90 minutes is really just too long.

okay. let's pretend we are now in the first week of march.

we are clinically insane people. here's why.

every year we drive to florida. we pack up pretty much everything we own (including our kids, ages 5, 3 1/2, and then 17 mos.) and venture out on the drive which is approx. 24 hours. there is actually a test to see if you are clinically insane. phase four of the test is this question: would you drive three small children to florida in one shot? if you answer yes, you are truly insane. phase five of this test is this question: when driving three small children to florida in one shot, would you, under any circumstances (including duress), take route 15? (now taking route 15 is the equivalent to taking a bike path. through a retirement community. in a snow storm.) if you answer yes to this question and anybody with authority finds out about it... i'm pretty sure they just put you in right in jail.

so far, my father-in-law is the only human to ever answer that phase five question with an enthusiastic yes. but, that is neither here nor there.

so. we're in florida, and we have two beautiful little girls who actually believe that you can grow up and be a princess for your profession. it's just what they do. they dress up, have royal balls and tea parties, talk in nearly perfect british accents, call each other "lady" (with a really sharp T sound, like "lay-Tee") and call their baby brother the grand duke. they wear hats, gloves, scarves, jewels, glass slippers, sunglasses, tiaras, and bunny ears... usually all at the same time. they are divine.

so, can you bring two of that species to florida and not take them to disney world? it would feel a little criminal not to. so, we saved up garage sale money and lemonade stand money to go to the magic kingdom for one day. it was like bringing them to their motherland.

they both carefully selected which ball gown they wanted to wear and i allowed one accessory. annalee settled on an ariel gown - post human transformation... so neither fin nor seashells were involved, trust me i would not have allowed it. marlie went as a blond snow white. they both decided on bunny ears with sequin detailing. very classy touch. the weather was beautiful, the tickets were overpriced and it was american capitalism at it's finest. a little disgusting, but for my girls... it was truly a dream come true.

now, when i went to disney world as a child, you could do disney in one day. at least we did. my mom would force us to sprint from attraction to attraction, mapping out show times and distances from one thing to the next. we would inevitably be the pale northerners running around frantically, wearing socks and tevas, and we looked like idiots (especially because i am pretty sure i also wore a fluorescent orange fanny pack, covered with a fine black mesh, set a little more toward one hip than the other. try not to covet.)

but, the point is we did it in a day. i can't imagine the disney world people are struggling financially... but i have a theory here. i am convinced that they have carefully and cruelly figured out how to make it almost impossible to do it in a single day. for example, when i went in the early 90's, you could be on your way to space mountain (which we peer pressured my mom into deviating from her map-plan and letting us go on several times in a row) and you would happen to run into your favorite character... mickey mouse, alladin, cinderella even. but, noooooooo... that's not how it works in the 0's. in 2009, they lock the characters up in some building and make you wait in line to see them. this, of course, takes anywhere between 60 and 90 minutes. even if you are sprinting as fast as your tevas will take you, you are NOT going to meet characters and hit pirates of the caribbean on the same day. it is impossible.

so, like good parents, we tried to convince the kids that they didn't really care about meeting the beautiful princesses in real life. then annalee, who is five years old, put on her lawyer face and made her case. in her mind, meeting the princesses in person was sort of like job-shadowing. she simply had to do it in order to become a real princess herself. could we deny them this right of passage? probably not, but we were gonna try. annalee leveled with us. she said "mommy, even if it takes all our hours, i really want to see ariel."

so, we caved. we went to ariel's grotto, which is a smart set-up. ariel herself is hidden back in a cave (so that the poor people who could barely afford this one day at disney, have to choose between seeing her, and doing anything else that day) and there is a long line of parents standing in a roped off area around the outside of a little sprinkler park. the kids can run around and play in the water - in their ballgowns - while the parents wait forever. i think this appeases the parents because we feel like "at least are kids are doing something while we wait."

we walked up to ariel's grotto and their was a sign there letting us know how long the wait would be until our little girls would fulfill their destiny. 90 MINUTES. we had an hour and a half to wait in line. if you break down the cost of disney world minute by minute... i think we spend about 40 bucks just in that line. but, this was why we were there, so we got in line and the kids ran wild in the water. harper, 17 months at the time, was very intent on fleeing the grotto and returning to the carousel ride - and he spent the entire time trying to escape. so, naturally... my attention was mostly focused on him. plus, i know the girls knew better and would never DREAM of leaving that area without an adult. they simply know better. or so i thought.

