in on some Star Wars dialogue with Son that reminded me a lot of Daughter's Rosetta Stone Spanish studies with the computer. I knew something important was being discussed, but I just couldn't decipher it. Then I realized that Mr. Librarian was enjoying quizzing my seven-and-a-half-year-old Boy-Child with Star Wars trivia. Uh oh. He had met his match. He fired off questions to my Boy trying to stump him. My Boy fired off the answers back at him like a dare. And it was on. The Girl and I stood there bewildered at what was transpiring. Then a question from Mr. Librarian about something to do with the AT-AT. Son paused. Uh oh...was the stumped? Mr. Librarian repeated the question. Pause. Daughter jumped in responding something about "AT&T" and giggled as I clarified with her that the question had nothing to do with phone service. Our giggling brought the Star Wars trance to an end as both Mr. Librarian and Dear Son snapped out of the fifth dimension to shake their heads at us.

The awesome come-what-may summer morning with my kiddos continued to unfold with a trip to Freddy's where ice cream, or whatever my Girl and her awakening jaw could tolerate, was permitted as a reward for her wrangling with the pliers in the dental chair. There were no mean words from the Girl towards the Boy now. Both were in bliss as they decided to share a burger and fries so that they would have room for ice cream afterwards. I savored the time with my sweet ones as our hands bumped together in the onion ring basket. Dear Son snuggled up next to me on the bench and pressed his body into mine while we munched. His love language is physical touch. Dear Daughter sat across from us. She has a bigger "bubble" than her brother. She was just happy because there was ice cream involved.

It was a priceless summer morning--just ambling along together with a tooth pulling, new library books, burgers, fries, and ice cream. These are the sweet times I cherish and wish could last forever (well, not so much about the tooth-pulling). The drive back home was typical. It was silent in the back seat. Little bellies were full of the stuff of American diner food and the kiddos both had their noses in their books. Daughter was reading about Mollie, the American Girl of the 1940's. Son was studying his Star Wars encyclopedias. I admired their sweet faces in the rear view mirror and felt thankful for the sweetness of the day and the company of my kids. Then the silence was broken as Dear Son began to jabber about Star Wars and Jabba the Hutt and something about a spider droid and a brain suspended in some liquid in a jar and how it was red, and on and on until Daughter could stand no more and pleaded with her brother to stop the talk that was making her feel queasy. This sort of thing, NOT having a tooth pulled, is what makes the Girl queasy.

Just a day. A meandering summer day with my Girl and my Boy. Wish I could save days like this up and re-savor them in the future, because I know there will come a day when I will miss it all: taking the day as it comes with my young ones, driving them to appointments, watching them choose their books at the library, listening to them chatter in the back seat about the things they love, and most of all watching them eat ice cream and bumping hands with them in the onion rings basket.

In Which Mother's Day is Celebrated

It began like Mother's Day usually begins at my house. I awake in the wee hours and decide I just can't ignore the call of Nature. I take care of business with my eyes half closed and try not to gain full consciousness lest I lose a rare and glorious opportunity to sleep in. As I hurry back to my warm spot in the bed, I find that my boy-child, who joined us sometime in the night, has rolled into MY warm spot and Dear Husband is still sleeping soundly on the other side of him. I shove the boy over and reclaim my spot and blissfully doze back to sleep, waking much later to the thump, thump, thump of little boy and little girl feet running down the hallway. Next time I awaken, Dear Husband is no longer in bed, but I refuse to look at the time and manage to doze off again. Thump, thump, thump down the hall again followed by SLAM as my bedroom door flies shut. Loudly. That's my kids' way of making sure they don't wake me up with too much noise outside my bedroom. I haven't yet figured out how they think they can keep from waking me up by slamming the door so loudly.

I look at the clock and sigh. Time to get up. Minutes later I'm preening in front of the mirror in my bathroom when I hear the bedroom door open slooooooowly and carefully and little whispering voices say, "Hey! She's not in here!" Dear Husband is standing in the bedroom holding my "breakfast in bed" when they find me already up in the bathroom. Bacon and eggs. I would eat them in bed if I were still in bed. Instead, I tell Husband I'll be out to eat them in a couple minutes.

Thump, thump, thump, again in the hallway headed towards the kitchen followed by a little boy voice shrieking, "Whew! Look at all the smoke in the air! I can't even see in here! I need some goggles!" Thump, thump, thump back down the hallway the other direction. In the mirror, I see a little blond head peek around the corner behind me. The little blond head is wearing swim goggles and grinning from ear to ear. "Mom! It's so smokey out there that you gotta wear goggles to see!" His dimples are popping out everywhere in all his giggly excitement. He doesn't wait for my reply. Thump, thump, thump towards the kitchen. I hear his voice across the house, "Dad! I gotta wear goggles to see in here!" Thump, thump, thump back down the hallway. Boy-child with dimples still popping out under his swim goggles stands behind me, and waits. I see him in the reflection of the mirror watching me. "Mom, are you gonna come out here? Because if you do, you really need some goggles to see!" Off he goes again, thump, thump, thump back towards the kitchen. "Are the windows open in the living room?" I call after him. Pause. "No!" the boy-child responds. "Ask Daddy to help you open them to help the smoke clear." A moment later I also hear the whoosh of the attic fan being turned on.

"Daddy is cooking," my girl-child says matter-of-factly. as she plops down on my bed to watch me finish preening my hair. That's what we always say when the house fills with smoke: Daddy is cooking. And it's usually the correct explanation.

A few minutes later, thump, thump, thump boy-child comes back to my bedroom. "Are you gonna come out here yet?"

I ask, "Has the air cleared yet?" This time I follow his thump, thump, thump down the hall

My two rapidly growing not-so-wee ones hover over me, watching me eat my cold bacon and egg breakfast, eagerly waiting for me to open the presents they have for me. It's the best cold bacon and eggs breakfast ever. I sip my re-heated coffee as two little faces excitedly watch me unwrap the beautiful collection of homemade sun catchers. My warmed heart makes up for the cold breakfast now hitting my stomach. I'd have no Mother's Day at all without my little ones. As I pull them close to me, my heart beats loudly with gratefulness in my chest, thump, thump, thump.

Tell it Like it is

It was a peaceful start to the day today with Dear Son still in HIS OWN bed at 8:30 this morning, sleeping soundly. We've only just recently gotten to the point where Dear Son stays in his own bed instead of wedging himself between the Husband and I in our bed sometime during the wee hours. I realize the child is only five, but not only is he big for his age, but sharing a bed with him is like sleeping with an octopus on crack. He manages to take up three quarters of the bed, starting in the middle and working out, and typically leaving me teetering for dear life on the edge of my own mattress. Not only that, he somehow he manages to kick me in the head all night, while simultaneously stealing the pillow out from under my head. It's a mystery. We have finally increased the incentive enough for him to remain in his own bed all night where he can kick himself in his own head to his heart's content.

Typically Dear Son is up before his big sister up in the morning, and we often have breakfast together, just the two of us, before I wake his sister. It's peaceful that way. If you've ever parented a spirited and precocious eight year old, you know what I'm taking about. This morning, however, it was Daughter with whom I shared breakfast before Son was up. I believe it may have been the first time this has ever happened (Daughter is about as much a morning person as I am). She was sweet as pie with her manners and overall presence as the two of us shared breakfast. I kissed her on the head and called her "my sweet girl," and in all the sweetness her eight-year-old self could muster, Daughter replied, "That's because Zach isn't up yet to fight with." Sweet girl, indeed. And she's also insightful and honest.

