Better Parenting Through Abandonment

This weekend was Jason's company's annual holiday party, also known as the event we always get SO. EXCITED. about because it involves a full night away from our ungrateful, wretched children, thanks to a super-discounted hotel room and free babysitting from the in-laws, but also MORE CORRECTLY known as the event that never quite works out the way we hope, as we either 1) stay up too late, 2) drink too much, or 3) both, always both, and then either wake up just as early (or earlier) as we usually do because of 1) hangovers, 2)  construction noise from four feet from our hotel room window, 3) that weird parental spidey-sense you get because OMG, it's 7 am, my child is waking up and demanding cereal two zip codes over, or 4) some hellacious combination of All Of The Above.

(That whole paragraph, including two [2!] separate numbered lists, was one sentence. That might be my finest work yet.)

This year was no exception. After a deadly combination of inedible finger food and cheap-ass liquor, our night ended during an after-party in the hotel lounge, where I sat around talking to people I've never met before about topics I don't quite remember.  I am going to guess it wasn't my finest hour, as at some point a woman across the table said something like, "Well, I'M a Republican," and I was all, "Shit, am I talking about politics? Shit. Ctrl-Z, man, sorry." And then everyone stared at me and I started explaining what Ctrl-Z meant and the entire table was like, "WE'RE COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS, MORON."

Another woman kept trying to give me her bracelet after I said I liked it.. Then I woke up and my head hurt. The end!

At least my dress was pretty. 

(Yes, the red hair has faded muchly. That was the original idea: a semi-permanent copper color that would quickly fade to a strawberry blond in case I didn't like the darker shade. Except that I did like the darker shade and am dying to go back and color it again, but also don't want my poor over-processed hair to snap off like twigs above my ears.)

And my children were appropriately scarred for life, as they both up and got themselves massive cases of separation anxiety out of nowhere. Before we left on Saturday afternoon, Noah hurled himself onto the couch and wailed, begging us not to leave him in the care of two doting grandparents who would surely do terrible things like...I don't know, PLAY TOYS and WATCH TV with him. Last night he came into our room four times between 1 am and 3:30 am, mostly to make sure we were present and accounted for through a series of pokes and forcible eyelid openings.

Ezra was napping when we left, and oh, that was a bit of a mistake, letting him wake up after we were gone. He now fights sleep tooth and nail, thrashing around any time we get ANYWHERE near his crib, clinging to me like a desperate baby monkey. So that's fun! And not guilt-inducing at all. Or annoying.

(My in-laws are still here, by the way. The reason this entry is all over the place is that I only feel like I am "working" [and thus not obligated to entertain and/or dodge political/religious conversations with them] when I am typing. So. Typing! Typing after two terrible nights of no sleep! My brain in no longer hooked up to my fingers! Type type type-y type.)

(I haven't eaten lunch yet, either. My in-laws are like, HEALTHY, hardcore near-vegan raw food healthy, and whenever they are here I get insatiable cravings for crap like hot dogs and spend my days plotting how I could eat one [or four] without anyone noticing.)

(Oh, God. This isn't fair to you guys, making you sit around reading my stream-of-sleep-deprived-hot-dog-obsessed-consciousness. I should just go type some emails or something. Here, have a baby picture. Just try not to zerbert your computer screen, okay?)

(Next up: plot how to eat baby without anyone noticing. GLOM.)

Let's Sit Down & Throw Some Words at the Screen For Awhile

Oh hi, this is me, typing with no head. It blew off. Or up. I don't know. I don't remember. Your head is where you keep your memory. All I know is that one day I looked around and realized that I have an freaking buttload of deadlines and work obligations every day and two very high maintenance children who want love and attention and someone to keep the little one from drinking dish detergent or slamming his fingers in drawers or...or...oh HELL, he's got the adjustable-blade slicer from the kitchen. Again. Today. 

Head. BOOM! Just like that.

Wut?

Hilariously, optimistically, I placed an ad for a part-time mother's helper-type person about three weeks ago. And I got a ton of interest and applications and promises of never-ending love and devotion to my children, at least for 10 hours a week, as it seems This Fucking Economy has left a bazillion previously-out-of-our-price-range, actual-real-professional nannies unemployed around here, so they're all promising stuff like cooking meals and housekeeping and taking my baby to the ART MUSEUM, or something. Teaching him German. Handicrafts. I'm like: Or you could just keep his hands out of the toilets, more or less. I'm fine with that too.

