A Missive from an Introvert

I packed bulky bags and Christmas gifts in my white Camaro convertible to return to Vanderbilt about this time a whopping 23 years ago.  Carefully hung in the back seat were a myriad of cute outfits with square yellow post-its pinned to them.  In my sister's loopy writing, they spoke loud and clear:

"Wear this sweater with the suede skirt, concho earrings, boots" 

"Goes with long skirt but not with anything pleated" 

"Do NOT button to the top"

"Needs a long necklace"

"Pearls only"

These firm directives were meant to steer a well-known introvert (me) through Rush Week, a week that still plays on a tortuous loop in my head.

That week--it showcased how my conversations begin normal enough but careen and wobble into no-mans land in a way that well-accessorized, Texas-approved outfits and smooth bobbed hair cannot not cover.  

For instance, in the Theta house, a preppy, peppy rush chairman asked me about my hall mates.  "Well, I'm actually worried about that," I said.  "One girl seems like she's anorexic.  She will only eat pale green apples, and that's all!  She is wasting away. I've taken her to Kroger and all she will buy are those apples, or come home with nothing if they're out of stock. I'm concerned--what do you think I can do to help?" 

Crickets.

Then: "Okay, Kristin!  Let me introduce you to Mary-Martha! I think you both have Popovich for Survey of Western Art!  Sooooo nice to meet you, Kristin!  Remember you can Fly High with Theta!"

In spite of all the post-it notes and awkward chitchat, I was grateful to pledge Chi Omega,
 a sorority that spoke my love language with the slogan "GET REAL: Chi-O".   

Such is the awkward life of an introspective introvert.  I think if you polled a group of us (which would be like pulling teeth), you would find some common themes and opinions.  I'm going to put five of them out there for public consumption, if for nothing else but as therapy for this long-ago week when my social shortcomings took center stage.

Number One:  Inauthentic social situations are torture.  Rush rounds have given way to committee meetings and client dinners, so I live the same song, different dance in a world that favors small talk and light banter.  There is hardly anything I dislike more than a committee meeting, but setting that aside, I still find it very hard to even have superficial parking lot conversations at drop off.  (Truly, I switched preschools for one that involved loading children directly into my running vehicle.)  My difficulty exists primarily because I bump into people while my thought processes are fully engrossed in something that happened earlier that morning, last night, or even years ago, for Pete's sake.  I mull past conversations and interactions over in my mind, consider better responses, or even pray or dwelling on a scripture that won't leave my head.  Thus, when confronted with small talk, I usually can only come up with a blank stare or a stilted, pathetic response.  I've noticed that this introvert's ability to flip on the conversation light at will has diminished greatly with older age.

Number Two: Staying home sounds great.  I can just be myself at home, even though with six bunk mates and a dog, it's hard to say I'm ever quite alone.  My world feels more normal here, and the limits on required social interactions keep things on an even keel. I can think a thought to its natural and full conclusion (unless the toilet is overflowing or children are jousting over who gets the last cookie). Recently, I decided to pull off the introvert's version of going out and had three close friends come over for a girls night in.  We could lean back in comfy chairs, put our feet up on the coffee table, drink too much wine, and laugh obnoxiously loud rather than get dolled up, hire sitters, and sit around a crowded establishment semi-shouting across the table.  It was one of the most enjoyable moments of my Christmas vacation.  

Number Three:  Less talking is better.  While there's a lot rumbling through in introvert's head, the effort to get it all articulated through conversation looms large.  On high-word-count days, I sometimes run out of the will to talk, to be honest.  My kids can attest to those nights where I've held up my hands and said "Mom's out of words today", which is the BatSignal for a quick and quiet tuck in and goodnight.  They've accepted it as one of my (many) quirks, and I've accepted this big, extroverted, noise-loving brood as a clear indication that God's sense of humor is alive and well.

Number Four:  Less talking is better, unless more feels right.  Apparently I'm a contrarian in addition to an introvert, because there are rare days I can talk a blue streak, when all the thoughts and words come tumbling out.  I also really enjoy deeper conversations with a few dear friends that have been in my life for many years. I suppose this is in part because we can pick up a genuine line of conversation without any small talk, and also due to the fact that these kind folk have accepted me for who I am and know that despite my idiosyncrasies, I truly care about them.

