“There would seem to be nothing
more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment.
And yet, it eludes us completely.
All of the sadness of life lies in that fact.”
~Milan Kundera
Drive
In our picturesque Tennessee town, I waited for Daddy Longlegs and the boys to circle the block to pick me up. I watched a man in a Dooley truck back up and forwards, try to park in a spot that was never going to be big enough for his vehicle.
He rolled his window down as he drove out the wrong way onto a one-way street that I expected my family to cruise up any minute.
I couldn’t stop myself from shouting, “It’s a one way!” and gesture with my arm to drive the opposite direction.
Thinking back, I had no impulse control. The words slipped out before my mental filter could catch them and given the opportunity, I would have done the same thing again.
The man braked and yelled out his window, “G-d it, mind your own f’ing business.”
He threw his truck in reverse and slammed into the brick wall with a crunching crush of metal, plastic and glass. The wall didn’t move so I assumed his truck made all the accommodations in the encounter.
The door swung open, and the man emerged with a silver flask in his hand that reflected light from the sun like a mirror.
Oh, this is bad, I thought trying to make myself as small as possible. He’s going to kill me right here on the sidewalk. I looked around to see where I could run and if there would be any witnesses.
Instead of murdering me, the man surveyed the damage on the back of his truck with a grunt, got back in and proceeded to try to repark as Daddy Longlegs drove up.
I ducked and ran for the passenger door, sliding inside, I said, “Drive,” as they do in the movies after a bank heist.
“What happened?” Daddy Longlegs asked.
I had so much to explain, but first, our escape.
Pumpkin head in the Sand
Pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts, that all make sense for Halloween decorations.
I’m not sure how pumpkins came to be a part of the decor, but when they have a scary face carved into a side, they fit in with the theme of creating a spooky night of fun. It makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is hanging an entire family of fully dressed straw-people by their necks from a tree as our neighbors opted to do in the spirit of the season. There is enough violence in the world without demonstrating a set of deaths that make little kids ask why and how and why, again.
They can’t unsee the images. They don’t know why people hanging from trees is unsettling, upsetting and indelible, but it is. We work hard to protect their young and impressionable minds from the news, curse words, smoking, gruesome and grisly sights.
The news is out. Rated PG 13 movies, nope. Unsupervised time on the internet, no way. And in spite of our best efforts, we can’t shield their eyes every time we drive past the neighbor’s house. I have to admit to myself that I can’t protect them from the World (hello old Covid anxiety) and that feels really terrifying (again).
I am horrified, sick and sad over the events in Gaza and this grotesque display feels like it is more on the side of the problem than the solution to making the world a more peaceful place. Not to mention, it is in bad taste and over the top. They even strung up a tiny straw-body to really drive home the family visual.
Passing out candy and wearing costumes feels wrong when there is a crisis happening halfway around the world, but I don’t know what else to do aside from continue to move forward with holidays and birthdays and celebrations because we can’t stop living life.
When it all seems to be too much to handle, I stick my head in the sand and like an ostrich, believe that everything is fine.
Is there a different way to do it?
Another way to bond.
The boys danced on a rock and then hopped onto the next rock in a line of boulders. Baby Brother carefully followed Long Legs’ every movement. His confidence was linked to the ability of his brother to clear each jump.
I envisioned many hours of unstructured play around these rocks; climbing, jumping, sitting, bug watching. Was I on easy street and off the official swing pusher duty with the discovery of this new place zone? I could prop my feet up and read a book while the Wildings entertained themselves.
Life was sweet.
Little Legs nailed another incredible jump from rock to rock. My heart raced with anxiety at the obvious risk of a fall. I calmed my nerves with self-talk, this is a good form of exercise, they are fine, learning about physical limits and spending time in Nature.
Baby Brother hesitated and crouched down, suddenly less confident in his own goat-like hopping capability. Then he began to shriek in pain.
“Ow, ow, ow,” was all he was able to get out.
I ran to Baby Brother while Little Legs watched from the platform of the next rock.
“My butt,” he managed.
Bees buzzed around us as I turned him around and found a bee trapped in a perpetual sting in between his underwear-less cheeks.
I flicked the bee, sent it into orbit and personally began to understand the source of the squalling as another bee stung my hand. I picked Baby Brother up and stepped back. It was in that single step that I unearthed a colony of yellow and black striped demons straight from Hell.
Yellow jackets began to attack with dives into our arms and legs.
Little Legs was quickly down from his perch and next to me, “Run,” I yelled.
He needed no further encouragement. Holding a hand to the sting on his neck, he sprinted inside.
I batted the bees away from Baby Brother, grabbed him and ran for the house.
Most of the bees gave up the chase but the ones trapped in our clothes had no choice but to continue with the attack inside of the house.
To say it was a rough afternoon would be an understatement. The boys howled with pain even with the baking soda compresses and ice.
“When will it stop?” they asked.
“Soon,” was all I could say, nursing my own wounds.
What lesson did we learn? I fall short of any deep epiphany aside from misery loves company.
