Just one more thing about Gibson........

I know I've posted a lot about Gibson lately, with that whole solo-bike riding thing and all, but I have one more thing I want to share. He's into photography. I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that the poor kid has had a camera shoved up his nose since the day he was born, or if it's just coincidence that he likes it as much as I do. Whatever the case, I just got a few pictures back of some shots that he took with my camera -- which happens to be film, not digital, so when I let him take the shots I wasn't sure what we'd get. I was impressed with the results and thought maybe you would be too.

He took this one:

And this one:

And this one: (Of course you have to make considerations for the subject here......)

At 5 years of age, he can get everybody centered and in focus, which is more than I can say for my grandma, who has been systematically cutting off every body's heads for 82 years now. (And don't worry that my grandma will be offended by this. She knows..... She once took a picture of my cousin running at a track meet and the only part of Jill actually in the picture is her left foot. The rest of her has run off the right side. How do you even know that it's Jill? Because my grandma says so. It's hilarious. Truly, it is.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures. Courtesy of my budding little photographer.......

In a split second

Gibson outgrew me the other day. And it only took a split second. In less time than it actually took me to write these words, everything changed. Even if he didn't realize the shift in the universe, I did. I felt it, and it was huge. You see, The G-man announced on his 5th birthday (which happened in July, in case you are wondering) that now, since he was a big boy, he was going to ride his bike without training wheels. And while it's fair to say that the kid is determined, he's also incredibly cautious, so after much careful consideration he decided the best way to learn would be in the grass.

So there we were, in July and August mind you, running back and forth and back and forth in the yard -- him pedaling the best he could over the uneven terrain, and me holding him steady. And that's how it went day after day after day, until one day when he eventually made it out to the sidewalk. OK, actually I think I may have insisted on it, but I couldn't take running in circles in the back yard in 115 degree heat for another second. I figured that if I could at least get him on the sidewalk he might be able to pick up some momentum and start to get a better feel for it. I don't know if any of you have ever spent any amount of time lumbering along behind a small bike like the hunchback of Notre Dame, but I was desperate for the kid to start to feel the balance. If he didn't start to get it soon, I knew I was going to have to make appointments with a chiropractor for the next year. And as happy as I was to help Gibson master the art of riding a two-wheeler, my patience was starting to grow thin. I think blazing sunshine and intense heat do that to a person. As the months wore on, each time we would take off down the sidewalk I would think to myself "Please....Please......get it this time....... I don't know how many sweat filled trips up and down the sidewalk I have left in me!"

Then one day we ended up in the street -- him pedaling a little bit faster and me not holding on quite so tightly. He was getting better at holding his own, but he still needed me. "Don't let go mom!" he would tell me nervously as he wobbled and peddled. "Don't worry, I won't." I would say reassuringly, as I ran along beside him. I didn't need to hold his seat anymore, even though he wanted me to. Instead I'd touch my fingers to his back so he would know I was there. And that's really what he needed -- just to know that I was there. This was our routine, and we kept it up for a couple of months.

As fall started to creep in, and the weather got more reasonable and the leaves began to change, we got new neighbors. One of them happened to be a sweet 6 year old named Alex, and Gibson could not have been more excited. They played together non-stop, and became instant friends in the way that only kids can. Then one day Alex showed up at our front door with his bike. "Hey Gibson! Do ya wanna ride bikes with me?" Gibson was so excited he couldn't stand it. "Yes!" he exclaimed, "Just let me go get my mom. She helps me." He came rushing into the house with his bike helmet already attached securely to his head. "Mom!” he said, excitedly, “Alex wants me to ride bikes with him and I told him that I needed you, so can you come out and help me?!" "Of course!" I replied. I hung up my dish towel (I'd been cleaning up kitchen) and headed for the door, being especially grateful that it was only 65 degrees outside. I got Gibson situated on his bike and the 3 of us headed off down the street. The happiness was radiating out of Gibson. He couldn't believe that he was actually riding his bike with his friend. And that's when it happened -- that specific moment when, with 4 strokes of his pedals, he outgrew me. And at that point, in that split second, I would have given anything in the world to have one more sweaty, heat-filled, hunch-backed-lumbering day with a shaky little boy on his bicycle. Yet, at the same time my heart was huge; swollen with pride for my little guy. How is it that moments like this can be so bittersweet? So full of conflicting emotions? I stood there soaking that moment up. I wanted to burn it into my memory so that I’d never forget how it went: There we all were, on the street, picking up speed, Alex laughing, Gibson beaming, me running beside him with my fingers reassuringly on his back. Alex started to go faster and faster, and Gibson was keeping up, but I could only run so fast. He gave me a quick glance over his shoulder. "It's OK mom." he said. "You can let go."
And so I did.

