From the subconscious minds of little boys ...

Hunter: "Mama, I had a dream last night. There was a chicken nugget. And it pooped."

What will I do when they stop saying things like this? I will mourn, I tell you — MOURN.

Dinner conversation at the Scott house

Me: Hunter, please eat your cracker over your plate.
Wilder: Yeah, Hunter, you're such a slobby guy.
Me: Said the pot to the kettle.
Jer: Aww, Wilder's doing much better. Look at his shirt. It's almost clean.
Me: It's tie-dye, so it's harder to see the stains. And that stuff on his shoulder ...
Wilder: Awwwww, mom, that's just snot.

The scene fades away as I stare with bewilderment at my oldest son, while Jerry holds his very red face in his hands and tries not to laugh too loudly.

Gandhi and his damn motivational gibberish

Action expresses priorities.  —Mahatma Gandhi

Funny how three words can say so much. Succinct. Eloquent. Motivating. 

So I haven't been on here in awhile. Life got crazy. I got lazy. I hadn't done anything to make myself more of a bad-ass, and so silence it was. No typey typey on the keyboard, because there was nothing to report. Nothing to feel proud of. 

Then I read that quote above while I was sitting at my computer, on my butt, with virtually nothing else pressing to get done. For the record, I saw that quote on this video:  



I haven't embedded any html in awhile, so I hope you can see that thing above. And I hope you press play. But, be warned, it might tempt you to do something dumb like get off your out-of-shape, lazy worthless ass and go running. 

With a dog.

Whose only modes are:
"pull pull pull" 
"SQUIRREL!" 
"What's this? A tree to wrap myself around? Don't mind if I do!"
and
"Let me stop right in front of you so you have to stop on a dime to keep from busting your face open" (my personal favorite)

So, at any rate, Betty and I just went for a run. And a walk. There was probably slightly more of the latter, and my pace was embarrassing as hell, but I'm comforting myself by telling myself that it's infinitely faster than the pace of sitting on my butt. Also, the dog is splayed out on the floor panting acting like I just took her on a death march (bwwwaaaaahahahahaha) and I'm upright. Typing. Using my finger muscles.


So there. 


And all right, so fine, dammit. I'll get off my ass, Gandhi. Fine. 

Operation Be a Badass limps on ... sometimes literally. And you? Tell me about you? What are you doing to be more of a badass? Share, please — it inspires me.

 

Progress ...

I've heard from a handful of people who are making changes in life: learning new things, overcoming personal struggles, getting in shape, etc. Thank you all for letting me know you're out there — when I don't feel like working out or am intimidated by one of my objectives, I think of you guys. And Karen, of course. And I forge on.

So things are going well with getting strong. I'm working out regularly and really starting to enjoy it. I have the best 6-year-old personal trainer in the world, which helps. And I am starting to feel, if not quite see yet, results. I do feel stronger. A long way to go, but I'll get there.

Perhaps more interestingly, I'm on the road to becoming a hospice volunteer, or at least to see if I'd make a good fit. I had an initial phone interview, am going in next week to meet with someone in person, and will start my training in April and finish up in May. I initially thought I might not be able to work with patients and their families because of the time proximity of Karen's death, but found out that if I feel like I can handle it, they are OK with me volunteering in that capacity. It sounds weird, or maybe wrong, to say that I'm excited about working with the dying and their families, but I am.

Another possibility that is related to the hospice care is the possibility of getting our family dog, Betty, trained as a therapy dog. I had marked on my initial application that I was interested in pet therapy. I am — I have always thought that pet therapy is an amazing way to bring light into the lives of people who are sick or disabled. And I showed interest thinking I'd be working with other trained therapy dogs, but was told I'd have to have Betty certified.

When they told me that, a light went on. Betty is perfect for that. If you've never met her, she's one of the sweetest dogs I've ever known, even given the fact that she lives with two mini-tyrants (and their somewhat loud, tyrannical mom). And I know it sounds strange, but it just seems like Betty needs something like this. I think it would make her little dog life complete. So I'll be looking into that — if you know anything about therapy dogs or have experience in that area, let me know. 

