Who Bloody Nose?

My kids are prone to odd maladies that lack medical urgency, yet still astonish and disgust everyone in their vicinity.

Take barfing for example. To this day Toby is the only toddler I have ever seen be personally delivered to his parents in the middle of church service by a gagging, vomit-covered child-care volunteer. If there were a barf Olympics I would enter Toby and tearfully cheer from the bleachers as he projectiled further than anyone in history. "That's my boy!" I would say and then I would reminisce about long nights spent on the couch holding towels under his chin and how worthwhile it was now that he was on the podium singing our National Anthem.

Last week we were outside for all of thirty minutes, wherein the absolute first mosquito hatchlings of summer congregated on Toby's shins for a celebration feast. It wasn't like I didn't know to hose the boys off in deet before subjecting them to the insect Hades of our backyard, but I hadn't checked my entomological calendar for the precise mosquito life cycle. One moment I'm dreamily sipping my Chai latte in Spring's sheltering arms, the next I'm digging through our medicine cabinet for the *AfterBite* cream and *Benadryl* because Toby's legs are swelling to the size of Redwood trunks.

I know what you are thinking. Lots of kids are allergic to insect bites and blah blah blah, but I kid you not, none of them (except B.A.D.) ever produced such hideous, colossal boils as what sprouted from my son's innocent flesh. Boils with eco-systems and lunar phases and fast food franchises. Part of me was a little excited to share this anomaly via Internet photo, and for that I apologize. In my defense, if your own child were capable of a grotesque reaction you would find the urge to shock your FB friends irresistible too.

Today I added "bloody noses" to my long list of *WebMD* queries. While my adoration and gratefulness for *WebMD* runs deeper than most consider prudent, there are times when I cannot convey the appropriate severity. "Bloody noses" are what happen when your brother throws a wooden train across the room, or when you go skiing in Breckenridge, or when you pick. Searching "Sudden failure of entire vascular regions while sitting quietly in Children's Worship" did not produce any valuable results.

What can you do? After four years of research I have learned there is usually nothing to worry about, and that just about anything is a symptom of cancer.

Anything except emetephobia. That is just a perk of mothering two uniquely gifted individuals.

Chaos Theory

I can't think. I can't think. I am doing a load of whites. I am making sandwiches. I am gluing decorations for the coffee social at church. No, actually, I am slathering Vick's Vapo-Rub under Charlie's snot-soaked t-shirt while peanut butter and scrapbook paper and dirty socks sputter through my cranial mess of smoldering, sparking wires.

I hate it when I get like this. When I have so many things to do, so many unrelated, taskly things, that I stumble around completely zombified, unable to finish even one of them.

Why do I need peanut butter? When I press my fingers to my temples I imagine my brain's secretary fumbling for the file amid a cluttered, coffee-smelling office. You are hideously inept I say as she stares back guiltily.

We don't have time to fight because Toby's shoes were mysteriously summoned to Jesus, again. I send Greg outside to dig in the outdoor trash bin. “We should just buy new," he mumbles.

"Sometimes it’s the principle!" I yell because more than anything I want to know how shoes can vanish inexplicably.

I step over Charlie who is now driving a train on the bedroom floor. "Charlie? Where are Toby's shoes?" I ask hopefully when I notice poop falling out the back of his diaper. For the love!!!

I whisk him to the bathroom for a strip and rinse, trying to decide exactly why I'm gagging. Is it his poop-smeared back or the rope of green snot sliding down his upper lip? I sacrifice a whole bar of soap to the cause as I scrub the offending orifices. Now bleaching the bath-tub is following peanut butter through my frontal lobe like a tourist asking for directions. Except that peanut butter answers in confused French and it's obvious that NO ONE KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON IN THERE!

Are there mothers somewhere darning fluffy-toed socks while their good-smelling offspring sort the recycling and eat beets? Children in some dry, remote corner of Arizona who never have sinusitis or crusty eye goo? How did I end up here, raising shoeless, allergy-ridden vegetable-haters, searching for poo in my carpet?

God why is this ridiculous exercise in anarchy part of it all? Why am I LOSING MY MIND?