And yet I have not actually contacted anyone to move forward with the whole screening/interviewing/hiring process, because I am trapped in an endless vicious cycle of deadlines, work obligations, two very high maintenance children, a blog audience that starts looking at me bug-eyed and impatient if I go more than three days without updating because UR BLOG SUX NAO. So I've determined that what I ACTUALLY need is to hire someone to hire the babysitter for me. Are you interested? I will pay you in harried weeping. 

 

Moooommm, I set the living room on fire again. Just FYIIIIII.

ANYWAY. Sorry. That was a boring and whiny-sounding story. I'm not doing too well as a Headless Neckstump, I guess. Oh, hey! Squirrel! And! We went to Pennsylvania this weekend for my dad's birthday party. His 80th birthday party. If you've read along for any stretch of time, at least long enough to know that my dad has nearly died like, oh, four dozen separate times, over half of which occurred this year alone, I hope you will join me in an appreciative FUCK YEAH to that.

<here is where I would insert a totally kick-ass photo of my dad holding my boys, or maybe one of the two of us, or maybe one of just him, looking healthy and vibrant, laughing at his party, surrounded by his friends, looking more like himself than he has in over a year>

<here are some crickets instead, because I did not take a single actual photo all weekend, except for that last one I just described, but that actually only exists in my head, from memory>

<and I've already discussed The Thing With My Head, Which Is Gone>

<crickets>

The weirdest part of the weekend was at one point realizing that I was absolutely surrounded by my parents' friends -- all people I've met before, but whom I ONLY know in the context of hospital waiting rooms. They're the ones who show up to visit with my mom while we pace the hallways, stare at the vending machines, grimace over cafeteria coffee. They come in, make jokes, cheerfully compliment to view from my dad's window, even if it's mostly of the hospital parking lot. They offer rides and food for my mom, and for me, big warm hugs that I accept in a stiffened panic. One friend showed me photos of a three-month-old Ezra he still had on his camera phone, snapped last January in yet another hospital room, right before my dad's heart surgery. My parents' next-door neighbor was there, a woman I've probably spoken a dozen words with, even though I know she's the rock who keeps my parents' grass mowed, plants watered and mail collected whenever crisis hits.

I chatted politely with them all, flushing whenever another nice older lady or man told me how gorgeous the boys were, and how lovely I looked. I wondered if I really did look different to them from the usual drawn, worried hospital version who had driven in after midnight the night before. One woman looked across the room at my dad and burst into tears, overwhelmed by exactly what we were all thinking. I can't believe he's still here. I'm so glad he's still here.

I didn't know what else to do, so I hugged her and thanked her. For what? She asked.

Oh, goodness. Where to even start?

In Lieu Of

This post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

I was in the ninth grade. It was early spring, a few weeks before Easter. My mom offered to take me out for lunch, and I, in my infinite gastronomical taste and sense of occasion, chose Taco Bell. We sat at a tiny table by the window. I remember I talked a lot.  I don’t remember what I talked about, but afterward, when we got back into the car, my mom drove out of the parking lot…and then parked the car a few yards away, in a different fast food parking lot.

That’s when we had the conversation I realized my mom had probably intended to have at the restaurant.

“Your dad has cancer.”

***

He had cancer of the larynx, to be exact. The voice box. He’d quit smoking when I was a tiny little asthmatic thing, but the long years of cigarettes and daily high school English lectures had taken a terrible toll. He underwent radiation. I have a weird memory of going with him to a radiation treatment that I think I may have made up. I started writing short stories and essays in earnest around this time. That Easter, my parents gave me a tiny black-and-white kitten. Her name was Sabrina. She cheered us all up, and she was especially fond of sleeping on my dad’s chest and stomach during his naps. He took a lot of naps.

But the cancer went into remission.

***

Five years later, I was a freshman in college. I was attending a tiny Christian college in the Midwest, 13 hours from home, and absolutely miserable. Not even a full semester had gone by, but I knew I’d made a terrible decision. I had no idea how to fix things or admit that I hated it there without disappointing my parents – especially my dad.

That’s when the phone call came. I was sitting outside in the hallway, the curly phone cord stretched across my tiny cell of a dorm room, when my mom’s words buzzed over the receiver, causing me to slide down the wall to the floor.