Peace.
k.

OBABA, Part III, also known as "Settle down, woman!"

So for the last few days, I've been beating myself up about getting back on here and posting more about my quest to become a multi-tiered bad-ass. I beat myself about a lot of stuff. A typical conversation in my head goes something like this:

"Oh good, I'm getting some work done. Laundry. Oh god, there's like 12 loads. There are also dishes in the sink. Dishes! What are we having for dinner?? I wonder what the boys are doing? I'll go check on them ... right after I grab these 16 things that aren't in the place they're meant to be and put them back. Wow, I should really spend more time playing with the boys. But then there's work. I've got to make money. I'm a horrible mother. I'm a horrible earner. I'm a horrible housewife. I'm a horrible person ..."

You get the picture. It is ridiculous. So, after mentally flogging myself for a few days about a damn blog post, I decided that Part III here is going to be my last part for awhile. Until I get strong. Until I start volunteering. Until I calm the hell down and stop knee-jerk thinking about 12 other things I should be doing while I'm doing something that I'd be thinking about if I was doing one of those other 12 things.

The world will not fall implode if the toys are not picked up.
Nothing will break permanently if the laundry gets piles up.
No one is EVER mad at me because I'm not doing enough. Well, no one but myself.

And it's got to end. It's an utterly ridiculous source of stress. I'm expecting too much of me. And me is getting pretty pissed off about it.

So here's objective No. 3 of Operation Be a Bad-ass: Stop trying so hard to be a bad-ass.

I mean, sure, get strong. That is a worthy bad-ass objective. Do the volunteer work you've been thinking about for years. Yep, that's a good one, too.

But otherwise, lay off the crazy do-do-DO-DO!!!! all the time. (Heh, I said doo-doo.)

I took my first step today. I sat down at the computer to work and realized, I don't want to do any of this today. I don't want to do laundry or clean or work or straighten up the house. Screw that. I want to make some shit. (The boys are at school.)

And before I had too much time to think about it and guilt myself into, say, scrubbing a toilet, I got in my car and headed off. I went to the thrift store and found some cool stuff. I went to the hardware/garden store and bought some stuff. Then I came home and I made some stuff.

See!

 I used an old mason jar and wrapped twine around it, then planted a succulent in it. I LOVE succulents.

I have been wanting to make a terrarium for years. Today, I made two. Beginner's effort, for sure, but I still love them.

The three cute vases I bought at the thrift store. For about $3 total.

I also got that little birdie. I love that thing, and he goes nicely with my arrangement made from branches I collected from the front yard, rocks and moss.

The sum total of everything I did today. And I'm OK with that. In fact, I think it's pretty rad.

OBABA: Observations

1. Getting strong hurts. But that pain can be great encouragement.

2. Six-year-old boys make great motivators ("Mama, your belly is a little fat." "Mama, your belly looks a little smaller today." "C'mon, Mama! Let's EXERCISE!")

3. Great side benefit of getting strong: It's teaching my kids that working out is good for your body, mind and soul.

4. I already feel stronger. And I am thinking about scary things a lot less. Must be a connection here.

So I know I owe a Part III ... if to no one else but myself. I'll be getting on this by mid-week.

Peace out.

PS. Wilder just came into the office. "Mom? Exercise now??" God I love this kid.

Operation Be a Bad-ass, Part II

As it turns out, I'm going to have to take these life goals one or two at a time, at least in terms of writing about them and sharing them with you. All of them would be too long, you would get too bored, and one of my children would no doubt impale themselves on something while I was typing. No bueno.

So today I'm going to share my first two Operation Be a Bad-ass Objectives.

No. 1, and this is probably the biggest: I need to get strong. 

