Neglected Blogs, Homeschooling, and Mnemonics

During the past two weeks, no fewer than ten people have chided me for neglecting my blog. (A couple have also mentioned being tired of the same old picture, so I chose a different one for a change.) I knew it had been awhile, but I was surprised to find I hadn’t posted a new entry in over three months. I’m flattered that people are still checking. Although I get up in the wee hours of the morning, with five kids still at home and several part time jobs, it’s sometimes midafternoon before I even find time to brush my teeth.

A good deal of my recent time has been spent teaching Middle Son algebra. My high school algebra teacher would laugh hysterically at the very idea.  The fact is, I’ve learned a lot through teaching my children these past twelve years. My kids think I’m brilliant. They don’t know that my evenings are often spent studying the very thing I intend to instruct them in the following day. Middle Son is the third one I’ve helped with algebra, and I was pleased to realize I didn’t need to study quite as hard this time. Homeschooling often provides these kinds of unexpected bonuses!

Discussing “Order of Operations” with my resigned teen, I remembered a mnemonic I learned as a student myself. (Don’t tell the kids, but that’s the ONLY thing I learned as an algebra student.) “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” . . . Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction! I shared this with my son, and it proved to be the magic solution to his dilemma. At least, he stopped wailing about the unfairness of having to do “math with all those letters”.

As I was standing under the shower this morning (pleased at having arrived there before noon), Youngest Daughter pulled the shower curtain aside and peeked in. “I can’t turn the water on, and I need to wash my hands. Which is it?” she inquired.

I knew what she meant. “Righty – tighty; Lefty – loosey!” I chanted. Satisfied, she was able to finish her grooming after turning the faucet handle left (and scalding me in the process, but that’s another story). 

“Blog fodder!” I realized, and immediately started thinking of other mnemonic devices we’ve used over the years.

Even my youngest children can recite, “Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species”, because the older ones feel compelled to say, “King Phillip, Please Come Over For Good Spaghetti” every time I serve pasta for dinner. This is another benefit of homeschooling. The younger kids learn from their older siblings. It’s also something I didn’t learn myself, until I had to teach it to my kids . . . the order of taxonomy.

I do remember my second grade teacher telling us, “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.”  That still helps me remember, “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto”, although the International Astronomical Union went and messed it up by demoting Pluto. I’ve seen it changed recently to, “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles”, which really doesn’t have the same zing.

Most of my kids will also proudly rattle off the names of the Great Lakes when the opportunity arises. (The little show offs!) They spell HOMES . . . Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.

Can YOU remember the difference between a Dromedary camel and a Bactrian camel? You’ll never forget again if you remember that a capital ”B” has two humps, as does a Bactrian camel. A capital “D” has only one hump, just like the Dromedary. (Camels are even-toed ungulates. I thought you’d want to know.)

Roy G. Biv is a name that helps elementary students remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Try as I might, I can’t find a separate “indigo” color in a real rainbow. Isn’t indigo just a shade of blue? I suspect it was added because a vowel was needed in “Biv” . . . and whoever heard of the last name “Biv”, anyway? I prefer the one suggested in my favorite science curriculum: “Rainbow Over You, God’s Blessed Promise”. Besides alluding to the history of the rainbow, it ignores the silly “indigo” and replaces “violet” with “purple”, a more familiar color to most young children .

When I was asking my husband for mnemonic ideas, he offered helpfully, “On old Olympus’ towering tops, a Finn and German viewed some hops.”

“What the heck is THAT?” I asked.

“It’s how I remember the cranial nerves,” he replied innocently. As a nurse, Hubby has to concern himself with such things. I’ve had that rhyme running through my mind all day. I still don’t know the cranial nerves, and I’m not sure I care enough to learn them. Now I know how my son feels about algebra. 

Her Crowning Glory

The grey-haired geek is no longer grey. I colored my hair yesterday, something I’m in the habit of doing only once or twice a year. As a result of my inattention to the upkeep of my coif, I usually sport a disturbing mixture of dark new growth, blonde ends, and wiry grey rebels.

I’ve used blonde hair dye since I was in my teens. Since six inches of dark roots are usually visible before I get around to doing anything about them, I’m reasonably certain my natural hair color is medium brown. In an attempt to further prolong the time between dye jobs, I decided to switch to a shade closer to my growing-in hair. Completely taken in by their advertising campaign, I settled on a brand called “Perfect Look”.

