I Can't Think of a Title, So Sue Me.

I've noticed that a lot of blogs start with some form of the disclaimer "I haven't blogged in a while." "I haven't blogged in a while because there are a million and two more important things for me to think about and do on a given day," for example, or "I haven't blogged in a while because I temporarily lost the ability to move my left hand."

Mine's just this: I haven't blogged in a while because I didn't have anything to say. My last few posts were Jack-centric, and I didn't want to step on them with some meaningless drivel about how hot it is (in SUMMER in ALABAMA, can you BELIEVE it?) or how much I need to do a clothing-and-toy purge and dust under the TV stand because when I'm exercising in the morning I'm afforded a disturbingly up-close view of the inch-tall layer of ick.

But I don't think Jack would mind my moving on to other topics, and even though I still don't really have much to say beyond those things I just mentioned, I hate to let too much time go by without writing something about life for the sake of posterity.

The kids turned 8 and 3, respectively. I haven't wrapped my brain around it yet. I mean, 8, sure, Alex has been going on 16 since he started stringing together complete sentences. At 2, instead of throwing an age-appropriate tantrum, he would stomp off to his room and slam the door, then emerge minutes later, voice shaking with barely contained emotion, to tell us "I am not very happy with you right now."

So his turning 8 shouldn't come as such a shock to me, right? Only it's an age I remember so well, and it doesn't seem that long ago. It was the year I busted my chin open trying to do a flip over the stair railing at carpool. It was the year we got my first dog, Bonnie, a sweet little black-and-white sheltie mix to whom I credit my enduring love for overweight, sweet-natured dogs with floppy ears. It was the year that I fell in love with Mikey from The Goonies and doodled "I love Sean" all over my notebooks.

It was, if memory serves, the year I found out the first skewed incarnations of all kinds of things that I can't fathom Alex knowing at this juncture in his life.

But, well, it's happened. He's turned 8. And as the instances of laughing at something he's said because it's cute and precocious have become fewer, those of laughing at something he's said because it's GENUINELY FUNNY have soared. He's turning out to be quick with a one-liner like his dad, one of those people whose sudden sharp wit catches you off guard in just the perfect moment in just the perfect way. It will take him far, that. It's one of the things that made me fall for Steven in the first place.

In the meantime, Katherine has taken 3 by storm. She is a live wire, our sunshine baby. It's like someone passed her a note, a 4-year-old, maybe, worldly and wise, disclosing the tightly guarded secret of how to temper maximum maddeningness with supreme sweetness and abject adorability so that no one ACTUALLY kills you.

She kisses with abandon, "lubs" everyone and everything, snuggles and giggles and lulls you into complacency, so that when you forget to let her open the string cheese by herself, or when her brother calls her Frieda (long story), or when the bow falls out of her hair, or when her doll won't balance on top of the dining room table, or when the sun is in her eyes, or when it's time to go to bed or time to get up, or when she puts on her pants with both legs in one leg hole ... when any of these things happens, you're surprised and baffled (and a little bit awed) by the deluge of insanity that erupts from this tiny person who seemed so demure and angelic a few seconds ago.

And then the storm passes and she's all smiles and hugs and love and sunshine and bunnies and rainbows again. It must be exhausting.

And then, because it's still on my mind a lot (a LOT a lot) ...

It's been two months and one week since we lost Jack. Most days I'm okay. Most days I can even think about him and talk about him without tearing up. But then there are times like when we got back from our beach trip with the Texas family. I was putting my shoes on, about to go to my parents' house to pick up Charlie. "Where are you going?" Katherine asked. "I'm going to get the dogs," I said, because we'd never been away before and NOT had two of them to pick up. And then, because I was tired and hot and because I had just accidentally poked myself right in the grief, I burst into tears.

So yeah, it's still there, sometimes, that horrible breathtaking ache when it hits me that he's not coming back, EVER. That I will never wrap my arms around him and breathe in his special Jack-scent as I give him a big bear hug. That he will never shove his head up under my hand so I'll have to pet him. That I can leave food unattended and it won't be gone in the time it takes me to turn my head.

But mostly it's better, and mostly we're happy, and often there's laughter and always there's love.

I'll take it.