When I think about my kids and jobs and money and everything, I just really want them to be amazing at whatever they love, so they don't have to do something else all the time so they can do what they love when they're supposed to be sleeping. I guess I should care about college and stuff, and maybe I will when they're older. Right now I just wish somebody else knew how to cook. I do have a chore chart in progress, and I am delighted about Toby's obvious cleaning skills and concerned about Brynn's total panic and breakdown any time she is faced with any chore. (That is going to earn her a very gripy husband, if my story is any kind of indicator) 

Toby writes Brynn's goal, because she is busy playing

They are not ambitious, my offspring. Brynn persists in saying she is never moving out. "I'll just get married and have babies and live at your house, Mom. Can I live with you forever, Mom?" and I say, "Of course you can," because they need more things to talk about in therapy someday. She has a strong desire to work at McDonald's and is sure that she will shock me someday by being my cashier and I will not have even known  that she had a job at McDonald's. So that's kind of like a goal. 

"When I grow up," Toby processes from the back seat, "I will be a bachelor. And I will have a lot of bachelor friends and they will come over and we will play video games." I catch his eye in the rearview mirror, knowing how potential this scenario might be. "Where will you live?" I ask. "Well." he thinks about it, "I could live with you, but in my own area... but I think I will get a house and share it with bachelors and we will have a long black couch and play video games. And if we run out of tater tots, I will just buy some more." Isn't that we all want, really? Just to be able to buy more tater tots whenever we want? 

I don't know, guys. I think it will probably all be okay, because I'm an optimist. Plus, Tristan is totally an athlete, so maybe he'll be able to finance us all someday, when we are all living in the same house with all our babies and cheeseburgers and bachelor friends. 

When you have an abnormal kid, normal kids always seem weird, with their normalness. Not that any kid is normal, per se. Most kids are weird. All of mine are, anyway. To quote a saying I read once, they don't get it from nobody strange. Apple. Tree. Those of you who are worrying about me saying normalness instead of normality and then using a double negative in the same paragraph, chill. I do what I want.

But when you've had a sick kid, you're always kinda looking squinty-eyed at the normal kid, being normal, just to make sure that they are just pretending to be a crazy and not, in fact, having a seizure. So anytime I get a phone call about a "normal" kid, I'm half waiting for the Bad News. Because, clearly, I am a woman of great faith. Today I got a call about my only daughter, and the Bad News was that she was very, very sad and wanted me. That's the kinda Bad News I like. Zero problem.

The thing with parenting is, I have no idea. I. Have. No. Idea. So every day, whenever it is Parenting Time, which is always, I try very hard to do the easiest thing that is also not terrible parenting. Terrible parenting is so variable, though, really, because I should get a medal for never punching a kid, but instead I am giving myself a Terrible Parent rating for a thousand other things that a methhead would consider overachieving. Do you see what I'm saying? The chart is bonkers.

So when my 6 year said she was too sad to stay at school, I was torn between telling her to quit being a nancy with all the starving children in the world and wars and climate crises and such, and the other part of me was totally back at 6 years old, spending the night at a friends house and waking up at midnight shattered and brokenhearted and crying until my dad picked me up with crazy hair and a scrunchy annoyed face. That side won, obviously. You should have seen me that time (with every kid) that I tried cry-it-out for like 2 minutes. Super Nanny would have slapped my face, or taken all of my stars off my chart or something. Taken away my white rocks, put my favorite toy in jail. Something.

Maybe I will read this blog someday when all of my children are career criminals or dentists or something and I will say, this is where I went wrong, I should have made them tougher. For now, though, I am mostly trying to communicate that I don't want them to be sad because I am here and I'm their mom, for goodness sake. So I gathered the other 2 and drove to the school where she was very cheerful to see me and to go home with her brothers, as long as she still got to eat her Lunchable. She came home for about a half hour, ate her snack and watched Barney and then decided that she wanted to go back to school. So I took her.

Because I have no idea. Maybe that will be the title of my parenting bestseller.

