There are just some phrases that you never expect to hear stepping out of the shower from your children. "Mom?" is almost always a precursor to tattling or a whiny plea to eat something forbidden 20 minutes before dinner's ready. Sometimes- no, most of the time- they don't even wait for me to get out of the shower. They just barge in to talk to me. So naturally, last Friday when I was getting ready for date night with my husband, I was not prepared for the ever-annoying "Mom?" to be followed by, "the dishwasher's on fire." Any other sentence with the word fire in it would have prompted me to grab my towel and run, but the dishwasher? I had to quiz him to be sure he knew what he was talking about before I was willing to go check. The kid was correct in his assessment-it wasn't just steam from the drying cycle, but it wasn't a big deal with flames shooting out and melting plastic either. That was a relief because the fire extinguisher often gets "accidentally" sprayed in the pantry, so I don't know if it would have been any help in the event of a true blaze.
Thankfully, and only by the grace of God, who knows full well the limits of my sense of humor, we found a nice dishwasher on sale Saturday, so I went less than 24 hours without a working machine. But just in case you thought this was short and sweet, let me just say, the hubby and I chose to DIY it. Here are some tips for you in the event that you and your better half also decide to put in your own dishwasher:
1. Make sure you have a working flashlight and an empty stomach because you are about to be spending a lengthy amount of time laying in your floor flat on your belly looking into a dark chasm of wires and tubing. Oh yeah, you may want to sweep up first.
2. Do you know how to drain a dishwasher full of water that has no power? I'll give you a hint, you'll spend some time washing towels later. And if you're sitting in the floor trying to contain the water as it drains, you're going to be driving to Home Depot with a wet butt.
3. We've installed two dishwashers now (no, we aren't responsible for the flaming one), and based on our experience, the minimum number of trips to the home improvement store during installation is three. One to buy the new machine, one to get a part that was not included in the box and too corroded to salvage from the old one, and one to buy a new water line after you break the current one. These can occur in any order, but you'll look and smell like work when you get there, and have both the afore-mentioned wet rear end and wrinkle lines on your face from the angry exchanges between you and your spouse in between said trips to the store.
4. If  you or your spouse wonders, "should we just go buy a new [fill in the blank] instead of trying to use the old one?" The answer is always YES! After you spend an hour or more trying to get the old thing to fit or reach, you'll be mad at each other and end up buying it anyway. Then after the new part goes in easily on the first try, that same spouse who didn't want to spend the extra money will say something helpful like, "if we had just bought it in the first place, we'd have been finished about two hours ago." And that's a can of worms that should just stay closed.
5. If at any time during the process of repositioning the new machine to fit into the counter space, you are on the floor and your mate tells you, "just stay right there." You better fake a bathroom emergency and run out of the room lest you should find your head wedged between the dishwasher and a cabinet. Just trust me on this one.
6. Lowe's charges $120 for professional installation. That's all! If you pay yourself and your spouse minimum wage for your time plus dinner out (because that's the unwritten rule of installation-you must eat away from the kitchen when you're done!), you may not be saving yourself any money.
Good luck to you, and may God have mercy on your marriage.

My Last Nerve Must Be Made of Steel!

There are some mom phrases that my kids won't accept. For instance, I tell them they're driving me crazy, and the 5 year old always says, "we're not even in the car. How can we be driving?" Every time. And yet, I can't stop myself from saying it when they are in fact driving me out of my mind. The other thing is, "you're on my last nerve." I say it to the kids, the dog, and on occasion, the husband. The same child muttered under her sweet breath not long ago when I told her that, "you ALWAYS tell us that." I just told her, "yeah, well it's lucky for you that it's such a strong nerve."
And she is! They all are! Some days I feel like I am a hair's breadth away from ending up on the evening news. The amount of restraint I can pack into that one last nerve is really astounding. Like just now...the girl is fascinated with the this Gyrobowl she has seen on TV. It cradles food in a weighted two-bowl system so that the food always stays upright and doesn't spill. GENIUS! I can only imagine the hours of vacuuming goldfish out of the car I could have saved myself if we had had those! However, as the youngest is about to be 3, I can't bring myself to spend the $15 plus shipping on them now. Enter the 5 year old. She has goldfish in a bowl, stacked in another bowl with small handles. I was typing and didn't SEE what transpired, but here's the auditory playback from 2 minutes ago:
"Look! I have my own Gyrobowl!"
[sound of goldfish hitting leather sofa]
"oops. ZELLLL_DAAAA" (Zelda's the dog/vacuum cleaner and the only reason I didn't bother turning around. She had it cleaned up before my last nerve had a chance to even waver)
I have only myself to blame though. I actually PRAY for patience! I thought that's what you were supposed to do as a parent of young, adventurous children, but my loving spouse reminds me that God gives us opportunities to PRACTICE patience. Nooo thank you! But I guess it's too late for me. I have prayed, and now I am in patience boot camp. And in the middle of my drills, I am left to wonder, do our "nerves" regenerate on a constant basis so that the kids, dog, and husband need only to lay low until some new ones can form and join forces with that last one, or am I really down to my last nerve? If so, they should build bullet-proof armor out of that!

When I grow up...

I have reached a pivotal moment in my life where I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. It's the thing my mother and grandmother told me as a kid I was destined to be but I refused to consider. So much so in fact that I spend 6 years in college being mediocre at something I thought I really wanted to do, even though it kicked my hiney. (hence the 6 years for only one degree!) Also, the entire time I was determined to get that degree and stay the course, I questioned constantly if that was something I really wanted to do as a career. I still feel the same about my degree 9 years after graduating as I did in the middle of school, so I think that means I didn't follow my passion.
I want to write. I would love to be a published author and get paid to sit in front of this computer and pour my stories into beautiful masterpieces that will entertain people. And while I type away, my income would pay for some sweet, efficient lady to take over my household duties while the kids are in school, and as soon as it's time to pick them up, I would morph into super mom-someone not tired from mopping and ironing, someone not frustrated from a trip to the grocery store, and someone not wondering what to make for dinner. That part wouldn't be my job anymore! It's good to have dreams.
Then reality whacks me in the face. I have spent exactly NO time of my 30-something years cultivating my portfolio or working toward a tangible goal of writing professionally. Changing directions midstream with 3 young children and several bathrooms that depend on me to care for them seems impossible. On the other hand, when I was  younger woman, I didn't have as much to write about. Becoming a parent and walking through some raging storms of life have given me more inspiration. It's a catch 22. Perhaps by the time they're grown, the kids will have given me enough material for a novel! In the meantime, I'm thinking of reading my stories aloud to the dog as I scrub toilets.