doing work

we watched the mavs win the nba championships two days ago. i always love a good sports battle. over the years, my love of sports has taken a back seat to taking care of kids, doing the dishes, normal mom stuff, but every once in awhile, i'll take the time to watch some of the big game.
sports center is a regular presence in our home. when asked, dirk nowitzki talked about how good it felt to have all that hard work pay off, how they worked. so. hard. for. so. long.
lebron and dwain wade talked about how hard it was to work. so. hard. and come so far, and fall so short. (dear lebron. i am one of those people who hoped you failed. so sorry to be a downer, but when you think your awesome so very publicly, i can't help but jump on the "you are full of yourself, so you need to be taken down a notch" bandwagon. ) it got me thinking about how trivial the life of a sports hero is. if they are hoping for sympathy or tears of respect for their hard work, they must have had only pampered rich people in mind. millionaire athletes will get no such respect from me. good for you lebron. you get paid 20 million dollars a year (or rather in a 9 month period) to play a game. sure you run ladders, and lift weights, and shoot baskets over and over and over. you are good what you do, I will concede that you "work hard."
even so, you don't have a clue what hard work is.
i am a mom. i once went on a 9 year spree of poopie diaper changing. 9. years. my body is scarred and battered from growing 4 people inside of it, and then trying to get them out. also, not sleeping through the night for nearly 11 years, and wiping boogers with my bare hands. i have scrubbed buckets of vomit out of the carpets, hosed off gallons of pee from the bathroom floor, and the poop. have i mentioned the poop?
i settle countless arguments without using a weapon. i have made thousands of meals, to the sound of a thousand complaints. made beds, folded clothes, vaccumed floors, canned fruit and vegetables, clipped coupons.....blah blah blah.
the other day my kids and i were pulling weeds, and austin asked me, " mom do you ever wish you weren't a mom? " i must have looked a little stunned, because he added, "you know like when you get sick of us cause we are onery and stuff?" i brushed aside my shock and managed to say, " austin, being a mom is the hardest job in the world, but it's the best job, and i wouldn't ever wish you away."
i have dried tears from soft cheeks, i have laughed at a toddlers jokes, taught my kids to swim, ride bikes and forgive. quinton gave me a thank-you card on sunday. once he gave me a rusty washer he'd found on the road. "it's treasure mom." he'd said. avery draws me as a beautiful princess. austin still wants to hold my hand. and jace....jace has learned to poop in the toilet.
i don't have 20 million dollars, the accolades of winning a hard fought championship tournament, or the adoration of the free world.
but i have four little people, and doing that work is reward immeasurable.

k-i-s-s-i-n-g

you know that quote i have over there? the one that talks about laughing after tragedy. well it's been 16 or so years since this particular embarrassing event happened, i think i'll air it out and see if it makes me laugh. here goes:

so i am 16 and all my friends have been kissed. it starts to be kind of a big deal in my head. i've built it up until i've thought about it so much that it scares me. and i equate kissing with crazy axe wielding murderers encountered in the dark. basically i'm terrified. so like many teenage girls i go on dates. and like many teenage girls i know what happens at the end of dates. in mormondom most dates are platonic. just practicing for when we are older you know. but some dates, i am pretty sure that the boy kind of likes me. and i am pretty sure that the boy probably expects a kiss for his troubles.
like that's happening.
so i come up with ways to avoid the door step thank-you kiss. hi fives for starters. it sounded good in my head, but you should have seen the kids face when i pulled that one. i might as well have just said, "you smell." which in all honesty he didn't but if it was a last resort i would have said it. my next great avoider: the turn away. i just waited until he was coming in for the kill and i'd quickly turn away and call over my shoulder, "thanks! i had a great time." that one however proved to be too obvious, and i started getting a reputation attached to me. one kid offered the victor 50$ . anyone who finally pinned me down with a good ole wet one would also find himself a little richer. i think that kid really thought that i'd never cave. I did come up with a better way of avoiding kisses. I stood on the very edge of the top step to my front door. which made me taller and no boy wants to kiss a girl whose hovering 2 feet above them. it's affeminate. teenage boys are very sensitive about their height. it worked pretty good. so good, i started selling my advice to other scared teen girls. (just kidding, let's face it, i'm the only teenage girl in history dumb enough to AVOID kissing.) *sigh of regret and a head shake*
but it started to get old. and that kid and his 50$ made me mad. so it's homecoming. and my dress is a lovely shade of peach and my date is a good friend who i like. and so i decide to stand on the bottom step. and keep my high fives to myself and not under any circumstances turn away.
the door step scene arrives. i smile, (a half crazed with fear kind of smile) and jabber on in nervous conversation. until i have to stop for what seems like eternity. don't talk, don't move, don't run away to honduras. and in he comes for the kill.
next thing i remember is shaking like a leaf in my mom's bedroom. and she is laughing her head off cause she knows i finally gave in and the ensuing adrenilin rush has rendered my brain useless. somewhere between the kiss and finding myself inside, i had blacked out, muttered goodbye and wandered off to find my mommy. *shaking head again* even my dad is chuckling behind half closed sleepy eyes and snores.
so that's the story of how i turned a regular teenage right of passage into a shock inducing night of blackouts. the end
ps that nice boy never got his 50$.

