Anonymity has always been QUITE the thing with me. That’s why this blog is super, yaknow,  anonymous. 

I’m an odd mix of Private, Near-Reclusive Type and Totally Open Book. I’ve been inspired to attempt to define or discuss this today in a way I never have before. It’ll be stream of consciousness (like, isn’t it always?) and there will be no flow. I’m just going with it. Hang in there with me.

*

Nowhere on this site will you find my last name. My children’s last names. My old last name, my new last name. Kilgore is my fictitious last name and it’s the only one I choose to share publicly. I do not Facebook. I have an old fb page that I haven’t looked at in forever, but even that is not in my own name. The specifics and details that are inherent to facebook freak me out.

I do not use other people’s FIRST names without permission. Certainly no last names.

I do not tell even what TOWN I live in. I do not mention businesses by name that might give that away.

I do not specify my children’s birthdates, a common mommyblogger practice.

If I want to post a picture that has someone in it, it is ALWAYS approved by that person first. If I do not have your permission to use your first name, I will give you a nickname when I wish to mention you in posts. “Lovely Therapist Lady.” Or “HolyCousin” Or “LaLa.” Or “HolyCousin of the Midwest.”  If one of these individuals has interesting news in their lives… such as a new baby, etc, I will NOT mention it here without the person’s express approval first. I will not mention any city/town names.  I will not mention any workplaces. I have not. I will not.

Some people are compulsive liars.

Some people are compulsive truth tellers.

If I’m not a compulsive truth teller, I am REAL close. Way too close for most people to understand. At work, a common question is “what’d you break, Kelsey?” Or, “what’d you screw up now?” This is because I have a huge need to confess to everyone immediately over any thing I’ve done wrong. ANYTHING. It ends up magnifying my every flaw and fault, but I’m more comfortable with that than keeping it quiet. that seems wrong to me. I DID just forget to charge someone for a .99 cent gift bag and I SHOULD CONFESS. LIKE, LOUDLY. LIKE, NOW. LIKE, OH NO, NINETY NINE CENTS, FIRE ME NOW.

In larger things, I’ve been asked, “Why didn’t you just… LIE?”

Well, I kinda have a real hard time with that. I can lie possibly by omission for small periods of time, but not long ones and if you ask me ANYTHING at all I’ll spill it all.

Example:

did you cheat on your husband, as is widely rumored?

NO. I kissed someone when I was 21ish and was so hard on myself about it I never could bring myself to do it again. Although WOW did I want to cheat, like, DESPERATELY, but no I never came closer than that one wrong kiss with someone really weird. (BUT DID I THINK ABOUT IT?! OH MY GOSH, YES, LIKE ALL THE TIME THOSE LAST TWO MARRIED YEARS, AND IF THAT’S THE SAME THING TO YOU, THEN YES. FINE. SOOOO GUILTY, LOTS OF LOST HOURS OF SLEEP.)

See? It’s inconvenient.

Compulsive liars should never marry compulsive truth tellers. Just as a general rule. I think.  Makes sense.

I have a NEED for transparency. I do not have a need to tell people’s secrets.  I have a need to be able to discuss my own stuff. If I mention I am struggling because my financial advisor ex husband on television and radio is behind on child support or rent (he rents the house we used to share from me and rent is oddly not ever on time and then I have to consider the further damage this does to my credit since it’s in my name and not his), then it is because those are details that are on my mind that day. Details in my life. True details. That’s what I share here, and what I always have.

When i was married, any problem was often met with one of the following:

“Don’t think that.”

“Don’t ever say that.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t believe that.”

“Don’t take that job.”

“Don’t write that.”

“If you do think/say/do/believe/write that, then THAT is the problem and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

It was an effective means of silencing me.

This website was a place where I had more of a voice than any other place in my life. And someone like me, with a need for truth and a need for transparency… ah. That meant a lot. It still does.  Y’all didn’t mind if I said what I thought. Or if I wrote what I said. Or if I believed something you thought was wrong. Or any of it. I could tell you the good, the bad, the sinful, the glorious, the ANYTHING, and you were okay with it. There was never a need to shut me up and control me in that way. Not here. I could think what I wanted. And if you disagreed, you disagreed. If you said, I think that’s SO wrong, but i”ll let GOD deal with you on that… then I appreciated your honesty, your faith, and your trust.

I could be human and flawed and wrong and say and think and do and break all the wrong things. And it was still okay. You seemed to like or love me anyway. Maybe even more, because I shared it.