i look up. marlie, 3, is missing. i am completely frantic - only a parent who has temporarily misplaced one of their humans knows what i mean. i am terrified, angry, nervous (with a dash of embarrassed)... and running around like a crazy person looking for her. then i see her. she is holding the hand of a disney world employee and she looks busted, she has her head (which looks a little like a small bowling ball, covered in wild tumbleweed-like hair) hanging down very low, but her eyes are looking up. right on me. i run up to them and apologize to the lady. as i am walking marlie firmly back to the bench to get the whole story, i see another disney world employee going down the line of parents waiting to meet ariel, shouting "is anyone missing a snow white?" i was mortified. i went and told the lady that i had found her, and all the parents give me that look of "you negligent parent... losing your child like that. you should be ashamed of yourself." which i was. so i hope they're happy.

marlie and i are sitting on the bench. i explain to her how relieved i am that she is safe, and how disappointed i am that she disobeyed. then the story came spilling out. what happened was this... marlie (who is my strong-willed, free-spirited second-born... who pretty much has my personality and lack of delayed gratification. oh, and my attention span.) she is innocently playing in the play area... running around the large rocks in the middle, and weaving in and out of the water, when she discovers that from the very end of the play area, you can see the back of ariel's cave. this is where those lucky girls and boys who have waited 90 minutes to meet ariel, have their photograph taken by a disney picture man and of course their parents or other supervising adult, and then they joyfully exit the cave through a turn style. this is what all the good american boys and girls are doing. not my marlie. she sees that turn style. and more importantly she sees just past that turn style. into the cave, just far enough to see ariel herself. sitting on a rock, calling children up, one by one, talking to them in a perfect ariel voice, and posing for a picture with an exact ariel smile.

this was simply too much for marlie. she apparently could NOT contain herself. she would later report this to me. she crawled under the gate (aka the turn style) and walked up to the front of the line. ariel said "come sit next to me." so marlie did. marlie, i'm sure, showed ariel her shoes and her dress, and quietly whispered her name when ariel asked. at this point i don't think anybody realized that she shouldn't have been there. but, when marlie asked for her photograph to be taken, they realized there weren't any adults involved here.

first of all, i am completely shocked that she would do this. i can't believe that she would leave our supervision (which clearly wasn't adequate), cut off all those people, then have the audacity to get up there and demand that the photograph be taken! so, as she was telling me this (i am in complete disbelief) i asked her "did they actually take your picture!?" she said on the verge of tears "no, because they said i didn't have the right lady with me!" i then explained to her furiously, that i was the right lady, her mother... that she needed to stay with ME!

after many lectures and some time of sitting alone to think about what she had done while tom and i discussed whether or not we would allow her to meet ariel and get a legit picture taken with her... she knew she had one chance to redeem herself. here is what she said in her needlessly loud three-year-old voice, "mommy, i know that i disobeyed and it was dangerous. it was disrespectful to all the other customers. but mommy..." (insert long pause, as if this was the crowning moment of her argument. this was her chance to explain why she did it. knowing it was wrong, why she had no choice but to take that chance...) "...but mommy... ariel is not a statue... and her tail was real."

that is a three-year-old way of saying, "i'm sorry, but what were my options!? i had to see that tail."

in a blend of anger, and trying not to laugh out loud... i left her there alone to stew in fear that she would never have that photo to relive this adventure, while tom and i stepped aside to discuss her fate. tom's parents, who came with us to disney, gently reminded me that this was, for her, a once in a lifetime opportunity and maybe today wasn't the day to drive home that lesson. they pleaded her case, and tom and i did end up letting her have a legitimate meeting with ariel and many pictures were taken - both by the disney picture-taker, and by me... the right lady.

bamboozled, quite literally.

so i have not posted in a long time. after a little bit of verbal abuse from my fanlets, i have decided to post - or at least try to post - more frequently. twice a week as my friend sam firmly requires. (i say fanlets because i don't think they can technically be called your fans if a) they are the only twelve friends you have, b) they are related to you, or c) they are willing to verbally abuse you a little bit. also, i say fanlets because as far as making up your own words goes, i'm... fine with it.)

so, this is how we're going to do it. i am going to take my fanlets on a journey back in time... to all the dates i meant to post but didn't. for today's journey, we are going to go back to valentine's day. *i would like to apologize in advance for my reckless and excessive use of parentheses in this post.

for valentine's day tom and i unknowingly got each other the exact same gift. this story of our gift buying and exchanging shows the major differences in our personalities. but the fact that we ended up getting each other the exact same gift, in the most polar opposite way possible kinda says a lot about us and our relationship... and about how i believe god paired us uniquely together - to both irritate the junk out of each other, and also to complement each other in the most profound ways.