and nope, i'm not laughing. just shaking my head and rolling my eyes.

complaint department

do you ever just....get sick of stuff? and it's really hard to pretend like your kids aren't driving you crazy? do you try to pretend that the 8th time you sweep the floor is no big deal? like after you've spent 2 hours making a giant dinner and when it's ready no one says, "thank-you this is fabulous!," they just say something like, "geez.....finally." and so you want to really just smack someone, but instead you dish up everyone's plate and then like the mother in "a christmas story" spend the rest of the meal in the middle of a game of keep away between your fork and your sweet family's demands for seconds and milk? do you hate dishes and laundry and peepee toilets? to the point that when you see one, you don't even get mad. you just stand there. waving your white flag.
sometimes everyone is simultaneously needing help, asking a question, needing a drinky at one time. and i want to yell at the top of my lungs, "SHUT! UP!" and sometimes i think if one more kid argues about one more trivial thing, i'm going to develop a tick. maybe i already have one actually? i did smudge mascara all over today.
i think a gal just needs to lock the bathroom door, scream and cry into a pillow, and then go back out there and beg for more. it's like when you play sports and you say to your teammates, "sacrifice your body!" you know, give it everything. even when it hurts.
luckily, i love these people, especially when they are asleep.
and then like a good pep talk, someone says, "mom you bum is squishy, i like to squish it." or "hold me?" or "i love you." or "snuggle me." or the rarer still, "these mashed potatoes are awesome! you are the best cook." stuff like that.......you know.
and then it all sorta makes sense. they need me. to do those annoying insane things. that most people won't do. because i'm strong. i was born for this. i can take it. i can be awesome.
and that tick........it looks good on me.

signs (a slightly tall tale )

,10 years ago, when i had my first baby, there was not much emphasis on cocoa butter. it was just a generally excepted fact that part of the exchange for one deliciously chubby baby, was purple slash marks on the various stretches of land that make up a person's person.
I have spent some time over the last 10 years lamenting the fact that no one bothered to tell me that these scars were avoidable, simply by coating my self in smellygood, lotion. but alas, they are starting to prove useful.
I have two boys who currently reside in the stage of "you can't tell me what to do." hA HA HA!! that's so funny. (big sigh after hardy laugh) anyway. for example here is a recent conversation.
me: austin it's time to turn off the wii and go outside.
austin: WHAT? i didn't get as long a turn as quinton blah blah blah......
me: (interupting, you just must do this as a mother sometimes) I don't know who you think you are, but when i ask you to do something, you say "yes mom!" and then you do it!
austin: YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!
me: (having an epiphany and pulling up my shirt to reveal just my train wreck abdomen) see these stretch marks? i grew you in here and YES I CAN!!
no 7 year old wants to see his mom's train wreck belly, let alone discover the cause.
he very humbly clamps his mouth shut. and turns off the wii.

all this trauma for austin has me examining my stretch marks again to see if they really are that horrendous. i discover that they are worse from the side then the front. i'll remember that next time i need to bare them and turn slighty askew as i do so. it'll be even more effective.
while i'm examining i swear i begin to see an odd pattern in my war wounds. you know how you look at something long enough and it starts to morph and expand before your eyes?
"could it be?," i think, " is that really what i think it is?"
i rummage through the toy box until i find what i need. an ancient kid magnifying glass shaped like a sea turtle. i grip the green plastic handle and take a breath, peering at the suspicious area. and what i see makes me gasp out loud. my suspicions are confirmed. the long hideous scars are formed by tiny grotesquely, artistic, graffiti. the message they spell out takes my breath away. it reads:

austin was here

a smile forms on this mother's face. and i start the search on the sacred landscape of miraculous birthing history for signs of the other three.

