A face everyone could (or should) love

I don't think they're "pretty for something so ugly." Nor do they have "faces only a mother could love." They're not "necessary, but hideous." Not merely "fascinating." And though I will gladly take the props (seriously, make with more props; I have a huge ego and it's hungry), my photos aren't "gorgeous, especially for pictures of a vulture."

I think turkey vultures are gorgeous. Like, actually gorgeous. Photogenic. As in pretty.

I especially love this turkey vulture. Meet Ed (or meet her again, if you've already seen the several shots of her on my Flickr stream). She's a rescued turkey vulture, cared for by volunteers from the Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center. There seems to be some debate as to whether "Ed" stands for Edna or Edwina (in addition to "Education"), but she is definitely female. Everyone always assumes she's male, but I feel like I can see it in her eyes. I am, of course, imagining this. I know because they told me. Still, I feel it.

My son loves her too, as well as all turkey vultures. Vultures were one of the first animals about which he learned real facts, thanks to Ed and Boyce Thompson Arboretum's annual "Bye-Bye Buzzards" event in September each year (when turkey vultures prepare to migrate to Mexico) and the "Welcome Back Buzzards" get-together in March. Every kid loves animals, but this kid is different. I think I can trace it back to a few animal encounters, one of the earliest being turkey vultures. Ever since the first one he saw one up-close, he's wanted to really know them.

I could tell him quite a bit about turkey vultures, though he knows half of it already. Their ecological role ("nature's cleanup crew," as the saying goes). Their lineage. (Turkey vultures; commonly called buzzards after the name was given to them by European settlers, who thought the birds looked like their common buzzards; are actually more closely related to storks and ibises than raptors.)

I could describe the way morning light bleeds through a vulture's wings as it spreads them up to six feet wide; in a gesture said to warm the wings, dry morning dew and bake away bacteria while vultures wait to glide.

I could describe their food-hunting prowess. Turkey vultures, possessing some of the best eyes of any land animal, rely as well on their ability to sniff out ethyl mercaptan in decaying carcasses. We could relive the story about my son trying to fart to attract turkey vultures. (Ethyl mercaptan being the pungent component in flatulance -- see how fun it is to be a sciencey family?)

I could go on about their built in swamp-cooling system, which really just involves peeing on their own legs but has a fancy scientific name, urohydrosis. Their courting ritual, which involves the male and female nibbling each other's wrinkly red heads. The proper name for a group of them (a venue, or a kettle when circling -- never a flock), their migration patterns, the way they ride air currents, their lack of a nasal septum, their cool vomiting defense, or any of a million other things. I really love these birds.

However, the thing that most gets me is their bad rap.

Of all animals to get an unfair shake in popular opinion, vultures have to top the list. The other usual suspects -- spiders, snakes, ants -- have their superheroes, smitten celebrity advocates and Disney popularizers. But even Edgar Allen Poe, whose take on the oft-vilified raven had it as "stately" and "of the saintly days of yore," harbored no love for vultures. His protagonist in "The Tell-Tale Heart" murders a man for the sole reason that "he had the eye of a vulture." The heinous eye, Poe's hero held, was "a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones." Which isn't even accurate, as far as vulture eyes go. Who ever heard of a vulture with blue eyes? Who looks close enough to know better?

Charles Darwin called our poor turkey vulture "a disgusting bird, with its bald scarlet head formed to wallow in putridity." When reporters are said to "swoop in" on death and misfortune, we know exactly what is meant by the phrase "a bunch of vultures." Even the Bible gives the birds a short shrift, calling them "an abomination."

In comics, arachnids get Spider-Man. Vultures get his rangy beanpole of a foe The Vulture, a nefarious bald villain and remorseless killer who exploits even his allies. In movies, the good-guy-harassing angular ships in Star Wars became known as vulture droids. Even Disney makes its vultures look considerably less cuddly than its ants, depicting them as ungainly, indecisive nerds perching on a rotted, gnarled branch. Businesses that prey on destitute countries, snatching up financial shares at low prices, are known as vulture funds. Dishonest lawyers are called vultures. Virtually nowhere in the western world is calling someone a vulture considered a compliment. And though I've never heard anyone called a turkey vulture, calling one a turkey is hardly considered high praise, and I'm fairly sure no one save turkey-advocate Ben Franklin would consider adding "turkey" to "vulture" a flattering amendment.

