Nicolaus has a brain that’s organized into folders that would make Martha proud, all color coded and arranged by category. I ask him to please be patient with me because there’s a lot of stuff in my brain, all shoved into a big pile. So I’ll find everything eventually, but you’ve got to give me time to dig through it all.

So that’s what I’m doing right now, digging through the pile and trying to keep track of everything. I think we might take this week off from school completely.

Here’s a little watercolor sketch of two sisters goofing around. I’ve never had sisters and I don’t live with anyone who has sisters but I assume it’s fun?

So no real post today. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with Roux, still fighting the side of me that takes every moment that he doesn’t spend biting my kid as a great, positive sign that maybe we should just give him a little more time. But that’s stupid talk. We’ve done that so many times and the thing is that he NEVER snaps at all, ever! right up until he does.

To help take my mind off of this, I’m trying to research dog breeds. But thinking about it too directly makes me crazy so then I short circuit and end up on Petfinder where I should never ever ever go OMG why am I such an idiot with the constantly wanting every pointy little cute nervous looking adorable dog??

So. Here’s my new, hopefully jackass-proof plan. When we get ready to adopt our next dog, I am going to call the shelters and rescue groups around here that do foster programs. Without asking what the dogs look like, I am going to tell them we’re looking for a family pet that can go with us to run errands without any drama or chance of the dog snapping at other dogs or kids or anything else. Not that we’ll ignore the specific breed/mix or appearance entirely but it shouldn’t be the first diamond on the flowchart, you know?

Hopefully they will know their adoptable dogs well enough to be able to let us know when/if they have any dog that is
1. Great with kids
2. Easy going
3. Mellow
4. Sweet
5. Never met a stranger
6. Not stressed by noises, new situations, traffic, dogs, kids,or anything else
7. Doesn’t generally freak out or barf in the car.

I would say must be housetrained because housetraining Roux was such a challenge but then again I did it! I made him understand! Just because Graham pees on the floor in front of the toilet doesn’t mean that you can, too. So if I was able to housetrain this dog, any other dog should be a piece of cake. Then again, we’re renters here so the less I have to rely on those enzyme cleaning sprays the better.

Blah! See? This is the beginning of the holiday rush, I am busy busy busy organizing my studio and ordering shipping supplies and my brain is buzzing with all of this.

Kevin thinks we should just get a miniature goat.

My brain is better, I think. Of course – where am I getting this information? So it’s hard to say for sure, but the people around me seem less irritable and more at ease with me being awake, so I’m going to take that as a good sign.

Side effects so far: dreams are not as detailed and interesting as usual. Though I think I did dream something very funny about an old man who came to the present from 1,000 years in the past via time travel, but it was confusing see because he looked so old. People thought he meant that he was a thousand years old and it was very funny in a Three’s Company way to watch him try to explain that he’s only 90-something, even though – sigh, yes, well he was born some thousand years ago but that’s not how it works and – oh nevermind.

But the texture of my dreams is normally a lot more interesting and fun. These are sort of like watching a movie while half asleep.

Other side effect: Is there a word that means “full of words”? I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel very… wordy. If I actually posted everything here that I want to post right now, you’d all run away for good. And how!

So I won’t.

So. How’s it going? Anything… good on the internet?

Graham was in a horrible mood today which – please forgive me – is almost entertaining. He wants so bad to be awful, to tell us all to fuck off, to throw the tantrums his brain is demanding. But part of him likes us, and is embarrassed, and wants a hug, and wants to tell us a joke. He was howling and furious because he couldn’t cut. It is his right to cut, and he is very good at cutting, and he wanted to cut and I – an unreasonable whore of a mother – was saying no. So we faced off.

“Graham. Put the scissors down and stop throwing a fit. If you don’t stop it, you will go to your room.”

He stood, old-western style and stared at me, deciding what to do. His face quickly morphed from one expression to the next. He scowled… then melted into sad. Then shifted to an angry pout. Then – a tiny twitch of a smile? Back to scowl. Then a flash smile. Then hurt. Outrage! Half a smile followed by a look of total confusion.

He needed help. I scooped him up and gently took the scissors, swirled him around and changed the subject. We moved on, until the next human rights violation occurred four minutes later. Dinner was announced, and he wanted to eat but also wanted to bring his paper boat to the table but we didn’t hear him so we said just come and eat, and he thought that meant no you can’t bring your lousy boat to the fucking table, so he howled and we told him to quit it and

I’m doing it, aren’t I? I told you. It’s a problem. Maybe there’s a wordpress plugin that will auto-cut a third of what I write.

When he messes up, he hides his eyes. It’s should be infuriating that this otherwise capable person pees everywhere but my god, he looks like a little rabbit with his paws over his little face and it just makes me want to hug him until I gobble him up, but not in a violent child-eating way. In a oooooh I just can’t squish him hard enough way.

Nicolaus meanwhile was more bouyant than usual, and he chatted with us and instructed us on the ways of many things. The kid is writing a book of funny history… he dictates while I type, then he draws pictures and he wants me to print the whole thing out and make him famous somehow. Here are the entries he has come up with so far:

Nicolaus Copickleus
Discovered that the Sun goes around the Earth and THAT all goes around ANOTHER SUN.

Julius Meaner
Julius Meaner was an emperor in Rome. He was called Meaner because he was really mean and one time he killed Jesus. His reward from God was to get stabbed.

I have got to find the picture for that one because it is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Julius Caesar is standing there with blood gushing out everwhere and there are knives that his friends threw down and he’s saying something like “Oh I’m dying” – and there’s a beautiful angel up at the top saying “HER IS YUR REWRD.”

When Nicolaus tells this story he almost can’t talk he’s laughing so hard. “You know, your reward for killing Jesus?” Hahaha. Ha. Alright so technically Caesar predated Christ but the premise is still pretty funny. He cracks up telling it because haha! REWARD? Being killed? Get it? That’s not a very nice reward!

I love this kid. He is so damned weird.

Today was Kevin’s ten year anniversary of being married to me on purpose. When we explained this to Nicolaus and told him we were all going out to lunch to celebrate he asked why we were celebrating now, ten years later, instead of you know – like, at the time we actually got married. Because. We had our wedding that day and it was so stressful and exhausting that we weren’t up for going out to eat afterwards.

Oooh and! We have declared Saturdays our family art day. Tomorrow is the first one – we’re all going to work on projects and make a giant mess in my studio. Then we’ll clean it all up and go to the grocery store. I’m trying this new thing with cooking at home, and it’s almost becoming fun in a sick, satisfying way because hey look at me I’m acting like a regular person.

Okay shhhhh. I’m going to stop now.

It’s like sprinting across hot coals, with my bag of orders to ship over one shoulder and my kids in either arm. Once the week begins, I am in survival mode: there can be no major house cleaning, no significant cooking, only divided trays full of assorted steam-in-the-bag items and quick glances in the mirror to make sure my hair doesn’t look gross enough to gross anyone out. There are so many things to do every minute of every day that if we all make it to the other side of the week alive and with shoes on the right feet, then we did good. Once we get to Saturday, we can breathe a little and slow down long enough to clean up properly, mop the bathroom floor, put away all the clothes and stuff, hit reset and hope it was enough to get us through the next week.

It feels like a giant year-shaped connect-the-dots. And somewhere in between errands and clay class and music class and swim and gymnastics for Graham that really felt like the one thing too much, but Graham said that he was going to call motherfucking CPS if I didn’t sign him up for a gymnastics class — at least I think that’s what he said; we are taking him in for a speech evaluation in a week or so — but somewhere in the middle of all of that, we are homeschooling.

It’s going well. That’s what I say whenever people ask me how it’s going. It’s going really well, actually, in the sense that my kid is partway through kindergarten, is reading and mathing and whatnot, and learning about science concepts like what’s inside the earth and how different kinds of rocks are formed and how electricity works. He’s suddenly over the history obsession, I’m not sure why or how such an intense passion vanished so all of a sudden, but it did. He’ll still listen if I start reading something history-related, but he doesn’t ask me history questions all day anymore. No more frantic stuffing his books with bookmarks so we can read and answer his questions about what’s going on in this picture and what are these guys doing to that other guy?

It only happens about once a year, but Nicolaus is between obsessions right now. Oooh unless you count a total, possibly unhealthy, addiction to this game.

I was going to write more about our little school but I fell asleep and it’s morning now and the boys are driving large plastic cars all over me. Hard to focus.

1. Graham is nearly three, and is nowhere near potty trained. He has little interest, and no natural talent for it and really, I’m sort of fine with that. It’ll happen. The internet is full of expert reassurance that kids won’t go to college in diapers, although to be honest I didn’t actually read the articles and it’s possible that they are more about the strictness of college entrance requirements.

The core issue is that, while he is a wonderful person with a very big heart, he is someone who seems wholly unable to predict and announce bathroom activities before they happen. Or AS they happen or, for that matter, after they happen which is strange because I remember a certain younger version of him who would army crawl to the phone and try to call the police if we didn’t change him the very instant that he peed. We all mellow with age I guess.

Every once in a while I walk around like a damned fool trying to figure out what IS that smell? It doesn’t smell like a dirty diaper — it just smells like bad house funk. You know? So I make Kevin take out the garbage, we do the dishes and scrub the sink, and start to haul the refrigerator out to the side of the road before it dawns on me that wait. Could it be Graham?

I go to change him and holy living lord. It’s beyond a dirty diaper. It’s… it’s… I don’t even know what it is. It’s horrible.

“Graham!” I say, as I use the 37th wipe and look up the number for HASMAT to dispose of his pants, “DUDE. You have to TELL me when you are poopie.”

“I’m poopie, Mama.”

2. When I saw this post on Reddit, I panicked because how did they know!?
Nicolaus has discovered Star Trek. And honestly, I’m so, so relieved. There was this whole Star Wars thing with him, and it was fun, but a five year old’s endless questions about Star Wars are hard to answer. Because Star Wars is deep and philosophical on one level, but on another level it’s about whatever the fuck George Lucas thought would be awesome that day. That means that there are a lot of things that just don’t make a lot of sense.
Now I know, I know, you Star Wars people are going to be all but no! It makes perfect sense! And then you’ll give me this big ad-hoc complex theory which explains why everything makes sense. But you know what’s a simpler explanation? George Lucas pulled it out of his ass. Which is totally fine! Good for him! I commend his skill at doing so. Except I have this kid who wants to know why every single thing in a movie was said or done, and Star Wars makes this an exhausting hassle.

Star Trek questions are way, way easier to answer. They have a vocabulary and rules and they work their nerd butts off to stay consistent. Their simplified wrestling with ethical and moral issues makes sense to a young kid.

We’re working our way through all of The Next Generation, skipping over any super intense ones for now. Nicolaus thinks Data is the coolest thing ever. Now he walks around the house and says things like, “Computer. Activate the transponder matrix to my positronic impulses. Engage.”

And that officially makes my life complete.

3. Sometimes we use candy in lieu of parenting
Early this summer we were having real problems with bedtime. Nicolaus. He would lay awake for hours, talk to himself and get up repeatedly to make sure we weren’t having lots of fun or anything.

Wait. Did I ever tell you about the time when he came out and caught us eating Kit Kats and watching the Cars movie? We were testing this stupid thing that was supposed to polish scratches out of DVDs. And eating Kit Kats because hey! Halloween candy is still in here! Nicolaus was all holy cow, so this is what they do whenever we are sleeping.

No wonder the poor kid’s an insomniac.

Anyway, Kevin was putting the boys to bed one night this summer and he told them “Go to be with no problems tonight, and maybe the Tootsie Roll fairy will come.”

“We – wait, what’s the Tootsie Roll fairy?”

“It’s a fairy that leaves a Tootsie Roll for children who go to bed with no problems.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes. But she doesn’t come every single time, because there’s only one Tootsie Roll fairy and there are like six billion people on the planet.”

Kevin really needs to write a book about this sleep training method, called “No HERE is the Happiest Baby on the Block, MFers!” Although maybe in the interest of full disclosure he should include the invoice for $1700 worth of dental work our kid is getting next month. But I swear to you we brush Graham’s teeth all the time! And it only works because we normally never give him candy and he drinks tons of water and – crap. You already judged me, didn’t you? I knew confessing stuff on the internet was a bad idea.

The first night of the Tootsie Roll Fairy, both boys fell asleep the instant we said goodnight. And it has continued to work more or less perfectly for much of the summer. I really wish I had known about the power of Tootsie Rolls when Nicolaus was like a month or two old.

Pleased with the success, we’ve started using happy and sad jars full of little candies to bribe the boys into NOT fighting anymore. At the end of every day the boys divide up whatever is in the happy jar, and then they gleefully eat it because omg chocolate. It’s not a perfect system, but it definitely takes the edge off the pointless escalation of their constant battles which go
“I’m going to hassle you for no reason!”

“Yeah? Well I’m going to over react!”

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

Now the battles go
“I’m going to hassle you, okay?”

“No, please don’t.”

“NO! Um. I mean, okay.”

I’m thinking a system like this could work well with warring countries.

4. We’re gradually replacing all of their toys with stuff from home depot.
Okay, that’s not a confession so much as a declaration of intent. Kevin bought a bunch of 1/2″ PVC pipe and fittings. He cut the pipe down into 3″, 6″, and 12″ pieces, then sanded the edges. We put them all in a bin in the newly appointed workshop, and the boys have played with almost nothing else since that moment. The whole project cost like $7. I see a very PVC Christmas ahead…

Mentally preparing for a big trip – 17+ hours of train travel with two little kids who are very excited about the! TRAIN! They are filling up the living room with wooden IKEA train tracks right this second, and arguing over the details of how REAL train wrecks happen.

We’re waiting for our house to close. Yes, that house that we moved out of over a year ago. Glad to be done, but a little bummed about saying goodbye to my cute little home in Rockwall. It was nice knowing that it was there and it was ours. Not $750 a month’s worth of nice though, so I will probably get over it pretty quickly.

It’s humid and gross outside.

I fell off the laundry wagon. Have spent today catching up and cursing myself for letting it pile up like this.

Graham is making things so pointlessly difficult this afternoon – and the more stern I am with him, the harder he giggles at me.

Money freaks me out. I’m about to order a literal crapload of inventory. Everything’s in order with the printer, it’s all finally just about ready to rock and I am so excited. And yet I keep stalling on finally really actually placing the official order because my god, they want me to give them half of my money.

It’s hot outside in that way that drains your will to do anything other than go to Sonic in time for half-price slushes. Lately I accomplish everything in small bursts all day. It probably totals up to less than 2 hours of doing anything productive

I took a 20 minute nap this afternoon, and paid for it in birdseed. The boys decided to make Lovebird Dreamland, which apparantly involves toys hidden under a mountain of seed. Slightly better than the last nap I took, paid for in the form of cleaning a thin layer of watermelon juice off of everything we own. They were very proud of figuring out how to make water by slooshing up the inside of a watermelon and then drinking it with straws.

After the nap I felt guilty for ignoring my kids so much, so we set up a science experiment involving pennies and various liquids and cups and messes and Graham crying because we wouldn’t let him drink the cup of milk with the pennies in it. So I got him a cup of milk to drink. Which he immediately put pennies in.

Yesterday I spent an embarrassing amount of time making Star Wars paper dolls for the boys. We printed out coloring book pages from the good old internet, then cut them out and laminated them with contact paper. It was a ridiculous way to spend precious time, but I can’t even explain how good it feels to watch my kids play with something so simple and home made. Plus it’s just hilarious to watch them play. “I’ll get you Luke!”

“No you won’t”

“Yes and plus, I’m your daddy!”

“NO YOU ARE TOTALLY NOT.”

“Yes I am! Be bad like me and it will be fun haha!

“NO. And plus, did you know that you actually do have some good in you?”

“I do? Oh.”

So I’m pretty proud of the paper dolls. They’ll be perfect for entertaining the kids on the train — and I’m assuming other passengers as well — but that honestly was the most significant motion I’ve made towards preparing for the trip. Blah.

This morning Kevin left for work with these cheerful instructions: Be sure you eat all that bacon today. It will go bad by the time we get back from New York.

Oh, sweetie. I might not finish putting the laundry away or packing or gathering snacks and toys and blankets and bottles of tequila and stray dogs and long sticks with bandana bags tied at the end for the trip (did I mention that we are taking the train?) but I will accomplish this one thing. Just for you.