Lecturus Interruptus

Tonight during the typical ridiculous bedtime routine, John got stern with Quinn, which caused Quinn to cry and make loud accusations of child abuse like only a kid can who has never been abused. "He scared me!" he sobbed as he clutched my hand on his way back from the third trip to the bathroom where he'd hidden, giggling in rebellion behind the shower curtain and had caused John's patience levies to break unexpectedly. My own were rumbling and creaking beneath the pressure of my fatigue and frustration, and I squeaked out through my tightened vocal chords, "well, Quinn...dad was angry at the way you were acting, and because you ran away when you know it's bed time. So he yelled. Now it's time for bed." I picked him up and told him to take a deep breath, but the hysterics continued, so I started walking toward the bedroom and telling him it was time to calm down and stay in bed.

Bryce was having none of this "be the quiet kid in bed" nonsense, so as I walked into the room with gasping, sniffling Quinn, he hopped up, whimpering, then wailing, "I THINK I JUST FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO START CRYING!" My patience levies cracked and the superdome doors began to open for the hordes of potential victims, and I turned around, still holding Quinn: "No! You are only crying to get attention because Quinn is upset. Get in bed and be quiet RIGHT NOW!" Then I realized Quinn was lapping this whole thing up, and luckily we were next to his bed, so I plopped him down, pulled his covers up and said, "Stay in bed this time. Do not get up again."

"But dad scared me and hurt my feelings!" More crying.

"Quinn, I'm sorry your feelings were hurt. Dad did get angry because you disobeyed and ran away and yelled and hid after it was bedtime."

Bryce sat up in bed, and I continued. "You know why it was so frustrating to him? Because EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, we go through the same thing! We do this whole elaborate bedtime routine - stories, maybe a puzzle or short game, bath, teeth brushing, pajamas, hugs and kisses, lights out - and then you both get up and run around the house and yell and act wild!"

Bryce said, "Well, I don't know how to go to sleep. I haven't slept in a million years. You'll have to teach me!"

I kept on. "Bedtime is not playtime! Bedtime is time to be quiet and go to sleep! When dad and I tuck you in and turn off the lights, we want to go get ready for tomorrow and get our own rest. But EVERY NIGHT we end up having to come up here and put you guys back in bed 20 times! We end up running up and down the stairs like...! Like...!"

I had cut myself off with my own boring yet impassioned lecture, but Bryce wasn't going to let my pompous adult mentality stop this intense discussion: "Like escalator people!? Fixing the escalator!? With tools? Running up and down the escalator going bang, bop, bam!?"

The lights were off and I thought I could get away with cracking a smile, but the smile was accompanied by an unwanted breath of audible whispery laughter and after that the only lesson the kids came away with was, mom is a wuss. I know because the next two minutes involved both kids mock hammering the footboards of their respective beds, demonstrating escalator people (since I apparently thought that bit was so earth-shatteringly funny) while I kicked myself for showing a sign of weakness at such a critical time. If Chris Farley were there to dramatize how I felt, there would be a loud forehead-slapping session followed by some guttural and angry exclamations of "STUPID!"

So I give up, people. I. Give. Up. How can I be an effective dictator when the court jester clearly has effortless control over me?

It's not about the drinking, Meredith.

Last week at the doctor, I answered all the normal questions about my health and bodily functions with all the same answers I have every year, because I'm a lucky, healthy person with very few physical ailments. When the nurse got to the family history and behavioral questions, Has anyone in your family ever had a stroke? Or heart disease? Or breast cancer? and all of my answers were basically "nope," she had her hand poised over the "NO" box, happily checking away, and when she got to Do you smoke? and I gave my trusty "nope" she kept her head down while she read the standard list of questions and practically checked "NO" before I even responded. And then she got to the final question, Do you drink?, and let's just say she should use a pencil when filling out that form, and maybe also ear plugs, because as she robotically checked "NO," I busted out a hearty, "UH, YEAH!! I HAVE TWO KIDS, REMEMBER?" I thought this was hilarious, but then immediately felt guilty because her quick sideways look at me and her lack of even the slightest grin clued me in to the fact that she didn't understand that I was joking -- joking about my hedonistic alcoholic lifestyle, and about the poor, neglected children amazingly still in my care after years of being parented by people who drink wine and margaritas IN THEIR PRESENCE. ALMOST DAILY. She didn't ask about cocaine, THANK GOODNESS. Imagine the glare I would have gotten over that one.