It hasn't always been this way. In ancient Egypt, the vulture was associated with the goddess Nekhbet and was the symbol of the upper kingdom. In India, vultures guarded the gates to the underworld. In times past in North America, the vulture was revered; it was the California condor, of the vulture family, that gave shape and form to the legendary Thunderbird. The turkey vulture's Latin name, Cathartes aura means air purifier, or just purifier, and indeed several cultures have seen it as a symbol of purification. Some Native American myths have it saving the world, using its head to push the sun to an optimal distance, becoming bald in the process. Wilbur Wright called turkey vultures "the most perfectly trained gymnasts in the world and are specially well fitted for their work, and it may be that man will never equal them."

Invariably at the "Bye-Bye Buzzards" and "Welcome Back Buzzards" events someone suggests, in conciliatory tones, that we love vultures for their janitorial services. You know, even though they're so ugly. I guess that's enough for some. I'm glad the birds provide the service, of course. Circle of life, and all that.

But I don't love the birds because they clean our shared environment. It has an uncomfortable feel of loving something only insofar as it's useful to me. Their personality, I think. Maybe that's getting a little closer. They're primal, with a dash of latent cleverness. People might be partial to the hawks and eagles, the emblematic hunters. But turkey vultures wait. They're patient, almost as if respectful of the death upon which they feed.

But that's unfair too, of course. Turkey vultures aren't philosophers. They aren't people.

David's conclusion is to like them "because they're cool" -- just to like them because they are.

I think that's pretty darn close. Also? I really do think she's beautiful.

I've been visiting Ed for the past four years, and watching her kin for ages before that. They ride thermals, roll and twist, seeming to scrape the clouds with their silvery wingtips. They make life out of death, utility out of garbage, and they make it look good. If I feel crappy and I take a drive and watch the vultures, I feel better.

It's pure. It's my catharsis.

The night I wore a hundred black widows

I posted the following the other day:

...and, while five of you "liked" it (I will assume you like my hilariously witty status-update writing, not my misfortune), more of you requested pictures, via Facebook and other means. I must really be getting a reputation for ALWAYS having a camera on hand. But no. Sorry. The following is the best I could do.

I intended to go to bed. Waylaid by incessant meowing and chomping of my appendages, I detoured to feed the cats instead. A few minutes later I was sprinting about my backyard, shirtless, at 1 a.m., covered in spiders and ripping my hair out.

The fact that when I told this to my husband all he did was shrug and say "Well, if you were going to be tearing your clothes off in the dark, you could at least have invited me;" with no comment as to the late hour, my outdoor indecency, or the spider-infested condition of my half-clothed form; speaks volumes about the extreme nature of my spider-related activities. However, everyone has a limit. I reached mine this week.

Let me back up. I really was on my way to bed. I had stayed up once again pissing away time on Facebook working, and it was much later than I realized. I dragged myself from the office chair to the stairs, only to be ambushed by both cats. I knew their dishes were full, so I picked them up, plunked them before the dishes, and returned to the stairs. They chased me down again, so I followed them back to the dishes, again, telling them that they're fine; there's a ton of food right there. They favored me With what is wrong with you? looks, so I switched the kitchen light on ... to see the dishes pulsating with about ten zillion ants. They were methodically carrying away morsels of cat food in a procession stretching across the kitchen and dining room.

Bedtime was definitely off. First, the cats were now quite sure I was trying to kill them; and second, even the most passing contact with ants invariably leaves me a lumpy, swollen, itchy mass of ... well, I'm not sure what, exactly, but it's not attractive.

Inspired by Hyperbole and a Half's spider equation, even though I usually love arachnids. 

I scooped up both cats -- who were pretty ticked by now -- tossed them in the office, and set to work eradicating the ants. So far, so good. Pain in the ass, but I was dealing like a champ.

