Annie Valentine

I listen to a lot of crying around here.

There are three little kids home with me every day, I’m bound to hear just about every cry we’ve got at least once. I’ve been doing this gig long enough to know when I need to bolt to a kid’s side, when to give it 30 seconds, and when to quietly escape to the basement and hide.

There’s the basic he-took-my-toy cry, the I’m-hungry/sleepy-so-I’m-going-to-bawl-about-nothing cry, and the someone’s-standing-in-front-of-the-television cry (this is usually followed closely by the someone-threw-something-at-my-head cry).

Then you’ve got your set of serious cries. The ouch-my-fingers-just-got-slammed-in-the-door cry, the whoops-I’m-bleeding-from-the-head cry, and the someone-sprayed-Windex-in-my-eye cry.

But there’s one cry I hear often enough to know that while it sounds bad, it’s nothing serious. It’s the Funny Bone cry. Sounds bad, means nothing.

I was talking on the phone the other morning when Rex (6) sounded off with the Funny Bone cry. I paused and waited for him to bring his electrified elbow over for my perusal. He bolted through my bedroom door screaming his head off. “My elbow! Argh!!!! Right here Mommy, it HURTS!” He wiggled his fingers, I checked his wrist, then looked at his right elbow.

“Oh sweetie, you just hit your funny bone.” I took his hand and gingerly bent his arm. He screamed. “See? It moves fine, it will feel better in a minute.” I sent him on his way and wrapped up my phone call.

Ten minutes later he was still crying.

“Mom!” he screamed as I walked by, “My arm, it hurts!!” Rex has hurt himself before and he tends to drag out the crying process. Still, I figured a little ibuprofen couldn’t hurt anything. I dosed him up and went back to my duties.

Ten minutes later he was still crying.

And that’s when the alarm bells went off in my head. I looked at him sitting in a chair, white as a sheet, and knew we were dealing with something far more serious than a funny bone.

I must confess, I was feeling particularly overwhelmed that morning. I had spent the morning with a headache, wishing I could take a day off from my house and chores. A trip to the hospital wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.

In my panicked state I almost dashed out of the house with two different shoes on and no baby. In a flurry of haste we dashed to the ER.

When I was five I broke my right elbow. Unfortunately the physician on duty was in a hurry to get home and did a shoddy job setting it. My seriously crooked arm is both unattractive and routinely dysfunctional. It kept me from being the highly successful athlete I’m sure the rest of me would have loved to be (it also made for a great scape goat). I’m convinced it’s due to the unattractiveness of my arm that I was never Miss America.

When I realized that Rex was heading the same direction I panicked. What if the doctor on call did a bad job and he could never play ball?

Fate was looking out for Rex. Not only did he avoid having a tw0-year resident set his arm, he ended up with five orthopedic surgeons in the operating room. It was a simple two-pin procedure but since most of the doctors at our hospital work primarily on wounded warriors, they’re all anxious to keep up on their pediatric experience. It was standing room only.

Our sweet friend and substitute family member, Caitlin, is a nurse. She was able to acompany Rex into surgery. “Annie,” she said afterward, “Three of those doctors are world class orthopedic surgeons. He couldn’t have been in better hands.”

Three hours later Rex sat propped up on pillows watching a Disney movie and eating Reese’s peanut butter cups. He looked over at me, cast up to his armpit, chocolate and morphine-induced grin on his face, and said, “Isn’t this a great day, Mom?”

I sat in the side chair, a book in my hands and no laundry pile in sight, and smiled back. “It sure is, buddy.”

Somebody needs to put a cone on that kid’s head.

I know that broken elbows hurt. If there were any way I could double dose him on pain meds I would, but anything more and I’ll be eligible for “dealer” status. He’s already gotten frighteningly attached to the burn from the purple syrup.

But I’m sorry, the pain is at least partly his own darn fault.

I never realized before that Rex can’t walk across a room like a normal person. He has to add a hop skip and jump every three feet as he climbs/rides over/on any furniture or toy that might be considered part of his en route path. Twice today I pulled him off skateboards that were unfortunately in his area of movement. Seriously, watching him jump off the banister then run over and cry at me because his arm hurts…I kind of want to shackle his ankles and duct tape him to the couch.

