A Little Dab’l Do Ya

There is a defeated, sinking feeling I get when I arrive at my desk first thing in the morning to find that I’m already exhausted. My empty-nester boss looks at me in confusion when I enter the front office with Cheerios clinging to my suit, a hot purple hand-beaded necklace that spells out the word “M-O-M” and a pair of size five cupcake pajama pants sticking out of my briefcase. My legal assistant nods knowingly and usually says something sympathetic like, “there’s coffee?”

This particular morning I flumped down in my chair and glared at my calendar over the edge of my coffee cup. Booked. All day. The light on my phone was blinking out of the corner of my eye, and I could not stare it directly in the face. I didn’t want it to smell weakness and start ringing. I clicked over from the calendar to my email inbox. 112 messages were lined up, waiting for their chance to mock me, one by one. I clicked back to the calendar in defiance.

I rubbed my eyes. Despite staying up until midnight, I had somehow fumbled my way down the stairs at 5 a.m.to initiate Operation Reclaim the Booty by jumping headlong into my renewed fitness routine. I have refused to come to grips with my weight delusions for the last two months until I realized Husband has been working out daily – with SEALS – while I’ve been assuaging my stress with tacos. So naturally I resolved to undo eight months in eight weeks – which is why it’s not surprising that I fell and almost knocked over my water-glass attempting to do a jab-cross-hook-uppercut. I was actually disappointed when it miraculously remained standing because of the respite it would have provided to stay down there on the floor to clean it up.

Once I recovered and showered, the rest of the morning routine with the kids was equally painful. First, there wasn’t enough motivation in the world to get The Preschooler out of bed, and Sweet Pea was having a meltdown wardrobe crisis. I was perched on the top stair inquiring whether the boy child would be wearing his clothes on his body or in a bag when Sweet Pea interrupted to announce that she “needed” me to make her a lunch. By the time we arrived at school my makeup was only half on, and I was dubbed the unknowing elderly slob that didn’t understand the power of the second grade fashion police. I was also apparently the only mom in the history of all schoolchildren who refused to accommodate last-minute lunch requests, and to make matters worse I had permanently scarred The Preschooler for having to find and put on his own shoes, making it “the worst day” in his entire life. Sweet Pea announced, “No offense Mom, but if you and Dad weren’t together … I’d go live with Dad.” No offense kid, but me too.

As I peered into the daycare doors for a source of respite with my ragtag group of whiners, I saw the sign: “Welcome! Muffins with Moms.”

Crap. I forgot. This was the Mom version of Doughnuts with Dads. I looked at my watch. I had to be at a meeting in thirty minutes. Undaunted, I shoved the second-grader toward the school doors and moved fluidly to a table in the gym, smiling, and dragging The Preschooler with shoes on the wrong feet behind me. This was not going to be anything like Doughnuts with Dads. Not even a little.

“Oh, goodie! Let’s get a treat. Come on, sweetie, let’s spend some time together. Do you want juice? Sure, I’ll get a coffee. Here’s a muffin. Shove it in your mouth. Ha ha, just kidding. Not really. Pick up the crumbs. Don’t eat the crumbs off the table. Whoops, don’t spill your juice. I’ll throw that away for you. Are you done yet? Smile for the picture. *flash* Mommy loves you so much. Hurry up, eat your muffin baby. This is so much fun. No, you don’t want another one. Okay, FINE. Let’s just take this to your classroom. Alright? Okay, hang up your backpack, then. There you go! Give me a hug and a kiss. Mommy loves you, so fun having breakfast with you now I’m leaving. Bye! Love you! Mwah! Have a super day!”

The Preschooler was standing motionless, still wondering what had happened, as I walked away. By the time I reached the parking lot I noticed that he had plastered his sad face against the window and was pathetically waiving goodbye by pressing one hand against the glass like he was the captain going down in a sinking ship, saying his final farewell. I told myself, “he does that just to make me feel guilty.”

