Reasons Like Seasons

The most amazing things that happened today, in order. Number 1: Massages from my man, but better. Number 2: Dust buster from Amazon. I had no idea how many cheez-its had been crushed into the fabric of the recliner. Maybe I didn't want to know. That brings me directly to number three...   Number 3: Wine juice box from Target. Enough said. P.S. Although tempted, I did not drink wine directly from a box with a straw. I used a wine glass (like a grown-up).

As I waited for the elevator with my wagon, B2, and a pile of empty blue Ikea bags, I cursed myself for thinking it wouldn't be so bad having to share a laundry room with a hundred other people. It was 10:25 and I had washed six loads of laundry. "People all over the world share washers and dryers with others," I'd said. "It will be convenient to have four washers at a time," I'd convinced myself. I was an optimistic idiot. Two kids and two flights of stairs and too little time have robbed me of my best self. I want my own washing machine. B2 clapped his hands as the elevator dinged, and we rolled in to go downstairs to pick up the last two loads. But as I stepped inside, I inhaled an image of Papaw, my mother's father, standing in a kitchen in Dothan, Alabama. It was an image of menthols and humidity and sweat, and there he was, with a blue hat and a half-empty green packet sticking out of his breast pocket. In that moment, I was six year...

I went to work today for the first time in a few weeks. B1 was hanging out with me until his camp started, and while he colored on the white board, I began by opening my email... Me: I have over one hundred new emails! B1: Ohhhh uhhhhh. That is a lot of emails. Me: I know! What should I do? B1: You should erase all of them. Me: I don't think I can do that. Some of them may be important. B1: So read all of them, then delete them if they are not important. Me: Thanks, dude. That sounds like a plan. B1: How about a fist bump? Me: Only if it gets to explode. I love that kid.

I got home from my lovely vacation Friday afternoon and slept in my own bed that night for the first time in almost a week, only to be woken up on Saturday morning by the fact that July is almost over and I have accomplished less than one percent of the tasks I had planned for the summer. (Insert expletive of your choice here.) What on earth have I been doing for the last two months?  (Spending time with my children, packing, and cleaning my apartment are not legitimate answers.) Time to get with the program. My frantic attempt to accomplish tasks is pretty much my husband's worst nightmare. While I endeavor to clean, vacuum, reorganize, wash, and de-own, he longs for two uninterrupted days of sleep and playing Xbox. I feel you, my lovely spouse, but this weekend, things will probably go better for everyone if you stay the (reuse expletive from above) out of my way. I started with beans: almost six cups of Sprout's dehydrated pinto beans. On Friday, I made the mistake ...

Apparently vacations are where you go to die. I am tired, very tired, after spending almost a month organizing, packing, and mentally preparing myself for going away from my home for most of a week. Now, at my destination, I am surrounded by well-meaning, yet somewhat unfamiliar, extended relatives, relatives who leave my children confused and feeling uneasy, despite my repeated reminders that we are related to them, that they are good people. But at 18 months, a stranger is still a stranger. I wish my sister-in-law was not seen as a stranger. Away from home, every door in our living space is at the mercy of B1's game of open and close, open and close, open and, hopefully, not close on anyone's fingers. There have been no reported damages (as of yet). Get back to me tomorrow to see if our lucky streak continues. There is no escape from the constant barrage of questions, tears, and request that come along with a life spent side by side small children. They are beautiful...

I am a chronic over-paker. I can easily take a week's worth of clothing on a weekend trip to visit the boys' grandparents, so packing for a four day sojourn on an island is basically like planning to survive for three months in the Amazon. Additionally, if I make the smallest error in my preparations, such as miscalculating the proper diaper per day ratio or forgetting my eye-makeup remover, I will clearly be struck down by the packing gods and publicly humiliated for the rest of my mortal life. Obviously. I started preparing weeks ago, ordering items that have no place in my everyday life: a microfiber travel towel, a swimshirt, and (gasp) even a pair of shorts. For the boys, I bought matching Superman rashguards, tiny sunglasses, and hats. B1 got a new backpack, and as official concession to my status as an Orange County suburbanite, I even caved and got one of those collapsible wagons, the ones I used to look down my nose at while in line at the farmers' market. At le...

