Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs

Older Girl is destined to run something one day. Whether it's her own home, a corporation, or the country, I know she will be in charge somewhere. Verbally precocious, she used to stand and direct children much older than herself during play time. Rob joked that we should just give her an orange vest and a cup of coffee, since she so obviously had appointed herself as foreman (forewoman? foregirl?)

Not much has changed, except that she started reading and writing, and we often see her scribbling furiously into tiny notebooks. What is she writing? Notes. Notes for everyone. For her father and me, for The Boy, for Baby Girl, for her classmates - no one who knows her has escaped The Note. She turns these notes into Signs, usually accompanied by elaborate illustrations regarding the subject of The Note (for the illiterate siblings, I presume. Or the thick-headed parents), which are then hung in strategic locations around the house. You know, in case we didn't hear her the first thirty times she asked about something. For the members of her immediate family, these Notes and Signs have become a way of life around here. We don't even notice when a new one goes up, but visitors can't help but notice all the scrips and scraps of paper adorning our walls, fluttering in the air currents, waving at them like anemones.

Here are some examples of the current crop of Signs, complete with original spellings and punctuation. I wish I had a scanner or a super high-tech digital camera so I could share the drawings, because they are sometimes the best part of the Sign:

• Save our Earth! Don't Pollute! I found this stuck to the kitchen cabinet with a sticker one morning - apparently all the tape had gone to the previous ream's worth of Signs. This one was accompanied by a drawing of a jagged candy bar wrapper with a slash through it.

• Summer Salt Process. But Up! This one was hanging over The Boy's bed, ostensibly meant as a tuck-and-roll primer. She included a diagram with stick figures enacting each step of the "summer salt." I believe the "but up!" refers to The Boy's rear end, but since butt is part of the verboten list here at The HomeFront, she doesn't know that it is a homophone.

• #1 Cooer! She cut this one into the shape of a blue ribbon and taped it to Baby Girl's door. I asked what a "cooer" was, and, after a not so subtle eye roll, Older Girl explained that a "cooer" was someone who coos -and since Baby Girl is the only one in the house who coos, she was the de facto winner. But every time I pass the baby's room and glance quickly at the door, I read it as: #1 cooter.

The next few are some of the signs on her bedroom door. They are pretty self-explanatory, as they all deal, to varying degrees, with her goal of keeping her brother from messing with her stuff.

• Closed
• Treasure Hunt Club. Kids Only.
• Unicorns, Ponies, and Horses Welcome. Trains Keep Out! Signed: [Older Girl]

And my favorite of the bedroom door bunch:

• Notice Warning: Kids must be 8 or older to enter. Exept if you are a girl. Then it doesn't matter what age you are. Seriasly. (I guess that she falls under the Gender Corollary, since she herself is younger than 8, and therefore would not otherwise be allowed in her own room.)

I can't begin to post all the notes that she has left for herself and any trespassers on the walls of her room; I would be at the computer until Friday if I tried. But a few new ones caught my eye:

• Do not TOUCH. At ALL. Ever. PERIOD! I'm sure this would be a great deterrent, if her brother could read. Or if he cared.

• Things to do next week:
• Practice piano
• Spring clean my room
• Open a Library
• Eat more fruit It warmed my heart to see that my nagging had penetrated her brain. Sadly, it was the only item not checked off. She would rather spring clean her room than eat an orange. Oh, and I'm also still waiting for the grand opening of her new library. I wonder if I need a card?

But my favorite of all the Signs? My very, very favorite? I keep that in the car with me, stuck prominently and securely on the dashboard, to be reminded of her little true heart ever time I want to pull over and berate all of them for being so noisy and ill-behaved that I want to drive off the road:

Mom, I love you! except she wrote it as a rebus, with an eye for the "I", then a heart, then Mom. When she gave it to me, she said "Guess what it says" a little breathlessly. I told her I knew exactly what it said, and that, over all the notes passed in all the classes I ever took, this one trumped them all.

Odds and Ends

No thoughts for a coherent post tonight - I'm still too full of potato salad and barbecue chicken.

This weekend was lovely in every sense of the word. At times tranquil, full of harmonious play and prolonged spousal conversation; at times raucous, full of the laughter of parents and grandparents, squealing children, swelling patriotism. The weather, obligingly perfect, lent itself to gardening, bubble-blowing, and sizzling grills. On Monday morning, I slept in, wore my pajamas too late, drank too much coffee, and read blogs and tinkered with my template until my posterior was numb -- it was heavenly. I even got to visit with T, Honey, and their adorably pink-cheeked, curly-headed Princess .