I Believe I Can Fly!

My Dear precocious Daughter turned eight a couple weeks ago. Eight years gone in a blink. Halfway to driving a car. Unbelievable! Of course, I still remember the day of her birth like it was yesterday. She caused a stir before she even entered the world. My girl-child likes her some drama. She wasn't moving satisfactorily when my pregnancy with her was six weeks from D Day--or should I say Bday (haha)? My doc put me on fetal monitoring every 72 hours. That means a trip to triage every three days. On this fateful morning, I had eight days left before she was supposed to arrive, and I went to triage for monitoring on the way to my first meeting of the day. I never made it to the meeting. Doc agreed that day that Baby wasn't moving enough, and we (that means "me") were going to have a baby that day. Drama.

I was shocked and caught totally off guard. I didn't even have "the bag" packed. I was supposed to wait a looooong time at home when I started labor (directions from my momma, the labor and delivery nurse, who warned me that first births can take a really looooooong time). Don't go to the hospital until the baby is crowning. Or something like that. Of course, I've been told the story many a time, about how I was nearly born in the backseat of the car in the middle of an Iowa snowstorm after Uncle R (my momma's brother) had a heck of a time getting her out of the upstairs bedroom where she was in major labor and flopping around like a fish--or something like that, the story goes. My dad was in the Navy and somewhere overseas at the time.

So there I was, intending to head to my morning meeting as soon as the needle on the monitor waved around satisfactorily and the Velcro belt around my belly was removed. The baby wasn't crowning yet. I don't think she had even "dropped." I hadn't had a single labor pain. And the doc said I was having this baby today. Next thing I knew I was being admitted and someone was poking an IV into my vein and my mom was at my side reminding me agin that this could be a looooong process. I was calling the husband telling him to pack that bag that I never got around to and bring me some movies for the loooooong wait. Oh, and by the way, you're having a baby. Today.

Couldn't have been an hour into this process when I noticed Baby's heartbeat was slowing waaaaay down. By the time I said something to my mom, still at my side, she already had a concerned look on her face. "Turn this way!" She ordered. Pause. "Turn that way!" She ordered. Pause. She pressed the nurses button (I was delivering at the hospital where my mom worked, but my mom wasn't on duty that day). My mom then opted not to wait for the nurse on duty to arrive. I'll spare you some detail, but she needed to remove the medication that had been inserted by my cervix to get the job rolling. Now we needed to stop the labor quicker than we had started it. I realized later that my daughter may not have made it if my mom hadn't been there (my nurse must have been off having coffee somewhere as she waited out the loooooooong process). Drama.

Doc arrives on the scene quickly while nurses and techs poke and prod me some more and someone thrusts a clipboard under my nose informing me that I need to sign it before I can go to the OR. I saw three pages of microscopic text, and was pretty sure that somewhere within I gave full consent for the medical personnel to do whatever they wanted to me with full agreement from me that I would never sue them for the mistakes they could be about to make-including that I could become paralyzed for life or die. We needed to do a c-section. I called my husband who had just finished getting me movies for the looooooong wait. I informed him that I just signed away all my rights and was at the mercy of the white coats wielding needles and knives. It hadn't clicked for me that there was any rush, so I didn't tell him to hurry. I hung up, and next thing I knew they were suiting up my mom to join us in the OR in case the husband didn't make it. Husband ended up arriving just as they began wheeling me out the door towards the OR. Drama.

I watched the ceiling as I was rolled through this corridor and that. It was a view I hadn't seen before, except for a dramatic camera shot here and there on the old tv series, "ER." I felt vulnerable and terrified. I didn't pay attention to this part in my birthing training. This isn't the route I was going to take. I was going to go into labor at home and wait a looooong time before I went to the hospital and deliver a baby without medication and without that baby being cut out of my abdomen. Doors swung open. People talked about me like I wasn't even in the room. Some man stood at my head unsmiling and later barked at me for fidgeting so much. I realized later he was the anesthesiologist. And he had a terrible bedside manner. I was flipped and turned and moved to a gurney that only half my body comfortably fit on. The "wings" came out and my arms were strapped down. There was a mask over my nose and mouth. I felt claustrophobic and waaaaay too vulnerable. This was seriously cramping my "gotta be in control" style. Sheet went up below my face. Doc asked if I could feel this. Then, could I feel that. Crap. I was freaking out. Not only could I not feel it, but my brain was telling my feet to move, and nothing was happening. Seriously freaking out. Panic. Drama. "No," I informed the doc. "I can't feel a thing." Crap. I can't feel a thing. I can't move.

The doc started narrating what she was doing. That she was cutting and which layer she was in. Crap. Shut up! I don't want to know this stuff. I can't feel a thing. I can't move. I'm laying on a 2x4 with my arms tied down. While I'm panicking, Mr. Personality Anesthesiologist is barking at me to be still, and the doc is informing me that she is cutting through my abdomen. And I had just signed away all my rights under great duress. Drama.

Then, "Oh, she's a cute one!" A baby crying. Lots of talking and hubub. In a few moments, they handed her to my husband. I could barely muster a care. I was shaking so bad that I was sure I would shake right off that 2x4 with my arms still tied down, and land on my face with my guts spilling out of my gaping belly. And then the doc narrated that she was sewing me up. Please stop telling me these details! It took forever. I gotta get outta here-but my legs won't move! Finally, the doc finishes. In rush the aides and nurses. They flip me this way and that off the 2x4. Oh crap-I'm looking at the blood splattered floor. Now I'm looking at the ceiling again! They're gonna drop me on my face for sure this time! Still can't move! Feet won't respond. Panic. Drama.

It was traumatic. But it didn't take long for me to fall in love with the tiniest person I had ever seen.

And the drama still hasn't stopped.

"I want' to be an inventor!" she recently announced, and then she began drawing intricate blue prints for various contraptions. I would find them all over the house. Detailed, complex robots. Crazy (but creative) ideas--one after another. This particular day (represented in the photographs), she decided to see if she could fly. She spent a good hour and a half creating gear and dreaming up how this could work. Cardboard wings. StuffMart bags around her arms and ankles for parachute action. Two balloons in her arms with clothespins holding them shut until she was ready to release the extra force of their air. Helmet, knee pads, elbow pads. And Crocs. That's an excellent choice in footwear when you are trying to fly. "I'm going to take a flying leap off the bed of the pickup!" she announced to her daddy and I. We convinced her that wouldn't be wise. But not wanting to break her spirit, we agreed to accompany her outdoors in the 105 degree heat to help her find something appropriate to jump off of and to cheer her on. She wanted to fly, and I figured the Wright Brothers had to start somewhere, too.

I won't have to tell you that she didn't get far. But if precociousness and perseverance is any indicator, eventually she will go far one way or another. It's been a wild ride. One that I hope stops its breakneck pace. Eight years went waaaaaaay too fast, and in the rush of the next eight I'm certain I will long for her to be satisfied to jump off of stuff in the backyard with homemade wings and shopping bags and balloons rather than trying to learn to drive a car. Slow down, Sweet Girl. You haven't let me catch my breath in eight years!

