I'm Scared of Any Overtired Two Year-Old

There’s nothing I enjoy more than writing this blog.

Okay, that’s a lie. But I do really enjoy it. And I have a lot to say. And lots of silly stories about my kids. 

Which isn’t reflected in the long absences I’ve taken from Peanut Butter Urinal recently. 

But we’re busy. It’s sports season. Which sports? All sports.

Let me tell you about our weekend.

On Saturday, we had seven games. Yes, seven.

We started bright and early with Tess’s soccer game. 

There’s not much to say about Tess’s soccer game. It was early and she apparently only goes to show off her pink shin guards and socialize. Which is fine—she’s 4. She skips around and chats with friends and occasionally lays eyes on the soccer ball rolling haphazardly around the turf.

Then Sam’s soccer game.  Which I have even less to say about that game because fifteen minutes before it was supposed to start, it got canceled. We were already in the parking lot.

Then we had to split up. I took Sam, Tess, and Lou to Sam’s football game, thirty minutes away. 

They charge admission for those, you know. And I never have cash. Because I’m under the age of 40. So I had to borrow from a mom friend whoisover the age of 40 and had a crisp twenty-dollar bill in her wallet. I don’t even remember the last time I’d seen a twenty-dollar bill. Because I’m approaching40 and my memory stinks. 

Meanwhile Tighe stayed at the soccer complex with Nate for his soccer game. I don’t have a lot to say about this game either because, believe it or not, Nate didn’t tell me a lot about it. He only provided about 5 minutes of play-by-play, which isn’t much for him. Usually his re-telling is longer than the game itself. 

And way more dramatic.

From Sam’s game, we went to Wal-mart.

Why Wal-mart, you ask?

Well, because Sam and I both had to pee, Tess was thirsty, and Sam wanted to look for a Lego set that he had “earned” the previous week.

I intended a Target, but I had no idea where we were—somewhere towards Colorado, I think—and Wal-mart was the closest thing we could find.

Thirty minutes, two bathroom trips, one Lego set (Sam), one coloring book (Tess), and one Blippi farm animals book (Lou) later, we emerged into the bright October sunshine, and climbed back into the car to drive the 15 minutes to Nate’s back-to-back flag football games. 

Though unbeknownst to everyone but Sam—who can read a digital clock at this point, what a feat—we actually had nearly 40 minutes before the start of the first game, so my plan was to drive around very slowly, lull Lou to sleep, then find a parking spot at the game where I could watch from the car while Lou napped in his car seat and Sam and Tess played on a playground that was still within my eyesight.

The plan was perfect and when we arrived at the game, there were several open parking spaces that would allow for my visual multi-tasking. Unfortunately, Lou didn’t cooperate and even after a solid thirty minutes of driving back and forth on 143rdStreet, he was still awake. 

I could have driven longer—Lou was so sleepy!—but Sam had to pee. Again. During the same drive, he had already peed into my empty iced tea bottle, but he wasn’t confident that it would hold a second round of his urine, so we had to terminate our lullaby car trip early. 

Let’s recall that part of the reason we stopped at Wal-mart was because Sam had to pee. Which begs the questions: 

·     Is he pre-diabetic as I’ve always suspected? 

·     Does he have an undersized bladder? 

·     Does he have a UTI? 

·     Is he pregnant? 

·     Is the water jug we bought for him too big? 

·     How did he find the time to consume all this water during his football game? 

It’s all a mystery. 

Just like why the parochial schools all charge admission for these little kids’ flag football games. 

Friendless this time, I had to scrounge around in the bottom of my backpack until I found four crumbled dollar bills—still one short—just so Sam could get through the gate and pee. 

Since the game was about to start anyway, I fetched my bag of snacks from the car, waved to Nate on the sideline—he had gotten a ride with a friend from the soccer game to football—and found some grass in the shade where Sam/Tess/Lou could wrestle, whine, demand gum, and periodically run onto the field for me to chase them. 

Ok, that last one was mostly Lou, but Tess and Sam tried it once or twice, too.

I have a lot to say about these back-to-back games, but I don’t want to because I don’t feel like rehashing some of the trauma associated with my roommates’ antics on the sideline. 

I’ll leave it at this: Nate played well.

By the end, Sam was on the bench with Nate’s team, Tess was cartwheeling and somersaulting because she desperately needed to pee, and Lou was wearily rubbing his eyes while watching trash truck videos on my phone.

“Oh, Erin, he’ll fall asleep as soon as you get in the car,” another sympathetic mom said to me.

Except he didn’t because he hates me.

He continued watching trash truck videos—why are there so many trash truck videos on YouTube?—on my phone for the thirty minute drive because any attempt to remove the phone from his grip was met with violent shrieking, and I’ll admit: we’re all scared of him.

I’m scared of confrontation with any overtired two year-old.

**remorseful weeping**

If you’re now asking yourself ‘Where’s Tighe in all this?’ then we haven’t seen each other in a while. Because if we had, you’d know. 

Because I start just about every conversation with a complaint about how Tighe’s coaching 8thgrade football now. For no apparent reason except that football is a great sport and he needed a reason to leave the house three to five nights a week.

I honestly can’t blame him.

So, on the way home from Nate’s game—game #6 of 7 of our marathon Saturday—we intentionally drove by the game that Tighe was coaching.

Like a stalker, I eased our car through the parking lot, begging Sam and Nate to crane their necks to see the scoreboard. Even just to see how much time was left so I could determine whether it was worth it to drag everyone in. 

But they couldn’t see and every time I pumped the brakes too hard, Lou would look up from his trash truck videos in the back seat and yell for me to “drive faster.”

Let me reiterate: I’m scared of confrontation with any overtired two year-old.

So we headed home and I threw some frozen pizzas in the oven. When Tighe got home, he gave me a play-by-play of his game—it’s like living with another Nate—while he mixed drinks for us. 

After I had taken exactly one sip, Lou promptly kicked the table and knocked the entire drink onto the floor. Then he stomped around in the puddle while Tighe and I raced to mop it up. I’m not an alcoholic, nor am I depressed, but I actually did almost cry.

More chivalrous than ever, Tighe handed me his drink and went to make himself another. 

Once we had eaten, I took note of the exhaustion in Tess’s eyes and texted her friend’s mom that Tess was on the verge of sleep and therefore I would notbe dropping her off for a movie night at 7pm.

Instead, all four kids were in bed by 7:30 and Tighe was dozing on the couch soon after.

I’ll gloss over our Sunday because believe it or not, I value word counts, but know that it involved, in this order: a football clinic, cinnamon rolls, church, a play date, another play date, Nate’s lacrosse game, a birthday party, Sam’s attempt at a gingerbread house, a library run, and a Halloween party. 

The best part about such a busy weekend is that we’re not at home to systematically destroy the house.

Because as I type this exact sentence, Lou’s flinging spoonfuls of Greek yogurt around the dining room as I procrastinate his nap. 

Because again: I’m scared of confrontation with any overtired two year-old.

Human Cicadas and Low-Hanging Diapers

“Anyway I know you used to write blogs, so I was wondering if you had any resources you could share…”

Used to.

It was a text from a friend who had reached out asking for advice, and that phrase “used to” was really bothering me. Spinning around in my head. 

Has it really been that long since I’ve written a Peanut Butter Urinal blog? 

Well, yes, it turns out it had been that long because a few days later, I had two emails from relatives asking if I was okay. 

And yes, aside from the typical day-to-day frazzle, I’m good. Tighe and I just celebrated our 14-year wedding anniversary with a quick mid-week trip to Nashville, and it was a blast. Not any quieter than our home, of course, with live music on every corner of the city, but at least Nashville noisiness is harmonized. 

And speaking of our home, here’s a quick and very up-to-date State of the House: 

·     It’s a rainy Thursday morning, but despite the downpour and occasional thunder, I only just now convinced Lou to come inside. He’d been in the backyard using a stick to mix rainwater with the ash beneath the grill, so his face looks like that of a coalminer. 

·     Every single light in the house is on. Except the lamps in the master bedroom because Lou switches off the surge protector every time he walks past.

·     There are probably faucets running, too, because running water is one of Lou’s other passions.

·     There’s a massive load of laundry in the dryer, most of which accumulated in the short time we were in Nashville.

Tell me you have a Lou without telling me you have a Lou

·     There’s next to no food in the fridge. I like coming up with creative dinners out of leftovers, but I don’t think we even have leftovers. Aside from some baby carrots in the fridge, we don’t have a single vegetable in the house. “Good!” Tess quipped snidely when I mused that out loud earlier.

·     My Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen is blaring music, but it’s not my playlist filling the airwaves. Somehow Sam found a way to hack the system and we’re listening to one of his stupid beats, Chicken Wing or Banjo or whatever. And I feel older than ever. 

·     Breakfast dishes litter the table. Somehow Lou has found a way to quietly acquire everyone else’s meals as they slip away from the table, so there are five plates/bowls at his seat and only crumbs at everyone else’s. 

·     Even though we’ve just crept into the noon hour, I’ve only seen Nate and Sam for about 20 minutes so far today. They came down about an hour ago to eat some cereal and then retreated to their bedroom lair on the third floor as Lou slid their bowls across the table toward himself. 

·     My new watermelon mint candle from Trader Joe’s is wafting away in the dining room, but it doesn’t cover up the inexplicable scent of dog poop I keep getting a whiff of.

·     Three of four kids are still in pajamas. And the fourth kid, Sam, is in his underwear because that’s all he sleeps in. So no one is actually dressed except me.

·     And finally, my period is five days late. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure—Tighe and I have both been vaccinated against future pregnancies. He had a vasectomy and I had my tubes out during my final C-section. But the lack of rhythm makes me slightly uneasy. 

Lou and Tess are currently playing in the basement, but as I scramble to type these words, I can hear Tess’s scream and the footsteps bounding up the steps to the kitchen. 

“I think Lou pinched me,” she wailed, her bare feet pattering on the hardwood kitchen floors.

“You think? Don’t you know?”

“Well, I wasn’t looking!” Now she was annoyed with me, too. Which is typical. There’s a lot of attitude flowing from that 4 year-old bundle of estrogen. And much of it is directed at me.

Lou trailed behind her, traces of charcoal still streaking his forehead. He was still sporting his Paw Patrol pajama top and a very heavy diaper that was hanging on by a thread on one side as the other side had already come unhinged. 

“Did you feelhim pinch you?” I asked skeptically.

“Well, yeah…” She did a complete eyeroll, as though she was speaking to a complete idiot or an incompetent customer service rep, before continuing. “I was reading him a book and he also smacked me with a flashlight.”

“Lou!” I said, feigning sympathy toward Tess and discipline toward Lou. “Did you hurt your sister while she was very kindly reading you a book? Did you check on her to see if she’s okay?”

Lou dutifully wrapped both arms around her torso and kissed her forearm, the only part of her body he could reach. 

“Two books, actually,” she said, wiping away the last tear and standing proudly now. Reading two books when you’re illiterate is pretty impressive. 

“That’s great, Tess! Which two books?”

“Colin the Chameleon aaaaannnnnnd Peanut Butter Sucks,” she said this very nonchalantly, as though she’s an expert in every topic.

I know the book she’s referring to. It’s called “Peanut Butter and Cupcake,” and there is nothing derogatory about peanut butter in that book. In fact, it’s about friendship, but Tess’s level of comprehension is in question right now. 

A few nights ago, I took the kids for a walk after dinner while Tighe was at his weekly golf match—he lost, for those of you who only clicked on this link to check in on Tighe’s handicap. 

Nate and Sam had sped ahead on their bikes and I was trolling along slowly with Tess and Lou, who periodically had to stop and pick up sticks and bugs or stare up awkwardly at other people’s homes. 

“Do you hear that?” I said during one of our pit stops, referring to the cicadas chirping.

“The cicadas?” Tess replied. Her head tilted back so she could peer up at the trees. “Why do they make that sound?”

“Well,” I began. Let it be known that I love lecturing, but I rarely get a few words out before I’m interrupted. Every single time. Which is a shame because I have a lot to say. My favorite topic is the Cold War, but I could certainly do a few stanzas on cicadas. 

“… they rub their legs together to attract a mate…”

“A mate?” I don’t mind being interrupted by Tess’s need for clarification. It shows interest and engagement. What I do mind is being interrupted by Nate and Sam’s irrelevant drivel. But they were blocks ahead of us at this point, probably already at home, so I was free to continue.

“Yes, a mate is a boyfriend or girlfriend that they’ll lay eggs with. So, just like we look at a pretty girl and say ‘I want that girl to be my girlfriend’ or at a handsome boy and want the boy to be our boyfriend, cicadas want a boyfriend or girlfriend who can rub their legs together really loudly.”

“Human cicadas?” Tess’s arms were crossed at this point and one index finger had come up to rest thoughtfully on her chin, as though she was on the cusp of curing cancer. Or achieving self-actualization. Or finally making the distinction between a lowercase ‘b’ and a lowercase ‘d.’ Higher order cognition at the 4 year-old level.

“Nope, just cicada cicadas.”

“But the cicadas want to datehumans?”

“No. They only date other cicadas. I’m just comparing them to humans so it’s easier to understand.”

We were almost home at this point, meaning that we were within earshot of our neighbors. Do they hear the absurdity of these conversations on the reg? Do they also weep for the future?

Earlier in the week, I had to lecture Nate about why his “that’s what she said” jokes don’t work. It turns out he doesn’t know anything about sex, but he was calling out “that’s what she said” after nearly almost everything he said. 

He cut me off when I got to the part about the penis squirting semen into the vagina. “Okay, you’re just freaking me out now…”

I was in the garden, pulling sucker stems off the tomato plants, but I felt like Frank Costanza sitting at the kitchen table explaining women’s cup sizes to George while Estelle ran off to fetch a bra from her bedroom.

“Can I go now?” he said, uncomfortably shifting back towards the house and into the kitchen.

I followed him inside, where I was met by Tess, who needed me to address three burning questions on topics I know nothing about: the physics of icemakers, unrequited love, and where Tighe goes during the day.

And the countdown to bedtime continues…

Sam's Mental Health Day

“Your tail is getting weird.”

That seems as good a place as any to start a story about Sam. Except it wasn’t Sam who said it. It was Tess, and she was referring to the unicorn tail Sam had constructed out of yellow legal paper and had taped to his lower back.

It was Monday morning and Sam should have been in school.

And no, it wasn’t a snow day or a quarantine day.

Just a Sam day.

He had come downstairs that morning dressed in his school uniform, but when Tighe asked him what he wanted for breakfast, he said, “Nothing. I’m not going to school today.”

“Okay,” Tighe said, diving into his own breakfast and returning his attention to Sports Center. 

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. You don’t have to go to school today if you don’t want.”

Sam was surprised by the lack of resistance from his dad. Not wanting to draw any more attention to the situation, he inched his way back upstairs and returned in his black Adidas pants and red Baywatch t-shirt.

Nate looked at Sam like he was crazy. “Sam! I have perfect attendance! I can’t mess that up!”

So did Sam actually. The difference is that Sam doesn’t care.

“All right, fine, Sam,” I said, trying to persuade him to go to school, “You’re going to copy all the words from these books today. This isn’t going to be a fun day! You’re going to be productive and you’re going to learn!”

My brain was spinning with all the tasks I would have him do.

“Okay,” Sam said, taking the legal pad from my hands, “but let’s make it a picture book so I can practice my art, too.”

“Fine. And when you finish that book, you can start on another book. This is what you’re going to do all day!”

“No,” Tighe said, putting on his jacket and preparing to take Nate to school. “Let’s not make this about teaching a lesson—“ 

“Wait,” I cut him off. “Let’s not have this argument in front of him.”

Sam had pulled out an Easy Reading book and was using a pencil to draw giant block letters at the top of the legal pad.

I followed Tighe into his office.

“Let’s set up some rules about this,” Tighe started.

“Okay, he has to go to school,” I replied. That seemed pretty straightforward.

“No, let him do this. Let’s see what he does. No screen time, and he doesn’t get to go anywhere, even to a friend’s house this afternoon. But otherwise, let him do what he wants. We’ll give him one of these days each quarter.”

