I’m one of those moms. I don’t make my kids clean their rooms. They help with the other chores around the house, but I let them be responsible for their own space. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Ethan’s room is disorganized, but nothing that couldn’t be whipped into shape within a half an hour. He likes it clean, or clean enough, and frequently makes it so. Mary’s bedroom floor, on the other hand, is seeing the light of day for the first time in quite a while. The mess didn’t bother her until she literally couldn’t play in her room without stepping on her stuff. Two weeks ago she started drawing pictures of how she’d like her room to look, and when she asked for help making it look that way, of course I was much obliged.

She also decided she’d like a cube organizer (in addition to her aluminum foil) for her birthday, and I was happy to get her that. Grandma pitched in and bought her a new quilt as further incentive to make her space beautiful. And Ethan and I agreed we’d help her clean.

What a process it’s been though. I love that she’s crafty, has a good memory and excellent imagination, and is rather sentimental, but I’m having a devil of a time trying to teach her that her stuff is just stuff. Especially since I was the same way! I remember being six or seven years old and shedding many a tear over the loss of my dear friend Rachel the Apricot Pit, whom I’d bestowed with a felt-tipped face and some fuzzy red-yarn hair.

Mary had a small family of toilet paper tubes… a tall one with brown eyes named Cylinder Mom, and two blue-eyed tubes named Cylinder Ethan and Cylinder Mary. You could tell them apart because the Cylinder Mary had bigger, cuter eyes, as her maker was wont to point out. This little tubular family has been living on a cardboard nightstand she fashioned some time ago, and their job was to hold the letters and notes we’d write each other. Voodoo-doll mailboxes of a sort, I guess. But today she parted with the nightstand after removing and saving the “PARTY” sign she’d cut out for it. She even said goodbye to the toilet paper tubes, but not before giving them each sentimental kisses and wishing them happiness and new friends at the dump.

WHY does this tug at my heartstrings so? Oh… and the craziest part? Now that I’ve taken the Cylinders out to the dumpster, I’m regretting not taking their pictures first. *Sigh*

Anyway. We’re done. For now. Here’s hoping it’ll last long enough to be worth the trauma it took to get there.

“G’morning, sweet Ethan.”

“Hi Mom.” (stretch!!!) “I’m not all the way awake yet. What time is it?”

“Almost seven. We need to get up and get you two ready to go to Dad’s for the week.”

He stretched again, held out his hand, and called “High five!”

I’m always a bit bummed when they have to go, but I know they love Dad’s house with the star-ceiling theater, and the hot tub, and their cats, their trees (the ones that weren’t cut down anyway), and the rooms we’d painted in their favorite colors, and well… everything. Most of all I know they love their dad, and I’m not going to take that from them. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t want to leave him hanging. So I gave him an enthusiastic five.

Then after a moment, I volunteered, “Well, I got up and went to the pool for an hour this morning.”

“I know! What did you think the high five was for?”

<3

E: ;-p como estas?
V: Bien, gracias!

… short pause …

E: [y tu]
E: fantastico gracias
V: oh! Y tu?
E: lol

The best part is that I really get to hear him LOL in the next room.

I guess I’d always pictured gophers when I said that, but I laughed and told them about the pop up windows we had to endure back in the day. “But most modern browsers take care of them for you, so you guys probably don’t know what I’m talking about.” My oldest isn’t nine yet and I’m sure pop-up blockers have been around at least that long!

“Oh, I’ve dealt with pop ups before,” Mary sighed. “Especially if I can’t get Firefox out of Safemode and I have to use Internet Explorer. It’s so annoying when I’ve got ten windows to close”

Ethan nodded. “Internet Explorer IS a pop up.”

To do when they’re home again: Check for malware & install Chrome. :-p

A few months ago, we were walking through Ikea when Mary stopped, gasped, and exclaimed, “Is that a SHOEHORN? I have always wanted one of these!” They were only 99 cents, and she really does struggle to get her shoes on in the morning, so I was happy to oblige. She tap danced with it as though it were some mix between a cane and baton, and sang some They Might Be Giants. Yep, she’s her mother’s daughter.

But I hadn’t really noticed any escapades with the shoehorn after that until this past week. Ethan’s teacher had just sent a note saying they were doing a unit on simple machines and he needed to bring a “student-made marshmallow catapult.” But by the time they’d be back with me again it would be too late, so we had to think fast. After some testing, we decided that with a table edge as a fulcrum, Mary’s shoehorn made a perfect catapult and a very simple machine indeed.

