I'm back. It's hot.

On the flight back from BlogHer*, I was seated right in the center of a group of airline attendants who delighted in relating stories involving customers and sickness and bodily fluids spilling in public areas. (This was especially charming as I was at that moment psyching myself into ingesting a slice of limp, nasty airplane pizza. It was revolting, but I forgot to load up my bag with snacks, and I need to eat every 23 minutes or I die.) The man in this group was determined to involve me in their chatter, but I wasn’t having it. I almost came to his rescue when he made a Peter Frampton reference and the young ladies in his company didn’t know who he was talking about. “Really? ‘Frampton Comes Alive’? This isn’t ringing any sort of bells?” he said, and then beseeched me with his eyes to tell him that he wasn’t as old as they now suspected, but he was, and I didn’t. I wanted to read my book. This was an unprecedented opportunity to read more than one page at a sitting, and I wasn’t giving it up for some overly talkative steward of the skies.

Toward the end of the flight he kept handing me Fun Packs of M&Ms. I wish I could tell you why. He was so proud that he could go in the back and get all the M&M Fun Packs he wanted. But I didn’t want them, and this made him sad. Over and over, he waved them in my face, I shook my head, he insisted, I put them in my purse and kept reading. After we landed he tried to give me another one, and I barked, “Fucking hell, do you think I’m eight?” and he blushed and I took the damn thing.

Anyone want a Fun Pack of M&Ms? I have 38 of them. They may have lost their integrity, however, as it is 156 degrees here. With the humidity, the heat index is 218.

Now that it’s 397 degrees outside, Charlie the Dog and I differ over the appropriate amount of time for him to spend basking in the sun. For me the ideal amount of time is zero seconds. I told him this, and he said, “For me it’s zero times infinity, Dude!” and I had to tell him that anything multiplied with zero equals zero. We argued over that for a while, and then he decided that he loves the sun to infinity times infinity, PLUS zero; I don’t know why he had to add the zero. I suspect it’s pride.

It doesn’t matter that the sky is on fire and the tree sap is boiling and causing the tree limbs to shoot straight up into the flaming sky and strike the sun, which causes more molten sun bits to rain down on us. Charlie wants to lie down on our asphalt driveway as it turns to soup and his bones become cinders. I placed a bowl of water next to him and he looked at me like, you wimp. Water is for cowards. I do not fear a little heat.

So I said, okay, dog. You want to die, knock yourself out. I stood by the door and watched him because I didn’t mean it. Approximately two minutes later, he lurched himself up to standing. His lips curled at the corners and he staggered to the side of the yard and puked his doggy guts out.

Now will you listen? I asked him, but he ignored me. I tried to drag him inside. He headed right back to the sunny patch of asphalt. This sun, he said, is lovely.

As I was cursing and trying to drag the dog back inside, Henry came out to see what was the matter. “Charlie won’t go inside,” I said, and he asked why, and I said, “He’s a little dumb.”

This was a mistake. Henry balled up his fists and pointed them at me. “He is NOT DUMB,” he screamed. “That is NOT A NICE thing to say.”

Now, Henry calls everything dumb. It is in fact his favorite word. Everything is dumb. Shoes are dumb. The pool yesterday was dumb, as people were splashing. Splashing is also dumb. Peeing in the toilet is dumb. That’s dumb , he says by way of explanation. He says it sadly and with great pity. I can’t eat this grilled cheese, you see, because it is, well, dumb.

I thought dumb was an apt word for a being who actively seeks out heat stroke, but now I had to apologize. And Henry called Charlie, who got right up and trotted back inside, and they both looked back at me in disgust.

Actually only Henry looked back at me. Charlie didn’t because he’s an idiot.

*What can I say that hasn’t been said? It was amazing, overwhelming, frustrating, exhausting, fantastic, etc.. I met so many great people and have so many new blogs to read. And I’ll get right on that, as soon as the temperature dips below 634.

My sweaty, stealthy napper.

Henry still naps. And not just a little nap, either—two hours, sometimes three. This is unusual among the 3-year-seven-month set, I hear, but I’m not telling him that, and thankfully he rarely reads my blog, so we’re cool. I am eternally grateful for his nap, for those precious hours in which I can work, or clean grout (nothing satisfies more than clean grout, am I wrong?), or talk to my imaginary friends on my handmade cardboard phone.

He wakes up from his naps soaked in sweat. Napping is hard! (Do your kids do this? With the sweating? What do you mean you don’t have kids? What are you doing here?) When he peels himself off his damp mattress, he’s so wet I could swear he’s simply spent his nap joyfully peeing himself.

It doesn’t help that he covers himself in a quilt and won’t let me turn his fan on. His room is like an oven, but he says he likes it. “I like to be all sweaty,” he tells me. Kids are just like us, with their misguided assertions. I keep telling him he can’t like it, because I don’t. But there’s no talking to him.

Until recently he refused to get up from bed when he was done with his nap, He did the same thing in the morning: he would wake and maintain his prone position. The only muscles he moved were in the jaw region, as he would open his mouth and shriek my name, over and over. Scott and I found this unpleasant. You can get up! We told him. You can get up and come get us! We rehearsed it with him, us pretending to sleep in our bed, encouraging him from our room to come to us. And sometimes he would, and how proud we were! Isn’t that cool, we said, how you can get up! He seemed into it, and then the next morning arrived, and the same shrieky Henry alarm terrified us awake. “I couldn’t because I too busy,” he said. Too busy scaring the crap out of his parents.

Then one day it sunk in. He could stand up! The people he lives with were telling the truth, for once! He didn’t, unfortunately, come get us in the morning, when all I’ve ever wanted is for my child to pad into our bedroom and climb into bed with us and cuddle for five or six more hours. No, he decided to try out his fancy new trick after his nap, on a day when I was so deep into my work that I’d forgotten I have a child; I was hunched over my computer when from behind me a damp little hand grabbed my shirt and small voice croaked “I came to get you like you said” and I leaped from my chair and shouted “Oh GOD who told you to do that.” And then I remembered.

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.

Things you wouldn't think you'd have to tell someone, but you do, more than once.

"Open your eyes while you’re running, pal."

"Oh god, never touch anything in a room that smells this bad."

"I really don't enjoy it when you wipe your nose on my face."

"Please don’t eat things you find on your butt."

Add yours below.