The dog is sick.  Projectile squirts every 20 minutes.  Vet says just a stomach disorder.  You think? I was hoping I’d get a reprieve from the multiple outs all night for pee and now this.  Isn’t he ready for the big bye-bye?

Strange rifle shaped shadows on the floor as I get up to check everyone’s blankets.  Odd, I think, what’s making those shadows?  Slipping around them, I re-cover your chilly feet and uncover Ellie’s sweaty head. Through the kitchen I stop and curiously poke at the shadow, its wet and UGH smells like…yes.  It is liver-colored streaks and puddles all over the floor, shot from a rifle and in its image.  Hot towels, vinegar, water and dry.  An hour and a half later I can still smell it on my hands.

You miss all the excitement, because it happens all night.  After you are in bed.  But lately, buddy you have been awakening, can’t sleep, fears of storm, growling animals and mean faces.  Last night Grandpa got home from his work trip and you slipped in bed next to him, needle sharp nails, pointy knees and icy feet.  I willingly tucked your feet between my thighs and fell asleep.  Grandpa moaned, exhaled deeply until I scooped you up and returned you to your bed, next to sissy who was jabbering in her sleep.

Your teacher said you were aggressive and uncooperative on Wednesday.  About time, I thought.  Oh, dear, she said; wondering about medication making you irritable, changes in your life.  CHANGES?  Jeeze.  Talk about changes.  Give you a break.  Look who your classmates are.  The biggest change they deal with is that their nanny added a purple streak in her hair. I am unsettled, so you certainly must be. You call out telling me something is growling at you and an ugly kind of face is there.  Me, I tell you.  I am snoring too loud.  Sorry.  Maybe don’t sleep with me when grandpa’s gone.  I’m just too loud. That happens when I am out of sorts, sleepless and overly tired.  Sorry.  Maybe that’s what’s up with you, too.

Liza sure seems to be doing well.  Her vocabulary increases daily with clearer pronunciation always a surprise. Down, down down goes the bathwater.  Dink, for drink.  Eat, eat, eat from E-E-E just last week.  Oh Dear. Funny, she says and squinches her face in a silly way. Mmmm, da kitchen. You and I say, mmmm, sumpthin from the kitchen! You find delight in her capability and also find it confusing.  You used to be the one to scramble the eggs, the only one to stand at the counter helping cook and the only one on my lap.  And sometimes you struggle with that, squeeze her out, snatch things or cry to do it too.  Were figuring it out and trying to keep it positive that Liza can do new things everyday.  We celebrated the other day that Ellie kept her shoes on in the car.  We did a “happy dance” together when we got home and sissy seemed proud of herself. But today, well, growth occurs in irregular spurts.  (Kind of like Metro’s you know what-no, not really.  I am gross sometimes.) Love you, have a good day at school, get a nap so you can be kind to your friends. gma

You tell me your cold is better-allergies? So you go to school to deliver Valentine’s on which you wrote each child’s and teacher’s names. You just did it (school provided the printed list). Each name was artistically rendered, letters inside of one another, next to and between, each fit on its 5X5 envelope every which way. I wonder what I want to teach you? I think about that now. And then you just do something like this. The “G” you tell me is really cool. Because, you explain, there’s a stick across a capital “G” for the birds to stand and eat their seeds. You are a delight and daily amaze me. I remember the day you told me that it was very hard to catch your cough on your elbow because it pointed way out and your cough couldn’t reach it. Okay, let’s call it your arm inside your elbow. Got it. Not try to cough on the pointy part.

You and Liza and Grandpa and I went to eat at a neighbor’s last night, playing with the dogs, the big rubber balls and each other. I think I have to focus on fostering sweet sibling relations. I have to teach you more than an elbow cough. There must be some important things like that I’m missing. You tell people thank you for things they give you on your own, say you are sorry, kiss sissy after smacking her and pet the dog after kicking him. You have some of the bones now let’s grow you up in the next few years and just see what I forgot to think about and what you bring on your own.

Grandpa’s gone for a few days. He left to fly on an airplane, just had to, he said. Just want to I said. He can barely hobble around. Have a safe trip leaving me here with my little charges. After the last blog (it was like that horrible tummy ache where you finally let it fly and ahhhhh. I released all that foul and nasty stuff so I can move on). I am so much more relaxed today. We’ll see. Where’s the grandma raising grandkids support group?

Happy Valentine’s Day, buddy. Hope you are having a lovely time with your friends. You can give your valentine to mommy and daddy when you get home or when we see them…I haven’t seen your mommy in three or four days, actually.  This is hard to figure out.  Then a lady named Haylie knocked on the door today looking for your mommy.  Weird.  All is weird. gma

In a wood trimmed, light-deprived, bamboo-floored monster cave, the walls drool as new teeth pierce through tender skin. The monsters find comfort in the reek of poopy diapers, rotten sweetness of perfumed wipes, soured yogurt, over-ripe bananas and broccoli steamed three days ago.  The sink is a compost of each days leavings, spattered with milk, crusts of peanut buttered bread and grandma’s Earl Grey.  My back is an old fruit, weak and rotting at the core. The monsters are gone. Left to go someplace; jackets, bunny snacks, blowing kisses and a water bottle  Not sure where they are- my fuzzy mind forgets a minute ago and can’t plan past the end of each day’s night-night tantrum.