Then I got the bright idea to go check for the ants' trail outside. I'm a huge advocate of "live and let live" but with cats/kids/food/living and still looking human at stake, I had to keep these ants out of the house. I figured I'd stop it at the source. My shoes were closed in the office with the cats, but my husband's super-ugly humongous Crocs were available. They flopped around on my feet, but who cares, I thought. It's not like I'm going to be running around in them.

Hideous clown shoes on feet, flashlight in one hand and poison in the other, I crept outside. No ants anywhere. I did, however, notice several giant black widows.


They seemed to be converting our stepladder into a quickly filling apartment complex. I decided that while I had the poison ready, it was eviction day (again, proximity issue - most spiders, black widows included, are highly respected in this house). I walked forward to get a good angle at the first one. When I did, for some reason, my hair kept getting in my face. I brushed it away, but there were a whole bunch of hairs in my face.


I kept brushing them off, but the hair was really sticky. And stretchy. And my hair was still getting in my face, especially from in front of me and also from above ... wait. What?

That's when I noticed that I had also walked into a giant clump of hair, and there were still pieces floating in the air. I aimed the flashlight toward the nuisance, and noticed that every "hair" floating -- and landing on my face and head -- looked like this:


...and that the giant swath on my chest looked like this:


By this point, I was quite unsurprised to find a spent egg sac beside one of the females. It looked quite innocuous -- like a flimsy, hollowed out piece of Kix cereal. It had hatched, and a hundred or so black widow spiderlings had moved to the top rung of the ladder, where I hadn't even looked since black widows tend to prefer low corners. They had attached their temporary home to some anchor -- I never figured out what, exactly, after blundering through it -- where dozens and dozens were just hanging out. The rest were dispersing on tiny bits of web they let out, no doubt to take over the small fraction of my yard that is not yet occupied by their sisters.

I saw and noticed all this -- the egg sac; the dispersal method; even the Kix cereal analogy, which I've used for years -- in a fraction of a second. I love black widows. I really do. I'm intimately familar with them. I can promise you I wouldn't be recounting that part otherwise, because I certainly didn't take time to put it together at that moment. There is such a thing as being TOO intimately familiar with an animal, and I would say the line is definitely crossed when hundreds of offspring of an extremely venomous spider are currently landing in one's hair, face, boobs. Eyes. MOUTH.

Upon realizing I was wearing a spider hair mask, a spider face mask, and a spider vest, I remained supremely calm and rational.


In the interest of optimal spider removal, I decided to go after their stronghold, which was now my torso. I tore their new base from my body.


...but somehow, this did little to make me look collected and dignified. I'm not sure why.


After sprinting several shirtless laps around the yard while shrieking calmly removing the remaining spiders and web, I tracked down one of the Crocs, which had flown across the yard at some point. I recovered the poison and flashlight. I couldn't find the shirt. I went inside.

There were more ants. Tons more.

I didn't have time to find another shirt, because now the ants were dispersing. I had to drop down and get them right now. I thought all the spiders were out of my hair. Besides, it's not like the babies are harmful anyway. But what if they were still in my hair? I thought. What if they hitchhike on my head, drop off in corners, and become giant, venomous adults? And this time it would be INDOORS. I had to find some way to contain them until I was sure. I had to quarantine my head.

Hats were out. They have holes, and besides, my husband would totally freak if I defiled his Sun Devils hat in such a manner.

We have lots of bags. They're sort of head sized.

Imagine you're my husband. You get home from work late. You might picture your wife snuggled in a cozy shirt, if it's warm, or more likely (in Arizona) sweating it out in some flirty camisole and pajama shorts. You might imagine that, after a calm, sane evening, she's tucked your son in, cleaned up the house, and is either serenely awaiting your arrival or already asleep in bed, waiting to cuddle contentedly up to you.

Instead, you get this:


I'd just like to point out one thing. The Crocs are still the stupidest-looking part of that ensemble.

Read some less-insane stuff about black widows, and see some pretty (real) pictures, here.

