Boredom and Frustration in Prowlandia

My dishware and kitchen appliances have been culled (in a haphazard Konmari that probably cannot even be called that--both practicality and joy were consulted in the weeding), and yet I stand in the narrow dinette of our tiny home, Prowler, looking into my blissfully open cabinetry (the heavy mirrored doors were the first thing to go--I broke one in the grass as I tossed it out of the trailer in my haste to be rid of them and then continued to walk the yard barefoot all summer, forgetfully pushing my luck), defeated. I've always wanted open cabinetry in my kitchen, and here it is. The only thing keeping my grandmother from flipping her lid over the tiny home is that I've been talking about it for years, and here it is.

But, it's tiny.

What looked like generous-to-the-point-of-unfairness (like the game was rigged for us) storage when Prowler was empty I now realized, in this moment, was shit. How am I going to fit all our stuff in here? Meanwhile Wolfman is outside in the sticky heat building a makeshift fence, alone, and I feel guilty and frivolous for focusing on how this open cabinetry will look (because it is the first thing we will see when we arrive home). I think--has Instagram and Pinterest mashed my brain to useless goop? But then I think, no, this is important; I'm making a home, not just a place to sleep and fart. And then my little guy--one of the people I'm making this home for (the VIP, actually) interrupts my furrowed brow with his need.

He's bored. He wants me to play with him---the make-believe game where his cousin's Rapunzel doll (that's me) doesn't realize the new airplane she just bought is actually a Transformer (him) and then, eventually, after the shock and confusion are settled, they must work together to defeat Darth Vader.

It's the same scenario every time, the same game, which is part of the reason I'm reluctant to play but, also, where am I going to hide this ugly propane burner now that all my cabinets are blissfully open?

It's really easy for Wolfman and I to spout tough love in our morning (and afternoon, evening, before bed, geez we're obsessed) talks about our son. "He's just going to have to get used to being a little bored. He'll figure out what to do with his boredom eventually." It's another thing to face it head on as you're bleeding and sweating and standing in the place that is supposed to be your home, your hearth, and it looks like nothing but a jumbled collection of odds and ends unearthed after a natural disaster, a volcano maybe.

Perhaps I'm not conveying to you the existential dread I experienced standing in that dinette, looking at all the objects before me, cataloging all the objects still at home and thinking, not for the first time, this is not going to work. Also: I'm crazy. Also: I'm damaging my son. All these uncertainties and fears crashing down on me in my own voice and also the voices of people I hate, people whom I have fought who take up residence in my head when I'm sad or scared.

After the third or fourth "I'm bored," I snapped at Mads. I wasn't particularly cruel or harsh, but I was exasperated and frustrated. I spoke to him as a person, not a mother.

Yes, of course, motherhood did not negate my personhood, and so perhaps I should not be so hard on myself. But, motherhood did elevate my personhood, or maybe just complicate it. Motherhood, at the very least, has added layers to my personhood. My son, Mads, does not know me as Michelle. He knows that is my name, but it is not what he calls me. He knows his dad calls me Shelly, but, again, that's not Mads' name to use for me. And he knows practically nothing of when I was a little girl called, dismissively, Mouse. No, Mads knows me as Mom-Momma-MOM!  My role in his life is a big one, arguably the biggest one (we once shared a body, after all). My relationship with him will build the parameters and foundation of so many of his relationships, particularly with women. And my voice will become his inner voice. If he is ever standing in a kitchen, mid-move, feeling overwhelmed, I don't want the voice in his head to be one of exasperation and frustration, directed inward--frustration with a situation, sure, but never himself. I don't want him carrying my very particular and dramatically weary sigh with him through manhood like a boulder strapped to his back. (Have you ever heard me sigh? I could do a voice acting spot where all I do is sigh, my sigh is that pronounced and definitive.)

Wolfman and I are devoted to kind, patient, respectful parenting of our son. But we have our limits and shortcomings. Very occasionally one or the other of us will use a careless astringent tone with Mads, and I become a child again myself. I hear it and step away from myself, and I am Mouse, shame and anger bubbling up in my belly--anger at the unfairness and tyranny of adults. Then, in combination with whatever irritant caused that tone and those words in the first place, guilt--a wave of it. What can I do in that moment but tell Mads, "I've hit my limit, bud. I'm overwhelmed. I'm hot. I'm cranky. I'm bleeding. I'm sweating. I don't feel good." I'm sorry. Give me a minute. I am just not feeling up to the challenge of motherhood in this particular moment.

