Winnie

We lost our cat Winnie, aka Fuzz, this past Monday. After nearly sixteen years, our little hairball succumbed to old age and went peacefully to wherever beloved pets go. Heaven, I suppose. She deserves it after eight years of Gavin. If never fighting back despite having pacifiers and bottles jammed in her mouth, being chased with a kid wielding a kid-sized shovel, and running for her life when he had a bottle of hand lotion doesn't merit a reward, I'm not sure what can.

About three weeks ago, we noticed that she was barely eating and was becoming skin and bones. A two weeks she stopped using the steps. The last two days were spent in increasing confusion, and if she wasn't laying down, she was wandering as best she could as if she wasn't sure where she was.

Gav was wonderful with her, carrying her to her litter box and water bowl during her last days, speaking gently to her, and making sure she had her cat toys by her when she was sleeping. On Monday morning, when we left for school and work, he told me he was worried that she would die -- but he was more worried that she would be in pain while she died.

We can only hope she wasn't. When we got home that night, she was gone. She laid down and died. It looked like she was sleeping. Gav cried a little, as did I, and I held him while we looked at her body and while I wondered what to do next. Surely he would be too broken up to do more than cry.

How wrong I was.

Gav knelt next to her and picked her up. "I want to hold her," he said simply, taking her onto his lap and petting her one last time.

When we wrapped her in a small blanket, he helped. And, as we prepared to bury her, he insisted on putting her little wrapped body in the plastic bag. When we took her out to bury her (not on our property), he took the laundry basket that we put her in and carried it to the car. He helped dig her grave.

Not once did I see him shrink from the tasks he set for himself. He did what he had to do. But this was a had to do that he set for himself. He decided to see Winnie's burial through to the end. Gavin himself decided.

Once before I wrote about how I know that Gav is his own person, and that I am only allowed to borrow him for a while. Watching him lay Winnie's box in the grave and then take the shovel from his father so that he could bury her himself... I can only say I was humbled by his strength. My gentle little son, who fretted that morning not about her death so much as her being alone and in pain when she did pass away, knew what he needed to do to heal himself and face the loss. As he shoveled the dirt back into the grave, I swear that I caught a glimpse of the man he will grow into.

Like any parent, I worry about how life will treat my child. I worry about disappointments and successes. I worry about bullies and broken hearts. I dread the day when a mother's hug can't solve everything. As I tucked him into bed that night, I told Gav how proud I was of the way he helped us take care of Fuzz and helped us bury her. And he looked at me, a bit confused by the idea. "I was worried how you would react," I explained. "I was worried that you would scream and cry and run away." After all, previous to this, he'd buried only hermit crabs and an occasional goldfish.

And he looked at me, again a bit confused. "Why would I do that?"

The thought of not being a part of her burial, I realized, had never crossed his mind.

As I gave him one more hug good night, I kissed the top of his head and managed not to cry. Life won't be easy for him, it never is for any of us, but I'm a little more okay with that now. He'll be able to handle it.

Chef Chaos

On my dresser is a small crystal bowl with a 15-watt light bulb in it.

I've kept it because I don't know why. I just have.

This past spring, I woke to smell of something burning. It was a thick, heavy smell and was coming from the hallway. Strike that. It was coming from Gavin's room. The realization immediately sent me into a panic. Not only was something burning, but it was IN MY SON'S ROOM.

So I woke the husband and we methodically searched the room, feeling walls for heat, checking outlets. We questioned Gavin endlessly, were you playing with matches, did you smell anything last night, did you jam something into the outlets? By the time Aunt Na arrived to get Gavin off to school, I had the husband in the attic checking the wiring by the ceiling fan in Gav's room.

The smell, however, kept getting stronger and stronger, but nothing -- and I mean nothing -- was burning. Nothing that we could find, anyway.

Then Aunt Na thought to check Gav's bedside lamp, the one he kept on during the night. There it was. The 15-watt bulb, burning sure and bright. Good quality those GE bulbs.

For Christmas, Gavin received an Easy Bake Oven and he learned that you could actually cook using a 100-watt bulb.

I bet you know where this is going, don't you?

Yep. Using his understanding of the Easy Bake, Gav decided to see if he could melt a foam sticker. On his light bulb.

So there's a 15-watt bulb on my dresser. Covered in melted foam. I'm still not sure what to do with it. All I know is that it makes me laugh every time I see it.

