Chicken And Cheese

Push

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:04:13 +0000

I’m teetering at the moment.

There’s some stuff going on with my oldest and I just can’t talk about it here. It’s very personal and it has to do with her health and it isn’t mine to share but it hurts and I’m scared and worried and there isn’t anyone who can help us through this.

I feel very far from home.

I always get itchy this time of year, this not-summer time. It’s hot and humid but I’m still stuck here, pinned down by obligations, and some days I find myself looking at the open road heading east and thinking, “It isn’t that far. It wouldn’t take me that long.”

Last week I was running errands and the road to the ocean lies just past my exit. I wanted to keep going. I had my wallet and my laptop and my phone, I could have gotten halfway there before anyone even realized I was gone.

But there are two small hearts beating for me, and so I turned to the south and went to the place where I live, that place that still isn’t home. I want it to be home. I try to make it home. I tell myself it is my home.

It isn’t my home. God knows I’ve tried. I’ve set my jaw and dug in my heels and smiled and made the best of it and all that bullshit people do but I do not feel right here. Still.

I’m still not working steadily and it’s stressful. I don’t want to live the way we did a few years back, flirting with the poverty line and me always hunched into a miserable, envious ball of misdirected anger. I sat in the living room two weeks ago with my head in my hands and my heart in my throat and he told me, “It’s just 12 more months.”

Except that it never is.

The day after I swallowed my desire and instead drove home like the dutiful girl I was raised to be, I was back in the car again. It was morning and the sunlight had that half-golden, half-blue quality that can make you weep. I worried about payments for this and that and then I thought about my dad.

Oh, how I missed him in that moment. Sometimes the fact of his absence hits me with the same force it had the day we said goodbye to him and suddenly, the road in front of me was blurry.

It has been blurry for such a long time now. But I saw my dad’s face and felt his faith in me and knew that he would never let me come to harm and that even from such a distance, such an aching, terrible distance, I’m still in some ways folded up in his palm and he carries me.

I blinked and the road was clear.

I know something will happen for me. Something good will happen for me. My daughter will be well. I will be the mother she needs me to be, I will find the means to support her through whatever may come.

It’s just this one, last push.

I can do it. I have to.

No related posts.

These People Don’t Know What’s Good For Them

Mrs. Chicken — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 21:37:25 +0000

I just wrote a check to the government that was so large it made me hyperventilate.

This was after I spent the entire morning playing car race with a certain 3-year-old who also peppered me with questions about tornados, stretching the limits of my meteorologic knowledge only to throw a hissy fit when, as we watched a video about storm chasers, I was unable to tell him why someone left one car and got into another car, because the answer I DON’T KNOW I WASN’T THERE wasn’t sufficient.

So I made something up.

Later on, jiggety-jog, we went to our local food co-op because after Easter we’re still bloated and full of high-fructose corn syrup and so, I made like a good mom and tried to spend our hard-earned cash (what was left after we gave most of it to the government DID I MENTION THAT?) on food that will not kill us.

THAT was fun.

But NOT as much fun as spending two hours — TWO HOURS — putting away five sacks of organic, local meats and produce because, every time I scooped one item out of the bag, I was asked to complete some task for someone else.

TWO!

HOURS!

Then I had to hunt all over the house for my goddamn wallet, which I found, for some reason IN THE BASEMENT. I was looking for my wallet so I could update my NOOK account because reading the biography of Catherine the Great makes me feel smart … and sleepy.

But when I went to sit down to do that (which I’ve been trying to do for, oh, six days now but I keep getting INTERRUPTED), I found an entire bag of potato chips ground up and mashed into my already-disgusting carpet (thanks, LOWES, for the expensive carpet with the super shitty quality) and on the sofa where I intended to sit.

I then read the riot act to the People Who Shall Remain Nameless who live in this house and generally treat it like a GIGANTIC TRASH CAN, and I said to them, I shit you not:

“I AM NOT A MAID!”

To which my husband, that fearless soul, replied:

“Yeah, because if she was, she’d have been fired A LONG TIME AGO.”

And then, I gave up and stuffed my face with the stale gummy bunnies from the Easter baskets, while the organic sweet peppers and strawberries started at me, all judgmental-like, from the kitchen counter.

No related posts.

Wherein I Lose My Shit

Mrs. Chicken — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:08:50 +0000

My kid is driving me batshit crazy.

The kind of crazy that makes you consider going out for a pack of smokes and hopping the next train, hobo style, to New Mexico, where you will sit criss-cross applesauce inside an adobe hut and make clay pots to sell at the nearest Seven Eleven, where you will set up shop on a corner and drink a cherry slurpee every day, and you will enjoy every last fucking drop of that slurpee, because there is NO ONE THERE TO ASK YOU PLEASE MOM PLEASE CAN I HAVE A SIP CAN I HAVE IT ALL MOM GIVE ME THAT SLURPEE BECAUSE I AM SOOO THIRRRRRRRRRSTY!

It’s the evening before Easter and the bunny is seriously thinking about going into the basement and eating all the chocolate (Seventy! Dollars! Worth! Of! Chocolate!) and the falling asleep on the moldy futon.

The Babyman is in some kind of hell purgatory face-eating zombie developmental spurt and I swear to God, he has not stopped talking since 6:30 a.m. this morning. This afternoon he threw a screaming, crying fit because I could not adequately explain the difference between the words “working” and “workin’”, my explanation of the latter colloquialism being deemed erroneous.

This is after a day on which I unwisely decided that I would attempt to make “creative” Easter eggs, and instead ended up with a lung full of microfine glitter (please, don’t ask) and ripping the finish off my dining room table with painters tape.

I said DON’T ASK.

Yesterday I found out an old friend passed away and I was very, very sad, and of couse, I still am. However, my contemplative I-need-to-be-a-more-present-parent mood has completely dissapated thanks to the fact that I was asked, on more than one occasion, to produce clothing that was in the washer, wet, so that the boy who lives in my house could wear the EXACT SAME THING HE WORE YESTERDAY, MOM, BECAUSE I NEEEEEEEEED TO!

I’d love to finish this post, but the small face that I made INSIDE MY BODY OH YES I DID THIS TO MYSELF is demanding kisses and hugs and making a face at me and saying, “Mom, this is what your face looks like, is that your loving face? Or mom, is that your angry face?”

The face he’s wearing looks EXACTLY like my face.

LIKE MY CRAZY FACE.

No related posts.

Panic

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:05:39 +0000

We only lived in that house for 18 months or so, maybe less. My memory isn’t what it used to be and the images from that time are soft and blurred around the edges.

My ride to school was 45 minutes long. I started at one end of the Jubilee line, the terminus, and often fell asleep en route only to wake up and find myself at the other end, the train coming to a stop at Charing Cross. I’d open my eyes, sigh and turn back around, headed for St. John’s Wood. Trudging to the main office, they greeted me with familiarity: “Did you fall asleep again?”

I was late a lot.

Now, the line goes further. Everything changes, I suppose.

It was on the tube that I became a Londoner. I learned to sway with the rhythm of the rails, able to manipulate my Walkman or read a book while standing without holding on to the poll for balance . I learned when to get up and stand near the doors to avoid the crush of people charging in and out when we arrived at my stop.

Months later we moved into the city itself, on the same Tube line but much closer. I rode the bus now, but I still employed my city skills: Running, breathless, and pulling myself aboard from the open back while the double-decker pulled away from my stop, hopping off before it stopped.

I liked to sit up top, so I could see that beautiful city I fell so hard for in spite of myself. I wore my headphones everywhere, blasting The Smiths into my young ears. I still can’t hear voices well when there is background noise — noise-induced hearing loss, an occupational hazard.

****

I held it together pretty well after I lost my job, in fact I was (am) a lot happier without the crazy pressure of “content marketing.” I’m doing what I like, what I’m good at. I’m fully invested in the daily operations of my business and I’m writing whenever I get an assignment from the few outlets I’m working with.

But the coffers, yo. They are bare. I need to make a lot more moola. I need to figure out a way to ramp up, to get that income stream running again.

I won’t lie; it blows. My tax bill looms over me and last night I found myself doing math — math! — in my sleep. I can’t even do accurate sums in the daylight hours.

My husband tells me to keep the faith, that good writers get jobs. But seeing my copy shredded and rewritten on national websites doesn’t exactly boost the ego. He asks me what it would take for me to write a book, someone else asks me if I have an unfinished novel in my desk drawer.

I don’t even have a desk.

I’m hanging in, hanging on. I’m listening to The Smiths on the tinny speakers of my laptop and channeling that half-deaf girl filled with secret bravado, with guts she didn’t let anyone see — even herself.

