Julia

Deathly

Egg retrieval went well yesterday, although I have been asleep or throwing up ever since. It hurts to walk, sneeze, sit up and/or roll over.

Huh, I guess "well" is a relative term, isn't it?

This obviously will be brief since I feel ghastly but I was on my way to the kitchen for more Gatorade anyway and I thought I might as well check in with you.

28 eggs retrieved, which is a very nice haul indeed. They will call with the fertilization report and embryo update tomorrow and I'll put that up at REDBOOK. Oh, and I might not have read the last comments properly so perhaps you all know this, but you don't have to subscribe to anything to read the infertility stuff. Just click on the link on my sidebar and there it is. I apologize if that fact was not abundantly clear in the first place.   

Bleh. Getting nauseous again. Back to my bed. More tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, please, that we get some nice embryos out of all this. Rah rah.

And I have more thoughts on the agressive kid, so don't let me forget, ok? Hope you are well.

Where's Weirdo?

Can you find Steve in this picture?

No? Look harder.

Still no? I'll tell you where he is at the end of this.

When Steve and I were shopping for a new house we spent our weekends driving randomly around the Twin Cities looking at towns and neighborhoods and city blocks; peering around for For Sale signs when we were inspired to do so and, incidentally, enjoying the hell out of the process. Every now and then we would call our realtor (who grew to hate us, as you can imagine) and ask him to set up a showing for house x or y. But none of them really spoke to us and we continued in this manner for, I kid you not, about two years (you can see why our realtor hated us) until one day Steve fell truly madly deeply in love with an intersection. A "T" stop, really, where a dirt road ended in a slightly larger paved one.

"THIS," he announced dramatically, "is where we need to live."

You can probably see the problem with this, as I did. For starters, there were only, like, three houses in view and none of them were for sale. It seemed unlikely that one of these handful of houses would miraculously appear on the market and suit us. I, tactfully of course, told Steve what a stupid idea it was to focus on an area the size of a smallish shopping mall but he disregarded my nay-saying.

And, since he is sort of spoiled, it all came together as he had predicted.

Several months after his announcement that he would live at Intersection or nowhere at all! a house came on the market. A perfect house that was perfectly perfect and we loved it and it was a mere three driveways up from the very stop sign upon which Steve had declared his Alamo.

The only draw-back, the only fly in the margarita mix, was that the house did not and could not get high-speed internet access. This didn't matter to me, but considering the fact that Steve works from home and is constantly uploading and downloading zillions of files it seemed like it would be a big deal to him.

"No, " he swore.

"I'll be fine," he promised.

"I will be so deliriously happy living at the junction of Dirt-and-Barely-Paved that time will distort itself and I will THINK the download speeds are comparable to those of cable when in fact satellite service barely surpasses dial-up," he vowed. 

"Really?" I asked.

"Really really. But I will look into ways to get a faster connection." A-ha.

So we bought the house and we moved in and we unpacked a few boxes and Steve started bitching about the internet, a refrain that has continued ever since. Steve, however and unlike myself, is not one to content himself with mere bitchery. Steve is a Fixer by nature so not a month has gone by in the past three years in which Steve has not actively pursued some scheme or another to increase our connection speeds.

Which brings us to the photograph. Do you want to know where Steve is in this picture? He is that little bump seventy feet above the ground at the fork of the tree in the top center of the picture. And he is trying to put up an antennae that will connect to a cable that will connect to a box in our attic that will bring us high-speed internet via cell signals. 

Which in turn brings us to today's observation: I lived with Steve for two years before we got married and then another two after that and it took all that time before I realized that he is an abnormally obsessive personality. I met him and I thought he was a total slacker. Fun, sure, but so lazy and easy-going that I was not expecting much from him in terms of measurable life goals. Four years later and I was, like, huh, it's three-thirty in the morning and Steve is still painting the bathroom, how odd. Seven years and I discovered that if he gets up in the middle of the night to pee he then has to brush his teeth again, because he cannot go to bed (even back to bed) without brushing his teeth. Nine years and I found myself eating dinner alone on a regular basis because Steve was finishing up a work project and could not bring himself to stop... thirty feet away in his home office. We'll have been together eleven years in July and I now know that when he says he'll look into something I should expect him to be unbearable until he has solved it to his satisfaction. So apart from telling him not to fall and break his stupid neck I just took the picture and wished him well in his obsessive pursuit of speedier ITunes downloads.

