Doesn't Fall Far

Red marks all over the math papers last week.
This is twin girl's cross to bear.
There was one wrong answer that caught my eye though.

It was a story problem:

If there are 3 red marbles and 2 blue marbles in a bag,
what is the probability that you will
pick out a red one with your eyes shut?

Her answer, scrawled in serious, round, 4th grade handwriting
was,

"a good one."

I'm sure creating a ratio was the last thing on her mind.
Instead, she was wondering about the marbles themselves,
and why anyone would want to reach into a bag of them with their eyes shut.
Why not just choose the one that you want with your eyes open?
And why are there no purple marbles?
And why would someone only pick out ONE marble,
when they could grab a whole handful?

I can just see her sighing over the complete irrelevance of the question,
and then carefully printing what she supposed must be,(generally speaking)
the answer.

That's my girl.

*

Hopeful

Taking a pause from an especially painful writing project,
he asks me,

"Do you think it would be rude to write,
'to be continued' at the end of an essay?"

I said it might send the wrong message.

He sighs and returns to the work at hand.

*

Peepers

Twin girl has recently been barraged by requests by the boys in her classroom to become their girlfriend. (It's happening to all of 4th grade girls for some reason.)

At least she is sensible. She tells them matter-of-factly, "I'm not old enough, and I don't want to either." She is kind, though. One particularly disheartened youth sat staring sadly at his table, she recounted, after her refusal. Apparently a terrible rumor had circulated throughout the fourth grade that the reason she had not taken his offer was because she "thought he was disgusting." She promptly remedied this, by telling the poor boy this was most certainly not true, it was just that she was not allowed to and she only liked him as a friend.

Yesterday she told me with a sigh and a flip of her hair that she really believed the entire fourth grade was in love with her. She displayed the contents of her lap, presents from admirers, with a mixture of pride and exhaustion. The attention can be relentless.

Today, however, a shining star has risen to the top. Yesterday, his present was a peeper, a tiny white piece of paper folded into something like a bird mouth that opened and closed. It was lumped with the others. But today he had outdone himself. With a flamboyant arm flourish, she pulled it from behind her back and smiled triumphantly. A gape-mouthed Peeper of the grandest proportions.

Love
Grows

.

Math

The twins were getting out their math facts flashcards.
I looked up over the book I was reading,
and mentally congratulated myself at raising these children
to be studious and diligent in their quest for math mastery.

The next time I looked up they had vanished from the room,
but had left me this:

Sex

Twin boy explained from the back seat, while I was driving him to the grocery store, that he really likes playing with girls, and he doesn't think they are gross like the other boys do.

He said, "If one sits down next to me at lunch I just stay right there, I don't move away."

I said, "I'll bet that's because you have a twin who is a girl, so you're used to playing with somebody that's of a different sex."

Muffled snorts from behind me...

"Gender, Mom. It'd be better to say a different gender."

Jazzy

The imp popped up beside me.
He was bouncing up and down.

"Mom,"
he says,
"I know what I want for Christmas."

Ah, October has arrived.

"What?" I say, prepared for something Lego or a video game, his usual fare.

"I want...

a white tuxedo."

whuh?

He then went on to explain that if he got a white tuxedo,
he could wear it to weddings.

I'm thinking he could pull it off.

Before I could recover completely, though,
he added:

"And on Picture Day, I think that it would make my picture
a little bit jazzy."

Indeed.

Because a Bunk Bed Isn't Enough Fun

We heard distant shrieks, happening in waves - like the sound of rollercoaster people in the distance at the theme park.
I let it go on for a while and then went up to find the twins experimenting with the box-and-string method for transporting items up into the bunk bed. Sort of a pulley system without the pulleys.

Boy twin is now sleeping on the floor of his own room, with a homemade canopy above and his legos comfortably close by.
He has created his own space.
Peace.

Indeed

The nine-year-old boy twin was nowhere to be seen at bedtime.

He usually sleeps on the floor between his sisters' beds in their room.
He's done that ever since we moved and gave him his own room.
He sleeps flat on the carpet, with absolutely nothing underneath him,
just a blanket on top, and somehow we've let him continue this because:

a) He says he's perfectly comfortable and
b) For five years now it seemed like it was going to be a temporary thing.

So I was surprised to find he wasn't in the girls' room
and I popped my head into his own darkened bedroom.

"Are you in here?" I asked the darkness.

Silence, and then:

"Indeed," the darkness answered back.

I rolled my eyes and went back downstairs.

Boats

I went around turning off lights that had been left on today, flicking them absently.
I reached in and flicked off the bathroom light, and stepped out.
I stopped.
Stepped back in, flicked the light back on, and saw this:

I raised my eyebrows, flicked the light back off and went on about my day.

Uncrustables, Way Cheaper

Use soft bread, put peanut butter and jelly in the center.

Use a glass to cut a circle out of the center of the bread



Pinch edges closed.

Place in sandwich baggie. Store all sandwiches in a large baggie in the freezer.
When the children need a snack or make their own cold lunch, they just pull one out!
peace.

All In One Day

Things That Happened Yesterday, A List:
The big sister painted a red heart on the little sister's cheek in the morning.
I bounced a superball so high that it hit the ceiling twice in one throw.
The dog bit off the Barbie's leg, and I found her with gauze wrapped around the stub.
The boy twin made his Valentine Box by himself in 5 minutes before school because I forgot.
I used hot-curls to fix the girls' hair for the Daddy-Daughter Dance.
I got five valentines.
I threw my coat over my face in the high school hallway to avoid embarassing my son by my presence, naturally attracting a bit more attention by trying to avoid it.
I startled a choir director by not knocking before I walked into the choir room.
I shook hands with somebody who made me cry last Saturday and let bygones be-gones.
I took the boys to Angel's Cafe for supper.
The boy twin poured sugar all over his french fries by mistake and just shrugged when his food was wrecked.
The oldest boy shared his supper with the boy twin and wasn't stingy.
I played BlackJack and Crazy Eights.
The boy twin and I played a duet on a marimba.
One of the children signed their valentine to me, "Sincerely," and it made me laugh.
I got gas for under 3 bucks a gallon.

