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  • Dissolved
  • Two new delights
  • Less noise, more me
  • Good times
  • Not Ken’s Dream House
  • The joy of different
  • This must be the place
  • All of the feels
  • Life update: endings and beginnings
  • Adapting to the lasts
  • At the same time
  • Take a picture it’ll last longer
  • Horsin’ around
  • Surrender, Dorothy
  • College let-go

Archives from 2002-2006

The early weeks after Dylan was born were some of the hardest roads I’ve traveled, and I look back on it and think, well, no wonder: I was roiling with hormones, recovering from major surgery, trying to adjust to life with a newborn AND a toddler, my body had changed overnight from ripely beautiful to saggy and fat, restful sleep had been traded for staccato naps, and every routine we had managed to laboriously carve out bit by bit over the last 2.5 years had been blown to smithereens.

Holy shit, that sucked. That was a good six weeks of OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE I TAKE IT BACK MULLIGAN.

Things rapidly improved around the six week mark, and now that my babe is six months — oh, my god. This baby is like a giant sugar cube of deliciousness. Seriously, I wouldn’t shit you with a bunch of malarky about how precious it all is and how I love damn near every moment if it wasn’t true, okay? It’s almost ridiculous how joyous and smooshy Dylan is, and I keep trying to compare him to Riley at the same age and I can’t help thinking this one’s a LOT more festive. He’s almost never suspicious, for one thing, and I don’t know, he’s just a big smiley goobery baby and I think of him as my flirty frat boy child (you should see him go after his twig-and-berries during diaper changes, good lord), what with his Rodney Dangerfield grins and sloppy openmouthed kisses. I wonder if a second child isn’t automatically more entertained, since they’re always watching their older sibling? Dylan cannot get enough of Riley, that’s for sure, and Riley is often eye-wellingly loving towards his little brother.

My boy Riley is almost 3 years old now, and there are times when I cannot believe what a jackass he can be. Three, so far, is tougher than two. But oh my god, the crazily wonderful conversations, the intricate games, the color-me-amazed moments that happen one after another! This boy can count, spell, speak in complex sentences and joke with me! He is a delicious mess of extremes, and his face is a glorious treasure of emotion.

I am saying: this is amazing. I am saying: this can be a fucked-up road full of potholes and setbacks and regrets and I sometimes feel unqualified and undeserving to be on it but oh, I AM here and what a gift, what an unbelievable place to be, and I am so, so grateful.

I sometimes think the key to a good marriage is being able to let things go. You may have a disagreement about something and in your mind you are absolutely in the RIGHT and he is indubitably WRONG and also a SELFISH PRICK, but sitting around holding your breath for an apology and the heartfelt declaration that all future prickishness will be avoided at all costs often gets a person nowhere, and I find it to be downright taxing to set my body language to FROSTY BITCH for more than a few hours at a time.

Both JB and I are stubborn and loathe to give ground and on the few occasions that we fight, neither of us are any good at sitting down like rational adults and listening to each other’s position. JB tends to toss forth brain-bending logic shitbombs like, “Well I’m sorry you choose to feel that way about it” and I have an unfortunate habit of accelerating straight to into “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up” territory. It’s pretty rare that we revisit an argument and concede our own mistakes; instead, we stew independently for a while until life inevitably pushes the bad moment under the bridge, like when our favorite TV show comes on or JB decides to randomly inform me we should have makeup sex, or at the very least, makeup BJ?

(Makeup BJ. Right. Well, you can’t say the man doesn’t dream big.)

I’m sure we could be handling our differences with more maturity and mutual respect, but it seems to me that we’re usually able to move on without holding too much of a grudge. It’s funny, parenthood is often both a grindstone against which our marriage is tested on a daily basis, and a binding force holding it together. I may find myself occasionally thinking grumpily that my husband is a total wet end and that I’d like to run off to Aruba to live out my remaining cougar years leering at bronzed poolboys, but it’s more typical that I view whatever argument is at hand as just what it is: a temporary bump on a long, amazing road we’re committed to staying on with each other. Having kids together — even though it tests our patience, saps our romance, and steals our spontaneity — makes me feel like we took those wedding vows and dipped them in titanium.

That said, WHY is it always totally okay for my husband to leave the house on his own during the weekend — without any sort of need to ask for permission, may I add — while if I do so it’s like I’ve committed war crimes against fucking HUMANITY? And why IS IT, as long as I’m ranting, that if I am by myself with the children I usually somehow manage to also pick up our shithole house, throw some laundry in the washing machine, and excavate various biological specimens from the kitchen sink, but if he’s the one at home it’s like some sort of grandiose expectation or perhaps even a physical impossibility on par with running a two-minute mile to do anything but keep the children fed and relatively feces-free? JESUS H. CHRIST ON A LOW-SODIUM CRACKER.

Okay, NOW I can let it go. Ah, that’s better.

I’m flying solo parenting-wise at the moment while JB goes camping with his dad and brother (which may or may not be influencing my Ranty McCrabism state of mind) (he told me: “You’ll be working so it’ll be NO BIG DEAL”) (OMFG) (then I devoured him, black-widow-like) (also, if you’re thinking of breaking in and stealing my Payless shoes be forewarned that I have GUNS and also HAIRSPRAY and a REALLY FAT LAZY MEAN CAT) and I’m feeling lonely, so tell me, what’s the happiest event of your recent life? Big or small, what has put a giant grin on your face?

For me, it was digging this crazy jumper chair out of storage for Dylan, because hoo boy, good times all around. How about you?

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