My Puberty Lament
My eldest minion is going to be my topic of my rant this week. He turned 12 this year and with this milestone instantly grew a bad attitude, a wagging tongue, and an annoying ability to torment everybody in his presence. When I say instantly, I mean at the very moment that the clock struck 9:30 (the minute of his screaming arrival into this world) his face permanently contorted into a sour and disgruntled pucker.

As I have mentioned before, I have been suffering from a toddler-induced injury. This injury resulted in initial six weeks of prescribed recovery time, which inflated to 8 weeks and a visit to a specialist, which then expanded to several months of steroids and physical therapy, and finally an invasive surgery that minimally required 10 weeks of excruciating opiate-embracing recovery. The combination of a whirlwind toddler, two tornado gradeschoolers, one clothes horse princess, and two pre-teen slugs, has resulted in a crust of child-produced unidentified filth on top of a cushy nougat of laundry and toys, which merely masks a layer of dust due to the minimal performance of sweeping or vacuuming that has been done since....well last October.

So, in evaluating the wretched bog of mess that has replaced my mildly chaotic house over the past six months, I came to a conclusion. The biggest breakdown in the hygienic maintenance of our house is in the portions that are maintained by my eldest son. Most of our jobs rotate weekly, but I concluded that it was not fair or just for the person who washes to the dishes to leave a large mess for their successor, so the rule was established that the dishes must be done to completion before the job was given to the next child. My second son took the first rotation and completed the job with a smile and shining results. My daughter took the next shift, with a bit more coaching, but again a positive result. It has been NINE MONTHS of unsuccessful dish washing for my eldest. He is the most focused and determined child that I know, but when he stands in front of the kitchen sink with a basin of suds, he suddenly has an attention span issue. His typical dishwasher load consists of four bowls, a couple of cups, a pot, three ladles, and NO SILVERWARE (apparently he deems flatware as an unnecessary luxury). He also chooses not to rinse or remove any food from the dishes before he tosses them haphazardly into their places, so usually his successful dish washing skills yield ONE clean ladle. One ladle falls laughably short of being able to feed a family of eight, however I have developed many wonderful soup recipes as a result.

I have concluded that the symptoms of puberty include, oily skin, bad attitude, and a complete breakdown in the understanding of logic. Talking to my eldest child, who until several months ago was an easily reasoned with child, is like reasoning with my dog complete with the head cock and puzzled expression. I have decided that this is to allow the demons in his head to speak to him before he launches into his tirade of nonsensical garbage.

Each child is also given one permanent job. One child keeps the table clear (or relatively so), one child is in charge of taking out the garbage and does so with relative regularity, one child is in charge of wiping of the main community counter (which is hidden under a mountain of tall dishes, minus one ladle). My eldest minion is in charge of carrying and compiling the three baskets of laundry upstairs and transporting them down to the facilities in the basement. As I mentioned before, the majority of our cushy nougat is dirty laundry, therefore I broached the conversation with him.

Me: “Eldest Minion, it has come to my attention that the majority of the thick blanket of clutter upstairs is due to dirty laundry, is there a reason that you have neglected taking it downstairs for the past six months?”

E.M.: “Um....(sour scowl with a slight twitch of resentment around his nose) because there are just too many clothes to carry down. This really is a four-man job and you are asking far too much of my battered and abused body. You are the cruelest mother ever. Nobody else I know has to gather laundry to be washed, their parents buy them magical clothes that fly into the hamper and wash themselves and then teleport neatly folded back into their drawers instantly.”

Me: “May I also ask why you haven't changed your shirt in the past four days, despite nagging promptings?”

E.M.: “Because you threw away ALL of our clothes but this one measly, moth-eaten T-shirt and I therefore have to clothes no change into.” (I am doing some decluttering.) Which this is where I begin to assert that puberty blocks logical thought.
Me: “Then you should have plenty of room in plenty of baskets to get all of the meager laundry downstairs, right?” (Crickets chirp)

The problems extend beyond a resistance to doing housework. The complaints and lemon-sucking expressions extend to every portion of his life. He has a constant low-grade grumbling/mumbling throughout his day. “Stupid sun being so hot and the stupid air conditioner for being so cold. Why can't the world just be the right temperature for me?” “Stupid gravity attacking me when I am riding my bike recklessly.” “Stupid bladder for interrupting my play with the urge to pee.” It is like an unrelenting soundtrack to my life now.

My question is, if we can have a light that warns us when we are going to run out of gas, an alarm that warns us if the house is on fire, a blaring siren that warns us that someone is attempting to break into our home, can't we have some sort of alarm to warn us that puberty and hormonal insanity is descending upon us? I was caught completely off guard. If I had some sort of emergency puberty broadcasting warning, I would have bought some sort of body armor and ear plugs or something.

Glass House for Sale
I am posting early this week. I know. It is totally bizarre and completely out of character, but my life this week has been plagued in my every waking hour (which is about 72 straight now) with a horrific tragedy. I am sorry to say that there will be little to no satire or sarcasm to what I have to say, because it is of the utmost importance to not only parents, but to the human race. I started writing these silly musings not just because I like to write and it is a venue for venting, but because other parents and people need to share the humor in their lives.

