Today while I was sweeping up Max’s partially wet eggs from the kitchen floor, I decided there is a topic of which there is not enough information and research and study concerning…  THIS.  The day in and day out of being a houseworking, care taking, mother of many.  While maintaining the kitchen I thought about the top twenty things I would rather be doing than grabbing globs of jelly with a paper towel from the table top…one being to simply go clean a different room of the house.  I’ve been trying to go thru the kids clothes to weed out the stuff that’s too small or too beat or just not a favorite.  No-one is answering the question, “Hey, hows it going?”, with “Oh fine, I recently ate a soggy cheerio off of my toddler because I was too far from a garbage can and I didn’t want to put it down somewhere I had just cleaned…”  Some days I really try to boycott this monotonous bull crap of just maintaining a life that is lived hard and heavy by just NOT doing any of it…no load of laundry, no dishwasher run, no effort to “keep up”.  I’ll just leave! Run errands! Go to a park! Pack a lunch!  And you know what happens?!  It gets worse.  And its so boring.  Catching back up on all of it.  BORED TO DEATH.  Clearly, I would rather write about the monotony of the housework than actually perform it.  I imagine that someday we will make enough money to hire someone to do all the stuff I hate doing.(HAHAHAHAHA!!!)  So here feels like a nice place to draw others into the stimulating, captivation and secret happenings of the everyday housewife.  Because lets be real, no-one wants to read your Facebook post about how you’ve spent half the day trying to find your third washbasket so you can get on with your day…did you fill it with junk and put it in the basement to hide it from humans outside the family?  Is it buried in the boys room?  Did I leave it at the storage unit the last time I used it to transport my “small business” inventory?  We all have that one friend who will listen to us vent about cracking our head on the underside of our six year olds bed while trying to fish his teddy bear collection from underneath the bed…in an effort to someday find the floor of this room and therefore vacuum it this quarter.  That friend is just being nice, because she knows she’s about to do the exact same thing to you, except her story is going to involve feces and a sudden and intersecting realization that the wipes AND the paper towels stores have recently been fully depleted.  Let’s not forget about when the kids all rush in the door after school, daily discarding shoes and backpacks at various locations ALL OVER THE WHOLE HOUSE!!!

Tonight while Chris and I were in the kitchen, he was throwing some spaghetti together while I was finally rounding a corner on getting all the laundry done and everyone’s clothes weeded through…I mentioned that I don’t know what to do with the boys underwear when I do the laundry.  (Three underwear utilizers, different ages…similar sizes…same colors) “I’m just going to make a pile of underwear and tell them all they have to find their underwear…”

Chris replied, “I know! Why don’t you put them in a brown paper bag and then put it on a shelf in the pantry closet.  That sounds like a good place…”

I did this recently to their entire collection of socks.  I was in the middle of THE GREAT SOCK MATCHING!…when something more urgent presented itself and most likely included the use of one of the only work surfaces in the entire home and therefore I took ALL the socks, the ones that had been matched and the ones left solo and threw them all into a brown grocery bag and promptly put it out of my sight.  How else was I going to get on with my life?  And there it stayed for more than a week.  Occasionally someone would whine about not being able to find any socks and I’d chime in “Brown paper bag on the shelf in the pantry closet…”  One day Chris overheard me give this answer to a troubled, sockless youth and he was like “What?”

If that right there doesn’t sum up what my life feels like at most times, I don’t know what does.  Once you keep your socks in a brown bag in the pantry long enough, it starts to feel normal.  The bag did start ripping and the first time that I had to bend over and pick an array of socks up from the pantry closet floor I got on with the long neglected chore of sorting and matching and discarding household socks.  And thankfully, the kids are always on their toes.  I can’t even say anyone would question a bag of their underwear in the pantry.  They are at least becoming slightly aware that I am the only human filter they have right now and the moment they start complaining about my filing system is the moment I announce that I don’t see a need to touch their socks at all any more.  They’ve become quite tolerant of the total upheaval that can be the rearranging of their rooms or their furniture or their roommates all with the intention to fit better and more harmoniously.  One big giant science experiment! Oh, and the boredom thing…moving everything around seems to satisfy my constant need to be experiencing something different and new without ever leaving my house.

This afternoon while I sat on my bedroom floor…finishing the sorting of the socks, Iris came in from school…the rest of her brothers decided to accompany Chris to the storage unit for some work related something or other.  She sat on the floor next to me and chatted and chatted.  She told me that she doesn’t like to have a favorite teacher because she thinks it would be mean to the other teachers.  “There are these girls who are like ‘Oh, Mrs.Reigert is our favorite teacher!” and I’m just like ‘poor Mrs.Hoffman…maybe her feelings are hurt…’  I told her that was nice of her. If I only get one girl out of all this labor of love, I’m so glad its her.

