Things were better yesterday and today with summer stuff. My mom bailed me out yesterday when Elizabeth had a doctor appointment that was at the same time I had to pick up Edward and Henry (I tried to reschedule the appointment, which I’d made long before signing up for summer stuff, and they said, “Let’s see, our next available appointment is…July 28th”), and then today there were no piano lessons, no karate, and no doctor appointments, so actually everything went well.

Oh, wait, there was an orthodontist appointment. I forgot about that because my mom and I combined it with a shopping trip that went extremely well, and so it felt like it just merged with that. We did the appointment first, then we went to KFC: I am having a little problem with their 10-bites meal, which I had for the first time this past weekend and now would like to eat every single day.

Then we went to Goodwill, and I don’t want to make the acid of envy burn the back of your throat, but they had HANNA ANDERSSON stuff for $1.79 per piece. It made me feel like pawing through every single item on every single rack looking only at the brand names—but that way madness lies. Instead I just went through the rack of Elizabeth-sized clothing as usual, and if I happened to find something Hanna Andersson, then how nice. Here’s my final haul (each item $1.79):

 

• Hanna Andersson bright pink jeans

• Hanna Andersson stripey leggings in teal and purple (possibly pjs)

• Hanna Andersson pink polka-dot cotton-knit button-up round-collar (HYPHEN AWARD) blouse that matches the pink of the pants

• Hanna Andersson brown velour zip-up sweatshirt with pink, blue, and purple polka-dots

• Gymboree denim shorts with jeweled pockets

• Gymboree corduroy heart-patterned skirt

• Gymboree appliqued short-sleeved shirt

• Gap pink fleece hooded jacket

• Old Navy cat-applique t-shirt

 

(I probably should have started with the Old Navy and worked up to the Hanna Andersson; that would have made for a more impressive impact.) I also got two things in brands I don’t recognize: a Kingkow polo shirt (very cute tiny cow where a preppy alligator would be) and an “SO wear it declare it” top (declare what?).

Other days I go to Goodwill and come out with nothing, after looking listlessly through rack after rack of pilled, grubby, Walmart/Target-store-brand clothes. Today I PASSED OVER a Hanna Andersson Christmas dress ($1.79) and several Gymboree things, just because I didn’t love them, and a Gap zip-up sweatshirt because I already had a Gap jacket and a Hanna Andersson sweatshirt in my hand.

After Goodwill, we went to Target. I wish I’d remembered to buy candy, but I just didn’t and there’s no turning back time. I bought more sunscreen, which involved clenching my teeth because Henry somehow lost a brand-new $8 bottle of it on his FIRST DAY at camp, and even though it had his name all over it in permanent marker, it is apparently gone forever and he needs a replacement. I also compared the ingredients of the Target brand multivitamin I usually buy on sale for $4.49/100, and found it’s completely identical to the Target brand “adults under 50” multivitamin which is sold for $10.99/400 and was on sale for $9.89. And I got milk, so now I don’t have to go all the way to the grocery store just for milk. A triumph.

This has all been a terrible mistake: having children, signing them up for summer things—all of it. I was going to give a sample of today’s schedule so you could rear back in dismay, but I realized it doesn’t look so bad when it’s written down. So what if I have to drop off the first two kids before 7:00, the next at 8:00, and the next at 9:00, picking up the first two between the 8:00 and 9:00 drop-offs? That’s not so bad. But such a schedule doesn’t take into account the WAVES of breakfasting and sunscreening and lunch-packing and form-remembering and do-you-have-your-towels’ing. Nor does it take into account the way I keep FORGETTING WHAT I’M DOING, so that it dawns on me in a sudden rush that, wait a second, if I’m dropping off one kid for piano lessons at 2:30 and a second kid for piano lessons at 3:00, that’s going to put a cramp in my “needing to pick up a third kid at 3:00 on the other side of town” style. And then, wait, when the second kid needs to be picked up at 3:30, I need to be picking up the fourth kid on the other side of town.

In short: o_O’

(The apostrophe is a sweat droplet of stress and befrazzlement. Also of heat.)