We were in it, and out of it, together. What is a better way to bond?
Happy 10 Year Blogiversary!
10 years ago, I wrote my first blog on a clunky laptop while sitting on a second-hand sofa in a cozy, little apartment. You can read Taffy Man here. I cringe at rereading it and sharing it, but it is an important part of the journey and a reminder about taking the first step of something that has grown and developed with me over a decade. Everything has to start somewhere, and in this case, it was somewhere strange.
I started the blog with the same intention that I hold today, as a reason to write and feel accountable to the creative process. With hoosiersunshine13, it was an intentional decision to remain anonymous to keep the free flow of words without fear of offending anyone in my life, then and now.
When I started the blog, I had been married for three years to Daddy Longlegs. During the day, we worked full time jobs. In the evenings, we shared dinners and walks. We took care of a dog that never quite got the hang of potty training and my beloved cat, JellyBean, that hailed from an even earlier era of our lives.
Almost everything is different now. Jelly is long gone, RIP. And that terrible dog was adopted by an elderly couple, renamed Stubby, and spent the rest of his days peeing in the space behind their sofa. We have two boys, Big and Little, who have become best friends and the darlings of our life.
Daddy Longlegs and I just celebrated 13 years of wedded bliss and we frequently wonder where the time has gone. It is all documented in one way or another over the past years, but I rarely go back and read old posts. If I do, it’s just posts about the boys when they were little or there was just one, times that I have trouble remembering.
We are soon to be outnumbered and their blogiverse names will need to be updated. We have until March to figure something out, but I am thinking Baby, Toddler and Big Boy, TBD.
While I can’t know the future, I can share my ongoing intention to remain on this blogging journey and dedicated to the creative process for the sheer joy of writing. I do it for me, but I am grateful for my blogging friends that I have met along the way.
Thanks for continuing to follow and read as we post bravely into the unknown together.
Dream of Lost Teeth
It was as clear as day in the middle of the night.
Little Legs walked into the room, “Look at this.”
He pointed to a gap in his mouth recently filled with a set of pearly white front teeth.
“Oh my God, what happened to your teeth?”
I felt a surge of panic-based adrenaline.
“I don’t have any idea,” he replied with a lisp.
“You mean, your teeth were there and then they were just gone?”
He nodded; it was a simple mystery to him.
I struggled to understand their disappearance, apparently unremarkable in every way.
As I was still trying to make sense of the situation, I woke up, aware that it was a dream that felt so real I would not be surprised to see Little Legs slurping his cereal through the hole in his teeth.
He wandered into the bathroom a few minutes after I awoke.
“Hey buddy, smile at me,” I asked for the moment of truth.
“Why?” the four-year-old teenager asked.
“Because I had a dream that your front teeth were missing and you didn’t know what happened or where they went.”
He smiled, “All there.”
I sighed, not ready for the inevitable.
He was long legged and blond, observant and smart. My firstborn was growing into himself, the changes were undeniably all around.
A google search told me that dreaming about the loss of teeth in someone else was about grief or loss; this tracks my feeling of loss without losing as my little boy becomes a big boy.
So it’s a good grief in this simple mystery that I settled on until I looked at the calendar.
The boys have dental appointments one week from today and suddenly I remembered the text reminder that came through before bed and it all made sense.
In this season of my life, I am less of a mystic and more of time minder.
Plant Happiness
I walked into the hallway to see the boy sized dump truck parked on the rug with green tendrils reaching over the sides of the back of the truck.
Someone had planted a houseplant in the bed of the truck.
“Little Legs!” I said to myself.
I was able to easily rule out Baby Brother as the guilty party because he was only interested in moving tiny cars around the house.
Little Legs, however, was a committed indoor plant gardener and had started relocating plants based on where he thought they would be happiest.
To that end, Daddy Longlegs found a plant in his bed the previous night.
“His plants do look good,” Daddy Longlegs said when I complained about the constant moving of plants.
“Maybe he’s onto something?”
“You might be right, but I draw the line at taking the plants into bed.”
“Good luck with that,” Daddy Longlegs said.
We laughed, both of us knowing that the plants would continue to appear where they would be happiest.
Biking with Boys
We loaded the bikes into the back of my Honda and took off for the park.
The boys were so excited to hit the trail, I had to hold them back.
“Safety first,” I said and clipped each of their Paw Patrol helmets under their chins with a snap.
Baby Brother had just graduated from a tricycle to a shiny red bike with training wheels. Little Legs had been on a big-boy bike for a while and rode to the trail head with ease on his bright green bike.
The day was perfect, sunny and cooler than it had been all summer.
“What a great day, guys,” I said to the wind as my companions raced ahead of me.
“Later gator,” Little Legs said with a burst of speed.
“Later gator,” Baby Brother said swerving around his brother and pulling ahead as they both began to coast downhill.
The wheels turned faster and faster.
Little Leg’s brakes squeaked as he slowed and followed the curve in the path.
Baby Brother rolled past him screaming, “Help, help, help,” with both legs straight out from the sides of the bike.
“Hit the brakes! Use your feet to hit the brakes!”
“I can’t stop,” Baby Brother said leaving the path in a straight line.
The grass and bumpy ground slowed the terrified boy down as I sprinted to him faster than I’ve ever run in the past.
“Brake, brake, brake!” I shouted.
He collided into a wooden fence without ever once touching his brakes. The fence was the only thing stopping him from rolling into the river where he would quickly be reminded that he couldn’t swim.
I reached him within a second and helped him climb off his bike.
“That was fast,” he said and grinned up at me, blissfully unaware of the alternative outcomes that I envisioned.
Accidents happen within the blink of an eye and even with the best preparations, things still happen that no one could foresee. They are unexpected and unintentional learning opportunities for growth.
We learned a few things, mostly that Baby Brother needs to practice braking. Helmets are great but won’t stop someone from running into a fence and then the river. And that Baby Brother has no fear. He hopped right back on his bike to finish the trail, which was short and flat from there on out.
Thankfully, we get to live and learn another day.
Forgive and Forget
“I’m mad at Daddy,” Little Legs declared from the backseat.
“I’m mad at Daddy,” Baby Brother parroted.
“Stop saying what I’m saying,” Little Legs said.
“Stop saying what I’m saying,” Baby Brother repeated.
As any normal sibling, he lived to irritate his brother. It was an all-too-familiar feeling that I remembered from my childhood. There was no satisfaction like getting under the skin of someone with whom you had to share everything. It was a joy that was all yours.
“Guys, knock it off,” I intervened.
“Now tell me, why are you mad at Daddy?”
“He wouldn’t let us sleep in your bed.”
I laughed, they had indeed been sent away when they tried to gain access, one after the other.
“I’m scared,” Little Legs started the campaign.
“You have to sleep in your own bed,” I said.
“You’re horrible,” he said and ran crying from the room.
He was quietly replaced.
“I’m thirsty, Mommy,” Baby Brother appeared from out of nowhere, smacking his lips.
“Go back to bed,” I said, giving him my bottle of water.
“Please, I’m scared,” Baby Brother said in a desperate attempt.
I knew this ploy, it worked almost every other time.
“No, go back to bed.”
Suddenly, they were both back, crawling into bed. It was a little-boy-takeover and they weren’t taking no for an answer. Somehow, through all of this, Daddy Longlegs continued to slumber, getting his beauty rest until one cold little foot reached his side of the bed.
He sprang to life, growling like a bear, “Boys, get to bed.”
They were off, falling over their own feet in their haste to escape. I felt terrible, what if they were scared and it wasn’t one of their tricks, and while I considered the possibilities, I drifted back to Dreamland. In the morning, I discovered our slate had been wiped clean. All was forgiven and forgotten.
Almost everything.
Ashes in her mouth
When the dog found out the news, she was overjoyed.
Another human that would throw the ball, give pats and drop snacks was going to join the family in a few months.
What could be better?
On the topic of snacks, she most appreciated when hotdogs and meatballs rolled in her direction. She assumed that another person in the house meant even more hotdogs and meatballs would soon be hitting the floor and into her open mouth.
In the meantime, she was an ambitious animal and wasn’t above taking the initiative to make good (and tasty) things happen for herself.
Fortune favors the bold and all that; it doesn’t just apply to bi-peds.
Many nights when the snack giving was not up to her standards, she popped up on her powerful hind legs and snatched extras from the littlest one’s plate. Never from the plate of one of the big humans, she had a sense that would not end well for her.
Once she made her move, it involved yelling from a full-sized person, crying from the littlest one and getting kicked outside “to think about what happened.”
Not that it made a difference or a lasting impression.
By the next dinner, everyone forgot the hairy menace that sat patiently waiting for an opportunity at the easy pickings. The process was like taking candy from a baby, which is exactly what she planned to do in March.
She could barely wait.
Poor Coco, she had no idea of the plight of a dog in a house with a baby.
Already, last to get any extra attention, she was about to move down another rung of the needs-that-are-quickly-met ladder. It wasn’t fair, she had seniority over anyone new with a tenure of several years. Yet, none of that would matter in seven months.
Woe is the sad life of a hopeful dog.
Love can be a subtle alchemy.
“Did you hear the storm last night?” I asked.
The boy in front of me slurped milk and studied the back of the cereal box.
“I dreamed about the storm,” he finally replied.
“Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe you heard it in your sleep and it became a part of your dreams?”
“No, I dreamed about it and that’s why it happened,” he explained.
Who was I to fight this argument?
Maybe the power of a four-year-old’s dream was enough to seed a storm and make all other sorts of wonderful and beautiful things happen. And if that’s the case, what about equally terrifying things that he might bring about?
Dinosaurs everywhere. The floor is hot lava. Lemonade flowing from drinking fountains.
No, it’s all a bit much, but I can’t crush the magic of his belief system (or challenge the belief system of his magic).
My tiny wizard.
hoosiersunshine13 