OK, so everybody can relax now, Poison Control tells me that compact fluorescent light bulbs do not contain toxic levels of mercury. And how might I have come into this information, you may well ask? Sit down, this is going to take a little while.

It’s July, in Oklahoma, and it is hot. The kind of hot I call “Killing Hot,” really too hot to take the kiddos to the playground very often. Unless we could manage to get out there by 8 am, but we can’t. Because this is me we’re talking about, here. The unrepentant night owl, the irascible morning grouch. So, the entire House has become a playground.

Last week Monkey’s bestest friend from school, Z., came over so his mama could go on a job interview. The kids needed perfectly clean, organized and clutter-free play-spaces, because half the fun of playing is making a mess. And we all know that the cleaner the room before, the more fun it is to mess it up!

But I digress. The day before Z. came over, I had my mother-in-law come over to watch the kids while I cleaned (mostly Pumpkin’s room, she’s destructo-girl!). Monkey is 5, Pumpkin is 3, I should be able to just go off into another part of the House and clean, without adult back-up, right? HA!!!! You don’t know my kids. I don’t dare leave these two unsupervised for longer than the time it takes to start a load of laundry or dishes. My daughter eats crayons, for Pete’s sake! And my son can field-strip every stick of furniture in the House (including the wall-mounted bookcases) in under ten minutes!

My request was simple: keep the kids in the living room while I pick up the bedrooms. Simple, yes. Easy, not by a long shot. My daughter is a world-class escape artist; she has defeated every single child-proofing product I have ever tried. She can even worm her way out of a snug five-point harness. She’s Houdini-toddler. So, yes it is disappointing that she managed to give Nana the slip, but it’s not surprising.

About 20 minutes into my cleaning, I walked out into the hall to see my pants-free toddler throwing her poopy diaper into my kitchen! It was like one of those slow-motion movie moments: I yelled, “Nooooooo!” while diving head-first, like some bizarro-world baseball player, for the noxious missile. I missed. It landed with a disheartening “splat!”, it was the sound of my failure as a parent. Please, somebody, anybody, tell me how to keep a diaper on a potty-training toddler.

After cleaning up that little unpleasantness, I had to sit down for a minute. Seemed like a good time to check my email, so I sat down with my laptop. And that’s as far as I got with that idea. I glanced over at my side table and saw the light bulb from my lamp, on the table.

We have had lamp troubles for years, 5 years to be exact. We used to have the cutest wooden-based lamps from IKEA. They lasted until my son started pulling himself up on the furniture. It never occurred to us that wooden lamps would be breakable, but he quickly showed us the error of our ways. Bye-bye cute table-top lamps!

What to do, what to do? Should we take the chance and get more table lamps? No way! We’re way too smart for that! Yeah right. So we did the most logical thing, we bought wall-mounted lamps. They are cute and simple and silvery. And no where near as child-resistant as I had hoped. My daredevil daughter just climbs the table or stands on the back of the couch to reach them. And she takes out the light bulbs. Every. Time.

With a roll of the eyes and a frustrated-mom huff, I dragged my tired self up to put that light bulb right back from whence it came. Until I touched a sharp edge. The tube was broken, it looked like a little slice had been removed. I knew exactly where to lay the blame–on my diaper-throwing daughter. Imagining glass shards embedded in tiny fingers, I checked and cleaned her hands. Then I looked for any stray bulb pieces on the table, couch, and carpet. Satisfied that bare hands or feet would be safe for the immediate future, I tried to pry some information out of Nana. She still swears that Pumpkin was with her the entire time.

I replaced the bulb and didn’t think a thing about it, until the next time she removed my light bulb. Then, on Sunday evening Nana called just to tell me about the scary-light-bulb story in the paper. I read the article when things finally settled down, the next day.

When a light bulb breaks, and this wasn’t the first one, I pick up the pieces and just put them in the trash. Silly me. According to the rather alarmist newspaper article, a broken CF light bulb is an environmental catastrophe second only to the Exxon Valdez. When that light bulb (often pronounced “light bub” here) broke, I should have evacuated the House, turned off the A/C, and called out the Hazmat squad.

Understandably concerned about the massive amount of mercury and who-knows-what-else Pumpkin may have come in contact with, I called the doctor’s office. The nurse suggested I call Poison Control, and maybe the EPA! Poison Control and I are old friends, I’m that mom who calls them when she gives the baby a tenth of a mil too much baby Tylenol. Then there was the time Monkey tasted diaper rash cream, they actually giggled about that one, where I could hear them. And once I called because Monkey found a stray carpet cleaning granule and put it in his mouth. The Poison Control Guy said, “Ma’am, that stuff is made of cellulose.” Yep, I called Poison Control because the baby ate paper.

