The Day Mom Officially Retired From Cutting Hair

Like most big families, we have found ways to cut corners and make the finances work. We buy groceries at Aldi and Sam's and we have a side of beef and a whole pig in our freezer (compliments of my dad). The boys all share clothes, shoes, bikes, roller blades, video games, and no one gets a new backpack or winter coat for school unless the zipper breaks.

I like to think that these type of sacrifices build character in my boys. I remember drinking powdered milk that my mother would make in a huge Tupperware pitcher. It was horrible! I shared a room with my sister and all three of us kids worked various jobs from the age of 12 (old enough for corn detasseling - which is basically taking young kids and turning them out into rows of corn that went on for miles and using them like human machinery to pull the tassels off the corn). Now that was character building!

One way that we have saved money as a family is by me cutting the boys hair. While this has saved us some cash, it has not been without a price. My oldest two boys were given a choice, either let mom cut it for free or you can pay for your own haircut where ever you want. They let me continue to cut it until they really cared about how they looked. My oldest has really thick, coarse, curly red hair and I pretty much couldn't screw it up.

There was one time when I thought I was done with his hair and he took a shower and then I looked at his head and saw this line going from one ear to the other. It was so bad. I think the phone rang half way through his cut or something, because there was surely a problem.


Our second son, Luke, gave up on me because for some reason, I always had trouble with his bangs. I only have one hairstyle in my repertoire - short, really short, Buzz cut preferred! Luke liked his hair a little longer and I just couldn't handle it. After more than one botch job, Luke has taken his "business" elsewhere. Now, he happily goes to my hair-stylist (a professional).

Well, I have just recently crossed the line of no return as I threw out my clippers, (they were rusty anyway and pulled the skin into the pinchers), the scissors, the combs, the guards - EVERYTHING GONE!

My son Joel (11 and going into Junior High in two days), begged me to "trim" his hair which had grown for several months to a very "Jonas Brothers" looking "I'm So Cool" length. Joel liked to whip his head quickly to the side in a smooth gesture to get his bangs out of his face. It was his trademark. I don't mind the longer hair. I do have a line - NO MOHAWKS, permanent color, etc... But the longer hair is fine.

The other boys (especially the older two) loved to tease Joel and call him a girl because of his long hair. It didn't phase him. He would roll his eyes at them and say, "You're just jealous."

So, with two days until school starts, I decided to sit Joel down and trim it. I started out okay, but something strange happened and it was like I couldn't stop it until it was too late. Joel wanted the bangs a little shorter and I even said, "Let's take off just a little at a time because we can always cut more, but we can't put it back once it's cut."

I was using scissors and a comb and 10 minutes into it, I was feeling myself sink further and further in the "hole" as Joel's head began to shrink into his neck. He held his body still and watched the long blond locks fall like the seeds off of cotton weed on a windy day. He glanced up at me and said, "Mom, NOT TOO SHORT."

I told him I was doing my best and that I wasn't a professional. I was trying to get the sides even and every time I would cut one side, the other would look shorter. Then I would cut more off of that side and the other one would look shorter still. It was madness!

I finally stopped before the kid was completely bald and Joel took one look and the tears came. I felt terrible! Here is my young boy, about to enter the "junior high jungle of blood sucking bullies" and I have just made him look like the biggest dork on the block! Somebody shoot me!

I told Joel to go take a shower and maybe it will look better when he gets out. It didn't. He put on a sweatshirt and put the hood up and said that he wouldn't be attending school this semester. I could home school him until Christmas was over and then he could go back.

I felt worse. I did what I never thought I would - I asked him if $20 bucks would make him feel better. He has been saving every penny doing odd jobs for an XBox 360 ($300). I thought that a $20 boost might help him forget about his botched haircut.

His deep blue eyes were barely recognizable they were so bloodshot. He looked at me and nodded that the $20 would help. He stopped crying for a moment and said, "Mom, if I need surgery someday, are you going to try and save money and do that yourself too?"

Of course not, Joel, I said as I offered him another $20. Ugh!

The next day, I was able to get him in to my hair stylist and she (a wonderful mom of three grown children) really helped sooth the pain of his short hair. She told him that she was going to just straighten it out so that as it grows out, it will all come in even and look nice - like the Jonas Brothers, she said.

That was all Joel needed (my $40 bucks didn't hurt either) to help him have the strength to face the world of Junior High even with a Bill Gates haircut!

Yes, I really did throw out all my supplies and my two youngest boys will be spared the humiliation of mom cutting their hair at those oh so tender ages!

The Cleanest Christmas Tree Ever

When you have five children, the potential for adventure lurks in every moment. We have rocks up the nose stories, fire in the oven stories, wet cement stories, but there is one DeGraaf story that has become known as "The Classic." This is the one that friends will pull me aside after church to meet their sister from Cleveland and say, "Tell her the Christmas tree story - that's my favorite!"

So, here goes...

It was a sunny mid-December day and a balmy 45 degrees here in Chicagoland. We decided it was perfect weather for going to the tree farm and chopping down our Christmas tree. We piled everyone in the car (at the time, our oldest was in junior high and our youngest was about a year old). We spent a couple hours searching the farm for just the right one (like it mattered), chopped it down, went on a hayride, drank some hot chocolate, gave the tree to the man who put it on the shaker, bound it in plastic netting and tied it to the luggage rack of our van.

