Month: May 2007

I used to be really good at taking pills. Two surgeries and radiation therapy on my neck changed that. Now I have difficulty taking even small pills. I can’t remember whether someone told me about this or if I made it up, but now I take my pills with applesauce instead of water. I just stick the pills into a spoonful of applesauce and swallow the whole thing down. I can take 4 pills simultaneously with this trick, if I use just water I choke on one.

This trick is even more useful for the kids. All of my kids can take pills, even Patches who is only 4. They actually like using the applesauce trick. Particularly since I always have them learn it by using M&Ms instead of pills. I love being able to feed my kids pills rather than chewables. No more complaints about nasty flavors. Not to mention that pills are much cheaper than chewables.

Yesterday a man was walking his daughter to kindergarten when they were both struck by a car and killed. I saw the local headline yesterday morning and skimmed over it. Yesterday evening I found out that this was someone that Howard had met before. I too have a Kindergarten daughter. I’ve hugged her lots today. I’ve hugged my other kids too. I spend a majority of my days doing things for my kids and requiring things of them. Sometimes I get to the end of the day without once really looking at them or enjoying who they are.

I believe that families are reunited after death. Not everyone does, but I do. This man and his daughter are not gone forever. But that does not prevent friends and family from mourning their absence. Sometimes I look at a particular child and ponder what life would be like if somehow that one were taken from me. It is always a tearful contemplation that ends with me having to go hug the child in question. I’m afraid of losing a child. I’m afraid of losing Howard. Not because they’ll be gone forever, but because I’ll miss them so terribly while we are separate.

I decided that this year I get to buy a new swimsuit. I looked at Walmart, Target, Shopko, and Kmart without finding anything that I liked in my size. I then looked at Mervyns and Macy’s where I nearly hyperventilated at the prices. I still didn’t find anything I liked. Apparently any person who is as small as I am, must want to show off all possible skin. All the one piece suits were in larger sizes. I turned to the internet. Land’s end has a beautiful swimdress that I’m confident I would love. But it is $86 dollars. Yipe. Also they seem to think that I’m smaller than a size 4 according to my measurements. That is just weird. I might have worn size 4 in high school, but not lately. Kmart online has a different swimdress for only $26. The Kmart dress isn’t as pretty, but it actually fits inside my budget. Both dresses are black and I was hoping to buy something with some color. I was also hoping not to have to spend this much time or money. I hate this kind of shopping. Where I know what I want and can’t find it anywhere within a reasonable price range.

My cousin is ill. She has been ill for a long time with a wide variety of not-exactly-crippling problems. The illnesses drain her of energy. The medicines she must take drain her family resources and cause her to put on weight. She is left with a cluttered house and four kids to take care of and only a very limited amount of energy or financial resources to manage them. This past week she was hospitalized. I’ve only just acquired this information because my mom spoke with her mom and passed the news along. I fell out of touch with this cousin somewhere during the last 10 years.

This is the cousin I always admired and looked up to. She was two years older than me, so I watched her date and graduate in anticipation of doing these things myself. She was always so pretty and talented. She always seemed to have piles of friends and potential boyfriends. The boyfriends were only potential because she decided not to be in a serious relationship in high school. I admired that and decided to follow the example. Many of the steps I took during my teen years were following in her footprints. She married and had kids which moved her into another realm until I did the same. Then we were peers again. We bought this house from her.

I haven’t spoken with her in a long time, but I know that the life she has now is not the one she dreamed of. The life she dreamed of is impossible because of things she did not choose. I am once again brought to a realization of how blessed I am in my own life. I have the health and energy to chase the life I want rather than nearly drowning just trying to stay afloat. I have been greatly blessed and so I have the obligation to use my blessings to help those who struggle. My cousin has no energy to spare for keeping in touch, so I must reach out to her. I must look around me to see where I can help. I must use some of my spare energy to bless the lives of others.

