Eustress

Cliche thought of the moment: Everything changes so fast.


Seriously, though. You're going along, content to drop a complaint about boredom or fatigue every few days, whining here and there about the hum drum nature of your life, comfortable in your spoiled, western guilt over complaining about a life 90% of the world will never have the luxury of pretending to scoff at. And then all of a sudden, you look up and realize that all of those fake complaints are becoming null and void, sinking into oblivion under the weight of - what's this? - a lot of really good, exciting things happening all at once. It all happens so quickly and feels so unreal that you're completely in the thick of major life changes before you realize that your heart seems to be a lot more woodpecker-like than usual. You wonder, "Self, what is wrong? Everything is going right ALL AT THE SAME TIME!" You fight off paranoia and the temptation to seek out the inevitable tragedy sure to befall you as soon as the universe lulls you into a false sense of security regarding the recent and sudden set of unbelievably good and exciting things happening to you: "What will it be that finally ruins everything, self? A fire? A heart attack? A kidnapping? Cancer?" You talk to yourself like Annette Benning in American Beauty, but instead of "I will sell this house today" (which would be entirely appropriate), your mantra is, "I will not mentally sabotage myself with paranoia." But you can't help it. You've grown so accustomed to defending yourself against threatening changes, bad changes, changes requiring rapid response and slashing of resources, be they financial, emotional, logistical, that good changes don't compute. Your body and mind respond with the same fight-or-flight mechanism they've spent years perfecting.

Kid stories of the moment: Too numerous to recount, but I'll try.

Yesterday after Quinn's nap, he was incensed that John had dared to close the laptop and put away the mouse while tidying up in preparation for someone to look at our house. He remedied the situation by re-opening the laptop, finding the mouse, hooking it up to the laptop correctly, and resuming whatever game he had been playing on pbskids.org before being so rudely interrupted for a nap. I live with this not-quite-four-year-old kid, and yet I still find it patently unnatural that I'm telling a story about him 1.) playing an online game 2.) hooking everything back up correctly in his huffy, "the-world-burdens-me" frustration after his nap.


During dinner last night, Bryce informed me that the way he knew the grapes on his plate were clean was that he himself had washed them a day or two before: "They looked thilthy," he stated with his clear and simultaneously incorrect pronunciation of the word filthy, "so I decided to wash them." I beamed in pride at his attempt at maturity, and five minutes later when we told him to eat one single black-eyed pea, he gingerly, with his front teeth, bit off half of one, sloshed the nearby glass of water to his lips while his eyes filled with tears of disgust and near-nausea, choked dramatically, and then yelled, sputtering, with his arms flailing about his head in a final black-eyed pea-related decree, "I told you I do NOT like black-eyed peas. I will NEVER. Eat them! Again! They are disgusting and I might THROW UP."

Final thought of the day: Just a wafer thin mint.

John and I went to the Cheesecake Factory over the weekend to celebrate my birthday. Avocado eggrolls + cheesecake + wine = no more stress. In theory that sounds great, but it's really because your entire body's focus is on surviving the impending Monty Python explosion. Whatever works, though. Whatever works.

The Latest from the Fringe

Watch out, because some day he's going to be in authority.
Just as I'd finished getting ready for work and had sat down to check e-mail this morning, I heard some muffled knocking at the bedroom door. I knew it was Bryce, since Quinn just barges confidently in regardless of the time of day or level of fatigue. I opened the door, and Bryce stood there, holding his wadded blanket under his chin and squinting as his eyes adjusted to the lights in my room. Before I could even speak, he said, "Can I tell you a story about me and Connor?" I ushered him into the room and he kept talking. "At lunch, he really infuriates me? And when the teachers clap to tell us how long we have left at lunch, we're all supposed to clap with them like this, CLAP-CLAP-clapclapclap, but Connor just says BOP-BOP-bopbopbop instead of clapping." John walked in from the gym and I told him about Connor "infuriating" Bryce, and Bryce began to re-tell the story while John and I tried to giggle and shake our heads in disbelief as subtly as possible.

As much as I've talked about his intensity and his constant struggle for power, it doesn't seem like I would ever call Bryce a rule-follower, but he definitely is. It drives him absolutely insane if he knows there are clear expectations for a group of people, and certain individuals choose not to meet them. We are supposed to clap with the teachers, NOT SAY BOP! The other night on the way to his piano lesson, a motorcycle passed us right before Bryce started a 20-minute monologue from the back seat consisting of variations on THOSE PEOPLE AREN'T WEARING HELMETS! THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WEARING HELMETS. IF THEY WERE TO FALL OFF THE MOTORCYCLE THEY WOULD BE HURT AND WOULD HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE CONCRETE IS HARD! I DON'T THINK THEY SHOULD BE RIDING THAT MOTORCYCLE WITHOUT HELMETS ON BECAUSE THEY AREN'T SAFE!

We are masochists.
Last Saturday, as John and I walked through a newly built house for sale, the realtor representing the builder asked, in that prodding, unavoidable way, "how long have you been looking for a new house?"

"Seven years," I said seriously. She looked at me with a little fear and uncertainty, like she wasn't sure how to continue a conversation with a psycho. She did anyway. "Well, what is your motivation for looking for a new house?"

I kept walking and looking around. "We need more space. We need a better layout. JOHN! OHMYGODHAVEYOUSEENTHISLAUNDRYROOMINHERE? AND THE MASTER CLOSET IS THE SIZE OF A FOOTBALL FIELD!" She ran out of the house at that point, but only after throwing her business card at me. I'm sure she thought doing business with us over the phone would be fairly safe.

Meanwhile, between keeping Quinn from swinging on the chandelier in the dining room and keeping Bryce from climbing on the fire place, John was busy measuring the study and drooling over the size of the pantry in the kitchen. There is so much closet space that Hide and Seek in this house could last for hours. Given that fact, if we lived there, I might actually find some time to read again.

We put in an offer and haggled for a few days before we settled on a price. Aren't those games fun?!

--Ten dollars!
--Fifteen dollars!
--Okay, Eleven Fifty plus you have to add a phone jack and bring a dollar to closing.
--Fifteen and we'll add the phone jack and bring the dollar.
--Sigh. Twelve, no dollar at closing, but we still want the phone jack.
--Thirteen dollars and the phone jack.
--If we say okay does the madness end here?

So, we're going to buy our "dream" house. Of course, there is one tiny detail we have to address first. It's just a minor thing, really; it probably won't affect our lives at all. We have. To sell. Our house. The one full of tiny sharp objects strewn everywhere by three-foot-tall dictators. Also the one with the room occupied by a sullen, pack rat teenager.

Oh god.

What horror have we brought upon ourselves?

Don't worry. I'm sure it will be documented thoroughly for your "better them than me" pleasure. Glad we can help.

Somebody pray to the real estate gods for us. Maybe sacrifice a couch or something, too. We need everything we can get over here. Seriously.

