The Hook

So as a mother of four, perhaps it shouldn't have taken me this long, but I've finally gotten asked to leave the sanctuary (with a child in arms) during mass. The irony--there's always irony--is that it was my smallest, most friendly, and I THOUGHT least disruptive child.

"I'm going to have to ask you to step into the training room," the usher said. Just moments before, I saw a teenage boy across the church looking at Frances, in my arms, and whispering to his father.  I was floored, completely surprised, and generally awestruck, because it never occurred to me that (1) Frances was disruptive or (2) by sitting in the sanctuary we risked being asked to leave.

I followed the usher to the door of the training room. (It should be called the crying room, WE call it the crying room, because no training really occurs there, but plenty of crying does occur there.) It's generally impossible to think there, let alone pay attention to mass. You might as well bring a magazine, some toys, and cut the kids loose. When we got to the training room door, I said, "I'm going to go to the narthex. The sound is piped in out there, isn't it?" The training room was packed. There was nowhere to sit.
"Yes, but if your child is noisy, I'll have to ask you to go to the training room."

I hung out in the narthex for the remainder of mass. At communion, the usher peeked out: "You are welcome to come in for communion," he said.

If I had thought our parish was mildly intolerant of children, here was my sign; our parish is, in fact, very intolerant of children. In particular, our pastor is very intolerant of children, as I'm certain he issued the signal for the hook, finding Frances' audible presence very unsettling during the homily.

After communion Frances and I moseyed outside to sit beside the statue of the BVM and little JC to get their take on the whole thing.

So how do I feel about it? Frankly, very relieved. I've had a feeling of "this-parish-just-doesn't-fit-us" for, oh, about two years. Now I have a very clear sign that this parish does not in fact fit us. Specifically, the parents-with-children part of our family. I'm so glad to have the permission slip, afforded by this experience, to seek out another parish.

Honestly, I don't know where to begin with my response to Father Paul. I like him; he has a tough job, I respect him, and I cannot know the depth of his daily frustrations. He has a job to do.

But I have a job to do, too: raise four young Catholics, and do my very best at it. I want them to grow up in the Church, and to keep the Church in their hearts, or their hearts in the Church, as they grow. We're just coming down off a powerful week of Vacation Bible School. On Tuesday Ezra said, "Mom, I've been loving God and Jesus all day long today." There have been conversations about God's love, about Heaven, about forgiveness. It has been amazing. Elliott, my seemingly aloof oldest son, has been moved by the experience. They all have memorized the VBS music (with dance moves), which is as touching as it is overpowering. (How many times must we listen to "You are Powerful" and "Power Shuffle" in one day???)

My children are becoming alive with the wonder of God and his creation. It's not my job to snuff it out on Sunday mornings by hissing, "Be quiet or we'll have to leave!" Uh, where's the incentive at this point? Didn't Jesus welcome the children to come to him? Which way is he? We're trying to find him!

I am reminded of this helpful essay, originally passed along to me by way of a bulletin insert from an awesome friend at our awesome former parish (that's a lot of awesome!). I read it again this morning, and it helped me feel a bit more confident and less shamed.

And yes, our weekly offering did go into the basket this week...

Nourishing the Soul

So we have another rainy day today. Another rainy day. The rain is no longer news here. Last year in Cincinnati was the rainiest year on record, or nearly so. I'm not exaggerating.

I don't know what the total is for the year so far in our corner of North Carolina, but it feels like we've moved from one rainy place to another. It's damn rainy.

So the kids are crazy. Running in the house, doing cannonballs on the couch, throwing paper airplanes, making a human train with a jump rope and racing around the kitchen, living room, hallway...It's that scene from Raising Arizona, when the swinging friends visit Hi and Ed's trailer, and their kids proceed to trash the place. One wrote "Fart" on the walls. Well Elliott wrote on the wall yesterday--in pencil, thank God--but I just couldn't help thinking, Is this for real? This kid knows better. What next?

We went to the Children's Museum today, and that helped. Still, we returned home for lunch, and the jumping, running, yelling, and whining ensued.

I often deal with it by raising my voice, banishing children to corners of the kitchen, and then returning stoveside to cook and think unmotherly thoughts while preparing the trolls' lunch.