It hit me a little at the time, enough that I even mentioned it to John, but I forgot all about it until I saw this setup interview between Slanty McSlantsALot Meredith Vieira and Melissa Summers today.

Here's what I want to say:

Dear Today Show,

You suck.

Love,
Kristen

But that really doesn't do this subject justice, although I'm not sure I ever even could. Furthermore, I normally don't get into subjects that 1.) originated from Blogland (because I don't consider myself part of the crowd, per se, etc. etc. blah blah you don't want to hear this) or 2.) are related to the blommy boars *shudder.* But in this case, I'm loosening my rule reins. How can I not? I know thousands of people will be talking about this and everyone will be so sick of hearing about it, but COME ON. Did you watch the video? The shots of the kids playing behind the large, looming glasses of wine? The clip of the woman saying she'd love to see a mom who doesn't drink while hanging out with her kids 15 hours a day so she could determine whether or not "she's a great mom" (I'm sure this is very indicative of the response you'd get from any parent who drinks...yeah)? The question, "would you let a group of babysitters drink while watching your kids?" and the unbelievably harsh, aggressive, and mostly STUPID follow-up, "well, you don't want THEM drinking, so what's the difference when YOU do it?"?

What is this crap? Is this honestly something we're concerned about? The "growing trend" of "moms who drink at playdates"? Who says it's a growing trend, anyway? It's not a growing trend. I'll tell you what's a growing trend: Playdates, and titling them as such. Socialization between adults who have children at any age has become completely warped. U.S. middle class adults are expected to center their entire lives around their kids. Parties and get-togethers have turned into Playdates and Little Gym classes: regular social outings specifically for and because of the kids - there is no other purpose (so if you meet a new friend who is there with his/her child, just accept the fact that this isn't about you, and focus on your kid, you narcissistic jerk). So extreme is this warped, Puritanical, surreal mentality that now if any adult socialization is ever combined with the Social Life By, For, and Of the Children, it is seen as taboo, selfish, irresponsible - so much so that there are articles written about it and morning show interviews with questions and scenarios and condescending facial expressions from famous TV personalities that reinforce, in case any of us had missed it, that our kids are not the number one priority, OUR IMAGE IS.

So, dads? You don't count. Only moms take care of kids. And they do so with no help from anyone, because moms are super duper amazing people whose abilities you could never master. That's why if you have a beer while watching a game in the same room with your kids, it's not really a big deal - because no one expects anything of you anyway! But moms who get together with some friends and drink a glass of wine while their kids play nearby should be labeled as irresponsible and selfish - not actually because they're drinking, even though that's what we'll make this pathetic argument all about, but because they're daring to have a social function - I'll go so far as to say even that they're daring to do anything at all during waking hours - that isn't 100% centered around the under 18 crowd. This is not part of the acceptable image for a U.S. middle class parent. U.S. middle class parents are all female (dads, see above). U.S. middle class parents are their children's business managers and administrative assistants, "on the job" if you will, where socializing with adults is slacking off and cheating, and drinking is just the straw that breaks the camel's back, that makes this entire argument somehow seem legitimate by playing on the lingering Puritan guilt complex around any pleasurable experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I'm leaving work to see the father of my children, the one who stays home and cares for them the majority of the time. And we're probably going to go somewhere that WE like for dinner, dragging along the kids who are undoubtedly dirty and cold and thankful to be allowed to whimper quietly in the booth next to the gruel we'll shove distractedly at them while we drink irresponsibly, right before we throw them in the back of the pickup and swerve home in time to pass out. Hopefully they'll figure out how to bathe themselves.

Parent-Teacher Conference (or "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean he's not out to get me.")

"You're doing a great job with Quinn - he's a sweet, precious child. I'd take him home with me in a heartbeat!" John and I must have looked bewildered, confused, and more relieved than we should have when we walked out of the parent-teacher conference. We'd gone in prepared to hear about how Quinn needs to learn to control his emotions, to share, to negotiate, to ask and not demand, that he screams and yells and stomps his feet entirely too much, that he really acts more like a two-year-old than an almost four-year-old; a part of me almost wanted to hear these things so I could commiserate with his teacher. I know, right? Man, he can be such a brat sometimes! GEEZ. Well, I'm glad it's not just me! Ha! Ha! Ha! Instead, his teacher looked at us like she couldn't understand why we were clutching the edge of the table in anxiety, and later, why we were slumped over and smiling gleefully in extreme surprise and relief to hear that "Quinn is friends with everyone" and that even though he is strong-willed, when he's told to stop a certain behavior, he always does, without fail.

