First days of school sometimes blend into normal life with year-round school.  Track-on, track-off, track-on, track-off... oh, wait! It's a new grade?  Ho hum. Maybe time for a new backpack then? But in this day and age of Pinterest, how can a mom sleep at night with that kind of parental neglect? If I don't have an XL Tshirt printed that says "CLASS OF...." whatever year they're going to graduate to take their picture in every year on the first day, or cute backdrops decorated with their grade in patterns coordinated to their outfits they certainly won't end up with a proper education.  Right?  Not to knock cute traditions - I love seeing what creative minds come up with - but I pick my poison when it comes to where I have energy to put my efforts.

This year I saw this adorable idea on Pinterest.  Go ahead and start laughing now.

SUPER! I grabbed the smarties at the store and then totally forgot... until about ten minutes before we had to leave for school on the first day.  Happily, I had some cute, shiny scrapbook card thingies that were adorable and perfect and I hurriedly scrawled a loving message on each one with a felt-tipped pen.  When I went to tape the Smarties to the card -- SMEAR!  Ink everywhere.  All over my hands, the cards, the smarties.  Fail.  Kids getting curious. Trying to be sneaky and hide what I was doing while also racing the clock, and working on the principal that if the ink smears with dry rubbing, wet rubbing will be like a white-board, I wet a paper towel and wiped as much of the ink off as I could, then grabbed a sharpie marker and tried to trace over the letters, to varied legible success :(

My first day of school Pinterest FAIL!

The pic doesn't show the cute border, but there was one! Really. I did at least do that. Still.  Not pin able.  But that wasn't the point, was it?  (chant that mantra - chant that mantra) The kids still loved it and I learned that I've relaxed a whole lot from my extreme perfectionist days when I would have thrown them away and not sent them at all rather than send such flawed attempts. But I think it's a perfect illustration of what it's like to be a mom in general; we do the best we can and - though it may be, and often is, messy and imperfect - it's full of love and perseverance.

First Day for 6th, 5th & 3rd grades - last week

And this year is THE BIG YEAR for me.  My baby started kindergarten today.  I know it's only half day, so it's not a huge lifestyle adjustment.  But it's the milestone and what it represents that moves me to tears.  It means no more toddlers.  I'm now the mom of big kids.  Babies change overnight into kids once they start school. I've watched it with all my kids, but I've always had a baby to go home and cuddle.  My kids are hilarious about it.  They keep asking me if I'll be bored.  What I'll do while she's at school.  If I'll spend the whole time watching TV.  LOL!!

I have to say I handled the day quite well.  Evey was SO excited!  She picked out a first day of school outfit herself when we went shopping a few days ago, and she also chose some new fingernail polish.  Yesterday we had a mini-spa day.  I trimmed her hair and bangs, she took a bubble bath, and we did a mani-pedi.  Then she insisted I paint my nails the same as hers.  She said that since it's both of our favorite color, we would both have it to "remember" each other by when she was at school.  Whenever she felt nervous

Matching nails so we wouldn't "forget each other" :)

or scared she'd look at her nails and think of me, knowing I had my nails the same.  And what I thought was super cute was that she added that I could look at my nails and not miss her too much because I'd remember to come get her. (Why do they always think we'll forget?  So funny!)


At the school this morning, she was mostly proud her Dad had come.  It was super special to her.  I was kind of just the paparazzi.

  She said that she was more excited than nervous, but she couldn't stop twirling her pigtails, so I think there were some nerves involved.  She didn't tell us to leave, but she didn't cling - just took it all in stride.  And I kept it together, clear until I was alone in the car.  Bawled for a bit, mourning a beautiful phase in my life that I have loved with all my heart.  Then squared my shoulders and reminded myself that at every stage in motherhood I've said to Tysen, "if I could freeze it right here I'd be happy.  I don't want them to get any older or anything to change.  This is just perfect." And then a year later I find myself saying exactly the same thing, having discovered new magic and different joys. There is a bedtime song that is a favorite of my kids, and I found myself singing it in my head after dropping Evey off today.  It's called Evermore, and it's by one of my favorite children's lit authors, Sandra Boynton.

