What a year. Is there such a thing as a boring uneventful year when you have young kids? And/or when you are a compulsive pick up and mover. And/or when you marry someone with a tendency to get kidney stones. And/or you drive a used Dodge car that will barf its transmission one morning without warning and/or FILL UP WITH SMOKE.

And/or when you quietly mutter “Fuck you, asshole,” to a stranger in the parking lot of Jason’s Deli, who then turns out to be a totally INSANE crazy asshole who then loses his ever-loving Jason’s Deli MIND and screams in your face and tries to get you to hit him. Not that you muttered it for no reason. You’re not insane. The guy was being a complete dick.

That’s why I love you. You only say fuck you to strangers when it is appropriate. That and the fact that you made him look like an idiot by just shaking your head and laughing and saying man, there is something seriously wrong with you. While he screamed so close to your face that his spit was landing on you. A lot of guys would have knocked him on his ass, but you had the grace and clarity to laugh and shake your head.

Really now that I think about it, not much happened before that. I guess it WAS kind of an uneventful year.

Except for the picketing. Remember that? That was so funny.

But other than that, yawn. A normal year in the life of a parent for you.

Over the last year, we’ve watched our children grow and change so much. We watched Graham transform from a baby into a full-blown tiny person. And we watched with amazement as Nicolaus transformed from a kitty/butterfly into a naturalist who rescues kitties and butterflies.

I’m rambling because I can’t figure out what to say. I want to put into words how much we need you, how much you do for this family. The dishes. The trash. Lightbulbs.

No, I’m kidding. We need… see, this is hard and only barely makes sense. Your VIBE. Your brain that figures things out in an instant, your instinct for figuring out what the boys need. Sometimes you get frustrated and it seems hard – but then you relax and let your instinct tell you what to do next. And then you do the perfect perfect thing that I never would have thought of.

You bring a calm humor into this house that is helping us raise our kids to handle the world with humor and grace. We’re raising boys who will laugh in the face of crazy bullies, not because of me. If that guy had screamed at ME like that I don’t know what our kids would have seen me do. Hide under a table and call 911.

Graham doesn’t need you like Nicolaus does. Graham has huge chunks of your personality squishing around in his little brain, like core system software. I look at him as he concentrates, making everything symmetrical and just-so. Then he’ll stop to pick on his mother and his brother. When he was a tiny four month old baby, I swore he was laughing at me… and now that he’s older I know I was right, I wasn’t crazy, the baby WAS laughing at me. He still laughs at me. Then he sighs at the end of his laugh, “Funny baby. Funny Dam.”

And I have to hug him because when I look at his laughing eyes I remember why I needed you. I can be so serious. There is so much joy to life that comes from realizing that screwing up is FUNNY. Get it? I paid the wrong credit card and then we had late fees and a higher interest rate and a negative balance on a card I can’t even find?

Shit. Maybe that’s a bad example.

Nicolaus has a lot of you in his brain that came from you too, but I think most of that is learned. Patched in. His basic operating system is based on mine — down to an eerie level of detail. You know what I mean. He has that, whatever it is that makes me see the world all different and wild and scary and beautiful, full of shadows and lights and living things. We can be so serious, me and him. He needs you, you are so good so good for him. You help him lighten up, you help him feel safe. You help him learn and laugh and grow. He is turning into such a confident, kind, morally decent person.

I know I’m more confident and morally decent thanks to you. I’m calmer. I have a better perspective on what’s important and what so is not important. And it’s really cool to watch you giving Nicolaus those same lessons, just by calmly moving through life, calmly laughing in the face of crazy people. While you calmly picket their place of business. And then laugh your ass off when they go out of business a month later, not that it was because of the picketing but still.

So I don’t know if any of this makes sense. Any time I compliment you, you look confused. Don’t worry about it, you don’t have to understand it. Just thank you, Kevin. Thank you for bringing your light and humor and instincts for the right thing into this family. We all love you so much.

The man I married on purpose, knowing that someday he might discover the world’s largest earthworms in our yard and then pretend to eat them.

