The Hindsight Columnist

To say the least, my husband was a bit surprised when I told him about my newspaper gig. “A humor column?” he asked. “You?”

“Yes,” I said, defensively. “I’m a hoot!”

“When it comes to funny,” he said. “You’re not even first runner-up in our family. It goes me, then Zack, and maybe you.” Zack, remember, isn’t even 3 yet, and apparently his humor-ranking exceeds mine. But this comes from a man who trained our daughter to say on cue, “Dad, you’re a comedic genius.” He’s just jealous.

But I have to admit that I am “humor delayed.” I’m that person who thinks of the perfect comeback 5 hours after the conversation in question has ended. I have great arguments with my husband while I’m driving. Of course he’s not in the car at the time. “Are you talking to yourself again?” Kaleb, my oldest child, will ask from the backseat. “Yes, son,” I answer. “Mommy’s talking to herself again.”

I’m a basket case, a stress monger, an anxiety queen. In fact, for about three years I referred to myself as Worst-Case Scenario Mamma. I think that’s self-explanatory. So I don’t believe many people describe me as laidback, careless, witty. But hindsight is hilarious. I can look back on most hectic experiences and belly-laugh.

Here are some examples. Somehow your 2-year old daughter makes it to church wearing a cute little sundress and no diaper. When she throws a tantrum, you haul her from the chapel with her dress hiked up to her waist. Unbeknownst to you, she’s commando, mooning the back half of the congregation on your way out the pew. In the moment? Not so funny. Hindsight? Hilarious.

Here’s another one. You take your son to the doctor because his pee is pink. Now this one’s really not funny in the moment. The doctor’s nervous. The nurses are nervous. When you bring the pink specimen to the hospital, even the technicians are nervous. But the tests return negative. On your way home your son says, “I ate a red crayon yesterday. Could that make my pee pink?” Hindsight? Hilarious.

Or how about this? Your basement floods just five months after you move into your new home in Idaho Falls. The plumber comes, augers both your basement and your toilet drains only to break the news: you need a new sewer main. In the moment? Not so funny. Hindsight? Okay, so that one’s never funny no matter how much time passes. But you get the point.

So don’t come to my home expecting the housewife comedian, because I’m never off-the-cuff funny. To my husband, however, all the world’s a stage and he is (if you ask my daughter, anyway) a comedic genius. Me? I’ll be talking to myself as I drive my son to kindergarten.

“Are you talking to yourself again, Mom?” Kaleb will ask.

“Nope,” I’ll say. “Mommy’s just writing her humor column.”

My First Column

Here's DestructoBoy in print. Yeah!

DestructoBoy

I visited my family over the weekend and one of the first things my brother asked was, “Is Zack any better?” My youngest child, Zack, has not been sick. But my brother wasn’t referring to his health; my brother was referring to his, uhm, behavioral issues.

Zack, I’m told, is a typical 2 and a half year old, although the people who tell me this are somewhat consolatory. They say it like an apology, shaking their heads and clicking their tongues. Poor, poor woman, they’re thinking. She’s got a monster on her hands.

Okay, so Zack’s not a monster. In fact, I see him as an advanced child, somewhat of a prodigy. The boy has superhuman destructive capabilities. We call him DestructoBoy (costume with cape forthcoming).

Most of the destruction takes place while one of us is in the bathroom. Once, in the middle of cleaning out the fridge, I took a break for less than three minutes, leaving Tupperware containers filled with spoiled food on the kitchen counter. I returned to find Zack standing tall on the countertop, throwing Tupperware to the floor with zeal. It took two moppings and one roll of paper towel to clean up the leftover Thanksgiving gravy, lil smokies in barbeque sauce, and moldy broccoli.

Whenever I turn the shower on I can hear a wooden chair scrape across the kitchen floor.

“Zack,” I yell from behind the shower curtain. “Put that chair back!”

I rush through my showers to find him stuffing cake, cookies, or stale Halloween candy into his mouth. He’s found all my hiding places, twice over. The last time I made hot cocoa I couldn’t even find the marshmallows.

And then there are Zack’s quiet moments in the bathroom. In two bath’s time he emptied one 40-count box of panty-liners, sticking them to the shower wall like spitballs to a ceiling. And if Guiness had a record for quickest toilet paper unrolling, that kid would be a contender; he’s gone through 5 rolls in the last two weeks.

