Okay, so I won't sell them on the black market yet.

After all of my dramatics, even I have to admit that tonight, I didn't want to pull my hair out for longer than a few seconds at a time. "What was the magical combination?" This was the question running through my brain all evening. Was it the fact that they were both in school today and therefore Quinn was running on essentially no nap (i.e., less energy for screaming)? Was it the soft-voiced preparation I heard John giving them over the monitor right before they came down for dinner? Was it Bryce's euphoric state over the Froot Loop necklace he had made during the "cooking" portion of his school day? Was it my last minute decision to light candles at dinner; did the fire have some hypnotic hold on them? Was it the fact that they were starving after not eating well at school, and therefore would have been thrilled to eat whatever foreign object we put on a plate in front of them? Or was the wine I had with dinner simply dulling my senses?

Dinner was lovely. The planets must have aligned properly, because FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, both kids ate their dinner. With. No. Complaints. And they asked for more. And we were eating baked potatoes and salad! Bryce asked politely to be excused, Hannah got to speak without the boys' antics cutting off any attempts she made at socialization, Quinn only spilled half a glass of water.

I had to pinch myself: "Can this be?"

Later, while we were cleaning up, the boys were dancing in the living room, re-enacting a scene from Singin' In The Rain. I asked John if they watched that movie today. He gave me a proud glance and said, "No, actually they didn't watch ANY T.V. today!!"

Wheels turning. Thinking...thinking...thinking... DING! "Huh, could this fact possibly be related to their NORMAL behavior at dinner tonight???!" John gave me a laugh of agreement, and I returned to the dishes.

I'm just glad that, for now anyway, I can go back to thinking of my kids like this:

Instead of like this:

Am I wrong, or don't they cover "bedside manner" in medical school???

Last week I posted about a bad experience with a doctor in the months before Bryce was born. Despite friends' demands that I write a letter of complaint, file a grievance, or somehow at least publicly humiliate this doctor, I didn't take any action. I also recently wrote about Dr. Psycho, the counselor Hannah has been seeing for depression (and now potential learning disorders). I joked about filing a grievance with the APA against her, but I haven't actually done it.

Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't act on my instincts about this, but luckily, bad doctors are starting to feel the sting anyway. This website was started by a patient whose doctor didn't tell her she had Hepatitis A, but literally gave her a pat on the shoulder, handed her some drugs, and told her to take them for two weeks. Repeatedly. According to this article in the New York Times, there are medical groups that are now docking the pay of doctors who receive poor feedback on their patient interaction skills. There are also further attempts at training bad doctors on how to have a conversation:
Of course, Dr. Beckman said, "everyone thinks they're listening" to patients. But one method does work, he told the doctor. "You use continuers. As you're working with people, you say 'uh huh' three times."

OH. MY. GOD. These people got through four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, four years of residency. They need to be taught to say "uh huh" when having a conversation with someone??!!

This frightens me.

Final score - Kids: Infinity, Mom: Negative Inifinity.

I hate dinner time. Let's just dispense with all the "but I still love my kids" sentiments, because 1.) it's a given, obviously and 2.) it is completely irrelevant to level of hatred I feel for dinner time with the kids.

The whole tone is set when I walk in the door from work and hear yelling, stomping or fighting from the kids. Then one of them will see me. If it's Bryce, he'll look at me with a face beaming innocence and say, "Hi, mom. I'm so glad to see you! We were just playing." as if the screams I heard walking in the door were merely a figment of my imagination. If it's Quinn, he'll come up to me with a whine that sounds like fingernails grating down a chalkboard in my ears: "MMMMMMMommy! WAhahahaaaaaa. Wwwwaaaannnttt mmmmiiiilllkkk, mmmooommmmyyyy." I take a deep breath, and head to the bedroom to change clothes and complete the mental preparation I always have to start in my car on the way home from work. Stay patient, be consistent, praise the good things they do. Stay patient, be consistent.

Stay patient.

Stay patient.

Stay patient.

So you see which part is the hardest for me.

Because John is home with them during the afternoons, he usually has dinner started, so I help corale the kids at the table and prep them for eating something besides macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets, which would be their preferred meal EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. Bryce starts in before any plates even hit the table: "I don't want spaghetti, I want macaroni!" I tell him he's eating what we're eating, this isn't a flipping restaurant and dad's not a short-order cook. He goes from whining to complete hysterics, cutting me off mid-sentence: "BUT I WANT MACARONI, I DON'T LIKE SPAGHETTIDON'TYOUKNOWIDON'TLIKEBIGBITESAND
SPAGHETTIMAKESMEHAVEBIGBITES?! HUH? MOM! MOM! MOM! ANSWER ME, MOM! A-N-S-W-E-R-M-E-!!"

There it is, my first heavy, frustrated sigh and a muted thump of the table with my tentative fist. "I can't answer you when you won't stop yelling!! Stop it! STOP! IT! NOW!!"

Great job, Kristen. You fail the dinner challenge within five minutes, before the food even hits the table. Kids: 10, Mom: 0. And the crowd goes friggin' wild.

Quinn sees the chink in my pathetic armour and joins in the attack. By now his food is in front of him and he's taken a few bites, but it's just not good enough, is it? "Want peanut butter! Want rice!" I tell him he already has food on his plate, and to eat that before asking for more. He lifts his fork over his head, eyes wide, fists shaking, in a threat to gauge a huge, vengeful scratch into the dining table. This is accompanied by a rumbling growl: "ggghhhhgggllllrrrrrNO!! WANT PEANUT! BUTTER! NOW!" I take him to time out, which would be a victory for the parents' side, except that I am visibly and audibly angry when I do it...so, the entire purpose is basically defeated, since he got the exact reaction he wanted, and then proceeds to scream from time out for the next two allotted minutes. Kids: 25, Mom: -10.

I return to the table to eat through Quinn's loud protests for two minutes, which will allow me to take about ONE bite, since Bryce uses this opportunity to begin bouncing from seat to seat, as we made the mistake of putting an extra empty chair next to his. He has eaten two miniscule bites off of one rice granule, and wants to leave the table: "May I please excuse! May I please excuse!" I tell him it's "may I please BE EXCUSED" and that no, he cannot, because we're all going to finish, or at least come to some closer approximation of being finished before he starts his nightly dinosaur romp through the house. He bounces back into his chair, causing some of his food to slosh onto the dining room floor. My blood pressure rises by several notches.

And, oh, look at the time, it's been two minutes already? Better go get Quinn. I retrieve him from time out and bring him back to the table. He eats a few bites in silence. Bryce starts up again with the "please excuse" requests. I cave. "Fine!! You're excused!! Go, but I don't want you to run around or yell, do you understand??" He runs away screaming. Kids: 150, Mom: -150. Geez, people, I just want to eat my dinner.

I try to tell John a story, but we're interrupted by Bryce's circular romp around the house. I start over with my story, but we're again interrupted by Quinn: "Want peanut butter!" I tell him no, remind him that if he complains about his food again, he'll be finished with dinner, and try to tell my story one more time. When the phone rings in the two seconds after I start, I just give up and start clearing plates from the table. I've got most of it cleared when I hear Quinn say, "Uh-oh!! I spilled it!" Oh for the love of God!!

Holiday Hilarity

What is it about family gatherings that causes couples to expose each others' weaknesses? We can deal with our loved ones' quirks even to the point of glossing over them in day to day interactions, but as soon as we're around extended family, they seem to stick out like a sore thumb, and beg, plead, implore to be mercilessly yanked out and held up in a circus display of laughter and magic, while the one whose quirk is being exposed stands there like the chained bear in a tutu.

My brother and his girlfriend came for Thanksgiving over the weekend. They are young, thin whipper-snappers who I actually referred to as "skinny minnies" at one point, after which my brother asked, "did you just say 'skinny minnies'?" and caused me to realize how an out-of-body experience can be lightning quick and almost painless. It had to be an out-of-body experience, because there is no way "skinny minny" would naturally be in my vocabulary. Whipper-snapper is a whole different story. ANYWAY...

At one point, his girlfriend bonded with all of us by sharing that my brother had convinced her to LICK HIS EYEBALL by telling her she would have to get used to doing things that make her squeamish if she ever expects to do well in the medical field. I don't think my brother was too keen on her decision to share that information with his entire family, but he laughed it off in good sport, as he is wont to do on a regular basis, and actually managed to turn the whole thing around on her, pointing out that, after all, SHE had agreed to do it, under duress or not. That's why I love my brother; he can take attempts humiliation in stride. I wish I had that same talent. I'm not really sure where he got it, because my dad clearly didn't pass that gene on to him. After volunteering his theory that the recent flood of earth-destroying meteor movies is part of the government's slow, methodical plot to prepare the American public for an alien take-over sometime in this millenium, my dad was none too appreciative of his wife's jabs at him about it, and when he saw his chance for revenge, he took it. During one of our traditional conversations about "unexplained" phenomena (phenomenons? phenomenae?), she shared that she thought she'd had more than one literal out-of-body experience during dreams where she had flown through a blue forest and also traveled over a volcanic island. My dad piped up: "You give ME a hard time about conspiracy theories and you're sitting here talking about flying over blue forests?! I don't want to hear one more thing about my stories embarrassing you!"

