The washing machine just ate Chloe's comforter.  Months ago the washer went skewompus and the agitator only moves in one direction instead of going back and forth.  Instead of repairing or replacing, I improvised:  I turn the machine on the fastest agitating mode.  The way I figure, really fast one direction is about the same as medium speed two directions, right?  Worked fine -- until today.  Luckily, I was in the basement when the machine started jumping around and making crazy noises - who knows what might have happened if I hadn't stopped it when I did?  As it is, the comforter was twisted around clear inside the inner guts of the machine,  the central agitator has come apart in several pieces, and I am soaking wet from wrestling the twisted, torn, dripping comforter from the machine's clutches.  Told you I had a Greek Curse!! 

I hear the flu season is going to be terrible this year.  Is there ever a year that they don't say that?  I'm waiting for the day when I open up my newspaper and read a headline declaring a projected healthy winter: Experts Predict Slow Flu Season: Don't worry about shots this year.

  But no matter how crappy everyone else is going to feel, my house will be flu free!  Why?  Because I have spent the past several days jumping through the craziest hoops to get all of my household immunized!  That may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it truly is.  Babies need to have two flu shots, given in half-doses.  Children under 9 need to get the shot from a pediatric nurse.  And Tysen's work does free flu shots for adults, but you have to be there within an exact window of time.  So that is how our flu shots became a fiasco!

October 6th - Evey gets part one of her flu shot.  Must get it early if the second one, exactly one month later, is to take effect before the flu season.

November 3rd - The Monday morning after Halloween weekend.  I wander around the house in a daze just grateful to still be standing and wondering where to even begin with the mountains of mess throughout the house.  Phone rings: "uuu Honey, you're going to kill me, but today is flu shot day at work and you need to be here at 12:15."  Really.  Change my clothes, do my hair, change toddler and baby clothes, do their hair, take kindergartener to school.  On the way to school my phone rings: "uuu Honey, since Seth is nine, he doesn't have to have a pediatric nurse, so he can come in and get his shot too if you check him out of school."  Great!  Park at the school instead of just dropping off kindergartener, haul the baby and toddler into the school, wait in office forever until they realize that the reason no teachers are responding is that the class is at lunch.  How happy do you think Seth was to see me at lunch?  How much happier do you think he was when I told him that I was there to take him to get a flu shot?  Needless to say, there was some foot-dragging.  Back in the van - book it downtown to hubby's office, circle and find a parking spot, wait at the elevators - Tysen gets off the elevator with a look of extreme caution on his face.  "uuu, Honey, you're going to kill me, but I got the date wrong.  Flu shots are Friday." Really.

Friday, November 7th - Early day at school.  That means that instead of checking Seth out of school (again) when I drop off Lily, I have to go back and get him to go down for flu shots at work.  10:40 - drop off kindergartener, go home, putter for 40 min., go back to school and check Seth out of school, pause and wonder for a moment if I should just go ahead and check Lily & Isaac out too, because school is out at quarter to one and that is really pushing it.   But the prospect of trailing all five around downtown outweighs my better judgement, and I leave them in school.  Back downtown with the pedal to the floor.  Getting off the freeway, phone rings: "uuuu Honey, where are you?  We're supposed to be there (two floors up from where he is sitting) in five minutes!"  Really.  Arrive, park, elevators, forms to fill out, hand forms in: "where is Seth?" the nice nurse asks.  "Over there, hiding," is Tysen's response.  "Oh, we also have the nasal mist, if he would prefer that.  And what about your little one (Chloe); would she like the mist instead as well?"  My turn, "umm, we understood that it was only for adults because there would be no pediatric nurse."  "Well, we do, in fact, have a pediatric nurse.  She is happy to help all of your children." Except the ones I left at school!!!  Really.  End up 30 min late to pick up the school kids - 30 minutes!!!  Just as I turn onto the school's street, my empty light comes on on the van's gas tank.  Quick call to Tysen - "how long can I still go when the empty light is on?"  Get to the school.  The guilt I was feeling at leaving them waiting that long was ridiculous, right?  I mean, by the time they get their packs and jackets, get out of the school, and play on the grass like they always want to - it's not a big deal, right?  I pull up to find them curled up in balls, huddling in a hole by the side of a hill because, as the remaining students waiting for rides thinned out, they were left conspicuous targets for some older boys who kept stealing backpacks, gloves, shoes, whatever they could get, and taunting them.  Made me want to cry!  If they had told me before I pulled away from that curb, boy howdy there would have been some bully boy heads rolling!!!  I thought they were just playing, not trying to hide!!  I'm a terrible mother!!

Today, November 10th - Kept Isaac home from the first part of school to keep an appointment I had made with the pediatrician weeks ago for an AM time before Lily goes to school.  Four little kids and me running (well, Evey doesn't run - she just clings to me like a monkey while I run) through the parking lot, in the pouring rain, with Chloe crying that she doesn't want her poka-dot pants to get wet, to get to the pediatrician's office to wait for forty minutes to have a nurse give them THE EXACT SAME NASAL MIST!  The mist doesn't even require a pediatric nurse!  But Evey did get the second half of her SHOT.

So now our entire family has had our flu shots/nasal mists and we're ready to face the impending flu season.  And my Mom thinks the whole thing is a conspiracy between the government and the pharmaceutical companies!  I'm beginning to believe it.

I've decided that somewhere along the way I've ended up in a Greek epic; and as in all Greek epics, I have unknowingly offended one of those cranky gods who then decide to make me pay for it!!  Last week I began making dinner - one of Tysen's favorites - a casserole that requires that I brown the hamburger, mix it with a bunch of other stuff, then cook it in the oven.  I put the pound of hamburger in the frying pan, walked downstairs to get the tomato soup, and completely forgot what I went down for.  After a few seconds of thought, I settled on needing to sew Halloween costumes as my reason for being in the basement (my sewing machine is in the same room as our food storage).  

So I sat down and worked on sewing.  15 minutes later, I smelled something burning.  The kids, of course, had followed me downstairs and were playing, so no one had been upstairs to notice before it got pretty bad.  How stupid could I be?  I ran upstairs, threw away the large blackened bullet of burger, opened all the windows (though it was really cold outside) and started over.  Finishing up the casserole, I popped it in the oven just in time for the phone to ring.  Candace was calling with a question about the baby.  I talked to her for a while and just closed up all the windows, then I noticed smoke billowing down the hallway.  The casserole had boiled over inside the oven!  Huge mess!  Terrible smell!  Smoke everywhere!!!  And right then, Tysen walked in from work....

After a lovely dinner of twice-burnt casserole, the evening proceeded normally.  Tysen was in the kitchen doing homework after we put the kids to bed, when I started smelling something again, and noticed even worse smoke.  Rushing into the kitchen in a panic, I was greeted by a consternated Tysen who, in an attempt to help out and make it so that I wouldn't have to clean the mess out of the bottom of the oven, had turned the self-cleaning cycle on.   While he knew that the stove locks down for six hours and everything inside gets burned to a crisp, what he didn't anticipate was the toxic smoke and smell!!  It was nearly unbearable.  It burned the back of the throat and made eyes water.  

So, at the end of the day, I guess we should just be grateful that our house is still standing and that everyone is well - but no one can blame us for eating out the next night!!

Crazy, true - you are saying - but not Greek-epic-wrath-of-the-Gods worthy.  Oh, but it was only the beginning.  Stay tuned for tales of our last trip to Lagoon and the never-ending saga of the Halloween costumes.  You will believe!

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!!