They should have sent me home with pain killers and a tranquilizer gun (Benadryl only gets us so far).

The worst is that when the pain really bothers him he doesn’t sit still, he starts pounding and pulling on his arm. We were riding in the car today and he started crying about the pain. “Mom, it hurts! It hurts, Mom! Mom, help me, this really hurts!” I looked back to see that not only was he yanking on his fingers, but he was banging his arm against the car door in time to the music on the radio.

Obviously that’s going to make it so much better.

Tomorrow we get the hard cast and man, I can’t wait for a little extra protection. Finger’s crossed he hasn’t unset the pins…

I love Mother’s Day. I’m not a girl who cares about presents (give me breakfast in bed and flowers and I’m good to go) but this year I got the one thing I really wanted: a new baby.

That’s right, this week we got a dog.

The thing I love best about getting a dog is knowing that I don’t have 18 years of parenting ahead of me, I’ve only got two. Two years of teaching and training and bam! It’s an adult.

Finding a breeder for the doodle of our dreams here in Germany has taken months. Two weeks ago we made the much anticipated lengthy car ride to Koblenz to meet Michaela and her darling female mini Flatdoodle puppies (Flat Coated Retriever and Standard Poodle). She is literally the first person on record to formally breed these two amazing dogs, many of which go to handicapped people.

My kids went crazy for the babies. At ten weeks old they were about the sweetest little things I’ve ever seen in my life. For me it was love at first sight, I was ready to take one home in my purse.

Snuggling one of the girls I looked over to Jason. “Honey,” I said, “Isn’t she perfect? Can we keep her?”

He looked at me with a smile and shook his head. “Nope.” Alarmed, I set her down. “What? Why not? She’s exactly what we want!”

“Sorry,” he said, “The only thing I want is a brown coat. I don’t care about anything else, just not black, not this time.” A few years ago we had a darling black Goldendoodle that was hit by a car. Losing him was traumatic for Jason and me and for whatever reason, Jason thinks getting another black dog would be “disloyal” (insert eye roll).

I sighed. “But,” I said, “She doesn’t have any brown puppies, we missed that litter. And these are the smaller ones, you know we want a smaller dog this time. She won’t have more brown puppies for another two years! Do you really want to wait that long?” I looked around the puppy yard at the four extra dogs who were socializing with the kids.

“I want a brown one,” he said simply, “Like that.” Jason pointed to a large curly brown dog who was playing fetch with the kids.

“Him?” I asked. “But he’s huge! He’s not a puppy, I thought we wanted a puppy, a girl puppy. He’s a boy and he’s already grown.”

“That is Sharif,” Michaela said, joining the conversation. “He’s the last of my brown litter. He is a big boy, but he’s only five months old. He’s a lovely boy, his training is going very well. He’s for sale, if you are interested.”

I looked over at Jason and watched him scrutinize the dog. “Man,” he said with a grin, “Look at those paws…He’s going to be huge!” What is it with men and big boy dogs anyway? I shook my head, frustrated at the situation. That wasn’t the dog I came for. I came for a little girl dog, a baby dog…

A baby dog. One that poops and pees in the house. A dog that needs constant training and attention for the next few months before it’s even ready for puppy classes.

I watched Michaela put the puppies away. “Wait,” I said, “Can you keep Sharif out for a few more minutes? We would like to look at him, just for fun.”

And that is how we came across the world’s most darling dog. “Sheriff” has been home with us for a week now and I am happy to report that not only does he use the yard to do his business, but our family is madly in love with him.

Welcome to the family, Doodle Bear.

I would like to say that Sunday  mornings at my house are filled with the smell of waffles and the gentle chorus of angels heralding in another saintly Sabbath day. Unfortunately the smell is usually that of sour laundry from Saturday night’s last desperate load and the most prevalent sound is usually hissing and clawing as the little brats fight about which scripture cartoon to watch. Talk about Leman and Lemual.

Last Sunday I loaded everyone into the car and put in a CD of children’s church songs. Five minutes down the road amid squawks, grunts and the occasional flying spittle, I looked back in time to see Harrison’s yanking on June’s pony tail (and spinal cord), noticed that once again Rex escaped without anyone combing his hair or tying his shoes, and realized that someone had given Georgia a chocolate chip granola bar and the chips had melted all over her hands/hair/dress.