Ah, family gatherings: The clink of toasting glasses, the pitter patter of happy children, the victorious exposure of spouses' quirky, embarrassing characteristics. It just warms my heart.

As a hilarious side note, our "unexplained phenomena" conversation included mention of "Mel's Hole", which is a supposedly bottomless pit in an undisclosed area of Washington into which a microphone was lowered, and the recorded sounds resemble what people can only describe as "hell." John and I were curious, and we told my brother to see if he could find the audio on the internet. When he handed my brother the laptop, John said, "you should be careful how you word it in Google. 'Mel's Hole' might bring up some porn sites." My brother and dad started in: "Beware of Mel's Hole, it's dark and endless." "You wouldn't want to go into Mel's Hole - you might not find your way out." "If you put a microphone in Mel's Hole, you won't hear anything good, I can tell you that."

Let me ask you this - what wife or girlfriend wouldn't exploit these two? (Jonathan, you know I love you.)

P.S. You can read more about my brother on his blog, at
www.jonathansalmanac.blogspot.com

All Consuming

Consume v.
1. to destroy, as by fire; do away with
2. to use up; spend wastefully; squander (time, energy, money, etc.)
3. to eat or drink up; devour
4. to absorb completely; engross or obsess
5. to buy for one's personal needs

Let's take a look at these one by one, shall we? For our purposes, we'll go down the list backwards. "To buy for one's personal needs" - this weekend we bought a new car. But did we consume it, or will IT consume US? Cue the dramatic music, and let it play for the five years we're cursing ourselves for taking on a new, higher car payment and cutting our ears off so as not to have to endure the kids' screaming requests to watch a movie on the BUILT-IN DVD player (damn you, Honda Pilot designers) rather than shelling out $1500 to repair a faulty radiator in our old, trashed, sour milk-smelling Mercury Villager. "To buy for one's personal needs AND TO CONFIRM ONE'S COMPLETE STUPIDITY" - that's our form of consumerism.

"To absorb completely; engross or obsess" - Quinn personified the 4th definition on the list when my dad and stepmom brought their 10-year-old poodle with them for the Thanksgiving weekend visit. He thinks the dog is a puppy, and a friendly one at that, so he spent the entire three days following it around and talking to it in a high pitched voice, then getting belligerent when she wouldn't voluntarily submit to his smothering grip. He would go from a baby-talking chimp to a 300-pound wife-beater: "Come 'ere sweet wittle puppy, come eeeeeeeerrre, I wuv you, you're soooo soft! .... HEY! DOG! GET BACK HERE! COME HERE DOG! COME...HERE! NOW! DDDOOOOOGGGG!!!!!" I'm sure that poodle would have chewed his face off if given the chance, but I was quite grateful that Quinn's attention was focused on something other than demands for milk and chips.

"To eat or drink up; devour" - well, do I really need to elaborate? It was Thanksgiving, after all. John and I don't eat meat so we don't cook the traditional turkey, but we still managed to stuff ourselves irresponsibly. The salesman who we bought our car from said to Bryce, "are you going to eat lots of turkey tomorrow?" and he responded with, "well, my parents are vegetarians, so we just eat a lot of casseroles." The next time we saw the salesman, he remembered, and as he was telling us goodbye, he said to Bryce, "don't eat too many casseroles tomorrow!" I baked my first ever pumpkin pie (with a streusel topping, mmmm, brown sugar...gggrrgglllrrrbbbgggllll) and a cake from scratch. Oh, and thanks to my wine connoisseur dad, there was much imbibing of wine and spirits, which probably took up just as much space in our flabby, gurgling mid-sections, if I'm being honest.

"To use up; spend wastefully; squander (time, energy, money, etc.)" - we wasted our time sitting around and eating, which in turn used up our energy so that by the time we took the kids out to pick up some photography props for John at a local furniture store, we had squandered the opportunity to get through such an experience unhumiliated. If we'd been "on our game," if I may use such a trite cliche, we would have been smart enough to bring two strollers with us, and also to talk to the kids about what we were doing and the fact that we expected them not to scream until we were comfortably back within the confines of our own dysfunctional home. As it happened, though, we were too close to food comas to be thinking straight, and we ended up humiliating my entire family AND having the furniture store write a manifesto against us.

"To destroy, as by fire; do away with" - our state was literally consumed by fire yesterday. We headed out for dinner with my dad and stepmom, and the dry leaves on the street were blowing around in violent circles; the air was hazy and we smelled smoke, but I assumed it was from a neighbor's fire place. When we got home and turned on the news, there were reports of fires all over Oklahoma, as well as warnings to evacuate the area if we saw even a small grass fire. It's been dry here, but I've never seen anything like this - it's not like we're in California, where natural forest fires can get out of control. These are isolated grass fires and fires caused by a downed power line here, something else random there. But all at the same time? I was watching with a really confused look on my face when John said, "isn't it weird that Bryce has been obsessed with fires, then he had this huge burst of energy, and now fires have broken out all over the state?"

Great. We didn't have enough issues in our family, so now we're dealing with a telekinetic pyromaniac, too?

iMy iWorld

iI ihad ia iweird idream ilast inight. iEverything iin ithe iworld ihad ibeen imorphed iinto isome ikind iof iPod iaccessory. iI ihad itoast ifor ibreakfast, idrove imy icar, ibought isome igroceries, iwatched isome iJudge iJudy. iSteve iJobs iwas ithe ipresident, iBono iwas ithe ivice ipresident iand isecretary iof ieverything. ifreaky.

The Great Fire of 2001

The year leading up to my pregnancy with Bryce was filled with the worry, anxiety, and jaw-clenching pressure of what we began to believe was infertility - a condition unappreciated and misunderstood by anyone who hasn't experienced it. "Let's have a baby." "Okay." Simple enough. Three, six, nine, twelve months later, that conversation turns into, "What's wrong with us? Is it me? Is it you? We have to face the fact that there's a perfectly legitimate likelihood that this may not happen." Despite the huge success of the birth control industry, conception doesn't occur at the snap of a finger for many, many people. I responded to this problem in my characteristic manner - by researching infertility to death; I read books and articles, consulted doctors, looked into adoption, changed my diet, changed my attitude, charted and graphed every bodily function to provide as much information as possible to whatever doctors I could find that would help us - I was an empowered (psycho) non-pregnant person. I went to a highly recommended Ob/Gyn, and she suggested the usual gamut of testing for both partners. We scheduled mine for the next week. When I showed up, I felt a little unsure about the invasive procedure I was about to undergo, and I asked her to clarify that if, by some crazy fluke, I were actually pregnant at that time without yet knowing it, this procedure would not cause any damage to the embryo. With no emotion or discernable empathy, she told me the procedure would cause a miscarriage if I were pregnant, and that she would only perform it during a month when we weren't trying to conceive. "Uh, I just talked to you last week and told you we were trying to conceive. What would have happened if I hadn't reminded you??" She said I'd have to re-schedule, and walked out, leaving me on the table in one of those paper gowns, alone, crying, and with a very cold butt.

My primary care physician happened to be in the same building, so I left the Ob/Gyn's office and walked into the bustling practice where about a dozen innocent sick people were waiting to talk to a doctor, and had no idea why this blithering idiot was demanding so much attention. My doctor's nurse came out to find out what was wrong with me, and I told her I needed a new Ob/Gyn recommendation, I didn't want to go back to the one who'd come so highly recommended, she clearly didn't need any new patients if she couldn't even keep track of which ones ARE and which ones AREN'T trying to conceive, and she almost performed a painful and invasive procedure on me while there's a very small chance I might be pregnant and not yet know it, and now because of this delay, there was no telling HOW LONG I'd have to wait to find out what the problem with me was, I'd already had to wait six months just to get an appointment with the last doctor, and GOOD GOD PEOPLE, DIDN'T EVERYONE SEE THAT ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS HAVE A FLIPPING BABY???!!!

I guess hysterical patients aren't good for business, because my doctor pulled me out of the waiting room as fast as she could, and then she got me an appointment with an Ob/Gyn friend of hers within two weeks. The morning I woke up for that appointment, an appointment to discuss infertility and to determine how to deal with it, I found out I was pregnant with Bryce. Go figure. If Ob-Gyn #1 had performed the procedure two weeks before, I would never have known I was pregnant and would have assumed any pain or blood was a result of the testing. Bryce would not have been born.

