Decking the Halls

We have many homemade Christmas ornaments. They are sweet. It has been a joy to welcome the ornimants my boys made at school in our house or to sit with the boys and make ornaments together. But some of the orniments my boys have made are just ugly. So, we hang those on the back of the tree.

Peachy

I'm in search of an outstanding cobbler recipe.

I usually make cobbler with a biscuit recipe for the cobbler part. But my husband would like a cobbler with more of a pie crust top. So, I've been experimenting.

Last night I modified a cobbler recipe I found in my Betty Crocker Cookbook by adding less milk and cutting the baking powder in half. But the baking powder still made the top too puffy for Kyle's taste.

My next move is to make a basic pie crust and try using milk for the water. The best thing about searching for a cobbler recipe is that even the ones that don't match Kyle's fancy still taste fantastic.

A word here about the Betty Crocker Cookbook. The cookbook includes great information for all the basics--how to cook a roast, substitutions for sour milk, and cobbler. What I especially love is the description of peach cobbler: "Two healthful basics--fruit and bread--are provided in each serving of this dessert." It actually says that right in the cookbook. This sentence makes it appear that I would be doing my family a huge favor to serve them cobbler. Now, given that I serve cobbler with ice cream, I am giving my family fruit, bread, and dairy. The only thing I can do to make it a complete meal is to throw a pork chop on top.

Raising Men

I would not be accused of coddling my boys. When they fell down, I usually said, "get up."

When Quinlan broke his collar bone and could only use one arm, I didn't allow him to neglect his chores. Sure, he whined a bit. I told him that he probably wasn't the first person to empty a dishwasher using only one hand.

The Many Faces of Quinlan

This is the lastest self-portrait of Quinlan. The child has always loved to have his picture taken, has been photogenic, and has enjoyed taking his own picture.

Here are more self portraits...

This is a self-portrait of Quinlan holding a self-portrait

Here are more pictures of Quin being Quin.


Quinlan in a hat he knit himself. He was so happy because the crazy yarn he used made it look like he had an afro.


Here he is trying out goggles in the bathtub.


Posing...

Quinlan sporting his B, Bart Simpson under pants, and vacuum hose--the ultimate super hero!


Like I tell Quinlan, "lucky you're cute!"

Honestly...

I believe in being honest with my children. So, before this photo was snapped I told Quinlan that he looked like a dork with his sweatshirt tucked into his shorts (I didn't say anything about his ears being pushed around by his hat). Now, of course, he wishes that he had listened to me. But honesty has its limits.
.

Now if every mom is honest with herself she will admit that she is not completely honest with her children. How can she be? It may not be in the best interest of our children to be completely honest.

First, there are the fun lies we tell--the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa. These are lies we tell to bring joy to our children. These lies can also be used to help keep kids in line--why would the tooth fairy want a tooth that hadn't been properly brushed and flossed?

Then there are probabilistic lies. These are the lies we tell that might be true--fruit is candy that God made, all the good vitamins are in the bread crust, you grow when you sleep. (Evan really took that last one to heart and maybe it is true, the boy could sleep and grow.)

But I was opposed to telling my boys outright lies. So when we went to the doctor to get shots and they would ask, "is it going to hurt?" I would answer honestly, "yes." Naturally I would reassure them that the pain would go away and that the shot was less painful than the decease it would protect them from.

When Evan asked, after watching a Viagra commercial, "What is ED?" I told him. Then when he asked why that would be a problem, I told him that, too. We both felt a bit awkward, but it was honest.

When Quinlan was in fourth grade and testing revealed he was reading at a second-grade level, he asked, "Am I stupid?" I said, "No, you are two years behind other kids in reading and you are ahead of other kids in other things." Then I explained, "it means that when you are 42 you will be reading like a 40 year old, not a big deal." A probabilistic lie? No, honest.

When Evan was in the sixth grade he was reading significantly above his grade level. He wanted to slack off on his daily reading. He said, "I'm already a good reader." I said, "Sure, you are a pretty good reader for a 12 year old. But you are a lousy reader for a 40 year old. So get your butt in your room and read." Honest.

