Hot Child In The City

He is at home among the concrete and buildings that draw his eyes to the sky. They are as tall as they will ever be to him. One day they will seem less like giants and become commonplace, but for now they are worth pointing upwards to with wonderment that reflects off the hundreds of windows.



We are serenaded by street performers and he hides behind me when they direct their attention to him.
"Hey there, kid!"
"Hi," he whispers behind my knees.
He is wary of attention louder than the instruments, preferring instead to remain anonymous and take in the sound. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. We blush, we hide, we move on to the next cafe.


Our mother-son "dates" downtown have become ritualistic. I value them more than I realize sometimes and I hope he does too. Eventually he will be like me, wandering around as a teenager looking for stories to make his own. He is brand new among the historic buildings that hold memories of mine, that are becoming memories of his.

By the time we have our next adventure he will have already grown just a tad closer to the top of those buildings.

Four

I sat on top of the parking garage on Park and Speedway and watched the sun blush until it tucked itself away for the evening. That was five years ago. I sat on top of that parking garage and watched the world, seemingly alone. I wasn't.
I went home and told your father that yes, yes we would try. We would allow the world I watched from several stories up flip upside down. We would keep the child, tucked away under my clothes, my doubts, my fear. You made us yours and hurling towards us, week by week, we could only hold hands and brace ourselves for the impact.

"Red rover, red rover, send the future over."

Four years ago I walked around the hospital grounds, waiting for you to arrive. It was happening. The culmination of nine months and wondering. Nine months and worrying. Nine months and hoping that everything would be okay.

I blinked and you were born. I blinked and you were crawling, walking, running. You were one, two, three times my baby. But not anymore.

Today you are four.

You want to walk down the sidewalk on your own now. You want to uncover the stories in the dirt for yourself. I offer my hand, try to reel you back into my grasp, but you won't have it anymore. You are on your own mission.

"I can walk on my own. You trust me now."

I don't want to believe it. The notion that one day you'll walk on these sidewalks completely alone, without me to point out the colors in the early spring daisies. Without me to say "we're almost there."



You reassure me now. You hold my hand only when you feel I need it. And much like that summer evening I spent staring off into that pink horizon, unsure of the unknown, somewhere deep down I knew it would be okay. You knew.

I trust you now. We're almost there.



Happy Birthday, little prince.

My Day In A Few Sentences

He buried his head into my shoulder, hitting the tender part between the bone and the joint, the part I've worn thin from countless swim practices before him. It is all sweaters and fall weather outside and here we are on the couch watching the same movie for the third time. He is the only person in the world I would tolerate that from.

He wraps his arm around mine, a lazy smile evolves and...

"My mom is here."

And no moment in the history of moments, no words in the history of words has ever mattered so much.

If I could finish wiping the tears off of the surfaces that they fell on I could take him on the picnic I promised him.

Dear Jack

I feel like it's been awhile since I've written one of these. It's not that I've forgotten but mostly it's a lack of words that match what's going on in my head. The dots do not connect, the lines are colored outside of- this seems to be the theme of things lately. We recently celebrated our first Halloween, just you and me. You were Ang from Avatar, which seems to be your favorite show as of late (I miss the Yo Gabba Gabba days. Can we go back to the Yo Gabba Gabba days?). I didn't dress up. It seemed like a challenge to take on another persona when it feels like I have so many to juggle lately. I only wanted to be one thing for the evening anyway- your mother. I've only ever wanted to be your mother, even when I didn't know it.
Things are crazy right now little prince. They are hard and more than anything I want to say "I'm sorry" for all of this. For the split times and different houses. It must all seem weird and I feel it too. I want to give you more and when I'm working with half of more it's difficult to not feel like I made a mistake somewhere. Gambled too hard, leaped before looking. Some would say I've done this before and I have.

And then there was you, and now I gamble in a different way.

I will continue to put it all on the line, fall from heights unknown- for you. And right now even though this all seems like a pain in the ass, fruitless; one day I will be able to look at you and know I did the right thing.

I wish the world was as it was explained to us when I was your age. A tender fairytale where all dragons are slayed and a happily ever after is promised for all. I will be the first to tell you that this is not how it works. It is much more complex, more nuanced, harder to swallow. But in the end real life is better-




Because this is real. And this is worth fighting for, even if the battle is of my own doing.

