not that you asked...

I fold

Last week I had one of those rare Parenting Moments where I realized, quite suddenly and alarmingly, that I was at a place where my natural instincts were failing me and I needed help. I managed to get my kids fed and dressed and then I marched them straight to the bookstore under the guise of letting them play with the train table (someone PLEASE explain to me why they will play happily and for whole pleasant chunks at a time with a ratty, chewed-up, germ infested train table with trains that sometimes DON'T EVEN HAVE WHEELS when they have a perfectly nice and sanitized one at home that they don't have to share with six random kids? IT MAKES NO SENSE) when really, I was there to commit to and then purchase a book, at full-price, HARDCOVER, EVEN, if it meant I could begin to get a handle on how my kid's brain is working and what, exactly, I can do to make sure that our conversations are about 98 percent quieter and 100 percent more effective. I find myself yelling a lot these days.

I never yelled when Asher was a baby. NEVER. I can't decide what the impetus was for the start of the round-the-clock yelling... was it the addition of another child and the stress and chaos that brought with it? I remember yelling a lot when Lucy was a newborn, but I know now that a lot of that was the Postpartum Funk forcibly ejecting itself from my throat. But then I think, if Asher had stayed an only child, would I have eventually started yelling at him anyway? Like, say, when he turned three and the ridiculous behavior had nothing at all to do with the presence of a sibling?

For what it's worth, I don't think anything he's doing is out of the ordinary for a three-and-a-half-year old, no matter how many windows it makes me want to pitch myself from headfirst. He doesn't listen, he stomps and tells me “NO, I don't WANT TO,” when I ask him to do things, he throws ridiculous fits when I won't let him have chocolate milk for breakfast or a lollipop thirty seconds before dinner. I mean, who hasn't been there? What breaks me, on an almost-daily basis, is how OFTEN he finds it necessary to exert his own will. Like, every six seconds or something, and it's positively EXHAUSTING. I actually am starting to believe that he is intent on doing or suggesting that he do EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of whatever I ask or suggest. And then he holds a grudge for 45 minutes when I tell him no. Nothing snaps him out of it – changing the subject doesn't work, ignoring him doesn't work, removing him from my presence doesn't work, and GUESS WHAT, yelling doesn't work, either, and yet! I KEEP DOING IT. Yelling has become my Standard Operating Procedure but while yelling feels good in the moment (oh, the stress release of LOSING MY MIND), it feels completely counterproductive and awful when everything is calm again. I always think, Did I really need to explode like that? All because he refused to say please and thank you?

But of course, it's not just that he refused to say please and thank you. It's that he refused to say please and thank you for the millionth time even though I reminded him nicely 999,999 times. And then threw a tantrum when I denied him the thing he was asking for because he wouldn't ask in a respectful way. That is when I unleash the Vocal Cords of DOOOOOM, and I really would prefer if that was my absolute last option, but the truth is, it's usually my first.

So far, one of my favorite pinches of wisdom from the book I bought (I have Linda to thank for the original recommendation) has been that it isn't necessary to come up with a punishment/consequence for behavior immediately; that it's okay to say something like, “I'll get back to you on that,” or “I need time to think about what I'm going to do.” OMG, you guys, this is SO FREEING TO ME. I mean, on one hand, it gives me an out – I can take some time to simmer down and regroup and approach the situation with a calm mind and a quieter voice (and I particularly like this approach for older kids, who can spend my Thinking Time worrying about what I am cooking up for them). But also! I am absolutely HORRIBLE at thinking on my feet. I just start panicking and throwing out threats and statements that I can neither back up nor enforce, and it is turning me into one of those parents who threaten and never follow through. Do you know what kinds of children come out of households where there are angry threats and no follow through? I do not really want to participate in an episode of Intervention in the future, I can tell you that much. Also, I am just waiting for the day when Asher busts out laughing after I tell him for the thirty THOUSANDTH time that he is not going to leave the house again until he is 15. And I am going to have to emphasize that I am FOR SERIOUS this time and he is just going to keep laughing and I am going to to keep threatening and then ten minutes later I am going to round us all up and head to Target because I can't stand being cooped up with them inside this living room for ONE MORE MOMENT. I wouldn't call that effective parenting, would you? No. No you would not.

