I don’t know why I didn’t write my Happy, Happy post on Friday. Or maybe I do, but am having trouble putting it into words. Why I didn’t is still a rough stone, my mind running over it repeatedly until it’s smooth and makes sense.

It wasn’t for lack of material. I surprised Mikey by volunteering in the library again. I watched him walk down the breezeway with his friends, laughing. As he entered the room and saw me sitting there at the desk he stopped, leaned against the door jam, and tucked his chin down to his chest. Then he looked up at me from underneath those palm frond lashes of his and smiled wide. He walked over to me quickly and gave me a side hug. At almost 8 years old, a side hug is high praise, indeed. We were both happy.

It wasn’t for lack of material. Mikey’s team finished first in the league; we are headed to the playoffs. He made three amazing plays in the final game, plays that helped make the win possible. Then he spent the weekend practicing in the backyard. Nicholas and I watched him from the bedroom window on Saturday as he threw pitches against a concrete wall for practice. He drew an orange chalk square for the strike zone. The ball zone was blue. He was the pitcher, the infield, the outfield, and the announcer, whispering under his breath. Mikey makes the play at 1st. Another three strikes from Mikey. The runner at second tries to steal third, but Mikey’s on him.

Nicholas completed his first season of baseball. The trophy, the party, the attention…he ate all of it up greedily. After all these years attending sports related events for his older brother, it was a joy to attend an event just for Nicholas. His eyes turn into triangles when he smiles. He’s our happy little jack-o-lantern.

No, it wasn’t for lack of material. The counter in my blog admin panel says I’ve done 8 posts with the title Happy, Happy. That seemed like a lot to me, someone who likes change and worries about monotony. It isn’t. There are blogs who have had the same weekly posts for years on end. I sometimes envy their constancy and sometimes mock it, nose scrunched with disdain.

I don’t want happiness to become rote. I want to stumble upon it joyfully, feel my cheeks stain pink when my quickly growing son gives me a hug in front of his friends because he is happy to see me.  I want to scream at line drives and trace isosceles eyes in a dirty Shakey’s on University Avenue. I have to ground myself, keep myself present.

I have to remember to notice moments, not material. And when I do, I’ll feel good about feeling happy, happy.

My mom’s home office heavily inspired our family room. Her room of piles was always my favorite as a child, and while you would think it was all about the books, that wasn’t the only draw. On those shelves, the same shelves that held all her research, all her books on feminism, all her books on politics, all her books on literature and violent crimes (the woman is obsessed) also sat an assortment of really bad gifts.

A pinch pot in the shape of a square with a giant M in blue.

A plastic, wind-up stained glass “window” with a Bible verse. Cranking the key set off a magnet on the inside, which is what made the white, misshapen dove fly around to a tinny rendition of Amazing Grace.

A trio of mice wearing formal attire playing instruments in a symphony.

A resin pot of pansies, broken.

A stuffed Precious Moments wind-up doll holding a crayon and a note that reads, “I luv you mommy.”

And worse. Or better. It depends on your perspective. They still sit on her shelves.

Each gift received a place of honor, and it was a great source of pride for me to walk in and see mice playing bass next to Jean-Paul Sarte…or a book of mugshots. I didn’t understand why she would clutter up her pretty office with my cheap gifts, but it made me happy. That’s what I wanted from our family room: a room that was me and them and us.

A room where I can proudly display a card that says, “I hope the sith don’t catch you, mom!”

Next to a pot that grows flower-sons and suns who “Love me to pieces.”

I understand now why my mom gushed over scuttling doves and bad pottery. More than anything, I want the boys to look back and know I appreciated every googly-eyed doll made from pipe cleaners. I want them to remember they napped in rooms with open windows under the watchful eyes of handmade gifts more priceless than the fanciest of leather bound books.

The trick to surviving a trip to IKEA is to maintain your sense of humor. You’ll need it when you try to measure anything longer than a child’s palm with the store-provided tape measures; shuffle through housewares with 4,000 of your closest friends; talk to employees or, better still, find employees. They hide. They see you coming and they hide like socks, keys, and bank fees.

Sunday was great. We knew exactly what we needed and went straight to the warehouse. Then we wheeled out all our items and looked back and forth between the trunk space and our purchases.

I shared my thoughts.

“I don’t know…”

He shared his thoughts.

“It’s gonna fit. It’s gonna fit because we’re not making two trips.”

To his credit he made it fit. He had to open boxes and play Tetris with furniture, but he made it fit. I was impressed, and meant to tell him so, but when I opened my door and found him sitting not an inch away from the steering wheel, knees up as if he was in stirrups waiting for a speculum, well, I dropped the enormous box of slipcovers I was holding and laughed until I couldn’t breathe. Then I wiped the tears from my eyes, took another look at him, and started laughing all over again.

I knew he was good at space planning, but I had no idea he was so limber.

On Bad Days

“Some days you just have to muddle through it or go to bed.”

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On Blood Work

“That was so traumatizing, it was like a nightmare come true. Mom, let’s just go home so I can play with Legos and keep myself busy.”

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On Betrayal

“In my world, if you double cross me I will call my zombie crows.”

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On Extinction

“Mom, I’m pretty sure I know why dinosaurs became extinct. They didn’t have hospitals! I mean, have you ever heard of a doctorasaurus?”

Buster has what one would delicately describe as a thick form. Such indiscretions are not unusual for him, and we figured he would be fine after a day of rest.

Not so!