Homework Help

We were very happy when Quinlan graduated from high school. His favorite teacher was the detention teacher--seriously, he wrote her a thank-you note and bought her a gift. But it may be better to let Quinlan share that story.

Like other dutiful moms, I supervised homework for both of my boys. However, sometimes they came home with fairly lame homework. I became particularly irritated when they brough home word searches. I don't think a word search is a good way to spend time (this from a woman who can spend hours playing Scrabble online).

When the boys, especially Quinlan, brought home a word search for homework I would tell them that I would do their word search and they were to go read a book. I would circle a word or two now and then--it would take me at least 45 minutes to complete a word search. I figured that it was better for my boys to use that time reading and they felt like they were getting away with something.

What Goes Around Comes Around

I'm a pretty fast walker. The combination of my long legs and impatience makes it so I can move at a pretty good clip.

When the boys were small we would walk together, but I would not slow down.

Evan would say, "Mom, slow down."

"If you can't keep up, you better run," I'd say.

And so he would. I would walk, hold Evan's hand, and he would run along side me.

Now Evan's legs are something like four feet long. The last time we walked together I had a difficult time keeeping up with him.

"Come on Son," I said, "you have to slow down so I can keep up with you!"

"Maybe you are going to have to run," he replied.

I'm Number One!

There was a sappy commercial on TV years ago that went something like, "My father never told me he loved me, but he always let me win." I chuckled when I heard that (probably not the response the ad creator had in mind) because my father told me every day that he loved me, but he never let me win.

I, in turn, have never let my boys win. I figured, if they want to win, let them get good. Checkers, Go-Fish, Yahtzee, Connect Four, Ping Pong, Cribbage, Dominoes--I played them all and I won. Now I probably didn't have to do the victory dance, but I did. I'm a pretty dedicated mother.

So when we purchased our first video game system (as a good mother, I resisted this for years, but I live with three boys, resistance was futile) I was determined to win. (NOTE: I freed Princess Peach from Bowser's Castle when no one else in the family could).

However, I had a really hard time winning any of the multiplayer games. I just kept losing and it wasn't even close. Let me note that I lost half of my left thumb in a freak stroller accident when I was only four. I pointed this fact out to my boys on numerous occasions to petition for a head start or something that would make the game fair--or would allow me to at least come close to winning.

But I had raised my boys to love me, not to let me win.

Hair Do's and Don'ts

I have always had short hair. There was a month or so in my life that I could put my hair in a single pony tail, but that didn't last too long. Generally, I have sported a boy's haircut. In fact, recently I think my father and I have the exact same cut. My bangs may be a bit longer, but the concept is spot on.

I had not-so-short hair when I got married--it was clear past my ears. Soon after the wedding I cut it all off again. My husband tried to be supportive, but really, he didn't love my short hair.

"I always dreamed of marrying a girl with long, dark hair" he said. I think he hoped I would cancell all future hair appointments and morph into his dream girl.

"Huh," I said, "I always dreamed of marrying a millionnaire. How about you make a million bucks and this hair is any length you want it?"

Since then, he has only complimented my short locks.

Privacy Please

All mothers know that the onset of motherhood means an end to privacy. My abandonment of privacy began in the hospital labor and delivery room. It was August, I was hot and extremely pregnant, and even a light bed sheet seemed too much. But that is another story entirely.

Soon after giving birth to my first son, I tried to breast feed him. But my boy didn't know how to suck (isn't that an instinct?). Our failure resulted in strangers touching my breast to help my son and me get things figured out. Okay, the strangers were employed by the hospital--but that did not change the fact that I was sitting in my bed, holding my son, bare chested, and letting a woman I had only just met grab me.

So once Evan could crawl, I never pottied alone. If I was in the potty, so was Evan. I got used to it, but at some point I realized that it had to stop. I mean, there must be an age where it is inappropriate for a boy to follow his mother into the bathroom.

One Thanksgiving the entire family and extended family were gather at my parents' house for a pleasant meal. I snuck away from the festivities to go potty. Naturally Evan, who was three or so, followed me into the bathroom.

