It's Gonna Pop

I was lying in bed with Lilly the sleeping Easter Egg on my chest, listening to her breathe. We haven't had a moment to relax on this Easter break, running running, the kids are really into all this activity stuff, why is that? It's like let's do everything, EVERYTHING before eight a.m. and then let's keep going. On vacation in San Diego, I really noticed this, my kids are really into being in motion at every living second. They pop out of bed ready for action, why aren't we at breakfast yet? It's 7:02. Why are we sitting here steps from the bed with our hair a mess? We should be down there NOW. If Nathan ran the world there would be many many more suicides. He's running the family like he's in charge of his own highly organized multi-million dollar Japanese company. And we are the terrible, terrible, sloth-like crap American slacker workers he has been sent as a punishment.

If he was in charge of the schedule there would be no time for walking, let alone getting dressed. He is ready to go at every moment of every second. Even while sleeping. If he's doing something, he's already ready to be doing something else, and he's irritated that he's not doing a third thing in his spare time between rapid breaths. I've learned to reign him in slightly, by giving him all the mind-dulling chores I didn't feel like doing. Hey, go to the ice machine and fill up the ice chest. It's downstairs. He made three trips happily, and it took twenty minutes. We were both satisfied with that arrangement.

The other day, after coming back from what I found to be an exhausting walk with the dogs, running through a big empty field near our house, where the kids climbed on construction equipment and threw rocks and rode bikes over dirt hills, and picked up trash to look at, we get back to the house, only steps inside the house, and now can we play tee ball? They look at me like they never even went on the walk. Like we've been sitting in prison for ten years. I found the walk way over my exercise limit for the day, and I spent most of it sitting on a pile 0f dirt in the vacant lot nursing the baby while they did all the climbing and exploring.

I remind them that hey we just went on a walk and they shrug and their idea then, to relax and kill time is to then jump rope for fifteen minutes straight. NO LIE. Emma does this interspersed with doing handstands and cartwheels, while also talking to herself and putting on a dance show. Nathan usually looks for something to dig up or hammer, or find other loud alternatives in the house like, oh wait, digging and hammering.

So our vacation was like our life at home, on steroids. We ate breakfast made entirely of different processed sugar, went on a walk next to the beach to the park, juggled, played catch, went on swings, climbed, walked and rode scooters back to the hotel, went swimming, ran inside, back out, went to the beach, where they climbed rocks, ran into the water in March, swam, dug in sand, found shells, climbed rocks again, back to the hotel, back in the pool, back in the room, walk to the town to eat...at this point I'm staring at them because I can't fathom that we have done all this and I'm still alive, and they are finally looking glassy eyed, it's 7 p.m., the beach has kicked their ass, they look like they've been run over, and now we have to eat and make it back to the hotel, and it takes forever and they yes, they are beginning to stop asking to do the next thing, there are pajamas, there are bare feet climbing into bed, there is talking and there is sleep.

So it's two days later and we're home and everyone's asleep and the Easter bunny is coming, and I was lying in bed with Lilly on my chest waiting for all the bad night thoughts to come, like all the things I haven't solved yet, and all the worry and fear, and I thought about making a grateful list instead. About how Emma won the coloring contest at the easter egg hunt, and Nathan won a chocolate bunny and how Emma's tooth is loose, and Lilly's top tooth is coming in, Nathan hit a home run at tee ball practice, and Emma cried in the middle of practice because of all the yelling but then she got it together and got back in the game and how I taught both Nathan and Emma to blow bubbles with bubble gum in traffic on the way back from San Diego, and Nathan's handwriting on his postcard to Bruce, and how Emma is good at everything she tries, and she tries stuff, and how Lilly is really a person this week. She says "Da Da" for everything. Dogs are "Dada" quick, and Daddy is "DA DEE" sometimes and DaDa is bye bye and if you try to take the dog leash out of her hand when she is not ready well watch out, she will get mad and cry, and she pulls up on things, and tries to crawl with these fat legs and her butt in the air, and she looks around for Nathan and Emma, she talks loudly in the car, she offers you stuff but takes it back, she'll empty out any container no matter how many times you refill it.

They're just full, every minute is a swollen water balloon bag of fun, and Nathan's at the faucet, cranking it up to full blast while Emma and Lilly are cheering him on and I'm on the side going "it's gonna pop --"