“Okaaaay…” the idea was growing on me. I don’t love formal education for Sam anyway. He has pretty high standardized test schools, and he’s very driven, but school seems to put a damper on his curiosity and creative spirits. I mean, maybe we’re just spoiling him, but military school can always fix that problem for us down the road. 

And so he stayed home. 

“Come on, Tess. Let’s do some experiments!”

By 8:30 I hadn’t even had my coffee yet, but Sam and his very willing assistant, Tess, were asking for gummy bears. 

“Just one!” Tess pleaded with me. But one just didn’t seem like much to me, so I handed her four gummy bears. 

“She gave me four of them!” she called to Sam, hurrying away into the dining room where they were conducting their experiments. 

“Okay, but they’re not for eating, Tess,” he instructed her, taking them from her and dropping one into four of the dozen or so cups they had positioned on the table.

Apparently—I was trying not to pay too close attention for fear my clean house anxiety would cause me to have an aneurism at the mess accumulating around me—each cup had a different liquid in it and we were waiting to see which one would dissolve the candy the fastest. Sam predicted it would be the mug of “hot lemonade.”

He was using Scotch tape to secure lids to each of the cups and lecturing to Tess about the changes he was already observing. I guess when Nate’s not around, he turns into Nate?

“We’ll come back and check on these later. Come on, Tess!”

They scampered up the steps to the second floor and I could hear all kinds of thuds and scuffling and stomping and furniture being dragged across the floor. I took a deep breath, sipped my coffee, and returned to the writing assignment I was working on.

Except I didn’t have a place to work. There were cups and spills all over the dining room table, which is usually my workspace. And damp piles of napkins that had been used to “clean up” the spills had been discarded all around me. 

“That’s it. I can’t take it anymore!” 

“Sam and Tess,” I called, rising from my seat and marching up the steps. There were toys on every single step up to the second floor. Then there were toys all over the second floor hall, every six inches or so, and it took a lot of effort not to step on the littering of puzzle pieces and wooden train cars and Legos and doll clothes and plastic food and headbands and board books and all those miscellaneous toys that have accumulated over the years and of which no one even remembers the origin. 

Lou had joined them and he was getting great pleasure from picking up items from the mishmash and hurling them against the wall or down the hallway, shrieking in the process. I stood in front of the bathroom and glanced up the staircase to the third floor. The toy clutter continued up those steps, too, and though I hadn’t seen it yet, all throughout the third floor hallway as well.

“I don’t mind if you make messes today, but you need to clean up one mess before you move on to the next mess. Go downstairs and clean up the spills from your experiment, then you can come up and finish whatever this is.”

“But Mom,” Sam protested. Sam is the best But Mom-er of them all. “We’re doing parkour!” He was so proud of it and had already awarded Tess a medal for her efforts, which she wore around her neck.

She lifted it in my direction, cocking her head and raising her eyebrows as if to say, “well, what do you have to say for yourself now?”

“And I get to wear it forever IF I clean this up all by myself,” she bragged to me. “Sam said so.”

I dragged them downstairs and made them clean up the spills and the trash on the table. Tighe added the exclamation point to my threats by telling Sam that if the house is in turmoil at the end of the day, he’ll lose this Ferris Bueller privilege forever. That worked for Sam, and I could hear them upstairs, tossing the toys back into the toy box.

“Tess, Erin and Tighe call three things on the floor ‘a mess,’” he mused to Tess. 

Like we’re tyrannical perfectionists or something. 

We’re not.

The rest of the day went by in fifteen minute increments, the pair of them darting around from one project to the next and rarely succeeding in cleaning it up unless Tighe or I nagged them to.

Using chopsticks, he turned his turkey sandwich into “cake pops;” they jumped on chairs to compare how they felt and sounded; they collected and painted rocks and bricks; and there was some sort of experiment that required a shoebox, a flashlight, and a raw egg. 

“And do you want to know what we’re looking for, Tess?” Sam was saying, removing the egg from the box.

“Yeah!” She was hanging onto his every word.

“Fuck.” 

My head shot up from my laptop, and I followed Sam’s eyes to where they were staring at the floor.

The contents of the egg were perfectly splayed on the hardwood floor, the bright yellow yolk a perfect contrast to the dark wood stain. Sam was motionless except for a few quick glances to me, then back to the floor, then back to me again.

Sam’s egg experiment gone horribly wrong

“Oopsy.” I could hear nervousness in his voice.

“Get some paper towels!” 

He cleaned it up as best as a 7 year-old can, but after he left the room, I had to do it for real.

“I’m about to lose it on someone, I’m just warning you,” I said to Kyle as he was preparing his lunch in the kitchen.

“Uhhh…” he replied, as if looking around for an escape.

“It won’t be you,” I reassured him. “It will be Tighe. He condoned this.”

I stood in the dining room surveying the scattered remains of Sam’s morning projects and experiments. He and Tess had migrated upstairs again, Lou was wandering around sipping his pre-nap milk, and Tighe was in the office with his door shut.

I could feel the anger building, as though it was rising in my chest, ready to explode from my throat.

“It will be Tighe,” I said again, gritting my teeth, keeping the anger in.

“Maybe they just shouldn’t get dessert for a month,” Kyle suggested, sliding his plate onto the table and sitting down to feast.

“Why would you say that?!” I snapped, not waiting for an answer. “And why would you put your hand there, that’s clearly my personal space!”

Kyle slowly retracted his hand back toward his own plate, keeping his head down and avoiding my eyes. 

“Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..” Kyle mostly communicates in Forrest Gump quotes. 

“Hey Mom, how do you tie-dye?” Sam asked sometime after lunch.

This is a small fraction of Sam’s day

At that point, Lou was asleep, but my coffee had long worn off, and I was picturing myself crawling back into bed.

“We’re not tie-dying today, Sam,” I said, tucking my laptop under my arm and trudging upstairs away from Sam’s debris. 

By the time Nate came home, the dining room table was in its third wave of turmoil for the day. The rocks and bricks, which had been thoroughly painted, were drying on pieces of card stock. Tess and Sam were still nibbling on the remnants of their lunches as they disassembled a gift bag and were using scissors to shred the legal pad into long strips. I have no idea what the endgame was.

A workout had helped me channel my frustration, and I almost kept my composure as I micromanaged the cleanup process, but neither Tess nor Sam were very cooperative. 

The very first person who commented on my blog, almost six years ago now, did so anonymously, or at least using a handle that I didn’t recognize. I deleted it because it made me uneasy, and although I don’t recall it word for word, I remember the gist of it: it said my writing reeked of a sorrowful, self-pitying human who made terrible life choices and was now filled with remorse. 

In all honesty, that couldn’t be further from the truth, but on a day like today…

Nate v Sam on a Snow Day

It had been a long weekend. President’s Day, so no school on Monday. Pretty standard. But to allow for parent-teacher conferences, the kids had a half-day on Thursday and a full day off from school on Friday, creating a four and a half day weekend. What a treat. 

And to really hammer the bleakness home, God gifted us record-setting low temperatures and tickled Kansas City with snowfall the entire weekend.   

But honestly, it didn’t bother me. It’s February. It’s cold anyway. We can sleep in, stay inside, eat comfort foods, sip hot chocolate, watch Baywatch. Glorious.

And the first days were just that—glorious. The boys had basketball and a steady stream of play dates, just enough interactions for those moments when your immediate family just isn’t cutting it for you. 

It started snowing again on Monday. As the temperature plummeted. A lot. Well below zero, even during the day. And yes, I mean degrees. And yes, I mean Fahrenheit. 

By midday on Monday, the school declared a snow day on Tuesday. And thanks to the threat of rolling blackouts from the energy companies, the schools couldn’t even be “virtual.” Some people lost power for several hours at a time. Meanwhile, pipes were freezing and bursting and many neighbors were without water. I mean, it wasn’t Texas, but for a first world country, it was a little uncomfortable. 

And it would have been dangerous to send the kids out to play in the snow. At one point, it was negative 9 degrees IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. 

On Tuesday night, I received a few texts from other parents, “Do you think we’ll have school tomorrow?”

“I do,” I wrote back. And I did. I knew it was going to be cold again, but warmer than the day before, and the snow was tapering off. 

So the next morning, which happened to be Nate’s birthday, I woke up a tad earlier to make the lunches I had neglected to make the night before and found that school was canceled. 

Sighing, I sat down in the dining room to begin going through my emails while Kyle and Tighe puttered sleepily around the kitchen getting their breakfasts together. Tighe wakes Nate and Sam by 7:15, so it would be nice to let them sleep in a bit. Usually the sun is just creeping in through the blinds, so Tighe turns on their closet light to wake them up. Typically, Nate pops out of bed immediately and calls out his breakfast order. No time to waste. 

“Hey Dad!” he says, pulling on his hunter green uniform polo shirt. “I’ll have Cheerios and orange juice.”

Sam, meanwhile, needs more coaxing out from under the covers. Especially during the winter. He usually rolls away from the light, pulling the Sherpa blanket up over his face and pretends he doesn’t hear Tighe.

But that Wednesday morning, just a few minutes after I settled at the table, about twenty minutes after 7, we heard pounding down the steps from the third floor. Nate weighs less than 65 pounds, but somehow his diminuendo downstairs causes the entire house to vibrate. 

“Hey, Nate! Happy birthday!” I kept my voice low so the rest of the kids could enjoy sleeping in.

“Why did no one wake me up?” he was slightly confused, but mostly irritated, his palms facing the ceiling and his eyebrows furrowed.

“Another snow day. Happy birthday!” Tighe said, pulling bowls down from the cupboard. 

“What? Again?” He rubbed his temples with his fists and threw his head back in despair.

“On my birthday of all days. I’ve gotta tell Sam.” He turned and sprinted back up the steps. He’s one of those kids who does everything fast, at full speed.

Sam, on the other hand does nothing fast. He’s observing the world. Or thinking, distracted by some sort of scheme he’s concocting. Or something shiny. Or a squirrel.

And nothing adds weight to his boots like the doom and gloom of an impending school day. Eating his school day breakfast takes an eternity. Putting on his school socks takes another eternity. Add shoes, a backpack, coat, hat, mittens, and a mask and you’re talking eons of slowness. 

He actually likes school. He likes his friends and his teacher and tackling scholastic challenges, but more than anything, Sam likes doing what Sam wants to do, so he’d rather stay home and play with Legos or paint or build something out of shoeboxes. And so he drags his feet in the morning, delaying the inevitability of a day of being told what to do.

To sum up this post, here’s a picture from three and a half years ago.

“Watch,” Tighe said under his breath, “Sam will be down here in record time, fully dressed, and eager to get his snow day started.”

And he was right. 

Just as Tighe finished that statement, Sam’s lanky body slid down the steps like a slinky cheetah, and he was already slipping socks onto his feet.

“Amazing,” I gasped. 

“Sam! How’d you get down here so fast? What do you want for breakfast?”

“What do YOU want for breakfast?” he replied.

And thus began his day of Legos, hot chocolate, marshmallows, puzzles, board games, some sort of imaginary friend made of ice which he’s stored in our basement freezer, a joke book, being a smartass, a turkey sandwich soaked in spicy mustard—just the way he likes it, and some other obligatory tasks we imposed on him: putting his clean clothes away, completing a basketball workout, reading a real book, and having a glance at his spelling words for the week.

That night, I was in the kitchen preparing their lunches for the following day. 

“Oh, you’ll definitely have school tomorrow!” I said, confidently dolloping more spicy mustard onto Sam’s turkey sandwich before tucking it into his Bento box.

And I was right.

The next morning, right at 7:15, Tighe crept up to the third floor to wake up Nate and Sam. 

Nate bolted upright immediately. “We have school today??! YESSSSSS!”

He was down the steps in a flash, scooping cereal into his mouth and talking with excitement about how much he missed his friends and his teacher and other nonsense that everyone else was too sleepy to reply to. 

Clad only in his underwear, Sam rolled down the steps like a boulder going uphill, then shuffled over to his spot at his cereal bowl, where he zoned out in front of the TV for several minutes.

“Sam!” Tighe began barking his rhythmic prompts that are probably more habit than anything. “Take a bite! Put your pants on! Now your shirt! Take another bite! That wasn’t a bite, take a big bite! Put a sock on! Now your other sock! Take another bite! Where’s your other sock! Where are your shoes?”

On a school day, every single little step is micromanaged. It’s bureaucratic bullshit, as far as Sam’s concerned. 

Dealing with the man like…

Meanwhile Nate is chomping at the bit to get out the door and get to school. His breakfast was finished twenty minutes ago and he’s been waiting by the back door with his coat and backpack on ever since, dangling Sam’s mask and lunchbox for him. 

More on Sam’s approach to school next week. Not only because he took two personal days this week, but also because one of his classmates just tested positive, so he’s about to have two weeks of virtual learning. Yay, pandemic.

Live-In: The Show

Kyle moved in with us. And if you don’t know who Kyle is, then you’re missing out. 

As my childhood friend Heather always liked to point out, usually with exasperation and mild confusion when I was telling a story, we actually have three Kyle’s in our family: Neighbor Kyle, Brother Kyle, and Friend Kyle. They’re all pretty phenomenal characters in their own rights, but this time I’m talking about BROTHER Kyle.

Kyle is one of my three brothers. He’s single and childless and has a vision for a reality show called “Live-In.” Which is kind of what he’s living right now. I haven’t spotted a camera crew yet, but if I‘ve learned anything from MTV’s The Real World, it’s a camera crew’s job to blend in.

Anyway, Kyle has two bachelor’s degrees, a contractor’s license, a bartending license, a real estate license, and is a culinary school graduate. I know, valuable skills.

In Kyle’s reality show, he would move in with a family and complete a home renovation while cooking meals for them. And for extra drama, he’d get involved in the goings-on of the family. He might coach one of the kids through a friendship drama, counsel the couple in their marital issues, or teach one of the younger children to read. Ideally, he’d clean, too, but that might be asking a lot.

And essentially, that’s what he’s doing for us. Tighe’s converted our playroom into his office, which means the mounds of toys that reside in our house need a new room to clutter up. So, we’re finishing the basement and tossing all the toys down the steps.

And that’s where Kyle comes in. He’s been here almost a month, framing, moving ductwork, hanging drywall, flipping omelets, grilling wings, smoking pork butts, chatting with Tess, teaching Sam how to multiply three and four-digit numbers, and showing Lou how to use a circular saw.

When I pick Tess up from school in the afternoons, after the initial “how was your day? What did you do?” her first comment is, “I wonder what Kyle’s doing.” Upon entering the house, she dutifully hangs up her school bag and her coat and tucks her pink unicorn mittens into her hot pink fleece hat, and calls down the basement steps, “Kyyyyy-llllee! I’m home!”

She daintily tip-toes down the steps, one foot, then two feet on the steps, always leading with the same foot, until she reaches the bottom, where she throws both arms behind her in the shape of a T, smiling her biggest, cheesiest smile, as if her arrival to the basement is a long-anticipated gift. 

She praises Kyle’s progress, asks how his day has gone, and then inquires about why he hasn’t moved her pink princess castle down to the basement yet. That will be the finishing touch.

And then Nate and Sam get home. They burst through the kitchen door, like a noisy explosion, tumbling over one another in an entanglement of coats and backpacks and masks, which they discard all over the living room and dining room floors—all places they don’t belong. They pound down the basement steps and pace around the dusty concrete floor, digging their fists into Cheez-it bags or snack-sized Pringles cans or some other dangerously delicious after-school indulgence from Costco, as they tell Kyle about their days.

Nate, believe it or not, does most of the talking. He starts with his football stats from recess that day. Recess is only 20 minutes, but somehow Nate manages to rack up 8 sacks, 3 batted down passes, 6 interceptions, and 9 touchdowns.  And then there’s the inspirational halftime speech he claims to give every single day that fires up even the dullest of third-grade boys. Next he updates Kyle on any funny things his friends said or any of the boy-girl drama that’s starting to develop in his grade. Kyle just nods, periodically pausing Nate with the hum of a saw or a drill and peppering the soliloquy with some thoughtful “uh-huhs…” 

In the reality show/90’s sitcom version of events, Kyle would seize this moment to teach Nate about the birds and the bees and give him some advice on respecting women. I think we have to pay extra for that. 

