Did you know that 9 percent of Mothers who use the Internet have a toy stuck in their keyboard? I have no idea what this has to do with my post, but it was a factoid I read the other day (I think in Reader’s Digest) and I just can’t help but wondering about it. I mean there are a lot of things that end up in my keyboard, but I think I’d notice a toy. Mostly it’s food and dust and probably some skin cells. But a toy?
Sorry Folks, can’t blog today, I have a Barbie shoe and a Brat foot in my apostrophes.

And I’m really sorry for not being more authorative on where I read these things. I do that a lot. I do a lot of reading and I’m never really sure what I read where. So I say intelligent things like, “There was that group of people, you know, they live um in that place that um, yeah, well and then they went to that other place and um….” But maybe that’s not so bad. Because there are people in my world who when I pull one of these very weird totally useless comments, who actually know EXACTLY what I mean. Gotta love them for that.

I can turn a phrase in writing, but just ask me to say the same thing and you’d think I was saying one of those tongue twisters three times fast.

Like the other day in an ad in our newspaper’s summer guide I saw a glaring error declaring northern Michigan the getaway choice of preference. I don’t remember the exact phrase (see what I mean?) but the ad had a glaring error and it was in about 60 point type. It was an its’ instead of an its. And I took it into my editor’s office and said it was an “oxymoron,” which it wasn’t. And I knew it wasn’t. I meant to say it was ironic. But instead I proved I was a moron and said oxymoron. And now I can’t even remember the phrase so you’ll all know why it was ironic, but that hasn’t stopped me from blogging about it has it? Absolutely not. Thanks for playing.

For the most part, I can fake the speaking thing. I got an A in speech class both in high school and in college. I can talk in front of a crowd without a problem. It’s the more intimate, day to day conversations that cause me problems. My husband constantly corrects my English, which I resent by the way. For that matter, my editor also corrects my speach. But he does it is mostly when I totally mispronounce and mangle the names of various officials. At least I don’t live in Wexford County where one of the candidates is named “Booher” and there are huge signs up all over telling everyone to “Booher” and I just want everyone to know that I am not the her they should be booing. At least not today.

I had an idea for a post this morning that I was going to blog about. It was about extended family and how I rely on them to watch my children. But then I thought Jessica (my niece who just moved back here from Arizona) would think I was talking about her and I wasn’t. I was actually thinking of Granny, my husband’s grandma. Because I just find it amusing.

See, my mother-in-law normally watches my children on Wednesdays and Thursdays when I go to work. But last week my MIL was going with my FIL on Thursday for a small trip out of state. So she let me know and said I’d have to find someone else to watch the kids on Thursday. No problem even though it was on Tuesday when she told me.

I did mention it to Jessica and she was willing, but the MIL had said something about Granny watching them so I thought I needed to check on that first. But I forgot to call Granny on Tuesday. So it’s Wednesday and I’m at the in-laws house and my MIL tells me that Granny has already said she’d watch my kids on Thursday, AND that it works out well for her because she wants them to help her pick berries out of the garden. So pretty much it’s all been arranged without me that Granny will watch the kids, but I should call and arrange times.

So from my in-laws house I call Granny to confirm and to let her know what time to expect the children. And Granny tells me that she has other plans. That she expected my call three days ago and yes, she can watch my children, but she’ll have to change her plans.

I get off the phone kind of bewildered. Now, my MIL didn’t tell me she wouldn’t be able to watch my kids until Tuesday, but Granny knew the weekend before. And she had already had conversations with my MIL and my FIL about watching my kids. So yes, I was late in calling Granny, but Granny knew and I knew she knew. But Granny was trying to teach me a lesson I think. Mothers can never stop mothering.

So Granny watched my kids on Thursday. And this week my MIL is going away again, possibly on Wednesday, but definitely by Thursday. So I called Granny on Sunday and asked. She awarded me and again brought it home that how great it was I called early because she wanted to get her hair done this week and now she knows not to schedule it on Thursday.

Which really makes me wonder whats up with Granny. I don’t mean that as a complaint. I mean I wonder if I’ve somehow made Granny mad and don’t know it. Or if she is worried about Gramps who hasn’t been feeling well for a while now. But knowing Granny, I figure I’ll find out whatever it is sooner rather than later. Granny doesn’t mind telling you exactly what she thinks and doesn’t mind burning a bridge or two either.

Which brings me to the point of all this and that is that arranging childcare is a pain in the butt and requires the patience of a saint and the creativity of an artista and in my case, a dependable vehicle and plenty of cash for gas.

I am also sad that my children’s favorite summertime babysitter has graduated from high school and will be leaving for college in the fall. She has watched my children for the past four summers almost every Saturday night and they adore her. She brings them Christmas presents. And they contstantly harp on me to “Go somewhere so Laura can watch us.” She left a message on my machine the other day. I had called and left one on hers.

I know that she’s growing up and I had actually expected it to happen a lot sooner. And I’m very thankful it didn’t. She was so dependable and good with the kids, and as she got older, she even began driving herself home. She talked to my kids about everything from accepting God, to peer pressure, to a fight my daughter had with me. She listended to them and played with them. They always ran out the door and greeted her with hugs whenever she arrived.

