There was this brief, maybe 2-week period of time when Dylan was sort of sleeping through the night. He’d sleep one night, wake up the next, sleep the next two, that kind of thing. Then he had a cold or hit a growth spurt or the planets realigned or whatever it was, and he hasn’t missed a wakeup call since.

I go to bed every night with foam plugs crammed in my ears, which I started doing in order to sleep through the tiny, not-requiring-attention noises he was making (the solitary indignant bleat, for instance, as he rolls over and momentarily gets tangled in his blanket) and have now grown dependent on. The plugs are like the cloth over a parrot’s cage, making me feel securely tucked away in a quiet bubble, ready to close my eyes and dream of a Holmes/Watson-wich (“Holmes, does your depravity know no bounds?” I certainly hope NOT, Mr. Downey Jr., and hey, Jude, how about unbuttoning that waistcoat), but they don’t block out any actual crying or anything. No, I’m all too aware of his grousing, from the instant he ramps up into the first howl.

So every night I obediently swing my feet out of bed, pull my robe on, and go to his room. Every night I pick him up and sit in the rocking chair and hold his warm body as he collapses into me. And so far, every night I put him back down and he sleeps the rest of the night without a peep.

He’s generally happy to see me when I go in there and doesn’t wake me up more than once per night, and I don’t have any trouble falling back asleep. My energy is higher than it’s ever been (high five, running!) so I don’t feel like it’s making me tired. All things being equal, of course I’d rather have him able to make it through the night without intervention, but this, right now . . . is not so bad.

Maybe it’s the feel of his small body in my arms, and the knowledge that he’s so close to not needing that at all any more. He’s entrenched in that magical, difficult stage between baby and boy, where every day he startles us with the new words he knows and the things he understands, yet still frequently throws himself to the floor sobbing. He wants kisses one minute, wants to shout “NO!” the next. He looks so tiny, then suddenly, startlingly: so big.

“Doing, Mommy?” he asks, all day long. “Doing?”

“Oh, just putting the dishes away, sweetie,” I’ll say, and he cocks his little face and tries it out for size. “Dishzz. Mommy, a’ puttin. Dishzz.”

I love the boy he’s becoming, and I didn’t expect this—because of how hard it can be, so frustrating and limiting—but lately part of me is actively mourning the baby he won’t be for much longer. I suppose the thing is, at 3 AM, no matter how hard it is to leave my own bed, I get my baby back. Just for a little while.

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A while ago I decided to sign up for Seattle’s Resolution Run 5K, which was scheduled for New Year’s Day and featured the option to run straight into Lake Washington right before the finish line. Because in the last year or so entire chunks of my brain have morphed into adrenaline-addicted packing foam material, leaving me incapable of rational thought, I looked at the picture on the front of that website and thought, what a great way to usher in the new year! Then I picked up a nearby salad fork and drove it directly into my right eye socket, just to get ready.

Race day brought chilly, wet weather, since, you know, it’s fucking January and all, and I wasn’t even remotely into it, especially when I was at the park waiting in a giant line for the bathrooms and the wind started blowing sideways and the water entrance was right there and looked like this:

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The race announcer kept getting on the loudspeaker and chiding those of us waiting in line by reminding us there were more bathrooms to the north and why didn’t some of us go over there instead and I was like great except which way is north? I’m serious, motherfucker, I have absolutely no sense of direction and I’ve already committed ten minutes to this stupid line and shut UP about the mythical bathrooms to the NORTH you may as well be telling me what LONGITUDE they’re at because I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE.

When it was finally my turn I instantly committed the cardinal Porta-Potty sin by glancing into the toilet, at which point the contents—the many, many contents, which had formed a little fetid Mountain of Horror, including a fresh decoration on the summit that appeared to be the byproduct of an enormous grizzly bear suffering from Ex-Lax poisoning (and all I can say about that is better out than in, I suppose, but perhaps if that came out of your body on race day you’d be more comfortable lying down? Hooked up to a hospital IV, say?)—seared themselves into my brain, probably permanently. In fact, I can see it all again right now. Yes indeed, when I’m on my deathbed and revisiting some of the most stirring images of my life, it’ll probably go like this: childhood Christmas, wedding day, birth of my own children, GIANT PORTA-POTTY TURDSPLAT.

Minutes later, as I was waiting in line to store my bag, trying to refocus and let the Unpleasant Moment Go, I felt something wet plop onto my head. I reached up and touched my hat, and my fingers came away white and dripping.

Goddamn. Fucking. Seagull.

I hoped it was just a passing splash, but when I took off my hat I realized that I’d been bombed by the bird version of whatever had visited the Porta-Potty before me. There was . . . stuff, all over my hat. White stuff, brown stuff, lumpy stuff, runny stuff. It was also on my jacket, down my collar, and on my race shirt. Oh, and on my neck, collarbone, and somehow, my chin.

I had to laugh, because what else was there to do? I wiped up what I could, which wasn’t much. I met lovely Noemi at the starting line later, who was very understanding and didn’t seem visibly repulsed by the fact that I was COVERED IN POOP, and even helped me get a glob off my neck.

After all that, the run was cake. It was crowded and muddy and we plowed through giant puddles and at the end, the lake didn’t feel too bad. It was a shock to hit the water but I told myself, at least you’re washing away the fecal remnants. Which, I’m sorry to say, isn’t an entirely unfamiliar self-pep talk in my life.

So, my 2010 has officially been ushered in, and while I had been hoping for a physical metaphor of seizing the day and taking on new challenges, I think instead that the message for me here is this: into everyone’s life, a little shit must fall. Shake it off and keep going.

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