I'm talking physically (well, mentally too, but that will come in a later post). The thing is, I do pretty much fancy myself a bad-ass. I think I'm capable of anything. And in many ways, when it comes to sheer fortitude and determination, I am right where I wanna be. There is not much that scares me and I can pretty much take on any challenge willingly. I don't know how I came by this, but looking back at my life, I'm pretty sure I was either born with it or acquired it early in life.

But if the events of the last month have taught me anything, it's that I will probably continue to be scared of dying for quite some time to be scared of dying. The only way I know how to combat that is to get strong. I want to have a strong heart, strong muscles. I want to be quick like a cat. I want to be able to pick my kids up again without immediately wanting to put them back down (if you know me, you know my kids are mutantly huge, so this will take some doing).

In essence, I want to feel as bad-ass when it comes to my body as I feel when it comes to my head.

So how will this look in the end? Well, Linda Hamilton in Terminator is probably asking a bit much. Although ...

God damn. Look at her. I would LOVE to look like that. But let's be reasonable. If I did, I would almost certainly always want to carry around a gun like that, too. And wear black. Although no bangs.

So, no ... not Linda Hamilton ripped. For a goal, I go to Pinterest, of course, where this is definitely no shortage of people posting photos of what they wish they looked like. I'll print a few out and put them on my mirrors, but I won't post any images here. I don't want to set unreasonable expectations for myself.

But here's what I'd like, in terms of end-product:

• A strong core (and this is asking a lot give the c-section births of those two previously mentioned mutantly huge children -- 8 lbs. 14 oz. and 9 lbs. 3 oz. at birth, btw)
• Strong legs (I always had them until my knee surgeries and then slowly I've lost them)
• Non-mom mom arms. You know what I'm talking about here. I want my arms to stay reasonably defined. 
• A strong, STRONG heart. I want to be able to run trails up near NCAR in Boulder and not get so winded I fall over in a puddle of my own tears. 

So how do I do this? To be honest with you, I dunno. I'm a busy gal. I have two small kids and I work from home. But I know people who do way more than me who manage to stay pretty damn fit. So I've got no excuses. It's going to involve getting up earlier and taking advantage of what I have at home and around me (elliptical, punching bag, stability ball, trails galore ...).

I want to try spinning. Thoughts? I really want to kickbox and/or just plain box. Thoughts? I want to trail run, but I better start with just some running in general first. Thoughts? And I need some suggestions for getting my core strong — I have some ball exercises that I do, but any other advice is appreciated.

So, there's that. No. 1 objective in a nutshell. OK, I wrote a lot — a coconut shell, then. I will let you all know how it's going periodically. Feel free to send me inspiration, advice, encouragement and mockery, if you think it will help.

No. 2: Volunteering. Specifically, volunteering at a hospice. 

I dunno why, but this has been something I've wanted to do for years. I have become very comfortable in the last 10 years or so being around the grieving, and lord knows I've done my own share of it.

I'm also a huge believer in perspective, and in forcing yourself into situations that provide perspective. That said, I'm a big hypocrite because I've never volunteered — not on any significant and prolonged level.

Anyway, this I've already started on. I contacted my local hospice care provider and have filled out an application. They will call me soon for an interview, they let me know. I might have to start off in some not-very-personal capacity given my own recent loss. It's just the rules, I gather. But that's OK. In fact, it might be better.

Again, I'll let you know how this goes. I hope I'm strong enough — mentally — for it. It scares me, which is probably why I haven't made any attempts at actually doing it before now. I know that I'll deal with all kinds of attitudes and approaches toward death, and I just hope I have the grace to help whoever is facing it through it. That would mean a lot to me, to be able to do that.

That's all for now. I'll touch on Nos. 3 and onward another day.

Peace all.
k.

The Official Slogan of Operation Be a Bad-Ass

Thank you, Maggie Burleson.

Click here for more information on Operation Bad-Ass — please join me in honoring my friend.

