Almost every day, I make the time to sit down and think about writing something. Something. Most days, I already have that something in mind. Most days, the entries come easily. Some days, though, like today, I just don’t have that much to say. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the myriad distractions pulling me so many different ways. Maybe it’s Maybelline.

That’s OK. Because some days, like today, it’s just as telling that I don’t have anything to say. That’s my life, too.

I. Sitting on my bed are the following: two loads of cold laundry from last week, two loads of hot laundry from yesterday and two loads of cold laundry from today. I have one load of cold laundry sitting in the dryer, one load of cold laundry sitting in the wash, and one load of cold laundry sitting in the hallway awaiting its turn. Nine loads of laundry to be folded! Nine! How is this possible?!?

II. (Lest you think I have far too many clothes, three of those loads of laundry are the kids’ spring and summer clothing that I’ve pulled out for the upcoming season. Since it’s going to be 75 here all week, I have to face the fact that spring is here. That means summer will be here in two weeks.)

III. It seems as though Evan is going to give me some trouble in the shoe department this summer. He will not wear any shoes without socks. He screams. So, socks and sandals it is. Hey, kid! Don’t say I never tried to teach you otherwise.

IV. The step-stool was great for solving the “HEY! WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING UP THERE?!” blues. Of course, now that he’s twenty three and can do whatever the heck he pleases, the step-stool is no longer such a boon. “Evan! For the billionth time, the silverware does NOT go on the floor. Those chop-sticks are NOT a toy. The spices are NOT for play!” Of course, the thought of actually putting the step-stool away has never crossed my mind. He’s got me by the balls.

V. When my daughter inexplicably had a conniption fit beyond match today, I kept thinking, “So, when is that clock going to fall on your head?”

VI. This is my “to do” list:

• invitations
• sara refreshments
• dog platter
• paint stair
• fold laundry (duh)
• car advert. research
• look for keys
• BJ’s: detergent, wipes, snacks, juice, dish
• menu/grocery list
• fabric?
• LeeAnne thank you
• Mr. Clean
• online banking/bills
• bank - deposit
• email claire
• call G.E.

And I’m currently writing in my blog???

VII. The good news is, I found my keys. The bad news is, they were in the wash. This makes the THIRD key fob I’ve lost or ruined.

Shit, I already do shop at Wal-Mart. The title stays.

My husband and I used to eat out often. Local restaurants with a little flair, mom and pop dives with a great southern breakfast, regional favorites affording five stars, the neighborhood tavern with the great fried pickles — they were all on our list of haunts. Color us snobs, but we never went to chain restaurants. We had money to burn and a taste for something different, and we simply enjoyed eating out.

And then we had kids. Now I go to Cici’s.

But, apparently, the folks at Cici’s are sensitive to my plight. I’m not quite sure who sits in their corporate offices and determines the playlist for the Cici’s soundtrack, but whoever it is was pretty hip in their day and is my contemporary. XTC, Plimsouls, REM (tracks from murmur, no less), Talking Heads. These are the artists featured as mood music at Cici’s.

Just what type of mood are they going for? The I-used-to-be-fairly-cool-now-I’m-bellying-up-to-the-pizza-buffet kind of mood? Not the most appetizing sentiment. Rather depressing, in a way. But, you know, strange thing is, it works. I go to Cici’s and I’m warmed. Tens of thousands of people — enough to support franchises throughout the Southeast — are in the same place as me. Generation X toting their offspring to the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet circus. Solidarity.

Or, it’s just a sick joke. Some prick in the corporate office is sending only me this message.

Everyone else in the restaurant is saying, “Who the fuck are these guys they’re piping in?”

Zoe is in the dreaded “why” stage: after every statement of fact (and opinion), she responds with a “why?” And after every answer to her “why”, she responds with yet another. On and on it goes, ad infinitum. This stage has gone on for dreadfully long, and even my patience is beginning to wear thin. (You may not see the humor in that statement, but my husband is laughing all the way to the moon on that one).

