i obsess.

objectively tired v. subjectively sleepy.

I stomped back to the hotel, my stomps growing slower and my breathing slightly ragged, while my son clung more and more tightly to my neck (my appreciation for the clinging growing as we walked, my grip slackened, a result of my increasing exhaustion in Seattle's chilly mid-morning air).  After we arrived inside the foyer, I plopped him down and said, "Now, walk."  We trudged toward the bank of elevators and I silently pushed the buttons I'd allowed him to push earlier, back in the pleasant, sanguine slice of morning where I was patient and he was gleeful and not slotted in tantrum-sequence.

As we exited the elevator, he said, "Now we're on our floor, right, mommy?  Where the wind can't get us.  This is where we can walk to our room, mommy.  Mommy?  I couldn't smile before because my smile was sweepy.  It was tired.  It was sick.  It had a stummy-ache.  So it had to sweep.  I couldn't smile because my smile was sweeping, and it was sick, and it had a stummy-ache, so I couldn't make it wake up when you told me to smile."  The chuckle slid out of me, traitorously. 

"You know, that's funny.  The story about your smile being sleepy woke mine up."  I spoke while slipping the key-card into its slot, the green light blinking kindly at me as I did.

"Yeah, mom.  That wasn't a long story.  It was just a short one."

drowning Batman.

Jack:  "I'm dwowning Batman, mommy!  Wookit!  Wookit him drowning, go down, down, down into the deep, deep, deep bottom of da tub, mommy, see he's dwowning, mommy?"

me:  "Why is he drowning, though?  Batman's a superhero, honey.  He doesn't have to drown.  He could survive - he usually does, in fact."

Jack: "But no, mommy!  He's gonna dwown.  He's gonna hafta dwown, I think.  Batman's dwowned."

me:  "Is this because the fish were drowned yesterday and they died?  Is that why Batman's drowning?"

Jack:  "Yeah.  He's dwowning just like the fish."

me:  "Maybe Batman could play with that shark instead of drowning?  Maybe he could play with the shark and the polar bear?"

Jack:  "No!  Batman and the shark can NOT play together, mommy.  They are NOT friends."

me:  "Why can't they be friends?"

Jack:  "Because they're people, mommy, and people aren't friends."

me: (choking down laugh) "People aren't friends, Jack?"

Jack:  "No, mommy, they aren't.  They're just people.  And they sometimes just aren't friends."

As he sing-songed to himself afterward, I contrived to think of something, a vignette, maybe, that I could include with this, to write it as a post that referred to something else, something bigger, that could make the point so I wouldn't have to even comment on it. Which I sort of decided would be too easy.  Kind of a cop-out.  After all - the worst part of having that conversation is trying to determine any of its meaning.  Realizing, as I do, that there could be so many interpretations.  And each of them would be utter crap.  Because he doesn't even know what he meant by any of it, and when I ask him in several years about its significance, he'll not remember. 

And, yes, I will ask him.  It's the kind of annoying thing I do.

My mother would agree with that statement.

spiderman shirts matter tremendously.

The one Jack owns is imperative.  He must be clad in it.  At. All. Times.  Even if it smells like urine, because when he sat down on the toilet on Friday to pee, he forgot to lift the lid, and the shirt soaked up some of the pee, the rest of which spilled all over the toilet lid and down the sides and cascaded onto the floor.  Caleb didn't wash it yesterday (he did ALL of the laundry while I was at a trade show for a bunch of girl scouts while representing the ski resort I'm working for and - oh, my dear baby jesus, that's its own blog post which I'm considering, very delicately, the writing of - possibly today.  We'll see; because, as you and I both know, LIES: I TELL THEM), but this shirt remained unwashed, because this shirt, with its flashing, battery-operated flashy-thingy that emits red flashes beneath a plastic image of le spidey, must be cleaned - very delicately.  Maybe I'll try to wash it AND write the girl-scout post all at the same time.  Then I may possibly bring the proper amount of care to both requirements. 

But probably not.

He's insisting it's fine, now, though, in the meantime, because it's *dry*.  Never mind that it smells of urine.  No matter.  That the urine is no longer wet is all he's concerned with.

 

*raises eyebrow*

p.s. We got a kitten last week.  I wanted to name it something literary or possibly after one of my jazz heroes (I was kind of hoping for Webster, after Ben Webster, whose tenor sax is a dream and I wish my record player worked because I have this double album of his that melts me and, oh, why am I starting down *this* path?  I'm not.  'Bye, path.  Leaving.  Jazz begone!  *poof*).  Somehow, Buster came up and then I quickly went with Dickens, because a.) he's a little Dickens, and b.) I love Dickens.

Buster has remained.  Even our attempts to sway Jack with the alluring sounds of the name Dexter (after Dexter Riley, one of my favorite all-time childhood Disney character favorites; please tell me you remember any of them?  The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes; Now You See Him, Now You Don't; The Strongest Man in the World?  No?  *Sigh*) did not work.  (Also, Dexter's Lab was good and I wouldn't have minded naming a kitty after such a mischievously adorable cartoon child whose accent I very much enjoy abusing whenever I think to do so.  Alas, 'tis not to be.)

But the two gold fish we bought when we got Buster (see?  Slowly growing accustomed) have, sadly, passed into that long night.  May their water be less murky and poopful than it was here on Earth.  Sleep well, little fishes.  Sorry 'bout that whole *really brief existence* business.

p.s. Caleb just called from the store where's he's busily buying those canned cinnamon rolls for me because I begged indolently for them because I am a disgusting, spoiled monster, *this* is a hell of a sentence so far, ain't it?, to tell me that he did, in fact, wash the Spiderman shirt of great importance.

Oh.

minimal effort posting.

The dark-chocolate trim pops nicely against the new house color, I (would like to) think.  I'm a little bowled over by the fact that close to a G in paint and supplies for the overall job didn't really do much; it wasn't until the addition of the $12 can of trim paint and three dark brown plants placed in front of the window, at $8 per, came into play, making the entire effect pop beautifully.  I mean, damn.  $36 to blow it all up.  That's crazy.  But somehow always the way things work in design.  Accents!  Accents are key!  Or whatever.

I really dig the reddish mulch (we just tried one bag for effect, and will throw the rest on tomorrow night, in advance of the appraiser's visit on Thursday - curb appeal, or so they say, counts).  I don't generally thrill at reddish mulch; it reminds me too much of the pain of angry barkdust splinters from childhood days.  But this does so well because our chimney has remained true brick red, and requires a little color balance to pull it into the other elements.  I can't wait to see how the mulch will look around the new plants below the front window.

Caleb shaved Jack's head on Saturday, in hopes of staving off massive heat discomfort (our a/c quit on us on Thursday afternoon, just as the heat wave really got underway; our spoiled asses did NOT know what to do with the 89 degrees the upstairs portion of our house was registering).  Also, who knew?  Cookies and moisturizer don't hold together so well in that kinda heat, either.  Surprise!

Silly monster faces are the new smile.

The back route to the beach from my parents' RV spot at the campground near Tillamook, Oregon, where we stayed last weekend.

A few minutes' walk from our camp site; maybe fifty yards from the bay near our camp ground.

Caleb took this one.  I don't know WHAT he said to that bee, but DAMN.  Maybe he mocked his, uh, "wingspan."  Whatever the case, super glad I was hiding under a rock while this was snapped.  I believe in duck-and-cover.  I have ovaries of gelatinous goo.

Headless man is usurped by small parasite near coastal town!

Sand:  Toddler cryptonite.



Strawberry-headed.  Possibly an affliction resulting from overconsumption of massive quantities of late June Oregon berries?

 

Ocean attack!

Mom!didyouseeit?thatlittlethingyinthewateritwascomingandthenthewater cameduptomyfeetsanditwasso!cold!mommmy!mommy!mommmmmy!!!

This is certainly a look-back-and-sob-in-twenty-years'-time kinda shot, no doubt.

Finally.  FINALLY.  The boy/dog co-entertainment possibilities begin to unfold.  And not a moment too soon.  My (dying-to-be-sedentary) ass has been begging for this moment for three + years.

Idyllic.