Then this morning I got a call to let me know that we managed to get an appointment for The Boy with the pediatric neurologist. For next week. I expected be on a waiting list that was months long, especially since this doctor's schedule is actually closed to new patients. So after thanking the receptionist about eleven hundred times, I said a prayer and thanked the One who really should have been thanked first.

So since my brain is in such an atrophied state, I will give you all a little link love to tide you over:

• Want to read a real post by a really good blogger? Check out this little piece of poetic genius. She's so good that she probably wrote this on the back of an envelope while she waited on hold for some customer service drone. I might be able to do this if I ate less potato salad. And had a brain transplant.
• Major news going down at The Estrogen Files. Head over there for the announcement!
• This is the kind of mom I want to be this summer (and always). Prepared, loving, embracing the joy and the tedium alike, blooming where I'm planted but always turning toward the sun. I'm working on it.
• Is it wrong that I laugh hard enough to wet my pants every time I see this? or this? And that I get Rob to laugh along with me so that I don't feel so juvenile?

Enjoy, sweetie darlings!

Remembrance

Happy Memorial Day -

from the proud

granddaughter of a veteran

daughter of a veteran

and wife of a veteran

Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers:

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust:

Their courage nerves a thousand living men.

-Minot J. Savage

For the Technologically Gifted: A Query

UPDATED: Oh, and I forgot to ask how you get your signature to look so cute on the bottom of the post. (Have you all guessed that I am akin to a computer moron?)

Here's a question for anyone who uses Blogger and has a cute picture on their header:

How on God's green earth did you get it to show up? Did you do it yourself, or did someone else do it for you? And if you did it yourself, would you tell me how to make my header less lame?

So really, that's three questions . . .

The Lawn Ranger

A philosopher who said that work well done never needs doing over never weeded a garden. Ray D. Everson

Is it just me, or are weeds sentient plant life? I swear they are, because I will pull some out of the garden, turn my back and devote my attention elsewhere (like to the kids and the hose and the soaking wet clothes and the ruined sidewalk chalk . . .), and when I make it back to the garden I notice that there are more weeds in the spot I just cleared. And creepily? They are not in the exact same spot, they are about an inch to the left or right. I know I would have seen them when I was pulling out their kinfolk - heck, I would have pulled them out too! They know, I'm telling you, they know . . .

Movie of the Week

Casino Royale

Rated: PG-13 for violent action and s*xual content (it's a James Bond movie, folks -- s*x, booze, and violence are de rigueur)

First, let me say that I am deliberately skipping a review because we did watch A Prairie Home Companion last week. To be more specific, Rob watched A Prairie Home Companion, while I saw the first fifteen minutes and the last fifteen minutes, with a siesta sandwiched in there. If you have heard Garrison Keillor on the radio, then you pretty much know what the dialogue of this movie is like: lots of Guy Noir and Midwest Lutheran jokes, plus Lindsey Lohan not hopped up on crack, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as a singing sister act, Virginia Madsen as a ghost, and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as a pair of singing cowboys. It was directed by Robert Altman, and I also fell asleep during Gosford Park, which was also directed by Robert Altman. Since all the film buffs rave about Robert Altman, what does that say about me? Either I am a Mensa reject, or I am chronically sleep deprived. Actually, I'm probably both. I won't give PHC a real review, except to say that the parts I saw were good, and if you like Garrison Keillor or Robert Altman, then you will probably enjoy this film (as long as you are a well-rested member of Mensa). Now, back to the review of a movie that I did watch.

Rob was incredulous when I told him that I had never seen a James Bond movie. I have seen bits and pieces of the franchise over the years; I know the catchphrases, the suggestive names of Bond's Flavor of the Month, and I am embarrassed to admit that I've devoted too much brain space to the lyrics for Goldfinger, but a James Bond movie in its entirety? Nope, not a one. So to balance out the chick flicks and art-house films we have in the old Netflix queue, I added Casino Royale as my primer for 007. Biggest takeaway lesson learned from Casino Royale? Daniel Craig as James Bond = smokin' hawt.

Besides being an awesome, pulse-quickening action movie in its own right (eat your heart out Mission:Impossible), Casino Royale really does happen to be a great introduction to James Bond. The film begins with Bond's promotion to 007 status, which basically means he's at liberty to do some serious damage in the form of deadly force, and quietly introduces us to all of the familiar Bond-isms that have become a fixture in subsequent movies. Shaken not stirred? Got it's start in Casino Royale. CIA operative Felix Leiter? He introduces himself in this film. Beautiful woman with a wacky name and a shady past? Draped over him for half the movie. Tricked out Aston Martin? Purring like a kitten in the Casino Royale parking lot. We even hear the penultimate Bond line for the first time in this film. You know it by heart: Bond. James Bond. All the good stuff starts right here.

