Naomi, the Hero

A few months ago, we lost our remote control to the TV. Like all households, it is usually the first thing to be disappear.

Not under the sofa cushions. Not in the downstairs bathroom. Not on top of the piano. And it wasn't underneath the dining room table. We emptied the toy boxes, and looked behind the shelves. Nothing.

We lived without it for more than a week. My husband, meanwhile, had moved from moderate annoyance to all out grumpiness. He didn't want to relive his elementary years when he was forced to heave his body off of the couch to turn the DIAL on the television to switch the channels (that was when there were only 13 of them plus PBS).

(And, as an aside, in my house growing up the person who got up to change the channel also had to hit it squarely on the top to adjust the picture. We called it "bopping" the TV.)

One day, about 8 days into our remote control withdrawl, Naomi ran into the living room with the grey beast in hand. She'd found it! Hope and I screamed, laughed and praised the two-year-old for her mature resourcefulness. Naomi grinned and we, from the sofa, turned the channel to Nanalan'. She was our hero for the day.

A week later, it happened again. We lost it. Easy to do in a house filled with toys, papers and other cluttery things. On whim, I decided to ask Naomi before I sent out the search dogs for it.

She set down her milk, walked over to the sofa and bent down. She reached underneath it and around the back and pulled out the remote control. It was in a place it would never have gotten to on its own. She had hidden it there, and then produced it when the time was right.

It had never occured to me that she was hiding things and then "finding" them when we had become exasperated. I've heard stories of toddlers throwing wallets in the trash can or keys down the toilet. My older daughter had always avoided antics of this particular type, so I never thought that my second child would be a "trasher" or a "hider".

She was hiding things, but was spinning it so that she was the hero.

I began to wonder what else she had hidden and quickly thought of all the things I couldn't exactly find right now. My watch. I asked her and she "found" it for me. The hairbrush. Again, she produced it quickly.

When we packed up to leave the beach house last month to come home from vacation, we searched every drawer in every room. We found my mother's flip flops she had "misplaced."

If you lose your remote, or your keys, or even if you misplace your sandals, email me. I'll ask the toddler where they are. Chances are, she'll know.

5.4

We Californians pride ourselves on riding out earthquakes as if they were a ride at Disneyland.


Especially if we are native. Once in awhile we talk about it, usually in the presence of tourists or people from Georgia, and we laugh and say how they are really no big deal. We get earthquakes all the time. I grew up on them, like I grew up on skim milk and beef tacos.


We just hold on and wait for the shaking/rolling/jolting/rattling to stop.


Caltech says we get earthquakes all the time, but usually they are so small or far enough away that we never feel them. We might be driving or walking down stairs or jogging outside when they happen, and the would-be jolting fades into the symphony of life unheard.


In my lifetime I've "ridden out" lots of California earthquakes. I was in junior high during a big one. When Hope was a baby I remember a shake so significant I bolted out of bed and ran to her crib in the next room. She never woke up. I ended up in the door jam, but she never knew what happened.


Tuesday at about 11:40 in the morning, we got about an 8 second shake, rattle and then roll. Luckily, the three of us were sitting at the kitchen table eating an early lunch. Jolt first, then a little shaking and then rolling. Rolling...sometimes that's the part that doesn't seem to end.


If you've never been in an earthquake, you might think that 8 seconds is not very long. But when I stop, and my heart seizes (my opinion is that you never really get used to them) and I grab the girls' arms with an unyielding grip, 8 seconds is a lifetime. I was ready either to throw them under the table or move them away from the sliding glass door.


It rolled and swayed a little. And then stopped.


Hope looks at me and absolutely grins. As if she had been on a Disney ride. I guess it is some sort of a rite of passage for kids who grow up here.

Meanwhile, my heart is pounding. Naomi is oblivious. And my mom calls. Are you okay?

It is the biggest any of us has felt in a long time. At least 15 years. I guess we'll hit Home Depot this weekend and buy some more furniture straps to bolt our bookcases to the walls.

Nothing is broken, nothing has fallen, at least here at my house. The only thing that needs mended, perhaps, is my sense of pride in thinking that I am comfortable in just riding the quakes out. I'll always bolt out of bed and down the hall. I'll always grab their arms ready to duck under the table. But I'll always be happy they aren't tornadoes.

Life is Ripe

A watermelon sits on my counter. Green. Firm. Perfect.

Because I live on a small patch of ground on an unfertile hill where even a tomato would struggle to grow, I'll take what I can get. I have to trust my market for ripe fruit. I try hard not to take California's abundant produce for granted. I really try. But when the displays literally overflow with melons, berries and squash all times of the year, it is difficult.

So my ripe watermelon, from Trader Joe's, summer's best, is waiting to be cut.

I know it's ripe because it sounds hollow and I 've already consumed its sister. Red and icy inside, cut, the juice pools in the dish. Only fit to be eaten in the yard or over the sink, the watermelon won't last another 48 hours. Not with my two little melon-munchers craving it. It is full, heavy and beautiful. It is asking me to cut into it.

And oh, this life seems to be begging me to cut into it too.

It is full and heavy and good to eat. It is asking me to get up early in the morning and run, to make my body strong. Life is begging me to laugh and cry or be quiet and not be ashamed. It is asking me to kiss my husband longer, to hug my daughters tighter and raise my face to worship.

Life
is
ripe.

And perfect and abundant. Love spills and pools when I let it. Kindness collects and runs down my chin when I forget myself. Sometimes life is so messy and big it has to happen out of doors where the mess doesn't matter.

Devour, don't taste.
Dive, don't dip.
Drink deeply and let love spill.

Life is ripe and is begging me to eat. Begging you to eat.

My Best Days

These are my best days.