“The cancer is back.”

***

I came home and stayed there. My dad had accepted an early retirement package from the school district after his first diagnosis, and been teaching as an adjunct professor at a local community college. I got to attend it for free. I was happy there. I made friends and good grades and landed the lead in the drama production.

I also, inexplicably, like a jackass, took up smoking.

But I quit just a few months later, at the urging of my boyfriend. A tall, dark-haired boy who held my hand for hours in the hospital waiting room, whom my father had eyed warily from his bed as they wheeled him into surgery. He would lose his larynx, and his voice. His voice that I listed to on my old walkman while we waited, a tape he’d made at my request, a recording of his rich voice reading bits of Shakespeare and Bible passages until the rasping, tired soreness of the cancer took over and he had to stop.

***

The tall dark-haired boy and I were married a little over a year later. My dad read I Corinthians 13 at the ceremony in a hoarse whisper, his new voice. A few months after that, my cat Sabrina died of lymphoma.

***

I was pregnant when the next call came. I don’t remember any details like I remember details from the other moments. The grey interior of our Ford Taurus. The slickly painted cement walls of my dorm. The ugly blotchy pastel furniture of the hospital.

I was probably at home, probably wandering aimlessly around the living room like I always do when I’m on the phone. She’d probably told me to sit down, but I’m not sure I listened, since I was so sure it was nothing, so sure there was no question that my parents were fine now and would meet this grandchild. My dad had been cancer-free for years, my mom’s few scattered health scares had a remarkable track record for not being anything really, truly serious.

Until now. She had breast cancer. She needed a mastectomy.

***

Both of my parents are still here, still alive. They’ve met not one, but three new grandchildren since my mom’s diagnosis in 2005. My father has gone on to fight many other health battles, from thyroid cancer to skin cancer to an aortic aneurysm to diabetes to emphysema to congestive heart failure. AND HE IS STILL HERE.

When my grandmother died several years ago – of complications from a fall in the shower, not cancer; in fact cancer has yet to successfully take out a single member of my family – my mother still asked that donations be made to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers.

The American Cancer Society asked those of us participating in this sponsored post/awareness campaign to keep our stories of how cancer has affected us mostly positive, to not dwell on the insidious, the unrelenting nature of cancer, of the fear that hangs over your head once the diagnosis is made – fear of every check-up, every late-night phone call.

I could have easily written that entry. Cancer changed the course of my life – cancer was *right there* at every major turning point, nudging and sometimes walloping me in directions I never would have otherwise gone.  I don’t ever want to get cancer. I don’t want my husband or my children to get cancer. I will continue to donate to cancer research to up our odds.

But I know it can be survived, and survived spectacularly. That’s the story I really want to tell, the story I hope came through in my rambling today, the story of a family who kicked cancer’s ass, in lieu of the other way around.

 

So Many Entries to Write, and Yet I Give You This

I am losing mah mind over here, people. You know it's bad when I start breaking out the phonetic Southern accent that I don't actually talk with.

1) My baby is SIX MONTHS OLD today. Six! Such a random number to get worked up about, I know, but six! Half a year! Totally in need of a long detailed entry about the state of every tiny little thing he does! But who is going to write that, I ask you. WHO? All my ghostwriters called in drunk.

2) Noah's evaluation with the school district is TOMORROW. At the crack of 9 o'clock. And I've got a whole entry about THAT percolating in my brain, in which I confess that the last couple weeks have actually been w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l and we've made a lot of great p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s and now I have NO idea what to expect from him tomorrow, like I think there might be a chance we get sent home with zero services and I think I might be okay with that, because seriously: w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l. But the minute I say all of that out loud I just know I will jinx everything and come home tomorrow feeling like a truck up and ran over me, hence the s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g, which probably doesn't work so well on a blog, where everything is spelled, unless the universe gets easily confused by hyphens.

3) My dad was back in the emergency room yesterday, and this time was finally sent home with a new diagnosis other than effed-up lungs: congestive heart failure. Which I know is not quite the death sentence that the "HEART = FAIL" implies, but oh my God. He's already ON every medication in the world, he's already CHANGED his diet a million times over, he's already had TRIPLE GODDAMN BYPASS SURGERY, so...just between you and me, I would still like to tell the u-n-i-v-e-r-s-e to go f-u-c-k itself.

