A heartbreaking day

Today a fourteen year old boy had to apologize to me. He did it through tears. He is like my own, so it was really, really hard to hear and see.

Just before that, I had to listen to this conversation in my car:

Friend: I can't wait until my birthday party!
Freddy: When is it?
Friend: This weekend.
Freddy: Am I invited?
Friend: No.

And before that, the dog tinkled on the carpet.

Personal ad

I just can't keep this to myself anymore: Our newspaper has the strangest personal ads. Every now and then, there is one in there. Just one. People have the strangest messages, and they give out their home phone numbers. I've decided to start posting them. A few weeks ago someone left a message for Jerry. He/she wanted Jerry to call, because he/she wanted to get to know Jerry better. I gave it to our friend Jerry.

This is today's ad:

I Need Someone To Talk To, Preferably Male.

Call or email me for the number.

More dirt

Today I read comments from Calvin's teachers. They cover two months, because I have not been able to see the grades for that long. These were the words and phrases that kept popping up:

best

diligent

superior work

makes good use of his time

great work

consistently puts forth the effort necessary

hard work and focus

put forth much effort

positive force and energy

very dedicated

Over the past two weeks, Calvin and I have been cleaning his room. There was a consistent explosion of clothing all over his couch and floor. I had to make good use of my time to create a new system for clothing organization and storage, getting rid of the dresser, giving him open shelving, and making him clear out the space in his closet for hanging clothes.

Calvin's been very dedicated to reading books and magazines and keeping them all in his room. Hundreds of mags came out...dozens of books were returned to the family shelves...a couple dozen of Grampy's sci-fi books were stored in the basement...and a dozen or so books were donated. The best books were kept and placed on his new bookcase, one that used to hold my school stuff.

It took a lot of hard work and focus (and four trash bags) for Calvin to clean out his closet. He is now aware that he keeps everything.

Much effort was put forth to go through his clothing. Four loads were washed and stored away for Freddy or for summer. Three loads were washed and put away in his room.

A lot of positive force and energy was used to vacuum and scrub. The carcasses of a thousand dead creatures (ladybugs, spiders big, spiders small, spiders REALLY big, wasps) were removed. The furniture was rearranged to make better use of light, space and electical outlets.

I'd like to say that I see the same Calvin that his teachers see...but I don't think that I do. That room was gross and filthy, a health hazard and a fire trap. And it smelled really, really bad.

One last quote from a teacher:

What can I say about Calvin? He is one of the finest students I have ever had the honor of teaching in my sixteen years behind the big desk.

And he is the finest boy that I've ever spent fifty hours cleaning out a pigsty with...in my 15.5 years behind the big apron.

Dirty words

Freddy (referring to one of Seb's books): Does it have a list of dirty words?

Seb: Probably. I told you it has everything.

Susan: Dirty words??

Freddy: That's what they're called.

Susan: Where did you learn that?

Freddy: Calvin and Hobbes.

The wish

I've got Christmas shopping on my brain lately. So far, I've bought several items for small children and a big bin of special stuff as a family gift. I've got plans for something to replace stockings, which we've never really done. We even have Advent calendars for each child this year.

Seb and I will be busy (against my will) with rehearsals and performances in mid-December, so it is best that I get some things done early.

Today I added something to my wish list: metal measuring spoons. I'm so wild. It went right under apron. Then, so I wouldn't fall into a deep depression while seeing in black-and-white that my life revolves around kitchen work, I added art. That's all I want. I don't want anything from the men's department this year, thank you very much.

Then I turned to the children's wish lists. The lists are in the Home Management Notebook, right after the list containing family members' names and birthdays, which is right after the back-up address book, which is right after the page of frequently called phone numbers. I need one last page of service providers, and I'll be all set with that section.

So, I turned to the children's wish lists and found one very special wish:

7 boxes of laxatives

I'm pretty sure that the writer of this wish didn't mean to write it on his/her own list. I'm sure that he/she meant to write it on a sibling's list because he/she is sick of waiting for the bathroom. I'm not sure if the laxatives will help. I have spoken with the bathroon-hogging child about good dietary choices, but I don't think that any progress has been made. I'm still hearing fights over the bathroom.

We are blessed with two bathrooms. None of the children want to use one of them, because the door doesn't lock. That works out for me, because it's the master bath that doesn't lock, and I'd rather not share it with people who forget to flush and can't aim.

After birthing four children, I still had a shred of modesty, but then I went through several surgeries. I've socialized with half of the folks who have seen me prepped (that means naked and possibly shaking from fear or writhing in pain or maybe just passed out from from blood loss) for surgery, so I couldn't care less if one of my children walks in on me mid-tinkle. And Seb's French.

Crime

Apparently all the women in Sherlock Holmes are based on me:

...a plain but neatly dressed young lady entered the room. She had a bright face covered with freckles, and she walked with the self-assurance of a woman who is accustomed to making her own way in the world.

Yep, that's me, making my own way in the world. With freckles.

And from our local paper:

Free parenting classes to be held in December...Topics to be covered include...communicaiton, amont others.

I guess we get what we pay for.

We live in a small town. We moved here from up north. I grew up outside Chicago. We followed some simple rules like Don't Go to an ATM at Night and Don't Drive in Certain Neighborhoods. I am pretty sure that all my siblings have been robbed. There were two or three times that robbers stopped by our house. My dad chased them off twice. I think that one time they did break into his car and swipe some of his manly stuff. And my tricycle was stolen and tossed into a lake. I got a shiny new one (and 5th children don't get many shiny, new things), so I didn't mind.

Before I moved to Canada, I lived in a suburb directly west of Chicago. I used to drive into the city on Friday evenings and stay with my sis for the weekend. To get there, I had to drive through one of the worst neighborhoods in the area. This was my MO: Lock all belongings in trunk, including purse; dress like a man; hide hair in baseball cap; have $ for pay phone in pocket; have small, personal weapon in pocket; don't stop at any stop signs.

I also practiced walking like a man and using my keys as a weapon by putting them between my fingers. Try walking like a man; it isn't easy.

Then we moved here. There was no crime at the time. After we lived here for a few years, there was a murder. We were surprised. Then we learned the details: A family group was drinking and playing cards. There was an argument. One person knifed another, but no one noticed. The knifee didn't even notice. Then she fell down and died. And that was the first murder. Of course it's gotten much, much worse, but I don't need to pretend to be male. I'd even feel comfortable going to an ATM at night if I actually used them. We stop at all stop signs, but we never drink and play cards with family. Just to be safe.

What I can't show you:

1. The clean basement with the art area (where pictures are finally being painted) and the hang-out spot furnished with old furniture and a giant chalkboard on wheels.

2. The pizza party for Calvin's Cross Country team where everyone but Calvin was dressed in blue and I got a thank you kiss on the cheek from the Mexican boy and we discovered that five pizzas for eight boys is not enough, not even close.

3. The full set of braces (with blue bands) that Isabelle now sports.

4. Freddy's perfect handwriting (this is going to shock Linda) yesterday in his schoolwork. He did it because he had a gel pen. I wish that I bought that pen three months ago. He even did extra math because of it.

5. Seb receiving an award.

6. Dancing, where we side-step and spin and turn and promenade.

7. Our new grass, showing completed foundation work after almost two years.

8. Pompey's fluffy, new, winter look. I'm a bit fluffy myself due to the lack of biking since it rains every day.

And why can't I show you? Because I let my children use my camera. Now I don't have one.

My life in books

She appeared to be no more than thirty years old, but her dark hair was already streaked with gray, and her expression was weary and haggard.

My life, down to the last detail, can be found in the books that we read. Right now I'm reading a Sherlock Holmes book to Freddy. We are both enjoying it greatly. I much prefer Sherlock to Encyclopedia Brown.

Calvin's been reading Stephen King...Freddy's reading a children's version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...Lucy insists that she doesn't like to read, so I better not buy her books for Christmas...Isabelle is reading every single book at the library...and Seb is reading a book on how to pick up babes. Quite a collection. I'm reading Don Quixote:

In short, he so immersed himself in those romances that he spent whole days and nights over his books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading, his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason.

When Calvin was little, we told him that watching too much TV was bad for him. Specifically, that it would shrink his brain to the size of a pea, and that he would blow it out his nose one day in a sneeze. I'm sure that Seb came up with those details.

So, when Calvin was three, he went running out of the daycare room at the Y crying. He did it several times. Everyone thought that he missed me, but he didn't. He was afraid of the TV. The caregiver kept turning it on to placate the children.

Then there was the time that I was chatting with Auntie Rosie on the phone and relayed what she had told me about her day. It involved so much TV watching that Calvin freaked out. We had to call her right away to warn her what might happen to her brain. She heeded the warning, I'm sure.

If

Freddy: If the ground is covered with a foot of water, will we get in our car and go?

