Micah found a red and grey, striped, crew neck, cotton, zip front sweat shirt from a recent bag of friendly hand me downs. (Dear God, thank you for every bag of boy’s clothing that comes through that front door…boys are so hard on their clothes.) I am currently loading a pile of dirty laundry into the washing machine.

“Look at this shirt…”

I barely take my eyes off the duty before me…but I engage him in conversation…”Oh wow.  Did you get that from Cam?”

“Yeah.  Maybe you should take a picture of me…”

I am busting my hump to get some chores done before Max wakes up from his nap, so that I can feel free to spend those immediate 20 minutes when he wakes…simply getting his lunch in him and then promptly escorting the 6 of us to the pool…ITS 92 DEGREES…it’s the pool or it’s nothing.  We haven’t yet installed our main air conditioner for the downstairs, so it can get down right miserable in certain situations (insert short video of me impulsively and involuntarily shaking free of the sticky hands of a small child, not intending to startle the child but doing so anyway…leaving behind an even more unfortunate scenario than previously…) So I was aiming for a 3 o clock date with that warm, tranquil, bacteria rich baby pool.

I remain focused…if I stopped and took a picture of my kids every time they requested it…I wouldn’t get anything done…ever.  This time though…his request felt different.

I didn’t stop what I was doing to take the picture.  I regret it now.  I take so many pictures of these kids.  It wouldn’t have been a big deal to stop EVERYTHING that I was doing to enjoy his life with him.  I had myself convinced that a heap of filthy duty in my bare hands somehow took precedence over the living, breathing, growing, insatiable suggestion of my 3rd and 2nd and 1st child.  (Micah is so special…he was my first single child, my previous pregnancy had been twins.  He was my second pregnancy.  He was my third child. )  When your home begins to fill up with the products of the love you share with your better half…you start to wonder how each of them will always be reminded and be sure of how very special they are to you.  Will they forget that they were the apple of your eye?  Will they change completely and totally and will they end up being someone in the end that you never imagined they would hover could have been?  Positive or negative?  Will it feel as though this person is a product of everything that has been poured into them…emotionally, relationally, spiritually?  Are we not creating our own future with every interaction we perform with our children?

I rambled something about…”Well…that’s more of a winter shirt, Micah.  You’re probably hot.”

I wasn’t denying him my approval on purpose…I realize, looking back.  I just had this other thing, this dirty laundry…that had sat for 3 days and begged for my attention with its inadequate and frumpy presence in the corner of my kitchen…It just needed me more.  And Micah usually isn’t a hard one to appease with agreeable conversation.  Owen can be a little harder, as he requires eye contact…imagine that.

I can’t recall exactly what was said next, but Micah went away, as I remained set on my course toward laundry greatness.  Then tonight, while I tidied the kitchen…I recalled his 8 year old voice…”Mom. You should take a picture of me in this…” and I regretted letting that moment slip by.  I probably have at least 2000 pictures of Micah.  I can’t feel bad, but I do.  I just don’t want to dismiss too many of those opportunities.  I always want them to know that I am here to snap a pic of them when life is feeling good and they have on a new sweatshirt.

“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” Thank you, Mr. Lennon…for saying it best.

Stop what you’re doing.  Take the picture.

Iris and Micah have been at it all morning.  At one point, while holding Max on my hip I mentioned that there were about an hour and a half of chores to do and then I would love to take lunch to the pool…but I felt like I had been standing around most of the morning refereeing a fight.  I told them I was charging by the hour that I had to stand there and keep things civil.  I’m trying to look at these occasions as more of a monetary transaction and less of an emotionally charged event.  There are tears.  People have told one another that they would prefer if the other “never existed”.  It is hard to watch.  It is hard to witness one of your children actually putting themselves out there to apologize…and to watch it not be received.  And its hard to know what it feels like to be the person, so offended, that you are requiring MORE than an apology…because “Sorry” isn’t erasing what you did!…Its a hard row to hoe.  There is a lot of keeping track that has to go on, and it can become consuming and depressing…life inside unforgiveness.