4) Now that I've maybe got a few of you feeling all sorry for me, please allow me to send you elsewhere! There's a new Bounce Back up, where we're talking about the things you wish somebody (fuck you, somebody!) had told you about breastfeeding. I'm also contributing (for a few weeks, anyway) to Clean Freak Confessions, one of those sponsored site things that I have to sheepishly ask you to maybe consider commenting over there and/or thumbs-upping my entries so the sponsor is all happy happy? Y'all are VERY good at making the sponsors happy, I must say, and for that I want to lick all of your faces. I have entries up (so far) about washing cloth diapers and how cleaning can help families coping with illness. Yes, the topic of the site is cleaning. I assume I shall run out of topics in about...oh, already.

5) And hey! Speaking of places to click and read and comment, look at these morons over here at Washingtonian.com. They look familiar. If you're one of the two or three people who have copped to being driven crazy by my refusal to tell you what our "girl name" was, I finally caved and revealed it to the interviewer, because what's the point? If I ever have another baby you just know it will be another boy. Probably twin boys. Or someone will leave an entire soccer team of boy babies on my doorstep, wrapped in Thomas the Crazy-Eyed Tank Engine blankets.

(And in the non-selfish realm of pimpage, check out my lovely new Twitter background & design. It looks like a real blog, where I actually remember to say things and update occasionally! Imagine that! Anyway, the folks at Sweet Blog Design can make one for you. Look, I'm on Twitter, I use Twitter, I totally still do not fucking understand Twitter, but I hear it's all kinds of important and the celebrities and the destroying of traditional journalism and all that. So you better make sure your profile is pretty.)

Oy

Oh, God. I seriously just typed, "Hi, we're all still alive" without thinking about it, because I wonder if some of you are expecting someone to NOT still be alive, which is like, heavy and bleak and depressing, especially since we are all MOST EMPHATICALLY ALL STILL ALIVE.

In fact, as evidence for the "I am perhaps made of magic after all" theory, I think my father has improved dramatically since I got here on Monday night, when he was thin and frail and shaking and I honestly didn't recognize the little old man wearing my dad's glasses. Then I made spaghetti and meatballs and he ate two helpings and I figured out how to TiVo the Phillies game even though the guide wasn't showing that there even WAS a Phillies game (leave it to my dad, though, to still know exactly when the Phillies are playing despite being bedridden since January), and today I brought him a terribly unhealthy lunch of a bacon cheeseburger, like do I know how to help a cardiac patient or what, and he ate that too and played lots of peekaboo with Ezra and declared him "human cuteness personified," which is English professor speak for NOM NOM NOM ON TEH BAYBEE.

On Tuesday his pulmonologist told us there was essentially nothing more anybody could do: it was up to my dad now. The body vs. the spirit. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm so glad I brought along these two handy dandy reminders that life is worth living.

 

 

 

On the Road Again

I'm loading up the boys and the suitcases and the crappy laptop and the car and trying to remember how to dismantle the damn Jumperoo lest I drive up to Philadelphia with it strapped merrily to the roof of my car, blaring Old MacDonald Had a Farm all the way up I-95. I'll be spending the week with my parents, and...gah. I don't know what to say about it anymore. It's...really, really bad, you guys. I would say more than that, but my mom reads and I don't think it will help anything to have it all spelled out here in black and white, and I'm guessing y'all can get the general idea of what's going on without me saying any more than that.

Anyway, my mom mostly comes here to look at baby photos because they cheer her up.

Therefore!

Sitting! Sort of.

Suspicious! Very.

Ridiculous rattlely socks! Chompy.

Sweet potatoes! Joyous.

Two teeth nubs! Juicy.

Big brother! Ignoring me.

Rocket ship! Blast off!  And other long-winded details re: plots of recent Little Einsteins episodes.

 
Handsome! And oh, but I am doomed.

I hope that helped, Mom, a little. I'll be there soon. We'll eat some brownies and have lasagna for dessert.

Exhaustification

Oh my God, y'all.

So Monday night* the phone rings, it's my mom, my dad is back in the hospital. Irregular EKG, lung problems, dizzy spells with chest pains and problems breathing, yadda blah etc. By midnight, he's been admitted, by Tuesday morning the doctors are all, MEH, go home, it's all probably nothing. Have some more Xanax. (My mother is EMPHATIC that these episodes are not panic attacks, as he already HAS panic attacks and takes Xanax for them but there is also Something Completely Different going on that no one seems willing to get to the bottom of.)