As I sat on the toilet doing my deal, Evan said "Mom, you can go pee without a penis?"

"Yes, son, I can" I declared.

"How can you go pee without a peeeeeenis?" He asked.

"I just can." I really wasn't intereseted in providing more of an explanation than that.

I thought I was off the hook when he said, "huh."

But while I was still in the bathroom putting myself back together, I heard Evan announce to the entire family, "My mom can go pee without a penis!" It was the most perfectly clear and articulate sentence he had ever uttered in his young life.

Keep the Change

We didn't give the boys an allowance, but we did allow them to pick up any loose change they found around the house. This kept us from having piles of quarters and nickels cluttering up the space and we didn't always have to have a certain amount of money at the end of each week to hand out to the boys. We also frequently let the boys keep the change after running a shopping errand.

"Here is the 18 cents change from the bread" they would say.

"Oh, keep the change!" We would say. I mean, 18 cents, really.

When Quinlan wanted an expensive jacket, we told him that it was just too much money. So we were surprised when he walked into the house wearing his new expensive jacket.

"How could you afford that?" I asked, desperately hoping that he wouldn't reveal that he had stollen it.

"You know how you told me I could keep the change?" he asked slyly, "I did."

Is this an Emergency?

The boys frequently accompanied me to the library when I was working on my dissertation. I would walk through the stacks of books in the research library, find the books and journals that I needed, hand them to the boys, and they would pile the books onto my cart and help me transport them. They became familiar enough with the library that I could send them into the stacks to retrieve a volume. Evan was even able to go the computer and find out if the library had volumes that I had found referenced in other books and articles. I felt pretty proud that my boys, at the tender ages of 11 and 13, could successfully navigate a research library.

One day, we parked in the university parking garage, and the three of us spent several hours in the library. As per our tradition, I stood at the copy machine making copies of articles. From there I could watch Quinlan take the books over to the circulation desk to check them out. And Evan returned journal volumes to the shelf for reshelving and helped Quinlan pack the books into the cart for our return to the car.

On our way back to the car I realized that I had left my copy card in the copy machine. Not wanting to simply lose copy money, I sent Evan back to the library to retrieve my card. Quinlan and I continued on to the garage and I told Evan to meet us at the car. I figured that if Evan hurried (which he never has, so I am not sure why that factored into my logic at all) that he would catch up to us before we even got to the car.

However, Quinlan and I made it to the car and Evan still hadn't returned. We loaded the books into the car and sat there and waited for him. Still no Evan. Finally, we got out of the car and returned to the library, expecting to find Evan along our route. We made it all the way back to the library and never found Evan.

Naturally, the library didn't have a PA system (something about not wanting to disturb patrons). I called my campus office to see if anyone had seen Evan; they hadn't. Trying not to panic, I called campus police and gave them a description of Evan.

In less than 15 minutes, the campus police called. They had found Evan and picked him up. It turns out that when Evan had returned to the parking garage, he went to the wrong floor to look for the car. When he couldn't find the car he waited at the entrance/exit of the garage. He figured that when we drove out we would see him. Like we were going to drive out without him.

The thing is that there were emergency telephones in the parking garage--at least four on every floor. Evan had seen the emergency phones. I asked him why he didn't pick one up and call.

"I didn't know if I was in an emergency" was his reply.

Have You Heard the One About ... ?

You know that really bad racist joke that describes how stupid folks from a particular race lock their keys in their car--with their family in it? Well, it is not funny to tell racist jokes. It is really not funny when you are living it; when you are being the example of stupidity. Only it was much worse...my family had the chicken pox. I pray my race and gender will forgive me!

It was the heat of the summer. I was still working on my undergraduate degree in mathematics and I had a final scheduled on a typically hot, Nevada day, in July. Evan was three and Quinlan was just 18 months old. They both had chicken pox. They looked sad and pathetic.

That summer I had worked out my child-care needs with my mother-in-law (who does truly deserve a mother-of-the-year award!). I pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, got out of the car, locked it using the door-lock button on the door, shut the door, and realized that I had locked my keys in the car--with my sick children. Naturally, all the windows were up since just before I turned off the engine the air conditioning was running.

It quickly got hot and Evan began to cry. I yelled through the closed window, "get out of your car seat and unlock the door."

Evan, through sad tears, said, "Mommy, get me out."

But I couldn't. It turns out that in my zeal to ensure complete travel safety, I had failed to teach my child how to escape from his car seat (a skill I didn't have to teach Houdini Quinlan).

It was as if I could sit there and watch the little pox break out on their sad, sweaty faces. I called my husband who came over from work to unlock the doors. It took him just a few minutes, but by that time, both the boys had broken out into a sweat and a screaming fit. I dabbed them off and tried to settle them down so I could leave them.

Needless to say, I was late for my final. I picked up the test and took my seat without explanation. I decided that there was no way for me to explain to my professor that I was smart enough to pass his mathematics class, but too stupid to be a mother.

Back-to-School Shopping

Evan was well over six feet tall by the time he was in middle school (he is just over 6'10" now). Therefore, he has always stood out in a crowd and especially at school where he was typically the tallest kid in his class (the youngest, too, with an August birthday). Given that Evan has always been a quiet and reserved kid, he didn't do things that would bring extra attention to him--this has particularly been the case with his clothing.

During our back-to-school shopping before his junior year of high school, I suggested that Evan try on a diagonal stripe shirt (like the one in the picture).

Evan looked at me oddly. "I don't want to wear a shirt that draws the eye down to there," he said while using both hands to point to the fly area of his jeans.

Good grief. It was not my intention to dress my son in clothing that would call undue attention to his personal parts.

Blubber for Dinner

One evening, when Quinlan was about five, I served a meal that consisted of pork chops, mashed potatoes, and peas. When I asked Quinlan if he wanted gravy on his potatoes, he said, "I don't know--is there blubber in gravy?"

"Yes" I said.

"No thanks," he replied, "I don't eat blubber."

I Hate Snakes!

I hate snakes! One day, just before Bambino baseball, I passed by our basement door and saw a snake slithering into our first-floor hallway. It didn't matter to me that it was a common-variety garter snake--basically harmless--I freaked out. My husband was at work and I don't touch snakes, so I called the boys to the living room.

"Boys, you have to get the snake out of the house." I said this to the boys in my most serious voice. I wanted them to know that the situation was dire and that they had to do something. They were around nine and ten years old. The boys looked at the snake and then back to me.

"What do you want us to do?" Evan asked. I'm pretty sure he knew what I wanted them to do. He was just stalling.

"You have to grab the snake and take it outside to the desert," I explained in my most calm voice.

"I can't," was Evan's sad response. He clearly wanted to help, but he was also as scared as I was.

"I need you to do this!" I was on my knees, with my hands on Evan's shoulders--I was begging.

Now, I realize that mothers generally put themselves between their children and harm, but these were snakes. And besides, it wasn't really harm--it was simply fear. I wanted my boys to move through their fear and get the snake out of our house.

Quinlan tried to step up. He ran out of the living room and returned a few minutes later wearing hip boots, oven mitts, and swimming goggles and carrying a golf club and an empty bucket. But when he moved toward the snake, the snake hissed.

Quinlan turned to me and said, "I can't do it."

"You have to. You have to get the snake out of the house." I insisted. But it didn't matter. My boys--the ones who had spent hours catching horned toads and lizards, who have eaten ants, who had baited hooks, and gutted fish--were not willing to catch a snake for their mother.

I was not willing to catch the snake either. The boys changed into their baseball uniforms and I took them to their game. When we returned home several hours later, the snake had moved from its position in the hallway and we could not find it.

We found the snake the next morning sunning in the dining room. My husband removed the snake to the desert.

I slept that night--and I allowed my boys to sleep that night--with a snake in the house. I'm not proud of that. But I still think they should have removed the snake and I think any mother worthy to be called a mother, would similarly expect her boys to take care of the snake.