Relentless claws of a trapped animal works my gut, a swill of a caustic and nasty broth bubbles up a  tea of resentment. Abrasive shards of anger, resignation, guilt-ridden reflection stab at the soft tissue surrounding my heart.  My temples throb and pulse as each monster child squeals, dragging across the floor snot globs gluing dog hair to their cheeks.

Liza’s toddler rage, her own sadness and frustration sucks the center from my previously reliable compass- sends it spinning, and me dizzily ready to flee.  Being stuck here is the worse part, I told my husband.  But its not.  It’s not seeing the end to the “stuck”.  Sanity requires that there is one.  Is indeed, an end.  Not just a developmental shift, not accommodation or adaptation.  A change in attitude helps with coping.  But I cannot do this anymore.  I need a change in this daily life.  A healthy change in which everyone survives seems best, but today that seems unlikely.  And  there will be casualties. Fling them to the floor, drag them by their feet, toss them in the bath knocking their heads on the soapdish. Stay sit do not move, I shout, like they are dogs.

My belly’s raked with searing pain, head throbbing-through dry blurry vision I see a open-mouthed screeching monster ringing her hands, washing her head and arms with the oatmeal I prepared an hour earlier and evidently left too close to the edge of the counter. The bowl drops, crashing glops flip onto the cabinet face,  on the refrigerator, and under the door.  I keep writing. Ginormous feet rake their claws across the floor, dragging the stickiness with them, then regaining balance, palsied hands grope the cabinets, just fresh-cleaned, scrubbed free of jam glue and peanut butter the color of crap. One bath a day isn’t enough to wash them clean from the scary place in my mind, and send one shrunken form at a time, oatmeal-free down the drain.

Organic oats, the flake-type, because steel-cut aren’t her favorite, fresh grated Granny Smith apples, a dash of cinnamon, steeped in yogurt and water, cooled with organic whole milk.  Set into a steaming dish before the prickly princess who has captured my psyche, punctured my spirit and seized my last precious moments; snatched, sneezed upon, smeared and squashed, then gobbled up by the handful.  Screeching, screaming, growllllll, and fling back to the floor, head banging, like a fall from the menopausal swingset, an unpredictable rage! All this feeling attained in a mere 17 months of life. The scariest of the fire-breathing monsters, screams dousing my nightscape and dares to emerge again by day.

How does one cope, really?  I think about that too much.  I have a lot of inborn coping by temperament and more collected by life experience.  But by this I am undone.  The fabric of me can only handle this much kneading, clawing, pulling until it droops, weakens and tears. Then falls to the ground and crashes.  What happened?  How am I different than last week?  Well, last week I had a plan.  I had fooled myself into thinking that by May or June when we moved into the house, there would be change.  Then a nanny and her family would move into the cottage here to be on-call for the kids, to support your daddy and mommy in their roles.  Be here for us maybe a trade-plus salary arrangement, I could see a tiny prick of light at the other end of the cave.  And then the rocks tumbled down.  My naivety, economics and reality, I guess it is, hit me like a dust cloud during a landslide.

The parents are not showing up.  The parents are not working on this, not developing. The parents are not good for these kids and there are no other relatives and the lady at the grocery store that mentioned she wished she’d been able to have children, was shocked when I told her she could have these kids. With grave dis-ease, she shook me off, shrugged and turned her shoulders away from me and I stared at her until she left my view. My horse is gone. I gave Roxie to Efren, the insulation installer from Gilroy, so why not give away the kids?  The woman seemed nice, was buying healthy foods and drove a Subaru with ample space for two car seats.

We’ve run our construction account dry.  We’ll take a break until we can get more funds together in July, then re-start it.  Maybe September.  September.  OMG.  I can’t bear the thought of that many crying mornings, tantrum nights and back strains, stomach aches and pints of snot woven with dog hair and fingernail trimmings.  The project kept me sane.  The project kept me plugged in to adults, meetings, appointments, to the other life.  Kept me interested.  Creative. Engaged.  I am lost.  The cave deepens, darkens and grows cold.  Then Grandpa fell off his mule, hurt his back, sits in the house talking to colleagues, using the house phone, tripping babies with his crutch, and traps dust bunnies underthose dominant slippers on vacuuming day. My space is gone.  My solace, too.  And you are sick with asthsma, snotty, smart with night terrors from whiffed medicines and sleeping in our room with the grandpa who needs help getting up between the crying child the peeing dog and Ellie’s 5 am- I’m tired. And I am mean.

The fire-breathing dragon with sharp claws and toenails in need of a trim, has wild grey hair and no time for a shower. She dominates the cave; pushing away the baby, dropped on her butt when she wriggles to save her own spiny back, steps on a child-sized finger, snaps a pinched belly into the car seat clasp, stops her brother from hitting (usually) and serves the soup too hot.  I’m not good at this.  The grandma is gone.  She’s retired.  Tired again. A mean wrinkled fucker with scales and bad breath has taken her place. And become the meanest cave monster you have ever met.  gma