Today marks the beginning of an auspicious event: Our first big tow. At this very moment, I am in the passenger seat of our truck, tapping away on my netbook (and its infuriatingly teeny tiny keys), while Otto steers us northward towards the kids and our first Big Camping Trip. By next week---after doing the requisite family rounds, like spending some time with Otto's mom now that she's post-transplant---we'll be hanging out at Lake Placid and telling my darlings to please just stop touching each other. I feel compelled to point out, here, that I grew up AND went to college in New York, and...
Last night started out sort of tragic, because we have five gazillion television channels and there were THREE different episodes of CSI on, and we had seen all three of them. That put a crimp in our plans for an evening of Terrible Television, but THANKFULLY we had a recorded episode of Ice Road Truckers. Phew! Later, a CSI: Miami we hadn't seen came up, and we were in the middle of watching that when, somehow, during a commercial break we found ourselves in the middle of a long discussion about infidelity. (Should the surprising part be that I don't find this weird or unusual at all? We...
The invaders on my tomatoes were so horrible, I decided to run away from home. Actually, I'd decided to go before that particular discovery, but nonetheless, yesterday afternoon I got myself to the airport and got on a plane and crossed the country to check out the Rockies. Oh, and also to hang out with my darling Kira. And snoogle her baby. And pick up all three of her boys and tuck them into my pockets. (Note to self: Get bigger pockets.) Shortly before I left, we received word that Otto's mom had been taken into transplant surgery overnight; when my plane took off, she'd already gotten a...
School is now officially out for the summer, and something wonderful has happened. I'm positively THRILLED. It's not that I didn't like summers, before, but this is the first summer I find myself really looking forward to in, well, certainly in my tenure as a parent. I'm aware that that sounds bad, but hear me out. When the kids were little and I stayed home with them, summer was no different than the rest of the year. When the kids were a bit older but I was divorced and working, summer was rife with guilt over not being able to take time off and relax with them, and then further guilt over...
As if it wasn't wonderful enough to have Mother's Day yesterday---complete with Otto's ceremonial announcement that the pool was officially ready for swimming, subsequent offer of a buck fifty to any child who went off the diving board into the frigid water, Monkey's broad grin of acceptance, wild leap into the water, and then swim/scramble to the side where his swim trunks all but fell off as he hauled himself out of the pool (and what is better than a flash of your baby's butt while he laughs hysterically about how his suit must've frozen right off? NOTHING)---when I mentioned that the...
Part of the cycle I have trouble with, when I'm feeling wretched, is that it's pretty rare for me to lose sight of the fact that I'm being ridiculous. I mean, I feel crappy. I don't like feeling crappy. But I have a roof over my head, a beautiful family, a pretty awesome job, and nothing of substance to complain about. The fact that I will complain, anyway, is proof of my unworthiness as a human being. Which makes me feel more wretched. Which makes me realize I'm being stupid. Which... Well, you get the idea. The fact that my family loves me anyway is concrete proof that grace is...
There are many ways in which Otto and I are similar, and other ways in which we are completely different. And then some ways in which we are each changing, due to the influence of the other. Example the first: Otto used to believe a meal is not a meal unless it includes large hunks of meat or potatoes (preferably both). Thanks to living with us, he now understands that it is, in fact, possible to have a really nice meal that features other foods. Example the second: I used to believe that the purpose of riding in a car was to GET somewhere. Thanks to Otto's influence, I now understand that...
We're in the car taking a brief trip (right now! I love my iPhone!) and there is a tremendous WHOMP as Chickadee whacks my seat from behind. Me: Stop kicking my seat! Her: I'm not kicking, that was my HEAD! Me: Stop headbutting my seat! Her: That hurt my head WAY more than it hurt your back! Me: My BACK! Her: My HEAD!! Otto: My GOD. That's it; I am NOT driving you two to Hawaii, now. [We both stare at him.] You know, through the secret government tunnel. Nevermind. I can hardly wait for our first big trip this summer. Obviously.
I remember being told, long ago, that you fall in love with your spouse all over again when you see him falling in love with your child. This was, of course, in reference to my first baby, and I do remember the warm-n-fuzzy feelings of watching my ex unfold as a father, even though it often feels like that happened in a galaxy far, far away, approximately thirty billion light years ago. No one ever told me that, somehow, that experience would be magnified a thousandfold to watch my husband embrace his role as stepfather. He had no part in creating these children; they are not from or of him;...