I have two methods of dealing with her incessant “whys”. The first is the “one why” method, in which I allow her to ask one “why,” answer it respectfully, and then respond to all other subsequent “whys” with a “You’ve already had your one why.” This method does not work, by the way.

The second method of dealing with the onslaught of “whys” is to answer her question in such painfully accurate detail so as to spin her head into so many different directions of thinking that the TILT! sirens go on. This short-wires her “why” function and this can be funny. Using this method of why-shutdown, she’s learned about the earth spinning on its axis, rotating around the sun, all while rotating around the galaxy. She’s learned about the speed of light and the theory of relativity. She’s learned about surfactants, rates of absorption and decay, municipal water supply and wastewater treatment function, and of X and Y chromosomes. I’m sure I’ve left out a few lessons, but, you get the picture.

The lesson in X and Y chromosomes was in answer to her query: “Why is Evan a boy and I’m a girl?” And, proudly coming through with perfect proof that she doesn’t ever listen to me, Zoe tried to recount her genetics lesson to me today — weeks after its initial introduction:

“Evan has a Y chromosome and that makes him a boy. I have a Z chromosome and that makes me Zoe.”

Ahhh, so that explains it all.

[I swear, I'm not calling them illegitmate children. Little Breads. I promise. Little Breads.]

In a last-ditch-effort to save my sanity without any regard to my children’s emotional development and well-being, I screwed the train set down to the train table. Just try to take that sucker apart and spew it all over the floor. Just try. And as for growing your emotional curiosity and encouraging puzzle solving with train-track design? Highly overrated. Trust me on this one. Highly overrated. You can work on that skill when you’re 63. Perhaps by then you’ll have learned how to pick up your toys, too.

While I was at it, I figured you didn’t actually need all those other toys, either. Really, you don’t. I got along just well with out them, and you can, too. Eight-hundred-and- sixty-four pounds of plastic later — and that’s a lot of plastic — we can actually see the floor again.

My god, you mean there was a floor there? There’s a lesson for you. Floor. Roof. Walls. These are the good things we give you. Everything else is just cake.

And I can take it all away in an instant. Ahh, my dear, sweet, little breads.

So, I really, really, really don’t want to fall into gender stereotypes, but, it’s as if I’m being forced into it when I go to the big-box home center and stroll down the aisle where the tractor mowers are and my son just erupts in delight. And then, when I grab a box of screws — a box of screws — and he acts as if the world has been handed to him, well, just call me small minded, then. It’s got to be the Y-factor. And I’m ever so thankful for that off-beat chromosome.

Boy, have I got a crush on you.

I’ve said once before that among the difficult things of being a mom is the lack of feedback indicating whether or not you’re doing a decent job. It’s bad enough that there are no owner’s manuals or job descriptions associated with parenting. Having to rely on your own judgment to determine whether or not you’re screwing up your contribution to the next generation, well, that’s just a sick joke. Thankfully, I got a little lucky in the feedback department this week.

Evan woke up the other day from his nap in a delicious mood. He was already giggling when I came in to get him out of his crib. He had a plan. As soon as he was out of the cirb, he began directing his vision. He pushed me to the wall and instructed me to sit down. (His instruction? “Uh”, of course.) As soon as I sat down he toddled over to his stack of books and selected one. He brought it to me and snuggled into my lap as I read to him. Once that book was read, he selected another. And another. And so we spent the next twenty minutes until his sister woke up. This, coming from a child who never sits still. This, coming from a child who couldn’t have cared less about a book only a week ago.

I’m not one to particularly stress over my child’s achievement (or lack thereof) of milestones, but, as I’ve said before, I am frustrated by Evan’s slow-to-develop language skills, and it has begun to weigh on me. And, of course, it weighs on my measure of my own self. Am I doing right by him? Was Zoe’s day-care environment richer than the one I’m providing Evan? These aren’t my only thoughts, of course. But they’re insidious thoughts that can often warp the balanced truth. Just in time, Evan reached for that book the other day. “I’m just fine, thank you very much,” he said to me. “And you’re not doing so poorly, yourself.” Atta-Boy.