Evermore I will love you, evermore I will stay

Ever right here to hold you, never so far away.

And though I know sometimes you go to find your way alone,

Evermore I will love you. You are ever my own.

It didn't hurt that some fabulously perceptive friends took me and another mom in the same state as myself out to breakfast to sympathize, buoy up and cajole us out of our mope!  Thanks forever to this great first day of Kindergarten support group!!  Love you ladies!!

And this afternoon just happened to be the craziest therapy ever - as Tysen asked me to come help with a station event at one of those super fast go-cart tracks.  I've never driven one before, and as soon as I got over the claustrophobia of the helmet, I turned on some serious speed!  I think I may be addicted.  It blew away my entire roller-coaster of emotions in a rush of endorphins, and completely wiped out every speck of "I'm getting old" tendencies I had been wallowing in.  I may have a teenager now, and my baby may be a big school kid, but I'm still young enough to race go-carts with a rock band :)  What a strange life.

An update on a previous blog entry, Seth won first prize for his ladybug planter in the 3rd-6th grade category!!  Poetically, the first place prize is a little planter box, seeds, and garden hand tools!  How funny is that?  Winning a planter by making a planter?  Love it.

While the debate rages on in scientific and philosophic circles about Nature vs. Nurture, I think that simple observation of a multiple-childhood household provides ample evidence of both.  Obviously children in similar environments will develop similar traits.  And what is the point of teaching them at all, if Nature determines development exclusively.  However, anyone who has more than one child, raised in the same household, knows that these little beings absolutely come pre-programmed with personality.  In this instance, my evidence comes from two of my children's reactions to the Disney movie, Tarzan.

When Lily watched Tarzan first, at about four or five years old, she was very emotional and upset by the gorillas' treatment of Tarzan.  Every time the "Daddy monkey" came on the screen, she would curl up and hide her eyes.  She asked me, her eyes brimming with tears, "why are they being so mean to Tarzan?  He can't help how he looks."  She ended up putting Tarzan in her least-favorite movie category, despite the happy ending. 

Fast forward a few years to last week, and now Chloe is watching Tarzan for the first time.   She also gets upset at the treatment Tarzan receives, but with completely different reason.  She says to me, "why are they making it look like the Daddy monkey is mean?  He's absolutely right - Tarzan is a human, and nothing he can do will ever change that."  Through the rest of the movie, she rolled her eyes and snorted at what, to her, was an illogical lie.  Tarzan couldn't be a gorilla.  It's the truth, why try to get around it?  And why should those who speak the truth be vilified?  Chloe put Tarzan in her least-favorite movie category too, mostly because of the happy ending.

How can two little girls raised in the same house have such opposite gut-reactions to the identical story-line?  Because Lily is Lily, and Chloe is Chloe. That's all I know.  I can't wait to see how their different outlooks play out as they grow up.  I see Lily as an artist, maybe a veterinarian, or a social worker - Chloe as a lawyer, a politician, or a princess.   Time will tell.

(For the record, Chloe did actually use the phrase, "absolutely right."  I giggled about that for quite a while.)

It all started with a simple decision to clean my room first. On a normal day, breakfast is followed by getting dressed and cleaning up breakfast, then the kids play while I do my hair a bit, and then the day goes on from there. This morning my Mom called after breakfast, and the kids were in a particularly rowdy mood, so I made the decision to start in my own room first so that I could hear the phone conversation. I made my bed and put away some clothes. No big deal, right? Except that it started a chain-reaction of events that lead to probably the worst possible impression that I could have made on my new neighbor, who stopped by to introduce herself and her two little boys.

Because I didn't get Evey dressed right away, she leaked through her diaper and peed on the couch. Because I had to clean the couch, the cushions were all wet. Because I was busy dealing with that, I hadn't taken the front room couch cushions out of my bedroom windows (where they spend the night, doubling as blinds until we can get real window coverings up). Because Evey was a mess, I decided to give her a bath. Because of all of this, I was dressed in clean-up grubbies with my newly cut hair pulled into multiple ponytails to keep it out of my way (ready for a magazine cover-photo gorgeous!).

