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First off, a rant.  Why do manufacturers of children's underwear put the picture of the action hero on the back?  Do they not understand that the child wants to see the hero?  Do the manufacturers not care that little boys everywhere run around wearing their underwear backwards, insisting it is in fact on right?  Do they realize that backwards-little-boy-underwear cannot, in any way, be comfortable or hygenic?

The end.


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Last week my 4 year old And my 2 year old had an ear infection in their right ears.  Both of them.

Last week my 4 year old And my 2 year old's right eardrum ruptured, within hours of each other, and within hours of seeing the doctor.  Both of them.

Last week my 4 year old was playing with my 2 year old, doing an illegal spinning move on our piano stool.  Both of them.

Scalp wounds bleed.  Profusely.

Last week, after a week of viral illness capped with ruptured eardrums and scalp wounds, my boys were able to recupperate at home.  No hospital, no D10, less drama.  Both of them.

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Our Thanksgiving plans are complicated and not set yet.  However it appears it may include me having 3 full consecutive nights of sleep.  3 nights in a row.  3 nights without gettting up to give nighttime meds. or feedings.  I'm rolling the meaning of consecutive about in my brain with cautious delight.



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Sunday afternoon I had a "first".  I went to a baby shower for the grown daughter of my friend, Kathy.  Let me emphasize, the honored shower-ee was the grown daughter of a friend.

I sat in a chair in their beautiful front yard, clutching my plate of snacks, looking around.  I realized that I, complete with my reading glasses perched as a headband in my hair, was an, "older woman".

Wow.  When did that happen?

Wow.  I wish I felt wise.

Wow.  How cool.

Wow, I'm still daily engaged in the latest sippy-cup technologies shifts as I still have a 2 year old to raise.  I never expected to be older with a toddler.


My friend's daughter is going to be an excellent mom.  I've rarely met a woman who enjoys life more or is so exceedingly thankful and happy.  Her baby will be surrounded by smiles.


I have no deep insights about aging.  Even though I've been doing it for a while, I only just noticed.  It's all new territory.  I'm just along for the ride... So far, excluding gravity's pernicious work, it's pretty exciting.

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I do have enough wisdom to know that when I finally need to throw showers for my own children, I'll be calling my friend Kathy and asking her to help me with ideas.


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So here's an odd thing to be thankful for, at least publicly; I'm seeing less and less of my older children.

It's not the reclamation of square footage provided by their absence that gives my happy feelings.  Well, perhaps that does count a bit.

What makes me happy is that they are out doing and learning and becoming. Becoming the people that God created them to be. 


It's even better when they eat before they come home.  More for us.


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 Piercing my heart with gladness, an illustration:

I was out walking, and holding hands with both my 2 and 4 year old the other day.  My 4 year old said, "Mom, this is great."  I responded in the affirmative and then my son added, "Do you know what would make this the greatest thing ever?"

"No Sweetie, what?"

With glowing eyes he answered, "If everyone in the whole family were with us and we were all holding hands, all the way across the street."

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The Bad:
I picked up some knitting that I haven't worked on all Summer.  Granted it is black sock weight yarn on size 1 needles, but I dropped a stitch and couldn't see the individual stitches well enough to pick the stitch back up.  In June I could see the stitches.  Unbelievable. 

My oldest daughter joined our son in the ranks of licensed drivers.  Her insurance is TWICE that of our son.  Why? Because for some mysterious reason ($$$) State Farm will not allow me to put her as mainly driving our oldest car because our son is already listed as its primary driver.  You can't have two teens listed on the same car?!?  She has to be listed on my car ($$$) the one with more insurance.  It makes me mad; our oldest car is the one she drives the most.

The Good:
So what if I can't see black stitches?  I can go pick up some reading glasses at the drug store and then amuse myself by pretending to be my mom.  She had the most amazing ability to freeze me and my siblings in our tracks with one look over the top of her glasses.  If Mom snapped her fingers at the same time.... watch out!  I wish I could just go visit my sisters and try my abilities on them.  The fear of glasses and snapping fingers is deeply ingrained in all of us.  It would be a hoot to make them jump.

And The...
Back to my oldest daughter and her insurance rates.  Our oldest son has always been required to pay for his own insurance.  My daughter can't afford to.  So instead she's been given the job of planning the weekly menu and doing the weekly grocery shopping. Oh, and best of all, cleaning the fridge before doing the big shopping trip.   It "pays" for her portion of the insurance.

Just imagine me doing a jig on top of my dining room table.  Not only have I not had to shop for the last month but I don't have to meal plan!!! Wahooo!  Not to mention that in the month since she's been doing the groceries I've saved an average of $25 a week. 

From their sense of humor to their mad grocery shopping skills, teenagers can be Unbelievably Good to have about.

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I remember vividly thinking, "What was I thinking!!!",  as my husband headed out the door to take my mom back to the airport almost 19 years ago.

I had a body not-so healed from an emergency cesarean,  a new-born-first-born baby, and a strong desire to fling myself flat on the ground in order to hold onto my mother's ankles so she could not walk out the front door.

We made it.  My new-born baby's been house-sitting and working in another town for the past couple of weeks.  He starts college soon, and at least appears to have suffered no permanent damage from being raised by totally clueless parents.

We have more clues now.  Thanks to our firstborn, our guinea pig.

