“James, is your Brother on that Bus!?”
Last week I took Matthew to school for his first day of the staggered entry for kindergarden. Thankfully we were able to snap a few decent pictures before actually arriving at school, because once we were there and I was camera ready, he was so busy digging in his nose that he didn’t have time to pose for me without making us late. (I swear I don’t make this stuff up. When he’s older I’m sure he’ll appreciate that his mom documented all of these special moments.) I guess the advantage of having an older brother to pave the way is that Matthew walked in with swagger and confidence. He knew his way around and was marginally cocky. This is a far cry from the little boy who wouldn’t let go of my leg or take his face out from under my skirt when we went to preschool. There’s no doubt that he’s ready. And I kid you not, just after I typed that sentence he started walking around the kitchen with a brown paper bag on his head.
Today, I sent him off on the bus for his first full day of kindergarden. For whatever reason, it’s when I see that giant yellow thing on wheels that it all sets in for me. It triggered a little mist in my eyes for about 30 seconds. But it is really hard to be sad when Matthew’s little face is nothing but a big cheesy grin from ear to ear. He got situated and gave me a wave from the window. I like to do my tearing up in private, so with all the other parents and paparazzi at the bus stop, I didn’t allow myself the moment of reflection where you realize that your baby is now a boy heading out into the big bad world. I continued on with my usual morning dog walk, dishes, gym, work, a hair appointment and bam…it all slipped away so quickly, this elusive “free time” I would have. I didn’t even get the luxury of a leisurely child-free stroll through Target. (Maybe tomorrow….)
As the bus pulled up this afternoon, James and several older kids hopped off first. Strange, I thought, as the kindergardeners are in the front rows.
“James, is your brother on the bus?” I inquired, only the slightest bit of panic beginning to build.
He seriously had to think about it before he said, “yeah, I think so.”
As I mentally formulated my plan for calling the school and asking what the hell happened to the child that had a life sized “BUS 102″ on his backpack, he appeared. First words out of his mouth were, “THE BUS IS AWESOME!!” That pretty much sums up the amount of information I was able to gather about his day, other than the fact that he saw Mr. Starr in the hallway and played with Alexa on the playground. Ok, well that’s a start.
And so it begins. A new school year. Two brothers in elementary school together, eating their after-school snacks and comparing which playgrounds they played on and who they saw during the school day. (This happened before they started yelling at each other because they both wanted to tell me things at the same time). Happy back-to-school, everyone!
“I’m Sorry I Threw Rocks at Your Head” and Other Vacation Adventures
Remarkably, my father-in-law managed to capture a photo of the great rock throwing apology.
We just returned home from the adventure of a lifetime. It included, but was not limited to: biking, a suspension bridge, a cliff walk, a sky railway, a cruise, train ride, zip lining, whale watching, a float plane ride and consuming copious amounts of food and alcohol. Vacationing with the Van Glabbeeks is not something to be taken lightly. Wim’s parents have more energy than any 70 year olds I’ve ever met, in fact, I’m pretty sure they have a whole lot more energy than me. Needless to say, we truly embraced every moment. Not only that, I got to cross a couple of things off my bucket list….and add some items I didn’t know needed to be on there, then cross those off too.
All of the above are the obvious adventures of a vacation, but I wanted to recap some of our less obvious adventures, starting with Matthew…
* Matthew has a great affection for rocks, as do most little boys. He loves throwing them into water, throwing them up in the air, and occasionally loves throwing them at his brother. (Just kidding, I don’t think the last event has actually happened yet but I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility). On this trip, he found great joy in filling his little hand up with gravel (which of course includes rocks of all shapes and sizes), and tossing it up into the air. The joy on this face of watching the dirt and jagged little stones come showering down around him was cute, yes, but our parenting isn’t that bad. We did tell him to stop. Repeatedly. Well, the next thing you know, we’re trying to catch a peek at a grizzly bear while Matthew is at it again. This time, his shower of rocks surprised a sweet grandmotherly type woman, who went from happy to horrified in the blink of an eye. Wim and I looked at each other, and I believe at the same time said, “that’s your son.” We didn’t have time to flip a coin, so I just scooped him up, gave him a quick lecture while making my way over to the victim (who was probably in a hurry to get the hell away from us). I believe I said, “apologize, or else I will throw you overboard once we are on that boat.” No wait, that’s just what I was thinking. Meanwhile, Matthew is wailing. I mean, wailing. (And for those of you reading this who have heard that sound, it’s deafening. I blame my bad hearing partly on having raised Matthew for 5 years).