That was where we were at around 10AM, when the doorbell rang. My new neighbor had just moved in and came over to introduce herself and her adorable little boys. Right off, I was off my game. I looked like a hag and felt self-consious, and my living room cushions were still in my bedroom windows, so there was no sitting and visiting there. "Come on in," I say as we walk in to sit on the family room couch. Except the couch was sopping wet from being scrubbed. Oops! We'll just stand and talk in my disaster of a kitchen with breakfast dishes still all over the table (because I'd started in my room instead) and papers all over the bar since I had started the morning working on registering all my new appliances. Feeling massively self-conscious, I called the kids in from the back of the house, where I swear it sounded like they were killing each other. They came tumbling out of the hallway in the roar and chaos stereotypical of the way large families are always portrayed in the crappiest of pulp-fiction formula novels. They were dressed in a random assortment of part-dressed, part-jammied, part-costumes reminiscent of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. I think my poor new neighbor was a little terrified when her oldest son, who is about 5 years old, went downstairs with my three oldest kids to play.

We spoke together for a couple of minutes, then were interrupted by her son running back up the stairs in tears. He had been jumping on the little exercise trampoline that my kids have, and he fell off. Seth, dramatic as ever a ten-year-old could be, felt compelled to speak up and say, "well at least he just scraped up his hands. If he had fallen the other direction he would have split his head wide open!" Nice. I'm sure that kid will be coming over to play soon!

Remember now that Evey (and Chloe too, who can't resist a bath no matter who it was intended for) is in the bath. A scream from Chloe, investigated by Seth, leads to the yelled-at-the-top-of-the-lungs report that "MOM! EVEY POOPED IN THE TUB!!" Perfect. Walking my new neighbor back toward the front door now, while trying not to yell at Seth, who is bouncing up and down saying, "It's okay, Mom, I'll get Evey out of the tub," over and over again, and me replying, "No Seth," over and over again between polite conversation while the sweet neighbor puts her boys' shoes back on (she made them take them off to come in the house) and escapes.

Whenever people say to me, "five kids!?! You must have your hands full," I think, "how stereotypical." A house full of kids does not have to mean chaos. It is busy, and often loud, but not in a "little old woman who lived in a shoe," kind of way. Except for those odd days when it all seems to explode uncontrollably; when the forces of the universe combine to create the perfect storm of noise, mess, and injury. Drop a perfectly quaffed, lovely new neighbor with her adorably perfect preppy toddlers into the eye of that storm, and I can't help but wonder what she walked away thinking about us! Poor housekeeping, pathetic personal hygiene, wild out-of-control children, mess and chaos and insanity.

As for me, I'm feeling embarrassed and determined to somehow rectify the first impression. On the other hand, I can't help but laugh sadistically every time I think of the look on her face as she was leaving. Completely freaked out!!

My seven year old has, for a while now, been going through the "guess what" stage. He's not quizzing anyone, it is just become part of his speech pattern. For example, he was telling me a fairy tale the other day and it went something like this:

Isaac: So, there was this prince, and, guess what?

Me: what?

Isaac: He had two brothers. Well these brothers all decided to get married, and guess what?

Me: what?

Isaac: One of the brothers married a farmer's daughter, and guess what?

Me: what?

Isaac: The second brother married a pot-maker's daughter, and guess what?

Me: what?

Isaac: The third brother married a frog! And guess what?

It is no exaggeration when I say that this went on for over half an hour. Now, I believe strongly that listening to children is one of the most important things parents can do for that child's self-esteem, so even though my husband kept rolling his eyes at me throughout the whole story, I refused to break it off. But as much as I love my son, and as much as I love fairy tales, the whole, "and guess what?" is not very high up on the list of great story telling techniques.

But my question is, why does almost every child seem to go through this stage? It isn't just stories; every communication is riddled with "guess what's?" or the interchangeable variation, "know what?" I sometimes think that it must come from feeling ignored or brushed off - a means of confirming that the listener is still listening. It turns into a viscous cycle though, because it makes it so much harder to pay attention when the conversation is constantly interrupted. So, then, I end up listening less attentively because of the "guess what's?" I find myself needing to focus over and over again instead of letting my mind wander away and mechanically answering "what?" every time there is a pause.