So, I pose a question. What is the job of a mother or father? Or a grandparent? Or an aunt or uncle? A neighbor? A teacher? The word that leaps to mind in most of these situations is “nurture.” So why are we supposed to nurture children, but yet do we not nurture each other?

My family has been so close to a devastating and tragic event this week. The actual details are completely unimportant, but sleep has been an absent bedfellow for the past 72 hours and the emotional discordance rarely leaves my addled mind. This tragedy has reminded me why I left my journalism career 12 years ago, and have only looked back to flex my creative muscles and write musings about the joys in my life. Why is it that when people open their mouths, sometimes unbelievable and insensitive garbage falls out? I have heard outside observers make conjectures about drugs, child abuse, anti-depressants, ADHD, autism, school pressures. Knowing what I do, none of these seem at all applicable to this situation, and most seem even laughable.

Two weeks ago, I attended a homeschooling event with my friends who are embroiled in this tragedy. My eldest minion was being a complete monster. Complaining about the silliness of the event and having to participate in the frivolity. The muttering and grumbling continued for the better part of 30 minutes and my temper percolated with his insolence. My dear friend felt the pallettable tension between us, approached my son as she often does her own children, wrapped her arms gently around his slight shoulders, and with sincere friendship said, “I am sure glad you are with us, Little Brother.” His frown faded, the disgruntled gray cloud disappeared and my heart instantly softened— permanently softened.

I sit with tear-stained face in my own stunned silence and think on these people that I know. The only thing that I have been able to say is, “I want to be just like them when I grow up.” Patient, kind, slow-to-anger, gentle in discipline, soft spoken, charitable, teachers of personal responsibility, intellectually brilliant.

So, in trying to make sense of some of the events, I asked my husband why he thought people judged other parents so harshly. What he said was so wise, but so sad at the same time. “Because people want to be able to separate THOSE children from their own and THOSE parents from themselves.” Now, I will admit that there are some instances where THOSE people who grace the headlines should be separated from reasonable and loving parents, but after being confronted with crime at my doorstep, I am left wondering how many times I have comforted the dissonance in my thoughts by ostracizing THOSE parents from myself through perceived fictional faults.

I have begun asking myself, what I hope for my children to achieve when they leave my home and embark on their own journey into adulthood. The answer was obvious, I wanted them to be confident INDIVIDUALS with a true moral compass to guide their decisions. As I watch my minions grow from blissfully sleeping infants to not-so-blissful teens, I realize that this entire exercise in parenting is about establishing individuality and independence. This means at some point, those of us parents who are merely voyeurs in horrific situations, need to accept that sometimes actions have no explanation. Sometimes unimaginable horrors are truly a result of independent choices made by an incomplete individual using their right to choose.

Several months ago, I was struggling through the grocery store with a bright pink long-arm cast and an entourage of tired and hungry little minions. Some of them were running ahead, two of them were wrestling while we waited in the express line. The scowls and grimaces from fellow shoppers were like lasers on the back of my neck. As I approached the checkout and unloaded my few groceries, the finishing touches for my planned dinner, and prepared to pay, the clerk quietly and tearfully said, “The man in front of you gave me this (producing a $20 bill), he says he hopes the rest of your day is wonderful.” I was barely able to catch a glimpse of the stylishly dressed young gentleman scampering up the escalator. The smallest influence of a complete stranger altered my entire viewpoint.

I am pausing this week from my musings on mayhem to beg each of you to show mercy to each other. Who cares WHY something happened, care that it happened and that you have the ability to either add to the festering despair or circulate love among those of the same chosen career-- raising generations of independent individuals. When you are in the grocery store and the distraught mother with a gaggle of misbehaving budding individuals slows your speedy checkout, don't think about how you would change the upbringing of their brood or the critical advice you would impart, think of how you will uplift another.

Mother's Day Wit and Wisdom

I know, I am a horrible MoM! I missed writing last week. I would like to say that I have a wonderful excuse, but life has truly just been whooping on me. I have sat introspectively thinking about Mother's Day and what it means to me for the past two weeks, knowing that as a blog about mothering, I should feel obligated to at least nod in the direction of the holiday.

The honest truth is that I am just not a sentimental person...at all. Some more nurturing mothers post inspirational messages around their houses. I have a QWALL or in other words, a wall of quotes written on 3 by 5 cards that have inspired my family to post them and reflect on their wisdom during our goings on throughout the day. I would generously say about 10 percent of them have truly life-changing and inspirational meaning behind them. All the others are snarky comments that make us giggle and keep me from going on a shooting spree with my Pampered Chef cookie gun. So I have chosen to scatter my satirical sunshine throughout this post and perhaps inspire others to shed their saccharin ways and join me on the dark side.

Being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep... in a giant blender. “

Homer Simpson from The Simpsons

My particular religious affiliation is very sentimental about the role of mothers, especially on Mother's Day. One of my unfortunate friends posted on Facebook that she had been cornered and asked to give the address about motherhood on this momentous occasion. She was begging suggestions. Before I had a chance to enter my opinion, there was a barrage of cute little mommies writing about the “blessings” and the “unconditional love.” Don't get me wrong, I feel blessed and I love my children more than anything in the world, but my advice to her was to tell the truth. More people are going to listen and and relate to truthful stories of mischief and mayhem and your God-given patience not to Velcro the little darlings to a wall. (I have never pondered this unthinkable and extreme course of action.)

