What are You Smothered In?

My youngest is enamored of liquid soap lately. When she is sent to wash her hands, we often have to go rescue the sink ten minutes later. I know its a phase, and they've all gone through it, leaving me slightly poorer in the household goods department. I'd rather have them with clean hands than filthy.

But I got an insight last week into what spurred this interest for her. I had, once again, sent her to wash sticky hands, and subsequently forgotten about it. When, several minutes later, my brain became aware of the fact that the bathroom water was still running, I dashed into said room prepared to give her the stock 'water wasting' lecture (that's lecture #103 in my Mommy repertoire)

She was standing on the stool, smothered in liquid soap, the water running uselessly. Her chubby little hands were working, rubbing the soap vigorously all over her skin, with the stuff glistening from fingertip to elbow. I somehow overcame my initial reaction (screaming) and sardonically asked her if she was done.

"Yup!" She nodded, sticking two fingertips under the water to rinse, "Now my hands will be clean for allllllll day!"

She hopped down from the stool, having only removed 0.03% of the soap, and headed for the towel.

"Oh, no you don't!" I caught her and set her wriggling three-year old frame back onto the stool.

"Mommy!!" She protested, "The soap makes me clean!"

"Only if you rinse it off," I countered, turning on the water and grabbing a washcloth, "if you leave the soap on, it's sticky and makes more dirt cling to your hands..."

She was already on to her next activity in her mind, and after three children, I should know better than to try to reason with a toddler, but that little conversation stuck in my mind. My kid thought that soap makes her clean.
Well, it does, but it makes you clean by loosening dirt and grease particles from the surface of your skin, and binding with them, and then the bound dirt washes away under the water. If you soaped up and never rinsed, well, you'd have as many sticky doorknobs and fridge handles in your house as I do!

How many of us smother ourselves in something cleaning or bettering, but never utilize the true benefits of it?

I have seen people immerse themselves in Biblical (or other) teaching, but never put any of the learning to use. This is just as useless as un-rinsed soap!

I myself am guilty of this- as an incredibly insecure person, I have turned to sharp criticism to cloak my perceived shortcomings. This affects every relationship that I am in.

I have watched my own father listen to and read the Bible day after day, year after year, only to go and gruesomely fail his own marriage, lie to people, cheat in business, and generally be a semi-criminal. The Bible teachings, meant to grow us personally, have only coated him, not penetrated into his soul and washed away the lust, avarice, and dishonesty.

I have watched people that are somewhat prone to hedonism turn to severe teetotaling, rather than learn to moderate their lifestyle. In the presence of freedom, their minds cannot handle their own bend to possible badness, and they feel the need to smother themselves in rules and legalism. The exact thing that Christ came to free us from, and they've ducked right back into it!

I have watched people smother themselves in substance to dull the pain of existence, smother themselves in self-indulgence to reward some inner childish inclination, or smother others in criticism, mockery, flattery, whatever fulfills some perceived need.

What we need to do with the good things in our lives- the teachings and lessons and Bible readings and self-discipline- we need to allow the root of it penetrate our thick skins and get down to do what it really needs to do: change us from within. A coating of something good will eventually wear off, but in the meantime bad things can stick to it:

If you smother yourself in Bible teaching without learning, you will find yourself confused.
If you smother yourself in rules without true basis or reward, you will find yourself self-righteous.
If you smother yourself in substance to dull the pain without getting to the root of the pain, you will find yourself ill.
If you smother yourself and others around in criticism and reprimand without love and peace and kindness, you will find yourself alienated and alone.

When Kid #3 smothers her hands in soap and doesn't rinse them off, they get dirty faster, regardless of what she thinks. She will learn, in time, to rinse thoroughly.

Hopefully, she will learn faster than her mommy and her grandpa did how to really separate the dirt from the good.

Payback

I have a theory.
I know that not every woman is going to be rational when picking a tiny LEGO brick out of her foot, but bear with me here...

LEGO: Causing foot pain to millions of parents worldwide.

Our kids are just payback. Remember the times you dragged out all of your mom's steel pots and banged away for hours? Now your own kids have a heavy wooden spoon and have figured out that the stair railing has unique harmonics. It's payback time.

