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In my last post, I gave you a tantalizing teaser about Heather’s room. I feel that in order to fully appreciate this gem of a story, a little background info is in order. Now UltraMom tried very hard to be the best mom that she could possibly be in her children’s formative years, and even in the not-so-formative ones. But noone’s perfect, right? UMom hopes that her children will forgive her for occassional faux pas, such as not monitoring them closely enough when they are “singing, walking backwards with their eyes shut” on a narrow porch. Or tellilng them yes when asked “Can my jump?” off of concrete steps. OR of unfairness and perceived partiality….
There was an incident in young Heather’s life that she(Heather, not UM: UM has totally forgotten it) will never forget, nor it seems, forgive. Picture this: Heather is playing a computer game on the old Commodore 64, but her little brothers want to play too. Heather is really cruising at this game; she is on her way to the score of a lifetime, but little brother wants a turn. Little brother (I can’t remember which one she said) keeps whining UNTIL….......Mom comes in and the game is turned off, because if you can’t play nice, then noone gets to play. The unfairness! Heather is so upset that she writes about it in her diary, and vows to never forget.
Fast forward to yesterday. Heather is feeling very accomplished and virtuous (and rightly so) because UltraMom now has a sparkling clean and empty bathroom and many, many black garbage bags of clothing are awaiting their new home. “Now,” says UltraMom, “Lets go through some stuff in your room.” “I don’t think there is much of my stuff left,” said Heather piously. “Unlike the boys, I took most of my things with me, and you have been using my room for combo cat & litter box and storage room.” All true, but it was amazing what all we discovered in that big closet. More stuffed animals than you can shake a stick at, unless you are a champion stick shaker. Murphy, adorably claimed several for his own. The old cheer leading uniforms. Notebooks from high school biology, business week and career profiles. But the real treasure was the diary!
I have it here beside me; its one of those “one-year” diaries about 4” by 5” with a little gold lock on the front of it. At first we thought we wouldn’t be able to open it because we had no key, but it turns out that the key wasn’t all that important, at least as far as keeping the book locked , and it made the diary look very snappy, and gave the impression, however eroneous, of secrecy. She only kept it for about a week, but I am going to report the entries in full because they are so very charming and cute and, well, funny!
“The property of Heather McDonald. Age 10 (this is crossed out and rewritten as “11”. Apparently these couple of entires spanned a year. Hmmm. Kind of like the regularity of UltraMom’s posts)

January 1:” I feel o.k. I guess. I am pretending that my cabbage patch doll is real and i’m getting tired of it crying.” Isn’t that terrific! I LOVE that entry!
January 2: “We’re coming home from Aunt Debi’s house today.” I guess we had been in Boise visiting.
January 3 ” today is Bobby’s birthday and I feel happy.” Either we celebrated early, or she wrote this one in the wrong date.
January 4“I feel mad because Mom made me take out the doll clothes.” I don’t know about this is all about, but apparently another example of my unfairness
January 5 ” I feel happy because I am starting a letter writing bisness.” I guess she wrote letters for the boys, who were too lazy to write them on their own.

This is all written in pen, but another entry, in pencil, is also on January 4. Heather literally pounced on this one. Here, at last was the fresh proof of UMom’s treachery, the diary entry about the computer game and the whiny little brothers! Making sure she had my undivided attention, Heather trimphantly began to read:
“Dear Diary,
I am mad because on the computer first Johnny killed my guy on space rescueres or something like that and took my guy then on the next game I told Jimmy to let me be cab #1 and he let me and then on the next level he said he had cab #1 so we shut it off. Mom and Dad went to town today and are getting me more fish besides my betta. Love Heather.”

I laughed so hard I nearly cried, and felt totally vindicated. That wasn’t an unfair Mom playing favorites. There wasn’t even any proof that I was the one who caused the shut down. I was the good Mom going to town to buy my little girl some new fish.
Okay, UltraDad has been waiting for me to help load stuff into that wretched horse trailor. I guess my bed is going in first. sad face But I had to get this down while the creative muse was upon me. Maybe I should start keeping that diary again…............mabe after the move.
As Ever,

Ultramom

Doesn’t it seem like UltraMom’s moving process has been taking approximately forever? Well, that’s the way it appears to me anyway. It’s kind of like walking towards an alluring mountaintop or lake; it seems so close you can almost touch it, but you walk and walk and walk and it never seems to actually get any closer. I think we’ve been hearing, “We should have the papers to close on your loan by tomorrow,” for about three weeks now. I feel like we’re watching Bulwinkle the moose of Rocky and Bulwinkle cartoon fame pull a rabbit out of his hat....”This time for sure!” But the rabbit is never there.
We are in Idaho now for John’s vacation and long break. Actually his vacation, 4 days for the year, ended yesterday. Rather depressing; so long awaited and so quickly gone, and much of it spent driving. We went to Idaho Falls yesterday to purchase equipment for the move: a moving handcart and protable ATV ramp, a few more cleaning supplies. The pickup and horse trailor, borrowed from brother Chuck are sitting next to the yard awaiting their cargo. Funny side note: when UDad first brought the vehicles up, UltraMom was a trifle dismayed to find the rubber matting on the floor of said horse trailor aromatic with long dried equine manure. UDad said “it was fine; it was old and dry; it would brush right off.” UMom had visions of furniture and boxes with a fine coating of said manure being deposited on her newly cleaned carpets. Finally, amid a bit of grumbling, the removeable rubber matting was removed to the lawn and UMom happily scrubbed it down. Still not perfect, but much, much better.
Heather came out Tues evening and was a tremendous lot of help. She bullied UltraMom into tackling the master bathroom. This is a big room for a bathroom, and Umom, true to form, had it stuffed to the gills. Heather wouldn’t even let UMom go through the medicine cabinet with her; she threw away expired prescriptions and medicines, and passed the rest to UMom for ultimate screening. Everything, and I mean everything was removed from that bathroom, and it got the scrubbing of its life. We also went through piles and piles of clothing; UDad screened his quickly; it always amazes me how quickly and decisively he can make a decision on that sort of thing. Its by far the best way to be; but I agonize over each item: “Is it cute? Does it still fit me? Can I envision myself ever wearing it again? Even though it was buried at the bottom of my closet and I had forgotten I owned it, can I live without it? Etc, etc, etc.” We hauled about 10 big black garbage bags full of used-but-still-good clothing to Idaho Falls and dropped them off at a processing center to be sent to hurricane victims in New Orleans and MIssissippi. Great to get them out of the house, and great to feel that they could be put to good use.
But the fun, at least for UMom really began when we went through the things in Heather’s room! In fact, its so very good that I think it deserves its very own post.
I know that my posting has been sporadic, nearly nonexistent, but I’m not even going to pretend to promise that it will get any better. Thanks to those of you who hang in here with us and check our site once in a while.

UltraMom