not that you asked...

Now, Cheez-Its vs. Cheese Nips is another story altogether

This last weekend was one of those ones I was looking forward to just getting though. We didn't have anything AWFUL to do or anything – it was just busy and packed with activities, two of which had the capacity to be Very Awkward, and as much as I enjoy being social with people I do not really know very well, I do not particularly look forward to potentially awkward social situations. The fact that events like these exist tends to cloud the entire weekend – it's not that I sit around DREADING them; more like I sit around thinking of a bunch of other things for which I could drum up buckets more enthusiasm.

The potentially awkward social situation didn't turn out awkward at all, except for the part where we showed up 15 minutes late and everyone had already eaten. The weird thing is that the whole thing was TO EAT TOGETHER, and we had RSVP'd that we were coming, and... I don't know, I figured even with our 15 minutes of lateness, SOMEONE would still be polishing off a plate of potato salad or something, but NO, everyone was COMPLETELY DONE and had moved on to other activities and it was just... well, it was interesting. I guess that particular group of people must be the most punctual people on the planet, because I have NEVER been to a casual function that starts exactly at the appointed time – when someone says “starts at five!” I assume that everyone is arriving at five, and climbing out of their cars or whatever, and ASSIMILATING, and then there is some basic small talk and then the eating and merriment begins shortly thereafter. That was MY impression, of course, and it turns out that my impression was very wrong. But it was fine! Kind of weird, but fine.

Also in the awkward category was something I TOTALLY lucked out of because I slept really poorly on Saturday night (two hours of sleep, I think). Dave volunteered to be the one to take Asher door-to-door fundraising for t-ball. Is there anything worse than going door to door and asking people for money on a Sunday afternoon? It turns out it was good that he went, anyway, because the other kids also showed up with THEIR dads, and I would have hated to be the chick who got in the way of all kinds of potential Man Talk. This is probably my favorite thing about t-ball so far – as adorable as it is watching the games and as fun as it is bleaching white pants week after week (HA HA NO, JUST KIDDING, THAT PART BLOWS), I love that this is an activity where Dave really is the default parent. I mean, I know moms are just as capable as being Default T-Ball Parents, but Asher's team is filled with Default DADS and so it just makes sense that Dave is the one who sticks it out at every practice and stands behind second base at every game while I let Lucy dig through poison ivy and risk getting bit by ticks behind the bleachers. (Yeah, like my job is better.)

Mostly I've just been thinking about the fact that there are approximately 2.5 days of preschool left and then the entire summer stretches out before me. And I would be all, YAY, THE POOL, except I'm pretty sure this is going to be another long summer during which the elder of my two children refuses to put his head/face anywhere near the surface of the water, and I don't know if you know this, but not wanting to actually SWIM in a pool really limits general pool enjoyability. I mean, there is only so much you can do while sitting on the side and dangling your feet in and/or wading in carefully up to your mid-thigh.

The thing about Asher is that no one except Asher himself can change his mind on any issue or experience he is the least bit scared or nervous or slightly edgy about. For example, this child will not attempt – WILL NOT ATTEMPT – to eat a Cheez-It. I know, you are thinking this is a stupid thing to take issue with ANYWAY, and MAYBE IT IS, but you guys know as well as I do that a Cheez-It is just a cheese-flavored cracker. Right? And he is happy to eat cheese, and also crackers, and also GOLDFISH CRACKERS, which are pretty much the same exact thing as Cheez-Its, please let's not argue if you think Cheez-Its are seven hundred culinary steps above Goldfish or anything, I am just trying to make my point that we are talking about DIFFERENTLY SHAPED CHEESE-FLAVORED CRACKERS here. I also realize I am expending a lot of energy on neon orange, highly processed food, but I HAVE A POINT TO MAKE, and SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THAT POINT EVENTUALLY.

