Today is my brother Craig’s 31st birthday. It is also my 36th birthday. Weird, right?! What kind of nuclear timing did my parents have going on? Here’s the other thing. We were born at almost the same time. I was at born at 10:56 a.m. and Craig was born at 11:07 a.m. I know!

When I tell people about this coincidence, they usually say something about how it must have sucked having to share the spotlight on our birthday or how we only got half as much cake as we should have. But really, it was just the opposite. Our birthday always felt bigger than just a birthday. More like a holiday with a big build-up, grandparents coming in from out of town, and two cakes. Always two cakes.

The specialness carried over into our adult lives too. We’ve always made it a point to try to see each other around the 18th, even if we were living hundreds of miles apart. Ten years ago, Craig traveled from upstate New York to be with me in Charlotte, NC for our birthday. He was turning 21 and I was turning 26 and somehow, we managed to end our drunken evening embroiled in a spectacular full-on bar brawl. Craig and Jill vs. the bouncers of the most ironically named bar in the history of bars, Have A Nice Day Cafe. As Craig says, “We got gaffled!” I was on crutches for a week. Really. But, that’s a post for another day.

Hope you Had A Nice Day today, little brother. I love you.

“Is that a dead bug?” Jill asks, squinting.

“Where?”

“Right there, under the lamp.”

I answer, “Oh, that. Yeah.”

“Why is it there?”

“I put it there.”

“But why did you put it there?” she persists.

“Because I wanted to put it somewhere where the boys wouldn’t mess with it, and where you wouldn’t see it?”

“Uh-huh…”

“…because I want to take a picture of it.”

“You want to take a picture. Of a dead bug.”

“I think it’s a stinkbug.”

Over the weekend, I was able to snap a few pictures of the elusive squirrel as he sniffed around our porch pots, then mysteriously disappeared back into the trees.

Bill finishes trying on a new pair of jeans I bought for him and hands them back to me with his approval. He stands in front of the mirror, glorious in his pantlessness, and fashions his shirt into a makeshift bodysuit.

J: “That’s attractive! I think you should wear a catsuit version of that to work!”

B: “Like a unitard!”

J: “Yeah, emphasis on tard…”

Dear Gaggle of Squirrels Living In Our English Walnut Tree,

I am a busy, temperamental woman. There is no June-Cleaver-string-of-pearls-chirpy-bluebird bullshit in this house. I work my rather large, often unshowered, ASS off taking care of my three giant squirrels (all of whom have their own nuts). The baby squirrel thinks I am his personal chew toy. The middle squirrel is wildly creative and toils away thinking up clever new ways to shred himself and give me a stroke. The eldest squirrel is smarter than I am. (Today during lunch, he lulled me into a false sense of security. He successfully ate two cups of strawberry applesauce ‘like a big boy’, which is to say he used a spoon and got 90% of said sauce into his pie-hole. I gave him a third, at his request, and went to check my e-mail. Ahhhhhh, stupid girl. When I returned, I found the third cup empty, its contents now atop his giant head. His matted, shiny hair was shellacked into a smooth helmet, making him look like GI Liam.)

THEREFORE, I do not need your silly asses making any extra work for me! I do not find it cute or amusing that over the long winter you have forgotten where you hid your nuts and search for them EVERY FUCKING DAY in all twenty of my potted porch plants like amnesiacs on a scavenger hunt. Every day, I sweep the dirt from the porches and every day, you dig for the magic, invisible nuts, leaving drifts of potting soil in your wake.

Look. I admit that you’re kind of cute in a bushy rat way. And, I sympathize with the fact that you run your operation with a brain the size of a cornflake. However. I am an inherently explosive individual with few outlets for this personality flaw. You, my friends, are my outlet, so consider yourselves warned. Pass the word. Put a post-it by the knothole on the tree or call a squirrel town meeting. Let the whole gang know that there is a serious amount of crazy headed your way.

