James

Brothers

I was switching laundry in the basement when I heard yelling—from all the way up in the boys’ bedroom. The boys yell a lot and I’m pretty good at noting the difference between a he-took-my-toy yell and a I’m-hurting-for-real yell. James’s yell became louder and louder so I abandoned the laundry and ran up the (many) stairs and saw this:

Owen wouldn’t let James out.

Now, I felt bad for James, I did, but just look at their faces! I laugh every time I see this picture.

“Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.” —Lemony Snicket

My Monday (So Far)

Picked up Sophie from preschool, dropped her off at play date.

Came home with both boys and found a half-eaten plastic sandwich bag in living room.

Realized bag had been filled halfway with raisins.

Made lunch.

Vaguely remembered something about dogs + raisins + toxicity.

Marveled how the brain pulls out bits of long-ago information when most needed.

Googled.

Questioned legitimacy of search results.

Got Owen more cheese.

Visited Snopes: “Raisins and grapes can be harmful to dogs.” TRUE

Called Ft. Thomas Animal Hospital.

Talked to tech.

Called Andy.

Left half-eaten lunch on table.

Loaded both boys and Tucker into van.

Drove to Animal Hospital.

Took both boys out of van, stood them in front of a stone wall, made them touch stone wall and insisted they do not move.

Went back to van to get Tucker.

Ran behind Tucker across the (thankfully small) parking lot while both boys followed, waving their arms and screaming with glee.

Got inside Animal Hospital without dog or child running into street.

Witnessed boys go crazy over a small dog and four cats.

Watched small dog immediately seek shelter from screaming boys.

Realized Tucker just peed all over the floor and a wooden bench.

Waited for receptionist to get off phone so I could ask for paper towels while reminding boys over and over and over again the location of the pee while they ran around screaming “CAT! MEOW MEOW MEOW! CAT! MOMMY, CAT!” as if they’ve never seen a cat in their life (we own a cat).

Talked to receptionist, found roll of paper towels.

Ran into Andy while trying to keep Tucker out of the pee puddle. Thankful.

Let Andy handle Tucker while I cleaned up pee.

Reminded boys that cats have small ears and loud noises can scare them.

Wondered if boys’ ears were working.

Talked to tech, who claimed more than six raisins for a dog Tucker’s size could be toxic.

Learned that they needed to induce vomiting.

Asked for reassurance about outcome, which was given.

Filled out form.

Wondered about cost.

Vowed never to keep raisins in the diaper bag again.

Drove home sans Tucker (who is being kept for monitoring).

Put boys down for a nap.

Wrote this while listening to boys scream and jump up and down in their cribs.

Thought about 8pm.

And a glass of wine.

“A well-trained dog will make no attempt to share your lunch. He will just make you feel so guilty that you cannot enjoy it.” —Helen Thomson

Sunday Morning Puzzle

“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” —Deepak Chopra

Painting In Our PJs In the Morning

Sophie woke up wanting to “teach the boys how to paint.” She’s not the most patient of teachers. She also dislikes mixing colors. Although the pictures depict a rather lovely experience (and for awhile, it was), it did not end well. I suppose, for a more truthful depiction, I should take pictures across the spectrum. Too often, though, I’m solving and resolving at the one of the spectrum, leaving little time for picture-taking—whereas the other end of the spectrum is the stuff you dream motherhood is going to be, with plenty of time for dreamy documenting.

“A child’s attitude toward everything is an artist’s attitude.” —Willa Cather

Worse

I don’t know what’s worse. Using my legs and arms to pin Owen against myself, a nebulizer mask over his mouth and nose while he thrashes and screams, feeling him soften every few moments only to say, muffled and between sobs, “all done, Mommy, all done.”

Or looking at the look James gives me at the doctor’s office while I’m doing this to Owen—watching James cry and scream from across the room, not understanding that what I’m doing to Owen doesn’t hurt and is, in the long run, going to make him feel much, much better.

Our entire family got hit with a cold this past weekend. Colds always land in James’s chest and he had already done the doctor’s visit with the nebulizer treatment and the every-four-hours at-home albuterol treatment. He’s on day three of steroids. This has become the norm for James. He’s calm with masks over his face now. He inhales the medicine, knowing it’s helping him breathe, feel better.

But Owen. This is all new to Owen. Andy and I averaged about two hours of sleep each last night, staying up with him, watching the retraction in his chest, listening to the wheezing, calling the doctor on call, sharing James’s albuterol with him, debating the ER.