We decided to take the boys to Pizza Hut. This was our very first attempt at taking our whole family to a restaurant and it was mayhem. Our little guy was fussy, the 3 year old spilled a huge glass of pop, pizza sauce was everywhere, and the wiggling was out of control!

We got back in the car and headed home.

We lived on a gravel road, so our mini-van was in constant need of a car wash. On that day, it was completely covered in dust; especially the rear window. I had purchased 100 car wash coupons at the local automatic car wash and had gotten into the habit of running the van through every time I passed the car wash.

You guessed it……I turned to Ron and said, “Hey babe, it’s a beautiful day, let’s get the car washed.” Turns out, he is just as dumb as I am and he said, “Okay.”

The car wash was jam packed with people (remember it was December and 45 degrees in Chicago - everyone was out getting the winter sludge and salt off of their vehicles). We pulled in behind 2 or three other cars. Someone else pulled in behind us and we were just waiting our turn, when this guy came walking over to the driver’s side window (I thought Ron knew him from work or something, ‘cause the guy had a big grin on his face.)

He said “Hey man, how ya doin?"

Ron said, "Pretty good."

The guy said, "You know you can’t go through the car wash," as he looked up and pointed to the top of our van.

At first, Ron looked at him with his head cocked slightly to the side as two deep folds formed between his eyebrows with a look of "Why not?"

And then reality set in for the both of us. We had an 8 foot blue spruce strapped to the roof of our vehicle. I laughed so hard I was crying! I mean, I laughed all the way home and seriously almost wet myself.

Our junior high aged son said he was going to write an essay titled “Why my parents are morons."

Holy Underwear

Getting our entire family to church on Sunday morning is a miracle nothing short of Moses and his Red Sea crossing. The weekly arrival of the DeGraaf Family at our house of worship is generally preceeded by a full blown "tribulation" (complete with nashing of teeth, and beasts with ten horns and seven heads). It's a period of suffering that only the strong survive.

I used to have a much higher standard for our pre-church prep, but over the years, my expectations have been on a steady decline. When we had our first two sons, our typical American family of four looked the part -- boys in dress pants with creases down the center, buttoned up shirts and hair combed neatly to the left.

Today, my only request is that our tribe of 5 wear clothes -- no holes and no dirt. Ok, at least I draw the line at wearing dirt to church.

I will never forget one Sunday morning when the Devil definitely was trying to keep us home that day! We got up late and as my husband got into the shower, he asked me if I would find him a pair of clean underwear. "Sure thing," I said and assured him that there was a load of clean underwear and socks in the dryer.

Wrong.

No socks and underwear in the dryer (they were towels). No clean undies on top the dryer or in the pile of clean clothes that were half stacked and half scattered on the couch. (I really need to stop folding laundry while watching TV. It's an exercise in futility as the stuff gets knocked down, folded again, and yes, even knocked down once more. )

I was running out of options as Ron was running out of hot water.............Now what?

I did what any quick-thinking and resourseful woman would do, I shuffled through the dirty clothes and found the "cleanest" pair of dirty underwear that I could. I shook them and neatly folded them in exactly the same way I have been folding Ron's boxer/briefs for almost two decades. They looked a little stretched out, so I pressed extra hard to try and iron out a few of the wrinkles and placed them on the closed lid of the toliet seat next to the shower.

"Here you go, babe." I said without another word.

I continued scrambling to get the rest of the gang in the mini-van. It was complete chaos (which has become our normal). Some of the boys were fighting, others couldn't find matching socks, one was still sleeping. Somehow, we managed to all get in the van for the 15 minute ride (I swear I could walk on fire!)

Ron was quiet for the whole ride with his lips all bunched up in a knot and a furrowed brow. We were about a minute's ride away from church and I turned to him and said, "What's wrong?"

He said, "These underwear aren't clean are they?" He was so ticked. I actually had all but forgotten about that small minor detail of the morning as I replied, "NO THEY ARE NOT!" and lifted up my shirt and said, "What are you complaining about, I am wearing MY SWIMSUIT!" (I really couldn't find ANY clean underwear!)

I was pretty sure that God was more concerned about the condition of our hearts and not so worried about the the fact that Ron was worshipping in his dirty undies and that I had my swimsuit on! After all, God has a sense of humor!!

Top 10 Ideas To Make Mammograms Fun!

This morning, I got my second mammogram EVER (2 years overdue). I wish that there was an official "U.S. Department of Mammography" to which I could make a few suggestions. I should google it.

If anyone asked me for my advice on how to improve the mammo experience, these would be my top 10...........

10. ASK if she has put on any deodorant BEFORE gripping her breasts in a vice, four times (front and side view on each side). Repeating this process once a year is bad enough! Repeating immediately because there is deodorant smearing the image, should be actionable in court.

9. Provide mood music. Something from the Smashing Pumpkins would be great!

8. Place foil wrapped chocolate coins on the gown provided.

7. Roll out a red carpet leading to the screening room with a sign painted on the door, "Nude Photo Shoot In Session."

6. Offer a large glass of wine!

5. Decorate the room with helium balloons and instruct the woman to inhale deeply and sing "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman."

