A Loud Morning (how’s that for a clever title)

One of my children was so loud this morning. Soooo LOUD. She seemed to be bouncing up and down and bobbing about in circles – and no matter where I went, that bobbing and bouncing and voice turned to “high” was always directly in front of me.

“Mom!” she was shouting. “Watch me jump into these pillows!”

“Mom!” – bouncing bouncing – “I need a drink of water!”

“Mom! Where’s my swimsuit?”

All the while I was “shhh”ing and shushing the whirring-to-near-dizzying image of girl and disheveled three-day old braids.

“Shhh. Quieter, Pen. It’s too early in the morning. . . . Shhh, Pen. You’re going to wake Anders. . . . Shhh, Penny. That’s too loud. . . . Shhh, hush, Honey. Abe is asleep right there on the couch. . . . Shhhhh (holding my head). Too loud. Too early. Too loud.”

“Perhaps,” I thought to myself, “I shouldn’t have let her have that white-bread jelly sandwich she requested for breakfast.”

Only, no, she hadn’t even eaten it yet. In fact I was blindly spreading jelly at the very moment.

I paused. Quit spreading and handed her the sandwich. It clearly wasn’t to blame.

I stumbled back toward my bedroom wondering if this was what a hangover felt like (vowing never to drink just in case). “Mornings should be peaceful,” I thought, and nodded agreeingly with my wise self. “Mornings should be . . . quiet. Yes. Quiet. So quiet.”

“Mom!!! Can I come with you to drop Goldie off at swimming lessons? Mom! Can I go outside? Mom! Mom? Mom!”

Swimming lessons? Did she just say swimming lessons? What had possessed me to sign kids up for 9:00 am swimming lessons anyway?? (Perhaps that decision was made back before summer rolled into town; back when 9:00 am was a perfectly reasonable time to be somewhere.)

I walked past a half-asleep Abe – face down in our living room couch and wrapped hotdog-like in a blanket. “I’m sooo tired,” came his muffled moan.

Here was a sensible child. A child who knew what mornings should be like. We should all be tired – and appropriately subdued because of it.

Only . . . “Why are you down here?” I questioned.

“I set my alarm.”

“Why would you . . . ?”

“I don’t want to sleep in!” (Followed by a groan of exhaustion.)

What? No like-minded morning sense found with him after all.

Luckily I managed to pull things together – swimsuits were put on, braids were re-done, and some kids were even given reasonable breakfasts. I recalibrated my sound sense – adjusting my perception of ear-splittingly loud to near normal. (And none too soon either – as the nearly asleep Abe suddenly rallied and began playing chopsticks with all his might on the piano. CHOPSTICKS! In the morning!) And we stepped forward into the day. It wasn’t so hard. I just had to tell myself the same lie I tell myself most mornings to convince myself to get out of bed. “You can always take a nap later,” I say. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but I’m a sucker.

Cell phone pics:

Summer is Here

And WE, for one, haven’t waded in slowly!

Oh no. Somehow we have managed to cram nearly a whole summer’s worth of experience into six days. We’ve definitely come out swinging.

Pow! Time at the cabin and time eating shakes

Pow! Lot’s of time and lots of stuff and lots of kids in the car.

Pow! Time at the beach.


Pow! Castles made of weird mucky junk that isn’t really sand or mud.

Pow! Swimming lessons, and Visiting family graves, and going for ice cream with cousins, and time at Grandpa’s farm.

And . . . pow . . . ridiculously late bedtimes, and severe asthma attacks and multiple sleepless nights for Jesse and those of us who love him. Sigh.

Whew. And it isn’t even June. In fact we might have come out swinging with a bit too much exuberance. Let’s hope we don’t get knocked right out in round two.

Anywho, that’s all for now I suppose. I’d like to say I’m off to take a long nap, but there is a diaper that needs changing, a baseball game that needs attending, and a whole lot of mess that needs cleaning. (And nobody even mentioned dinner in there . . . and here we are at nearly 6:00 pm. Oh summer.)

Miscellaneous Thoughts Surrounding Baseball Pics

We went to another of Abe’s games the other night.

I really wish I had a good telephoto lens for capturing things like this. I have to crop most of my pictures so he isn’t a small dot of boy lost in baseball field.

There you go again – whining about wanting more expensive camera equipment.

Well sorry. It’s not a cheep hobby (oops . . . I mean cheap . . . Mike has pointed out to me before that the only cheep spelled like that is the cheep little chicks might make). Anyway, fine, sorry for whining. Maybe if I just had a ladder so I could be up above the chain-link line. It gets a little old taking every picture through chain-link.

You do have a ladder.

Yah, but it’s kind of wobbly and I feel nervous standing on it. Besides, think how silly I’d feel standing on a ladder in front of everyone at the game.

So you don’t really want a ladder.

No. No I don’t. . . . Maybe just a big hole in the fence . . . and a telephoto lens.

So we’re back to that are we? Huh. By the by, it’s kind of weird how you’re talking to yourself.

I’m just trying to . . . never mind. I don’t know what I am trying to do. But leave me be. I’ve already disclosed the fact that I have two-way and occasionally three-way conversations with myself.

Perhaps it would be best if we just got back to the game.

Yes. Perhaps it would.


(I think I might be becoming a bit OCDish. The other day I was looking at some wedding pics. All the bridesmaids had matching green dresses, but only one wore a leather belt with hers. As I looked through the pictures, I desperately wanted to have that belt gone – or duplicated on all the other dresses. And every time I look at the above photo, I imagine myself reaching in and placing Abe’s pal Jared’s red hat back on his head.)

The girls came with me to this game. They watched some, but, mostly, Daisy read while Goldie and Penny ran off and made little friends at the nearby park. I love how kids can just be like, “Hey, wanna play with me?” And suddenly they are pals. (Although, sadly, I have a distinct memory of being young and very much not daring to do that very thing. . . . I’m so brave these days compared to poor little-girl me.)

These pictures of Penny reminded me of something cute. The other day she brought home a paper from school for me. She’d drawn the two of us together on it and written: “What I like about mom is . . .” I forget what she liked about me, but I remember what she wrote next: “What I like about me is . . .” and then she wrote, “my beauty spot.” (Though I think beauty was spelled in some awesomely creative way). It reminded me of how my dad used to have us giggling and laughing as he’d say, “Do you know what I love the very most about you?” And he’d search behind our ears, on the insides of our arms, on our palms, etc. until he came upon one small line or freckle, “This,” he’d say, “This right here is what I love best about you.”

Alright. That’s all for now I suppose. Goodbye baseball game.