Here are the truths that I have plucked from my abysmal parental sea of chaos.

#1 Motherhood is not for the squeamish. When I embarked on this crazy journey, I fainted at the sight of blood and heaved in sympathy when someone else vomited. Now I am an old pro. Apply direct pressure and grab the garbage can, here comes MoM! Admittedly, my home is weighted fairly heavily toward the male gender and their sense of self preservation is clouded by a mistaken belief of invincibility, but I could never have made it this far without an amazing ability to suppress my gag reflex and avoid going into the light.

“I couldn't detect horse manure if I stepped in it.” Michael Caine as Sherlock Holmes in Without a Clue

#2 You may believe that you have the patience of Job, you are wrong. I have mentioned before that I preceded my career in motherhood by being a journalist for newspapers. As a journalist, you research everything. The only way to take action is if three or more sources have told you to do so. So, when I welcomed my first child into the world, I was a well-read and resolute mother. My child was going to be the epitome of discipline, goodness and the American way. After a while of real life, I realized that these parenting books are full of garbage.

#3 All those moments in the store when you were single and thought you would never let your child act like THAT, were completely erroneous. You are entirely helpless to stop it once the wild hair is planted. I recently chose (by some bout of explosive stupidity) to have an operation on my left arm that rendered it completely helpless. I am still unable to lift more than the weight of my own purse (which is admittedly laden with many first aid implements given my line of work) without flinching and howling in pain. Since that ill-fated decision, my children have unleashed their inner demons. We have gone from shopping as a regimented group in a rigid formation to one child licking all the handles on the shopping carts, while another taste tests all the food in the bulk section of the store, yet another is hiding in the racks of clothing and shouting, “PICK ME!” at unsuspecting shoppers (truly happened to me today and the entire escapade was initiated and encouraged by my hubby). Yet another is tired and blowing his nose on the silk skirts in the Women's Section. I am just waiting for some passive-aggressive shopper to slip a box of condoms into my basket as a not so subtle hint.

#4 Your child will sneak out of the house without underpants/shoes/socks...several times. I find myself terrified to observe the ensembles of my crew when they file out of the van at any given destination, especially if we were hurrying out of the house. (We are always hurrying out of the house.) No underclothing, two different socks, two different shoes, no shoes at all! When I started motherhood, I swore that my child would always wear more than three articles of clothing (jam or jelly doesn't count as an article of clothing) and always wear shoes. Now I am just happy if I am not facing indecency charges when I go to the playground.

“What does that have to do with the price of beer?” Sylvester Stallone as Snaps Provolone in Oscar

#5 You may be punctual, but your children are not! Being a reformed journalist, I have a compulsive desire, actually a NEED, to meet deadlines. Being on time to anything with a child is like running a marathon in a chain gang. If you cross the finish line at all it is going to be awkward and painful. The worst part is that a few months ago, I installed a little device in my car to help me squeeze every drop of fuel economy out of our gas-guzzling beast. This cheeky little black box even gives me a letter grade for my driving performance, like some sort of voluntary and sadistic flashback to elementary school. Speeding, which I feel compelled to do when my chain gang is dragging, brings my letter grade to disgraceful levels. The only thing that angers me more than missing a deadline, is a C+ from a audacious little box attached to my dashboard. Does a cumulative GPA still apply 10 years after graduation? If so, these kids are killing my permanent record.

#6 Cold cereal for dinner is okay. Part of my self-imposed parental training was learning to cook EVERYTHING from scratch. When I mean everything, I am truly not joking. I bake my own bread from wheat that I grind myself. I stuff my own sausages with meat that I ground myself and herbs from my garden. I even cook my own soap from lye and fat, like the pilgrims. A few months ago, after that explosively stupid surgery I opted to have, I was feeling particularly unable to summon the sincerity from my soul to cook a nutritious and inspiring dinner. My friend suggested, “Just give them all cold cereal.” The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning.....I could just feed them cold cereal! Occasionally indulging in sugary cereal for dinner was not going to kill them! The epiphany was utterly and indulgently pleasurable.

“A coven of witches! Not an oven!” Tim Roth as Ted the Bellhop in Four Rooms (ask your parents before watching this particular movie.)

#7 Sometimes you just have to accept defeat with grace and dignity. I have had to admit lately, as I begin plodding into the unexplored territory of teenage trauma, that occasionally I have no idea what to do. I say grace and dignity, but what I really mean is random and unexpected laughter. My eldest son, the culprit of pre-teen-anger-inducing-angst, has a razor sharp tongue (which he obviously inherited from his father, because only sweetness and light escapes my lips.) (My husband just shot his cold cereal from a nostril in suppressing his laughter as I read this section aloud.) One day, as he hovered over me (I have been declared fun-sized) and verbally bashing me about my innumerable downfalls as a parent, I was struck by defeat and could find no mature way to handle the feelings of helplessness that sat like a stone in my throat. With total and calculated precision, I inserted my index finger into my mouth and moistened it thoroughly. Being resolute in my course of action, I reached beside his ear (which may have been smoking slightly) and plunged it deep into his ear canal. The effect was immediate. His tirade stopped instantly, mostly because neither of us knew what to do about the situation. We now refer to this as maneuver as “parenting by wet willy,” and find it universally applicable.