Real Life Word Problems

Dear Daughter: "I'm getting excited about my birthday! It's only two weeks and ten days away!"

Me: "Well, you know ten days equals a week and three days, right?"

Dear Daughter: ...pause..."Okay, so it's three weeks and three days away then...."

(...sinking in...) "I think I liked it better the other way."

Rationalizing...

While working on a little craft project with the kids today, I said we had to take it easy on the amount of tape we used as we were running low.

Daughter busily worked away, and I became distracted with something else until she spoke up as she taped a piece of paper down on her project, "I'm going to have to rationalize this since we are running out of tape!"

I'm pretty sure she meant that she needed to "ration" the tape, though from the looks of what she was creating, rationalizing could help a bit as well....

Turning Corners?

My Dear Daughter, in all her almost-eight-years-old-ness, has developed a penchant for passive-aggressiveness, especially toward her little brother. If you're a mom, you know the kind I mean.... I'm talking about how she has this uncanny way of saying something to her brother under her breath or behind our backs or in just such a way that she knows will really get her brother's goat. The kind that allows her to follow up with overdone "innocent eyes" and an overdone, "What??!!!" followed by something like, "...all I said was that the show Zach wanted to watch on tv is a 'baby show'." And this really translates into, "You're a total stupid-head if you like to watch that show, so you'd better agree to watch what I want to watch." Dear Son knows that even if his big sister's words appear relatively innocuous, he senses that he's somehow been made fun, belittled, or manipulated. He doesn't have the verbal savvy his big sister has to express exactly WHY he gets so fed up in response to her, so he simply handles it by slugging her. Hard. Eight times in the face.

And some of the time, I confess, I feel like I really can't blame him. HOWEVER--we have been working on the hitting thing since the boy-child was about two years old. No consequence for this behavior ever mattered enough to short-circuit the brain pathway he had built around the idea that when his sister is subtly passive-aggressive or manipulative, the only way to feel better is to smack her. It's been a hard habit to break.

I've come down hard on them both this summer, deciding that it didn't matter if it cost them their entire summer if it had to; the subtle antagonizing and the not-so-subtle beat-the-crap-out-of-my-infuriating-sister behaviors had to stop.

I had long discussions with my girl-child about how she repeatedly sets her brother up to hit her. I had long discussions with my boy-child about how I know his sister knows which buttons to push, but that no matter how antagonizing she is being, it's not okay to haul off and deck her.

The kids lost a trip to play in the water fountains downtown and a trip to the water park another week, and still the rotten behaviors continued. Then one day I promised my little gamer boy-child that he could play Sonic on the Xbox after lunch that day, until I found out he had punched his sister in the face for annoying him earlier that morning. I looked at him sadly and calmly informed him that he was not going to get to play Sonic after lunch after all because he hit his sister, and that has GOT to stop. Whereas he was seemingly unfazed by the other lost privileges this summer so far, apparently this one hit home hard. He left the room silently, and a moment later I heard absolute wailing and sobbing coming from his bedroom. Even Daughter was caught off guard and ran to his side to see if he got hurt. It is not Son's M.O. to cry and wail when he doesn't get his way. He didn't throw a fit, he just sobbed like his little heart would never mend again. I stood my ground, sad as I was myself about the whole ordeal, stressing to the boy-child that he simply had to learn to stop hitting. Meanwhile his sister was impacted by how sad her little brother was and realized how she had again set him up. He asked her to stop doing something that was annoying, and she didn't. So he punched her in the face. I sternly reviewed with her how she is the older sister and how she behaves affects how her brother decides to behave, and how she repeatedly sets him up, blah blah blah blah.

Son, while absolutely devastated over losing Sonic for the day, was very well behaved the rest of the day and the next morning, and I rewarded him with an hour of Sonic that morning. Not an hour after he got to play Sonic, he hit his sister again. It was out of habit. He didn't think before acting and when I called him on it, it was like he hadn't even realized until that moment that he had hit his sister and thus blown it again. The consequences weren't pretty. The kids lost all summer privileges again for a few days. It was sobering for them. I emphasized how their summer is passing them by while they choose to treat each other rottenly.

And that was the last time such behavior happened. It's been 11 days with no bickering, passive-aggressiveness, hitting....My kids have become delightful to hang with. We've gone to the regular park and the inflatable park with friends and tomorrow we plan to have fun at the fountains with friends. Even just hanging around the house with them playing Go Fish! and Checkers has become enjoyable. I'm hoping (albeit cautiously) that we've finally turned a corner.... Hold your breath!

Tender Life Lessons

A couple weeks ago my parents joined us for the wee ones' Saturday soccer games. Between the two games we had just enough time to give our patronage to Small Town Pizza Joint. The conversation turned to Great Grandma H, who turned 93 last November. Dear Dad offered the information that she is not doing so well, has really lost quality of life the past year, and has begun to comment that she is "ready to go 'home'." It's been a year and a half since Dear Husband and I and the kiddos have gone to visit her eight hours away at her assisted living facility, but Dear Daughter remembers the visit well. I talked some with Dear Dad about what I might be able to mail her to lift her spirits, and then the conversation was lost as we moved on from pizza for lunch to the final soccer game.

Later that day, I was working out in the garden, pulling the weeds and preparing it for the new spring planting. Dear Daughter came out to join me with her shovel, proud that she had figured out how to "chop a box" around the weeds, thus being able to pull them up, roots and all. As we worked in the warm spring sunshine, Dear Daughter's wheels were turning, as they so often do. "Mommy, that's really sad about Great Grandma-that she is sad and wants to go home. But I can understand why she feels that way. I mean, she has been at the nursing home for a really long time, and I can understand why she wants to go back to her old home." Clearly this had been eating at her since she overheard the conversation over pizza a few hours earlier.

I was moved by her interpretation and felt a bit sadder myself as I realized that I needed to explain further to my sweet daughter. "Well, Honey, Great Grandma didn't mean that she is ready to go to her old home...." (pause...as I try to find sensitive, but more accurate wording) "...Great Grandma meant that she is feeling ready to go 'home' to be with Jesus." A long pause followed. Dear Daughter stopped digging and leaned on her shovel as the realization sunk in.

"But why, Mommy?"

"Well, Sweetie, she is just getting really tired and worn out now that she is 93 years old. She can't see very well anymore, and she can't hear very well anymore, and her back hurts her all the time because of her Osteoporosis, and she can't move very well, and she doesn't always remember stuff very well anymore, and...well...imagine how it would feel to just sit in your chair all day and not be able to hear, see, or move or think real clearly anymore. She's had a long, good life, and her husband, Great Grandpa, has been with Jesus for ten years already, and she's just ready to go there, too. You know, in Heaven she won't be so tired and sore and she'll be able to hear and see and move perfectly. So you can imagine, can't you, why she might be looking forward to just going to be with Jesus where everything is perfect?"

Long pause.

"Yeah, I guess I can understand that. But it still feels sad that she is feeling that way."

It was one of those hard facts of life that I rather hated for my tender child to be learning, but from which I knew I could not shelter her. This is my last living grandparent, and her last living great grandparent.

We silently, solemnly went back to our weeding.

"You know, since you are learning to write letters properly in school, you could write Great Grandma a letter any time you would like. And she would love to have a picture to go with it. And I plan to pick up some chocolates next time I go to the store. She loves chocolates. And we can mail all those things with some pictures of you and Zach's soccer games to her. I know she would like that!"