So today Ezra and Elliott are sitting on the kitchen floor, sulking. I finally allow books and dry-erase fun. Out come the markers and alphabet cards. They become quiet. They dole out letters:

"Do you want the E? Can you do an R, Ezra? Do you want the R? Okay, you don't have to do the R. How about a J? Can you do a J?"

I think, "Yes, I could do a J right about now." But seriously, they're really that polite. And they're busy, and practicing writing, which is usually a tough sell.

And then Elliott starts humming. He's writing, it's going well, and he's humming. It's a church hymn.

I instantly recognize it as "Eat this Bread," the Taize hymn that's common at our church. We heard it on Sunday. And here he is, the kid who squirms through mass, humming. I begin singing it, and he looks up.

"Yeah, that's it," he says.

I don't really have words for that kind of grace, so simple and unexpected on just another rainy day.

Area mom loses, then finds, then serves amazing cookies

I can't say that there hasn't been anything going on, but I can say that, after the kids fall asleep, I really enjoy some nonverbal time late at night.  When the kids aren't talking, arguing, asking questions, barking orders, crying, yelling, etc., I'd much rather knit.

And it's easier to put down knitting, tend to a crying child--as I did just now, HERE, mid-sentence--than it is to return to something that requires verbal thought like, say, a sentence. Where I live, right now, is where the  mind meets the mundane.

Sometimes, though, like last Thursday, the daily routine becomes punctuated by a moment of grace. Often these miracles involve toilets or moving vehicles. Last Thursday's mini-miracle did, in fact, involve a car, but it did not hinge on seat belts, or safety, for that matter. But it was my fault for putting the cookies from Ezra's preschool teacher on top of the car.

I am the last person in the world you need to tell about not putting things on top of a car. I never, ever do this, because every time I do--which is so rare--every time, I forget whatever it was, until, oh, hours later. ....It will always end like that. But I was trying to insert three kids, the coats they had shed, two bags, and three melty cookies into the Golf. It's a two-door.  Onto the roof they went.

So when we got home from preschool and Elliott asks, "Can we have our cookies now?" I can hear, in my mind, something like the sound of air leaving a tire. Shhhhhh......Damn it, I think. I know exactly where those cookies were....

My failure to bring them home safely was not just my failure of my own kids--they love cookies, for sure, and these were Unexpected Cookies, even. In my own mind, I had failed Ezra's preschool teacher, because she is the most incredible preschool teacher ever. She had thought of Elliott, Ezra, and Ruth, and had made sure they had leftover cookies from Ezra's Teddy Bear Picnic. I had thoughtlessly left them on top of the car on the way home.

"Do you want to go back to try to find them?" I ask.
"Yes!"
Sure. It's 3:45 on a Thursday. Why not?

And so we go. I'm sure we can trace the three miles back to preschool, and I'm sure we'll see traces of a white napkin and three bear-face cookies. It seems crazy, but I'm sure we'll find them.

We get only three blocks from the house. There they are, sitting in the road at the edge of our neighborhood. Face-up. Uncrushed. Two were stuck together, thanks to the chocolate chips and the frigid weather. One was a little crumbly, but all were right there, in the intersection, waiting for us. The napkin is still wrapped beneath them. I jumped out, checked traffic, picked them up, and hopped back in.

The cookies must've slid off the roof so gently as I made the right turn that they just landed right there, as if placed by an invisible hand. The kids were amazed, but not as much as I was. To them, it made sense. We went back and we picked them up. They didn't understand the odds involved, the physics, the crumble, the luck.

"Did you eat them?" my brother Jimmy asked later when I retold the story on the phone.
"Of course we did," I answered. "What do you mean, 'did we eat them?' How could we not?"

On the day you were born

On the day you were born, your mother might well have been happy--maybe ecstatic--but she probably wouldn't have admitted, "Hey, I'm really enjoying myself." Elliott is five today, which means I'm 35 today, which means we've spent six birthdays together. I should be accustomed to sharing a birthday by now, and YES, Elliott is the loveliest birthday present a mother can imagine, etc.,etc. But damn, birthdays can be exhausting. Here I am, enjoying my birthday the best way an introvert can envision, and that's quietly, alone, in blissful, self-directed contemplation. Hurrah! Finally! It only took an entire day to get here.