Daydreaming vs. reality

So we've started second grade. Amazing. Wasn't it yesterday that I was prying him out of the car to go to preschool? Putting stickers on a chart for each day he didn't cry? And yet here we are, moving further and further away from all those "baby" things.

He doesn't hold my hand in public, clinging as if for life itself. Instead he ventures a few feet away, puffed up with his independence and swaggering just a little bit.

At restaurants, he orders for himself, his voice quiet but sure.

At home we argue sometimes. Two very similar personalities trying to get the final word. Because I said so just doesn't seem to work like it used to. He prefers explanations.

My mother says he's another me, whatwith his stubbornness and imagination. I'm okay with that. You need imagination. Without it, what is life but dry facts and numbing repetition?

But never let it be said that life is without bumps. Gav's challenge this year is his imagination. Apparently it's working overtime -- particularly at school. Seems that his mind wanders a bit too much and his teacher needs to constantly remind him to stay on task. We received our first note of the school year. His teacher wants to know how to help him focus during class.

The problem is that I haven't an answer for her.

I spent the vast majority of my elementary education in my own little world, emerging just often enough to do my schoolwork and look like I was paying attention. I didn't struggle academically, which made it all the easier to attend school in body much more than in mind. There seems little point to a lot of the work we did, and I was often corrected doing things my own way (in spite of their being correct). Gav's pretty much the same way. He claims boredom -- and given that he's getting straight-A's -- I believe him.

Actually, I do have an answer for her.

Challenge him. Teach him something that interests him. Teach him something that, to him, has meaning.

Ah, but there's the problem. She can't cater to my son at the cost of his peers. I'm not unreasonable enough to demand it, either. Truthfully, I really don't see his daydreaming as a "problem," except for the fact that he needs to time it a little better and play by the mundane rules of life once in a while. Gav already knows that we expect him to remain focused on his work until it's done (and done correctly). Then, we said, he can let his mind wander to his heart's content.

A parent-teacher phone call is scheduled for tomorrow to discuss this situation. By the tone of her note, his teacher sounds like she values imagination in children, so I'm hopeful that things will go well.

Of course, no matter what, this sure as heck beats another four-boy kicking contest...

To Tell The Tooth...

I have nothing to say at the moment except that I should be working on research before the day's activities begin. However, work is a little difficult at the moment as we have "Pajama Pants Head" running around upstairs.

How can I do anything but laugh when I hear his tearing around upstairs and his father trying to (patiently) tell him to take his pajama pants off of his head and get dressed so that we can go out?

A few weekends ago, I attended a baby shower for one of my girl friend. While perusing the adorable baby blankets and onesies the night before, while trying to figure out whether of not a newborn really needed the so-cute-it-hurts sandals, I realized that I have no desire to return to those days. None. Na-dah. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

While she's dealing with the final months of pregnancy, I'm dealing with loose teeth and arranging playdates. She's about to hit the easy part of motherhood, while I'm looking at my kid and wondering how the hell I'll keep him from knocking his face off while he plays "stuntman!"

Speaking of teeth, the day before the baby shower, when I picked Gav up at my mother-in-law's, I asked what had become my usual greeting: "Do you still have your tooth?"

"Yep!"

"Let me see."

He opened wide, proud to show me the tooth that was hanging by a thread and would not, not for anything, fall out.

"Um, no." It wasn't there.

He didn't believe me, of course, and ran to check in the mirror. After all, for the last several weeks I'd been telling him it was turning purple, green, or whatever other color popped to mind. I'd also told him that the tooth fairy was going to start charging him for the tooth because he was keeping it too long. Why believe me now?

It was indeed gone. FINALLY gone.

Of course, the next mystery was where had it gone?

We ransacked the couch where he'd been sitting, sifted through his bowl of Cheeze-Its, looked under the couch, ran our hands over the carpet, checked his shoes that were next to the couch, shook out the afghan he'd sat on, checked his tumbler full of iced tea... nothing. Na-dah. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

You can probably put two and two together on this one and guess where the tooth disappeared to, given that he'd been snacking at the time it apparently fell out.

But, please, no more jokes about "this tooth shall pass." Really. I'm sure it did by now and, no, I didn't look.

So much to say, yet nothing. I haven't posted since February, though a lot of nothing has happened.

I think.