Oh, but before you go home this here nurse is gonna draw some blood and slap a bandage on you while completely forgetting about the massive amounts of blood thinners you're on and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE THINKING WE ARE ALL MAYBE LESS THAN COMPETENT?

I was all set to do that EVERYBODY! IN THE CAR! NOW! thing that I do, but I woke up with a cold, another blablittyblatbitch cold, hopefully the last one for winter (just in time for ALLERGY SEASON!). But still. Two topics that this blog has covered a few too many times in recent months: mortality of aging parents and mucus.

AND THEN! Something weird and complicated and completely boring happened with my phone and a voicemail from LAST THURSDAY suddenly appeared in my inbox and lo, this phantom voicemail was the school district, calling at long last to schedule Noah's evaluation. And I immediately called them back, all AAAAEEEIIII and OMGGGG and the nice lady who answered informed me that "everybody" was out at clinics that day and could I call back on Thursday? And then I said, "Sure! No problem!" And then I went home and bit my pillow and my brain leaked out all over it so FINE. NOW I HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY.

And then I thought to myself, "Self, you should just not write about any of this and hope that by Wednesday morning everything in the world is just magically all better."

(My optimism! It borders on deranged.)

Anyway. Hi, Wednesday! You sure did turn out to be overrated.

Here: Have a baby story. Ezra officially clocked in at five months old on Sunday, and according to my email newsletter of things to obsess over this month, he should be fully rolling from front to back by now. And I thought: Hmmm.

He can roll from his side to his front, but I'm not sure I've ever seen him roll back over from tha- OH LOOK THERE HE GOES.

So now we're at that delightful stage where I put him on a blanket, on his tummy, like I've always done because he actually really loves being on his tummy, only now he rolls over immediately and then squawks in protest because he hates being on his back WHY AM I ON MY BACK HALP HALP MOOOMMM!

And then I flip him back over and put a toy in front of him and he's all YAY I LOVE THIS TOY I'M GOING TO ROLL OVER WITH JOY OH FUCK NOW WHAT.

Therefore, I don't feel guilty about slapping bibs on him that represent my own personal belief system and values. He can't even READ yet. God. Those baby newsletters a load of crap.

* I know, I know. The recent-ish compulsion to start sentences off with "so" is SO on the top of my list of non-adorable grating blogging tics** to get rid of, along with overuse of "apparently" and "totally" and of course, ending every sentence with CAPS LOCK, but I am apparently totally unable to DO THAT, SO...

**Oh, God. I bet a good 25% of you never really noticed that I do those things all the time but now it's going to drive you completely batty everytime you read an entry here, sorry.

A Million Tiny Updates

My coffeemaker randomly overflowed AGAIN this morning, despite my remembering the inner basket and the filter and the carafe and it wasn't my fault and basically I HATE IT AND ITS ASS FACE.

***

The unthinkable (yet long-predicted-by-readers-of-this-blog) thing finally happened last night: Jason and I both turned to Noah -- our precious little speech-delayed child -- and begged him to please, just shut up for a goddamn minute, just be quiet, oh my God, my eardrums cannot take another second of full-volume chatter about goddamn Corduroy and his goddamn button and HERE COMES THE CAT! HERE COMES THE CAT! HERE! COMES! THE GODDAMN! CAT! and seriously, child, do you ever stop to breathe anymore?

***

(I assure you that last bit had a LOT fewer "goddamns" in real life.)

***

I went ahead and sent in our deposit to the Montessori preschool. I just don't feel -- right now, anyway -- that Noah's little quirks and "issues" and "whatevers" are enough to justify pulling him out of the mainstream. I...yes. I feel that. I'm still not totally back up to my old confidence levels regarding my decision-making skills for him, but I finally pulled my ass out of that "paralyzed by past actions into complete inaction" sinkhole I've been in for a few months now. If he succeeds at this school, he could potentially stay there through sixth grade. If it's still not the right fit, well, we've still got two more years until kindergarten to figure this shit out, and hopefully by then Ezra will be off the boob and Mama will be on the Xanax.

