You know how you say you’re never going to be like your parents, but then you have four young children and one day realized that maybe they knew something you didn’t? This is kind of like that. It’s also just another example of really horrible parenting but I’m claiming it anyways.

My husband used to lament about his traumatic childhood. He is the oldest of five children, and with two little sisters directly under him he was routinely getting in trouble for being rotten. On days when it was really bad (says he) his parents would put him in the car and drive by the “orphanage,” threatening to leave him there if he didn’t straighten up. He claims that one time they actually made him pack a bag. I can’t be certain, but I think the first time he told me this story he got a little emotional about it. So sad.

The other night I went to a meeting and left the children with Daddy for the evening. I came home just in time to tuck in my girls and say prayers. Georgia, our two-year-old, prayed this: “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, please bless that Jethro won’t come here, or be under my bed, and that Jethro will not come here and he’ll be nice, but not be under my bed. Amen.”

Jethro? Jethro who?

By the time I finished my nightly chores I had forgotten the incident and went to bed without asking dear old Dad if he knew what the baby was so afraid of.

The next morning Rex, seven, woke with a severe stomach ache. He had no other symptoms and I finally weaseled him into telling me what he was so worried about.

“Well,” he said, “I just couldn’t sleep and my stomach hurt all night. I was having nightmares all night about…about that guy, Jethro. I don’t want to talk about it! Don’t talk about it!”

“So,” I said to Jason, “You want to clue me in on who Jethro is?” I relayed the current emotional climate of the household and waited patiently for his explanation.

“Oh, I guess they were listening.”

“Listening?” I asked.

“Well, June was pretty awful last night,” he said. This comes as no surprise, June is five and gets naughty when she’s tired. And when she’s hungry, or bored, or if it’s Wednesday or lunch time, or a holiday, or any other unfortunate moment of the year. Unbirthdays, you know.

“And?” I said.

“And…I got desperate. I had to invent Jethro.”

“Who’s Jethro?”

“Jethro is the man behind the door at my office.”

Oh.

A few months ago I dropped June off at her father’s office one afternoon for an emergency time-out. He didn’t know what to do with her so he took her to an interrogation room and pointed to the closet door. “You see that door?” She nodded with fear and dread and more than a few tears. “Well, you don’t want to find out what’s behind that door. If I were you I’d listen to your mother and stop pinching your sister or someday you might have to open that door. Got it?” She was an angel for the rest of the week.

“Wait, but who is he?” I asked.

“Well,” Jason said sheepishly, “You remember the scary guy off the Goonies movie? That’s Jethro. We got on the internet and I showed her some pictures, you know, just to give her a good visual. I guess the other kids were listening, sorry about that.”

I don’t know about you, but I can say that for a week now all June (or anybody else) has to do is hear the word “Jethro” and she’s in line faster than a kid in a theme park. One more thing for her to talk about someday in therapy; we’re going to have some serious baggage by the time she’s nine.

One Saturday afternoon a father sat on the couch in his family room and attempted to watch a football game. His three year old daughter repeatedly attempted to keep him from watching his football game.

“Daddy! Sing me the song about Blow the man down!” She said, putting her little nose right in his face.

“Now sweetie, I’m busy right now and this isn’t a good time. You sit here quietly and I’ll play with you later.”

Not to be deterred the little girl put her hands on both of his cheeks. “Daddy, tell me the story of Tiddlywinks!”

“Honey, I said not right now.” He gently moved her aside and looked past her at the television just in time to see that he had missed a major play.

Was it too much to ask for one little hour of peace and quiet? It had been a long week with long days and he needed a moment. Besides, it was obvious his little girl was not learning to properly respect her elders.

At that timely moment a commercial interrupted his game and he decided to take the opportunity to teach his little girl something about obedience.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said giving her his full attention, “Let’s play a little game. You be the Mama and I’ll be the little boy. Mama, what would you like me to do today?” Now he had her, he would show her exactly how a good little boy obeys his parents.

She looked him in the eye, smiled and said, “Turn off the TV.”

Happy Fathers day to my sweet Daddy who listened to me all those years ago. 34 years and he’s still turning off the game anytime I need to talk about anything.

I LOVE YOU DADDY!

I’m sure that at some point during the last ten years I potty-trained my three older children. I know this because aside from the occasional puddle or really horrifying smudge on the bathroom tiles all three of them are relatively good at using the toilet.

