Stay out of the mud, flutterbudget

Ma said that they were leeches and that doctors put them on sick people. But Pa called them bloodsuckers. He said they lived in the mud, in dark, in still places in the water.

"I don't like them," Laura said.

"Then stay out of the mud, flutterbudget," said Pa. "If you don't want trouble, don't go looking for it."

(Laura Ingalls Wilder, from "The Old Crab and the Bloodsuckers," On the Banks of Plum Creek)

Sometimes I wonder what memories my children will have when they, like me, are in their thirties and wondering how on earth to parent their own children.

As they remember back to their own upbringing, I wonder what they will remember fondly and what will be remembered with a bad taste in their mouths.

There is no way I can predict this. Just earlier today I was thinking to myself, "Oh, these children! I have to say things over and over and yell and be nasty just for them to take me seriously! I don't want to be remembered as the serious, nasty, yelling mother!"

And then at dinner, my children were in tears of mirth as they told their father how different his serious face is from mine. "Yours is scary," they said. "Mama's is ridiclee-us! It is so funny! We can NEVER take her seriously!!!"

So there's no telling how this life of ours will be remembered.
  

And then I was wondering what I will remember. Those things that currently bring me strife (the diapers, the laundry, the endless meals)...those are just the necessities of life. Those are things that, with joy or grief, must be done.

They just must. We must eat, and we must be clothed.

Admittedly, that in and of itself is a lot. Clothes and food for eleven takes work. But it's not impossible. It's not even excessively burdensome. There are tricks and tips that help.

(My biggest tip is to marry an excessively handsome, witty man. He will keep you laughing; and even when you're trying hard not to laugh because you're THAT mad at him, he's good to look at.)

But where I get bogged down, truly, is where I find discontent and covetousness and fodder for perceived martyrdom...and that's where I need to stay out of the mud, flutterbudget.

For me, it's all in the perspective. I've found mud online - not in anything racy, but in the rat race posts of women trumpeting clean rooms and fashionable children and gourmet meals. I'm here floundering in torn toilet paper (WHO has been playing in the bathroom???), toddlers who refuse to wear underwear, and a gifted meal for which I wasn't even the one to set the table. And none of that bothers me, not really, until I start comparing and coveting and wallowing in the mud.

I've found mud in certain self-help (usually, parenting) books. It's no good looking to others for approval. They didn't marry this man (thank heaven! I want him all to myself!) or bear these children. They didn't live my past and won't face my future. So I should take what's helpful and step carefully around the mud.

The thing is, I've had it with envy. I see it everywhere - people wanting my life or wanting me to want theirs. God placed us where He willed, and that's the reality. We read His Word, seek His counsel, and pray for wisdom.

You know, bloom where you are planted, and all of that.

And stay out of the mud.

You Know You're in a Small Town When...

1. Your pharmacist agrees to stay past closing time so you can pick up your children's antibiotics.
2. After handing you the trash bag full of antibiotics for all of your children, he wishes you well and comments that he lives on the same road that he sees listed on your insurance cards.
3. He calls you ten minutes later to say that he neglected to put said insurance cards (all eighteen of them...two per child) in said trash bag. But that's OK; he'll just drop them off on his way home.
4. When you say you are not at home but are on another errand, he offers to stick them in the back of your mailbox.
5. When he sticks them in the back of the mailbox (in the dark of night), a neighbor drives by, slows, and harasses him for messing with your mail.
6. When you arrive, the neighbor follows you up your driveway to make sure things are on the up-and-up and no one has been doing unsavory things with your mail.
7. When you see the pharmacist the next day (to pick up antibiotics for the adults in the household) and sheepishly apologize for your neighbor harassing him, he says, "That's OK. I just figured they had your back."

I wonder if he knows our bank teller (four houses down) or the pastor in the church two counties over who stopped by the church for a visit (end of the road) or the daughter of some church friends (across the road from the pastor)???

Of course he does.

Can I Get a WHOOP! WHOOP!