Go read my article, and other updates

Was my last post really that long ago? And was it really the goofy MS Paint faces post? Sorry, all.

I've been at least semi-busy. An article of mine is up right now (read it here; more on that in a second). I've had family business. Since my family is not entirely composed of chronic over-sharers, it will remain private, but obviously, family comes before my egocentric chronicling (usually). My husband's birthday just passed, but we didn't really get to celebrate it. I've been doing bit of growing up, a bit of walking outside, quite a bit of writing, a lot of to-be-processed photography, and a lot of doughnut-eating-while-driving. On a related note, paranoid rearview-mirror-monitoring is easier to do without a giant apple fritter hanging from one's mouth, and one only feels more incompetent, freakish, and paranoid when the police car pulls along side one's car and watches the spectacle of extricating the giant pastry with glaze-varnished hands. Just saying.

So, the article. Go read it, if you're so inclined. It's about Darrell Ankarlo. Until recently, he was the host of "Ankarlo Mornings” on 92.3 FM KTAR. The reason this is no longer the case is what my story explores, but it's really only part of the story.

Most of what you might have read about him online, approving or disapproving, has to do with his political and ideological views. I don't talk about that. If you pay attention, or if you've read my one or two pertinent posts, you probably can ferret out my approximate political views. However, I'm not a political writer. I never will be. (I will, however, argue with you in person. Just ask my husband.)

What I am is a people writer. A storyteller. Darrell and his wife Laurie have a story.

A few things about my conversation with them: Darrell got injured - badly - on the way home from a good deed in a long list of good deeds he's done. He has a super-close relationship with his wife. Watching them talk, when Darrell's really going, is like watching a verbal tennis match with lots of laughter, eye-rolling, and wifely tsk-ing. When he's not really going, his wife picks up the slack, but it's so natural that you don't realize it. Darrell has high expectations, of himself and others, and he'll let you know. He does his best to meet them and help others to do the same. Darrell gets very annoyed when Starbucks decides to rearrange the furniture in the middle of our interview, and partly owing to his injury, he lacks the mental filter that reminds most of us to not loudly voice such annoyance. His lack of a filter causes much hand wringing for his wife, and must cause some problems, but it's actually pretty refreshing to witness. Laurie is one heck of a strong woman. They both checked me out online before agreeing to meet with me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Read about the rest in the story.

Keep going

This morning, by 8 a.m., I had uttered the phrase "Keep going" no less than twenty times. Close runners-up included "Please, please keep going," "Just finish your freaking vocab; no one cares if your Os look funny," "Why are you still wearing your pajamas?!" and "No; I'm NOT going to make a less-angry voice. I'm angry!"

Keep going. I've mentioned that in addition to intelligence, stubbornness and an unhealthy fondness for cheese; attention deficit disorder runs in our family; or at very least, in my son and me. Perhaps the most insidious manifestation of it is the impulse that cloaks itself in perfectionism.

The thing about our brains is that they're unpredictable. Quite aside from the Herculean effort it takes to finish even the simplest of tasks, I find myself afraid of how I'll do them, of the outcome. Our brains make messes. One minute, my mind is flying a mile a second, surveying terrain no one else sees and making connections no one else has considered. The next, my mind is on standby and won't boot back up no matter how much I wiggle the mouse. One minute, my mind's enthusiasm and refusal to conform is solving a friend's dilemma with ease. The next minute, the enthusiasm gets a bit too impulsive and I choose the most uniquely detrimental thing to say at the moment, and say that. One minute I'm winning an essay contest; the next my editor's furious that the article (due Monday) may or may not be in by 5 (on Wednesday). One minute I've made the perfect dessert and blitzed the house in a rampage of maniacal panic-cleaning; the next, I'm an absolute parenting failure, and my house looks like I'm auditioning for Hoarders.

Yes, yes; I know. We all go through these things. I am sure you all do. But if I remember my freshman psychology DSM-IV-skimming properly, the difference is that someone with a particular disorder does/has these things to the extent that they consistently screw with that person's personal and/or professional life. My husband, for example, blurted out that the cat "was being an asshole" to our son, but I am skeptical of his claims of temporary Tourette's.