The plot is a standard one: Bond must stop creepy-Eurotrash-poker savant-villain, Le Chiffre, from winning a high-stakes poker tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. Why? Oh yeah, because Le Chiffre is also a banker to the world's terrorist organizations. Plus, Bond is playing with 15 million government funded smackers, so no pressure there. There is also the requisite torture scene, which Rob informs me is a regular ingredient to a good James Bond flick, although this scene will make men squirm, guaranteed.

The only downside to this movie is that now I will always expect to see Daniel Craig wearing the ultra-cool tuxedo and sipping the martini. I love Sean Connery, and Pierce Brosnan isn't half bad either, but I thought Craig really nailed the character of Bond. Witty, urbane, but with that core of menacing brutishness. I don't understand why so many fans were so adamantly opposed to Craig as Bond, but I am also not a Bond-phile. And for what it's worth, there will never be another M for me but Judi Dench. She's so coolly aristocratic that she rocks my world. I love to watch her in anything - well, except maybe the Chronicles of Riddick, but I like to think that Vin Diesel spiked her drink at the table read for that one.

There you have it - me likey. As action movies go, this was a good one, and as Bond movies go - well, I can't say, since I have nothing with which to compare this one. But Rob said it was very good, and he has seen other James Bond movies, so you can take his word for it.

I'm giving it a Mother Load rating of 4 and a half baskets, peeps! Rent it and enjoy it - even if it's only for the stomach churning chase scene that doesn't involve a single car (or for Daniel Craig stalking out of the surf in what amounts to boxer briefs. Either way.)

Like A Baby

Maybe it's all the paper she ate . . .

Homeostasis

Homeostasis: n. a relatively stable state of equilibrium or a tendency toward such a state between the different but interdependent elements or groups of elements of an organism, population or group.

Nothing is going on here. And by nothing, I mean everything. I am still making lunches, washing clothes, and changing diapers, which seems like nothing; and through all the nothing, I am putting my heart and soul into my dear ones, which is everything. School is winding down for the year, family members are graduating and moving into new phases of their lives, sisters-in-law and friends are gestating, but here at The HomeFront, we are preserving the status quo. And we like that just fine.

So what is the status quo around here? Let's check in with the company members, shall we?

Baby Girl: Her passion for all things paper-related continues unabated. While she will leave a lovingly prepared tray of finger foods virtually untouched, she remains compelled to ingest anything that has the potential to block her trachea and force her mother to frantically try to recall the few moments of infant Heimlich instruction she received from her husband. The real trouble is that she's crafty - and I don't mean in a Martha Stewart make-your-own-potato-stampers kind of way. She knows, unequivocally, that I do not condone the paper/plastic bag fetish, and it has made her into a furtive 11 month old. It goes a little something like this: Baby Girl will be crawling around, trolling the floor for any tasty tidbits of string or hair, when she will spot something even better. The glossy corner of a Ranger Rick beckons to her from the covered magazine basket. She will crawl over, all nonchalant, like ehh, maybe I'll just see what's happening over here. Then, and this part's a kicker, she will sit right next to the basket for a few minutes and wave at me and say, in her insouciant way, heya mama. She is trying to hypnotize me with her cuteness, but I remain unmoved because I know the next move. She will snake her little hand out to the basket and slip her little fingers under the wicker lid, where she will proceed to rip off one tantalizingly shiny corner. This she will clutch in her paw, as she takes off on all fours in search of a quiet corner where she can consume her snack. I will follow her, and she knows the jig is up. So, like any good fugitive caught with contraband, she will cram it hurriedly into her mouth and try to swallow the evidence. I will catch her, flip her onto her back, and pull the glossy paper from the roof of her mouth, while she tries to maim me with her tiny razor teeth. She will cry for a few minutes, and then resume the hunt for paper. Repeat this scene about twenty times per day.

The Boy: He is in a tizzy over the end of his school year. So to compensate for the loss of security he found in his routine, he has decided to really apply himself to driving his older sister insane. He will walk over to her elaborately designed play area, take his toe and move one piece about 6 inches to the left of its original location. This will send her into a paroxysm of rage, and he will stare at her with a bemused look on his face. To top that, he goes all Charles Boyer and gaslights her. While she is at school, he will go into her room and rearrange a few things on her dresser. When she comes home, I catch her shaking her head, saying "I know I put it right here before school." Meanwhile, The Boy has made himself very scarce. Clever, no?