There was no time to dwell on the sad little face. I sped to the office, running down several people in crosswalks and spilling protein shake. And now here I was, ignoring the blinking light on the phone, staring despondently at the calendar from hell, and I was already four hours into my day with no “work” having yet been accomplished. I slugged down the coffee, and walked two blocks to my first meeting. When I returned I kept my head down, moving seamlessly from one task to another, clicking out emails at breakneck speed and slapping out the burning papers on my desk that were catching fire, one by one. I kept a watchful eye on the other piles too, particularly the ones that had already spontaneously caught fire and eventually extinguished themselves for lack of fuel, their smoldering embers threatening to reignite at any moment. I even got up the courage to douse the blinking phone light.

And then it happened. A jury trial was called off. Two afternoon meetings were cancelled. Smoking piles one, two, and three were extinguished with mere phone calls. A colleague updated me and an emergency became a theoretical second-rate advice request. I sat silently, stunned, and watched the emails and the dust settle for a moment. And I mean that literally, because for the first time that day my email wasn’t pinging, my phone wasn’t ringing, and I realized that the sun was shining. Bright shafts of light were streaming into my office, warming my desk. There was sun. In the Pacific Northwest. In the Spring.

I sat back in the chair, and with a moment to think, I recounted the morning’s events … the jolting wake-up, devoid of compassion. The breakfast bar offered as sustenance as we raced out the door. The “hurry up hurry up hurry up!” I barked as they exited the car and the “humph” of the backpack hitting the pavement, after I tossed it unexpectedly to The Preschooler, who wasn’t moving fast enough for my liking. The stunned look on his face as I guided him through the muffin whirlwind. The way he clung to me and demanded ten hugs and squeezed his eyes shut as I extricated myself from his grip and rushed out the door to make it to my very important meeting.

I actually heard my heart thunk-slop and fall down hard in my chest. What was I doing?

I looked at the desk. I looked at the calendar. I looked at the pictures just beyond the edge of my computer screen. And I resolved to somehow take advantage of the afternoon’s compassionate twist of fate.

The elation on The Preschooler’s face when I arrived at school completely erased the memory of the child pawing at the window that I had seen earlier that morning. I took him to lunch and he wiggled so much his lemonade sloshed out of the cup when he tried to take a drink. Between mouths full of chicken he smothered me with kisses so much that I was almost (almost) embarrassed. We shared a brownie and fought for bites and smiled with brown teeth and didn’t care.

After a quick tour of the office and some follow-up phone calls, we had the chance to stop at a nearby park. It was a blur of giggles and jumping and climbing and swinging. We were monkeys, and I was a monkey in a suit. It was moments of sunshine and leaping and skipping hand in hand. I was the only mom in the park in a skirt and heels, but I was also the only mom willing to get wet in the park fountain.

We finally rested for a bit near the fountain and let the sunshine and water mix with our good moods. As I watched him play in the water, I thought about the time I was taking away from the office and what a small sacrifice it was for me. In stark contrast, I compared how much these two short hours meant to The Preschooler. And frankly, how much they meant to me. I thought I was making some huge sacrifice to make him happy. But I wasn’t. It turns out this was actually for me, too. Parenting is always that way; it always ends up being more about me than the kids.

I’ve really been running on empty, lately and I expressed my exhaustion concerns to Husband. But after eight months in the desert his response understandably included such warrior-speak as “assessing your maximum capacity” and “refining the ability to issue direct immediate consequences against the insurgents.” Okay, got it. Well, not really.

I never remember to think of capacity as something finite. I remember being terribly concerned upon the birth of child #2 with having to divide my love between two children. But when I had that second child, my capacity for love merely multiplied. I’m constantly laboring under a false belief that if I just commit to more, it will all work out.

Let me tell you, that law does not apply to finite supplies like hours in the day, sleep, and sanity. There is just only so much to go around. But the fountain’s waters and one satisfied little face was enough to deluge my heart to overflowing. I was looking into the face of what really mattered. Moments.

“How can I keep doing all this?” I thought. “What is the point of killing myself to get all of these things done at breakneck speed? Why can’t I just be normal? Why can’t things just be the way they were before he left?”

I reluctantly announced that we had only five minutes left, and that our next destination was the dentist. The Preschooler was standing absolutely motionless and it was the first time he was still all day long.  I braced for the melt-down. But he wasn’t upset – he was smiling. I moved closer.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“Magic.”

“What? Where? What kind of magic!?”

“There.”

 

He didn’t point. He just stared. So I came around and peered from behind him to see what he was looking at. And then I saw it, too. There was that darn rainbow, again. Suprising me. Reminding me. Giving me its word. Telling me that I could do it. For at least 40 more days and nights.

I held his hand and we stood in the mist together and smiled back at it. We talked about promises. We talked about Dad. And we talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. We headed off for the car, and there was a calm satisfaction in his smooth step. It wasn’t the attitude-laden strut The Preschooler usually garnered, and it wasn’t the worn-out dejected step of a child who was blaming his mother for the lack of socks in his drawer. It was confidence, and I had it again, too. After just two hours and very little effort on my part, we were both recharged. He seemed different. He seemed a little bit more like the kid I knew before his Daddy left. So that day wasn’t just a gift for him. It was a gift for me, too.

I mean really. Have you ever seen a kid this happy on his way to the dentist?

It’s Not Early. It’s Quiet.

It’s early on a weekend morning. Nobody is asking me to be at work, drive them to a soccer game, or make them a meal. Shhhhh. Hear that? Me neither. There was a time (was that last week?) when I would have complained about waking early while my children were still asleep, because of the precious wasted sleep. When you are a parent, sleep is a commodity. But so is silence. And if you sleep when they do, it’s wasted silence.

In the silence, I think of what may have happened in Libya overnight. I’m pretty sure Husband was … busy. Not surprisingly, there’s still no Skype calls in or out. I could turn on the news. But it’s all just too close to Husband for comfort. I like the news boycott idea, so it continues.

Instead, there is glorious silence. I will count my blessings. Early weekend mornings, how I love thee. Let me count the ways … (remember, I’m not a photographer and all I have is a camera phone -)

One: A pretty little princess sleeping in my bed on her own satin pink pillowcase.

Snoring, with drool coming out of her mouth.

 Two: Another child sleeping on my floor who didn’t even wake when I stepped on him.

Three: A beautifully clean and uncluttered great room. For at least a few more moments.

Four: Morning sky.

Five: Pristine, uncrumpled morning paper. But not the “world” section.

Or anything newsy. Nothing remotely newsworthy.

Six: Coffee. Yes, fine, I know it’s decaf. Stupid Lent.

I’m suffering. But I’m suffering with creamer.

 

OKAY.

So I have all this stuff and it’s quiet. The paper’s done. Now what?

*  *  *

Seven: Precious one-on-one snuggle time with the one that wakes up first.

(Ignore the horrific toes. I do. Hey, I play soccer.)

NOW, ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND MORNINGS, AMERICA!

And count your blessings instead of your Libyas and Egypts and Bahrains.

The Preschooler Gets It

I knew that it would take my strong-willed five year-old the longest to understand. He knew Daddy was leaving for a long time, but he didn’t truly understand how long that was. Not really. The measurement of time is still shrouded in eerie mystery. My boy sleeps so hard that he wakes up and asks, “is it day or night?”

Can you remember that? Can you remember when hours, days, and months were inconsequential? Because I’ve tried, and I can’t. I’ve clearly been an adult too long.

Now, in the past I’ve mentioned the existence of our well intentioned but psycho-killeresque shrine. This is the one we erected after the visual impact of 360 or so days was just too exhausting to bear. We moved instead to a monthly system of marking time … the symbolic lighting of twelve candles. Everyone in my house loves fire.  Perched on the side of the shrine, symbolizing the triumphant return of our Hero, is a pile of Husband’s valuables not permitted to accompany him on his exotic vacation this year: Navy Wings (he doesn’t need them on his NARMY uniform), a flight suit name patch, the Breitling watch I got him one year, and his wedding ring.

These are pretty neat candles, each one bearing a little silver word placard on the front. Husband bought them for me on my 39th birthday and I never lit them. Of course, the candle we picked for the month of February was “Love.” So on Valentine’s Day we lit the Candle of Luv and The Preschooler asked when Daddy was coming home. I pointed to a candle midway down the row and said matter-of-factly, “here’s where Daddy comes for a visit.” Then I pointed down to the end of the row at the pile of Husband’s familiar things and said plainly, “and here’s where Daddy comes all the way home.”