These are temporary. They’re only hanging on our walls until I can finish and sell them, but it’s so nice to have some color up. Everything in this apartment is white, and I just don’t think we have it in us to paint this time. Everyone who knows me outside of the computer just fainted. For the last dozen years, they’ve watched poor Kevin climb up on many folding chairs and paint our many dwellings many different shades of blue. And orange and green and turquoise. But in our strange cave apartment it’s alright somehow, I don’t mind the white. Still, giant colorful canvas walhangings painted with ever so deep and meaningful birds and flowers do help.

These two aren’t finished yet, but almost…

In case it isn’t obvious, these works are meant to provide insight and commentary on modern society and the instinctive mpulse to encompass others in our vast array of experiences as we affect those around us and as our actions reverberate through the emotional network of society. Plus, pretty birds are happy!

Update on the War on Brudder: The tentative peace agreement remains largely intact. There have been a few skirmishes, but for the most part things have evened out over the last few days.

My amazing mediation skills are obviously at work here. I think they should think about hiring me to quell the insurgency in Iraq. For example, has anyone noticed the insurgents drooling a lot? Have they been running a slight fever perhaps? Because with the kind of violence we’re seeing over there, I think teething is a reasonable possibility. Graham had three teeth come through all at once the other day, giving me sudden insight into why he was being such a surly asshole. Other than for the just plain fun of hearing Nicolaus freak out I mean.

Anyway. They need to try putting al-Qaida to bed an hour earlier, and they should try giving the Shiites a little tylenol. If it doesn’t work, hey. As you were. I’m just throwing out ideas is all.

Yesterday we went to the closest park, the small one that has sand instead of playground rocks or wood chips, or that new fancy litigation-era super shock absorbing rubber stuff. This is just regular old 1970s playsand, full of rocks and ants and probably cat poop and broken glass, but whatever. The boys love playing in the sand. They’ve never been to the beach, so they don’t know it’s lame.

I’m debating now whether to go on a slight tangent about Graham loves to go there and build sand castles, and how the other day Graham used a blob of white tortilla dough to make “Sand cassils”. And then the other night I changed his diaper and he reached down to his… uh… stuff… and squished it and gleefully declared that he was making a sand castle. And how he… no. No, nevermind. This is the kind of stuff people judge mothers for putting on the internet, and rightfully so. Nothing is worse than being in junior high and having your peers go online and read about how you used to squish your man-stuff into shapes and call it a sand castle. Unless of course by then, that sort of thing is all the rage and Graham is instantly launched into the cool crowd for being ten years ahead of his time.

In any case, I think it’s better that I decided not to include all of that. You’ll just have to wonder forever what it was.

Anyway. We went to the sandy park. Before we got out of the car, I grabbed a toy rubber snake out of the front seat floorboard. The minivan came standard equipped with a crapload of toys on the floor, and crushed teddy grahams in the seats. But when we bought the Scion we had to pay extra for the feral children package. Totally worth it.

The rubber snake had a string tied to it because, well of course it did. Having young kids means learning to accept a life full of random.

I quietly showed Kevin that I was holding a rubber snake with a string tied to it. I whispered, “This is going to be awesome. I’m going to hide it in the sand and scare the crap out of Nicolaus.”

You think I’m mean, don’t you? Mean and horrible and rotten. Oh, what a terrible mother! I’m never reading your blog again you horrible, snake-in-sand-hiding, child-scaring mom.

Yeah, WELL. Kevin shook his head and laughed, “Did you not hear what he just said?”

“No.”

“He has a snake.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s going to put it under the sand.”

I looked up from unbuckling Graham and sure enough, Nicolaus was trucking over to the sand with a large, realistic bendy wooden snake in his hand. “I’m going to SCARE PEOPLE!!” He shouted over his shoulder to us, “It’s going to be SO super funny. They’re going to be all like, ahhhhh oh no it’s a real poisonous snake!! And they’ll think it’s REALLY real. It’s going to be aweson.”