It wouldn’t be so discouraging if I didn’t think that Zack was calculating, stealthy, and strategic in his raids. While I’m rerolling the toilet paper, he makes a break for the kitchen where he taste-tests all the yogurts, dropping spoonfuls of chocolate and strawberry whips onto the floor. While I’m mopping up yogurt he runs downstairs where he pulls folded laundry from their baskets and peppers the stairs with detergent.

Recently I’ve considered contacting the Office of Homeland Security. I think Zack would work well as a consultant. As my own little weapon of mass destruction I think he might be able to help our nation establish world peace. Nevermind peace at home. I’m guessing, however, that the government might pay him for his time. At least then I could be reimbursed for all that toilet paper.

River City Weekly Column

Just last week I got a column with a new Idaho Falls community newspaper, the River City Weekly. It will read just like my blogs. I'm waiting for more information from the editor to see if I can post the pieces I write here. As soon as I get the go-ahead, I'll upload them to the blog.

When Mom Gets Sick

The last time I had a fever I was single and working at my first full-time job. I took three days of sick-leave and slept, off and on, in a fevered haze. That was nearly 10 years ago. But now, three children later, I have no sick leave, no vacation days, no flex time, no comp time, no personal days, and no luck finding someone to work my shift. So when I began to feel sick last week I knew I was in trouble.

It started out innocently enough; I was achy and the back of my throat tickled. By that night the ache had progressed to the chills, the tickle to a sore throat, and I was fatigued. I asked my husband if he would mind feeding the kids, then putting them to bed. “Sure, honey,” he said, from behind the laptop, and with that, I headed to my room.

About 30 minutes later, Leah opened the bedroom door. “Mom?” she asked. “Are you better yet?”

“No, Leah,” I said. “I’m still sick.”

“Because,” she said, my answer irrelevant, “We’re hungry.” I could imagine Kaleb sitting at the bottom of the stairs, having cheered her all the way to the bedroom after unsuccessfully trying to distract his father from the laptop. I rolled out of bed and went down to throw something together.

30 minutes later I was back in bed, trying to shiver myself into a pocket of warmth. 30 minutes later Zack was lying down next to me, his body warming my back, a handful of my hair in his fist. 30 minutes later, Leah was next to me on the floor, and long after I lost consciousness Kaleb was curled at the foot of the bed.

And if that had been the worse of it, I would be one lucky mamma. But by Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, I had the fever (and not the good kind). Rich had volunteered to go to Kaleb’s school party and put together the craft I had prepared for his class. But that still left me mothering children for an entire day while weak and delusional. To make matters worse, while loading Zack and Leah into the van to pick Kaleb up from kindergarten, Zack took off down the sidewalk, giggling as he looked back at me over his shoulder. I was spent. I yelled and found my voice gone. Then I cried, a voiceless wheezing cry, a sad sight to behold: the crazy women on the sidewalk in silky PJ bottoms and a worn-out college sweatshirt, tears streaming down her face as she waved her arms at a little boy who seemed frantic to get away. I paced a few times behind the van before climbing into the driver’s seat to wait Zack out. Penitent, okay maybe more bored than penitent, Zack returned and we went on our way.

But I’m guessing all moms know what it’s like to be sick with no time off. You get up, with or without tears, and do what you gotta do—take care of your children, in a catatonic daze sometimes, but it gets done. The laundry may pile up, the house may get dirty, the meals may be drive-thru, but the kids will be taken care of. And if you’re lucky, a little girl will say a prayer for you, unscripted and before a meal that’s about to make you puke. “Dear Heavenly Father, please bless my mommy that she will be happy soon and not sick anymore.” Amen!

A Little Too Comfortable in Their Own Skin

Just this morning my husband said to our 4-year old daughter, “Leah, don’t you think you should at least put some underpants on?” She was completely naked, sitting in front of a heating vent. Thereafter followed a short lecture about modestly to which she responded, logically, “But my clothes are right here, Dad.” And she was right; her bare bum was practically sitting on them. Lesson lost.