Well. Anyway. In happier news, I watched the first movie I’ve ever seen that was in DUTCH.

It’s called Bride Flight, and the cover makes it look soapier/shmoopier than it was. But it’s a little soapy/shmoopy. It’s about three Dutch women coming to Australia in the 1950s to meet up with fiancés/husbands, and about the Channing-Tatum/Carey-Elwes-style guy they meet on the plane over. There are a couple of Big Nudity/Sex scenes, but kind of artsy/pretty rather than horrifying/porny. Oh, wait, there’s one “up on the kitchen counter” scene that is more the latter, but it is mercifully brief. I liked the movie and would recommend it, but I feel like I’ll have to watch it again for the second storyline (when the characters are all old) to make sense: I couldn’t keep them straight until most of their story was over.

When I wrote “THERE IS TOO MUCH EVERYTHING” on Twitter the other day, my friend Firegirl astutely remarked that school must be out. And yes. I keep wanting to write more about that, but how can I when the house is LITTERED WITH CHILDREN? I will tell you frankly that when I was doing all my Planning For a Big Family, I didn’t take summers into account. I thought things like, “And by the time the third baby is born, the eldest will be in school all day, so it’s really just two children for most of the day!” or whatever, and I forgot about summer. I literally forgot.

Rob graduated from middle school! Or rather, he “completed” from middle school. There was a whole day of Completion Ceremonies. One of the worst parts, I think (I mean in addition to having a whole day of completion ceremonies), is that it seemed kind of *cough*lame*cough* to be making such a fuss over going from 8th grade to 9th. I know it’s kind of cool to finish middle school and go to high school…but…. Like, I think all this fuss will be FUN when he’s graduating high school. But. There was this big tearful Goodbye Ceremony where they could “say their final farewells to one another” (actual principal quote)—but…they will see each other in two months. In 9th grade. As they continue their regularly-scheduled school programming. We don’t live in the kind of district where kids split off into different high schools: they’re all moving together from one building to another building.

The awards ceremony went on for a million years, which was actually an hour and forty-five minutes. They gave out hundreds and hundreds of awards. SO VERY MANY self-esteem-boosting awards that any child who managed NOT to get an award would be dealt an incredible blow to their self-esteem. Backfiring: Ur doin it right.

I think they should have handed out Cutest Name awards. That was how I passed the time: going through the list of completers and picking my favorite names. I wish I could tell you all my favorites without, like, putting other people’s real names all over the internet. One of them was along the lines of Fiona Flowers, and then she was also dressed super-cute/classy in a poofy skirt and twin set and wedge sandals.

For the graduation itself, there was a limit of four guests per student, so Paul and I had to take Henry with us if we both wanted to go (because William can babysit the twins, but he can’t babysit Henry) (WE can barely babysit Henry). It was soooooo hot and crowded, and the 8th graders had to be there half an hour before it started, which meant we ALL had to be there half an hour before it started, which meant we sat in a hot and crowded middle school gym for an extra 30 minutes. It was lucky I wore a long skirt instead of one of the dresses I’d considered (knee-length), because we were sitting on the very top bleacher. Even with a long skirt, I felt like it was a good idea to cross those ankles and press those knees.

I’d been worried about Rob’s outfit: he declined my ideas of ties and jackets, but I knew from the moms in my circle that their girls were buying new, fancy dresses, so I was a little worried I should have pushed harder. But it turned out he was nicely in the middle: some boys wore full-on suits with dress shoes and ties, and some boys wore plaid shorts with polo shirts. Rob wore his $4.49 Goodwill dark grey trousers with an untucked short-sleeved button-down plaid shirt in turquoise/aqua/navy/white (Target Shaun White, if that gives you a mental picture of the look of it), and his usual black sneakers. I felt like he looked kind of dorky but in the right way: like, deliberate cool dorkiness. It helps that he’s TALL (almost six feet) and has long hair.

