Dear Oh Dear,

Dear Oh Dear,

No matter what I do, the furniture is always dusty. Do you have any suggestions?

Bewildered

Dear Bewildered,

That’s easy. Get rid of the furniture.

Oh Dear

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Dear Oh Dear,

Again I have nothing planned for supper, and the children will be hungry soon. What should I do?

In a Panic

Dear In a Panic,

Children are not as fussy as you might think. At my house it will be smorgasbord: they get to fight over the two leftover frozen pizzas, and then fill up with popsicles. If they are still hungry, I can whip up a couple boxes of instant pudding. And we do have oranges, which are actually nutritious; if I slice them up, they will think they’re eating something fancy. The key here is to think in or out of the box. If I get any complaints, I pull out the “I’ll cook supper after you wash the dishes” line. It’s getting old, but so am I.

Oh Dear

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Dear Oh Dear,

It’s kinda fuddy–the kids hab ruddy doses, and so do I. What do you think?

Drippy in the Midwest

Dear Drippy,

When your nose is runny, you think it’s funny, but it’s snot.

Oh Dear

If you are SAD

Since I am wearing my heart on my oven mitt this month, I hereby stick my neck out the window and holler to the entire neighborhood: if you wonder why, when the days are becoming ever longer and the sun is shining ever more warmly on the Northern Hemisphere, you feel worse than you did in December; if you are irritable and resentful with those you love most, then flagellate yourself with guilt because of it; if  you can’t find the wherewithal to accomplish anything worth anything; if you want to eat chocolate for three meals a day, with snacks of potato chips in between; if you want to sleep all day, or you can’t sleep at all; if your eyes are puffy because you cried yourself to sleep last night; if the only stories in your emotional library are tragedies; if your life’s GPS reads “Valley of the Shadow of Death”…

…you might be experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder. My Brain recently heard that Punxsutawney Phil says we will have (only) six more weeks of winter–welcome news, indeed! (even if we do have to add another month-and-a-half to that when we live at 47 degrees north latitude). Brain notices that the sun actually feels warm again. Brain is wondering what new herbs we can plant in the garden this spring. But Brain nevertheless insists on being churlish, grumpy, short-tempered, pessimistic, anxious nearly to hysterics, resentful, bitter, angry, and sad. It wants to be fed lots of carbohydrates. It can’t get enough sleep. (That is a true fact, actually. It doesn’t get enough sleep.) After days of wanting to smash teacups and throw eggs and turn over tables, it finally occurs to me: I’m depressed. Fall usually does it to me; it’s October and November that are Deep and Dark and Ugly. (Except that I take an anti-depressant, and then Autumn is really not so bad; it’s actually quite beautiful.) But some people with SAD are just as sad in the spring as they are in the fall, if not more so.  

Discussions about Seasonal Affective Disorder in specific, and depression in general, fill up lots of books. I might holler more, maybe from my rooftop next time. For now, though, if you think you are affected, please get help. Google “Seasonal Affective Disorder” or “depression”; read and learn, then see your doctor. The sun is shining! Some of us need a little help seeing it, is all.

Jan at Among These Hills wrote about depression here. Thank you, Jan.

How much are these phone calls costing me?

I go shopping and take the TracFone. The phone calls from the kids go like this:

1. “Mom, can my friend come over?”
“Sure. Do your chores first.”
“Okay, bye.”

2. “Hi, Mom, my friend can’t come over, so can I call my other friend over?”
“Sure. Make sure you do your chores.”
“Okay, bye.”

3. “Mom, what’s my friend’s phone number?”
“I don’t know. It’s written in the red appointment book. It’s either in the office or in my bedroom.”
“Okay, bye.”

4. “Mom, I can’t find the appointment book.”
“Honey, I can’t help you from here. Have one of the big kids help you look.”
“Okay. Bye.”

5. “Mom, I called my other friend, and she says she can come over after church tomorrow, and she can play ALL DAY.”
“Oh, good.”
“Bye.”

6. “Mom, where are you?”
“I’m at Shopko.”
“What are you buying?”
“Some hoodies and some other stuff.”
(Big brother hollering in the background: “ASK HER WHEN SHE’S GONNA BE HOME!”)
“When are you coming home?”
(Big brother, frantically hollering: “WHEN IS SHE GOING TO BE HOME?”)
“When are you going to be home?”
“In about 45 minutes.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Picture frames. I’ll see you when I get home.”
“Okay. Bye.”

7. “Mom,” (whimpering) “Big Brother wrote on my finger with a marker.”
“I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT FROM HERE. DON”T CALL ME FOR THINGS LIKE THAT.”

For whose convenience was the cellular telephone invented, I wonder?

Ingenious

I need:

• water-proof books for reading in the tub. Not for me–I don’t even try to get away with such a thing. I’d be like Mrs. Large in “Five Minutes’ Peace,” with little girls diving into the tub to join me. But the nine-year-old likes to read while she soaks her school day cares away in the tub–whew…I rescued THAT library book JUST IN TIME.
• window shades with light sensors, that automatically shut at dusk and open at dawn. Not having to pull shades would free about two minutes of my time per day. Just think–I could maybe, possibly, trim the fingernails on one of the baby’s hands in that time. If I wanted to do two hands, I could skip combing my hair.
• a radar screen with a blip for each kid. So, when we are leaving from church I would know that two are already at the van, one is in the bathroom, one is running around the sanctuary, and the other is…oh yeah, that one is right here with me. Then, as an accessory…
• …a little zapper to send a gentle message to those who haven’t yet been corralled: We’re leaving. Come hither.
• something that would temporarily convince the little ones that they like their dad WAY more than they like me, so I could take a nap. Would 67 Dum Dums do the trick?

Household help

Way back when, any family with children had hired help–a cook, at the very least. With eight children in the house, I think I should have a cook, nanny AND a maid. Then I could go around with my camera, taking pictures of my freshly-bathed children eating balanced meals or playing in the perpetually clean living room; or I could do my marketing at a leisurely pace; or I could hang curtains and wallpaper while singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.” And, I could post to my blog without stopping every eight seconds to reconnect the computer power cord that the Baby keeps unplugging.

Alternately, I could have two dishwashers, three washing machines and dryers, a home gymnasium, and a good, hot sauna. Okay, I’ll settle for the sauna. And I’ll go in and not come out until I’m a limp noodle.

I’ll cook supper after you wash the dishes

Tonight we are having peanut butter sandwiches for supper. My Inner Perfectionist says: “This is not good enough. Are you lazy, or what? Any mother worth her salt will make supper every single night of the week. A truly responsible mother will serve plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, whole grains, and low-fat dairy for every meal. A wonderfully awesome mother will follow the meal with a delicious treat like whole grain carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. YOU AREN’T EVEN ON THE CHART, LADY.”

Well, the dishes didn’t get washed last night, and the dining room table is a mess. I was chauffering kids all last evening, and I wasn’t home to see that the chores got done. Today I brought three children to two different appointments, went grocery shopping, and stopped at the pharmacy. So, I didn’t make supper. If you’re anxious for some home-cooking, please excavate the kitchen. Thank you.

Have a great day!

Notes

• Right about now is when winter and I should part company. Which one of us is going to leave?
• Cabbage roll casserole for supper. Our family’s special ingredient is Polish sausage. That would be a trade secret, so don’t be trying to sell it to anybody.
• My personal hair dresser is checking my head for lice, apparently. She has the sniffles; I hope she doesn’t sneeze in my hair. She still reports that my hair is brown, but I am steeling myself for the day when the report is “gray.”
• Note the punctuation at the end of the previous sentence. It makes no sense whatsoever, but it is correct. In the United States, the period ALWAYS goes inside the quotation marks, even if what is inside quotation marks is just one word.
• Also grammatically speaking: an apostrophe is used to indicate plurals of words (do’s and don’t’s) and letters (A’s and B’s), but not to indicate plurals of things like apples, bananas, avocados, onions, potatoes or Pedantic Grammarians. And avocados is not spelled “avocadoes”; my spell-checker said so. And I don’t know if I punctuated the first half of the latter sentence correctly. It wouldn’t make any sense to put the semi-colon inside the quotation marks, but who says punctuation and grammar makes sense?
• Louisa May Alcott had a rough life. Like Jo in “Little Women”, she had a sister Elizabeth who died, an older sister who married a man named John, and a younger sister who was spoiled and petted. She, however, never married. Her father was a philosopher who hung around with Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, and hardly ever earned enough money to support his family. He didn’t care for Louisa much because she wasn’t feminine enough for his tastes.
• Now, can we please build puzzles with the 3-year-old?

Success

It doesn’t get any better than this.

The view through my frosty window

 

Baking snakes

Snakes are nummy for girls. I got that straight from a feminine three-year-old source. You can buy snake meat here. Recipes are here. You might want to practice on something a little less expensive, though; it would be a real bummer to burn sixty dollars’ worth of meat (or, for my size family, about two hundred dollars’ worth). So, try what we did, and make snakes out of sugar cookie dough. We made a MESS of cookies (emphasis on the mess).

These guys helped.

And here is how everything ended up. They’ll break your heart every time.

I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of the snakes. Who knows; maybe they all got et’ raw. I’ll hope no one gets salmonella.