“You know what that means, it means he doesn't have a head. How am I suppose to write for a guy who doesn't have a head? He's got no lips, no vocal cords. What do you want me to do?” Whoopi Goldberg as Rose Schwartz in Soapdish.

#8 You are your own worst enemy. Now I will get sentimental. Mother's Day is often used to reflect on the women that have shaped our lives. Not too recently, my grandmother passed away. I won't say that I knew her well, in fact as I sat listening to other people's reflections of her life, I realized that my relationship with her was completely unique, especially being that we had been estranged for many years in my youth. Whenever we came to visit, she flung open her front door with a welcoming smile. She always had food cooking, even at odd hours of the day and her pot seemed bottomless when it came to feeding my large family. I would feel embarrassed about the lack of socks, or the stained shirt, or the hyperactive behavior that is inherent after a long car ride. She would always smile and tell me what angels my children were and what a wonderful mother I was. Amazingly, my children would always rise to the occasion and be the angels that she proclaimed them to be. She didn't just say this to me, she said it to other people. As I heard stories of this woman and her life as a mother, her philosophies, her ideals, I realized that she had this relationship with me, because I was a mirror reflection of her. With her gentle and quiet nature, she had known that I had enough criticism incubating within myself, and I needed nothing more than pure encouragement.

What can I impart about Mother's Day from my mayhem? Remember that motherhood is mischief and mystery. If your children are smiling, happy, even a little smudged with jam or mud, but not withering like a forgotten houseplant, you are probably doing just fine.

My Birthday Resolution

This weekend marked the anniversary of the dawning of my life and with this, the realization that I look really really old. Not like I look my age, but that rigorous abuse and hours of bottom-clenching driving in traffic have left me looking and feeling like something out of that Benjamin Button movie. So, being gifted with family and friends who sent me monetary expressions of affection, I have begun my quest to at least regain some of the minimal hygiene habits that have been lost in the mayhem of motherhood.

My college roommates used to tease me mercilessly, because I would not be seen by anybody (especially not members of the opposite sex) without my face fully adorned with cosmetics. There were an alarming number of times when I had already showered, curled my hair in spongy pink rollers, and removed my war paint in anticipation of a going to bed. Only to have an unexpected late night visitor, and I would remove the curlers and reapply the war paint to conduct my business with unannounced company. Then reremove and recurl upon my company's departure. I admit that this is a little bit extreme, but when did I go from make-up and shower twice a night to barely being able to find time for either activity twice a WEEK? I see magazine ads about the “five-minute face” and tee hee to myself, because I have barely had five minutes to empty my bladder.

I once went to school wearing one brown sandal and one brown loafer. I was trying to accessorize my outfit and while having a visual comparison, I forgot to match the winning choice before rushing out the door. This conundrum seems ridiculous when presented this week with the fact that I have one shoe of seven different pairs. Being of diminished stature, my feet structurally match my height. My daughter minion is eight-years-old, and much to her delight, she can now wear the same size of shoes that I do. This has meant that I have NO shoes. I went to play soccer in my three-inch wedges yesterday, because BOTH pairs of tennis shoes have disappeared into the pink swamp that is her bedroom floor. Matching shoes to an outfit? I feel accomplished if I match shoes to each other.

As I prepared for our weekly worship service on Sunday, the day after my new resolution to revisit the glamor of my youth, I decided to invest time in actually coordinating an outfit. My usual physical preparation for church takes me about fifteen minutes, and that includes, shower, dressing, make-up, and gathering supplies for minions. During my closet excavations for fashionable clothing, I came to the conclusion that being fashionable is time consuming and I value sleep over beauty. I tried on outfit combinations and debated the cut of shirts and how they compliment my rapidly expanding waistline. Usually, I figure if I have the strategic parts covered, I am doing great!

With my newfound birthday wealth, I invested in two new blouses, two new belts, and a new skirt. It used to be that I would MATCH my outfits, meaning that my blouse, pants, socks, jewelry, etc. was in the same or a complimentary color family. I had numerous pairs of earrings for the perfect match of sporty vs. elegant, silver vs. gold. As the money burned a hole in my pocket and I browsed through the thick forest of clothing racks in my local department store, I came to a realization. I mentioned in a previous post that the motto is our house was “If it covers, it is capitol.” I am just a short trip from wearing a batman cape and a Walmart bag. My SUPERMOM pajamas, that are supposed to be my daily pep talk, end up being worn to the grocery store with whatever shirt (usually my husband's) doesn't smell when I lift it from the laundry basket and take a whiff. I bought my two blouses, put on a pair of jeans and immediately lost 15 lbs. It was the easiest and best weight loss plan ever!