Dear Daughter lifted her face to look in mine. The cloudiness began to fade from her eyes as the sparkle returned.

"That's a good idea! I think I will go write her a letter right now!"

And away she went indoors to work for the next hour on a letter about her little seven-year-old life and a picture of a horse galloping gaily in the springtime. I assembled the package over the next couple days, with the chocolates and photos that I promised along with her letter and picture. I let her write the address across the package in her neatest not-quite-eight-years-old scrawl, and put her return address in the corner. And then she was okay again for a little while.

Later that evening after the lights were turned out at bedtime, we had one of those times that we contemplated the meaning of life as we snuggled closely under the blankets in her narrow twin bed. "I still feel sad about Great Grandma and how she is feeling," her little voice trembled in the darkness. And we talked about it some more, and what it all means, as her tears fell and she sniffled in the dark, and then my tears fell and I sniffled, too.

No Frills

Perhaps I should blame myself for Dear Daughter's slob-ness. After all, I have never been the pink frilly type. Unlike many proud pregnant parents-to-be who are thrilled to be bringing a little baby girl into the world, we did not paint the nursery pink and buy every girly ruffle and fluff we could find. No, I painted the nursery green and didn't buy a single pink item.

Oh, we were excited to be having a girl, and there was no doubt about that. After all, the odds were stacked against us. Historically, the sperm on the husband's side of the family are gender-biased towards boys. I had resolved myself that despite our crazy attempts to conceive during the window of time that science has suggested improves the odds of a girl, we were likely to bring a boy into the world. Dear Husband's brother had managed to sire three boys already and a fourth boy would come later.

The ultrasound technician seemed to have no question whatsoever. It was a girl. I was beside myself giddy over this concept. A baby girl: my dream come true.

Despite my "never buy a pink frilly thing" attitude, there were many in the family that doted on my baby girl with frilly stuff. Who can blame them? They had been repressed, after all, with no girls to go ga-ga over. I was the one to hesitate to dress Dear Daughter in skirts and gowns and such, especially in the toddler stage. They just seemed so impractical--difficult to play in or even walk in sometimes. I must admit, however, that I adored the matching hats, shoes, and bags that came with some of these outfits. I can still remember my little diva, at two years of age, grabbing her hat and matching purse (and often matching sunglasses, thanks to Great Aunt Pat) each time we were heading out of the house. She was the first to the door, and looking over her shoulder with a grin and eager anticipation, she would say, "Let's go!"

To this day, my little girl, who turned seven just 10 days ago, still loves to dress up. She pleads with me to buy her fancy dresses in the stores and loves to look all pretty. I indulge her at times with the fancy dresses and shoes, but it always seems so ironic. The truth of this matter is that my girl-child is...a slob!

Before you start tsk-ing me, let me defend my statements! While we chose "Grace" for the middle name of this treasured little girl, she is generally about as clumsy as a child could be. She trips over flat surfaces and imaginary cracks in the ground. She spontaneously falls off her chair or out of bed. She lands on her head when she falls off her bike.

Even though Dear Daughter is a full 28 months (that's a full two years and four months) older than Dear Son, it is Daughter's chair that is surrounded by food and stains after a meal and not Son's. And it's Daughter whose clothing is full of stains and not Son's. It's Daughter's pants that have ripped holes and grass stains, and not Son's.

She wants to be a princess, and in her heart she is. But bless that same little heart if in reality she is so much less than polished! She would go days without brushing her hair if I didn't remind her. She nearly always has food or ketchup stuck to her face, and sometimes in her hair. Her clothing, as I previously described, is always stained or ripped. She doesn't bother to check herself to see that her clothing hangs straight or gets tucked in neatly, so it is usually hanging this way or that and crumpled and crooked. She is a nose picker no matter how much I nag her to use a tissue. She forgets to sit "ladylike" when she does wear a dress. And she apparently doesn't even notice when her feet smell so bad that she can clear a room. If it's pointed out to her, she just giggles and thinks it's really funny. She also thinks it's funny to belch and fart like a sailor. I console myself that if nothing changes, at least we won't have to worry about beating the boys off of her in a few years.

But oh how she longs to be princess-y.

Recently the daughter of a good friend of ours got married and asked Dear Daughter to be her flower girl. Dear Daughter couldn't have been more pleased about this whole thing. She got to pick out a gorgeous floor length gown and get all primped and prettied up and carry a lovely white satin basket and sprinkle flower petals. What more could any little girl want? She was on cloud nine, and she ended up pulling it off well. It was an outdoor wedding, and I was nervous for many reasons. The most obvious concern was that she would be wearing a white dress. Somehow, somewhere I was sure she would come up with some grape juice and spill it down the front of her dress before the ceremony. She had to walk down several yards of stairs in her floor length gown as she sprinkled flower petals. My girl, who trips on a flat surface. Also, being an outdoor wedding, there was mud and dirt and grass to attract her. They wanted her hair done and dressed for pictures by 3:00 even though the ceremony didn't start until 7:00. So I hovered around her constantly for those four hours. We made it, with only a tiny stain that no one could notice. When Daughter had made her way down the stairs and the ceremony had begun, Dear Husband leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Well, she's made it halfway through without tripping...." Indeed. It was a proud moment for her daddy and I.

With all that said, what happened today really should not be a surprise at all. Daughter has made mud pies before. Within reason, I just let her be. It was a hot, dry, day. I let her play in the sand and dirt and make a mud pie while I weeded the garden. I reasoned that it was not like that day that I let her stomp in the rain in her rain boots and next thing I knew she had mud sprayed to the top of her head and all across her face.

The neighbor boy had come over to play, and he is a good two and a half years older than my girl. We tend to supervise well when he comes over, for a variety of reasons that I won't describe at the moment. However, as the kids have gotten older, we've tended to relax just a bit on the eagle eye attention when they are all playing. I was busy hanging clothes on the clothesline and only aware that the kids, Daughter, Son, and the neighbor boy, were all playing well together in the backyard. Before I had brought the clothes outside I had noticed the sound of the outside water spigot being turned on and off. I wasn't concerned; it was really hot and I had previously told the kids they could play in the water. As I pinned the clothes to the line I heard the kids talking about being Oompah Loompah's and I still didn't pay too much attention. Then I heard more talk that made me realize that the kids were playing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I got curious now, and turned my attention to the backyard at what the kids were doing.

What I saw was a four foot mud puddle with shovels and molds and stuff buried in the mud and the neighbor boy with his hands buried up the elbows in mud, but not a bit of mud anywhere on his clothing. I'm still not sure how he did that. Dear Son had not a bit of mud on him at all. Apparently he was assigned to stand by the spigot and turn the water on and off on command. And then there was Daughter. She was muddy from head to toe. She had mud in her hair and across her face, on her shoulders and chest. Her legs and feet were covered, and she looked like she may very well have been rolling in it just like a little piggy. As usual, she was oblivious to her slob-ness. She acted like she didn't know what I was talking about when I exclaimed about the mud from head to toe. The neighbor boy had made a fast exit, stage left as I hosed Daughter down in the yard before she was even allowed in the house for a bath. She confirmed that they were playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and didn't understand at all what the issue was with her four foot mud puddle, the shovels and toys and random objects planted in the mud hole, and the mud that caked her from head to toe. My boy child had ducked out stage right at the same time that the neighbor boy ducked out stage left. I've never seen kids scatter like cockroaches that quickly. I found Son inside the house, completely spotless without a bit of mud on his entire body, as his sister passed through the room on her way to the bathtub. Despite the hose down outside, she was still completely unrecognizable.