So yes, a book. I will let you know how it goes.

Book Review: Letter to My Daughter, by George Bishop

This was my first opportunity to read and review a work of fiction, and I jumped on it. Fiction is my absolute favorite genre, and I read a lot (A LOT) of it. (Memoirs are a very close second, and not to be confused with biographies, which make me want to lie down and weep from boredom, most of the time.) I admit though, I was kind of skeptical when the book came in the mail. For starters, it is a book about the relationship between a mother and a daughter and it was written by a man. (Some of you are frowning, aren't you? FROWNING! I FROWNED TOO.)

Now, I know that there are authors who write all kinds of books from various and sundry points of view and do it believably. But I find that I'm always way more critical and suspicious of male authors who write in the first-person as a woman. One of the things that annoys me the most in male-authors-writing-women's-perspective books is the emphasis on sexuality. It's not that sexuality doesn't exist, obviously, but I think that male authors tend to overstate it. What is it they say, that men think about sex every seven seconds? And women, what, like, twice a week? Maybe it's not THAT vast of a difference, but I do feel sometimes like male authors make sexuality play a much larger part than it would in the real world. And that's just my opinion, but it prejudiced me against George Bishop as soon as I freed that book from its wrapper.

Here's the good news: George Bishop is a good writer. And this is his first novel! Letter to My Daughter is a relatively short novel (only 150ish pages) about the relationship between a 15-year-old girl and her mother, a relationship that isn't going particularly well. The two have a fight that ends with the mother, Laura, slapping her daughter, Liz, across the face, and Liz pretty much steals the family car and takes off. While Laura is at home worrying, she pens a letter to Liz that tells the story of her own troubled teenage years, in an attempt to reconcile what seems like a vast disconnect between them. It turns out Laura herself had a difficult relationship with her parents and a youth filled with rebellion and poor choices, and she tries to tell this to Liz so that she'll know “everything I've always meant to tell you but never have.”

Here's what I love: that this book is written as a letter. I don't think it would have been effective any other way. It's a simple concept – a mother writing a heartfelt, moving letter to her daughter – but it's a wonderful one, too. Letters are so PERSONAL, so special. People KEEP letters. I've never felt quite the same about a printed-out email as I have a handwritten letter, have you? I was also pleasantly surprised that Mr. Bishop didn't offend me as a male author writing as a female. This may be because the book was kind of straightforward – there weren't pages filled with flowery, desperate emotion, because the story itself was emotional enough. 

I did want to kick Laura occasionally, when she would wonder aloud whether Liz had gotten into drugs or involved too deeply with certain boys because I felt like she was the kind of parent who stood too often on the sidelines, when she should have been out on the field fighting for the well-being of her own daughter. But I kind of liked it, in a way, too, because it really made me think about how hard it is going to be to be a parent to a teenager, with conflicting desires to protect a child from everything and nothing at the same time. Protect them or let them suffer the consequences of their own poor decisions?

I also saw a lot of myself in Laura, frankly, as I see myself as a very conflict-avoiding person, and writing a letter is the best way to get out of having to do something face to face. I did a lot of that when I was younger, apologizing to my parents in notes left on pillows, and to this day I'd much rather email than talk on the phone, ESPECIALLY if the conversation could get the last bit heated or frustrating. But it was hard reading about someone else being just like me – I was annoyed at Laura that she hadn't done more, and done it sooner, and there she was, sitting there writing it down in a very passive manner. (To clarify, her STORY isn't passive, I just wanted to see her get a little more FREAKED OUT that her daughter was nowhere to be found, driving the family car around without a license. I know Bishop didn't want that to be the focus of the story, but it was hard for me not to want to slap her upside the head and say LADY! AT LEAST WALK AROUND THE BLOCK AND SEE IF SHE'S OUT THERE!)