Older Girl: One word: Horses! It must be the age, because Older Girl, her friends, and her cousin are all horse crazy - and for Older Girl the emphasis is on the crazy. I may be a huge supporter of a great imagination, but by 4:30 in the afternoon, I'm pretty much done with all the whinnying and foot stamping that goes on around here. There is a reason why 5:00 is cocktail hour. I have signed her up for Horse Camp for a week this summer, where she will learn to ride. She will also learn how to shovel horse poop. Should be a good test of her devotion, don't you think?

Rob and Aimee: See above, because that's pretty much what we are doing. And it's all good.
Time for me to go find an adult beverage and toast homeostasis. G'night, kids!

Listen to your Mother (The Mother Load Reviews)

Many moons ago, An Ordinary Mom asked if anyone was interested in having their name passed along to Now You Know Media as a possible reviewer of their audio programs. I said "sign me up!," and then promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Apparently, not everyone is as forgetful as yours truly. A few weeks ago I received an email from a very nice woman at NYK asking if I was still interested. Now You Know Media produces audio courses featuring top experts in areas such as health and finance, designed to be portable, accessible, schedule-friendly answers for a variety of questions. They offered to send me two of their courses in my area of interest: Preparing for a Healthy Pregnancy and Caring for Your Baby from Birth to Age One. In other words, Mom Stuff, which is right up my alley. I told them to send it my way, and I would do my best to give it a fair shake on the ol' blog.

I listened to Caring for your Baby from Birth to Age One first, since my three children are already ex-utero, and preparing for a healthy pregnancy seemed a little horse-has-already-left-the-barn at this point. There may be more horses in the future, but none ready to hoof it out right now (how is that for a twisted metaphor for pregnancy?!)

Each CD begins with the substantial credentials of the presenter, a disclaimer about not using this course as a substitute for a real, live health care provider, and an overview of the topics to be presented. Caring for Your Baby is divided into four disks with three topics on each disk. The information is presented by Dr. Dennis Kuo, a Pediatrics Fellow with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a third generation pediatrician. Dr. Kuo has an affable, easy manner, and he comes across as a kind and interested person. The topics he presents are:

• The newborn nursery and arriving home
• early infancy feeding
• starting solid food
• understanding your baby's personality and behavior
• key milestones in the first year
• interacting with your baby
• protecting your baby's safety
• family relationships in raising your baby
• immunizations
• managing fevers and infections
• when to call your doctor

To be completely honest, I did not learn anything new from these topics, but I am also on my third child. I do wish that I had been able to hear this about eight years ago when I was poised to enter the Mom Arena for the first time. It may have lessened the pressure I felt as a new mother. When I was pregnant with Older Girl, I knew quite a bit about the medical facts, thanks to my husband's profession, but that knowledge was a double-edged sword. Because Rob is a doctor, many people, my health care professionals included, assumed that I didn't really have any questions. I admit to being a capable person, but there is nothing like bringing a baby home to make you feel like the idiot gone astray from her village. Dr. Kuo touches on many of the common questions of new parenting; the questions that (ahem) some people may be afraid to ask for fear of looking like they don't know what they're doing. Guess what? Nobody knows what they're doing when they bring home their first baby! Welcome to being a parent.

Dr. Kuo reminds listeners that babies don't come with instructions, but that parenting in those early years is really more about stamina than anything else. Once you're out of the thick of that heady newborn phase, you'll look back and realize that the mechanics of caring for a newborn aren't necessarily that hard - it's the exhaustion that makes it feel that way. He exhorts parents to take any help where they can get it, use common sense, and rest with your new baby as much as possible - all good advice.

Anther good thing about this course? Instead of just devolving into an interminable list of do's and don'ts, Dr. Kuo gives the medical reasons behind the rules from your doctor. Now you can confidently answer Aunt Myra when she visits and asks why you aren't giving the baby a bottle of water when all of her children had water from the start and her doctor told her that water was good for a baby and all of her children grew up just fine and, and, and . . . It's those kinds of things that can wear a new parent down to a nub, so it's good to be prepared. Either that or you can sit in the corner and hum like I did.

Overall, I think this course is well done. I think it's probably most effective for a first time parent, preferably before the baby even makes his/her entrance. Dr. Kuo is easy to follow and engaging, and I found it very convenient to pop one of the disks into the car as I ran my errands. Now You Know Media has this course listed on their website at $39.95 for four disks, and I will give it a Mother Load rating of Four Baskets:

Coming soon: A review of Now You Know Media's Preparing for a Healthy Pregnancy

Blogworthy

Now that I am entrenched in Blogville, and my family has been bribed cajoled into reading the inane, mundane, sometimes profane things that go on behind the scenes here at the HomeFront Corp, a curious thing happens when we all get together. This scene plays out at least once:

Me: my big mouth open, as usual, watching and making a snarky comment on
some funny/endearing/embarrassing/appalling familial shenanigans

Family Member: (eyes alight) "So is this going on the blog?"

