being nice

Tonight.

During practice for the Harvest Festival, I slipped away from my harmonies to track Beatrix and found her filling up a play teapot at the downstairs bathroom sink. As I tried to convince her that this was a bad idea, the entire faucet fell off--the ENTIRE thing, spicket to neck to base--and a fountain of water sprayed off sideways down the left wall. I fumbled with the handles, finally turned off the water, gave a lame attempt at screwing the faucet back on, and settled for locking the bathroom door.

This evening Bea, who spent her nap time yelling from her crib for three hours, acted like a world-class punk; she screamed every time her friend Will came toward her, grabbed, shielded favorite things with her body and said, MINE. She did this for approximately two hours as my friend Sally and I kept down the fort over at her house while the husbands were (and still are) out on a man-date. This is after all day and all week with all the children (school's out today and was yesterday): vacuuming with two year-olds on our hip, breaking up arguments, feeding hungry mouths, etc., etc., with nary a break. "I don't even have the energy to make conversation," Sally said, and I responded by slithering off her living room chair.

Tonight--after watching homecoming fireworks and a clear sky full of stars in Sally's driveway with Elspeth snug on my hip--after I pulled into our driveway, Elspeth inexplicably locked all the car doors from inside, shutting in herself, Merry, and Bea, and setting off the car alarm. At this point--almost 9 o'clock, I calmly looked for my keys, finally getting into the driver's seat and turning off the alarm.

About twenty minutes ago, I rocked Bea and yelled commands out the door and down the hallway: "If you're not in your nightgown in ten seconds. . .And that's 10, 9, 8, 7. . ." Things were starting to get ugly.

About ten minutes ago, I was settling Elspeth into her bed when she made a weird turn and whacked my head with hers. "OW! OW! OW!" she stuttered, staccato, to which I, with swelling bump on my forehead, snapped, "Be QUIET, Elspeth! Your bump can't possibly hurt as much as mine!" She set off wailing: "You yelled at me and I hurt!"

I finally simmered down and realized how childish I was acting. "Elspeth, I hit my head and I was in pain and I'm really tired, so I talked to you with an ugly voice. Will you forgive me?" I felt so bad; here she was, exhausted herself and tear-streaked, and only four. "Did you have fun with Ben?" I asked, redirecting. "What was your favorite thing you did today?"

"Watching the stars with you," she said.

And that, the final heart-stab, ended the evening. Ah, sigh, why is is it so hard to keep my temper?

I've got to go downstairs, mop up the water (I'm not going to try to fix the faucet), put away muffins for a church event (I baked about four dozen today), and boil water for tea. And then I'm done.

Happy weekend, all. Be nice. I'll try to be.

guitars

Downstairs, a round plung of a guitar being tuned. Now something bluesy: dup, dup, dup, daoooa, dup, dup, dup--the hollow thunk of a guitar being put down, murmur of voices. Outside the rain falls straight down on the mail carrier, a man with square shoulders and square red face who, on hot days, flushes as red as Santa Claus. Like a spoon serving up mashed potatoes, the sunshine rounds off thick cloud cover. Does that make any sense? I know that last sentence didn't, and neither does this day--sunny, cold, rainy, sunny and rainy, drafty, warm. . .a capricious day.

Oh, the guitars are picking up. Soon Frank's harmonica will cut through the strumming. I should be down there--we're supposed to be practicing to play in the Harvest Festival this weekend. But I just needed a few minutes to surface from the sea of friends and children who have jigged through the house today. My head feels a bit ragged, the coffee I poured three hours ago is (surprise!) cold, and I just now--at four o'clock in the afternoon--managed to brush my hair from my morning shower. One of those good days, packed like fresh basil leaves into a cup--fragrant, dense, a whole summer in an hour.

I'm not making too much sense, people. Better go down and join the musicians.