Number Five:  Love us anyway.  One of the tough byproducts of being an introvert is the sense of isolation it brings.  I regularly am in groups of people I know and still felt very alone. Because of this, my relationship with Jesus has been an integral part of my life from a very young age.  Even when I feel solitude, I can honestly say that in the depth of my heart I know God is with me, loving me every moment of the day, social gaffes and all.  And the friends who persevere with loving me--including the mismatched outfits, blunders, and blank stares--they are quiet balms helping me through this noisy, rush-filled world. 

A Normal {for us} Christmas

I have one point of comparison--my own--to judge a right and good Christmas. 

It always involves a candlelight service on Christmas Eve and then a long night's stretch to find the loot I've accumulated for months in all my best hiding places.  After that, we assemble, assemble, assemble until the wee morning hours (2:30am this particular year).  

I don't know if it was the glass of wine or the extreme fatigue, but I was downright giddy when I fell into bed.

Moreover, despite my good intentions, I'm resigned to the fact that every year there will be a certain toy/candy/clothing that I find in the dark recesses of my closet 'roundabout March that shall remain ungifted.

So what makes a normal Christmas?  ("Normal? What does anyone in this family know about normal? We act normal, Mom! I want to BE normal!" -my girl Violet in the Incredibles) 

This beleaguered tree and the subsequent photos tell a lot about our current "normal" and how it played out this holiday season.

For instance, for their own protection, no gifts nestled there until after bedtime on the evening of December 24.  As we approached the holiday, there were a paltry amount of unbreakable ornaments hung from 40 inches down (Josh's wingspan), with the netting and ribbon ripped off and hastily put back on multiple times.  The mid-tier is occupied by homemade baubles while the upper reaches, untouchable except to the well-placed football spiral, play home to my irreplaceable Baccarat and Waterford ornaments.



"Normal" involves gifting a six-year-old with a long history of abrasions and accidents, who is on a first-name basis with the TMH stitches tech, with his very own pack of fireworks. 

(Oh yeah.)

"Normal" involves me reading this card as fra-jeely, thanks to too many late Eves with The Christmas Story blaring in the background as we assembled toys guided solely by a glass of wine and byzantine Chinese directions. 

"Normal" includes Mr. Moneybags (aka Collin) springing for everyone a gift from the WDW souvenir shop at Epcot, perhaps the most overpriced shopping venue on the planet.

"Normal" encompasses me giving my fra-jeely item from said gift shop to a two year old so that he'll stop fussing.

The person who worked so crazy hard to pay for the gifts?  Him getting his stocking down last? Well, I suppose, right or wrong, that is our current "normal."

Oh, and it is particularly "normal" for me to percolate Big Plans to stretch my meager cooking skills by making homemade cinnamon rolls, only to discover no baking powder in the cupboard come late night Dec 24.  Even Walmart was closed at this juncture.  After a crazy vinegar/baking soda substitution, I can only embrace this flukey Christmas morn deliciousness as the new norm.  



One absolute "normal" mainstay of Christmas is balls.  Not the pretty, fra-jeely, sparkling kind, but the synthetic rubber sort that can be kicked/hit/thrown to death until they lie deflated and moldy and hidden in a bushy area of our yard (only to be replaced by the ball fairies the next Christmas).

As the day wound down and we were stuffed silly with candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup, it only seemed "normal" to take a long walk with Kate Middleton in the woods.

And then to stop

and play games under the strangely creative and unpredictable direction of Dad-- "normal" games that, in a still frame of the camera lens, might seem rather odd.

Take it from the Head Elf---it was pretty darn funny.

Thirty seconds to spell out a word as a team?  Unfortunately our "normal" canine audience-of-one has very poor spelling skills and couldn't figure out any of the words.  However, she very much enjoys loud antics involving lots of laughing/snorting/other bodily noises from her littermates.