So this July has brought us our first bout with whooping cough. The night I got the call that our 2-yr. old son had tested positive for his pertussis test, I drank a humongous green coffee drink and fretted the night away.

I was really worried. And really caffeinated. And maybe that's the same thing, really.

But then the morning came. We doled out the antibiotics to everyone, noted that the 3-mo. old still had no symptoms, and stocked up on juice, popsicles, humidifiers, and yogurt.

Gideon is the only one who has developed the distinctive "Whoop! Whoop!" and he handles it like a real soldier. He pushes through the coughing fit, rests for a bit, then continues tormenting his 4-yr. old brother.

It really has only marginally slowed the mayhem down. Almost indistinguishably, really.

I've limited my online time, only getting on for emergencies ("Am I supposed to roast the garlic first?") before about 8 PM. The minutes after 8:00 have been spent researching whooping cough, the pertussis vaccine, and recipes (always). Short story: whooping cough is currently an epidemic, the vaccine may actually make things worse (at least, it doesn't help: 80% of people who get whooping cough have been fully vaccinated), and I seem to be inexplicably drawn to recipes to which you can add salsa, sour cream, and cheese.  

But also this July brought us Independence Day. I like those pictures better, so I'm sticking those in here.

For the Fourth of July, we visited the Frontier Culture Museum, ate bratwurst and watermelon, read the Declaration of Independence, and found singalong patriotic songs on YouTube.

And right now, we're busy drinking drinking drinking, filling humidifiers, bleaching towels, reading books, and trying to sort out our homeschool schedule.

Happy July.

Scarcity

It's been a while since I've blogged. Part of it is the busyness of life with children. Part of it is my feeling like a broken record: "Life is going by so fast and I am left spinning." Part of it is my general disinterest in the blogs that are in my Reader (except, with few exceptions, those of my real in-the-flesh friends).

And part of it is my sudden-onset sheer exhaustion at the thought of determining what motivates me enough to leave the dishes and the laundry and the online quest for the perfect Whip It Up in Five Minutes Large Family Recipe: Cheap, Easy, Whole-Food, Local Ingredients that Satisfy Even the Gaggiest.

But then I look back over previous posts of this blog of mine, and I remember why I do this: so in a week, or a year, or ten years or even maybe twenty, we can look back and say, "Oh, yes. THAT'S the way it was."

And that's it.


And right now, this week, this is how it is. The kids are attending their very first Vacation Bible School at church from 9-12. So I set my alarm for 7:00 but usually get up at 6ish and then turn off the alarm so it won't wake Ada or Ethan. Then I take my shower, sneak downstairs and throw a load of laundry in and put breakfast in the oven. By this time, several children have joined me and we conquer chores and get everyone dressed. Switch laundry, feed kids, nurse Ada, fold laundry, drink a coffee, take kids to VBS, come home, and be worthless until noon when the kids need to be picked up. I sit in a daze, wondering how on earth normal people get up so stinkin' early every single day.



I've determined it's just not healthy or good for you.


And people who say otherwise are delusional and need more sleep.

The kids come home from VBS, excited to show us their crafts and practice their songs and act out what happened during recreation time. I sit, enjoying their animated talk and marveling at the fact that I could possibly have children old enough to be in VBS (and one who will be too old next year!).


Time marches on.


And then there's Quiet Time, and swimming, and What'll We Do about Dinner, and who in here thinks crumpled and soaking on the floor is the fait accompli response to "Don't forget to hang your swimsuits and towels out to dry!!"? Or, to be more precise, which six of you think that?

And then, soon enough, it's bedtime. For years bedtime was my favorite time of day. Not my bedtime, mind you, but the children's. A successful "Lights Out!" followed by a sweet red wine (for Us, not Them) was about as perfect as it could get. 

But lately a new routine has followed Their bedtime, and it's sweeter than the red wine to me. This one involves the two rockers on the front porch, where we sit and rock and marvel at how grown up the children are becoming and at how immature they are becoming and how fast time is going and how slow time is drawing itself out and we just are. Together, we Are. We rock and mock and laugh and question and ponder.


