It’s after one in the morning, when only the children of our nation’s crappiest parents are still awake. It’s awful, I should be strict about bedtimes but it’s hard when your kids are most charming and most sweet and mellow after 10pm. Plus! My mom’s in town, and she is a late-night stayer upper. So she’s on the couch with Nicolaus, they’re online watching Netflix documentaries. She picked The History of The Brooklyn Bridge and figured it would bore him to sleep because it’s not like he’s obsessed with history, building, fires, bridges, and New York. Or anything.

It bored ME though, so I’m going to bed pretty soon. They can stay up all night and learn about architectural wonders of the world.

She’s in town for no reason, which is the best possible kind of trip. We’ve been doing all of the things that we do in a normal week, and she comes with us and I make fun of her and she buys me dinner and we laugh and stay up half the night. Errands and junk are so much easier and more fun with her along, so the week has gone really fast.

Today I went to the doctor mainly to get a refill on my Zoloft prescription, but also to ask about the ten different things I’ve been meaning to go to the doctor about. As I was going through my list of questions for the doctor I started to get embarrassed that maybe he’d think I was a totally crazy hypochondriac, especially since I was there for Zoloft. “I swear I’m not crazy and these are legitimate non-crazy questions. Oh and also — more crazy pills, please!”

Ah well.

There was more — always, right? — and it was good stuff too. Plus pictures and a video of Graham talking about Barack Obama. But Obama will have to wait for his nonsequitor-laced public endorsement from very young America. Because there’s this Brooklyn bridge thing on… I mean, those guys worked their ever-loving asses off. Man. I am going to bed.

Nicolaus and my dad took a walk together. They have a lot of weirdness in common. I snapped this during a recent visit as we were on our way to lunch, just minutes before I abandoned all pretense of being a photographer who doesn’t over-process.

That damned scientific method is no match for little kids. After almost a week of Nicolaus’ stormy moods and Graham whiny naughtiness, today they have been wonderful. Cute. Sweet. Funny. Mellow. There was one little incident involving the portable DVD player but that was my fault for getting on the phone.

Other than that, awesome. They let me get work done, then they let me play with each boy separately, and now they are playing happily in the bath while I sit on the floor next to the tub with my laptop and hope they don’t decide to be ironic and dump water on it.

I figure I’m safe now that I said it because what are the chances something like that would really happen right after I said it?

Oops, now that I said what are the chances?? the chances probably just went way up. Crap.

Anyway, today has been nice and even a tiny bit productive. I managed to pack and label all of the week’s orders which feels wonderful in a way and sad in another. Wonderful in the sense that piling up a stack of packages to mail makes me feel like the lion in Disney’s Robin Hood when he plays with his money and gloats, “Taxes! Beautiful taxes! BAha, Bahaaaa.”

Except I actually hate taxes, but other than that I look and sound identical to him.

But then seeing my little “Orders to ship folder” sitting empty makes me wish someone would order something. Like cleaning out your fridge and then looking in it and going well shoot… there’s no food in here.

Anyway, I got everything all packed up and labeled and ready to go sometime after 4. The post office closes at 5. I looked at my boys who were playing together in the living room. Nicolaus was still wearing his pajamas and Graham — well, he changes his clothes several times every afternoon and it gets weirder each time.

In my head I played out all the steps needed to throw sort of normal clothes on them and find everyone’s shoes and herd them to their patches (did I tell you about the front door patches? The single smartest thing I have ever thought of ever in my life) and load them in the car along with all my mail, then unload them and drag them into their least favorite place on earth besides the dentist. They hate the post office a lot. No. That’s not right. They LOVE the post office. It’s so the land of grownups, and something about it makes them go insane.

Anyway, I blew off the post office. Sorry, customers. I promise I will go in the morning. Besides, what if it’s like in Like Water for Chocolate, and all the stress and bad feelings I have when I mail your package all travel across the country to you and make you have a shitty mood for a few minutes? That’d be no good. So yeah, tomorrow. I’ll be a calm blue ocean sliding everything into that calm blue mailbox. Kevin will have the boys here at home. Sucker.

Anyway, yeah. My love for the scientific method makes me want to figure out why some days are so good with these guys. What is the key thing that makes the difference? But I am starting to accept that sometimes they just decide to be awesome, sometimes they decide to be assholes. There is no knowing why or how it happens. Parenting has turned me into a bit of a Zen Buddhist or whatever.

***

Bedtime tonight was much better. First, I gave them a bath as documented above. Then we improvised a sort of jumpolene out of two old foam couch cushions from the sectional that my parents had when we were kids. I have personally jumped on those very cushions many times, which explains why the covers are in such ratty condition. This got the boys sort of wired/tired.

