kiwords

In Which We All Nearly DIE.

I was standing at the sink, scrubbing potatoes. I remember like it was...four hours ago.

Because it was.

Anyhow, there I was, scrubbing potatoes, talking to Clay as he walked a grumpy Sophia. The oven was pre-heating, waiting for the potatoes. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a GLOW from within the oven. I dropped my potato.

"OH!" I said helpfully, "OH OH OH! It's ON FIRE IN THERE!"

AND IT WAS. Specifically, the heating element on the floor of the oven seemed to be burning like the wick of a cartoon character's bomb. It sizzled and smoked and flamed. I, being a cool-headed mother of many, jumped up and down and squeaked and pointed at it.

"Huh," said Clay, "that's not good."

I opened and closed and open and closed the door of the oven and jumped up and down some more. Clay went outside and turned the power off to the oven. So between the two of us we got it taken care of.

Then I called my parents and generously offered to let them feed us dinner. I knew they'd be happy to, since we had just been SNATCHED FROM THE JAWS OF A FIERY DEATH and plus our oven was non-functioning.

And they were. They brought over many pizzas, and we huddled around the kitchen table and ate, GRATEFUL to have survived.

Clay seems to think I am overstating the danger somewhat. I say he's in denial.

"Thank you for saving all our lives," I told him.

"Your parents saved our lives," he replied. "They brought us food."

See what I mean? Denial.

But I know. I understand the reality of it all. I know tonight is a night to hold my dear ones closer, to CHERISH all I have, and to ponder the important questions.

Like - how do I get out of making dinner TOMORROW night?

This is why there is too much stuff in my house.

"Hey," Clay said, holding up the worn, limp, blue Boppy, "Sophia doesn't need this anymore, does she? She doesn't really tip over backwards now."

"Nope, she's done with it," I said.

"So I can throw it away?"

"Uh..."

"Because you said that's what you wanted to do. That it's old and sort of stinky now that Sophia is done spitting up all over it?"

"I know I did."

"So...?"

I looked at it there, in his hand. It is old. And now it smells faintly of spit up. I also discovered, thanks to Sophia's efforts, that when it gets wet, the dark blue dye in the fabric transfers to whatever rubs against it. This is, as you can imagine, lovely on pastel baby clothes. And floors.

Oh, but the Boppy. Fourteen years I've had that thing. It cradled each of my children when they were barely sitting up infants. Each one of them fell back onto its cushioning. Their legs curled inside its curves.

"It's just...all four of them were babies on that Boppy," I said, at last. "I can still see them there, propped up inside it."

He looked down at the pillow in his hand, ratty and old and sour smelling, and he sighed. Without further comment, he found a corner to leave it in. And there it sits, holding my memories of my pre-crawling babies.

It's hard to let it go, because I don't have any pre-crawling babies anymore.

 

Man, it happens fast, this being left behind.

Me and the Boppy, we'll hold the memories, though.

So...not EXACTLY Love Thursday.

Oh. Em. Gee, y'all.

Raphael was just biting into a Nik-L-Nip and he somehow managed to turn it into an indoor sprinkler system, thereby doing the ONE AND ONLY thing I can imagine to make a Nik-L-Nip a worse candy than it already is.

"I don't know what's WRONG with this thing," he shouted, "every time I bite into it, it just...SQUIRTS EVERYWHERE!"

Get that? EVERY time. Because after the FIRST time it squirted everywhere, clearly further experimentation was required.

Max just read me his history lesson, and he started out using a goofy voice. Like, could there be anything more annoying? Why don't you just POKE POKEY THINGS in my EARS?

Two days ago Sophia's sippy cup had an inaccurately assembled valve, post-washing, and instead of her having to SUCK on the thing to get liquid out, it would gently dribble into her mouth, over her rosebud lips, and down her front. She thought that was awesome. Ever since then, when I put the PROPERLY ASSEMBLED sippy cup to her lips, she sits perfectly still, waiting for the dribbly joy and looking at me with "you can't make me suck" eyes.

Also? Don't get me started on sippy cup designs.

Speaking of Sophia, she is practically crawling, and I've gone on a mighty campaign to keep the floors clean since she's all mobile and fascinated by the small and the filthy (Actual conversation the other day during a diaper change - "Oh, hey, here's the leaf she was gagging on last night." "Oh, good."). I sweep every day, MULTIPLE TIMES. Yesterday I mobilized an enormous floor clean up, with the moving of furniture and sweeping and mopping with vinegar-and-water goodness. Today? The floor feels like the entryway of a Wal-Mart under my feet, and when I pick the baby up as she tumbles past, she is sort of...frosted with bits of leaves and dog hair and grit.

Oh! And the DOG! The dog is confused by the warm weather and she keeps going in and out and in and out AND. IN. AND. OUT. Every three and a half minutes she suddenly realizes that she needs to be on the OTHER side of the kitchen door, and she immediately trots over to it and starts to whine.

Clay left the sandwich bags on the counter this morning when he was making his lunch. Usually I wouldn't even notice this, but today I'm pretty sure he did it because he wants me to just LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND PERISH. Obviously. The FILTHY floor.

My point (YES, I HAVE A POINT, JUDGE-Y JUDGE-ER) was supposed to be that I am clearly dying of a brain tumor. Seriously, that is exactly what I came here to tell you, then what do I find? That blog has already been written, by a much better writer than me.

I'm going back to bed. And I'm taking the leftover Halloween candy with me.

Kira's magical cure

Do you know what Sophia did last night? DO YOU KNOW?

She slept.

From 10 PM to 8 AM, she slept. And slept. And flopped over on her rubbery belly and slept some more.

Good God, I love that kid.

This morning I awoke to Raphael's shiny face. When he saw I wasn't curled around a sleeping-ish baby, trying desperately to eek out a few more minutes of rest, he promptly crawled in bed next to me. And instead of growling my usual morning tune, I wrapped my arms around him and listened to him chatter and chatter and chatter his welcome to the day.

It was lovely.

The whole day was like that, suffused in a golden glow of happiness. Nothing could get me down. Max started complaining mid-day of scratchy throat, queasy tummy, and headache. OH, I thought, H1N1. Clearly. HOW NICE that we will get that over with and not have to worry about it anymore!

By late afternoon I was pretty sure he was actually suffering from the I-don't-want-to-go-to-piano-lesson-virus, and I chuckled. Oh, what a scamp! You got me! Haha! Four weeks until the recital! Silly guy!

I've decided the whole medical marijuana thing is way off base. I know how to REALLY help. What I'm going to do is set up a clinic, and I'll call it the Get a Solid Eight Hours of Sleep Clinic. And what I'll do is wake my patients up all night, every hour, hour and a half. RELENTLESSLY. And then? After a week or two? I'LL STOP. And LET THEM SLEEP.

Because MAN. There is just simply NO HIGH QUITE LIKE THAT.

Tonight Sophia was grumpy and demanding. She whined all evening, like someone had punctured an enormous balloon filled with ire and it slowly leaked all over her for about three hours straight. I'm almost sure tonight is going to be brutal, but I DON'T CARE.

Because do you know what I did last night?

I SLEPT.

And now I can handle anything.

Halloween report

Or "Two days later is not too late for kids this cute."

This was the first year the boys all made their own costumes. No pre-packaged plastic monstrosities for us this year, OH NO.

Does it tell you a little about how pitiful I am that it gave me a pang, knowing that not one of the boys wanted a superhero costume to play dress up with later in the year? Pitiful.

Anyhow, here they are, in all their inventive glory!

Can you tell what Tre is here? Can you?

He's a STICK FIGURE! HAHAHAHA.

Love that.

Max, bless his soul, is a homeless kid. I realized, too late, that his shirt was actually filthy, with remnants of some long-ago meal on the front. He claimed it only added to the authenticity, because he wouldn't be able to wash his only clothes, MOM. If he were HOMELESS.

I don't know why the hat.

Raphael is Dr. Pepper! GET IT? With the doctor's coat, the stethoscope, and the PEPPERS? Oh man. That kid kills me with his cute. 

And okay, Sophia did not design her own costume.

 

But she did make it her own. Can you tell she's supposed to be a penguin chick?

Yes, well, but can you tell HOW BIG she is?

She is SOOOO BIIIIG!

In other news, I was in Target today, and I passed a HUGE display of Halloween candy on clearance. My shopping cart made a Pavlovian sort of wobble in its direction before I realized, OH LORD, NO. If Target PAYED ME to take candy home, it would still be a grievous burden.

Enough candy, is what I'm saying. There's so much candy in the house that it will take Clay and I DAYS to finish it all while the boys sleep. 
(How big is Kira? SHUUUUUT UUUUUP!)

Halloween hauntings

It started with a request, one I've heard before, from Raphael.

"I want a picture of my biological dad," he said, "I don't know what he looks like."

Max tried to help him.

"Here's what I remember about him," he said, evenly, as though he were explaining mixed fractions, "he was sort of pudgy, with a round face, and lots of dark dark hair. And he was usually scruffy, here," he rubbed his chin, "like he was growing a beard."

"I want a picture."

And so Clay brought down two boxes of pictures that I had exiled to the garage, and eventually I opened them up and let them spill out. I hid in the only place I can go to get away (a little) from the family, the floor between Sophia's crib and Jennie's bed. It is not enough room for the mess from my former life, but it is all the space I could find.

He liked taking pictures, my ex, so there are hundreds of them. Envelope after envelope, many with descriptions written in his cartoonish lettering to describe what is inside - "Tre turns one. Playing in the pool." I rifled through them all. Our wedding, pregnancies, my babies sleeping on his chest.

It has been eight years since we have been a family. He left eight years today. And most of the time I willfully forget the life I lived before. But there it is, now strewn on the carpet in a space too small to make sense of it.

Of course it is hard to look at him, to see the pictures of us in love, and worse, of my sons and him in love. But what struck me this time was me. How young I was. I look like a child, and not in the vital and glowing way either. I am soft and unformed and unguarded around the eyes. I had no idea what this story we were spinning was going to become. Good Lord, I was inadequate. No wonder he...

Let's not go there.

It also bears mentioning that it was five years ago yesterday that Clay and I went on our first date. On that day he told me that he loved me and that he intended to marry me. On our first date! I looked at him and thought, either this man is a scary stalker...or the love of my life.

He turns out not to be a scary stalker.

"Does it bother you?" I asked him, "Raphael's fascination with his biological dad?" He shakes his head, which is always his answer when I ask him if something bothers him. But his voice is calm and sure.

"It makes sense that he would wonder. And..." he picks his words carefully, "...I'm not threatened by him."

And of course. How could he be?

I found a picture for Raphael today. Not only a picture of his biological dad, but one of newborn Raphael, one day old, in his arms.

"That's me?" He stared at it, delighted. "And that's my dad."

I prefer "biological dad", because it is an accurate description, but also because it is a snub, should he ever hear it. But I did not correct him. I sat there, surrounded by the archaeological remains of that life, while Raphael stared at a picture of a man he hasn't seen for eight years, and called him dad. Tre and Max hovered, picked up pictures here and there.

"It's hard for me, guys," I said, tears threatening, "we were happy once. You need to know that. Your biological dad and I were happy once. And then it all...broke. And it was so awful at the end, and everyone was hurt."

"I wasn't hurt," Raphael said. He was four months old, after all.

"But it hurts now, doesn't it? Trying to figure it out." He nodded. "And I'm so glad to have the life I have now, to be married to your dad...but it's hard to look at these pictures and remember."

"Maybe," Max pushed a stack of pictures away from him, "it would have been better if you had just never married him. If you had married our dad the first time, and never had to get a divorce."

I am struck dumb by this, because he doesn't seem to understand that I couldn't have had them without him.

It seems I still can't have them without him.

I gave Raphael a frame for his picture, and he set it on the ledge in the living room. Clay came home from work and saw it.

"Oh, you found one for Raphi, huh?"

And I crumpled, just folded into his chest and wept.

Is she complaining about sleep again?

It seems I don't know how to make a baby go to sleep. I mean, I look at her, and she's this tiny little thing. Can't even dress herself. Couldn't make herself a sandwich even if she had the teeth to eat it. You'd think I'd be in charge around here, wouldn't you?

I keep thinking that maybe I've lost some secret skill set that I must have had when the boys were babies. They slept, didn't they? I seem to remember naps, multiple, during the day. Maybe there's some tricky combination of moves I'm not remembering, like the boys' cheat codes they're always using on the Wii. You know, how they'll go up up right down up whatever, and then they have invincibility or...something? Hmm. It's possible I don't actually understand the cheat codes either.

Anyhow, Sophia doesn't sleep. I think she takes after her dad, who can get by on an insanely small amount of sleep and can still smile and say things that make sense. Honestly, the man sleeps about five to six hours a night. If I had to get up and go to work after sleeping only five hours, by the second morning I would be lying on the floor by the car, weeping at the thought of trying to navigate the drive there. Clay almost never lies on the floor by the car, and if he does, car maintenance is involved, not weeping.

