Category Archives: Parenting

Just Monday

I woke up early this morning, my hair matted down under my breathing mask, so thirsty I could feel the dry pockets in my mouth eviscerating all the moisture in the room. Sleeping is uncomfortable now, so that sometimes, when I find myself in the perfect position (usually on my side, with my legs tucked up in psychic regression) I feel that I have never been happier. Take something away, take it away again and again, and then return it, even just partially. It’s either the definition of bliss or the definition of torture. I can’t decide.

Otto woke up at 5:30 AM, crying in his crate next to Rob’s side of the bed. He’s been sleeping pretty well, but it’s still something like having a new baby, and Rob mutters his displeasure at these early risings. It’s not just the dog. When I’m thirsty in the middle of the night, I need Rob’s help to wrestle the mask up above my lips, to hold my water bottle up so I can drink. When my legs are so leaden under blankets that used to feel like air, I have to ask him to roll me over. Then the dog cries, then Scarlett appears. Then it’s breakfast time, the day has begun, and we feel that we didn’t get quite enough night.

The nighttime difficulties make me feel the most helpless. I lie there for as long as I can, not wanting anyone else to be disturbed, and still, eventually, I throw the sleep grenade. I have to. Read More>

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Stolen Summer

My memories of summer start with heat. In the mornings, coming down to breakfast, hair sticky with sweat. Spending afternoons at the community pool, eating melted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hot fruit, wishing our parents would spring for something from the concession: salty popcorn, Sno cones, nachos dripping with gooey cheese. Evenings, still so light that we could sometimes walk down the block to the library in our pajamas, which felt like some incredible adventure. Then running through the grass, catching fireflies until it was time to go to sleep again, the open windows letting in some breeze, kicking at the single sheet, all that was manageable with the thick air.

I grew up outside Chicago, in a suburb called Oak Park, where many of my family and friends still live. As I got older, summer meant “L” rides to the beach,  the final blocks traversed with a pair of rollerblades, a skill I never quite mastered, so that on the downhill parts, I could almost always be trusted to run into a newsstand.

At the beach, my girlfriends and I lathered ourselves with suntan oil, virtually nothing protective about it, and laid out on bright towels to bake ourselves golden. We met boys, lied about our ages, and once drank spiked kool-aid from a large cooler with boisterous characters we’d only just met. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Parenting, Progression | Tags: , , | Permalink

Otto

Today, SweatpantsandCoffee published one of my blog posts, with a new intro and a link to the #whatwouldyougive campaign. So cool! Thanks Amy Ferris, Nanea Hoffman, and Eva Zimmerman for making it happen. You ladies are fabulous! Now onto today’s blog…

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Otto is asleep in a crate next to the dining room table, curled up on top of one of my old purple cardigans and a towel. Breathing evenly, he snuggles with the new toy that Scarlett picked out for him, a squeaky bright green bunny with a name that’s fun to say: Kong Wubba. Kong WUB-BA.

Otto is a new puppy, not quite 8 weeks old, and, like the average human baby, he sleeps 18 hours a day. Some of this happens in my lap, and despite having lived with him for less than two full days, our family has fallen in love. I’ll enjoy my little lap dog while I can. He came from a litter of 13 German Shorthaired Pointers. Big, high energy hunting dogs.

We went to visit the puppies in their home in Sacramento about a week ago, where it was 100° and all of the dogs, plus Scarlett, were wilting in the heat. There was no way to get my wheelchair into the house, but I was able to roll it through to the backyard, where I sought out a small patch of shade, and succumbed to the wiggly puppy invasion. Puppies have no fear, and the wheelchair didn’t faze them a bit. They climbed all over me, finding little nooks to tuck their tiny bodies into, and then settling down to chew on my Uggs, a  stupid choice of footwear given the weather.  Read More>

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