***

My dad came home from the hospital yesterday. YESTERDAY. It's been...I don't even know how long it's been. It's been a long bumpy story with no end in sight and more collapsed lungs! and pneumonia! and infections! and heart palpitations and chest pains and breathing treatments and incompetant cardiac rehab centers and...and...is it okay if I just mash my fingers down on the keyboard for a bit? Yes? Okay. OSFHGOSDHFOASJDASLMAEOHRHFFOEIJDJGPS.

Thanks. I feel better now. My dad feels better to be home, I know, but...he's not really better yet. He is and he isn't. I don't know. There's a lot of medical equipment in the house and therapy and my mom is pretty scared and I haven't been talking about it because it's hard to talk about because I'm NOT THERE and haven't been able to be there and I don't feel like I have a good grasp on the situation. And MAH GOODNESS, if I could get a good grasp on one! single! fucking! situation around here I WOULD APPRECIATE VERY MUCH, UNIVERSE.

***
Wait. Hang on. There is one thing going ridiculously well, provided this next paragraph doesn't up and jinx everything: Ezra is sleeping through the night, allllll night. Every night. In his crib. 9 pm to 8 am, at least. Unswaddled, even. He's gotten mighty proficient at getting his thumb into his mouth (with a bare minimum of face-and-eyeball poking from bad aim), and is completely in love with Noah's old Fisher Price crib aquarium. (We also took down his mobile, which apparently was scaring the crap out him.) We bathe, we rock and sing and nurse, and he just...goes to sleep, like a perfectly reasonable person. I keep the video monitor aimed direction at him (we're getting some rollage, people, and he's developed quite a penchant for tummy sleeping) all night, but with each passing night of solid, uninterrupted sleep and waking up to a perfectly contented and alive baby, I'm relaxing about it. Ever so slightly, with maybe only ONE nightly jerking awake in confusion because OH MY GOD WHERE IS THE BABY DID I JUST KICK THE BABY OH WAIT THAT WAS THE CAT.

SORRY CATZZZZZZZZZ.

He's also taking predictable daytime naps -- two nice ones, the second of which often overlaps Noah's nap (which is hit-or-miss some days, but at the very least involves a decent chunk of Quiet Time In Your Room Reading Books I Do Not Care If You Sleep But By God You Will Stay In Your Room Until Mama's Eyelid Stops Twitching).

My only guess as to the cause of this belated Christmas miracle is that we've been following Ezra's lead when it comes to solid food as opposed to the books and rules and such. (Within reason, of course.) He wants solids twice a day. He wants his cereals chunky and substantial and not thinned out (the initially rejected barley cereal became a runaway hit once it spent the night in the refrigerator and got really plump and sticky). He wants to hold and gum on his own rice rusk, dagnabbit. He wants MOAR SWEET POTATOES and you BETTER be planning to share that avocado slice from your sandwich, missy.

And because I am frankly, fresh out of Fretting, we go with it.

(I still have a really good supply of Hovering, of course, ready to whip out at the first sign of gagging or choking or...uh, allergy-ing. Although mostly I Hover to prevent sibling grilled-cheese-related plate swipings, because HOLY CRAP, this baby likes food.)

He still lovvvves nursing, even though I do miss the exclusive closeness we had before, even though my head sometimes spins by how quickly it's all happening this time.

He is still such a darling lump of baby, though, with insane little thighs and cheeks and funny squawks and faces, whose needs are uncomplicated and whose happiness is infectious, whose whole face lights up everytime I simply walk into the room. It's been a long winter, and I cannot even imagine what these past few months would have been like without the wonderful ray of sunshine that is This Boy.

(And that goes for this crazy monkey, too.)

Capturing the Moment to the Extreme

Let me back up and expand on something that I talked about yesterday, because nothing makes for a more exciting blog post than a story that you already know the ending to.

It happened a few weeks ago, when I was still staying at my parents' house, on the night before my dad's surgery*. My mom had returned to the hospital after dinner for one last private visit. I was alone in the house with two children, my dog and my mom's three cats, cleaning up the kitchen after yet another successful Crock Pot meal (seriously, yo, I rock the Crock). Noah was watching WALL*E; Ez was on a quilt on the floor and completely enraptured by the ceiling fan.

The movie came to a scene where alllllll the little future babies go sliiiiiding across the slanting deck of the ship -- a scene that always causes a brief fit of alarm for Noah. (SPOILER: EVERYBODY DIES AND IS EATEN BY ROBOTS.) He asked to give Baby Brother a hug.

Awwww, I thought. He wants to make sure HIS baby is okay! How sweet!