Kiki’s big party was last night. Very little turned out the way that we had planned. We intended to have sleep over and take the group out to go see Nancy Drew in the theater. It was only after I sent out invitations that I noticed that the release date had been pushed back by a month. So I had to send out a paper saying that we’d go see The Last Mimzy instead. Apparently RSVP means “have your daughter tell my daughter that she can’t come or alternately that she can come but may she bring a friend.” Yes that is right. One of my daughter’s birthday party guests called on the day of the party to ask if she could bring her friend with her. But it was okay because we had an extra ticket because another girl canceled at the last minute. Oh, and no one was staying the night. The one guest and her friend did come back in the morning for breakfast, but when they arrived they announced that they had already eaten.

Kiki had fun. That is the important thing. I need to remember that because the whole experience has left me grumpy. I’m grumpy and I have a newfound resolve to ALWAYS respond when an invitation says RSVP. I also have a huge bowl full of waffle batter that will probably go to waste. Fortunately Howard was able to find volunteers to help us eat up the dutch oven pizza from last night.

At least the movie was a good choice. All the girls enjoyed it, or said they did. Listening to the chatter on the way to the movie was like being transported back to middle school. They all talked about boys in their class and who liked whom. Kiki, who isn’t interested in boys that way yet, handled things the same way I did at that age. She happily chattered about other people without saying a word about her own interests. During my stint as chauffeur I realized that the girl who invited a friend along, invites this same friend to everything. She would chatter about how her family was going to go pick up her grandma or that she wanted to go to the mall, or how she intended to take trip to a park. No matter what the plan was she’d turn to the friend and say “you should come!” I had a picture of this poor quiet friend being dragged everywhere as a sort of human security blanket. Also, preteen girls don’t make statements, they make exclamations. And they interrupt themselves lots. And they pretend to be embarrassed about things they really want to reveal. I had friends like that. They were soothing because I didn’t have to do much talking. I think Kiki finds them soothing for the same reasons.

Anyway it is all over now and I think it was a good birthday for Kiki.

Today began with a trip to the library. Before the library trip was all the normal dragging kids out of bed, feeding breakfast, and dropping at school. That doesn’t count as the beginning of the day because for all of that I run on autopilot. The beginning of the day is when I take a breath and contemplate what to do with the two hours before I have to collect Gleek. Today I spent half of that time at the Library. Patches went with me. He was not enthusiastic about the library trip. “Libwawies are bowing.” He informed me. But I enticed him by telling him he could put all of the books into the return slot. He thought that was pretty cool. Patches was much more interested in exploring the building than in selecting books. So we wandered all over the library. Every stair had to be climbed. Every elevator required a ride. The stepping stones in the courtyard all had to be jumped upon. As we passed through the areas of the library that I needed, we would pause the exploration long enough for me to grab a few books. Then we capped off the visit by using the self-checkout machine. Patches thought that was really cool. He says we need to use it every time. As we left the library I asked if he still thought that libraries are boring. “No. They’we intwesting.” Score one for future literacy.

I plan to take my kids to the library often this summer. This will be a significant change since I’ve only been inside the library five times in the past year. Three of those times were in the last two months. We stopped going in part because trying to keep track of 4 children inside a library was exhausting. I’m using today’s experience and trying to plan how I can make it work. Patches obviously needs to explore. I suspect Gleek will need the same. Kiki will quickly load up her bag and arms with all the books she can carry. Link will have to be coerced into picking at least 3 books. I want to be able to select books for the three kids who won’t pick them at the library, but who want to have books to read when they are at home. I think the plan has me trailing Gleek and Patches while Kiki picks out books. Then she can watch them in the enclosed courtyard while I go select books. The library trips will not be relaxing for me, but I think they’ll be necessary for the children.

I am grouchy today and trying to figure out why.

It could be because I ran some numbers for my book project. I want very much to believe that we’ll sell 2000 copies of the book. We sold that many of Howard’s book. But my book doesn’t have the built in audience that his book has. If we order 1000 copies and sell all of them we’ll make our money back and have just enough money for another print run. For 2000 books the price per book is lower, but the out of pocket expense is higher. We’ve decided that if the pre-orders get over 850 then we’ll order 2000 books. A part of my brain believes that will be an easy number to hit. Another part of my brain thinks that is a ridiculously high number. The rest of my brain wants both of those pieces to shut up so we can think other thoughts now.

