As she tucked her hair up under it, I noticed her posture relax and saw a wide smile spread over her face. I assumed it was the hat and made a mental note to get one for my older sister who was still ranting about me giving her Barbie dolls haircuts.
Before getting down on yourself about not being able to keep aloft as many plates as you'd like, remember that no one wears more hats than a plate spinner. On a typical day, you may find yourself donning any number of virtual chapeaus while you assume the roles of chef, limo driver, banker, or nurse.
My Mom took on these same roles, but kept it together by being a plate-spinning fashionista. Back when women covered their heads with pillbox hats and men wore fedoras, she followed the trends and did her best to make sure that her daughters followed. Dutifully, I tolerated at least one Easter bonnet for the obligatory photo op. Somewhere along the way, though, I turned my back on this fashion accessory.
With the exception of bad hair days, my head remains bare. However, having given up chocolate for Lent, during my most stressful moments, I have found myself prowling the stores for a swim cap.
~ Making the List ~
Sleep. It's something this plate spinner has a love/hate relationship with. I would just as soon end a sentence with a preposition as I would designate eight hours of my day to spend completely unconscious and drooling on my pillow. Yet, the benefits of sleep are well-documented and, I readily concede, so are the affects of sleep deprivation—kryptonite to any high-functioning plate spinner.
Still, sleep and I have a checkered past. It dates back to my early pre-caffeine days. Like it or not, bedtime on school nights was 8:00 pm sharp. I vividly remember laying there, wide awake, listening to the theme music of Laugh In coming from the TV in our living room. Not exactly lullaby material. When I'd still be awake to hear Ed McMahon announce, "Here's Johnny!" I knew sleep and I were just not going to get along.
I don't remember being especially hard to rouse, though. That was my older brother's department. On Christmas mornings, when our parents would declare that we couldn't open a single gift until he joined us, my sisters and I always rose to the occasion. Armed with squirt guns and as much patience as we could muster, we'd have him awake and happily tearing through presents in no time flat.
These days, my brother would enjoy the fact that I seem to be suffering from some cruel form of reverse insomnia. Falling asleep is a breeze. It's staying asleep that I'm having problems with. It brings out the worst in me and my grammar. While I've tried all sorts of ways to rectify the matter—everything from deep breathing to watching C-SPAN to reading my AP style manual, I have found that nothing works better than making a list.
The act of transferring the "to dos" swirling around in my head to paper relieves the burden entirely. The list, however, is never-ending. Even at the end of my most productive days, a stray task will wake me up at 3:00 am, nagging at me to get up and write it down. Granted, I may not always be able to make out what I scribble down during the course of the night. It's not unusual for my family to find me, first thing in the morning, squinting at a piece of paper, trying to determine if I am supposed to "buy garbage stickers" or "bag gorilla slickers."
Choosing to not be hampered by this sleep disruption, I consider it the first tier of my three-level, no-fail wake up system. If, after transferring the item to my list, I happen to fall back to sleep, my alarm clock stands at the ready. In the event of a power outage, there's always the last resort—a child, and I'm not naming names, packing a loaded squirt gun and thinking that waking me up is more important than making it to second grade.
~ Savoring Summer ~
With the last day of school several weeks behind us, as a plate spinner with school-aged children, I've been taking advantage of the long, somewhat less-encumbered days of summer by sleeping in just a bit more, lounging at the pool, weather permitting, and, instead of slaving over a hot Crock-Pot all day, cooking on the grill. Having lulled myself into a false sense of relaxation, I was recently jolted to my senses by the appearance of school supplies on store shelves—a blaring reminder that the new school year is just around the corner.
While some plate spinners may have had the opportunity to take advantage of school-sponsored fundraisers offering pre-packaged school supplies that will magically appear on their child's desk prior to the first day of class, others of us may have declined, not wanting to miss out on the thrill of the hunt for erasers, loose-leaf paper, and gallon-sized plastic bags (what these have to do with a child's learning experience, I do not know, but apparently, they're necessary). For this adrenaline-charged group, the members of which who have yet to so much as glance at their children's school supply lists, store ads touting the best prices on these items serve as a battle cry.
In my house, before planning any supply-stocking excursion, I check our lists against what we already have in our bulging school supply bin—a large plastic container into which we deposit items left over from the previous year as well as extra inventory accumulated when we've stockpiled on things not necessarily needed at the start of the school year, but irresistibly priced during the school year. These come in particularly handy if, in the event that one of the boys tells us the night before a big project is due that he needs some construction paper, poster board, or glitter glue, we're covered. As I pry off the lid, I am relieved to see that no one's half-empty lunch bag was dumped, forgotten, along with stubby, eraser-less pencils and cracked plastic rulers.
With five boys at three different levels of their education—one in elementary, two in middle school, and two in high school, I set my plates aloft and review the lists, noting the variance in length between the youngest and oldest. While our kindergartner's is full of items easily pulled from the bin, our high-schoolers' appear to need fewer, but costlier items like a graphing calculator, new running shoes, and a new car. Recognizing my oldest's handwriting, I ignore the last entry.