Let me tell you, it screws with our lives.

We are afraid of the mess our brains will make, so we don't do anything. As it happens, this dovetails quite nicely with our other ADD impulses, which all result in lots of talk, rampant obsessing, and not much doing.

We say we're holding out for perfect, but perfect doesn't exist, so we're really just being cowards.

Keep going. I hadn't remembered it for a few months, but I was telling my son this morning: My mentor and one of my thesis readers for my MFA, Thomas French, must have said it to me at least as often as I say it to my son. We'd begin nearly every conversation thus:

Him: "What am I going to say?"
Me: "I know. I know. 'Keep going.'"
Him: "Well?"
Me: "It'll be done tomorrow. Promise."

(Sometimes, it even was.)

It was pathetic, really. A grown-ass adult being told, basically, to turn in her homework. I was afraid. I was afraid of turning it in. What kind of mess did I make? What if the allegory I used this time fell as flat as that other one I thought was so awesome? How could I turn in something so second-rate, so rough, so imperfect? Anything's better than this pile of shit. Nothing. Even nothing is better.

Tom French is on The Colbert Report tonight. Everyone, if you haven't already, ignore me and go watch it right now. I'm positive he has cooler, more insightful things to say than I, and that's not self deprecation. It's a fact. He's very cool. He goes to very cool places and writes, very well, about very cool things. Also, he likes the same music, comedy, and books as me; so clearly, he's a genius. Still, the single biggest thing I'll carry with me is the mantra to keep going.

We practiced something in the program that we liked to call the "shitty first draft." I don't think Tom invented it or even said it much, but it's the same concept. Turn in your shitty first draft. Don't hold on to it. Don't withhold your ideas because you ramble when you talk about them.

Sometimes, my stuff was crappy. My favorite lines got axed. And you know what? I survived.

Keeping it in robs me of the one thing that can kick-start me out of my ridiculous spirals -- the input of others. Writing, and living, is a dialogue, even when I contribute most or all of it. Especially then. It's change, ideas, people, feedback. It's how most people ignored my essay about black widows and my reference to Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls" (except for a constant stream of disturbing traffic that seems to interpret the song title in ways that have little to do with Queen's intended meaning and even less to do with arachnids). It's how a throw-out essay gets a hundred hits in the first few minutes. Writing is failure, sometimes, but that's OK.

I told my son to write his funny Os and his weird vocabulary sentences that always seem to involve me, wizards, and flatulence. I hollered at the top of my voice last night that Your writing is better if you just speed up, if you just KEEP GOING. It was only then that my brain booted up out of standby mode and made the connection. Hello kettle; my name is Kim. You're black.

This essay is a shitty first draft, and I'm posting it anyway.

I want to do things. I want to do a collaborative mother/son children's book, with art by him and words by me. I want to look into displaying my photos. I have an idea about the insect-human relationship that I want to write. I have other ideas. I haven't developed or looked into any of these things, because I'm afraid to put something out there if it turns out to be lame. But I'm saying right now, I'm going to do these specific things, or at least try. So if you can help me with these goals, by all means, feel free. Even more than that, however, nag me. I need to keep going.

Life is a shitty first draft. You're not really living if you're afraid of that fact. Besides, sometimes, it's not so shitty. It's pretty great.

It's all a game: Pass it on

(Essay by me. Pictures, not necessarily related, by him. So this sort of counts as Snapshots.)

Have you ever played that old reading game "Apple Butter?" It's supposed to go like this: You're reading aloud, two or more of you, in class or at home (because all families worth the name read together at home), and when you want to pass the turn on to the next reader, you say "apple butter," as in "I do not like green eggs and apple butter." You get to name the next victim person to read.

My dad introduced me to the game, along with everyone else who was a fifth- or sixth-grader with me. We mostly played it at school. I never had him as my "main" teacher, but we split up for a few specialized subjects. I had him for mythology and health. And detention, sometimes.