So this girl is definitely Clay's daughter. She sleeps about eight to nine hours at night, then usually (but not always) takes one or two naps during the day, totaling about an hour. And she flies and speaks sanskrit. Okay, that's not true, but I threw it in there because descriptions of sleep habits are JUST SO BORING. To sum up: Sophia sleeps 8 to 10 hours a day, despite the fact that the interwebs assure me that 6 month old babies sleep 11.5 to 15 hours a day. Excuse me a minute...*indulges in a brief sleep fantasy about having the 15 hour-a-day sort of baby*

So our girl isn't a big sleeper, fine. As I may have mentioned before, I have some cosmic payback on that score coming. And she's happy and jolly and loud, so I guess she's getting enough sleep, for her. But what makes me COMPLETELY INSANE is that I never know WHEN she is going to sleep. Morning nap? Maybe. At nine. Or eleven. Or NOT AT ALL, JUST LISTEN TO ME GIGGLE. And worse of all, I can never figure out when she's going to go to sleep at night. I can't tell you how many days end with Clay and I, slumped on the couch, staring glassy-eyed at our child as she inspects her toys and rolls around and babbles late into the night. Midnight? One AM? THREE IN THE MORNING? Oh yes, it has happened.

I simply cannot seem to get this girl on any sort of schedule. I am the puppet on her string. And in the positive column, I am old and wise and know she will sleep eventually, so I am really not wild-eyed with despair when she won't sleep. In the negative column, I am so flippin' old. I am tired. I know she'll sleep eventually, but I'm afraid I'll break a hip in the meantime.

So here's where you come in: give me your best sleep training advice. Books, videos, special dances. You suggest it, and I will try it.

 

I mean, look at her. She's clearly suffering.

It all comes together in the end. Sort of.

Lately Sophia hasn't been sleeping well at all - at least, not several hours all in a row in the restful, REM sort of way that helps me face the day with a spring in my step and a complete lack of hallucinations. I'm sort of ping-ponging through my days right now, and I figured hey, why keep this mental Pac-Man game to myself? So here, for your...um....enjoyment?

A few years ago I read a book on quantum physics. Okay, wait. Let me back up there. First of all, it was just a book for your average person of average brain, about quantum physics. It wasn't, say, written for quantum pysicists. Also, I only managed to read a third of it before the library said, "Seriously, bring the book back. We know you're not going to finish it, so stop renewing it already." It READ like a standard overdue notice, but I think we all can read between the lines, am I right? Like the TONE they had that one time when the weight-loss book was overdue? I don't mind telling you, that one still stings.

Where was I?

Ah yes, quantum physics. I really did enjoy that book, although it was sort of like reading about someone else's religious beliefs. I could understand them (mostly), and get a sense of the framework of what they were saying. I could see the beauty, even. But I couldn't quite...believe. From what I understand, a large portion of the study of quantum physics seems to have a lot to do with thought experiments, which as far as I can tell are basically really smart people thinking up ideas to try to make other really smart people stop and say...whoa. Because the person who can make the most smart people be amazed with their smart thoughts wins and gets all the cute quantum physics groupies, and isn't that what science is all about after all? Hot groupies?

What was I saying?

Oh yes, the book. I can't even remember the name of it. But one of the things it talked about was the theory about sub-atomic particles, that if you OBSERVE their motion, you CHANGE their motion. This part is fuzzy, bear with me. I don't even know how you'd test such a theory, since it's not like you can sit around, WATCHING sub-atomic particles. Plus, the only way to prove such a thing would be to have two particles, one observed and one not, and then HOW, exactly, are you supposed to tell if the trajectory or speed or whatever is different? If you can't even LOOK at one of them?

Stupid quantum physics.

Anyhow, the REASON I was thinking about all these things, my very deep thoughts about quantum physics, is because of the balloon boy. You know the story, I'm not going to link to it. I'm even going to go out on a limb here and suggest that they may have gotten ENOUGH attention already. Sheesh. And you know who else has gotten enough attention? I'm not going to even say THEIR name, but you know about them too, a reality TV family with a whole slew of kids, and the parents are going through a messy, ugly divorce? Right. Also possibly somewhat overexposed.

People are starting to fuss about all these kids on reality shows. They should be protected, some say. They're being exploited. I think what the parents don't seem to realize is that their lives are being altered. Just like the observed sub-atomic particles, cameras change the trajectory of their reality.

