A picture from DC’s parade this week and a memory of the first time I saw a drag queen. I worked for my father’s company the summer after I graduated high school while I tried to decide what to do with my life. My father had a convention in L.A. and took me along just to be nice under the pretense that I would demonstrate AutoCAD at our booth. Our travelling companion was a British woman who worked in another branch of the company. On the elevator ride up to our hotel room my father and I were following elevator etiquette and minding our own business. Out of the silence popped up the British accent with “Your teeth are just beautiful.” My father and I took our eyes off the floor and looked up about a foot and half over our heads to a man in the most sparkly attire I’ve ever seen thanking our companion for complimenting his expensive dental work.

When I was delivering my first child, the epidural was way too high and I could feel absolutely nothing below the chest. This is a very disorienting feeling and my confusion was compounded by the way I was being treated like a non-human by the dozen people in the room. At one point I wanted to pull myself up but physically couldn’t and nobody was listening to me, so when my now ex reached across me to get something from one of the nurses, I chomped down into his arm with full force. I can’t explain why I did it, but at the time my goal was to latch into his arm and pull myself up a bit. I have no excuse other than the fact that I was very confused. I learned an important lesson though. Midwives are better than doctors because they pay attention to the person on the table.

About twice a year I invade my children’s bedrooms armed with a hefty bag. Broken toys, happy meal junk and rotting food hidden behind dressers are all thrown away. Buckets are sorted to make sure that the Lego bucket has only Legos in it and Toy Dinosaurs are all in their own bucket. It was during one of these cruel invasions of my children’s privacy many years ago that I stumbled upon something that was not where it belonged. Tommy was about 5-years-old and I was flabbergasted to find tampons mixed in with his army men.
“Tommy, why are these in here?”
“Those are my rocket launchers”
He said it like it was their intended purpose and they quietly disappeared from his room as well as their usual storage spot in the bathroom. I would rather hide tampons than have someone come over and find my child playing with them.

When my mother’s parents retired, they had a home built out in the Natchez Trace Park area, near Parsons, TN. Their property had several different gardens and a small pond, so they needed transportation just for getting around. My grandmother always used the riding mower with the trailer attached to go down to one of the gardens. My grandfather usually drove the tractor. When my grandfather bought a small Honda motorcycle, I always suspected it was just to entertain the grandchildren. We certainly were entertained. One of us was almost always zipping that little thing around. We didn’t just drive on the family property either. We raced up and down those twisty-turny, hilly roads. Since we weren’t old enough to have a license, that was probably not a good idea. Of course, a LOT of the people that lived out there drove around without licenses too, so I guess we were as qualified as anyone. There was a fairly flat piece of field behind my great-grandmother’s old house that seemed perfectly safe for being extra stupid. I could close my eyes, lift my feet and be completely reckless. I was certainly caught off-guard when I suddenly realized I was about to hit a huge hole in the ground and would certainly have flipped over the bike. Without looking, I swerved right and as I did so, the wheels of the cycle actually went on a wire coming out from a utility pole. Completely stunned, I managed to drive both wheels onto the wire before I felt myself falling along with the cycle, onto our sides. Shaking from the shock of it all, I tried to lift the cycle so I could slide out but I landed in such a way that lifting up caused something hot and heavy to push harder into my ankle. After several tries I just sat there calmly waiting for a rescue party. My rescue party turned out to be an elderly farmer in an old pickup. “Need some help there?” Completely embarrassed, I thanked him and pushed the cycle back to the house and gave the entire family a great big laugh with the details of my adventure. At least I wasn’t the only grandchild to do stupid things on that cycle.

