Our au pair?

Another parent recently told me that she punishes her kids not by taking things away (tv, computer), but by adding something in: Chores. This may work for her, and many other parents.. but not in this house. Mr. Bennett bounds out of bed at 6 each morning, dresses, spends a good 30 minutes banging around in his bathroom doing his hair (wetting it in the sink, and combing in whatever product he can get his hands on ) and then plods loudly down the stairs to get the girls out of their beds, dress them, and give them breakfast. He often spends the early morning weekend hours preparing "treats" for us in the kitchen, or noisily (detect a theme?) laying out what he likes to call the Breakfast Buffet. (This always involves cut-up fruit and an inordinate amount of toothpicks.)

So, more chores would hardly seem like punishment, I said to the parent. Wow, she said, It must be like having an au pair.

I replied that Bennett only really does the chores he deems worthy, and if he can't be bothered, he tells us to bugger off. So, it is like having an au pair -- a French one.

Still, now that there are five little ones in the house, I'll take all the help I can get.

[Consequently, a lot of people have been asking me whether 5 is any different than 4. I'm not really sure how to answer it. While it's more of the same, it's different. And this time I have an especially ornery toddler in tow -- for some reason Fi seems to have gotten a head start on being an impossible two year old, something which didn't strike the other kids until they were closer to three. She constantly tells me to put the baby down and carry her, and insists of being fed like a baby, carried like a baby, you get the drift. So, I am getting something of an ass-kicking here. Still, somewhere underneath all the chaos, I'm managing to have fun. It could be the sleep deprivation kicking in, and making me think I'm having fun when I'm really now.. but I'll never know.]

Girth.

In addition to recently asking me why, if the baby only weighs about 7 lbs, am I so bloody enormous, Bennett came up with this gem today: "Mum, when you get in the car, did you know that the whole thing shakes? I mean, you're THAT big that you make the car shake!!"

It is at moments like these that I remind myself he'll never know the beauty of pregnancy and childbirth (although at the moment, I'm not experiencing much beauty in any form..), and that while it's my job to foster his humanity (can you tell I've been living on the West Coast for 12 years, or what?), he's still a male. Francie has at least more tact when she asks: "How long after the baby comes will you be fat for?" Or perhaps, I'm reading empathy into her question because I know (and hope) that one day she too will be blessed enough to curse extra pounds of baby weight. (Although the thought of my scrawny little chicken with any extra pounds is hard to get my head around.)

There's always dialogue about children and body image, and lately I have been wondering what it must be like for them to see me pregnant -- to watch me morph into a science project for what seems like an eternity -- to them and me. Francie doesn't even remember what I look like un-pregnant.. or as she said recently: "What do you look like when you're not fat?"

Other than waiting around for the baby, squeezing in appointments, wrapping up work, and fielding delightful questions from the kids, I'm enjoying autumn in Seattle. We don't always get this season.. we can often go from "summer" to rain.. but we've had lovely crisp, sunny days.. and I'm finally wise enough not to take them for granted.

Atoning.

Bennett just got caught indoor bowling with a coconut he found in the kitchen. Not a big deal, but on the eve of Yom Kippur I'm wondering: Do kids have to atone for sins of stupidity?

I have been discussing forgiveness with kids and we'll be asking each other for forgiveness .. it's a good exercise in humanity, not to mention humility, if nothing else. But stupidity -- is it a sin, or just a normal part of growing up? At what point do we expect them not to do things, like wipe up a mess of paint with a pretty handtowel, but to use a rag instead? When is it alright to expect them not to fill their water cups to the brim and then act shocked when they spill and drip on the kitchen floor? Will they ever know that at this point wiping up the water is a good idea because in a matter of seconds a sibling is about to slip in it?

Some things to think about... when I take a break from atoning for my own many missteps of the year.

Good moods.

I obviously shudder when I hear Bennett call from another room, "Hey Mummy -- are you in a good mood?" Tonight this was followed by, "Will you still be in a good mood if I tell you that I got in the bath wearing dirty socks.. on purpose...?"

At some point Fi got in the bath and everyone tried to convince her to poo while she was in there. She certainly gave it a try.

And the end of all the evening's bath and shower shenanigans (and there were many more.. at some point an apple got involved, and when Fiona went missing we found she'd climbed, once again, into the shower with Efram), Bennett commented on my zen state and said, "Wow you ARE in a good mood. You must have had a lot of coffee today."

I'm zen because I got through today. Fiona started "school" today -- and although she was teary when I picked her up, it went relatively well. So, when I had to fish a half-eaten apple out of a tub of filthy bath water, I was zen. For me, anyway.

The new four?

I'm about 7 weeks away from, all being well, adding a fifth to the brood. I told the kids that number five will be of the She variety, and within seconds the boys figured out that they'd soon be outnumbered. They conferred for a few moments, and then Efram said, "That's fine. The next one will be a boy." I told him that this will most likely be our last baby, to which he replied, "What do you mean? In two more years we get another one, right?"

I soon set him straight. No Efram, I said. I think this is it for us. Five seems like a lot -- an actual handful, in fact.

Bennett thought he had a plan: How about a boy dog, he said. That way things would be even again. He looked rather proud with himself for having figured out a way to work the dog in to yet another one of his proposals.

At this point Francie, who'd been quiet up until now, jumped in. She informed the boys that, "Daddy told me we can either have a dog or a dad. And I think we should keep the Dad, because I don't think dogs can fix things around the house."

The boys agreed. One of them said, "Yeah, and Mummy can't even use a screwdriver to change batteries, so we'd be in real trouble without him."

(The last point, is no longer true. I've conquered my fear of tools and can now use a screwdriver. Not well, but I'm working on it.)

Summer.

I wonder if it's something in the air (or water) up here in the Pacific NW but in addition to having to live without spring and having to endure a 4 week summer, I also have to hear many of my friends tell me how ready they are for summer vacation, or, more specifically, how eager they are for their children to be out of school. While I like to think I've acclimated quite well to the life up here (my hair is several shades darker and I look pallid quite effortlessly), I can't help but stare in blank bewilderment when I hear this.

True, I too am happy about a later start in the morning and avoiding the commute to school (camp is in the neighborhood and starts at nine), and I won't miss the hour I spend at night chaperoning homework, but I am at a total loss when they say things like, "Oh, I'm just looking forward to loooong, lazy summer days," or "I don't even know if I'm putting my kids IN camp this year; I may just let them hang around."

Lazy days? Hang around? Just thinking about weeks of unstructured bedlam in my house makes me panic. I can count on my hands the number of days we'll have this summer when we wake up in the morning wondering what to do with the entire day. Frankly, I can count it on one hand.

Is it my children? Quite possibly. The boys especially seem to have more energy than some of their friends, and most sports turn into tackle versions of the game (e.g., tackle basketball, tackle soccer..), so lazy days are never just that and quite often end up with me applying hefty amounts of ice packs and band aids. And we usually do spend the long, late afternoons of summer doing our fair share of hanging around. But given that the summer amusements of choice in this house include: constructing latrines in the front yard, building small fires on the side of the house, filling the baby pool with mud, sticks and water once the girls are already in it, and suspending large outdoor toys (slides, etc) from the deck using twine and dental floss, I would rather be shot than have to do a whole summer of it.

I'll slow my work schedule down a bit (and I only work when they're not around), I'll keep lemonade on tap, and assuming the sun comes out for more than 5 minutes, they'll be trips to the lake and beach towels hanging over the railings of the deck for weeks on end. But let the inmates run the asylum? Never.

Vacation for whom?

You know you're in trouble when you know you're going to need a vacation from your vacation even before your vacation begins. Frankly, I'm kidding myself and everyone around me when I use the word "vacation" in connection with this weekend. What M and I had once, briefly, fleetingly envisioned as a weekend away alone.. has turned (in terms of planning and coordination) into the Yalta Summit of weekend trips. (I can remember exactly where we were when we fantasized about getting away alone. In the car. Date night. On the way to the movies, most likely. But given that I haven't peed alone in 8 years, a few nights away was really too much to ask.)

So, we're all flying out of Seattle. "Dropping off" the boys in Denver with the in-laws and taking the two girls to Boston for a wedding weekend... and picking them up on the way home. I'm sure it will all be loads of fun, but right now I'm packing.. for two destinations... and feeling like it might have been easier just to all go together, even if it does mean sharing a bed with several small beings. (Consequently, the big winners in all of this are the boys who get a weekend with grandparents and zero parental supervision.)

So, here I am... contemplating the vacation I'm going to need next week to recover from this one. I'm not trying to be whiny. I've done all sorts of travel with the kids. But traveling anywhere (even the supermarket) with an 18 month old requires more patience that I was born with, and I still can't get that fantasy of several restful child-free nights out of my mind. Luckily, spring in Seattle is complete crap, and the thought of 70 degree weather is more than appealing. M reminds me that I always get cold travel feet on the night before a trip, and this is just that. I'm sure of it. Right?