For My Geeky Pleasure

I started tutoring a student in Trig last night. He needed review of the Unit Circle, so I whipped out my WICKED paint skills and made this:

Almost 20 years later, I still can walk around the Rose Garden...Ginter (my trig teacher) would be so proud. (If you see a mistake let me know...it has been 20 years).

Encore!

Last night I did no less than 10 curtain calls for my kids at bedtime. The more practical parent in me tells me this was excessive and I should do more ignoring and less responding. But, something about "I just sneezed and have snot running all over my face," pulls at my heartstrings every time.

How Phobias are Born

It should have been a regular visit to the grocery store.

In fact, it was. Until we took the elevator to the parking garage. The kids were happily batting their balloons around each other and I was lazily thinking about the night's dinner menu. The elevator settled in the basement and I followed Goosie off. Little E, who usually sticks pretty close to me was distracted by his balloon.

He didn't get off in time.

I turned to see the doors closing, a frightened little face behind them, and as I lunged for the elevator button, I heard his blood-curdling scream rise to the floor above me.

Perhaps more unsettled than her ascending 3 year old brother, Goose danced about my legs oozing anxiety. Adopting the "hug-a-tree" strategy, I frantically pushed the call button; I was fairly certain Little E would be too stunned to leave the "safety" of the elevator car and would return shortly. But, of course, the other elevator came first.

Goose and I hopped on car #2 and went up. The doors opened and standing around the elevator were several onlooking adults who, without any verbal cues from us, indicated Little E had just gone back down, this time accompanied by an adult. Of Course.

We got down just as Little E and his helper were about to go back up (how long could we have played that game??). According to his rescuer, Little E had pushed enough of the buttons to get the fire department on the phone. Little E popped his thumb in his mouth and recovered fairly quickly. Goose, on the other hand, won't go near an elevator now without ensuring that all parties are physically attached to a trusted adult.

It's been almost half of a year since it happened. I'm not sure how much he remembers...every now and then he mentions it. But, just in case, I'm going start saving for future therapy bills.

Whew!

I thought I was being super efficient today. I got the kids dressed and chores done in record time. By 9:30 I got grocery shopping for the week done, the dishes done, laundry humming, the next month of preschool planned.....and then the phone rang.

It was some random lady with a bit of an accent calling me by name. "I think you left your wallet in a cart in the Target parking lot." ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Could you take it to customer service? I'll be right there."

Our Target is super ghetto. I see empty boxes and open on the shelves all the time where people have simple stolen the product. In fact, once I accidentally BOUGHT an empty box. The likelihood that an honest person found my wallet, would take the time to look up my phone number, call me, and then secure the wallet at customer service is quite slim. But that's what she did. She even called me back a half hour later to make sure I had recovered it.

Blessings upon your head Good Woman!

Perhaps even better than getting my wallet back it provided a great teaching moment for my children who were very interested in the fact that someone had the opportunity to take something that wasn't theirs, but chose to do the right thing.

I'll definitely be remembering this act of service as our family celebrates Thanksgiving this year.

My Afternoon

tree

alight with sun-drenched fire

wild symphony of branches

assaults and soothes

with violent beauty

Poetry

I've been going through old boxes and folders and found some old poems I dashed off sometime in the past and had saved.

Homecoming Sunset

an endless trek

across the

vast

and beautiful land

coming to an

end

my mind

caught

in the origin of my trials

saddened

by the thought of my home there

my eyes

lift

to the darkening sky

silhouetted peaks

capped with crowns

of gold

of red

dancing

in the purple light

they say to me:

"welcome home"

Untitled

Wandering.

Lost.

Confused by the path

that lies before her.

Woman steps on.

She cannot find herself,

and knows not where to look.

Everywhere she was,

she is no longer.

Vanished.

She searches on.

Lightening Tree

Strong, it stands alone

in the darkness;

its bare arms outstretched

unaware of its majesty.

Until the clouds break;

a singular ray

finds the way to its soul;

And it is beautiful.

Little E and the Whales

In honor of Little E's birthday.

We went to the beach yesterday. Goose was in heaven, diving right in, teaching herself to swim, being called back from going out too far; Little E, on the other hand, was a little stressed. He would not go near the water without me. He's fine in the pool, so the fear of the beach, while partially understandable, was a little excessive and definitely unexpected....until he started talking about sharks and whales eating him.

The kids have been asking for Bible bedtime stories lately. Jonah is a favorite. Perhaps I had been a little too vivid in my storytelling.

Anyway, Little E got more acclimated to the beach as the day went on (and after repeated assurances he would not get eaten) and eventually let me take him in - provided I was holding him the entire time.

