The Years Don't Lessen: On a Father's Day Without a Father

The first time that I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, it was with my husband and our three children. There is a moment within seconds of the movie starting that Orlando Bloom crosses the screen, and it knocks the wind out of me. “Oh! That looks just like my dad!,” I gasp.

“Cool, mom,” say my kids.

“No,” I say, “I mean it. It really does.”

But they have already stopped listening and keep sucking on their Sour Patch Kids, while I sit, frozen. They can't understand. For the next 27 times that Orlando pops up on the screen I call out how he could be my dad. My kind children politely look at me, and nod.

I haven't seen my father since the beginning of first grade, and now I have him in front of me, larger than life, for 90 minutes.

“My dad. It’s my dad.” I whisper, but I know I'm saying it to myself.

* * *

My father had skin the color of shiny copper and eyes that were green with flecks of yellow. When he smiled, he made me grin so wide I thought my skin would crack.

Growing up, we had a radio in the kitchen, a beige plastic rectangle with gold colored dials. The station was set to AM radio and The Beatles were always playing one of their Top 10 singles. I would hear the music from whatever part of the house I was in and come running, ready to dance the Twist for my father.

He couldn’t hold back his laughter at seeing me shake my five-year-old body back and forth while I sang for him, "Ooooooh he was just seventeeeeen!” Laughing and clapping, his smile opened into double laugh lines on the left side of his cheek. They would get so deep that they looked like I drew them in with black magic marker.

My parents were from Colombia, South America, but coming to the United States didn’t stop them from having the parties they were used to having there. In our basement, their old records would be pulled out: Carlos Gardel was the favorite. My father, holding a brown bottle of beer in his hand and his always present cigarette perched on his lips, would slide his feet back and forth until he was in the middle of the basement floor. I would secretly watch, hidden around the corner of the steps. Seeing him dancing with his eyes closed, lost in the music, was more than I could bear. I would blow my cover and run to him. My summer nightgown streaming behind me and my bare feet slapping against the cold cement floor, I jumped into his arms. Finally, I would be there, his cheek scratching against mine and pressing into his neck to breathe in Old Spice. I wanted him more than anything else in the world.

My father didn’t talk very much, he mostly laughed. He would wink, I swear it was only to me, and I would cover my mouth with both hands to stop from exploding. My father knew how he was my everything, and it was not something he ever took lightly. Each gesture to me was a grand one and his magic was in making time stand still. He could freeze a moment by looking into my eyes and all around me became distant and fell away. All that was left was just my father, and me, and that was the world.

I was in love with my father. I would wait at the end of the day for him to come home from work, my forehead leaning with all my might against the front screen door so I could see as far out as possible while I watched for him. Then, there, in his grey work overalls, I would spot him. Like a horse bursting through a gate, I galloped down our front steps. Taking two steps at a time I would begin shouting, "Papi!" When he saw me, he would stop walking and crouch down, and wait. It was then that his dimples would appear.

One day, I popped out the mesh of our front screen door from the force of my body. My father had to replace it.

* * *

These memories of my father flood over me that afternoon as I watch Orlando Bloom on the screen. I force myself to concentrate on time with my family, but I can’t stop missing my father. My throat begins to ache and I only see him, with his eyes closed, a palm of one hand softly on his stomach, the other held up in the air, swaying his shoulders side to side as “Adios Muchachos” plays on our stereo.

I have to excuse myself from my children and leave for the bathroom. I don't have the time to explain to them that I didn’t have my father long enough. I was a little girl who adored her father and he was here for much too short a time.

My father died two months into the start of my first grade; a shocking suicide. His death so abrupt that no one could get me to stop looking out of our front screen door for him. They gave up trying to pull me away, and I made the mesh pop out again. No one was there to replace it, and it remained split, with a bulge in the middle until my mother moved us to a new house.

My life has been filled with Father’s Days since then, and all of them, without him. I have never not thought of my father on this day and of how much I loved him. This Father's Day will begin like all the other ones have since, with my first words being, Feliz Dia de los padres, Papi. Te amo.