So I’m happy to stand for 5, 6, 7 minutes…I say very little.  I just let Iris cry and stomp around the kitchen and I watch Micah sit in the far corner, on the floor beside the shoe bench…his back to her…remarkably non-responsive.  He offers nothing in the department of a soft heart in the moment of anger.  Frankly, he’s a bit “cut throat” at times.  Mostly he’s a bad guy to cross cause he’s not only occasionally a little bit wildly angry, he’s also very intelligent and not too bad with recalling finite details of an offense.  Its a nasty combo.  So Iris is ALL emotion and Micah’s heart becomes harder with every exasperated word Iris cries.

Iris has finally fled to her room.  Micah remains only a little longer sitting in a relaxed, slouched position on the floor and he then moves on with his day.  I’m left calling out after them that they can pay me in chores…but I would be collecting my referee fees by the week’s end.

I’ve witnessed worse arguments between the kids.  This was not exceptionally gory, but it did spark a realization in me.  There I was, making myself fully available to let these kids act out all this pent up emotion…and at the end of it I didn’t feel great.  I felt like, “Wow, they have inherited quite a few of Chris and I’s worst character flaws.  What a relief.”

I attempt to get on with my day, hence removing the sleeping baby from my back and into his crib.  A smooth transition.  I walk down the hallway to find Iris at the bottom of her bedroom steps.  She seems emotionally recovered…she has a national geographic in hand and asks, “Mom, whats the difference between magma and lava?…because I had a teacher that would always say magma when he was talking about lava…?”

“I don’t actually know…we should look it up…”

I was presently in the midst of a business transaction with Flynn, wherein he worked around the house for me for 20 minutes to earn time on the computer, browsing eBay for go-pros and night vision goggles…  He was nearly done with his task and approached me to ask if there was anything else he should do.

“Will you run downstairs and grab my phone?  And then you’re done…”

He is fast and efficient.  I thought this moment would serve as a great opportunity to prompt everyone past the mornings dark cloud and on with the day.  I call for Micah who is one door over in his room…he appears.

“Hey, would you ask Iris to come down here?” (She had since gotten distracted and ran back up to her bedroom…)

“Can you do it…?’  He is looking down and away.  The mention of his sister turns him cold.

“Please Micah, don’t make this a big deal.”

He obliges his mother.  Flynn is asking if he can be excused to go shop for go-pros…I disappoint him by informing him that we were actually all about to find out what the difference between magma and lava was…

“Come on mom.  Cant I just go?”

“Sure, if you can tell me what the difference between magma and lava is…?”

“Ugh.”

I ask him to hand the phone to Iris.  He is immediately hesitant…he knows that it would be quicker if he does it.

I specify, “No, we’re letting Iris use the phone and look it up herself.”  Flynn has always had a habit of over helping his twin sister.  It is kind of like there is an unspoken understanding between them at times…like they both know that Flynn is more likely to succeed, faster than Iris at certain things.  At times I have to stop them…like in this moment.

Iris holds the phone in her hand and types…with mistakes…as Flynn is pointing out…”diference btween magma and lava”…Micah has now withdrawn a little further back into his room…keeping that wall up.  Flynn is sitting next to Iris on the attic steps and I am standing to the side looking at Iris’ face as her eyes search the lit up screen, with the heat of her brother breathing down her neck, who had already said “Do you just want me to do it?”to her once.  Iris finds the information.  She begins to read.  We are discovering that lava and magma are the same but one is the name for it when it is below the earth’s crust and the other is the name for it when above the crust.  Flynn and I are looking at Iris while she reads, when suddenly an object comes flying past me and the phone in Iris’ hand and smacks her right in the face.  A soft thud.  We look in Iris’ lap, it is a pair of boys character brief underwear.  She looks up, an instant scowl has taken residence on her face.  I look over my should and there stands Micah, mischievous grin in place.  He has taken a huge piece of elastic… (from my sewing box that someone has opened and used for their own selfish needs and left discarded on a table somewhere for people like Micah to pillage like a yard sailing pirate.  He doesn’t need a spool of thread for anything, but he’s gonna take it.  You just never know.)  I saw him earlier with the elastic, wrapping it tightly around his thumb and pulling, to give himself a long pointy thumb. He has taken the elastic and tied it to the doorknob and a coat hook beside the door and has created a giant slingshot, wherefrom he launched the briefs at Iris, who was captivated with magma and lava.  Flynn and I had an extremely hard time keeping a straight face.  I sputtered a small laugh as I told Micah he needed to sit in his bed.  Flynn is now fully laughing and I am trying to keep it in.  Iris’ scowl has turned to the kind of laugh that is refusing to come out but WILL NOT be denied.  She is laughing while trying to cry…but the laugh takes over.

