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A bunch of my coworkers follow me on Twitter. One of the (several) embarrassing things about this has to do with people I work with but don’t know terribly well personally getting an undiluted stream of whining from me, such as after a weekend like this last one, where every message I posted was something along the lines of AIIIEE WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIIIIEEEE. One of my coworkers said that following me was making him terrified of ever having kids of his own.

Right! Well, just doing my part to curb population control, you know.

It does make me wonder what sorts of fragmented picture of my life someone could piece together from Twitter, especially if it’s a person who doesn’t really know me in person or (to my knowledge) read my blog. I must sound like an unhappy, ADD-riddled crank, endlessly making asinine observations. Not that a 140 character-limit window is really the best place for deep personal revelations, but most of my updates could be filed under DEAR LORD SAVE ME FROM MY FERAL CHILDREN or THIS JUST IN! CAFFEINATED BEVERAGES R GOOD.

Something I started to mention on Twitter this morning and didn’t, because I couldn’t think how to describe it with any sort of brevity: I nearly hit a motorcycle on my way into work today. If the accident had happened it would have been my fault without a doubt, but in my defense I’ll say he didn’t have his lights on and he was wearing dark colors from head to toe, making him nearly indistinguishable in the grey, dim morning from the concrete embankment on my left. I looked in my mirror, I looked over my shoulder, and I just didn’t see him in my blind spot before starting to make my way into the left lane — only at the last minute did I get a sense of something not being quite right and hauled ass back into my lane.

Do you ever think about the paths your life has taken, the small and large events that have shaped your footsteps to where you are now? That moment in my car this morning was like some giant, unspeakable peek into What Might Have Been: a slightly different reaction time and who knows what sort of terrible outcome there might have been, instead of what did happen, which was me shaking my head and saying “Shit! Shit! Shit!” and driving the rest of the way to work, biker unscathed.

The boys are home, and the return of clatter and chaos and Riley’s nonstop talk, talk, talking (“Mommy? Mommy? You missed me while I was at gramma and grampa’s? You were SAD cause I was GONE?”) feels like the house got lit up from within like a Christmas tree.

This weekend was rough, maybe the hardest couple of days I can remember as a parent. Dylan’s sickness and fussiness wore me down to a raw nerve, and yesterday when I was hosing out a barfed-on carseat in the sink while he screamed nearby, furious at having been put down for one second, I did some weeping of my own because holy god, this wasn’t just hard, this was insurmountable — I have never felt so incapable and frustrated and utterly unable to recognize the temporary nature of our situation.

The moment passed, of course, as they all do — the good ones and bad ones alike, time treats them all the same and oh, how unfair is that? — and we trudged onward. Literally, even: I ended up wearing Dylan on my back for half the weekend because despite the very real fear of having him puke on my head, it seemed to keep whatever wolves were tormenting him at bay.

Tonight was good. We bought pho noodles and Riley ate his share in giant messy forkfuls, and I sat in the tub with him afterwards and he merrily scrubbed my back with a washcloth, my little spa attendant. Dylan was tired but not too terribly cranky, and Riley spent his evening busily constructing Lego airplanes and building a fort out of sofa cushions.

Both kids are in bed now and I am starting to feel something like a knot unwinding in my chest. The companionable click of JB’s computer is a soothing reminder that the house is full again. Everything feels like it’s supposed to.

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