I finally get them to bed and it is quiet. Instead of reading, or watching Grey's Anatomy, here I am clinking out the whole dirty mess of it for posterity. God, is it this? This now, sitting down to capture the wild confusion of our day? I roll each moment in my palm like a precious stone and it doesn’t seem exasperating anymore. It reminds me of how much I love this life, these children of mine, for whom I give all of my sanity. For whom it is an honor.

Oh My...

Go read this.

Booger-Nose and Poopy-Pants

Booger-nose is running through the house with a yellow yard stick, swinging it around like he is a ninja. Oh wait... no, he's a railroad crossing and a train is coming. He grasps the yard stick end with both hands and down it goes, "ding, ding, ding". It is just so exciting that I must watch it happen or else he appears exactly one centimeter from my eyeballs to make sure I see him. "I do see you," I say, but I would rather not have this exact vantage point because the booger in your left nostril is very close to my face.

Poopy-pants waddles his stinky bottom our way, coughing up a misguided sip of water from the Ozarka bottle he found under the couch. "Oh Poopy-pants are you Okay?" I say as I gently pat his belly. He looks happy to be belly-patted and encores with an experimental "cuh, cuh" just to see if I do it again. I do.

Suddenly, the yard stick whirls through the air searching for its next identity. It nicks a speck of paint off the wall and almost takes out poopy-pants altogether. Booger-nose does not notice though his eyes faithfully follow the whirring streak of yellow as if it might spring to life any second.

Poopy-pants is bored with coughing and is now perfecting his sneeze. "Ah, ah, ah, ah too!" He emphasizes the punchline so well that his whole body follows his nose straight into the carpet. He rolls over wondering where he is. "Yayyyyy!" I say to Poopy-pants and he smiles a big gap-toothed grin.

Booger-nose stops because he needs "a little bit of love". He crawls into my lap for a hug. Poopy-pants can't be left out and he waddles in too. I squeeze their snotty, stinky, little boy bodies.

Booger-nose and Poopy-pants, I couldn't be happier.

A Weekend With the Crankertons

"Stop looking at me Charlie. Stop looking at me Charlie. Mommy make Charlie stop looking at meeeeeee."

"If you don't look at him, he won't look at you," I say as I flip down the visor mirror and make sure it is really me talking and not my mother.

"Say 'Stop it!' to Charlie. Why is he looking at me when I'm not looking at him?"

I turn up the volume on the stereo so the rhythmic "aha's" of Voulez Vous drown out the one-sided brawl from the backseat. Charlie's eyes are so dead-locked on Toby I wonder if he secretly understands Toby's complaint and is internally laughing.

"Charlie, stop looking at Toby," I say, just in case.

Before I have a chance to stop it -- and I would have given my right eye -- the final track of my ABBA 1 CD fades away and the changer dutifully ushers in the next disc. Back, Back, Back I push but it is too late and Boz the big green bear repeats "Here we..., Here we..., Here we..." until I finally give up and let him spit out the full "Here we go!" in his irritating jubilation. Toby forgets Charlie's death stare to cheer for Boz, the big fat Christian version of Barney and for a moment I think I might prefer the whining.

Soon it doesn't matter because I can think of nothing but the stomach bug floating through pre-school again and if I remembered to put hand sanitizer on the boys before they ate the animal crackers in my friend Jenn's office. I can almost hear the triumph of the crittery virus making its way into the innards of my unsuspecting children because, I know I didn't remember and now we will all be barfing up a lung come tomorrow. And that makes me cranky.

But not as cranky as Charlie was later in the driveway, protesting the wretchedness of humanity because the front wheels of his riding fire truck were stuck in the grass. He waddled around me a few times with a squinched-up, moaning face before depositing his 2 foot self head first into the yard.

What is everybody's problem?

I could understand this better if we lived in a parched Ethiopian desert and relied on locust wings and cactus dew for survival, but we have no legitimate complaints. The hovering, nurturing parenting style I credit for their neatly trimmed nails and taste for yogurt smoothies is also responsible for the Bratty Crankertons that we have all become.

When it is time for bed, I briskly yank the oversized t-shirt over Toby's head. "Mommy, can we sleep in the living room again? I like sleeping in there with you."

We had a couch camp out weeks ago when he had the flu. What made him recall a night of puking into bath towels as a chummy slumber party I can't fathom. I squish his chubby cheeks in my hands and smooch him. "Toby, we sure did have fun, didn't we?"

And isn't that the beauty of family? Looking back on all these times, good or bad, and remembering only that you were loved.

Lunch... Interrupted

I ate a ham and cheese panini in a little cafe on the edge of Southlake Town Center. I had already been to the doctor that morning and told it was not time, see you next week. My friend Jerri sat across from me making idle conversation while I pouted about my inhumane state of being. Every so often we paused so I could breathe in and out and adjust to the intermittent cramping in my belly, false labor rallying to mock my ginormous, bloated, blob of a self. When we finished, Jerri looked at me curiously before parting with an intuitive suggestion: go home and rest. I waved off this gross overreaction like any deliriously pregnant idiot.

Though the cafe was around the corner from my hospital, I drove the fifteen miles back home with Toby in the backseat. I called a couple of friends to nonchalantly ask labor questions -- but not because I thought I was in labor or anything. That would be really melodramatic. What I had was just a tightening around my middle every so often.

I was getting Toby down for nap when I suddenly doubled over in pain. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was very intense. I decided to call the doctor and Greg, just to be on the safe side. Greg flew home... the doctor, however, told me to call him in the morning if I still felt like something was happening. I sent Greg back to work and called my pregnant friend Jennifer to come over and sit with me. Greg protested, but I told him how labor lasts forever and I was not actually having it anyway. It was false labor.

Jennifer and I timed my contractions for almost two hours. They were getting worse, especially since it wasn't the real thing. We called the doctor back -- just to check in. He said it was no big deal until the contractions were six minutes apart for a complete hour. We cheerfully kept tabs on the clock and gabbed about how huge we were and how we would always remember the day we sat around my house keeping our cool when most pregnant women would have rushed off to the ER like dorks only to be sent right back home. Hahaha.

I went ahead and called my mom and dad, you know, just to let them know I was not about to have a baby, just feeling some terrifically strong Braxton-Hicks. In fact, now that I have them on the phone I think I am going to let them talk to Jennifer for a few minutes... I am suddenly unable to stand. Actually, I can't even breathe without crying a little bit... is this typical of false labor?

It was at that point that Jennifer took over, God love her. She pulled a groggy Toby from his bed and whisked him next door to my friend Keri's house along with two diapers and an indefinite pick up time. She and Keri hoisted me into Jennifer's mini-van, which I assure you was no small feat. Jennifer talked to me, called Greg, drove, and timed contractions. I cried. I thought, what kind of person cries through Braxton-Hicks? How would I ever survive the real thing???

We stopped at the church where Jennifer intended to drop me off to my husband. Unfortunately, I could not get out of the van. Greg had to hop in the driver's seat with me and Jennifer followed in his car. It was 3:30.

At 3:50 we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Greg had been on the phone with the L and D floor to explain our situation and they had a nurse waiting for us in the circle drive. I was white knuckling the seat cushion and moaning like a wounded lion. As we pulled up, an innocent bystander inadvertently walked in front of the mini-van. I remember yelling out the window in my best Linda Blair for her to "MOVE"!!! Greg, however, recalls it with a bit more @$#%#& thrown in. You can pick.

My nurse, Suzy, whisked me up to a room in a wheelchair. She gave me a gown to put on which I unfortunately was never able to do. I got as far as undressing before a surge of pain prevented anything more. Suzy rushed in and helped me to the bed. I begged for my epidural. I screamed. I crawled around on the white sheets pleading for someone to cut the baby from my abdomen and put an end to this ridiculous formality. Somewhere in my delirium, a pack of medical professionals arrived to not save my day. Equipment was rushed into the room and this and that person were paged STAT.

