Dream of a Summer Day

Hey, that thing I said about summer...I really need it to come. I do. And soon. I need to wake up in the morning at a less ungodly hour and to the sound of snuggle-happy voices (can we get in, mama?) instead of the obnoxious beep-beep-beep of my alarm clock. I need to be free from having to remember 18 pieces of paper, two checks, three overdue library books and 39 permission slips that must be tucked into backpacks, purses and preschool bags before anyone can set foot outside the house. I need to think about how I can make a memory instead of a dollar. Memories last so much longer, you see. I need to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watermelon and cut-up apples by the pool instead of remembering to send in lunch money. And snacks. And water bottles. And juice boxes. I need to smell sunscreened faces, chapsticked lips and chlorinated hair instead of stale laundry that I forgot to put in the dryer. I need to take walks outside with my kids at 8:30 p.m. without a barrage of thoughts running through my mind about how quickly I need to bathe them, read to them and shuffle them off to bed (can I shove all that into 25 minutes? Sure! Step up the pace, girls!) I need to lay on a raft after dark and watch the stars pop out, one by one. Those stars, they love to show off, and I haven't paid the least bit of attention to them in months. I need to read something for fun instead of because it was assigned. Or because it's on the AR list. I need to take trips to faraway places where I can appreciate companionable silences. And really tall mountains. And lakes and oceans in which you can float and talk and laugh about stuff and reminisce (remember the time I saved you from that big wave, mama?). Because memories, they last so much longer than dollars.

Summer is Only Four Weeks Away, I Promise

It's official. I'm just not cutting it this week. I'm losing my mind. I'm not on top of ANYthing. In fact, I think I may be under a few piles of s.... something. Laundry most likely. Actually I haven't been cutting it for several weeks now. It's so lame to complain about how busy things are...it's to be expected, and nearly everything going on is Good Stuff. No doubt about that. School is wrapping up for the year, we've had St. Patty's, Easter, visits from the tax man, three birthdays, overnight guests, planning for summer trips and activities, end-of-the-year parties, field trips and gatherings, concerts, sports and school functions, ordering things, returning things, wrapping up my own classes and studies, oh yeah and throw in trying to make a little cash to pay the aforementioned tax man. Everyone's busy. We expect to be busy in April and May. What I don't expect is to lose brain cells over it! And really disturbing is the fact that I seem to have no control over this loss of mind. No matter how much time I put in trying to catch up, reorganize and reprioritize, I am still letting some not-so-minor things fall through the cracks. Last week, I realized at 1 p.m. that I had just plain forgotten to send Small Fry to preschool. Today I remembered to send her to preschool and even packed her lunchbox, along with snack for the class and money for her end-of-the-year pictures (which were overdue, natch). Unfortunately, I forgot to put anything INSIDE the lunchbox. The look on her best bud's face was priceless. He was appalled and ran over to me, saying dramatically "Small Fry Mama, Small Fry Mama, Small Fry opened her lunchbox and....THERE WAS NOTHING IN IT." Sadly, Small Fry herself seemed not at all surprised that her mama would do such a thing. Which prompts me to muse...have I forgotten to feed her other meals in the past few weeks? Luckily, she is pleasantly chubby and could probably miss a meal or five with few ill effects. But still. It's disturbing. But what can be done? I imagine most people I know are going through the same thing right now. It's why everyone is saying how they can't wait for summer to come. Although I wonder if their dirty deeds are staying better hidden than mine? I have no time to notice or to comtemplate this. Now there is a cheering thought! If I have no time to notice their flaws, perhaps they are too busy to notice mine. See, I knew this post would make me feel better. Here's to hiding behind a pile of dirty laundry!

Smelly

If you are a Seinfeld fan, do you remember the "B.O. in the car" episode? Remember when the valet left the highly offensive O. in Jerry's car, even after the B. had long since departed? I am thinking lately of funky smells, because there is one that seems to have invaded my house. Over the past two weeks, Cutie Pie and I are like the Hardy Boys sniffing every crevice and corner around here to narrow down the Smell's emanation. Is it on the staircase? Is it in the hall? Is in a child's room? Is it in our room? Is a family member possibly producing the Smell and refusing to confess, sending the Hardy Boys on many wild goose chases? Every day, we are sniffing household items and questioning each other in Dr. Suesslike fashion: "Do you smell it here? Do you smell it there? Do you smell it everywhere?" The frustrating part is that a) I have a bad smeller, made worse by a recent cold-cough-croup-fever combo and 2) once you live in the smell for more than 3 minutes, you stop smelling it and apparently become immune to its odious charms. You trick yourself into thinking it's gone. Until you come home from the outside world and walk into the Smell, all fresh and smelly again. Finally, last night, I believe we narrowed the Smell to our children's playroom, which has direct access to the attic. This was after closing off certain rooms for specified periods of time and then rushing in, pouncing cat-like and nose-first, to try desperately to capture a whiff. So, after turning the playroom upside down looking for the culprit, we discussed the matter for probably 30 or 40 minutes. Yes, this is how sad we have become. And yes, this is how we know the truth about our marriage: We are no longer newlyweds. AKA, The Honeymoon's Over. We discussed the Smell at length. What the Smell smells like. What could be the source of the Smell. Why the Smell is stronger late in the day. Is the Smell animal, vegetable or mineral. I even asked for a crash course on duct work and attic joists so I could intelligently add to the theories being bandied about. The unfathomable mystery is: How can we have a smell in the house that smells like a dog's rear end (this was the conclusion we came to after many scientific comparisons of the Smell to known and unknown smells) when in fact, we do not own a dog? This is a mystery. And it's driving us crazy. If you know any specialists, experts, vendors or Smellologists who would consider taking our case....well, we would be ever so grateful.

Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

Once upon a time, I used Photoshop in my job. I never really got the hang of it, outside of the mundane importing and cropping of boring product shots into even more boring product information bulletins that went on and on about mind-numbing properties such as Viscosity or Flash Point. But it's ever so much more fun to learn when you have a subject as cute as this to work with! So tell me, do you like rosy, pink cheeked Small Fry or Vintage-y, colorized Small Fry? Personally, I think either one is beyond adorable. But that's just me!

Wild Things

Man, weather can be wild sometimes. We've gone from a balmy, spring-like Monday to Tornado Tuesday to Snow Day Wednesday and that's just so far this week. I make a whole lot of fun of Cutie Pie because he is mildly obsessed with radar and forecasts, and he would watch the Weather Channel like sports 24-7, if only we had cable. But I can see the draw. It's big, it's wild, it's uncontrollable and nearly unpredictable... although he would probably disagree with me on that. Because an intelligent enough weather person, or perhaps a cute enough weather woman (he has crushes on most of them), can certainly give a highly accurate forecast IHHO. (I remain unconvinced).

But there is no doubt that a force strong enough to snap a tree in half, or pull it up by its roots and deposit it upon your roof is certainly interesting, to say the least.

And a trampoline in a tree...you just don't see that everyday.

But it was also interesting how quickly a house could move in my mind from a cozy, nesting place for a family, from a point of pride and status....to a pile of nailed-together wood whose only true purpose and worth is to remain standing and sheltering three small people huddled on the stairs should a gi-normous pine tree decide to fall on top of them. What clarity a bit of wind and rain can provide!

I think I'm usually pretty good under pressure. I had to laugh afterward, though, when I thought about how fast my heart was beating and how I was gulping in ragged, shaky breaths but I was still able to have that breezy, "isn't this fun, kids?" crazy Stepford mom voice coming out. Later they said they weren't scared. And that is good. Because Mama was scared enough for all of us.

Fresh Start

I love January. I know some people dislike old Jan...maybe it's the post-holiday letdown, or the bleak weather she brings or the cynicism of unkept New Year's Resolutions. But it does feel like a new beginning, no matter how you slice it, resolutions notwithstanding. You've got all that great loot from Christmas to pretty up your home and closets, which forces you to organize and declutter and throw out all your old raggedy stuff because it just doesn't go with the new, shiny stuff, does it? You make an effort to reconnect with the dear friends you missed seeing while you were all whirling around in a holiday frenzy. And you get a new calendar! Ahhhh. I love a new calendar. The blank pages are so pretty and crisp. Uncreased, they fan themselves out at me...full of possibility and hopefulness. I love to consider the ups and downs of the past year, the accomplishments and failures ....and think of new goals and milestones yet to be reached. And I think a lot about my peeps, too - the old and new friends come to mind as I write down their birthdays and their new addresses and their updated emails, maybe adding a new baby's name to the family profile. And I think, I'm so glad I met her last year. I hate that I haven't seen him since his last birthday. I've got to return that book to her, and she would just love the last one I read.... And I also, inevitably, experience the sadness of purging people that, if I'm following the rule of clean closets, I haven't spoken to in the past year. Some of them are easy to let go...like the annoying editor I had to work with at my last job. Or Animal Control, who really fell down on their job of controlling the mean dogs that kept getting out of my former neighbor's fence. But some are harder to let go. Like the one who moved two states away and didn't keep in touch or the one who has gone Home to "have fun with God," as Small Fry will say. I tend to keep those in my calendar. I may not have celebrated their birthday with them in several years, but I leave it written on the usual page because I imagine, if nothing else, I can think of them fondly on that day and maybe send a good vibration or two their way. I can look at their old phone number, and recall the conversations we used to have. I can look at their address and remember the great times we had around their dinner table. It gets a little crowded in my shiny new calendar, but I figure...I can always purge next year. Organization is overrated anyway.

Pay No Attention to the Chick Behind the Curtain

Well, we've been on a little hiatus haven't we? I'm sure, as my Twelve Most Devoted readers, you have taken note and perhaps have been wondering... What Gives? OK, maybe just one of you took note, but whatever. It's just a little case of stage fright combined with several weeks of personal drama not fit for internet consumption. But here I am - Happy New Year, Ya'll!- and I am in that Clean Sweep frame of mind... therefore, I am blogging again. And blog I must. Because it's an awfully good way to clear a girl's mind. And 12 readers isn't exactly what you'd call a stage, right? So I'm just going to get over that. But maybe you could help me out? If you are a member of my real life and you read me here, maybe you shouldn't tell me. Better to just leave me an anonymous comment or something like that. Otherwise, I may start sweating and blushing and otherwise dying of embarrassment. Obviously, I'm highly un-evolved and also a big old fraidy cat. But I'm really glad you're reading. Just don't look at me while you're doing it.