Death of Me

We are all so tired right now. John has been marathon reading SOS material, even at work, and he came home and fell asleep on the couch. Conner took great advantage of his day off of school (parent-teacher conferences) and played hard outside with his friend Mitch. Thank God for a school friend within biking distance. Even Olivia seemed worn out this afternoon, all nestled under my tiredness on the couch with me in front of HGTv.

Only Sean-Peter seems unaffected. I took him for a doctor's visit this morning, just for a check-up. Which just happened to coincide with a cold and some diarrhea he's been having. Not that you'd know it based on his hyper spastics in the doctor's office as I'm trying to explain to this guy who doesn't know us why I'm concerned about my son's speech. Sean-Peter supported me readily enough by incoherently jabbering on in that muttering ventriloquist way of his, with jabs of "No!" and "Mom!" thrown in here and there to confirm that, yes, he thinks he's speaking English.

I got the referrals I wanted and corralled Sean-Peter around the hospital like a puppy dog straining at a verbal leash while I gathered prescriptions, scheduled referrals, and corrected newly found mistakes in our records. Then he had the nerve to try to fall asleep in the car five minutes before we got home, which led me to some pretty interesting spastics of my own in my effort to keep him awake so he'd still nap in the afternoon, something I was desperate to do myself.

At dinner we're all talking about our day and how tired we are. Do you think we could have carbon monoxide poisoning? Is that something they check for when you buy a house? Oh, we would all have headaches, too? Oh. Then I guess I'm just tired.

I'm telling John that Sean-Peter's going to be the death of me and how he could put that on my gravestone: "Sean-Peter Was The Death of Me". And the conversation is continuing until we could no longer tune out Sean-Peter's incoherent babblings, which steadily get louder and louder until we tell him to be quiet, then get louder and louder again, until Olivia wails because "He hit me!" or Conner interrupts with something mind-boggling off the topic or all three kids simply leave the table and we don't even care because our ears are just so glad to be ringing from the silence.

But this time John notices that there is some substance to Sean-Peter's gutterings, even actual consonants.

"Dee-dee-da-mmm-mm-mm dee-da-mm-mm-da-dee-da-deh-da MEE!" And he's repeating it over and over.

"I do believe he's saying, he's going to be the death of me." Convincing us even further that he is harboring a 5000-word vocabulary that one day will come spewing out until we think fondly of the days when we could shake our heads and plead ignorant.

Keep laughing, snot-nose. You'll miss me when I'm gone.

Then who's going to put lotion on those cute little chapped cheeks?

Mama's Helper

I am slowly getting the hang of having a little girl who is dying to help in the kitchen. This is quite a switch from begging my son to do one thing, then having to holler at him to come back and do the next thing because he disappears as soon as he (thinks he) is done.

I have worked very conscientiously at letting Olivia "help" even when that was the last thing she was doing. And the thing is, already at the age of four, she is, truly, often helpful. It may take her 30 minutes to fill the muffin pans, for instance, but she keeps at it. And that's 30 minutes that I can use to clean up and/or otherwise do something else. Like, oh, write in this blog. Just to, you know, arbitrarily throw something out there.

Today she caught me getting ready to dice some green pepper, something I have never let her do because it requires a sharper knife. I hesitated, then I thought of pioneer women in the wild west who were married and having babies by the time they were, like, thirteen. By the age of four they were probably not only using sharp knives but were dropping the fresh-cut vegetables directly into a boiling cauldron over an open fire ready to stitch up any gashes they might incur with a needle and thread before dousing it with some hard liquor they kept handy just for such medicinal purposes.

So I showed her a safe technique and gave her the knife.

She kept at it for at least 30 minutes and cut up the whole darn thing.

Then she washed my teapot.

And then this is what she said. Really. I wrote it down as soon as it came out of her mouth. You know you're a blogger when... and all that.

"Next time, when it's time for you to do the dishes, call me and I'll do the dishes. Because I love to do dishes. And I came just in time, right?"

Don't you all wish you had an Olivia?