I love how uninhibited children are. Just last summer my kids discovered that if they turned the hose on low enough, they could make a huge mud puddle to wrestle in long before being exposed by Mom. The first time it happened, I plucked them all up and dropped them into the tub. By the time I had gotten clean clothes for everyone, Zack had slipped out of the bathroom and was back wallowing in the mud, naked. Of course, by the time I reached him no one could tell that he didn’t have any clothes on. That little boy, nearly three now, still loves to strip down to his skivvies. In fact, I have to man-handle the kid to get him to keep his pull-ups on.

And then there’s Leah. Sweet, sweet Leah. Last week we were at McDonald’s having breakfast with Rich’s great uncle. She ran from the playland to tell me she had to go to the bathroom. And as we walked away from our table I looked back to see that the girl had already pulled her pants down to her knees and was waddling behind me. “Leah,” I whispered, loudly, pulling her pants back up with one quick finger, “We don’t pull our pants down until we’re right by the toilet!”

We’ve had countless talks about the private parts of our bodies and how we need to keep them covered. We recognize that it’s a fine line we’re walking: keeping our children clothed without causing them to feel shame at what’s beneath the clothing. But from the look of my bare children traipsing through the house, they know no shame.

But there are surreal moments when my children demand privacy. Leah squeals every time Zack barges in on her in the bathroom. “Zacky, I want privacy!” And just yesterday while at church, I was coaxing Zack to use the toilet. As he sat in the stall, he yelled at me, “Mommy, I want pry-acee!” To which the lady in the next stall giggled.

Okay, so we haven’t achieved that perfect balance yet, and until we do I’ll have to endure odd moments when my children are uninhibited and naked, probably in public.

Room-Mom Flunky

“Ben,” Mrs. Casey said in her sweet southern twang. “That glue is never going to dry.”

Mrs. Casey is the teacher’s assistant for my son’s kindergarten class, and I had just finished my first shift as room-mom for Mrs. Schiffern, Kaleb’s teacher. I had been asked to supervise a group of four children as they decorated two gingerbread men with red and green sparkle glue.

Mrs. Casey was looking first at Ben’s page, his two gingerbread men hidden behind gobs of glue, to Kate’s page, then to Jonathan’s and Carter’s. “None of these are going to dry.” Her hands were now on her hips as she looked at each of the children with eyebrows drawn. Then she looked straight at me and, still talking to the children, said, “You know we’re not supposed to use that much sparkle glue.”

Every day the kids in Mrs. Schiffern’s class break into small groups and go to their “centers” where they all participate in a learning activity. I was asked to come and man one center on Wednesday mornings. How hard can it be? I had thought. I went to graduate school. And this is just kindergarten.

And here I sat at the end of our first center, elbow to elbow with Mrs. Casey as we scooped sparkle glue from the gingerbread men with plastic spoons. “I guess I should have given you more direction,” she said.

“Maybe I should work at a less-advanced center,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said.

I’m sure teachers and TA’s alike love any type of volunteer they can get their hands on, but I think that day Mrs. Schiffern and Mrs. Casey had second thoughts when Leah and I left our post for the first time mid-December.

But they continue to allow us to “help” on Wednesday mornings. In fact, just yesterday I was allowed back at the craft table where the kids glued small triangles of colored construction paper into an imaginary quilt square. We finished the task without event, that is, until I got up to put my coat on. I knocked a desk organizer off Mrs. Schiffern’s desk, scattering pens, pencils, erasers and scissors everywhere. I dropped to my knees to clean them up.

Mrs. Casey looked at me, smiling. “We just can’t take you anywhere, can we?”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m not much of a volunteer.”

“You’re entertaining anyway,” she said.

Wait until they hear that I plan to enroll Leah in Mrs. Schiffern’s class next year. So while it looks like Kaleb will move on to first-grade without question, I’ll be held back.

My Husband, the Shopping Impaired

My husband, shopper extraordinaire, can get a deal on anything. And I’m grateful, really. Because of Rich we have sheets with a higher thread count than our SAT scores, combined. We can dress our kids in Eddie Bauer, head to toe, for less than $10 total. We all have designer emergency packs, complete with dehydrated food and mini-flashlights in our favorite colors. We have three tubs of Christmas lights, two tubs of cleaning products, and 10 tubs of camping supplies (did I mention that we’ve been tent-camping two times in our 8 years of marriage?).