At supper tonight Flynn made it very clear how he feels about the “Lunchable” option at the cafeteria.  “I wish that the guy that invented lunchables would have invented them when he was a kid, cause then he would have eaten them and he would have known that it is not enough food for a kid.”  This is where I will confess that at Flynn’s last “Well Child” check up I asked his doctor how I would know if the boy had a tape worm…?  He looked at me a little bewildered and assured me that 10 year old boys do start to develop quite an appetite. Little does Flynn know, if this were a different era, we’d be sending him off to live with a wealthy relative who could more adequately afford his hollowed leg eating habits.

(Next day) At one point last night, it was up for debate…whether Micah had already consumed a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing.  There was a tupperware of them on the counter for the last two days (when I actually DO bake something, we savor it…one a day…cause we won’t see this again for a while.)  Chris and I are each on the sofa in the living room, he’s completing his online spanish course and I’m reading a book about raising a confident child…Micah, our MOST confident child is asserting to Chris “I SWEAR I DIDNT HAVE ONE!”  It was one of these evenings when we gave the kids a choice, “You can have a cupcake, a juice pop or a pack of gummies…”  Its hard to keep track of who has decided on what dessert and they seem to all want to claim their dessert at different times.  Some kids want to go ride their bike while other kids want to be in the tree house while still other kids are swinging from that same tree, all choosing to enjoy their dessert at a convenient time.  Chris looks at me for some assurance…”Did he have one?”

“I honestly don’t know…”

Micah has now started to approach me from across the room…”You can smell my breath mom!” he begs.  I close my mouth tightly and begin shaking my head adamantly with my hand in the air (in an effort to halt him in his steps)  When he reaches me with his mouth open, ready to blow his non-chocolatey breath in my face he clearly hasn’t received my message and instead of stopping in his tracks, proceeds to slap my outstretched hand a confused high five.  I was taken by surprise and Chris and I both started laughing.  Micah has such an innocent nature underneath his layers and layers of mischievous, trouble making characteristics.  He is our most misunderstood child…even by his own parents.

While all the kids were at school the next day I was really trying to tackle the changing of the seasonal clothing while purging and filling the back of the van with donations.  Once when I went to the back of the van I got the brilliant idea to bring Max’s umbrella stroller into the house for him to climb in/push around/fill with stuff.  I’ve always found my toddlers to love an empty stroller.  I parked it inside the front door and went back to my chores.  He immediately took the bait.  However, it was not long until I began to hear an old familiar sound…the sound of A SUPREMELY PISSED OFF TODDLER!  Not pain, not hunger, not whining…he was just pissed.  After his third bout of severe anger at the stroller I went to try to help remedy the situation.  He had a belt buckle end in each hand and I watched him fumble the two plastic pieces together while twisting and writhing in anger.  I tried to buckle the stroller belt to appease him.  WRONG!  That just pissed him off more.  “WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?! ROLLIN UP HERE AND JUST USING HER BIG STUPID HANDS TO DO THE THING I CANT DO!” I tried to take the stroller away, to fully release him from this hell, but he insisted on coming after it and holding onto it.  I gave it my best shot.  I withdrew to the kitchen to attend to last nights’ pots and pans and it was from there that I offered these few phrases of comfort to my struggling offspring…”Oh wow, I can tell that you’re so mad.” and “Uh oh.  Sounds like someone isn’t having any fun.”  and “I’m sorry that you’re feeling so frustrated.”  I was eventually able to distract him with a snack and I got that stroller out of our day as quickly as my genius brain thought to bring it into our day.

That afternoon when I approached the school doors to pick up Owen, he came walking toward me with the biggest grin on his face…”MOM, you embarrassed me at lunch today!”

“ME? How?!”

“You put that note in my lunch that said you loved me!  My friend Atrayu (coolest name ever) had one too!”

I felt privileged to be lumped into a group with Atrayu’s mom…mom’s of first graders who embarrass them with their lunch note professions of love!

The kids usually pack their own lunches simply because the lunch packing population varies on a day to day basis and also, there are five of them…and that alone can be quite overwhelming (no, I’m not just figuring this out now…)  Some of my kids are crazy about chicken fingers and some of my kids detest them.  So 15 minutes before morning departure when someone has caught wind of the school lunch option and announced that they wish to pack lunch while I am reading a board book to a morning fusser or brushing someones hair or tying a shoe or GOD FORBID just sitting somewhere drinking a cup of coffee, I point them in the direction of the kitchen…alerting them to how little time they have to accomplish the task ahead of them and assure them that it would be in their best interest to clean up after themselves.  Owen however, had asked the evening before if I would please help him pack his lunch the next morning.  With adequate notice and the polite interaction (in other words, all my unreasonable demands were being met!) I said “SURE!”  Plus, he is my first grader and while I can be a rather hardened old broad, he does fall in the scope of my children who still require more of me than some of the others.  He hand selected his items and helped every step of the way, but at the last moment, when he wasn’t looking I was able to sneak an “I LOVE YOU OWEN! I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY! note in without his knowledge.  Every kid had gotten at least one of these from me…I’ve met my quota.