This particularly frustrated me one afternoon when Asher reported that his snack at school was Cars-themed Cheez-Its. Whoa whoa whoa wait wait wait, you mean this child will not even attempt to eat a Cheez-It when it has a mutated-looking LIGHTNING MCQUEEN STAMPED ON IT? Unbelievable! And so I very patiently tried to explain how Cheez-Its and Goldfish are made at the same factory (stay with me here), and they roll out the dough – remember how we made dough to make those big pretzels last week, Asher? Remember? - and then they cut the dough with differently shaped cookie cutters, just like we do at Christmas when we make Christmas cookies! Remember how even though we make reindeer and bells and angels out of the dough, THEY ALL END UP TASTING EXACTLY THE SAME?

Here is where Asher agrees with me – yes, all the cookies taste the same even though they are different shapes! So I continue with my gentle rant-slash-lesson, and cover the fact that a peanut butter sandwich cut into rectangles tastes exactly the same as a peanut butter sandwich cut into TRIANGLES, YES? And Asher is all, yes, I agree, Mom! And I am all, Asher, this is exactly what happens at the Cheez-It/Goldfish factory! They are just cutting out SQUARES for the Cheez-It box, and GOLDFISH SHAPES for the Goldfish box! And Asher is all, YES! I SEE IT, MOM! And then, as I am practically jumping out of my seat in near-victory and offering to STOP AT THE GROCERY STORE ON THE WAY HOME TO BUY CHEEZ-ITS, I make the mistake of asking, “So? Are you ready to try a Cheez-It now?”

Of course he isn't. HE DOES NOT WANT A CHEEZ-IT; HE DOES NOT LIKE CHEEZ-ITs.

So, you know. His head isn't going underwater any time soon, I don't think.

Allow me to word-barf the entire month of April

April was definitely one of the craziest months we've had in a while, and that's even if you don't count the roughly 17,000 hours I spent dyeing, un-dyeing, RE-DYEING, re-UNdyeing and then thinking about/panicking about/hating/accepting/shampooing my hair. April 2012 will be recorded in history as probably my top shampoo-consumption month of ALL TIME. I should tell you that at one point I read that Prell shampoo was great at fading hair color, so I bought some, and not only did it not do anything (seriously, NOT A THING), it also smelled exactly like whatever they use to try to cover up the smell of a port-a-potty. You know that smell? I know you know that smell. It's not a NICE smell, it's just a STRONG, faux-floral smell that isn't even all that much better than feces, and YES, I was lathering up with it a couple times a day.

Anyway, my hair is still a shade or two darker than my natural color probably is, but it isn't HORRIFYING anymore, although I'm not sure whether that's because I actually succeeded in fading it a bit, or if I just finally got used to it. Either way: EH. I'm over it. I have no more brainpower left for thinking about hair. I am OVER THE HAIR.

(Is not so bad anymore?)

In April, Asher started t-ball, which has been pretty great. Oh, it's not like he's actually TALKING to anyone on the team, but he listens to instructions and he gives high-fives to his coaches and grins when he runs the bases and really likes going to practice and to his games, and that's enough for me. Is he grasping the concept of baseball? Well, probably not, as seen by the fact that he ran straight at the pitcher's mound last week after his turn at bat, but he's learning to swing a bat and throw a ball, and the experience of being part of a team has been really really good for him.

In April I also registered him for kindergarten, which was disheartening. When he was two, Asher had a LOT of trouble separating from us just for Sunday school (all one hour of it) – it took probably three months to get him acclimated to his class, and that's probably because his teacher let him sit on her lap for the majority of those three months. But once he got used to going, he never looked back, and he never once cried at preschool dropoff, even on the very first day. But kindergarten orientation required the parents to meet in the library, and the upcoming kindergarteners to stay in their classrooms and I know the school was just so big and there were so many kids (60, at least) and he absolutely fell apart when I left him. I know he was fine after a few minutes, but it was really, really hard, and now I'm completely paranoid about the first day of school. So paranoid that I don't want to really talk about it, not yet, at least. I know that he will acclimate; I know that it takes a lot of getting used to. But I wish we could just push past that first stage and arrive immediately at the part of kindergarten where he loves school and his teacher and recess and riding the bus home at the end of the day and I can stop mainlining antacids.

We have grand plans to bribe him through his first week of school by promising him a trip to Richmond to see a NASCAR race. Which reminds me that I haven't told you yet about the fact that Asher is suddenly a HUGE NASCAR FAN, WEEP. Sometime recently, after a very longstanding obsession with the movie Cars, he figured out that car racing was REAL, and that REAL PEOPLE DO IT, and we turned on a race one weekend afternoon and he sat like a statue in front of the television, completely enthralled. He will watch ANYTHING race – cars, trucks, three-legged dogs – just as long as they all have numbers painted on their sides so that he can keep up with who is winning and losing. It is... weird, actually. NASCAR racing? In MY HOME? I would have NEVER believed it, but it turns out that when your kid thinks something is really super awesome, you kind of find yourself picking it up too, as horrifying as it is for me to admit. It's just that enjoyment I get out of watching him love something. And this is coming from someone who has been in Talladega, Alabama during a race weekend (and you people familiar with NASCAR will know what I am talking about). IT WAS A LOT OF TANK TOPS, is what I'm saying. A LOT OF UNNECESSARY TANK TOPS.

Lucy, despite being three, is not conforming to ANY of the stereotypes I expected her to at this age. She is pleasant and reasonable 98 percent of the time (I thought she would be an AWFUL three-year-old) and she has very little interest in girly things, like dolls or princesses or picking out her own clothes. Actually that's not true, she does like to pick out her own shirt every day, but she only wants to wear shirts with ANIMALS on them, of which we have approximately three. Also, if she wears a shirt with a dog on it, then she wants to take a matching stuffed animal along in the car with us, which poses a problem when she is wearing, say, a shirt with a butterfly on it. WE DO NOT HAVE A STUFFED BUTTERFLY. This is, FUNNILY ENOUGH, the two percent of the time when she acts COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE, but usually we are able to talk through it. The last time she wore her butterfly shirt and we did not have a stuffed butterfly to tote along with us, we simply brainstormed to think of an animal who might be FRIENDS with a butterfly. This led us to Bambi, who has a butterfly on his tail in the movie, which led us to Thumper, WHO WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE ON HER BED, problem solved. Thumper goes with her butterfly shirt, but please don't ask her about it if you run into us, because it takes her about an hour to explain the process of deciding on Thumper and WE HAVE PLACES TO BE, OKAY? I also want the record to show that today she changed her mind and decided that she no longer wants to be a drummer when she grows up; now she would instead like to be a singer.

“Like Erik?” I asked her. Erik, my brother, heads up the worship band at our church.

“Yeah, like Erik,” she said.

“Well,” Asher piped up, “She can be a singer like Erik, but she has to stay a girl.” SO GLAD HE POINTED THAT OUT. Also so glad he's right. I'm keeping this girl.

I WAS SNAPE

I opened up my email after publishing that last post and found the following:

"holy crap that black hair was crazy. did not even look like you... it looked like this:"

A BIG THANK YOU TO MY LOVELY BROTHER-IN-LAW. I mean, don't get me wrong, I laughed HEARTILY at my own expense, because HE'S RIGHT, but on the other hand OMG I WAS SNAPE, YOU GUYS.

******************************

This morning I stepped out of the house for a run at about 6:45 and shut the door behind me without checking to see whether the lock was engaged. And then I returned home from my run about 7:30 and realized that yes, in fact, it was, and I'd locked myself out of the house. Which, hey! No big deal, right? You know, since Dave and my two kids were inside, all with working knowledge of doorknobs. I wasn't SURE if the kids were awake yet (they often sleep until close to 8) so I knocked as quietly as I could while still trying to alert my husband that I was at the door. NOTHING.

So I walked back to the backyard, in my sweaty running capris and a sweaty (brand new, though!) tank top, and spent the next five minutes throwing rocks and sticks at my bedroom window. NOTHING. This wouldn't be a big deal, I guess, if we lived in a single-family home that afforded us a bit of privacy, but we don't – we live in a tiny two-story townhouse that's surrounded by and connected to loads of other tiny two-story townhouses, and 7:30am is apparently exactly when everyone in the neighborhood leaves for work or heads into the backyard to water their plants or lets their dog out to pee and so everyone in the neighborhood saw me throwing things at my own window and then, when I got desperate, standing on a lawn chair and beating the window with a broom handle. A BROOM HANDLE. LIKE PERHAPS A CRAZY EX-WIFE MIGHT DO. (In the movies, I guess? I don't actually know any crazy ex-wives.)

Finally I caved and went next door to borrow their phone and try to wake Dave up that way – I called twice and guess what? NOTHING. My neighbor, lovely Peruvian man that he is, was all, “Maybe they all picked up and left you?” YES, THANKS FOR THAT. And overhearing our conversation, my NEW neighbor – the one I haven't even officially MET YET, and the one who can't help but see this all going on while he's out watering his cactus collection – is all, oh hey! I'm a police officer; I can try to break in for you.

So there I am, trying to break into the front door of my VERY OCCUPIED HOUSE with a NEIGHBOR I've NEVER MET BEFORE, smelling strongly of 45 minutes of exertion, letting him use his own credit card to bust into my own home. The house that HAS PEOPLE IN IT. (The credit card did not work; apparently our door has a “threshold” that prevents crappy attempts to break into it with pieces of plastic from people's wallets.) I told him thank you, sent him back to his house and proceeded to pound on my front door for an additional five minutes, while the rest of the neighborhood walks by me to the parking lot and I have to do that fake sounding laugh, “Ha! Oh, no, I'm just locked out! No worries! Someone is actually IN THERE! HA HA HA! I guess they just can't hear me, out here! KNOCKING! LOUDLY!” You guys, it is super hard to look casual and cool while you're trying to bang down your own door.

Eventually my neighbor with the phone left for work, and on his way out to his car he called Dave for me one last time and TA DA! He finally picked up, claiming he'd been in the shower. LONGEST SHOWER EVER, is what I said. And so he opened the door and let me in and I told him the whole story and then I went into the bathroom to take my own shower and that's when I looked in the mirror and saw that I had conducted every conversation that morning – EVERY CONVERSATION, with EVERY PERSON IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD – with a clothing size sticker running down the front of my (brand new! remember?) workout top. A big old plastic strip of letter Ms, pasted onto my chest. 

For once the old adage is true: I DID GET DRESSED IN THE DARK. Not that it really matters, at this point.

You wanna see a bad dye job?

The last few weeks have been a TOTAL WHIRLWIND. Remember how I told you I was, uh, doing some (very poor) ACTING? It was in a production at my church and we did it for five nights in a row, not to mention the numerous rehearsals and practices and basically Dave and I spent the entire week before Easter juggling who had the kids and when and whether the other person already fed them and where was the other OTHER person supposed to pick them up and at what time and then he did six or seven bedtime routines all by himself while I was performing every night. “Performing,” I realize, makes it sound like it was grueling work (or that perhaps I have some kind of talent, which I do NOT), but it was mostly fun, and I met some really awesome people that I got to hang out with for five hours a night, all while Dave wrangled the kids alone so that I could be a part of it. (Dave is awesome.) Of course, as soon as it was over and we'd spent three days joyfully recuperating and seeing each other for what felt like the first time in a month is when I casually announced that, uh, oh! I kind of... joined a softball team?

YOU GUYS, HIS HEAD DID NOT EVEN EXPLODE. He just said, oh, that sounds fun, are your games on weekends or weeknights?

THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I married the most awesome guy ever. If you are in the market for a husband, might I suggest you get the kind who would rather sit in the house when he comes home from work than go out and do anything? Because he doesn't care if YOU go out and do something, as long as HE gets to stay home and do NOTHING and that is working out JUST PERFECTLY for me, the person who has spent the last five years pretty much only interacting with people who cry if yogurt gets on their placemats and I am kind of... how do you say this?... STARVED FOR ADULT INTERACTION. Once I got a taste of it, I was all, LET'S DO MORE OF THIS, AND SOON.

In other news, I posted about my Terrible Hair Dye Experience on Style Lush last week. (I'll give you a moment to catch up.) I went back to my stylist on Monday in hopes of getting a haircut and having her do something to even out the patchy sections of my hair (there were just a few darker sections and they weren't noticeable, but they EXISTED, which was annoying) and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, I walked back out with hair EVEN BLACKER THAN IT HAD BEEN THE WEEK BEFORE. And as I walked out I was thinking that it was black again, but was also trying desperately to convince myself that maybe it was just the lighting in the salon and that it would look better in the car/at home/after I'd washed it 34,000 times but it did not, it absolutely DID NOT, and there I was, stuck in the same situation as I'd been exactly one week early and then I got diarrhea because IT IS STRESSFUL, having black hair when you don't WANT BLACK HAIR. This was black hair that was bordering on BLUE HAIR, you guys. Try to ignore the hideous, stressy, baggy-eyed look on my face and focus on the hair. THE HAIR.

