If you are already my Facebook friend, you've probably already seen the cutest pictures in the world.

If you are not, and you DO want to see the cutest pictures in the world, go to Mt. Hope Chronicles and check out what Heidi, an amazing local photographer, can do with three not-especially-enthusiastic girls, two parents, and a dirty alley. Her camera must be made of magic, people. I love the pictures that much.

We broke the rules at the library the other day.

A librarian reluctantly came up to me and informed me that we were violating library policy because Evie, playing happily in the bright, cheerful children's area at the brand-new library, did not have shoes on.

"It's the rule that if they can walk, they have to have shoes on," she told me.

Although Evie's not really walking yet, she was certainly supporting herself on the kid tables and scooting around, and I wasn't going to argue the point. The problem is that Evie's Robeez were still all wet and dirty from sprinkler time in the yard yesterday, and the shoes I had put on her that morning have velcro that she is easily able to undo. Those shoes had been tossed off somewhere in the car about two minutes after we left the house that morning and I just hadn't bothered to keep putting them back on.

"Ummm...are we going to have to leave if she doesn't have them?" I said in what I hoped was a really pathetic voice.

"Well, you could hold her. To keep her feet off the floor," the librarian told me, and I inwardly scoffed at the idea of keeping Little Miss Squirmy in my arms all throughout storytime, and told my girls in a voice that I hope wasn't too bitter that we had to go out to the car and get Evie's shoes now. "I know, I raised kids too," Library lady said as she watched me gather kids and book bags and diaper bags and prepare to head out. "It's just to protect their feet!"

At which I thought Protect their feet? From what? The nice soft carpet? but went and got the shoes anyway.

Then at storytime (during which Evie removed her shoes three times and I put them back on each time), the other librarian, in the course of looking at a picture that included a close-up of a flea, casually asked the kids if they knew what a flea was.

"Does your dog or cat ever get fleas? Or do you ever get them in the carpet?" he asked the crowd of assembled preschoolers. "Over at the old library we used to get fleas in the carpet about once a year or so and then all of the staff would end up with bites all over their ankles."

And then he laughed merrily and kept right on with the storytime.

Umm...Eeeew! Eeew, eeew, eeew!

Now I know what the library people are protecting my children's feet from. And I will never question that policy again.

I am seriously considering the benefits of nudism.

Not for me. No. I've always been a modest sort, but even if I weren't--well, three pregnancies in five years have made the chances of me ever publicly flaunting my unclothed body slim to none.

No, I'm talking nudism for the baby.

I just can't keep up with the laundry. Yesterday, I got her dressed at about 8 a.m. At 8:30, when I decided to mop the filthy kitchen floor, clingy little missy decided she had absolutely had to be in the same room mommy was and crawled across the wet floor to find me. Then she decided to investigate the mopping bucket. Outfit No. 1, completely soaked.

Outfit No. 2 went on at about 9 a.m., and stayed clean for awhile. It wasn't until lunch that the filth began to accumulate...jam from her sandwich, then greenish-yellow drips all over the front from the lemon-lime popsicle I let her suck on to alleviate her urgent desire to be JUST like her older sisters. I ignored the mess on her clothes, however, and Outfit No. 2 lasted until about 3 p.m., when she woke up from her nap and desperately wanted to play outside with her sisters. Sisters were playing in the sprinkler, and I knew she would want to as well...but I couldn't find her swimsuit. I figured a plain old onesie would be just fine.

Outfit No. 3 (if you can apply the term "outfit" to a pink onesie that's actually a barely-fitting 6-month size that is still in her drawer because dealing with the constant rotation of clothes-she's-grown-out-of and hand-me-downs-that-probably-fit-her-now is a job in itself, and one I just can't keep up with) went on at about 3:15 and by about 3:30 it was soaked in water, streaked with sidewalk chalk, and smeared with dirt (after she tried to eat said dirt and then spit it out all down the front).

When I brought the girls in the house for dinner, I held Evie stretched out at arms'-length in front of me, not wanting that disgusting, sopping onesie pressed up against my side (not that it would really matter, since my white tank top was already covered in the day's accumulated grime). I considered: get her dressed yet again? For dinner? When she's just going to smear dinner all over herself?

