After years of grounding our boys’ beds safely on the floor, we’ve done it. We bunked them.

See? Don’t they look happy?

Yep. Well. I thought I might share the news scrawl running through my head ever since we’ve done so.

• Someone is going to flip over the top bunk and crash to the floor and break their arm (just like my friend’s little girl did) earning themselves a compound fracture (just like she did).
• BOTH boys are going to flip over the top bunk and each earn a compound fracture (just like she did).
• Someone will jump from the top, snag their shirt, and choke.
• Someone will jump on the top bunk and crash through to the bottom, smashing very dangerous, puncturing plywood onto the person below.
• Someone will jump on the top bunk, somehow dislodge the wooden dowels keeping each leg secure and unhinge the screwed-in ladder, causing the entire top bed to collapse on the person below. The outcome is not good. (And this is the one I keep coming back to because I like to torture myself like that.)
• The whole damn thing will tip over and crash on top of both of them.
• Someone will push the other off the top bunk and make the falling victim earn that same compound fracture mentioned above and then the “pusher” will live the rest of his days with deep-rooted guilt as the “pushee” suffers from major nerve and bone damage for the rest of his damn life.
• The one sleeping on the top bunk will get too cold from the A/C vent directly above him in the ceiling.

What. What?

All of this could happen. It COULD.

(And if I forgot something, don’t you DARE remind me what it was. I have enough anxiety already invested in this insane mind torture.)

You’re still staring at me like I’m nuts.

Well. I’m betting there’s a fair share of you wondering how I could think up such horrors, exactly. What is WRONG with me? If you’re thinking that, then I might assume that you aren’t a parent. Because this is what happens ALL THE TIME when you are parent (or since I’ve become a parent). I think of the worst possible outcomes all the time for my children. It’s kind of what I just do…

Diving baseball catches become concussions or random stick impalements.

Climbing trees become compound fractures (a favorite, it seems).

Swinging hoses = smashed teeth.

Roller skating = bumped heads and brain bleeds

Summer camp field trips = lost child (yep, I put my cell phone number in their pocket and I thought that was a pretty damn smart idea, so pipe down…)

Pools = stitches from sides of pools, cracked heads on bottoms of pools, and worse.

I could go on and on.

Maybe it’s something moms like me do to protect themselves. We GO THERE so that in case is does, we are mentally and emotionally prepared. Because it DOES GO THERE. More often than you might realise.

Ok, you’re still staring at me like I’m nuts. Well, then you’re a parent like my husband, or just one of those people who just doesn’t get wound around the axle like I do. Life is filled with risks. Shit happens. We can’t protect them from everything. What will be, will be. It’s not worth worrying about. Get over it and relax.

I know.

They LOVE their beds stacked (so F-ing precariously, OMG) like that. They really do. And the room has opened up so there’s more space to play. And they giggle and send stuffed animals up and down to each other and play games. It’s really great. It is.

So I’ll just keep the panicking to myself. (Oh. Oops. I mean OUTLOUD in front of talking people in front of my FACE.)

Because, really, if I think a bunk bed is frightening, how the HELL am I ever going to let EITHER of them drive away in a car? NOT strapped into a well-inspected five point harness, driven by moi? …HOW?

Shuddering sob. Wringing hands. Finding Strength.

Parenting has simply turned me into a crazy lady.

THE END.

Somehow it has been two years.

So I wait. For something to hit. And it doesn’t. Or, at least, it hasn’t yet. And maybe it finally just won’t.

Of course something hit last year. Something hit her house, actually. I had asked for a sign. I got one.

But this year, things feel quiet. Two years is a long time. Two years is nothing at all. It doesn’t hurt less, but I’m just very used to having her death right there besides me. This is now normal.

Sometimes, I swear she is standing behind me at work or in the hallway at home, just around the corner. Don’t laugh. I know I have an active imagination, she always said I did. But there is something in the corner of my eye, a sound. I turn, it’s nothing. Shrug. Who knows.

Sometimes, I can hear her voice so exactly in my head that she may as well be speaking right to me. I hear her and I laugh and I think, “Ok, that’s exactly what you would say about that.” I suppose I know her very well. I suppose you can think up any person’s response to an issue if you think hard enough about it. But I suppose it’s a way to keep her here.

Sometimes, she is in my dreams. Maybe 20 years younger than she was when she passed. She is very calm and confident and into some busy project or another. Very much the “mom in charge” that I remember when she was well and strong. Sometimes, in my dreams, I tell her I am so relieved she IS alive and all is well. What a bad dream that must have been. She looks at me like I’m being dramatic again. That OF COURSE she’s fine. She doesn’t offer comfort or affection but her steady “Oh Caroline” is reassuring. I’m relieved and calmed and not upset any longer. Sometimes, I dream that she’s here and she never left, there was never any death at all. And she’s still annoying me as much as she ever was.

