Feb
4
Two
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At two years old Dylan talks and talks, he counts to ten, he sings, he climbs on top of things and chirps “Watch DIS, Mommy! Watch DIS, Mommy!” before hurling himself into the air. “Dumping!” he shouts, leaping up and down. “Dumping!”
Unlike Riley when he was the same age, Dylan couldn’t care less about trucks. He likes spotting motorcycles when we’re out and about—”I see a MOTACYCLE! I see a MOOOOHHHTACYCLE!”—but wheeled things are far less interesting than things with fur and hooves and snouts. His favorite activities are sitting in someone’s lap looking at pictures of animals (“Reada book? Finda cow?”) or surfing Flickr for barnyard-themed photos (SafeSearch ON, thank you very much).
All day long he asks what things are, and repeats the word to himself.
“DOING, Mommy?”
“Well, I’m loading the dishwasher right now.”
“Dish . . . washa.”
These days he loves maple sausages, macaroni and cheese, yogurt tubes, Life cereal, crackers, pineapple chunks, waffles, pancakes, and “buttah JELLY” sandwiches. He can be counted on to sobbingly refuse anything I’ve spent more than seven minutes preparing.
He is still a tantrumy little sniglet, but he’s starting to respond to time outs. That is, he’ll at least go to his room and howl there for a while, then sniffle “yes!” when we ask him if he’s all done.
He loves his brother and refuses to give Riley one inch of personal space, crushing up against him when they’re watching Yo Gabba Gabba and trailing him from room to room, grabbing at his clothes. They play frenzied screaming cackling games for hours on end, crashing around the house like mad things. Sometimes they throw a ball back and forth to each other, while Dylan shrieks “Throw it to ME, Riley! Throw it to ME, Riley!” and dissolves with joy when the ball invariably smashes into his skull.
At night Dylan collapses into my chest, a warm heavy weight in my arms. “Horses comin’ ’round,” he whispers, and I sing to him. She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes. She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes. He drools into my left shoulder; I emerge from his bedroom with my shirt clinging wetly to me. I never mind. Soon I won’t be rocking my little boy to sleep any more, my shirts will always be dry, and oh how sad to think of that day, coming all too soon, ’round the mountain.
Feb
2
Okay, time to study. Studying is reading, right? I love reading! This is going to be so awesome. The kids are in bed, the house is quiet, I’ve got myself all settled on the couch with a highlighter, now all I have to do is crack up chapter one, sit back, and enjoy the—
Oh, ha ha ha. I seem to have scanned a paragraph without fully understanding it. Silly me! I’ll just reread it again and—
Huh. Boy, there sure isn’t much light in here. Maybe I should change the lightbulb. I wonder if we shouldn’t have painted that wall such a dark color, since it seems to—
NEVERMIND. STUDYING. Study study study. Look at me being all studious and shit! I should totally get some of those arty square-framed glasses that make people look smart. I mean, I don’t technically need glasses, but I could get some with just regular glass in the—or I know, how about a Moleskine notebook, people love those things, I could take notes in it or just . . . I’m pretty good at doodling, like I could use it to draw little robots during—
FOCUS.
Reading! Okay. Reading. La la la, reading reading reading . . . okay, I still didn’t get that paragraph, what the hell. Let’s try the old trick of putting a pen under each sentence and just take it kind of slow. All right. All riiiiight. Here we go. Yeah, this is helping. Right on, pen! Way to work! Epistemological . . . positivism . . . macro . . . methodological . . . WHAT? What the fuck is this book talking about?
“CAN YOU STOP THAT NOISE?”
“Um . . . what noise?”
“THAT OBNOXIOUS DISTRACTING NOISE YOU ARE MAKING WITH YOUR NOSE.”
“You mean . . . breathing?’
“YES. STOP IT. I’M TRYING TO STUDY OVER HERE, GOD.”
Okay. Okay okay okayyyyy. Whoooo. Get ahold of yourself, girl, you’ve got this. Just start over and read that paragraph from top to bottom. Epi . . . epistem . . . stemological. Is that like an episiotomy? Goddamn it, I need a dictionary. I can’t believe I need a dictionary. Good thing everything’s on the internet now, right? I’ll just get my laptop and . . .
Hey, I wonder what’s happening on Twitter?
NO. STOP. DICTIONARY DOT COM. GO THERE. TYPE IN THE WORD.
E. P. I. S—you know what I could really go for right now? A sandwich. Mmmmmmm, sandwich. Okay okay. E. P. I. S. T. E—or a cookie. God damn, I could tear into a cookie. Okay. E. P. I—oh man, I’ve got some dough in the—I’ll just—OKAY, fuck, OKAY. Epistemological.
Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
Uh . . . huh. Well. Well, of course! It’s the . . . justified . . . the belief about the investigation of the . . . opinions. Totally obvious.
You know what, I’m going to watch The Soup.
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