"Rejoice"

On the morning of December 19th, the Beans were bouncing off the walls. They were even more exuberant than usual because we were expecting a big delivery and the anticipation was KILLING them. "Mommy, when is it going to BE here?!? We've been waiting FOREVER!!!" "Mommy, is it here yet???" "Mommy, why aren't they HERE yet?" "Mommy, what TIME is it? How long until they're HERE?!?" "Mommy?" "Mommy!!!" "MOMMY!?!?" Lots of melodramatic screaming. And the girls were pretty loud, too. Seriously, though, the Beans were coming unglued because, after years of promising it was going to happen, we were finally bringing a piano into our house. And this was thanks to one of my dearest friends of all time. One of her acquaintences had bought a new one for their little prodigy and wanted the old one out before Christmas. We were less than a mile away and happy to oblige. Hubby was even excited about it in spite of his real and understandable concern that we were all going to go deaf even earlier than we'd anticipated. Considering that ParkiPants desperately wants a drum kit AND an electric guitar (Pipsi would like a pretty, shiny flute, please)and they presently sing and shriek at the tops of their lungs day in and day out, Hubby's fear is well-founded but that reality is inevitable. Anyway, I took a moment while the Beans were in a trance in front of the Smurfs movie (it's bad-- so, so bad) to lose my nasty stink before the piano movers arrived. Hubby had been lamentably in Canada for work (the week before Christmas!!!) so my personal hygiene was also on an unfortunate hiatus. Showering with two unsupervised five-year-olds at large in the house is a gamble. Always. Every time. I get that. But I was fiercely ripe. Way overdue. And other people were coming into my house. It had to be done. With the bedroom and bathroom doors open, I stepped into the little shower closet and soaped up before the water was truly hot. Covered in bubbles, I heard the dog go berserk. WHAT?!?!? The movers weren't supposed to be here for at least another hour! And they were supposed to call to give me a twenty-minute heads up!!! I rinsed off frantically, flipping the shower-head option to "firehose" and taking off a layer of skin here and there, trying to figure out how close Parki was to having a stepstool or chair at the front door, unlatching the security bolt and opening the front door to whomever was there. Enough soap rinsed from me, I grabbed a towel and covered my most offensive parts and raced for the front door, puddling up the bathroom, my bedroom and the hallway. I stopped at the end of the hall just as Parki was about to open the front door. Katie was waiting expectantly, ready to bolt outside. "Parki, you're not supposed to open the door without Mommy," Just a gentle reminder. I wasn't totally freaking out or even close to panic. "It's okay. Somebody left something out there," Parki said as she opened the door. As I stood in the hallway, she stepped out and returned with a large manila envelope, slamming the door behind her. "Is this for us?" "I don't know. Bring it here, please." Parki brought it over to me as I dried my hands thoroughly on the towel. I accepted it and glanced at the front and saw a note from my friend. "Something for your new piano." Awww. I was still dripping wet and totally freezing. I started back toward my bedroom to dry off and dress. "Mommy, where's the piano?" "It isn't here yet. It will be here soon." I got dressed, my dad arrived shortly after and we rearranged the furniture to accomodate the incoming piano. The movers FINALLY arrived and it was hard to tell who was more excited to see them, Katie or the girls (Katie might take this one since the girls didn't jump up to lick the movers' faces). Within five seconds of having the piano in place, the girls were tickling (and pounding) the ivories, screaming, hollering, running, yelling some more, and making the place all crazy with noise. My dad and I strategized for a while about the coming days before Hubby arrived home, discussing how we could shuffle kids between houses in order to give me the opportunity to not only do all the Christmas shopping but also hide the kids' loot at our place until Dad could sneak it over to his house to hide it there until I could wrap everything and how was I going to make that happen and was there any way we could work it out so I wouldn't be up all night on Christmas Eve? Because there were also cookies to bake and parties to throw and meals to prepare. You know, the discussion we have every year that makes me realize how much there still is to do and how little time remains to finish everything and howwoefull unprepared I was for everything. The. Stress. Was. Building. Bang Bang Bang went the Beans on the piano. "Woo Woo Woo!" Katie howled. "Okay, I'll see you later," Dad said. Sigh. Christmas. Effing Christmas!!! Then I remembered the envelope on top of my dresser. With the Beans fully occupied by their newfound talent, I snuck into my bedroom and opened the envelope. Inside was a note, and this:

