Thursdays are play days for me and the kids. I do chores or teach the rest of the week, but Thursday I try to set aside for special outings and crafts. Time when the kids get my undivided attention all day. Today was no different. Today we started the day off by cutting feathers into a hundred tiny pieces all over the kitchen floor. Next, we water colored our heads — well, Max and Lucy water-colored their heads. I stood back, breathed deep and reminded myself that I have a vacuum cleaner and a bathtub and that my world could be returned to order. After this we all got dressed and headed to the park where I caught Max drinking water out of the tiny hole in the middle of the seat pictured here.

Next, we went to McDonalds for lunch. (Please don’t email me with a lecture about the toxic, fatty and terrible food that is served at McDonalds and haven’t I seen all the news stories about fat kids, etc, etc. My kids voluntarily ate salad and oranges for dinner last night so I don’t think a trip to McDonald’s is going to kill them. I beat you to the lecture, I win!) At any rate, this is “our” McDonald’s and one that we visit regularly enough that I know the kids feel comfortable in the play area. Max and Lucy have climbed up into those magical plastic tubes and slid down the slides more times than I can count. So, the kids finished their lunch and I sent them off to play with the other 15 or so kids at the McDonald’s. All was fine until I suddenly realized that I didn’t see Max. Lucy had come down the slide but not Max.

I need to take a moment here and explain that having a child trapped in one of those plastic tubes of child play is a secret fear of mine. I HAVE never and swore I WOULD NEVER try to shove my big self through those tiny tubes in order to rescue a child — If they are big enough to climb up they are big enough to climb down.

I cautiously walked over to the giant tube slide and hollered up “Max? Are you okay?” and then I hear Lucy say “Mommy!! He’s stuck!! He can’t get down!” and then I hear Lucy say to Max in a high-pitched sweet voice “It’s okay Max, c’mon – mommy is right here.” And in response I hear Max wailing in fear. I don’t mean the small cries of a slightly uncomfortable child, I mean the full body, I’m going to make myself throw up, tears. Without thinking of how ridiculous I might look I climbed UP the tube slide in McDonald’s. I instantly felt claustrophobic and it took every ounce of me to beat down the panic that was rising in my throat. When I reached the top Max was sitting there with about four small children sitting next to him, consoling him, and coaxing him down from his perch. Max had big, hot tears streaming down his face. I grabbed him, put him in my lap and we slid down the tube slide together. At the bottom were about a half dozen parents looking at me. It felt as if I had just led an expedition to save a beached whale, or rescue an eagle from a hunter’s trap. But I’m sure they were all really thinking “I’m so glad that wasn’t my big butt climbin’ up that slide”.

I know Earth Day was yesterday and it is so cliche to like, save the Earth and everything, but I’m feeling compelled to contribute my little bit of ecological advice. David and I are not the most “green” family, but I’ve tried to do my part this year and found a couple things that are pretty easy.

Reusable Grocery Bags
I ordered myself a set of these bags from Mon Petite Chien off of etsy.com. I LOVE them.
First of all, they hold so much more food than traditional grocery bags. Second, they have these great long handles that allows me to carry them over my shoulders and thus freeing my hands to do other things (like corral small children into the store and away from playing in the street). But the best part is that they are reusable and prevent me from using plastic or paper bags that could later contribute to a large pile of trash that we are going to politely ignore by burying under a bunch of dirt.

Organic Vegetable Spray
Okay, I have to admit I’m stealing this from Oprah’s show yesterday. This is a great homemade recipe for veggie spray. This is an easy and organic way to clean your vegetables.

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 Tbsp baking soda
• 20 drops of grapefruit seed extract

Combine all these ingredients and place them in a spray bottle. Spray on your produce and then after 5-10 minutes rinse thoroughly.

I’m not the best steward of my environment, but it was my new year’s resolution this year and by golly I’m going to be successful at something. Because I am no closer to actually finishing the kid’s baby books – my other new year’s resolution. Happy Earth Day Y’all.

The family traveled west this weekend past hours of roadside cactus (which as a “yankee” still blows my mind) to San Angelo, Texas. And yes, that is where all those crazy FLDS polygamists live. San Angelo is a lovely, sleepy, old, west Texas town that is built around a small university and the Goodfellow Air Force Base. We went to visit my best friend Kym and her husband Jed. Kym is the kind of person that within 5 minutes of meeting her you feel like you’ve known her your whole life. However, this is not the quality that I admire or love most about her. She is crazy curious and not embarrassed to ask ANYTHING of ANYBODY. “You’re a transsexual? really? So how does that work exactly? Do you dress as a woman at night and a guy during the day? Do you like men or women? Does your family know? And could you pass me the salt?” She is unabashed in her curiosity and zeal for life and I love that about her.