A husband who can garden.  He did *all* of this.  I have, uh, real, REAL bad, uh, hay fever.  REAL bad.  *cough, cough, sorta-convincing sneeze*

And the husband pickled these *after he grew them and picked them*:  a mix of lemon cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, green tomatoes and sweet purple peppers.  At first I was all, what kind of girl are you?, and then I realized I may be damning the probability of his ever doing something so kick-ass again, simply because I couldn't let a shot-at-the-funny go, and then I realized I didn't care, because, DUDE.  WHAT A FUCKING GIRL.  THE BEST GIRL IN THE WORLD.  *MY* GIRL.  *swooon*

We gathered eighteen pounds of these bad boys.  Jack even helped.  By not eating what we'd picked.  Seriously.  My husband is a bad-ass.  He culled most of them.  I kind of mostly just grazed and thought about possible blog posts I'll never, ever write down.

"Babe?  This smile is starting to slide south (note gritted teeth) unless you deliver on that promise-of-beer, the one you gave me around an hour ago, back when the dinosaurs still roamed the Earth?"

It has begun.  For the record, I'm totally fine with that.  After all, we'll always have beer.  And that one summer -- which summer *was* that, anyway?  Alright, so maybe it was a weekend.  Or just one night.  Maybe it didn't even happen.  Here's to that possibly-made-up memory, babe.

Note the handy.  Caleb put the whole damn thing together.  It took two days, and saved us a G in installation costs. 

Guess who adamantly refuses to play in it.

Babe, it's a cheesy shot because you're so darn cute in it (but let it not be assumed that I refuse abjectly to post shots of my partner wherein he looks hot, because that assumption would be incorrect.  General apparent behavior of avoidance of deliberate highlighting of attractiveness notwithstanding, just for this particular post).  You almost make me want to have sex with you, you're so ruddy and kinda totally hot.  (It is like. walking. on hot. coals. to say this about my partner on the blog, btw.  I loathe and abhor verbal pda.  Dunno.  Guess I just think it's -- below me, somehow.  I'm a snob about the weirdest shit.  I won't overanalyze it.  He deserves to be recognized for the hotness.  The.  Fucking.  End, Debbie.  Jeeeeeezus.  Letitgo.)

Happy (fourth) anniversary on Thursday, babe.  You so deserve a toast.  What you don't deserve?  Me ditching for a week to attend the Convention while you hold down this end, and we cross even all of our smallest hairs in hopes that the refinance isn't a bust, and put off celebrating our anniversary, again, one more result of the purchase of this home (last year's awesome celebration being, lamentably, the day we moved into the hell hole in the first place, and we postponed our real celebration that time, too).  I'm sorry it's been such a rough go this year.  I'm sorry I pushed us into moving last year, and buying this house, and all the time and energy spent fixing it, and then my being such a mess because of finding out about the adhd, and just generally having too many breakdowns and epic fails to count. But I guess you're still sticking it out, after almost ten years together, and I promise to keep trying, trying my hardest.  Always.  You're so fucking worth it.

beach: 0, flu: 1

We bailed early yesterday from the rainy, yet far from bland, incredible Oregon Coast.  Jack has had a hacky cough for weeks - I keep waiting for it to abate because I really don't see the need for him to endure yet another round of antibiotics that repair nothing, and once it began raining as we tried to walk out to the sand for one more round of diggy/skippy/giggly, we cashed it in and drove home.  Neither Caleb nor I were feeling all too well, either, having both acquired whatever weird throat/raspy cough/icky chest thingy my mom was laden with, and after we got home, Caleb somehow turned feverish and punch-drunk within an hour or so.  I went inside from the back to find him sitting in the chair in our room, shivering, his face dark red, with several layers of clothes on.  He told me he felt weird and asked for a thermometer, but I insisted on just feeling his forehead, which was alarmingly hot.  He crashed downstairs on the couch and I tried to get things unpacked and all of the wet bedding into the wash (Jack had no fewer than *two* accidents during the night on Friday evening/Saturday morning; all while sleeping a few inches from me on a too-small pull-out large chair masquerading as a love seat, so awesome).  Jack ran around in circles, yelling and throwing things.  I solo-parented and hacked and tried not to put our wolf-child out on the sidewalk with a "free" sign strapped to his chest while Caleb slept. 

After I got Jack to bed, a mighty struggle in itself, I crashed for awhile, then watched this old film, Country Girl.  It left me thinking about feminist issues when I ought to have been sleeping, so I popped Groundhog Day in, just to stop the maddening spin-cycle in my skull.  Caleb woke up at some point, at which I, evidently, in mid-sleep, asked if he minded that I was watching, a la, "Is this okay?  That I'm watching this?," even though I was ASLEEP.  So, not really watching anything but the backs of my eyelids.  He was, naturally, confused.

Today was more of the same, and the three-year-old in my son richtered (I refer, here, to the "why" and the "no" and the "I don't waaaant to" fields of HOLY GOD JUST SHUT IT, SHUT IT BEFORE I AM REQUIRED TO RETHINK THIS WHOLE BUSINESS AND QUITE POSSIBLY SEW YOUR MOUTH SHUT *AND* REND MY EARS TO BITS, SIMULTANEOUSLY).  We went out a few times to a) give my husband a chance at a few winks of undisturbed sleep, and b) to fetch more acetaminophen and, yes, a milkshake for me, because it's the closest I can get on certain days to the hard stuff, and I needed it.  Don't question me.  I did.  This = truth.

Mostly, I'm grateful for the shower I got to take this morning, and for the fact that, just as soon as the quilt is dry (which, god almighty, who fucking KNOWS when that will be, it's been in the (granted, totally crappy) dryer for no less than three hours - it's kinda thick), I get to crawl into my beautiful, big, comfy bed of not-love-seat-pull-out-proportions and sleeeeeep.  Oh, and also, grateful for the incredibly delicious fresh crab we ate for dinner, a rare treat for me; we always had the imitation crab when my mom made something requiring crab in the recipe -- the real was way too $$.  Also, I got a lot of hugs and kisses from my terrifically bipolar-y child, and there was a healthy balance of laughter and giggles and general silly amidst the chaos, which must be noted, in fairness.

If you really narrow your eyes and squint, hard, at my day, it was pretty alright.

Pictures of beachy delights tomorrow.  Swears.  The nice, G-rated kind.

money woes don't pack so well into an old kit bag.

Am so stressed out about money.  We're waiting on a refinance that, if it doesn't go through, will ruin us financially.  And we didn't do stupid things with equity and all that.  We just picked a *really* shit moment to buy a house that needed work - and not the kind that was willing to wait for a few years (look for my next book!, about what to avoid when purchasing an older home, and how many cabinets and inch-sized niches to peer into using a micro-lens in order to best determine whether said old house is worth the duckets!).

Will be returning to a full-time position with the mountain resort, in their sales office, at first of September.  Jack begins preschool the same week, and I'll just be coming home from the convention the Friday prior.  He'll be in daycare all day, three days a week, as a pre-schooler, with the bigger kids, in a classroom of twenty children and two teachers.  He'll also be attending grandmacare for the other two days (and thank jeeeesus they can do that for us, although I have my reservations about it all, which are drowned by our need for me to be working full time, so, reservations be damned).

Today he cried so hard when I left him off at school, harder than he has since he began there last fall.  It was horrid. 

I am witless as to how to manage this.

And hopeful that the medication I'm waiting for a prescription on from the psych will ameliorate the scattered, dull memory issues, and general lack-of-focus/disorganization.  Because if I'm ever gonna need to be able to organize myself and my family, this is that time. 

today, minus three years.

I hesitate to do this; I have yet to write down anything about you that seems too convinced, convincing; you are a fluid, amorphous body of light and breath and giggles and scowls, and I cannot pin you down.

Would not pin you down.

And even while I note, to myself, that there is anything specific and seemingly concrete about your existence, you surprise me.  You spin and it is all fresh, the kaleidoscope has shifted and the beads have click click clicked into a new and terrifyingly lovely arrangement.  My sight accustoming more and more lethargically as your spinning increases in complexity and speed.

My love for you remains, throughout the sifting clicking spinning amorphous light-speed arrangement, my truth.  My bedrock.

And yours, I can only hope, in my non-religious fervor'd prayer.

You, born out of me by my straining and gasps and disbelief in my own body, that slithery-strange sensation, and the intense relief of pain ended, and an even more intense grappling with your face, the eyes, those fathoms-deep eyes into which I could have stared for an age (may have, indeed, done), that face, your face, and my singly uncynical response to your gaze, no larger truth have I ever encountered, that day, three years hence, than the one met in your wee bit of cheek, nose, eyes, mouth; that scowl, etched deep, that told me everything I could possibly need to know.

