Yesterday I took all five children to the pool, and I will just pause here a moment to receive my medal. No—TWO medals. AND we had a picnic, so that would be another medal please.

When we got home, I’d expected them to be tired out from swimming and also mentally stunned from chlorine fumes, and I’d thought that in ANY case my awesome few hours of medal-winning parenthood would buy me a few hours of peace and consideration. I guess I was imagining the children saying to each other, “Mother was so kind to us this morning and gave us such a lovely treat! Now let’s give HER a lovely treat and entertain ourselves quietly!”

Instead, I ended up LAUGHING because their questions and requests and needs were SO! INCREDIBLY! CONSTANT! Seriously, if I made a little timeline and charted the children’s needs, the timeline would be three layers deep to include all the overlap. One child would say, “Can we go to the park?” and I would say, “Are you effing kidding me? No, not today, honey,” and another child would say, “Can I have a drink?” while the first child said, “Well, can we go to Target?” and I’d say “Sure, go get it” to the second child and “NO, honey, we’re home for the day,” to the first child, and then a third and fourth child would start fighting and get to the point where I could no longer pretend they could work it out themselves, and then the first child would say, “Do you want to hear a great joke?” and the fourth child would say, “I NEED TO GO POTTY!!” and I would say “Oh, no thank you, honey, not right now” to the first child and “Ooooo-kay, go ahead then” to the fourth child, and then the fifth child would open the baby gate and the third child would shriek “HENRY IS OPENING THE GATE!! HENRY IS OPENING THE GATE!!” and the second child would say, “Can you get it for me?” and and I would say, “Okay, I’ll be right there!” to the third child and “No, no, honey, leave the gate closed” to the fifth child and “NO I THINK YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF” to the second child, and the third child would say, “Henry sure is a naughty baby, isn’t he!” and the first child would launch into a long description of a comic strip he read once, and then the second child would call from the kitchen, “I spilled!” and the fourth child would say “I NEED HELP WITH MY BUTTON” and the fifth child would fall and hurt himself and start crying.

So by the time Paul got home, you can imagine what a frazzled wreck I was. Here is what I self-prescribed: LEAVING EVERYONE IN A CLOUD OF DUST. We put the kids to bed at 7:00, and I was out the door before their bedroom doors had clicked shut. I drove the minivan with ONLY ME in it. I listened to music without input or interruption. I stopped furtively at a den of iniquity and got a fish sandwich, french fries, and diet Coke, and I ate while driving to Target.

At Target I got a cart and I put my PURSE in the baby seat. I browsed without having my concentration constantly interrupted. The only question I answered the entire time I was there was “Can I help you find anything?” I easily stayed out of the way of other customers, without having to hiss “SINGLE FILE you oblivious dimheads!” to children spreading aimlessly across the entire aisle. I spent, like, ten minutes just looking at make-up, and didn’t have to park the cart in the center of the aisle to keep grabby/throwy fingers away from the merchandise.

Then I drove home, listening to music and not talking. Very, very pleasant. I was still fretful and frazzled when I got home. But! I was better than before. One cannot expect a full recovery from a single dose of medication.

I’ve been looking up Top 40 lists from my formative years and then looking up the songs on YouTube. Fun! And weird! I started with the 1990 Top 40, and then I just kept changing the year in the URL.

Here are the things that stand out to me, as I revisit these old videos:

1. The hair.

2. The guitar solos in the middle of the songs.

3. The way music videos used to be pretty much just the band performing the song on a stage.

One thing that has been surprising me is THE HAIR. And it should NOT be a surprise, considering that the bands of my formative years are called “hair bands.” And I was THERE, and I was doing things like that to my OWN hair, so I’d expect all these things together to lead to a pretty firm memory of The Hair. Still: surprising.

Check out Vixen. ZOMG HAIR. “Edge of a Broken Heart” is in the “songs I still like” category, rather than the “oh dear, how embarrassing” category.

Please pardon the weird, wrong-lyrics version of this Skid Row video and just check out how YUMMY Sebastian Bach is. But do you find yourself wondering what he would look like with a haircut?

Ditto for Nelson. Boys, boys. I wanted your hair for myself SO BADLY. But on you? Well. I’m untressing you with my eyes.

Another one that still sounds good to me is Poco’s “Call it Love”. But what a sad, cynical attitude, Poco!