Kym has four kids. We added our two to the mix and it was a great, chaotic weekend of love and laughter. The boys did some fun craft projects with the kids and we celebrated Texas Passover which included a barbecued brisket and potato latkes. We went to the air force base where Jed works and looked at big airplanes. We rolled out of town early Sunday and lumbered our way back to the hectic life of Dallas. It was a lazy, sweet weekend with good friends. Aaaaah, isn’t life grand?

While changing Max’s diaper this morning…

Lucy: I see a penis!
Me: yes, that is Max’s penis
Lucy: it looks like a nut
Me: really?
Lucy: yeah, it looks like a nut with a sweater on.

I sat down to grade papers this evening and found a rash of plagiarism had broken out in my class. This hurts. As a teacher this is utter failure. I have failed these students. We’ve been studying Othello – a personal favorite — and their papers were taken from Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, 123HelpMe and assorted materials. Little of it was their own ideas or even ideas from scholarly journals. It was cheap, easy and fast. There is only 2 weeks left in the semester and I’m sitting here wondering why I do it. Why do I spend hours in the evening on lesson plans, grading papers and preparation only to have them ignore me for twelve weeks? This is the irony – they are so anxious to get their papers back that they have been nagging at me for a week. I promised them that I would have them back by tomorrow and yet now it all seems pointless. The amount of effort that I want to put into their papers is directly reflected in the amount of effort they put in to writing them. I can’t help but recall all the teachers I might have disappointed over the years and how I wish I could just go back and give them all hugs. I think I’ll just hug myself instead.

David and I have been dragging our feet about putting Max in a bed. I don’t really know why. Perhaps it is because he’s our “baby”. Perhaps it’s because we’re just lazy. Perhaps it’s because we are afraid of the bedtime battle that may lay ahead of us. I don’t know. However, it is starting to get a little weird because he now has a pillow in his crib, and after nap time Lucy likes to crawl in there with him and play. I love this picture of the two of them together. I am incredibly blessed to have two kids who seem to get along rather well. Outside of the times when Max is hitting Lucy in the head with a car and Lucy is ripping toys out of Max’s hands. Really, they get along great.

I saw this book titled, “Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms” and bought it. Boy, nothing could be closer to the truth. One of the things that I find most disturbing about being a mother is how hard mothers are on each other. Everybody seems to think that they have all the right answers and anybody else who is raising their kids different must be wrong. And yet, the truth is that we are all barely hanging on by our fingertips. The truth is that we act like we know what we’re doing because we have to – not because we really have all the answers. The truth is that we all want good, healthy, active, successful children. The truth is we aren’t perfect.

This book “outs” us. This book forces us as mothers to recognize that we all take easy shortcuts sometimes. That you know what, we aren’t perfect and neither is anybody else. Some of my favorites in this book include; “I had to use my toddler’s potty chair on the side of the road when I was stuck in traffic.” or this great one, “I signed my son up for karate because the instructor is hot” and the absolute best one, “My biggest fear as a mother is being judged by other moms”.

Here is my dirty secret for the day. I let me kids watch cartoons while I write this blog and sometimes that turns into them watching cartoons all morning. I’ve shared mine, what’s yours?

Lucy has the kind of personality that doesn’t color outside of the lines. I’m embarrassed to admit that she gets this from me. Recently she has developed this disturbing habit of asking me if I still love her whenever she breaks the rules. I have racked my brain trying to figure out where this comes from, if I’ve said something or reacted a certain way, but all I can think is that this is just part of her personality. So, lately I’ve been doing a lot of reassuring and explaining that there is nothing she could ever do to make me not love her. I just laid my precious angel down to sleep tonight and this is the conversation we had.

Me: Lucy, you know I love you? and that I’m proud of you?
Lucy: Why?
Me: Why am I proud of you?
Lucy: Hmm-mm
Me: Well, you’re a good big-sister and you’re sweet and kind, and smart and you listen and obey mommy and daddy.
Lucy: but sometimes I don’t obey you
Me: Well, yes, but you always try to
Lucy: but sometimes I don’t follow the rules
Me: Well everybody has problems following the rules sometimes. Everybody starts the day trying to obey the rules, whether it is the rules their mommy and daddy made or God’s rules. And everybody breaks the rules sometimes — even mommy and daddy.
Lucy: You break God’s rules?
Me: Sometimes. The important thing to remember is that no matter what you do mommy and daddy will always love you and God will always love you
Lucy: Does God take people away when they die?
Me: yes, he takes them to heaven with him
Lucy: What is heaven?
Me: It’s where God lives. It’s a nice place filled with love
Lucy: does it have sand?
Me: I don’t know – maybe
Lucy: I saw a picture of God at church and he didn’t have a mustache or beard like daddy and he was standing on sand. I think there is sand in heaven.
Me: Well, you’re probably right.