When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of toys, but we made good use of what we had. There was this toy in our house- I've never seen anything quite like it- that made a glorious noise. It was about ten inches long, had three wheels set into the peach plastic body, and an ugly animal sticker below the handle. The wheels- hideous primary colored melamine- would make a tinkly sound when spun gently. Spin faster, and the pitch rose. Spin all three at once, and you have your own little orchestra going on!
We would spin that thing for hours, and I distinctly remember my mom's voice, cracking from the pressure, yelling upstairs: "Enough!!"
Sorry, mom.

But now, you see, I have this wonderful mother-in-law. And she loves to gives my kids presents. For Christmas a few years back, she found these little kid keyboards. You know the kind- electric, with various beats and loops and 'demos'. When you turn this particular kind of keyboard on, it defaults to LOUD, running the scales a few times, before making a weird 'duhn.' sound.

She bought three.Children's Electric Keyboards: "No, sorry honey, we're out of batteries..."

Yup, one for each kid.

Payback.

Tinkertoys: Besides the undeniable quality of getting lost in the house,
they can also make good weapons.
I have fond memories of being smacked
in the head with a setup much like this.

For every Tinkertoy my mom stepped on, I have a LEGO wedged between my toes.

For every piece of crud I dropped downstairs through the post-and-beam assembly of our house, I find a piece of string tied to a doorknob.

For every marble out of our Chinese Checkers game that went rolling down the hall, I have... a marble out of our own Chinese Checkers game that winds up in my garbage disposal.

Marbles: Not sounding so good in the garbage disposal.

Looking through my children's toys yesterday, I realized just how many noise toys that we've received from parents. People who have lived this life of shattered concentration, staccato noise, and random toybox outbursts in the middle of the night!

I used to think it was treachery, now I see it for what it is.
They, too have put up with us, they are no stranger to finding the screwdriver and removing all of the batteries from a hiccuping speaker system. They, too, have limped and hobbled on bruised feet after stepping on tiny sharp-edged blocks and game components.

It's just payback time.

Wait until my kids grow up, I bet they have some nice noisemakers by then...

Turnips & Cinnamon

Kid #1 is, like many other young girls, enamored of the American Girls books. In one book, some WWII kid doesn't want to eat her mashed turnips (who would?). Someone- obviously desperate or evil- dresses them up with cinnamon and sugar, and the kid is transported to happy eating once again.

This uncanny combination struck my oldest child as so completely novel that she had to try it. She would no relent until we had some cinnamoned-and-sugared mashed turnips ourselves. Having only eaten turnips in things such as stews and pasties, Kid #1 really had no idea how they tasted on their own.

Being the control freak that I am, I tried explaining to her that turnips are bitter, cabbagey, and not conducive to sweet. She was undeterred. So we traipsed out to Meijer tonight and purchased some turnips. Kid #1 was enthralled at the lovely purple gradient on the side, the interesting scales where the leaves had been trimmed, and the perfect firmness of the tuber.

"Do you have cinnamon and sugar at home, mom, or do we need to buy it?" Kid asked.

"Oh, I always have cinnamon and sugar in my house." I replied flippantly, "It makes everything better."

"Which is why it will be perfect on mashed turnips!!" Kid crowed, actually clasping her hands in glee. That's what I get for my flippancy.

We straggled home after leaving a pretty sum of money at the grocery store, and Kid #1 immediately began searching for a peeler. We boiled water, chopped the blarmy rigid things without incident, and tossed them in, excitement building among the little ones. Michael and I looked over their heads at one another, shrugged, and hoped for the best.

Twenty minutes later, we were far from the best. Mashed turnips look bad and taste awful, even with butter and milk. Add something that normally belongs on yummy toast, and you have a complete assualt on your senses. I made faces, but Kid #1 was crowing,

"Isn't it wonderful, mom? It's such a different taste!"

For all of my doubts, all of my silly groundless worries, it didn't even matter. She loved them, although I noticed a mostly-uneaten bowl sitting on the counter just now. Turnips are ridiculously cheap, I had maybe two dollars invested into the entire project- less than I would have spent on a movie. We got to learn about various root plants, and she got to actually try something that she had read about.

