Captain Me Planet

Private One, our eldest son, 10 and a half, just. started. a. shower. for. himself. without. being. asked.

Because he just felt like it.

The night before Easter. Traditional, somber, reverent, Easter grill out and dance party. The Captain and Private Three. Doing a little disco.

And only a week or so late, our Easter Egg Endeavor pics.

Private Three’s hands took more dye than the eggs…

Can you see the heart?

Heart Egg by Private Two

And just after Easter Day, more new life. I found a butterfly, sitting in the driveway, and brought it inside for the children to see. She stayed on Private Three, just long enough to grab my camera, get a so-so shot, and then we chased her around the house to set her free.

Friday night brought our Karate Kid’s second belt test. Moving on up to second yellow, with an orange stripe.

Blurry, but proud.

And last, but not least. This is my fridge.

And this is the floor beside my fridge.

And this the crawl space, under our house, as seen through the floor, beside my fridge. It’s a gaping hole.

Somebody didn’t seem to think that a constantly leaking fridge would cause much damage. Guess what? Wood tends to rot when wet. And rot spreads. And now we see that the front part of our second floor, the one that happens to be occupied by our children, is resting on an I beam, that rests on 2 2x4s, that rests on a plate of soggy, rotting, wood. Oh boy.

Have a happy Monday. I know we will, while I we try to keep our 5 year old out of the crawl space that is now in our kitchen.

The fart machine that has taken residence in our home (thanks Dad) is completely unnecessary. Between 3 boys (1 man in there, debatable), and 1 uninhibited girl, we have plenty of these, for real, with noxious fumes, to experience. I, of course, do not “pass gas”. I am a “southern gal”, who, thanks to my southern Mama, has been taught ultimate sphincter control. Some would say it is healthy to let it go, I say, tighten those muscles. No need to let it rip, if you can reabsorb, up to the esophagus if necessary. It may even help your abs.

Our youngest loves to leave his mark in any room he’s been in. He’s downright proud. The room takes on something foul that would scare man or beast. Try as we might, he insists on giggling, and announcing after the fact, when we’re wilting. He will not slip out of the room to save our nose hairs. It seems to be one of his strengths, his farts, but I’m not sure how to channel this in his education.

Our middle child, a girl, let’s’em go with no reserve. She won’t even wear panties if I don’t make her, even in a dress. If someone starts to faint, she shyly admits, and apologizes. At least that.

Our oldest. He’s entered the wild world of denial. It is never his fault. He’s not picking his nose, he’s scratching it. That rankness? Must be the dog. That stanky foot smell coming from his room? Has to be his little brother’s sandals. And, he doesn’t need a shower more than every 10 days, as apparently, he does not sweat. Therefore, he can wear that shirt for 4 days running. My mother-in-law warned me about this. Sure, she said at his birth, he’s so sweet now. But one day, that little head will stink. Not my baby, I thought, smothering his downy head in kisses. But dammit, he does. Sour, damp, moldy even. And he’s perfectly content to wallow in it.

So back to farting. I think my father gets perverse pleasure out of this. This insipid little machine has been hidden in my cabinets, behind my head, under the sofa cushion, in the laundry, the dishwasher, the dog food…and fought over, and over, and over. Seems everyone wants the priviledge of sounding off a fart. Something I don’t think I will ever understand. I mean, I have only recently admitted to actually ever having a bowel movement. My husband has thought I’d mastered the art of reabsorption. His favorite moment in our marriage was when I attempted to give birth to our daughter, and I pooed right there on the sheets. He could announce he knew, he knew, that I was human. I made poo. I acted like it never happened, and we didn’t discuss it for 5 years.

So anyway, after all this, I can only say again, thanks Dad. Our life is enriched in ways you cannot imagine. I’ll be hearing farts in my sleep, as well as the bickering to get the ability to make one. I know Mom is on my side. We’ll go down in sphincter-strength history. The last delusioned southern ladies on earth. I’m flexing right now.

(and Corndog, if you happen here, this is not a rip off, I’ve just gone undercover…ssshhhhh.)