Once the EMTs from CHOC finally arrived around 8:00, things started clicking into place. Three of them arrived with a gurney complete with a car seat strapped within a row of machine after beeping machine. I carried B2 from the room to the gurney, gently clicked him in, then kissed his tiny forehead as he continued to struggle to breathe. The female EMT smiled and handed me a stuffed bear with an IV wrap which matched my son's. I nestled it between B2 and the side of the carseat, and he snuggled up to it and grabbed it with his non-IVed hand. He looked so fragile juxtaposed with all of the technology intended to monitor his signs of life that I almost cried, but with great effort, I managed to reach out and hold his hand instead, and he seemed to relax, at least a tiny bit. Soon, we had all of his paperwork and a disk with his chest X-rays as we rolled into the second ambulance of the evening. I rode in front with B2 in the back while my husband took my car to fetch B1 from my fr...

When I finally realized my husband had walked in the door, it was like heaven had ripped open and poured rain on the drought-stricken desert. I had been helping hold B2 down again while two nurses with matching reading glasses poked at him with their IV needle. They looked kind of adorable moving their glasses up and down together, chatting about veins as if they were skeins of yarn. In times of crisis, the smallest details seem to carry the greatest significance. Once they finally found success, I turned away to breathe and found my man standing behind me. "[Husband], I am so glad you're here! How long have you been waiting? No, wait, please don't move: I'll be right back." I realized, all at once, that I hadn't been to the bathroom for many, many hours. After weaving through the throngs of humanity that peopled the hallway, I managed to quickly rectify that unfortunate situation. Then, I ran to return to my men. When I came back to the room, my giant h...

A passing conversation in the hall at school went something like the dialouge as follows. School Professional: I was over in the preschool today and I got to spy on [Boy One] a little. Me: I hope you didn't see anything wrong with him that I don't already know about. SP: No, no. It was really interesting. He seems to be the only one who really "gets" [a little girl from his class]. Me: Yes, he really likes her. He talks about her all the time. Is there something different about her? Why did you notice that he "gets" her? SP: No, no, not like that. She is just completely no-nonsense, time to get down to business. [Boy One] seems to really get that. Me: You have met his mother, right?

The ER doctor was rugged, handsome, sharp. He looked tan like the rich get tan, not tan like those who work the land or sell their wares on the sidewalk. He was Greek god tan, I spent last weekend on my yacht tan. I bet he made the softball team swoon. I found it hard to focus when he was talking. "...going to push fluids and get him on some steroids. That should put him in better shape while we wait for the ambulance." "The ambulance? We just came in the ambulance." "No, the CHOC ambulance. They send their own people for transfers. We are just waiting for them to call us back." "A chalk ambulance?" I felt like an idiot and a moron. "We don't have a pediatric wing, so we can't keep children overnight. CHOC specializes in children, so you will be in good hands there. I'll have the nurse come in to get that IV started." I must have been staring as he spoke. Perhaps I didn't even blink. "Do...

One of the first orders of business once we were set in our room was placement of the IV in my tiny baby's arm. This entire enterprise was an unqualified disaster. On the first effort, a forty-something bleach-blond nurse with a ponytail and bright red reading glasses on a chain tried three different times, twice on one arm and once again on the other. I held B2 as he screamed. After the third attempt, she lifted her glasses and smacked her mint gum. "He must be dehydrated," she said. "I'm going to get someone to help you hold him down." "I'll get someone to hold you down," I thought. My better self responded instead. "Could we get him something to drink first?" I asked. "Sure, honey," she replied. She left, and B2 and I together both cried and struggled to breathe.