I've lived constantly on the edge of anger with Quinn for the past few months. He goes from one extreme to the other with me, and I think my personality requires more stability or warning before loved ones decide instantaneously to flip a switch, in Quinn's case a switch that I think must be labeled, Loving and Gentle / Demonic and Horrifying. Because I'm the adult in the relationship and because parenting my older child hasn't exactly been a cakewalk, either, most of the time I'm actually able to overcome my own selfish personality quirks and deal with his bipolar behaviors without stooping to his level. There are times, though -- times involving sleep deprivation -- when I stoop.

Last night, like almost every night for the past several weeks, I woke up to the sound of Quinn turning on his CD player, followed by his yelling some unintelligible demand from the top of the stairs. You see, I'm the lowly servant who must come running anytime his highness screams for me angrily. So I did. I ran up the stairs and asked him what was wrong, but I couldn't understand his answer, so I figured he needed to go to the bathroom, and guided him that way. The switch, which had only been halfway activated prior to my mistake of suggesting he empty his bladder, now flipped fully to the Demonic and Horrifying side, and he stomped/marched/pulled against me and growled/screamed I DON'T NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM NOOO NOOO I DON'T WANT! TO! GO! I had been half-asleep before that nonsense, but now thanks to my bleeding eardrums and pumping adrenaline I was awake enough to be just as demonic. I told him through clenched teeth and my last effort at seeming remotely sane that we'd have to change his pants because his pull-up had leaked (probably waking him), and he growled/screamed again I WANT MY RACECAR PANTS I DON'T WANT TO CHANGE MY PANTS GRRRGRRRGRROOWOWOWOW. At that point I stomped out of the bathroom and left him there to cry in anger over the Injustice of the Wet Pants. When I came back, John was trying to talk some sense into him and looking at me like, has this house gone crazy? but all I did was hand Quinn the pants and take deep breaths. He put them on and I told him in a not-very-nice voice to go get back in his bed and to be quiet, Bryce was miraculously still sleeping. As he walked back to his room he turned around and looked at me with every intention of scorching me alive with the flames of hatred shooting out of his eyes. I followed him to his room and he climbed into his bed, turned around, and held his arms out for me to hug him. HUH? Oh, right. The switch. It's back on Loving and Gentle. I bent down to hug him and said, "Quinn, you do not yell at me and dad, and not only that, but at night, you have to be quiet because everyone else is sleeping. You know that!" He whimpered something nonsensical as his head sunk into his pillow like, "I just didn't want to change my pants and I just didn't want to go to the bathroom and that's so because."

The interactions between us in the middle of the night are almost always some version of that experience, which makes me flinch in fear and anticipation of the agony every time I hear him wake up and wail something from upstairs. By the next morning, after losing the requisite extra hour or so of sleep (and that's if Bryce doesn't also wake up for something separately, like he did last night when he tapped me on the head at 3 a.m. after I'd finally fallen back asleep and said, "my cat blanket fell off my bed. I straightened up the other one really neatly, but my cat blanket is on the floor."), I'm not full of eagerness to greet him, which is a result of a combination of issues: 1.) I am a mean, grudge-holding person, especially when it comes to losing sleep, especially when it comes to losing sleep every night for weeks for no real reason, and 2.) The kid is clearly manipulating me and I. don't. like. that.

It's not like I've never dealt with kids at night. Bryce still wakes up occasionally with various nighttime kid problems, but as I've established, even in the dead of night, he's very articulate about what he needs, and he knows that waking up anyone in the household is considered taboo, so he whispers, and he says please and thank you, and once the problem is resolved, he goes to his bed and covers up because I have to assume his brain is also telling him that we humans really prefer to sleep at night. For the most part, dealing with Bryce at night is amazingly low-key and low-maintenance. Dealing with Quinn at night is like fighting an absurd battle. As soon as you ward off one enemy, you're caught from behind by a completely random and unexpected one. Combat does crazy things to people, and I think I'm starting to experience PTSD - or just TSD, since this is still ongoing.