Twoish weeks later Owen and I are back at it, co-packing a lunch.  He stares off for a moment while sitting at the kitchen table, then looks at me, “Mom, did you and Atrayu’s mom text each other or something?”  Laughing at the idea that he is still so baffled at the presence of a note in both he and his friends lunches from their mothers on the same day, I explained that we did not text each other…that we are both just moms who love our little boys.

Sitting around a campfire with some friends while the ladies discuss home life affairs and probably complain about most of it, Chris interjects…”Autumn is so good at doing my laundry…when I come home from work and there is a pile of perfectly folded laundry sitting of my dresser…It feels like I have a maid service or something…I feel like a king.”  I looked at him and I just wanted to cry.  Chris is not one to fill the air with fluffy words.  If he says it, he means it and while he thanks me regularly for my hard work for our family, its usually within our four walls.  He isn’t the guy who gets on social media and offers a tribute to his lovely, beautiful, hardworking wife.  Frankly, his kingly laundry announcement around a campfire with some close friends means more than the big show any day.  Because thats our life.  Its a lot of in between.  Its a lot of cleaning up after meals.  Its a lot of mundane duty toward one another.

Not enough research, not enough charts, no funding to study the specimen that is the person keeping the home fires burning for the ones who have to go out and get stuff done in this big, wide world.  I think if the research were undertaken by some brave institution they would find, after a lifetime of serving and investing in her loved ones…she is HAPPY.  She is completely insane…mind LOST in the shuffle, but she is undeniably happy.

I was in the bathroom the other morning when I heard a domestic disturbance begin one door down, in the boys room. Recognizing that the last task I asked them to do was pick up their clothing, I felt the need to monitor slightly, even just to ensure the completion of the chore. As I enter the room Micah (8) pops his head up from his top bunk. Owen (5) is standing on the ladder to the bunk and the argument is in full swing. I ask what’s going on.

“Mom! Micah has more land than me!”

“What are you talking about?” I’m patient and puzzled.

“No I don’t, Owen!” Micah has a gnarly scowl in place

“Owen, your bed is the exact same size as Micah’s bed…they are the same bed…just one is on the top and one is on the bottom…” I’m curious as to how this became an issue to begin with, but then I remember what they are supposed to be doing and I realize that they would rather be doing anything than actually picking up their dirty laundry…so we’ll call this one of their completely irrational, out of thin air arguments.

As I reason with Owen, while he stands above me…looking down from the bunk bed ladder, he hangs his head and exclaims,

“But Mom! He does have more land than me!”

“What do you mean? ‘He has more land’?”

His hand are holding onto the ladder…”He gets to have this ladder…”

Micah will not sit idly by while Owen poses an illogical argument…”I need the ladder to get up here!”

This could have gone on for hours if I didn’t direct it otherwise. I made sure that Owen knew that he may hang out on the ladder and I made sure Micah knew that the ladder was not part of his “land”.

Sometimes I’m positive that I am a smart, talented, and even efficient human woman…it just so happens that most of my time is taken up settling disputes of rightful land ownership. Or chicken nugget ownership. Or silky gym short ownership. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like very important work. I actually have to write a blog post to remind myself that the work that I’m doing here is sacred work. It’s work that most women would choose not to do. Some days I just want a career. I want a clock to punch and a piece of paper at the end of a long week with a dollar amount printed on it that accurately communicates to me my worth within a company or business. For now, I just get to vent to my husband and listen to him tell me that he knows it’s hard to be a low level referee for the town lunatics. He will tell me that even if no one else appreciates what I do here, he does. And that needs to be enough. And it is. I am enough.

And someday, this blog will be here… waiting for our five kids…and they will take a sober glance into the secret, special thought life of their mother and they will know…that they had surely driven her to madness!

Thursday, April 28th…I pick the kids up from school and Iris has tears in her eyes.  She claims she has had a stomach ache ALL DAY.  She mentions that at one point she was on the floor, resting her head on the seat of her chair.  I asked why the school nurse didn’t contact me?  She insists that the nurse touched her head with “a thing” and told her there was nothing wrong with her.  This was a bit disheartening simply because Iris loves school and she isn’t a huge faker…and I wondered how the nurse and teacher aren’t also aware of this.  We went home and she missed her piano practice and passed out on the couch.

Friday, April 29th…4AM…I am awakened by Max, screaming through the upstairs.  I go to him, bring him back to bed and nurse him.  Within 10 minutes he is back in his crib.  I lay down on my pillow, that I thought was my friend.  My eyes are closed when I hear Owen ask if he can climb in bed with us.  Chris is extremely talented at NOT LETTING OWEN IN OUR BED.  I, however…am not.  I imagine, like our 3 older children…soon enough he will not be interested in crawling in our warm blankets and finding comfort from the long night.  He is permitted.