My doctor explained that he could break my water and speed things along, but an epidural would never have time to work. I explained that it would work even if I had to gouge the needle into the center of my own brain. As if staged for a TV movie, my water broke with a loud pop. I started bawling, crouched on the hospital bed that looked like the background set for a horror movie. I guess he had pity on me and an anesthesiologist was allowed to give the epidural a try. She was wonderfully quick -- but not quick enough. At 4:20 pm, approximately one nanosecond after my epidural went in, Michael Charles was caught by the doctor with the gown I never had the joy of donning.

It was a miracle. The first baby to ever be born to a woman in false labor. Everyone walked around me like I was the Blessed Mother. Okay, not really. Everyone seemed pretty put out with me and my capacity for denial. Greg was utterly traumatized after witnessing a birth void of pain relief and dignity. My mother was somewhere between Oklahoma City and Ardmore missing the whole thing. Jennifer was relieved to not be scrubbing placenta out of her mini-van floor mats. I was the only one feeling quite dandy. I spared myself the anxiety of impending labor and even better... I never missed single meal. By 5:00 I was in a private room munching on a turkey sandwich.

Charlie, some day when you are old enough to read this without dying of embarrassment or gagging, I hope you know that you were worth every minute. I love you.

Dental Work

You should try it some time. Its really fun. I got some this morning and I was all like that was awesome right after my dentist made a porthole in my tooth deep enough to catch the men's water polo semi-final in Beijing. I'm just kidding. About it being awesome that is... I think he really did drill to China.

I made a preemptive strike this appointment. Normally I hide the whining, gagging, nauseous flincher that is me in lieu of what I want to be, which is tough. I have had enough dental work over the last few weeks that I suddenly don't care if the entire office staff groans when I whimper through their doors -- in fact, I own it. Yes, sweet dental hygienist I am "the one" who requires 8 pain shots plus several boosters throughout the procedure I smile confidently. Yes, I do want the happy gas, no, that is not too much.

By the time my dentist lowers his archaeological equipment into my mouth I can barely tell you my name. I tap my foot jauntily to the instrumental worship ballads as if it were Abba Gold. The room is spinning a little...no problem... this is probably what it felt like at Woodstock. Yes, Woodstock was a place of infinite love. I like love. I can handle love.

Okay, the room is really spinning and I feel like I'm losing consciousness. I open my eyes, which I didn't know were closed. A bright light that says Pelton and Crane in slanty cursive is two feet from my ever-loving face. Focus, focus. The talking I hear is warbled and unintelligible. Oh no! He's drilling a hole to China in my tooth and he is high on happy gas and lidocaine!

No, I am the only one high I say to me. I am nauseous. It takes all of my energy to not throw up all over the blue bib on my chest. Honey I am still free... Take a chance on me... I hear, but sung to the tune of Jesus Loves Me, elevator style. I tap my foot. I train my eyes on Pelton and Crane and think about the irony of advertising your company name in the face of a suffering, tortured captive. I think about love, Woodstock style. Andi, that is enough you are a pastor's wife.

Okay, all done he says after forever. I blink myself back to reality. I make intelligent small talk with the half of my mouth I can feel. The looks I get tell me there is nothing intelligent about anything I say, so I close my mouth. The half I can move, anyway.

There is no tidy conclusion to this story -- I am still a little loopy people. Maybe I should just give thanks to my dental office for pretending I am really no bother and never sighing or eye rolling to my face. For this I will forever choose your clinic over any other and any time you want to see the Olympic competition live, you are welcome to peek into my mouth. Tooth number eighteen.

Peace.

The Garbage Man

His truck is a work of art. A gigantic, belching, rank, marvel of lever technology. It has a claw. An enormously frightening, squeaking, crunching claw. I am postively riveted. Fascinated, really.

I love the groaning engine, the hissing brakes, the smack of the bin against the hungry chomping mouth. I love the way it gobbles the trash like a gloriously ravenous beast.

I want to be a trash man. No, no that's not it. I want to be a trash truck. I wander the house all day with my arms cocked to one side, squeezing the life out of anything in my path before dumping it upside down. My bin of Lincoln Logs, my case of racecars, my baby brother... No NOT your brother my mom says quickly.