Your father - I blame him.  He bade me release that last millimeter of self-strength; I released my timeless grip on my own resolve to allow you to maneuver through your personal portico and onto the balcony of life.  I wooshed it away and as I did, you passed through into the sun.  With much crying and all the requisite goo allowed.

My sweet, incredible, willful, beauteous, loved sun.

Jackson Ray.  Happy day to us, boy-child.  Three years from the day of reckoning, I am only too glad to greet the hereafter.

Even if it does mean a road littered with tantrums along the way.  (Because there will also be cupcakes.  Chocolate ones.)

three.

She wipes the counter with the once-white wash cloth, the one that has acquired some smudgy, dark patches, even though she washes it in earth-friendly non-chlorine bleach.  She says, look, honey, this is the wash cloth they sent home with us from the hospital after you were born, although they didn't realize momma was sort of accidentally stealing it.  You say, oh, mommy?, Why you dood that?  And she shakes her head, laughing a little under her breath as she wipes quickly and with sure strokes.  You look quizzically at the cloth, for, while you understand "hospital," you only know one thing for certain, that is, that you have always been here.  You have always stood, with your sensitive skin and sensitive soul, in this place, this now, and the thing she speaks of, the time before you, it is incomprehensible. 

You run quickly out the back door and into the streaming sunshine, gliding through it, laughing, chasing the dog, your speed a lightning-quick accusation to her that the moments escape so quickly and she has no more capacity for their importance than a moth does the lurid, shimmering glow of the lantern's beams.

She puts down the cloth and runs after you just for a moment, chasing your little, sweet, precious body down as you scramble away from her, your laughter afloat, wafting to her like pollen, and she catches you up and kisses you abundantly on the full, soft cheek, her heart awash with the perfect beauty of the feeling of your skin, of your body, your lengthening body, and her scaled-down form as it grows leaner and less taut while yours sharpens, she rests you on the grass and dashes the quick-form'd tears from beneath her grinning lids, absorbing it.

This is your time, now.

blogger prom jitters. and a few extraneous photos. you know. for kicks.

Or maybe I'm already going through the post-prom anticlimax.  Which kinda blows, seeing as how I'm gonna have to fend off that particular suckitude on Sunday evening as well.

More likely, though, I'm just stupid-tired.  We (only, the "we" = not me) painted the house this weekend.  I did participate!, though, just not in the painting area of the task.  I helped apply the "caulk."  I'm super-good with "caulk," so it was logical to put some into my hands and get me going.

(I toldju I'z gonna brang the smut.  There.  There's your smut pie.  Eat!  Eat, ya fucking jackals!  If you get this not-thinly-veiled movie reference, I will hug you extry-hard at prom, possibly to the point of making you uncomfortable.

It's what I do.)

Jack has been such a pain in the ass lately.  There.  I said it.  He's borrowed from all buzzy creatures and created a whine so terrifyingly ear-paining, a noise that falls somewhere between fly/chainsaw, a noise that I can only listen to for s o  v e r y  l   o   n    g  before I snap and my face unscrews itself and is propelled with speed and agility toward the nearest precious, glass objet (and no, that isn't misspelled, it's *fronch*, people - le sigh) and both items shatter, only my face is slightly less the worse for wear, surprisingly.  Who knew they made faces so goddam durable?

Not me.  (Well, except that I'm kidding.  My face doesn't look so good after being busted up by glass.  Not that it happens.  It just sounded interesting in my head.  If you were in there, like you *should* be, you'd see what I meant.  So get in there and stop looking at me like that.  And while you're at it, please won't you bring me some cookies or something?  I don't think I can go on much longer like this without a flavorful snacky.

I love a good snacky.)

Want some pictures of our freshly-poo-coated, er, painted house?  (I realized after speaking with my good friend, Jen, tonight, who also happens to live in our neighborhood, that it resembles more poo-ish and less clay-ish, the intended color, only she didn't say it, I sort of blurted it, but she kind of agreed even though she tried hard not to, the good intention of which I totally respect and love her for, but dude, if it looks like poo, it looks like poo.  It isn't her fault I picked poo brown for the paint color.  Which is rad, and means that the neighborhood is probably laughing at us behind their oh-so-much-less-poo-ish walls.  So I'll be painting poo-color-downplaying trim, a very rich, dark chocolate, next week when I gits back from tha big cit-ay.  Super.)

Pitchers!  On with 'em already!

(What conference?  What packing?  I know not of this.  I have things to sew tomorrow, and a doctor's appointment, with the psychiatrist, to receive alms in the form of medicines that will make my adhd behave itself.  What fun to try out on unsuspecting roommates!  I mean, uh, on my family.  Because, I'll be here all weekend.  I'm not going anywhere.  Brain, that is all you need believe.  If you happen to hook up to your ocular tentacles, please ignore suitcases and makeup kits and the like.  It's all -- a ruse.  Practice for when I may actually go -- somewhere.  You know.  Places.  To do stuff.  And -- other stuff.  Hush, now, brain.  It's time to go back to sleep.  Here's your blankie.  Ignore the activity.  You needn't be involved.  You almost never are, anyway.  Why should this time be any different?)

Pitchers!  Yoo!

(Bonus feature alongside freshly-painted exterior; new, gorgeous maple door, w/sweet-ass stainless hardware, and - darn it all if they didn't throw in a buzzsaw in the form of a three-dimensional small child who insists on eating several-days-old hunks of refrigerated, hard-as-diamond bread and flips the buzzsaw on the "richter" setting if informed that said bread has been composted.  Iow, if you paint your house soonish, and they throw in a child for free, just let it have the hard bread.  It'll work the math out on its own as to why hard bread is the anti-delicious.)

(This child may also enjoy perusing the supple lines and details of the glimmering hardware.  Because doorbell ringing and mailslot-peeking are yesterday's cardboard box in the kick-ass kid-fun realm, evidently.  Especially when there's a dog on the other side of the door whose biggest thrill in life, aside from witnessing her blue bowl filling with small, mealy-brown, pebble-like objects that pass for food, is barking at passersby and the doorbell being rung.  It's entirely possible that she wrote the original line that inspired the song, "You can ring my bell."  Although, of course, in dog.  So, sort of this:  "Woof ow ow ow owwwww."  You get the picture.)

(Our bottom-of-the-yard veg garden.  It's even bigger, now.  This was like, a thousand years ago, aka, last week.  Or three weeks ago.  What-the-fuck-ever.  Like I care.  The garden is the MAN'S job.)

'Cause it ain't just gonna make itself, people.  Chocolate cake, btw, with crevices (heh) filled with freshly-canned strawberry jam, and topped with a chocolate whipped-cream icing that was supposedly a layering element, according to the recipe.  Pffft.  I make recipes bow low and prostate themselves -- wait, is that supposed to be prostate or prostrate?, because, I'm totally not looking it up.  Fuck you, correct-word fanatics.  Freaks.  Anyway, I make recipes nervous just looking at them.  (They're all, please don't try to make us.  You never read the directions carefully enough, you're all slap-dash and hurryupmusthavechocolatebrainpokingoutofear and rushrush and suddenly, you have a thing that *resembles* cake, only it tastes like a big, puffed-up pile of baked flour, or something that may have been alright if it weren't burned to an exquisite horribleness that even the dog is *almost* refusing to eat.  Well, except that she would never, because she'll eat bits of things that seem as though they *might* be food, so, yeah, no, she doesn't reject baked-pile-o-flour *nor* the burnty shit.  She's pleasant that way.)

And then he handed me back my beer, after I took the picture, because honestly, who paints a house and drinks beer at ten o' clock in the morning?, and I returned to caring for my child and sipping Pabst delicately through a tube connected to my hat.  I'm kidding.  I would never wear one of those hats.  They don't hold enough beer.

Those plants may even survive having been a) stepped all over while covered with a tarp to protect them from the paint, and b) planted, as shade-requiring plants, in a full-sun-exposure spot.

But probably not.

They tried to get me involved in their ridiculous bubbly shenanigans, but I explained that it's not nice to try to make mommy have to wear a beard anymore, ever since she finally got the old one surgically removed, and the flashbacks about the circus are almost completely faded.

