"People don't know how to title things," the youngest grumbles as she plays with her iTunes. "Look at this. Someone's given me 'Fun, Fun, Fun' by the Beachboys, and they've..."

I join her. "...only capitalized the first word."

"Yeah!" she nods. "It's not a sentence, duh, it's a title."

I am so proud.

Parenting brings wisdom. Wisdom and humility.

Know why?

Not because of the mistakes you make and learn from, though of course they help. Not because you constantly run the risk of psychologically damaging your children. I think that risk is HUGELY over-rated by parents. Kids are just not that frail. (Look at how many parents are terrorized by their toddlers and teens. Frail? Pfft. Those small (and not-so-small) bullies are causing trauma, not receiving it.)

No, parenting brings wisdom, and a cold dose of humility, because you can see yourself in your kids. You see echoes of your younger self in their behaviour, and thus, you get an adult perspective on your own behaviour.

This particularly applies to adult children. My eldest is 23 now. A young adult, but an adult. Given that she's been living mostly on her own since she left for university, and that since graduation she's had a job in a different city and paid her own way completely, she's earned those adult stripes.

But she is a young adult.

We're just wrapping up a conflict, she and I, and a significant one. At one point, I greatly feared we were heading for another estrangement. We had one of those for the three years between 17 and 20, and I'd assumed that with adolescence behind us, we'd left that kind of thing with it. This week, I seriously questioned that assumption.

But it seems we'll make it out of these woods. And what have I learned?

1. Keep my opinions to myself.

Not that I am terribly forthcoming with them. Once they hit their late teens, my kids can go months without hearing an opinion. They get lots of questions bytimes, exploratory questions, not aggressive ones. But I don't often pronounce on their lives. When they leave home, I do this even less.

At this point, though, I'm thinking that I won't tell her anything I'm thinking, at least when that "anything" is at all critical of certain areas of her life. I think I'll be reluctant to do it even if I'm asked (which, we can all note, I wasn't this time). We will call this A Lesson Learned. From here on in, she is welcome to learn from bitter experience.

Lesson 1b: It is probably best she learn from experience.

2. She is not as measured and mature as I thought she was.

I'd expected disagreement with my position, expressed with some degree of huffiness. I did not expect a full-on onslaught of furious outrage. I expected her to disagree with my opinion, even to tell me I had no business imposing it upon her; I did not expect her to deny my right to an opinion. (Obviously, expecting a negative response, I did not embark on this conversation lightly. I felt it necessary, a maternal duty shouldered with stoicism rather than enthusiasm.)

She is certainly not as meaured and mature as she thinks she is... which leads me to the Most Important Lesson of all:

3. At age 23, I was not as measured and mature as I thought I was.

Without a child of that age to point the way, I'd have only my memories to go on... and they are, of course, the memories of a 23-year-old. I'd have a 23-year-old's perspective on the situations, the people involved, their responses, my own behaviour.

Of course, I've gained perspective over the years, even without my children's input. I've learned some stuff about my younger self along the way, but I will tell you now, NOTHING shows you how blinkered and restricted a 23-year-old's thinking is like arguing with a 23-year-old, even a sensible, mature, intelligent 23-year-old such as mine.

Wow.

Um, mom? On the off chance you ever stumble across this blog?

Sorry.

I hear the giggles as I walk by her room. Bekah is chatting on Skype.

(She has no idea of the luxury of those limitless calls. Limitless long distance calls -- limitless because they're free. What will be the luxuries her children enjoy which bemuse her? What awaits my grandchildren?)

She is chatting with her friend Philippe. Philippe was the very likeable young man who spent a summer with us as an exchange student two years ago when he was 17 and Bekah not quite 13. English-speaking 17-year-olds from Ontario went to Quebec and New Brunswick to improve their French; French-speaking youths came here in exchange. A lanky young fellow, with an exuberant mop of red curls, Pilippe's soft-spoken easy-going ways and good humour endeared himself to the entire family.

Bekah, it seems, endeared herself particularly to him.

They've kept in touch through emails and IM, and most recently with the free phone calls. The conversation just flows between those two. Hours and hours of it. He's held her hand through a boyfriend and a breakup; she gives him (very sensible) advice re: family relationships and the appalling lack of greenery in his diet. I don't know what all else they might talk about over the hours. I'm not told.

I am of two minds about this relationship. I am not entirely comfortable with the amount of time she "spends" with him. Obviously, sex isn't an issue, which is a relief to me, because she's only 14. A physically mature 14, a very sensible and emotionally stable 14, but still fourteen. But still, she spends a lot of time on this one relationship. I worry some about balance in her life. I keep an eye on her, making sure that other activities and relationships are not suffering as a result. They don't seem to be, but I keep a cautious maternal eye on her.

On the other hand, and this hand weighs heavily, I am very pleased that one of the most significant relationships in her life revolves entirely around conversation. They have no shared activities. They have shared interests, but, separated by a thousand kilometres or so, they can't do them together. The can't watch movies together. They do occasionally play internet games together, but not often.

What they do is talk. And talk and talk and talk.

Yes, I do haul her out of her room. She eats meals with the family, chores get done, homework is accomplished, she spends time every day chatting with me. But they talk. Every day.

I recall an occasion when her father came to visit me over Christmas break. We were in our early twenties, maybe even in our late teens, and had each gone to our respective families for the holidays. But ten days was too long for our love-struck hearts to be separated, so he drove over to visit one day.

After visiting with my family, we were desperate for some time together, so we went for a drive, chatting idly about this or that thing out the window, and ended up having a coffee in a roadside diner somewhere. We sat on opposite sides of the table ... and the conversation shrivelled. We had nothing to say to each other. Nothing.

He held my hand. We smiled at each other. But we had nothing to say.

Why did I go ahead and marry this man, when conversation is so desperately important to me? Well, at the time I didn't know that. I didn't know at lot of things at 19 or 20. It took twelve years of a conversation-free marriage to teach me how my soul craves conversation. Not just mindless words, words, words tossed out, cluttering the air -- though there's certainly a place for casual, idle, and functional chatter. But conversation: a steady flow of interest in the other, the exchange of ideas, the building-up of new ideas as a joint creative enterprise.

To me, that's the bedrock of a relationship. Fundamental, foundational, indispensible.

And for twelve years, I lived without it.

I married him because I was young and stupid and "in love". We loved each other! Conversation would come, right? I didn't realize that "in love" would not create something that didn't exist. I didn't realize that "in love" would parch to dust and blow away in the desert of silence and strictly-functional communication.

