View from apartment

Big brothers rock

In Florida, while my precious angels lay sleeping, I sneaked out of the apartment to take morning runs on the beach in the soft pastel light.

On the first day, I ran by the beautiful Latino women in their sparkly sarongs, that did little to conceal their genetically beautiful bodies in their thong bikinis, and wondered if somebody was going to feel so inclined to free Willy and toss me back into the sea.

By the end of the trip, my clothes had dwindled and I had become more like a wild, uncontainable beast, pushing myself as hard as I could to run away the worry that was building as my departure day approached.

Michele arrived with my two nieces the day before we had to leave and I immediately felt the magic of family kick in to lift my anxiety.

When I am together with my mother, my sisters and all of the children, life transports me to a much happier, safer place. All we were missing was Melanie-Mouse and her two children and Devon, whose racing skis and boots are glued to his feet these days, to make it complete.

The next day, as we were preparing to leave to drive to the airport, Michele and I were lamenting that we did not plan the trip right by adding more overlapping days. I mentioned that I was sorry that my timing was so bad that we were also leaving a day before her birthday and that is when she looked at me strangely. “My birthday is not for another two days,” she said in confusion and our eyes locked as we registered my mistake.

I dropped the bags to the ground. “Does this mean, your not leaving?” she asked, her sadness rapidly turning to concern at the realization that our energy, our mess and our tight sleeping quarters were actually remaining for another two days.

“You can’t be serious? Not only were you not scheduled to leave today, but you aren’t even leaving tomorrow?” She said in complete disbelief and we got the giggles at how completely ridiculous I can be at times. I was so worried about coming home that I absentmindedly shortened the trip by two days.

Michele, being the most put together of any of us, is constantly in awe that she was placed in such a dysfunctional family with a younger sister who constantly makes her question her genetic make up and an older sister with a compulsive obsession for fashion and rock stars. Thankfully, she loves us and welcomes the entertainment factor, of which she contributes greatly to.

It was like buying time with two glorious days added to the itinerary, even if they were there from the start, and we walked for miles and miles on the beach with my mother and the children, having races, photo shoots, exploring sandbars, finding starfish and coconuts, and searching for a place to get Virgin Pina Coladas. Life was good, and relaxing, and trouble free.

And now, as I sit back home at my desk staring at the pile of unattended bills I absorb the reality that we have no choice but to put our dream house on the market.

Nevertheless, I remain loyal to my deranged self, hovering somewhere between denial and reality while arranging for the impending arrival of our puppy in ten days.

After all the anticipated build up for Muki, there is no way that I can go back on my promise now. The damage is done and there is no going back, plus I stay firm in my belief that the boys need a dog, even if it means that I will have to get a life prescription for a very strong pain killer for both Wade and I.

I think that before I begin to hyperventilate, I need to get some fresh air and embrace the change in temperature. Don’t be surprised if you find me disoriented and still in my beach clothes as I make my way up the Aspen Highlands Bowl dreaming about how nice it would be to get the best of both worlds and dive into an expansive ocean when I reached the top.

I saw a man that I know from the children’s school the other day. He was pushing one of those un-maneuverable racecar shopping carts with his two little boys gleefully air driving in the front.

When I commented on how sweet they looked he retorted, “Yeah, they can be sweet sometimes,” and I couldn’t relate more.

He continued to say what everybody says, “boys are high energy when they are young but girls give you hell when they become teenagers.”

“Really,” I said. “My sister’s and I were relatively easy on our parents,” right Melanie, Mommy and Tutti? (If you haven’t noticed yet, my family often comments on my posts)

He went on to say, “Boys just try to kill themselves by being reckless with their bodies, girls don’t listen and do things that can be life altering,” and that made me feel oh so much better.

The other night, Brevitt and I were wrestling together, he in his red footsie pajamas, a popular trend at school. We lay on top of each other laughing as he smooshed my face into “hilarious” positions and a memory of my sister, Michele, flashed into my head. Her now fourteen year old was five and he was lying on top of her soaking in all of her love and it reminded me that I must hold on to this moment for as long as possible because soon, real soon, Brevitt will not feel comfortable with feeling me so close to him. We lay there forever wrapped in each others arms as he told me a whole lot of insightful information about his friends, school and life in general.

The next day I went to my friends house to pick up my boys. They were playing their favorite sport, dodgeball, down in her basement with her two sons. It sounded as if a sacrifice was being performed. When I went down to check on them a speeding ball whizzed by and landed smack into Axel’s face, which didn’t seem to phase him.

I walked upstairs and asked horrified, “Is this how people feel when they visit my house? Stunned and psychologically disturbed by all of the noise and energy? It is no wonder why I don’t have many visitors anymore.”

As she sat there calmly reading the newspaper, she replied, “I love it….or at least, I have learned to embrace it.”

It is true that quite often I reach a breaking point with my boys and need to tell them that, “mommy is closed”. It is my dysfunctional way of getting a brief respite from all of the chaos.

But I will say this, when I am outside with the boys, or when we are indoors and they are being sweet and calm, they are my entertainment and my companions, filling the house with laughter and there is nobody in the world who I would rather be with.

In two to five years from now they will transform into different beings and I will have to connect with them on a different scale. For now though, I’ll embrace them and all of their energy and wrap them into my arms as much as they will allow, when I’m not reprimanding them for riding their bikes down the enormous ski ramp that Wade built in our backyard. Anybody care to share their Xanax with me????

Ooohhh baby are we in for the long haul with Brevitt being a tween, en force. He is giving us a run for our money or maybe that is the wrong expression since we don’t have any money at the moment.

As you know I have been dying to get away, anywhere so when Wade told me that he was going to wake up early Saturday morning to drive down to Rifle to pick up his trailer I informed him that we were all coming with him. Rifle is about as exciting as it sounds but there are a few attractions there that we have never seen, so off we went.

I got a sense of what it would be like to kidnap a child as we picked Brevitt up from his sleepover and demanded that he sit his bottom down in the truck and damn well enjoy this family outing that we were taking.

He lay down in the back seat leaving barely any room for his brothers and moaned and groaned about how dull it was going to be to drive to Rifle when he could be mountain biking with his friend. Finally I turned around and told him how lucky he was that he had a family that wanted him to be with them and that if he was going to be a good traveler he needed to learn that traveling was all about the journey and not always the end result.

Well the journey turned out to not be so grand as our rambunctious kids made a whole lot of unbearable noises in the back seat. When Wade wasn’t air slapping them as he drove he was tuning all of us out absent-mindedly playing air guitar to Pat Benatar, his mode of escape. “Isn’t this great?” I asked facetiously.

I should have let Wade linger in his flashback from his teenage years because bringing him back to reality only gave him credence to yell at the kids and issue two strikes out for bad behavior.  “One more strike and no ice cream for you”, Baddy menacingly warned.

His no tolerance rules were a hell of a lot more affective than my new age counseling, telling them to count to ten whenever they felt angry before they let a word loose that they would regret.

We parked the truck and ate a depressing picnic in the freezing cold weather. In the first ten minutes Axel cried twice and Brevitt got reprimanded both times. The sun peaked out and the walk began putting us all in better spirits. We skipped and sang to The Wizard of Oz until we reached the water falls, which exceeded my expectations. I closed my eyes and was transported to our trip to Hawaii where Wade and I frolicked about Blue Lagoon style. The spell was broken when I heard Wade shouting at the boys to stop throwing rocks down the water fall and possibly knocking somebody out below. That’s all we needed was to be responsible for some innocent tourists concussion.

We explored the calcite caves around the falls with our headlamps and I couldn’t help but think of Gollum from The Hobbit living in a cave like these. I was also transported to Mexico where Wade and I swam in a Cenote in a cave in Mexico. I tried to stay present but I am a dreamer and can’t help myself.

Brevitt, in the end, had a marvelous time exploring and admitted that it was a good day, until he had his enormous ice cream and was transformed into a sugared up beast. The kid lives for the one thing that will destroy him one day.

I wasn’t happy with his piggish behavior as he lunged for his brother’s cones after finishing his. All I had to do was look at him with my disappointed glare and he crumbled into a sniveling mess and ran out the door.

Brevitt cannot recover from these tirades until he feels the love from me again and so I ran after him. “You, my little friend, cannot handle sugar”, I yelled to him as he ran away from me. The cars were passing by wondering why a grown up women would be chasing an insane beast down the sidewalk but I had been through this before. “This is my life”, I wanted to yell at them. “I’m sure yours is no better”!!!

Brevitt was taking photographs of his mum leaping through the air after skipping with the little ones.