Should Be Outlawed

Some details about the pit in my stomach.
A few nights ago John's out-of-town sister called and asked if Hannah would be interested in coming down for a visit this weekend. It was tentatively planned: Hannah would accompany John's other (mildly developmentally disabled) sister for a weekend of shopping and babysitting her younger cousins. The next morning, when John checked Hannah's grades online and found that she was failing three of her six classes (three weeks into the semester), he called his sister to tell her that Hannah wouldn't be able to make the trip. I've thought about detailing the reasons why (for those without similar parenting philosophies who won't fill in the blanks on their own), providing in detailed written form all of the justification for his decision, our decision - but I finally realized that the reason and justification don't matter or make one bit of difference to this story.

When he called to tell his sister not to make the flight arrangements for Hannah, here were her responses:

"What difference is one weekend going to make? Would she be studying over the weekend anyway?"

"What if you hadn't looked at the grades this morning?"

"Wouldn't a 'natural consequence' be her failing and being forced to wait tables for the rest of her life?"

If John's sister weren't pictured in our mental dictionary next to the entries of "self-centered," "flighty," and "shallow," these responses would have puzzled us, possibly even made us question our decision. But in this case, they only served to add to the heap of exemplary reasons why we avoid discussing anything related to parenting with her whenever humanly possible. John's mom was involved in the planning, so he called to let her know the disappointing news as well: "Hannah's not going to be able to go out of town - she's failing three classes... again." This is going to seem impossible, but her answers were suspiciously familiar.

"What does the trip have to do with her grades?"

"Would she be studying if she were home anyway?"

Not long after this series of conversations that made John want to cut himself off from all society, his sister called me: "He needs to take a Prozac. Why did he have to look at her grades today anyway?"

Those chills down your spine? That was the result of my metaphysical transformation into RUNFORYOURLIFESHE'SPISSEDNOW (henceforth known as RFYLSPN, or more visually simple and faster for me to type, Rifflespin). Rifflespin is not confined by space or time because Rifflespin is fueled by eight years of pent-up rage and the desire to inform my in-laws that I know their dirty little secret of dysfunction hidden behind the thin veil of utter bullcrap. Rifflespin wasted no time in verbally ripping John's sister limb from limb, and then I took over when Rifflespin needed a rest.

During a conversation with his brother the next day, John learned something: his sister had wanted Hannah to come visit mainly so she could help escort her other aunt through the airports. Well my, my! Doesn't this change things? Nobody ever mentioned THIS as a problem when Hannah suddenly couldn't come! No, it was all about how harsh John was, how inappropriate this punishment was, how she should get to go on this trip JUST BECAUSE! "Well I'm just sure we made it clear that that's what we needed," said John's mom when he called to address the issue. No, you didn't make it clear. If you'd made it clear, the conversation would have been about the fact that you needed Hannah's help, not that John was a horrible ogre-parent. Of course, if you'd made it clear, you couldn't look like such selfless advocates for poor, victimized just-going-through-a-hard-time (even though that hard time has lasted seven years and makes up her entire mentality) Hannah, now could you?

There is so much more, and maybe I'll expound in a later post, but I think you get the gist - the gist being, wow, where's the wine?!

Rock out, knock out.
Because of all this, I walked in the door from work like I was drowning in a sea of rocks. Rocks in my stomach, pebbles I'd swallowed in the struggle; rocks on my back, bruising me with every muscle twitch; rocks on my chest and even in my chest, squeezing on my heart and making it impossible to breathe comfortably; rocks in my hair and somehow oozing, plopping sharply out of my ears in blasts of pain. When I spoke, the rocks shot out of my mouth but they were in the shape of deadly arrow-heads, having been chiseled to lethal perfection by the rocky chaos inside - so whoever I spoke to winced in pain and stepped back, at once hurt and worried about my imminent rock-drowning death. I could see what was happening and tried to stop it, but finally removed myself from the vulnerable creatures and spewed my rocks at the inanimate objects in the kitchen while I unintentionally burned, par for the course of this week, every frozen convenience food item known to humankind.

While we sat at the table eating our burned, dried black bean burgers and charred crinkle-cut french fries, Quinn said, "Knock knock." Most of the rocks were gone, but I felt a few try to arm themselves at the back of my throat. The kids don't understand knock knock jokes - they always get them wrong. When you say, "banana who?" or "lamp who?" they string a series of random words together ("banana lips house magnet!") and crack up laughing, leaving you to wonder a.) what the hell they were talking about, and b.) if they'll be intellectually compromised as adults if you don't more effectively explain what makes a knock knock joke work. I didn't want to open my mouth and start lecturing him on the finer points of proper joke-telling, but I didn't have to. John stepped in: "Who's there?"

"Cargo."

"Cargo who?"

"Car go beep beep!"

The arrowheads in the back of my throat dissolved next to the remnants of dried out black bean patty and burned fries, and the entire table erupted into laughter, and shocked glee: "THAT WAS AN AWESOME JOKE, QUINN!" "WOW!" "Good job!" "That was so funny!"

Bryce was ready to try. He could barely contain his excitement and almost fell over trying to get us to listen to his joke. "Knock knock," he said through excited, gaspy laughter.

"Who's there?"

"Stairs!"

"Stairs who?"

"Stairs table head hair!"

The rocks tried to re-form, but I thought of something I'd seen on a blog in the past several weeks. "Bryce, knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting Cow."

"Interrupt--"

"MOO!"

We all slapped the table and squealed in the hilarity. Bryce was ready to try again, he told us he had a joke like mine, only different: "Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Horse."

"Horse who?"

"..... uh. Oh. Neigh! Neigh!! Hahahaha!"

Oh, we were all rolling now. If I hadn't been cracking apart with laughter, the arrowheads probably would have come back, because if I hadn't been laughing, I would have sounded critical. "Bryce, here's what you might try next time... say 'interrupting horse' and when I start to answer, make sure you actually interrupt me when you say, 'neigh, neigh.'" I was laughing so hard when I said it, and he was laughing so hard at his perceived comedic victory, that this just seemed like another joke. And now Quinn wanted back in: "Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Cargo."

"Cargo who?"

"Car go LIP LIP ahahahahahah!!!!!!"

I realize now why the kids don't understand knock knock jokes. His nonsense ad-lib was confirmation that the first successful delivery had been just a memorized set of words, but we laughed so hard after the series of randomness leading up to this that the kids assumed, as they apparently do every time, that knock knock jokes are a blank canvas that should only be filled with stream-of-consciousness brilliance.

-----------------------------
I don't know how to end this. I know that this morning before I left for work, John and I were discussing the need to cultivate some couple friendships, the need to force ourselves to socialize and stop hiding behind the excuse of being busy. By noon, we had discussed and or dealt with the issue of Hannah going out of town at least once each. By 5 p.m., we had discussed the general lack of motivation in Hannah, the fact that John's sister is clueless about such, and the fact that she had called the entire family to tattle on John's too-strict parenting rules since she wasn't getting her way. By 8 p.m., we were catching our breath after a rowdy game of "hide Elmo under the bed while one kid is out of the room and see if he notices" so we didn't have to role-play AS Elmo, which was our alternate option. And I think I remember now why we don't have a whole collection of couple friends knocking down our door to invite us to dinner parties and wine tastings, or even just over for Friday night pizza. We can barely keep a handle on the family obligations - the logistical, emotional, financial, and physical requirements of this household demand more of us than we can consistently give - hence, my near rock-drowning, hence, no social life. At least we have nonsense knock knock jokes to help us keep our perspective. Car go lip lip, indeed.

