April Ever After

Some months pass by so quickly, without any milestones or fanfare, that I find myself surprised when I see our mortgage auto-deducted from our checking account. Other months stand up and demand notice. April 2014 is one of the latter.

On Wednesday, April 2nd, we said goodbye to Ada, our sixteen-year old wonderdog. 

As I noted here, we brought her to the vet clinic the previous Saturday, believing it must be the end, but at that appointment, she was such a show-off for the vets and techs, she looked too sturdy to go. We got more meds. We didn't really want them, as they didn't seem to help much, but we felt too guilty not to take them. We sighed about the outcome. We didn't want her to die, but we didn't want to keep witnessing the downward spiral, either. Were we being selfish or selfless? We couldn't tell—it was some hybrid born out of continual grief-in-process.

I chatted on FB with a good friend, asking the question, in all-caps, "WHY WON'T ANYONE KILL THIS DOG?" It was gallows humor, my best attempt at trying to reconcile myself with the hopeless ending on the horizon, and my frustration that everytime we thought that hopeless ending had arrived, we were told to keep looking for signs. Every vet visit, we prepared ourselves to leave sobbing with an empty leash in hand, and every time, we left with roughly a $100 charge, a container of pills, and a reassurance that our dog was just old, not dying quite yet. Seizures = she's just old. Sneezing blood = old again, with a tumor that wasn't deadly yet. Intestinal upset all over the house = elderly GI systems aren't reliable. Trouble climbing the stairs = old joints. While we kept noticing more and more things, none of them added up, at least in the schematic that was described to us over and over, to equal "the end."

So there we were, four days after her last visit, with an old lady dog at her thinnest weight ever, barely eating, except for the teaspoon of peanut butter she got in the morning and evening with her pills, and still experiencing all of the symptoms described above. Calling the vet to schedule another visit would be futile, as there were no new details to report about her wretched state, and the details we had already reported had no new treatments. We didn't know this would be the day.

About an hour after EJ left for school, I watched Ada have a seizure in our front hall. It wasn't the worst I'd ever seen, but it was there. She then started walking in a loopy way, pausing occasionally for long stares at nothing at all, as if she could not get her bearings. We'd been watching this for weeks, calling out to her, with no response. I got up and pet her, and she eventually went to her dog bed and rested. When I came back into the room, however, she had gotten sick all over the place, and was still in the act. I grabbed her and brought her down the three flights of stairs, where she just stared at me. Figuring she had nothing left in her system, we started to climb back up, but she could barely make it. I had to lift her up a few times, and carry her part of the way. For the first time, I was grateful for her drastic weight loss.

After cleaning up the mess, I sat with her for a little while. She seemed in decent spirits, looking up at me in her thoughtful way. I told her how sorry I was that this was happening. I told her how we couldn't let her suffer much longer, no matter how sweetly she looked up at us, or how spry she appeared at the vet's office.  About an hour later, she was sick again, and down the stairs we flew, with the same result. During our second climb, I whispered into her ear as I carried her, "Ada, you will never have to climb these stairs again, I promise."

Once we were up, and she was settled, and the rug and floors were cleaned again, I told Mike, "This is the day. We are done. She is suffering, I don't care what [the vets] say, I don't care that she isn't giving us 'the look' that everyone said she would give. She is a good dog who wants to please us and we cannot let this continue." He seemed so relieved, and expressed a similar sentiment. The vet had told us, "When you know, call us or just come in, don't hesitate." I understood why—looking at Ada sleeping on her bed, I could almost forget the past three hours of anguish, the past three weeks of weight loss, the past three months of steep decline. I made a call that was different from all the others; I didn't ask if we could see the vet, I just said, through choking sobs that took over suddenly, "I think it is time that we put our dog to sleep."

I'm crying now just thinking about it.

We waited until the evening, when our kiddo was home to say goodbye. She wanted to go to the vet's office with us. We took EJ to ballet class, as she thought it might make her feel better, told the teacher that she may have a hard time, and Mike and I counted the minutes until we picked up our dog for her last car trip. Once we were all loaded up and on our way, we heard a gasp from the backseat of the car—we thought EJ was panicking, but really, she had just lost another baby tooth, a loose canine that had been on the verge of coming out for days. We used the tissues we brought for our tears to wipe up her bloody mouth. 

The whole night felt odd, as if momentous occasions were haphazardly slapped onto the regular Wednesday afterschool schedule.

At the clinic, because Ada was not already lying down and infirmed, the vet suggested it may be harder to get her resting for the shot if all of us were in the room. I think, honestly, he was worried about our kid. Mike volunteered to stay. The vet left the room temporarily for us to say good-bye. As we were giving our last hugs, Mike asked me if I would take a photo of him with Ada. I hadn't planned on taking any shots of the last moments, as I thought it might feel morbid, but I'm glad he asked now, as we all took some. The photos aren't the prettiest or the happiest, but when I look at them, I can still feel that hug, the softness and spikiness of her (always weird) fur, the bones I could feel through her skin, telling me we were doing the right thing. I also have a moment of genuine devotion between my daughter and her first pet to always remind me what a gift Ada was to our whole family.

In the lobby, EJ cried for awhile. I cried for awhile. Had she wanted to stay in the room, we would have insisted, but she seemed relieved that her dad was taking care of this, and she could just be in the lobby to weep and be held. The techs gave her a tiny baggy for her newly-lost tooth. She said thank you, wiped her tears, then focused her attention on a wall of photos of pets and their owners, vets with the pets, etc. She started to smile at the cuteness. Ten minutes later, Mike came out, followed by the vet. We all gave each other hugs, the vet included—you could tell it was hard on him, too, as he loved our old girl. It was done.

In the end, there was no sign from our dog, and I am grateful to all those friends out there who called, emailed, and posted messages to me via social networking who expressed variations of, "your pet may not give you a sign."  Our own judgement made the call, and I know it was right. I actually wished we'd done it sooner the moment it was done, knowing how long that poor dog had kept going, likely in pain, definitely in discomfort.

We went out for hamburgers at Five Guys on our way home. EJ was relieved that she could chew again without her loose tooth. While eating, we got calls from family and friends who had seen our messages about Ada.  A family friend who we hadn't seen in a long time came in, and made us smile, saying, "The only cure for this is getting another dog, you know!" EJ entertained the toddler at the table next to us, playing peek-a-boo and dancing around between the tables to make her giggle. 

Everything happening felt very alive, and I could feel myself starting to remember the younger, livelier Ada, the Ada we hadn't seen in years. It made me cry and smile at the same time.

Within a matter of days, our realtor was at our house with a professional photographer, taking photos of our place for our online listing, and our condo was on the market. In the photos, there is little evidence that a dog ever lived there—let's face it, in perfectly neat/staged photos, there is almost no evidence that anyone lives there—although we did keep her leash hook up in our pantry, for no other reason than to make us smile. Since Ada passed away, we have had showings at our house, as well as open houses (one is going on at our place as I type this at a café a few blocks away.) While Ada was the friendliest dog we'd ever met with people, and likely would have been energized by strangers visiting, I cannot imagine a scenario in which she could have been able to handle this without disruption. Selfishly, I'm grateful that we don't have to worry about the messes she was making regularly at the end of her life, and that we don't have to find places for her to hang out during showings. Practically and emotionally, physically and spiritually, her time was the right time.

Now, as April wraps up, we hope for a buyer for our condo. We hope for a new beginning soon. We hope for excitement and adventure and comfort and setting down roots, all at once. There will be no new dog for awhile, but once we know more about where we will be, there will be another. There will always be Miss Ada, though, named after Ada Lovelace (a genius one-of-a-kind gal, whose ideas and discoveries out-lasted her short time on earth), right there in the foundation of it all, forever after.

Indecision Explained

A lot of people—basically all the people—are asking me, now that our condo will be on the market this week,

"Where are you moving?"

That is a perfectly appropriate question. You'd imagine we'd have a quick answer. I'd love it if we knew, really.

In reality, we have narrowed down our options to three areas. We have investigated them, done home searches (or are doing home searches), and have contacted friends in each area. Since Mike can live anywhere for his job—thank you, fantastic distributed company—we are focusing our location investigation on my job prospects. We are figuring it out.

If you want to know why determining big things, like where to put down roots, are so daunting for our little family of three, here's an everyday example that just happened—I'm typing this with my wet hair wrapped in a towel.

The scene:

Me: Taking a shower, on a Saturday, mid-day, oh the luxury
The hubby and kiddo: Making lunch.

Kiddo: (Yelling) Mom! Mom! Can we (indistinguishable garble)...salad?

Me: WHAT?

Kiddo: (Yelling) MOM!!

Me: (Stepping out of shower, concerned): What is going on?

Hubby: (Outside door) Forget it, can I just come into the bathroom to talk to you?

Me: Yes, what is going on??

Hubby: (Stepping inside, letting all the steamy, warm air out) Can we open the new box of salad?

Me: (Freezing) WHAT?!?

Hubby: We have a half-opened container of spinach leaves, so can we open the new box of salad greens, or can we only have the spinach that is open?

Me: What do you want to eat?

Hubby: Salad greens.

Me: Open the salad greens. Why are you asking me this? Was this a necessary crisis to have me called out of the shower?

Hubby smiles, shuts door, leaves.

I've joked with my husband many times that his last name is actually French for, "let's think this through just a little longer," while my maiden name in Italian is, "let's get going already."

I promise we'll figure out where we are living very, very soon. We are almost there. It is painfully slow for me, so no need to ask. It feels like lightning speed to the hubs, who suggested just this morning that "we really should do more research." That's the beauty of selling the house, though: we must move, so we will.

In the meantime, spinach and lettuce are open and available for lunch here at our house. Stop on by!

Pause

Over the past month, our primary focus has been to get our home ready for sale. Scratch that: over the past year, our primary focus has been to get our home ready for sale; since the beginning of March, we have been in home-prep staging hyperdrive. Our goal was to make it to market by the end of the month, a.k.a. today.

We had our contract ready to hand over to our agent last night, and pictures were scheduled for today. We had made it. It would have been a very late night of final last minute sorting and cleaning, but it was all possible. I am very proud of our hard work, and feeling ready to sell.

Check out that 1915 woodwork and original glass cabinets with working skeleton key mechanisms.
How about those period-reproduction sconces we installed in place of the original gas lamps?
You know you want to buy this condo.

And yet, mid-afternoon yesterday, we put everything on hold, at least for day or two.

Our condo has never looked or felt better, and we are still very interested in hitting the market as soon as possible. The problem was that, despite my best efforts, I didn't feel great about all the details of the sale. We didn't have enough information, and the information we had wasn't what we needed. Our communication wasn't clear. Add to that, our old-lady dog was very sick all weekend—we were pretty sure Saturday was her last day, but of course, she rallied after a trip to the vet, at which she flirted with all the staff and made us look like heartless chumps for even suggesting a merciful end. Paying attention to her (and our emotions surrounding her) muddled our thinking about everything, understandably. There are priorities, and then there are PRIORITIES.

By Sunday, we realized that we couldn't do it. I can't point to specific facts or moments that made me sure we needed to temporarily put the brakes on, I just know it was the right thing to do. While the deadline had been incredibly useful for our productivity, we felt too rushed, and too rushed is not a good place to start such an important process, especially if 24 to 48 hours could completely change that.

For three days solid, I had felt my heart rising up into my chest, making it hard to breathe. My shoulders were a disaster. I saw my acupuncturist on Friday because I was waking with sharp pain between my shoulder blades. After we postponed on Sunday, my chest seized its grip on my heart, and I felt myself open up again. My shoulders fell, and my neck loosened. Why we continue to separate mental health/stress from physical health/injury in our treatment of our bodies always baffles me, but never more than in moments like on Sunday, when the difference in my physical being was almost instantly changed by a choice, the elimination of a stressor, and a decision that pulled me in the right direction.

Meditative or mindful practices will tell you that listening to your gut will bring you calm. I don't know about that, at least not in the long-term. Sometimes life is just challenging, and no amount of following your inner voice will make difficult things go away. We still have big decisions to make, and we have an aggressive deadline in mind. Even after today's picture deadline was eliminated, we were hard at work on the house. It's going to keep being stressful, there is no doubt about that.