Operation Be a Bad-Ass, Part 1

I don't pay attention to platitudes or trite sayings much, but there is one that has always made me think. I saw it again on a friend's Pinterest board today:

This question is of particular interest to me lately. See, when my friend Karen died last month, she had just turned 40. She was talking and laughing with her husband one minute, and dying the next. She was too young. It was too quick.

On top of that, Karen's and I lives had a handful of similarities:

• We both have two kids ages 6 and 3.
• We are both stay-at-home moms who work our tails off on top of parenting. Karen did video and helped helm a holiday-light business. I am an editor/writer/designer. We fit our jobs around our kids, with the end result being that we were/are often exhausted.
• We both probably spend/spent way too much time wondering if we were doing it all right. If we are good enough and doing enough for those around us, especially our families. 

There is another thing that has been haunting me. Karen and I always ended up near each other. We grew up together in Nebraska, but I moved away when were were 12, right after the 6th grade. Somehow, years later, we were both back in Colorado attending CU, living together for many of those college years. After college, I rented my first solo apartment in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. On 14th and Vine, I was in Apt. L. Karen moved into Apt. P. Then Karen bought a house in another neighborhood of Denver, and Jerry and I purchased our first home about a mile from there. We moved back to Denver in 2010 and eventually bought a house in Broomfield. Karen, Eric and their girls were planning to move over here, possibly into our very neighborhood.

See, the thing is: Karen and I somehow always ended up in the same place, in similar circumstances. We joked about how we'd grow to be crotchedy old widows, living together and sharing a car. It was a joke. But then, not really. I could have totally seen it happening.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that my life has so closely paralleled Karen's, in both circumstance and proximity, that I am scared. I am scared of my own mortality, not to mention the mortality of those that I love, in a very big way right now. Throw in a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of hypochondria (that I work with every fiber of my being to fight ... it unfortunately runs in the family), and you can imagine how every little ache, every hiccup, every sniffle is, to put it quite plainly, freaking my shit out right now. 

And yet I know enough about the grieving process to know that these kinds of thoughts, be they unreasonable or not, run rampant after the death of someone you love. I clearly remember that after my mom died, I sat in a sushi restaurant with Jerry trying to tell him that "superbugs" were going to kill us all. That we had to have a plan. That I was scared.

And so I know that this is probably what's happening again. I'm just being unreasonable as a result of grieving. The "trying to make sense of it all" brain works in mysterious ways.

And yet ... what if I'm not? What if I die tomorrow or next month or in December (a little inside Scott family joke there ... a lot of us die in that month)?

What would I do? What would I change?

What would I attempt to do if I knew I could not fail? Or, more precisely, if I just didn't give a shit if I failed anymore?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I can not italicize those words enough. A LOT. A lot. A lot. You get the point. 

Karen Emily Nalezinek Mraz: 1972-2012

So I'm coming up with a list. A list of 5 or 10 things that I want to accomplish. It won't be hard — unfortunately, I'm embarrassed to admit, I think about doing things I would love to do or that I think I need to do, way too much. And yet I never do them. For someone who approaches the definition of the word "workaholic," I am so very lazy when it comes to my own happiness and fulfillment.

I will publish that list in Part 2 of this post, but here's the thing. I want you to do one, too. Yes, you. The person reading this. And I'd love it if you shared it with me. Put it in the comments below, or post it on your own blog and link to it here.

And then I would very, very much love it if we could support each other — through harassment, peer pressure, friendship and a friendly sense of competition — to get our damn lists done. Yours doesn't have to be five or 10 — it can be one big thing. We all have that OBT, don't we?

I would like to die — whether I'm 40 or 480 and my soul has somehow been uploaded to the internet — knowing that I tried. That I had done my best and been my strongest and not been afraid. Maybe I'll fail, but god dammit, I'm gonna fail with the company of friends.

You do it, too. And please, share this post with your friends. With people you know but I don't. Let's all turn 2012 around and make it count.

And maybe, just maybe, Karen's death will count for something. I know I'll be doing my list in her honor.

PWNED!! (by your old-lady MOM)

Just now the following happened:

Wilder: I can kick yer butt, Mama.

Me, while dusting a table: Oh yeah? I seriously doubt that.

Wilder: I can. I'll use my sword.

Me: And I'll use my superior strength and superior intellect.

Wilder: No way. I don't even need my sword to kick yer butt.

Me: Again ... intellect, strength ... superior.

Wilder: Listen, I'm 6, and you're just an old lady.

Two point five seconds later I was sitting on top of him on the floor, all four of his limbs pinned firmly to the ground while he twisted and turned and tried desperately — and unsuccessfully — to escape my old lady clutches.

And at that very moment, given his expression of surprise (and the HUGE smile on his face), I wished my brain could take pictures. That's the only thing that could've made this post better.

My reason for being

Missing

There are dozens of reminders of Karen around me every day. Places we took the kids (damn near every single park in the North Denver metro area, I believe), restaurants we ate dinner (mostly sushi) at, stuff in my house, etc.

The most heartbreaking of these is her picture on my fridge. In it she's with her two girls, Reagan, 6, and Peyton, 3. It used to be one of those things that was there but that I looked past. Now every time I go to my kitchen, I see it. It hurts to look at, but it also reminds me that I have a lot of responsibility to Karen in terms of those girls.

After I hung up with her sister the morning I learned of K's death, I sat on my bed sobbing and, quite suddenly and very intensely, I felt like she was there, in the room with me somehow, waiting ...

I felt like she needed me to tell her something. I will never believe she wasn't there, and that she had to be there for a specific reason.

I promised her repeatedly that I would be as involved with those girls as I could be. That I would help love them in her absence.

Anyway, that was all a digression — what I wanted to point out was how many reminders of Karen I have in my life. It's probably hard to know someone for 30-plus years and not have that.

The strangest?

My bra. It makes me laugh.

The last time I bought bras, I was with Karen. We had gone for sushi and had a couple of cocktails. We decided to go across the street to shop and let some of the alcohol wear off before driving home. We weren't hammered, mind you ... merely a little giddy with drink.

We tried on some clothes. I lamented the shape my bras were in. She did, too. Not mine. Hers. Both of us are so busy being moms and being moms who work from home that things like our stupid bras get neglected a lot.

"Let's go look at bras," she said. We headed that way, but I knew I wouldn't try any on that night (talk about a buzzkill — you really have to be in a certain mood to try on bras). But Karen, my always-trusted friend, held up a bra and said, "I've bought these before and they're good. Buy a couple and you can always bring them back if you don't like them."

I did. I still have them.

Funny, isn't it, how something like that can evoke memories. Probably even funnier that I sometimes look at myself in the mirror before getting fully dressed in the morning and start crying. If you didn't know better, you'd really think I lacked self-esteem.

But I just miss my friend. And her superior bra knowledge.

(Love you, K. Miss your laughing face.)

Pissed

It really sucks when the one person you want to talk to about feeling so horribly sad is the person who is gone.

Today it is really hitting hard. All the chaos and commotion of the past week is over. I wrote and gave a eulogy at her funeral, and the sense of closure and peace I got from that has worn off. I watched some video, shot by Jerry last August, of Reagan's birthday party and it just socked me in the gut.

I am just so damn mad that this happened. I miss my friend.

Stupid light

Funny how death heightens everything. The smallest detail.

Today is the first day I've had some time to be alone. Really alone. I came home from dropping Wilder off at school, and I'm here by myself. Started listening to a song that Karen's husband, Eric, played for me last night. Such a pretty song — it's called "The Call," by Regina Spektor.

I sat listening to it, and was thinking about how Bree will get here tonight. Then, tomorrow, Sarah and Jess. In college, it was always the five of us: Karen, Bree, Sarah, Jess, me. I've had most of the best times of my life with these girls. I love them all so much.