Most of you have followed our story and laughed and cried and PRAYED with us as R2 got very sick and then had a rapid recovery. I'm far from hyperspiritual, but this was definitely miraculous. The ministry we work for made a video testimony, and it's awesome so you should watch it.

Also, remember that the camera adds 10 pounds and makes you look super tired and it might make you blink kind of weird. Also see if you can spot the TEXAS REPRESENT. But mostly just listen to the story of the way God brought us through the valley of the shadow of death.

It's not like I want to install a hidden camera in my child's backpack or shirt or something. But now that I think about it, that is maybe the best idea I've ever had. I could make JILLIONS off all you hoverparents. I am not what you would call a hoverparent, because you can't be a hoverparent if there are multiple times a day when you don't exactly know where your children are. And when you find them eating popcorn from inside the couch, you let it go because hey, free snack!- then you lose any hoverparent credential. Still, now that they go to school, I am finding a desire to know what happens, because no one will ever tell me. 

It's not like this is a new phenomenon to me. Nobody ever tells me anything, except whenever I go out with my friends and they tell me episiotomy details, which no one ever wants, ever. My husband (of 17 years as of tomorrow) used to spend weeks traveling the country with his worship band and seeing all the sights and meeting people and then he'd come home and have 2 pictures of a squirrel and a thousand stories, deep, deep down inside that I will never know. He'll spend 2 hours on an urgent phone call and sum it up in 6 words. Captain Vague, I call him.

So they come by it honest. The thing is, I've had most of them sitting directly on my bladder, chewing gum in my ear, for their entire lives, and then just recently they've started having experiences without me and as far as I can tell, nothing ever happens. I drop them off at VBS or school and it's okay, they guess, but that's all I'm gonna get. "Did you make friends?" I ask, like some desperate mother of a teenage junkie on a Lifetime movie, "Did you learn anything? Did you eat your snack? Did you go to the bathroom? Was it fun? Was it scary? Did anybody say something mean to you? Did you talk to the ice cream man?" and so on, while they respond in single words and then get back to telling me about how Mario and Luigi are so different.

I roll with it. I can tell they are happy and learning and they tell me all kinds of stuff I don't care about but at least they're talking, and I'm okay. Until today, when they auditioned for a play and all of the sudden I feel like some kind of overtanned stage mom in a track suit with my child's name embroidered on it. "How did it go?" I ask, trying to not be super eager. "Did you sing? Was it fun? Did you say any lines? Did they say anything to you? Was it fun? How do you feel about it? Are you excited? Where are you going?" Captain Vague's children hold up admirably under the barrage. "It was good," they answer.

I'M GONNA BE ALL RIGHT, GUYS. I'm just going to need a minute, or an informant. Or some medication.

"In the 22nd century," Toby tells me, "we will probably have time travel working. If I'm alive, I'm gonna go back to Year One. First I'm gonna watch creation happening, and then I'll tell Adam and Eve it's a trick."

"Wait," I say, just for clarification. "What's the trick?"

He looks at me with pity in his eyes, "The snake? The devil? It's a trick. I'll tell them and that'll change everything."

"Oh, right, that."

"But how should I tell them? And what will the devil say?"

Just another day of theological advice-giving to the future time-travelling resetter-of-mankind. I need a nap.

you're breaking all the rules

my parenting absolutes are in shambles

and as you climb into my bed for the fourth time tonight

I think

maybe you're the last baby

not because you're wild

and unrestrained

but just time and probability

maybe you're the last baby

and I'm letting you drink Coke

and I never let you cry

and my heart is knit to you

so unbearably tightly because

maybe you're the last baby

I don't make custom meals, I say

I don't reward tantrums

I'll never have a pet

As I sneak you a sandwich

because you don't like the food

and you cry till you get chips

and then feed the chips to the cat

last baby

you're rocking my world

I'm exhausted and out of ideas

and deeper in love than I ever knew

It's not like I go around all the time thinking how smart I am. I don't. Most of the time I am thinking about food. Like mashed potatoes, for example, or cheese enchiladas or glazed donuts from Shipley's in my hometown. Not all together, mind you. Well, it could work as some kind of 3 course deal. Food (rim shot) for thought.

