Act 4, Scene 1: “Missed Ya”

Well, TRL fell into the Parent Crevice. That deep seemingly bottomless pit of “to do” lists, doctor appointments, grocery shopping, cooking, feeding, bathing, and working. He lay dazed and confused at the near bottom, scrapped and demoralized, cut-up and lonely. But he took out his Parenting Ice Ax – beer, wine, valium, obsessive exercise, Snickers and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, whatever gets you by – and inched his way up, and back into the light. Back into domestic near-balance. Time probably also helped, because C and E are now almost 3 years-old and are in “big boy underwear” and “big boy beds.” Gone are the diapers (“not diapers, these are pull-ups” says C) and gone are the cribs (“cribs are for babies,” says E). So maybe things have gotten easier, or maybe TRL has just pulled himself out of one crevice only to slide around in the open for a while before skidding into a brand new drop.