Though it may sound cruel, one of the funniest things is to break the rhythm. Instead of answering with the expected "what?" I sometimes throw in a "why?" or a "nope," or the ever classic answer to "know what?": "no, but I know his brother, Who." Infantile, but when done playfully it simply elicits a response of surprise and that great look that kids seem to learn from infancy, the one that says, "you are out-of-your-mind-crazy," usually accompanied by the exclamation, "M-O-M!"

But mostly I play along, hoping that my persistent attention will eventually eliminate the need for him to confirm that I am listening. And between the "guess what's" there is a whole lot worth listening to!

How do our kids ever grow up even halfway normal when parents do our best to throw them a curveball rule-reversal every time a holiday rolls around?

For example:

Don't talk to strangers - except at Christmas when I tell you to go talk to that fat guy in a red suit.  Wait, don't just talk to him, sit on his lap!  And be happy about it.

It's not polite to ask people to give you things - except at Christmas when you can tell a complete stranger to bring you a whole list of stuff, and at Halloween, when you walk around demanding that people give you candy.

Never eat anything you find on the ground - unless it is Easter - then the more you pick up off the ground, the better egg-hunter you are.  Eat up!

It's mean to pinch - unless it's St. Patrick's Day.  (eurgh - that one causes trouble!) 

It's rude to ring the doorbell and run - unless it's Valentine's.

And I'm sure there are more that elude me right now.  See what I mean though?  Warped!

Chloe is asking Santa for a Little Cute Baby for Christmas.  You may recall that Chloe already has a doll she has named Little Cute Baby.  She got her for Christmas two years ago, and the doll accompanies us almost everywhere, including camping and vacations.   Consequently, she is starting to get quite worn.  So, Chloe is asking for a replacement - an identical replacement - a brand new, exactly the same Little Cute Baby.  Oddly enough, this has been a dilemma for me.   There is some part of me that is sad about the whole thing.  Where is the sentimentality?  Is everything so disposable nowdays?  The ease and comfort of simply exchanging one thing for another, newer, better, should be practical and logical, and yet for some reason it disturbs me.  Maybe it is because dolls are closer to people than things, because of their shape and because of how much love is invested in them daily.  Perhaps the real fear is that one day I'll overhear Chloe's tiny voice saying, "Mommy is getting pretty worn, maybe we should get a newer one!"

Okay - another Seth moment.  Today when we got home from school, Seth said, "Could I have something to eat? The hot dog at lunch was enough to sustain me until now, but I would love a little snack."  He talks like a novel!  A nine year old using the word "sustain?"  I've always loved vocabulary, but now I'm raising vocab freaks!  A couple of weeks ago at our friends' house, I was explaining that my kids are now 1,3,5,7,&9 years old.  Seth said, "in other words, we have now embarked upon the stage of odd numbers."  You should have seen how our friend looked at Seth!  It almost made me snort my drink!  But then this is the kid who, when he was in kindergarten, explained to me that he had scraped his hands because, "I trod upon my pants and tripped."  Seriously - part of me is totally proud, and part is a little afraid!  Seth actually wanted to perform sentence graphing for his talent at the talent show last month.  Not at all normal, and completely my fault!  Can kids still be cool and talk like that?  Or will he be ostracized by his peers forever?  Aarrgh - this parenting thing is complicated!!!  Smart, cool, athletic, ambitious - but not geek, arrogant, over-competitive, or selfish.  Where is that line?

