How to honor the dead

I've been following this blog.  WARNING! DO NOT CLICK LINK if you are not in the right frame of mind to read about a five year old with Cancer.  Ty Louis Campbell was born 6 days after our Jake was born.  He lived in another state. We've never met him, and I've only been reading his family's blog for less than 2 weeks. He's been sick with a brain tumor for 2 years.  His family nicknamed him "Super Ty".  And today, he died.

October 17th...

Fifteen years ago today, one of my kindred spirits died.  We were 24 years old when John died.  I've known and loved him since my senior year in HS; and we spent some intense "coming of age" time  in those tender "late teenage/ early 20's" years together...  He's been dead more than twice as long as I knew him as a living soul, but I'd be a liar if I told you I wasn't all messed up about it today.  I think about John every day, but I spent a lot of today beating myself up, and just being sad.  It's just fucking sad that he had to STOP while the rest of us had to keep going and fill the place in the garden where he was growing up near us.

Today, I'm 39 and 1/3 years old and the promise of FORTY looms over me like a laughing ogre.   I really buy into that stuff about people are only as old as we feel or act; but truth be told-

I'm feeling old.

October 17th usually does that to me.  And Stories of kids dying has a similar effect. But it's not just psychological:

My body is creaking... My gray hair is growing in, my abdomen is full and flabby.  My memory is showing signs of fragility.  I've spent a lot of exhausting effort- keeping survivor's guilt at bay, trying to be sure I did a little more than I might have otherwise in the name of he-who-is-no-longer-with-us.  (I'm not sure I've succeeded.)

I spent the early years after John's accident working hard to be sure I did not seal off my heart.  And I still do a lot of meditating on settling into and celebrating the hardships and sometimes disappointments associated with "growing up" and aging.

Feeling the weight and simultaneous levity of every birthday is intentional.  I will not lie about my age.  I will not regret this ticking off of the years.  "I've earned these gray hairs," I like to quip.  And "Not everyone gets to be this age," I repeat at least annually.

John B. Klimaszewski was about as brimming with life as a body could be.  He was about as energetic and full of possibility as any of us has a chance of being.  He was completely human, prone to making mistakes of all sizes.  But with a smile and compassion and generous spirit that makes you want to whimper about only the good dying young.  To be fair, alcohol seems to also play a role in many pre-mature deaths.  But I digress...  I use his full name here because he died in 1997, before Facebook, before Google, before the internet was useful or organized.

If you die when you're a child, or even a young man- how can all that potential be lost???  What happens to it?  What happens to all that people wished for you?!?

If you die before Facebook or Twitter, or even Google existed, did you exist at all? Where is the public record.  Newspapers and stacks of town hall documents are not being transferred to the internet, they are crumbling apart in soon to be extinct metal filing cabinets.

There is the philosophical and there is the emotional.

My heart has broken right open for Super Ty, for his parents and brother... Their story has effected me profoundly.  What will they do now?  How will they handle their grief?  Will they be okay?  My heart still aches for John.  All these years later- what I wouldn't give to be retweeting his hilarious tweets and harassing him via text right now... Comparing notes and stories about our children.

I've been shy about putting posts up about John on this blog- not because there's a huge volume of things I want to write about him, necessarily, but  because it somehow doesn't seem to be "MY" story to tell anymore.  My story contains a different cast of characters.  And I'm not sure whose permission to ask to keep telling John's story (or at least the part of his story that I am privy to).

But I guess at this late stage in the game, I'm happy to have that conversation/debate if someone comes out of the woodwork and says I can't talk about him.  I am desperate for stories about him to be told.  No matter what you believe related to an after life, it seems to me that you can only exist here- in the world- if there is a shared understanding of you- If you stay alive in the memories of others.  If the stories about you are told.

I went into my basement... to look for pictures... of him... And found the most amazing thing- a love letter from my wife.  It was written just after we had first fallen for each other.  Her love: sweet and exuberant and described to me in generous, flowery, metaphorical detail; in her own lovely handwriting.
- Way before we imagined how children would enrich our life and exhaust us and deepen our love for each other.
- Way before we could comprehend the hard work required of us by marriage.
- Way before we learned to rely on each other's strengths and encouragement.