Friday, April 29th…6AM…Iris has entered the room and walked to Chris’ side of the bed to audibly cry that her belly hurts.  I am uncomfortably positioned as close to the edge of the bed as I can be while still remaining in the bed.  I attempt to sit up to assist the crying child, but it feels as though my neck just might be broken.  Pain.  Pain in the neck…literally.  I cannot sit up.  This is a familiar pain that has plagued me a few other times in my life.  Most likely my pillow was not supporting my neck properly for those last two hours of slumber…and now I’m experiencing a pinched nerve or something.  With my head still laying on the pillow like a pile of bricks, I turn the rest of my body and pseudo spin off the bed and I am then able to drag my head, while it is fully bent forward (the only position that doesn’t hurt) and I rise to my feet.  I alert Chris that we have a code red and that he needs to get up…immediately.  Iris climbs into our bed and now two people who are not the owners of our bed…are sleeping in our bed.  I barely muscle to my phone to call my chiropractor…out of the office till Monday.  The last time this happened, it was so tense the first day of the injury that he couldn’t help anyway.  A day of belly aches and ADVIL and icy hot were in my future.  Iris slept most of the morning and watched an old 80″s movie (per Chris’ suggestion) the rest of the day.

Saturday, April 30th…Chris is home in the morning but will be leaving shortly to go bid 3 drywall jobs.  He is scouting out the bacon and I must be understanding, for I too like bacon and he happens to be better at finding it than me.  I am not, however, excited to be navigating the unnavigatable ship that holds 5 of the most unruly shipmates one could ask for.  Our friends who own a piece of recreational camp land are hosting a “work day at camp”.  Even with my immobile neck, I am aware that if I simply make it to camp…my kids will find tasks and adventures to keep them busy.  While cleaning up flood debris and “camping out” under a bridge, Iris steps on a rusty nail.

Perfect.  No we don’t have Tetanus shots, because I’m one of those idiots who imagines their babies eyes rolling back in their head while their body seizes and frankly the cocktail of Diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus all swirled together makes me a little nervous. AND Chris had a bad reaction to the shot when he was young so I was basically waiting for something like this to happen that would force me into getting the shot for the kids.   Naturally, because Iris has never received a shot before, she immediately starts softly crying to herself while she eavesdrops on my conversation with her dad on the phone.  In all my reading, I learned that its usually within 3-20 days after the infection that Tetanus sets in.  Since the family doc was closed for the weekend we monitored the wound closely.

Sunday, May 1st…we go to church, then to our favorite Indian food buffet and then home, to putz around and hold my neck very still.  I am looking forward to going to my chiropractor as soon as the sun comes up on Monday morning.

Monday May 2nd…I drop the children off at school and drive around with Max in his carseat until he falls asleep and I head to my chiropractor’s office for a 9:30 appointment.  I lug the gigantic forward facing carseat into the waiting room with me in an attempt to keep Max asleep.  Unfortunately, two extremely enthusiastic grandparents were shout-talking and sharing pictures of their grandchildren.  I felt half tempted to ask if they would like an extra grandchild to care for while I had may neck adjusted, for it was only moments later that Max woke up.  I kept him detained while my neck was placed back where it belonged.  He sat like an angel, a gift that I am exceedingly thankful for, as I have trouble having my neck cracked while someone in the room is screaming.  That tiny 20 minute nap just so happened to mess up the rest of the day for Max and I.  If you have a 14 month old or have ever had one, you know that the nap schedule can be very delicate.  He only went to sleep at 1 that afternoon and when 3:15 rolled around, I found myself standing on the sidewalk, looking in all directions for a warm body to stand guard at my home while I picked up the other 4 kids from school.  No dice.  Neighbors weren’t home and it felt too “bad parenty” to ask the person sitting in their parked car to “watch my house” while I picked up my other kids.  So I woke him up and he wasn’t happy and he was even less happy at Flynn’s baseball game that evening.  I didn’t imagine that my family could get on people’s nerves at a baseball game, where you assume its ok to take kids, but we were successful at receiving more than 2 or 3 nasty glares from people who just didn’t want to listen to our toddler cry or our 7 year old son and his 10 year old sister wrestle on a blanket and they definitely weren’t crazy about the fort our five year old was building on the bleachers…all while the parents tried to be interested in their OTHER son’s baseball game.  Extra circular activities don’t feel meant for large families.  Homeward bound…and exhausted as hell.

Tuesday May 3rd…the tiny puncture where the nail went into Iris’ foot is looking red.  I waste no time, we are scheduled for 11:30 Mother/Daughter Tetanus Shots!  She was so terrified that I told her I would go first (I haven’t had one since college, so why not?!)  Of course when we arrive the receptionist tells me there is something wrong with some words printed on our insurance cards.  They insist that unless their practice is listed as the Primary Care Physician…they can’t see us.  This was a mistake, we had just received new insurance cards and they chose our PCP for us and I didn’t even notice.  I insisted that we have never gone to any other doctor’s office EVER and I wasn’t sure how this happened.  I proceed to call our insurance and wait while they change the information in their system and then hand my phone to the receptionist so they can be like “BLAH BLAH BLAH”…”OK…BLAH BLAH BLAH.”  We are taken into the exam room, where they begin prepping Iris for her “VACCINATION!!!”

