Good Sportsmanship, or How Hasbro Makes Our Children Unusually Violent

In our house, we have an ottoman.

It's one of those padded affairs, bought when our kids were tiny and seemingly intent on falling sideways into every blessed thing, their target, I swear, the delicate temples on either side of their heads.

In addition to preventing brain damage, the ottoman is hollow, lidded with two (padded) squares that can be lifted to reveal two (padded) storage spaces.  These are stacked full of games:  games that teach number recognition and manipulation, games to help preserve and enhance memory, games that teach and expand vocabulary, games that cause tears and murderous threats and bring our children to the brink of going all Cain and Abel on each other.

The latter game, of course, is Sorry!

What is with that game?  Our kids fight with each other, sure, but only Sorry! elicits Lord of the Flies-level passion and violence and cries for a certain brother's head on a pike.  Sorry! may be a rip-off of Parcheesi, but at least the name is more accurate- although if you really wanted to give potential buyers an idea of what they're in for, perhaps No Fair! or I HATE You! would be a little more fitting.

This happens every six months or so:  The kids dig out the dreaded game, I think that maybe this time they'll be able to play like human beings not destined for death row (put that one in the full-to-bursting "Lies I Tell Myself" file), and I chirp, "Sure!  Why not?  Go ahead and play Sorry!"

You know what comes next:  Accusations.  Weeping.  Literal bloodshed, as in I have cleaned blood off the board four times in the last three days.  (Okay, so that was because Atticus has suffered a spate of nose bleeds recently, and they've been so intent on playing that he keeps dripping on the board before he realizes what's happening.  I will admit to being tempted to take a picture of this somewhat gruesome sight and printing off copies to wave in our children's faces every time they ask to play in the future.)


In related news, our children are learning to shake hands and growl, "Good game," even while supremely pissed.

How Does Our Garden Grow?

You know what we haven't talked about in quite some time?  My flowers.  (That's right, Derek.  Dismissed.  You may go.)


After an unusually hot week- in the 90's and humid- some of the daylilies are finally opening up, unlike the residents of Iowa, who act like they are dying if it gets anywhere above 89.  This would be comical if I were not now one of those people.  I have officially acclimated to a cooler climate.

Remember how my mom's husband's niece (or... something) let my mom have a bunch of daylilies, some of which were then donated to The Cause, The Cause being packing as many free flowers into our yard as humanly possible?  Well, we planted those a couple years ago, and only two types flowered, making me think I'd have to transplant all those under the giant Tree of Doom to a sunnier locale.  But nay!  This year nearly all have bloomed!

"Supersonic Prize."  Who the heck names these things?

"Firepower" 

Not a daylily, but tiger lilies are one of my sister Steph's favorites.  Who can deny Stephanie?

Our coneflowers, one of my favorite flowers to watch because of all the activity they're home to every year, are also in full bloom.  Today it was this little guy that caught my attention, as he went from bloom to bloom, walking the full circle of tiny, yellow, starry... anthers?  Stamen?  Elementary school science was so long ago and I can't remember my kids' birthdays half the time.  Anyway, he circuited those, um, pollen holder thingies, on each cone before moving on to the next.

So, uh... anyone have any idea what that thing is?  The green + black and white stripes on his body threw me off; is that a bee or not?  Additionally I can provide you with:  He was pretty heavily pollen-laden, and he could fly.  Amateur biologist, I am not.

My biggest container of flowers already looks pretty scraggly this time a year; June is really its best time:

And now, another case of Name That Flower!

These began blooming in late May and flowered heavily for a full month.  They're maybe a foot tall, and not very fragrant, at least that I can tell.  The thing is, I know I planted this last summer or maybe the one before; it started out as a small, $0.99 perennial and has obviously taken off this year.  I'm good at the planting, not so good at the keeping track of just what it is that I'm plunking into the ground.  This same concept is the reason we don't have a large number of children.

Water Not-Babies

Today I went out back and discovered that I have real, live zinnias growing (not to worry, though; there's still plenty of time for them to wither and die for no good reason), and a mess of wild Crislers frolicking amongst the fading hollyhocks:

Neither Derek nor I want to fuss with even as much as a tiny wading pool, and for me, turning on the hose for a sprinkler is like watching our progeny run and splash through sprays of money.

I fill a big bucket of water, hand them each a cheap water gun, and walk away.  One bucket buys me nearly an hour of time, as they know that once that bucket is empty, water time is over.  This usually works out perfectly, as the last ten minutes of that time generally devolves into tears as they exhaust themselves and will no longer tolerate things like errant sprays to the fact or one of their siblings looking at them.