I had a friend complain that she only ever does her hair in a ponytail anymore, it is all she has time for. I found myself secretly envious, because I often cannot even find the time to run a brush through my tangled tresses. The truth actually is that I usually cannot find my hairbrush at all, it has been used to beautify Barbie and been sucked into the same abyss that apparently ate the other half of every pair of my shoes. I look at the beautiful women in my area, the ones that don't look like they are pushing a million years old. They go to the beauty shop and have their hair styled and colored. Are you kidding me? I haven't been to a Dollarcuts in 12 years! Since my mop of dark auburn hair is lapping at my waistline, perhaps it is about time that I at least reined in the chaos with an elastic and a comb on a daily basis.

I am going to get on a sensitive subject for a second, so those who are faint of heart should skip this paragraph. I also purchased, as a gift to myself, some foundational garments. I don't know when it happened, but suddenly not only did I wear “Granny Panties” (bras actually), but I don't remember when safety pins and duct tape began becoming part of my lingerie fashion statement. I guess when “the girls” became functional, I stopped worrying about fashionable. The funniest part of the whole operation was buying an athletic top to wear to the gym. I wasn't even in the “intimate” section of my local buy-everything-here-store, and my eldest minion was blushing. Makes me want to take an extra trip to Victoria's Secret just for spite.

I am going to skip the subjects of jewelry, coordinated hair accessories, or lotions and perfumes, as fully recovering from my slothful binger is going to be a multi-step process and these two seem like the icing on the cake. But, if you don't see me on the streets around my home....GREAT! I have achieved my goal of sluffing off the air of defeat and dementia and putting on a convincing facade of hygienic normalcy.

Toilet Bowl Blunders
In researching images for this article, I stumbled upon this jewel of the internet called "Adventures in Toilet Flushing." http://m.pandawhale.com/post/6374/adventures-in-toilet-flushing This website left me howling with laughter and tears streaming down my cheeks. After this highly scientific video evidence, I have concluded...I bought the WRONG toilet. This also includes the cartoon from my youth that leaps to mind every time I have to rigorously plunge.

I reseated my toilet for the third time since the dawning of this new year. I am starting to wonder if I shouldn't get a contractor's discount and just buy wax ring kits in bulk, because we have to completely dismantle the commode on a fairly regular basis in search of whatever object has blocked the escaping of unwanted materials. Unfortunately, the culprit is usually not of an organic nature. I would like to be able to accuse our toilet woes on overenthusiastic wipers, but alas some children need to be reminded to perform that operation altogether, and others of them choose to bypass taking it off the roll in double ply streamers and just drop the unused cylinders in whole.

I have had three different mothers this week pose the inexplicable question of where the spoons from their homes went. One mother actually wondered if they went the same place that single socks do. I do not really venture to guess where spoons go when they disappear from this realm of existence, but I will tell you that this most recent occurrence, when the toilet vomited its undesirable contents all over the floor, a lone spoon sat glimmering in the depths— daring my germophobic self to extricate it from the murky waters. I plucked it like a hot coal from its odorous resting place and flung it into the bathtub behind me. I covered the offending utensil in bleach, cleansed it with scalding hot water, and threw it in the garbage just to be safe. If you also are finding a notable lack of food-shoveling implements, perhaps you should check the plumbing.

Our toilet began protesting our family's abuses about two years ago when the first IFO (identifiable flushed object) strangled our plumbing. Due to chronic skin maladies and my unhealthy obsessive need for overachieving, I have always made my own soap from scratch. Yes, I know....totally weird, but decadent and effective. During one of my frequent bouts of being overextended and exhausted, I chose to buy a case of green-hued soap that claimed, once upon a time on television, to make Irish people sing under waterfalls. My eldest minion is very particular about....well....everything. I unsheathed the rectangle of emerald perfumey goodness and placed it gingerly on the dish built into our tub. When I went to shower, the rectangle was inexplicably missing. So, I unwrapped another and placed it in its place of honor. The next day it also had been sucked into a vacuum. On my third attempt, my toilet began mysteriously cascading over the shiny barriers of the rim. I plunged until I could plunge no more. I purchased a toilet snake (I had never heard of such a thing before), but to no avail. I finally hired a plumber. He removed my toilet and retrieved from the depths beneath my tile, a vaguely rectangular not exactly green object that I recognized immediately. I was amazed. Apparently soap gets gummy and squishy during a ten minute shower, but can last several days under a constant barrage of flushing without softening or passing through to freedom.

 

I was comforted a few short weeks later when my dear neighbor called and reported that her porcelain throne had suffered a similar fate. Her well-intentioned, but bored, seven-year-old child had decided to play “flush the Hotwheels car.” Apparently Hotwheels made their cars wonderfully flushable, but not parentally steppable (see our January 9, 2013 post about Parental Pain Scales.) After exhausting his die-cast supply of vehicles he decided that writing implements seemed innocuous enough to make the journey through the pipes. After flushing one plastic pen, the toilet gave up the battle and began its watery protest. When confronted about the incident, the child responded with “It said it was disposable on the side.” His mother, though slightly soggy, had to accept that as a relatively logical defense.

