So we’re back home from Sequoia. In lots of ways, the trip was everything such trips are meant to be. If you haven’t been up in the redwoods, you can’t imagine what it’s like — it’s like church. My eyes crave lots of green, lots of wildlife and lots of tiny flowers — result of having grown up spending every free moment wandering in the woods. You don’t so much get that in Orange County. There is a particular charm about looking out the lodge window and seeing deer grazing 10 feet away. About seeing a black bear lumbering through the meadow. About a hundred varieties of tiny wildflowers. And of course, those incredible trees. Now here come the highlights:

Wholesome Family Activity: The most major undertaking was a tour of Crystal Cave, which was really breathtaking although in retrospect, I sort of wish we’d just bought some postcards instead. The inside of the cave is eerily beautiful, with rushing streams inside, and the park ranger was very nice although very, very verbose. The main problem I had with the Cave was the steep 3/4-mile hike on a dirt trail to get down there — and, of course, back. The altitude differential is over 300 feet and most of it is unfenced, with a drop of a few hundred feet as your reward if you lose your footing. I just don’t take well to spending every step terrified one of my kids will fall off a fucking mountain.

Is This A Felony? Probably: Both Matt and Boolie ended up having to take a whiz along the trail back from the Cave (no restrooms for hours). It’s probably a felony to take out your dick in a National Park, although if you’re a government official such as a Senator, probably not. Perhaps it’s even required.

Study In Personality Contrasts: Sam completed the requirements for a Junior Park Ranger badge, which involved a bunch of nature observation and completion of a little workbook. After he was sworn in and received his badge, I turned to Matt and asked if he would like to be a Park Ranger too. Matt’s response? Nah, I don’t want to work so much. Rock on, my hippie slacker dude. This, in a nutshell, is the difference between Sam and Matt.

Inappropriate Comedy Moment: Just after climbing back into the van outside the Visitor Center, I turned to Ben and howled God, that woman’s ass was gigantic. Not realizing that Ben had just wound down the window so that everyone in the parking lot could hear every word I said. I spent the remainder of the trip hiding behind things in case I had to face her again. But dudes: That was one big ass. I mean preposterously disproportionate.

Barf-O-Matic: The drive home was extremely vomit-intensive. Take a bow, Matt and Boolie. I now get to spend most of tomorrow devising ways to rid my cloth upholstery (WHY the hell didn’t I spring for leather?) of extremely noxious stains and odors. Bool, in fact, was sweet enough to give us an encore performance after our late lunch in Bakersfield. While I was trying to clean things up as best I could, some stupid bitch tried to panhandle me in the Arco parking lot and received my full wrath for her troubles. (In retrospect, I should have offered her five bucks if she’d clean up the yarp.)

What We’ve Learned: Probably nothing. But next trip = nice flat, shortish drive to Palm Springs.

Roxanne Hack of the Orange County Register wrote a column this week about hating mommy conversations — how just because you have a kid, everyone assumes you’re interested in everyone else’s kid, their bowel movements, their teething issues. Roxanne hit that one out of the park. Oh, I blog about my own kids, a lot — too much. I’ll mention them on Facebook. That’s the beauty of the Internet: you can close the window, ignore the post, choose not to read. But in realspace, please don’t hit me with the mommy talk.

Waiting to pick the kids up from school, I sit on the schoolyard benches with my nose buried in a history book on the Kindle. The rest of the moms are chatting in little groups. About what? Cupcakes? The PTA? Play dates? Who knows. If they would like to discuss criminology, or foreign policy during the Kennedy administration, I’m their girl. But I get the feeling they don’t. Shit, just for reading a book instead of chatting, they look at me like I’m from another planet.

I’m not totally lacking in mom friends, of course. I have my Facebook buds, and also a private online group of longtime Internet mom friends I hand-picked for their wit, intellect and lack of female cattiness. We talk about our kids, sure, but we also talk about everything else from our careers to sex to religion to our sons’ equipment to politics to our coochies. I’m not going to find that level of discourse on the playground, and besides: these girls aren’t going to ask me to pick up their kids from school or expect me to sit in their kitchens sipping coffee. I like it this way.

