Eleven

Times change.

You wake up one morning. The number after your name ticks up by one.

And you realize something just isn't quite right with your little world.

The sun peeks through your windows and its light is set further ablaze by the color of your soundings.

This can not stand.



And so ... we change.



But as we do, we have to remember. ...

Some things always stay the same.

Snow Day

The morning commute was a little different today.

Roads waited for plows. Sidewalks waited for shovels. 

Girls waited for nothing.

A little daring. 

A little danger. 

A lot of joy.

This is winter ...

In all its magnificence. 

Upside down

Bad news: Climate change (or a tropical storm) is turning our property into a lush, mosquito-ridden swamp.
Good news: Our windows can now cultivate exotic-looking mushrooms.

Bad news: Father-in-law, working on our house, accidentally severed the phone line when digging out the foundation.
Good news: No one calls us anyway.

Bad news: After digging out the foundation father-in-law reports insulating it is practically impossible.
Good news: We can use that money on better windows.

First you must float

Pools scare me.

There. I said it.


Despite the fact that my husband worked doggedly in the wind and rain and sun to renovate the pool that he ... well ... broke.

From the moment he got it gurgling to a clear, if not dark-bottomed oasis again - the first time since we moved into the house - I've been counting the days until winter.

When we can close it on up again.

I can't stop thinking about the statistics. About the people we actually know, as well as those we've read about in the news, who have lost children in pools.

I can't stop thinking about how I could have been one of those statics myself, when I was a toddler and slipped into a pool at a party and sunk to the bottom.

But we can't live in fear. We have to be practical. And proactive.

Even if I am mostly NEGATIVE.

* No kids in the pool yard without an adult. Ever.

* No beginning swimmers in the deep end without an adult who is free to swim with them one-on-one.

* Not following the directions of adults is grounds for ouster from pool area for the remainder of the day.

And one positive ... The most important positive of all pool rules:

All children must learn to float on their backs first and foremost.




After they master that, we'll work on the crawl.

Nearly done

The pool renovation is 98 percent finished.



Unless you add landscaping into the mix. ... Then we're probably down to 22 percent done.

Welcome to the nicest room in our house ...

Now, please, wash your hands.

Pimp my (home) office

This is the cleanest this room will ever be ...

So. Since I'm home ... hiding from the snow/ice/rain or whatever concoction of winter precipitation we're supposed to be getting today.

What say ye?

What color do I paint the walls?

... before i start climbing them that is.

Flying off the shelf ...

Let's hope the eight tiny reindeer can keep their roof-clattering paws hooves off.

Tuning out

"You aren't going to like my idea," he said, still hungover from a night of playing tiny video games he hadn't meant to play, on a tiny screen that is destined to make him go blind.

"Try me," I said, wishing for more sleep and less talk.

"I think we should turn off the TV, stow the cell phones and just enjoy Thanksgiving."

I suppose I can understand why he'd think I'd protest. Technology addiction isn't exactly like an addiction to chemical substances ... most folks can admit, at least in a social way, they are hooked.

Have cell phone, will check it ... several times ... a minute. It's the nature of the beast.

I didn't mention how irritated he'd gotten last week when I'd accidentally instituted a similar moratorium on electronic communication by forgetting to bring my cell phone to the grocery store. I found the lack of a phone to be refreshing and oddly liberating.

Everyone else thought it an inconsiderate affront to civility.

Not only was Ittybit unable to play Angry Birds whilst we drove, but The Husband couldn't call me several times to ask when I'd be coming home, or if I could pick up an extra tub of ice cream.

*Insert Heavy Sigh*

Truth is I don't want to be tethered to technology. I don't want to compulsively check for messages from perfect strangers. I'm tired of deleting sales pitches and propaganda. I'm tired of distinguishing which is which.

The idea of turning off cell phones and closing the doors on the "entertainment center" as we go about the work of turkey and trimmings is more than nice, it's nostalgic.