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?

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.

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.

The Longest Santa Claus Line Ever

As you would expect of us, the Christmas season is one of the more chaotic times of year around here. In addition to the holidays, about 50% of our extended family has a birthday between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Not one year has gone by since we've been married that we haven't experienced at least one car trip where I'm wrapping a just-bought gift, John is speeding because we're running late, and we're both on edge, Happy Holidays, damn it! This year we tried so hard to avoid that scenario. As soon as John had some free weekends, we were the picture of efficiency - grocery shopping, cleaning, making gift lists, scheduling shopping times - we even, for the first time ever, prepared tins of goodies for our neighbors. They weren't really sure who we were when we dropped them off, since they probably all identify us as the Dysfunctional Family Who Should Remain Behind Locked Doors, but that's just a small detail. We delivered goodies; so what if it took us eight years to be decent human beings?

The other night, though, as we were scrambling to wrap all the presents we so efficiently bought in time for Christmas, I realized that we had forgotten a pretty major, time-bound activity: taking the kids to see Santa at the mall. I was willing to let it go, but the next day I had to buy one more thing for John, so Bryce and I went to the mall together, and there was Santa's lovely green velvet chair, and there was the garland-bedecked photo background, and there was the mile-long line of blank-faced parents and strollers and wound up toddlers, and there was Santa himself, looking almost as blank-faced as the 12,000 parents forming two semi-circles of a line around him, an only partially in-control mob, holding his biggest fans at bay. Bryce's mind visibly raced, then he looked at me, alarmed: "Today is the day before Christmas Eve! If I don't tell Santa what I want today, it will be too late, and he won't know what to bring!! Mom!" I couldn't think of a way to get out of this, but I made a feeble attempt: "You wrote him a letter. Besides, Santa knows what you want. Don't worry. And anyway, look how LONG that line is! We'd have to wait FOREVER. And Quinn and Dad aren't here."

Yeah, that didn't work. We drove home, picked up John and Quinn, and went back to the mall. Where. Santa. Was. On. Break. We thought we could wait it out. About half an hour went by before Santa came back, and then the line started moving about four inches every ten minutes. Dinner time was approaching, it was hot, the kids hadn't eaten since lunch, and we had nothing with us to keep them entertained in an enclosed, small space around dozens of people with quiet, still kids - if there has ever been a more perfect recipe for disaster, I haven't seen it. Quinn was, at all times, either writhing on the floor or calling Santa's name from 30 feet away. I kept telling him that he had to wait his turn to talk to Santa, but he would only turn and scowl at me and say, "I NEED TO TELL SANTA SOMETHING!" The only way we could get the kids out of there was by promising that we'd come back on Christmas Eve and be the first people in line.

The Head Elf told John that Santa would start his Christmas Eve shift at noon, but when we showed up today at 11:45 (Early! Look at us!), the line was suspiciously long, and Santa was already in his chair, smiling / staring blankly at the eerily happy elf in the green vest snapping pictures without warning. By the time we made it to the front of the line, John had walked Bryce to the food court, ordered food for the kids (who we apparently prefer to drag into long lines while they're starving, because we really enjoy being stuck in one spot with kids whose blood sugar is low and who already have a penchant for screaming in public), presented a veritable picnic on the waiting line bench for them, cleaned up their fast food aftermath, and taken about six dozen pictures of the whole thing. The sign at the entrance said Santa started at 9:00 a.m. That piece-of-crap Head Elf must be a liar. Right as the kid in front of us was hopping into Santa's lap, the guy in line behind us said, "Just watch. As soon as we get up there, Santa will go on his lunch break." I looked at John with death in my eyes and said, "For the love of God, if we get up there and Santa walks away..." John totally called my bluff and said with a little sarcasm and a lot of challenging disdain, "What? What will you do?" He and that liar Head Elf are both in the Piece-of-Crap Club, apparently.

Luckily Santa didn't start his break, and when the kid in front of us was done, Bryce and Quinn, up until now quivering with excitement and barely containing themselves long enough to keep from knocking over the mall decorations or hanging from my purse strap, approached Santa as if he were some kind of exotic animal who, while enticing and tantalizing, might also tear them limb from limb if they made the wrong move. I helped them into Santa's lap while he gazed into the distance and dreamed of one day awaking from his coma. When I backed up for the picture to be taken, Santa seemed to regain enough consciousness to ask the kids what they wanted for Christmas. I tried not to make my interest level too obvious, but Bryce has changed what he claims to want for Christmas every day for the past three weeks, and Quinn just follows suit. I didn't hear Bryce's answer, but I saw Quinn mouth, "a toy house" and Bryce told me after he was done that he asked Santa for "a hiding place."

Two days in line for the kids to ask Santa for completely random nonsense. Yep, that seems about right for us.

Mouths of Babes

The other night we took the kids out to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights. Every time we came within three blocks of an outdoor yard display nativity scene, Quinn's head would snap around instantly, neck craning, chest pressed with all his might against the seatbelt straps, saying with frantic energy, "I WANNA SEE THE BABY JESUS, I CAN'T SEE THE BABY JESUS!" At first we didn't think anything about it; he attends pre-school at a church where they've been busy explaining the Christian Christmas Story and he's familiar with the traditional manger scene. But it became a little ridiculous when he could pick out a nativity scene on a street littered with holiday displays that included giant blow-up snowglobes, Santas, snowmen, and light post-sized candy canes. Quinn has always had a knack for finding small details among clutter; his favorite books are the I Spy books (I haven't introduced him to Where's Waldo? yet - I need to mentally prepare for the nightly ritual of "reading" those). During our Christmas Light Tour, whenever he yelled to see the baby Jesus, we had to stop the car and let him gaze out the window, studying every detail of the nativity scene, but primarily baby Jesus; apparently, it's his newest obsession.

I don't identify myself as a Christian, but most of my extended family does, and we live in a region where the majority of the population does, too. I want the kids to have as well-rounded a world view as possible, which doesn't mean that I want to exclude any and all aspects of Christianity from their lives, but it does mean that I also want them to be exposed to other belief systems and traditions. As the years have gone by, John and I haven't exactly written a detailed plan for how we'll accomplish this, and I certainly wasn't planning on doing it in a discussion with a five-year-old, but after all the baby Jesus talk during the Christmas Light Tour, Bryce cornered me last night at bedtime. He lay there on his pillow looking from me to the ceiling to the top of his eyelids, and as always he used his hands to emphasize his deep curiosity and sense of confusion: "How could he be born a baby and then grow up to be a spirit?"

This is exactly how he started the conversation, so I was understandably confused, myself: "Who? What are you talking about?"

He sighed. He gets so tired of always having to explain everything to me. "The baby Jesus! I am asking how he could have been born a little baby and then grown up into a spirit! I just don't understand how that could happen. How did he do that? (Oh, sorry I hit you with my hand when I said that.)"