Their kids' childhoods are being messed with, and they're so addled by the cameras they don't even see it.

So here's what I'm thinking - follow me closely now - do you think if I brought a whole camera crew in to film her, Sophia would sleep through the night?

Not performing up to expectations

Yesterday I arrived at the boys' Monday school with a bit of anxiety. I had just received a phone call from the program administrator, asking that I have a chat with [name redacted for privacy concerns]'s teacher. Although she assured me everything was fine, I have never, ever had a teacher request a conference just to tell me how cool my child is.

This mild anxiety is my excuse for not noticing the state of my baby's butt when I hoisted her out of her car seat and onto my hip. I was thinking about [name redacted] and pondering what awaited us. I found my way into the crowd of kids and parents, all wondering and oblivion.

Fortunately, that's what I have children for, to point out my boneheaded ways to me.

"Ooo, diaper leak!" Raphael announced. He gingerly lifted one of Sophia's chubby ankles to peer up her leg. "Oh wow, it's EVERYWHERE."

Indeed, it was.

I found an empty room in which to change Sophia's...everything. What we really needed was a de-con unit, with a high-powered shower. I settled for about a million wipes. Sorry, Earth.

It was one of those classic parenting moments when you start assessing the problem, and it unfolds and unfolds and unfolds - have mercy - and unfolds before your eyes. Sophia's onsie? Messy. Adorable corduroy jumper? Oh yes, besmirched. Is that poop in her hair? Wait, and on my sleeve? And all down the side of my shirt? OH YES, AND GENEROUSLY SMEARED ON MY HIP? Yes please, may I have ANOTHER?

I sent one child out to the van to find a sweater or SOMETHING I could wear and grimly set to wiping everything clean. A mountain of dirty wipes grew on one side, while on the other side, [name redacted] bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to come up with a REALLY GOOD REASON his teacher wanted to talk to me.

"Go tell her I'm running late but we'll be there soon," I growled at him. A child arrived with a zip-up jacket, and eventually I had both Sophia and myself reasonably re-dressed. At least, she was clean and wearing a fresh, bright yellow onsie. I, on the other hand, was wearing a jacket, zipped up to conceal the fact that I had no shirt on, and tugged low on my hips to conceal a LOVELY poop-shmear.

Now, in general, I feel that transparency is the best policy. If I'm late because I just got pulled over by a cop, I'll let you know! (I will also announce to the boys as I navigate my way to the side of the road that I am about to talk to a police officer and when he leaves I will cry AND THAT IS OKAY.) However, I just couldn't seem to find a quick and graceful way to tell the poop-storm story. Plus, every version I could think of started, "Guess what? I'm not wearing a shirt!" which is an awkward start to any parent/teacher conference.

So instead I stood there, nervously tugging the hem of my jacket down and the zipper up. To make matters worse, the teacher had a chair, while [name redacted] and I did not, and stood in front of her. He clutched his backpack and agreed vigorously with everything she said, while I tried to project a look that said I am in charge and full of good ideas about my children's education and I am CERTAINLY wearing a shirt and pants without poo. I'm almost sure that I have lessened that teacher's concerns about my son, if only because she assumes he's being raised by someone who is Not All There, and so he is therefore doing the best he can, the dear little pumpkin.

When it was finally, blessedly over, we beat a hasty retreat. [Name redacted] trotted next to me, apologizing and promising to do better, while the other two boys skipped along, glowing with the holy light of the children who are not in trouble.

And I? Well, I am a seasoned mother of four. I know the ropes, right? Plus, I am not an idiot. So I checked the car seat for poop before I strapped my now-clean baby in it, right?

*sigh*

As I told [name redacted], making a mistake (or several) doesn't make you stupid, it just makes you human. Try, try again.

 

Home improvement tips

So the other day Clay was in the process of building me some beautiful shelves to solve the never-ending problem of storage in the kitchen. And as he went along, planning the project, he realized that he was going to need a palm sander, which is (in case this is not obvious) one of those little plug-in sanders that fits in the palm of your hand.

He called Home Depot to see if they rented palm sanders, and when he got the guy in charge of such rental business, he could not think of the word PALM SANDER.

"I'm calling to see if you have those..." he held his hand out in front of him, in frustration, as though if he mimed holding it, the name of it would come to him, "...those hand jobs?"

In case you're wondering, no. That is not a service Home Depot provides.

The laughing at you, however? Totally free.