Christmas day ended with a seemingly "normal" moment as Mom's headline gift was run up the grand ole flagpole.  Texans will be Texans till the day they die, after all.  This normally somber and patriotic moment was made more jolly

by a dancing band of elves doing a cowboy jig and hollering yeehaws while eeking out a broken rendition of "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You" as best as these Florida-born buckaroos could.  

Hope you and yours had a very "normal" Christmas, too!

Picking the Apple: How We Are Parenting Technology

I have been thinking long and hard about a famous story.  The story goes like this:

There was once an apple that changed the world, but not for the better.  That apple gave humans access to the knowledge of good and evil, and it destroyed our most valued relationships, with God and with each other.

 No---wait.  That's not the story I want to tell.  It goes more like this:

There was once an Apple that changed the world, but not for the better.  That Apple gave humans access to the knowledge of good and evil, and it destroyed our most valued relationships, with God and with each other.

Pretend like this cool pic has iPhones, Mini's, and iPads,
not innocent little nanos and shuffles.  I happen to love the music playing options.

I know this post is starting out a bit radical.  Maybe I am becoming a radical, although I've always viewed myself as a fairly normal, mainstream kind of gal.  The thing is--I find myself trying to forge a new path through the technology wilderness in an era when technology is a silent and often unacknowledged danger.  I'm no published expert on the speaker circuit, just a mere foot soldier in the battle.  But for the public record, I'd like to report the truth as I see it happening from the front lines of modern parenting.

We do own Apple products, in fact my 40th birthday gift was an iPad.  I've found that my daughter (7th grade) could care less about gaming or goofing around on touch screen technology and dislikes even reading on the Kindle.  She does do computer programming and a little game coding on the laptop, but this is a "creative" tool for her.  In other words, she uses technology not for entertainment, but as one would use a brush and paints:  to make something new out of nothing.  I'm all for that kind of activity.

My son (5th grade), however, loves to do anything that involves computer gaming.  He used to be hooked on the Wii, and when we got the iPad, he started small with apps like Scribble and Pop Math, which seemed innocent enough.  But all addictions start small, don't they?   Ask any addict of anything at all how it started, and I'll wager it was with something simple and seemingly safe.

With my son, he initially found himself mesmerized by the bright flashing features, the cool sounds, the constant motion on the screen.  Then he was sucked into gaming even deeper by his natural inclination to be loyal, even loyal to a digital team. The push notifications asking him to come back to play or telling him his troops were ready for battle (Clash of Clans) were like an alcoholic smelling the beer from outside the bar.  Despite his inner desire to restrain himself, he was constantly lured in for more (Romans 7:19).

I thought it was just a boy's fun.  That is, until I got my Visa bill one day and there were many, many charges of $9.99, $50, $100, that came to almost $3,000, all charged to my iTunes account that month.  I thought for sure my account had been hacked.  I only have bought a few songs here and there through the years, never anything more than a dollar or so a month.  Looking back, I was such a sucker to let a naive little boy on something as powerful as touch technology linked to a credit card account. 

The source was Baseball Superstars, which I thought it was a simple sports app, but that was a completely wrong assumption.  Doing more research after the fact, I discovered it really targets adult gamers and addictive gambler types.  As he got more advanced in the game, he was being asked to buy his team new uniforms on Baseball Superstars, give them massages, help them with special practices, all of which were bought with "points" that he thought were earned during the game but in reality were REAL LIVE MONEY being charged to my card.  Ouch and double ouch.

The slithering snake of deception, the one that preys on the young and vulnerable, reached right through that iPhone and bit me hard.

We warned him about passwords and such, gave him punishments of various sorts, and restricted the technology in his life (and he has never owned his own touch technology, just to be clear), but again and again we would see him fall into the same patterns of an addict: thinking about gaming the first thing when he woke up, sneaking my phone, hiding in the bathroom, lying to me.  If you know him, you would likely agree that these characteristics are not at all reflective of his usual personality.

To save him from himself, he is now off technology completely.  What else could we logically do?  There cannot be "a little on the weekend" or "just on the car trip."   He cannot take a single sip or he will fall off the wagon again.  It's a hard line to take as a parent when this very technology surrounds him, resides in his home, and permeates the lives of his friends.