(First of all, I must explain why I didn't answer this question: My children ask if questions all day long. They graduated from why questions when they turned three and then got stuck on if. My days are a series of queries like this: If that house suddenly exploded, what would you do? If someone ran in here and cut off all your hair, what would you do? If I dropped down dead, what would you do? If I put my hand in this boiling water, what would you do? If Pompey starting killing people, what would you do? It gets old, so now I don't even bother thinking what I'd do.)

Susan: We'd do whatever Papa wanted to do.

Isabelle: What if Papa was dead?

Susan: We'd do whatever the new papa wanted to do.

Isabelle: What if there was no papa?

Susan: There will be; I'm not doing this alone.

Isabelle: What if you don't like any of them?

Susan: Then we'll have a new papa that I don't like.

Isabelle: What if they are all complete idiots?

Susan: Uhh...

Freddy: What if they are all obese?

(That is where they got me. Obese idiots will not be considered. I find it interesting that my nine year old knows the word obese. I didn't know that word when I was nine. Maybe it's in Calvin and Hobbes.)

If I had a photo of a crazy man with scissors running into my burning house being chased by my homicidal dog while Isabelle drops down dead at the same time that someone is being burned and something else is exploding and all my teeth are falling out, I'd add it to this post.

More from Halloween

It is really hard to maintain a serious face while dressed in clothing belonging to offspring. Seb wants to wear his uniform the next time he flies commercial. He's sure that someone will give him a first class seat and some treats. And maybe applaud him.

I guess that Halloween was a super-dark night because I had comments like these:

Are you guys security?

Did the cadet get some candy?

Are you from [Name of School]?

To the last one I answered, "Well, not really, because I'm a GIRL." I didn't say, "Duh!" because that would have been rude. Most of the time I just saluted and said, "YES, SIR!"

Freddy just couldn't understand why we wouldn't let him trick-or-treat with the giant French knife. Hmmm...running...in the dark...after eating sugar.

Isabelle wore my fur and Lucy's high heels. The heels are too small and hurt her feet. Such dedication.

And Ashes was a bouquet. He was entered in a contest online. I don't think that he won. Maybe next year. I don't think that we ever dressed Pompey up. We dressed up our first dog, Foufie, before we had children. She was a ballerina, Little Red Riding Hood, and a bride. I think that she was the bride the year that she ran next door with some trick-or-treaters, entered the neighbor's house, ran up onto the lap of the neighbor's mother, and tinkled.

A weekend for plumbing

Anyone want to guess what year I was born?


In the last few days, we've frolicked in the sun...
discovered a water leak...
and calculated how much it will cost us to pay for 12,000 gallons of lost water and a water heater and labor.

We've done school in the basement because the "clean" space with the hang-out area furnished with old furniture is sooooo exciting...
scrubbed windows and doors...
and pedaled.

We've dined on Mexican and Chinese...
thought about sewing up the winter jammies...
and looked (unsuccessfully) for a tiny bit of land on a big lake.

We've gone to church...
cleaned up the overflowing toilet...
and forgot about the youth group that someone is required to go to (by me) now that he goes to a boys' school and has no contact with girls.

============

And about that overflowing toilet:

I have a great, irrational fear of overflowing toilets. All my life, I've been more afraid of an overflow than of the boogey-man. It's crazy, of course. But there is a reason. When I was a girl, there was an incident. It was Christmas and we were gathered at my aunt and uncle's house. There were three of us girls who shared a bedroom at the end of the hall. It turned out that this bedroom was the low point upstairs, a very important fact.

Someone (an adult) used the potty, and then it overflowed...and flowed and flowed and flowed. It flowed right into our bedroom. We shrieked and jumped on the beds. We tried but weren't quick enough to save our Christmas presents that were all over the floor. I remember things from the potty floating by. I remember an uncle rolling up his pants and coming to our rescue, carrying each of us out to dry land.

And that is where my irrational fear comes from, although I have it all year round, not just at Christmas time.

Dictionary

In our living room is a giant, old dictionary that I bought for $.25. It gets used a lot, mainly because it's too big to go missing like our other dictionaries, thesauruses and French-English dictionaries. Freddy used it today:

Friend: P...ii...ee...
Freddy: Piece of ex-cornment.
Susan (butting in from the kitchen): Ex-CRE-ment. It means poop.
Freddy (ignoring his mother): Turds are hard.
Friend: How did you read that???

The page with turd on it has been turned to more times than any other. After Freddy found the word in there, he told all his friends, "Turd is in the dictionary."