I mention, “Actually, I was going to get mine first, just so she could see that it isn’t a big deal..”  The nurse responds, “Oh, didn’t they tell you…yours was cancelled.  You can’t just ‘get a tetanus shot’…I mean, when was your last one?”  I’m confused…how else do you get a Tetanus shot than to “just get one”.  “My last one was in college, maybe 12 years ago…”   She goes on, “Well I’ll ask, but I don’t think it will be approved.”  WHATEVER.  The nurse returns a few moments later and says the Nurse Practitioner is running behind and they are going to go ahead and give us our shots.  Maybe that’s how you “just get a Tetanus shot”…come when they’re running behind schedule and they’ll just DO IT!  Iris watched while I held Max with one arm and they stabbed me in the other.  I didn’t even feel it.  Her turn.  She turns her head away from the prepared needle and dramatically places her hand over her eyes to hide her tears.  By the time she was done with this swift, expressive motion, so also was the shot.  She couldn’t believe it.  We were outta there and eating some horrible Wendy’s fries in no time.

Wednesday May 4th…Nothing considerable to report on, aside from endlessly dismal weather.  The kind of weather that you don’t even think is bothering you until your five year old says, “I miss the sun.”  So did I.  Where did the sun go?  The largest positive to the horrible weather was that baseball practices and games kept being cancelled, taking otherwise stressful evenings of trying to feed people by 5 O’clock and bundle up for long evenings outdoors and instead placed us all inside, to draw and play games and ALMOST MURDER ONE ANOTHER!  The winter was too long.  We all want to be outside.

Thursday May 5th…Aside from the bum out forecasts, another thing that had been deeply effecting my mood was the consistent smell of heating oil in our home.  Since last fall when our rusty heating oil tank decided to finally fail us and leak fuel all over the basement floor, we have been dealing with a light aroma of the fowl stench here and there as Chris would have to transfer some into the tank, only up to the rusted point, to keep the hot water flowing.  This week he decided to unhook all the fittings in preparation to hook up the new tank.  The smell gave me this depressed feeling about cleaning my house.  Why bother cleaning a house that stinks like heating oil?  It made me want to evacuate with Max everyday.  I mentioned a few times how much the smell bothered me, and that maybe it was even giving me a headache but I’ve found that sometimes the people in my life need me to get out “My Megaphone”…or else I’m just not taken seriously.  Chris set up a vent fan to draw some of the smell out of the basement until he could get around to closing everything back up. That was nice.  I expressed my appreciation.

Friday May 6th…My sister in law is an exceedingly talented massage therapist and she had caught wind of my recent neck injury and she sent me a text wherein she offered to help me out in the stiff neck department.  I responded to her that she was welcome to stop by, but that I really needed to stay home and get some stuff done.  I had been away from the house everyday that week, messing up Max’s delicate nap schedule and I was suffering the repercussions.  Around lunch time, I got a call from the school nurse that Iris had fallen on the roller skating field trip and she thought that her wrist needed to be looked at by a doctor.  (So much for spending a day at home.)  Chris was working locally so he picked her up while I called the family doctor.  A 1:30 appointment.  I couldn’t imagine that her wrist was broken because she was handling it like a champ, and she could move her fingers pretty well.  I asked if there was anyway Chris could stay home while Max napped and then possibly pick the other kids up if this took a long time.  “Sorry hun, I just can’t.”  Join the club.  This is where I will briefly mention that being a mother can feel quite lonely at times.  You have created a person or GROUP of people and at times all their needs run together.  Meeting their needs is a job that I only feel comfortable asking my husband and maybe a relative or two to help with.  Call it a defect of mine, but it is just how I am.  This is going to change soon.  Soon I will be posting a Facebook announcement about how badly I would like to go on a date with my husband for his birthday and I will be asking for any and all qualified babysitters to come out of the woodwork.  This is what normal people do, I think.  So Iris and Max and I head for the doctor’s office.  “WE’RE BACK!” I jovially exclaim as the same nurse practitioner who saw us on Tuesday steps into the room.

 We are sent for X-Rays across the hall and then given a disc with her images on it.  I have come to realize that when you are “given the disc” it is because something is wrong and you shall take that disc with you on your future medical journeys.  We are taken back into the original exam room where we are told the wrist is broken.  I was incredibly surprised, as I looked at Iris, balancing the wrist on an old tablet from her dad’s work truck.  They were out of slings so we were sent away with the same grubby tablet we came with, holding the hand steady upon it.  I was asked to sit down with the referral department, but unfortunately the other 3 kids needed picked up very shortly and there just wasn’t time.  They told me they would call me.  (Insert down pouring rain while I attempt to get the freshly maimed Iris and her baby brother into the vehicle…the normal things I rely on Iris for, buckling herself, closing her door, she cannot perform.  I finish running all around the vehicle, securing everyone and turn to load the stroller…it has blown to the end of the parking lot in the downpour.  Insert also, me not loving any of this.) Around five that evening I am told to take Iris to an urgent care facility to have the wrist splinted for the weekend until we can have it casted on Monday. That night we ordered pizza and listened to our kids complain that they would have rather had Chinese.