That's usually it. Food, then other stuff. But I know I'm smart, because I can read good. Also, I got jokes. The point is, I don't think about it, I just navigate life at my own speed and I rarely run into obstacles with my mind, although I hit things with my car on a frequent basis. So not with my mind, until you start throwing numbers at me. Then everything gets all slo-mo and melty like an acid trip in a made-for-TV movie, and all of the sudden I'm brought low, just another casualty of taking some speed and racing the train, and you know how that goes. No carful of teens has ever outraced a train, in the history of acid and made-for-TV movies. Sometimes there's one survivor, but she will never be the same, so don't take acid, kids. MATH. That's what I'm talking about.

Today I was trying to do math for one of my jobs, which is working for my husband's nonprofit, and I think I simultaneously quit, got fired, and filed for divorce. It was not pretty. Because math. In high school, I was getting high A's in every subject and pretty much phoning it in so I could graduate and marry the Worst Boss Ever, except all of the math-related classes. In Geometry, I had to go to the Tiger Den, a nice quiet room with tutors and padded walls, so I could do my test without breaking down in tears. I came for extra tutoring at lunch and did every assignment and passed with a 70. Because math. 

If you don't have this problem, then you're probably like some people I know who live in my house, and you're probably all like, "Just take that hypotenuse and put it over that inverted fraction and then click enter," and I WILL QUIT YOUR COMPANY, TOO. Give me words.

The point is, math is the worst. If you like it, that's because you are one of the called who is required to understand it. I bet you can't spell. Can't we all just get along?

Well, the Best Summer Ever is over. Until next year, anyway. I dropped Toby and Brynn off at their school today and later I have to go register R2 for public school again, assuming I can find his immunization records. Seriously. Does anybody really expect me to keep shot records? He's 14. What is this, the Middle Ages? Do I carry around a rucksack with scrolls in it? Maybe I could just get his records tattooed on his arm, so I could just look totally nuts instead of slightly negligent. Nuts, but with shot records, booyah. (This might mark the first and last time I have ever used booyah on my blog)

(If this blog was a car, I would be all over the map. It would have to be some kind of ATV and I would just randomly drive it off cliffs and then try to reverse to my original point. No regrets, though, except maybe that booyah.)

So, Best Summer Ever. I think it went well. There were days and weeks when we did nothing but video games and movies, and by we, I mean them, but I think most of our weeks had genuinely interesting and fun outings. Ultimately, I feel like I soaked up these months and tried to make memories with my kids and it was worth all the nervous sweating and hair loss and vomiting. I'll probably be fine. Eventually. In the sweet by and by. 

So these 2 started 1st and 2nd grade today, in theory. In reality their school doesn't stick to a strict grade level system, which I love, but it makes them look confused when the cashier asks them what grade they're in and then my false guilt syndrome kicks in and I want to explain that they do go to school and we don't spend our days cooking meth in our basement, but something tells me that explaining that would do more harm than good and then I'd have to explain meth production to Toby, who would memorize it and then bring it up in random conversations with strangers and librarians, and there is just no way it would end well. "Look, mom!" he'd say loudly in the swanky Target, "Sudafed! Is that the kind used for methamphetamine production?"

You might remember that they just started school for the first time in January, when R2 was sick and I had to stop homeschooling, and I had emotional breakdowns and angst and guilt and everything, and I cried all the way home from their first drop-off. I was not emotional this year. In fact, I didn't walk in with them or anything. "Have a good life!" I might have yelled, as I peeled rubber out of the parking lot. I have a general sort-of ache about them growing away from me, but the ache is less as I celebrate every new phase. Well. Almost every phase. I'm not crazy about the new experimentation with sass-talk. It's just a brief experimentation, mind you, because I respond to sass-talk with Texas Justice, and Texas Justice has a way of curing sass, or at least pointing it in the right direction. 