Through and between laughter, I say, “I’m sorry Iris.  He is doing some time out…but that was really too funny…I mean you were doing a good job reading that…and we were paying attention …and them fwomp…underwear in your face.”

Everyone is laughing.  Iris and Micah’s wall is laying all around us and it’s not as jagged and dusty as you always think its going to be. It’s what I wanted since their whole feud began hours ago.  I just wanted to see them get thru it and for it to be over and to be at the pool…eating french fries and applying sunblock.  At one point while Iris and Micah were going at it in the kitchen, I looked at Max, who was stationed on my hip as this fresh gig as the fun house referee was delaying me putting him down for his nap.  His face had a look of concern as Iris cried and Micah shouted.  I felt bad that he was there and I didn’t enjoy one minute of it and now I understand what my parents felt when they would see their children at odds and unforgiving towards one another.  Its something that only someone on the outside can decipher.  From within we are blinded by our hurt and our offense. Unfortunately, parents end up being that outsider for their kids constantly.

There we four sat, enjoying a hearty and long awaited laugh. I reflected after the event.  It caused me to feel overcome with thankfulness.  In a world that can feel so heavy at times…alligators snatching babies, hateful people mowing others down, depressing political situations…on all fronts…it feels so good to hide away in the sanctity and rarity that are those unexpected moments of pure joy.  They happen more often the larger our family becomes.  The more variables we add, the more variations of that bliss we get to experience.  Some days I wonder what the hell we’re doing, bringing all these kids into a world that can feel so dark.  Those sacred moments cause me to remember that we are here for just that.  We are here to launch underwear at each other’s faces and get lost in laughter and push past grudges and relational crud that thicken life up till it feels like heavy, sludge…we try to wade thru it…but our unforgotten wounds and resentments and hurts keep us bound to the sludge, the familiar, that can even feel safe at times.  Letting your guard down, and having a full, hearty, belly laugh with someone when it is the last thing that you want to do…it catapults us into the unknown…in the best kind of way.

92 1/2 years.  What a remarkable feat.  The average life expectancy in the United States is 78 years.  When my grandfather was 78, he was still driving his Buick down to Joe’s Variety to pick up his lottery tickets everyday. One of my favorite things I’ve ever heard him say, was this past July when he made the trip to Pennsylvania to stay with my brother in the hills of Greenpoint.  He sat at the breakfast table and motioned to his oatmeal.  With as much emotion as one can muster while talking about their oatmeal he exclaimed to my sister in law, “You think I like eating this shit?”  He was as no nonsense as it gets. I still remember when he stopped dressing up for our family get togethers.  My grandmother would gripe and complain and insist that he change out of his quilted flannel and he would remain poised and unrelenting.  He wasn’t trying to impress one single person.  He had lived too long for any of that.  I can’t wait to finally not care what anyone thinks. To earn my rite to sit at the head of the Thanksgiving table in my 25 year old blue jeans and just take a nap.

As a young girl, trips to visit my grandparents were a sheer delight.  Not only would I be adorned with a fresh school wardrobe, but I had access to all I could eat fruit loops and my absolute favorite, soft fresh loaves of Edy’s Rye bread.  I was devastated the day I came to learn that the old miser in my gramps had finally taken over and he decided that Edy’s rye bread was too expensive, Shop Rite had a better deal.  He had created an addict and to this day I still pick up half a dozen loaves of that rye bread whenever I come to town.