Mom's on Strike--Permanently

Mother's Day at church can be unbearable. Especially when people, usually men, talk about how incredibly wonderful their mothers were.

One Mother's Day I sat and listened to a gentleman go on and on about all the super-human things his mother had done for him. At some point during his talk he said, "For you young people, imagine if your mothers went on strike." Now I was paying attention. He was about to give my boys some crazy ideas about what I was supposed to be doing.

"Imagine," he went on, "that your mothers quit doing your laundry, quit making your meals, quit cleaning up after you."

At this point, Quinlan leaned over to me and whispered, "Are you on strike?"

The boys began folding (okay--nicely wadding) their own clothes when they were five years old. They completely took over their laundry by the time they were ten. They have done dishers for years.

Once while, watching television, a comercial for a mop came on. Quinlan asked, "Why do they market mops to women?" I knew he was asking the question because he had never seen a woman use a mop. "They should market mops to teenaged boys," he quipped.

Teaching boys to do household chores looks a lot like striking.

Raising Real Men

So my boys are out of the house. Quinlan, the youngest, has been gone about a month or so. For years the boys have had their own bathroom and they were responsible for keeping it clean. Naturally, I checked their work.

Yesterday I decided to clean their bathroom. Despite the fact that no one has used it for about a month. What I found in the sink cabinet was amazing. In the cabinet, and this is not a complete inventory, was a broken mirror (it appears all the pieces, down to the tiniest shards, were there), four half-used deoderants, three razors, a hot-water bottle (I don't even remember owning this), two bottles of mouthwash, two towel bars, three socks, an empty container of cranberry juice (the big, 2-liter size), a Gameboy, various bathroom cleaning products, and an Indian headress (likely purchased at the party store). It appears that the boys have simply been cleaning the bathroom by cramming their clutter into the cabinet under the sink.

I went back in my mind to all the times I sent them into the bathroom to clean and all the times that I inspected their work. I would open the shower curtain, I would lift the toilet seat, I would check behind the toilet, and I would check behind the door. It never ocurred to me to check the cabinet.

Soon after potty training the boys, I decided to designate one bathroom in the house as the boys' bathroom. I also desginated one bathroom in the house as the public bathroom (the boys were banned from this bathroom). The no-boy bathroom meant that one bathroom could remain clean. I had to do this because the boys would start their business before they had really aimed their business. Thus, I had to clean the bathroom, and I mean the entire bathroom, several times a week.

I finally told my husband, "If you do not teach those boys how to hit the toilet, I am going to teach them to pee sitting down."

He immediately took the boys into the bathroom and said things like "just because you are in the bathroom doesn't mean you are free to let it go," and "you have to hear the splashing," and "if you miss, you clean!"

It seems real men do not have boys who pee sitting down. But does that also mean that mothers cannot have clean bathrooms?

The Sea of Love

Some days, when mothering was extra difficult and irritating, I would escape to a good bubble bath and dream of the life of the sea turtle.

Consider the life of the sea turtle. Sea turtles swim fee in the ocean (to make this work you have to ignore that they are an endangered species). When it is mating time, they swim hundreds of miles or so until they find a sandy beach. Once on the beach, they dig a hole, lay a hundred eggs or so, bury those eggs with some moist sand, return to the ocean, and swim away.

Some time later, the eggs hatch and the baby sea turtles make their way to the ocean (or maybe they don't--admittedly that is sad, but that is nature, and the momma sea turtles need not feel guilty about it).

It is a beautiful thing. Sea turtle mothers never have to settle disputes between bickering sea turtle offspring. They never have to make sure that sea turtle offspring mind their homework, music practices, or chores. And even if sea turtle offspring talk back or get disrespectful with their mothers, their mothers never hear it because they are off swimming in a different part of the ocean.

I guess sea turtles exit their shells and immediately know how to be sea turtles. Human babies don't wake up and know how to be human. No, it turns out that human babies need the help of human mothers to become fully human, and they need that help for quite a long time.

Some days I got it right. Some days I had to soak.

What's Cookin' Good Lookin'?