Anyway, the long-suffering Poison Control man reassured me that the amount of mercury in a CF bulb is less than is found in a thermometer. He said that the minuscule amount of mercury is nowhere near enough to be toxic to her, “no matter what the internet says.” He was more concerned about cuts from the broken glass.

One lesson I took away from all this: if a toddler wants your light bulbs, she’s gonna get them. So to reduce the risk of injury, and to keep from having to replace ridiculously expensive CF bulbs all the time, I now remove the bulbs from the fixtures in the morning, before Pumpkin gets out of bed. So nobody needs to panic, everything’s under control.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with undergarments. Bras are fine, I tend to find ones I like and wear them until they fall apart. Underpants always have been, and ever shall remain, the bane of my existence. Don’t get me wrong, I always wear underpants, I wouldn’t dream of going around without them. It’s like they know that I can’t live without them, so they take advantage of my naked vulnerability so to speak, engaging me in a near constant wrestling match just to keep them in place.

You may find this difficult to believe, but there have been times when I have been reduced to tears out of sheer loathing for my underpants. OK, it was just that one time and I was pregnant. You do not know clothing hell until you have worn maternity underpants. Pregnancy is the one time in my life when I have even considered going commando because all maternity underpants were apparently designed by sadists.

There is even one brand of ladies’ underpants that claims to have a no-ride-up guarantee. Ride-up, how deceptively charming. I refer to the phenomenon as Black-Hole Butt. As long as I can remember, my behind has acted as a kind of gravity well, pulling in every garment that gets close. So I have perfected some techniques for dealing with the problem. There is the Rise-and-Tug, useful for getting out of chairs and cars. There is the Discreet-Turn-and-Tug, perfect for dealing with the problem while in enclosed public venues, like department stores and grocery stores. But recently I have stopped caring so much, if the issue doesn’t involve more than a little elastic-snapping, I just do it. Since having children I have come to the realization that other people rarely care about, or even notice, what is going on around them. And even if someone notices, I am not the first person, nor will I be the last, who has to make adjustments in public. Fear not, if the problem is serious enough, I excuse myself and head to the ladies’ room.

For the record, I have tried department store underpants, mass-retailer underpants, fancy schmancy lingerie store underpants, and not one of them are better than the others. It has gotten to the point where I am considering men’s underpants. I never hear of men having to go through these gyrations just to keep their undergarments in place. My most recent purchases have been the ones with the charmingly deceptive “guarantee.” Oh, and Major Underpants Manufacturer, they still ride up, you owe me nine dollars.

Today I had occasion to purchase underpants for my both my children, you know, to pass down the misery to a new generation. Don’t blame me, kids, I just bought them. My son, who is growing up faster than I like, decided that he no longer wants picture underpants. He wants underpants just like Daddy’s, so today I got him his first “tighty whities.” Those things are cuter than I thought possible; who knew miniature underpants were that adorable.

I also bought my 3-year old daughter her first big-girl underpants. Not that she gets to wear them right now or anything. I also got her a little tin lunch-box/purse thing for her “money box.” Monkey has a shoe box full of coins because he filled up his piggy bank and had to have a place for all the extra money. How does a five-year old get so much money, you might ask. Easy, extortion. He got into a bad habit of asking anyone who came to the door if they had any coins for him. It’s Nana’s fault. She started giving him the coins to put in that piggy bank, then Uncle D. got in on the act. Enablers, the lot of them. Luckily, he’s no longer asking plumbers and electricians to empty their pockets. But I digress.

Pumpkin decided she need a money box, too. One that would go up in her closet so Monkey couldn’t get it. Only one problem, she has no money, and she wants some. I have decided to turn this to my advantage and I told her that I will give her coins for peeing and pooping in the potty. That’s right, I am resorting to bribery. I hope that the lure of cold, hard cash will convince her to start using the potty. Heaven knows nothing else is working. So I am going to pay her. To use the potty. If I could outsource one parenting task this would be the one.

I hope that the big girl underpants will also be an incentive to use the potty, but I really think I’ll get more traction with the cash. But it’s like I’m paying her to stop using diapers and start wearing underpants. Come to think of it, if somebody paid me to wear underpants I might not mind that whole Black-Hole Butt problem.