Wrestling the latex gloves from my youngest daughter, who desperately desired to include them in her toy nurse’s kit, I plastered the clear goo on my head. Reclining in my favorite chair, laptop in place, I waited for the dye to do its job. Middle Son arrived and circled me quizzically, tilting his head and stroking an imaginary beard. “Knock it off. I’m dying my hair,” I scowled.

“I see that, Mom. But . . . purple?” he asked, incredulous.

“It’s not purple. It’s medium brown,” I informed him. “Now, go away and leave me alone.” (He’s fifteen and accustomed to verbal abuse.)

“Looks purple to me,” he commented. “Honest, I’m not kidding. Your hair is bright purple.”

He sounded convincing, so I decided to take a look. After swiping at a blob that was dripping down my forehead, I peered at the goo on my hand. It had definitely turned purple.

“Well,” I remembered hopefully, “The instructions said Color of solution does not indicate color of hair.” That alarming purple worried me, though. I decided to rinse it out a few minutes early.

As someone in the family feels compelled to do every time I’m in the shower, Middle Daughter peeked behind the shower curtain. “Mom!” she exclaimed. “Your shower water is PINK!” Now I was truly concerned. Hurriedly finishing my rinse, I leaped from the tub and looked in the mirror. I really couldn’t determine the color of my dripping wet locks. A few minutes with a hair dryer revealed the truth. My hair was NOT purple. It was green.

Eldest Daughter appeared. “Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights,” she offered helpfully. Alas, the mirror in my incandescent-lighted bedroom told the same story.

So here I sit with what someone apparently thinks is my “Perfect Look”. I beg to disagree. Not only did the purple dye turn my hair green, but the included conditioner did strange things to the texture. (Too late, I read the purpose of the conditioner: To maintain your new color’s brilliance . . . )

The appearance of a few dark roots would be cause for celebration today.

Mastering the Ball

Blogging beats marriage counseling any day. I often blog about differences in my husband’s and my perspectives regarding a given situation. Writing is a terrific way to organize my thoughts. By the time I type the final sentence, I’ve usually managed to minimize the importance, find the humor, or determine that I’M the quirky partner. Even Dr. Phil couldn’t get better results.

It is with the above in mind that I seek to examine hubby’s sports obsession. When not at work, my husband can usually be found participating in, attending, viewing, or listening to some sports event. I know he isn’t the only male affected in this way. Even our pastor greets my husband with a shoulder clap and a gruff-voiced comment like, “Hey! How ’bout them Pit Bulls?!” (or some equally aggressive sounding mascot).

Although I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to understand the masculine interest in mastering the ball. That is the goal of most popular sports, after all. Participants attempt to whack a ball with a stick, stuff a ball in a net, kick a ball over a line, or coax a ball into a hole. I’ve considered checking out hockey, just for the novelty of the puck.

My spouse and I realize there are areas where we will never understand each other. Wrapping up a discussion destined to go nowhere, one of us will usually offer, “Well, I guess it’s just one of those Mars/Venus things.” The passion for sports does seem to be gender-related. Marveling at the sight of my mate, doing his victory dance in front of some televised sport, I’ve been known to sigh and declare, “Testosterone!”  Wisely, my husband has so far refrained from looking heavenward and muttering, “Estrogen!” under his breath in return.

My own disinterest in sports is so severe that I’m ignorant of even the most basic rules of the game. When my husband and I were dating, we attended a football event where I resorted to watching him surreptitiously, so I’d know when to cheer. When he stood, I did likewise. When he shouted, “All right!”, I attempted to match his jubilant smile. When he offered a high five, I didn’t let on that I would have preferred quiet hand holding. Somehow, I failed to recognize the signs of things to come.

Driving by the local high school, I admit to being puzzled by the women populating the bleachers. I can only assume that they’re in attendance to cheer for their children. Moms cheer for anything their children do . . . Try a bite of vegetables, use the potty chair, bat a touchdown or kick a home run.

I can’t quite resolve the income discrepancy between a farmer (who fills empty stomachs), a babysitter (who cares for precious children), and a basketball player. (Remind me what they do again?) My own days are spent focused on activies that put meals on the table, fill drawers with clean clothing, and render the bathtub free of grime. A results-oriented person, I seldom make time for things with no practical purpose, and it’s difficult for me to acknowledge that entertainment value can translate to dollars and cents. 

