My five year old fell today. According to my husband and my excited seven year (who liked to re-enact the entire scene over and over at my feet), he just tripped running out of a room, and fell. No biggee. Except that he really hurt his finger and it started to swell and he refused to curl it into a fist. So, off to the E.R. we went. A few x-rays and one new splint later, my five year old is officially the proud owner of a slightly fractured finger, right near the knuckle (hence the fancy splint).

This hasn’t been his summer. He has only recently been told he won’t have to get a skin graft on his foot after this happened on the 4th of July. And, since he’s healed so well, he may be allowed to swim this weekend for the first time since then.

(The splint can be taken off to swim. I asked.)

The burn wasn’t his only brush with danger either. The other day he came inside to calmly inform me that there was a snake under his swing. And there was. A water moccasin. I don’t know how he saw it, it looked like a tree root to me. But he did, and survived that possibility of a very serious (if not, lalalalala, I don’t like to think about it, lalalala, potentially fatal) snake bite.

It’s been a strange summer for me with him. I have been worried about him a lot. I’m not sure if it’s burn PTSD (see above), or snake fears, or preparing him for Kindergarten, or what, but I’ve had these recurring nightmares involving only him. Night after night, we lose him, or he gets kidnapped, or he is trapped at the top of a high-rise building in childcare with gun-wielding terrorists in the lobby who just cut off the power to the elevators and exploded the staircases (that was only two nights ago).

I’ve been worried about him. Really stressing out.

But, strangely enough, then this happens… and I’m totally fine about it. Completely.

Because as far as I’m concerned, as long as my child can still skip, and laugh, and sing Justin Beiber songs on the papery examining table tonight, and whine, and tell me he is “so sad” when he doesn’t get toys from stores, and hit his brother with his splint when I’m not looking, and make believe on the back porch chatting away with an old R/C car up to his ear like a phone… if he can still do all of those things, he’s fine. He’s fantastic even.

In the grand scheme of it all, THIS is nothing.

Behold the bounty of our school supply shopping escapades.

And this doesn’t include the pile of clothes and underpants that we bought either.

It was a tax-free weekend for school supplies here in Florida. And, since school starts in two weeks, we figured we would take advantage.

But even after so very much money spent (tax-free = throngs of shoppers out and about = price inflation, just saying), somehow it doesn’t seem like enough.

It seems so ironic, you know? A tax-free holiday offered to residents to get geared up for a year ahead at public schools that are barely intact after our governor decided to cut more than $2 billion dollars from education. Why? He doesn’t want to — GOD FORBID — raise taxes. Schools in Florida will have $700 less per student than they did before. Because, you know, their cups were just running over with spending surplus in years prior…

Ask a Florida teacher how much he or she made last year. Ask a Florida teacher how much he or she makes this year.

The education cups have never run over here. Never. And the only reason we have teachers still teaching at our schools is, well, because they don’t have much of a choice but to take the cut. Or, they are just awesome men and women who care too much about their kids to bail out and try for something else. Or maybe they aren’t teaching at all anymore, because they were fired due to these “tax-saving” budget cuts.

I’ve heard rumors of 4 day weeks. We got letters home about “many changes” expected in the coming year and to “please be understanding” as they adjust to drastic budget cuts.

So, looking over at this pile of expensive school supplies doesn’t really feel so great. Because I think we should be giving so much more. Something is very wrong with our system when cutting back on education to save a buck in our paychecks is morally acceptable.

My husband and I are hardly rolling in it. We’re upside down on our home thanks to an already shaky Florida economy. We have stacks of bills and 10 year old appliances kicking out on us just like everyone else. But if it would help our schools to buy this stack of school supplies once a month, I would.

But somehow I don’t think a monthly drop-off off clorox wipes and reams of paper will solve our budget problems.

So this tax-free weekend I don’t feel like we saved anything at all, really. I’m just afraid we’ve lost too much already.

Is motherhood something to be laughed at? Because, you know and I know that there are times when mothers completely lose their sense of humor. Poof, gone, lost, for a very long time. At 4am with a screaming — or giggling, wide-awake — baby. At 5pm, the witching hour, when dinner isn’t ready yet and you’re ankle deep in toddler tantrums. At the grocery store when you can’t seem to get down an aisle without screaming at your fighting children. Motherhood can be slow, endless, Chinese water torture, threatening to pull you deep, down into stewing pits of parenting despair. I’ll admit that it’s the hardest thing I have ever done.

And that’s why finding any outlet to laugh at parenting is so damn important.

And that’s where “Motherhood, The Musical” comes in.

I was asked to review this musical, now playing at the Straz Center in downtown Tampa, last week. And, since I am sucker for musicals (don’t even get me STARTED on my obsession with “Wicked”) and since I just really like the folks at the Straz, I was 100% down for some funny mom theater. Plus, I’ve seen lots of Facebook statuses raving about the show: “I laughed! I cried!” So, I was excited to check it out.

I rounded up two very deserving moms from my work to come with me and we set out for the Straz after a particularly crazy week at work.

The show was in the Jaeb Theater which is a smaller, cabaret style theater. We found our seats around a small table, surrounded by (no surprise here) many other mothers gathered for the show. The space was intimate — which meant a comfortable, more connected experience. I was impressed right away as the theater staff began the evening by reaching out to pregnant moms in the audience. They also sold pins with the profits going to autism research. And they even had cute “Motherhood, The Musical” postcards on the table which we could fill out and they would send for us if we dropped it in a mailbox in the lobby. (I sent one to my mother-in-law.) I have to say, the people who work at the Straz are just nice. They smile, they ask you how you are, they take pictures for you, they just make the whole vibe comfortable and welcoming. And, being a theater dork from way back, I think that really helps set the vibe for the show itself – so “cheers” to them…

Now, what did I think of the show itself? It was really great. Truly. But let me start with a couple negatives first.

Admittedly, they touched on a few cliches. You know, “we’re not gonna take cooking and cleaning anymore”  kind of thing. The naive pregnant mom, and the “knowing”, jaded other mothers hell bent on scaring the crap out of her. Mini-vans, grocery shopping, and husbands that have very little to do with parenting at all.

However. They took these typical motherhood cliches (which are only cliches because they are common experiences, by the way) and turned them into gut-busting, musical hilarity. The women who played the four mothers in the show were FANTASTIC. I kind of want to be friends with the divorced mom and the working mom. No, really. I want to have drinks with them because they have to be that awesome in real-life. (Hey ladies, email me! I can try to be awesome too!)

Also, the lyrics and the music in the show are both excellent. The lyrics are very well written, just FUNNY. Cliche or not, the mini-van song was hysterical. They took the sagging and leaking experiences of so many mothers and made anthems out of them. Even the “no more cooking and cleaning” thing was awesome. They rocked out. And I laughed. A lot.

And so did the women around us. Seriously. Women were howling, and stomping the floor, and standing, and cheering. Clearly, this show connected with the majority of the audience.

I also cried a little. No, I did. The song about “Every Other Weekend” in which the divorced mom sang about what it is like to be alone every other weekend. And how the kids come home spoiled by their fathers and she has to be the bad guy, and how she manages… well. I totally boo-hooed and said a little thankful prayer that I don’t have to experience weekends like those.

I don’t think this is a show for the majority of husbands. (Maybe some, but certainly not mine. His eye-rolling would have annoyed the hell out of me.) And, I don’t think this is a show for women who have no interest in parenting yet. I know one woman who saw it, but who isn’t anywhere near ready for children, and she said it “scared the crap out of her”. That said, bring your mother. Bring your mom friends. Bring your pregnant daughter. Bring the moms at work and the moms on your block and the teachers of your children. I suspect they will love it.

Also, if you’re going to get hung up the cliches and parenting generalizations, just check those at the door. Relax. Have fun. Let yourself laugh. Don’t take it too seriously. This isn’t supposed to be heavy stuff or some wildly prophetic social commentary. Its fun, and very funny. And it’s obviously something many, many, MANY mothers just “get”.

Cheers to the Straz and the awesome actors who rock that show out night after night (I kind of want your life). You did a fantastic job. Thanks for reminding me to laugh at this mothering stuff and then leave me ready to get back home and hug my boys super tight. Laughing like I did that night made me take a step back, accept the good and the ugly of this motherhood thing, and simply appreciate it so much more.

Want to go see it now? Get $29 tickets to see “Motherhood, The Musical” at the Straz Center through August 28th. Use promo code TIX29. The offer ends August 12th, though!  Restrictions and charges apply.

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.