Making Time to “Make Some Time”

"Soup" is good for the soul.

Since collecting seven kids, I’ve learned that there just isn’t time for all the things we parents learn to expect and appreciate in our Before Children (B.C.) days. Twenty minutes alone in the shower, for example. If I have time to wash, rinse, and repeat, I know I’m either dreaming, or the kids are scheming to set fire to the house.

Nothing, perhaps, is so missed as the B.C. convenience of having Grown-Up Time at any time of the day, in any room of the house. We have so many little ears around, we don’t even call it Grown-Up Time anymore—we use code, and call it “making soup.”

B.C., steamy soup was abundant, but these days, it seems the soup kitchen’s experiencing budget cutbacks, with the all-important asset of time excruciatingly difficult to come by—especially since all the kids are too old to take naps, now.

Speaking of naps, I fall for it every time... Mr. Wright says, “Hey, the kids are watching a movie downstairs. Wanna take a ‘nap’ with me?” A nap? In the middle of the day? You can bet your bumpus I get excited about the idea of having a little siesta. The problem is, I always assume Mr. Wright is actually hinting at sleep—a breakdown in interpretation which always causes disappointment. For him, I mean. I’m usually sleeping and unavailable for disappointment.

If he really wanted to be clear, he’d say, “Do we have time to whip up a batch of soup?”

Gone are the crock pot days of slowly simmering batches of soup. Now, it’s microwaved, or everyone goes hungry—if we even stay awake long enough to push “start.” At bedtime, there’s always a kid who has to have just one more story read to her, and another who has to have one more drink of water. There’s always one more back that needs scratching or a kid who needs a parent to cuddle—just in case the closet monster decides to make an appearance.

Mr. Wright offers to do the bedtime routine, because (and I won’t lie, it’s true) I’m too much of a pushover, and I play into the kids’ hands for hours on end, reading The Little Fish That Got Away seventeen times. “Start without me!” he calls down the hall, determined to efficiently and quickly cut through the preliminaries of the nighttime games.

Soup really is best when made for two, and even enjoying an appetizer alone is, well, lonely. So I wait for my super souper to join me as the sounds of “one more story” drift down the hallway for thirty-some minutes, and then... Silence. Success! Any minute, now...

Seriously, any minute... What’s taking so long?

I tiptoe down the hall to the girls’ bedroom, quietly push the door open, and peer in. Curlytop and Snugglebug are wide awake. “Shhhhh,” they whisper. “You’ll wake up Daddy.” Sure enough, Mr. Wright is fast asleep at the foot of the bed.

“Oh, well,” I sigh. “Maybe we’ll be able to reheat some leftovers tomorrow night.”

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Miami Vice-less

I'll admit, it was a bit unsettling getting to the airport with enough time to walk to the gate, instead of sprint. I was equally surprised when our checked luggage actually made it to the same airport we did. Those things just don't happen to the Gonzos. We're always rushing this way and that, making frantic phone calls after lost luggage, having difficulty with botched reservations at the hotel and so on, but none of those familiar, soothing scenarios presented themselves. I felt a tiny bit better when our seatmate on the plane filled us in on the latest news about cruise ships - namely, the recent capsizing of the ship in Italy and the widespread outbreaks of Norovirus among ships departing from Florida.

When you live like The Gonzo Mama, crisis and chaos are more comfortable than safe and laid back.

"Maybe, just maybe," I thought, "this trip will be a real break for Mr. Wright and me... No kids, sunshine in February, walking hand-in-hand along the beaches of Miami, and finishing with a cruise through Key West and the Bahamas."

We checked into the hotel with no glitches and headed to the welcome reception, where Mr. Wright effectively ate dinner while I sipped a mango mojito, in the absence of any vegan-friendly fare. We had big plans to take on the Miami nightlife, but I fell dead asleep as soon as we got to the room.

Mr. Wright says that's what happens when a girl drinks her dinner, but I'm blaming jet lag.