Eventually little prince, this will all make sense. Eventually you'll know what living true to oneself feels like and I hope you'll understand where I'm coming from.

I love you more than you can fathom.

-Mom



(This song is actually a little piece of why I named you Jack).

Tuesdays With Jack

Jack and the Beanstalk

My son is growing marigolds...


Sometimes he overpours, flooding the tiny seedlings; creating a pool of drifting dirt, streaking the clay pot with water.

"Careful," I warn "you don't want to over-water them."
"Yeah," he says both concerned and yet unflappable. He knows what he's doing. Even if he doesn't, I must let him figure it out on his own. Let him color outside the lines. Let him spill and fall and piss and yell. Sometimes I have to hold my tongue, watch the dirt float to the top. Try again next time.

My son is growing.


It wasn't so long ago that I was growing a seedling of my own.

I wonder if he bites his tongue for me sometimes. Ignores the fact that I cry so easily, curse a little too much, let my head drift a little too far into the atmosphere because sometimes it's afraid of the cold, hard ground.

"Be careful" he says.

We keep each others dirt tended, cared for. And out of our eyes marigolds grow.

Dear Jack,

You are now three. You have been three for three months and three weeks. You like "Cars" and "Kung Fu Panda" and singing. You sing loudly for the world to hear. You sing from your heart and I admire it because I never have. I'm too afraid to sing out loud, to release my voice to the judgement of the world. I hum instead. It's safer.
You ride your tricycle... I'M SORRY! I mean "motorcycle"! You ride your "motorcycle" as fast as you can. Pushing your body forward and stopping just before you slam into something.

"Stop!" I yell. And you look over your shoulder and smile.
"Gotcha, " your eyes laugh.

I drive the speed limit (most of the time) and buckle my seat belt (most of the time). I make car appointments to make sure the brakes are okay and the AC is cool enough to keep your hair from sticking to your head after a long day at preschool. I worry about the brakes and impatient drivers. I worry now.

You want to open doors and help us cook. You like stickers and place them all over the house, taunting the perfectionist in me that would normally pull them off.
"Those are an eyesore!"

But I leave them be. Because you put them there. I don't care what Apartment Therapy says about it. Those tiny fingers picked those stickers off the paper and placed them there. And that's worth more too me.
Things have changed, dearest friend. You are bigger and faster and more bold than before. You are challenging us everyday. We are all growing, us three. Three. You are three...

I'm not sure what I expected out of motherhood. I suppose I expected to be afraid. Some days I am. But most days I'm not. You have made me fearless. A warrior. I know what I want now. I want the world and the stars. I want to give you a place to miss one day. A place to look back on and think "those were the days".

But these are the days. Right now. I'm trying to scrape them together and tuck them safely away because the world moves to fast and I feel like it doesn't understand the delicateness of these moments. I don't think the world understands what this means to me, these hand prints on paper, these marker filled pictures...

By next summer you will be four and I'll be thinking "those were the days." When you loved "Cars" and "Kung Fu Panda". When you liked to open doors and help us cook. When you sang from your soul and your daredevil eyes taunted my caution. When the hand prints on the paper were smaller.

And you were more mine than the worlds.

It's all happening sweet prince. You are growing up so fast. So fast. It's all happening so fast...



"Those were the days..."

The (pre) Pre-K Took My Baby Away

We all woke up early today, Jack already bouncing off the walls in a way I wish I could replicate without the aid of prescription drugs or caffeine. That's one of my favorite things about children- they arise every morning without hangups. I wondered if he knew what exactly was to come. He would be going to pre-school/daycare, introduced to a new world and saying goodbye to the one he'd grown accustom to for the last three years. Me.

I prepared for this. Reenacted the scene in my mind for a week and reminded myself of WHY he's going, counting the good reasons and remembering that this was inevitable. What I hadn't prepared for was the silence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five years ago I got "this too shall pass" in latin inscribed on my hip indelibly with ink. I was going through a hard time and found comfort in those four simple words. I said them in my head, hoping with all my might that I wasn't saying them in vain. I made some questionable decisions as a teen but this one I cherish because it's true. "This too shall pass..."

