but I do clean up nice

For as long as we've been together, Stupid Daddy has been mystified by my reluctance to get clean. He showers every day, and sometimes again before bed because he feels too "sticky" to fall asleep. (Don't get me started on how he won't wear wool because it's "itchy" and won't put on new clothes until they've been washed because of the "chemicals.")

I, by contrast, often go two days without showering. It's not that I don't like being clean. It's that for me, showering represents a serious time commitment, and I'd rather be sleeping doing other things. Stupid Daddy can shower in less than a minute, literally, and actually get himself clean, with a few seconds left over for recreational attention to his anal area. My showers have hovered around the seven-minute mark, even without anal stimulation.

Once, a few years ago, I asked him to give me a play-by-play so that I could work on my technique. I stood in the bathroom while he narrated from behind the shower curtain. He made it sound so simple. And yet, even after the tutorial, and with serious focus, I couldn't shave even 30 seconds off my time.

I think the thing that really slows me down is my hair. There's that whole routine of getting hair caught on my fingers when I shampoo, and then picking the hair off my fingers and sticking it to the shower wall, and then sticking it back to the shower wall after it reattaches itself to my fingers, and if you've got long hair don't pretend for even a second that this isn't a challenge you grapple with all the time, and then the whole process has to be repeated with the application of the conditioner and then again with the rinsing of the conditioner, and my god, how is it that I'm not completely bald?

Time-consuming, I tell you. Add to that the collection and proper disposal of said hairs after the shower, and then the collection and proper disposal of new hairs caught in the hairbrush or gracing the sink, not to mention the whole moisturizing of flesh and blow-drying of bangs, and I really do begin to feel quite strongly that showering every couple of days is more than enough.

overheard at the grocery store

Dude: Hey, man. How are you?

Other dude (possibly the father and/or brother and/or cousin of Miss Teen South Carolina): Hey, where ya been? I've been trying to reach you somewhat.

and badder than ever

After a brief interlude of relative back goodness, Stupid Daddy's back is back to being bad. Yes, that's right; the bad back is back.

He's been in agony for about a week now, swallowing Percocet and Flexeril and Advil and Tylenol individually and in combination, with little or no relief. And yet, because he is who he is, in between voodoo sessions acupuncture and chiropractic appointments he soldiers on--lifting kids, loading the dishwasher, sitting as his desk for hours on end, driving long distances to and from work--even though he moves like he's trying to balance an egg on his head.

His tolerance for pain is remarkable. Once, several years ago, he was rearranging some stuff in the basement and dropped a window fan on his foot. It was an old fan and the bottom edge was made out of sheet metal, so essentially this was like taking a guillotine to his foot. He called to me from downstairs, "I think we might need to drive to the hospital...and can you bring a dish towel down here?" His tone was so casual that I ambled down the stairs, not in any particular hurry. But I hauled ass once I saw what had happened.

After waiting forever at the hospital--Stupid Daddy slumping across two chairs with his towel-wrapped foot resting on a chair back, a wee Ezra squirming in my arms--we finally saw a doctor, who poked at the exposed flesh and tendons and then injected Novocain directly into the wound with a needle that was approximately 20 inches long. (And believe me, I know 20 inches.)

Stupid Daddy's only reaction, as this was happening: "Wow, that hurts."

He ended up having surgery to reattach all the tendons that connect the shin muscles to the toes. Even he had to be knocked out for that one.

So tomorrow, hopefully, an MRI.

a package arrived in the mail yesterday

I love the note that came with it even more than the gift itself:


Actually, um, a lot more.

It's a checkbook wallet, which I've never had before and have been coveting for a while. Used to be that I preferred a small wallet that would fit it into a jacket pocket. But now that I'm a grown-up and I carry a purse (one of my least favorite words in the English language), I've been looking for something bigger. I'm forever misplacing my checkbook, and the wallet I've been using for the last several years doesn't have enough slots for the various credit cards and appointment cards and tenth-one-is-free cards that movers and shakers like me tote around, and they end up getting stuffed into the billfold, which means that when I open up my wallet the wrong way, it's 52 pick-up in the grocery store and at the gas station and wherever else goods and services are sold.

The leather of this particular specimen is like butta, and there's ample room inside for wads of cash and heaps of change and all manner of card and paper scrap. The problem is that while the green in the image on Stupid Daddy's monitor looked like that fresh, yummy, almost-lime-but-more-yellow-and-also-more-mellow kind of green, the actual green is muddy and jungle-y. (Don't you think I should write catalog copy?)

