Day 117. in which Alex puts Liam down.

Seth passed me in the upstairs hall as I carried Liam to our bedroom with Grandpa Bob in tow a few feet behind me.

"Are you putting the kids down?" he asked, trying to suppress a giggle. Even though his voice has matured, he still giggles. He thinks this a very clever thing to say because of the connotation of putting someone 'down'; it's become part of our evening ritual. A darker version of the The Walton's...

It's true; I'll admit it - we are a weird family with an odd sense of humor.

Liam had been getting punchy downstairs, beating up on things randomly and generally tackling anything in his path. Most often, his focus was sister, Lily. I recognized these as symptoms of being overtired because I often experience them myself - the exception here being that my target is usually their father, Dana, and not my daughter, Lily...

'Putting the children down' is not a simple task. It seems like it should be. Tired children should quietly drift off to peaceful sleep.

But it's not. Whomever came up with the idiom - "sleeping like a baby" - obviously never had one.

When Seth passed me in the hallway, this was attempt number 1. At this stage, Liam is agreeable because he knows that he will be indulging with a bottle, his bear ("Bear") and his big yellow duck ("Ducky" aka "Quack Quack"). Coinciding with this stage is an exhausted Alex, ready to drop yet desperate for some childless play time of her own.

"Gosh... am I horrible mother?" I let Liam have a bottle at bed and I want some amount of childless time for myself. Waves of guilt wash over me as I gently lay Liam in his crib where his fuzzy friends are waiting to be gently smashed in his arms.

I headed back downstairs to the living room, where Lily was entranced with Little Bear and Dana was mesmerized by the Pool Pro Online game on his cell phone, of which he is number 1 in nearly every 'type' of online pool game; he believes this is something to be proud of but I think he's spending too much time playing with his cell phone. Think of all the manly things he could be fixing around the house! Yeah...OK...I guess I get it...I waste a lot of time fooling around with Facebook, too, which is surely just as silly. It just doesn't look as silly...

Ah! Time to relax!

Not five minutes later, I heard Liam calling out, "Daddeeeeee...Daddeeeeeee..."

I was now fully immersed in wasting time on my computer... Without looking up, I said to Dana, "He's calling out for you..."

But Dana was playing against someone in real time; he was not going to stop now. He cleverly did not acknowledge that I had said anything. I sighed, thinking my blog is more important than an online cell phone game, of course! But I could be kidding myself...I sighed, got up off the couch, and walked up the stairs.

Liam was crazed. I picked him up and tried to cuddle him but he kept hitting me, even pinching me. He was trying to out-wrangle me!

I tried to sing to him. This always worked for Lily. Even though I'm an awful singer, she would knock out as soon as I started singing and the song had to be "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - even in June. Perhaps my awful singing was the reason she fell asleep so swiftly; she wanted me to stop.

Liam took a different approach; my singing made him more combative.

I won't bore you with the rest of the struggle. It was more of this. Liam broke free and headed for Seth's room of mystery, of which Liam recently developed a fascination. It repeated a few times. One minute seemed like one hour.

Dear God! Please go to sleep!

At last, I out-wrangled him. Liam started jabbering a lot of nonsense. I love how babbling sounds like a conversation in a foreign language. I wish I could decode his rambling.

And then, quite suddenly, he fell off to sleep. In my arms, I watched him as he dozed off. He reached up with his arm, grabbing for anything he could touch with his hands, and discovered one of Dana's shirts, hanging from the back of easy chair in our bedroom. I watched him as he snuggled into it ('Bear' being in the crib). He reminded me a bit of Linus from Charlie Brown. Neither Seth nor Lily had ever been much into cuddling with a blanket as babies.

Ah blessed peace!

In his sleep, he squinted his eyes for a moment and his little round mouth turned into a devilish grin for one last moment before he drifted off to angelic quietude. Ah...this is what it means...

I felt bad about how I so wanted him to just please go to sleep. I could hold him in this quiet state for a long time. Time began to move at the right speed again.

Day 116. in which the mailman comes again.

The mailman delivered the prints from the 35 mm black and white film we sent in the mail last week. It was worth the wait. It took me 72 shots but I got a few good ones. My digital camera just isn't of the same ilk as my old 35 mm.

Day 115. in which they made him a bacon cheeseburger.

One of the many unfortunate occurrences of growing older is that you lose the enthusiasm for the simple things.

Riding the subway is still an exciting adventure but not for the same reasons you believed as a kid.