He’s a shopping fiend, genius, mastermind, madman. Unfortunately, when in the blinding rays of a good deal, he can loose all sense of practicality. About two months ago he brought home a king-size bedspread that he bought for less than $20. Great deal, right? It’s white. The man bought a white bedspread when we still have children coming into our room in the middle of the night to vomit all over it. The man bought a white bedspread when we still have children coming into our room in the middle of the night to pee all over it. The man, well, you get the picture. Although I should give our children more credit. It stayed miraculously white until just last week when Zack discovered his Dad’s contraband Cheetos stowed under the bed. Needless to say the white bedspread is now spotted with Zack’s powdery, orange hand-prints.

About the same time Rich bought the white bedspread he also purchased a cordless phone. Now I understand that cordless phones are very practical devices, near necessities in this day and age of multi-tasking. But were I to purchase a cordless phone I would be certain it came with a paging feature. You know how they work. You loose the cordless receiver and you push a button on the base causing the phone to beep until you find it (usually hidden between couch cushions or under the easy chair). Now were it just a matter of couch cushions and easy chairs, we could live without the paging feature. But we live with Zackary William Belknap, resident two-year old, a.k.a. DestructoBoy. Since we have moved into our new house he has put everything from my measuring cups to my maxi pads down the laundry shoot. Never mind what’s been pushed through the rails of our old heating vents. So a paging feature on cordless phone is invaluable. And we have now lost the cordless phone (and yes, I checked the laundry shoot).

In my husband’s defense, he says the bedspread is really a comforter and the whiteness would be preserved by a duvet cover. He says potato, I say white bedspread. And regarding the pageless cordless? He says only that a 2-year should not be able to sneak away with a telephone unnoticed. What about a 40-year man and a bag of Cheetos? I say, it’s genetic.

The Move (across the border of sanity)

Moving is a stressful experience for everyone, I’m sure. It’s taken me four months to recover from our move to Idaho Falls, although I still have this uncontrollable twitch above my right eye anytime someone uses a form of the verb “move.” But that’s fairly common, right?

My husband’s new job required that he move nearly a month and a half before we did; I was left to oversee the sale of our home. Our first buyers backed out a couple weeks after they made their offer. We had disclosed termite damage in the basement, and when their inspector encouraged them to have someone verify that there was no current activity, they walked away. That made me, prone to emotional hyperventilation, a basket case. What if we did have termites? What if we never sold our house? What if we never sold our house and had to commune with termites until the walls fell to the ground like sawdust? I practiced due diligence and had my own termite inspector come and see if we had any live critters (picture me rocking back and forth in a corner while a complete stranger thumps on every piece of wood in our house with a hammer and pick). He cleared us and we continued to show our house.

And after a couple more weeks we had another offer. A good offer. A solid offer. A seemingly irrevocable offer. But that didn’t calm my troubled mind. Oh no, it teased my mental stability. I could hardly sleep, and every time my realtor, “Bird Dog” (yes, our realtor called himself “Bird Dog”), phoned my cell I got the dry heaves.

But our second set of buyers signed the paperwork and that fateful day arrived—the day when, with the help of my mother-in-law, I finished cleaning our house and locked the door behind us for the last time.

My nerves, buzzing like a downed power line, put everyone on edge, including our two cats who were resisting transport. But finally, close to ten o’clock that night we checked into a hotel where the kids soon conked out, strewn across a double bed. My mother-in-law and I stayed up late watching CNN while talking about how relieved we were to finally have the house cleaned and the U-Haul packed. You’d think we were home free.

But no. We still had one cat to loose at the hotel, two vomiting fits to endure on the drive, and a rain storm to pass through sans windshield wipers. But we did arrive at Idaho Falls, September 22, 2006, each nerve intact. Who ever said moving was difficult? (Does someone have a wooden spoon I could bite on?)

"Can I Bring My Baby Jesus?"

We’re a religious family—I’m not embarrassed to admit that. We want our kids to have faith, good morals, and yes, we want them to believe in Jesus. But I have to admit, Leah’s recent evangelical tendencies have made even me a little uncomfortable.

First it started with a Satan obsession; she became preoccupied with making Satan angry. I should give the girl credit; at 4-years old her ability to reason was sound.