The rest of the story

OK. I waited a week - - 6 days to be precise - - and the only opinions I got were from Janice and my mom. (My 2 most loyal readers.) So, either no one is frequenting the blog lately, or they didn't follow my very strict directions. Tsk, tsk....... In either case, I'll go ahead and fill you in on the drama that went down in the grocery store check-out line last week.


As I think most of you know by now, since I've written about it frequently enough, my true test of the kind of Saturday I'm going to have lies in what time I make it to the grocery store. If I can be there before 9:00am, I know it's going to be a good day. And it just so happened that on this particular Saturday I was pushing my cart through the isles by 8:00. Things were already off to a great start because I didn't have to drag the kids along, and as I made my way leisurely up and down each isle, I found - in stock and in place - each and every item that was on my list. Seriously.....How could my morning get any better? I was practically whistling 'Zippety-Do-Da' as I pushed my cart into the check-out line.


I was standing behind a gentleman who had 2 carts. I patiently waited, basking in the warm glow of a perfect morning, as he was unloading his first cart onto the belt. As the groceries belonging to this gentleman were being scanned and he was moving forward, I came to the realization that he actually only had one cart (Cart A, according to the scenario from the Question Of The Day.) and that the cart in front of me (Cart B) belonged to another person -- who just happened to be M.I.A. (So as you may or may not have guessed by now, I was Cart C.) I looked around for Cart B's person. There was no one in sight. By now, the groceries from Cart A were almost entirely through the scanning process and the belt was almost empty. I waited, looking around a little more. It was time for the next person to put their groceries up and still, there was no one in sight who looked like he or she belonged to the lone cart in front of me. "Well, I guess I'll just go." I thought to myself, scanning the store one more time. "Who knows where this person went or how long it will take them to get back....." So, I went around Cart B and unloaded all my groceries up onto the belt. I was almost finished when the guy from Cart B returned. And folks, this is what prompted my oh-so-important Question Of The Day posting. Because this is the point when things started to get ugly.


The gentleman in front of me was paying for his groceries, and I was leaning over fishing the last couple of items out of my cart when I heard an angry voice behind me. "Did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?!" Do you ever have those moments when you have trouble comprehending what's happening to you because it's so far off base from what you'd consider to be "normal"? This was one of those times. I turned around to look behind me, totally bewildered. Was he talking to me? "Wha.....?" I half stammered. "You........ You weren't here........." I'm sure I looked completely confused. I was. Was this guy serious? He repeated himself. "I said, did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?! You thought you could just go on and go ahead of me?!" And as I was staring at him with a confused look, head cocked sideways, blinking enough times to try to make his words, combined with his anger, make sense in my head, it all started to sink in. He was mad. Mad because I went in front of him while he was gone. It took a minute, but I began to gather my wits.

"You weren't here." I pointed out again.

"So you just didn't see the full cart that might indicate to you that someone was coming back?!" he shot back at me.

"No. I saw it." I replied. "But you weren't here. Someone had to go next." Up until this point I had had the perfect morning. I wasn't going to let this guy ruin it.

"It wasn't your place to go next!" he said angrily to me. "I was coming right back. I left my cart here!"

"You know, " I said to him, in as nice a way as I could humanly muster, "when I have to leave my cart in the check-out line, I just pull it over to the side so that other people can go around me if they need to." I was hoping that maybe, somehow, for some reason, that suggestion would help make him more reasonable. That perhaps the mere suggestion that someone may have had a different point of view of what proper check-out-line etiquette was could possibly help him get his undies out of the extremely tight wad that they were obviously in.