I think it's okay to spend a bit of time wallowing in grief as long as you try not to get lost in it.  I think the most important thing we can do for our dead is to acknowledge them, bring them with us, (sometimes slap their pictures up on the internet and tell a few stories about them) while we carrythefuckon... 

RIP Super Ty
RIP Johnny K

I love you Jake and Milo.
I love you, Katy

Every day is Mothers' Day

It's been a rough couple of weeks for me.

By "rough" I mean nothing-really-that-bad, but flat out exhausting...

You know that saying, you can have something "fast", you can have it "good", you can have it "cheap" or... you can have any combination of TWO of those, but you cannot have all three?

That little riddle has been popping into my mind in the last few weeks as I have considered my lot in life... And this started scrambling around in my head...

The housework has fallen behind a bit. The house is just- well- not.clean. (I guess that is really the best way to put it.)
I've been trying to keep up with exercise, and I have a huge project underway at work that will span about six weeks (we are 3 weeks in).

I've been doing my best to be a good mom and wife and not knowing the "laws" of this particular species of Venn diagram, I am not sure if more than 3 areas can be sufficiently covered at one time. All I know is I can see the teetering- I feel wobbly. On the days/weeks I feel I am keeping up with my duties at work, exercise habits are hard to maintain... the blog (as you know) is long suffering. The highest priority is of course the family, and you'll have to poll my wife, but I'm not sure how well I'm holding up my end. The madness of parenting a rounding-the-corner-towards-2 year old and a rounding-the-corner-toward-4 year old is as pervasive as mold.

Katy and I marvel every day at the paradoxes inherent the chemical reactions that occur in our brains: The degree to which I adore these ruggies and the simultaneous tension I feel as my time with them stretches the seams of the fibers of my being... At some point in every day, i want to melt from the awesomeness that pours out of their minds and mouths. And invariably, at some point in every day, I want to run screaming from their nonsense...



JB, for example, does a lot of TALKING right now. When he has had the perfect amount of sleep (the formula that determines this magical amount of sleep has not been revealed to me) he is funny, sweet, and adorable. But a lot of the time, he thinks he knows what's what and, he doesn't. And he thinks he's in charge of stuff that he can't possibly control. The most amazing thing about a 3 1/2 year old is how they learn the "tone" that accompanies adult conversation, but the tone is usually empty. Knowing the lingo is only half the game... Kids have no understanding of snark, no comprehension of the multitude of ways that humans intentionally and unintentionally mess with each other. They have learned the words and they mimic the tone, but they have no knowledge of the rules of engagement.

Picture this: A cloudy day. I work 8 or 9 hours and race to the day care to get the ruggies. JB, who at times has difficulty with "transition" tells me he's not ready to leave and he stalls so much that he nearly gets a time out. ML bounds towards me, we walk out the door and before we get to the car he has splashed his way into a large puddle. Soaked, I buckle him in and then buckle in JB. The entire way home, there's a lot of loud yapping and screeching. I have not yet been with my beautiful children for 20 minutes, but I'm already not sure how I will make it through the next 3 hours.

We pull into the driveway and JB sighs loudly: "I hate our house."

Srsly?



I am white-knucking the steering wheel. I can't believe the potency of the feelings I am experiencing. I know logically that I can not take this joker at his word, that I need to have more patience, but pure disgust is like a warm, white fire slowly consuming me. If a fully formed human had said this, I would have been all like:
"WTF is wrong with you?!? WHO says that?!? That is rude and you have a lot of nerve!!! If you dont' like this house, you don't have to live in it!!! Do you have any idea how hard we work to provide you with a shelter this amazing?!?"

Mind you the entire time I am mentally speach-ifying, ML is screeching: "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-OOOOOOOHHHHHHH-ooOOOOOOOOOOOO-AAAAA!

