Sandra Tayler

I owe my mother an apology, and a couple days before Mother’s Day seems like a good time to extend it. See, for years I’ve believed that my lack of good housekeeping skills were due to lack of correct training during my childhood. Somehow I entered the adult world without understanding how to clean up after myself. This was a source of great frustration to college roommates and then to Howard. It has only been in the last year that I’ve realized that my lack of housekeeping skills is not my mother’s fault. She DID teach me how to clean. I have many memories of her teaching me how to mop the floor or scrub the toilet or load the dishwasher. What she didn’t do was require such work out of us kids on a daily basis so that they became second nature. I finally understand why. She had seven kids. SEVEN. Every single day she had to choose which of the many important things would actually get done. She consistently chose creative endeavors over make-your-bed-every-day rigidity. I cannot fault that choice because I find myself making exactly the same choices every single day. I have four kids. Every day I have to decide whether to interrupt beautiful cooperative play in order to make the kids do work. I have to decide whether to spend energy on homework or housework. I have to choose whether to spend energy making meals or making kids work. More often than not, making kids do housework is the piece I let slide. For years I’ve felt guilty about this. I’ve felt like I was failing in the same way that I percieved that my mother failed. But that’s where I was wrong. My mother did not fail. She gave me every single piece I needed to be a productive and useful adult. It was my job to put them into application. It is not fair of me to whine because my mother didn’t make me be a clean person. I look at my siblings. All of us are intelligent, creative, useful people. The ones who are married have great marriages and are great parents. There is no way on earth that anyone can look at that parenting track record and consider it in any way a failure. If I can parent as well as my parents did, I will rejoice.

There are many many mailing tasks for me to arrange before the books arrive. All of the bubble mailers have to be stamped “media mail” Mailing lists have to be organized, address changes need to be made, etc. International orders are even more complex because each one has to have a customs form attached. I haven’t figured out any way to automate the customs forms without spending $2000 and setting up an entirely different ordering and shipping system (which we may do for the next book). So I’ve been filling out the customs forms by hand.

These forms also need to be affixed to the Global Priority Mailers. I hadn’t done that yet because of all the other things to do. This morning I got out a sponge and prepared to wet forms and stick them to mailers. I slapped that first form onto a mailer where it promptly curled up and fell off. I tried a second form on the chance that the glue on the first form was defective. Nope. Same result. I attempted licking on the off chance that the problem was the sponge. curling and falling. I shoved aside the three curly forms and grabbed the scotch tape. That worked, but I have 330 of these to do. It was too time intesive and expensive in tape. I tried a glue stick. The form still curled up around the edges a little, but it stayed put. Glue it was.

Upon determining that I’d have to hand glue all these forms I took a break for breakfast. Howard wandered into the kitchen and looked at the evidence of my frustration. He picked up one of the curly forms and examined it closely. He then peeled the paper backing off of the self-adhesive form and stuck it to the mailer.

They are stickers.
Howard saved me from hand gluing 330 stickers.
Yay for Howard.

But now I feel sheepish.

Just as I was preparing to leave the house with two kids in tow, a friend called to see if Gleek could go with them to the library story time. Once I was done doing the gleeful dance of only taking one child to the store , I politely told them that yes it would be just fine with me. I handed Gleek off and took Patches along for the errands. Much nicer. Patches didn’t fall asleep on the way home, so I had to scratch that idea. Now I’ve just finished picking Link up from school and I’m eating my lunch because, as predicted, I forgot to eat it earlier. So far it has been a better day than I’d anticipated. Still busy though.

Today:
Get kids off to school
Get Gleek & Patches dressed and make them do Morning Things this will almost certainly include at least one tantrum.
Load Gleek & Patches into the car to run errands This will probably include chasing kids around the front yard.
Go to Post office I need to check to PO box, ask a question about customs forms placement, pick up a pile of mailing tubs, and something else that I’m currently not remembering. While I do this Gleek and Patches will attempt to play with the automatic sliding doors and I’ll attempt to keep them from annoying other patrons or injuring themselves.
Price catering food at Sam’s Club I have to tour the entire food section of Sam’s Club writing down prices and making mental calculations so that I can feed the volunteers who help us mail out books and so that I can plan food for the Book Release party. While I’m doing all this thinking, writing, and calculating Gleek and Patches will attempt to fall out of the shopping cart or flee through the store requiring me to chase them down.
Go to the Library My original plan for this stop included me going inside and acquiring a selection of books for reading to kids and for kids to read. I wanted lots of Dr. Seuss because his stories are long & rythmic, ideal bedtime reading for Gleek who needs help to wind down. Then I realized that I do not want to go insane today by persuing my children through a third location. I’ll be stuffing books into the drive thru book drop.
Home again Hopefully on the journey home Patches will fall asleep and take a nice long nap. Last night he napped from 6-8pm which meant I was parenting at 10pm when I wanted down time.
Mailing list manipulation I need to do the final mailing list downloads and address changes and sorting. Once the lists are finalized I need to take the scary step of printing the lists through stamps.com. This is scary because I’ll start paying for postage. I’ll be spending over a thousand dollars on postage before I mail anything. I sent a test package and it worked, but my brain still provides nightmares of the postal service returning thousands of packages to my door because I failed to do something correctly.
Pick up kids from school this requires me to coax Gleek & Patches into the car, argue with them about buckling up, argue again about how we’re not going to climb out of the car to play on the school playground, wait and wait and wait for Link to make his way to the car, then argue with all three kids to get them OUT of the car upon returning home. An hour later I get to repeat the process to pick up Kiki.
Realize I forgot lunch Gleek and Patches won’t let me forget to feed them entirely. They’ll probably get sandwiches shoved into their hands. There is a high probability that I’ll forget to feed me though. I mean here it is 9 am and I haven’t had breakfast yet because I’ve been too busy with the first item on this list.
Remember to require chores My incentive plan only works if I keep track of it. Link in particular tends to procrastinate. Supposedly he isn’t allowed to play with friends or video games until his five Morning Things are done. However if he waits until I’m tired, stressed, or distracted he can get to do the fun things without doing the chores first. He’s not being deliberately sneaky, but it undermines the responsiblity I’m attempting to teach. So I need to not get too tired, stressed, or distracted to require the work first.
Dinner this would probably be a good idea.
Homework Hopefully a peaceful homework time, but usually very similar to herding cats.
Bedtime Patches & Gleek are having a hard time settling down to bed lately. Some of this is directly due to a lack of parental attention during the day. I have to carve out some quiet time for each of them when I read stories and help them slow their bodies and brains so that they can fall asleep easily. Link and Kiki are a little less time intensive, but only a little.
Downtime In theory I get some of this today.