Any tips on how to best utilize this stage before it's gone will be heartily welcomed.

Spidey Sense

So I get out of the shower this morning and I notice the hand soap is missing from my sink, and my Spidey Sense immediately pricks up. Sure enough, I soon discovered the culprit, suddenly not looking too sure of himself.

I guess he thought Thomas needed a cleaning.

And I wonder why I don't have anything to show for my time at the end of the day. Oh, wait. I do have this blog. Aren't you all so privileged?

"Life Is Good" by Conner, Part II

A month ago or so Conner came home from school and started asking what some expressions were, sayings like "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen". Or, "The early bird gets the worm", things like that. So I'm giving him a few of these examples off the top of my head, casual-like while I'm in the kitchen making dinner, until he gives me the wave off and tells me he gets the idea. Of course, the thought occurred to me that, as a kid who spent the last three years in a non-English school system and who isn't a voracious reader, he really wouldn't have the occasion to know many of these.

I didn't give our "conversation" much thought until he came home with this assignment. As promised, here is the next installment of "Life Is Good". Conner explained to me that he didn't concern himself with learning traditional quotes because the teacher told them they could just make them up.

You don't say. All things considered, I think he's got something going here.

"Life Is Good" by Conner

Eclectic Wisdom

Always take small sips of hot liquids, I learned this from my burnt tongue.

Never look in a mean dogs eye, you come home looking like a poor kid.

Don't pull on a cat's tail, you'll never see them again.

Don't joke about bombs in an airport, the security will get you before you know it.

Never run with your shoelace untied, your knees and elbows will hate you for quite a while.

If you don't like fire don't go in the kitchen, you can ask my grandma.

Don't try to trick your parents, they have eyes on the back of their heads.

Don't talk to strangers, you might end up someplace odd.

Don't jump in the pool if you don't know how to swim, you can ask my 2 year old brother.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, it's not a good way to make friends.

The Teacup

One bad thing about moving with the military is always having to leave your friends behind. The only thing worse is when they move and leave you first. Sometimes I picture a little piece of heaven as a front door where I can walk out and visit all the friends that I have made over the years, right there in the same neighborhood. They'd all know and love each other, too -- this is heaven, after all -- and we'd all sit and laugh over tea and interrupt each others' sentences.

Liz is a (Canadian) friend I met in Italy, where she and her family still live. She became a fast friend as well as Conner's piano teacher, passionately using her musical education to pass on her gift to the next generation. I met her through Ruth, and the three of us got together as often as we could. That is, with three deployments and eleven children between the three of us, not nearly often enough.

Several weeks before Ruth and I moved from Italy, we went over to Liz's for some rare girl time, and Liz surprised us each with our own teacup: all three had the same design but a different color scheme. She had recently returned from a trip to Canada, and while passing through London on her way home managed to get a bit of shopping done. (Typical Liz: her husband's deployed; she's traveling alone with three young boys; and she thinks to go shopping for teacups.) She got one for each of us so that, whenever we have a cup of tea, wherever that may be, we will be reminded of our friendship. I don't have to tell you how touched Ruth and I were by that gesture, and by the sheer ingenuity. I am definitely going to use that idea myself some day and pass it off as my own.

Though it really shouldn't be surprising: Liz is nothing if not interesting. After she studied music she went on to earn her law degree -- a natural transition, to be sure. And throughout our friendship I have garnered snippets of these years in school and the three roommates of hers that she has often spoken of who have all stayed close since that time. And I am so sad for my friend Liz right now because, as I am writing this, she is traveling to the funeral of one of these dear friends who just died in a car accident, leaving behind a husband and two young children of her own.

I am so sorry for what you are going through right now, Liz. And I want you to know that I'm thinking of you and sending out my prayers, for you and your friend's family. And I am picturing your friend opening her own front door, the same one that you and I will someday see her in. And she'll be waiting for us -- no introductions will be necessary -- and we'll all talk and laugh like it was just yesterday that we last met. Because it is heaven, after all.

But for now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get myself a cup of tea.