I take a deep breath and ask JB in the most neutral tone I can muster: "Honey, why would you say that?" (inhale, exhale, heart beat, heart beat)

JB: "I don't know, I guess I just wish we could paint the whole thing orange."

[sigh] I'm glad I didn't just go with my first reaction.



ML, on the other hand is an entirely different beast. He is all action for JB's pensiveness. He is determined where JB is unsure. He is reckless and goofy where JB is cautious and serious. ML, for example, understands every mother-humping word we say, he can identify 68 different varieties of truck from a mile away, but he can not will his lips or vocal chords to pronounce the word: TRUCK.





I mean even though I know it is developmental, it really seem like stubbornness.
It's always:
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA!"
or
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
or, inexplicably:
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

His insistence and persistence is mind-boggling.
"Yes!" I shout back, "I know!!! a TRUCK!!! It IS AWESOME!!! Just like it was 5 seconds ago!!! LOok there!!! Another one!!! AMAZING. THANK YOU FOR POINTING THAT NEW ONE OUT!!!"

ML is the type of kid that the first time he plunged his entire arm into the toilet bowl, it was all about the science of discovery, but now it is a Marks Brothers skit: He knows the specific "toilet bowl look" that he has to produce before he gives chase to the bathroom. And even though he has a healthy head start, he will wait for us- perched, contemplative, like a diver on a block- his arm readied at his ear, until i get within 2 lunges of him. We lock eyes. He waits for me to plead, "NO...." and then submerges to the clavicle, smiling... never breaking eye contact...

That kid tries to climb in the oven, sits in the refrigerator, turns on the dishwasher, surfs down the stairs into the garage, tries to feed peanut butter to the iMac. He smear blueberries in his hair to signal the completion of the meal and if you don't dive to remove the plate from his tray, he flips it like a flapjack at the world's fair. He has a power over me. I forget myself. I have thrown food BACK at him- in a desperate attempt to instill some manners, I act like a sociopath.

Still the boy will look at you and tilt his curly-haired head with a smile that says, "You know you're my girl" and at that point it's a wash.

This year, Mother's day was spent with friends and family and no gifts were exchanged in our house. We just enjoyed the air and the craziness.

The eyes have it

Getting ready to leave the house this AM was a typically hectic dance. The boys were up and down, running around. I put JB's coat on and when I turned to put ML's on, JB had taken his off. The climax of anxiety for me came when we stepped outside and a dump truck driving by commanded both boys' thorough attention. I didn't know if ML was going to run into the road after it, or tear off for the largest puddle in the driveway. Puddle-jumping is one of his favorite past times and after 3 days of rain, this mother-loving puddle would have necessitated a complete costume change.

I ran after them and wrassled them into their car seats; the tiny and unpredictable Senór Destruction always gets restrained before the elder. I strapped in ML, handed him a plush puppy, and moved around to the other side of the car.

While I buckled in JB there was some insistent yapping coming from Senór. I effectively ignored him and buckled myself in before I looked back at him...

ML: EYE! EYE! EYE!

In my defense, it sounded like gibberish. But when I looked at him, he was pointing at his puppy's EYE, and shouting the word with perfect diction: "EYE! EYE! EYE!"

Me: YAY!!! ML!!! GREAT JOB!!! ML said the word 'Eye'!!! Everyone cheer for ML!!!

JB: (Not to be outdone and in a neutral tone that will either make him a lot of friends some day, or get him labeled a teacher's-pet-know-it-all) Mom, does he mean like an "I" like you write with? Or an eye that you see with?!?

I wanted to roll my eyes, but that is pretty smart and pretty funny, right? Except that ML was poking the dog right in the eye... so if you are a "smart" three and 1/2 year old, you shouldn't have to ask this...

Also, it is sneaking up on us, but ML is starting to talk!!!
Hooray!!!

Intuititvely obvious life lessons...

1) Sleep makes you feel less tired

Turns out that when you go to bed at 10pm and don't get woken up by a teething, sobbing mammal with a fever in the middle of the night, it makes a BIG difference how you feel in the morning.