I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, of course. I spent my entire early childhood catching turtles, snakes and crawdads in the woods. At parties, I don’t hang with the women in the kitchen, I hang with the guys — that’s where all the fun is, the dirty jokes and sports talk. I’m pretty damned comfortable with who I am. I just wonder if my kids would prefer a normal mom? A classroom-volunteering, cupcake-baking, SUV-driving, scrapbooking, coupon-clipping kind of mom? Does it bother them that their mom is, well, not like the other mommies?

My grownup daughter, who should know because I really haven’t changed, says it’s okay — she wouldn’t have wanted me to try to be like that, and I’d have done a bad job if I tried. I hope she’s right. I hope for my kids, hikes and tarantulas outweigh the lack of cupcakes and volunteerism.

Next Monday the family leaves on an abbreviated vacation to Sequoia National Park. This an extremely beautiful place, and I’m looking forward to going back there, because I haven’t been in, Lord, 14 years? But travel with three small kids can be extremely daunting, and I’m anticipating the trip with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation.

I did the smart thing and made reservations at the Wuksachi Lodge, even springing for the deluxe room. We were going to go with the rustic cabins, which are much more economical, but which can best be defined as mostly like a tent, but with walls and electricity. I worried, with the kids, though. We had an adventure in camping nearly three years ago which still gives me nightmares. So I’m playing it smart.

But Sequoia is, well, a national park located in the middle of scenic nowhere. It’s nearly a five-hour drive, and the kids just aren’t used to that stuff. They complained plenty about the length of the trip the last time we went to San Diego. In general, here are my fears:

• The kids will start complaining on the way up there, which will drive Ben crazy while he’s trying to drive because they complain in three-part harmony, and boy are they good at it. And where is there to stop on the way? Ha. Mostly nowhere, or places which are even worse than nowhere.
• Boolie will have to pee every five miles, and little girls just aren’t good at peeing by the side of the road.
• The kids will get to Sequoia and say, in essence, Right. Big trees. Cave. We’re bored. Can we go home and play Wii now?
• We will all be eaten by a bear, and I’m a huge fan of not being eaten by a bear.
• Although at least if we are eaten by a bear, the kids won’t be able to complain they’re bored.
• The food will be both abysmal and expensive, and there are extremely limited dining options in the park.
• I will forget to pack something extremely key, for which a replacement won’t be available in the park.
• The van will malfunction somewhere along the way.

That about covers it. It’ll probably be a good trip, but at this point, imaging how many things could go wrong, I’m pretty much shittin’ kittens. If was just Ben and me, we’d get by. But when you start traveling with kids, it’s a whole new ball game.

Wait. Do I still have a blog here? Well, my God, of course I do. Except when I don’t. But Woodland Elementary School has gone into its usual end-of-school-year posture of standing on my neck and standing on it hard.

California has a legally mandated free school guarantee. Theoretically, my children are meant to attend school for free; due to the fact that Ben is disabled and I’m presently unemployed, they even get a free lunch. (And they say there is no such thing!) But even public schools always have their hand out. At the end of the year, for some reason, they hit us up especially hard.

Today was the Woodland Elementary Jog-A-Thon, where kids run laps for money with nothing to show for it but the free T-shirt. I pledged $25 per child — a pretty typical amount. Just this past Saturday, the Kaiser-Woodland carnival was held, whereby all the kids at both schools were exhorted to eat and drink and play, proceeds to benefit both schools. Last week I shelled out $10 each for two Woodland T-shirts for the boys. Every Friday they have Spirit Day, at which time (surprise!) everyone is expected to wear their Woodland shirts.

Next week is Open House. That will involve the Book Fair, which benefits both Scholastic and the schools, and a burgers ‘n’ chips dinner supplied for free by a local merchant and paid for generously by the parents, proceeds to the schools. Not to mention the end-of-year teacher gifts and the snacks for Jog-A-Thon and so on and on and on.

