All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand – which I've been washing a lot lately. Along with the other one. I wash them both. I promise.

After posting I realized that I actually ought to preface this tale with the following: It's really gross. You might not want to read it.

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If you have a child, and if that child has ever been out in the world with other human children, or if you don't have a child but have ever seen one in its natural habitat, you know that children are filthmongers.

They feed each other rat-walked-on wood chips in the park. They take their stuffed animals swimming in the toilet when you're not looking. They taste everything you don't want them to, like railings, car keys, signposts.

And then they call broccoli yucky. The hell?

I know for a fact that if they find chewed gum on the sidewalk they will pick it up and chew it, because I myself did this. Actually, my friend Natasha found it, started chewing it, and then gave me half. We both remarked on how sandy it was. Probably because we were living in Egypt at the time. There was sand everywhere.

Kids are revoltingly disgusting. (Is that redundant? I don't care.)

Listen. If they have the opportunity to stick their hands in their own poop, they will, and then be all, "Hey! Look what I found!"

They basically careen around in the world like wee human lint sticks except instead of lint they attract germs.

And then they come home and rub those germs all over you and stick them in your mouth in the guise of doing something cute and charming like saying, "Hi!" and pointing with their index finger and then you kiss their adorable little finger and BAM! Germs! Transferred!

And then they go sit in the corner and cackle maniacally.

I'm kidding about that last part. Because what they actually do is get down on the floor and find a hard, shriveled noodle from three days ago and promptly shove it in their mouth.

And what this all leads up to is this: India had about a week of diarrhea. Which I mistakenly attributed to milk.

Because we had the throwing up with the milk, so I put her back on formula while figuring out what to do. And then her tummy got better, and then we started slowly introducing milk - not a lot, but enough to see.

And then she started having diarrhea.

Since she's a baby, and since she will, given the opportunity, handle in her own feces, I know it won't currently embarrass her if I share details. (SCATOLOGY ALERT! Maybe a little too late, now that I think about it.)

Also, I'm sharing her details so I don't have to share mine.

Sometimes it was normal diarrhea, whatever that may be. And sometimes it was the kind of diarrhea that seems like pee, except that you know that it is not because it's brown and smells like mushroom soup would if you covered it and then left it in a warm place for like two weeks.

So there was that. We changed a lot lot lot of diapers. She was up a lot at night. We were up a lot at night. She got a hideous diaper rash. We staggered around like zombies.

And then it was over. But not really.

Because then I got it. And I realized that it sucked more than I knew. I've had approximately six pieces of toast and some noodles since Monday. Oh, and a little cereal.

I'm still afraid to eat, right now, as I type.

But poor little India. I just had no idea how terrible she felt.

Because Monday night, my whole body hurt. My skin hurt. My head hurt. My stomach was upset. I was exhausted. I had chills. I had fever dreams. I thought I was getting the flu.

Tuesday my mom took care of India, while I alternated between bed and bathroom. If I didn't eat or drink, then it was less of an issue. But you know, I'd get hungry or thirsty, as you do, and then...

Wednesday was even more about both places.

Nick called to see how I was feeling and I said, "Pretty crappy!" Which made me laugh which made me almost shit the bed.

HAHAHA....hahahaha...haha...h...a?

I told Nick he's lucky I have cat-like reflexes and excellent sphincter control.

Yesterday, I forced myself to go to the office, because I felt marginally better, and I had a shit-ton (hahahaha...ha...ha) to do.

I wore a maxi-pad so that in the event of a crisis, I'd be able to make it to the bathroom.

Because I'm a smarty-pants. HAHaha...

I can still hear the baby grand in the background.

On June 1, I will be walking 18 miles overnight in the 2013 Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk.

When I first heard about it, which was only about a week ago, it struck such a chord. Suicide, as any of you who have been with me for some time know, is all too personal an issue for my family. This month - either May 15 or 16 - marks the four-year anniversary of my dad's death.

You have to agree to raise at least $1,000. As a person who doesn't like to ask others for favors, let alone money, I was nervous when setting up my page. How am I going to get people to give me $1,000?

Nick said, "It's not like you're asking people to give money for you to enjoy yourself in Paris. This is suicide we're talking about. Saving people's lives. Put $2,500 as your fundraising goal."

So I did.

I put a message on Facebook, and quickly raised almost that amount. So I upped my goal. And I upped it again. Because every dollar matters.

If you are able and inclined to donate to the walk, here's my fundraising page. If you are unable to contribute, I so appreciate your kindness and support.

I'm also putting a badge on my sidebar. I hope this doesn't bug people. As Nick said, it's not for Paris.