I hear it. I think I hear it. Hurry! Let's go to the driveway and watch. Get a chair, mom. Put Charlie in the stroller with a bottle. We can sit together and wait for him to come around the corner.

But I can't sit. I want to see. I am giggling and straining my eyes far down the street. Now here it comes. Janie's house. Todd's house. Mom, its here! Look it has our trash! Watch it lifting the blue bin into the air like an angry monster. I cannot contain my excitement!

The trash man waves at me as our trash can falls limply to the curb, happily empty, with its lid flopping open. The trash truck poofs out a smoggy snort from its rear and drives away. I watch it go. I watch until it is just a gentle rumble in the distance.

Trash truck, I love you.

The Girl Next Door

Actually, she lives down the street. I am not sure what manner of charms she imposed on Toby or if it is just her gloriously shiny blond hair, but he has suddenly become the pre-school version of George Clooney, flaunting three whole years of sophistication around the driveway on his swanky red trike.

He held nothing back. Her eight year old self floated gracefully up on a light purple Schwinn. Something inside him said Toby, she is special. Let her know you are a big kid. So after pointing out that her bike was "pwitty", he reached for the all-time greatest pick-up line anyone under five ever attempted...

"Lexi, do you need to poop? Because I know how to poop in the potty."

Bold move, little buddy. Very bold.

Tyranny

It gets a little annoying.

I can't remember exchanging Toby's personality from pleasantly compliant charmer to compulsively opinionated dictator. Yet here I am with snot streaming down my nose while he separates individual sections of toilet paper into satisfactory squares. No, I won't hurry up, he says as his chubby fingers work to remove a rogue fragment that dangles from the perforated edge much like me to my composure.

I am feeding Charlie a bottle while actually holding him (for a change) and wiping my nose on my shirt sleeve to keep from dripping on his forehead. I just need a real tissue you little OCD Hitler I don't say as I blow my allergy ridden congestion into a Thumbelina sized hanky.

I take the boys walking around the block and Toby must push the stroller. And I must back up. Far away. No not there, over there. Yeah, right there in that grassy, scratchy plant. Stand there and don't think about taking the stroller back. Or collecting your dignity and committing to a well-planned insurgence.

Charlie takes to disdain when he and Toby crawl around on the floor together. Toby, who is curiously adept at assigning sinister motive to unmistakable babyishness, freely tattles and orders and "No's" him until Charlie defaults to some passively simple irritation to counterstrike (if that's possible). Mommy, Chah-wie is twying to take my twains away he says when Charlie playfully explores the bright colored wheels of a red and blue engine with his fingers. No Chah-wie! Charlie stares blankly at him and bangs the train on the table casually, just because.

I imagine him later in life sitting in therapy explaining the angry voice in his head shouting orders as he goes about his daily business sipping espresso or driving to work. No Chah-wie! That's MY mocha latte. Give it to me! Move, Chah-wie I get to dwive the car, its MY turn! he hears until he resigns into a dejected stupor.

At the sandbox we pack damp mounds into plastic molds forming a tractor, a bulldozer, a concrete truck. I relish these times, working together, building and talking, even the windy evening air blowing my hair into tangles. He admires our ingenuity fondly and I think to myself, this is the sweet baby I carried and nursed and snuggled and smooched. His doe eyes look up at me with a hint of wild excitement. Now can I cwash them Mommy? he says like any good tyrant, yellow spade already raised above the sandy masterpieces.

At least he asked.

Toby Gets Religion

The flu. A very long, feverful, snot-tacular, exhaustingly monotonous crater in our late winter bliss. It is the malefactor I now blame for my son's relentless presence beside me in Sunday morning service.

It started out as sober precaution. A desire to not relive eight straight days of isolation and nauseating amounts of Thomas and Friends. Just a temporary quarantine from church childcare, where influenza lives a life of germy luxury.