The next morning, it started raining. The winds picked up, giving a certain monsoon-like feel to our walk along South Beach, and adding a bit of flair to our outdoor dining experience. I ate a salad, by the way, and passed up the opportunity to enjoy a 36-ounce tropical drink served in a fish bowl in favor of a soy latte.

We headed back to the hotel, soaking wet but prepared to enjoy some private, grown-up time. We drew the curtains to prevent any guests at the neighboring hotel from benefiting from a room with dual views, set the deadbolt on the door, and looked into one another's eyes for the first time in a few years. Just as we barely reached our target aerobic heart rate, one of the kids called, which simply confirmed my suspicion that they intuitively know when it's most inconvenient to interrupt their parents, and they use that skill with deadly accuracy every single time the opportunity is presented.

I'm not asking for a hurricane or anything, but a little adventure would be nice. Where are Crockett and Tubbs?

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Soup, Interrupted

The code word... Do I have to spell it out for you?
Photo source

When Mr. Wright and I were cultivating our first crop of kids, we crafted a code word for Grown-Up Time: soup. As in, “If we can get all the laundry done, the dishes washed, the kids to all their appointments, dinner made, and I can get a shower today, there’s a microscopically slim chance I’ll feel up to having soup for dessert after the wee ones go to bed.”

Last night was one of those rare nights when the stars aligned, and Mr. Wright and I set about preparing the ingredients for a steamy batch of soup.

Just as things were about to come to a rolling boil, we heard the distinct sound of a pair of children’s’ size almost-nine feet stumbling up the stairs to our loft bedroom. “Go on without me!” Mr. Wright cried, but there simply wasn’t time.

Snugglebug crested the top of the stairs, crossed the room, climbed onto the bed and wedged herself between us. Sometimes she arrives half-asleep and conks back out quickly, and Mr. Wright can carry her back downstairs to her own bed.

Last night was not one of those times.

She was wide-awake, and talking up a storm. “Mommy, that’s GirlWonder’s phone. She really, really wants it.” (We’d just implemented a new plan to get the kids to sleep better – collecting their phones at bedtime so they aren’t up all night, texting. Genius, right?) “Daddy, it’s dark in here. We need to turn on the light!” It was well after midnight, and she was running a verbal marathon.

“We need to watch a movie!” Snugglebug announced.

Mr. Wright scooped her into his arms, suggesting a movie would, indeed, be delightful – downstairs, in her own bedroom. Snugglebug resisted, throwing her head into his shoulder in protest, resulting in blood gushing from her tiny nose.

Now, before you call in a report to Children’s Services – and if you’ve known my family for any length of time, I’m sure you have them on speed-dial – I must disclose that Snugglebug gets a bloody nose every time she sticks a finger in her nose, sneezes, or simply looks at herself too long in the mirror.

As Mr. Wright rushed into the bathroom – Snugglebug still in his arms – for the haz-mat material (a.k.a. toilet paper), I fetched the vessel-constricting nasal spray and handed it over to Mr. Wright. This is a modus operandi which takes place a few times a week and changes only in which parent holds the toilet paper to her nose and which retrieves the spray.

There are times, as an adoptive mother, I marvel at how much like me my kids actually are, thus settling firmly in my mind certain portions of the nature-versus-nurture mystery. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Snugglebug is my child by the phrases she uttered during our late-night nosebleed adventure:

“I can NOT do this anymore!”

“Daddy, it makes me sad when you do the nose spray. It hurts my feelings!”

“NEVER AGAIN. Do you understand? I never want this to happen again.”

She cried. She whimpered. Finally, blessedly, she stopped bleeding. By that time, it was pretty much a given that she wasn’t going to go back to sleep in her own room, which was fine – the moment for soup-making had long passed, anyway.

With Snugglebug cuddled between us, Mr. Wright and I marveled at how much she’d grown since we brought the six-pound, three-ounce five-day-old wonder home. “I’m sorry about missing the soup,” I whispered. I really, really was. You have no idea how sorry I was unless, of course, you have seven or more kids yourself. In that case, you know all too well the sense of loss I felt.