I got an Atta-Boy from Zoe the other day, too. Hers was much more direct. We were sitting in the car at the stop light and Zoe snapped out of her quiet to tell me something profound. “Mommy, I love you when you go to the grocery store.”

Awww. “Thanks, Zoe,” I replied. Apparently she needed to go farther.

“Mommy, I love you when you put me in my car seat. I love you when you drive the car to school. I love you when you make me peanut butter and honey sandwiches…”

She went on for several minutes. I won’t bore you with the complete list of “when” she loves me. But she didn’t bore me. I could listen to that yammering for hours.

Atta-Boy.

Our daughter is unusually empathetic for a three year old. She’s perceptive beyond her years and can accurately sense my mood in a moment. She responds accordingly — and genuinely. She was only trying to console me today, then, when she said to me, “It’s all right, Mommy. Sometimes turn lights just pop off.”

“No they don’t, Zoe. Turn lights don’t pop off. Really Mean People take them.” Harrumph.

Welcome, Zoe, to the world of shit-heads.

Sometime between yesterday and today, some punk decided he needed our left turn light housing more than we did. Automotive Buffet. Come help yourself. Bastard.

This is not our first experience with petty theft. Unfortunately, not by a long shot. I’ve had ferns stolen from my porch - twice. I’ve had the suit my husband wore at our wedding stolen from my car. I’ve had CDs taken from my car. And I’ve had my newspaper taken from my front walk. (This one is a story in and of itself. One day I’ll tell it.) Big or small, precious or petty, the reaction is always the same: anger. Stomp-your-foot-and-gnash-your-teeth-and-throw-sand-in-their-face-anger. And since I’m an adult, I can cuss at ‘em, too. Shit-heads.

You would think it would get easier — the coping part — with each successive victimization. It doesn’t. Shock. Denial. Anger. It stops there. No acceptance. I won’t accept that it’s ok for someone else to take something that belongs to me, no matter how small it is. No, you are not forgiven. I’m not a particularly religious person, but I believe there’s a special place in Hell for these folks. Burn, baby, burn.

And so, for those special people in my life - those nameless folks who’ve pilfered from me - I’m sending out to you my special thoughts and wishes for you: (my apologies in advance for the sexist assumption that each of these asses are male…)

• Mr. Greenjeans: I hope your mother enjoyed the ferns you gave her. You’re such a thoughtful boy. Two years running! How kind of you. May you find yourself one day at the bottom of a compost pile with worms eating you. Slowly.
• Mr. Phat Cat: Can you send me a photo of you wearing the suit? I’m sure you looked mah-vel-ous. Did the rash ever go away? Those boils can sure be a pisser, huh? Oh, and the Diet Coke you took while you were at it? I hope it wasn’t the stuff I’d laced with arsenic. I was sorta mad at my husband at the time. Whoops, sorry.
• Mr. Phonics: I hope you liked the Tony Bennett CD. Had to have been a nice addition to your collection. May you be stuck with The Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” in your mind for the rest of your days. I think it’s a rather fitting sentiment.
• Mr. Well-Read: How ’bout this: what if I just left a quarter out on the front walk? You could pick up your own fucking newspaper. Just hope you don’t see your own obituary in it one day.
• And, Mr. Automotive Buffet, there’s a special place in my heart for you. You see, you didn’t know what you were getting when you picked off that turn-signal housing. Not just any old turn signal. No, not at all. You got a bonus: Bad Car-ma. You lucky fucking dog.

I feel better now. Just wait till I tell you the whole story about the newspapers.

[My daughter will hate me for this one.]

Shortly after my daughter was potty trained, we found ourselves in a place that had no potty. She needed to go. Thus, her glorious introduction to the world of “commando potty.” She’s been fascinated ever since. Invariably, when we’re outside — at a park, on a trail, or even in her own yard — she’ll ask, “Can I go commando potty?” Of course, we explain to her that commando potty is only for emergencies, and only when a bathroom is not accessible. She can repeat these rules off the top of her head, but she still asks to go commando even when the requirements clearly are not met. She can be manipulative, too, as she understands that the definition of “emergency” rests solely on her. We’ve learned to be a decent judge of her wiles, and can generally decipher the real emergencies from the imagined ones. Today, though, she threw me for a loop.

“Mommy, I need to go commando poop.”

We were in my aunt’s yard, digging up groundcover to be transplanted into my yard. The kids were playing around and Zoe casually walked up to me with her bombshell.

“Zoe, really?”

“Yes, Mommy. I need to go commando poop.”

“Well, Greatie and JuJu aren’t home. We’ll have to go home to go to the potty.”

“No, Mommy. I want to go commando.”

“Zoe, you can’t go commando poop. You have to use the bathroom for that. Let’s get in the car and go.”

“No, that’s ok. I can wait until JuJu gets home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Guise successfully unveiled. At least I thought so. A few minutes later she comes to me once again.

“Mommy, I’m going to have an accident.”

Oh, God. This is what I get for letting my three year old re-define the urgency of her bowel movements. “Have you had an accident?”

“No.” But time was clearly running out.

I looked around. I had a roll of paper towels in the back of my car and a roll of garbage bags at my feet. I could figure out a makeshift potty with these, I guessed.

We quickly went to work arranging clothing and bottom in the proper angle so as not to mix the two. With the utterance of the obligatory two grunts, the deed was done. Right in my aunt’s flower bed. Sorry, Greatie.

I picked up the proceeds, gave my daughter a wipe and deposited everything in a garbage bag. This is love, kiddo. Pure love. I now needed to get rid of the offending mess. I went to my aunt’s garbage can, but felt guilty placing it there, as they apparently had just had their garbage emptied. My aunt deserves much more than a full week of human shit stinking up her trash can. I had only one option left. My Subaru.

My car is loaded with shit, in the figurative sense, and it got me out of this bind. But I draw the line at loading it with shit in the literal sense of the word. Down went the hatch and the garbage bag was tied to the back of the car.

I can’t help but laugh at the guy driving behind us on the way home as he pondered, “Now, I wonder what’s in that bag?”

One from the archives…

My fourth year in college was a particularly carefree time in my life. Despite facing some major life changes on the horizon, I was footloose and fancy-free. And so were my friends. Ours was a slightly unusual posse. I was the lone (unattached) girl in a group of eight guys. Eugene, Michael, Brad, Derek, Milk, Fister, Craig, Tim — and Kristy. I got stares everywhere I went. Of course, I got nothing else. We were good kids with good heads on our shoulders, and a lot of energy to burn off. Middle-of-the-night dashes to camp grounds, stupid drinking games, spontaneous road trips, and a lot of silliness were the standard weekend agenda items. We had no worries, other than footing the bill for beer and gas. Your basic college-kid lifestyle.

At the end of our fourth year, just after exams and just before graduation, we all set off on the ultimate college trip: Beach Week. Except, we were terribly poor and couldn’t afford to get to any place exotic. The destination? My home — a mere six miles away from the beach. My saintly parents were willing to leave the house and allow their daughter and eight guys to shack up for the week. I can only wonder what the neighbors were thinking.

One night during that week a group of us decided that the homefront was a little too staid, and ventured out to the beach. A designated driver drove us there and dropped us off. After some, ahem, swimming, we decided it was time to get home. A quick stop at a bar to grab a couple “for the road” later, we pondered just exactly how we would be getting home. My friends thought nothing of the six mile trek back to the house. I myself was thinking reasonably — I pitched my thumb out at the next car that passed. The guys were horrified when the car actually pulled over. “We can’t hitchhike. It’s not safe,” they said. (And swimming while intoxicated is at the top of the list of safe things to do.) I peered in the back of the car and saw an empty child’s safety seat. “This guy has a kid. He’s fine. Get in the car.” We all piled in. Six of us, plus the driver, in a Toyota Tercel. Thankfully, the driver put the child’s seat in the trunk.

