Picket Fence Post

I spend a lot of time complaining on this blog. In earnest.

Thus, as I prepare to attempt the Herculean task that is packing the family’s stuff up for a Cape Cod vacation, I’ve decided to be optimistic in the hopes that my hyper, over-caffeinated mania — which has descended upon me like a storm cloud this past week as I tried to attend to all of my work commitments – would fade and a peaceful, Zen-like calm would sweep over me. So, in the name of naive optimism, here’s a list of my favorite things about summer (leaving my gripes about vicious mosquitoes, youth sports practices encroaching on summer and high gas prices off the list):

1. Lighter Laundry Load. The laundry is easier to wash in the summer – beach towels notwithstanding – because the kids are wearing T-shirts and shorts, meaning more of them can be cleaned in fewer loads.

2. The Smell of Sunscreen. Makes me think of the beach. And I love the beach.

3. Fresh Fruit. The abundance of sweet blueberries, strawberries, nectarines, plums and peaches puts the bitter winter fruit to shame. Plus fresh fruit makes for an easy snack for the kids to get for themselves while I’m toiling away at the computer.

4. Swimming. No matter how maddening the day — balancing deadlines and refereeing sibling spats before they spiral downward into bloodbaths – the moment I hop into the pool, the frustration literally washes away. (It quickly returns by the time we get back to the house, but we’re trying to be positive here!)

5. No School Projects. No scrambling, no last-minute errand running, no nagging worry that you’ve forgotten to remind your kid to study her spelling words and get all of your kids going on their science projects.

6. Powdered Lemonade Mixes. They’re cheap (yeah, they contain sugar, but it’s summertime, so get over yourself). They come in ginormous cans. Plus the kids can mix it up themselves, if you overlook the granules of lemonade mix all over the kitchen.

7. Eating Outside. If you eat out of doors before the evil mosquitoes descend and carry away your youngest child, the inevitable spills and dropped food that accompany any meal with young children won’t tick you off.

8. VACATION! Speaking of vacation . . . I’m going to be bold and take a Picket Fence Post blogging break for a whole week. I’ll be back in the first full week of August to regale you all with all manner fanciful tales of the modern family’s summer vacation, so don’t forget to check in here. In the meantime, watch (or set your DVR for) Mad Men on AMC, second season premieres on Sundays at 10 p.m. Trust me, you won’t be sorry.

A few weeks ago, my two boys — ages almost-7 and almost-10 — had been referring to their nether-regions by the nickname ”Wii” . . . as in the Wii video game system that we currently do not own (Santa brought The Eldest Boy Play Station 2 two Christmases ago).

Now, the nickname du jour has evolved into ”game system.”

I discovered that “Wii” was no longer in vogue when, last week, I saw The Youngest Boy, clutching his private parts after he’d been wrestling with his brother. He was grumbling, “Ow! You hit my game system!”

Sometimes, I do not understand the male species.

The Eldest Boy stayed up late last night – with The Spouse’s permission – to watch Major League Baseball’s Home Run derby, while The Girl and The Youngest Boy two watched a recording of it this morning on our DVR.

All three kiddos are psyched about tonight’s All-Star game, although the American League players will be without the services of our beloved Big Papi who’s still on the mend.

Nonetheless, despite any sleep-deprived tantrums that are likely to erupt today or tomorrow following late night baseball viewing, we are thrilled that the Red Sox have re-taken first place in the American League East.

So, as The Youngest Boy is melting down tomorrow because he’s so very tired, I will try to ease my pain in dealing with his irrational behavior by reminding myself that, at least for now, the Sox are number one.

And I’ll plan on bribing the kid with ice cream, that always seems to work.

Image of me wearing my beloved Red Sox jacket. The dinner plate-sized button bearing the likeness of my baseball hero, Dwight Evans, is obscured from view.

So a neighbor stopped by my house yesterday to tell me that earlier this week at around 6:30 p.m. she saw two coyotes in my front yard chasing down some rabbits (the rabbit population has boomed this year in our neighborhood).

My choices: Prevent my three kids from playing outside at dusk or tell them to be aware of their surroundings and come inside immediately if they see anything larger than a cat. (I suppose there’s a third option; I could sit on the front steps with a rifle and shoot down dem critters to protect ma kin, but that’s not really my style.)

In the era of too much TV, too many video games, a fixation on computers/texting and general childhood sloth, I sat the kids down, told them about the coyotes and advised them to come inside if they see an animal larger than a cat, other than our other neighbor’s border collie. True, at dusk, I’ll tell urge them to stay away from the wooded area or near the area of the yard where the neighbor saw the coyotes, but I don’t want them to grow up afraid to go outside and live their lives.

Hopefully, I made the right choice.

The kid’s an unbelievably difficult eater. Wants to subsist on sweets and carbs alone. The Spouse and I have tried — largely in vain — to convince him to eat healthy fare, offering a variety of fresh foods at meals and snack times, insisting that at meals he just try one bite of each item of healthy stuff. That’s all. One bite. Then the kid can go crazy with his pasta with olive oil and grated cheese, a few apple slices and baby carrots until the end of time.

On a recent night we stuck to our plan, insisting that the kid eat a small piece of the roasted chicken we put on his plate. One teeny piece. In fact we encouraged him to pop the small piece into his mouth and wash it down with milk, followed by a big bite of French bread. Did he listen? No. Instead, under much duress, he put the chicken into his mouth and, as he chewed it veeerrryy slowly, rolling it around his tongue. His eyes grew watery and red, glaring hotly at us as he seemed to be moving in slow-motion.

“Just swallow it!” we shouted.

But it was too late. Without ever swallowing it, the kid projectile vomited all over the table, all over the red and white striped place mats, the bowls of leftover food. It ran across the table and dripped through the space between the table and the leaf and onto the floor. It took The Spouse and I almost a half-hour to clean up the mess.

Now the kid has sworn off all chicken, a major staple of our family meals.

What’s that they say about the best laid plans?

Item #1: Cindy McCain’s Strength

While some in the media portray her harshly — depict her as talking Barbie doll — Cindy McCain has an inspiring life story. Profiled in a cover story in Newsweek, she addresses how difficult it has been to be married to someone who spent a large chunk of their marriage either deployed with the Navy someplace or serving in Washington, D.C. while she was home with four kids in Arizona, working at her father’s beer distributorship and running her charity for children.

An excerpt:

“Cindy has sometimes likened herself to a single mother; now 54, she has often been far away from her husband during difficult moments, including two of three miscarriages she suffered in the 1980s. Years later, her husband did not notice when she became addicted to painkillers, a habit, she says, brought on in part by the stress of politics. In 2004, he was on the other side of the country when she suffered a stroke that left her partly debilitated. On her own, she learned to walk again. Cindy says she doesn’t resent the time she spent without her husband. It was her choice to stay in Arizona while he rose in Washington, and she says she knew when she married him that he was always going to ‘put country first.’”

She also said she tries not to discuss that she had a son serving in Iraq during the presidential primaries because she was afraid it would put him in danger, while her husband’s statements on the Iraq war were being parsed by the media. Newsweeksaid that when her son was in Iraq (he’s back now and it’s unclear if he could be redeployed), McCain slept with her BlackBerry in her hand so she wouldn’t miss his call if he phoned.

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