Man. How bad do I wish I could travel back in time to 1978 and get myself so I could bring me back here to play with this kid.

And yes, I did put the rubber snake under the sand, and yes I did scare the living pants off of my young son. And yes, it was hilarious. And yes, he thought so too. Mostly.

Yesterday was amazing.

I mean, not at first. At first it was horrible. After lunch, Nicolaus managed to find a way to fight over a toy with someone who was strapped into a highchair. That takes a kind of focus and determination that will serve him well someday. Unless of course as an adult he uses all of that focus to pick fights with random toddlers.

Graham was in his high chair and somehow managed to wrestle away a very important object from his mobile older brother. They scrabbled back and forth until finally Nicolaus screamed at Graham to STOP IIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with many more exclamation points than I’m willing to type.

It was bad. It was a very mean kind of screaming.

Graham, usually amused by strife, covered his ears and cried. A sad, low, sobbing cry. “Brudder… Brudder…”

Everything stopped. “Look at your brother. You scared him.” Nicolaus stood for a long minute, and didn’t say anything. “Go give him a hug.” I insisted.

He moved to give Graham a hug, but was rejected with a shove: “NO BRUDDER.”

“Graham.” I mediated. “Let Nicolaus give you a hug. Hug your brother.”

They hugged.

Then they hugged again. And again and started laughing.

Nicolaus spun over to me and bounced and said, “You know WHAT? I’m going to be nice to my brother! For like this whole entire day!”

They hugged some more and giggled. I didn’t hold my breath.

But you know WHAT? After that, he really was nice to his brother for like the whole entire day. They spent the day engaging in what experts call parallel play, which comes from the Latin, “para” meaning “sort of” (paramedic, paralegal, paranormal…) and “Llel” which means “ignore the fuck out of something”.

They played happily, each pretending that the other did not exist. Nicolaus spent two hours with Barbaro the famous racehorse, re-enacting the last weeks of Barbaro’s life. Then he turned back time all the way until Barbaro was a baby so he wouldn’t die for a long long time. He was Barbaro’s owner, trainer, jockey, and physical therapist. I was the vet, bandaging poor Barbaro’s legs with paper towels.

Meanwhile Graham played with foam blocks. The blocks have been sort of a key battleground all week, so he soaked up being able to just work and work with no interruptions. I could watch him make things with blocks all day. He works so hard. First, he sorts the blocks by shape. Then he starts building towers or symmetrical little patterns on the floor. Everything has to match, be even, and be lined up perfectly. He started making robots. Everything’s a robot lately. Daddy robot, baby robot. He made an airplane and zoomed it all over the living room. I spent the evening watching him, fascinated by the way he worked, I watched him and played Barbaro’s vet with Nicolaus. I hated to interrupt them, but eventually it was time for dinner.

Then I put Graham to bed and it was weirdly easy. Another nap-deprivation success story!

Nicolaus asked to stay up and he was being so sweet and awesome I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. He sat on the futon while I did some laptop work, sat on that futon and studied the Richard Scarry Great Big Air Book.

There’s no magical point or eloquent doogie howser-type ending to this post because I just realized that I have to change a very foul diaper.

Well I made it to work at 6:59. Like an ass! I could have slept an extra minute.

Good thing I got there on time though because these people aren’t messing around. When they say meeting at seven, people start saying “Well? Are we meeting?” RIGHT AT SEVEN. I don’t know what era you grew up in, but for those of us who spent a chunk of our careers at dotcoms and software companies where a meeting with the CEO could reasonably be postponed because of an especially sweet game of ping pong, this level of attention to what time it is? is spooky. And they do it without any sort of fancy Outlook coordination software. They just say “Hey — meet? Thursday at 7?” And then everyone knows and it happens. Right at that time. It’s like a world designed by Kevin or something.