Some slacker. Which is a pity because I really AM that lazy. No hidden layers here. Sometimes I feel a little tricked, a little mislead by bar-pickup Steve who morphed into the workaholic kitchen-destroyer-and-rebuilder tree-climbing lunatic to whom I find myself married.

Has your partner/spouse/significant other surprised you with personality traits as you got to know them better?    

PS New IVF post up at ¡REDBOOK!

I think I will have a new post there every day this week as the cycle progresses so check back there for updates. Link at the side. Thanks!   

Nature

My brother came down from his third-grade classroom every day for a month to have lunch with me when I started kindergarten. I was the weepy type and I didn't want to be there. To this day new situations make me uncomfortable, although I no longer crawl into the nearest adult lap and cry for my mother (I drink wine. much more genteel). So thank you very very much for going over and checking out the Redbook (REDBOOK) page and leaving comments when possible. I think it was a little glitchy at first but it should be smoothed out by now. And for those of you who wouldn't register with anyone for love nor money but gave a friendly silent wave instead; that's cool too and I thank you. I was really nervous and I was glad you came down to eat peanut butter and jelly with me.

Speaking of Infertility Diaries I have a new post up there as well today about the IVF in progress: http://www.redbookmag.com/your/infertility/.

Spring is here (mostly. minus the flowers) so Patrick and I spent the afternoon yesterday exploring outside. He was specifically interested in the drainage ditch/dry creek bed that runs between the front of our yard and the road. Apparently he and Steve discovered a veritable cache of twenty-year old beer cans the other day and he was anxious to continue his archaeological discoveries. Getting down there involves scrabbling down a rocky slope while fighting off wild raspberry bushes. I was not amused but I suppose every nature walk doesn't have to be about me and my bitching that there are no bluebells anywhere yet.

So we poked around and unearthed an incredibly dirty green bottle (beer! quart sized!) and a disintegrating can (um, lighter fluid?) and some normal-looking stones, all of which Patrick made me carry. Then he lead me to the culvert and... do you know what a culvert is? Steve had to tell me because I kept calling it the big metal driveway tube and that wounded his sensibilities for some reason. A culvert is the big metal tube thing that goes under a driveway and allows rushing torrents of melting spring snows to pass harmlessly underneath it rather than wash the driveway away. Patrick thought we should walk through it and I thought we really shouldn't and we argued about it for a while. Then he told me that he would protect me and, honestly, it was just so sweet that I agreed, although how was he going to protect me from dirt and spider webs, I ask you?

We went through (Patrick encouraging me with word and gesture) and we emerged from the other end at the exact moment my next-door neighbor walked by.

She gave a little yelp and a little laugh and, looking down on us in the ditch, said, "Eeek! Trolls!"

To which Patrick promptly replied, "Don't! You'll scare her." And he patted me on the leg. "There aren't really trolls, Mommy. Not down here."

He's a filthy little thing with strange taste in scenery - and he clearly doesn't think much of my abilities or intellect - but no one can say he isn't good to his dear old mother.            

Lobster

When Steve first mentioned this trip to Florida he described it in terms of back-to-back business meetings. He also said that it was important that Patrick and I come with him. This seemed kinda oxymoronic to me. Not that I have anything against Florida (except the sun and the humidity, as noted) but I always dislike hauling the child to unfamiliar locations where I will then exist as his sole source of entertainment. If that's going to be the case I would rather just stay at home where the Legos are. When I stated this, however, Steve looked stern like some sort of village elder and assured me that it was vital to the existence of the business - the very business that puts the sugar in my tea - for the families to spend time together on an annual basis. I think this is a managing practice founded on the principles of Victorian melodrama; to wit, they are all less likely to club each other over the head at the newly discovered gold mine entrance and lie about it afterwards if they can picture the others' wives and wee bairns back at home in Jolly Old Wherever.

My Dear Mrs. Hippogriffs,

It is with a heavy heart that I write these Sad Tidings: Poor Steven succumbed to Fever and was buried in the jungle.