I went with a big fat NO on that one. Which is how dinnertime found all the quasi-civilized members of the family sitting around the dinner table fully clothed (although the bigger girls were actually still in their sprinkler-wet swimsuits; I think that counts as clothing, though), while Evie sat diaper-only in her highchair, having a merry old time deconstructing her casserole. By the time it was all over, she had corn and cheese and tomato sauce from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Straight into the bathtub she went, and then into pajamas for the night (Outfit No. 4).

So now I'm thinking that this whole clean-and-dry clothing thing is highly overrated, and it might be easier to just let her roam naked all day long. I'll dab at her skin with a wet washcloth when necessary, and take her out back to let her stand in the sprinkler after every meal.

Nudie baby. It's my new laundry-reduction plan. Who else thinks this is a good idea?

More Seven Quick Takes today, because I think it's a fun and snappy way to close out the week.

One: My little baby garden is growing up. We've been eating fresh lettuce all week, and I've been cooking with my herbs, and the peas are growing tall, and the tomatoes and zucchini are getting massive. One problem: some of the leaves on my yellow squash plant are bright yellow instead of deep green. I know it is a yellow squash, but I'm pretty certain the color applies only to the vegetable, not the leaves. Any ideas from my gardening friends on what I've done wrong?

Two: Evie pointed and screamed for like 20 minutes tonight, completely refusing to make the sign for "please," even as Eric calmly showed her how to do it over and over again. I am absolutely certain she understands what we want of her. She has completely mastered making the sign for "all done" when she wants out of her high chair. But so far she just will not even attempt the sign for "please" without us forcing her hand into the motion.

Stubborn much?

Three: Michael Jackson died? I learned this news on Facebook. I still haven't even looked up any news stories about it. The Internets is sometimes my only connection to the outside world. I was not a particular fan of Michael Jackson--his hits were just a little ahead of my time. M.C. Hammer, Paula Abdul, and (of course) New Kids on the Block were the big pop stars when I started to become aware that there was such a thing as pop culture. But I still haven't been able to get "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" out of my head all afternoon.

Four: I bought new jeans. And I love them and they fit me just right and my husband and my friend both told me they look good on me. And--best part!--they were $40 jeans on clearance for $14.

Then I wore them today and noticed that one of the seams down the outside edge of the legs is starting to come un-sewn. D'oh! I guess that's why they were on clearance.

Five: I just got my new issue of Brain, Child magazine in the mail, and I sat down and read it straight through. It makes me happy and sad. Happy, because I enjoy reading it. Sad, because there is so much good writing in it, and I wish I were as well-written and accomplished and PUBLISHED in respected literary venues as those authors are.

Six: Peanut-butter milkshake at Hasty Freez for lunch today. Yum. And no running this morning, either. This is bad. Very, very bad.

Seven: I really need to update my blog header. The one currently on the top of my blog is from a year ago. I'll put "new blog header" on my to-do list for the week. If it's written on my list, that means I will actually do it, right? Riiiight.

More Quick Takes here.

Many, many years ago, when I was a mother of but one small child, I read on a friend's blog about some other lady who had a blog, who was going to start a thing. A weekly thing. A poetry thing. Poetry Thursday, it was called.

Every week, the creators would post a prompt--an idea to get the creative juices flowing. Every week, bloggers from all over the world would write in with poems. Poems of their own, or poems by other poets that they loved.

I participated right from the beginning, because it sounded like a fun idea. I rarely shared poems of my own, because A) I don't write a whole lot of poetry; and B) sharing your poetry with the world is scary. But sometimes I did. It was a first for me, and it was good.

Eventually, however, Poetry Thursday went away. The creators didn't have the time to come up with prompts and moderate the site and whatnot. Some participants talked of taking up the torch, but--at least as far as a few minutes of idling Googling can tell me--Poetry Thursday as it existed in 06/07 is dead.

Devon commented recently that she missed Poetry Thursday. And you know what? I miss it too. I liked being forced to spend some time every week thinking about poetry--either rediscovering poems I love, searching out poems that are new to me, or even writing poetry of my own.

So, since it's Thursday and all, here's a poem I like. Perhaps you will like it too.



Child in Red


Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

"all she carries in herself frolics and ferments"

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.


--By Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by A. Poulin

This poem perfectly describes the way a child moves. In my mind I see my daughters; skipping one minute, twirling the next, stopping to pick up a pebble after that. I also love the image of the grown woman, whose life is full of risks, looking back at her childhood summed up in a garment--the little red dress will always seem right.