Here, there was more freedom of speech and thought than anywhere else. You were not threatened by my thoughts or words or beliefs. I have always appreciated that about you. Now you know why.

This was never a blog about my marriage. This was never a blog about the person I was married to. Make what you want of it now, but he was hardly mentioned. That simply was not the focus. A passing reference was more appropriate. It still is.

My ex husband has rescinded previous permission for me to use his name here or mention him in any way at all.

Ummmm. Okay, that made me laugh. I admit it. Also, why in the world would he be reading this? And…. I think it’s funny to request not to be mentioned in an anonymous blog by first name only, but OKAY. I can do that. I think it’s SILLY, but hey, OKAY.

Not mention him in any way…..?

Well that’s weird. I WAS married to him for 16 years and we do have a lot of kids together and I do have to see him and our finances are tied together in ways we both hate and cannot escape and I DON’T KNOW, but that seems a bit overly reactive and controlling and bizarre. I mean, it IS my life and as far as that is concerned, a PASSING reference here and there is still appropriate.

But I took the request seriously. I prayed. I researched my first amendment rights. I researched blogging rights. Defamation, etc.  I seriously considered how in the world I should or could honor this asinine request. I mean, I won’t be silenced anymore. And my voice is my voice, HERE, at least as always, and it sure isn’t going to be shut down now…. ?

Then I remembered. The ex used to tell clients to read this site. (no, i am not even kidding.) I would FREAK out and tell him to stop that and make sure he knew I would not change or edit or water down any content that I would have normally written anyway. I suspect that might be part of this. Whatever. This is a very small blog. Very few of you precious people are even there, and yet… so threatening, somehow.

I do not plan on revealing the TRULY despicable things that occurred during our marriage because I just DON’T. At this point. But legally, COULD I choose to do so? Yes. Now I know that. Since I’ve done all my research. Since I took that request seriously.

Thank you for hanging in there through this rambling monologue.

Note:

For future reference, the role of “Mike” will now be played by “Claude.” All pertinent character details remain the same. 

It was a LOVELY Mother’s Day here. I hope yours was as well.

The Friday before Mother’s Day, the first graders invited their mothers to a tea. Seth-7yr had approached me in the kitchen a couple weeks before and hugged me and asked if “sitting with a bunch of mothers and drinking tea and talking sounded like fun to me.”

Um…. I stalled.  i mean. SURE. Who doesn’t love a  little bonus anxiety attack?

“WELL. DOES IT?”

“If you’re inviting me to do that, then YES. If you will be there, I’ll be there.”

And he was. All of the little first graders came out to the hall one by one and took their mothers in by the hand. Seth-7yr pulled out a tiny chair for me, and then seated himself directly across from me.

He held my hand across the table and dimpled at me. The kids served the mommies some sort of ginger ale thing and cookies and brownies. They took turns standing and reading aloud a fill in the blank poem that they had composed for the moms.

It was during Seth-7yr’s poem that I learned that oranges are my favorite food. This was excellent insight, since I haven’t had one in 20 years at least, i had NO idea, so it’s good I was listening. (I did not correct this of course.)

The kids gave us gifts they had made, and it was SO fantastically enjoyable to sit with mommies and talk and have ‘tea’ and even though it struck fear in me that day in the kitchen when he first suggested it… those brief 30 minutes have become my favorite memory in the previous 13 years (or so) at that school.  I cried and laughed like the Neurotic Mommy the whole time, I was just SO blessed by those first graders and their sweetness.

Seth-7yr had another fill in the blank thing that had lots of fantastically inaccurate information the kids provided about their mothers. One of the sentences stated “My mom is as pretty as a _______.”

The child to the left and to the right had both neatly written “flower.”

Seth-7yr’s read “dog.” My mom is as pretty as a DOG. The mother to my left about fell out of her tiny little chair when she saw that.

I loved it. I asked him if he meant that in a really NICE way? I mean, we do have pretty dogs…?

“Yeah. Well. No.”

I waited. The mothers on each side of me tuned in as well. I wish I’d dressed a little cuter.

“It’s just that ‘flower’ is a LOT harder to spell than  ’dog.’ ”

Yes…. those three extra letters…. yes, I see. Isn’t he so CUTE?! Who knew that a lack of ability with analogies could be genetic? Made me so proud.

It’s already hanging on my bedroom wall. I’m as pretty as a dog, don’t let anyone tell ya otherwise.

Woof. 

The Damn Bird did not die.

It lived. Like, the bird was FINE. The bird was a total FAKER and had no impairments of any kind. It was probably just messing with its overprotective mama bird when it took the drama a little too far.

“No, mama bird, i cannot fly. I am too tired. Here. I think I will hop on this blond child’s finger and pretend i am a Disney bird just to watch you FREAK ON OUT over there on the fence. I’m fiiiine. You know it. I know it. But these people don’t know it and are already scurrying for  a shoe box and a heating pad and a prayer circle. THIS IS FUN.”

I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

THEN what happened is I stayed up ALL night with that bird. I fed it cat food through a straw. Every HOUR. I held on to the cat to keep him away and then i locked him out of my bedroom and then listened to the cat freak out all night after that. I checked the heating pad temperature all night.

When a baby bird looks at you through a clear plastic cup cockpit you have taped to a shoebox and OPENS WIDE ITS BABY MOUTH, let me tell you something. You practically remember how to lactate. I’m not kidding. It is POWERFUL, that sight.  I was mad and exhausted  but when that bird opened its little beak asking for more cat food and I totally jumped into action every single time, crooning, “oooohmygosh you sweet little baby, are you hungry? here I come, yum yum yum, come on, baby, eat.”

All night.

The next morning I was snapping at the kids and getting them off to school and they were like, “WHOAH. WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU?”

“I stayed up all night with the BIRD you shouldn’t have touched in the first place and YOU slept like babies, be quiet, do not EVEN talk right now, my eyes are killing me.”

After the school run, I got the shoebox and took it outside. Figured I’d let the bird look around and get re-oriented. I opened the lid and the big old faker about KNOCKED ME OVER with his haste to fly his little bird butt straight up to the nest.

He knew exactly where he was, and how to fly. He’d been babied and fed cat food all night long and was more than ready to get home to his mama.

I probably shoulda been pleased. I was not.

Ungrateful, manipulative bird.

The boys got in the car and asked how he was and I related the story of his miraculous recovery.

They named him Survivor.

I think other names might be more applicable, but okay, whatever. Master of Avian Deception is hard to remember anyway.

Two more TOTALLY unwanted ‘survivors’ in this house tonight.

The first one is a roach. I didn’t kill it. I let it run off, SO surprised was I that it had survived. I was cooking a mushroomy lean pocket thing. 2 minutes. On high. In the microwave. And when i opened the microwave…after TWO minutes….  it was in there running around like its feet were on fire.

NASTY. I watched in amazement as it ran off down my counter. Time to call the exterminator again. Clearly. Ew. I wasn’t hungry after that.

The second one is a BIRD.

As in, “never touch a baby BIRD, boys. Like, EVER.”

And i go outside and there is Caden-9yr with a baby bird perched on his FINGER like he’s Snow White or something.

And I’m MAD. MAAAAaaaaaAAAAd.

I told him it was too cute not to take a picture, so I did, but not to get confused because I was still mad. How many times have we discussed the never touch a baby bird thing? A LOT.

And clearly he TOUCHED the baby bird. And now we are responsible for the baby bird. The nest is high. It can almost fly but not quite.

I told the boys to just hang in there because we’d do our best THANKS NOW WE HAVE NO CHOICE, SNOW WHITE, but we’d probably all be crying our eyes out tomorrow when we had a cold dead baby bird to deal with and bury, AWESOME.

The boys seemed taken aback. So I figured they needed me to be more clear. The BIRD? It will DIE. Like, SOON. And we will all FALL APART with grief that is now in our path and THANKS but this was easily avoidable by like, NOT TOUCHING THE BABY BIRD IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Seth-7yr leaned over and smiled and I took another picture. Then resumed the lecture. (the pics are adorable. they won’t load. sorry.)

Ethan-13yr backed WAY up. His lip started to quiver.

“SEE?!?! IT’S ALREADY STARTED. WAY! TO! GO!”

Ethan-13yr said, “I am afraid to get too close to this bird. I’m going to be really upset if it doesn’t make it.”

“YES. Well said. That’s what I’m talking about. We are going to GRIEVE, boys and it is going to be AWFUL and I am not the kind to sugarcoat anything and there ya go. GREAT. Just hold on to your pants boys, because that’s where we’re going, and  FAST. Like, DEAD BIRD, HERE WE COME, DON’T NAME IT.”

And the boys are in bed right now. Asleep.

And I am awake with a damn bird in my BEDROOM, looking RIGHT at me. It is sticking its head out a hole in its shoebox (which is thoughtfully placed on a towel atop a heating pad on low) and there is a ventilated clear plastic cup covering the hole like a little cockpit so it can stare at me with its creepy little bird eyes and not have to hang out in the dark shoebox with the smushed cockroach (different one. we have plenty.)

I put the kids to bed and then made this little home for him with tape and a cup and a box and IT’S STARING RIGHT AT ME STILL. I’ m not a disney princess. I don’t like birds in my bedroom. Tomorrow he’s off to the nest, or die trying. I can’t stand this.

Caden-9yr wanted me to promise to take the bird to the vet if it doesn’t get stronger sooner.

I said NO and you better pray for that bird because NO. And then he got all misty eyed and I said maybe.

But I didn’t mean it.

We prayed. And the bird seems way healthy and has a REAL healthy attention span because it’s still staring at me.

I’m not sure why I’m so mad. But I am. MAD. I’ll discuss with therapist soon.

A few weeks back I went in and was like, “HELP ME, I JUST WANT TO LICK SOME MAN. I mean, literally, LICK some man’s cheek, HELP ME.”

Not anyone in particular. Just any old guy who understands power tools and dogs and trucks maybe. I had it in my head that it was suddenly completely unacceptable that the last person I kissed was Mike. No, not lately.  Like, pre-moved out. But it was like the equivalent of realizing you’ve gone back to work with guacamole breath after lunch and you can’t do anything about it..? Kinda like that. But that doesn’t make any sense. And I didn’t want a date. Or coffee. Or a boyfriend. GOOD GOD, NO. I didn’t even want to know this “real” man’s name. I just wanted to borrow his face for a few minutes to get rid of my guacamole breath. How awful is that?!

Anyway. She talked me through that and I won’t get into it but I GET it now and am no longer looking and thinking, “lickable?” and so I’m sure she can get me through a little bird rage. No problem.

It’s still staring at me.

I should probably be embarrassed at the state of this house. But I’m not. Sure, it looks HORRIBLE. But it’s a huge improvement.

Just this morning it was covered in blood. Bright red blood drips on all the floors, the door frames, and the carpets. Also, there was a lake of kelly green paint in the living room and all over my bright white favorite sheets, and me.

What’s even stranger is that last night there was blood everywhere too. From a different source. All over the house. And it had been cleaned up. (Thanks, Mom.)

IT’S BEEN A ROUGH 24 HOURS.

I think that’s my point. And also, I don’t care that the house is a wreck. At least it’s no longer dripping in blood.

I’ll back up.

To yesterday.

I grocery shopped in the morning and came home and made the beginnings of three different dinners for later in the week and  then I fell asleep. I’d been up all night with nightmares. My own.

After baseball yesterday evening, the kids and I ate dinner and were in the living room eating m&ms. I was telling them about my ability to distinguish yellow from non-yellow m&ms by taste alone in any given blind taste test they wanted to set up. (i wanted them to share with me.) Then Caden-9yr demonstrated he has inherited this gift. He can also tell a yellow from a non-yellow. Makes me so proud.

Somewhere in there kids were sent off to get ready for bed and then Seth-7yr runs at me from the kitchen saying, “I am bleeding. Very bad.”

He had been trying to open a new toothpaste. With a paring knife. For who knows WHAT reason, he never does stuff like that. I wrapped his bloody hand in a hot pink hand towel – so the blood would show less and freak him out less – secured it with a hair elastic, told him to hold it over his chest and put him in the car. There were a few stumbling phone conversations with various people. A friend came to get the other two boys. My mother planned to meet me at the emergency room. We went to the car.

I got him in his seat and Ethan-13yr turned around to address his brother and said, “WHATEVER!! YOU!! DO!!!…… DO!!! NOT!!! PANIC!!!! BECAUSE THAT WILL CAUSE YOUR PULSE TO RAAAAAACE AND THEN THE BLOOD WILL COME GUSHING!!! AND!!! SPURTING!!!! RIGHT OUT OF YOUR CUT, SO YOU SHOULD PROBABLY STAY REALLY CALM OR YOU’LL LOSE SOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOooooOOOOO MUCH MORE BLOOD AND THAT’S BAAAAD–”

At this point I found my voice again and started YELLING the words SHUT and UP over and over and over and over even though I NEVER say that to children in any tone of voice, ever. Last night was a monumental exception. A friend came and got the boys and at that moment i was PARTICULARLY glad to be free of any more of Ethan-13yr’s help.

At the emergency room Seth-7yr and my mom and I sat in a room and discussed Willie Nelson while we waited. Seth-7yr was in shock. He was clingy. We went to the ER down the street from me that employs the doctors and nurses who have failed their Bedside Manner courses and the big hospitals don’t want them. (too many examples proved this. WOW. But they fixed my kid, so there’s that.)

I laid across Seth-7yr and forcibly held him down and kissed him and whispered to him while he fought like hell against receiving 4 stitches. It was AWFUL.

I didn’t have insurance information and couldn’t reach Mike. (and then he wouldn’t give it to me. So that’s fun. I was in the middle of Bloodbath Number 2 this morning and texting about how and why I was legally entitled to their insurance cards and this was NOT okay, all the while mopping up more blood.) Last night I couldn’t answer ANY of the nurse’s questions, including, “do you work?” and I said “no” and my mother was all, “UH?” And that prompted an “oh yeah. I do.” I was tripping over last names and relationships and it was so hard to answer any of it when all that mattered was my baby was not okay.

And then he was sewed up. And we left. My friend brought my kids home and put them to bed and made me some large pink-ish red drink and I don’t know what it was but I said thank you and drank it and did not complain. My mom mopped up blood.

This morning I sat up and looked around me. I had put my favorite pretty embroidered white sheets on the bed last night. They were spotted green. So was I. And my pillow. I looked everywhere and couldn’t figure out how Seth-7yr’s injury had anything to do with this new mystery… but surely they were related.

They were.

As in, the chaos that ensues when people are running around in an emergency means a paint can might get kicked over in the living room and go unnoticed. And then the cat might walk through it and then sleep on my pillow and walk all over me at night, as he usually does, front and back, and leave little green pawprinty marks all over the house.

A quart of kelly green paint sat congealing in a puddle in the middle of the living room. The RENTAL HOUSE living room. I felt sick. But there was no time to clean it  up. I took the kids to school. Noticed the dogs were barking happily to a dog in the alley. I’d rush home and clean up the paint. But I needed to go check in with the school nurse about Seth-7yr. Off we went.

It took me 45 minutes to get back, thanks to the detour to the nurse’s office. The dogs were still barking.

I let them in. Blood. Everywhere. They were shaking. Bleeding. Panting. Generally just freaking out. They had sustained many fence injuries from trying to get through it to the other dog. When i went to look at the fence, they whined. They wouldn’t go out there again and they didn’t want me out there either.

Callie lost an entire nail. Then one of them ate it. Which means someone will poop it, I guess. There were gashes. And less obvious wounds. And I forgot all about the paint mess and just tried to calm down dogs. (You know, so that their little pulses wouldn’t race and cause blood to spurt everywhere at a faster rate. Apparently I failed, because WOW, the blood.)

They finally relaxed. I cleaned up paint. It took forever. Longer when I’m trying to inspire Mike to pay what is owed and cough up the damn insurance information. (He did. Finally. Sorta. Both. But not before I was all “THANK GOD WE ARE DIVORCED” and I meant it in all sincerity. Good GRIEF but I didn’t need that this morning and if he thought I somehow had the patience for it, well, that was quickly found to be incorrect. I was NOT kind. I was NOT patient.)

After the paint, i cleaned the blood. And then took the dogs to the vet and felt like WORST MOTHER EVER when she said that they both needed stitches. Duke had a deep gash between two toes that went through a tendon and into a joint capsule. Whatever that is.  He is stitched up and wearing a Cone of Shame on his head. Callie had smaller, more numerous injuries and was stitched up in at least three places. Because it’s the first of the month and I was trying to figure out rent when all other money is so far behind and a huge vet bill is EXACTLY what I needed, and I still don’t know about the ER costs since I couldn’t discuss insurance with them and WOW. There was this moment today where breathing was just really difficult. All panic-y, anxiety-ish, you know?

The boys helped me repair the fences.  Not that the dogs will go out there. Today they have only twinkled all over the vet’s office. The backyard is a Place of Trauma still. Not yet deemed safe for twinkling. No go zone.

The cat? AH. The cat is bright white, like my sheets were. Except now he’s green. Like my sheets ARE. 

Ethan-13yr is fine.

Caden-9yr is afraid he’s next. He’s sure he’s up next in this pattern of bloodshed and he’s worried and trying to use that to get him out of bedtime. I didn’t tell him that I am as surprised as he is that out of the 7 of us in this house, 3 needed stitches and somehow HE wasn’t one of them? yeah, that blew my mind too. Stay safe, babe.  Be watchin out.  night night.

At some point today I found a dried out green stringy thing in my hair. It was a celery string. From when i prepped all those dinners yesterday morning and de-stringed celery and it went flying and I forgot about it. A dehydrated celery string fragment was in my kelly green pawprinty hair, where it had been for an eventful 24 hours. How weird.

All of it.

We are a raggedy little bunch of bloodstained, paint spattered, vegetably accessorized creatures. Survivors, though. Definitely we are that.

Saturday was beautiful. Gorgeous weather, bright blue sky.

I took the boys to a park with the intention of having a picnic, but they were too excited to eat.  They ran off to the water and I calculated my distance as appropriate. I wanted to be close enough so that I could hear them if they got hurt, but far enough away that I wouldn’t know if and when they did disgusting stuff. I wanted them to go be brothers. Go be adventurous. Go be wild. Fall in and get filthy. maybe climb a tree and get a tick. step on a rusty hook and need a tetanus shot. Something. Anything.

I finished my salad and curled up under a tree. The other trees around us had already leafed out but the one above me had just started. Endless brown gray branches criss crossed and intersected across the endless blue. Tiny, delicate green leaves everywhere, just starting to appear. Dappled sunlight. Boys in the distance, being boys.

It was as perfect as it could possibly be. Then a sprinkler system came on (had no idea we had those there) and I had to get up and gather stuff and run. I picked a new spot. It was as perfect as it could possibly be. For fifteen minutes. Then another sprinkler popped up.  I ran.

The boys were filthy and happy. Caden-9yr carried around a dead fish he’d found, impaled upon a half of a fishing rod he’d also found. Ethan-13yr and Seth-7yr made makeshift rods and nets with things previous fishermen had lost or left behind. It was EXACTLY what I’d been hoping for.

With the right motivation and circumstances, they can come together in  sweet, creative, encouraging ways without any input from me at all. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere for me.

Later, we were at home and there was a minor disagreement and I called  out to one of the boys, “be a problem solver!”

And then a few minutes later, “Hey! Remember when I used to say that all the time to y’all? ‘Be a problem solver!’”

They all said yes.

Then I collapsed onto my bed and laughed and yelled, “That was before we had really big problems though huh? HA! Sometime in the last year or so I stopped saying that to y’all.”

There was a long pause and then someone sarcastically muttered, “VERY funny, Mom.”

But they figured it out. Or forgot about it. And i stayed where I was and laughed.

It all worked out okay.

I’m thinking that’s usually the case with us. It’s all working out pretty well. These boys are growing up and impressing me daily with their character… I don’t exactly know how we got to this point, but I’m so grateful. It’s what I always prayed for them, but more than I ever expected so soon.  Little else matters. They’re not perfect. They’re about as obnoxious as any three boys can be. But their ability to think and reason and process and rely on their OWN faith and their OWN convictions…. I wasn’t like that at their ages.

I was definitely the ‘stab a dead fish with half a fishing rod’ type… but this other stuff? That’s impressive.

* After work, I came home and put my oh so sore feet up in the air and watched Wicked Tuna. I kinda love that show.

* I’m so tired by the end of one of Mike’s weekends (that’s when I cram in all my work hours) that I can hardly talk or function.

* I communicate best with yes or no questions. If you ask me something harder, I just stare and shrug. The words cannot be found.

* YES, still liking the job. Although it does mean I hear more Taylor Swift music than any woman my age should have to hear.  But absolutely no where else would be so accommodating of my desire to work only when it doesn’t affect my ability to attend all baseball games, kid functions, church, or in any other way interfere with my time with the kids. People there are pretty great. (No, they don’t read this.  Kind people.)

* Work is pretty helpful for when there are big delays with other financial arrangements.

* Furniture. Still painting it. When have energy. Working toward big sale-y event in my mom’s cute-sy neighborhood. We think her neighbors might like the kind of stuff I do.

* Reassured kids I wasn’t dating or planning on it. I didn’t know this was necessary until one day at dinner all three freaked out when one child said the word ‘dating.’  They all jumped up and scooted their chairs back and around and did this weird reaction thing that made total sense to them. None to my mother and me. We were at a restaurant. I called them all back to me and pointed out that perhaps that meant we should discuss it.  While I was at it, I reassured them that my mother isn’t dating either. They calmed down.

* They’re a bit on edge.

* As am I. For different reasons entirely. License plates all seem to have hidden messages. Ever noticed that? I try not to.

* It may be that the boys’ dad’s girlfriend is ‘about the same age and shape’ as their sister. That has the boys on edge. Just a thought.

* I haven’t met her. She’s probably lovely. But I can see how those details might confuse them. Might… seem odd. Those details are hardly anything negative or wrong… just perhaps a bit surprising to the boys. And only to the boys. I’m just glad they say she’s very nice.

* I hope they weren’t worried about my dating a young boy-child type. HA. Oh….. I hope not. I didn’t think to ask. That wouldn’t happen. Much as I adore those three boys, the last thing I’d want is another one. That probably hasn’t occurred to them.

* See? this is why I don’t blog anymore. I’m so drained of everything that it comes out sounding like this.

* Did I ever tell you the diet coke thing did NOT last? I’m drinking again.

* I’d like to write. Like, fiction write. But did you see that last ‘sentence?’

* “Like, fiction write.”

* So maybe I’m not quite ready. It’s just that there’s so much stuff that needs to be written. Too bad words and I aren’t getting along better. It’s terribly inconvenient.

* Yesterday I asked my mom to meet me behind the Hooters. I needed to give her Callie to watch for a few hours.

* Never thought I’d ask anyone to meet me behind a Hooters. For any reason. Like, ever.

* I can hardly think straight. Talk. Write. Blog.

* I’m just here because I like y’all and i miss you when I’m gone.

The Underwear Thievery solution has not worked well. I said I’d let you know how it goes. i said I was optimistic.

I was wrong. 

The boys so enjoy the process of adjudicating Underwear Thievery issues that the behavior has actually INCREASED and now constantly there are even MORE accusations and consequences and discussions and crimes than there previously were. Who knew? I should have made it less interesting. Less rewarding. I’ll tweak it.

From Jeana, on Underwear Thievery Issues:

“I thought these kind of arguments would stop when they got older, but recently i broke up a fight that started because someone sat on someone else’s bed naked, ‘with a bare butt, Mom!’ We need bare butt court.”

CAREFUL. Make bare butt court really NOT FUN. That’s what we’ve learned, I think.

Just hours after Jeana left that comment on the previous post, THE EXACT scenario played out here. Even stranger, because no one has ever lodged this particular complaint before in this home. VERY surreal.

One exception though, is that no one here says “bare” or “butt.” No one says butt because I’m weird like that and we have to say Butt-ox, it’s a compound word, yaknow.

Also, no one says ‘bare’ because it confuses Seth-7yr.

If you mention your ‘bare arms’ or your ‘bare feet’ or your ‘bare butt’ EVERY SINGLE TIME Seth-7yr will stop the conversation and question at length why you have ‘bear arms’ or ‘bear feet’ or a bear butt’ when you are not, in fact, a bear.

It gets tedious. (And I try to avoid any cue that has a child sincerely look at me and say, “you have a BEAR butt? WHAT?” and “NO I DO NOT.” Also, it derails Caden-9yr into discussing his natural bear-like furriness, a nonexistent quality that he obsesses over and before you know it you’ve spent ten minutes assuring a relatively hairless child that he is indeed NORMAL and un-furred.)

So in our house the other night Caden-9yr starts screaming that Seth-7yr has sat on his bed not with a “bear butt,” or a “bare butt,” but with a “TOTALLY NEKKID BUTT-OX.”

Which is the same complaint as made in Jeana’s home, but with a slightly different visual cue, amiright? I’m picturing a large hairless ox type creature, perched on the edge of Caden-9yr’s bed. i go in there and Seth-7yr is not just sitting on his bed. He’s making sure his totally nekkid buttoxen is ALL over the bed, since it got such a great reaction from his brother.

I told him to stop being obnoxious and to get in the shower and told Caden-9yr to change his sheets, because he HAD been alarmingly, um, thorough.

And, ew.

They’re so STRANGE, these particular children. Wonderful, but so very very strange.

Before devotional time tonight, a family  meeting was held. This sometimes occurs when I have HAD IT with something or other and it needs to be addressed.

Such was the case.

I sat the boys down, told them to be QUIET until I asked for their input and introduced the subject:

Underwear Thievery

All three boys are OFTEN guilty of underwear thievery. This brother takes that brother’s underwear, fight in the hall. Another brother takes another brother’s underwear, fight in the kitchen. And on. And on. DAILY.  Everyone has plenty of underwear. But everyone wants everyone ELSE’S underwear. I don’t know why. I’ve seen the skid marks. I wouldn’t be so eager to thieve, but HEY, these are boys and I do not pretend to understand.

I’m so over this. DAILY I am called upon to referee who has taken whose underwear, why, and what should be done. (He’s WEARING it and you want it back NOW? No. That’s gross. He got away with it. Statute of limitations. No.)

I pointed out that they were all three often guilty of Underwear Thievery. Two boys pointed at their underwear (which was not in fact their own), in agreement with this assertion. I thanked them that no one ever steals my underwear and I never steal theirs. I try to give credit wherever it is due, and this is minimal but HEY it was true so I thanked them.

Caden-9yr said, “that’s only because yours is made all weird and small in the front and they wouldn’t fit us. We need room there.”

I said nothing.

No one said anything.

It was a long pause. I doubted the truth of this, but knew better than to say it.

Then Ethan-13yr said, “Well. It sounds like you KNOW that for a fact. Have you tried them on?”

And THEN there was disorder in the court with shouted denials and accusations flew left and right about which boys have tried on various pieces of my clothing.

The following was decided:

In the event that the Underwear Thief has in his custody a pair of underwear that is in dispute, but he is NOT yet wearing them, the other members of the family vote on the underwear and the majority rules correct ownership. If the underwear is deemed thieved, it must be returned graciously and with an apology, end of saga. If the underwear is ON the Underwear Thief, the other members of the family vote on the underwear’s rightful owner and if it is deemed thieved, the underwear does not have to be immediately returned, however a 10 push-up penalty is assessed, with an additional 5 kisses to be given to the Mommy and 5 additional kisses must be sweetly offered to the rightful owner of the underwear and if that brother is so affronted by the crime, he can bequeath his 5 kisses to the Mommy who will then gladly accept them. A lack of graciousness or argumentativeness at any time will cause additional penalties to be added.

As an example, we began with the first potential underwear thief and I called Seth-7yr over to me and asked him to turn around so I could check the brand and size of underwear he wore. It was unanimously decided they were not his own. Push-ups and kisses.

Caden-9yr was next and it was debated at length and then determined he was actually the rightful owner of his underwear.

Then Seth-7yr decided to pull off Ethan-13yr’s pajama pants to see exactly what he was hiding – it WAS suspicious after all that he was voluntarily wearing pants and it mighta been in order to conceal an act of  Underwear Thievery. Except he overzealously grabbed and pinched when he lunged for his pajama pants and Ethan-13yr collapsed into a writhing ball of pain on the floor. When he recovered, it was determined that he was in fact wearing his own underpants. Seth-7yr apologized. Not with a straight face. But still.

I’ll let you know how this goes.

I’m optimistic.

Every year the third graders bring a shoe box and create a diorama of one of Jesus’ miracles. Excellent project. Except for the word diorama.

Ew. I just can’t stand that word.

Anyway. Caden-9yr considered his miracle options and then, on the way to school, in a thoughtful and earnestly sincere voice he said, “Mom. I think I want to do my project on when Jesus healed the ten leopards.”

“He WHAT?”

“He healed the ten leopards.”

“Um…. ‘kay. I think that would be good. Perhaps this definitely does need a bit more research on your part. Good choice.”

By the time he came home from school, he was excited. He had gotten his subject matter approved AND was newly aware of the difference between a leper and a leopard. (That was a relief.) Ethan-12yr regaled him with the details of leprosy and Caden-9yr was more fascinated than ever with his miracle of choice.

“So a head could just FALL OFF a body?”

Ethan-12yr: “Well. Body parts just fall off. I don’t know about HEADS.”

Caden-9yr: “But a head IS a body part. And you said they fall off, BLOODLESSLY. Just… BAM. Gone.”

Ethan-12yr: “I think that’s more like fingers and toes.”

Caden-9yr: “MOM! CAN A HEAD JUST–?”

Me: “I have no idea Caden-9yr. If a head were to fall off, bloodless or otherwise, the person is dead and no longer a leper anyway, but in serious need of a miracle. Does that answer your question?”

Caden-9yr: “no.”

Me: “Oh. I thought it was cute when you thought they were leopards.”

Caden-9yr: “I. DID. NOT.”

Ethan-12yr and me: “Yeah ya did.”

Ethan-12yr said something about headless leopards at this point and I wandered off to find something and missed the rest of the conversation.

That night I dreamed that Caden-9yr took his completed shoebox to school and received a failing grade because there was Elvis instead of Jesus and there were ten decapitated plastic leopard figurines instead of lepers. But it was a really COOL looking project. Really artsy and textural and well done, even though it was all wrong.

I liked it, anyway.

A+ on that miracle.