Yrs Trly, X

PS We did not (alas!) find the gold mine we sought so I am afraid your husband's stake in this Accursed Venture is forfeit. I did, however and by remarkable coincidence, find a completely different gold mine on my way home.   

So I went to Florida and Steve did indeed work the entire time but it was actually lots of fun, primarily because one of the partners has a four-year old daughter named A who thought Patrick was the coolest thing ever and he returned the sentiment. He likes trains and she likes dressing up like a princess, and it all meshed beautifully because he would look up from his train works to admire the gown with the heels with the crown with the veil and she would sit there looking pretty and complimenting his clever track layout. Yeah I know Gloria Steinem just rolled over something but what can you do? Then they took turns making up poems and telling each other how good the poems had been. Most importantly they have the same sense of humor so they laughed for three days straight. It was, in a word, delightful and for the first time in my life I discovered that two children who click really do make life much easier than trying to amuse one by yourself.

We talked a bit about my IVF cycle and she said she didn't know how I do it. She said she could not. Would not. She knows about Steve's quest for his birth family and his decision to not adopt any children himself and she asked a bit about that. I answered as best I could but, honestly, the more I read stories from other adoptees and the more I try to REALLY listen when Steve talks about it, the more I realize that it is just a very complicated personal issue and I'm merely a by-stander. Affected, certainly, but not involved. I cannot explain him or his feelings. I just accept them. 

I think if she and I had had this same conversation online it might have rankled. The difference in how we have approached a similar problem (and our reasons for doing so) might have been interpreted as implicit criticism. But sitting on her couch, watching our children play so nicely together and taking a deep mutual pleasure in their joy; it was just... easy. Easy to be different and easy to respect and sympathize with those differences.

After we got all misty agreeing that we each have the most perfect child ever imagined and we are each the luckiest woman alive we took them 80 miles across Florida to the Astronaut Hall of Fame (for Patrick) and the beach (for A). Five hours later we could cheerfully have murdered them both. The sand! The sun! The stickiness! The not listening! The sand! The incessant talking! The throwing themselves on the sand to make SAND ANGELS after we had just given them a final rinse! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! 

And speaking of the beach, check this out...

Isn't this the most pathetic thing you have ever seen in your life?

No, I don't know why I didn't ask for help with the sunscreen. Yes, I am aware of the fact that I am not physically capable of reaching my entire back with my own hands no matter how wide they are. Yes, I realize that I am very sensitive to sun exposure. No, I don't like not being able to sleep on my back. Yes, I did have squamous cells removed from my abdomen two years ago. So, um, YES I am a total fucking idiot. DAMN IT.

Finally, TRA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA! [That was supposed to be a trumpet voluntary]

The REDBOOK Infertility Diaries are up tomorrow, April 17th, um, at some New York Standard Time as yet unspecified. I have no idea what it looks like yet but I DO have three posts up and, urhhhrphm, remember our deal? About leaving comments? *NUDGE NUDGE* Go. Say something. Anything. Don't make me beg. Did you see my back? I've been humiliated enough this week.

I think this is my link: www.redbookmag.com/your/infertility/

PS I am re-doing my sidebar but I'll have it back up again this week.

*Updated to add: I fixed the link so it should work now. And I was personally blinded by the hot pink skin (focus people!) but now that you mention it, that IS a flattering photo of my silhouette- you're right. It is also completely misleading as gravity is graciously pulling everything forward and hiding it. Truth in blogging, right here.

SnowDROPS Not Flakes

We are going to Florida tomorrow. Steve has a partners' meeting there on Friday and Saturday and we are taking an extra day at the beginning to visit his wonderful aunt and uncle. Apart from the humidity that is so very very unkind to my hair and the sunshine that I have to avoid because I burn and then turn cancerous, I am quite looking forward to this particular trip. It helps that it is not only snowing but accumulating in my backyard as we speak. Actual gathering snow. In April. Now, I have accustomed myself to the harsh winters and buggy summers of Minnesota. I love it here and I am willing to make allowances for some less than optimal features. But I have never and I will never get used to the fact that Spring just never shows the fuck up in this part of the country. It goes winter, winter, winter, a day and a half of brown wet something, SUMMER. Every year. It kills me. 

