After a thorough search, I found the bowling pin under the sink in his play kitchen. I knew he was on to me. I didn’t say a word to him.
Ward and I decided to stay on top of his questionable tendencies by calmly addressing the occurrences as they happened but not make a big deal out of it. We saw it as a phase. I wrote about Thorin’s kleptomania and the master key incident on the blog. I thought it was a great example of how typical Thorin could be developmentally. We decided not all the examples of Thorin should be shining examples of human behavior. We weren’t interested in creating an emblematic personality but relating Thorin’s complexity as a human being through real life stories. It also belied the stereotype that children with Down syndrome weren’t capable of guile. Ward and I found Thorin could be as cunning as any child.
Soon after I posted the kleptomania story, Ward heard from one of his relatives who shared, “You should be concerned; Kari thinks this kind of thing is funny.” Everybody’s a critic.
Something that was truly not funny was how often Ward and I argued. The glow of parenting had been replaced with the stale plot lines of any sitcom where the husband and wife quarrel about division of labor. Except in our case, unfortunately, it was more of a melodrama. I was so desperate I even bought What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers. The author used animal training strategies to get her husband to pick up his clothes and stop bothering her while she was cooking. It fell apart for me almost immediately because I forgot how much I objected to places like SeaWorld, plus her strategies reminded me of the “positive parenting” ideas I had been bombarded with at the school.
What’s wrong with “hey, Mister, you need to do more around the house?”
It was a difficult time. Ward saw me as a nag, and I completely understood why. He wasn’t putting things back where they belonged—that’s right, things belong in specific places. Ward’s response to my criticism of his cavalier ways was often “Who Moved My Cheese, Kari?” In his mind, he was scolding me for being too petty. I knew he’d never read the book; he was just quoting me the title. One day hearing that comeback, I lost it.
“Ward, I spent twenty minutes this morning trying to find the vacuum attachment for furniture! Do you want to know where I found it?”
“Not really.”
“In your bathrobe! Which was in a ball on top of the refrigerator!”
“What’s your point?”
“I don’t have twenty minutes! And that book doesn’t have anything to do with nagging wives! That would be some jerky husband to write a book making fun of his wife searching frantically for stuff . . .” And then of course I started sobbing uncontrollably, just like Mary Tyler Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show. “Oh, Rob!”
Ward put his arm around my shoulders, “We have to figure this out, Kid.”
That’s exactly what Rob Petrie would have done on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
We did figure it out a little bit at a time. We had also forgotten about a strategy we had come up with years before. It was a simple phrase that helped us out of some horrible arguments. When the disagreement became unproductive and opportunities for hurting each other, one of us would try to remember to shout out, “UF not FU!” (United Front not Fuck You!) It was a reminder we were on the same side and we needed to rely on each other’s strengths, not our weaknesses. It was a rallying call to our better selves. We hashed out how to get back to being on the same side when we had created a wedge made of “if only” and “you always.”
Ward then asked a very practical question. “I don’t know what I do to bother you until it’s too late, and you’re mad.”
Isn’t that the truth? That’s a whole book on the dynamics of females and males; Uh, What Did I Do This Time? could be the title.
“Excellent point! Act like a guy who wants to get laid. That should keep you on your best behavior!” I offered enthusiastically.
“Alright, I can try that. What are you going to do?” he countered.
“I am going to act like it’s important to me that you not think I’m a bitch.”
“Sounds good,” he answered laughing.
Soon after, a challenge came our way we were united on. We needed to move from our triplex. Our neighborhood was changing. We had known there was likely illegal activity going on in the house across the street and ignored it until the night I walked into the living room to find Thorin standing on the couch with the shade pulled up. Outside stood an ambulance, a fire truck, a crime scene investigation unit, and three police cars. Ward talked to one of the officers. There had been a stabbing, and the victim claimed he had fallen on his knife. Somehow that didn’t seem plausible to us having watched all five seasons of The Wire.
Thorin, Coco, and Walt hated the move so much they all tried to escape. One afternoon, I was working at the dining room table in our new apartment when I looked up from the computer and saw a woman in cut-off shorts, a halter top, and high-heeled sandals walking down the middle of street with Coco in her arms while a man with an impressive pompadour drove a Thunderbird convertible slowly behind her. I felt like I was watching a scene from a John Waters movie. I tore outside.
“Oh! Our Coco!” I yelled from our porch.
“Listen, Hon, your Coco almost got smashed by us!”
“Oh, how terrible! Thank you for getting her home!”
A week later, I was working at the computer again and looked up