The girls, by the way. OMG. Way more fun outfits than the boys. But OMG. Many of them were acquiring life experience about how a short tight skirt and unfamiliar high heels are an awkward combination when your path involves stairs up to a stage and then stairs back down, in front of hundreds of people. One girl (and remember, these are FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLDS) was wearing a TIGHT, SHORT, WHITE, SATIN, HALTER dress with teetery high heels and a very fancy updo. She looked like she was ready to share her red carpet secrets with US Weekly, and here we were in the middle school gym. Approximately half the girls were wearing those dresses that are short in the front and long in the back. This has been your STYLE WATCH REPORT.

The reading of all the names was mercifully brisk. However, next year they should get someone whose skill set includes microphones.

When Rob’s name was called, I whooped and clapped, despite feeling conspicuous and embarrassed: I made myself notice beforehand that every single graduate had a small (approximately 4-person) whooping/clapping response to having their name called, and that none of those reactions seemed startling or weird or inappropriate to anyone else. But Paul! Paul DID NOTHING. He just sat there. So Rob’s cheering section was Just Me. When called on this breach, Paul said, “I didn’t know we were doing that!” Please. I’d give him a pass on the whooping, but no CLAPPING? The precedent was WELL-SET by then: (1) graduate’s name (2) small whoop/clap outburst (1) graduate’s name (2) small whoop/clap outburst. It’s a simple ABABAB pattern, PAUL.

I finally finished reading A Dual Inheritance.

I liked it, but I felt like I was reading it FOREVER. It’s the kind of story that follows two college friends from their college years to their grandparent years, and it seemed like it was happening IN REAL TIME. But I liked it and would recommend it.

I watched Tiny Furniture and ended up sobbing because I was picturing my own dear daughter growing up to be like Lena Dunham’s character. The same thing kept happening when I was watching Girls. This is a new entry, then, for my list of Indicators of Middle Age: it’s when we start identifying the female lead with our daughters/nieces instead of with ourselves.

And I wrote this:

Absolute Beginners Guide to Naming Your Baby. It was an unusually fun project, and involved writing text to fit in cute boxes so that it could be formatted for a print-out (I would love to take credit for that, but alas: I did not do the pretty formatting).

Oh! I was going to choose some people to boss around Webkinz winners! Let’s do that!

1. The Shari who wrote “Love the moose. Can’t resist animals with silly headwear.”

2. Still Playing School

 

And then I was having fun using the random number generator and then looking up who it was, so I chose one more:

3. Heidi J

 

I’ll email you to get your mailing addresses!

I hate making doctor/dentist appointments for Paul. Not only do I hate using the phone and hate trying to figure out appointment times that work (I don’t think quickly, so I’m constantly making appointments that interfere with things that aren’t on the calendar, such as the time I have to meet the school bus or the time I have to do kindergarten drop-off), I also hate the bossy/mothering feeling it gives me when I call. But if I don’t make the appointments, he will not go, and I want him to go, so it’s a matter of working with reality as it is: there’s no sense saying he “should” make his own appointments or that I “shouldn’t” have to, when he won’t and I do.

What I’m wondering is if I’m in the majority or the minority—if most adults make their own appointments, or if most households have one person who makes all the appointments. So I’m wondering if you make appointments for the other adult in your household or if the other adult in your household makes appointments for you or if you each make your own, and also I’m wondering whether the adults involved are male or female.

Let’s also have a poll, just for the one/both question.

[yop_poll id=”3″]

 

When I like to do something, I like everyone else to like to do it too (as you may already know, if you were my Facebook friend back when I was into the virtual gardens/pets) (sorry about that, but IT WAS FUN, WHY DIDN’T YOU WANT TO PLAY TOOOOOOOOO?). By birth and by nature I’m a bossy older sister, and I TRY not to push TOO MUCH, but sometimes it is HARD to be so RESTRAINED.

Anyway I’m into Webkinz right now and I want you to do it too so why arennnnnnnnnn’t you? No, I do understand. My kids started doing Webkinz when Rob was, like, 7? or 8? or something? And yet I didn’t even have the idea of getting a Webkinz for myself until a few months ago: the games didn’t really appeal, and that seemed like the main point. I don’t remember even WATCHING Rob or William play, or having much interest in what they were doing—though part of that is that I find it physically painful to keep myself from butting in when I’m watching a child play a game.