And there's your serving of poetry for the day. Enjoy.

Remember how I said that Evie continues to think point-and-scream is the best possible method of communication? And how we had a great point-and-scream moment in the grocery store? Well, for your reading pleasure, here's the whole story. Because after all, I think that swapping stories of grocery store meltdowns is therapy for mothers, and pretty much the entire point of mommyblogging, right?

So this is how it all went down: I was at the grocery store with all three girls. It was nearing 7 o'clock. You know what 7 o'clock is, right? Bedtime for Evie. When she's not sleeping by then, she crashes, and she crashes hard.

By just after 7 p.m., Evie was refusing to sit in the cart, so I was holding her in one arm and pushing the cart with the other. We were in the check-out line, we were all holding it together, we were just about to pay and get the heck out of there.



Then the conveyor belt holding the next shopper's groceries began moving forward. And Evie noticed what he was buying: a giant stack of king-size candy bars. That's right--a monster pile of Kit-Kats, Twix, Reese's and more, right there on the counter next to us.

I don't really know how she knew that it was candy. I don't feed my baby candy bars every day, I promise. I'm not sure I've ever given her a candy bar, actually. But somehow, the sensor inside her brain that tracks the location of all junk food within reaching distance went off, and she began pointing at the candy bars.

I swiped my credit card hurriedly.

"Eeeh! Eeeh! Eeeh!" Now the urgent I-want-it-now noises began to accompany the pointing.

I shifted her onto my other hip so I could sign the receipt.

She pointed and grunted again, and still, incredibly, I did not pick up the stack of candy bars and give them to her.

She pointed yet again and made one more urgent "I want candy bars in my mouth now and they are not in my mouth now" squeal.

I still failed to comply.

And that's when she lost it. She lunged for the candy bars, trying to throw herself off my hip and onto the counter. When I restrained her, she screamed at the top of her lungs. And kept screaming.

The checker and the candy-bar-purchaser both looked at us as though I'd brought a venomous snake into the store. The formerly cute baby in my arms had suddenly morphed into a red-faced, furious monster. Kind of like Jack-Jack at the end of "The Incredibles."

"Umm...I think she sees those candy bars that you're getting there. Kids like candy, ha-ha-ha," I said, trying to play it off all cool.

The clerk handed me my receipt. "Have a good night," he said.

"Yep, I sure will," I said.

And then I took my screaming monster and my two mercifully well-behaved older girls and got out of that store as quickly as a mom pushing a cart one-handed can go.

http://jens_page.blogspot.com/2009/06/seven-quick-takes.html


1. What Beth said the other day at dinner upon observing the place I had set for her: "I have the princess plate? That's soooo romantic!"

I don't even know what to say about that.

2. So I've been seeing these "Tuscan melons" at the grocery store, and I'd never had one, so I bought one to eat with dinner. I was all excited to try out a new taste sensation, but I'm sorry, people--Tuscan melons are totally just a new fancy name for cantaloupe. It looks slightly different on the exterior, but on the inside it looks like a cantaloupe, it smells like a cantaloupe, it tastes like a cantaloupe. Don't go re-naming your melons on me, grocery store people. I know a cantaloupe when I eat one.

3. My new favorite lullaby to sing to the girls? "I Will" by the Beatles. The chorus lyrics are so sweet, and the melody is really easy to sing. Beth requests it as "That song about love from the Beatles." Does anyone else have a favorite pop song/lullaby?

4. Evie is really not big on the "communicating my desires in a polite, mom-approved way" thing. She will consent to say "all done" when she wants out of her high chair, but when it comes to using the sign for "please" to request something, she pretty much refuses.

She points at what she wants and then makes urgent noises that get progressively louder the longer her desire goes unmet. When we all stand and stare back at her and rub our chests (which is how you make the sign for "please") and say "Pleeeease....pleeeeease" in loud, happy voices, she just gazes back at us as if to say, "Do you not understand what I am saying? I am making myself perfectly clear here. What is WRONG with you people? Let me repeat myself yet again, a little bit louder this time. Do you get it yet?"

Yeah. Not super-compliant, that one. She probably thinks the same thing about us.

We had a very interesting point-and-scream moment in the grocery store last week, but that's another story for another day.

