Have you ever felt like someone was rubbing a scouring pad over your nerves? I cannot explain how perfect an analogy that is for my life. I suddenly hate talking. Toby will not stop asking questions. Repetitive, idiotic questions. “Why are we going to move?” he says.
“We’re not moving,” I say.
“Why not?” he says.
“Because we like our house.”
“What happens when our house gets old?”
“Lots of people live in old houses. It’s fine, dude.”
“Will we take our windows when we move?”
“WE ARE NOT MOVING,” I would yell if my head wasn’t already detaching itself to escape.

Was there really a time, a severely misguided moment, that I worried Toby would never talk? Did I really lack even a shard of foresight?

Greg took me out to dinner the other night. We left the boys with a sitter so we could have big people time. (And not eat at Sonic.) I collapsed into the car seat with a huge sigh and just sort of stared blankly. He was all, “What’s wrong?” and I was all, “Do not talk to me, I’m liquefying.” I guess my continual edginess finally snapped his patience in two because he went totally Dr. Phil on me, spewing out the most annoying logic like how I need to “create boundaries” and “take charge.” It was so reasonable that I couldn’t reply, being that I was more in the mood for a maniacal rant than an actual solution. I didn’t say a single thing until after we ordered our food. Finally my “whatever, Greg” face cracked, and I slumped onto the table in tears. “I don’t know how to be better at this,” I said.

“You are a good mom,” He said. I think I’ll keep him.

This afternoon I called our little neighbor friend, Kennedi to come over. She bounced in the house all spry and happy and I realized that Toby and Charlie were their usual pantsless selves, crawling nakedly over the train tracks on the floor. It is dehumanizing to embarrass your kids, but after an emergency shorts hunt, Toby and Kennedi are in another room playing happily, while Charlie sits next to me like a cherub, probably drunk with relief that his brother is quiet.

Charlie is so competent and self-sustaining. He’s like a terrarium.

Sometimes I really do want to move. Maybe I could find some loft apartment or quiet cubicle and live all by myself. It sounds so sane and clean.

Too bad I love these people too dang much to quit.

It was a slow death. I decided to train for a marathon. A group from church was doing the Houston HP, and it seemed like the perfect diversion from my sulking self-absorption. I paid the entry fee and immediately increased my mileage.

Four and six miles morphed into eight, ten, and fifteen miles. Sometimes my runs were so long it felt like the seasons changed from the beginning to the end. I trudged forward like a soldier because it wasn’t just about running, but creating my place in our new life. It gave me value, friends, an identity.

I completed a twenty-miler, our longest pre-race distance, two weeks before that chilly afternoon in January. I stopped by my trail after work for a quick eight. The temp dropped during the day, and all I had with me was shorts. I thought about skipping to bundle up with a latte, but it mattered too much to me. I changed clothes and set out. My legs never got warm. When I finished, they were red and splotchy, tight, and a searing pain shot down my right thigh.

Everything rational told me to rest, but I didn’t. The next Saturday I was back on the trail with a group from church, limp-running to keep up. A dull burn in my leg heated into a raging fire until I couldn’t force another step. I sat down on my butt in the middle of the path and cried.

All the training. All the time. All the plans.

But no marathon.

While I drug myself through the neighborhood in shame, Courtney opted to train on the treadmill. She was with me at the first 5k, but at that time neither of us really knew split from fartlek, so I wasn’t aware she had stinking lungs like Lance Armstrong.

At our second race, I expected to steamroll passed her because the treadmill is a lousy substitute for pavement. I thought. About two seconds after the gun fired she was gone. I didn’t see her again until the finish line whence she was sucking on an orange slice and cheering for me. Evil freak of nature…

Over the course of months I worked very hard to catch her. I tried everything to make me better. It didn’t. Instead, I learned two valuable running lessons.

The first was not comparing. Nothing killed my drive more than feeling like I would never catch Courtney. It wasn’t fair. I worked just as hard. No harder. How long could she blaze past me? Finally, one day I got my answer. It was “forever.” The truth is that some people really are born to run. Sometimes to be happy yourself, you have to just let them go.

The second lesson was time. I was nearing college graduation and there wasn’t much of it left after classes, homework, and my job. Before, I sort of thought a person could toss in a few miles here and there and still get better. After months of this, I wondered what would happen if I formally regimented myself to the cause. I tried all methods: training journals, new workout gear, music, lake runs. Ugghhh. Something was still missing. Something more compelling than my own strong will.

It wasn’t until after collecting my diploma and landing a teaching job nearby that I got my first running windfall. She was cute, quiet, and disciplined.

And she changed my life.

It was precisely .5 miles around my block according to my odometer. I figured I would circle three or four times. All I needed was will power, yeah? Set my mind to it! I waved to the old man across the street and kicked up my heels.

I passed only two mailboxes when suddenly the only sound in the whole neighborhood was my abnormally loud breathing. I tried to control it by puffing out my cheeks with each exhale, but it only made my brain feel hot and whooshy like every blood cell in there was trying to escape. In fact, my whole body pounded like it might explode. This doesn’t seem right, I thought because I had seen tons of people run and not once did any of them spontaneously combust.

As I rounded the first corner, I stopped to walk which really hurt my pride and snuffed my enthusiasm for the whole idea. It took the entire half block before I could inhale without sounding like an asthmatic Darth Vader.

I jogged again before I passed the old man across the street. I wanted him to think I ran the whole way, because I am that shallow. I ended up going four times around in the same pattern. Run my street, walk to the opposite street. I hope he was impressed.

When I finally found myself back in my own driveway I was completely spent. No one told me running felt like strapping your lungs in a vice and dragging eight bowling balls behind you. How did people do this? And why????

Later, after a shower and a sandwich I noticed something. I felt sore and tired, but also… great. It was like happy-relaxed-exerted-great.

Maybe I could try again.

Today was unseasonably warm so I marched Toby and Charlie outside with a rather unfriendly command to ENJOY THE FRESH AIR. (Fresh air that my germophobic self won’t completely trust since the neighborhood is trading gastroenteritis like cups of sugar.) I thought the sunny pardon from our bleak indoor netherworld would motivate self-entertainment so I could veg out under the sun. It was quiet for all of one nanosecond before Toby became Socrates, pondering life’s mysteries while flinging lumps of potting soil into the grass with a plastic shovel.

“Why are the Wonder Pets not too tough?” he asked.

“Toby, let’s have five minutes of no talking starting right… now.”

“Well, how do you grow small like a baby?”

“You don’t. Everyone is growing bigger.”

“But what about babies. How do you grow into a baby?”

“You don’t grow into a baby, babies grow into big people.”

His philosophizing was not slowed by Charlie who stomped unhappily around the driveway because his feet wouldn’t reach the trike pedals.

There are days when Toby could contemplate the theme songs of the entire Nickelodeon network and I would find it endearing. Charlie could sulk and pout while spewing caveman expletives at over-sized riding toys everywhere! and I would stroke his head gently and smile.

But not today. It is winter and my sanity dangles from a skinny, burning thread. The sun shines unexpectedly in the blue January skies and I want to enjoy it. I need to.

Its the kind of family time where you loop the Baby Einstein video during every wakeful moment to keep from having a bored, snotting, toddler dangling from your shin while you clean out the fridge. Where a pouting, whiny three-year-old inspires the next round of “What do you want to do today?” from Greg and I that ends with me making the boys nuggets for lunch (again) and Greg playing some shooting game on his iphone to hopefully kill another half hour.

We have ripped down the Christmas lights, spontaneously caulked all the window casings, cut the boys hair, played out all the Christmas toys, cleaned out our closet, and swept the garage. All that is left is the obligatory lolling around on the carpet annoying each other to keep from actually dying of under-stimulation.

Today, after Charlie threw two platefuls of food on the kitchen tile and encored with thirty minutes of writhing anguish, I finally said it. “Greg, I am tired of being with us. I have togetheritis.”

“I think we have ‘Doing-nothing-together-itis’” he points out while opening yet another sleeve of Ritz crackers.

We need help. I am one Mighty Machines Video away from “All work and no play makes Andi a dull boy.”

To quote Cindy: “I’m just sayin’.”

“If you don’t look at him, he won’t look at you,” I say as I flip down the visor mirror and make sure it is really me talking and not my mother.

“Say ‘Stop it!’ to Charlie. Why is he looking at me when I’m not looking at him?”

I turn up the volume on the stereo so the rhythmic “aha’s” of Voulez Vous drown out the one-sided brawl from the backseat. Charlie’s eyes are so dead-locked on Toby I wonder if he secretly understands Toby’s complaint and is internally laughing.

“Charlie, stop looking at Toby,” I say, just in case.

Before I have a chance to stop it — and I would have given my right eye — the final track of my ABBA 1 CD fades away and the changer dutifully ushers in the next disc. Back, Back, Back I push but it is too late and Boz the big green bear repeats “Here we…, Here we…, Here we…” until I finally give up and let him spit out the full “Here we go!” in his irritating jubilation. Toby forgets Charlie’s death stare to cheer for Boz, the big fat Christian version of Barney and for a moment I think I might prefer the whining.

Soon it doesn’t matter because I can think of nothing but the stomach bug floating through pre-school again and if I remembered to put hand sanitizer on the boys before they ate the animal crackers in my friend Jenn’s office. I can almost hear the triumph of the crittery virus making its way into the innards of my unsuspecting children because, I know I didn’t remember and now we will all be barfing up a lung come tomorrow. And that makes me cranky.

But not as cranky as Charlie was later in the driveway, protesting the wretchedness of humanity because the front wheels of his riding fire truck were stuck in the grass. He waddled around me a few times with a squinched-up, moaning face before depositing his 2 foot self head first into the yard.

What is everybody’s problem?