Zip forward to the present, when I am logging on daily (DAILY) to make sure I “do my dailies” (definition: play the games that can only be played once per day). I am watering virtual gardens. Collecting virtual gems to make a virtual crown. Spinning a virtual wheel to get a virtual prize. Earning virtual money by playing virtual Webkinz versions of Bejeweled and Yahtzee. Purchasing virtual clothing for a virtual animal. Fervently and genuinely hoping to win rare virtual items. Etc.

I can’t really explain it, especially since the site can be pretty annoying and glitchy. All I know is WANT TO PLAY WEBKINZ, LET ME PLAY IT RIGHT NOW. And also: WHY YOU NOT HAVE ONE, IT’S SO FUN.

I think one thing I like about it is that there are so few actual TOYS in adulthood. So few, in fact, that “adult toys” sounds dirty (as in “adult bookstore”) or else tongue-in-cheek (as in “Oh, er, no, this is a special kind of juice kids can’t have—ADULT juice”). Do you remember being a kid and thinking the presents your parents got for Christmas were UNIMAGINABLY SAD? I remember my mom explaining that no, no, these were the things adults wanted to receive! And I thought something like “Mental note: Christmas fun ends at adulthood.” That turned out not to be true, and now I explain the same thing to my incredulous children—but STILL, this Webkinz is a TOY, it’s an actual TOY, and I wanted it, and I found that quite, quite fun. And it is fun, now, to decide to spend some free time Playing With A Toy. I have found it surprisingly spirit-lifting. (Bonus: the children find this hilarious and delightful.)

But I can see how you might be uncertain (it took me about a month to get from “I might even like to have one myself, ha ha!” to “It appears I am seriously going to follow through on this silly idea”), so here is what I thought I’d do. Some of the Webkinz are quite cheap, so it’s an easy thing to try; if you don’t like it, very little has been wasted. What if I bought a couple of Webkinz and gave them away? And then two people who were wavering on the issue could try it without having to leap the hurdle of purchasing one, and plus we’d have the fun of a contest? What if THAT?

Here is what we will do. I will make a list of some of the cheaper Webkinz (there are some that are even cheaper than the ones I’m listing, but those are “add-on” items, which means they’re only at that price if your order is $25 or more). To enter, leave a comment saying which one you’d like to win. (I like to do a Google image search so I can see what they’d look like in the virtual Webkinz world, too.) I’ll choose two winners on…let’s say Monday, June 17th, 2013, and I’ll ship you the little guy you liked best. So, here are the candidates to choose from:

 

There! That seems like a nice assortment.

Here is the main issue: one reason I like doing giveaways of things from Amazon is that I have a Prime account, so I can ship Amazon gifts within the U.S. for absolutely free, which is very pleasant considering how expensive it is to ship things now. So that means the giveaway is for U.S. addresses only, which is kind of SAD and UNFAIR (like ADULT CHRISTMAS) but THERE IT IS.

The secondary issue is that sometimes a particular Webkinz animal will sell out at one price and then suddenly they’re another price. All of the above were chosen in the $5/$6/$7 range; if one of them suddenly goes up (or suddenly no longer qualifies for Prime shipping), and it’s the one the winner has chosen, I’ll have the winner pick again.

So if you have a U.S. mailing address in mind, and you’d like to try a Webkinz, leave a comment below saying which you’d like to win:

Hedgehog
Pom-pom kitty
Pug
Charcoal cat
Velvety elephant
Polar bear
Skunk
Grey Arabian
Moose
White terrier
Lemon-lime gecko
Walrus
Apatosaurus

I’ll pick two winners on Monday, June 17th.