We Built This City is the song I used to play again and again on the jukebox (you’re welcome, other patrons!), and in fact Starship is the first album I ever bought. And do you know what? It was a record. A record, an actual RECORD! My dad put it on our record player and recorded a cassette version for me. And my mother was very upset at what a dangerous Acid Rock album it was, and fretted that I shouldn’t be allowed to have it.

How many times did I replay Roxette’s “Church of Your Heart”? Let’s not investigate.

Anyway, this is the list I’ve been going through. Feel free to add to it.

We Built This City — Starship
No One is to Blame — Howard Jones
Say You, Say Me — Lionel Richie
Catch Me (I’m Falling) — Pretty Poison
Stranded — Heart
Edge of a Broken Heart — Vixen
Mad About You — Belinda Carlisle
Don’t Worry Be Happy — Bobby McFerrin
Kiss Him Goodbye — The Nylons
Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You — Glenn Medeiros
Make Me Lose Control — Eric Carmen
Do You Believe in Love — Huey Lewis and the News
Jump for My Love — Whitney Houston
Eternal Flame — Bangles
I Drove All Night — Cyndi Lauper
Call It Love — Poco
The Last Worthless Evening — Don Henley
Because of You — The Cover Girls
A Little Respect — Erasure
(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection — Nelson
When I See You Smile — Bad English
Time for Me to Fly — REO Speedwagon
Personal Jesus — Depeche Mode
A Groovy Kind of Love — Phil Collins
Little Liar — Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Church of Your Heart — Roxette
Right Here Waiting — Richard Marx
Release Me — Wilson Phillips
I Remember You — Skid Row
I Want You — Shana
Hooked on You — Sweet Sensation
King of Wishful Thinking — Go West
Close My Eyes Forever — Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne
Cold Hearted — Paula Abdul
Your Baby Never Looked Good in Blue — Exposé
In Your Eyes — Peter Gabriel
You’re the Inspiration — Chicago

(This is for Whimsy’s Blogdrought Remedy.)

1. Notthedaddy’s minister daddy would like to hide his porn collection at her house.

2. Identifying and Avoiding Autism Cults was thought-provoking and seemed like it could be applied to all kinds of cults. And that’s what I look for in a post: wide cult application.

3. Clueless but Hopeful Mama captures what it’s like to bring the second child home. We’ve got kind of a Clueless but Hopeful Mama THEME going on today, Whimsy and me. Also a THEME theme.

I was BOWLED OVER by Kira‘s comment on the Crisco post. Here’s an excerpt:

I think a majority of the reaction to it is because food is the new morality. Trans fats aren’t just sort of unhealthy, they are BAD and WRONG. Sugar isn’t just simple carbs, it’s OMG SUGAR DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE EATING THINK OF TEH CHILDREN. Whatever. I’m a rebel. I think food is food and morals are something different altogether.

Me: *stunned by revelation* As soon as I read this, I could FEEL my brain recalibrating. Files were getting moved around, and some unfiled paperwork was finally getting into the right folders.

FOOD IS THE NEW MORALITY. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I think she should write a book. I would buy ten copies.

My mom and I were talking about it yesterday, and she mentioned denominations: Church of Atkins, Reformed Church of Atkins, Church of Raw Food, Our Holy Mother Jenny Craig, etc.

Because of the spiritual importance of food, people feel a DRIVE to save others via evangelism and condemnation. IT IS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, is the feeling. SOULS MUST BE SAVED.

There are traveling preachers who come to us with messages of what foods are Good and what foods are Bad, recording their wisdom in books and expensive food systems. Salvation can be yours. Give all you have: your money, your time.

Thinness is the new righteousness. Exercise is the new church attendance. Recent converts test the love and patience of all around them.

Obesity is the new depravity. People must be saved from themselves. They wear their sins like a cloak, and their sins bring them terrible consequences: all bad things are linked to excessive/wrong foods.

REPENT! REPENT AND BE SAVED!

I just placed a super-fun order. I’d written over at Milk and Cookies about two-piece swimming suits for little girls, and the heartache of that post was that I’d found the PERFECT suit (two-piece for easy peeing, but almost as much coverage as a one-piece, and also very pretty) but it wasn’t in Elizabeth’s size: she’s a 4T and the biggest size was 3T.

Encouraged by a comment from Heather about L.L. Bean sizes running large, I considered ordering the 3T and hoping for the best—especially because Elizabeth is long-torsoed and needs a 4T mostly for the LENGTH, which wouldn’t be an issue with a two-piece. So I went back to look at it and consider, and they HAD THE 4T IN STOCK. At $8.99 down from $24.50! So I bought that right the heck up.