The grouchy could also be related to the fact that I signed Link up for a summer school class. For the entire month of June he’ll be spending 3 hours every week day working on his reading and writing. The teacher swears that they’ll keep it fun. Link likes this teacher and wants to do the class. But it is still 3 hours of school when no one else has school. I’ve told Link that I’ll be making the other kids do more housework and that since he’s in school he’ll only have to do his regular stuff. That makes it a little more fair. Part of me is glad to have this external structure for our lives. Another part of me doesn’t want to sign up for more structure when I was going to get to sleep in more often. I hope Link has fun. I don’t want him to be miserable even though I do want to help him with reading and writing.

Another possible source of grouchy is that I’m pretending that I’m not waiting breathlessly to hear back about the Ages of Wonder anthology edited by Julie Czerneda. She told me that I’d hear by May 22. I know that there are a few more stories coming in by the end of this week. I will probably hear on Monday or Tuesday. But there is an excited voice that whispers about the possibility that I could hear today, shouldn’t we check email just in case? The rational voices preach calmness and talk sensibly about the unlikelyhood of my story being selected. They all jabber while I try to stuff them into a box and pretend I don’t hear any of them.

The last day of school is two weeks from today. I’m trying to plan for a summer schedule. I want very much to keep the kids working on academic things. Link will do this in summer school, but I have to provide a structure for the rest. I want to make sure they all help me keep the house clean and running smoothly. I want to plan enriching activities so that we don’t spend all summer with video games blaring. I’m forming a plan that involves assigning each day of the week a subject of focus. One day could be library day where we check out books and focus on reading. Another day could be art day where I plan an art project. A third day could be game day where I use game play to teach lessons about cooperation or resource management. The cynical voice in my head thinks this plan is ridiculously elaborate and that I’ll never follow through on it past one week or maybe two. but I need some kind of plan to head off the chaos that is a house full of children for three unstructured months.

For me to finish my book publishing project, I require Howard’s help. Every minute he spends helping me is one that he isn’t spending working on his book. I try to keep the impact on his time to a minimum, but I can’t make it zero. Part of me feels guilty for impinging on his work time. Another part feels like it is only my just due for all the hours I’ve spent supporting his work. Of course his books pay the bills while mine is a labor of love.

No wonder I’ve been grouchy. I’ve spent all day fleeing from one set of arguing voices only to trip over another set. I wish I could find a way to make them all shut up so that I could get something done. Watching a movie would work, but then so would gardening. Great. Another argument.

Some days don’t contain much time for quiet contemplation. Today was such a day. I ran from activity to activity trying to keep everyone on schedule. We fit everything in, the birthday donuts to a classroom, the key lime pie made, the church luncheon at a park, the wrapping of presents, the hour of cub scouts, the mother/daughter dinner, the presents and pie eating, and the departure of Kiki for her first official youth group activity. Interspersed with all of that were the regular events which happen every day, two potty accidents, laundry, dishes, taking kids to school, picking kids up from school, all that stuff. I even stole some time to tweak the text on my children’s book.

It was a busy day. I want very much to wax rhapsodical about Kiki and how much she has grown. I want to use words to capture her just as she is before she grows another two inches and is taller than me. I want to describe the conflicting emotions she harbors as she wants to be independent but discovers that there are many ways to achieve it, some of them bad ones. I want to express my amazement at her ability to turn herself around and place her feet on a path that leads to places she wants to go rather than places she doesn’t. She has had a rough week and I’m thoroughly impressed that she is learning lessons from it and moving on.

Kiki is now 12. In 14 days she will be leaving elementary school forever. Next fall she will embark upon the perilous journey that is public junior high school. I am both happy and sad to see her grow up. She was my first baby and now there is nothing babyish about her.