“There’ll be other soup,” he assured me. “I wouldn’t change a thing about our lives.”

I agreed with him as Snugglebug began to drift off to sleep. “I wouldn’t change a thing, either.” We smiled at one another and he reached over our youngest miracle to hold my hand as the sound of children’s size-eleven feet echoed up the stairwell and Curlytop’s ginger-colored ringlets found a pillow to rest upon.

Tricks of the Trade-Off

Getting what you want from your spouse is easy...
if you know how.
(Photo by Dean's Photography, Everett, WA)

You’ll never hear Mr. Wright speak an unkind word against me. Well, from my point of view, anyway. See, I don’t think it’s unflattering to be described as “wily, calculating and manipulative.” In fact, I think it’s just another way for my husband to acknowledge my brilliant creativity.

After ten years with my beloved, I can say with confidence, I’ve learned the best ways to approach him, given any particular situation.

For example, if I find a dress I love at my favorite boutique, and I know he’ll balk at the price, I simply purchase the dress, along with another, less flattering, more expensive dress. When I get home, I say, “Honey, I bought two dresses today, but I’m going to take one back. Which do you like?”

He’ll check the price tags, and invariably insist I keep the one I originally wanted.

Like most men, he responds positively to any promise of Grown-Up Time at day’s end. If I need something painted, some heavy thing moved, or a major purchase, I know if I suggest there’s an act of physical fun in it for him, it will make the chore much more pleasant for him. You know, a spoonful of sugar and all that.

The real trick is, of course, not to promise anything I don’t have a hankerin’ for in the first place. That way, I don’t make extra work for myself, see?

Take yesterday, for example. After I got the little ones off to school, I spent the day in search of distraction to keep me from housework. It was no easy task, either, considering the amount of work to be done. Anyway, nearing the end of the day, I’d done everything but the housework, and I began to suspect Mr. Wright would notice the mountain of dishes in the sink and the avalanche of laundry spilling out of the utility room and into the hallway.

Mr. Wright is not, by nature, a Noticer of Things. Still, there are some things I can’t sweep under the rug – not that I didn’t try it with the avalanche of laundry.

Anyway, I did what any other wife would do… I took a photo of myself, sans clothing, with my camera phone and sent it to my husband, along with a note saying, “Let this serve as official notice I did absolutely no housework today.”

I didn’t even have to mention Grown-Up Time.

What’s that? You don’t do that every time your husband is headed home from work and you “forgot” to clean his house and cook his supper? Really? Perhaps you should. It worked out smartly for me.

Mr. Wright was awfully happy to do all the dishes and laundry last night. Can you imagine? I figure, after a couple repeat photo sessions, he’ll hire a maid and send me to photography school.

For the poor husbands out there, wondering if Mr. Wright got his Grown-Up Time, don’t fret. He did. I simply can’t resist a man in an apron, mopping my floors.

Gosh, what woman can?

Delta Blues

Nothing satisfies me more than things working out splendidly after they go horribly wrong. Take our recent flight to Baltimore, for example.

Mr. Wright accidentally booked me on a flight precisely 24 hours before his. When he realized his mistake, he tried to rebook through Delta’s call center. We figured if the cost of changing was lower than putting me up in a discount hotel for a night, we’d do it. Sadly, it was not to be so. Mr. Wright loaded my carry-on into the car and set off on what would be the first of two trips to the airport for him.

In the car, I used my netbook to check in online and was virtually assaulted with Delta’s invitations to try “mobile ticketing,” which promised to save all sorts of time at the airport by sending my boarding pass to my smartphone. Always a fan of better living through technology, I decided to try it.

We arrived at the airport early, in spite of my attempts to postpone our arrival with requests for Starbucks stops and just as many for potty stops. Unfamiliar and ill-at-ease with the experience of arriving early for a flight, I decided to burn the calories I’d normally expend racing to my gate in a different manner; I made out with my husband in the backseat of our car.