Why so radical, you say?

Because touch technology will rob him of everything good in his life if we don't stand firm.

It will rob him of laughing in the kitchen with me, fully engaged and present in the conversation.  It will rob him of good academics and quiet times alone when he can think and reflect.  It will dissolve the lasting richness of in-person friendships and the satisfying small moments of wrestling around with his brother and talking football strategy with his dad.  It will rob him of nothing less than joy.

Kyle Strobel put it this way:

I think one of the most difficult aspects of being an American Christian is trusting that Jesus is right and that our culture is selling us something that ultimately isn’t a valid way to be joyful — and is actually the very thing that destroys joy. 

I love him too much to let him eat the Apple, only to be consumed whole by it in return.  Shockingly, apparently Steve Jobs agrees with me.  Did you know he didn't allow his own children to use the very iPad he created?  It's true--read it here.

And what of my son's friends and my daughter's friends, all of whom own touch technology?  That is for their parents to decide, but for now I am firm that my children will not go on overnights with children who have these products to use freely.  I will not have my son in a friend's basement, essentially unsupervised, with his buddy's iPad Mini where they will have access to things like pornography at a single tap.  While I absolutely cannot see my son initiating this kind of behavior, wouldn't it be easy for the other kids present to pull up?  I try to be very in touch with him, but how in the world can I possibly know and trust the private thought lives of his (also immature and vulnerable) friends?

Moreover, I find that I am in the thin sliver of minority when it comes to parenting technology and social media.  I ask other parents out of curiosity: "Why does such-and-such own this?  What are you thoughts on him/her having it?"  Or "Is this username trying to friend me on Instagram your son/daughter?"  One reply I hear frequently: "Well, they begged me to get them an account, so it's okay that they are under the age allowed on Instagram." Or I also am told, "Johnny bought it with his own allowance that he saved for a whole year, so how could I say no?"  Which leads me to my next question, one that I hardly ever ask aloud but put before myself on a regular basis: "Who is in God-given control of this relationship?  You or your child?"

I may sound alarmist, but my mama instinct is sounding off that there is untold danger of the self-inflicted kind ahead for my children's generation.  Although The Screwtape Letters was published in 1942, C.S. Lewis sounds downright contemporary in writing:

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.  Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.  Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Or, if I may be so bold as to add on to Master Lewis:

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle glowing screen, the easy to use apps, the smooth digital world without sudden jolts, without thinking minds, without limits on knowledge or images, without the Holy Spirit, without love....

So, how about you, fellow parents?  How do you manage this complicated issue in your home?

Food for thought: 
how would you describe someone who boldly holds out an Apple to us that he won't 
even allow in his own children's hands within his own home?

Declarations in July

One thing I dearly love about Monticello is the relentlessness with which Thomas Jefferson pursued knowledge.  Visitors cannot help but feel this burning pursuit in the design of his home, his broadly curated collections, the forward-thinking gadgets he invented for each room, and the careful preservation and experimentation he conducted involving seeds and plants in his gardens.

I've toured Monticello enough to have a favorite feature:  the crafty method Jefferson employed to magnify the limited sunlight provided to his electricity-free dwelling by placing large mirrors in direct opposition to windows and even painting his dining room an 18-century equivalent of safety yellow.

Florescent paint plus unrefrigerated vittles and homemade moonshine--well, that particular combo sums up patriot courage, folks.

The most impressive sight is his personal room, which includes an odd niche bed and rows upon rows of leather bound books. Ahhh, they are quite magnificent.  He read in seven languages and occupied himself with every range and substantial topic imaginable.

"A mind always employed is always happy,"  he was known to say.

Upon consideration of Jefferson's July 4th claim to fame, The Declaration of Independence, plus my fifth (yes, fifth.  I basically lugged five infants and/or my pregnant self through this place. Mercifully the policy is "age two and under are free.") visit to Monticello has inspired four personal July resolutions, or "declarations," if you will:

• Declaration #1:  I pledge to be more curious about the world.  I might not organize heirloom seed collections, but I promise to purchase other flavors of Goldfish than cheddar cheese, plunge my bare hands into murky pool skimmer baskets without hesitation, and actually examine the frog species presented to me before screaming.