Bekah, in her room, chatters away. There is no lack of conversation with those two. Their relationship is not, as mine was with her father at the same point in the relationship timeline, built primarily on hormones and the physical.

So, though the amount of time she spends with this one friend does cause me some concern, the quality of the relationship reassures. If he is going to become someone significant in her life -- someone even more significant -- they are going about it the right way.

But I'm still glad he lives in New Brunswick.

Twenty-two years ago. I was in the final trimester with our first child. We didn't know the sex, so we had to choose contingency names. The boy was easy. Adam. We were agreed on that. Simple, basic, masculine, virtually impossible to shorten to something stupid and/or cutesy. But the girl?

I wanted Zoe. He wanted Jennifer. Now, there's nothing wrong with "Jennifer". I didn't mind it. It's a perfectly nice name, and in fact, I rather liked the way "Jenny" felt in my mouth.

"Jenny, lovie, come here! Mummy wants you!" Jenny would have long, shoulder-length brown hair and bangs, an open face and a big smile. She would run to me through a field of daisies with the sun bouncing off her silken locks. (This was my first child, recall.) I could deal with Jennifer just fine -- except that his sister, who was due to give birth any second, had told us that was one of the names they were considering. She had told us this months prior, well before our nameless bump was conceived.

But he was determined. Our child would be Jennifer. His sister, he was sure, wouldn't mind. His sister, I was sure, would be pissed -- and I would completely agree with her! Big brothers can be so oblivious. Besides, these babies would be cousins who'd see a lot of each other. It was just silly. Two girls, the same name, born within weeks of each other. But I couldn't get him to see it my way reason, and ours was not the kind of relationship where I had anything like the last word. If he didn't change his mind, our baby would be Jennifer.

And I would be pissed, and his sister would be pissed. (Why didn't I just ask her? I'd been instructed by The Husband not to, and at that point, though I chafed, I was still young and In Love and attempting to live by some pretty farcical -- but very sincerely held -- notions of what constituted husband-wife relations. So I didn't. I look back at the woman I was then with no little mortification, I tell you that.)

Oh, well. Maybe we'd have a boy. Maybe they'd have a boy!

They had a girl. Jennifer.

And then, I was in labour. It was not easy, it was not gruelling. It was sixteen hours of textbook first-baby labour, at the end of which, they held my baby out to sweating and euphoric me.

"It's a girl!" crowed the doctor.
"What will you name her?" asked the midwife.

And, as they handed this wet, warm, wonderful baby, this whole other HUMAN BEING I had just expelled from my weary, disheveled, aching and blissful body, I gazed into her slate-gray eyes, then glowed at the room.

"Zoe! Her name is Zoe!"

That was that. Zoe she is.

And you all know I'm no longer married to her father ...

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

I can't imagine you don't have some idle curiosity as to why the blog's suddenly gone all covert. My own fault. I was trawling around my list of blogs, and popped into my daughter's, left a comment, and only after the comment appeared did it dawn on my I was signed in with this account.

I have another, family-friendly account. THIS one is mine. Now, I can't think of a single thing I've written here that would offend the girl, but the point is, I want to be free to do so, should the need arise. I do not want to be censoring myself in this place, looking over my shoulder for the sensibilities of my near and very dear.

I emailed her immediately, of course. (Well, immediately after I made this place private. Which took all of 2.5 minutes.) She said not to worry, she had private spaces, too, and quite understood. However, she is only human and I am realistic. I do not believe for one second that faced with the ongoing temptation to get a peek into mum's private world, she wouldn't do that. I know I certainly would, were our positions reversed. I might resist for a time, I might not resist at all, but inevitably I would be in there, snooping about.

Hence the quick vanishment.

Not to fear. It is temporary. I figure a month or two. Let her try to find it a couple of times and then lose sight of the project.

Okay, so that's that. What I REALLY came here to tell you all about is my newest writing venture!

Another contract, this one even more fun than that wedding place. Check me out over at my very own twice-a-week paid blogging gig. Topic? Women's sex and sexuality. So far I've talked about talking about it, about ebb-and-flow sex drives, Global Orgasm Day, illegal vibrators, and most recently, the boredom that is porn. Fun, no?

Well, I think so. Pop over, take a gander, leave a comment if you wish. Then pop back here and tell me what you think. And if you have any brilliant ideas for post ideas, send me an email. You know where to find me.

Bekah's iPod was stolen from her locker a couple of weeks ago. She hadn't secured her combination lock sufficiently it seems, and a brisk shake was enough to loosen it. (This, at any rate, is the theory of her two older siblings, who have more recent experience than I with high school lockers and combination locks -- which, evidently they're not making as well as they did when I was in school ...)

So, the girl has no iPod. She loves, loves, loves her iPod. Listens to it all the time. Is never without her music. So, not surprisingly, she asks for one for Christmas. The new one. The iPod Touch. Which, having seen one owned by one of Daniel's friends, is a very snazzy gadget indeed. One can see the appeal. Hell, seeing the thing has me, who has never owned any kind of MP-3 player, wanting one, just for the extreme coolness of the thing. So sleek, so well-designed, so very clever.

However, a little quick research tells me it costs $330. Before taxes. Which puts it solidly outside my Christmas budget. I might be able to manage that for one, but not for all three of them. Bekah suggests a compromise: "It can be my only present, and I don't need a stocking." I try to picture a Christmas with one gift the size of a thickish credit card and nothing - nothing! - else. Besides, I've already bought stuff, so it's too late anyway.

We sit on my bed and have a Serious Talk, in which I explain why her suggestion, generous as it is, doesn't really resolve the difficulty, and how I just don't feel I can spend that much more on one child than I would be on the other two. I ask if she has any other ideas. At this point, however, she is mute with despair. Possibly anger. Definitely mute.

"Well, love, I'm going to go do the dishes now. You think about it, and in a little while, we can do some brainstorming." Perhaps I got a nod, but perhaps that was just her head wilting a little closer to the bedspread.

As I do the dishes, I suffer. I want to buy the damned thing for her. I have a couple of ideas, in fact, as to how it could be managed, but I'm keeping them to myself for now. I don't want to leap in and solve this problem for her. I want her to face the reality that satisfying this desire of hers would result in injustice to her siblings. I want her to wrestle with it.

But I don't want her to suffer! And I have a possible solution or two! And I could just run up there and fix it for her right now! And I sternly tell myself to Knock It Off, and I finish the damned dishes. And tidy the kitchen. And clear the dining table. And sweep the floor. And mess about with bits of paper on the end table. All the while one ear is cocked to the upstairs bedroom. I don't hear any slamming of doors and drawers. I don't hear any sobbing. Is this good or bad?