So, I now begin listing things that through my scientific study and a plethora of rubber gloves and hand sanitizer I have found to be non-flushable. (How is it that non-flushable is rejected by my spell-check, but non-uncrushable is an acceptable replacement?) Toilet paper rolls if stocked with more than a quarter of a roll of product are rejected by most lavatories. Marbles though small, are too dense to be carried away with the current and then either sit glinting and decorative in the bottom of the privy or require unpleasant retrieval by someone other than myself. Toothbrushes make about half the journey before proving too rigid and may take some muscle to extract. Baby wipes, single paper towels, plastic Easter eggs, make-up brushes, cotton swabs, toothpicks, marshmallows in small groups are all fairly benign in descending down the catacombs of the W.C. Don't ask me how I know, but through familial proof, dentures are amazingly flushable and truly difficult to retrieve. (The family resemblance is extremely shaky after that, as the wearer of these chompers washed them and continued using them after sending her hubby to retrieve them from the septic system. I may be frugal, but I don't think even I am that frugal. The moral of this crappy tale is to remove your dentures BEFORE you toss your cookies).

As I have mentioned before, my family suffers from an amazing plethora of skin maladies, so therefore I must purchase make-up that nearly defies budget or face my life as a splotchy ogre. Though I have abandoned beige tubes of foundation that cost as much as one month's insurance on all three of my vehicles, merely because it has vacationed (however briefly) in the bowl of the facilities.

How is it that we have the technology to speak to people face-to-face on other continents, we can carry the entire library of congress in a computer the size of a paperback book, we can clap our hands and turn on a light across the house, we have robots that sweep our floors and torment our house cats, but we cannot have a smart filtering toilet that only allows #1 and #2 to enter its depths? (patent pending) Sounds like a corporate conspiracy among plumbers to me.

Toilet euphamisms rejected for this MoM outburst: Powder room (mostly because mine has been dusted in a variety of powders and the nomenclature is offensive to me), washroom, the restroom (parents all know that there is very little resting that occurs in this room), little boy/girl's room, the can, the John, the privy, the oval office (I rejected this, because too much crap happens in the real geographical location), the loo (which I personally use quite frequently, but it is unrecognized by most Americans), the smallest room in the house, and the comfort station.

A Sprinkling of Karma
This week I am writing in remembrance of my old toilet seat and in salutation of the new. With five little boys, toilet seats are as disposable as.....toilet paper. I just ask myself, “Is this disgusting, disease-infested, vomit-inducing, light-your-body-on-fire-and-extinguish-it-with-bleach-type of cleaning worth the $20 it would take to buy a brand new one?” For this OCD-stricken mom, the answer is generally a resounding, “ HEAVENS NO!”

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a very peculiar sense of interior decorating. This was especially true when it came to her bathroom, This sense of style is likely because of her ten darling grandchildren, a staggering eight of them were male.

One day in our ceramics class, my grandmother was struck with the overwhelming importance of a message engraved on an unpainted plaster plaque. She was immediately compelled to by truth and import of this greeting, purchased it, instructed me to paint it quickly. She proudly posted this plaque on the wall directly opposite the toilet. The plaque was charmingly shaped like a toilet seat, painted (through my artistic vision) a glowing orchid purple and read in gigantic capital letters, “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.” As one of the few females using her facilities, I found this rhetoric disgusting and preferred to carry out my business with my eyes shut to avoid the humiliation of reading about sprinkling or tinkling.

Apparently, karma has a twisted sense of humor. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of parental karma, I will define it. Karma is the cosmic principle that ensures that if you ever used the commode at your grandmother's house with your eyes closed to avoid thinking about boys peeing on the toilet seat, the cosmos will give you FIVE bouncing baby boys as a nagging reminder of this principle. Yes, I have FIVE little sprinklers and tinklers and the thought of that orchid-hued, plaster toilet seat haunts me several times daily.

There have been days of my life that I will use the restroom at our local Walmart because the chances are good that they are less disease-ridden than the one awaiting me at home. I find myself often doing the “tip-toe and levitate maneuver.” I am sure that everyone is familiar with this prim little dance. The one you do on the tops of your tennis shoes when you enter a public toilet that you are sure has hatched more bacteria in the past 20 minutes than Sir Alexander Fleming did in a lifetime. The dance starts with a staccato halt at the doorway and the dramatic realization that you must dance on the tips of your toes like a ballerina to minimize the amount of surface area in contact with the offending facility. Upon reaching your destination, you remove all but the calculated necessary amount of toilet paper from the roll and proceed to wrap (without directly touching) the toilet like a present for Christmas morning. The choreography then calls for you to levitate your body six inches from any surface and finish your biological business quickly. After which, you use only your elbows to wash with scalding hot water (though no soap because these kinds of facilities have a philosophical aversion to the stuff) and exit the room. I personally then use scented hand sanitizers till my pores sting and I smell like I am imbibed with alcohol.

Not wanting to be so crude as to mention the sprinkling and tinkling in my decorating, I chose a more elegant and biblical approach. I called it “The Potty Proclamation.” I actually had a friend think that they were making an amazing revelation when they noted the similarity to the ten commandments. I informed him that it was indeed by design, because the disregard for these commandments may bring down a wrath of biblical proportions. The Proclamation was posted in our home for over a year and the offending behaviors ceased, so it was removed in favor of a beautiful picture of a tulip.