When Nate runs out of things to say, which can take a while, Kyle starts with a list of questions for Sam. By this time, Sam has usually woven his lanky body in between sheets of drywall or stashed himself in some make-shift hiding place, like above the freezer or on one of the storage shelves, so his one-word replies are a bit muffled. 

But we all know what he’s going to say anyway. He’s a smart-ass. And he’s elusive. So when asked how his day was, how his spelling test went, or who he played with, his answers are all the same, “Chick-fil-A sauce” or “Jimmy.” Even though Jimmy’s not in his class this year and the nearest Chick-fil-A is a good five miles from his school, nor does he actually eat Chick-fil-A sauce.

As the camera zooms in on Sam’s face, Kyle asks him about his feelings and coaxes him to express what’s really going on inside his brain, thus warding off a future homicide.

Then Lou wakes up from his nap. He always puts both hands in the air, palms up, inquisitive, as if to say, “where are my people?” His first stop is the top of the basement steps, where he leans forward, like an adrenaline junkie, and calls out “Hi!” repeatedly. When Kyle appears at the bottom of the steps, he leans backwards and waves, his arm in the air as high as he can reach and his whole hand hinging at the wrist. 

Kyle hustles up the steps to meet him at the top, picks him up and gives him a progress report. Little incriminating footprints dot the basement floor, showing where Lou has tried to pick up tools or hidden screws or just stood to point at the new recessed lights that Kyle’s installed.

“Kyle!” I call out, “Are they bothering you?” I mean, I enjoy the relative quiet in my kitchen hideout, but I also want Kyle to eventually finish the job, so I feel like I have to clear the obstacles for him.

“Uh… I mean, I could get more work done without them,” he calls back, too nice to actually tell them to get out of his way. 

They march up the steps and through the house, a trail of drywall dust behind them, to work on homework, get ready for basketball practice, play outside with friends, or in Lou’s case, empty the contents of all the kitchen cabinets onto the floor.

As dinner approaches, Kyle wraps up his work for the day, Tighe emerges from his new office, and everyone meets up on the couch for a few Baywatch segments. Like a true 90’s sitcom. 

The Life of Wally

“I just don’t think I could ever love another living thing as much as I love this dog right now.”

“Okay…” Tighe barely even looked up from his laptop, where he had zoned out. He claimed he was working, but he was probably reading The Sports Guy’s Mail Bag.

It was February 2012, and I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, sitting on the floor of our living room where I was trying to stretch after a lazy pregnancy workout. Hindering my ability was Wally’s head, which was resting in my lap. Because if there’s one thing about Wally, he can never get close enough to you. 

If you’re petting the top of his head, he needs to push his whole 80-pound torso into your thighs and hips, pinning you up against the nearest wall or stationary object, then nuzzling his head into your crotch, ensuring that you can’t get away. 

If you’re seated, he needs to rest his head on your lap. If you’re on a sofa, he starts with his head in your lap, then gradually starts to rotate his body and inch himself into your knees and thighs until he’s backing onto the couch next to you as though he’s been invited. 

If I’m nearby, he gives me the side eye to see if I’ve spotted his misdeed, and if I have, he lowers his head, embarrassed, and reluctantly returns to the floor. 

Wally fancies himself a lapdog, and although we’ve never allowed him on the sofa or on the bed—did I mention he weighs 80 pounds?—I imagine if we had let him sleep with us, he would have made acts of reproduction incredibly awkward, if not impossible. Which was probably his plan all along.

Joan, our next-door neighbor in our Baltimore townhouse, let him sleep on her bed. And on her basement sofa. In the spring of 2008, we got puppies from the same litter. I picked Wally, who snuggled in my arms the whole two-hour car ride home. Joan picked out his sister Charly, who whined and cried from the backseat for two hours. 

To encourage both the canine sibling bond and our neighborly bond, we made a gate between our fences, so the dogs could sprint back and forth between houses. I never knew which dog would greet me at the front door when I got home from work, or got out of the shower, or dropped bits of food as I made dinner. 

And, as though he was a newborn baby, we took Wally everywhere with us. To my parent’s house to watch Ravens games. To the beach. To Tighe’s parent’s house, two hours away, on the way to the lake for the weekend where he roamed free, from cottage to cottage to fetch a treat.  We didn’t believe in leashes in those days. 

I even remember coaching a lacrosse game while he napped in the shade under the scorer’s table. You can imagine how excited that group of high school girls was upon seeing this soft, cuddly puppy. I might as well have had a newborn baby to share with them.

Which brings me to my next point: Nate.

Nate was born within hours of my pronouncement that I would never love anything as much as I loved Wally. After four days in the hospital, newly christened parents, we returned home to a shamelessly excited Wally. We’d never been apart that long.  

He was thrilled to see us, sniffed the newborn in his car seat for a moment, and then resumed assaulting us with his aggressively happy whimpers and hyper bouncing. And then he took a proverbial backseat. His life was never the same.

Wally and Nate as Ninjas, circa 2015

I had to nurse, I had to change diapers, I had to hold Nate, not Wally. Suddenly our daily 5-mile walks became few and far between. When we moved to Kansas City, our new neighborhood wasn’t exactly dog friendly. There were very few dog parks, and even when I would leash him, I suddenly had two kids, and it was difficult to manage the stroller, a toddler, and a massive, overly exuberant dog who still wants to greet every person he encounters with a chest bump and an open mouth kiss. 

And so Wally’s outings became fewer and fewer. Each child meant fewer walks and more importantly for Wally, less time and attention. 

Wally enduring another summer road trip back East. Also pictured: Nate’s Monkey and Blanket.

When we were almost finished having kids, after Tess but before Lou, we gifted Wally a canine friend, a nice little pit bull/lab/boxer mix we rescued from a shelter. Since he doesn’t even like other dogs, Wally was less than thrilled with the new sidekick, who tried to wrestle and play and chase him around the yard, behaviors Wally is too sophisticated for. 

And now, it’s almost thirteen years after we brought Wally into our home as part of our family, and although he’s been on the verge of death several times over the past few months, he continues to live. 

A tumor has sprouted on his hind leg, right at the knee cap—do dogs have kneecaps?—and swelled to the size of a grapefruit. The giant extra juicy ones that you used to get in a Harry and David gift box or from the local high school’s citrus sale. You know, bigger than a softball, but not quite the size of a bowling ball.

Anyway, the vet recommended we let it ride. Chemo is prohibitively expensive and it could kill him. Surgery isn’t an option because of the location on his body. Even a specialist probably couldn’t remove it all, it would be traumatic, and it would likely grow back.

So we ignored it. And he was still a heartily healthy dog, galloping around the house greeting the mailman and little friends that came to the door, his tumor swinging back and forth like a saddlebag filled with drinking water for a thirsty cowboy.

“Mom, his tumor accidentally hit me in the face!”

Until one day it popped! 

And we’re not even sure how it happened. Tighe thought Wally had been fed up with the sagging appendage and attempted surgery himself. And maybe he did. But whether it popped or Wally punctured it with his teeth, it suddenly morphed into an open wound the size of a golf ball. A close, reluctant examination during which I realized (yet again) I never wanted to be a doctor revealed the grossest sight these eyes had even laid eyes on.

Wally’s tumor, in late October 2020, once it popped. See how it looks like a brain oozing out? (But seriously, if you want an actual picture of the tumor, message me. And then brace yourself.)

It looked like a brain slowly oozing out of his leg. All pink and soft and mushy, like the Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

“Don’t look at Wally’s tumor!” Nate called out, breathlessly restraining the dogs by their collars as he opened the door for Tighe’s sister and her new boyfriend, literally meeting him for the first time.

“Uh…okay,” he murmured, slipping inside the house and assuming Wally was a human. Little did he know that an accidental glance at Wally’s leg could send one into convulsions. Or at least cause one to lose their appetite for multiple days. 

And occasionally, little white, pea-sized nodules—I don’t know if nodule is the proper medical nomenclature—coated in blood slipped out from the gaping wound.

“Mooo-ooom! Wally’s tumor is on the floor again!”

The vet prescribed some antibiotics and told us to try and keep the wound exposed so it would heal, but not to let him lick it, so he sent us home with a plastic cone around his neck.

Which limited his vision. I watched as he walked into walls or got stuck on a piece of furniture that he had forgotten about. 

And Rocket saw the cone as his personal chew toy. Wally tried to shake him loose, but as a pit bull, Rocket is relentless. Geriatric or not, Wally’s irritation only fuels his fire to play and wrestle. Rocket’s a dick.

So I removed the cone, tossed into the recycling bin, and slipped a tube sock over Wally’s leg.

Which he pulled off. 

So I tried to tape it in place. 

But the vet insisted that we not impede his circulation. 

So I pulled off the sock and the tape and we all just ignored it.

And that’s when—things are about to get gross here—the blood diarrhea started. 

I mean, first it was just regular old canine diarrhea. Which is gross no matter who you are. The dogs sleep in the sunroom on the first floor, with the French doors closed, mostly to contain Wally’s angst during thunderstorms. On diarrhea mornings, the stench was like a wall as soon as we walked down the steps. And on really bad mornings, it hit as soon as we opened our bedroom door.

“No more dogs, no more kids,” Tighe muttered to me, a spray bottle and roll of paper towels under his arm. That’s actually become his mantra.

And then there were the nights when Wally woke us up every 90 minutes or so, urgently scooting outside, where he paced back and forth in the darkness, either vomiting or squirting runny diarrhea into the snow.

“This is worse than a baby,” Tighe mumbled around 3am as we stood in our robes, watching Wally in the backyard, our foreheads pressed against the cold glass doors. We were some combination of concerned and curious and annoyed.  

Within minutes of eating anything, he’d vomit.  So he stopped eating. But the diarrhea continued. It was just liquid with lots of blood—the odor was so foul and putrid. Worse than a typical dog poop, like all the acids and bacteria from his intestines were just pouring onto our hardwood floors, plus the metallic stench of blood. It was like he was doing his own cleanse. 

We really thought it was the end. Especially because he was refusing to eat anything and he was emaciated and lethargic.

He was surviving on burgers. For about a month I cooked a slew of hamburgers for him each week, and he ate half of one in the morning and the other half in the evenings. It was the only thing he could keep down and the only thing keeping him alive. 

Finally, one Saturday, after four or five consecutive mornings of awakening to the stench of blood diarrhea, I called the vet.

“We don’t have any openings today and we’re closed tomorrow, but bring him by on Monday morning and we can do another ‘quality of life’ exam.”

And just like that, Wally was better. He took all day Sunday to recover. Suddenly, he was begging for food again and rushing across the dining room to beat Rocket to the next crumb that fell from the high chair. Slowly he regained weight and we weaned him from the burgers back to regular dog food.

As Tighe keeps saying, if the vet had been open on Sunday morning, we would have put him down then. It’s almost as if discussing his mortality inspired him and he dug deep and found the will to live. 

Now, about three weeks later, the tumor has grown back to the size of a grapefruit, and we’re wondering what’s going to happen next? Will it pop again? Was the stomach disruption caused by him licking the bacteria on the wound? Or did the bacteria in his mouth cause an infection in the wound, of which vomit and diarrhea was a side effect?

Now the tumor is the size of a grapefruit again… what’s next?

Sam, without looking up from his Legos: “Or maybe he just got corona.”

Stay tuned… 

A 2021 Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written—and not for a lack of material or motivation or even time. It’s more that I’ve been overwhelmed with story lines and I’m struggling to whittle it all down into one trajectory that flows for the reader. 

Who would want to read the nonsensical chaos that characterizes our house each day? One minute I’m wrestling scissors from Sam and Tess, picking up the bits of hair they’d chopped from their heads; the next I’m prying off the kernels of dog food that had been glued to the coffee table.

But since this blog was originally intended to update friends and family on our happenings after moving 1,500ish miles away, I’ll start there. An enumerated list is always fun to read.

1.    When we last left our hero, me, I’d been in a car accident with Lou. Hit by a driver who had accelerated through a red light, we flipped upside down and spun around 180 degrees, like a helpless, overturned turtle. But Lou and I emerged from that unscathed! Lou didn’t have a single scratch on his little body, and I only had a few minor bruises and scrapes. No PTSD, no emotional scarring, nothing. Miraculous. Seriously. 

2.    Eight days after our accident, Tighe totaled his car on his way home from work. Also not his fault. A new driver, poor girl, had pulled out in front of him without looking, and even at only 30mph, he smashed his car into the minivan she had been driving. Again, no one was hurt, but the girl at fault was extremely shaken up, particularly because the minivan belonged to the family she babysat for. Oops.

“You’re never gonna believe this,” Tighe had said somberly into the phone asking me to pick him up. In the throes of Witching Hour, I turned off the stove, scooted Rocket into his crate, and ushered Nate/Sam/Tess/Lou into the car to drive all of three minutes to the accident scene, just in front of Loose Park. 

I parallel parked on one of the side streets and we watched as Tighe gathered his backpack from the front seat, finished talking to the cops, and then as the tow truck hauled away our trusty Chevy Suburban, which had trucked us all back and forth across the country multiple times with great success. I mean, the interior was probably literally stained with blood, sweat, and tears. And dog slobber. And Cheez-It crumbs. And strawberry-banana smoothies. But otherwise with great success. 

3.    After a series of rental cars and countless phone calls and emails to and from the insurance company—we are likely not their favorite policy holders right now—we got our finances all situated and acquired new cars. I got another Honda Pilot because safety. And Tighe got a good deal on a used GMC Yukon Denali. 

4.    And then because there’s no rest for the weary, a few short weeks later and right before Thanksgiving, Tighe lost his job. No hard feelings there. 

Seriously. If it had been me, I’d still be in my bed wondering why nobody likes me. But Tighe basically clapped his hands together and said, “Great! Now I can do something else!” And so he is. 

He declined the severance package they offered him because he didn’t want to also sign the non-compete agreement. So we have no income at the moment and no health insurance. With four small children. During a global pandemic. No big deal.

5.    Which brings me to my next point: risk-taking. Yes, that’s right. We traveled to Florida for Christmas. And yes, though I didn’t advertise this trip in any way, nor post any pictures on social media, I’ve already been shamed for it, from friends and family and strangers alike.

Feel free to jump on the bandwagon with that. 

Everyone has a different level of risk-tolerance in this pandemic and I take ownership for mine and for our actions. Personally, after two car accidents, I feel riskier driving around town than I do hopping on a plane and sitting on a beach in Florida. 

And as a result of our accidents, I was a feeling a bit carpe-diemish. Like, I hadn’t seen my parents in a year. My dad had only met Lou once. Life’s too short to be hiding in my house. Family relationships are more important to me than that.

So, we masked up and flew to Florida to spend Christmas with my parents and my brothers and two sisters-in-law and my niece. We also got to see a handful of cousins and Tighe’s sister, brother-in-law, their three kids, and her newest baby bump, due to arrive in August. We sat on the beach and hung out in my parent’s pool. And we laughed and we ate and we had fun and we slept well and we watched football and we rolled our eyes as my dad frantically fished out the rocks Lou had thrown in the pool.

And best of all, we arrived home eight days before Nate and Sam returned to school, adequate time to wait and monitor for coronavirus symptoms. And yes, I know all the angles and all the risks: as far as we know, we’re not in the high-risk category, but we have people in our community who are. And to protect them, we’re happy to wear masks (properly) and stay out of public places so we can minimize the spread. 

We all have different reasons behind our actions. I was in a potentially fatal car accident on my way home from Target, so I had the urge to see my mom and dad. 

Let the judging and shaming commence. 

6.    Nate, Sam, and Tess continue in-person schooling, punctuated by a few covid hiccups along the way. Tess and Nate each have had kids in their classes test positive at various points. Nate and Sam have had to be flexible as they’ve had to switch back and forth between all-virtual, full-time in-person, and hybrid half-days, based on the number of cases within the school. 

Nate’s teacher emailed me last Sunday afternoon, just before the Chiefs game started, to tell me that Nate has a D in Reading because he hadn’t turned in several assignments. It turns out he gets distracted mid-upload and the documents never make it into her cyber-gradebook.