When spring arrived, I happily marched my boys back to the children's check-in area, ready to enjoy service by myself. I passed Charlie over the counter without incident. Toby, however, staged a frantic coup by disintegrating into a noisy puddle of anguish on the lobby floor. I should have scooped up the blubbering mess of him and poured it into the three year old room where it belonged. Instead, I offered him a glazed donut and implored a promise to whisper during the talking parts.

So, here I am in late May walking into the auditorium with my perpetual "pew" buddy flopping along behind me with his mouth crusted up from donut glaze.

I stand him up on a chair slightly behind me, our usual routine, and I join in the chorus of "God of Heaven Come Down" with everyone else. I glance back every now and then to make sure he is not engaging anyone behind us with silly faces or peek-abo like he has in the past. He flashes me an angelic grin as if he knows my motive.

When the communion tray goes by I let him help pass it along, but not before he spends the better part of a minute selecting the biggest cracker square for himself. Then I try to appear casual while my non-baptized, non-prayerful, heathen son defiles the very blood of Christ by jauntily drinking a cup of juice in three relishingly slow sips as if this were nothing more than a refreshment break. (For those of you who were sitting two rows back and throwing me scorn arrows from your offended, legalistic eyeballs just remember that I know it's inappropriate, but I am living by grace so that you can peacefully direct your thoughts to the Savior of the World without a soundtrack from my three year old son whom Jesus LOVES.)

Once communion is over Toby and I sit together, my arm around him, his legs straight out in front and only long enough for his two green flip-flops to hang over the seat edge on his chubby, wiggly feet. Toby do you know that we eat those crackers and drink that juice to think about Jesus? It's hard to hear over the loud music, but he looks at me when I talk and I hope in a tiny way he begins to see a bigger picture of why we come here every Sunday morning.

The band launches into "Nothing but the Blood" in a groovy remix that has everyone in the room on their feet and singing loudly. I sway and bounce to the catchy beat. Suddenly, my son, who has no understanding of abstract concepts like sin or sacrifice or redemption, raises one hand in the air, palm open in a gesture of worship, as if this were the most natural thing in the world to do. I try not to react because I want him to have this moment for himself, but I just can't stop all the heaven inside me from bursting open in colorfully radiant pleasure.

I know he is only a little boy, but someday, he may see things in his heart that he wishes weren't there. He may find himself lonely and afraid. I hope when that day comes, he'll know just what to do.

Friends

Welp, my site got an overhaul. Thanks to the talent of a borrowed Mac Notebook you will now spend the first moment on "Tales from the Running Mama" hoping I remembered to Lysol the high chair tray. At least its a diversion from counting the spider veins on my thigh which is what I spend the first moment doing.



I have a confession. I do not have a computer. Well, I have a "computer" that my mother-in-law gave me two years ago that may be the actual first laptop man ever carved from stone. I think King Tut was clutching his gnarly mummified arms around it when they dug him out of his rickety old tomb. So if all you want to do is play solitaire or move the tiny hourglass cursor around the screen all afternoon while you are waiting for the Internet to connect, then I have the perfect machine for you.



Go ahead and feel sorry for me. I do. I pout every time I sit next to my husband at the kitchen table, tapping my foot, waiting for him to finish checking his e-mail and updating his Facebook status so I can use his own personal laptop that he has to himself all day. That is what I do just before I type up my post that I pre-wrote ON PAPER. In case you were wondering, paper is this white stuff that ancient peoples used to scrawl runes on before there was Microsoft Word.



Every cloud has its silver lining, and mine is this: Sunday afternoon I spent an hour and a half taking "Mac" pictures of my stupid running shoes in front of any baby paraphernalia available while laughing my face off with my best friend. Jen, thank you for everything you have ever done for me. I love sharing my life with you because you make it funnier, sweeter, and deeper than it would ever be alone.

The Demotion of Man's Best Friend

Have you noticed how quickly a dog moves from "beloved family member" to "faintly barking from the crate in the garage" as soon as a new baby is brought home? I used to love my dog. I used to remember to feed her too. Now I am only aware of her presence when I vacuum the hair accumulating on the baseboards.


Actually, I do value her in a practical sense. Like when Toby knocks an entire plate full of spaghetti on the kitchen tile and I can sit back and watch it get cleaned up for me. Then I love having her around.



