Author: Picking My Battles

Quite Contrary

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I adopted my philosophy of picking my battles carefully about the time my oldest son began toddling. I was working fulltime outside our 200 year-old farmhouse that needed constant maintenance, and I gave up the dream of being SuperMom pretty quickly. Somehow, however, it never struck me as ironic that I also began gardening in earnest about that time.

We had just moved to Vermont from Germany, and most of my gardening experience was limited to growing tomatoes in containers or whatever would grow in the shady ‘yard’ that was the sole selling feature in our first basement apartment. But when we got to Vermont, the little gardening itch I’d scratched with a few potted flowers turned into a full-blown rash and, noticing that most people in our new town had gardens to mitigate grocery bills or give their families fresher food, I decided this was a battle I was going to fight – no matter how unrealistic.

The first year was actually pretty successful. I started with the Square Foot Gardening method whose claim to fame was that even someone like me who prefers pushing buttons to reading directions couldn’t screw it up. The think the garden books don’t tell you is how easily a little bit of success can inflate your head and your plans for the next year, and within 2 years I was tending a 40×40 garden. It’s battle I still can’t concede. Every spring I tell the Big Guy I’m going to trim it down, and every year dreams of a pantry stocked with dried soup makings result in more beds going in.

This spring began with the same resolution to confront my gardening addiction.

“I’m just going to plant perennial veggies in the big log,” I told the Big Guy. I made plans for a few smaller year-round salad beds, and that would be it. It took three days for that resolution to falter (although still a better track record than any of my dieting resolutions).

Six-year-old Thing2 is just discovering the church of baseball and is religious about getting the family outside for a nightly game of Catch in the Little League pre-season. In the early part of the season, Catch actually resembles a different game I call ‘Fetch’. Sunday night it was my turn to fetch, and as luck would have it, the ball had landed near the garden. I walked over, visions of the new, lower-maintenance plan in my head and noticed that the beds were all mostly ready for seeds and seedlings.

“You know,” I said, wondering who had turned in the garden so efficiently last fall (I didn’t remember doing it) and ignoring the fear that crossed the Big Guy’s face as it does whenever he senses I have a new idea, “I think I may just rotate my plan from last year.” I tossed the ball to our older son and turned to get a better look at the beds.

“What?!?” I heard the Big Guy yell the question. I looked at him and realized the loud query was the result of a plan unheard and not rejected. I repeated my idea, expecting the baritone voice of reason to set me straight. But just as it it’s a woman’s perogative to change her mind, it’s a man’s to surprise her every once in a while. “That’s a great idea,” he said, “why not plant more?

And Sometimes It’s Just a Tutu

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Most of the little bit of picking up that gets done around here gets done by yours truly.  I’m well past the ‘It’s not my job’ mentality, but every once in a while I like to use the naturally  messy petrie dish we call home as, well, a petrie dish.  My contribution to behavioral science this week consisted of observing how long a discarded sock would remain on the floor under a child’s chair before somebody – not me – was motivated to move it to the hamper.  By Saturday morning the sock under the chair was in danger of evolving into a life form, so, before we headed out to breakfast at our favorite diner, I notified the troops that we would be cleaning when we got home.  Little did I know that out of drudgery could come enlightenment.

There’s nothing like the threat of impending chores to bring out the best restaurant manners in our boys, but not even the carefully folder napkins in their laps or a moratorium on Sound Effects Theatre on the way home from breakfast were going to save them yesterday.  Before they settled onto the couch, the Big Guy and I issued marching orders.  Ignoring their declarations of exhaustion, we dispatched twelve-year-old Goliath to walk the dog and assigned six-year-old Thing2 the task of removing toys from the living room.  Our stipulation that they could not be relocated to his bunk (on it or under it) produced a rebellious frown, but he said nothing and set about his task.

The Big Guy began cleaning up green plastic Easter grass, as I tackled the kitchen.  I was loading the last plate into the dishwasher when I realized it had become very quiet.  I looked around for the boys and noted that Goliath(Thing1) had filled the wood bin and was dutifully putting away videos.  All traces of resentment had disappeared as he finished and asked, “What next?”

As I gave him another task, however, I wondered what had happened to Thing2.  Toys had disappeared from the coffee table in the living room.  Boots were no longer strewn across the floor.  But my ordinarily animated six-year-old was strangely silent.  I checked his room, but it was still an empty mess.  I searched the other end of the house until a grinning Big Guy came to get me.