I'm not sure if they want it to go on the blog, or if they are checking to see if they need to prepare some kind of alibi. Maybe they just want to see how much of the real event is recognizable after my colorful re-telling, I don't know. What I do know, is that most things in my life are fair game for the blog, so get those alibis ready, people. (But good news: I always give you an alias, so maybe that will give you a head start for your life on the lam.)

This whole weekend was blogworthy. First of all, the weather was gorgeous. It's amazing what a break in the humidity will do for a girl's disposition. The sun was shining, cool breezes were blowing, bugs were occupied enough with their own business to leave me alone - perfection!
On Saturday, we drove up to New York for my nephew's birthday, and nothing beats playing with cousins and eating your body weight in tortilla chips and cake, at least in my kids' book. Wee Man, who actually turns four tomorrow, Older Girl, and The Boy had a great time playing Land of the Lost in the wading pool and sand box. Many dinosaurs met their demise in the sand pits, only to be resurrected by dogged excavation. All that playing left the adults to do what they do best: talk about the kids, and eat their body weights in cake and tortilla chips (apples don't fall far from the tree in this orchard). We ate too much, talked with our mouths full, and stayed too late, but it was worth it.

On Sunday, the children (with credit for the assist going to Rob) brought me a bagel in bed. I'm not a big fan of eating in bed, but how could I resist the four limpid pools of blue and green, rimmed with dark lashes, that so lovingly presented me with my tray? It would take a heart three sizes too small, so I smiled, and kissed, and ate in my bed.

But the pampering did not end there, my friends. My brother and his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's sister, came over to my house and cooked a gourmet Mother's Day meal. My parents, my other brother, and my brother's girlfriends' parents joined us, so it was a full house, and the only thing I did was make coffee.

They pulled out all the stops for this party, because they live by our family motto: Go Big or Go Home. We ate shrimp cocktail, potato leek soup, filet mignon, and chocolate-covered strawberries. They even chilled our salad plates and forks! They brought all of their own cookware, printed out menus, cooked everything from scratch, and cleaned everything before they left. I came down this morning to find the kitchen cleaner than when they arrived, with little plates of extra dessert all wrapped up on the counter. Talk about livin' the dream.

Now they have a big problem on their hands, because once you've seen how the personal chef set live, it's mighty hard to go back. I need to be kept in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed, and Rob wants to know what's on tap for Father's Day. That only gives them about a month to prepare, so, if you two are reading, you might want to jump on that. Plus, you can motivate yourself with the knowledge that you'll make it to the blog once again.

Happy Mother's Day!

The sweetest sounds to mortals given

Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.

-William Goldsmith Brown

Music and Lyrics

Actual Lyric: "And You never change, God You remain, the Holy One . . ."

The Boy's Lyric: "And You never change, God You remain, the Hole-in-One . . ."

Is it a sacrilege to let him sing it his way and not correct him? Because I don't have the heart to do it when he is belting "Hole-in-One" in the back of the car, and smiling like his face will crack.

Growing, Growing, Gone

The child you see today

will not be here tomorrow.

The child arriving home from school,

is different from the one

who left from home this morning.

Every moment is a death

of all that has gone before,

and a birth

of all that is to come.

You must jump into the river

and let it carry you on its journey.

If you try to stop it

you will drown.

-from The Parent's Tao Te Ching

Here's the funny thing about my kids: sometimes I complain about the duty of caring for small children, and while I'm doing that, they grow up with no warning and leave me at loose ends, scrambling to catch them. I've always been in Camp Pess-I-Mist when it comes to thinking about my chicks growing up and leaving the nest. Who am I kidding? I am a camp counselor. It's not that I want them to be dependent babies forever, but there is something to be said for a humid, sleeping breath exhaled into the hollow of your neck. I live for those moments, and yet I can't keep myself from ruining them by imagining their absence. I see Older Girl putting her own adult-sized hairbrush away in her own dresser drawer, and it occurs to me that I haven't thought of them as anything but babies since they were born.

How does it happen, this stealth growth? It happens overnight, but it also happens during hours of endless minutes of saying this too shall pass. It happens when I am focusing so intently on the troubles, the minutiae, the myriad hurdles, that I miss the jump that clears the bar. Maybe I am missing it because babyhood is so mutable, so fickle. If she likes the wiggly rattle this month, I know she will cast it aside in favor of a new toy next month. I've come to disregard the tastes, the fleeting fancies of a baby. I chart the physical milestones, I report the sitting and the walking at playgroups and parties, I know what size socks to buy, but sometimes I don't recognize the growth until I hear it echoed back to me. Size 10 dress? Wow, so tall already.