At least I think that’s what happened. Nate never had an explanation, but all of the completed assignments were either in his backpack or scattered around the floor of his room, so it was actually a quick fix. Although I’ve yet to see his second quarter report card…

7.    Wally, our nearly 13 year-old Golden Doodle continues to live. More on that in an upcoming blog post.

8.    Kyle moved in with us. If you don’t know Kyle, then you’re missing out. Actually you’ll find out in a subsequent blog post, but know this: he’s been a truly valuable addition to our household.

9.    Baywatch is our new favorite show. I mean, for Tighe and me, it’s an old favorite, something we used to watch in syndication when we were kids. But for Nate, Sam, Tess, and Lou, it’s totally new, and they’re LOVING it. Sure, maybe it’s just the appeal of boobs, but either way, it’s a show that all 7 of us can easily agree on.

In fact, even as I sit and type this, Nate and Sam are at school, but Tess and Lou have wandered away from the lunch table and into the living room. I can hear the Baywatch theme song emanating through the house. I didn’t even know they could work the remote… Unless it was Kyle… 

Actually, let me check… Nope, it was definitely Lou. He’s reclining on a cushion, milk in one hand, remote in the other, gazing at Pamela Anderson from under his sleepy eyelids. Which tells me one thing: I breastfed for too long.

That’s enough for now. Lots more to come, I’m sure, I just need to keep up with the habit of writing it all down. It’s now after school, and I’ve actually been typing the same set of sentences for about 48 minutes, but I keep having to interrupt my flow to say things like, “No more snacks!” “Whose banana peel is this?” “Why don’t you know where your homework is?” “She’s not stupid, she’s just 3!” “Someone please take the plunger from the baby!”

Long Live the Honda Pilot

I haven’t been to Target in seven months! I’m not Target-obsessed like some moms, but it is the perfect place to go when you need a new pair of flip-flops and your husband is completely out of his favorite cereal. And your neighbor has had a really rough week and it’s only Tuesday and she needs a pick-me-up. Where can I buy women’s sandals, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and a bag of Reese’s Take 5 candy bars?

Target is the only solution. 

So, on Tuesday, knee-deep in pandemic, I sent Nate and Sam off with their homeschooling cohort, dropped Tess at preschool, and took Lou to Target for the first time in seven months.

He had fun stumbling around the store waving at mannequins, moving toys from one shelf to the next, and trying to guess the facial expressions of the employees under their masks. When he had had enough and was ready for a snack, we glided through the self-checkout—no lines!—tucked our plastic bags into the back of our Honda Pilot, and secured Lou into his car seat.

“Come on, nugget,” I said, handing him a blueberry muffin to give him something to keep him busy in the car. “Let’s go to the playground.”

Playgrounds are his happy place, especially now that he’s mobile. He loves being able to climb and run and slide and stare at other kids. He was a difficult baby, but he’s turning into an easy toddler. As long as he gets some playground time in, and his face actually lights up at the word “playground.”

He was not as thrilled with the muffin, and I saw him toss it onto the floor as we cruised through the parking lot and turned left onto Ward Parkway, headed north towards the 85thstreet light, about 50 yards away. The light was red in our direction so I idled off the gas, but it turned green as we approached, so I started to accelerate through the intersection.

And you know how, just out of habit, you still look left and right and left again as you go through an intersection? Well, I did that, and took note of a black sedan coming from the west at a pretty high rate of speed.

“Hmm, that car is coming pretty fast,” I said to myself without even realizing that I said that to myself. It was one of those subconscious, unaware inner monologues, like when thoughts are ideas and shapes instead of coherent words. And incorrectly, I assumed the car would still stop, so I fixed by gaze forward, on the road ahead of me.

And that’s when I felt the driver’s side door crumble in around me. Or maybe I heard the door—is it aluminum? Plastic? Some doors are apparently made of magnesium? I don’t know, I’ll actually never see that car again. It got towed away and is officially totaled, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, I don’t know if I feltthe door crumble or heardthe door crumble first. Or maybe I felt the jarring jolt, stopping my inertia first? Then the door crumbled? I don’t know.

I think we slid across the intersection first, the black sedan smashing into the side of the driver’s side of our blue SUV and pushing it into the curb until it flipped and spun 180 degrees on the roof, now facing the opposite direction.

Or did we roll upside down first and then spin around 180 degrees and then slide into the light post on the opposite side of the four-lane road? Actually I think that’s right—we rolled, spun, then slid. Upside down.

The details are fuzzy to me because I immediately began screaming. Like a scream so shrill and high-pitched I don’t think I’ve even made before. 

First I just screamed just a series of vowel sounds, like a banshee on a roller coaster. It seemed like we were rolling and skidding for an eternity, though it was probably about five seconds. And the whole time, I was just thinking: Did I buckle him properly?

I mean, I know how to buckle him. Fasten the buckle across his chest, then the buckle between his legs, pull the straps tight, and make sure the chest buckle is up towards his shoulders, not down by his belly button. That’s how babies get ejected from cars in rollover crashes. 

But did I do that just now as we were leaving Target? 

He’s so squirmy and resistant. Which is why I usually encourage compliance with the word “playground.” Or I hand him a snack or a toothbrush or a plastic fork. He loves those plastic forks and spoons and I’ve been keeping a few spares in the car. 

My uncertainty seemed to be funneling out of my body in the form of a scream. 

Once the car finally skidded to a stop, I began screaming, “My baby! My baby! My baby!” 

I sounded like a crazy person, I’m sure. In retrospect, it’s a tad embarrassing how dramatic I was. I just wanted anyone and everyone nearby to know that my baby was inside. I have a baby and he needs to get out now. Someone check on him and save him! I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared of anything in my entire life, and that includes my four C-sections, wrong turns through west Baltimore, and the entire year when I was eleven and I thought I had breast cancer. Turned out I was just developing boobs. 

I don’t remember unbuckling my seatbelt, but apparently I did so. Being upside down didn’t even faze me, I just had to get to Lou. 

Putting my feet down onto the ceiling of the car—never thought I’d type that phrase—I twisted around and laid eyes on Lou. He was screaming like I was, which meant he was alive and conscious!

He was looking to me, his eyes wide, his face red, all the blood rushing to his head. He was, as I had hoped and prayed without words, secure in his car seat, his shoulders pressing into the straps. There was space between his legs and the seat itself, gravity is not a myth.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay! You’re okay!”

I don’t know how I maneuvered through the car to get to him, but I did. I unbuckled him and let him drop into my arms, spun him to turn upright, as some good Samaritan outside of the car peeled his door open. 

“Oh, my God!” I said. 

All I could see was several pairs of legs and shoes, but gripping Lou under his armpits, I lifted him up and handed him to total strangers. 

I scrambled out right behind him, to a chorus of questions from the dozen or so people surrounding me.

“Are you okay?”

“Is there anyone else inside the car?”

“Yes! I’m okay! It was just the two of us! We’re okay!” I replied, taking Lou back from the man holding him. Lou had started to wail. If a rollover accident doesn’t scare the crap out of the little guy, being in the arms of a total stranger certainly will. 

He immediately stopped crying and I kissed him again and again and again and pressed his head to my chest. I have a bruise there now, right on my collarbone, which I had assumed was from the seatbelt, but perhaps it was from loving my baby too much in that moment.

Much of the next hour or so is a blur. There were sirens and flashing lights and many more questions. But I was giddy with relief and joy and gratitude that we were okay. We were standing next to our car that had flipped upside down and we were both safe and healthy!

The passersby and good Samaritans who stopped to help gradually dwindled away as I assured them that I was okay and my baby was okay. The neighbors who live on that corner came out to offer a chair, blankets, bottled water, and snacks.

“No, thanks, I brought my own,” I quipped, pointing to the boxes of Quaker Oatmeal Squares that had been ejected from the car onto the street. I’m so much funnier in times of crisis. 

One man heroically reached under the car to rescue my cell phone and stood by as I called Tighe. He already knew about the accident because Honda, apparently alerted by the airbag deployment, had called him.

“The guy went through the red light, Tighe. The car rolled over, but we’re okay!”

“Okay, do you need me to come?” That’s what she said.

“No, we’re good! Just stay at work!”

Apparently, my euphoria clouded my ability to reason. My phone’s rescuer who had overheard my conversation, quickly interjected.

“How are you going to get home?”

“Shoot, you’re right!”

I called Tighe back immediately. “Actually, can you please come get us?”

Cops and firefighters approached me, almost continuously, one at a time or sometimes in pairs to confirm that I was okay or to offer some well wishes. 

One cop, in the most flat, professional manner I’ve ever heard said, “Ma’am, you’re very lucky.” Then he exited stage right as if that’s what his script had instructed.

“Yes, thank you!” I called after him, but his lack of emotion and affect reminded me of when you’d get reprimanded by a friend’s parent. Also, is “thank you” the proper reply? Honestly, I didn’t care. I knew we had just cheated death, I was fully aware that I probably should not be standing or walking or laughing or chatting as gregariously as I was. I should probably be in an ambulance on the way to a hospital. I’ll take it. 

The police took my statement and confirmed to me that the other driver admitted fault, admitted that he had run a red light. Which was a relief. I knew that was what happened, but I also know that in accidents like that, it’s easy to second-guess yourself and your memory becomes hazy about certain facts. And crystal clear about others. Which is why I don’t actually remember unbuckling my own seat belt, but I’ll never forget what Lou looked like upside down in his car seat.

When Tighe arrived, he drove us to see a friend who’s a doctor who checked us out assessing that Lou didn’t have any signs of concussion and I had full mobility of my arms and shoulders. At least I think that’s what she was doing. Maybe she just wanted to see how flexible I am.

Lou and I dropped Tighe off at work and headed home. As I glanced in the rear view mirror, at Lou’s little body, gently dozing in Tess’s old car seat, I mused at how differently our day could have been. 

What if I hadn’t buckled him securely enough? 

Or what if I had unbuckled myself to reach back and hand him another muffin?

We could be sitting in a hospital room right now or saying last goodbyes instead of heading home to grab a snack before picking up the bigger kids from school. 

When I did finally arrive at grade school pickup later that day, after what seemed like both the longest and the shortest day ever, Nate and Sam were confused as they climbed into our black Suburban, instead of our navy blue Honda Pilot.

“Why are you in Tighe’s car?” Nate asked.

“Guys, let me tell you about our day!” I said, still happy and relieved and probably high an adrenaline.

As we waited for the carpool line to move, I showed them pictures and described every detail I could think of, careful to frame the accident as a joyful miracle instead of a horrifying, potentially fatal event.

But nothing shuts down joy like your own children.

“Well, that’s nothing,” Sam said, taking off his mask and backpack to settle in his seat. “Today, I got to be the line leader for Mrs. Smith’s* class because Mrs. Brown* left me in the bathroom because I was taking too long.”

I think Sam’s at the age where his stories will always trump mine. I clapped my palm to my forehead and tried to share in hisjoy. “That’s really exciting, Sam.”

Two days after the accident, I came down to breakfast groggy after two sleepless nights of weird dreams and flashbacks. 

Without looking up from her cereal and her coloring book, Tess said, “How do you feel, Mom?”

“Good,” I replied quickly. “Some new bruises have appeared here and here, but—“

“Wow, cool, Mom, who cares?”

Her compassion is about what I’d expect from any three year-old, which means we’ve officially returned to normal.

*Names changed

Sam's First Day of First Grade

**Aside from our family, names have been changed**

“We have to wear masks??!” He was shocked.

I honestly don’t know how he missed that memo. The WHO declared a global pandemic more than six months ago, the CDC soon after. We’ve been wearing masks in public for at least four months. 

So, yes, Sam. When you go to school for the first time in six months, with the test positivity rate still well above 5%, you have to wear a mask.

And their school has taken the precautions very seriously. Which I commend. Some of it is probably security-theater, but it’s hard to teach and learn if you’re anxious or scared. So, we’ll gladly do temp checks at the door, wear masks, keep our kids six feet apart, and much more, all so they can go to school, be social again, and build relationships with their new teachers in person. 

The boys were already in their school uniforms when I came down that morning. They were excited, chatting incessantly at 7:40AM, securing their belts, and tucking in their shirts. Which was overkill because part of the reopening plan at their school is half-days. One half of the student body attends school in the morning and the other half goes in the afternoon, so that we don’t cram too many kids into a classroom at once. When they’re not in school, they’re responsible for online assignments and video lessons at home. 

We were dealt the afternoon session, which meant that Nate and Sam would have all morning at home, then eat lunch, and thenI would drop them off at school.

“Hmm,” I said, suddenly a bit judgy. I was trying to contain my inner buzzkill. Just be proud that they’re eager and happy and proactive. 

“It’s just that…” I couldn’t hold it in, “why did you have to choose the whiteshirts?” 

Their school mandates white or hunter green polo shirts with the school logo on the chest. I always buy the green ones to minimize stains, but I can’t control what arrives in hand-me-down bags. 

They shrugged and continued giggling about Legos and Fortnite and boogers and butt cracks and whatever else they think is funny first thing in the morning. 

“Sam!” I yelled a bit later as I was plating his waffles. “Don’t get juice on your shirt! Don’t get syrup on your shirt! Don’t get anythingon your shirt!”

“Okay,” he said flatly. “Should I just get it all on my pants then?”

I rolled my eyes.

Later, after the boys had eaten an early lunch and we were climbing into the car to take them to school for the big first [half] day, Sam, with black paw prints stamped on the back of his white shirt after wrestling with the dog, got uncharacteristically serious, like he was suddenly focusing on his tasks for the afternoon.

“Mom, I know where the steps are, but I don’t remember how to get to my classroom from there.”

“It’s straight ahead, at the bottom of the steps. The closest classroom to the stairwell.”

I continued, speaking slowly to optimize his comprehension. “If you get lost, ask someone. Tell them you’re in first grade. Hold up one finger so they understand you through your mask. And tell them your teacher’s name.”

I paused a moment.

“Sam, what’s your teacher’s name?”

“Mrs. Booger Butt.”

I rolled my eyes. 

Two years ago, in Sam’s pre-k year, he still didn’t know either of his two classroom teachers’ names by November. This became apparent to us one night at dinner when he told a story about his school day and I asked which teacher he was referring to.

“I don’t know. One of them.”

“Sam, what are your teachers’ names?” I asked, testing him. Remember that this was November. The air was crisp and cold, leaves were off the trees, and we were preparing for Thanksgiving, not Labor Day. In November students and teachers are no longer getting to know one another—they’ve already settled into their roles and are comfortable with one another.

“Sam?”  

After a few moments of silent shrugs from Sam, Nate, who knows everything about everything, got impatient.

“Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brooks!” he yelled, answering on Sam’s behalf.

“No, Nate!” Sam yelled, thinking Nate was referring to his own teachers. “She wants to know who MYteachers are!”

Cue the eye roll again. Not only did he not know their names off the top of his head, he didn’t even recognize them when Nate said them aloud. 

Who is this kid?

So although Sam’s not great with names, I had assumed he was kidding when he referred to his new teacher as Mrs. Booger Butt. Surely he must know his teacher’s name. Class lists have been out since early June.

Typically, their school hosts an open house just before school starts, allowing parents and students to find their new classroom and drop off the mountain of supplies that little hands never seem able to carry. And on a typical first day, parents, giddy with excitement and raging with morning caffeine, walk their children to their classrooms, snap pictures, and then linger too long in the lobby, socializing and finishing their coffees, emancipated from their children for another seven hours.

But this is not a typical year.

This is… *dun dun dun* 2020.

So Sam would have to rely on his own navigational experience and budding sense of direction to find the first grade classrooms. Plus a very helpful video that his teacher had sent earlier in the week with a tour and step-by-step instructions on how to enter the building and get to her classroom.

But Sam is like his dad and doesn’t worry about anything, so he barely glanced at the laptop screen as we watched his teacher glide through the hallways, pointing out landmarks and narrating her path. 

“Do you want to watch it again, Sam?” I had asked.

“Hey Nate!” he had called, scampering away. “Want to go to Jimmy’s house?”

Sometimes I wonder if he even knows I exist.

So when he tumbled out of the car that first morning, I smiled and waved to the familiar faces of teachers and parent volunteers and muttered to Tess and Lou, “There’s no way he’s finding that classroom on his own.”

At the end of the school day, about three and a half hours later, Sam beat Nate to the car.

“It was ah-mazing!”

“Really?!” I was so excited for him. He’s never that emphatic or authentic. He usually just shuffles along, with a casual, slightly cocky smirk on his face, giggling to himself, pushing people’s buttons, and trying to impress Nate with physical achievements and clever quips. 

In other words, he’s a smartass.  

“Tell me about it, Sam.” I wanted to hear all the details before Nate arrived and hijacked the conversation.

“I have to peeeeeeeeee!” 

And just as quickly as Sam ran to the car—which was really fast, especially for Sam—the quality of our mother-son conversation vanished.

“I have to pee! My penis is about to be flooded with urine!”

And in between panicked pleas about his need to pee, the tale of his morning drop-off emerged. 

First, he went in the wrong door, not the door designated for first-graders. He’s not sure which door he went in, but it wasn’t the right one, so the little bit he could recall from his teacher’s video was now useless.

But he did find a stairwell and correctly went to the bottom floor. And then he wandered “in circles” for a while until a helpful teacher found him.

Since he truly could not remember his teacher’s name, she led him from class to class asking each teacher if they have “a Sam” on their lists. 

Whatever works! As I write this, he’s at school for Day #2. I have no idea how or if he found his classroom today, but I’m not worried. He’s resilient. What’s more important is that he finds a bathroom.

Date Night, 2020 Style

Six firefighters and two police officers. 

That’s what it took to get Tess out of our first floor bathroom. 

It’s been a long pandemic in our house. 

Social isolation. Distance learning. Online grocery orders. Working from home. Grub Hub and Door Dash. Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, masks, cabin fever, pandemic baking, weight gain, low-grade depression, anxiety, you know the drill.

And of course, we cheated here and there. I’ll admit it, I’m not self-righteous or political. We had play dates. We went to the playground, to the zoo, flew on a plane, I hugged my brother and my friend Annie whom I hadn’t seen in three years, sue me. 

But still, after seven months, Tighe and I needed a break. We needed a date night. Years ago, when Nate and Sam were babies, date nights were a weekly event. As our kids grew older, more numerous, and busier, they became fewer and fewer. 

And after way too much time at home with them and too many dinners at our dining room table trying to shout over their attention-seeking shrieks, we were desperate for some time alone. 

So I booked a babysitter and Tighe booked a hotel room about a mile from our house. 

Get your mind out of the gutter, Dave. We sat in the hotel room and talked. We talked about the upkeep of our lawn, the broken fence posts in the backyard, Tess’s antics at swim lessons that day, the list price of our neighbor’s house, the latest coronavirus gossip. It was so boring, just typing these sentences makes my eyes glaze over.

At 7pm, we went down to the hotel’s restaurant where we had a reservation. And just as we were being seated in the near-empty restaurant, my phone buzzed. Like, ringing. Which nowadays only means one of two things: a telemarketer or an emergency.

It was Tighe’s aunt, the mother of our high school babysitter. 

Figuring she had come over to help her daughter console an inconsolable Lou—that baby loves his mom—I ignored it and smiled at the masked waiter as he showed us the drink menu.

But then Tighe’s phone rang. 

Same caller. 

Uh-oh.

As the waiter ran away, like he was busy or something, Tighe answered his phone. I could just hear bits and pieces of her end of the conversation.

“Tess is locked in the bathroom. She’s okay! She’s happy! We slid her an iPad and some fruit snacks. We’re FaceTiming her, but her little fingers just can’t turn the lock.”

“Ugh! Sam did the same thing when he was about the same age!” I was talking to no one in particular, simply replying to the bits of the dialogue I could hear.

“Nope, the hinges are on the inside,” I shook my head. A few moments later, “A screwdriver won’t work, I tried that with Sam!”

When Sam was about 4, he had locked himself into the same bathroom, his fingers unable to turn the lock enough to fully unlatch it. I had slid him my phone and asked him to take pictures of what the inside of the door looked like so I knew what I was working with. The locks and doorknobs on these old houses are a bit finicky. I removed the outside knob, but it was detached from the lock itself. I was on the verge of frustrated tears, just as I was about to start hacking through the hollow door with a screwdriver, Sam very absentmindedly flipped the lock and walked out, without a care in the world. 

But back to Tess. Tighe wasn’t going to let a little matter like our only daughter trapped in the bathroom interrupt our first date in over 200 days.

“She’ll figure it out, just have her keep trying,” he assured his aunt. “It’ll be a good lesson for her.”

His aunt promised to text us when she was free and Tighe hung up. 

Our drinks came, followed by an appetizer, and still no liberation text.

I was getting antsy, imagining her growing scared and worried inside that tiny bathroom.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Tighe  said, trying to make me feel better. “They said she’s happy. She’s probably loving it! Snacks, attention, time away from her brothers, it’s her dream come true!”

As our entrees arrived, my phone rang again.

“Erin, I called 911.”

“You did? Okay.” I was processing. Should we go home? I was hoping for dessert. Or at least another drink.

“They’re sending a police officer.”

“Okay…” Still processing as I glanced down at my artichoke-stuffed chicken. I love artichokes. 

“Don’t worry, though! She’ll be fine. She’s really happy and everything else is fine!”

We dug into our dinners and waited for the Nest front door notifications on our phones. We didn’t want to miss the moment that the cop showed up. 

Except it wasn’t a single cop. 

It was two cop cars and a hook and ladder truck with the sirens on. 

We watched them storm the house and a few minutes later, Mara sent us a picture of the busted door.

“Tess was super calm,” her text read, “but when that door flew open, her eyes were huge and I just grabbed her because there was an arsenal of cops and firemen filling your kitchen! Have fun tonight! Lock is fixed now!”

Tess’s account of the events backed up what was reported to us except that she had more to say about the movie they watched than about being locked in the bathroom and a “bulky” cop risking his life to bust through our bathroom door. 

When Tighe asked her what happened, she replied in one run-on sentence.

“We were playing the tickle-monster game and I hid in the bathroom and the door accidentally locked and then Francie gave me the iPad and some snacks and then Nate and Sam called the fire engine and the cop accidentally broke the door and then Mara took a picture of us.”

“Were you scared?”

“No,” she said pausing a moment to reflect. “I was a little bit brave.”

“Was it fun?”

“The bathroom wasn’t fun. But Francie is fun!”

After finishing dessert and watching a movie in the hotel, we came home to find the door cracked in half, the doorknob and the lock sitting in pieces on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker, and a small pile of paint chips on the floor just inside the door. And most importantly, four kids fast asleep in their beds.

“Best date night ever,” Tighe mumbled as he fell asleep that night.

Lou's Pandemic Baptism

Last weekend we celebrated Lou’s baptism. Which meant we took our kids to church for the first time in more than three months. Thanks, coronavirus. And it was clear that they forgot how to behave at church. In fact, last time we were all there, in early March, Lou wasn’t even crawling, Nate and Sam had been pretty good about carrying notebooks and colored pencils to keep them busy during the long, quiet hour, and Tess was a disaster. She was gaining infamy for her ill-timed shrieks and barefoot galloping on the tile floors. But she was getting the hang of it. Slowly. 

Our church has been enforcing some pretty strict pandemic policies even after Kansas City “opened up.” I use that term loosely because most people and organizations are still pretty careful. The parish staff has taped off every other pew to enforce social distancing and marked off the aisles so that people don’t get too close while they’re waiting for communion. Masks are to be worn anytime you’re outside of your pew. And, like a lot of churches around the world, they began live-streaming services, so people could safely tune in at home and not feel like they’re missing anything.

Mass attendance is “awarded” through a lottery system—every week I hope we lose—but because Lou was going to be baptized, they gave us priority. 

Church started at 9am. We didn’t even leave the house until about 9:03, so we were sufficiently late by the time we got there. Sam had lost just oneof his shoes at a friends house the night before and he was protesting having to wear flip-flops by lying on the floor of our house in a crumbled, weepy heap. We were waiting in the car in the driveway, wondering whether or not he’d call our bluff that we were about to leave when Tighe got fed up and charged back into the house to get him. He stormed out a moment later, and since Sam doesn’t weigh much, he was carrying Sam under his arm as one would carry a stack of books from the library. If libraries were open.

So when we trudged into the church twelve minutes after the service started, we were on display for all to see. 

There weren’t many seats left, but we snagged half of a pew just in front of Tighe’s cousin and across the aisle from one of his aunts and uncles. The other family in our row slid down so we could maintain six feet of distance. I put Lou’s car seat between us for an extra barrier. 

And then the fun commenced! 

Since our kids had slept late and hadn’t eaten breakfast, as we were leaving the house, I had called out, “If you’re hungry, grab a snack!” As usual, Tess was the only one who had listened to my general announcement. Nate and Sam are usually too busy chatting to each other to hear me. 

So as we settled into our seats, Tess pulled a brownie from one of her pockets. Hmm, not as nutritious as I was imagining, but it’ll prevent hunger pangs and whininess, so whatever. She proceeded to eat it with the same carelessness as a three year-old eats anything, crumbs falling from her mouth onto the floor as she weaved in and out of our bodies and giggled at Lou. I tried to pick up the crumbs from the floor and cram them into a wipe I had grabbed from the diaper bag, discreetly. I didn’t want to draw attention to all the germs kids shed without even realizing it. 

When she finished her brownie, oblivious to the chocolate ring around her lips, she began slapping Sam, who was apparently blocking her access to Lou. 

“No, Sam, mooo-ooove!” she shrieked. Pushing and shoving ensued until she knocked Sam, like a pendulum, into Nate, who had been sitting upright and focused, like a good Catholic schoolboy. 

But no matter how disciplined he is, no eight year-old can resist the urge to swipe back at a sibling when he feels he’s been wronged. So he landed a jab on each of them and as he went for a knockout punch, Tighe lifted him up and slid under him to separate Nate and Sam. 

I swung Tess around by her arm to put her on the other side of me and we had effectively separated all three kids.

Oh, except we have four.

Lou was crawling under the pew and towards the elderly couple in front of us. Which I normally wouldn’t mind except that…. you know, pandemic. 

So we dragged Lou back to Lockdown Row and Tighe and I spent the next hour trying to regulate spats, minimize the spread of our germs, and model how to behave during a church service.

Except the moment when I lost it on Tess because she had lifted up my dress as though she was inspecting the undercarriage of a car. I had a wedgie at the time, so the rows behind me got a good view of my gluteus maximus. Tighes’s cousin, Maggie, later confirmed this. 

“Tess!” I hissed, my eyes wide with embarrassment and shock. “Don’t do that!” 

She let out a menacing cackle and immediately moved to do it a second time, but I swatted her hand away and moved her in front of me. 

Why did I not bring more snacks? And colored pencils and markers? And toys to occupy their little hands?

Oh yeah, because I’m out of practice. Just like them. 

When we walked up to communion, shame and guilt and embarrassment exuded from under my mask—and I’m not even Catholic! I balanced Lou on my hip and used my other hand to steer Sam and Tess, who had pulled their masks up over their heads until they covered their eyes, in the direction of the Eucharist. I alternated my grip on each of their shoulders, pushing and pulling at the right moments to make sure they didn’t get too close to the mass-goers ahead of us.

They would have stumbled into pews and the butts of the people if not for my guiding hand. Which is not a metaphor.

Finally, mass ended and we waited for our turn to exit and make our way to the small chapel that adjoined the church where Lou would be baptized.

Tighe’s cousin, Maggie joined us as the substitute godmother because Tighe’s sister, Kate couldn’t make the trip from Philadelphia. Thanks again, coronavirus. 

After a few moments, four more of Tighe’s cousins joined us, but due to Uber difficulties, the godfather, Tighe’s brother Johnny, was late. 

And so we waited.

In the tiny chapel. 

With the elderly priest. 

And lone parish staff member on duty that day. 

But our kids were already bored.

And hungry. (Except Tess, I guess, but she was probably still on a sugar high.)

Which is a dangerous combination.

So the wrestling continued. And as we waited, it eventually evolved into climbing under andon top of pews. Because now they had an audience of Tighe’s younger cousins, whom they worship. 

“Put your masks on!” I chided every few moments, interspersing my commands with “Get down from there!” and “Stay out of the priest’s way!”

“Where’s he Ubering from?” the priest asked, clearly growing impatient. He had run out of small talk, and his gentle reminders to social distance were not sinking into our kids. 

Finally, donning cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops, and a long-sleeved t-shirt wrapped around his face as a mask, Johnny strutted in with the same amount of bravado as Gaylord Focker returning with Robert DeNiro’s cat, Jinx, in Meet the Parents.

No one was happier to see Johnny than the priest, who would soon be free to escape us and return to his quiet, humble, germ-free residence. After a few nice words about the symbolism of “hope during uncertain times,” he proceeded to baptize Lou in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

At least I think that’s what he said.

I was actually distracted by Sam. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him climb, barefoot, onto the top of the pew and reach up towards a window where the statue of a saint was positioned.

In that very special, holy moment of sacrament, as I cradled sweet baby Lou, the last of all my babies, over the baptismal font, all I could think was, “Sam! Get down from there!”

But Sam didn’t stop there. From his tiptoes, he reached a little further and used his finger to thoroughly inspect the votive candle in front of the saint. 

At which point an alarm sounded. The priest didn’t even seem to notice.

“Good Lord!” I thought to myself. I was powerless.

Fortunately, the sound of the alarm, more shrill than Tess’s most notable shrieks, made him draw his hand back to his body, which quieted the alarm, and he delicately climbed down from the pew, probably hoping no one had noticed his antics. 

I thanked the priest no fewer than eight times as I shoved our belongings into the diaper bag and chucked Sam’s flip-flops at him. 

We retreated to our house, back into quarantine, where at least we don’t bother anyone but each other. 

Later, as Lou napped and we were eating lunch, Tighe got a text from one of his friends in the parish. “You looked taller than usual at church today! I guess the camera adds height.”

It turns out he had caught the live-stream, and one of Tighe’s uncles later confirmed that we were on camera for the ENTIRE MASS.* I mean, except when we were late.

I had spied the camera as we sat down in our pew, but I had incorrectly assumed that it was zoomed in on the altar and the movements of the priest.  

Ah, that’s rich, I thought to myself. I love real-life comedy. Hopefully everyone tuning in at home also got to see my butt. What a nice little satirical package this blessed event turned out to be. 

Epilogue: After dragging our family to mass for the first time in four months, we got an email from the parish staff this morning. It turns out one of the Eucharistic ministers from the very mass we attended on the morning of Lou’s baptism tested positive for coronavirus. Am I imagining it or do our kids have runny noses? Do I have a sore throat? It seems the fun is only just beginning. Stay tuned. 

*Edit #1: Okay, I was wrong. It turns out the mass from that morning is available on YouTube and we weren’t on screen for the ENTIRE MASS, maybe only about 15 minutes or so. I can’t be sure because I can’t bring myself to watch the whole thing. There’s no sign of my butt, but you can hear Lou shriek at about the 40 minute mark.

Pandemic Nerf Darts

I have started to write this blog so many times over the last three weeks. I just don’t have any time to sit down with my laptop during the day, and when I finally do get the time in the evenings, like after The Others are in bed, I’m just so tired. 

And at the end of any given day, I couldn’t even tell you what actually happened that day. It’s always some blur of homeschooling and lunch-making and tantrums and cleaning up messes and dinner-making and laundry and more tantrums.

There are a thousand ups and downs in a single day, just like there are a million ups and downs in a single week. My prime writing time, when my energy and focus and creativity peak, is usually in the morning, but that’s not jiving with our Quarantine schedule.

I mean, don’t get me wrong—I am one of the manyparents with school-aged kids who has torn up the ambitiously naïve homeschooling schedule I made a few weeks ago. My frustration with my kids—turns out they’re not as smart or dutiful as I thought they were—has been compounded by a lack of sleep, thanks to Lou, who has three new teeth coming in and also didn’t poop all last week. 

What was once: “And then we’ll have story time, and art class, and then we’ll go for a walk in the park to look for unicorns and rainbows…” has become “Oh good Lord, just finish your damn math assignment and then you can have screen time! Just put down numbers, I don’t care!” In other words, our pandemic mood is… well, there’s no single mood, but it’s often “Irritable.”