Premise 1: Jesus wants us to make good choices.
Premise 2: Jesus is happy when we make good choices.
Premise 3: Satan wants us to make bad choices.
Conclusion: Satan is angry when we make good choices.

Not bad. But I first became a little self-conscious when Leah began announcing triumph over evil in very public places: grocery stores, the doctor’s office, and recently, in a movie theater.

“Satan is angry,” Leah said.

“What, honey?” For a minute I pictured Linda Blair tied to a bed in “The Exorcist.”

“Kaleb shared his candy with me,” she said. “So Satan is angry.”

“Good job, Kaleb,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation away from the antichrist.

“Satan is very angry,” my generally soft-spoken Leah bellowed.

I promise, I don’t brainwash my children with angry-devil mantras and nursery rhymes about the nature of sin. And speaking of sin, that’s another topic Leah favors of late. At first, she called it “Syd,” thinking that “sin” and “Syd” (the bad kid in the movie “Toy Story”) were synonymous.

“Making a bad choice is a ‘Syd’,” she would say (sounds like she has a cold, doesn’t it?).

“What, honey?” I first asked.

“Like hitting, kicking, pushing, biting. Those are ‘Syds’,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, stumped at first. “Oh, sin, you mean,” I said, finally getting it.

“Yeah, ‘Syd’,” she said. “Satan is happy when we ‘Syd’.”

Sometimes you just gotta let it go.

But recently our Christmas tradition has moved us into a whole new realm of the gospel according to Leah. We do the nativity on Christmas Eve. And as in years past, we borrowed one of Leah’s dolls to “play” Jesus. Leah was Mary, Kaleb was one of the three kings, and Zack was a runaway Joseph. We moved through the production rather quickly, but a few things did stick. Leah now calls her baby doll “Jesus.” It feels just a tad blasphemous, but like “Syd” I let it go. Until last week when she insisted on bringing her baby Jesus to the store.

“Why can’t I bring Jesus?” she cried, her doll now stranded on the kitchen table as I buckled Leah into her car seat.

“Because,” I nearly whispered as a neighbor passed our house on his walk. “Jesus isn’t allowed at the store.”

“But I want Jesus to come,” she said, nearing hysteria. But Jesus or not, the “No Toy” rule still had to stand.

I listened to her cry all the way to Albertson’s and asked myself who’s happy now? Jesus or Satan?

Moved in...

Okay, it's been 8 months since I last blogged. We've since moved to another state, gotten a puppy, been to our first parent/teacher conference, and lost about 6 hotwheels in our heating vents (a la Zack). But I've gotten the blog back out to help myself laugh through the insanity that is motherhood. Hopefully there will be a few of you out there laughing with me...

Mary Kay Saves the Day

Through something called the Big Fix Tour, the Utah Humane Society will spay or neuter pets for cheap. That’s why I was standing in a line of disgruntled animals and owners with my own three kids, and two kitties in a cardboard box. It was 7:30 in the morning and cold, but I was happy to be there after combat-crawling through happy meal boxes and sippy cups under the back seat of our van to wrestle two kitties into a box. Admittedly, this event was poorly planned on my part. But we were in line and on the docket.

After 30 minutes, my youngest was poking the dogs around us into a canine frenzy. I decided car seats were a good solution to my problem, so someone held my spot while I buckled my kids in. At this point I was feeling like a despicable person. 1. I had two kitties in a box. 2. My kids would soon be locked in a van. It was a slippery slope at that point. So I, 3, placated my children with sour gummy worms. Having thus sugared my children into submission, I resumed my place in line.

Now imagine how I must have looked. I barely had time to get my kids dressed, much less doll myself up, and on good days I'm lucky to brush my teeth before leaving the house. It was then the cat owner two animals back “pinked” me. “Hi!” She smiled. “I'm a Mary Kay consultant and I think you need to be 'pinked'.” She explained that she was gifting me thirteen dollars worth of free Mary Kay products. I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or insulted.

With the pink card in my back pocket, I was two animals away from the Big Fix Tour van. It was then my daughter escaped, tripping the car alarm and all the animals with it. Minutes later she roused them again with her scream, “We can't leave our kitties here!”