I've four posts that I keep meaning to finish, but each time I start them... well... nothing seems to "work." And, perfectionist that I can be, I refuse to publish them just to publish them.

So I've the blog on February's snow storm and what it was like to be trapped in Moon Township in a hotel without power, water, or heat. Then there's one on my trip to Omaha at the end of April when I was -- once again! -- trapped in a hotel (with power, water, and heat). This time it was thanks to a three-hour flight delay that would have caused me to miss my connection in Chicago. I spent the night in Omaha at the Holiday Inn and went to bed at the gloriously decadent hour of 8:30 p.m. I've a third post about my tendency to talk to strangers and how much fun it can be.

Fourth is the unfinished post about Gavin turning seven.

Seven!

How can I say that nothing has happened when my little miracle is no longer that little? The little boy who came into this world two months early is in the family room right now, playing bowling on Wii and yelling "yeah baby!" each time he successfully knocks down the pins.

"Yeah baby!"

My son has his own catch-phrase. Everything is "yeah baby," though sometimes we alternate with "now that's what I'm talking about!"

When I choose clothes that he likes, he pronounces that I "know his style." When I read his mind and tell him that he can't ride his scooter down the sliding board and do other "mean mommy" things designed to keep him alive and in once piece, he sadly tells me that I always "foil his plans."

He has definite opinions that about what is cool and not cool, but don't think they always coincide with the rest of the world. He also has definite opinions about why things work, why they don't work, and why he should be allowed to test his theories. He will bargain and cajole and pester for everything. While it makes me insane sometimes to explain things umpteen times, I have to admit I like that side of him too much to change it. Give me an independent thinker who questions me over a well-behaved lemming any day.

At bedtime, we read books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. When he reads on his own, he likes to peruse the two medical terminology books that he appropriated from my bookshelf. While I miss having a little boy who could comfortably fall asleep in my arms as I sang to him, I have more fun with the interactive boy who listens to the same music as I do and is not above dancing around the kitchen with him mom to the sounds of Lady Gaga and Pitbull. (American Pie, however, is his current favorite.)

How can I have nothing to write about?

Perhaps I have too much.
(Such a blessing. No?)

I think it was the snow bank. His car must have glanced it, just enough as he came down the hill, to veer more to the right than the left. That's the only reason I can think of. It had to be the snow.

We were getting out of the car, ready to go to karate class, when a faded black car came tearing up the parking lot that connects a back road to Route 30. Gavin was still climbing out of the back seat, actually, as the punk roared past us. I looked at the driver, annoyed at his speed, but more interested in the beige 4 x 4 that was pulling out of the adjacent parking area and making sure that Gavin didn't run out in front of him.

He didn't. The driver saw us, paused, and I herded Gavin -- who is "almost seven" as opposed to "only six" -- to the passenger side of the car. He deals well with my eternal belief that parking lots are full of cars ready to careen out of control and slam into him.

The parking lot is a hill, so when you pull in it's easier to get out of the driver's side (which is the downhill side) than the passenger side. He'd left his bag with sparring gear in the backseat, as usual, so I got it out. Closing the doors on that side take a little extra umph depending on just where one parks on the slope, but the over-sized button on my coat caught on the frame and the umph was for naught. Gav was patiently waiting on the other side of the car.

I didn't hear the crash itself. It was the sound of something metal dragging along the pavement that made me look up as I made my way to my little guy to hand him his bag.

The faded black car was speeding down the hill. It's front end now smashed, the bumper barely attached.

I remember screaming Gavin's name as I ran to him, dragging him backwards, remember realizing that it was making a beeline for my car's back end, and remember watching -- just watching -- as the driver somehow managed to miss by inches.

And then he was gone.

And I was kneeling and holding my son, shaking, because I had dragged us towards the front of my car and, had that punk hit my bumper, the force very well could have turned the car around and slammed it into us.

"That front was really destroyed," Gav said. "It was totally destroyed!"

"Yes, it was." My voice sounded normal, for which I was thankful.

"It was totally destroyed, Mom!" He had no clue what could have happened. Small mercies.

We made it inside and class started and I sat there, just not quite able to focus on the economics paper I was supposed to be writing.

My mind was racing and I kept seeing the car coming down the hill. Sometimes I saw my button caught on the door frame and wondered what would have been different had it not caught. I went back outside and looked at the snow piled high next to the building and at the fresh mark where he must have hit it, walked up the hill to where the accident had happened. Only the bumper of the car he'd hit remained by now. A man was on the phone, and I told him that I saw where the driver had sped off to, pointed out the road, and said I'd be in the karate school if there were any questions once the police arrived. Then I went back inside. Then back outside.