I see it the most in Older Girl, because she has changed so much this year. She's become a person who makes intentional puns, whispers wisecracks from the corners of her mouth, who showers alone, who prefers to wear her hair down in a headband instead of in a ponytail, thankyouverymuch. I eye her like a stranger who's come for a visit instead of the child who has spent a lifetime down the hall, or in the bed next to me. Our old familiarity is at times replaced by a polite distance. We are both trying to figure each other out - again.

The baby I pored over at three in the morning, is now freckled and long-limbed, with the hint of a future of shaving starting to emerge on her lower leg. When did her friends start calling to check the math assignment? When did she start playing Dvorak on the piano and answering Jeopardy questions? I was there for all of it, and somehow I still missed some of it.

I tend to feel badly about this short-sightedness, because sometimes it prevents me from enjoying the little moments that will never come again. It also prevents me from losing my mind when lack of sleep and crying babies push me toward the edge; that's not an altogether unwelcome side effect, to be honest.

For every little moments' death, another endearing moment follows. For every sleepy exhalation I've lost, I've gained a conversation about art, religion, music. For every wobbling step that has passed, a shuffle-ball-change has replaced it. Babyhood is sweet -sweeter than most any other time, I think - full of the spontaneous, effusive moments that make you sure you were meant to be a parent. And it is exhausting, to be sure. You are never more bone-weary, strung-out, or dazed with deprivation. You are sure that you were never meant to be a parent; all of this chaos is surely a sign that things have gone terribly awry. Then comes the day when your children buckle themselves into the car, and that yoke of physical exertion is lifted from your shoulders, only to be replaced by your worries for them as they leave you bit by bit.

I don't know where I'm going with all of this. As much as I hate change and the delicate balance it upsets, I know that without it I surely would have been hauled away by now. It's most assuredly a good thing that you can't step in the same river twice - it's what keeps you walking the fine line between parent and asylum resident - but that still doesn't stop me from watching the water flowing past with a little twinge of sadness.

The Best Mother's Day Present. Ever.

My nephew, StuntMan, is the definition of a boy's boy. Never walking anywhere when he can run; always crashing and banging into anything, or anyone, in his path; kicking and "hiiii-YAH!"-ing his way through life, he is energetic to say the very least. He is also thoughtful, sympathetic, and downright tender, especially towards his mother, although you'll never get him to admit to being tender. His mother is pregnant with her fourth child, and Mother's Day is right around the corner, so he did what any self-respecting, mother-loving 6 year old would do: he got her a Mother's Day present.

My sister-in-law insisted that she didn't want anything for Mother's Day, but StuntMan wouldn't buy it (You learn well, young Jedi). He trotted off to school with the intention of buying his mother a gift at his school's "Mother's Day Shop" (known, in some circles, as the All the Junk Nobody Would Buy at a Flea Market Shop). He came home to show his mother the spoils of school shopping: little trinkets for his grandmother and friends (because we all know how important it is to remember our friends on Mother's Day. They have mothers, too, you know). And then the piece de resistance, the gift for his beloved mother. What did he pick for her? A tiny Baby Jesus figurine. My sister-in-law told me that it was clearly once attached to an actual Nativity set, and the little anchors were still visible on the Baby Jesus' backside. Somehow, He had become separated from the set and had made His way to the Mother's Day Shop at StuntMan's school. Seeing Him there, StuntMan picked Him up for his mother, since she was going to have a baby.

My sister-in-law did what any mom would do: she put the Baby Jesus in the cup holder of her car, and she kissed StuntMan. I don't know about you, but I think that's about the best gift any of us could get. A little Baby Jesus for the road of life. You done good, StuntMan.

Even More Things You Never Wanted to Know About Me

I've been tagged by Janeen over at Our Story to do the 7 Facts Meme. I'm supposed to come up with 7 random facts/habits, preferably ones that I have not previously blogged to death, so this may require some creative thinking after all! I'll give it a shot because I really do like to be tagged (as long as people have no expectations of a prompt reply), and because I like Janeen.

1. I really like to drive, and, more specifically, I like to drive fast. Not reckless, careening off the road fast, but faster-than-the-speed-limit-but-not-so-fast-that-I-get-a-ticket fast. Rob calls me Speed-Racer, Lead-Foot, Mario, but I know he secretly loves it. He loves it when I hop behind the wheel, turn up the Led Zeppelin, and lay that hammer down. Of course, driving in the mini-bus that is our family car, with wee'uns talking circles around each other, tends to cramp my Nascar style, so I save my cool moves for any errands I may get to run by myself. Plus, if we're running late, I'll drive and we usually make it there in time. You know I live to serve.

2. I love diners. Is there any place better than a place where you can stick to ancient vinyl seats while deciding between the turkey club or the Lobster Thermidor? And then chase it down with a creme brulee or a chocolate shake? I think not.

3. I have soft skin. I mean like baby soft, but what it boasts in suppleness, it lacks in elasticity. And three children have done nothing to help the situation. I am now sort of like a very comfy pillow - great for a mom, bad for cute clothes. Good thing I'm not a model.

4. I've eaten haggis and I've lived to talk about it. In all honesty, a well-made haggis is pretty tasty, and every ethnicity has a food that is best left a mystery in regards to the ingredients. It just so happens that Rob is as Scottish as the day is long, so for me that food is haggis.

5. I went to college with Steve Burns, aka: Steve, the original host of Blue's Clues. He was a fun guy to hang around, although my sister-in-law and some other friends knew him better than I did.

6. In my china hutch, I have a bottle from the Republic of Moldova with these ingredients: water, caramel, ginseng, vanilla, 23 species of medicinal plants, and other things that I am not able to translate from Romanian. It also has a 45% alcohol content, and the instructions tell the user to add one or two shots to soda, coffee, or a cocktail - in case the 45% alcohol content just wasn't getting the job done for you. I wonder how Rob got it through customs.

7. As a child, I only imagined myself doing two things as an adult. One of them was becoming a mom, and the other was being an author. I'm definitely a mom, and I've had a few things published for which I have been paid, so I guess that makes me an author, as well. Two for two ain't bad!


Now, according to The Legend of the 7 Things Meme, I am supposed to tag seven people. I honestly don't know if I have seven readers who have not done this, so I am just tagging at will. If you've done this (and I'm sure some of you have), or you don't have the time or inclination, just ignore it. I'm a mom, I'm used to people pretending not to hear what I say!
4and counting, RCMommy, Meg, T, Sara, Barb, Carrie

Nesting

When we were moving up to Pennsylvania from North Carolina, Rob and I had about two days to buy a house. Two whole days. We dumped dropped the kids with my ever-gracious parents, and we told our realtor to bring her A-game because we were here to get a house or die trying. (well, maybe not die exactly, but we were certainly serious about the prospect of having a lean-to of our very own).

We prayed that God would lead us in the right direction, since we weren't overly familiar with the area where we would be living. I had gone to college nearby, but the towns had changed dramatically since I had been a resident. Plus, I had no car in college, so I didn't get out to town much. If our prospective house was not somewhere along the route from campus to the local diner and the Wal-Mart, chances are I didn't know anything about it.

We had never bought a house before, always being renters or military-base dwellers, so we knew very little about the arduous process. That's probably why we were so optimistic. We figured that there was a home out there just waiting for us, and all we had to do was find it. We didn't familiarize ourselves with the school districts or the parishes in the area. We didn't calculate the distance for Rob's commute. I didn't even look for the closest shopping center. We were obviously prepared for the hunt.

Our realtor, who had the eye of the tiger for real estate, led us from one end of the Lehigh Valley to the other. We looked at old houses, new houses, houses that smelled like a thousand cats, houses that smelled like mold, houses that had no yards, houses that had too much yard - you name it, we saw it. We even saw a house with a habi-trail for gerbils (oh God, I hope it was for gerbils) running the entire length and width of the basement. That's not the house we bought.

Our house was the second to last on the list, a sweet colonial in a quiet neighborhood. Impeccably maintained by its semi-retired owners, Rob and I were instantly drawn to its tidy appearance and light-filled rooms. Even our realtor made little clucking noises of approval as she marked off all the highlights. Excellent school district, quiet neighborhood, well maintained, close to shopping, newer appliances. We were sold, and we made an offer that day. Our offer was accepted that night and we were on our way to becoming home owners.

We moved in at the end of the summer, and quickly started feathering the nest. While we still loved the house, and we realized more and more how blessed we were to get it, the honeymoon was short-lived. We started to discover all kinds of things that we would tweak or make-over in our own style, and we also started to take stock of all the little things that had escaped our notice on our one and only walk-through. The odd placement of electrical outlets and phone jacks, the random light switches that didn't turn anything on (but made such a nice crackly sound when flipped), and so on. Most of these things were cosmetic, so we weren't too bothered by them. The foundation was strong, the roof was snug, the basement was tight as a drum, the plumbing was good, and we had plenty of storage. In addition to all of this, was the property itself. The back of the house faced beautiful woods and a meandering creek, and we set up shop to watch the birds, deer, groundhogs, and rabbits.