For the last several nights, I went to bed around midnight (usually a little later), and WAS woken up somewhere between the hours of 1 and 4am. Consequently, I spent the better part of the last 3 days trying not to spontaneously start whimpering like The Princess Bride's Wesley after enduring the rack.

2) The main job of Children is to collect and spread germs

I know there are a a lot of things that people think Children should be and do-
- Be seen and not heard
- Spread joy
- Pass on your genes
- Scrub this floor until it shines like the top of the Chrystler building
- (and for the RCC) Be protected from the evils of homosexuality... (protected by ??priests??... sidebar... moving on...)

But from an evolutionary standpoint, this is their job for the first few years... to build up an immune system that is capable of fighting off all sorts of bacteria and viruses so that illness won't eliminate them like those visitors from War of the Worlds (Jeeze, I'm really on a movie reference kick this AM).

Between my sister's kids and our kids, one of the 4 has thrown up at least once in the last 5 or 6 weeks. Usually, they seem perfectly happy, then they get green for 48 seconds, look at you and say, "I have to go potty." Then they shoot the contents of their stomach at you in the living room, or where ever is inconvenient. Then after their vague embarrassment passes and the clean up is complete, they resume playing as if nothing happened at all.

Anyway, these kids are not ALWAYS sick so much as sporadically sick, unpredictably healthy, and major CARRIERS of infectious disease. Attempting to quarantine them when they are "sick" is impossible as the cousins would never see each other again. Katy and I have stopped even being phased by runny noses and coughs, but we are still in the mindset of trying to avoid the ever-elusive "stomach bug". The problem is, we do not know when the next puke will come... or from who. And even as seasoned health care professionals, we do not understand the meaning of low grade fevers that come and go for a week or more without any other symptoms.

This is no big deal if I am well-rested. But if I'm particularly exhausted, I start to get paranoid that my tiny children are trying to kill me.

3) Your tiny children are NOT trying to kill you

Another ridiculous week

I'm so wiped out, right now. But so happy.

It got hot again this week- 90 plus degrees for 4 or 5 days now.

A hurricane is on the way: Earl.
It shouldn't be that big if/when it hits us (they think category 2) but we bought some water and supplies just in case.

Last weekend, my gram fell and broke her wrist at a funeral we were attending. She's fine, but watching her go thru that left a lot of us a little shaky.

After getting to see many good peeps this weekend, Katy and I got sick Sunday night. We had the exact same symptoms, and the exact same time of onset- so we couldn't blame one another like we normally might.

We only occasionally glared with contempt and animosity at our two boys, perfectly healthy little cesspools that they are... whatever virus caused their barely noticeable runny noses and crankiness last week turns the adults of the house into piles of tissue-seeking, sinus-head-achy, sleeping with cough drops in our mouths, and taking advil around the clock, sudafed addicts.

JB looked at my pathetic, sickly expression yesterday morning, took out a notebook, and with the speed of an expert Nurse Practitioner writing a prescription for Victoza, he drew me a masterpiece that resembled a Sine curve in black, fine point ink and told me, "This is for you... so that you can have it... for work."

Read between the lines, people! He really gets me, and knew that it would help my cold (and my feelings of desperation) to have a piece of him with me all day.

Not to be outdone, ML waited all day at day care- doing his thing, which involves dragging his care-givers around in circles, clutching one of their fingers as if he is Gollum and the finger he is holding is wearing the RING- until I walked thru the door at 4:40pm. He stood, steadied by his band of merry women, and walked to me. WALKED. Not dragging someone with him by their finger. Not 1 or 2 steps... no. It was at least 6 steps. It felt like 7 or 8 or 10 steps before he reached me.

I was in awe. Laughing and cheering. I assumed he'd been doing this all day, but the expressions on his care givers' faces indicated to me that either they would go on to win academy awards one day, or this was the first time they had seen ML deliver on the promise of upright mobility too. "We knew you could do it!" they shouted and clapped...