I've already written in detail about Bryce's birth and the foreshadowing comments the labor and delivery nurse made to me. What I didn't mention, and what plays an equal role in my perception that Bryce's entry into our lives was something as supernatural as an event in a C.S. Lewis novel, were the raging fire and explosions right outside our hospital room window on the last night of our four-day stay. There was a new wing of the hospital under construction, and something went wrong and caught fire on a dry night in August - the last, optional, night we were to be there with our newborn child. I was in my safe cocoon with nurses to remind me to take meds, bring me snacks, and answer questions about my jaundiced son anytime I felt the urge to ask; I didn't want to leave that to go HOME, where there were no nurses and no nursery to send the baby if I was desperate for an hour of sleep. Everything felt peaceful and under control until a nurse came in and seemed like she was trying too hard to appear calm: "Um, did you guys hear about the fire? There seems to be a fire over in the new wing. See, if you open your blinds, you can see it. No one is evacuating yet, but we wanted to let everyone know in case you noticed the flames." My heart had stopped at the word "fire" and I'd felt the need to immediately gather my new son from the nursery, where they were checking his bilirubin levels again - I didn't need to see the flames before I took care of that. When I got back to the room with Bryce, John had the blinds open and all I saw were larger-than-life neon orange streaks jumping out of the gaping holes in the unfinished wing across the hospital parking lot from my window. Within an hour, officials assured us that our wing was secure from any danger the fire may cause. The next morning, my doctor released me from the hospital and I was more willing to go to my own house, without nurses, but also without fires. A few weeks later, my doctor sent us a card congratulating us on the birth of our son and on "surviving the Great Fire of 2001." At the time, I felt the whole thing was a fitting end to the intense journey I had been on to arrive at that point, but now I view it as a kind of memory bookmark or association tool: Bryce's Birth = Intense Flames. Oh yeah. Bryce's Life = Intensity.

Bryce has always been big on role-playing, and he always picks abnormal characters, or he will personify things that wouldn't normally be personified, like the time when he had just turned three and he said he wanted to "be the avalanche" (from the movie Ice Age), and then proceeded to look exactly like a person being an avalanche would look, starting as a stable ball under the coffee table, then slowly shaking, then starting to crumble to instability and "fall" by rolling out from under the table - it was profoundly creepy how well he did it, but my words could never do it justice; I wish I'd gotten it on video. Anyway, last week he seemed to be on a fire kick. (Other kids are firefighters, my kid is the fire itself.) He would come up to me, arms bent, palms facing out, fingers straight up, eyes wide, making jerking, short movements with his fingers, and he'd say, "Mom, I'm a fire, these are the flickering flames! Touch me and turn brown!" I had put the hospital fire experience out of my mind for a long time until that interaction, at which point I thought to myself, "Huh, I not only survived the Great Fire of 2001, I am RAISING HIM."

And to think, that little intensely flickering flame was almost unknowingly put out. I sometimes go through a chicken and egg scenario about Bryce - like, "does Bryce's nature just attract these intense situations, or have these situations created an aura of intensity around Bryce?" Which came first? I'll never know, and I'm sure it doesn't matter. I'm just thankful to have a presence in my life that I wouldn't have necessarily predicted. Like the flames outside my hospital window, Bryce constantly reminds me that resting comfortably in the ease of familiarity or security won't give me new experiences or ever allow me to move on with my life. When intensity and unpredictability cause enough fear to motivate action, I forge ahead, denying myself the luxury of stagnation. I don't know how much of this is my own emotionally-charged perception, but from the earliest moments Bryce's microscopic cells ever existed, he's brought jolts of intensity into our world, and he, without a doubt, keeps us moving.

This Weekend: Gourmet Kibbles, Ogre Milk, and CIA Tequila

The crushing guilt I've felt since learning our dog, Truman, has epilepsy has resulted in him becoming the most pampered dog this side of the Mississippi. My response to learning anything scary is to try to defeat the fear with obscene amounts of research. In my latest round of research on dog health, I learned that commercial dog foods are made with preservatives with known links to cancer and other major health problems. Cancer has absolutely nothing to do with Truman's seizures, but I've switched his dog food anyway - to a brand made with organic chicken, oatmeal, and raspberries. Uh, I think that's better than the food WE eat. Spare no expense for my poor epileptic dog!! I've also started feeding him twice a day, and supplementing his organic food with eggs and vegetables, to vary his diet of course. The kids can eat chicken nuggets with crushed beaks and bone meal every day, but Truman has seizures! And therefore he must eat only the best.

Friday afternoon, John and I took the kids to find a new bed and some new toys for the dog, too. (It's good to introduce your kids to the manipulation of guilt from a very early age.) They were oblivious though, and spent the entire time making the Wal-Mart patrons think they were sweet, happy children while they stood mesmerized in front of the mechanical 4-foot dancing (writhing) and singing Santa. People kept walking up to me going, "are they yours? They are so adorable." I told them they're only like that when we stay on top of their valium doses. And within about 15 minutes, Quinn proved to the ENTIRE Super Wal-Mart that I had indeed not stayed on top, because he flipped his demon switch and decided he needed milk THAT VERY SECOND. "We don't have any milk, Quinn, we'll get some at home." Volume: Ear-shattering. Intensity: Aneurism. He was so enraged that he couldn't even keep up with himself: "YOU!.....STOP!.....THAT!....NOW!...WANT!....MILK!.....AAAAA! AAAAAAAA!!! AAAAA!!!!" Bryce tried to "help" by furthering Quinn's rage. "What do you want, Quinn? Milk? Do you want chocolate milk or regular milk?" "AAAAAA!!!! OGRE MILK!! I WANT OGRE MILK!!! NO! DON'T TALK TO ME! WANT.... OGRE!....MILK!.....NOW!...AAAAAA!!!" The people that thought Quinn was so "adorable" while he was mesmerized by the Santa, who would have said, "oh how cute, he pronounces 'regular' like 'ogre'...I've never see anything cuter!" now clutched their innocents to their chests, avoided eye contact, and ran far, far away. But really, milk for the ogre was exactly what we needed. And once we procured the ogre milk, everything was just fine. Fair weather friends. They suck.

On Saturday, to let John get some work done, the kids and I went to a craft fair with my mom. Bryce insisted on pushing his stroller the whole way, so I spent the majority of my time there hissing things like, "you can't run into peo - WATCH OUT!" and "I'm warning you, if you come close to anyone again, I'm going to - WATCH OUT!" and "this is your last chance, Bry -- WATCH OUT!" My mom bought some big items, so I carried them out while she pushed Quinn and Bryce pushed my purse in his stroller. As soon as we got to the parking lot, Bryce non-chalantly stopped, walked around to the front of the stroller, moved my purse, sat down, and looked at me, with a huge chair under one arm and a huge old farm window under the other. Yep, he had me by the balls. I tried a new tactic. "Hey Bryce, I really need your help. Could you please keep pushing the stroller until we get to Megama's car? I can't push it since I'm holding all this stuff, see? What do you think, could you help me?" Give me a big pat on the back, I didn't huff and puff or go straight to the usual tense, loud voice. I just knew this was going to work. Please oh please oh please oh please oh please let this work. Bryce didn't move. He looked at me calmly, but his voice wasn't calm. This kid was enjoying himself. "Mom! I can't!! I can't!! My hands are too tired to push this thing!" My mom was halfway across the parking lot, and then Bryce took off to follow her. OH...My...God. My kid just screwed me BIG TIME. Look at me! I'm a big dork who just got dumped by a four-year-old! Here I am, stupidly holding all this crap, standing next to an empty stroller, like a big dumb idiot! YES!

Luckily the next stop was our favorite Mexican restaurant, where we were meeting John for dinner and margaritas. I should have really said our favorite margarita restaurant, because that's really the reason we go there. My usual large margarita was emptied only halfway through my meal - as I'm sure you can understand given the craft fair parking lot abandonment and humiliation I was still internally kicking myself over. My mom and stepdad noticed, and offered to order another one: "you don't have the kids tonight since they're coming home with us, why not?" Why not, indeed? Another round, Forhay (that's how Quinn pronounces the name of our favorite waiter there - Jorge)! I only recently discovered that I actually LIKE margaritas; I've never been much of a drinker because I either haven't had the time for it, or (I think this next theory might make more sense) I had never been driven to the point of insanity on a daily basis before having kids and therefore never felt the need to "drown my sorrows" - and in fact, I never actually understood that term before my kids were born. All that said, I never have time to order more than one at a time, and at this particular restaurant, you really don't NEED to, because their special concoctions are the perfect blend of..um, effective and tasty - and I'm picky, so that's saying a LOT. After I finished my second one, I noticed that John still had a long way to go on his second, and the following conversation transpired:

Kristen: See, I told you I think I have a freakish tolerance. You have 50% more body weight and 17 more years of alcohol exposure and you're having trouble finishing that one. And here I am, talking away, you can't even tell I've had any alcohol. It's weird!