"Oh. Hmm. Well, let me see. He didn't grow up into a 'spirit,' per se. He was a human, which is why he was born a baby. Christians believe he was the son of God."

"Yeah, God is the same thing as Jesus."

"That's what Christians believe."

"What is a Christian, anyway? Oh, I know! Christians are people in churches who read the bible." and he held his hands up together in front of his face, palms facing him, creating an open book.

"Yes, some of them go to churches. There are also other people who aren't Christians who go to different types of churches and read different books, and believe different things."

"Like who?"

"A couple of them off the top of my head are Muslims and Buddhists. But there are a LOT more in the world than that."

"What do they believe?"

"Uh. That's complicated. And I don't know all the details, but Muslims call God 'Allah' and they don't believe Jesus was the son of God. They believe in a prophet named Mohammed, who taught people how to love God."

"What about the other people you said?"

"Buddhists?"

"Yeah, Buddhists. What do they believe? And I STILL don't know how Jesus grew up into a spirit!"

"I told you he didn't 'grow up into a spirit.' He taught people about God and about how to love each other, and Christians believe he's the son of God, which is probably why you're thinking of him that way."

"But that's not really true."

"Well, that depends on what you believe--"

"Well we don't know if it's true! We don't know what God looks like, or how big he is."

"And we don't know if God is a 'he.'"

"Or a 'she.' Or if God has lips or a crown....well of course he doesn't have lips or a crown!"

Lips or a crown? This is what happens when you have a religious discussion with a five-year-old. I nodded and prepared to leave his room, but on my way out the door, he stopped me again: "How come spirits never die? I mean, I know PEOPLE die, but how do spirits live forever? I don't understand."

"Dude, I have no. Idea. How to answer you."

"Well I know. Spirits are bigger than the sun, which is very big, very bright, and very hot. So that is how they live forever. Right?"

"Can't we just discuss how Santa fits down the chimney like other five-year-olds do with their normal, sane moms? Please?"

Maturity, meet Paranoia

The other day after we had put up all of the decorations the Christmas tree and as I was running down my mental list of obligations I could find ways to avoid over the next few weeks, Bryce looked at me earnestly and said, "When are we going to put up that pretty garland?" I dismissed him and told him everything was put away, we were done decorating. "WHY?!", he demanded. "Well frankly, Bryce, I don't want to have to worry about you and Quinn using it as a superhero cape or a torture device." He was insulted, angered: "I won't do that! And I'll keep Quinn away from it." I felt a little guilty when he said this, but I wasn't faltering: "We'll put the garland up next year when you're both a little older and less inclined to destroy loose objects in the living room. It's not your job to keep Quinn away from the garland anyway." He stomped his foot, his eyes flashed, and his fist sliced an arc through the air from his shoulder to his thigh for emphasis: "I'm really TRYING, mom! I'm just TRYING to find a job around here. Nobody ever lets me help!"

(News flash, Kristen: You have a kid, not a baby. Remember? You just wrote about it.)

The garland is now up. Also, Bryce's new "job" is to wash the windows and straighten the living room. Everybody wins!

In recognition of Bryce's impressive maturity, I took him with me to do some shopping, one of the things I couldn't cross off of my list of holiday obligations. After a couple of hours spent fishing through picked-over, broken, incomplete, or just plain crappy merchandise, and then standing in line behind people who had purposely chosen broken or incomplete merchandise so as to haggle with the Garden Ridge cashier (classy, by the way), Bryce was tired and hungry. I took the route any conscientious desperate mother would and promptly brought him home for a healthy dinner and relaxing bath before bed fed him french fries and candy and sped to the next store on my list. By then, his fatigue was starting to become a problem for me. Not because he turned into a whiny lump of tantrum, which is what I expected, but because of this:

Me: Do you think she'd like this gigantic statue of a giraffe?

Bryce (eyes darting, whispering loudly): Yeah, that's cool. But mom. MOM! I think the store is going to close.

Me: No it won't. We have time. Oooh, I wonder if they'd like that insanely oversized bird bath. What do you think?

Bryce (concerned, agitated): I don't know. MOM. What if they don't know we're in here and they close the store?

Me: Calm down. They will tell us before they close.

Bryce: But they can't tell us if they don't know we're here! I think we need to go, mom! They're going to CLOSE!

Me: Bryce. What is your deal? They know we're here, and they will tell us when it's time for the store to close, and then we'll leave. Now, how about this random rock carving of a sleeping pig? Hmm??

Bryce (eyes popping out of skull, still speaking in a loud, frantic whisper): We are going to be locked in this store! They don't know we're here and they're going to close and they're going to lock those doors and then we'll be stuck here. DO! YOU! HEAR! ME?!

At the next place, every time I turned a corner to look at something, Bryce thought we were leaving, that I was finally heeding his warnings, and he'd say, with a new spring in his step, "Okay! Good! We're going STRAIGHT to the cashier. We're not stopping along the way." and then I would stop and pick up something else and his elation would turn to terror again, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WE CAN'T STOP! CASHIER! NOW! WE HAVE TO GET THERE! THEY ARE GOING TO CLOSE!" His head was spinning from the shock and disbelief he felt over the fact that his own mother was so oblivious to this great threat, Store Closing.

I'm working on a way to turn this irrational fear to my advantage. Psychological abuse is something I can so rarely use against the dark lords. So, you know...I need to savor this.

Anti-climactic, unlike poop in the shower.

Me: Quinn! YOU'RE TAKING A BATH AND GOING STRAIGHT TO BED! GET! UP! STAIRS! NNNOOOOWWW!!!

Bryce (laughing): I'm gonna poop on your eyeball.

John: Bryce! YOU'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT POOP! GET IN YOUR ROOM!

Me: Good lord.

Two minutes earlier
My internal dialogue: Don't laugh. DO. NOT. LAUGH. Oh, I don't even want to laugh. This is disgusting. What the hell is wrong with these kids? Quinn wouldn't have done this if Bryce hadn't come racing into the bathroom after him, probably shoving him out of the way and stealing the toilet seat. I can't decide which one to shriek at, so I'll just shriek in the general direction of the poop. On my shower floor. And wow. This really might be the only notable thing about my day. How very sad.

Two minutes earlier than that
Bryce (running down the hall, pointing at us, laughing): I have some bad news for you and some funny news for me!

John: What? Funny news for you and bad news for us?

Bryce (now laughing hysterically): Yeah! Quinn peed in the sh-sh-owowerr!!!

John (to me, contorting his face muscles to hide his laughter, covering his mouth): Did you hear what he said? Funny news for him and bad news for us! And he's totally right. That was hilarious.

Me (rolling eyes): Yes, I heard him. Brilliant. And now there's pee in our shower. What the hell?

John: Sigh. Yeah. Let's go.

Bryce (from bathroom, where he'd just returned): AHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOW QUINN'S POOPING IN THE SHOWER!!

My internal dialogue: How bad is this going to be? Is this going to be the most memorable experience of my day? I really hope not. Ending NaBloPoMo on this note would be so gauche. So disappointing. So painful. Aaaaaand, there's the poop.