So tired. Everyone is so tired.

Owen had to have two 10-minute nebulizer treatments at the pediatrician’s office today. Ten minutes is a long time when you’re pinning a 2-year-old down and when the 2-year-old’s brother, full of steroids and lacking sleep, is beside himself with worry for his twin brother.

When it was all over, I asked James if he wanted to hug Owen. James said, between tears, “yes.”

Oh my heart.

Of course Owen, furious at the world, refused to accept James’s hug and pushed him away.

Still.

Even on the bad days, the really bad days, there are moments—these small and beautiful moments.

Slow inhale.

Slow exhale.

Breathing.

We’re all breathing.

“There’s no other love like the love for a brother. There’s no other love like the love from a brother.” —Terri Guillemets

The Side Effects of Encouraging Creativity

The kids decided to make a train. Clever and cute, right?

They did this to the playroom in order to make it.

“That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.” —Ivan Turgenev

One-Eyed Play-Doh Snakes

“You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.” —John Updike

On Necklaces and Blacklisting

My mother-in-law, Jill, makes beautiful jewelry. During a recent visit to Jill’s house (more on that later), Jill helped Sophie make a lovely necklace. As such, Sophie has been on a necklace-making kick lately. Her creations have included scrap fabric and paper, seashells and twine, and plastic pop-beads. She’s always thrilled with her results and insists I wear her creations, which I do—around the house, at the grocery, at the YMCA for her ballet lesson.

I always wonder what people think, when I’m wearing Sophie’s artwork around my neck. I wish I didn’t care, but when I see another woman staring at the large, plastic pop-beads draped around my neck I want to say, “My daughter made it! Isn’t it beautiful?” as way of explanation. Sometimes I do. And sometimes I just let the woman wonder.

Some things, when your child asks, you just don’t say no to.

In other news, James gave me my cell phone the other day. I thanked him. He smiled, said “yourwelcome” in his fast-all-together way and ran away. The cell phone was off. I turned it on. It didn’t turn on. I tried again. And again and again and again. And then I noticed it felt light. I took the back off. The battery was gone.

This meant James either took the back off, took the battery out, hid it and replaced the back, or, more likely, dropped the phone, watched it break into three pieces, and found the back and replaced it, not knowing a battery needed to be in there as well.

Regardless, I had no battery. I asked James about it. He smiled and said, “don’t know!” Then he and Owen ran around the house like two crazy people, peering underneath everything saying “find battery, mama, find battery!” over and over.

Andy eventually found it. It was underneath a chair. And while putting my phone back together for me something occurred to him. Lately, whenever he calls me, my phone doesn’t ring—it goes straight to voicemail. This has been happening with several other calls, too. So he told me to go to “settings” and then “call settings” and then “blacklist.” There were three numbers listed—Andy’s, my parents’ and Larosa’s—all blacklisted.

I’d like to blame James for this, too. But I sort of remember a little box occasionally popping up while on calls, and I thought the box said “backlisted.” Usually I’d say “no” but I also sort of remember saying “yes” a few times, thinking I was putting these numbers on a back-up-type list. That makes sense, right?

“These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of.” —George Eliot

The Sentences I Hear Myself Say

I recently heard myself say the following five sentences, in this order, with nothing else between, in a time span of about two minutes.

“Sophie, don’t do pirouettes on the stairs.”

“James, no, you can’t wear Sophie’s winter boots outside.”

“Slow down, Tucker! You’re going to knock the kids down!”

“Sophie, please go put pants on.”

“James, don’t take money out of my wallet.”

There are a lot of two-minute time spans in a day.

“My mom used to say it doesn’t matter how many kids you have … because one kid’ll take up 100% of your time so more kids can’t possibly take up more than 100% of your time.” —Karen Brown

Closed (Because of Us)

Andy left for Gen Con with friends Wednesday night. He’s due back in an hour or so. I’m ready for him to come back.

The kids woke up at 6:30 this morning. By 10am we needed to get out of the house. The weather’s beautiful today, so we went to the park. Not yet ready to go home, we had lunch at Skyline Chili. Still not ready to go home and remembering how all three children were squinting in the sunlight at the park, I suggested we go to Crestview Hills Town Center and buy sunglasses (their old ones had all broken, which, I suppose is to be expected when you spend $2.50 on a pair of sunglasses).

