A short wish list

In no particular order, my wish list, dear Santa: - For the faceless nameless banks who own our Boston real estate to approve our short sale. - For Millennials to use "literally" sparingly & appropriately. - For the cancerous cells attacking someone I deeply love to take a permanent vacation. - For Ryan on "Parenthood" to magically overcome his PTSD and marry Amber and let them have billions of babies with buzzcuts. - For more Bikram yoga, fresh guacamole, and AFAR Magazine in my life. - For inspiration to finish my manuscript. - For Michelle Obama and Terry Gross to become my best friends. - For a little dusting of snow. - For a sounder understanding of what I am doing here. - For a Fulbright to the South of France to research its beaches and pastry. - For photos of bikini betties standing in a conga line sucking in their stomachs to be banned from Facebook. - For my children to keep greeting me like Rosie O'Donnell greeted Tom Cruise on her show in 1996. - For Fifty Shades of Gray to disappear. - For my husband to keep loving me something fierce in spite of the frequent loss of my keys and glasses. - For my keys and glasses to not so frequently disappear. - For the Mac spinning wheel of death to only happen to pretty people. Just kidding. Haha, but imagine! - For the whole thing with Syria and Israel and Palestine and other sovereign nations along the Mediterranean to really just work it out for once and for all. - For students to cease beginning questions with, "So did you want us to...?" - For more love in my heart and less cavities in my teeth.

What about you?

*** Baby Girl's sabbath school class has been playacting out the Nativity story. She was underwhelmed by the role of Wise Man toting myrrh.

The role of Mary was truly impressive, however.

They were so cute in antlers, trust.

Dear Cousin Justin

Thank you so much for spending your hard-earned paid time off from sourcing Canada with raw fuels to come and visit us here in our little pocket of Eastern Tennessee sweetness. We hope you are recovered from early morning sounds of our children caterwauling in the kitchen as well as the oft-repeated chorus of whining for more mini-marshmallows.

I have a sneaking suspicion you discovered some crumbs from "super hard bread" in your pants pockets, or at least an errant steam engine trinket in your luggage. The kids are still quite dazzled with your abilities to guzzle so many liters of sweet tea and not have to pee every 3.5 seconds as they do all day.

By the way, I hope you still managed to see the majority of Rock City in spite of the fact that a makeshift port-o-potty was erected by my two children every five paces. Good grief. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Maybe in the coming weeks, a little part of you will long for veggie turkey loaf or a nutter fluffer sandwich or that pickled okra you left in our fridge.

In those times of longing, just think of us and say a prayer for us as we will for you and dream of the time when we can drive our hoopty Canyonero up to your hinterland of a province and experience all the delights that you and your love Angie adore in Calgary. We can't wait. We probably will all be able to hold our fluids better then, and maybe we won't watch as much "Busytown," but we'll still be your American FamiLee, raggedy crazed party of four.

Love you lots, Favorite Cousin!

- The FamiLee in Tennessee

Gag Reflex

Herein I will paint an image for you that is less than appetizing. Tonight I was bathing Little Man and out of the charity of my heart, I allowed him to handle my special paraben-free honey oatmeal loofah bar soap. And how does he thank me for this decadence?

He bites it, tasting the organic cleansing ingredients to dissatisfaction.

At which point he barfs a small clay-colored geyser of various snacky items--now in chunky liquid form--into the bathtub. Convenient since I can still rinse him off with no clothes on. Inconvenient because, when is ralphing convenient?

Anyway. I forgot about the upchuck splatterpaint in my bathtub (see also: kids to put to bed, kids to remind to brush their teeth and kids to remind I'm not going to brush their teeth this time and then kids whose teeth I am brushing, sigh). A couple of hours later, I rediscovered the bath art and, while replaying the whole epic Little Man sneak puke attack as I scrubbed the tub, the thought struck me:

I've been doing the same thing as Little Man for a while now.

Tasting something that sort of seems a bit unpleasant and then, gack, everything that I had rumbling in my tumbly for months comes roaring up my throat.

Do you ever do this?

You think you're cool, you're dealing, things aren't always easy but you're coping, even and in spite of an unfavorable evaluation at work, poor sleep from babes who cry and/or dogs who snore, and bills that win at eating your paycheck before you got it...

And then SOMEONE just COULD NOT BE BOTHERED to re-line the stupid wastebasket in the bathroom and you find yourself TASTING THE SOAP.

It tastes sooo soapy. The potent taste of soap is too much. It's too much. There's more badness you're tasting. Actually, you're tasting bad things from 3 days ago. No! Three weeks ago. Oh, remember the bad thing you tasted 3 months ago and didn't tell anyone about?

In this moment, that bad taste is fair game. Chuck it up.

***

Lovey Loverpants, he is not a fan of the massive liquidation sale from the emporium of things that upset me that I have been stockpiling for days and weeks and months and maybe even years.

Sometimes I feel as though I cannot help myself, but mostly I feel that a part of growing up should be the ability to govern my feelings and thoughts like a character from a Jane Austen novel.

This is no plum assignment for someone who remembers everything that happened or was supposed to happen in hers and the lives of others, fictional and otherwise. Smile.

But the Lord is so provident to remember our own sins no more, to cast them into the ocean of oblivion. There is power in His hand that casts away and begins afresh to create in us new hearts over and over and over and over.

Take that bar of soap Lord and clean me out for your glory. Not just for my own expurgation. Amen.

*** Hope you had a delightful Mother's Day. I had a nice, chill weekend with my fambam. Went to church, ate some cupcakes, watched some "Jem and the Holograms," and even went to a wedding for two of my favorite students. Lovely all around.

(Thanks, Selena, for the pics!)