many years ago, for a wedding present, some of my wonderful friends decorated tom and my first "apartment" while we were away on our honeymoon. (now our first apartment was a beautiful deluxe penthouse suite in a big city high rise, it was gorgeous. wait, actually... it was a bedroom in my sisters basement. i was knocked up and we were broke. it happens.) part of the lavish decorations included a lucky bamboo plant, which we have always called "our love fern." (this plant nickname is in reference to one of my favorite movies, "how to lose a guy in ten days," which for the longest time i couldn't remember the title of, and i kept calling it "ten things i hate about losing a guy." but that is really neither here, nor there.)

so. the love fern. while i took excellent care of it for many years, and in many homes... from the den of our poverty (my generous sister's basement)(grand haven, michigan), to a converted horsebarn with a mold problem (wayne, pennsylvania), to the top floor of a home we shared with an elderly man named lefty (willow grove, pennsylvania) to a great little apartment above a couple from singapore (landsale, pennsylvania) to our very first owned home (rochester, ny). it survived many moves and many spils, and the many rough pulls and grabs from lots of little chubby hands. until, one day... inexplicably, the love fern died. actually, it's totally explicable. i overwatered it and put it in direct sunlight - and you bamboo lovers out there know that both are ill-advised. fried it to a crisp.

the bamboo plant died about a year ago, and tom (being unable to let go...) has kept the plant remains on his desk, wrapped in a paper towel that says 'RIP love fern.' so, for v-day, we both unknowingly bought each other a replacement fern (which, if you haven't picked up on yet, isn't a fern at all... but rather a lucky bamboo.) i bought mine at the florist in our local supermarket, and it is beautiful - but looks nothing like the original. now, tom went to great lengths to find an exact replica of the original. he ordered his online from a florist in california. he had it shipped to new york just in time for valentines day. it looked exactly like the original love fern, and was dead upon arrival. apparently he didn't open it up soon enough and it died in the box. when he actually did open it, there was a piece of paper inside that said to 'open immediately.' he was not happy that the warning was INSIDE the box that should have been opened immediately.

when we sat down to celebrate valentines day, i gave tom several ryhming clues that sent him and the kids on a scavenger hunt to find cards, treats and the grand finale... our lucky bamboo. when i saw tom's face... deflated and disappointed, i thought maybe it was a little too early to replace the love fern that died. maybe it was just too soon. or perhaps, after all is fried and repurchased, you really can't replace such a beloved fern to begin with.

then, tom sadly goes to fetch the crispy, air-deprived lucky bamboo that he has special ordered from california, had delivered, and had stored in a drawer. in the box. on its side. not so lucky. but...he was right. i would never find it in there.

ruth.

a close family friend of ours has been battling brain cancer for some time now. yesterday the doctors said they give her a few weeks at best. we say that all the time when somebody is terminally ill. we say "they give him 6 months," or "they gave her a week." what is it with that? i know what it means, but isn't it such a lie? they can't give ruth a few weeks. only god can give us more time in this life, and only god can take that time away.

sometimes i feel like that makes god seem so cold and distant, just up there like a master puppeteer... deciding our fate based on his whim. but, the truth is that god can give ruth a few weeks, or months, or years. or god can only grant us moments more before we die. in some ways, that puts us all in the same vulnerable boat, that life can end for us any time. on a friends blog, it references james 4:14, saying that we are but vapors that will cease to exist. some of us vapors may linger a little longer, while some may vanish almost as soon as they came to be. i don't know what will happen to ruth. but, i do know that as i sat across from her watching tears fall down her cheeks, and as i heard her say "these are tears of joy..." i knew that ruth gets it. she gets that whatever time she has is a gift from god, and that going home to an eternity of worshipping him will be an even greater gift.

one joint to rule them all.

we had a birthday get-together for tom's 29th last week and it was just for "grownies" as my kids would say. however, even though no kids were in attendance, we ended up sitting around in a huge circle bouncing a balloon around, trying to keep it up in the air. our friend joe has a way of turning any social activity into hilarious feats of strength. so, his rule was that whatever body part you hit the balloon with, you would have to consider it removed from your body - from the joint down, unable to use it more than once. all the grownies were sitting around using different joints - an elbow, hip, a shoulder, even a desperate pelvis was once used - trying to keep that balloon up off the ground. it sort of made me question the difference between a party with kids, and a party without.

don't try to figure out why i wrote that. there is no real explanation for this sort of behavior.

my sister, bethann, her husband and their two boys just left. they came from michigan, my motherland, and stayed for the week. we had a great time with them, as usual, and the kids did quite well together i must say. the week was wonderful with my sister. we talked, we saw a movie in the grown-up movie theatre (for a small fortune) and we overhauled her whole wardrobe. we even took pictures of newly assembled outfits as a guide for when she returns home and panics.

