Quote of the Day

"Finders aren't keepers. Finders are losers."

Reilly Kate to her brother after he found her dime and refused to give it back.

I'm Fired

We hired a housekeeper/nanny type lady last week. As you may or may not recall, I made an attempt at home organization and cleanliness sometime ago. I bought a book entitled, "The Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise." Let me tell ya, my pigpen was in paradise and so it stayed a pigpen. Really, who wants to play games with to do lists and dusting ceiling fans while there is a beach just walking distance from your house?

Anyway, I'm a miserable housekeeper. So there, I said it. I most likely will never improve and I am absolutely done trying. I've found that my 30s are my stage of self discovery. Every day I'm learning things about myself and happily accepting them. I now readily admit that I suck at cleaning or keeping things clean or organizing. I couldn't organize two green jelly beans in white paper bag, if ever there were the need to do such a thing.

And so, with some reluctance (as I am as frugal as I am slovenly), we hired Almin (say "all meen"). She's a beautiful little Filipina with a soft voice and a mean scrub. She sings gospel hymns as she works and responds to my requests with "Yes, ma'am" which sounds like she's saying, "Yes, Mom." She cleans the whole house, top to bottom -- dusting, vacuuming, laundry, toilets, she even takes out the garbage.

But wait! There's more!! She also organizes and unpacks. On her very first day, after she had finished ridding the kitchen of the weekend's fossilized scrambled eggs and petrified bacon, I showed her into my room where there were about six suitcases filled with clothes. Clothes of every sort, both mine and Mike's mixed in with Reilly Kate's and Roman's, summer, winter, outgrown and worn out. It was my nightmare and it had been sitting on my bedroom floor since we had arrived.

"If you could maybe... like... sort it... uhhhh... and maybe fold it and... ummmm... put it away... well... that would be great," I stammered quite uncomfortably.

"Yes, ma’am."

The next thing I know, I'm walking on the hardwood floor -- the freshly mopped hardwood floor -- of my bedroom. The kids drawers are organized and filled to the tops. The clothes are all neatly folded -- even the underwear (I have never folded a pair of underwear in my life, opting instead for the jumble drawer style of storing the undergarments). It is as if all my household thoughts and home improvement plans, all of my domestic ambitions, had somehow come to fruition. It would have taken me weeks to do all that. But Almin, she can whip it out in hours.

And that's not all! There's still more!! She also baby sits. The children absolutely adore her, running around after her as she sings to them while doing my chores. They unfold the laundry she is trying to put away and she just smiles at them. She stops what she is doing to read them books and play Candyland and tell them bible stories. You see, she too is a mother. Her children, a daughter Reilly Kate's age and a son Roman's, are in the Philippines with her parents. I am sure she misses them terribly and my children benefit from that directly with her doting. It is really quite amazing to watch.

In fact, on Almin's first day with us, Reilly Kate was flatly refusing to get dressed for school. "I don't want to go to school," she would yell. "I don't need to go to school. I don't want to be anything when I grow up!" (this, by the way, is repeated every damn school day since we got here, a topic for another post) She was screaming at me so loudly that Mike sent her to her room, where Almin was sorting out and unpacking the children's clothes. In a few minutes, a much calmer, happier, nicely dressed and perfectly coifed Reilly Kate emerged.

"I'm going to go to school. Miss Almin says I must so I can be a dolphin trainer and a mommy and a runner and a firefighter," she said.

That Almin also wrangles rebellious four year olds with nasty mouths and foul dispositions. That right there is worth whatever we're paying her. If only I could get her here every morning before school. And then again after school. At dinner time. And bed time. Oh, and sometimes in the middle of the night, too.

So just to review all that I am getting with this Almin: she cleans, scrubs, scours, washes and dries, folds, organizes, puts away, mops, dusts, starches and presses, hangs, darns and sews, combs, braids, soothes and cajoles, sings, plays, rocks, and teaches bible stories. She's all that and a bag of chips... er... sayookong... or balut.

At dinner that first day, Mike took a look around at our sparkling, unpacked apartment and then gazed upon our happy, contented children. You could just tell he was beyond pleased. And then he looked at me, and doing his best Donald, he said, "You're fired."

