Month: January 2012

Show Me The Money

Luke...preparing to be a trillionaire.

This morning I was rushing to get the kids ready for school. Still under the weather from the effects of some alien germ brought home by my children and trying to get out early because of the snow piling up outside, I was in no mood for interruptions as I barreled through my usual routine. I was in the process of making lunches when Luke surprised me.

“Mom, isn’t today clean the toilet day?”

Shocking, right? I was amazed both that he knew it was Wednesday and that he realized that meant he needed to clean the downstairs bathroom. He’s 8. So proud.

A couple weeks ago I proposed something new to my boys. They were already earning $5 a week allowance for doing the basics (clearing their plates, putting their clothes in the hamper, cleaning up their toys, and taking out the trash and recycling). But they were looking for a raise, and I wasn’t about to give them more money to do so little. Instead, I offered them each an extra $5 a week if they were willing to clean one bathroom a piece on both Wednesdays and Saturdays. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that although I can’t afford to pay a cleaning service, I can certainly cough up $10 a week for the opportunity NOT to have to clean two out of the three bathrooms in our home. My children could be my tiny maids!

“So, is it my day to clean the bathroom?” Luke pressed.

“Today is Wednesday, so yes.”

“YES!” came his enthusiastic reply, which was accompanied by an actual fist pump. Was this kid for real?

He ran off to the bathroom and returned with the toilet bowl cleaner, which he needed me to open because it’s childproofed. (By the way, we should be putting toilet bowl cleaner in Cars and Princess Barbie wrappers to entice kids into thinking cleaning the bathroom is fun. Come on. We’re missing out on child labor, and companies are missing out on an entire market of avid consumers.) Anyway, a minute later he was scrubbing the inside of the toilet. Then he pulled out the Clorox wipes and cleaned the inside of the sink and wiped off the toilet seat. After that I noticed he was wiping off the granite counter with a wet paper towel. And, then for the pièce de résistance, he got up onto the counter to clean the two bathroom mirrors. I haven’t been this proud since he first learned to use the toilet!

He then emerged and reminded me that after he cleans the bathroom on Saturday he’ll be needing his $10 allowance. Ahhh…there we have it. The motivation. Here I thought he was merely being a very responsible, helpful little boy. Nope. Like a pirate, it’s the money he was after. I should have known that. When he was 5 and saw The Empire Strikes Back for the first time, I asked him which character he liked best. His response? “Han Solo because he’s just in it for the money.” Luke is the only kid I know who, when asked, will happily tell you that when he grows up what he would like to be the first trillionaire. At 6, he told us “I’m ready to grow up. I want to get a wife, have some kids, and just get on with my life.” He is a boy with ideas and ambition, and I know he will be wildly successful someday.

Some people might find it offensive that Luke is financially motivated. Some might deem it shallow and assume we’re sending him the wrong messages. Truth is that he’s always been this way. He’s great at math and he likes money. There are worse directions he could be headed. And, you know what? A clean bathroom is a clean bathroom, and it doesn’t matter what motivation caused it to become so. Someday Luke is going to make a top-notch husband because he’s a hard worker who isn’t afraid to get dirty to make his dreams come true and he cleans bathrooms. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Posted on by Me 6

The Pickle

There's rust on that there lid!

Today Joe got out a jar of pickles. He set it on the counter and then strong-armed it open. Good for him, I thought, admiring his initiative. I waited to hear the sounds of him devouring the sour snacks, but none came. I turned around to see Joe, who usually dispatches pickles with relish (pun most definitely intended), curiously inspecting the jar. He was eyeing it from all sides. His face showed clearly something was amiss.

“What’s wrong?” I inquired.

“I think these are bad,” he replied, nose crinkled up.

“Do they smell bad?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Although I had no idea what a jar of bad pickles smelled like, I had to investigate. I sniffed the jar. Smelled just fine to me.

“There is nothing wrong with these pickles,” I asserted with confidence.

With a very dubious look, Joe bit into one. “They taste funny.”

I took a bite. “Ummm….they taste like pickle, babe. They’re just fine.”

He was still inspecting the jar. And, that’s when I saw it…the object of his consternation. There was a bit of rust on the outside of the jar where the lid had been attached.

“Are you worried about this spot on the jar?” I asked.

“I don’t think it was sealed correctly,” was my ten year old’s response.

“I heard the jar pop when you opened it, sweetie. It’s fine.”

“Is this the freshness date?” he asked, still examining the jar.

