Sitter Lady takes over.

Despite my low-key expectations for Henry and his new sitter, they went right out for an adventure. This was good for me, because I haven’t been able to do nearly enough fretting lately. So as soon as they were gone I got to work! 

I had rather thought they would stay inside, although a little voice in me was shrieking ARE YOU NUTS SEND THEM TO THE PLAYGROUND. Because if they were here? Henry would be in my office every few minutes, updating me on whatever events were transpiring downstairs.

But anyway it turned out it wasn’t up to me. Sitter Lady showed up, looked around, and announced, “I like to be out and about. So we’re off to the playground!”

Shouldn’t you ask my permission or something? I thought but did not say, because I was already intimidated by her.

“Okay, sure,” I said. 

“And Charlie will come!” she announced to no one in particular, as the dog heard his name and proceeded to throw his body toward the ceiling.

“You’re taking the dog? You’re sure you can handle that?” I asked meekly, thinking oh god that dog’s going to pull her all over the place and Henry will leap into the street while she’s trying to rein him in and WHY CAN’T I SAY THESE THINGS OUT LOUD.

Before I could stop her, she had Charlie’s leash in her hands, which is Charlie’s cue to lose his shit. He whinnied and mooed and made every kind of sound you wouldn’t think a dog could make, all while skittering around S.L (that’s Sitter Lady) and flogging her with his tail while she put on Henry’s shoes.

Henry, meanwhile, had decided that S.L. was probably his new mother and that was okay with him. From their first meeting, he knew that S.L. knows nothing about Star Wars, poor thing. Before she showed up he told me this. “I’ll be her teacher,” he said. “She needs to learn about the Force.”

So while she tied his shoes and expounded on the many delights and health-giving properties of fresh air, and I stood over them practicing my fretting techniques, Henry placed one guy after the next in front of her, stating their names and personalities. “This is Greedo. He’s a bad guy. This is Han Solo. He’s good and he shoots Greedo but it’s okay because Greedo is bad.” And so on.

And all at once they were out the door. “YOU’RE SURE YOU CAN HANDLE THEM?” I called out as they bounded down the street, Henry holding S.L.’s hand, S.L. holding the leash that held the blur that was Charlie in her other hand.  S.L gave me an amused little wave, a wave that distinctly said, Lady, do you know how many kids I watch? You think your little dog is going to be a problem for me?

Still, I fretted, and then finally I snuck over to the playground, just to make sure she hadn’t sold him or anything. There they all were: Henry running around, S.L. keeping an eagle eye on him, Charlie lazing in the afternoon sun. There was no reason for me to be there. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

A post from the slanty room.

Have I told you about our slanty room? As this is an old house (and jam-packed with ghosts! I mean, probably), the floors are all sloped, one way or the other. But in one room—the room that is to be my office, I get my own office!—the floor dips so dramatically toward the center of the room, it’s like you’re in a funhouse. A boring funhouse. And unfortunately, both my desk and chair are on casters. So as I’m writing, the desk is rolling toward me, and I’m hanging on to the keyboard tray to keep from rolling back further, which causes the desk to roll some more. So by the end of my precious Internet time, I’m smack dab in the middle of the room.

Take the casters off the desk and chairs, I can hear you thinking. Yes, I know. I just haven’t done it yet. But I will! Right after I roll over that 401(K) from 1997.

Hey! I got a job. My former employer, a corporate behemoth that treated me kindly back in the 20th century, has called on me. I will work from home for them. And they will give me money! So this works out for both of us. This is about as much detail as you will get out of me about my new job, which really isn’t that interesting, and don’t you love it when I’m this vague? Does it make me mysterious, or just boring? Boringly mysterious?

Anyway, because I have this real job now (part-time, from home, yay), I hired a babysitter. This is a first for me. Henry always had the benefit of being looked after by a relative or close friend. I always had the benefit of not having to hire someone. And oh Internet, the whole thing makes me uncomfortable. The whole stranger-in-my-house-with-my-sweet-boy thing. It’s not even like I’m leaving them alone. I’m going to be upstairs! And probably running downstairs at regular intervals!

His new sitter is eminently qualified—frankly, more qualified than I am to be left alone with a child. I still feel odd about the whole affair. It took me many weeks to even start looking for someone, because of the oddness. Maybe she’s a lunatic! Who will take my child! And sell him to, hmm, an organization! A mismanaged one!

Also, when I'm with him, I often wish he were elsewhere, and when he’s with someone else, I mostly want him to be with me. She’ll be here every morning (only for the next few weeks, until his summer camp starts) and already I’m wistful about our, uh, special mornings together. When I would try to get him dressed, and he would yell. When he demanded ice cream, and when I refused, punched me in the thigh. Oh, sweet memories!

Aaaand I'm rolling away again. Goodbye!

Settling in but still unsettled.

Yesterday we went to a nursery. To buy babies! I made that joke to, oh, eight people yesterday. “Get it? Babies? Nursery? Ho!” No one laughed. I am surrounded by jerks.

Anyway, yeah, we bought plants and stuff. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how not to kill plants. On the other hand, I am excellent at killing them. Here’s my method.

1. Bring a plant into my house.

2. Attempt to care for it. You’re supposed to water them, right?

3. As it begins its slow journey to the grave, alternate weeks of avoidance and denial with bursts of panicked and clumsy tending.

4. Throw it out. Vow never to buy a plant again.

I walked up to a gaggle of nursery people and asked for their help. I was looking for some lovely yet not-easily-murdered flowery plantiness I could perch on our front stoop. I was hoping one of them would get up, pick out a plant and place it in my hands.

But they kept providing me with information. I couldn’t process it. My mind wheezed.

“You could get a zerbertifora, or a ferfilligan,” they mused.

“Well, isn’t that the obvious choice?” I said.

“Really, you’re safe with any annual,” one of them said.

“What’s an annual?” I asked. They laughed.

“No, really,” I said, and they looked concerned for me.

I ran away from them and continued my disorganized, roundabout search for pretty crap to plant. I grabbed some stuff, but probably it was all the wrong kind. It was hard to concentrate, what with all the yelling at my son I had to do.

These days I like to yell at Henry at least five or twelve times an hour. I feel that this builds character. If I continually address him in a high-pitched shriek, he’s sure to be filled with love and respect for me! So: “WOULDYOUSTAYSTILLYOUCAN’TRUNINHERE.” Or! “STOP. TWIRLING. RIGHT. NOW.” Alternately, “OH MY GOD I NEED TO LOOK AT THIS. THIS PLANT THING. STOP PULLING AT MY ARM. LISTEN. ARE YOU LISTENING. YOU’RE PULLING AT ME SOME MORE. GAAAAAAACK.” When I wasn’t losing my shit, I was tsk-ing at my husband for the loss of his. “He’s just a baby,” I would murmur calmly to him. “Please, have some perspective.” It’s amazing how much more tolerant you can be when you’re merely observing the irritating behavior.

Sadly, most of the time I'm more than an observer. It seems these days that anything I want or need to do will be frustrated by Henry’s opposing desire. I am either being yanked one way when I’m trying to go another or sat upon when I need to get up or pulled off a chair when I need to sit down. He aims to thwart me. All the time. And I’m not enjoying it.

I find myself employing the horrible Clenched Teeth Hiss and the Strangled Cry of Blinding Rage. I am becoming that horrible mother who holds her kid’s hand a leetle too hard and walks a little too fast as he trips behind, yelling “You’re hurting my hand!” These episodes are usually followed by the need to weep or throw up. Or, hell, both! Every day, several times a day, I marvel that I’m not locked away somewhere.

It doesn’t help that I’m enjoying some rather breathtaking back pain (did you know that your back can hurt so much you can barely breathe, and yet you still remain conscious? I know it now! And yes, I’m getting medical attention, thank you concerned readers). And the constant pain is reducing my tolerance to, oh, about none.

It never fails to amaze me how someone I love so very much can incite in me so much anger. That I can be so angry at someone who is so goddamn adorable. When he goes to bed every night, he announces, “It’s time for me to tuck up,” and he pulls his blanket up over his head. Tuck up! Every time he says it I want to eat him. And his little candy toes.

I know we’re all under a crazy amount of stress, and I’m clinging to the hope that we’ll all begin behaving better, and soon. That’s what I’m doing right now—I’m clinging. I know this will pass.

At the end of the nursery trip, as we stuffed our car full of assorted plantery (I made a word!) Henry turned to me and said “I always love you, no matter what.” And then we sure as hell got some ice cream.

Burning onions = ten years of therapy.

While Henry organized his Stormtroopers, I had some precious phone time with my friend.

“Damn, I burned my onions,” said Stacey.

“You burned your onions?” I said. “I didn’t even know you were cooking. You cook while you’re talking? You talk while you’re cooking?”

“I’m a multitasker,” she said.

Henry, meanwhile, was staring at me. “Who burned what?” he asked.

“Stacey burned her onions,” I told him.

“Let me talk to her,” he said. He grabbed the phone and confirmed the events surrounding the onions, and the burning of said onions.

Eventually I got the phone back. While I attempted to finish our conversation, Henry pulled at my leg, barraging me with questions regarding The Burning.

I began to lose my patience. I suggested that he play. Look at a book. Do something while I have the only interaction I’ve had with an adult all day except for those few minutes with the cashier at the supermarket that I continued way past an appropriate point.

His lower lip began to quiver. “But why did everything get all burned up?” he said. Then I noticed he was holding his special bear.

Finally I got it. Burning. Fire. Three-year-old listening, thinking our friend is aflame.

I explained to him as best I could about what we meant when we said the food “burned,” how it’s not on fire and etc. He was not appeased. I got off the phone and sat next to him. He leapt onto my lap and dug his head into my chest.

I explained it all again. “That was confusing, when we talked about something burning, wasn’t it? You were worried.” He nodded vigorously into my boobs.

“I didn’t understand,” he said.

“Well, why would you? When we say something’s burning, we usually mean it’s on fire, right?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand about the burning,” he said.

“You don’t have to be sorry about that,” I said, and held him tighter.

When I was three, a boy we called Little David began spending weekends with us. I am unclear about the reasoning behind this, but I know that he lived at an orphanage where my mother was a volunteer. It seems strange to me that the orphanage would loan children to volunteers, but there it is. Little David came for weekends, and according to my parents, I did not like this at all. He was maybe a year younger than me, and very physical and boisterous, and I was a little girl who liked everything just so and he was touching my stuff and he even slept in my room, and I wanted him out out out. So after a few weekends, my mom told the orphanage the weekend arrangement wasn’t working.

The following weekend I asked my mother where Little David was. “Don’t worry,” she said, “We know you didn’t like having him here, so Little David’s not coming back.”

The next morning I woke up and couldn’t talk.

I couldn’t talk for a while, actually. Well, can you imagine? I had wielded untold power! One complaint from me and I could disappear people! How could I say something? What would happen next? I would say I didn’t like my hamburger and then all the cows on Earth would spontaneously combust?

Eventually everyone in charge figured out what had happened; I was reassured and shortly thereafter I returned to my usual chatty self. And every time I heard the story of my temporary muteness, I would wonder at how impressionable little kids are. I knew, however, that when I was a parent I would certainly be as mindful as I could of my child’s fragile grasp on how the world works.

But the thing is, it’s haaaard. It’s like you’re raising an intelligent, perceptive, mildly psychotic Armenian. He’s got a good grasp of the language, the Armenian, but he doesn’t get the idiomatic expressions, he has frighteningly good hearing, he remembers everything, and he’s extremely sensitive. You can’t get away with anything with this Armenian. Don’t tell your husband, after a long day, that you’re pooped—because five days later the Armenian will shout to you in the supermarket “WHY WERE YOU POOPED DID YOU HAVE POOP ON YOU?” (For instance.)

A few months before the Armenian really wasn’t as interested in what you had to say. He didn’t have a real handle on the language, so if conversation went over his head he would let it pass him by. He was invincible, the Armenian—if he didn’t get something, it didn’t need to be gotten. All that mattered was what he knew. But now he’s figuring out how much he doesn’t know, and how much he needs to know, and suddenly he spends a lot more time with his bear, on your lap, needing some extra comfort.

Okay, so my metaphor has fallen apart, but you get what I’m saying.

A couple of hours later we were playing on the floor, and he asked me what the floor was made of. Was it made of sticks, like in the Three Little Pigs? He studied the floor, checking it for signs of weakness. “No, no, it’s nice, sturdy wood,” I said, and he knocked on it. There was a faint echo.

“Hey, it’s like someone knocked back from underneath there,” I said. As I said it I thought, hmm, perhaps this isn’t the image you want to give your child, and before I could even finish the thought he was back on my lap with his bear.

Hey, at least he can still talk.