I sing my toddler to sleep at night. I'm inches from her blonde hair and smell her baby bath bubbles. She says Mama, sing sing...and I sing, even if I'm tired. Because I know it won't last. She's not always going to want me to stay.

Someday, she'll want me to go.

I help my daughter with her sentences. She's printing so much better now, getting ready for first grade soon. She says Mama, how do I spell...and I stop what I'm doing, even if I'm busy. Because someday she'll take off across the paper with her own pencil. And she won't always need me close.

Soon, she'll write her own story.

These really are some good days. Even with the shouting from the backyard and the arguments over toys, there are still watercolor paintings and moon sand sculptures. There are still nighttime cuddles and a toddler patting her way down the hall at midnight to take up residence between her parents' pillows.

And I know when I am old and all my girlfriends are old, and my husband needs me even more than he does now, we'll talk about the jobs our grandchildren have and who they are marrying. I'll miss the Kindergarten-lined paper and the lullabies. But I'll have had the first row seat to the lives my daughters have lived.

Those will be my best days too.

The LBC

I grew up in Long Beach, California. You know...where Sublime and Snoop Dogg are from. In the LBC.

And not in the super-nice, country club part. No way.

I grew up in the very normal part. We heard gunshots at night. Sometimes near but more often far away. Sometimes if we stretched up on our toes, we could see the Queen Mary fireworks in the summer from our kitchen window. Our house was old and cozy and clean. No air conditioning and no swimming pool. We rode bikes in the afternoon and took swimming lessons at the community park pool. My sister and I went to a Christian school because the public one nearby was old and rundown.

I loved growing up where I did.

Since I was small, Long Beach has had a little bit of a renaissance. The main streets are being cleaned up and the downtown area is alive with restaurants and shops. There is a beautiful aquarium now by the water and the neighborhood school was completely redone about 10 years ago.

And Long Beach is not like Newport Beach. There is no bluff or a back bay. There aren't beautiful trails along the ocean or open air malls cool with a sea breeze. It is in Los Angeles County and it's normal, it's grounded. Long Beach has a lot of cafes and coffee houses and "hole-in-the-wall" restarants. It has a "beach" but it isn't wide and deep like Huntington, or with cliffs and tidepools like Laguna. It's near a harbor and a shipyard. But somehow, Long Beach is perfect even so. Its just different.

And a lot of my friends are still there. In fact, I drive there every other week to be a part of a mother's group. I do that because I connect with those mothers more than I do with some of the mom's groups near me.

I could have been a Hoosier (my mother's from Indiana). Or from the Sunflower State (my father's from Kansas). And I would have been proud of it. But was born in California and I ended up in Orange County on accident by way of Long Beach.

Orange County Style

Its not all beaches, plastic surgery and gas-thirsty Hummers in Orange County. We also have a county fair.

Yes, we have pig races, deep fried twinkies and the giant bbq semi parked at the entrance. We have cowboys (Alan Jackson WAS in town last night), carnies (need I say more?) and cattle drives. The Orange County fair is home to produce and livestock competitions, craft and art exhibits and a really great carne asada taco.

Hope dove into a life sized bowl of "macaroni and cheese".

Naomi maneuvered a "tractor".

And I slid down a giant slide. With my two girls.

We all ate ice cream and my dad found a giant turkey leg. We gobbled down two big baskets of fresh sliced potato chips. We visited the newborn piglets and the baby goats. The girls touched the chicks hatched 5 days ago and Hope found the queen bee in a hive.

But it still is Orange County.

Now, the fairgrounds here are situated on a bluff near the ocean. We get the ocean breeze so it doesn't get too sticky. And, there was a wine and cheese bar. And there were Mercedes in the parking lot. And a couple limos. And there is always, how should I say, "plastic surgery" walking nearby.

We do have a fair. We just spin it with a little bit of Orange County style.

Canadian Sunscreen

I haven't laughed so hard since Annie came to visit.

I hadn't realized how much I NEEDED to laugh until after it was all over. And my house was dark and quiet and I washed dishes alone in my kitchen.

We sat around a table last night with other adults while 8 kids combined pounded up and down my stairs, climbed on the top of the kids' playhouse, and tore through our back yard pulling each other in a wagon. One family lives near us, but we don't see them often and the other family, we've just met and they've come all the way from Canada.

All day at the beach, to our seperate corners to clean up and shower and then back to my house for tacos and ice cream sundaes. And I haven't laughed so hard.

Eight kids generally keep each other happy and don't need a lot of direct supervision, as long as they have things to do. Sometimes more kids means less work because they play with each other. Unless they are destroying things, which they didn't.

Share the Wii, please.
Be careful not to dump the toddler out of the wagon on the patio.
Girls, please don't be mean to the little boys.

...was about the extent of the discipline needed last night. They played inside and outside until well after dark and they were all so good. Which allowed the adults and the oldest boys to sit around and play a game and laugh.

I needed adult laughter at the merits of Canadian sunscreen (Is anyone going to tell them it doesn't work? They are all sunburned!!), turkey basters, farmer's markets, and ancient temples being more majestic than the wilderness (thank you, Mr. No-Green Card).

I needed to get to know another mother who lives 1600 miles away and think about how much we'd be friends if we lived remotely close to each other.

I needed my girls to be enveloped in a larger group of kids, in a mini-community, and learn how to make the best use of short time spent with new friends.

I needed my home to burst at the seams with people and kids and friends and a whole lot of laughter. A busy, messy kitchen is much better than a quiet one.

The Big Orange

When I was a little girl, I hated this ride. And I hated Ferris Wheels.

I think it has something to do with the freedom of swaying, the not-being-stuck-to-the-groundness of it. They aren't coasters, on a track with a five point harness to smash me against the seat.