But this weekend Minnesota is not my problem. This weekend I will be asserting my right as a tourist and I will be complaining about someone else's weather for a change. And I am warning you right now, Florida, it better not be rainy and too hot because the second my hair starts to frizz you will be hearing from me.

Twenty minutes until I need to leave to pick up Patrick from school- might as well write about him in his absence.

It has occurred to me that I might be doing Patrick a disservice when I talk about him these days. There was a long, long period of time (oh, let's just call it 16 months to three and a half) when it would have been fair to say that Patrick was obsessed with letters and numbers. Truly obsessed. He just couldn't get enough of them. He took a visceral pleasure in the shape of them and found obvious comfort in their reliability.

For the past year, though, Patrick has been moving away from this single-mindedness. He still has an affection for the forms but he is more interested in what letters and numbers can do. He likes to play with creating letters that in and of themselves convey meaning, like drawing a "c" an "a" and a "t" that feature whiskers and ears and a tail. He finds this very funny. He loves math. Really loves it and spends a lot of time making normal conversations more complicated by trying to turn them into word problems. Like, "What if I ate lunch six minutes before an hour after I usually do? Wouldn't that be FUNNY?" Sure, kid. A riot. Now eatyourcarrots.

But if I had to describe what makes Patrick tick, what it is exactly that bounces him through his days I would come up with something that I am not sure I have ever managed to get across here (which is why I wonder if I am doing his personality a disservice in the process): Patrick LOVES to laugh. He lives to laugh and tell jokes. All day long it is "Isn't that silly?" and "Wouldn't that be funny?" and "Don't you think that is ridiculous?"

Granted his humor is odd and his material is quite limited (presumably by his quite limited experience). As with everything I am never sure whether it is specific to Patrick or a more universal condition of the age, but his jokes rarely make sense and are almost never actually funny from the adult perspective. I know when I posted those pictures of his perversely constructed Lego men more than a few of you must have hissed, "The child is TWISTED. Look at all those heads!" but honestly without a frame of reference for suffering, you can see where he is coming from. Humor generally stems from the unexpected. A person has one head, his people had TWO. That's funny.

Well it isn't actually but I laugh anyway. I'm his mother.

Enjoy your weekends. Did I mention that I started Lupron on Saturday? I did- so I am officially at the beginning of an IVF cycle. It also means I get to bring my needles and vials through airport security which always makes me feel like a bad ass.

Good grief I hope this cycle works.

Classic

The Washington Post magazine has a wonderful article this weekend. Wonderful. It's called "Pearls Before Breakfast" and I highly recommend it. I hope that link works. I can never remember who grants access without demanding demographic info in exchange, or for how long they grant it. So, read the article if you can and if you cannot I apologize for the tease. I'll explain as best I can but I won't be able to do it justice.

The gist is that in January the world renowned violinist Joshua Bell agreed to an experiment. A stunt, if you will. He agreed to play the subway station, violin case open at his feet, at L'Enfant Plaza during Washington's morning rush hour. The question was: what would happen when one of the finest musicians in the world (playing his 1713 Stradivari violin, no less) performed for spare change like an anonymous street artist? Would people recognize him, or at least his talent?   

The musical director of the National Symphony guessed that out of 1000 people 75 to 100 would stop and listen, that a crowd would gather. He theorized that a musician of that caliber would probably collect about $150 for his forty minutes of effort. And even as they planned it the editors for the Post magazine nervously worried about potential riots once sophisticated Washingtonians realized what they were experiencing.

But what actually happened was... nothing. Seven people in total stopped at various times. $30 was collected. And a thousand people walked by, oblivious.

The article is jammed with luscious theories about why this happened, blame ranging from the frenetic pace that has always characterized American life (everyone agreed that the outcome would have been much different in a foreign city) to the increasing alienation of modern times. It discusses the notion of art without a frame- whether greatness without context is actually greatness at all. A senior curator from the National Gallery admitted that you could take an Ellsworth Kelly painting valued at $5 million and hang it on a cafe wall with $150 price tag and even the most devoted of connoisseurs would do little more than say, "Ah, that looks a bit like an Ellsworth Kelly."   

