Annie Valentine

We’re leaving for a cruise this week. When I say we, I mean Jason, myself, and all four–often feels like seven–of our offspring.

Thanks to some really good advice we’ve learned that cruising is the cheapest, fastest and most enjoyable way to see the world. I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know that I’ve ever taken a vacation this long. We’ll be gone for a solid 12 days and it sounds like a whole lot of work.

A whole lot of work, that is, until I start thinking about 12 toy-free, microwave-free days. 12 days where someone else makes the beds and stocks the buffet and watches–oh yes, watches–the children. (Actually, we’ll only be on the boat four of the days but you get the point.)

We’re joining a bunch of other Americans from church so our group is going to total around 70, and at least half of those are smallish children. The ship has free child care and boy are we going to work that system.

The schedule boasts a total of seven terrifying ports. We’re starting out from Savona, Italy and heading to Olympia, Greece. Then we’ve got two days in Israel, a day in Izmir, Turkey (on Thanksgiving, Turkey on Turkey day!), another in Athens and finally a day in Rome with a smattering of boat days intermixed.

I am a brave woman. I fear very few things in this life (including and not limited to loose teeth) but I’ve got to tell you, this trip has me quaking in my boat shoes. It’s not one vacation we’re planning, it’s seven. Seven different ports to organize and read up on and try to absorb in a very short period of time. I’m still trying to figure out how we got over here to Germany in the first place, my little brain can’t handle all this world culture and history.

There’s no doubt our time in Jerusalem is why I’m so excited for this cruise. Having spent a semester in the Holy Land way back when makes this feel so surreal. It’s amazing and foreign and intense and oh my gosh, I’m taking my babies. For eight years I’ve had one horrible reoccurring nightmare where I lose a child in the Old City of Jerusalem (a quagmire of broken streets and shops and slightly stinky vendors). Here’s hoping dreams don’t come true.

After considering my safety options, I’ve come up with a few ways to make sure all four of our little children make it home with us. First, I’ve having each child tatooed with my phone number, email address and a brief description of what they will and will not eat. Second, I’m taping them to my body.

That’s about all I’ve got so far.

Second only to losing a child is my fear that my sweetheart and I won’t be able to stay sweet to each other for 12 days of public travel. I wouldn’t normally care so much, but in this case we’ll be in very close quarters with a number of other families. I’d like them to think I don’t scream at people on a regular basis.

(On that note, my voice is so hoarse these days and I haven’t understood why. The other day, while standing at the bottom of the stairs and loudly threatening to throw the television out the top window unless people started working, I realized my smoky voice might have something to do with my predisposition for vocal theatrics.)

In giving this some serious thought, I’ve decided to “Yes Dear,” my way through this cruise. Can we see the Pantheon? Yes dear. Drag the kids through the Vatican museum? Yes dear. Buy fake Roman swords and duke it out in the ship hallway after everyone else has gone to bed? Oh baby oh baby. As long as the man lets the buffet and me have our special time together, he can do just about anything he wants.

72 hours to go, I think it’s time to start packing.

Quick update: I found myself a German pede last Friday and she’s kind of awesome. Even better, she’s only five kilometers away and always gets the Americans in first. This means my little G-String baby girl now has enough energy to try and spew antibiotics in my face twice daily and nothing could make me happier. And holy wow, I didn’t think anyone was reading this drivel any more, thanks for all the feedback and really good ear ache advice –much of which I’ve been passing out to people with phrases like, “My girlfriend said to take some oil/rubbing alcohol/hair dryer…” anytime ears come up in general.

In other super cool news, we had our first company this weekend. It was Jason’s uncle’s brother, Bill, who my kids immediately dubbed “Uncle Billy.” All weekend long it’s been Uncle Billy this and Uncle Billy that. He brought his awesome wife, Waka (or Aunt Billy if you’re Rex) and lovely daughter Amanda for three super fast days in Germany. Hey, when you work for Delta you can swing in like that, catch a castle and a plate of schnitzel, and be on your merry way.

I’ve got to tell you, you want to come see me. We hooked them up with a car, a GPS, a cell phone and two queen sized beds with fresh linens (plus hot German rolls at breakfast). We made them ride the trains, eat donner’s, and sent them home with a suitcase of chocolate to pass out to friends and relatives with a “neener-neener, don’t you wish you were me?” aftertaste.