Well, but I had a coupon for $10 off any order of $10 or more, and $8.99 is not $10 (see? math medal). So I did a little browsing just to see if there might be anything else I’d like to have. And I found this adorable fox sweater, $10.99 down from $26.50. That’s still a little high for a sweater, since it’s common to find sweaters post-season for under $5, but we have an interesting-to-us-but-boring-to-everyone-else fox appreciation that makes anything with a fox on it highly desirable.

And while I was browsing, I found these great tights, $6.99 for 2 pairs, down from $14.50. I can’t tell from the photo, and the different color names probably mean NO, but it LOOKS like the coral tights might go perfectly with the sweater.

So I feel a little less irritable than yesterday. Now I’m going to write a bunch of postcards for Postcrossing, which always cheers me up too. I haven’t yet had a repeat of my Postcrossing fantasy, but it could happen ANY DAY!

I’m feeling crabby.

1. I lovvvvvve Jeffery Deaver books, and have been on the hold list for the new one (Roadside Crosses) for a long time. Normally I’m full-on into a Jeffery Deaver book by about page 10, but this one is not grabbing me. I’m getting irritated by the theme, which is “OMG TEH INTERNETS ARE DANGEROUS OMG YOUR PRIVACY OMG SOMEONE COULD KILLLLLL YOUUUUUUUU!!!” but even more by the recurring evidence that the author is not in fact familiar with Teh Internets. He refers to a blog post as a “blog.” He refers to comments on a blog post as “blog posts.” He says that what makes a blog a blog are the hyperlinks. Wherp? It’s making me VERY IRRITABLE, because he keeps INTERRUPTING THE PLOT with a character saying something like, “Perhaps it would be useful if I explained the history of ‘weblogs’!” and then—if you can believe it—DOING SO. Plus, now I’m all skittish about saying anything about the book on the internet because OMG I COULD BE KILLLLLLLLLLED.

2. I bought a bunch of ice cream on a good sale at Target ($2.50 Breyer’s, plus I got a $5 gift card for buying 5, so that’s $1.50 a carton), and now it’s gone. And now I’m in the habit of eating ice cream every day, so I want want want it.

3. I love tuna. Every time I eat it, I worry about the mercury. I can almost feel the mercury…accumulating. Meanwhile, every famous person on earth is eating nothing but “lean meat and fish!” Oh yes? And what are you doing about the MERCURY POISONING? Or are you TOO THIN TO CARE?

4. I got behind on my celebrity magazines, and I’m trying to catch up. This means I have been reading Jon Kate Jon Kate Jon Kate lean meat Jon Kate fish Jon Kate, and seriously, is NOTHING ELSE of interest happening in the celebrity world? I like a little Jon & Kate as much as anyone (assuming we’re taking an average), but it’s been, like, eight cover stories so far.

5. The kids are taking swimming lessons. Elizabeth is screaming “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” throughout each lesson. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to get involved. Like, are the teachers wishing I would STEP IN AND HELP for heaven’s sake, or are they hoping desperately that I’ll GO AWAY so they can TEACH?

6. Rob and William have a….rocky relationship. In other words, they are bickering the living spit out of each other EVERY FROG-BANNED DAY. And each of them feels motivated to tell ME about EACH BICKER, and then BICKER about the inaccuracies in what the other one tattled.

7. I’m so sick of making dinner.

8. Every time Georgie coughs, I wonder if it’s Time to Call the Vet.

9. I overpaid on a credit card ON PURPOSE, because it’s a credit card I use for small occasional purchases and I hate writing teensy checks. But then the credit card company sent me a letter saying they were refunding my extra “as you requested” (which I HAD NOT) and I just found the refund check stuck in the wrong compartment of the bill-paying thingie I use to organize bill-related things, and it has EXPIRED. So hey, THAT was a LOT less trouble than WRITING A TEENSY CHECK.

We need to have a talk, and I think it’s best to do these things fast, like ripping off a jewelry store. WHAT is the problem with Crisco? Every time I mention Crisco, there is recoiling of the kind I don’t get when I mention butter. Some of my brother’s friends ate three or four chocolate-chip cookies each, then asked for the recipe and discovered the Crisco. I swear they went pale. You could see their thoughts: “Would it be impolite to barf this up? Is etiquette a reason to risk my very life?”