Trying hard not to lose my patience, I told him it was not a freshness date but that I was absolutely, 100% positive that he would not meet an untimely death from picklitis or some other ravaging, pickle-borne illness. Isn’t it enough that my spouse is food paranoid? Now he’s tainted my son? I can’t tell you how much food we throw out because hubby decides it’s questionable, but I can tell you it seems like a lot. Another food sniffer is NOT what we need in this house.

I am not all that paranoid about food. This morning I ate a container of Greek yogurt that supposedly expired on November 23rd, and I’m still here to tell about it.

Joe did finish the pickle he started, probably more out of fear that I would strangle him if he didn’t than out of any confidence I instilled when I told him they were fine. I won’t be one bit surprised if that child refuses to eat another pickle from that rust-dotted jar. Once food fear has taken hold, there is no cure. At least you stand a chance of recovering from salmonella or E coli. It’s too late now to save Joe. All I can do is hope Luke doesn’t become infected as well.

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Selective Memories

Where the boys and I nest on sick days

My boys are home sick today with bad coughs. So, I have had the luxury of being freed from my normally harried Monday routine of errand running and house cleaning. Today it’s all about my sick little guys and making sure they rest. So, this morning while they were watching part of a movie, I was able to get some reading done. My friend, Melissa, posted a link to this very wise blog article. In it the author writes about how often she is approached by older women who remind her to treasure every moment with her young children because their youth is ephemeral and someday she will be sorry she didn’t enjoy it all while she had the chance.

I can’t recount the number of times I’ve been talking about my trials with my children and some well-meaning but totally out-of-touch person admonishes me to enjoy every second because soon they’ll be gone…as if I don’t know this already. I do. And, I feel troubled that sometimes I want to escape this phase they’re in and move quickly on to the next one. It’s hard to enjoy every second, though, when in that exact second perhaps Luke is puking on me and the dental hygienist or Joe is having one of his ADHD meltdowns that I can’t get him through fast enough as we struggle through his math homework.

At three o’clock this morning, as a matter of fact, I was having a really difficult time treasuring the fact that impulse-control lacking Joe was stumbling into our bedroom every twenty minutes to report his temperature, which was approximately 98.6 degrees each time, mind you. It was hard to enjoy the fact that I was treated to three fewer hours of sleep than I normally get and that as I desperately tried to cling to the last little bit of sleep available to me my youngest crawled into bed and was literally coughing right in my face. How could I possibly NOT savor these precious moments?

I understand how an older woman, with children grown and gone, could look back on the early years of parenting wistfully and with great affection. The human mind is wonderful at softening memories with time, making them more palatable and lovely. Remember that total creep you dated in college, the one who cheated on you while you were at your grandfather’s funeral? I bet nowadays when speaking of him you simply recount the story of how he treated you to a romantic Valentine’s Day treasure hunt that must have taken him hours to put together. Time changes our perceptions. It fades our scars. The woman in the grocery store who begs you to cherish every second doesn’t remember exhaustion. She’s had time to rest and recover.

Today, as I sit here with my boys watching movies, I am taking mental pictures and imprinting the joy and peace of this moment for future use. I know I will one day look back and fail to remember how tired and sick I was while I was sitting with them. I will recall only what a gift it was to have an excuse to sit for an entire day and love on them. And, I will miss these times. Guaranteed. While I know the negative memories will have faded, I hope I will remember the struggles, the heartbreak, and the frustrations too. I don’t want to have gone through the whole experience of life only to remember half of it.

(Oh…and when I’m older and run across a mom struggling in the store with young kids, I hope I remember to tell her only that she’s doing a great job.)

 

 

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IKEAology

Funky spherical lamp courtesy of IKEA

We went to IKEA as a family yesterday. The true purpose of the trip was to help Steve’s IKEA-virgin parents shop for a chair. They did buy a chair too, so the mission was a success. I have to wonder, though, how it is that I can go there to help someone else shop and end up with $230 in merchandise in my own cart?

I’m not complaining. For the most part we bought things we needed — or at least could justify. We got two sets of plain white dishes (12 bowls, small plates, and large plates), two full sets of  basic flatware (80 pieces), a small table lamp, a set of 300-thread count queen-size sheets, a couple decorative pillows, a stuffed rat, two stuffed mice, and a fry pan. We had been planning to buy the dishes and flatware to replace the items we received for our wedding over 16 years ago. The sheets were on sale and the decorative pillows match our new duvet so those, although not totally necessary, were a good choice. Hubby told me on the way in that he wanted to try out one of their small fry pans (I rolled my eyes, but let it slide). And the kids paid us from their allowance for the stuffed critters. The lamp I can’t explain. It seems to have hopped in our cart when I wasn’t looking, although it does look fabulous on our bedroom bookshelf.