grandma is a genius...and other stories.

let's get a little hypethtical. say your a little boy. about 9 years old. and your grandma and grandpa came to visit and they took you to the store and told you to pick out a toy. and say you loved that toy and you took it outside and threw it in the sky (because miniature halo guys like to fly) and you had a big smile of joy on your face until you realized that the miniature halo guy hadn't come back down. your prized treasure is now stuck on the roof. what would you do? your mom might say something like: i don't have a ladder, you'll have to wait until i can call the maintenance guy.
and then if you're really lucky, you might have a fearless grandma, who sees a little problem like a lost miniature halo guy as no big woop. she might gather up things like: a big plastic spoon, a toy badminton racket, a broom, a rake and some red duct tape and fashion a little rescue mission.
and then when she sticks it out the window, she might just see a little hole in the snow, about the size of a miniature halo guy, and she might just be able to reach it with her genius contraption. wouldn't that make you the luckiest kid around? to with a grandma who also doubles as a hero resucer of lost toys? i submit that it would.


in other news, me and my pops went for a nice cross country skiing day! we were so busy talking and skiing, we almost ran into this momma moose and her two offspring.
a momma moose with two babies is rare, not because they don't have twins but because typically the 2nd baby gets eaten by a bear! so i'm guessing this lady is one great mom.

see those skate tracks? i made them.
dad on ski's by the ducks!

Emotional Rambo

Remember my annoying rug? i'm still working on it. Last night i decided to put my nose to the grindstone and crank it out. i had just checked on all the kids, they were sleeping and austin and fallen asleep in Quinton's bedroom. went back down stairs to finish BBC Persuasion and get this stinkin' rug on the floor and outta my hair. So Persuasion ends and i'm flippin' channels and i hear some noises. with mike gone, and uncle gunther on a date, i am missing that he-man bulk. you know, that decidedly masculine quality that makes scary noises mere explainable trifles, and the lack there-of turns the trifles into insurmountable hurdles. so i'm trying not to freak out, and i decide maybe a wayward moose is just trying to mate with my outside wall. austin's room has a good view of the source of the noise, so i go upstairs and peak between the blinds warily. nothing. no moose, or big hairy bad guys. i'm beginning to shrug it off when i hear the unmistakable sound of a door closing. i try to be cool and calm, but someone is coming up the stairs, slowly and then more rapidly and then that darn feminine hysteria takes over and i shout, "whose in my house!" ...........
......just as poor little austin rounds the corner of the stairs, hear's my crazed shouting, bursts into tears and runs to me certain that hairy bad guys are chasing him up the stairs. I feel two things. his heart beating so fast it could burst, and total relief that the insurmoutable hurdle, is merely an explainable trifle. austin had to pee, and i hadn't noticed because of that increasingly pain in the bum rug. and i scared my 7 year old nearly to death. high-five maggie.

All of this has got me thinking. my best friend and i had a mantra in high school. it is as follows: men are good for 2 things: manual labor, and kissing.
I've learned since then to add more to the list. (although the kissing, and manual labor thing were dead on) I've mentioned before how i never cry. it's one reason i love the olympics, because when i'm frustrated after months of not being able to expell all the stress and frustration of life into palpable watery manifestations, i can count on sports battles and national pride to get the water works going. seriously no matter what, i'm teary during the anthems.
but since my man has been in Iraq, crying is a daily thing. or maybe i should say tears are a daily thing. And i've figured out after 10 years that not only do i need and relish mikes big protective muscles, but he's also my personal, Emotional Rambo. His easy going manner carries me through all the puke, and the 9 year old with attitude, and the 7 year old who is as slow as cold tar, and the little girl who can make a mess like a professional hoarder, and a sweet little toddler with a concussion. He takes all of that weight and says something like, "well, we can either laugh or cry!" who can argue with that. he flattens emotional rollercoasters' with his proverbial giant clown foot.
I can't wait until my big, muscley, hairy, and clown footed friend gets back.