Somersaults

The New York weekend was fun.

Scrubly recently moved to a new house with his wife and two kids: Supermodel, who is almost five, and Tumbler, who's almost two. The place is great. It’s beautiful, in a great location, and huge. They have a rental apartment upstairs, which needed some work before they could lease it. We cleverly timed our visit to the precise moment after the work had been completed but before they found tenants, so we stayed in the empty apartment. Luxurious digs, for certain.

Lumpyhead even slept well the second night. I attribute it to having his own dark, quiet room to sleep in, where he didn't have to deal with his stupid parents traipsing in and out and waking him.

Buttmunch and BoingBoingFuh joined us on Saturday morning, with Buttmunch’s wife and two kids (a year older and a year younger than Lumpyhead) meeting up with us later.

Saturday afternoon we went to the park where we saw a birthday party with lots of children and pony rides (Supermodel: “Horsies!”) and balloons (Lumpyhead: “Ball! BALL BALL MY BALL!”) and a large Spongebob toy (Buttmunch: “That’s one ugly kid over there. He’s very square.”) that turned out to be a pinata (Bump: “Cool! You get to whack Spongebob with a stick, and then he spews forth candy from his open wounds.”).

We kept having to re-direct our kids from the mind-blowing fun. “Those balloons aren’t for you.” “No, I’m sorry, we can’t go ride that pony.” “I keep telling you, there are some things in life you’ll never have, but other people do, because they have more money than us. Which makes them better people.”

The children burned off energy and the adults who weren’t chasing kids threw a football and frisbee around. It was a good afternoon, even though it rained a little and the grownups are so old and out of shape that a) they looked a little ridiculous demonstrating their athleticism and b) there were sore shoulders and legs Saturday night.

We went back to Scrubly’s for pizza and bedtime and poker, which was interrupted by an emergency room visit. Lumpyhead was on the second stair when he slipped and bumped his head. He was fine but I felt awful, and after Bump took Lumpyhead up to bed (where he slept like a drunk college freshman for twelve hours), Tumbler showed us how someone who is serious about falling down stairs gets it done.

He hurled himself, face forward, from about 3/4s of the way up. Thank goodness the basement door was closed, or he would have gone down another flight. It was a horrible thing to see: the outline of this little guy through the banister slats, doing no-handed cartwheels down a staircase accompanied by loud thumping noises. He cried instantly, never passed out, and didn’t throw up. He had scratches and bruises on his face, which started to swell, so Scrubly and his wife took Tumbler to the ER while Buttmunch and I stayed with Supermodel.

Scrubly called from the ER to report that the boy was obviously fine. He was climbing on the waiting room furniture, jumping around and laughing. They were waiting to see the doctor anyway, to rule out any facial fractures and relieve their fears. The next morning, Tumbler’s face looked much better than I could have hoped, and he was perfectly cheerful, despite battling a long-running cold.

On Sunday we went to Fuh’s new place for brunch, where we also saw Ridgey and his wife, who is pregnant with their first child. Over eggs and bagels and juice and coffee, the assembled group talked about pregnancy and birth plans and child care situations. We discussed whether Bump would be able to hang on to second place in the roto league, while doing our best to keep toddlers from screaming and/or destroying Fuh’s modern, tasteful decor. I just realized right now that there was no alcohol served. A few years ago this fact would have been grounds for every person in attendance to storm out in a huff, or at least to make his or her exit as quickly as possible, before it was polite to leave. Yesterday no one seemed to notice.

As we left Fuh’s for the drive back home (after leaving Lumpyhead’s dirty diaper in Buttmunch’s coat pocket - pranks! Ha!), I ran into one of John’s closest friends on the sidewalk. It threw me for a loop -- the coincidence of it all, the shock of seeing him again -- and I’ve been a little wigged out ever since.

So we’re back, all fighting off colds from new germs and not quite enough sleep. We saw the top of one of Lumpyhead’s molars (finally. Good god almighty, will you come in already and make the drooling and runny nose and general whining and misery stop? Because damn) and I left a very cranky baby and pretty cranky Bump this morning. I’m still reeling from the chance street encounter and my head has been in a pretty dark place for the last 24 hours. I’ve piled on with the realization that I attended a dry brunch yesterday and just figured it out now. I’m glad we’re not very busy today, because I don't quite feel like myself.