Just as I am about to pop with maternal angst, I hear her on the stairs. She swings round the newel post to face me. Her face is not blotched, though her eyes are a bit puffy. And she is smiling.

"I have decided I don't want the iPod." And she proceeds to lay out her new idea for her Christmas gift, a clever, creative, grown-up one. (Which I will not describe at the moment, so as not to distract the flow of the narrative.) And the iPod? "I can save up for one and buy it in the new year. If I get any Christmas money, I can use that towards it, too."

Imagine. A fourteen-year-old, denied her heart's desire, does not scream and rage, does not slam doors, or hurl things about her room, nor even stomp on the stairs; she does not rail against the injustice and hate me for not making enough money and her siblings for stealing resources that might otherwise be hers. Instead, she faces facts, changes direction, and comes out with a different, creative solution.

I am so proud of her.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. And sigh.

"It's a nice shirt, otherwise, but I just don't like the neckline," I tell Bekah, who stands at my side, considering the image before us. "I hate it when the 'v' ends way up here. It should come down to..." I loop my finger at the nadir of the 'v' and give a vigorous tug, "... at least here."

She nods. "Yeah, because otherwise it looks like 'My boobs should be up here'..." She waves her hands roughly in the area of her clavical. Which, as it happens, is right where her 14-year-old breasts hang out. If such a word as "hang" can be used of their perky perfection.

"'...but I'm old, so they're way down here." The hands flicker somewhere slightly north of her elbows.

Ouch.

Thing is, she's nailed it. That's exactly what's wrong with the shirt. And, while not exactly a National Geographic woman, I am 46, and these reasonably substantial breasts have seen three pregnancies and a little over three years of nursing. Perky they ain't.

"Hey, missie. Enjoy those while you can, because you're built just like me." We are. Sometimes she borrows my bras.

She grins. "I am! But I just mean that shirt makes your boobs look old and saggy, not that they are."

And again, she's absolutely right.

The shirt is now in the going-to-Goodwill bag. My long-suffering, well-served and still-noteworthy breasts do not deserve to be so maligned.

Lovely tall, slim, handsome European dad down the street gives me a warm smile. How nice! He's new on the street, and so far, a bit reserved. Ah, well. He's probably warming to me because I've been nice to their family.

Earlier this week, you see, I invited their a three-year-old to trail about my house for a morning. I figure they could use a bit of a break, what with the move and all. She's a cheerful and chatty little thing, and, apart from her complete lack of personal space, was no trouble at all.

We did everything together, Small Girl and me. We ate, we 'coloured' (she with crayons on multi-coloured paper, me with pens on lined paper), we played on the computer (I on my laptop, she on one of those noxious talking 'educational' toys with a touch-screen, provided by mum). We listened to my music, we listened to hers. I peed, she peed. I peed in company. I'm fine with this, and I'm quite sure her mother, a died-in-the-wool Attachment Parent (yes, you actually hear the capitals when she says it) will have no problem with it, either. Besides, mum is European, and we all know how loosy-goosy sensible those people over there are about privacy and nudity and sexuality and all manner of things that give North Americans (particularly my neighbours to the south) conniptions.

So. I have my pee, and Small Girl decides she will have one, too. We wash hands and head downstairs again, well pleased with our accomplishments. Shortly thereafter, mum comes for Small Girl.

The next evening, as I sit on my porch with a relaxing beverage, mum drops by to say thanks and let me know how much Small Girl had enjoyed her time with me. And how much Small Girl had learned, too.

Yes?

Oh, indeed. Mum explains. "Out of the blue, she says to me, 'Why you gots hair on your 'gina, mummy?'"

I know where we're going here. I have, after all, recently gotten married. My marital bits have been especially cleaned and tidied for the event and subsequent celebration.

"All ladies have hair there, sweetie."

"NOoooOOOo!! Laura doesn't got any hair there at all."

Ah, yes. Body hair. Another European-North American difference.

And when did this conversation occur? While Small Girl was going potty? During bathtime, generally taken with mummy? At bedtime, also taken in company of the parents? At some time when people's nether regions might reasonably be expected to come into conversation?

Noooo... at the dinner table, with two older brothers, daddy, and the lovely couple next door in attendance.

Which may explain dad's particular and unexpected warmth this morning. Ooo... am I now the exotic focus of his naughtier daydreams?

I must babysit that child more often.

I've been homeschooling Bekah for a few months now. She was homeschooled till grade four, went to school for four years, and decided to take a breather from the pressure cooker that is middle school before beginning high school next year.

She's enjoying her space. She's taking a couple of (grade nine!) courses by correspondence, she's improved her flute no end with her terrific new teacher. She's taking a college-sponsored ASL course, just for fun. She's spending time drawing, reading, writing, thinking. In short, she's getting a good education.

She misses being with other kids, though. It's an issue for homeschooled kids. The parent has to take particular pains to ensure they mix with other children. She does have friends in the neighbourhood, of course, but sadly, they're shut up in school all day. So, what to do? Well, seek out the local homeschooling group, and see if anyone out there is interested in getting together.

We've met a few. Most were nice, but the kids just didn't connect. (Though in one case, the other mother and I hit it off so well we're going out for coffee next week.)

And then we had the meeting last Saturday. Mother and son were to come to our home for a couple of hours. They arrive (half an hour late). First impressions weren't stellar: mom has long gray hair parted in the middle and straggling down beside her face until it faded away, dispirited, in the general area of her shoulders. Son - who is thirteen, remember - sports a very stylish bowl cut. He's got lovely hair, thick and shiny, and, unlike the picture in that link, covering his ears - but, but, but... it's in a bowl cut! Okay for four-year-olds, but...

I mentally scold myself. How petty I am! I remind myself that I'm all about living as you see fit, not worrying about arbitrary and ridiculous dictates of 'cool'.

Okay. So we shall overlook the JK styling on the teenage boy.

The rest of the visit is largely boring, punctuated by the following little nuggets:

- He and mom had asked before they arrived whether we had pets, and were delighted to know we had a hamster. When they arrived, they wanted to see her right away. As soon as the boots had been removed and coats hung, we all proceed immediately to the kitchen. Where they haul out their camera and start taking pictures of the hamster. (Maybe it's just me... Does this strike you as just a teeny bit odd?)

- He does not want to hold the hamster when Bekah offers it to him. "I don't know it yet." Um, and how will you get to know it if you don't introduce yourself? He'll just takes a few more pictures, instead. Oh. Maybe he plans to pet them when he gets home?

- They take pictures at random intervals. Never one of myself or Bekah, thank god, but odd things. I came down from the bathroom and caught mom snapping pics out a window that overlooks the drive. The section of the drive that houses a couple of bicycles, the garbage tins, and the gates to our back yard and our neighbour's. (???)