At the age of nine, she is going to be wanting to do a lot more of these things. I have always thought that I would have an easy time letting go of them, but I find it to not be so now. The maturity is fine- but worrying about burns and cuts and kitchen messes and wasted food gets to me. Most of all, I worry that they will be disappointed with the things they want to try.

These are needless worries! Of course all three kids will recieve burns and cuts and stitches! And I think that they will survive these things.
There will be messes and disasters and the occasional wasted food or destroyed pan- but they will leave my house knowing how to fend for themselves!

And disappointment- the only disappointment they will know is not having been allowed in the kitchen, if I keep up my current pace. But I will not. I know that it is time to start slowly letting go, gradually releasing my iron grip on these children and their minds and wills and imaginations.

There came a time when my own mom had to let me in the kitchen- and she grimly withstood burned hamburgers, clumpy rice, spicy potatoes, and watery eggs. I am ready to soldier up now and withstand my share of these, all the while teaching my children the science of cooking, the value of a dollar, and the importance of a happy kitchen. I hope I'm up for the task.

And I hope I don't run out of cinnamon.


We might try it on rutabegas next.

Worn Out.

I put my foot through my bottom sheet the other day. I wasn't even doing anything really physical, just stretching! There was this soft scritchy sound and I realized my rough heels were snagging the pillowtop.
Peeling the covers away (I needed to get up anyhow~!) I saw that there were several completely threadbare spots on my sheet. It wasn't even that long ago that I purchased them- 400 thread count queen size sheets from T.J. Maxx. You see, I was pushing Kid #2 in her baby seat... oh. Kid #2 will be seven in a few days. I guess that was a while ago...

Just now, I dried my face off on a towel and my finger went through it. Most of the towel is still pretty fluffy, but there are holes here and there, and ominous dangly strings. I sighed, remembering when I bought those. That awful shade of lavender was my favorite back then- eight years ago. I'm almost glad they're wearing out!

We drove our car off the lot- gleaming, purring, and brand spanking new. After two round trips to New York, several more to Columbus, and infinite running-around, it is starting to show its age. Things creak and groan when we drive, and there is an infernal rattle somewhere near, but not in, the glove compartment.

Things that I own are wearing out.

It happens.

When I look in the mirror, even at the tender young age of thirty, I see lines, pockmarks, puffy eyes. For the first time in my life, the skin under my chin does not spring back when I push on it. It just kind of- droops. My teeth are a mess, mostly from grinding them at night for the past twenty-five years. After three lengthy and weighty pregnancies and one car mishap, my right hip is in constant pain and my carpal tunnel is acting up again.

I am wearing out.

It happens.

Years of wear made my sheets threadbare- washing, bleaching, tossing & turning, kids jumping, wrapping around paintings while moving too often... they've seen snuggles and throw-up and passion and arguments and two children being nursed in the few moments of sleep available to a young mother. They've served their ignoble purpose, and soon they will be commissioned to my ragbag, to be replaced by something fresher and newer and probably scratchier and hopefully better fitting on my mattress (remember: T.J. Maxx)

Years of wear is making me just a little threadbare. I've also seen snuggles and throw-up and passion and arguments and nursed three children in between the few moments of sleep available to a young mother. This body has carried me across the United States a good few times, through more Renaissance Festivals than I care to remember, up a white-decked aisle, around in thousands of circles on the skating rink floor, across the Atlantic and back again, into three different maternity wards, and past countless other bodies on the face of this earth. Like my sheets, it is a bit bigger than I actually wanted, but nicer than I really thought at first. Unlike my sheets, however, it isn't going to wind up in the ragbag anytime soon. I need it for another thirty or forty years.