- macaroni and cheese from a box - snack bars - hot lunch from camp - pepperoni pizza and bread sticks from Taco Bell - more snack bars - several juice boxes - hot lunch from camp - cheese sticks - a happy meal - tortilla chips - ice cream

At the hospital, the same giant men rolled my little baby out of the ambulance and into the crowded chaos of Sunday afternoon at the ER. Thankfully, we were wheeled directly into an empty room, a by-product of a call from the beautifully haired nurse practicioner from the urgent care who had called ahead to let them know we were coming. A pleasant seeming woman with a blond ponytail asked us to wait inside, then quietly argued with the EMTs as B2 sat quietly on the bed, struggling for breath. I held him and tried to stay calm. The rest of the ER was like a crooked slice of humanity sprawled out for view at its least attractive. In the waiting room, half of a softball team was waiting loudly for their teammate who had started throwing up after being hit in the head while at bat. In the entryway, an woman of a certain age in ridiculous shoes sat in a wheelchair with an ice pack on her knee, a likely victim of a fall. In the hall, an ancient man in a hospital gown stared blankly at the...

I never saw myself as an ambulance chaser, one of those poor souls whose livelihood relies on catching an injured individual in the hospital loading dock, but yet, there I was, running a red light behind a shiny emergency vehicle as it barreled down Barannca Parkway, as though my life depended on it. Despite the radio on and the traffic outside, the only thing I could hear was my baby, crying as the EMTs had shut the steel doors in the parking lot at urgent care, B2 on the inside, me on the out. In my mind, he was louder than the sirins. There was no red light in Orange County that was going to stop me from getting back to him. He had woken at two that morning, coughing as he tried to breathe. I gave him his inhailer, then we'd gone back to sleep, only to repeat the program at six, ten and two again. By then, he just wasn't himself, fussy and quiet instead of rampuncous, refusing to walk even the few steps from our car to the play structre when we arrived at the park. I decide...

The past few days, the toil of small people has worn me down. I have everything, absolutely everything, one could hope for in this life, yet my mind complicates and obliterates the good in favor of the empty, focuses on the lack in place of the bounty. I work to bring my mind in line with the light, to see all I have and live in and the beauty that it has to offer, to disallow the view that there is smallness in tending, and to see instead the greatness in it. May I find my way clearly, swiftly, and cease to suffer from an endless summer. May I impose the structure of work and progress on my struggle and benefit from it. May my anxiety find strength in production and my restless drive to produce find those who need an able ally. In accomplishment , may I find space to be, and may my children benefit directly. May the goodness overwhelm us all.

What I have is Focus. Details. Assignments. Tiny compartments, neatly filled. Straight lines, Black words, Controlled, contained, Allotted. What I need is Wind: Blowing, dancing, Bursting from the seams; Endlessly curving Vibrant colors Exploding down the pavement Unabashed and unafraid...

Today, for the first time, Boy Two drew blood from Boy One. B1 was on the floor looking at one of his coloring books, when, BAM, out of nowhere, he was hit smack in the face with a flying flashlight. B2 was the only other person home, and I can promise you, I am not in the habit of throwing camping gear in the apartment. The guilty party is clear. At first, B1 didn't breathe, but his face made that square-mouth shape he used to make when he was little, when the injustices of the world were just too much to bear. Then, he took a breath, and then he screamed, a long, anguished scream, as the blood began to seep out of the new red line below his eye. I looked at B2. He was smiling from behind his pacifier, reaching out his tiny hands to be picked up. "Look, Mommy! I can throw!" he seemed to say. "Come and congratulate me for successfully passing the light stick to my brother!" "Baby, you hurt [B1]. He is sad because you hit him in the face." Confused...