List in hand, I begin checking off items while rummaging through the bin's contents. Trying in vain to convince my youngest that an old Sponge Bob lunch bag is still cool in a retro sort of way, my middle school boys begin assessing the condition of last year's backpacks.
Next, I confer with my high-schoolers.
My soon-to-be sophomore shrugs. "A couple notebooks and some pens ought to do it."
Check.
Heading for the door, car keys in hand, my oldest hurriedly blurts, "Don't worry about it. I'm good."
A nice pause before the "outfitting-the-dorm-room" shopping we'll be immersed in this time next year. I skeptically watch as he leaves, wondering how much time the rest of us can squeeze in over at the pool before it closes.
~ Sizing Up Summer Break ~
With summer break in sight, my boys are making no effort to hide their excitement over the promise of long, unstructured days. I, on the other hand, am torn. If anything, my workload will intensify, and with kids afoot, I'll have that many more plates to spin.
Unlike my older boys who have internships, mission trips, and cross-country practice to fill much of their time, my younger guys are in danger of wiling away their break plopped in front of the Wii. Unstructured, yes, but their summer would hardly be a true break.
Tempted as I am to let them run around with the sprinkler in the backyard and install a deadbolt on my home office door, I may resort to enrolling them in swim lessons at our park district and a camp or two.
Still it saddens me to think that they won't be able to enjoy anything close to the carefree summers I experienced as a kid.
Having spent my summers completely untethered, I am none the worse for wear. My sister and I would leave our house after breakfast and not return until we heard our dad's trademark wolf whistle. No one ever worried where we were, if we remembered to pack a snack, if we forgot our water bottle, or if we remembered to slather ourselves in sunscreen. There wasn't a cell phone or video game in sight.
The smooth streets and sidewalks of our relatively new neighborhood beckoned and we would s
pend hours on end riding our bikes and roller-skating with our friends. The mark of a good summer was how bleached out our hair got, how tan we were, and how many scars we had on our kneecaps.
It just wouldn't be summer, though, without a trip to the emergency room. The doctors were on a first name basis with my sister, who was a frequent visitor, starting with the time she stepped on a two-by-four that had a nail sticking out of it. Then there was the time she wiped out on her bike at the end of our block.
None of us saw exactly what happened, but we heard it. Her bike's screeching tires, the metal crumpling, and a loud oof as her body thumped on the cement. By the time we reached her, her tangled Schwinn was in a heap on the grass and she was lying on the sidewalk clutching her knee. We did our best to help her home. Once school started again, dressed in her plaid parochial skirt, she proudly showed off her scars like a badge of honor. Good times.
Knock on wood, aside from a bad bee sting and a cell phone that was mortally wounded when it took an unscheduled dip in the pool, my boys have enjoyed injury-free summers. Still, not wanting to tempt fate, maybe it would be a good idea to get a well-stocked first aid kit before school lets out. I can leave it out by the sprinkler.
~ Cool Ideas for a Sweltering Summer ~
The last thing a busy plate spinner needs is sweaty hands. Since gloves just aren't a good look for me—especially with shorts and a tank top, I try to avoid the feel of hot, humid air on my skin as much as possible.
To say that summer isn't one of my favorite seasons would be like saying Donald Trump isn't hurting for cash.
Still, when the heat indices climb into triple digits, keeping cool can certainly be a challenge. With every ceiling fan in the house whirring on warp speed, our household cooling system is doing all it can to keep up the outrageous demands I keep putting on our ancient thermostat. I set it to seventy-two—it inches up to seventy-five. I set it to sixty-eight—it brazenly escalates to eighty.
Theoretically, the pool should offer some relief. However, the thought of standing side-by-side with other sweltering bodies in the scorching sun and in water that is warm enough to cook a chicken—well, it just doesn't hold any appeal.
As I write this, I am saving my file every few keystrokes for fear the power company might come knocking.
The thought of no A/C in this balmy weather is one dreadful prospect.
Of course, in the event that ComEd can't keep up with demand, it would be smart to have a backup plan. Yes, there are cooling centers peppered throughout highly-populated areas, but I'd like to suggest the following backup plan just in case you'd like to take matters into your own sweaty hands.
1. Keep the windows and doors closed for as long as possible to keep the artificially-cooled air inside. Restrict any extraneous movement, including any and all housework.
2. Eat the entire inventory of popsicles and ice cream bars in your freezer before they liquefy. Save the sticks to make handheld fans (à la Martha Stewart).
3. Shimmy into your swimwear, even if you wouldn't be caught dead wearing it in public. Remember, you can find a world of forgiveness in a yard of spandex.
4. Ladies, make a quick dash to your garden to snag a flower blossom and tuck behind your ear. Guys, do the same, but be sure to retain the stem, so you can clench it between your teeth.
5. Put little umbrellas in all of the beverages you serve your family—everything from chocolate milk to Hawaiian Punch to bottled water.
6. Pull a Don Ho single out of the box of records you inherited when your parents downsized, pop it onto your kids' Fischer Price turntable and crank it.