Saturday May 7th…I get up and make waffles and Chris leaves to complete a few hours of local work.  I take the kids to the park where we bask in the partly cloudy skies, teasing us with the occasional ray of sunshine.

When Chris returns I take 2 of the boys to the thrift store to get some bike helmets.  Flynn finds a pair of those God forsaken sneakers with wheels in the heels that are basically another broken wrist waiting to happen.  We spend the afternoon in the parking lot…that we live in…on our bicycles and end the night with Uncle Ben and Aunt Mare roasting hotdogs in the back yard.  The neighbor girl sleeps over and aside from a super messy house, I feel thankful at the end of the day.

Sunday May 8th…Mother’s Day.  I’ve started telling people that I don’t recognize the holiday.  It is fully man made, like most (ALL) holidays and I used to feel entitled to some type of honor or homage and then Chris said to me, “You aren’t my mother…”  True.  And my relationship with my own mother has proven to be quite rocky over the past few Mother’s Days.  So I’ve found that expecting nothing is a much better approach to these types of things.  I much prefer to act as if it isn’t even happening.  My kids definitely pull through in the hand made cards and pictures department EVERYDAY OF THE YEAR, so if nothing is produced on Mother’s Day, its never been a big deal.  Iris did make me a super sloppy drawing of a heart that read “Sorry, I’m right handed”

 That really made my day.  I will say though, that I like to use this made up holiday as an excuse to not change a diaper occasionally.  So I wake up like any other day, cuddle Max, holler at people to get ready for church.  I sat at my little desk in our room to jot something down when Chris presented me with a small envelope.  I am astonished.  I open it.  A gift card for a massage and facial at a local Brazilian Spa.  WHAT?!  It says “From Max”…I knew that fat little baby would be my PAYDAY!

This is quite pleasing, especially because I expected nothing…I’m telling you, its the way to GO!  We go to church, go eat Indian food (I know, we have to skip a week or they are going to ask us to stop coming) and then we went to a Lancaster Barnstormers game with the kids + a friend of Iris’ (what’s one more?)  Chris and I took turns sitting with Flynn near the first base line while he desperately waited to catch a foul ball

and manning the other 5 at the play area that is a blessing to any parent who has ever tried to take little children to a baseball game.  The sun was so sunny and the breeze was so refreshing.  This was a perfect day.  If I did celebrate Mother’s Day, this was a good one.  We were about to leave the ball field when I received word that my 92 1/2 year old grandfather had died…on this, the Mother’s Day that I don’t even celebrate.  It was his time, he had lived a long life…but more than the actual passing of the old man, it stirs up so much emotion about how things change.  They never stop changing.  I spent my life going to visit he and my Grandmother in Connecticut, several times a year.  We would roughhouse in his carpeted basement until someone surely got hurt and I combed his hair for money and he let us eat colorful cereal that we never saw any other time. In November we went to visit for Thanksgiving.  He spoke with my kids about his time serving in the navy and shared pictures with us and it felt really special.

I sensed that we might not ever see him again.  My own father died in my Grampa’s basement, tragically and much too young…three years ago at the age of 60.  My Grandfather has buried almost ever person near to him, his two sons and his wife, survived now by his daughter, my aunt and his grandkids (8) and his great grandkids (14).  His passing will be the end of an integral part of who I am.  Another piece of my life, my childhood, my foundation…gone forever…left with only bits to tell stories of and photos to share.  Nothing can stay as it is.  Nature will not have it, and so we must not be foolish and take for granted what we have right before us…for someday it will be as distant as the sun.

Hindsight being 20/20, I can honestly say that my last week felt a lot like a shitty diaper.  Some diapers that you change are surprisingly pleasant, a nice solid bowel movement with very little clean up.  And some are what I like to call “Up the back, down the legs” kinda diapers.  This week was an  “Up the back, down the legs”.  You know there are things to be thankful for, like “At least I’m not wearing white pants.” Or “I’m so glad my baby’s systems are all functioning.” And you know that you will get things cleaned up, even if it takes rubber gloves and a power washer and a box of OxyClean.  Things are going to be OK.  They have to be.  But sometimes it’s nice to write a lengthy blog post about how shitty life can feel.

And thankfully, broken bones heal.

Owen is breathing softly beside my bed, in the darkness at 4 AM.  Little does he know, I was just awake with the baby…so I was laying there waiting for it…”Mom…can I sleep in your bed?”  Lately I can’t ever find a reason to say no…not initially…not since Max is sleeping thru the night more often.  The swiftness of Max’s maturity has reminded me of how quickly these years go.  It makes me think that maybe Owen got the shaft.