I once read that families are comparison machines. In the story, it was argued that the close proximity of one sibling to another drives innumerable comparisons to the surface, often with life-long implications for those compared. For years, during the formidable childhood years, kids are told they are this one or that one: this sister is the smart one; this one the outgoing one. This brother is the funny one; this one is good at math. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if both sisters are outgoing and smart in comparison to the rest of the human beings on the planet. It only matters that this one seems smarter than that one, that this one seems more outgoing than the other. In this way, brothers and sisters learn to carry these beliefs like widgets, widgets of judgement and self-limitation. Widgets that help define who they are and how they see themselves in the world. So, of course, I compare my boys. Boy One was an articulate speaker almost  immediately ...

I cut the baby's hair yesterday. It wasn't the first time, but it was the most significant. Previously, I had simply trimmed, shortened his baby curls in a formation that allowed for at least cursory containment. But now, I have done the irreversible. His baby curls are gone, likely to never return, and with this unique action, with the use of a simple machine to trim and cut and shape, he has irrevocably left the baby world for the world of an older sort. He has become, with no reservations, a toddler. In the conservative Jewish tradition, a boy's hair is not cut until he is three year's old. Once he has arrived at this ripe old age, there is a ceremony called an  upshernish , an event in which members of the religious community ceremoniously cut the child's hair, a symbolic cutting away of  infancy as the small human enters into childhood and the beginning of his formal education. It is at this point that the boy...

Standing on the side of Yorba Linda Boulevard, holding Boy Two while Boy One wrapped himself in a blanket, I leaned into my man and watched the fireworks. Next to me, a father held his young son on his shoulders, quietly singing, "Happy Birthday, America." They have part of a conversation in another language, then switch back to English. "How old is America?" the father asks. "239!" the boy replies. "That's right!" exclaims his father, then they stop, and continue to watch the burning elements explode across the sky. This, to me, is the beauty of America. Here, on the side of the road, my fourth or more generation, WASPy boys standing side-by-side with the children of imigrants, celebrating the nation's birthday. May we all continue to stand together. Happy birthday, America. Happy birthday.

Dearest Reader, Today, I bought a fancy new purse and wallet to celebrate my 4,000th page view on this very blog. 4,000 page views? I mean, come on! That means, on average, that more than 60 people read each of my posts. Now, there are (at least) two possible explanations for this documented phenomenon: either sixty random people show up to read each of my posts and never return, only to have 60 more random people show up for my next post and get board out of their minds, or, and I find this second option far more likely, around 50 people are reading my musings on a regular basis, with a small number of transitory visitors who stop by, then move along their merry way. For each and every one of these readers, I am thankful. I like to believe that I bring a small sprig of joy to people as I write myself a path to sanity. Thank you, everyone, who takes the time to read what I have to say. But now, I beg. According to Google, I have two subscribers. Two. One of those it probably my mom...

Not A Cat Boy Two has decided that everything on four legs is a cat. "Cat! Cat!" he squeals, pointing excitingly at an overweight golden retriever. "Dog? Do you see the dog? What a nice dog," I reply. (Note proper use of target noun used in context. ) "Cat!" Fine. Sure. I give up. Your ability to identify a large, four-legged, hairy creature walking around the apartment complex as similar to the small, four-legged, hairy creature that roams our apartment has been proven. Good job, dude. Mozel tov. Good luck getting into college.

(Spoiler Alert) This blog post discusses details of the plot of the movie Inside Out .  If you would like, please feel free to come back to it after you have seen the film. In an attempt to have a constructive discussion with Boy One over lunch, I asked him which emotion he would want to be from the movie, Inside Out. “What's an emotion?” he asked. “The different feelings,” I replied. “All together, they are called emotions. Joy, Disgust, Sadness...” “Anger!” he interjected. “I would be Anger!” “Anger? Why?” “Because he's so awesome!” Puzzled, I asked, “What do you like about him?” “He's so GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!” Thanks for that articulate clarification, Dude. It has taken me awhile to get over myself enough to watch animated movies with my son. I was never one of those girls who loved the princesses or dreamed of a “Whole New World”  or looked forward longingly to trips to Disneyland. But, admittedly, parenthood has messed me up softened me enou...