(And then I caved.  I'm such a post-circus-member-bubble-beard suckah.)

i wanna be medicated.

Can't get an appt. to see a psychiatrist until the middle of July.  The 16th, to be precise.  Iow, the day before I leave for the SF BlogHer conference.  Prolly isn't a good idea to start dosing on something unknown the day before I reconvene with a thousand crazy-a$$ bitches and behave in the expectedly ridonkulous fashion that I will do.  (It's the hyper aspect of adhd - kicks in whenever I'm even mildly mentally stimulated by something in my environment.  Give me a thousand shimmery, brilliant stimulants?  And I'm dancing like a marionette on trucker speed.  For untold hours.  It's - annoying.  And embarrassing.  And tiresome.  And unpredictable.  Etc.)

I'm tired.  So tired.  I don't care anymore.  I don't.  It's all just so nuts.

Lying cuddled together with my kiddo a minute ago, because he had come into the room, suddenly, demanding a hug, and upon returning him to his bed, I discovered his playmates, some toys he's not allowed to go to sleep with - because he *doesn't sleep* when they're present - and then we sang some songs and snuggled.  And I felt his length, even with legs curled all pretzel-like around my knees, feet stuck randomly between my knees and thighs, hand curled around mine, and my breath halted, quick, brief, because - it's all happening.  So fast.  Too fast.  Blazes of light and *poof* and he's growing, growing, grown.

And I will have done nothing throughout his growth but bemoan my own beleaguered state, my own incapacities for things that - well, that I just am not, and cannot have, and cannot be, and yet I reach, I reach, waggling my fingers 'til they're outstretched to the point of pain, and my son, this beautiful, amazing creature, this creation, he is turning tricks and cartwheels and pulling rabbits out of hats all 'round me, and still I reach, and bemoan, and waggle, and pine for things.  Unknowable, invisible things.

And soon he will, too, be invisible, this smallness, this wee synapse of time, this sharp echo against the rocks of the ages, his once-tiny hands and feet and legs and elbows all crescendoing and I see its harmonic rise in such finite, too-fleeting, too-few moments.

Is nothing in life what it ought to be?

telephone game.

Me:  Jack, have you seen my phone?  

Jack: Yes, Mommmmmy.  *sing-songs the words while pounding on the wall with a play hammer and nails*

Me, trying to sound patient, because I know that I turned the ringer off so as to not disturb us during the naptime that wasn't, which means I am not going to be able to easily locate it simply by calling myself from the other phone:  Did you take my phone and put it somewhere?

Jack: Yeahhh... ? *looks slightly confused, but gets up and walks confidently toward his room, so I assume he's going to fetch it, which, I tell myself, signifies that he must have removed it, and it wasn't just that I misplaced it somewhere, like, in my bum*

Me:  So, you know where it is? *smoke curls trailing from my nostrils, but still clinging to a calm tone*

Jack:  Yeah, mommmmyyyy!!  It's in da office, mommy.  Let's go in der.  Because, it's pwobabwy in der.

Me: Jack, are you sure you know where my phone is?  

Jack: Yes!  It's downstaiws.  It's pwobabwy in my secwet spot.  Somebody pwobabwy put it der.

Me: *audible breathing, fingers clenched on pant legs, following child impatiently toward downstairs playroom*

Jack: Oh, mommy, it's not in hew.  Somebody pwobabwy took it.

Me: Jack, who would've possibly taken it?

Jack: Pwobabwy the monstews.

Me: The monsters?

Jack: No!  No, mommy!  Not the monstews.  The SPIDEWS took it.

Me: Jack, I need you to help me find my phone.  Can you please, Jack, please help me find my phone?  Can you try to remember where you put it?  Where did you hide it?

Jack: But, no, mommy, I cannot, because I do not know where it is.  Because I didn't take it, mommy! 

*child runs off, sing-songing*

Me: Ah, hell.  *hopes no one of mild importance calls, pours flagon of wine, begins drinking*

And then I console myself by thinking, "If I could just have these, it would all be alright."

(Told you this was a mommy blog.)

to the unsuspecting eye.

While it may not be obvious, I dig through my repetoire of pain and anguished memory in order to save my child(ren?) from having to endure the things I have done.  To comprehend the madness, understand its angles and contours, see it for what it is, expose it in an uncomfortable series of essays and exposes and unhappily rendered portraits that render it weak and rattling in its feeble grasp on my soul.  I do this for my son, for Jack, and I do it for any other children I may (or may not, ...) have the pleasure of knowing, vis-a-vis, I do it for those whose children must eventually battle dissimilarly similar creatures of dark, haunting personal treason, and I do it, even, for some of the other parents (and non-parents) who find themselves in battles akin to my own.

And, so.  Though this weblog, more often than not, has the quasi-tangible feel, the sense, of a worn, pock-marked personal journal, rather than that of a mommyblog;

don't be fooled.  This is a MOMMYBLOG, coming and going.

You see, through it all, I hope.  I hope for the things to come. 

And, thus, I wage on in my ever-tiresome, yet never-ending battle.

(Beats hell out of describing all my intrepid, albeit minutiae-enriched, introspection as naval-gazing, huh.)

a lady of very small brain.

I just ate some of the cookies I made yesterday (and no, Gwen, I did *not* eat any lunch yesterday, either, just cookies, so I felt kind of hollow and light-headed toward the end of the day, especially after gulping down two glasses of Andrew Rich's decadent white table wine - tabula rasa - screw top!, double points!). 

I chased the cookies down with a more-than-half-full (ha!  see?  optimist) glass of coldy-cold milk, something I almost never allow myself since Jack started drinking it, because I save it for him.  Almost unconsciously do I do this.  Same goes for fresh fruit.  I buy loads of it, the expensive, local, organic kind, and Caleb and I give it to him.  Once in awhile, one of us eats an apple or something, but mostly Jack has been granted quasi-sole proprietorship of the bounties of the fruit bowl.  I'd try to be sad about it, but my deep mother-longing to see him eat well and thrive stubbornly resists such silly emotional play.  I figure, hey, he's already eating me, eating my knowledge, eating my energy, eating my spirit, and don't think for a minute I don't give it freely and with a full, amply extended will and heart, because, oh, hell, do I ever. 

Just - it's a little strange, sometimes, staring into the blur of the chrome edging of the butcher's counter, catching a glimpse of the wizening skin 'round my eyes, my eyes are my best feature, btw (or so I've been told - who really knows, as to *facts*), so yes, it pains a little, this best-feature aspect being surrounded by increasingly fragile, ever-thinning cobwebs of tissues, that will eventually be the thing people point to when I am eighty and whisper, look, you can see that she once had lovely eyes, though now they are rheumy and wistful, their whispers like whiskers that flick past my ears of knowingness and beyond, into the darkening room at my back, and I will see into their futures and their also-wizening eyes and years and comprehend that they will see a similar view - I know all of these things as I recognize a watery, vague reflection of myself, this slowly-quickening age, in the butcher's chrome-edged counter.  I stare at the bottles of wine in boxes at my feet, still hip-shod, for how long who knows but today they rock something the kids still recognize and so I am stay'd my fate for a moment.

This morning, before I took Jack to his daycare, I was emptying the filter on the vacuum cleaner and singing The Lady is a Tramp (while he badgered me to sing Heavenly, something I've lately begun crooning to him before bed, and it's his current favorite on the mommy top hits-list).  As I knocked the filter against the edge of the garbage can, the big one just outside the door of the garage, singing the last line with a big finish, along the lines of my own persistent tradition, "that's why the lady! is! a! traaaamp!," he repeated, "that's why the lady is trapped?, is that right mommy?"

I nodded.  Yes.  Yes, honey, she is trapped.  The lady is trapped.

She may wrestle in its cloying tangle, but she was ensnared willingly, and remains so.  Willing.

I gave him a smacky, loud kiss on the head, and we went back into the house.

tonight i come out swinging.

I don't really know quite why I said that, I mean, that isn't entirely true, I know that I want to fight the internet tonight, I want to fight my inability to say the things I want to say and do it just like everyone else who does it without constantly peering back over their right shoulder and living in a state of terrify because of what they just told the internet, or, you know, THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD.

So here goes nothing, internet.  I've got a lot to say today and YOU ARE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO LISTEN.  So sit down and shut the fuck up.