John: Yeah. Really friggin' amazing. Finish your chips.

Kristen: Seriously. How do I sound? I'm perfectly clear and I could still win a debate! I could work for the CIA! They need people who can appear perfectly normal and logical even while under the influence of toxins and mental stress.

John: [muffling laughter, but not very well] Oh yeah!? You're going to work for the CIA now? You drank two margaritas and you're CIA material.

Kristen: Laugh all you want, but it's a good point.

John: I admit that you don't appear to be drunk at all. And your words aren't slurred either. It is a little strange.

Twenty-five minutes later, in the movie theater,while we waited for the movie to start, those stupid margaritas really kicked my little CIA wannabe ass. We were sitting there talking and it was all I could do to keep the room from spinning out of control - didn't these FOOLS eating popcorn and sipping their cokes know that something was dreadfully wrong in the universe? Was no one wondering why the dimly lit room was tilting, tilting, tilting to the right? Or was it to the left? How is it that I'm the only white-knuckled one here clutching the arms of my chair? John is chatting away next to me. He asks me something, I have no recollection of what, because all I remember is my response, and then his:

"Look, all I'm able to focus on right now is not throwing up."

"OH!! 'Look at me, I'm a CIA agent! Oops, could you excuse me? I need to throw up!'"

So, we've learned that Kristen is a well-spoken, but very naive, and let's not forget - COCKY drunk. Forhay, why didn't you warn me?

An epileptic dog? Only in this family.

About six months ago, John and I were eating chips and queso and drinking margaritas at On the Border when Hannah called us crying: "Something's wrong with Truman, I don't know what to do!" She had called John's mom, too, who thought it sounded like a seizure, and rushed over to try to help until we could get there. By the time she arrived, Truman was perfectly fine. We all thought maybe Hannah had overreacted to something minor, like Truman running into a door and being disoriented for a few seconds (yes, this is something that would actually fit within the realm of "normalcy" in my mind...sad, I know).

About three months later, John and I were watching TV one night. Truman was in his usual spot, asleep next to the couch after enjoying a rowdy bone-chewing session and ruining yet another spot on our living room rug. We noticed him try to get up, and then his body slammed over to one side, his head twisted to the other, his paws curled up like hooks, his jaw clenched shut, his eyes bulged in confusion and terror. John and I froze in fear and stupidity, looking at each other, then back at the seizing animal at our feet: "What should we do?!" "I don't know. The vet is closed!" "Well, for starters, let's at least keep his head from slamming into the coffee table!" Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Truman stood up, looked at us, and walked to the back door. It was like he was saying, "Geez, what's wrong with everybody? Why the long faces? Well, see ya suckers, I'm off for a back yard romp!" We kept thinking maybe WE had overreacted, but we filed it in the back of our minds under the If It Happens Again Then We Should Definitely Do Something category.

I was forced to access that file this morning when I awoke to what sounded like Truman's very annoying THUMPTHUMPTHUMP ear scratching. I mustered enough energy to give a groggy "Truman! Stop!", but something wasn't right. Flashing back to the seizing we'd witnessed, I jumped out of bed and ran over to him. He was in the same horrifying position we'd witnessed two months before. Since he was in a little corner of the room, he was bouncing between two walls, trying desperately to walk away, but whatever evil puppet master controls epileptic dogs refused to give up his morning entertainment, and Truman's body flipped from side to side. I tried to make eye contact and at least confirm awareness, but his dilated pupils stared right through me as his taut muscles shook in the physical effort that this seizure clearly was. I wrapped myself around his middle to protect his sides and head from the corner of one jutting wall, and I received my own bruises as a result. I kept thinking, "This has to end soon. It must be almost over. Please let it end. Oh my God, it's NEVER GOING TO END AND THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO COME PUT HIM TO SLEEP RIGHT HERE IN MY ARMS."

The whole thing lasted 20 minutes. Uh, from what little I know about seizures, I think that's pretty friggin' horrible. We took him to the vet and after paying $130 for five minutes of time with the dr., learned that the dog will have to be on medication for the rest of his life...medication that is likely to damage his liver. But if we don't medicate him, the seizures will get worse, more frequent, and longer in duration, putting him at risk for brain and organ damage. According to the vet, we're only witnessing one in four seizures, so there have been at least 12 in the past five months, not three like we thought.

I purposely adopted a mixed-breed dog (abandoned as a puppy in a box in front of a Wal-Mart) to avoid the chronic health problems of many pure breeds. Haha! The universe laughs at my pathetic attempts at control once again, and my poor dog suffers for it. The list of "uncommon" ailments in this family continues to grow. Either they aren't so uncommon, or we really are a group of misfit freaks in this house.

Yin & Yang

6:00 a.m.: I wake up. CRAP. Once again I didn't get up in time to go for a run. I'm such a slug.

6:30 a.m.: Cool, I get to wear a snazzy new suit to work and hopefully make my boss paranoid that I have a job interview, since I never wear snazzy suits and I just asked for a raise and am in the middle of a big stall tactic. Since I slept in, I have the energy to play these games today.

6:40 a.m.: Bryce is up. How's his mood? Please don't let this be one of those mornings where he's right on the verge of a nuclear explosion and nobody knows the secret code to prevent it. "Hi Bryce." "I want dad to be the teacher." "Well, we're getting ready right now, but you can play and pretend by yourself for a while if you want to." "NOOOOOO!!!! I want DAD to be the teacher. I don't WANT to play by myself." There's the high pitched voice. The alarms are going off: BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Meltdown alert. CRAP.

7:30 a.m.: Yes! My boss is in the office today , and people are commenting on the suit. Maybe if I'm really lucky, someone will jokingly say, "wow, do you have a job interview or something?" right in front of her!

8:30 a.m.: Despite my best efforts at getting out of it, I am roped into going to a cheap discount warehouse to buy client gifts. This is after fighting to no avail for 1.) a bigger client gift budget and 2.) a smaller list of clients to receive gifts. CRAP. I hate this. What a joke. If we're just getting pathetic gifts for a big group of people, why bother at all? Why not get decent gifts for the bigger clients? "Oh, we don't like the logic game. Logical people think they're so much better than everyone else. Get thee to a Sam's Club."

10:00 a.m.: When I return to my desk, a friend from my old company has e-mailed me with lots of exclamation points. I call her, and she tells me the group I've been trying to get on with there for the past 9 months is going to call me about the position I want. COOL. Cheap gifts for a whole lot of clients - I don't care!!!

11:30 a.m.: Right before lunch, a certain hated project, which will henceforth be known as The Project That Refuses To Die rears its ugly head. The details are unnecessary. The main point is this: CRAP.

11:45 a.m.: Crisis averted. Yay! Maybe it's really dead this time. I clubbed it in the head several times for good measure. It's also been shot, hung, and electrocuted. Please be dead... oh pretty please.

1:30 p.m.: It's baaa-aaa-aa-ck! CRAP. This Thing is the Spawn of Satan, there is no killing It. Accept it now and the pain is much more bearable.

3:00 p.m.: I laid it to rest again and now I get to spend the afternoon re-organizing archived material in my office. Yes, I'm actually happy about this. I like checking off lists. Just leave it alone. It's all I have at this job. Okay?

4:30 p.m.: SIGH. I really hate The Project That Refuses To Die. It always wants to wake up and play at the end of the day. ARGH. I'm really running out of steam for this. CRAP.

5:10 p.m.: Time to go home, woohoo!

5:40 p.m.: I walk in the door and immediately hear Bryce and Quinn fighting over Thomas the Train flash cards in their growly, out of control voices. It's a really effective fight, too - it's mine! No it's mine! No it's mine! I feel my heart rate increase and I try to push the stress down. CRAP.

6:00 p.m.: Despite the fact that John has clients coming tonight and that the kids are on his last nerve too, he volunteers to give them their baths so I can go for a run. Yay! Good husbands are cool.

6:45 p.m.: I come upstairs to take over so John can get his office ready for his meeting. The kids' rooms look like a bomb has exploded. I am too anal to let this go, which means I'll force myself to clean it up, but I really don't feel like it. CRAP.

6:50 p.m.: Quinn brings me a CD he wants to listen to and I put it in - hey, guys, it's clean up music, FUN!

6:52 p.m.: Quinn decides this CD is abhorrent to every fiber of his being AND IT MUST BE TURNED OFF NOW, WOMAN. NOW, DAMN YOU!!!!! (John and I pronounce this 'daahh-m yoo") Bryce therefore, can't live one more second without hearing the entire CD. CRAP.

6:55 p.m.: To distract him from the hated music, I enlist Quinn's help in putting away toys, and he digs it. COOL. No more fits, AND he's helping me clean this sty up. YES!

6:58 p.m.: While my back is turned, Quinn sneaks into John's office. I go to get him and he cries like I've just flushed his pet fish down the toilet and made him watch. He's in absolute agony. "I WANT DADDY. NO! I need Daddy!!" CRAP. Blood....pressure....rising...

7:05 p.m.: I get Quinn some water. Oh Blessed Quencher of Thirst, we bow to your greatness! Quinn is a big drinker. It's pretty nice to have a kid who thinks a glass of water is a treat.

7:08 p.m.: On the way back to the bedroom, we pass John' s office and Quinn remembers the trauma I'm causing him by not letting him hang on John's thigh while he prepares for his meeting. Tears. Kicking. Threats. CRAP.

7:15 p.m.: Quinn gets over the injustice of having to be stuck with the second-rate parent, and he pulls himself together for a bedtime story. Then we have a little laugh when I sing the wrong song at bedtime. What am I thinking? It's not Jumbo Elephant, it's the Halle-lu song (thanks to my mom, the Baptist Nursery Song Whiz who has convinced my kids they must hear these songs every night before they sleep)! He goes down peacefully, whew.

7:45 p.m.: The sleepy time music in Quinn's room stops as I'm typing this, and his pacifier-stuffed mouth mumbles, "want my music on please." I think he'll doze right off, it's just a fluke. Then the voice gets louder: "want my MUSIC ON PLEASE!!!" If I don't go up, he'll wake Bryce up and then the whole night is in jeopardy. If I go into Quinn's room, though, I have to walk through Bryce's room and then I might wake him up. CRAP.

7:46 p.m.: I go up, sneak through Bryce's room without waking him up. SCORE! That never happens.

7:47 p.m.: As I'm coming downstairs in an oversized sweatshirt, unmatching striped pajama pants, and socks with holes in the heels, John's clients come out of his office and see my urchin-looking self sneaking back into my room. CRAP. How embarrassing.

After all, maybe it's just the full moon. Let's hope so.

I know I often complain about how Bryce talks ALL the time, but sometimes, when life feels so insane, I think I want to be just like that - constantly telling everyone what I think, repeating myself more and more loudly until I get an answer I want: "I want Mexican food tonight. John, did you hear me? I said I wanted Mexican food! HELLLLLLOOOO!!!! Mexican food!??! John. John. Let's go. I want to get Mexican food. Mexican Foo-hoo-hoo-hooo-ddd!!!"

Truth be told, right now I feel about as helpless and out of control as a four-year-old probably feels most of the time. Between reminders about the inverse correlation between ability and compensation in the corporate world, a psychotic counselor with the fate of my stepdaughter's fragile psyche in her slimy hands, a call from my stepson's friend last night telling us that he was going to have to file a police report as a result of discovering Dylan had used his SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER to procure free cable for himself in an apartment six months ago, and denial about the guests I have coming to stay in my pig sty of a house next week for Thanksgiving, things feel pretty much as out of control and out of my hands as they possibly can. I can totally relate to Bryce and Quinn right now, because to be honest, humiliating my family in public, or better, freaking out my co-workers by shrieking, "SERENITY NOW!" at the top of my lungs is the only thing that would really bring much satisfaction.

No performance review at work unless I initiate it and ask for a raise? Met with praise and compliments but followed by weeks of silence in answer to my legitimate request for a raise, then a response that I'll have to wait until the first of the year to get any answer at all as if that's the standard policy, while other positions are promoted and given salary increases in the meantime?? SERENITY NOW.

Deranged counselors obsessed with my appearance and convinced that I have single-handedly molded Hannah's views of women and success because it certainly couldn't be related to, oh, say, the fact that HER MOTHER ABANDONED HER or the fact that she obviously has many, many other issues? SERENITY NOW. SERENITY NOW.

Daily attempts at keeping my patience with ridiculous, baseless pre-school tantrums leading to white ulcers in my mouth, indigestion, pimples, and weight gain? SERENITY NOW. SERENITY NOW. SERENITY NOW.

Weekend shopping sprees when I'm not even a shopper? Writer's block when I'm never at a loss for what to say? Family nights morphed into mere obligatory last minute decisions? 10th grade English papers taking up my ever-more-important TV-filled evenings, leaving me drained and pulled in too many directions for one person to legitimately be pulled in? Having to start all over researching counselors for a stepdaughter who needs help? AD/HD? Police Reports? Undesigned wedding albums piling up in my husband's office, taunting the family with the stress awaiting him, and therefore us, in the knowledge that the holidays won't really be holidays? Thanksgiving menus scribbled on a wadded up piece of notebook paper in the kitchen? Skipped morning jogs, and more skipped evening jogs? A neglected, desperate-to-be-brushed dog? An out-of-town, depression-prone, and lonely dad longing for a call I don't have the energy to make? Guilt? Frustration? Sadness? Anger? Fear?

Well, as my wise, yet overly simplistic and usually crass, sister-in-law would say, "at least we're not in the coal mines or a concentration camp." Well, yes, that's true. But as *I* always respond, "If you have to compare your life to a concentration camp to cheer yourself up, then really, it's time to re-evaluate."

Crazy...Crazy for Feelin'

The world has gone mad. Today I spoke with Hannah's counselor on the phone, and I thought several times during the conversation that my brain was going to melt and boil over, culminating in a gruesome, volcanic explosion out of every facial orifice in my head. This woman is insane. I-N-S-A-N-E. Without boring you with depressing details about how John and I arrived at our current hypothesis that Hannah, along with depression and major emotional issues, also suffers from AD/HD, Inattentive Type, let me entertain you with some of the more unbelievable aspects to our conversation. Someone should get something out of my pains. This conversation has been edited slightly, but the gist of it is 100% true.

Kristen: Hello, Dr. Psycho. I was calling because John and I haven't heard from you since you started seeing Hannah TWO MONTHS AGO, and I had two questions. The first is that I was wondering what we'd need to do to get her tested for AD/HD since so many of her chronic behaviors fall in line with the AD/HD characteristics. And--

Psychounselor: [interrupting] Well, the problem with AD/HD is that the symptoms overlap with symptoms of about EIGHT other disorders. You can't just go down a checklist and assume she has it. You have to understand that depression symptoms often look like AD/HD, too.

Kristen: I know, and AD/HD is often present with depression, especially in teen girls, and these behaviors I'm referring to have been present all Hannah's life, they aren't new. I'm not discounting the emotional problems, but I also think this needs to be explored and--

Psychounselor: [interrupting] Well Hannah's not a quick fix! Be realistic. I've only had, what, four sessions with her? [Actually, it's been SEVEN.] But I guess I can test her for it.

Kristen: Okay, that would be good, because I think some behavioral therapy specifically addressing strategies for Hannah to learn to manage her life would be good and--

Psychounselor: [interrupting] Well you can't discount the medications! Behavioral changes only make a 10% difference in people with AD/HD! The medications cause an 80-85% improvement. So if you're against drugs, you should keep those numbers in mind.

Kristen: Uh, did I say I was against drugs, you interrupt-happy psycho? No - all I said was that in addition to the drugs, if they are deemed to be necessary, I want her to have help with specific methods of changing her behaviors to help her improve, which leads me to my next question (finally!) - in what ways are you working with Hannah to address her own behaviors? I'd like to know so that John and I can work to support those things at home.

Psychounselor: What areas are you wanting to see improvements in?

Kristen: [puff of smoke over my head] Uh, you know, the areas we talked about when we first met with you - responsibility, self-care, accountability, and--

Psychounselor: [interrupting, accusatory tone] Oh! And just who do you think she needs to be accountable TO?

Kristen: [head in flames now] Anyone?! Herself? Her teachers? Her family?

Psychounselor: In what way?

Kristen: [thinking, haven't we had this conversation once already? my head feels really hot] Oh, I don't know, doing her homework and then actually turning it in, not failing her classes when we go more than a week without checking her grades online, interacting voluntarily with the family, having motivation to do anything but sleep, flushing the toilet without being told...you know - any of those would be GREAT!

Psychounselor: A lot of that has to do with character. And you have to understand that with all of Hannah's emotional issues, she has a lot to work through in terms of her views of relationships with women, womanhood, and life in general. If you want a specific suggestion from me, I would suggest you and John try to affirm Hannah more often, because I think she feels like she's not loved unconditionally, and that she has to meet certain criteria in order to be loved. And it must be SO annoying for Hannah to have to live with a smart, beautiful, successful stepmom with a great figure.

Kristen: [explosion complete, only a charred head remaining on my shoulders, but still a strong voice box] WHAT?!?! You don't even KNOW ME! You've met me once, you have no idea about any aspect of my life, including my health, weight/food struggles, or how we have approached all of that with Hannah. Furthermore, it sounds like YOU are the one who has issues with women!

Psychounselor: [interrupting] I really want to work with you and I appreciate you telling me how you feel about Hannah, but I feel a bit of defensiveness from you and I'm not sure why.

Kristen: A "bit" of defensiveness, and YOU'RE NOT SURE WHY??? At our first meeting, you brought up my "cuteness" but I blew it off, and it's come up two or three more times since then, it's completely inappropriate and irrelevant to this conversation!! We call you for feedback on Hannah and we don't get it--

Psychounselor: [interrupting, flustered] When have I not given you feedback?

Kristen: ALL YOU'VE TOLD ME IN THIS PHONE CALL IS THAT I HAVE A GOOD FIGURE AND I DON'T LOVE HANNAH ENOUGH.

Psychounselor: [offended] You asked for some things to work on at home, and that's what I told you! Okay, I'm sorry about my inappropriate comments, I'll test Hannah for AD/HD. [in a tone that suggests my entire phone call has been an arm-twisting on my part to get her to test Hannah]

Hannah was visibly frustrated after her session today, and told John her time had been cut short because *I* called the counselor. So, after dinner I asked if it upset her that I had called Dr. Psycho. She said, "Um. No. But were you upset with her?" "What did she say about it?", I replied. Get ready for it. GET READY....

"She said 'Kristen is a very intense person.'"

Good job, psychounselor. Bring the depressed KID into the mix, as if she doesn't have enough issues with the adults in her life already. Classy move, Dr. Psycho. Kudos. I feel the need to contact the American Psychological Association and file a grievance, but I'm sort of afraid she'll kidnap me, lock me in some padded cell, and torture me with repeated messages over loudspeaker about what a nice figured, cute, horrible and unloving stepmom I am.

Yeah, that's me. I might as well be throwing Hannah in the attic and keeping her from trying on the glass slipper. Evil. Evil, I tell you! I don't really care about Hannah at all - I spend all my spare time researching how to help her because my whole plot in life has been to get Dr. Psycho on the phone and be able to say "good figure" in a sentence about a kid's AD/HD symptoms.

Life-long goal: Accomplished.

This is the post that proves why I shouldn't be home with the kids.

When Bryce was a year old, his favorite toy was a Little Tykes school bus complete with passengers and a wheel chair. His favorite passengers were Chad and Jessica. Chad was a white bread blonde kid with a red shirt and no distinguishable facial features. Jessica was a white bread brunette with a sea-green dress and no distinguishable facial features. Among the other passengers were Book-Loving Betty, she wore a magenta shirt and disproportionally large black glasses, and carried two books under her arm; Dan the Bus Driver, wearing a white shirt and a green, authoritative-looking baseball cap; and finally, Saxophone Sam (thus named because he carried his instrument with him), the lone non-caucasian character, wearing a purple band uniform complete with hat from under which a tame "afro" peeked out.

In the early days, the school bus crew went on traditional, "normal" trips to and from school. Chad was always the last one on the bus in the mornings because Bryce preferred to hold Chad and walk around with him for as long as possible. Chad and Jessica often sat on Bryce's high chair tray patiently awaiting the end of breakfast so we could all carry on with the school bus agenda of getting to and from school. School varied from being the fire place to the coffee table to the couch to the front porch to the kitchen table.

These were the days when I was pregnant with Quinn and home with Bryce. I'm only human. I got bored with the same trips to and from school, so I started to liven things up a bit. First it was innocent - field trips to the zoo and the museum, etc. Then it moved to Dan the Bus Driver being sick and letting Book-Loving Betty take the wheel - the headlines on the Little Tykes Tribune read, "Honor Student Endangers Bus Passengers, Claims Coersion". Bryce seemed entertained by all this, so I took my victory and ran with it; I decided we needed a little Calvin & Hobbes flair to this school bus game, so I added some danger to the school bus route - more traffic, fewer available emergency vehicles, kids and a few dinosaurs from other school districts packing into the same bus, and an unfortunate detour that included a cliff highway with no guard rail.

One day, the favorite Chad and Jessica were missing. The Little Tykes school bus adventure crew had to make do without them. The little truants were found in between some couch cushions the next day; it starts younger with every generation, you know? After that scandal quietly ended, Dan the Bus Driver and Jessica went missing - this time for weeks. Every morning we searched high and low for them to no avail. An older dinosaur passenger from the other district had to take over the driving, and the rest of the students attended counseling sessions at school as the community dealt with the tragedy of these missing people. As it turned out, Dan the Bus Driver was a convicted criminal! He had lied on his application and spent months winning the passengers' confidence and secretly lured Jessica away with him after she showed her wild streak with the truancy stunt she'd pulled with Chad.

Oh, the Scandal! Oh, the Shame! Dan the Bus Driver and Jessica were found, months later. We don't need to go into the filthy details, but suffice it to say that Jessica required months of inpatient therapy for the trauma she'd endured, and Dan the Bus Driver is no longer a member of the Little Tykes community. His bus driving priveleges have been revoked and he is a pariah, forced to live in the misfit basket with some old happy meal toys. Shame on you, Dan the Bus Driver.

Shortly after this insanity, Bryce became interested in Toy Story and I didn't have to entertain myself with creating Little Tykes scandals every morning. The poor kid was probably thinking, "geez, I just want to play school bus, lady - why must everything be so dramatic?" Hey, I was pregnant and freshly laid off from a good job. Don't you deal with your stress by scandalizing your kids' toys?

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

John's oldest son, Dylan showed up at Hannah's birthday dinner last night (and even had a gift for Hannah). Granted, a friend who we've never met had to bring him because Dylan's car has been sold to pay for his latest self-defeating financial decisions, but the fact that we were all shocked and thinking he looked better than we expected him to should give you an indication of how bad things have been with Dylan for the past few years.

A little over a year ago, John and I performed a sort of intervention for Dylan. He had been at a state school an hour and a half away from home for about two months, and in that period of time he had cut off all contact with us, been fired from his job, stopped going to class, and not paid his tuition, room, or board with the $4000 he'd taken with him when he left. There are several horrifying aspects to this situation: 1.) this was the second year in a row he had attempted to go to college, and this second attempt was against our advice, 2.) throughout high school, he had created a reputation of greatness for himself, and had convinced everyone outside his immediate nuclear family that he was going to be a millionaire due to his pro golf abilities or his science genius which he would use to fly through medical school, 3.) we knew he was in complete and total denial about his situation, and that confronting him would be like trying to convince our dog that he actually isn't human. Even knowing all of this, we dropped Hannah and the boys with various in-town grandparents and loaded up the car for a somber road trip. Leaving him there was no longer an option. He was going to be kicked out of the dorms within a few weeks for non-payment anyway.

When we found him in his dorm room, he spent three hours refusing to come with us, telling us that he would simply get a new job (what was wrong with the old one? Oh, they expected him to be there at 9:00 a.m. - ludicrous!), get an apartment, and take classes. Oh, okay Dylan. I see. So you want to live in this town, go to class, and go to work. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT THAT THAN WHAT YOU CAME HERE TO DO?? And how do you expect to go to classes next semester when you haven't paid tuition on this semester? And where did your $4000 go? DVDs. Video games. CDs. Beer. Beer. Beer. Porn. Beer.

Once he withdrew from the classes he'd never attended, he came back to our house with the understanding that he could stay there for a few weeks while he found a job, and that his next steps would be to pay back the school and the merchants he'd been bouncing checks with, then decide if/when he would return to school of some sort. He found a job and an apartment and once again cut off contact. We started receiving bounced check notices, and hearing about outrageous lies through mutual friends and his co-workers - everything from how he was interning at a law firm to a story about how he had received a brand new BMW on his 16th birthday to telling people on three different occasions that his wallet had been stolen. We finally realized the stolen wallet stories always coincided with him owing someone money. This went on for months, until finally two of his friends contacted us and arranged a visit with him. They had begun to put two and two together, probably because they'd both been told on separate occasions that his wallet had been taken at gunpoint, and they wanted to find out the truth before helping him or enabling him anymore.

When they brought him over, he was jovial and nonchalant, telling us all about how his friends had straightened him out and shown him the way, he could never have made it without them, and moving on now, we have a great house that we're going to re-paint and carpet, you'll have to come by for a visit. Yeah. You've been out of contact for six months, completely unable to be reached, we didn't know where you lived, what you were doing, if you were alive, if you were living in your car, in jail, in a homeless shelter, or a stabbing victim after a gambling disagreement. And now you waltz in here as casually as if you've been on a weekend trip, and tell us to "come by your new place." HUH? I couldn't take it. Everyone in the room wanted so desperately to avoid the awkwardness and keep up the facade of normalcy, but I couldn't keep it in: "Dylan, I'm glad you have a place to live and good friends who are helping you. Do you know what you'll be doing a month or six months from now?" Dylan was clinging by a thread to his "I've got it all figured out" routine, but he wasn't giving up: "Yeah. I'm going to work at this job Cody got me, pay rent, and then go to school in December, I think..." His voice trailed off. I said, "That sounds great, and I hope that happens. Cody, we have heard this before. We have had this conversation dozens of times. I hope it's different this time, but I have nothing to go on but what I've experienced before. This is as ugly as it gets in this house. Dylan hasn't been abused or judged or looked down on, no matter what you might have been told. This conversation is what he's been avoiding. Not a yelling, abusive household. Dylan told you he has $4000 in the bank that he's going to buy a car with since that's a requirement of living in this house, right? Dylan, why don't we take care of this now. You don't have a savings or checking account because YOU OWE THE BANK MONEY. There will be no car and no school three months from now because you simply don't have the money - it's physically impossible."