So we're going to sue the company ordering a different one. It's pink with red on the inside and also eight bucks cheaper. I'll let you know whether it's the one when it arrives. Sorry to leave you hanging like this, but there's really nothing I can do about it.

accentuatin' the positive

Yesterday as I was getting out of the shower, Ezra observed that I have a "hang-y butt."

Ouch, young man! That's the last time you'll be permitted to see me nekked, you of the spindly calves and sticking-out ears!

Actually, it didn't bother me all that much. I just kept reminding myself that last week, Levi told me I had "pretty eyeballs."

And now, I'm off to the gym to get my cheeks un-hung.

fun times

Between my two boys, Ezra is generally way more sensitive. He feels anxious about being late for school, he rushes to defend our cat when Lilah tries to "play" with her, he cries when we watch Sophie's Choice Bambi, he blushes and looks down at the floor when he gets reprimanded. (Sometimes.)

Whereas Levi seems not to have a shred of remorse about anything he does, he delights in stomping on bugs and destroying spider webs, he's quick to recover from injury--whether it's a biting remark or a head butt to the belly. He's also incredibly affectionate and snuggly and he kisses like a pro; it's just that he comes across as so much less vulnerable than Ezra.

Yet Ezra, though he has been talking about death on and off for a while now, has always treated it very matter-of-factly. And Levi, well, here was Levi last night as I was tucking him into bed:

"Mommy, am I going to die?"

"Yeah, you are, someday."

He looked absolutely terrified and started wailing. (A small part of me was thinking, Poor child, and a small part of me was thinking, I have no idea how to have this conversation. But, to be honest, most of me was thinking, This better not keep him awake because if it does, I won't be able to get anything done tonight and he'll have a shitty day at school tomorrow.)

"But"--I'm such a quick thinker--"not for a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, reaaaaaaaaallllllllllly [hey, that was fun typing just then!] long time."

He calmed down long enough to ask, "Do girls die too?"

"Yes, I said. "Girls die too."

"Then I want to die with you!" he said, and started to cry again.

"Okay," I said. I wasn't going to press him on that one. And then he was quiet for a while.

"Mommy, what's going to happen after you die?" He pointed to me with his chubby little index finger.

"You'll be sad for a while, and over time you'll start to feel better again, and--"

"When people die, do they stop breathing?"

"Yes." More tears.

"I don't want to stop breathing!"

"Okay, you don't have to."

"I want to be alive so I can play with you, and Ezra, and Daddy, and Lilah." (Have I mentioned how much I love this boy?)

"Okay, you can do that. We'll all be alive for a long, long time."

"And when you die, is it forever?"

"Yes." His lip started quivering and he was trying so hard to hold back his tears so he could get out the next question.

"You don't come back alive?"

"No"--the floodgates opened again, so there I was thinking fast again--"but some people believe that you do."

"That's what I want to do."

At this point, Ezra leaned over the top bunk and asked, "When your heart gets tired and stops beeping, does it rest?" I had no idea he had been listening the whole time.

"Beating," I said. "Yeah, sort of."

"And then after it rests for a while it starts beating again?"

"Not usually, no."

"Oh," he said, and lay back down. See, to him it's just information.

Then Levi: "How do people come back alive?"

"I'm not really sure," I said. "Maybe they just think about it really hard."

"That's what I'm going to do. When I die, I'm going to think really hard about coming back alive."

That seemed to settle him, and then he planted a luscious kiss on each of my cheeks and rolled over.

But it left me thinking heavy thoughts. Not that this is anything new: Now that I have a husband and kids, I worry about death all the time. I have the same terror about it that Levi has. I feel the same sense of panic and longing, the wish never to be apart. It hurts, this love thing; it really does.

if I could turn back ti-ime

This past Saturday, the boys slept over at their friend Oscar's. (Thank you, Ben and Katie!) I couldn't believe what a relief it was to have them out of the house, and what a joy it was to spend an evening with my little girl. We played with her dolls, we sang, we rocked out (she really likes to wiggle it, just a little bit), we read books. I nibbled on various body parts and blew raspberries here and there. Lilah tried on every available shoe. In between these activities, she kept me company while I cleaned the kitchen and straightened up the entire downstairs.

Notably and blessedly absent that evening was any mention of--let alone screaming about--the following: bodily excretions, ways to kill the enemy, superpowers, Spiderman, rockets blasting off into outer space, sibling's stupidity, injuries sustained in the heat of the resulting combat, and mother's unreasonableness vis-a-vis food offerings and bedtime.

What were we thinking, having those two boys first?