And the thing that makes them the best company ever (next to you, of course) is their fantastic laid back attitude. We didn’t have to worry that there were toys in the family room or occasional dishes in the sink at night because we knew, inherently, that they weren’t going to judge us. I love that about people who come to visit me. In fact, I think I’m going to put a sign up on the front door that says, “Welcome to our home: as you can see, we live here.”

We’ve done so many fun dinners and parties and play dates and open door events here in the last few weeks, I’m plum burnt out of keeping things in Company Order (which differs from “no one’s going to know if I leave the laundry piles on the couch today” order). I feel like putting up a “Closed for the winter” sign on the front door so I can hibernate with a good book.

Or I could just lock up the castle and go on an 11 day cruise this week. Yeah, I think I’ll go with that one.

Gigi has been sick for three days. Not just runny nose sick, but lay on mommy’s lap  in a feverish stupor waiting for the infant motrin to kick in sick (which I am almost out of and which they don’t have over here).

Since she’s my fourth child to have this particular miserable extended cold flu cocktail, I’ve been waiting it out like a good parent certain that the fever would break sometime today.

Today also marks the end of my long-awaited gout relief. I finally had an appointment to see an American doctor and get American meds. Hurray for people who go to medical school and practice American medicine, bless you all.

While I was at the doc’s, she asked if she could have a quick look in G’s ears. Of course, she has an ear infection. Enter sinking feeling and “wow I suck at being a mom” moment.

“Well,” she said, “Let me see if I can write her a prescription…”

I have to tell you, military medical is not like my good old Tanner Clinic back in America. In order to write my baby a prescription, she had to put her into the schedule. In order to put her into the schedule, they had to have her vitals–from a different medical office.

To make a very long story short, I waited nearly three hours only to be told, by the pharmacist, that he won’t fill her prescription because that doctor isn’t technically papered to see children under the age of three. Sorry. Oh yeah, the office is now closing and you can come back IN FOUR DAYS.

So here I am, sick baby on my lap, and I need to get her ear infection cleared up before we leave on our cruise next week. Anyone got any home remedies that actually work?

Oh my gosh, a little angel I like to call “Mother” just sent us a care package, and inside it I found these.

(I want you to know that I almost ran up three flights of stairs to get the nail polish to make my toes cute before taking this, but I decided it wouldn’t be honest. Also I hate stairs.)

As has been previously hounded on this site, I hate all these tile floors. Yesterday I mopped and by last night it looked like we’d had a soup fight in the kitchen.

And then my husband came home with the mail.

My mama, bless her beautiful soul, had thrown these into the mix for yours truly. Is there anything better than a mother who listens to you and tries to help you problem solve? I think all my housekeeping anxiety is giving her anxiety, she’s so worried about my stress level. On a whim, she picked these up for me and seven little postmen later I was donning my new soggy green slippers.

Five minutes of dancing in my kitchen and my floor looks like this.

I’m like a roomba with a heart, these babies have been on my feet all morning. I no longer walk up the stairs, I mop up the stairs. Picture a post-partum thirty-something Tom Cruise. I found myself skidding all over the upstairs family room jamming to 80’s tunes just because I’m home alone. How long has it been since cleaning my floors was fun? Oh, that’s right, never.

And the best part? I can feel myself burning calories, way more than I get from pushing the mop around.

I don’t know where to find these, but if you have solid floors that thwart you at every tile, please go buy some, put in an old Tiffany tape and your life will suddenly be made up of sparkling floors and glistening arm pits. So very cool.

I heart you, Mama.

Yesterday afternoon I laid in my bed, fully clothed with boots and all, and all I wanted to do was pull the covers over my head and forget about All The Crap I Have To Do.

This house I love. This house feels like home. But this house is so big and so much work that I’ve officially been downgraded from Homemaker to Housekeeper. Aside from my desperate last ditch Halloween crafting efforts, I have no time to sew or finish unpacking. My dinner attempts are sparse and uninspired and every time I walk into a room I’m slammed with the realization that I am living in a dirty black hole that will suck the life and the Lysol right out of me if I’m not careful.

Today I took June into the village preschool early this morning and came back home where I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Um, when did I forget to brush my hair before leaving the house? It is literally sticking up all over my head, no wonder all the Germans were staring at me. (I like to pretend it has something to do with my charismatic personality but I’m suspicious it has more to do with my personal hygiene.)

