Here and There, But Not Really Anywhere

First things first...metal cake pan strikes again!  It hasn't let me down yet; this cake is moist and fluffy and delicious, even without frosting.  (I know, how can I not have frosting?!  I have no semisweet chocolate in the house in order to do something easy and I'm too lazy to do the whole powdered sugar thing.  The stuff in a can is not an option for me.)  Frosting would, however, be the icing on the cake.

I know you are laughing so hard you are crying right now.

On a totally unrelated note, which, by the way, is how this post is going to go, I want to clarify something.  It seems my previous post has caused some confusion and I never want to seem like something (someone) I'm not.  Like...an organized parent.  Although I've had those charts for two years, we have never used them.  I put them up yesterday afternoon and Michaela was excited about them, and wrote all those chores down.  I'm pretty sure it's because her dad jokingly told her that she was going to have to start taking out the trash.  And cooking dinner.  She is just so sweet to oblige. 

Following through with any kind of chore regimen is something we have never been able to do.  I have been (we have been) (Mike and I, not all my personalities) terrible about teaching the kids to clean up after themselves after meals, or after showers, or after they play.  They rarely put their dishes in or next to the sink; the rarely put their dirty clothes in the basket in the back.  But, they don't see it done by us, either.  I tend to go around at night and collect all the dirty clothes.  I also do the dishes kind of all at once at the end of the day.  It isn't good, but I have a hard time changing my ways. 

A couple of commenters asked about the chart, if we compensated for chores done, how it worked.  I can't answer those questions yet.  I would love your input, though.  If you have a system that works, I'd love to hear about it.  I've read on some blogs about this a little.  The Pioneer Woman, quite a while back now, had a post about a cool system that works in their home.  Mindee at Our Front Door had a great scheme for the summer, and maybe she has a different plan for the school year...Mindee, want to share? 

I will say that lately the two older kids have helped clear the table just before we ate our next meal, so the old dishes had been there a while, but they were very willing to help.  Twice Christian cleared the table while I finished getting dinner ready, and I didn't ask him to do it.  This is the kid who has told me that the house he was playing at was really clean, and that we should clean up our house.  Ouch.  I suppose I should strike while the iron is hot.  They are big enough to help and are even willing at this point.  Eliana also wants to help-she often puts her own dirty dishes in the sink (this can be a problem when they are not the plastic kind) and wants to help load the washing machine with dirty clothes.  She likes to throw her own diapers away (thankfully they've all only been wet, since she has also removed them), as well as other trash. 

Why am I not taking advantage of all this helpfulness??!  I am realizing as I write this that I have no excuses.  My only one is being an obsessive-compulsive controller.  This is something that is going to bite me in the behonkey big time if I don't let it go, though.  So what if the kids don't sweep as thoroughly as I do, and even if I have to go over it later, it's good for them to do it.  Because one day I'm going to ask them to put away their clothes or load the dishwasher and they're going to look at me with one eyebrow raised and say,"That's your job."  And that's what I will have taught them!

And it's not even like I do it that well. 

It has been raining here for a month.  What is up with that?  My brain, which was not in good shape before, is soggy.  Soggy like the Cheerios in the bowl that we clear away just before we sit down to eat dinner. 

I am very tired of the rain.  And I like a rainy day.  But twenty rainy days out of the last thirty?  Or something like that.  It's a bit much.  

I wish I had pictures to put up.  Actually, I do have pictures, and videos, but I don't know how to format the videos and I need to figure that out, and then I can put these other posts up that I have planned.  They are mainly for the grandparents...school projects and Eliana singing.  At any rate...it's coming!  I promise.

Well, my piece of cake is gone, much like the time you just spent reading this nonsense.  I appreciate a great deal the fact that people come by here and spend a little time with us on any given day.  There are a LOT of blogs out there, and many talented writers, so the fact that there are folks who choose to pop by makes my day.  I hope that whoever has managed to read this through to the end goes on to have a wonderful Wednesday (and even if you quit after the first paragraph, I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday).  My kids have a Bible study Wednesday night, and they eat pizza first.  Woohoo!  That means I'm not cooking dinner tomorrow.  I recently realized in a profound and unsettling way that I don't like to cook.  I never knew it before, but I really don't.  I like to bake, but not cook.  And this is a problem, since there are people in the house who depend on me for meals, and I can't just give them chocolate cake all the time.  It's all for me.

I know, I said I was going.  Or did I?  I meant to.  I'm off to fold laundry (or not)...and look at Revelation.  That'll get me good and ready for bed, won't it?

Good night!  Or good morning!

Reminder

A couple of years ago I bought the kids chore charts; here's a little peek into my organizational skills-I just got around to hanging them on our fridge.  I stuck some magnet strips on the back and voila! Up they went. I'm too lazy to put the proper accent mark on that French word, please forgive me. 