- He was gung-ho to show Bekah a slide-show he'd made of some computer images he'd created. They sat side by side on the couch with Bekah's DVD player (he didn't know there were such things as portable DVD players) as elevator music drifted around the room for four minutes. Later, I discovered that the show was eight pictures, repeated over and over to the background of the elevator music. Eight pictures. In the same order. To elevator music. For four minutes.

- He was also gung-ho to play our piano, because he's been playing for a while now, and he's pretty good. No, he doesn't take lessons. He listens to music, tries to reproduce it, and then "makes it better". In fact, he has a composition he's working on. Would we like to hear it?

- He plays piano like a dying elephant, blundering woodenly about a couple of octaves of the keyboard, deafening all within a 3-metre radius.

- Ours is an electric piano, so I showed him how he could record his composition. He was fascinated by this, and replayed his auditory assault half a dozen times. At full volume. (Does the boy have a hearing problem?)

- And no, he wasn't interested in hearing me play the piano (not that I offered), nor in hearing Bekah play her flute. His mother suggested he might like to listen. No, not today, thanks.

- He admitted that he didn't much like sharing. Mom chortled affectionately at this.

- When the kids said they were hungry, I handed each of them a banana. He looked at his and stuttered, "How do I...?" I looked at him, blank. How does he what? His mother explained, "He's never started one." HE'S THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS OLD AND HE CAN'T PEEL A BANANA!!!

- Thankfully, he likes the same computer game that is one of Bekah's favourites at the moment, so we were able to survive the last hour of the visit by allowing them computer time. Leaving me with Mom.

- Mom, who bemoaned the changes in the ghastly suburb where they live. "We might have to move out to the country. It's getting so big and busy. It used to be so suburban." Oh. Suburban as a good thing. How... suburban.

- They had to leave by four, because it was Saturday, and she didn't want to drive "after dark with all the drunks". Because lord only knows we city folk are notorious for hammering back the booze at five in the afternoon so as to drive home drunk for dinner...

- The next day, I got an email from mom, thanking me for the visit, and asking if we would please erase his 'composition' from our piano. It's a work in progress, see, and so... (Here's a thought, you nut job: I'll erase his gawdawful noises if you erase all those pictures you took without asking in my house.)

These people are the poster family for "The Risks and Disadvantages of Homeschooling".

He couldn't peel a banana.

Normally I am a quiet, understated, and overall kindly person. Four or five days a month? A transformation occurs. That PMS thing I so loved to mock when I was a young and symptom-free woman? It's hit, with a vengeance, these last few years. Coming as it has so late in the game, I am mature enough that I don't take it out on the people around me. I just get quieter, following my gran's sage advice, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Quiet, but not silent. I mutter. Quietly. When I'm alone. Mutter, mutter, mutter.

It's Sunday of a weekend when the stepkids have been here, bringing the household total of teens to six(ish). Join with me, if you will, on a pre-menstrual, muttered, tour of my home.

Laundry room:
What moron left a kleenex in their pocket?
My, GOD, look at these underwear. That girl's ass is IMMENSE.
Three odd socks. Again. Bah.

Kitchen:
Why am I the ONLY person who ever notices the Britta needs to be refilled? Ever?
Ants? Again?
Another damned puddle by the fridge! God, I wish we could afford a new one.
Who has been using their socks to wipe up the fridge puddle?
And if they want to do that, can't they put the sock in the laundry?
And why only one sock?
Which ridiculous child is walking around wearing one sock? And when I find you, you little fucker...

Living Room:
Why is wrong with the couch cushions?
Why are they askew like that?
Ah. Because we are storing dirty socks under there. Of course!
What is that stench?
Ah. Why did I ever agree to a hamster?
'It's okay, mummy. I'll keep it clean, I promise.' HA.

Dining Room:
For the love of Pete. Is the six feet to the kitchen sink too far to take the dirty plates?
Why is there a sock in this glass? Why?
Who puts a sock in a glass half-full of water? Guess I could be grateful it's not milk...

Front Hall:
Is is truly that difficult to place shoes on the rack rather than kick them off in a heap? It couldn't be that hard, since someone's managed to get a sock on one shelf. Two socks. No, three.
When do teenagers' feet stop growing?
Any why do they stink so fucking much?
Why are there socks on the shoe rack?

Bathroom:
What the fuck is this, a breeding program for towels?!?
Must be, and here's how: Place damp towels on bathroom floor, at least four to a heap, making sure to leave the light on and fan off for maximum growth, and a couple of dirty (and odd) socks as fertilizer.
Who didn't pull the shower curtain to? Not to worry, though - all those towels and socks are sucking up the excess, no problem.
Do they not realize what the strainer is for? So why is it on the side of the tub and I'm pulling foot-long hanks of slimy hair from the drain?

Can they not, even once, leave the fucking seat DOWN?

And put the new roll ON the spindle, not perched precariously on the side of the sink, where it will almost certainly fall into the toi -- damn! Where it now floats alongside someone's purple toothbrush. Lovely. You know what? I think I'll just put the toothbrush back in the cup and say nothing. Serve 'em right.

Bedrooms:
I'm speechless. Nothing to be done but close the door.
And turn off the damned lights!

My room:
WHERE is the garbage can?
Who walked off with the garbage can from MY bedroom?
And WHY?

Why is there a dirty sock on my pillow? Whose is it?

Children. Who'd want to have children? Biology's a bitch. That damned biological imperative, I tell you...

AND WHAT IS WITH THE FUCKING SOCKS EVERY FUCKING WHERE???

Wal-Mart.

Everyone loves to hate Wal-Mart. Well, everyone of my education level and social class. Everyone in my neighbourhood. All my friends. We all hate Wal-Mart. We mock the low-brow, blue-collar types who shop there. No social conscience among Wal-Mart shoppers! We hate its bullying ways, its negative effect on bookstores. There's something about its corporate practices that invites censure, but I confess I've never really gotten the gist of that. I haven't gotten the gist because I tend to ease out of these conversations. Because, you see...

I have a secret. I shop at Wal-Mart. Yes, I do.

Every time I sneak down to the south end of the city, I am guiltily aware that I am supporting the commercial rape of Canada. (Or something.) I breathe a sigh of relief once I'm through the doors, because I am fully confident I will not meet any of my friends in here! (I never have. But if I did, our shared guilty secret would ensure discretion.)

I sneak the bags back home under cover of darkness, or pretend that it's only environmental delicacy that has me bringing cloth bags...

