Feb
6
I have been feeling very sorry for myself because I have a cold, which is much much MUCH worse than the viral ailments John has loudly endured. I can tell you this with certainty because I have a vagina. Penis = man cold = giant titty baby whiner-pants. Vagina = death flu = heroic silent suffering while Getting Shit Done. Don’t complain to me, I didn’t invent the anatomical traits.
It’s true that I may have formed a couch-nest out of a heating pad and piles of tissues and a magazine that was so trashy I shame-slid it facedown across the grocery checkout belt like it was a copy of Underage Anal Porcupine-Squirting Tentacle Queens which I just made up but is probably a real Internet publication because rule 34. It’s also true I have been loudly exclaiming “DAMMIT!” after every knee-buckling sneeze, a behavior I would find deeply annoying if exhibited by any other person in this household, but let’s be honest: my cold is worse than theirs. It is a Mom Cold, a brutal whole-bodied takeover that leaves a person hacking weakly into the laundry while still folding the laundry.
The Mom Cold is miserable but garners no sympathy, the Mom Cold is just another unlovely attritribute like my weirdly square-shaped ass. My giant disease vector children go flying by, germs and bacteria trailing behind them in murky green clouds. “Wash your hands,” I say to NO ONE AT ALL because THAT’S WHO IS LISTENING, and go back to reading about George Clooney, who I bet is a moaning little dapper bitch when he has a cold.
Jan
27
Thirteen is long gangly limbs and a new-ish posture that somehow transcends the word slouch, it’s a full-bodied curve. I googled an old Snoopy cartoon where he’s pretending to be a vulture, perched like the letter C on the top of his doghouse. That’s YOU, his brother laughs. Thirteen curls even more in response, his entire being can become a grimace.
Thirteen is a short temper and dogged refusal to give a single inch, lighthearted conversations come to a boil in an instant and suddenly I’m ten minutes into an argument about something I don’t even care about and the topic keeps changing and what the hell, guy? STOP THAT. Thirteen is all strong opinions and withering judgments, an airy wave of the hand and a beetling of the brow.
Thirteen is also a grab-bag of sweet moments: a startling “Love you!” after a silent car ride, an unprompted texted apology, a door held for me. Thirteen has the capacity for pitch-perfect humor, when he can lay down the obnoxious sarcasm in favor of the far more subtle and hilarious observations that he delivers at exactly the right moment. Thirteen slings his long arms around me out of the blue. Moomz, he says, his pet name for me. Rolz, I say back, holding tight.
Thirteen is smart and headstrong and always, always listening. I think, I hope, that thirteen is absorbing the world like a sponge via that careless-seeming slouch, that everything is coalescing inside, a storm of who-am-I, and the shape taking form is one of confidence and maybe, just maybe, the willingness to see other perspectives.
Ten, who is going to be eleven in just a few days, is teetering precariously on the edge of small-boyhood. He is a glorious smattering of freckles and a wide grin that feels like mid-summer sunshine. He is full enthusiasm and absolute refusal in one labyrinthine package, a seesaw of uncomplicated joy and mysterious black clouds.
Ten cannot be budged from his snap judgements: the thing he’s never eaten before is awful, the place I suggested is lame. Ten is both enamored with the world around him — fascinated with cities and animals and faraway lands he wants to experience one day — and too caught up with his own preconceptions to allow the world to surprise him. He sees big, he sees through a pinhole; it’s like everything else for him: big and tiny, back and forth.
Ten is hugely affectionate and loves his family unreservedly. He is funny and silly and both enormously scatterbrained and deeply observant. He lights up like a Christmas tree over our shared rituals: inside jokes, secret gestures. His face has the soft planes of childhood while his ever-growing bones seem to knit before my eyes into the stance of the man he will become.
Ten is also smart and headstrong, and yet so different from thirteen. I hope the same for him, that he comes to believe in who he is without forming a carapace against the hurts and risks that come with being human. Real talk, I also want ten to be little forever and ever and ever. I will always be your littlest one, even if I’m bigger, he says with surprising wisdom, curling his fingers around mine.
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