Michaela discovered them on the refrigerator this evening and immediately erased her name and wrote the proper identification on her chart.  She then filled in all the blanks as she saw fit.  These are her DAILY chores. 

It must be worse than I thought around here.  I better get a move on.

I have to admit that it did make me laugh out loud.  I don't know where she gets her ambition from.  A generation removed from us, I think.

I Should Have Known

Michaela and Christian went outside late this afternoon to help their dad cut the grass.  Not that we have mini-mowers; they love to be out and they love to be with him...so they determined to find something useful to do in our front yard. 

Before he began mowing, all three of them went around the yard picking up large sticks that had fallen during all of the big rains that we've had recently; they also worked to remove the large mushrooms that insist on growing in our yard.  I won't mention what else they found on the mushrooms, but I will say that it is related to a very recent and gross post.  As long as they stay outside, and off my kids' shoes (or my kids in general!), I will be okay.

They also lent themselves to pulling and digging up weeds, which they have loved to do for a long time.  This works out well, since we always have a plethora of weeds which need to be dug up. 

Now, some of those folks who read this know how crazy I am that I am overly worried when it comes to germs, particularly germs that come from outside.  (The germs in our house, and in our car...well, they're ours.  So they don't count.  Unless you're my mom, then they do, particularly the ones in our car.)  I do, however, manage to let my kids play outside; when they come in, they go straight into the detoxification module bathtub and everyone stays happy.  Today, shortly after I heard Mike through the front windows (I was standing there with Eliana while she watched everyone else outside) telling Michaela to get up out of the grass because of the things-I-will-not-mention-that-were-on-the-mushrooms, that very same Michaela burst through the front door and ran into the back of the house.  I thought maybe she had to go to the bathroom-it seemed so urgent.  I called after her, and I admit it, I was freaking out on the inside because of whatever yucky stuff she may have brought in with her grassy, fungus pants (shoes get left by the front door-ALWAYS...I'm sure you're surprised); I had to ask her what she was up to.

Her reply?  "It's a secret!" 

I pressed,"What is it?" 

She yelled,"I'm writing a note!" 

She came out of our schoolroom with a pen in her hand; I, of course, said,"You didn't even wash your hands!"  She looked exasperated, rightly so, and told me it wouldn't take long.  Then she tilted her head to one side, sucked in her cheeks a little, and raised her eyebrows, as if to say,"Are you really going to make me get in the bath already?  I'm just writing a note, you moron." 

I left her alone to do whatever secret thing she was doing. 

She ran back outside after a couple of minutes and a bit later I poked my head out the door to tell them they needed to come in to bathe and get ready for dinner.  She asked me if I had gone into the schoolroom; I said that I hadn't but told her I would.  I left them out there for a bit longer, and went to check out the secret.

First, there was this...

And below it was this...

Inside was a note...

"This is for you, Mom.  We picked it out front.  Christian and Michaela   For your thirty-fifth Birthday."

This is where my children's hearts lie.  They see beauty in everything and they want to share it.  How I long for eyes that were as seeing as theirs. 

In spite of all the ways I am different from other moms (and they notice) they love me and long to show me that they do.  It is humbling...I learn so much from them.  That is an irony of parenting; often, I find that in their innocence and inexperience lies a great deal of genuine, sweet love-of life, of others, of the world around them.  It's something that I have lost, but get to participate in through them.  And this is a moment that I must go back to on those hard days, during the times when I think that I don't get paid enough for this job (or at all); I must remind myself that I do, in fact, get paid.  I get paid in weeds, and in love.  What could be more valuable than that?

Big Night!

It seems that I should just go ahead and make Friday evenings a get-some-stuff-done-around-the-house night. 

Wow.  Am I an old fart, or what?  Definitely not like the college days...

I will also be catching up on my Bible study (since I got the book so late), and maybe I will read some in Jane Eyre as well.  I just wanted to jot a little hello, in case anyone came by, though...and also bump the previous post from the top of the page.  One can only take reading that word in large letters so many times.

And just for fall fun...

(isn't the background pretty?)

It's About Maggots; You've Been Warned

We made it out to the playground today...I ran into a friend while picking Christian up from school, and she and her family were going to play for a bit outside, to "run off the wiggles."  I told her I would meet her over there shortly, went home for Eliana's shoes (I was carrying her-it's faster sometimes), and soon headed back out to the park that is on the other side of our church. 

It was a balmy day; it felt tropical here.  We all thought that any minute the skies would open up and the rains would come, but they never did.  But it wasn't so hot that we didn't want to be outside, so they got to run around with some friends and burn off some energy. 