This is no ordinary holiday ornament. My friend saw a stack of hymnals about to be tossed from one of the little churches downtown, in the little town that's so much a part of who we are, and repurposed them, taking their aging pages and fashioning them to hang in homes for years of Christmases yet to come. She wrote about how moved she was in wondering how many hands had held them and sung from them, had reached to them for comfort, and she wished for them a more dignified fate. "Rejoice" It's a powerful command. I read that word spelled out on those much-loved pages and I read the note, written by someone I've known almost all my life, and I felt that finally, everything was coming together. For the first time in years, all my children spend most of their time under my roof. Biscuit and I actually talk about stuff now that the terrible awkward bumpiness of adolescence has passed. My daughters still come to me for love and help and guidance and pretty much everything else they need. The days when I'll be what everyone reaches out to for comfort number fewer and fewer as time passes and the kids grow. And I hope, as I grow old and less relevant in my kids' lives, that I can remind them, not only at Christmas, but every day, to rejoice. To find light and life and love and transcendence in the most mundane activities, like cleaning mustard from the sliding-glass door, or mud from the windows, or cooking yet another dinner that I'm going to have to battle to get little people to eat. Yes, even when things do come together, it's just for a little bit. But the greatest gift we have is to make the happiest possible experiences and memories of those moments. That's what I took away from my sweet friend's incredibly thoughtful gesture, and that will be the those hymnals' legacy in the years to come. No matter how crazy, wet and soapy the holidays are, rejoice in them. They're numbered. Bang on the piano (get the kids lessons, of course), encourage the dog to sing, and rejoice. Rejoice.

Sweatstain

During the first week of March, most of our family relocated to a little town in unincorporated Citrus County, Florida. I wouldn't know that it is an unincorporated area, since the real estate agent who handled the lease didn't mention that little factoid, had it not been for a sheet of paper posted in our local supermarket stating that since we are located in an unincorporated part of the county, we can now purchase beer and wine at that store before noon (or 2 pm or whatever the arbitrary rule is here) on Sundays. We still have to go to a proper liquor store to buy anything harder than that. I don't know what those places are called and think I'm giving myself away as a "non-cracker" (seriously, I'm not trying to offend, that's just what we're called here) by using the word "proper".

Oh, how the (fill in the blank of whatever you think we are) have fallen.

There were only two posts to you, my beloved blog, in 2010. That number will hopefully be much higher in 2011 for myriad reasons (yes, Booie, I know you appreciate that wasn't phrased as "a myriad of reasons" and for that I love you).

So enough with the parentheses and general vagueness. Details are really where the devil lives, so here you go:

Living in the east San Francisco Bay Area on a single income with three kids is difficult. Building anything even close to resembling a stable financial future under those circumstances is nigh impossible unless a family can survive on air, water, no food, and without its own mode of vehicular transportation. I absolutely love and achingly miss my completely walkable community, but raising a family in the 'burbs requires at least one car in case you have to get the kids to the ER, which happened twice in the same week last August, but more on that later if anyone's interested.

Hubby and I discussed it for a good fifteen months and decided that, since we had family here in Florida, we should at least temporarily transition ourselves here to make some financial headway. After all, we're supposedly building a life and family, not just cobbling together a moment-by-moment existence and, in case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty flexible but still at heart a girl who likes to have a plan.

Anyway, about the kids, since that's really the primary focus of everything we think and do: Biscuit stayed home in California with his dad. That was the most horriblest choice I've ever had to make, but his friends are there, he has the majority of his family there and most of all his heart is there, as is a huge chunk of mine. We've been here almost five months and I'm just now getting used to the arrangement but there's also the fact that he just returned to the West coast on Tuesday after six weeks here so that's probably coloring my perception a bit. I'm sure I'll bawl my eyes out all next week.