It was going to be a long 30 minute drive to church.

The bickering and fighting raged on. I couldn’t decide what would make me feel better, ditching the car at the train station and running away or downing a Diet Coke (it was fast Sunday and I was feeling it).

I kept slowing eeking the volume of the music up until finally it reached an ear throbbing level. Just then I heard the primary song, “If The Savior Stood Beside Me.”

“Kids!” I yelled turning down the music, “Be quiet and listen to this RIGHT NOW! THIS is how you should be acting! Have any of you stopped to think about Jesus and how He wants you to behave today?” It got surprisingly quiet and I turned the music back up, feeling slightly smug and impressed with my blustery show of parenting.

Then I heard the words to the second verse of the song. “If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say? Would my words be true and kind if He were never far away?”

That’s when I felt really, really rotten. I have a sneaky suspicion that my kids would probably be a lot kinder and a lot more tolerant if they lived with a kinder, more tolerant parent. All I could think about was how I would and wouldn’t parent if Jesus was with me. I would be so…different. How did I get so rough and snappy around the edges?

I stared ahead at the clouds, dark and rainy with lots of sunlight behind and around them and I felt like the world’s biggest sinner. All I could think about were my failures. Then I remembered that I was going to church, that I could take the sacrament and Hallelujah! Repentance! Hey, maybe it isn’t too late, maybe I haven’t ruined my family completely (cue overdramatic orchestration here).

“Kids!” I yelled again, turning down the music, “I am so sorry for being such a mean, horrible mommy, can you all please forgive me?” I looked in the rear view mirror at their stunned and slightly frightened expressions.

“Um,” Harrison said, “Sure. We love you Mom.” I looked at June who was getting seriously distressed. “Mommy, why are you crying?! Did something happen?” I gave her a super sappy, overly emotional explanation that went right over her four-year-old head and turned the music back up.

Honestly, I have never been so happy to head into the chapel and crowd into a bench with my mangy crew.

I’m glad to be on this side of third grade.

Our oldest, Harrison, turns nine this week. Theoretically a kid’s tenth year should be full of pocket knives and puppy dog tails. It should include hours of bike riding and popsicles, tree forts and video games. Who wouldn’t want to be nine?

But today’s nine-year-old is nothing like the ones I grew up with. Life is hard for our kid right now and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.

Take homework for instance. The poor boy comes home with at least 40 minutes of homework a night. Add to that 25 minutes at the piano, a few chores, baseball practice and whoops! There goes his childhood.

As much as I’d like to torch his homework sheets I recognize that whether we agree with them or not they must be done. He might be nine, but personal accountability has got to come into play sometime.

“But Mom,” he said to me in the car last week, “Who cares? Why do I have to do this stupid homework anyway?”

“Because,” I said, “People who don’t learn to do their homework in third grade grow up and you know what happens? They get fired because they never learned how to finish anything. Without a job they have no money, and if they don’t have money they don’t have a house or food. And you know where they end up living?”

He was pretty captivated at this point and gave me an open mouthed, “Where?”

“They live in a box. And it’s cold and it’s soggy and they’re hungry all the time. Do you want to live in a box?”

“No…”

“Then finish your spelling!”

As much as I’d like to knock something out of his schedule there’s no doubt that it’s all adding to his personal development. Baseball is one of the most necessary evils a nine-year-old has in his life. Our society has carefully removed just about every losing opportunity for today’s kids. At soccer here they’re not allowed to keep score; kids in his basketball league aren’t allowed to fast break (lay-ups are practically illegal), and it doesn’t matter how good or bad you play, everyone gets a trophy for signing up.

But baseball is the great American equalizer. Once a kid gets past T-ball and into a real pitching league they’re introduced to every boy’s worst nightmare: the umpire.

Gone are the days of coaches gently calling the pitches and giving the kids five or six good chances to hit the ball. Instead they creep up to the plate with eyes locked on the huge masked man standing uncomfortably close to the plate. Not only that, he yells at them. Most of the kids are so frightened they stand there and forget everything they’ve practiced. The ump calls three strikes and throws them out of the game like yesterday’s wash water. Most of them slink back to the dugout and cry.