Breathless Miscellany

By the time I have a chance to start drafting a post, I need a device that will take the thoughts out of my drowsy, heavy head and put them onto the screen for me. A device other than my own typing hands. I'm so very tired, but there is always so much I'd planned to say. If I were Bryce telling you in quick, urgent breaths about my day's events or about my latest revelations, I'd be starting every sentence with, "And besides!" That's his favorite segue these days: And besides! Conversations with him can be pretty choppy.

And besides! I found out that I have osteoarthritis in my knees! That means absolutely nothing except that I get to tell my trainer he can't make me jump, squat, or lunge any more. The "treatment" for 29-year-olds with osteoarthritis in their knees is - you're going to love it - TYLENOL! (And besides! I think taking tylenol is my favorite thing ever!)

And besides! The people at work suddenly have this unreasonable expectation that I devote a full eight hours a day to them. It's really cutting into the time I can put into blog-related activities. It's amazing how "behind" I can feel about something I'd have to classify as a hobby.

And besides! We signed Bryce up for music lessons. Soccer is over, and we really felt that our evenings and weekends were mundane and empty; we aren't really racing the clock as often as we'd like. There simply isn't enough chaos or strife around here; we need more activity! The lessons are an hour long and include four of Bryce's classmates. The last two weeks when I've gone to pick him up and write down the insane amount of assignments the music teacher doles out, the kids are literally writhing on the floor around her, completely over-stimulated. Bryce is usually oscillating between telling one of his friends to punch him in the stomach and shouting out random and strange (but not untrue) insults, like, "This house is really spooky!"

And besides! On the way home from his music lesson last night, Bryce asked for dessert. I told him he could have some chocolate pudding. "With whipped cream?" he asked, because he doesn't really EAT chocolate pudding, but he does eat the whipped cream on top (I'm morally opposed to giving him a bowl of whipped cream, but if we both keep pretending he might eat the pudding underneath it, it's a compromise we can live with). This is our recurring chocolate pudding conversation. "Yes, with whipped cream." "And golden grahams? Can you put some golden grahams in it? Oh wait! I know! I want you to HIDE the golden grahams in the pudding. Will you HIDE the golden grahams all in the pudding? Just use your fingers and push them down there really far! Yeah!" Okay. Things have gone too far when I've been so accommodating to my kid that he actually thinks this is a reasonable request. "Bryce, I'm not putting my hands in your pudding to hide individual golden grahams at random intervals! Gross!" "Mom! Please? Come on! And besides! You can wash your hands when you're done."

Desperate for content, she posts the conversation where she begs her rabid three-year-old for material.

"I wanna play on the computer!"

"Well, no. I'm working right now."

"Are you writing?"

"Something like that. Hey Quinn, is there anything you want to say to the world?"

"Yeah, I want to talk about the world."

"Okay, what do you want to say?"

"I want to say, uhhhmm... STATUE OF LIBERTY!"

"What about the statue of liberty?"

"THE SKELETONS!"

"????"

"HAHAHAHA!"

"What were you going to say about the statue of liberty?"

"RED AND GREEN AND YELLOW! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"I'm so confused. But okay."

"Mom, make Quinn stop it!! Ow! That hurts!"

"Quinn. Let. Go. Of. Bryce's. Head."

"AHAHAHAHA!"

"Sigh. Quinn, is there anything else you want to say? Anything at all?"

"BLAWADAWAKAJAWIEDODO! AHAHAHA! POOPY POOPY RRRR SHDOP BOW!"

"Dear god. Where is your father, anyway?"

The Trick-or-Treat Recap

Since John opted for the photo route (and I know we all expect more prolific work from him in the train wreck that will be Home on the Fringe's attempt at a month of daily posts), I feel the need to record our halloween experience for posterity. After all, I did it last year; it must be tradition.

First, to answer the question burning in all of those inquiring minds: the mummy costumes were made from the cheapest, most easily shreddable fabric from Wal-Mart (*shudder* yes, we shop there, and I bitch about it the whole time, then come home and berate myself for my hypocrisy, weakness, and failure to represent my own philosophies or, WORSE, teach them to my kids - let's not go down that road today, though). John gets all the credit for the creation of the costumes. Bryce started begging to be a mummy for halloween about a week ago, and John the Optimist immediately agreed, even though I the Pessimist stood there with my arms crossed and my lips pursed, shaking my head and rolling my eyes: "we don't have time, we don't know how to make them, he won't even want to wear it after you go to all the trouble, blah blah just name something else you want to do so I can shoot down more of your dreams, blah blah." John happily ignored me, shredded the fabric, stained it with coffee, and rolled all the shreds for quick child mummification on halloween night, by which time Quinn had also determined that he would be a mummy as well.

Before we got the kids wrapped and tied, we covered their faces with the highest quality face paint Wal-Mart had to offer. That is to say, after I sprinkled their skin with holy water and prayed to the hypo-allergenic gods for mercy, I agreed to let John smear those thick, only partially non-toxic "zombie masks" onto the eager, waiting visages of my sons.


The thing is, John and I have never wrapped mummies before. The need for previous mummifying experience became clear after about 12 steps into the trick-or-treat excursion. Aesthetically, the unraveling bandages weren't a problem. They only looked more authentic:


Logistically, though, the dragging, looping strips of fabric were problematic. Here's Quinn struggling to get up while we responsibly and compassionately snapped pictures after the first or second time he tripped:


By the time we made our way to people's doors, I realized I hadn't really coached the kids on proper trick-or-treating etiquette, but my realization came too late. The first poor sap who enthusiastically opened her door and squealed in fake fear over the kids' costumes, bent down happily to offer the cute little mummies some yummy chocolate candy, and was greeted with Quinn's disappointed and factual "I don't like chocolate."

Understandably, she looked surprised: "Oh, okay. Do you like Skittles?"

"No, I like Smarties."

"...Uh. Well, I don't have Smarties. Do you like candy corn?"

"No."

I was scrambling from the bottom of the driveway, hissing something at Quinn like just say thank you and take it! but this lady was a really good sport, now letting Quinn rummage through her bowl of sub-par, non-Smartie candy. He finally took something and I grinned sheepishly, and after she was back behind her closed door and we were safely around the corner, explained to the kids in no uncertain terms that there were three easy steps to trick-or-treating: 1.) say trick-or-treat, 2.) hold out your bag, 3.) SAY THANK YOU. No other steps were involved. No debating or hemming or hawing over which candy to take, no commentary to our generous, blissfully unaware neighbors about how OUR FAMILY IS A BUNCH OF FREAKS AND IT'S GENETIC AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT SO GIVE ME SOME CANDY! (BUT ONLY IF IT'S SMARTIES!)

Did my lecture do any good? Oh, come on, people. What do YOU think? Fortunately, some of our neighbors are Smarties-purchasing people and kept Quinn's rudeness at bay. Also, there were distractions like this:



Quinn is quieted only by Smarties, emotionally scarring scenes of severed body parts, and glowing skulls. Well, at least now we know.