I always wondered why the game was dubbed Apple Butter. I didn't know what apple butter was -- I always had this rich, buttery, sugary, appley confection-condiment in mind -- but I imagined it had very little to do with Madeline L'Engle, the American Revolution, Poseidon, or health class. Still, the game rocked. (To be fair, "quiet ball" rocked in sixth grade, so we may have been an easy audience.) It always became a bizarre hybrid of bonding, learning, connecting, and tormenting one another. A game of pass it on.

I've since asked around, and almost no one remembers the game by this name. Maybe you called it "popcorn" or "the game that means, thank god, that I don't have to read for very long." Who knows. Memory is a funny thing.

In his class, it wasn't called anything. Instead of saying "apple butter," we'd call out the next person's name, as in "There was the brain, there was IT, lying pulsing and quivering on the dais, soft and exposed and KIM!"

Or "The digestive system is made up of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, the rectum, and the DAD! I mean ... oops. The rectum, and the Mr. Hosey."

(Much class laughter. The dad-as-teacher thing never quite got old.)

The game was lame, sure, but you should've seen it. Pass it on. It's a great game.

Have you seen a kid who can barely read squirm and fidget and physically ache for his turn to read aloud? I have. (His turn ended with "Athena burst forth from the head of Travis.") Pass it on.

Have you seen sworn enemies (at least, it was sworn before morning recess) make up over the personal grooming unit? I have. ("Make sure to clean your ... Melissa! Heeheehee.") Pass it on.

Have you seen weird kid -- the only kid whose presence still made his classmates want to pantomime "sanitize" a chair before sitting, the one who smelled kind of like waffles and always wore the same dingy Bart Simpson shirt and didn't talk, just chewed his knuckle; the kid you didn't want to offend but, by God, you weren't going to be seen liking -- have you seen that kid get picked by the cool one, and get his moment in the sun? I have. (His gem: "Mucus is secreted by Mr. Hosey." Heaven only knows where the reproductive unit would have taken us.)

We pass a lot of things on around here, and I don't just mean my chinless profile, pale skin and nasally voice. Sarcasm -- from my father's every-ready remarks to my own sardonic take to my son's emerging wit, which would make me strangle him if it didn't make me burst with pride. Reading -- from my father's love of the classics, mythology, L'Engle, and baseball stories and my mom's obsession with Stephen King (no one ever sees that coming, somehow), to my and my son's devouring of anything written.

We pass on compassion -- my mom for the environment and cats, my dad for an entire community that somehow became his family, my son's almost-painful concern for all animals. He cried when a cricket died on his thumbnail tonight.

Sometimes, though, I think we mostly pass on plain old passion -- for learning most of all -- and the deeply rooted conviction that for anything to be worth doing, you should be learning something, and if you're learning anything, it is by definition fun.

I was discussing my son's progress so far this year. He's got 99s and 100s on nearly every assignment, but he's dragging. He's bummed.

If he's not learning something new, he can't really see the point. It should be exciting.

"I wouldn't worry," someone told me, "It happens all the time. If it's not too awful, I wouldn't worry."

What? What kind of a half-assed standard is that? If it's not bad, it's fine? No. Sorry. And why would it happening "all the time" make me happy?

If it's wonderful, great. If it's provocative, fine. If it's difficult and infuriating and frustrating; if we cry and yell every day for a week, great. Well, not great. But maybe necessary, definitely important. The fun always comes after those times. It's certainly better than "not too awful." "Not too awful" is stagnation. It's self-centered I-don't-have-to-learn-ism. It's getting by. It's less than your best, which is never even close to OK. I don't want my son to get by.

My son loves learning. He writes, reads at least a few levels above his grade, sees things in ways no one else does, and has an imagination like you wouldn't believe. He created an entire fantasy universe -- completely original, not a riff on an existing one -- when he was four. He's amazing. I'm going to go out on a limb (we pass that on too) and say he got it from me.

He's also pathologically inattentive, impulsive, and stubborn like you really wouldn't believe. It's like arguing with an eight-year-old male version of myself. Which makes me realize: Damn, I'm an asshole. I'm going to stand on firm, well-trodden ground and say he got that from me.

