Melodee

Never the same again
By Melodee
This afternoon, my husband drove our mini-van past a beige house with a tall evergreen tree crowding the front lawn.
"You should take a picture," he said. (…)

Don't Tell Me Things Will Get Worse
By Melodee
“Worst decision I ever made,” she said. She spoke of adopting nine children.
“Hardest time in my life,” she said. She spoke of giving birth to three children in three years. (…)

Happy Childhood
By Melodee
I've always said I had a happy childhood. I'm not sure why I think that. My parents moved twenty-five times by the time I was five years old. And not just down the street. (…)

How To Win The War Against Terror
By Melodee
Today’s task: Sort through last year’s school books, box up the non-consumables, discard the workbooks in the recycling bin, open up new boxes of materials, inventory and shelf them. (…)

My Four-Year Old
By Melodee
My daughter thought 6:12 a.m. was a fine time to wake up. I thought not, so I rocked her for two minutes and put her back to bed. I think she woke up because she was cold. (…)

On Being A Good Mother
By Melodee
I sometimes hear mothers proclaim with great confidence, “I am a great mother!” This is often in tandem with a complaint about a mother-in-law’s meddling ways and criticisms, but still. (…)

Warning to cute bullies
By Melodee
At our private pool the other day, six-year old Grace asked me for $1.50 to buy a snack from the vending machine. (…)

Easily irritated or justified annoyance? You decide.
By Melodee
Last night, while I rode my exercise bike and concentrated on the tiny print of Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady (which is taking forever to read) I may have been a little snippy when I asked my husband to, “TURN DOWN THE VOLUME!” of the television. He pointed out that I am easily irritated, which, hey, so sue me. Perhaps it’s true. I just want whoever is nearest the remote control to be responsible enough to monitor the volume, turning it down during the commercials and up during vital dialogue. Is that too much to ask? (…)

Goodbye Expectations! Hello, Reality.
By Melodee
I locked my son out of the house today. I did. He’d run outside to make a dramatic point about the horrors of repeating a failed spelling test. When I saw the door ajar, I closed it, locked it and then made sure the other doors were locked, too. Ha! (I, myself, am the model of maturity, to be sure.)
And when he knocked at the front door, I leaned in close to the door jam and said with mean glee, “Enjoy your time outdoors because I don’t allow children who are disrespectful into my house!” And then I checked to make sure the deadbolt was still turned and stomped upstairs where my daughter was taking her third bath of the day and was vying for my attention. (”WHAT?!” “Um, I need a stick to put in his mouth,” she said, indicating a plastic shark. At which point, I died from a heart attack. The end.)
I never, ever, not one time in my whole adolescence sassed my parents. (At least not out loud.) I never set out to annoy them, to displease them, to make them want to lock me out of the house. Never. I was a pleaser, a good girl who wanted only to get perfect grades. I volunteered my time at a hospital, at a 4-H group, at church and more. If you needed help, I was your girl. (…)

Give Me Some Earplugs!
By Melodee
I'm turning into my grandmother with her intolerance for noise. Macular degeneration stole her sight, so she sits in one chair, mostly, listening to the silence when she isn't listening to the Bible on tape. I rarely take my kids to viist because I know she cannot tolerate the noise. She's 101. What's my excuse? (…)

Being A Mother Is Harder Than I Thought
By Melodee
My daughter is four and a half. As the youngest child and only girl in my family, she exerts her will on her brothers by crying. (…)

I Quit
By Melodee

I quit. I quit because I am unqualified. I took this job when it involved nothing more than cuddling babies, changing diapers and offering the appropriate amount of formula per day. (…)