My Beans can swim. Boy, can they swim. They have to now, because there's a pool right outside the kitchen door ( and the living, family and master bedroom doors). The house is built around the pool. Sparki little Parki-Pants, a month before her fourth birthday, can swim herself right down to the bottom of the deep end and retrieve whatever she's dropped down there, just to prove that she can do it. And, she's declared that she's going to be an Army-sniper-rock-star when she grows up. Power to her, and woe be to anyone who finds himself in her way. Pipsi is going to be a princess and just today, insisted that I introduce her as "Princess Jasmine" to the checker at Home Depot and the burger-flipper at McDonald's.

"Mommy, will you please tell them my name?" Pipsi asks me as I'm pushing them along through Home Depot, searching fruitlessly for bed risers (we have a scorpion problem here, and if you really want a dose of the howling fantods, Google Image "huntsman spider" and click through for the most ghoulish photo you can find [make sure there's something else in the photo to use for scale] and you'll see what I mean-- I literally just clobber the smaller ones with my bare hands now and smear their remains on my pants and I was a certifiable arachnophobe before we moved into this godforsaken burg).

Back in Home Depot, I sigh, thinking about the news story I'd seen on TV yesterday, about the mom whose 4- and 5-year-old children were removed from her custody and placed with CPS because Mom had left Kids in the car for 15 minutes while she ran in to WalMart WHILE IT WAS 94 DEGREES OUTSIDE!!! I'm all for convenience but I wouldn't wish that fate on the giant mosquito that just bit me THROUGH MY PANTS.

"Sweetie, if I tell them you're Princess Jasmine, they're going to think there's something wrong with me. Or they're going to judge me as overindulgent," I reply. Are those bed risers? No, they're just hardwood-floor protectors. Drat (I've really had to make a highly concentrated effort to quit potty-mouth cold-turkey, which has a LOT to do with Pipsi's "f*cking buckets!" episode and the fact that the Beans are starting preschool in 12 days :)-- please forgive my punctuation; it's been pretty much since the last blog post that I've spent this much continuous time behind a keyboard.

Anyway, I still haven't found what I'm looking for as Bono would say (in Home Depot--Surprise Surprise!!! as Gomer Pyle would say) so i amble inconspicuously toward the service counter. Well, I'm as inconspicuous as possible as a professionally highlighted ( In a recession? SHAME ON ME! SHAME! SHAME!!!) pushing two super-blond, singing preschoolers in a bright-orange, steer-from-the-rear kid-friendly Home Depot cart, carrying an authentic designer handbag in the not-so-swanky Crystal River, FL Home Depot. I ask the guy behind the counter whether that store carries bed risers and am met with a laugh and a decisive "NO". Cordial conversation ensues in which he imparts a story to a coworker (whom I think he's trying to impress for reproductive reasons) about how the last people who asked about bed risers ended up buying his own personal set of said item (EWWW!!!!!!) and then he says maybe I can use some four-by-fours to accomplish what the bed risers were designed to do.

I briefly imagine how Hubby will react when I come home with bits of four-by-four and a can of Krylon and tell him excitedly about Home Depot Guy's plan to cut the wood into little bits, paint it to match the carpet, then use those little woodies to get that bed up off the floor to make sure we ain't got no bugs under thar and the image that momentarily runs through my mind is the Hindenburg in its final moments.

I thank him for the time and thought he put into his solution but tell him that I just don't think my husband will go for it and politely excuse myself. He recommends I try a furniture store (Badcock. Seriously, that's the name of the store. Girlfriends don't let girlfriends use Badcock, fyi). I have, through this adventure, found some caps for the bed legs should I decide to go casterless and need to pay for them on my way out.