I think the realization that no matter how much I clean or how much I try to make things look nice, my frequently innocent little people are always right behind me undoing all my hard work. Trust me, with this many stairs in a house  (65) it is most definitely hard work. (As I type this Gigi is happily throwing all the pillows off the couch and shredding yesterday’s newspaper ads.)

Yesterday afternoon I found myself  fully clothed, boots and all, laying in my bed with a driving urge to pull the covers over my head and play vampire. I resorted to number 4 on my How To Cheer Myself Up list and called a girlfriend (number 3 is ‘put cute boots on’).

“Hey, how are you?” she asked, and because I knew she meant it I told her.

“My house is too big, I’m having anxiety about cleaning and packing and unpacking and everything else. So I’m hiding in my bed and I don’t want to get out,” I said.

“Yeah, I do that sometimes.”

And just like that I felt way better. Seriously. I can’t describe to you how fantastic it felt to have someone validate my feelings, and better yet, remind me in five easy words that I’m normal. There are other moms out there that feel like me, I’m not alone.

Without too much effort I was able to rejoin the household and spent the rest of the day reminding myself, out loud, about the advice my mother gave me a few years back when baby number three hit the scene. For the next fifteen years there will be very few moments when all my house is clean all at the same time, and That’s Okay. I might hate it (passionately), but I wouldn’t trade it.

This morning I decided to put down the mop, literally, and take a moment to actually write something. I have to live in this whale, but that doesn’t mean he owns me. This is the first time in I don’t know how long that I’ve sat down and written something just for myself–it’s not for a deadline or future posterity–and it’s nearly as good as finding a bathroom in the Mall of America after three diet coke’s.

Speaking of doing something for myself, I have got to find a yoga class. And a toothbrush. Maybe I should start with the latter.

Rex gets in the car yesterday afternoon and says, “Mommy, this is my new invisible friend, Wilbur! Say hi, Mommy. Mommy? What can Wilbur be for Halloween?”

Considering that it was 5:30 and we had yet to assemble our costumes or even arrive at the house, the last person I was worrying about was Wilbur the Invisible Boy. “He can be an invisible man,” I said.

“That’s great, Mommy! Wilbur loves to be the Invisible Man!”

Halloween might be an American holiday, but the Germans sure seem to like our style.

We decided to throw caution to the ghouls last night and take our chances trick or treating. We have about 50 american families in our village alone, you can’t tell me we’re the only ones with costumes.

One thing I have failed to learn repeatedly is that you should never, ever let your kids play with their costumes before the big night. Harrison opened his Harry Potter accessory kit last Wednesday. By Friday he had misplaced both the wand and the glasses, and there wasn’t enough magic left in the packaging to bring them back. Take away his specs and Harry Potter is just a muggle with a wand.

This meant that his costumes were both created (we had a church party on Friday and trick-or-treating on Monday) on the fly. I was extremely ill on Friday (thank you, Ashley darling for saving my skin) and roused just long enough to cut up a pair of jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a coon skin cap (hello chest hair). Add some face paint, safety pins and fangs and we had one fierce little werewolf on our hands in about nine minutes flat. Last night he had to settle for a ghoul with a cape, since, obviously, he lost half his werewolf costume into the black hole hiding under his bed.

I was amazed and surprised to find that there were loads of Germans giving away candy last night. We passed several neighborhood bon fires, filled with free flowing vodka and candy for the kiddies. What I didn’t see were many American kids. The German kids around here have really glommed onto our traditions, they were all over the place.

My kids had full bags by about the eighth house. “Mommy,” Rex said, “I’m done trick-or-treatin’. I want to go home now.” It had been approximately eleven minutes.

“Well honey, we’ve got at least one more street to do then–”

“No Mommy! I don’t want any more candy! I have enough candy, all right? It’s time to go home, Halloween is done now.”

My Rex. First kid in the history of Halloween to put a cap on the candy count. He actually stood five feet behind the other kids and refused candy at the last half dozen houses we visited. I think the kid is pretty safe from gluttony.

For the past four months, Rex has routinely informed me that he is going to be Mama Snipe, from the Disney movie “Up”,for Halloween. In case your child is also interested in the mythical snipe costume, let me assure you that Amazon does not carry it.