(Case in point: as I was typing this, I heard her coming for me. Crying her way through the house, getting louder and louder. I turned to see her crawling toward me, screaming all the way, sippy cup in hand. "Do you want more milk?" I asked. "Say pleeeease!" She just held out the empty cup, looked straight into my eyes, and screamed again. Gosh, I love motherhood.)

5. My sister is in Rome right now. I'm trying really hard not to be jealous. I got to go to Grenada this year, after all. But still...Rome.

Albany is pretty much just as cool as Europe, right?

6. Looking back at my posts about Grenada just reminded me that I have a TON of stories from Grenada that I never did get around to writing about. I ought to do that pretty soon. It's only been THREE MONTHS since our vacation. That's not too late to still be sharing your stories and photos, right?

7. I am hesitant to say this. I ought to knock on wood while I write it. But I'm going to go ahead: Lucy might actually be potty-trained. We've been putting stickers on the calendar, and she's gone seven whole days in a row with no accidents. She's doing really, really well. Is it really possible that I have only one child in diapers these days? It's almost too good to be true. (After I started writing this yesterday...she had an accident. But it wasn't really her fault. The girls were fighting and I angrily told Lucy to go have time-out in her room until I told her to come out! Lucy, obediently, did not come out...even though she really needed to pee.)

More "Quick Takes" for your reading pleasure here.

I feel a little bad for Evie. Since she's the third, every time she enters a new phase, rather than jumping right in, obsessing about it, figuring out how on earth to handle it, I just think, "Oh, here we go again." I reminisce about when her sisters were at that stage. I consider blogging about it, and then remember that I wrote a post all about that two years ago when Lucy was her age and it would be pointless to re-hash it.

For instance, we're beginning to work on manners with her. Just little things...like that we don't generally throw every single bit of food on the floor for fun and then scream for mom and dad to load up our plates again. Or that pointing and then screaming at the top of your lungs is not the best possible way of requesting something. And it's really frustrating--probably both for us and for her. Just like it was when I wrote about this stage two years ago. (Check out the date on that post--almost EXACTLY two years ago. That's the beauty of having daughters almost exactly two years apart).



The good thing about all this is that while certain stages are annoying, I have confidence that we WILL make it through, because I've been through it all before. Twice. Lucy and Beth do not still throw food on the floor just for fun, or scream anytime they want something. They know how to say please. Although Lucy is still not that great about using her fork. Fingers are just so much easier, I guess.

A friend with only one kid watched me wrangle children and bikes and strollers out of my car yesterday, all in preparation for the simple act of going for a walk, and said, "I just don't know how easy I have it with only one, do I?" And I laughed and told her she was right. When you only have one, you think it's so much work. Then you have more and realize you had no idea what you were getting into.

But here's thing about having multiple children--you definitely have a lot more going on. More demands on your time, more little hands pulling on your legs, more little voices yelling, "Mama, look at me! Look at me!" But, when your kids encounter (or create) a problem, chances are you've handled something very similar before. You're not just fumbling around, guessing about what might possibly work. You already know what to do.

I feel like if I were applying for the job of Mom, three or four years ago I would have listed myself as a junior-level candidate: a lot of education, a lot of enthusiasm, short on experience. Now, I feel that I'm moving into the realm of being a solid candidate for upper-level positions. With two previous projects successfully underway, I have proven myself capable of achieving the desired results. Experienced mom--that's me. Do you think I'll get a raise?

When it comes to dealing with 1-year-olds, anyway. Don't even talk to me about anything issues involving children over the age of 4.5. My poor oldest child--I'm still totally winging it on that one.

I tried, and I tried again. But so far, I have failed to ever make enough strawberry jam to satisfy my daughters' appetites and see us through the year.

I've made 42 jars this year. And I'm actually considering going back for more berries, except that if I made even one more batch, I'd have 50 jars of jam in my cupboard. And if that's not a year's supply...then maybe that's getting a little ridiculous.

Maybe I need to base my kids' diet on something other than 100 percent strawberry jam.

Will 09/10 be The Year of Enough Jam?

I'll let you know in a few months.

Well, I see that there are bushes here, that seem to have red, juicy berries growing on them.



But then there's also this big bucket right here in front of me, that mom keeps thoughtfully filling up with berries.



Back off, mom. Go find your own bucket.

I remember being 17, driving home from school my senior year of high school, with my window rolled down and the radio blasting. The sky was blue, the wind was cool, the road unwound before me. I'd just had blonde highlights put in my hair, and I knew it looked good blowing in the breeze. I could go anywhere I wanted to go, on a day like that.