Finally the chaos was over. And when I got back into the van to drive home? It wouldn’t start. I had to ask the Mary-Kay lady to jump start my car. She was happy to help, and I was relieved to see her drive up, not in a Mary-Kay pink Cadillac, but in a white van like mine. “A typical day in the life of a mother…” she said, forever smiling, and reminded me that if I used the card, she'd give me a free facial.

4. Caught frumpy at the Big Fix Tour. All this by 8:45 in the morning.

I was convinced the kitties were having a better day than I was.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

In this day and age of ultimate makeovers and anorexic teen stars, my husband and I decided to aggressively build our daughter's self-esteem before the media blasted into her life to set outrageous standards for success and beauty. We've never hesitated to tell her that she's beautiful, smart, funny, and kind. I have to admit, I've detested my body for, hmmm, going on twenty-five years now, and I didn't want that for Leah. But we may have gone a tad too far.

The other night while blessing the food, Leah said, oh so gratefully, “Heavenly Father, I'm thankful that I'm beautiful.” Unfortunately she didn't add, “I'm also thankful that I'm smart, funny, and kind.” It was unnerving to hear so much ego from a three and a half year-old, barely potty trained. Had we created a diva?

So what's the balance? Kaleb's latest hobby is puzzles. And for some reason when he says, “I'm super good at puzzles, huh Mom,” it doesn't bother me as much as Leah saying, “Thank you, God, for making me beautiful.”

But is that really so bad? If I could choose, I would rather my daughter be conceited than self-loathing. Neither option is very appealing; in an ideal world she would love herself and all her idiosyncrasies while celebrating the qualities of those around her. But let's admit it, in this world of America's Next Top Model and The Swan, it's difficult to celebrate anything when most of us don't measure up to this wicked ideal of womanhood. Ladies, it's time for a revolution.

Dove's current campaign for real beauty is, well, beautiful (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com). Their ads use real women, with real bodies. And each woman, black, white, plus-size, or waiflike, seems confident and calm in her own skin. In some of the ads there's a slogan accompanied by a picture of a young girl that goes something like, “Let's change the standard of beauty before the current standard changes her.” When I hear it I tear up. Leah jogs naked circles in our living room without shame. When she does I watch her little tushy jiggle as she moves, and I think, “Someday she'll hate that part of her body.” Her natural genetic code has blessed her with abundant buttocks. And I think it's beautiful. I would like her to think it's beautiful too.

How our daughters view themselves depends largely on how we view ourselves. While I want to celebrate a new standard of beauty that is more inclusive than exclusive, I dedicate too much eye-time to the walking Barbies of our day. If women are disturbed by current beauty trends, they need to voice their disapproval. The stars that monopolize entertainment news, glossy magazine covers, and primetime advertisement slots are there because we watch them. They're there because we pay their salaries with our fascination. We need to demand something different.

Someday I hope all women can celebrate what's diverse and what's real. I hope for a world where plus-size women are sexy and the bespecled and befreckled stop traffic. But until then I've changed my mind about my daughter's prayer. As long as she can see the beauty in others, I'll say amen to any prayer that celebrates Leah's beauty. And to that I'll add my own prayer: “Thank you, God, for making me beautiful too.”

The Million-Dollar Yard Sale

My husband believes that one day we're going to strike it rich. Other (more sane) individuals expect their financial avalanche to come in the form of winning the Lotto, a jackpot in Vegas, or even Ed McMann's Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. But not my husband. He believes that one day we'll hold a million-dollar yard sale.

We've been saving yard sale goods for over two years now. In our attic there are boxes of Cosby sweaters, baby clothes, old bed sheets, magazines over 5-years old, mismatched shoes, wobbly furniture, and broken happy meal toys; we're going to make a killing.

I have to admit--I've made a few renegade Goodwill-runs. The other day I took 3 garbage bags full of old clothes. “What?!” my husband gasped when he found out. “All that stuff could have gone in THE yard sale.”

It's now THE yard sale - the yard sale of everyone's dreams, the yard sale of the century, the yard sale that will buy us a second home in the Hampton's. Never mind that our first home is jam-packed with valuable yard-sale fodder: items that perfect strangers will apparently pay top-dollar for.