I just wanted to make a list so I'd remember.

My Mom's The Teacher

Well the twins have been bugging their teacher to please, "be absent so our mom can be the substitute teacher." She complied today, and I have just finished 7 exhausting hours of trying to keep 30 eight year olds quiet, involved, on task...

I bow to school teachers everywhere.

Thing is, all of the children are good. Really, how can an eight year old be evil? But combine them in groups of over...say...10, and you will find it impossible to have all of them facing forward at the same time. So explaining an assignment becomes an exercise in thespianism. Face animated, voice clear and bold, wide, sweeping hand gestures...

When the boy twin sidled up to me with furtive glances left and right, I bent my head to hear his secret.

"Mom. You're talking different."

"What? Is it bad? Do I sound mean?"

"No, you just don't sound like you do when we're at home."

He slipped back to his seat, and left me pondering my transformation.
See I'm a good sub. The children usually love me. I waltz in and Mary Poppins my way through a day, leaving admiring little girls and boys behind every single time. And so far, when the twins and the middle child have seen me in the hallways, they have grinned proudly at me and boasted to their classmates that I am their mom. I thought today would be the pinnacle of my elevation in their eyes!

But later, alarmingly, the girl twin lowered her brow at me and said,

"Mom. You're acting weird."

I was crestfallen! Me, weird? Yes, I might be a little strange, a little surprising -- a little out of the ordinary as far as substitutes go...but that's what makes me interesting to the children! I can say the alphabet backwards! I can do foreign accents! Heck, I can SING!

Okay yeah I can see the problem.

Thing is, I usually don't lose my coolness factor until they get to be around twelve. Here I have accomplished it in one day of 3rd grade.

Oh well.
Tonight both of them re-emphasized that I should just act the same at school as at home. I said maybe nobody would hear me if I spoke that softly.

And then I realized what a good thing it was,
that the mom they know at home,
is the one they want.

Heart and Soul

I was in my studio last night, playing Heart and Soul on the piano. The middle child has discovered this at school and wants to learn it. The children were all upstairs watching the Friday night movie, and I was just noodling on the bass part. I was thinking about all the ways it can be played differently, and how to teach her something about music through it.

The boy twin appeared, jumpy and excited. "It's too scary for me!" he says.

I patted the bench and he sat down close. I said, "Here is C. I'm going to play a song where C is Home, will you play with me?" When he nodded, I think his whole body lifted and settled -- what were they watching upstairs? He was twitchy and vibrating.

So I whispered in his ear, "C is Home. You can play anything you like, and you can go anywhere you like, but just keep coming back Home.

And don't go too far away, or you may get lost.
And don't forget where Home is.
Right here, next to the group of two black keys."

He nodded, bumping on the seat to begin, so I played, and he played above me, with the courage and the freedom of an 8 year old boy.

Seconds later he was gone, attempting the excitement of the movie again. I kept exploring how to move from C to A, to F, to G...

Five minutes later he was back and resumed his position, playing high and strong and now trying with both hands, then he disappeared.

For the next half hour, I kept on a steady pulse of a simple song in the basement studio of the house. He came and went without speaking, adding his free-wheeling melody to my soft structure.

I thought about him leaping up from a particularly alarming scene on the television. Excitement propelling him down the basement stairs, through the dark play room, toward the light coming from my studio door. Toward the murmur of music that was just the same as when he left.

Seems like that is what Home is all about. A constant drone of familiarity that you keep coming back to. A hum in the foundation of your world that is always there, in the back of your mind, for when life gets too scary.

Heart and Soul playing on and on.

Send It Down The River

Tonight the boy twin pulled me to his room to talk. This one is always speaking, and needs listeners all day long it seems. I was tired at 9:30, and just wanted him asleep.

I said, "Maybe this is a time for listening and not talking." I said, "You have so many secrets inside of you, but if you are never quiet, you will never hear what they are." He had a thousand questions about secrets. Who tells them? What kind of secrets? How will I know it is a secret?

I hushed him and told him to close his eyes while I held his hand. I whispered that each night he should sit by the river and watch the boats come by. And see what is in the boats. And take the things out and look at them, and then send them down the river. And when all the things in his mind are sent away, maybe another boat will come, and he will find a secret.

He was very quiet for a long time. Then he said, "There is a boat coming."
"What is in it?" I asked.
"It's filled with boxes," he answered.
"Pick one. Pick the one that seems right to you. Send the rest down the river."

"I have it," he said, "but it's nailed shut."
"That's okay. Maybe it is just a difficult one to open.
Or maybe, it should be set aside and opened later on.
You're the only one who knows."

"I think I should open it. And I have a hammer."
I smiled. There was another long pause.

"Okay, it's open."
"What is inside?" I was dying of suspense.
Another long pause.
"Don't put anything into that box.
Don't put what you want me to see, and
don't put something silly in there to make me laugh.
Just look and tell me what you see."

"It's empty." He sounded sad.

"Oh! But that's wonderful!
That could mean anything!
Maybe it means that it doesn't really matter what you found,
it was all about just opening the box.
Or maybe it is a gift, of emptiness and space,
just for you."

"Or maybe," he said, "it means that
you don't always find what you're looking for."

Bedtime with a mystic.