I thought this when I got down. I thought this when I was sick of being pregnant and when pregnancy got sick of me I thought about this in the throes of labor.

Not only does it help me through the hard times but it reminds me of the good. To stop and cherish them. "This too shall pass..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In parenthood the days are long and the years are short. When I opened the door to hand Jack off to his teachers I remembered the day when nurses handed him off to me. And our life began. I nursed him as an infant and spent days staring at him. I soothed his swollen gums and stayed up late with him. I got frustrated and cried and I got overwhelmed with love and cried some more. And when I wasn't looking, when I blinked, he grew up. Our own little world filled with days in the park, sandwiches with crusts cut off, tiny toy cars and coloring books started to shrink as his own world just started to expand. I took stage right as his spotlight brightened.

"We'll be back soon! I love you!"

I turned and walked out as fast as I could and resisted the urge to look back. Got in the car and turned up the CD player as loud as I could handle it to fill the now empty back seat and my head.

"This too shall pass..."

And it has. It does, everyday. Pregnancy, infancy, toddlerhood, pain, childhood, long afternoons with his hand in mine, faces pink under the sun, elementary school...this too shall pass. All of it bittersweet.


And so, it is off to his own adventures. The chrysalis has been broken. He'll fly fine on his own. I just hope I can do the same.

My Birth Story, For What It's Worth

Since starting Lullabies and realizing that my blog, whether I choose to accept it or not, tends to slip into "mommy blog" territory, I've toyed with the idea of posting my birth story. I've read a few at other places and have enjoyed tales of women doing, in all shapes and forms, one the most challenging aspects of life; the bringing in of another. The MOST challenging aspect of life? Getting your coffee maker and VCR to stop saying 12:00. I digress. Since Jack is taking a nap right now (the voodoo is working you guys!) I figured I'd regale you with the tale of how Jack almost but didn't come out of my vagina but came into the world nonetheless.

Here is that story.



March 6th, 2008

"Lets have sex. I want this baby out now. I've walked all day and he's overdue and I'm kind of horny anyway. Your fatherly duties start now. Pretend I'm hot and lets go for it."

Greg won the Oscar for his role in "Things I Did So My Pregnant Girlfriend Wouldn't Maime Me" that night.

March 7th, 2008

We wake up and Greg starts getting ready for work while I get ready for my job that I started around my seventh month of pregnancy- being aggitated. I start thinking that nothing will get Jack out and that I'm destined to be that forty year old woman on the Discovery Channel who is PREGNANT FOR TWENTY YEARS or something equally horrific. But then-
"Whoa. Uhhhh...I think we may be on to something here."
"Really?!"
"Yeah. Call in. I think this is it."

Greg calls in and the first thing I think of is how hungry I am and how I'm happy he's off because now he can drive my fat, laboring ass to Burger King to eat the last thing I would be able to eat for over twenty four hours. I scarf two, yes two, Whoppers and fries and proceed to lay around counting the minutes between contractions and freaking the hell out. Because I am twenty years old and while all my peers are gearing up for spring break I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will soon be trying to push a living, breathing human being out of my body. I suppose my peers and I did have ONE thing in common in that moment- the want of a really strong margarita.
After things started to progress (read: I was cussing more at the contractions, Greg, my unfinished french fries) we decided to move the party over to the birthing center. I spent the next hour or so being hooked up to monitors and pretending like I knew what the hell I was looking at. After that they said I wasn't dilating enough and to take a walk for an hour to speed things up. Because that was EXACTLY what a wanted to do. Go and pick some daisies while my insides were being squeezed by invisible man hands. So walk we did. It was nice to be able to scream at things like lizards and cactus. I knew they wouldn't judge me and my colorful language.
Once we walked around for a good hour I was admitted into my room. It was swanky. I immediately perked up and became slightly confused. Had Greg won a crapload of money playing craps with other expectant fathers while I was on the monitor thing and we got upgraded to the "High Rollers Birthing Suite"? Whatever it was I liked it. There were wood floors. Wood floors land directly on #15 of my all time favorite things. We settled in and Greg began the first of his many trips to fetch me cherry flavored popsicles and ice. I hate cherry flavored anything, but labor does weird things to the mind. I turned on Scrubs (television lands on #14 of my all time favorite things) and the wait began...

