$!*@&*! Library Books!

Seriously, I have a major problem with library books.  We love our library and go all the time to get new books, but we seem to be forever on the hunt for missing items.  Theoretically, there should be 14 library books at our house at all times because each of the four kids is STRICTLY LIMITED to 3 books each and I generally have a fiction and a non-fiction that I'm reading at the same time.  That should be completely manageable.  Plus, we have a System!  All library books MUST be kept in a basket in the living room, easily retrievable when it's time to take them back.  14 books, The System, clear expectations, completely foolproof!

This plan works flawlessly for all of us...unless there was one book that we weren't quite finished with and kept, or one that we couldn't find and renewed online and still can't find, or one that someone got when they were at the library with a friend, or one that we got at the library up north, plus the school library books, plus classroom library books, plus the extra one that I found on the new book shelf from my favorite author that I had to get, plus the one that I had a hold request on and it just came in!

And the books do NOT want to adhere to The System.   They wind up under the car seats or under the bed or in the basement under the couch or shoved down in the side of the chair cushions or in a pile of papers in the kitchen or in a bag that went to the pool or a laundry basket full of dirty laundry from up north.  No one told our cleaning lady about The System and for months she was shoving them in the bookshelf full of our own books, never to be seen again! 

I have tried to come to terms with this problem.  I have made the kids pay their overdue fines with their own money.  I have forced them to retrace their steps and remember where they were reading the missing book (they all blame their sibling who 'wanted to read it after me').  We have held FBI-quality manhunts at 9pm for missing books.  But I am, undeniably, a librarian's daughter, and nothing makes me feel like more of a social degenerate that when I go to the library website, log in to check my account, and it says, "USER IS DELINQUENT".  Me!  A delinquent user!  How did this happen???  Why can't I get this under control?

I know, I know, I should be glad they are reading.  And be grateful that we can borrow books instead of forking out cash at a bookstore for all these millions of pages we are going through.  But it just drives me crazy when we go to check out our books and the little library clerk says sweetly, "It looks like you have a small fine due today..."

Summer Joan

I feel like I have an alter ego in the summer.  Call her Summer Joan.  She even looks different than regular me.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself walking past a mirror and think, "whoa, who is that?".  I am tan, I have little or no makeup on, I'm wearing Teva's instead of heels, my hair is either wet, scrunched dry, or if I'm at the cabin it might even be under a bandanna that no 40-year-old woman has any business wearing.   More significantly, I"m not frowning and I don't have stress wrinkles all over my forehead.  I even stand up straighter since the weight of all my responsibilities is mostly off my shoulders:  200 students a day? Not my problem.  Hostile parents/administrators?  They are mad at someone else right now.  Car needs fixing?  I've got all day to sit at the shop.  Sick kid?  Bring it on, that's what I'm here for.  Last minute party and I need to get a gift, make a dessert, and buy new shoes before tomorrow at 7?  Sounds like fun!  See, these are not my normal responses to these situations.  Summer Joan has nothing but time so nothing freaks her out. 

One of my favorite responses to frustrating situations is "I don't have time for this!"  Brian and my sisters make fun of me a lot for this stock line.  I say it all the time:  water heater breaks at 6am?  zipper on kid's winter coat won't zip on the way out the door?  phone call from kid's teacher comes in while I'm driving down I-96 in a storm late for a meeting at church?  towel bar rips off the wall while I'm drying my hands after cleaning up a quart of spilled orange juice and yelling at the kid who spilled it?  I DON"T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.  But what I actually mean is "I am already overloaded and I don't need another little frustration adding work to my day and making me late for something that I think is important."

I wish I could have more of Summer Joan's attitude all year round.  The reality is that I do have to work full time and so does Brian and we have four kids all of whom are involved in school and activities.  We generally have a very full schedule that is not going to get any less full for about a decade.  Plus, I look WAY better with makeup, heels, and a close relationship with my blowdryer.  So, as always, it's about finding the balance.  Remembering the calm feeling of unscheduled summer during crazy times and prioritizing people over deadlines.  Acknowledging that there will always be broken appliances and spilled juice and that IS life and I DO have time for it. 

The View From A Year Into This Life

It’s been a year now since Solomon and Tinsaye came home. 

In the middle of the day-to-day struggle to figure our new lives out, I NEVER thought I would feel sad to see these days behind me.  And believe me, I am really grateful to be able to relax a bit and say things like, “Let’s go to Target” without having to explain seat belts, automatic doors, the giant signs hanging from Target’s ceiling, credit cards, and that you’re not supposed to stand next to the checkout lady to see what her cash register looks like up close. 

However, I do feel a little wistful that their innocent fascination with American life is over.  For them, everything is no big deal now.  They understand how American life works.  They know what they like (and more importantly DON’T like) to order at Wendy’s, they understand the rules for riding the school bus, they can use amazing American technology like the toilet (you can put the paper IN it!), the pencil sharpener,  and the microwave (which they called ‘microphone’ for a long time).  They understand and are no longer fascinated by the tubes at the bank drive through (which I actually still think are really cool).

They can also program the DVR, Google anything, download songs from iTunes, and find a Selena Gomez video on YouTube within seconds.  Additionally, in the last year they have learned how to ride a bike, swim, dive, kneeboard, drive the waverunner, canoe, skateboard, rollerblade, ice skate, sled, hula hoop, play basketball, baseball, and soccer (with rules).  In other words, they have accumulated an American kid’s lifetime cultural knowledge in 12 months.

Their English is so good now they aren’t even funny.  Everything they said sounded cute with improper pronoun usage (“Me is so hungry”), lack of prepositions and conjunctions (“what is bagel? Is like donut?”), and general massacring of all grammatical structures so as to sound remarkably like Yoda from Star Wars (“Me is verrrrrry hungry!  Bagel is hard, like tire, no soft like donut.  No sweet like donut too.  Where is sugar?  Maybe bagel is need sugar?”).  The thing that stinks is that this sounds hilarious and precious, but when it is accompanied by a kid climbing on the counter to get the sugar and then dumping it all over the kitchen floor in the 30 seconds I was out of the room, it is not funny, it’s just stressful.  So life is easier now that they say “let’s go to Tim Hortons!  Can we get chocolate glazed this time?” but there’s nothing funny or wonderful about that.  I wish there had been a reality TV crew following us around the whole last year filming.  Then I could watch it all after the fact and enjoy it more.

I feel exactly like I have spent the last year climbing a mountain with a huge pack on my back.  It has been really hard going and required all my focus and energy just to move forward a day at a time.  I wish I had been able to look up and notice the amazing view more often.  Now we are all at a plateau and the pack is lighter and the incline is less steep, but the scenery is not as breathtaking.  I feel like that is true of all our life’s journey.  When we avoid the risks, the hard stuff, the challenging places we are called to go, we miss out on the richness of this life. 

So I’ll keep blogging just because I enjoy it (as I said to my friend recently, “I’m such a massive dork that I write narrative essays for FUN!”), but the days of stories of the wonder of discovery are mostly behind us.  Now, however, both Thomas (11) and Tinsaye (10) are just starting down the path of adolescence.  I’m seeing glimpses of surly attitudes and emotional blowouts.  The day will come (sooner that I’d like to acknowledge) when all four kids are flaming teenagers living under one roof and I will spend my days trying not to kill them or allow them to kill each other or me.  Then you can all remind me of this blog post and tell me to look around and enjoy the breathtaking view.