I'd definitely recommend this book. It wasn't my favorite book or even one I'd read again, necessarily, but it was a quick read and it was well-written. Maybe a good beach read? I was pleasantly surprised that Bishop didn't make Laura into a whiny, oversexualized woman (I'm sorry I suspected him of that, originally) but a believable and engrossing character in a believable and engrossing story. I actually would really be interested in reading something else that Bishop may write; I think he does have a wonderful writing style and I'd absolutely read another of his novels should he publish more.

If you'd like to win a copy of this book (I have one to give away!) all you have to do is leave a comment telling me what the best letter you ever got was. Was it from a parent? A friend? An ex-boyfriend? I still have a book of letters and notes that Dave gave me when we were dating in high school and I was going on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic for two weeks. There was one for every day I was gone, and he'd doctored up comic strips to make the story of our (admittedly very short, at that point) relationship and I remember thinking two weeks of being away from him was going to be AGONY. (And then we broke up when I got home, but no biggie – we got married eight years later.)

Yes. Nineteen months. I'm insane.

One of the hardest things for me about being a stay-at-home parent is the fact that it's not at all goal-oriented. And I wouldn't even say I'm a completely goal-oriented person, but back when I had a paying job, I had things I worked towards. They weren't fun things or even very important things, but my paycheck and [very miniscule] yearly raise depended on me doing them, and doing them right. I had responsibilities and I met deadlines and once I met those deadlines, I got new ones. Definitive ones. There was no, “Well, it's not going so well, so let's just put this off another week or two until we're a little more emotionally ready.” In other words, work was nothing like potty training.

Motherhood is way less cut and dry; yes, there are deadlines and things we're working towards, but nothing is really set in stone and some of those goals I'm working towards are EIGHTEEN YEARS down the road. Raising children is a process, so whenever you get one thing good and licked, another one pops up that needs attention. It's nonstop action; like Parenting Whack-A-Mole. I miss that aspect of work, actually. Sometimes it's nice to know that despite all the hard work and effort, there's a stopping point not too far off ahead. Every project has an end date (unless you work for the United States Government). You go ahead and try to find a nice stopping point in any aspect of parenthood. No seriously, go ahead. I'LL WAIT.

This, I think, is why I get a little... overzealous about things like Planning a Family Vacation. It's something to look forward to; something to shop and gather in preparation for. A stopping point, if you will. A change of scenery, a break in the action. It gives me something very concrete to focus on. This is sometimes hard for my husband to understand, I think, but I get that, because he's at WORK all day. Here at home, the days just somehow stretch into weeks and the weeks into months and there are only gradual changes to note. Only after months go by can I look back and say, “Oh yeah! Look how different he/she/they is/are now!” Meanwhile Dave is finishing up another project, dusting off his hands and starting something completely new. Also, last year he got a raise. I took on TWICE THE WORKLOAD and LONGER HOURS and there is LESS MONEY THAN EVER.

Anyway, all that to tell you that we're kind of hoping to take a Big, Official Disney Vacation at some point. Perhaps in December. OF TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN, at the earliest. Um, that would be... approximately nineteen months from now, also known as two whole months longer than Lucy has even been ALIVE. Oh, don't worry, I haven't made any actual plans and nothing's set in stone. I'm just researching and number-crunching and COMPLETELY ENJOYING IT. I love comparison shopping and seeking out deals and making lists and reading tips and HEY.

SPEAKING OF TIPS. So, I have been spending time on this one particular website and I DO think it's helpful and wonderfully done but one of the tips someone sent in with regards to the Magic Kingdom was something along the lines of, “Try to get out and walk often for a few weeks before your trip, so that you can build up your stamina to make it through the parks!” And I almost FELL DOWN I was so boggled. Look, I know that Disney is a massive undertaking. It's a bazillion acres of attractions and marketing and overpriced food and *magic*, which is the most overused word I've ever seen on a message board in ALL MY LIFE but PEOPLE. Listen UP. Get in shape so you can live your LIVES, not just so you can get from Pirates of the Caribbean to It's a Small World without having to sit down on a bench with a Frozen Lemonade and a giant Turkey Leg, okay? Get in shape because it FEELS GOOD. Get in shape to be HEALTHY. Get in shape to be an EXAMPLE to your KIDS, and then so you can do things WITH them. Be motivated by LIFE, not just by giant MICE.

I mean, the tip was a good tip, don't get me wrong. You can't sit on your couch for six straight years and then expect to get a lot out of a vacation that requires you to walk three or more miles a day in the broiling Florida sun. But it made me SAD that there are people out there who aren't confident that they can make it through a whole day in a theme park without preparing themselves first. Seriously, America. Get yourselves off the couch! What are you going to do should the opportunity for a LAST-MINUTE VACATION present itself? Like the kind you can win on Wheel of Fortune? You are going to have to rent a WHEELCHAIR, is what will happen. (Perhaps Pat Sajak will just throw that in with your package.)

Gah, I hope no one's taking that the wrong way. I know I'm sometimes VERY guilty of Vacation-Induced Life Improvement (I exercised every day prior to my April vacation, remember?) but the older my kids get, the more excited I get to introduce them to new and different experiences, whether that's an all-out Disney vacation or an afternoon splashing in the creek behind our house. Their first trip to the aquarium or their first time down a water slide. My priority is to be able to do special things with them ALL the time, not just once every few years. I want to be hands-on and involved and able to swim with them in the ocean and hike through national parks and to chase them down in a parking lot full of cars, right before I take a switch to their hind ends because HOLD MY HAND, ALREADY, LIKE I TOLD YOU TO. (Kidding about the switch.) (I think.)

I always want to be able to participate, not just observe.

Friday Quick Takes: Things We Should Banish Along with Skinny Jeans Edition

One: Dogs who eat diapers. For clarification, I don't want to banish the dog so much as the diaper eating. Before a month or two ago, I could count on one hand the things that Hambone has destroyed or eaten without permission in the six years we've had him. Sometimes he would get angry when I wouldn't take him with me when I left the house, but the messes were almost laughable. There was a half-hearted attempt at a bag of cotton balls (OOOOH, what a challenge COTTON BALLS are to scoop off the carpet!) and I can recall one incident involving a Kleenex box (seriously pathetic, right? I mean, think BIG, Hambone, if you're really trying to teach us a lesson). But this diaper thing totally makes up for it. If I don't block the stairs with the baby gate when I leave the house? The dog makes a beeline for the diaper buffet. A few weeks ago, he selected a delightful poop-filled variety and ATE IT ON MY COUCH. You know what the most annoying thing about it is? Not the cleanup or the ick factor, but the fact that now, when I'm leaving the house with one kid on my hip and the other one whining about what toys he wants to take in the car and the diaper bag slung over my shoulder and making sure I grab the keys and my sunglasses and did I turn off the straightening iron and start the dishwasher? Now I have to remember YES, THE BABY GATE or else I get all the way to Target and remember that I forgot the freaking baby gate and then that sickening feeling creeps into the pit of my stomach. That sickening feeling that reminds me that I can look forward to sharing my sofa with a turd stain when I get home.

Two: Certain checkout people at the grocery store. I really and truly don't want to know that you suspect your heel pain is linked to eating beef and I most definitely do not want to see the special medication you got from California to help, especially if you are going to turn around and go digging about in your purse for it. It makes it look like I ASKED to see it, and now everyone in this very long, non-moving checkout line thinks it is at a total standstill because I wanted to see your medication.

