Fireworks are pretty, but also loud.
July 4, 2005I can’t take this long between posts. I’ve forgotten how to do this. It’s taken me at least an hour to figure out that punching the keyboard was wrong and only resulted in gbhj hgh fg som m m bnmbbv gh.
(Once, on a job interview, I took a typing test and I was so nervous that I didn’t look at the paper as I typed (this was back when we typed on “typewriters.” I’m old!), and when the interviewer took the paper out of the typewriter , he looked at it, then at me, then at the paper, and handed it to me and said, “I don’t know what to say about this.” Turned out I had placed my hands incorrectly on the keyboard and everything I had typed was gibberish. I responded, “What, that’s not right?” and laughed maniacally, which he apparently found more alarming than amusing. And that’s why I’m not working for the William Morris Agency today. True story!)
I’ve been at my parents’ house, eating their food and enjoying their clean and pretty home, with its lovely flowers and relative absence of mouse urine. On Friday night my mother went out dancing—did I not tell you that my mother is a ballroom dancer? And dances in competitions in which she wears spangly outfits down to there and up to here?—so it was just me and my dad. And Henry, duh. But then I put him down for the night, and my dad and I were hanging out, and we decided to watch a movie.
The movie, by the way, was “The Life of Brian,” rented by my mom, whose motives I can only guess at. I was uneasy at the prospect of watching this with my dad, as he is a holy man, the Catholic-est of Catholics, with his “Liturgy of the Hours” right there on the coffee table and his rosary beads invariably at the ready, and there we were, about to watch a movie that makes light of crucifixion. And I was pretty sure there was a blow job, somewhere in there.
The sacri-larity of it turned out to be less of a problem than the DVD’s audibility; we had to turn it waaay up in order to make sense of the dialogue, and then when the music surged we were deafened. Anyway, I was having a hard time paying attention because I kept hearing… something. A faint something or other. A high-pitched squeak somewhere off in the distance. There had been some fireworks earlier, so I figured the sounds were bottle rockets. But I couldn’t relax. Well, I thought, I’ll just check the child. I’m sure it’s nothing, but, you know, can’t hurt to check.
So I walked over to the stairs and OH MY GOD THE SCREAMING. THERE WAS SO MUCH SCREAMING. I tore ass up the stairs and there was my child, still lying down (it never occurs to him to stand up, he is so good and I am so bad), his face red and mottled, his head and the surrounding environs utterly soaked in tears. He must have been crying for a half an hour, at least. I never did figure out why he was so upset, because when I threw myself at him and scooped him up, all he could tell me was, and I quote, “I was crying so much and you didn’t come.” Wow. For the next half hour or so he snuffled into my neck while I read him stories and considered ritual disembowelment as a way to alleviate my guilt. Surely a little seppuku would convince Henry that I didn’t mean to ignore him! Surely!
The end! How dramatic that story seemed, before I wrote it. “I didn’t hear my son and so he cried.” Thank you, World Wide Webs, for showing me how silly I am. How negligent, yes, but also how silly.
I have so much more to write about but I’m so tired. Next: my near-death (or near-ankle fracture) experience on the subway and my interview on Bravo. Anticipate!
Reader Comments (50)
Same thing happened this weekend when I put my daughter to bed a friend's house on a kid-sized roll-away (on the ground). Not having ever slept in anything without sides, she awoke and was surprised to find herself able to walk around the room. She must have been crying 20 minutes when I finally heard a peep from outside. I ran upstairs and found her sad, sad wretching little body standing at the door. (Still flagellating self...gulp.)
Missed you this week!
I don't think you're a horrid mother. These things happen. Please don't disembowel yourself. You amuse me. And I would be sad if you weren't around.
(and I missed you)
Although I have no children, my active imagination feels for your traumatic episode with Henry. However, as those above me have said, life goes on and someday, the memory will not be quite as horrific and guilt-wrenching as it is now. =)
Keep them posts coming, woman! I'm all a-flutter to hear about Bravo and near-death experiences.
Oh, and I forgot to mention before, we seem to have that same audio problem with DVDs. The dialog is frequently inaudible, so we turn it WAY up and then we all jump out of skins (and subsequently feel really silly) when the music comes up. It's annoying when a movie requires constant volume adjustment.
Just FYI, I put a home theater sound system on my TV (which I got at WalMart for $50) and it has a center channel. The center channel volume can be separately increased to make dialog perfectly audible while leaving the background sound effects and music at a normal level.
I put my 18-mo. daughter to sleep while staying at my folks a few months back... even set up a blasted monitor, which for some reason didn't communicate any noise until outright, horrible screaming.
I ran upstairs to find daughter disoriented, sobbing, and covered in vomit. I assumed she'd been crying for some awful amount of time, and had puked because of it. O, the soul-crushing guilt.
So it was some relief when it turned out to be the stomach flu. I'm not exactly sure *why* three straight days of puking and watching thomas the tank engine was preferable, but it was.
And I still felt guilty.
She recovered, and is a psychologically healthy pre-pubescent now!
Considering the way my experience turned out, I feel qualified to solemnly inform you that your subconscious placed your hands on the wrong keys and it did so for a very, very good reason.