What I can't stand: seeing her lick the spoon Charlie is dangling over the edge of the high chair. I know dog's mouths are supposedly cleaner than ours, but since our mouths are only slightly less germy than raw sewage it's not really anything for dogs to brag about. (Disclaimer: Any scientifically knowledgeable people... Jen Stokes...reading this, I totally made up my germ analogy and have absolutely no idea how our mouths compare to raw sewage.)



But seriously, here is a list of things I have seen my dog eat: cat poop, throw-up, dirty diapers, dead frogs, trash, raw meat packaging, and blobs of spilled ??? from the sidewalk. And it wasn't like she had to be coerced. She would knock a blind grandma into the road for a lick of the spilled Ensure she was standing beside.



However, there is one compelling reason to keep my dog in the family forever:



So anyone who is about to call the ASPCA on me, just set the Blackberry down. He likes her a lot. And you know I would do anything for him.

Concentration

Sometimes I just want to have a moment to myself to think. A moment where Alec Baldwin is not reading the narrative to Thomas and Friends on t.v. in competition with the dog's incessant barking at the patio door. A moment where baby Charlie is not crawling around my lap like a confused gerbil, slinging snot all over my pant leg and clawing at my face until my skin is just sore. Where Toby is not squalling on the tile in the kitchen in the throes of apocalyptic catastrophe because I forgot to let him open the yogurt container himself. I just want to grab a chai and sip on it slowly, listen to some music sung by a non-cartoon, non-Disney, human and pass a few minutes in a lazy stupor, responsible for no one's immediate welfare.

I try to manufacture this pleasure in the afternoon when both boys magically fall asleep at the same time and leave me a bit of glorious silence, scarce as a bald eagle's feather. Instead I end up flitting around the house in a frantic rage, folding infinity loads of laundry and slathering Italian dressing on the chicken breasts for dinner because it must be done now or our very lives will tumble down around us into a pile of stinking, rotten chaos.

When I was sixteen I remember driving down the highway in my best friend's Blazer, listening to the Reality Bites soundtrack blare "Stay" from the stereo, toes pressed up against the front windshield, windows open, warm summer air swirling my hair into tangled pieces of rope. We had nothing to stop us from driving to the next state if we wanted. It was a sort of wild bliss that only teenagers can embrace. How did it fade so far into distant memory that I have to pull it out from the brittle, time-soaked archives of my life?

It's early evening and Greg has just come home from work to weed eat the back yard and scoop up the piles of dog poop we can no longer justify as fertilizer. Toby is sifting around in his sandbox, his sweaty red-cheeked face covered in gritty, brown splotches. He squishes a stuck-together clump in his fist and watches the grains fall through his fingers. Baby Charlie chatters away on the baby monitor patiently waiting for me to lift his little bean of a body out of the crib.

Maybe we will eat out on the patio tonight. Maybe we will have corn on the cob and ice cold pop and sit around laughing at Toby ask for his own "gwass of Coke" through a mouthful of chicken nuggets. Maybe we won't notice our dog licking the mashed carrots from Charlie's messy face because we are too busy talking to each other.

Maybe I will stare at the faces of my men with a frenzied passion that only a grown woman can feel.

Maybe I will discover a more profound satisfaction than I ever knew possible.

Brevity

Tonight's prayer was unusually succinct.

"Dear God... Amen."

You're three and you already grasp omniscience.

Manners

He has good ones. Really, really, really good ones.


Me: Toby, you shared your train with baby Charlie! Good Job!

Toby: Thank you.

Me: Your welcome.

Toby: Your welcome too.

Me: Uh...Thanks?

Toby: Your welcome.


Awkward.

Member When?

Having a baby in the house has awakened Toby to a new dimension. It is called the past and it has proven itself a tricky little concept to squeeze a brain around.


He asks:


Member when I was in dat bed mommy? (Points at crib)


Member when I yoos to eat in dere mommy? (Points at high chair)


Member when I put my poop in my diaper? (Yes, I say with emphasis, since it was like two months ago)


Member when I was in a box at Big Toby's house? (He says after visiting our friends new puppies, to which I quickly say no, you were not ever in a box)


The past is complex.