I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago. It was for a dear friend of many years- Carl Vincent. He was the man that you see always in the front of church: hugging, singing, loving, comforting, teaching, encouraging. He and his dear wife operated a girl's home for nearly two decades where they served as surrogate parents to many troubled young women. When they came to the Cadillac area in the nineties, my sisters and I were confused and vulnerable young girls just beginning to enter adolescence. Carl took hold of us and adopted us as his own grandchildren. We'd only had one grandpa growing up, and his broken English and alcoholism made it hard to get to know him, much less love him.
Carl became the grandpa that we had only known in stories. He and his wife lavished affection and encouragement on us, and patiently bore our teenage phases without judgment of any kind. Plenty of other kids in and around our area were their surrogate grandchildren as well, but there was always enough love to go around.
One of my sharpest memories is of him and Bertha (his wife) telling people, over and over, "We pray for you every day." I heard that so often for myself, and many others, that it almost lost meaning. Surely no one can pray for that many people, every day! People just say that, a platitude almost: "I'm praying for you."
But then one day I was invited to their humble apartment for lunch. Bertha kindly fixed a meal according to the odd dietary requirements I had at the time, and we sat and munched and chatted amiably. They took me on a tour of the apartment- tiny as it was- and I saw something that I will never forget,
"Here's our prayer list, Sarah," Carl said, pointing at a mess on the wall near their bed, "we kneel here every morning and pray over this list." I stepped closer and saw pieces of paper taped to the wall, piece on top of piece on top of piece, all taped down with that shiny clear cellophane that yellows over time. I could see the age of some of the papers from the yellow in the tape, while others were obviously newer.
Name after name was written in crabbed handwriting on those papers. I recognized many names of people that we went to church with, but many, many more were unknown to me.
"There you are!" Bertha pointed to one of the papers, her face creasing with a smile. "So now you know it's real, we really do pray for you every day!"

Carl loved unconditionally. When he sang in church, his voice cracking with genuine emotion, everyone sat up a little straighter and listened a little harder. He would hug you without abandon, in a church of otherwise rather stiff menfolk. He could speak of his love for Jesus and allow people to see the tears in his eyes, and he could hear of some stupid thing you'd done and not like you any less for it.
When he finally died this month, at age 79, he was worn out. He was eagerly awaiting his meeting with Jesus, and not afraid of death at all. Had he been given a few more years on this earth, I am positive that he would have found extra love for more stray children.
Carl gave everything that he had. While people, including me, were snug and warm in their beds every morning, he and Bertha would crawl out- dark still permeating the landscape- and bend their aging knees and pray over dozens of names. When the list grew longer, well, they just got up earlier!

That's the kind of worn out that I want to be.

Threadbare from love.

To Everything There is a Season... Under Heaven

It's nighttime and I'm walking around the house, making sure all of the windows are open enough to let the cool air in. Today the interior of our house hit nearly 80˚, and we were reduced to the least amount of clothing we could get away with.

Not three weeks ago, our furnace was running full blast and Michael was scraping snow off the car. Now, with our winter gas bill not even in the mailbox yet, we're pulling out the fans and shorts and ice water.

Welcome to Michigan, land of extremes.

I smile and shake my head, but it reminds me of life in general. We often live a life of extremes, don't we? I am reminded of December 2006, when we were so bloody poor that we built a Christmas tree out of trash. We had nothing but time, anyhow.

Fast forward two months, Michael working so many hours that his skin grew sallow from lack of rest and sunshine. But we had money, oh boy, did we have money! We bought new laptops and clothes and perfume and stocked our pantry and gave huge checks to charity. Life was good, we were on top, and it was all going to be this way for a while!

Or, not...

Fast forward another several months and the contracts have dried up, the perfume is gone, the laptops are still useful, if scratched a bit, and the pantry stock has been eaten. We find ourselves digging in the coin jar for a pizza and calling our bank to delay a car payment one more week.

Life brings you extremes- success, love, finances, family, health. Our family is kind of middling it out right now, neither too poor nor too rich, nothing in abundance, but nothing truly lacking, either. It is a slight relief from the roller coaster of the past few years, but I almost miss the heady excitement of the dips and turns. Now I have time, finally, to focus on my children and my home and career... not too much time, mind you, but I am trying to portion it properly.

How do we handle the extremes that life sends our way? Do we scream and moan at the frigid winter, complaining as we pay our gas bill, oblivious to people in other lands shivering without the benefit of a gas heater and insulation?
When the harsh summer sun bakes the interior of our car, do we curse it or thank our Benefactor for the gift of having a vehicle? How about the gift of sunshine! After months of wretched cloudy skies, the fit of sun is welcome, but so quickly forgotten as we rush to acquire air conditioners and window fans.