But still, mornings are for homeschooling, which means lots of me frantically snapping “Nate, do your work… Nate, get back to work… Nate, stay focused… Sam? Where’s Sam?... What? No, Tess, I really don’t want to play ponies with you right now… Lou! Did you poop? Nope, still no poop.” 

And Zoom meetings. Lots of Zoom meetings. 

Moreover, I’m simultaneously trying to make my coffee and feed Lou and put Lou down for his morning nap and scoop up all the Legos and Nerf darts and other infant choking hazards that pollute the floor. And keep Tess away from our bedroom, aka Tighe’s home office, where Tighe’s usually on a call or deeply focused on his spreadsheets. 

And if I let go of any single responsibility, it’s that. 

Somehow Tess drifts away from me, frustrated that I won’t read her a book or play ponies with her, and she makes her way to the floor of our bedroom closet where she’s created an entire ecosystem of anything she can find. Like pens and paper clips and scraps of paper and bracelets from my jewelry box and tiny washers and bolts that have apparently come loose from some piece of furniture somewhere in the house. 

Plus her toys. I’m talking My Little Ponies, various pieces from her Wonder Woman costume, pink and purple Legos, baby dolls, the list goes on. 

If you’re looking for Tess during the day, chances are she’s there. When Tighe’s not talking on the phone or Zoom, they’ll converse—him, standing at the standing desk he brought home from work and staring at his spreadsheets and emails. And her, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the closet tinkering with all the small treasures she’s accumulated there. 

Believe it or not—fans of Tess’s scowl are usually surprised by this—Tess is a talker. She doesn’t talk as much as Nate, that would be impossible, but she talks way more than Sam. Lots of questions and chatter about her ponies and their relations and emotions and she wants you to be a character in her world. She misses her teachers and her friends at school. A lot. Her class had 2 boys and 10 girls in it. Ten girls.Ten. And she can’t even play with all the other little girls on our block because Pandemic. PANDEMIC.

Anyway. Eventually, Sam works his way down his daily checklist and gets to the item that I put on there EVERY SINGLE DAY: Read two books to Tess.

Two birds, one stone. Sam can practice his reading and Tess is entertained for a bit. And they’re pretty good about compromising to choose the book. Usually, she picks one: My Little Pony or Wonder Woman or Peppa Pig or The Nutcracker. And then he picks one: Captain Underpants or Dog Man or Big Nate. Whatever, reading is reading. 

And I’ve also let go of my responsibility to Lou a few too many times. Either I’ll leave him crying in his crib a few extra minutes than I usually would or I trust one of The Others to supervise him. 

And usually, that works really well. He’s not quite crawling yet—so close, though!—so there’s not a lot of trouble he can get into. 

Or so I thought. 

I attributed his recent constipation to the introduction of solid foods. He’s loving that, by the way, lunging for everything I put on the tray in front of him, scooping it to his mouth as fast as he can and getting frustrated as most of it falls into his lap or gets smeared onto his face. Eating is a developing skill.

Anyway, after more than three full days of not pooping, I was starting to get slightly worried. I wasn’t sure whether his nighttime fussing was from teething or a tummy ache. There were a few nights that he was up every hour.

So after his nap on Thursday morning, I was really embarrassingly excited when I smelled poop in his diaper, celebrating his accomplishment with songs and kisses.  

And then I opened his diaper.

“What the—?”

There, in the middle of the poopy mess, was an object. About an inch long and half an inch wide. Navy blue in origin, but it was now tinted in the watery shades of brown and green that make up Lou’s feces. 

A crayon? A blue crayon?

I finished changing the diaper, but I left the soiled diaper on the changing table so I could get a second opinion. 

I grabbed the first warm body I saw when I emerged from his room.

“Sam! Come look at this.”

Sam and I leaned in close, peering at the contents of the diaper from all angles. 

“What do you think? A crayon?”

“No, not a crayon,” Sam spoke slowly—as he does everything—still examining the object.

“It’s a Nerf dart. Tess gave it to him the other day.”

And then he sauntered away, carefree as always, probably off to the third floor playroom to work on a Lego project.

I flashed back to earlier in the week, when I picked a foam Nerf dart up off of the living room floor and there was a chunk missing. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because Rocket likes to chew them up, too. They’re not as plentiful as Legos in our house, but there are literally dozens of them scattered of them in just about every room, including Tess’s—er, I mean our—master bedroom closet. 

Homeschooling-WEEK 1

“They said this week is going to be bad,” I said to Tighe as we sat on the couch after The Others were in bed. 

“…in terms of the death toll,” I finished.

“Mmm-hmm,” Tighe grunted back as he returned his eyes to the TV.

What an absurd thing that was for me to say. Or would have been absurd about a month ago. Now, it’s just our new normal. There’s a pandemic, people are dying, we homeschool, and I get all my news from memes. 

Life is all about managing your expectations. 

Tighe says that all the time. So does Tom Segura in his Netflix stand-up special. And if you haven’t finished all of Netflix’s stand-up specials, are you even quarantined? I mean, it’s no Tiger King, but stand-up is pretty entertaining.

Well, my expectations for the last two weeks were not this. 

And my expectations for homeschooling are shifting as fast as our expectations to go out for Easter brunch. Not happening.

After 8 years of teaching middle school math, homeschooling didn’t scare me. Especially since I had a chance to practice it last week after we canceled our spring break trip to Florida. 

It took a few days, but we eventually crafted the perfect schedule: morning work, morning PE, free play, lunch, reading/rest hour, afternoon PE, an hour for puzzles/coloring/music/Legos, then chores, and then an option for screen time before dinner.  And because it was based on a point system that Tighe and I devised, including a chance to trade in points for prizes (aka bribes) each week, our guys were totally motivated. Even Tess bought in when the mood struck.

I was convinced that under my tutelage, Nate would dabble in pre-algebra, Sam would master the piano, Tess would learn to read, and Lou would utter his first words. Or at least sprout a second tooth. We would go for long walks, watch documentaries on American history and the Australian outback, and construct a functioning catapult out of recyclables. And best of all, they’d master some real-life skills, like cooking a soufflé, folding a fitted sheet, and using all the attachments on our vacuum.

It’d be too easy. 

This week, though, when we we’re finally under “shelter in one place” orders, their teachers sent real schoolwork: spelling tests, math worksheets, solar system research, assigned reading comprehension, and some new online pieces for all of us to learn. And for everyone’s entertainment, Zoom sessions. 

It was all impossible.

By Thursday morning, I was sitting at the dining room table, furiously typing a rather frantic and frustrated email to Nate’s second grade teacher while Sam sat next to me, busy plugging away at yet another math worksheet.

In the email, I half-jokingly diagnosed Nate with ADHD. 

In three hours time that morning, he managed to email his teacher, post a morning prayer on the class website, email his teacher again, and complete (laboriously) some math problems on IXL. And that’s it. In three agonizingly long hours.

He also found the time to interrupt both Sam’s and Tess’s class Zoom sessions to say hi to everyone, criticize the way I was feeding Lou, accidentally complete some geometry problems on IXL, tell me the entire plot of one of his Captain Underpants books, and complete two Mad Libs. I didn’t make him practice his spelling words since I was sure he knew them. His teacher gave parents the liberty to add some bonus words, one of which I made “trader” because I happened to be reading the label of my Trader Joe’s coffee, and he immediately asked whether I meant “trader” or “traitor.” 

He still had much to do—research the solar system, a religion assignment, complete the second draft of a paragraph detailing what he did over spring break, then upload audio recording of himself reading it. And he hadn’t even started the first draft yet.

Meanwhile, in that same amount of time, Sam had made me a latte (though not strong enough), completed all his math worksheets, finished coloring his language arts page, read two books to Tess, read a book about dinosaurs, completed a dinosaur puzzle, and was now in the playroom with Tess, choreographing some sort of hybrid Peppa Pig-Lego collaboration. He had done everything assigned and a little extra.

But the hardest part is that my expectations for the whole experience had been so different.

First, I had expected that Nate would be the easier student and Sam would have been the one that I would have had to keep snapping to attention in order to accomplish his tasks. He’s the one that we have to remind to take bites and chew during meals. And as Tighe always says, Sam just doesn’t “give a F*&#,” so consequences mean very little to him.

And Nate’s just so…with it. He’s helpful and sincere and likes to please. Who knew school would be so painful for him? He can do the things he’s interested in. He likes the solar system research and he loves to read just about anything I put in front of him. But the repetitive drill and kill practice problems just seem so tedious to him.

By Thursday morning, when I sent the rambling, frantic email to his teacher, I wasn’t just frustrated with him. I was frustrated that my grand plans for homeschooling were slowly melting away. 

At lunchtime, it hit me that the work he still had to complete for that day would probably take him close to two more hours. So much for walking to the park. And squeezing in a family yoga session. And teaching them fractions by baking muffins. And building a model town out of milk cartons and cardboard boxes. And playing “get in touch with your emotions” Jenga—which was good because I hadn’t fully worked out the details of that one yet. And doing lunchtime doodles with Mo Williams. And challenging our neighbors to a Lego contest.

I was coming to the realization that all the cool ideas I had for homeschooling were not going to happen. All because I had to sit at the dining room table and remind Nate to get back to work every twelve seconds. 

My expectations for this coming week will be different. I’ll be thrilled if Nate accomplishes all his assignments before 3 o’clock. I’ll make sure he gets lunch and some breaks and outside time, but I won’t count on introducing anything fun, like parabolas or Mandarin or the Industrial Revolution. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the dining room table, saying, “Nate, get back to work!” and scrolling for memes.

COVID-19 RESPONSE

The Peanut Butter Urinal’s top priority is the safety of our friends, family, and animals. At this time, the Greenhalgh house is open only to Nate/Sam/Tess/Lou/Erin/Tighe/Wally/Rocket and whatever-our-one-remaining-turtle’s-name-is, but we are taking extra precautions to ensure the health and well-being of all. And no one’s going to work or school indefinitely. Sam’s suddenly taken a liking to yellow mustard and we’re debating whether or not a trip to the store and risking infection is worth satisfying this new craving. Every time he decides he likes something and I go stock up on it, he decides the next week that he hates it. 

We will continue to update our website as any additional changes are made. Like if schools re-open, I’ll invite you to come by for a celebratory fireworks display and fiesta. It’ll be BYOB and BYOfood, though, because at that point, we’ll be down to the “crappy” cheese and that one already-opened package of sunflower seeds that’s been in the cabinet for over a year. Bunker life is tough.

What is Peanut Butter Urinal doing?

In light of COVID-19, we have increased our cleaning and disinfecting practices, meaning that two-thirds of us actually wash our hands now. Or maybe only half of us do. I can’t quite figure out which side of the line Lou’s on. Every time I hear a toilet flush, I shout “wash your damn hands!” But Nate and Sam have found a loophole there: they stopped flushing altogether. 

Is Peanut Butter Urinal open?

That question doesn’t totally make sense. This is a blog. Next.
 
Is the Urinal canceling camps and educational programs?

Yeah, I just said that up above, dummy. Schools are closed indefinitely so I’m homeschooling, which is kind of a joke. I mean, I’ll do what I can, but it’s exhausting. The point system is working pretty well for Nate and Sam because they’re so determined to get a Nintendo Switch. But Tess has proven that she just doesn’t give a F*&#, even with the promise of a new My Little Pony. 

What about other Urinal events?

There are no other events. This is it. Lou has his 6-month check-up on Tuesday, which I assume is on because he’s due for shots, but other than that and a few online get-togethers, we’re wide open. Feel free to drive or walk by our house and wave from the street. 

Can the animals be impacted by COVID 19?

At this point, I kind of hope Rocket contracts some sort of deadly virus. Sorry, was that too honest? Our legal team advised me to be totally transparent. 

Should guests wear medical masks if they visit the Urinal?

Yes. And that goes for any and all visits even outside of this social distancing experiment for two reasons. First, it smells like an actual urinal in here, and after the rainy week we’ve had, you can add “wet dog” and “mud” to our quarantine potpourri. Second, this is the first time since late September when I can honestly say that no one in our household is exhibiting any kind of cold/flu/virus symptoms—knocking on wood—but I’d still don a hazmat suit when you visit. Kids are germy.

Where should I go for information on COVID-19?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the best resource for useful, factual and up-to-date information on the virus. For more information, visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html. For funnier information, check out @covid_19parody on Instagram. Sharing genius memes to get us through these tough times. 

Why Do I Hear Hammering?—Day 3 of Homeschooling

It’s Day 3 of homeschooling and it’s already killing me. I mean, it’s not, of course, it could be much worse. Just a sacrifice we have to make. But I do keep checking my phone and email to see if the powers that be have declared April Fool’s yet.

If they do it in the next couple hours, I can probably still book a flight to Ft. Myers to visit my parents, squeeze in a killer spring break trip, and return in time to send my kids back to school on Monday.

But so far, no such luck.

Social distancing protocol continues, and we’re playing by the rules. 

On Sunday evening before dinner, Tighe sat down with Nate, Sam, and Tess, while balancing Lou on his knee, to map out their daily homeschooling schedule. He and I had already brainstormed what we wanted them to accomplish during the day, so I wasn’t really paying attention to their plan as I prepped dinner in the next room.

But I should have been.

I mean, I glanced at it as he taped it to the wall the next morning, but I didn’t really think about it.

But I should have.

First, breakfast was supposed to be finished and cleaned up by 8:30. That’s not realistic for several reasons. These guys are the slowest eaters in the world and on any given school-free morning, one of them is sure to sleep until about 8:30, sometimes even later. 

Plus, I’m usually busy feeding and changing Lou around this time, and the whole breakfast regimen requires some oversight from me. At the very least, I need to remind Sam to take bites. 

At 8:43, breakfast still wasn’t cleaned up. Which alarmed Nate. He was really excited to embark on our homeschooling experiment, totally determined to accumulate as many points as possible to earn the Nintendo Switch Tighe had ordered over the weekend. Ambitious. Anything for another screen.

Nate started to panic, grabbing as many breakfast cups and plates as he could and running to dump them into the kitchen sink.

“Nate, it’s okay,” I assured him. “We can start a few minutes late.”

The first activity was some sort of workout that Tighe had planned, followed by 10 minutes of soccer practice. To be followed by 10 minutes of lacrosse practice, then 10 minutes of basketball, then 10 minutes of baseball.

Since we were starting late anyway, I convinced Nate—Sam and Tess needed no convincing—to skip the workout and get right to the sports practices.

But the ten-minute intervals were a problem. For Sam, they weren’t even enough time to get started. By the time he realized what soccer practice is and located his ball, it was time to move for the next sport.

And for Tess, well—it would definitely take me at least 10 minutes to lay out enough reasons about why sports are valuable to make her comply. And even then, her efforts would be half-assed and then she’d ask me to play My Little Ponies or Peppa Pig with her.

Meanwhile, the shortened time intervals freaked Nate out. He was still committed to staying as on-task as possible, beginning each activity at the exact moment it was scheduled for. Taking 90 seconds to find his favorite footwork and dribbling video on YouTube elevated his blood pressure again.

He moved through the 10-minute intervals at a rapid pace, like a soldier trying to get through Navy SEAL training. Everything was on the line, his whole life had been working up to this moment.

Soon the bouncing of the basketball began echoing through the first floor, which elevated my blood pressure. Sam and Tess had dumped out a basket of Legos and were playing nicely on the carpet. And though they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing, I considered it a victory that they weren’t eating candy and watching trash on YouTube. 

Then suddenly: “I need to poop! I need to poop!” I could hear Nate’s feet thudding at a very high speed through the dining room and toward the bathroom.

“Nate, you don’t have time to poop!” I was joking, but he didn’t have time to laugh either.

“What?! Why?” He immediately pivoted and ran in the other direction, back toward his basketball.

“I’m kidding, Nate, you can poop. Just go poop, do what you gotta do.”

Time to take action. Glancing at Tighe’s schedule on the wall, I could see that the pace of the rest of the day was going to be just as schizophrenic, though some of the academic subjects increased to 30-minute intervals. And then there was a solid half hour labeled “plan dinner” around 4 o’clock. First of all, if we ask for their input on dinner, we’ll be eating Girl Scout cookies and M&M’s. Which it might come down to if the shelves at the store empty out as people on the west coast are claiming. Still, I enjoy planning and making dinner, and I don’t want them involved in the process aside from asking whether they’d prefer ketchup or barbecue sauce.