As we were loading the items into the back of the FJ, we were reflecting on our IKEA experiences over the past decade, the items we’ve purchased, the furniture we’ve put together, the random stuff we somehow could not leave the store without. We came up with a bunch of new IKEA slogans, all based on the idea that IKEA is simply a Swedish phrase we Americans can’t understand. For example:

IKEA….Swedish for “We have all the crap you never knew you couldn’t live without.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Our pictograph assembly instructions are actually just replicas of cave drawings.”

IKEA….Swedish for “Our stores make finding your way out of Caesar’s Palace seem easy.”

IKEA….Swedish for “We can disassemble your marriage faster than you can assemble our dresser.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Your visit for a $5 meatball lunch will end up costing you $500 in furniture.”

IKEA…Swedish for “We offer free childcare when you arrive so we don’t have to find your lost children later.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Designed by Swedes, fabricated by underpaid Chinese, assembled cost-free by crazy Americans.”

Oh, IKEA. I tease, but you know I love you, darling. Although I know the tagline for your American stores is, “IKEA…The Life Improvement Store,” I still think any one of my slogans better represents the American IKEA experience. If you ever want to use one of them, let me know. You can pay me in meatballs.

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The Cleaning Conundrum

Steve taking care of business under the cabinet

Anyone who is married knows that no matter how long you have known your spouse and no matter how well you think you understand them they will sometimes find a way to completely baffle you. My husband Steve is a wonderful man, and I am fortunate to be married to him. He is patient, good-natured, considerate, and kind. He’s incredibly intelligent, a wonderful father, helpful around the house, and a lot of fun to be with. We have been together 18 years, and I know him reasonably well. Yet, somehow, he still manages to make me wonder sometimes.

Take today, for example. We were getting ready to entertain friends and cleaning the house. He had run the vacuum and begun unloading the dishwasher while I was cleaning the guest bathroom and dusting the furniture. I went to put the dust cloth in the laundry room to be washed and when I returned I couldn’t see him. I walked into the kitchen to find him sitting on the floor in front of the cabinets underneath the sink. He had pulled out a bunch of items and was sitting among them, surveying the scene. Holy hell. We had guests coming in an hour. He was supposed to be cleaning messes, not making them.

“Ummmm….what are you doing?”

“I pulled the trashcan out to empty the vacuum and noticed that it’s really gross under here.”

Was he kidding me? While he was correct (it was really gross under there and cleaning down there has been on my mental to-do-someday list for forever and a day), I was fairly sure we would not be serving our guests dinner under the kitchen sink.

He began using a rag to wipe down the inside bottom and sides of the cabinet.

“Do you really think this is the right time to be doing a deep clean of the INSIDE of a cabinet? I can think of about fourteen other things we should probably be focusing on instead before they get here. We need to wipe off the table and counters, put away the rest of the dishes, mop the floor….”

He cut me off. “This has been bugging me, so I thought I’d just take care of it.”

“Dude….why do you always start deep cleaning something right before we’re expecting company? We’re going for basic clean, not the-queen-is-coming-for-inspection clean. Last time it was the laundry room floor. Now you’re cleaning under the kitchen sink? Come on. Work with me here.”

He stared at me blankly. Then he put the items back under the sink, closed the door, and began wiping off the counter as requested. I was just grateful he’d decided not to argue with me.

We got everything done before our friends arrived and were able to enjoy a fun, relaxing evening in our clean house. I know that tomorrow when I go to throw something out, I’m going to smile at my own reflection in the spotless inside of that cabinet under the sink. I’ll have to thank Steve for taking care of a little detail that’s been bothering me for months too. The whole cleaning conundrum got me to thinking, though. Perhaps, I should have people over more often? Who knows what other deep cleaning chores Steve might wipe off my to-do list if I just gave him enough opportunity?

 

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Sunrise, Sunset

This morning's sunrise...taken with my iPhone

“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.” ~Bern Williams

I am the worst kind of person. The rumors are true. I am a morning person. I rarely tell people that little tidbit about me because most people despise morning people. Damn me for being cheerful when I wake up, for popping out of bed at the first chirp of the alarm, for never hitting snooze, for getting right to work at the business of being alive another day. All right. I will admit that some days I’m slightly less cheerful about the morning than on other days, but that is quickly rectified with adequate consumption of espresso.

One of my favorite things about early morning is being awake to see the sunrise. Because it’s so easy to sleep through them, they are more precious than the sunset. A deeply genuine peace wells in my heart when I watch the sun creep up the horizon and brighten the world. Even after 43 years, the novelty of watching a new day dawn is never lost on me.

