the gap ad you've been waiting for

So I've had a little trouble capturing the gap.  Here's Jake getting a hair cut last night.  He sat perfectly still, but do you really think I feel like grinning now, Mom?

Then I tried again tonight.  Say cheese, Jake!  Mom, are you kidding me with this?

But anyway, we got it eventually.  

So we're watching the ol' claymation Santa movie as I write this.  I get a little edgy about Santa every year.  I love it, and we do it, but I struggle with the fear that my kids will eventually think of it simply as a big lie we told them throughout their childhood.  I'm well aware that most kids just sort of grow up out of it, play along for several years, and never get all that traumatized by it.  But we're talking about my children here.  I've told you about Drew, right?  The dramatic one with all the sensitivity and crazy clever questions and, again, drama.  There's no way that dude's easing out of the Santa phase without some sort of a scene.

But here's my hope - that at some point in their youth, even if they realize the absurdity of some of the details they may have been believing, they will also realize that if Christmas promises anything, it promises magic.  I'm not being all ethereal and poetic here.  I just mean the whispering of secrets, the fact that at least someone during this season will surprise you.  They'll have a gift more perfect than you had imagined or be someone you didn't even know was thinking of you.  You're sure to feel a rush of joy every time you drop a coin in the salvation army bucket or give a coat to the coat drive.  There might be carolers outside your door.  Seriously, a crowd of people standing in your lawn serenading you.  Any season that encourages that is seriously magic.  

There was a group of them at HyVee tonight.  That's what put me in this magic frame of mind.  If you read the blog very much, you may know that I have a completely irrational abhorrance for grocery shopping.  Bumping into the sound of carolers at the West end of every aisle really brightened the entire experience though.  That and having all three rambunctious boys with me.  You just can't take yourself too seriously with three boys bouncing around you wheeling their kid size carts like they're in a go-kart race.

So that's what I hope.  That the belief in Santa will turn into a belief in the magic and the thrill of giving it as much as receiving.  My favorite part of the Christmas story is how common it is - a poor man, a plain girl, a manger, regular old shepherds, animals.  But then there were angels.  Actual angels, visible and audible and filling the sky and telling the shepherds to go join the tableau that now sits on our mantles every year.  You know what that was?  It was magic.  And I look for it every year.

I went to get my nails done - and forgot to vote (Just kidding)

Remember that line from You've Got Mail? And then he "forgives her". I wouldn't want to be the person to say something like that this year.

Each morning I drop off my third-grader at Ray Miller Elementary then turn right on Jamison to take my second-grader to the primary school. Today I was so excited to vote that I turned left on Jamison instead, which was the direction for my voting place. He was wrapped up in a toy and didn't notice either.

Pretty soon, though, he asked me a question, and the sound
of his voice scared me half to death. So I whipped the car around in someone else's voting location and got him to school on time.

I took my camera, because I was hoping there would be a big, dramatic line at the polls with "America the Beautiful" playing in the background in sort of a movie motage that is the greatness of democracy. Not so much. Although there were a lot of people there. I used to vote at the health department but this year
was moved to the Moose Lodge. I bet you big city folks
didn't get to vote with a giant moose head over your booth.

I usually take all of my children too, but this year I just took Jake. I like to have at least one of them tagging along, witnessing the wonder of America. Jake was thoroughly impressed, but I think it was mostly with his red Gatorade and the fact that the older ladies kept telling him he was pretty. My boys get that descriptive a lot in the toddler years. I don't mind, and they don't notice - so it works out.

And my sticker, although you can't see it here very well, is a
lovely "We the People" version with I Voted Today
at the bottom. I love our country.

thoughts on the ballot

I can't wait to drop my kids off tomorrow and drive to my voting location to exercise my American right to have a say. It's a beautiful thing, and I look forward to it. But I dread the fact that there will almost certainly be a few areas that I simply do not know how to vote. So I thought I would create a list of things I wish would be on the ballot tomorrow.

Proposition to extend the fall and spring seasons. We could call it the Goldilocks Bill - neither too hot nor to cold. Year round. I know some people prefer the extremes. Not me.

Longer lunch hours. Don't Europeans take at least 2 hours there?

A permanent addition to school curriculum, "Letters to Home". Mrs. Pasa of the Kirksville Primary School can lead the committee to put it into practice. Believe me, Parents, you want this one. It does your heart good.

Tax breaks for using recyclable bags at the grocery store and buying fresh fruit and whole grains.

Tastier whole grains.

A paid maternity leave for potty training.

A mandatory percentage for positive stories on news programs. Happy thoughts, People. It does the body good.

Some sort of entertainment bonus for sitting through all the campaign commercials lately. I think we've all earned at least a free trip to the movie theater. With popcorn.