He was the last of a line of four kids.  By the time he came along I had twin 4 year olds and a 2 year old sapping all that I had to give.  My stress-o-meter was reading somewhere around “MAX CAPACITY”.  Looking back…I can’t believe I got thru it.  It was no award winning performance…but I’ve lived to tell of it.  I remember crying on the edge of the bed a lot.  Those days are a little more distant feeling now.  Things are still hard, but its a different kind of hard.  I can handle this hard.  This hard is the consistent position of reasoning with the unreasonable and walking beside them while they try out all their own terrible ideas…and maybe keeping a first aid kit on my person at all times.  This hard doesn’t feel as one sided.  Hard with babies is a helpless kind of hard.  If you can’t make them stop crying then you CANT MAKE THEM STOP CRYING…what can you really do?  I’ve learned to lay that baby down and walk away…feeling helpless but OK.  Low and behold, they went to sleep…they just wanted you to leave them alone.  This knowledge only comes with experience, which is why Max has felt like my favorite baby.  Not because of Max, but because of me.  I know me better.  I know what I can and can’t handle.  Forcing myself to hold the screaming baby while 3 other kids need my help didn’t do any of us any good.  I can read a baby better now than I could 5 years ago.  I’ve gotten a chance to get far enough away from something to have some perspective and then I’ve gotten a chance to try it again.  It’s really a treat.

Naturally there is some remorse for being impatient and snappy with my other children when they were younger, and they know that I’m always looking for new ways to manage the stress that 5 kids can help manifest (yoga, mindfulness exercises, mommy timeouts, taking 10 slow deep breaths, sitting with a blanket over my head, eat.)  It’s important for me to have honest communication with my kids.  I try not to make it that they feel responsible for the way that i’m feeling.  Sometimes I say things like, “All four of you guys are telling me things at the same time and I can’t hear even one of you clearly and it is making my head feel explodey.”  What they do with that information is up to them, but at least i’ve said my part.  So sometimes I feel that Owen got me during the height of my “STRESSD OUT YEARS”.  Poor guy.

SO there is Owen, in the darkness.  I tell him he can hop in.  He moves 1000 times more than is necessary in order to get himself situated.  My eyes are closed.  Silence.  30 seconds of silence.  I am dozing off, after my half hour intermission with Max and the bathroom.

“Mom, can we make gluten free pancakes in the morning and can I help you make them?” His soft whisper shows me that he’s trying to be considerate of his sleeping parents…but not considerate enough to just go to sleep.

Imagining that a speedy answer could bring my slumber back, “Sure.  But only if we get up early enough.”

I’m reminded of how big he is getting when I feel his toes all the way down at my shin.  I turn toward him and put an arm around him.

“Mom, I still gotta do my homework.” He comes home with roughly 2 minutes of homework per evening and we usually get it done right away…yesterday we took Iris to piano lessons and then went to the Farmers market and then back to pick Iris up and then to the grocery store and then to the park and then we had supper and then the neighbor boys came over for treehouse/campfire action and those 2  homework minutes slipped through the cracks.

“It’s ok.  We’ll have time in the morning.” I whisper back.

Silence.  My eyes are heavy.

“Mom, do you know I know how to spell NAIL?”

I turn away from him.  May it discourage any further communication.  “Yes.”

“No mom, ask me how to spell NAIL…” still whispering.  So considerate.

“Hey buddy, if you want me to get up to make pancakes and help you with homework then we need to go to sleep…or you can go back to your bed.”

“Oh. Okay.” It’s official.  We go to sleep.

Lately he has been walking around the house singing “I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNO LIE!”  He only knows that one line of the song, THANK GOD.  I believe he told me he heard it on some cartoon movie.  It’s not a big deal, except that I would rather hear him sing something else.  It’s a catchy tune to I tried to help a modified phrase naturally make its way into that little brain.  On my first try, coming up with something that rhymed with “BUTTS” I went with “PEANUTS”.

“Hey Owen, how about ‘I LIKE PEA-NUTS AND I CANNOT LIE!”  He seemed cool with it…until it fully backfired on me.  It didn’t feel natural to leave out the word “BIG” so now it just sounds like he’s singing “I LIKE BIG PENIS AND I CANNOT LIE!”

Well, that worked out.  Im realizing that a lot of times, my over involvement tends to make things worse.

Last Saturday we were entertaining four good friends, and the boys had a friend sleeping over while Iris was away for the weekend.  I could tell that Owen was fading as 10 o clock approached.  I intercepted his sleepy gaze and asked if he’d like to go read a book and get in bed (when older kids are hanging out I find I have to treat it like a cool, fun thing to go to bed when NOONE else is going yet…a book and a brief cuddle help ease the transition.)  We went to the bathroom so that he could brush his teeth.  Fully adorned in his Spider-Man underwear, he marches over to sink and steps up on the stool…leans as close as he can to the mirror.  Adjusting head in the light, looking closely from different angles.

“Whatcha doin?

“I’m just checkin to see if I have any hair on my face.  There is a boy in my class who has a mustache…I wanted to see if I have one.”

I couldn’t contain the smile on my face.  I took the mental picture of all mental pictures.  My five year old, straining to locate a hope, a shred, a glimmer of peach fuzz on his upper lip.  He nodded off before we were half way thru the first book, because…thankfully…he isn’t as big as he thinks he is.