Supposed to look like (hi pseudostoops!):

Actually looked like (OMG you guys, TRY NOT TO FREAK OUT):

And Dave was all, just go back to the salon and have them fix it (because I PAID for black hair) and while I know that's the RIGHT thing to do and that they would have tried to fix it, I kept thinking that not only did I not want to go back to a salon and sit in a chair for 2.5 more hours, I also did not exactly trust anyone to re-fix a fix. You know? I asked you to FIX something that I myself broke, and instead you BROKE IT ALL OVER AGAIN, so no thanks to sitting back in your chair and becoming an experiment to fix a refix of a FIX, OMG. So I had to take the dye out again, at home, with a drugstore product, WHILE HAVING NERVOUS TUMMY DIARRHEA, because THIS KIND OF THING IS STRESSFUL. And I'm lucky, I know how very lucky I am, to have really healthy hair that tolerated two terrible dye jobs and two chemical removals in a week. My hair is not... well, it's not PERFECT or anything, but it is way closer to my natural color again, which is all I wanted the first time I tried to dye it and failed. (This is me, looking on the bright side.)

And in the wake of this terrible tumultuous time in my Personal Vanity, I cannot even think about the next time I need to get my hair cut, as it results in me feeling like I might vomit.

Let's make up for my own Personal Vanity Issues with photos of my Easter-clad children, who really outdid themselves this year.

Yes. She said wipe.

We went out of town last weekend, just the kids and I (along with my mom) to visit my relatives in West Virginia and to see my cousin get married. Amazingly, traveling with Asher and Lucy is pretty much a non-issue – even when we're talking five, six, seven... as many as eight straight hours in a car. They love staying with my grandparents, they love the excitement of packing their stuff and riding in the car with their stuffed animals and pillows, and they particularly love the fact that I just DO NOT CARE HOW MANY MOVIES THEY WATCH IN THE TIME IT TAKES US TO GET THERE.

I do not. I do not care! Oh, so I OCCASIONALLY care, like when they want to start a new movie and we're .05 miles from stopping for lunch or our destination and would then have to switch the movie OFF in the MIDDLE, OH HEAVENS NO, but otherwise, I JUST DO NOT. Listen, when they're older, I'm happy to encourage a rousing rendition of the License Plate Game or Car Bingo, but first they have to develop the ability to read, and then to actually find whatever it is I'm pointing out to them outside the vehicle. I swear, we could be driving next to a two-mile long FREIGHT TRAIN, and Lucy would continue to insist that she was unable to see it. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

We drove past a field – A WHOLE ENORMOUS FIELD – absolutely PACKED with VERY VISIBLE cows, and she insists, “But I don't SEEEEE THEM!” And then she cries, because she didn't see the cows, and it's not like we can just back the car up on the interstate to give her a second look, and WHY DID WE MENTION THE COWS ANYWAY. It took me a long time to catch on that I just couldn't point anything out to my children while we're driving. Like, at all. Nothing. No matter HOW EXCITING something is, I have to make an honest guess whether or not they'll be able to locate it before we pass it, and most of the time I have to hold my tongue. This is a hard, HARD lesson to learn, but I've mostly mastered it. My mother... not so much. By the end of the trip she was starting to catch on, but first the kids had to cry over missing the chance to see waterfalls, horses running, rain clouds, and two airplanes sitting by the side of the road. 

AIRPLANES. SITTING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. They totally missed them, you guys. (AIRPLANES.)