What I do have, though, is the peace of mind that comes with listening to my gut instincts. The voice that says, "Wait, stop, breathe, think, pray, listen" is my wise mind, adding facts + impressions + emotions + "the stuff in the ether that I can't define or even observe but I am taking in nonetheless" = ALERT. That voice doesn't lie, but doesn't always present itself with a logical package of information that may be easier to justify following. When I'm stressed, or wanting to just push through to the other side of a situation (like trying to sell our home), I can tell it to just shut up a million times, and I can almost convince myself that it either a) isn't there or b) isn't correct. This just prolongs my angst, which I learned (AGAIN!) this weekend. Listen, dummy: when you can't turn your neck without wincing, LISTEN.

Peace of mind within the chaos is what I hope for in the most stressful situations. It doesn't fix everything, but it fixes me, and that is enough.

Breathe. Listen. Breathe. Think. Breathe. Pray. Breathe.

Here we go. Sale updates to follow shortly. Prayers and best wishes appreciated.

Testing Merry-Go-Round

So, this happened this week, on the front page of our daughter's homework packet:

Lest we think that the school year is not all about testing, we are informed that—hurray!—another test is on the horizon. Congratulations, kids! You have completed round seven, or eight, or twelve—I have no idea how to even count the tests at this point—and haven't been knocked out, yet. Look alive, get ready, there's more to come!

The NWEA is the test for which our kids have been asked to longitudinally graph their scores, and set goals for improving their tests by a few points in each category. This is also the test that, this year, led my child into shame self-talk, because she hadn't advanced two points in her reading category, despite already being many years ahead and not behind in any way whatsoever. It turns out that graphing out your test scores and focusing in on numbers, numbers, gains in numbers, really grips kids' attentions. It makes them feel personally responsible for getting a higher score, even if the goal that is set is a) negligible (because there isn't anywhere to grow) and b) within the margin of error (which is not explained, but I've ranted about that already.)

Note, I did not say that the graphing makes kids feel personally responsible for doing their best, or working hard to learn new things, or enjoying reading/math/discovery. I said it makes them feel responsible for getting a higher score. Big difference. I'm glad to know the date of the next test, as it will give me time to prep EJ not to worry about her score. I don't know that I will be totally successful, as it will likely be discussed ad nauseum at school, and of course, she'll go in knowing what personal goals she is being asked to meet. We'll do what we can, and make her pancakes for breakfast, and remember what it is was like back as kids in the seventies and eighties, when we took standardized tests every few years, and never knew our scores. How did my husband get a PhD? How did I get a master's degree? How did we become educated, hard-working contributors to society without graphing out our incremental test score gains at least twice a year? The mind boggles.

Meanwhile, while we are well-informed about tests, we have little idea what is going on with their social studies project, which has them in teams learning about Chicago landmarks/important places. In past years, the third graders have gone on tons of field trips, and because the school is centrally located, many of those excursions have been walking field trips to museums, parks, and other landmarks. Exercise, fresh air, hands-on cultural learning—who can beat that? I remember remarking on how often I saw the third graders being herded back to school around dismissal time when EJ was younger, and parents with older kids mentioned that third grade was "the field trip year, since they study Chicago." Since that time, I've loved the idea that "field trip year" was ahead for my kiddo, and I was so excited that her school embraced it; it was one of the many things I loved about the school, actually.

This year, EJ's class has had ZERO field trips. That's right, NONE. That means that we had more trips to Chicago when I was a school kid in Wisconsin than she has had this year.

Chicago, for all of its foibles—the terrible climate, the expense, the corruption, and the bureaucracy that makes even liberals like me question, "What is this government for, anyway?"—is a remarkable, world-class city. Come visit, you will be awed, truly. The amount of amazing things to do here just goes on and on, with museums, parks, the lake, excellent theater, incredible dining, festivals, cutting-edge architecture for over a hundred and fifty years, shopping....you see what I'm saying. When we decided, after grad school, that our best next-move was to stay here, at least in the short-term, we committed to treating our time more like tourists, really getting out and seeing the things that people who visit do. Even living here, you can't catch it all.

All the standardized testing makes me sad. All the ways the testing is influencing my kid to change the way she feels about her learning makes me depressed. And now, all the missed opportunities for the kids to go out into the city and learn about it by actually visiting the places that make it what it is makes me frustrated.

This merry-go-round we are riding needs some serious maintenance work.

Winners, Losers, Erma, and Playing Chicken

Well, the news came out today, and I did not win or place in the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition. I did show, though, as is, "I showed up, did the work, turned it in, and feel good about it." 

If you have a moment, check out the winner's entry. Tracy Beckerman is funny, and she is also inspiring, as she makes her living writing and performing humorous stuff about real life in a family. Tracy, I'm going to keep at this, and hopefully someday, we can meet at a writer's workshop and share some true-life tales over cocktails.

In addition to being funny and inspiring (as mentioned), Tracy is also very lucky, not because she won the competition—her talent made that well-deserved—but because she writes that she started growing chin hairs at the same time as her teenage son. That late? Really? She is definitely not Italian, I say as I pluck-pluck-pluck between keystrokes.

Whenever I do creative work, I hope it is well-received, and with so many entries to the competition (853), it is impossible to know how my work stacked up. Did the readers laugh? Did I make it to a second round? Was there something significant that stopped folks from enjoying it as intended? That is the hardest part about the kind, but short, rejection: no feedback. Next year, I'm going to have to sign up lickety-split for the Erma Bombeck writing workshop (which sold out within hours), and soak in some insights.

Until then, I'll take comfort in knowing that I did what I could, and I am pleased with the work. I'll share it here, too, and hope that you enjoy it.

For those curious about the writing parameters, the stipulations for the entry were a) it was to be humorous, b) it had to be 450 words or less, and c) it could never have been published before, even on a personal blog.

Chicken Is Served

My husband spent the better part of two weeks away for business this past month. During that time, I realized: the natural give-and-take of a modern, married couple, tasked with keeping a house while raising a family, had become for us an elaborate game of household-chore chicken.

Not familiar with this game? You might be the type who thrives on straightening up. I've never had that blessed affliction, nor has my husband.

I am a self-confessed, horrible housekeeper. At forty years old, you'd think I'd have figured out a system by now. I'm better than I was at twenty, but not by much. I'm like a housekeeping toddler—just because I can stack blocks doesn't mean you should hand me the china.

Added to my ineptitude is my utter shock that taking care of a house is my job. I was born in 1973, and raised with the understanding that everything Marlo Thomas and her friends promised in, "Free to Be, You and Me" was a given. My interpretation of gender equality was that my job was to pursue whatever fascinating work I chose, and to never assume that there were limits on my potential based upon stereotypical assignments of "women's work."

I'm not exactly sure who I thought was going to vacuum in my grand liberation. My mom, a graduate-educated speech therapist with a great career herself, certainly did the brunt of cleaning in my childhood home in Wisconsin. I guess I assumed that poor mom was pre-Marlo, and despite being married to my feminist father, still needed to live out part of some patriarchal social contract she'd inherited.

I managed to scrape into adulthood with little sense of how to keep things neat and tidy, or in any way imbued with the "feminine touch" advertised in 1950s ladies' magazines. To quote my husband, "You were socialized to run the free world, not the house."

I'm lucky, as he believes in an equitable split of housework, too. Because neither of us has the organizing bug, however, we've never figured out the hows or the whens of our split, so frequently, dishes sit, clutter piles up, and laundry remains in various stages of completion in baskets scattered on the floor.

We never speak of these unfinished bits: we just circle them, wondering who will run out of socks first, and make a move. Chicken: when you flinch, you lose.

I missed him while he was out of town, but I noticed that the house got much neater in his absence. Because I couldn't play household-chore chicken, I spent my evening free time another way: actually picking up.

So, while togetherness is wonderful, in our house, "Cleanliness is next to loneliness."

It's NOT All Good, You Don't Have to Say It Is

Yesterday, I fell on the ice. Hard. On a second story outdoor walkway. Flat, bam, on my back and head. It was really awful.