7. Teach the kids a hula line dance.
8. Host a faux luau by having your young ones rhythmically drum on upturned pots and your older ones wave the grill lighters (set to "high flame") in the air while you serve up PB&Js sprinkled with shredded coconut.
9. After the kids go to bed, set up a couple of lawn chairs next to the filled kiddie pool in the backyard and invite your sweetie to join you for a drink "on the beach."
There…now don't you feel cooler? Aloha oe!
~ A Foreigner to Free Time ~
As this week dawned, my family calendar was awash in white space. No Scouts, no team practices, no work hours for my husband or I. Nothing.
A rare trifecta, my kids had spring break, I was able to seize a well-timed pause between projects, and my husband, typically up to his tax tables in returns at this time of year, cautiously admitted that a vacation might be imminent.
This didn't seem possible a few weeks back. Deep in the clutches of my unrelenting schedule, when I could only surface for air between work, chauffeuring the kids, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, and all of the other superhero stuff working parents do, I had a fleeting day dream.
I boarded a boat bound for Free Time, a land where all manner of to-do's were banned. Once there, I'd have to declare my intent to relax and rejuvenate before the customs officials would even stamp my passport. Safe within its borders, I would sleep in, fill my days want-to's, and sleep soundly at night without a care in the world.
"Just one day," I sighed wistfully as I stared at the image of a project schedule on my laptop monitor, unaware that I had not yet pressed the mute button on my phone.
"One day? Really?" My program manager seemed quite pleased.
Slapped back into reality, I blinked, trying to discern what I had just committed to.
Fumbling, I replied, "Uh, no, wait—let me get back to you on that."
And so here we are, on day three of our visit to Free Time. My husband, skittish about mingling with the locals, has done little more than dip his toe in Lake Free Time, working nearly as much as he did with an appointment-packed schedule.
"Good thing we didn't plan a trip away somewhere, huh?" he sagely announced when he walked through the door last night.
As for me, I reluctantly crossed my fingers while vowing, in the presence of the Free Time customs officers, to relax and rejuvenate. As a result, assimilating to this strange place is impossible. Try as I might, I still wake up at the usual 5:30 am and my lists are still rife with to-do's.
Since I'm here illegally, I've decided to don my June Cleaver disguise, pearls and all. No one, and I mean no one, will recognize me as I make waffles, from scratch, and get a jump on the grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry just so I can see to it that the boys make the most of their time here.
So far, so good. No one's blown my cover, and they have fully immersed themselves in the Free Time culture. Sleeping in until 9:00 am or later, they fill their days with video games, trips to the movies, and basically whatever the heck they want—as long as it doesn't land anyone in the emergency room.
And, while they're away, I try to resist the pull of my work laptop lest I be deported—which would be a shame, really, because I would very much like to return someday. Alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Good Plates Don't Bounce
~ Father's Day in Memoriam ~
The third Sunday of June is fast approaching. For most plate spinners, it's time to look for a gift that the paternal figure in their lives will love.
For others, though, it's a day best skipped. Separated from their fathers by distance or death, many children of all ages spend their day in quiet reflection.
I admit—I've rarely given this second group a second thought.
I am always so busy trying to figure out what new thing I can get my husband—the guy who keeps claiming he already has all he ever wanted.
If I just took a clue from my sister, Ann, it might save me the trouble. She always gets her husband of nearly thirty-six years the same thing—an outing to a Kane County Cougars game with the whole family.
Until this year.
Don, my brother-in-law and the other half of my sister since they started dating at sixteen, passed away very recently. He was relatively young and fit. On hearing the news, my thoughts immediately turned to Ann. Then, one by one, I began thinking of my niece and ne
phews, worrying about how they'd cope. Although grown, their lives had radically changed in an instant.
I pushed back my own fond memories and despair as I clutched my boys and whispered in their ears, "No tears. Uncle Don wouldn't want you crying now."
As we huddled around my sister and her kids like a human cocoon made up of extended family members, we tried our best to cushion the blow. Small gestures like making phone calls, helping with arrangements, bringing food, and doling out hugs, were all we could do to stave off the nagging feeling of helplessness.
The next night, we gathered again at her house to prepare photo displays for his visitation. Some would be on poster boards—some would be on a continually-running DVD that would play at the funeral home while friends, colleagues, and distant relatives arrived to pay their respects.
We popped it in and turned on the TV. With Sinatra singing "My Way," we blinked back the tears and relived the highlights of his life starting with his baptism, moving onto a fishing trip with his dad, group shots with his siblings, a high school prom picture with my sister, and all of the Christmases, birthday parties, weddings, and new babies that came after.
As the tape ended, my sis dabbed her eyes and let out a long sigh before proclaiming, "Well, no Cougars game this year."
As we all hung our heads in reverence, she quietly promised, "Maybe next year."
We turned our attention to the blank poster boards and piles of old pictures. It was time to assemble the tapestry of Don's life.
The Plate Spinner Chronicles Page 11