We had been lighting the candles periodically, but not daily. The Preschooler had finally caught on that we couldn’t light the next one until an entire month had passed. He was slowly understanding what that period of time felt like. I could see he was doing advanced candle trinomials in his head. His eyes fell on each candle one-by-one, and as he looked down the row and paused on each one, together in silence our memories were sparked.

• Halloween. He dressed as a Ninja and got an email account so Daddy could email him.
• Veteran’s Day, and the explanation of the White Table.
• Thanksgiving, when we had our little meal with Nana and watched football rather quietly.
• Christmas: getting a tree, singing at church, sending Daddy’s presents in the mail.
• January, and the impromptu but brave trip to the ER.

And then I watched him turn his gaze to the long stack of candles yet to be lit.  He looked at candles but I looked at St. Patrick’s day, Easter, and his sixth birthday. He saw blue and pink wax and I saw summer come and go. He looked at the silver plates with words he couldn’t read … words like “longevity” and “peace” and I saw the colors change, and his first day of Kindergarten. I watched his eyes fill with water that billowed up and held steady, right at the dam’s edge of his little eyelashes. And my heart broke in two, right there. It was hitting him in waves. He was realizing how long a month was. He was realizing how long a year was. He was realizing what deployment meant. He could see it for the first time.

But then, The Preschooler didn’t respond as I expected. He didn’t scream or bawl. He didn’t say, “but that’s a LONG TIME!” or get angry and punch something. Or jump on something. Or break something. These were the reactions I was betting on. These were the outbursts I was prepared for. Something big, something dramatic, something violent and boy-like. Instead, he was silent and lifeless, his arms dangling and his back slouched. I recognized the absolute resignation and my  heart broke some more. And then right there on the bathroom floor, he put his face in his hands, let his back fall against the cabinet, and slowly slunk down into a ball, collapsing in a heap. He started to sob.

I wondered how he knew that I secretly cried this way when he and his sister weren’t looking.

I didn’t scoop him up. I just got down on the bathroom floor next to him and held him there for a minute. I thought about the night before Husband left, and what I wanted to hear. I thought about what Husband said, and I repeated parts of it in The Preschooler’s ear, trying hard not to show the breaks and cracks in my own voice:

I’m so proud of you. I know you will be strong. The time will pass quickly sometimes and slowly other times, but at the end of the year it will be the best of homecomings. Daddy misses us, too, so much. He thinks of us every day and he will keep thinking of us. He won’t forget you and you won’t forget him. We will talk whenever we can and we will keep telling him what we are doing. We will keep praying for him until he comes home.

It was silent, and I was happy with my response. And then he asked the question. The Question.

Through tears he turned and looked at me: “How do we know Daddy will not get killed?”

My responsive silence was not awe-inspiring. I had applied diversion tactics to questions about the “bad guys” and why Daddy was carrying a gun in his pictures. I had successfully avoided international politics and news shows during the dinner hour. I had even described Daddy’s abode as a “hotel room” or a “camping tent.” But this was a very pointed question. He was asking me to make a promise I could not make. And he was asking the question that had been nagging at me for months. How, indeed.

I had to hug him tight, because I couldn’t look him in the eyes and say it. But for the first time, for him, I believed the answer to the question.

“Well, everybody dies baby. From the day we are born, we are one step closer to the day God calls us to Heaven. Daddy isn’t any more likely to die today than you or me walking down the street. We aren’t in control of our lifetimes and you know what? Wherever we happen to be or whatever we happen to be doing doesn’t change when that day comes. Only God knows. So where Daddy is and what he’s doing doesn’t mean he’s going to get killed or not get killed just like it means nothing for you or me. Daddy is in a safe place, just like you, because it’s where he is supposed to be in that moment. And no matter what happens, Daddy will be taken care of, and you will be taken care of.”

The Preschooler got it. And I got it, too.

We snuggled lots that evening after blowing the candle out, and the two of us stayed awake in the bed long after Sweet Pea fell asleep. It was good to have safety and arms around each other. We were working through it together. He asked the question again several times, and I gave the same response. He wanted to hear the answer again, and I wanted to say it out loud again. The more I said it, the more true it became.