That's my girl.

Random

****WARNING--Random Brain Dumpage Ahead****

I recently joined the iphone cult. I have to admit, the Koolaid is pretty good.

I'm working hard at staying focused. Thus, my FaceBook perusing has been suspended. I think I've made a couple brief appearances in the past two or three weeks, but my self-control has impressed even me! If I stay focused on the kids' schooling and managing my counseling practice I can manage to scrape up a small amount of down-time each weekend.

I'm visiting my nutritionist regularly to deal with my thyroid and hormone imbalances. Progress is decent. Still have adrenal fatigue, still not assimilating proteins well, still seriously deficient in magnesium and potassium, still not getting adequate thyroid replacement into the cells...but things are better. I'm in month three of my no-grain diet. My nutritionist put me on an interesting diet that includes next to no carbs, moderate protein, and high amounts of healthy saturated fat. I've seen some pretty impressive improvements over the past almost three months. Most interesting, perhaps, is the way my workouts and stamina have increased. According to my nutritionist, our bodies are designed to burn fat for our primary fuel source, thus we need to feed it adequate healthy fat. While I have been nowhere near the amount of exercise I think I should be getting (it's awfully hard when I school the kids all day and work all night), I am working at it. My nutritionist says "No 'breathless' exercise" as that creates too much lactic acid. I can now achieve a slow jog for quiet a long time without becoming "breathless." I couldn't even do that when I was eight years younger, 10 pounds lighter, and before I ever had any babies. Perhaps the best part of all is that I've finally begun to drop that weight that my hypothyroid condition usually prevents me from losing. I'm down 12 pounds so far. About 17 more will put me at my 25 year old weight. That's my goal: to weigh what I weighed at 25 by the time I turn 40. And getting my hormonal issues under control would be nice, too.

We took a brief hiatus from the grind in late March. I took a couple pics with my new cult-ish iphone and never posted. The "ipics" will include a couple of the kids go-carting and a couple of the kids holding the baby chickens.

Yes, we finally took the plunge. I've been begging Dear Husband for chickens for over two years. Last month we got six day-old hatchlings. Dear Husband has approximately 10 weeks left to get a chicken coop built, and with a bit of providence we will have our own farm fresh eggs by fall.

...and with that...I'm back to work. I turn into a proverbial pumpkin at midnight....

Aspiring Writer

A few weeks ago I heard about the PBS Kids Go Writer's Contest and encouraged Dear Daughter to enter. She is one creative kid and quite talented in her story telling skills. It was only days before the deadline when I first heard of the contest, so Daughter had to get busy. She bounced story ideas off of me and we talked about the structure and qualities of a good story, and she went to work. She spent two entire home school days working on the prose and artwork of this project. I was thoroughly amused at the puns she included. Her story was about a greedy fish named Gilbert, but his friends called him "Gill" for short. He wanted all the cool new gadgets and stuff that all the other fish in his "school" had. I know I'm her mother, and I know she is only six years old, but I thought she was brilliant! Her story also had a great message about friendship being more important than "stuff."

She finished it up and we drove to the local PBS station to drop it off because I feared it would not reach the destination in time for the deadline. We didn't think much about it again.

A couple weeks later at Daughter's homeschool co-op, she was practically accosted at the door by a peer who questioned if Zoe had won a writer's contest. We had not told anyone except Grandma and Grandpa H about her entering this contest, so I figured maybe she had indeed placed. However, we did not get any direct notification about her placing. I turned to the Internet to see if I could find a winner's list, but despite a couple hours of searching, gave up after finding nothing except that the local contest had been judged and first place winners would be sent to the national contest and all who placed would have their stories on exhibit locally for a week. I never could find names, which makes sense as these are all minor children. Since the little girl who mentioned the writing contest was only 5 or 6 herself, I figured she was just probably confused. Still the coincidence of her asking Daughter if she entered a writing contest was curious. Daughter and I even talked after I discovered the contest had indeed been judged, that it was a real bummer that she had worked so hard and had not been recognized.

A few minutes ago Dear Husband emerged from the basement office and handed me a large manila envelope. Inside was the congratulation letter and certificate for Daugther's honorable mention in the local contest. The letter was dated April 15th. At 15 minutes before midnight tonight, it was as good as being April 30th. Apparently we had this congratulation letter for a couple weeks before finding it.

After thinking about it some more, I remembered getting two large identical manila envelopes in the mail a couple weeks ago. Husband had told me to watch for some building plans he was going to be receiving from the county any day. So when I saw his name on the envelope, I assumed he got two envelopes of building plans. I left them on the kitchen island and told Dear Husband about them when he arrived home that evening because he had been anxiously awaiting them. He opened an envelope and looked at the stuff, and that was that.

In the next week or so the pile of mail on the kitchen island ended up in the basement office to be sorted. The fact that this particular envelope had never been opened was discovered for the first time a few minutes ago. And lo, the mystery was solved. While Dear Daughter didn't place first, second, or even third, I'm still really proud of her receiving honorable mention. She doesn't get to compete in the nationals, but only first place winners in each category do. She won't get a shot at the laptop, digital camera, or MP3 player, but she received a certificate of recognition and her story will have a week long display in the winner's exhibit in a local art gallery along with being recognized at the writer's banquet this fall after the national competition.

...and I learned to look at the mail more closely!

BUSTED!

It's cold today in the Midwest. In reality, it's not any colder than it's been all winter long. In fact, it's warmer than it has been many days this winter. For some reason, however, I've been really cold all day long. It could be related to the fact that no one can seem to get my thyroid gland working the way it's supposed to. Not my nutritionist/naturopath, not my medical doctor, no one. My nutritionist/naturopath is still working on it with me. However, my afternoon body temperature was still only 95.5. This was taken at the time of day that body temperature is supposed to peak, mind you. Besides being cold, it's no wonder my metabolism is slower than a dried up slug. By late evening I felt so thoroughly chilled that I couldn't wait to get the kids tucked into bed so that I could climb into my own bed in full sweats and pile on every blanket we own.

With the kids tucked into their beds, I went about my business of putting on a second pair of socks. That's when I remembered that we have some of those hand warmer things in the cupboard somewhere. You know, those things you shake up and stick in your mittens or your pockets in the winter time to help keep warm. Back in the day, we used to use them in the wet, dark, cold fall weather to stay warm during early morning band practice. I decided right then and there that I was going to put one of those in each of my socks before crawling into bed under every blanket I own. As I headed out to the laundry room to dig in the cabinet where I last saw them, I heard a rustle in the kitchen. I knew immediately what I was hearing. "Zoe Grace!" I said sternly. She came out from the shadows looking soooooo busted, dropping one of her Garfield comic books as she rushed down the hall towards her bedroom calling, "I know! I know! I'm not allowed to read Garfield anymore for a loooong time!" She had snuck out of her dark bedroom where she was told the lights needed to stay out, into the kitchen where there was still a light on over the sink. She was crouched in the corner with her beloved Garfield comic books, reading. This was a first. I've caught her with her bedroom light on well past the time she's allowed to stay up. I've caught her crouched in her closet reading with the door closed and light on, I've caught her with her brother's neon light saber sword in her bed in the dark, using it as a flashlight to illuminate her beloved comic book pages. I have never, until tonight, caught her crouched in the dim light of the kitchen with her comic books.