On these giant swings, suspended high above Southern California (incidentally, inside of a GIANT orange) my feet hang free. Kids kick off their flip-flops before they ride. I notice a LIFE-PRESERVER near the entrance, no doubt there because of some municipal code. I look around for the water hazard and remember that the Big Orange is in the middle of the man-made lagoon in Disney's California Adventure. Okay, life-preserver noted, I figure that we will be swinging at such an angle that a potential broken chain might fling a person through the openings in the orange peel and out into the lake.

But my daughter, she has no fear. As I've written before, she accepts all the thrills of life with a squeal of joy and welcomes new adventures without hesitation.

We jump on, and I purposely sit behind Chad and Hope so I can video.

As we lift up, the ground seems to sink down and I can feel the weight of my body in my hips without anything for my feet to rest on. Hope immediately begins to laugh and scream (the constant high pitch in the video is her) and I'm not scared. Even the feeling of the loss of control, the knowledge that it's only a few thin chains that keep me from being hurled into the murky water, it doesn't scare me. I am watching Hope and she makes me laugh. She spreads her arms wide like a bird and giggles.

For the brief 90 seconds in the Big Orange, I feel like a kid - sitting on a chair or a sofa when your legs are too short to reach the floor; swinging at the playground so high that the chains give a little slack at the top.

I realize I no longer hate this ride. Its taken me awhile to let go enough so that the joys of being six infect me again.



The Big Orange from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

Organized

A couple people in my life have the mistaken idea that I am ultra-organized.

I really don't know where they get that notion. I guess I am usually on time to things. I normally have what I need with me (I don't run out of diapers or snacks). I pretty much always have a cold drink with us in the car and I pack our lunches if we are out for the day. I guess in those ways, I am organized. I am somewhere between prepared and slightly-cluttered.

But you should see the floor of my car. And the books piled lopsided beside my bed. And then take a look at my closet.

And please, please don't go near the toy room.

It
is
bad.

Apparently the two individuals who keep telling me I am sooo organized (maybe I am just less cluttered than them) haven't peaked inside the girls' playroom lately.

The girls don't even like to go in there. I know, that is really bad. That is what a playroom should be: a repository for all of their toys and a place they can play and build things. It should be organized. Unfortunately, it is usually ankle deep in stuff. Junk really. Plastic stuff.

Okay, so they are two and six and they CAN keep it clean if I keep them accountable to pick up several times throughout the day. But it is usually on me to discipline them to be organized. Kinda silly when I am a bit cluttered myself. And then when one dumps a box and another box is dumped, everything gets shuffled together like a deck of cards and then its all over.

However, about once every six months I overhaul the room. I throw away so many things without homes or boxes: pieces of old games, weird plastic toys from Happy Meals, naked dolls without heads. Then I take everything that is left and put it back into the boxes/bins/shelves where they belong and label it all.

Today was the day. Three hours and I still have a couple remnant boxes of plastic junk left to sift through.

And here is the amazing thing: As I was cleaning and I was beginning to match dolls with clothes and toys with all of their accouterments, they began to play well together. No screaming. No arguing. Of course they feel more at ease with their surroundings and with each other when things are clean. I feel more at ease in my home when it is clean. The whole afternoon they didn't ask for the television once. They were busy with their "new" toys.

I wish my house could be featured in Cookie magazine with organic hemp wooden toys and perfectly painted murals on my playroom walls. I wish my children would check out toys like a library with their little scrawly signatures on a card. I wish they would sit quietly in the middle of my vacuumed living room with one simple box of like objects. I wish I couldn't go to bed at night until each and every toy was neatly placed on it's labeled shelf.

That just isn't me. I do my best to keep my home clean and comfortable and sometimes things get left undone. Like the playroom. Usually.

But tonight it's different. The kids are bathed and quiet and are playing in the middle of a (unvacuumed) floor with boxes of organized toys. And I can live up to my friends' unreal view of an organized Sarah. At least in one room. And probably only for tonight.

We'll see which one dumps first tomorrow. I think summer begs it.

Whispering

Sometimes when I put the girls to bed, each in their own rooms, we get a chance to whisper.

I started whispering to Hope a couple years ago once in awhile if she would have trouble sleeping. After her prayers, I would lay down next to her and whisper suggestions for dreams.

I'd tell her to dream about all the sweet, soft things that little girls should be dreaming about: horses and carrots and big shady trees; walking in cool grass and patting down castles in the sand. I'd make up stories about pretend ponies who would come to her window at night and take her on midnight journeys across the hills.

And all of this I would whisper, facing her as her eyes began to stare.

And as my little one is growing up, I've begun to whisper to her too. Tonight, I told her to dream about bright fish in the aquarium and soft, grey cats. I whispered to her about princesses in a castle and long pink dresses.

I'm not sure what exactly she is dreaming about, but the whispering time is special.

This is something special I share with my girls.

My friend, Chrissie, has created an entire blog devoted to suggesstions for creatively spending family time with her own two girls. Read about her wonderful ideas here.

Newer

There are reasons why a woman rearranges her living room. And dining room.

Reasons why she, by herself, picks up and moves two different area rugs, one large table, 8 chairs, two sofas, one side table and two ottomans. And a rocking chair.

And all this on a whim in the evening when her husband is gone working and her kids haven't been bathed. And the dishes are still undone in the sink and the trash is almost overflowing. The clothes are unfolded and the playroom door is closed because she can't bear to look at the disaster.

She asks her girls to open the blinds more so she can see where to push the chairs.

Her toddler is climbing the vacuum cleaner. Her six-year-old finds a pile of leftover jelly beans petrified from Easter underneath one of the pieces of furniture.