I kind of lost it and had to lie down on the floor. I rolled over onto my back, and looked at this damn chandelier in my living room.



One light out.

I hate this.

For Karen

Memorial Day Weekend, Boulder, CO: Bree, Kris, Karen, Sarah

When I was in the first grade, there was a new girl who came to our school. Her name was Karen Nalezinek, and the teacher assigned me to help her out that day. Show her where the milk was in the lunchroom. That sort of thing. It was the first of many coincidences that would lead to Karen and I being lifelong friends. Somehow, no matter where we went off to, we always ended up back near each other.

It happened during college, when I moved back to Colorado and we both ended up at CU — roommates almost the whole time. A few years after we graduated, she moved back to Colorado and I lived in Apt. L. She moved in four doors down. Apt. P. She bought a house. Less than two miles away, Jerry and I bought one. This latest house we bought is a few blocks away from where Karen's oldest daughter, Reagan, goes to school. She and her husband Eric were thinking of moving over here. As it is, they are not that far away. Certainly close enough for Karen and I to get our kids together every few weeks. Close enough to try to have dinner together as often as our busy lives allow.

We always joked that we'd end up two old ladies, living together as widows, sharing one car. We joked about it, but I honestly believed it could happen. It just did happen that way with Karen and I.

I thought we would always be there, near each other. Watching our beautiful kids, who get along so amazingly well, grow up together. Crying together over our empty nests. Trying to good naturedly out-brag each other over their accomplishments. Continuing to go out for cocktails for decades. Always talking, always sharing, always feeling like we were soul-sisters. If not in blood, then in soul. When I wanted to talk to my mom and knew I couldn't, Karen was almost always the next person I would think of to call. I don't think I ever told her that.

This morning, at 7:21 a.m., I got the second worst phone call I've ever received, next to when my dad called me 11 years ago. Jamey, Karen's little sister, called me to tell me that my dear, lifelong friend passed away last night.

It is inconceivable to me that she is gone. Just a few weeks ago, we shopped together for our kids Christmas presents. She gave me hell about using the Toys R Us employees as my personal shoppers. She bought games for all her nieces and nephews, and was looking forward to many nights spent with them and her babies, playing those games. I told her I hated playing games with her when we were little because she wanted to win so badly. We laughed. Afterward, we went out for appetizers and a couple of drinks. We sat at the bar and raised our eyebrows at the lady sitting near us who was laughing so loud, so much. She told me about one of her contract employees, a young man who had been murdered over Thanksgiving weekend. We shook our heads at the way life can change in an instant.

An instant.

I will no doubt need to write about Karen much on this blog over the next few weeks. There are so many stories. There was so much history between us, so much future. She has been a constant in my life. And now she is gone. I am shattered at this. My heart breaks, not only for me but for all those who love her.

Karen. Oh honey. I love you so much.

Proud moment

Many of you know how our school year started. It was, um — shitty — to put it as succinctly as I can. That said, Wilder has been making great strides in learning to pay attention, follow instructions, etc. You know, all that stuff that opens the pathways to us eventually being beaten down adults who turn to one vice or another because the world expects so much from us.

What? It's true, isn't it? OK, it's not that bad ...

Anyway, as I waited outside the school today to pick him up, a woman's voice came over the loudspeakers outside the school. Presumably she works in the office, and presumably she may be brand new, because I'm pretty sure she pushed a wrong button. And, while I appreciated being able to hear the announcements (reason to come), I'm pretty sure the six-block radius around the school might not have. Just saying, the Boulder Valley School District is not scrimping on PA systems. That shit was loud.

So anyway, she starts listing off the names of kids who got "PAWS" today. That stands for something that has to do with good behavior. For me, it would be "Please Answer Without Sarcasm," a skill I never learned. For the little ones, it's something else.

Anyway, as I stood there listening, I dared to hope that I would hear my kiddo's name announced. Lucky for me, he doesn't have a name like Grayson or Jayson or Braden or Aidan or any of those names that seem so popular amongst little boys these days.