having five kids in the house was a wake-up call. they did great together, but i just kept imagining doing it myself because i have definitely always thought we will have five kids. we talk about adopting one more time, and having one more biologically. five kids. that is a lot of humans. right now we are a family of five. but a family of seven? i am afraid we would become that family with a million kids, that nobody knows any of their names (probably not even us), and people just think of us as the family that sort of looks like the united nations. i hate thinking of myself walking around with really frizzy hair, looking haggard, calling out a list of names, with a blank stare on my face, hoping that a herd of children (with collicky hair and some sort of sticky mustache) will come running. why, oh why is that the image that i have?

people can have five mustache-free children right? kids that have hair that lies normally on their head? this is possible isn't it? i can have kids whose names i remember. and even if we do look like the united nations when its all said and done, i may not necessarily look haggard right? i mean, i have seen mothers with a lot of kids that don't permanently wear a robe... or a long floral dress. why do i have this idea that if we have five kids, i will be issued a long, pastel, floral jumper as my permanent uniform? do i have to wear blouses? will i start serving huge pots of off-brand franks n' beans? where are these images coming from? does anyone even know what i am talking about? more importantly, will somebody out there stage an intervention if i am ever able to sit on my own braid?

everyone says that you will know when you are done having kids. i would like to know i am done. we already have a house full. money isn't exactly overly abundant. harper produces enough drool to rival lake ontario. i can't remember that last time i showered. i haven't gone to the bathroom alone since 2004. i spendapproximately 1 million hours of every year sorting through kids clothes that are too big, too small, too stained, out of season, or too ridiculous to wear in public. haven't i had enough!?

maybe i love kids. maybe i trust god to provide. maybe i am clinically insane. maybe it is a combination of the three... but i just know i'm not done. when consulted on the matter of how many children to have, my daughter marlie (3 1/2) holds up both hands (showing ten fingers spread impressively far apart) and says "mommy, you should actually have this age of kids." it's a bad sign when i am taking family planning advice from someone who just told me she was "choking" because her pants were too tight.

i got the joy.

"to youth and natural cheerfulness like emma's, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits. the youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope."

-emma, by jane austen

i love this novel, and i especially love this excerpt. i go through the day stressing or worrying about things that i know won't really keep me up at night. "...and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed..." jane austen makes sleep sound like such a wonderful little healer. you can stress all day about something that seems so important or so upsetting, go to sleep, then wake up with total perspective. upon waking you are "...open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope." i love that. i once heard somebody describing sleep as your body's way of cleaning off it's desk. your brain has to sort of sift through everything that was put into its "inbox," decluttering spam and junk mail, and re-prioritizing tasks that need accomplishing. this makes sense to me, because when i wake up, i often have a perspective shift on what is tolerable, what is important and what is urgent.

now there is, of course, the occasional (or not so occasional) tragedy that causes distress that is poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed at night. this little quote only refers to the youth and cheerfulness we might experience when the relief of morning comes. but, sometimes, what is slipped onto your desk is suffering from which morning brings no relief.

today in my email devotional that i recieve daily, it said "...a person who forgets what god treasures will not be filled with joy..." this is so convicting. i don't know how many times i have prayed for joy, but this is a reminder that joy comes only if i remember what god values. do you know what the bible says about suffering? to consider it pure joy. isn't that just what we want to hear when crap is being shovled onto our desk? no. but, god values suffering. and god treasures us drawing near to him when we suffer. so, even when the youth and cheerfulness of morning cannot relieve or soften pain... we can still experience true and uninhibited joy knowing that we need "...not be afraid or discouraged... for the battle is not yours, but god's." (2 chronicles 20:15)

my 15 month old son, harper, has a small chenille blankie, which he calls his "picky." he loves it. it is soft and white and smells like saliva. when he sees it, he roars at it like a lion, and then he kisses it. when he kisses it, he smacks his lips needlessly loud. he's in love. as soon as you say "wanna go na-night?" he drops whatever he was doing, and sprints as fast as his little bow legs can take him, laughing wildly the whole time. he loves his picky, his crib, his little ocean music machine, and he loves to say hi to all of these things as soon as his bedroom door closes behind me. "hi! hi! hi!... (pause)... hi!" maybe his desk needs to be reorganized, or maybe he is just sleepy and super pumped about it. who knows. but harper thinks that sleeping is god's gift. and i think i am starting to agree. jane austen suggests that sleep is the healer, but perhaps sleep is just a little gift from the healer. perhaps.

so here's to sleep, to whatever saliva soaked object comforts us, and to god's goodness for allowing us the chance to have joy, even when morning fails to bring return of spirits.