But ask me to tell you how or when I potty-trained them and I will probably lay down on the floor and put myself into a coma. Yes, it was that painful.

I’ve heard hundreds of women claim that their two-year-old was “potty-trained in three days.” Really? You’re telling me that you didn’t spend the three months post-training pulling spare undies from your purse because you threw their dirty predecessors in some public trash can? You never retrieved your toddler from the playground with wet socks? Never watched a three-year-old pee his pants while he was watching Dora because he was too lazy to use the toilet? Really??

I decided shortly after the birth of our fourth child that I would never, ever potty-train another child. I don’t mind diapers. Diapers are convenient and disposable even on a four-year-old. I can remember one of my sisters-in-law putting off training her fourth child. We would watch him bring her a diaper and wipes, lay it down on the ground for her, carefully climb on top, and then ask her politely if she would change his pants.

Forgive me for ever falsely judging her, she was obviously a far more brilliant parent than I will ever hope to be. If that’s not training I don’t know what is. I made up my mind that until Georgia (2) was ready to say, “Mother dearest, I am feeling the urge to vacate my bladder. Might there be a water closet at our disposal?” I wasn’t going to do a darn thing about potty-training her.

A started noticing the first few signs of interest about two months ago. You know, practicing her flushing skills with squares of toilet paper and small toys. I did my best to keep the bathrooms closed and told her detailed stories of the toilet monster that lives in the hole.

And then she started taking her diaper off and forcing me to change it the moment it was wet.

Enter June, my five-year-old.

“Mommy!” she said a few weeks ago, running into the kitchen, “You won’t believe this, look!” I looked and there she stood holding the small, removable toilet bowl from the dusty old potty chair.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“I got it out of the basement so I could help Georgia learn to use the potty today!”

I stared at her. Was it really possible? Could it actually…No. No, it was too good to be true. It’s like a rainbow, don’t chase it because you won’t find anything but a puddle of pee at the end of it. “Hmph. Interesting,” I said and promptly walked away.

Five times. Five times that morning June carried Georgia’s piddly offering down four flights of stairs to show me and then sloshed it back up to the 6th floor toilet for prompt disposal. I’d see her coming and look the other direction, giving neither daughter the slightest bit of attention on any spectrum for any of it.

At the end of the dry day I was sure it was a hoax. I put Georgia to bed in a diaper and kissed both girls, making no mention of their successful day. The next morning Georgia’s diaper was dry and her sister had her on the toilet and back in undies before I had time to wipe my…eyes.

I managed to invent a good reason to keep June home from school for three days in a row, and what do you think I had on my hands? A fully-functioning, toilet-using two-year-old. It’s been over a month since that miraculous training and I have to admit, I’ve had the same pair of dry undies in my purse for four weeks now.

Miracles, you  know.

You know when you fall in love for the first time and you really want to tell everyone you meet but you keep it to yourself because it’s probably too good to be true, and then you find out it’s for real so you sing a lot? This is kind of like that.

I have…a mop lady. That’s right, I did it. Much to the absolute horror of my husband I found myself a brilliant cleaning woman and pay her real money to come every single week and scrub my bathrooms and mop level 3 (of 6). She’s not cleaning my house top to bottom or doing the laundry, and she doesn’t have time to do windows or dust, but when she leaves and I’m left alone with my sparkly bathrooms and spot free floor on level 3 it makes me obnoxiously giggly.

The hardest part of this process was telling Jason. Not asking, telling.

My husband is almost the best dude ever. He loves me and supports me and cleans by my side after work and mows the lawn without being asked, he’s willing to watch the kids while I teach lessons or hang with my friends, and he lets me buy whatever groceries I want. I’m not complaining here, really I’m not.

But Jason does not want to pay for a housekeeper. Or rather, in his mind he is already paying for a housekeeper. Slightly chauvinistic? Just a bit.

If all I wanted out of life was a clean house it wouldn’t be quite as difficult, but on Mondays and Fridays I’m out of the game completely teaching voice for six hours with half hour breaks in between lessons. My cleaning time has been seriously hampered and I’m struggling to get to any of the deep stuff. Frankly, I need some help that doesn’t require constant supervision and bribery.

Three weeks ago when I told Jason I was going to get a cleaning lady he laid down on the sticky tiles in the kitchen and kicked his legs a lot.

“Why do you have to do this?” he asked. “This costs money, I don’t want to pay for this.”

