Dear Jen,

I know you're tired. Really, really tired. I don't know how many times the baby woke you up last night, but I know it was a lot. I know that sometimes you fall asleep in the rocking chair and wake up with her still attached to your breast and wonder how long you've been in that position, and whether or not it is worth it to even go re-join your husband in bed or if you should just sit very still right here, since she seems to like it pretty well.

I know that you've got two kids in diapers at the same time, and that you change so many of them each day that you currently feel completely nonchalant about poop. And there is a little part of you, somewhere in the back of your brain, that tells you this is a bad thing--that one ought not to be quite so at ease with excrement--but you ignore it.

I know that it feels like every time you sit down to nurse the baby one of the other kids is begging for a sandwich or crying because someone stole a pony from someone else. I know you could care less if they all steal all the ponies in the world, you just want them to not yell while you're trying to nurse the baby.

I know that you have calluses on the palms of your hand from carrying around that bulky, heavy car seat everywhere you go.

The kids, in 2008.

I know that your only chance of getting away for an extended period of time means that you'll have to leave a bottle with someone, and that leaving a bottle with someone means acquiring breast milk, and that therefore you try to find time in the day every day to strap a plastic contraption involving cords and tubing and an extremely noisy motor and little things called "nipple shields" onto your breasts and try to ignore the loud, grating sound and uncomfortable tugging sensation and close your eyes and will yourself to produce enough milk, just so that you can in good conscience leave your baby with someone for longer than an hour.

I know that you secretly eat the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets off your kids' lunch plates when they are done with them because those stinking breaded fake-meat chemical-filled things are so tasty. But that you feel too guilty about this to actually just make them for your own lunch.

I know that the kids follow you everywhere, even into the bathroom while you're on the toilet. Even into the shower, sometimes. I know that sometimes you think  you will never be alone again, ever.

I know that sometimes you're lonely, and you just want to get out of the house, but the only places you can think of to go are the grocery store, or the library, or the park, and you've been to those three places so many times that you would rather sit inside and stare at your messy house than go there again.

I have news for you.

In just a few short years (yes, short years--you were right about that blog title) all of that will be gone. Gone, gone, gone.

By 2012, you will not remember the last time you changed a poopy diaper. The only time you will have to deal with your children's excrement is when you view it from (relatively) afar if they forget to flush. The toilet. That's right. All your children will poop on the toilet, every single day.

By 2012, you will no longer use sippy cups. At all.

By 2012, you will be able to answer a phone call with your children right there in the room, talk to an adult for a few minutes (note that I said a few, not a lot) and your children will know that they are not to disturb you.

In 2012, your children will make their own beds (when you remind them to).

And they'll get dressed all by themselves, every single day. Even coats and shoes.

In 2012, you will no longer own a diaper bag. Or a breast pump. Or a pacifier. Good Lord, the pacifiers. You will have actually forgotten how you used to stash pacifiers in strategic places all over the house, and in the car, and your purse, and the coat pockets, and the diaper bag, all for fear that you will need to quiet your screaming child and you won't be able to because you won't have that crucial little piece of plastic.

Nobody will spit up on you, in 2012.

You will be able to take your children out in public with no special equipment at all. Nothing other than a pencil and whatever scraps of paper you find in the bottom of your purse, and they will actually be able to entertain themselves with these things, and sit quietly and behave in polite company. (Not always. But it has actually been known to happen).

The kids, four years later (almost. This was fall 2011. Close enough).

You will be longing, mentally begging, for a day when you can just stay at home all day, but that never happens, not ever, because not only do the kids have schools, sports, and social lives, you yourself will have work, and a lot of volunteer stuff, and a lot of friends that you enjoy spending time with.

You will still be tired, but it's because you never slow down enough to let yourself catch up. You can't really blame it on the kids anymore.

All those things that completely consumed your life--potty training, and pursuing a coordinated nap schedule, and fretting about whether or not your baby got enough milk at her last feeding--you won't think about them anymore, at all. They will go from 100% of your brain capacity to zero.

So don't worry, Jen of 2008. Right now you feel completely overwhelmed, pulled into pieces, like there just is not enough of you to go around. But I'm here to tell you: they get bigger. And life gets easier.

With love and empathy,

Jen of 2012

So here is my goal for the year: just be awesome.

And so you don't think I'm horribly egotistical, let me explain my thought process.

"Just be awesome" is shorthand for my bigger goal of being intentional about my life. My version of a WWJD bracelet, if you will.

Sign courtesy of my moms' group: our meeting today was about dreams for the new year, and we all had the chance to make these beautiful signs.

I mean, we all know this: life is what you make it. We all have choices, all the time, about how we spend our days. We all get the same amount of hours in each day, and some people do great things with them, and others just sit by.

By great things, I don't necessarily mean big things. Traveling the world is a great thing. So is taking the time to  build real relationships with your own handful of neighbors in your own little town. Having a really successful career is a great thing. So is doing a really, really, killer job at whatever non-dream-job you might find yourself in.

Basically, I don't want to live my life half-heartedly.