Anyhow, we were able to park right in front of The Children’s Place. So I decided to forgo the stroller. The kids did remarkably well in the store, sticking together and not touching (too many) things, while I discovered that the sunglasses display had been taken over by a winter hat display (in August). The only other store at Crestview that sells children’s clothes is a department store, Dillard’s. So off we went. Sans stroller.

After walking past the large glass perfume displays, I found a map. The children’s department was upstairs.

“Does this mean we get to ride the escalator?” Sophie said.

“Yes,” I said.

She was thrilled.

All of my children have ridden the escalator—but usually, more adults are present. Owen was nervous (he’s often nervous) so I picked him up. James was ready to go running up it by himself, so I slowed him down and grabbed his hand. Seeing that my hands were full Sophie was delighted with the fact that she was going to be able to get on it by herself.

I’m not sure what, exactly, happened next. I just know that Sophie started screaming and doing the splits and while I tried to help her James fell down, on his back, his head toward the first floor and his feet toward the second. I pulled James up and then realized we were going up while Sophie was still struggling at the bottom, falling, yelling for me to stop. At this point a crowd has formed and just as I was trying to work my way back down the escalator to help (now screaming) Sophie with two (now screaming) boys in my arms a Dillard’s employee ran over and pushed the emergency stop button.

I got everyone off. No one (thankfully, luckily, inexplicably) was hurt. I kneeled down next to the Clinique counter hugging my children while two women walked past me, looked me in the eye, disapprovingly shook their heads and started whispering to each other about what had happened. Part of me wanted to scream at those women, telling them they had no right to judge, that we had done the escalator before without issue. Part of me wanted to admit I had made a mistake. But the biggest part of me just wanted to cry.

I thanked the Dillard’s employee, who was very kind, but insisted I stick around to fill out an accident report. The accident report required a manager of some sorts and a very long length of time when you’re in a very public place with three very upset children. The man who pushed the emergency stop button found three peppermints and gave one to each child. This helped. Sort of.

At this point, I just wanted to go home. But I had promised the kids sunglasses and Sophie is very good at remembering promises given. So we found the elevator and we rode it upstairs and walked through a salon into the children’s department—where of course, they had no sunglasses.

We took the elevator back downstairs. The doors opened and I saw a huge blue sign blocking the bottom of the escalator that said “closed for maintenance.” Two bright yellow signs had been posted at the top. Every Dillard’s customer was now having to use the small elevator at the back of the store if they wanted to go upstairs.

We left.

It was a long walk back to the car. Sophie made a point to squint and continually comment about how bright the sun was shining. It was nap time. I unlocked the van. I opened the doors. I strapped everyone in. I was shaky, finally letting myself acknowledge how very lucky we all were, how the entire situation could have been much, much worse. As I was trying to stop my brain from thinking those awful thoughts no parent should think but every parent thinks, I ran into a curb—hard.

And my hub cap flew off.

I pulled into a restaurant parking lot and just parked for a minute, doing the silent cry behind sunglasses I imagine most mothers do at some point—the cry you can’t stop from happening at the moment but the cry you try to keep secret, so that your children remain oblivious.

I was tired. I was ready for Andy to be home. I had made a bad decision. I had almost brought harm to my children. I had caused a scene. A department store’s escalator had been shut down because of my family. And now people were having to swerve when exiting Crestview because of my now-terribly-scratched-up hub cap, which was in the middle of the street.

I took a deep breath. I let the cool air from the air conditioner blow on my face. I turned the van around and I retrieved the hub cap. I explained to Sophie that we’d have to go shopping for sunglasses another time, that it was past the boys’ nap time, that we needed to go home.

Normally, this would be cause for debate but she must have sensed something was up because she simply said, “OK.”

And now, we’re home.

I put the boys to bed. I called my parents, told them what happened, ended up crying some more. I popped popcorn for Sophie and added real butter for her, which she loves. Andy called from the road.

If I close my eyes I can still see the look of absolute panic on Sophie’s face, the odd angle James fell as he was looking at me, more surprised than anything, upside down. If I close my eyes too long I begin to picture things happening that didn’t happen and then I just want to cry some more.

But tomorrow I’ll feel better. And the next day, I’ll feel better some more. And on and on and on until something else goes wrong and there’s a moment of a panic, a hurt something, a scene, feelings of failure, another what if.

Most days, being a parent is amazing. But some days, it’s hard. Really, really hard.

“There is no such thing as a perfect parent so just be a real one.” —Sue Atkins