Anyway, so the trip was uneventful (last time we traveled to WV involved this), and seeing my cousin get married was wonderful. The wedding was small and casual, and the reception was held in the basement of the church. But even though it was casual and laid-back and simple, even though my kids were running freely inside and out and joining in whiffle ball games and eating chocolate cupcakes and candy and smearing it all over their nice clothes, it was NOT AT ALL CASUAL ENOUGH for my daughter to bang on the door of the one-person bathroom REPEATEDLY while I was inside it, yelling, “MOM! MOM! DON'T FORGET TO WIPE! DON'T FORGET, OKAY? DON'T! FORGET! TO! WIPE!”

OMG, you guys. She only LOOKS innocent.

Also, HELP ME, but I want another one JUST LIKE HER.

 

Anticipation

When Asher's preschool evaluation was sent home a couple of months ago, there was only one area where he wasn't absolutely age-appropriately perfect. Please don't take this as my way of sneaking in another round of bragging about my kid; you must remember here that he is repeating the four-year-old class, and everything from the craft projects to the daily routines to working on what is expected of four-year-olds is pretty much old hat to him. He's got it DOWN. Anyway, the one thing isn't too great at is following directions with three steps. I assume this is along the lines of, “Asher, clean up the books, then find your place at the table and start cutting out circles.” Which is not such a big deal, I mean, the kid is FIVE and I don't think I hit my multitasking/keeping things straight in my head peak until last year. (I'm plateauing, if you're wondering. I'm not getting any better at multitasking, but I'm not doing any worse, either.)

What I AM concerned about (and this is a personal concern, not anything I care about developmentally wise) is that I am dying to get to a point with these children where they can ANTICIPATE what I might perhaps will need them to do before we do something we do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Are you following me? By this I simply mean, when will there actually come a day when my child will put on his shoes in anticipation of the fact that we will be leaving for preschool at exactly 9:11? And YES, he has the exact time MEMORIZED, but apparently zero clue that leaving at 9:11 means we have to start doing things to get ready to leave WAY BEFORE THAT. And I know, that knowing it is 9:11 doesn't indicate at all that he has any real idea how time works or how long a minute really is or anything like that, but EVERY DAY we leave the house with shoes on and socks on and jackets on and backpacks packed, and yet, ALSO EVERY DAY, I am having to COACH these children through the routine. I pretty much have to stand over them and BARK ORDERS at them, and they STILL just run around playing Lion King until the absolute last minute, and trust me, they only know it's the last minute because I turn into... well, let's just say I get angry and I raise my voice. But I HAVE to, after speaking them in calm yet firm tones for the last 4,839 times.

Then when we finally get the front door open and walk across the parking lot to the car, I have to continue to remind them what to do. This is the really infuriating part, you guys. They don't even LOOK for where the car is parked. They just... WANDER OFF. They wander all the way down to the end of the parking lot, absorbed in conversation, just the two of them, which would be super cute, if it weren't so FRUSTRATING. And I'm all waving my arms around going, YOU GUYS, the car is ALL THE WAY OVER HERE! and they act surprised, like, OH! We didn't SEE it sitting RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE when we came out the door! This morning, in fact, they wandered out to the car (under my close supervision and direction), and then I had to run back into the house to grab my jacket, and so they just CIRCLED IT, in a single-file line, talking. I had to be like, DUDES, you can open the door and climb into your seats even if I'm not there to tell you to do it! But they don't hear me, because they're chatting; they wait until I am right next to them, OPENING THE DOOR FOR THEM, and even THEN, they don't climb in until I say Let's go! Or we'll be late! OH THIS DRIVES ME ABSOLUTELY BONKERS.

Honestly, I think this can be blamed solely on Lucy. I think if Lucy wasn't around to influence Asher, he'd be putting on his shoes and getting dressed by himself, without too much input from me. Throw Lucy into the mix, and Asher is just so happy to be with her that he cannot focus on anything other than continuing whatever game they're playing. And Lucy is my MAJOR wanderer - at three, I STILL carry her from the car into stores or school or church or wherever, unless I want a 25-yard walk to take approximately sixty-seven YEARS while she scans the ground excitedly for pennies (sometimes with a very professional-looking pair of binoculars) or exlaims over every weed ("tree") appearing in a crack in the asphalt. Not to mention that she is constantly - and I mean CONSTANTLY - carrying on long-winded conversations with herself, and I can't get a word in edgewise that we might need to hurry it up a bit or the people trying to park their cars are going to start HONKING VIOLENTLY AT US. She can't even HEAR me over the sound of her own voice!

