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.

We’ve been stuck on an island in the Mediterranean for the past week. While there were moments of wonderment and bliss, it was also filled with non drinkable water, a five passenger car with no seat belts (there are six of us including baby), no McDonald’s and too much salami.

Bet you never thought you’d ever hear me admit there is such a thing as too much salami (old joke).

I have to say that packing for this kind of trip is harder than you’d believe. For instance, we took five beach towels since the resorts we usually stay at have limited/itsy bitsy towels. Ryan Air is cheap but you pay through the nose for baggage which means I only had three medium duffels for our family of six. Do you know how much space those towels took up? I also packed a bunch of buckets and shovels thinking I was super smart like.

I am not smart. They had about 20 massive towels in our room and I could have bought buckets for 2 euros each. We only used that stuff once (I kept forgetting to take it to the beach with us because I’m such an awesome mother).

It’s a funny thing about living over here and getting a handle on the local lingo. You learn to say please, thank you, can I please have, etc. in German and then you go to Italy and talk to everyone in Duetch. They all thought we were German anyway so we just went with it. We got the impression that they don’t see many Americans on Sardinia which is a shame since it’s probably the world’s best hidden treasure.

Parts of the island look a lot like what you see in The Princess Bride movie with the huge rocks and cliffs, plus tropical beaches and Hawaii-esq foliage as you go inland. We were reading Peter and the Starcatchers the entire time and the lagoons and jungle were a lot like Never Never Land.

Honestly, I have found that my family’s favorite vacations always revolve around mountain goat behavior. My kids like to climb rocks. Rocks, beaches, rocks and beaches, more trails of rocks and beaches and a few museums and voila! Perfect family vacation.

Also I should probably invest in some real shoes. Designer flip flops will only take you so far.

Hitting the local street markets, I got a killer deal on fabric at one of the little vendors.

Reading to the kids in our not so glamorous condo. It had two little bedrooms and a kitchen as well.

Just another lagoon...

Favorite day. It was warm and beautiful and there was so much to see in Santa Teresa.

Guess who forgot the buckets and beach towels?

The Cliffs of Insanity

We learned how to use the timer on our new camera. Not bad...

We found a great museum in the little village of Luras; we had to call and wait for the owner to meet us.

Meet Mario. The building and antiquities have been in his family for generations. We loved this stop.

This was crazy windy, we were under the mouth of Homer's famous Bear Rock.

Awesome boat tour of the little islands around Sardinia.

I loved that little coral building.

My favorite photo from the trip.

All in all this vacation was just as great as we hoped it would be. That said, next time we go back (pretty sure we will) it will be in the hot season. Amazing beaches.

Have you ever been going along with your life, doing what you always expected to be doing, trying really hard to keep everything in your realm within the scope of How I Planned It only to find that something starts to derail? And then, because the derailment was not in the plan, you try to casually force it back into place because you think that if you just will it, it will self-correct and get with the program?

Then one day you wake up and realize that huh, maybe nothing actually derailed. Maybe the one that needs to self-correct is you.

That is kind of my life right now.

We have decided to move Rex (6) into the American DOD school next fall. Hopefully (I think) he’ll be accepted into the German Immersion program, but I’m not worried about it. He will or he won’t, it’s out of my hands and I’m glad we don’t have to make that decision.

In lieu of our decision to change him from German to American schools, Jason and I have been focussing on bringing his English up to speed this past month. We’re horrified to see how much he’s lost and how totally confused he is. He goes to Deutch school and they tell him “i” sounds one way, then he comes home at night and we tell him it says something different.

He refuses to read and we can’t blame him.

And thus we enter a chapter called My Life As I Didn’t Plan It.

The time has come to take Rex out of the morning German program. He’s doing well in the after school program and we want him to have the social and German experience. This means one thing and one thing only: I have become a Home School Diva.

Don’t worry about Hell anymore, it’s apparently frozen and quite lovely this time of year if you like to ski.

I have to be honest. My Big Mothering Plan involved having a bunch of kids close enough together so that they would play and learn and interact and leave me alone to do my thang. I clean, they play. I feed them, they play. I surf the internet, they watch TV. Predictable and low maintenance mothering. Throw in a few time outs, a word about Jesus here and there, some outside schooling and sports, and we’re in business.