He angrily shot something back about how he was back in time to go next and how I'd cut him off, etc, etc.....

And since I was determined to hold onto the one shred of my perfect morning that I still had left, I took a step back and extended my arm in a sweeping motion, palm-side up, toward the cashier. The cashier was watching all of this go down. The first guy was long gone and she was waiting for me.

"Look," I said, "If you want to go ahead of me, by all means, please do."

He shot me a look that you wouldn't believe and said, "If you take all of your stuff off the belt then I will!" He was nasty about it. And then he added "Otherwise you're just WASTING MY TIME!"

I'm not sure what it was about that last statement -- about me wasting his time -- that finally did it. Maybe I couldn't believe that he thought his time was so much more valuable than mine that I should be expected to wait for him indefinitely, but that he should not ever be expected to be inconvenienced for 2 minutes. Maybe it was the irony that someone who had the time to spare arguing about who was next in line could be so concerned about who was, in actuality, wasting it. Maybe it was just that he'd finally managed to completely strip me of every ounce of warm glow and good will that I'd had up until that moment. Whatever it was, I think the SNAP that happened inside me was audible to anyone within a 10 foot radius.

"Sir.... She'll be through in 2 seconds...." the cashier was saying. I, in the meantime was standing completely still giving him an icy stare. "Sir...." she said again, "Really. It'll just take a minute...... Here, let me just scan this...." She picked up a roll of paper towels and started pulling it toward the scanner. It was almost happening in slow motion.

"Ohnonononononono NO!" I yelled, as I lunged my entire body across the belt and grabbed the paper towels. I didn't yank them away from her, but I held onto them so that she couldn't move them. "Didn't you hear him?" I said in the loudest, most patronizing voice I could muster. "I'm wasting HIS time!!!" She released her grip on the paper towels. "I mean, the very last thing I would ever want to do is waste HIS time! God Forbid that I should go ahead of him! His cart was holding his place in line!! What in the world could I have possibly been thinking?! There was no one actually AT his cart, but clearly I was mistaken!!!!" I was practically shouting now as I made a huge scene out of putting all my groceries back into my cart. Part of me, the infuriated part of me, couldn't believe that I was actually going to let this prick go ahead of me. But the other part, the part that had been enjoying my perfect morning, just wanted to salvage a little bit of the leisurely morning I'd had before he showed up. I just wanted to scan and bag my groceries in peace, without some gigantic a-hole huffing and puffing and breathing down my neck.

I threw the last of my items into my cart and spun to face him. I took a very deep bow and said, as patronizingly as I could, "Please, please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you today..... Is there any other way that I can assist you with your time efficiency this morning?"

"Nope. This'll do it." he said, and started unloading his cart.

He took his own sweet time too. I was so furious I was shaking. And because in 34 years I can't even begin to remember a time when I haven't absolutely had to have the last word in a confrontation, I shouted at him as he was walking away "You make sure to have a fantastic day now! I hope you make fabulous use of your EXTRA 2 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He said something to me over his shoulder, but I didn't hear it. I looked at the cashier, who I'm sure doesn't get to see a scene like that go down in her check-out-line every day, and said "Geeze...... What a jackass." And if I had any worries that maybe she thought I was a little bit crazy, they quickly evaporated when she replied, "You're tellin' me, honey! I saw the whole thing."

So in the end, I did actually finish my grocery shopping by 9:00 in the morning. And I did, in fact manage to recapture my 'Zippety-Do-Da' feeling a couple of hours later. After all the adrenaline had left my body. After I was back at home. After all the groceries were put away. It happened as I was taking the most fabulous, leisurely, morning walk with my family. The sunlight was warm and bright, the sky was a beautiful Carolina blue, and we all strolled, hand in hand through the neighborhood so we could play in the park. It was perfect. And time wasn't a factor at all.........

I'm Rachel Kafsky, and you've just heard The Rest Of The Story.