Whether my imagination is hard at work filling in this impossible void left in my world, or whether there is something more to it, she isn’t really gone for me. And I am getting used to having her there in a very different way. It’s never enough, but is your mother ever there for you enough, really?

I love this picture of my mother. This is how she was before she passed. Hardly glam, always a bit rumpled, but also trying to trap you in a picture that she will never develop or ever look at again. Her way of saying, “I really like being around you but I don’t know how to say that so I am going to harass you until you all huddle together and, strain a smile and say ‘cheese’”.

Her affection was never traditional so why should I expect anything otherwise in her death.

She called me “Carolyn” more often than she called me “Caroline”. She blamed it on her learning disability. She also called me “Carolvin” — a combo of my brother’s name and mine. She also called me “Boopie” and “Caroley” and (this one was a real favorite of mine, as you can imagine) “Spaceshot”. Because I tuned her out a lot.

I tune her out. Maybe still. Or maybe not.

Just trying to piece together our connection as I did in life. And, this year, there seems to be some peace, some resignation, in that.

I hope you have peace, Mom. More than anything else, that’s what I hope for you.

I would assume that it is only natural for parents to try to protect their children from their greatest fears. Our past traumas that haunt us just can’t possibly happen to these fresh, new lives. Untouched. Unscathed. Perfectly perfect, with no worries at all. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that when I make Mac N Cheese for dinner, I scream for everyone to clear far, far away when I retrieve the rolling, boiling pasta from the stove.

“Hey, back OFF. I don’t want you to get hurt like Mommy did. BACK! OFF!” And they always do. Mommy’s puckered scar makes for a fantastic safety lesson.

Ironically, for work, I had just written all sorts of articles about firework safety. All sorts. Did you know that one innocent sparkler can reach temperatures as high as 2000 degrees? Well, I did. And I had smugly decided we weren’t going to buy any fireworks this year, dammit. We were going to watch other people’s fireworks from a friend’s driveway. We should be safe enough.

When I was burned, I remember what my skin looked like immediately afterward. Red raw and then white, white, white, with skin peeling. A horrid memory for a three year old. But there it remains, tucked in my history, while my mother wrapped me in an old baby blanket. With flashing lights at the end of my front walk. And my father running up from a taxi parked at a hasty angle. I don’t remember much else, however. Except for the smell of Ivory soap, which they used to scrub it clean nightly. If I smell it today, it makes me gag. Horrid stuff. I don’t remember the screaming, but I remember that soap. Oh, and the dingy, nude-toned ace bandage, wrapped and wound and ragged about my left arm.

My youngest stepped out from behind the car while I sat comfortably in a friend’s chair in her driveway. It was almost dark and there were kids everywhere. But I knew it was him. And he had a sparkler. His face, lit by the sparks, was alive and THRILLED. So, what thoughts raced through my head? Well, these: 2000 degrees. He’s so excited! Am I a horrible Mommy if I take it away?

It took only those few seconds of thought for it to happen. A tiny spark jumped onto his arm. He’s never held a sparkler before, so jumping sparks are not normal. Or ok. So, instinctively, he flicked the sparkler. Down. And coals from that 2000 degree sparkler shot into that small spot where a little boys crocs meet his ankles. One actually slipped under. And stuck.

I thought his screaming was from the small spark. I was embarrassed. I was annoyed that I had to chase my screaming child up the driveway. Really, all over one little spark? I had no idea about the coals embedded in his feet.

But I did once we pulled him inside, terrified screaming bouncing off the vaulted ceilings, and stripped his shoes off. And there it was. Red raw, large patches of white, and peeled skin. And so much screaming.

I’m not going to say I handle panic well. But I have done ok-ish with emergency situations before, going into a zen-like, partially denial-based, ”it’s all going to be fine” trance.

I didn’t this time. This time I panicked and had to stop my own scream. I asked someone “what do we do?” And cried and grabbed my child and pulled him away from everyone trying to treat him as if he JUST NEEDED ME. I could fix him, no one else.

It happened to be that the guy with the goofy, over-sized, red, white and blue top hat at the same 4th of July gathering we were at was an ER doctor. Somehow, our pediatrician was called. Somehow, this 4th of July guy called in meds for us. I heard “3rd degree” and “burn unit” though. I most certainly heard those words. And I thought of Ivory soap and felt sick.