This American practice of putting our junk on display is an odd thing. Think about it. Most days I'm trying to hide my junk from people who drop by. I'll kick stuff under the couch, push it into a closet, or throw it into the laundry room simply to get it out of sight. But with the yard sale we want people to see the junk we've accumulated. In fact, we not only take full ownership for our junk, but we put it in the front yard and stick price-tags on it. The strange appliances that we never figured out, the kitschy knick-knacks we've been told are family heirlooms, pairs of things that are no longer pairs. I have a laundry basket full of lone socks. That basket represents more faith in the universe than my weekly church meetings. Someday I believe I'll either find all those sock mates, or I'll put them in a yard sale and make good money from another housewife who believes my laundry basket full of lone socks is a perfect match for hers.

Because isn't that all a yard sale really is, folks? Aren't the people who hold yard sales really cheapskates that hope other people will pay good money for items that they would otherwise donate to charity or throw in the trash? And what of the people who get up at an ungodly hour to tour the yard sales?

You've got to hand it to them. Both the yard-saler and the yard-salee have one thing in common: optimism. The yard-saler has faith that the yard-salee is practically giving away priceless items that could be displayed on The Antique Roadshow, while the yard-salee, like my husband, believes that at the end of his 8-hour yard sale shift he'll 1) get people to remove the clutter from the premises, and 2) earn enough money for one mortgage payment and a trinket or two he'll sell in the next million-dollar yard sale.

When the ABC's and the Birds and the Bees Collide

We're trying to teach the kids, Kaleb especially, the sounds associated with letters in the alphabet: Kindergarten Prep 101. Sometimes, while driving, I practice with Kaleb and Leah.

“What does 'bird' start with? B-b-b-bird?”

“B,” Kaleb will say.

About a month ago we were on the letter P.

“What does 'popcorn' start with? P-p-p-popcorn?”

“B,” Kaleb said.

“Not quite. Listen again. P-p-p-popcorn.”

“P?”

“Good job.”

After nearly 10 minutes of silence I heard him mumble to himself. “Pee-pee.” I assumed we had finished our alphabet game and that Kaleb was now exercising his potty humor. I said, “Kaleb,” in my warning voice.

“Mom, 'pee-pee' starts with the letter P,” he said.

Oh, we were still educating. “That's good, Kaleb,” I said.

I heard him mumble to himself again. “P-p-p-penis.” He called to me from the back. “Heh, Mom. 'Penis' starts with the letter P too.”

These are the times you wonder about all that talk of teaching children the anatomically correct terms for their body parts. You also wonder when it's going to become a matter of public discourse, like in a primary class or during a preschool lesson. Luckily for me, the next time the topic came up was at bedtime a few weeks later.

Leah, my potty-training resistant child, asked, “Mommy, where do girls go pee-pee?” Thinking this might be the piece of information holding her back, I answered with exuberance. “In the bathroom, sweetie, just like boys.”

“No,” she said. “Where does the pee-pee come out?”

Kaleb, our resident know-it-all answered, “Pee-pee comes out of your penis.”

Do we really have to have this conversation, I thought. I was tired, and it seemed like just days ago when we had this same conversation while Kaleb was potty training. Maybe it wouldn't require too much clarification this time round.

“Where's my penis?” Leah asked.

“You don't have a penis,” I said. “You have a vagina.”

“Bagina starts with the letter B,” Leah said.

“No. V-v-v-vagina starts with the letter V, like 'vitamins',” I said.

“Does Kaleb have a bagina too?” she asked.

“No,” Kaleb butted in. “Boys have penises and girls have baginas.”

“V-v-v-vaginas,” I said.

I was saying these two words more in one conversation than I probably had in over ten years.

“Do daddies have baginas?” Leah asked.

“No,” I said. “Daddies have penises.”

“Do mommies have baginas?” Leah asked.

“Yes. Mommies have vaginas and daddies have penises,” I said.

“B-b-b-bagina starts with the letter V,” Leah said.

Great, I thought. An alphabet lesson and a discussion on the Birds and the Bees all in one day. I just killed a bird and the letter V with one stone.

And with that, my two children began to fall asleep.

I Only Want to Pee Alone

That's a cover song for Housewives on Prozac, or HOP, a Connecticut-based rock band made up of six hip, and apparently anti-depressed housewives. I've never actually listened to their songs, but all it took was that title to make me a fan.