A quick mention of some of the weekend plans before I drift into the usual weekend story telling festival. Tonight soccer game is rained out which means Noah won’t be missing anything when he goes to play Laser Tag for the first time. After Laser Tag he will be sleeping over at a friend’s house. Sarah will be spending the night with her best friend. We’ve decided that next year she and her friend will be Siamese twins for Halloween. Doug and Tommy might go to a haunted house tonight since Tommy has declared that nothing scares him. Tomorrow we will be going to the corn maze in Greenback with 100+ Cub Scouts and half a dozen Girl Scouts. I haven’t figured out how we’re going to fit the girls in our car yet and I’m hopeful it will be a drizzle instead of a downpour when we go. Sunday we have dog school in the afternoon. Sunday late afternoon we will set up for Trunk or Treat, get the children in costumes and spend the evening as part of chaos. Doug is going to juggle and I am going to hand out candy at our booth. Hopefully my parents will monitor Amy’s activities. It should be a lot of fun until Monday morning rolls around.

We will have a doctor, a cookie, Davy Crockett and a 2-year-old who won’t wear a costume out and about. What about you? 

My day started with Amy refusing to bathe or take her nap. Knowing she would be trouble, I loaded her in the car and went to pick Noah up from school. Despite my notes with times that would enable this carefully orchestrated afternoon to flow, Noah had gone to the playground instead of the office at his designated pick-up time. Running 10 minutes late, we headed to check Sarah out of school. Sarah was waiting patiently in the office (thank you Sarah). Doug decided I was sounding a bit, umm, strung out, so he picked up Tommy and took him to the dentist (thank you Doug). We arrived at the dentist and Sarah griped at me because we were 10 minutes early. Three children went back for cleaning and x-rays. Two children came out. The hygienest explained that out of all those teeth we had only one cavity (sorry Noah). Sarah tried to coax Tommy out. Noah tried to coax Tommy out. The hygienest let Tommy take an extra trinket and Tommy finally came out. On the way to the car the sibling squabbling began. I foolishly stopped at a party store to try one last time to talk Amy into wearing a costume. Not only did she scream “no” to every costume I held up, she thought running in the store would be fun. At that point Sarah cornered her, I scooped her up and we all went to the car, Amy screaming in anger the entire way. Now I’m trying to decide between running errands while Doug stays home with the children or collapsing on the couch for an hour.

Inmates in our little asylum -
Cathy - me, wife, mother, sister, daughter, S.A.D., watches too much tv
Doug - husband, father, brother, son, I.E.D., O.C.D., severe romanticism
Tommy - age 14, Aspergers and teenageritis
Sarah - age 11, severely normal but seeking teenageritis
Noah - age 8, A.D.D., tender hearted, champion nosebleeder
Amy - age 2, stubborn, funny, extremely verbal
Molly - 6 month old German Shepherd who would be perfect if she’d move from paper trained to housebroken
Lucy - very old golden mix, semi-deaf, semi-blind
Plus 2 cats, several fish and extended family members to add to the insanity.

On one hand, I find daylight savings and its’ disruption of everyone’s waking and sleeping habits very annoying. On the other hand, at least in the fall you get to feel like you’re sleeping an extra hour. 

We had a conference with Noah’s teacher today. I went into the conference anxious and tense, ready to pounce her if she said anything negative about my child. It could have been something completely true, but I’m not always rational when it comes to defending my family. The teacher was quiet, soft spoken and sincerely interested in helping Noah. The first issue was Noah’s complaints about a peer. The teacher was unaware of the boys’ squabbling but I think she’ll be watching for opportunities to intervene now. The second issue was Noah getting in trouble regularly for reading when he should be doing something else. I hated to suggest it, but I suggested his book be turned in each morning and given back when his work is completed. The third issue was Noah’s chosen books not having AR (accelerated reader) tests because they are middle school level books. The teacher is going to ask the librarian if they have access to the middle school software for AR but she doesn’t think they will. In that case Noah will do a book report instead of the AR test. I think he would have enjoyed the assignment more if she had let him write 10 good AR type questions and answers for his books, but oh well. The last issue was Noah’s handwriting and the teacher politely told us that we couldn’t expect much improvement, ever. Apparently left-handed Noah writes with his hand in a hook posture, something that should have been corrected years ago. Great.