I’m not really complaining. (Or am I? I believe I’ve just kvetched at length.) We are fortunate to have a world-class school district with extraordinary teachers and maximum 20-child classes. Compare that to LAUSD which has teachers who border on illiteracy and class sizes of 30 or so. Newport-Mesa USD relies largely on local property taxes, which are hefty, meaning that we haven’t been touched by the waves of teacher layoffs that have touched other districts in the county. The fallout is a bit daunting — I had to attend a brief meeting and provide three forms of proof of residency and property ownership last month just to keep our boys in NMUSD schools — but the benefits are considerable.

Still, I’ll be glad when a month has gone by and they stop squeezing us for this year. The last day of school is June 19. For my boys and for my checkbook, it can’t come early enough.

So last week Ben and I had lunch with his mother. I’ve always had a bit of a thorny relationship with her, although there’s no real animosity between us — apart, of course, from the usual animosity harbored by a mother toward the girl who her only son finally married in midlife.

It’s just that MIL and I are both very opinionated and stubborn, and said opinions are usually completely at odds, especially regarding childrearing. This stands to reason, since she’s a very 1950s buttoned-down, conservative sort of lady who believes in building character and following all the rules, which are many. Whereas I’m a sort of hippie chick who tries to go with the flow, live and let live, you know. Plus she doesn’t mind telling people how to raise their children — in fact, she insists upon it. I just do my thing and blow her off. Also, I was raised Catholic and she (for reasons never explained) is staunchly anti-Catholic.

Despite that, or quite possibly because of it, she started Pope-bashing the minute we were all in the car. You know, that to-do about advising Africans against using condoms. And I don’t mean that she disagreed with the Pope; I mean that she excoriated him. There was much bandying about of some really pejorative terms. I’m anything but a good Catholic, but I’m Catholic enough to feel very uncomfortable hearing this whether I agree with the Pope or not. (I guess she was trying to make me forswear my possibly Papist ways and denounce the Church.)

She kept trying to engage me in the conversation, but I just said Well . . . a few times and got very interested in staring out the window. I really don’t want to start sparring with her. Not worth it, and besides, poor Ben.

But she was just getting started. I have no idea on earth how the topic arose, but MIL brought up circumcision and why it’s absolutely necessary to do it, and what dire results there will be if it’s not done. Both my sons are intact, and she very well knows that. Bear in mind that the last time I birthed a boy was in 2003, so you could say it’s a done deal.

I politely explained that there’s no medical justification for circumcision according to our research. She said the presence of a foreskin leads to hygiene problems. I told her it’s easy to keep clean. (I forcibly restrained myself from asking if she thinks it’s reasonable to cut off a part of the body just because we don’t feel like washing it.) She harrumphed. Stalemate.

But she wasn’t done; she then turned a hawkish eye on the earrings, six in total, dangling from my ears. (I don’t think she’d ever seen me with more than one pair before.) Well, that certainly is a lot of earrings. What is that, three piercings? When on earth did you do that?

Nineteen ninety-three, I said.

Well. I certainly hope you haven’t gone and pierced Julia’s ears! she went on.

Are you following this, people? Jesus hemorrhaging Christ, the woman chastises us for not mutilating our sons and in the next breath forbids us to mutilate our daughter. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

Special Bonus Joke:

A man is having digestive problems and goes to see his doctor. The doctor examines him and tells him he’s got a tapeworm. Here’s what you do, says the doctor. Every night for the next three nights, I want you to shove a hard-boiled egg up your ass. And then shove a Tootsie Roll up your ass right after. And come back and see me the day after the third night.

The guy of course thinks this is extremely strange. How will that help? he asks. You’ll see, says the doc.

So the guy does it. Every night for three nights, he shoves a hard-boiled egg up his ass, followed by a Tootsie Roll. The next day he goes and sees the doctor. The doctor immediately shoves a hard-boiled egg up the guy’s ass and grabs a hammer. The guy wonders WTF.