So I guess it took me a while. In fact, it took me as long as it took The Preschooler. But there it is. Finally. Acceptance.

And now, we can move on …

Fix-it Woman Strikes Again

There are a lot of things I’ve learned to fix creatively over the years. I am an expert at reviving stuffed animals that have lost an eye, become strangled by their own silk bows, or suffered from disemboweled stuffing at the hands of a family pet. I have mastered the art of taming doll hair that has been doused in the bathtub and left to dry upside down. I even know when and in what quantities to apply Superglue, Krazy Glue, or Gorilla Glue to accomplish the desired bond on a piece of ten-cent jewelry or a wayward post-race pinewood derby car. I even know which band-aids completely and magically take pain away in any given circumstance, and whether a kiss is warranted as part of the remedy. (Hint: it is ALWAYS warranted.)

But now, I consider myself an official, bona fide fix-it woman.

Most projects I leave to Husband. It’s fun to make him the hero, because let’s face it – guys are built for this kind of thing. They just love figuring it out, working on it, and being the savior. And I love not working on it in exchange for some heartfelt thankyous. So it all “works out” just great.

Except that plan falls through when your hero is on loan somewhere else.

So here I am, standing in Sweet Pea’s room, listening to her beg and plead to fix Butterscotch, the obnoxiously life-sized practically breathing certainly creepy toy horse, whose tail has been ninja-chopped off at the evil hands of Dr. Killjoy, the greatest outlaw in the West, AKA “The Preschooler.” The problem is, I have no idea how I’m going to do this. I’ll spare you the details, but it involves lots of plastic that will NOT succumb to any of the regular glue options, which is constantly being infiltrated by frizzy fake horse hair that binds to everything it shouldn’t, including my fingers.

As I apply yet another kind of glue with surgical precision, wondering whether any of the compounds are about to combine to form the ingredients for a homemade bomb, I stop. It’s silent. Sweet Pea is looking on like a mother watching a doctor perform brain surgery on her only child. I look around for the hidden camera. Wanna know what I see?

A big ass, that’s what. I look at this ridiculous horse, and how I’m so gingerly attempting to keep the fuzz from its synthetic coat out of the globs of Super Glue/Krazy Glue/Epoxy/Gorilla Glue, and I realize I’m painting a horse’s butt, one that I’m thinking we should send off to the glue factory – with glue. Oh, the irony! I mean really, is this a hero’s work? Is this how a savior is defined?

So of course, I laugh, and cannot continue, because now my fingers are permanently stuck. I make Sweet Pea take a picture. I mean really, when you’re faced with the reality that your finger is bonded to a fake horse’s butthole, what else can you do?

And that’s your Friday entertainment for the day. It’s crass and proves that I’m only marginally more mature than The Preschooler. But it’s Friday for crying out loud. Consider it your brain’s “casual attire” for the day.

Happy weekend, everyone. Utilize your heroes!

All I Want for Christmas

A short list. Or not.

I really did it this time. I took a beautiful nugget of parental wisdom, applied it to a situation with great thought and care, and ended up regretting every word.

The onslaught of television toy ads this time of year brings me to the brink of insanity. These ads are specifically designed by evil ad executives who do not have children. They thrust my children into a hypnotic trance, repeating their mantra in thirty second intervals, “I want that, I want that, I want that!” This is how The Preschooler ended up with a Topsy Turvey Tomato Planter for his birthday.

I wish I was kidding.

Second, these ads are not only twenty decibels louder than the annoying childrens’ show you are already tolerating at eardrum-piercing levels, they come accompanied with jingles that you absolutely can’t get out of your head for days on end. “It’s a pillow … ”

See what I mean?

This is why I sat both kids down to discuss ads, commercialism, misleading product placement, and value. Their Christmas lists had become ridiculously long, and included laboriously written-out titles like “Zhu Zhu Kung Zhu Fighting Warrior Pets With Blazing Action Arena” or “Blythe Loves Littlest Pet Shop Sitters Hair Studio, Fabulous Plaid Edition.”

