Say cheese...or not

Last week Sage's teacher sent home her school pictures. I remember the anxiety I always felt when my elementary school teacher would hand out those big envelopes. Would my eyes be half closed? Would I look as dorky as I felt in that ruffly shirt that Mom made me wear? Would there be a chunk of food stuck in my braces?

The funny thing was I felt a touch of that same anxiety when I turned over Sage's envelope to see what Lifetouch brought to life, or rather to ink. Especially since I forgot about picture day entirely. Without further ado, I give you, our preschooler in all her photogenic glory.

Please contact our agent for questions about future modeling contracts. As a token of our gratitude, we might send a few lucky winners an easy punch-out key chain pictures.

The Lifetouch envelopes were labeled "See it. Love it. Buy it." In our case, a better motto might be "See it. Try not to laugh at it in front of your child. Take it in the back room and laugh at it. Take a picture of it and send it to your husband at work. Blog about it. Then return it."

Better luck next year to me (remembering to actually fix Sage's hair and approve her outfit) and to the Lifetouch photographers (trying to actually get the children to smile).

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

I help my dad manage some of his apartments. Just the other day I noticed a discrepancy and emailed him about it. He emailed back and complimented me on my attention to detail. I started to get a little bit of a big head, thinking I am such an asset.

And, as they say, pride goeth before the fall. And the fall came.

Just call me Uncle Billy.

See that smirk on Uncle Billy's face? That was what I looked like a week ago.

See that grimace on Mr. Potter's face? That's me now. And my kids after having been around me. And Mark after I begged him to climb into our recycling bin and sort through what I was sure was our pile of papers. I was sure about that, until he found the envelope addressed to our neighbor in the stack.

And see the guy pushing Potter's wheelchair? That's probably the look we got when our neighbors noticed us dumpster diving. In the treasure trove otherwise known as the Recycle Bin.

I've been calculating the number of hours I'll need to babysit six kids to account for my little mishap. It's not looking good.

Rx: Blogging

I lived in rural Mexico for three months during my sophomore year in college. It was my first time living in a different city (not to mention country) than my family. I was nervous--about the food, the language, the program, the other girls, the dogs,....okay, about everything. Except the swine flu. Thankfully that came later.

When my American facilitator took me to the village of 200 people that I was supposed to live in, she admitted that she had not yet found anyone willing to take me in. She put on a cheery face when she told me she had one last family that she felt good about. I was feeling anything but good at that point, but I followed her meekly and mutely to a little blue house surrounded by a wall of rocks. I remember sitting on a chair on the kitchen's dirt floor and trying to contain the wave of panic that was threatening to crest over into a tsunami of tears.

I remember the long looks the parents gave each other when my facilitator finally dared to put forth her request. After a long silence, while I traced patterns in the dirt floor with my toe, they finally agreed to take me. I ate dinner with them that night (spinach and chicken) and got violently ill (in two directions) before the sun was up. Lucky for me, I had taken a "tour" of the premises and I knew right where to find the "poo room."

The "poo room" was an approximately 10 foot by 10 foot room on the back side of the house. The light coming through its one small window barely illuminated the frame of a chair that was missing a seat, which served as the "throne." The process was simple, in theory at least. Sit on the chair. Deposit the goods on the cement floor. Leave. (Once a month some poor unfortunate soul cleaned it out. It still makes me shudder to think of it.)

In practicality, I couldn't quite bring myself to use the throne. But a more significant problem became apparent after, oh, about one visit to the poo room. How does one get out without stepping on or tracking out any of the other deposits? It was the rural Mexico equivalent of walking out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe...but a lot stinkier.

After using the "poo room" for about a day I began to despair that there was no way that I would survive another 89 days with this routine. Each passing airplane far overhead caused me to fantasize about civilization and to despair about my reality. I often wondered how bad it really was to be a quitter. Because shame seemed a small thing compared to facing the poo room multiple times a day. (Among other trials!)

It was at this point of discouragement I discovered a coping trick. And when I say trick, I actually mean miracle. It came to me after I solved the poo-(on-your-shoe)-room problem by buying a cheap pair of sandals, which I dubbed "poo shoes." They lived outside my door and were always and only used in the poo room. I was so proud of my solution that I wrote home to my family about it. And the following week, when someone STOLE my poo shoes (they cost $1 literally) I gave a follow-up report. And you know what? My family laughed and liked my stories. And the miracle occurred right then when my little brain realized that "bad things" often make for great stories. The trick is to survive the moment and write, write, write about it as soon as you can. It's pretty cheap therapy, and it really makes irritating or frustrating things became bearable.

So that's why I had to mentally leave my band of six yesterday to blog (and nearly Twitter) about my misfortune.

And that's why my archives contain too many posts about potty training.

And that's why I'm proud of my little sis, Kim, in England, who didn't despair at her failed trip or her second missed train, but instead ordered a cup of hot chocolate, pulled out her laptop, and looked for the rainbow through the rain. Or the poo shoes outside the poo room. Figuratively speaking, that is.

And that is one of the reasons I love to write so much. Because it is great medicine for getting me through the hard times.

Twitter me some sanity

Until today I have never even contemplated getting a Twitter account because I'm certain that my life of motherhood to the third degree doesn't even warrant a daily blog posting, much less an hourly accounting to the world wide web.

But, today, as I find myself unfortunately laden with three extra kids for five hours, I feel the need (and desire) to report the passing of each ten minute increment that finds me still alive. Please do not ask how many toys are on the floor (or how many aren't) or how many cakes we have pumped through Sage's easy-bake oven. A five hour babysitting stint isn't about efficiency.

We've all had to adjust a bit to our visitors. Sage asked the 9-year-old boy if he wanted to watch a Barbie Mermaid Princess movie. Eliza had to figure out how to share the limelight with another tantrum-throwing 2 year old. And Lily has got to learn to nurse a little more discreetly with a very curious 6 year old in the house.

And while it's usually against my personal code of ethics to quote Jim Carrey, I must say that if anyone could find me a "No man" seminar (to avoid unfortunate situations like this in the future), I might just open a Twitter account to thank them publicly for my sanity.