It was still an hour before my flight when we approached the Delta counter and tried one more time to rebook. Sometimes, those counter people are sympathetic and let you rebook for fifty dollars if you, say, forget your asthma inhaler and have to go home to get it, which is the angle we took. No luck.

“Lemme use your computer. I need to book your room in Baltimore.” Have I mentioned Mr. Wright’s thriftiness? He wasn’t about to give up before he found the absolute, none-lower, rock-bottom, cheapest room. “I’ll give up the limo if you don’t send me to some rat-infested alley motel,” I begged. “And my flight boards in thirty minutes. Hurry up.”

But Mr. Wright did not hurry. That’s how, fifteen minutes before my flight boarded, I found myself as the only person in the security line, and without my sunglasses, which I’d taken off my head in the car before hopping into the backseat.

I can't live without them.

I can’t live without my sunglasses. My eyes are very sensitive to light. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but it would be daylight when I landed, and then what would I do? Mr. Wright hadn’t made good on the envelope of cash to go shopping, and how could I even find a sunglasses store when I’d be blinded by the sun’s harsh glare?

Mr. Wright made record time retrieving them. I had five minutes until my flight boarded, which meant fifteen until they locked the door. I was still the only one in the security line. I could make it. I kissed Mr. Wright and trotted up to the TSA agent and showed him my mobile boarding pass.

Delta failed to mention their mobile ticketing image may not be properly sized on some devices. The image Delta sent me was refused by TSA! I was sent to the Delta counter for paper tickets.

I ran – in my socks (I’d removed my shoes for security) – to Delta, skidding to a halt when I saw not a soul was there. It was two minutes until my flight boarded. I called out and waited for someone to help me, but no one came.

I raced down the escalator to Delta’s baggage claim area, where hoards of people waited in the “lost baggage” office – a ringing endorsement of Delta’s service, to be sure. “TSA won’t take my mobile ticketing, my flight is boarding, I don’t have paper tickets, no one is at the counter upstairs, and I need help!” I cried over the complaints.

One of the women behind the counter glanced at the clock and said, “Yeah. You’re not going to get on. Go sit out there on the baggage carousel and wait for someone.”

Well, I called Mr. Wright and cried and made him come back to yell at those Delta ladies until they rebooked me – without a fee – on his flight. Then, he called Delta’s national customer service and yelled at those people until they gave me 2500 frequent flier miles. After all, it was Delta’s bad mobile ticketing image that made me miss my flight, right? Finally, he was able to cancel the reservation for the Baltimore hotel room, saving enough money to buy me a sandwich.

The moral of the story, of course, is:

Don’t make out with your husband in the airport parking lot if he is thrifty and you have sensitive eyes and you’re trusting Delta’s technology.

Photo source

I Just Wrote About My Sex Life for a Sex Toy Site. I'm Sorry, Mom.

I think I'm taking embarrassing my parents to a whole new level. In fact, if it ever becomes an Olympic sport, I'm a shoo-in. Can't you just see it?

Anyway, I wrote about Christian sex, and how it's not boring and is, in fact, quite the opposite for married couples with a sense of adventure.

So, you know, if you're going to be grossed out reading about my sex life... don't click over to Toy With Me. Seriously - if you think you'll never be able to look me in the eye again, knowing what Mr. Wright and I do in bed, don't click.

Go watch my book trailer  and buy my book instead. No saucy details of my sex life. I promise.

Also, it goes without saying - don't click over if you're a child. Especially MY children.

Finally, the title I submitted for the piece was "Christian Sex: Not Just Missionary Anymore." It got run as "How I Became a Porn Again Christian." You guys all know I'm vehemently anti-porn, right? Okay. Just wanted to get on the record, there.

Photo: Gonzo Jenny put the bunny ears and banner on me. I added the medal.