Initially, I thought I was walking for my dad. And then I realized I'm also walking for my uncle, who I've never talked about here. I'm walking for friends, dear friends, who have attempted suicide and thank God are still with us. I'm walking for the myriad friends I've had over the years who have struggled with depression.

And that's just the people I know.

I'm walking for people who have written to me at LG to thank me for writing about suicide, who have shared their own stories of attempts, of depression. I don't know them in person, but I'm walking for them.

I'm walking for everyone who has ever been touched (and by touched of course I mean brutally shoved and shattered) by the suicide of a loved one. This is a lot of people, with a death by suicide every 14 minutes.

I'm walking to help break the stigma of depression and suicide. When I first started talking about it, when my dad was in the hospital in 2007, nearly 30 years after his first attempt (and that many years of silence on our parts), my dad was livid. It wasn't my life. It was his.

He was ashamed, and he was angry. How dare I talk about it?

I was angry, too. It was my life. And I wasn't ashamed. And I was starting to work to repair the damage wrought by almost 30 years of the possibility of losing my dad at any moment and of maintaining the silence.

I'm so sorry that he never found peace with it, and I hope in death he finally did. One of my goals is to help change the culture around mental illness, so that people do not hide in shame and silence, and so that we do not lose more people to suicide.

So I signed up for the walk, and I posted on Facebook. And I waited nervously.

And then, then donations and messages started pouring in. One close friend, who I hadn't seen for 20 years until a brief afternoon with him and his family last fall, donated and said,"I can still hear the baby grand in the background."

You touch people, and they touch you back, if that makes sense. Or, as one of my textile instructors likes to say about the variability of dyeing (not dying), "Everything affects everything."

These messages have made me cry like I haven't in so long. The fact that so many people - some of whom I have never met in person, and others I haven't seen for 25 years - have donated and said that their hearts are with me - this overwhelms me with gratitude, with solidarity.

When I first signed up - without any thought, which is how I tend to do things, I was energized. And then I got all twitchy. Can I actually walk 18 miles overnight? I know I can walk 18 miles...but overnight? You know, after being up for a day?

So then I sat myself down and said, "Lisa. You spent six months getting up every couple hours and feeding a baby with your boobs. You can certainly put one damn foot in front of the other for 18 miles."

And that, my friends, is how I got started with the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk. And truthfully, the more walkers' stories I read, the more I cannot wait.

Which might formerly have been called, oh, Tuesday. If remarked upon at all.

Typically our weekend nights are much like our weeknights, and we're in bed by 10 or 10:30 because dear God, sleep is precious. And the wee savages are relentless.

But every once in a while, you just have to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and carpe the diem  - or noctem (I looked it up) - as the case may be.

Last Friday, we had a glass of wine after dinner (uh, not so much on the 15-day experiment...but there were extenuating circumstances like children and the Kentucky Derby and the deliciousness of mint juleps, which we may have Cinco de Mayo'd with as well. I do, however plan to try it out...one of these sometime soons.) We sat outside, as it was lovely and clear - Nick in shorts and a t-shirt (Oh! The delightful briskness!) and me in jeans and a down jacket (Brr! It's fucking May motherweatherfuckers!) and then alas, it was  somewhere past 10 pm, which, as I said, is pumpkin time.

Except! Nick made the bold and unexpected proposal of television! He suggested it somewhat furtively, as if proposing we skulk off to do something dirty.

Incautiously, I said, yes, oh, yes! Television. I miss you so.

So we went upstairs and turned on the TV and there on the Netflix screen was the Hunger Games! Do you know how long I've been waiting to see it and haven't because my TV-watching companion AKA husband is never interested? But Nick was amenable!

(And I know this is now such old news, but Peeta was so much cuter when I read the books.)

So suddenly and inexplicably it was midnight(!) and I suggested we finish the movie another time and Nick said, "Let's keep watching. I'll get up with the kids."

The odds were ever in my favor!

It was the parently crazy late hour of 12:30 by the time we were crawling in bed...and then, then although this is not that kind of blog, there was some S-E-X, which I only mention because this was how wild and crazy our night was.

And then it was insanely late and I was all, now that we've been this insanely careless with our sleep, I feel like we should totally inject heroine into our eyeballs.

Fifteen there's still time for you

Did I tell you about my 15-day no-wine experiement?

So, here's the story. I was complaining to my trainer about my previously-flat, post-baby-squishy stomach. And here let me say: It's not large. I know I'm not fat. I'm not trying to annoy anyone or even being all woe is me.