Hee!  I just told an inanimate object to shut the fuck up.  It isn't the first time and it is most certainly -- not the first time.  I refuse to promise things that refer to "last" and "first" and "heretofore" and "inasmuch as" because I like to refuse.  It makes me feel coquettish.

So I'm going back out.  Cue Diana Ross.  I'm going back out there, I'm swinging my no-longer-twenty-four-and-solid-as-bricks pins and I'm just shaking it and going HOG WILD, people.

Today, I finally gave the kid a pass.  I told him he could skip his nap.

And he danced on my grave.  Er, forehead.

But first, before the depraved death/forehead dance commenced, I explained that I wouldn't be making him take a nap today.  That we would still read some books, and then go on with our day.  (I leave you to grasp the hell-and-back-ish experience we've lately been living, with the no-nap-sit-and-spin, on your own.  'Cause you're super-smart and I trust you.  I do.  I trust you.  Implicitly.  Is that wise, you ask, as you suck down another bowl full of smoke from the crystal meth you just purchased from a street-smarts-downtown-type?  Yes.  Probably not so much.  Nor is it wise that I am inhaling my own favorite brand of noxious fumes; eau de non-shower.  Look.  We each get to choose, okay?  That is our freeeeeeeedom!  Hallelujah pass the raisin bran.  Raisin day Etcetera.  [brung it back for the lovers.])  <--- I fucking LOVE parentheses within parentheses.   My day = complete.

But after we read approximately seventeen books, because there was no nap for me to point to as our arrival at el fin de los libros, I got so incredibly sleepy.  So I told him to play quietly because I was going to take a nap, and that if he needed to go pee-pee, that I knew he could manage it without my help.  Or that if it got desperate he could call me and I would come and help him.  Which of course happened moments after I had pulled the blind in the front window and snugged down under the couch blankie.  But then he wrapped things up kinda fast because I sort of dressed him and got his hands washed before he kind of really knew what was happening, since the wool in my ears and eyes was taking over, and I got back over the couch and re-snugged, and set the alarm on my phone for ten minutes later.

And then my heart swelled a thousand percent, because he came over and kissed me and tucked my blanket in as well as he could and he said, Mommy?  I read a book for you?, after which he fetched "Are You My Mother?" and proceeded to recite what he could remember from its pages, and I only prompted him once.  He then said, okay, Mommy, time to sweep, and he kissed my cheeks and forehead and hugged me and said, I'm going now, Mommy.  I wuv you veewwwy much.  Sweep good, okay, my Mommy?

And I did.  Sorta.  As much as I could, given that my alarm went off every five minutes and that I only drifted, and wandered, as his voice faded in and out, his pretend-play voice, where his toys talk to one another, and it's a little creepy because he kind of sounds like the kid in The Shining with the finger-voice, but I pretended not to worry that he might try to slit my throat while I slept, although I didn't qualify for full-on sleep for that reason and also out of sheer fear that I would wake up to a house full of toilet water or poo or both.

But then after around twenty minutes of drifty bliss, I turned off my phone alarm and sat up, and my little boy was still quietly playing, and everything was cool.

No more naps.

Coming out swinging.

These are today's buzz phrases.  You can tell everyone at the office I said that.  I'm sure it'll be all trendy by the end of tomorrow, and you can catch the first wave if you really want to prove how trendy you are.  Trendy.  That word has been RUINED by that silly pink-frocked hot mess, Bobby _____. 

Pink-frocked smooch.

I'm BAAAACK, BITCHES.

(Yes.  I know.  You're all, She was gone?  Wah?  Huh?  Hmmm?  Uh?)

(I was.  But I'm back.  Red-alert.  It's bidness as usual.  All-Crazy, All-the-time.)

(sWEEt.)

today's blogging temperature brought to you by: hoarfrost.

Which is also, I'm pretty sure, the punchline to a joke.  The last bit, not the whole sentence.  I can kind of imagine it. 

What.  Surely you didn't expect me to tell you what I was imagining?  The joke, I mean.  Because, uh, I didn't *actually* have one in mind.  I just thought that the word "hoarfrost" really oughtta be a punchline.  You totally know I'm right.

Sigh.  This post is making my head hurt.  Worse.

We're home from Cali.  The trip was good.  I saw my luverly fry-end, Cristina, and I got to hold her little, soft, sweet-as-the-sweetest-thing-in-the-universe baby, and J and her M were all crack-a-lackin' in the restaurant where we went for lunch, cutting up and being little crazy people, and Caleb chased them around, which meant C and I had a few minutes of (voice drops into a whisper) actual conversation.  It was thrilling, and really nice, and I miss my dear friend a lot.  Wah.  Your house is too far away, C.  *stomps foot petulantly*

The ninetieth birthday party for Caleb's grandma was great, and pretty impressive.  Most of her offspring were there - the living ones, anyway.  And that's a lotta people when you consider she had five kids.  She looked lovely, as always, and I don't just say that lightly.  She not only does not look her age, but she is whip-smart.  Can join any conversation and participate with ease.  She's apparently invested in a wardrobe full of smartie-pants that won't quit. 

J was wild with glee over the time he spent with his older cousins - the two boys, C, age 4 1/2, and E, age 8 1/2, trying to maim one another relentlessly, but with these ridiculously detailed rules involved in said maiming, and J stood and watched, clapping and giggling and guffawing and bending over with his hands pressed to his mouth, laughing fit to kill.   He would occasionally rush in and involve himself, but the bigger boys knew to sort of gently move him aside, which he was totally okay with, because he kind of also understood implicitly about the maiming business, and how much he really didn't want to get hurt.  He's just SO much more -- little, I guess, than they are.  He's really just this side of a baby, at least to me, the mommy, and I was darned relieved to see that he wasn't into joining the death brigade of boy children.  His big thing was playing the hat-ar-mod-aka (harmonica) that Uncle Dick, Caleb's aunt's husband, kindly gave to him, tootling around on it all day long, besides.  Honestly, he's pretty good with it.  On the way back to Caleb's dad's house, a drive of a little over an hour, he squawked away, and if Caleb and I tried to have a conversation in the meantime, he'd stop playing, annoyed, and state, pretty yell-y, "Guys!, You need to be quiet!  I'm playing my hat-ar-mod-aka! right now!" and then get back to business.  At one point, we just gripped hands and listened as he played an alarmingly almost-song, with a rhythm and nice-ish melody, and it creeped us out because it was - kind of, well - good.

Are toddlers supposed to be able to just know innately how to play the hatarmodaka?

I don't think they are.

Whatever.

Anyway, sinister harmonica prodigies notwithstanding, the weekend kicked ace.  I feel rested, I ate food nonstop, good, beautiful food, because my step-mother-in-law?  CAN.  COOK.  Damn Sam, that woman is a testament to the potential for art in a kitchen.  And she does it effortlessly, and being at her house is like being on vacation.  Those people don't let us lift a finger.  I try, I do, I mean it.  I request that tasks be given to me, and lately I've taken to just swooping in and folding laundry as it lands on the gigantic oval dining table, which reminds me of a story that I have to interrupt myself with:  yesterday, there was a fresh, cozy-warm pile of assorted linens and whatnot in its usual place on the well-worn wood surface.  I was sitting on my keister in the family room, reading my FIL's copy of JD Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (the only Salinger book, incidentally, I've not yet read and also don't have in my personal collection, so you can understand, naturally, my joyous excitement at being able to finally sit and read it, undisturbed, in a very comfortable recliner near the fireplace, rather, uh, UNDISTURBedly).  Suddenly, I'm being pulled into the dining room, against my will, you know - uh, why is this happening?-ish, because I don't withdraw my brains away from books easily or quickly, it takes a little time for me to recognize my surroundings, I'm usually confused for a minute or so, and can't quite connect the faces with why they're in the room with me or whatever - like, hey, youuuu look famili -- you're that guy I'm married to!  oh.  right!!  etc.   Seriously.  I'm constantly amazed at the depths of potential for me to get real stupid, yo.  So there I was, being stupid, but not stoopid-def, just the plain, old regular-stupid version, and J was pulling me toward the table and muttering something about "pwetty, pwetty wahm, mommy" - and then we arrived, his face triumphant, next to the pile of laundry.  He smiled up at me and said, "mommy, you needa wpoeirjsdfj dis wandry, because it's pwetty, pwetty wahm.  It's cozy, mommy!"

So I folded.  I mean, what else was I gonna do?  He was right - it was warm, and cozy, and I felt good helping.