“You have to see this,” he whispered.  I followed him to the kitchen, camera in hand, thinking the cats were doing something funny.  The Big Guy led me around the kitchen island to peer into our pantry where Thing2 stood on a step-stool scrubbing the counter top in a yellow tutu.

“Wow,” I exclaimed as I snapped a quick photo, “you are doing an fantastic job.”  The cleaning butterfly in our pantry looked up at both of us, a smile painted on his face.

“I cleaned the whole thing,” he said.  “And next I’m going to do the counter out there and on the other side of the room and…” and he hopped off the step-stool and flitted to his next task.

Thing2 has many alter egos.  Most of the time he’s some form of wig-wearing superhero I like to call SuperDude.  He’ll stuff his sleeves with muscles and fairy wings before leaping over a couch with a single bound as he goes forth on his mission to eliminate boredom and from our lives.  Today, however, there was just the outfit he’d worn to impress a waitress at the local diner and the yellow tutu.

Later, I wondered what had prompted such a toned-down costume and asked him who was cleaning the pantry yesterday.

“That was me mommy,” he answered.

“That wasn’t a superhero?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

“So how did you settle on the tutu for a cleaning outfit?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me as I tried to divine my six-year-old’s fertile imagination.

“I was putting away the toys in my clothes drawer and couldn’t fit everything in,” he said.  “And I saw the tutu at the back and knew it didn’t belong there so I got it out and decided to wear it so it didn’t have to go on the floor.”

Assured by my stunned silence that his logic was sound, Thing2 turned his attention back to the TV, happily leaving me to hover between the wistful acknowledgment that he might be out-growing his alter egos and the recognition that we’ve just begun to discover our youngest son.

 

I’m Not Tired

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It’s after nine and too late to start another movie. Six-year-old Thing2’s dance has devolved from frenzied leaping and spinning into climbing onto and sliding off of the couch, but he is not tired. The Big Guy puts in the Sound of Music, fast-forwarding to the end of the intermission.

The music swells, and Thing2 twirls on the floor before climbing up to snuggle between me and his older brother who has sandwiched himself next to the Big Guy on a sofa meant to hold three thinner adults. There’s another slide-and-climb maneuver before Maria is told to go climb her mountains, but by the time she returns to the von Trapp embrace, Thing2 has settled into mine, his eyes closing for a minute.

“I’m not tired,” he breathlessly exclaims through what I could have sworn was a snore as he shakes himself alert. He explains he meant to laugh and then sneezed. There’s another slide-and-climb. Baroness von Schrader is dumping the captain about the same time Thing2 begins examining my hand that’s holding his smaller one. Then with a burst of energy, he rolls from sofa to momma, clinging to me like a baby chimp. “I’m not tired,” he mumbles as he closes his eyes and, looking more two than six, finally surrenders.

Maria is singing in the background about nothing coming from nothing, and, as I savor this moment that is becoming all-to-rare and wonder what the heck I ever did in my own wicked past to have earned it in the first place, I am anything but tired.

Friday Good

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“Be Afraid” read the headline on Good Friday afternoon, and I obeyed.  Without reading any further, I let the super-sized red letters on the headline burn themselves in to my soul.  I gave into anxiety, and I knew I had no one else to blame.  I was the one who had clicked on the link when I should have been working.  

And, once I clicked, I couldn’t tear myself away.  The bees were dying.  We’re at the brink of World War III with a tiny country on the other side of the globe, and there was plenty of pestilence to go around.  Thankfully, work inundated me with enough work again to prevent any festering of my worries, and by the time I had time to click on news again, it was time to feed the family.

Cooking for dinner seemed about as pleasant way to cap off a nine hour day as a root canal, so I decided to ring up East Arlington Takeout.  Birthed just this winter, this little restaurant stepped in to fill a void created when one of our old favorites closed down due to recession and retirement.  I dialed and a decidedly young voice answered.  I knew it had to be a daughter of one of the owners.  Despite her youth, she calmly and professionally took my order, asking the appropriate questions and let me know it would be ready in twenty minutes.

My anxiety was gone as I headed out.  I was still tense from work and lost in plans for the weakend, thought, and  I took my worries to the EAT.  I wouldn’t bring them home.  