Along those lines, I'd like a gift certificate to an American retailer along with my "I voted" sticker.

And, finally, an extension on the McDonalds Monopoly. I was so close.

Wishful Thinking

It's parent-teacher conference time again.   And besides all the wonderful things I heard about my son (she'd like to clone him - our parent-teacher conferences for that kid are really fun), I also learned a crazy thing about myself.  Apparently at the beginning of the year when we were checking out John's classroom and tucking his brand new pencils into his desk - apparently that day I also signed up to bring treats to the Halloween party.  I italicize treats because the fact that I signed up for that task is critically absurd.  

I look back on that girl - and just shake my head.  I know what she was thinking, the silly thing.  This is the year I'll change.  I'll be super involved.  I'll find a way to volunteer at the school despite the fact that I can barely get my work-at-home hours in just taking my kids to and from.  I'll read every paper carefully and never throw away anything important (aside:  I cannot find my password to check their grades online), and apparently I'll learn my way around the kitchen and grow a new personality in which I don't save crazy tasks like classroom treats until midnight the night before.  (Aside again:  Cookies for John's birthday treat?  Bedtime.  Night before.  Pillsbury Ready-to-bake.)

She showed me that reminder somewhere between "I want to clone him" and "Here's his reading score".  I did keep listening, but I kept one eye strategically scanning that sign up sheet searching it for my name.  Surely she was wrong.  I wouldn't have signed up for treats.  I'm the cups and napkins girl.  I'm really good at cups and napkins.  But there was the proof right in front of me.  Maybe I read it wrong or skipped a line or something.  But no, I think it was that first idea.  I signed up for treats like the person who buys the smaller size and vows to diet their way into it.  I think I was telling myself to step it up.  So now I'm furious with myself as any normal person will be at their motivator now and then.

It's not that I never enjoy making special things in the kitchen for my family.  It's just that I know my limitations, and Halloween treats for twenty 8-year-olds is way over my stress threshold.  Darn that first-day-of-school feeling!  Stick a new box of crayons in my face and suddenly I think I can take on the world.  Or, you know, popcorn balls.  Is that a Halloween treat?  I don't even know.  

girl with the pink umbrella

I don't know about where you live, but where I am today it was nasty, ugly, gloomy rain all day long.  Those descriptives are probably only because we're working on the roof right now.   If it were finished, I probably would have said cozy.

I've been sick-ish - as you know - and felt much better today, so despite my descriptives I was actually in a shockingly cheerful mood.  Sort of.  Not a typical Monday anyway.  And on my way to pick up the kids from school, I saw this young woman walking in the rain with a pink umbrella and the pink fitted rain coat to match and white rain boots with some cute pattern on them.  I watched her walk toward me, then past me, and then away from me (the pick-up line is loooong) with that adorable splash of color like a ray of light in the whole world.  That's what I thought of her.  And I also thought, I am so blogging that.  And I wondered if she knew how thrilled I felt by her shiny pink self in this ugly, cloudy day.  

I had a great evening then.  Went to a PTC meeting, which is kind of over my head sometimes, and I always want to giggle when people "make a motion" for things even though I know we were all just boiling macaroni and wiping cheese from our children's faces just moments before we threw ourselves out the door for the meeting.  But I always feel so proud to be there.  And then I talked for almost an hour to one of those people you wish you'd known all your life, which was cool too.  But THEN - 

I came home and got the life squeezed out of me from three little boys who you'd think hadn't seen me for a week.  And I was so moved and happy and reminded yet again what matters most in my little life.  And I was thinking - it wasn't all that cloudy today after all.  It was like one HUGE pink umbrella.  

(photo by plain.ethos on Flickr)

Wonders for Wednesday

Rebecca is hosting a blog party today in honor of her birthday in which we all post about one of our favorite Wonders. Now that you mention it, that is one of my favorite wonders. Birthdays, that is. I love them. But my favorite wonder of all, beyond these of course,














is this:















I call it fall. Bec (my Australian friend) calls it autumn, which is of course the much lovelier name. Why do I love it so much? Because I like to wrap up in these,














and go to a certain homecoming parade dressed like this:














and when else can you make your little boy look like this and get away with it?















Plus, fall is the first time I did this:















which is the happiest thing of all.

The other thing I love about fall is because it's the season that I think best represents Change - something all the seasons represent - and sometimes in life it's really good to remember that things change.















And so often, they get better.















The End.

Work from Home Fact and Fiction . . . Continued From All the Other Times I Wrote About It

Fact:  The toddler will take advantage of your hours in front of the computer to sift through your jewelry box and/or drop eggs on the kitchen floor.

Fiction: He'll only do this once, and then you'll develop the ears of a fox for jewelry boxes and refrigerator doors.  (Evidently it takes way more times than that).

Fact: You will never take for granted how stress-free the summers are, as well as fevers and teachers in-service and obscure holidays your employer won't observe, because you don't have to worry about childcare.

Fiction: (Often poeticized as fact on this very blog) You'll never look forward to school starting again.

Fact: This is a picture of my life. Boys waiting impatiently for me to return from a public restroom.

Fiction: This picture has anything to do with this post. (I just thought you would like it).

Fact: I think you actually work more minutes at home than in the office. You wouldn't clock out in the office if a coworker chats to you about their personal life, but if changing a diaper turns into bath time at home - yea, you'll be making up those thirty minutes later.

Fiction: You'll wish you could trade the coworker for the toddler. (Of course not! . . . Not every day anyway.)

Fact: Writing about travel is way more fun than medical transcription. But I still wish sometimes that I could watch the movie with Jake instead of writing or give the older boys more attention than, "Yes, you can have an apple" and, "Don't leave your shoes there." Tomorrow they are putting up the first Serenity Live video online. I always wanted to be in the entertainment industry, and this feels kind of like that, which is cool. Plus, I'm getting paid to write, which is a dream. I truly believe everyone in the world should try and find a way to do something for a living that they actually enjoy. But I don't really believe it's possible, and I know I'm lucky to be even close.

Fiction: I no longer care if my agent calls with good news that my book has sold, and I no longer wish I could do just that.

Fact: Life is ups and downs.

I miss them already

It's graduation season.  Prepare for a ridiculous amount of sentiment on serenity now, because I saw my children at senior graduation from the moment I dropped them at the door to kindergarten that first day.  You can tell me again that it goes all too quickly if you'd like, but you're talking to a girl who knows.

Mom tells me that every season of life is enjoyable.  But last night I heard something that made me question everything she has ever told me.  I had to wonder - in a shocked and conspiratorial sort of whisper - Maybe Mom is LYING.

It happened while I was otherwise ignoring a sitcom on t.v.  I don't even know if it was a graduation episode, although I'm thinking so.  Because I suddenly heard the mother give a tearful, melodramatic speech about children growing up.  It was one of the moments when I remember that behind every show - comedic, dramatic, action - there lies at least one true writer - the kind of person trying to capture the whole wide world with their words.  The mother listed off the things we teach our children - I only remember one, and I'll make up the rest for you here:  We teach them to use a fork, she said.  And to spell their own name and to look both ways before they cross the street.

 

"And then we realize," (and this is the part that made me sit straight up and choke from the truth of it), "All along, we were really just teaching them to leave."

a bit of earth

Gardening for me has always been a theory. Something I knew would be a beautiful part of life if I ever actually tried it - kind of like I used to feel about having children. That's right, you wouldn't know it by the sheer volume of mom-related posts on this blog, but at one time having children someday was something I knew I should and would do but not something I understood to be the best thing that would happen to me ever. Parenthood and gardening are similar in that way. You can't really convince someone how it will feel until they try it for themselves.

Tonight I got a taste of it. I raked the leaves from around the beautiful azaleas in front of the house.  Yes, raked the leaves, as in, Don't most people do that before it snows?  And I gotta say, it was nice.  It really is as satisfying as everyone always says.  I was going to post a picture, but I'm too tired to load them onto the computer right now.  Plus, I will then be like the mother who puts the child on the phone and won't let you go until the child speaks.  It's just not the same unless it's your own flower bed.  Still though, I wanted to share it with the universe that I'm converted.  Gardening - it's good for the soul.

an ode to Lori's tree

This is the time of year when I always start rethinking my lifelong loyalty to autumn as my favorite time of year. I never completely change my mind because the relief of autumn after an exhaustingly humid Missouri summer is just too awesome and too long anticipated. The crackly leaves, the crisp air - love it.

But like I said - I'm in rethinking phase at the moment. Just look at this tree. It sits proudly at Lori's house down the street, and I can see it from my office window. That's fancy work-at-home talk for back porch patio doors that are broken and no longer open. But I forgive them for it now that they give this as a view. I even forgive the child who opened the door too fast and too hard too many times until it jammed forever in one final angry protest. Magnolia trees in spring have to be one of the most beautiful things EVER. Just look at one for 2 seconds - just drive by it for goodness sake, and see if your troubles don't melt like lemon drops. Which is my only complaint. Their glory is so fleeting. The blooms don't last nearly long enough. I know several houses in town that have them, and I always take those roads on purpose this time of year. But somehow I never noticed before that I could see Lori's from my very own window. It's so hard to be afraid or to feel hate, in this world that usually makes both of those things so easy, when it gives us trees like this. Thank God for spring.

in all it's glory