Last night we went to my parents house for my sister's birthday. Why is it that my children are only ever quiet when eating chocolate cake? Every night I cook a meal for them, and every night they talk and talk or run around making some kind of noise while eating, but if I give them cake or ice cream they eat it with the concentrated silence of a yogi.
My mother cooked a ham and steamed asparagus. "I love ham!" said Liam.
"That's Wilbur," I said. We had been reading Charlotte's Web and eating pork all week.
"No," said Liam. "Don't be silly Mommy. Wilbur was the runt. This was a different pig."
One day. One day, we will be vegetarians. I swear.

After supper Liam climbed up in my lap and my mother found a book that used to be my favorite when I was a little girl--The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. It's a beautifully illustrated story about a little brown cottontail rabbit who dreams of being an Easter Bunny, but ends up having 21 little baby cottontails, and as a single mother (who knows where the father went--Rabbits. They always run off.) of 21 children she has to give up her dreams.
"And this made her heart bitter and sad," I said.
"I don't think that's what it says," said my mother.
"I made that part up," I said. And I really have no business even saying that because my husband has been really amazing lately in terms of taking care of the kids and the house while I've been running off to readings and trying to finish the novel.
This last time I came home the house looked amazing and the children were happy and well fed. Dawson seems to actually prefer his father's company now, which is new--and I'll admit, a little sad for me.

Anyway, the mother bunny ends up training her twenty-one children to take care of the house for her and gets the job as an Easter bunny, fullfilling her lifelong dream.
"This is a pretty progressive book," I said to my mother.
"Oh Boy! Here it comes!" Dawson yelled from the bathroom.
Dawson is in a new phase with the toilet where he goes in shuts the door firmly and says he needs privacy. Then he loudly narrates his bathroom experience. "HERE COMES THE BIG POOP!" he yelled.
"Ah," said my husband. "After dinner theatre."
My mother and father were laughing so hard I thought they would fall off their chairs.
"Mommy!" Dawson yelled. "Come in here! I want you to see my little snake poops!"
Well, at least he still needs me for something.
"Now send in Daddy to wipe my bottom."
But not everything. Which is just fine.