A police car was quietly sitting at the entrance to the dead end road that I'd seen the black car head down once he'd left the parking lot.

I went back inside.

Eventually, the adrenaline rush ends and rational thought returns. By the end of class, I was able to focus much better and was, for the most part, done replaying it in my mind. Thoughts of what could have happened were replaced by white hot rage and what I wanted to do to that son of a bitch who could have killed my son. The enduring image is a meat grinder and his hands so that he never drives again.

(Just because rational thought returns, doesn't mean one has to be rational, you know.)

And when we left karate and walked through the parking lot once more, Gavin listed all of the karate kicks he would have used on the driver had I been hurt.

Maybe a meat grinder is too humane.

Cat(no)nap

4:31 a.m., cat wants fresh water in bowl, makes this known with pitter-patter of cat feet on my head

4:32 a.m., cat lands on the floor

4:33 a.m., cat jumps onto nightstand and begins to rub against lampshade to create annoying squeak-thump

4:35 a.m., cat lands on the floor again

4:40 a.m., cat begins to prowl around the bed, stalking prey (me)

4:43 a.m., cat's furry butt dragged into bathroom, tub faucet turned on, then off, cat happily drinks drips

5:01 a.m., wet cat feet squish across pillow as she demands more water

5:02 a.m., cat lands in hallway, bedroom door shuts

5:30 a.m., pitiful "mommy-why-do-you-hate-me" meowing begins, threatening to wake son

5:32 a.m., bedroom door opens, cat -- now dry -- jumps up on bed and curls up at the foot of the bed, where feet normally belong

5:40 a.m., cat lands on floor after attacking ankles as punishment for trying to get comfortable

5:41 a.m., cat back on bed, makes cautious peace with bumps under blanket that can send her back to the floor... by sleeping on them

6:17 a.m., cramp in calf forces movement for the first time since cat plopped on leg, movement causes cat to wake prematurely, retaliation comes in form of teeth

6:17 and 5 seconds, cat lands on floor again

6:18 a.m., cat returns to bed, sleeps on husband's side, continued snoring indicates that he's fine with that

7:01 a.m., cat having dream and begins meowing in sleep, waking me

7:05 a.m., cat wakes and decides it's time to start the day

7:07 a.m., jumps off bed and goes to window, pushes light-blocking curtains out of way -- admitting blinding morning sun

7:10 a.m., cat decides others must enjoy the morning and begins breathing in owner's face to wake her

7:11 a.m., owner discovers cat can't find her when she puts a pillow over her head

7:25 a.m., cover blown when son comes in wanting to play Legos

7:30 a.m., cat gets fresh water in bowl

Growing up, I had Molly, a plump little hairball of a cat who had the sweetest disposition ever. For years, she would wake up with my Dad when he got ready for work. He would feed and water her, and she would be as happy as a lark. There was always a misunderstanding, however, each weekend. He wanted to sleep past 6 a.m. and she wanted feed/watered at 6 a.m. As she got older, she got less patient. The last few years of her life were marked by a very specific pattern: on days when Daddy didn't get up at 6 a.m., she would simply prowl around the edge of the bed until he got up and did her bidding.

It's Dad's birthday today, so the fact that my cat is now (apparently) channeling Molly seems a good way to mark Dad's day.

Trust

Gav is hitting "that" age -- the one where I have to decide between sending him to the men's room alone or dragging him into the women's room with me. His six going on seven, meaning that I'm rational going on paranoid-obsessive.

Is there anyone lurking in there? Is some pervert waiting for a trusting mom to send her son in to him? Will Gavin know enough to scream and run? Or will he be just too frightened to act? How much trouble will I get in if I open the door to check on my son's safety?

Wait, do I really care about how much trouble I might get in? Not really.

I stand right outside the bathroom door, ready to leap to action and kill anyone who looks at my son "funny" and makes him nervous.

Well, really, they don't have to make him nervous. Making me nervous is about all it will take for me to push that door open and charge in. While I haven't yet, have no doubt about it, I will should I feel the need. (I've chased my son into men's dressing rooms at department stores when he was a curious toddler, so a men's restroom isn't particularly intimidating.)

It should be noted at this point that Gavin -- in spite of training by parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and teachers -- says that he "knows" what to do when approached by a stranger. He will hit him with a baseball bat. Throw him under a car. Run him over. Brake a table over his head. Throw the cat in his face. And, finally, feed him to monsters.



THEN he will run.

(No wonder I get nervous.)

Other mothers share their stories with me, which does not help. While I realize that it's good to be aware, why does every story seem to have an evil stranger haunting it?

Frankly, excluding this, I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky chick. I believe that people are generally good at heart and that more of them are likely to help than to hurt. I think that things tend to turn out right, even when it seems that they won't. I talk to strangers, and I smile at people on the street if we make eye contact. I am, probably, the sort who some would say is bound to end up on a milk carton someday.

When it comes to conferences, I hop on planes and head to big cities all by myself. Airports are adventures just waiting to happen -- so much so that I make it a point to change planes whenver possible and pick layovers in states I've yet to visit. When I drive to conferences, I seek out local mom-and-pop restaurants and invite other conference attendees. I've been known to close bars with my closest friends as well as those I met at meetings that morning. And if there's a club to be found, I'll be there.

Ah, and the stories! The culture! To be with people from other worlds who look at everything so very differently then you, whose economic systems were so defining in their lives (uh, yeah, I should probably mention that I meet the bulk of these folks at economics conferences)... it's really quite the drug to me.

I want Gavin to be like that, and he's showing signs of it already... well, that is, when he's not hiding behind me because he's shy around g-i-r-l-s. He, too, looks at everything as an adventure and won't hesistate to ask questions (unless it's a "do you want to come over and play" question, which is another blog for another day).

The trick is to teach him when to talk and when to run without terrifying him into avoiding all strangers, to teach him how to trust his gut in situtations without actually putting him in those situations to learn what a "gut feeeling" feels like.

In the meanwhile, I'll stand outside of the men's room, ready to charge at the first sign of danger. Real or imagined.

Prof. Gavin

Gavin is the eternally adorable child. For starters, he is a stick -- all arms and legs, elbows and knees. He now wears a size 7 for length, but needs a 6 for his waist. And, wonderfully, his two front teeth are now M.I.A.

We spent our Fourth of July weekend in Williamsburg, VA. It was our second trip in two years, and -- given how well things went -- if the fates work with us, we'll head back for July 4, 2010.

This time around, Gav was even more "into" the whole experience... and I'm not talking about the kids' activities (which we didn't get to this year, to be honest). He was the one front-and-center at the cabinet maker's shop asking how wooden hinges worked and how they made animal glue and what a particular hammer was for. He learned how a lock worked at the blacksmith's (but was disappointed that they weren't making nails like last year). He tried to answer the questions posed during the lantern tour we took on Friday night (only got one right, but I'm more awed by the fact that he made the attempt). He dragged us through the gardens and the flowerbeds, asking a bajillion questions, identifying the ones he knew, and trying to pick as much as he could without us noticing.

The best moment, however, was Saturday afternoon.

Because I was still a bit miserable from a lingering cold, I sent my boys on without me on Saturday morning. Sleep was a necessity -- particularly if I was going to make it to the fireworks that night. When they returned at noon, we went to lunch and then began our walk back to Colonial Williamsburg (CW).

First, however, we had to stop at the Great Hope Plantation, which is next to the Visitor's Center and en route to CW. Gav wanted to show me the piglets they had seen that morning. My boys had spent the morning there, learning a good bit about a tobacco plantation.

So, what made it so wonderful? Professor Gavin, of course.

My little man gave me the grand tour, reciting everything he'd learned that morning. He showed me the barn, the tobacco, the dried tobacco, the tools used to farm the tobacco, the piglets, the chickens, the slave quarters, the well, the smoke house, the hams in the smoke house, the tools outside of the smoke house, the cows... you get the picture. It wasn't "what's this, mom?" it was "look at this, mom, and this is what it was used for."

I am, needless to say, proud as proud can be of my young historian... particularly since all of this is innate. The husband and I had nothing to do with his decision to give mom a spontaneous history lesson. Or perhaps we had everything. Nature or nurture? Don't know, to be honest. All I know is that he was having the time of his life teaching mom everything she ever needed to know about running a tobocca plantation. And, frankly, so was I.

Grin and bear it...

