Reasons Like Seasons

I'm at the park, again, and the breeze is soft and warm. Boy Two is wandering around with only one shoe, a green monster truck clenched in each hand. Boy One is climbing on the outside of the play structure, showing off for an older girl in pink tennis shoes and a cat helmet with ears. The girl's grandmother watches her from a nearby bench, occasionally saying something in a language I do not understand. The girl speaks a mile a minute, peppering Boy One with questions. "Can you ride a two-wheeler? Can you climb on the top of the monkey bars? Have you ever been to a pool with a high-dive?" She's said more since we got here than he has said in a lifetime. Boy Two finds his shoe under the slide and waddles over to me, shoving the shoe in my face. I pull him into my lap and put it on his tiny foot. In a moment, he's off again, chasing Boy One as he rides around the blacktop on the little girl's scooter. When Boy Two finally catches up, the three of ...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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 hadn't realized that I had spent a notable chunk of my afternoon mopping the kitchen floor just so it would be nice and clean for Boy Two to come home from baby-care and pour apple sauce all over it from his overpriced toddler pouch. May no good deed go unpunished.

Boy 2, you go ahead and own that blue Sharpie. Clenched in your hand like the holy grail, it looks ready to leave your mark on various non-washable surfaces. Feel free to color whatever you find in your way. Found your face? What an excellent start. There's nothing as exciting as Smurf children at half-past bedtime. Want to mark your brother as well? I bet that will go well. Go ahead and try. Your short life is in your tiny hands. #terribleplans

I'll be doing whatever snowmen do... June...the mixed blessing of months. On the one hand, my students are itchy to be finished with work and get away for the summer; on the other hand, my older son gets out of school, and I have to entertain him 24/7.  Wait. Mixed blessing?! Where is the good part?! (I love my boys, but after about four straight days with them, things start to hit the fan.) Camp. I am calling camp to the rescue. The treacherous balance of quality time, sanity, and cost weighs large. After much careful consideration, I decide to mix things up with a Monday/Thursday/Friday schedule for the big one and a Monday/Tuesday/Thursday for the small fry. That means I get Mondays to myself, Tuesdays with big guy, Wednesday with (gasp!) both of them, Thursdays to recover alone, and Fridays with baby. This schedule costs more than my usual monthly childcare budget, but as I mentioned before, sanity is one-third of the calculation pie, and sanity, appa...

"Can we go swimming?" asks Boy One. My heart rate soars and breathing enters hyper-drive. Few things bring greater terror than the one activity (other than riding in my car) in which my children are most likely to die. "It's too cold to go swimming." "It's not too cold for me!" "Can we just go to the park?" "Plllleeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeeee can we go swimming?" "Okay, fine. But you are not allowed to drown. There will be absolutely no drowning! Otherwise, I am going to have to resort to cutting off your Netflix privileges." "I promise I'm not going to drown, Mom." I must be overreacting. Things can't possibly be that bad. I should check an authority that can soothe my inflated sense of dread and foreboding. I am clearly being irrational. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), "Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two...

5:05 Baby cries. Nurse baby. Baby sleeps. 5:15 Try to sleep. 5:20 Try to sleep. 5:25 Try to sleep. 5:30 Give up on sleep. Make coffee. Make lunches. Drink coffee. Check e-mail. Get dressed. 5:50 "Wake-up" alarm goes off. Make more coffee. Put lunches and work bag on stroller. 6:00 Get boy clothes. Change toddler. (Toddler remains asleep. Good sign.) Attempt to cloth Boy One. Boy One refuses to cooperate. Drink coffee. Regroup. 6:20 Peruse Facebook. Ponder the significance of my friend's post about which Disney Princess she is. Decide I would like to be Mulan. (That girl kicked ass.) 6:35 "Wake up the Boys" alarm goes off. Attempt to pry Boy One from bed. Resort to bribing Boy One to get up with promises of a yougart smoothie for breakfast. "I hate yougart smoothies!" Drink more coffee. 6:40 Toddler wakes, demands to be carried around the house. Boy One resigns himself to the day. Husband readies. 6...

Another trip to Walgreen's for the cream And application as the doctor said Then off to have my weekend as designed To have some peace: my un relinquished dream. Sunday and Monday come, and then, they go. Then Tuesday and we all go back to work But after school, Boy Two is doing worse. His skin is his irreverent, constant foe. His dad agrees to take him the next day To see the doctor yet another time If I can call and make an appointment And I promise to call without delay. At work, 6th period was soon to start When my cell phone began to ring and ring. I answer, and my husband's voice I hear I interrupt his greeting: "I forgot." So, here I think a side-note is in store, Where I lament the trials of my fate: To love, to tend, to work, to earn, to be, The challenges I hope I’m cut out for. Each time I try to call someone at school, I always get distracted by my job, I love my work, and phone calls slip my mind ...

It all began on Sunday afternoon, The middle of a three-day holiday Away from home and trying to relax The rash which never dies returned too soon. Boy Two is scratching, breaking open skin That bleeds and offers him no sought relief, So I get on the phone, the urgent line, Requesting some prescription medicine. "Try first some hydrocortisone," she states, "And see if that relieves the burning itch. Then call me back if his symptoms persist; A continued reaction we'll sedate." (To be continued...)

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. ...

I have a friend, a newly married young man in his early twenties, who's a Friday. When asked how much he loves the day, he replied, "I actually love Fridays so much that many times I prefer Thursday to Sunday." Great. He looks forward to the weekend like I look forward to arriving early at a doctor's appointment: when else do I get to sit quietly and enjoy someone else paying for my wi-fi? But I digress. When I get home on Friday afternoons, I am faced with at least a week's worth of laundry and dishes and two little boys who want to jump on all the furnature. Today, for example, I had the pleasure of washing six loads of laundry and digging under a giant pile of half-empty plastic children's cups in search of a fork that didn't require attention from a biohazard team. That was after I got to clean up the pound of salt Boy 2 dumped on the floor, but before the nightmare which was brushing Boy 1's teeth. I imagine my friend mentioned above went home a...

I think Boy 2 grew last night while I was asleep. This morning, I accidentally put  Boy 1's shirt on him and didn't even notice until I picked him up from daycare this evening. All day long, he was sporting the "Big Brother" shirt like a rock-star who needs a new haircut. Boy 2 is different than we are. My husband and I are both oldest siblings, so we rolled with Boy 1 like it was the only way to go about in the world. Three anxious, structured, cautious, reliable, firstborn peas in a pod. Then came Boy #2: an enigma wrapped in a mystery. He smiles just for fun. He tries to jump, falls over, laughs, and does it all over again. He will talk and talk his baby talk, and we all stare at him and try to figure out what he thinks he is saying. We are like three scientists working to discover the characteristics of an alien species. We want to identify, label, and categorize; he wants to put marti-gras beads on the cat. Unquestionably, Boy 2 was born into a different fami...