Purely Hypothetical

So, I have this … friend … who cut her finger while slicing cheese for her kids’ lunch.  It’s not a bad cut, but it does need to be covered, or it stings (she told me).  Would you have any advice for my friend about how to keep her bandaids dry when she washes her hands?  I mean, how do you keep just one finger out of the water?  Or do you have to change bandaids each time?  Or live with icky wet bandaids?

She has to wash them a lot, you know.  She’s got three kids*, and two of them are still in diapers**.  She changes one diaper, and washes her hands.  Then 10 minutes later the other one needs a diaper change, so she needs to wash again.  Then the kids want to eat, so she’s gotta wash her hands before touching the food.  And that pesky food addiction of theirs tends to lead to more dirty diapers, and you can see the dilemma. 

What to do?

*What a coincidence, huh?

**Really, it’s eerie how much this friend and I have in common.  The big difference, of course, is that I never do anything this clumsy.

On A Clear Day You Can See The Barn*

*This was the title of a regular column in my high school’s newspaper.  To this day, I have no idea what it meant, not having been on the newspaper staff.  There was a barn (useful as a storage space for athletic equipment, and as a convenient canvass for grafitti from rival schools) on the school grounds, but you could pretty much see it on any kind of day.  I am sure there was some quasi-intellectual meaning that I am missing.

That is a really weird and long-winded way to say that I have been thinking about high school lately.  I liked high school.  I went to a big school (there were about 550 in my graduating class), but I had a niche of friends, neither popular nor unpopular, and I had fun.  The benefit of a big school is that there are lots of activities, events, and classes to try, and I loved that.

The Jellyman did not enjoy high school.  His family moved to Minnesota right before he started 9th grade.  His high school was small and clique-y, and the clique was for people who grew up in that town.  The Jellyman was out before he had a chance, and his friends were mostly from other schools.  (He was a swimmer, and since the school was too small for its own team, he was able to meet people that way.)

As Raisin nears her 4th birthday, she’s due for a pre-kindergarten screening.  Her slightly-freaked-out parents (she’s almost 4!?  What happened?) are due for some decision making.  Our house is located right on the border between two school districts, besides which Minnesota allows open enrollment**, in which parents can, with some restrictions, choose any public school for their kids.  Of course, there are private schools, too, but our money tree isn’t quite mature enough yet for that to be an option.

Her kindergarten experience will not necessarily dictate her entire educational future, and even if it did there are so many factors outside our choice that in a sense we are rolling the dice.  Still, as far as it is in our power, we want all of our kids to remember school the way I do, rather than the way the Jellyman does.

Did you like school?  If your parents could have made a different choice for you, what do you wish they had done differently?  What factors will you consider when making decisions about your kids’ education?

**Do all states have that?

I Need A Savior

I don’t know why that surprises me so much every Holy Week, but I inevitably end up in tears at the Maundy Thursday service.  I walk in the door thinking I’m OK, and then 5 minutes later the charade falls apart, and my heart is broken open.  Then I finally realize how desperate I am for new life.  It shouldn’t be a shock; it happens every year.  Yet every year I find myself wondering what happened to all my hope and joy. 

It’s not that I don’t miss it, either.  I know it’s gone, but somehow it never occurs to me that an infusion of grace might be the cure.  Maybe other Christians experience the same thing?  Should we have Easter twice a year, or something, to shore up my failing memory?

In any case, I have been reminded.  I have been to the tomb, and left there my doubts, shames, fears, and failings.  I am ready to wake up tomorrow and celebrate the life I have and the life that is coming.  And I am grateful.

Evangelism is not my thing.  It’s partly because I am an old-fashioned, Minnesota-nice, back-row Lutheran (read: confrontation of any sort is scary and bad).  Mostly, though, it’s because I understand and accept doubt.  I don’t know, either, why God allows bad things to happen to good people and vice versa.  I don’t have the answers about evolution, nor do I know which parts of the Bible are meant to be literal and unchanging, and which are open to new interpretation as times change.  A good part of the year, I am willing to debate those questions and to merge faith and doubt.  And I am always willing to acknowledge that another person may come away from that debate with completely different conclusions than I.

