The more kids I have, the worse of a mom I become.

Here’s the photographic evidence.

My youngest son, chewing on a stick. That has NOT been cleaned. Or sanitized. And was picked up in a PUBLIC park.

And what do I do when I find him sucking on a broken tree bit? Snap a picture, of course.

And yes, that’s grass on his face. His first course.

What am I thinking, letting him eat sticks? “Oh good—his first fiber.”

Only later when a college student walks by and glares at me for my gross negligence do I think, “Hmm. Is there something wrong with letting my 7-month-old eat sticks?”

Maybe there is.

I’m not exactly a disinfectant queen of a mother. When I see moms at the grocery store using those antibacterial wipes to clean the shopping cart handles, I think, “Good idea. I think my son may have been gumming that one.”

Then I realize they’re cleaning it off BEFORE their children sit there, not after.

Hmm. Am I doing something wrong?

So I took away the stick and gave him a sucker instead, compliments of the bank. I think the college girl glared at me again.

Child #9 knows the tastes of suckers (see, I'm even teaching older sister how to administer candy), Nerds, Smarties, Sprite, root beer, Kool-aid and even Dr. Pepper. (No, I don’t fill his bottle up with those! He just tastes them!)

(Besides, he can’t figure out how to use a bottle.)

Now I do have my limits. Although all babies seem to be part Labrador retriever, I do stop them from playing in the toilets. I don’t even take pictures first. And if they happen to get to the toilet brush, I plop them in a tub and read the warnings on all of the disinfectant bottles to see if any can be used on flesh. (Neither of them can. Yeah, I own only two such kinds of cleaners.)

But I let my babies crawl on the floor, and if they find a cheerio from breakfast still on the floor at lunch, I might just let them eat it.

I call it “Building Immunities.” I figure kids generations ago crawled through much worse, especially if they lived on a farm, or an industrial city, or in the country or . . . just about anywhere, I suppose. And they lived. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.

I later checked my photo albums to see if I was this lax with my other children, imagining that I was much more vigilant 21 years ago when I first became a mom. But what I found were photos of other babies crawling through the dirt. Another little boy chewing a Ken-doll head. Children covered in mud. Little girls running around outside naked. 

In the dark. 

In winter. (You understand why I didn't post those, right? Social Services already has enough evidence.)

And then my first-born. There she was, just six months old, and I had let her get chicken pox. In my defense, I had the chicken pox too, caught when I substitute taught a kindergarten class. The next photo shows her destroying a newspaper. I remember having to wash all the newsprint off of her hands and face. And legs. Tummy. Feet. Ears . . .

But she survived. So have the others, so far, with no major problems (that we can see).

"Yeah . . . right, Mom. Building Immunities. We'll see what my therapist says about that in 20 years."

Apricots, legacies, and bathrooms

This is no ordinary bag of apricots.

It’s a legacy, a reminder of those who are no longer here, or leaving soon.

Apricots are the perfect fruit. In my mind, Eve hands Adam an apricot. She has a whole fig leaf apron full of them. And raspberries jammed in a pocket. (But that’s another story. And no, I’m not sure where Eve would have a pocket.)

Hey, those look like apricots!

I didn’t like apricots until I was about 11 or 12 years old. My oldest sister Judy, married with her own family, came to our house to pick apricots off of our tree during one of the rare years it produced. She taught me how their texture is firmer than peaches, less messy, and more subtle in flavor. And that flavor, when snatched from a tree on a hot July afternoon, was fantastic. She was right—I discovered I loved apricots as I picked them with her. Suddenly, she stopped.

“How many have you eaten?”

“About 5 or 6,” I told her.

“Well, stop,” she said as she popped another in her mouth.

Hypocrite, I thought. “Why?”

“Because these will make you the best of friends with the toilet around this time tomorrow.” She swallowed down another one.

“How many have you had?”

“Probably 20,” she said nonchalantly. “I’ve already cleared my calendar for tomorrow afternoon. I’ll hate myself then, but for now? Heavenly!”

She later confessed that on the drive home, she had to put the bucket of apricots in the back of her van, out of her reach. The next day she lived in the bathroom while her husband laughed at her.

“But it was worth it!” Judy insisted when I next saw her. “Fresh and free apricots come only a few weeks of the year, and some years, not at all. Eat them while you can!”

Each year my mother and I watched our apricot tree, cheering at the popcorn-like blossoms and hoping for a good crop. Then, two years out of three, a frost killed the blossoms.

But the mild springs? Well, one year we had a huge crop, and came home one day to see little orange bits all over the road in front of our house. Perplexed, we looked up on the hill where our apricot tree stood and saw that half of it was lying on the ground, the weight of so much fruit breaking it. Little apricots had rolled down the hill and became a mushy mess all over the road. Neighbors came to help clean up the mess, my mother made jam for two straight days—at the end, cursed the little things for being so darned plentiful that year—and Judy and I ate far too many again.

Judy and my mom in 2007 (clearly wishing they were eating apricots instead).

That was a long time ago. I moved away to the east coast, saw apricots for sale occasionally at the grocery stores for exorbitant prices, and remembered Utah apricots. Then we moved back to Utah in 2007 and occasionally got an apricot or two, and loved them.

Yesterday, a neighbor wrote on facebook how sick she was of making apricot jam, and I thought about my mom. She’s now 85 and fading slowly away. In hospice care, she doesn’t open her eyes, she doesn’t speak, and now she no longer eats. She won’t taste apricots or make jam this year.

My mom, at the end of May this year, when she was still sitting up and holding my littlest guy, just for a moment.

We don’t have that tree anymore, either. We sold the house, and the tree, last summer. If the haggard old tree is still there, I don’t know. I haven’t driven past the home since we sold it.

And I don’t have Judy, either. She won her first round with cancer, but it came back more angry for a second bout, and nearly three years ago, Judy passed away.

Me and my oldest sister Judy, in 2007. (No apricots in sight.)

But there are still apricots, brought to me by a dear friend, in a bag.

Yesterday, I taught my 4-year-old how to love them. After her fifth one I said, “We shouldn’t have any more. Too many will make you need to go to the bathroom a lot tomorrow.”

She nodded in agreement, but about ten minutes later came to me with another apricot for me to open and pit. “Just one more,” she promised. “The last one.”

I smiled and took one more as well.

Then ate about twenty-five more.

Today I’ve spent a lot of time in the bathroom.

And I swear I’ve heard Judy laughing at me and saying, But they’re worth it, aren’t they?