We turned on music and danced. The kids exercised their imaginations and their ability to play nice. The Champ turned his coat into a sled, and Ittybit, in turn, facilitated Magic Coat Rides between the dining room and the entry hall.

It wasn't anything special. It just was direct, and without a filter.

Yet we are unable to pull the plug entirely.

At 8 o'clock, we turned on the television to watch "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." And then we saw exactly what we hadn't been missing:

Eighteen minutes of vintage, values-infused entertainment about the spirit of celebration hacked apart by 12 minutes of commercial "YOU NEED TO BUY THIS TOY" or "STORES OPEN AT MIDNIGHT WITH DOOR-BUSTER DEALS" interruptions.

"Where's Charlie Brown?" she protests the first time Walmart broke in on the entertainment.

"Walmart is holding him hostage until they get a chance to sell us on shopping there."

"Well ... Do we have to shop there to see it again?"

"No, honey. Our policy is not to deal with terrorists."

"Well ... What DO we DO then?"

"We just tune them out."

Black (Hole) Friday

Children everywhere are smiling a little more widely.

Their springy steps have a bit more bounce.

They are practicing penmanship and patience.

They are being courteous and kind; even asking to do more chores.

It's all because they've started making their lists ... They're checking them more than twice ... They're acting less naughty and more nice ...

Because they know Santa will soon be stuffing his overfed keister down the chiminey (or our 'STACK' as The Champ calls it) and piling presents under our tree.

What. A. Jerk.

Seriously.

Does he not realize how often I've told them that if they don't put away their toys I will put them away in the the donation bin?

Does he not care that the toys they begged for last year either found their way to oblivion or the bottom of the closet?

Does he not look around as he plunks down new packages, how crowded this little toyland has already become?

I mean ...



Where will we put it?

I'm thinking, quite seriously, there needs to be a revolt at the North Pole. The Environmental Elves have to overthrow the Consumer Elves and install their own Head Honcho: Reduction Santa.

He'll be leaner, meaner and greener.

Now we are 'Six'

The notion that everyday life should be easy is such a crock of

... super chunky peanut butter.

Getting past the everyday is the challenge.


As I was driving to work today I thought about the people living a particular street I'll call "Anywhere, USA."

You might live on this street, or you may know someone who lives on this street.

It's not particularly fancy, but most of the houses on this tree-lined drive are well maintained and the yards are wide and lush.

Homeowners include retirees and single women, families with young children and families with teens and families whose children have recently flown the coop. Most people know their neighbors by sight, if not by name.

There's a family with an incessantly barky dog in the middle of the block, and one with the roaming cat a few houses down. There's the house on the end where the lawn is unlikely to be mowed and is therefore slowly being swallowed up by the overgrowth.

I blindly stare out of my car window at the stop sign at the end of the block, wondering how they do it.

Most mornings I manage to get the kids breakfast, bribe them into getting dressed in fresh clothes, brushing hair, washing faces, lunches packed, homework ready. But there's always something missing; a smudge of peanut butter, a snarl where the pillow rests.

The spring plantings - mostly lettuce in pots on the porch - have already been eaten by brave rabbits. The trappings of life with youngsters -- sports equipment, bikes, brightly colored toys -- piles up in the carport.

Everything in life accumulates in increments.

Some you keep on top of, some topple you.

This morning, when Ittybit got dressed for the Letter of the Day - "N" for number - she was sad. She wouldn't participate today. She has no clothes with numbers on them. Numbers are on sports jerseys, she believes, and those are for boys.

I'm sure my husband was more than a little perturbed when he heard the whirr of the sewing machine as he was trying to move the morning toward its daily appointments.

But when I handed her a sweatshirt with a number crudely cut from scrap fabric and awkwardly stitched to the front, he took a deeper breath.

Of course, Ittybit wanted to know why she wasn't consulted on the number selected. Six may have been her, but did it really need to define her?

Her father set her straight.

"One day you'll look back on this and you'll see how awesome 6 really was."

