Mom, can you get me my kitty book and bring it to me?

Child, do you see what I am doing?

Yes.

What am I doing?

Cooking my dinner.

**

Round here we beat back the selfishness with some good old fashioned manual labor. Potato planting season helps:

A little dirt under the fingernails…

A start in the the ground turning into the food for the table…

A little seed deep into the heart…

It does them good and me even more good, for you see, round here I’m Chief Selfish. When it comes to planting I’m much quicker on the roots of self and bitterness than the potatoes. God save me.

So we beg forgiveness and dig together and plant a little something that might grow into a big something that feeds our hearts and souls and bellies.

And then we paint fingernails and talk about princesses because Ew, they were dirty.

 

 

Sssssshhhh…

Hear that?

Real still…

Stiller…

Ah, there it is: Winter.

 

Bitty G has taken to calling me “The Cold One,” and David, “The Warm One.” What does one do with that? For, you see, it is not entirely untrue. I’m cold all the time these days. And it probably doesn’t help that I’m continually asking her if I can warm up my coldy-cold hands in her armpits.

SHE LOVES IT SO VERY MUCH.

Or not at all probably, but it gets the silliest giggle out of her that makes passers-by stop and smile and also might help to end this little situation we have on our hands known as Hate in America.

Maybe I’ll take my coldy-cold hands and lift her up as high as I can and tickle her for all to hear. That’ll surely knock some sense into folks, yes? Purpose, people, vision. Lookee me being all opinionated and political.

So long as we’re here I might as well mention I prefer my 60 Minutes Oprah-free, JUST IN CASE ANYONE’S LISTENING, DRAGGAN MIHAILOVICH. I see you and your awesome name. It’s cool, you can call me Dragon. Now see me and my very simple request to keep corporate magnates out of my long-form news.

LOOK HOW POLITICAL I AM TODAY LET ME SHOW YOU SOME PICTURES OF MY AWESOME KIDS.

For now, around here, all’s quiet on the Deep Southern front.

 

We’ve had a few snow days and a couple “snow” days, which is just how I like it.

Join me, won’t you, in celebrating the seasons? Let’s wrap our arms tight around all four of ’em, all for their different reasons, like children we love all the same and yet very differently all at once. And especially like children who squeal and giggle at coldy-cold hands in their pitters, laughing loud enough to bring a smile to the face of a passing neighbor. And also possibly Draggan Mihailovich.

I’m basically a pumpkin patch proprietor.

Not one, nay, but two…count ’em…TWO pumpkins have successfully grown in the backyard.

{2.5 if you count the especially wonky one that’s still on the vine.}

Let’s do some quick mathing:

Last year something {probably slugs} ate my vines. Sum total: zero pumpkins

The year before that the seeds didn’t even sprout for no reason I could fathom. Sum total: nil pumpkins

BUT THIS YEAR.

Oooooooooh. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. And the purchased pumpkins beside them are all, “Who are you?”

This growing season we started off a bit slow, but then a friend showed us how to help them along with a little pollination-assistance. You say AWK. I say WARD. I guess even the Squash Family benefits from a little eHarmony.

I’m touting my pumpkin abilities as I may be failing at many other endeavors. When you ask bitty G what she plans to be for Halloween she says, “Bitty G.” We may have struck a compromise for tomorrow’s preschool Pumpkin Day. She will be sporting her “scary pajamas.” The only scary thing about them right now is I’m not sure if they’ve been washed since last wear and I’d much rather blog than do wash….so….scary pajamas it is. Watch out for the stains of unknown origin.

Bitty G has entirely redeemed this remarkable resistance to traditional Halloween attire by asking if we can, “Go on a punkin hunt,” almost every day on the way to school in which we shout “PUNKIN!” every time we see a porch festooned in pumpkins. It’s all levels of awesome and I want to pull the car right on over and gnaw on her while she’s so little and gnawable. But then she’d be all, “Mom, I’m four.” And I’d be all, “And that’s it, no bigger, okay?” And she’d be all, “Okay, I promise,” because she’s the one more inclined to obedience and respect.

No, bitties, no never grow up, not me, not I, not nobody.

Come pick punkins at our punkin patch next year. I’m pretty sure I can talk the hubby into a corn maze.

