I’m up at 6 a.m. My eye still hurts from the unwelcome sty that began to form late afternoon of the day before. Though it is not my most recognized feature at the moment, I feel like maybe wearing a pirate eye patch would be better than hiding my wince every time I blink. I shower and get dressed. This is not my normal routine. I have a root canal scheduled at 9 this morning. Why did I schedule it for this time? 4 of my kids need to be at school at 9 and one of my kids is a baby who will need to be babysat while I get this tooth killed. (We don’t need a do over of the teeth cleaning I had done over the summer where I planned on the baby sleeping and instead the baby woke up and was crying in the corner for the last 15 minutes of the procedure, therefore ruining the closest thing I’ve seen to a spa experience in some years.). I remember why I scheduled it at 9a.m….it’s because I had already cancelled and rescheduled this event twice and every time I did, it got pushed back another month and the available time slots seemed less and less accommodating. So here I am. Waking up and juggling.
I am fortunate that Chris is self employed and to an extent, he can work with me when my inherently horrible teeth become a nagging priority. He went to work for a few hours in the morning and came home to drop the kids off at school while I dropped Max at my friends house on the way to the dentist. Max was a darling when I dropped him off and my friend had her vacuum out when I arrived which only eased my sneaky exit (he loves the vacuum). I pulled out of her driveway looking like I was going to be…EARLY! This is not common in my life, but I was willing to accept it, in all of its goodness and “grown-up” feeling splendor. I plugged in my phone and played something I felt like listening to while I enjoyed one of my guilty pleasures…driving somewhere alone and just listening to music…of my choice.

I was 10 minutes from my dentist when our 2000 Suburban…purchased from the side of the road off of a Mennonite guy…begins sputtering and threatening to not cooperate. I ignored its behavior, cause frankly…aside from my pirate eye and even though I was headed to get a root canal, we had a date planned that night and my morning was going well and I smelt clean and it was gonna take more than a little vehicle shimmying to bum out that vibe! Within moments I was pulled over, on the phone to Chris who really didn’t have time for an emergency morning detour and then a call to my dentist who said I could be a half hour late and still receive my long coveted root canal. Ironically, I broke down right next to the billboard that welcomed me to “The Sweetest Place on Earth.” Thank you Hershey. Chris swooped in and gallantly escorted me to my root canal. Due to my tardiness, my very capable and exceedingly talented (except for that time that she stabbed me in the lip with the novocaine syringe) was only able to complete half of the root canal. I didn’t know that this was normal, but she acted like it was. I was sent away with a temporary filling and some preventative antibiotics (I would love to say I’ve never felt more like a dairy cow…but I immediately had a flash back to nursing twin babies and realized that statement wouldn’t be true which begs me to wonder if I have perhaps felt like a dairy cow more times than is normal in a 32 year life span…geez, now I’m thinking of a lot of other times that I’ve felt like a dairy cow…I’m gonna abandon this rabbit trail right now 🙁 ) and some painkillers, for any mild discomfort.

While scheduling my next appointment, dragging out the several month long process of getting this crappy tooth dealt with, I called Chris to let him know I was done. He seemed a little slap happy. He had gone back to the Suburban to see if he could figure something out…he got it started (over and over again.) At one point he realized he might want to get off 322 and pull down a side road to wait for the tow truck. With his eyes fixed on traffic out his side mirror he backed up and thoroughly slammed into a telephone pole that was positioned in a blind spot behind the vehicle. He made it away from the busyness of 322 and proceeded down a side road when he considered that he shouldn’t go too far from the road that the tow truck would be coming from. That was when he tried to turn around but instead ended up leaving the Suburban sideways in the middle of the lightly trafficked thoroughfare. Once he explained all this I recognized the tone of his voice and his state of mind as that thing that happens to Chris when life starts to build to an undeniable, soon to erupt, highly pressurized existence. I also knew that he most likely still had adrenaline coursing his veins from the Tourette’s syndrom-esque fit of rage that was just directed at the steering wheel or the dashboard or the stereo. You see, while Mr.Krouse is by far the most gentle man I have ever met in my life, DO NOT put him in a room with an inanimate object and a reason to perhaps feel like destroying it. Tools, vehicles, electronics, furniture that won’t fit through doorways..you best watch YOSELF! My desire to hang out with this man had increased exponentially after that phone call. We really are our best when things aren’t going well.