Happy Father’s Day, Papi, I love you.

 

* * *

Dear College Freshman Child

Yaaaaaasssss... perfect!

Dear Son:

You've been away at college for five nights now. We miss you but are thrilled for this new chapter in your life. I mean, we all knew you were ready for this step, busting at the seams of this parent/child role was something we all felt. We miss you 'round the clock and your siblings left back home really feel the loss of your presence, especially on family outings. They asked me to write you a letter so that you would know just how much life sucking fun you've been missing.

No need for us to go into the Costco trip you missed Friday morning when your dad came home with gas can sized containers of corn oil that we have piled up against the sink, I mean -- those are just incidental happenings.

No, your brothers want you to know about the #deeplife that is going on this Labor Day weekend. Like today.

Today was the day your dad decided to relive moments of his boyhood. Your brothers explained it to me this way, "You have your writing, mom, dad has his days of what once was." And so this is how it came to be that your dad piled us into the family van this morning and set up the GPS, whose directions he ignored most of the drive up (Ms. GPS no longer even pretends to be patient) and we drove the two hours your dad needed to, to get what was once for him the childhood marking of a summer's end.

We went to small town Wisconsin where today was "Cornival Day," so named because three! free ears of corn are promised to everyone in attendance at the Cornival. You know what's weird, Alec? Your dad never mentioned Cornival Day to me. Ev-er. Anyhow, in theory, since there were four of us in attendance (again, we miss you sorely) we could have brought our Trader Joe's canvas bags and had them filled with 12 ears of grilled corn, but since only your dad was interested in end-of-summer symbolic feeding, we just waited in line (like some kind of outer space aliens were feeding us from a truck, but that's just my opinion) for the three ears of the free corn, for him.

Your brother, Xavier, wants you to know that he volleyed back and forth about whether or not to purchase "chips" at a food stand because "chips" for sale on a sign with "chips" written in black marker "quotes" makes for an unsettling description, add to the fact that they came in "all kinds." He paid the 50 cents for the "chips" but ate them "tentatively."

We missed you today. Your father had a grand time reliving Cornival Days gone by, but the rest of us, the three of us, felt out of our realm. I say out of our realm, Auggie describes it as "unbearable air smelling of Spam." 

I was okay with your dad searching out his corn roast memories. Even the full lines at the drive-through liquor stores that we passed on the way into town didn't worry me. Today was an important family excursion for your dad and I think he needed to do this as a way of working through his feelings on you being up and flown. As your brothers said, I have my writing to work through life transitions. I can talk to you like an adult now, Alec, so I'm going to tell you, your dad was working through some shit.

Your brothers were rough on your dad, I'll admit. I knew he was going through some intense thoughtful moments, and maybe your brothers went too far in calling today a "crushed memories and broken corn cob dreams" family outing.

It wasn't that bad. I mean, yes... unfamiliar and something we're not used to. For example, the turkey  sandwiches we purchased were turkey porridge (Auggie called it brain soup for zombies) on store brand hamburger buns BUT all that can be tolerated by simply tossing the wet sandwich away and considering the $3.00 purchase price a donation toward the free cornfestivus corn. 

And there were some unexpected moments of delight -- like Magic Mark who performed magic tricks, silently -- though he wasn't in a mime outfit, while following along and interactively learning with the audience to the DVD Magic For You! that he had playing on a two foot thick TV on a TV tray to his right.

It's all perspective, I explained to your brothers.

Where else could we see Cornival clientele arguing with game booth workers over the number of balloons they popped with a dart, three chances for a dollar, and the size prize they felt they should have received rather than the one they did receive. Life can be a book, or a Twilight Zone episode, that you step into.

You would have enjoyed today's outing, Dear Son. If you talk to your brothers, it was close to but not as awful as they describe it. The "chips" were tolerable. With your dad paying no mind to the chattering of the GPS, we found our way home. Your family survived this Labor Day without you. More than anything, we missed you.

