May

14

Motherhooding

Filed Under Uncategorized | 14 Comments

I had a miserable cold this weekend, the kind that consumes your thinking until you’re pretty sure you’ve always lived this way, gasping openmouthed for air and feeling the skin on your nostrils peel away from all the blowing, and the only thing that made me feel slightly less awful is that Dylan had the same cold. Not that I want him to be sick, of course, but if he was going to be sick, it was nice (?) that I was sick at the exact same time so we could commiserate together. He’d raise his red-eyed face from one couch and peer at me, lying surrounded by wet tissues on the other couch, and he’d say “I can’d even remember what it’s like to breathe through by dose!” And I’d be like, “I DNOW, right?” Then we’d split an ibuprofen and cough weakly into our respective blankets while Riley rolled his eyes.

We did manage to rally for brunch yesterday, although I think that might be the last time I drag everyone out for an over-priced affair that features dried-out salmon and the thousand-yard-stare from a resentful employee who has been staffing an omelet station since 9 AM. It was nice having someone else cook on Mother’s Day and all, but I bet ordering a pizza would have been more satisfying and I wouldn’t have had to take the easy-access Kleenex out of the top of my bra.

It was a really good Mother’s Day. I’d just spent Saturday at the coast with the boys while John was traveling, so we’d had some nice just-us time together. They gave me cards and a delicate yellow orchid, the weather was summery and perfect, John washed my car, the three of them trooped off to Home Depot to bring me home a lawn chair I’d been eying.

Also, I asked John to take our photo and I can’t believe how big these kids are:

Parenthood is really something, isn’t it? I’ve been going through a bunch of old posts lately, pulling together content for a pregnancy/new motherhood memoir/journal/whatever (I’m going to self publish and it’s either going to be funny and awesome or it’s going to be a hot mess, but either way I’ll have a record of that time that lives somewhere aside from my archives), and it feels like actual thousands of years ago that I was marveling at the confusing staticky image from my first ultrasound (awwww, it’s … Skeletor?), but also like it’s not remotely possible that I could be the parent of two almost-teenage humans because didn’t this all happen, like, yesterday?