“Because,” I said, “I can’t keep up with this big house and the four kids and the laundry and the dog, I just need some extra help. Voice lessons has really knocked out my weekend pre and post game cleaning and I can’t seem to get to the deep stuff.” Voice money, btw, transforms itself into Travel money.

“Well,” he said logically, “Then you should quit teaching voice lessons.”

I seriously considered kicking him in the knee cap, slashed all four of his tires and making him sleep on a flea-infested pallet in the back yard.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Well,” he backtracked, “I mean, if voice lessons is keeping you from being able to do your real job–”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“You know…taking care of the kids and…stuff.”

“Stuff. Don’t you mean scrubbing the toilets? Is that what you’re saying here? That I should quit doing this one little thing that I love, that makes me happy and pays us money, so I have more time to scrub the toilets?!”

Suffice it to say Yvonne has come for the past three weeks and it has made me happier than a first grader on a field trip. Apparently Jason has decided that happy wife equals happy life and has silently endured.

Secretly I think he’s enjoying it.

During the past year I’ve been dealing with Psycho PMS Woman Syndrome (I think it’s worthy of a second “syndrome” because it’s that bad). This has reached a point of awfulness that I am no longer willing to put up with. Seriously, you know it’s bad when a week into PMS your children duck and cower every time they hear your footsteps AND I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

My poor mama had it terribly (we did a lot of ducking and cowering when I was a child) and her SOD (stupid old doctor) told her PMS was all in her head. The man is lucky he still has a head if you ask me.

I got online a few weeks ago and found out that in 2003 the Great Brain (FDA?) decided that really horrible PMS is an actual thing and renamed it PMDD–premenstrual dysphoric disorder. As soon as I started sifting through the information I knew this is exactly what my mother had and probably my problem as well. Since it’s been three years since I’ve been in for a girly visit with my doctor I decided it would be a good time to take care of that and talk to a professional. Did you know they only recommend paps every three years now for those of us with regular results and boring/STD free lives? Kind of nice to know.

I sat across from my lady doctor and we went through the checklist. After acknowledging that it’s been ten years since I even thought about doing a self-breast exam, I decided to get right to the point. “I think I have PMDD,” I said.

“Really? Why?”

“Well, for the last year I turn into a raging monster the week before I get my period.”

“Um…okay. Can you give me an example?

Easy. “Last night my husband came home from work late. I had saved him a plate of dinner and sat down to visit with him while he ate. He was so sweet and thanked me for the wonderful food, but within thirty seconds I had to leave the table. I couldn’t help it, I was going to punch him in the face for chewing his food in front of me.” Let the record state that Jason has very nice table manners and chews like a normal, civilized man.

“Yeah,” she said, “That sounds pretty bad.” We went through the checklist and by the time we were done looking over the information she was more than convinced.

“So,” I said, “I’ve heard there’s a vitamin B shot that really helps, is that a possibility?”

“Well, vitamins have been known to help in some cases, but you will probably get way better results if I just put you on a low dose of Prozac on day 14 of your cycle. In fact, you can take one tonight before bed and you should notice immediate results.”

I have never used mood meds for anything and I have to admit, it made me nervous. No, I’ll go further than that. In the past I’ve been unfortunately proud of myself that I have come this far in motherhood without any pharmaceutical help. But was it really mental strength or simply stupid pride that has kept me from asking for help? I have to say, I’m done. This PMS has taken over two weeks of my month and it’s not fair to my family. They deserve a kind mother who is rational and less-threatening.

Friends, let me tell you that the past week I have been myself. I’m…nice. And normal. And happy! And on my first PMDD-free day I counted at least five instances throughout the day where I would have railed on one of the kids the day before, but thanks to modern medicine I was kind and patient and monster-free.

Just putting it out there.

Nearly every family I know has at least one child who lives in fear of food. Are they frightened of highly over-processed, potentially toxic food-like substances, like hot dogs and gummy worms and cheese puffs? No. But dig it out of the ground or pick it off a tree and my boy Rex (7) starts having heart palpitations (the exception would be french fries because he is convinced they “aren’t real”).

This year at school we lucked out. Rex’s first grade teacher took it upon herself to insist that Rex eat his entire lunch. Early on we nixed the safe brown bagged peanut butter sandwich and launched him into the wide world of cafeteria food.

With the exception of the time he threw up the mashed potatoes, it’s been a successful endeavor.