And as I roll my Beans, steering from the rear (backward in so many ways), toward the checkout line, I start thinking (yep, this is the part you've been waiting for and yep, I'm SO back). I think about all we've given up to move to this place : time with my first-born child (his band practices, his Junior Prom, Senior Ball-- I'm gonna well-up), my mom and dad, my grandma, all our countless friends and community ties, the neighborhood like Cheers where everybody knew our names and our barista who prepped our drinks the moment he saw us walk through the door. And I think about how quickly time passes and how briefly the magic of a childhood exists-- the finite breaths before a mother bids a tearful goodbye to her son. And I thought of the frustration I felt when the electricity company's customer service manager explained to me, before our move, that demanding a $475 deposit was a reasonable amount to authorize service to a new client because "Florida's such a transigent state that we need to ask for this because people use our service then move without ever paying for anything", and how I wanted to correct her, "you mean that the population of Florida is so transigent that..." but knowing that she'd neither understand nor care-- I thought about everything that had brought my daughters and me to this place at this moment in time.

The Beans and I arrive at the checkout counter and I pull out my debit card to pay the $1.13 tab since I rarely carry cash. Pipsi's eyes keep moving expectantly between me and the cashier, waiting for her majestic moment.

"Wow, aren't you cute! Are You Mommy's little helpers?"

"Oh, please," I say, a note of great importance in my voice, sounding, to myself like an absolute freak, "Allow me to introduce Princess Jasmine," I announce, lightly touching Pipsi's curly blonde hair, just above her beaming face, "And her sister, ParkiPants."

"Perky Pants? Oh! We must be potty training! Congratulations!" says the checker. Thank God I had only one item. I shudder to think where this conversation would have gone had it been any longer.

"Yes, thank you so much!" said I.

"No, that's Prince Ali," says Pipsi, correcting me in regard to her sister's title.

"Bye, bye, Princess and Perky Pants!" says the checker.

"Bye!" Shouts Parki as she waves at her new friend.

"Mom, Parki is Prince Ali, not ParkiPants!" Pipsi chastises me as we scoot out the exit toward the van(parked next to a cart-return area because I rock.

"Oh, Jasmine, I'm sorry. She must have not heard me correctly," I apologize. I want to tell her that gender-bending isn't really en vogue here.

"I'll be more careful next time," I promise.

"Mommy, can I please have some FedEx?" Parki asks. FedEx is Beanish for 7-Up or Sprite. I really don't know why.

"Sure, since you were so good in there. Princess Jasmine, would you like some too?" I ask Her Highness

"No, but I would like some lemonade," and I think that if nothing else, living in the South will surely teach them some awesome manners.

We load up into the faithful Starship Margaret and set off on our next voyage.

Remind me, next time to tell you about our new barista's comment...

P.S.
Quit posting Chinese comments related to adult websites. It's really gross and if you do it again I'm going to contact Google and make bad things happen. Bad things that people won't even want to watch on the internet, even if they're on Tosh.0

Feeler:

Be honest with me now... Is turquoise poop a blog-worthy topic? I get that nobody reads blogs since fb wrecked everything, but, if i were to devote, like, an hour to the exercise of describing turquoise poop, would anybody find it a worthwhile read?

Fridge on Lockdown

A few weeks ago, on an inauspicious day and without much fanfare, my accident-prone old laptop died. Finally! I was more than a little relieved. The thing just kept crashing and Hubby kept breathing life back into it somehow so it woud limp along feebly for a few more days, then the stupid thing would just crash again. So I'd wait and wait until Hubby had a couple of minutes to look at it and... you know where this is going. It's been that way for the past year, I guess, and I've gotten more and more disconnected from the rest of the world as the days clicked by.

But no more! Now it's 11:05 on Tuesday night and I can sit here and cruise along wherever I want to go on the Internet and actually arrive at the destination in the address bar. It's crazy!!! Because it actually works!!!!!!

So, I'm sure you're wondering how the kids are. They're splendiferous, actually. Biscuit just returned home from his dad's this afternoon since he's on Spring break. Oh, the Beans were overjoyed to see him. Parki ran up to him and gave him a huge hug and just cuddled on the couch with him for, like, twenty minutes. Piper waited about an hour and, when Biscuit was on the couch by himself, walked up to him with Xylophone Dog in hand and a little smile on her face. Biscuit thought she looked really cute and he asked if she wanted a hug. Pipsi just kept smiling and whacked him on the head with Xylophone Dog, then ran away laughing. I think that sounds a lot like a normal sibling relationship. Don't you?

It's funny, but there's always a learning curve every time Biscuit comes back home. We have locks on all the kitchen cabinets, which he's pretty much used to opening but rarely remembers to close, and today he was a tad dismayed to see one on the refrigerator. That is, after all, just another thing for him to forget-- and then I see it and get all exasperated and ask him how many times I'll have to remind him to do this and... yadda yadda yadda.

I really haven't wanted to put a lock on the fridge. It just seems like if I do that, I'm conceding the point that my children truly have no self-control and that I assume they will not listen to me. It felt like my last little bit of civility in the kitchen, that unlocked fridge. I could ask the Beans to grab the juice and put it on the counter, then to put it away when we were finished. They liked being my big-girl helpers. That last little bit of kitchen civility today has, like my old laptop, decidedly died.

It happened in a span of about four minutes. I was on the phone with my brother for one of our five-minute check-ins and I was multitasking, tossing a load of my smelly clothes into the washing machine when my MommyRadar started going berserk. I slammed the washer lid shut and let the empty laundry basket clatter to the floor, then swung around to the open door into the kitchen and stepped inside. No Beans. As I quickly scooted through the kitchen and dining room toward the family room I caught a whiff of my dad after lunch which was the last thing I expected to smell and was defnintely a sign that something bad was happening. At the threshold of the family room I spied my little Beans, twin partners in crime, silhouetted side by side in front of the semi-opaque sliding-glass door, all four of their little hands moving in mad little circles on the glass.

"Oh, no, Day. I gotta go," I said to my brother.

"What's wrong?" I heard through the phone. He sounded far away, like I was talking to someone who was living in another world which, in a way, was the truth.

Several years ago, in my life before twins, my dad and I worked together at the same company and we would have lunch together a couple of times a week. Frequently lunch consisted of sandwiches and Dad absolutely loves a mustard-slathered sandwich. Loves it like nobody's business. Hubby and I, bonded strongly and forever in our mutual disdain for condiments, keep a bottle of mustard in the fridge for Dad but otherwise generally eschew condiments. Today I learned that there's a possibility that a penchant for mustard is a hereditary trait that skips a generation.

"There's mustard all over the place," I said miserably.

"'Kay. See ya!" my brother chirped.

"What did you DO? Why would you do that?!?" I stood looking stupidly at my daughters and the mustardy finger painting masterpiece covering the patio door.

Parker turned and looked at me with her hands out in front of her, then focused her attention to her hands and gave one palm a tentative lick.

"Ew, guh-lowhs," Parki smacked her lips and wrinkled her nose and looked at me with those great big eyes. Pipsi turned and smiled that great big smile right at me, sunshine glinting off her golden curls. I wondered for an instant how two such divinely beautiful creatures could make such a hideous mess.

"Don't touch anything!!! Stay right there! Do NOT move!" I barked as I ran back to the kitchen for the baby wipes, paper towels and glass cleaner.

"This is disgusting! Don't ever do this again. Yuck, yuck! Now Papa won't have any mustard when he comes over," I tried to sound sad but really, it was all I could do not to scream like a wind animal. A wild, totally freaked-out wild animal.

"Oh, that's okay Mommy, there's more! See?" Parki showed me the mustard bottle, still terribly full.

"Papa has lots of mustard, Mommy. He has more at his house, too," Pipsi chimed in.

Parker's shirt, her brand-new shirt that she'd worn for maybe thirty minutes, had several yucky yellow streaks on it. I wiped the rest from her hands and face, then Pipsi's, then peeled off Parker's shirt and got to work on the door. Fortunately, mustard is surprisingly easy to remove and within a minute, it was like the mess never happened.

"I'm going to go clean your shirt so it doesn't stain. You stay RIGHT HERE and don't get into any more trouble, you little monkeys," and off I went, thinking that it was fortuitous that there was a load of clothes already in the washer. I was in the garage for a minute, wondering what could ever compel a couple of two-year-olds to smear mustard all over glass. Really, what was it? The texture? The color? Was I letting them watch too much tv? Was I not nurturing their inner artists enough? Were they, as I've kind of always feared, just evil?

I was pondering these and other deeply troubling problems during my return to the family room. I was figuring that I needed to get Parki into another shirt and prep the girls for a trip to Target when, for the second time in less than five minutes, I stopped dead in my tracks at the family room to gasp and stare at my daughter.

In the less than two minutes I'd spent cleaning her mustardy shirt, Parker had managed to clear everything off the surface of the coffee table, pull off her pants and Pull-Up, climb up onto the table and empty the contents of her bladder. I found her standing in the puddle of said contents stark naked with her head between her knees and her wet hands up in the air behind her in a display so bizarre I seriously thought that maybe, just maybe she really was possessed. Pipsi was moving over toward the table to play in the puddle too because, after all, what's more fun for Beans than water toys?

"Pipsi, do NOT touch that, baby! Parker, what are you doing? Wait, stop! Red light! You freeze! Don't move!" I bounded back through the kitchen and prayed fervently that Parker wouldn't do her old standby trick with weewee on the floor, the one where she stomps her feet, then stands on one foot and kicks the other one back and forth like a little motor, sending weewee spraying about in all directions.

Pipsi got her hands in it by the time I returned but we were able to avoid making this horrible situation far worse. I went over with Parker yet again the proper receptacle for bodily wastes and then asked whose turn it was to ride in the cart and who got to be Backpack Buddy. We all cleaned up, went back to their room, and dressed Parki and changed Pipsi's Pull-Up. While we put on Parki's pants she turned around and put her hands on my shoulders.

"Mommy love Parki so much?" Parker asked me, smiling.

"Of course I love Parki so much!" I do. It's gonna kill me, but I do.

"Mommy happy?" Pipsi came up behind me and hugged me, a big smile on her pretty Pipsi face.

"Yes, I'm happy! I have my Beans and I love them so much! Are you happy?"

"Yeah, I'm happy. Pipsi, you happy?" Parki asked.

"Yeah, I'm happy." Pipsi said.

At least we were all in agreement on that. And I think that we will remain so, now that the fridge is locked.

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Etc...

Perhaps I should have glanced at the date on the last post before beginning today, but really, why? I know it's been a long time. A very, very long time. And for good reason(s), too. Sure, I could spend a good amount of time waxing poetically on the passage of time, and meaningful fleetingness of our earthly human relationships and all that blather but the only relevant blurbs I have to offer on those subjects are:

1) Mimzi's chemo is done and she's growing hair. You should see her eyebrows! Think Al Franken... or don't if you'd rather not.

2) Biscuit is now in high school, taking two honors classes and an extra period in addition to marching band, which practices twice a week. He doesn't get enough sleep. Neither does his alarm clock (that would be me).

3) The Beans are now 2 and GIGANTIC, verbal, and at least one Bean is pooping on the potty willy-nilly. Parki still loves nakedness, but Pipsi? Every time I ask her she answers, "No. Not yet."

About six weeks ago, little Sparki Parki finally got a cute little leg over the top of her crib rail. The rest of her shortly followed, along with an obligatory thump and a subsequent wail. Knowing this was inevitable (and that her twin would waste no time falling to the floor in a similar, slightly blonder heap) I was well-equipped with two crib tents to keep the Beans sequestered in the safety of their cribs until I was ready to remove absolutely everything from their room, cover the floor in that spongy-rubber playground cover and convert their much-abused cribs into toddler beds.