• Declaration #2:  I will arrange and re-arrange my home with an eye for function above all, yet still with the goal of beauty.  This declaration is not limited to preserving years of personal collecting by tethering up the towering Christmas tree with clear fishing line anchored to wall studs.  Why such lengths?  Only what's necessary to prevent middle-of-the-night collapses from all manner of sports balls that batter my favorite decorations.  (You know, those irreplaceable Baccarat ones dating to 1984.)

• Declaration #3:  I will surround myself with books that I've held off reading because of the wee ones in hopes that I can catch a page or two each day.  "I cannot live without books," TJ would high-handedly tell you.  Currently stacked on my nightstand are Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton, Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by the slightly-creepy Dr. Seuss.  I also am kicking around the idea of reading everything assigned to my seventh grader this year, who will be entering an Omnibus class on early medieval literature.  Hey, Jefferson would be proud!

• Declaration #4:  I will go to great personal sacrifice for my flowers to bloom beautifully.  That is, I promise to stand in fifty percent humidity under the sweltering Southern sun to water my pots, whisky barrels, and urns containing blooms from Home Depot that the salesperson may or may not have begged me not to buy.  I pledge a sister commitment to not disclose to even my husband when those browned, arid flower stalks are thrown in the trash bin and replaced by their fresh, dewy-faced twins. (Shhhhh.)

Goodbye for this year, Monticello. Thanks for your annual inspiration, and I'll catch you again when I'm twelve months older, much less gray, ten pounds lighter, have conquered new intellectual challenges and can claim to be significantly more well-read.....

~ ~ ~ 

 *All photo creds to Madeleine Roberts.  Alas, I was too busy chasing down a dropped binky, searching for a missing green Croc, and lugging around a fussy toddler to do much thoughtful photography.  

My most sincere apologies to anyone visiting on the 4:10pm tour that day.

Why Blog? My (Very) Personal Reason

I spend a lot of time drinking coffee.  Iced, hot, strong, weak, Starbucks, Mr. Coffee or even International Delight (a holdover from my teenage years)--it really doesn't matter to me.  I have also been known to snarl slightly at anyone trying to swipe, sip, or piously criticize my Diet Coke.  But hey, hear me out: I need the pick me up.  We're at that tedious phase where my 21-month-old flies right into traffic, singlehandledly opens the front door when no one is looking, joyfully knocks over careful stacks of laundry, and shoots up the bunk bed ladder and rains down big brother's carefully placed trophies off the nearby shelf.

It's a tiring proposition, raising five kids.

So why would I add a single other thing to my already-busy life?  Why force another cup of caffeine into an already shaky hand?  Why in heaven's name would I be sitting at the computer, as I currently am, at 2:25am?

Simply put: why the blog, lady?

Let me rule out a few reasons. For one, I am not trying to project an image of togetherness (insert laugh, close friends), flaunt my limited writing skills, nor do I claim any superiority in my opinions.  I am fully aware of how mixed-up and poorly thought through numerous aspects of my life are, including but not limited to: my dated wardrobe, my limited ability to accessorize without my stylish sister's help, my general haphazard appearance and beauty products that might assist said appearance, my opinionated parenting technique, and even (gasp!) micro-aspects of my theology.

No, the real reason is this:

back row: Evelyn, JD, Virgil, Cleamon, and Laura Wilmalou (my Lala)
front row: Mimi and Clyde Elmo Pinner, my great-grandparents
(Unrelated: it's an undisputed fact that there were some serious slim pickins in the family name barrel.)

The five children standing in this picture are my relatives.  My grandmother is on the far right, the lovely lady who bravely raised my mother on a remote cotton farm in West Texas. And all five of these beautiful people had Alzheimer's Disease or severe dementia that is currently or eventually led to their demise.

And I suspect, as much as I pray against it, that my future is tied up in these genes and this related inevitability: one day I am going to forget.

And as much as my Lala loves her grands, she is now reduced to only remembering my third child, her namesake, who she no longer calls by her own name, instead loosely and lovingly as "that little girl".