The boys were in elementary school when I was in my doctoral program. Like all busy moms, I often struggled to manage all my responsibilities.

One evening I found I had very little time to get the boys a meal and to their Grandma's house before I went to class. Rather than driving through a fast-food restaurant, I rummaged around in the refrigerator for something nutritious to feed the boys.

After about three minutes, I had prepared a plate for each boy that contained a low-fat yogurt, string cheese, a handful of Triscuits, half a peach, and a pile of fresh, raw, greenbeans. I was feeling pretty good about what I was able to put together.

The boys clammered into their seats and began to eat.

Holding a greenbean high into the air, Quinlan exclaimed, "I love these!" Which only confirmed my greatness as a mother and chef.

Then he said, "Mom, some day do you think we can try these cooked?"

So much for maternal and culinary greatness.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

When Evan was about six or seven years old, he took up lying. Not big lies. What big lies would a little boy have? He would lie about how many pieces of candy he had eaten or if it was he who had tried to give Barnie the Bear a bath (that was a mess!).

He wasn't good at lying. I could tell, of course, by the way he stammered and looked around, as if to find the perfect, most convincing words.

So one day, after he told a lie, I said, "Evan, don't lie to me. I can tell when you are lying."

Surprised, he asked "How?"

I guess I should have been prepared for that question. But I wasn't. I thought he would simply say, "Okay, Mom." I didn't want to tell him how I could tell he was lying and essentially teach him how to lie better.

So, in a panic, I said, "I can tell because your tongue turns black."

That's right. My best tactic to keep my son from lying was to lie to him.

It sort of worked. Everytime he lied in the future, it was clearly obvious because he tried to speak while hiding his tongue.

We All Fall Down

Here is a fun game to play with a baby who has learned to sit up.

Hold him in your arms as if to give him a hug and spin around quickly. After about ten to fifteen spins, stop and sit the baby on the floor.

Being dizzy, the baby will simply flop over.

Ah, fun for baby and mom!

Major Medical

I've taken Quinlan to the emergency room so often that I requested a frequent visitor card--I thought that maybe after ten visits to the ER we could get a free x-ray or something. I don't think the nurse thought that was funny. But, seriously, when you are cleaning up head-to-toe road rash while you wait for a physician to read an x-ray, you need something to keep things on the light side.

The first time I took Quinlan to the hospital he was ten months old. His big brother, Evan, had pushed him, and Quin hit his head on a trunk in the living room. I saw the whole thing and the hit didn't seem too hard. So on the way to console Quinlan, I picked Evan up and put him in time-out. When I turned to Quinlan, he wasn't breathing and he passed out in my arms.

Terrified, I called 911 and they sent an ambulance to the apartment. By the time the emergency medical technicians arrived, Quinlan was sitting up, smiling, and clapping with glee. Despite Quinlan's quick recovery, I left Evan with a neighbor and rode with Quinlan in the ambulance to the emergency room. The doctor found nothing wrong with Quinlan and we went home puzzled, but happy that Quinlan was fine. Later his pediatrician suggested that Quin had simply held his breath until he passed out to get attention. How does a ten-month-old child even know to do that? The next couple of times he held his breath, I made sure that he wouldn't hurt himself on his way down (a ten-month-old can't get too hurt by plopping over) and left the room. The doctor said it was important for Quinlan to wake up alone so he could realize that passing out wasn't going to get him the attention he wanted. Again, a ten-month-old can realize this?

So we have established that the child was not opposed to over exaggeration. That is important for the next stories.

When Quinlan was three, he was pretending he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (he had a favorite, but I can't remember which one--they all looked the same to me). He jumped from a swivel chair and hit hard on the wood floors at his Grandpa's house. It was a bit past his bedtime, so when he didn't stop crying we figured he was just tired.

So we drove home. We were surprised when he didn't fall asleep in the car on the way home (the boy, to this day, believes that sleeping in the car is ideal). We got him in his pajamas and put him in bed, but he was still whiny and wouldn't move his arm much. Now about two hours had gone by and I finally decided to call the on-call doctor. He thought it sounded like Quinlan had broken his arm and suggested that I take him to the emergency room.

