Apr
22
Yesterday after work I went for a horrible run—I say horrible because it really was pathetic, my nose was all drippy and I kept getting pollen in my eyes and my iPod cord kept getting tangled and I had to stop and walk several times and my underwear got wedged halfway up my small intestine and at one point I somehow ate a tiny flying bug—and the whole time I kept thinking about all these different things that have been driving me crazy lately, like those wag more bark less bumper stickers Seattle drivers are so thoroughly enamored with, my ongoing career angst, and the fact that Anoop is still on American Idol.
Crankiness is often a useful emotion during kickboxing because you can, say, visually place someone’s face on the punching bag before sending a few well-aimed front kicks at the bridge of their imaginary nose, but being mired in negativity while trying to run was like slogging through wet cement. The entire outing from start to finish was wholly without any of the redeeming moments I sometimes experience when I’m out puffing along the sidewalk at a snail’s pace (when for just a second I think dude check me out all jogging and shit like a total badass! which is usually right before I’m hit with a debilitating side cramp) and I came home and staggered in the front door with what felt like a visible black cloud over my head. A tag cloud, even, filled with things like JOB and SECURITY and CREATIVE FULFILLMENT and PREACHY STICKER-BASED SENTIMENTS and CHEESY FUCKING BALLADS.
Two seconds later, the boys came barreling out of the living room to see me, both lit up like Christmas trees with enormous toothy grins plastered across their jelly-stained faces. Now, I am not one of those people who feels the need to recommend parenthood as an obvious life choice to every single person on earth of childbearing age, but I will say this: if you are having a crappy day and feeling sort of down on yourself and you maybe have bugs in your teeth and an ass full of bunched-up underwear, two small children squealing with joy and trampling themselves to jump into your arms is a fantastic restorative tonic.
Of course, in the next minute Riley was whining and crying because Dylan had grabbed his airplane toy and Dylan was screaming because Riley had tried to take back his airplane toy and oh my god I am going to shove this airplane up both your [redacted] if you kids don’t etc, but still. Bad mood banished.
I feel like I’ve had an extra-grumpy couple of weeks lately and I’m glad for those little moments when the clouds are pushed aside and I’m reminded of everything that’s so awesome in my life. Corny, yeah, I know, but true.
Those bumper stickers still suck, though. Wag THIS, hippie.
Apr
20
Whatever virus Riley has seems to be of a particularly stubborn ilk, because it’s been nearly a week and he’s still hacking and snotting and running a comes-and-goes fever that periodically transforms his personality into an event horizon whose escape velocity traps all light, happiness, and parental will to live. Once the Motrin kicks in he’s pretty much good to go, but in those dark soulless moments between dosings of berry-flavored miracle elixir it’s basically like living with the world’s most sullen 30-pound teenager, being as how he hates EVERYTHING and its ASS FACE.
It’s weird and sad to experience such a different side of my own kid and even while I’m struggling to be patient and understand this has to do with not feeling well I found myself nearly weeping to JB last night about how upset I’ll be if Riley turns out to be the kind of person who doesn’t care about anything and I don’t care WHAT he cares about as long as he cares about something, please god just let him be passionate instead of sitting around RAGGING ON EVERYTHING like some kind of MISERABLE A-HOLE, and whooaahhhhh there hoss, maybe wait until the kid’s temperature drops below 101 before deciding his future as a nihilist?
In the meantime, Dylan has picked up nearly all the good-attitude slack and has abandoned the nonstop tantrums in favor of an adorable streak of babbling, scampering, and generally staying greatly amused by almost anything, as demonstrated in this video:
The only constant in parenting is the inconsistency, and you’d sure think I’d know that by now but I keep falling into the trap of thinking that whatever stage we’re in is going to last forever, even with so much empirical evidence to the contrary. I think this is my biggest shortcoming in motherhood, that I’m so easily overwhelmed by the moment and so often unable to remember that it is, in fact, a moment, soon to be gone forever.
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