Dear Parks,

It’s getting colder outside and I love the change. It will be the first Christmas where you actually understand there is something “different” going on and I can’t wait to see your face the first time you see a Christmas tree, or get to open a present, or dig through your stocking, or wake up on Christmas morning and see what Santa has brought to you with no knowledge that Santa is actually your dad wandering around in his boxers trying to find the ONE DAMN SCREW that holds THE WHOLE DAMN THING TOGETHER. You know, THAT screw. The one I’m pretty sure I probably threw away because your dad left it sitting in a half-empty coffee mug on top of the mantel taped to a spoon. Because that’s how he categorizes “important” things. AS IF ONE WOULD KNOW.

I’ve always been partial to the fall. My whole life I’ve been that way. When the first cool breeze hits the air and I feel the wind shift, things get clearer and clearer and are covered with less pollen and haze; it’s like I can see the world better. I feel as if an oppressive lingering heat depression lifts off my shoulders and I can conquer the world. I then make approximately two thousand commitments to people to keep my racing brain occupied and I already start to think about how the world will be different next summer. It won’t be as hot and I’ll be willing to get outside and run around with you. Missing the one fact that I’ve always hated summer, will continue to hate summer, and probably shouldn’t tell you that I’m pretty sure-after much reflection- I hate the summer because I was a fat kid and I didn’t want to be forced to wear the clothing that showed everyone how “fat “of I kid I was.

Also, I hate the smell of cut grass.

Your dad says this makes me Un-American. I think it actually makes me “Un-Un-American” as most of the Hispanics I know are usually cutting some sort of grass as the rest of us “Americans” can’t be bothered. And, oh, WE HATE THE SMELL.

We took you to the State Fair for the first time this year and figured out that you LOVE Pygmy Goats just about as much as you love the cats. Like, a REALLY WHOLE LOT. And, not in an “I like pygmy goats in a scary sort of child molester” way but in an “I really, really, really like a pygmy goat” sort of way. Judging from the way you reacted when we removed you from the presence of a pygmy goat, your dad and I need to purchase one just so we can have four uninterrupted hours of TV watching time on Friday nights. All that seems to be required is handing you a sack of sliced carrots and the leash to a brown pygmy goat. At least, I imagine that a pygmy goat would be on a leash. Who knows, right? I’m assuming there’s a carnie out there that knows but I’m not going to ask them. Mainly because I'm pretty sure there is more than one carnie out there that spent four hours on a Friday night with nothing but a bag of carrots and a pygmy goat to entertain them. And, due to that, they can keep their knowledge about pygmy goats on leashes to themselves.

So, you’ll have to live with your pygmy goat on a leash and LIKE IT, missy, you hear me? Now here are some carrots and go outside and let your dad and I watch Bill Maher and eat cookies and refried beans.

Lately (okay…like FOREVER AGO), you’ve become a hot mess of flinging whole-body-limp-going screaming fits of rage and tears…so almost two? We can’t take you anywhere. We figured this out in vivo-as they say-at a restaurant two weeks ago when your father and I made the erroneous assumption that we could peaceably take you into a restaurant, sit down, order, and eat a cheeseburger in some form of peace. After all, we’d been doing it for the past 15 months with no issue whatsoever. I’ll pause a minute for the seasoned parents to stop laughing.

They are laughing because they know we made a rookie mistake. The “rookie mistake” of believing that just because we could do anything TWO SECONDS AGO does not mean that we can do it NOW, as in RIGHT NOW, as in TWO SECONDS LATER. Because, in that two seconds, your brain formed different neurons that decided that event could NEVER BE ALLOWED AGAIN EVER-until eighteen years later when we’re beaten, saggy, defeated, and wondering at what point DHS won’t put us in jail if we decide you have to sleep under the house. Can you tell I haven’t been sleeping? What day is it? I can’t remember. WHERE’S YOUR FATHER?

Anyway, halfway through the meal I texted your Nana, “We have reached the point of restaurant melt downs”. She had the foresight to realize that this situation was probably not funny to me…YET. That maybe this was one of those situations that was going to take a few weeks to be funny, one of THOSE kinds of situations. You know, like the kind of situations where you turn on the gas stove and accidentally set your head on fire and it’s not really funny until you realize that your eyebrows will grow back and those sort of melted looking ears aren’t that bad. Because Nana didn’t text back anything. Not a DAMN WORD of “advice”. This is not usual behavior for your Nana as she usually has advice about everything and-in fact-gets paid by people to give them this advice in “therapy”. I’m glad your Nana didn’t text back because, at that point, anything she said would have garnered a response that pretty much sounded like, “EFF. YOU. I want a cheeseburger. I’m at pre-pregnancy weight. And I have I told you to go fuck yourself today, yet? ”

But she didn’t and I didn’t and all sat well between the two of us for a while.

Your Nana hasn’t been keeping you every weekend due to other obligations. So, your father and I are getting a break every OTHER weekend (poor us, I know, right?). Therefore, your Nana hasn’t had you spend the night at her house in over two weeks. That’s a LOT longer than two seconds, isn’t it? Are you catching my drift here?

So, Nana-not taking heed to my earlier text concerning restaurant behavior-woke up this morning obviously feeling very SASSY as you had slept all night and she wanted pancakes. She decided since everyone was so well rested and there’s a Cracker Barrel right up the interstate from their lovely abode that she would travel, you included, to said Cracker Barrel, sit down, and eat a calm and perfectly reasonable breakfast of pancakes while you sat in a high chair and glowed like the small angel that you are. In her mind, I'm pretty sure there were even blue birds floating around your head farting flowers that smelled like rainbows.

HA. TWO SECONDS, NANA. THERE WILL BE NO RAINBOW-SMELLING FLOWER-FARTING BLUE BIRDS HERE.

I was unaware that this was happening this morning as I was busy enjoying twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. I know, my body was like, “WTF? Are we in a Turkish Prison? Why have we been laying down this long? And while we are at it, who is this man lying beside me that isn’t wearing a diaper?”

Right when I was about to wonder out loud when the “dogs were being brought in”, I remembered where I was and my name. I then realized that my body had been asleep for a full twelve hours. It is about this EXACT time that your escapade at the restaurant two weeks earlier became amusing to me.

So, what was EXTRA amusing to me today, you ask?

Well, when I texted Nana my usual Sunday morning question of, “How’s that baby?”

This is the text I got in response:


“Slept great. We tried to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast-BIG MISTAKE. Great nap. Has some diarrhea. Little fussy now.”

I read it and I realized-except for that sleeping part-that Nana had pretty much summed up your entire last two weeks in five sentences and did you see how it took me, like, a bazillion? Nana’s much more talented than I am. And other than that, I think that might be the funniest text I’ve ever gotten. It’s like the telegram version of a status update, isn’t it?

But, I’m going to give her a couple of weeks before I tell her how funny I really think it is.

(I'm thinking its going to take even longer for her to think you pooping in the bathtub the last time you spent the night was even funnier)


Love,
Mom