Did You See That Dog?

Martin's night class every Tuesday means Girl's Night at Wazoo Farm--we eat early, pack on the candy, and watch TV. Okay, so it's a bit of a cliche--maybe we four females should be playing Scrabble or conjugating French verbs or writing proposals for energy conservation. Instead we eat gobstoppers and watch claymation. Life is full of compromise. Girl's Night with candy today, Nobel Prize tomorrow.

Tonight we had an extra girl--my dear mama, who's been letting me write in the morning and goof off with Martin, picking grapes and taking walks JUST THE TWO OF US(we also gallivanted off to eat sushi, our favorite thing to do without the kids).

Tonight the four of us women walked downtown and ordered barbecue sandwiches. Get this, the barbecue restaurant has switched locations and thus upgraded from a roll of papertowels to cloth napkins; from a concrete floor to carpet; bright turquoise walls (cracking) to dark maroon and ornamental wallpaper. BAD changes for a family like mine, whose eating experience includes mac-n-cheese all over the floor, children batting each other with fries, and everybody squirting their own ketchup. The new stuffy digs made me a little nervous, even though the pulled pork was as good as ever. Elspeth wanted to snuggle my left arm as I ate and Bea kept grabbing a full cup of soda and leaning over the edge of her highchair so it seemed she'd fall out, face-first, into the small meadow of noodles she'd dropped all over the floor. Sigh. A trough would be easier.

After barbecue we fastened the kids in the car and sought a little unwinding time in the winding roads of our county. We enjoyed the hills, golden with late sunlight, an old stone house up the hill from an ancient red barn, a one-room schoolhouse on a corner under spreading trees. We enjoyed the children who were plugged in and could not do much more than hit each other, make up, pinch each other, make up--and etc. On the way home, almost to town, I spied three boys above the road on a ridge, standing under a lovely tree, bellies pressed to a white picket fence. As we drove by, I saw a chunky kid in a red T-shirt pull his hand back and hurl something at our car, his mouth open in rapt anticipation.

Two driveways down, I swung the Subaru into an empty parking lot and headed back for the red T-shirt kid. I felt the sort of righteous excitement that adults who usually do not believe they are really adults feel, mixed with the same giddy anticipation the kid might have felt when he chucked the projectile at our car. I was going to put the fear of God in this kid, I thought as our tires crunched over the gravel of the driveway.

I had to hand it to them. As I swung open my door and looked over the top of the car, they just stood there looking at me. I would have fled, ashamed and shaking, and dove under my bed. I would have been petrified if an adult came zooming back in their car to give me what-for.

"Were you all throwing things at my car?"

They shrugged a little but not in a sneaky way. Then two of them pointed at the kid with the short hair and the red T.

"He did it."

"You threw something at my car."

No attempt to deny the undeniable. As I began to explain the dangers of throwing things at cars, the kid talked over the top of me with happy enthusiasm.

"See that dog up there?" he said, pointing up the driveway. "It's a pure-bred Husky."

"I do see that dog up there." I felt I must not be pressing my point. "No throwing things at cars, okay?"

"He's a pure-bred Husky. You see that dog? He's white and he's got blue eyes--"

Now a group of adults had stirred out of the garage by the pure-bred Husky with blue eyes.

"They were throwing things at the car!" I yelled up the driveway. In a lower voice, I reassured the kid again. "Yes, I DO see the dog up there." The man in a white T-shirt strode down toward us.

"Which one?" he asked.

I pointed the red T-shirt kid out. Then I sized up the man and began to soft-pedal. "It's okay, though. Just wanted to make sure they were being safe."

I did not want to be responsible for a kid getting whaled on by an embarrassed dad. Dad said, "Up to the house, boy." Then he said, "We don't live here--we were just helping out some friends. He was throwing apples at cars a couple of days ago."

Mom and I both tried to smooth things over as much as possible. Oddly, I felt moved by the kid's lack of repentance--maybe I had overreacted to a regular kid-thing. Hadn't I, as a kid, spread cattail fluff in the highway and watched semis create snowflurries? Or maybe I gave into this funny suspicion, that it couldn't be ME making a fuss as I am still not quite an adult(I think I am, really, but I don't feel it). Or maybe this kid suckered us all. As I backed the Subaru out of the driveway, the adults up by the Husky waved to us in such a friendly way you might have thought we'd all just shared an apple pie and a pot of coffee.

What a dog. Did you see that dog? It's pure-bred Husky with blue eyes. You don't see that kind of dog every day.

Hippy Hoppy

This woman is still spry as a spring-chicken. (So that's where Martin gets his sense of shake-it!)

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Happy Birthday, Grandma in Texas! It would have been nice if we could have convinced Beatrix to sing Come On, Sweet Pea properly, but by the time we turned on our camera she had dissolved into sillier attention-getting tactics. So here are the bits in honor of your birthday!

Weather Shifts

I believe the seasons are changing right now outside my window. At this instant storm clouds blow low across the the tops of the green hills; wind gusts through the ornamental plum. The cosmos are dipping their bright orange heads to black seed. The children, besweatered, pick the last of the raspberries.

We'll still have some weeks of fine tomatoes if the weather doesn't fall too low. Otherwise, as confirmed by our neighbors--the mother and daughter who live with a little white dog down the old brick road--we'll be slicing them in a pan and frying up some crispy green tomatoes. Martin intended to plant a whole crop of greens and sugarsnap peas, but he's back in his teaching mode and we'll be lucky if he mows the grass before I do.

I adore sweater weather, especially after the oppressive 90+ days we've endured so much of lately. Yesterday this time the temperature was climbing with a blazing sun in a clear sky but even last night when Mom and I walked to the ridge overlooking town, the weather was changing. The clouds were unbelievable: Renaissance clouds, Mom called them--great scoops of white cream, mounded thick and high, a thousand edges outlined in silver. When we tipped our heads back, loose buttercup-colored fluff trailed away, white wisps across blue.

I haven't seen clouds like this in many years. My mother reflected that my Nana, a painter, would have been beside herself with excitement at such a spectacle. Were I still a child, I would have pictured my Nana up in heaven with God, shaping those clouds with her hands and a sculptor's knife, tipping bottles of glitter and highlighting each golden curve with her fingertips. Looking down on us on that ridge in Pennsylvania, she would have blown them down over our heads, smiling at our open-mouthed wonder.

My Teacher's Pretty

News of Merry's first week at school:

My teacher's SO pretty.
My teacher lets us *chew gum*!
Not much more than that. But really, who could need or ask for more?
I folded to the pressure--Merry's bad memories of 'kids making fun of her plain backpack--and the night before school started, with a very bad attitude because--A. I hate crafting and B. I hate ironing--I affixed the butterfly transfers and pinned on the beads. No silly kids are gonna make fun of MY girl's backpack! (This parent also has her priorities straight.)

Help!

Elspeth and I are in dire need of help. We cracked open Cars and Trucks and Things That Go tonight and began our happy pursuit of Goldbug. This book is a staple from my childhood and I never cease to find delight in the corn, pickle, mustard, and other various foodstuff-inspired vehicles on each page.

Do you own this book? If not, go out and buy it immediately.

If you do own this book, please, please, drop everything you are doing RIGHT NOW. Find your copy and turn to pages 44-45. The pig family is picking out corn from Aunty Pastry's farm stand (Pa is taking a taste--he is such a, yes, you guessed it). Do you see Mistress Mouse winning the race? And Joe's long purple bigshot car? Joe looks as if he is about to choke on his cigar.

I have studied these pages for a short eternity and I cannot find Goldbug anywhere. Neither can Elspeth--and I am beginning to think my old hero R. Scarry forgot to slip him in. This can't be true! I would have remembered it as one of the greatest disappointments of my childhood!

Please. Please. Help us. WHERE IS GOLDBUG???

I'm not even sure I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Hoovie's Dead

Good ole Hoovie died today. He's been with us almost twelve years and seen us through six moves, four of them major cross-country affairs that tested his stamina. He's battled rocks, a megajar of chocolate sprinkles, hair chopped legitimately and sneakily from child heads, filthy basements, porches, and garages. He's been a dear friend to me, one that I never parted with except once, when a friend in need begged for him. Even then, I knew the friend wasn't worthy of Hoovie--it turns out, in the end, he wasn't--but despite possible abandonment issues, Hoovie stayed faithful and true, battered, blue, old and always ready to clean up a big mess. He never electrocuted me or the children; since his arrival at our wedding so long ago, ushered in by my own dear Granddad, he's done the job with a stiff upper lip and a companionable hum.

Yesterday I noticed Hoovie wasn't doing too well; as he helped me clean the fan tines and under beds, his hum broke into a deafening roar. But he kept going and so did I. Despite his age, I thought he could do anything, even though he'd let loose a puff of dust and began to complain so loudly my ears began to hurt. I almost said something but I thought I might be imagining things--after all, Hoovie's had a little trouble but never anything serious.

He had a good rest overnight in the front hallway, poised to conquer the main floor this morning before church. As the girls finished their cereal, I plugged in Hoovie, turned him on and
BANG!
He exploded. Parts flew from his front; a cloud of dust rose into the air! His death roar ended in a burning smell that brought the family running into the front hallway.

Sadly, I wheeled him onto the porch and went about cleaning the old-school way: broom and dustpan, rug-beating. It was okay, but it wasn't the job old Hoovie would have done.

He's still on the porch, standing there dejected against the post, his bag dirty and streaked. Still, there's some pride to him, the aura of a life well-lived, dirt and endless unmentionables well sucked, the repair shop avoided his long life. He's seen the country, Hoovie has, from the east to the west coast. A summer day in Pennsylvania was not a bad time to go. And he went in style. It's what Hoovie would have wanted.

Lovely Old Pennsylvania

There are few things that delight me more than driving past fields of corn. When we spent a year in Iowa, it took me almost ten months to begin appreciating the loveliness of the cornfields. In winter they were forbidding and eerie, wide stretches of wind-blighted desolation. Driving home from LaMars in January, I'd be blinded by sheets of blowing snow--once I became so confused at the debris swirling across with the flakes that I spied a white rabbit streaking in front of our fender. It must have been going eighty miles an hour, a white rabbit on a tiny snowmobile, ears laid back. Martin assured me that I was suffering some kind of mental illness and there had been no rabbit. Still I'm not entirely sure.

During the trip from Orange City, Iowa, to La Mars, where we drove to do much of our shopping, there was one tree, the only tree for twenty or thirty miles. It was tall and twisting on the smallest of rises with a sea of cornfields all around. I began looking forward to that tree, calling it by name: to me, a lover of trees, it was a sign of grace as I drove through that blank, barren landscape. The cold and the wind in that place left me breathless. One February I drove out to Walmart and bought a huge palm fern, which I stuffed into the back of our two-door Honda. It was freezing outside but the sun was strong and hot through the car windows. On the way home I sang out loud out of the pure joy afforded by this green tropical presence behind me. I do not think the palm weathered its brief contact with below 0 temperatures and thirty minutes of a car heater blasting, but it was worth the investment just for that giddy trip home.

Then came summer again, the summer before we left to move to Pennsylvania. The last two months of our stay in Iowa, the fields bewitched me: waves and waves of corn broken by bright explosions of sunflowers.

And then we moved east, back to my beloved forests of trees. No longer did I love one tree; there are so many that it is impossible to bestow my faithful affection on just one trunk and branches. Every day we walk or drive through an impossible richness of trees.

Some weeks ago, we drove home from holiday with Martin's family at Hershey; the drive home was spectacular in an eastern sort of way; farm houses, rolling hills, tiny towns filled with old bungalows, tiny farms and fields of corn and soybeans punctuated by fenced gardens of zinnias, echinacea, neat rows of vegetables.

Have patience through the chaos; wait until you get to the corn!


Here in this incredibly green corner of Pennsylvania, I never get bored by the seasons; a quick trip out of town and I am bowled over, every time, by beauty. Winter is long and a bit dreary, but there are no endless bare fields. Instead there are white rolling hills, houses tucked here and there, cattle like black checkmarks in the snow, and bright birds in the frozen garden. Every place I have had the privilege to live holds its own sort of beauty, but I do feel grateful that I have never had to look for it here. It is everywhere I turn, in the small gardens of my neighbors or the tiny creeks that wind through the valleys.

Someday We'll Laugh 'till We Cry

Remember this?
Occasionally I'll look at my offspring and wonder how in the world parenthood happened to me. I still feel just like me, fully separate with my own past, thoughts, and (ugh, I hate this word) dreams (shudder) but to three little girls, I am simply Mommy. Occasionally I'll try to share a good personal moment with them: Guess what? Mommy got a story accepted today!--but I'm lucky if I get more than a passing glance. They wouldn't care if I built the ark, not really--I'm Mommy and then I'm Mommy and I will forever be Mommy. And it's okay with me--that's natural and good (I'm under no illusion that they will never question the job I'm doing--they already do!). Still, whatever my popularity rating is or will be, I'm still Mommy to these three children, and I'm grateful for it.

Occasionally, I realize that there are signs that I am, indeed, a parent of three--I mean, beyond the obvious. Take, for instance, my second cup of coffee. It likes to live in the microwave and be discovered stone-cold at lunch time when I go to heat up a bowl of macaroni and cheese for a child. My mother's coffee and my mother-in-law's coffee loved to be cold and forgotten in the microwave, too. I mean, how many times can you, in good faith, reheat the same coffee in one day?
Remember this one? Is it funny yet?

After eating an enormous salad for lunch today, I was starving right around three o'clock. So I decided, while I was working on yet another draft of a short story, to treat myself to a hot cup of tea and a slice of apple pie with whipped cream. I've been saving this treat for a long time and this was a perfect opportunity: Merry at soccer and Elspea and Bea glued to the television (no guilt here). I actually managed to sit down when a friend came to the door, and I felt bad eating my pie in front of her, and then Martin came home and Merry was all in a lather about the inserts to her soccer socks--oh, you know how it goes. It wasn't until I was fixing supper that I happened to glance into the dining room where Elspeth was bent over a bowl, just about to take a bite--

NOOOOOOOOOO! MOMMY'S PIE!

I dashed in there and I ate that pie up, congealed whipped cream and all. It was delicious.

Finally, after supper tonight, I asked Merry to clear the table.

"Why do I have to be the one to clear the table?" she complained.
"Why did I have to be the one to cook dinner?" I echoed.
"I thought you liked cooking dinner," she countered.
"I thought YOU liked clearing the table," I said. She cleared the table without saying another word. WHAT UP, MAN?

Someday I'm going to remember these conversations and I'm going to laugh till I cry. Right?

* * * *
This is the thing every full-time parent realizes at some point, standing in the doorway, watching a child dump out a box of couscous on the kitchen floor or shove a pussywillow up her nose or step smack-dab in their own feces. Someday, this is gonna be hilarious. Someday, when I'm old and the kids are in college and I'm sitting with my friends drinking coffee, we are gonna totally bust a gut.

During the middle of the day, those before-dinner desperate minutes when you should be crunching peanuts and swigging beer but instead the house looks like it's been shaken by a giant toddler--during so many moments, the answer is always the same, though the questions are myriad:

Who's going to break up this fight?
Who's going to comfort this child with a tiny scratch who is crying like her arm was amputated?
Who's going to orchestrate meals, dole out snacks, smile at visitors, tuck a phone between their ear and shoulder while they simultaneously change a diaper and keep the kitchen from burning down?
Answer:
You got it. Put your own name right there and weep. Or laugh. Or nod with a seasoned air.

Anyone ready for school to begin?
I wish you could see me right now. I am salivating like a dog waiting for a package of hot dogs: me, me, me, me!

Truth be told, I am enjoying the last week of full-on girl time as we wait for the breakfast&bus mornings to return. These are times when I am so glad I chose to be home with these insane but precious creatures we call children, the ones that throw arms heedlessly around my neck no matter how much I resemble a boiling teakettle. They don't seem to mind the heat. I guess I shouldn't, either.

Sales at GAP or Burlap Sacks?

Pics are all from the historical files, showing some of the tamer fashion statements the Cockrofts have modeled over the years. There is one guy here who is not a Cockroft but is part of my family. Can you suss the dude out? Hint: he's not wearing make-up. The man wearing make-up IS a Cockroft.

Well, folks, we took the man shopping.

As you might remember in "Bad Button Philosophy" (scroll down for the down-low), we last left our hero Martin in desperate need of cargo pants.

So a week ago, we tried Kohl's. I told Martin to go browsing and I'd take the kids so he could look in peace. Am I totally the spouse of the year? Heh, heh. We walked down the gleaming aisles, full of well-dressed, preoccupied people. Kohls, enchanted place: the smell of perfume and new clothes, posters of buff dudes in jeans and perky women in corresponding perky clothes seemingly comfortable with their own perkiness. We the Cockroft girls: a motley assembly. Merry had two shades of green on (I had encouraged her to go with a different color on bottom but Martin said Really? I kind of like it, so I was voted down--so, two shades of non-matching greens and blue and pink striped socks with pink-and-leather shoes. Sometimes socks don't matter, but these socks were the kind of socks that yelled: HEY! WHATZUP, MAN! WE ARE SOME LOUD FOOTWEAR AND WE LOOOVE IT. JOIN THE STRIPED PARTAY! BYOB!

I really try to stick to my values: if you are neat and tidy, clothes shouldn't matter. My internal counsel: If the kids want to dress themselves, honor their self-expression and show of independence. Go with it. Don't make what isn't a big deal into a big deal! There are many times I've been tempted to go back on this philosophy, to MAKE a big deal out of a little deal, to put a paper bag over my head as I walk beside certain outfits on my daughters. I've been through the fashion fire: Merry's bag lady outfits (layers of sweaters, big socks, three or four patterns together, topped by a bonnet and finished off by big, brown shoes; Elspeth's ridiculously fancy party dresses or little tutus. . .you name it, I've swallowed whatever pride I have left and gone out with these children, though I must say, during the course of a day, I usually inject this seemingly off-hand comment into a conversation: "[Insert daughter's name here] dressed herself today!"

I know it's silly. After all, I am the thrift store queen. I am the super-excited kid because I get to explore the "we-keep-this-special-room-for-missionary-kids" with a garbage sack to fill with treasured hand-me-downs. I never bought myself a stitch of clothing until I went back to the US in college where I'd go through piles of clothes the other college girls discarded at the end of the year. I'm proud to say it: I like recycling clothes. It makes economic, spiritual, and personal sense to me. I've always liked clothes and looking nice but I've never been one to spurn a cast-off. I hate shopping for certain things: jeans and bras are the pits. I never even knew my own bra-size (I'm not sure I could tell you now, as a matter of fact) since my dad did all the shopping for my 'brassieres,' as he called them, on his frequent trips back to good old America. When an bridal store employee was helping me try on wedding dresses, she asked me my bra size and I had to admit I had no idea what it was.

But those socks of Merry's--well, they were like our old rusty Honda. A fabulous car in the middle of hippie-town, Montana, but in Houston? Well, it looked a little out of place. I hadn't cared a whit about the car as long as it ran but during a year in Houston I started to become increasingly aware of its shabbiness. An ugly side to myself, I must admit: the side that, contrary to every belief I hold dear, actually cares what perfect strangers think! And shiny department stores and malls and all those places filled with such perfect treats make me want things I never knew I wanted. Ah hah! Ralph Lauren striped bedspreads! This could make my life oh, so much better! Bright bowls painted with Mexican-inspired patterns! Ice-cream would taste so much better out of that festive dish. Sparkling kitchen tools I never knew existed. Scented candles in endless molds and jars, untouched rugs stacked in perfect symmetry and dazzling hues--MINE could be the FIRST FEET on that there rug! I am now trembling with desire to buy those flower/stripe/solid socks. Are you with me? Are you?

Well, if you know what I mean, I have the cure: SHOPPING WITH CHILDREN. They will make you imminently practical and quickly convince you that you never want to be in a store again. Take, for example, the trip to Kohl's and my generous offer to Martin. Everything was fine while we were browsing the smallish toy section: obnoxious plastic things that make loud noises. Princess books. Barbies in clear plastic sheaths. Fine, fine, fine. No, honey, these things live here. Put it on your Christmas list! Save your money! Etc. Etc.

And then I made the fatal error--I headed to women's clothing to look over the clearance rack. Accompanied, remember, by Merry in her loud socks, Elspeth cloaked in energy, and Bea, for whom the novelty of the shopping cart seat and the obnoxious talking book I'd snagged had WORN OFF.

I cannot tell you exactly what happened in those moments as I put my hands on the 60%Off rack. Impressions include: children in and out of clothing, maniac giggling, my own temperature rising, possible and probable arguing and accusations, and to top it all off, a colossal WHACK to my left shoulder from the lethal edge of the clothing racks. Then there was a woman disgracing herself, smashing small female children back into the shopping cart, and plowing down the aisles like a speed-demon, Sock-girl trailing behind.

We left the air-conditioning and emerged from the swinging doors, bruised, baffled, and oh-so-happy to be leaving the bright lights of Kohl's behind. As I strapped the children into our disheveled, scratched, dirty, full-of-miscellaneous-junk, beloved car, I said to myself like a mantra, "the life of the mind!"

Give me books. Give me writing. Give me music. Save me, save me, from shopping malls.

And what did we score from this experience? Two puzzles. One shirt for Martin, on sale, brown stripe. It looks good on him. I gained a sore shoulder and a renewed commitment to scholarship. All in all, a profitable shopping trip.

PS. For those of you who are aware that I took the girls back-to-school shopping this Saturday, let me tell you: it was delightful. Tiring but delightful. Martin took the two little ones while Merry, her friend, C, and I hit the changing rooms at the outlet malls. I was pleased with the outcome. Martin, on the other hand, was so sweaty from charging around after Elspea and Bea at the outdoor mall that he and I could barely stand to smell him that night. Martin gained: one pair of corduroy pants from GAP. On sale. Tell me, is it worth it? Or should we all be wearing standard-issue burlap sacks?

Initiation

Summer Fairies
Merry, Elspeth, J, and L, painted for a play early this week. Merry made them up with Magic Marker. Elspeth kept the I've-got-a-BAD-cold-bags around her eyes for a day or so until the pink finally came off.
A ripening quality to the light at 7:30 just hints that autumn is not far away, but everything else this evening hums with summer. Humidity trembles in the air, parents pushing strollers pass by our yard, a slight breeze falls from the ceiling fan.

After a wonderfully cool Wednesday, today was, as Beatrix says, a "hot summa day." A perfect morning for raspberry muffins, peaches from a local orchard, and a gazillion kids going down the slip 'n slide.

Today we added five more children as we welcomed two new women to our weekly parent group. Newly from Michigan, they're adjusting to the pace of life in our little corner of Pennsylvania-almost-West-Virginia, just as we did almost six years ago. I hope they come to love these green, thrumming hills as much as I have.

Meanwhile, we subjected newbie M to the initiation rites of Wazoo: either a wagon ride or a slip 'n slide down the Grand Hill. "But I have no swimming suit!" she objected, wrapping her sweater more tightly around her, shivering though there were no winds.

"No matter!" we mothers shouted. My friend S started to wave a fist in the air. T, who had to go down the hill blindfolded five years ago on a rusty RadioFlyer wagon, chuckled deep in her throat. "Let the woman slip 'n sliiiide," she drawled, pounding on her wooden leg (she lost it on what we refer to as the "wazoo incident").

The children howled like wolves.

Finally, faced with the prospect of losing such groovy friends, M gathered her courage, grit her gleaming white teeth, and slid.


*Here is an alternate telling of this tale: In response to an off-hand comment about the mothers sliding, M got up from her chair, cool as a cucumber, and slid, fully clothed and in the sight of Motheren and Children. I thought it was rather jolly and a good show.

My Brain is Getting Jiggy With It

We ate blueberry and raspberry muffins for dinner (that's all we ate for dinner so far). Martin and I ate three a piece. As a family we demolished almost one dozen. Beatrix blew into her chocolate milk until it was nothing but brown bubbles. She accomplished this by concentrating hard and humming as she blew.

Promises of rain for days now. No rain and the garden is out of control. Mint and thyme and oregano and lettuces are bolting for the door. Weeds run rampant, or frolic cheerfully, depending on whether your glass is half-empty or half-full.

I suddenly remembered our kitchen counters are maroon. I'd forgotten. It was bliss to forget.

Today I could not tell someone less than a mile away how to get to my house. I could also not remember my telephone number. My friend asked me if I were pregnant. OOOOO, no. Just a fuzzy brain. Or an echoing brain. Or a jiggy brain. There's so much grooving between my lobes there's no room for mundane details. . .like my phone number or the kids' date of birth. I actually have to take their birth certificates out of the lock-box when I fill out forms. I am not joking.

Today I told the kids if they didn't stop arguing with each other, I'd cut off their heads. I said this with a big smile on my face. (Too many pirate movies). A bit later, Elspeth grinned and said, "Mommy, I don't like it when you're silly."

Louisville Review has accepted one of my poems. Happy me.

Martin has been playing "Fox in the Snow" by Belle and Sebastian on the piano for three or four weeks now. I like this song but the repetition may just get me in the end. Of course, I always sing it with a lisp because that's what the singer does on the CD. He is British and lispy and I think he's grand.

Big, Bad Button Philosophy

Late this morning Martin disappeared upstairs for fifteen minutes and reappeared bearing a load of clothing. "There!" he said, and sat down and started to write a list.

I looked at the pants and shirts draped over a dining room chair. I knew why they were there--they were pending discards. I started to ask questions. "What's wrong with your cords?"

He looked up from his list. "I've had them for years. They don't even stay up on my waist any more."

"And what about that shirt?"

"It's tired."

"Oh. And these pants?" And so it went (with constant interruptions from Elspeth in the kitchen, where she and Merry were writing 'books': "How do you spell SLEEP? GIRL? WILL?").

Finally Martin looked up from his list and let me have it: "I've had the same clothes for years. That pair of pants rides so low on my hips I constantly think they're going to fall down. I feel like you're grilling me."

"I'm not grilling you," I said (you be the judge.) I had to admit, I did fondly remember the tan cords as being from our honeymoon. In fact, I think that Martin wore them out past the shower of birdseed to the 'getaway' car that December eleven years ago when we started our new life together--and he'd worn them constantly every winter after that. Still, they looked pretty spiffy to me. And a loose waist--well, pishaw, isn't that what belts are for?

Martin stared across the table at me. "I know you're thrifty," he said, "But I really need some new clothes. That's why I'm making this list. My heavy cargo pants are full of holes."

I didn't point out that a few holes here and there only facilitate air movement, which is healthy for the skin. That's what tiny safety pins are for, anyway. My purse strap and my favorite sundress are two examples of very clever safety pin placement. (Sorry, Mom, I know you're cringing--That's hilly-billy stuff and Don't air your dirty laundry are the two key Mom phrases that just echoed in the recesses of my brain. See? I remember.)

Besides, I do make an effort now and then to avoid safety pins. Right before we went to Hershey a few weeks ago, I felt a wave of goodwill wash over me (family in the house, a lot of chips, coffee, and ice-cream) that prompted me to mend one of Martin's favorite pair of pants for him. It was a daunting task--to replace a button (he, he, I am not kidding) but I bravely persevered, found a button that looked just right and searched through several boxes and catch-alls until I finally found a needle in Merry's sewing kit. And then I double-threaded the eye and sewed that puppy on. No way was it coming off. I felt so pleased with myself and I just knew Martin would be overwhelmed by my prowess as a seamstress.

He was so very pleased and surprised. I could feel my heels high rising under those figurative June Cleaver pumps as I watched his grateful face. In our hotel in Hershey, he pulled those pants up past his thighs and went to button them--hmm. Something was wrong. He tried to be appreciative, commenting hesitantly, "It's just that the button is a little big for the hole."

"No way," I said. "I tried it and everything." Which was just the tiny bit of an exaggeration, since I hadn't exactly pushed it through the hole. I'd more just lifted it up next to the hole and surmised in a quick, intelligent calculation that it was the perfect size. Knowing that I was stretching things, I turned seamlessly to the next tactic--shifting the blame--and added, "It was in your little dish with your coins." Had Martin pressed on in his queries, I would have said next, "Well, you can just sew on your own buttons from now on," which would have ended the argument somewhat ridiculously, since I don't make a habit of sewing on his, mine, or the girl's buttons. (Come to think of it, Elspeth has been wearing a dress with two buttons missing from the back for about a year now. When people point this out, I feign surprise or an easy-going acceptance of life's little hiccups.)

But instead of pressing the point, Martin just buttoned up. By this, I mean he bent over almost double. His face turned two shades of purple. But he got that sucker through the hole, darn it. It seemed to me that the waistline was pulling in his stomach like a draw-string bag, but he insisted that one didn't notice the button-defect until one tried to get the pants off--

which, during a haphazard dash to retrieve a runaway Beatrix out of our hotel door while trying to fasten his pants, resulted in a rather large abrasion on his shoulder, where he listed heavily into the doorframe. Later that night, after he fell asleep prematurely and awakened later in the night and wanted to slip off his clothes for a better night's sleep, he almost rolled off the bed in his efforts to push that mammoth button back out of the hole.
Martin wearing the Bad Button pants at the Hershey kiss 'Pretend You're a Factory Worker' demonstration (I am not joking--you package the kisses and then you have to pay money to buy the kisses you have just sealed in a box). Martin looks good, doesn't he? That's because of the prowess of the button-sewer. BTW, there's my saftey-pinned purse. Can't tell, can you?

The last morning in Hershey, as I was collecting clothes to go home, I pointed impatiently at his pants in a heap on the floor. "Your pants are on the FLOOR," I said, which is a bad, sorry thing I've done for many, many years: stating the obvious to assign blame.

"I know," he said. "That's where I finally got them off last night after trying forever to get the button undone."

I would like to point out, just for the record: This bad button job that I did, this struggle this good man has to go through every time he wears these pants, has not stopped him from wearing them. Nor, I'd like to add, has he pulled off the button and sewn on another one. I can guarantee it, and I'd put money down this very minute, that these pants will go the next eight years with this offending brown button, and when some sorry sap finally pays $2.50 for them at Goodwill in 2016, they will have to bend double to get the button through the hole. Though, by then, time will have done its magic, wearing the hole so wide that the button will seem as if it always fit, as though it were always there. It WILL still be there, attached by my very strong stitches, since in this effort, as in most, I adhered to this philosophy: If you're going to do something wrong, may as well go all-out and do it with a full heart.

That's the big, bad button philosophy. I hope it is one you will take with you this week.

Everyone's Gone

Tonight, at 8:30, sitting in the dining room, three out of five lamps shining, feeling slightly guilty because Martin is upstairs with the girls and I stayed below under auspices of finishing the vacuuming. . .tonight, this is what I hear:
Three fans whirring, one at my back, the wind picking up strands of my hair and blowing them around my eyes;
The ticking and spinning of an insect choir outside in the walnut trees and raspberry brambles. The leaves of the philodendron on the piano lift and fall as the oscillating fan whirs its white head around to nod, the orange and black wallhangings from India lift, elephants, peacocks, and all. Up ahead, I hear the pound of little feet and down below I hear my fingers clicking on the keys, a gentle rainfall to the thunder up above.

And. . .now, suddenly, here's Bea on my lap, her bare thighs warm and her hair smelling of bedtime; Martin's calling, his voice muffled as it threads down the stairs and into the roar of the fans. Bea looks up for a kiss--she's restless--and here are the other two girls, Elspea squeezing my arm, Bea pushing her away--Two seconds, I'll be right there! And Merry, book in hand, paces the room, chanting, ONE, TWO! ONE, TWO!

The sounds of my family are small compared to the symphony of company. . .but a "quiet house?" (Elspeth just rolled off a chair.) Never.

Holiday Part Two: Martin's Family

Mix a little time in the garden, a slip 'n slide, barbecue, a two-day trip to Hershey, a lot of cards, a little poker, a lot--and I do mean an obscene amount--of ice-cream, a good deal of conversation, pancakes, french toast, sweet children who love chocolate and night-time books

. . .simmer slowly for two weeks; douse with a ridiculous amount of laughter and flavor, to taste, with silliness

. . .and you've got a good holiday with Martin's family.


Oh, yes, and the zoo and Ohiopyle!



Did I mention the strollers?

The weariness that sets in with six children,

and then the wonderful evenings nobody takes for granted: the evenings filled with high-fat foods, games, laughter, and adults and decaf coffee, until everyone realizes that the little ones will be up no matter how many hands of Hearts you might have left in you, and then around twelve or so, someone groans and says, "Oh, guys, I have GOT to go to bed. . ."

I am in the envious possession of really lovely in-laws whom I love to spend time with. Tonight I was explaining to my exquisite niece, Isabella (who even dressed in soccer cleats and shin guards, looks like an Asian princess) that before she was born, her mom and I were good friends who did really fun things together, like play games and swim. . .SO, I concluded, I bet I can get your mom to go on the slip 'n slide with ME. (Why do children always assume their mothers are so "old--" Isabella's objection to why her mother would not go on the slip 'n slide, and the same one, I'd like to point out, Merry gave when explaining why she was embarrassed to have me attend a school function: "It's just that you're so much OLDER than the other mothers," she said, and then the next evening, after a heart-to-heart conversation, she took my face affectionately in her hands and crooned, "You look SO much older than thirty-two, Mommy. You look at least forty-two!" and proceeded up to bed. Wha??? Wait a second? Am I thirty-two or thirty-three? Help.)

Anyway, being with good family and friends makes me feel as young as I am, and I love goofing off with Caroline and Martin like we're all in college again. . .which we were. And not that long ago, either! Before YOU were born, we tell the kids, to which they respond with a dismissive sigh. Silly us. A time when they were not yet born never existed, and if it did, it must have been a very sad time indeed.
Jacob
Lily
Isabella
Well, not a sadder time, we could say, a happy time in itself and in so many ways, a much more carefree time. But a holiday these days without the sparkle and clang and patter of children? No, thank you! Am I really an aunt to six wonderful children? These children of my sister and sister-in-law, these children who will bend into me for a hug, resting their heads on my shoulder in absolute trust, children who will ask me to read to them and give me sneaky little smiles. Lucky me!

All thanks to Martin's Dad who took all the pictures in this post! No camera--now, that's a holiday!