After a few seconds, the tapeworm sticks his head out the guy’s ass and says Hey! Where’s my fucking Tootsie Roll? whereupon the doctor hits the worm on the head with the hammer.

Cured.

Just a few weeks ago, I was having on about how Boolie, who turned 3 in August, is not potty trained and still uses a pacifier. I wasn’t going to push those issues at the time, because her brothers had just gone back to school and she was going through a rough time. Still, you get to thinking Christ, maybe she WILL start kindergarten in diapers.

For the past 7 years, Ben and I have had at least one kid in diapers, often two. Hell, Sam didn’t toilet train until a couple of months before Boolie was born, so we were in danger for a while of having three in diapers. We’re more than ready to have diapers gone from our lives forever: the expense, the stinkiness, the disposal issues. We’ve been saying for a couple of years now that when Boolie finally toilet trains, we’re going to buy a bottle of good champagne and have a proper celebration.

Well, I think we’ve cracked her code. She didn’t want to go to the toilet because she was afraid of falling in. We solved this issue with a toilet seat insert (with Disney princesses on it!) purchased at Target yesterday afternoon, and she’s been happily using the toilet since then. She even brings a book with her so she can read while sitting on the pot, like everyone else in the family. We’re not out of the woods yet, but her diaper days are numbered. (I’m secretly hoping she’ll train within the next few days, because we have about 10 Pampers left and I hate to buy another box if she’s not going to use them.) We even let her pick out a packet of panties, with the promise that she can start wearing them once she stays dry regularly.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel. And then what? Yesterday she went all day without her deedee. She wanted it when she was falling asleep, but she spent the entire day with no pacifier plugged into her mouth. The kid has, it seems, decided to grow up overnight. Isn’t that always the way? Erika, my oldest, got her first period the day she was asked on her first date. (I almost had a coronary.)

This first week of school is adjustment time for everyone. I’m adjusting to getting my lazy Polish ass out of bed before 7 a.m. and getting the three kids dressed, backpacked and out the door. Sam is adjusting to having his sometimes embarrassing, sometimes welcome little kindergarten brother at his school. Matt is adjusting, of course, to kindergarten. And Boolie is adjusting to suddenly being the little one left behind at day care, the odd girl out.

She’s the oldest kid at day care now that Sam and Matt have flown the coop for the school year. There are a couple of babies about 18 months old, but apart from that, there is only Boolie. And she has developed, just this week, a complex about being considered a baby. (We will not address the fact that, just turned three, she is still in diapers and still has a pacifier in her mouth. Because she is presently under duress, is why, and now is not the time.)

Last night she lay awake until 10 p.m. worrying about people thinking she’s a baby. Everyone says my feet are little, she said, but my feet are long. I’m big. Stuff like that. She awoke twice in the dead of night with nightmares, at one point trying to crawl off the bed because she was convinced she’d been put in time out. She’s her usual cheerful, affectionate self by day, but her bedtime musings and her night fears are telling me she’s got some worries to work out.

Complicating matters is the fact that this Friday night the day care lady is throwing a slumber party for “the big kids” and Boolie is not invited. This is mostly intended as a little reunion for the summer day care crowd after the first week of school, not to mention a night off for the parents. But for Bool, it’s only going to highlight her status as not a big kid. Ben and I are devising something special to do with her alone while the boys are off at the sleepover.

She’ll be okay. Of course she will. But Matt is not the only one adjusting this week. We’re all sorting things out. I can’t wait until it’s October and we’re firmly settled in our routine.

Today is the first day of school; Sam started second grade and Matt started kindergarten. And I’ve spent the morning biting my lip and holding my cell phone, because Matt had a rough time.

He’s been excited about school for weeks, but when Sam went off to the bigger kids’ playground and Matt and I went to the kindergarten area, his resolve faded. He wanted his brother. He wanted breakfast, even though he had earlier refused it and it was too late to go buy some. He didn’t want to play on the playground. Instead, he stretched out on one of the benches with his head in my lap.