Granted, we’d warned him numerous times to cut it out with the showers of gravel, but I don’t think it actually entered his consciousness that he was going to hurt someone. So the screaming was partly “$h*t, I’m in big trouble,” but also “I’m upset because I didn’t mean to do it.” So, we reach the lady but there is no apologizing happening. Matthew buries his head in my shoulder and won’t even make eye contact. I do the apologizing on his behalf, to redeem ourselves a little bit. Grandma-lady is very gracious and lets us off the hook easily, thanking us for the apology.
Part of the back story to all of this is that we had created a specific form of bribery especially for this vacation. Cold hard cash. Or, in this case, quarters. This system was actually genius. Every time one of the boys sat through a meal without causing a scene, or took a picture and actually smiled cooperatively, they earned a quarter. The idea was that at the end of the trip they could use their quarters to buy something they wanted. (Which turned out to be neck rests for the airplane, which I think is hilarious). Anyway, on the flip side of the quarter deal, if the boys were naughty they would lose a quarter or more depending on the violation. In this case, Matthew lost all of his quarters. I think we were up to $2.25 at this point, so this was devastating news to him.
Once he regained his composure, we went on with our afternoon. Took a chair lift up a mountain and saw a lumberjack show. As we were making our way back to the sky lift to take us back down the mountain, who did we run into? The victim of Matthew’s rock throwing incident. I quickly whispered to him that this was his opportunity to apologize to the lady. He looked apprehensive, but walked straight up to her and said, “Um, I’m sorry that I threw rocks at your head.” I had tears in my eyes. Mostly from laughing because the apology was so funny, but also from pride. I’d like to think he did it because he was truly sorry and not because he was hoping for his quarters back, but regardless, it was a memorable moment.
(That story took longer than anticipated. The next random memories will be shorter, I promise.)
* On the cruise, somehow Wim and I (mistakenly) thought the boys could adjust to a later bedtime, so we chose the 8:15 dinner seating. Really. What were we thinking?! Selfishly we didn’t want to be rushed with any of our excursions, so it seemed a logical choice at the time. The truth is; however, the boys not only need their sleep, but want it. They are not night owls, never have been. One night, James totally lost it and yelled, “I don’t like vacation! You make me stay up until 10:30 and I. JUST. WANT. TO. GO. TO. BED!!” Oh boy. At one dinner, Matthew was begging to go to bed and finally crashed in my lap. We set him down on the floor on the other side of the table and let him sleep there. Awesome parenting. Anyway, as a result of the sleep situation, there were a couple of days when the boys were not the sweetest creatures to be around. Mostly this involved fighting with each other (the “don’t touch me, don’t follow me, don’t look at me!” variety). One morning, Wim and the boys were playing shuffleboard and things weren’t exactly going well. I was sitting on a deck chair quite a ways down from them when Matthew burst into the wailing sound that I referred to earlier. I glanced over there and as I did, a lady walking by caught my eye. I looked at her and said, “oh, he’s mine, but I’m just pretending he’s not.” She laughed and told me that what I really needed to do was find a similar chair on another deck. Brilliant, why hadn’t I thought of that?!
* Next random tidbit is surely TMI. Somehow, the boys were apprehensive about flushing the toilet in our cabin. In their defense, it did make a sound that made you think it was going to suck you right in there too. What this meant, however, was that ever time I went in the bathroom I was usually disgusted. Finally one night, I yelled “Will you boys PLEASE STOP LEAVING ME PRESENTS IN THE TOILET?!” The boys thought this was hilarious and only encouraged their behavior. It became a running joke on the trip. Matthew actually became a little confused, and would ask, “If I poop, am I supposed to flush?” He was probably just messing with me.
* For those of you that know my in-laws, we affectionately tease them about the many, many things they manage to lose or misplace – so on this trip I started a list to see how many items we’d end up with. It included a coupon, ferry tickets, a purse, a room key, a stack of twenties and a glove. Not bad, considering how long we were gone.
* The “key to the world” card (courtesy of Disney) really was the key to the world. You could use it to buy anything and it seemed free. Thanks for all the wine, Opa & Oma!
* One evening Wim and I needed to leave dinner early to get the boys from the Oceaneer’s Club (a brilliant scheme of Disney’s to make everyone’s vacation a happy one). I was walking out of the dining room with my full wine glass and asked the man at the door, “Am I allowed to take this out of the dining room?” He smiled and said, “of course, madame.” Wow. With Disney, dreams really do come true.
* Bacon. James probably ate the equivalent of 3 pigs on this trip. Every morning without fail, he wanted his plate piled with bacon. Of course this is possible, because we could eat anything we wanted. Dangerous for me, once I realized that if I was debating between two items on the menu, they would bring me both. Once I was armed with this information, I was often torn between two items. I may have to refer back to that 17 day diet again after the pure gluttony of this trip.
* We were told that the suspension bridge in Vancouver could hold 36 elephants. James was not a big fan of the number of people on the bridge at the same time (mind you, we are very, very, very high up and the bridge sways as we move across it). We are trying to take pictures, but he kept yelling “That’s 36 ELEPHANTS, I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!”
* In Vancouver, we stayed in a 2 bedroom suite with a small living/kitchen area. The boys slept on a pull out couch together in the living area. James is not a big fan of sleeping with his brother for one thing, and apparently the other problem was that my father-in-law was waking up at 5 a.m. and lurking around, which woke him up. As we were leaving Vancouver, James says to me “Opa woke me up at 5 a.m. In Alaska, I’ll have two problems minus one problem because I still have Matthew.”
* Note to self: do not ever again cut up the Mickey Mouse waffle. Only the ears and not the face. Who knew?
* One of the bucket list items I got to cross off was zip lining. It was an unexpected surprise on this trip, and I loved the experience. Now, that’s to say I loved it because I survived it. This place was truly a back woods of Alaska kind of operation. The guys who were responsible for us were, while hilarious, not exactly people you’d want to trust with your life dangling 60 feet above rocky waterfalls. I could imagine them being stoned and saying, “dude…let’s zip line upside down.” They gave us no instructions or training, just hooked us up and said, “don’t worry, if you can’t brake, Billy will catch you!” The stories they told as we moved from line to line (there were 11 zip lines in the course), had me laughing but also increased my anxiety level. (The owner actually allowed these two jokers to run the course after a late night at the bar with some girls they met.) They also happened to mention a few times that most of their casualties take place on Wednesdays, and since it was Friday we should be good. Did I mention it’s probably a miracle that I lived to tell about this?
Ok, I’m sure I could go on like this all day but I’ll spare you. There you have it, Vancouver/Alaska trip uncensored.
Who Needs Reality TV?
When no one else would step up to the plate for Matthew’s baseball season (bad pun intended), I volunteered to be the “team mom.” I had no real idea what this meant, aside from organizing the all-important snack schedule for the games. How hard could this be? Apparently, a masters degree does not prepare you for “team mom” responsibilities. I think we needed a social worker to navigate this mess!
Thankfully, Wim shared in this “team parent” experience with me by managing the dugout during the games, so he too, got the full spectrum of the variety of dynamics going on. Here’s what the two of us figured out:
* Coach is divorced. Coach and ex-wife have a child on the team. Coach has a new fiance. Ex-wife has a new boyfriend. All of the aforementioned attend games. Awkward!
* New fiance has a nephew on the team. So, new brother-in-law-to-be is an assistant coach. Additionally, the new parent-in-laws to the coach attend games, as well as the ex parent-in-laws. Double awkward!
* Another couple with a child on the team were clearly friends of coach and ex-wife, pre-divorce. The wife of this couple has formed an alliance with the ex-wife and her husband is another assistant coach for the team.
Are you following any of this?
So, aside from all of the crazy dynamics and nonsense on the sidelines (which in fact is much more interesting to watch in some cases than the game itself), I was accosted at last night’s game by ex-wife and ex-wife’s snotty, mean-girl friend (a separate observation but I could not leave it out. Are high heels really necessary at a baseball game?).
They wanted to speak with me about the end of the season party. Apparently this is one of the many things in my job responsibilities as “team mom” that I did not get the memo for, but I digress. The fact that I need to discuss cupcakes and snacks with people at length in the first place makes me want to stab myself in the eyeball, so I did not really appreciate the tag-team approach. Snotty mean-girl friend and ex-wife were interrogating me about the plans for the celebration. Although the coach had already mentioned to me early in the season that he wanted to have a cook out at his home, I did not mention this in the event that he hadn’t yet discussed it with ex-wife. I am not dumb – this was a potential land mine.
I talk to coach. Coach asks me to send something out to the team parents to announce the cook out, where they will hand out the trophies and eat their hot dogs. So much for that land mine I was trying to avoid.
First e-mail response that comes in is from snotty mean-girl friend. Executive summary, “I cannot believe coach would do this. Ex-wife will be very uncomfortable for reasons I will not get into. Bottom line, you need to hold this celebration in a neutral location.”
Second e-mail response is from the ex-wife. Executive summary, “I will not attend a party at my ex-husband’s house. Sorry.”
Oh for the love of God, are you kidding me? “Team mom” job description did not specify that I would need to be a mediator and solve world peace while I was at it. Please, people. Have a cocktail with your cupcake and chill the hell out for the sake of your five year old child who just wants to eat his hot dog and get his trophy.
I must say, this season has provided me with a great appreciation for the fact that not only do I like my husband, but I hope to never have to contemplate all of the logistics and emotions involved with divorce. But more importantly, it has taught me to NEVER sign up to be “team mom” again!
Flat Stanley Crisis
This is an actual e-mail that I sent to James’s first grade teacher yesterday.
Dear Mr. Starr,
I hate to say this, but somehow Flat Stanley went MIA. James took such care to
cut him out yesterday. Flat Stanley had a minor mishap when Matthew was taunting
his brother and wrinkled him, but he survived the incident only to mysteriously
disappear later. He was last seen on the kitchen table and has not been located
since, despite our best efforts. Matthew is a suspect but he claims he is
innocent.
Can we make a makeshift Flat Stanley, or can we get another copy to color and
cut out?
Thanks,
Maureen Van Glabbeek
The 17 Day Diet, the Missing Chapter
The holidays were wonderful this year. In fact, I think I’ve been celebrating the holidays since the 4th of July last year and have not lost momentum. Somewhere in my disillusionment that my workouts were offsetting my gluttony, 10 pounds snuck up on me. So thanks to the friendly persuasion of my neighbor and friend, I jumped on her bandwagon for the 17 Day Diet. Yes, probably one among a laundry list of fad diets, but I needed a jump start (otherwise known as a serious kick in the rear) to reverse the damage. But I forewarn you, I believe there was a missing chapter from this book as it does not account for the following information:
* Although your spouse may claim to support you and join you on the diet, this will not stop him from rummaging around in the pantry like a scavenger at night, when you are most vulnerable. Honey Nut Cheerios straight out of the box has never been so tempting.
* If you do not eat carbs for five days and have raging hormones, you will actually cry because you want microwave popcorn.
* You will become so desperate for new ways to eat vegetables that you may resort to eating roasted fennel and a kefir smoothie for lunch. (And if you’re wondering what the hell both of those things are, I have no idea, but I ate them).
* Although you will be motivated by your progress, nothing, and I mean nothing, will stand in the way of happy hour. Sorry, Dr. Moreno.
* While you can do your best to keep your family on this plan, this does not stop your children’s requests for ice cream or brownies or goldfish for that matter. You will still serve it to them and quietly swallow your building resentment of vegetables.
* The notion that you can do “anything for 17 days,” is great in theory. It does not account for the fact that you might be certifiably nuts by day 17.
* You may have dreams about bread. Specifically a big white roll dripping in butter. True story.
* Never in your life will you ever be this regular.
So there you have it, my friends. I am officially on day 10, but think I have found the secret to this diet. If you actually survive the 17 days and reach your goal, you will be motivated thereafter primarily by the fact that you NEVER want to have to resort to this diet again and will therefore choose to stay the hell away from the Twinkies.
Poor Chester: A Tribute
Poor Chester
The phone call came on a sunny morning in Philadelphia
650 miles away
“Your mother and I have lost our minds”
and so it began
the story of the dog that was tied up in a planter
and found his way home to Sierra Drive
A puppy with boundless energy
that never relented
ever
Always hungry for attention
even if it meant eating paper to get it
Chester. Chester! CHESTER!!!