She loves to read. I certainly don't want to discourage that! She began reading on her own at age three. Seriously. I'm not just a bragging parent exaggerating the abilities of my child. She was reading on her own at age three. She discovered my Garfield comic book collection (circa early 1980's) in the storage room downstairs several months ago, and it has consumed her like a savage addiction. At 6 years of age, she reads with enough skill to decipher the words and enough sophistication to appreciate the humor of Garfield comic strips. And she is completely addicted. It's like kiddie crack.

My girl child is stubborn and determined and willing to go to almost any length to achieve a goal she has decided on. Those aren't bad qualities to have. In fact, in all my years of working with severely emotionally disturbed and behaviorally disordered kids and teens, I've learned to be strengths based in my approach--to see the good in every person and help them channel it through the qualities, skills, and characteristics they already possess. If the at-risk kids I work with have the qualities that I just described my daughter having, I get excited because I know such qualities can serve them well. Sure, these are qualities that often get them in major trouble when they misuse them. But they are also qualities that have ensured their survival through horrendous histories of abuse throughout their childhood. They are qualities that will bring them through to success and see them make something valuable of their lives if they can be directed and taught how to channel such qualities constructively.

Unfortunately, in addition to these other qualities that I have framed in a strengths-based context, Dear Daughter is sneaky. To be completely fair, in a strengths-based context, I would frame it as something more akin to "creative" or "sly." But right now I'm still exasperated and a bit fed up with her. So I'm calling it plain old sneaky. There's been a lot of sneakiness going on in her little world lately, and it's been affecting all of us in this house.

I don't want to break her spirit. I don't want to take the determination and goal-directed-ness out of her. I just want her to be good! For the love of all that is good and holy, my girl-child is a major handful to manage!

I ordered my girl-child to come right back and stand before me. She looked almost scared enough to pee her pants. And then I just stared at her in silence while I tried to compose my thoughts. Somewhere in here, I just knew there was a teachable moment. I just needed to compose myself well enough to figure out what it was.

While my daughter has had the good fortune of being born into a high functioning, well adjusted family, and she has no history of abuse threatening to destroy her success in life, she can still be plain old naughty when she decides to use her stubbornness and perseverance in the wrong ways. I stood looking at her as all these thoughts raced through my mind. Daughter was looking really uneasy by this time.

"What exactly were you doing?" I calmly demanded.

"I was reading Garfield." She said boldly, but not without guilt written across her face.

"So you sneak out here to the kitchen to read your Garfield books after we go to bed?" I asked. Without waiting for a response I added, "And this isn't the first time, is it?"

She shook her head.

"So you've been doing this for awhile?"

"Well, not if you go downstairs...because then you can hear me up here. But if you go to your room I do." She divulged honestly and matter-of-factly. "I can tell by whether the light is on down there or not." She added sincerely. I felt inwardly annoyed at the habit my husband has developed of leaving the light above the kitchen sink on all night long. I spoke to him recently about turning this light off to save electricity and using the tiny little nightlight instead. Most of the time now it is getting turned off, but it still stays on until whoever is last to bed turns it off. That means I leave it on for Dear Husband, who frequently falls asleep for a good while in Dear Son's bed with him after reading bedtime stories, thus making him the last one to bed (our bed, anyway). And he has a bad habit of just leaving that particular light on all night.

Dear Daughter had this ploy all figured out. And she has even apparently pulled it off a time or two before. I recalled at this moment that I already heard Dear Husband scold her once tonight after I tucked her in for sneaking down the hallway. Apparently that was her first sneak through the house to see if I was going to go downstairs or to bed after tucking her in.

I stared at her, this time trying to keep a straight face because I was beginning to find it all a bit humorous--the lengths this child will go to achieve what she has her mind set to. "What do you think we should do about this?" I asked.

She didn't even hesitate. "I figured no Garfield for like a week." She said with a fair amount of confidence. "And probably no desert for awhile...?" She seemed to throw that in to demonstrate to me that she understood the gravity of what she had done. Daughter loves her desert more than she even loves Garfield. She continued to stand in front of me, waiting...uneasily biting her lip. I don't pick her up much anymore because she is 6 1/2 years old now. And heavy. But now I scooped her up and hugged her tight before I set her up on the granite kitchen island for a face-to-face chat in the dimness of that blasted light over the sink. I took a deep breath....

"There's a saying that goes like this, 'Who you really are is who you are when no one else is looking.'" I paused to let this sink in. "Do you know what this means?"

"Yeah," she said. "It means that you'd better not do things you're not supposed to do."

"Well..." I said, "that's only partly right. The part that I really want you to get is that whatever you are doing when you think no one is looking...that is the person you REALLY are." I paused again to let it sink in before adding, "Even if you don't think Mommy or Daddy knows what you are doing, God sees everything, and He wants you to choose the right thing no matter who is or isn't looking."

Daughter responded after a moment, "So you are going to watch everything I'm doing now?"

"No." I said. "Not at all."

"But you're going to take away all my Garfield comics, right?"

"No." I said.

Silence.

"I'm going to let you think about the kind of person you want to be whether I see everything or not. And I want you to remember that God sees everything." I said. "And I'm very sad because I can't trust you right now. ...and by the way, are you SURE you brushed your teeth...because you told me earlier that you did, but your breath doesn't smell very fresh right now and you've lied to me about brushing your teeth before also."

Daughter completely busted up laughing despite herself. "You shouldn't have taught me how to keep the mirror clean, because then you would have at least known if I was brushing my teeth or not!" She thought this was hysterically funny and continued to laugh until she cried.

For months I have worked with her not to splatter the mirror with her toothpaste spits. She would have the mirror absolutely covered halfway to the top with toothpaste spit spots the first time she brushed after I cleaned the thing. She must be the messiest toothpaste spitter on the planet. She has only recently begun to manage not to splatter the mirror when she brushes her teeth. She has also begun to lie to me when I ask her if she has brushed her teeth. "Yes!" She will say. "I can still taste the toothpaste!" One day after this exchange with her, I took Dear Son in the bathroom to help him brush his teeth and discovered Daughter's toothbrush was dry. See what I mean about "sneaky"?

"You see!" I said to her. "Your lies about brushing your teeth has also made it so that I cannot trust you. I'm very sad that I cannot trust my own daughter. I want a daughter that I know I can trust, and it's going to take awhile for you to build that trust back up again."

She looked very serious and sad at that point.

"So what do you think I want you to do right now?" I asked.

"Go get all my Garfield comic books to give you?" she asked.

"No. I want you to take your Garfield comic book back to your room with you, and I want you to put it away, and get into bed, and leave the light out, and close your eyes, and think about what we talked about...and go to sleep."

Then I lifted her off the counter and handed her comic book to her. She walked slowly and deliberately back to her room, where she stayed.

