2 alarm fire

Dearest children, Something happened tonight that was a little heart-stopping.

I think the world actually held still when I realized that I had left a pot holder in the oven by accident.

And that the oven was cranked up to 450 degrees.

So, the pot holder was aflame inside the oven, which is highly ironic when you think about the fact that a potholder is supposed to protect your hand from getting burned.

Instead it was doing a really good job of being totally flamboyant.

Because this wasn't just another stop off on your mother's hot mess express train, like how she gets dressed for the gym in the dark every day so she arrives wearing yoga pants inside out and two different shoes--No, it turned a shade more serious rather swiftly.

Little Man, you emerged to watch your mother think fast as to whether the house was equipped with a fire extinguisher or was that a house at which she babysat in 1994?

You saw her take a cloth diaper out of a cabinet and use the cloth diaper as a POTHOLDER to remove the potholder aflame in the oven.

You said, "Fire! Oh, fire! Oh, gonna call the fire trucks! Fire trucks coming!" but you didn't get hysterical which was a boon to your mother's ability to extinguish the fire from a potholder with an ad hoc potholder.

Little Man, you then stood frozen as both smoke detectors in the kitchen started mouthing off yelling, "WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE"

You watched as your mother regained her senses and held the two potholders under a running faucet and managed handily to save the kitchen that does not belong to her, even though burning down the house would totally have gone along with the theme of this past year and damaged property. Hah. Just tryin' to be thematic I was!

After your 4'10" mother somehow got the smoke alarms on the ceiling to shut their big mouths, you looked at me with some tears in your eyes and I thought you were scared and maybe you were a little, but really it was more probably the smoke irritating your sweet little brown eyes.

Baby Girl, I'd just like to thank you for being unflappable as well, and by that I mean I want to thank you for sitting in the other room and turning two deaf ears to the smoke alarms and panic attacks happening in the next room, staying completely and absolutely occupied on your mother's laptop, probably picking out Cinderella's outfit for princess pilates on DisneyJunior.com. I know it was hard to stay that focused and not be tempted to come and see if everyone was okay, but far be it from me to say you weren't taking one for the team.

I still love the guts out of both of you and am glad we and our kitchen escaped this culinary crisis fairly unscathed.

Love, Mama *** Little Man by my side

Baby Girl gaming with her boy Tiny C.

Theology 101

Mom, remember the Tabernacle? Oh no, Child. You think I am so elderly that I am from ye Bible times of old. Oh, no, I don't know much about it.

I know about it. I learned about it at school. We watched a video!

Oh. Who built the tabernacle?

Moses. Oh good. That was my first guess. Oh yeah? What did it look like?

Well, it didn't look like our churches. It was a tent. A tent with a box in the middle. That's where the Ten Commandments lived. On the roof of the box were golden angels. And also there was a place where Moses and his brother could wash their feet.

Moses had a brother? Was his name Aaron? Wait--isn't Aaron the name of Elvis Presley's twin who died? Oh! Wow. That is so wonderful that you remember so much about the tabernacle.

Yah.

Have mercy.

Homework Grades

The rigamarole began for me this week. I put on the non-T-shirt and the non-shorts and went to work. I felt so much better about my syllabi this year. You best believe we professor types fret over the syllabizzle. I mostly stare at the wide gaping space between FALL BREAK and THANKSGIVING and wonder HOW WILL WE FILL THE TIME? and then I get over myself and figure, aw, let's read a book or something. Sound good? I know you want to take this class now, pahah! School. It's always hard to get back into the rhythm of being away from my kids for long stretches at a time. I feel like I need to be scrambling to finish things so I can rush back to be with them, but then I remember that my daughter is at school and my son is napping per usual and I go back to staring at my syllabi HOW AGAIN WILL WE FILL THE TIME???

A privilege of being a parent who works outside the home is having the "novelty hours" where you are the hot commodity. You are not the one whose presence your kids take for granted. No, in fact, you are the Biebs! Live! In Concert! Right in your own living room. Then they get over you and have a meltdown about having to eat the crust of their grilled cheese. Whatever. It is still good to be the rock star for 35 seconds a day.

I really enjoyed picking Baby Girl up from school today. She showed me the fish tank and the case with the tarantula (I know, I still enjoyed pick-up today!) and held my hand as we walked out to the car. As I was buckling her into her car seat, she said something curious. She said, "Mom, I don't have to be sad that Hadley is in another grade now. Because when people get into the homework grades, they're still the same person."

I mean, first of all, "homework grades"? Is that not slightly adorable? And the fact that she feared people becoming different people THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO DO HOMEWORK reveals a little bit of that innocent heart that I know we all once had.

I am not so far corrupted that I don't understand what it is to fear the "upper grades." I can still identify with the fear of not being equipped for writing cursive and wondering how those Big Kids taught themselves to read silently INSIDE THEIR HEADS without having to point at words and sound them out. I remember so clearly wondering whether when my baby sister got older, if she would know all of us. I didn't understand gradual progression. I could only focus on the great leaps that I believed necessary for reaching certain precipices in life. Oh those fearful homework grades.

I didn't quite have the perfect assurance for Baby Girl but she seemed to have come to the conclusion on her own that people who moved up to homework grades were still approachable and not totally elite and 8' tall.

From the looks of things, e.g. from the picture texts her wonderful teacher sends me, she is going to be okay.

Appendix A