Tag Archives: my kid is awesome

Mom things (Listen To Your Mother).

Recently, I had dinner with my friend Jeff. We’d been trying to schedule this dinner for weeks, but there are always things, mostly my things, the wonderful, impossible, messy juggle of my four-year-old and my job and my husband’s job, plus the art we both make when we’re not with our kid and/or working—“You’re out on Monday? I’m out on Tuesday, are you out on Tuesday?”—and there’s never any time. Inevitably, though, I hit the proverbial end of the proverbial rope. It had been building for a while, this overwhelming need to explode like a fizzed-up two-liter, and Jeff is my go-to in these situations. He knows I have to sit with my back to the room so no one else can see me cry. He knows when to ask for the bottle, instead of just a glass. He knows how to listen. This particular night we were at the Hopleaf, a delicious, edgy little bar on Chicago’s Northside full of good booze and beautiful people and swanky comfort food like duck reuben sandwiches and octopus carpaccio, both of which I ordered along with some wine.

“Actually, can you make that a bottle?” Jeff asked the waiter, and I immediately started to cry.

How to explain this? It wasn’t any one thing. I was exhausted, stretched everywhichway, too much stuff to do any of it well and in the middle of everything was my little boy. Didn’t he deserve more? Should I quit my job, mail the housekeys back to the bank, and move to a farm? With like… goats? We could plant a garden, I could finish my novel—I had a novel! Wasn’t I a writer?—and maybe even see my husband occasionally. I’d have a to-do list that read like blue light saber, red light saber, organic apples, instead of curriculum development, book contracts, student work. I’d slow down, engage fully in every moment instead of using the time I was supposed to be living to plan what happened next, but on the other hand—always another hand!—there’s the fact that I love my work. I’m good at it, too. It’s who I am, and it’s important for my son to see that part of me, right?

I went on.

I went on and on.

Jeff listened, waiting for the moment when the words and tears stopped, and when it finally arrived—when my breath came relaxed and quiet instead of gulpy, gaspy sobs—he said, “Are you talking to any, like, mothers?”

I reached for my wine.

“’Cause it seems like lots of mothers go through this. Mine did, I know, and my sister-in-law, too. And maybe if you talked to some you wouldn’t feel so—”

“Batshit crazy?” I said helpfully.

“—overextended,” he finished, leaning back in his chair. “Honestly, I don’t think any of this is a you thing. I think it’s a mom thing.”

*

Over the past four years, I’ve learned that there are many mom things [1]: indescribable love and indescribable fear; lots of laughing; lots of weird bodily fluids and bourbon and crying to our best friends about being overextended; guilt about being overextended; times of utter loneliness; feeling totally connected to any mother in Target with a screaming toddler and if anybody gives that mother a nasty look I will come over and cut you because you know what? If you have a problem with crying children, don’t shop somewhere that sells diapers! It’s common sense, people! Not to mention that no one—no one—wants that toddler to stop screaming more than his/her mother in part because it hurts us to hear our children cry but also because OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS KID STILL CRYING?!; exhaustion; crazy libidos; guilt about working and writing and going out when we should be building super ramps on the carpet 24/7; watching episode after episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer free-streaming on Netflix because killing vampires is sometimes the only thing that can quiet the noise in our heads; lots of noise in our heads; feeling what Stacy refers to as Mother-induced-anxiety; feeling very calm and level-headed in a crisis even if we’re crazy the rest of the time; knowing the U.N. should be made up of mothers ‘cause if we can balance the insanity in our google calendars, why not the f’ing world, and P.S. if I am expected to juggle raising children and educating this country’s children and keeping this country moving with my money and my vote and my hope and faith and perseverance, than you can be damn well sure I have the intelligence to decide what happens to my own body—Dear Washington: LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!—and I’ve only been a mother for four years! I haven’t even begun to experience the mom things! I’ve just scratched the goddamn surface!

SO.

When I decided to auditon for Listen To Your Mother, a national reading series in honor of motherhood and benefitting moms in need, I had no idea what—of the many mom things I’ve felt/experienced/written about—to audition with.