Three: Junk mail. You know what I hate? How us Well-Meaning Americans are doing our best to reuse and recycle and Go Green or whatever the catchy phrase we're using this week is and yet certain things remain that we have no control over: WHAT WE GET SENT IN THE MAIL. Do you know how much crap I throw out each week that I haven't asked for? It's one thing when I generate dirty diapers (well, LUCY generates them) or pizza boxes or aluminum cans – those are Garbage Choices I've subjected myself to, right? I bought the diapers. I ate the pizza. I drank the Coke because the Coke is what gets me out of bed in the morning, you can take your coffee buzz and shove it. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS JUNK MAIL. This junk mail is contributing to my Household Garbage Output. Did you know the average garbage output per year per American is 1,500 pounds? In other words, I am being blamed for putting 1,500 pounds of garbage out there when I didn't even COOPERATE in generating some of it. Junk mail should be OUTLAWED.

Four: The intro to Community. We seem to always catch it on delay because we're putting the kids to bed, and for WEEKS Dave would press the fast forward button when the opening credits came on. Are you watching Community? Possibly even just because you hope Joel McHale will take his shirt off? There ARE no opening credits! There's just a little teensy song snippet and that's IT. It was SO hard to remember and every week we'd end up fast forwarding into the show and then having to rewind and then finally, two weeks ago, we turned it on and the opening credits came on and Dave put his finger on the button and I said NO, NOT AGAIN, THERE ARE NO OPENING CREDITS, REMEMBER and we high-fived and got all smug and then... what the? SUDDENLY THERE ARE OPENING CREDITS. And an entire song and everything. And now we have no idea what to do each week when it comes on. Fast forward? Leave it be? WHY SO TRICKY, NBC? Get McHale to take his shirt off again or WE QUIT.

Five: Avatar. You still can't get me to watch it. You can't you can't you can't! Say what you want but fitting the blue people onto a smaller screen (a screen inside my own HOUSE) doesn't make it ANY LESS FREAKY.

Six: Um... homelessness? Yes. Definitely. Homelessness.

Seven: Kids feeding kids.

Oh, HA HA HA HA, no no no, we will absolutely continue to allow this. OH YES WE SHALL.

It was convenient when the gaucho pants trend coincided with my pregnancy

So okay, Internet. I like my body. We've discussed this many times before. You'll remember that I haven't always liked my body, but I now have a body that weighs considerably less than it did during my college and immediately-post-college years (perhaps even less than it did for some of HIGH SCHOOL), produced two (mostly) fantastic children AND ran thirteen miles last year, IN A ROW, without stopping. I mean, yes, there are things I would change, but for the most part: HAPPY.

I feel like I have to get that little self-esteem declaration out of the way before I tell you that I am simply not able to wear anything that falls into the category of Currently Marketed Styles for the Parts of Your Body that Lie Below the Waist. Look, it is all lies, LIES, this stuff about how you can make any style work for your body. The truth is that some bodies aren't made for certain clothing styles. And normally this doesn't bother me – I have never felt terribly cheated by the fact that I don't look good in micro-minis or bustiers, but that's mostly because whenever micro-minis and bustiers seem to be in style, SO ARE LOTS OF OTHER THINGS. Less slutty things, even. Also, you would have to pay me a LOT OF MONEY to wear a bustier, and not in a prostitutiony kind of way.

So in case you haven't been out to the mall in the last year, do you want to know what's in style right now? TIGHT PANTS. You can call them skinny jeans or leggings or slim cut or TORTURE DEVICES, whatever you want. None of these things look good on a person with thick legs. I HAVE THICK LEGS. I mean, they're athletic legs, yes (see above, re: THIRTEEN MILES, BABY), but I have muscular thighs and calves. And normally, this wouldn't bother me AT ALL, except that I cannot find ANYTHING in stores that agrees with my body type. I find it ESPECIALLY offensive knowing we just came off several seasons' worth of GAUCHO PANTS. Talk about extremes, am I right? Could we have not have found a nice transitional period between elastic waist pants that don't even touch your skin and leggings, which show the outline of every bump and varicose vein? Couldn't we have brought the boot cut back in style there for a bit? I would have stocked up! I finally caved and bought a pair of shorts. Yes, shorts. I try to wear skirts as often as I can in the summer, but sometimes I need to climb a play structure in hot pursuit of a 16-month-old without showing my undercarriage to every stay-at-home dad at the park. Not that the moms want to see it either, I suppose.