Why do they even listen to me? They know I know not of what I speak

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

ME: "What's going on."

HIM: "I'm finally getting around to putting the knocker on the door. ... the only problem is it's going to have to go to the left or the right because the center panel isn't wide enough for the bolts. ... Which do you like better?"

ME: "Uh ... neither really. What about centering it on the lower panel?"

HIM: "I suppose it would look stately ... but it's a knocker. Knockers shouldn't be so low."

ME: "Hey, gravity affects everyone. This is an old house. ... My vote is for symetry."

HIM: "OK ... Gravity it is."

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

ITTYBIT: "Hey ... what are you doing?

HIM: "Installing a knocker."

ITTYBIT: "It looks weird."

HIM: "Talk to your mother."

Good days, bad days and holidays

We might not be sitting around a table this Thanksgiving day, sharing a meal and a laughing with our families, though that was the plan.

Early this morning, just as I was getting to sleep, Ittybit woke up, sick. Every 20 minutes since she's been up wretching some small amount of stomach acid almost into the toilet. Almost.

As soon as the time softens the fright of the phone, we'll be making some calls to tell people that maybe they should not come to the house of ill repuke after all.

We'll add the disappointment to a growing list of concerns.

We know life isn't always roses, often it is thorny.

But we'll still be thankful ...

Even if we're eating Cheerios and milk come dinner time.

We know we are blessed with Works-Too-Hard Dad, and Little Sick Miss, and Mad Boy Bites Occasionally.

We wouldn't trade our incontinent, geriatric mongrel for any other pedigreed pooch.

And though I call her Stupid Cat, she's Lovable, too.

I'm thankful every time I look at my kids, when they're screaming or running around like banshees. They are people I'd never imagined I'd ever meet, and now can't imagine life without.

I'm thankful for you folks, who have spoken up. And for those who just read silently.

I'm thankful for time and space and hope.

I'm thankful for this joyful mess.

So this is growing up

Saturday turned out to be a second moving day. Oh, it started out like any average Saturday ...

We sat around and drank coffee while the kids chased the cat around the house and fought over which toys were allowed to be played with and by whom ...

I kvetched about the laundry piling up and the dryer I didn't want ...

We shivered our way down to the village square where we treated ourselves to breakfast, and more bickering by the kids, and finally the farmers' market ...

When we got home and started the usual "OH WE'RE HOME, LET'S START CLEANING," which consists of shuffling junk piles into a more orderly configuration of junk piles ... as the kids shower their toys liberally into the new clearings. ...


But the van -- filled with estate furniture that had been graciously donated to us by his maternal aunt -- called to him: "EMPTY ME."

So in the middle of the day we combed through these new-to-us possessions, and quickly decided to replace our plastic-covered dining chairs, drag a couple of dressers into bedrooms, adopt a few standing lamps and swap TVs; ours for one of a more manageable size.

It was like another moving day with the driveway cluttered with stuff ...

Some staying ...

Some going ...

Some heading into storage for posterity ...

Some heading into storage for some future yard sale ...

Those blue chairs with the vinyl seats that we've been unsticking ourselves from after family meals ... banished, replaced by mismatched but perfectly lovely hardwoods.

My desk ... used for years as our dining room table ... went back to it's position in my office; circle fills the rectangle.

A corner cabinet ... for no other reason than it fits, as if it were built in.

A bench follows two end tables and a drop-leaf game table into the living room.

An embroided chair and a rocker ... too nice to stay downstairs where the cat will sharpen her claws on them ... are carried upstairs ...

I was amazed they all seemed to fit and make the rooms seem bigger.

We moved a Swiss-made precision instrument of a bed into the place that is my office … where the cat and a pile of homeless boxes live for now.

Will my "office" ever really be an office? Is it destined to be a guest bedroom? A cat’s lair? I think I’ll start calling it what it was destined to be: Swiss Army Room.

It may still be found furniture but it feels so much more grown up. After all, it wasn't found on garbage day.