I caught myself lecturing, so I switched gears. You know I’m a Love and Logic fan, and they slam this kind of technique. Or, at least, they sympathize with me when I experience it not working. We all know from experience that lecturing sends kids into automatic shut-down mode, and I saw their eyes glaze over. Instead, I asked if they wanted to know some little-known Christmas list tricks. They did. I explained that “if you put too many things on your list, Santa won’t know which ones you REALLY want. You could end up with a bunch of things you don’t really like that much. And worse, you could end up with none of the stuff you really want!”

They literally ran from me to find and edit their lists. I was thinkin’ I was pretty brilliant.

Sweet Pea’s list was spread across five different pieces of paper, front and back. She looked over the items pensively, and quickly remedied the problem by placing numbers on the list. She had effectively prioritized the items without removing a single one. She pointed out that she could renumber them if she found more stuff to add to the list. Darn.

Amaze your friends. Or not.

But the Preschooler was much more astute and methodical. First, he conducted his research. He watched TV more skeptically than before. One commercial advertised some weird floating silver ball that I can’t pronounce and which doesn’t really float, not even on the commercial. Afterwards he remarked, “that’s just dumb.” I’m guessing “gravity-defying mystery ball for only $19.99” is not making the cut. Second, he studied the Christmas Toy Trifecta: The Toys R Us catalog, the Target ad from last Sunday, and the Fred Meyer weekly ad. I’ve never seen my five year-old study, but I can tell you as wild as he is, we’ve finally found his focus. The Preschooler needs to be a toy-book-studier when he grows up.

Finally, he made his choices. He can’t spell yet, so it was a mental list which he didn’t share with me. I forgot to mention anything about sharing these lists with your parents. I was going to have to arrange a tricky maneuver to extract that list from him without raising suspicion.

Lucky for me, we were scheduled to attend a Military Family Event, and while the adults were in various workshops and lectures about TriCare and the G.I. Bill (I actually listened this year), the kids got to see Santa. After it was over, I couldn’t wait to talk to The Preschooler.

“What did you tell Santa?”

“That I wanted an Ipod.”

“What!? Yeah, right. Like Santa’s going to bring you an Ipod.”

“Yeah. He said HO HO HO!”

“Hmm. Well, did you ask for anything else?”

“Uh-huh. A gummy hand with fake blood.”

“W-what? With what?”

“Fake blood. And candy bones.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope. That’s it.”

 

Honestly, this ended the conversation. I felt the weight of Pillow Pets and Legos and Harry Potter paraphernalia coming down on me. I longed for a request for the obnoxiously priced piece of plastic known as the “Star Wars the Clone Wars Battle-Ready Helmet with Internet-Downloadable Mission Adventures.” I couldn’t believe I had actually succeeded in talking my kid into whittling his list down to his most treasured desires and he picked an electronic parental torture device worth more than the sum of all his belongings since birth, and a gruesome limb that doubled as a tasty snack.

After about a week, I finally got up the nerve to ask again. With Christmas fast approaching, I needed to come up with a good third alternative. The Chinese factories that sold gummy hands made my stomach turn as I contemplated what kind of red dye they surely used for fake gummy-appendage blood. I knew there had to be a tertiary backup gift wish, so I finally just brought it up at the dinner table. And I was right, there was a third wish:

A drumset.

I’m reminded of the story where the kid calls his family from the emergency room, telling of how he barely escaped with his life from some harrowing automobile experience, then eventually confesses it was a complete lie designed to soften the blow when he informs his father that he merely scraped the bumper of the family car coming up the driveway. Because in the shadow of Ipod and Hand from Hell, drums don’t look all that bad.

Peace on Earth. Or not.

But maybe I’ve lost it. Maybe I’ve failed to see the big picture. Maybe I’ve reached the edge of sanity and taken a nose dive straight into advertising absurdity.  But it’s too late to turn back, now. I’ve pulled the trigger. I clicked “buy” and that bad boy is on its way to my home via super-saver shipping.

So after all that lecturing, you notice who actually succumbed to the need to buy a big shiny toy at Christmas rather than focus on the important family events, the religious meaning, or the peace on Earth, goodwill to men?

Me, that’s who.

Especially the peace part.