While enjoying all of the aforementioned flora and fauna, I noticed something else. Something small and ominous right by the back door. It was a wasp. A triangular-headed, malevolent- alien-faced Winged Creature of Stinging Dread. And it was flying under the back porch light. Then he was joined by a buddy. Shortly followed by another buddy. I was expecting to see another buddy come flying along with a little beer keg for the wasp party that was evidently going on under my back porch light, but I got impatient and went out to investigate. Bad move, because, as we all know, the girl who goes out to investigate the weird noise at the slumber party is always the one who shakes hands with the axe-murderer first.

I turned to look at the back of the house and I saw that the upper right hand corner of the house was covered with wasps. Well, not covered as in Plagues of Biblical Proportions, but there were a lot of wasps hanging out back there. It was like some kind of Wasp Convention. Being the cool and collected gal that I am, I ran back into the house, yelling for Rob and locking the door behind me. I called the pest control company that day, that very minute. A very nice man came out and watched me point and listened to me describe the problem: The wasps! And the possible stinging of the children! And the buzzing! And total world domination by wasps!
He just smiled, and said "Don't worry, ma'am, they always do that this time of year. They're just paper wasps and they like the sunny backside of your house. I'll spray 'em." And with that, Dave became our Bug Guy, and not just because he said my house had a sunny backside.

Three years later, and we are still waging the war against the wasps. I have tried everything to make them feel unwelcome, but I have come to the conclusion that unless I can pick up my house with my own hands and move it down to the shady end of the street, wasps are the price I will pay for a sunny backside. They don't congregate on the house like they did that first summer, but they sure try. I think I singlehandedly keep the pest control company in the black
just keeping them at bay.

Most of the time, I can forget about them, even when we are outside, but sometimes little reminders pop up. Like the one I got last night. I wanted to put the light-weight quilt on the bed, so I asked Rob to help me put away the winter quilt in our hall linen closet. This closet is actually supposed to be for a washer and dryer, but I put our laundry center in the basement so the clothes would have more room to steep in their dirt. We store our linens in an old dresser in the laundry closet, and the dresser is directly under what would be the vent to the outside were there actually a dryer in there. Do you see where I'm going with this? Do you? Because I was blindsided when we moved an extra pillow and a four inch diameter wasps' nest fell out of it. I don't know if you can scream and vomit at the same time, but I think I did it last night. I sprang back like a - oh, well, I don't know - like a wasps' nest just fell out of my linen closet!

It took a second for me to realize that it was empty and old, and Rob surmised that it was one that they were building on the outside of the vent. Then, when Dave came to spray the Mist Of The Big Sleep on them, it just fell down the dryer vent shaft and onto the extra pillow that we never use. (And which, for any reader who may be a future sleepover candidate, has been taken out of this house, never to be seen again.)

After I convulsed in a massive fit of Heebie-Jeebies, we took the closet apart and found nothing but sheets and blankets. I listened for buzzing, but heard nothing, and I started to become satisfied with Rob's theory on the nest. Of course, that didn't stop us from plugging up the vent shaft, like we probably should have done when we decided not to use it for a dryer.

As we were making the bed with the spring quilt, I looked up to see a glimmer in Rob's eye, and a little smile played around his mouth. We finished spreading the blanket out, and he looked at me and said, "You have no idea how much I wanted to go 'buzzbuzzbuzz' when we were unfolding this blanket." A prince among men, that one.

I've checked the closet three times today, and found nothing. I've done a perimeter sweep of the house, and I haven't seen even one wasp waggling around the eaves. I've driven stalker-slow past my neighbors houses, peering up at their eaves to see if they have wasps casing their joints. Nothing. But I know they are out there, and they are plotting. So am I. I'm calling Dave and telling him to fire up the sprayer.

A Rockin' Mother's Day

Well, it could be rockin' if I win this 4GB Apple iPod Nano from Best Buy that is being given away at 5 Minutes for Mom. I don't know how those ladies get the stuff they give away, but all I can say is God bless them because this iPod also comes wrapped in a box of chocolate. Wait, maybe you didn't hear me. I said wrapped in a box of CHOCOLATE! I don't see how it can get better than that - unless it is being dropped into my substantially thinner lap by my adoring husband while we bask on a beach in the Caribbean sipping adult beverages out of coconuts with little umbrellas in them. Otherwise, I think this giveaway is tantamount to sheer perfection.

But wait, that's not all! The 5 minutes gals are having more giveaways in the coming days, so you need to keep going back to the well, my friends. The little button on my sidebar will take you to the prize-a-palooza, and you can follow all the instructions they give you.
Good Luck (but if you win that iPod, I'm coming over to share your earbuds - just so you're expecting me)