I was prepared to go home and not see this behavior again for a while. When ML laughed for the first time, he giggled and chortled for a full 15 minutes and then we didn't hear it again for 3 or 6 weeks. But last night, he walked and walked and walked.

And tonight, we got a digital recording of it:



Um, yeah. That right there? That is on day TWO of walking... In his life.
DAY.
TWO.

Awesome. (Sung in a high-pitched vibrato)

JB has been very sweet, encouraging ML to walk.

He has paused a moment several times to look at us with a cocked head and an expression of, "WTF is everyone so worked up about... I 'been walking up in here for several years now, fishes!!!"

But he seems to understand enough to shake that confusion from his eyes and mirror our excited and proud reactions. Already, Katy and I have stopped cheering for every one of ML's new steps. (Mostly it is because our energy levels are low and our minds are fragile and limp from the week's "illness"... But also, I mean, do you see how many STEPS this kid is taking?!? Constant cheering of that volume is a lot to ask...) Anyway, JB- you can hear him in the background of that recording- if he sees ML walking and we are not making a big enough deal about it, he brings it to our attention: "HE'S DOING IT... HE'S WALKING."

I think he is trying to show how supportive he is (we heap praise on JB whenever he acts the part of "doting brother.") But the expression in his voice doesn't quite get to, "LOOK AT MY AWESOME BROTHER!!!" He instead sounds equal parts excited, panicked, and underwhelmed; like he could be saying, "LOOK THERE, HE'S TRYING TO EAT HIS OWN POO AGAIN, LIKE I TOLD YOU HE WOULD..."

I said to Katy tonight, "I don't remember being this excited when JB took his first steps."
She said, "You were."
Memory is a strange thing. Every day I am totally enthralled, enamored, and sometimes freaked out by how amazing JB is, but I really don't remember him being as awesome as ML is at this age. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention back then. Maybe there's not enough brain power to store specific feelings. Maybe I'm successfully "living in the moment". Maybe it's what we always blame it on: sleep deprivation. In any case, just to bring my heart back there, I went searching for this post: Evidence of Walking.

Like I've said before:
The heart and body remember things the mind can't...
For the rest of it... I guess that's why there are cameras.

Bottom line: I sure do love these boys.

Tonight, to celebrate, we went to the pool.
The perfect way to end a 94 degree day.

I feel very, very blessed!

Just a little tender

I am at work.

I am actually doing things at work. I cannot believe I am even interrupting my "flow" to post this but I want to say that things have been hard. Not in my "actual life" but "inside of me" where you can get lonely sometimes even when you are surrounded by love and amazing things... Maybe it's the winter and I'm seasonally affected or some such thing. Maybe it is the tingles of depression dusted on my genes by some of my ancestors, maybe it's the culmination of what has gone on in our live in the last 12 months- lots of it good, some bad... Most of it stressful...

Yesterday I got a call from a State School BFF whose 6 month old son got a fever. (He's fine.) She called to tell me "I don't know how you did it when ML was sick. I can't imagine how hard that was". Her message was sweet and funny and it made me smile and giggle. And then when I hung up, I started bawling. Crying. Hard. Out of the blue. Baffled and embarrassed for the entire 30 seconds until I pulled myself together in a "What was that?!?" sniffle. It was a wave of emotion that washed over me and disappeared.

I had really no idea that was inside of me.

That... like... scary, wounded, anxiety tears could burst unannounced thru the doors the instant a friend pads the safe room walls with an "I'm sorry you had to go thru that" on my voice-mail 3 months later.

Whoa.

The reasons I'm writing now from work are:

1) I don't want to forget to write what I wrote above because a lot of the times when i post it is when I'm feeling pretty good and parenting AND life is more about ups and downs.

2) Lately, by the time I get the kids to bed I have about 6 minutes before I get hit by a wall of exhaustion.