Here are the nutrition labels from Crisco and from butter:

Crisco

butter

Crisco has 1 additional gram of fat per tablespoon, and so it also has an additional 10 calories per tablespoon. But only 3 grams of Crisco’s fat are saturated, compared to 7 grams of butter’s fat. Crisco has no cholesterol; butter has 30 mg per tablespoon (240 mg per stick). Crisco has no salt; butter has 90 mg per tablespoon (720 mg per stick). Crisco has monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats—those are the “good” ones, aren’t they? Crisco is made from vegetable fats; butter is made from animal fats. Neither has any trans fat.

So who has a fight to pick with Crisco?—or at least, a fight they don’t also have with butter? Is it that vegetable shortening gets confused with lard, since they look similar and are sold in similar-looking containers? Or is it something else?

I LOVE pulling over for emergency vehicles. I do it fast and early and as far over as I can get, and please stop snickering because none of that is funny. I think I like it because I WANT to be someone who is Good In Emergencies, but instead I’m someone who Freezes In Emergencies, and so I love these rare opportunities when my role is absolutely clear to me and I can execute it with ease. It gives me a taste of what it must be like to see a reflection in your martini glass of someone sneaking up behind you, and immediately spin around and knock him unconscious with one swift kick.

One of my Hot Buttons, driving-wise, is people who don’t pull over fast enough or early enough or far enough. Worst of all: people who irritably PULL AROUND ME when I pull over, revving off as if, given a choice between two theories: (1) this lady has pulled over for no apparent reason so I should look around to see if I can figure out what the reason IS and (2) this lady has pulled over for no apparent reason so obviously she is a FREAKING MORON, they go right to option 2 because DUH. Someone even HONKED at me once, before revving around. I hate that SO much, it…it…the…flames…flames…flames on the side of my face.

I also get steamed if, after the emergency vehicle goes by, someone uses it as an opportunity to pass all the suckers who pulled over. ERG!! If it were possible to MENTALLY pull out a gun and shoot out someone’s tires, I would probably cause additional emergencies because of doing so.

I know we’ve been over this and over this and over this, but it comes up fresh for me every time it happens and I feel the need to go over it yet again: I was in the store the other day with the kids, and a woman in line ahead of me told me that these were the best years of parenting and I should enjoy them.

When elderly ladies say that to me, I find it easier to let it roll off—though I did once get into a total fret when I was postpartum and TWO old ladies said it to me on one single outing, and I went home almost FRANTIC to Paul, grabbing his shirt and saying, “DO you think these are the best times?? DO you?? Because I am JUST BARELY HOLDING IT TOGETHER” and he thought it over and said, “I think these are the best times to remember,” which I think he’s exactly right about and now I translate it that way whenever an elderly lady seems to be telling me that it’s all downhill from here.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The woman in the store. She wasn’t old. She said she had teenagers, and I’d guess she was maybe ten years older than me. I’ve been in a funk over it for several days now, thinking it’s not bad enough, apparently, to be overwhelmed and counting hours and feeling like I’m trapped: I can also now look forward to a future of beating myself up for not enjoying it more.

Part of it was the timing: the children were so demanding and giddy and intolerable on that particular errand, I’d gone over to the luggage section and looked dreamily at the suitcases, fantasizing about buying a nice big set, big enough to last me SEVERAL WEEKS. I’d also fantasized about running the shopping cart “accidentally” into the butt of one or both of my older children to see if THAT would be as funny as BREATHING and WALKING seemed to be. So it was not a receptive moment for hearing that these were the glorious days I would one day long for.

Part of it was her age: as I said, I can handle this kind of thing more easily from someone very elderly. But someone who’s only ten years older than me? Surely she can still remember being my age and having children the ages of mine. Surely she can remember all the old ladies telling her to cherish every moment, and surely she can remember how she felt about that. So if SHE is telling me these are the best years, when she has the same information ringing still in her own ears—well, either it’s TRUE and it really is a steady downhill roll into the Swamps of Suckitude followed by death, or else I should have shoved her “accidentally” in the butt with my shopping cart.

Yeah. Just hanging out. Chilling on the windowsill. Diaper hat and my brother’s Leapster 2. You know. Your typical Sunday.

Do you remember the measuring spoons from this shopping post? I love them so. I’ve been looking and Looking and LOOKING for the matching measuring cups, and finally found them at HomeGoods (not a grocery store). So obv I cleared them out.

One set for me, one for my sister-in-law, and the rest for future Swistle Care Packages

I don’t think I can choose just one set to keep. Which set is your favorite? (Rob points out that if I want to, I can now make five single-color sets.)

They also had more measuring spoons, so I bought those too.