It has been awhile since I've written.  See, my husband and I took all the littles and and went on a camping trip.  We got home exactly a week ago, and I'm finally beginning to feel as if I'm starting to recover and get my feet under me again.  I have loved camping since I was a kid.  I always planned to live that way.  I remember, even in jr. high planning my dream cabin where I would live at one with nature.  Now, I can barely survive 5 days with 5 kids in the wild!  I admit it - I have gotten soft.  No more plans to someday move "off the grid" for this gal.  Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed every minute of the trip, and I've already reserved the campsite for next summer, but it was soooo hard!!!  I thought that my daily life was already one of perpetual motion, but up in the mountains, where the weather changes constantly and food prep is much more involved, I felt like a whirling dervish!!  It's regular life complicated by all four seasons every 24 hours with everything packed in tiny spaces.  I don't remember camping this way.  I remember leisure - listening to the wind in the trees - fishing on the river - reading - hiking - communing with nature.  I understand now why my Mom always laughed when I told her I was going to live in the middle of nowhere when I grew up.  Ah, wisdom.

But I still really enjoyed myself.  We go to the most beautiful spot, and it is fun to watch the kids discover it the way I did as a kid.  Wordsworth had it right when he called little boys "nature's priest."  Although my Lily is more wild than any of the boys - and more covered in head-to-toe dirt!  It is amazing to watch the stages as the kids at first are fascinated with everything, then they get bored wondering what to make of this non-technological world, then their minds begin to open, their imaginations begin to put down roots in the rich mountain soil, and something beautiful and wonderful grows.  By the time we leave, they know every rock and tree, where the grasshoppers are, the best skipping rock sites...  And they inevitably have established "clubhouses."  Not built, or altered from the way they find them, just spots where they gather - a fallen tree that makes a large hollow, the canopy of a giant pine, or a grassy clearing surrounded by aspen trees.  I always regret bringing them back to civilization (though one more day without a shower and I'd just cry).  In another Wordsworth poem, he writes, "and she shall lean her ear in many a secret place, where rivulets dance their wayward round, and beauty borne of murmuring sound shall pass into her face."  This notion resonates within me as I watch my children - filthy, bedraggled, sunburned, bug-bitten and more beautiful than at any polished time because the beauty of nature has passed into their faces.  

And so even though it takes me two weeks non-stop preparation followed by a whirlwind camping trip, followed by another two weeks of recovery and laundry, I will never neglect a summer by omitting a trip into the wild for my little wild ones.  But I won't be moving there permanently any time soon!

There is a tree in my yard that is amazingly beautiful and brings me great joy.  It was here when we moved in, so I don't know what kind of tree it is, but it has almond-shape leaves and it weeps just gently enough to give it an elegant, umbrella canopy.  In the spring, it puts on a show of blossoms in dangling, delicate white clusters that make the whole yard ethereal.  Of course, the birds love the tree too - and my mornings in summer always begin filled with birdsong, like a Disney movie.   Only the part no-one likes to mention is that having a beautiful tree that brings beautiful birds also means a yard covered in not-so-beautiful bird crap!  Every morning I have the lovely task of  getting outside before the kids do to hose down their table, the slide and swings, and anything and everything else left in the yard overnight.  It also makes it a bit of a gamble to actually sit under the shady canopy and emerge clean.  Why does it always seem that in order to enjoy beauty, we must put up with a certain amount of crap?

Once I start thinking about it, I find it in almost every aspect of life - especially when it comes to parenting.  A U2 song recognizes that "there's always pain before the child is born."  And from that moment on it continues into infinity; parenting is full of crap - literal and figurative.  It is down-and-dirty-not-for-the-faint-of-heart-back-breaking-heart-breaking work.  But flabbergasting beauty  is the payoff.  The look of adoration that my baby gives me just because I walked into the room.  Tiny arms wrapped around my neck.  Listening to the miracle of my kindergartener reading for the first time.  Reading a story written by my nine-year-old. Bedtime kisses.  Overheard prayers.  Tutus and lightsabers and baby dolls. 

 It would be nice to have the beauty without the crap - enjoy the love without enduring the nights of ill children vomiting - but I'm beginning to believe that it is a universal imperative.  It's the stupid adage that we'll enjoy the bike more if we earn the money to pay for it ourselves.   Somehow it's true.  Others may admire my tree, but they don't get the birdsong in the morning, the blossoms in the spring, or the crap to scrub.  Others may enjoy the company of my children, but I get the truly beautiful because I also get the unsavory.  But if dichotomy is a universal imperative, I personally believe that it is not at all an even one.  In the grand scheme of things, when all is weighed in the balance,  the beauty in life, in parenting, and in trees eclipses the requisite bad stuff.