As I sit under piles of blankets on my bed with warming pouches between my two pairs of socks, I am doing some of my own pondering. For example, I don't know if this will sink in for her yet. I don't know if this is a lesson learned yet. But I do know that she only seems to look onto certain types of discipline as a game that she continues to play at in order to "win" at continuing to do whatever it is that she has her mind set to doing. Even the Love and Logic approach (which I have successfully used with LOTS of kids and parents over the years) doesn't always work with her. I don't want her to stop doing wrong things because she fears being punished or even just because she doesn't like the natural consequences of her choices. While sometimes that's enough, other times it isn't. At at those times I want her to choose to do the right thing because she has solid character and integrity. The stakes on this lesson will get much higher as she gets older. I know I won't be able to follow her around to make sure she doesn't speed when she drives, or take drugs when they are being passed around, or cheat on her schoolwork. I also know that even with solid character, she's going to make mistakes. Probably even stupid ones sometimes. Maybe even as stupid as some of the mistakes I made. But I want to minimize the odds and frequency of her poor choices by instilling integrity inside her and helping her to channel those exasperating-but-powerful qualities she possesses. If she can be bound and determined to make poor choices, she certainly has the capacity to be bound and determined to make the right choices.

I'm wondering how parents could possibly have the energy to see their kids through the teen years. I'm thoroughly exhausted already!

Is Mommy "Special"?

"Daddy," said Dear Son last night, "is Mommy 'special'?"

Dear Husband snickered a good bit before he replied that yes indeed, Mommy is 'special.'

Last night we went with the kids and my parents to a Japanese steakhouse to celebrate my birthday. Dear Daughter likes to go "order a volcano." There's really no ordering involved; it's just part of the hibachi grilling show at your table. But let her think what she wants. She refused to use the chopsticks with the rubber band and had to hold them the "real" way. She did a better job than I did with them. Dear Son mainly just liked the noodles! He actually did pretty well eating them with chopsticks. It was nice to get my dad out of the house as he's been ill since before Christmas.

This is always a fun and busy time of year right after the holidays. My birthday comes, followed not quite a week later by our anniversary (it's going to be Lucky 13 this year!), followed less than two weeks later by Dear Husband's birthday. After all that neither one of us cares too much about Valentine's Day a few days later. Not that I remember ever caring about Valentine's Day that much before we met or got married. You may remember that I've posted my opinion on that one before: It's a "stoopid" holiday. But as "stoopid" holidays go (Halloween comes to mind), Dear Daughter loves it. That means we have to recognize it at our house.

My creative juices are rather dry lately by the time I pour all I've got in to managing the kids' schooling and my career. We are currently reading the biographies of Louis Braille and Beethoven, and we are halfway through The Long Winter. It's the fourth or fifth book of the Little House on the Prairie series. We began the series last fall, and Daughter will be sad when we complete it.

I'm also busy teaching Daughter piano and guitar. Since I never learned how to play guitar myself, we are learning together. Of course, the piano part is a no-brainer. I'm sure if we continue on the homeschooling path, Daughter will be enrolling in the local homeschool orchestra in another year and a half when she reaches the minimum age of eight. She wants to play the harp. LOL! Whatevah! We actually saw someone downtown the other day wheeling their harp, in a black case on some sort of dolly, across the street. I pointed out to Dear Duaghter that this would be her fate if she chooses the harp. As a pianist all my life, I often asked myself why didn't I learn the piccolo? Especially after moving my heavy acoustic piano across the country and back and more times between than I can count!

We are pretty well on track with our homeschool goals for the year, but it has taken discipline and creativy and, of course, time--lots of time. In addition to piano and guitar lessons, Daughter is reading Amelia Bedelia books easily now and doing triple digit addition. She can tell you about the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War and the journey of Christopher Columbus. She's learning to recognize the works of Beethoven and develop respect for a musician who was deaf when he wrote some of his symphonies. She can label the instruments in an orchestra and where they are seated in a typical orchestral seating arrangement. She can explain how sound waves work and what happens between the time they enter our ears and get processed by the brain. She has learned how to draw with chalk and blend colors and become a part in a dramatic play or interpretation. She's learning how to look up scriptures in her own Bible and can even read them herself in the new Bible she got for Christmas.

And Dear Son is writing letters and numbers now. While he doesn't spell yet, he places letters together and asks me or his big sister what they spell. He loves to "do school" and play games on the computer and draw robots and Iron Man.

While I've had trouble lately finding much time to blog, or read blogs that I used to follow more regularly, I most certainly can see the evidence of what I've been doing instead, and I believe it's been time well spent.

Blissfully...Fallen...In...!

Where have I been? I think I've come as close as blissfully possible to "falling in." The holidays seem to have come and gone even faster than any previous year, and they wrapped up with a blast of arctic air and snow that has continued to trickle down for at least a week. I think we reached below -5 once or twice for overall temps and we've had days with highs in the single digits. I know Dear Aunt Pat won't have any sympathy because it's much colder and snowier where she's at, but for us it's cold. The subzero temps combined with 35 mph wind gusts last week took me down memory lane to a time about 30 years ago and a place in rural Iowa where I grew up. I remember the wind blowing so hard and so cold one particular day that I literally got stuck in the gate my dad built between the house and the garage. I was pinned tightly and could not go in or out, and someone else had to free me. The wind blasted like icy knives that day. I was going to check on our pregnant Spaniel who was nested in a bale of hay in the backyard in her dog house. She was to give birth any day. In farm country we didn't keep pets in the house, but that day my parents took pity on Sparky when she came out of her house with the arctic wind whipping snow around in the air, and a puppy fell out of her into a snow bank. Sparky was moved the basement to finish her delivery with a heat lamp. It was a real farm house style basement--more like a cellar, and not at all like the nice walkout basement we have in our house today. It was still very cold down there, but with the heat lamp on her, she and the puppy born in the snow drift were fine along with the other six puppies that came later.

As cold as it's been here for the past week, it's hard to remember (or believe) that on Thanksgiving we were having spring-like temps near 70 degrees and we spent the day cleaning the garage and doing yard work. We got the Christmas tree that weekend, and Dear Son enjoyed helping decorate it this year more than any other year before. He especially liked the glass ball ornaments. Both the kids love the glass ball ornaments. I never have understood what they find so neat about them. We never even owned any until a couple years ago when Dear Daughter insisted we get some because we just couldn't decorate a Christmas tree without them!

Dear Daughter was playing dress up before decorating the tree, and that's why she is dressed in a strappy sun dress. If it was as cold then as it has been lately, she wouldn't have lasted a minute in the downstairs family room in that dress before freezing her buns off.

I wanted a candid shot of the both kids decorating the tree, but they saw me with the camera and would not let up until I took a picture of their cheesy grin contest.

A few days later the weather turned cold. Not as cold as it's been lately, but nonetheless cold. I can't remember if we had highs in the teens or low twenties the day we decided to stay inside all day and bake Christmas cookies. The kids decided they wanted to stay in their fleece pj's all day long, so that's what they did. This is just one of many examples of why I love homeschooling so much. We can have days where we stay in our pj's all day and turn fun things like baking cookies into a learning experience. This activity counted as Math because we practiced measuring ingredients, Home Ec. because I taught Daughter how to read a recipe, Social Skills because I required the kids to take turns and share as they cut and decorated, and Art because we played with food coloring and mixed primary colors to make new colors.

You can see in the backyard that we didn't have snow yet. Nonetheless it was one of our coldest days of the season until recently.

The dogs were thankful for their parkas that day when they were forced to go outside to do their business. Well, to be honest, I'm not sure that Baby appreciated her parka so much, but at least it helped her control her shivering enough that she could pee.