One thing about Germany, it aint America. There was a time not very long ago when collecting the components for such a costume was nothing more than a quick trip to Walmart or Hobby Lobby. Sure, sometimes I’d have to truck through two different craft stores to find all the required elements at a decent price, but that’s what craft stores are for.

Unfortunately for me, Hobby Lobby does not translate in German. I’m sure there is some version of a “craft store” here (aka a closet with seven bolts of fabric and a small selection of neon trim), but none of the ladies I talked to knew where it was.

In order to manufacture this costume, my list was relatively simple. I needed a hooded sweatshirt, feather boas plus a load of loose feathers, felt and hot glue. Easy peasy, it’s not like I needed boning or pinking shears (oh gosh, I really need pinking shears).

But the only place shy of the erotic store (don’t think I wasn’t prepared to go in there) that carried feather boas was a little kiosk at the base shopping center. They wanted 14 euro a boa. Um, hello? We make costumes specifically because we’re too cheap to buy them. (This is a grave urban legend that I fall for every year; it’s usually cheaper to buy them prefab, don’t believe what I tell you next year.)

I put off buying the boas and broke into my boxed up craft items. There, at the bottom of a box, was a ratty yellow boa I picked up last year at the thrift store for 99 cents. Best pointless purchase ever, it saved me $14.

By the time I had collected a hooded sweatshirt ($12), a blue boa ($14), felt, feathers and pipe cleaner ($15) not to mention a tank of gas trying to round it all up, Rex ended up with the most expensive costume any kid in my family has ever been granted.

And then I had to figure out how to put it all together.

If you ever come to Germany and bring your hot glue gun, please be warned that things are hotter here. The glue comes out scorched and burnt thanks to the local voltage, even with a transformer. It is recommended that you use said weapon only during daylight hours with the appropriate amount of sleep, rest and necessary nourishment.

If by some chance you fail to heed this warning, you might find yourself surrounded by feathers, alone in the bad lighting at midnight with serious hot glue gun burns all over your fingers and no one to hear you scream.

When all was said and done, my little guy headed out the door with the best Mama Snipe costume his little baby Kevin bird had ever seen. Maybe next year he can be Mama Ghost.

Here is this week’s column, sorry if it’s a little too honest.

Last Sunday I had to lead the music in church.

You would think being the substitute church chorister was the easiest job on the planet. Show up for three or four songs during the meeting, wave your arm around a little, take a week off. Rinse and repeat.

But when you find yourself standing in front of the congregations, watching the back row where your three oldest (8, 6 &3) unsupervised children are beating the living daylights out of each other because their father had to take the stinky baby out, the panic and anxiety is hysterical.

By the time I finally made it back to camp Jason was disciplining with a vengeance, pointing and shushing and mouthing frantic threats. Due to parental absence, our family had been condensed to a screaming, snarling knot of weak believers doing their duty in the overflow section of the chapel.

June (3) was especially vocal. I whisked her out of the chapel with Jason and the baby right behind. “Mommy!” she sobbed, “Daddy is SO MEAN TO ME!! He hurt my arm!!!!”

Now let me tell you, I know that small children are all innocent in the sight of You Know Who, but sometimes I wonder if He’s really met June. We’ll be riding in the car and in minutes she’ll have both her big brothers bawling their heads off without even touching them. She gives new meaning to the phrase, “Use your words.” Oh, how I wish she’d just shut up sometimes. (June can also be my most loving, affectionate, delightful child. She is both my favorite and my least favorite, depending on whether or not she’s had a nap.)

During my day to day encounters with June I regularly find myself in a Mommy time-out. She has inspired me to search for college courses with titles like, “When Your Child Pees on the Floor,” “Why Yelling Doesn’t Work,” and “If You Spank Her She’ll Just Get Worse.”

As we hit the foyer at full volume, I looked at her red little arm (he had to physically remove her from atop Harrison’s head) and was instantly mad. But was I mad at June? No. I was mad at my husband.

My helpless, frustrated, really great husband, who had, in a moment of angst, removed her with an extra bit of force.

We traveled out to the car and I proceeded to give him a piece of my mind, lecturing him on good parenting and shaking my finger in his face. I was furious. She’s only three, can’t we have a little patience already? With a righteous huff I stomped back into the building with my girdle in a snit, and plunked down with my kids on the back row.