There are reasons why she does this. Maybe they are the same reasons she might cut her hair or reorganize her pantry. They are small changes, within her control, but offer enough difference to make her feel newer. She can't paint her bedroom tonight, or write a book. And even though she's 33, she feels old.

But she pushes her heavy table toward the window and moves the love seat so it is on an angle. She moves the sofa side table so that it can be seen from the front door. She puts the old lamp on the little table in its new spot.

And there are still toys everywhere and a toddler potty-seat in the corner. And the pantries are still a mess. But there is something newer about her home tonight when she's done. And about her.

Slumber Party

I don't usually flake on people.

Not usually. If there is something I can't do, I usually don't agree to it. Which means I say "no" a lot. But when I say "yes", most of the time I follow-through.

But I flaked on my running friend this morning. After a night of soothing the nightmares of one little girl and sharing my bed with both little girls at different times throughout the night, I couldn't get up at 4:55 a.m. (in order to meet her by 5:15). I just couldn't do it.

My phone was by my bed, so I did the only thing I knew how to do at that evil time of the morning.

I texted:

Dont hate me. Had a really bad night. Ill call you later in the day. Im sorry.

She texted me back like a good friend would (15 minutes later, after she had already gotten HERself out of bed and put HER clothes on, and was waiting on HER front porch for me.):

No worries. Of course I dont hate you. Well talk later. Im sorry you had a bad night.

So I slept in a little. And it was what I needed. I opened my eyes at about 7 when the summer sun was already bright in my bedroom window. Everyone else in the house was still asleep in different positions throughout the upstairs.

My oldest daughter was sprawled across her bed after the tossing and turning of her dreams. Her father had re-deposited her there at about 2:30 a.m. after she'd slept briefly in our bed in a post-dream worry.

My littlest one was still between us in our bed, snoring her tiny toddler snore that comes from the deepness of rest. My husband was sleeping, despite the brightness of our room, back turned toward both of us.

For a second, I felt the sinking feeling like I'd done something stupid or lost something. Ohhh. I didn't run. I had almost forgotten my pre-five in the morning texting session and the run I'd missed out on. I regretted it for half a minute.

Then I heard the morning sounds. A car leaving our neighborhood for an office somewhere. The pigeons that have nested in our chimney. The little snores. My cat crying at the top of the stairs begging to be let into our room. These are the sounds I don't hear at 5 a.m. when it is dark and still very quiet.

And I still feel bad I flaked on my friend (I did call her with profuse apologies. It turned out that she also needed the running break and used the quiet of her own house to bake cookies for her family early in the morning).

But I don't feel bad I missed out on the extra two hours of rest and new cuddles with little girls, blurry-eyed and fresh from sleep, still smelling warmly of their beds. I don't feel so bad that I stayed in bed to be a part of this Monday morning slumber party.

Oh, maybe one more text to my forgiving (non-flaky) friend before she starts her week:

Again stupidly sorry. I owe you frozen yogurt.

Cocoon

40 hours.

That is exactly how much time I get when I try to get away with my husband. That's how much time we are left with when we try to celebrate our wedding anniversary 5 weeks late. Six p.m. on Friday to 10 a.m. on Sunday. 40 hours.

But we've learned to cocoon. Stay in the room (or near the room). Eat at the hotel. Don't get in the car. Don't plan a big, expensive dinner. Watch movies on the laptop or on TV.

Cocoon. Dig in like a little satiated caterpillar in the pupa stage. Wait it out. Wait to be changed. Or at the very least, to relax.

We did make the 3 minute walk to the spa yesterday where we spent the afternoon.

(Regarding a man who appreciates the spa: the esthetician who worked with me told me that my husband must be very in touch with his yin to love the spa. Whatever. I just think he likes to be pampered.)

I opted for an herbal body wrap which promised skin tightening, increased circulation and improved skin condition. It promised a lot for 80 minutes. Reduce cellulite? Make my skin look a little younger? Detoxify? Let someone wrap me up like a pupa and then massage my scalp while I "cook"? Sure, I'll try it.

While Chad was in the next room exploring his yin with a "Gentleman's Facial", I was slathered in different goopy lotions/oils/gels (not sure, it was dark) and wrapped up in a crinkly, plastic sheet and then piled with hot towels. She wrapped me up again with soft blankets and began a facial massage. At this point I didn't care about tightening or detoxifying, I was just cozy and warm and perfect.

By the end of the treatment, I don't think my problem areas were any tighter. I'm not sure if my circulation was stimulated or if my cellulite was noticeably reduced. I do know that I smelled like something between a pumpkin and a honeydew melon and that my skin was softer than it has been in months.

Did 80 minutes in a cocoon deliver all that it promised? Probably not. But it did relax me and made me slow down for a little while. I could be quiet on the inside and that felt good.

Has 40 hours away with my husband with the purpose to reconnect deliver all that it has promised? By all means. We didn't go to the movies or the beach. We didn't leave the hotel. We moved within the triangle that that spa, the restaurant and the room made. We stayed together. We ate together and we laughed.

We were busy up until the moment we left on Friday and we have more responsibilities later today. But during this 40 hour cocoon I've been changed a little: in the way a woman is changed when she gets to know her husband just a little bit more than she knew him on Friday.

Watermelons

Mandy turned me on to a cool website.

Upload your photos, choose a cool song, and then it inserts the transitions and mixes it all up for you. Voila! You have a picture video (kinda like the cheesy ones at weddings).

Goodness knows I love it when someone else does something for me.



Untitled from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

Band Aids

At the top of the half hour of yesterday's swim lessons at the city pool, I found my toddler chewing on something.

She was working it back in her molars, like it was a piece of gum or taffy. It was a band aid.

