What the kids are saying

Overheard last weekend as IM and NB were on the porch, making potions out of bubble solution, salt, and grass:
IM: Our potion is going to make us invisible. I am very good at making potions. NB--
NB: My name is Toby.
IM: No, NB, we're not playing pretend!

From the backseat, while I was driving through town:
LW: Mommy, 'lado [helado, Spanish for ice cream] mouth me yum yum. [Then, apparently thinking we had a translation problem because I wasn't pulling into the ice cream place.] Mommy, ice cream me mouth lick lick.

People are people

One of the things I like least about this job is confronting people who have been less than honest about the composition of their group. For example, we have a family staying here this weekend that booked two rooms for a total of four people. (A woman and her daughter in one room, her elderly parents in another.) Lo and behold, five people showed up for breakfast this morning. (The fifth seems to be an aide for the elderly parents.) Because of other people in the breakfast room, and because I was handling breakfast by myself this morning while Michael is on a one-night trip to Boston, I haven't had a chance to explain that there is an additional $15 charge per night for having a third person in the room. I am not looking forward to that. People usually get a bit snitty over it.

I also had a walk-in last night who, when asked how many people would be in the room, answered, "Just one. Just me." Then, when it looked like I might give him a room with one bed, said, "Well, I do have my daughter with me." I never saw the daughter, so I'm not sure how old she is.

The situations that really frustrate me are the ones where I'm almost positive the parents are lying about the age of the children--but of course I can't be sure, so I can't say anything. We don't charge for kids six and under, and I've seen some awfully large six-year-old kids. A lot of times, people hedge on the ages of the kids, so I've learned to get an exact age before I quote them a price. The "tiny" or "very young" children mentioned when they make the reservation frequently turn out to have hit puberty by the time the family shows up to stay.

Then there are the parents who are worried that we don't take young children (some places up here don't) and are trying to make their kids old enough for us to let them stay and young enough not to be charged. It's always tough trying to decide which lie to tell . . .

Things you shouldn't have to say

I've been paying more attention to food labels lately, for a couple of reasons. This week is the annual challenge in the Valley to eat only local food, so I'm paying attention to where my food comes from. I'm trying to reduce my consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which turns up in some surprising places. And NB and IM have a classmate with peanut allergies this year, so I have to make sure that the snacks they take to school are peanut free.

It's nice that the labels come right out and say clearly whether the food contains peanuts or was made in a plant that also makes products containing peanuts. But I did laugh out loud when I read on my jar of organic peanut butter "CONTAINS PEANUTS."

Some things you just shouldn't have to say.

Some parenting decisions are just easy

Michael and I haven't always agreed on parenting issues.

Which movies/games/books should the kids be allowed to watch/play/read? Should one of us get up with the baby in the middle of the night? And if so, who? When are kids old enough to pick their own hair style and length? How cold does it have to get before we prohibit EM from wearing shorts to school? We have had energetic discussion on all of these topics.

Some decisions, though, are easy.

Michael is up running errands in the big city today and he called me from Wal*Mart. "Can we agree right now that when IM is old enough to wear a training bra, we will not allow her to get one that has 'Hottie' across the front?" Uhm . . . yeah. No real thought needed on that one.

If only it was always that simple.

Deer

Monday night, driving back from EM's soccer game, I saw three deer--a group of two deer grazing in a meadow just north of town, and one poised on the edge of the road up the mountain.

"Look! Deer!" I said both times. The boys (EM and his teammate) were unimpressed, but animal sightings are one of the things I enjoy most about living here. You can't plan them or guarantee them, so they always seem like a gift.

Surprise!

In our kitchen this afternoon . . .

EM: Mom, does H_____ (our junior high and high school) have a football team?
Me: I'm pretty sure they do. Why?
EM: 'Cause I think I'd like to try out for the team next year.

Football? He wants to play football? Whatever gave him that idea?

It turns out that the boys have been playing football during recess, and EM has quite the interception streak going (five in three days). He thinks he's a pretty good player. Which he may very well be, but football just isn't the sport I thought he'd choose.

Soccer? Sure. He's been playing on the rec teams since he was four. Basketball? Why not? That's what Michael played for fun when he was growing up and EM has the long, lean look I associate with basketball players. But football? Is that even safe?

It's just one more example of what I've been pondering lately--life's endless ability to surprise me. Time and again, I've been walking along, enjoying the trip when BAM! out of nowhere comes something completely unexpected. An exciting opportunity drops in my lap. A business endeavor turns rocky. Someone I thought I knew very well turns out to have a side I never would have guessed.

Who could have known? And would I want to? My life has turned out so differently--in both good and challenging ways--from anything I imagined. I think I'm learning to accept that. And I'm thankful every day for the wonderful people with whom I share the journey.

(And on a completely unrelated note: If you were a toddler, where would you put the rubber sealant ring for the blender?)

