Angie Kinghorn

Bathroom revelations and the Effing Fours

All our earth-shattering revelations seem to take place in the bathroom.  Recently, while bathing the kids, Mark and I listened to them chatter.  They have a favorite new twin game, tentatively titled Make Up a Hypothetical and Then Argue About It.  Whoever cries first loses.
I can’t remember which hypothetical brought on the hysteria that night.  It was either A’s, “We’re gonna go on a train someday.  So I’ll go first with Mommy, and then Daddy and G can go.”  
G: “No, I wanna go first!”  
A: “No, because I’m going first with Mommy.”
G: “Noooooooo!”
Or it could have been G’s, “I a shark.  You’re a unicorn.”  
A: “No!  I’m a mermaid.  You’re the pirate.”
[Much splashing.]
G: “Grrrr!  I a shark!  I bite you!”
A: “No, you’re a pirate!”
G: “Shark!  Grrrr!  I is going to bite you, unicorn!”
A: “Aieeeeeee!!!!!”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a Faulkner novel.  Stream-of-consciousness,” Mark said.  Then the discussion turned to whether A would be dreaming about Care Bears or counting sheep.  She dissolved into tears, wailing that the sheep were an impossible task, as there were only 19.
“Or maybe Kafka,” he added, thoughtfully, rinsing G’s hair.  “A nightmare where nothing makes any sense.”
Like the fact that their olfactory senses have only recently picked up that it smells bad after  the other one goes to the bathroom.  Recently they both had to go, so they were arguing about who got to go first.  A won.  She’s a Tiger Daughter, y’all.
So G, who desperately had to go to the bathroom, was faced with the choice to go into a smelly bathroom….or not.  “It smells bad!” he wailed.  “I can’t go in there!”
“You’ll live,” I told him, as I helped A on with her pants.
“I won’t!  I won’t live!” he said, tears running down his cheeks.  “It’s too smelly!”
“Where will he go live?” A piped up.  “He won’t live with us anymore?”
At this point, he was on the edge of a tantrum, I was over the edge of a migraine, and all I wanted was for him to get his butt into the bathroom so he could go to bed.  So I picked him up and set him down in front of the toilet.
“Go.  To.  The.  Potty,” I said, in my very scariest Mommy voice.
“Noooooo!  I won’t live, I won’t!  I won’t!”
I shut the door.  “GO.  NOW.”
From behind the door came the sounds of a toilet lid being slammed repeatedly.  “If you break that toilet, I will break your–” don’t say ‘ass,’ don’t say ‘ass,’ — “bottom, young man!”
Yeah.  Motherhood is glamorous, people.  
In my attempts to capture this glamor, dear sweet Lord, but I write down a lot of stuff.  Anything writing-related, however tangentially, goes into a file on my laptop labeled “works in progress.”  Having perused it tonight, (all 126 pages of it), I will shortly be re-naming it “sentence fragments and random thoughts I meant to do something with but never did and which now make absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
It’s the twins.  If I could just catch a ten minute uninterrupted period of relative quiet, some of these ideas might spring into being.  Paragraphs might be completed.  Knock-your-socks of posts would get written.
Oh, hell, who am I kidding?  I would fall asleep at the keyboard.
The twins are now four, and we’re discovering the joys of four-hood.  You see, each stage of parenting brings with it a new set of problems.  Problems that you can add to the ever-expanding list of “Things Nobody Told Me Before I Decided To Procreate.”  
Everybody knows about the Terrible Twos.  But it’s only when you’re planning your child’s third birthday party that a dear soul with older children will lean in and stage whisper with poorly concealed glee, “You know, three is actually worse than two.”
Don’t blame the messenger.  She’s not just a bitch.  She’s a bitch who’s knee deep in a later, horrible stage with her children, possibly involving standardized testing, vampires, infectious mononucleosis, puberty, and Justin Beiber.  (Not puberty of Justin Beiber, but that of her own child plus music of the eternally pre-pubescent Beibster.  Didn’t want to cause hysteria.)  Anyway, she’s definitely dealing with more than you can possibly comprehend.  You’re freaking out over tantrums and nap schedules; she’s confiscating lighters and Victoria’s Secret catalogues.
Anyway, whatever the source: they’re right.  I must have blocked out the actual details, but three was far worse than two.  Naturally I expected things would get better when we hit four.
And then one day, having coffee with a friend, she leans in and says, “You know, four is even harder than three.  I have a friend who calls it the ‘Effing Fours.’”
Ok.  Hold up.
NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS.
And it’s abso-freaking-loutely true.
Four is the age where formerly charming children turn into teenagers.  Like, totally.  I’m so not making this up, dude.  Complete with shrugging, dramatic sighing, eyerolling, and “It’s not FAIR!”  It’s the age of entitlement.
I was expecting this.  At, say, thirteen.
To compound the fun, my kids are dropping their afternoon nap.  Most people laugh when I say this, because their kids haven’t napped since the age of two, but G and A have always needed naps.  They still need a nap.  It’s just not happening, what with the gorgeous weather we’ve been having and their sudden urges to swing from the chandelier and/or build the entire Island of Sodor in our living room.
Hence my scattered thoughts.  And words.
Y’all, if you’ve got kids that are still napping, hold on to it with all you’re worth.  You’ll never know how much that small chunk of time in the afternoon keeps you sane.  Until it’s gone.

Freefall

This is a memoir piece written for The Red Dress Club.

The prompt: imagine that you have died and your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see? Tell us about them in the finest detail.
The prompt comes with a 700 word limit.  This post squeaks in at 699.

**************************************

They say you find God in unlikely places.  In a stable, not a cathedral.  I remind myself of this as we stand trussed up on the tarmac, having indemnified the world against our own recklessness.
“Y’all call it a plane, I call it an antique,” I mutter under my breath.  No one can hear me over the noise of the propellers.  Propellers!  How…quaint.  
We have to climb an actual ladder to get in the thing, right past the cartoon Betty Boop painted on the fuselage. There are no seat backs or tray tables.  Hell, there aren’t even any seats, just metal benches lining both sides of the plane.  Mark’s on the other side, and far enough back that I can hardly see him.
They don’t close the door, not while we load, not while we rattle down the runway, and not even in the air.  I suppose I should be scared, but the hair whipping around my neck tastes like freedom, like my high school convertible hugging curves on back roads as the wind tears “Closer to Fine” from the speakers.
The landscape dissolves into a chess board and I wonder if this is how it looks to God in his heaven.  I think of all the problems I’d like to have left on the ground and my head aches.  They are too heavy to carry.
“Give it to God,” ministers say.  But they don’t tell you how.  I tried once; I wrote my problems on a scrap of paper torn from a church bulletin and tossed it into the silver collection plate as it passed.
Sermons talk about “heavy hearts,” and I never understood the concept until now, now that I have one thudding away in my own chest, and it tells me with every beat that I was stupid and proud to think that I could make my own plan and have it be good, that I am muddling through this life like a blind woman, that things feel too bad to be right.
I am tethered to a blonde girl in her early twenties, and she cinches us tighter as the world  grows smaller.  Her chatter is static.  I am mesmerized by that open door.  All we have to do is go through it.  They told us some people fight it, hold on to the door so tightly they break their arms.  Better to cross them over your chest, they said.
Then it’s time, and over the roaring of the plane, the gaping door, the excited chatter, my mind goes silent, and for the first time in my life I feel like a yogi.  This decision is made.  I guess I could back out but then I’d have to land in this rustbucket, and honestly, the door looks like the safer bet.  
Besides, I need a grander gesture.  Offering plates are for smaller problems.  I don’t think I could fit myself into one, even at the Vatican.  And my whole body is what I need to give.
I give it up, I think.  All of it, all of me.  I trust in you.
Blondie and I scoot our conjoined butts to the front of the bench, watching as pair after pair of our fellow passengers disappears, sucked right out of the door.
To you, Lord, I think, as we approach the door.  I give myself over to you.  At Blondie’s signal I cross my arms over my chest.  So this is what it’s like to give up control.
Oh.  
Give it to God.  Is this “it”?
Before I can do more than smile, Blondie propels us forwards.
We fall.
After it’s over, everyone asks, “Wasn’t that the best rush ever?”  
No.
No rush at all.  Only peace.
There’s a video of it, and it shows a girl that looks like me.  She’s smiling, even gives a thumbs up to the camera.
But what I feel as we fall … it’s not on the video.  I am cradled.  We step out of the plane into the warm palm of God, as tangible as anything I’ve ever felt.  Our arms and legs curve in the concave position of freefall, molded to the shape of his strong, invisible hand.

Men, boys, dogs, and other nonsensical things

I maintain that the Y chromosome, if you look closely enough, is a broken X.
Don’t get me wrong.  I love men.  I married one.
It’s just that they’re so damn weird.
Last night, for instance, Mark helped me bathe the children.  Because, for all my bitching about his broken chromosomes, he is an awesome specimen of manhood and also very helpful around the house and with the children.  He cooks.  He folds laundry.  He may be stolen from under my nose as soon as all his exceptionally positive attributes get out.  So, know this: for all his chivalry and helpfulness, he insists that the toothpaste be squeezed from the bottom.  Ha!  He is flawed.  Also, mine.  Hands off.  
Ahem. 
However, last night, Mark reminded me that no matter how helpful, loving, and caring he may be, he’s still got that broken chromosome.
Post-bath, we were drying and dressing the twins while the dog lounged about on the bed, licking various things, as dogs are wont to do.  Unfortunately, our dog is a bichon, which means he is constantly itchy, and wont to lick/scratch/bite himself into a bloody mess.  Literally.  Vet bills are about to become a line item in our household budget.
Anyway, the dog was gnawing on his back foot the way most of us would eat corn on the cob.  I was trying to brush A’s hair, so I asked Mark to stop it.  He took a sip of his drink (because yes, here at Casa Crazy, bathtime doubles as cocktail hour), leaned back in the glider, and said, “Hey, Teds, stop it.”
Yeah.  Dogs totally listen when you say stuff like that.
Predictably, Teddy continued to gnaw at his paw.  Mark took another sip of bourbon, and turned to the boy child.  I could see the gears spinning in his head as he looked from dog to boy.  
“Hey, G, do you think you could do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” G asked, oblivious to the dog drama playing out on the bed.
I bit back my automatic reply “That dog would bite you!” (Lewis Grizzard fans, I know you’re with me here; let’s all share a moment of silence for Lewis, UGA, and an unfortunate incident on the 50 yard line.)
“Do you think you could lick your foot like Teddy’s doing?” Mark asked.
I swear it was the fastest G’s ever moved.  Try to get him to get dressed and go to school, he drags his feet.  Ask him to put on his shoes, and five minutes later he might have decided which one goes on which foot.  But ask him to LICK a foot, and BAM!  Right down onto the floor, foot in mouth.  
“Oh,” Mark said, staring.  “I guess you can lick your foot.”  He continued to stare.  And, really, who wouldn’t?  A small boy on the floor, one foot yanked up to nose level, licking away.  And then, two feet away on the bed, a small fluffy dog in exactly the same pose.
People?  I am SO not making this up.

Nothing but the best.


This is a short fiction piece for The Red Dress Club’s Red Writing Hood meme.  It clocks in right under the limit at 597 words.


The prompt:
Write a piece that begins with the line, “I could never have imagined” and ends with the line, “Then the whole world shifted.” We’re going to stick with the 600-word limit this week.


I could never have imagined the car.  So smart it rendered the driver superfluous.  Nothing but the best, of course.  
“New feature,” the salesman said, leaning over from the passenger seat during Luke’s test drive.  “You don’t need a key.  Just press the start button.”
I watched from the back, legs trapped by the caramel leather of the driver’s seat, aching when the curves of the road pressed into the curves of my calves.  Better to say nothing.  He needed the leg room.
The scratch wasn’t my fault.  It happened while I was in the grocery store.  Probably just a cart left in the parking lot.  It was so small I didn’t even notice it.
Until Luke did.
Once the baby came he consumed me.  Literally.  We decided on nursing before he was born, and Luke was determined that I continue.  They weren’t his cracked nipples, after all.  Nothing but the best for anything, but especially for Gray.  His son.  I don’t think he ever said “our.”
His son needed feeding as much as Luke needed sleep.  I spent nights staring at the ceiling from the glider in the nursery, watching the shadows from the mobile as Gray mangled my nipple.  “You’re obviously doing it wrong,” Luke said.  “The books say that if you’re doing it right it doesn’t hurt.”
Luke went golfing that day, despite the cold.  It wasn’t often his brother was in town.  He looked me over as I sat slumped over my coffee.  “For Christ’s sake, just put on some concealer or something before we get back,” he said.  “You look like hell.”  
Gray cried his way through the grocery store, straight through from produce to dairy, but that day the glares didn’t bother me.  If I blinked, my eyes might stay closed.   
If we could only get home, we could nestle in the bed, cocooned in a ring of pillows so Grey couldn’t roll off.  It was the only way to find peace, and we lost whole days, weeks, even months.  It angered Luke when dinner wasn’t ready.  He didn’t like finding me in my pajamas, either.  “Is it too much to ask that you get dressed even once a week?”
Gray’s crying was increasingly frantic in the car, and at a red light I felt the familiar tingle as my milk let down, down through my nursing bra and my shirt.  Down in sticky tears over the silvery stripes that tattooed my stomach “mother.”
He was purple, apoplectic, unapologetic.  Hungry for me.  In the garage I gave up thoughts of the bed and crawled right over the console into the back seat, lifted his shaking body from his car seat, and let him burrow into me.  Once his gasping gulps turned to sighing snorts, I allowed myself to lean back, splayed on the buttery leather.  
His pudgy hands were icy on my breast, though the heat was blasting on high.  Gradually it seeped through my body, chasing away the chill from my damp shirt, and my eyes were suddenly too heavy to open.
Until they did.  Gray was quiet, still.  I stared at him in confusion.  Wiggled his toes through the blue fleece of his sleeper.  Then I saw it at the front of the car.  The start button.  The start/stop button.
I didn’t stop it.
Oh, my God.  I didn’t stop it.  
I sat, glazed, then let my head drop, back into myself, where it was safe and warm.  Inhaled deeply, purposefully, filling my core with the smell of nothing but the best.  And then the whole world shifted.