Who knew who it came from? Some nasty infected toe from a summer-take-your-bath-in-the-pool kid, or some sweaty adult during a free swim session earlier in the day? I almost gagged until I realized it was the band aid that we'd placed on her own knee from an outdoor tumble that same morning. No tetanus shots needed, thankfully.

Her knee-skin wasn't worthy of a band aid. She's in the middle of her "band aid phase", when every bump or boo-boo requires the kiss of her mother, father or grandmother, and the proper application of a band aid. Strawberry Shortcake or My Little Ponies, preferably.

I've had to stock up on band aids for invisible injuries. Sometimes even hurt feelings need a band aid in her little mind. When she asks for one, I laugh a little inside because it seems so silly, and then find her a little-girl band aid to heal her boo-boo.

I indulge her, maybe even patronize her, because I know that the band aid itself, although it does no real healing for an invisible owie, helps her even so. The real band aid seems to serve as a heart-protector, rather than a covering for a fake bump on her shin.

Mama kisses her. Mama laughs a little. Mama finds her a band aid to make it feel better on the inside. Mama tells her it will be just fine. And then she forgets about her injury.

Sometimes I think I ask God for band aids when I really don't need them. I ask Him to fix things that really don't need fixed or change things that are just fine the way they are. But what I am really asking for is the love that comes along with the band aid, the kiss and the feel-better hug.

He scoops me up from my knee-skin tumbles and He helps me know that its really all going to be alright. He indulges my constant asking because He loves me and then He bandages me up. In His good ways.

And God's band aids don't fall off in the pool.

Forced Smile

Forcing

her

sister

to

smile...

She pushes on Naomi's cheeks, upwards (smile for Mama, please!!). She feels squished, but then her own face takes over and she begins to giggle. And they both laugh in the 3 minutes before swimming lessons.

And her sister doesn't need to force it anymore, because the little one will pretty much do anything for the big one.

Lessons From a Scheduled Outage

In the summer, you'd think Edison would tell you that they are turning off the power for a whole day!

They did, I guess. In a letter. Last month. Which my husband opened and put "near" my computer (which is a laptop, and by nature of being a laptop, moves WITH me). I did not see this letter.

Sometime between when I left for the gym and when I got home, the power company had errected a giant crane (how do you fix electricity with a crane?), had pulled in about 12 trucks and about 25 workers had descended upon our neighborhood. I guess we had a problem.

The power was going to be turned back on again at 5pm. I envisioned a sweaty nap for my toddler, a bored afternoon for my six-year-old (who usually watches a dvd or plays on the computer during her sister's nap), and an uninteresting day for me. Not only that, without lights and in attempt to keep the upstairs cool, we shut all the blinds. We weren't able to see much.

However, we did learn a few things:

• With the TV off, kids figure out what to do very quickly. And they are creative.
• Board games are much better than watching Mr. Rogers.
• With the house quiet, I found myself thinking more, and praying more too.
• Although, when it is too quiet, I have to keep a closer eye on the girls. Renewed creativity also led to one of them biting the other to keep her sister away from her things. I will name no names.
• I was forced AWAY from the computer. I read no blogs. I answered no emails. I ended up reading to the girls instead.
• And then, get this, I began a project I had been been putting off for almost 6 weeks. I sat down and just started it (this, incidentally, is when the biting incident occured).

An hour and a half early, at 3:30, the ceiling fan began to spin, the light in the laundry room clicked on and my alarm clock blinked "12:00". I yelled at the girls that if they wanted to watch a DVD, the power was back on.

Nothing.

I yelled again. Still nothing.

They were too engrossed in the world they had created without electricity in the warm dark afternoon of Hope's room.

I should ask Edison to shut off the power more. I'll get more work done, the girls' creativity will be spurred, and I might even catch a quiet moment to myself.

Sleepeating

I've written about the crazy sleep-cooking habits of my husband before (scrambled eggs, anyone?), and about the tantruming of my two-year-old.

And there have been studies done about people who get up in the middle of the night and binge on hoagies and ice cream and then go back to bed without a single memory of their midnight meal.

But what do I write when all of these ideas come together so nicely? I don't.

I show a video.


Sleepeating from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

On our almost two hour car ride back from the desert yesterday, both girls fell asleep. Exhaustion from a morning trying to squeeze in as much swimming and ping-pong as possible took over and they immediately closed their eyes as soon as the air conditioner kicked in enough to make them comfortable.

Forty-five minutes later, Naomi woke up, unsure of where she was but sure she was unhappy about being in a sweaty carseat.

"GOLDFISH, MAMA!" between whines and whimpers.

Of course, Your Royal Highness. Whatever you need to stay quiet and and not wake up your sister. That and we have about another hour in the car. More brown desert. No windmills to wow you and not many clean places to stop if we need to.

I handed her a cup of Goldfish crackers and she closed her eyes again. She began to eat while she fell back asleep.

I guess she takes after her father. We all know that he doesn't necessarily eat in his sleep, but he certainly does cook.

Baby-Heartbreakers

I can't help but think that raising daughters is a series of heartbreaks. Her breaking mine. Me breaking hers.

Not the kind of heartbreak that leaves you in a blubbery mess on your bedroom floor when a boyfriend loses interest. Or when your best girlfriends let the mean girl bully you in an eleventh grade fight.

Not the kind of heartache that leaves you broken and mangled.

But a hopeful heartbreak.

(It is difficult to suppose at something that is only just now happening.)

I break a little heart when I require something that is too long or involved for a six-year-old will. Or when my frustration for my little one becomes a strong word, then a yell, then my own tears of anger. I break little hearts all day long.

She breaks my heart when she lies. And she's learning to (a little) and I am trying to help work it out of her before I turn around and she's fourteen. It breaks me on the inside when I can't make her understand how important truthfulness really is.