When we have lived our life to the fullest, enjoying health and vitality, do we stop to think of what it might be like to be ill? Seldom. But when illness strikes, it can be crippling just from the sheer depression of it all.

Boredom used to be Enemy #1 when I was a child, even in recent years. Now, with the website & store, this blog, three growing kids, our expanding commitment to live more 'green', church, my writing, and every other tiny thing that has to be done every day under the sun... I begin to miss boredom, miss a day with absolutely nothing to do but poke sticks at things in the yard.

I have had days where my floor is covered in toys, crayons, tiny clothes, spit-up, dirty socks, and wet towels. I begin to wonder why I ever brought any child into this world, let alone three! But then I see friends who are not even able to conceive a child and I am filled with remorse for my thoughts, and my frustration with the mess is replaced by a warmth of love for the grubby pestilences. One extreme to another...

I have days when the march of money leaving my wallet- just for the kids- is endless. Birthday parties, decent schooling, books, clothes, shoes, more shoes, coats, boots, medical care, dental care, savings (who am I kidding?), a vehicle big enough to haul it all... I begin to wonder how sweet it might be when they are grown and on their own- no more noise in the house, no more early mornings, no more scrambled egg in my carpet and juice on my books... then I tuck in three fighting noisemakers and find this in my sink, perfect in its innocent simplicity, and all is well again. This is just my season of busy-ness, and surprise roses planted in my bathroom sink.

Just because.

Motherhood is one of the longer extremes that I need to weather, and one I certainly was not cut out for, but I think I can handle it for a few more years.

Let me know about your extremes, and how you've dealt with them...

Ecclesiastes 3:1: There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.
Ecc 3:2	A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Ecc 3:3	A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to rebuild.
Ecc 3:4	A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
Ecc 3:5	A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
Ecc 3:6	A time to search and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away.
Ecc 3:7	A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak up.
Ecc 3:8	A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
Ecc 3:9	What do people really get for all their hard work?
Ecc 3:10	I have thought about this in connection with the various kinds of work God has given people to do.
Ecc 3:11	God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.
Ecc 3:12	So I concluded that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they can.

And a Child Shall Lead Them...

I bring my three-year old to work with me most days. This is, of course, slightly stressful for both myself and her, but somehow it works.
She has two little play stations in the jewelry store, with bins of LEGO blocks, books, toys, and crayons. I spend my lunch breaks reading books to her, and the other employees hang out with her as they can. Michael works with me, so the burden of childcare is seldom on my shoulders alone.
One or two days a week, Michael works from home, and Kid #3 stays with him, with the full run of the house until her sisters come tromping in from school. Soon I will be working from home one day a week as well, so Kid #3 will spend a maximum of 3-4 days in the store.
She's only three, so I don't really know if she is old enough to resent me for this. She seems happy enough, if a bit cooped up sometimes. She is a typical child for her age: energetic and imaginative, pushing her disciplinary boundaries and asserting her independence. She loves me to death, and I am giving her the best childhood that I can at this point in time.

So it came as a crushing blow to me the other day when someone said to me,
"I feel sorry for her."
This came from someone who has it pretty much together in the 'mom' department, and I look up to her. I spent the next couple of hours obsessing about my parenting choices, dealing with the inevitable guilt that comes when one feels like an incompetent mother.

But am I really an incompetent mother? Who writes the rules here? My children are loved, well-fed, clothed (more or less), and are getting a good education. They have periods of boredom: after school some days, odd times when they are stuck in the car or at work. But it isn't terminal. Boredom stretches the imagination and teaches patience and creativity. They invent games, dream up entire fantasy lands in their heads, and learn to occupy themselves.

Throughout history, children have played in fields while their parents plowed and gleaned, they have sat quietly through four-hour Puritan church sermons, and they have huddled in the dank underbellies of ships for months traveling to a refuge on foreign shores. Did this damage them beyond repair? No. In fact, some of our brightest contributors to the progress of the world have come from situations such as these.
Are we to bow to the slightest whim and imagined need of our offspring in order that they might grow up sheltered and pampered? Does the idyllic childhood produce perfectly adjusted adults?
I think not.