That lovely banner behind the alstromeria is--ta-da--handmade, FINALLY, to replace our tired cardboard banner. The cake, one in a long line of construction cakes--also made by me.

I owe Elliott a post, about being born, and about sharing a birthday, and about all the lovely things mothers think about their children who are growing up before their eyes. But this evening's short post allows me to admit that I've had a decent but very tiring birthday. Perhaps that's the kind of birthday one has when one reaches the Uneventful Years.

The Good:
(1) delicious food, expertly prepared
(2) Elliott's banner day
(3) a family gathering, and everyone, including myself, behaved well

The Bad:
(1) Who do you think cooked the food?
(2) How much time did we spend looking for the Shu Todoroki diecast car that we still ended up ordering from Amazon?
(3) Duh!

An appreciation of things homemade makes something like a birthday difficult to enjoy without putting too much into it. But at the end of the day, I guess we can take pride in a birthday well done.

Normal quiet evening

It's our last night at the beach, and like all (good) vacations, it has come to the point of sappiness. I sit rocking the baby, who will not succumb to sleep--there's just too much to see and do, still--she continues to babble, squirm, bounce, and resist a rest. Between squirms, it's difficult not to notice every little thing, trying to catalogue the details in order to cement a memory.

Of course, the irony isn't lost on me that I do this at the tail end of a lovely vacation just as I do at home, when the average day hasn't been too memorable at all. But, as with kids afoot, it's always the little things that persist and become the stuff of rumination. 

But tonight it's stellar scenery. It's the moon, orange turned white, marbly and still, high in the sky already. The thin flannel clouds that no longer shroud the moon. And the gusty white noise of wind and surf, indistinguishable from one another. The moonlit water at high tide looks to threaten the beachfront homes across the street. From the rooftop porch, the night is simple and dramatic. 

The baby finally settles to nurse, and as I curl her in a blanket, she calms to sleep. I continue rocking, listening to the wind and surf, blinking away my hair, wondering about what we all wonder on such wonderful evenings: loneliness, and aloneness; family; mortality; the past, but prettier and too gone; the future, marching full on and full of tall orders.

A beautiful night. One of the many nights I've vowed to always remember, and of course I've forgotten every one. Because sleep calls so sweetly, and before I put pen to paper I put head to pillow, grateful for all those things that I fail to articulate before exhaling into sleep.

Good night, vacation! 

Incredulity and the Banal

What I thought yesterday to be my missing house keys, hiding in the pocket of a seldom-used coat, turned out to be a handful of hardened gummi fruit snacks.

Last night, instead of getting to work after the kids' bedtime, I spent an hour patiently reattaching the seven keys they had pried from my laptop.

The sites of my daily wonder never cease to amaze me, but it's an amazement that doesn't easily translate to the "outside," to a child-free world.

Food Review: Mike Sandwich

When you write a review of a meal or dining experience, you should generally take notes as you consume your food, and write things up soon afterward. Here I am, though, bucking such best practices as I try to remember a breakfast sandwich I enjoyed three years ago.

Bruegger's now offers (for a limited time) some kind of Maple Sausage Something Sandwich. It's a bagel, sausage, egg, and cream cheese. The bagel and cream cheese might be flavored. I haven't tried it, so I can't speak to its quality.

My first thought was, "Wow. Maybe someone told them about the Mike Sandwich." But a quick Google search yields nothing relevant for "Mike Sandwich." So let me be the first to put the word out on the best breakfast sandwich you'll find on this side of the chili belt, this side of the barbecue border, this side of the sweet tea DMZ.

You can order a Mike Sandwich at SPoT Coffee, on East Ave. in Rochester, NY. And if you find yourself there, you should. As you wait for your sandwich, take in the expansive space: it's an old Chevy dealership, from back when architecture meant something different, and a car dealership might have exuded a sense of beauty and grandeur. It's an Art-Deco-y place, with the glitzy chrominess worn off and reinhabited by an earnest coffee shop.

Your sandwich, when it arrives, is a bagel that contains within its halves a sausage patty, fried egg, a slice of provolone, and a generous spread of cream cheese. I didn't say it was healthy. I only said, and will say again, it's damn good.