So. That's a wrap. Time for the Best School Year Ever.

Bonus Momfinger Cameo!

Hey, bloggerati! Watch this promo video for the MOG's new album. I'm gonna talk more about this when the album "drops", which is how people who make albums say when the tape comes out. When the "tape comes out" is how people over 50 talk about when the album drops. So I think we're all on the same page. Anyway, you're gonna want to know about this, and I am super proud of it. Stay tuned!

I don't think I have a lot of pet peeves. Maybe the MOG would argue, but that's just because he is the recipient of the few pet peeves I do have, like other people using my toothbrush when theirs is in a suitcase, or people who eat ham and cheese sandwiches in bed. I'm easy like Sunday morning most of the time. At least I  think so. But there are a few things that get under my skin, and they mostly have to do with what I expected life to be like in TWO THOUSAND THIRTEEN.

I was a kid in the 80's, and I got sold a bill of good about the 2000s that was straight up bull hockey. So I have a few complaints to the makers of the future. Let me begin by saying the iPhone is one of the best things to ever happen to mankind and I heartily applaud its inclusion into the future. I do think an iPhone glove would be practical since I always have to hold it in my hand, like some kind of caveman. But basically I just love my phone so much that it would get really tricky if I had to make a Sophie's choice.  I kid. I would almost definitely choose my loved ones.

Some things that I think need to catch up:

Panhandlers and people selling cookies outside Walmart. Let's start by saying I need you to clarify your goal. If your sign just says "Happy Fourth" as you sit by the road in your tattered flannel with your ZZ Top beard fluttering in the wind, I am not likely to hand you some cash, because maybe you're just a free spirit, offering cheer to passersby, and who am I to judge? But also I might not give you cash anyway, because I don't carry cash, because this is Two Thousand Thirteen. Should we equip the homeless with credit card machines and/or Squares or a Paypal account? I don't think that's the thing. But it would be convenient. So maybe not the homeless. But people selling cookies outside Walmart to raise money for "The Holy Blind Mother Charity Ball" or whatever. Also garage sales and everyone else in the world. GET A SQUARE. This is the future, guys.

I had a short rant about vending machines but then I found out that many of them now accept debit cards. My apologies, vending machines. Not all of you require round pieces of metal currency like the Middle Ages. "Alms for the candy, guvn'r?"

Ironing. No. I won't do it, this is the future.

Grocery shopping: I'm not on board with food pellets, I like chewing recognizable food and tasting it and stuff. But the process of acquiring the food hasn't changed much since the Old West. I still have to take the covered wagon to the general store and walk around and put 100lb bags of cornmeal and salt pork over the saddle. I do get to pay with a debit card. So that part would get me burnt at the stake, or to be historically consistent, strung up. Or maybe I'd just have to live way out in the woods and give berries to young women looking for a love potion. Regardless, I wish I could just order groceries on my phone and somebody would bring them over here. I need a ranch hand.

Mail. Specifically government agencies and other inefficient businesses that want you to write things on paper and put them in an enclosure and put a sticker on them and then a truck comes to your house and picks up your paper and drives it somewhere else where it maybe flies on a plane and then another human sorts it, puts it on another truck and a week later, your birthday card, so thoughtful when you mailed it on your mother-in-law's birthday, is a week late. I know it gives jobs to like a billion people, and jobs are great. I totally approve of jobs. It's just I don't care for multi-step, multi-day processes, because, clearly, I have entitlement issues. Maybe because I was SUPPOSED TO HAVE A HOVERCAR AND A ROBOT BUTLER BY NOW AND I'M STILL HAVING TO MAIL CHECKS PLACES LIKE IT'S 1980.

I apologize for internet-yelling. It's just for humor emphasis. Let me close by saying again how much I love my iPhone. It is the wind beneath my wings. It makes me happy when skies are gray. It's my Endless Love. At least until there's an upgrade.