I think that children are a product of not only their environment, but of the attitude around them as well.
For example, we have moved an awful lot, as I've mentioned in previous postings. I hate doing this to our children, as well as myself, but it has always been to a better life, a brighter future for us all. On the times when my guilt really shows, the kids whine and get antsy. But on the times when Michael and I are excited, hopeful, positive- that attitude rubs off on the kids and they, in turn, are excited and positive. They have had more adventure than most kids their age, and it has grown their boundaries and broadened their horizons.

Kid #3 may not be in a structured pre-school with fingerpaints and primary colors all around her, but she learns the names of gemstones and helps me pull models out of silicon molds every Monday. She may not be with her peers, or safely tucked away in my living room, but she gets to talk to all sorts of people during the day. So, how is this going to harm her in the future? Now? As long as she gets an opportunity to run around now and then, as long as she is surrounded by love and intelligence and the ability to learn and think and grow- I think she will do just fine.

If our generation of parents continues to be enslaved to someone else's idea of how we are to raise our children, if we continue this trend of child-worship beyond practicality, we are headed for trouble.

The child who has had everything sacrificed for them their entire life will not know the value of his own sacrifice.

The child who has lived in a perfectly constructed and controlled environment will know only that which has surrounded her and will grow up stunted.

The child who rules the household will always rule. We are given our children to raise for eighteen years, and then they are on their own. Not that we cannot ever be a parent to them again, but they have to find their own way from there. Our culture is even now reaping the horrific consequences of a generation raised too self-centric: parents my own age are abandoning their children at an alarming rate while pursuing their own lives.

Tomorrow I'll get up and feed three kids, pack lunches, and drop the older two off at school. I'll drag Kid #3 into the store with me, try to keep her happy and occupied and fed and clean and out of trouble, carve some jewelry, wait on some customers, and somehow make it through the day.

Then I'll do it all over again on Thursday. And it's all going to be ok.

What's the Moratorium on Lost Mates?

There is an epidemic sweeping our nation- our world.

It is untouched by language barriers, economic status, and political beliefs. The facts should unite us as a people: every day in this world 27,375,618 mates are lost.

That's 1,140,650.75 per hour.

19,011 per minute.

317 per second.

I'm not talking about divorce.

These are the hard, cold facts of sock, shoe, and mitten separation. Staggering, isn't it? Especially staggering is the fact that I completely made that first statistic up, and then bothered to do accurate math from it for the rest of the numbers.

The elusive Sock Fairy, genus Canus Elusia

Here's something that is not an exaggeration: In my short 30 years of life, I have moved 36 times. Thirty-six. Northern Michigan, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey, back and forth between a few of those... now back once more to Northern Michigan. I have become a pro at throwing everything I own into random boxes, mislabeling the contents, and never opening the box again.

I remember being a teenager, moving yearly between Arizona and Michigan. Each time we would unpack I would find odd mates: knee-high stockings, white crew socks, even the odd shoulder pad or two (this was the early nineties, remember, don't judge me). Each time I would save these little mementos of disorganization, hoping against hope that the mate would show up eventually.
They rarely did.
Eventually, losing faith in the system of all things returning to their point of origin, I would get discouraged and throw that navy blue trouser sock away. On a Wednesday. On Friday the trash would come, and on Saturday, inevitably, I would find the other navy blue trouser sock.

Now, fast forward to today. Three children, ranging in age from three to nine years of age- all girls. One husband, with various hobby interests, including the rare game of paintball. Myself, retail career back on track, with a collection of various stockings: thigh high hose with those silicon grippers, thigh highs without the silicon, knee highs for summer- thin and patterned, knee highs for winter- thick and textured... sport socks... plain socks... funky five foot long purple and white striped socks from my days working the Renaissance Faires... socks just to wear outside when it's extra cold...
Oh, and not just socks! We have shoes: rainboots, snowboots, plain boots... sandals, brown shoes, church shoes, tennis shoes... work shoes, shoes that only go with that one outfit that doesn't fit anymore, shoes with sentimental attachments (don't ask)...
Don't forget hands! Mittens, driving gloves, fuzzy warm gloves, gloves that velcro around a kid's wrist, mittens that button down to reveal fingertips, stretchy gloves with sparkly butterflies...