I peeled the tape away and carried the schedule to the table, where I sat down and started anew. 

I plotted for larger chunks of time, up to 90 minutes in some cases, and gave them choices. For example, 9am to 10:30am is “morning work.” I listed some choices there, but after three days of this, I realized I’m going to have to structure it a tad more. This morning, I made them write a poem and work together to plan a presentation on the solar system. 

It was painful, and Nate required two poop breaks. I’m finding his circadian rhythm to be a real academic interference and I doubt that he’ll graduate on time.

I also had them make a list of things they WANT to learn about. If they’re interested, they’ll be more engaged, right? 

Right?? 

But seriously, the point system is a great motivator. Tighe and I often worry that our kids are too extrinsically motivated, but I’m arguing in this instance that A) we’re in desperate times, and B) we’re developing habits. And it seems that a natural curiosity and work ethic is emerging no matter what.

I mean, sure, they all got totally off-task watching me feed yogurt to Lou, but they’re still just kids. 

I also included both morning and afternoon blocks for PE. But they can totally choose what to do. Yesterday, Cosmic Kids Yoga was a hit, especially for Tess. The day before, Nate stayed outside practicing soccer for 30 minutes while Sam stayed inside with me and did a HIIT workout that we found on YouTube. Hopefully, when the sun comes up and the weather warms up, we can work in some long walks. 

Lunch is lunch and playtime is playtime and no points are to be awarded there.

Unless… they do something educational or otherwise productive: watch a documentary, clean the floor, read, eat a fruit or vegetable, wipe down walls, helping with Lou’s bath. The possibilities are endless. 

On the flip side of that, I had to make a list of behaviors and actions that will get points taken away. That includes: saying mean things, fighting, waking up Lou, not flushing the toilet and/or not washing hands after using the bathroom, leaving a mess somewhere, using more than their allotted share of toilet paper. 

Kidding on that last one. For now. I’ve started to explain a bit about rationing toilet paper and food, but that only seemed to make them eat more, and Sam, who usually survives on about 100 calories a day—up to 200 on a cheat day—is suddenly eating like he’s Michael Phelps training for a big race. Slow down Sam, save some food for the rest of us! I haven’t hoarded or stockpiled like some people are advising, and he’s making me anxious.

I’m eternally grateful to teachers and education companies who are sharing things for free. And to other parents who are sharing ideas like reading BINGO, Lego competitions, puzzle and art museums, and outdoor “distance picnics.” I know that all three of their teachers are expected to send emails in the next few days with ideas and instructions and schoolwork. The state of Kansas just canceled the rest of the school year—we’re in Missouri, but regardless, I’m preparing for a very, very long spring break that suddenly becomes summer vacation. And if Tighe’s work slows because of the virus, we may not be able to afford summer camps and golf lessons and trips back east. 

And any day now, Tighe will probably start working from home, thus (hopefully) shouldering some of the homeschool burden. Though if FedEx, UPS, Amazon, and the postal service shut down, that Nintendo Switch they’re pining for may not come and we’ll be powerless. Thank God for Netflix and Disney+ and warm spring weather.

As I wrap this up, I hear hammering on the third floor. No idea what that could be—they’re supposed to be Lego-ing at the moment. But the hammering has awoken Lou. So it’s time to shave off some points!

Let the Homeschooling Begin!

Well, it’s coronavirus season and Covid-19 is making quite a debut. Forgive me if I seem like I’m making light of a very serious situation, but this is my first pandemic. 

Like a lot of you, I’ve been back and forth between making fun of people’s sheer panic and sharing silly memes and then swinging back toward panicking myself and wondering if I’m already carrying the virus. Or if we have enough canned tuna to survive for four months. Hint: we don’t, and no one in this house even likes tuna. The uncertainty I’m feeling is reminiscent of the days of post-9/11, when I was a college freshman. 

I’m constantly checking in with friends who work in healthcare—doctors and nurses—for reassurance. It helps, but again, information is changing as fast as the virus is spreading, and no one’s really sure of anything.

One thing, however, is certain: CHILDREN ACROSS AMERICA ARE NOW BEING HOMESCHOOLED.

And if they’re not yet, they will be soon.

And I don’t care where you stand on the NoBigDeal/Panic spectrum, it is not easy to be confined to your house with kids all day. Especially if you follow all the Lockdown/Social Distancing rules. And especially if you’re working from home yourself and need to get things done. And especially if your kids are moody, irrational jerks at various points during the day who require snacks every hour to break up the monotony of begging for screen time.

Tighe and I are bracing ourselves for this homeschool experiment—an experiment which could change education as we know it. 

Do we even need teachers anymore? Can we just rely on YouTube, Khan Academy, ABC Mouse, Ted Talks and more?

I mean, the answer is, of course, no and not just because kids need socialization. Most parents need school for childcare because either they work or because kids are annoying and we need to spread out the burden of having them around all day. Parents have a social contract with teachers: you take them half the day, I’ll take them the other half, and then they’ll sleep for the third half. 

And yes, I know how that math pans out. That was intentional: being with kids for 24 hours actually equals being with them for 36 hours. 

Fortunately, Tighe and I have been brainstorming for how to survive Pandemic 2020. More than a large supply of chips, canned beans, and frozen pizzas, we’re designing our kids’ homeschool curriculum—one lesson I learned from teaching is that it’s better to be over-prepared than underprepared. 

So, solidarity, people! I’ll share what our ever-evolving plans are and you share any ideas you have. Let this be the forum for it! 

(And yes, I’m well aware that I’ll probably run out of steam for this plan, like, tomorrow and then I’ll just let them watch Netflix all day, but maybe some of you will stay the course—we can inspire each other)

First, let me stress that Nate’s and Sam’s teachers—and maybe even Tess’s preschool teachers—are working on lesson plans, packets, and online learning at this very moment, so our plans are to supplement theirs.

I want to base everything on a points system, and to give the points a little more weight, I’ll label those points “shamrocks” because that’s what they call them at Nate’s and Sam’s school.

At the end of each week, the kids can either trade in their points for a prize or bank them. We’ve been trying to teach them how important it is to save!

Prizes would be something like—again, I’m mostly flying by the seat of my pants here—homemade milkshakes, new Lego sets, some extra screen time, an extra roll of toilet paper for the week. And then a big-ticket item, like a Nintendo Switch, something they have to save up for. 

So, to earn shamrocks, we’ll have some combination of requirements in the following four categories: academic, physical activities, stewardship, and chores.

Obviously, we’ll make them do whatever packets or online learning their teachers provide and then they can earn additional shamrocks for things like reading another book, making a reading-check quiz, watching a science documentary, completing a math worksheet or a page in a workbook. I must have some workbooks lying around here somewhere. 

For physical activities, there are so many options! They can ride their bikes, go for a run, practice basketball or baseball or soccer, do a yoga video, do some HIIT workout that I make up. Heck, I’ll even do it with them—kill two birds with one coronavirus stone. Tighe bought them a heavy punching bag for Christmas, complete with boxing gloves, so they can always tone their arms and take out some aggression on that thing. 

Or I can.

Stewardship is a little tricky because of the whole social distancing thing. Helping an elderly neighbor might not be an option. But taking them some groceries might be. Or raking some leaves might be. Or sending a card. I know of a few organizations that are collecting non-perishables for families who are used to school breakfasts and lunches as their main nutrition sources, so we could drop off some donations there.

As for chores…oh, I’ve got chores. On a daily basis, they’re expected to clear the table after meals, put their clean clothes away, feed the dogs, and clean up their messes, but I can certainly add to that list. They’re all afraid of the vacuum—or at least pretend to be—so that’s out, but they can sweep, mop, scrub toilets, change diapers, scrape dried toothpaste out of the sink, wipe marker off the walls, feed the hogs, etc. 

And then there are so many other activities we’ll suddenly have time for! Sam likes to cook, he likes to color and paint, and he’s always wanted to take piano lessons. He’s like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. A little bitter and confused at first, but eventually becomes a better person, capable of love. Thanks, coronavirus. 

Russian Spies

Well, if my blog hasn’t already garnered some attention from the US Government, it will with a title like that. 

It was a Tuesday night. I had just gotten home from coaching lacrosse practice, dismissed the babysitter, and was in the kitchen scrambling to get dinner together before everyone, mostly Lou, melted down.

Tighe had just gotten home from work, too, and he had promised Nate and Sam that if they finished their dinner in time, they could watch the latest episode of Fox’s Lego Masters, the reality competition show hosted by Gob Bluth. 

But they had to eat dinner first. 

Sam, of course, was impatient. Deep down, he knows he can’t finish a meal in under 90 minutes, and he couldn’t wait to see which Lego duo would get voted off the show that week. 

He grabbed the remote and bouncing up and down on the sofa, began narrating his thought process as he pointed it at the TV. 

“Hmm, where is it? How do I get to the show?”

Scrolling through the apps on the smart TV, he gave a side-glance to Tighe to make sure he wasn’t going to get in trouble for pushing the limit. But Tighe was sitting on the sofa, juggling a squirmy Lou in one hand and flipping through today’s mail with the other. He had just warned Sam not to turn on the TV, but he was interested to see where Sam’s charade was headed.

After a minute or two, Sam found the YouTube app, one of the few apps that he’s all too familiar with. He began arrowing through the “suggested for you” videos, most of which were related to Peppa Pig, Minecraft, toy unwrapping—any parent knows what I mean by that—and live jam band concerts. We’re eclectic like that.

Suddenly a video with animated ducks and a title in Cyrillic letters popped up.

Now, if you know anything about Sam, it’s that he really doesn’t like Russia. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it was one of my Cold War lectures that really had an impact. He doesn’t hear anything else that I say, but apparently the fact that we were in a forty-five year nuclear arms race with the USSR really sunk in. And that loathing was solidified when we showed the kids Rocky IV, the one where Sylvester Stallone trains and fights Ivan Drago as an act of vengeance for killing his best friend in the ring. It’s a classic.

Anyway, back to the story. 

“Oooh, the duck one, I want to watch the duck video.”

Tighe glanced up just in time to see the Cyrillic lettering and said, “Sam! Not that one!”

Looking Tighe in the eye, Sam pointed the remote at the TV and hit “ok,” permitting the video to play.

Feigning fright, Tighe said, “Sam, no! It’s a Russian video!”

This news sent Nate, who was standing a few yards away, into a panic.

“Sam, no! What did you do? The Russians!”

Which Tighe found delightful. 

Suddenly becoming nervous, Sam pointed the remote at the TV, closed the app and returned to the home screen.

“Oh, no!” Tighe shouted. “They probably hacked the microphone on the remote so they’re listening to us right now!”

Growing increasingly agitated, Nate began screaming at Sam. “Sam, turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!”

The thought of being surveilled by the Russians startled Sam, who was now standing up on the sofa. His fear caused him to bobble the remote as he tried to hastily turn off the TV, thus accidentally hitting the button twice and turning it back on.

Nate, whose anxiety is already borderline alarming, sought protection from our treasonous television and sprinted to the doorway, where he could watch from a safer distance. 

Meanwhile, Sam was still bobbing up and down on the sofa, fumbling the remote in his hands and repeatedly hitting the power button again and again, causing the screen to flash on and off. It was very much the Cuban Missile Crisis gone wrong.

“Oh, no, what did you do?” Tighe was still having fun.

Now more fearful than ever, Nate had raced upstairs and was hunched in a ready-to-fight stance at the top of the steps.

Sam tossed the remote on the ground and scurried past Tighe and out of the room. He was cowering in a pile of coats and backpacks in front of the front hall closet, and his eyes were bulging out of his head in horror, possibly anticipating some sort of imminent Russian invasion caused by accidentally selecting the wrong YouTube video.

And that was enough amusement for Tighe.

“Guys, it’s okay, the Russians didn’t really hack our TV,” he said, balancing Lou as he bent down to pick up the remote.

“They didn’t?” Nate said cautiously. He started to make his way back downstairs, one step at a time, still not surrendering his fight or flight stance in case he needed to sprint away again.

“Oh,” Sam said, nervously wiping his cheeks and climbing out of the coats.

“You really think they can hack our TV from a YouTube video? That’s impossible!”

Well, maybe it’s not impossible, but I do think that if the Russians were going to upload videos with the capability to hack into televisions and spy on American families, they probably wouldn’t put the description in Russian. Seems like a dead giveaway. 

And in case you were wondering how this week’s episode of Lego Masters ended, in a thrilling twist that no one saw coming, the father-son duo that had grown to become Nate and Sam’s favorite team, was voted off.  Or at least that’s the ending the Russians showed us. 

Tighe's Technical

I woke up last Saturday morning and put my pants on backwards. Not intentionally, of course. I was tired, the rims of my eyes were burning, and I was struggling to comprehend Tess’s early morning litany of questions. 

And she was the one to notice. She was staring at me as I dressed. First, she commented on my “pajama bra,” and then, “Your pants are on backwards, Mom.”

I looked down and spotted the tag of my leggings at my belly button instead of at the small of my back where it should be. 

Well, it’s too late now. It’s before 8 on a Saturday morning, my pants are already on, and that right there is a success. They’re Adidas leggings, anyway—perfectly symmetrical with three white stripes down the outside of either leg. No one will ever notice. 

It was the day after Sam’s birthday and we had hosted a handful of his friends to spend the night. They were up late and woke at dawn, plus Lou let out his inner insomniac from 2am to 4am, so we didn’t get much sleep. When we heard the boys stirring just as the sun rose, Tighe darted out to pick up donuts and I braced myself for the day.

We had two basketball games and a birthday party, not bad, but pretty formidable on little sleep.

We breezed through Sam’s game and made it to Nate’s. Well, okay, Sam cried the entire ten-minute drive between basketball courts, but other than that, things were going well. I tossed him a snack and he settled down.

It was just after halftime of Nate’s game when things started to go south. 

First, I could sense Lou’s growing discomfort. I was sitting with other parents from Nate’s team, holding baby Lou in my arms. Sam and Tess were running around playing with some of the other younger siblings, sprinting back and forth between the cafeteria and the gym, too consumed with their own drama to pay attention to the game.

On my lap in the stands, Lou was getting sleepy. I had cut his nap short so we could make it to Sam’s game, and he was overdue for Nap #2 of the day. He was drooling, his t-shirt was soaked through and matted to his chest. He was curling his body into my chest, trying to nurse himself to sleep. When I denied him, he arched his back as if to lay flat in his crib. He continued to alternate between those two positions—great core workout, by the way—while emitting little tired whimpers. And so we danced.

Sam ran along the first row of bleachers, with a friend. And then, right in front of the parents I was sitting with, he lost his footing and fell forward, landing on his throat. His neck made contact with the edge of the bleacher above him, like something you’d see on You Tube video—some compilation of trampoline fails or something.

“Oooooh!” There was a chorus of winces from the spectators as he pulled himself up.

“Are you okay?” said eight different people at once.

“Yeah,” Sam mumbled. He was trying to put on a brave face, but I could tell it hurt. Clutching his neck, he clambered up the bleachers, nestled into my arm, and started to cry.

I was holding Lou, but I did my best to cuddle him into me and rub his back. I checked for blood and signs of decapitation, but there was just a red mark.

And once he overcame the pain, he wanted revenge. He blamed the friend he had been running with, who had sped away to catch up with the other kids. 

“I’m going to push him on the ground and you sit on him,” he lowered his voice so the other boy’s dad wouldn’t hear our plan. His eyes were watery and he pouted his bottom lip.

“Um, no, Sam. That’s not a nice thing to do. I know that hurt, but it wasn’t his fault.”

Dissatisfied with my response, he sniveled in anger, buried his head in my lap, and started poking my feet with his index finger. I rubbed his little blond hair and proceeded to ignore him, still focused on helping Lou find the most comfortable position. 

“Oh, no,” a mom sitting behind me said, pointing to the doors that led to the cafeteria. 

Tess was dragging herself into the gym. Her eyes were red and teary and she was rubbing her butt. 

“Owwwww! Ow, ow, owieeeeee!” she was wailing, clearly hurt. I never got the full story out of her, but hersudden neediness distracted me from Sam’s neediness. I could feel him under the bleachers still tickling my toes or something.