Through my work with 2nd Story, I’ve been lucky enough to tell stories around all sorts of themes: heartbreak, politics, faith, sexual identity, dodging bullets, fear, marriage, fantasy, and regret, to name just a few. Usually, I’m commissioned for these shows. I’ll get the theme assignment and then, for a day or two or three, I live with it, reaching down the line of my life to find the moments, experiences, and lessons that fit the idea. I write about it in my journal, talk about it with friends, talk about it with myself when I’m stuck in traffic—

Sidebar: stuck in traffice is an essential part of my writing process. It’s when I think things through and figure out what I want the work to—as they say—say. One time, my son was in the backseat and he said, “Mommy, who are you talking to?” This was it: the moment when I explained to my child that I hear voices, not voices like Sybil Dorsett and all of her alters or The United States of Tara, voices like characters. Like, as perhaps more graspable for a four-year-old, imaginary friends. Many, many imaginary friends. “I’m talking to myself, baby,” I told him, and you know what he did? He leaned forward on his booster seat and said, “You don’t have to talk to yourself, Mommy. You can talk to me!” Imagine a huge tidal wave crashing over Lakeshore Drive and engulfing our car—that’s the pride I felt for this little boy. Pride and gratitude and awe. He is Just. So. Awesome.

—Anyhow. I’m stuck in traffic, thinking about stories. I’ll think of one or two or five connected to whatever theme I’ve been assigned, and then I’ll grab whichever one is most taking my attention, that big proverbial YOU ARE HERE sign, and on from there. But motherhood? Motherhood shook the living hell out of me, not because I couldn’t come up with anything; rather the opposite. I couldn’t stop. My usual one or two or five ideas was now twenty, twenty-five, forty, all those mom things I’ve written about in some way or another for the past four years suddenly clogging my brain: stories about Caleb’s infancy, turning one, turning two, the many times I’ve questioned myself, the many times I’ve felt literally breathless with joy. Which one to walk into the audition for Listen To Your Mother? What were the producers looking for? How on Earth was I supposed to choose?

In the end, I didn’t. Auditions were held in the back of Uncommon Ground on Clark, and I arrived with six stories in my bag. At the bar, I had a glass of wine and narrowed the six down to four. Then my name was called, and as I walked into the room, I cut it to three, then two as I introduced myself to the two lovely, hard-working, visionary women producing LTYM Chicago (Hi, Melisa! Hi, Tracey!). “What will you be reading for us today?” they asked, and I did that thing where you open your mouth without knowing what you’re going to say, just trusting that it will be the right thing, and what came out—very fast and nervous and slightly wine-induced—was this:

“Actually, I brought two stories. I’m not sure which one you’d rather hear? One of them is about this tumor I had but maybe you’ve already heard like two thousand tumor stories today in which case can I buy you a glass of wine? ‘cause that’s a lot of tumors and I don’t know about you, but I had a lot of wine with my tumor. P.S. I’m fine now! I also brought this other thing about trying to get pregnant, but I wrote it in the present tense so maybe it wouldn’t work ‘cause it’ll sound like I’m trying to get pregnant now which totally isn’t the case, thanks, I already have one kid I can barely keep up with plus our condo is the size of a closet so where would I even put another baby let alone like taking care of it? Hi. I’m Megan.”

These two lovely, hard-working, visionary women? They didn’t even flinch. It was eight p.m., they’d been there all day, had seen Lord knows how many mothers telling Lord knows how many thrilling/beautiful/awful/hopeful/hilarious stories about motherhood. They must have been exhausted. Their ears must’ve been exploding already. And you know what they said? They said, “Let’s grab some more wine and hear them both.”

I am grateful for their kindness. I’m grateful for the trust they’ve placed in me to be a part of this amazing performance, one of many Listen To Your Mother shows happening all around the country in honor of the many diverse yet utterly relatable mom things that we all experience. I’m grateful to stand on stage tonight at Victory Gardens [2] with our lovely, hard-working, visionary cast. Turns out, I didn’t need to worry about choosing a single story that would exemplify the many facets of motherhood.

All of us, together, make that happen.

I’m also grateful to have all these new mothers to talk with. About time I gave Jeff a break.

 

[1] I use the word mom because that’s what I am, but I think this can also apply to Dads and Grandparents and Foster Parents and any Significant Adult working with great love and commitment to raise healthy, happy, awesome children.

[2] The show tonight is sold out, but all the Listen To Your Mother performances both in Chicago and around the country will be filmed and up on youtube.

Writing and parenting and juggling

I wrote this essay called Juggle What?, about trying to be a writer and a mom and a human being and how do you juggle it all? I fail a lot. And then I try again and maybe I do better. Maybe. Sometimes. It was first published in Hypertext Magazine as part of a really great series on Writing and Living. I’m super excited to be a part of it (thanks for having me, Chris!).