There is nothing like discovering the wonder and beauty of this world for the first time.

Sneak-peek

A sneak-peek of Halloween '09...

Michael Jackson (aka Lucy)...Baroness Gertrude from the Sound of Music (aka Isabelle)...the surgeon (aka Freddy)...the Colonel (aka Seb)...and the military school cadet (aka Susan).

My basement is clean

Last year my four children went to school all day, three to one school and one to another school. My only job was housewifery and mothering from afar and visiting the post office. With all that free time, I kept a clean house, made lots of food, volunteered a bit, and baked for teen boys. That still left a lot of time, so I vowed to clean my basement and set up my home management notebook and prepare my food supply & 72 hour emergency packs.

All I did was clean the basement half way. In my defense, the basement was a huge, overwhelming, anger-causing, muscle-aching, gross job. It was also bad for my health, what with my allergies to dust and hard work.

That was last year. This year I have two homeschoolers and two children to drive around. I spend at least 90 minutes in the car each day. I still bake for teen boys, keep a clean house, cook, and do a tiny bit of volunteer work. But somehow I've managed to finish cleaning out the basement, do the notebook, set up the food supply and nearly finish the 72 hour packs.

I can't quite figure out why homeschooling makes me more productive, but it obviously does. I even scrubbed my washer and dryer yesterday...and shined my shoes.

But it is now the weekend and the temps are supposed to be up to 75. It's November, so no work will be done. There will be frolicking and biking and playing and that's it.

Cooking

These photos are three years old. I used to allow crazy shenanigans like cooking outside over a little fire. I even let them take all my spices outside.

Now they watch TV and play video games and tell me that they are bored. Oh, and they make messes too. Isabelle (she's on the left) now has hair that is almost to her elbows; Lucy's hair reaches her chin...I think. Freddy just looks older.

Today we made cookies for boys taking the SAT this weekend. And we are catching up on chores and cleaning and organizing. It's all going swimmingly well.

And, since all work and no play makes people dull and cranky and bitter, Sebastien and I danced the cha-cha to the BeeGees last night. I'm pretty sure that I heard him say, "You're more than a woman!"

In September

We finally built a binder. Sebastien's customers and potential customers have been making these for years at our open houses. I've wanted to make one for a long time. I actually planned to make a rudder too. Well, those plans have changed. It was terribly difficult to make the binder. I couldn't have done it without Calvin. The work that I actually did (drilling and riveting) was done very, very badly. I no longer comment when I see poor workmanship on one of our customer-built airplanes. Now I know how hard it is!

My dance partner there is now three inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than I am. He never dances with me though. He'd probably bowl with me if I offered to pay.

Alive and kicking

I'm still alive. I'm thinking that it might be wise to hold off on the driving lessons until after hunting season. Another deer crossed the road today. This time it was behind me and it was on a highway. I don't think that a 15 yr old driver could handle deer on the road. Two dogs ran in front of me today also, two different dogs on two different streets at two different times of day. I hit neither.

Calvin is now #1 in his class and #3 in his school. And that annoying boy in his science class has disappeared, so Calvin thinks that he got booted. Private school is so different from public school around here.

Today my doctor told me to stop eating gluten again. And today my cookie dough scoop, my doughnut pans, and my pizzelle maker arrived. Oh, the cruel irony.

Show and tell

Bruce and Freddy in front of their toad obstacle course:

Many a toad was put through the course. Poor things. It was up for weeks in the summer and is now dismantled. I think that I heard some little toad cheers when the last bricks were carried away.

Sunday morning conversations at our house:

Freddy: Papa, let's make something!
Seb: Like what?
Freddy: I don't know...a guillotine?

==============

Seb: Calvin, is your room clean?
Calvin: It's pretty clean.
Seb: I don't care about pretty! I want clean!

And that last line is the secret to my happy marriage.

My speech

Isabelle and Seb, preparing to take over kitchen duties:

Week two of Teaching Calvin to Drive began on Friday. It's been months since week one. Week one ended after four days because I couldn't take it anymore. I've used the last three months to get my affairs in order and increase the insurance coverage on our car.

After the experience on Saturday morning with the car, the big, brick wall, and the accelerator instead of the brake, I feel the need to go ahead and make my farewells:

Please don't be sad when I'm dead and gone. I've had a good life, and I'll be going to a good place. Don't blame Calvin. He did his best. Do what you can to help Sebastien find a new wife. If he has to do this gig on his own, he'll go insane. Find him someone who is the opposite of me, for variety. Love, Susan.