Looking Out For Number Two

I looked up from our cabin’s off-white kitchen peninsula to see my husband, Craig, holding our son in the awkward, half-hug of a body vice grip and urgently asking, “What is in your hand, Milo?  What is that??”. 

Poo.  It’s poo, Dad.

Score one for Kiwi the Cat, who apparently thinks that dragging bits of yesterday’s processed kibble into the living room is a fitting exchange for the millions upon millions of Rice Chex and Goldfish crackers that Milo leaves for her on the carpet, wood floor and every possible crack and crevice within his ever-expanding reach.  At least she didn’t go for quantity, and at least he didn’t eat it.  In the face of impending dysentery, some things are still worth being grateful for. 

Public enemy “number two”

I keep telling myself that I will miss these days.  These days, so full of food flinging, mysterious wet substances and a reoccurring festival of tears when the hand sanitizer is taken out of reach.  I will miss this.  Careening like a drunken circus performer down the front lawn toward open water.  I will miss this.  Toilet paper-ing the house as proficiently as a high school senior on Halloween.  I.  Will.  Miss.  This. 

He’s been known to stick 

things

in

his

mouth.

But really, who am I kidding?  Of course I will.  If, two years ago, someone had described the parenting of a young child as fun (and they did), I mostly thought they were as well put together as the embossed warning on my dad’s industrial strength, alarmingly effective ice-shaver: 

Be Careful Finger.

However, to my pride-swallowing surprise, they were correct.  Even more than correct, they were radically understating the fanciful glee-factory that lay ahead of us.  While Milo has caused me to exchange my ideas of sleeping in and sleeping well for simply sleeping at all, he has enhanced just about every other aspect of my life.  Except for road trips and dinner out, that is, and probably general hygiene, but who’s keeping track, really?  That multitude of people I know who have said, “you will see things differently”, or “life will carry new meaning”, were right, and I humbly admit that I am now learning to see the world with fresh eyes.  In particular, I am seeing the vast and varied world of excrement in a whole new light.

You might think this to be my segue into a tale of diapers and diarrhea (or diarrhear as we say up heyah on a regulah basis to keep the inmates from really losing it), but you would be wrong.  Today, I have my sights set strictly on feline feces.

As I puttered away down our three-mile gravel driveway on the twenty-five minute drive to town and the grocery store, I found myself periodically snorting and sniggering, totally amused at both the enthusiasm and significance of Milo’s morning discovery.  Don’t we all pick up a little crap every now and then?  More often than not, it looks like poo, smells like poo, and – oh, no – does it taste like poo??  Yes.  Gasp. Yes, it does.  And yet, there we are, clutching it’s nasty contents in our grip, seemingly unaware that we’ve seized hold of something that seeks to do us foul, filthy harm. 

Jealousy over a good-looking friend?  Nasty.

Bitterness over a wrong that you can hardly remember?  Foul.

Anger over something trite?  Filthy. 

An addictive habit?  Poo. 

(Especially true if that somehow is your addictive habit.  And especially unsanitary.) 

I don’t know about you, but – good glory – I know that I’ve picked up handfuls of the stuff in my years.  Interestingly enough, Milo released his small but surprisingly robust grip on his pirate’s treasure this morning far more promptly and agreeably than I have been known to release my vices.  This is a trail we could easily bunny hop down, because the only reason Milo gave it up so readily was because I offered him hand sanitizer in a trade, which is as I mentioned above, a favorite substance to squish through his fingers. If I hadn’t offered him something new, he would have been sorely tempted to snatch his bounty away from my grasp.  I believe there is a life lesson hiding here somewhere….

(Like, Why didn’t you notice the cat crap on your floor before your toddler did?)

(No, not that life lesson.  The other one.)

Just like that cat scat would have been toxic to Milo had it somehow *utter silent praise* been ingested or had festered in his grip for too long, the nasty habits and harmful characteristics I have picked up are also lethal to me if I don’t learn to offload them.  Which, I think you’ll agree, isn’t as easy as simply relaxing my hand.

Today’s episode was important for me, because as time progresses, I am increasingly desensitized to what I’m hanging on to:  it’s weight, it’s smell, it’s  *gag* texture.  I get so desensitized, in fact, that I completely forget about it.  I fail to see that I am bitter.  I overlook that I am jealous.   So I am thankful for the reminder this morning to reflect on my rancid baggage – the unhealthy and distancing things I have held onto – in hopes that I might spark a decision to put them down.  I’m reminded that, so far, I have chosen to embrace these things and that unless I make a deliberate choice to release my grip, they will persist and fester and ruin me. 

I am grateful for Milo, in innumerable ways, and realize that over time and through new experiences, I will become even more grateful: for his perspective and audacity; for his lack of a filter and lack of fear.    But today, I am specifically thankful for this reminder, and for Craig’s masterful speed and agility, and finally, for someone paying any semblance of dutiful attention in this house.  

Of Spilled Milk and Modern Warfare

Wednesday's lunch was rough.  Broccoli seemed to be flying everywhere and Milo was repeatedly dropping his blue sippy cup of milk off of the ledge of his high chair table, generously spattering bubbles of sticky fluid on the wood floor that comprises his messy, ever-increasing domain.  A domain I had, not two hours earlier, vacuumed and mopped.  Labor made obsolete in seconds by two tiny hands and a healthy lunch.  

