nighty-night

Our kids usually go to bed at around 8:00. Of course, my preference would be to get them asleep by 6:30, and have them wake up about thirteen hours later. But my preference is also to be six inches taller than I am and not have to see an electrologist. So there you go.

I think of it less as putting the kids to bed and more as putting them away: like I’m straightening up around the house, shelving a few more items until they’re ready for use again—the dishes stacked in the cabinets, the clean laundry folded and returned to the appropriate dressers, the boys tucked away in their bunk beds, Lilah in her crib.

The problem is, while the dishes and clothing generally stay put, the kid drawers keep popping open. The boys want water, a slice of cheese, another goodnight kiss. Lilah wants—who knows? And so, again and again, we go into their rooms, tell them to hush and settle. We pat them on the back, or raise our voices, or both. We keep putting away our three jack-in-the-boxes, until finally, sometimes as much as 45 minutes later, they are all quiet.

All the while, Stupid Daddy and I lose ground on these precious couple of hours we have to ourselves, to each other, to the silence in the house. And I begin to feel anxious about how little I’ve gotten done, irritated that I am so beholden to my little ones’ schedules. I get this burst of energy after they go down and want to stay up until 2am, taking care of this and that—paying bills, writing bestsellers, solving many of the world’s most pressing problems.

Lately, I’ve experimented with giving in to that impulse. (Have you noticed, by the way, how much happier a planet we are living on?) But I’ve discovered that, strangely enough, the kids don’t sleep in after my late nights. No matter how late I stay up, they still wake up at 6:30 the next morning. Even on Saturday! Kids are so funny like that.

They also insist that 65 degrees is a totally appropriate temperature for swimming without a wet suit and believe that adding “butt” to the end of any sentence makes it an instant comedy classic. There’s a lot we’re not in sync about. I guess I should have seen it coming.

my little superhero

It's going okay with the Synthroid. (Every time I say that word, I think of Syndrome from The Incredibles. Sometimes Synthroid teams up with Flomax and Lipitor, and then you really have to watch out.)

Ezra has taken his pill three mornings in a row like a trooper. Swallowing it has been no problem. Yesterday he said to me, "I decided that this pill is fun. And good." Maybe I got the wrong prescription.

I've tried to be very matter-of-fact about the medication with him. Probably because of my sensitivity and all-around awesomeness as a mother, I haven't said, "Here, take your pill, sweetheart. Remember why? Because you're sickly and feeble and your body will never work right without it."

But that's what I'm thinking. There's something about the neverendingness of it that's just so disheartening to me, something about his body's inability to do what it's supposed to on its own.

I remember years ago, when Ezra was past that really fragile newborn stage and we were still in that awed new parent stage, Stupid Daddy would sometimes kind of bunch him up in his enormous hands like a compact package and turn him this way and that and say to me, "Look at this, sweetie! He's got everything he needs. It's all right here." But that turned out not to be the case.


I guess it's always something--glasses, insulin, antidepressants. I'm really working not to overdramatize this. He's just so little that looking out at the rest of his life, every day a pill, every day a pill, is overwhelming. And I just love him so much.

wednesday night book club

I've been working on a children's book for a little while and finally felt ready to field test it on my boys tonight. I got them settled in their beds and read to them, gesturing here and there and acting out certain parts because there are no illustrations. They were quiet for the entire ten minutes it took me to read the story. Damn, I thought to myself. This must really be good, just as I suspected.

Then this.

Levi: "That was boring. Now I want some water."
Ezra (looking up at the ceiling): "Now can we read a real book?"

Their constructive comments and insights really got me thinking about ways to improve the story. I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and get back to it.

They have so lost the dedication if this book ever makes it to print.

it never ends with these birds

Today, as I was taking a stinky diaper out to the trash, I noticed another baby bird hopping and stumbling around our driveway--number three from what is obviously the same brood. I wonder how many are left up there. I haven't been able to locate the nest, which appears to have a trap door.

Somehow, I went from weeping at the thought that his sibling might not make it and engaging in a full-blown rescue effort on Sunday to thinking, "Oh well, sorry for your bad luck!" today and doing nothing more than scooping this one up and depositing him on some grass under a nearby tree.

A bit later, I noticed him back in the driveway, dead and still, tipped over on his side. And I didn't shed a tear.

The rescued bird, the one I actually showed some mercy, I discovered when Stupid Daddy was around and the support and companionship were plentiful. Today, Stupid Daddy is away on his weekly work-related overnight. (At least he claims it's work-related.) Maybe this is what happens to me when I'm alone with my kids--every single ounce of energy goes into ensuring their survival without losing a grip on my own sanity--in other words, just getting us all through the goddamn day. Nothing--not one ounce of sympathy, not one morsel of concern--is left over for anything else, even an adorable, helpless baby bird with a haze of long downy hair who does a face plant every time he tries to take a step.

Either that, or I've been replaced by a cyborg. In which case, family, looking on the bright side, you can expect more regularly cooked meals and fewer mood swings.

it all circles back, you'll see

The bird made it through the night on only one feeding, of which I was completely unaware, thanks to Stupid Daddy and my special vitamin, Ambien. And this morning he was chipper as ever, craning his bony little neck for the next bite of mush. Stupid Daddy brought him over to the Nature Center first thing while I extended my drug-induced haze with a couple of Percocets took the kids to school. The good people over there identified him as a starling and were happy to, er, take him under their wing. Adios, little guy! I'm sorry you're going to grow up to be so ugly and obnoxious!

In other news, Ezra has been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. He's been very low on the growth chart for the last few years, but maintaining his velocity, which generally means there's no cause for concern. At his last checkup, however, he had dropped into a much lower percentile, so we took him to a pediatric endocrinologist, and this is what the labs picked up.

Aside from his small size, Ezra looks like a generally healthy kid with shining eyes, a quick mind, and tons of energy. He has none of the other symptoms of the disease, save one: horrible mood swings. I wonder now if his shouting, his tirades, his minimal tolerance for frustration, his generally being a total asshole for the last six months or so are all a function of the lazy thyroid. And of course I'm kicking myself for having so little sympathy and giving him such a hard time and not seeing that there might be something wrong sooner.

Hypothyroidism isn't necessarily the cause of his small stature. He may indeed have a growth hormone deficiency, but that can't be tested (i.e., insurance won't pay for testing) until his thyroid function is stabilized. Stupid Daddy is encouraging me not to worry about what might or might not have to happen six months from now, but I can't help feeling like all this is just the beginning of one long nightmare of repeated doctor's visits and labs and "stim tests" that would involve him fasting for six hours and then running like nuts for twenty minutes and then drinking nasty medicine and then running some more and then having his blood drawn for the sixtieth time in two hours and then reciting the alphabet in French while standing on his head or some shit like that, and then, and then, possibly getting an injection in his tiny little ass every day for the next decade.

So I'm trying really hard to focus on the more immediate challenges, mainly, getting my five-year-old to learn to swallow his special vitamin (the Synthroid pill) and see this addition to his morning routine as a) absolutely no big deal, or b) one big pharmaceutical adventure.

thank god my tubes are tied

I have managed to survive nine days (but who's counting? who's crossing the days off with big, gleeful, indelible X's in the calendar inside her head? not me) of my mother's ten-day visit with very minimal substance abuse (and if it's so minimal, can it really be called "abuse"?). Tomorrow, she gets on the itty-bitty airplane and flies back home, at which point the 48-hour fallout from her trip will commence, characterized by lots of overeating and crying and specific as well as global regret.

Speaking of mothering and flying, I found a baby bird hopping and squawking in our driveway today. It was very wee, with the tiniest stump of a tail, and lots of baby fuzz but no real feathers to speak of. And it had this adorable broad yellow beak that its head hadn't yet grown into.

Of course, because three little kids, two dogs, a cat, and a fish are not enough to take care of, I grabbed a tiny shoe box, lined it with a nice soft rag, and scooped him into it. Stupid Daddy called a local wildlife rehabilitator, who said it sounded like a titmouse. However, knowing nothing about birds, I am skeptical, since it looks so much like this and isn't it true that a brief search on the Internet can substitute for years of training? Whatever it is, she suggested we feed it a delectable mush of banana and softened cat food. Every thirty minutes. Not so much fun anymore!

And yet, to see this little thing all hunkered down in the shoe box opening its mouth as wide as it can for another tenth of an ounce of food and then falling asleep until the next tenth of an ounce gets loaded into its gullet--

every thirty minutes--

uh, we'll be bringing the little guy to the Nature Center first thing in the morning.

coming soon to a chimney near you

Last fall, I called a friend on a Saturday afternoon to find out what she and her family were doing that evening.

“We’re watching the chimney sweeps at the Grove Arcade. They come out at around seven. Some guy gives a talk about them beforehand. Wanna come?”

I immediately thought of Mary Poppins and imagined a whole mess of sooty, down-on-their-luck but still joyous chimney sweeps rushing down from various chimneys at the Grove Arcade and dancing their way out the doors. The kids would love it. I would love it. We were all over those chimney sweeps.

I was surprised not to have heard of this apparently annual event, but I chalked it up to being relatively new to Asheville. And it occurred to me that I hadn't ever actually noticed any chimneys, but whatever, sometimes I'm really good at missing the obvious.

We got there a bit before seven. It was an unusual crowd: much smaller turnout than you'd imagine for such a spectacle. Hardly any kids, a lot of older folks. With binoculars.

Huh. Were the chimney sweeps so tiny?

Then I overhead the older folks talking. Not about dancing, or soot, or Mary Poppins. They were talking about nesting, migration, and bird calls. They were talking about swoops! Chimney swoops! Which, I soon found out, are a kind of bird, though when I Googled them just now I only got two hits, which means they're obviously not famous or important birds.

I had been in a lousy mood that day anyway because I'm always in a lousy mood I had just gotten a very housewifey haircut. (When I complained about it to another friend, she said, “But you are a housewife!” and, really, with friends like that who needs mother-in-laws?)

So it seemed fitting that my expectations would continue to be dashed, if not by a stylist who, when I say, “Please don’t give me one of those mom haircuts,” hears, “Please definitely give me one of those housewifey cuts, because I’m feeling a little too young and sexy these days,” then by my own inability to hear what’s been said to me, such is the power of wishful thinking. Because who could brighten up a shitty day better than Dick van Dyke? I wanted Mary Poppins. I got The Birds.

Thankfully, we hadn’t said anything to the kids other than that we were meeting our friends at the Grove Arcade. So they didn’t have the disappointment to deal with. They did a lot of running up and down the sidewalks, and then climbing on the lions who, inexplicably, had become "princesses who are gonna kill you with their penises." (Yikes, guys, I'll be sure to stay away.)

Me, I spent some time crying in the gutter, brushing my housewife hair out of my eyes, while the swoops circled undramatically very high above us in the darkening sky.