I liked the stories of those in the subway station who listened and appreciated that the music was something very special: a postal supervisor on his way to work, a bus-boy, the woman who runs the nearby shoeshine who said Bell was "too loud" but admitted he was the first performer about whom she had not called the police.

I am quite sure I would have been one of those who just kept walking and it saddens me to think this. I love to read descriptions of art or music written by those who feel passionately about specific pieces or artists, but I also always feel like I am missing something. My father is a fan of classical music and opera. I grew up listening to both and tried very hard to "get it". I would arrange my face into an impression of thoughtful appreciation while the music soared in his study but in my heart of hearts I preferred John Denver. When Les Miserables came out I was very excited to discover that I loved it, thinking it was an epiphany for me. However, I soon learned that it was not, in truth, opera. It was ROCK opera. Big difference. Aïda still sounded just as screechy and incomprehensible as ever.

I hoped I would eventually grow into a true appreciation for higher art but at thirty-five I still only love two classical pieces (Albinoni's Adagio in G and Pachebel's Canon in D) and one instrument (classical guitar. I am a sucker for Julian Bream).

Visual art is even worse. I have spent my entire adult life trying to see something in a painting beyond my affection or distaste for the subject matter and I have never once succeeded. I like actual lighthouses and I like paintings of lighthouses. I think Monet's work is very pretty. That's it. You would be better off explaining brushwork to a basset hound. I am a philistine.         

And I am fine with it. In my car I listen to the Killers and I no longer feel guilty that Bach makes me sleepy. I don't understand Jackson Pollock and I don't care. Except...

Patrick was rummaging in the toy bin this morning and extracted an harmonica from the depths. It had been part of a bucket of instruments he received for his birthday two years ago (I wonder what happened to those maracas?) but that he has never really enjoyed. At all. People have asked me if Patrick shows any interest in or talent for music, as an early fondness for mathematics often accompanies a similar love for musical form. The answer is a resounding NO. Patrick has never been able to carry a tune or tap out a simple rhythm. Not his thing. When the preschool class performed some holiday songs around Christmas Patrick stood in the mini chorus-line smiling politely and hopping from foot to foot. But no singing.

However he pulled out the harmonica this morning and starting wailing on it. Blow blow suck suck bloooooooooooow- it sounded a five cats tied in sack. No. Fifty. Fifty cats. It was AWFUL. And LOUD. Awfully loud. And it went on and on and on....

Generally Patrick is his own most stringent critic. He is the first person to squinch up his face and announce that something he has done "needs work". His Lego cars spend more time in the shop than an AMC Pacer. So when he finally put the harmonica down I expected him to say something involving the word "practice".

Instead he looked at me with an incredulous dawning pride. "My gosh," he said. "That was GREAT!" And started again... blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

Welcome to Harmonicaville, population me.

One of the things that the Post article mentions is that every single child who passed Josh Bell wanted to stop. A three year-old named Evan in particular craned desperately around his hurried mother in an effort to see the violinist as he played. When I read this yesterday I thought, "Nah, not Patrick. He wouldn't have wanted to stop any more than I would have."

Now I am second-guessing that thought. After an entire day of harmonica a la Patrick I am willing to bet that my son would indeed have wanted to stop. And, having done so, he would have asked the master violinist if he happened to know "Turkey in the Straw".

I think I might have to try listening to classical music again. For both our sakes.

Disparate

A few things:

1. The story goes that a sixteen year-old Lana Turner one day skipped her typing class at Hollywood High and was discovered at the soda fountain of Schwab's by an agent who immediately vaulted her into moviestardom. According to wikipedia it was actually the Top Hat Cafe, not Schwab's, but the rest of it is all true true true.

It is an appealing tale for a slacker like myself. One minute you are sipping a vanilla coke and thinking about how very uninterested you are in learning to type; the next someone comes along and fulfills your wildest ambitions with absolutely zero effort on your part. It's like Lazy Nirvana.

I mention this because the nicest thing has happened and it reminds me of nothing so much as the Lana Turner story (her real name, incidentally and thank you again wikipedia, was Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner, which is practically MY name- less all that Alabamanian).