Some mornings I will stand in the boys’ bathroom just prior to waking them and wait for the sun to make its appearance. Today, however, I was too busy for standing and just happened to walk by that window and catch a glimpse of the most stunning morning sky I’ve seen in a while. I immediately woke the boys and we all stood there starting out the window in awe. The sky was more impressive than any Fourth of July fireworks display I’ve ever seen. On mornings like this one, I’m hard pressed to find a thing wrong with life on this planet.

To all you non-morning people, you who prefer to abuse the snooze button and sleep in, you have no idea what you’re missing. You’re probably the same people who think it’s romantic to walk off into the sunset. Me? I prefer the idea of walking off into the sunrise. It holds so much more promise.

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The Impossible Dream

The impossible dream...edible cake from scratch at altitude

Growing up at high altitude, I never had a homemade cake for my birthday. My mom, frustrated after trying adjustment after adjustment to get her sea-level ready recipes to work here in Denver, made all our birthday cakes from mixes. I didn’t care. A cake was a cake. And, I like cake any way I can get it.

Recalling my mother’s horror stories about cakes that rose and then imploded, cakes that were dense enough to prop doors open, and cakes that were dryer than the Sahara in June, I followed in my mom’s footsteps with boxed cake mixes. I’m nothing if not pragmatic. Why would I put myself through the disappointment of baking a cake from scratch when my mother had tested the waters before me to no avail?

The other day, however, I must have hit my head or something because I had a Suzy Homemaker moment. High off a success making homemade buttercream frosting for some box-mix cupcakes, a radical idea struck me. What if I made a cake from scratch? Yeah. That’s right. What if I went all old school and ditched the boxed mix? It was cake. How hard could it really be?

So, last night, I greased and floured two 9″ round cake pans. I sifted my flour. Then I sifted it again with the baking soda and salt. I creamed butter and sugar for so long I thought I’d kill my 16-year old Sunbeam Mixer. It was only then that I realized my kids had finished off the milk I needed. Into the car, down to King Soopers at 8 p.m. to fetch milk, all the while ever so grateful that my scratch cake didn’t require me to milk a cow. As I was folding in my beaten egg whites, I was apprehensive. I didn’t like how it was going, but I persevered. At 8:20 I popped two round cake pans into my oven, flipped the oven light on, set the timer for 25 minutes. My hopes were elevated slightly when I saw the outer edges cooking. I paced like an expectant father as the cakes began to rise. When the timer went off and I needed to check the doneness, I cleared the room so a sonic boom from my noisy children would not ruin my effort. I lifted them from the oven as I had carried my first born, full of hope and wonder. As they released from the pans, I stood in awe. In front of me were two seemingly fluffy and light yellow cakes.

Still, not one to get my hopes up, I reserved judgment. After whipping up yet another batch of buttercream and doing a passable job layering and frosting the cake, I was satisfied enough with my efforts to serve the cake to my mother tonight for dessert. Ballsy move, I know. After all, this is the woman who had me convinced cake success here in Denver was tricky at best. But, you know what? It was good, and she was suitably impressed. Hubby had two slices and felt uncomfortably full afterward. Both my kids devoured their pieces, and Joe even gave me the coveted thumbs up. Success!

Ever the perfectionist, I think I could improve on my effort. And, I will probably try it again someday as Steve is already encouraging me to do. For now, though, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the sugar high. I wonder how many other things I thought were impossible are actually within my grasp? I’m feeling a bit like Don Quixote. Just point me toward the next windmill. I’m ready to do battle.

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Thirty Days

A portion of books containing my own handwritten work

“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” ~ Thomas Mann

Well, I did it. Today marks my thirtieth consecutive day writing this blog, just as I promised myself I would do. This entire endeavor started because, although I’ve held paying jobs as a writer and editor in the distant past, without a current, paid writing job I’m not comfortable telling people I’m a writer. I somehow thought that if I made an honest go at it I might legitimize the act itself. If you tell someone you’re a writer, they assume you’re a journalist or novelist and they ask you about what you’re writing. But, if you tell them you publish a blog, they assume you’re not really a writer. So, I’ve just kept quiet about it. And, the truth is that I never thought I could commit to writing every day. Even when I kept a journal I never managed to write in it daily. I’ve always found reasons to deem it impossible. Either there wouldn’t be enough material to write about or I wouldn’t be able to find the time or I’d simply get tired of the act of doing it. But, here I am thirty days later with thirty completed entries, proof of being able to write consistently. Huh. Who knew?