Things are shifting in our house. Very recently, although somewhere in my head I knew it was happening, I just really got hit with the fact that A. We are not young parents anymore, and B. We have no more babies. Or even toddlers. What we have is a house of 2 parents gaining on 40, and elementary school aged kids. Kids.

This is somewhat assuaged by the fact that I keep them at home. Which is done largely to shelter them from the world while they are tender shoots, and all it’s inherent evils, and all that, and to give them a superior education upon a foundation of high moral character and spiritual development in our faith of choice, which is to follow Jesus, specifically, not just a general God or Spirit somewhere out there or in your back yard cherry tree, but primarily because I want them to be my babies forever. Mine. All mine. And I think, just maybe, that if I keep them with me long enough, tied to me in an only slightly twisted fashion, they may just forsake all others for as long as they all shall live and love me most forever. And tell me I’m pretty when I wear that brown shirt, and hug me until I can’t breathe, and bring me microwaved toast in bed for breakfast and try to put their tongue on mine because it feels funny (this is just the barely turned 5 year old, I promise, not some weird inappropriate fetish, and after the first and only time, I did tell him he needs to keep that tongue away from mine, so he tried to put it in my ear - but I stopped him, promise).

Private One. Over 10 now. Getting just a bit gawky. Got braces on his sweet teeth, and doesn’t realize when he wets his hair like that in the mornings to get rid of his bedhead he looks like the front man from Flock of Seagulls. Love him. His tennies fit me. He thinks his bright orange Old Navy fleece zip up is so cool, he puts it on every morning, of every day, no matter the weather. He suddenly demands privacy. Says I shouldn’t see him naked, but it’s OK if he walks in on me. I think this is backwards, but there is no arguing with him. Because he thinks he’s smarter than me, and nearly any one else he comes into contact with.

Watching American Idol tonight:

I really think she shouldn’t try so hard to be someone else when she’s singing. Ought to just relax.

Oh yeah, Mr. Man? You don’t know her, so I don’t see how you can comment on how she should or shouldn’t relax and not be something she’s not.

Well, it’s just so obvious. I mean, look at the way she’s pandering to the audience. Surely she doesn’t act like that with everyone all the time.

Oh.

Well, often, he is. But he doesn’t have anything on me, and doesn’t realize he can’t pull anything I’ve not pulled before. But it can be tough with 2 people in the house cut out of such similar cloth who must both always have the last word. Good thing I can pull rank. But that becomes less important when he does stuff like buy me my favorite ever flowers when he hears me mention them in the grocery store. He did. My boy bought me tulips last week. Said, take it out of my allowance, I want you to have them.

Darlin’ Private Two. Tall. Willowy. 8 years old. As beautiful with her teeth all missing and crowded as the day she was born. Mistaken as Private One’s twin occasionally, she’s so mature for her age. She’s sensitive. Dramatic. An artist. Rapid fire quick to tears, and sometimes feel stuck in the middle. She is harumphing now. Put out if she doesn’t like it. Expert eye roller. Begging for wedge shoes and heels and wishes I’d let her bare her bare midriff. Fat chance. She’s so lean and lovely. Yet just this week she said she wanted a body shaper girdle thing like mine to “pull this in” (pinching the one inch of flesh on her upper thigh). I ache to think she would ever think one tiny itty bitty millisecond that she is not just gorgeous. Because she really is. And it’s not just me saying it. So does her Dad, and grandparents. No really. Strangers too. Not that we ask them for affirmation regularly or anything, but sometimes, people just comment. But getting her from here to healthy adulthood will not be easy in the skinny, big boobed, half naked, Hollywood glamore-obsessed culture we live in. It makes me sick. And whether or not it offends anyone else, is a primary reason she is not in public school. Little girls learn all too early how to turn on the sexuality. She is tender. Let her be so until she matures to a ready-stage to take on more. And Lord, let me be able to help her know how to accept and love herself through your image of her.

