Book Review

The American Way of War

This book lays out how Bush has trampled on our constitutionally guaranteed rights in a much more coherent manner than I can. Please, please read it!

How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq

This is a great book! Find it and read it! It’s unbelievable. We don’t have to drown people, strip them naked and terrorize them to get information! Who knew?

The only way the terrorists can win is if we allow ourselves to become like them.

A Conversation with the Nurse at Williams’s School

A: “Will has diarrhea. Could you please come pick him up?”

Me: Sighing, “No, he really doesn’t.”

Every time Will gets a new teacher at school or goes to a new school I get the same frantic and disgusted phone call. I talk to them about poop for 5 minutes and usually they deal with it. (I could write a treatise on Will’s poop but I will spare you.)

The conversation continues thus:

A: “It really looks like diarrhea.”

Me: “I know. He’s had it for 7 years.”

A: “He sat on the toilet for 15 minutes.”

Me: “Often he’s in there for a half hour. It’s kind of a special place for him because everyone leaves him alone.”

Will and the Toilet

We have only changed two things in our glorious peach bathroom. I attempted to remove the peach, baby blue and green 80s era wallpaper and we replaced the peach toilet with a less garish white one.

Will broke the toilet lid. I can’t even fully express my happiness at the fact that he broke the one thing that was not ugly in that room. Why not the Formica makeup counter or the tan specked soap holder? I’d even be happier if he had broken the tan specked tile towel holder! But, no; I think Karma either has a wicked sense of humor or is severely pissed off at me. And if it is the case of the latter I want to take this opportunity to sincerely and humbly apologize to Karma.

(I try not to mess with Karma because it never works out well for me – because well, I have a couple of kids that freelance for her.)

I need to buy a replacement lid and quickly because an open tank is an invitation to Will to be inventive. Case in point, I kept hearing the water run in the toilet and when I investigated I found that Will had stuffed a package of wet wipes down the drain. I don’t know what he’ll stuff down there next but I have a feeling I won’t like it.

I’ve Seen My Future – and It’s Not Pretty: Part II

The reason I’m anxious about my future is that Lizzy is already a teenager in many ways.

1. It’s hard to wake her up.
2. She takes a long time to get dressed!
3. She will wear what she wants to wear.
4. She spends forever in the bathroom!
5. She wears my makeup.
6. She likes going to the mall.
7. She’s got the whining down.
8. I already ruin her life.

Everyday I do something that upsets her. Now, fortunately, she forgives me as soon as I ask; but I see the day coming when it might not be so easy. I used to say to her in jest that I ruined her life; but she quickly picked up on that and when I displeased her Highness she started telling me, “You wreaked my life.”

I eventually stopped using that phrase.

I’ve Seen My Future – and It’s Not Pretty: Part I

When I was young and foolish I thought, “Ahh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a girly girl who loved dolls and whom I could dress up in plaid skirts and Mary Janes.” Instead of looking at Bri who was sweet, kind, easy going and reasonable and being satisfied, I wanted a girl I could dress up and buy dolls for (to live through vicariously because I never got a three story doll house with furniture and I WANTED ONE and obviously I'm still scarred because I didn't get one).

Then I had Lizzy and she is more of a girly girl than Bri but in her own unique way. For instance, she started dressing herself at one and a half and she would only wear what she wanted to wear. She wanted pockets and belt loops. Knit pants or leggings? She wouldn't be caught dead in either. I would parade the most adorable clothes in front of her to hear, “No.” And she meant it!

When she was younger I would keep some of the clothes she refused in her drawer in hopes I might be able to get her to wear it at some future date. I think it worked once. I remember Brianne spent a half hour one morning convincing Lizzy to try on a non-preferred item of clothing. Lizzy put it on for her. But since I can’t waste 30 minutes every morning only to fail in my aim, she wears what she wants to as often as she can.

Lizzy is a child who literally wore a hole in plastic rain boots! Yes, she did. She will wear the same dress to church week after week after month after month. Case in point, she has four dresses in her closet. She’s worn the same one every week since November. But that isn’t even her record. She once wore the same skirt and top every week to church for five months straight. If I had any pretensions left at that point I would have been humiliated, but since I was mostly worried about Will stripping down to his underwear and parading up the aisle I was just relieved she had clothes on.

Brianne's Winter Concert

Thursday night was Bri’s winter concert but my husband was flying back from California so I couldn’t leave the children home with him. I asked Bri if it would be ok if I just dropped her off and picked her up. She said yes but it wasn’t true, because she came up to me later and said that both Lizzy and Jake wanted to see her concert and this was the last time we would hear these songs. Marcy had offered to watch Will earlier in the day but I figured “in for a dime, in for a dollar.”

I grabbed a book and Will’s tunes with the hope they would entertain him. I truly didn’t see any irony in bringing Will’s iPod for him to listen to at that point. We arrived at Bri’s middle school and headed for the balcony because I thought we might be less obtrusive up there. Jake and Lizzy wanted to sit near the middle instead of by us which was as close to the door as possible, I thought that was fine until I saw them walk down an aisle and sit in the middle of a group.

Will really enjoyed the music, sometimes loudly enjoyed the music. He figured out applause and was still trying to applaud during the start of the second song. At which point I handed him his iPod and tried to keep him quiet for the next hour. I watched Jake and Lizzy and noticed them occasionally dancing, talking to the people next to them and at one point disappearing. That was a quandary. Did I really want to drag Will around the building looking for them? Answer: No. About twenty minutes later I found them. They had just walked up a few rows and were sitting on the stairs.

One More Reason Not to Be a Boy

My son and my husband are OUTSIDE SLEEPING IN A TENT! Yes, right now. And no, it’s not because they are homeless. It is because Jake is a boy scout and boy scouts do those kinds of things -- things that don’t make sense to the rest of us. Frankly, my brother’s decision to drop out of boy scouts is becoming easier and easier to understand. I imagine the conversation my brother had years ago with his scout leader. “Yeah, we’re going on a camp out. It’ll be awesome!”

My brother in response, “Uh, it’s January.”

“We’ll build a snow cave to sleep in.”

“My ancestors came from Europe. We don’t know how to do that kind of stuff. You know, camping in snow when it's below freezing sounds great if you’re into that sort of thing but I’d rather sleep in a house with heat and plumbing.”