Today's our first full day back to school.  Minus my college son, I have a 3rd, a 5th, a 9th and an 11th grader along with my 2 pre-schoolers. Once again I find myself wondering/silently screaming...

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It's time for the Girl Next Door's Feel Good Friday.  It's also garbage pickup day on our street.

What's the connection?

My oldest son has done the garbage chore for years.  However, suddenly he has a life outside our home.  College. Work. Girlfriend. 

Hopefully in that order- no offense intended, Brittany.

My almost 9 year old son has been in training.  This morning he did the garbage chore without forgetting anything.  Wahoo! 

We have another 10 year garbage run covered and then my current 2 year old can pick up the slack.  Boys... noisy and goofy, but also quite useful.

Which leads me to my second Feel Good.  It's worth at least 4 Feel Goods, bringing my total to the meme's required 5.

My 4 year old son dressed himself for our "formal" family portrait.  He could only reach the 2 year old's Winter clothing.  He made do.

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• If your eyes are covered no one can see you.
• Everyone wants to see your new underwear.
• Dr Seuss is a cat.
• The computer printer makes drawing paper.
• Dogs are boys, cats are girls.
• The ATM gives out free money.
• Making a face and snarling is cute and flirtatious.
• Friends are made and people influenced by sweaty tic-tacs dispensed with dirty hands.

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Again, again I had to explain while showing a photograph of my sisters and me that I am, in fact,  the youngest sister.

It's kind of like when someone asks how far along you are in your pregnancy and you have to explain that your baby is now 6 weeks old.

In other words, annoying.

It doesn't help that my oldest sister could probably kick me around a racquet ball court within seconds. She runs half-marathons for fun and is the kind of petite and dainty woman I always wanted to be.  She turns 50 this year.

My middle sister (also older) is the pilates queen.  Svelte, tall, graceful. "Older, thank you.  Yes really, she's older than me"- I had to argue this with my 11 year old who was most unflatteringly positive I was mistaken.

If my sisters would just stop coloring over their gray it would help.



So I've penciled in a mid-life crisis.  I'm just giving myself a few days to cope with the fact that I'm 43 and neither tall and graceful, nor petite and dainty.

I'm neither rich nor poor, brilliant nor stupid.

I think way too much but never deeply enough.

I have more than I deserve yet am arrogant enough to be petulant when I don't get even more.

Sometimes I'm angry with the universe for my life's mediocrity. The universe?  The Parable of the Talents most unfortunately prevents me from running too far with this idea.



At the end of the day, the Creator knit me together and Christ thought I was worth dying for.

Worth dying for.  That's big- it means I don't really technically have a mid-life.  This is just a prelude to eternity.



Bring on the gray.

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The smell is back.  The smell is back just in time for July's heat and humidity.

My 4 year old is carnitine deficient and takes a medication to supply his body with the carnitine necessary to help his body metabolize fats.  The medication comes from fish oils; it can, "sometimes cause an unpleasant body odor".

Taking riboflavin helped get rid of the smell.   For two years now he's been smell free.

Riboflavin tastes terrible.  I mean body shuddering, stomach roiling terrible.

For a long time I got him to take the riboflavin anyway.  But it is more important that he enjoy eating so we slowly stopped the riboflavin.

No smell.  No smell for months.

Buuut...

Now- the smell?  Old tuna.  Old tuna left in a parked car.

My child is, "that kid".  The one who inexplicably smells.

We've re-ordered riboflavin gummy bears from a special compounding pharmacy.  I'm hoping it will work again.  I'm hoping he'll like the taste.

I kiss my son's head and try not to inhale. He takes many baths.

I suddenly wish I could go back to the 6th grade and have compassion on the weird kid that sat on the row behind me.  The kid everyone avoided.  The kid that stank and picked his nose as a side show act.

Did he stink and pick his nose, or did he pick his nose because he stank?  A literal thumbing his nose at the universe?

Suddenly, this is a vitally important distinction.

My 4 year old is doing great.  He's glowing with  health.  He's strong, enjoying summer. He has more energy than he's ever had. This winter when he was doing poorly, and I was despairing for him, this was all I wanted, all I prayed for, all I thought I needed for him.

I was wrong.  I want everything.  Everything, minus the smell.

That kid in the 6th grade?  I bet his mom wanted everything too.  I wish I could hug her.

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I was the youngest daughter.  Graceful, curvy older sisters with sleek hair.
Awkward stumbling me.
Always on the wrong side of the learning curve and always a pest.

Because that's what you do when you live on the wrong side of the learning curve; you specialize in pestification.  Or at least that's what I did.

My sweet, blond, and curly headed daughter, who talks of having the brown straight hair and olive skin of her sisters, is home for the week while the older girls are at camp.  Too young to go.

"Too young", a common refrain for the youngest.
I remember.
So...

She and I went on a date.  A brotherless girly date.  A studiedly casual date.
I got to enjoy just her.  She got to be just her and not "the youngest".

The palest strawberry-fudge eyeshadow later.
Daddy (forewarned) noticed.

She giggled.

I'd never dreamt I'd buy makeup for an 11 year old when I started my mothering journey.
Things change.
Hopefully I'm on the right side of the learning curve, at least for a while.

Think of all the words and phrases you say each and every day.  What percentage are repeated constantly?  How many could you simply keep written on cards to hold up at the inevitable appropriate moment?   I can think of many things I find myself repeating constantly.  Some positive, some not.  Things like: