Last night as soon as I clicked “publish” on that post, Graham woke up crying. “Mama hold the baby!”

The only time he calls himself a baby is when he wants to be held. “MAMA HOLD THIS BABY” sob sob scream wail sob. I tried patting him, holding him, changing him and applying Boudreaux’s Butt Paste which I swear only works because it has the word butt in it. The hysterics escalated, so I put his shoes on him. When that didn’t help, I advanced to giving him gas drops and half a baby motrin. He shuddered a deep sigh, and fell back asleep.

I tiptoed out of his room, and heard a small voice announce, “I really REALLY need! To go to the bathroom.”

“Okay? So get up and go.”

Sleepy Nicolaus shuffled into the bathroom. He complained while he peed: “I have a question for you. WHY do you sometimes force me to change out of the pants I’m wearing when it’s time to go to sleep, even though I WANT to keep wearing those same pants and you just like make me change into different pants just to sleep in…”

“What are you talking about? You are wearing exactly what you wanted to wear for bedtime.”

“No, I mean the other day when I was wearing jeans and you like forced me to –”

“This is ridiculous. Jeans are not comfortable to sleep in, that was days ago, nobody sleeps in jeans, and you do not seriously wake up in the middle of the night to gripe at me about something that happened three days ago.”

“But I just really wanted to wear my jeans –”

“Whatever. I love you. Get back in bed and go to sleep.”

He did. I almost made it to bed when Graham woke up again. He howled for me to sleep next to him. I had a better idea… let’s compare bed options:
1. Sleep on a $1200 Serta pillowtop, with decent threadcount sheets and a down comforter
2. Sleep on a $60 2-inch IKEA mattress designed for tiny Swedish people, under a napkin-sized Nemo blanket, using Dora the Explorer as a pillow

I gathered him in my tired arms and headed for my bed. “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!” he howled, “Stayin Dam’s HAPPY BED. Want happy bed! Mama lay down Dora pillow Happy BED!”

He thought my idea sucked, but whatever. I have to wake up awfully early to spend the night laying down Dora pillow.

So Graham and I slept in our bed. Kevin took the couch because he loves me and he loves our children but doesn’t love to sleep next to more than one of us in our bed. They both kick in their sleep and it sucks. Graham will actually stand up – still asleep – and kick you in the head before flopping back down like a drunken Mr.Miagi doing that crane thing just to prove that he may be some 80s movie dude who I think passed away a couple of years ago but now I’m not sure, but by golly he’s still got it.

When my phone alarm went off at 6:40, I got up and found Kevin scrunched into a tiny space on the couch under a small corner of a throw. Nicolaus was sprawled out next to him.

So that’s what we get for noticing that the day was easy.

The boys were good today. Like, weirdly good. What is this? Is it a game? At one point my mom called, and I figured the goodness streak was broken since nothing can make my children run across the room to hate one another (loudly) like me getting on the phone.

But no – instead of the normal chaos my mom overheard Nicolaus asking Graham to please do him a favor, and then she heard Graham doing it. And then Nicolaus thanking him. And then me passing out and hitting my head on the dining room table because oh my God!

So what do you do when your kids are being freaky easy? You push your luck, that’s what. First I strapped them into the car and sat for a few minutes putting together some packages and things. Then we went to the bank. Where they were cheerful and sweet.

Then we went to the post office. Where they were cheerful, except for Graham cried for one minute about wanting his kimodo dragon. But then I threatened to take away his helicopter and he sat down next to me at the counter, defeated. Helicopter trumps kimodo dragon. Everyone knows that! That’s why rock-paper-scissors is such a better game than Robot-Helicopter-Kimodo Dragon. Most people don’t give a crap whether you show them a rock, or some paper, or a pair of scissors. It’s all just office supplies, except for the rock which could be used as a paperweight, but either way people have no strong feelings about any of the options. So it’s actually a toss-up every time. Unlike… um… kimodo…

Sorry. A lot of time when I talk to people, I realize at some point that their eyes have wandered and they are clearly wondering A) What the living fuck I’m talking about all of a sudden and B) if the exit behind me will set off the fire alarm.

So they were being really good. Okay, I thought, let’s push this one level farther! The library! I keep stupidly checking out videos from the library, even though they have this policy that you can’t return videos from the drive-up thingie. You have to go in. If you are the parent of small children you understand: It sucks when places make you go in.

There are all these buckles to undo, and crumbs on their butts you have to dust off, and then the logistics of making sure one child doesn’t wander into traffic or go off with crazy kidnappers or get eaten by bears while you unstrap the other child, and then you have to hold your books and videos or whatever while you also hold one child and hold the hand of the other, and get them through the metal detector because terrorists bring weapons? To the library I guess? Then the kid you are holding whines in your ear while the other kid demands detailed explanations of everything he sees while you try to shush them and make it to the movie/book return without dropping the whole mess.

