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 ...

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).

- 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

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 ...

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...

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 ...

This aquantince of mine mentioned in my previous post spoke longingly about having a baby sometime around when I had my oldest more than five years ago. That she had to yearn and pine for her pregnancy makes me ache, especially because my husband basically only had to look at me sideways to get me knocked-up. I have been truly blessed (and very lucky) to have only become pregnant when I wanted to be, and on both of those ocations, I got pregnant right away. The struggle of women who are not as easily satisfied in their family planning as I was leave me longing. While I realize there is no need for me to fall on my sword for my reproductive success, I can imagine the agony and daily stress the longing for a child could bring to an adult life or an adult relationship, and I am sorry that this pain has to exisit in the world. I am sorry that people who want to have children are sometimes unable to do so, and that others only find success at the end of many cycles of tremendously expensiv...

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...

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...

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 ...

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. ...

"Sure, baby. I'd love to watch Frozen again," I lie. A harmless lie, perhaps, but a break with truth to say the least. "If only it were for the first time," I think to myself, "for the first time in forever...." If someone had told me when I was pregnant how many lies I would tell my children, I would have probably laughed in his or her face. I would have  prognosticated on my relationship with the unborn with the authority of Nostradamus. "I will be completely truthful in all things with my children as there is no better way to communicate with others than with total and complete honesty. Children deserve our best self in all things, so lying to my child will be completely out of the question." Please, add that to the list of things I had no idea about. The stories I have concocted are numerous, nuanced, and occasionally nefarious, especially when it comes to the thoughts and actions of imaginary beings: "I'm going to ...

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...

Kallax Shelving Unit "This is the worst day of my life!" screams Boy 1 as he teeters precariously near my open laptop on the top of a questionably stable Ikea Kallax shelving unit. "Why, baby? What's wrong? How can I help?" "I want to order Kai. Order this one for me right now! "How much does it cost?" "I don't know." "What does the number on the screen say?" "17." "How much money do you have?" Tears streaming from his face, he shoves a pile of crumpled bills in my direction. "You count them," he replies. Slowly, I flatten the bills with the edge of my hand, one-by-one, until I have four green rectangles lined up flat on the carpet. "Five plus one is six, six plus one is seven; seven plus one is eight. Eight. You have eight dollars." "Whaaaaaaaaa!" he screams with the power of a hurricane. "Order it for me NOW!" Ninjago Lego Set 7...