A dog with selective hearing
and a love for chasing birds
A nap on the couch
followed by a wet nose,
too close for comfort
CHESTER!
A loving annoyance
and loyal companion
Who earned his nickname
Chester the Molester
from an overly affectionate disposition
He is the backdrop to the last ten years of our lives
A beautiful dog in every way
Wagging his tail right into our hearts, permanently
Who can blame a dog
whose greatest flaw
was also his greatest asset
a need to be loved
constantly
Poor Chester
The Tooth Fairy Urban Legend
In November, Matthew lost his first tooth. He reacted similarly to his mother in the process. Panic, sweat, and turning a fine shade of ghostly pale. (In case I haven’t mentioned this, I don’t do blood. And for that matter, I also don’t do wiggly teeth. They make me want to pass out.) In any event, the tooth did come out without too much of a fuss. What I did not anticipate; however, is that Matthew would want absolutely nothing to do with the tooth fairy.
Apparently this goes back in time to a trip to Michigan where James lost his tooth in the middle of the night. Groggy, the tooth fairy fumbled through his wallet in the dark and was not even sure how much money the child in question received. It was maybe an hour later after everyone had soundly returned to sleep, that James came running into our room in an absolute panic. He insisted that he saw the tooth fairy under the chair, and then she ran out of the room. To be honest, at 3 a.m., this even gave me the creeps. We let him sleep on our floor that night and there were no more sightings, but the damage was already done. To this day, he retells this story as vividly as it had happened only moments ago.
Needless to say, his urban legend rubbed off on his little brother, who as a result wants nothing to do with the tooth fairy. So, the night he lost his first tooth, he placed it safely under his pillow in his bedroom….and then slept in his brother’s room.
Present day. Tooth #2 comes out while eating a ham sandwich at preschool. Matthew loves to tell this tale, as he almost swallowed the tooth. We thought perhaps the tooth fairy urban legend had become a thing of the past, but no. This time, Matthew placed the lost tooth in the guest room bedroom at the very end of the hallway. For good measure, he shut his own door because he did not want to risk a sighting (since the tooth fairy would have to pass by his room to get to the guest room).
So, if you see something on snopes dispelling this urban legend, let me know.
(Facebook) Membership has its Privileges
Facebook has its quirks and hazards, like the random boyfriend from 20 years ago, but it also has its random and surprising pleasures.
My most recent blast from the past was the universe at work. (Now remember, you’re reading a blog written by a girl who has a magic ipod, so bear with me here). Some time ago, Wim and I visited a coffee shop here in Charlotte that reminded me so much of a place I worked during college called A Hill of Beans. This was back in the pre-Starbucks era. We made a mean latte, but more than that, we offered a cozy home away from home. We knew our customers, and they knew us. The place had a great energy, and a great combination of personalities between the staff and its regulars. That period of time holds a very fond place in my heart. So, the visit made me nostalgic for my coffee shop days, and its owners who had become very close friends in the time I worked for them. Soon after my trip down memory lane, I searched for them on facebook to no avail.
This weekend, one of the owners found me. A few e-mails went back and forth, and while worlds and worlds of events have rocked our lives, it is still as if no time has passed. The connection that bound us together 15 years ago is as strong as it was then, confirming my belief that certain people enter your life for a reason or purpose. While time and life trudged on and we lost contact, big brother facebook reunited us only to demonstrate that at our core we are still who we always were. Although life experiences have changed us and taken us down different paths, the connection is the same. Relationships like that are like stars. Rare and special, something to be treasured.
So, here’s a facebook story that I’m happy to tell. Random boyfriend from 20 years ago can still shove it, but this, this is one of those feel-good facebook moments.
An Unfortunate Misfire
This week I splurged on a luxury beyond all luxuries. I paid someone to clean my house. For four long hours, Alexandra and her son Johnny worked their magic. And I mean, magic. They cleaned things I didn’t even know you could (or rather, should) clean. Never in the last 7 years of my life (ironically, the same amount of time as James is old) has every room in my house been simultaneously clean. I consider the bathrooms or floors a major achievement for a day’s work, but both? And vacuuming? Forget it.
So back to my splurge. I have been debating this for some time, and I fully acknowledge it is not a necessity. It’s not a practical monthly expense for all intents and purposes, but a really, really wonderful thing. I cannot describe the pure joy I experienced after they left and I looked at every dusted picture frame, marveled at my spotless shower doors, and breathed in the wonderful scent of clorox and something vaguely floral. Ahhh, this is what heaven is like. I know it seems like a gross exaggeration, but a clean house to me = pure bliss.
While I was still in the honeymoon phase of my new relationship with Alexandra & Johnny, it occurred to me that it I do live in a home with two boys, a dog and a husband. My clean house does not exist in a bubble, and it was only a matter of time before the dog hair would collect in corners and under chairs and God forbid, someone actually use one of the clean toilets. Well, sure enough, I was thinking this no sooner than I hear Matthew yell from the bathroom, “Mommy! MOM-EEEE! I POOPED ON THE TOILET SEAT!”
I’m not kidding. The toilet seat didn’t even make it 24 hours before it was christened with $hit. The sight of it was so funny, I nearly took a picture to post but got ahold of myself and decided I’d be crossing a line. The good news is that I can laugh about it. The bad news is that if I want to exist in an environment that is clean and sterile, I might need to move into a hospital.
The Itsy-Bitsy-Spider Bite
Matthew has always had a knack for being fairly dramatic over pretty regular ailments. Itchy grass is very popular in his repertoire, as it somehow makes him unable to walk or otherwise function. Collared shirts are also a recent problem for him that create quite a scene should I dare even suggest he wear one. He has been known to wake us in the middle of the night because he is thirsty, needs a tissue, needs us to fix his covers. Nothing out of the ordinary for a four-year-old. While he does not cry wolf, per say, he does cry. Loud. Nearly five years of this can make a parent perhaps a bit insensitive to the sound.
So last night at 1:30 a.m. when Matthew began to wail, it was nothing out of the ordinary. I made the obligatory visit to his room to make sure there was no life threatening danger, and told him to go back to sleep. By the third visit, we had established that he was hot, couldn’t sleep, and his arm hurt. I felt his forehead, gave him some allergy medicine for his sneezing (not one of the aliments he was complaining about, but I was being proactive before we got to visit number four). By visit four, I threatened to close his door if he woke us up again. It was on visit four that he announced that his finger hurt, and he couldn’t sleep with a hurt finger. At this point, it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:30 a.m. and if I was a car, my patience would be running on fumes. I muster some empathy and ask what happened to his finger. He said an ugly bug bit it at his friend Hill’s house that afternoon. I flip on the light to assess the finger that is causing such a disturbance, and notice that yes, in fact it is red. Not only that, does his whole hand look swollen, or is it just me? I give him a kiss, assure him he is fine and go back to bed. Now I just needed someone to assure me that he was fine.
The only person to consult at this hour is my wonderful husband, who is not appreciating all the ruckus at this hour of the night (seeing as the CEO is paying a visit to the office in the morning). But with children, timing is usually pretty impeccably wrong. I think it’s in the parent handbook somewhere. Anyway, my mind is now wandering. Was it a spider bite, therefore the swelling? Could it have been a poisonous spider and the reason for the sore arm was deadly venom making its way through his body? Well, $hit. I got out of bed and although he was now nearly asleep, I woke him up to look at it again. Then I went downstairs to get on the internet.
I’m not kidding when I tell you this is the first thing I read: “Poisonous spider bite symptoms may not be the same for everyone, one may have a mild reaction to a bite while another may lose a finger or be scarred for life.”
Great. My child was going to lose his finger and be scarred for life because his mother just wanted a good night’s sleep.
While my internet investigation continued, Trouser was going nuts because he thought it was time for breakfast. Matthew then joined me and asked for a banana and to watch a cartoon. Next, Wim followed suit to see what the hell was going on. Before you know it, James too is at the top of the stairs wondering why we’re all up at 2:45. Good Lord what a circus.
So do I go to the ER or not? I called the pediatrician’s office, got connected with a late night nurse somewhere in the greater Charlotte area, and talked through my dilemma. She was wonderful, helpful and eased my mind that my child was not in fact going to lose any limbs over the incident. A little hydrocortisone cream and some children’s motrin and we would be fine.
So it’s morning. After a solid few hours of uninterrupted sleep, we’re doing fine. Matthew is crashing matchbox cars as I type, with intermittent breaks to squeeze Trouser’s head. I am drinking coffee and just feeling grateful that the drama was contained and Matthew is not an amputee. Whew.