That night in bed Little E initiated a what I thought was a rather amusing conversation. Maybe it is only funny to a mom, but I love to see how these little minds work and Little E is finally verbal enough to make things really entertaining.

Little E: Mom, I will take all the little fishes in my hands and save them from the sharks and whales so they not can eat them. (The "not can" inversion is one of my favorite little kid mistakes of Little E's.)

Me: Oh, you are? Well then what are the sharks and whales going to eat?

Little E: Goldfish.

Me: Goldfish crackers?

Little E: Yes.

Goose: You can't do that Ethan, they will get all soggy in water.

Little E: Oh. I will get in a boat and wait until the sharks and come to the top and then I will feed them food.

Me: What food will you feed them instead of goldfish?

Little E: Peanut butter sandwiches and smoosh-mallows and bananas and raisins and....(the list went on for several minutes.)

Me: Because you don't want them to eat the little fish anymore?

Little E: Yeah, yeah, I will save them. And I will feed the sharks and whales from my boat so that they will have food.

My son, the marine philanthropist.

Chocolate Milk Tuesdays

I totally admit that I use food as a coping device. In particular, sugary foods. (Mmm...just typing this I had to jump up and go get a handful of JellyBellies. ) As long as I remember, I've had this tendency. In fact, I remember being warned by a friend's mother, whilst I stuffed my fifth brownie down my throat, I would encounter weight issues in adulthood. My 110 lb, 5'9" frame shook with laughter at the idea.

She was right. I had kids, turned 30 and now I go jean shopping every 6 months.

But this post isn't about weight-gain. It's all about chocolate milk.

Chocolate. My first true love. (Sorry Jimmy-John, Chocolate and I were long time lovers before you came along. You do hold a solid second place, though.) Nothing chocolate in my house lasts for long.

There is one exception, though: chocolate milk. I've never quite understood it. It's relatives, chocolate ice cream and hot chocolate are longtime staples of my diet. But, I never am tempted by the mid-temperature variety of chocolate flavored dairy products.

And then I started home milk delivery from a local creamery. Every Tuesday morning I get freshly bottled organic milk dropped on my doorstep. On a whim, and mostly for the co-inhabitants of my home, I ordered a quart of chocolate (whole) milk. I wasn't planning to have any, but tried some "just to see".

Mmmmm, boy. Tuesday is my new favorite day of the week. Creamy, rich, the perfect amount of cacao bean. But at $2.75 a quart, it's definitely a luxury item.

Jimmy-John is lucky if he gets to lick the bottle when he gets home. I'd order a bigger bottle, but I don't think that would help JJ at all. I'd just be fatter and he would be poorer.

Is This What They Call a Midlife Crisis

There is a girl that lives inside my head who I really admire. She's compassionate, talented, gracious, witty, confident and capable. She looks a lot like me, but she towers over me in strength of character. She's one of those people you'd like to hate, but who is so charming you can't help but love her. I spend a lot of my time and energy trying to mold myself into some reasonable representation of her.

Perhaps that is why I love making New Year's resolutions. I feel inspired and excited about the changes I plan to make in my life. I like to pretend that this year will be the year when I get a little closer to the mirage of my perfect self.

As I pondered what items to add to my to-do list this year, a strange thing happened. Instead of bringing the of the happy buzz of encouragement I expected, the thought of adding one more unrealized expectation to my seemingly unending catalogue of failures weighed heavily on me. And more keenly, I felt the investment of time was one that I could not afford as I am already operating on a severe deficit.

This time shortage is really an enigma to me. I don't feel like I do anything terribly important or productive during a typical day. I don't have a high-powered job. I'm not really what one would call a Super-Mom (you know, the type that has fun, enriching activities for their children all day long while somehow managing to keep a perfectly neat home, make a 3 course dinner, volunteer at the local homeless shelter, and read the NY Times from cover to cover each day). Mostly, I (hardly) manage to maintain a steady baseline of quasi-productivity.

I decided to spell out all the amorphous expectations I have for myself. I won't bore you with the banality of the items on the list, but to give you an idea, after reviewing the list my husband asked me if I had inadvertently omitted restroom trips. Were these mundane tasks really causing so much stress in my life? Could so much boredom really cause my stomach to churn by its incompletion?

I considered the list. Not much could be excised with out great sacrifice on the part of family members (grocery shopping really is essential, they all assure me), and some of the listed items are deceivingly time-consuming (i.e. physically caring for the children: one must also consider this includes providing an impromptu bathing when yogurt mysteriously splatters across the dining room). But most alarmingly, the few things on the list that I actually like doing were at the bottom of the priority list and often are the first casualties when time gets tight.