4. When it is over, flash an "Applause" sign to those in the waiting area to thank her for coming.

3. Put fringe tassels on the little sticker things they put on each nipple.

2. Offer a "boobie prize" if she schedules next year's appointment as she leaves.

1. Remind her that breast cancer is the second leading cause of death in women and that mammography can increase survival rates by 50% in some cases. Early detection is the best chance a woman has for overcoming breast cancer. If you are reading this and are over 40 and have not had a mammo in the last 12 months, don't wait another minute to call your doctor and get it done. :0)

Preparing to Leave The Nest

I was out last week on a beautiful summer night at a local restaurant with three of my girlfriends for a long over due girls night out. Once all the ordering was taken care of, our conversations weaved in and out of various topics but landed right where they always do - our kids! Between, the four of us, we have 15 children ranging in age from 2 to 18! Yes, I alone have a third of those, but none-the-less, that's a lot of mom stories to share.

My friend, Laura, has been a director of a Christian camp in our area for several years and we started to talk about college students and their expectations and the different trends Laura has observed over the last decade or so of working closely with young adults. She said that it has been amazing to her to see the lack of training that some of the kids have in terms of real life.

I told my friends what I did recently to begin the process of preparing my oldest to leave the nest. Nate is 18 and going to graduate from high school in December. We have three bedrooms in our home for five kids to divvy up. After getting some "expert" advice one day when Nate was in 7th grade, my husband Ron and I agreed to give him his own space. He had been sharing a room with his younger brother Luke.

So, we converted what was supposed to be our master closet into a make-shift bedroom and put one of the younger boys in there so that we could accommodate Nate's need for individuality! That move made him very happy for five years because it meant he had the biggest room of all and all to himself.

That changed a few weeks ago. I got a call from a friend who had a set of bunk beds she wanted to pass on. I jumped on the opportunity since our bedrooms are small and these bunks had huge storage drawers on the bottom. In order to make the bunks work, they would have to go in Nate's room since it had the longest wall and the other two bedrooms were too small.

That was when I capitalized on the opportunity to help Nate see that the expectation is for him to leave the nest. I told him the bunks had to go in his room and he had to move into Caleb and Adam's room. I promised to get the dried boogers off the wall and to paint over the baby blue color in there.

Nate didn't like the idea at all. He had his room all set up with XBox Live, a TV, and as he pointed to his nightstand, he said, "Besides, I have my alarm clock here, my Ipod charger there and my cell phone charger over there, NO, I'm not moving!"

That was a good argument but not good enough. I told him that he WAS moving and all of his "stuff" would move with him. He couldn't tie up that prime piece of "real estate" for four more years while he is in college and leave his little brothers are all cramped up in a tiny 8' x 10' room!

He reluctantly agreed and proceeded to move his belongings.

Later in the week, Nate noticed that I had all the boys social security cards in a pile next to the phone except for his. He also noticed that his picture was down from the wall where I have all five boys 8"x10" school pictures evenly spaced at an angle going up the stairs.

He asked me if I was trying to "erase" him? I moved his room, got rid of his picture and his social security card.

I assured him that his existence was safe with me and that his picture actually fell off the wall following a foot stomping door slamming hissy fit from his 9 year old brother and his photo was on my dresser waiting for me to find a new nail. Thankfully, the glass didn't break.

The social security cards were gathered up because I was in the middle of switching bank accounts and Nate's was in his room locked in his lock box so that's why it wasn't with the others.

No, I wasn't trying to erase my son! I am, however, preparing him for life on his own.

My girlfriends listened to this story and one friend said, "You're mean. Don't you want them to have a place to call home?" (She still makes her kid's peanut and butter sandwiches and he's 17 - which is fine because she likes to do that. I am of the mindset that you give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever.)

My reply to her comment was, "That's not mean. It's a reasonable and responsible expectation of a grown-up person." Nate will always have a home. He will always be our son, but he is no longer our baby. He will always be welcomed and loved and wanted. He will also be expected to make sacrifices and contributions. He will work, pay rent and make his own sandwiches.

Something tells me he will be just fine!

I Sent A Grown Man To His Room

My 18 year old, Nate, and I were up late one night printing for our family business, we're counterfeiters............just kidding, we own a weekly newsletter and print and distribute thousands of little brown papers all over the Chicago southland every week! Anyway, like I said, it was late and we started getting punchy. I'm not sure where this came from, but suddenly we found ourselves laughing and dreaming of a successful business thinking up humorous epitaphs.

It would be like the funny greeting cards aisle in the grocery store, except in a cemetery. I could see it. Making people laugh as they lost themselves wandering from headstone to headstone. Somehow, I don't think it would take off, but Nate came up with a good one for me. According to him, mine would read "Here Lies Tracy DeGraaf, mother of five boys, she finally got off her feet!"

Very appropo and very funny! Nate is an extremely tall young man at 6'3" with striking red hair, shining blue eyes and freckles galore! Nate will graduate from high school in December and then pursue his collegiate dreams.

