Etiquette, according to Ryan

"Mommy?"  Ryan follows me into the kitchen.

I'm making breakfast, and he is the first one dressed.

He's always the first one dressed, which is funny, as he is the last one I wake up.  I just can't bring myself to unfold his little seahorse shape from under the covers first.  I go after the "aw, Mo--oom" big boys instead,  they of the "OH!  Don't turn on the light!!" pleas. 

"Mommy, did you know, that if you are in a meeting or something like that, and you have to fart, or you fart, that you should look at someone else and say their name?  Then everyone will look at them, and they won't think you did it."  He giggles.

He's gone in a flash, to go torment his brothers into hurrying up.

Well.  Guess I'll have to keep that in mind, you know, as I attend so many meetings these days.

I'm assuming he'll file that one under "Life's Lessons" as I don't think that it is officially on the curriculum at school. 

And it's the things we learn while we aren't at school that are sometimes more important, right?

Mid-night fighting words

My kids have been sick, on and off, for about a month. 

I have to say, it's easier when they all get sick at once, then for one to get it, and rotate it through the others.   Better to suffer a few days of torment,  then have weeks of the vicious circle that is one well, one sick, oops, back to kid #1, now it's kid #3.....

And it's worse when my number finally comes up.

Ben was on steroids for five days, which was just enough to help him over the coughing hump, but also just enough to suppress him and he caught a cold...which he passed on to me. 

I was sick all last weekend.   It was pretty mild, and I still went to work.  Every third coworker was sniffling, so I wasn't exactly introducing everyone to something new.  

I found a new appreciation for the Quils.  Quil of the Day, and Quil of the Night.

I also found that I am capable of homicidal anger, even in my sleep.

I can count on the fingers of one hand, the times I've been so mad that I wanted to seriously hurt my husband.  A couple might not count, as they were due to childbirth, which technically, is half my fault.

We generally get along well.  Give, take, whatever makes the machine run smoothly.

The other night, however...

I feel someone pushing my shoulder back and forth.  Back and forth.  Hard.  WTH?  I wake up, startled..."what?"  "You're snoring up a storm, hon."  "Sorry."  I am about to drift off again, but not before I realize I have to use the bathroom.  And get a drink of water.  And blow my nose. 

I settle in again.  I'm just falling back asleep, drifting, drifting....when my hand is suddenly bouncing off the mattress.  Twice.

"WHAT??"  I hiss through clenched teeth.  I know what's next. 

"You're really going at it again."

DAMMIT.  No, no, no.  I'm tired.  I'm sick.  I'm not dealing with this all night.

I jump out of bed, grabbing my fuzzy socks up off the floor, snatching a pillow, and feeling my blood start to boil as I stammer out:  "I'm sick.  I can't help it.  STOP WAKING ME UP."

I stagger down the hall, stopping only to put on my socks.  I head for the magic chair, pull the blanket over me, and am just mad, mad, mad.  I listen to see if he followed me.  I'm half hoping he did, but not disappointed that he didn't.  

I'm reclined, and I am awake.  The dogs start shifting around in their crates, because they hear me and now they need to get comfortable again.  It's a while before I fall asleep, so there is plenty of time to contemplate, stew, plan Spy vs. Spy forms of retaliation. 

If you're gonna be waking me up in the middle of the night with that much persistence, it better be for something involving nudity.  Not for snoring.

Especially since my snoring is nothing really new.  It just varies by degree.   You'd think I'd be able to catch some "oh, she's sick" slack. 

I know he meant no harm.  But what was he thinking, that I have some magic 'stop-snoring' switch, like a reset or something?  I was already on my side, so I don't think shifting positions would've helped.  Usually, he is the one who leaves the room, I just beat him to it this time.

I woke up to the sound of the alarm.   I thought I'd turned that off on my way out of the room last night.  Hmmph. Serves him right, I'm thinking, to have to jump over my side to turn that puppy off. 

Beep, beep, beep--why is it still going??

Because it is sitting next to me in the living room.  He moved his little clock by me.  I can't even see to turn it off, I'm just pushing buttons blindly until it stops. 

He called later as I was making breakfast, to make sure I was up, the kids were all up...and for a brief, childish second, I considered not answering the phone. 

It's taking a while longer than I thought, but I'm getting over it.

My cold, I mean.  

Under the influence

I blame the Pantene commercials.

You know, the ones with the perfect, straight, shiny sheaths of hair, that the models twist and turn this way and that way, sometimes, into a smooth, not-a-split-end-in-sight knot?

I'm obsessed.  I want hair like that. 

Pro-V, shmo-V, does that exist anywhere in nature? 

My hair has always been really short.  Gosh, since before Nolan was born.  The last time I sported a sheath of long, beautiful hair, I think I was in the fourth grade.

I cut it short because I wanted to be different.  Aside from sidetrips mimicking Dorothy Hammill and Lady Di, it's always been a little different from my peers.  My Mom is lucky I didn't start messing with the color until after I left the house.  

Well, not if you don't count the high school disasters Jen and I put ourselves through  courtesy of Sun-In.  Oh, my, God--what a bad idea...brunettes, with wannabe blonde highlights that were actually just this side of cockroachy red-orange.  At least our tans were fabulous.  I've even endured a couple of bad perms, but who hasn't?

Never again, I swore, the last time I got all that mess out and finally got my own color back.

Enter the hairdresser. 

A good hairdresser is like your best friend, sister, family.   She knows of your hair's sins; has seen your true, unmadeup visage squinting at her from the chair; and still, she convinces you that you are, indeed, beautiful, if only for a moment.  Part confidante, part magician, you can't help but be seduced by her charm into believing it.  You don't ever want to lose her, once she's found.  Really.