We see a plastic surgeon on Friday. And my running, wild boy is now wrapped in those very same dingy, unraveling ace bandages. His left foot is the worst. I have actually found myself saying “You got a burn just like Mommy!” As if that is something to be proud of.

My mom was in the kitchen, with her back turned, when I decided to crawl onto the stove, attempt to bypass that boiling water, and make a grab for donuts.

I was in a folding chair with a beer when he emerged behind that car with a sparkler handed to him by… well, it could have been anyone that night.

The worst stuff, the stuff that YOU think is the worst stuff, can happen to your children. I get that now. The control we have over their lives is nominal. But maybe, as I am only NOW (over a week later) able to clean his wounds by myself and tell him how great his feet are looking (kind of, not really), I am figuring this lesson out. Our children force-feed us our own demons. They make us deal with it, grow-up about it, handle it. It’s just a burn. On a limb. I lived with mine without incident, he’ll live with his.

My fears, his fears. My healing, his healing. The left side puckers, regrows, scars over, and moves on.

My kids are being watched this summer by their Dad. And now they look like this.

I could probably end this post here. Yep, with Mohawks to show for it, Dad is in charge all right.

But wait. There’s more.

You see, it has been such a 180 for this household. After being home with my boys for 8 years, suddenly I’m the one working all day and my husband has taken on the boys. He’s a college coach and, while he still has to go into work during the summer, he can set them loose in the indoor gym or drop them at swimming lessons on campus. It’s not perfect, he’s pulling his hair out trying to balance everything, but he’s doing it.

And the boys are better off for it.

I read this article the other day about how good roughhousing is for kids. And I see the logic, I do. But I don’t “get it”. When my kids wrestle and yell and pile-drive one another in the carpet, I freak. They laugh and scream and consider it sport while I holler at them to JUST QUIT IT. I look at them like they are insane. I tell them to get ahold of themselves, to CALM DOWN for crying out loud, to get outside IMMEDIATELY. “What is WRONG with you?” I ask. And I probably have a look of such disgust on my face while I shuffle them in a giggling pile out the door. And then I turn around and sigh at the destruction left in their wake. What. The. Hell.

So, now that my husband is home, what does HE do when the pile-driving commences? Usually, he ignores it. Or laughs. Or joins in. Or, if they interrupt him too much, he tells them to get outside too. But he never looks at them like they are wild, unnatural beasts… like I do.

When I come home in the evenings, I find everyone getting along. One pack of boys in three sizes. They are quietly laughing about silly things and seem relaxed into the evening. And (unlike myself at 5:30 pm after a full day of boy-dom), my husband doesn’t seem all that harried. I suspect the majority of their crazies have probably already been expelled. But no more mess than the usual upheaval betrays the madness that probably occurred in my living room only hours before.

So, we must ask. With three boys and then… me… which one of these things is not like the others?

I don’t GET rough-housing. But maybe if I did, maybe if I stopped worrying who was going to crash into the coffee table and split their head open, maybe if I moved with the insanity more often than fight it — it would actually be easier on all of us? A “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” kind of thing?

Still. I don’t get it. But they do. And they truly seem better off for it, with Dad at the helm setting an example for whatever male-ness they hope to be.

And what do I do? Duck and cover and ask that they NOT jump on the bed while I paint my toes.

And hand out smooshy, lovey hugs when the days is done and they are weary from thrusting out their bony chests and verging on whatever it is they will become.

Parenting lesson learned. Yep, another one.

Folks warned me when I started working. “Don’t you think you’ll be tired of writing?”

I thought they were nuts. No way. Nothing has kept me from blogging before.

And I’m not tired of writing. But I am tired. And the times I have the momentum to write are times when my energy is focused on writing about other stuff that results in a real-life paycheck. So, sue me.

And, by the time the time to write here rolls around, well… I find myself engrossed in Angry Birds or The Bachelorette some horrible reality show I would openly judge others for watching but watch, slack jawed (ruining myself deep down, somehow, I just know it).

My head is just empty.

And I know that’s forgivable. Because at least it’s not too full. You know how that can get dangerous – and tedious – around these parts.

So. That’s it. Just explaining myself. For now.

(…. Ugh. Posting that my head is too empty to write makes me feel utterly ridiculous. What am I talking about. Posts are never NOT there. I’m just too lazy so put down the F-ing Angry Birds.)

(Inexcuseable.)

(The next one had better be good so I can look myself in the mirror again. Because it hasn’t been easy after that last – WHY would a woman be interested in a guy who could care less about her? - episode of The Bachelorette.)

More later. I mean it.

My son loves baseball. No, he really loves baseball. He has stacks of hardback books about MLB baseball history, players, ballparks and everything in between. He pages through it all slowly, carefully, absorbing each little bit. He also likes to hack into my father’s MLB account and pour over online box scores. Then he grabs his wiffle ball bat and ball, heads outdoors and replays it all in the backyard. He watches games whenever we’ll let him. Our DVR is filled with MLB games from the weeks before. And during the off season, I’ve even caught him completely focused on some black and white World Series game from the 50s. Really?

“Mom, this is awesome.”

Ok… *shrug*

He’s been like this about baseball for a couple years. But before that it was Star Wars (he knew every actor’s name or puppeteer and who played what voice and what happened in every single scene). Before that it was the digestive system (somewhere I have three year old video of him explaining the small intestine) and before that it was planets (some of his first words were from the solar system).

Anyway. Back to baseball.

So I decided to sit down with him this afternoon just to see what he knew and get it on film. Not surprisingly, his baseball knowledge was endless. He could have probably gone on for hours. Really.

I’m not sure what to say about it all. I just hope he funnels all this energy and focus into curing cancer or finding an alternative energy source or something someday. Because he certainly doesn’t know his times tables as well as he knows THIS stuff.

Anyway, gather your baseball fans and take a look. They will appreciate this.

And if you don’t really get baseball, that’s ok. You’ll get the idea just from the first minute or so.

And my apologies if this is a little “my kid is so amazing, you all MUST come see, and watch me beam with pride”. I love him. He loves this. So I want to hold him up over my head and tell him that whatever he loves is so very awesome. That’s all.

Enjoy.

Somehow, while he waited for his Garbage Can sundae at Applebees tonight (his restaurant choice entirely) - he was still. My birthday boy turned five today, and (ask anyone) this child is never still. But he was. For a quick moment. Leaning up against his dad. Staring out the window at the cars passing by. Considering something. He was still.

Five. So much older than four.

…And I WON’T let that blow my mind.

Because I remember saying once a long while back that when my youngest turned five, I would have deserpate, heartbroken empty nest issues and THAT would be when my babies were officially not babies and a enormous part of my parenting world would shift permanently off its axis and change course forever.

But it’s happened. And here I sit, unscathed and at peace about it, really. I’m just not going there. Nope. Why be glum, after all? There’s too much to look forward to. Plenty of chaotic, uncharted parenting moments ahead. So much to finally be able to do together. All kinds of growing and learning and being a little boy still left in him.

We have sundaes coming, after all.

So, here he is. Very still. Very wonderful. And five.

There was a time when I was a mom home with babies, and all sorts of ideas and thoughts about the world were rolling around in my head. But I had no where to go with these thoughts. No one to share them with. No community for a thinking mom. Just diapers to change and baby vomit to wipe off the floor. And such is parenting. There would be time for thinking later.

Jump ahead to the year 2008. I was a very new blogger. I had just discovered (and started stalking) all sorts of mom bloggers and political bloggers and – gasp – political mom bloggers. One in particular rose to the top. Her name was Joanne, otherwise known online as Pundit Mom. And when she wrote, I just… got it.

That summer fate stepped in and determined my path as a blogger I very randomly won a contest through BlogHer to go to the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. It was my first overnight away from my children and I arrived there wide-eyed and ready to stalk myself some amazing bloggers. I listened intently to Lesbian Dad on a panel and pushed my way to the front to meet her. I fell off my seat laughing, tackled, and forced an introduction on Deb on the Rocks. I cried listening to and (via a couple glasses of wine) jumped in front of Moosh In Indy to tell her that she was so F-ing brave. And then, it happened. The last morning, at breakfast, Pundit Mom happened to sit down at my table. We introduced ourselves. She gave me a pin with her logo on it. Oh. My hero. That conference had officially been made.

Since then I have come to realize the power of the internet and the many super amazing smart women who live there. Pundit Mom and the Momocrats and various writers at BlogHer gave moms like me at home with their babies access to real politics happening in the moment. Before heading onto CNN to debate some topic or another, Joanne would tweet and ask what questions we had for the panel. The Momocrats would ask their readers what questions we had for Hillary Clinton before heading into a press conference. Moms, just like me with no way to be where they were, had access. And a voice.

And, since that morning over a bagel, my friendship with Joanne has grown. More conferences came. More conversations over meals. More shared ideas and ideals. More smart women, both online and off. She had a book she was writing, she said. I was thrilled for her. Could she use one of my blog posts? Oh my goodness, of course.

Honored is not even enough of a word to describe how I felt.

