My Seussical Life for 2004 September

Since the start of fall semester, life has been good, just busybusybusy. I haven't neglected writing because I lack the time, just the mental stamina. By the end of the day I can hardly muster the attention span to do much more than rote tasks, let alone write blogs that I over-deliberate on anyway. But, I wanted to re-enter the world of the virtually living tonight with a small story about Atticus. I had just taken a fillet of marinated salmon out the fridge and put it on the table to sit for a minute while I prepped some other ingredients for dinner. Then, I heard Atticus relishing the raw fish: "Mmmmm, Mom, this chicken is so delicious!" I looked over at him, a soy sauce smile stretched across his face, and he had the entire two pound fillet in his hands like a giant slice of pizza, a bite carved out of the edge.

I spent almost three hours of this day at the hospital and pediatrition's office. During lunch, Atticus pushed Samuel, who fell flat on his face on the hard linoleum floor. There was blood and crying and Samuel's nose and upper lip swelled badly. We went to Lawrence Memorial Hospital for x-rays, and then to our doctor to decipher the images. Dr. Riordan wasn't in, so we saw another pediatrition who informed us that Samuel has "severe facial trauma with no fracture." Samuel is very sensitive about his poor nose, and will likely have two black eyes by the morning.

I am trying not to be too hard on Atticus. That's the hard part of everything. After all, twas I who casually tripped Kristen, who fell brow first into a marble stair. I didn't intend to hurt her, only to tease her and make her look clumsy. Surely, Atticus didn't intend cause "severe facial trauma" either. What goes around comes around, I suppose. I'm getting my just desserts for being a mean big sister.

I just got back from swimming my laps. My shoulders and arms are really tired today, from swimming but also from lifting Atticus and Samuel to reach the basketball net at the Aquatics Center earlier this afternoon. I love swimming because of all the sounds of water and quiet. It is a very restful sport. I try to focus on things sometimes, like my form as I take strokes, or sometimes I feel how my body is pulling its weight through the water. It is a very tranquil practice. My favorite thing to do is memorize poems. This is tricky because I'm in the water. Obviously I don't have a book in front of me, but I try to have a few stanzas or such that I let run through my mind over and over. Then I can think about how the words are arranged, what the phrases mean, what images are conjured up by the poem. Tonight I was thinking of the poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider," by Walt Whitman.

This morning I picked up a pile of clothes left after morning showers when I heard a scattering, like that of a small mouse. There was no mouse, but a very large, very scary spider. Who knows how long this spider--a wolf spider--had been living in my bathroom, but he lives there no more. I caught him in a mason jar, showed him off to our neighbors, and released him into the wild (a corn field near the Aquatics Center). Atticus found all of this extremely exciting.

I feel like I am continually head-butting with Atticus. The power-of-wills fight does nothing for a trip to the grocery store, let alone a parent/ child relationship. Right now I am completely drained of patience and there is no end in sight. AHHHHH!

I was having a meltdown yesterday, and I'm kind-of embarrassed now for venting online. Dave came home at 4:00 from studying, I went out for a sandwich at the Merc and had a break from the kids for a couple of hours. All is well, all is well.

Samuel is doing a lot of story-telling these days. One of my favorites that he repeats grew from an experience he had a week and a half ago when we went to the Deanna Rose Farmstead in Kansas City. This farm has a fenced into an area where visitors can enter and offer food pellets to about six eager and seemingly-starving goats. The goats were abnoxious and pesty the day we visited, but in a way that almost seemed cute. They amused me because their behaviour resembled that of two little runts I spend my days with--you know who I mean. One of the goats was so assertive, he grabbed the ziplock baggie of food out of my hand with his little teeth and then devoured the pellets when they fell out all over on the ground. Well, Samuel was very frightened by these goats (for good reason), and he sat on my hip clinging to me the whole five minutes it took to offer our dollar's worth of feed. At one point, while my attention was not on Samuel, a goat came over and bit into his shirt, tugging for his attention. Samuel now reminds us of this over and over, saying, "Goat!" He then pulls at his shirt saying, "shirt!" Then he covers his mouth with his two hands, shruggs his shoulders to his ears, and giggles with hilarity. The moment wasn't funny to him at the time, but Samuel continues to laugh about it now. So. . . if you see him soon, and he looks at you and says "Goat!," you'll know the story he is telling, and you'll be able to laugh along with him.