Only I’m not calling them time-outs. It is now Relax Time at the House. Everyone who has spent a whole day, from start to finish, with a child will know exactly what I’m talking about. You know that special time of day, somewhere north of lunch but still south of dinner, when everything goes from simple chaos to sheer hell? Kids are tired, parents are tired of kids being tired, but nobody can stop doing. I. Am. Right. There.

My back is still hurting, but I expected that. I hurt it on Thursday and didn’t go to urgent care until yesterday. Prescription-strength anti-inflammatory=much better, thanks. But of course, it still hurts quite a bit and I’m not as spry as usual. The cheetahs (my kids) know the gazelle is still wounded and are taking full advantage. Hubby went to some kind of Ruby-on-Rails (?) geekery today after my final, so I’m flying solo this afternoon.

So anyway. I found myself absolutely screaming like a fish-wife at the kids. Monkey was driving his plasma car around and picking on his sister; Pumpkin apparently found a box of check stubs and was gleefully throwing them about the House. And Monkey makes sound effects to accompany his fertile imagination, very loud sound effects. Finally it got to be too much; I was afraid I was going to burst a vein with all the yelling. To calm everyone down, mostly myself, I instituted a new tradition: Relax Time.

About the time Pumpkin was born, Monkey went on a nap strike and I have not been able to get him to take regular naps since. And now Pumpkin has decided that naps are for the birds, and I’m not the boss of her, and she’s ready to do everything herself, and I can just take a flying leap about that whole nap-business. So there. The upshot-I don’t get one single moment of quiet until both are asleep at night and by then I’m either studying or falling asleep myself. Oh, they do get quiet sometimes, but that’s when they’re up to no good. I’ll hear these horrific crashes that sound like the walls are falling down only to find that Pumpkin has trashed her room like a rock star. But the mysterious silences are even worse. There’s no predicting what they can come up with in the future, but so far the silence have meant: toddler eating crayons, toddler and preschooler flooding kitchen or bathroom, toddler destroying preschooler’s train set, all items of clothing painstakingly removed from closet and thrown on the floor, playing in the toilet, and the ever-popular throwing of the feces.

Today, being injured and all, I had to have at least a few minutes of peace. Minutes when I didn’t have to drag my aching bones up, minutes when I didn’t have to talk or correct or yell, minutes when I didn’t have to worry. Ah, worry, a mother’s faithful, dreadful companion. To be able to show worry the door, at least for a short time, we all had Relax Time. Both of the kids had to lay in their beds. They didn’t have to sleep-they could read books or play quietly with toys-but they had to stay in their beds for at least 20 minutes. Monkey especially needed it-he had the worst dark under-eye circles I have ever seen.

After Relax Time, they picked out a movie and had a snack. And they’ve both been, if not calm, at least calmer ever since. Pumpkin even fell asleep on the floor while watching a movie. So Relax Time will be a permanent fixture in our days. And maybe, just sometimes, Relax Time will turn into the ever-elusive Nap Time.

We have had rain the last several days, boy howdy have we had rain. The tornado sirens went off in the early hours of Tuesday morning and Monkey couldn’t go back to sleep in his bed so he stayed with me. Tuesday was quiet and dry, but Wednesday brought even more rain.

Monkey, Pumpkin and I got caught in a down-pour and couldn’t walk home from school. Hubby had to come and rescue us! It rained the rest of the afternoon and night. So we’re pretty water-logged right now. Some parts of the metro area are flooded; streets look like creeks and creeks look like rivers.

The drive home from class last night was a little nerve-wracking. When I got home there were buckets and towels on the floor, for the leaks. We really need to get the roof replaced soon, but right now I have sort of a hillbilly outlook on it. Can’t fix the roof in the rain, and if it ain’t rainin’ it ain’t leakin’.

Another little hillbilly touch: I could’ve run a bait shop out of my den this morning. I have removed seven worms already and the day is young. This is, sadly, not the first time this has happened and I know just what to do. My worm-catching kit comes in quite handy because I do catch-and-release. Worms are good for the yard and that’s right where I take them. My super-duper worm-catching kit consists of a big plastic cup and a plastic butter knife. And I have a technique: 1)guide the worms into the cup with the butter knife, 2) dump the worms in the yard.

Oh, and if you find yourself in my enviable position, just remember this: don’t put more than two worms in the cup at the same time. They use each other as ladders and will swarm out of the cup and sometimes land on you. Ick.