A conversation with a 5-year-old

"I'm a very hungry caterpillar crawling around,
Eating everything in sight that can be found.
I'm weaving a cocoon on a good-size twig,
And I'm starting to get real big."

-- The Hungry Caterpillar, The Learning Station



"Mommy, I'm hungry."

"I was thinking about tacos. I wonder if there's a Taco Bell around here."

"I think there's one in Pittsburgh."

"Oh yeah? Only one?"

"Yeah." A pause. "How about we build one in the back yard?"

"Hmm. I think that would take a while. But we certainly have the room."

"What do you think people would say if we had a Taco Bell in our back yard?"

"I think they'd ask -- politely -- if we were putting on weight."

Not again!

My neighbors are still working on their roof.

Web games

"Sometimes you're the windshield;
Sometimes you're the bug."

-- The Bug, Mary Chapin Carpenter



Now that all the Spider-Man 3 hype has died down, I offer a testament to the fact that I officially live under a rock: I barely noticed the first Spider-Man, and I didn't even know there was a Spider-Man 2.

Speaking of spiders, "Charlotte" has taken up residence in the bathroom. I told Zoe this was the same spider that inhabited our kitchen last week, but I know this is not true, since the kitchen spider was big and black, and the bathroom spider is small and brown.

It's amazing how tolerant I have become of spiders now that I have no one to kill them on demand.

I'm also trying to teach Zoe to not kill bugs for sport. I've caught her tramping on ants on the patio, and I've tried to explain to her that outside is their house, that's where they live and we should have respect for that... blah blah blah. I'm sure she turns her back on me and rolls her eyes. I hope she does anyway; I hate to imagine a bunch of kids running around on the playground at recess screaming, "Zoe's mom likes BUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGS!!!"

We (I) humanized the spider and named it Charlotte, since Zoe watched "Charlotte's Web" a few weeks back and I caught her crying in her room just at the point where she realized Charlotte was about to bite the dust. (What IS it with kid's movies these days?? Why can't all the main characters come back to life like Wile E. Coyote?)

Charlotte has caused little disruption in our lives so far, but it's oddly reminiscent of my days in Florida when I would come home from work a couple times a week and find an exhausted palmetto bug floating helplessly in my toilet.

I will not hesitate to flush Charlotte if she becomes even a little disgusting. My guard is up.

Lasting effects

"This heat has got right out of hand."

-- Cruel Summer, Bananarama



It was supposedly a "summer-like" day in Pittsburgh today, according to the weather guy. I dressed Zoe in capri pants and sent her off to school. I threw on a t-shirt and a cardigan.

I was sitting at work for less than an hour before I was sitting on my hands. My limbs were freezing! I swear, when it hits 65, they crank on the AC. My toes were bitter cold, and I threw on my sweater, ON TOP OF my t-shirt and cardigan. It wasn't long before the graphics editor came by complaining about THE HEAT.

"It's so hot in here!"

WHAT??

"Yeah, look how misty it is outside. It's so humid."

I looked out the window. Clear as ever.

It seemed that everyone who does laps by my desk on a regular basis felt, too, that it was unbearable. Apparently none of these people spent a summer in Florida.

"Did you SEE it outside? UGH!"

"Why don't they turn on the AC?"

"It's too HOT to go out to lunch."

IT'S MAY, PEOPLE. IN PITTSBURGH.

I thought maybe I was hallucinating, that maybe I hadn't come to work at the same time as all of them, and maybe I missed some natural phenomenon going on outside. So shortly after lunch I headed downstairs and out the door.

I expected to get a deep breath of heavy air, the kind you have to endure in mid-August in the deep South, where you can barely catch your breath and start sweating before you get down the sidewalk to the car.

I thought of the hot summer nights I spent in Florida, when my friends and I sat outside drinking good wine, our skin glistening, our hair limping, listening to weather reports for hurricanes and hoping for a breeze to take the edge off, hearing nothing but the hum of air conditioners all around and knowing we could go inside to get relief, but seeing how long we could last before our shirts were soaked or the bugs drove us home.



I shivered when I stepped outside. It was all of 80 degrees with about 1.4 percent humidity.



There's a "cold front" coming through here tonight... should be 68 tomorrow. I can predict how many will be wearing shorts and tank tops to work, expressing thanks for the break in the weather.

I'll be wearing a sweater, for sure. Zoe too.

A happy Mother's Day

I was sick as a dog, but man, did we have fun! I got to stay in bed all day and play games with Zoe and Jacob. It was a beautiful day outside, and I had wanted to plant flowers and wash the car and go to the park, but for as tired and weak as I've felt all week, we had a great day.



We cleaned off some of Zoe's old toys, including this Sesame Street alphabet game, and taught Jacob how to play.



We played Old Maid, Go Fish, Chutes and Ladders, Memory... I kept winning and Zoe was getting mad. I resorted to c-h-e-a-t-i-n-g to try to lose, and I still kept winning. I was never so lucky!



Sweet potatoes everywhere. Mom and Zoe treated ourselves to a nice steak dinner instead.



When they are the most angelic.

Bugged out

Over the weekend, Zoe was getting ready for a bath, when she suddenly came dashing out of the bathroom in full screech mode.

"I saw a bug, Mommy! It was black and thissss biggggg!" And she held her hands in front of her, about the width of a basketball apart.

I come from a family of fishermen, and I've seen this exaggeration before.

But still, I was frozen. Isn't there anyone else around here who can take care of this? I mean, this is a bug problem! Hello!

OK, new homeowner, single mom, I gotta deal with the bug. Not so new territory, I was just rusty.

I went into the bathroom with great trepidation. Scanned the room. Nothing obvious. On Zoe's rapid exodus from the tub, she knocked several shampoo bottles onto the floor. I moved them... nothing under them. Nothing on the walls, towels, underside of the toilet seat lid...

Clear!

I got Zoe back into the tub after convincing her she saw some kind of shadow.

The next night, same thing.

"MOMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYY!"

So after a day of watching my ass (pun alert!) every time I went in the bathroom, I finally caught the bastard terrorizing my family. He wasn't big, he wasn't black, but it was a creepy little thing, probably the same dude I saw in the garage when I first moved in. I had shoes on, and I took care of business. Squashed him. Then I went a few rooms away from Zoe and commenced hyperventilation.

I killed him.

I'm rotting in hell.

I cleaned up the remains and got Zoe into the tub.

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I don't know WHAT made me glance through my cheap plastic shower curtain into the tub, as if I were scanning for the palmetto bugs I always found in my tub in Florida, but I did, and there was another bug... the same kind of bug... the same creepy crawly bastard that I don't ever remember seeing before in my life but that apparently comes out only when you officially own a home.

Jacob was sitting in the hallway watching me, Zoe was nearby munching on her cereal, so I couldn't panic. I stepped over the baby and got the Raid from the hall closet. Took care of business.

It wasn't until tonight that I was getting into the shower, and I remembered I had left the bug to die in the tub.


It wasn't as bad as cleaning up after a Raid-soaked, still-crunchy palmetto bug, but it was just as effective at curbing my appetite for a few days.

Paralyzed

"They say that breaking up is hard to do.
Now I know, I know that it's true."

-- Breaking Up is Hard to Do, The Carpenters



I don't know why custody crap has to be so drawn out. My lawyer explained that it happens this way because at the beginning of the separation, heads are not clear. But what about the kids? I mean, they stay in limbo while the parents fight it out like they are some piece of property!

I admit I had a little bit of an upper hand in the beginning, because I saw this coming, planned it, and set it into motion. But I did not see coming this prolonged, bitter reaction from Joe.

I got this seemingly innocuous email from him this weekend:

To: sirschy
From: Joe
Subject: Jacob's baby book, vital information
Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 10:47:50 EDT


Copies of the appropriate pages from the baby book I'm assembling for Jacob will be in your work mailbox next week.

Complete and return them to me if you want your family represented in the book.

I believe you have Jacob's birth certificate and Social Security information. I need the papers you have to compare against the copies I've ordered. This is to complete my estate planning to benefit Jacob.

I will keep copies of these documents and also provide copies to the trustee and contingent trustee who will hold and disburse my bequests to Jacob, in accordance with my will, should I die while Jacob is a minor.

I'm not a stupid woman, and I knew he was fishing for something. Disburse? Bequest? Estate? The man lives in a $130,000 townhouse, for crying out loud. Filled with a bunch of mismatched Lenox. And a great collection of Rubbermaid he won't return to me, I might add.

I did have Jacob's birth certificate and SS card. I didn't take much that night I left, and I don't know what on earth made me go take THAT envelope, of all things. Perhaps because, in my subconscious mind, I knew it would be by far the hardest thing to pry from Joe. Those two documents, to him, represent some kind of ownership of the boy. He had hidden them from me, but I knew where they were.

I would bet a lot of money that the moment I pulled out of his driveway that night, he made a beeline to see if he still had them.

Normally I ignore these fishing emails, but I saw the opportunity to get something I wanted too:

To: joe
From: sirschy
Subject: Re: Jacob's baby book, vital information
Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 10:52:54 -0700 (PDT)


How about disbursing some of that wealth to him now? If you are going to pay half his medical and day care expenses as you said you would, you owe me $326 for April. This is at least my second request. Please don't make me keep asking.

I am not interested in participating in your baby book at this time, but thank you for thinking of me.

I'm considering your request for the documents.

He couldn't help himself with his typical snarky comment, which rolled right off me:

To: sirschy
From: joe
Subject: Re: Jacob's baby book, vital information
Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 19:13:33 EDT


Another thing to litigate? Great. Let's see who runs out of money first. By the way, how much did you give me for Jacob's college plan?

But then, he stepped it up. Not 10 minutes later, I got this:

To: sirschy
From: joe
Subject: Re: Jacob's baby book, vital information
Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 19:23:06 EDT


A double thank you, by the way:

1. For confirming you have the documents. That's all I wanted to know.

2. For not giving me information about a bunch of people Jacob will never know and won't care a whit about. Geez, even more of your family is in the cemetery than mine, and you're 20 years younger than me. Must be those master race genes, eh fraulein?