Well folks, the tulip is on hiatus, and The Proclamation is back in its place of honor. I have received great compliments on my commandments, so I will share.

It is prefaced with: “Woe be unto the filthy for they shall be beaten heavily with whatever Mommy deems sufficient until the germ-ridden devil is cleansed from their soul.”

1. Thou shalt not forget to flush
   Might I mention that my little group of monsters are certifiably genius. I am not saying that as a proud mother, I am saying that as someone who thwarts their attempts at world domination on a daily basis. I can truthfully say, I have a brilliant group of little minds. So WHY can they not master the function of the LITTLE PLASTIC LEVER!?! (there is that interrobang again, Honey!) I have noticed that the concept of flushing the toilet and the satisfying gurgle and swish that accompany it, is absolutely enthralling to small children. But the function and operation of the device falls out of their heads once they are potty trained, as if there just isn't enough room for both pieces of information.
2. If thou art male, thou shalt SIT to use the facilities.
   My male friends who have read my proclamation are scandalized by this! They believe that I am robbing my boys of some male right of passage or something. I attribute this to my mother-in-law. My darling husband is the oldest of three children, the younger two being sisters. He therefore, was encouraged to abandon his manly right to urinate from the upright position for the greater good. Yup ladies, I married the perfect guy. He cooks, he cleans, and he NEVER leaves the lid up. I am not suppressing my sons' natural instincts or the snow-inspired artistic tendencies, I am merely making them marketable for their future wives.
3. Thou shalt remove all items from the floor before leaving this room.
   This is self-explanatory. If an article of clothing is moist and on the bathroom floor, I don't want to have to question whether the moisture is from splashing or from overzealous sprinkling and tinkling.
4. Thou shalt not waste toilet paper.
   Being a homeschooling family, I have found that there are offensive behaviors inherent in a public school situation that have gratefully skipped my children. Creative uses of toilet paper is not among those lists of elusive behaviors. The worst is when I am perched helplessly on the throne with an empty cardboard cylinder on the sproingy thing to my left and four or five plush wads sneering at me from their cemented home on the ceiling.
5. Thou shalt replace the toilet paper on the roll when the previous is void of product.
   Fairly self-explanatory, but we have all done the solitary dance that is less tip-toeing and more reminiscent of a sumo wrestler in trying to retrieve a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom closet, which is within view, but just out of reach.
6. Thou shalt not part the Red Seas in the bathtub, allowing it to spill its banks.
   Again, I remind you that I have little maniac genius babies, but somehow they can calculate the amount of magnesium needed to light a small fire, but cannot calculate the maximum volume allowed in our bathtub to minimize the spillage. Additionally, my bathroom is tiled in lovely beige tile with grout that acts as aqueducts in carrying any small amount of water through a series of canals all the way out through the outer bathroom and into the wood-floored hallway an impressive ten feet away.
7. Thou shalt use thine own towel and return it promptly to the assigned hook.
   I am repeatedly asked, mostly by my mother when she visits my house, if I actually OWN towels. The answer is a resounding YES! I have a gaggle of towels, a legion, a myriad, quite nearly a googleplex of drying implements. Amazingly, I post the towels at their station each laundry day and within mere seconds, they have been swallowed by the black hole in my bathroom. I am increasingly tired of choosing between the drip-dry method or the hippy-wiggle dance from trying to put on jeans when wet.
8. Thou shalt return the magazines and reading material to the provided receptacle.
   Refer to the above theory on moisture. A mysteriously moist magazine should require incineration, just to be safe.
9. Thou shalt not bathe anything but thyself and thy pet in the bathtub.
   I am also the mother of two beautiful little dogs and although I sanction the use of the bathtub for bathing and grooming our sweet little spaniels, my children suddenly suffer from “explosive amnesia.” However the understanding of the function and purpose of a bathtub swiftly returns whenever a new and dry roll of toilet paper or a freshly laundered bath towel is temptingly stationed in our bathroom.
10. Thou shalt RINSE the residual filth from the bathtub before exiting this room.
    I am a bath taker, or at least I was until I had children. There is nothing more soothing than candles (also notably absent from my house), a book (now replaced by my e-reader which I find a little precarious see previous note about karma for in-bath reading), and a soothing bubble bath. Although, there is something distinctly not soothing about finding UBF in my bathtub, or Unidentified Bathtub Floaties. Therefore I swiftly stopped making “Me Tea” as my sweet hubby coined the phrase. Although come to think of it....that is even less charming than the little rhyme about sprinkling and tinkling. Goodness, what have I become?

Marital Mayhem

 

I am writing this post with great personal risk to my life and marriage. If my husband knew of the delicate nature of the contents, he would likely run off with some tube-top sporting circus freak and change his name to Bubba just to maintain his anonymity. I usually talk about my life among the mayhem caused by my children, but today I am struck by the humor of the mayhem caused by the communication, or lack thereof, between the sexes.

I used to believe that the invisible wall that results in a complete semantic breakdown between my husband and myself was a unique feature to our house that realtor neglected to tell us when he was giving the tour. Can you imagine the dialogue, “And if you are in the kitchen and your spouse is in the living room, be warned that no conversation will ever end in diplomatic unity. This is due to the “Tick Off the Wife Wall. It is invisible, but scientists are working on a means of tracking the energy and locating the phenomenon.” Apparently this is a common geographical anomaly, because I have talked three different women through the process of eliminating vague directions. So, to help minimize the fallout of marital mayhem, I will provide a handy guide to interpreting wife-speak.

 

1. “I don't know, Honey. It is a little expensive.” I have found through my own experience that this somehow passes the male brain filter and translates as, “She is okay with my owning this **Fill in the blank here with ludicrous and absurd testosterone-dripping desire** as long as she doesn't have to find the money to pay for it.” What is going through the female brain before this phrase escapes her mouth is, “What the H*** would any human being want with a **Fill in the blank here with ludicrous and absurd testosterone-dripping desire**? Since it is absurdly outside our price range, I can tell him this and close the matter without seeming like a nagging meanie.”

I am currently awaiting a **Fill in the blank here with ludicrous and absurd testosterone-dripping desire** of which I did not successfully circumvent the purchase. My downfall came in not saying, “Honey, NO! I do not want **Fill in the blank here with ludicrous and absurd testosterone-dripping desire** in the same ten mile radius as me or anybody that I love, therefore when it comes, it can enjoy a cozy permanent home in the mailbox.”

 

2. “I would really like a **Fill in the blank with a modestly priced, modestly sized, logical desire**” This does not mean to buy an approximation or variation on said desire in a much larger caliber or with a much larger price tag. A television is still a television even if it doesn't swallow the entire living room and leave no place for the public to view it. A larger vehicle is still larger than your Honda even if it doesn't get a measly 6 MPG and roar like a wild beast. Despite attempts to convince the male population to the contrary by infamous television comedians of eras past who grunt at their bigger and badder mechanical devices, sometimes good enough is just...well, good enough

 

A good friend was complaining to her husband that she loved animals and would really like a modestly sized dog. In response, he purchased her a mildly gigantic dog rather than a behemoth dog that carries brandy in a keg and could carry a small family to safety after an avalanche. Her sweet canine has destroyed and dug up numerous items and always her sweet hubby says, “You said you wanted a dog.” To which I tell him for the sake of avoiding marital mayhem, “Yup, she said she wanted a dog, not a miniature horse crossbred with a tornado.”

 

3. Do what you want, Dear.” This is wife-speak for “Good heavens, don't ever do what you just said you were going to do. Search through the mental log of our previous conversations and do what I vaguely hinted that you should do.” If this phrase is uttered with a heaving sigh, DUCK. All Hell is about to break loose. This enumerated entry is more of a cry for reform to the female population. If you want a modestly sized dog, name the breed. Be specific. If you don't want to move to Siberia tell him that you are happy in your suburban paradise and would rather amputate a limb than follow him into the permafrost.

 

4. "Honey, you need to handle this.” This phrase is often muttered in exasperation with a disciplinary situation. Interpret this very carefully as “Perform a miracle in which the child learns the disciplinary lesson, never repeats the offending behavior, has a tear in his eye for the sin he has committed, and offers apologies and lollipops while planning his life as a missionary in a third world country.” This does NOT mean, “Become a whip-wielding drill sergeant who summers as an Alcatraz prison guard, withhold food and water while shouting insults about their intelligence and their genealogy, and top the whole operation with a sound thumping just so they will never forget it.” All joking aside, there has to be an honest compromise on this front. My husband and I would have a relationship of sunshine and roses if we didn't have to do all that parenting stuff which just causes conflict. Can't the children just live feral in the backyard and be raised by our dogs? The doghouse should be big enough; I requested my little toy-sized beauties by name.

There are so many that I am having a hard time listing them all. “Buy some milk and eggs at the store,” means, “Get the milk and eggs, but add some ice cream and hard liquor without spending any additional money.” “I have too much to do,” sincerely means, “Go do some dishes.” “The children are making me crazy,” means “Break out some tranquilizers and tuck in the minions.” “Leave me alone,” means “Leave me alone,” unless uttered while crying which then means, “Under no circumstances do you leave me alone, you chase me down like a bloodhound until I vent to you about every injustice that has bothered me since the moment that I was born until this exact second.” “Whatever,” secretly means, “Shutup!” “I have a headache,” translates to, “Oh My Gosh, go take a shower. I think something died in your back pocket.”

In truth, ladies. I think the issue here is us...well, maybe just me. I tend to be cryptic about my communicated desires... or undesires. I find myself all too often trapped in unwanted situations merely because I didn't communicate with absolution my expectations to the contrary. I don't buy into the whole Mars/Venus thing, because these personality conflicts are inherent in any relationship. But I am discovering that my partner doesn't have a crystal ball, or at the very least is lousy at reading it and doesn't see the raging anger that is imminent in his immediate future, merely due to his poor education in the intricately bizarre and cryptic language of Wife-speak.