“Mom, what’s chaos?”
I defined chaos for Jane. I didn’t quite use the dictionary definition of “complete disorder and confusion” but it was pretty close even if it did involve more words about noise and mess. She thought about it,
and proclaimed, “Clara is chaos!”
Hard to argue that Jane, hard to argue that.
In case you haven’t noticed (because spell check and John usually see these posts before you do) I am, have always been, and likely always will be, a terrible speller.
In new spelling lows, I have successfully taught my phone how to spell tomorrow incorrectly. That’s right, my phone now auto completes to a misspelled word. I am also learning Portuguese on Duolingo.com (Are you learning a language on Duolingo too? Lets be friends!) and I get lots of answers wrong because they are misspelled – in English. It seems the program will give you a break if you spell a word wrong in the language you are learning but it expects you to know your native tongue.
I mention this not look for sympathy or advice but simply because I’d like you all to believe me when I say I’m a terrible speller. Because, unfortunately for us all, my kids do not.
Kid -“Hey Mom! How do you spell tomorrow?”
Me- “I don’t know, just try it.”
Kid- “No, just tell me how to spell it!”
Me- “I don’t know! With a “T”. ”
Kid- ” ARGGHHH! Why are you being so mean!!!”
Me- “I’m not. I just don’t know how to spell it. You’ll have to figure it out.”
Kid- “Yes you doooo, you are just being meeaaannn.”
Me- *throws arms up in exasperation and leaves the room*
Sadly, since they don’t believe me, they don’t stop asking and “How do you spell…” is fast becoming one of my new dreaded phrases. Even Jane is in on it now. Just the other day she asked, “Mom, how do you spell “how to regret your salmon?”.
And, in the worst news of all, not only was I unsure how to spell that, I couldn’t even figure out why she wanted to know.
“First I would make the world a safer place. Next I would make people be nice. Then I would make more toys for the kids. Last I would make more food. Finally I would make more cheese for the mice.”
Be a friend to mice- vote for Clara!
My two older girls were fighting. They ripped things out of each others hands, and they cried, and they yelled, and they stomped, and they slammed doors, and they came running to tattle on each other.
The children of which I speak not fighting. (I had to use an rather old picture because ever since we got a kitten I no longer photograph my children.)
As the mother I’m taking this as one of those good news/bad news situations.
The good news is that now my toilets are really clean.
The bad news is that some days my kids will use anything as an excuse to pick a fight.
“I’m not going to bed… I’m going to suck your blood!”
She said it not me…
Jane dislikes her food when it’s too hot.
No.
That’s not correct.
When Jane’s food is too hot, she perceives it as a personal attack on her happiness and well being and holds me directly responsible for the offense.
Yes.
That’s more accurate.
While she howls and give me looks that would no doubt sear the meat from my own bones I try to explain to her, how this “cooking” thing works.
I try to tell her that in order to melt cheese that heat must be applied. I try to tell her that in order to eat that nice pig we raised we need to cook the meat. I try to tell her that we have to cook the meat so that the proteins in the muscles become denatured as that makes them more palatable and digestible. I try to tell her that cooking kills the cysts of parasites we would very much like not to contract as well as a number of bacteria we do our best to avoid. Most importantly I try to tell her that the very act of “cooking” implies that heat is being used and that heat is, by very definition – hot.
Then I try to tell her to just wait a minute and it’ll cool down enough to eat.
Then I try to tell her that it is cool enough to eat.
But when she pokes it with the end of her dainty finger she still finds it to be higher than her 98.6 degree body temperature she howls at me again- clearly I was trying to trick her into scorching her mouth with food that is certainly still, by her definition, “too hot!”
Eventually, because thermodynamics is a real thing, the food is no longer “too hot” to her sensitive touch and she eats a bite but by then…. you guessed it…
It’s too cold.
It’s happening. I’m turning into one of those old moms who says things like “I just can’t keep up with my children.”
And it’s true, I can’t keep up with them lately…
The girls and I get in the truck and buckle up for the half hour ride into the “big city.” This takes at least five minutes even though everyone can buckle their own seat belt and two kids cry. Always.
Since one kid is crying, that kid sticks with it. Then something happens with a water bottle and wailing ensues. Because of the pinching. Which is, of course, because of the unfairness of life, the universe, and everything.
I am informed of all these things at top volume.
I reply in my reasonable-yet-totally-pissed-that-I’m-having-to-have-this-discussion Mom voice.
No one hears me over the wailing and yelling.
I reply in my totally-pissed-I’m-having-to-have-this-discussion-because—pinching—seriously-girls? voice.
No one hears me over the wailing and yelling.
I reply in my I-have-had-enough voice and spew totally unenforceable statements at top volume (a skill that seems to come out best when I’m driving).
They hear me, and all wailing and yelling is now directed at me.
Slowly peace descends.
Then a tear-free chipper happy voice pipes up from the back “Hey Mom! Guess what so-and-so’s brother wore to school today? A fake mowhawk and tutu! Isn’t that crazy?”
Head reeling (I thought they hated me and were never speaking to me again) I start to respond in my Yay-we-are-all-friends-again voice.
But I get interrupted because of the wailing and demanding.
I reply in my reasonable-yet-totally-pissed-that-I’m-having-to-have-this-discussion—again Mom voice.”
No one hears me over the wailing and demanding.
I reply in my totally-pissed-I’m-having-to-have-this-discussion-because-sharing-is-just-something-you-have-to-do voice.
No one hears me over the wailing and demanding.
I reply in my I-have-had-enough voice and spew totally unenforceable statements at top volume (a skill I seem to be working on hard lately).
They hear me, and all wailing and demanding is now directed at me.
Slowly peace descends.
Then a tear-free chipper happy voice pipes up from the back, “Hey Mom! Did you know North and South America are only connected by a bridge!?!”
And I find it’s true. I just can’t keep up with my children.
With the older girls back at school it’s just me and Jane all day long.
Perhaps I should rephrase that…
With her older sisters at school Jane is back to talking to just me all day long.
Today I learned some interesting things…
When she colors too much the bones in her finger become so sore it requires a massage from her mother to continue coloring. I really have no idea how she’s managed this long without her regular finger massages. I mean, really, sore finger bones, it’s a dramatic sort of problem. In fact I’m really rather amazed we made it through without professional intervention and merely a few wide eyed earnest looks and large sighs from the poor girl.
Then, after reading a book where someone was nervous, we were talking about what makes her feel that way.
“Well” she said, “if you trained alligators that would make me nervous.”
I tend to agree.
If sore coloring fingers require massages just think of the drama alligator training would bring!
Here they are headed to their first day of first and fourth grade.
I bet you can guess who came home bubbling with excitement who came home and pronounced the day “boring” and “horrible.”
Poor Clara.
Maybe if we could introduce bee keeping into the first grade curriculum she’d enjoy school a little more…
I was very good at drinking water.
I drank out of a quart mason jar. All day my jar would follow me around the house. Sometimes it would sit in the kitchen, sometimes by the computer or at the table and sometimes I would end up with more than one floating around, but I always had water at hand.
Until…
Jane came bursting through the front door. “MOM! A woolly bear peed on my finger!!!” She was half excited and half horrified. I inspected her finger, (having never been peed on by a caterpillar myself) and sure enough there was a tiny drop of liquid on her finger. I wasn’t sure if it was bonafied caterpillar pee but I told her to go wash it off anyway.
Jane walked into the kitchen, looked on the counter and said, “I’ll just dunk it in here” and then, in a motion so smooth it could only have been born of habit, she reached up to dunk her hand into my water glass.
I’ve been slightly dehydrated ever since.
Behind the Willows 