That, perhaps, is what I’ll take from this post. If life is about achieving balance, then I’m probably a bit off-kilter. At the end, considering what we’ve done with our lives, I imagine I will be able to provide a short list of accomplishments and a long list of things I wish I’d done. My husband, confident that he’s fulfilled his most important responsibilities, will simply grin and say, “I’ve had a GREAT time!”

The Newlywed Game

Glimpsing my brand-new husband about to remove a pan from the stovetop, I launched myself across our kitchen just in time to save a virgin potholder. “Don’t use that on a pot!” I exclaimed, snatching the hotpad from my startled groom’s hands. 

He scratched his head, no doubt adding my newest admonition to a growing mental list. “This is a potholder, right?” he asked me. “And . . . you don’t want me to use it to hold a pot?”

Hanging the spotless potholder on its color-coordinated hook next to the matching oven mitt, I flung open a drawer beside the stove. “Here,” I instructed, gesturing to several charred and greasy squares of fabric. “THESE are potholders to USE. The other ones are for DECORATION!”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh, I see!” he exulted. “It’s like the hand towels!”

He really WAS trying, I reminded myself, thinking back to the previous week when he had wiped his hands on the adorable little monogrammed guest towels adorning our bathroom. At that time, married a matter of days, he had seemed completely unable to comprehend why we might own towels that he couldn’t dry with. It had taken me half an hour just to convince him I was serious. He never admitted to understanding my reasoning, but good-naturedly agreed to henceforth use only old, unmatched towels from the cupboard, leaving the guest towels unrumpled and pleasing to look upon.

A few days after the potholder incident, I noticed the toilet lid cover laying in a heap on the bathroom floor. I replaced it on the toilet, only to find it on the floor once again the following day. Picking it up, I took it to my husband and asked if he knew anything about it. “Yeah, I don’t like it there,” he informed me. “The lid won’t stay up with that fuzzy thing on it.”

“We can’t have a bare toilet lid,” I mused, trying to avoid an argument. “Whatever shall we do?”

“WHY can’t we have a bare toilet lid?” hubby challenged. Inspired, he referenced one of my prior complaints. “If I have to use one hand to hold the lid up, do you KNOW what effect that will have on my aim?” Faced with the choice of a naked toilet seat or sprinkles, I chose the lesser of two evils. To this day, our toilet lid sports a decal instead of a fuzzy cover.

For the first couple of years, our bed was dressed in a bedspread that I pulled up over the pillows to make the bed. When we purchased our first home, I splurged on a comforter with matching pillow shams. At that point, I thought my husband was almost trained, so I was shocked to see him climb beneath the comforter and rest his oily head on the pillow sham. I gaped at him, speechless. “What?” he asked, defensive.

“You don’t sleep on the pillow sham,” I explained, trying to be patient. “You take it OFF the pillow at night.”

“If you just have to take it OFF at night, then why do we put it ON during the day?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“For DECORATION!” I explained, for the umpteenth time. He threw the pillow at me.

The next night, at the dinner table, my husband’s hand stopped midway between his plate and the platter of meat. With a glint in his eye, he asked, “Oh, wait. Can I eat this, or is it a DECORATIVE pork chop?” I was not amused.

Despite our ongoing struggle to blend aesthetics with function, I must admit I admire my husband’s ability to be comfortable in his own skin. When we have guests, I feel obligated to serve chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven. My husband offers them a bite of his bagel. If I need to dash out to the store, I stop to put on lipstick before I leave. My husband rarely makes sure his fly is zipped first. Unexpected company will find me dashing about, stashing misplaced items out of sight. Hubby merely shoves the unfolded laundry off the sofa to make room for his friends.

My husband IS who he IS. He doesn’t put on airs, and he treats everyone in the same friendly manner. Life with this man holds no unpleasant surprises, a fact I find curiously comforting. For that, I will put up with a rumpled towel or two.

What’s That, You Say?

I didn’t recognize the number appearing on my caller ID, but I answered my phone anyway. “Am I speaking to Kelly?” the caller asked.

After confirming that she was, indeed, speaking to the right person, she identified herself as head of a contest I had recently entered. The task was to design a logo for a newly-created community program. The winner would receive a cash prize and, of course, the satisfaction of seeing their creation in use around town.

Delighted, I felt little tremors of anticipation in my limbs and my mind begain to race. There’s only ONE reason she would be calling me! How much was that cash prize again?

“We REALLY liked your logo entry,” she gushed. “It was very unique!”

I blushed. I had actually been quite proud of it myself.

“We received so many LOVELY entries!” she continued. I began congratulating myself. Yeah, but you’re calling ME, lady, so mine must have been the BEST!

“We have such talented people in our town!” she carried on, as I smiled modestly at the phone receiver.

Her next words took a minute to sink in. “Unfortunately, we could only choose one winner, and we chose someone else’s entry. I’m calling all of the entrants today to let them know.”

WHAT?! So I didn’t win, after all. Okay, I’m a good sport. I don’t expect to win every contest I enter, or even MOST of them. But, this was certainly an unconventional way of letting down a “loser”. Whatever happened to a politely worded form letter?

After swallowing a gulp of disappointment, I thanked the woman for letting me know and started looking for humor in the situation. (It’s usually there somewhere, if you look hard enough.)

I began thinking about other times people didn’t stop to consider the impact their initial words can have on another’s emotions.

I once accompanied my husband to a youth camp, where he was to be camp nurse. Each student was supposed to have a medical release, which allowed my husband to treat their splinters, mosquito bites, and homesickness. One boy appeared at our cabin in the wee hours of the morning, complaining of a headache. Unable to find his medical release, my husband was forced to call the boy’s mother for permission to give him Tylenol. I realized hubby had reached an answering machine when I heard him say, “This is Andy’s camp nurse. Please call me as soon as possible.”

Horrified when I saw him about to hang up, I began jumping up and down and waving my arms around wildly. “Tell her he’s OKAY!” I insisted. “She’s going to WORRY!”

Since I was seven months pregnant at the time, my husband stared at my antics in disbelief for a moment. Finally comprehending my concern, he hurriedly turned back to the phone. “It’s a headache . . .” he managed to fit in before the answering machine cut him off.

I take credit for receiving a perfectly calm return call from Mrs. Andy’s Mother a few minutes later.

Working in a hospital emergency room, I often witnessed telephone calls made by patients receiving treatment for a cold or other minor illness that began something like this:

“Hi, Mom? This is Jill. Jack and I are here in the emergency room.”

In the interest of minding my own business, I had to restrain the impulse to jump up and down to get their attention. (I was almost always pregnant during those years, too.) I suspect a few of those calls were intentionally worded that way to provide a moment of drama for someone bored enough to seek treatment for a stubbed toe at 3 a.m. Most of the callers, though, just hadn’t stopped to think about the reaction of the person on the other end of the line. I am certain they stopped initiating phone conversations that way once they became parents themselves.

I have also been caught off guard due to things NOT said. Years ago, I reluctantly agreed to accompany a friend to an aerobic exercise class. Arriving at her home, I found the front door opened wide and a pool of blood on her front porch. Telltale spatters trailed to the street in front of her house, where her car was nowhere to be seen. No one answered my tentative knocks at her door.

This was pre-cellphone era so, greatly concerned, I hopped back into my car and drove to the nearest hospital E.R. I arrived just in time to see my friend’s husband help her back into their car, looking quite pale. Knowing the hospital wouldn’t tell me what had happened, I turned around and drove back to her house, where I learned she had cut her hand washing dishes and, “Boy, did it bleed a lot!” It was a very minor injury, requiring only a butterfly bandage. I quickly forgave her for worrying me because, after all, she was wounded and too panicked to think about leaving a note.

Besides, I had been looking for a good excuse to miss that exercise class.

Sarah and Me

My husband was attending an employer-required class (called “Non-Violent Crisis Intervention” . . . fodder for a future blog) when the news of Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination broke. When he arrived home, I met him at the door. “Did you hear who McCain chose?” I asked.

“Yeah. He picked YOU!” exclaimed Hubby.

I cocked my head at him so he clarified, “Well, not YOU . . . but someone a lot LIKE you!”

It was later, in the shower, when I began comparing and contrasting Sarah Palin and myself.

Our basic belief systems appear to be similar. (I’m a conservative Republican with liberal Democrat friends. She’s a conservative Republican with conservative Republican enemies.)

We both delight in our young sons with Down syndrome. (Although I haven’t had a chance to show mine off on TV, I plaster his picture all over the Internet.)

We both wear funny-looking glasses. (Note to self: Update blog photo one of these days.)

We’ve each given birth to more than the socially acceptable maximum of four children. (Have four children and people will say you have a large family. Have five or six and they suddenly find lots more to say about you.)

We both sell things on eBay. (I admit, her sales are a little out of my league. When she became governor, she sold the corporate jet.)

We both married incredibly handsome and successful men. (My husband reads my blog . . . )

On the other hand:

Sarah has won beauty pageants. I haven’t done that yet.

