Max is 1. He’s ONE, you guys. Happy birthday, beautiful.

One from racher on Vimeo.

Music: Happy Birthday Beautiful by The Innocence Mission

I’m going to bed in five minutes, no excuses. You know what that means: POSTIN’ NO DELETE STYLE. Giddyup.

Tonight at bedtime, Rosie called to us several times because she was scared/hungry/needed water, etc. Once she even called out to let us know that she didn’t hear us when we said, “GOODNIGHT, ROSIE” and then got out of her bed, turned down the music on her CD player, got back in bed and then said, “OK! What did you say? I was telling you I am hungry!”

Hello! FYI, parents! That girl can talk her way around over and through all of the situations. Finally after she’d been quiet for some time, I was headed to brush my teeth and stopped by her room where I found her still awake in her bed with a vampire finger puppet atop her pointer digit. I sat with her for a minute. She asked me, “Mama, when we die, does our voice change?” To which I eloquently replied, “Uhhhhhhh …. what?”

“When we die. Does our voice change?” She spoke slowly, as if I were an idiot. Which I really actually was at that moment.

“Well, uh, when you … die, you won’t have a voice like you do now … it will be different, kind of like … well, no one really knows what happens when you die, so …” She interrupted me. “Oh! Never mind, never mind.” Then, wiggling her vampired finger in my face she said, “HE knows what happens.” And then flipped over into sleep position totally content, as if to say WELP, SOLVED THAT MYSTERY.

OK creepy kid, keep on creepin’ on.

On that note, I will take my yesterleave. Third post of the week, even though I have a sore throat! Whatup!

Oh wait. Damn. So close.

Out of the clear blue this weekend, Noah waltzed out onto the porch where I sat fishing the 37th piece of dirt/bug/trash out of Max’s mouth and said, “Hey mom, remember when you asked me those questions and taped it on your camera? When I was four? Can we do that again?” Well, of course I remembered, but the fact that he remembered was pretty awesome. Plus, can we do that again? Have you met me? Oh, we’re so doing that again. (Herein lies a whole lotta footage of my kids. Be forewarned.)

First, let’s harken back to ye olde days of smallish Noah, where he was a bit more rounded, and adorably 4:

And here he is today, wisened, blinky (allergies), and 8:

And of course, we have a (somewhat) freshly minted 4-year old who needed to do her inaugural “All About Me” interview, which Noah kindly conducted:

After which Rosie insisted on interviewing Max (his answers are the most scintillating, I think):
(Also, this is the same video, looped twice. Don’t know how that happened. I am rusty at this videoin’ stuff!)

Investigative reporting at its finest! Or at least, at its cutest.

I had a great something something to post today and then I went and waited too late to get it uploaded all fancy like, and since I am clearly only about the fanciest of uploads, it’s going to have to come at your eyeballs on Tuesday. Oh, the anticipation!

In the meantime, let’s talk about how I’ve been sick for 10 straight days. Wait, where are you going? No, really, it’s going to be a great topic, swear. I’ve had a sniffly nose, sore throat (no, but like the SOREST OF THROATS IN THE LAND) and coughy-hack-hack malady since last Friday, and I am o.v.e.r. i.t. I don’t know if you know this, but the more periods you use in a sentence, the more you mean what you are saying. So actually, maybe I should have said

.I. .a.m. .o.v.e.r. .i.t.  .p.e.r.i.o.d. .(s.e.c.o.n.d.p.e.r.i.o.d.).

I have decided that I am not going to be a very fun co-resident for all my nursing home buds once I am old, because I want to complain about my aches and pains all the time. (Relatedly, L is also over me being sick.) But my throats! They hurts like the fire of a thousand burning razor blades on my vocal chords! And oh, the hacking. When I talk I sound like a pack-a-day smoker. Who is a 40-year old man. Rosie was weirded out by it at first, telling me that my voice was “crumpled up in my heart and it can’t get out,” but now she just accepts that I sound like Ursula from The Little Mermaid and has moved on with life.

I have indeed seen a doctor, who poked and prodded and was very doctorly (or, acutally, very nurse practitionery) and she declared it a viral something or other, which is pretty much exactly what I didn’t want to hear because that means there is no nice bottle of chalky elixir that will take away this pestilence like magic.

Anyhoo! I’ll be back here tomorrow, crotchety and kvetchy as ever, but with way better content. Promise.

Today after my first arrival home, I turned on the oven to preheat, unpacked my scuzzy lunch containers and put them in the sink for washing, shoved the bag o’ breast milk in the fridge, unboxed the frozen lasagna, and then went to sit down on the couch for two minutes (TOPS, I told myself, sternly). I collapsed with my head thrown back on a pillow, exhausted from my all-day, allergy-induced cough-sprees, but mostly from work and commuting. (Always from working and commuting.) I closed my eyes for about 30 seconds (longer would put me in the Sleep Danger Zone) and when I opened them, I thought, “What if the me opening my eyes right now was actually college me? What if I were seeing this place right now with eyes from 15 years ago?”

Look, I don’t know why my brain thinks these weirdo thoughts. In fact, I could probably use that mental energy for other things, like remembering to bring in the $10 we’ve long-owed for Teacher Appreciation Day at Rosie and Max’s school, or where in the world I stored Rosie’s summer clothes, but I digress.

After needing a minute to collect myself at the thought that I was in college FIFTEEN years ago, I scanned the room with a different perspective than before I’d flopped onto the sofa cushions. Before, I thought: This room is a an absolute, utter mess. Now I thought: Well, children must live here. Before, I thought: There’s not enough time to clean up this clutter. Now I thought: You can tell this house is comfortably lived in. Before, I thought: Laundry, ugh. Now I thought: There’s so much color in this house. Before, I thought: CHAOS. Now: Fullness.

It was a nice lens to look through, actually, those college-aged eyes. (Probably not a good idea to do it in the mirror, though. Of this I am certain.) What we have here is a lot, and most of the time it feels like A LOT in the way that makes my brain buzz and rattle and feel a bit unhinged, but in actuality it’s really just a lot. Period. In the good way, the lovely way, the how-did-we-get-so-lucky way. We have a lot. Did we know we’d have all this back then, 19-year old self? No, but now I can see that we secretly hoped that we would.

After my trip back to the future (forward to the past?) I got up and my 34-year old-eyed self popped dinner in the oven, grabbed keys, and walked out the door to go get the very people who fill up this space with color and laundry and life to the brim.