It's more that I used to have a great stomach and not have to work so terribly hard on it, and now I have to do a lot of ab work and it still likes to peek over my pants when I sit down. It would happily just sit in my lap if I let it.

My body has changed in many, many ways since having children. This is the way that annoys me most. Well, this and the boob flaps.

I know I am not alone in this. It's just post-baby body. Although I do know that not everyone's boobs go away.

Anyway.

One evening I texted a friend of mine - my co-yuppie neighbor - and said, "I don't know about you, but I particularly enjoy how my baby-acquired layer of tummy likes to ooze over the top of my pants when I sit."

To which she responded, "Almost as great as the distended nipples. Hard to pick, really."

Which, yah. Good point there. But as my nipples pretty much stay tucked in place, I don't dwell on them so much as the malleable stomach.

So there I was complaining, and he reached over, squoze the squish that I was whining about, and said, "Stop drinking alcohol. And don't eat carbs at night. No wine. No carbs."

And I was all, "I am old I have two children one of them wakes up and screams at night I am tired life is hard and then we drink."

"Fifteen days," was his response. "Just give me 15 days."

How can you say no when someone asks for two weeks of rather modest effort?

Fifteen days. How hard is that?

Nick said he'd do it with me. He thought it was a great idea. But it was Friday. He suggested we wait until after the weekend. I agreed.

Day One was Sunday. Sunday went very well. Off to a rousing start. One day down! Fourteen to go!

On Monday I told Kay about it. She was all, "With two kids. Good for you. Let me know how that works out."

Aaaand on Monday night I texted her:

So Day Two was not a success. Nor was Day Three. She checked in on me last night; Day Four had been terrific, and I was headed to bed.

What I'm trying to decide is this: Should I just start over?

Don't make me send them to starving eunuchs in Bangladesh, is what I'm saying.

Sometimes I can find the charm in "Maaaaaamaaaa my bath! MY BATH! IS TOO WET! DRY MY HANDS!"

Other times these tragedies arrive on the heels of the dinner struggle (Everything is yucky! Or spicy!) and the no-sharing of toys and some variation of a hysterically shrieked, "India wants to take my socks she's touching my socks pick she up she's going to take my socks!" and my head just melts.

We had gotten to a point where we were doing a lot of fighting and everything - every. thing. - was such a fucking struggle. Breakfast. Shoes. Going to school. Dinner. Bath. Pajamas. Bed. Everything.

At the suggestion of my friend Kay, however, I've been reading Aha! Parenting, and genuinely making an effort to connect and be compassionate and turn situations around so that they are cooperative rather than adversarial. And I have to say, things in our household have definitely improved because of it.


When Jordan does something to be proud of, instead of saying, "Good for you!" automatically, I ask him how he feels.

"Wow, you did that all by yourself! How do you feel?"

"Happy!"

Instead of commending Jordan for sharing, I now point out how happy he has made India (or another kid).

"How do you feel?"

"Good!"

The goal, as I understand it, is to make your kid feel safe and loved and make them want to collaborate with you. Instead of doing things you tell them to because they're afraid of punishment or because you've yelled them into it or whatever. And you want them to recognize the feelings of others.

This goes along nicely with our goal of making our kids recognize how lucky they are to have all that they have. They have more than others. We give to others who have less. We share.

Sometimes I am kind of manipulative about it, like when Jordan's cars and trucks are all strewn about and he is refusing to pick up, even when I suggest doing it together, or as a race. And so I must admit that sometimes I posit that maybe he has too many cars and trucks? And maybe we should give some to a kid who doesn't  have a car or a truck? Because there are little kids who don't have cars and trucks, and he has so many that he doesn't want to pick up.

I'm probably setting him up for therapy in some way with this. But it gets the background picked up.

So the positive parenting: No time-outs, no yelling, no threats. You calm yourself down, you let the kid cry if they need to so they can get all their big feelings out, and you work to make things positive.

When I successfully navigate a stressful kid situation, how do I feel? I feel good!

But it is a learning process. Sometimes I manage it nicely.

And sometimes, like the other day when Jordan had snatched several balls from India ("Taking away her toys makes her sad. Look how sad she is.") - balls that he knows we do not throw in the house ("We roll them inside, remember?") and was not only taunting her with them, but also throwing them past her, then running to grab them, after several attempts at calm, positive parenting, I may have lost my mind.

"IF YOU DON'T STOP THAT I'M JUST GOING TO TAKE ALL THOSE BALLS AND GIVE THEM TO A LITTLE BOY WHO DOESN'T HAVE ANY BALLS! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?"