The real payoff has been his self-esteem. Every day when I pick Rex up from the bus he tells me what he ate for lunch. Corn, cucumbers, beans, peas, lasagna and chicken sandwiches, salad! When we sit down for dinner and Rex starts to throw a fit, all we have to do is suggest that we call Ms. Vohar and get her opinion on broccoli, and Rex practically chokes it down.

She has single-handedly gone where no parent in this house has been able to go before.

We don’t keep a lot of candy in the house but now and then we get a flock of grandparents who fly in with large quantities of American sweets. Our kids think this is great, but a few weeks of over-indulgent treats from grandparents mixed in with back to back vacations, and trying to get them back on whole foods is like convincing a lion to eat cole slaw.

The normal eaters are bad enough, but getting Rex to eat fruit and vegetables after a steady diet of non-food is miserable.

I recently bought a honeydew melon. I know from past experience that Rex is willing to eat cantaloupe so I assumed melons were a safe bet. They’re super sweet and a great substitute for pixie stix.

Once the dishes, homework and piano were done, Rex came in for “a little treat.” I had managed to push the remaining candy out of the house earlier that day; there was nothing left but melon.

“Sure!” I said, “I’ve got some super yummy melon for dessert–”

“Melon?!” he yelled, “Blech! Yuck! It’s icky! I hate it I hate it, it’s ewey and gross, melon is not dessert! I want CANDY!”

After a week of fighting over every green pea and every kernel of corn I was done with catering to his cotton candy palate.

“That’s it, Mister, you are officially done with candy! We are taking a break from sugar so you can just march yourself up to bed right now and think about your attitude!”

He burst into tears and ran to his room. Since he was the third person to burst into tears in the previous half hour I wasn’t alarmed. We’re mostly numb to tears around here. Fire, flood or blood and we pay attention. But feelings? Meh.

I puttered around the kitchen and could hear Rex up in his room weeping like his world was ending. After five minutes without a significant decrease in volume I decided I’d better go up and see if I could smooth the frosting a little.

“Rexy,” I said sitting on the edge of his bed, “Just take a breath. It’s okay, we’re just going to have a little break from sugar around here and focus on being healthy,” he sobbed harder. “Look, why don’t you say your prayers and get some sleep? You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“Okay,” he wept, “Dear Heavenly Father, I’m so sad about the candy, there’s no more candy here, no more Christmas candy–” huh? “no more Halloween candy–” big sob, “no more Easter candy or, or birthday candy…No more homework treats and no more candy at the grocery store with Mom…it’s just so sad today!”

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe banishing candy eternally wasn’t such a bad idea.

We have since reinstated peanut butter cups.

My eye phone took a two hour dip in the toilet yesterday. I put it in a vat of rice to see if the urban myth will work but I’m thinking it’s time for the upgrade. I’ve got to stop with the back pocket carry method, either that or quit using toilets.

Twice recently I’ve been in a pantry pinch and had to come up with Something To Take. These two recipes are from my very meager pantry offerings but both of them really surprised and delighted my overindulgent self.

Really Amazing Bean Salad or Really Amazing Bean Salad Dip (please don’t judge me for having the following ingredients in my pantry)

1 can pinto beans

1 can garbanzo beans

1 can mini corn spears–the kind that belong at a Sizzler salad bar

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 tomato diced

2 green onion stalks sliced and diced super fine

1 pkg dry ranch dressing mix (not the dip, the dressing)

Strain and rinse the beans and dice the corn spears then toss with remaining ingredients. Get a bag of tortilla chips and blow your low carb diet. I guarantee the scale will be up three pounds tomorrow.

Hunger Games Peanut Butter Cake – people might die fighting over the last piece

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1 pkg instant vanilla pudding

4 eggs

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup sour cream

1/2 water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup peanut butter chips (you can substitute with chocolate)

Mix everything but the chips until smooth then fold chips in. Bake in a bunt cake pan or an angel food cake pan, 350 for 45-50 minutes. I frosted it with the following fudgy chocolate goodness:

1 cube butter

1/2 cup bakers cocoa pwdr

5 TB milk

Boil all ingredients on the stove, stirring. Don’t worry if they curdle. Remove and mix in 2 cups powdered sugar–I added a pinch of water to make it a little smoother.

Once cake is turned out of pan pour the frosting on the top and let it melt over the edge (you can give it a little push). Then chop up a 1000 calories of Reese PB cups and sprinkle them on top. Chill in fridge for a delightful overindulgent treat.