For the Easter season, though, I am content to bask in a faith that is unseeing.  I want to enjoy the hope of heaven, to believe fully in Jesus’ power and glory without worrying about what will happen in the meantime.

Remembering That Someday My Kids Might Read This Blog

Apple, Orange, and Raisin,

I complain a lot on this blog. It is the place I come to say things that I am too shy or scared or busy to say otherwise. I unload here about my fears and angers, and it makes me feel better.

Sometimes when I re-read previous entries, I think about how you might read them someday. I wonder if you might think that you were a burden, or that I didn’t love this baby time with you. That is not true.

It is stressful sometimes, keeping up with you. I am constantly challenged to do a better job as your mom, and sometimes I let the pressure get to me a little bit.

But then I think about what my life was like before you. It starts out with longing, like “Man, remember when we could just go see a movie whenever we felt like it? That rocked.” That feeling lasts about 10 seconds before I remember everything else — how sterile and boring my life was without you, how much richer and fuller I feel now than I did then.

One kiss from any of you is worth 10 million Saturday matinees. A morning in the park together makes up for months of sleepless nights. When you smile, I melt inside, and the temper tantrum I was so frustrated about 10 minutes ago disappears.

It’s important to me that you understand that I would never, ever trade this life for anything else. It is hard sometimes, but so is anything worth doing. I will not quit. I will always love you.

And I’ll understand when you need to be whiny sometimes, because I need that too.

Love, Mommy

One Good Day

That’s all it took for me to start feeling like the world is not, in fact, coming to an end.  For those of you who visit frequently, I apologize for all the negativity around here lately.  Want to hear some good news?

We are all, right this very second, healthy.  (Fate, pay attention — I am not tempting you.  No temptation here.  Stay on the straight and narrow.)

There is a Sephora opening in my local mall.  Will I ever be brave enough to enter?  Probably not.  If I do go in, will I be too cheap to buy anything?  Probably.  Still, exciting!

Spring comes even to Minnesota.  Bloggers from more moderate climes are posting pictures of their daffodils and their be-t-shirted kids playing outside, and my entire yard is still covered with snow, but we flirt daily with 40-degree temperatures, and we have seen the sun 4 out of the last 7 days.  So there.  You all wish you could live here, don’t you?

Despite breaking every rule of my diet during the last 5 weeks of I-deserve-some-ice-cream-because-oh-my-god-today-was-another-totally-craptastic-day, I have not regained the weight I lost before. 

I interviewed a potential babysitter today who’s name is Heaven.  My calendar said “Heaven is visiting.”  That has been cheering me up all day.

A Rant

Today we had to choose between paying more than we could afford to take our child to the ER, or waiting 3 hours for her to see a doctor for what we suspected was pneumonia (it was*).  Does that seem like something that shouldn’t happen in “the greatest country in the world?”  Yes, yes, it does.

And, as the Jellyman pointed out, we are the lucky ones.  We have choice, we have insurance, we have ways to find money for things we really can’t afford.

There has to be a better way than this.

*Confidential to the month of March: you suck.  You suck just as much as February.  I am so far beyond the end of my rope that my only hope is that there’s a really big trampoline at the bottom of this hole.**  Less lion, more lamb.  Now.

**Poor, poor pitiful me.  Here are the stops on the way down: Orange: ear infection.  Apple: ear infection.  Everybody: GI virus from hell.  Apple: influenza.  Roof: ginormous hole.  Ceiling: ginormous leak.  Orange: unidentified virus which morphed into influenza which has now caused pneumonia.  I think the technical term for my current mental state is “hummina-hummina-hummina.”

Take A Break

What I really want to do is write another post to vent about how hard things are.  But then I read all of your posts, and I realized we are all kind of there.

Virtually every blogger I read is just … over it.  Over the flu and the deaths of relatives, the minor inconveniences of life and the huge battles at work, the wait for JUST ONE NICE DAY, and then the realization that, no, you can’t enjoy it now because your to-do list is so long you don’t dare go outside.

We all need a break.  I do not have the money to fly you all to Aruba (if I did, I assure you I would not currently have a hole in my roof — oh, right, I’m not whining today.  I forgot.).  As a substitute, will you accept the following slightly mean video of people being tricked?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vdDMpx7e-0I

I Got Tagged!

I am too shy to tag anyone, so play if you want.  The rules are pasted at the bottom.

1.  I am afraid of ladders.  Not heights.  Ladders.

2.  I love March because of the Shamrock Shakes.  McDonald’s should always have Shamrock Shakes.

3.  One year, my parents signed me up for soccer, but my dad didn’t want me to wear my glasses while I played in case they got broken.  I’m sure I would’ve sucked anyway, but I’m thinking that didn’t improve my odds much.

4.  During my junior and senior years of college, I lived with three other girls in an on-campus apartment.  We had a rotating chore chart to keep track of our household duties.  The jobs included dusting, vacuuming, cooking, and baking bread.  Because that is what college girls do, yes?

5.  I have this weird thing where I seem to check the time right at 9:11.  It happens more than would seem normal, so I’ve started saying a prayer for the victims of 9/11 every time I see those numbers on the clock.  I thought maybe God was trying to tell me something.

6.  I hate my feet.

7.  I am lazy.  I want nothing more than just to curl up and read or watch TV all day.  You can imagine how often this happens in my daily life.

8.  My kids will probably never really believe in Santa, not because I don’t want them to, but because I keep slipping up and saying “we” did x or bought y, and then Raisin says, “No, Mama, Santa did that!”

9.  I can’t go to a playground without playing on the swings.  Swinging just feels so carefree.

10.  When the Jellyman and I first met, we lived in the same apartment complex and often took the same city bus to work in the morning.  A group of us sat in the back of the bus and read our horoscopes and did the trivia quiz from the paper.  It made me feel cool, because in high school I was more of a front-of-the-bus kind of girl.

HERE’S HOW YOU PLAY. ONCE YOU’VE BEEN TAGGED YOU HAVE TO WRITE A BLOG OF TEN WEIRD, RANDOM THINGS, FACTS OR HABITS ABOUT YOURSELF. AT THE END, YOU CHOOSE FIVE PEOPLE TO BE TAGGED, LISTING THEIR NAMES AND WHY YOU CHOSE THEM TO BE TAGGED. DON’T FORGET TO LEAVE THEM A COMMENT “YOU’RE IT” AND TO READ YOUR BLOG. YOU CAN’T TAG THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU. SINCE YOU CAN’T TAG THAT PERSON BACK, LET HIM OR HER KNOW WHEN YOU’VE POSTED YOUR BLOG SO HE OR SHE CAN READ YOUR ANSWERS.

A Prayer

Dear God,

I don’t really, in my heart of hearts, believe that you pick on people.

That being said, can you please start picking on somebody your own size?  I’m trying my damnedest here, so if you could throw me a bone, that’d just be swell.

Thanks,

Julie

*This message has been brought to you by My-son-has-the-flu-even-though-he-got-a-flu-shot Productions.  All rights reserved.

Hey, guess what? They’re toddlers now!

I am no longer allowed to go to the bathroom.

It’s not the “normal” mom thing where I can’t go to the bathroom ALONE.  No, I’m used to that.  Now I think I will just have to give up going altogether, at least while my kids are awake.

In the time it took me to retrieve Orange from the car, Apple dumped a bag of raisins on the (horrifically dirty) entry rug, and ate several.

During one bathroom break, they somehow worked together to get three craft flower arrangements off the kitchen table.  (Kitchen table: 3 feet tall.  Toddlers: 2.5 feet tall.  Please to explain to me how they got these things from the MIDDLE OF THE TABLE!?)

Apple started crying the next time I was in the bathroom.  Diagnosis: deep and distinctive tooth marks in his finger.

So.  How uncomfortable could a catheter really be?  Because I’m thinking they cannot be alone until they are — what — 25?