Our driver was a twenty-three year old father of one, married for two years, and in the Navy. This much we learned on the six mile drive back to our house. He was only a few calendar years older than us, but he was ages beyond us in terms of life responsibilities. Married. Child. Employed. At the end of our ride, we thanked him, and then half-heartedly invited him in for a beer. He accepted. Yikes.

I now must interrupt the flow of this story for a little description of the house into which he’d just been invited. My mom is one to pick up something in an antique store, bring it home, and find just the right place for it in her house. And there it will remain until the house is sold. Make no mistake about it, the house is tastefully decorated, and impeccably clean. It’s just full of stuff. Unique stuff. The stuff conversations are made of.

So, into this home our gentleman driver came. We settled into the kitchen, popped open another round of beer, and began the uncomfortable dance of conversing with someone you don’t know at all and aren’t particularly sure about. Little did we know we were about to get a profound lesson in life.

Our gentleman driver was a social guy. I think he was getting a kick out of the little adventure we’d heaped upon him, and he was enjoying his audience. We sat there as he told story after story of his life. Married. Child. Employed. Eons beyond our comprehension. I think he was enjoying, too, a little carefree tryst of his own as he stood amongst a group of kids so far removed from any of the responsibilities that kept him awake at night. He wanted to impress upon us just how different his life was from ours. “You wake up in the morning. Every morning. The kid’s crying, the dog’s barking, the wife’s nagging. Nothing is simple. Nothing is recognizable. You say to yourself ‘Just when did all of this happen? Just how’…” He paused. He looked around. Up above him, hanging from a rack in the ceiling, was his inspiration to continue. “‘Just how did I get a wicker chicken in my kitchen??!!’”

We erupted in peals of laughter. Up above us, amongst the many things my mother had collected, was a wicker basket in the shape of a chicken. Instantly, we had the symbol for married, responsible life: a wicker chicken. We had been made privy to one of life’s major lessons: having a wicker chicken meant you were all grown up.

For years later, we all fondly remembered our gentleman driver and the wicker chicken. We all joked about wicker chickens as each of us gained respectable employment, married off, and began having kids. Many a wedding toast included odd references to the famed bird.

Tim and I were among the last in the group to get married. Yes, as it turns out, the odds eventually favored me and one of the boys in the group decided he liked me more than a friend. Of course we got more than our fair share of wicker chicken references at our wedding.

We went to Spain for our honeymoon. We chose a few small towns in southern Spain and spent a few days in each. Lazy days. Blissful days. One afternoon, while walking down the street in Ubeda, my husband stopped cold.

“OH. MY. GOD.”

“What?”, I asked.

He was speechless. He raised his arm and simply pointed. I turned and followed his gaze. There stood before us a large plate glass window full of wicker chickens. Full of wicker chickens. Basket after basket of woven wicker chickens. Big ones. Little ones. Medium sized ones. The motherload of wicker chickens. As if sent from above.

We went inside and selected our wicker chicken. We were married and all grown up.

Years later, my mother gifted the original wicker chicken to us. She doesn’t know much about all that went on that week at her house outside of her presence, and she doesn’t even know the entire story of our gentleman driver, but she does know that wicker chicken means a lot to us. So, she gave it to me. Now, the Original wicker chicken and the Spanish wicker chicken sit side by side in my kitchen. They clash horribly with the decor in my kitchen, but they’ll never lose their place of honor. Married. Kids. Employed. I’m happy to be all growed up. Happy.

Thanks, Gentleman Driver. And if you ever see my son or daughter trying to hitch a ride, stop and tell them to call their mom. It’s not safe to hitchike.