But hey, I see a certain reasoning behind doing things at arranged times. Especially when those arranged times mean that we go to a French cafe to eat croissants and have our meeting. So even though it was early, I am willing — it turns out — to be awake that early if it means I get to be served a Coke and a bowl of fruit, and a croissant made entirely out of butter. Oh man. Is THIS what people who wake up before nine do every day? Is this the most important meal business I’d heard so much about? Because if I had known that there was such a yummy fourth meal for early risers I might have… well, not joined them sooner, but I would have envied them a little.

Did I seriously just bore the shit out of you with my breakfast? Sorry. It was just yummy and… sorry.

Anyway I worked and then I came home and the real day began. The war of sibling aggression continued and screw it, who am I kidding, the civil war analogy doesn’t work for young brothers in arms at ALL. A four year old and a toddler would never get past deciding who got to be blue and who got to be gray. They would each stand back and wait until the other expressed a preference. AhHA! He wants that color? Well that’s the color I have to have or I will die. And then he would die, just to prove the point. And then the other one would die too just so as not to be outdone. And then they’d both get bored of that and spin off to find blocks or rubber geckos or sandals to fight over.

They love each other. I know they do. But we have a straight man and a wise guy sharing a room — it’s like Perfect Strangers except not racist and with fewer sheep jokes. Here is every episode:

Graham does something annoying.

Nicolaus is shocked. And annoyed.

Graham pretends not to notice.

Nicolaus elevates to a level 2 freakout.

Graham hums a song to himself, continues doing annoying thing.

Nicolaus screams and actually physically turns inside out. Then tattles because now his guts are scattered all over the floor and it’s a mess and it’s all Graham’s fault.

Graham looks at me and says, “Funny dam. Funny baby.”

My God. He is Kevin in toddler form. Pretty soon he’ll be picketing and driving slow in front of assholes just to make them go insane.

So today I mainly managed them by driving around and running errands. We went to the bank, where Nicolaus said that we shouldn’t have moved away from Texas because one time in Texas like a year ago we went to the bank and they gave him a sucker. It was shaped like a smiley face. Damn it all. I knew this move was a huge mistake.

The other cornerstone of my Child Tormenters Management Strategy for today was to prevent naps at all costs. That sounds stupid, I know. Everyone knows that kids need naps! They use naps to recharge their magical powers, which is nice except that lately they use those powers against me until almost midnight. And I have to get up early. So today I distracted them from sleep. It’s hardest in the car, which made the errands a dumb idea. At 60 mph on the highway, I turned into the damned cheerleaders from Saturday Night Live. “Oooooh Graham! Don’t go to sleep!! Look outside! Do you see CARS?”

“Tars. Dam nightnight.”

“Nicolausssss!! Are you awake back there?”

“My body is just so tired. It wants me to sleep a little bit…”

“No! We were going to play a GAME.” He can’t pass up anything that might be a game.

“What game?”

“Ummmm… uhhh…” Shit. I suck at games.

“My body’s just going to sleep a minute…”

“Nono! We’re going to play word association!”

I’m lame, okay? But it worked. We played the living ass out of word association for about ten minutes. Then he got tired and bored of it and started throwing out goofy nonsense answers.

“Does that mean you don’t want to play anymore?”

“Yeah. I’m done.”

“Okay.”

“And you know what, Mama? Graham’s asleep.”

FUCK.

We got home a few minutes later, and I tried to rouse him. “Noooooooo,” He insisted, “HAPPY BED.”

He calls his bed “Happy bed.” It’s awesomely cute. And very, very sad when he accidentally whacks his head on the rail and then cries and sobs accusations about the horrible, nonhappy thing the bed has done. “Happyyyyybehhhhd! HAAAAPPYYYYYBED!!!”

So I gave in to the nap and put him in his happy bed, but then! Oh wonderful thing! He didn’t fall back asleep. He stayed up after a ten minute nap and stumbled around for the entire evening, grumpy and clumsy. See? I thought, My clever plan is working.

And shut up because it did work. They both were asleep by 9:00. No bedtime drama, because they were both blind and drunk with tiredness. Wooooo for clever parenting!

Except now it’s 11:22 and I’m still awake, with no one to blame except my own dumb self. Wooooo for being a dumbshit!