I call him a genius wanna be. He's extremely bright and can get As and Bs without cracking a book. Hence the name "wanna be." He's a genius when he wants to be. His ACT score was almost higher than my husband and mine combined! That doesn't speak very well for the two of us, but as it turns out, we apparently have managed to contribute to the species of intelligent man with this one.

Nate says he either wants to be a brain surgeon or a comedian. Talk about a spectrum. To that he added, "I think I'll go with brain surgery, that would be easier." That is when I knew that he could be wildly successful at either!

Whomever thinks that brain surgery is easier than cracking a few jokes is the one I want performing my lobotomy! Likewise, the comedian who uses brain surgery and comedy in the same sentence is sure to have sold out shows.

With college looming, it surely feels like my husband and I are on the final lap of bringing our first son into manhood. Somehow, I have a feeling that last lap is going to be a doozie. So far, the teenage years have not been a walk in the park.

There have been no life threatening issues to our knowledge. No phone calls in the middle of the night requesting bail money or knocks at the door by uniformed officers, for which we are extremely thankful. But, there has been plenty of eye rolling, back talking, stupidity, ignorance and just plain dumb.

The other day, I sent my "almost grown up" son to his room for smacking his 7 year old brother. Granted, the seven year old likely deserved it, but I explained to Nate that dad and I don't go around smacking people all day long just because they deserve it. Could you imagine?

The first people I would smack are the teenagers at Burger King who totally screwed up my order making me wait 25 minutes for "fast" food. Not only did I have to tolerate their complete lack of human emotion in giving them my order, but then they accidentally deleted it and I had to re-order. When the re-order finally arrived, it was wrong; making them re-re-order; which totally ticked off the sandwich maker. I saw him slap my kid's burger down on the paper wrapper, squirt "ketchup only" on the grease-covered excuse for meat and throw it into the microwave to melt the cheese.

Then I would smack the wiry little man who works at the post office and assumes that I know everything there is to know about U.S. Postal regulations. He's so condescending. Like I am supposed to know that you can't write anything a half inch from the bottom of the postcard so that the scanner can read it. Show me 10 average Americans who know that postal fact and I will put my true weight on my driver's license.

And, if I could reach through the telephone cord and smack whomever is on the other end trying to get me to contribute to their Sacred Order of Retired Police Officers, or do a balance transfer with their incredibly low rate or purchase windows and siding for my 7 year old home, I would!

Now, where would I let the smacking begin? That's right. I would be in court........defending my indefensible behavior.


"So, Nate, we need to remember that we can't just go around smacking people now can we?" I reinforced to my "adult son." Then, with my left hand on my slightly extended hip and my right hand wagging my index finger upward toward his head which towers over my 5 and a half foot frame, I sent him to his room! Ha! I still have the power.

Ugh!!

I'm 42 And Not Getting On Your Bandwagon!

I used to jump on a lot of bandwagons in my 20s and 30s. There was the "ban the evil Pokemon" bandwagon and the "Harry Potter is from hell" bandwagon, the "make a million dollars from home in your pajamas with no make-up" bandwagon and of course, the "cure all that ails you with this super special berry juice that costs a fortune and tastes like blueberry syrup and is only available through your local so and so who got from the aforementioned make a million dollars from home bandwagon bandwagon."

I almost forgot about the countless dieting bandwagons........remember the liquid diet that we all tried after Oprah's success? I also jumped on the grapefruit diet "bandwagon" which led to zero pounds lost and a mouthful of canker sores. There were many others, but all with the same result which was no result!

Women in their 40s and 50s don't do all that bandwagon on and off. It's quite freeing to just say no, or get over it, or they'll out grow it, or don't worry about it, it will pass, I don't care or get out of my face! I've heard other women say that 40 is the new 30 in terms of seasons of life. If that is true, than I say 40 is the new 30 AND the new 50 at the same time.

I have the fortunate (not my idea) perspective from having become a parent in my middle 20s as well as in my middle 30s. Trust me when I say that it is a completely different experience in every way imaginable from diapers to diplomas!

When I held my first born son at the youthful age of 24, no one told me that he would be 9" taller than me someday. No one told me that he would surpass my knowledge of computers in just 10 years. No one told me that he would love music from the 80s and roll his eyes when I sing along loudly to "I Love Rock and Roll." Like he knows what it means to put another dime in the juke box, baby!?! No one told me that we would get our chin whiskers at about the same time!

I was a new mom with a new kid. He was our first try at parenting. Oh, yeah, and no one told me to bring maternity pants to the hospital when I went to deliver (that was a very long and uncomfortable ride home with my gut billowing out of my completely unbuttoned button fly jeans (remember those?) And, by the way, no one told me that you COULD get pregnant when you are breastfeeding or how difficult it would be to have two kids only 14 months apart. Hmmmm. So experiment number two was on his way only five months after our first was born.

Those were truly the years that my husband and I earned our parenting stripes - not the kind that proven military leaders get sewn to their dress whites, these were more like the kind that a dumb dog gets when he pees on the shag carpet for the 12th time. It was learn from your mistakes time for us.