Rex’s amazing first grade teacher is retiring this year and heading back to the states to take up Grandmotherhood. For the friends and family who have followed what a rocky road it was getting Rex into her hands, you know that this woman has a piece of my heart. How do you tell someone who has made such a difference thank you? Here’s my letter to her, writing it made me bawl my dumb old head off and even reading back through it the words don’t seem to be big enough. We just really needed her this year.

Thank you Ms. Vohar, you are so loved.

Dear Mrs. Vohar,

It’s funny, but all week long I have felt the weight of two or three decade’s worth of mothers on my shoulders. Like if I don’t take the opportunity to tell you how you have shaped and nourished and blessed our family I will be letting countless parents down, parents who might not have had the words or the occasion to tell you that you made a difference for their son or their daughter.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to say thank you for all of us.

Thank you for giving my son a place. Thank you for welcoming him with such a steady hand and demanding more of him than he wanted to give, he has grown and is better and stronger because of his time with you. I don’t know if it’s your incredible resume of experience or just the amazing heart that God gave you, but you embraced him and accepted him and we really needed that. Thank you.

I’m not writing this because it’s Teacher Appreciation week or because the PTA suggests it, I’m writing you because every time I pick Rex up from the bus and ask him about his day the first thing he says is, “Do you wanna know what I ate for lunch? Mrs. Vohar was so proud of me!” (Except, of course, that day that he threw up the mashed potatoes, but that was the exception.) It’s not all the reading and writing—which I know is supposed to be the real reason he’s there—it’s the way you have taken your part in his life this year one step further. This little extra bit of teaching that happens in the lunchroom makes such a difference in my boy’s day. He knows. He knows you care about him because you insist that he eats his cucumbers. Thank you for that.

I went through 13 years of public school and never had a teacher like you. You have been a gift to us this year. When Rex saw you in the classroom during that first day of orientation and you paused to wave at him…thank you. Thank you for seeing him, and then later for really seeing him. You are an incredible individual and the world is a better place because of you. On behalf of all the mothers who ever gave you candles or cookies or gift cards because they didn’t know how to put it down in words, thank you. Thank you for blessing these little children. You have made such a difference.

Love and good luck in your next big adventure!

Warmest regards,

Annie

Jason is out of town for work enjoying the sunshine and laughter of California. That’s great, I’m happy for him. I love sitting around in the lovely German drizzle making chicken noodle soup and cursing my frizzy hair.

Still, the kids are older and having him gone isn’t as hard as it was three years ago. He was away all the time for work and the poor children were left with a pregnant or breastfeeding crazy woman who routinely thought she should take up bear hunting to release energy.

Jason left the same day as my parents, who arrived moments after his parents departed, and as soon as they were all finally out of the house my body…gave up. I got sick. Super sick. And of course when my girlfriend offered to come and get the kids on Sunday I gave her the ‘ole “No! I’m fine! We’re fine! Everyone’s fine! I’ve totally got this!” And then I tried not to die for 24 hours while my kids acted out chapters 1-4 of Lord of the Flies.

Monday was better but my house was in shambles. A weekend flat on my back? It had a decidedly post-frat party look about it and I spent all day long juggling laundry and voice students and play dates while trying to coral the flotsam and jetsam that appears in a house with children. Do you know how many broken crayon pieces my kids can manufacture from one little box of 24? It is astounding.

All day long I waited for my evening retreat. I’d washed four large loads of laundry and was carefully stacking the baskets upstairs behind the couch, ready for my post-bedtime television laundry attack. I thought all day about what shows I would watch. We’ve recently gotten Apple TV and I’m trying to get back into the habit of watching television at night because it’s so healthy for you. Enough with the sewing already, give me some Battlestar Galactica and we’re in business (at the top of my list after Sherlock Holmes).

By the time we got home from baseball and the kids had all practiced their music and not done their homework, I was fried. And of course, that was the time they all decided to miss Daddy and wanted me to hug them. I’m a horrible person, I know, but it’s so hard to hug a shrieking child who spent the 25 minute car ride home kicking the back of your seat. I wanted to poke her with a pin.

And so I refused to snuggle. I put the wailing girls to bed and ignored their screaming while both boys showered. I did the dishes and straightened the family room and still they screamed. I brushed my teeth and thought about reading my scriptures but knew I couldn’t concentrate because THEY WERE STILL SCREAMING.

