Just a picture and a promise

Is it pitiful that I feel like I've fallen off the edge of the universe when I don't have access to the internet? My computer doesn't work. Hasn't worked for several weeks now... and my husband, who works with computers for a living, says helpful things like, "Just figure out what's wrong with it and fix it." Oh. Okey-doke. I'll do that.

This is almost as helpful as when I'm desperately searching for something I've lost and he says, "Well where do you think it might be?"

So my computer is probably broken beyond repair. It was a slow painful death. It didn't come as a shock or anything but it's still sad. Though I'm pretty sure I could get over it very quickly if a new computer showed up.

Anyway, the good news is that at the moment I have access to Scott's computer so the promise that I referred to in my title is that I will try to post an update SOON, as in the next couple of days.

Aside from my computer we're doing well. More soon, I hope.

Five is the new fifteen

Can I just tell you that I gave birth to the most delightful 5-year-old on the entire planet? No really, I did. Amanda is so wise and funny and adorable. I hate to brag, but she is simply charming and an absolute joy to be around.

Unless you piss her off. Then you need to just clear the room. Duck for cover. Get out of her way as fast as you can because it will not be pretty.

Unfortunately, as the one who gave birth to her, it is my job to piss her off on a very regular basis. No, you can’t have candy for breakfast. Yes, you DO have to go to bed now even if you’re not a little bit tired. No, you cannot watch "Desperate Housewives". No you cannot skip dinner and move straight to dessert. No it is not okay to hit your sister even if she just hit you. No we cannot call Grandma again. Her ear needs time to recover from when you almost talked it off an hour ago.

She has mastered the art of the pout, the dramatic sigh, the door-slam, the eye-roll, the smirk, the angry stomp, the guilt trip, the tantrum and the silent treatment. She is also very skilled at achieving shock and indignation over any punishment she receives. She often tries to negotiate the terms of said punishment.

Me: Amanda, time-out now, five minutes.
Amanda: WHAT??? Four minutes!
Me: Six minutes. Go NOW.
Amanda: Five minutes!
Me: I highly recommend you go NOW, Amanda.
Amanda: You are SO mean! (sticks tongue out)
Me: I know. Make that seven minutes.

How does she come up with this stuff? Are there classes offered during Kindergarten recess? I can’t help picturing a group of 5 and 6-year-olds gathered around the swing set brainstorming ideas for how to slowly wear their parents down.

“I know, I know! Ask for what you want while they’re on the phone!”

“Oh! Or cooking dinner.”

“Or trying to get your baby sister to sleep!”

“Yes, good! And how many times do we ask?”

“Once!”

(Looks of pure disdain and lots of eye rolling are aimed at the poor kid who came up with that dumb answer)

“Anybody else?”

“A hundred! No, a BILLION-TRILLION!!!”

(A round of applause for that kid.)

“A BILLION-TRILLION! Yes! That’s the right answer. We keep asking until they give in. We peck away at them slowly, like little tiny birds. We CAN wear them down. We WILL wear them down. We NEVER give up until we reach our goal.

(Applause, high-fives, woo-hooing all over the place.)

“Okay people, get some sleep tonight… we have a big day tomorrow. We’ll be working on whining and back-talk.”

The fact that Amanda is already so good at all this stuff scares the crap out of me. I didn't learn or use some of those techniques until I was at least 12 or 13. When I think about the teenage years I shudder in fear. Sometimes when Amanda is in a time-out I wonder if it would be okay to just hide under the table until she graduates from high school.

But then she gets out of time-out and returns to her normal sweet self and I think, okay, I can do this.

All in a day's work

Yesterday, in addition to the normal everyday messes, I cleaned up the following:

• A full cup of piping hot coffee and the broken pieces of a coffee mug off the bathroom floor, walls and toilet (my fault)

• A puddle of cat puke off the living room carpet (cat’s fault)

• A piece of Styrofoam packing, ripped into teeny tiny pieces and scattered all over my bed and floor (Alyssa’s fault. She was supposed to be quietly watching a show with her sister. Amanda didn’t report the incident until it looked like the ceiling had opened up just in time for a snowstorm. When I asked Amanda why she hadn’t taken the Styrofoam away or come to tell me earlier she said. "Well I was going to but she was having so much fun!")

• A whole gallon of spilled apple juice (Amanda fault. And can I tell you, I’m still shocked at how far a gallon of STICKY liquid can travel when dropped from two or three feet above the floor. The plastic jug broke when it hit, it splashed nearly 6 feet up on one wall, all over a bookshelf, all over Alyssa and Amanda, all over the kitchen counters and covered a large portion of the kitchen and dining room floor, including under the refrigerator which is always fun. Though Amanda shouldn’t have attempted it, I knew it was an accident, so I tried to remain calm. Turns out it doesn’t matter if you say, “It’s no big deal, you didn’t mean to do it, no really it’s okay!” if you say it like a completely hysterical insane woman. Apparently it’s all in the delivery and if you say it wrong, your five year old will go flying into her room under the assumption that she will be in trouble for the rest of her life. BUT NO REALLY. IT’S OKAY.)

• About a gazillion pennies off the dining room floor (Alyssa’s fault…and if you’ve never had to pick up a gazillion pennies you would be surprised to find how time-consuming it actually is no matter how many techniques you try. The only thing that would have made this chore worse would have been if the pennies had been poured out onto the sticky apple-juice covered portion of the floor. Okay, if the cat-puke had been involved it would have been much, much worse. If the cat starts puking up pennies you won’t be hearing from me until I return from a short stay at a privately run mental institution.)

On being prepared...

There’s this part of me that desperately wants to be prepared for any situation. I tend to take too much stuff everywhere I go. My car runneth over with extra changes of clothes and maps and crayons and sippy cups and diapers and more crayons and bandaids and snacks and umbrellas and plastic bags and baby wipes and bottles of water just in case.

But still, often when a Situation arrives, I feel blindsided. For instance, it seems that I always carry an umbrella except during a storm. And it seems that I always have every map there is except for a map of the area I’m lost in. And it seems I keep at least two bottles of water with me at all times unless my children are actually thirsty. So I push my cart full of wet, giggling children through a rainy parking lot with plastic bags covering our heads and we’re okay. Or we drive until we find somewhere interesting to stop (often better than our original destination anyway) and ask for directions and we’re okay. Or we go in search of a water fountain or a cozy café or a drive-thru to get a drink and again, we’re okay and possibly happier than we would have been if I’d managed to be prepared in the first place.

So I’ve been telling myself that maybe my inability to be prepared may actually be preparing me somehow. A week or so ago, a couple of my very favorite family members were in a serious car accident. They’re okay. Or at least they will be in time. But it has sort of changed the way I look at things. Because when you think about it, there are some things in life that just happen completely out of the blue, unexpectedly, and you can’t really be prepared for them at all. Your entire world can be turned upside down in an instant. And then what do you do?

You just have to show up and hope that whoever you are is enough to stand up and handle whatever it is that’s thrown your way. You might not have the right clothes or a pen and paper or a working cell phone or even working legs. But somehow you will get through and find a way to make it work. Maybe in a completely different way than you ever imagined.

But I have to believe that somehow you’ll be okay. And who knows, in some weird way, maybe you’ll even be better off. At the very least you might learn something wonderful about yourself in the process. At least I’d like to hope so.