He picked me up and we headed in the direction of the Suburban. About 5 minutes from the dentist, the receptionist called to tell me I forgot my travel mug of breath easy tea. I just got that travel mug in November and the tea was most likely still warm. I mentioned going back for it. Chris thought we should get to the vehicle in case the tow truck was waiting. I called my friend to alert her that my baby would not be picked up in a timely fashion. I am exceedingly grateful that Max was with someone who didn’t mind his light fussing and lengthy stay. He’s cute…but that can wear away after too long. When we arrived at the abandoned vehicle…I had to laugh. It was clear that someone had lost hope at this location. It was like a memorial to every car I’ve ever ridden in and been left sitting in. Turns out, Chris and I go back and forth all the time about what type of vehicle is best to own…the type that you make a payment on and take to the shop once a year for inspection and occasional oil changes or the kind you pay CA$H for that most likely has more problems than you want to know about. I grew up with the latter. I think I have more memories of being stranded somewhere in a car than of actually being transported by them. So here we were. Sitting in our van that we’ve been paying 299 a month on for three years…and we still have several more months of that payment ahead of us…looking at the vehicle we just (like in December) paid 5,500 cash for. We didn’t feel smart or good with money or any real positive feelings about the situation. But let me tell you something…we sat in that van, on a frigid winter day for 2 hours waiting for that tow truck. The midday sun was beaming in the windows, warming us with its light and we realized we couldn’t remember the last time we sat for 2 hours, uninterrupted…with nothing to do but wait. I should have been going to the pharmacy and picking up Max and cleaning my house for his Aunt who was coming to babysit and constructing a sad macaroni and cheese for the kids dinner and probably 100 other things. Chris had A LOT of work to do. When he isn’t doing something with drywall to support our family he has endless school work he needs to be doing while he works towards a degree in nursing. But there we sat…waiting for roadside assistance. We laughed and joked and killed my phone watching funny videos of the kids and the trailer to the movie Papillon (some really old Dustin Hoffman movie that Chris insists I need to see). Of course I mentioned that we could have retrieved my travel mug 20 times over by the time the tow truck actually came and of course by the end of it one or the other of us had peed in an anonymous location. Chris asked me if I remembered when we were teenagers and he put on tribal African music and we danced like tribal people his living room. I had no recollection but said “Wow, you were probably like…this girl will do anything…I think she’s the one.”

I guess what I’m saying is that in the thick of our lives right now, there is no way Chris or I would ever willingly agree to go sit somewhere for 2 hours doing completely, literally NOTHING except being together. And sometimes it’s exactly what we need. By the end of that 2 hours, I realized it was the Valentine’s date we never would have given ourselves. No hors d’ oeuvres, no wine, no chocolates or flowers or cards. Just us. 17 years of being one another’s Valentine has brought us to a place that only 17 years can. Comfort and trust and togetherness. The icing on the cake of that day was that for maybe the 3rd time since Max was born 11 months ago, we actually did go out on a date that night. My pirate eye was looking and feeling much better by that evening (maybe just in comparison to the root canal) and we were able to go out with some very dear friends. We ate food that seemed too good to be true and drank a few tasty, strong beverages and enjoyed a browse thru an otherworldly bookstore and absorbed some really nice art. And we enjoyed adult conversation. No pee pees or poo poos or “I know you aren’t sorry but you still have to apologize!” It was, my perfect Valentines.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you’ve ever googled “how to make a meal out of potato chips.”

If you’ve ever answered your front door in broad daylight and held a ten minute conversation before closing the door and realizing you had zit cream on your face.

If your vacuum cleaner has ever been on fire.

If you’ve ever jumped up in the night to assist a puking child and tripped over the baby’s bassinet and bashed your shin on the frame of the bed and then landed in a basket of laundry.

If you’ve ever packed a salad to eat at the pool but forgot a fork and instead ended up eating french fries with cheese sauce from the concession stand.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you’ve ever run away from your own irrational, whining child…and they’ve run after you…and you continued to run…faster.

If you’ve ever had to stop your children from jumping out of a tree and into a baby pool because the Emergency Room parking lot that you live next to is looking full and you aren’t in the mood for all that waiting today.

If you happen to store your fresh garlic and a lightbulb in the same bowl on your kitchen countertop…????

If an evening game of monopoly includes keeping people from eating paper money.

If the baby that you are wearing on the front of you has crumbs all over it’s head from the bag of chips that you are carrying around…aimlessly trying to get stuff done while wearing a baby…hence the nourishing yourself with a bag of chips.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you like to focus on your strengths, and therefore you are not opening the refrigerator…because it so desperately cries out from the pit of hell to be cleaned!!!

If, “Hey guys, I just need everyone to stay out of the salsa mess for the time being” is something you’ve ever uttered while jostling a crying person from the front of your body.

If “no eating in the living room” has a clause after it that says “including your boogers”.

If you recognize that at most waking moments of your day you could very well be reported for neglect…cause there are more of them than there are of you…ITS JUST MATH PEOPLE!!!

If you cry every damn time Stevie Nick’s song Landslide comes on.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you’ve ever seen your baby eat a cheerio out of a dustpan. 🙁

If you’ve ever gone to sleep at night and woken up in the morning with anywhere from 2 to 5 more people in your bed than you remembered being there.

If you’ve considered throwing a children’s birthday party cause hey, at least you’d have a reason to wear that snazzy new jumpsuit you got on clearance that’s been sitting for months.

If you vacuum your carpets EVERY SINGLE DAY to avoid the “Do barn animals reside here?” effect.

If you’ve been dancing with the baby when you should be doing the laundry and now your older boys are complaining that they have no underwear.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If there’s snot and saliva and hand prints all over the window of your front door…and you’ve recognized how futile it is to remove it…at least not for the next 5 years.

If your back goes out on a regular basis from dead lifting 25 pounds of wriggling human flesh while bent over, laying down, hunched and making a fire in the wood stove, seated and any other humanly possible contortion.

If you’ve ever boasted that a “diaper lasted all day”.

If you’ve ever exclaimed to the fat baby who has been solely residing on your hip, “YOU’RE WEARING DOWN MY BURSA SACKS!”