Then Rex came along and completely changed my plan. He doesn’t just need English lessons, he needs coordination lessons. He needs to be comfortable with a ball. Do you know what Rex does at recess? He stands by The Pole. I just learned this from his teachers. The German kids ignore him (since he won’t speak to them) and he’s too afraid to try anything new, so he waits quietly for recess to be over.

Then he comes home and asks us periodically if we would teach him soccer “like Harrison.” When I ask him why he doesn’t play at school he says, “If I try the other kids will laugh at me!” So he doesn’t and I want to die.

The next six months is Project Teach Our Kid Stuff and I’m amazed at how much we underestimated him. Not only does he run me for two hours straight in the mornings with school until I finally cry Uncle, but he’s like a really dried up sponge that just can’t get enough. Piano, soccer, reading–this is, by far, the best and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I’ll be working with him until the fall to get him ready for first grade. At first I was worried we wouldn’t get there, but two weeks into this I’m realizing he’s far more capable than we ever imagined. Yesterday he drew a diagram of a pully system for his animals and asked if he could please build it. The scary thing? It was totally right. He even had a list of required supplies.

So I’ll take this train with him. I think the ride will be far more entertaining than what I was doing in the kitchen.

My nephew turned eleven this week. I can remember all too clearly when he was born, what he looked like as a baby, and how loud he could cry about nothing in particular. I remember his biting phase, the potty training nightmare that I watched from the sidelines via the telephone, and how seriously adorable his not-so-little round head was when he was four.

Then I took a good look at my nearly niner, Harrison, and had to go have a Diet Coke (significant since I’m off caffeine).

It was one more gong to my rather hollow head that it’s a darn good thing I’ve made this move and rearranged my life around what really matters right now.

Frankly, moving to Germany has changed me deeply.

Don’t get me wrong, my vanity remains securely intact along with a penchant for inappropriate shoes and too many leggings. If it doesn’t stretch I don’t wear it. Some mothers wear yoga pants and flip flops, I wear leggings and heels. Either way there’s no button to deal with and isn’t that what really counts?

We’ve been here since last July and I had no idea that I wasn’t just entering a new country, I was entering a new era of my life. The last four years have been busy with baby steps; both  having and feeding and changing and clothing them. With four little children I was both caught up in the physical maintenance of mothering while simultaneously routinely disconnected from the insanity. I had my social life and personal interests, just enough to keep me on the phone with family and friends during most key hours of the day.

Essentially, I was mothering on auto-pilot. And considering how crazy four full time kids can get I am mostly okay with that.

But it feels like jumping the pond was a time warp. Gone are the carefree days of chicken nuggets and onesies (although there’s still way too many of both around here). During the past eight months I’ve found myself dealing with serious mothering crap. It has changed every other aspect of my life.

But my biggest discover came last week. I learned the secret to being a successful stay at home mom. Are you ready for it? Stay at home. It’s amazing how easy it is to stay out of money trouble with the man when I never leave the house to spend anything. I’m shocked at how happy, yes happy, my children are to stay home doing…stuff. Who knew pointless errands were so expensive, and why didn’t I realize that my kids weren’t bad, they just weren’t designed for riding around in car seats and shopping carts all day.

I don’t know if I’ve found the right balance yet but things are starting to feel good. Granted, a nice fat wave could come along at any moment and knock me off my relatively clean desk (please don’t ask about the kitchen floor or that stuff on the brown chair because I don’t have an answer).

When it comes down to it, I only want to do one thing right these days: Not Screw Up My Kids. That does not mean I think I have control over their personal screwed up potential. We all know the best parenting has nothing to do with personal agency. My kids will make their own choices to own and sleep with.

But it does mean that I hope to look back on this time and not wish I’d put down my phone/book/computer more and paid attention when someone wanted me to read them a book or help make Baby Parrot “an ‘elicopter.”

My sister, Kerry, told me the other day to read to my kids all the time right now. “By the time they’re twelve,” she said, “Your chances are gone. Get in every book you want them to hear right now while they’ll still listen. After that there’s no guarantee…”

There’s no guarantee anyway, but I’ll take that advice. Its suddenly going so fast.