The sense of togetherness in all of this is just...indescribable.

I wish I could describe, define, explain it. It's one of the best parts of being married to your best friend. And daily I get an intense reminder that he is my best friend. Partly, for sure, some if it is our growing older and losing the self-consciousness that robs and destroys in this selfless endeavor called marriage.


And part of it is that we have been at this for almost twelve years. If you can't laugh over each other's foibles now, there is a problem.


We keep foibling and laughing and foibling and laughing.


And there's something about getting outside of the house -- even if it is just the front porch -- that lends a fresh perspective. The laundry, at least, can't find me there.


And then we come in and scurryfunge and inevitably plop on the couch for some mindless TV that will have us cracking up.


And then I start the dishwasher, and he takes out the dog, and we brush our teeth and wake the three children who need a nightly visit to the toilet.


And, oddly enough, this ushers in my second-favorite time of the day. Watching the children try to wake and walk themselves to the right room (the bathroom) with a modicum of dignity, all while they can barely (and sometimes not even) open their eyes is absolutely hysterical. We enjoy it so much we wait for each other so that we can wake them together.


Is that cruel?


And I realize, even as I write this, how truly geriatric and fuddy-duddy it all sounds.


And I'm OK with that.


And I will try to update, should the weather change or body parts start aching.

Weekending

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining,

the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing,

and the lawn mower is broken.

~James Dent

(There is a video embedded in this post. Email subscribers may have to click over.)

May you have a mow-free weekend!

June

So here it is, the first day of June. 

Summer beckons.

Vacation plans wait to be finalized.

And always, always, always, there's the dishes, and the laundry, and the cooking.

June is here. And with it comes a general hankering to welcome summer and the illusion of slower days.


Here's what we're hoping to see this month:

• haircuts!
• birthdays!
• rhubarb, and more rhubarb, and more rhubarb
• kitchen floors painted
• sewing (more of Anna Maria Horner's Quick Change Trousers! This dress! This shirt??)
• our first order of grass-fed beef 
• fishing at the park
• grilling at the lake
• Vacation Bible School
• s'mores

For sure there will be much, much more. But we'll take it one day at a time ... and breathe. And when we can't breathe, we'll go inside and give thanks for air conditioning. 

  `
And all will be well.

Recreation

This past weekend was, for lack of a better word, so good. (Note: my vocabulary has suffered severely in the last, um...10 years? Earlier today I was badgering my friend Nichole to help me figure out what word I was trying to say. She did, indeed, figure it out. It was "laptop." Just so you know exactly where I am. Pull out your first-grade spellers, everyone.)


It was just...so...good.


We were all together, with no place excepting church to go. There were no pressing obligations, no social occasions, no doctor's appointments. Shoot, we even had milk and orange juice (at least for the first half of the weekend).


After going back and forth about What to Do (the question that typically ruins every holiday), with considerations given to the heat multiplied by the number of children (hot and irritated x 9), we made the unanimous decision to Stay Home.


And I'm so glad.


While Ethan ran to Lowe's for a new garden hose, the children tossed water balloons outside until the fighting was not all in fun. Then I made them come in and watch videos about Memorial Day and make oobleck. (What? You don't see the connection?)

We tried to name all the people we knew who had fought in wars. There were some we know very well (like Pastor Steve and Liam G.) and some we never got to meet (Ethan's dad). The children grew somber when I asked them to imagine Papa being gone for over a year like Rick H. was. I grew somber, too.


But then Papa came home. And we partied.


There was barbecued chicken, and water, and s'mores. And Ada napped and napped, and I sat outdoors and sipped my rhubarbarita and soaked it all in.

Roll call: how many rolls can you count? I am ridiculously enamored with this baby pudge.

At the close of the day, Benjamin mused, "I think I like Memorial Day better than Christmas."


I think I might, too.