You guys, I am not even making this up, I tried on a pair of CARGO CAPRIS the other night at the mall. I thought, ok, cargo capris, how could they have possibly made these slim fit? What kind of cargo can you fit in the pockets of slim-fitting pants, anyway? But they DID! And I had a pair of 12s in hand (I am normally an 8 or a 10), and I could not pull them up past my mid-thigh, because there wasn't enough room in the CALF AREA. My calves do not even fit where people's THIGHS are supposed to go. THIS IS A HEINOUS DISCOVERY.

And like I said, usually I would be all, Well! That's FINE, there are always other options! But THERE AREN'T ANY OTHER OPTIONS. Everything in the cropped pants arena this season is tight/slim fit/skinny. It isn't working for me, and it's DEPRESSING. And I know that Target has some loose-ish fit capri pants but they are made out of this completely non-breathable material and I am not looking forward to walking around in the heat of summer, looking like I sat in a puddle of my own urine. I sweat a lot, ok? It's not my favorite thing about myself (I would place that in the Would Change category for sure) but it's something I can't change, either, so I have to dress around it. I need NATURAL FIBERS. Or at least less polyester.

Anyway, so then I started looking for clothes in places I don't normally frequent, and LO AND BEHOLD, did you know there are still places where you can buy wider-leg cropped capris and roomy cargo pants? Except that... well, here's the bad news: they aren't the cool stores, you guys. These are not the stores where the young and trendy people shop. They're... they're catalogue stores and half of the stuff you can buy from them are variations on the cardigan/shell combination and most of the pants they sell are the kind that look like they might rest about an inch underneath your bra and... OMG. Either I am old and uncool or this skinny jean thing HAS GOT TO END.

Honey Maid over Nabisco, ALL THE WAY

When Lucy suddenly started sleeping through the night about a month ago (for those of you following along at home, that means she was 16 months old, or nearly TWO back-to-back PREGNANCIES, if you happen to be crazy enough to attempt such a thing), it was interesting how quickly we upped her status to Favorite Child.

I mean, you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't get all “I love my children equally and apparently way more than you love yours, you craptastic excuse for a mother” on me. It is not a crime to enjoy one phase of a child's life more than another. Some people are better with teenagers, some people are thrilled by toddlerhood, and EVERYONE is better with newborns than I am. Lucy is in a pretty awesome stage right now: she is learning new things, she is sweet and charming, and whenever she throws a tantrum, I can just pick her up and distract her with candy. (Oh SHUT UP, candy doesn't make me a craptastic mother, either.) Did I mention the part about how she finally sleeps through the night? DID I? BECAUSE SHE FINALLY DOES.

On the other hand. THE THREE-YEAR OLD.

Everything is a fight. Everything is an argument. And every fight and argument is augmented with foot stomping and I DON'T WANT TO's and sometimes even KICKING, in my general direction. Good attention or bad attention – he just wants ATTENTION, ALL THE TIME. He wants to control everything from who helps him pull up his pants after he pees to which car door he climbs in to the temperature of the bathwater. He takes toys away from his sister, he demands things instead of asking politely, he does not fall for my ploy of putting “special cheese” on the lasagna I make. What is so offensive about lasagna, may I ask? Meat and cheese and noodles? I'm sorry, but the kid must be missing a chromosome or two somewhere.

I know this is standard behavior for the three-year-old set. I knew we'd eventually get to the point where I'd seriously consider trading him in for a new bundt pan or something, but I didn't know the days would be endlessly draining. I figured there would be moments of objectionable attitude; not WEEKS that are quickly turning into MONTHS. I never even really thought much about preschool until a few weeks ago, when I collapsed onto the couch for the 15th night in a row, beaten to a pulp by his willful declarations to do exactly the opposite of whatever I asked of him, and realized that preschool means that someone else could be dealing with this crap for 10ish hours a week. I had visions of skipping off with Lucy to a flowering field where we could make daisy chains and play tea party without someone driving a battery-powered train through it and demanding we choose which pretend car we might want to ride in.