We made your dad happy today, though there was a moment that we caught him wistful -- almost as if he expected someone to recognize him from 40 years ago. But we returned home, no worse for wear.

Although Auggie says that today made him hate corn forever.

 

* * *

Mega-itis

I love the feeling of plenty in the house but I hate how it turns my home into the next episode of  Hoarders. I love/hate bulk, I love/hate warehouse places. You enter needing a few pair of underwear, and you come out with two hundred.

It’s Mega-itis.

You think if a dozen of something is good, then five hundred must be better.

You like turkey chili? Good. Because now there are a thousand cans in the basement. My husband has this house so stocked with dry goods that we could survive any leveling of this planet.

Red Cross relief needed? Just call us.
Peace Corps Operation in need of supplies? Call us again.

When I hear the garage door open after my husband returns home from his four hour Apocalypse  preparation, that's my cue to move the kitchen table and chairs to the other side of the room so that we can begin to stock up our private community food pantry.

I call our sons, and together, we help carry in eight 2-packs of gallons of apple juice, boxes of oatmeal that would feed the Salvation Army, and enough toilet paper to serve the Duggar's during the worst flu season.  I just want to know, is there anything my husband says no to at these places?

He tells me, “Well, it's hard, I don't like to, but I had to turn down the guy with the twenty pound bag of mangoes. I felt so guilty, not buying his stuff after I took his samples.”

I watch my husband then go back out to the van and then walk back in and then walk back out, then in, as he unloads his *smart buys.* Ten trips in all, back and forth to the minivan, each time with no less than a fifty-pound portion of something.

“Hey,” I say, as I help him stack 59 rolls of single-ply sand toilet paper into a pyramid against the bathroom wall, “what’s with the fifteen boxes of Frosted Flakes? You were sitting right next to me when 60 Minutes had that Doctor on “Sugar Kills.”

“I know, but I took a couple of samples from this 80-year-old guy and I felt kinda bad not getting the cereal after that. You know, I could tell his hopes were up after I ate two cups worth.”

I know what drives my husband and I love him for it, it’s the comfort of feeling he’s provided for us, and at a good price, too. But what really frosts me is this. Why can’t he go all guilty and #BulkBuy from the woman at the BoxMart jewelry counter? Surely he feels bad about spending time among the laptops and tablets they've got locked up under her territory. He couldn't have been deaf to her hawking, "Sir, wouldn't the lucky woman in your life like this $13,000 sapphire ring, Just like Lady Di's?"

Exclusive Mega-itis Edition.

* * *

BlogHer13 Re-Entry: Annual BlogHer Tattle-Tale List

Around here, we do the BlogHer recap differently. We publish the BlogHer Family Tattle Tale list compiled by my youngest boy, Auggie, while I'm gone Wednesday through Sunday. For five days, he keeps a notebook and I come home to ruled sheets of paper filled top to bottom with all transgressions done unto him by family members in my absence.

The best thing that comes out of BlogHer is coming home to this Tattle Tale List. 

Welcome to my joy, as recorded and reported, by Auggie:

WEDNESDAY:  There's no tattles. My friend is here. He never saw Diary of a Wimpy Kid so we watched it.


THURSDAY -- Dad wouldn't let me get something at ToysRUs that was four dollars with my own money *put this in all caps*

FRIDAY -- This is not a tattle but Dad made Italian sausage not chicken nuggets. Shocking. But he cooked them frozen. That is not shocking. We made him use the meat thermometer because Xavier (16 year old brother) was scared of pork poisoning and they looked pinkish.

SATURDAY -- Xavier is driving me insane (all caps please). It's really bad. He keeps bugging me about seeing Pacific Rim even though I don't want to. He says "Oh yeah you gotta see this it's so cool." It doesn't look good. There's too many giant robots and not enough giant monsters. 

STILL ON SATURDAY -- Also Dad was okay, though he said "Your behavior is quote quote uneventful." Because I was trying not to get in trouble. But not really behaving, just not being naughty.

SATURDAY STILL --  Amazing. Dad got me a book WITH HIS OWN MONEY.