I won’t let this get the best of me again. I enjoy the sunlight too much. I do what a good girl does; I take my pills, I sleep at night, I exercise and laugh with my kids.

I won’t panic.

Playing Hooky

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:44:57 +0000

Most of my life I’ve followed the rigid set of rules I thought were in place for me.

I went to college, chose a profession at the age of 18 and followed through by getting a degree and then a job in that field.

When I hit the age of 30, I decided that society was telling me to get a grown-up job, one that paid more than than $20,000 a year and required business suits. So I got one.

When my first baby was born, I dutifully went back to work after my maternity leave was over — and I hated every second of it.

A job that didn’t fulfill my creative needs combined with a child I adored beyond reason prompted me to resign and become a full-time mom. Even then I was doing what society thought I should. I was staying at home to raise my baby.

When my husband and I left home for grad school, both of us jobless, we broke every rule in the book.

Being a freelance worker of any kind is fraught with anxiety, fear and rejection. Pitch after pitch leaves you feeling less and less confident. But then you hit a sweet spot, you write a 900-word feature story with three sources and the editor tells you no changes to your work are required for publication.

It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin, especially someone who spent the majority of her 40 years following every single dictate thrown at her. It is hard, soul-draining work for very little return, interspersed with moments of exhilaration that make it all worthwhile. Sometimes, you make something gorgeous and meaningful and that’s what we all want, isn’t it?

This morning dawned dark and windy, rain pelting the roof. Our bed was crowded with two nocturnal visitors, both the victim of bad dreams. At 5:30 a.m. I vacated my own room for the guest room where I found my husband sound asleep.

I curled up around him and closed my eyes, opening them again at 7:45 a.m., just an hour before we usually leave for school. Everyone else was still sleeping.

I got up to make lunches, to stoke the engine of the morning train. I took a look at the sink full of dishes, the empty pizza box splayed open on the counter and the basket of clean, white socks and undershirts on the floor near the laundry room.

The girl wandered down to sit with me, and still I lingered on the sofa, knowing full well that the clock was ticking. At 8:15 I said to my daughter, “Hey, what do you think about playing hooky?”

She was all innocence, having never heard the term. I told her we were staying home today, taking a day off, having a mental health day. The boy came down a little while later, having slept two hours past his normal wake-up time.

We’re staying home today, baby.

Why?

Because you slept so late, you must need to rest today. We all need to rest.

We’re going to bake cookies and banana bread, some of which I’ll take to a friend tomorrow. We’re going to stay in our pajamas all day, have a Sunday in the middle of the week. I’ll work some, but I’ll also spend time with my most meaningful, gorgeous work of all, breaking the rules.

Alternate Universe

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:40:39 +0000

I’ve been reading all these fashion blogs.

Not blogs so much, really, more collections of photographs. There’s one, The Sartorialist, that fascinates me. The blogger/photographer captures all these men and women on the street.

These men and women, dressed so confidently, so luxuriously (because can anyone but the truly wealthy ever look that careless?), so louche, staring into the camera.

I marvel at them. Who are these people? What do they do? How do they feel? What is it like to be so privileged? And this, coming from someone who knows that she is, without question, privileged.

I wonder what it feels like to be them. Is it possible that in some other life that’s me? Maybe if I’d taken a left instead of a right, zigged when I should have zagged.

I can’t stop looking at them, these pictures, these snippets of some other life.

***

My baby gave up his bottle tonight.

I know that makes me a bad parent. He is nearly 4 years old. But it was his comfort, the one thing that soothed him in his worst, most upset and scared moments.

I didn’t want to take that away from him. Tonight he broke my heart a little, a tiny fissure that appeared when he jumped, alone, into 12-foot-deep diving tank of the pool. His instructor stood on the deck watching as he plunged under water and paddled to the side.

Rainbow arms, she called to him. Rainbow arms!

He was a snowflake in the school play today, and his big sister had the leading role of Frosty the Snowman. She fell asleep reading “Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire” and the boy, my baby, pressed his back against my stomach in his twin bed and tumbled into slumber murmuring.

Mom, Mama, can we call Meema? Meema has bottles at her house. Maybe I could have a bottle from Meema. Mom? Mama…

One more step away from me, both of them. It’s hard to let go.

The Green Cheese Sticks

Mrs. Chicken — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:38:42 +0000

We had kind of a rough week around here.

I’m trying out (and don’t get me started on the fact that I have to do this) for a daily writing gig a lot like the one I used to have before The Greek fired everyone.

(Parenthetical aside: When SNL did a send up of her recently I almost peed my pants. How will I ever forget her interviewing me for a job over the phone while simultaneously calling her doorman “dahling” and talking to her daughter on her OTHER cell phone?)

Anyway, this gig is in the morning and ya’ll, we are not morning people. The girl needs three cups of coffee and an hour of ‘Good Morning America’ before she can get moving and the boy wakes up with a list of ridiculous demands spilling out of his mouth.

He wants candy. He wants the iPad. He wants a snuggle. He wants a fruit roll-up for breakfast. He wants to wear his pajamas to school. He doesn’t want to go to school.

And so on, and so forth.

This morning was particularly fraught because today I had to write three blog posts between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. It should have been a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. It was hard. The light touch I spent so many years perfecting here and elsewhere apparently stepped out for coffee. It didn’t help that it was a slow news day.

The mister will have a new role in the mornings if I do get this gig, and he and I are doing that awkward dance spouses do when a well-established routine has to get changed up. I’m not too keen on it either, considering I’m the one who has to jump out of bed with a fully-functioning brain at an hour I find disagreeable, but he’s …

You know.

He’s Not The Mom.

So he took an ill-timed shower and I tried to hide in the dining room while the kids ricocheted around with dazed looks on their faces because suddenly the assistant coach was running the plays.

One eye on the clock and the other on my clunky words, I had just five minutes left before my deadline when Henry yanked on my arm repeatedly until I finally turned to him, fully exasperated.

What? I said. What could you possibly need right now?

He grinned up at me, his eyes sparkling half-moons. He opened his closed fist slowly and revealed a handful of quarters. He pressed the warm coins into my palms and stood on tippy toes to whisper in my ear.

“Here’s some money, Mom, so you can buy Emmie her green cheese sticks,” he said.

This week at the store I bought the wrong cheese sticks. Emmie’s palate is still being held hostage by her anxiety and the specific brands and kinds of foods she will eat is fairly restricted. Cheese sticks are a staple for her, and I got the ones she doesn’t like.

She asked me to get her some of “the ones in the green wrapper, you know, mom,” and, during my too-short-but-too-long week, I forgot to go get her the kind she will eat.

Her little brother, however, did remember.

Henry’s been a pill this week. He’s sick and he isn’t sleeping and, you know, he’s 3-and-a-half. He likes to run around the house naked and climb the pantry shelves to get to my secret stash of Little Debbie snack cakes. He throws impressive tantrums and likes to leave the Legos exactly where I step out of the shower every morning, so I have a piece of Lego Buzz Lightyear permanently embedded in my foot.

I love him more than the sun and the moon, but he’s trying my patience. And, in that same vein, his … developmental spurt is causing me to siphon off attention from his big sister.

So when he asked me to buy her some green cheese sticks, I melted.

I have a younger brother and sister and we three are all really different people. I mean, like, really. We fought a lot, and we nurse our old scars and wounds from the kinds of sibling dynamics I see in my own kids now.

But when my dad died? When the shit really hit the fan?

We knew where to get the green cheese sticks.

I was very worried before Henry was born that having two children would be too hard for us, that Emmie would lose out on something precious.

Now I know I could not have been more wrong.

This And That

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:32:36 +0000

These past few days I keep feeling like someone is tapping me on the shoulder.

I’m so annoyed that this kid is still awake at 9 p.m.!

*tap tap*

I wish she could be quiet for 10 minutes.

*tap tap*

Why can’t we go just one night without an extra body in our bed?

*tap tap*

The person tapping my shoulder is Susan, Susan whose husband and sons celebrated Valentine’s Day without their sweetie. Every time she taps me, I hug the people who live in my house a little too hard and too long and snuggle up to small, wiggly bodies that want to burrow close to my heart.

I let them.

*tap tap*

***

I cut my hair all off.

Yes, my hair. The hair that so plagues me. The hair I lost for almost two years. Right now, my hair looks precisely as it did during the first few months of its regrowth after nearly total loss.

I did it on purpose, and I’m going to write about it soon, but not here. I’m saving that for a wider audience (not that you, my best audience, don’t deserve to hear the story).