Please also note that encouraging this child to hurry can result in her face meeting up with the curb.

I hear stories of other five- and six-year-olds who can be instructed to “get ready for bed” and who will walk upstairs, put on their pjs and brush their teeth before Mom and Dad come up to tuck them in. IS THIS TRUE? This cannot be true. I have to shadow my children while they walk up the stairs, while they choose their pajamas. I have to hassle them to remember to put both legs through their overnight pull-ups, to put BOTH PIECES of their pajamas on before they start running through the house and choosing before-bed books. Are my children the norm? Or are the MORE INDEPENDENT children the norm? I have no idea. I just know that I am doing whatever my children are doing, at any moment in time, and if I NEED them to do something, I have to manage the process myself until it gets done.

ON THE OTHER HAND, children who need to be shadowed and encouraged to do the next natural thing are NOT the kind of children who tend to sneak off and play with my makeup, or empty the trash all over the kitchen, or make giant messes in rooms I am not currently inhabiting, SO THERE IS THAT.

Lately

Blogging gets a little weird for me lately. I suppose this is just how it is when your kids get to a certain age and you've spent the last six years writing mostly about them. My kids are wonderful and amazing and fantastic, but now that they're five and three and hold their own silverware and sleep through the night and use the toilet JUST LIKE ADULTS DO, so there's so much less minutiae to focus on or complain about or worry over. We get up in the morning and eat breakfast, we run errands and go to school, we come home in the afternoon and play and eat dinner and bathe and go to bed. Five years into this gig and I feel pretty comfortable in my role as their mother as well as in my role as bill payer, financial planner, chef, housekeeper and life coach. I don't crave the constant feedback like I did when I was a rookie parent, and my older child is getting to an age where he would be embarrassed if he knew I was documenting in detail his every struggle or mistake, regardless of whether those things make my life harder or crazier or sadder. So yeah, I'm kind of reinventing myself over here.

I'm kind of reinventing myself in the real world, too, I guess, if by “reinventing” you possibly mean “entering back into social society for the first time in five years.” I've been kind of BUSY, actually – I've been volunteering here and there, and taking that financial class with Dave, and HA HA HA OMG I ACTUALLY SAID YES WHEN THEY ASKED ME TO BE IN AN EASTER PRODUCTION AT CHURCH. Like, on a stage. ACTING. I've memorized my lines and everything, despite the fact that when I got the phone call asking me if I'd be in it, my response was pretty much just, “Wait, have you ever actually seen me ACT?” The good news is that my character just mostly acts annoyed, and irritated, and I am SUPER good at acting annoyed and irritated! I practice it every time someone's socks miss the hamper! Actually, no one ever MISSES the hamper; they just ignore it altogether.

I think the last time I was in a play was in third grade? I am talking here about an actual PRODUCTION, with tickets and seats and parents in attendance. And I was Mrs. Claus, and not because I was theatrical in any sense, but I suspect because I was eager to prove how smart I was by being willing to memorize an entire book of dialogue. I can also call to mind another incident in third grade where there was some sort of production about the state of Ohio (it's where I was living at the time, in case that was not obvious) and each of us had to play a small part in the production, and I chose my part based on the fact that it was the LONGEST PARAGRAPH AVAILABLE TO MEMORIZE. I REMEMBER this. I think I also wore a bonnet? That part is a little fuzzy.

Anyway, so I am going to be in a PRODUCTION and I am rehearsing and all that jazz, which is turning out to be pretty fun and also a very reliable way to interact with other adults on a regular basis, which I am ALSO enjoying. It's also SO awesome to be able to do this kind of thing without worrying that Dave will hate me for leaving him to do the bedtime routine alone – for the most part, the kids are at an age where they're pretty easy to corral into bed. Oh sure, there's whining and some really excellent stalling techniques (“But I just want to hug and kiss Lucy one more time!” OH LIKE WE CAN DENY YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO LOVE YOUR SISTER, GOOD ONE) but like I said before, no minutiae.

Life's definitely changing, but we're easing into it.