3) If you are not watching "Modern Family" on TeeVee, please set your DVR and/or go get hooked up with a DVR. Maybe it is my diminished mental capacity, but If this isn't the funniest show on right now, I'll eat one of JB's socks. It hits me right where I live. I love the office and 30 rock, but even in my melancholy, MF made me laugh out loud 6 times in the first 90 seconds of the episode last night. Katy watches it with me b/c she thinks if's funny to watch ME laugh.

4) We are finally restarting housekeeping services. We cannot keep up with the mess. And my sanity and my marriage is more important than my desire to succeed in the category of "be better about cleaning". It feels like I've failed only until about 6 seconds after the call is made. And then (with 100% candor I tell you) I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted... They are coming tomorrow to help with our filth.

5) Acts 3 and 4 (I appreciate all the positive feedback) are not written, but forthcoming. Sorry to keep especially the womb whisperer waiting. I'm sure that any momentum in the "you almost made me want to have kids" category has been lost, but we'll work thru it.

6) There is a lot going on in the health care debate right now. I wish I could get my shit together to comment and write more about it. If you want to know where I am in it and/or the things that interest me, you should keep up with Rachel Maddow. The podcast of her show (there's an iphone app) is as refreshing as water. And my favorite source of news and tidbits is JoeMyGod. His blog is a daily "must read" for me.

-----
sent from my iphone

Dear journal,

We moms woke up early today.
(Read: we did not really sleep.)

JB has been sick.
We are exhausted.

1+1= 5

I'm snapping at people in frustration and fatigue.

The house is coming along... slowly.

JB impresses us with his smarts.

ML reassures us by seeming perfectly healthy.

Back from Vacation and ready for some full time nesting

For those of you not friends with us on FB, a lot has happened that you've missed. (Sorry, you know that GSO readers are my real true friends, right?)

Since I got my iphone (let's call her Lil'cutie) I've been able to check all my Internet haunts regularly and my email, but I can't blog from there without buying a $10 app that I'm not sure is fully functional yet. So the blog has suffered a little since Lil'cutie started living in my pocket.

The day before vacation (July 9th), I got a stomach bug, we sold our house, we packed for our trip, we saw 4 houses as potential new homes, and we fled the state to hit the beach.

Two days later, I had a minor sunburn, the inspection was conducted, we all got re-oriented to salt air and sand, Katy and I spent more than a few moments panicking about the "mess" we had gotten ourselves into. It wasn't just that we sold the house at a slight loss (I mean the economy is in the toilet and presumably we will make it up on the other end). It was that we had never fully comprehended the costs on the selling end and also now we would be moving once (IF NOT TWICE) in the 4-8 weeds surrounding the birth of our 2nd child.

We rationalized our way out of the mental anguish, made several financial and logistical contingency plans, plotted alternatives to all of those, figured out how we would make it work at every level, and just when excitement started creeping around the corner, the buyer rescinded his offer. RollerccccccccccoooooOOOOOOOSSSSTTTTTERRRRRRRRRRRR!
CLICK.CLICK.CLICK. WHEEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE

There was a tiny bit of anger or rather frustration. Thank God we were away, b/c if not I would have had at least 3 rooms in my house packed and stacked in boxes and probably a 1/2 full POD in my driveway. Then instead of being disappointed and disjointed, I would have had to go out and find that guy and it would'a been a mess. I don't mind an amusement ride, but that would have pushed me over the edge.

While we were away, we had perfect weather, got some tans, and I got a concussion. Falling out of the back of my sister's minivan was not my most proud moment. We (adults) were taking turns climbing out of the way-back because 3 car seats were taking up the entire second row and obstructing the fire exits. It was very adorable to see all the "Ruggies" side by side, strapped in in their matching car seats, but evidently, it was also life-threatening.

I'll admit that I'm clumsily stumbly on a good day, but I really do get around okay. I have this weak left ankle that rolls without warning or consequence. I can be walking down the street, roll the ankle, recover in some jerky movement that would knock a gymnast's score down an entire point for her landing, but ambulate away without ankle pain or other damage. This happens on average, 4 times a week. I've come to think of it as part of my gait. So, I stepped down, off the bumper of the minivan, onto my unreliable left foot, and the ankle rolled. One minute I was vertical. The next, I was on my back- head bouncing off the asphalt. I heard Lil'cutie fall out of my pocket in a plastic crash.