Located in what used to be a convenience store, the takeout place consists of two halves.  One half is the kitchen and prep area.  The other half is a waiting area for customers and kids.  Near the window and door of that half sit a counter and register, but behind shelves laden with pizza boxes are a few couches and a TV where the owners’ children hangout and do homework. 

It’s not a sit-down restaurant, but it has already become a popular local hangout.  We’ve made it our go-to place on Friday nights, and I’ve started looking forward to it for more than the food.  Everytime I walk in – even on weeknights – it’s hopping. Last Friday night friends I know from both boys’ schools.  I saw people I met while working weddings once upon a time.  I saw their kids pitching in and hanging out.  I saw their kids’ friends pop in to watch TV.  And I saw a small business,at the ripe old age of three months, becoming an institution.

I think I really felt a little magic  as I got back into my car and watched the tableau through the windows framed by the dark blues of late winter dusk.  I love seeing a small business defy the odds and experts.   When you see one taking off in its first three months and building a devout following, it’s inspiring.  It’s even more inspiring when you know it’s the culmination of the dreams of moms and pops you know – not just some faceless corporation.

I pulled out of the lot feeling good about our purchase as I always do and not just because the food tastes good and got me out of cooking.  As I drove home, I though about missiles pointed at us, about cyberattacks, about dying bees, and all the other things in the world I can’t control (maybe we’ll help in the bee area this summer).  But, as the smell of a custom made italian sub permeates my car, it soothed me, reminding me of the little things I do influence.  

Signs of Spring

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We’re still getting the nightly dusting of snow, but it melts quickly these days.  White predominates in our yard, but the crocuses have begun to emerge from the ground.  And even as the cold is slow to relinquish its hegemony, it can’t prevent the longer days and, the return of the roadside egg stand as our neighbors chickens begin to produce again.

 

Of Plans, Plants, and Cigars

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I have come to believe that in many marriages there is one partner who has their head in the clouds and another who helps keep both people anchored to the ground.  Anyone who knows me knows that my head is not in clouds; it’s often in another dimension.  No one knows this better than the Big Guy, so, last night, when I casually moved the new dark green shrub to the edge of the counter as I unloaded the grocery bags, he raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask what had prompted the purchase.

The plant was just the end of a journey I had started two days ago on the first sunny afternoon since the official start of spring.  For the first time since I’d claimed my Mom-Cave at the back of the house, I minded that my cozy winter cocoon lacks a view of the impending greening of our yard.  Our house is earth-sheltered, and, while all the bedrooms and family areas look towards the forest and fields that border our yard, the bathrooms and the study are tucked into the back part of the house, which is buried under three feet of dirt.

All of this made my first thought – how could I install a window – just a tad irrational.  When I returned this dimension at five A.M. the next morning, I considered other options as I wrote.  Taking over the one unoccupied bedroom/winter laundry room isn’t feasible for the longterm (the boys are getting old enough for their own rooms).  Then I though about moving to our well-lit, but unheated, attic.  My mind churned as I mentally figured out heating and decor for the space.  The Big Guy has plans for most of that space, however, so I nixed the idea.  Then came a stroke though, sadly, not of genius.  It was the stroke I envisioned the Big Guy experiencing when I finished pitching my next plan – remodeling the upstairs and the downstairs with a workshop, study and guest-area down and family bedrooms up.

The Big Guy popped his head in as he was heading out to work, bringing me back to the ground.  I posted my posts, got the kids to school and returned to the Mom-Cave for the next 8 hours of my Work-At-Home-Job.  My 3 minute dance sessions – my latest attempt to get more movement (not exercise, just movement) – reminded me there was another advantage to working in a room without windows.  Maybe I could find a way to make it feel less claustrophobic for the summer.

I googled windowless offices.  Google gave me white offices (straight from the pages of the Neat & Childless Magazine), walls with trompe l’oeil murals, mirrors built into reclaimed windows, and plants.  I remembered the houseplant cemetery we call a forest and took closer look at the mirrors, stumbling on to a gorgeous and, most important, affordable distressed window with a mirror behind it.  I saved the page just as the Big Guy got home with the boys.

“Look at this mirror,” I said, not mentioning my other decorating ideas. “Don’t you think it would brighten up the office?”

“I guess do,” replied my husband with practiced composure. I don’t have hard scientific data on this, but it’s my suspicion that nothing strikes fear into the heart of a married man like the words, “I have an idea”.  To I decided not to reveal my endgame (however much it had shrunk), and the conversation ended.

