a little before christmas, you turned 15 months old. soon after, christmas happened, and then you got sick. with hand, foot and mouth disease. and then you didn’t eat for a whole week. you absolutely, and quite articulately, refused medicine throughout that week. for posterity, i wish to inform you that your stubbornness directly resulted in the frequent use of tylenol suppositories. and every time your eyes widened in disbelief that your parents were doing the unspeakable thing again, we reminded you that it didn’t have to be this way, that you brought this upon yourself.

thus far, you have not gotten the message.

you’re better now, for the moment. and am i ever grateful. because (and i promise i’m not trying to give you a time-traveling guilt trip, should you read this letter when you’re a grownup) you sure did direct your anger about being in so much pain at me. i will spare you the details, but let’s just say there was a lot of hitting, scratching, punching, biting, as well as one incident in which you seemed to intentionally give me the finger. i will also say that, in one breath, you’d kiss your mama, look at me, and growl fiercely.

…actually, you do that one all the time. at 15 months, you are a mama’s boy. she is your favorite grownup, the recipient of your best snuggles. uncle g is a close second. jude, however, tops all of us. she is the bar of all things awesome that you have set for yourself. you must drink from her cups, use her utensils, play with her toys, dance like she dances, etc. and so you pester her all day, ever encroaching upon her space and stuff, growling if she does not comply with your demands.

you are lucky: jude adores you. in fact, she loves you so much that she often asks if she can hold you on her lap. for a good 60 seconds, you cuddle together like this in the morning:

your big sister also sticks up for you. whenever your moms have to redirect you, jude is at the ready with a defense, or a case for why you should be able to continue doing x risky activity.

ziggy, you remain ever musical: you love to sing along with your favorite songs in an adorable monotone mumble, which is slowly evolving into discernible notes. when a good song comes on, you cautiously dance, you spin, you saunter around on tiptoe. you are a fan of gillian welch. you and i spend a lot of time listening to her together. (i think you’ve got a lot of tennessee in you.)

you love to cuddle soft things: blankets, the dog’s bed, stuffed animals – you are delighted by them all. currently, your favorite stuffed animal friends are bunny and giraffe. you can say “giraffe” now, in a menacing growl that happily reminds me of comic genius eddie izzard’s bit about evil herbivores.

you talk a lot these days, actually. Your yeses and noes are proper answers to questions now. you’ve got “all done” and pretty indecipherable “here you go” down. cat and dog and mama and milk and hiro (the only asian steam engine on sodor) are other favorites.

zig, you understand everything we say. your mama and i talk to you like we talk to jude. already, we negotiate when you are being unreasonable: if you take your medicine, you can have some milk. if you go to bed now, you can climb the steps yourself, and then see giraffe. it works. you get it. (but you are still stubborn; the most stubborn kid i’ve ever met.)

lest your grownup self thinks your toddler self hated me, let me close this letter with a moment–the moment i carry with me into my harried workday every day, in fact:

i put you to bed every night. (when i have to work late, mama keeps you up late so i do not miss this.) after you say your goodnights to the fambly, and finish your kvetching about having to go to bed at all, we head upstairs together. as we go through the routine of pajamas and new diapers and your nearly adult-sized sleep sack, i sing to you, and you sing to me: ABC’s, edelweiss, let’s go fly a kite, row row row your boat. i then pick you up and you snuggle into me, and i kiss your still honey-smelling head, until you stiffen and pull away. “are you ready for bed?” i ask, and, clutching giraffe, you enthusiastically reply, “yeah!” as i deposit you into your crib. you wave to me with your free hand, and say “night night!”
i smooth back your mop of unruly curls, and you grab my hand and kiss it like you were kissing the pope’s ring. i give you my other hand and you kiss it too. and then you give me a sleepy, dimply smile and say night night again. i say and sign i love you and walk out of the room, heart fuller than i knew it ever could be.

every night.

you are my joy, boy.

love,
mommy

has it really been a month since my last post? i’m sorry about that. as per usual, you can blame the following factors:

1. work
2. the plague

reason number two should have been because of all the traveling we were doing during my big fat holiday vacation, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. both the kids became very sick on boxing day, and over a week later, we all slowly began to emerge from our plague cave. what did the kids have, you ask? (because this is, officially, a mommy blog, so i have to write about all kid illnesses for posterity and frantic google searches for solidarity…) answer: hand foot and motherfucking mouth disease.

jude was able to get through the misery through her burgeoning logic. whenever we had to give her terrible, throat-burning medicine, we showed her how to do a “water chaser”. she’d slam a shot of ibuprofen, and then chug a cup of water for relief. but my son? we could not get the poor dude to take medicine for anything. our solution is best explained in a brief exchange with jude:

jude: why is ziggy not taking his medicine?
me: because he doesn’t understand he can take a water chaser to make the burning better.
jude: what’s that in your hand?
me: a suppository.
jude: what you gonna do with it?
me: put medicine up ziggy’s bum.
jude: WHAT?!?!

that poor boy lived on a steady diet of rice milk, suppositories, and a maalox/benadryl mouth relief paste for EIGHT days.

he’s eating like a champ now, thankfully. and we thought everything was looking up until last night at 11pm, when he woke up screaming like someone had circumcised him in his sleep. in reality, he’d had some massive diarrhea that scalded his bum and bits. he shook with the pain. we immediately put him in a baking soda bath, and i swear you could hear the hissssssss of his bum settling into the water.

after slathering him with copious amounts of cortisone, he finally fell asleep. i’m happy to report that his whole area is much better this morning.

i sure hope my kids aren’t superstitious about the auspices of new years’ beginnings. i don’t want them to feel like 2012 is doomed. if they must lean toward the superstition, i do hope they see they plague as the purging of an old year, in order to have a freer, healthier new one.