Scary Reading

The twenty plus minute drive to Bryce's school each morning carries us through a wide slice of life. Both interesting and dull views of residential, retail, commercial, urban, suburban, rail yards, and oil refineries can all be seen on our route. Our drive begins on city streets then changes to major highways, then back on to city streets to our final destination.

As Bryce's reading skills improve (at an unbelievable pace) he is quick to point out words he recognizes and inquires about those he doesn't on the abundance of signage along our trip each day.

Today, as we were cruising along the highway, a big long haul truck pulls along side, slowly going past us in the next lane. Bryce doesn't like it when cars and truck pass us and is quick to tell me I am driving too slow, the truck will beat us, and he will be late for school (the critique of my driving is something he must have picked up from Kristen). As I explain that I can't go any faster than I am, and that we will not be late for school, he asks "What does that spell on the side of the truck?"

I assumed he was referring to the name of the trucking company that was in big letters across the trailer. "Arrow Trucking" I reply.

"NO! That's not what it spells!" I didn't know he was referring to something that was written on the side of the truck's trailer, written by a finger that wiped away the grime and dirt, spelling out a request by the truck's driver to help him ease his loneliness on his cross country journey.

"Someone wrote on the truck, dad. What does it spell?"

Since the writing on the side of the trailer was directly beside Bryce, and my eyes were correctly positioned looking ahead, I asked him to say the letters out loud.

Bryce: "S - H - O - W"

Me: "Show. S H O W spells show." Looming ahead was what can often be a hectic and dangerous three highway interchange where on ramps, off ramps, and lane merging collide in bizarre helter skelter fashion that takes every ounce of concentration to successfully navigate.

Bryce: "T - I - T - S. What does that spell, dad? T makes the te sound. te .. te .. ti .."

Me: "Uh, hold on buddy, let me slow down so I can see the letters."

I quickly slowed down, letting the truck zip past us. Thinking quickly (but not quickly enough to get into the correct lane that would take us in the right direction of the school meaning that letting the truck beat us did cause us to be late for school) "Oh, T - H - I - S, that spells 'this'. Someone wrote 'show this' on the side of the truck. Isn't that funny? Ha-ha. ha. ha. ahem"

In November I won't be able to get away with this weekend summary nonsense.*

Sparky meets his match.
At Bryce's soccer game on Saturday, I watched him finally "get" the game. After weeks of somewhat half-hearted and mildly confused participation on the outskirts of the group, he confidently ran for the ball and made purposeful kicks toward - and this is amazing - the right goal. During a break, his coach asked the team if anyone would be willing to play for the opposing team, whose membership had dwindled down to three players. Bryce immediately raised his hand to volunteer. I was concerned, thinking he'd be really confused on the field: "Bryce, do you know what that means? You'll be trying to get the ball in the OTHER goal this time. " He nodded his head profusely, with a subtle undercurrent of DUH, MAN in his little eyebrow-arching expression and said, "yeah, mom. I know." The coach for the other team apparently spent the morning in a competition with himself over how much coffee he could consume, because the amount of near-psychotic energy he exuded caused Bryce to step back and look concerned. Bryce. Encountered too much energy. (Let's all pause and ponder the near impossibility of that scenario.)

Energetic Coach: HEY BUDDY HIGH FIVE! HIGH! FIVE! THANKS FOR HELPINGUSOUT! WOOOOOO!!! HIGH FIVE!

Bryce (meek, for the first time ever): Yeah.

Energetic Coach: YOU NEED A NICKNAME DO YOU HAVE A NICKNAME? EVERYONE GETS A NICKNAME, WHAT IS YOUR NICKNAME? DO YOU HAVE ONE? WOOOOOOOOO!! HIGH FIVE!

Bryce (concerned, looking around for me): Um. My dad? Used to call me. Sparky? When I was a baby.

Energetic Coach: SPARKY!? ALRRRIIIIGGGHHTTT!! SPARKY! HIGH FIVE, SPARKY! HIGH! FIVE!! SSPPAARRKKAAYY!!

I think Energetic Coach understands high needs kids, though, because Bryce ran faster and was more focused on actually running in the right direction than I've ever seen him on the soccer field. Energetic Coach kept screaming GGOOO! SPARKKKY! at the top of his insane lungs, so maybe that's the key to Bryce's cooperation: not just volume, but vein-bulging, eye-popping, vocal chord-shredding, make-everyone-think-you're-losing-it V-O-L-U-M-E.

---------------------------------------------------------
God help us if he goes into politics.
Time is a big problem for us these days. This weekend I had to multi-task by talking to my dad on the phone while driving the kids around on various errands. During one such mobile conversation, I handed the phone to Bryce and he proceeded to talk about the most important thing in his life: his most recently acquired Happy Meal toy from McDonald's, a Hot Wheels car. After we hung up, I decided to take hold of this "teaching moment" (note to self: when these thoughts enter your head, just shove them out, you idiot): "Bryce, do you know why McDonald's gives happy meal toys with their food?"

"Yeah, because they want kids to have toys!"

"No. They give the toys away to make the kids interested, so their parents will BUY THE FOOD and spend their money."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is. McDonald's has to make money. Parents have money. Parents want to make their kids happy. McDonald's shows commercials on TV that make kids think they'll be happy if they have a new toy. The parents agree to take their kids to get a happy meal toy, and then they pay money for the food, so McDonald's gets their money, and the kids get their toys."

"Why do they do that? Why do they just want money? Are they just SELFISH?"

"Hmm. Yeah. I mean, no. Yeah. I mean, not technically. Blah blah capitalism blah blah Western civilization blah blah why did I bring this up?"

"So every single place we go WANTS MONEY?"

"Uh. Yes."

"GREAT! The DONUT STORE too?!"

"Yes, the donut store, too."

"Well, wait. I have an idea, mom. I think McDonald's wants to make money so that they can put more into their McDonald's stores! So they can buy more happy meal toys and food."

"Well, no that's not what I -- uh. Hm. Actually. You're... sort of. Right. Crap!"

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Oktoberfest 2006: "Whinefest" would be more accurate.
Sunday morning started like this: I woke at 6:15 a.m. to Quinn in my face saying, "I have a surprise in my blanket for you. It's pumpkin bread!" With this kid, I never know, so I bolted out of bed to check for stray food chunks in my bedroom. When I didn't find any, I put in a movie and poured some cereal, and performed an experiment - leaving him unattended while I went back to bed (after explaining that he needed to be very quiet and still, and basically not at all like himself). Twenty minutes later, after forcing myself to doze through what I suspected were sounds of the refrigerator door opening, I heard Bryce's tattletale sing-songy tone of voice at the bedroom door: "MO-OM! Quinn got out the LEFT-overs!!" I bolted up again, and found the refrigerator door open, a trail of cold noodles leading to the breakfast table, where Quinn had dumped a styrofoam box of restaurant food upside down in an effort to get to the delectable finger food he really wanted for breakfast: congealed macaroni and cheese.

Sunday continued like this: We complicated our lives by taking both kids grocery shopping, then to the gym, and finally, running on no naps or even attempts at naps, to Oktoberfest. But, but, but! Where was the chicken? Where was the beermeister? When would the kids be able to ride the rides? When would Kristen's ears bleed from the whining? Why were they out of potato pancakes when that's the ONE FOOD ITEM of which all family members are willing to partake? And why wouldn't Kristen do the chicken dance, what is wrong with her, does she have pride or something, and if so, does she not realize she forfeited that when she a.) got braces, b.) walked out in public with the shriekers, c.) came to Oktoberfest? And again, WHAT ABOUT THE RIDES ALREADY? WHEN CAN WE RIDE THE RIDES? WE HATE THIS BORING ART! IT IS BORING! WHY DO ADULTS HAVE TO LOOK AT BORING, BORING ART ANYWAY? RIDES! RIIIIIDDESSSS!!! WE HATE OKTOBERFEST, AAAA AAAA AAA!

Quinn stages a protest about the lack of seating, but can't convince Bryce to sit on the beer- and bratwurst-encrusted concrete.



First, no potato pancakes. Now, no dancing chicken. Why are we here? I hate this place.


See any above reference to rides, whining, or hatred of Oktoberfest.

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*We're going to try to post daily during the month of November for National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. If we fail, we figure it's just one tiny addition to a huge, huge list. This means the following:

1.) Since I can barely manage to post three times a week these days, John will be forced to tell you about what he does all day long. Haven't you been wondering? I know I have.
2.) My posts may be a lot shorter. And full of tripe and filler, of course. (More than usual.)
3.) If such a thing is possible, my/our publishing standards are about to be lowered significantly.
4.) I might not be sleeping much.
5.) We've officially taken on too many commitments. We are very, very stupid.

World Pools, Utinions

Me: "Time to get out."

Bryce: "Mom! I can't see! The towel is in my way and I can't see the world pool!"

Me: "Stop yelling about it. There. You're dry. Now you can see the WHIRL pool."

Bryce: "Woorl pool?"

Me: "Yeah. Actually, we're really supposed to pronounce it wHHHirl pool."

Bryce: "W-hhh-irl! W-hhh-irl. Pool."

Me: "Haha! Yeah. Something like that."

Bryce: "Well, I pronounce it WORLD POOL. That's my utinion." [pronounced you-ten-yun]

Me: "........."

Bryce: "........."

Both: "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Utinion! Ahahahaha hoooo hooo weee hahaha hahaaaaaa!!!!"

The above happened after a night like all nights at our house these days, a night where my voice was incapable of anything but a tight, sharp knife-like sound barking out commands and demands and occasionally sighing heavily, harshly, quickly. In our laughter, my words echoed in my ears as painfully as I'd imagine an icicle would feel as it stabbed into my brain: Quinn SIT DOWN! You haven't been excused! Just eat your food, stop playing with it! Bryce, I told you to stay downstairs while I'm cleaning up the kitchen. Every time you go upstairs, you run and scream. Why can't you just stay down here and talk to me? Stop whining! Suddenly you want to go play because I'm asking for your help? You never want to play when I'm asking you to! I said five minutes, five minutes is over! It's bath time! SIGH.

In my "defense" -- if such a thing is possible -- I'm tired. Very tired. I get up way too early in some insanely ironic attempt to be healthy, I fight the traffic for 20 miles, the other hundreds of thousands of obedient middle class "career people" heading off to earn their highest possible scores on the surface-important performance reviews grading whatever the latest arbitrary expectations happen to be. I meet and/or exceed expectations. Yay for me. I keep good posture, I wear professional clothes which I pack and carry gingerly from my house to my car to the gym to the locker room before donning them and sitting in my ergonomically correct chair at my large desk and my double flat screens and my recently manufactured laptop staring at spreadsheets and considering "risks" and looking for anomalies and hoping against hope I'll find one just to create some excitement in my day, knowing that such excitement would mean loss, LOSS for the company, but GAIN for me and the ever-present expectations, will she be a good employee? Will she save us from hidden problems? Will she be worth the salary and benefits and resources and time and training? And then I fight the same 20 miles again with hundreds of thousands of good civilians heading home trying to be "balanced" and spend "family time" with their kids at night, eating dinner at the table, maybe by candlelight, making attempts at discussions and showing interest in everyone's day, presumably also involving good posture and meeting or exceeding the school's or the company's or the client's expectations -- we all fight to get to OUR SPACE first. And when I get home, inevitably someone is screaming, whining, or jumping. And because of my personality, because of my quirks, because of my nature, it just sounds like a broken record, and a loud one. It is shrill, it is blood-boiling pressure, but mostly it is fatigue in physical form - and guilt incarnate. I hear their voices yelling HI MOM NO QUINN GIVE ME THAT BRYCE and I pull at the icicle but I don't have the strength and it pokes, it pierces, and I lash out with my voice.

But sometimes one of my sons musters more strength with their puny undeveloped 35-pound bodies than I can with all the core-strengthening personal training I waste money on each week, and they melt the icicle effortlessly, using words like "world pool" or "utinion" or "abdivate" or, in Quinn's case, "poopy poop head" and even my tired, frustrated, tortured soul quirkiness can't hold up to it.

But the thing is, I need more melted icicles. I need them to melt before I pass them on like some sort of dysfunctional frozen torches to my sons. They shouldn't be responsible for melting them. I shouldn't be hearing myself as if I'm a separate party altogether, I shouldn't be watching myself like a pathetic character on a low-budget after school special fighting my guilt and alienating my children slowly, gradually, day by day. It feels criminal that my three-year-old would look at my face with genuine concern and slight fear after I remind him to keep his shoes off of the couch (which is already a trash heap anyway, why does it matter?) and ask, "are you happy, mom?" When I find myself with my entire family crouching around a tiny burrow full of squirming, furry baby rabbits or moles (we still don't know which) in our back yard and the first words out of my mouth, "you're too close, Bryce, GET BACK" ruin the moment and lead to my usually laid-back husband saying, "do you think you could be a little more h-a-r-s-h?" as my formerly passionately-interested-in-nature five-year-old slumps back into the house, alone, something is dead wrong.

I know this. I feel it. But I don't have the solution. When Bryce marched confidently back into the back yard in his rain boots to continue admiring the rabbit-mole-babies, he plopped down in front of me, unfazed, happy, excitedly watching the four newborn sniffing creatures with complete innocence. Maybe when the icicles melt, they truly evaporate. But I don't know. I truly don't. I don't know how to abdivate the appropriate utinion in this case. Maybe I should ask Bryce.

Some New Twists

Yesterday I was talking to John on the phone while he was in the car with Quinn, and he started using his long-winded, random vocabulary style of talking that we have to use to keep the kids from knowing we’re referring to them (mainly with Quinn, because Bryce is old enough that he always figures it out anyway).

John: So have you ever noticed how…Child Number Two…manages to, without your knowledge, acquire items from the white box-like appliance in the room where we prepare our meals?

Me: What? He goes to the dishwasher?

John: No, the bigger white appliance.

Me: The refrigerator? He’s getting into the refrigerator when you’re not around?!