It’s kind of awesome.

I think it’s good for kids to lose. My son begs his father to play chess with him on a regular basis and Jason kicks his trash all over the board every single time. You’d think this would discourage Harrison but it’s the opposite; he can’t get enough of it.

About a year ago I watched a particularly brutal chess match up and quietly approached Jason afterwards. “Honey, do you have to be so tough on him? Can’t you let him win once in a while?”

“No,” he said, “Because the day he finally beats me is a day he’ll remember for the rest of his life. This is good for him, does it look like he’s complaining?” I looked over and watched Harrison setting up a rematch, shrugged and left it alone.

The two of them have been playing for the past two years and yesterday, for the first time, they hit a stale mate. When Harrison realized that he hadn’t lost the game he practically cartwheeled his way through the house. “A tie! Mom, it was a tie!”

I guess being nine might be hard, but it isn’t without its rewards.

I knew when I put dinner in the crock pot that tonight would be the night. Penne pasta with chicken in red sauce; what person in their right mind can refuse something that tasty?

It seems almost unfair that karma would have such a good memory. I can remember being a supremely judgmental seventeen-year-old who watched from the perch above my nose as my sister catered to her son’s four food groups: hot dogs, chicken nuggets, ramen noodles…oh wait, there were only three.

And then I started having children and along came Rex.

The child won’t eat. Actually, he’ll eat plenty as long as it is in one of his four food groups: hot dogs, chicken nuggets, ramen noodles…huh. Sound familiar? But at the seriously over-ripe age of six I am determined that it’s time for him to move forward into main stream dinner foods. (I should add that he will eat apples and grapes if I threaten to throw his stuffed animals in The Incinerator.)

It’s so easy to judge a parent in my situation. You think that if you simply don’t give them the option they will finally cave and choose food over starvation. Let me disprove that method right now: Rex has repeatedly chosen a 6:00 pm self-induced hungry early bedtime over chicken and rice. He has no problem not eating and would not be the first child to die from starvation in a pinch because he wouldn’t eat the rice and beans. Kids are way more stubborn than we give them credit for.

Tonight I came prepared. I made sure that he didn’t just come to dinner hungry, he came starving. I held back his afternoon snack and gave him nothing but water in hopes of adding desperation to the equation.

“Mom,” he said at dinner as I dished up the pasta, “I could sure use a hot dog…hot dogs are sure good, aren’t they Mom?” Then he smiled at me, all beautiful dimples and bright blue eyes plus a “feed me” look that would put any puppy to shame.

“Yeah,” I said, “There aren’t going to be any hot dogs tonight Rex, it’s pasta for you. Here’s your bowl!”

“Oh, um, no thanks Mom!” then he scatted from the room like a cat running from work boots.

Forty minutes later. “Gee Mom, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Something’s wrong with my tummy…maybe you could get me something to eat?”

“Sure!” I said, “I’ve got some noodles downstairs for you–”

“Ramen noodles?!” he clasped his hands in front of him like it was Christmas morning.

“No. Penne noodles. From dinner. If you’re hungry you can eat what everyone else ate.” I tuned my heart to 101.6 The Grinch and coldy ignored the drooping face. This is what makes you a good mom, I told myself. Good mother’s know when to put their feet down.  

Me and my feet weren’t prepared for what came next.

After reading to Harrison and June I went in search of Rex. I hadn’t wanted to rock the boat and he knew we were reading, so I assumed he was busy playing before bedtime. Instead I found him laying on his bed in what appeared to be slumber.

I leaned in to kiss his cheek and he let out the most heartbreaking little sob you’ve ever heard in your life. Quickly covering his eyes with his hands and trying to hold his tears in, he curled away from me and cried.

“Baby!” I said, patting his weepy little shoulder, “What is the matter?”

“Well,” he said through little sobs and gasps and sniffs, “It’s just about a peanut butter sandwich…sob…I don’t know why…sob…I’m crying…sob…I’m sorry Mom!”