Sadly, sometimes love itself is not enough to help one remember.

And before my day comes, even if it is many decades away, there are a few things that I want to process, review, organize, and articulate.  In writing, I find a way to seal my thoughts to words, words that will remain long after I can no longer remember writing them.  I desperately don't want to miss this chance to share with my children and those I love dearly the personal impressions, sometimes-feeble observations, but most especially the undercurrent of love and tender gratitude I feel for this often-chaotic, frequently amazing, incredibly satisfying life that the good Lord has given me.

So have patience on me when my eyebags look darker and droopier than ever. There's a greater mission on my heart than publishing a blog post.  And I hope in some small way this humble space will leave a legacy in the face of loss, so that if/when that loss comes, a part of the real me remains.

So thanks for reading, y'all.

~ ~ ~

Teach us to number our days, 

so that we may gain 

a heart of wisdom.  

Psalm 90:12

The Beautiful Mind

When I was growing up, there was a magic number in my brain that quantified who I was, which happened to be my IQ score.  I'm not sure how I came across it, but it stuck with me.  It became a defining factor in how I perceived myself. And in retrospect, I am angered that my mind was ever defined by a number.

Yet, history repeats itself as this week I am getting data back on my kids that seeks to define in a standardized way what is contained in their minds.  For instance, yesterday, Madeleine had to head over to the local public middle school to take a tedious three-hour algebra exam that is offered statewide with the intent of capturing whether the subject was sufficiently mastered to the satisfaction of the government powers that be. I have difficulty believing that this score will reflect the true depth of her conceptual abilities, but will rather be a superficial measurement skimming along a breadth of skills.

We also have started to receive from our school the Stanford Achievement Test scores, which are intended to help us as parents know that our children are progressing according to grade level and are an expected and appropriate endeavor for any academic institution.

So I'm looking at all these scores on the page and the National Grade Percentile Bands and Clusters and Performance Standard Categories and rows upon rows of digits, digits, digits and I want to ask this important question, of myself and the IQ number I can't shake (along with my own SAT), as well as to my children:

What test can quantify the mind, placed within us by God himself?  

Who can truly assign a number and a ranking to this complex masterpiece we have been given?  

Because every single day, I see in my children the Beautiful Mind unfolding in such a myriad of ways that I cannot fathom how anyone dares try to measure it's creativity and depth and adaptability.

When a child sits down and writes a lullaby on the piano for her baby brother, there is no number to capture the complexity of love and ability brought together in that moment.  Deciding one sunny afternoon to self-teach computer coding, how can you attach a figure to the inclination and boldness and receptiveness of a mind like that?

When that same child turns a phrase in an essay that makes me pause from the surprising stirring of emotions within me, or hides away in the sewing room busy recycling a dryer sheet and a deflated mylar balloon to stitch up a regal outfit for her doll, there is no standard of measurement that quantifies how creative, how unusual, how mutually earth-friendly and technically well made that effort really is.

So when I sat down to look over the SAT scores with Madeleine last night, on the heels of this state standardized algebra test, I told her point blank, without mincing words: school, grades, tests, assessments, these are all necessary parts of modern life, but will never be any measure of the Beautiful Mind God has given to her.  I pleaded with her not to rest in these numbers or tie her self-worth to any flat quantitative analysis as an accurate reflection of the three-dimensional kaleidoscope of brilliance within her.

The brilliance within all of us--His favored creation.

For he has made everything beautiful in its time. 
He has set eternity in the hearts of men, yet no one can fathom what
God has done from beginning to end.  Ecclesiastes 3:11

One Testy Test Drive

Truth in advertising? I think not.  The big smiles are because they're getting paid to sit in this photo, not because the Odyssey is so incredibly comfy for seven individuals.  Folks, we are missing a whole wall of the car here.  Otherwise everyone pictured would be a whiny claustrophobic mess. 

HOLD UP THERE!  If you haven't read the original post on our family's new-car standoff, and you aren't opposed to a little humor related to a completely First World Problem, then head over here for the back story.