If you’ve ever enjoyed the luxury of someone unfolding all the laundry right after you have folded it.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you hate cheese curls with an unmatched passion and fervency and yet they still make their way into your children’s diet…leaving behind a bright orange ring around their mouths…for you to better find where all the annoying sounds are coming from that were most likely caused by the chemical reaction from the orange dye that is now coursing their veins. (I really don’t like cheese curls.)

If your children have ever worn socks on parts of their body besides their feet…in public.

If one or more of your children have a frequency that comes out of their face that your ears have stopped picking up.

If you have ever laughed (like a crazy maniacal banshee) at your husband because he has spent one hour (during primetime, like right after school…when they’re all cutting loose) with the children and seemed a little frazzled afterward.

If you usually have a layer of crumbs on the bottom of your feet, but at least it’s perhaps protecting them from whatever else is down there.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If you’ve ever eaves dropped on a quarrel between your children and rather than intervening, remained silent, internally rooting for the more logical child.

If you have ever said that you were going to use the bathroom and instead gone and sat on the floor of your dark closet and secretly eaten a Cadbury Egg.

If one day it dawned on you that every time you have a child you have in fact created another methane producing organism and that maybe you are breathing in farts 80% of your waking hours.

If you have so many nicknames for your baby that sometimes you forget where or why or how the nickname originated.

If you’ve ever written your grocery list or balanced your checkbook with a crayon.

YOU MIGHT BE AN EXPLOSIVE HOUSEWIFE IF…

If your children have ever surprised you with their kindness and generosity and caused you to put aside for a moment all your doubts that you are doing a good job raising the future of the planet.

If being a mother and/or wife is among the most meaningful and inspiring and painfully satisfying roles you’ve ever known in this life.

You are probably an Explosive Housewife if you are reading this and laughing or crying or smiling or wincing because you too have lived one or 20 of these moments.

Please feel free to share any and all of your own Explosive moments.

Wanna feel like you have really got your crap together?  Wanna feel like there isn’t a task that you could take on that you would not only succeed at but even possibly excel at also? Wanna get ahead on all your housework and chores and still have time for you?  Then allow me to suggest that you do what I did.  Bring ALL four of your children home from a public school education experience and cyber school them in your home for two years during which time you must have a fifth child…a baby mind you…and then decide that the frustration that you directed at the cyber schools “Tech Issues” for the last two years just isn’t worth the hassle anymore and then just do a real laid back version of your own idea of homeschool for three months, while the baby is teething in the back ground and THEN, only THEN enroll those same four kids back in the original public school that they started in.  THEN young grasshopper, you shall feel like the world is your oyster and you will be preparing gourmet meals with jazz music playing in the background and piles of neatly folded laundry all over your tidy living space.

OUR HUMBLE BEGINNINGS…

Our twin babies began their dual education in our churches preschool.  A fantastic program run by two school teachers who just wanted to serve families with their gifts.  It was practically charity at 20 dollars a month.  All my kids loved it and it really introduced learning as a deeply satisfying experience.  Then it was time for our kids to go to kindergarten.  We open enrolled to the local school that the twins most favorite cousin was enrolled in…and then the mothers (Of 7 children between the 2 of them) could help each other…especially when one household was perhaps being ravaged by the flu but you’ve still got one healthy kid to send off into the world!  It’s nice to have a supportive pal to raise your kids beside. Fast forward thru two fabulous years of positive learning experiences…it’s the week before school starts for our 2 second graders and a fresh kindergartener.  We get a letter in the mail that mostly says “you have not been selected to open enroll here” or something like that and it gave the time of the open house for the school we would be attending.  Wah Wah! I know.  Big deal.  No one is hurt or starving or bleeding.  We go to the open house.  Nice school.  Lots of different doors and sidewalk access points and specific aged children only going thru specific doors.  We gave it a go.  

The first day at kid pick up, Iris walked down the big cement stairs with a smile on her face until she hit my legs with a sob. I was in shock.  “What’s UP Iris?” I asked in an almost panicked state.  “Mom! A girl at school told me I was UGLY!’ Mildly relieved and a smidge thankful (just that we weren’t bleeding or injured) I still had to wonder at an utterly-adored-by-her-parents little girl, hearing it for the first time.  “YOURE UGLY!”  I got on her level, down on my knees and I told her that what that girl said was not true.  I told her that wasn’t nice and that sadly, maybe that little girl has someone in her life who has told her that about herself or made her feel that way.  Then I mentioned something about her smile being like the sun and told her to imagine that when she smiles the sun beams fill the room and blind the girl that said that mean thing.  It was certainly a rough transition.  Flynn watched one second grader punch another one in the stomach that day. Micah did well the first day but sensed the negative juju lingering among the group.  