AND STILL -- Xavier keeps bugging me to see the movie, it's infuriatin' (no G, mom just an apostrophe)

ON ALL THE DAYS -- Whenever we meet people and whenever we see people we know Dad always used the same lame joke and when people ask how it's going with mom gone, he says, "Their limbs will all be on." The same joke. It's so annoying and cheesy.

SUNDAY -- Only one more day, mom. Dad is crabby. Just because I asked him if he was ever going to take a shower or just read the paper all day. Also, I don't think he wears underwear under his pajamas. It doesn't look like it.

BAD STUFF: I missed you Thursday the most. I cried. Because everyone left at the same time: Alec (18 year old brother) and my cousin and my friend. And you.

GOOD STUFF: You got me a lot of souvenirs while you were gone, right, mom?

"Mom!"

 Dearest Auggie: There was a toy party I went to... you'll have to wait and see. (Check the silver bag) Love, Mom. xo

 * * * 

*If you're interested, here's Auggie's BlogHer12 Tattle Tale List. 

__________________________________________________________________

BlogHer12 Re-Entry aka BlogHer12 Recap Paragraph

Home oh sweet home and how good it feels to sleep in thine own bed. There is such joy in coming home after having to spend four suffocating hours on a LaGuardia runway because of hull ripping 80 mph winds with nothing but water, a bag of pretzels, and a shared peanut chocolate bar from a generous and compassionate fellow BlogHer conference goer, Ann Imig.

Ann and I arrived back in Milwaukee four hours after we were scheduled to due to *bad weather* read: ominous grey clouds that'll have you bouncing around the inside of an airplane like the rubber ball at the end of a paddle. Our plane thumped and landed on the Mitchell Field Airport runway, skidding to a stop after hours of sitting helplessly on a plane while getting texts from my three kids so at the end of their rope of being without me that their texts sounded like this, "help me mom he's stealing my french fries!" and "he just hyperextended my finger!" I wanted to touch down in Milwaukee as soon as I could and go back to refereeing their fights and snapping their dislocated phalanges back into place.

My heart sang at the sight of my three boys waiting for me at the airport, especially the littlest who still runs at me like he just spotted the train at the zoo. The hugs, the kisses, the smiles, the sentiments of "we missed you, mom, how was your trip?," along with the confused looks on their faces when they saw me and Ann walk step-for-step down the ramp together in unintentional matching sister-wife maxi dresses; "they made you wear long dresses to the conference, mom?" were just what I needed after being away for almost a week.

My smile lasted exactly the 50 minutes it took to drive home from the airport to our house and then walk in through our back door.

The first thing I saw after I walked into our kitchen -- dead daisies in a vase full of grey slime water -- should have been my tip off.

I didn't want to start in right away, but what in the world?? No one smelled the Milwaukee Sewer Company in our own home?

Mark, you couldn't have thrown out this reeky water in the vase??

You didn't have it on the must-do list.

Mom, mom, that's not all dad didn't do. Mom ...

Kids, you tattle and there's no more Wii. You liked playing Wii all day while Mom was gone, didn't you? Don't blow it ...

What?? Mark -- Really? Wii all day? Oh, no. No. I wrote down 30 minutes max, especially for the little guy. No.

Mom, it was worse than that. It was really bad. He let us play till we got a headache. Then he made  Chicken Poppers for dinner every night. He took us to the fair every day and then he got what he wanted to eat there but made us stay till the end and just look at the goats for hours and don't even get me started on the pigs ...

Well, at least he took you out of the house every day. And it does look like your dad tried. I mean, he did a nice job of keeping up with the laundry; there's no piles.

MOM! Oh my gosh. He kept up with the laundry piles because there were no piles to keep up with! He NEVER DID THE LAUNDRY. We had to sleep in our gym shorts.

I'll take care of it now -- it's okay. There's no dishes all over the counters and I appreciate that. Did someone break the dishwasher door? Looks like it won't close.