Oooooh, low blows.

I am no longer afraid of him actually being able to take my son from me, but the whole stance he has -- and the absolute will he has to get his son at any cost -- disturbs me to no end.

This was on top of a series of emails we had before the weekend, where he demanded to know where I would be taking Jacob this weekend so he'd have the opportunity to object. Object? Object???

My lawyer said to tell him, in the spirit of communication. So I did: The only plans we had were attending a first communion picnic with my family for my cousin's daughter Saturday at 3. After about two emails fishing more information from me, I get this:

To: sirschy
From: joe
Subject: Re: Jacob Thursday PM-Friday AM
Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 12:06:35 -0400


It's OK with me if we add my right to know about Jacob's contacts and activities to the list of things to be litigated. The list is so long already, what's another item? The information you provided is inadequate, by the way.

What the fuck does he want to know?? A guest list? The complete menu served? The latitude and longitude of my aunt's house??

I just ignored it. I think my days of "in the spirit of communication" are over.

A sense of doom

"Life goes easy on me
Most of the time."

-- The Blower's Daughter, Damien Rice



The most bizarre sequence of events happened today.

Joe and I had a meeting with each other and our lawyers on Monday. We reached an agreement where I could see Jacob more often to breastfeed him, and since my milk has gone way down, I should have been thrilled to have the chance to get it back, right? Except that one of the ways I have to see Jacob is to go to Joe's house, GO INTO HIS HOUSE, and feed the baby.

I woke up thinking about this today. That I will have to take Zoe with me. And what a fucking stress this is, that nothing about this agreement is easy. I get to provide a valuable service to one kid, but then, who knows what I'm about to do to the other one.

And I just didn't want to do it. I angled for and got what I wanted, and now, I didn't want to do it.

I didn't have Jacob this morning, so Zoe and I got out of the house in a timely manner. BUT I COULDN'T HELP FEELING LIKE MY RIGHT ARM WAS MISSING. Did I get the bottles? Oh, I don't have to. Did I change his diaper? Oh, he's not here.

I don't know how I made it to Zoe's school. I was in a daze.

At work, I wrote a rambling manifesto to my lawyer and sent it off. It went on about Joe something this and Joe something that, that I was willing to eat mac'n'cheese for the rest of my life and spend my money instead on paying to feed this guy's family if he would make sure I could have my son with me forever.

It was like... all my ends were loose. All of them.

I got my very first post-preggers period Monday, in the middle of the meeting with Joe -- I'm not fucking kidding, I get the go-ahead to reproduce in the middle of litigating my son with that man -- and for anyone who has bad periods, imagine your worst flow times five. There was none of that normal pain, but there's just a lot of ... yeah, that stuff.

So, I'm hitting the send button on this diatribe to my lawyer today, when I suddenly realize every woman's worst fear. Yeah. My crotch is bathed in blood. I'm sitting at work, and I'm in trouble.

I headed for my car. Did not pass go. Did not collect $200.

And .... I'm OUT OF GAS.

Not totally out of gas, I made it to a gas station, but I had to take my messy self out of the car and stand there waiting for my gas tank to fill, and let me tell you, gas doesn't flow any faster when you've got blood pooling in your shoes.

$2.89 a gallon didn't make it any more bearable.

This whole trip home, I'm having the wildest thoughts. Foremost was the conversation I'd have to have with my boss if he called and asked me where the hell I was. I drove past the day care where my baby boy was, then I drove past the school where my daughter was attending her studies, and I realized I was bawling.

It was all just so surreal.

I called my counselor when I got to my house. Surely he would know what was wrong with me. I felt like I could snap at any moment. Snap, and do what, I didn't know. I was starting to imagine this is what people who jump off bridges feel like before they do it.

I got the therapist's voice mail. "John, please call me back and talk me off this ledge."

And 15 minutes later, just when I was driving past the baby's day care back to work, he did call me back. And he talked me off the ledge.

I pulled over in the car and gushed to him. Your body is going through changes, he told me. You're juggling so much at once. He told me some breathing exercises and told me to call my physician, because when I begged him to give me something, ANYTHING, I learned for the first time, he's not one of THOSE counselors who can dole out the happy pills.

I was better when I hung up. But I was still shaking and light-headed and fully realizing I was in some altered mental state, so I kept telling myself that when I crossed the bridges to get back to work, I was NOT to get out of my car for ANY reason.

I slipped back into work, unnoticed I don't know, and shortly after, my lawyer called me to respond to the rambling message I had emailed him. I went into a nearby conference room and listened to him; if he knew I was sobbing, he didn't let on.

He told me a little about what people in my situation go through, he told me Joe's side too, about the initial reactions and the process of catharsis and how they schedule mediation a few months out just for this reason, so all these feelings can pan out and reason can be introduced...

And then he put a name to my exact problem: separation anxiety.

I miss my baby so fucking much.

As soon as he said that, I felt like... like I wanted to find the nearest person who I liked and ask for a hug and get back to work.

I wasn't healed, but I felt like I could gather up a few of those loose ends, and to at least remember to change my tampon every hour.