I finally came up with a few ideas that hint at making things better...you know: enhance efficiency on the most boring and routine tasks so as to free up more time for the more enjoyable options, wasting less time procrastinating undesirable activities (read: not signing into facebook or searching craiglist just "one more time" in case someone listed the serger of my dreams during the past 10 minutes), etc. But really, those strategies just seem like a diversion from the real problem: my life is dull. So dull I couldn't even bring myself to write Christmas cards this year.

It's true. I've become a typical boring thirty-something looking for a little pizzazz in life. (And not the type of pizzazz that comes from your two-year-old pooping on the kitchen floor. Side note: Jimmy-John wanted me to blog that story and entitle it: "Goose didn't lay THIS golden egg!" I laughed so hard, I almost regressed on my own potty-training.) I need something to get my heart racing. I need an interesting response to the question "So, what have you been up to lately?"

So, this leads me to my big question: Does any have a motorcycle for sale?

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Of late, I've been telling scripture stories to the children as I lay them down to bed. Because Goose has been having nightmares recently and scripture stories almost always have a violent element to them, I try to edit the stories to make them a little more G-rated. Occasionally, I make mistakes and include something I probably shouldn't have. Goose always locks in on it. A couple of nights ago I mentioned earthquakes in the Americas accompanying the death of Christ.

She immediately interrupted me with a barrage of questions. What is a earthquake? Where do they happen? Why do they happen? What does a fault line look like? Why do the plates rub against each other?

Goose has a hyper-analytical mind. She fires question after question at me all day, everyday. I try to be exact and matter-of-fact in my answers, trying to avoid the "because that's the way it is" answer but eventually she wears me down and I can't come up with any more explanations. I've thought about adopting the approach instituted by Calvin's dad from the famous comic strip: making up ridiculous answers in an attempt to avoid further interrogation, but 1) I can't bear to lie to my kids (I even have trouble with the Santa Claus deal) and 2) it wouldn't work with her anyway. She would still press until I answered with "because" or "I don't know". Sometimes I think this is her entire objective: to she how long it takes to wear me down.

But, I digress. Relatively speaking, the questions regarding earthquakes ended fairly early that night. But, I learned the next night they had made a significant impression. We were talking about something else completely and she started asking me about some strange subject: "sorry lines".

After a series of my own questions I realized "sorry lines" were "fault lines". (A cute insight into a 4-yr old's word association, in my opinion.) Goose wanted to know all about earthquakes. More specifically, she wanted to know all about the danger and destruction of earthquakes.

Uh-oh, my gut said. We've just barely gotten to the point where she can be alone in a dark room. What have I done? I assured her that we lived in an area where earthquakes really didn't happen and that she shouldn't worry about it, etc. She wasn't interested in my reassurances. She still wanted to know all about the dangers. I told her in the morning I'd show her some movies of earthquakes on the computer.

Still anxious about inciting a new irrational fear in my daughter, I set about screening youtube videos. I chose the most mild, non-threatening, earthquake videos I could find. A bridge (without cars or people) shaking visibly. Water in a pool rocking from side to side. And of course the dry films from 8th grade earth science with the maps of tectonic plates and fault lines. We wanted to stay as far away as possible from Lois Lane out of gas with a cracking San Andreas faultline in the rearview mirror.

Goose was unimpressed with my selection. "But, where are the things falling on people? I want to see the dangerous ones." Sigh...

I brought out a few of the more violent ones; the kind of videos one would expect to find on youtube. The messy, dramatic ones. I watched Goose carefully while we watched people hysterically run from falling objects. No fear crossed her brow, in fact, they were exactly what she wanted and she has since shown no signs of burgeoning anxiety - just more cold, analytical questions.

Still unsure about her emotional state, I asked her why she was asking me so many questions about earthquakes. She looked at me like I was the dumbest person in existence and said "Because I want to learn about earthquakes." My incredulity continued, but I humored her and tried patiently answer questions all day. We watched more videos, we talked, and we looked at maps.

Tonight as we were snuggling in for bed, we affectionately rubbed our noses together, a sign of love we've shared since her infancy. This time, however, it's meaning changed. "HEY MOM! " Goose exclaimed. "Our noses are like an earthquake!" Wow. She got it all. I laughed. We rubbed our noses again, and this time followed the gesture by shaking violently under her covers. We laughed until tears filled our eyes: she with the satisfaction of new-found knowledge and I with the rediscovery of wonder.