Question of the day

Warning: If you continue reading this posting, you are required to leave your opinion in the "comments" section.

Seriously. I mean it. I need your opinion. Even if 9 times out of 10, you just lurk in the periphery, you must leave a comment today. "Why?" you may ask. Well, I'm taking a poll about something very, very serious. Something that affects all of us on a daily basis. Global Warming? No. The AIDS epidemic? No. Ethnic Cleansing? No. I'm talking about Grocery Store Etiquette. More specifically, Grocery Store Check-Out-Line Etiquette.

Here's the scenario:

• There are 3 carts in the check-out-line.
• The person accompanying Cart A has his/her groceries up on the belt and is in the process of checking out.
• The person accompanying Cart B has left the line, however his/her full cart remains in line.
• The person accompanying Cart C is waiting behind Cart B.
• Now, the person accompanying Cart A is finishing his/her transaction, and it is time for the next person to start loading his/her groceries onto the belt.
• The person accompanying Cart B has not yet returned.

So, my survey question is this: What is proper etiquette for the person accompanying Cart C? Does he/she wait for Cart B's person to return, or does Cart C's person skip over Cart B and go next?

Lay it on the line for me folks....... I have to know.

Mountains and Molehills

wor·ry Pronunciation Key - [wur-ee, wuhr-ee] verb, -ried, -ry·ing, noun, plural -ries.
–verb (used without object)
1. to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret.

This is the definition of my mother-in-law. As much as I love her - and I truly do - I have never seen anyone with a better ability to take regular, everyday occurrences, and wind them around in her mind until she can come up with the worst-case-scenario. She has perfected the art of building mountains out of little mole-hills. I think she comes by it naturally. And by that I mean I think it's firmly embedded in her DNA. I make that assumption based on the stories she tells about her own mother, and her mother-in-law. And just so you understand where I'm coming from, let me share with you a couple of gems from her past. As Fran tells it, whenever her kids were getting ready to play on the playground in the park down the street her mother would tell them the following: "You kids need to be careful on that playground! There was a little boy who was playing on a playground once, and he slid down the slide and fell into a man-hole that was in the ground at the bottom of the slide. Someone left it uncovered.......and they never found him ever again!"

On other occasions, Fran tells about the advice she got from her mother-in-law when she brought her first baby home from the hospital. It went like this: "You know, you have to make sure that there is a hole poked in the nipple of the baby's bottle. There was a woman who brought her baby home and never checked to see if the bottle nipple had a hole in it and her baby starved to death!" Apparently Fran had to hear that story over and over and over again whenever she brought a baby home from the hospital, regardless of how many times she reassured her mother-in-law that there was a hole in the bottle nipple and her babies weren't going to starve to death.

And so it went. An entire childhood and adult life filled with story after story after story about how awful things - usually resulting in death or disappearance - happened to seemingly benign people going about their everyday activities. So like I said -- It's in her DNA. How can you spend your entire life listening to paranoid stories of how kids died from sliding down slides, or from not getting any milk from their bottles, and God only knows what else, and not have it rub off on you in some way, shape, or form? So now that she's the grandma, I think it's firmly embedded in her psyche that it's her "job" to worry about things that could happen, or what the worst-case scenario might be -- no matter how unlikely. I could cite countless examples, but instead I'll just share with you a few of the best.