As the days progressed, the one girl turned into two that were whispering in Iris’ ear everyday that she was ugly and Flynn mentioned that the kids in his class were being so bad that his teacher yelled that he was going to jump out the window (its a two story school 🙁  ) and don’t act like you wouldn’t yell the same thing! (When funding is cut for our public schools, the first thing that goes is the teacher’s aides…leaving one adult to oversee the education of 25-30 children.  Throw 3 or 2 or even 1 kid in there with a serious discipline problem and you’ve got teachers wanting to jump out windows.  I learned thru my own schooling experience that teaching kids, lots of kids, may be among the most difficult jobs in our modern society.) Then Micah started becoming really somber in the morning while he put his shoes on…and then the other kids did too.  The 15 minutes before leaving for school began to feel like a funeral procession.  Then I started yelling at them at the stairs to the school that they “had to go in the doors”…”because this was their school”.  I would call Chris on my phone and hand the phone to whichever kid was most obstinant and I would let him talk to the child.  Everyday was a fight.  I wrote a note to the teacher and the bullying became more discreet and we found every dinner time was spent navigating the kids thru how to deal with all these emotionally damaging situations they were going thru.  I don’t know about you, but I like to decide when and how that damage takes place…at least for a little while! One evening it came out that some kids forced Iris under a lunch table and made her stay down there. Chris and I were full of pep talks and helpful phrases, but sadly it began to feel like we were coaching the losing team. Seriously, it was stuff beyond their age bracket.  

The weekend after I finally pulled them out of school, I was at a birthday party with a mother of one of Flynn’s classmates.  She said that past Friday at school her son (second grade, mind you) had to pull a little boy off of a little girl on the playground.  He was jealous because she kissed another boy and so he punched her in the stomach and was then on the ground strangling her.  WRONG! No thanks.  I had received complete confirmation about the choice to bring them home.

FLY US TO THE MOON! ONCE YOU EXPLAIN AT LEAST THREE TIMES THE BUTTONS WE NEED TO PUSH TO GET THERE…

I had no idea what I was going to do with the kids when I brought them home that day.  I knew about cyber school, but I’m not very tech savvy.  The small corner in our home that houses a junky little desk and a 10 year old refurbished MAC computer is surrounded by plants and vines and overgrown philodendrons.  I realized the other day that I’m pretty sure if it were up to me, I would JUMANJI that corner of the house right out of our lives.  It’s a nice way to pay the bills and stay connected to people that you cant make physical time for…but technology has a way of making me feel inferior and who wants more of that in their life.  Needless to say, I lied when the cyber school people asked me how tech competent I was.  I believe I answered “VERY”.  Hind sight being 20/20, I think they need to change the wording of that question to “Have you ever been known to gorilla pound a laptop while you were 8 months pregnant?”  Now there’s a question I can answer with a firm “YES”.  

A week after enrolling the kids in PA Cyber Charter School, 28 packages came to our front door.  It was UGLY…in the most brown box sense of the word.  I had 4 kids wanting to tear open every one of those boxes and with each box we opened I had a to tell a 3 year old that these things weren’t for him.  We shared, but a 3 year old wants to know what is HIS, not what is being shared with him for the moment.  Thankfully Chris was more than helpful in getting everyone set up with their laptops and I magically found places to store 28 boxes of school materials.  We had good days and bad days.  I cried on the phone to the instructional supervisor who was so nice and repeatedly told me that everything I was experiencing was normal and that I should absolutely be overwhelmed with 3 new enrollees.  Most parents are overwhelmed with one student in cyber school, much less 3.  The teachers were great.  The tech support people were great.  Knowing what I know now, I would absolutely do it again…and I would be much less frustrated when one computer completely disconnects from the internet and I’m told by a robot voice that my call is 103rd in the line-up and will be answered promptly. Aside from the tech issues, the cyber school didn’t afford us the freedom that I imagined would come with schooling at home.  We never had free time to go to a park or take a hike or meet up with other homeschoolers and go on a field trip.  So what I’m saying is that it wasn’t what I expected.  DUH Autumn.

SAY WHAT NOW!?

In the midst of our cyber schooling adventure, my husband decided to go back to school to be a nurse.  He has his very own drywall business (CK Drywall LLC) that does well for itself, he however, wants more from life.  He doesn’t want to use his body to make his living for the rest of his life.  If someone told me that I had to be pregnant and have babies the rest of my life to make money I would be like “I don’t need money that bad.” Thankfully a woman is only expected to use her body to build a beautiful family, the size of she and her spouses liking and then she doesn’t have to do that anymore.  I couldn’t imagine having to worry about the day I finally hurt myself bad enough that my career would be over.  And plus, one of my favorite Avett Brothers song says “if you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected…Decide what to be and go be it…”  When Chris told me he wanted to go back to school I heard this song in my head immediately and knew it would be my joy and my honor to support him in every way possible while he did it.  What I didn’t know at that time was that I was pregnant with a SURPRISE fifth child!!!  Chris was attending his first night classes by the time morning sickness and fatigue and “Useless Autumn” set in.  All this really meant was that Chris was a little less available to help with the kids homework and computer issues.  Once I sat on the phone with Tech support for an hour before the guy said “Does this computer always run this slow?” I said “Yes, all three of them do.”  He responded, “Wow.  This would drive me up a wall.” Turns out we had 3 computers with “Bad Hard Drives”.  I don’t know what that means or how a good hard drive turns bad or what happens to bad hard drives, but I knew about the “driving up a wall” thing.  