I’ll Take Scars Over The Living Dead Anyday

One of the best things about getting so much publicity this week was the glorious parting of the blogworld clouds. You see, I don’t read blogs. It’s sacrilege, I know. But most are so chock full of typos and chalkboard-screetching syntax that I’m pathetically unable to hear the art and beauty of expression through even minor grammatical errors. Or, as Husband would say, “gramarrical errors.” (It’s okay, I already loved him when I found out he couldn’t spell or speak properly so I’ve learned to deal with it.)

And here comes another big fat confession right here, right now: I really don’t read at all any more. It’s really sinful for a writer to say such a thing. I’ve got Karen Kingsbury’s “Between Sundays” on my nightstand, which I love. So far. But it’s been there for four months because I failed to finish it on a flight – an international flight. I tell myself it’s because I read statutes and legal cases all day, so the retinas are exhausted when I get home. But honestly fiction just doesn’t do it for me. I’m drawn instead to ridiculous combinations of self help titles:

• Marathoning for Mortals
• Your $100,000 Dream Job
• Write it Down, Make it Happen
• Spanish Phrasebook II
• Radical
• Love and Logic
• Simplify Your Life

Yeah, I get the irony of that last one. The best part is that I purchased most of these in the same shopping trip.

I do read all of your comments, though! In fact yesterday as I read and reread the comments you all left (I love compliments), I also perused lots of new blogs. A comment about being in a hospital room led me to visit “transplanted thoughts,” the blog of a mom with multiple kids diagnosed with a genetic disorder. She recently started her blog after baby boy #4 had been in the hospital for two months. I was there in the virtual hospital room with her until 1 am wondering how she was going to do this all again tomorrow.

Humor is obviously my coping mechanism of choice. But the things I write about here are very minimal invasions of my comfort and repose. Even Husband’s absence is just temporary. It’s true that most days Preschooler is dragging me by my wit’s end to the precipice of insanity. But it’s the usual well-defined precipice and there’s a pretty cushy landing down below. Reading about four little boys fighting genetic diseases and the dedication of their brave mom reminded me of something I had forgotten. It shocked me back to The Preschooler’s first six weeks of life, and it made me overjoyed that he even possesses the ability to dangle me from the ledge at all.

Because back then, we were facing a big ugly word: diagnosis. It turned out to be so very minor that we will probably never even tell The Preschooler that he suffers from a latin phrase of relatively meaningless effect (that’s a story for another day). But I can remember how the world swirled around us as if life was actually going on for other people. I remember how wrong it felt to lay awake exhausted while my newborn slept. I remember how we carted our bundle back and forth to the geneticist, only to sit for hours in lobbies with bald kids and their paperfaced mothers. I remember standing with my eyes closed in relief as Husband volunteered to hold the baby down under the X-ray machine this time. I remember sitting in a dark room with only a computer screen flickering for hours on end, using my legal research skills to become a medical expert. I remember waiting to be ushered into a room full of people in white coats to review bone scans. And I remember the day he didn’t move or whimper any more after they pricked him for a little blood.

*  *  *

A good friend (who actually reads fiction and writes like a Yale-educated scholar) once tweeted a book quote that has always stuck with me … “scars only grow on the living.” And you know what? That’s so right. Otherwise, they’re just fatal wounds, or at very best you’re the living dead. Scars are a pleasant and valuable alternative to death. And I really don’t wanna be a Zombie. That swirling first six weeks created only a tiny scrape on my heart that could have been debilitating. I want to remember it – all of it.

So in case you forget, I just want you to know that I love you Preschooler. I love that you are here. I love that you do the naked dance in the rain on the back porch for dinner guests over my objection. I love that you launch yourself between the two couches, taking the great circle route across the glass table for good measure. I love that you think it’s okay to broadcast the pet names of your private parts, loudly, in public places likely to contain old ladies. And yes, I even love that your curiosity concerning bodily functions often leads you into perilous territory.

Maybe I will read more fiction, after all. Maybe fiction has more value than I give it credit for. And maybe I’ll learn to read past the misplaced semicolons and the punctuation outside the quotation marks (but probably not). Either way, I read on this day, and on this day I was glad for it. And really, this day is all we can hope for.

Don’t be a Zombie, friends. That scar you’ve got proves something: you lived. Wear it well.