When it was time to line up and go in, I stood with him in line and he insisted I pick him up. I held him tight right up until it was time to walk into the classroom. When I put him down, his knees buckled; he didn’t want to stay in line. He kept turning around to look at me. The last thing I saw of Matt this morning was his forlorn little back disappearing into Room 9. He didn’t cry. But he wanted Sam and he wanted his mom.

I’ve been thinking of him all morning, hoping his day has brightened up. He won’t see Sam during the day, as the kindergarteners and the bigger kids have separate lunch benches and separate playgrounds. Poor little guy, I hope he’s okay. This is one of those heartbreaking mom moments: they have to face something on their own, and you can’t be there to protect them.

Just now I was looking at the calendar and noting that school starts on September 2, the day after Labor Day, exactly 13 days from today. This year, Matt will be starting kindergarten, and he’s thrilled that he will be at school with Sam and the big kids instead of at day care with Boolie and the babies. Me? I notoriously hate summer, because in Southern California, you don’t get a chance to appreciate it. If you have stuff like rain and snow and slush, then summer means something; you look forward to it. But when summer is rammed up your nose 360 days a year (the other five days it rains), it doesn’t count for much.

So you’d think I’d be glad to see summer end and to see the pumpkin spice lattes come back to Starbucks. But it’s bumming me out, because it means my career as a carefree summertime bum is over, at least for the next nine months.

Since I work flexible hours and can telecommute as much as I please, we called off the usual “time to go to bed” and “time to get up” rules at our house for the summer. The boys stay up until we unplug their video game, douse the lights, and confiscate the remote control, maybe around 10:30. Ben leaves for work around 8 a.m., but the kids and I sleep in for as long as we wish. Some days, that’s till 10 a.m.! Bliss. But starting in 13 days, I’ll have to be up by 6:45 a.m. at the latest and out the door an hour later. My current plan is to ease the boys into an earlier bedtime and earlier wake-up, but it’s not so much working, for the main reason that I don’t want to go to bed early and wake up early. Damn, it’s hard sometimes being the grownup.

Anyway. Thirteen days, then it is back to the school drop-offs and pickups, the homework and take-home projects (which of course are homework for me just as much as for the boys, at their age), the freakin’ responsibility. I think the boys will welcome a little more structure in their lives, and probably it’ll be good for me too, but meanwhile we are milking the waning summer for all it’s worth.

(Here is the part where I forcibly restrain myself from caving in to Mommy Blog Syndrome and writing a gushing post about one of my children on her birthday.)

Boolie will turn three years old next week, and she really is a sort of miracle, because there wasn’t meant to be a Boolie. She shocked the crap out of us when we found out she was on her way.

Ben and I had planned to have children; we agreed that if we’d been younger, we’d want to have three, but given our age we would settle for two. It took us nearly a year to get a successful pregnancy off the ground — I had three miscarriages before Sam — but once we got going, we really got going. Matt was born 18 months after Sam arrived, and we figured we were done having babies.

But the “third child” was always lurking in the background. I was proud to have given Ben two sons, but a girl would have been nice. Still. I was 44 years old and it was no time to think about more babies.

Around autumn of 2004, my online friend Lisa (who refuses to blog, so I can’t link to her, dammit) asked Are you sure you’re done having babies? Because I dreamed of coming to visit your family, and you had a baby girl on your hip. I laughed and told her of course I was done having babies. But Boolie had other plans.

A pregnancy test came back positive on December 12, 2004, and Ben and I were shittin’ kittens. We spent the first 48 hours saying “Oh shit. OH SHIT!” but once we settled in to the idea, we sort of liked it. And of course we knew Boolie would be a girl. She was born just a couple of months before my 45th birthday, bright and healthy.

She’s amazing. Ben calls her the cherry on top, the finishing touch our family needed. There is lots of noise and chaos and mess associated with having three little kids, but we wouldn’t trade her for anything. Not even a little peace and quiet.

Happy birthday, Bool. I guess I gushed a little anyway, but you’re pretty awesome.