His face fell as his facade lost its footing. Everything was coming out in the open now - all the conflicting lies he'd told the people from the different circles of his life - those circles were converged now, and this is the very situation he'd been avoiding for months. It wasn't a problem with his family, it was a problem with his life, and now not only did he have to face it, he had to expose its naked ugliness to the only people left who were willing to help him get by for another few days. And worse, he had NO WAY OUT of this situation - literally. I guess he could have run out the door, but he wouldn't have gotten far in this city without a car, and he didn't have that. He was at the mercy of his friends, who were going to force this thing to happen, this thing that felt like death to him.

His friends didn't get angry, but started asking questions. "When you said you came back from school because your mom died, was that true?" Dylan sat there looking at his shoes, nothing but numbness on his face. I answered, "no, that's not true. She's alive, but hasn't been in his life for years - her choice, not his, not ours." His friend was visibly hurt. The other friend said, "when you told me you lost your wallet at the casino, was that true?" Dylan said, "yes." I said, "what does that mean? Does that mean the money from your wallet was lost because you gambled it, or does it mean your wallet was there one moment, gone the next, and what specifically happened?" He said, "We went to the casino and I had my wallet. When we left, I didn't have my wallet anymore." Classic Dylan. No longer a lie, but there's a chance what he said was vague enough that someone might still believe he'd "lost" it. I said, "Dylan, did you gamble it, and that's why you left with no money?" He mumbled some affirmative statement. Back to the hurt friend: "What about the time you said you were held up at gunpoint outside your apartment and your wallet was stolen. Was that true?" Silence from Dylan. I said, "We were told from a co-worker that you said it happened at a grocery store." Dylan: "It happened. I'm not lying about it." Hurt friend: "But where did it happen? And how? I want to know the details. You have to start telling the truth if you want us to be able to help you!"

Dylan had had enough. How dare these people put him on the spot this way? He was going to be a doctor, a professional golfer! Did they even know who they were dealing with? He could lie to the pope and get away with it. These amateurs, these hocks. These last two friends giving him a place to live. These parents inviting him to eat dinner with them every night even though he never came. This sister growing up with no contact with her mother, and now her wayward brother, too. These little toddler brothers who'd been asking, "where's Dylan?" for months. These people he'd lied to and stolen from. He broke down and sobbed: "I lied about it because I'm a monster, it's how I survive. I know I need help."

He agreed, with his friends for accountability, to keep in touch with us this time. He acknowledged to his friends that he'd have to find a job within walking distance of their house because he didn't have a car and had absolutely no money. He apologized to everyone and said he intended to do the right thing this time, that he knew he was only sabotaging himself with his actions. John and I were internally skeptical. Dylan had been down this road before, although it was definitely different this time in that his friends were involved and knew his true situation rather than the fabrication he'd created for them. Since that night, he has called John a few times. He's still in major financial trouble and has a job at a gas station that only pays his current bills, so we don't know when or how he will pay all the debt he's created for himself. But we know where he lives, where he works, and how to contact him, and that is a huge improvement over where we were at this time last year. The fact that he showed up at Hannah's birthday celebration is somewhat of a milestone, too - last year he didn't show up or acknowledge it in any way.

I would hope that Dylan has started to realize that he's brought his problems upon himself, and that despite the fact that he spent his teen years resenting the fact that he wasn't entitled to a BMW or a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee at his 16th birthday, that we didn't live in the neighborhoods inhabited by his friends with well-to-do doctors and lawyers for parents, and that his little half-brothers had to take up space in what should have rightly been his house, that he's now starting to grow up and recognize how much of his potential that mentality destroyed.

Unfortunately, it was confirmed last night that Dylan has a long, long way to go. When he walked into the restaurant, Bryce said, "Hi Dylan! Dylan, hey! Why did you decide not to live with us anymore?" (As a side note, I have not ever worded things this way about Dylan to Bryce. This was Bryce's own word choice.) The table went silent as Bryce repeated his question. Dylan hesitated and plastered a grin on his face while his mind visibly raced. I stepped in: "Because he grew up, Bryce. Kids don't live with their parents anymore when they grow up." But everyone was talking at once, trying to cover the silence, and during all the nervous talking, the response that stood out most troublingly to me was Dylan's: "Because there's no room anymore - your and Quinn's toys are there now."

Yeah. So I see Dylan's still convinced that he's a victim, and he survives by taking the lies he tells himself and spreading them all around. Bryce wouldn't let him get away with it, though: "Well, Dylan, they're all cleaned up and there's plenty of room!"

Dylan could stand to learn a lot from that four-year-old brother of his who can see through any attempt at a cover-up. I can only hope that by Hannah's next birthday, Bryce won't have to see through any more of Dylan's survival techniques, and that Dylan's presence at a family function won't be so much of a shock to everyone that questions like Bryce's are met with silence and nervous twitters from the whole extended family.

Revelations

Today through a long series of link clicks starting with a sibling rivalry article and ending with an anger management article, the internet really slapped me in the face. Apparently - brace yourself now - the way a parent relates to his/her child and the child's other parent directly influences the way the child relates to his/her sibling. WHOAH! Really? So all I have to do to solve the pre-school yelling problem in my house is just - what? - stop yelling myself?? *slapping forehead* If only someone had told me before. It's so SIMPLE.

I admit that I do yell, but usually that's because I'm making the stupid mistake of trying to talk over Bryce and Quinn fighting. There are times, though, that I yell just because Bryce is doing something blatantly wrong, like sneaking up on Quinn, stealing his blanket, and running away in glee. I also yell when Quinn, who is obsessed with throwing things away, is getting into the trash can to make sure what he just put in there is still safely nestled amidst all the other household refuse. And also when the kids act like wild, starved chimps in a cruel experiment where they have to fight to the death over the lone banana.

Okay, so there's parental yelling. But if the yelling is setting some sort of behavioral example, I would expect the associated activities to trigger their yelling - meaning when one of them sees the other one do something dangerous or against the household rules, THEN they would yell. But, if this theory is 100% accurate, the way my kids yell suggests that I wake up every morning and at the top of my lungs scream, "DID YOU TAKE THE TRASH DOWN TO THE CURB? I'M GOING TO LET THE DOG OUT NOW. WOW, LOOK AT THE SUNRISE! HEY, WHY IS IT SO DARK IN HERE? IS IT BECAUSE EVERYONE IS STILL ASLEEP?" Seriously. Yelling is their preferred method of communication. And when that's the case, how do I get them to stop without yelling myself? Oh, don't counsel me on ignoring, time-outs, and whispering to get their attention. I've read all those books too - and we've been down that road, with the whole "we're going to stay patient and be consistent this time" attitude that ultimately landed us RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED - with the Brothers of Loudness yelling, laughing, stomping, and - did I say yelling? - all the way.

Solve that problem, O Wise Internet.

Weekend on the Fringe

We had a rough weekend. There was no one particularly tragic or upsetting moment that defined the whole experience; it was just a weekend consisting of situations that constantly reminded me of this book:
This time I can't fully blame it on the kids, though - as much as I wholeheartedly want to. John and I were like little bratty kids ourselves - very antsy and defensive, very "well fine, then I'm taking my toys and going home!" I have no explanation for this ridiculous amount of immaturity, other than to pull out the arsenal of adult excuses: we're tired, we're busy, we're stressed, and we're both at the end of our ropes with what is beginning to sound like a never-ending parade of yelling, stomping, and growling pre-school-aged dinosaurs in our household.

First there was the Friday Night Mexican Restaurant Debacle, where John decided that taking Bryce to the bathroom twice in a three-minute time span when there was a perfectly good burrito waiting to be eaten on his plate was more unacceptable than Nazism, and where I responded by publicly humiliating all of us when I leapt out of my chair at the first sign of John's hesitation, grabbed Bryce's hand, and dragged him to the bathroom amidst hissing noises and a few snarls at John for expecting a four-year-old to have perfect, predictable bowels.