My Gramps was exceedingly generous towards his grand children.  He was constantly looking for reasons to give us money.  I often felt great guilt about the money he would give to me.  I would comb his hair for 10 or 15 minutes while he watched the Price is Right and he would give me 20 bucks!  Thats a lot to me at age 32 and it was grand riches when I was 10 years old.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized what it was that my Gramps had done as a career.  My dad would explain to me when I was young that it was Gramps’ responsibility to keep everything going and keep everyone happy at one of the finest restaurants of its time.  I still recall going to eat at Rapp’s Paradise Inn, long after my Grandfather had retired.  I sensed that everything from the table setting to the wait time to the temperature of the lobster tail was under the close scrutiny of his watchful eye, because , of course, nothing would ever be as good as it had been when he ran the place.  A few years ago I stumbled upon a newspaper article in his house wherein he, the maitre d of this popular dining establishment, was being interviewed.  The reporter was asking him about the different types of drinks that people order from the bar and what it said about them.  I wish I still had the article because I found his responses surprisingly entertaining.  My favorite part was when he mentioned that a woman sitting by herself at the bar was always trouble.  Truer words were never spoken.

One of my most treasured memories of my Gramps took place when I was about 11 years old.  I had come to stay with my grandparents for a week over the summer.  I was playmates with the little girl next door, a nice catholic girl…her family kept a pristine sitting room in their house like nothing I had ever seen, coming from my home with five children and no use for such a fancy space.  She told me that we weren’t allowed to go in there because it was for “If the pope ever came to visit.”  We were sitting on her back deck when I must have mentioned something about my father having gone to jail in recent years (allow me to say that in having 5 of my own children, I’ve come to realize that kids need to talk about what’s going on in their personal life as much as anyone else, whether it makes me look good as a parent or not.)  My grandmother had apparently been eaves dropping from the bedroom window of their home.  She immediately called me into the house and made it very clear that there are certain things we don’t need to be so eager to share.  I went to my bedroom in tears.  Now, I can understand.  The family name was at stake.  Her pride in her family was shaken by my candid chit chat with the neighbor girl about the undeniable reality of her sons’ life choices.  While I sat on the edge of my bed, looking out the window, crying the kind of cry that takes over your entire body, I didn’t even hear him come in the room. My Gramps slipped onto the bed beside me and put his arm around me, drew me close.  He didn’t say much, just told me it was alright and held me near. It was, and will remain, the most tender moment I have ever shared with my Grandfather.

92 1/2 years.  I have to imagine that my Gramps had experienced emotions during those years that there are not yet names for.  The feeling of being one of the last of all your friends to be breathing.  The feeling of outliving your sons and your wife.  The feeling of losing track of all the grand babies and great grand babies you have. During the years that my dad lived with Gramps and helped care for him, he told me that he had observed that as a person ages, it is as if they become like a child again.  While many of us want to imagine ourselves living to a ripe old age, no-one wants to picture themselves being hoisted into their bed with a lift or not being able to make it to the bathroom or living in a cloud of confusion and frustration.  A complete loss of the dignity that we believed at some point was our right.  My Grandfather had done it all.  He felt the sea breeze on his face while cruising in the North Pacific Ocean during his time in the navy. He beheld the beauty of the Aleutian Islands and spoke of them as if he had just returned.  He built his home from the ground up with his bare hands.  He won the lottery more times than I’ll ever know, in more than one way. He lived through wars and depressions and unspeakable grief. My memories of my grandfather will always be of his strength and his wisdom and the brightness of his eyes while he watched his grandchildren playing at our family gatherings.

One of my children was disappointed to have to miss a spring concert today that they had been preparing for and working hard for months to present with their schoolmates. Sensing the disappointment, I explained that no-one ever WANTS to go to a funeral. It’s never ideal. It never seems to happen at a good time.  But when it does, when someone you love and respect has completed their mission on this plane of existence, it is time to reflect upon them and to honor them. I informed my child that if it weren’t for their great grandfather, they would not be here. We are who we are because of who he was. He has left his imprint on every person here. We will forever be better, stronger, wiser, more generous and loving people because in his 92 1/2 years…his life happened to touch our own. Gramps. We honor you. We thank you.

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.

