Second grade homework, found in backpack today.

What’s not to love about a teacher who takes the time to make a “before the end of the year list,” and then does what’s on the list?

It sounded a bit like a Little Rascals episode downstairs. I could picture the little people in the kitchen trying to get the skillet right over the top burner. There were lots of clanking noises. This reminded me of that Katharine Hepburn movie where she cooks pancakes… making a huge mess. That was enough to put a smile on my face. They worked quietly, being careful not to fight and squabble. The fridge opened quite a bit. Dad’s flight wasn’t coming in until later that day, and the teenagers, of course, were sleeping, so it was up to these little guys, the real heavyweights, to pull off this “Breakfast in Bed,” bit.

I learned later that it went like this: The older of the two had already strategized and planned ahead. He had asked another grownup “how to cook an egg.” He rubbed the butter all over the pan – although he worried that he had used too much butter. (He didn’t.) He was fascinated at how quickly the egg “turned white.” While the egg cooked, he made the toast, leaving off the butter (to make up for using too much on the skillet). Then, he made the tea.

Meanwhile, the youngest, the baby, was watching all of this big kitchen production, wondering what he could do. “I mean – eggs, toast – and even her favorite tea?! What is left for me?! Never mind the fact that I just made her a life-size origami dress (more on that later), I have to come up with something to serve her.”

So, he remembered that tuna salad I had brought him at Whole Foods yesterday. So, he pulled, what else – but tuna salad out of the fridge. Who doesn’t think of having a tuna salad sandwich, along with their egg, for breakfast? Working parallel alongside of his brother, he proceeded to make me a tuna fish sandwich. As the final flourish, there just happened to be a bit of leftover fried kale, so he threw that on the side of the plate, like potato chips.

Throughout all of this, I did not move or stir in my bed. I just stayed put and imagined their little hands, with bodies, barely tall enough to reach the counter, cooking away.

Then, they began the migration up to the bedroom. This was quite a challenge. Our bedroom is on the third floor, which includes two landings. They walked slowly. They stumbled.  The kale, as airy as it is, had slid off the plate and left a trail of powdered dust all over the stairs. Fairy dust, I like to think of it. None of this even fazed them. They continued and tarried on upstairs.

By the time they made it to the top, I had, maybe, a tablespoon of tea left in my cup.

They jumped on the bed and stared over me while I ate. They gave me the “play-by-play” of all the events that happened in the kitchen…”Then, I got out the tea bag… and I put water in the tea kettle.” This was a very big deal to them. And it was — and I showed them how big of a deal I thought it was too.

I did finally catch them working on their cards.

They presented me with their cards, handmade, with teabags glued on top,

and told me all about how they had “planned this for over two weeks.”

Please notice the little drawing of “Susiej”

Then, the littlest one sighed, and said, “Why can’t there be a kid’s day?”

They kept waiting, watching me eat… and then, they announced that they were hungry too. Soon, I was downstairs, cleaning up their mess in the kitchen and making them pancakes. I got the kitchen cleaned just in time to make room for Daddy, who came in with my favorite goat cheeses, and wine, and made dinner for all of us.

No, this is not whipped cream…

it’s stiff and too soapy. But, if you just happen to have a bar of Ivory Soap in the house, go get it… right now.

Luckily, we have quite a bit of it stashed around in a collection…

Then, stick it in the microwave — two minutes should do it.

Then, surprise!

It grows into this amazing mountain, hollow on the inside. It’s still soap — you can break off pieces to use it to wash your hands.  Go to Our Best Bites, the inventor of this soap miracle, for more ways to transform this concoction — including a way to make “new soap.” Pinterest, of course, was where I saw the soapy mountain.

As much as he loves what happened, he’s hasn’t recovered from the shock of watching this transformation. Too afraid to hardly touch it — and certainly not yet willing to do this to “all of his soap.” not willing to give up any more bars of soap for this… even though it’s still soap.

For the past two weeks, I have been bombarded with an avalanche of questions.

“What is your favorite candy?”

“Really? You don’t remember? And besides, do you have some for me? Is that why you’re asking?”

No, there were no Smarties.

“What’s your favorite color?”