But who was I really mad at? Was I really mad at Jason for losing his temper, or was I mad that he failed to make up for my routinely bad parenting? He’s supposed to be the perfect parent. It’s not fair for my kids to have to deal with two lunatics on a regular basis, can’t he just get it right all the time on my behalf? Is a little perfection too much to ask?

Yes. Yes it is. I felt pretty stupid sitting there on that cold metal chair. If we were keeping track of Who’s The Better Parent, he’d be teaching classes and I’d be down in the resource room with an IEP.

When my mother was in high school her teacher had them make individual lists of all the things they couldn’t stand about other people. From gossiping to whining, her list was enormous. Once the class had finished the assignment, the teacher asked them to look at that list a little more closely. How many of those traits were simply a reflection of the things they hated most about themselves?

I suppose I’m just like everyone else; I detest my own frailties and weaknesses and I hate seeing them in someone else, especially when that someone is my pretty fantastic husband. I guess our kids will have to deal with the fact that they’ve got two stupid humans for parents.

Ah well, at least they aren’t being raised by wolves. Yet.

You know you’re in denial when you finally acknowledge that you failed to mention your baby’s birthday.

It was two months ago.

My little G is fourteen months old and Harrison (8) had the gall to try to teach her to stand on her own today. Step away from the baby, son.

Georgia is the world’s biggest baby and I am perfectly fine with that. She still wants to be spoon fed whenever possible, prefers my hip to any other mode of travel, sleeps like a baby and wants me to hold her all. Day. Long. I kind of love it.

And it is no business of anyone’s (Harrison, I’m talking to you) to step in and force that poor little infant to take up her bed and walk already. She’s just a baby, people, can’t we accept it and leave her alone? A little coddling never hurt most 40-year-olds.

I’m caught in the crossfire of emotions here. On the one hand, every time I give a piece of babyhood to the thrift store I can’t help feeling like an enormous weight has finally been lifted from my storage room. I want to yell to everyone within spit-up range, “Guess what I don’t have to keep anymore?” No more Baby Bjorn, changing pad, nursing paraphenalia, or slightly stained onesies. Every week I add to my pile of Crap I Don’t Have To Keep, and I’m routinely emptying Baby Bins for the last time.

But there are moments when I would like to freeze my little Gigi and keep her this size forever. (There are also moments when I wish she was five and didn’t come equipped with diapers and curiosity in general.)

We are nearing the end of this and I can feel it. As much as I try to pretend it isn’t so, the girl is going to step out one day and start walking and it’s all downhill big girl motion from there. Yes, I will have to potty train her. Yes, she will learn how to throw a tantrum.

Ah, baby girl, must you? Et tu, Brute?

She has my mother's eyes...

I have spent the past week sneaking moments alone with my Kindle. With a number of important and inspiring books loaded right now, including and not limited to impressive biographies and the Bible, what do you think has me completely sucked in? Vampire books. And yes, I thought long and hard about that pun.

Call me a literary junkie, but if you write a decent vampire book I will read it. I will then spend the next week wandering around Europe sizing people up to determine whether or not I think they’d make a good vampire. I think the military has some very promising candidates.

I’ve been so bogged down trying to crawl out from the cardboard rubble over the past three weeks that there has hardly been a moment to read or write anything, let alone sit myself down for a little rest.

But the solution was right there in front of me: if I’m going to read about vampires, I might as well keep their hours. The sun goes down, the kids go to bed, and my Kindle and I thirst for another installment of vampire gore.*

If my past is any consolation, there have been times when my mind hungered and thirsted for thought-provoking literature. But it’s kind of like listening to classical music. Even though I know it’s the intelligent and yes, even classy choice, I can’t help skipping over it these days for some good old country twang.

As a writer, I must admit that I have absolutely no imagination where the paranormal is concerned and I’m forever grateful for anyone who can think outside the biology department. Oh, how I wish I could think of something other than myself once in a while. I blame vanity; I’m far too busy obsessing about my shoes and horrid hair (new extensions just came in the mail, yay!) to think of something that might appeal to the masses.

And by the way, there are some pretty decent cheap books on the Kindle that even Dave Ramsey can’t give me a hard time about purchasing. We don’t have television, so I think a buck or two for a book is an extremely economical answer to my blood-thirsty entertainment needs.

Ah well, at least my current vampires and werewolfs are all of legal, blood-sucking age.

*I am also reading the Old Testament right now (another frequently gory read) and highly condone daily scripture study to those of you who are religiously inclined.