And so there it is, folks. I've been replaced. I'll be flying out sometime soon, heading for the Philippines where I hope to open a titty bar on the beach somewhere. It'll be called "Udderly Heather's," of course, and our house specialty will be a White Russian served up by yours truly. Look me up.

My Match

I just finished reading Reilly Kate's birthday post from last year. It's the last post listed in the blog at this point. It was easy to find. And now, over a month late, I am just getting around to blogging her 4th birthday. You'd think I could have found some time to actually do this, squeezed in with the holidays and a two month visit to Chicago all amid a trans Pacific move. Yeah. I could have found the time if it were important to me. Excuses. Excuses.

My first born is four now. Four years old. She's big and sassy and as challenging as she has ever been. Ya know, every year, every stage of her development has been a challenge. I hear other mothers say, "Oh, it'll pass," or "It gets better in year or so." But, oh my, oh my, my daughter is difficult in every stage. That's just how she interacts with the world around her. To change that would completely alter who she is. I don't want that. I'll meet her challenges head on. And butting heads is what we do quite often. As we begin this, my fifth year of motherhood, I am vowing to try to guide her more with nudges rather than with head butts.

Remember that saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle?" Well, I have to tell you that many, many times over the last four years, I've thought he has given me more than I can handle. A friend of mine and I were talking about it a year ago. She suggested that perhaps I just got the wrong child -- a heavenly mix up of sorts due to my having kept my maiden name. "Heather," she said, "if you had just changed your name like you were supposed to..."

Yeah, but since when have I ever done what I was supposed to do? Which, I am told, is just proof positive that Reilly Kate is, in fact, my daughter. When I hear her smart little mouth, it is hard to deny. It's akin to arguing with a mirror.

"Clean these toys off the floor or I will throw them all in the garbage!" I direct with authority.

"Don't talk to me like that or I will throw your stuff in the garbage," she retorts.

I try to keep control of the dialogue. "Hey. I am your mother and you don't talk to me like that."

"I am your daughter and you don't talk to me like that," she says twisting my words to use against me.

"I've had enough!" I bellow. "Go to your room!"

And just as I am telling her to go to her room, she yells, "I'm going to my room," as if we are in some sort of dysfunctional chorus together.

"Fine."

"Fine," and then she adds, "And I'm going to go slam something."

Excellent. Just excellent. Anyone wanna sign up for my parenting classes? They're free.

This is a conversation I have with a FOUR year old, not a fourteen year old. It's as if I've been cloned. My mom actually says, "You've been cloned... and perfected." Reilly Kate is me with the volume turned up, pedal to the metal, amps cranked, the engine souped up, muscles 'roided, on fast forward, and running on jet fuel.

I'm too old for this shit, I tell ya.

She's smart, too. Wicked smart. She gets that from Mike, I'm sure, because she is outwitting me every damn turn. At times it feels like a game of chess. I gotta keep guessing her next move. Mostly, I get my ass handed to me. It's that kind of game. She's that kind of opponent.

But to say that we're opponents is not to say we're adversaries. My mom and I have always had a very turbulent relationship, full of ups and downs, arguments, screamfests, and full on, knock down, drag out fights. As did my mom and her mom. And my grandmother and my great-grandmother before.

Yet we have all been unusually close. My great-grandmother and grandmother lived together most of their lives. They shared a one bedroom apartment as I was growing up. We spent a lot of time together with them at our house or all of us in their apartment. After my great-grandma moved into a nursing home, my grandma moved in with us. My mom and my grandma would fight... oh, they would fight. But they were together, the best of friends, and the closest of confidents. My mom and I are just the same. Although, I have lived thousands upon thousands of miles away since graduating high school, we talk just about every single day.

So it is almost reassuring that Reilly Kate and I clash. When I am at my very wits end with her, Mike will say to me, "Did you expect anything different? You and she are just like your mom and you." Then I know that despite it all, despite all the battles past and those yet to come (God, please, gift me with the ability to survive, just merely survive, her teen years!), we will be unusually close.

I know we will be great friends someday. I look forward to it. She's a really interesting character. She tells great stories, has an infectious laugh with a brilliant smile, is deeply spiritual, has NO fashion sense, is a bit of a social misfit, and talks way too much. She is just my kind of gal. Almost perfect perfected. Almost.

Happy birthday, baby Kate. We've got a few more rounds to go. Are you up for it, my girl?