One disastrous Christmas, when every single member of the Kafsky family was cooped up in a lodge together for a week, (I think there were right around 20 of us) my sister-in-law, Elise, started throwing up. She had a couple of other symptoms too, but I'll spare you the details, except to tell you that in our house we refer to it as 'butt and gut'. For some reason it was common knowledge that she'd recently started her period, too. Now, just to set the stage for you, I'll give you these details: Elise has a young daughter who attended daycare at the time. And anyone who has had his or her child in daycare knows that, as wonderful as daycare can be, they are also little petri-dishes; just ripe for passing all kinds of lovely things from child to child, from child to parent, and from parent to other unsuspecting adults. So, when Elise started doing the Ol' Heave Ho, I figured that she had a tummy bug. However, that was NOT the the logical conclusion drawn by Fran, who sat fretting away at a table armed to the teeth with a shovel made expressly for piling lots of worry onto the tops of her molehills. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Elise had Toxic Shock Syndrome. And certainly we wouldn't be responsible family members if we didn't rush her to the emergency room. In Fran's mind a virus was not the likely culprit. Yes indeed, the most likely scenario was TSS. "Don't you think she just has a stomach bug?" I asked. "I can't imagine that she has Toxic Shock Syndrome. I guess I don't know that much about it, but isn't TSS pretty rare?" For a few hours I did my best to reassure her, but to no avail. And though we didn't actually take Elise to the emergency room, Fran really, really wanted to. As it turned out, Elise did have a stomach bug. And by the end of the week, so did all the rest of us. It went like wild-fire, taking each and every one of us down, one soldier at a time.

Another time, we were all traveling to Cleveland, Ohio to see some extended family. All 20-something of us. Since our homes are all scattered across the Southeast, we met at Fran's house in Virginia to carpool the rest of the way. Somehow, as we were getting organized to start the caravan, my niece got ahold of a stray pill in Fran's bedroom and ate it. I found her standing in the middle of the room making an awful face and spitting out the remnants. "I think Reid was eating a pill -- but she spit most of it out." I announced in the kitchen. "Do you know what is was?" Through a course of questions the pill was determined to be iron. Everyone was pretty calm about the whole thing until Fran began constructing her mountain. She worried and fretted and then threw her first shovel full: She announced that iron is the number one killer of children in the US!!! There was a pause, and then a mad scramble for the phone to call poison control. "I think she spit most of it out..." I offered again. "Really....." The Poison Control Woman who fielded our call asked if the pills were over-the-counter, or if they were prescription. "Over-the-counter" answered my mother-in-law. "Then she should be fine." said the Poison Control Woman, "as long as it wasn't prescription." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got into their respective cars to finish the 5 hour drive to Cleveland. Fran was in our car and I could see her fret, fret, fretting away as she sat in the passenger seat. (Mentally scooping another shovel full of worry.) "I think we should take Reid to the emergency room." she said. No one really responded. She mentioned it again. "Look," I said "I don't think we need to take Reid to the emergency room. It wasn't prescription, and I really don't think she ingested that much of it. And if she does start to feel bad or get sick, we can take her then. It's not like we don't know what she got into. OK?" Fran nodded, but it wasn't convincing. I could see her worrying away...... Then she said "I think it might have been prescription, " carefully adding another shovel full of worry onto the top of the iron-pill molehill. Mike said "Was it, or wasn't it?" She couldn't remember. "How can you not know?" he asked. "Did you have a prescription for them or not?" She didn't know. (Scoop, scoop, shovel, shovel......) She rolled down her window as Reid's dad was walking past carrying the last of their belongings to the car. "I think it was prescription!" she yelled. She simply can't help herself.

Which brings me around to her most recent case of mountain building, worst-case-scenario, worry-wartness. We recently held our 6th annual pumpkin carvin' party, and most of my in-laws were in attendance. It's a great time; Thoroughly chaotic, with lots of nieces and nephews running around, but definitely a great time. We had a lot of prep work to do to get ready to host all the pumpkin carvers, so Fran and my brother-in-law, Ryan, were wrangling the kids. I cooked and cleaned house, and Mike finished mowing the lawn, hanging ghosts, and putting up other spooky decorations outside. After a few hours, Fran came in and told me that Landis was holding his penis a lot. "Oh, that." I said. "He's always holding it. He really likes it. It's no big deal." She went back outside. A little while later she came back in. She'd been outside piling some worry onto her molehill. "You know, I think something's wrong with him. He holds it a lot." she told me. "Trust me," I replied."He just likes to hold it. Seriously. He talks to it and everything. I promise he's fine. You don't have to worry about it." But of course, she did. It's in her DNA. It's her job as a grandmother. She came back. "I do really think it's bothering him, and he gets embarrassed when I ask him about it. Can you ask him if it's bothering him? I told Mike about it and he snapped at me." "Sure" I replied. If asking him would ease her mind, I'd be happy to do it. I went to find Landis. He was in the bathroom with Mike. Mike was turning the shower on and Landis was undressing. "Can you shower him?" Mike asked me. "He's filthy, and we're supposed to check out his penis. I finally lost it with my mom because she was following me around talking about the problems with Landis' penis. I'm tired of hearing about his penis." So I helped Landis take a shower, and I checked everything out. It all looked fine. But just to make sure, I asked him as I was drying him off. "Hey Landis," I said. "How's your peenee feeling?" He looked me straight in the face and answered with the kind of earnest sincerity that only a sweet little blue eyed 3-year old can muster. "Fwesh and cwean!!!!" "Fresh and clean?" I asked, barely able to contain myself. "Really? It doesn't hurt or anything?" "No." "Does it itch?" "No." "So it feels fine?" "Mommy, it feels fwesh and cwean!" Good enough for me. I reported my findings back to Fran. "He says it feels 'fwesh and cwean'. I told her. She looked skeptical, but what did I expect? She can't help it. It's in her DNA.