Oh, I know, it's not just that preschool would give me a break from my kid. A few months ago, I wouldn't have even seen it as a possibility for Asher, but he has grown up so much in those few months. All the hardheadedness and desire for control is a GOOD thing for this boy who has been so passive and mildly anxious about certain things. He is still really attached to me and hesitant in new settings but if his progress continues at the current rate, I see no reason why he wouldn't do fantastic in a preschool setting in the fall. Except you have to PAY FOR PRESCHOOL, which: SUCK, because staying home with me is free AND I have a good excuse to do fun things like ride miniature trains and eat popsicles and see how far I can make it across the monkey bars (TWO BARS, that's my record).

And here's the other thing about preschool: as much as I think it would be awesome to have one-on-one time with Lucy, I'm also kind of terrified of the idea. How did I ever manage with just ONE CHILD? They get on each other's nerves and take each other's toys and yes, it drives me BONKERS most days but they also keep each other entertained and HOW do you entertain a baby without an older child around to help? I DON'T REMEMBER. I always thought I'd put Asher in preschool and spend that chunk of time with Lucy in the jogging stroller, getting my exercise out of the way and maybe stopping incrementally to point out baby ducks and tadpoles in the lake and maybe a moment or two on the playground swings. But Lucy's NEVER been in the jogging stroller by herself and I think she would HATE IT because no one is there to laugh at her when she shoves too many pretzels in her mouth and blows raspberries. (I don't laugh at this as often as Asher does. He thinks it's hilarious; I am the one cleaning spittle and half-chewed pretzels out of the seat of the stroller when we get home.)

How do you go back to having one child when you've been dealing with two? I don't remember what I used to DO with just one kid! I do remember that I complained about it a decent amount, obviously having no idea what kind of amplified chaos occurs when you add another one to the mix. When I think about it now, I am absolutely HORRIFIED and EMBARRASSED about how hard I thought things were sometimes when Asher was a baby. And then I didn't sleep for like, what, two years? And yeah, that was way worse. WAY WORSE.

So were your kids happy or distressed when their older siblings went to school? And what kinds of things did you do with that chunk of time they were gone? Besides weep with joy, I mean. And the hoarding of the graham crackers. ALL THE GRAHAM CRACKERS WILL BE MINE! MIIIIIINE, I SAY!

Actually I made less than $200 because I bought a slice of pizza and a Pepsi.

I made close to $200 at the yard sale on Saturday. I haven't held many yard sales in my day, but whenever I get the itch to rid our house of superfluous crap, I like to have a goal or a prize in mind. Because yard sales are actually REALLY HARD WORK, especially if you have small children and a small house. For example, the small children find it amusing to jump on top of piles of clothing that perhaps took THREE WHOLE HOURS to separate into appropriate infant sizes and maybe that wouldn't be such a huge deal if after you sorted them, you were able to move them somewhere the children couldn't get at them LIKE A GARAGE but unfortunately, you have small children AND A SMALL HOUSE, REMEMBER? My stuff sat in the dining room for nearly a month because I only had small snippets of time during the day to organize and collect it and price it and then RE-DO IT ALL because the small people had screwed it all up. And then I didn't hold the sale in our front yard; I joined a huge community yard sale, which was nice because it attracts a lot of people and I didn't have to do any advertising, but I did have to haul all my stuff to a parking lot and wait in a gigantic line to check in for my allotted space and then set it all up AND THEN sit in the baking hot sun from 8:30am until noon, letting people talk me into selling my shoes/baby blankets/moth-eaten suits for a dollar.

See? Yard sales are hard! Doubly hard if the prize you're working towards is FOR SOMEONE ELSE. (I committed to buying Dave a new suit with our earnings.) (He really really needs one without moth holes.) (That's what I keep telling myself.) (Because I could buy a heap of cute sundresses with $200, you know?) (And remember, I DID ALL THE WORK.) (HARUMPH.)