1. Back at the beginning of my recent cluster of apocalyptic novels, I wanted to re-read Douglas Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma. I knew I’d read it the first time from our library, so I went there confidently—and they didn’t have it. It wasn’t just checked out, it was gone. And furthermore, NONE of the libraries in the whole library system had it. They still had OTHER Douglas Coupland books, just not that one. So what I did was, I ordered a used hardcover in good condition and with a dustjacket. I read it, and then I donated it to the library so they’d have a copy.

Our library has a perpetual-book-sale room. They have good deals ($1 for a hardcover Harry Potter, 3/$1 paperback Magic Treehouse, etc.). I had some extra time today, so I went there to browse. Hey, here’s another hardcover copy of Girlfriend in a Coma! Maybe I’ll buy it and keep it for myself. …Hey, here’s my own little “Donation” post-it note inside.

 

2. I remembered this out of the blue the other day. I used to work in a plant nursery. There were two girls I worked with sometimes; they were best friends and very opinionated, and very proud of the way they expressed those opinions (i.e., loudly, aggressively, stridently, argumentatively, and repeatedly). They used to badger people about wearing deodorant: “You don’t need it! You only think you need it because you’ve gotten your body dependent on it! If you stopped using it, there’d be a brief adjustment period of smelliness, and then after that you’d never need deodorant again!” They really PUSHED it. “Have you stopped using deodorant yet? Come on, just try it! Seriously, I haven’t used it for YEARS, and you’d never know it!”

It’s a sweet little testament to human courtesy (or perhaps just a mark of how awkward such situations are) that no one ever said, “But…I DO know it. The whole room smells like your armpits. I deliberately work as far away from you as possible.” Because oh my DEAR. A person might find grounds to argue that they liked the natural smell of hard-working human armpit; we all have different preferences in such matters. But there was no grounds for arguing that the smell had disappeared after the discontinuation of deodorant.

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I’ve mentioned before that my dad was a minister when I was growing up. Do these stories seem to you to be crying out for accompanying sermons, or is that a holdover from my formative years? We could write a good one about the donated book: about how sometimes you notice something missing in someone’s life, and so you try to show them what it is—but they’re not ready to receive it. You can’t know why (maybe they’re not ready, maybe they don’t recognize it for what it is, maybe you’re not the right one to show them); all you can do is offer. And maybe someone ELSE will end up taking what you offered, without you ever knowing they received it. Or, we could write one about the deodorant: about how people go around telling themselves/others that they don’t need something in their lives, when everyone who gets near them can clearly tell they do, and all we can do is hope one day they’ll discover that need. (The sermons, they WRITE THEMSELVES!)

OR we could write the opposite, about how sometimes people keep offering you something you genuinely don’t want or need in your life, and it’s because it’s something THEY want/need in THEIR lives. Or we could write about how people might go around proclaiming confidently what they believe to be true and trying to get you to live the same way they do, and how there’s no polite way to inform them that the reason you’re not doing so is that what they’re saying doesn’t seem to be true. (The BEST kind of anecdote is the one you can use to make LOTS of points!)

I am baking tonight for Twin Birthdays (two desserts for their birthday party plus two desserts for classroom treats = a lot of eggs, flour, and sugar), and I must be a little distracted because I put three eggs into the cookies instead of two, so then I had to go back and figure out what half-again of 3/4ths cup sugar was, and anyway do you want to come over for some cookies? Because we have half-again as many of them as I’d thought we would. I’m not entirely sure the proportions of the ingredients are correct, though.

I have the radio on in the kitchen, and the DJ just told me something that a wise man once told her, and it turned out the wise man in question was Jesus. And anyone might quote Jesus, of course, especially anyone in support of only judging other people ONLY IF you yourself are completely perfect, and dealing with all your own issues before worrying about someone else’s issues, and not judging others because God fully intends to use the meticulousness of your own personal judginess as a guideline for how meticulously he should judge you—but she went with the milder line of Jesus always being there for us. She ASSURED us that God (she switched to God halfway through, so she’s comfortable with the trinity concept) was ALWAYS there for us, NO MATTER WHAT. Then, without switching tone of voice or starting a new paragraph, she said she also wanted to tell us about Dove chocolate—rich, smooth, Dove chocolate, made with quality ingredients, for all your special occasions, Dove chocolate. Did I huff too much flour (have you any idea what the STREET VALUE of this flour is??) or did this really happen? It’s not a religious radio station—just your basic “all the hits of the 80’s, 90’s, and today.” Apparently late at night things get a little more Jesus/chocolate. I’m more familiar with the morning show.