"Yes. YES. I would like the epidural! YESPLEASEKTHANKSBYEDOCTORMAN!"

I had held out long enough. It should be known that prior to going into labor I had this grand plan of what my labor would look like. Wanna know what I thought it would look like?
1. I would breathe like I had taken yoga for five years instead of whining about how "I should take yoga"...for five years.
2. I would walk around and pause, letting contractions wash over me like a birthing goddess and people would marvel over my birthing goddessness.
3. I would have my ipod playing a thoughtfully planned birthing mix and we would cry and get excited and cry again when the right songs played.
4. My hair would've looked a lot better.

But, I forgot my ipod at home so none of this went down. I proceeded to eat ice pops and tell my mom "this is the first and only grandchild you're ever getting out of me so I hope you're happy" repeatedly. I became THAT woman, when the going got tough. Luckily, I had an AMAZING team of nurses to guide me along and support me. I will say that much about my birthing experience. The nurses made it bearable. My doctor, for some reason, could not be there for my labor and I was introduced to the guy that would be. Remember that scene from "Knocked Up"? Well, I couldn't find the right clip on Youtube, so this one will have to do. But my doctor was kind of a step up from that being that he asked me politely, but with a slight off-putting grin, if he could "pop my waters" (my water had not broken) and then proceeded to go to Barnes and Noble. How do I know he went to Barnes and Noble? Because he told me "I'm gonna go and get some coffee and read at Barnes and Noble". This was the man I trusted to fist me periodically throughout the evening to check my progress. I considered becoming a lesbian after that, what with my hatred of men growing by the minute. I know you can't just BECOME a lesbian, but if freshman year of college taught anybody anything it was that you could for a little bit, if you wanted to.
So things are going kind of okay. I'm sucking down water and chewing ice cubes like I'm going to win something (hint: I DID win something! You'll find out at the end of the post!), people are doting on me and I can't feel the pitocin they had me hooked up to because I had used jedi mind tricks asked for an epidural and was marveling over how awesome the world was and I no longer wanted to be a lesbian. None of this would prove effective for actually HAVING a baby. My body just wasn't having it. I have a small pelvis. Jack ended up being 9lbs. 5oz. and after about three hours of strenuous pushing and no progress, we began considering a c-section.
I cried.
They wheeled me into the OR and did what they had to do. It was kind of like Inception. Only instead of being really confused at the end, I had a baby.

March 8th, 2008

I awoke from the anesthesia and looked into my sons eyes for the first time. It was like Christmas. It was like all the birthday wishes I'd ever made had been wrapped in a blanket. I smelled his head and fell in love.



It wasn't a perfect. But he was.

We're All Mad (about Devendra) Here...

So I think by now it's no surprise that I'm totally in love with all things Devendra (music, looks, crazy hippie secular being vibe, music) Banhart. But my family digs him as well. Going through some old pics and video I cam across Jack dancing around in the kitchen to one of his favorite Banhart songs-



*Sorry this is sideways.
*I'd recommend turning it down. He has a pretty sharp screech at :13.
*He's screeching along to this-

(specifically the part at 2:39)

The Unbearable Heaviness Of Growing

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommmmmy!"
"OK, fine, you can come in here for a little bit. Five minutes and then it's bed time okay?"
"OK."

I listened to his approaching footsteps, his blanket dragging along, and I KNEW he'd have Panda lovingly head-locked in his arms. Jack curled up between us in the ditch we make from different sleeping patterns—the so-called Equator of Restlessness—as he made it his own. For whatever reason, he laid down by our legs, head hitting my hip, unlike the usual curly hairs tickling my nose, seizing its territory across my pillow.
I stared out the window, watching car lights hit the panes and travel across the walls. We all laid still, silent, calm. As I closed my eyes, a tiny hand reached up and tucked itself in my palm.

Never has this happened before. Jack is very catlike, doling out affection where he sees fit, pushing it away when it comes on too strong. Usually, I wait, watching for holes in his armor, sneaking kisses and cuddles through those holes when I can.

An even deeper silence fell over the room. There, our hands held each other for a mere minute, and then...

"I'm going to go to bed now."
"OK buddy, goodnight."
"Goodnight."

I watched Jack’s head disappear into his room and released the grip that held my chest together, exhaling the fumes of reality through my nose.

My baby is gone.

My baby is now but a mere memory, stored away as jpegs on my hard drive and old clothing folded in the back of the closet.

In less than a week Jack will be three, though I haven't fully accepted this fact. How could I? It seems like only yesterday that I locked him into his car seat for the first time, laying my head against his tiny armrest, gazing at him the entire way home. Both our eyes wet, adjusting to a new world, trying to see things in focus. I cried when a certain song came on. It was too much.

"This is too much. This is so big."

Last night, as his hand left mine, a tiny death occurred inside me. One neither of mourning nor regret, though I knew that moment would be one of the last of its kind. A young child looking for reassurance from his mother, reaching up to make sure she's still there. Reaching up...

He's chasing the world down, ready for more. My place has been reduced from motherly hovercraft and guardian angel to sideline sitter; now merely watching, pushing him on. He won’t need me to hold his hand much longer.

But I'll keep it within reach.

My Son, The Asshole

Jack is at a peculiar age. We're less than a month away from his third birthday, and evidently he has plans on ringing it in with my sanity hanging by a thread. When did three become the new thirteen? He walks around the house like he owns the place, grabbing, screaming, pitching fits, and basically, it's his way or the highway. Or, there will be blood-and not in a cool Daniel Day Lewis, "I drink your milkshake" way.

Here's what an average day looks like-


And when he's not doing that at home, he's tantruming at Target, which I secretly think is because he senses that I so adore shopping there. He instinctively knows that to take down a leader, you must first take away their resources, thus begins his quest to destroy merchandise whilst trying to steal my food/chair/brush/soul, and just generally being a disheveled rapscallion*. Every day starts with a tantrum and ends with what I assume to be the beginning stages of alcoholism.

As I'm looking over the evidence as the day winds down, I find myself baffled, wondering where my sweet-natured little boy went, and who sent this clone-hell bent on destruction-to take his place. Then I ask myself: Where did I fuck up along the way?

"Maybe we spoiled him too much? Maybe I need more patience. I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! No! I can! I am woman! Hear me roar!"

Everyday I get broken down and it's my job to build myself back up. And everyday I find myself thinking of other women, other mothers, and I'm amazed that there are so many who are out there doing it alone, doing it with less, doing it with multiple children and jobs. And I'm amazed.

Motherhood takes balls. It's not for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart. So I tip my hat to all of you out there. You're all my heroes.

Nevertheless, Jack is still on my shit list.

*I'm happy I finally got to use "rapscallion" in a post.

30 Day Dare 7/30

"Can I have kisses?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I'm coloring."

Sometimes you tear the paper by pressing too hard...

Mama Police

Let's get one thing out of the way- I have a potty mouth. No! I have the mouth of a pirate ship that's been lost at sea for three years, battling scurvy and entertaining loose women. Before Jack I never gave a thought as to who I was potentially offending (old ladies on the bus, my English teacher) and I just let the f-bombs and s-storms come flying when and where I felt fit.

"It makes you sound uneducated."
"Whatever. I have the highest GPA in the damn English class. So that notion can go fuck itself."

Fast forward a few years and now I have Jack. When Jack was an infant I figured he was too mesmerized by his own hands to notice the "son of a motherfuck"s I was tossing around when it came to breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, healing c-section sites and general Arizona summer weather. Surely he didn't notice the in-depth expletives I served up my malcontents on the road. No, my son would never understand "donkey dildo shit eater" from "Ohhhh, loooook at the duckies!!"

Until he did.

After Jack dropped his very own f-bomb the other day while mimicking me, I slammed the brakes.

"Uuuuuhhhh nooooo! Okay, listen. Mama has a bad, bad potty mouth! And she needs to STOP! No bad words okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay."

And we moved on to more pressing matters like apple juice refills and guitar playing.

But, habits don't just end at the snap of a finger. And by dinner I had "an accident".

"*pop off oil landing on my skin from the skillet* Oooowww fuck!"

And then I see this curly head of hair peek around the corner, with an expression I can only describe as "unimpressed Martha Stewart", points at me with disgust and says-

"NO BAD WORDS MAMA!!"
"Ohh, oh yes, I'm sorry dude. You're right! No bad words! I'm sorry."
"That's okay."