Sarah’s nickname is powerful and impressive: “Sarah Barracuda”. Mine is a little less imposing: “Smelly Kelly”.

Likewise, her children are creatively named: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. Mine are James, Julia, David, Carolyn, Faith and Joshua. Professional analysis of this could prove interesting.

Sarah hunts moose. I hunt for my car keys and mates to my children’s socks. 

I thought it was important to point out these similarities and differences to aid in the vetting process if anyone ever decides to call me out of the blue and ask if I’d be interested in running for Vice President of the United States.

Don’t tell me it couldn’t happen.

My Van and Your Child’s Fever

 I ignored it as long as I could. Finally, it grew too loud to ignore. My van was making a Funny Noise. Automotive trouble still strikes fear into my heart, an anxiety reaction left over from the days when My Car was the only way I could get to Work and I had No Money with which to pay for Repairs.

These days, although I still have no money for repairs, I do have the use of my husband’s credit card. I took the van to the repair shop and told a man in coveralls about the Funny Noise. He wanted a little more information. Brushing french fries from the front seat, he slid in and started the engine. Oh . . . THAT noise!

“How long has it been since your timing belt was changed?” he inquired. I stared at him blankly. Were we still talking about my van?

He tried again. “Has anyone looked at your camshaft lately?” I gave him a withering look.

Two days and $750 later, I returned to pick up the van. Shaking his head, the mechanic led me to a table where he had laid out a variety of greasy objects. “I had to replace this completely. Worn through!” he exclaimed, picking up something that resembled a metal donut frosted with rust. “Your noise is gone now,” he assured me. Scooping what I assumed were discarded pieces of my van into a box, he offered, “I’ll send them with you, in case your husband has any questions.”

Smiling with gratitude, I didn’t admit that neither my husband nor I would be able to identify the contents of his box. It could have been pieces from the inside of a toaster, for all we’d know. My husband and I are both very intelligent people (me, slightly more), but neither of us is the least bit interested in what makes a car run. We just want it to do so.

I have to keep this in mind when friends ask for medical advice. I worked in departments throughout our hospital for close to three decades, and my husband is an RN. It amazes me when someone doesn’t know how to get their baby’s fever down or wonders whether a laceration needs suturing. I used to think parents should be obligated to learn this stuff. That’s before I started comparing it with my own indifference to the mechanical workings of my automobile. As a car owner, should I be obligated to change my own oil? The possibility causes me to shudder!

So, parents, you’re off the hook. It’s okay to plead ignorance when your kid wakes up vomiting in the middle of the night. Go to the emergency room. Ask the nice nurse what to do. Just don’t expect to communicate with her any better than I do with my mechanic.

People in various professions develop their own lingo. This becomes so firmly a part of their vocabulary that they forget others don’t speak the same language.

I once witnessed a nurse explaining to a couple that their child had “otitis media”. The mom, who had apparently had trouble convincing the father to take the child to the doctor, turned to her husband in exasperation. “I TOLD you it wasn’t just an ear infection!” she triumphed, not knowing that’s exactly what “otitis media” means.

Years ago, it was a common practice to hang a patient’s chart on the wall and stick a Post-It note to the front of it, indicating why the patient was there. This was pre-HIPAA privacy rules, when passersby could readily read the yellow squares declaring headache, eye injury, or fever. One elderly gentleman stopped cold when he noticed his chart had “SOB” emblazoned across the front. “Shortness of Breath” is the first thing that would pop into a doctor’s or nurse’s mind when glancing at that abbreviation. The puzzled and offended patient thought of a different term.

Once, I noticed a young father pacing the waiting room with a toddler in his arms. When I offered to find him a place to sit, he declined. Returning to my desk, I saw the new admitting clerk’s notation in the log book:  Painful rear. “Aha!” I thought. “So THAT’S why he doesn’t want to sit!” I couldn’t have been more wrong. I soon learned that the father was walking the floor to comfort the real patient . . . his toddler, who had a painful RIGHT EAR. I never again wondered why the medical abbreviation for “right ear” is “AD” instead of “r. ear”.

I admit that years of listening to humans reciting the intimate details of their bodily functions has made me somewhat immune to the ew-value certain topics hold for most people. (Do you like that? “Ew-value.” I made it up.)  This last example isn’t for the squeamish or those easily offended. Choose to read further at your own risk.

I deleted the last paragraph, after deciding it had too much ew-value for the general public. If you really want to know, email me.