'Twas a good weekend. Busy, but pleasant. There's something wonderful about being able to do you own thing on your own time.

We painted the family room and kitchen this Memorial Day weekend, we put new holes in the walls for a few pictures to hang, and we gave the basement a good airing-out. Grocery shopped, too. The pantry is now very well stocked -- which is obvious to all as the door has not yet been put back on.

Gavin's about to lose another tooth, top left this time. It's just hanging there, still too attached to fall out and just loose enough to give him a cute little snaggletooth. Being that all things dental are often paired with the word "phobic" in my life, that's where the comparison to "cute" ends for me. I'd rather deal with his getting a shot, with watching the docs put his feeding tube back in (from those crazy NICU days), or with just about any other small child trauma then with a loose tooth.

You see, loose teeth have to come out. If my luck holds, I will never be alone with Gav when that time comes. I will be -- preferably -- at work, at the store, or anywhere where he and the tooth are not. While I love my son more then life itself, I do not think that it is advisable for him to see his mother collapse in a dead faint due to the fact that she has either tried to or did manage to pull out the loose tooth.

So bent am I on not passing my phobia on to my boy, in fact, I refuse to take him to the dentist's office. That's his dad's or his grandma's job. Right now, he thinks it's fun to go to see Dr. Frank, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I can only hope that it will fall out tomorrow under his grandmother's watch and not mine.

THAT will make it a perfect weekend.




(By the way... I'm not exaggerating on the dead faint. Just watching him wiggle it makes me a bit lightheaded. Given that the one and only time I ever fainted was at the dentist's after a baby tooth was pulled, I'm not willing to find out if there will be a second time.)

Remember when?

Chantel's lovely Penny inspired today's blog. Seems that the little one paused from her world domination plans to celebrate with her dolls. Fun Mom Chantel paused in her own right and helped Penny with the arrangements.

Those are the sweetest moments in a mom's world -- the ones where fun is fun. Period.

Days where Gavin and I could snuggle on the rocker are pretty much gone thanks to yet another growth spurt and the fact that he is now all elbows and knees. However, days where we can make up silly lyrics to all of those traditional childhood songs are just beginning. His sense of humor is still developing, but he's already showing promise.

Hey mom! Why did the cat sleep in the sink? 'Cause it wanted to!

We're getting there. The husband would tell you that Gav's jokes beat mine... but I simply remind him that he married me in spite of the three-hour-long brick-and-poodle joke, so he lacks room to talk.

I learned my lesson last spring about playing "spin until you fall down," but it hasn't stopped me from racing Gav up the steps when the mood strikes me. I still tackle and tickle, still hold my finger an inch from his ear and chant "I'm not touching you," and am now starting to punk him. He's gets me back, though, so don't worry about that.

One night, as we were getting ready to head to the store, I spritzed some perfume on. A few minutes later, Mr. Smarty-Pants innocently (ha!) announced that there was a skunk outside. Smart me fell for it.

"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's wearing a pink sweater..."

Laugh all you want, readers. I sure am.

So in the previous post I mentioned that Chaos still hurls himself to the floor when he doesn't want to do his homework. It's probably due in part to the fact that he doesn't like homework that he deems "preschool work."

Seriously. He thinks some of his homework is for babies. Especially the counting pages. He knows how to count, he tells me. Given his perfect papers, I trust him on that one.

Still make his do his homework though.

So what isn't "preschool work," you ask?

Well, um, medical terminology. You know, all those big words that doctors spout? Yeah. Those. Seems that Chaos comandeered my med term text (used for a writing gig, not for my own personal studies) about a year ago. Conversations now go something like this:

"See that, mom? That's a third-degree burn. That white stuff is the person's bone!"
"Uh-huh," I reply, trying to look like I'm looking at what I'd rather not look at.

"Ohhh... mom! Look at the skin graft!"
"Uh-huh. Sweetie, there's a reason your mom has sticky notes covering some pictures. Can you leave that there?"


"What's this say?"
"Pancreas. Do you know that that is?"
"What I pee from?"
"Um, not quite, honey..."


"How did the baby get inside the mommy's tummy?"
"Wow. Hey, look at the time, Gav! I think Spongebob's on!"

To date, he still loves the pics of burns and grafts, he now knows just what a pancreas is, and he still thinks babies grow in tummies because the mommy and daddy kiss.

(We're going to keep it that way for now, thank you.)