In January I got an email from the online director of REDBOOK magazine. That is how they write it, all caps like that, and who am I to question over a hundred years of proud tradition? Nobody, that's who. So this charming woman from REDBOOK emailed and said they had a project that they wanted to discuss and asked if I would give her a call. I sipped my vanilla coke and wondered how many other sweater girls have fallen prey to similar plays on their vanity. All someone would have to do is gaze deeply into my eyes and tell me how very talented they think I am and before I knew it I would be imprisoned in a filthy basement writing internet porn for $0.00001 per word.

Well, maybe that is how the Ladies' Home operates but not REDBOOK, man. REDBOOK (I don't think I can keep capitalizing it after all. it feels like the internet equivalent of jazz hands) is a class act.

The short version is that they have decided to dedicate some of their online presence to infertility and a part of this new community will be a two-person blog called the Infertility Diaries. They wanted to know if I would be one of them (the Falstaff, I am guessing, because one of their real editors will be the other blogger).

I had some questions.

Could I write just like I do right now? Could I swear? Butcher grammar? Ramble? Tell stories? Talk about sex? Yes, they said. Yes yes yes yes and emphatically yes.   

And they would pay me.

I think this must be what it feels like to be given money to dance or sing or paint or whatever it is that you love to do more than anything. It's like flying. It's like magic. 

They had me at "no, not porn" but then they let me write a page for the June issue of the actual, real, honest-to-god magazine based upon excerpts from here and I fell over and died.

So that's my news. The Infertility Diaries go live on April 17th and I'll write there two to three to four times a week about fertility and infertility and whatnot and our upcoming IVF cycle and whatever comes after that for us. For the love of all that is holy PLEASE come and leave comments on the new site. I am very anxious to make a good impression and I am nothing without you.

And this blog (for those of you who don't already feel like you have 100% more of me than you ever needed) will continue just like it is. I'm not sure exactly what the Infertility Diaries will look like when all is said and done (I mean in terms of content) but I am quite certain that they should not prominently feature stories about my existing lump of delectable love. And if I don't tell stories about Patrick I get all clogged with 'em. And that's not healthy.

In conclusion I am very excited and flattered and I am nervous as hell and I will post the link when we get closer and I really hope you like it.

2. Patrick came in second overall in the office/family pool. His correct prognostication of Florida's two-peat was not quite enough to overcome Papa Stan's point advantage going into the finals. He took the loss philosophically, noting that Papa Stan did well and that he, Patrick, still had more points than everybody else. My brother called to ask (like he does every goddamned year that he does not win) just how I devised the point system because he personally thought it was flawed and one of Steve's researchers sent a scorching email stating he thought the pool was "lame". Bitter apples, just a bunch of bitter apples.

3. I am a terrible driver. No one is saying that I'm not. I cannot parallel park. I cannot drive backwards without opening the driver's door and twisting my upper body out and all the way around. Just today I gave my full, undivided attention to a particularly lovely pastoral scene (black-and-white cow standing in a frosty meadow) rather than watch where I was going. Nothing happened, of course, because you can imagine how much traffic there is when the scenery is cluttered with actual cows. Still, the fact remains that I am a terrible driver.

However, even *I* know that neither the law nor common sense requires you to swerve half off the road and come to complete stop simply because a police car appears on the distant horizon. And not a sirens-blaring, lights-flashing police car, either. Just your bog-standard sheriff's deputy making what we used to call during my girlhood in Victorian London "the rounds". Frankly it looked damned suspicious, Taupe Minivan, and I am not ashamed to admit that your sudden and unexpected lack of Go almost caused me to wind up in your lap.

And not just because I was looking at a cow at the time.

4. Steve agreed to be the Easter Bunny for Patrick's preschool today. I had to assure him that this was a non-speaking role with limited business. I then promised him that it would be as easy as snoring and was well within his range of abilities.

This was before I remembered Steve's startling and comprehensive lack of familiarity with all cultural Christianity. Quakers*. I swear.

"The bunny suit will be in the room next to the classroom and the basket with the goodie-stuffed-eggs will be next to it," I said.   

"And I put on the bunny suit?"

"Right!"

"And then I climb into the basket and they'll drag me into the class?"

What the hell, Steve? I think he was somehow introducing Santa's sleigh into the equation. Cute, in a way, but good grief, you big dumb bunny.

"Wear costume. Carry basket. Distribute eggs. Got it?" He got it.