For my mother and the rest of you reading this blog, yesterday was a big day in our familia grande.  I reluctantly agreed to test drive a 2014 Honda Odyssey.  Even though the Car Petition currently has 8 signatures under Yukon XL and only two under Odyssey (the affordability factor won over my numbers kid), David coerced me into heading over to the car dealership to take a ride around, knowing good and well that any car with a mere 10 miles on the odometer and fresh, crumb-free, leather-scented seats would hypnotize me into submission.

Poor hubby. He was waaaaay off base on this, because I insisted on bringing every child we had (I wanted to bring our black lab but wasn't sure Proctor Honda was that open-minded), the enormous and somewhat crusty Britax Roundabout, my ginormous diaper bag, and I actually had plans on unloading the team's baseball equipment from my car to see how my whole show would fit until I saw that the salesman actually wasn't a shark like I was expecting, but the gentle, extremely young son of Peruvian immigrants. Really he was: he tried to reassure me that he could handle a test drive with my crew because his mom grew up in Peru with seven siblings.

This fact was irrelevant because back in Peru they don't have this strange American custom called Field Day.  In retrospect, bringing my children for a test drive at 3:30pm just after the conclusion of a hot and sweaty Field Day was either a terrific idea (we looked frayed around the edges enough to seem like we needed a great deal on the car) or the worst strategy possible (we looked like hobos without a car budget, possibly just wasting their time.)

Sure enough, my offspring were grubby, exhausted, and stinky from tip to toe in their ratty athletic clothes, and my kind sales rep did a double-check and made sure to look at the zip code on my copied license before letting us within 10 feet of the vehicle.  It dawned on me that he may or may not have caught a glimpse earlier of one (or two) of my kids removing the delicate blue gazing ball from the little garden area next to the entrance and chasing each other with it like wild banshees.  As we started to load up, this young fella, who confessed he primarily handled Internet sales inquiries and not test drives, actually made a joke about me making off with the car if he didn't hop in to escort me.

I was not amused.

In keeping with his initial impressions, however, Anne Mason somehow tried to steal aboard this pristine vehicle with a passel of small twigs she had collected while we waited outside for him to bring the car around.  I reprimanded her under my breath and she pretended to throw them back into the grass only to slide them into the large pocket of her dirt-streaked white skort.  After more quiet scolding and piercing angry-mom eyes, she eventually climbed into the brand-spankin-new car stickless and with a ticked look.

We were off.

Immediately Reid started whining from his squished-in spot in the back that he couldn't see because of all the sales papers stuck to the window. The shout I'M TEARING THESE PAPERS DOWN, MOM! made the salesman flinch and, looking back, he noted that my dear precocious son was seatbeltless.  After more maternal threats and recriminations from the front seat, everyone was duly secured as we pulled out on one of the busiest streets in our town.  I wobbled in the lane as the three kids jostled in the third row, whispering loudly in rotation: "I hate this car! You're touching me--move over!  I want to go home!  I need to go to the bathroom BAD!"  That's when I leaned over conversationally to the tense Peruvian and asked if he knew how his mom and her seven siblings got around town in their youth.  He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and admitted he had no idea.

I put forth the witty suggestion, as the situation intensified on the back row and rush hour traffic kicked in, that it most definitely could not have been in a Honda Odyssey.

Not sixty seconds later, it became strangely quiet in the new car.  Nap time hit like a ton of bricks in that ten minute spin around the block, and I was finally able to converse in a normal tone and ask intelligent questions for the duration of the ride.  I even remember to ask if the in-car vac could handle Whataburger cream gravy, to which he looked at me strangely and shrugged.

Do they look comfortable to you?  At least we'd have enough cupholders.

These people will only get bigger.

Although I tried to play the smart consumer for the rest of the ride, I could tell that the damage was done when he hopped out upon our return, shook my hand, and--for the first time in the history of car sales--backed inside without even taking my phone number. 

On the long ride home, all present agreed without hesitation that the old Sequoia would be a roomier--if not nearly as clean or reliable--alternative to the tricked-out new Odyssey.  There is just no substitute in the realm of fancy car features for personal space.  

Yet as the complaining kid unsurprisingly peed in their pants before I could unlock the front door, I realized an in-car potty might actually come in close second.