POOF.

The mess had nothing to do with what made lunch so tragic.   What had actually sent me careening off course was the presence of that devil-headed bane of humans everywhere: 

failure.  

It set upon me like a guided missile, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, with a bang.

I rarely cry.  It is something of a point of pride for me, which I’m discovering is 1) prideful, 2) a little barbaric, and 3) more than a little graceless.  Well, while I was attempting to ladle mounds of blueberry yogurt into my son’s yammer, I was completely. losing. it.  

And he thought it was laugh-out-loud hilarious.  Point, Milo.

Backstory: I had booked an appointment at an optometrist.  They had an opening due to a cancellation the next day, and it was -gasp- on the exact day that my hubs was taking off – a miracle!  No need to inconvenience anyone [except my husband, again...]!  Huzzah!  I had been putting off the eye doctor for awhile, which I think was starting to drive Craig nuts, since I was talking about it every other day, and this opening seemed like providence.  

Could I make it?  

YES.  YesYesYes.

It felt like I’d won the lottery.

Until I realized that I didn’t know what day it was.  This took place on Wednesday.  Which I failed to realize.  Or rather, that my appointment was the next day, on Thursday.  Which is not the same as Friday.  Which again, I failed to realize.

Because I stay at home and don’t work and never look at a calendar because I don’t work and stay at home and have no purpose and can’t even keep a floor clean or remember that it’s Wednesday.

Ugh.  That’s when it got ugly.  I won’t go into the depths of it, because no one wants to experience that twice, but the bottom line is that I was feeling like a total and utter flop.   

Something I’m learning as I stay home with Milo is that the voices I have allowed to survive in my head are, in part, incredibly unkind.  We are always cultivating our minds, by what we plant and prune and water, and I have allowed a split crop of self-pity and nasty self talk to take root.  I don’t think I am alone.  You might be a dad or mom at home, like me, or perhaps you are working full time, or are single, or unemployed, or retired, or married, or divorced, or widowed, or like grape soda or run a circus, or run a circus while drinking grape soda – which, I don’t know, sounds sort of great.  Regardless of your circumstance and role, I have a sinking feeling that you also beat yourself up every now and again.  

Or again and again.

Today I remind myself, and perhaps, you, that what I need more than a clean floor or a full schedule is a serious helping of grace, accompanied by a wake-up-you-crazy-person slap across the jaw.  

The world is full of ammunition.  Full of smooth stones named comparison and pride and lies.  

And as we walk among this weaponry, some of us choose to throw these stones at the people around us.  Others carry them in our arms until the burden is so heavy that we can’t walk.  

Good glory, child.  Put. down. the. weapons. *Smack*

Newsflash:  We will never be enough.  Not for this broken world.  

Never busy enough, or put-together enough. 

Not witty enough or perceptive enough.  

Never attentive enough or organized enough. 

Not rich enough or selfless enough.  

Never fit enough or well-read enough or relaxed enough or patient enough or exceptional enough.

So quit playing by the wrong rules.  Cry when you need to cry.  Scream sometimes.  The world does not need another person who is too crippled by fear and self-loathing to function.  It needs you.  It needs me.  It needs the character that you have and your smile, and my hands and my voice.  It needs your love and your listening ears and my laugh and my feet.  It needs us to clean up the rubble so that the next person can walk in the clear.

Handlettering work by the amazing Jessa B..

I will need to wake each and every morning and remind myself that this is still true: today, tomorrow, and the 20,000 days after that.  But it is necessary for me, and it is necessary for you.  

Because that broccoli is coming, baby, and we'd better be ready.

Sunny With A Chance Of Tantrums

Some days I feel like a total monster.  Monday afternoon was like this.

It moves in sequence.  My head starts to hurt, my energy wanes, my attitude dips below the "pleasant and professional" line, and my expression looks like I've just been told my life's vocation will be to lick stamps.

I think that maybe I need a snack.  So l nibble on some almonds, the fit-and-healthy choice of champions. 

But now I find that I've consumed enough almonds to feed all of the squirrels in Illinois until at least August.

It all happened so fast.

I like to think that I'm a pretty happy person, you know, cheery-with-a-chance-of-rain, but every now and again about twice a week,  it's like Mr. Hyde takes over and I become a showers-with-a-chance-of-sinkholes kind of girl, which makes me pretty hard to deal with.  Usually C just gives me a look of disdain and asks how he can fix it, which only makes me more ugly and inconsolable, and then I disappear for some alone time.  And some more almonds.

source

The best cure that I've found for the grumpies is a friend that doesn't care.  I have a friend like this named Amy.  Amy is terrific for a lot of reasons, but at the top of the pile is her ability to talk to me like a 27 year-old adult.  Well, most of the time.  She doesn't coddle my cranky attitude or snap at me with frustration, or even push me down the stairs like I deserve.  She just talks like I'm a normal human being (which is giving credit where very little is due), and suddenly the skies open up and the forecast starts looking crystal clear.

It's very similar to, when your favorite 3 year old falls and starts to whine, talking to them like they are fine, even happy.  Like they are riding down the slide at their favorite park.

source

So the next time your friend/spouse/buddy is acting like an angry rattlesnake, get your Amy on and talk to them like they can handle a little bad weather.  

Or you could just push them down the stairs and watch them drown in their own empty almond cans, like I they probably deserve.