So yeah. The library here makes you go in to return movies. Damn their black hearts. But today, going in was not a problem because my kids are easy!

Graham did sort of freak out when it was time to put Robot-Bot-Bot, the inane robot book from the 1970s, into the bin. So I let him renew it. NOT the same as rewarding him for throwing a fit. This isn’t goddamned Caillou over here. But… he was just so bummed. Even Nicolaus tried to show him how cool it was to return books. He dropped Shy Salamanders into the thing and waved dramatically, “Bye Bye Salamander Book! See you next time I check you out! If I don’t find another book about something like volcanoes or reptiles!”

Graham was all about waving goodbye to Shy Salamanders. And he was downright giddy about dropping the DVDs in. We looked at him. Robot-Bot-Bot was the only thing left. He hugged it to him and backed up. “No.” He said, “No put Dam Robot book inder. DAM’S ROBOT BOOK.”

Nicolaus took up the cause, “Aw. Let him keep it just one more day.”

We may have to renew this inane little book for awhile. Luckily I don’t think anyone else is waiting to check it out. It’s pretty lame.

So we tackled the library. Nicolaus usually has somethng specific he’s looking for, but today he wanted to just wander and browse. So we almost ended up with a massive illustrated prose version of The Iliad. Hmm… I’m trying to steer him away from war and weapons lately. Because I’m stupid and every two years apparently I decide he’s old enough for Short Circuit even though he is NOT. He saw it twice like three weeks ago and has been all about weaponry ever since.

But… am I really telling my kid no, you can’t have that work of greek literature? And going Hey! How about a nice animal joke book instead!

Seriously, I tried to get him to go for the joke book instead.

He looked at it. Had me read a few jokes. Didn’t get them. Went back to the Iliad. Part of it is my own prejudice. I didn’t really like the Iliad. But part of it is no really, I don’t think Homer had four year olds in mind when he made up all that crazy violent shit. Plus it was the olden days!

I started pulling books off the shelf randomly. How about this… um… one about a spider eating a fly? Ew, wait, no, not that one, nevermind. Then – oh thank you wonderful maritime tragedy! – he spotted The Titanic, an enormous book with detailed and depressing illustrations.

So we left, with The Titanic and Robot-bot-bot. They were… yes, see? I do remember the point of this post… still being freakishly good. “STOP IT!” I screamed, “Whatever sick mind game this is! You’re trying to trick me, and I damn well know it. So you two throw things and yell at each other RIGHT THIS INSTANT.”

No. Not really, I didn’t scream that. I pushed my luck one more time, and went to the grocery store. You hear me, Internet? The grocery store! With two little kids! After a day of errands!

They were good there, too. I let them drive the annoying little car-shaped carts, and any time they began to lose focus on why we were there (to drive the little car!) I’d remind them to honk their horns. I challenged each to try and honk louder than the other. I’m sure the people there all hated me and my honking kids but it’s not my fault they put honking in that thing. And it’s a better noise than any of the alternatives, right?

So we left. We came home. I cooked dinner while they let me cook dinner. Me! Cooking! Not paying attention to them!

Yes, I cheated and put on Cats and Dogs, the single greatest cinematic creation ever to feature talking animals, but normally a movie doesn’t do squat for letting me cook dinner.

Then they ATE THEIR FOOD.

Then – ready? They went to bed. By 8:30, the day was over. Cheerfully! Especially considering that we read about 1,000 people sinking to an icy death as a bedtime story.

That was today. Amazing as a day of suburbia mundanity can get. My guess is that they’d reached their monthly quota for naughty bullshit. Wednesday starts a new month.

I know it’s obnoxious to brag. I know it’s obnoxious to talk about your kids being wonderful and magical and perfect. Which, mine aren’t so I think we’re good there. Last night they took turns screaming/throwing fits/bellowing/falling down a well until MIDNIGHT. Last night, I’m comfortable saying, our children sucked.

But I want to write a little about the Coolness of Graham and then… I hesitate. Talking about your kids being sweet or funny or cute is one thing, but talking about them being smart is annoying to the point of being taboo.

Of course, I’ve never claimed not to be obnoxious or annoying — I think I’ve been fairly upfront about my lack of social skills and resulting lack of friends. I drew pictures of my own throw up, and you guys are still here reading, so maybe? It’s okay?

Graham is 22 months old. He talks a lot. He doesn’t talk as well as some other toddlers I’ve known who at this age made my life very weird with talk about imaginary rabbits hopping on the dog. But… you know? In his own mellow way, he might be just as weird as his brother. Maybe weirder.