Our dogs have it much better than my dogs did growing up. Not only do they not have to sleep outside in their own straw filled dog house in the bitter cold, but they actually get to share our bed. Baby likes to sleep UNDER the blankets at my feet (helps keep my feet warm, so I'm not complaining) and Cooper likes to share my pillow. When they are not in our bed with us, they are beached in front of the wood stove. Yeah, they've got it good. So good that when temps don't go any higher than 20 degrees and we still push them out the door to go potty, Baby stops on the step and begins shivering violently (I think she just does it for dramatic effect) and looks back at me with an expression on her face that most certainly says, "Oh HELL, no! You gotta be kidding me!"

Dear Son's birthday snuck up on us quickly. Great Uncle Ron and Great Aunt Pat made it out between their own Iowa blizzards to help us celebrate Son turning four years old. You'll notice the Transformers theme going on. Son loves him some "robots." Bumblebee is his favorite, and he has been coveting a "Bumblebee blaster" for the past six months. He waited for his birthday with high hopes that he would receive this for a gift. When he got it, I don't think he let it out of his sight for over a week. He slept with it and ate with it by his side constantly. We couldn't even drive anywhere in the family mobile without him bringing it along.

We took a trip to Silver Dollar City with Great Aunt Pat and Great Uncle Ron to see the Christmas lights for Son's birthday. We thought it was cold that evening, but I think it would actually feel balmy to us right now. Unfortunately, Grandpa and Grandma didn't get to come with us. Grandpa got to come to Son's party, but not the Silver Dollar City trip the next day. He became so ill by Christmas that he wound up in the hospital for three nights. A month later he is still trying to recover from what originally was Shingles and then turned into pneumonia in both lungs and blood clots in both lungs and in one leg. This was a real bummer for all of us on Christmas as our tradition is for Grandpa and Grandma to spend the day at our house enjoying the kids opening their presents and playing with their new toys with them and playing games and doing puzzles together the whole day.

After Christmas, the arctic blast and snow moved in, and we've lived in a deep freeze for more than a week straight.
























Right before the snow came, Daughter and I went ice skating. It was her first time, and for me it was the first time in 20 years--so it may as well have been my first time as well. We had lots of fun. Daughter fell a lot. I made it without falling a single time, which is good, because if I had fallen I don't think I would have ever been able to get back up. After an hour and half on the ice it began coming back to me and Daughter was able to let go of the wall almost completely. While I never spent a lot of time on ice skates, I used to be an avid inline skater, skating all over town in a certain small college town in Idaho. I would skate from one end of town to the other, across roads and traffic and all. You probably would not have known it the other day if you were watching me on the ice, though.

Then the snow came, along with the super cold temps. Work slowed down for me, and I appreciated this because I blissfully enjoyed several days of not even leaving the house. We just kept piling the wood in the stove and snuggling up in our warm pj's and blankets. We have enjoyed playing games with the kids and building with the Zoobs that Uncle Jowell and Aunt Lisa sent Dear Son for Christmas. So far I've built a Zoob-a-saur and a bicycle (with real moving wheels!).

I didn't make a gingerbread house with the kids for Christmas this year, so we made one after the New Year while it snowed outside. It was a great indoor activity, and of course the kids loved it.
And so, as I said at the beginning of this post, I have blissfully fallen in. I love winter and cold and snow so long as I don't have to go anywhere. I don't even mind shoveling snow; one day I shoveled the entire 250 foot driveway so we could see to get the cars out. I could stay holed up for months, I think, on the side of some snowy mountain with a fire roaring and fuzzy pjs and blankets, and it would be as good as Heaven.

After several days of indoor cozy activities however, I did have to go back to work. That particular day that I went back, the roads were covered with snow and the wind was howling, and it was about 5 degrees outside. As I drove the kids to Grandma's house for the day, Dear Daughter exclaimed from the middle row of the family-mobile, "Mommy! Zachy and I just saw a Puffin!" She was so excited that I almost didn't have the heart to tell her that since Puffins are Arctic birds, they don't live here in the Midwest. However, before I said anything, I considered how cold it's been, and I decided that we just might have some Puffins living among us after all.

If it's cold and snowy where you are, cozy up to the fire, pour yourself another mug of hot chocolate, and enjoy!

Worse Than Pulling Teeth

She climbed up into that tall chair that sits in the window. The one that allows all the passers by to watch while they are, well, passing by. She looked excited and perhaps a wee bit nervous. I confess that I was nervous as well. "You're in the hot seat now!" I told her. She picked out a shiny blue pair. Blue has become her favorite color recently. She waited patiently for the associate to come back and seal the deal. It was a busy place to be today, a few days after Christmas with all the area schools out. Kids and teens of all ages ran rampant outside the window from where Dear Daughter was perched in her tall chair.

The associate came back and made sure I had signed all the waivers agreeing to indemnify them of every possible thing that could go wrong with what they were about to do to my daughter. Then the associate loaded her gun with the shiny blue pair Dear Daughter had picked out. My heart beat a bit faster, and I turned my head. I couldn't watch. I just wanted it to be over. I heard a loud exclamation of "Ouch!" I peeked back over my shoulder to assess the damage. My little girl still sat on that tall chair. Her chin was quivering just the littlest bit and she fought back a tear. I resisted the urge to pull her out of the chair and hold her close and insist she forget all about this nonsense and call it quits. But she had told me before that this is what she wanted and that she could handle it. I told her I was proud of her and grabbed her hand as the associate loaded her gun again. "It's almost over!" I reassured Daughter. She caught her breath and looked apprehensive like she wasn't so sure anymore that this is what she wanted. Then it was over. Daughter looked sober for a few moments. I tried to lighten things up for her with exclamations of how proud of her I was and how brave and beautiful she was. She smiled, weakly at first. And then she beamed the rest of the day.

My six year old baby now has pierced ears.

My baby who is so brave at the dentist's office. They told me they look forward to her visits because she is so sweet and good mannered. She doesn't cry or protest when they do their dentist stuff in her mouth. Not even when she had to have those two teeth pulled. My baby who told me nonchalantly in her smiling sing-songy voice that day about what it felt like to have teeth pulled, and the bloody gauze hung out of her mouth as she talked. It "tugged" and felt "crunchy" she told me as I cringed and felt a little woozy myself.

I asked her tonight if getting her ears pierced hurt worse than having teeth pulled. "Oh yes!" she exclaimed without hesitating. I asked her if she had to choose one or the other, would she rather have her ears pierced again or have teeth pulled. "Oh, have teeth pulled!" she said again without hesitating.

Seriously.

The whole ear piercing ordeal struck me as a bit barbaric--forcing an earring until it punches through the entire earlobe. What a strange custom. Thank God our culture doesn't encourage females to wear those coils around our necks to stretch them out. No, at least in our culture we are only fixated on punching holes in our bodies.

Dear Husband pointed out that at least we can probably rest easy that Dear Daughter won't be wanting to pierce anything else on her body. If she even so much as hints at piercing something else on her body someday when she turns into a teenager, I'll be reminding her of how much this ear piercing thing hurt. I'll point out that it was so excruciatingly painful that she would rather have teeth pulled than go through it again. Surely that will work.

I alternated today between thoughts of "Thank God she's only six!" and "Oh My God! She's already six!"