I gently propped Ezra in the chair next to Noah and, with my Sappy Preshus Family Memory Alarm going on at top volume, ran to grab the camera.

I was happily snapping away when this happened:

No, he's not kissing him.

Yes, he's biting him.

Yes, I yelled at him OMIGODWENEVERBITEBABIES WENEVERBITEANYBODY WESPUTTERWHATTHEHOLYOMG GOTOYOURROOM.

No, he's never done it again.

Yes, I kind of love this photo now, and think it will make a hell of an addition to a wedding day slideshow, hopefully during the best man's speech.

*Dad update: He continues to improve, slowly but surely. He's been moved out of the ICCU and into a step-down unit, although he still has some pnuemonia and breathing troubles, which are likely the result of a brand-spanking NEW diagnosis of emphysema, despite the fact that he quit smoking over 25 years ago. People, allow me to go out on a crazy limb here and say something super-provocative: Smoking is bad for you. I know! Me and my off-the-wall theories. I bet one day some science will back me up. Anyway, at some point he'll be moved again to an in-patient therapy/cardiac rehab place, and then! At some point after THAT, he'll go home.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

My phone rang on Saturday at the exact wrong time for the phone to ring. Screaming baby, whining preschooler, misplaced shoes and house keys and that stupid plastic Piston Cup that has suddenly become the most beloved and cherished toy in the world, although apparently not beloved and cherished enough to NOT CONSTANTLY BE LOST. I let the call go to voice mail.

When Jason's phone rang a few seconds later, I froze.

"It's your mom," he said. But I already knew that.

I grabbed the phone and fumbled with it for a bit -- my palms had gone completely clammy -- and heard nothing but my mother's sobs. The room began to spin and my heart dropped into my shoes and I took two stumbling steps towards the step between the foyer and living room. I'd been standing next to a nice upholstered bench, but for some reason the step looked like a better option. Like if I heard the news while closer to the floor there would be less of a chance that I'd hurt myself when I went into a full-on slide-to-the-floor meltdown.

The news was bad, but it was not That Bad News. He was alive, but the pneumonia was life-threatening. His heart was out of rhythm again. He couldn't breathe. He was strangling and panicking. He needed a breathing tube, a ventilator, but he was refusing it and the hospital said they were accepting his refusal. No ventilator.

The next few hours were blurry -- I got very shrill on the phone with my mom, unable to fathom the idea that my father was lucidly refusing essential and life-saving medical care. No, I said. He's sick. He's been deprived of proper oxygen levels for too long. He's doped up. He doesn't know what he's doing. They can't let him do that. You go in there and you tell him that I'm telling him to get on that ventilator and let his lungs fucking heal already, only leave out the f-word. I know it bothers him.

But my fucking lands, really.

My brother and I talked too -- endless gallows humor and a debate over competency and stubbornness over who could rearrange their life this week to go to Pennsylvania and...and...I don't know. Do SOMETHING. Fix SOMETHING. Grab the nurses by the collars of their scrubs and impress upon them that we KNOW he's being a difficult patient but he is NOT a difficult person -- he is kind to children and pets and waitresses -- and he is OUR FATHER and we NEED HIM and look! He has a new grandbaby! Look at the baby!

SERIOUS BABY SAYS SAVE HIS POP-POP, SERIOUSLY.

In the end, my mom called back and said that he'd written a note and agreed to accept the ventilator...IF he had another serious gasping/strangling attack. Which...he wasn't having, at the time. But. Okay. Thank you.

He never needed the ventilator. On Sunday, his lungs looked the same. Which was actually kind of huge, because it was the first day where his lungs hadn't looked WORSE.

Today, his lungs look better.

Forgive the lazy Internet expression here but: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(In my head, that is not actually pronounced like anything but must always be accompanied by a wide bug-eyed, open-mouth expression, and then you shake your head -- just a little, like if you were a cartoon and someone just put a bell over your head and whacked it with a mallet -- once for every exclamation point.)

It's not over, oh, no. It's not. He is still very, very sick. The pneumonia is very, very bad. But it's getting better, finally. The medicines seem to be working. He's off the not-a-ventilator-but-not-a-simple-oxygen-mask machine and back to the simple oxygen mask, which he can pull off and talk to my mom for the first time in almost a week. His heart's rhythm is good, his breathing is better.

I think we're all breathing better.