When Quinn's teacher told us about his sparkling personality and appropriate manners, even -- dare I type it? -- patience with particularly bossy classmates, I realized something: I'm not paranoid. My kid really IS trying to drive me to the brink of sanity. There is no other explanation. On the surface, he's saying, everyone else in the world has only good things to say about me, mom. I don't know what YOUR problem is. But in the dead of night when his impressed teachers are getting an amount of sleep acceptable to humans on earth, he's saying, bow to me mere mortal, for I hold your weak dying soul in my hands. And then he laughs maniacally. After changing his pants.

On Being a Piece of Fuzz

A year ago I made an appointment. It's not an appointment I love, even though it means I get to see the people that I associate with the birth of my children, but I made that appointment anyway. I know I made it because I do the same thing every single year. I stand at their little window with the thin pink sheet of paper with all the obsolete lines and acronyms on it, waiting to hand over my co-pay, and the girl behind the little window taps on her keyboard and looks at her screen and says, next year, January 16, 11:15? And because this is the only appointment I schedule ONE YEAR in advance, I assume there is nothing else yet on my calendar at that time so I say, as if I've thought about it and determined myself to be free one year from now, sure, yes, next year at 11:15 will be great. And then I go back to work and open my trusty Outlook calendar and click on one year from today at 11:15 and type "the appointment you don't love even though you get to see the people you associate with the birth of your kids." I'm responsible that way; I record my appointments in advance, so I don't forget them.

Today the people I don't love even though I associate them with the birth of my children came very close to experiencing my Wrath. If I hadn't already expended a good portion of my Wrath in the first parking garage as my breath billowed out in the freezing cold air, SIGH, HEAVE, HO, SIGH, ARRRRGH, kicking broken sheets of ice out of my way as I returned to my car after reading the sign that said, cheerily, something like "We've moved! Our new offices are not in this building, and there is no way to GET THERE from this building, so have fun driving to the other parking garage," I would have had some Wrath left over. As it stood, and luckily for the receptionist at the new, professionally-designed, designer chair-lined, wavy-walled, pretend-you're-going-to-the-spa-and-aren't-these-miniature-shiny-lavender-tiles-lovely?-themed doctor's office, when she failed to lift her eyes from the computer screen and asked me my name three times, all I had left was Desperate Disdain; the Wrath was basically dead by then. Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here for an appointment."

"I made the appointment a year ago. The only reason I even knew about it was because it was on my calendar, from A YEAR AGO."

Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here. I see you in here for last year, but there's no appointment for this year."

"Well there WAS an appointment, because I MADE the appointment, the same way I've been doing it for the past six years, which means I walked out with your computer-generated appointment card and subsequently put it on my calendar."

Clickety click click click, "I don't have you in here. And he's not here right now, he's in surgery."

"......"

Clickety click click click, "And he doesn't have anything the rest of the day."

"Huh. Well you know, I just went through about seven levels of hell to get here this morning. So. You know. This is really frustrating."

Clickety click click click, "He doesn't have anything until Friday."

"......"

Clickety click click click.

"......"

Clickety click click click.

"What. Time. On. Friday."

"1:00. Here's your appointment card. I'm very sorry about that."

Yes, yes, she was very sorry! Kind of like how I feel sorry for the fuzz balls when I yank them off my old sweaters. I mean, did I say I felt sorry for the fuzz balls? No. That's not what I meant. For me, for me! Sorry for me! Because it's such a colossal waste of my time pulling off all that fuzz. Stupid annoying fuzz. I'm very sorry about that!

