The Importance of Very Small Things

I had a unique experience recently. I was fortunate enough to meet one of my very favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith. He writes several series of novels, but my favorite is a series of books which are classified as mysteries, but they really aren't. They follow a woman around through her daily activities as she solves cases for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency she founded in Botswana. Mostly the stories follow her mundane daily activities and the problems of her friends and family. Very little detection actually takes place. Mr. McCall Smith even jokingly said that, "Nothing much happens in my books. There are enough things going on in the world without authors adding to the problem." In the rest of his talk, he drew from other examples of his work and the writings of others as he talked about the importance of the small things of life. He said that the small things are what mostly fills up a person's life and shouldn't be looked over.

After his talk was over and I had my book autographed and my photo taken with him, I thought about the small things in my life and what they mean to me. My thoughts took me two different directions. I immediately thought of my family and all the meals fixed, diapers changed, games of Candy Land played and how I resent these things sometimes. As long as I have been a mother I have struggled with motherhood. I have always wanted to contribute to the world with a rewarding job. Being holed up in the house all the time makes me feel detached from the civilization. My own universe is so small: groceries, laundry, library. I have no idea what's really going on, just that Katherine ran into a wall again and Logan threw a fit when I trimmed his nails. Most of the time, I enjoy being with my kids, but there are days that those diapers and toys just pile up and I want to run away screaming and go live on a beach somewhere, sipping tropical drinks.

Then I thought if how upset I would be if I had to give those things up (the diapers and toys, not the tropical drinks, although that would be sad too). To me, nothing beats those sloppy, wet kisses and baby giggles, or even the endless hours of getting after Katherine for leaving her tiny toys on the floor that Logan is eating. The very small things of my life (and they are very small) are really what make my life something special.

The Rules of Hockey

Yesterday while we were making dinner, Casey and Katherine were talking about words that rhyme. Somehow the word "hockey" was rhymed with something (I think it was "sock" but we're working on it :) ) and Casey asked Katherine what hockey was. This was her response (as best as I can remember it)

Casey: What's hockey?
Katherine: It's a word. And it's on the ice.
Casey: The word is on the ice??
Katherine: No, they go on the ice and they hit the hockey circle with the golf clubs.
Casey: So, it's a game?
Katherine: Yes. And they wear football helmets.
Casey: Wow, that sounds like fun.
Katherine: Yes.
Kirsten: So, how do you win hockey?
Katherine: You hit the hockey circle into the soccer goal.
Kirsten: Really? So, what is it called when you get the hockey circle in the goal?
Katherine (rolling her eyes): *Sigh* It's a goal, Mom.
Kirsten: Oh! I didn't know that!
Katherine: Yeah, and if you miss, it's called a strike.
Casey: *Snigger*
Kirsten: So, it's "three strikes and you're out?"
Katherine: Yes. And you're out.
Kirsten: So what happens when you're out? Do you get to play anymore?
Katherine: No. You have a time-out.

The Myth Called "Me Time"

Editor's Note: I started writing this particular post before Thanksgiving, which should illustrate my point nicely.


Yesterday, I was trying to write a grocery list. I thought that I would do this while the kids were eating lunch. They'd both be distracted and in the same room. But I was not successful in writing a grocery list. This is what happened instead:

The local grocery store does not send us a weekly ad. I do not know why. The grocery stores from 15 miles around send us ads, but the one down the street doesn't. So if I want to look at the ad for this store I have to look it up online and that means I am not in the same room as my kids.

I set up the kids with plates of yummy, luscious, artificially-colored macaroni and cheese, a favorite in our house. I locate a piece of paper and a pen and sit down at the computer. I manage to write "Groceries" at the top of the paper and then I hear, "Mah! Mah! Mamamamamamamama!!!" This is Logan asking for more macaroni. I set the paper down and get him more macaroni. I come back to the computer. I hear, "Mom!! I want summore!" I sigh, get up and go back to get Katherine summore macaroni, but she doesn't want macaroni. She wants water. So I get her the water. This pattern continues, Logan, Katherine, Logan, Katherine, until finally I unplug the computer and bring it into the dining room and just pray I don't get mac 'n cheese on the keys. Now suddenly they're done. Logan starts yelling and flinging macaroni at the ground and somehow manages to get it in his hair. He doesn't even have hair in the usual sense, just peach fuzz, but the macaroni sticks anyway and I see cheese sauce in his ear. Lunch is officially over and all I have accomplished is to write "Groceries" on a piece of paper and walk around a lot. Three hours later (I'm not lying) the grocery list is finished and we head to the store. We barely beat Daddy home and Logan is MAD because he needs a nap. Sorry, dude. I know you need a nap, but we all need to eat, so learn to make some sacrifices for the Greater Good and you can have an extra-long nap tomorrow.....maybe.