And we haven't even hit the big time yet.

They haven't even discovered boys and Iphones, and texting and the Internet that exists beyond Webkinz. They don't even know about alcohol and drugs, and getting good grades to make people happy, and hanging out with the good kids or the not so good kids. My girls don't even know why older girls wear tight jeans or low cut tank tops.

They don't even know how words cut other people or their parents or their sister. They haven't learned how to manipulate or to use other people to get what they want. They are still baby-heartbreakers.

And I know that there are big aches to come. Soon.

And I'll make wrong decisions regarding curfews and who they can hang out with, and I'll be OLD AS THE TREES when I don't understand what they are going through. I was never a teenager. I'll break young hearts when I yell (probably) when they make poor choices and we all reap the consequences. I will break their hearts then too.

I'll just have to remember that when they break my heart, I've broken theirs too. There is always hope...

Hope in knowing the women they are becoming.

Hope in watching them become wiser.

Hope in seeing them grow in grace and learn kindness.

Hope in understanding this is all necessary to grow girls up and out of my house so that they can be mothers and wives.

That will break my heart too.

One Night

We are going away for one night. And leaving straight from church.

It would be just as easy packing two girls and my husband with all of their belongings (life vests, swim goggles, legos, toddler bed, crayons and coloring book, shampoo, dvds, books for the car, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a carseat picnic) for one week than it has been packing us for one day. Just one day. We are going with some friends to their place in the desert.

Where
it
is
supposed
to
be
108 degrees.

Wow. That's okay, we love the high desert July and August. No one is there and the only thing you can do is swim, nap, and watch movies. Even some of the retail stores shut their doors and go elsewhere for the desert summer.

I feel like I've done so much work for so little time.

I see this when I am impatient with cereal and milk spilled all over the floor this morning. Or when Naomi's dirty diaper ends up outside of her dirty diaper when I am loading the car (I'll spare you the details although it is worthy of a post in itself).

I have to wonder what possibly could be worth this headache?

There is the lazy river at the condo complex. And the time spent with good friends and their baby. It is the 24 hours of time the girls have with their daddy, uninterrupted and free. It is the experience of a new place we are giving the girls, even if it is only for one night.

I think of this as I pick up old french fries from the car, and do the mundane things that make up 90% of my life. I think of this when I feel like I never have the time to do the writing I feel called to do, or when I can't exercise in the morning because I am cuddling a sleepy two-year-old.

Yes, it is all worth it. Even if it is just for one night.

Imbalance

Balance.

Everything seems to teeter like those acrobats on a board with a ball underneath. Back and forth: I know he won't fall. But put me on one of those for 2 and 1/2 seconds and I'll break my ankle.

Like how soon before we go to the wedding do I do my toddler's hair? If I do it now (45 minutes before we have to leave) I won't rush at the end, equalling less screams. But the downside is that she'll probably mess it up. If I wait, she won't mess it up, but there is always the mad dash at the end of the morning trying to get everyone out the door.

What is the perfect temperature to set the air conditioner at so we don't foreclose trying to pay for our electric bill? Too low, I freeze when I get out of the shower. Too high and everyone is sweating.

Balance.

I booked myself and my kids way too many things this week. Nature camp in the mornings for Hope, then swim lessons. Add in a horseback riding lesson, her normal gymnastics class and then today's make-up dance lesson and she's bushed. Me too. I fell asleep last night at 8. And Naomi is just along for the ride.

Imbalance.

My eating has been off, my sleep has been disturbed and I worked myself so hard this week that by this morning, not only could I physically not make it out the front door to exercise, but I was so mentally tired that I couldn't even think about it.

My daughter has been so tired that she turned down a trip to the movies with her grandparents yesterday. She came home and sat on the sofa with a cup of water for two hours. I didn't make her move because she had been hiking and playing games all morning. She was exhausted and showed more self-awareness than her mother. She figured out that a trip to the movies would make her more tired so she asked to go home.

I guess I tried to "balance" the rest of our summer by getting some big responsibilities over with. I figured we could do it all at once, especially if our daily treks all the way down to the city pool weren't until 5 every evening. The water would be warm. All lessons and camps would be done for the day. The kids would be ready to swim. Not so. They've been cranky and exhausted by the end of the day. I'm cranky and exhausted by the end of the day. I don't know why I didn't think they would be too.

I'm learning how much my kids can handle before they implode. I'm even learning how much I can take before I start using my scary-mommy voice regularly. I don't want to feel like the acrobat guy: 2 seconds away from breaking my ankle.

So, this week, we'll try to take it easier, plan less and play more. And I'll take a lesson in self-awareness from my six-year-old.

Bathing Suits

When I was a little girl, my sister and I each had one single bathing suit.


We went shopping for it as soon as it got hot in the spring, and by the end of the summer it was fit for the trash. After swimming lessons each day, we'd hang them up to dry. The warm, dry smell of chlorine still in the threads, we'd put them on again the next day. By August, my suit would be stretched out, sandy and the bottom pilled and worn thin from sitting on the side of the pool. The following year, we'd each pick out a new suit to break in and then thrash by the end of the season.


I never knew a person had a need for more than one swimsuit. I don't think it was about station or wealth, just need.


I've never lived in a house with a pool; we'd beg swim dates from friends or friends of friends. I remember vividly in junior high school I went to the home of a friend for a pool party. All the girls ended up in her bedroom for some reason and my 12 year old hostess opened up one of her drawers to change clothes. She had an entire drawer devoted to two-pieces and one-pieces, orange, blue, yellow, flowered, striped and solids! If she'd opened a pirate treasure chest full of gold coins, my reaction would have been the same.