And a delightful time was had by all, even Patrick although he politely but firmly refused to accept anything he was offered. I told you he thinks eggs are the work of the devil. Apparently even pink plastic ones filled with sweet*tarts.

*No disrespect to the Friends. Steve's sisters were given identical upbringings and I am quite certain both of them know their way around the holidays. Steve is just a complete tool sometimes.

In Color

All hail antibiotics. Also: benadryl, children's advil, cortisone, this over the counter stuff called (appetizingly) Mucinex, and nice hot cups of tea. We will live. Thank you very much for the advice re. infections and the reassurance re. diet. Oh and so noted about the possibility that the hives could be an allergic reaction after all. They DID respond quickly to the cortisone and the benadryl, they just kept coming back for a few days. Nothing since before the weekend though so I am hopeful they are gone and were viral. Will not rule out other causes, however

I once connected with a well-hit softball right on the very tip of my index finger. I remember it like it was yesterday: first I saw stars, then I crawled into the tall grass and discreetly but thoroughly threw up. And the only reason I was there at all was because a bartender to whom I was desperate to show my etchings had asked if I could fill-in on his co-ed team. Something something about a shortage of women leading to blah blah forfeiture. The only thing I cared about was putting a glaze over his pretty green eyes but I had heard that men like it if you show interest in their little enthusiasms. They don't want to be seen as mere objects for some reason. So I went to the stupid game and I stood in the damned field watching nervously for snakes and the next thing I knew my fingernail turned black and fell off. A decade later and that nail still grows funny, all ridged and flatly splayed. And it turned out that he wasn't even worth it, although to be fair by the time I finally wrestled that Pamela to the metaphoric ground I was deeply mourning the bloody stump where my nail used to be. So faults on both sides, no doubt.

The reason I bring it up is that it was the most painful moment I have ever experienced north of my navel and one that I would not care to repeat. Coming in a close second, however, are all those times I have inadvertently snorted water into my sinuses, either by injudiciously hitting the high note while showering or failing to bring my conversation to a full and complete stop before jumping into a pool. So although I have no doubts whatsoever in the curative powers of a nice nasal sluicing (via neti pot, tea pot, drain spout or garlic press) I, personally, would rather die. But thank you very much for the suggestion and I hope someone else is able to benefit from it.

I never know what Patrick is going to be interested in on any given day.

Sometimes he decides he is going to master writing the evolutionary history of the alphabet from Phoenician to Modern             

and sometimes he spends dawn to dusk making very silly things with Legos

and, provided he manages to pursue these interests without hanging on my arm or whining a lot or standing on me, it is all the same to me, really.

All I ask is that he get himself dressed first. Which is not that much to ask when you think about it. Yet he never ever does. Ever. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of fiercely independent stage? The I Can Do It Myself phase? What happened to that? It seems as if I have spent years with some portion of every day dedicated to following Patrick around like a sucker, underpants in hand*. Patrick, like Beau Brummel before him, realized early that the man who valets himself has a fool for a client. Every day I say, "Go get dressed, Patrick." And every day he replies, "No thanks!"

Until this morning when he shocked my lights out. He said "Sure!" and raced upstairs to dress himself.

Thusly:

 

Good heavens. The red pants, the blue and brown socks, the orange and blue striped shirt that no longer quite fits and last week's tie-dye project... together. All at once. Like a clown in a blender. Remember Steve's beloved duvet of much awfulness? Well, Steve thought this particular ensemble of Patrick's was aces. In fact when I casually called Steve over to say goodbye before Patrick went to school he couldn't figure out what I was bugging my eyes out about. Perhaps tastelessness passes through the male line in this family? Or are all children so... vivid?

He also needs a haircut.

So much for Beau Patrick.   

*It occurs to me that I might possibly preempt another one of those delightful moments in which a total stranger writes (one assumes with a straight face) "Maybe you would be blessed with another child if you knew how to parent the one you have" by pointing out that I do, in fact, set rules and boundaries for Patrick all the time. Some days are so packed with loving discipline that I need half a bottle of claret and a cold compress just to make it into bed by the end of them. However, you pick your battles with children and this is just one I never had the heart to pursue very far. I assumed that one day he would just do it on his own. And he did. In technicolor.