And so it has begun. The reform of my rebel tongue. It's just kinda f*@ked up that a 2 year old had to point it out.

Classy Amanda, reeeeeal classy.

Dude, Where's My Toddler?

Jack, when we first moved into our apartment...


Jack now.

Of Jacks and kings and queens

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
-Lewis Carroll

Lately Jack has been alien to me. He has been talking to us more in somewhat coherent mini-sentences. He asks for food and straps his shoes by himself, brushing my hand away in what I hope is not an omen into his future teens. He gets mad and frustrated in a way that speaks more to me now than a mere bought of irrational broken banana hysteria. He knows when he's being fucked over, when I'm being unavailable. And he knows how to push the right buttons to flip it instantly upside down. He sings songs in the car so loudly and so exactly on cue with whoever is singing it, it has become a road hazard due to an almost overwhelming desire to turn around and watch him and cry. At my boy. My boy. MY boy with his mouth wide open singing out, releasing an imaginary world that I can not see. Cannot fathom.

I try to imagine him as an 8 year old, a 17 year old, a 25 year old. I wonder what he'll wish for when he lays in bed at night. What his first girlfriend will write to him in teenage love notes. What he'll want to be when he grows up.

"He'll be a musician" I say, all the time. And why not? He's my son. The same bean that grew in me while I rattled the shell that separated us for nine months with songs from my headphones.

"Hello Jack. Your mother is feeling melancholy today. Here's a song to brighten up your day. Also, enjoy the coconut curry shrimp I'm sending your way in 15 minutes." I'd tell him. Hoping that my voice would find its way to him in between 60's pop songs and music from the 80's passed down from his grandmother and then, with a slight embarrassment, from me.

"He'll be an actor or a comedian" I say, with the adoration for the minuscule only a mother possesses. The tiniest charismatic smirk, the most expressive utterances of nonsense.

"Purple cats! Airplanes are in the sky! Those leaves are indeed brown and have holes! You're a genius! Can I have your autograph tattooed into my heart please?!"

How can somebody love somebody they've known forever but don't know at all?

I still haven't wrapped my head around parenthood. Every time I think I have I end up laughing at myself, shaking my head in embarrassment for thinking I knew everything all along. Thinking I know how he'll be tomorrow or next month or 25 years from now.

I know nothing and in a way I'm glad. He keeps me on my toes that way. Keeps me changing to catch up with him. Keeps me pondering what I really want out of life. Keeps my mind open and my heart pounding with purpose.

"Whatever he'll be, he'll be him which is the best thing to be anyway" I say.

It seems he keeps on teaching me as well...



*Yes, he has a mustache tattooed (temporarily) on his face. He's a gentleman of course!

Nap time Wars

Jack has pretty much severed naps out of our lives. I say "our lives" because those naps were my happy hour. A time to do chores peacefully and without worry that I'd trip on one of the many land mines (hot wheels cars) he plants or have to stop every 10 seconds to assist/serve/play/scold/teach him . A time for a shower or blogging or catching up with people. Night time is usually a time to catch up with the husband and try to connect but nap time is MY jam.

Until it wasn't.

I can't say I still don't try. I do, but it's all in vain. Lets take a look at the decline of naps (and my sanity) in the Martin household-

Exhibit 1-

2/25/2010- The Stuffed Animal Revolts

Exhibit 2-

12/03/2010- The WTF Incident
* Somehow he managed to pull that toy out of his closet and up on to his bed while I was ironing, without me hearing a damn thing until he started pressing the buttons and having it make its noises.

Exhibit 3-

12/14/2010- The Peaceful Protests


So naps are pretty much finito and early bed times (the kid has been pretty willingly going down at 7 lately) have taken their place. How do you like them apples Jack?! You won the battle little dude, but you lost the war.

Lunchtime Serenade

* Fact- Jack is often pictured and filmed in a diaper due to the fact that the kid is a damn nudist. He never wants to put clothes on unless we're going out.
** I think he's singing about a train as the only lyrics I could decipher were "chugga-chugga-choo-choo!"
** Sorry about the sideways filming and my monotone voice.

Playground Love

Flashback

November 30th, 2008

Even though Greg and I were both in the grip of the flu, this day was like the antidote.







You seem to be the antidote for everything. Bear suit or not.