This is always a tough one… because I never know how to respond. Color needs context. When my oldest was a first grader, I told him how much I loved to wear black. The next “flower” he made for me at school was black. I try to never answer that one… and say something about “all the colors of the rainbow.”

Over the next few days the questions jumped to tea, and then towards, “what time do you wake up?”

Then it dawned on me. It’s Mother’s Day this weekend. Like boys trying to be the first one to score a touchdown goal, they are literally falling all over themselves to be the “one” who will surprise me with the thing I loved the most.

My husband tells me the biggest fight is over the “tea.” Who’s going to make it and who’s serving it to me… in bed. Then, another one, who accepts the loss, thinks he’ll “one-up” the other brother by saying, “But I know which one is their favorite.”

Then, they asked him if they could order Jumbo-Sized Smarties… from Amazon. “You’re going to flip out, dad,” they said. “They’re $24, because you have to buy them in bulk.”

I think I could really throw them if I told them about the old-fashioned soda fountain,  inside of the big-time JCPenny story on Main Street. I was small, so the second thing to greet my senses when I walked in was the chekered brown and tan floor. The first thing to hit me was the smell: a combination of ice cream, caramel, cheeseburgers, new clothes and roasted peanuts. This was heaven. My aunt used to take me there, and it was then and there that I learned it was not “OK” to eat gum found on the bar stools while we sat at the counter.

We sat at the counter and waited for the store-made “Zagnuts.” Remeber those? Roasted peanuts. The man behind the counter would scoop them out of the bin into a paper bag and sent us on our way. The bag was warm from the candy, and soon the bag held grease stains. My aunt had her own bag of Zagnuts, so I didn’t have to share with her. Then, we zipped away in her car. Later, I learned that my aunt  was diabetic. Did she need that candy, or was she cheating?

Those warm Zagnuts (not the kind you find in the wrapper at the grocery store) are my favorite. But, I don’t want to overly stress the boys. They’d hunt down a shop that would custom make Zagnuts for me, and serve them to me warm. They quest to be the first one to supply me with a warm Zagnut would create too much competition and strife. I don’t think one exists.

I’m always amazed by their innocence in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day. The boys never seem to be “missing” for extended periods of times (while they’re busy wrapping, inventing verses and rhymes, and shopping) nor do I notice the “mess” of pulled out wrapping paper and ribbons that appear on the “morning.” Their “wrapping station location” must be guarded 24 x 7 — because I have yet to find the spot. I am humbled… I always thought I never everything they were up to.

I think it was Warren Buffet who said, “We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”

There were just a few Oreos left, and only one boy in the house, so I offered to make him an Oreo milkshake with the Magic Bullet. I’m just learning to master the MB, even though my brother bought it for me a few years back. I just got it out of the box… and I’m having some fun with.

The Oreo shake was a pretty big hit… made a nice back drop for that elusive bonding moment that only comes once in a blue moon to a mom of four boys. I savored every minute.

Soon, an older brother trickled home… he nodded at the Oreo masterpiece, now a puddle in the bottom of a black-speckled MB plastic mug. Since the Oreos were gone, I offered to make him a Strawberry milkshake. He passed.

Then, the baby came home. Once he got wind of the fact that there were no Oreos left, that his only option was a strawberry shake, he had one big hissy fit. He threw out a few unkind and forbidden words. The strawberry milkshake I had offered was immediately revoked, and he was sent to bed.

Then, he dodged me. And I dodged him back… and soon he had slipped out the back door. Mad as a hornet. He wandered down the driveway and found himself on the street, in the rain, in his barefeet. A puddle started to pool around his feet.  He didn’t know where to go. All the doors to his friend’s house were closed, as it was well past dinner time.

He snuck back to our driveway, and hid along the steps of the patio, thinking that there, he was hidden from his brothers. The brothers? They were sitting in the the kitchen, watching, and laughing. Then, he snuck in through the side-door, trying to slip in unnoticed, to get some relief from the rain. But his brothers knew…they saw it all.

I warned them, “Don’t say a word to him. Not a word. I don’t want him any more upset than he already is.”

They behaved. Instead, they spoke to each other.

• “Well, I get all of his Origami paper.”
• “I guess I’ll take all of his Legos.”
• “And I definitely get his bed.”