Thing is, my partner and I, between the two of us, have some eight children. Eight, on one and a half incomes. (One and a half because he send just about half of his after-tax income to his ex. to support his portion of all those masses of children.)

I do shop at Walmart because we like little luxuries like... oh, affordable shoes for that many feet. Or, shoes AND food AND mortgage - all in the same month!

We're not poor. We feed, house, and clothe our children, and they also get luxuries like drama classes and flute lessons. But, unlike my neighbours, we know these are luxuries - and without things like inexpensive shoes, we couldn't have them.

So, yeah, I shop at Wal-Mart sometimes. I'm quiet, I'm discreet, and I don't indulge too often, but.. yes. I do. And the thing I really, really can't tell my friends?

I'm kind of grateful to Wal-Mart for the shoes.

There. I've just switched to betaBlogger.

It's 3:25 a.m. Why am I up and awake and switching to beta? I am up because my sweetie has a cold. When he's not snorting and snuffling, he's snoring outright, and when I give him a poke and make him roll over, his breathing - stentorian is always the word you see associated with breathing, and though I'm unclear on its precise meaning, I think it's what I'm after - his breathing is stentorian.

I am the auditory Princess and the Pea. I cannot sleep through noise. But, clever me, I have a little glass full of foam earplugs on the bedside table. Ear plugs are my friends.

Sadly, His Stentoricity penetrated the earplugs, which are, after all, only good to 473,492 decibels...

So downstairs I come, intending to read for a bit and try again when I'm really, really tired.

I'm really, really, reeeeeaaaaallllly tired now. So we are back to the question that we started with. Why am I up at three a.m.?

It was a noise, an odd noise. See? Ms. Auditory Me, at it again. Sort of an ululation. Or perhaps a moan. Not a nice one, a moan of distress. Wrong season for neighbourhood cats, and it's not that aggressive. No, a softish moan of misery. Ah. It's coming from downstairs, the room beneath my seat - my youngest daughter's in fact. The girl is in some distress.

Turns out the girl has to throw up but is too tired or perhaps ill to leave her bed. A dilemma, indeed. Good thing for her The Man was stentorian tonight.

Mummy provides the receptacle, rubs the back, gives tissue for the cleanup and water to rid the sour taste. Mummy cleans receptacle and returns it.

These days, when one of my kids is sick in the night, they tend to take care of it themselves. I don't tend to hear them (thanks be to ear plugs). However, having been there for the first hurlage, I'm committed. I can't leave the girl to suffer on her own. It's one thing to be oblivious; it's another to be wilfully absent.

There have been three repeats since. "There's nothing left to come uuuuup." Poor kid. We all know how wretched it is to retch on an empty stomach.

I am sympathetic, I am, but... All has been quiet for almost half an hour now.

I struggle with myself. Go to bed? Stay at the ready? Go to bed? Be an Attentive Mummy? Goooo to beeeeddd...

Shades of newborn parenting.

Should I sleep? She might need me yet.
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Can I sleep? She's quiet.
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Should I sleep? She could just be about to wake.
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Can I go to bed? Not a peep from the girl.
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*yaaaaaaawn...*
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Goodnight!

We have a crisis!

A hamster crisis. Not a crisis with our hamster, a hamster in crises. The hamster is having one.

We have a hamster, Pipkin. She lives in a cage. A nice, bright cage with attached penthouse. You've seen them - a box affixed to a tube jutting out the side. Oh, look, I found a picture (also a link to one of your very own, should you so desire):

See that little yellow box attached to the main cage? It's put there so your hamster, presumably a digging animal in the wilds - though how such a succulent little appetizer would survive past breakfast in the wilds is beyond me - but assuming they do, they like to dig. I probably would, too, if I were nothing more than a pre-dinner morsel for something large and carnivorous. They like to dig and run through tunnels tubes. They like to hang out in tiny plastic boxes hanging off the side of their home.

This one loved it so well, she spent her entire life in that box, far as we could tell, though her water bottle did empty night by night. Once or twice a week we would clean and empty the box, and within a day it would be packed to its green plastic roof with wood chips. Chips which she must have ferried up there in her cheek pouches, though we never caught her at it.

Food, too, was stuffed into her cheek pouches and scurried away into that little nesting box in the sky. Scurried and then buried in the wood chips of her little green-lidded paradise int he sky.

Which box was getting to be a problem. Despite its weekly, then twice-weekly cleaning, it got horrifically rank. We couldn't eliminate the stink. The plastic had been saturated with pee so much and so often that even clean, it reeked of ammonia. You may think plastic can't be saturated, I know I did, but we'd be wrong. That box was vile. Completely vile.

It had to go. So, this afternoon we removed it and taped over the hole in the side of the cage with a dozen layer of packing tape each side. We put a box into the cage as her substitute green-lidded, pee-stinkin' box. We gave her a paper towel tube to replace her poop-studded bendy plastic tube. All this activity woke her up in the middle of her night, but she seemed to be coping well. Doing just fine, she was. Friendly, inquisitive, happy.

Until she approached her food dish. She industriously crammed the food pellets into her cheek pouches, and then - what else would she do? - headed for the tube to her nest. Because what you do with your food pellets, see, is climb through your tube, take them to your penthouse box, bury them in your bedding and pee on them!! That's what you do, because that's what you've always done. Tradition matters to hamster.

Except, "Oh no! WHERE IS MY TUBE? WHERE IS MY NEST BOX???" She nosed around, inceasingly frantic. "It must be here somewhere!" She found where the hole should have been. "Must. chew. out. nest. box." She'd made a small hole in the first layer of packing tape when we found her.

(How does one stop a rodent from chewing? This is easy, a lesson learned through rodents long since expired. You paint desired object with tabasco, aka hot sauce. Most don't even get closer than the first, disgusted sniff. Heh. Pipkin took a cautious nibble, leapt a full bodylength back in spring-loaded, tabasco-fuelled revulsion. Thus endeth the chewing.)

Now we just have a neurotic hamster, wandering about in full daylight with her cheek pouches full, saying "HOW CAN I EAT? HOW CAN I EAT IF I CAN'T BURY MY FOOD AND PEE ON IT???" She tried to get into the paper towel tube we put in - because I HAVE TO CRAWL THROUGH A TUBE SO I CAN BURY MY FOOD AND PEE ON IT!! Good in theory, but the paper tube is a little narrower than the former plastic tube, and her bulging cheek pouches won't fit.

Poor, confused Pipkin. Will she starve in the midst of plenty? Will she learn to eat her food sans urine? Or will she learn to pee direct into her food dish?

We await with baited breath.

And plugged noses.