He was up all night Friday, but not on Saturday. We had him skip dinner that night, and he seemed better after his fast. After resuming meals again on Sunday, he was up all night, again until 5:00am. That seems to be the time even his bowels get tired. I made an appointment for him first thing Monday morning.

  When I took Buddy to the vet on Thursday, he sat quietly by my side. When the vet stuck little paper things under his eyelids, he didn’t move. When they flashed lights in his eyes and approached him with headgear, he moved, but only to purse his lips like an anxious child. He sat there, a little zen master, waiting patiently while the humans performed their tricks. The only indication he gave that he might be nervous was the occasional tremble in his thighs and the way he would curl up next to me and put his head on my shoulder.

Then, there is Buster.

I’m not even finished opening the car door before his corpulent body is out inspecting the vet parking lot for a morsel of food. (You never know, a 12 year old raisin may have fallen from a Mom Car.) He rushes towards the door like I’m mushing him towards an endless row of toddlers in highchairs with poor pincer grasps. He is the eternal optimist.

Buddy approaches the vet with resignation. Buster approaches the vet with blind hope.

Ten minutes later he is shaking and looking at me wild-eyed as if to say, “I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe it!”

Then he’ll catch the scent of another dog in the waiting room, and the memory of the rectal exam is pushed aside in favor of what lies behind the hollow-core luan door. A Pomeranian, it turns out.

If Buddy is the zen Buddhist on a spiritual pilgrimage, Buster is the greaser in a hot rod on his way to meet a girl under the high school bleachers. They are the same, only different, and we love them both to pieces as we help them navigate these new, somewhat more challenging senior years together.

Zach is funny. Zach is smart. Zach is athletic. Zach likes dinosaurs and BeyBlades and Star Wars. In Mikey’s eyes, Zach can do no wrong except for one thing. He is also best friends with Emma. You know. Emma. And for all his book smarts and analytical skills, Mikey can’t see the draw.

“Mom. Today Emma wanted us to go play on the swings. WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?!”

“Mom. Emma always wants to sit next to Zach, but we can’t work on our museum blueprints with her sitting in the middle!”

“Mom. Emma thinks she knows everything. She doesn’t even listen to me when I tell her she’s wrong.”

One year later, and he still has no clue.

With the school year winding down, there are rumblings of future playdates and trips to dinosaur museums. Zach says he wants to invite both Mikey and Emma, since they are both his best friends. Mikey took the news in stride.

I have the winners for The Everlasting Meal giveaway:

• Jill Stewart
• Kate P.

I’ll contact you shortly to get your address if I don’t hear from you first, not that I ever want to think about food ever again. On Saturday I bought what is, quite possibly, my dream rug. I was so excited that I convinced the Mister to come with me to IKEA to get rug pads. My mom agreed to watch the boys and give them dinner, so off we went. Thanks to traffic, we didn’t get home until almost 7:30, at which point we were starving. We debated going out to dinner, but I said (famous last words), “I would love to, but let’s be good and eat at home. We can put the money we save towards the trip to Rome.”

So we went to Target to return a rug and by steaks and potatoes. (Our Target has a grocery.) We thought we were being slick knocking out errands in one stop, but we couldn’t return the rug and the potatoes made us sick.

So sick.

We felt fine until we woke up Sunday morning. I couldn’t go to church, but the Mister tried. He made is half way through the mass (“I could smell the perfume of every single old lady there, and it made me want to puke.”) before he pulled Mikey out of the choir and headed home–with a stop at a gas station bathroom on the way.

So, so sick.

We know it was the potatoes, and figure the skins were tainted in the same way spinach or other vegetables get contaminated. We’re both bitter. To get food poisoning as bad as we did from a scrubbed  baked potato seems monumentally unfair. Fried fish, tacos, greasy Chinese food, sushi, and even old pizza: these are the foods that are supposed lay you out on the cold floor of your bathroom floor. There’s a certain balance, and fairness to the pain. You bite into fried shrimp knowing, in a small way, that the crunchy, hot exterior may later rip your gastrointestinal system to shreds.

But a scrubbed potato zapped in the microwave and topped with a modest amount of organic butter? That’s just not right.

On politics

“If Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive, he’d make a great president.”

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On antibiotics

“This tastes like rotten apples dipped in ashes, tossed in a fire.”

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On possessions

“Books are the only thing you can’t have too many of.”

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On ice cream

“I don’t need it, but I certainly enjoy eating it.”

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On love

“Of course God is #1. Then my family. Wii is definitely #17.”

Do you ever think about colors? I do. Occasionally, of course. I don’t sit around, day in and day out, staring at the walls thinking purplepurplepurple. But every now and then I will see a color that strikes me, or I will find myself drawn to a color or shade over time and wonder why people like the colors they do and what, if anything, that symbolizes. Sometimes a color will repeat itself incessantly until I have no choice but to notice. The weekend sifted shades of lavender.

I picked up the flowers for Helena’s party. Bells of Ireland, dahlias, plum hydrangeas, and purple roses named Blue Moon (I asked). The next day, we ate lunch under yards and yards of wisteria.

I went to IKEA on Sunday to buy supplies for this week’s William Morris Project. These lilac colored pots ended up in my cart. They look quite sharp with all the cream and black in our kitchen. I hope they perform as well elsewhere, because they’re meant for our entryway.

I looked up the meaning of the color lavender, and it suggests “refinement along with grace, elegance, and something special.” Spending time with friends this weekend was definitely something special, so maybe that’s why all I saw was lavender.