When I was a newlywed one of my visiting teachers was a mother of four young children. During a visit I chatted with her companion, an older single woman, about wistful things we wanted to do like tour Europe, open quaint bookstores with pottery studios in the back, and write inspirational poetry. We paused and looked at the weary woman nearly napping in my easy chair. “Me?” she asked. “I just want to poo in private.” I looked at her companion and then back at her. “Really,” she said.

That poor woman, I remember thinking. And then, like many people who have never had children before, I made a promise to myself that I would eventually break: I will never be like that (along with 'My children will never act like that in public,' and 'I will never be like my mother.' Yep, all broken.).

Cut to six years later. I'm in the bathroom with the door closed (unfortunately the doors in our early 20th-century home do not lock), having a very private moment when my son barges in. “Mom,” he says. “Leah told me I'm silly.” I look at him and wonder why he doesn't recognize the sanctity of this moment. How can he complain to me about his sister's acute recognition of his silliness while I'm, excuse me for being vulgar, stinking up the bathroom.

“Kaleb,” I say. “Can you wait in the living room until mommy's done?”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because mommy wants to go to the bathroom by herself.”

“Why?” he asks, yet again.

At this moment I'm beyond reasoning. I'd sacrifice a lot for motherhood, but that particular moment wasn't negotiable. I push him out the door and hold it closed with a surprisingly strong and supple foot. He pounds on the door, wailing, “Mom! Don't lock me out!”

This was a weak mothering-moment for me, I'll admit. I yelled through the door, “Mommy wants to be alone right now.” And then in a voice from the exorcist, “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

As frightening as that was for my son it hasn't secured me bathroom privacy. It's only let him know that one can actually close the door when going to the bathroom (an act not modeled by his father. Sorry, honey.).

And maybe, I wonder, I'm actually modeling the intrusive behavior myself. I'd guess that I spend about half my days in the bathroom - making sure Kaleb uses toilet paper, coaxing Leah to sit on the toilet, cleaning up countless misses with Clorox wipes, and chasing Zack from what he thinks is his own personal water fountain. No wonder my children think the boudoir is an extension of the livingroom; we might as well have a block party in there.

So I guess until our bathroom matures into a private retreat, I'll hold it until my kids are asleep. And along with my dreams of becoming a syndicated columnist and writing the great American novel, I'll keep believing that one day I'll pee alone.

The Biting Phase

Leah recently went through a biting phase, and Kaleb's toenail was a sad casualty. Just last month she had bitten Kaleb 5 days in a row. She bit him on the cheek, the shoulder, the hand, and yes, the big toe.

We tried different forms of discipline. She'd been reasoned with, she'd been on time-out - double time, she'd been spanked, and she'd been bitten back. But obviously, none of those methods was working, at least not for Kaleb.

The truth is, Kaleb bullies Leah relentlessly, and when she's ready for him to stop, she bites him. A month ago biting was the best solution for her, so I expected her to bite Kaleb until he learned when to stop. Obviously I didn't want my daughter to be a biter, but I did want her to stand up for herself, teeth and all. And I wanted my son to learn that intimidation was unacceptable. Although Leah's teeth were pretty intimidating. It was an odd parenting dilemma. Luckily, nature stepped in.

Infection followed the big toe biting debacle, and for two weeks all I heard was, “Stop hurting my toenail,” said to anyone who so much as looked at his foot. And one day, while I held Kaleb tight and Leah looked on, Rich cleaned under Kaleb's toenail as best as he could. Kaleb screamed like we were amputating his toes, and Leah stood by quietly watching.

Last week, thankfully, the toenail fell off. Don't ask me where it is, I don't know, and the thought that Zack just might snack on it one day keeps me up at night. But aside from Kaleb's naked toe, all is well.

Leah hasn't bitten her brother since.

Chocolate covered children 

While Left Unattended...

While weeding the side yard today, Kaleb and Leah decided to play "chocolate factory" in a garden mud puddle. My first reaction was digust and then, "Well, those clothes are ruined." But they weren't fighting so I shrugged and went back to my patch of weeds. And here's the results -- "enfants de chocolat."

Of course, this would be a happy ending if there weren't a toe biting incident in the tub afterwards (Leah's in a biting phase), followed by Kaleb-hysterics. But more on that later.

Yummmm. Zacky's first meal with a spoon