So help me, I will tie raw shrimp to your ludicrous, fluffy tails and sic my unfed-for-a-week cats on you. I will slow cook you in barbeque sauce and serve you up as an appetizer at our next party. I will hide penny-sized land mines in your favorite pots and explode you into squirrel confetti.

Stay. out. of. the. pots.

Suck it,

Jill

Liam and Nate are eating lunch at the cute, little-person-sized table and chairs set they inherited from their cousin, Alec. They have more freedom with this set up than when we strap them into their booster chairs at the big table, and more freedom means more delicious opportunity to stab your brother in the eye or finger paint the glass storm door with ranch dressing.

I head for the laundry room to get a load of clothes started while the boys pound chicken tenders and FLAVOR BLASTED Goldfish Crackers. (I swear I wash clothes I’ve never even seen before. I’m convinced our dirty clothes perform an obscene mating ritual each night, spawning sticky, juice-stained shirts and pee-pee soaked pants by morning.) I don’t even make it to the hamper before all hell breaks loose at the cute table. This version of Hell is punctuated by high pitched squealing and insane jabbering fueled by so much urgency, emotion, and volume that their words turn to jibberish as they leave their mouths. They grit their teeth and bulge their eyes at one another while shuddering their heads side to side to emphasize that they are not! fucking! around!

I’m finally able to figure out that Nate has commandeered all four of the highly coveted Little Einsteins figures, leaving Liam Steinless. Nate totally has the hots for June, the dancing brunette of the Einsteins team, and rarely lets her out of his sight. So, no way is he going to hand her over to Liam. Eventually, I persuade (force) him to share and he disdainfully chucks two of the remaining non-June figures at his brother. They cartwheel off of the table and onto the floor. Nate flips Liam off and spits in his juice as Liam scampers after his prizes.

Lunch resumes and I make attempt #2 at the laundry. After five blissful minutes of no refereeing, I realize that it is peaceful at the cute table. Oddly peaceful. Dangerously peaceful. I think that I hear nothing over the slosh of the washing machine, but then I listen more closely. Evil, evil giggling with with an undercurrent of muttering Liam. I slip back around the corner and hear the mutterer gleefully commanding Nate to “Eat it! Eat it!”

One of them has found a black crayon…now half of a black crayon…in a dusty corner of the kitchen. Liam has been productive in his unsupervised minutes, pulling Nate’s marionette strings and making him dance…eat a crayon, rather…because he can. Nate’s beaming face is haphazardly covered in swirls of black (washable!) crayon, like a Wooly Willy picture created by an epileptic artist.

“Open up,” I say. “Let Mum-Mum see your teeth.” He looks like he’s been on an Oreo bender. His molars and the spaces between his teeth are packed with shiny black wax. I clean him up and dispense a too-little-too-late reprimand and time-outs to both. Parenting after the fact. Perfect.

Lunch is cold, but I tell them to finish up so I can hustle them upstairs for their awesome, AWESOME naps. I clean up the kitchen while they ignore their food and drain their juice cups. Without warning or provocation, Liam fixes his eyes on Nate and proceeds to go completely insane. He does that Pentecostal screaming thing again and I can’t make out anything he’s saying. “NAEEEEHAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” I squat down at the table, convince him to turn the volume down a click, and can finally understand him. And when I say ‘understand,’ I mean in its most basic application.

“NO NATE HAVE EARS!!!!”

He is deadly serious and suddenly furious at the existence of his brother’s ears. He covers his own ears and glares at Nate while he screams his complaint to me. “What??”

“NOOO NAAATE HAAAAAVE EEEARSSS!”

I can’t help it. I have to hear it again. “What did you say, Bean?” I fake the concern that I’m sure he thinks this problem deserves, fixing my expression into one of seriousness and sincerity.

“NO! NATE! HAVE! EEEAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRSSSSSSS!!!”

Nate sits quietly, looking bewildered, as his little-brother-ears taunt Liam in some inexplicable way. I laugh. Hard. I have absolutely no answer for this. The boys laugh with (at?) me and I wonder if they think I’m as crazy as I know they are.