All Grown Up

Every mom has that moment -- the one where she realizes her baby is no longer her baby, one to keep and cuddle all to her heart's content, but a distinct human being who's learning to navigate the world without her.

Mine came this past March with Gav's first trip to the eye doctor.

Gavin sat in the chair and confidently answered every questions the doctor asked. I was simply there to take up space. It was the first time a doctor didn't look to me for the answers, and the first time Gav didn't look to me for help. How odd it felt to not be needed. How odd to realize it, too. (I suppose you can say the moment was bittersweet, though I'm learning more towards sweet much more than bitter. How can I even begin to resent his independence when that has my goal since day one has been to raise an independent thinker?)


This Easter, just a few short weeks ago, while in church, I looked at all of the little girls in their Easter best and found myself longing for the days of new dresses, white straw hats, and pretty little purses with a fancy hankie tucked inside. None of that for this particular mom, though, whose little man was beside her in his Easter best: navy pants, button-down oxford, and clip-on necktie. His brand-new shoes, fresh out of the box that morning, were already scuffed thanks to a gravel parking lot and a little-boy urge to kick every single stone possible.

He chose that same outfit to wear to the funeral home just recently. "These are better clothes, mom," he announced with authority, placing them on the ironing board and negating my choice of khakis and a nice polo shirt.

We go out to eat after karate each Friday, and he orders his own meals. Most times he says please and thank you with little prompting. When we shop, he picks out his own clothes and thinks about what will match.

So he really is turning into a little man, but don't worry -- he's still Chaos. When he's not sending his mom into shock because he remembered his manners, he's busy tearing around the house pretending to be a dog, driving his Match Box cars up my walls, and trying to talk me into baking insanely complex cookies just before bedtime. He continues to fall off of the kitchen chair and fake sleep when we do homework.

Yeah, he's six. I could be all mushy and say "where did the time go" and get all teary-eyed, but that's really not me. I know where the time went and, being that every day is a new adventure, how can I waste time getting weepy? I'm having too much fun to spend time wishing he was a baby again.

Everything He Needs to Know...

In the spirit of Facebook's "25 random things" and in the ancient Robert Fulgum wisdom of kindergarten, I offer you the wisdom of a boy and his reluctant cat.

10. Cats do not like pacifiers. Ever.

9. You cannot and should not make numbers lowercase by writing them backwards. All that does is make mom visit the teacher.

8. You can't get out of homework by throwing yourself on the kitchen floor and faking sleep.

7. Pruning Mommy's plants with safety scissors means a very early bedtime.

6. Fuzz the Cat will run at the first sign of a hair dryer.

5. Lunch ladies get upset when you and your friend hit each other with your lunch boxes.

4. Soft-sided lunch boxes are not to boxing gloves.

3. No one thinks that making (stuffed) "pets" fly down the steps is funny.

2. (Note to self: Don't make pets fly when someone is at the bottom of the steps.)

1. You won't get in trouble if you don't try to give Fuzz a bath.

Captain Chaos Strikes Again

Chaos is moving into helpful mode as of late.

He likes to toss laundry into the washing machine. Likes to unload the dishwasher. Loves to run the vacuum. Loves. As part of this new mode, he has taken it upon himself to help care for Fuzz the Cat. It's a nice change from earlier this summer when he was chasing her with his Williamsburg, VA, authentic rifle. Being that Fuzz is going on 13, she likes this new version of Gavie much better. She like Gav 5.5 so much that she even lets him pet her on occassion -- without my having to hold her still. (Always a perk.)

Never a particularly bright cat, Fuzz is prone to eating and puking up my houseplants. The rubber tree is her favorite. Over the years, I've perfected the art of getting something -- such as newspaper -- under her before she actually spews.

Gavie has learned this art vicariously. The other day, I was upstairs trying to get ready for whatever event we were running late for, when I heard his small voice bellow: "Mom! Fuzz is making that puking meow again!"

"Just watch her for a moment, I'll be right down!"
"Okay!"

Thinking he'd simply corral her in the kitchen, which has a linoleum floor, I finished putting on my make-up before heading downstairs. Since he hadn't yelled since the original announcement, I started thinking that it might have been a false alarm. Those happen sometimes.

"Are you still keeping an eye on her?"
"Yes!"