For awhile, though, all is well.

More or less well, that is:  There are many, many wonderful things that come with living in Iowa, but the insane number of mosquitoes we're plagued with each summer is not one of them.

Caedmon in particular pays a heavy price for daring to play out of doors in the Rightful Realm of the Mosquito.

Our four-year-old's extra sensitivity to bug bites hasn't swayed him, however, from jumping on his newly ready big bike any chance he gets.

Maybe five minutes after Derek had the training wheels properly adjusted Cade left his tricycle in the dust.  He's been waiting on a bike for some time now; there's something about being the youngest child that makes you just a bit more sensitive to being left behind or seen as babyish in any way, and according to Caedmon, nothing says, "baby" like a trike.  I'm also not allowed to use terms like "cute," and definitely not "adorable;" I instead have to save it for here:

LOOK AT MY BABY!  ISN'T HE ADORABLE?

There's No Place Like Home, But Good Luck Getting There

This summer, the section of I-35 between central Iowa and southern Kansas has seen plenty of activity by our family, both immediate and extended.  My mom and Mark's most recent foray north included golf and a trip to see the movie Inside Out, which Mom and I decided must have been written by experts in child development or mental health or something, because it was the kind of movie where the kids get a kick out of it but the more boisterous laughter is really issuing from the adults.  It was sharp and smart and so entertaining.  I can't wait to see it again.

The day after the movie found the kids and I in Kansas, trying to make our way from the site of the funeral to my mom's house.  I don't have a smart phone or any kind GPS when traveling, so I broke out the handy dandy Kansas map out of the glove compartment- as in, a real, paper map.  The kind that doesn't talk to you and is impossible to properly re-fold.  It was delightful.

After consulting said delight, (and, ahem, missing a turn or two) I decided that if I just kept turning onto highways headed south interspersed with a turn on a westerly highway every so often, I would eventually get to mom's house.  I knew vaguely where I was, at least in terms of our relation to state borders, so I wasn't too fussed about knowing our exact arrival time or perhaps accidentally taking a slightly more scenic route.

At one point, Mom called, trying to find out where I was.  I told her my sort-of plan, she sighed "Kristy!" in exasperation, which I gotta say, really took me back, and we hung up.  Then I laughed because I haven't heard my name said in quite that way in some time, and I proceeded to entertain the children with impressions of my mom saying my name.  They were in stitches.

As it turns out, however, there was a reason for her frustration:  She called again shortly thereafter and told me I needed to get it in gear, as there was a huge storm headed for my hometown.  Derek had warned me that the radar showed a wide storm system sweeping across Kansas, but come on!  Trying to kill its citizens with rain and hail and lightning and twisters is what this state does in the summer.  And spring.  Aaaand sometimes the fall.  This particular storm was severe enough to have my mom worried; she and Mark were monitoring the weather from the lobby of a Kansas City hotel lobby, having been herded from their rooms by hotel staff because of tornadoes in the area.

I pinpointed our location on the (paper, manual, figure-it-out-yourself, man-I-love-those-things) map, and sped up the teeniest bit.  It helped that no one was out, although that also contributed to the eerie sensation, especially as a giant wall cloud began to creep over the landscape.  The tiny towns we did briefly slow down for sported people standing on their front porches, staring at the sky- NEVER a good sign in Kansas.  When you see Kansans in this stance, you'd best keep a wary eye out for funnel clouds.  

We drove about half an hour through spooky premature darkness before the wind suddenly picked up and the sky tried to drown us.  Long, long story short, we finally made it to the house, but not before the kids freaked out and I told them that there were NO MORE QUESTIONS UNTIL WE GOT TO GRANDMA'S LORRI'S, because if you ask me, "Are we about to die?" one more time, I'm going to tell you the truth, Adelaide, and you're not going to like it.  All that child-silence gave me plenty of time to reflect on how you forget what severe weather actually looks like if you've lived away from it for long enough- don't get me wrong, we get storms here, but Iowa severe weather : Kansas severe weather :  : any Scooby-Doo villain : any villain played by this guy:

A million bucks says his mom took one look at him at birth and shuddered.  Thanks for the nightmares, Cillian Murphy.

Ideal Idyll

This summer.  Man.  While it hasn't been terrible, it has been chock-full of unexpected events and happenings.  For someone like me, who appreciates spontaneity provided there's been ample warning given, this has been a little stressful.

This week, however, all the members of our family are back at home, where we belong, where we should stay, forever and ever, amen.