Juggle What?

What is the rudest question you can ask a woman? “How old are you?” “What do you weigh?” “When you and your twin sister are alone with Mr. Hefner, do you have to pretend to be lesbians?” No, the worst question is “How do you juggle it all?”—Tina Fey

I am often asked how I juggle it all. This can mean many things depending on who’s asking: How do I juggle being a writer and a mom, a teacher and a mom, a working mom, a mom [1]? Submitting my writing, marketing my writing, performing my writing, writing? Teaching students, teaching teachers to teach students, learning from these teachers and students and writers and moms—‘cause, really: what the hell do I know?

*

I am often asked how I juggle it all, and the truth is, I’m lucky. My husband is a total hands-on dad and 100% supportive of my work. He even taught our three-year-old to ask, when I get home at the end of the day, “How’d the writing go, Mommy?”

*

I am often asked how I juggle it all, and the truth is, I’m lucky. My kid is spectacular in a thousand ways that, like any parent, I could go on about forever [2] but what’s pertinent here is that he’s a great sleeper. Eleven hours per night and a two-hour nap. Everything I’ve written since he was born has happened during these two hours. He conks out and I get to work. There are dishes and toys and laundry everywhere; a hundred new emails marked priority; the house is on fire, burning to the ground as I type, and none of it matters. These are my two hours. I am able to exist as an individual independent of my role as a mother because of them. I guard them. They are precious, the last canteen in a barren desert.

Here’s how I used to write: my workspace had to be clean; notes organized; a certain kind of coffee; what music would best suit my mood? I’d read a little, stare at the wall, go to the kitchen for more coffee and—whoa. Look at how gross the oven is, better clean it, and—shit. The fridge is nasty, too, and the floor, and of course the kitchen floor is connected to the rest of floor and by the time the whole apartment is spotless, I’ve given up on writing for the day because I don’t “feel inspired.”

Fuck waiting for it.

Sit down and make it happen.

*

I am often asked how I juggle it all, and what I say is, It’s how you use the time you’ve got.

*

Do I sound like I know what I’m doing? It’s not altogether true. I feel a bit fragile about my writing, actually. Here are some reasons why:

1. Sometimes, I can’t write during those two hours because I have to be at work.
2. Sometimes, I can’t write during those two hours because I have to nap.
3. Sometimes, I can’t write during those two hours because my brain hurts and the only way to fix it is to watch Jack Bauer free-streaming on Netflix.
4. Sometimes, when I can write during those two hours, I don’t know what to work on. A short story? This essay? A blog post or two or five, or that interview that was due last week, or my journal? What I want to work on is my novel, but to tackle something so big with only two little hours… it just  seems impossible.
5. I’m ashamed to admit that. My students might be reading this.
6. What I want to work on is my novel. I walk around thinking about it and sometimes I run into walls or miss my el stop. I’ve written short stories for a decade, but this—there are so many characters! Recently, I was talking through some dialogue to keep them all straight in my mind, and my son looked up from his Legos and said, “Mommy, are you talking to yourself?”
7. I thought of the scene in The Hours when Virginia Wolf is going insane and her niece asks why she’s talking to herself and her sister Vanessa is all, “It’s okay, honey. Aunt Virginia’s a writer.”
8. “Yes,” I said to my three-year-old. “I’m talking to myself.”
9. He hugged me. Have you ever been hugged by a three-year-old? It’s the greatest feeling in the history of the universe.
10. He pulled free of the hug and put both little hands on my cheeks. “You don’t have to talk to yourself, Mommy,” he said. “You can talk to me!”

*

I try to juggle it all. I have a very complex system of color-coded Google calendars: CALEB, CHRISTOPHER, WRITING, TEACHING, CTE, 2nd STORY, and LIFE (for example, Go to the dentist. Buy groceries). In fact, I just added a new one! It’s called SELF-PRESERVATION.

This week, there are three things scheduled under SELF-PRESERVATION: yoga class, Murakami’s IQ84, and have a good cry.

*

Recently, when complaining to my friend Amanda about how I can’t juggle it all, I started to cry. We were driving somewhere, my son in the backseat. I went on and on about the pressure, the exhaustion, the mortgage, how I’d cut off my left arm for an uninterrupted week to write, “ …and to top it all off, fucking Halloween is coming! When am I going to find him a costume!? Let alone fucking make one! Some mothers go to JoAnn Fabric and get the patterns and FUCKING MAKE JIMMY INTO A PENGUIN WHO HAS THAT KIND OF TIME!?”

FYI: I didn’t really swear in front of my son.

That said, I wanted to.

Sometimes, it’s all too much.

Amanda listened to me explode all over the car and then, calmly, she got out her cell phone and turned to the backseat. “Caleb,” she said, dialing. “What do you want to be for Halloween?” “Light-up Batman!” he said, which made me cry harder ‘cause it’s so totally adorable, and while I sat there unable to control my gulpy, gaspy sobs, my sweet little boy asking if I was okay, could he please unbuckle his car seat and come up front to hug me?—my friend Amanda got on the phone and ordered a Batman costume. Size 5T. “And if it could light up somehow, that be great.” Then she hung up, looked at me and said, “What else?”

*

I am often asked how I juggle it all, and the truth is, it takes a village. As I type these words, my son is with his Uncle Jeff. Jeff is a bartender at a fancy French place, and wants his godson to be educated in high-end cuisine. To that end, they take a monthly tour of Chicago’s best gastro pubs. My son comes home stuffed and excited, toddler-talking a mile a minute about riette, cornichons and haricot vert, and I get new pages of my novel; maybe an essay or two.

Jeff is also a writer. He understands my need to get the words out of my head and on to the page. He knows it makes me… calmer.

*

It is rare, if ever, that I feel calm. I drop my son off at school and am floored by all the mothers, so put-together, so sophisticated. I am exhausted from teaching til ten the night before. I have probably, recently, spilled juice on myself. A good day is when we leave the house on time with the necessary stuff: Caleb’s backpack and my backpack and student work and books and computer and keys and the avocado plant for Show’n’Share and coffee and did I walk the dog? Did I make my deadline? Did I write down the idea I had in the middle of the night about how to transition between chapters 3 and 4 of my novel? It was a great fucking idea! WHAT WAS IT!? We get everything in the car, Caleb’s strapped in, I’m strapped in—and then I just sit there. I breathe. It’s 8am. The day hasn’t even started but already, I look around for applause.

*

Recently, when complaining to a friend about how I couldn’t juggle it all, a woman I’d never met leaned over from the next table and said, “Tina Fey has an essay about parenting in this week’s New Yorker. Maybe you should read it.”

I love Tina Fey. I have always loved Tina Fey. She’s on my list, the one my husband and I made, prior to getting married, of people we’d be allowed to cheat with if ever the situation presented itself (Tina Fey, Idris Elba, PJ Harvey from the This is Lovevideo). I admire her humor, the doors she’s opening for women in Hollywood and hopefully this country—life follows art, right?—and, most importantly, I’m grateful for her honesty about how being a working mom is hard even when you have help. See how she does that? Admits having help? So legions of working moms don’t compare ourselves to the impossible model of Tina Fey producing a television show, writing a bestseller, dressing up in designer duds and fighting twenty times a day with a toddler about putting chocolate sauce on the broccoli?

How do I juggle it all? I have help.

*

Dear my cousin Aaron: thank you for helping me take care of my son. Thank for appearing out of the clear blue sky the moment my family and I most needed you. Did you hurt yourself on your fall from heaven?

*

Not gonna lie: when that woman—that stranger—told me that Tina Fey’s essay could help with my parenting, I wanted to stick a fork in her eye. I was eating a very gooey Danish with a fork and I imagined reaching across the table, plucking her eyeball right out of her face, and flinging it across the coffee shop.

Giving unsolicited advice is never a good idea.

Especially when it’s about parenting.

*

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I feel a bit fragile about my parenting. Here are some reasons why:

1. As a college writing teacher, I read a lot of My Mother Screwed Me Up Good stories.
2. There are so many My Mother Screwed Me Up Good stories, many of which feature women who are artists but stop making art when they have kids and then blame the kids and then the kids go to therapy and grow up and write books likeRunning With Scissors.
3. I didn’t stop making art when I had a kid, nor have I stopped helping others make art, in part because I love my job but also because I need it (Hi, Fannie Mae!), and no matter how fast I run, no matter how much I write, no matter how much permission I have to be a Working Mother in the Twenty-first Century—I still feel guilty. Last week I got an email from school about which parents would help the kids change into their Halloween costumes and which parents would buy juice. I had two meetings, a four-hour workshop, and an annual report due that day, so I bought the juice.
4. I am the mother who buys the juice.
5. I sat on the kitchen floor and cried about being the mother who buys the juice. I vowed to quit work immediately. We’d pay our mortgage somehow, right? And if not, who cares? We’ll mail our house keys to the bank, pack up the dog, and go live in a cabin. Preferably one with a goat. I’ll help my kid change into his Halloween costume every day and we’ll only drink milk. Never juice. Fuck juice.
6. (This cry had not been scheduled on my SELF-PRESERVATION Google calendar).
7. My three-year-old came into the kitchen, wanting to know why I was sad.
8. I told him, “Because I bought juice.”
9. He put both his little hands on my cheeks and said, “Mommy, I love juice!”
10. Then he said, “Can you be done now so we can play?”

*

I am often asked how I juggle it all, and the truth is this: I can sit there crying on the floor, or I can get up and build a super-ramp with my kid. I can worry about what and how and when I’m writing, or I can put my ass in the chair and do it already. It’s how you use the time you’ve got.

*

In the end, there are these calm, lovely, perfect moments. Everything has slowed down. We’re reading bedtime stories. We’re coloring spaceships. We’re making forts out of pillows, figuring out the impossible, puffy architecture. This month, we made enough to cover the bills so, for a few weeks at least, the weight of the world sits elsewhere, and for now it’s just the three of us.

I think about how lucky I am. It’s a big feeling, a thousand times bigger than my novel ever could be. It’s so big that I almost stop breathing.

My whole life, there’ve been two things I’ve known for sure: I want to be a writer and I want to be a mom. And now? People ask how I juggle it all, and what I want to say is, Are you kidding? My life isn’t a juggle.

It’s a fucking gift.

 

footnotes:
[1] I’m using the word Mom here because that’s what I am, but I think this applies to dads, too, and the Aunts and Grandparents and foster parents and significant adults who are raising super-awesome kids that make this world a better place.
[2] When I get mad because somebody parked in my parking spot, he says, “Mommy, you have to share.” He says, “Mommy? My body needs to run now. Can we go somewhere for this?” He says, “My body is full of bones and meat and mus-kulls.” He says, “Mommy-Ramen-aminal” for Mayor Rahm Emmanual. He says, “Will you be my friend? Friends are super cool.” He says, “Can we listen to that M.I.A. song? M.I.A shakes my butt.” He says, “You’re the best Mommy I’ve ever had in my whole life ever,” and a thousand other amazing things, a thousand times a day. For him, I want to be a better human being, a better writer and teacher and wife and friend.  For him, I want the world to be a better place. I think art can help make that happen. And someday—two decades into the future when he’s finding himself as an adult—I want him to read my stories and be proud of me. Which means that now? I need to get to work.

I like to think I’m above revenge. But… well… that’s a lie.

I am interested in how different people define the same word.

In another lifetime, I had a Critical Thinking teacher who tried to explain the difference between denotation and connotation. “This,” she said, pointing at her desk, “is the denotation of the word desk. The connotation of desk is how we all individually feel about desks.” She paused, letting that sink in, and then asked, “How do you all, individually, feel about desks?” There were sixty-some of us in this class, all college freshmen. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that, at the time, desks were not a primary focus of significant emotion response. Sex, maybe. Money. Grades or jobs or fear or art or all sorts of crazy things. Think back to yourself when you were a college freshman. What did you think about? Me?: my folks were splitting up, my boyfriend back in Michigan was seeing another girl, and I shared a 10X10 dorm room with a girl looped on esctasy three nights a week, I’ll tell you what, desks were the last thing on my mind!

sidebar: this all happened over a decade ago. Now, I have very strong feelings about desks, primarily A) I don’t ever want one in a classroom because pedagogically I find that it unecessarily divides my students and I and B) I’m dying to have one in my house so I can have a place to put all my shit. Right now, it’s everywhere, and I can’t ever find what I need, and my poor husband, he’s got to contend with my paperwork all over the place, and also my kid is at that phase where he wants to draw spaceships on everything, which is awesome except that now there are spaceships on my teaching contracts and time sheets and student work and story ideas and lesson plans and tax forms and schedules, and, yes, I know you’re thinking Get the kid some paper, whydon’tcha? and I promise you, he has it! He has every art supply you can possibly imagine! But why would anyone want to draw on paper when they can draw on the bathroom wall? Or Daddy’s web designs? Or mommy’s… everything? Also: last week, at his school, one of the little girls did orgami for show-n-share and now my kid is convinced that paper is for folding, not drawing, so my tax forms are now little birds. Which is actually pretty cool—birds are way more interesting than tax forms. Also: I’ll never again be able to think of taxes without thinking of birds. Which would mean that birds are now my connotation of taxes! Huzzah! Right back to the point!