You wanna know what isn’t fashionable?  A stomach bug. Particularly a stomach bug that left Pennsylvania and stayed alive for 2 full days of travel and presented itself alive and well on the southern most tip of our country. We’ve kept five children alive this long, why wouldn’t those same nurturing qualities be afforded to a nasty stomach virus. Maybe 2 days before departure when our 7 year old was throwing up I might have mentioned that this trip could be a bad idea…but in my husband’s defense, we have had pukers at the beginning of our travels before and somehow no one else was afflicted. So we were hoping for more of the same.

Not so. Iris became violently ill our first night in the hotel. At one point she was headed for the bathroom and didn’t quite make it, therefore vomiting all over the closed toilet bowl lid and surrounding area. I had to wonder, is this the type of information you share at check out? So they could perhaps do a more thorough cleaning of the room? I’ll leave you with that discussion point for a moment…

By morning Iris seemed much better and the entire group was optimistic. After another full day of driving we arrived in sunny Florida.

The next day was filled with bike rides and lizard chasing and swimming and boat rides and a delightful evening in Disney Springs. It’s like Disney’s shopping/eating district. We knew we wanted to see the LEGO store…

 and we watched the volcano at the Rain Forest Cafe erupt a few times. Great kid fun! Then Chris started feeling it. Weird stomach…the urge to stay withdrawn from crowds in the event that he may need to evacuate his lunch. Boy, there is nothing like looking into the crowds of smiling, Disney going faces all while knowing that someone in your immediate group is ready to blow like the Rain Forest Cafe volcano.

So within hours my poor husband was back at my in laws house, sleeping and puking. Yea! The bug had officially made it with us to The Sunshine State! This made me nervous. I spent the next day just waiting for it…for my own queasy twinges…or the announcement from one of our other kids.

Tuesday was looking up. Chris recovered quickly and we headed to the beach after lunch. The beach was a delight as you could imagine. Children are naturally stimulated by water and the beach in March is quite refreshing!

As Wednesday dawned I sensed that this bug had formed an “every other day” kinda pattern but wasn’t letting it get to me. We were headed to Gatorland!! Kids were up with the sun, riding bikes and enjoying the warmth. After Flynn and I returned from a truly pleasant morning bike ride to a local lake (sometimes I can’t believe how little one-on-one time I get to have with each of my kids. Flynn is so smart and sensitive and intuitive…my kinda guy)…he mentioned that his belly felt strange. I told him he should be ready for what was to come. He headed to the bathroom. I was closely monitoring what would potentially alter our touristy day plans while Chris and Micah headed off on a bike ride of their own while my in laws pulled out to run a quick errand. I assume that it was in that very moment that it took place…

Fast forward roughly a half hour…Flynn is still in the bathroom…my in laws are still running an errand…I have now put Max in a pack n play on the front porch and Chris has just returned from his ride with Micah. Iris is riding bike out front and the front door is wide open. Chris is telling me about his ride with Micah when a police officer approaches the porch.

“Hi folks. Do you have a five year old son, named Owen?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Chris and I immediately look around at the children on bikes…knowing Flynn is sick in the bathroom and Max is contained in the pack n play…there are only two…

“No. I guess we don’t.”(my heart has now stopped)

“Well, we have him.  We found him about ten blocks from here. He said he was on a bike ride with his brother and he got lost.” More appropriately, he took off after Chris and Micah and never caught up to them and also never mentioned to anyone where or what he was up to. Parent of the year award…I know. If this were his first time taking matters into his own hands I might feel worse, but Owen doesn’t spook easily. There is no telling him about consequences for actions and him saying, “OH.  I see, I should listen to you and stay close because it’s important for my survival and well being.”  Nothing like that. I’d also love to tell you that this was Owen’s first run in with the police, but it is not. The officer took our ID’s and made sure we were in fact his parents and up rolled Owen, behind bars…in the back of a brand spankin new Florida State Police cruiser, wearing a “Jurior Officer Badge” and one giant grin. Thankfully he knew how to spell his last name and the officer looked up my in laws address. By then end of Owen’s return there were 3 police vehicles in the driveway and a lot of relief. We can’t even express how thankful we were that some caring man saw Owen riding, tears streaming down his face and pursued him. He finally stopped in an autobody parking lot and the man called the police. As we probed Owen he said he was riding after Micah and couldn’t find him. I asked, “Were you scared Owen?”