Now none of this is to say that I’ve been thrilled with every entry. I haven’t been. It hasn’t been easy. My perfectionist tendencies vexed me. There were days when a 400 word entry took me 4+ hours, and I still wasn’t satisfied with it . On a couple days, it got down to a few minutes before midnight before I squeaked in a post just under the wire. I’m sure there are typographical and even grammatical errors in some entries because occasionally I could not bring myself to care for another millisecond. I still stuck with it, though, and that is something.

I’ve learned quite a bit about myself and about the process of writing through this thirty day experiment. I’ve learned that I am capable of follow through, even when the going gets tough. I’ve learned that inspiration can come from the most unlikely little tidbits of life. I’ve learned that I don’t have to love everything I write; not every published morsel needs to be one I treasure. I’ve learned that writing is a process and, like life, it’s about the journey and not the destination. I’ve learned that there are actually a couple folks who read my words and appreciate them. Most of all, I’ve learned that there’s no point in denying something that is innate. I’m a writer. My desire to write is a gift. So, I’m going to keep on writing. Not because I’ve challenged myself to but because I’m a writer. It’s what I do.

 

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The Big Squish

I heard a lot about mammograms before I ever got to experience one. Between the comments from friends about the pain, the comics with women portrayed with flattened boobies, and the funny stories about the exam itself, I had no idea what to think. Honestly, by the time my gynecologist ordered my first mammogram when I turned 40, I was intrigued. I was finally going to be initiated and be able to join the conversation. It was oddly sort of exciting.

Today marked my fifth mammogram. Of my previous four mammograms, three came back with normal results. One did not. There is no way to describe my internal panic when that third mammogram came back with questionable spots that required further investigation. I know now that this is a common event, especially among women with smaller breasts and denser breast tissue. At the time, however, I freaked out. I remember going through all the worst case scenarios, mentally imagining myself purchasing a wig to replace the hair I had spent so long growing out and that now chemotherapy would take. In the end it was nothing, but it sure did make me think about how much time we spend worrying about things that never pan out and how many times we don’t see something until it’s too late.

As I stood there today, positioned in that bizarro machine with my breasts alternately being served up on a radiation platter, I was reminded that life is a crap shoot. And, I suppose that is what makes it so interesting, the way it can change (for good or bad) at a moment’s notice. Sometimes you get a sign that change is on the horizon, just like I did when that third mammogram came back with sketchy results, but then amazingly it doesn’t. Other times it just goes along without incident, and you find yourself wishing for some excitement. No matter what, though, you just never know.

That one false reading on the Big Squish did something positive for me. It reminded me that life can change in an instant. It’s best not to take anything for granted.

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Little Blessings

Ephemeral holiday moment

I am not a huge fan of the holiday season. I often tell people that I just try to get from Thanksgiving to New Year’s day unscathed. It’s not that Christmas isn’t wonderful. It is. There is true magic in it. It’s merely exhausting. And, it’s not right that it comes at the very end of the year when I’m already worn out from the adventures of the previous eleven months. It just makes the holiday season that much more tiring. I know. I know. Bah humbug.

Today is my favorite day post-Christmas. It is the day when all the decorations get put away, and the house goes back to what I like to call (quoting my Catholic memories) “ordinary time.” There is something so ludicrously satisfying in carefully packing away Christmas and knowing I won’t have to see it again for another eleven months. I get to reward myself for surviving another holiday season without beating someone at the mall or losing a finger sawing down the Christmas tree. As entertaining as it is to put up the trees each year, it is twice as fulfilling to take them down. When the last box is tossed into the crawl space for storage and the last pine needle is in the Dyson, I am at peace again.

I don’t think I’m the only one who experiences this readiness to get back to normal life after a season of tumult and restlessness. The boys start vacation asking me how many actual days of school will be missed. Normally, I recount that number with maximum chagrin, imagining how much I am going to miss yoga and 6 hours a day of quiet. But, this year was different because my boys are at an age when they’re honestly fun to be with. We had an amazing time together. We played games, cuddled on the couch, and did puzzles. Most of the 11.5 days they were home, they were a joy to have around. Two days ago, I was honestly sad that their vacation was coming to an end. This morning, however, the bickering began. It started with a mild disagreement at breakfast and culminated in an actual fight by late afternoon. I pondered then if two smallish boys with mouths duct-taped could be placed in a large box and picked up by a charity for donation. Is it too much to imagine they would be quiet and stay still enough for that?

It is a blessing that they start fighting right when it’s time to get back to school and a normal routine. It proves that they too are ready for life to go on. They need to get back to the business of living their separate lives. E.M. Forster was right when he wrote, “Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.” It does, however, give us what we need when we need it, if only we’re willing to recognize it.

 

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