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My Nose Are Runnin'

So... we have snot. Drippy, watery, streaming, spoil-my-enjoyment-of-the-spring-weather booger juice. "You do not seem ill," you may surmise. And you would be quite correct. However, when you are three, even the slightest of ailments cannot be borne alone, and I have been invited along as the guest of honor to pull his highness's Kleenex's from the box and gently squeeze the mucous from his crusty little nose. A privilege that begins with a not-so-sweet directive ("MOMMMMMMMYYYY!! MY NOSE ARE RUNNIN'!!") and ends abruptly absent a "thank you". It appears the prince feels snot is "yucky" and is therefore unwilling to touch any, albeit his own.

I graciously accept this esteemed position, and as evidence of my gratitude I wish to thank the following:

Thank you pollen for blowing yourself around our yard and up Toby's nostrils so that he and I can enjoy the subsequent sneeze-a-thon.

Thank you Kleenex for folding your product so efficiently into the box that my son's chubby little fingers are unable to remove you without my assistance.

Thank you baby Charlie for your superior ability in outshining your brother and removing more than half of the Kleenex's without struggle before rendering them useless with your ample drool.

And last, I would like to thank antihistamines everywhere for never making Toby the least bit drowsy but giving him the extra umph he needs to stalk me from room to room all day.

At the risk of sounding unappreciative, is it unreasonable to expect even a teensy weensy bit, just a smidge really, of autonomy from a boy who can touch a warty frog, stand barefoot on a public restroom floor, and eat green beans dipped in ketchup and ranch dressing mixed together without even the slightest hesitation? Am I asking too much??

The Frenetic Blog-Hopping Crazy Stalker Has Arrived

It is almost midnight and I have been reading random blogs for over two hours. I started off just scanning the blogs of people I know, then the ones I kind of know or thought I might know if I saw their picture, but it turned psychotic when I began a furious rampage down the right side of each site accessing the "Blogs We Love" one by one, narcissistically wondering if the posts were funnier than mine or if their kids were cuter, etc. Then, I just went ahead and commented on a few as if anyone wants to actually know there are people out there they have not seen in years or have never even met reading all about their son's hernia surgery. (Summer, if you read this your commentary on the screaming epidural-less child serenading the third floor was just too dang funny to ignore.)

So would someone please answer me this... Is it creepy to read blogs of people you don't know? I mean, not like famous people who expect a lusting curiosity, but just everyday families who want to keep grandma updated on the soccer games and birthday parties? I sort of felt like a virtual snoop lurking around some body's living room without asking, while I shamelessly commented to myself about all of their private family events. Like, "oooh... I see you made deviled eggs for Easter lunch how delicious, the children look lovely in their new dresses..." and "Oh my goodness, four baskets in one game, you don't say, you must be so proud"...and "yes, that was a wonderful sounding trip to the lake house, I wish I could have come along." Oh wait, no I don't because you live in Seattle and I have never even heard of you or that stupid lake and all of the sudden I am feeling like a total weirdo. Which brings me to my senses and has me calling myself to a short blogging moratorium.

Not really. I'm still here. But so are you. Get out of here sicko.

Ha, no I'm kidding you can stay. I just want to add that some people's blogs are incredibly boring. But of course no one will be traversing their cyberspace unawares because even grandma has to feign interest. If I was that poor grandma, I would rise up in angst and demand a juicy tidbit or two to accompany the blah blah (picture of junior at summer camp) blah blah blah (family snapshot including dog) blah blah.

Also, I would like to point out how dirty it looked on Facebook when I changed my status from "going to see Thomas" to "had fun riding Thomas with boys". It took me approximately one nanosecond to realize the fun Matt Ferguson would have quoting me to the Youth staff at church in the morning so I revised it. But confound Facebook for documenting every single edit on the wall so there it is for all to see anyway. I just want to emphasize the train, Matt. Thomas the Train.

Well, I hadn't really planned on posting for a couple of days so... enjoy.