It's some kind of miracle that I'm not concussed. I can sit here for a few minutes typing, but my back is painful, and my internal organs feel all jumbled up. I feel lucky I wasn't more hurt, but this week is going to be a doozy.

Maybe feeling like my spleen and my pancreas have switched places is making me cranky, but today I'm going to tackle the holy grail of parenting topics: the blessed gratitude for all things children do, lest we forget that they will only be children for a short period of time.

I now have an eight-year old. She can do most things for herself, and she genuinely wants to help when I need help. Yesterday, for example, when I was hurt, she comforted me, brought me my kindle and my phone when I asked for them ("Don't get up, Mom! Rest!"), sat next to me and respected my physical boundaries when I said, "Ouch, could you scoot over a bit?" and even (gasp!) went to her room to read when I said I needed some time by myself.

Having an eight-year old compared to a three-year old is like owning a car versus a bike. All of the eight-year old's activities cost more money and are more complicated, but generally speaking, we don't have to put in nearly as much minute-to-minute effort as one does with a three-year old just to keep going. Actually, if I remember correctly, having a toddler/preschooler is like owning a bike, but a bike that you have to assemble every morning, all while having someone continuously beg you for milk, but not in the blue cup, only in the red cup, but not with the yellow lid facing right, but with the...well, you get the idea.

With an appreciation for my daughter's newfound ability to see me as an actual person, not just as her mother, I have recently read a lot of online pieces about how we must always be grateful for these tiny people we love who wear us down and keep us awake and never stop asking for help. In the roughest of moments, we should remember that, someday, our houses will be empty, and we will wish we had a sweet little person waking us up for cuddles, or a sticky little hand (that has left marks everywhere) to clean. We must appreciate the chaos. Profess that we remember no time without them in our homes, and wouldn't even want to remember those times if we could. We must embrace and love the whole package, unabashedly.

Okay, I get it. I'm not a total jerk. Of course we should appreciate the reality of our situations, even when they are tiring and messy, because fighting reality only makes things harder. And yes, we should accept the things that come with being the parent of a little kid when our kids are, in fact, little, and dependent on us in a primal way. Little kids, aside from being totally needy and often annoying, are also hilariously funny, hopeful, loving, interesting, etc. You can't have just one side of the coin, you get both, that's the deal. Being grateful for all of what you have is always a good tool for happiness.

THAT BEING SAID, I'm glad my kid isn't little anymore. I didn't embrace all of that chaos, sleeplessness, or (ACK) stickiness with perfect aplomb. (Our running joke in the house is this: "What does Mom like least about parenting? Answer from the kiddo, with a huge laugh: "BEING STICKY.")

I'm just going to come out and say that, if you are home with a little right now, and feel like your entire day is having orders barked at you by someone who is overtired (but refuses naps), demanding (but cannot articulate himself), and generally unpredictable (and with whom you cannot have a rational conversation), you don't have to say that you like this, just because someday that toddler might be an accountant who lives in Portland and only visits you once a year.

I wonder, sometimes, as I read the accounts of never-ending blessed gratitude, as I call this phenomenon, if they are helpful to parents in that they reaffirm that it is nice to be needed, to be relied upon, to be trusted. Little kids do give you those feelings, when you really have time to assess what you do for them, outside the haze of trying to keep shoes on them while being kicked in the face, as they scream, "No shoes! No! No!" even though the only places they want to spend time require shoes.

The thing is, our whole job as parents is to release our kids into the world, step-by-step. We bond with them in this incredible way, becoming the unique individuals placed on this earth to provide for their growth and development, but we're always mindful that the finish line is them leaving. This isn't a death sentence, something to be used as a hammer to make you appreciate every second that you are now spending with them. Yes, that precious time with little ones will go away, and you will have an empty house, but you might like a lot of things about that house, too, just as you might like every stage of their increasing independence.

With this in mind, I'd like to start a greeting card line called "Finish Line," with age appropriate cards like this:

For parents of a newborn:

Congratulations! You will smell like vomited milk most of the time, but you will be too tired to care. Your child is wonderful. Here's wishing you a healthy first year, and a shower at least twice a week.

For the parents of a toddler:

Congratulations! Your kid doesn't need to wake you up to feed all night long anymore. He may still wake you up, but there are some books about that. Here's wishing you find a babysitter for two dates this year, using the money saved by skipping a gym membership. Your workouts are now just chasing your child, and your portion control is eating the scraps off their plates.

For the parents of a preschooler:

Congratulations! While they are in school for a few hours each morning, you may finally be able to go to the bathroom without an audience. Enjoy all this decadence.

For the parents of a kindergartner:

Congratulations! Your kid can probably get their own breakfast if you set out cereal and milk in small containers. Maybe you can sleep a little later? Oh, wait, you had another baby last year. Forget about that. Be proud of yourself when the older kid's hair is brushed.

For the parents of an elementary kid:

Congratulations! Your child now understands that you have needs and wishes of your own. They will still put their own needs and wishes first 92% of the time, but that 8% can be savored. Sorry about all the homework now running your lives.

I have to stop there, as my kid is only in third grade, but I can imagine that at some point, I may be able to say, "Hurray! My kid no longer needs a babysitter, now my husband and I can go out and see movies again without paying $150 a pop!" Wow, that will be a really great day—the Oscars will make sense again! That's something to look forward to in that quiet, kid-free house, for sure.

Parents, I'd love to hear your ideas for these cards. Add them in the comments. I'll be checking them in between Advils, for which I am truly grateful.

Showing Up

The blog went dark for a few days, I know. A family friend is in the hospital in Wisconsin, the family needed some support, and I got in the car and showed up. I hope that what I did while I was with them was a help, but honestly, I think just showing up was really the key contribution.

The hospital was bustling, but intimate. It was public in the most human way, as nurses and doctors needed to know every banal detail about the patient's daily function, but it was so private, in that the moments shared seemed hard to describe adequately to those not present. Being there, I couldn't be in my own head, as there was both too much and too little going on, all at once, requiring all my attention.

During this time, I had so much to write about. The fragility of life. The strength of the spirit and of the body. The silly things that happen in the middle of the scary. The way a hospital is the busiest place in the world, with 20 people coming in and out within a matter of hours, all telling the patient, "You get some rest now." The difference getting a good meal or a good nap can make. The kindness of friends and family who jump in and do the things that need to be done, like pick your kid up from school or let you sleep on their spare bed, all so that you can help caregivers in the hospital have enough of a break to go brush their teeth, get dressed, or eat a meal. The way the first warmer day in four months makes everyone a little zippier, even when they are dealing with serious medical issues. How, for the staff of the hospital, everything is routine, but for the patients and their loved ones, everything in the world may be turned upside down; the juxtaposition of these two points of view, alone, could fill a book.

The thing is, when I pulled out my trusty wireless keyboard and tried to capture any of this, it was all cliché, all so trite, all jumbled into a muddled web of truisms that we say without really thinking. Just trying to capture any of my experience made me respect my favorite authors more, people who justly describe the holy and surreal moments of life, somehow pointing to resonant universal truth without a hint of common aphorism.

I'm home now, and I'm tired. Tired from driving, tired from daylight savings, but mostly, I'm tired from feeling. In true real-life fashion, while I was gone, our old dog got sick again, making my husband's job of holding down the fort more disgusting, and my job of reentry more complicated (as I sit on hold with the vet). A snowstorm is on deck for tonight, stopping the new springlike weather in its tracks, at least for a few days. Swimming lessons, disliked by the child but forced upon her by her parents who do now want to drown, resume tonight, with all of their tears of protest. A plumber is stopping by to fix the leak in our bathtub faucet, but I am still in my pajamas, as I don't have any clean clothes to put on until I get laundry done. Absolutely none of this is as important as what is happening in the hospital right now, so it all feels ridiculous.

I need to drink my coffee, rally, and just show up again, this time for the myself, my family, and for the mundane stuff that makes life chug along. If I could convince my brain to leave that sixth-floor hospital room, or my heart to leave my throat, where it has climbed up and lodged itself firmly, it would be easier. I'm just going to have to do my stuff, anyway, and hope the head and heart return soon.