Once Parki made her escape, I pulled out the tents, ready to assemble and slap them on whenever necessary. But the funny thing was, Parki didn't repeat her feat for another week or so. Figuring it was a fluke (stupid me!!!) I let it go, but kept the tents in mind, telling myself that I needed to wash them and make sure everything was going to fit, blah, blah, blah-- oh hey, wait, I have to start dinner and finish the laundry or else everything's going to go to hell this afternoon and the kids won't have pajamas and I have to put a new sheet on Parki's bed because she whipped off those pants and poopy diaper AGAIN before I got her up from her nap and I still have to thaw the chicken... You get where this is going.

So, one Tuesday morning I emerged from a five-minute shower and heard Parki calling me.

"Mommy?"

I thought I'd left the TV on. I must have, thought I, because that little voice that sounds so much like little Parki cannot be, in fact, my daughter, because that voice sounds like it's right outside my door, and my daughter is in her crib.

Dripping wet, freezing, and freaking out, I yanked open my bedroom door. No Parki.

"Mommy?" Again.

I stepped across the hallway and gently pushed open the Beans' bedroom door. "Parki?"

There, in the doorway, wearing a gigantic smile (and, thankfully, also her pajamas) stood Pleased-as-Punch Parki.

"Hi, Mommy!" Oh, the cuteness!

Beaming down from her crib at her twin was Pipsi, tongue lolling out the side of her smile and standing on one leg, the other slung over the top of her crib.

"Hi Beans! Where are you going Pipsi?" I asked carefully.

"Out!" Pipsi proclaimed.

"Wow! How did you get all the way over here, Parki?" I asked Parker while picking up Piper.

"Climb out. Mommy all wet!" Parker answered and quickly changed the topic of conversation. She's so much like her daddy.

"Hair wet. Mommy hair all wet!" Echoed Pipsi. Hmmm. I could see where this was going.

"Yes, Beans. Mommy was in the shower when you started climbing out of your cribs. That scares Mommy! Please stay in your cribs until Mommy comes in to get you. We don't want boo-boos!"

"No! No boo-boos!" Pipsi agrees. Parki, already halfway down the hall as I begin speaking about the importance of crib safety, returns to poke her little bedhead through the doorway.

"Come on, Mommy. Juice!"

That was the day the crib tents were going on. Except for one little problem. Well, two rather significant problems. Fortunately, things like ill-fitting tents and missing parts are no match for a mother's resourcefulness when it comes to securing for herself a decent night's sleep and the tents have been (mostly) firmly in place for about the last month or so. We just needed to add a couple of parts, take off a couple of others and do it all over again for the next one.

And that got me thinking about everything that we've handled over the past several months. Everything our family's handled, that is. All the changes wrought by Mimzi's illness and forced placement on the disabled list, Biscuit's transition to high school and a true, devoted commitment to something he considers far greater than just an extracurricular activity, and the verbal and social leaps and bounds the Beans make daily now that the images of the two-year birthday cakes look ever smaller in the rearview mirror. Everything's about give and take, and adjusting sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, to get everything done and keep everyone happy.

We're lucky we're so happy. Sure, I've laid aside a few novel ideas for a time when I'll have more than a few moments to toss at them (I first typed "navel ideas", which they might as well be at this point), and I have to keep reminding myself that most all of what I put away now will still be right where I leave it but these moments with my kids will only be here today-- even when today begins at 5:37 AM and feels like it's going to last FOREVER. Bring it all on. I'm glad to have it :)

Okay!

For a while there I thought Parki was a pirate. Anytime I asked a question of anyone and she was in earshot and wanting to answer in the affirmative she would pipe up and say, "Aye". It was kind of cute. It went something like this:

Mommy: I think it might be time for some cereal.
Parki: Aye!

Mommy: Beans, do you want to go bye-bye?
Parki: Aye!

Mommy: Hmmm, what do you think about taking a shower?
Parki: Aye!

In the last couple of weeks, though, Parki has started using "okay" instead. But not just a plain, one-size-fits all "okay". She matches her vocal inflection of her "okay" to the amount of enthusiasm she has for whatever it is she's agreeing to.

Mommy: Parki, are you hungry?
Parki (indifferently): Okay.