Also, I think he's been informed, somehow, as to my general duties.

Other than folding a little bit of laundry, though, I mostly just sat around and ate, and snacked, and drank wine, and took this insanely long bath in the deep soaking tub in the hall bathroom, still with the Salinger, because the SMIL, she watches our child and plays with him and keeps him entertained for HOURS, and we -- yes, both of us, simultaneously -- get to just chillax (and thanks, Ruth, for getting that one stuck in my head lately - dude!  it's been there all weekend!  *shoots narrow look at Ruth from thousands of miles removed), and I napped and drank and ate and watched movies and ate, and then I ate some more.  I also went to bed early every night and slept like a dog.  Long, snore-y, deep.  It was a thing of beauty, our weekend.  I want to frame it and hang it and look at it adoringly in the months to come, when I need a respite from the harried life that is our lot, currently. 

The plane today was small.  There was much turbulence.  I cried a little when we landed, because immediately prior to that I'd begun muttering, please, no, please, my son.  Please.  He's here, on the plane, he's too small.  We can't -- yet.  Please.  Please.

So the tears came of their own accord, I was powerless to stop them, and I ground them out with the corners of my parched-skin hands, before my husband spied them. 

The house was 52 degrees Fahrenheit when we came in because I had the genius revelation to turn off the heat before we left.  It took all afternoon to warm the house up to a reasonable temperature.  I probed my brittle nose gently at one point to determine whether it was about to simply disintegrate from being in the midst of the frozen tundra for too long.

J's crying right now, which makes perfect sense, because it's almost 10 o'clock, and he ought to be asleep and lord only knows why he isn't, but he just said my name, or, you know, mommy, and I suppose I ought to find out for the eleventh time just what he needs.  It's sure to be a blanket or beverage or I-dunno-mommy issue but I'll go.  I'll go.

We're home. 

It's good to be home.

I think.

*****

And Jenny, my sweetest Jenny, her kitty had to be put down, and I'm so sad for her loss.  Please go give her some hugs and kisses.  So long as they're air kisses.  And air hugs.  No one is allowed to come within a certain distance of her except me.  So, you know, you can probably guess at how much more she loves me than she does anyone else including but not limited to her only daughter and her husband.

But seriously, I am sad for her, jokes about her being my stalk-ee aside.  I want you to make her feel better.  Yes.  You.  The person who read this.  Please?  For Jenny?  Solace?  Love?  Comfort?

Thanks.  She'll appreciate the visit.  I'm sure she'll notice my directing a reader her way, too, given she gets so little attention or readership of any kind.  She's an island, that one.  Nobody named Guy Kawasaki has ever heard of her.  And she hasn't made any words up (today, anyway) that have landed in the urban dictionary.  She's really boring like that.  But still, she's sad, even given all her boring, island-like isolation in the blogosphere.  So be a chum.  Go give Jenny a distant embrace. 

Just remember that I'll be monitoring it to see that it doesn't get too embrace-y.  Because I saw her first.

cooking is my new bag, baby.

I've suddenly learned that cooking is not only not all that terrifying, but it's also totally healing my relationship with my husband in ways that I never before thought possible.  I can't believe it. 

Wait.  Let me stop myself before I turn into a verbal avalanche, which is inevitable, but let's see if I can pause it; we're also getting better sleep.  I dug out all my favorite books a few weeks ago, because Caleb brought them into the house finally, since we'd finished the basement and then the kitchen, and the holidays and the dizzying ride of illnesses had kind of abated for the moment (which is back, but that's another rant altogether).  The books were still cramped and pissy, all smashed together uncomfortably in their boxes, but I remedied that for a lot of them, trekking upstairs into my room while cradling them lovingly in my arms, stacked too high so that I dropped several on the way - just like old times!  And after sorting them out and spreading them through the upstairs, randomly, so wonderful, that random spread of books, so comforting and cozy and sumptuous, I noticed the Ferber book, and I grabbed it along with my complete short stories by Fitzgerald, and toted it to the living room with some tea and cookies and snuggled down into the sofa cushions.  And after re-familiarizing myself with its contents, I grabbed my husband and forced him into the chair across from me, and explained how we'd be revisiting the Ferber process.  To my amazement, he agreed; we've both reached our maximum quotient on sleep deprivation, it seems.  When I consider the rounds we've gone on that whole business, it blows my mind.  But that's all past.  Now is what matters!  Now is in our clutches!  So we set off to reinstate sleep in our home, and it was accomplished within a night.  All we did was ignore the tiny bits of weeping, just plain ignore it, and sleep was had.  It got us into a better sleep place, which sort of stimulated me to get better organized in general (I see that now, looking back), and I started having stuff done enough in the evenings that I just sort of *wanted* to get to bed earlier than usual, and then I was in a better mood, and then the organization process lent itself to my having the headspace to work out meals in advance, and get the requisite ingredients, and begin making dinner during the week. 

Which leads me to this post.  The marriage-salvage, the succor that is my making dinner Monday through Friday. 

I've dreaded this becoming a truth since I was a kid.  My mom made dinner every night of our lives, and at one point she tried to induce me to start making it, and from my current vantage point I cannot blame her one wit, but at the time, I remember thinking, ew.  I hate *eating* dinner; why would I want to make it?  I like dessert, so I'll make that.  I started baking all the time, in fact, and would make a batch of cookies or a cake from scratch at least once a week.  She managed to coerce me into housekeeping and ironing, too, which I am grateful for; but I simply wouldn't budge on the dinner-making.  The reason?  My big resistance to dinner?  At the time, I couldn't have given you an answer, not much more than a shrug and an I-dunno.  Now?  I know it's because my mom, bless her honest, awesome, hard-working heart and soul and every other bit of her, is really not much of a cook.  That's being nice.  She tried.  She came home exhausted from her tiring role as executive assistant to the president of the division of the company where she was employed, every single day, and cooked dinner.  I remember how, after clean-up was complete, she'd collapse into bed, and nothing I could do to keep her out of it worked.  She was plumb wiped.

In my twenties, I insisted I'd never become domestically skilled.  (Even though I would've killed in any housekeeping challenge that didn't involve cheffery.  I can clean like you would not believe.  I love it.  It thrills me.  I wish there a clean-cathalon.  I need that ribbon, just for validation.)  So I'm not sure why I was trying to bother convincing anyone about my lack of domesticity.  I guess it was the link between my mother's lack of desire to live beyond her work and her dinner-making.  It didn't seem like much of a life.  Not one I'd want, anyway.

Caleb's been making dinner, along with all the other meals, since we've been together.  His whole family cooks like crazy.  All the kids, on both sides, are mind-bogglingly skilled.  They can all do that whole throw-it-together thing, the dash-of-this, pinch-of-that, cooked-to-perfection bit, without breaking much of a sweat.  It's beautiful.  I'm a foodie, in the eating sense, and it is AWEsome to eat the food that any of them make.  His little brother is a sushi chef; has been one for about eight years, and throws the most incredible fusion meals together on a whim.  It's frigging fantastic.

It's been an issue, all these years, my staunch refusal to share in the cooking duties.  I do everything else housekeeping-related - in the beginning, he shared laundry duties with me, but I eventually took over, and he's fine with that.  I am, too.  I'm so damn particular about folding and put-away and whatnot, although not as much lately, because of time constraints, which bums me out, but mehhh.  I'm learning to live with it.  But I've cleaned the toilets since we first began living together, and at my stubborn insistence, with his willingness, it's been my purview ever since.  I. Clean. House.  He Fixes Dinner.  The End.

Then we had our son, and that just shook everything up like, you know, just as you would expect, only in ways that you wouldn't expect if you didn't know what to expect and didn't read the what-to-expect book because you'd heard it was a crock.  And then read that crap-ass Sears bullshit and it made you insane for months, until you somehow managed to shake it all loose, and then you were *still* lost because of the sleep deprivation and the stubbornness about refusing to cook, although you were actually cooking a good portion of the time for that kid in your life, because you had to, but who counts heating up frozen peas and mashing them in that little food mill as cooking?  Not me.  But then, one day, you're making lasagna, without your husband's help, even though it's this ridiculously simple recipe from your kitchen GENIUS step-mother-in-law (seriously, she's the best cook I've ever encountered in the flesh), this sinfully delicious recipe that makes people ask for third helpings of, but also easy in a way that makes someone who lacks all the cooking skills in the world, like yourself, astonished that you made it.

And then you don't cook for a long time, because that lasagna, plus some lentil soup (also sinfully good, but in a way that makes you have some very painful interludes of gastronomic distress, plus it gives your breastfed baby similarly horrid bouts of bad gas that make him convulse with pain and make you break up with that recipe altogether, albeit totally sadly, and with sidelong glances, because it was *such* a good recipe, dammit, esp. with a side of fresh sourdough, oh my GOD it was good) was all you knew how to make, and the lasagna -- well, you can only eat lasagna so many times in a row, we're talking months on end, before you kind of want to never eat lasagna again, ever, ever, ever.

Ever.

So.  We started to get some sleep.  And I started getting organized.  And to meal-plan.  Simple stuff.  You know.  Spaghetti (a dish I've hated from time immemorial, because of the weekly church-spaghetti-dinners on Sunday evenings, with all that slimy pasta and that oily, runny sauce, sweet and cloying and yet somehow still flavorless, and the slippery-with-margarine french bread, mysteriously dry and simultaneously squishy, and the grey-green iceberg salad chunks, with the reddish, spoiling center pieces, and that white-pink chunk of tomato, hard as rock, off to the side, and the green cans of parmesan spread in bunches around the auditorium tables in the dank basement of the church quarters).  But this time, I made my step-MIL's recipe, with all that good red wine, and garlic, and wine, and liberal amounts of salt and pepper that just FLY in the face of church spaghetti makers everywhere, the flavor in it is quasi-obscene.  It's GOOD.  Amazing.  Good and spaghetti *can* live together in the same sentence.  My mind slid sideways out of my ear when I found it out, that it can happen, that *I* can make it happen.

Hamburgers.  Breakfast for dinner.  Taco night. 

I roasted a chicken and made garlic mashed potatoes, with the potato skins on for added texture and nutrients (the potato skin's so good for you, which just sounds exactly like something a mother would say, doesn't it) on Friday night last week.  Lots of butter and cream and salt in the potatoes, too, and fresh-ground pepper, and all I used on the chicken was butter, salt, pepper and some dried rosemary, and it actually turned out juicy and flavorful.  I made gravy, too, and blanched some fresh spinach.

My marriage has never been better.

I know.  It's kind of silly.  Part of the reason I've stopped being afraid of the kitchen is because my mom stood nearby and coached me while I cut up a whole raw chicken a few weeks ago.  There's something about doing that - it really makes you feel like you can do anything in the kitchen.  (It's also not a little gross.  Yeah.  I said it.  I've handled raw chicken before, in its various forms, and I even helped my mom cut a whole chicken up when I was a pre-teen, but I'd never done it myself.  With my own two hands to rely on.  It's a -- thing.  And given my lack of desire to cook partially because my mom was not so good at it - that's funny, isn't it?  But I think we all can see that it's a little deeper than that.  And we can also see that my cutting up a chicken actually managed to heal my relationship with my mom, which is a nice touch of irony, isn't it.)

Let's end it there, for now.

highlights. (not mine. i no longer have those.)

The Buzz eventually wore off.  Especially when we couldn't get our Woody.  (Thanks to Mama Tulip for that one.)

My daddy's head is my table.  It's cool.  *shrugs*

Still my table.  You know.  Whatev.  *shrugs again*

(Daddy, attempting to be in compliance with the "this is totally cool, no big whoop, my shoulders TOTally don't hurt at all, srsly" gig -- and, in fact, pulling it off nicely, at least for this particular photo)

(Pulling it off less well, and throwing on glasses to avoid being peppered in the eyes with cracker shrapnel)

And, that'squiteenoughofthatthankyou.

Baby cheek.  Soft.  So soft.  (Sorry.  I thought the ride was kinda boring; but that cheek thrills me endlessly.)

Why does it appear that my husband is directing my son to drive into me?  And also, that my son seems pretty taken with the idea? 

Maybe it's just me that sees that.  Huh.

This is a dog.  I am not fooled by your impostors.  This is not Woody.  TAKe me to WOOdy, wretched minions!  Lest I should refuse to nap for the fourteen-millionth day running, and make you gnash your teeth and wail in abject misery!  Or, you know, maybe, while you're dashing wildly about the entire park in concentric circles of sweat and borderline insanity in search of that Woody fella, I'll crash out in my stroller.  For fun.

Ice cream will sate me for only so long, you wrinkly parent-people.  I will eventually resume my beseeching demands for the cartoon-sheriff you are beginning to hate with a deep, seething, uh, hate.  I don't mind being cute for a fleeting moment, though.  Here ya go.  Catch it with a quickness.

I don't know what I was trying to do with this one, but I like it.  Consider it my self-portrait, for there is nary a photo of me con la familia in the Disney series presented here.  Be grateful.  My skin has been in a storm-trooper-style rebellion for days on end and I think it's best we end the discussion forthwith.  Etc.

It's a small world, ain't it.  The whole thing was still in Xmas mode, and J was stoked.  He diggeth the Xmas.  So that was cool.  Granted, Caleb and I weren't really on the speaking tip at that point, but at least J was rocking out, inasmuch as one can on a boat that's crawling along at .0003 knots through the midst of shimmery hula-dancing dolls and the like.  *throws devil horns*

At least he got a badge (not to mention some ears) outta the deal.  And Woody, the doll, was duly impressed. 

We hope.

Baby boy, you make my head swim with pain and adoration and raucous laughter.  And some more pain. 

It's your age.  We know.  We're wearing helmets and full body armor.

(Wish they could invent some for our hearts.)

this is when i begin squirming subtly while smiling in an awkward fashion.

So, all that brouhaha I stirred up about the paint and other make-up of the toddler trike?  I suppose I should try to keep it in mind for future reference, because the truth of the matter is this:

I.e., that my son's utter, unabashed joy over receiving his first shiny, red bicycle (okay, it's a trike, but you be the one to explain that to him, 'cause I don't really have the energy) is outweighing my concern over whether he'll spend large portions of time licking its probably lead-soaked alluring red exterior.

Thank you, Grandpa Jeff.  The recipient is satisfied beyond words.  He'd prefer to sleep with it, but is settling for just sitting on its well-curved black seat for most of the day as second-best.

And Gwen and Mignon?  Your told-you-so's are more than earned.

I'm cool with it.

5 a.m. logic.

After Caleb did the 2 a.m. potty trip with J, the one where he wanted to sit vacantly on the toilet after he'd finished going, for an indefinite period, and Caleb got a little short with him about that desire, I woke blindly at 5 a.m. to the screaming shrew that is our toddler.  I insisted that, with eyes burning and shoulder achy from too much time sitting weird while watching stored-up Scrubs episodes from the last few months last night, not to mention past the old bedtime (whydoIdoitwhy), he'd better go back to sleep, NOW, or I was going to shut his door (the deal we've worked out recently in order to keep him from sobbing after bedtime has finally, adamantly, arrived).  He kept sobbing.  I stumbled toward his room and stayed true to my word, shutting both his door *and* ours.  Nothin' doin'.  He continued screaming.  (This was after we'd already gone through the litany of issues that might have woken him up, with his scratchy-throated, wobbly "noooo" bleated out after each item was asked; "Do you need to go potty?"  "noooo."  "D'you need to change your pants?  Is your bed wet?"  "nOooooOo."  "Are you thirsty?  Do you need a glass of water?"  "NOOOooooOO."  "Is this retro-active payback for what you may require in psychoanalyzation as an adult thanks to our current parenting behaviors?"  "NOooo."  And so on.) 

A few minutes later, as the screaming hoarsely continued, I blurrily reminded Caleb to ignore it.  He was obviously managing that just fine, because he responded in the almost-asleep voice that it was not a problem.  Seconds later:  snore.  You know.  The usual.  Meanwhile, my heart began accelerating its rhythm, because I always get kinda pissy when he can fall asleep so fast and so easy after so much disruption, and because, well, there was the fucking screaming happening, still, so I waited a little longer and then stomped over to the door.  Caleb snapped awake and tried to caution me to be nice.  I was, sorta, if you think of sotto-voce as nice.  I mean, I do, especially at 5 in the morning. 

Anyway, I beligerently tossed his door open, kneeled down next to his little bed, and said, in a nice, quiet voice, "J.  Listen to mommy." 

"Oh." 

"Now, you need to stop crying or later today?  You're going to stay in your room in the morning.  You won't get to go downstairs and play, and you won't get to go in the living room and play with any of the ornaments on the tree, and you'll just stay in here.  That's it.  Nothing else.  Because it's only 5 in the morning.  We're not getting up right now, you're not going to play downstairs right now, it's still the middle of the night.  Time to go back to sleep.  Unless you keep crying.  Then you'll just be in here, with the door shut.  Do you want that?" 

"Blow my nose?" 

"Sure."  And I offered the lower portion of my t-shirt for him to honk good and loud into.  He did it twice.

"Are you all done crying, now?  Should I leave the door open?"

"'Course, mommy.  Leave it open, peese."

"'k.  G'night.  Go back to sleep."

"'Course, mommy."

And I shuffled back to bed, feet cold, stomach colder where the snotty part of the shirt clung to my torso.

Climbed in under the covers, husband already softly snoring again, and thought about how weird it was; that I could be so quasi-mean to my son about his potential punishment, even feeling like it was mean as I proposed it, listening to myself sort of shocked that I could say something so like what I remember hearing about kids being trapped in rooms, all day, every day, fed scraps, clothes unchanged, *abused*.  Granted, I knew that this was simply a proposed extended time-out, and that I didn't really mean it, because I knew, just knew, he'd not call my bluff.  But what if he had?  What if he'd continued to cry, what then?  Would I have insisted angrily on his remaining in his room for the morning?  Is that like jailing a toddler?  And when I know my husband would have most likely balked at my trying to enforce what I'd said (because I try to stick to what I say I'm going to do, for the sake of consistency, even though it's sometimes a little on the, let's face it, batshit-crazy end of the spectrum)?

I'd be lying if I didn't find the whole thing kinda funny, though, as I was drifting back toward pretty, pretty sleep.  I wouldn't have to follow through on the jail-time, and it worked, my threat, and still.  I had a belly coated with snotty goo to attest to my being -- normal?  Tired?  A real parent?

Oh, I know.  Finally done with my hipster phase.

*******

Just re-read this and I can't resist adding that I read between the lines more than the lines themselves, and boy, is it enlightening.  For one thing, it's pretty obvious that J probably didn't give a crap what the content of my lecture was when I went in there, rather, he was happy to have my soft, quiet voice playing close to his ear, getting to blow his nose, receiving the little pat on the back and, finally, a nice blanket readjustment from mom.  He probably didn't even think about what I was saying.

So much for my getting all caught up in that part of it.  gah.  So typical.

of tummy-ache and ginger tea and -- oh, realllly.

I had a vicious tummy-bug (doesn't that sound so much adorable-r than "gastroenteritis") take me down on my birthday, which was Sunday, and I had cute-as-a-button fevers and, while I did no vomiting, my bottom(ing, keeping within the cute theme, 'cause rhyming is cute, it *is*) will not be the same as it was for some time.  And my tummy is sore from all the precious spasms.  Plus I'm sick to death of flavorless food, i.e., dry toast, rice, bananas, and some applesauce thrown in which actually *did* keep things kinda interesting, also, I put (ooooh!) peanut butter on my toast a few times for protein and 'cause I think I might have had to hurl the toast away, with my arm, not my throat, but anyway.  Fun!  Which, shame on me, I shouldn't mock the process, because I blew it on Tuesday night, since, even though I was still in the throes of misery, I ate the delicious, mind-blowingly good fried latkes Caleb made for the first night of Chanukah, and then?  I had seconds.  I'm officially retarded.  No offense to special-needs people.  I'm serious.  They are all smarter than me.  I mean it.  I rate low on the brain-possession scale when I pull such stunts.  Which is why I paid dearly yesterday.  A damnably tepid day on the eating front in my world.  And that is something that pangs me, because food really does = one of the best things in life, I believe.  I'm not exactly a foodie, because I can't cook worth beans (heh) but I likee the eatee part.  Lots.

But my birthday was fine, Caleb and the kid sang the song and the kid helped me blow out the candle on my cupcake, selected from the ones that he and Dad made, so that ruled, and all the people I love called and sent cards and emails and wrote on my facebook wall and stuff.  I'm learning more and more that it's what means the most to me, those people just leaning in through the doorway for a minute and saying, "Hi!  Happy!  Love!"  So.  I'm getting cornier than ever in my wizening age.  Sweet.

Sweet.  Something I'm not, lately.  I'm more just "stress ball of yarn wound tighter than all of the press secretaries for the current presidential administration put together," which almost sounds more exciting than it is.

I've been unable to blog about my parenting, no, wait, let me start over.  I'm unable to blog about my son, more and more, as he gets older, because I'm feeling more and more guilt and frustration and have no idea how to reveal that to people without feeling like I'm doing it wrong, doing it badly, with no redemptive anything, and am so afraid that people will criticize me, or worse, call the authorities and remove my son.  Even though most of my logic says that is just silly, really, silly as can be, there's a teeny part that says, don't give up the goods, bitch.  Don't tell people what you're doing, not in black-and-white, because then the evidence is all there.  Shhhhhh.  If you're gonna be a horrible mother, don't broadcast it, for FUCK'S sake. 

(Hi, Mom [in-law]! *waves*  Don't be horrified by this stuff!  I always pour my soul out on my blog like this!  It's how I manage to keep it from driving me to drink.  Heh.  That was funny.  *pours another cocktail*  That was another joke.  I make a lot of jokes about being an alcoholic/drug-addicted/actor-type-person here.  No worries.  I would never, ever, ever, *ever* become an actor.  So breathe easy.  Wanna shot of tequila?  Damn.  Bottle's empty.  Neversmicnd.)

I wish I could just be honest, like Kristen and Lotta, who do it with humor, panache and pistol-smart talent, because it must be so emotionally cleansing to unload about how things really are as a parent, and I want to do it, but it feels scary, so instead I turn the loaded gun I carry on my own fleshy ghost and shoot, shoot, shoot away.  I'm positively, no, negatively riddled with wounds of my own making at the moment, because I'd rather manage the pain I've caused myself than this messy, unbounded emotional swamp made up of moments where I've done or said something involving my son that I regret.  Regret because I fear.  I fear that he'll be harmed, irreparably, and okay I'm a cliche, I'm the mom that everyone says, don't be silly, we *all* fuck our kids up, I'm just going to pool my money with my friends, like Nora's friend and I had a laugh over this morning at the daycare doorway, because when they're grown up we can pay for group therapy for them (cheaper when you buy in bulk, right?).  I'm not laughing inside, though, and neither is she, neither are any of us.  It's horribly hard, it's horribly scary, I don't want, and neither does anyone else want, our kids to develop scars and permanent wounds that they

can't help but develop or experience and WHY can't I get past that thought of a sudden?  I've done nothing but tell myself that he'll have to run into things and fall off of things and he'll have scars and he'll have experiences and he'll have stories, and I was totally okay with that, I really have been massaging my own back for the last two+ years, convincing myself he'll need these things in order to have a full, rich childhood, but why in the motherFUCKING world did I forget that it applied to the emotional as well as the physical?

Wow.  I've been beating up on MYSELF, beating up on myself because I want to keep him from feeling those beatings, those emotional bruises and scars, and I just. can't. stop. it. from. happening.

He's going to be hurt, scarred even, not necessarily by me, but by life.

Oh.  Oh, but, god, it's one thing to say that what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger over and over and OVER to yourself from the time you first hear it as a twenty-three year old until right this second and onward, ever onward, into the misty, gray future over that hill, but SHIT, no, I can't can't I can't let him have to oh, god.

I hate this being a parent so much more than I thought I would.  I hate that he will hurt.  I hate that he's already hurting.  Necessarily so.  Because that's our fucking plight. 

I know.  There's beauty.  There is absolute, stunning, breathtaking beauty and light and joy in this life, and I see it in his face, I hear it in his raspy, sweet voice when he shouts at the sight of lights strung along rooftops and when he spies a bird tunneling skyward, when he smells cookies or bread baking or hears music and, enchanted, dances wildly, hands in fists and a crazed grin on those little-boy cheeks, and I delight in those moments.

Shit.  This shit is hard.  It's so hard.  I love him more than I ever thought possible, and that love makes everything so hard.

Well, at least now I've solved my health riddle.  I think I'm getting an ulcer.