We were the first in both of our families to have children. I remember the day we announced at our small church that we were pregnant (two months after our wedding). Our pastor smiled and with a "you don't know what you don't know" laugh, said "Congratulations and God Bless You!"

Now we know.

So from age 24 to 34, I spent a lot of time figuring out things and when a good looking bandwagon came along, I jumped! Wish I had jumped on and off the .com bandwagon at the appropriate times.

To complicate things, my mother passed away when I was only 27. I was left to navigate motherhood without a compass. I had to just figure it out. While most of my friends had their moms staying with them for a month after the birth of their babies, I had my trusted copy of "What to Expect the First Year."

Now at the age of 42, I can honestly say that I'm not as eager as I once was to "climb aboard" the latest and greatest trends. (Although, I will say that I have been tempted to take a bath in cellulite cream.) I think with the years have also come the wisdom that things have a way of working themselves out in the end. I'm not so afraid of making a devastating mistake in my parenting.

I tell my five boys all the time that I am not a perfect mom (finally we agree on something), but that I am the perfect mom for them. I am quick to say "I don't know," "I love you," "I'm sorry," and "Because I said so."

I am satisfied to trust that God created them. He will see to it that they make it (whatever and wherever "it" is).

Gotta say. I love being over 40!!!!

Putting My Best Foot Forward

True story..........Last week I pulled into a parking lot of a new business in town. I met the owner, Dianna, at a networking meeting and we scheduled a one on one visit for the purpose of getting to know each other's business so we could refer each other should the opportunity arise.

My business is publishing a weekly newsletter where ad space is available to small to medium sized businesses in the area. Dianna's business is shipping, mail box rental, copying, etc....

I had my 11 year old son Joel with me because we, like the rest of America, have discovered (with great dismay) that the proverbial money tree and the gas pump in our back yard do not exist. So, we are multi-tasking, car-pooling, doubling up trips and saving gas. Joel needed to be dropped off at my sister-in-law's for a summer sleepover so he had to come with me to this business meeting and I would drop him off aferward.

Normally, I wouldn't bring a kid to a business meeting, but drastic gas prices call for drastic measures. Besides, Dianna understood as she had her new puppy in a cardboard box with her in the store so she didn't have to drive home and let him out every couple of hours.

Anyway, I pulled into the parking lot and Joel jumped out with his MP3 player in his hand, one ear bud in his ear, the other dangling and swinging like a downed power line in a wind storm. He had his chocolate milk and sack of two long johns from Dunkin' Donuts in his other hand. (He is skinny as a rail and eats like a pig!) I told Dianna that we would bring coffee since Dunkin' is in the same plaza.

I opened my door and slipped my foot out of my "mom-mobile" a three year old mini-van. With one toe barely reaching the ground and my door slighly ajar, I started to gather my stuff - a large coffee with two creams for me and a large black coffee with cream, sugar, and artifical sweetner on the side for her (didn't know how she liked her java).

I got the cardboard coffee carrier into my left hand, the sack of donut holes pinched between my left thumb and the bottom of the cardboard carrier, and the coffee condiments piled in the center. With my right hand, I swung my briefcase strap over my shoulder, I was just about to grab my cell phone, drop it in my purse, then fling my purse over the briefcase strap when I spotted trouble.

A woman in a large sedan was waiting to turn in and park right next to me. The first thing that went through my mind was, "It is 8 a.m. and there are 15 open parking spaces in this lot and you have to park in the space right next to me. Can't you see I am in the juggling act of my life here?"

She couldn't see.

I tried to shut my door enough to let her in, but couldn't manuver my XL butt (according to the tag on my underwear, but a M in my mind!) back into the car enough to do that. I had scooched everything left along with the coffee and I was sure that I would lose it all if I tried to shift this one woman side show back right. It was like being in the middle of an intersection - I was committed. I looked like I should be "committed."

The woman in the sedan gave me a hand gesture (not the one I get everytime I drive downtown Chicago). This one was more like "take as long as you need, I am enjoying the free entertainment." I smiled at her, fumbled to find my phone and grabbed my purse, got myself to the upright position on solid ground, hit the lock button with my elbow and shut the door with an impressive hip bump.

I got out of her way and she parked and got out. We were both smiling. I apologized for holding her hostage like that. Turns out she owns the Italian Deli next door to Dianna's shipping store. (Very good food, btw.) She was very sweet and totally understood.

I told her that is what happens when I unerestimate the size of my rear end. I should wear a sign that says, "Mother of 5 boys. Brain cells are operating in the negative!" We laughed some more and she asked me how I can see out my back window. It was covered in dust because of road construction near our home. My boys engraved "WASH ME" with their fingers in the dirt.

I was putting my best professional foot forward let me tell ya!

I finally got to the door of Dianna's shipping store and Joel said, "Gosh, mom, what took you so long?"

Ugh!!!

Prickly Weeds & Eating Cooking Dough

This morning greeted me with a plugged up toilet in my bathroom (the one my boys are NOT supposed to use), which meant that I had to quick scamper downstairs before nature took a course of its own.

I started the coffee and opened the fridge for creamer only to discover my fridge was on the blink AGAIN! It was the third time in six weeks that our three year old refrigerator (yes the warranty just expired) quit working.

I transferred the milk, eggs, butter to the downstairs fridge and decided that I needed to choose to have a great day. So, I stopped and said a little prayer that went something like this:

"Dear Lord, if this was my last day on Earth, I wouldn't want to be ticked off about little insignificant things like clogged toilets and warm refrigerators, so I am choosing to have a great day. Please help me to do so."

Trust me when I say that this was a forced prayer and a perfect example of form following function because I was pretty annoyed about that fridge!

Then, I decided to check the swimming pool (love it and hate it). Pump was running, but not circulating water since the level was too low. I grabbed the hose and tried to "lock" in the nozzle to the on position. It was broken, so I tried to unscrew it. Got it 1/2 way off and then it got stuck and I couldn't get it back on all the way or off all the way.

I decided to drop the hose in the pool and let it trickle water in our 20,000 gallon pool for about 85 hours til it's up to level that the pump can run. In the meantime, I went to the front yard to water my potted flowers. Keeping in mind that I had decided to have a great day in spite of setbacks, I saw a monarch butterfly and a bumble bee, both of which amazed me with their colors and purpose.

I watered the pots and decided my flowers would look much better minus the jungle of weeds surrounding them. So, I started pulling weeds. It was early in the morning, and the heat and humidity hadn't set in yet (high of 93 today). I got bored in my weed pulling and tried to force my mind to "enjoy" it somehow. I focused on the eventual outcome which would be that my flowers would look so much better.

I pulled all the weeds that had smooth stems and saved the prickly ones for last. I hate those prickly weeds. But, here is what the prickly weeds taught me today..... I went in the house to get rubber gloves (which as it turns out, I should have been wearing the whole time because my nails looked like crap after I was done digging in the mulch and dirt yanking out these nasty weeds).

Ok, so I put on the gloves and gingerly reached for the lowest part of the stem on this huge prickly weed. I squeezed the stem between my index finger and thumb and felt the needles on the top of the weed, which was about a foot tall, brush against my forearm. I braced myself for the "tug o war" to conquer this menacing weed when to my surprise and nearly to my dismay, since I almost toppled over on my butt,.......the weed had a very weak root system and came out like butter. Those prickly needles were "all talk."

It reminded me of some unsavory characters that I come across from time to time (like the total strangers who give me the finger every time I drive down town Chicago - you know who you are!)

My day started out on the wrong foot. And, those problems still aren't solved, but I choose to have a good day anyway. I believe that God gave prickly weeds a tough exterior to hide their true weakness. Likewise, people who shoot the finger to perfectly nice drivers that find it a bit scary to drive in 12 lanes of traffic are actually showing their weakness. It takes more strength to "let it go," smile and move on.

BTW, I just ate about a cup of chocolate chip cookie dough which also makes all the issues of the day fade away! :0)

6 More Weeks of Summer Break

I was in Jewel yesterday on a very tight time schedule, zipping my cart around the store with darting eyes looking left, then right, then left again (like watching Pong) when my gaze landed on what looked to me like heaven! I stopped my cart, took a cleansing breath and smiled with eyes closed and hands to my chest. There were a thousand paper folders standing upright like cadets at West Point ready for a flag ceremony. It was the "Back To School" aisle. Hallelujah! It felt like ground hog day without the ground hog! It was my sign that there were only six more weeks of summer break.



I love my children and adore quality time spent with them and I welcome some of what summer break has to offer. But I'm ready for those early mornings to return where I yell "Bus" in the same manner and with similar urgency that someone would yell "Fire" in a movie theatre. There are three shifts for my five boys because they attend three different buildings in our school district. Since we live in the country, I can see the bus coming down the road when it's about a 1/4 mile away.

So when I spot the streak of yellow and black coming down the country road, I yell "Bus" as loud as I can and the first two boys have about 2 minutes to get out to the end of our very long driveway. Then there is a 15 minute reprieve and "Bus" is yelled again. Son #3 has only seconds to "save" himself, because his bus comes from the other direction and we don't have windows on that side of the house.



The oldest two boys drive themselves to school and should be old enough to get moving on their own. They are usually fine, but every once in a while, I have to roust them out of bed. I remember once when my son Luke (a very heavy sleeper) was still sleeping in his upstairs bedroom. I had been yelling for him to come down and get ready for school. No luck. I took a big silver referee whistle up to his room and blew it as forcefully as I could right next to his bed. He jumped out of his skin. That stunt landed on the boarder of funny/not funny and I'm quite confident that if Luke had been a 65 year old man, he would have had a grabber right there. He got up though!



Another thing I love about summer break is that there are no backpacks filled with papers. I don't know if it's just my school district or across the board, but the public school appears to be all backwards with the whole reduce, recycle, reuse program. They'll send home 18 notices about Earth Day and that the children are going to be planting a tree and think nothing of the four trees it took to make parents aware of this nostalgic event. (No, I'm not a tree-hugger.)




We live in the 21st century where people not only have the net at home, but they have it on their cell phone and half the kids in the school have it on their psp. Yet, I just went on our district's website and could find nothing about the date for the first day of school. Wanna bet I'll be getting five letters in the mail about two weeks from now with a notice " Back to School on such and such date...."

UGH!

You Kids Drive Me Nuts

You can imagine what it is like to live in a household full of guys. It's very much like living in a fraternity..........lots of farting, eating, drinking, broken glass and puking. Not to mention the bickering, fighting, rough housing, and now that it's summer, towel twapping. I can honestly say that I don't ever remember a time when my girlfriends or my sister and I ever snapped each other with wet towels. My boys go for blood! It's not a friendly game of "tag," it's all out war, shield your eyes, some one's definitely going to get hurt. The towel snapping match usually ends with someone in tears, someone in time-out and me yelling "You kids are driving me NUTS!"



I say that a lot. And, it's true! They do drive me nuts. I was the girliest girl on my block growing up. I played with dolls everyday. I had a suitcase filled with Barbies (Midge, Dawn, Malibu Barbie, my brother's GI Joe, the Sunshine family and of course, Ken, that hunk of a plastic perfection) and I had a gorgeous three room pink Barbie house for my collection with furniture for every room. That was until Ronnie Cruz ran into it with his bike and broke the roof while his sister and I were having a nice afternoon of playing outside with our Barbies! That's a boy for you.



A few years ago I found myself saying "You Kids Drive Me Nuts" all the time to my boys. And, even though it's true, I didn't want them to blame themselves just in case the men in the white suits rang the doorbell. I wanted their memories of home to be somewhere in between the Osborne's and the Cleaver's. Preferably closer to the Cleaver's but let's be realistic, I don't think June ever ran outside, got into her car and drove away until she stopped crying.



I decided one day that I would no longer say the words, "You're driving me nuts." I replaced those words with "This is very exciting!" Kept the tone, kept the level of intensity, just changed the words. How hilarious! The next time I entered a bedroom with the mattresses turned on one end leaning against the wall with one boy bounding down the "slide" and the other dumping all the clothes out of the dresser drawers to make stairs so he can do it to......I proclaimed to all the world "This is very exciting!"



Now my boys think I really am nuts! They can think what they want.

Egg Shells In My Sink

Boys are geniuses! And, they are practical little buggers. I remember when my now 9 year old, Adam, was about three years old. He was in the kitchen (unsupervised) and decided to get out a carton of eggs, crack them and dump them in the sink along with several heaping scoops of flour. Yes, he had seen me make pancakes, and bless his little heart, he was "helpin' out."



So, after my usual gasp at these types of messes, (and trust me, there have been several hundred of these over the years with my five boys) I took the recommended deep breath, counted to 10 and then counted backwards from 10 and then took precious Adam aside and administered disciplinary action.



After a 25 minute "explanation" about how that behavior was naughty and why it was naughty, I said "Now, Adam, you're not going to do that again, are you." To which he instantly replied with a shrug of his shoulders, "Nope, there's no more eggs!"



I had just lectured him on the moral value of obedience, common sense and frugality....for naught! It went in one ear and out the other! He wasn't going to curb his negative behavior because of my intervention, it was a practical matter of opportunity. No eggs, no mess. Unbelievable!



Ugh!

I Would If I Could, The Man Said

Ah ha, I have figured out why men don't do the things women want them to do like sew on a button, make themselves a meal and clean the toilets! They pretend to be incompetent in the given task which therefore makes them unable to perform said task.

This starts very young ladies, so watch it, they're tricky.My seven year old got up this morning and said, "I'm hungry." To which I replied, "Hello Hungry, I'm Mom." He wasn't amused. He obviously wanted me to meet his need and make him something for breakfast. And, in mornings of yester year, before I became completely overwhelmed with 5 sons, I would have jumped right up, dropped what I was doing and made the boy a decent breakfast. But, I am older and wiser than I was a decade ago.

So I told my little one that he was perfectly able and welcome to decide what he wanted to eat, make it and eat it. He tried again, "But mom, you're closer to the freezer." I knew he wanted waffles. I had just been to Sam's club and we had a huge box of them.

"Yes, I know that, but I am one person and there are seven people living here, so if I make everyone's breakfast, I'll be popping waffles into the toaster all morning." He got out the waffles and the sugar-free Mrs. Buttersworth (sugar makes him shoot off like a firecracker, so we are avoiding it) and he made his breakfast. But men don't give up that easily so he tried again.

He came to me with his plate of syrup saturated waffles and he asked me to cut them. I told him that he was perfectly able and welcome to get a knife and cut his waffles and eat them. That was the end of the battle. It was a hard-fought mental war, but I felt the nod went to mom on that one.

Later in the day, I asked my 16 year old son to clean the pool filter, which is about a 20 minute process of shutting off valves, opening up the filter, rinsing off components and replacing it all. It does require some training, but he had done it before and I was sure that he was quite able to complete the task.

He started the process and I no sooner got back into the house and the back door swung open and Luke bellowed, "Maaaaaaaaaaaaam (before my boys could talk, I couldn't wait for them to say Ma Ma and all five of them said da da first, which totally ticked me off. Now, they say Mom, Mommy, Maaaaaaaaaam, Hey Mom, Where's Mom, I'm telling Mom CONSTANTLY. It never ends. They rarely, if ever, go to dad with their stuff.

They'll call me on my cell to tell me something that is happening in the living room with my hubby planted on the couch; but they're men, so they know that he's there, but not really. His body is there, but his mind in in New York City where the Chicago White Sox are losing 2-4 in the bottom of the 8th.)

So anyway, Luke comes in and can't figure out the filter. And then the light bulb goes on. I shake my head with my eyes squinted slightly and lips forming a sly grin, "Ah Ha," I say to my beloved son. "I've got you figured out. You want me to think that you can't do this task so that I will just do it for you. Well, cowboy, I've seen you disassemble and reassemble a paint ball gun in 2 minutes flat, so this filter right here is your project and by golly, you will figure out how to do this."

And, in the end, he did and I feel that I have made great strides in ensuring my survival among all this testosterone!

GPS & Boys Going #1

Well, we made it back to the Chicago area after a very long ride from NC. All 9 of us loaded up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning determined to get home without making it a two-day affair. We put my husband and three of our boys in one van while myself, my dad, our other two boys and a friend piled into the other.

About an hour into the trip, I radioed my husband on the Nextel because we had gotten separated on the Interstate. He was going the wrong way! Hilarious, because he was the one who scolded me for buying the $200 GPS that guided my vehicle with ease to the right highway! Hee hee hee. Hubby said that it was all our son's fault who read the map wrong. They added an hour to their trip time. With gas at 4 bucks a gallon, that GPS was lookin' pretty sweet to me.

The ride home was uneventful except for the farting contest that my dad had with my teenage son. It was totally deadly. My son was in the very back seat of the van and my dad next to me. They even farted in their sleep! The rest of us thought we would die.

BTW, I do not understand why guys think that the world is their urinal! Where did they get the idea that just because they can pee along side the road, that they should? There is a nice golf course near my home and recently in the middle of the day, I was coming down the road and there was this guy peeing in the ditch with his fancy golf club clutched under his arm. I honked at him and waved! I saw another guy doing the same thing along the road on our trip (and then there was my dad with his "I have a doctor's permission to pee wherever and whenever I want.")

So we got to Indiana and exited I65 to take the backroads home and my kid's friend had to "go". He said it couldn't wait. My dad was driving and he spied a clump of trees but opted not to stop there because the shoulder of the road was too narrow. By this time, it was just getting dark out so he pulled over in a farm access road surrounded by fairly tall corn stalks.

So, my kid's friend, who is 16, btw, gets out of the van and with his back to us, positions himself directly in front of the headlights of the van and let it go. He stood there for three minutes it seemed. The hilarious part was that he didn't stand off to the side in the darkened corn field, he just went for it in the spotlight. He got back in the van and my dad and I were practically wetting ourselves and crying from laughing so hard.

"What's so funny?" he asked. We asked him why he went right in the headlights and he said, "Well, I wasn't going to face the road." Thank God for that, I said. I also thank God that guys have to sit for their other bathroom activities. Could you imagine? Ugh!

Fourth Of July

It's hot and humid here on Figure Eight Island in NC. Supposedly, there are lots of famous people who own homes out here. We saw John Edwards this morning riding a bike down the street for the July 4th parade. He looks the same in person as he does on TV (like a Ken doll). A week is plenty of time to spend out somewhere and we are ready for the 998 mile ride back home.

Life Vest Replaces Bra

After a day of jet skiing on the white sandy beaches of the Carolinas, I've decided that a snug fitting life vest may be the solution to all of my gravitational pull issues when it comes to "supporting the girls." Of course, the vest I was zipping up was a size too small, but it gathered everything so nicely and by the time the zipper reached the top, I was somewhat impressed; and for all practical purposes, my youth had been restored! I'm seeing an ad campaign targeting the just over 40 woman who has had a few kids and has lost the same 15 pounds 8 times!

Boys At The Beach

Greetings From Queen MOAB (Mother of All Boys)!

My husband and I and our five sons, son #2's best friend and my dad (ok, me with 8 males age 7 to 65) piled into two mini vans for a 998 mile trip to the beach. I have endured sixteen hours of driving, two days of "stop that, quit it, be quiet and no we're not there yet." We went through two tanks of regular gas along with several sudden spurts of internal gas to which my littlest one always says, "Safety." Not sure what that means. But the long and the short of it is we are here! We made it. Despite my serious doubts, we are actually having a pretty good time.

The ride was interesting and had it's moments. My dad drove for about 10 minutes and pulled over to put my 16 year old behind the wheel while grandpa took a 16 hour nap. We lost each other several times, but my dad's van had a GPS (which I was informed, by my husband, was unnecessary) and my van had my husband and the map.

The GPS made it to our final destination first, but our van would have beat them if they didn't require our 9 year old to pee in an empty water bottle. But, they had already pulled off the highway to let grandpa pee along side the road (it's his medication and he actually has a "Get Out Of Pee Free" card that makes it legal for him to urinate in random places for medical reasons.

Once we got here, we met up with the rest of the family: my sister, her son and daughter and my brother and his daughter. We are on the fourth day and you know what they say about house-guests and them being like fish....I'm sure everyone will be happy to resume normal life at the end of the week.