You may not be nearby, but if you find yourself in Rochester (or near any of their chain locations, as I now realize SPoT has expanded in the northeast), do yourself an unhealthy favor. Hunker down and enjoy winter by eating-for-hibernation.

Birdwatchers

A new great thing--of the few great things--about Cincinnati in the wintertime is the opportunity for birdwatching. When nature is stripped bare, it's easier to see what, and who's, left during the cold season. We can now see seemingly far-off traffic lights flickering through the bare treetops. We glimpse neighbors we didn't know we had. But we're also seeing birds now.

Some dear friends gave us a terrific bird feeder stand, with hooks and spots for everything imaginable. After a false start with squirrels--I'm sure they'll be back--our recent snowfall and frigid temps brought the birds flocking to our yard. Hurrah!

We've hung the World's Cheapest Bird Feeder (free) and a suet feeder. In the past few days the birds have outnumbered squirrels by an appreciable margin, and so we're tickled pink. We've spotted:

Sparrows

House finches

Juncos

Chickadees

Tufted titmice

Carolina wrens

Cardinals

Downy woodpecker

I doubt we'll see anything exotic, but any little thing that makes our ho-hum corner of our city more lively is a step in the right direction. We're making small steps with the bird feeder.

Another benefit is that its location, just outside the dining room window, encourages more time spent at the table, which is a definite plus for my two fidgety, picky eaters.

Of course the cats enjoy the entertainment as much, or more, than we do. And I'm sure our hungry bird neighbors are happier still.

Casing the Joint

Just before Thanksgiving someone relieved our neighbor of her central air conditioning unit. More specifically, they ransacked the a/c unit, leaving the carcass strewn about her back yard. It was a mess. "Thousands of dollars in damage for twenty bucks' worth of scrap metal," that's what the cop told her. They do this for the scrap metal they can cut out of the thing. It goes without saying that she was finding it difficult to get into the holiday spirit when I talked with her that Thursday morning.

If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it countless times more: “People. They’re the worst.”

Last night Jay discovered a bag of trash that was not ours in our recycling bin. We aren’t the neatest family, but we do know what trash is ours. This wasn’t. Opening the bag revealed standard poor-folks trash: quickie-mart trash, smokeless tobacco package, small cardboard cartons of some kind of milk or juice. The kind of junk you accumulate if you don’t cook much and/or don’t have much money.

The disheartening thing was that our recycling bin wasn’t on the curb. It was tucked beside our a/c unit, which is beside our garage door, in a secluded little corner in our driveway. When we had our roof redone, this is the corner, we later realized, that the roofers used as a bathroom.

So, of course, we put it together, ran through some scenarios, and our hackles were, and are, up. Someone may be scoping our house. Maybe they brought the trash over so they looked more legit as they checked out our a/c unit. Sure, they could’ve just needed a place to ditch their trash bag, but why in our bin, when it’s not readily visible?

So tonight I looked out the back door and noticed some fresh tracks in the snow leading from the sidewalk, straight through the back yard, around the end of the driveway, over to the corner of the neighbor’s house, and then down to our driveway. Big man-sized tracks, so they don’t belong to any of the neighbor kids. They were quick tracks, with no detours, but no purpose either, which is the most disturbing thing. They don’t belong to any of our neighbors or their kids. Weird.

People. They’re the worst.

Earlier today I spoke with the local police officer in charge of our area—about the trash incident—and he confirmed that it sounded odd. So now, with tracks through the yard, I have a rash of emotions—a lot of anger, and a little trepidation. It could all be coincidental, and not easily explainable, and just plain random. Or it could mean that someone would like to help themselves to something we own.

Going into the Christmas season, this may be the perfect challenge to my general belief in the goodness of humanity. When I play possible robbery scenarios in my head, none of them involve any kind of compassion or forgiveness on my part. Mostly I just unleash, with “great vengeance and furious anger,” in the words of Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction, who was quoting the Bible, ironically.

The home is one’s castle. At this time of year, it’s usually a joyous castle. It’s a shame to want to keep the lights on not out of festive spirit, but rather to discourage thieving shitheads.

I really wanted to write about how I saw a coyote tonight. It crossed Westwood Northern Boulevard in front of my car, and for that split second, I had that sense-of-a-moment, part delight, part sadness, that you get when your sphere collides with that of an animal who deserves more nature than what it has.

But instead, the tracks I focus on are the ones that are much closer, still, to home, where we apparently live in contested territory, too. May the thieving shitheads not win.

Why, homemade mustard, of course!

This morning finds me snuffing and sniffling on the couch, trying to remember how long I've been coughing and blowing my nose. Has it been one week or two? Is it a continuation of the last cold, or a new cold? And why does that even make a difference? Could drinking apple cider vinegar help, if I don't want to go to the doctor? Would apple cider vinegar make me gag? Oh, the questions of a congested mind.

Well, yesterday morning was exciting, unlike this morning. As Jay enjoyed his raisin bran, I busily stirred some homemade mustard on the stove. I brimmed with pride--I can make my own mustard, so Ha! Take that, commercialized world! I can make a condiment!--as Jay retreated to the living room, trying to avoid the pungent aroma that soon dominated the house.

He left for work, and I sheepishly put it in the fridge. Come lunchtime, though, I couldn't wait to whip out the mustard and a soft pretzel to have a taste. (The pretzels, made the day before, screamed for mustard, and so a mere project became an Affair--not uncommon with me, as you may well know by now.)

This mustard. Mmm. Words fail me. Dear reader, get thee to a kitchen, I say, and make mustard. If you are not too unlike me, you'll be tickled pink to realize you can do one more thing better than some thing from a store. And that, in this day and age, is triumphant.

This mustard is hot. Very hot. And quite sweet. Think of the mustard you get with Chinese take-out, with some sweetness added. I'm sure it's basically the same. The recipe--and encouragement--is Ann Hodgman's Heroic Mustard, from her darling, priceless cookbook, One Bite Won't Kill You, which I will rave about endlessly until I die. If I could be Ann Hodgman, I would, but I can't, unfortunately. So I'll pore over her cookbooks, and maybe I'll send her a gentle reminder to get those cookbooks reprinted, and this time, with a sturdy sewn binding, and on better paper.

Oh, back to the mustard. It's basically one-half cup Colman's mustard flour and one-half cup distilled white vinegar, and a wee bit of salt, which you mix up and let sit overnight. Then you add one-fourth cup sugar and a beaten egg, and whisk it all in a small saucepan over low/medium heat 'til it reaches boiling (steaming and bubbling). Let it cool, scoop it into a clean jar, and keep it in your fridge. AH says it'll last a month in the fridge, but if I make another batch of pretzels, mine will be gone lickety-split.

What the day brings

Do you ever have one of those days? One of those moments when you must give it up to Humility? Like yesterday, when feeding the cats, I flung a chunk of it into Ezra's hair, and then Ezra had to endure a dry cleaning of sorts, while Elliott screeched for more sandwich? (When, I ask, isn't FOUR sandwiches in one day ENOUGH?)

Today's one of those days, too, apparently.

I wake up early--after a 10-hour crash, no doubt my body trying to get an upper hand on the second sinus cold of the season--to make sure we still have money. And the student loan, which has been on "auto-pay," is no longer auto-paying. Of course the student loan site yields no helpful information. So I must wait for the rest of the world to wake up, so I can try to cough up a chunk of money, pronto, in addition to the phlegm.

I should have known something like this would end up on my plate. The weekend went well: a visit to the in-laws' with enough beer and not too much political talk. I accomplished some knitting. We enjoyed being outdoors in a way that's difficult in our corner of Cincinnati: free-range children riding bicycles in the road and inky, sparkly nighttime skies.

Ah, the fly's in the oinment today! At the House of Bunthoff we'll ready ourselves for a good slather; it's too early to succumb. It's Monday, it's Ohio, it's November. Bring it on; we're not ticklish.

Boo! Boo! Boo!

the wizard; no beard just yet



Bob and The Wiz

Our delightful cat-o-lantern

Our first real Halloween: we walked the street and brought home candy. In case you can't tell, Elliott was Bob the Builder, and Ezra, despite popular opinion tonight, was not Harry Potter, but was just a plain old wizard (our answer to What is a boy witch?).

Being the mom, and a mom who loves making things, I was quite pleased with myself that the homemade costumes--well, the homemade parts--came off so well. Though you can't really see it, Elliott's Bob the Builder shirt is a painted long-sleeve t-shirt. (His knit hat is homemade too, but it was a necessary addition, not keeping with the theme, though I was delighted he'd wear it. I can never bundle him up enough.)

Ezra's wizard hat was my triumph. I whipped it up in a quick hour while Elliott was at preschool one morning. It was a felted wool sweater and some scraps of fabric and ribbon. It became a wizard hat that barely fits. Again, I'm tickled pink that he kept it on his head--more attributable to the dip in temperature than to my fine handiwork, I'm sure.

Ezra's gown is a piece of plain fabric, folded in half and with a head hole cut out. The little belt is another fabric scrap. His beloved broom got spruced up with some sparkly ribbon wound around and taped on.

We gathered altogether too much candy on our brief walk, and Elliott's sweet tooth is raging. I'm sure he'll make a beeline for it tomorrow morning.

The pumpkin is another delight, though it was short-lived. Elliott was not nearly as interested in pumpkin carving as I'd hoped. Both boys were actually much more fascinated with the carving tools (not a knife, thank goodness, but a "safe carver") than what we found inside the pumpkin. Elliott helped a wee bit, and Ezra just sat on the kitchen table.

As you can see, we carved a darling, mischievous, snaggle-toothed cat. He came out well, and I was so proud. And so I took it personally when I found him this morning all chewed by squirrels. I know it's just the way of the world, but I couldn't help feeling that the squirrels singled me out--not unlike that angry humiliation one might feel upon finding the car rifled through after leaving it unlocked overnight. I was asking for squirrel trouble.

Small things: mirepoix

As we age, and our tastebuds dull, one might generalize that we mature into an appreciation of complex flavors. There's definitely something to this, and I'm sure I'll explore it in a later post. We tend to like more things because, ironically, we don't taste them as well, or as acutely, as we could or would have—had we dared—in those youthful salt-and-sugar-filled days.

But I'd argue that we also have the capacity to appreciate simple tastes. As I become a more mature cook, I thing I'm appreciating simpler fare. Okay, I give myself too much credit. Perhaps I'm just becoming a lazier cook. Regardless of the reason, today I sing the praises of mirepoix.

I remember my delight at discovering this luscious French word that makes "onion, carrots, and celery" sound exotic. But of course those foodie French have a lovely little word for, according to my trusty Food Lover's Companion, "a mixture of diced carrots, onions, celery and herbs sautéed in butter" (391).

On Sunday we gave thanks over bleak dinner fare: pasta and sauce. As my ever-gracious husband noted, "It's food."

Unsurprisingly, Monday found us with plenty of leftover pasta and a sauce that, while not bad, was clearly a dinner plate team-player without a team. Poor jarred pasta sauce. You tried.

Enter mirepoix. What would we have done without you? With you, dinner goes from blah to blah-ZOW!

So if you find yourself in a similar tight spot, consider a little mirepoix magic:

Lovely Baked Pasta

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Get a casserole pan ready.
   
2. Boil some pasta in a pot (shapes are better than spaghetti).
   
3. Meanwhile, mince an onion, a carrot, and a rib or two of celery. Use a food processor if you've got it. That's your mirepoix, darlin'.
   
4. Sautee the mirepoix in some butter. Cook it until it's good and soft.
   
5. If you want to brown a little ground beef too, throw it in.
   
6. Add some dried oregano and basil, and a little salt and pepper.
   
7. When it seems nice and cooked down, add some spaghetti sauce. How much? Whatever's in the fridge or the cupboard. Whatever looks good to you.
   
8. Now toss the saucy mix with the pasta, which should now be cooked and drained, and pop it into the casserole pan.
   
9. Add some cheese if you're into cheese (we are).
   
10. Sprinkle more cheese on top.
    
11. Cover with foil and bake for at least half an hour.
    

This, like many pasta meals, improves with age—to a point, of course. Enjoy it, and enjoy your leftovers the next night. Pat yourself on the back for (1) learning a French word, and (2) jazzing up a boring old pasta meal. Go you!

Home again, home again

We're back in Cincinnati, from a trip to NC: job hunting, football game, and time with the grandparents. We're saying our prayers for the job; the game was good (though Cincinnati lost); and time with the grandparents is always fun.