Mary was excited to have an excuse to bring her shoehorn to school and show her teachers and friends. But just as we were leaving, I found out her shoehorn had a rather shocking name. Not end-of-the-world awful, mind you, and an obvious choice of names for a shoeHORN. She has a tendency to “just add Y” and yeah… I almost shot apple juice out my nose trying not to laugh. I won’t type the name here on the blog because I don’t want to attract the nasty spambots. And I certainly didn’t want her to introduce it to her class that way. So as we drove to school I tried desperately to convince her to call the shoehorn something else.

“But what does that word mean, Mom?”

“Well you know we’ve talked about .. uh.. hmm. Well, I’ve always told you I’ll answer even embarrassing questions, but I need to focus on the road right now. Just trust me, sweetie. You can’t call her that at school. She needs a new name.”

Ethan shouted “MOOOOON CHILLLLLD!” and laughed wildly. We’d just watched Never Ending Story that weekend with some friends, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

Mary waited till the giggles died down. “Well that’s HIL-arious,” she chided, “And just how would you like it if YOU had a hilarious name? Names should be normal and sensible. Isn’t that right, ____?”

“But sweet baby, that is NOT a normal or sensible name.” Well, it would be, actually, but…

“Then how about Anne?”

So Anne it is, and that was that, until I picked the kids up again the next afternoon. Ethan motioned that something was wrong and Mary would be a moment. That’s when I saw her walk morosely from the school, with our dear Vice Principal carefully urging her along. Anne had several layers of masking tape around her neck. And as soon as they were buckled into the car, Mary absolutely burst into tears.

“He broke my shoehorn!!”
“I’m so sorry, Mary… It was an accident….”
“I know, but I’m just SO SAD!”

“Sweet Mary-o-mine, it was only 99 cents. Let’s just go get a new one.”

“But MOOOOOM!! Then it wouldn’t be my sweet little _____! And I just love her so much!”

Weeping gave way to wailing. What’s a mom to do? You’ll think I’m awful: “I’ll take ANNE back to her Ikea family. Maybe they’ll know how to help.”

She wiped her tears. “Do you think they’ll be able to fix her?”

“Yup.” I winked in the rear-view mirror at Ethan. “Good as new.”

“Have you wished in my wishing well yet?”

“Why no I haven’t. I didn’t know you had one. Will you show it to me?”

“Well SURE! Don’t forget your quarters.”

“My quarters?”

“Well, people usually throw money into a wishing well, but I don’t want random coins. I just want quarters.”

“Hmm, I don’t know that I’ve got any. Let me check.. ah, yeah just two pennies here. Do you accept pennies?”

“Sure we do!”

“Oh good.”

“But only for wishes that won’t be granted.”

Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.

a note from my nephew to Mary

.. And that is all I have to say.

Anyone who knows Mary knows she’s got a lot to say. Some of it cracks me up, like what I’d posted last time about the bowling alley. Some of it’s actually pretty wise, like this tidibit she offered today, “Sadness is like candy. It’s OK to have some now and then, as long as you don’t let it take over your life.”

And then there are the things that crack me up AND are wise, like she asked in her prayer today, “If there’s anything we want to do and can’t, bless us that we’ll find a pretty great substitute.”

My Ethan’s got his own flavor of wisdom too, but it usually doesn’t come out sounding very pint-sized at all… he’s got an old soul that really shines. Especially when he sings.

More than a few people have suggested I make a book for them of their sayings so I can give it to them later. But if nothing else I don’t want to forget the ways they pulled through these trying times we’re in. So for now I’ll just start adding their new sayings to this post as comments so I can keep track.

If there’s anything I told you they said and I haven’t posted it here, feel free to add it or as much as you can remember.

To celebrate Crazy Hair Day at school, Mary had asked for spikes this morning. So I tried. But all the spiking glue in the world wasn’t about to make her locks stand on end. She ended up looking a bit more like Medusa, and her hair even rattled while she walked. I perched a flower bow on top to soften the effect, then threw Ethan’s hair into a spiky mess as well, and shipped them off to school.

Well surprise, surprise: Ten hours and five shampoos later, she needed my help getting out the last of the sticky snarls. I’d just rinsed the suds and was closing the shower curtain for her to finish up when she grabbed a bottle, drew in a long whiff, closed her eyes and sighed, “I love this conditioner. It smells just like Jack and Jill’s Bowling Alley!”

Last time I was there it was all stinky feet and sweat or worse. It’s been a while for me though, and I know the kids have gone there with their dad several times this past year. So perhaps they’ve just picked up a new, um… Raspberry and Jojoba… air freshener, or maybe the girl in the next lane went a little heavy on her perfume. But I must admit I’m curious, and next time I drive by I’m going to have to pop in to verify. And I’m thinking I’ll switch conditioners, too :-p