Tomorrow has a list similar to today’s. So does Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Monday books arrive and the pace will pick up even further. I’m going to be running on adrenaline and too little sleep for the next three weeks. I’d be scared and worried, only I don’t have time for it.

I wandered into Patches room and discovered that he had emptied the contents of his dresser onto the floor. When asked why he did this Patches replied “I was looking for my underpants.” So now he is wearing underpants around the house for the first time in his life. My plan involved keeping him in pull ups until after the end of May when all the book hoop-la was out of the way. I didn’t want to cross this bridge until I had the brainspace to do it calmly. Apparently my schedule does not match Patches schedule. Here we go…

My goal for this week was to get the veggie beds prepped and plants into the ground. I had to get it done because next week (and the week after and the week after that..) I’ll be busy prepping lists and mailing out books. Now I have neat rows of little bitty green things in the ground. They each have their own tomato cage as well. The cages are far too large for these baby plants and the effect is rather like a toddler clomping around in daddy’s shoes. BUT if I don’t put the cages on when the plants are babies, I will intend to do it until they are monsters far too large to be caged.

The other goal for this week was to plan and execute Kiki’s birthday/slumber party. That happened last night and a good time was had by all involved. Kiki invited two friends. Then Link’s friend showed up. I was okay with that since it would keep Link busy during this girly event. Then all four of my neighbor’s kids wandered over from their adjoining back yard. These kids are practically family since our yards are shared. Besides they all wandered downstairs to watch Barbie the Magic Pegasus with Gleek and were as quiet as angels. Link and is friend were playing pokemon on gameboys. Kiki and her two friends were playing The Queen’s Necklace and then doing a craft project on the table. All was peaceful until it came time to dish out ice cream. The words “ice cream” spoken softly have the ability to carry throughout the house and sometimes the entire neighborhood. As soon as I spoke them I had 10 children in my kitchen all clamoring to be served. (The neighbor’s toddler had been claimed and put to bed.) I quickly instituted a serving order. Birthday girl and friends first, then everyone else starting from the youngest. This worked well because it made Kiki and her friends feel special, fed the noisiest as quickly as possible, and even the last child to be served felt cool because she had the distinction of being oldest.

Thank you to everyone who sent gifts, they helped make Kiki’s birthday extra special.

Book preorders closed last night. I haven’t done a final count, but I’m pretty sure we had over 1800 books preordered. This is well into the “we can breathe easy now” range. Only I can’t breathe completely easy until I’ve actually mailed them all and we start getting delighted commentary from people who have recieved their books.

So, life is good today. I’m happy, I’m relaxed, and I’m trying to ignore the clouds of stress that are looming over the next few weeks.

Ushering four children who are over excited and up past their bedtimes through a crowd of 20,000 people is not my idea of a good time. And yet I got to do this last night. I also got to coax Gleek and Patches up and down several sets of bleacher stairs in quest for a place to sit. Then I got to entertain Gleek and Patches during the moments that they got bored. It did not help that Patches has definitely entered a “pushing the limits” phase of development.

Why did I do all of this? Because our school district puts on an annual patriotic program and broadcasts it to troops in Iraq. Kiki and Link have been practicing songs for this program for months. Kiki even brought home a CD of the songs so she could practice at home. Gleek is a sponge for anything musical and so she’s learned the songs too. Even Patches knew that “hope of america” was a big deal and something to be excited about. I believe it is good for kids to learn the ideals our country is founded on. I think it is good for kids to learn to love our country. Then as they get older and learn how our country so often fails to meet it’s ideals, they may feel inspired to make this country into the place we all wish it could be.

I’ve known for months that I’d be attending this program with Gleek and Patches and sans Howard who had a conflicting event. So yesterday I packed appropriately with a backpack full of stuff. We had water bottles and sandwiches and snack food and blankets and a couple of stuffed animals and binoculars and a camera and wallet and keys. It was wise of me to pack as if for a backpack trip because the event started with a hike uphill from our parking place to the event center. Then we dropped Link and Kiki off to their separate rendezvous and went in quest for three seats. Usually the “harried mother with two small kids” persona nets me some help, but not in a crowd this size where everyone else is as harried as me.

Gleek and Patches loved the experience. They loved watching the dances and songs. Gleek loved singing along. True they did get bored at times, but mostly they loved it all. Kiki and Link loved participating. Gleek wished she could have been down there dancing and singing. So I definitely put this in the “Things I wouldn’t choose to do if left to myself, but definitely worth doing for the kids” category.