It was a delicious feeling, and it comes back to me any time I'm behind the wheel on a certain kind of sunny day. When the early summer sun shines down and a good song comes on, I just can't help enjoying myself.

However, having a car full of children generally puts a dampening effect on that sunny-day-driving feeling.

If the older girls aren't pinching each other in the back seat, the baby is screaming from her seat. (The baby hates the car. Hates. It. with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns). It's enough to make a woman feel weary of the world, no matter how brightly the sun beams.

However, there is one thing that runs a close second to the sunny-day-driving feeling.

It's the "my kids are all asleep in the car" feeling.

It starts off small. I notice that the middle child has given in to exhaustion and is slumped over to the side. Inwardly, I give a little sigh of relief. At least she can't argue with her older sister when she's asleep.

Then the baby's screams start to wind down. I offer her a pacifier, and instead of getting red in the face and hurling it across the car, she accepts the peace offering, and her eyes flutter shut as well.

Ah, blessed quiet. But my oldest is still bright-eyed in the back seat. Pretty soon she will ask me to tell her a story, or give me a difficult question to answer, or make a startling pronouncement. She will find some way to claim my attention all the way home, that's for sure.

Except wait--what is this? I look in the rearview mirror and see that she has given in as well. Head tipped back, mouth wide open, she is completely dead to the world.

They're all asleep! All three of them are asleep in the car. Slowly, quietly, I turn up the radio. Just enough so that I can hear it--not enough to wake them up. Then just a little notch more.

Before I know it, I'm nodding my head to the beat. I'm noticing what a beautiful day it is. My foot is pressing down on the accelerator just a little bit harder. There's an edge of terror to the "my kids are all asleep in the car" feeling--I know that it could all unravel at any moment, if one of the little people in the back seat returns to consciousness.

I know I'm not 17 anymore. I'm driving a minivan with corn puffs scattered all over the floor, not a Toyota Tercel with a graduation tassel hanging from the rearview mirror. My hair is chopped off short and there are no blonde streaks in it. But that doesn't really matter.

The sun shines down, the music plays on, the road unwinds. The sunny-day-driving feeling lives on.

A garden update:

Jessica, my tomato-start benefactor, informed me that I planted the tomatoes way too close together. So I moved half of them. Hopefully they make it.



The plants at the end of the garden here are zucchini and yellow squash. I'm pretty sure.

Because you see, stuff is coming out of the ground. Lots of stuff. I think it's mostly the stuff I planted, not weeds, but I know zip about gardening. And when the girls "helped" me plant, it meant that seeds didn't exactly get planted in nice rows...we've got sprouts coming up every which way. When I start to see anything that resembles what's in the grocery store, then I'll know for sure :)




I believe this is sugar snap peas, with a little mystery sprout beside it. Lettuce, perhaps? Or a weed. Could be a weed.



Blueberries. I know blueberries. We weren't supposed to let the bushes get fruit this first year, but I never did get around to pinching off the flowers...and now we have blueberries. Oh well.



This is an angry little girl leaning against our van. That, I can identify from all the way across the yard. Plus, she told me, as I was taking the picture, that she was angry. It was a week ago, though, and I no longer remember what she was angry about. She's all wet because they helped me water the plants, but I don't think that's what made her mad. It was probably her big sister. If not that, probably the little one.



And these are roses. I was blessed to move into a house with half-a-dozen mature rose bushes in the front yard. I do nothing to them, and they flourish. I prune them in early spring, and I occasionally spray them with an anti-black-spot spray, and I sometimes pull off the spotted leaves when they do get black spot. I don't even water them. And they love my neglect, and they reach up into the heavens (taller than the house, one of the bushes is, even though I pruned it waaay back a few months ago) and they bloom with glorious abandon all summer. Especially in June. I love June.

Her little feet pat-patted into my room at 5:30 this morning.

"You wanna sleep inbetween me and Daddy?" I murmured, barely lifting my head from the pillow.

She nodded and I lifted her in, snuggling her body between ours, face inches from mine on the pillow. She was quiet for minute.

Then she just couldn't keep herself from giving voice to her excitement.

"Mama?" she whispered.

"What, sweetie?"

"I'm the birthday girl!" she whispered. And lying beside me in bed, she held up her fingers as proof.

One.


Two.


Three.