Mommy: Parki, will you please take this cookie to Pipsi?
Parki (excitedly running down the hall): Oh-Kay! Piiiiip- seeeee!

Mommy: Parki, let's go get Soft Blanket for Happy Nappy.
Parki (snuggling up, murmuring softly): Okay.

Mommy: Parki, do you want to go see Grandma?
Parki (high, ascending, quick tones): Okay!

We get over to see Grandma each day, as long as Grandma's up to it. We'll bring her something from the grocery store, or some tastiness we've prepared or we'll visit to vaccuum or wash a scarf or just to chat. Mimzi was in the hospital from last Thursday until Monday afternoon with a couple of infections and severe anemia. After several days of antibiotics and two units of blood enjoyed in isolation she's home again. We giggle as much as we can about silly things but her condition's starting to get to her. Which is okay. Hopefully she'll keep the perspective that this is a phase and, like the Beans, she'll quickly outgrow it and get on to the next thing. I'll have to remember to point out the next time I see her that the Beans cried all the time when they were bald.

Obviously now, everything's "Okay"!

Pretty Lucky!

It's almost 2 PM on Friday afternoon. The Beans are finally napping, the dishes in the dishwasher are clean and there is a six-pack of Dos Equis chillin' in the fridge. And I can't get over how lucky I am.

Putting it mildly, this week totally sucked. The Beans were grumpy from their shots, Mimzi was in the ICU for three days and Biscuit was on extended leave at his dad's because they came down with some form of nasty crud during his week there. Because Mimzi was cooling her jets in intensive care and because the Beans were already out of sorts, when Biscuit's dad called and said they'd been throwing up and coughing I had to make the sad decision to leave Biscuit in exile a little longer. The last thing we needed around here was the flu. I don't care if it wasn't officially the flu. If you're sick, you can't visit anyone in the hospital and the phone conversations I had with Mimzi were rather murky and confusing. Mimzi is not good on the phone since she likes to use pronouns without antecedents and hop around from one subject to another. Sometimes it's kind of fun. I like to see how well I can keep up, or how many other things I can think about while still following her circuitous path through her stories. And it's kind of efficient, too, because she can tell me three things at once. But through the black veil of painkillers, anti-anxietics (is that a word?) and anti-coagulants, ole Mimzi was making even less sense than usual. Not seeing for myself that she was going to be okay was just not an option.

I have to admit, I was pretty overwhelmed last week. Especially Friday. I spent a big chunk of the day visiting doctor's offices and labs with Mimzi, Beans in tow. They were very good (the Beans, not the doctors) but that was due largely to the fact that their mommy (me) exerted a ton of energy keeping them entertained in their stroller for a couple of hours. They had Dollies, Cheerios, cups, bowls, books, fruit snacks, my keys, my purse (ack!) and new faces every so often to stave off a meltdown. By the time we got home we'd been to the hospital, the grocery store, Mimzi's house and the DMV (don't even get me STARTED on the DMV experience). The Beans were pissed off and hungry and tired and I can't blame them one bit. We returned home to eat and I realized when we walked inside that the house was in absolute chaos.

They had lunch in their high chairs and topped off their tummies with a cup of milk each. I put Parki in bed first and zipped her all up before returning for Pipsi. Pippers was a little fussier and wriggled around in my arms when I picked her up, twisting around until her tummy was over my arm, when suddenly she burped-slash-barfed, splashing milk and turkey sandwich on the floor.

And that's when I realized how lucky I was. Yeah, my mom's carotid artery was full to the point of imminent stroke. Yes, I'd just spent a crappy, rainy morning running errands with two cranky toddlers. Yep, I'd just spent waaaay too much in late penalties at the DMV and my house was in utterly disgusting disarray with Craps everywhere. But Pipsi barfed in the one spot in all the kitchen that was the easiest to clean and not a bit of it hit any clothing on either one of us. Off Pipsi went for Happy Nappy. I returned to the kitchen, cleaned up the barf and thought to myself that things weren't great, but all things considered, they could be much worse.

I could have to work at the DMV.