Bringing up the rear, Private Three. This is the child that makes it all hit home. I have no babies. I watched him today, play outside at his grandparents. As he was coming in another child asked him if he could come back out and play in a bit. As he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head in consideration, and said so big-like, I dunno, dude, I’ll have to ask, my heart lept. Suddenly I realized there is no baby talk. No toddler talk. No more stutter that he carried for a while. Just kid talk. At 5. I know Private One was less savvy than this at 5. But that’s just the thing about being a second, third or fourth or whatever child. You pick up stuff. You outgrow Elmo faster. You insist on a big boy bed earlier. You refuse to wear Mommy’s favorite blue corduroy john-john with smocked trains on the front a whole lot sooner one Easter morning and instead want to wear some khakis and a white shirt and you’re only 2 and a half, and my last baby and also tell me in the same morning that those little blue white toed Keds are stupid because your big brother won’t wear them anymore either (not that I’m bitter).

This guy, our youngest, is the sort that will either invent a new form of energy to run our planet, and a way to live comfortably in outer space through some sort of molecular disintegration and reintegration travel. Or, he’ll wind up in jail. Some days, hard to tell. But he loves me mostest. Well, probably he doesn’t. But he’s the one that can’t seem to get enough of me, still. Hugs. Snuggles. Kisses. Compliments. Maybe he’s just feeling guilty for something I haven’t discovered that he’s drawn on or broken or taken apart yet. Whatever. It’s yummy. And it does keep him alive. For now.

So. My nest. Full. Busy. Exhausting. Sometimes insane. Never get it all organized, always twigs hanging out somewhere, or grubs ground into the bottom, or poop not scraped away. And it’s at capacity. Right? Isn’t it at full capacity? Didn’t we hatch the last egg like, 5 years ago? Aren’t I overwhelmed with what’s in it right now, especially when the wind blows extra hard and the nest shakes just a bit too much for comfort? Here’s where I’ve lost my ever-lovin bird brain. I could do it again. There. I said it (whatever) out loud. In public. To the internet. Who doesn’t give a rip, but I feel better. And Dad, don’t panic. I’ve had this conversation with Mom. We have no future egg laying plans. Yet. And may never. But I see our life changing. Shifting. Leaving a season to maybe never return. And it makes me think. About the best thing we’ve ever done other than marry each other. The richness of having these children that occasionally make me want to climb in a bottle and never come out (antidepressants, alcohol, zanax, pick your poison) are also the reason I get moving every day. The only eternal thing we’ll ever do. Getting them from here, to there. Whole and ready to fly by themselves.

Maybe you got to be a girly bird brain. Maybe it’s just that estrogen coursing through. But it can be hard to think that who’s in your nest, right now, and rapidly approaching the time to fly, is all you get to get prepared for the flight. Layin’ the egg may not be easy, and Lord knows the baby birds can wear you out. But look how awesome it is to get to watch them start to try their wings.

Today was a big day in our house. Private One has entered the world of pre-adolescence and adolescence via his new braces. He just looks so big with that silver on his teeth. Tell us what you think Mimi and Bapa, Og and Dede!

We just bought our oldest son a pair tennis shoes that fit ME. They fit me. Me. My feet. All I can see are those itty bitty toes I kissed those very early weeks and months. Long before they started stinking like a water treatment plant.

My boy’s feet are becoming a man’s. I knew it would happen. But. It still hurts my feelings. Grace in your journey, Private One. Grace for the road those men’s feet will travel.

Our youngest son, Private Three, as I type, is making farting sounds. Oh. Not just with his mouth. Or by sticking his hand under his arm. Or by blowing on some part of his arm or leg. He has a straw. From his mouth, down towards and turned up under his arm. And he is blowing. Loud sounds. Long, drawn out, have a stomach problem sort of sounds. And where did he learn this little bit of boy culture? Yep. Private One, our oldest son.