So anyway, the way the community yard sale worked was you could drive your car right up to your space, where you were supposed to unload all your stuff, then you were supposed to take your car and park it somewhere, and come back and set up all your stuff. Dude, I parked my car at 7:45 (the yard sale officially started at 8:30), and by the time I walked back to my pile of junk, PEOPLE WERE ALREADY RIFLING THROUGH IT. Like, I could almost understand that if I'd gotten my table set up and my stuff halfway set up, but this was just a PILE. A pile that I wasn't standing anywhere near. And they didn't care if it was weird or rude or whether they were knocking all the stuff I had on hangers OFF the hangers and onto the asphalt. No, they pawed and moved on, leaving a messier pile of my stuff behind. I know that's common yard sale activity but it irks me to no end. I mean, until you hand me your one dollar, THOSE ARE STILL MY SHOES, you know? Maybe you could ask if you could take a look at my maternity bathing suit before it officially goes on sale? Especially if you're examining the crotch. Because that is just WEIRD, ok?

But otherwise, it went pretty well. I did knowingly deceive three people and I will confess that here now.

Old Chinese man who shoved his feet into some shoes and paid me a dollar for them? Those were women's shoes. I didn't tell you. I could say something about how I didn't think you cared a bit for gender stereotypes but really, I just wanted your dollar.

Lady who bought “a nice tablecloth; it's so hard to find them without stains”? Yeah. That was a shower curtain. GROMMET HOLES, lady. I blame you for that one. Thanks for the $3, though.

And kindly grandmother looking for an outfit for her future grandson? I'm sorry. It was a girl outfit. You even asked me if it was a boy outfit, after you paid me $2, and I told you YES. I totally lied. But you know, if you had to buy a girl outfit for a boy, that was the one to buy. It had a monkey on it! Everyone knows monkeys go on boy outfits, right? Girl outfits have flowers and rainbows! Nobody will even notice the bows on the matching pants. YOU'LL BE FINE.

By the time noon rolled around, I was burned to a crisp and decided I was DONE selling my crap. The best thing about this yard sale was that the Boy Scouts were collecting donations in an enormous truck at the end of it, so anything I hadn't sold, I boxed up and took to them for fundraising. I took NOTHING back home with me, except for one purse that didn't sell and that I decided I might like to use in a dress-up bin for Lucy when she's older.

This was easily the most successful yard sale I've ever had for two reasons. Number one: I only sold things I was really and truly ready to part with. The yard sale was a convenient way to get rid of the stuff, but if I hadn't held the sale, I would have willingly donated everything without a second thought. This meant that if I'd priced something at $3 and someone offered $1 for it, I was totally willing to take it. One dollar is more than nothing, you know?

I think that's the biggest mistake people make with yard sales: thinking their stuff is somehow valuable and refusing to part with it unless someone is willing to pay what THEY think it is worth. I mean, I saw someone selling a Wanda Sykes VHS tape for $10. Don't even get me STARTED, you know? Where on God's green earth is ANY VHS tape worth $10 anymore? But the person selling it is probably thinking, well, you know, I paid $20 when I bought it and it still works just fine! But at the end of the day, that person is going back home with their ridiculously overpriced Wanda Sykes VHS tape, when they could have been ONE WHOLE DOLLAR richer if they'd sold it to me so I could give it away at a white elephant Christmas party.

NOT THAT I'M BITTER.

And Number Two: I brought NOTHING home. Do you know how happy it made my husband to not have to haul six bags of crap back into the attic? Our plan (had the Boy Scouts not been there afterward like the glorious angels sent from heaven that they were) was to load the car up with everything that hadn't sold and drive straight to Goodwill. Like I said, I'd already decided to part with this stuff. It wasn't worth it to me to hold on to it to sell at a later date. TOO MUCH HASSLE.

And now I want to know: What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen being hawked at a yard sale? Because honestly, WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING? And who is buying half-used bags of cat litter and puzzles with half the pieces missing and microwaves from 1972? WHO IS DOING THIS?