I finished The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, and I continued to like it. I would recommend it. But considering how many times someone else has recommended a book, and I’ve gotten the book and within one page (“DEAR GOD, WHAT IS THIS FRESH HELL?”) have wondered how two people can be so different and still like each other, I will not be at all hurt and confused if you don’t like it. I’d say give it a chapter or two, but not much more: it was by the end of the first chapter that I thought it was wonderful.

********

I emailed the Girl Scouts just to make sure I was right that if a camp session no longer showed up as available, that meant it was full: I was worried that I was going through all this stress and then it would turn out I’d just misunderstood. And I got such a helpful email in return, it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Many of the other emails I’ve sent to summer activities asking for more information have made it WORSE (Me: “Will you be posting the 2013 information soon?” Them: “It’s already on there!” Me: “…”), but this one not only answered my question but volunteered information that was ADDITIONALLY HELPFUL. And the happy thing is that it’s not that the camp session was full, it’s that only two girls had signed up for it so they had to cancel it. So I didn’t mess it up: if I HAD signed up for it months ago, it still would have been canceled, and meanwhile Elizabeth would have had months of thinking she was going to her first choice, followed by finding out she wasn’t. So! That is nice!

AND, the person who emailed said they were combining the camp Elizabeth wanted with two others that she also liked the sound of! It’s for grades 2-5, but I had my mind changed completely on that issue by Amanda‘s comment that a going-into-middle-school Girl Scout is likely to be a different sort than the middle school girls I’m imagining. (A new source of stress has stepped into the gap, because the camp is listed as only grades 4-5, even though the person I’m emailed with is assuring me it will be grades 2-5. But let’s not dwell on it! Let’s assume everything will be fine!)

********

I’d decided NOT to break the school rule and send a treat in with the twins for their birthday. But after FOUR MORE CHILDREN in their classes brought in cupcakes for their birthdays, the twins were distraught about it rather than calm and accepting, and I was getting distraught as well. I couldn’t think of ANY WAY to contact the teachers about it, though, without sounding accusatory: “Since you’re letting OTHER children break the rule, I PRESUME it’s okay for MY children to break it TOO.” And I definitely didn’t want to give the children the “If everyone else it breaking a rule, it’s okay for you to break it” idea. And I didn’t want to put the teacher in an awkward situation. And I didn’t want to just show up with the treats. I felt stuck. I needed to ask what the situation was, but how to ask it in a way that shows I didn’t LIE when I signed the form saying I’d thoroughly read and understood the handbook, and that shows I would never be asking to have the rule broken for me if I hadn’t had evidence that the rule wasn’t being used—and that shows I wouldn’t be at all upset if the rule WERE enforced?

What I did was, I gave up. There was no way to communicate that I knew the rule AND not sound either accusatory or as if I were asking for special permission to break a rule (which might make the teacher feel forced to say no: she might feel she can let it pass if someone just brings in the cupcakes, but can’t explicitly say “Yes, I give permission for you to break the rule”). So this is what I wrote to each teacher: “Dear Mrs. _____, Child’s Name wanted me to ask if it would be all right for her/him to bring in a birthday treat on Tuesday for the class. –Swistle Thistle.” My hope was that this format allowed the teacher to comfortably say either yes or no, and that by putting the question in the child’s mouth I was avoiding completely the issue of whether I knew about the rule or not. Both teachers replied that of COURSE it was fine for them to bring in a birthday treat. I am trying to be happy (yay, I managed the email! yay, the twins are happy! yay, I found a way to handle the situation!) rather than annoyed (WHY DO WE HAVE THIS UNENFORCED RULE THAT MAKES LIFE DIFFICULT AND UNHAPPY?).