During the course of the kids second year of cyber school I began to notice how bored they seemed.  Iris was known to read 1-2 chapter books a day…during school.  As much as I tried to put a stop to it, I’d catch her being sneaky and reading when she was supposed to be staring at a computer screen and listening to the teacher instruct 17 other kids thru lessons Iris didn’t care about.  Flynn and Iris both became excessive doodlers and Micah fought with me about every assignment I asked him to do and I became increasingly more confident that I could provide a more engaging learning experience for my kids.  This was what I thought…while baby #5 was in utero.

AND THEN CHRIS HOPPED IN THE POOL AND DELIVERED MAXWELL GUNTHER KROUSE…

I could write a whole post about my home birth experience.  I wont, (maybe later…I think there’s a draft sitting around that I never finished) but what I will tell you is that it has changed me forever and I have never felt stronger and more capable and more in love with my husband than when we delivered our son in the wee hours of the morning of March 22nd. Surrounded by 3 of the most competent and experienced midwives I’ve had the pleasure to know, I felt for the first time that I wasn’t someone’s problem or an organism to monitor and keep hydrated and I wasn’t taking up a bed that needed to be cleared out in 36-48 hours to make room for the next human lady.  It was an intimate and breathtaking and peaceful encounter… all our own. When our kids woke up in the morning we had the privilege of introducing them to their baby brother before anyone else met him.  Our home was filled with new baby magic.  The kids stayed with Uncle Ben and Aunt Mare for a night or two while I rested and then we got on with the show.  

I knew that these would be our final months with the cyber school so we tried to make them count.  I will say that it was really hard to focus at all with a fresh sweety like Max in the house.  Looking back, I wish we would have just thrown our computers out the window and taken turns staring into the eyes of the newest little person we’d know for a long time.  Anatomy at its finest.  Where did he come from?  As curious as we all are about death…what about the mystery of a person who had never existed before just showing up!?  We are fearfully and wonderfully made and I think families should be allowed to put all of life on hold to honor that! For at least a year!!  Our summer was simple and beautiful and we camped and rode bikes and explored and went swimming every other day at least and I wrote down everything that I thought could remotely count as “HOMESCHOOL”.  Our family thrived and Max became the apple of everyone’s eye and may have convinced Chris and I that we never want to stop having children.  
Come August, Chris went back to taking classes and I continued to jot down our daily experiences, not fully committing to “buying curriculum”, mostly because I didn’t know where to start and we couldn’t afford it.  It can cost a small fortune to actually purchase the items you want for 4 children to do school at home. I have some friends who have people in their lives who are so supportive of the homeschooling of their children that they offer to buy their kids the books and supplies they need to have a “valid” homeschool experience.  Not only do we not have that, we mostly have people saying the opposite…or saying nothing at all.  That’s always nice.  Strong silence, left for interpretation.  People were concerned that our children would “fall behind” and become “socially awkward” and that I would be “overwhelmed”.  I began to feel pressure from Chris that the kids weren’t “learning anything”. He often came home during the day to giant pieces of paper and crayons and scissors and glue everywhere and a crying baby and couldn’t imagine that any of it was amounting to anything. On days when I really tried to push a traditional educational experience, it usually ending with me having to go change a diaper and returning to no one doing what I asked them to do.  Flynn would often times say to me (while I was cleaning some meal mess in the kitchen) “Mom, I’m gonna go read a social studies lesson if that’s OK?”  Iris read and drew constantly, she hatched a few butterflies from parsley worms and kept a praying mantis for a pet.  Micah taught Owen how to write the word POOP and it started popping up everywhere…walls, counters, vehicle interiors. Micah also developed a love of cooking during his time being schooled at home. His siblings know he is the guy to ask to make you some eggs if you’re hungry.  One day I found Micah reading to Owen and I had to stop and pinch myself and pat my own back and say “You taught him to read Autumn.  You really did.  Good job.”  

The kids also engaged in a lot of make believe play. They came up with an entire civilization that consisted of 4 characters- Bobbys, Bobby-Doos, Shramenshrines and Doctor Bob. Supposedly Shramenshrine is an evil doctor who performs experiments on the Bobbys. There are only 5 Bobby-Doos, they rule over all the Bobbys…who are apparently just clones of the Bobby-Doos. And from what I gather, Doctor Bob wears a diaper and attacks people. At times I had the kids jot down details from this world. Aside from going to the library a lot and using some old school books from different friends, I didn’t have a lot of structure to the whole scene and that seemed to fuel my underlying feelings of inadequacy.