Finally, I went to get the Apple remote from it’s sacred location (designed so it can never get lost) and it was…gone. And in that moment I knew, my wrath had been kindled and heads. Would. Roll.

You see, Harrison had spent his “homework” time watching cartoons while I taught singing lessons all afternoon. He had lost the remote and I wanted to kick his sorry little butt out of the family. I stomped and yelled at him (please don’t tell anyone, I really am a nice mother mostly) and he suggested we pray about it, so I told him to go right on ahead and pray, he was going to need it.

He did.

I was so angry and sick of listening to the girls scream and exhausted from a big day and just…you know? You know what I’m talking about, right?

“Harry,” I said after calming down considerably during our remote hunt, “Can you go up and snuggle your sisters for me? I can’t do it.” He went up and within five seconds it was silent. Twenty seconds later he came down with a smile.

“They’re fine, don’t worry about it Mom.”

We sat down on the edge of his bed and I gave him a humble apology with no excuses.

“Why don’t you say a prayer when you’re so upset?” he asked. It was like talking to my mother, so irritating.

“I don’t have the heart right now, will you pray for me?” And so he did. The sweetest little prayer ever, asking Heavenly Father to bless his tired mother who does all the work and “just wants to watch a little television.” He then reminded God that this was the second time he had asked to find the remote, so could we please speed up the process?

We found the remote in about thirty seconds. Best Mother’s Day gift ever.

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to discipline our children while traveling in Europe. Every country has its own ideas and customs and acceptable ways of handling naughty little ones. You might think that our parenting methods shouldn’t vary, but you’ve also never dealt with a sassy five-year-old in front of a benchful of old Italian grandmothers.

My daughter, June, is brilliant and delightful. As long as she stays busy our house is a relatively happy place. When she gets bossy, I give her a stack of glueable objects and a bottle of Elmer’s. When she irritates her brothers, I let her to peel a bag of potatoes. When she sasses me, she gets a needle and thread and I try not cackle when she pokes herself.

But on long road trips there is very little we can do with her; activity books will only take us so far. Give us four or five hours in the car with her and we start looking for orphanages and vacant parking lots.

On our last vacation June started out with a loose tooth, one of the middle bottom teeth. I hate loose teeth and am officially the world’s worst Tooth Fairy. Our kids usually make big bucks for missing teeth because by the time I remember to check their pillow it’s usually been waiting for a solid week accruing Tooth interest.

At the beginning of the vacation June’s tooth was mostly ready to come out. By day twelve of our vacation her tooth was hanging from her mouth in a disturbingly loose fashion. You know it’s bad when she can shake her head and her tooth wobbles. Harrison was making big plans that included dental floss and door knobs, ever the thoughtful older brother.

We stopped the car for a break in northern Italy and let the prisoners out to breath some fresh mountain air before restraining them for the additional six-hour trip home. There was a small shopping center with a grocery store and I decided it would be the best way to get everyone a french-fry-free lunch and snag a moment of peace to myself.

June disagreed.

“June,” I said as we stood at the store entrance and argued, “Please, just stay out here by Dad so I can go in and get groceries, it will only take a moment–”

“No!” she said, “I don’t want to stay by Dad! I hate staying by Dad! I want to come with you!”

I looked over her shoulder and realized that we were standing ten feet away from a bench stacked with old Italian grandmothers. They might not have understood English but they certainly all spoke Mother. My daughter had sassed me and they were all giving me the You Gonna Let Her Talk To You That Way? stare, waiting for my response.

“June! Do not speak to me that way! You can apologize right now for being rude or go sit over there on the Repentance Bench–” right next to the scary old ladies.

“No!” she yelled back, “I won’t! YOU go sit on the Repentance Bench!”

And that was it. She had pushed me too long and too far. For twelve days I had been in close quarters with her, carefully picking my very public battles while holding tight to my curtain of patience, but she had played her last hand.

I did exactly what my mother had so graciously done when I back-talked as a child: I lightly, barely, gently popped her in the mouth.

And then the blood started to run down her face and all over her white shirt.

Yes, I had knocked her tooth out.

Somehow I managed to salvage it and convince her that we should clap and celebrate her loss, thinking her joy might blot out the method. But she has spent the last week getting me back. She shows every single person we meet her missing tooth, then sweetly says, “See? My mommy hit me in the face knocked my tooth out!”