The next afternoon, I announced I needed to get some groceries after work and headed into town.  The mirror was still in mind, but as I guided my cart through the aisles, I wandered into the nursery area.  The aroma of dozens of Easter lilies and hyacinths assaulted me. I explored, remembering the plant idea and started hunting for something that looked like it would do well in extreme shade.  A few minutes later, I emerged from a corner with a nameless plant whose directions to keep it out of sun and not overwater reassured me it might not join its predecessors in the woods as compost.

When I had the last of the groceries put away, I picked up the plant to take it to its new home in the Mom-Cave.

“What do you think?” I asked. “I just thought the room could use a little green.”  The Big Guy just nodded and got to work on the latest incarnation of his famous pasta sauce.   After +16 years of being the anchor in our marriage, he knows that a cigar may just be a cigar, but a plant is never just a plant.

 

Tis the Season

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We’re well into the first full week of spring and snow still covers our yard.  It’s almost time to plant peas, and my garden is a slushy mess.  The fact that Vermont’s gardening season commenced at least a week or three behind the calendars in every gardening book (even one or two written by Vermonters) once caused me consternation.   By March, I’m ready to get out of the house and start digging.  

A decade of digging later, however, I’ve learned to relax about this thing I absolutely can’t control.  My springtime serenity stems from two sources.  The first comes from observing the long-term effects of that saturating late winter snow pac.  Soggy in spring but still moist enough to prevent the need for watering well into summer, I’ve come to trust that Mother Nature knows what she’s doing.  The other source of my calm comes from discovering a spring signal far more reliable (and delicious) than a date circled on my calendar. 

The sap buckets start appearing in late January.  The large maple syrup operations set long blue tap lines that run from tree to tree and then into huge covered containers, but there are still plenty of do-it-yourselfer’s and small operators who use the old-fashioned taps and buckets that are symbolic of the season.  

We made maple syrup a few years in a row.  Our buckets were recycled milk jugs.  We collected sap for days and made exactly one gallon (you need 32 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup) on our old wood stove.  Our old house was drafty enough that we didn’t mind turning our kitchen into a sauna for a few days, and it was the best maple syrup we ever tasted.  

We buy our syrup now, and, even though it’s available at even the smallest producers through most of the year, picking up a gallon or two at the end of March has become as much a ritual as taking Thing2 to see Santa at the town Christmas party or planting my peas in soggy spring soil.

The steam started pouring from the sugar houses in late winter.  Even now, the nighttime temperatures are still mostly in the freezing range even as the days get warmer, and the sap still flows.  Last weekend, the first weekend in spring, the sugar houses opened their doors to tasters and tours, but it was just a date on the calendar.  For me, it won’t be until the sap slows that spring will really begin.  It’s when the sap buckets along our road come down.

 It doesn’t make the spring season any less welcome, but it does make it a little bittersweet.

 

Where my Heart wants to Go

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Listening to the wind of his soul, as Cat Stevens once sang, and letting the music take him where his heart wants to go, it’s Thing2’s time to dance, as it is every night after his homework is done and before dinner is ready.  With the Big Guy’s borrowed iPod and and my old ear buds, he leaps and twirls, shakes, rattles and rolls, his eyes half closed as he translates the music into motion.

An angelic smile lights his face as he looks at the Big Guy for approval.  The Big Guy is bemused.  Thing2 turns to me for non-verbal feedback, but his gaze falls first upon Goliath, still steeped in homework at the round pedestal kitchen table.  Always willing to be a distracted from his studies, Goliath has stopped to watch our private performance.  His face is a study in preteen angst.  A smile lurks, but the fear that this performance might be repeated in public also knits his brow.

Thing2, unsure of Goliath’s evaluation, stops mid pirouette.  He stares at his big brother as another one song ends.  When he finds his tongue, it is not nearly as dextrous as his feet.

“WHAT?!?” he demands.  Goliath shrugs and bows his head over his book again, and the Big Guy and I worry the time to dance has ended.  But the dance continues until the last plate has been set at the dinner table. Thing2’s monosyllabic outburst was not a question after all; it was statement that he will be who he will be as long as the music keeps playing.

