What goes on out there? My children come home for Thanksgiving, but not in the same condition as when I lent them to the world in the first place.

I picked Zed up at the airport yesterday and brought him home around noon. I peered at him and said, "What you need is (1) some food and (2) a nap." "No, I'm not hungry, and I don't want to sleep. I've gotten onto an incorrectly nocturnal schedule - yesterday I took an 8-hour nap from 2 to 10 pm, and then I was up all night. So today, I have to stay awake all day."

I suggested food again, and he refused. Then he said, "I'll just lie down for a few minutes and maybe I'll be hungry." He slept for two hours - he was as white as a corpse, I guess all the blood in his body had been sucked to some deep place. It was a little scary.

So I woke him up and he ate two huge sandwiches, sitting on the couch wrapped up in the comforter I put over him. His cheeks got very rosy. Then he smiled and fell back onto the couch and slept another three hours.

What goes on out there in the world, that my son comes back to me in this condition?

He'd said, "Wake me up so we can make dinner together," so at 5:00 I woke him again and we made curried tofu with green beans and cauliflower (his choice). We ate his delicious food.

Then I had to go direct the Chorale, so I took him to his dad's house and went off into the hurling rain.

When I got back from work, there was a text from my daughter Melina: "Plane an hour late. I'll be sleeping at dad's." A few minutes later, another text: "Plan changed, I'll be at your place in twenty minutes."

So I see the headlights through the pounding, blowing rain, and Melina stumbles into the house with her gigantic suitcase - her coat is in her arms, wet, her clothes are wet, she's shaking and gibbering, she's white as a corpse.

She said, "I was going to sleep at dad's, but last time I snuck into my little brother's room at night [to sleep in the top bunk], he woke up and slipped out of the room and knocked on his parents' door and firmly said: "Daddy, I'm sure there's a monster in my room."

So I took Melina's wet coat out of her hand (she tends to clutch things very firmly when she's exhausted, so as not to lose them), put it down to dry (I could lie and say I hung it up, but I'm not that good a mother), hauled her huge suitcase upstairs and pulled her along behind. She staggered into her flannel pjs, brushed her teeth, and fell into bed - I put a huge down comforter on top of her other blankets and she disappeared into a fluffy beige cloud.

Why was she like this? I don't know yet, but she was mumbling something about an expensive space-age projector malfunctioning at work.

What goes on out there in the world, that my daughter comes back to me in this condition?

If you know me, you know I was in heaven. Being allowed to mother my children is my very greatest pleasure.

Technorati Tags: Family, Thanksgiving