The evolution of Ma'am

Back when I was in my early 20's, working at a residential camp in the south, a boy of about 12 or so called me Ma'am. I was a water-skiing instructor then, and I was giving him some instructions from the boat. Turns out he couldn't hear me very well over the idling engine, so as well-mannered little southern boys tend to do, he said "Ma'am?" with an expression on his face meant to indicate to me that I should repeat what I just said. It literally sent shivers down my spine. What did he just call me? Ma'am? Seriously? You can save that crap for my mom. As far as I was concerned, "Ma'am" was a title meant for an old lady, and certainly not one that I could wear comfortably. It was like an old wool sweater, all scratchy and itchy, and I couldn't wait to shrug it off. I couldn't even stand for it to touch my skin. "You don't have to call me ma'am" I told him. "You can just call me Rachel."

Fast-forward 6 years or so. I'd gotten married. And you know what else I didn't like? "Mrs." It's another title that I couldn't wear very comfortably. It was like a mu-mu, and I couldn't help but think that it made me sound so matronly. And frankly, I just didn't feel very matronly. I was way too young and hip for that. (On a side note, the only thing I found more uncomfortable than a straight up "Mrs." was a "Mrs. Mike". That's like wearing a corset 2 sizes too small, and a skirt made of nothing but layers upon layers of crinoline while walking for 3 hours in 8 inch high heels. I'm guessing that all you married women out there know exactly what I'm talking about. And in case you don't, I'll go ahead and fill you in. Once you get married, you start getting mail addressed to you as the "mrs. version" of your husband's name. Like I don't have my own first name, or that somehow my identity got swallowed up by him on the day we said 'I Do'. I know, I know....... It's supposed to be formal and polite, but can you imagine if we actually used those titles in conversation? "Hi. It's nice to meet you. My name's Mrs. Mike. Mrs. Mike Kafsky. And this is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Josh. And have you met my best friend, Mrs. Brent?" Is there anyone out there who doesn't think that's ridiculous? I'd love to know. As it stands now, any time we receive a piece of mail addressed to Mrs. Mike, I turn around and start referring to my husband as Mr. Rachel. I find it to be hilarious. I'm not sure he shares the same sentiment.) But getting back to the original topic at hand, I didn't like "Mrs." I prefered to be "Ms." Ms. Rachel Kafsky. And before I was married, I was Ms. Rachel Haynes. "Ms." worked for me, like a good pair of jeans. Not too tight, but not too baggy either, because after all, I still wanted a look that was flattering.

Skip ahead another 6 years or so, and now I have kids. Two of 'em, ages 3 and 5. And occasionally, when they want to impress me, or show their respect, or when they're in trouble and they know it helps them to be as polite as humanly possible, they refer to me as "Ma'am". And you know what? I like it. It's like I pulled that dusty title out of the back of the closet, brushed it off and tried it on again all these years later. And lo and behold, it fits! It fits like a glove! It's perfectly broken in, so it's not at all too tight or constricting. Somehow, all that scratchiness is gone, and it actually feels good against my skin. And not only is it comfortable, I think it looks great on me too!

