How Rock Starts

Not with a bang, but in the kitchen.

Folked

I told him he couldn't watch "Casper the Friendly Ghost" while I was packing lunch, he could only watch it while I cleaned the catbox. He stomped to his room from whence came the sounds of crying. Within minutes, this:

That's it, boy. Pour all your despair, pain, and disappointment into your craft. It will serve you well.

Dreams

February, 2013

Our house is small. 840 square feet. And this is one reason we never had a baby monitor. We served as living, breathing baby monitors, and our son is not an independent sleeper.

In all likelihood, he is a monster of our own creation, assembled from the criminal wreckage of our psyches, but in the end it doesn't matter how we arrived here. We are here, and we are awake. And likely to remain so for quite some time.

Oh, it's definitely improved. Sometimes he makes it until 6 a.m. Every once and a while he makes it even farther: I awaken before he does and assume he has suffered late-onset SIDS. But mostly, it's between 12:30 and 3:30 a.m. when we hear the bed creak. Those bare feet hit the floor, and he climbs into bed with us.

Tonight, I was in the kitchen, resisting all attempts to post snark and vague allusions to my mental state on Facebook*, when I heard babywhumpus crying in his room at the farthest corner of the house (see above: 840 square feet). That’s usually “bad dream” territory and is not common when considered in the panoply of his awakenings, so I went to him. As I am by myself while daddywhumpus is out of town tending to his Big Fat Life, I picked up my sweaty, sad boy and placed him directly into my bed, moving my base of operations there for the night. He went back to sleep easily. Indeed, I doubt he will remember it in the morning; and I found myself wondering what he dreamed about.

What are the scary dreams of children? Monsters, abandonment, darkness? Are they much different, in essence, than the scary dreams of grown-ups? He never can tell us, neither at the time nor in the morning. Though in the cold light of day, he will often make something up, using bits from his surroundings and videos he has seen. Aliens, zombies, brains...

I am guessing the themes are the same, as I don’t believe he is a sociopath, and his worries are universal human ones. The main difference being that as adults we have accumulated experiences that make our nightmares more vivid. Our brain hones the ability to target itself at its most vulnerable and goes in for the kill. We have the details to really, super scare ourselves.

When we wake up in a sweat, and in our unconscious, our partner has left us, we remember the scathing words, the recrimination, the self doubt, the smell of toast in the room, and we tell our partner, who has not left, all about it as they sit in front of us buttering toast and wondering if he or she should feel bad that they dream-left us. We know that it’s all crazy, but we still need them to say, “Oh, honey, I would never do that,” and pat us on the shoulder as they hand us our coffee.

*Thank Hades there was no social media when I was in my twenties. Or early thirties.

Consequently

I told him not to do it, and I told him that if he did do it, he had to clean it all up afterwards, and it was going to make a big mess. So he did it, a few times, and then he wanted to move on to something else. I told him that first, he had to clean up all the stuff he did, and he commenced whining. I explained that I had warned him of the consequences prior to his actions, he said, "I know," and did it anyway, so now he had to deal with the mess. He grudgingly started picking it up. Eventually, he complained that it was taking too long. I repeated my small speech on the consequences of his actions and agreed to help him. Soon, he said, "This is making me tired." I told him that if he was tired, he could go and take a nap. He stomped off to his bed. After a few minutes, he came out into the hallway and looked at the floor, where the mess remained. He looked at me. I said that he still had to clean up his mess, I wasn't going to do it for him. He whined and flopped onto the wall. I said he should just go and lay down if he wanted to act that way. He is now in his room where he is fake crying with brief bursts of quiet to see if I have relented and am approaching his room.

This is the first time I have had to write in weeks.

And I will still have to clean up most of the mess.

Time Minion

It's winter 2009 and I am typing on my iPod touch while watching sitcom reruns on DVD and my infant sleeps on me.

Oh wait. It's winter 2013 and I am typing on my iPhone while streaming sitcom reruns on Netflix and my preschooler sleeps on me.

Four years later, and here I am. Pinned to the couch.

I am going to start a club called Underachievers Anonymous.*

*Fortunately, I am an underachiever, so I don't have to worry about capitalizing on this idea.

Go Poop

The following is a transcript of an actual event.

I have to go poop!

Privacy please.

You’d better get to the couch fast.

Mama, why don’t you shave?

Mama, what is that you’re putting on your hands?

Hey Mama, day care got an R2D2 toy. Jandro’s got an R2D2 costume.

Mama, Jandro also got a little R2D2 things for Halloween.

sings "Take me out to the ballgame."

whisper sings "I sing a song while I poop."

sings "Take me out to the ballgame."

squeak sings "Take me out to the ballgame."

Hey mama, mama! sings in silly voice ranging from low to high in tune of "Take me out to the ball game"  Take me out to the ballgame, if you give me some jelly I’ll throw down on somebody’s face on the stinky team of football stinky football team not my favorite buy me some peanuts and cracker jack one two three four five one two three four five six, six seven eight nine ten eleven I say (unintelligible)

sings “Deep in the hundred acre wood,” intentionally mixing up the words.

transfers into "Take me out to the ballgame"

Done, mama!

Mama, I’m done!

In Which I Set Impossibly High Standards for Myself Thereby Insuring the Necessity for Repeating this Process Same Time, Next Year

New Year's Resolutions blow. So I'm keeping it simple. And a month late.

1. Complete 2012. I'm not kidding. This includes books, essays, knitting, art, house projects, and any other random thing I started in the year previous to 2013. As this will consume the better part of a year, this is my only resolution aside from #2.

2. Buy new socks and underwear and throw the old ones away*. Seriously, what is wrong with me?

*with a few exceptions. Ladies, you know what I am talking about.