The sky was so blue. (I see Blue... He looks glorious.)

I heard footsteps. Katy and Web were immediately by my side to confirmed my my mental status (dazed but alert and oriented X3) and help me wiggle out of the middle of the parking lot. I heard a lot of people offering to call 9-1-1, so it must have looked bad. Katy was not pleased about it. She did not appreciate the site of the bounding cranium or the laying motionless for 90 seconds on my back on the pavement... I think she took those 90 seconds to imagine life with 2 boys and no wife, or a wife that spent most of her days drooling. ("THAT'S NOT FUNNY" She's shouting in the background as she reads this.)

A little nausea for a day, a bad headache for 2-3, some jaw pain, and a tender scalp for a week now, but really it could have been worse.

We're taking the house off the market so that we can have this baby without strangers running in and out getting all into our business; and so we can let our house get messy again, and whatnot. The vacation, the ocean, the time away with family (and maybe the bump on the head) have really seemed to help chill me out a little. The pressure is off; which just goes to show you how much "pressure" has kind of been on (It's practically irrational that someone would say, "The pressure is off" as her wife enters the last 6 weeks of her pregnancy.)

It's becoming apparent that we have been running on fumes and have not been paying much attention to the Bean v2.0 except to know that he is kicking and moving and growing in there (And he's makin' his mama's ankles all swollen.)

Now we can focus on the end of the race (Sept 10th due date) and really stop for a few moments to let the summer sweat sting our wide open, attentive eyes; and let the fear of parenting 2 children combined with Katy's extreme state of pregnancy be the undiluted reasons we can't sleep at night. We're practically peeing our pants in anticipation. (Well, one of us is practically peeing her pants for other reasons too.)

It takes a village

The night before last, I had a bad dream. It was a dream where all the kids were in danger. Not random, un-named danger, but a specific person threatening JB and his cousins. The person I dreamed about is someone I trust completely, who would never do anything to hurt these kids, but I woke up at about 2am and had a little conversation with myself:

Question posed to self: Are dreams things to take seriously and tuck away as some parcel of indisputable, not-necessarily-provable truth? Should this dream, for example, cause me to revisit what I think I know of a person? Is someone/something sending me a sign from a parallel place? Should I take heed that I might not know what I think I know? or ... Are bad dreams Non Sequiturs? To be "shaken off" and not taken literally or even seriously?

While I was imagining some pros and cons related to both aspects of this question, the baby whimpered 2 rooms away. Worried he was still feverish and wanting to comfort him before he completely woke (or woke Kt) I went in to check on him. My heart nearly stopped in it's cage: he was still asleep, but the side rail was down. He's a climber now, we are careful with side rails, but somehow this danger was waiting for him... like, I mean, someone was waking me, warning me... there's no question in my mind.

I locked the boy in, stroked his hot head, and whispered a prayer of gratitude. Thank heavens for well timed nightmares.

Overheard on the morning commute

T's cell phone: Ring ring.

(Call is from "wife" who happens to be driving in front of me as we left for our respective work destinations in our respective cars only moments earlier.)

t: Hello.
kt: Yo. I've got your wallet.
t: oh, good to know.

(we pull over and she one-arms it to me through 2 open car windows.)

t: Thank God you remembered, that could have been bad...
k: I found it in my purse when I went to get my lipstick... You're lucky I'm serious about that shit!

Sit up, Roll over

There's a post yet to come about all the family activities this weekend. Mac turned 2 on easter Sunday. My sis and B-in-law threw her a party on Saturday. At the end of the day, JB (who we've been calling tripod) sat on his own for several minutes. He wiggled and wobbled and used his head and hands to remain upright. For, like 10 MINUTES!

It was pretty amazing and exciting.

Also, this morning- I swear I saw him roll from his stomach to his back (he's done the back to tummy thing, but not the tummy to back thing.) I walked into his room and he was face down and he kind of kicked his legs up and flipped over. Thing is, it was still a little dark in his room, and I was kind of deliriously overtired and slow-witted do to the early am hour. Even though I am SURE that I saw this and I stand by my account, I guess I'm thinking he may have only been on his side and not totally on his stomach...

So, we'll have to wait to see if this event is reproducible.

Lastly, we think he might be left handed... sometimes, it almost seems like his right hand is broken b/c he is so much more likely to grab with and favor his left (even if things are placed on his right side and you are physically restraining his left hand.)

No, I haven't cried...

This is the number-one favorite question people at work ask me related to my putting our son in day care: Have you cried? (or variation: Have you been crying?)

I don't know... Am i emotionally stunted? I miss him a ton, but crying hasn't happened yet. Not even close.

Stomach ache? yes.
Exhausted? yes.
Melancholy? a little.
Anxious? yes.
Irritable? kind of on edge? yes and well, yes.
Stressed? for sure.
Alternating between manic and non-productive? that's true.

Looking at the above list, maybe I should pull out a nose hair and let the tears work their magic, but I don't feel like I'm suppressing the hysteria. I mean, it is hard. It's actually harder than I thought it would be to leave him there every day... but...

I can't help feeling as if the people at my work have been day-dreaming about my return to my duties, and in their dreams I'm sobbing. Maybe I'll get my period or something and have a good cry soon, but in the mean time, I'm sorry to disappoint the crowd (Even if it is a crowd full of crying crybabies...)

In other news...
KT has the GI bug now, but no vomiting so far.

My milk supply- dangerously low after last week's moratorium on eating- seems to be returning to acceptable levels.

Work is good. (lame adjective, i know, but I'm too ambivalent to come up with a more colorful one.) I've been mostly working on a project from home, but getting the boy to day care a few times per week to "ease into it". Today I went into the office for an 11am meeting. I tried to get there for 8:30 (a full 30 minutes before anyone else on my team would be there.) When I arrived at 9:20 everyone was impressed and excited except for me- I alone knew that I was actually 50 minutes late. (If I were my boss, I would hate me.)

The boy: he now rolls over all the time from back to front. And though he can support his head really well he eventually feels frustrated that he can't get off his stomach. He does this in his sleep and when he wakes up he's like, W!T!F! WHhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAHHH! Last night for the first time in weeks, we were up at 12, 3a, 4:30, and 5:30 (ahhhWweSoooMmme!)

He's eating like a champ: rice cereal and sweet potatoes, so far.

There's more, but I'll save it for the newsletter... I gotta go pump before bed and check on my sicky-boo.

Your spelling like you're brain is dead

Ever since I've had this baby, I've noticed some decrease in brain function.
I'm not kidding and I'm not saying it's the baby's fault, but I want it out there in the universe that I am actively fighting this (potentially hopeless) battle.

Writing this blog before, during, and after conception and delivery has put me in tune with the mental slip and slide. I'm an obsessive proof-reader. This will horrify some of you who were assuming that my typos and mistakes were because i am so carefree and hit "publish" without a moment's reconsideration of word choice, syntax, spelling, and creative (over) use of commas (and parentheses... and ellipses- and incorrectly spaced dashes.) Not so, my fans and friends. I am pathetic in the time I waste allocate to proofreading.

And what I've learned in the last few months is my brain has lost it's grasp on homophones. No, this is not a gay rights post. I keep catching myself writing "their" when I meant "there" or "they're," or "whine" when I meant "wine," or "you're" when i meant "your," or (God-forbid) "to" or "two" when I meant "too."

It is upsetting. Mostly because I am a snob about this and it never fails to irk me when a homophone is used wrong. Now I am like a man who is losing his sight, who has always scoffed at the fact that others have needed glasses.

I'll keep pushing my tiny brain to fight the good fight, but I have to warn you that at this time, I cannot be held responsible for mis-using the following words.