I wanted to take a risk. Now, I’m walking around with my face hanging out and every time I look in the mirror I’m startled, as if someone has entered my home without permission.

It’s weird.

I think I look weird. I’m trying to not feel that way, but I kind of do.

I’ll probably grow it all back.

***

I’m up for a new job, and part of me is reluctant to do the “edit test.”

And, just as an aside, why do I have to keep taking all these tests? Doesn’t 20 years of professional writing count? Yes, I sometimes confuse its and it’s. But cut me some slack! I can write the shit you want me to write.

The money is good. The flexibility is so-so. I’m so much enjoying controlling my work instead of my work controlling me. If I pass it up, I’m a dummy. If I audition and get the gig, I’ll be hemmed in again in some ways.

Fun!

***

I’ve heard “American Pie” a whole bunch of times lately, in the car.

I took Henry to the doctor this week and sang it while we bumped over the country-road shortcut. It was Valentine’s Day.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.

I smiled.

***

I want to buy new things.

I hate how shabby my house looks. My house does not look like I feel. It looks tired and poor. I feel fresher and more energetic than I have in 10 years. I feel like the sun is about to come out. I feel like summer vacation is coming. I feel like Christmas Eve and Easter morning.

I want yellow pants and bright blue ballet flats and glossy lipstick.

I want fresh, sateen sheets and new sofas.

I want pear-green walls and dark-brown wood floors.

I can’t have these things, but that’s OK. I think about them, and I feel like someday, I might get some of what I want.

Here comes the sun, little darling. It’s been a long cold lonely winter.

I don’t know if it will last, but I like it.

***

I regret reading so much post-apocalyptic fiction.

At night I make my way down the dark stairwell and use my iPhone as a flashlight. The flickering blue beam feels like a premonition. Like I’ll take a walk like that with a weak light in a terrifying situation.

I don’t know why, maybe because I read “The Road,” but that was years ago.

I hug my littlest baby extra tight and briefly flirt with learning to can food.

The membranes between life and death seem to get thinner every day. Daddies who kill their babies. Governments that murder their citizens. Mothers who die despite desperately wanting to live.

I need to read more chick lit, I think.

***

The days are getting longer. Soon, I’ll see the ocean.

Remember Me?

For Susan

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:21:16 +0000

The blogosphere is a strange place.

In the course of my online life, I’ve met so many women. Wonderful women, some of whom are now my flesh-and-blood friends.

I never met Susan in the third dimension, but I know with all of my heart that Susan Niebur was my flesh-and-blood friend.

Several weeks ago, Susan left a comment for me. Her words surprised me, and I know they were some of the most sincere ever left in this virtual home of mine — and they both saddened and worried me.

I can’t claim her — I won’t — the way Marty and Jean and Kristen can. But although I never wrapped my arms around her body, my heart has been right there with her until this afternoon when it stopped, stuttered and painfully began to beat again after I heard Susan died today.

I was home with my 3-year-old son. He’s sick and we’re tired. I set aside my work and daily chores today in a way that I usually don’t. We played and snuggled and hugged each other, my Henry and me.

Susan’s sons are 6 and 4. Today they said goodbye to their mama. And I know she gave those boys as many loving memories of her as she possibly could, because she knew she would die before they grew into men.

It seems the universe was telling me something today when it whispered in my ears to put my comfortable clothes on and be with my boy on this gloomy Monday.

Susan was telling me goodbye, in her own way.

A long time ago, I asked Susan to post on my blog while I was on vacation. It was shortly after she was diagnosed and today, Feb. 6, 2012, I am re-posting her words as the only way I really know how to honor my dear, dear friend.

My heart is just broken for her little boys and her husband, Curt.

Susan, we — and all the stars — are weeping for you, today and for a very long time.

I love you, my friend. You are missed, already.

—

July 7, 2007

Whymommy was recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, and we know she is going to beat it. How do we know? Because ever since her diagnosis this woman – who isn’t just as smart as a rocket scientist, she IS a rocket scientist – has used her cancer and her blog to educate the rest of us.

So listen to her. Because she’s going to kick cancer’s ass, and if you don’t do as she says, she’ll kick you ass, too. Thanks for being here today, Whymommy. It was an honor.

*****

A year ago, I had never read a blog. But then my friend Canape introduced me to hers, and I started reading. I clicked here, I clicked there, I couldn’t stop.