When he was tiny, he hated having his diaper changed. He would kick and cry and flail his arms hoping to find some knives in his reach that he could stab me with. So I started counting the seconds until we were done, hoping he’d learn that it didn’t last that long. But the counting itself turned out to be a magical baby husher. He’s stop, eyes wide, and listen. If you listen to him playing alone, you’ll hear him cheerfully counting up into the teens. Somewhere around 14 things fall apart and he jumbles around then skips to 18. I know, counting is just memorizing – but he can count objects too. Not accurately most of the time but he gets the connection between numbers and amounts. That’s not that weird, I guess. He’ll be two soon. Two year olds count, right?

He likes everything to be symmetrical. He makes patterns with blocks and with magnets, almost anything. Yesterday he moaned “Nooo!!” and knocked down a tower because the blocks went white-red-white-red-red-white instead of white-red-white-red-white-red. That’s weird, right? Maybe. I don’t know. He concentrates so hard on building and arranging and sorting blocks. I’m not kidding when I say we could burn every other toy in this house and he wouldn’t even notice. He uses small shapes to make bigger shapes and tells you, “Dam made-a rettangle!” or whatever.

The letters on the fridge will say things like EHIKKIHE — only the second K will be backwards so the whole thing is a mirror image. Nicolaus will look at it and go, “Oh, I think he was probly trying to write the word kite. He doesn’t know a lot about letters I guess.”

But he does. He knows a lot about letters. He points out letters by their sounds everywhere we go. “Ah! Two Ahs! Mama A, Baby buh.” and so on. T! G! Sssss! O! U! G! I’m honestly trying to think of letters he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Q, and he gets confused on some of the lowercase letters because let’s face it – what the shit were they thinking making lowercase letters look so different than uppercase ones?

I’m not saying he can read. I’m not being crazy. But he understands that letters have their own sounds, that there are upper and lowercase letters, and that letters make up words that we can read. And he loves them dearly. His other loves are:
His shoes/feet/toes
Robots
Space ships/outer space/astronauts
Picking on his humorless brother

And? He sings. He carries a tune. Nicolaus — love him! Not criticizing or comparing! Just noticing! And loving! — sang in loud monotone until very recently. When Graham sings Twinkle Twinkle, you know what song it is. It’s so cute I could cry.

One more, then I will shut up forever and only talk about what shoe size my kids are wearing (5 and 11, though the way kids’ shoe sizes work makes no sense to me) and what they eat for breakfast (oatmeal and fruit).

On Thursday he started writing letters. He wrote an S, an O, a T, and an A. He was so pleased with himself, he squealed each sound. “Dam drawit Sssss!” and so forth.

Yesterday he wrote a D. “Dah! Dah! See? Dam draw a Daddy Dah.”

Alright. Back to non-annoying annoyingness. Breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs, fresh pineapple, and pizza crust. Don’t ask, he insisted on the pizza and I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.

You know how you sometimes read about a kid doing something nuts like laying down on his skateboard and zooming down a hill into traffic or shaving the cat or making hour-long calls to Hawaii or drinking bleach or whatever and you think “Oh my God! WHERE WAS THAT CHILD’S MOTHER??”

I’ll tell you where she was. She was on that child’s bed, surrounded by Eric Carle board books. She was asleep.

How could a mother ever be so irresponsible as to fall asleep while her children are supposed to be under her vigilant supervision? She was tired, that’s how.

After the trip and then going to work this morning, I was intensely sleepy this afternoon. So around 5:30 I took them to their room, blockaded the door with an impenetrable open-top plastic bin of stuffed animals, and then set them up with fun things to play with. Next I went to sleep.

I wasn’t sleeping deeply though, and at some point I realized that their voices sounded too far away. I sat up and saw the door halfway open. Stuffed animals everywhere. The boys were in the living room. Crap. My heart fluttered at the possibilities.

I rushed in there and was relieved to find that instead of playing with broken glass or drinking bleach from any of the many open containers we have laying around, they had focused their energy on creating this modern art installation piece:

Horse, hitched to the stove with a silk ribbon and a horseshoe magnet.
Plastic, synthetic silk, iron, marti gras beads, nonwashable blue marker ink

On Saturday, we packed a small suitcase: two pairs of shorts, Nicolaus’ overalls, a few shirts. A couple of shirts for me and some pajama pants. I put a few things in a tote bag – snacks, two sippy cups, a little camera with no CF card in it because I’m stupid, my wallet, cell phone, twistable colored pencils, and a couple of tiny tiny coloring books.

Kevin drove us to the airport. We got up to the security checkpoint, he hugged me and said, “I love you. But God I do not envy you.”

“Pah – you’re just jealous of how awesome all my fun is going to be.”

He said bye bye/I love you/be extra extra good for mama to the boys. “We’ll be fine.” I waved him away, “I go places with them all the time – this is no different.”

He left. We bustled up to security, I put my bag up on the thing. A woman barked, “You’ll need to put his cars in there.” – she meant the two toy cars that Graham was clutching. “Okay,” I said, “Graham can the lady see your cars a second?”

That didn’t go over well but he was okay. Then we moved through the line and a man told us, “Shoes. All of y’all. All three of you, shoes off.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. The love that Graham shares with his shoes is like none other. They’re making a movie about it, where there’s a shipwreck and Graham washes up on the shore of a deserted island with his shoes and he is the only one who can tame them enough to be worn, and they form a special bond that only strengthens when they return to civilization. None of this mattered to the hardened hearts of our nation’s protectors at the security gate.

He screamed. He howled. He demanded his shoes back. He turned just in time to see them toss his shoes into a bin and run it through the thingy.

Oh. My. Living. LORD. As far as he was concerned, some horrible person had just taken his two best friends (besides for his toes obviously) and thrown them in the garbage.

“Look look look,” I tried to reassure him, “We’ll get them back just as soon as we step through this little thing –”

BEEP. “Ma’am. You need to step back through.”

“I need to wha? Oh. Sorry.”

I took off my necklace which isn’t easy with a screaming angry shoeless toddler on your hip I hope you know.

BEEP. Crap. Cell phone. Maybe wallet, but probably not. I pulled everything out of all my pockets and threw them in the thing.

Okay… now…?

Finally. Finally, finally the thing didn’t beep. Whatever happened to those magic wand things they used to use to check and see if your beeping was just your necklace or whatever? What would they do if you were wearing overalls or something? Each time we step through, Nicolaus starts to march confidently onward without me and I have to issue a son recall. “DUDE. Come back, Nicolaus, please.”

You haven’t stopped imagining the sound of a screaming angry tiny person have you? Because the screaming was still happening, strewn with words about Dam’s spaceship shooooooes back on Dam’s feet. SHOES BACK ON, please shoes! Back! ON! (howl, kick me in the side, et all)

So finally, the metal dude declares us metal-free. He is proud. He has done a good job of protecting everyone from a potentially dangerous and terrifyingly peaceful afternoon.

In front of us, a business guy stops to slip on his shoes. So does a lady in a nice dress. It’s very odd, seeing people who are dressed nice like that submit to taking their shoes off without a second thought.

The security people ask me some questions about my laptop – can they turn it on and all. Fine. Yes. Are you finished inspecting my son’s shoes yet? Because he –

“DAM SHOES BACKONNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Nicolaus, please stand right next to me. What? Yes, laptop, turn it on.” Fuck, you can have my laptop if you’ll just give me back my baby’s shoes.

“Can we? Just get – he really wants his shoes.”

“Ma’am, they’re over there.” DUH! We quietly sneaked your bucket of crap past you while de-metaled you and checked your laptop for porno and everything. His shoes have been waiting there just beyond

Look, I haven’t flown since 2001. I’ve never flown with little kids. I’ve definitely never flown with screaming kids who were screaming in my ear and who wouldn’t stop screaming. I didn’t know the protocol with the shoes and the drinks and oh! I just had an idea! They could put up some sort of signs. That would tell you things like what to expect and what to do and things.

Of course that would spoil the surprise.

Anyway, I found his shoes. Thank you, tiny baby Jesus, now we can make the screaming stop!

“Ma’am? You can’t set him up on this counter.”

Fine. I put Graham on the floor and started to put his shoes on.

“You can’t stop and put his shoes on here.”

“But – where do I?”

“There is a table over there, with a chair.”

Hm. Over there, behind the wall, away from my laptop and all the other (SCREAMING BABY SCREAMING BABY OMG CANNOT THINK) stuff.

So we finally reunited Graham with his shoes. The screaming stopped. I gathered all my crap, and we went to Dallas.

The trip was wonderful. Graham kept his shoes on the entire four days. He slept with them on at night. We’re home now, and he’s in his happy bed with his shoes.

The way back worked pretty much the same way. Even though I knew what to expect and tried to prepare him, he still lost his mind. He really likes his shoes.

Airports wear me out. The trip was great, the plane rides were fun, but airports are designed to make people with children regret everything they have ever done in their entire lives that might have led up to that moment where they went to the airport with their kids. Today while we sat waiting at our gate, Nicolaus spun around in front of me and danced the way he does and said, “Mama? You look really beautiful.”

“Aw,” I said, “Why do you say that?”

He shrugged, “You just look pretty. Because – your eyes, they have like this black, like circles around them? All dark all under and around like THIS. But your eyes are really white, and it just looks super pretty.”

There you go.