You wait for the time of your life in which there is no one to make you go to bed at a certain hour. You're going to stay up all night! You realize as you're working the graveyard shift that staying up all night isn't all it was cracked up to be in your head.

I remember when I was 8, I thought there was nothing better to eat than frozen concentrated orange juice. One of my first chores was to mix the juice and I couldn't help but steal a few bites of the frozen bits. When I grew up, I intended to stockpile my freezer with it and eat nothing else! No one would ever make me eat canned asparagus again. It was going to be all about the concentrate.

Today was a day both Seth and I have been looking forward to for a long time. Years, in fact. Seth had been asking to attend a "Bring Your Child to Work Day" for a few years now but I had not worked in an office before USR that participated with this event.

I'm certain that Seth believes I have the perfect job, that I just sit around playing on a computer all day long. More so, I'm a bit of an anomaly since two of those days I have the privilege of working from home. Quite often, I roll out of bed, imbibe a great deal of good coffee and stay in my pajamas. It looks much more fun than it is. Of course, it also beats working at a 7-11, or some place where you are uniformed. I try to remember this when I'm at my job and feeling sorry for myself.

However, it was important to me to share with Seth what a day is really like for me. I don't want him to think what I did on the computer was what he was doing on a computer.

Because, frankly, when you think about all of the fun things you can actually do on your computer, can't you imagine how that must seem to someone who only spends time on the computer actually doing these fun things and nothing else? Seth has no true conception of the horror of email. Remember work life before email? Remember when email was just a fun way to communicate? Ha! That changed quickly! Seth frequently gets overwhelmed by his inbox and aborts his email address to escape it. I have no hope of reaching Seth when I email him and I know this. I can't keep up with his email address. But he really doesn't fully comprehend the horror of email. I can't just delete my inbox. I am obligated to answer each one in a timely manner.

Not that email is all I do at work, though it sometimes feels like it is!

So I wanted to engage Seth in a day in the life of Mom - every second of it - including the harrowing, death defying commute...

I'll tell you right now - my plan backfired.

First of all, Seth was unimpressed by the commute. He sat in the back of the car, reading comics, occasionally commenting on how the ride wasn't really that bad...I'd like him to say the same if he was doing the driving! Seth doesn't have the Fear yet; I hope he never does.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a miracle every day I reach USR alive and with all of my limbs properly attached.

Seth was impressed by many things that don't impress me.

"Wow! There's elevators in your building!" he said.

So there are!

"Wow! I want a cubicle! I want to live in a cubicle!" he said. Seth actually preferred the cubicle-style office to my doorless office. He was not impressed with my space whatsoever. OK, so we agree on some things...I had a door on my office, once, for a brief time. But then Pearson revoked my door privilege when they moved us to the third floor. I hadn't done anything wrong. It was a return to a "Pearson Standard" that was applied to all of us lackeys.

I was in meetings part of the morning so Kyrce entertained him with some neat active figures from the Construction books. The two of them were playing at my desk when I was done with my meeting. This wasn't helping convince Seth that I work at work...

Seth was greatly impressed with the cafeteria in which they made him a bacon cheeseburger and french fries. The cafe also sells this tangerine Izze soda drink he enjoys. What a place!

At lunch, I invited everyone I knew to come and ogle my son. We sat around the table and stared at him, waiting for him to say something entertaining. Seth seemed a bit disconcert. He didn't understand how anything that varies from the norm around here is welcome.

After lunch, I took Seth for a tour of the building. I don't tend to wander around myself too much; I'm generally chained to my desk all day when Seth isn't visiting. When I do meander, I am careful to either follow someone else or carry my cell phone. Six months later and I'm still hopelessly lost in the uniform halls of USR.

On the forth floor, there is a framed poster of a Brady Games strategy guide for Final Fantasy VII. The first time I saw it, I thought of Seth instantly. Seth has a small collection of both strategy guides as well as Final Fantasy games for various consoles. Don't let his grimace in this photograph trick you; he definitely thought his Mom was cool now. But since he's a teenager, he won't allow you to photograph that joy.

When I was 10, my father took me to this swanky restaurant in Albany for my birthday. I remember getting dressed up in this horrid pink dress with grey slash marks that looked like thunder bolts, a string of fake pearls, and clunking around in grey pumps. Egads. It was the 80's...but the point is, I was all dressed up to go to this restaurant with my Dad.

One waiter sat us down, one waiter brought us a menu, one waiter filled our glasses with water.

None of them smiled.

I don't recall the dinner many details of the dinner but I do remember the conversation following dinner on the way home in the car with my Dad, more because I heard my father tell so many people this story for so long after it happened than I actually recall the specific moment myself. Driving home, my father asked me, "Well, how was your dinner?"

"It was O.K.," I said, "but I wish we had just gone to McDonald's. I mean, the waitress didn't even talk with us!"

My father had spent a lot of money on that dinner, trying to do something really special for his daughter. However, he was looking at it from what kind of dinner he would like to be treated to and didn't realize how very simple - as well as cheap - his daughter's desires were.

I'm no longer satisfied with McDonald's. In fact, I think it rather vile though I do sometimes still have a sick compulsion to eat it. I'm no longer happy with a cubicle of my own. I'm not even happy with a doorless office.

God! What I would, could I go back again to such easy contentment! May Seth hold on to this happy simplicity for as long as he can.

Day 114. in which new techniques in hair design are suggested.

Poor Liam can't say too much yet. Mostly, he just parrots random words that we have taught him.

Basketball. Monkey Boy. Quack Quack. Sky.

His vocabulary isn't developed enough to respond one way or the other to the queries Lily poses to him. I suspect she views his silence as acquiescence.

We were out in the back yard grilling when Liam climbed up into his parked stroller. Like the son of a roof monkey that he is, he climbs everything. At 1 and a half, he has even mastered scaling the baby gate, which I think is quite impressive.

Tonight it wasn't the climbing that most concerned me. It was what I overheard Lil say to her little brother as she was trying to strap him into his stroller.

"Baby, would you like to go get a hair cut?" she asked of him as she struggled with the belt on the stroller.

Liam just smiled his dopey smile and watched his sister curiously. I was glad they were entertaining each other as I watched them from my camp chair. I like when they are playing nicely together. Perhaps she was pretending to take her baby to the barber for a hair cut?

This was when I heard Lily say, "I'll go get a knife to cut your hair..."

Day 113. in which a suspicious noise is investigated.

When my son, Seth, calls me on the phone, I'm always surprised, particularly by two things:

1. That a 13-year-old boy would call his Mum just for the heck of it.


2. That his voice is disconcertingly deep.
   

This last point unsettles me. When did my little boy get this voice? There's something about the phone, this disembodied voice, claiming to be my Seth, that really gets me.

Growing up happens too quickly but in that same creeping way in which you don't realize it's happening until it's too late and it has already happened by. It doesn't matter if you are the kid who this is happening to or if you are the adult watching this happen to your children. It's strange no matter what your vantage point is.

When did my son's voice get so deep? When did he stop referring to his underwear as "butt covers"? When did he stop really hugging me? Now he tends to give me these begrudging, noncommittal hugs in which I suspect he rather avoid the entire situation altogether...I understand. I gave my dear old Dad hugs very much like this.

I was quite cozily nestled into my bed when I heard a light tapping on my bedroom door. I already knew it was for me so it didn't make sense to ask Dana to answer it, even though I was feeling so lazy that I was tempted. Begrudgingly, I crawled out of my bed, grousing on my way to the door.

It could only be one of two people - Dad or Seth.

I cracked open my door and peeked out with a grimace on my face. Seth was standing there, looking a bit nervous.

"Yes?"

"Mom, um, there's a weird noise in my room. It sounds like someone crying or something. Would you come check it out?" Seth asked.

I smiled but sighed as I walked out of my bedroom. Crossing the hall to Seth's room, I said, "Are you sure it's not just Grandpa snoring?"

"I'm sure," Seth said. "Just listen...it's been doing it for awhile now."

I stood very still in his room waiting for the noise. Seth's room is so quiet that I did not have to wait long before I, too, heard the mysterious noise. But I couldn't quite determine where it was coming from. It sounded like a faraway cry. Starting. Stopping. Starting.

Seth stood near the entrance of his room, looking a bit peaked. I inched closer to the window as the noise seemed to be emanating from either his closet or the back of his bedroom. Seth did not move with me. He stood in his doorway and watched.

I stood still some more. I heard the noise again.

As I moved towards the window, Seth suggested opening it from his safe place in the doorway of his room. I pulled up the venetian blinds covering his window and leaned over a lot of junk on the floor, straining my back a bit, in order to pull up the window.

There was surely a noise out there. A loud, screeching kind of noise. But with the window wide open now, it sounded less like a monster in the closet and more like what it was. Two houses down, a neighbor was working outside in his workshop behind his house. I'm not sure which it was - a power saw or a shop vac? It was a noise alright.

Seth laughed. "OK, so, now I just feel stupid!" he said.

I realize there won't be so many more times like these, where Seth beckons me to his bedroom to hunt down the source of a scary noise. I made fun of him a bit, but I was glad he knocked on my door and glad that he still thought his old mum could save him!

Day 112. in where there is panic at the Red Apple Rest!

I have never developed a love for driving. In fact, over the years I have become absolutely terrified of driving to the point of staying awake thinking about the drive I'd have to make in the morning. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my job was relocated from Kingston, New York in which I lived in walking distance from my office to Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Until I hit 30, I had happily survived without a car of my own. I'm not saying that this was not an inconvenience at many times.

10 years ago now but as still clear in my reflection is a memory of dragging a reluctant Seth across downtown Albany from the Price Chopper on Madison Avenue to our 7th floor State Street apartment, lugging large canvas bags of groceries over each shoulder, occasionally switching the hand that was holding Seth's with the hand that was holding plastic bags of groceries that didn't fit in the canvas and was cutting off circulation to my fingers.

And it seems like yesterday, though it was thankfully many years ago now, that I had over a two hour commute for a just above minimum wage job. Had I had a license and a car, it would have taken me about 30 minutes, tops. Instead, I had to walk to catch the #85 CDTA bus to downtown Troy where I'd catch the #90 out to Latham. In Latham, I'd meet the #from downtown Troy to Latham Circle, where I could take either the #70 or the #55 - whichever arrived first - towards Schenectady. The bus would deposit me along side a four lane highway where I'd have to play Frogger to cross. From there, I had a long walk through a residential neighborhood until I reached Vly Road.

When I left this job, I'd start out walking towards the main road while it was still light. By the time I made my way through the suburbs, it'd be dark.

It was depressing, to say the very least.

Any way you looked at it, this was the closest I could get. Having a car would have made this a 25 minute drive tops. Taxis in the Capital Region are absurdly high and have been for at least as long as I can remember. This trip would end up costing me about 18 bucks. For what I was making, it wasn't even worth it. Because of the nature of my job, I couldn't call out for bad roads; I had to be in the building to answer and dispatch various emergency lines - especially since it was snowing.

Good times.

While this motivated my return to college, it did not motivate me to drive.

When I learned my job was relocating, the one thing I feared would do me in was the commute.

Luckily for me, Kyrce exists. Not only is Kyrce my friend, my co-worker and my backyard-adjoining neighbor, she has also been a fearless driving instructor. She has been endlessly patient about my driving, including my lack of driving (which, as my carpooling partner, must be incredibly frustrating) and my fear of driving. On days she has been the passenger, she has been certain to make sure that I eat and that I am endlessly entertained with stories and even an occasional history lesson. She can make any moment of time sound interesting through her retelling of it. She just knows weird stuff.

I know our other Kingston comrades who have committed themselves to this hellish commute (of which we will, at some future point, likely need to be committed for this choice...) leave the New Paltz Park and Ride long after Kyrce and I pass it - no matter who is driving! - and yet all of them inevitably passed us.

Oh! There goes Michael!

Oh! Hey! There goes James!

And passing all of us...

There goes Lanette!

I can hear them heckling us as they drive by...

Even though I know this was entirely ridiculous on my part, I was desperate to drive on any alternative route to Rt 17 from USR back towards Kingston. I didn't care how long it took me. I wanted to be able to drive as slow as I wanted to on a road where there would be absolutely no traffic and I really didn't care if it added another hour to the commute.

End of the day drive is the worst. You are still all worked up from whatever happened at work. You're looking forward to going home, but still a bit stressed about what you might be going home to - which sometimes means even more work than the work at work! I know many of you are right there with me on this. All of you are secretly longing for that moment in which the kids are asleep and you are lying in your bed and it is quiet.

Phew! Another day down!

It is with the utmost tenseness that I drive and have all of these thoughts in my head and then, somehow I need to concentrate on driving. Ah! The Drive. Would I make it home alive? God! I had to get Kyrce home alive! (Just thinking about this while I am writing this is giving me the chills...)

One afternoon I had this brilliant idea that there just had to be a back road to take home. And Kyrce didn't get angry. She even had a suggestion. We'd take old Route 17 north through Tuxedo. It would be less daunting.

Yes. Yes. I could do that.

Well. I'm embarrassed to admit, I couldn't do that. There were so many trucks! Terrifying! I had to get Kyrce home in one piece. I had to get Kyrce home in one piece! I had to pull over! But until I could, I had to keep driving!

Up ahead, I noticed something that looked like it had a lot of space for me to pull into easily.