Sympathy for the Giant

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The steps creak a little more each day as Thing1 descends from his bastion on the upper bunk.  He’s been taller than his mother for a year now, and, even though he enjoys sizing up the difference every time we pass in the hall, I am getting used to looking up at someone I used to carry around in a Snugli.  It’s strange feeling, and a few weeks ago, I realized that Thing1, evoking a decidedly impish quality, didn’t really suit him anymore.

I’ve been using nicknames for my kids and husband since this blog’s inception.  My six foot six husband is the Big Guy.  My twelve and six-year-old boys are known as Thing1 and Thing2 (or SuperDude if he’s wearing his cape and wig), respectively.

My decision to use nicknames was not so much to safeguard their internet safety – very little is private anymore now  – but more the result of the feeling that, especially with the kids, I had the right to tell our stories but not the right to opt in the use of their real names until they were old enough to make that decision themselves.  The result has been a mostly illustrated blog (the few photos of the kids are usually old enough to prevent easy recognition by anyone but the people who already know them), and I’ve been happy with it.  Now, however, as I’ve been searching for a new, more appropriate nickname for the gentle giant that roams our house, I realize that part of the motivation for the original nickname was my denial that he is growing up.

There is still a bit of the imp in him, but middle school and the discovery that a world lies outside Minister Hill have made him serious.  When the imp is revealed, Thing2 is often the inspiration and the provocation.  Like any good younger brother, Thing2 carries around a bit of loving hero worship for his big brother.  Most afternoons he expresses his love by snuggling up to his older brother, but there are times when love hurts.

Sometimes inspired by boredom, sometimes by that most flattering of desires – to imitate his older brother in every possible way – Thing2 will sidle up to Thing1 at his desk or on the couch.  He’ll work to inhabit the space with his brother.  Then he’ll ask to play whatever Thing1 is playing, listen to whatever song Thing1 has blasting, or watch whatever show Thing1 thought was great last night but couldn’t care less about this afternoon.  He is dogged in his admiration, and, when Thing1, in the time-honored tradition of surly preteens everywhere, ignores the initial overtures, Thing2 finds a plan B.

Snuggling becomes poking.  Then poking becomes climbing, and sometimes the climbing hurts.  Thing2’s faith that Thing1 would never hurt him is stronger David’s in a God that would guide his slingshot was.  For the most part his faith is well-placed. Unlike the ancient Goliath, when our giant needs a lot of needling before he responds in kind.  Sometimes the giant will lose his temper, but he rarely loses his cool.

Lately he’s been taking on more grown-up chores around the house.  He’s attentive and responsive when we need a quick favor.  Naturally, I see him through my maternal bias, but as I watch the imp becoming a man, I’ve decided it’s time for someone to get a new nickname and rehabilitate the name Goliath.

Honor Thy Family, Honor Thyself

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My mother’s parents, in their later years, moved from Hawaii, where they’d spent much of their retirement, to Ohio so that they could be closer to their children and grandchildren.  My grandmother suffered a series of debilitating strokes soon after they moved, and my parents, especially my mother, became instrumental in supporting both my grandparents, emotionally and, often, logistically.  

My mother made sure our family visited them regularly during the week.  She helped my grandfather adjust to his new roles of caretaker, housekeeper and cook – tasks my grandmother had primarily done during the fifty-plus years of their marriage.  When my grandmother passed away, my parents – geographically the closest of his children – continued the Sunday dinners and afternoon visits with my grandfather.  They took him on family vacations, provided (in the case of my father) second medical opinions, and did everything they could to ensure that he was independent but not alone in the last years of his life.

It was labor, but there was more love than obligation in it.  Although I know both my parents felt blessed to have those last years with my mother’s parents, it was not always easy.  Watching both parents rise to the occasion with love and grace, however, was a powerful lesson for me and my sister.  It is one I think about often as my parents have started their retirements.

So when, at the first meeting of the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop, Diane Fiore revealed that she would be writing about her Saturday drives with her late father, I knew her blog would be good before I read a word.  It was.  

For most of the last year on her blog, Merganser’s Crossing, Diane has been telling the story of how what started as a daughter’s duty to help emotionally and logistically support a father suffering from increasingly intense dementia became a path to a close relationship and better understanding of her dad.  It has been humorous and heartbreaking, honest and enlightening.  Illustrated with sketches, photographs, and now, the loveliest watercolors, it is also evolving.