A few years ago I wrote “a children’s book” using Owen as the star.  I wanted Chris to illustrate it, because while I’m great at folk arty-vintagey-70’s inspired furniture art, Chris is an amazing fine artist.  I pictured it being done in water color.  He loved the idea and that morning before he left for work he said “Sure, you write it and I’ll illustrate.”  I called him at 11 o’ clock and told him I had written it.  He didn’t like that.  He attempted to begin illustrations that evening and quickly lost patience.  I would have also.  Especially when you are used to being paid for your time and when you aren’t, you’re surrounded by little kids who mostly want to get physical with you.  But I would love to share this little tribute i wrote to The O Man.

Quit Growin’ Owen!

I know a little boy named Owen.  He is just small, but everyday he is growin.

He used to stand wide eyed and watch his brothers ride bike, but you could sense there was something about this that he just didn’t like.

As soon as he learned about training wheels, all you could hear were his tires squeal.

His hair was once short but soon it grew and it curled. As he sped through the streets his mane whipped and it whirled.

Every day theres a tune he would carry.  While it always sounded the same, the lyrics would vary.

Somedays he would sing about grandmas and flowers, other days about brothers with super powers.

At dinner each night, between his “Nom-Nom”, he would turn and politely say “Thanks for making this yummy food, Mom.”

When he began to grow tired and the world seemed less grand, he had a favorite treat…the middle two fingers on his left hand.

No matter the day or the house or the town…one thing was for certain…this boy wasn’t slowing down.

So at night before bed, his mama would beg..

As she squished him and squashed him to slow down the pace, of his wild growth that felt like a race.

What more could she do to get this thing slowin?! Nothing but beg, “QUIT GROWIN OWEN!”

He is like no one I’ve ever met.  I feel so blessed to have been a partial vehicle in his creation.  You are loved and adored Owen.  Thanks for being mine.

It’s 8:43PM.  The kids are catching onto the well lit world around them that lasts well into the 7th and even the 8th hour of the evening.  Its getting harder to get an 8 o clock bedtime to happen as the summer months quickly approach.  Once we finally get all 5 locked and loaded, Chris sets up a study station at the kitchen table.  I come down for my nightly (NOT EVERY NIGHT!!) bowl of ice cream and I see him there.  WOMP WOMP WOMP.  No House Of Cards for us.  It’s nearing the end of the semester and he is busting his hump to keep his 4.0 to place favorably for clinicals as his nursing school endeavor continues.  Sometimes I just wonder at him.  He forces me to ask myself if I could ever do it.  Could I go back to school to make a better life for us…could I do years and years of hard work to change our life forever?  If you are lucky enough to be with a partner who prompts you to ask yourself hard questions…just because of who they are…then you know what a bitch it can be.  Lets say you just want to curl up in bed and be your usual lazy slob self with your bowl of ice cream, but they say to you…”Hey, I gotta do at least two hours here…you wanna sit here with me?  Maybe you could write while I do this?”  Awe F@#$.  I guess I’ll pound his bowl of ice cream and harness the energy from the sugar while The Strokes blast in my ear buds and I’ll write about absolutely nothing…nothing that is our life…nothing that is our sacred essence…nothing that is the complete perfect beauty of what we have been creating together since we were 15 years old.  I won’t mention that we listed our house for sale last week and then this week after realizing how stressful it would be to be parenting 5 kids and doing college and running a drywall business and potentially selling a house…we immediately unlisted it.  I won’t mention that we are both as fickle as the weather and the only thing that we have ever been truly sure of is our love for one another.  I won’t mention that at least once a week for the past 3 weeks he has called me in the middle of his work day and asked me to tell him that everything will be “OK”.  I won’t let on that it was hard for me to tell him that everything WILL be “OK”.  We both know it will be fine, good, great, OK.  It doesn’t always feel that way.  It doesn’t feel like we’ll ever get out of this city, where our kids are growing up in a parking lot and occasionally scratching cars with their bike handles.  It doesn’t feel like we’ll ever get the break we are wishing would come.  It feels like we’ll be in our starter home forever…but I’m here to tell ME something.  And that something is SHUT UP.  SHUT UP YOU SELFISH, SMALL MINDED DUMBY.  You have more than most people and your tiny home is regularly filled with not only the 6 people you love most, but lots of others too!  Aside from an obvious gluten allergy and maybe a lazy eye, we are all healthy and prospering.  WE ARE THE AMERICAN DREAM!  We have a future and a hope and lots to look forward to, and we are doing the hard work to ensure that eventually it will happen.  Here I sit, keeping the company of the man who has more energy and drive and ambition and heart than I do…and it is a privilege.  Aside from filling a crock pot and doing the laundry and lactating when its needed, I don’t feel I bring a lot to the table, but thankfully Chris doesn’t seem to be keeping track.  But if he needs me to, I’ll eat another bowl of ice cream and use that energy to write another long winded paragraph, documenting the mishmash of our everyday.  Mr. Krouse, you are my king.