Of course, returning home from home makes me think about how we think about homes.

This was our first trip to NC since December 2009, and the time away has given us some perspective. We arrived home to our house last night with a sigh of relief. The 8-hour drive was lengthened by an hour sitting in stopped traffic, and we were so relieved to be in our own space again. The boys played with toys they had forgotten they had. We made some omelets for a quick dinner. We went outside as it was darkening for those last few minutes of play time.

What makes home home? Familiarity and comfort, and they often go hand in hand. Safety. Family. Here in our little house on the corner, I have a laundry list of improvements to make it homier. The list remains untackled for two reasons: (1) start-up money, and (2) fear of commitment. After more than three years here, I'm still having a hard time calling this "home" emphatically enough to invest in some serious housewarming projects, like painting rooms, framing art, sewing curtains, and--gulp--installing that fence I so desperately want.

As I think about moving to NC, hoping that we'll be able to live closer to my family, I have conflicting thoughts. Shouldn't I be able to make anywhere "home"? On the other hand, what is it about the area I grew up in, apart from my family's proximity, that makes it feel like home? I can't articulate why it feels comfortable, but it's an unmistakable feeling. Is it landscape, weather, deeply imprinted memories, or "a certain slant of light"?

I likely won't figure that one out soon. What I do know is that my boys need outdoor space. The hands-down best part of visiting grandparents is their outdoor kingdoms. Both sets of grandparents are blessed with a world of outdoors for our boys. Though our own yard is modest, we can long for that delicious free roam at the grandparents'.

This weekend the boys sat on tractors, had tractor rides, played in the hammock, dug dirt in the yard, walked and biked 'round the yard, took stroller rides, collected acorns, and ate most meals outside on the deck. Don't fence them in! (Oh, but a fence might be nice!)

Homes should give us room to grow, I think. And while I know we're truly blessed to have a safe, spacious, comfortable home here, I think we could do with less space inside and more outside, because boys grow best when they get that sunlight and fresh air. It seems to make their smiles brighter.

But is she working enough?

At quarter past eleven I'm here grading papers. The rest of my family is sleeping. I am incredibly envious. I waver, as I do every night, between rest and work. Most nights I work, but I'm tired, unfocused, impatient, and uncreative. I hate night work. I'm a morning person.

The same old discussion surfaced again tonight, and the usual fallout has me angrier than usual. It's the "we don't have enough money" talk, but it should really be called the "I don't make enough money" talk. Because I don't. The kids should be in daycare, and I should be making money. One of those lucrative teaching or administrative jobs. You know, those jobs they're waving at adjuncts and career students? Yeah, one of those great jobs.

Every time I number-crunch, the answer is a no-brainer. Making $13/hour, full-time, I would make enough to cover childcare, I think. Um, please? I would be working so that...someone else could be working to watch my children? Isn't that just a little nutty?

So I adjunct-teach one course right now, via the internet, and it helps. It really helps. But I am exhausted. Really exhausted. It looks like I'll try to pick up more classes, though I don't know how I'll actually teach them. We need the money.

Don't get me going about pay for adjuncts. It's untenable for teachers, a bargain for schools: that's the politest way I can describe it.

My point is that I'm the one that's "not working," and so I really should be working more, since I'm the one who's just having fun with the kids all day. It's only fair that I should burn the midnight oil. I know he likes his job, and works full-time, which is plenty. When is what I do considered "plenty"? Well, when I get a DAMN JOB, apparently.

I'm having a hard time with this. How much more am I supposed to do in order to do "my share"? I think I'm supposed to try to get my eves and weekends job back so we can all be miserable all over again. Oh yeah, I forgot. That was really great. It was really great, having enough money. I forgot how much fun that was.

Cincinnati's Just OK

I wrote a piece that's in CityBeat this week; here it is.

The Life of the Mind

Jay returned from an evening walk with the boys and again proclaimed that we must move out of our neighborhood. Alas, we cannot afford to, as you've heard me griping about already. When I hear him say, "I make what I make. We don't have enough money," what I hear is, "If you had a real job, we could afford to move (and afford a million other things)." The message I hear sends me into a tailspin every time.