This bit of advance toot noise making is something Private One is quite proud of. And something he teaches most of his friends, if he find them fart-sound-worthy. And I, their mother, just observe, aghast, amazed, and trying not to laugh. That’s my job, right? The mom who says stop that. That’s rude. No, not at the table. Right now, that’s enough. Their sweet sister sits between them, working intricate handwriting in a new scrapbook, shaking her head in befuddlement. Why must they go on like this, she seems to say to me telepathically. And now, Private Three is playing the underarm toot-a-phone to a song from the movie Spirit. One of those nauseating Brian Adams tunes, something about getting off of his back, and into his dreams. Or something. And now, our daughter, Private Two, is commenting on how only boys think this is funny. With disdain, she eyes her brother.

And while I really agree, it is just odd, even disgusting. I mean, who really wants to recall the sounds of a very bad stomach bug? I can’t help but laugh. Because the boys think it is soooo funny. And their sheer enjoyment makes me laugh. And that’s my job, too.

Much to my surprise and delight, Private One is burning through simple multiplication facts, like 9x4, 7x5, and 8x6. We have never studied multiplication tables. We have never drilled Times Tables (ack, the thought gives me the heebies from my own elementary years). We don’t sing songs that include the facts. We could. We may. But we haven’t yet, and he’s getting it. Why? How? I wondered myself. And then I thought of the way we’ve always approached numbers. No memory, not yet at least, but relationship. The way numbers fit together, work together, relate. So when I put a sheet of multiplication problems in front of him, he naturally began to group the numbers. 9x4 means 9 sets of 4, or 4 sets of 9, and he figured out the answer, he didn’t just blurt it out of his storehouse of memorization. I know, I know, there are lots of reasons to do memorization, and I’m not knocking them. But I really like that with the understanding of the relationship of the numbers themselves, no problem is off limits. It can be deduced, eventually.

I’ve never shunned using fingers, toes or anything else that can be measured or counted. I’ve purchased oodles of manipulatives for the specific purpose of seeing how it works. When we’re in the car, and talking numbers, and have an equation like 144+123, we’ve talked about several ways to go at getting the answer. You can start with the ones, and get 7 for that place in the answer, go to the tens place, and get 6, and then wind up with the hundreds being 2, so the answer is 267. You can also do something you may know, like 100+100, which of course, is 200, and then go at getting the answer for 44+23. Which could be tackled by say, if you know what 40 and 20 is, do that first, and then go after the remaining 4+7. I know, if there is carrying over, it gets a bit more complicated, but if they are seeing it in their heads, they way they are describing it to happen, they’ll be able to work through it. When faced with an equation like 9+7, if there is a blank look, I’ll advise them to go back to an equation they know immediately, like 9+1. 10! Yep, now what’s left not accounted for…which would be 6, so the answer is 16, because 10+6 is 16. And on Animal Planet’s Extreme Thinkers last Sunday, there was a math genius solving problems in his head, faster than the kids with calculators that strived to beat him, like 4,257,921 x 7,465,103 and getting right! Faster than the calculators! And how did he achieve this amazing skill? Well, lots of brain practice, love of numbers, and discovering how to visualize, use his memory, and group the numbers in relationships to each other. I don’t presume that any of our children will be performing incredible feats of math, but it was cool to see that I haven’t been just lazy with our memorization facts. That there is merit to this approach.

Basically, I just love getting affirmed in the ways in which we have often just stumbled in handling the children’s schooling. Because there are those days, I’m sure I’m setting them up for miserable failure, and the inability to estimate the total price of a box of Fruity Pebbles and a gallon of milk. Not that we buy Fruity Pebbles. That would be sugar cereal. And then I’d have to worry about their teeth rotting out.

May I please, please share a huge thrill moment I just had. No, nothing risque’, nor fine liqour related. Or the winning of the Publisher’s Clearing House. Maybe better.

My boy, my first boy, Private One, expressed an opinion that melted my heart. After 4 days of “regular and formal” school work (the kind that involves a bit of instruction, direction, and I-don’t-care-if-you-don’t-like-it-ness but you will follow through-ness), he just approached me in the kitchen as I am cooking dinner. Mom, you were really right. This isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s kind of fun, and challenging, and I like whipping the books. Thanks. I’m sorry I was so ballistic over it in the beginning. Oh. my. soul. Thanks for the moment. It has been a good day. What, especially with me looking like Jennifer Love Hewitt and all.