That's cuz it's stuffed with dishes, mom! Dad never did them and he stuffed everything in there two minutes before we left to get you. We had to eat out of the baby bowls of ours you're saving from when we were little for us to give to our kids.

I looked up for my husband, wanting to be fair and hear his take on things, also secretly hoping it wasn't as bad as the reports coming in. But he was already sacked out on the sofa, flat on his back, and sounding like a twin engine. He was off duty, wiped out, and the kids were lined up to talk to me, waiting their turn to whisper their list of transgressions and sins done against them in my BlogHer absence.

I listened  to each of my children, holding individual confessionals, so hungry were they for my validation of how they were wronged. The oldest told of  how his dad never let him drive, the middle guy stammering about how he was both made into Cinderfella and an airport dispatcher for relaying phone messages, and the youngest: hopping on both feet begging for "some real food tonight, okay, mom?"

With my sleeves rolled up, I headed for the kitchen sink and began rinsing and washing down the dishes I was pulling out from inside the dishwasher. The youngest watched, mesmerized: "Look how long you rinse, Mom. All the dishes dad did while you were gone had brown spots and streaks on them and I'd just put them back in the sink and not feel like eating any more."

I have been home two hours, and the laundry is washed and folded, dinner plates from home-made baked chicken and roasted potatoes are being scraped, and the kitchen table that formerly looked like Hansel and Gretel had passed through is now crumb-and-dead-daisy free.

Two hours home, and things around here look less ravaged and Social Services Call Needed.

Except for my black manicure. After just two hours, the polished nails which managed to stay spalicious for five days straight while in NYC now look like they belong to a teenage runaway working the dart throw at the local county fair my children haunted all week.

 And I thought the landing on the tarmac was the rough one.

Image via photopin
-------------------------------------------------------------

**I had a fabulous time at BlogHer. Presenting on the panel, "Blogging for the Love of It" , was exciting and inspirational. My co-presenters Bon Stewart and Dorothy Snarker were two of the more interesting people I've met. Working the Serenity Suite was a gratifying treat. Conference highlights include spending time with Anne Flournoy, creator of the fantastic webseries The Louise Log, laughing with Heather of The EO so very many times, finally talking to Velveteen Mind after following her for the past four years, and having Suniverse rescue me at LGA. More on all this BlogHer recap later, including "is this really my life?" moments and mishaps. (Because they happened; hint: TSA pat down for "mysterious package")

Thank you, BlogHer, for a fabulous conference.

Finally, A Father's Day

Father's Day.

I never knew what to do about Father's Day growing up.

When our third grade teacher told us to make a card in class to give to to our fathers over the summer, I just pretended to make one.

My father died unexpectedly when I was in the first grade, and ever since, Father's Day has been an awkward, uncomfortable, reminder of what I didn't have.

But today, because of the blessing of TikiTiki Blog in my life, I finally have the perfect place where I can tell my father what he meant to me.

It really isn't about the amount of time, it's about the quality of that time.

I hope you stop over to TikiTiki and share in my memories of my father.

Thank you so much, to all of you, and Happy Father's Day to all the parents/caregivers/nurturers that give the children in their lives a lifetime of memories. You are so very important.

What The World Can Learn From The Quiet Ones

BlogHer announced its 2012 Voices of The Year and honorees yesterday. I am humbled and thrilled that this submission here, "One Thousand Cranes," was chosen as an honoree in the Parenting category. Thank you, BlogHer, and the entire dedicated staff there, for the support, the encouragement and for giving a place for our voices. This is no small thing to a writer. You have encouraged me and been the wind in my sails more than I can ever tell you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
************************************************************

Image cc 

In Asia, it is commonly said that folding one thousand paper origami cranes makes a person's wish come true.


Sometimes, I have to call out his name to see where he is in the house. He's always been like this, quiet ... and somewhere. And it wasn't like it was with his brothers, never if there's quiet, there's trouble, but more of a, he's quiet, let's go find him.

We'd search him out, and there he'd be; alone, silent, with his drawing pad under the dining room table. Only four-years-old but already sketching a tiger completely detailed with green eyes and a tassled tail; or quietly rolling out anatomically perfect scorpions from clay.