So many times I make the choice to skip things that I know I really should be doing. Things that would benefit me in the long run. Because they would take effort, and I'm tired, and I just want a chance to relax.

Complacency, fear, and laziness are always there, whispering to me that it's okay to give up, to give in, to not try. And that's what my "just be awesome" goal is about. Saying no to those voices, and yes to the ones that encourage me to aim higher. My awesome life will look different from your awesome life, but we can both feel it in our bones when we're doing a lazy job of living our own lives--when we're not actually being the awesome people that we want to be.

We all just get one shot at life. I may not succeed at doing great big things or great little things, but at the end of the day, the end of this year, at the end of my life, I don't want it to be because I didn't bother to try.

So here's to 2012. It's going to be awesome.

It's the mess, messiest daaaaaay....of the year, here at the Rouse House. Yes, it is the day once again when Mama chucks her sanity to the wind and invites the children to participate in a little tradition called "frosting Christmas cookies."

This is a beloved  yearly ritual dating back to the ancient times of my own childhood, when my mother and sister and I put on our matching aprons and cluttered up my mother's kitchen. However, when I think back to those days, I recall much less mess. Whether this is because my daughters are more exuberant with the sprinkles than I was as a child, or because children in general don't notice messes and therefore my child-eyes were categorically blind to the frosting-hurricane we created, or because my mom was better at keeping things sane than I am, I don't know.



I can tell you that my cleaning-up this year involved not only bathing all three children and vacuuming the floors, but also vacuuming the countertops. Don't ask. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Really, anyone who has ever spent time around children has got to know that frosting + children = mess. What I didn't realize when I started doing this with my kids was just how much opportunity for lying it would give me. Because I am sorry, but my children do not generally make attractive cookies.

Their cookies do not reach out and appeal to a potential diner's aesthetic sensibilities, saying, "Look how pretty I am. You want to eat me, don't you?" No, my children's cookies say, "I am the product of a horrible nuclear accident and now half my face is melting off. Will you put me out of my misery?" and the diner runs away and averts his eyes and never eats cookies again.

Yes, I'm looking at you, orange-and-green snowman with the frowny mouth.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. The older the kids get, the more conventionally attractive their cookies get. But they still operate under the "more is more" method of cookie-decorating--slathering the frosting on in inch-thick increments, adorning each little cookie with as many sprinkles and candy pieces as its weight can possibly support. To them, the more loaded up a cookie is, the more delicious it looks...not having come to the realization yet that amounts of sugar that massive are more likely to make people gag than anything else.

Which comes to the lying. Because my children firmly believe that each and every cookie they make is a work of art, destined for greatness.  And while I do, on one level, appreciate the creativity and passion that they bring to their work, I do NOT actually think their cookies look good.

And yet...when my three-year-old holds out to me a cookie that is covered in orange frosting, lavished with green sprinkles, and spotted with chocolate chips--this cookie looks more moldy, than anything else--and says, "Isn't it *lovely*, Mama?"...I do the same thing that all mothers before me have always done.

I lie to her face.

"Yes, sweetie, that is lovely," I say.

Here's the thing about Oregon: it does not have self-service gas stations. This means that when you pull up to the pump, you can't jump out and start filling your own tank. You must stay put inside your vehicle and wait for an attendant to do the task for you.

Most of the time, I'm fine with this law. It's more pleasant to stay in my nice warm car. But when I'm running late, I hate it.

Last Tuesday, I was running late.

Instead of going to the cheaper but busier gas station I usually go to, I went to the one down the street a little ways. The one that's a few cents more per gallon but doesn't ever have a line at the pump. And sure enough, I was rewarded: a young man greeted me at the car promptly, started the gas flowing, and then left to help another customer while it filled.

OK, I thought. This is good. As long as paying doesn't take too long, I'll only be five minutes late.

And then I saw the elderly man. He was in a gas station uniform. He had a squeegee in his hand. And he was headed, slowly but surely, right toward my car.

He gave me a friendly smile. "Let me just get that windshield for you," he said. I really don't have time for this, I thought. I do not care about getting my windshield washed right now. "Sure," I said politely. "Thanks."

He cleaned the windshield carefully. I could hear the pump click off outside my car. He finished the windshield. OK, now he'll get my receipt and I can go. He started to reach for my receipt. And then he turned and spoke through the open window.

"Has anyone given you a calendar yet this year?"

I was confused. "A calendar?"

"Well, let me get one for you!" He turned and headed slowly back to the office. He was so pleased, so glad to be of service.

A calendar? A calendar? I don't want a calendar! I don't need a calendar! What I need is to leave, NOW. I watched the digits change on my clock as he made his way back, then handed me the calendar. "Here you go!"



Small, spiral bound, with a pre-punched hole so you could hang it on a nail. "Beautiful America" it read. At the bottom, a rectangle extended advertising the name and address of the service station, so that no matter what month of the year it was, you'd always remember the Courtesy Corner. I flipped it open. Each month had a picture of some scenic American landscape. They looked like every picture postcard at every roadside truck stop you ever saw. The date squares were tiny, too small to fit the jumble of dates and appointments and to-dos that I scrawl on my kitchen calendar.