A few months in, I started to feel less and less supported in my homeschool endeavor.  My best friend since I was 14 who also schooled at home moved 45 minutes away. I couldn’t remember the last time I went to the grocery store without 5 small companions and my Co-Op seemed full of women with less children and more experience…most of them having been raised in a homeschool environment themselves.  While this should have aided in building my confidence…it only created a withering effect.  Finally one morning in November, after a rough night of sleep with a teething 8 month old in my bed, I woke to Chris yelling at the cat who had crapped on the sofa.  I don’t think there is anything I dread more than having to deal with cat feces.  I HATE CAT POOP!!!  I suddenly felt as if cinderblocks were tied to my limbs, holding me in the bed.  I got up anyway, knowing that while Chris is a fabulous husband and father and business owner and student and generally a really great human, he doesn’t clean up cat poop very well.  The day glided along in a sludgy, “is-this-over-yet-and-how-did-the-house-get-so-messy-i-feel-like-I-just-cleaned” kinda way.  By 9 am a child came downstairs complaining that the only toilet in the house was clogged.  That was it.  It was in that moment that I knew this was not my life.  Not one that I was enjoying at least.  I wish I had the ability to turn every moment into a teaching moment, but frankly, there are trained professionals who can’t even do that.  I wish I didn’t care what other people thought about our family or how we are choosing to raise our kids. I wish I had such a confident, courageous spirit that I believed I could DO IT ALL! But instead I felt outnumbered at every turn. Somewhere along the way I had become not only the teacher but also the janitor and the cafeteria lady and the school nurse and the bus driver and the baby sitter and the supply distributor and the MOM, right…there still needs to be a mom…to cuddle and have fun with…a lady with a smile on her face who is proud of you and tells you what a good job you’re doing.  It was all too much. I was spread dangerously thin.  On top of it, there were people in my life who I felt were expecting my kids to be receiving some kind of five star education.  I wanted to crawl into a hole.  I did crawl into a hole, but I took my phone with me and from in that hole I called the school that the twins and Micah had gone to originally and asked if there was any chance that they had room for 2 fourth graders, a second grader and a kindergartener?   They did. Miraculously.  

I remember crying a lot that day.  I mourned the loss of an idea.  The idea that I was capable of having all my children at home and it being a wonderful, fruitful, creative and positive experience.  I felt like a complete failure.  That’s what you call it…Right?  When you attempt to do something and it doesn’t go how you planned and then ends in a way that you didn’t expect?  I’m very familiar with the feeling.  I cried for two days, on and off, softly at times…more like sobbing at other times.  Then I woke up and I felt kind of better.  The more I listened to Chris tell me that I wasn’t a failure and that a lot of people wouldn’t even attempt to do school at home with 5 kids, the more I decided to stop believing that I was a failure.  I recognized how excited my kids were to go back to the school that they had really loved to begin with .  I thought that maybe “fail” could be less of a word to describe my shortcomings and more of an acronym that stands for F. -Falling A. -Absolutely I. -In L. -Love with my kids.  When I thought about my intentions when I brought my kids home, they were good and pure and honorable. I learned so much about my kids by having unbroken contact with them for 2 1/2 years.  I came to realize that the word FAIL has less to do with my inadequacy and more to do with plain old attendance.  By taking part in the magic of feeling like a failure to my children and husband I’m saying “Hey.  Here I am.  I’m open for anything.  I’ll go for it.  No promises, but damn it or not…I’ll give it a try. Sometimes I might not make it out of the parking lot, but I’ll be present.”  By failing, I’m at least trying and that is an honor…to have people in your life to try to support and be there for. The magnificent acting out of the dramatic failure!  By failing, we learn in heaps! Succeeding only teaches in bits.  I know myself and my children better now than I ever could have imagined. I was able to truly see them and I learned how much I can and cannot handle.

A NEW CHAPTER

So now what? The kids have been in school for 2 1/2 months. Noticeable changes include but are not limited to…
-My house is clean between the hours of 10-4 each day.
-I shower more.
-There is usually really lovely music playing in the background…and I can actually hear it.
-Supper is much easier to come up with when I don’t have to take 5 kids along on every grocery store trip.
-I’ve started exercising again…there’s something really special about raising that heart rate…they’re saying it could even help you live longer…if that’s what you’re into.
-My mental state has improved exponentially.
-Once the word got out, I got the same feeling I had after I cut my college dreadlocks off and people were like “Oh, thank God!..Those were so ugly!” Opinions are like…well, you know what they’re like…and everyone has got one.
-I’ve taken to finishing sentences without being interrupted.
-I’m writing…right now.
-I miss my kids. I had actually forgotten what it felt like to miss my kids…because I was with them 24/7.
-Where the kids used to ask me questions like “How many people do you think have died from scissors?” and “Is an avocado a fruit?” now I’m answering questions like, “Mom, what does ‘SUCK IT! SUCK IT!’ mean?” and “Why were these two kids throwing markers at each others balls?” and “Why is cock a bad word?”
-I’m watching my children’s innocence vanish before my eyes, but hey, it’s gotta go at some point…right?
-All these things aside, the kids seem to be thriving.

Flynn is my oldest, most responsible, super intelligent, tender hearted offspring. He’s the guy who makes friends with the handicapped kid because he can’t stand how other kids treat him. I never have to ask him to do his homework, he just knows what he needs to do and does it. He has straight A’s.

Iris is our free spirit. Apparently she’s been told by some uptight popular girls that she wears “boys clothes” but thats only because she has this rad vintage ringer tee with an antique car on the front that she likes to pair with a peasant skirt and more over she doesn’t own a single piece of “MONSTER HIGH” themed clothing and doesn’t seem to mind. At conferences her teacher informed me in the most admiring way that “traditional schooling probably isn’t going to work out great for Iris…” This is not news to us, and she has a passion for art and music so we’re gonna shoot for a C average till we can get her where she’s going.

Micah and I are fighting less than EVER! He is finally getting to see that it is perfectly normal for children his age to do school work. He is our strongest willed child and was definitely my most difficult at-home pupil. Allow me to say though, that the make believe civilization of Bobbys and Shramenshrines was single handedly Micah’s creation. The other kids were always happy to participate. He has a beautiful and vibrant imagination and that has been the saddest part of this transition for me. I have noted an 80% reduction in make believe play since enrolling in school. With the busyness of our everyday life and mountains of homework in the evening, it leaves little time for the imagination to flourish. Bobbys and Shramenshrines only pop up occasionally now, on the weekends. I’m sure it will become less and less until they are at last gone but I’m so glad that they had it for even a short time.

Lastly, Owen is a perfect student and is finally receiving the attention that I always wanted to give toward his education but was instead preoccupied with nursing a baby and helping the twins multiply and divide several digit numbers. Some days I would flat out tell Owen that I knew I was doing a bad job being his teacher. Poor kid. He comes home so proud to share his accomplishments with me. We spend our afternoons sprawled out on the living room floor doing homework and eating popcorn.

The kids face situations everyday that they aren’t sure how to deal with, but overall they are enjoying the ride. We all learned so much from the last 3 years, but it feels safe to say that we are enjoying this season. Who knows what we’ll do next year or where we will be or what we’ll value most…my sanity or their fragile innocence. I know that things can and will change again, but I’m looking forward to it and I am ready and willing to F.A.I.L. my kids as the need arises.

It’s 7:15. My dear 9 year old daughter, who shares a room with her 9 month old baby brother has entered our bedroom. Max is on her hip. She loves this little duty. Smiling from ear to ear, she announces…”Hey mama! Somebodies’ lookin for you!” She brings him to my side of the bed and he is as delightful as ever. I thank Iris, she carries on with her own morning routine.

Max attempts to nurse but is far too distracted by Dada, laying beside him. Something about Dada begs to be teased and fiddled with. Max CANNOT concentrate if Chris is nearby, ready to growl and wrestle and peek-a-boo. I recognize that I will not accomplish the first thing on my vague and disorganized TO DO list. (FEED THE BABY) While laying there, I smell the familiar odor of a soiled morning diaper. This isn’t the norm for Max, he usually poops after breakfast. As I reach for a nearby diaper I’m confronted with another familiar odor. The light scent of baby urine.

My pre coffee, morning memory is jogged to recall that roughly 48 hours ago I was changing max’s diaper on our fresh sheets and had to leave him unattended for some 5 seconds, in which time he peed all over his outfit and my side of the bed. Using my better judgement, I left the sheets to be changed at a later date, with a 5 year old in the bathtub and dinner clean up still ahead of me. Over the next 48 hours, every time I thought to change the sheets there was either a baby asleep in the bed or some other more urgent need to be met. Last night while Chris and I enjoyed the fleeting moments of exhaustion that come after we’ve put everyone to bed I mentioned that I needed to change the sheets but that I just nursed Max to sleep up there. Chris convinced me that it wasn’t worth it just then…It could wait…till he was more sound asleep and we moved him to his crib. I reminded him that it wasn’t his side of the bed that had been urinated on, hence his relaxed attitude towards the situation. We moved on with our night and I never changed the sheets. Mostly because I was exhausted and I forgot.

So here I am, bright and early, enjoying a combination of odors that one could only assume were coming from an actual toilet bowl. Upon opening Max’s fleece sleeper I’m confronted with the kind of poopy diaper that nightmares and urban legend are made of. Up the back and down the leg. The kind of mess that takes your breath away and leaves you bewildered at where to begin cleanup. I ask Iris to start the bath while I clean as much as I can with wet wipes.

When I enter the bathroom and place him in the tub he cries momentarily but remembers that he enjoys bath time. I approach the toilet/sink area and immediately step in a small puddle of urine. This is an ongoing problem with our five year old. I reach for the paper towels while 2 more people enter the bathroom…needing to use it. From the hunched position of an indentured servant, I cant hold back a brief moment of insanity that emerges from a dark, self deprived location that I don’t like to acknowledge very often. “YOU KNOW, I CANT WAIT TILL MY ENTIRE LIFE DOESNT INVOLVE HANDLING POOP AND PEE ALL THE TIME!” Clearly, this is not a accurate statement. I do a lot of other things besides handle poop and pee. These are the rantings of a crazy woman, in her pajamas, who hasn’t seen or smelt coffee yet today and who is also a little tired.

Chris takes over in the bathroom while I fetch clothing for Max. I quickly get dressed while the moment allows. I then clothe Max and take him to his high chair. Meanwhile Owen cant find pants…or any clothes for that matter. I help him. Iris is dressed but is still adorned with yesterdays pigtails. I ask her 2, 3, 4 times to brush her hair…the hair that she prefers to take care of on her OWN. Flynn and Micah are outside playing…because it snowed. This is a big deal. They’ve been waiting for this snow. It’s great that they’re enjoying the snow. It isn’t great that they keep coming in and out and leaving doors open and haven’t eaten breakfast yet and are getting their pants all wet.

Chris is now filling the kitchen with bacon smoke. EVERYONE is in the kitchen, each person with a different breakfast request. 2 eggs scrambled, one egg NOT DIPPY, oatmeal, toast with strawberry jelly, a kiwi (and then another and another kiwi). I now recognize that Max has abandoned his Cheerio pile and is enjoying a piece of the strawberry jelly toast that Iris left within his reach. He requires assistance. I’m barely keeping it together when I ask the kids to ALL either sit down or leave the kitchen while we get their food together. I had just the night before moved Max’s highchair from the far end of the table to the closer end, right near the kitchen “HOT SPOT”. I said “With Max’s chair here you guys can’t all be hovering around.” Chris looks at me and says “Yea, why’d you put it there?”