That’s when I sat up and took quick stock. My cute little nephew is now a 20-year-old man who eats everything in sight. I looked down at my little blond boy, crying over PB & J, and lunged from his room, sprinting to the kitchen where I threw down the fastest, most mouth-watering peanut butter sandwich the world has ever seen.

He’ll grow up, and someday I’ll wonder why no one eats the peanut butter anymore.

I haven’t been able to get out of bed this week.

Normally we’re all up around 6:30 for scriptures and breakfast and toothbrush arguments. I get the kids out the door, kiss everyone goodbye, and move into my day.

But for the past week I haven’t been able to get myself out of bed. I’d like to blame Eragon’s last book for keeping my up late (I’ve been trying to read Inheritance for four weeks), but it doesn’t seem to matter if I get to bed at 10 or 2; my body is not responding in the morning.

I was talking to a dear girlfriend of mine who is about four years ahead of my personal longitude. We live twin lives, me following in her well-paved tracks. She, like myself, went through a home schooling phase with one of her sons. I’m not a true home schooler—Rex will get somewhere between four months to a year of my undivided educational attention before we re-enroll him.

As we discussed this chapter of parenting she came clean. “To be honest,” she said, “It was a really hard time. The alarm would go off in the morning and I wouldn’t want to get out of bed.”

Huh. That sounds extremely familiar. Right then and there I knew what my problem is: things right now are super hard and I kind of don’t like facing the day.

It isn’t just trying to teach Rex, it’s having him home all day long making messes. Yes, I make him clean them up with me but even that takes serious effort. In addition, I’m only putting June in the village preschool for two or three days a week as well now because she does so much better with a little more time at home. Basically I’ve gone from having just Georgia and a grip on my housework to three kids at home and drowning in it.

It’s Saturday and I spent the morning slave driving my kids up and down Moby’s six levels of German living, cleaning and vacuuming and dusting and mopping. I jumped in the shower and while getting dressed sent everyone out to the car for Harry’s baseball game.

As I walked down five flights to join them, I couldn’t believe what I was following. It was a trail of dirt from Harrison’s cleats that tracked through almost every level of my house—the same levels I had spent the morning mopping.

Enter really lame, self-pitying prayer.

I’ve recently been called as first counselor in Stake Young Women’s at church here (our regional organization) and have to give a Sunday School lesson tomorrow morning. I locked myself in the office twenty minutes ago and attempted to prepare my lesson. I opened my scriptures to the first quotation reference on my list and saw that it had nothing to do with my topic. I skimmed through it, checked the second scripture reference, and saw once again that neither were at all related to what I’m supposed to be teaching.

I was about to move on when something from the first quote made me turn back. I flipped again to reference one, Matthew 11:28-30, and read:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Reference two from Mosiah 24 says, “Lift up your heads and be of good comfort…And I will ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs…And this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.”

It was for me. I can’t do it all on my own and I don’t have to. Man, I love the scriptures.

As Americans we’re big on inventing new ways to skin a cat. There’s always a smarter, stronger, better plan out there waiting to be discovered. Change is part of our mentality. But over here in Europe? Not so much. 2+2=4. Not 1+3 or 4+0, 2+2 and only 2+2.

The day we flew into Sardinia was warm and sunny and unexpectedly calm. Any time you try to take four small children over boarders and seas it’s bound to come with an extra bag of trouble, so we spent the first six hours of travel time waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And drop it did.

We stepped off the airplane into the lovely Italian sunshine and made our way to the baggage area.

My husband had secured and paid for a rental car before we arrived so it would just be a matter of collecting keys. He stepped in line behind eight other weary travelers to wait his turn.

An hour later we were still grounded in the teensy airport watching our children slowly melt into international puddles of hunger while the line eeked its way forward.

Finally, after nearly and hour and a half, Jason made it to the front of the line with Harrison (8) right beside him.

I sat 20 feet away and had a clear view of both Jason and Harrison. Soon I noticed Jason’s hand gestures had become more aggressive and Harrison’s eyes began to shift back and forth. I motioned him over and he came, shoulder’s slumped and ready to cry.

“What’s up, Buddy?” I asked with a smile.

“They won’t give us the car, our credit card doesn’t work and we have to go back to Germany!!” He sat down and burst into tears. I quickly soothed him and went to the counter.