Anyway, I had asked her to call me and let me know if she wanted to babysit. I had done this another time earlier in the year. It wasn’t that I need a babysitter. It’s that the kids want her to babysit. When she called back she confirmed what I knew, that she is busy this summer but that she wants to babysit the kids one last time before she goes to college. Maxine heard that “one last time” part and decided she didn’t want Laura to babysit one last time.

Which leaves me needing a new summertime babysitter. And I hate finding new childcare. For the most part I try to avoid childcare. My schedule isn’t dependable or regular in any way shape or form. It’s what led me to quit my editor’s job when I worked in Mt. Pleasant and only had two children. Because child care providers wanted to charge me a small fortune if I was 15 minutes late picking up my kids. Which I understand, but at the same time, I can’t leave my job until the newspaper is done and childcare providers don’t understand “breaking news” they just want to get rid of your children so their work day can be done. And it seems there are always problems when you are on deadline. It’s the nature of the beast.

Childcare providers also frown on a schedule that might be days and then nights and then who knows. So I’ve come to rely on a everchanging quilt of help from the extended family. My mother-in-law watches my kids the most. She normally has them two days a week and she feeds my family dinner every Thursday evening when I’m at the newspaper doing production. When my daughter’s orthodontist only held Wednesday office hours, my mother in law took my daughter to the appointments because I was at county commissioner meetings two out of four Wednesday mornings each month.

If my mother-in-law can’t do it, I go to my back up plan which is either Granny or my mom. If they can’t do it, I’m usually screwed. But that rarely ever happens. I try to be prompt on asking and showing up when I say I will. I even make sure that I don’t just call to ask for help with child care and that I don’t start out asking “What are you doing on X?” so that they won’t feel obligated if they answered nothing and I follow up with “will you watch….?” Instead, I just ask and let them know they can say no.

But this past weekend, my mom was out of town and my MIL was out of town and my regular summertime babysitter was off on a mission somewhere. And granny was busy too. So I asked Jessica. And Jessica was my regular summertime babysitter for a long time until she grew up, got married and had her own children, plus that moving thousands of miles away made it difficult too. Anywhoo….

Jessica watched my four kids last weekend. My four kids ages, 10, 8, 7 and 5. Did I mention that Jessica has three kids of her own? Yep, she does. Ages 5, 4 and 2. (I remembered!) On Sunday I went to pick up my kids and I arrived about 11:30 a.m. When I walked in, Jessica was at the stove and all seven children were sitting around the kitchen table. Pancakes had been made and Jessica was stirring oatmeal.

I don’t think I said anything. Maybe I said, “You’re eating breakfast!” But I didn’t mean it to sound like and I definitely didn’t say, “It’s 11:30 a.m. and you’re just now eating breakfast! How slovenly can Jessica be?” But that’s must be what it sounded like to Jessica because she got pretty defensive and made it clear that the kids didn’t get up until 10 a.m. and they were out of milk and Quinton put that down No you can’t have milk We’re out of milk. I’m going to make juice. Yes, Amanda, you don’t like juice, sit down, don’t do that.”

In other words, Jessica was stressing a bit. But honestly, she just spent the night watching seven kids and five of the seven were seven years and younger. What do you expect?

And she was doing exactly what I hate about mealtime with children. You are trying to finish the cooking, getting the food and plates and silverware on the table along with napkins and all of the children seated (and in this case, Jessica had to improvise to seat seven children by pulling the tub chair out of the bathroom). And as you try to do one thing, the children start making requests. Like baby birds in a nest fighting for the worm dangling from the momma bird’s mouth. They all want that worm and there’s only one. So you have 20 things being demanded of you and you can’t remember what it was you were doing.

And then I have that child who always seems to be starving just before its time to eat and right after we’re done eating, but never actually wants to eat at mealtime.

It’s times like these that I am very glad that I only had four children. It’s also times like these that I wonder how Jessica can still long for another child. She wants a girl. She has three boys. I mean it’s not like she isn’t busy now. But she wants a girl to dress up in girly things and do her hair and all that girly stuff. But really, I have three girls and that doesn’t last very long. Then for 16 years you have a child who stubbornly refuses to brush her hair, her teeth, change her clothes and wear decent clothing. Because it starts at two, you know. And for most of that first year there isn’t alot of hair to do in a ‘do.

Did I have a point to this rambling post? If I did I lost it way back in the toy in the keyboard thought. Oh wait, yes, I’m thankful for my extended family and how much they help me with childcare issues and keep me from having to deal with the pain in the butt official childcare people who expect me to keep my children and my life on a strict schedule. I have four kids and a minivan and if I’m not out of milk yet, I soon will be. I have dirty dishes and dirty laundry and pretty soon I’ll have to cook a meal I haven’t planned out. Those are the dependable things in my life. That and the fact that I’ll be late. Again. Despite my good intentions.

My children are now old enough that I no longer have to worry about finding a surprise from the baby on my clothing hours after I arrived at work. I am hoping that soon, so very soon, I will no longer have to worry about arranging childcare, which when you consider the difficulty, it can be compared to the task of negotiating peace in the Middle East. Because children grow up and, eventually, out. I have it on good authority. After all, if the kids’ babysitters can do it, someday, the kids will do it too.