The job thing. It's more complex than having or not having a job, firstly because the pay in my field is modest. Adjunct English jobs pay a pittance, generally not enough to make it worthwhile if it necessitates childcare. For example, a course at a local community college pays $900 for a nine-week term. Childcare for two would mean about six hours per week. Do the math. It's sobering.

But as my one adjunct gig wants to see me "professionalizing" in my field—writing papers, presenting at conferences, getting articles published—I realize that my hang-up with teaching isn't purely economic. It's the challenge of maintaining the life of the mind when my daily life leaves no room for such luxuries.

Why, I ask myself, did I pursue an area of study so irreconcilably at odds with the practicalities of life? I'm baffled by my oversight. And now I'm scrambling to figure out how my schooling may transfer to some kind of livelihood outside of academia, because I don't see any way of scraping together the massive amounts of thinking time I'd need.

So now I'm thinking of all those other mothers out there, whose life of the mind is challenged by raising a family. Our minds are never idle—not by any stretch. Rather, they are occupied constantly by the daily details, vigilant attentions, to-do lists, decisions, and tiny teachable moments that have taken the place of quiet reading and careful scholarly contemplation.

Truthfully, it's much easier to attend to the daily life than it is to retain academic conversation in the foreground. The struggle comes with hoping they'll reside under the same roof. It's hard keeping house here, sometimes.

Elbow Grease

Those of you who have visited my home have no doubt noticed that our bathrooms don't typically exude that "We Were Expecting You" feel, even if we were, in fact, expecting you. We knew you were coming, but still, it wasn't enough of a nudge to clean the damn bathrooms.

First of all, I apologize. I love a clean bathroom as much as the next person, but for some reason I just don't get enthused about cleaning my own, and there are a million other things to keep clean: dishes, diapers and duds immediately come to mind. What's more, a bathroom in my house stays clean for about forty-five seconds (just like the litter boxes). Maybe there's a bat-signal I don't know about: Clean bathroom! Clean bathroom! So although it makes no sense, there's little encouragement. At least I can admire my clean sink until the next meal.

Well, back to the bathrooms. Did you notice the toilets were not as sparkly as they should be? That they even had stains in the bowls? Why am I asking? Of course you noticed. Who hops onto a toilet without looking in the bowl? No flies on you. The toilets were atrocious.

Well not anymore, I smugly report. I whipped them into shape. So come on over, 'cause they're clean as new and we all know they won't stay that way for long. I'm not going to include a snapshot, because you know what a clean toilet bowl looks like. You haven't seen one in my house, so all the more reason to stop by. Have a drink. Visit the powder room.

But my post, though brimming with satisfaction, is not simply about Mission Accomplished. It's the means, my friend, not the ends. "Scale remover" topped my grocery lists for the past month because I was too miserly to spring and exorbitant eight bucks for a bottle of mystery chem. I absolutely hate spending money on something like that, potent but undrinkable. Gawd. If I'm going to get a bottle of whoopass, it's bleach. Bleach is bleach. Cheap, mean, and gets the job done. End of story. It's my version of having a gun in the house.

So no scale remover. Just me versus the toilet. I did use some bleach, let it sit, let it think about the possibilities. Not much help. Then, scrubbing away with my yellow gloves and scrubby sponge, I began to think of other tactics. What is this stuff like? It's the question I ask when I don't have the right word, or tool, or technique. It should have been so obvious, perhaps: removing toilet scale is like getting my teeth cleaned. Scrape scrape scrape. So I grabbed a small flathead screwdriver and got to work, carefully chipping away. It worked like a charm. Pretty nifty.

Now I'm thinking of all those other chemicals people use in their home, and I wonder how we'd all make do without them. We'd probably have stronger, well-greased elbows—and minds too.

Quiet time

When Elliott's asleep it's hard for me to reconcile this picture of peacefulness with the ball of fire he is when he's awake. Lately he has become more assertive, getting angry when he comes up against all those "can'ts"--can't hit or kick or sit on Ezra; can't use the windows as drums; can't have cookies instead of dinner. And on it goes. It's damn difficult redirecting him, changing can'ts into cans in the blink of an eye. I'm not that good at it, really, and I say "no" an awful lot more than I'd like.

But then I look at him sleeping, and I think, "How on earth do I say 'no' to this guy all day?"