“Sam, what the—? Are you—? Did you—?” I moved Tess’s crumbled mass aside and leaned forward to look at my feet. He had untied my shoes and was tying the laces of the left shoe to the laces of the right shoe. Perfect. 

Meanwhile, Tess had started whining for her water, which I had left in the diaper bag at the far end of the bleachers. 

I heard the buzzer go off on the scoreboard.

“There, Tess, the game is over! Time to go home!” I was so relieved.

“Nope,” the dad sitting next to me corrected. “That was just the third quarter.”

“What?! Are you kidding me?”

My shoelaces were still fastened tightly together, and since my arms were full with a squirming Lou, there wasn’t much I could do about that. One at a time, I slid out of them and kicked them onto the floor. 

“Come on, Tess.” She was following me in front of the bleachers as we walked along the sideline, my socks scooting across the gym’s hardwood floor.

The fourth quarter had just started and I could hear Tighe arguing with the ref.

“Uh-oh,” I whispered to Lou.

“He tackled him,” the ref was saying. Nate’s teammate had gotten the ball stolen from him behind the half-court line.

“Before or after the kid crossed the white line??” Tighe fired back. “Which happened first? Because if the kid got tackled beforehe crossed the white line, then that’s the most amazing tackle I’ve ever seen!”

“Hmm, he needs more sleep,” I thought to myself, digging around in the diaper bag for Tess’s water bottle. She took two sips, was immediately cured, and scurried off to find her friends.

“Coach, I could call a technical. Is that what you want?” the ref shouted back, visibly angry.

“I’d like you to make the right call, but you do what you got to do,” Tighe quipped. Like a smart ass.

“That’s it, sir!” The ref tweeted his whistle, awarded Tighe a technical foul, and let the opposing team shoot their two shots, neither of which went in.

I stood in the corner and rocked Lou to sleep on my shoulder. The game ended—Nate’s team lost by two.

After, I was tucking Lou into his car seat and repacking the diaper bag as Tighe crossed the court to help me.

“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m not wearing any shoes?”

Tighe glanced down at my feet.

“Hmm, no.” He scooped up Lou’s car seat and started across the court towards the exit, carrying a giant mesh bag of basketballs over his shoulder.

I finished tying my shoes, grabbed the diaper bag, and scurried out after them.

A few hours later, I was returning home from a three year-old’s birthday party with Tess. Tighe followed me as I hung up my coat. He’d had time to process his technical foul from earlier and he was rehashing the entire end of the game. The foul that started off the whole argument, what he said to the ref, what the ref said to him, what the other coach said—all of it. He was using hand gestures, tossing his head back for emphasis, and lowering his voice each time he peppered in an expletive. 

It was clear he’d been thinking about this all afternoon. But all I heard was “blah, blah, blah.” 

It was the same contrast between my enthusiasm for this blog, my fingertips excitedly bouncing off the tops of my laptop keys, while your eyes are glazing over, debating how far down you should scroll to see if this ever gets funny.

I nodded, dutifully, doing my best to make occasional eye contact while scanning the mess in our house. “Yeah,” I interjected when he finally paused, “but aren’t you going to ask why I wasn’t wearing any shoes?” 

“No,” he shook his head slowly, thoughtfully, “but I am curious about why your pants are on backwards.”

Smashing Legos

Sundays, aka The Lord’s Day, aka A Day of Rest, tend to be a very trying days in our household. They typically start with church, which is less therapeutic and meditative and more stressful and infuriatingfor Tighe and me. It’s the closest we ever get to divorce.

And this particular Sunday, Sam, whose church behavior has been pretty great lately, was in rare form. He was pretty quiet for the first half of the service, coloring in his composition notebook that he brings with him each week. Then suddenly, he was flipping over the pew in front of us, head first, his legs sprawling into the air like a gymnast. Lou had fallen asleep across my lap, so I watched helplessly while Sam embarrassed us.Classic Sam. 

Afterwards, we walked down the sidewalk to where our car was parallel parked about a half block away. Our friend, Kelly, who’d also been at church with her three kids, cruised by in her SUV and rolled down the window. 

“Enjoy your da-ay!” she called out. Cheery, but I picked up on her sarcasm. She must have sensed Sam’s mood.

Tighe walked ahead, carrying Lou in his car seat while I took up the rear, carrying the diaper bag over my shoulder and pulling Tess along by the hand. Nate and Sam were running back and forth between us, taking turns playfully shoving one another and bending down to shovel some three-day old snow into their mouths. 

Eventually the playful shoving escalated, and Sam paused to drag Nate down by the collar. In retaliation, Nate scooped up some snow and stuffed it down Sam’s back. 

“Ooh, that’s taking it too far,” I quipped as I passed them on the sidewalk. Sam hates to be wet. And cold.

“Ow!” Sam squealed, spinning out of his winter coat and trying to shake out the snow. “Nate! You’re making me pee!”

By this time, Tighe had started the car and was snapping Lou’s car seat into its base. I was only a few yards away, but I glanced back to call for Nate and Sam to hurry up. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet and there was a cinnamon roll at home calling my name. Also coffee.

“Nate! Sa—Oh, good Lord!” 

Nate was running to catch up, but Sam was standing in someone’s driveway, his coat on the ground and his pants around his ankles. 

He was peeing! He was peeing in someone’s driveway. Two girls from their school live in the house across the street. And next to them is another family with three girls.

And Sam, days away from his sixth birthday, is standing, facing their houses, peeing. 

“Tighe!” I shouted, calling for him to turn around and watch. “He’s peeing!”

And it was a long pee. Not quite Austin Powers, but maybe Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own. I cringed and hurried to the car. When I reached the passenger side door”””

“Sam! You can’t do that stuff anymore,” I said once we were safely in the car. “You’re too old for that. I think it’s a misdemeanor!”

But Tighe’s words were more impactful.

“Sam!” he said, “you will notget a cinnamon roll when we get home!”

We arrived home, made breakfast and resumed our typical lazy Sunday: laundry, Lego’s, Lou’s nap, etc. 

Within an hour or so, Tighe was fed up. He was already stressed with some other matters, and their bickering and shrieking wasn’t helping.

“Get out!” he said.

“Where should we go?”

“To the neighbor’s house!”

“Which neighbor?”

“I don’t care—any of them!”

We have a boatload of kids on our block, so this wasn’t an outlandish command. In fact, Nate and Sam played with the twin boys across the street for over two hours, and that break helped.

We survived dinner, and while I cleaned up the kitchen, I could hear Tighe upstairs coaching them through getting their pajamas on and brushing their teeth. And it was clear from the tone of his voice that he was losing patience fast. 

Finally, about twenty minutes before 8, we were convening in Nate/Sam/Tess’s room—those three share a room now—for bedtime prayers. I was holding Lou and he was losing it—tired and hungry and overwhelmed by the chatter and yelping and roughhousing of his older siblings.

Suddenly I looked at Sam, who was squatting on the floor in front of his dresser.

“Sam!” I gasped, “What are you doing?!”

He was gripping something tiny in his fist and using it to etch a pattern on the drawer of Nate’s dresser. A dresser which had been passed down from Tighe’s grandmother’s grandmother. And was in really great shape. Until that moment.

Just then, Tighe, who had been folding laundry and filling the humidifiers with water, entered the room.

“What did he do?”

I just pointed.

“Sam!” Tighe growled. Fiercely. He was definitely full-on angry. Not that fake angry that you sometimes pretend to be as a parent to drive a point home. He was mad.

He proceeded with some sort of lecture about how much the dresser meant to him and his family and how it had survived several generations until Nate and Sam decimated it. It was really quite moving, and by the end, Sam was in tears. 

But the tears were from his own anger, not because he felt guilty. He felt unjustly attacked.

“Get…in…bed,” Tighe barked. And even Tess understood that he was mad. She and Nate scrambled into their beds. But Sam remained crumbled in a stubborn ball on the floor.

“Get in bed,” Tighe said a second time, much calmer this time.

“No!” Sam yelled back.

In my arms, Lou had stopped fussing. He seemed to sense the tension, curious about how this would play out.

“Sam, do I have to tell you a thirdtime?”

“I’m not getting in bed! Because you’re mean!”

And that’s when Tighe lost it.

“Look what I’m doing!” He pulled a Lego Ninjago dragon from the shelf and held it above his head. Sam had gotten it for Christmas two years ago and spent hours putting it together, then proudly displayed it on his bookshelf by his bed ever since.

I saw where this was going. Oh, yes! Smash it!I thought to myself, giddily, I have married a great man!

Sam’s eyes widened. Nate sat up in bed to watch. 

“Nooooo!” they both shouted.

But he did. He smashed it on the hardwood floor and tiny plastic Legos scattered across the hardwood floors.

Sam immediately burst into tears. 

“You’re the worst,” he screeched, “I hate you FOREVER!”

Nate collapsed his head back down onto his pillow, defeated and anguished on Sam’s behalf.

I cheered silently to myself as I ducked out of the room to put Lou to bed.

“Yeah, Tighe, you’re the worst!” Why Tess felt the need to defend Sam is beyond me. He spent a good portion of that day tormenting her. But it’s also a bit reassuring. Siblings are friends for life.

Sam's Snow Day

“I’ll pick Sam up at noon,” the text read. It was from his friend’s mom. It was a Friday morning, yet another blessed snow day for our crew.

Sam was always up for a play date. And it was just after 10, plenty of time for him to get ready. 

“Sam, Mrs. Simpson [names changed] will pick you up in two hours, so you need to get dressed and finish your breakfast before then,” I instructed. “Oh, and she wants you to pack your snow gear so you guys can play in the snow.”

“It snowed?” Sam turned his head to peer out the window.

There was a long pause while I contemplated this question. There were at least four inches on the ground and it was still coming down.

“Oh, my gosh,” Nate said in disbelief of Sam’s ignorance.

“Sam. Yes. You guys have a snow day. Why did you think you were home from school?”

“I just thought I was sick.”

I buried my forehead into the palm of my hand, composed myself, and addressed him again. “Just make sure you’re dressed and ready to go by noon.”

Which seems like a very simple task. But it’s Sam, so it’s not. I recently read a statistic that the energy exerted while getting a kid ready for school in the morning is the equivalent of energy spent at an entire day of work for most people. So with Sam, it’s got to be at least eight days worth of work. 

I say all the time that Sam’s my favorite person in the world unless we have somewhere to be. Which is often. He’s funny and quirky and weird and entertaining. But when it comes to putting his shoes on, brushing his teeth, or getting his lunch from the refrigerator, those tasks can take an eternity. He has exited the house on multiple occasions without his backpack, more concerned with finding Lou to give him a goodbye kiss than he is with having his belongings for the day. When one of our two pet turtles—they live in an aquarium in the third floor playroom—died a few weeks ago, Sam’s response was, “That’ll save me time in the morning, it’s one less person to say goodbye to.” As if he’s ever been concerned about time. He’s a poster child for some sort of diagnosis and as a former teacher, I have no idea what.

Around 11am, Tess decided she wanted to take a bath and since she hates baths and typically avoids them at all costs, I ran with this momentum and took her upstairs to run the water. We poured in some bubbles and added a bath bomb and her new hot pink loofa and she was in heaven, luxuriously swirling herself around in the large Jacuzzi tub, counting the bubbles, and singing to herself.

I trotted down the steps to remind Sam to get dressed. 

“Why?” he protested in his whiniest voice, making “why” four syllables instead of one. “Why do I have to get dressed now? She’s not coming until noon.”

He was sitting on the ground in the living room with Nate, completing a giant floor puzzle of the United States. 

“Fine, you’re right, you can wait. You have forty-five minutes.”

I returned upstairs to supervise Tess’s spa day in the master bathroom. 

Ten minutes later, I called down the steps, careful to reduce my yell to a whisper so I wouldn’t disturb Lou’s nap. 

“Sam!” I hissed. “Get dressed!”

“Can I have a snack?” he called back, the volume of his voice indicated that he wasn’t the least bit concerned about whether or not he woke Lou.

“Yes! Fine.” I returned to Tess, who was in the process of washing her hair. I helped her rinse and finish her bath time routine and was in the process of blow-drying her hair, when my phone buzzed.

“On my way,” the text read. It was Mrs. Simpson. She was five minutes ahead of schedule.

I unplugged the hairdryer, tossed it in a cabinet, and sprinted down the steps.

“Sam!” I yelled with the same amount of panic I’d probably have if the house was burning down. “She’s coming! She’s coming to our house RIGHT NOW!”

I gasped as I turned the corner and laid eyes on Sam. He was perched on the sofa in a Gollum-like squat, reaching his hand into a bag of Cheez-its with the same amount of panic he’d probably have if he was relaxing poolside at an all-inclusive resort.

“Who is?” He deposited another Cheez-it into his mouth. 

“Mrs. Simpson!” I shouted. “And you’re stillnot dressed!”

“I’m having a snack,” he said coolly, as though I’m the idiot for not understanding that snack time is sacred and should not be disturbed. He still hadn’t budged.

I ran to the dining room to look out the window just in time to see the black minivan turn onto our street. 

“SAM! She’s here! She’s actually here!” Our house was burning to the ground, the eaves in the attic crashing through to the second floor and Sam was calmly enjoying a happy hour. “Give me the Cheez-its and go get dressed NOW!”

“Hey!” he protested as I snatched the red bag from his fingers. In addition to his irritation, he seemed genuinely surprised that I was rushing him.

“Uh, Mom.” Nate was keeping watch at the front door. “She’s in the driveway.”

My phone started blowing up from where I had dropped in on the end table. It was Mrs. Simpson. I grabbed it and answered the call. 

“Hey, I’m in the driveway!” Her cheeriness was a nice contrast to my sheer hysteria. 

“I know! Sam’s… it’s just…” I was stammering. “He’s not even dressed yet,” I finally confessed.

Sam was just climbing down from the couch and was beginning his journey up the steps to his room. I should point out that in this time span, a freshly bathed Tess, who’s three years younger than Sam, had already emerged from her room completely dressed without any prompting from me.

“Okay, here’s what I’ll do,” Mrs. Simpson is a nurse, so she’s a good problem-solver under extreme duress, which is what we were experiencing at the moment. “I have to pick up Carolyn, too, so I’ll go grab her first and then I’ll come back for Sam.”

I hung up the phone and screamed up the steps. I had just heard Lou stirring in his crib, so naptime was over anyway.

“Sam! Hurry!”

He returned a few minutes later in his signature Adidas track pants and long-sleeved Sixers t-shirt. I was mentally calculating how far we lived from Carolyn’s house and how much longer we had until Mrs. Simpson returned to fetch Sam.

“Great, Sam!” he thrives on praise, not criticism. “Now let’s pack a bag of your snow gear!”

“Why?” he whined, again dragging out the word into four syllables instead of one. “Why are they making me play in the snow?”

Sam hates to be wet. And cold.

“Because you’re a kid and that’s what kids do,” I said, stuffing some snow pants into a reusable grocery bag. “Put your boots on! Where are your mittens and your hat?”

“Which boots are mine?”

That’s actually a fair question. We have a dozen pair of snow boots, each a different size, most of them hand-me-downs from Tighe’s cousins or the older boys across the street. 

“I don’t know, the ones that fit!” I was on my hands and knees digging through our front hall closet, like a dog digging for a bone. Instead of dirt flinging up behind me, it was gloves, hats, mittens, cleats, shin guards, rain boots, snow boots, baseball gloves, and any other type of outdoor sports accessory you can think of.

Meanwhile Nate had returned to his sentry post at the front door.

“Mom,” he called, more curious than panicked, “she’s back.”

“Sam! Coat!”

I threw the bag of snow gear at his chest and taking a deep breath, shoved him out the front door.

“Thanks, Marge!” I called, forcing a smile. “Let me know when you’re through with him!”

I shut the front door and collapsed in a chair. My heart was racing, as though I’d just completed eight consecutive days of work. Clothes and hats and all kinds of shoes were strewn across the floor of the foyer. I could hear Lou, faintly fussing in his crib.

“Mom, you made a mess,” Nate said dryly, judging instead of helping as he returned to his Legos in the living room.

Back to the grind.