Costumes stump me every year.  Maybe because I wait until the last minute, or maybe because Toby loves anything unorthodox and absurd.   Two years ago he was a railroad crossing.  I striped the arms of a white shirt with a red Sharpie for the “gates” and drew a big black “X” on the chest.  It looked okay, but relied heavily on his yelling of “ding, ding, ding” for anyone to get it. 

Last year he wanted to be a trash truck, but I convinced him to be a Dalmatian instead. I don’t think he understood the terms of our deal because on Halloween night he hopped around panting and barking, but also stopped at every driveway to dump an invisible garbage bin before going to the door.  By dark his friends were half a mile ahead and I was more than a little grumpy.

This year he of course wanted to be a trash truck again.  I countered with trash man, because seriously.  He looked under-impressed and made me dig his dog suit out of the closet for a spin, which as it turns out, is so small now that he couldn’t pull the hood over his head without causing an unbelievably large wedgie. He wore it all morning anyway, rubbing his head on my leg and pretending to lick stuff off the carpet.  Charlie looked kind of scared, and I wondered if it would be wrong to accidentally mail the dog suit to China.

Thankfully I found a pair of Greg’s brown gloves and slid them over Toby’s hands to see if they looked at all trashman-ish.  They did, though he waved his hands around very non-trashman-ishly while he deliberated.  “Glubs are awesome,” he finally said.

Awesome, indeed.  They are so awesome that I had to locate a pair for Charlie too who moped noisily after his brother saying, “I yant gwubs! Char-Char gwubs!”

Glubs.  The key to any good costume.  Who knew?

Take barfing for example. To this day Toby is the only toddler I have ever seen be personally delivered to his parents in the middle of church service by a gagging, vomit-covered child-care volunteer. If there were a barf Olympics I would enter Toby and tearfully cheer from the bleachers as he projectiled further than anyone in history. “That’s my boy!” I would say and then I would reminisce about long nights spent on the couch holding towels under his chin and how worthwhile it was now that he was on the podium singing our National Anthem.

Last week we were outside for all of thirty minutes, wherein the absolute first mosquito hatchlings of summer congregated on Toby’s shins for a celebration feast. It wasn’t like I didn’t know to hose the boys off in deet before subjecting them to the insect Hades of our backyard, but I hadn’t checked my entomological calendar for the precise mosquito life cycle. One moment I’m dreamily sipping my Chai latte in Spring’s sheltering arms, the next I’m digging through our medicine cabinet for the *AfterBite* cream and *Benadryl* because Toby’s legs are swelling to the size of Redwood trunks.

I know what you are thinking. Lots of kids are allergic to insect bites and blah blah blah, but I kid you not, none of them (except B.A.D.) ever produced such hideous, colossal boils as what sprouted from my son’s innocent flesh. Boils with eco-systems and lunar phases and fast food franchises. Part of me was a little excited to share this anomaly via Internet photo, and for that I apologize. In my defense, if your own child were capable of a grotesque reaction you would find the urge to shock your FB friends irresistible too.

Today I added “bloody noses” to my long list of *WebMD* queries. While my adoration and gratefulness for *WebMD* runs deeper than most consider prudent, there are times when I cannot convey the appropriate severity. “Bloody noses” are what happen when your brother throws a wooden train across the room, or when you go skiing in Breckenridge, or when you pick. Searching “Sudden failure of entire vascular regions while sitting quietly in Children’s Worship” did not produce any valuable results.

What can you do? After four years of research I have learned there is usually nothing to worry about, and that just about anything is a symptom of cancer.

Anything except emetephobia. That is just a perk of mothering two uniquely gifted individuals.

I hate it when I get like this. When I have so many things to do, so many unrelated, taskly things, that I stumble around completely zombified, unable to finish even one of them.

Why do I need peanut butter? When I press my fingers to my temples I imagine my brain’s secretary fumbling for the file amid a cluttered, coffee-smelling office. You are hideously inept I say as she stares back guiltily.

We don’t have time to fight because Toby’s shoes were mysteriously summoned to Jesus, again. I send Greg outside to dig in the outdoor trash bin. “We should just buy new,” he mumbles.

“Sometimes it’s the principle!” I yell because more than anything I want to know how shoes can vanish inexplicably.

I step over Charlie who is now driving a train on the bedroom floor. “Charlie? Where are Toby’s shoes?” I ask hopefully when I notice poop falling out the back of his diaper. For the love!!!

I whisk him to the bathroom for a strip and rinse, trying to decide exactly why I’m gagging. Is it his poop-smeared back or the rope of green snot sliding down his upper lip? I sacrifice a whole bar of soap to the cause as I scrub the offending orifices. Now bleaching the bath-tub is following peanut butter through my frontal lobe like a tourist asking for directions. Except that peanut butter answers in confused French and it’s obvious that NO ONE KNOWS WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE!

Are there mothers somewhere darning fluffy-toed socks while their good-smelling offspring sort the recycling and eat beets? Children in some dry, remote corner of Arizona who never have sinusitis or crusty eye goo? How did I end up here, raising shoeless, allergy-ridden vegetable-haters, searching for poo in my carpet?

God why is this ridiculous exercise in anarchy part of it all? Why am I LOSING MY MIND?

I finally get them to bed and it is quiet. Instead of reading, or watching Grey’s Anatomy, here I am clinking out the whole dirty mess of it for posterity. God, is it this? This now, sitting down to capture the wild confusion of our day? I roll each moment in my palm like a precious stone and it doesn’t seem exasperating anymore. It reminds me of how much I love this life, these children of mine, for whom I give all of my sanity. For whom it is an honor.

“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.

Though the cafe was around the corner from my hospital, I drove the fifteen miles back home with Toby in the backseat. I called a couple of friends to nonchalantly ask labor questions — but not because I thought I was in labor or anything. That would be really melodramatic. What I had was just a tightening around my middle every so often.

I was getting Toby down for nap when I suddenly doubled over in pain. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was very intense. I decided to call the doctor and Greg, just to be on the safe side. Greg flew home… the doctor, however, told me to call him in the morning if I still felt like something was happening. I sent Greg back to work and called my pregnant friend Jennifer to come over and sit with me. Greg protested, but I told him how labor lasts forever and I was not actually having it anyway. It was false labor.

Jennifer and I timed my contractions for almost two hours. They were getting worse, especially since it wasn’t the real thing. We called the doctor back — just to check in. He said it was no big deal until the contractions were six minutes apart for a complete hour. We cheerfully kept tabs on the clock and gabbed about how huge we were and how we would always remember the day we sat around my house keeping our cool when most pregnant women would have rushed off to the ER like dorks only to be sent right back home. Hahaha.

I went ahead and called my mom and dad, you know, just to let them know I was not about to have a baby, just feeling some terrifically strong Braxton-Hicks. In fact, now that I have them on the phone I think I am going to let them talk to Jennifer for a few minutes… I am suddenly unable to stand. Actually, I can’t even breathe without crying a little bit… is this typical of false labor?

It was at that point that Jennifer took over, God love her. She pulled a groggy Toby from his bed and whisked him next door to my friend Keri’s house along with two diapers and an indefinite pick up time. She and Keri hoisted me into Jennifer’s mini-van, which I assure you was no small feat. Jennifer talked to me, called Greg, drove, and timed contractions. I cried. I thought, what kind of person cries through Braxton-Hicks? How would I ever survive the real thing???

We stopped at the church where Jennifer intended to drop me off to my husband. Unfortunately, I could not get out of the van. Greg had to hop in the driver’s seat with me and Jennifer followed in his car. It was 3:30.

At 3:50 we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Greg had been on the phone with the L and D floor to explain our situation and they had a nurse waiting for us in the circle drive. I was white knuckling the seat cushion and moaning like a wounded lion. As we pulled up, an innocent bystander inadvertently walked in front of the mini-van. I remember yelling out the window in my best Linda Blair for her to “MOVE”!!! Greg, however, recalls it with a bit more @$#%#& thrown in. You can pick.

My nurse, Suzy, whisked me up to a room in a wheelchair. She gave me a gown to put on which I unfortunately was never able to do. I got as far as undressing before a surge of pain prevented anything more. Suzy rushed in and helped me to the bed. I begged for my epidural. I screamed. I crawled around on the white sheets pleading for someone to cut the baby from my abdomen and put an end to this ridiculous formality. Somewhere in my delirium, a pack of medical professionals arrived to not save my day. Equipment was rushed into the room and this and that person were paged STAT.

My doctor explained that he could break my water and speed things along, but an epidural would never have time to work. I explained that it would work even if I had to gouge the needle into the center of my own brain. As if staged for a TV movie, my water broke with a loud pop. I started bawling, crouched on the hospital bed that looked like the background set for a horror movie. I guess he had pity on me and an anesthesiologist was allowed to give the epidural a try. She was wonderfully quick — but not quick enough. At 4:20 pm, approximately one nanosecond after my epidural went in, Michael Charles was caught by the doctor with the gown I never had the joy of donning.

It was a miracle. The first baby to ever be born to a woman in false labor. Everyone walked around me like I was the Blessed Mother. Okay, not really. Everyone seemed pretty put out with me and my capacity for denial. Greg was utterly traumatized after witnessing a birth void of pain relief and dignity. My mother was somewhere between Oklahoma City and Ardmore missing the whole thing. Jennifer was relieved to not be scrubbing placenta out of her mini-van floor mats. I was the only one feeling quite dandy. I spared myself the anxiety of impending labor and even better… I never missed single meal. By 5:00 I was in a private room munching on a turkey sandwich.

Charlie, some day when you are old enough to read this without dying of embarrassment or gagging, I hope you know that you were worth every minute. I love you.

I made a preemptive strike this appointment. Normally I hide the whining, gagging, nauseous flincher that is me in lieu of what I want to be, which is tough. I have had enough dental work over the last few weeks that I suddenly don’t care if the entire office staff groans when I whimper through their doors — in fact, I own it. Yes, sweet dental hygienist I am “the one” who requires 8 pain shots plus several boosters throughout the procedure I smile confidently. Yes, I do want the happy gas, no, that is not too much.

By the time my dentist lowers his archaeological equipment into my mouth I can barely tell you my name. I tap my foot jauntily to the instrumental worship ballads as if it were Abba Gold. The room is spinning a little…no problem… this is probably what it felt like at Woodstock. Yes, Woodstock was a place of infinite love. I like love. I can handle love.

Okay, the room is really spinning and I feel like I’m losing consciousness. I open my eyes, which I didn’t know were closed. A bright light that says Pelton and Crane in slanty cursive is two feet from my ever-loving face. Focus, focus. The talking I hear is warbled and unintelligible. Oh no! He’s drilling a hole to China in my tooth and he is high on happy gas and lidocaine!

No, I am the only one high I say to me. I am nauseous. It takes all of my energy to not throw up all over the blue bib on my chest. Honey I am still free… Take a chance on me… I hear, but sung to the tune of Jesus Loves Me, elevator style. I tap my foot. I train my eyes on Pelton and Crane and think about the irony of advertising your company name in the face of a suffering, tortured captive. I think about love, Woodstock style. Andi, that is enough you are a pastor’s wife.

Okay, all done he says after forever. I blink myself back to reality. I make intelligent small talk with the half of my mouth I can feel. The looks I get tell me there is nothing intelligent about anything I say, so I close my mouth. The half I can move, anyway.

There is no tidy conclusion to this story — I am still a little loopy people. Maybe I should just give thanks to my dental office for pretending I am really no bother and never sighing or eye rolling to my face. For this I will forever choose your clinic over any other and any time you want to see the Olympic competition live, you are welcome to peek into my mouth. Tooth number eighteen.

Peace.

I love the groaning engine, the hissing brakes, the smack of the bin against the hungry chomping mouth. I love the way it gobbles the trash like a gloriously ravenous beast.

I want to be a trash man. No, no that’s not it. I want to be a trash truck. I wander the house all day with my arms cocked to one side, squeezing the life out of anything in my path before dumping it upside down. My bin of Lincoln Logs, my case of racecars, my baby brother… No NOT your brother my mom says quickly.

I hear it. I think I hear it. Hurry! Let’s go to the driveway and watch. Get a chair, mom. Put Charlie in the stroller with a bottle. We can sit together and wait for him to come around the corner.

But I can’t sit. I want to see. I am giggling and straining my eyes far down the street. Now here it comes. Janie’s house. Todd’s house. Mom, its here! Look it has our trash! Watch it lifting the blue bin into the air like an angry monster. I cannot contain my excitement!

The trash man waves at me as our trash can falls limply to the curb, happily empty, with its lid flopping open. The trash truck poofs out a smoggy snort from its rear and drives away. I watch it go. I watch until it is just a gentle rumble in the distance.

Trash truck, I love you.

He held nothing back. Her eight year old self floated gracefully up on a light purple Schwinn. Something inside him said Toby, she is special. Let her know you are a big kid. So after pointing out that her bike was “pwitty“, he reached for the all-time greatest pick-up line anyone under five ever attempted…

“Lexi, do you need to poop? Because I know how to poop in the potty.”

Bold move, little buddy. Very bold.