Rock-a-bye

I had this idea for a post that I was going to call "shame" and it was going to be a photograph of the snow pants Ben wore all winter: the knees patched with thick strips pink duct tape and a close-up of the size (4-5) and also, maybe, of the chart on the wall where you can see that he has grown about 8-10 inches since he was 4-5. I was going to invite you to post your own shame photos in response (not that you would have any, right?).

But then I got sidetracked by this:

And because it is more or less the antithesis of shame--because every cell in Birdy's body passes through the loving and unsullied organ of her beautiful, blessed heart--I thought that maybe this photo would be better suited to a perfect early spring day, this perfect early spring day, when we are leaving the winter and its peculiar shames behind us.

p.s. The new wondertime column is here.

P.S.

The whole reason I wrote today was to check in with you about the shootings yesterday, but then I wrote something weird and deleted it and then, shy, said nothing at all. But really, it is one thing to have an abstracted apocalyptic sense of things, the way I do these days. And it is another to live out a flesh-and-blood tragedy, a grief of senseless and unfathomable proportions. Which is how grief always feels, of course. But this--this is something else. I am so sorry is all I really wanted to say. Or maybe something dumb, like "Kiss your kids."

My Thyroid Has Great Self Esteem, Thanks to You

Here's why I love you: when I post a paranoid column about my hypochondria and psychosomatic exhaustion and neurotic wasting of doctors' time and also my vague personality disorders, your write me lovingly to say, "Maybe you should get your thyroid checked!" It's like a virtual community of mothers. "They're just jealous!" you say to me. You say, "It's only because you're so passionate!" and "We would have done the same exact thing!" Thank you for that. I see why they call it "support." You know?

Meanwhile, an April Fool's Day post--of all the repulsive things--has lingered here for weeks. Malingered. Forgive me. I can only send you to this column and this one instead. And scare you with the very fierce and frightening Caped Growly Girl King.

I Wish I'd Thought

to switch my kids' underpants with their dad's! Boy would that have killed them. It makes me laugh just to think of it now, so I will have to file that bit of lingerie hijinks away for next year. (It's not called "lingerie" when it's a man's, now, is it? I see that it looks a little too Liberace for Michael's Fruit of the Looms.)

I have two columns over at wondertime that I haven't linked to: one about Birdy turning four, and one about her great and sudden love of Yiddish.

Happy Passover to you dear ones. And happy Easter. Happy Spring-interrupted-by-the-pouring-down-of-snow. And happy days of melancholy, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.

April 1, 2007

Ben's first telephone conversation with a peer (on speakerphone):

Friend: Hi Ben.

Ben: Hi.

[crickets chirping]

F: Do you have something in your house that looks like poop?

B: Probably!

F: You could put it on the ground and say you pooped!

B: Yeah!

F: Bye Ben!

B: Bye!

In a fit of festivity, I made the children fool eggs with whipped cream and apricot halves and sliced pound cake for toast, and Ben fell for it for approximately, let's see, zero seconds. "Why are these eggs so foamy looking?" he said. "This toast looks so weird." Birdy insisted that the egg tasted like whipped cream, and then we were never convinced she'd understood the whole thing. "My egg was so creamy!" she cried. "April fool!" Still! I did an April Fool's joke! Lame and cranky me! I like the bonus holidays like these, where anything is better than nothing. Nobody expects you to make a Luke Skywalker pinata or rent a team of Clydesdales or anything.

But more successful was the cramming of a long strip of toilet paper down the back of everyone's pants and groaning, "Oh gross! We've really got to teach you more about wiping."

How did you celebrate? Don't leave me hanging. Tell me.