Calm in Chaos

Our new church has a bi-monthly program called Mothers Mentoring Mothers. It's held at the home of a member whose children are grown, and each month there is a cooking demonstration of some sort--this month it was making pie crust and I left with some great tips like rolling the dough between pieces of Saran Wrap, which allows you to keep your counters clean and lets you transfer the crust straight into the pie pan, where you can peel it off like the back of a sticker--and then a presentation by one of the "mentors" whose children are grown, and then small group discussions. Keep in mind that this is the church where nearly 50% of the population is under the age of 10, so there were 18 of us younger mothers and about five or six older (by older we're not talking all that old here!) mothers, so it was a minor crowd for someone's living room! Tonight's general topic was Calm Amid Chaos, and boy did today fit right in. What's pathetic is that there was nothing special about today...just a normal day at home.

Here are a few of the "special" moments:

* Not once, but twice I was sent on a mad dash through the house for immediate changing supplies because (a) I was urgently informed that Rutledge, still naked from his morning frolic in the bathtub, had pooped on a paper towel that was wadded up on his plastic ride-on motorcycle. Truth: false alarm. It was really chewed up Snickers that dribbled from his mouth. But his butt definitely needed some covering. (b) While I was reading to the older boys, Rutledge came in with a reeking diaper (yes, he's only 3.5 months away from his fourth birthday; I am a toilet-training failure). The next thing I knew, there was a vocal ruckus claiming that there was poop on a pillow. Here's how bad things are at my house: I had to ask whether the pillow had a pillowcase. Affirmative. So I tore down the stairs at breakneck speed to get the only wipes I could confidently get my hands on from under the sink in our half bath. Then flew back up the stairs to change the offending diaper, only to find that everything in it was perfectly intact and had not leaked. Once again, a false alarm.

* It was The Day of Unfinished Projects. And yes, I brought them on myself. I can't say no. Frances, on her quest to complete that list of Projects Every Elementary School Student Must Do, wanted to have herself traced on butcher paper today so that she can make organs to place on herself. We made it as far as police outlines taped to the floor, but my three minute web search for some printable organs turned up nothing so far. Crap. We might have to draw them ourselves. Then we moved on to the pumpkins which we scooped out but didn't make faces or carvings on yet. They're waiting to rot and attract bugs on my dining room floor. I started trying to clear out our schoolroom and eating area bookshelves to consolidate our school materials, largely because Ms. Near-Ph.D in lit can't be totally sure of the answers to 7th grade level reading comprehension questions. No, I still haven't found my answer key. And now I have books and papers and folders all over the floor in, count them, three rooms. Then there's the matter of the sugar skulls. See yesterday's post. This morning I scooped out, with nary a regard to the difference between 1/2" and 1/4" (I was supposed to leave at least 1/2" thickness for the skull with my scooping), the fronts and backs of our sugar skulls. There are so, so many of them! I think I'm at 18 now, fronts and backs. There's not an inch left on my breakfast bar for one more square of cardboard (today I went at another cereal box, a macaroni and cheese box, and a stuffing box). The trouble is, you scoop out the skulls, and then you can make more skulls with the scoopings. And then when those dry enough to scoop, you can scoop those and make, you guessed it, more skulls from those scoopings. And so on and so forth.

* Frances and I started a puzzle. Got about 1/3 of the way through it. Then got distracted. Then dinnertime came, and Kerry had Ollie clean up this partially worked puzzle off the floor.

* Walter had a rough day. Too much candy. The banner moment was when he got really, really, angry (remember that book, "When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry!"?) at Rutledge for messing up his Lego Mindstorms robot that he started kicking doors, slamming doors, throwing things, and then STANDING ON THE PIANO!!!! I was livid. And not very patient. Not a good mother. He ended up in his room and taking a 30 minute nap, which I'm sure he needed.

* Walter worked on his Mindstorms robot, but then we got all snagged up in the pictographic instructions Lego gives about EVERYTHING. All we needed to know was how to charge the rechargeable battery (we couldn't find anything that looked like an AC adapter to plug the thing in) or how to get the battery cover off of the rechargeable battery so we could put it on over the 6 regular batteries I had to hunt down hither and yon in the house. But alas, Lego uses no words. It's like dealing with a mime. We got it eventually, but not after Walter burst into tears because he had been forced to remove some complicated Technic arms to deal with the power supply issue. The robot was way cool, though. It responds to his voice and darts toward him with surprising speed. We never did get around to loading up the software tutorial, so we haven't been able to do any programming yet.

* Rutledge was in high form today. His big thing now is screaming at me things like, "Stop saying Yes!" when I'm answering his many, many questions. Or screaming at me to, "Talk, Mom! Talk to me!" while I'm driving and he is chattering nonsense or screeching about something. Most of his utterance in the car is screeching. He hates his carseat. He hates the feeling of the seatbelt in his sister's pink carseat (why did I buy him a blue on? He wanted pink!). He hates that I drive at night with the interior lights off and that I won't appease his demand that I turn all lights on so that he can see. "Mom! Mom! It's dark!" He was angry because I wouldn't give him a big bag of acorns to throw around. Because I wouldn't give him more candy (how much candy did my children eat today? The unit of measure would surely be bushels). Because I had gotten another movie in addition to Bee Movie at the library. Because I had checked out anything at all when he didn't want me to check out anything. Because, if the truth be told, it was really 6:30 and not 5:30 p.m. because of the time change, and he was tired. Then he spilled his milk all over my new table runner that doesn't look particularly maching washable. The same table runner that several somebodies chucked pumpkin guts all over yesterday after I told them that no, they could not work on the pumpkins at the table, they had to do it on the floor.

* Frances, bless her heart, just comes up with anything to do but schoolwork. It's okay. I'm not too concerned. She's young. But I feel like I'm teaching in an institute for those with severe ADHD most days. All I wanted was a few minutes of attention to put some dates on a calendar and blow through some pages of Singapore Math. We hadn't looked at this particular book together before, and I thought it would be fun for her. Guess what? She prefers Saxon. What's wrong with the girl?

* Here's what we ate today on my watch: macaroni and cheese AND oatmeal for breakfast (because, you know, some people want oatmeal and some hate it). Candy. Apples. Candy. Our favorite recent delicacy: chicken nuggets done in the oven, not in the microwave. Candy. Stuffing. Candy. Cheese slices. Candy. Vitamins in the disguise of candy. Fruit Roll-Up, the "real" kind that I won't ever buy, because it was part of the Halloween candy that will never disappear.

* Frances got her new team leotard today. It was rather ceremonious how they passed them out to the girls and then they all ran to the bathroom to try them on. Frances, of course, ignored all directions and immediately ripped off all of the tags that had the byzantine washing instructions for these precious, rhinestone-studded showpieces and then threw the bag and tags into the giant trashcan by the door. So I got to hone my dumpster diving skills.

And that's what my day has been like. Hours worth of math procrastination. A big mess wherever I went. A pudding container on its side with a spoon hanging out on our carpeted stairs.

But we also finished My Side of the Mountain tonight. Ollie read the second half of the Star Wars Swarm book club book, so he's done now.

Amid all the chaos, I'm not sure what wisdom can really be found. Or what peace. Perhaps simply getting out for nearly three hours tonight and stepping away from the scene of today's life of crime is as much as one can wish for.