REST.

Oh thank God!

I pulled into the driveway in front of this boarded up building that gave me the complete geebies. I loved it because of this. Kyrce gave me the full history of it, explaining how it had been 'the' stop in-between NYC and the Catskills in the late 40's, early 50's. I got out of the car and walked around the back as Kyrce got out and walked around the front, trading places with me because I just could not make the ride home.

I think I had stopped breathing. I can imagine how it must have felt to stop here on the ride to the Catskills.

Last Friday, Kyrce, knowing my love for condemned buildings and urban decay, suggested a few web sites I might want to check out of the same. While I was poking about photographs of condemned buildings, I found a web site stating the Red Apple Rest in Tuxedo was going to be demolished! Oh no!

They can't!

I had to photograph it before they tore it down!

So Kyrce being Kyrce humored me by driving this way home tonight so I could take photographs of it.

Happily, we learned the building will not be condemned after all; there was a recently dated work permit taped to the window for roof repair. And it would just be silly to fix a roof before you knock it down...

Day 111. in which Seth is dragged down the staircase.

Lilith always manages to find a reason to get out of bed. Sometimes she simply wants Dana or me to pick her up like a baby and carry her back over to bed. She smiles blissfully as we tuck her in "nice and cozy"...again...

Other nights, it's not so easy. Occasionally, she demands a snack - a bad habit she has picked up from her bad parents. Night time kitchen snacking has really become a nightly social event in our house. Dana, Seth, Lily and I often gather after retiring to bed about a half hour later to get a drink or a snack. Although the gathering part is always fun, it's just not a good idea to snack and then sleep.

Sometimes, Lily feels compelled to get out of bed to brush her teeth again. It's hard to argue with that. I mean, what parent forbids a child from tooth brushing?

Another excuse that a parent shouldn't ignore, even if there is suspicion that the excuse is bogus, is when your child expresses a need to go 'pee-pee'. This was Lily's cry tonight from her bed.

It was my turn to get up with Lil. I sighed and rolled out of bed. Lily jumped out of her bed like a little pixie and came quickly running over to me.

Tonight it was a good thing she got out of bed because if she hadn't, we might not have known about the vicious dragon lurking on our staircase just waiting for the perfect moment to gobble up Seth.

Lily seated herself on the toilet. I sat down on her seated 'training potty', which has only ever been used as a foot stool to the sink and waited for her. She flashed a smile at me, giggling, and said, "I've gotta go poops!"

At that moment, Seth stopped in front of the bathroom door. Lily was still laughing and said again, this time for Seth's benefit, "I've gotta go poops!"

Seth shook his head but couldn't help but smile at his little sister.

Lily thought she was being clever so she continued, "Quiet!...Do you hear it?...It's coming out!" and she burst into more giggles.

I knew we were going to be here a long time. When Lily tells you she has "gotta go poops", you know half of the time she really doesn't...she just thinks she is funny and she knows it makes us laugh - just the way she delivers it. But for the other half of the time, when she actually does have to go - I know I ought to listen!

Things were moving along slowly like this when all of a sudden a dragon suddenly grabbed Seth by the ankles and began to drag him down the staircase! Seth screamed in anguish as the beast, hidden from our vision since it was behind him on the stairs, slowly dragged a fighting Seth down the staircase.

Lily decided she didn't need to go "poops" and watched with alarm as her older brother was dragged down the stairs, crying out for help! Her eyes were wide open as she cried valiantly, "Seth! I'll save you!"

As Seth continued to scream out in agony, Lily looked up at me, hopefully, as she took a step backwards, "Mommy...you go downstairs. Save Seth!"

"But I can't go downstairs! I'm too scared!" I said.

Seth was out of our vision entirely now. The dragon had dragged him all the way downstairs. It was eerily quiet.

"Mommy! Help Seth!" she pleaded.

"I can't! The dragon has got him!" I said.

She looked scared. "Pick me up!" she commanded.

So I picked her up when a deep voice from the dark downstairs bellowed up, "Little girl!...LITTLE GIRL!...Go to sleep!"

Lily grit her teeth and her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she began to literally shake and hold onto me tightly.

"Seth, come on up! You're scaring her!" I shouted down below.

Up the stairs walked an unscathed Seth to Lily's visible relief! He was laughing and she was smiling at him.

"Seth tricked us, Lil!" I said, trying to explain to her what had just happened. She seemed confused to see him standing there. "That Seth! He tricked us good! Let's go tell Daddy what he did!"