Or folding.

Folding and folding his paper origami.

My husband, who is a conservative white collar worker by day and secret renaissance man at home, is the one who has introduced all three of our boys to what has become the major hobby in their lives.

He began our oldest son, now 17, with piano at age five.

With our youngest, he has shared his love of basketball, football, soccer, anything athletic.

Our middle son, the quiet one, was four-years-old, when one day -- as he sat drawing by himself, my husband sat down next to him, two shiny squares of paper in his hand. Cross legged on the floor, my husband silently, slowly began folding a 6x6 inch flat sheet into an origami crane.

With his thumbnail, he drew a sharp crease in the shiny gold foil, allowing time in between each fold for our son to imitate the precise movements with his own piece. I saw something in our peaceful son's eyes come alive with that very first time of paper folding. As he watched his father, I remember him breathlessly saying, "It's so cool that I can make my own toys."

Our son had found his thing; through my husband, he has learned the art of origami.

He has been folding origami for nine years now.

It suits his personality: he's happy in his own company, he becomes absorbed in his activities, and he is fueled by instant results from his labor. Some of his origami pieces can take up to one hundred folds and an hour and a half of dedicated work. When all the steps are complete, he holds the transformed paper in his hands and with self-affirming pride, admires what he has created from a square sheet of paper.

While he folds, he holds an instructional dialogue with me:

"Mom, did you know that the biggest mistake people make with origami is to not prefold?"

"Mom, did you know that if you think you can't do an origami any longer, you can just try again the next day?"

I have learned that when he is folding, it is the best time for me to catch a glimpse into those thoughts he keeps to himself, to find out more about who this pensive child of ours is.

At times, when he is so into his paper zone that he won't hear us call him, I'll send one of his brothers to go and check on him, to see how he's doing. They always return with the same news, "he's fine, Mom, he's just at the table, folding."

This pastime of paper folding has allowed him entry into the popularity clubs at school that would ordinarily be closed to someone in the outer circle like him. During class downtime, he'll begin to fold paper into fish, or frogs, or boxes, and a crowd will soon gather and with astonished praise, say, "That is so cool! Can you make me one?" In his non-hurried manner, he'll smile, happy to be accepted; reach for another sheet, and begin folding to make the paper crane, cricket, frog, to give to whomever wanted one, while they stand around -- quiet, much like him -- and watch.

I stand behind him sometimes, captured by his hands folding and refolding so deliberately, without a sound. I know that he is nowhere else at the moment, but in his zen of creating.

He once left me speechless with his remark of, "Mom, I know how I feel when I make something from nothing ... I can't even imagine how God felt when he made flowers and bugs."

He is my beautifully quirky son, and he has taught me to seek the quiet, feel the peace of still, and to find a moment by stepping out of the whizzing world for awhile.

"Mom," he asks me, between folds, "do you know the story of One Thousand Cranes? The story goes that if a person makes One Thousand Cranes, that their wish will come true?"

I don't have to make One Thousand Cranes, honey, I don't.

Image cc

An Acknowledgement To The Level of Craftiness Employed On A Daily Basis In This House

This used to frost me.

I mean, ooooh....really just frost me.

I used to get madder than a woman who's been arguing with her local library for the past three months over who's got the Disney's Prince of Egypt DVD.

It seemed that anywhere I looked in my house, there'd be the very thing that would just push me right over the edge.

The near empty Kool-Aid pitcher in the middle shelf of the refrigerator.

The two drops of apple juice left in the gallon, next to the Kool-Aid.

The trash can under the sink that was kinda full, but not full enough to spill out...yet.

Our Mr. Coffee, along side the toaster, with barely 1/4 cup of coffee left in the pot. 

Tony The Tiger smiling at me from a cereal box filled with, oh...what? Let's say FOUR frosted flakes inside.

A snack cabinet loaded with bags of Lay's, Jay's, Doritos; each one filled with a precise count of no more than seven, no less then four, chips.