And, then, it happened ...

"blah blah blah Wilder, from Ms. Z's class, blah blah blah ..."

I swear the damn widest smile spread over my face. There were times at the beginning of the school year that, had you told me that THAT would have happened, I would have laughed, then cried, then found the nearest route to my refrigerator.

But it did. And I was so, so proud. Damn, kid, you done good.

And then there was ice cream. The end.

And he's a writer (of letters, anyway)

Over the holiday break, I taught Hunter how to write his name. We worked on it a few weeks ago, during which time he became convinced his name was spelled H-T-O, and I was so happy he was writing any letters that I became content to just let him believe that for awhile.

A few days before break ended, I knew that Wilder needed to get back on the academic horse lest he show up to the first day back to kindergarten drooling and holding his pencil like a caveman club, so I grabbed some paper and markers and set him down to practice.

Hunter sat down, too. He wrote an "H," looked at me and said "what next?"

So we went over it. How to spell his name. How to put one letter next to another, etc.

This afternoon, I picked him up from preschool. On the way out the door, I stopped to look at a piece of paper taped to the door. There, in Hunter's distinctive yet legible scrawl, I saw his name. I looked quizzically at his teacher.

"He came in, sat down and the first thing he did was write his name for Miss Deb (the a.m. teacher)," she told me. "So we taped it up."

#proudmamamoment :-)

Hard at work writing his name.

Music in the ears

For some time, Hunter has far preferred Jerry's company to mine. As in: "Go AWAY. I want Papa!" Over and over and over again. For months now, really. You can imagine how this must make me feel. Yes, there's hurt. But there's also that incredulous feeling of "you little ungrateful turd ... I carried you INSIDE MY BODY for nine months and let them CUT ME OPEN to get you out ..."

It could go on and on. I don't really say this stuff to him. Just in my own head. I might occasionally mutter "you shit turd" under my breath. It's my newest term of endearment. Mostly, though, I just feel defeated when he does that.

The last few days, there have been glimmers of Hunter love again.

And then this morning ...

I slept in kinda late for me. Wilder was up watching a show. Hunter had not yet emerged from his room. I peeked inside his door and he was just sitting up, stretching and yawning. I cracked the door open to say good morning.

He looked up.

"I want Pa________ ... I mean, I want you."

I don't think even he could believe the words had just come out of his mouth. And he's been following me around chattering at me ever since.

It's gonna be a GOOD day.

... This is your Christmas on drugs

Anyone who knows me well or who's been reading here for a few years knows that A) my mom died 10 days before Christmas many years ago; and B) I get VERY blue this time of year. And bonus — C) Many, many years ago, my mom and I sat in a hospital in Lincoln, Neb., and watched as my grandmother slowly succumbed to sepsis, dying two days after Christmas.

In case you've never seen anyone go septic, let me tell you: It has got to rank up there as one of the worst ways to watch someone die. IT IS AWFUL. I've seen it twice and hope to never, EVER see it again.

So, yeah. Just not my favorite time of year. I usually fall into a very deep funk that I end up clawing my way out of sometime between right after Thanksgiving and early January.

And I am really happy to say that this year is different.

For starters, we started decorating a couple of days after Thanksgiving, and over the course of that weekend, we put up all our decorations (not many, mind you — a self-professed Scrooge does not acquire much in the way of holiday festivity), went and bought our tree, and put up a record number of lights outside the house. We even took the boys to a Christmas movie and, afterward, drove them over to a nearby park and ran in the cold and crispy darkness under all the lit trees, laughing and enjoying watching the boys scream with utter joy.

And I did not shed a single tear. And I think I can safely say — and Jerry would confirm — that I didn't even get a little grumpy.

It's a damn Christmas miracle.

No. Really.