We hate credit cards but there’s a time and a place for everything. Traveling with VISA is safe and sometimes the best option, especially where rental cars are concerned. The week before vacation we had received our replacement VISA in the mail.

“Cool,” Jason said, showing me the super hip card. Instead of being a vertical card, it read horizontally with the number raised but in a much sleeker, smaller font. We admired the trendy design and didn’t give it a second thought.

But when Jason showed the card to the Italian lady she refused to accept it. “No,” she said, “This is not a credit card.” He went the rounds but she refused to even call VISA to validate the card’s information. It didn’t look right therefore it was not acceptable. Since the vehicle was already paid for (not cheap on the island) we were out hundreds of dollars.

So he pulled out our debit card.

Once again, Visa has recently started removing the raised numbers on their cards and both our debit cards have the numbers printed on the front without any raised font.

“Here,” he said, “Just use this.”

She took one look at the card and shook her head. “No,” she said, “I cannot do this. This isn’t a credit card. The numbers, they are flat. These are not credit cards.”

We stared at her. We stared at each other. We stared over at our public display of posterity, three of which were loudly leaking tears about life in general. Removing myself from the front of the line lest I reach into the booth and cause bodily harm to the Italian lady (I really wasn’t in a Win Friends and Influence People mood) Jason and I did a quick pow wow. He checked with the five other companies. Same song, no deal.

And then I remembered that I had my old debit card from the states tucked into a pocket in my wallet. The account is mostly dormant but a quick transfer of funds and it would be up and running without a problem. I ripped open my wallet and held my breath, hoping it was still there.

It was and it worked. I’ve never been so happy to see punched out plastic in my life. Thank you, Wells Fargo.

I’ve debated what to do with the following experience since it took me two weeks to get up the nerve to write it, and even so I kept it simple. It has been sitting in my file box for the past month. Why haven’t I published it? I’m going to go with pride here. This was a terrible moment in my life and I have spent weeks working to  uncrinkle the mess that I’ve made of my wonderful little boy Rex (mostly a mess where English is concerned). Now that I can breath and see that yes, he really is going to be just fine, I’m willing to publicize this really terrible German school experience–my last German school experience–of which I take full and complete responsibility. 

Two weeks ago I sat down with Rex’s (6) German teachers for his annual parent/teacher conference. I thought I was prepared for their feedback. Big miscalculation on my part.

Because his teachers don’t speak very much English, and because I would rather sell my shoe collection than have personal contact with any of them on a regular basis (for fear of what they might try to tell me), I kind of rely on notes home and the placement of the moon to gauge where Rex is at, Germanically speaking.

Since he seems happy and I haven’t heard anything bad, I kind of assumed things were all hunky dory.

With the help of a translator, Rex’s two kindergarten teachers sat me down for a full scale attack. The school counselor, who works with Rex once a week after school, was also present but with very limited English she didn’t say much throughout the meeting.

“So,” his teacher said after pleasantries were exchanged, “We want to know if Rex ever speaks to you at home.”

I smiled, “You mean German?” I asked, “No, he doesn’t speak German to me at home.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding,” the translator said. “We want to know if Rex knows how to talk in English.”

And that was the start of the worst parent/teacher conference ever.

Rex is about the most unconventional kid I’ve ever met. Not mentally handicapped, not even socially diagnosable (he’s been tested and tested so please don’t email me about Asperger’s), he’s just flat out quirky. Quirky and immature, and as our last pediatric psychologist said, “There’s no diagnosis for quirky and that’s okay.”

We know Rex is smart and healthy and happy, he’s a budding inventor and an animal lover, kind to every creature that walks the Earth and oh so tender hearted. He worries about looking stupid to the other kids, never shuts up about whatever big idea he’s working on, and has an aversion to food from foreign countries (as well as much of the food found in America).

The Rex they see at school is a totally different animal and just as real as the Rex I deal with at home. I think as parents, it’s easy to jump to our kid’s defense simply because we know them better or have access to part of them that the rest of the world doesn’t see. Besides, he comes home from school every single day happy as a lark, proclaiming a love of all things German (excluding the food).

However, after listening to his teachers talk about how checked out he is, I felt total empathy for them. They are dealing with a different kid.

