I was at church, and my phone and Fitbit had SOS alarms going off. Loud, repetitive, chirping, SOS alarms. Clearly they were automatically set up to notify local emergency response crews, as I could hear sirens in the background, growing closer to church. I frantically hurried through the hallways, looking for somewhere to sit down and fix the problem. I tried turning them off. Resetting them. Switching off the SOS alarm. Nothing would stop the repetition. Nothing would stop the DANG CHIRPING that was about to drive me insane and crack my head open. Nothing would stop the oncoming slaught of worried paramedics, bearing down on the church. Nothing would stop me from the worst fate of all: being the center of attention.
Then I woke up, my watch off my arm and having been flung across the bed, and my head pounding from a ridiculously loud, repetitive, chirping songbird perched right outside my bedroom window. A BIRD was the SOS alarm of my dream, and I couldn’t escape him by waking up.
Oh my gosh why cannot we shoot songbirds.
My head ached. My teeth ached. My body felt hit by a truck. I felt so ridiculously sleepy, but there was no chance of falling back asleep in this kind of pain.
Birds are evil creatures when they’re looking for a lady friend.
I escaped the alarming chirp of my bedroom and went down to my office to start the day with a cup of coffee, my favorite word games, and writing in my diary. Everything was quite a bit blurry and painful, and I began to suspect that this was what a migraine is.
Then, just as I was beginning to emerge the tiniest bit from my fog, guess who showed up at my window.
The same. Dang. Bird.
“Noah, I need you to go out there and kill that bird right now.”
<blank stare>
“Although of course you know that killing songbirds is illegal. But I know you’d be willing to go to jail for your Mamma.”
“I mean…but NOT for killing a bird…”
“Oh. What would you be willing to go to jail for your Mamma for?”
He hasn’t let me know yet. But these are the chaotic thoughts of a bird-induced migraine.
Meanwhile, Noah’s cleaning out his closet, and has found the Official Smallest Thing Still In His Closet. Shoved somewhere into a back corner and escaping all prior clean-outs was an 18-month Elmo shirt, snaps on the back, which fascinated Noah, especially when I explained (after his confusion as to why they were there and was that actually the front of the shirt) that toddler shirts had to have those snaps because toddler heads are so proportionately outsized for their body.
I am pretty sure that he now wants to inspect a toddler close-up now to see this phenomenon for himself.
“How could ANY body fit in this tiny piece of clothing?!”, he exclaimed, as he held it up to his nearly-taller-than-me, shoe-size 10 1/2 body. (By the end of 2023 I expect to be the shortest person in my family. No one prepares you for this particular reality.) Oh, the days of tiny bodies and giant heads and screaming toddlers and…nope. I’m good with our two double-digit kids who are fully capable of providing for nearly all of their own needs.
One thing that we did experience later in life than most families is food allergies. Noah developed a sudden and severe allergy to cashews and pistachios in late 2019 (though the small-dose-eating-treatment of them has nearly eradicated it), and in late 2022, Ali’s pre-existing sensitivity to dairy became a full-blown we-must-avoid-dairy-at-all-costs extreme sensitivity.
…Which is not at all fair, because Noah happens to hate cashews and pistachios, yet has to eat them once a week to temper his allergy, while Ali adores all things dairy, but cannot have any, at risk of severe full-body-and-mind reaction.
Also, dairy is freaking hard to avoid. Have you ever tried to create a dairy-free Easter Basket? I do not wish it upon you.
In an effort to restore to her the joy of pizza, I attempted to make at-home pizzas Tuesday night, using my bread dough as crust. But I had to make each of the kids their own pizzas, because in a fabulous twist, their pizzas were Mutually Assured Destruction…
- Noah’s pizza contained real cheese with real dairy that would destroy his sister’s well-being…
- Ali’s pizza contained cheese-less cheese made from none other than…cashews, which, presumably, could potentially send her brother back to the ER (but hopefully not since he’s been treated.)
I shook my head as I thoroughly washed the pizza cutter between slices. I never thought of us as an allergy family…but here we are. Serving Mutually Assured Destruction Pizza.
If only I could serve a Destruction Pizza to that dang bird, still repetitively chirping out my window.