Soon, that little Tazmanian Devil came out of hiding and staked his claim on all his stuff. And I immediately countered with, “And just make sure all your homework is done first.”

Quite a bit of time has passed, years, really, since I sat with mothers of children my own age to marvel at some new development in motherhood. There hasn’t been any. We’ve all been there, done that. We can handle those new developments now, realizing, through our years of experience, that there are uphill climbs, and downhill climbs and new progressions require a meager shift in our lives. We have learned to yield, rather than, to create a mountain of what could be a simple mole hill.

Except for this one thing. Naps. Our children dropped them years ago by the age of 2, to our dismay. However, like all things, we got over it, and learned to juggle the daily domestic responsibilities with toddlers in tow, which soon gave way to having children in school.

Nevertheless now, we are amazed that we can take naps in the presence of our children. It is simply amazing. Once again, we as mothers, who put aside such “child development” conversations long ago, are discussing them, because we are so bewildered. We discuss how and where it happens:

• There was actually room for me on the couch, so I sat down.
• We were watching a movie together, and then, I just dropped. Exhausted.

It is odd, too how the kids react. This is new for them. They are as quiet as cotton. They do not want to do anything to cause a disruption in this peaceful slumber, so foreign to their eyes.

Of course, none of this could happen without our kids being old enough to handle themselves all by themselves. And second, we have handled just about any mess they kids could come up with anyway. We just don’t care what happens while we sleep. We just want some sleep.

Except for when the moment comes, about 20 minutes into the nap, when he really needs “something.” He creeps over beside me and begins to talk to my eyelids, as if there is a part of me that is always awake, and he merely needs to tap into that dimension, while the rest of me just goes on sleeping.

This new wave of “true” reality shows (how true would you act at your job if someone were following you around with a camera?) provides a new level of entertainment to TV. I watch one, in particular, with the manly men in my house, with horror. The Deadliest Catch must be as close to hell on earth as you can get.

Heralded by the shows’s writers as the most dangerous job in the world, these men face the harsh reality of trying to make enough money to support their families and literally keep their businesses afloat. There is blood and cuts and stitches that go untreated…there is just not enough time in four months to worry about such trivialities.  Fishing for opilio or “snow crab,” causes the men to face some of the harshest conditions any of them have ever experienced in more than a quarter century of fishing.

Here’s what I’ve observed about these men — God love them for trying to support their families:

• No sleep. I thought nursing a newborn was bad. These men operate on no sleep, so dizzy they can’t stand up, doing HEAVY labor. And, don’t forget to watch the boom and that flying anchor, or you could loose a nose.
• Stuck on a boat for four months at a time. You CANNOT run out to the grocery store just for a break in a boat-ful of testosterone.
• Seasickness would be my constant battle… as I watch the ship toss in a cyclone of thunderous waves.
• HEAVY crates are hoisted out of the water — via pulleys, as wind and waves thrash again and again against the boat.
• Throwing that anchor out to drop the crates — did you see that poor guy that got hit on the side of his face with the anchor — his nose was moved to one side of his face. No medical support was called. Just a band-aid and time. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT KIND OF PAIN? Makes my eyes water.
• The food. Did you see that mess? They eat like kings, in a second rate kitchen. They are ravenously hungry, and thank goodness for those men, they is an unlimited supply of vitals. They need it.  Right after that, they showed us the clogged toilet on the ship, that finally exploded …. and then, I remember being seasick.

When I think I can’t take another second of this show, I notice myself. I’m seated comfortably on the sofa. My feet are dry. There is no wind. I am warm. I am SOOOO comfortable. I am dry. My toes are not pruned.

I am in heaven. I have seen enough… no problem in my day can match what these men are facing. I curl up in my DRY bed, that sits on a floor that is not moving, and I sleep like a baby.

Life is good.

Despite the chaos he

created

in  our

kitchen at the very last minute,

I just might miss

this winged friend. Honestly, I’m a overwhelmed with relief to see him go make a nest with his science teacher… somewhere far away from here.

There was an event at school… the kids were asked to fill out name tags for their parents, so that we could talk together in a group discussion… and know each other’s names.

This was what my kids wrote on my name tag: