Epic Murder Mystery Birthday Party, Pre-Teen Style

I don't know how Mud Pie got me to agree to it. Sure, both her brothers had big birthday parties around age 10 (I think Fish's was his 11th, but whatevs). Sure ,poor Pie has spent her whole life with a dumb mid-summer birthday so she's missed out on things like bringing treats to class or handing out invitations (July 3, which is actually pretty awesome but again, whatevs). Sure, my sanity is always questionable. But somehow she talked me into it. I may have even suggested it myself. A tenth birthday shindig with none other than a Murder Mystery theme.

We'd actually planned it a week or so away from her actual birthday, but when only one-ish little girls RSVPd "Yes" we decided to postpone. My sneaky self wanted to postpone anyway since I knew we were starting a new homeschool co-op and I expected Pie to make friends quickly, which she did, so we had an abundance of invitations to hand out. She did so at the beginning of October, and last weekend, Halloween, was the chosen date. Now I will share what we did and how it went, in case someone else somewhere someday wants to make themselves crazy for a week have the pleasure of planning and executing such an event. Many ideas were outright stolen from this website, and other ideas were swiped from other websites or emerged from the remnants of my brain at some point during that pre-party week. So what did we do?

The invitations:

Murder Mystery Party Invitations

A little something I whipped together in Pages. We printed them on card stock (three to a page) and cut them out. I also sent an Evite since keeping track of responses would be so much easier online. Once I had confirmation, they were sent their character, but more on that in a moment! Each was asked to dress appropriately and was given one special line or instruction. Things like, "I hate feathers!" Or "Someone stole my ring!" Moms were also invited. Why not? We had as much fun as the girls!

Next for the big event, I decided I would write the mystery myself. My thought process: I'm a writer, this should be easy, I ought to be able to whip this out, no problem at all. Yes, I am this moronic. After several hours I wished I'd gone and bought a mystery kit online. After several more hours I really, really, really wished I'd bought one online. Eventually, I had some semblance of mystery hashed out, complete with a spreadsheet and about twenty sheets of scrap paper. Here's where I made characters and assigned them to each girl/guy and mom who was able to attend.

Finally the big day! When each girl arrived (and one guy, since Fish was attending and was allowed one friend), she received a bag with her "Mystery Item" which was a prop that would be used at some point during the game. Then we gathered at the dining table for tea (apple cider punch - yum) and crumpets (donuts and scones. Yeah, I went all out. Like all the way out to the grocery store). First task: match each attendee with the "profession" on their suspect sheet.

So many streamers! All over the house!

Our mystery began with the Countess (Mud Pie) and her Royal Chicken who lays golden eggs. The Countess suspected someone was out to steal her chicken, so invited all the suspects to tea. They did not know this yet, of course, but they would soon find out! Because the Countess slipped off to the upstairs nursery (her and Rowdy's room) and screamed.

Imagine ten kids and five moms thundering up the stairs to find Mud Pie unresponsive (but very giggly) on the floor! The Coroner declared the Countess dead and together the kids marked out her body.

Oh the fun of masking tape!

What fun. Rowdy, little sister, cried and asked Pie to "Get up!" Which she eventually did because she was actually just knocked unconscious. Sadly, the blow wiped her memory so she had no idea who attacked her and who ... stole her chicken! Another character's ring had also been stolen.

The butler, Fish, was supposed to lead everyone downstairs to watch a video the Countess left for such an occasion, but brothers are not always the most helpful. Thankfully Mom-Housekeeper had that spreadsheet handy! Down we went to watch the recording:

Poison! The tea was poisoned?! We had to be sure! So upstairs we raced to test. Except again Fish had misplaced his Mystery Item, so Mom-Keeper to the rescue with some baking soda to toss in the cup of colored vinegar. Poison confirmed, the Coroner placed everyone under arrest. We followed a thread to the dungeon (basement) where a "Web of Intrigue" had been crafted, painstakingly by Mom and Pie earlier in the day. Which we had to fix about a hundred times because Fish's bedroom lay on the other side. Anyway, it was like a laser maze, but with thread.

We navigated the maze in the dark with glow sticks. Not the best idea for the longevity of the maze.

Inside Fish's room we took mug shots and fingerprints. I made use of a handy iPhone app. Fun! And while waiting for our photo shoot (which didn't take long), we solved Halloween Riddles. Like What did the skeleton order at the bar? Two cokes and a mop! Groan.

Next we returned upstairs because someone spotted the chicken (me - I hadn't quite figured out how to get everyone upstairs). Interestingly, colored eggs were all over the living room. Inside the eggs, puzzle pieces (and candy because you have to have candy in colored eggs!). Next task, put the puzzle together!

Mystery puzzle in progress...

I'd been worried about having enough time, and had pushed things along a little quickly. So at this point we were, oh, like fifteen minutes into the mystery part of the party. It was going a little too quickly. The puzzle took longer than expected. Pfew! I made the puzzle, yes I did and I made it from this picture:

Yes, that's a chicken and a ring.

Our next clue! The chicken had the missing ring, and was last seen where this photo was taken. Down to the family room where a mess of feathers had suddenly appeared. And the poison was taking its toll. We had to pick up the feathers using cooking utensils because our fingers were no longer working!

I detest feathers! That was the maid's "line."

Beneath the feathers, one of which was a paintbrush, lay a message written in chicken language (pig pen code that St. Nick helpfully wrote out). One of the girls had a cypher as her Mystery Item. Of course Mom-Keeper had to remind her, but it worked out fine.

Sticky fingers?

The message told us that the suspect had sticky fingers. So up to the kitchen we went, only to discover a fingerprint on the stove. Who'd have thought our suspect sheets had fingerprints on them! Match up the fingerprints and ... The Artist stole the chicken to save it from the cook, who wanted to cook it! And the chicken laid an egg with the missing ring inside. The Princess (who had lost the ring) paid a reward (fake money, which was her Mystery Item - see how clever I am?) to everyone.

Mystery solved, Mom-Keeper wanted to collapse. But it was only a bit after 3pm and the party didn't end until 4. Plus the Ambassador had not yet arrived (a girl who was planning to come late), and she knew where the antidote to the poison was. Right as I was about to give it up and serve the cake, the Ambassador's mom pulled up in the driveway! Saved! 

The Ambassador had a riddle, the solution to which provided us with the location of the antidote. It was inside a pumpkin, mixed in with pumpkin guts. Yuck. But oh so fun!

Digging through pumpkin guts for the antidote

Finally, cake and presents and one last game. An auction of wrapped dollar store treasures, opened in White Elephant fashion. The girls were too polite to steal one another's gifts, however, so most everyone ended up keeping what they got. All good. 

Store bought cake. I have my limits.

We wrapped up at exactly 4pm! Except that many of the moms and girls stuck around for a while to chat, eat more cake, and generally enjoy the afternoon, which I must admit was the highlight of the whole event for me. And what did I do the next day? Sleep? Nonono. I vacuumed feathers out of the family room.

My favorite picture: Pie and Rowdy getting ready for the party!

Abundance, Gratitude, Life as Gift

This year has not been easy.

Every moment is packed with more than I can do (school! meals! chauffeur! high schooler! baby! toddler! writing!). Every corner of our home is packed and used for multiple purposes (kitchen: food prep, mail station, delivery center. Dining room: food consumption, school, craft table, office, clothes folding. Living room: morning coffee, office, baby play wonderland, kids' computer center. Family room: entertainment, school work area, partial library, preschool supplies, music and art. etc.). Every corner of my mind is packed with things I desperately don't want to forget. From order forms to rare quiet moments snuggling our newest bit of abundance.

Rather than seeing life as overwhelming, draining, exhausting, I'm striving to see the fullness of every corner as abundance. Life is gift. These children are gift. And today we celebrate our newest, smallest gift. I realized in writing this that today is my first time mentioning him here. I'm not sure how a year slipped by, but it has, and I will remedy that now by unveiling his journal nickname (since all my babies have nicknames). He is and will forever be: Awesomesauce.

And what an awesome year it has been. Little Awesomesauce has been the true Tagalong Baby, going with us to Kentucky and Pittsburgh and Milwaukee and New York City. I was nursing him when my agent called with news of my first book contract and he helped inspire my second book. Yet despite clutching to every moment in an attempt to preserve it forever, an entire year has passed. I'm not sure where it went. But a few of those places:

Brand new and already smiling

Hotel Poolside in Pittsburgh!

Playing Hide-n-Seek?

At MOMA in NYC!

Another museum!

And a castle!

 Happy birthday, my darling, always-smiling boy. You are the sauce that makes everything awesome.

The awesomest sauce of all

What Publishing Will Do For You

Dr. Who fans come in all ages!

In Bird by Bird Anne Lamott describes publishing as the golden eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar, and she writes, "Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy."

I agree. If anyone thinks that a magical first contract will ... pay off their mortgage, repair their marriage, get their kids to obey, fill them with endless joy, make writing easy, well, it won't. I don't feel much different today than I did six months ago. My house is still messy, my kids still draw all over themselves with Sharpie during nap, writing is still hard. Really, really hard.

In some ways writing is harder. My agent expects things from me. Like books. Good books! Finished books! I give myself arbitrary and unyielding deadlines because the pressure is on, baby. I question every word I put to the page because, ach, I only studied picture books one semester, how can I be a picture book author? I have the unshakable and very rational fear that the editors who bought my books were just playin' and any day now will notify me that they changed their minds and could they have the advance money back please. Security? Confidence? My pen scribbling off one blissfully perfect story after another? Nope, publishing did none of that.

But these first contracts did do something. Something surprising.

To find out what, check here!

The Judy Effect

At least once in any lifetime we'll meet someone who instantaneously irritates every nerve in our bodies. For me it was the guy who sat behind me in college. I think it was a history class, but I don't really remember. I only recall the way he'd wiggle his glasses back into place without use of his hands, and his habit of wearing crewneck sweaters with no shirt (collared or otherwise) underneath, and the anal precision he'd use when asking me out again, and again, and again. The mere sight of him made my skin crawl with a thousand tiny spiders. The sound of his voice made me ... ok, I'll stop there. I'm feeling ill.

It was my husband who invented the term for this phenomenon: The Judy Effect. Thus named because the person who made his skin crawl was (is still, I'm assuming) named Judy. Sadly, unlike my "Judy", Dr. D's Judy was someone we had to deal with frequently. I saw mine only a few times after college, while Dr. D had to endure his at frequent intervals. I didn't know Judy had the Judy Effect on my husband at first. When Judy stopped by I'd grow irritated with him. "Why are you hiding out in the kitchen? Aren't the dishes in the dishwasher yet - wait, why are you washing them all by hand?" or "Can't you find a better time to reorganize the cupboards?" and "Wait a second bub, you're taking dishes out of the cupboards to wash?"

Then he told me. And we discovered the Judy Effect. I bring it up only because someone had the Judy Effect on me today. A comment on a post on Facebook. A know-it-all crewneck-sweater-without-a-shirt sort of comment that instantly made my skin go prickly with those pesky spiders. One might say, "That's what you get for using Facebook," and they'd be right. And the person who posted, "Actually, fortune cookies are Japanese American not Chinese" was also right. But after hours of compiling funny sayings, printing them, cutting them out, wrestling with homemade fortune cookie dough to make a plate of crispy golden fortune cookies as a very special treat to celebrate finishing a unit study on China ... well, let's just say the information, while accurate, was not appreciated.

I later gathered my children and told them, "Hey, did you guys know that fortune cookies aren't actually Chinese?"

They stared at me a moment, then, "Yeah, Mom. They were invented by some Japanese immigrants in, like, California." Apparently that factoid was in one of the books I forgot I'd had them read. The next question was theirs. "So we get fortune cookies again when we're studying Japan, right?"

Vomit Tsunami

The beginning is always the same. Middle of the night, a child cries, I listen and hope. Perhaps sleep will return. A fool's hope, I know.

Then comes the sound. Every parent knows it. Like a cough but guttural, wet, productive. The sound that sends me bolt upright, out of bed, scrambling for the door with an even more futile hope: that the sound I heard was something innocuous like, say, the cat. Not what I know it was. Not that awful splash of stomach acid and bits of pizza, half-digested gummy bears, banana, raisins. 

I put my hand down, feel the telltale chunks in the dark. Sheets, magic blanket, pajamas all end up in a pile in the bathroom.

Every hour for the rest of night I'm up to replace pajamas and the towel. Dr. D, who has little experience with vomit, feeds the child in the morning. Mistake. By evening, Rowdy is keeping down pedialyte, but Mud Pie has a bellyache. By morning Pie and St. Nick both lay listless in the family room, bowls beside them. By noon Dr. D lays in bed with chills and stomach cramps. That night my own gut churns in a way I can't ignore. 1am, I'm hit. 5am, my head pounds and my breasts are hot from un-drunk milk. I'm suddenly awake and certain something is very wrong with the baby, so I crawl from the sofa in the family room, up the stairs, and find Baby sleeping soundly. I feed him, and he violently spits up enough to soak my pajamas. I'm too sick to care. I crawl back to the sofa. The next morning we were supposed to load the truck and drive to Milwaukee, but in crazy faith we decide to postpone. A day.

We sit in the living room all the next day. Baby continues to throw up every feeding. Rowdy and Pie and St. Nick move on to intestinal "vomiting." Fish joins them. We think he may miss the puking part of the illness and we're relieved. And since none of us has much capacity for rational thought remaining, we decide to load up the next morning and take our trip, dammit, because Dr. D can't cancel his meeting and I'm not going to be stuck home with five sick kids. Driving through Chicago with five sick kids sounds so much better somehow.

So the next morning Fish wakes with a stomach ache. St. Nick is still weak, Dr. D can barely stand. Pie and Rowdy seem perky, however, so I help them pack (and pack for everyone else) and by 9:30 we're on the road. Amazingly, Baby does not throw up again, and Fish and the rest quickly fall asleep. It's the shortest 6-hour drive in the history of our family. Plus the sleep does us well. Could it be we're free from this illness? We swim (rather halfheartedly), eat dinner (quite cautiously), and tuck in for the night.

Fish making use of the hotel floor.

3am. The sound. Again. Rowdy. Again. I thank whatever force of the universe compelled me to bring extra pajamas. The next day, a miracle! Rowdy is eating! Pie and Nick and Fish are eating! Everyone is well! We drive home giddy with relief. We watch a show, go to bed and rest blissfully.

Until St. Nick wakes me at 1am. "Mom, Mom. Fish just Superpuked."

Grateful

Today was a first. The first Turkey day in which all the kids ATE some of everything, the first time each kiddo had his/her own dish to make, and it was, of course, Rowdy's first ever Thanksgiving.

Mud pie made the cranberry sauce, Fish made a huge fruit salad, St. Nick set the table, glazed the ham, and learned how to make gravy. And as we ate, we talked about what we were grateful for.

I am grateful. For so much. For Rowdy and Fish and Pie and Nick. For Dr. D. For surviving these last few challenging years. I'm grateful, in a way, for these years and their challenges. Or for these years despite the challenges? A refining fire is hot, and being refined hurts like hell. But the glimmer is worth it.

Mini Juice Fast: Day 1

Quite a while ago, Dr. D and I watched the documentary, Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead. Not long after, we bought a juicer with the plan of making juicing a part of our daily routine. After a day or two of: WOW! This is AMAZING! I LOVE juice! Pineapple-Fennel-Beet is AWESOME! Little Miss Rowdy made her own announcement.

She did not like juice-milk. At all.

So the juicer collected dust. Just when I was thinking it might fetch some green on Craigslist, we decided to try again. Wouldn't you know, Rowdy-button doesn't mind juice-milk so much when she's chowing down on pork-and-veggie delight or pumpkin-oat bars. Yippee!

This morning we began with a delicious pineapple-orange-pomegranite, followed up with a carrot-apple-beet-ginger-lime for lunch. Now it's 4:12. I am so hungry. So. Very. Hungry. That itself isn't much of a surprise. I'm always SO HUNGRY at 4:12. What I didn't realize was how mindlessly I forage in the cupboards when I'm hungry. About ten times a minute I catch myself getting up and reaching for the cupboard door with visions of chocolate chips or dates or a handful of cereal dancing in my head.

Plaguing Starbucks Everywhere: Kidism

We've heard of racism and ageism, sexism and more, but over the weekend we experienced yet another "ism." It could be seen as a sort of reverse ageism, I suppose. It's nothing less than: "Kidism."

Here's the story (of course there's a story!) ...

Picture it, Sunday morning, Dr. D had left early for a meeting and to take Mud Pie to children's choir practice, so it was up to me to rouse and ready the boys and Rowdy. No problem, except as is typical of Sunday mornings, we were out of cereal/milk/anything else to eat for breakfast. So I hurried the boys and made it to D&W with ten minutes for a donut.

Added bonus, this D&W has a Starbucks inside. Mama was not yet entirely roused (read: Zombie), so I sent St. Nick up with my debit card to order me a cup of coffee.

A few seconds later he returned saying, "They were too busy. I have to go back up in a minute."

"Busy? But there's nobody up there!"

Scattered in the Head

I'm having one of those days weeks lives where I feel like my head is spinning in a thousand different directions. Five emails a day from school, "Don't forget, we're missing, tomorrow is, your child needs!" Announcements at church, "For middle school, our Harvest Dinner, next Sunday, in nursery this week..." Not to mention my million-and-one writing, photographing, designing projects. Keeping the house together, kids fed and clothed, on and on and on has left me convinced of one thing.

I need to clone myself. Which reminds me that I started a story about cloning. That I wanted to finish. It's done in my head, just needs to be written up. Maybe while St. Nick is at swimming tomorrow.

What to Do? Homeschooling / Schooling Angst

Ever since our decision to switch the kids from the charter school to an elementary in our district, I've felt uneasy. Beyond uneasy. Conflicted. No. Queasy. And it's not just watching St. Nick, Pie and Fish climb off the bus every afternoon, although that alone makes me queasy - how I hated the long bus rides home when I was too tired to stay awake but too afraid of missing my stop to fall asleep. Ugh.

The Flavor of a Place: The Customer is Always Wright Rite Write?

I need to confess something: I don't dislike librarians. Really, I don't. I rather like some of them and outright adore others. I also love libraries, because I love books. But, see, in the past three years I've had a Problem. Only this week have I finally, finally realized what is at its root. And here it is! I know you can hardly wait! But first, a story.

Many years ago Burger King had a sandwich called the Big King. It was basically a BK version of the Big Mac. One day I decided to try it, except I hate the "special sauce" so I said, "I'd like a Big King without the sauce."

"You can't do that," the girl said.

We went back and forth like this until she grew snotty and I said, "I don't like sauce on stuff. Why can't you leave it off?"

"Cause then it ain't a Big King."

Ummmmmm. I talked to the manager, who agreed with her that I could not order a Big King without the sauce. I was so dumbfounded I couldn't speak. I switched to a chicken sandwich. With no mayonnaise. Only later did it occur to me to request the sauce on the side, though I expect by that point they would have come up with some reason against it.

How does this relate to the library? A few years ago we moved, and likewise we switched libraries. I was rather glad. I'd had to drag screaming toddlers out of our old branch so often I dreaded walking through the doors. How nice to start over. New toys! New books!

Quite quickly this new branch surprised me. The patrons. Oh my word. I parked a little over the line once and had a woman try to "rip me a new one" for crowding her spot; a grumpy old man made it his duty to silence loud kids. He was equal opportunity about it: he'd harass whichever mom was there, even if the noisy kids weren't hers. If no mom was in the kid area, he'd grab whichever female was closest and lay into her. Then I overheard a woman say to a librarian, "I want you to Mark Down that there's crayon in the book so I don't get CHARGED for it!" She wasn't very polite. The librarian said, "Oh, we'd never do that!" The woman replied, "Yes you would, you have before." I made it a point to be super polite to the librarians. What happened?

Returning about 40 books at once is common for me. We check out A LOT of books. And I mean a lot. We've come close to reaching the max (100) on my card alone, and frequently have at least a few check-outs on each of four cards. Library day can be a little nutty, except I have a system to minimize error. (Of course I do!) I'd been using it for years and while I earn a good number of fines, they're far less than they could be, believe me. Most of them are "convenience fees" - $0.15 each for ten books vs. going to the library on a busy day. Let them be late! Anyhow, the final step in my system involves checking returns online once I get home because sometimes - with 30, 40, 60 returns, a book or two will slide through without getting checked in. Step 1 in that case: renew the book, just in case I actually *did* still have it (though I have a good visual memory for this sort of useless cr@p), and so no fines would accrue if it takes the librarians a few days to find the book. Then I follow to Step 2.

At my old library, I'd call and say, "I returned Book X but it's not showing as returned." "Oh, ok, we'll look for it." If the librarian found it on the shelf, he'd check it in. This new library? Not so easy.

First, the phone call. "What book is this?" "Book X" "When did you return it?" "Yesterday (or whenever)." "No, according to your account you didn't return that book." "Right. I DID return it but it must not have been checked in." "Well, we usually don't miss them. We have safeguards against that." Followed by, "Are you sure you don't have it at home?" By this point I'm frustrated. "I'm sure." "You will have to come in and check the shelf." "Um, why would I do that?" Eventually the librarian would check the @#$ shelf, find the book, and with a bit of guff say, "Well, I guess we let one slide after all."

Then they quit with phones - I can no longer reach the branch without being routed through several levels of customer disservice. So I've taken to doing step 1 (renew) and following up with step 2 in person the next time I'm at the library. The conversation goes something like:

"Um, hi, I returned a book a while ago and I think it didn't get checked in properly."

"It looks like you renewed it."

"I did, so I wouldn't be charged fines between returning it and coming back to tell you I'd returned it." This typically takes at least one repeat.

"But it has $2 in fines."

"Right, that's because it wasn't registered as being returned, and I haven't been able to come in to tell you--"

"You are responsible for your fines."

"Right, I know. What I'm saying is I returned the book before it was due, so it shouldn't have any fines."

"Do you have the book?"

"No, I--"

"So you can't find the book?"

By this point my resolution to be super polite is wavering. "Look, I returned the book several weeks ago and I haven't had a chance to tell you until now."

"Well, ok, if you say so. I'll look for it on the shelf." Librarian goes, returns with the book. "I'll cancel the fine this time, but I'm making a note of it on your account."

WTF? For someone who is just a wee bit conflict avoidant, this is enough to raise my blood pressure the instant I see the dreaded un-returned returned book. It also got me wondering about the culture of grumpiness at this particular library. Do grumpy patrons a grumpy librarian make? Or do patrons come to expect a certain level of courtesy, or perhaps discourtesy, so every time they approach the circulation desk their hackles are raised?

On a whim I visited my old library. I had a problem with the self-check-out and took the deep breath necessary to approach the librarian. To my absolute shock, I was greeted with a smile and helped happily. The librarian smiled at the kids, answered St. Nick's questions without annoyance and at normal speaking voice (i.e., not whispering), and was generally pleasant. I looked around. Yes, there were the requisite screaming toddlers, but everyone was nice. No one using a computer shot daggers at the moms, no librarians had whispered conversations about this or that horrible patron (another thing I'd overheard at the other library).

I had assumed that all libraries would be the same. A library is a library is a library, isn't it? Now I see each one is an organism. And like all organisms, it is only as healthy as the cells that make it up. Like that Burger King (now out of business), there was something seriously messed up from the manager down to the employee. I'm beginning to think the same is true of this nearest library. It seems to me the Culture is defined by those at the height. Miss Big King would have called back to the kitchen, "Yeah I need a Big King without sauce" had her manager instilled the company value of Your Way Right Away. Likewise, the culture of a library has more to do with the King of that branch than the paupers. And by King, I don't mean Elvis.

Librarians and Darwinian Natural Selection

I wrote a sonnet about my local library. Frustration does something interesting for me. I makes me creative. The quote, so ubiquitous now it's cliché, "Be careful or I'll put you in my book and kill you," has a delicious ring of truth.

The situation is nothing new. I've paid an insane number of fines this year. A book was stolen from my bedside when I was in the hospital with Rowdy. A DVD was put down the register. St. Nick squirreled a host of books in his bunk and insisted, no, he gave them to me. I just didn't feel like going to the library a few times.

And a bunch of movies were two days late because - who knows why - my computer bugged up, their server bugged up. That's the most recent, but was my hope for grace answered? My plea that technological issues aren't necessarily *my* fault. And even if they are, can't you just be Nice? No. I need to "learn my lesson." I suppose so. One thing I've learned, no more DVDs from the library.

I've been thinking quite a bit about why this sort of thing bothers me so much - because it's not just the library. Any time there is an injustice, where an All Powerful Authority exercises that authority capriciously, without concern for human dignity or grace or, in this case, rationality, I'm thrown. More important, when I'm facing an Authority against which I have no recourse, I'm doubly thrown. I feel helpless, violated. And mad as hell. Those who know me understand why.

So I wonder why those who excel in library services do so well? I would be a lousy librarian. Largely because I hate Capricious Authority. I am unable to survive beneath it and just as unable to be it, which I suppose is why my kids are so, uh, spirited. Dr. D might question whether I'm capable of being an Authority at all. Hmmm. Maybe a few whoopin's to "learn them kids their lessons" would work wonders.

Anyway, Dr. D suggested that if you give someone a modicum of power, baptize it with an advanced degree, that person - who knows their job could be done by anyone with a pulse (his words) - feels validated, entitled to their Pound of Flesh. Take away the degree and add the Baptism of Marriage or Parent or Teacher and you have precisely the mix of qualities that drives the abuser. Insecurity x Power x Entitlement. Which circles back to why this sort of expression so bothers me.

So I have no choice. The library is a bureaucracy where customer service is an unknown concept. If I want to use it, I have to take my whoopin', by golly. And if I don't come back? What they lose in fines (I am a regular contributor, you know) will be made up for in tax dollars. Plus, I would have to actually - gasp - buy books.

Which might just be less expensive. Regardless, at least I got a sonnet out of the thing. Whoever said "Words are cheap" obviously did not use the public library.

Oh, and I already had this:

Which has thus far earned me $9.60. Shhh. Don't tell the librarians! I'm sure they'll find a way to fine me for it.

Lower Standards, Higher Prices

Sounds like the slogan for government bureaucracy, doesn't it? It isn't (at least not today), because today is a special day. A milestone. No, not a millstone. Goodness, don't get all Freudian on me.

The reason for celebration? Fifteen years of marriage. Fifteen. Wow. Most days I don't feel old enough to be a decade-and-a-half wed. Other days, however, especially if Rowdy has been up several times ...

Years and years ago Dr. D and I would plan a nice dinner out, a special day trip, something fun and memorable. This morning Dr. D and I celebrated by going out for breakfast. To McDonald's. With four kids, summer vacay winding down, school supplies lists longer than our arms, our expectations are, um, how to say it. Nonexistent.

And wouldn't you know, our un-special breakfast was lovely. Pseudo food and a long-ish conversation (we had Rowdy with us) about how much has changed in fifteen years. We realized we are both different people.

While many go a lifetime without any noticeable change, we've adopted new patterns in almost every area. Something about losses: of parents, sibling, pregnancies, and about gains: friendships, careers, all these nutty kids has made us retrospect. Nothing can be taken for granted. Every moment is a gift. Not that I always remember this (who does?), but I know it better than I did fifteen years ago.

St. Nick doesn't fit in the rocking chair quite like Rowdy does ...

The chaos and pain, and, yes, the joy has also cemented our commitment to one another. So, Dr. D, I look forward to another, even better fifteen years to come. And more after that.

Chiro-Nonsense: Thoughts on Crazy Chiropractic: A Horror Story

Chiropractors get a bad rep, don't they? A while back my back was hurting (ha, did you catch that? Back, back? I'm so d@mn clever!). Leftover from childbirth, pregnancy, months of carrying Little Miss Rowdy. So I asked my primary for a referral, which he provided without any opinion on which of the zillion or so chiropractors in the area I should see.

Which left me with the, oh, three or so options my insurance company provided. First on the list: a husband and wife team in a nice building adjacent to a golf course. Perfect!

So I went.

And that's when things got ... weird.

First off, the office was eerie. Waiting room clean to the point of perfection, no stray reading material or chewed up toys, no lint or little bits of stuff people track in on their shoes. But I like clean. Clean is good, right?

Then there was the sign above the expansive doorway which led to the exam rooms: "We Respect the Design as Well as the Designer." Ugh, was I going to get adjusted or saved? Not that I have any real issue with business people carrying their faith into the office. One of the doctors in our family practice of our GP drops little quips about "design" and the "designer." He's a better doctor for it, I think. But to use big fake brass letters to literally spell it out above the door?

Moving on to the adjustment. I expected a little awkwardness for the X-rays. Hard to get a good X-ray with bra clasps and zippers and whatever else, but the adjustments likewise required a medical gown. Because ... (here's the best part) ... the guy used a thermometer to judge which vertebrae needed adjustment. The theory was that minuscule changes in temperature told him where there was inflammation, so when the thermometer registered a temp increase he'd MARK MY BACK WITH A PEN. Then he brought in an elephant and had it stomp on me. More or less. None of the gentle feeling around for the right spot, just a gigantic CRUNCH on the little blue X (or red, whatever, I never saw the pen).

What's worse, despite the creepy feeling and increase in pain after each visit, I went back three times. I don't trust my creep-o-meter like I should, likely because I worry it's overactive. But in this case, I should have run like the wind after the first visit. I'm hesitant to write it, because the whole experience was just so Strange, but I wonder now if the chiropractor just liked messing with the ties on the gown.

That's not me. Just saying.

One more thing: I could see the computer screen as the secretary was scheduling me for my fourth appointment (which I canceled). She flipped through a full week of appointment pages. Page after page, virtually empty. Explained the clean waiting room.

Summer Vacation Day 3

Here's how my week (first week of vacay for the kiddos) has looked:

Monday: in tears (me) by 8am.
Tuesday: in tears (me again) by 11am.
Wednesday: so far so good (me) and it's 3pm! St. Nick and Mud Pie, however, have both shed a few tears. And Rowdy, well, you know babies.

Dear Teachers of the World

At this very moment, I have five field trip info sheets on my refrigerator. One Field Day sheet, one special book report thingy to do (another sheet), and the various papers of info for other activities like ballet recital info for Mud Pie, band concert for St. Nick. Just a moment ago I received an SOS from Fish's teacher: "We need drivers for the field trip tomorrow! And volunteers for the end of school party! And items for the gift for our student teacher! And a lunch mom for today!" And and and and ...

I know not everyone at this school has four kiddos; some might consider four kiddos about two (or three) too many. But I do know everyone with kids at any school is busy up to their eyeballs at the end of May. Whether planning vacations (oh, to be so lucky!), fixing backpacks and homework folders so they can last three more weeks, or debating 5th graders on the value of practicing their band instrument when the school year is so close to being over. We're swamped.

Teachers, I love you. But can we breathe a little? Regain our sanity a moment?

Ok, I'm being whiney. Call the Waaaahmbulance. Why so grumpy, you ask? I think it was second grade.

I'm in favor of parent involvement. Of course I am! I was on library committee until Rowdy was born, I take photos for Boosters, I've tried to plan one party and drive for one field trip for each kid this year. We've attended nearly all special events from Carnival to concerts to Fund Racer to Mom's and Dad's nights. But add to this volunteer involvement, mandatory involvement and you get ... me. annoyed.

For Fish's class we started the year with Log Cabins. A "family" project. I spent hours picking up sticks, showing Fish how to use the hot glue gun, collecting pebbles, scouring the craft store for deals. I got photos from Grandma Daisy -- Fish's Great Grandma who was born in a log cabin in, like, 1815 (kidding Gram!!! XOXO!!!) -- and made a cute little "What it was like in the Log Cabin" info sheet from a letter Gram wrote. I even hooked a mini rug for the teeny tiny log cabin's sandpaper floor and planted real plants in the teeny tiny log cabin garden.

Once that project was over, we had a Biography Poster. I spent a lot less time with Fish picking a biography from the library, typing his report as he dictated, helping him find photos of King Tut online, helping him glue them to his poser board, encouraging (forcing) him to color and decorate his poster.

After that we had the Revolutionary War Wax Theartre. This was St. Nick's project, not Fish's, but still. Weeks of Goodwill Hunting, sewing, listening to St. Nick practice his speech, more sewing. A little more sewing. (I believe I've mentioned my hatred for sewing.) All to transform St. Nick into a very convincing young Benedict Arnold.

And now, at the very end of the school year. Fish again. Chapter Book project with ... drum roll.

Hats. Homemade hats. Homemade @#$%$#@ hats.

I don't know, I think this was the straw that broke the camel's hat. Back. Whatever. Fish called while I was at the grocery store last night to tell me he made his hat. With duck tape and peppermints. My thought? Thank god, now I don't have to help him with it. Has he read the book for the report yet? Um, I haven't asked. And you know what? I might not. That's just the kind of negligent mom I am.

On Delight and Education

Three years ago we quit homeschooling and put St. Nick into third grade and Fish into Kindergarten (Mud Pie was a little bug then). The school decision was tough: the rock solid elementary in our school district: lots of resources, great test scores, good teachers, new building. Or the little charter school: diverse, energetic, with a moral focus curriculum. We toured both and were blown away by the in-person difference.

Cute little charter school: full of zeal and energy! The tour guide (someone from the office) was delighted with us, with our kids, with the school.

District school: bored administrator with a hint of cynicism toward the children we passed in the halls, very little interest in our kids, no interest in us as parents or what we could offer to the school. The cool building got her excited, however. Yeah, that was one cool building.

We opted for the charter school.

We've been weighing school options again for the past little while. We've liked our charter school for the past three years. But ... some important things bug us, and we're in this great district, so why not take advantage of it and its reputation? Besides, the kids would switch into the system for high school. Start now and make the transition easier. Right?

So we toured the school again. The main differences: the kids are older and could ask questions and the building is older and tired after a long school day. The result? Administrator masking boredom or fatigue, slightly annoyed with my kids and their questions (I warned her that they were talkers), and not so excited about the building this time around. I guess the newness had worn off.

My question now: does everyone at a school need to be as delighted with my children as I am? Do they need to be delighted at all? Maybe I simply observed the market at work: the district school takes whatever kid who can verify his or her address. The charter school needs to "win" families, to sell them on the benefits of their school. Or maybe simple personality difference. I deal with the charter school tour guide quite a bit, and she's naturally zeal-ful and energetic. Maybe the administrator is naturally ... neither of those things.

Dr. D and I decided that there's no way to really take the pulse of a school without going there. The decision now: do we stay with what's known and deal with what bugs us, or do we jump in. And risk. If only decisions like this were as easy as, say, when to start Miss Rowdy on solids: i.e., when she starts waking up ravenous every two hours at night. Ah, for an easy life.

Mud Pie at Assembly

On the plus side, we did get to meet a number of teachers, and they were every bit as energetic, engaging, fun and kind as the charter school counterparts. St. Nick especially liked the art teacher with her free-flowing style and attentive manner.

Recreation

This week ...

• One minivan breakdown which took three days to fix (its Brain died, and yes that's as expensive as it sounds).
• Two all-morning meetings with Baby.
• Three dozen diapers sold online.
• Arranged one newspaper article featuring cool stuff friends did.
• Five million phone or Skype calls.
• Six million hours in the Jeep - see minivan above and note: Six people will NOT fit in a five-passenger vehicle.
• Eight gazillion emails.
• Half a book read.
• Eighty ooglesalakfhgozillion gallons of nursie-milk-spit up on my shirt(s) (and skirts, shoes, floors, etc.). 

This is what I do after a long, stressful week:

How to Be the Best

I admit it, I have a competitive streak.  When I check out my friends at iStockphoto, I get a bit perturbed if their downloads outpace mine. When I read a particularly banal Disney princess adaptation to Mud Pie, I think, "Good lord, a monkey could do better!" More often than not, however, I am my own prime competitor. Which is a lose-lose situation; I can never measure up to my own ideals.

As a writer, I once believed to be Real I had to face unflinchingly the dark, shadowy things on the edge of existence. There was no backing down, no escape. Happy sunshine and cute little bunnies, well, that's what those other writers did. The sentimental ones, the ones stuck on believing their childhood was happy. I saw it as my mission to stare down the darkness and make it retreat.

There's a certain similarity between winter and summer in Michigan. In winter we have a landscape of white and white and white and gray and black. Summer, it's all green. Green is lovely. Warm and shady. But it's still green.

Autumn is creeping through the forest now. For the first time all year I can see the maple trees springing out from the landscape, their sprawling arms reaching as far as they can to spread orange and yellow. The stately oak, rich brown, towers now over the goldenrod fields. An aspen, each leaf twinkling like a golden coin, glitters against the backdrop of color.

The sweetness of life is not tripe, not childishness or sentimentality. It provides contrast. Without contrast all detail is lost; sameness and boredom drift in. Four or so years ago much of my thinking had a sameness to it. Brooding, dark, cynical. Not that I wasn't "happy," but joy came in a more self-satisfied way, a feeling that I was more Real because I faced the ugly truths of the world without those abhorrent rose-colored glasses. Yet I didn't experience a joy or celebration of life and the world. On the contrary, if I happened to notice the quaking aspen, offering me its golden gift, I felt squeamish, unworthy. I didn't trust it, this fleeting beauty. With so much darkness, I should work to face it, to fight it, extinguish it! Shouldn't I?

A righteous calling, but impossible. Like trying to distinguish the maple in a forest from the oak - from two miles away. In summer, as in winter, it's hard to do. Darkness won't retreat unless I bring a little light in with me.

Dewitt Jones said in a video I watched Sunday, "if you celebrate what's right with the world, you will find the energy to fix what is wrong."

Slowly, over years, I've changed my emphasis. I no longer want to be the Best In The World, competing and losing against my scathing inner critic, judge, hangman. I now want to be the best for the world. This new way of thinking is liberating, healing.

During the MFA we talked a lot about the aboutness of a story. The central thrust, the take-home, the gravitas. The story I began in my mind several years ago, the one that became my creative thesis for the MFA, was once about abuse of authority, cruelty, intergenerational evil. But through re-envisioning and revision, I found a different aboutness: hope, innocence, and the triumphant power of the human spirit. The darkness is balanced by light, and the contrast makes both more meaningful.

Top Things To Do

When you're too weepy and hormonal to tackle any real work:

1. Cry until your spouse suggests you might wake the kids, and it's 1am; go to bed and continue in the morning.
2. Redesign your website (check).
3. Play Plants vs. Zombies (you win! Again!).
4. Look at ultrasound pictures (*smile*).
5. Sew like a maniac despite your hate-hate relationship with your sewing machine (yup, did it).
6. Talk to your grandmother on the phone (*hugs*). 
7. Post inanity to the World Wide Web (ongoing).