At six years old, Mads has a lot of compassion for me and my moods (fears, shortcomings). He also, however, reserves the right to be bummed out by them and a little exasperated himself.

I read one parent's account in How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk. He wrote, "the more comfortably you can accept bad feelings, the easier it is for kids to let go of them. I guess you could say that if you want to have a happy family you better be prepared to permit the expression of a lot of unhappiness."

"I'm bored," is not my favorite thing to hear my son say. But I'm sure he doesn't love it when I say, "I'm frustrated." Not every human emotion is pleasant, and none of us are perfect. Mads knows his parents are not infallible. We're just people, but we're his people. He's not being raised inside a floating incandescent bubble in the sky by angels with perfect teeth. He's being raised by Mom and Dad, whose teeth are less than perfect, and who struggle with the awkwardness of humanity and the caprice of bad feelings and are honest with him about it. Just as I have to be honest with myself and face the facts that not every kitchen appliance I own is display worthy.

Dreams Don't Come True (with kittens)

The fierce and adoring Grandma, the day-dreamy and whimsical me, and Mads (kicking and punching in my belly)

The Breaking Bad News With Baby Animals postcard I sent to Grandma the other day announced (with kittens), “Dreams don’t come true.” It just happened to be the one I grabbed from my stationery box, but also, it seemed a particularly astute message for her, regarding me. My grandma had a lot of big dreams for me--she has dreamt bigger, longer, wider, in more vivid technicolor for me than any other person ever has, myself included. And I wonder: if she is disappointed (and how can she not be), is that disappointment directed at me or at the unfair, chaotic, unsympathetic world in which I live. Is it the economy’s fault that when my name is Googled one finds - nothing -. Or is it mine?--my timidity, my lack of ambition and resolve, my belief that the world is an unthinking, unfeeling place and a person like me never had a chance?

I never became a writer (not in the way that counts, anyway). I don’t have any money and struggle constantly upstream. Since high school, I’ve managed to keep my figure more or less, but even my once beautiful mop of wild, curly hair has since diminished into a straggly, thin, lackluster mess.

My grandmother believed me to be not only a great beauty, but a great mind. And here I am toiling away in the service industry--I am a retail automaton--the highlight of my work day when a sales rep brings in grocery store deli cookies as a bribe. I am dropped off at work most days, wearing a backpack and carrying a lunch bag, like a child.

Has my lack of success and mobility hurt my grandmother, the one who dreamed for me?

I think about this a lot because now I dream. I dream not for myself but for my son. Even if I make nothing of myself, I have made him--a great beauty and a great mind. How could he not make more of himself than I have? It’s so obvious he’s destined for great things. He is better than me. I love him, and his dad loves him. I was damaged, you know, by people who did not dream for me so ardently as my selfless, obsessed grandmother. But my son--he’s not damaged. He doesn’t need to struggle.

But what if he does anyway?

When I talk about, ponder aloud, the things my son will become, am I doing him a disservice? Should I shut my mouth and just give him the space to be and breathe and become?


Or, is my dreaming for him a vote of confidence, one which will bolster and sustain him when he's a man making his way in the world? Will he pack my dreams for him into his rucksack when he leaves my arms and home to go to college or travel the world or protest tyranny or divide and conquer or whatever it is he will do?

Grandma's dreams for me have certainly never felt like a burden, but they haven't done much to propel me forward either (through no fault of my grandmother's). And, I suppose my attitude regarding my son's future, the weight on which I put success, depends in part on what my definition of success (for him or in general) is. Do I want him to be happy more often than he is sad? Absolutely. Or, at least, content. Do I want him to give and receive love freely and gracefully? Yes, of course. Do I want him to have money? -- Well, it's not the most important thing compared to contentment and love, but I imagine having just the right amount of money might make his days run that much smoother.

I consider the example I set for him in reaching those goals. I am hard on myself, often aloud. I get frustrated not because my life is not as my grandmother imagined it, but because it is not as I imagined/imagine it. I'm not talking about my family, my home, my town, or even my job; I'm talking about the little daily burdens and messes that trip me up--the unending dishes, double booking events for my son, poorly planned and hastily tossed together holiday and birthday celebrations, the inability to consistently schedule in time for my creative pursuits (like this), the list of projects and To Dos with not a thing crossed off.

My son has witnessed me cry and tantrum because we arrive at the Dorthea Dix sunflower field one week too late and discover all the flowers have shriveled up and died. He has heard and felt me snap because I wake too late and now must hurry through my day without transcribing that nagging thought/reverie/idea onto paper.

And, my son has wailed at a busy playground at the realization that he and Ella won't be able to play on the swings at the same time, that image he held of the two of them side-by-side and in the air after a week apart, squashed. He has groaned, "I can't do anything," and "it won't be perfect," when attempting to paint a portrait of himself doing barre work at his ballet studio. He has the paper, the pink and grey paints, but when he puts brush to paper he is dissatisfied and hurt.

I tell him, "there's no such thing as perfect," and when he still grumps and thrusts his paintbrush down ask, "Do you believe me?"

This is the work of his childhood and my parenthood (and adulthood). All my dreams for him, however loose and magnanimous, will mean nothing if we cannot get over this hump and heap of defeat regarding the disparity between expectation and reality--our imaginings of what life should look like and what we should be capable of, he and I both.

The lesson, of course, the one I am learning on behalf of myself and my son is not that dreams don't come true, but: Dreams Aren't Real (with kittens).

Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | bee vomit sandwiches

I can only save so many little scraps of paper. I wish I could save them all. I wish, actually, that he wouldn't draw on little scraps of paper at all but use the primary composition notebook decorated and designated as his journal (my one effort at making him too much like me, I admit freely and without shame). But, no. He can't be boxed in by the constraints of a bound notebook. When he has an idea, he must scribble it immediately, on whatever medium is nearest--including the whiteboard where we write grocery lists and the little Melissa & Doug easel slate board. I can't save those masterpieces at all except to take pictures. Actually, he prefers the whiteboard and slate because he can so easily erase that which does not fit his vision. I worry sometimes about his erasing habit and gently remind him, "Don't worry about perfection; nothing is perfect," especially when he expresses frustration before erasing--with his fingers or the felt brick that looks transported directly from my elementary classrooms. Without pausing for anguish or reflection he just says, "It's not very...as I planned it to be," and continues.

He draws mostly at the kitchen table, sometimes in the car and so we keep a tote bag of spiral notebooks and art supplies there next to his seat. Sometimes, he begins drawing the moment he wakes, his eyes barely open against the yellow kitchen light. More often it happens mid-morning, after breakfast, after Scooby Doo or Rescue Bots, before our morning walk as a way to pass the time while we clean breakfast dishes and get ready to leave the house. Sometimes, he does not pick up a pencil (or pen, crayon, marker, chalk--he does not seem particular, really) until the evening in that quiet space of time Wolfman designates for art and music and conversation.

What does he draw? I've mentioned his "weather reports" taped to my walls. He draws maps. Lots of maps and mazes. He draws intricate designs for implements and tools, "for help," based on things he's seen out in the world, like the lifts used to stack high shelves at home improvement stores. (Often, I have not even realized these objects and machines have made such an impression on him until they show up on his paper, a version of them drawn by his hand.) He drew elaborate plans for Halloween costumes in September and October (at one point, his cardboard and paper mâché Hulk Buster armor half-way complete, he decided he wanted to be "No Noggin," from Curious George's Halloween Boofest, and Wolfman gamely discussed with him practical ways to accomplish the headless effect while trick-or-treating, all of which Mads drew). In one of those quiet morning art sessions, he set down to the slate board and without saying a word began drawing something that Wolfman pointed out upon completion looked like a rune casting circle, spookily so.

What I collect and save of his drawings are not family portraits or landscapes of our homes and trees and flowers with a grinning sunshine overhead, no horses or dogs or mermaids, none of the things I drew as a child. I collect what appears to be Pollockian blue prints, and I awe at this mind.

On the Seaboard caboose in pjs made by Granmommie

NCMA

selfie!

DJ's Berry Pumpkin Patch

Dance Party at the Cary Arts Center

About Mads, 5 Years & 3 Months Old:

• Mads sometimes requests that I read books backwards, particularly the ones we've read to memorization, and when I do, he belly laughs.
• At Tinkergarten, when Mads would not focus on the class activities because he was too intent on spraying things with the class-provided spray bottles I told him, "Martigan, I'm feeling a little exasperated about the water botle. Do you care?" He answered honestly and without malice, "No," and so what could I do but let it go.
• Mads gets bored quickly with the little kindergarten workbooks we sometimes use and will begin creating his own lessons. For example, on a shape-recognition page in which he is meant to trace all the diamonds, he does just that but alternating between his left and right hands, then using both hands at once, practicing his ambidextrousness and coordination.
• Mads says, "When I get too scared, by heart turns into a bat."
• He refers to honey as "bee vomit" (accurate, if crude) and requests a "butter and bee vomit" sandwich daily.
• Lately at bed time when I ask what or who he wishes to be before singing our version of Que Sera Sera instead of Batman or Flash, his old stand-bys ("will I be Batman, will I be cool?"), Mads requests "the lover," and then crawls into my lap for snuggles while I sing/ruminate about his future and all the hugs and kisses he will get and give.
• When he overhears an innocuous cuss word in conversation between his dad and granmommie, Mads interjects, "Oh yeah, I know a lot of badass words."
• In October, Mads attended his first yoga class and now refers to himself as a yogi and, if we ask, he'll lead Wolfman and me in morning sun salutations.
• With a little organizational help from his dad, Mads created a board game called, "Something's Near," the object of which is to move through a frightening land filled with ghosts, zombies, a banshee and other dread creatures to do battle at a castle with either a giant spider
• Mads favorite shows/movies lately: Power Rangers (especially Mighty Morphin and Ninja Steel), Scooby Doo (especially Aloha Scooby Doo), Transformers: Rescue Bots, Goosebumps (especially Night of the Living Dummy)
• Mads favorite books lately: Bruce Hale & Guy Francis' Clark the Shark books, Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men & Little Miss books, Sick Simon by Dan Krall, anything we can find by Ben Hatke

Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | he says he doesn't want to grow up but already tells me stories about leaving me

As Martigan splashed in his bathtub the other night and I sat with him,  he told me this story (which I have elaborated only in language, not detail):

Mads and I are on a walk one day when he falls into a puddle. But the puddle is deep, a hole, a well. As he splashes around, he turns into a fish. I scoop him up and run home with him. Once home, I set up the biggest fish bowl I can find and place him inside, fretting, begging him to become a boy once again. He grows bigger every day and soon, I must release him into the sea. Every morning, I sit in a boat, not far from the shore, drinking coffee, reading, hoping to catch a glimpse of my sonfish. (I know him by the pattern of scales on his belly spelling out his name.) Not every day, but occasionally, he swims close to the boat and lets me pet him, and I plead with him to turn back into a boy and come home with me. The sea is big; there are sharks in its depths. One day in my boat, I see not my sonfish, but my fear, a shark, who swims close to my boat. I am afraid and distraught until the shark leaps out of the water and I see the scales on his belly--M.A.D.S. But now my sonfish is too big and powerful to live so close to the shore. After petting him and speaking to him one last time, I tow him out to the deep, dark sea, the Mariana Trench. I cut him loose and watch him swim away. He leaps out of the water one last time in goodbye, and now he is a whale.

5 years old & 34 years old

4 years old & 33 years old

3 years old & 32 years old

2 years old & 31 years old

1 year old & 30 years old

Shelly's 29th birthday, with her greatest birthday gift

Home & Konmari, pt. 1 | The Life-Stalling Habit of Worshipping Stuff

Marie Kondo is a witch. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is truly that--magic(k). I read both her books in the beginning of the year (though I'm barely able to finish reading anything these days). I get Marie Kondo. She speaks to me, and I find I am often disappointed with the way people talk about Konmari. People, in the fashion of people, tend to focus on the practical and ignore (or openly disparage) the woo woo. People pretend this method has only to do with the tidying, when Marie Kondo herself describes it as "magic." Like she recommends, I really do say thank you to my dirty socks (and to my spoon after stirring honey into my tea, and to my computer after I type clumsily on it, and to my car after she settles safely into my drive way at the end of the day once more), and my relationship with all these things (all the things) is better because of it. 

I love that Marie Kondo's methods are based in animism. She says that each object in our life has a desire to be utilized and, therefore, loved by us. Each object in our life desires to serve us.  Okay, so maybe you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "my toothbrush is inanimate and this whole 'desires to serve me' thing is bogus." Fair enough. But. It does serve you, doesn't it? And therefore, isn't its purpose in being created to serve you? How far did that thing travel, through how many hands, across how many oceans and state lines, just to sit on your bathroom counter waiting to be held between your fingers and clean your teeth, an intimate job, twice daily. When we sit down to meals as a family, I paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh aloud for my husband and child, "In this plate of food I see the Universe supports my existence." I believe the same about my copper tongue scraper, the mason jars I drink water from and store leftovers in, that little stool that sits beside my reading chair painted black and white with the pink wooden utters hanging underneath it. These things are manifestations of the Universe supporting me, healing me, quenching my thirst, making me laugh. 

I don't think I'd even finished Life Changing Magic... when I cleaned out my wardrobe. In my years of thrifting and working at my beloved little second-hand store, I'd accumulated quite a lot of clothing. I defended my overstuffed drawers and racks by telling my husband (and myself) that I was a collector. And yet, after throwing myself into a new job where I am frequently hucking forty-pound bags of cat litter and down on all fours wrangling dogs into harnesses, my daily wear became much more stream-lined, much more practical. The Type 4 of me puts up such a fight against practicality, but you're hard-pressed to find me wearing a dress these days, even on my days off work. So, I cleaned out my closet. I thought this would be the hardest part, but actually the process moved along swiftly once I got going. In the end, I culled my wardrobe by 50%. And though I still step into thrift stores about once a month, it is only once a month, and I am so much more discerning when I go. Often, I walk out with not a thing in my hands.

Like the wardrobe, I also had no problem cleaning out my old writing suitcase. In a tacky decorative suitcase, I had saved every single piece of writing I'd ever worked on--finished and unfinished--since high school. I thought I'd return to those pieces one day, edit them, spiff them up, or take bits and pieces of them to form something else--single lines, descriptions, pieces of dialogue. Instead, it went untouched in a corner of my room, and I actually fretted over the thought of dying and my husband and family sifting through all that nonsense. I chucked all but a couple pages--literally: two pages. Then, I donated the suit case.

Household objects--tchotchkes, mugs, wall hangings--have been the most difficult for me to sift through. I've been inspired by maximalist decorating my entire life. My grandmother keeps a proper Witchy Cottage, stuffed to the brim with books, plants, fish bowls, gargoyles, dolls, all the instruments Dumbledore kept in his office (I think my grandma inherited them after Dumbledore died), framed photos, unframed photos sticking out of the pages of books and tucked into the corners of mirrors, mirrors, ornate boxes and cabinets with tiny little drawers (all occupied), musical instruments, glass bottles in rainbow hues, specimen vials, rubber novelty bats hanging in the hall closet, faux butterflies and spiders and lizards and caterpillars and slugs pinned and glued to the walls and windows. I could go on. I love her house, every corner a surprise. I love her pink polka-dotted toaster and turquoise coffee maker. I love that the rainbow elephant I colored in kindergarten, the one the other kids made fun of me for, is still taped up in her kitchen. 

For a long time, I thought my house would look like this, but I didn't find my version of it as charming. Nor did my husband. I've gone through several declutterings--moving five years ago was one, then cleaning out the storage shed a year after moving--but we were still surrounded by an increasing amount of clutter. We have lived with so many things in corners gathering dust! The past couple years, the impermanence of our current living situation has been nagging at me and the amount of things I've accumulated in my adult life weighing me down. At the start of this year, I was ready to toss every single thing into garbage bags and start over, completely, radical minimalist style.

But, I know me. I know I am sentimental and animistic and place high value on objects. I know that if I were to get rid of everything without discernment, I would regret it later. Enter Marie Kondo and her ritualized tidying.

I am a seeker and collector of joy. I have already trained my mind and spirit to recognize moments of pure joy as I encounter them in my life--fleeting, small, winged things that are difficult to butterfly net. I have studied and practiced the art and sport of recognizing joy, savoring it, scribbling it down so I can return to it later. I know what joy feels like in the heart. I know what joy feels like in the body. I know what Marie Kondo means when she instructs to hold a garment in your hands and wait for your body's cues. Honestly, while reading her book, I couldn't help thinking her philosophy so easy and obvious, I should have already thought of it.

So, it should be done, right? Six months after reading her books and beginning my own Konmari, I should be sitting smug enlightened on the other side. Spoiler: I am not.

Watch this space for Pt. 2, Lessons Learned & Stumbled Over.

Gratitude | wasting time

I was in the car the other day, driving home into the five o'clock sun (the most yolky, rich of suns), and "The Dock of the Bay," came on the radio. The kids were in the car with me, both quietly staring out their respective windows, a sure sign that sleep was over-taking them--a little early for that this afternoon, but they'd just spent an hour bouncing around, literally, at the trampoline park. I turned the radio up. I sang along. I told them, though I knew they weren't listening, "This is one of my favorite songs." I'd never thought about it before, but, yes: this is one of my favorite songs. This song that almost wasn't released, and then was only released because Otis Redding died young, and his label needed something to offer people who were sad. I did not know about this while I sang along in the car the other day, but I have since learned that Otis Redding had had a throat surgery that left him worried for his voice and future, and "Dock of the Bay" was quiet, poetic, soft--and easy for someone like me to sing along to, someone whose voice is only what it is because she sings to children, tucking them into bed at night, and because she sings to herself, in her car, though not a natural singer at all.

When I heard the song in the car, I thought about my life. How happy I am singing along to songs on the radio in cars--two minutes of bliss. How I told my co-workers the other day that drinking beer by a pool is one of the greatest pleasures to be had on this planet, in this life. How a day spent fixing good, simple meals with my menfolk, pruning plants, walking in the yard barefoot--this is perfection, this is my personal joy. I beat myself up sometimes. I am hard on myself for not being more or doing more, but the truth is that while, yes, at some point I think I'd like to travel, I'm more happy in my own backyard than anywhere else. And when I worry I'm not doing enough, not being enough, isn't most of that worry based on comparing myself to others and what I believe the expectations of others to be? That has nothing to do with me and my path and my heart. 

I live a modest life, and I like it. This is the life I've carved for myself; I have created this from nothing. I have lived with chaos and despair, yet here I am: in love with a good man, my life's companion, as we raise our son together, this beautiful, healthy, smart, charismatic kid. We don't have much, but we have each other, and we know how to be quiet, and we know how to laugh, and we work hard, and we know how to laze around like it's an art.

I Am Greatful:

• I am grateful for the way Ella does not fight bed time, but leans into it, like every part of our night time ritual is a luxury.
• I am grateful for my husband, who makes me sushi for lunch and draws little sriracha smiley faces on them.
• I am grateful for the photo on the front page of the Sunday News & Observer, of a lovely and lovey lady pit bull comforting a grieving mother.
• I am grateful when Mads says, "Look, Mom," and I respond, "Uh huh," and he tells me firmly but without anger, "You're not even looking, Mom," and I am snapped out of my head and into the present moment; I am grateful for these reminders of mindfulness from my guru son.
• I am grateful for the soft way my husband kisses my cheek and thanks me, everything else pausing, his hands on my arms.
• I am grateful for weather reports broadcast on the radio on stormy nights.
• I am grateful for the adult courage to peek under beds and into closets after dark.
• I am grateful for Grandma telling me, with admiration and approval, that I am so patient with my son.
• I am grateful for the last gritty sip of French Press coffee.
• I am grateful for a few minutes to zone out, looking at the Instagram accounts of yogis on tropical islands while eating chips and guac, without feeling bad about myself--just letting my mind rest, looking at something beautiful while eating something tasty.

Madmartigan, 4 Years Old | seaweed salad & smudge

There’s that Phyllis Diller joke, “Cleaning the house while your children are growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” The first time I heard it, Mads was barely walking yet somehow getting his hands on board game pieces and Apples-to-Apples cards and scattering them all over the kitchen floor every time I had my back turned. Now, I feel like I need that joke inscribed on a plaque and hanging on my wall, a bit of household wisdom to ease my mind and a warning to visitors--this is where we’re at right now . That, or the Someecards update, “Cleaning with kids in your house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.” (That one is filed under “Cry For Help Memes” on the Someecards website.)

All this is to say, my house is a disaster, and I don’t want any shame over it. I’ve got a full-on kid at home. The living room is a chaos of cardboard. Blue electrical tape holds up scraps of construction paper all over my walls with my son’s interpretive “weather reports.” I’m trying my damndest to teach him to put his things away, because I think it will make not only my life easier but his as well (how many mornings screech to a halt when we must search for The Other Croc before leaving the house), yet there are still Legos on every surface, in every corner of the house--both Duplo-sized and “Big Boy” sized (as we confusingly call the impossibly tiny ones, to which Mads has graduated this Spring).

The state of my home is partly my fault. I’m an enabler. I bring cardboard boxes home from work and store cracker boxes, egg cartons, and the paper grocery bags my grandmother sends home with me in a corner of our dining room designated, loosely, for “art supplies”. And, I encourage my little boy to bring home odd scraps of plastic and paper he finds when we’re out and about, more things to reuse; since reading Lois Elhert’s Rain Fish (an instant favorite, which Mads and I refer to as Garbage Fish), we’re constantly on the look-out for, well, garbage.

I suppose a mechanic’s workshop or an artists studio is also constantly in a state of muddlement and flux--it’s part of the process. With a nearly five-year-old boy, our home is both workshop and studio, as well as discotheque, test kitchen, laboratory, and about a hundred other things, depending on the day.

As far as the cleaning goes, Wolfman and I are doing the best we can.

About Mads, 4 Years & 10 Months Old:

• Mads is finally beginning to share my love of Labyrinth. He recognizes David Bowie as "The Goblin King," and his favorite part of the movie is the Fireys. However, Mads has also begun wailing, "That's not fair!" whenever he doesn't immediately get his way.
• One evening, while we sit in the back yard eating grilled pineapple and the juices run down Martigan's naked chest, I light a stick of citronella incense, and Mads uses it to invoke Odin and cast spells for health and longevity. He announces he is a wizard, and he runs around the yard naked in a cloud of perfumed smoke. (He repeated the same indoors only once--we had to put a kibosh on the baby shamanism after he pressed the red tip of the incense into the covers of his bed and burnt a little hole in his duvet.)
• Wolfman and Mads often utilize our community center's open gym hours, especially on hot days or rainy days; Wolfman reports that though he's tried to teach the basics of basketball and volleyball as he remembers them, Mads prefers to invent his own games (and he is rather bossy about it).
• Wolfman and Mads also spend many an evening in the community center game room playing air hockey, and Mads is legitimately, without any parental stacking of the odds, pretty good at it (and getting better).
• Mads uses my tablet to scroll The Dogist Instagram feed.
• Mads loves seaweed salad and Bubbies sauerkraut.
• When I'm feeling cranky one morning, Mads makes the effort to soothe me by requesting I read him a book, which he knows I love, and choosing a particularly dreamy one (Kim Krans' 1,2,3 Dream).
• When Wolfman has The Classical Station on in the car, Mads informs him, "Daddy, I don't like this music. I only like Rock n' Roll."
• Preparing to read Curious George to Mads and Ella one night, the one where George gets on the wrong subway train, (one of Mads' favorites), Mads informs his cousin in preamble, "The subway is a train that goes underground in New York City. That's far away from North Carolina."
• Mads went through an entire box of Paw Patrol bandages, wrapping them around his fingers when he should have been brushing his teeth. Now all bandages in our house are plain and kept in the parents' bathroom.
• As I tuck him into bed each night, Mads gets squirrely and wild, fighting sleep, and tells me, "I want to hug you with my legs!"
• Mads writes his name--M.A.D.S. (in all caps, and the 's' is almost always backwards). He asks us how to spell words (words like "octopus," "zebra," "berry," or "bear") so that he can write them or construct them on the refrigerator with magnet letters. He spells "Mama" completely on his own, without help, much like the first word he spoke was "Mama."
• Mads calls fudge and brownies "smudge," though he knows that's incorrect. He always shakes his head and asks, "Wait. What's that stuff called?" Maybe it's because I giggle when he says it, though I try hard not to. His baby words are dwindling--"cunchtable" for comfortable, "titar" for guitar, and smudge.
• Mads says, "Mom, you know, every once in a while I get a spit storm in my mouth."
• As I tease Atalanta one morning, nuzzling my face into her neck and asking, "When are you going to learn you're not the boss; I'm the boss." Mads pipes up and says, "You're not the boss, Mommy. Daddy's the boss." I ask, "Oh? Why do you say that?" He answers without pause, "Because Daddy's the grumpiest."
• Martigan attended a pre-k class in the Spring. He was smart and social and a natural leader, and Wolfman and I often arrived early to pick him up so we could watch him from the door window of his classroom, in awe of his ease.
• In May, after watching several of his cousin's ballet classes, Mads requested to join her. He took to the class immediately, as if he'd always been there. He wears all black, like a ninja. After his first performance this month, he informed us that he wants to do that again, and soon.
• Martigan's favorite books lately: Shark Detective by Jessica Olien; Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds and Paulette Bogan; Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown; Here Comes Destructosaurus by Aaron Reynolds and Jeremy Tankard
• Martigan's favorite shows and movies lately: PJ Masks, Transformers: Rescue Bots, Super Wings, all things Power Rangers, all things Scooby Doo