With that in mind, you will understand why low-key summers are my love language.  Definition of low-key:


Having your dad assist you in your dreams toward superhero-dom:

Neither Adelaide nor Atticus could execute that Superman pose; both are way too gangly and leggy anymore.  My mom recently commented on the excess of limbs they're both sporting these days; I told her it was like living with spiders.  Caedmon's still compact enough- not to mention strangely strong- to make this look easy.

Bubbles are the definition of low-key.

How to know you've kept your kids' entertainment expectations nice and low, where they belong:  They lose their minds when you bust out surprise packs of cheap bubbles.  You'd think I'd announced we were going to Disneyland.

Bubbles:  The most exciting thing to happen to him all day.

Really, this is almost sad.

We've also been doing things like playing in the rain and playing with Legos and running and reading, not to mention my continued quest toward the title of Heartless Dictator (actual words spoken by one of our children) in the form of daily chore lists.  Atticus likes to get his list first thing every day, so he can get it done right away and have the rest of the day to spend as he pleases.  Adelaide does hers relatively quickly (with some choice muttering here and there, depending on the chore); Caedmon whines and procrastinates and plays the devastated victim until it becomes clear I'm about to lose it.

Ah, summer.

Being Misled, Being on the News, and Being a Reader: A List

• As usual, I relied on google maps to provide pre-trip directions to the church where my grandma's funeral was held, which was lovely, by the way.  Now, even before I typed it in, I was prepared for the fact that google may not be aware of the tiny church in the tiny town that was our destination, but what I did not expect was that google would not only refuse to tell me just how the heck I was supposed to get to Moran Baptist Church, it would continue to insist that Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka was where I wanted to go.  Gosh, google, thanks so much, but no, I do NOT want to go to Westboro Baptist Church.  I mean, not only do I have zero picketing signs prepared, I seem to have misplaced my utterly incomprehensible hatred in the name of Jesus.  

• I did a local news interview today because we have a son named Atticus.  Derek is wonderful on camera:  Self-possessed, well-spoken, natural.  I am weird.  My voice gets even more nasal than usual, I stare off pensively into the distance, unable to make eye contact as if my home is somewhere on the autism spectrum, and vocabulary normally available for use by my brain takes flight.  Strangely, I'm not nervous or anxious in front of a camera, but those on the other end- you know, the professionals- probably wince enough to give themselves premature crow's feet.  If I'm capable of watching the segment at all, it will be the way my sister Steph used to watch anything remotely scary:  thumbs plugging her ears, fingers covering her eyes.  

• Ask and ye shall receive:

If the remotest piece of you enjoys the Fantasy genre, this is for you.  A strong heroine overcoming adversity, an evil queen, magic necklaces:  It's like a Disney princess story for grown-up girls with functioning brains.  Thank you, The Queen of the Tearling and Alif the Unseen for breaking the mediocre book enchantment under which I was captive.

Elevation Change

Sometimes, the only thing to do after receiving a piece of sad news is to keep busy.  So you clean and clean and clean, all morning, and this is satisfying in the middle and throughout the process, and for right around ten seconds afterward you look around with some level of contentment.

Contentment quickly begins to wane, however, and you travel swiftly from, "My house is clean!" to "My house is clean and my grandma is dead."

This feeling is also short-lived, however, which is fine because you long ago decided that your mood swings are not a sin, especially when you're not forcing anyone on the swing with you.  This up-and-down is largely internal, and pretty well managed by dedicated daily exercise.  So, fine.  Back up we go, because yes, your grandma is dead, but how many people get thirty-two years with a beloved great-grandmother?  And your kids- man, how many get to know a great-great-grandparent?  This is lavish, superfluous blessing, so many decades being so loved by a woman such as Helen Stewart.

Who is now dead.  Back down we go.

But, hang on!  Grandma was 96.  Ninety-six!  She'd lived independently for all but her last few months of life, and these last few years, as her eyesight continued to deteriorate, she'd spoken of how she missed reading and sewing and the faces of her family.  She doesn't have to worry about that anymore!  We'll see her again!  Up and up and up!

But now my family is sad, and my sisters are sad, and that makes me sad.  Down.

The only thing to be done for it is to go outside, look at my flowers, pick the first of my newly-ripened Pink Lady tomatoes, make myself a thick BLT for lunch, and tell our children I love them, because if I learned anything from Grandma, it's that there is no such thing as too many times when it comes to "I love you."  If you want to be like Grandma- and in this case, you do- you won't just say it when you're leaving or hanging up the phone, but as soon as they walk in the door, in any and every lull in conversation.  And you'll say it to all the children, all the grandchildren, all the great- and great-great grandchildren, biological, adopted, married into the family, whatever, because she knew that love is no place to practice scarcity economics.

And back up again, where Grandma is.