The gas gauge in the car; at a level where the *pingpingping* of the cutest little gas pump ever has been lit since last Thursday -- at least.

And the soap dispensers in the bathroom....my three all answer yes when I ask them if they've washed their hands; so, are we using air as soap now because when I went to wash my hands just now the pump I saw in there hasn't seen soap in it since Jillian tried to convince me to lose 20 pounds in 30 days the day after New Year's.

But, tonight, when I opened the refrigerator door and saw the Kool-Aid pitcher sitting on the shelf with only an eighth of an inch of yellow liquid silt covering its bottom, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Holy cow but the forethought the four guilty parties in this house go through to NOT be the ones to have to make the fresh Kool-Aid, or empty out the apple juice and crush the container and bring a new gallon up from the basement, the piling up of the trash -- like a game of Mr. Tip It.  How there is just enough coffee in Mr. Coffee to make it look like there is still some coffee in Mr. Coffee, leaving cereal in the boxes so it sounds like there is still cereal in the boxes so they don't have to be the ones to throw out the box and take it to recycling, same MO with the bags of chips in the snack cabinet...if you shake the bag and hear something in there, then you don't have to be the one to get rid of the empty one and replace it with a new one from downstairs.  Perfectly timing out the gas longevity in the car so it juuuuust gets you home, but no one else anywhere else.

And the empty soap dispensers in the bathrooms.... let's just say that if that's the level of cleanliness in this house, then it was no small miracle the swine flu didn't take us out last year.

It astounds me; the cerebral gymnastics required to calculatingly measure, determine, estimate how much is not too much but just right for leaving the Kool-Aid, juice, snacks, car, trash, coffee, full enough so that no labor or replenishing is required on their part.

I noticed a trophy store on the way home from school the other day, I'll be stopping by there and placing four orders tomorrow, because such skillful levels of ingenuity just can't be left unrecognized.

Bravo, children, well done. 

Please, sir, the trophy over there? The big one? Make it out to read "First Place: To The Artful Kool-Aid Dodger."
________________________________________________

Therapy Post

It is quite disconcerting to hear screams that continue from my children that are downstairs, when I am busy cleaning upstairs, and the father of the children is with them, downstairs.

It perplexes me that upon my return home after finishing working the hours at my job that is away from home, I am attacked by my children at the door with cries of, "Finally! We get to eat!" though the father has been home with them, in the house, while I have been gone, away from the house.

It is off putting that despite taping my husband snoring as evidence, he insists the footage I have is extraordinary and atypical, and that most nights he hardly emits anything above a nasally whistle.

It is disturbing that all four of the males that I share a home with have refrigerator blindness and I am the only one that is able to locate the orange juice and maple syrup in the mornings.

It is upsetting that though I ask the children to each take care of their own laundry folding and putting away on a weekly basis, that communal disturbances continue to break out between the age groups when it is time for the weekly laundry distribution.

It leaves me with head shaking bewilderment that though I am the smallest of three males in this house, I am the only one who is left unnerved enough by the howling coyotes in the field behind our home, to still be able to take out the garbage in the evening.

It baffles me to the point of cross eyedness that our children complain about "creepy, fiendish fields" around our home and ask why we're not able to live in a place where neighbors are five feet away as their friends do.

It frosts me to no end that though I have preached on the expense of the snakpak individual pouch cranberries that are reserved solely for lunches, and therefore have kept the snack cabinet filled with the large Family Sized Pouch of cranberries for home snacking, that the members of this household continue to snack at home from the expensive lunch snakpak cranberries pouch.

I find it quite annoying that I am asked "What's for dinner" as a disguised form of the question "Will I like it?" and then told I am overreacting when I answer with "You'll eat what you're served" when they say they are only asking a simple question.

I have a feeling of great annoyance as a result of the children's inability to properly secure the orange juice jug so that when I reach for the jug in the refrigerator it never fails to spill as a result of an insecure cap closure.