Then there was The Saturday From Hell, where I was home with all three kids (the little ones and the teenager - run away!) , and some highlights from this day include: 1.) Hannah putting a pen through the dryer and ruining a load of her clothes, 2.) Quinn running away from me in our driveway and falling flat on his face, 3.) Bryce getting sick and pooping in his pants while I was simultaneously comforting Quinn and overseeing Hannah address the dryer problem, and - the most interesting highlight of all - 4.) having a local morning news anchor tell Quinn he "did great" in Supercuts after he spent 20 minutes melting the faces of all the other quiet, patient child patrons with his shrieks of terror while the poor guy cutting his hair kept saying, "it doesn't hurt, I'm just cutting your hair." This news anchor has a five-year-old kid who was getting his hair cut at the same time. He was a gem. This news anchor is also notorious for telling personal details on air. I purposely didn't watch this morning. If she mentioned my screaming, wacko kid and his terrorizing older brother, I'm better off not hearing it.

Finally, there was Family Bike Ride Failure 2: The Terror of Kristen's Clumsiness. The climax of the weekend's activities took place Sunday, when John bought more bike seats to try our fun fall activity again. Let's just say it ended with me falling off of John's bike after complaining about the gears on mine, getting Quinn soaked in the sprinkler from the yard next to where we fell, scarring Bryce for life because he was already afraid to ride and my fall with Quinn convinced him it was completely dangerous, a resulting six-hour silent treatment that was facilitated by John's crazy work schedule, and leave it at that, shall we?

This morning, Quinn woke up over an hour before his usual time. He was yelling like he'd been left in there while we were all out eating funnel cakes at the fair without him. I thought, "great, the No Good Very Bad week continues." But when I went into his room to check on him, I didn't have the No Good Very Bad feeling. He was laying in his dark room with all his blankets and his pacifier and his little baby breathing, looking at me thinking he'd get in trouble for being so loud, but also happy to see someone ("I caught you before you made it to the fair! Do you think there's any funnel cake left?"). He whispered something through his pacifier and reached up to me, and as I bent over his crib to pick him up, it felt like two years ago when I was still lifting an infant from that same place for a middle of the night feeding. He held his blanket and rested on my chest and I breathed in the smell of the baby shampoo from his soft, warm head, and the peace felt so foreign and so familiar at the same time. I'm pretty sure the no good very bad days are outnumbered by moments like this. But even if they're not, it stands to reason that one can't exist without the other, and I'm not giving up those hair breathing, pacifier-whispering moments in the dark no matter how many news anchors ridicule our chaotic days.

At least Charlie Brown's teacher got to send the kids home.

John and I stay in a constant cycle of lecturing Hannah on the areas she needs to focus on in school, at home, and in life in general, assuming she understands and is moving forward, discovering we were so, so wrong, and then lecturing again. And again. And again. And again. And more agains until I think I'm going to pull my hair out, pull HER hair out, and use all that extra hair to capitalize on our pain by creating something like The Dysfunctional Stepfamily Chia Pet.

When we are in the lecture part of that cycle, she hears the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher. Wawa-wa wawa wa Wa wa-wa. She was failing two classes a few weeks ago, so we started the whole lecture over again: "Hannah, you have to stay on top of your assignments, make sure you check in with your teachers on your progress, ask questions if you don't understand, ask for help from us if you need it, have us quiz you before tests, do the extra credit assignments." Wawa-wa wawa wa Wa wa-wa. Wednesday night, I made the mistake of asking her where she was in her English class, how much she'd been able to bring her grade up, etc. In the course of that conversation, we learned that Hannah had a paper due in two days which. she. had. not. yet. started. And the 80-page reading assignment that preceded said starting of said paper? 20 pages read. Oh, the lecture-y lectures that flew, the hair-pulling, bloody scalp visions that flashed before my eyes; the usual Wawa-wa turned into more of a death screech in Hannah's ears, I think.

Apparently I never attended Stepfamily Behavior 101, because if I had, I would know that all that screeching 1.) does absolutely nothing to make the kid more "responsible", 2.) actually starts the cycle of wawawa-blissful ignorance-horrifying reality-wawawa all over, 3.) results in the parents becoming even MORE involved in the kids' responsibilities. Case in point: Hannah worked for three agonizing hours on her paper last night. What did I do? Watch The Apprentice? Paint my nails? Leaf through the Pottery Barn catalog? Oh, how I wish I had done any of those things. No. I spelled out Hannah's assignment for her, explained the passage SHE HAD PICKED, told her how to structure her paper, and walked through EVERY SINGLE GOD-FORSAKEN PARAGRAPH with her. By the time I realized I had been sucked into this horror, I was so invested that I refused to give up. I'm sick and tired of seeing her crappy grades, and clearly the kid needs help. Plus, I have a degree in English Language & Literature from a prestigious school; I'll be damned if anyone in my household is going to fail English. Hannah knows this. And Hannah TOTALLY SUCKED ME INTO ALL BUT WRITING HER PAPER FOR HER. I think she was saying ridiculous things just to exasperate me so much I would give her a decent thesis: "So, here's my sentence: 'The word dreary is referred to a dark place.' What do you think?" HUH? "Hannah, what does that even mean? Do you mean 'dreary' is referring to a dark place? Do you mean it is used in this passage to refer to a dark place? And furthermore, what's the point? What do you have to SAY about that? What does it have to do with your point about the tone of this passage? You have to write more than that one single nonsense sentence! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KID - give me that!"

I did resist the urge to write it for her, but I'm pretty sure I needed blood pressure medication by the end of the night. John walked through the kitchen while Hannah was saying, "Here's the summarizing paragaph: 'A good tone word for this passage is cold. The words dreary, glowing, grotesque, and vulgar all have negative connotations, just like the word cold.'" As I was slapping my hand to my forehead with the realization that I was stuck in this situation for at least another hour, I said to him, "Geez, I hope I get a good grade on this paper."

Phone Conversation with John

In the background, what sounds like a sick animal writhing in its own vomit: Daa-aa-aa-aaadddyyyyy. wayahyhahyhaha-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa.

Me: WHAT is wrong with Quinn?

John: Well, the wind is blowing outside. The rug is in the middle of our floor where it always is. It's November. That's cause for much consternation right there.

Me: Oh. Right.

So, attentive parents that we are, we continued on with our very important conversation about food. In the background, the nauseated cat moaning continued.

Lest You Forget His Neuroses

Last night at dinner, we made the amateur mistake of trying to place leftovers on Bryce's plate. OH MY GOD, HOW DARE WE???!! The offensive leftovers in this case were butter-flavored noodles made 24 hours before, and then sealed and stored in the refrigerator.

New information for normal food-eaters and unknowing parents everywhere: Re-heated butter-flavored noodles after 24 hours in the refrigerator do not, I repeat, DO NOT! have the same consistency as those very same noodles fresh out of the pot.

For normal food-eaters, this consistency change really doesn't matter. For Bryce, who must eat one single noodle off the end of his fork at a time, leftover noodles are the Spawn of Satan. As the sticky noodles refused to separate to allow him to eat in his normal, psychotic way, he broke down like an addict in a detox clinic, demanding that we fix these MONSTROSITIES on his plate. "I want noodles that look like this!"
















Oh, the humanity!!

Teen Logic = A Black Hole

Last night after the camera flash blindness, the halloween candy crash, the toothpaste terrorism, and the bedtime circus act (which, let me tell you, required the balance and bravery of a dental floss tightrope walk over boiling lava), we closed the kids' bedroom door and took the first breath of the evening, wiping sweat from our brows and wearily, triumphantly looking at each other like, "Hey, you made it out alive, too! Cool!"

We had just settled in to the evening trance when the entire house exploded in an array of loudness - DING DONG DING DONG DING DONG DING DONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was interrupted, joined, and followed by our large, stupid, yet dearly loved dog, clomping like a clydesdale all the way down the stairs and barking like someone was taking the last dog food pebble on the earth from him, fangs flashing, black fur flying, claws scraping all over the tile floor as he made the futile attempt to attack - through the closed front door, mind you - the people who had THE NERVE to be ringing our doorbell.

Now, I realize that everyone says teenagers speak another language and all that. But how much more clear can I be than, "Hannah, tell Chelsea if she wants to come by, she has to do it BEFORE THE KIDS GO TO BED BECAUSE I DON'T WANT THE DOORBELL AND THE DOG BARKING TO WAKE THEM UP."

Stupid teenagers. Luckily the kids were in enough of a sugar coma that they slept through armageddon, and the teens better be glad. Because if the delicate balance of the pre-school sleep universe I had just procured were ripped from my clutches in mere seconds, and for a few friggin' pieces of candy for some random teenagers, this half-blind-from-flash-happy-photographer-husband-in-her-pajamas-loading-the-dishwasher-PSYCHO MOM would have gone medieval on their little punk rock costumed asses. Of course, then I probably would have been sued...and I just don't have the time for that right now.