alright, my morning writing time is coming to a close, and i do promise another post sooner than a month. really.

in the meantime, here, have some seriously belated holiday fambly photos, in our intentionally cheese garb. [my mom thought we were sincere. when i explained the joke, she defensively asked, "well what's wrong with turtle necks?"]

tonight was curried carrot and ginger soup, as made by my beloved. it cures what ails on a blustery, cold night in austin. (a little rioja and dark chocolate with pomegranates didn’t hurt anything, either.)

my weekend was insulated by rain and wind and a little thunder. pots of french-pressed coffee. a cheap, oaky malbec. and h and i christmas shopped for our kids, together, for the first time ever, thanks to the indefatigable uncle g. (also: he took jude to see yo.gabba.gabba. live yesterday. alone. srsly.)

a milestone this weekend: mister zig got his first haircut, which lasted a whole five seconds and cost a whole ten dollars. (that’s two dollars per second, for those playing along at home.) no longer does he have snot-crusted bangs stuck in his nose; instead, he looks a lot like christopher robin.

a triptych of before and after:

and an instagram:

does he slay you with the sweetness like he slays me? squish goes my heart.

and with that, a goodnight.

—————

it’s been a long time since i’ve listened to the counting crows’ recovering the satellites.

“i guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower…”

it’s strange how months attach themselves to memories. wistful or malevolent.
like grandmother. like cancer.

“the smell of hospitals in winter.”

i remember. those last days were stark (county) and grandma on her back, in a bed. i’d never seen her that way before. i brought pizza and we chuckled about small things. i watched her chest move up and down, breathing.

“…hold on to these moments as they pass.”

the last time i went, we talked of nashville, while i held my sleeping baby nephew on my lap. she held my hand a lot. her eyes were tired, so she looked at the ceiling as she spoke. my nephew-holding arm was asleep, tingly. my grandma-held hand sweaty. i followed her gaze up to the drop ceiling tile of the bland room. i assured her that i would be alright in nashville. i had a job, a place to live. friends. emergency contacts, like 911 and poison control.

she looked at me suddenly.

“honey?”
“yes grandma?”
“do you feel my hand?”
“yes grandma.”
“it’s warm, isn’t it?”
“yes.”
“that’s because i’m alive. and you’re alive. so. dive in, honey, dive in.”
“i will, grandma. i promise.”

that semester, i had been taking a class on counseling (i was still studying to become a therapist then) and my professor had spent the most recent class teaching us how to say goodbye. he stressed the importance of saying goodbye effectively, not merely saying see ya later, when you know you won’t.

i was leaving for nashville in five days.

when it was time to go, i held my grandmother’s hand in both of mine, and looked her in the eye.

“i love you grandma,” i said. “goodbye.”
“goodbye honey” she replied, looking back at me. (was that a wink? grandma never winked…) “i love you too.”

2. below is what greeted this very early morning, as i stepped out on my porch to begin the day:

3. the fact that oprah was right. as my high school chaplain used to say in what seemed like every liturgy, “the attitude of gratitude ain’t no pious platitude.” [though my seventeen-year-old self was thoroughly annoyed by this pronouncement, and though my annoyance was only (and rightly) exacerbated by navy blue cardigan worn constantly over his otherwise black priest garb, the truth of it rings true now, sixteen years later.]

oh, and reader, i’m serious: so curious about your thankful thoughts, big and small. bring’em!

1. uncle g, who can always be relied upon to pick up the rear when we are unwell. zig has a rotavirus that has given him copious diarrhea since last tuesday, jude has the crud (and burgeoning pinkeye…), clemdog has been vomiting for a week, and h and i are both meh. uncle g spent most of this past weekend entertaining the sick kiddos, applying lotrimin to raging diaper rash, and cleaning dog vomit, all while h & i either rested or caught up on cleaning various things. somebody give this man an award. or at least a hefty meat entree.

2. solid poo, the first of which, in recent memory, zig had this morning.

3. our pediatrician, who can see our children on a moment’s notice. like this morning, at 9:45.

4. netflix streaming the red balloon, which is currently blowing jude’s mind. “that is a cheeky balloon!” she laughs over and over. [aside: h watched it for the first time this weekend, and decided that the ending isn't about transcendence, or ascendence, or even relief; instead, all the balloons of paris are taking young pascal "away" after finding him responsible for the death of their friend. kind of changes the whole story, eh?]

zig also enjoys the red balloon:

5. the fact that, when faced with simultaneous illness, my children snuggle each other:

6. imminent thanksgiving, even if we are quarantined to our house with no traditional fare, because we gots enough love and cheese and wine to get us through.

dear reader, what are you tankful for?

1. rain. it’s coming. soon. like, within an hour or so. see?

the reality of rain makes my toes tingle. i’m investing a whole lot of hope into this kind of cleansing, of drought relief.

2. norton bodega malbec reserve. the oakiest, smokiest wine i can afford. it is the flavor of this autumn.

3. leaving work before 5pm sometimes. h sent me this pic late yesterday afternoon:

i immediately closed my laptop, dashed out of the office, and met my fambly at the park, just before sunset. we played until the sun went down, and then ate sandwiches outside. “we’re eating in the dark!” jude said with a giggle, delighted and bewildered by previously unknown possibilities.

4. stitcher radio app. its existence makes my commute a happy one, what with so many podcasts to enjoy. [not a paid endorsement.]

5. the marriage plot. mr eugenides’ most recent novel has made me hungry for fiction again.

6. my fambly (por supuesto). they are the centered breath in the chaos of my worries.

7. sandboxes. they are perfect props to showcase my beauties: