My mom just spent 10 days here with us. We flew her down to stay with Quinn while we were at SXSW Interactive in Austin. She flew home this morning. My dad missed her. A lot.

For the last, oh, 37 or so years of their marriage my Dad has brought my mom her morning coffee in bed. He figured out early on what it took to keep her happy. Coffee in bed aside, my Dad was always a very traditional sort of Dad. He was the bread-winner. He was final authority on all important decisions (so that would be a “no” to school dances). He did not do household chores and he certainly did NOT cook.

Over the years my mom’s back has deteriorated due to a degenerative disc disease. A while back my dad, even as traditional as he is, started doing the vacumming for her. Over time something about aging and retirement have softened him further. A few years ago he started doing the dinner dishes. And now that my little brother has recently moved out and they have an empty nest for the first time in 48 years (yes, seriously!) I think he’s gone a little stir-crazy. Mom says he makes the bed in the morning. He cleans up the kitchen at all times of the day. HE’S DOING THE LAUNDRY.

And then, tonight, she called me to tell me that he made her dinner. And I don’t mean he put a frozen pizza in the oven. There was chicken. And sauce. Made from scratch. With actual white wine in it. There was wild rice. There were garnishes on the plate. She said it was, and I quote, “A beautiful presentation”. My Dad + food preparation + plate presentation = anything is possible.

So I’ve been doing a no-sugar / no-refined-carbs / no-alcohol thing for a week and a half now. Last night I dreamt that I opened a door to a storage closet and it was full of donuts. Does that mean I’ll dream about bath tub full of Mojitos tonight?

Me: Baby, do you want some more pear?

Quinn: Why?

Me: !!!

So my little brother fufilled his life-long dream and joined the Army National Guard recently. *heavy sigh* He just started boot camp in South Carolina today.

Before he enlisted my mother asked the recruiter about the chances of Mikey being sent to Iraq. She was told it was highly unlikely and that he wouldn’t even come up for deployment for at least five years. Yeah, right.

“The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year,….
To draw more heavily on Reserve units, the Bush administration announced in January that it was revising rules that limited call-ups of Guard members. The previous policy limited mobilization of Guard members to 24 months every five years, but prolonged and large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan led the Pentagon to abandon that rule.”

What I can’t figure out is why he sings in jibberish. Well, I guess a lot of rock music sounds like jibberish to him. But I love in the middle when he busts out with “like a dog eats a cat” and “spiderman. i love spiderman”. Random much?

Quinn: Mommy, I want gravity to be in space.

Me: Why?

Q: Because otherwise the people will float and they’ll be scared.

M: They won’t be scared. They know that they’ll float in space so they prepare for it. That’s part of the fun of being in space.

Q: Well, only aliens can do it.

M: Why only aliens?

Q: Because they have spacesuits on.

M: Well, astronauts wear spacesuits.

Q: Well, I mean only astronauts and aliens.

Quinn, while sitting on the toilet: Mommy, I love pooping.

Me: What?

Q: I love pooping.

Me: Why?

Q: It’s just so much fun!

For the past two nights, Quinn has woken up screaming in his sleep. His eyes are open, but he continues to scream and/or cry uncontrollably while his body is rigid and shaking. His eyes look wild and if he says anything at all, it makes no sense. He doesn’t acknowledge my presence. It doesn’t matter how much I hold him, use a comforting voice, shine light on his face — it doesn’t stop until it’s ready to stop. I have to say, it’s really freaky.

I read up on them on Web MD today. Their description fits Quinn’s behavoir perfectly. And their explanation for the cause fits in quite well too. With all the travel and excitement over the holidays, we’ve had a tough time settling back into a calm routine. He’s been going to bed too late and not getting enough sleep. And I haven’t been myself. Having a hard time shaking the post-holiday / post-really-great-time-with-family-that-live-too-far-away blues. Being the little empath that he is, he picks up on everything going on around him.

The first night we had a house full of visiting relatives and everyone heard him. Thor & I went running into his room thinking he’d impaled himself on something in his sleep. After determining he wasn’t hurt, I knew instantly what was happening. Thankfully I remembered Thor’s mom telling me that he used to get them as a child and describing them to me. If I hadn’t had that reference, who knows what I would’ve thought. I’d probably be looking up the number for the closest exorcist.

It happened again last night. This time I was home alone with Quinn. I just brought him into my bed and stayed with him until he calmed down and drifted back into a more peaceful sleep. Web MD says the only thing you can do is make sure the child is safe and can’t hurt themselves. Not too comforting.

As if night terrors weren’t freaky in and of themselves, the other freaky part is that the child has no memory of them. He was happy as a clam this morning. He didn’t even remember that he’d spent several hours sleeping in my bed. (I just kept him there until Thor came home and moved him when he needed his spot back). Although, I guess that’s actually a blessing.

After the first episode I asked Quinn about it in the morning. While he was very intrigued, it was apparent he had no memory of it. However, it did spawn several conversations about nightmares and night terrors throughout the day which led to him getting increasingly nervous about it happening again by bed time. I decided this time it was better not to bring it up with him if he didn’t bring it up. He’s such an inquisitive and intense child and can really get himself worked up. I think that was the right decision. Better not to make too much of it.

And I now have a moral imperative to bring some normalcy and consistency back into our lives.

What we woke up to our first morning here…

Thanks to Tara, I’m IT. Now I have to think of five things you may not know about me…This is harder than you think.

1. I was born in Brazil because my parents were missionaries.

2. I’m allergic to watermelon.

3. I am terrified of clowns.

4. I won the smiling contest on The Ramblin’ Rod Show when I was five. (Any Oregonians out there know what I’m talking about)

5. I love the smell of bandaids. (I know - weird)

Okay… now who to tag??? Maggie Mason, Jonathan Grubb, Melissa Summers, Helen Jane, and to get him blogging again… Thor Muller.