“Let me ask,” I said after carefully listening to their laundry list of what sounded like mentally handicapped symptoms, “How do you handle this with Rex? What do you do when he refuses to pay attention or participate?”

“Oh,” his teacher said, “We are constantly trying to talk to him in English (he ignores them) and German, always trying to get him to look at us. We help him with his worksheets and sit next to him. We do everything for him!”

And there it was. If there’s one thing in this world my kid loves, it’s personal attention. One on one time or words of praise from us hold serious buying power with him. In other words, the boy has realized that the best way to get spoiled with attention at school is to act like an idiot.

See, I knew he wasn’t stupid.

When I picked Rex up that afternoon, the wordless school counselor from our meeting stopped me on my way to the car. In her very broken English, she said, “Today…all they said of Rex was…bad. But Rexy is a good boy, we really like Rex here! I’m sorry that today was so hard.”

I thanked her and barely made it to the car before the floodgates opened and I bawled all over the steering wheel. Sometimes being a parent is hard on the heart.

Update: I have been homeschooling Rex since the beginning of April and am pleased to announce that he’s a most excellent, enthusiastic pupil who can’t get enough of all things learning. Environment really is everything. 

So I packed all my diet food for our trip to Italy last week.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

What I should have packed were elastic waist bands and mumus. What planet am I on that I thought I could spend a week in the country that invented carbs without eating any of them? No surprise that I brought every single protein bar home with me plus eight pounds that I’m carrying somewhere along my coastal region.

We learned this week that man can, in fact, live on bread alone because that’s the only thing that Rex (6) would touch. I managed to force a few apples and some Italian hot dogs down him toward the end of the week by threatening to take him to the Italian hospital for shots, but otherwise he was very happy with his daily dose of white rolls and absolutely nothing else.

I’d like to tell you that I enjoyed eating in Italy but this would be a lie. There was no drinkable water where we were staying so I had to rely on Diet Coke. Let’s just say while we disproved the myth about bread, I realized that man cannot live on Diet Coke alone. I’m so full of sodium I could have floated home. Pair that with the fact that none of the restaurants opened until 7:30 and what you end up with is mini kitchen spaghetti for seven nights. Ugh.

Since I live with Mr. Penny Pincher we don’t buy much in the way of anything on vacation (“Water? How much did that cost? Do we really need water?”). But I’m not about to make a pilgrimage to an Island in the Mediteranean without something to show for it.

As we made our way through one of the village markets I came across a booth with hand made Sardinian artifacts. Belts, pocket knives, beautiful leather works. But I only had eyes for one thing: the local cow bells. They were beautiful iron bells hanging from sun tanned leather straps. I’d actually seen the smaller ones on cattle in the countryside.

Growing up on the farm, my folks had a big bell they would ring in the evening when it was time to come in from the field/neighbor’s/barn. I loved the sound of that bell calling me home, I can still hear the exact tone of it in my mind.

When I saw the large brass bells I knew I had to have one.

And thus began the most obnoxious bartering session of my life.

“Sweetheart, I want this bell for my house.”

“A bell? What are you going to do with a bell?” he asked.

“Um, ring it for the kids to come home. Plus I can get a cool hook and hang it by the front door. It will be awesome.”

“That sounds stupid. Why do we need a bell?” We went the rounds which might have included foot stomping and mild fit throwing until he agreed to consider letting me buy the bell.

I asked the Italian gentleman how much and he quoted me a doable price. “Well?” I asked Jason after working the price down and making an almost deal.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not spending that much for a bell.” He turned and walked to the car.

I made my apologies to the man and huffed after him. After five minutes of marital bartering I finally talked him into the bell. He handed me the cash (sans 5 euro) and I headed back to get my bell.

And the Italian wouldn’t sell it to me.

It was like being the center of a really obnoxious bartering sandwich with my husband on one side and a stinky old Italian man on the other. I even tried the local arm waving technique and slight shouting method. No good. I had walked away from the deal and it was off the table. He would sell me another bell, but there weren’t any there that I liked nearly as well.

So the only thing I brought home from Italy are my eight button constricting pounds to remind me of our wonderful island vacation. The lesson? The next time I try to barter in a foreign country I will leave my husband in the car.