I found Chicken and Cheese, and I felt immediately at home. (Hey, wait! I like chicken! I like cheese! And some days that’s all my toddler will eat too!) I liked Mrs. Chicken and the Poo instantly. So I kept visiting.

Today I have the honor of being a guest blogger here, and as much as I’d like to give you a real thinky post, I want to just share with you a few quick facts about a topic that has recently (really recently) become close to my heart.

Breast cancer.

Now wait – don’t click away – I’m not saying that you’re at risk for breast cancer. But maybe someone in your playgroup is. Or that nice woman you see at the park on Tuesdays. Or one of “the girls” you eat lunch with. Or maybe a cousin or bridesmaid from your wedding.

Because, the first shocking fact is this: – 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes.

That’s a lot. I had no idea there were that many. But there are. In fact:

• 1 in every 229 women between the ages of 30 and 39 will be diagnosed with breast cancer within the next 10 years; • More than 11,100 women under 40 will be diagnosed this year in the U.S. alone;

• There are more than 250,000 women living in the U.S. today who were age 40 or under when they were diagnosed with breast cancer; • Young women’s cancers are generally more aggressive and result in lower survival rates; and

• This year, more than 1100 women under 40 in the U.S. will die from breast cancer.

So, are you doing your breast self-exams each month? You remember how, right? If not, click here for a primer from the American Cancer Society.If you find a lump, call your doctor.

Today.

If you don’t find a lump, take just a few seconds to consider the shape, size, and texture. Are they both the same? Is either one particularly red, inflamed, or warm? Do you feel a funny thickening of the skin, dimpling, or see a retracting of the nipple? (Dear Mrs. Chicken, I am so sorry about the language I used today. I will do penance any way you dole out if the spammers begin to deluge your email box. But this is important, so I’m going to use the real, grown-up words today. Now go back to your beach reads and don’t worry about us, okay?)

There’s a rare form of breast cancer out there called IBC, inflammatory breast cancer. It is characterized by mastitis-like symptoms and a change in texture of the breast to resemble an orange peel. It also might itch, or just “feel funny.”

Mine did. That’s right. Mine did. Just two weeks ago. I went to the OB to have mine checked out, and bam! Ten days later, I’m told I have breast cancer and must start chemotherapy immediately.

So do me a favor, eh? Take five minutes tonight and go check yourself. Then drop your best friend a line and remind her too. Yes, even if she’s pregnant. Even if she’s breastfeeding. You just might save her life.

Wild Boy

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:42:40 +0000

Henry has grown three inches since school began in August.

I swear I can hear it at night when he sleeps, a creaky groan over the baby monitor I can’t seem to part with. I like hearing him in the night, his little coos and sighs, his snores and babbling. Sometimes, he says my name.

Mama!

He’s such a big, wild boy now in his underpants and crewcut. Every month his father takes him to the barber and he comes home shorn, a little sheep, a cadet, a seal pup. His eyes get exponentially bigger as his hair gets shorter. His face is changing, morphing from baby to boy and back again in the same frame of film.

He winks at us from the other side of the dinner table and dabbles in potty humor. Brushing his big sister’s hair while he watches in the morning, I ask her, rhetorically, what happened overnight to tangle it so.

Maybe, he answers me, it was a HAIR-icane!

He is built like a whippet and swims like a fish, jumping off the high diving board into 12-foot-deep water and the arms of his swim teacher with absolutely no hestitation. He trusts her to catch him.

He trusts.

At night when we cuddle he is all mine, the door shut on all the distractions and the new complications of raising a 7-year-old girl. She is beautiful, complex and tender and I handle her like glass, fearing that I may break her.

He is wiry, wiggly and still close enough to his primal self to see me simply as mother — softness, safety and solace. During the daylight hours he mimics the big boys but alone in the dim glow of his nightlight he is my baby again.

Every day as he leaves me I give him a kiss for his pocket and he gives me two in return.

I use them both before I drive away, and pine for the end of the day when we two are together and quiet, his wildness tamed.

Mama, he says, Mama I need a tight snuggle. Mama, when I am big will you still snuggle me and read me stories?

Yes, my wild boy, for as long as you will have me.

She Wants To Be A Writer

Chicken And Cheese

Push

These People Don’t Know What’s Good For Them

Wherein I Lose My Shit

Panic

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Playing Hooky

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Alternate Universe

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The Green Cheese Sticks

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This And That

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For Susan

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Wild Boy

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