Complications

This book is subtitled A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. It is imminently readable, with lots of anecdotes of patients he has seen (names changed, of course). My favorite chapters were the one that dealt with the difficulty of training surgeons without compromising patient care and the one that dealt with the difficulty of patient autonomy.

What do you do when initially switching to a new type of surgery to fix a heart defect in children leads to far more deaths, but once the doctors get used to doing the surgery the result is far fewer deaths and longer life spans? Did you know that although 64 percent of Americans say they would want to pick their cancer treatment, only 12 percent of cancer patients wanted to pick their treatment?

The Sparrow

Wow. Just wow. Michael is passionate about his dissatisfaction with the book's ending, but I wouldn't change a thing.

I spent every spare minute of Saturday and Sunday reading this book. Saturday night, my sleep was restless, and all my dreams involved the book. Four days later, I'm still thinking it over in the shower, while driving, while snuggling with the kids.

The Sparrow is the tale of a Jesuit priest who is the only survivor of the first human envoy to the planet Rakhat. It wrestles with some big theological questions, including, what does it mean when you feel you are following the direction of God only to end up in a horrible, horrible place?

The author was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism. She said, "When you convert to Judaism in a post-Holocaust world, you know two things for sure: one is that being Jewish can get you killed; the other is that God won't rescue you."

Beaver family

LW and I went for a walk along the beaver pond after dinner last night. It was a little later than we usually go--it was quite dark in the woods at the end of the walk--and we saw the whole beaver family. Dad, mom, and two young beavers. We got quite close to the parents. They were no more than 12 feet away, chewing on a tree branch we watched them pull through the water. The babies stayed further out in the pond, although one was practicing slapping the water with his tail.

Living in rural New England does have its advantages.

The best laid plans...

Just a note--letting your baby cry it out is only effective if he doesn't learn how to climb out of his crib!! Oh, I'm sorry. Was I shouting?

*sigh*

The first time he got out, I put him back in. (Granted I did hold him for a minute first while my tired, tired brain tried to figure out what to do.) He was out within minutes--in fact, he managed to knock the entire crib over on its side. I caught up with him halfway down the stairs. Who knows what mischief he was planning?

I know they make crib tents, but unfortunately, he has a non-standard-size crib. And our tired brains have yet to come up with a plan to keep him in his bed tonight. Well, that's not entirely true. I contemplated using bungee cords to fix a sheet of plywood to the top of the crib. For some reason, Michael thinks that's a bad idea.

All suggestions are welcome, but please express them in words of no more than one syllable.

How long until bedtime?

Not for the kids. For me.

It has really been a pleasant weekend. We've been full or almost full every night, but the guests have been cheerful, mostly self-sufficient, and polite. I haven't had to kick anyone out of the hot tub at midnight. No one has had friends calling them in the middle of the night. No one has smoked in a non-smoking room.

We did have a shoving match in the parking lot Friday morning, but one of the guys involved was checking out that morning anyway, so that put an end to it. And there was a clogged drain on Saturday that required a visit from the plumber, but the guests were low-key about it. Other than that we just had requests for more ice (easy to accommodate) and laundry service (no, sorry).

But Michael and I are both wrung out and ready for bed. Why, you ask? Well, he's about three feet tall with curly, blond hair and big, blue eyes. And he woke up four times last night. And two times the night before. Have I ever mentioned how much cuter he is when the sun is up?

For reasons I do not understand, LW needs to cry it out about once a fortnight. If you don't let him cry it out, but instead sit with him until he falls back asleep (even if you don't get him a bottle or talk to him), he wakes up more and more often every night until you do let him cry it out. However, I worry too much about the guests in room 1 being able to hear him scream to let him cry it out when that room is occupied. So, we've been getting up with him this weekend.

Michael has guests written into room 1 for the next three nights, but I'm hoping to put them in room 8 instead. I really need to sleep.*

In the meantime, my lofty goal for the day is to not scream at Michael or the kids.

* iPods with noise-cancelling headphones are a great asset to parents who are letting their kids cry it out. The headphones don't completely block out the crying, but they definitely take the edge off.

Oops

Last night I was just finishing up the breakfast prep and sitting down to read The Sparrow until it was time to close the office, when the front door creaked.

Oh, good, I thought. Our last room is checking in.

Sort of. It was someone here to check in, but not the person we were expecting. She claimed to have a confirmation number, which immediately raised flags because we don't give confirmation numbers. Turns out, she had filled out a reservation request online and somehow failed to notice the bold text saying, Your reservation is not confirmed until you have heard from us directly. She also didn't see the email we sent--she had indicated on the request that email was her preferred contact method--explaining that we had a three-night minimum for this weekend, and so were unable to book her a room for two nights. (We, fortunately, still had a copy of the email to show her.)

Thankfully, we were eventually able to find her a room that wasn't over a bar, that was in her budget, and that would take a toddler. I anticipate they will enjoy their stay at that B&B very much.

But dealing with the situation gave me quite an adrenaline rush and ate up all of my reading time.