All between size 1 in baby to 9 in men's. Sure, I don't have a kid that fits into a 1 anymore, but I can't just get rid of the little bunny sock! It's cute! And I can't give it to my sister or my friend in Grand Rapids for her daughter, not just a single sock! So, if I hang onto it for just another year or two, unpack maybe one more box of junk, maybe the mate will turn up! Right?

Oh, did I mention the colors? When we dump out our box of mis-mates (this happens approximately once a month, when desperation sets in) it looks like an Affirmative Action handbook: black, white, tan, brown, navy, yellow, pink, blue, striped, dotted, argyle, short, long, thick, thin, holey, sparkly, splotchy where I spilled the bleach, flowered, stripes mixed with dots, and holiday themed.

We have those little lace-topped girls' socks that would do so well with an Easter dress, if we lived in a place where Easter didn't come with subzero temperatures and freezing rain.

We have socks with dingle balls on the back, so the ball kind of hangs out over the top of a canvas shoe. Note from experience: don't let your kid wear these socks with boots, no matter how much they beg. Especially if you're going to be walking a lot.

We have thick winter socks that my husband wears playing paintball. He has played paintball exactly twice in ten years, yet he has 5 pairs of socks for it. That's not a smart ratio, is it? I should just make him play more often.

We even have socks with jingle bells on them. Seriously. These were, of course, gifts from grandparents that don't have to hear the jingle bells walking past their bedroom door at 6 in the morning. On a weekend. In July.

Eight years ago, I bought a pair of denim high-heeled strappy sandals. They are completely and utterly sexy, and now that I have this cool tattoo on my ankle, go perfectly with it. Well, the left one does. The right one disappeared six years ago. But I tote the wretched thing around with me, from house to house to house, hoping against all hope that the right one will show up and I can wear the perfect ensemble once again. I'm not a packrat, but I cannot seem to let go of these lost mates! The box continues to grow- size 3 purples nesting next to size 6 purples of a similar, but not quite exact, shade. My kids don't care whether their socks match, and will grab any random pairing of length and color. But I cannot let them go out like this, fearing that people will judge me by the footwear on my children. There's a little bit of OCD in that, too- for I cannot wear two differing weights, tightnesses, or lengths on my own feet or I go nuts.

Or maybe I already am nuts. My sock collection is older than my marriage. Somebody help me.



PS: there are actually websites for lost socks. Who would have thought?

Mom Days

There’s a cloth doll lying facedown on the laundry room floor, looking vaguely like a crime scene. I wonder briefly if I should draw a chalk line around the poor thing, but then think better of it. The kids wouldn’t get the joke, and Mike only notices things in his immediate range of vision.
The canning funnel isn’t in the laundry room, either. I’ve been searching for it for nearly two weeks now. You see, I haven’t been able to afford a decent canister or Tupperware set, so I save every spaghetti sauce jar, washing them out for reuse. They make excellent storage, but present a slight challenge to fill. The blue wide-mouth funnel would be perfect, but I haven’t seen it since canning season. I’ve been using a rolled up paper plate for dry goods, but that won’t work quite as well for wet, gloopy chili.

“Mommy!” my 3 year-old calls from the dining room, “I have a cut on my fingew fwom the bad, bad icicle thing outside and then I fell and it huwted weally, weally bad and can you kiss it please?” Her words come out in a tumble, her face full of the innocent consternation the young possess.

Tripping over the menagerie of toys, books and clothes, I locate a bandage and duly wrap and kiss the tiny affliction.

Now, what was I doing? Oh, yes, the chili. Its only ten minutes until I have to get to work, there’s no time to keep looking. The chili will have to find its way into the recycled jar and I’ll just rinse off the edge. Running towards the crockpot, I spy a dirty dish I somehow missed last night, holding scant remnants of yesterday’s curry. I run water in it and fling open the dishwasher, hoping there is room for just one more bowl.