Tiny lettering above the dates caught my eye. "handy pocket for storing coupons, bills, receipts, etc." it said. Fingering it, I could see that each page did in fact contain a pocket where you could stuff small pieces of paper.

That would be kind of handy, I thought. When the dentist gives out those reminder postcards, I could stick them in that pocket. Then I'd have them, right there on the calendar, instead of lost in a stack of papers somewhere.

I suddenly felt like I'd seen this before--this calendar. It was just like the ones Dad used to get from the auto parts store or the machinery supplier. Or like the ones that some citizens' group in my childhood town of Sweet Home used to give out every year--was it the Elks? the American Legion? In tiny type on each calendar square was printed the names of every Sweet Home citizen who had a birthday or a wedding anniversary on that day. I remember flipping that calendar as a kid and being amazed: there was my parents' wedding anniversary! There was my grandpa's birthday! There was MY NAME, right there on the calendar. Right below a picture of some beautiful, beautiful place I wanted to see.

The old man in the uniform was back now, handing my receipt through the window. "It's got pockets in there, for putting in receipts and coupons and what have you," he told me.

"I saw that," I said. "That might be nice."

"We've handed out those calendars at this station for 60 years," he said. It was a simple statement, but I suddenly wondered if his name was the one listed first on the bottom of the calendar, the one with the abbreviation "Prop."--proprieter--behind it. I wondered if he'd been here for all of those 60 years.

"Yeah, you know, it reminded me of the kind of calendar my parents used to have," I said.

He broke out into a big, genuine smile. "I bet they did. I bet they did," he said, nodding.

I was 10 minutes late. I smiled back: grateful for the calendar, for the memory, for starting my day with an honest human connection. Grateful for the Courtesy Corner.

When I was a kid, my grandma had a dress-up box for the grandkids. She kept it in the back bedroom closet, and in it were her old clothes, I think dating from the 60s and 70s: A-line skirts that we hiked up to our chests and pretended were strapless dresses; brightly patterned blouses; multitudes of handbags; and high heeled shoes in many colors, excellent for clomping around the house in.

Also, I vividly remember,  it contained a pair of boots. Knee-high. Leather. Bright red.

They were huge,  nearly impossible for me to walk in. I adored them.

Flash forward 25 years. Yesterday, I went shopping for boots. I went to a couple of stores. I tried on several pairs. Nothing seemed just right. And then I found the perfect pair--they were on sale, they looked great with my jeans, they felt good on my feet--easy decision. I bought them.

It wasn't until I took them home and saw them leaning against the wall of my closet that I experienced the wave of deja vu.

Knee-high. Leather. Bright red.

They fit me perfectly.

The other day I drove past shirtless guy's house. It was a cold November day, grey and wet, and there was a man outside raking leaves.

This man was wearing a green T-shirt.

If this is not blowing your mind right now, go back and read about my neighborhood semi-nudist.

I drove past two more times that day, staring at the house. Was that the right house? Was I sure? Had I just imagined it? And every time, I came up with the same conclusions.

Yes, that was shirtless guy's house. And yes, a man wearing a shirt had been outside raking leaves.

I have so many unanswered questions now.

Was that even the same guy? His distinguishing characteristic in my mind has always been his big hairy naked chest. With a T-shirt on...I just can't be sure. Maybe it was a relative or a friend or a neighbor. Maybe shirtless guy died of pneumonia and a regular, shirt-wearing individual bought his house. I can't be sure.

If it *was* shirtless guy, what could have happened to make him start going about fully clothed? Did the neighbors complain enough? Did someone leave a basket of T-shirts on his porch? Did his wife wake up one morning and say, "Honey, I am so tired of looking at your grey, hairy belly that if you don't put a shirt on today I'm out of here?"

Or maybe, just maybe, he suddenly, after all these years, developed sensation in the nerves of his chestal area. Maybe he went outside one morning and said to himself, "Hey, it's cold out here. I think maybe I'll put a shirt on today."

What a novel idea.

I've been spending a lot of time on hold with customer service lately. We're having a refrigerator melt-down around here (literally--it stopped keeping things cold) and it has turned into a long, drawn-out drama of me on the phone with various help lines, trying to convince them that YES, in fact, they SHOULD repair or replace my fridge.

The telephone...aka the tool of doom that sucks hours of my day away. Photo by modomatic on Flickr.

Today, after I had been on the phone for 52 minutes (I know, because I looked at my handset and it told me) and my girls had been fending for themselves during all this time because I was occupied, I heard loud wailing from the other room. It didn't sound like urgent somebody-is-bleeding kind of wailing, but it was loud and sad, nonetheless. I peeked in the room and saw two red-faced girls, tears running down their cheeks, clearly having an issue they couldn't resolve.

And so I interrupted the floor supervisor who was in the middle of telling me how there was no possible way he was going to help me out.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" I said (okay, maybe yelled) into the receiver. "I'm going to have to put you on hold." And then I threw the receiver down and walked away.

And that felt good.