Joanne’s book has recently been published and in it she describes the extraordinarily influential political space women are carving out for themselves through social media, preconceived notions of women and mothering be damned. And she does it with the help of an incredible network of women she calls “Mothers of Intention”. Mothers, like me, who are not official political experts but actually, whoda thunk it, HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

This morning I opened up a PDF file from Joanne. It was the final draft of the book. My hard copy was in the mail. And there I was, amoungst these unbelievable women whom I have looked to as my conduit for change and voice and action for years. I am only one voice amongst so so many. But, once again, SHE MADE MY VOICE COUNT.

Do you see what this must mean to me? She changed my perception of motherhood. I, like a crazy woman, thought parenting meant my ideas and ability should be back-burnered. I thought you can’t parent AND think. She switched that all around and made me realize that, as a parent, I had a unique and important perspective. I had the same concerns as many mothers and we should pick them up and put them out there and get them heard, dammit. We are raising this country and that actually matters. She spelled it out quite clearly to me that mothers are kind of a big deal, even way over on Capitol Hill.

So. The book is in the mail. And I’ll be back here, of course, to freak out about it some more when I have resting here next to my laptop. Until then, check it out on Amazon. And, of course, you know… buy it. And maybe find your inner Mother of Intention. She’s in there. I swear she is.

Who cares about air conditioners. I had one of those days that grinds you to a halt and abruptly puts your priorities in check.

My 4 year old, who turns 5 next week, graduated from preschool tonight. He wore a blue gown and a mortar board on his head with a 2011 tassel hanging off the side. He held his chin high, and seemed thrilled to be counted as one of the big boys now. My little baby is an elementary aged child.

My 8 year old, who also had his last day of school today and now counts himself as a third grader, is most likely transferring schools next year to be closer to home. Tonight, when he was getting ready for bed, he crawled awkwardly into my lap… and cried. He quietly admitted that he is very very sad to say good-bye to the same friends and the same class he has known for 3 years. I never, ever expected this reaction from him. Truly. Never.

My aunt called tonight to tell me about my cousin graduating from high school next week. The very cousin I babysat for hours and watched Barney with while at college. He drives and texts and doesn’t tell her very much and is leaving to college. I remember this boy in his Radio Flyer wagon. She said she is having a hard time letting him go. How is this happening.

My father had minor-ish heart surgery today. Minor, but still surgery. He’s ok. But. You know. Anything can happen. And I only have one parent. And I really, really love him.

My friend had some horrible things happen to her son this weekend. It’s the worst-case scenario stuff that you say could always happen but then never expect actually will. Such bad stuff. And I don’t know when and if it will be over. I don’t know how to help.

Oh and my new air conditioner was installed.

Yeah, exactly. Who cares.

Sometimes life turns everything upside down all at once, scatters it out across the floor, and lines all of it back up again in very deliberate order. Am I paying attention? THIS matters. That doesn’t.

My father in surgery, children leaping into entirely new phases in their lives, bad things happening to good people – THAT matters.

An air conditioner, or how much it costs to replace it, certainly does NOT.

Am I paying attention? I better be.

Grateful for my life. My children. My family. My time with everyone. My job. My means to even pay for that F-ing air conditioner. This moment, right now. So, so grateful.

Lesson learned.

This Memorial Day began with a weird (“oh my God it’s going to explode!”) whirring sound from my air conditioner. A frantic call and one responsive emergency repairman about an hour later revealed our worst fears. Our 14 year old unit, which has suffered through surface-of-the-sun summers and an endless beating from my son’s wiffle balls, was about to die a slow, stuttering, somehow honorable death in our back yard.

We get a new one on Tuesday. And I don’t want to TALK about what this will set us back. At all. I’m actually thrilled that I won’t even be here when the entire switch happens because – gag – it’s a lot of money and I just can’t bear to look. So anyway…

Our holiday weekend has meant piecing together episodes of functioning A/C moments. But when the weird, unnatural whirring begins, we turn it off.

And it’s late May. In Florida. We have heat here, people. Much, much stifling heat.

So if you were expecting some very insightful, super thought-out post about some wonderfully witty topic crafted by moi (*fluffing my hair*)… well, don’t. I’ve got nothing for you. With my t-shirt knotted very unbecomingly at my middle, I can’t really come up with much to say.

My mind has stuttered to a stop along with my enormous R2D2-looking air conditioning unit right outside my open window. I hear locusts. And a few birds chirping. And hot. I hear hot.

My computer’s fan is whirring like a mother right now.

So I will leave you with this. The best part of my weekend was spent with friends at the beach enjoying a fantastic Gulf of Mexico sunset. It was spectacular. And here is our crew fishing and wading and snorkeling away our over-heated hearts last night.

I’ll be back later – all cooled off, far FAR perkier, and way broker. (Shush. I’m allowing “broker” to be a word right now.)