John: Yes, and I’m trying to modulate my voice so as not to bring further attention to this re-telling.

Turns out Quinn opens the refrigerator door, stands on the bottom shelf, and rummages around until he finds whatever delectable treat seems like a good snack at 10:00 a.m. Yesterday, John walked through the living room and noticed Quinn suspiciously positioned on his side in our chair with the flap-style cushions, the upper flap strangely bowing out. It was a Tupperware dish of cold macaroni and cheese. The kid sneaks macaroni and cheese. Cold, out of the refrigerator. And snacks on it. While hiding it from us.

Whatever. At least it keeps him quiet for more than 15 seconds.

************************************

Last night as I was drying Bryce off after his bath, he said, “Mom, I’ll give you ten dollars if you make it Christmas time.”

“I can’t make time go faster, Bryce.”

“Yes you can! Just go to the computer, click three buttons and tell it to abdivate to Christmas, and you’ll be done!”

Wow. I never knew the internet was so very powerful. I can simply abdivate to Christmas. What else can I do? Can I abdivate world peace?

************************************

Speaking of world peace, I’m having a lively discussion with someone over at Freezio’s place about U.S. foreign policy. It’s made me think that I should stop dominating Freezio’s comment box and use my own space to state my opinions or thoughts. I’m struggling with whether or not I want to do that; as I’ve said before, I (usually) tend to shy away from political debate because I don’t feel that I take enough time to be as educated as I should be on all the issues. I don’t want to put myself in a position where I can’t address a claim or answer a question because I don’t have reams of political history at my finger tips. I’m still considering how and if I’m going to address this here. I know I have a lot to say; I’m just not sure I have the energy for an argument over it, especially not from someone like Arwen’s new best friend, who repeatedly combs through her archives to find more to criticize about past posts, political or not.

If I do this, the issues I address will be broad and will expose me for the non-conforming pacifist I am. That whole pacifist part of the phrase non-conforming pacifist means, people, that I don't want to be attacked on my own website; I won't be attacking anyone and would appreciate the same respect. I'm all for discussion, challenge, debate, and supporting one's claims. I'm not for name-calling, assumptions, or stereotyping based on one paragraph read on a blog or in a comment box. Now that I think about it, if I do this, I may include this disclaimer at the top as a reminder each time. Because I'm an anal commie tree-hugger that way. Oops!

Broaching A Sensitive Subject

We have been talking to Quinn for weeks about giving up his "paci," dropping hints, making jokes, subtly referencing his status as Big Boy. We haven't worn him down one iota.* He holds his ground no matter what approach we take: "No! I want my paci! I like my paci! I'm not a baby yet!" That last part is confusing, and I think it pretty much sums up his entire identity crisis right now. He wants to be a big boy: hence, the "not a baby" portion. He doesn't want to give up the luxuries of babyhood: hence, the "yet" portion. I feel sympathetically amused every time he says it. (I know, that statement makes no sense: he's confused, I'm confused.)

We have yet to force the issue because we almost scarred the poor kid for life when in a fit of parental insanity during his toddlerhood, I decided on a random night that it was time for him to give it up. No warning, no discussion, just "Oops, the paci's gone! Look at that! Well, good night!" followed by the tortured wails of a completely confused and disoriented baby. During the crying and my simultaneous pulling out of all my own hair, John and I consulted the trusty Internet for advice, and learned that pacifiers, as long as they aren't in use all day and preventing a toddler from learning to speak properly, really pose no problem. Thumb and finger sucking is much worse in that thumbs can't be taken away EVER and the bone pressure on the teeth causes more potential long-term damage to a child's bite. Upon learning that set of facts, I returned Quinn's paci to him and he whimpered himself to sleep. Ever since then, I've been a little gun-shy about the whole paci issue.

He's three now, and still only uses the pacifier to go to sleep, never during the day or any awake time. His speech has developed normally (uh, yeah - we don't have any talking or yelling problems around here - you've noticed?), but - BUT - he does have an overbite the EXACT SAME size and shape of his pacifier. Hard to ignore. I've done a lot of research and continue to find medical advice consisting of the same facts I found two years ago - namely, as long as the child discontinues pacifier use by the age of four or five, permanent damage to the palate is not a risk. "Let the child give it up on his own" is what I keep reading. But I look at that overbite and it worries me. I'm pretty sure if I took him to a dentist or specifically asked the pediatrician about it, I'd get a hefty lecture. We don't want to turn it into a huge emotional issue for him, though, so we just keep talking about it, and haven't actually made any threatening moves yet. We're at a definite standstill.

Tonight I had an epiphany. The kid is obsessed with going to the fair, which happens around here in October. He's been talking about going to the fair since LAST October, about two days after we went. About four times a week at bedtime, he'll ask about it as I'm laying him down: "we go to the fair tomorrow?" Tonight after dinner as I rolled marbles and cars on the floor with the kids, Quinn asked about the fair. I said, "Hey! If you'll say goodbye to your pacis, then I'll be sure to take you to the fair when it comes!" He stopped, silent, and looked at me with a conflicted grin on his face, the wheels in his three-year-old brain turning. I kept talking, "the way you say goodbye to them is that you leave them for the Paci Fairy, and she leaves you a brand new soft, special toy that you can sleep with so you won't need a paci anymore..." Silence. Conflicted grin. Wheels turning. "What do you think about that??" He gave me a suspicious look: "A new toy?"

"Yeah! A new soft toy! Like a Teddy Bear! Don't your friends at school sleep with Teddy Bears?"

"Yeah. I could get a new Teddy Bear?"

"Totally! And then you wouldn't need the paci anymore, your friends at school don't use pacis, right?"

"No, they have Teddy Bears."

"Yeah! So you could have one too, and you could say goodbye to your paci."

I got stingy, and I pushed the subject too far, too fast, just like always. He slammed the door of opportunity hard on my face and said, "I don't want that stuff. I don't want a Teddy Bear anyway. I want my paci."

"Why do you like your paci?"

"Because! I like to put it in my mouth and go to sleep!"

Well, the kid knows what he needs. He knows where he stands. Even his deceptive, bribing mother can't sway him. I'm thinking in seven more months when he turns four, maybe I will have convinced him. I can still threaten not to take him to the fair, but we all know that's never going to happen.

*When I tried to type the word iota, it came out idiot - that should tell you something.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

Items of note about this video:

--Bryce's pronunciation of "finger" (listen closely; he says it with a TH sound - we don't correct him anymore, it's just not worth it)
--Bryce's constant repetition of directions that aren't being followed ("it's supposed to go on your THINGER, Quinn!")
--Quinn's innocent and patient attempt to follow his brother's random (yet strict) directions
--Quinn's apparent belief that giraffes communicate via a high-pitched squeal
--Quinn's lack of understanding about the whole idea of a puppet show (i.e., the puppet master should be invisible for the love of all that is holy)
--Bryce's repetition of the phrase, "Argh, me hardies!" (We think he means, "Argh, me buckos!" or "Argh, me mateys!")
--Bryce's final decision that he needs a thinger puppet too, what with his sweaty hand and all