I feel my temples severely constrict when I see healthy children idly spending time on the family sofa, expending their energy on quick witted name calling and tossing balled up sweaty socks at each other, while the father of the children rests his eyes for "just a few minutes" watching a football game on the sole television in the house, while guarding the remote like an aging napping dog in front of his food dish.

I have feelings of mounting anger when I ask my children if they have put away their laundered clothing and they have answered me with a yes, only to find columns of T-shirts hidden behind the toy box in their bedroom three days later. 

I find it irritating and baffling when I am behind the steering wheel of the car and asked if I know where I am going by my husband. I temper this feeling with sarcastic thoughts of Poor Man, He must truly worry when I chauffeur his children around without the astounding availability of having him only inches away.

It is exasperating when I am asked for photo identification along with my credit card when making a purchase at a store, while the woman in line in front of me has only to provide the credit card. When questioning the clerk, I am told my handwriting is difficult to read. I tell her description is subjective and she exasperates me further with her response of a double eye blink.

I have a strong feeling of displeasure and find it extremely offensive that humans standing next to me in the cereal aisle feel it permissible to pass strong gas, as though the silence of it makes it a non occurrence. It demands tremendous self control on my part, as well as biting my lower lip to not turn and say, "that which cannot be heard will sure as hell still be smelt."

It vexes me that despite telling the youngest child that we are only purchasing things from our list while at the store, that I am asked twenty or thirty times to purchase things that are off the list. I find this feeling akin to drinking two pots of double measured coffee.


*Thank you, dear reader, for a much needed therapy session.  Payment in chocolate truffles is on its way. 
_______________________________________________________

Is This A Common Condition?

Did I ever tell you how lucky I am that I found a place that will not only take my stories of parenting mediocrity, but asks for them?

I am that lucky.

Today, at Aiming Low, I have a post up where I confess to you the condition my significant other suffers from.

I hope you are not affected by the same in your household, but if you are, let's exchange emails and commiserate.

Hope to see you here.
 
AIMING LOW: "Here at Aiming Low we strive for anti-perfection."

What The Boys Would Be Like Without You, Or An Extremely Belated Happy Father's Day

Here you are, with our three boys, holding up the grass snake you found in the yard that day. You had first found the skin that he had shed along the bushes at the side of the house, and somehow you knew that there would be a snake not too far behind.

You called our boys over, they came running. Somehow, when it's me calling their names, it's not received with the same excitement and enthusiasm. You didn't say a word, you just waited for them. I would have been shouting, "come here! a snake! look -- what do you think, what kind is it? how long do you think it is? do you think there's more? will he eat mice? we should go inside and google what kind, I wonder where he lives, you think it's poisonous? what if he bites!"

Somehow, you knew to say nothing but their names.

When they come to your side, you hold up the snake, they are doubley -- no, tripley -- pleased with the visual and unexpected surprise. I would have spoiled it with words.

I run over, too, to hear what all the shouts of  "me! can I hold it? I want to hold it!" are about.

A common garden snake, but you turned it into a day where they peered into their future, and -- in an instant, saw what they could be like one day. To see what being a father can mean and gave them a role to aspire to.

I can't do that.

If they were with just me, their conversations would include words like, "adorable, sweet, cute as can be."

If they were with just me, they would have heard me scream at the first uncoiling of that snake in the bushes, and they would have had to come to my rescue.

If they were with just me, you wouldn't see the joy that their smiles can barely contain in the picture above, while they feel what it is like to be a boy, who has a father.

If they were with just me, they would secretly pray at night for a father; just like I did, just like my two brothers did.

Happy Extremely Belated Publicly Declared Father's Day To You ...

With love,

from your kingdom

**My father passed away suddenly when I was in the first grade. My brother was seven, my other brother two. I spent my entire childhood wishing for a father. In my days of dating, I would not become serious with anyone who wasn't father material.  And I was waiting for the best. The wait was indeed long, and the process disheartening. I met my husband when I was 33 years old, and I remember knowing, "this man would make a good father." I only wish my two brothers had had a father who would call out their names to show them a snake he had found in their garden.