She was either rich (well, she was rich) or just had different way of life than I did. In the summer, I imagine, she would wake up and swim, come in to watch Golden Girls reruns, then swim again in the afternoon.

She "needed" 25 bathing suits.

My girls have at least 8 bathing suits each. We don't own a pool. We used to have a spa, but that's another story.

Maybe it is because of the inexpensiveness and accessibility of products from Target that has made me provide so much water wear for my kids. They don't actually need that many. We rarely swim or play in the water more than once in any day (unless we are on vacation and both the pool and the sea beckon). I really don't know why they have drawers filled with swimsuits.

Maybe it was just different and more simple when I was a little girl. Maybe we didn't need as much. Maybe we didn't THINK we needed as much.

Maybe we were just happier with less.

Girls and Boys

Every once in awhile I need my little boy fix.

My house is filled with princess wands, dress-up boxes and flower stickers stuck covertly to my wall when I was not looking. Girls fill my days and my heart.

But sometimes, I just need me a little boy to hug and squeeze until he wiggles away.

Enter Hope's "boyfriends".

Fraternal twins. I've known their mother since before they were born and my girl and her two boys (added to a family of two older boys already = FOUR BOYS! - God help her) have known each other since they were all babies.

They are only 3 months apart in age and Hope loves each of them equally but in different ways. With one, she loves to build things - legos, playdough castles, blocks, train tracks. With the other one, she will create make-believe worlds that include various Star Wars characters and a few Indiana Jones ones thrown in there for good measure. She loves them both.

They've been at my house, under my roof, playing with my kids a couple times this week. Summer freedom allows for afternoon playdates with no real cause to come inside.

Today, the three of them stood shoulder to shoulder at the table in my patio mixing playdough colors. They must have had 15 cans of it open (I didn't even know we had that many) and each of them was making something different.

As I am standing nearby but hidden from them, one of the boys, the Star Wars stud, says to Hope,

Do you like girls or boys better? (A common question at the tender age of 6 1/2. NOTHING is implied except if she likes to play with girls better or boys better. Remember, he comes from a house of boys, her a house of girls.)

Hope: Girls...duh! (She looks at him like he's asked the stupidest question on the planet. All the while she is playing with her "boyfriends" and if given the choice to join a group of girls, she'd probably decline.) What about you; do you like to play with boys or girls?

Stud: Girls. (Hope doesn't get it and waits for him to explain.) YOU CAN'T KISS BOYS! I'd rather play with girls!

Okay, my Mama ears perk and I wait and watch to see what happens next. I half expected him to lean over and plant one on her right there in my backyard. It could go one of two ways. This could be the biggest revelation to her. Kissing a boy? Or...what happened next:

She looks up at him confused, perplexed and a little unnerved, as if he'd just told her he was really a martian from outer space. She wrinkles her brow for a second or two, thinking about the prospect of boys kissing girls, and shakes her head and goes back to her playdough.

Thankfully.

She remains a little girl for awhile longer.

And our little stud friend is welcome at my house anytime, as long as he doesn't kiss my daughter.

Backpack

I'm not usually a procrastinator, but for some reason I haven't been able to bring myself to clean out my six-year-old's backpack from the end of the school year.

California schools get out in mid-June so really, I'm only about 4 weeks behind. The last week of school I had a house guest. The week after we left for vacation. Next, VBS. Now, Nature Camp and swimming lessons. I'm busy.

There it sits next to the piano. A pink, stained Kindergarten backpack, unzipped but still full of memorabilia from the school year. A note from her teacher. A yearbook with no signatures. A end of the year information sheet. Various toys and trinkets she's won as "prizes" for doing well or not talking in class.

Maybe because it's been really busy around my house. Maybe I haven't emptied it because I have larger fish to fry. Or maybe I just don't know what to do with the stuff.

Something deeper? I feel like I spend half of my life digging up the junk that is me.

Or maybe I don't want her to move on. I don't want her long girl legs to become even longer and want to run faster than me. I don't want her to finish the summer older than when she began. A part of me doesn't want her to go to the next grade with a new backpack and new homework and new questions for everyone she knows. I don't want to clean out her old backpack because she'll never be 6 again. She'll always be something bigger than that.

So, I put it down on my list. In between Trader Joes and Make Dentist Appointments is Clean out Hope's Backpack.

I'll try not to procrastinate this tiny, significant thing much longer.

Mommy and Me

The ill-designed "Mommy and Me" class is a misnomer. It really shouldn't be called "Mommy and Me," as if it was all about the kid. Seriously.

I only signed up for the sub-three-year-old Parent and Me swimming lesson because I knew it would be impossible to keep Naomi out of the pool for the ten days of Hope's Level Three lessons. For two weeks at 5:05 pm at the newly remodeled city pool all three of us are there "taking" lessons.

Hope is fine. She loves meeting the other kids in her class and trying new things like swimming backwards. She's already fallen in love with the twenty-something girls who are the instructors.

On the far other side of the pool, in the 2 and a half foot deep kiddie area, Naomi and I struggle for thirty minutes. Her screams can be heard far above the din of the splashing and yells of about 50 or so kids taking various classes at the same time.

The class begins and as if on cue, she begins to wail. She doesn't want to kick toward the floating duckie (its so far beneath her station); she doesn't want to reach with "big arms" toward the wall to practice strokes, and she DOES NOT want to blow bubbles (I mean, who would want to submerge their face into the water hundreds of sweaty sunscreened kids have shared all day - there's a film, you know).

She has fun for about 90 seconds near the end when she gets to jump into my arms.

So the class wasn't about my two-year-old at all. She didn't learn any water skills she didn't already know. The Parent and Me class turned out to be all about me: apologies for the screaming; guilt over letting her sit on the stairs and play with the diving rings; frequent attempts to grab her wiggly wet body around the middle and force her to participate in the class activity. By the time the class ends, I'm injured (angry kicks to my chest in the struggles), exhasuted (who wouldn't be), and a push-over (McDonalds anyone?). It is really all about me.