The Ice Storm

Friday
I head downstairs to meet some friends for lunch in the crappy on-site cafeteria, in which I've agreed to risk my health and sabotage my diet with the only "vegetarian" option available, taco salad with a most likely lard-filled pile of refried beans and chicken-stock cooked mexican rice, because the ice storm scheduled to hit the region has everyone running around like madpersons, stocking up on batteries and candles and non-perishable food items, and my friends don't want to leave the building unless it's to drive to their houses. Personally, I'm not fazed by the panic. It's either denial or realism, I haven't yet identified which. I only know that I feel uncanny amounts of indifference towards the frantic, almost gossip-like way I'm being approached by everyone I know, "Have you heard? It's already 27 degrees! They say the cars parked outside are already iced over! They're letting us leave early! You should go!! GO!" I eat my crappy lunch next to two people who are interrupted with phone calls or co-workers stopping by our table every five minutes - all storm-related interruptions. All I feel about this storm so far is annoyance, inconvenience, it is butting into my day. I know the drive home will be uneventful because every time this town panics, it's for nothing. Yes, there will be wrecks, but it will be because someone drove too fast on the ice, not because the driving conditions are too treacherous. I am irritated with all the panic around me, and when I hear that people are flocking to grocery stores as if the apocalypse is approaching, I roll my eyes and sigh. My friends leave their half-eaten food in a sudden decision that RIGHT NOW is when they should head home. As I walk back upstairs, I pass someone from my department, bundled up and carrying her laptop. "EVERYONE IS GONE! YOU NEED TO LEAVE!" I try to seem concerned, but I'm sure I fail, and then I decide I really don't care. "Really? Okay. See you Monday." I drive home after picking Bryce up early from school and he asks if we can stop for ice cream. "No," I say as if programmed, "the roads are too dangerous, we need to get home." He looks out the window at the normal amount of traffic traveling at normal speeds, as if he's trying to figure out why some rain makes the roads any more dangerous than any other rainy day. I'm wondering too, but I don't tell him that. Everybody is saying the ice storm is coming, so we all must act the part.

Saturday
Bryce has been coughing since I picked him from school on Friday; he's getting worse, it sounds like we have a circus seal living with us. The cars in the driveway are covered in ice and John heads out to thaw one of them so we can go to the gym. I call the gym to make sure they're open despite the end of the world, and they are, but their kids' area is closed. John goes alone and I stay home with the kids. TV has grown old so we spend two hours getting dressed, doing puzzles, playing games, and making lunch. John comes home and tells me to drive slowly on my way to the gym. I do, but there are hardly any cars out, and I don't slip anywhere during the entire five-mile drive there. It's the same on the way back, and I think while John is at his wedding this afternoon, I'll drive over to my mom's house to break up the kids' day since we've already spent the entire morning wearing out the novelty of all the new Christmas toys. I get home and the kids are napping. John tells me they played outside, and as Bryce wakes up an hour later barking and hacking, I think maybe that wasn't such a good idea. My mom calls to tell me their garage door is frozen shut, and also it's sleeting now, so I really shouldn't get out and drive. This storm is starting to piss me off, I think. The kids have been in the house for over 24 hours; at this point I'm not sure how to spend the rest of the day. She suggests making cookies, and I'm shocked to find that I have all the ingredients I need. The kids take turns playing games on my laptop and stirring the dough. I think, this is a great way to burn an hour, and then as I'm cleaning up and the kids are still on the laptop I think, okay, so it was a great way to burn TWO hours. Now it's dinner time and the kids haven't watched TV since breakfast, so I'm golden. Dinner and a movie, kids. Then bath and bed. By bedtime, Bryce's cough is worrying me. My mom tells me pneumonia is going around, I better not let that cough go too long. I kick myself for not calling the doctor this morning because now I'll have to wait until Monday. Quinn gets a second wind while Bryce is trying to drift off into a drug-induced, vapor-assisted rest, and he gets up several times to tell me what he wants for breakfast tomorrow morning and then starts making la-la-la-do-do-do-ding-dong-ba-ba-ba sounds in an effort to annoy Bryce; it works, and I threaten to make Quinn sleep by himself in the playroom. My meanness pays off and he goes to sleep after that. I flip through the channels and the only thing on is the news - storm coverage. The main points are that power is out for some small towns, it's really cold, and more sleet is coming tomorrow. The roads will get worse. Dammit, I think. We're going on three days in the house with the kids at this point. I'm running out of options, and cough medicine, and sanity.

Sunday
Tap tap tap tap tap. I jerk awake and wonder if a woodpecker has made its way into our house and has mistaken my head for a tree. Bryce is standing right next to me. When he sees my eyes open and hears me gasp in fear, he immediately whispers all of this: "Quinn got out of bed and he went into the bathroom, I didn't even hear him go, he just went in there? And then he knocked a washcloth off the banister onto the stairs, and he closed the gate and slammed my door, the playroom door I mean, and our bedroom door? And I just thought that you should handle that. Because he isn't being very nice, and I wanted you to handle it." Then the circus seal bark assaults my sleepy ears. I look at the clock: 6:15. I remember that more ice is coming this morning according to the doomsdayers on last night's news. I'm sure we won't be leaving the house; John saw someone lose control of their car as he came home from his wedding last night, so the conditions are legitimately dangerous now. Fourteen hours to go. I toast Quinn's waffle and turn on cartoons and tell him to let me go back to sleep, but both kids are in and out of our bedroom with full bladders or requests for chocolate milk or tattle tales, so at 7:00 I decide to give up. Thirteen hours to go. We have cookies, which are helping me cope, but not really part of my attempt at a healthier post-holiday eating plan. The circus seal barks again, and I wonder how hard it will be to get to the store for more cough medicine. Stupid storm.

The Alex P. Keaton Gene

Several months ago, Bryce and Quinn became obsessed with coins. I think it may have started when my dad mailed them some smart-looking miniature leather pouches filled with foreign coins from old trips; the idea was that the kids would think the foreign coins were really cool and different, but since the kids are deprived little urchins who barely even recognized U.S. coins, I think they just assumed the coins in the pouches were the same jingly shiny fun that John and I hoard from them every time they longingly pass a machine full of bouncy balls or candy. Those coins (Czech, I think) are long gone, probably under various couch cushions and possibly even in the cash registers of some unsuspecting local shopowners who assumed the cute pre-schoolers buying a new 50-cent dinosaur figure were paying with money distributed and guaranteed by the U.S. government.

Quinn lost the pouch that his coins came in at some point after all the coins were gone, and so he started picking up and pocketing any spare change he happened to find. Anytime John or I would get change back from a store, Quinn would demand it, adding it to the small stash in his pocket. Things have now progressed to the point that by the end of most days, Quinn's pants are lopsided with the weight of dozens of coins, and as he prepares for his bath, the first step he takes is to fish all the change out of his pants pocket and place it authoritatively on his dresser - always in the same spot next to the lamp. He's like a pint-sized middle class stereotype, going through the motions day in, day out, tomorrow this harrowing existence of coin collection and transportation starts all over again, sigh. It's become such an integral part of his life, though, that he becomes frantic if we dare not offer him coinage anytime we happen to make eye contact. I met John and the kids for dinner after work the other day and the first thing Quinn said to me was, "do you have any money? I need some money!!!" John, desperate for five seconds of quiet, handed him a dollar bill, which made Quinn livid: "I don't want this paper, I WANT SOME MONEY."

The other night at the dinner table, John said, "when I picked Bryce up from school, his teacher told me that he kept raising his hand and answering correctly on every single money problem." I looked at Bryce and asked what kind of problems they were. His eyes lit up in pride and excitement: "One of them was 37! One of them was 24!" I had no idea what he was talking about, so John said from what he'd been able to deduce, the kids had to figure out how many cents the teachers were displaying in random collections of coins...somewhere. On the chalkboard? In a PowerPoint presentation? On Bryce's desk? We have no idea, but after dinner he got some coins out and tried it with Bryce. I was reading to Quinn across the room with one eye on Bryce and John. John would lay out several coins and Bryce would scan them, then shout a number, "18! 18 cents!" "39!" "42!" and John would flash me a look that said, "yep" and then tell Bryce he was right and start over.

I've known for a long time that Bryce is a quick learner and very bright, but I have to admit that this new coin trick surprised me. To be honest, I've wondered for the past few months if he's in over his head with his current class. They have reading assignments where they are expected to read to their parents for a certain amount of time each day. Bryce is a year younger than 3/4 of his class, so when we started trying to do the reading assignments, it was a very frustrating experience. Bryce would whine and demand that *I* read the words, and I would start out patiently helping him sound things out, but within two or three pages of him slumping further and further into the folds of the couch and the pitch of his voice changing from whine to wail, I'd be sighing and grunting with failed attempts not to make my disdain for this whole reading assignment too obvious. There are a few books he reads now with minimal frustration, but even sitting through that exercise can be agonizingly slow and robotic. When? Tiny? Was? Tiny? He. Ly- like- liked? Licked! Me. Heee? St-stil-stilllll? Do- Du- Doooes! Reading assignment time: not my favorite 15 minutes of the day. (But, don't get me wrong, it's still much better than Teeth Brushing Time, with the obligatory protests and the nightly ear-shattering "AA- AA- AA- AAA!" which means "I! Need! To! Spit!" in Bryce's Mouthfulloftoothpaste-ese.) The difficulty he seems to have with the assignments has made me wonder if the demands of the class are too much for him right now. But when I heard about the money counting in school and then watched his tiny body jumping around in ecstasy as he correctly shouted out the amount of coins on the kitchen table, I realized that, to use a trite pop culture Dr. Phil term, his "currency" is -- literally -- currency. And judging by the weight and jingle-jangle soundtrack of Quinn's lopsided pants each night, apparently his is too.