I could understand this better if we lived in a parched Ethiopian desert and relied on locust wings and cactus dew for survival, but we have no legitimate complaints. The hovering, nurturing parenting style I credit for their neatly trimmed nails and taste for yogurt smoothies is also responsible for the Bratty Crankertons that we have all become.

When it is time for bed, I briskly yank the oversized t-shirt over Toby’s head. “Mommy, can we sleep in the living room again? I like sleeping in there with you.”

We had a couch camp out weeks ago when he had the flu. What made him recall a night of puking into bath towels as a chummy slumber party I can’t fathom. I squish his chubby cheeks in my hands and smooch him. “Toby, we sure did have fun, didn’t we?”

And isn’t that the beauty of family? Looking back on all these times, good or bad, and remembering only that you were loved.

Self, don’t answer that question.

Our good friends drop by just as Toby is waking up from nap. I hear him in his room grunting hung-over-and-starving-lion noises while we make distracted chatter in the doorway.

“I will get him up for you” the helpful husband-friend offers.

Actually, he is recovering from leprosy and a rare yet highly contagious strand of tuberculosis I should say before the man opens the protective barrier of Toby’s door and unleashes the wild beast on the world.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He never acts like this,” I say with no conviction.

And then there are his “injuries”. No real damage is required, but noise and flailing are non-negotiable. Even Charlie questions the necessity of this display. He watches Toby with a look that says why are you so weird? But Charlie will bleed all over the train table sans acknowledgement, so he isn’t the best judge.

Toby’s inspiration:
Sharing
His Brother
The word “no”
Dead batteries
Holes in socks
Thunder
Nap

Its not an exhaustive list. I mean, at the moment he is crying because his toast tore when he picked it up. Seriously.

I don’t know how I turned a perfectly sublime infant into a yammering thespian. I’m sure it had to do with coddling, boo-boo kissing, and unflinching devotion. I can’t really help myself.

Today I offer an apology to every mother I secretly blamed for her child’s behavior. Moms, I exonerate you completely and hope you feel satisfaction knowing that I do, in fact, have an unruly pre-schooler, so your wish came true.

Those of you who have one too, the following is a list of excuses to deflect the angst of society. No one really believes them, but they are good one-liners to toss over your shoulder as you carry the screaming banshee to a private location.

He’s running a fever (press cheek to forehead).
He missed lunch (dig in purse for crackers).
He’s teething (only works early on)
Its nap time. (check watch regretfully)
He’s one.
He’s two.
He’s three.

I could think up more but someones trains just derailed… any one else have an idea?

I can’t remember exchanging Toby’s personality from pleasantly compliant charmer to compulsively opinionated dictator. Yet here I am with snot streaming down my nose while he separates individual sections of toilet paper into satisfactory squares. No, I won’t hurry up, he says as his chubby fingers work to remove a rogue fragment that dangles from the perforated edge much like me to my composure.

I am feeding Charlie a bottle while actually holding him (for a change) and wiping my nose on my shirt sleeve to keep from dripping on his forehead. I just need a real tissue you little OCD Hitler I don’t say as I blow my allergy ridden congestion into a Thumbelina sized hanky.

I take the boys walking around the block and Toby must push the stroller. And I must back up. Far away. No not there, over there. Yeah, right there in that grassy, scratchy plant. Stand there and don’t think about taking the stroller back. Or collecting your dignity and committing to a well-planned insurgence.

Charlie takes to disdain when he and Toby crawl around on the floor together. Toby, who is curiously adept at assigning sinister motive to unmistakable babyishness, freely tattles and orders and “No’s” him until Charlie defaults to some passively simple irritation to counterstrike (if that’s possible). Mommy, Chah-wie is twying to take my twains away he says when Charlie playfully explores the bright colored wheels of a red and blue engine with his fingers. No Chah-wie! Charlie stares blankly at him and bangs the train on the table casually, just because.

I imagine him later in life sitting in therapy explaining the angry voice in his head shouting orders as he goes about his daily business sipping espresso or driving to work. No Chah-wie! That’s MY mocha latte. Give it to me! Move, Chah-wie I get to dwive the car, its MY turn! he hears until he resigns into a dejected stupor.

At the sandbox we pack damp mounds into plastic molds forming a tractor, a bulldozer, a concrete truck. I relish these times, working together, building and talking, even the windy evening air blowing my hair into tangles. He admires our ingenuity fondly and I think to myself, this is the sweet baby I carried and nursed and snuggled and smooched. His doe eyes look up at me with a hint of wild excitement. Now can I cwash them Mommy? he says like any good tyrant, yellow spade already raised above the sandy masterpieces.

At least he asked.

Apparently his poor ear developed a gross infection and popped open like a big zit somewhere between Monday’s appointment and Wednesday morning. I don’t know why this news evoked a giddy excitement in me (soberly concealed under grave concern, of course), but I think it was just the knowing.

He has medicine, a collection of live train videos, and enough whine left in him to ride out the entire healing process to the bitter end. Life is good.