So here's what I want to know...... When did that happen? When did the title of "Ma'am" stop making my skin itch? And when did it become an appropriate title for someone as young and hip as me? Because I know I'm not an old lady. I may have a few laugh lines, and some crinkly crows feet around my eyes. And I may have a few stretch marks here and there that are a daily reminder of the size of my belly (and butt and hips) during my pregnancies. And I may like to be in bed before ten, and I may even pluck a stray chin hair now and then....(blond, mind you)..... but I ain't no old lady. I'm young and hip and maybe......perhaps.......it might be possible that I am old-er. And while I still don't love the "Mrs.", when I pull that out and try it on, it's a little more flattering than it used to be. It's still a little matronly for my taste, but maybe now I wouldn't actually refer to it as a mu-mu. And you can trust me when I tell you that no one is more surprised about this than me. Though I think it's safe to say, no matter how much older I get, and no matter how much my sense of "fashion" changes, you can mark these words in stone: You will never catch me running around in that "Mrs. Mike" corset- crinoline-8 inch-heel-combo, ever. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that'll never be my style.

I've been busy -- I think. (For Janice)

So my friend Jancie sent me an email the other day that said "What is up with your blog? I miss it!" She'd noticed that I hadn't been posting with any frequency lately. "Well," I thought to myself, "I've just been so busy....." And then I took a minute to ponder what is was I'd been so busy doing. Let's see........ I've been.............. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm............. Well.............. Ummmmmmmmmm................... Clearly I've not been folding laundry since my loveseat is literally buried underneath a small mountain of clean, but extremely wrinkled clothing in all shapes and sizes. Washing and drying, Yes. Folding, No. And I certainly wasn't putting anything away. Maybe I was vacuuming................. But judging by the piles of dog hair gathering in the corners and organizing themselves for a mini-revolution, I'd say that's not been the case either. So..............Ummmmmmmmmm.........Oh! I know! I think I was cleaning the bathrooms! Oh, wait a minute...............I just looked them over and I have to admit, albeit grudgingly, that I wasn't. Maybe I was busy dusting? Nope. You can pretty much write your name in it -- especially over by the TV.

I'm so confused. I felt so busy. Why was that?

I guess we have been eating 3 squares a day and still have food in the pantry, so I must have made a couple of trips to the grocery store. And come to think of it, I am the head Chef in our household, so it's fair to say that I was busy pouring cereal, packing lunches, and organizing, preparing, and serving dinners. And my kitchen isn't piled floor to ceiling with dirty dishes, and my counters are clean, so I must have spent a good deal of time in the kitchen. I am, after all, extremely well acquainted with our dishwasher. Oh! And you know what else? Gibson has made it to and from school every day this week! Heck! This year! And even though he climbs into the car in wrinkly clothes from the mountain on the couch, he still goes clean and smelling good from the bubble bath he took the night before. Landis too, of course. And both of their imaginations have been filled up to overflowing with the kinds of good that can only come from reading lots and lots of bedtime stories, and nap time stories, and sometimes in-between stories, and playing with puzzles, and coloring pictures, and endless pretend games outside in the yard. And now that I really think about it, they say "May I", and "Please" and "Thank You" and sometimes, when they want to impress me, they say "Ma'am". They carry their plates to the sink after they excuse themselves from the table, scrape them off, and load them into the dishwasher. I dare say I've spent some time - a good deal of time - working on that. And if I really step back and look at the big picture, I'd say that as they are making their way through their days they are wrapped in a protective shield of invisible hugs and kisses that my mother-in-law swears to them will never, ever, ever come off -- even when they are 50, or 60, or 75. And you know what? All that huggin' and kissin' keeps me from doing other stuff like folding laundry and putting it away. Or from stopping the dog hair revolution in it's tracks.

So I guess I have been busy. (Perhaps I've even been redeemed here.) But you'd better lookout dog hair piles. I'm coming for you. I have the vacuum cleaner cocked and loaded. You may have won the battle, but you won't win the war.