Sure enough, he had a pucker fracture on his wrist.

His second broken arm was a trampoline injury. He wasn't jumping on the trampoline, he was trying to move it (I don't know why an ten-year old thinks he can move a trampoline by himself) when a couple of other kids jumped on the trampoline. I took him to the emergency room immediately with that one.

His third broken arm occurred as a result of a bicylce accident. I don't know the particulars. I didn't witness the tumble. At any rate, Quinlan didn't seem that hurt to me. But he kept complaining about his wrist. After about ten days of listening to him complain, I took him to the doctor, who found that Quin did, in fact have a broken arm. He was scheduled to get the cast off two days before a week-long river rafting trip with the Scouts. I moved the cast-removing doctor's visit to after the trip.

And so it was with that boy. Our last trip the hospital was just last summer when I got a phone call from one of his buddies at 10 o'clock at night informing me that Quinlan had taken a tumble on his long board (a skateboard that is built just to go fast down steep roads). When I got to the scene, I found Quin lying on a lawn riving in pain. He complained that he had broken his clavicle.

"How do you know that?" I am simply not easily convinced.

"I heard it," he grunted. Fine!

An Imagination is a Terrible Thing to Waste

One day my husband and I were traveling across the Nevada desert with our boys--ages nine and eight. Now this was before the days of DVD players in the car. We had to keep the boys entertained the old-fashioned way with silly songs and car games. But silly car games don't work too well in the Great Basin. At some point, the games stopped and the boys were left to their imaginations.

My husband and I carried on an adult conversation in the front seat. But we were interupted by a tussle that began in the back seat. I told the boys to "settle down," but that didn't work.

After a couple of minutes, I said, "What seems to be the problem, boys?"

Evan, the oldest, said, clearly upset, "Quinlan made cookies, and he won't share."

(At this point in the story I should point out, not only did we not have a DVD player in the car, we did not have an oven in the car.)

So I say, trying to stay detatched from the rediculousness, "Work it out." And I returned to the conversation between my husband and me. But the tussle didn't stop.

Realizing that I had to do something, I opened my hand and thrust it between the front, bucket seats, and toward the back seat.

"Give me the cookies," I said firmly.

Reluctantly, Quinlan put the imaginary cookies in my open hand. Then he folded his arms hard into a pout, which only made Evan proud of his work.

"If you can't share, neither of you will have any cookies," I said, triumphantly taking the imaginary cookies away from my eight-year old.

In the quiet created by my pouting boys, my husband and I continued our conversation and drove peacefully into Winemucca.

My First Mother's Day

First, some background on me. I'm a mom. I have two sons (age 20 and 19). They have left my husband and me empty-nesters. I'm rather enjoying the peace and quiet (perhaps reason 1 that I'm not the mother of the year!).

I gave birth to my first son over 20 years ago. It was a difficult birth. He was ten days over due and weighed over nine pounds. Without going into all the gory details, let me say that my pregnancy ended with my boy being surgically removed from my body. I was sent home from the hospital (too soon!) and told not to lift anything over ten pounds. Ya, that included my son. That was in August.

By my first Mother's Day I was recovered and pregnant with my second boy. After a busy Sunday taking care of my mother-in-law and my mother with brunches, gifts, and a day at church (where I received a very sad carnation), my husband and I settled into our couch to watch television. Every show we watched that evening included a plot line where the husband did something nice for his wife for Mother's Day. I just sat and watched silently with my 20-some-odd pound son sleeping in my lap.

At some point, my husband turned to me and asked, "Was I supposed to do something for you for Mother's Day?"

To which I replied, "Ya, I think so."

"But you are not my mother." Which is such a lame reply considering all the work I had done that day for his mother!

"Did you think the boy was going to take care of it?" I said pointing to the infant.

The next day my husband came home with a card for me. On the front was a sweet little drawing of a bear sitting on a crescent moon. The line read something about being his dream girl for eternity, or something close to that--I cannot remember exactly. On the inside--and I do remember this exactly--the card read, "Happy Birthday!"