This park lies next to a creek (it's a bit bigger than a creek but it isn't a river, you know?) and the kids love to go down there and feed the ducks, or just get dangerously close to the edge where the grassy bank goes down to a cliff-like dropoff which, of course, goes down to the (really nasty) water.  There are a couple of ledges also built in to the ground, almost like steps made out of dirt and stone which run all the way down the length of the creek until the small dam just before the road.  I'm sure none of this is easily pictured.  At any rate, the kids discovered some dead, maggot-filled fish rotting on the lowest of these ledges. 

Lovely, no?  I'm sure that's what you were NOT expecting me to write. 

They thought it was so fascinating to see them; maybe not to smell them, but they would not stop looking.  I could not stomach such a thing.  I can hardly stand to look at the meat from the grocery store that I am about to prepare when I make dinner.

Christian was running around with another little boy playing some game and had not been informed about these fish.  I had Eliana on the swings and slides and other areas of the playground, far away from stinky, rotting animals. 

Suddenly, there was Christian over near the ledge, without his shoe on, and one of the other kids was running around yelling to all the moms,"Christian stepped in the maggots!" over and over.  Christian stepped in the maggots?!  How on earth did Christian manage to step in the maggots?  Which means he stepped in dead fish.  Oh, how did he do that?!  I grabbed Eliana up onto my hip and headed over to where they all were, excitement and disgust all over the place.  Another mom had Christian's shoe in her hand, very gingerly holding it by a little tag on the tongue.  She handed it to me carefully, sympathetically, and after confirming that I had nothing to put it in, she went to grab a plastic bag she had on hand.  Generally, when I walk the block to the park, I don't take extra plastic bags in which to put dead-rotting-fish-maggot-shoes in.  I'll have to make a list and be sure to put that at the top.

I was going to toss the shoes, because right now I don't have hot water hooked up to my washing machine (leaky connection), and it was just too overwhelming to think of how I would handle such grossness.  In my kitchen sink?!  Yes, just before I get the pork ready for dinner!

My friend told me that I should not throw the shoes away, but that she would wash them in very hot water at her house and get them back to me.  Is that sweet or what?  My friends here know about my crazy germaphobia, and are supportive and (more than) kind.  At any rate, I gathered my kids together and told them we were headed home for showers...I felt all creepy-crawly, whether or not in reality there was a single thing on me other than all the regular billions of bacteria that hang out on my skin all the time.

I must say that poor Christian was a bit traumatized by the whole thing.  First, he was down on the ledge that is right next to the water.  This is a no-no.  In his six-year-old excitement over the dead fish he went down there with a couple of other boys to have a look.  I will never get this, but...that is what they do, isn't it?  Even the girls wanted to see it!  Blech.

Second, and more sadly, he was worried about the maggots.  I missed what happened right after he stepped in or on whatever he did.  I don't know what other kids said, for example.  However, as I stood there holding his shoe far away in front of me, tears sprung up into his eyes and he said,"What if they eat your brain?!  What if they eat my brain?!"  I blinked and my eyes got very big and I thought to myself,"What did those crazy boys say to him after he did this?"  Who knows.  It might be his own mind that came up with that one.  I looked at him and tried very calmly and with great sensitivity to tell him that that wouldn't happen because I'm not dead and he's not dead.  Maggots only eat dead things.  This conversation went on for quite a while...but I had pretty much expounded on all I knew about maggots already (they eat dead things); there are a lot of things I don't know about maggots.  I'm afraid it was very unsatisfactory for him in the end and left him with the proverbial more-questions-than-answers.

I got some laundry started right away and we all got cleaned up, which I think made everyone feel better.  I called Mike to give him a heads up on how upset Christian was about the maggots, and how worried he was.  He told me he was planning on coming home soon.

He came in shortly after that and handed me a pile of papers and said,"Read this."  I looked at the first page and saw a picture of a bunch of maggots and thought to myself,"Seriously?  Gross."  I started reading though.  It was an article from a couple of years ago on the medical value of maggots.

I KNOW!  You can't believe it.  Or maybe you already knew this.  It's weird, but apparently true.  I'm also reading that it's going on over in London...you never know what those nutty Britons are going to do next.  But they didn't come up with this maggot therapy.  It's actually centuries old.

Now, they don't just use any old maggots; they breed and sterilise them.  They are used to get rid of dead tissue in/on/around wounds and they leave healing skin behind, and alone!  Amazing little creatures, aren't they?  It seems to be more cost-effective as well as more successful than conventional antibiotics. 

I think this is God's way of helping me take one more little step.  One minute I think my head might explode because my son has stepped on a dead fish full of maggots.  The next minute I find that maggots are not only not going to hurt him (or me!) but are actually used in hospitals in some places. 

So be it, but I'm not so sure that I could undergo this particular kind of therapy...talk about the skin crawls.