While they jumped, I made dinner. A stack of banana and honey sandwiches on warm whole wheat bread, with baby carrots and graham crackers shaped like insects. Big hit. Very easy. I really recommend if you are still spending an hour every day cooking some sort of dinner for your children that they may or may not eat that you adopt my “Tray full of everything” approach. Just while they’re little. One day we’ll start making them join us for dinner and eat what we eat and they’ll be horrified by how our food isn’t segregated. All together on the plate! In one compartment! And they’ll cry and it’ll be funny.

But not now. For now I need dinners to be simple, and I need them to eat it all without a fight and most importantly, I need the dining room table for my art projects.

Then we read a story, tucked everyone in. Then, and this is the part I’m proud of: I stood up next to Nicolaus’ bed.

“What are you doing, Mama?”

“You have a hard time falling asleep lately. So I’m helping you.”

“How?”

“I’m going to help you settle down and go to sleep.”

So I stood there. And every time he sat up, played, talked, tried to pick up his notebook and pen, I told him No. Lay down. Be still. Close your eyes. Go to sleep.

It took five minutes.

Once you get one to hush and go to sleep, the other is usually easy. So then I lay down in Graham’s bed and tried the same thing on him. And I am certain it would have worked if I hadn’t fallen asleep. What is the deal with that boy’s bed?? I always fall asleep! I woke up and he was still playing. Oh well. I left, he played for awhile longer and then went to sleep.

Ahhh. I should have worked or cleaned or done anything productive. But instead I made some cookies and watched a Netflixed DVD of My Name is Earl and surfed the internet. Oooh and while surfing I found this work of art! This little girl drew a picture of precisely what my mom would look like if she had red hair! Freaky. Take a look:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7158246

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin made himself a huge pot of smalltown boy soup. I’m not excited about soup. I have no particular problem with it, it’s not gross or anything… I just always go mmm yeah soup. Or! Oooh! Something else!

Well it was a really really huge pot of soup see, and our schedules that week were all kinds of fucked up so I was basically on my own to figure out what to eat. The boys are easy, I make them a tray full of everything with cute sandwiches and cheese cut into star shapes and they are happy. Then they went to bed, and I ate whatever I wanted.

And it turns out that left to my own whatever, I will eat the same thing every single day:
1. On the Border brand tortilla chips
2. Ground beef mixed with organic whole foods brand salsa
3. A chopped tomato
4. Some kind of cheese or, God willing, a chopped-up avocado

I mix #2-4 in a bowl and then I eat it with chips and go oh man that was awesome. What? Beef and avocados are high in fat? What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome this tastes.

Then for dessert I eat something so gross I don’t even want to tell you. It involves cookie dough mix. And a little water.

OR I might make cinnamon toast, which I tell myself is healthy because I’m using whole wheat bread and raw sugar. And half a cup of butter. But it’s real butter!

No wonder I look five months pregnant all the time.

So this week I decided that I was eating too much ground beef lately. We were at the park last weekend eating our Wendy’s drive-through picnic. Nicolaus had ordered a bacon cheeseburger, and then sat there and stared at it trying to figure out how he could eat it and still be a vegetarian. Finally he opened it up, scooped the bacon out and wadded it all into his mouth. He looked like a dang baseball player as he chewed his giant bacon ball and as he chewed he explained how see? I just… eat… (chew chew) kind of like less meat.

And I thought: Now that there is a form of vegetarianism I could get behind.

So I tried it. At the beginning of the week I announced that for one week only, I am a vegetarian. No more ground beef bowls of awesome for dinner.

Monday was great. I don’t remember what I had for lunch… paper maybe? but for dinner we had lightly stir-fried vegetables over brown rice. Lovely. Filling. Just what I needed.

Tuesday I had a bacon and cheese baked potato and a salad and a coke. Oooh and all-natural onion rings! Proof that vegetarian + natural does NOT equal healthy.

Wednesday I shared fajitas with Kevin, which sort of involved a little bit of chicken, but you know I skipped the beef slices and only ate one little strip of chicken. So mainly I ate beans and rice and guacamole and tortillas and more guacamole.

Today we had pepperoni and roma tomato pizza. Which pepperoni… yeah, technically is sort of beef. But it’s red, not brown, so that’s totally different. And for dinner I had chicken and herb ravioli but the chicken is pulverized into a herby paste so it’s not like you would ever guess it was meat if not for the yummy taste which might be the herbs.

So yay! Success! Except you have no idea how badly I want to go buy a pound of ground beef and a quart of picante right now.

In other news, California is on fire.

And a little girl named Julia is Graham’s friend. We went to the art school today, and Graham was hoping to see Nicolaus’ future bride. “Julia is my friend.” he said in that lovable halting way he has. “Julia. Is. Brother’s. Friend. TOO. I. Like. Julia.”

But Julia isn’t here today honey…

“Why not?”

“Well… because she’s at her house. Remember Julia’s house?”

“Yeah. Member? That? Dog?”

Shit! I launched the Julia’s dog recollection sequence.

We three shuffled our way into the building. Graham believed me that Julia wasn’t there, but somehow he got it in his head that everyone at the school knows Julia. So he proudly told every adult he saw: “Julia! Is! My! Friend.”

And they all went mmm-hmmm… like um…?

He and I had an hour to wait while Nicolaus was in his class. You might wonder how many times a small boy can tell various strangers that Julia is his friend in an hour, and until today I would have guessed not that many times.

In other news, Graham hates the game tag. He wants desperately to play and to run with all the other kids, but if they touch him he stops and shouts, “NO!! I CANNOT LIKE THAT.” And he marches over to me and sits down on my lap. Until all the running around looks too fun to ignore and then he does it all again.

Also, there is a war going on. And a serious drought! Everyone in Georgia is freaking out about the water. It’s hard for me to believe though because everything here is so green. If they were smart they’d spraypaint all of the grass and trees and all brown so it would look more serious.

But people are really stressed out about us all running out of water soon, and I can’t help but feel responsible because if it weren’t for Graham spending the month of September learning how to use a drinking fountain I am pretty sure there’d be plenty of water.

In other news! My parents came to visit and it was really fun. Even though my dad, my father the airline pilot, my father who has lived in hostile deserts and in Alaskan tundra, my father whose hobby as a child was making and igniting small bombs… is afraid of trains. We didn’t know. None of us knew. My mom has known this man since she was fourteen and she had no idea. He sat in the living room and visibly cringed every time a train whistled and clicked past our living room windows. My mom couldn’t believe it. “I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were scared of trains?”

When a train goes by it is like thunder that lasts for five whole minutes. “I don’t know,” he said weakly, “I didn’t know it was going to come up.”

It’s late. Kevin’s at work. The boys are in bed, asleep, finally. I miss my parents. I miss my ground beef and avocados.

Every home has its unspoken lessons. In my house growing up, there were some odd ones. But these are the lessons we learned that have served me well, that I hope to pass down in some way to the boys. Alright I might not emphasize the one about lipstick with them… maybe change lipstick to clean shirt, and we’re there…

* People are more important than things.

* But cool stuff is neat to have too.

* Especially books and good art supplies.

* Walls aren’t permanent. They’re just ideas of one possible place a wall might go. You can take it down, you can rebuild it, and with some wire mesh and plaster you can do some really fun shit in the process.

* School rules are a lot more flexible than they let on.

* The Pope wears a funny hat, and he might be special but he is not God. At the end of the day, he’s a dude like any other dude.

* But you’d better not even think of taping Pink Panther cartoons over mom’s videotape of the Pope coming to Texas.

* Words do things. Don’t say hate unless you mean it, don’t say love unless you mean it and don’t ever say the word devil.

* Life and death are very, very serious things. Make jokes about them so people won’t know you’re a freak who takes them so seriously.

* Once every 15 years or so, termites swarm into people’s houses and it’s really weird and kind of awesome.

* The Beatles. I don’t even know how to say it in a rule or a sentence… just… yeah. The Beatles.

* One of the top ten reasons for living is looking at clouds. Another thing on the list is eating strawberries with powdered sugar.

* Don’t throw things in the house because you have shitty aim and you will probably break something.

* Don’t ever throw or shoot things AT anyone.

* We are people who are not very good at sports. Some of us love sports, some of us try to play sports and it might be fun for awhile — but the end result is always sad and funny at the same time.

* Be nice to your brother, he is the only one you will ever have.

* You don’t have to be polite to someone if they are threatening or hurting you, even if they are a grownup.

* People who try to pressure you into eating gross food will eventually give up if you ignore them.

* Be nice to your brothers. Oh and by the way, condoms don’t always work so be careful. (**Critical edit! I am not pregnant oh my god no. I learned from my parents wisdom to be careful.**)

* Question authority. Because really? There’s no such thing. The arrows and lines in school, work, society, and life are just somebody’s hope or idea. The arrows that look so solid and immovable? Someone painted those on, or maybe rubbed on a decal.

* But you do have to call and let your family know you are okay. That’s not a rule based on authority, it’s a rule based on not scaring the people you care about.

* Don’t worry about what anyone thinks. But wear lipstick. Because even though you don’t CARE what they think, it doesn’t hurt to have them think you look nice.
******

How about you? What lessons did your parents give you that you would or will share with your kids?