Oh yes, the chili. I grab a Barilla jar from my top shelf, cursing once again the kitchen designers who must have been eight feet tall. One of these days, I remind myself, I’ll have a kitchen made for the five foot four that I really am.

The chili has been made with free-range beef, and resents the confines of the glass jar. What smelled so good cooking all night now churns my stomach as it spills over the edge of the jar and onto my hand.

“Mommy!” a tiny bandaged finger is waving at about the three-foot mark “It still huwts!”
“Oh, honey, I must not have kissed it enough. Come here.” Kid #3 advances for the proffered lips, then recoils from the chili on my fingers,
“But, you’we diwty, mommy!”

So I am. Conveniently enough, the kitchen faucet is still running, filling and overflowing yesterday’s overlooked bowl. The moving water has filled and rinsed the curry away, except in the one corner angled away from the water, where lentils still cling stubbornly to the earthenware. Sighing in frustration, I flip the bowl around, rinse my fingers, and remember to turn the water off. Kid #3 gets her finger kissed again, (“It’s all bettew now!”) and then requests something completely unintelligible.

Mike returns from dropping the kids off at school, but there’s a bit of a problem- he still has the kids. Our school called a snow day, again, and forgot to call us. This is why normal people use TVs and radios, I suppose. Now we have two choices: drag all three kids to work with us, or let Mike work at home, again, with the tinkle of children’s voices all around him. I can’t stay home today because I have customers coming in to see me, and my wonderful husband knows that without asking. He looks at the kids, who are gleefully stripping off all vestiges of the indignities of a school day.
“Guess I’m staying here.” He sighs, unwrapping his scarf.

I guess so. I finish stuffing chili through the mouth of the jar and dig through the drawer for a matching Barilla lid. There is not one. I have four empty Barilla jars and not one single lid, whereas I own three Classico lids and not one jar. I slam the drawer shut, setting off a chain of protest from Kid #3, and wrap the jar opening in Press’n’Seal.
The dishwasher is ready to run, the dishwasher gel makes fart noises as it escapes the plastic container. My kids are just old enough to be completely devastated by this and fall over themselves in laughter,
“It farted!”
I grimace, but keep my mouth shut, remembering the days when I would torment my own mother with similar crudity. The dishwasher must be propped open with the spare table leg; otherwise it fills up and stops.
“Stupid rental house,” I mutter to myself, “one of these days, I’m going to own my own house, and then-“

And then what? Would I have had the extra money to replace or repair the dishwasher? Probably not. I un-curse the wretched machine and house, and realize that I have one minute now to get to work, and I’m not even all the way dressed- work slacks but a dirty tee-shirt. I trip over someone’s backpack on my mad dash to the stairs, then keep vigilantly to the right on my way up, because we have that silly habit of putting ‘things to go upstairs’ on the left, and they never quite make it up.
Upstairs, there is a mountain of clean laundry. I have been meaning to get it ALL put away for about five months now, but there is always something better to do- work, cook, play with the kids, run errands, write stories. Every time I get almost to the bottom, another 3 loads seem to get washed simultaneously, and the pile never ends! Somewhere on the bottom is probably that one black knee sock I’ve been missing since autumn.

Frustration with the perpetual mess boils over inside of me, and I storm downstairs, haranguing the kids with promises of money if laundry is folded, threats of death if it isn’t. With choices like these, I’m sure their childhood will turn out just fine, no?

Dressed, packed, car started finally, I kiss everyone goodbye and dash out the door, almost ready to wait on a never ending succession of people who need their watch batteries changed, their rings sized, or their junk jewelry ‘appraised’. Maybe, if we have a lucky day, we’ll sell something!
I glance back at my children, waving at me through the living room window. They are standing in the scattered detritus of a life lived fully. I didn’t want to raise my children in a messy house or a mad-dash life like this. I didn’t want to have this daily struggle over money, the never-ending march of errands and chores and juggling.

But they’re happy kids, and we all chose this lifestyle. In the end, I can either say I’ve had a clean house for fifty years, or I can have a body of literary work, a gallery of jewelry designs, and three children and a husband who are happy and well-fed.

I think I’ll pick the latter. It’s a good life.