It's easier to leave well enough alone. Just do your dang work. Get it freaking over with. Get by.

This morning he was gasping, writing, gasping, writing, and gasping. GASP. Writewritescribblewrite. GASP. Writewritescribble. GASP.

"What on Earth are you doing?" I asked.

"I made a game out of it," he told me. "I can do three of them before I have to take another breath. It's fun."

Oh. Right.

"Hey, Mom? Can we read out loud tonight? Can we take turns? And then, can we take the camera you passed on to me ... can we take it out before the sun sets?"

Later, he happened to ask for the "old kind" of sandwich, and I remembered: the first food he "made" himself was a peanut butter and apple butter sandwich, ages ago.

Turns out, apple butter is this cinnamony applesauce-type spread thing. It's really pretty gross. Somehow, I still imagine it as the best treat in the world.

This totally counts as Wordless. It's me, after all.

First off, thank you times a whole bunch to everyone who sent me blog comments, Flickr comments, Facebook comments and private e-mails after yesterday's parental whining. It helps. At first, I didn't like it -- everyone was all "Yeah; it happens to everyone," and my brain was all "NO! It doesn't happen to everyone! Boo! They don't understand!" A few minutes' of deep breathing and junk-food-eating later, however, let me gain a tiny bit of perspective. Which was all I really needed. So thanks. Much love to you all. You totally do understand.

And now, I'm shutting up. Because it's Wordless Wednesday, and I'm not being very wordless. That part above doesn't count.

OK. Shutting up for real now.

Promise.

Really. How DO you do it?

My son hates me.

Well, no. That's overly dramatic. (Surprise!) My son doesn't hate me; in fact, he tells me every day how much he loves me. I still get to tuck him in. We have "No, I love YOU more" contests in the car.

(Here's where you're nauseated, if you're not a parent yourself or in some way invested in me/my son.)

Rather, in between these things -- and by that I mean for huge, tedious chunks of each day -- he acts like he hates me. It really sucks. Homework is a chore. Bedtime is a chore. Not wiping one's nose on one's shirt is a chore. Why we can't rescue every cricket on the planet is a major issue. Chores are really a chore.

I don't mean the usual "Oh, you know how it is; he never wants to do his homework" chore. I mean ridiculous. Epic battles. Beyond the bounds of reason. To the point where I have to completely abandon, at least for a moment, being his friend; where I have to turn all medieval and tell him, at the top of my lungs, where the rubber meets the road/how the cow eats the cabbage/how the third grader better do the freaking homework right freaking now if he wants to live to see fourth grade.

Naturally, I want him to develop his own identity. In a way, maybe it's my fault. I encourage talking about everything. I love explaining. I love being asked for explanations. I love receiving explanations. I'll talk all night long. I really kind of abhor the "because I'm the parent" conversation ender.

David is EXACTLY like me, in way too many ways. Meaning, he wants to talk and talk and talk, and if he hasn't seen the wisdom of a particular course of action, he wants to talk (read: argue) some more. Which would be fine, I really think it would, in an adult. I'm coming to realize, however, that this isn't so fine in an eight-year-old who simply doesn't always possess the faculties to understand the consequences of his actions. We reach an impasse every single night. He cries. I get aggravated. He argues. Digs his heels in. I yell. I feel awful. He says something -- usually some little, totally dumb kid thing -- and my feelings actually get hurt.

I know how to love my kid. I know how to keep him safe. I know how to set down the rules, and usually he follows them. He's brilliant, and funny, and kind. I know how to nurture all those things.

But I think I'm supposed to know how to fight with my kid. And win. And have him, at least sometimes, acquiesce cheerfully. I hate that he doesn't right now. HE hates that he doesn't.

I'm good at this. I'm a natural mom, at least until this thing. I'm not being facetious in the least when I say I totally suck at this part. How do you do it?

Please tell me this is just a phase. Please tell me there are more tranquil phases to come.

I'm supposed to be the one making this go the right way.

Because I'm the parent; that's why.