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I once caught my 6 year old riding two scooters, worn as skis, down the hill by our house.  Why?-because one scooter just isn't dangerous enough.

Today I was at the doctor with 3 boys.  Only one actually had the appointment, the other two were dragged in for good measure.

"Doctor, could you look at my 12 year old's hand and shoulder; it's not healing well.  Somehow he keeps mangling himself on his scooter, I'm not sure how."

At this point the weak-link spoke up.  You know, the youngest- the most likely to spill the beans sort of weak link.  Actually, he didn't speak up he sort of sang-up.  "Dumb ways to die.... hmm, hmm hm hmmm."

"What's that?" I stupidly asked.

"We were playing (again he sang the rest) Dumb Ways To Die," was the matter of fact response.

12 year old vainly claimed that he wasn't playing the game.  6 and 8 year olds agreed- "Well he wasn't actually trying to be one of the die-ers but we were crashing into him while we died."

I'm so glad my pediatrician is a mom.

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I may be weird but most sounds have an accompanying memory-scent. They are all linked in my brain. These are 10 of my favorites.


A baby giggling. Any baby giggling. The smell is clean skin and powder; it makes you want to nibble sweet little necks.

The cadence and pitch of the voice of a 5 year old "teaching" something to a younger sibling. Play-dough- I smell play-dough and sunshine when I think of this. My husband calls this the Kindergarten Smell.


The early morning chirping of birds through open windows on that first morning of open windows. Fresh air and pungent onion grass always accompanies this sound.


The coffee pot percolating because my husband or a child woke up and turned it on while I lingered in bed. Guatemala Antigua- it's the best coffee smell in the world.


My husband's laugh. Which reminds me of how my dad would tease my mother by drawling, "You sure stink good."


The sound of a group of people a capella singing "It is Well With My Soul." This has a papery smell in my memory- all those old songbooks.


Acoustic guitars and last minute lawnmowers at twilight. Is the smell of lingering heat and humidity lifting off of asphalt as my husband and I walk on summer evenings.

The harmony of siblings singing. This one is a visual instead of a smell; you can almost see the music twisting along DNA strands.


The wind through heavy tired foliage in late summer.  Smells like cicadas and clean dirt. Yes, cicadas smell.


The sound of the mail truck accelerating from my neighbors mailbox and then braking at mine and then accelerating off again. It's the sound of possibilities and it smells like cinnamon because Christmas time is its heyday.

Anyone else want to share their favorites?

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My brain has been misfiring a lot lately and I keep misplacing things.  Important things.  I lost my cell phone last week.  It stayed lost for days.  Being cell-less was weird and actually pretty wonderful for a while.  Except I realized that I don't know any of my children's phone numbers.  Or anyone's current cell number.  Luckily, I do have a friend who still has the same phone number she had 14 years ago and even luckier she has my kid's numbers on her cell.

She's my bff from bc -before cells that is.

I tried to prove to myself that I'm not completely brain dead but I'm not sure the ability to rattle off phone numbers from when I was 9 proves much.

Problem is I've not been sleeping well.  Sleep is chocolate dipped truffles served with the sounds of waves crashing in the background while elves play acoustic guitar.  Not Keebler elves mind you but the tall androgynous kind of elves from Lord Of The Rings. I'm sure they could play pretty awesome acoustic guitar.

 I got up the other night after a few hours snooze and talked my oldest son into watching The Walking Dead, which I had never seen before; he seemed a bit confused that I wanted to watch it.  Roku should not, I repeat, should not, automatically play the next episode of a t.v. show.  Partially frozen by horror, lack of sleep and by anticipation I lost track of how late it was until my night-owl of a son finally left the room saying he had to be able to get up for work in the morning.

Now I'm contributing to the delinquency of minors- well, at least he's not technically a minor anymore.

I always do this lack of sleep dance when I'm really over-extended because that's precisely when the only time left available to wind down is the time when I should be sleeping.  And perhaps also because that's when I start drinking a tad bit too much coffee.  But no more said about that.  Mentioning possible over-consumption of coffee to a mom, any mom, is as savvy as asking an angry woman what time of the month it is.

Instead of focusing on drinking less coffee I've spent the last two days trying to drink more water on the obviously faulty theory that being full of water will keep me from wanting to drink coffee, which in turn will help me sleep more.  This has not been a success.

The whole point of this post is that on top of everything else going on I rashly promised my older kids that I would join them in a writing project due this weekend- we are all supposed to write a short story based off of a theme one of them dreamt up.  The point you ask?  Oh yes, since I should be spending my limited writing time fulfilling my assignment I'm procrastinating with public grousing. It makes perfect sense.

 So...

If you hear sloshing and see a frazzled woman who has lost her keys and should be writing a short story, that would be me.



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