When I have experiences like this, which is pretty much every day, I think of these experts on the Today show and Oprah and other shows who say that stay-at-home moms should take some "me time" and go to a spa or read a book or take a nap or go out to lunch with friends. This is supposed to recharge your motherly batteries and allow you to face the macaroni grenades with a smile. To that I say, "Hah! If you were actually an expert, you wouldn't say things like that! Don't you know that 'Me Time' is a myth and searching for it will only lead to heartache and sorrow?!?"

I used to believe in "Me Time." I used to watch for it, wait for it, but it never came....EVER. I tried what the experts say I should do and "carve out" Me Time from my schedule. Well, I am here to tell you that that does not really work. If I have this Me Time during the day people suffer and we either don't eat or are naked because I selfishly read a book and therefore failed to buy groceries and do laundry. Or worse, somebody ends up needing stitches because he (yes, it's the "he" child that does this) climbed on something and I wasn't there to pull him off.

If I have Me Time and my husband babysits, that's not a guarantee that it will turn out well then either. I love my husband dearly and he is an excellent father and jungle gym. But he is not used to the constant noise, cat-harassing, and general shenanigans around here because he has a job and talks to grown-ups all day who don't throw food or pee on the bathmat when they're six inches from the toilet. He hasn't developed that stay-at-home parent filter to know what to just let go and what needs attention. Mostly I think this filter is just plain-old-ordinary exhaustion and I can only muster up the energy to deal with the really important (ie: someone is going to die if I don't intervene) things. So, being a dutiful father who loves his kids, he tries to keep everyone out of everything and it makes everyone angry and tired. But seriously folks, most of the time I come home and find the children asleep and my husband in a good-ish mood.

But I don't feel like it's fair for me to disappear and leave my husband to watch the kids anytime I feel burned-out, because that would be pretty much every day and I'd never see him. And anyway, I like spending time with my husband. In fact, I find that spending time with this man who is really too good for me is an excellent way to recuperate from the day. So instead, I have reconciled myself to the fact that Me Time will happen once the kids are in college. And do you know what I am going to do with my first legitimate Me Time? I'm going to write a grocery list!

Adventures in Reading: H0ttie M@les

So I was in the kitchen today, stacking the dishwasher, water running, and Katherine hollered at me from the dining room...

Katherine: Mom, what is H0ttie M@les?
Mom: What?
Katherine: I said...WHAT IS H0TTIE M@LES?
Mom: What?! (silently pleading that she heard wrong)
Katherine: What......Is.....Hot....Teee.....Males?
Mom: Where did you hear that?
Katherine: I didn't hear it. I read it.
Mom: Uh...ok. Where did you read it?
Katherine: Here on the red thing from my Halloween bucket.
Mom: (Having internal struggle. She is suddenly thinking she has some very progressive neighbors. She wonders how in the heck she could have missed this particular "goody" when she went through the bucket. She goes into the dining room).
Mom: Show me.
Katherine: Here! What is this?
Mom: (laughs with relief) Oh, Hot Tamales? They're cinnamon candy.



PS: My creative spelling is merely a tactic to prevent perverts from finding my blog if they google cerain words. We'll see if it works. Apparently if you google "These mashed potatoes are so creamy" you can find my blog on the first page of a google search......above the "While You Were Sleeping" IMDB page all because I quoted it once. So, we're being more careful now.

(R)evolutionary Idea

If you know me, you might have heard me wish out loud at some point for a third arm. I have said it before--and I'll say it again--that I think while a woman's belly is growing and her whole body is changing anyway, why not grow an extra arm (complete with fingers, of course) during pregnancy? Believe me, I would use it!

I can't tell you how many times I have needed that extra arm. For example, this morning I was changing a poopy diaper. Logan is at that fun age where he is learning about his body, so while I was trying to wipe poop off his bum, he was trying to thwart me and distribute the poop onto nearby books, toys and his face. Yuck!!! If I had had that third arm, it wouldn't have been a problem. One hand to wipe, one to hold on to his legs and that third arm to keep his hands out of the mess.

After embarking on this adventure called Mommyhood, I feel like I have gotten pretty stinkin' awesome at doing things with the hands I have. I can unscrew the lid, fill, nuke and re-screw the lid of a bottle/sippy cup while holding a screaming baby. I can carry a baby, diaper bag, purse and up to 4 bags of groceries up three flights of stairs to the third floor where we live. I can unfold a stroller with a baby in my arms. When Logan was tiny, I could even use a public bathroom without setting him on the floor. I will tell you that buttoning your jeans while holding an infant is no small task, but I have done it! The problem comes when there's just no physical way of working around the lack of hands.

Like after I have climbed the three flights of stairs with the groceries and all that stuff, if my key gets stuck in the door (and it usually does), I need two hands to yank on the doorknob while jiggling the key and occasionally pounding on the door and getting mad and praying I brought the cell phone in case the door won't open and I have to call maintenance. That would be one instance when a third arm would be nice.

So next time I get invited to be on the Human Evolution Committee and we're voting on what we're doing next, I'm all over this third arm idea. I know that ditching our baby toes has been winning straw polls and caucuses and stuff, but I really think this is the direction we want to go. So tell your Congressperson to vote "Yes" on the "Giving Moms a Hand Up" initiative.

Yarrrrr!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I have celebrated this auspicious holiday for years, mostly by remembering that it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day as I'm on my way to bed. At that point I do my best "Yarrrrr!" at Casey with a mouthful of toothpaste and promise myself that next year I'll remember before bedtime.

So, this time I actually remembered! In honor of my rememberingness, I went to a sage old pirate and he bestowed upon me a real, honest to goodness pirate name so that I can be all fearsome and stuff. This is my pirate name with accompanying description:

My pirate name is:

Dirty Morgan Cash

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Then, of course, I had to get my family involved. Casey learned his pirate name too. We must really be married. Same last name and everything!

My pirate name is:

Dirty Harry Cash

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to
get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You're
musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine.
Arr!

Get your own pirate name
from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Yarrrrr!

Too Cool For School

Katherine missed the deadline for kindergarten...barely. So of all her friends she is the only one not going to kindergarten this year. Two Tuesdays ago was the first day of school and Katherine was not happy to be excluded from it. She cried when we drove past the elementary school and she saw the swarm of kids with their backpacks and all the school buses and begged me to take her. "I will be good!" she cried, as if her behavior was somehow the reason she couldn't go to school. When I explained, again, that she was too young, she said, "But I will be five on my birthday! I am a big girl!"

Back in February, Casey and I decided to have Katherine tested for early enrollment to kindergarten. We felt that she was outgoing enough and smart enough to fit in with the older kindergartners. When we got the test results back, we were pretty disappointed. Katherine had scored quite high on math and reading and had done well in General Knowledge (whatever that is), but she lacked the dexterity (in other words her handwriting was awful...which sadly is an inherited trait. Neither Casey nor I is going to win a handwriting competition any time soon) and the maturity to really be a good candidate. She was still four after all.

In retrospect, there are things I would have done differently. I also have my opinions about the testing process, but it is what it is and I can't change the school district's decision. I try not to think about it too much because Mama Bear comes out and I know I'm being biased. Every mother thinks her child is the brightest and beautifulest and the most special child ever. But mine really is! (kidding!.....kind of) Anyway....

During the summer, I looked into preschool for her, but all the private ones were WAY too expensive, like the price of college tuition expensive. Some of the elementary schools around here have free Pre-K for those who are low income or have a child with special needs. The rest of us get put on a waiting list where we languish and die. Until I learned about the school district's Pre-K program, I was never unhappy about Casey's job. For one brief moment I actually wished he was a grad student again! Then a beautiful ray of sunlight pierced the preschool gloom. That ray was called Joy School.

I have a friend who is participating in Joy School with a few other ladies around town. She told me about it and said they were still looking for one more mom to spread out the load. I jumped at the chance. It's not free and it is certainly not easy, given that I will have to teach one week a month, but it sure beats the pants off $238 a week (!) plus miscellaneous fees and......ugh....fundraisers for preschool. It also gives Katherine a classroom atmosphere that isn't Sunday School. And it gives me two whole hours twice a week to do whatever I want, which--let's face it--is usually running errands or cleaning, but eventually I hope to be able to just be a slug during that time.

Katherine has been in Joy School for two weeks and is having the time of her life. She has her own backpack and a school box with crayons and scissors. She also gets to paint, sing and play with other kids. She is on Cloud 9 and it couldn't have happened to a nicer girl.