Some of the greatest traumas of my life have involved finding a new hairdresser.  (Ladies, you know I'm not being melodramatic.)

The one I'm seeing now I've been going to for not quite a year.  We're still getting to know each other.  She is nice, dependable, and adorable.  We even share the common thread of our husband's professions.  By some strange coincidence, they work for the same city and their paths have crossed a couple of times.

And when I leave her capable hands, I feel fantastic. 

I told her a while ago that I wanted to grow out my hair.  She's been encouraging, which is helpful, because I was prepared this time to go in and beg her to cut it off.  I was this () close to going back to the short-short. 

But we talked about it, and she trimmed it up instead.  ("You look younger with it longer."  Sold!)  I had some Hair 101 to go over, as I was having some trouble styling it.  It's got a wave that doesn't cooperate that I have never had to deal with before. 

It is fab-u-lous.  I love it.  Oh, it's still short, but I can see it going somewhere from here. 

While it may not look like the Pantene commercial, it feels like it when I'm driving with the window down and the wind is rushing through it.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille.

The other extreme

When I get home from work, I'm usually in a good mood.

Being away where people recognize my name is not just "Mommy"; having conversations that don't start out with "Because I said so"; and driving home listening/singing along to whatever I want are just bliss.  

In a nutshell, I am restored and happy to be back home, anticipating planting a big kiss on Mr W and seeing the happy faces line up for the "She's home!" parade that occasionally happens when the garage door is heard going up.

Saturday was no exception.  I came in, and walked down the hallway, looking for Mr W.  I ignored the clues that something was up.  Nolan's concerned face, some items in the hallway, my partially-closed bedroom door, the broom in the hallway...all should have given me a heads-up, but nooooo, I was too intent on seeing my beloved.

And I saw him, alright. 

Sitting on a footstool, hunched over, dustrag in hand, Pledge in the other.  The room, vacuumed.  He was dusting our dresser.  Holy cow!  I felt a rush of warmth, because, frankly, who wouldn't feel a rush of warmth at the sight of a man cleaning, your bedroom no less; and he looked over his shoulder and said these words to me, these words that ordinarily would make some women swoon:

"I'm hiring us a maid."

I did not swoon.  I felt all my warmth extinguish, and actually heard a voice in my head say "breathe" while I sputtered out "I need to use the bathroom."

I put myself in timeout. 

Now, I will be the first to admit that things have gotten a lot busy around here.  Between ferrying children to and fro; and things I do for the school,  not to mention the mere work it takes to ensure that everyone is not only fed but that there is indeed food to eat, I've been a little (okay, more than a little) lax  in some of the housekeeping. 

Something's gotta give, and frankly, I've got better things to do after the kids go to bed than clean toilets.  I'll admit that I was thinking the other day that the level of dust in this house is doing nothing good for anyone's allergies.  But I hadn't had a chance to get to it. 

If I spend my weekdays doing all kid-duty, all the time, and my weekends working then going to my Mom's; when exactly am I supposed to be cleaning beyond the bare minimum to keep us from feeling like we live in a frathouse? 

I groused to myself in the bathroom, pissed that he said it, pissed that he couldn't even say hello first, pissed, pissed, pissed. 

I found myself reacting in a way that is a little unusual for me.  I said nothing.  I came out and went on about eating a little lunch, and left him cleaning our room.  After I calmed down a bit, I went in there and put some stuff away that he had no idea where they went, and said nothing.

And I started to reason with myself, that I should not take it personally, as in "honey, you're horrible at housekeeping and we live like pigs" but try to accept that maybe a little help couldn't hurt, and he is just doing what men do--seeing the problem, and fixing it.

Even if it rankled me, I should see it as a positive thing. 

I was still pissed, but I was feeling it ease up a bit as I pondered that he was, in essence, just trying to help, and not holding me up to some unlivable, model-home standard. 

Eventually, I was forced to talk about it, or at least listen, as he mentioned what he had in mind.  I tried not to glare at him, and that was easy as he said, "you're really busy, with the kids and the school, and work, and whatnot, and I'm busy too, and there are four kids running around making messes here and there, so let's try this..."

How could I stay mad at that?

I'm letting him deal with it.  We'll see what happens.

While some people (jen) might point out to me that I could teach my kids to do it, I have to say now is not the time.  There are too many of them, and all those little helpers would make me much, much crazier than having a maid would.  I will teach them, don't worry, to do what needs to be done.  It's just not something I have patience for right now.

My feeling of warmth eventually returned.  Especially that evening, as Ryan ran his hands over our cleaned, polished dresser top and said, "Daddy cleaned this.  He cleaned this for you.  Wasn't that nice of him?"

"Yes, it was."

Seven-year-old wisdom.  You just can't beat that.

Non verbal communication

We were driving down the road the other day, on the way to my Mom's. 

I was chatting with Mr W and I was wondering where he was headed. 

The freeway is that way, I was thinking, and although I rarely do this, the words "where are you going?" escaped before I could check them.

He barely lifted his index finger off the steering wheel in response.

In my best documentary voice-over voice I say "He indicates with a mere lifting of his finger that he intends to drive on to the gas station up ahead, and stop for fuel before continuing on his journey."

We both start to laugh.  "See?  We communicate so well, we don't even need to speak to know what the other one of us is saying," he said.   He was half-kidding, teasing me, but also half-serious, too.

"Oh, really?"  I respond.  "What am I saying, right now?"  I throw him the look, slightly raising an eyebrow to illustrate my point.  (Sometimes, you have to tease back.)

He can only shake his head.  The kids were in the van with us, so he can't say it out loud.  But he knows, he gets me.

And that is all I need to know today.