“Yea. I was sayin’ ‘PLEASE JESUS! DONT LET THIS HAPPEN!”

Ironically, once when I was about 6 years old, I was almost abducted from a neighbor’s pig roast by a man and his elderly mother who were driving a vehicle with a Florida license plate. My mother and a slew of other intoxicated people discovered what was happening as I was being loaded into the car by the “friendly man” and my mom literally beat the living shit out of him. (As in, she was strattling him and punching him in the head and smashing his face into the stone driveway…)

I have thanked God continuously that Owen’s brief adventure didn’t end any other way. I held my loud, rammy, opinionated tough guy a little tighter that night before bed.

Actually, no I didn’t. (Not just then at least) Because that night, I was busy puking. Nothing like poor Flynn. When he gets sick, he gets SERIOUSLY sick. He ended up having 9 separate bouts of the pukes. At one point when I needed to leave our bedroom to let Max cry to sleep, I went and laid in the other twin bed in Flynn’s room. He asked how I was.

“Not so good. I know I’m gonna throw up again. Just waiting for it.  Waiting is the worst.”

“I know mom. When I was in the bathroom the last time, I was just saying ‘I’m ready.  I’m ready.'”

This dear boy. He really handles it like a champ.

Once Max was done crying to sleep I went back to my bed to let some much needed sleep wash over me. After lying down, Iris came in the room and sat on my bed. She asked if she could pray for me. I said sure. Her prayer truly lifted my spirits, even if it was only to help me to remember that soon I too would be well enough to pray for someone. She also used that moment to confess to me that she had stolen some candy from a small bag that I had stashed as bribe material. I told her that was ok. I used to steal candy too. She went to sleep with a clean conscious.

I dozed and reawoke when Chris came to bed. He was feeling bothered by a rattle that the ceiling fan was making, so he turned it off and went to the car and got a fan that I had packed to satisfy my own fan addiction. I hadn’t needed it till now because the ceiling fan had been sufficient. When he plugged it in and I felt that very familiar, pleasant breeze and heard the hum of white noise I immediately thought of Flynn…one of the other fan addicts in the family. He had no air moving in his room. I knew this because I had laid in his room with him. Chris used the bathroom and brought me the fussing baby to nurse and attempted to climb into bed. At that moment, perhaps spurred by all the goodness from my own children in the last few hours…I stopped Chris and begged him to do one more thing before he got in bed.

“Would you take the fan and plug it in for Flynn and let it blow on him…?…He needs it more than I do.”

Chris agreed. And Flynn thanked me later. The pukes really do bring out the best in us it would seem.

We’ve been healthy for the last 48 hours and we got to visit Gatorland and float down the very beautiful Rock Springs. We even celebrated an early 1st birthday for Mister Maxster.

So much for fashion blogging. The truth is, life has a way of killing fashion. When your head is in a toilet and you’re wearing a dirty tee shirt and a skirt with a little vomit on it…fashion just needs to shoot a flare into the sky and hope for better days. I’m convinced that Chris and I will never be the kind of parents who are going to hand our 16 year olds the keys to their new car…We most likely won’t ever take our kids to the actual Disneyland…They probably won’t ever get a serving of Dip-n-dots that they won’t have to share with another sibling (cause Damn! Those little ice cream balls are EXPENSIVE!) But you know what they will have. A whole lot of character. 5 gallon, drywall buckets full of character.  We will store all those buckets of character in the corner of the house that we keep saying we’re going to turn into another bathroom (and in depriving them of that second bathroom we are adding to the amount of character they will have, not that they wouldn’t gladly trade all the character for a second bathroom…but Chris and I are learning that with this many children, you can’t give options).

And so, tomorrow we depart. We are leaving behind our very benevolent in laws, one of whom was not feeling so well tonight before bedand a lot of germs that need to be lysolled away. The open road for the next two days is hopefully one of health and good fortune. But if not, that’s cool too. We’re ready for anything.