Huh. I wonder why the thought of my kids one day simultaneously on Wall Street strikes fear into my heart.

S.A.D.

My brother sent me a book that reminds me of all the intellectual things I don't do. When I read it, I feel a combination of appreciation for other people's intellectualism and shame for my lack thereof. I think, gee, I should really read more, I should really write more, hey! I know! I could post more frequently and make myself write! But I don't have time, or at least that's what I tell myself, because the reality is that I don't have the strength to face what's in my mind and on the tip of my tongue, that what has spent its time running through my mind lately has been NOT thinking, but turning up the radio on whatever inane station I've tuned into in my car, during the traffic battles that force me to recognize that in reality, right at that moment, I do have time to think. I just don't want to think beyond whatever noise is blaring in my ears because if I do, I have to ask myself hard, critical questions about things like lifestyle, priorities, long-term choices.

If I don't think about self-centered topics like that, the next natural progression is the rest of the world, and damn if I'm going to depress myself further by putting any thought or, god forbid, action into something that might help other people or improve someone else's life in some way. Oh no, I'd rather wallow in self pity for a while, then get up and go to my gas guzzling automobile and transport myself somewhere with shiny plastic crap and bright lights and ways to spend money, because when I spend money I kill two birds with one stone and accomplish both distraction and self-loathing, the two activities that most often keep me from admitting I have time to think.

It's a beautiful system I've worked out, really. Well, I should say it would be beautiful if it worked. But it doesn't work, because my brother sends me books with smart things typed on the pages, and I'm involuntarily pulled out of my distraction / self-loathing machine and beaten to an intellectual bloody pulp, left to cough and wheeze out my last pity-seeking breaths on the imagined Turkish rug of some imagined quintessential intellectual stereotype's gothic library. Dammit, I gasp, why can't you just let me listen to Kelly Clarkson in peace? Why must you make me think? I went to college, I gave at the office, now let me eek out my miserable suburban existence as if this never happened. I would love to be able to blame someone other than myself for my Sybil and Fight Club meet Dead Poets Society crazy-making, but I bring it all on myself. Or rather, I brought it on myself when I picked the comfortable corporate suburban existence over the socially and financially awkward option of moving stepkids and husband across the country for some vague, unknown potential life of urban intellect and some randomness involving dinner parties with eccentric, too-smart friends, old clunky desks piled with paper taking up more room in some small and probably smelly-but-endearing campus apartment than the necessary living and sleeping spaces. And sadly for me, I'm smart enough to know that even if we'd done something as insane as that, life would be even more chaotic and I'd have even more Intellectual Fight Club moments over which to torture myself because hi, I don't like chaos, I like my personal space. Smelly but endearing campus apartments don't afford someone with a large teenaged stepchild and two high maintenance mini-terrorists and a photographer husband whose office resembles a war zone a whole lot of Go Be A Big Smart Organized Intellectual Person space. Also, dinner parties? Yeah. They don't work so well when the hostess comes home and puts on her pajamas. Smart people prefer to discuss the latest Smart People Topics with other adults who wear something other than flannel elastic-waisted pants after 6:00 p.m. And somehow I know that the corporate politics I loathe would look suspiciously like the academic politics I would be initially, stupidly shocked to encounter; I know that my Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance cycle of shaking hands with corporate america would look exactly like the Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance cycle of crying in disappointment over life in academia. Still, I can't escape the quintessential intellectual in his/her/its gothic library of torture and forced reflection, no matter how long I stare at the blank screen or turn up the radio or rant about traffic, my hair, my job, or some other fleeting and empty topic germaine to my chosen life.

This is a difficult time of year for me. In college, winter quarter was misery on ice, a seemingly endless cloud-filled, freezing day. It was the quarter when the authorities charged with monitoring undergraduate behavior were most concerned about suicide. Each of my three winters there felt like an eternity; I considered leaving the school every single year during that time. No matter how many assignments and responsibilities I had on my plate (and there were always a ridiculous amount), the days dragged on in a dark, depressing haze. For years, I thought this was because of the drastic combination of Chicago weather, the school's demands, and the culture of the campus. Now, almost a decade later, I realize those things were merely icing on the cake for me, because every January and February find me in the same basic funk. Three years ago as my birthday approached, my sister-in-law asked me what I was planning. I had just started a new job after being home with the kids for 15 months. In theory I should have at least felt stressed and invigorated. Instead, I told her I didn't have any plans, I really didn't care about my birthday, I just felt like I was in a funk. "Yeah," she said, "birthdays just don't hold as much excitement as you get older." Huh, no, that didn't seem like the right sentiment, but I went with it. This year, as the holidays ended and I endured the mini-flu from hell and later saw the doctor for my resulting trusty winter sinus infection and hack-hack-hack-up-a-lung-and-forget-ever-working-out-again cough, I realized that the past few weeks of waning blog posts and the vague unidentifiable frustration and the sickness are recurring. I even checked the archives on this site and found confirmation. The blog was still pretty new at this time last year, so the irritability and depression might not come through as strongly, but re-reading the posts was like a swift kick to the head. Hello, seasonal depression, you sly dog, you!! Introduce yourself sooner next time, 'kay? I would have offered you some damned hot chocolate or some Wellbutrin if only I'd known you wanted to hang out and watch Fight Club together!

Hodge Podge

I feel compelled to write something here just because this space exists as an open tablet, and because we originally started this site as a way to record things about our life. But lately it's hard to find a lot of time to write about our life, considering how much time we're spending on the acutal living part. And that's not to say that the living is all grand and amazing or even stressful and demanding - just time consuming, all of it. Even the parts where we're sitting around staring at each other in a little bit of irritation and a lot of fatigue are too time-consuming for me to stop and sit down at the computer to try to record it. We'd rather sling mud at one another and dredge up old arguments, because that's a lot healthier, and it sets a much better example for our kids, who we're obviously hoping will grow up and make some lucky therapists very, very rich. Vacations tend to take their toll on us, whether we stay in town or trek across the country in a moving prison cell with our own miniature wardens sitting behind us dictating our every move. All that togetherness combined with the Chaos Extravaganza that is Bryce and Quinn on Vacation...well, it's a challenge. Let's just leave it at that.

I took a week off of work and rather than spend that time lounging on the couch and watching Christmas movies all day, we thought running the family ragged would be a good idea. As always, by the time John's birthday rolled around on the day before New Year's Eve, I was shivering and groaning in pain with every step, my body hosting some biological version of a show called, HEY STUPID! I TOLD YOU TO SLOW DOWN. It was a traveling show; John hosted the next night, and there was a bonus performance at 2:00 a.m. on New Year's Day courtesy of Bryce. Hello, 2007. Are you done sucking the life out of us now? Thanks.

On the bright side, thanks to the new furniture, the kids are now sharing a bedroom. Why I consider this a bright side, I don't know, except for the fact that the months of anxiety leading up to the act of putting the two little plotting terrorists together are finally over, and now we're left to deal only with the actual reality of the situation rather than the horrors our own minds were concocting. To be honest, they aren't staying up any later or causing any more nightly chaos than they were before, which is why we decided to go ahead and take the plunge to combining their rooms in the first place. That doesn't mean things aren't chaotic and the kids aren't getting out of bed six dozen times after the fourth or fifth good night kiss - just that it's no worse than it was before.

During all of the running around and subsequent death bed avoidance, we learned that Quinn is a puzzle master. You put a puzzle in front of that kid, he'll put it together. He has anger management issues as we all know, so he still grunts and pounds on the table in frustration if a piece doesn't click into place within .067 seconds of his initial try, but other than that, a puzzle buys us at least five minutes of relative peace. I'll have to tell the SuperCuts people about that. They'll be interested, because when I took Quinn there the other day for a hair cut, he sat peacefully on the waiting bench while they all avoided eye contact with me, then when one of them reluctantly called his name, he unleashed his special powers and shattered their crooked mirrors and melted their cheap scissors and caused mild panic in the tri-county area. Today he went to school with shaggy hair. I dare someone to mention it to either of us.