 

Listen, kids are no joke.

And the “taking care of kids”-thing…also no joke.

So much not a joke that when one finds oneself with other interests, like, say, reading or baking or gardening or writing or time alone in the toilet…well, shame on you, silly, silly, selfish-thing.

School just started back for us, which means I am now, once again, the blissful recipient of what many deem “alone time.” And during this alone time, when I am not wiping something or picking up the destructive remnants of those who just left me alone, I like to write. And think. (Terrible, horrible habit…wish I could break it.) It’s not that this writing and thinking doesn’t happen with the bitties around, it just looks a little different, abides by a very different (and much earlier) time table, and tends to get, how shall we say, incessantly interrupted. So while my fall seedlings are a-sprouting, the rabbits are quiet, and the bitties are away, I thought I’d give you a peek behind the metaphorical curtain–a summer day in the life of a writer with two small children.

me: It was a dark and stormy night…

bitty E: Watcha doin’, mom?

me: Writing.

E: Bout what?

me: Something for joegardener.

E: Is he the one on TV?

me: Yep.

E: Can we watch TV?

me: Now? Nope. Go play.

E: How about later?

me: Perhaps.

E: Perhaps is French for maybe.

me: Yep.

E: Can I do a project? I only need glitter, a hot glue gun, extra large craft paper, a heat sensor, and a hairdryer. I saw it in the Highlights.

me: Go play. Now.

me: It was a dark cloudy and stormy blustery ni…

bitty G: Hello.

me: Hello.

G: Do you like green?

me: I do like green.

G: Because lizards are green and you don’t like lizards.

me: Why don’t you go work a puzzle?

G: I can’t.

me: Why not?

G: Because I like magenta. You like green but I like magenta.

*leaves room now that all is clear

me: *deleting everything off page. It was a moderately bright and somewhat drizzly day…

E (yelling): MOM!

me: Is everyone ok?

E: Does pooter start with “p”?

me: *blinks.

E: Does it?

me: Why are you writing the word pooter?

E: *appearing in office doorway, agitated both by having to get up and my idiocy. MOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOM.

me: *silence

E: Hey when you were in college weren’t you a tooter?

me: I was a tutor, and it’s a different thing.

E: *snickers

me: *snickering a little myself

E: Yeah, but did they call you tooter?

me: No, they called me Holly.

E: Like Tooter Holly?

me: Maybe, but not to my face.

G, appearing in doorway: Hello.

E, irritated by mere presence of younger sibling: BITTY GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

me: Hey. How about you two choose kindness and go play (insert current toy compulsion here).

E: Nah. We’ll hang out with you.

me: Five minutes?

E: Ok. C’mon, Bitty G.

me: It was a bright and sunny day…

E: Has it been five minutes yet?

me: Just the sort of day to tickle one’s children until they turn purple… *shuts laptop.

G: Hello. Watch me ballet.

Bitty E told me to take this very picture. “For the blog,” she said. Clearly she’s got a grip on readership, whose main collective attribute is “not at all creeped out by footless fairies.”

Happy fall, y’all. May you not be cut off at the knees by distraction.

And may you have lots and lots of tickle time.

Ya know…IT’S COOL, garden. Everybody needs to party once in a while. Everybody needs to cut loose…

let their hair down…

pretend nobody’s watching,

go all Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton circa 2007.

You, garden, seem to go all crazy whenever me and my people head for the hills. And really, I don’t blame you. You know you won’t be picked on, bothered, plucked, twisted, gnarled, or peed on {the dog, not the bitties, we’ve made it that far, geez…}

So have at it. Have your fun while I have mine.

Just one promise?

Make sure there’s plenty of this when I get back:

Cause I sure do like to do plenty of this to spread around the neighborhood.

 

If you’ve been missing your regular dose of gardening hijinx, well, peace be with you, and maybe you should also see a counselor. But for realz, you can find me on Fridays at the most excellent joegardener.com blog. Just look for the awkward that doesn’t quite seem to fit. Not in the Mariah Carey nude bodysuit kind of way but more in the Mary Katherine Gallagher I don’t know what to do with my hands kind of way. I’ll quit now. Promise.