An overheard scene:

Lily: Come on Chloe, time to take a shower.

Chloe: Okay mommy (gets into the closet and makes shwish noises)

Lily: All done, come get dressed now.

Chloe: Okay mommy.

Lily: You look pretty.  Now it's time to eat, let's go to the kitchen.

Chloe: Okay mommy.

While trotting by me in the hall, Lily announces, "We're playing house."  Obviously.  Yet I wonder.  If playing at being mommy and child is a reflection of their reality, why are they so much more obedient to "mommy" than they are to Mommy?  If I ever asked any of the kids to do something and had an instant response of "okay Mommy" followed by prompt action, I would think I was being punk'd!!  Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get up and tell the kids, "today we're playing house, I'll be the Mommy and you be the kids - now let's eat breakfast and get dressed."  Think I'll get an "okay Mommy," from any of them?  

I never cease to be amazed by how quickly babies learn what is important.  Evey has, at a mere eight months old, discovered the critical fact that spoons=goodness.  Though she has only been fed baby cereal (yuck, in my opinion) and a few mashed fruits, she knows that when someone is eating with a spoon, she wants it.  I don't know if it is from looks on the faces of those eating ice cream, pudding, or even jello, or from some other body language that we no longer pay attention to as we get used to seeing it, but babies know that whatever we are eating, as long as it is on a spoon, is worth stretching, reaching, wriggling, almost jumping out of the safety of protecting arms to get.  She sees someone eating with a spoon and she gets so excited - bouncing up and down, kicking her feet, and reaching with every inch of her body to try to get it.  Once or twice I have given in, letting her lick a tiny bit of chocolate from a sundae off my spoon - which was a terrible idea because it simply re-affirmed her already established ideas of spoon specialness.  Forks - not so intriguing.  They just hold stuff like a salad or casserole - but spoons, that's where the good stuff is!!  I can't help but agree.

Today it rained, and rained, and rained.  Since I live in the desert, that is a huge deal.  Perhaps a rainy day may be synonymous with sadness sometimes, but in the middle of the summer, in the desert, it is a miracle.  My kids and I sat out on the porch and watched it.  We just sat and watched the water fall from the sky and the gutters overflow.  Well, it's not too long before the kids just can't take it any more.  First an arm, then a leg, then the whole body dancing in the rain.  My first impulse was to stop them - if they get drenched I'll have to change clothes and do laundry....but I checked my self-preservation instinct and sat back to enjoy the show.  They then moved on to the overflowing gutter running swift with rainwater.  Big alarms here, right?  Children should not play in dirty gutters on the side of the street!  Again, I checked myself, watched vigilantly for cars in the distance, and let the dams get built, the leaves race, and the glorious splash dances ensue.  Childhood perfection.

Last night, while trying to get the kids to bed, the baby started making goofy squealing noises that set the kids off giggling.  Once it started, it got completely out of control.  Trying to stop it was like trying to roll back the tide.  I would just get everyone quieted down, then one would do that holding-back-the-giggle-snort, or the baby would squeal, and everyone would explode all over again.  As a good parent, I must get them to bed.  I must control!  Except it got to me too.  Suddenly I was giggling just as hard, which made my husband finally lose it too, and there we were, a whole shaking, jiggling, rolling-on-the-ground mass of giddy.

Lesson learned from these two seemingly unrelated instances?  Let it be, sometimes.  I try so hard to do all the right parenting things, taking my kids to the zoo, to the children's museum, to Disneyland.... so that they will be well-rounded and have a full childhood.  But sometimes it is too organized, too planned, too artificial.  Sometimes the fullest moments of childhood are organic and spontaneous - despite the mess, chaos, and extra work involved.  The payoff is miraculous, because  those times that I override my adult brain turn into magical moments - the ones that crystalize and become precious gems that I wouldn't trade for anything on this earth!!