Oh no you ditint.

“Why? Maybe because sometimes when I’m making supper and a baby is fussing and four kids want help with their homework and want me to sign papers and I’m trying to set the table, it’s just a little easier to have Max HERE than it is to have him all the way down there.”
Boy, what a charming gal I am in the morning…when I wake up in a toilet bowl and am a little frazzled and am becoming increasingly more frazzled as the things which frazzle me become stronger forces in my life. Let’s face it people. I’M GRUMPY! I don’t enjoy being grumpy, but it happens.

Chris leaves for work, we offer each other a tightlipped goodbye kiss. The kids and I pull it together. I put Max in his car seat and return to the house to retrieve Micah and Owen who perhaps haven’t sensed that we are all walking out the door. I help Owen gather his back pack, he and Micah head out the door while I grab my cup of now cold coffee. I step out the front door in time to watch Micah hurl himself onto the sidewalk, face first and begin to aggressively produce a snow angel…in maybe a quarter inch of snow. “Oh COME ON MICAH!” He jumps up, grinning, a dusting of snow all over the front of him. As I turn towards the vehicle, that is running, there is Owen…at the tailpipe…breathing in exhaust. “OWEN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“I’m smellin that stuff Mom. I like that smell.”
“Well it’s poison and you’re gonna kill your brain! Get in the car!”

On the 3 minute drive to school I tell everyone that I know that I was grumpy this morning and I’m sorry. I tell them I love them and that they are really good kids…it just feels like there are A LOT of them sometimes. Because there are. And sometimes I just need to get my sleep deprived self out of bed before the parade starts and change my sheets and make a cup of coffee. I’m just gonna start there.

Turns out, I don’t do enough stuff that I like. I mean that I ACTUALLY like. I sweep my floors because I like the way a clean floor looks, but I don’t deeply enjoy sweeping. I like to feel organized and like NOT a pig, so I take care of our home. I cook because taking seven people out to eat all the time is insane. But making a giant mess in my kitchen and watching 6 other people eat for 5-10 minutes before undertaking the chore of cleaning up said mess so that I can wake up in the morning and do it a few more times isn’t my idea of fun. I have gathered that my purpose in this life isn’t necessarily to enjoy myself ALL the time or to always get to do stuff that I like…but I’m serious…I’m losing myself over here. So this year I have resolved to do the one thing that I enjoy that I never get to do enough. WRITE.

I’ll do anything before I’ll sit down and write. I’ll clean our moldy, dungeon of a basement before I’ll sit down and write. I’ll try a new recipe that seems too difficult and ends with a lot of wasted ingredients before I’ll sit and write. I’ll go clean the litter pan before I’ll JUST SIT DOWN AND WRITE!!! WHY? Why wont I just spend an hour a week doing this thing that I enjoy. I think I’m afraid of how much I like it. I think that if I do it too much I’ll stop liking it. Maybe if I do it too much people will start criticizing it and that wont feel good.  If I sit down and write for an hour a week I might actually get the hell out of my own way and GOD FORBID…have a hobby that I personally really enjoy. So, welcome. I’m done back burnering this thing. I’m 32 friggin years old. If I don’t start taking this hour now, it might never happen.

At the end of the day, I’m doing my family a favor by spending this time writing.  Chris has told me that if our home were on fire, he would grab my journals.  Within those flimsy, mishandled covers lies a treasure that this family would probably never miss until some distant holiday when we realized how great it would be to read about the time when Owen was 2 years old and he pooped in Joy’s litter pan cause someone was using the only bathroom in the house.  (And I’m sure we’ll marvel that we ever existed with only ONE bathroom!) We have already sat around the dinner table and laughed until we’ve cried as we’ve let the everyday moments of the past come to life anew from the pages of what someone else might consider a piece of trash, a used notebook.  I am learning that every act we perform is either a favor or a disservice to our future self.  When I take my socks off and throw them on the floor beside my hamper, it will most likely be ME who has to bend over and pick those socks up on laundry day and put them where they need to be.  Life sometimes feels like a giant math problem, and investing in myself and in my family will never put me in the red.

I’m choosing this day to change how I think about “sitting down to write”  I’m done imagining that it is a difficult thing that a woman with five kids doesn’t have time for.  I’m done treating it like something that has to be perfect before it can be shared…my cooking certainly isn’t perfect and I’m forced to share that on a daily basis.  I’m done believing that if I have a blog, it has to be like other peoples blogs and be really polished and edited and everything has to be spelled correctly.  I’m ready to accept that I don’t like writing because it is perfect and lovely.  I like writing because it is the opposite.  It is the clearest way I’ve ever known to document the frailty and mistakes and brevity and majesty and complexity of the little stuff.  When I jot down a quick note about Micah falling asleep with gum in his mouth and waking up with it in his armpit and being therefore taken by surprise by what looked like premature armpit hair, I’m doing future Autumn the biggest favor that anyone can.  She will laugh and she will share it with her children and her husband and we will all be reminded of what love is and what family is for.