So why the change? Well, there are probably a few reasons, chief among them the fact that for the better part of a year, I have been taking anti-depressants. It's probably not something I should be announcing on this here blog, but I'll be damned if I feel the slightest bit of shame or embarrassment about it. Here's the deal: I was sad. I needed help. I finally — FINALLY — went out and got some.

Depression is something I have suffered from my entire life, or at least my entire adult life. It's a bitch to wake up one day and know that life is gonna suck for an indeterminate amount of time. And to know that, for approximately six to eight weeks at the end of every year, you're gonna want to crawl under a blanket and not come out.

At best, that's what it felt like.

And last year was pretty bad. So, at the end of December, I just decided enough was enough and I was going to take control of my life. I've done that in more ways than one this year, and it has had some interesting effects and led me down some interesting paths, but it started, I believe, that day when I finally acknowledged that I needed help. And if that help was gonna come in the form of a little white pill and a few of my hard-earned dollars going to the evil pharma-industry, then so be it.

If you suffer from depression, let me encourage you to take the same steps I did. I mean, it's not like I walk around all day singing about lollipops and envisioning happy puppies jumping under rainbows. Good god, it hasn't changed me THAT significantly — I'm still prone to making sarcastic remarks without the slightest provocation, I still get grumpy, I'm your girl if you want to sit in a public place and make fun of people, I still roll my eyes at some of my wonderful husband's Pollyanna-esque worldviews — but it has changed my world significantly.

And chief among the visible evidence of that change is that I have enjoyed this last week very much. I've enjoyed watching the boys delight at every little colored light, every jingle bell. Smiled as they played with the Christmas village that belonged to my mom. Felt a rush of excitement as Jerry climbed a 30-foot ladder approximately 30 times to string lights up near our roof.

I am a little sad, to be honest, to be leaving my fellow members of the Scrooge Club behind. They are the minority this time of year, and it was a pretty fun group of people to be aligned with (the depressed are often wickedly funny, you know ...).

But I can't say I miss the black fog.

So there's my Christmas gift — good drugs that work. I need nothing else.

And I think Rogene Scott would be pretty damn happy about this development.

Brain explosion

This'll be quick, because I didn't get enough sleep last night, and I need to nap before going out for dinner with a friend tonight, but ...

Wilder's brain is exploding lately.

A little backstory: Yesterday, after we came home from school, I opened up Wilder's backpack to find his homework for over Thanksgiving week. They wanted us to work with our kids on writing stories. Essentially, they are to draw pictures from their days and then write a couple of sentences about it. I thought, "Hmmm, not sure he's ready for this. Should be interesting."

This morning, my niece Allie came over to watch the boys. When we got back, they were in our backyard. I went out to say hi and there was Wilder, writing a sentence on the sidewalk: "The big monster had wrath" — or, "The bing mostr had ratth." (The homework notes stressed that spelling is NOT important — what is important is that they are learning to express themselves and feel confidence in their abilities to tell a story ... as a writer myself, I love this.)

At any rate, I was very excited that he'd taken that initiative on his own w/o any input from Jer or I. He continued to think up words and spell them the way he thought they were spelled. He even wrote "Thanksgiving."

I know this is normal for kids ... it's just really so cool to experience your own kid doing it.

Just now we got home after a trip to the Butterfly Pavilion and after lunch the boys ran outside to play for a bit. Jerry went to check on them and then came and got me: "Kris, come see this picture Wilder is drawing."

For the first time, he drew a picture of a person complete with a head, a torso, two legs, two arms and feet. This is a first. And for a boy who just last week told me he couldn't draw a picture of a bee, this is pretty cool. His art teacher gave him very high marks on his report card, and I think he's getting a lot of confidence both from her and from school in general.

I should also mention that Hunter is writing all kinds of letters now and even spelling his own name. He never spells it correctly, but the point is he trying and his handwriting is amazingly legible for a 3-year-old.

I'm gonna go take some picture of all this and post later. I'm just being a proud mom. Indulge me :-)