Monthly Archives: November 2010

Thou Shalt Not Steal…Siding

That there are four pieces of old siding parked against the seat of our van is hardly signigicant. Yawn-worthy, really.

Only they’re not our siding pieces. And, well, they shouldn’t be there.

It’s just that my son detoured from the unwritten but understood Munson Law. The one that means, “don’t touch a thing on the way to the car,” even if I’ve only said, “get in the car, please.” And so as I chatted with a friend just outside her front door, my daughter crawled into the back of the van and simply waited. And my son…

My son started dragging all the old boards he could find near the walkway of their home to our van.

He was in the middle of shoving a piece of siding back to his sister when we saw him. Only how you apologize for something like that while stifling the biggest guffaw, I’m still not sure.

And so we, uh, left.

Without the siding.

It seemed the right thing to do.

When What You See, Is What You Get

When it Don't Pay to Work Out

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That I ended up in a ‘work out’ room with two treadmills, six hand weights and four elderly men wasn’t the problem. Nor was it the united fact that the five of us were all there to work off the extra pie we hadn’t said ‘no’ to on Thursday. Or Friday.

The problem was me. On a treadmill. Uh, walking.

I’ve been on a treadmill before. I think I was desperate then, too. And I remember pushing buttons to increase and decrease speed. But I mostly remember hating the whole experience. Who does this to themselves?

Only this morning, there wasn’t much else to choose from. It was either breast stroke it in the pool, which, uh, required the use of a swimsuit. As in wearing one. Or I could watch the sweat drip off the arcadia door in the work out room and climb on a treadmill born in the same year as me.

I went with the dripping sweat.

That there was a flat screen television clinging to the wall eight inches from my face broadcasting a football game I had no investment in may have been the reason I forgot where I was. Or rather what I was supposed to be doing, which was keeping up the pace on the treadmill. Until I zinged right off the end of the thing and donated an eight inch strip of skin from my left shin to the revolving black tarp. I was still clinging with one arm to the side of my moving machine, like I thought it might drive away without me, when the gentleman still jogging on the treadmill beside me said, “don’t worry. That already happened to me.”

I repeat. Who does this to themselves?

Thanks at 3

When the Thanks is in Giving

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Per the calendar, it’s certainly the day to be thinking about family. That is unless you’re already at their house with the fridge open and sticking your finger in the pie. And well then, I’d say they’re completely on the top of consciousness. Or the pie is.

But for me…I’ve got my younger sister on my mind. The one with four boys. The one who, on that account alone, we should all pray for. Uh…right now. And then never let up. The one, who with her husband, owns two restaurants in Chelan and who might’ve last slept sometime in January. That sister.

The one whose back I saw today as I zig-zagged behind her between restaurants, as she prepped for dinner and I chatted about things so important I can’t remember them now.

Only I remember this…

I remember how her boys got Christmas. Boys who last year asked to take all their own wrapped presents from beneath their tree and then carry them to a family crowded in a trailer, a family that wasn’t planning on having gifts for Christmas. But did. Boys who got to smile the whole way home lest their chests burst with the joy of giving.

And I realized it ain’t too early or late to have that kind of joy…

For Christmas. For Thanksgiving. For any ordinary day.

Wow. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen

Toilet Paper Omission

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My daughter wipes. And I’m grateful.

It’s just that she wipes and then misses the actual toss into the toilet. Often. Which strangely or unstrangely is, uh, gross to me. And not gross in the sense that her used toilet paper bounced on the floor before it was recovered and flushed. But gross because it’s still there. By the other two slowly unwadding misses. On the left side of the toilet.

Only as much as I’d like to pity her aim, it’s really my two fingers and thumb I’m pitying. And thinking about scrubbing again. The ones that have pinched the wipe rejects before and tossed them unwittingly into the trash. I remember thinking, “c’mon…who’s blowing their nose in the dark?”

Um. Nobody.

It’s just that I didn’t completely understand this until yesterday, as there on the back of the toilet seat, doing its last hover before it hit the floor was another wad. Which, uh, someone had not blown their nose in. And which I flicked into the water with my shoe.

And never spoke of.

Cause she’s six. And she wipes.

And I love her.

Box Therapy

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It’s a tote. And that’s a box.

And the truth is, sometimes I just want to sit in one, too. To pull the flaps and peek out. And not because I think I could get out of the tote without four people pulling, two pushing, and one shouting encouragement, but because I just want to pretend like my children do. Pretend that no one can see me. That dinner is ready and ain’t nobody complainin’ that it’s not what they wanted. That the marker in the carpet will come out. That my children are wearing more than underwear.

Just for five minutes or so…

I want to hide.

Which I think is exactly what my son is doing. Only we can, uh, see him.

And which is the exact experience my son thinks the cat also desires.

The dog, too.

Only the dog’s is more like a motor home.

Which is what I’d prefer over a box. Or a mobile Thomas tent.

But whatever brings reprieve will do.

Ode to the Paper Bag Turkeys

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That it started this morning with a G-rated turkey craft and two kids in their underwear…

And ended tonight like this…just means…uh, something.

But I have no idea what.

I guess I’ll start with what I remember.

I, uh, remember pulling out the paint…

And then noticing my son’s eye for color. As well as his knowledge about what colors tukeys might actually be. Uh…or not be. Those be the turkey’s feathers.

And here are my daughter’s feathers. Completely compliant with Fall.

These are my son’s hands. And those are his turkeys. I can only say that he poured a lot of love into those feathers.

And earned himself an “A” for concentration on the black paint.

Here we are an hour later fattening our turkeys.

And here, after way too much time on a single craft and after a complete meltdown by the one in pajamas, are our turkeys.

Apparently looking suspect–to, uh, something. As later this evening, my husband called out from the kitchen, ”come here, quick. You gotta see this.”

Only I couldn’t tell you what I was expecting.

I just know it wasn’t this.

And which is why I’m tellin’ ya. Ain’t nothin’ safe around here.

Especially not a lunch-bag turkey with blue and black feathers some twelve feet away.

Or its cousin.

And since picking off paper turkeys on the ledge of the living room is the kind of fun you can’t keep to yourself, here’s my son taking aim at a turkey.

Only he’s maimed the thing and has to reload.

And my goodness, there it goes.

Which calls for a momentary restock.

Because everybody needs a turn…

To feel the power.

Somethin' About Love

Two Hand-some Turkeys

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Hanging in our upstairs bathroom is a hand print of our daughter when she was one. Or most of a hand print. The glue holding three of the fingers in place certainly helps

It’s just that five years ago, I’d gotten nearsighted on this hand print idea, and by golly we were going to have a hand print, even if I couldn’t read directions correctly. God bless America.

And we had a hand print. Only every finger had broken off except the middle one. Which was what I thought about the whole hand print kit anyway.

So, um…

There ain’t no plaster of Paris hand print of my son.

But we do have these. Fresh off the paint brush.

This is my daughter’s hand print turkey. I could smile a whole minute at the proportion of those turkey feet to that turkey. And at that speck of a waddle.

This is my son’s. His turkey has black feet. Or is wearing a skirt. I mostly like that its neck extends directly east from its body. And that it must eat with something other than a beak.

And these…the ones decked out in dresses because they can be…

be the ones who made them turkeys.

And the ones who own the hands I hope to hold a while longer.

I Had a Dream About Sleep

What Really Happens in the Munson Household