Teenage boys have to be one of the most oblivious critters on God's green earth. They're even worse than teenage girls. Who knew it was possible?

Three days ago, my already-slow computer gets even slower. Particularly when I'm online. "Connection has been reset. ABC site is taking too long to load." Again and again.

I stick my head into my computer nerd genius son's room. "Hey, Daniel. Anything I can do to speed up my computer? It's getting reeeeallly slow." He proffers a few words about more memory. Probably true. I know I'm getting critically low. The most obvious solution is often the right one.

Two days ago, My Man complains that his computer is also slow. We run virus scans on both machines, just in case. They're both clean. We ask Son how his computer is working. Just fine, thanks. We chat a bit about how the slow seems to be contagious.

This morning, my computer is even SLOWER. Son says, "Oh, I'm downloading a brgufzlzx file, and it's big, about $@^# gigs, so I use accelerators [was that the word? I think so] which means it takes up a lot of bandwidth. It'll be done in a couple of hours." An hour later, the boy heads off to work. I head out to run some errands.

Tangent:

" *%#& gigs, for one download?!? How much memory do you have on that thing, anyway?" (It won't be standard. He and his dad custom-built it together. Computer genius-ness is in the DNA, it seems.)

"Well, I have three hard drives," he says. "One's 15 gigs, to run Windows and for school stuff; one's 30 for my music; one's 40 for games."

Good Lord.

Six hours later, son still at work, I try my computer again. Molasses.

Hmmm...

Walk upstairs to son's room. Stare at quietly humming machine for a moment. Walk across the floor. Take in the blinking blue lights, the flickering green ones. A lot of activity happening in here.

Reach out, and...

Click. Whirrrr... the beast subsides to silent dark.

And...?

Houston, we have internet!

Crazymumma, the trusting soul, tagged me for a meme. Little did she know that she gave a TV meme to a woman who never watches television. No, I have no moral superiority about this; I don't not watch because I think it's an evil, brain-sucking machine. I just... don't watch. I used to (back when Magnum PI was in its very first reruns.) Now I don't. Not sure why.

Which makes be basically useless as far as this meme goes, but it's the first time anyone's asked, and I hate to disappoint! Sooo...

So I decided to consult with my kids. Lord knows Bekah spends enough time in front of it; she should have some input! Or so I thought. Here we go. Five male and female favourites, as chosen by one of the more delightful 13-year-olds of my acquaintance.

Male:
1. House, from House
2. Chase, from House
3. Seth Cohen, from The OC
4. Chandler, from Friends
5. Luke, from Gilmore Girls

Female:
1. Lorelei, from Gilmore Girls
2. Susan, from Desperate Housewives
3. Marissa from The OC
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3a. Uuhhhh.....
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3b. I need to watch more TV. (Well, we could just stop here.)
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3c. No, no! I will think of one! Muuuummmm!!! DON'T WRITE THIS DOWN! MUM!
4. Ava (Eva?) from Canadian Idol
4a. Oh, that's only four!
5. Stacey from What Not to Wear

Phew. Harder than we thought. Now, male leads as dictated by my seventeen-year-old son, Daniel, who watches about as much television as his mother. However, he does watch weird computer shows.

Male:
1. Invader Zim
2. Gir
3. Gaz
4. Bugs Bunny
5. Strongbad

Female:

"I dunno. That's all I can think of. Can I go back to my computer now?"

The toilet paper is backwards on the spindle.

Backwards to the way I always put it, that is. I immediately lean forward to set it straight, to put it back properly, the way it's supposed to be. Then I hesitate.

I know what's happened, of course. If and when my own kids put the roll back on, not, lord only knows, that they by any means do this as a matter of course, but when they do, they put it on "right". So, what has happened is that one of the stepkids has replaced the roll, and put it "backwards". Except of course, to them it's not backwards; to them it's "normal", the "right way", it's been put back "properly".

I itch to correct it. This is my home, after all. Why shouldn't things be the way I prefer in my home?

Except that we, my husband and I, we want his kids to view our home as "home", too.

Not that this notion is in any way encouraged by their mother. In fact, we have been told point-blank that "It is not good for the children to believe they have more than one home. There (sic) home is with there (sic) mother." All their times with us are referred to, by the children as well as their mother, as "visits". At the beginning, when they said "home at dad's", they were firmly reprimanded by mother - solely in the interests of their mental health, of course. They have learned: the two houses between which they travel are "home" and "dad's house".

Still, the principle is important to me, and to their father. (When my children were travelling between the homes, they referred to both their dad's house and mine as "home". When speaking with me, their two houses are "home" and "home with dad". With their father, I assume, the names were parallel: "home" and "home with mom".)

No such egalitarian thinking is allowed by my stepkids' biomom, though. Thus, it is sorely tempting to say, "the hell with it. If it is not to be their 'home', then they'll have to behave as guests on their 'visits', and fit in to the way it's done here." Sorely tempting, and entirely reasonable.

My husband, however, has a principle: Do what you think is right regardless of the other person's response. (Or potential response.) He's a wise man.

So, although it irks me just a wee bit, I leave the roll as is. It's a small thing, this symbol. The children won't notice. To them, it's just normal. But I know that I've taken a stand for a principle that I believe is in their best interest. Because, whether mom likes it or not, this is one of their homes. Not their primary home, but certainly a home. A place where they have a bed, where they have clothes and belongings, where they can bring their friends.

A place where they can leave their mark.

First day of school, morning.

Bekah is up at 6:45, showered and dressed by 7:30. As she's heading up to brush her teeth after breakfast a few minutes later, Daniel comes downstairs, hair brushed, jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt open over top.

"SUCH a boy!" she scoffs.

"Yes, I am. So?" He's amused rather than insulted, calm in the superiority of 17 over 13.

"I've been up over an hour, I've picked out just the right outfit, and you get up five minutes ago and are all ready to head out the door - and you're wearing the same stuff you've been wearing all summer."

Daniel looks down and shrugs. "It's comfortable and it fits. Plus it's clean. What more do I need?" Fixes Bekah with his classic grin - one eyebrow quirked high, the opposing corner of the mouth up.

"SUCH a boy!" she grins up at him. Me, I'm thinking the boy has a point. No morning clothing crises for him. He gives me a quick hug, and he's off. Bekah leaves shortly thereafter.

End of the school day.

Daniel, the socially charged teen, will spend hours reconnecting with friends before coming home in the early evening. Bekah, at 13 still mostly a homebody, comes home direct.

"Hey, sweetie. How was it?"

"Great. All the grade sevens are so short. Boy, we must've grown a lot this year." (She needs to tell me this?? The kid who started out last school year an inch and a half shorter than me and is now an inch and a half taller?) "I dressed just right."

"And your teachers?"

"I have Mme. Desjardin again. For math and science AND homeroom." I groan with her. Mme. Desjardin is a very nice, very sweet, very earnest, and veeerrry boring teacher, whom poor Bekah has already suffered for two years. "BUT I have M. Renard for French! He's so cool." I perk up a bit at this. Guess I'll be going to ALL the parent nights this year. He's funny, clever, and very attractive. Way better than that brash young stripling she had last year. "OH, MUM! He's OOooLD!"

"Um, honey? So am I. By your infant standards, anyway."

"Hmph. And Ms. Wozniak for music and Mr. Papadatos for art again of course, and Ms. Adams for English. M. Lethuillier for history, Ms. Bronson for physed."

"Sounds like a good group."

"Yup. They're all easy."

"Easy?"

"Uh-huh. Except for M. Renard, all you have to do to get good marks is listen in class, do the homework, and remember what they told you and write it down on the tests."

"How's M. Renard different?"

"He's way harder. He expects us to think!"

Imagine that! I knew I had good reason to like the man.

I have claustrophobia.

It's not a sensible, neatly defined type of claustrophobia, either. Elevators? Mild uneasiness, nothing more. Closets? Not a problem at all. Teeny bathrooms in trains and planes? I can manage those, though I did get woozy the one time the latch stuck a bit. Vague intimations of fainting, firmly resisted. Caves? Well, I'll never, ever be able to manage a cave. However, these are not a frequent feature of urban life. All in all, you'd be justified in wondering how claustrophobia is an issue for me.

Would that claustrophobia were merely physical. Mine isn't, primarily. Mine's mostly psychological and auditory. Lucky me.

The Man’s kids are here and - surprise! - I’m feeling claustrophobic. It was not too bad initially - only Serious Dude, Gawky Girl, and Singing Girl were here to start, in addition to only one of mine, one being back to university and the other being off to a friend's cottage for the long weekend. (See Cast of Characters, below, if this is all too much for you. I'd understand if it were...) BigBald Boy is off to university - HURRAH! two down, six to go! - and Drama Girl was at a camp, expected back tomorrow.

The four children who are left are the quieter ones. They retreat to their rooms, leaving only a heap of shoes in the front hall as evidence of their passage. This causes a brief twinge, but is easily surmounted. I step over the shoes and out the door.

When The Man and I returned from our quiet coffee break at our favourite coffeeshop, Drama Girl had returned! She is home, and her humungo sleeping bag fills one loveseat; her mega-humungo duffel bag the other; a pillow in the armchair, and assorted other bits of camp detritus spread onto the floor. I feel the crowded-tension grip me between the shoulder-blades. Drama Girl herself is in a room upstairs, and from that room comes a wall of hyper-stimulated, sleep-deprived, over-excited SOUND*. It makes the head reel, it truly does. My tension-enhanced shoulder-blades cradle my ears. The noise, it creeps into every pore.

(*A wall, of, like sound? And it just keeps coming and coming and coming and she's all, like, "It was just so cool!" and her one sister is, like, "Yeah, wow!", and the other is, "No, really??", and we heard all about the games - so FUNNY!! - and the boys and the cabins - so COOL!! - and the boys and the meals and the boys - so FUNNY!!! - and the counsellors - so COOL!!!! - and the boys and the nonsense and the boys and the play and the boys. Oh, and the boysboysboysboysboys. Drama Girl does love her the boys. And it's all just so COOL! And so FUNNY!! The girl exudes goodwill and positive energy. In waves. Tidal waves. A veritable tsunami of good humour and hormones, she is.)

Then The Man, returning from dropping Little Guy off at a birthday party, comes home with a television.

(Aside: It was a sleepover party. When did we find this out? Well, just as The Man rang the doorbell of the party, Serious Dude says, "So, I'll see you tomorrow, dad." Dad expressed surprise. "Oh, didn't you know?" Well, no, son, I didn't. Do you see a sleeping bag? Pyjamas? A toothbrush? Oh. Serious Dude hadn't thought of that... Hostess opens the door to an apologetic dad and a request for a spare toothbrush. We know she understands, because she, too, has an eleven-year-old boy. But sheesh.)

So, the television: Not a new one, not even a functional one, but a 1950's vintage, sitting-on-its-four-legs HUGE television. It was cast off by the side of the road and it amused him. I can see the appeal. It’s so retro, so stolid. A piece of furniture rather than an appliance, encased in wood, durable and sound. And large. When he plugged it in, we discovered a white screen - not even snow! - on every channel.

“Well, that’s okay, sweetie." I says. "You can just run right down to Radio Shack and buy parts.” Bwah ha. I am so funny. I’ll bet there are TUBES in there. Ha.

He thinks maybe an artist friend would like it, or maybe the drama department of Drama Girl's high school. Meantime, amusing and clever and ironic though it may be, it has NOWHERE TO GO, and sits, squat and commanding, in the middle of my very small living room. I did mention the camp detritus everywhere? So now we have camp stuff on every chair, and this immense television smack dab in the middle of the floor.

Where am I now? At the dining room table. It’s not like there’s any space in the living room. Oh, but I have to sit at the far end of the table, because for some totally random reason, Stepkids' BioMom has been sorting her pictures and has sent over some photos. Not framed, not in books, just loose - piled in bags, tumbled into boxes, literally hundreds of them, going back years. Most of them are poor quality, blurred and ill-framed snaps of long-forgotten events and places. None are dated. The Man figures it’s probably her way to process BigBald Son's heading off to university. Oh. Thanks. Let me just budge up to the far end of my dining room so I may accommodate your therapy. Gah.

The bodies, the bags and boxes and volume and giggles. I feel myself getting smaller and smaller, more and more compressed and compacted and intruded upon and crowded. I’m crowded, crowded, crowded... sigh... Why does this make me want to run out, get drunk and rowdy, maybe have sex with a stranger? Nah. What I really want to do is run away from home until it's all over - like when the kids have all grown up and left home - in about another seven or eight years. Because I cannot breathe in my home. There is simply not enough air.

Failing any of the above, I went for a walk by the river, that solace to my frazzled psyche. Watched the wind ripple the water, breathed deep and thought good thoughts. Remembered how lucky I am that they are all good kids, that they get along, that their teachers like them, they go to bed when asked, no tattoos, no exotic piercings, their taste in music not excessively inane. Take more deep breaths and enjoy the space, the quiet, the beauty. Let it seep into my soul.

Go back home. Drama Girl has gone off with friends, Serious Dude is at his sleepover, the other girls watch television (the actual small one that works) in the basement. The house is quiet.

Bung the camp detritus into the back porch with the rat.

Feel much better.



Cast of Characters for this post are my stepchildren:

BigBaldBoy, 18
Drama Girl, 16
Gawky Girl, 15
Singing Girl, 13
Serious Dude, 11

And, peripheral to this post, my own:
Zoe, 20, back to university in another city
Daniel, 17,
and Bekah, 13.

Final installment in this series of four, and largely an anti-climax.

Having moved themselves and their most necessary gear from their dad's house, the girls realize there's a lot more still there. A discussion determines that it would be a very bad idea for me to help them move. Nothing would inflame things between their dad and I, possible for years, like having me show up to move the kids out of his house.

Zoe rents a small moving van. She's twenty, she has a credit card and a driver's license. She rents it for a day when dad is going to be out of town.

Meantime, Daniel has decided that he, too, will move his stuff out. (!)

"There is no point in me going over there," he explains. "I only ever see dad a couple of hours on a weekend. I can see him that much one evening during the week. I don't need to keep moving between houses for a couple of hours a week."

"You'll let daddy know?"

"Uh-huh."

So the day of the U-Haul comes, the kids move their gear, and settle in to my home. I think to ask Daniel about his dad's reaction to his decision to move out, and Daniel says, "I haven't told him yet."

WHAT????

Great. The man - the volatile, already humiliated man - is going to come home from a week away to discover that his son, with whom as far as he is aware, he has had no issues at all -- has moved out! He'll be completely blindsided. If there's anything better designed to ensure I have a raging, storming, violent, irrational man on my doorstep in three days when he returns, I don't know what it is. My adrenaline spikes through the roof.

"Go and email him NOW."

He goes. I don't know where exactly dad is this week but I do know that dad never goes ANYWHERE without his Blackberry.

For three days, the girls and I are back to anxiety mode: jumping when a car slows down in the street, peering out the window when a car door slams. All doors kept locked at all times. The day dad is scheduled to return to town, the anxiety in the house is palpable.

For some reason, Zoe thinks to ask Daniel about his email.

"Oh, dad answered that," he announces. "Said he was disappointed, and he couldn't agree with my decision, but that I'm old enough to make the decision."

Zoe just about fainted on the spot with exasperation. "When did you hear THAT? And you didn't tell us? We've been freaking out for DAYS! Didn't you NOTICE?!?!?"

He got it the day after he sent his message. Some days, I swear, that boy is too like his father. No idea. Not one emotional clue. Sigh...

That was a week and a half ago. All three kids are moved in. And none of them has heard a whisper from their father since.

"Hey, mum!" Zoe crowed yesterday. "I stepped on the scale just now, and I've lost NINE pounds! Yay, stress!" Seems she's recovering nicely. :-)

The End. I hope.
Phew.

Penultimate installment.

Having driven her younger sister to my home in the middle of Saturday night, Zoe headed back to her dad's. She was to be back at university in three weeks; though she was not enjoying living there any more, it was, she decided, more trouble than it was worth to move out.

So on Sunday, back she goes, tells her dad where young sister is. He storms off again with the girlfriend. Monday, he returns, livid. Storms to Zoe, commences to screaming.

"I'm sick of you and your attitude! I'm sick of you turning the other two against me! You either change your attitude, young lady, or you can leave."

Zoe stood her ground. "I have nothing to apologize for, dad. I didn't do anything wrong." She moves past him, up the stairs to her room, to pack.

Grampa, who lives in a basement apartment, tries to intervene. "Come downstairs, and we'll talk," he coaxes, trying to calm his out-of-control son, who objects.

"If you're going to try to tell me I'm not doing right by my children, we have nothing to talk about!" Still, he does descend the stairs, and Zoe starts packing. Daniel is in his room, keeping his head down, hiding, no doubt, behind a computer game.

After packing for some time, Zoe decides to call me, let me know she'll be on her way, but her phone is downstairs and she doesn't want to enrage her father further by walking past him again. She goes to her brother's room, asks if she can borrow his phone.

She has barely returned to her room again, before dad is upstairs, still screaming - this time at Daniel! Daniel, who has had nothing to do with the furor. Daniel, who is a master at staying under the radar. Once again, it is grampa who steers screaming son away from his children. Daniel is now a little shakey, too. Zoe asks if he wants to come with her, but he says he'll just go to a friend's house until he returns to my home later that day. He doesn't want to do anything that will direct dad's rage at him.

The screaming continues, escalates. Zoe is now alarmed. She's seen her dad angry before, but not for this long, and when he came up to attack Daniel he had, in Zoe's mind, crossed from rational to irrational. What will happen when she's packed and ready to leave? She realizes she's too scared to leave her room.

She calls the police.

The dispatcher keeps her on the phone, dad screaming in the background the whole while, until Zoe is told, "The officers are at the door. Can you let them in?" Bolstered by the thought of big calm men waiting at the door, she braves the dining room in which her father still raves. There are THREE officers at the door. Two men, who go to the dining room to talk to raving father; the third, a woman, comes upstairs with Zoe as she finishes up her packing, gets the story from her.

A few minutes later, Zoe is finished and able to go downstairs. Grampa is now gone. Officers ask Zoe to step into the room. Zoe stands back against the farthest wall.

Officer: "Sir, do you know why your 20-year-old daughter is afraid of you?"

"I DON'T KNOW! SHE HAS NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF!! ALL SHE HAS TO DO IS IMPROVE HER ATTITUDE!"

"Can you tell me why your daughter is crying, sir?"

"NO! SHE'S THE ONE WHO'S BEEN TURNING THE OTHERS AGAINST ME!!"

A few more exchanges like this make it evident there is no calm and rational discussion to be had from this man. Zoe, who has no car, suddenly realizes she doesn't know how she's going to get her stuff to my house. She goes in search of grampa, not sure if loyalty to his son will allow him to help her, but what are her options? I can't come: my husband is out of town with our car. Can she use a police car as a moving van??

Grampa is not in his apartment, though. He's not in the main part of the house. He's not out front.

Grampa is out on the back porch, crying.

That was the most heart-breaking part of this whole affair. Grampa is such a nice man, a kindly, good-humoured, family-focussed, public service kind of man. The only mistake he ever made with his son is being too nice. He doesn't deserve this.

Grampa agrees to drive her. The screaming inside has finally stopped. The boxes and bags are shifted to the car. Ten minutes later, she's at my house.

Summary: two kids now live with me, the second achieved with much melodrama. What of the third? That can be the next, blessedly short, and final installment in this dreary tale.