Reasons Like Seasons

Boy One is being an uncooperative punk, and my husband is mad. Boy One is five, and my husband is an adult, but at the moment, it is hard to tell the difference. Both of them need a time-out, but instead they yell at each other, locked in conflict, for longer than I would wish, neither willing to back down or retire. After far too long, they are calm, and I venture to speak. "Why don't you call your mom and ask her what you were like when you were five?" I suggest. "Why don't you call your mom?" he throws back. "She said I didn't listen until I was thirty," I replied, "and with that, she's being generous." "I'm not calling my mom," he declared. "Have it your way," I respond, grinning. (I bet he was exactly the same.)

I feel as though I am on the brink of something. The brink of what, I can't tell you, but I hope it is something good, something rewarding. I could use something rewarding. Maybe it's the usual excitement of the new school year. As one who longs for routine, the comfort of established daily expectations, I certainly picked the wrong profession. Months of unstructured summers tear me apart, and the despite my constant vigilance, there is too much variation for my liking. I spend more time thinking about what I should do than actually doing it, and the stress builds more than it is relieved. I feel like the only person on the planet who gets stressed out by having too much time off. Maybe it's the promise of finally going back to work. Maybe it's the culmination of the steps I managed to take during my time off to put myself in a better position in my body. I got glasses, so now I don't have to squint and strain to read or write an email. I started going to the chir...

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 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 ...

Dearest Reader, Tonight, I would like to amuse you with a long, detailed description of my near endless adventures with not one, but two steam-cleaners. Similarly, it would bring me great joy to regale you with my mis-adventures trying to make sense of the gluten-free print-out I brought with me to Trader Joe's. In the same vein, I long to wax poetic about the drama that unfolded as my husband came home, tired and over-worked, to find the boys using a bike lock as a grappling hook from atop our piled-up belongings (see steam-cleaning in sentence one). However, tonight, the best I can do is this lowly paragraph and a new page on my blog documenting my meager attempts to feed my younger child food that does not exacerbate his breathing and skin problems. Watching a child unable to breathe is torture of the cruelest kind. May my efforts bring him, and me, some relief. Sincerely, RL

Yesterday almost killed me. It was Tuesday, which is supposed to by my day with Boy One, but Boy Two has been really sick, so he was home with me as well. Clearly, I am not cut out for having any more children, and may the universe bless the Stay At Home Moms out there, because my people had driven me to the edge before ten-thirty in the morning. Boy Two was up at 6:00, because apparently he did not get the memo about it being summer vacation. He also missed the one about not requiring two doctor's appointments in the same week. Man, I really have to teach that kid how to read his email. Order your own at http://shop.lego.com/en-US/ByCatalog Boy One slept until 9:00, by which point B2 was bringing me my shoes and banging on the apartment door to be let out for the day. B1, cooperative as ever, refused to get dressed and replied to all requests for progress with some variation of, "I'm reading my magazine!" by which he means he is pouring over his Lego catalog...

I am reminded of my age and status by my absolute love for the love of Mr. and Mrs. Bates. He is quiet, brooding, loyal and damaged; she is hard-working, eager to please, kind, and damaged as well. Their love is constant, generous, protective, and bruised, yet they carry on together, comitted to finding some joy in this wide world. Besides the obvious disadvantages of the lives of fictional characters in a drama, they live how I would like to live with my husband: glad of his company, proud of my work, and able to afford a fancy dinner once in awhile. I would also like to have a cook prepare all of my meals, but that is besides the point. I think a younger me would more easily see herself in Mary, tragically flawed by her own relentless fear of what could be if she allowed herself the chance to let go, lost in trying to find her place in the world. But I have a place in the world. I have a job I love and a husband who loves me. I have Boy One and Boy Two, and despite the great...

I want to bang my head against the wall when I think about how messy my apartment still is after several days out of school. A wise e-card once said that cleaning one's house while one has small children is like brushing one's teeth while chewing an Oreo. I get the simile, and it kills me. My first goal is to make the room I need to de-own. I need a tidy room and significant space before I can start pulling things off of shelves and out of closed drawers. I am crowed in my space. I need less. My next goal is to define an area in which all of Boy One's toys must fit and give him a series of opportunities to pass along any toys that he can allow to move on to their next home. I realize that I am much more enthusiastic about this process than he will be, but I am a hopeless optimist. (If I have to pay him off, I may be reduced to doing so. I'd like to thing of it as a child's version of a tax break for charitable donations.) Next week, I will work to show you my ...

Dear Apartment, I realize you are covered in dirty clothes, dirty dishes, and toys. I realize you have been ignored and abused for weeks, if not months. I realize I have not been there for you as I should have been, as you have been there for me. Everyday, you house me and my menagerie. You give me a lovely view of a safe neighborhood and offer not only electricity, but also hot and cold running water. I am truly blessed to have you in my over-scheduled life. I promise you that next week, you will get some of the attention you deserve. I know you have to share me with three people, but I also know how to be true to you. Please know that I love you, even when I forget to say it. Soon, I will lighten your load by clearing your floor, vacuuming your carpet, and possibly (gasp!) washing your mirrors. You will shine like the princess you are, and this difficult time between us will be over. (Well, that is, at least until school starts again...) Lovingly yours, Raychel

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that she had, " determined there is no discernible difference between being a first-time home buyer and having an existential crisis." I think she just about hit the nail on the head with that one. I wish her luck in her quest, but can offer no satisfactory response to her 21st century housing crisis. And yet, I muse on. There is no practical way that I am ready to buy a house. I can barely keep the living conditions in my apartment under control. What with work and children and laundry and four trips to urgent care in the month of May alone, I am already well beyond my zone of proximal development. Yet I dream of owning my own home. When houses in my neighborhood go up for sale, I drive past them slowly, longingly, dreaming of the lives of the people who live there and imagining myself opening the front door to visitors, walking my older son to school, and choosing my own native-inspired, drought-resistant landscaping. Th...

Me: When are you old enough to drive? Boy One: When you are older than one-hundred. Me: Then why am I allowed to drive if I am not one-hundred yet? Boy One: Are you ever going to be one-hundred? Me: I hope so, but it will be a long time before that happens. Do you think you will make it to one hundred? B1: Um-hum. Me: What makes you think so? B1: Because! Me: What do you think you will do when you are one hundred years old? B1: I think I'll have a wheel-chair. Me: Where do you think you'll go in a wheel chair? B1: I want to go on an airplane. Me: Where do you want to go on the airplane? B1: To visit you, but not if you're dead. Me: If were dead, where would you want to go? B1: To visit my kids, if I had any. Me: How many kids do you think you want to have? B1: A googol! Me: That's not going to work. B1: Fine. Like three. Me: That sounds more manageable. Where do you want to live with your kids? B1: In South America. I want to li...

A coworker of mine is getting married next week, and as a ten-year veteran of this institution we call marriage, I felt it my prerogative to offer her some unsolicited advice: When you move in with your husband, there will be things about him and the way he lives that you will hate. These things that you hate will scream at you, drowning out all else, while the many layered things you love about him will only whisper. The constant love of a life is quiet, comfortable, unseen. Listen to the whispers when faced with the screams, and make them the loudest things you hear. Squint at the rest: the problems may not go away, but neither do you always have to see them.

My children fed and myself fully-caffinated, we venture forth into the Ikea abyss. With surprisingly little resistance, we round the first floor smoothly, with minimal impulse spending (see giant stuffed broccoli) and only a small indulgence on my niece's upcoming birthday gifts (see adorable stuffed toys). I even manage to contain (most of) my living-spaces envy as we "experience" three unique "apartments," each of which is significantly smaller and yet still meticulously better organized than mine. I try desperately to remember that an entire team of dedicated professionals constructed each of these displays with the help of an unlimited budget and without the noticible distraction of another job, but it is a difficult battle. Upon reflection, I really would seriously consider moving into one of those apartments if I could let the boys jump on the couches without getting shamed (again) by a lovely, helpful member of the Ikea staff. But, again, I digress. ...

My bowls never looked this nice. ...continued from "Home is More Than Where You Sleep at Night" I started by getting rid of things. My apartment was full of things. My grandmother's coffee cups. More than a dozen metal mixing bowls. Clothing and shoes I had owned since high school. Boxes and boxes of baby gear. Enough stuff to fill a three-bedroom house with a den and a living room all smooched into my 1100 square foot apartment. I needed to get rid of some things to make space for myself. Exer-Saucer (AKA Noisy Room Space Eater) I started with the easy stuff: clothes Boy Two had outgrown, things that were clearly broken, the exer-saucer which had been taking up the entirety of my living room since I was five months pregnant. I found new places for all of these things. Some I gave away to friends, some I donated, and that monstrous exer-saucer made me enough money on Craig's list to buy myself three grande caramel macchiatos, each of which I savored. Howe...

I believe it was in November, a few weeks before we had to sign our third lease, that I realized I actually live in my apartment. Before that, the apartment was never my home, but more like a storage locker, a place to keep my things and eat breakfast while I waited for a house. In a word, I was naive. I though houses just miraculously came into people's lives, just as had the houses I had lived in with my parents and the house I moved into about a year before my grandfather died in the living room as I sat with my father. I can really not think of a preferable way to die then at home in the house where I raised my children and loved my spouse, in the company of my son and his child. That house had always been a place of safety for me, and I loved it there when I was young, but it was more than I could handle on my own. It was old. It needed maintenance. I had a small child, and my husband had a job that was much too far away. I could not envision buying it from my father thoug...