Having a hair style crisis this last few weeks. Heck, I’m having an everything vanity-associated crisis. Upon turning 35 in December, my clothes don’t fit right, my hair is too 80s, the 10 pounds I’m always trying to lose, just infernal. And my daughter. She. is. just. gorgeous. Really. Other people say that, not just her grandmoms. And I’m starting to get jealous. Sick, huh.

Any way, so I made a hair appointment 911 call to my girl (I never know what the PC term is, kind of like, is stewardess/steward insulting now? Or is it server or waitress, or androgynous food bringing person). I said, girl, you have got to do something with the limp locks adorning my head. And I’m tired of hot rollers. She said I certainly should be, as no respectable in-style woman has used hot rollers since 1989. And even then, only in the south. Oh. So anyway, you’ve just got to do something, said I. So we booked an appointment.

As luck would have it, the three people I normally call to keep the children were all previously engaged, and I had to either A. take all three with me (10, 8 and 5, with really, the 5 yr. old being the issue, he’s like triplets all by himself), or B. Skip my desperately needed Hair Update. I took them. So Privates One, Two and Three were given their backpacks with school work and puzzle books, some change for the vending machine and the statement from me, that I, Captain Mom, would deliver swift and painful sentences if any behavior was displayed that made me look bad. As this, my looking bad in front of other people, was really all I am interested in. And they. would. not. do. that. to. me. And if they commited this heinous crime of mutiny, they would be very very sorry. And don’t distract my girl. She has scissors at my hair.

All the way over we drilled. Will we, for instance, climb all over the going up and going down chair, and fall out, taking a shelf of shampoos and frizz controls down with us? Nooooo mam, we will not. Check. Will we, say, alternately squirt conditioner and curling gel from the $28 bottles while Mommy’s head is under the drier and she can’t beat see you? Absolutely not. Of course not. Or, will we swap the contents of one hair stylist’s cabinet with contents kept under the sink, in the ladies’ room? We. would. never, they say innocently. Sure. Unfortunately, these things have been known to happen.

I park the car. Rapid fire repeat pertinent questions. Gather munitions and move out. As we enter the salon, each child gets one more penetrating gaze, which silently warns you will be sorry. Besides, I’ve said before, do you want to be those wild unsocialized unruly homeschoolers so many people expect? But what am I saying. These are the children that have each, at one time or another, thrown themselves in front of a moving grocery cart, screaming I WANT SUGAR CEREAL, albeit, they were much younger. But we can’t go back now. My girl sees me, and my children, as do the other stylist and clients, and I can feel the eyeballs follow us through the shop. It’s noon, after all, when few respectable children are not sitting at their desks in some school somewhere. Private One said he could actually hear some murmering. I threw out my chin, thought a desperate prayer, and ushered the children up the stairs and to my girl’s room.

And you know what? They. were. perfect. Each did what was brought along for them to do. Each kept their inside voices. Their manners, and their sweet attitudes. There was one minor Coke spill, but it was just an accident. No harm, no foul. Private Three (the 5 year old) even held the dustpan for my girl when she was cleaning up. What an impression that was, let me just tell you. And I, well I just smiled oh, yes, they are wonderful, yes, always a joy, hhmmm, yes homeschooling can just be amazing, well, we have a system, yes, very organized I must be, no, I suppose not, not every one is cut out for this, yes, probably through highschool, no, I just can’t imagine doing anything else, (other than run fast, in the direction away from my home, naked if necessary) just adorable, yes he is. As. if. it. were. ALWAYS. this. way. Ha. But boy, for one 2 hour span of time, they were in their glory. And I couldn’t be prouder. Made me look good. And my hair? Not so bad either. Kind of adds a Jennifer Love Hewitt thing to my look. More bang. Piece-y. Although, I’m much more attractive. Except for these 10 pounds. And the boobs. And the constant squinting when I speak. And oh, the seeing the ghosts thing.