Anyhow—desks were, at the time, not quite as ripe for connotation as some other words, words like love or race or faith. I remember, years after this whole connotation/denotation thing, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and thinking about all the different connotations of the word solitude and how all of them were given to a different member of the (fictional) Buendia family:

You’re so brilliant that no one can understand you, so you’re alone.
You’re so beautiful that everyone’s intimidated by you, so you’re alone.
You’re so old that no one even sees you anymore, so you’re alone.
Your penis is so big that women are scared and men are jealous, so you’re alone.
And on and on.

Genius.

sidebar: Dear Marquez I love you.

Anyhow—connotation. It’s mind boggling to think about how many misunderstandings I’ve had over the years because of differing connotations. On the flip-side, I’m in awe of what I learn by listening to the connotations of others; how much I’ve grown as a human being and widened my world view. I’ll listen to how different people—friends, artists, the guy sitting across from me in a class—define words like marriage and protest and illegal and and parent and education and life. Our connotations of these words shape our politics, our values, how we spend our money, how we love—and the thing that creates those connotations are our stories.

A few years ago, there was some big case in the news about parents who were seeking revenge for something that had happened to their teenage daughter—the clincher was, she didn’t want them to. She wanted it to just go away. I remember talking about the ethical implications of this over and over again: what was justice in such a situation? There’s another word with multiple connotations—justice. Justice for whom? For her, or her family? Did her parents have the right to move forward with something she didn’t want? I remember wondering why she didn’t want revenge. Or maybe she didn’t want the kind of revenge they were seeking—the legal kind. Maybe she wanted a different kind?

What exactly is revenge? When I wrote the story Shot to the Lungs and No Breath Left, I was thinking about my connotation to that single word. And—as often happens in writing—the story became about other things, as well: revenge, and the relationship between a parent and a child, and gender roles, and all this other shit that sort of surprised me, but hey—what the hell. This is what came out. It’s here, let’s examine it.

For over a decade, I’ve worked with a Chicago theatre director named Amanda Delheimer Dimond. She’s the Artistic Director of 2nd Story. She’s my friend. She challenges me to look deeper with every project, to really figure out what the hell I am talking about. I knew I wanted to make some sort of video for Shot to the Lungs, so I brought the story to her and the very amazing Kyle Hammon of KBH Media, whom I can’t suggest enough if you want to explore video/audio/multimedia in your own stories, personal or professional. The three of us got to talking about revenge, and we thought it would be intersting to ask some very different people to speak to their own connotations of the word.

I am grateful to Kyle and Amanda for creating a piece that digs into this question of how different people view the same idea, and what might happen if we take a moment to listen to each other. I am grateful to Ada Gray, Lauren Kelly-Jones, Nic Dimond, Aaron Stielstra, Jennifer Shin, and Coya Paz for sharing their time and their stories. I am grateful to a Faculty Development Grant from Columbia College for helping to fund this project, and to all of you for giving it a look and maybe a share.

Hi, Water!

At my gym, there’s a nursery where Caleb hangs out while I run. There’s a jungle gym, and tons of toys, and a huge table full of colored rice that the kids run through their fingers and throw at each other. It’s awesome. He loves it, and runs down the hall when we arrive to get there faster. On the way, we pass a swimming pool, and yesterday we were there during a Senior Water Aerobics class. Picture a pool full of sixty-something grandmothers, imitating the movements of the instructor at the edge of the water. She’s wearing a waterproof microphone over her ear, and is very peppy as you’d imagine an Aerobic instructor to be. Caleb took one look at her jumping up and down, and he started jumping up and down, and because he’s unbelievably adorable she waved at him, and because all the people in the pool were following her every move, they looked over at him and started waving, too. At this point, his brain exploded, because he’s only three and, still, all of these people are waving at him—at HIM!—and he jumped and waved and yelled HI! HI! HI! WATER! and in that second, all was right in the world.