The class should never be classified as "Mommy and Me", but perhaps "Me and my Slippery, Angry Toddler Who Won't Obey."

I have 9 more days of this. Pray for me.

Complainer

I could complain. I'm not really a complainer, to categorize myself. But I do complain, whether it's outwardly (Do you really have to work late again?) or on the inside.

Let me list all the stuff:
4 1/2 hours of sleep last night.
A too-hot July.
A toddler in the middle of a 2 week tantrum.
A husband working late tonight.
Clutter, disorganization and unfolded clothes.
An extra hateful 10 pounds that lives around my middle.

And there's more. A lot more. I just haven't dug that far deep inside yet today. Its the stuff that makes my frustration rise up from where it's been hiding and bubble near the surface by 2 o'clock every day; its what makes me ignore my husband when he's trying to talk to me and I'm just trying to get everyone out the door. I don't have the time to crack open my heart and see what ick has settled in to stay. If I did, the lunches wouldn't get made and the kids would be out the door without their shoes.

I usually complain for awhile. In bursts. And in deflection (I complain by treating my family in ways less than they deserve). But complaining always makes me feel silly in the end because so many have it far worse than me.

A bed to sleep in, even if its only for 4 hours (my choice, ultimately).
The luxury to turn on air conditioning if I need to.
The sweet kisses between the 2 year old tantrums.
The job my husband has when so many are out of work.

I want to live inside the contentment, realize while it is happening how good I have it. How much I am loved. How I don't deserve the grace I've been shown, or the little girl kisses on my nose. I don't ever want to complain, even on the inside. I don't want to be a complainer.

Shipwreck

Right now, I'm in the middle of it.

Tangly six-year-old hair, too many little toys strewn all over the tiled-downstairs, saggy overnight diapers, screams of rage and then immediate giggles, a two-year-old "monster".
I'm in the middle of little girl voices meshing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" with "Jesus Loves Me" so that it comes out at the end: "The SPIDER tells me so..."

I know that I won't always be in the middle of it. That when I am upstairs folding clothes I won't always hear the constant downstairs ruckus, and then the dreaded silence: What are they getting into (silence usually accompanies naughtiness).

My memory is fresh right now. I can remember what they said yesterday or how they made me laugh this morning. Soon, even when they are tall teenagers, I know I will have to struggle to pull out the good (and bad) memories from the haze. I will have to pinch my arm and tell myself that it really happened. That I used to fold clothes with "M" or "T" at the end of the size, that their long brown legs used to belong to babies.

When I ran on the beach a few weeks ago on my vacation, my dad and I took longer than normal one morning and ran for a "pier" we saw in the distance. As we got closer, we realized it wasn't a pier, but an old barge that had run aground and was now stuck on the beach. We found a shipwreck! It lay half in and half out of the waves, rusty, barnacle-ridden and had its own sand bar. We walked right up to it and if I hadn't been worried about the thousands of crabs that scurried around its surface, I might have climbed right up on top of it.

No camera, of course. I'd been running and I don't carry it with me while jogging.

Do you believe me? That I saw a shipwreck? I really did and I guess truth is stranger than fiction. And the further I get away from the 15 minutes we spent walking around inspecting it, the less I remember about it. The harder it is to pull up the memories from my mind. I am beginning to forget the sea and the two thigh-deep fishermen in the surf, and I am forgetting the noise it made when the waves hit the end and rushed inside the hold.

Its the same way with my girls. I already feel like they are flying away and I'm too late to catch their super-hero capes.

Or maybe its different. I didn't snap a photo of the old barge - it only lives in my mind (and on the beach north of Marina). My girls, even as they grow, will be constant reminders of who they were and who they are becoming.

And then I will be in the middle of something else.

Scrambled Eggs

For as long as I have known my husband, he's always had very vivid dreams at night.

So vivid that they spill over into the non-sleeping world. This translates into taking showers at 1:30 in the morning, some sleepwalking (he's been known to go out the front door), and at the very least dreams so real that he attempts to complete the action sitting straight up in bed (playing solitaire? He doesn't even play it when he's awake).

I used to argue with him when he asked me crazy questions in the middle of the dark. I used to plead with him to get back into bed, that he was just dreaming. I used to try to convince him that what he thought was real was in fact not real at all.

There is no use arguing with a sleeping bear, or husband.

Last night he taps me on the shoulder (after I had fallen asleep to an episode of I Survived a Japanese Gameshow - that in itself will make for some freaky dreams).

He is moving his right hand in a stirring/rotating motion, "Where is that thingy? You know, that thing...that thingy?'

"You're dreaming, honey. Please lay back down."

He tries to get out of bed now and he's angry, namely because I won't buy into his version of reality, "NOO, that thingy! Where is it? I can't find it!"

Again, stupidly, I argue with him. "Baby, you are ASLEEP! Just lay down."

He asks me again, and in my middle-of-the-night haze, I try to think of something interesting, like the refrigerator, or in the garage, or "Honey, its in the trash can and if it isn't there, try the shower!"

But I just mumble, "I don't know."

That was it. That was all he needed. He politely told me "Thank you" and turned over and began to sleep again.

I'm not sure what is really going through his mind when he was angrily asking me to locate the "thingy". I am realizing that I have to choose my battles, even in the middle of the night. And that sometimes, just "agreeing" is enough to avoid an arguement.

Oh, and it was a whisk. He told me this morning. A whisk. I guess he was trying to make scrambled eggs.

Waiting...

...for the parade.

Happy Independence Day!