After learning that her mother had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Diane decided (with her mother’s support and permission) to chronicle the next phase of her journey on her blog.  Already the story has seen her and her husband move so as to support her mother’s needs better.  As she writes simply but compellingly of her new life, navigating the changes and relationships, the same love and grace I once saw in my parents comes shining through.  

We live in an often harsh world.  Too often culture and media not only reflect that harshness, they amplify it.  It makes stumbling on a story like Diane’s all the more valuable and inspiring.  It’s an oasis of kindness and hope, and it’s worth visiting again and again.

About Family

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My younger son dances.  He sings.  He has a crate full of costumes – including a rainbow wig, several superhero outfits and a tutu – and a puppet theatre complete with curtains sewn by his grandmother.  He loves dressing up and taking on all sorts of personae.  He is the sum of his arts – joy in a skinny six-year-old package.

We make him leave the costumes at home (on school days anyway), but he brings his joy everywhere he goes.  He dances when he walks.  He falls in love with people at the drop of hat and is still at the age where he wants to marry everyone with whom he falls in love.

Most of the time his antics and his expressions of love – for his parents, his brother, the waitresses at Bob’s –  produce smiles from people around us.  It’s hard not to smile at someone who’s compulsively happy.  But every once in a while I’ll catch another adult watching his gaiety, and I can see a question forming behind the gaze.

I know the look and the question.  The look is judgement warring with joy.  The question is the wondering if the gaiety is evidence that our dancing, affectionate child is gay.  I don’t know.  I also don’t care.

I have seen and heard this story since I was in high school.  Several of my closest friends came out to our circle of friends before and after graduation.  Some came to the realization that they were gay very early in life.  Some had supportive parents.  Others lived in the shadow of projection (once with a violent result) because certain mannerisms or affinities were proof to others that they were gay long before they had considered the question themselves.

I would like to say that I was always mature and supportive.  With my male friends I remembered it made no difference.  With my best friend, I am sorry to say, I was less mature, mainly because she was suddenly dating and someone else was monopolizing her time.  At the time I wasn’t adult enough to remember I had done the exact same thing to her a year earlier.  The one thing I do remember, however, is that who my friends dated didn’t change how I saw them because they were still the same loving people who had accepted me for all my flaws as we went through the high school gauntlet together.

Today, as I’m watching the news, waiting to see how the Supreme Court is going to rule on marriage equality in California, I’m thinking about our journeys.  Some of my friends are still single.  Some have had commitment ceremonies – two couples the same year the Big Guy and I were married – and are still happily married themselves.  Our journeys have been different, but the parallels are still there.

We all wanted to fulfill our potentials.  We all wanted to love and be loved.  And we each wanted to be part of a family of our choosing.  It’s the same thing I want for both my kids.  But, most of all, I want them to have the same chance at happiness that I have had – regardless of the person they find to love.  So today, to me, this issue isn’t about politics.  It’s about my family.

 

 

 

 

The Hairy Edge

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Maybe if it hadn’t been a snow day filled with lolling about and lying around, this milestone might have gone unnoticed.  But twelve-year-old Thing1, getting as big as a good-natured Goliath these days, made the mistake of mentioning that he wanted a shower on a slow news day.  The Big Guy and I looked at our son and then back at each other, the same question on our minds.

I think the Big Guy was the first to ask Goliath point blank if there was a girl involved.  Our firstborn immediately rebuffed such a ridiculous suggestion.  His hair was too long, he said.  It was too warm and he needed to cool off.  

I don’t mean to imply that Goliath doesn’t shower regularly.  But anyone who’s raised or raising boys will concur that there comes a phase in their lives when they develop severe soap allergies, as evidenced – at our house – by the sounds of cajoling and pleading (and that’s the parents) that commence many evenings just after supper time.  We have heard every excuse for why Goliath and his six-year-old tormenter, David, should abstain from contact with cleanliness.  They don’t feel dirty.  They’re just going to get dirty again tomorrow.  They’re trying to save water and (going after our off-grid Achille’s heels) electricity.  So when we haven’t had to cajole or plead for not just one night, but three in a row, it’s a major event.

The Big Guy and I didn’t contest any further his earnest contention that a sudden romantic interest was not at the source of this sudden spate of elective hygiene.  Once Goliath cleared his place and retreated to his half-hour shower, however, the Big Guy and I looked at each other, realizing we are getting closer and closer to the scary hairy edge of being parents of a full-fledged teenager.  And as frightening as that thought is, the scarier idea is just how fast it’s all going.