Wouldn't it be a scream, I mused, if I went downstair to find that he covered the whole kitchen floor with newspaper? I smiled at the mental image and finished my make-up. I even went so far as to ponder how that might translate into a blog.

"The resourceful Captain, faced with the threat of Fuzz hurling, called upon all prior knowledge to defeat the evil tummy-upsetting plant that she'd ingested..." but I dismissed it in the end because, really, what were the odds that he would do that?

Um, well...
Pretty good, actually.

A Kickin' First Week...

Gavie started kindergarten this week. He now possesses two very important pieces of information, guaranteed to help him through pretty much everything in life:

1) You can count to 100 by tens.
2) If you kick hard enough, you win.

Um, yeah. You read that second one right.

Four words: four-boy kicking match. They started it. He finished it. My tall, quiet son apparently has no tolerance for foolishness.


All I can say is thank God we haven't started karate lessons yet...

Tiny Kickers and tiny kickers

I don't do rain. I don't do soggy fields. I don't do mud.

Not if I can help it, at least.

At 9:30 one Saturday morning this past May, I was delightedly watching the rain come down. "Looks like it isn't going to let up," I remarked (rather hopefully) to the big guy. "They might cancel soccer today."

"Only if there's thunder and lightening," came the reply.

I returned to the window and listened with all my heart for thunder. None came. Gavie joined me at the window.

"Raining, mom. Maybe they'll cancel soccer." He sounded as hopeful as I felt. Soccer was a great idea before he found out that there were rules involved and -- worse -- that you had to follow them.

No such luck for either of us. We were at the field, and he was sopping wet just 30 minutes later.

(Gavie doesn't do rain any more than his mother, just for the record.)


The final Saturday was worse -- yet heartening. 'Twas as soggy as could be and there we were: all three of us on a field with eight thousand other parents and Tiny Kickers, all ready to play in the mini-tournament.

Poor Gav. He's cursed with my genes when it comes to soccer. Three twenty-minutes games are very, very long. Especially when he's on a team with a bunch of really motivated teammates. Gav would rather find worms than practice. He just wasn't into the game of "clean your room," which was a euphemism for "keep the ball away from the goal." Practicing control by playing "sharks" wasn't much more interesting. Though he did like playing "kick the coach."

(No, it wasn't personal. I just like the irony of the name and Gav's lack of interest in the overall game. This practice was a free-for-all where the kids could kick the ball towards the coaches. Not at. Just towards.)

The heartening part of the last Saturday was seeing that my kid wasn't the only non-soccer fiend in the organization. While Gavie did get into the game for three nano-seconds and chased the ball in the right direction, he preferred the idea of gathering tadpoles in the giant puddles created by the park's watershed. Guess what? My kid wasn't the only Tiny Kicker distracted by the tadpoles. A good dozen or so from the teams immediately next to the puddles found these other tiny kickers much more interesting than a silly soccer ball.

At least I can take heart that he didn't abandon his goalie position for the sake of baby froggies.

As for me, the non-Soccer Mom, well.... I'm just a total let-down to this stereotype (yeah, like most of you didn't see that one coming). For starters, I don't own a minivan. Peg me a loser and give me the raspberries on this one, gang. I have to side with Gavie in this one: tadpoles are way cooler than soccer.

We'r going to try basketball this fall.

Happy Birthday, Gavie

Was it really five years ago that I went shopping and bought the wrong groceries? Went to the ice cream store and ordered a sugar cone, which I never have and never will like? Went home and remarked on how the cat was acting weirder then usual around me?

Was apparently going into labor and didn't even realize it?

Was it really five years ago that I woke up at 1 a.m. and said to the big guy that my back hurt? I remember laying in bed, looking at the clock, trying to figure out if I should worry about the strange, minor pains that were coming with odd irregularity: one minute, five minutes, three minutes, ten minutes...

If it hadn't been for the small dot of blood on the bed sheet, I might have rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

After all, I was only seven months pregnant!

But the small dot was enough for the big guy to put his foot down and drive me to Magee at 1:30 in the morning.

My water broke just fifteen minutes after our arrival. Gavin was born at 4:59 a.m.

One wonderful squall came from my son before his lungs collapsed, but I knew nothing save for the fact that he was alive and had screamed as babies are supposed to and that the doctors had him on the crash cart and were taking care of everything. My husband and mother were there and neither gave any indication that something might be wrong.

It might have been five minutes later or forty, I've no idea, but when he was stable again I got to hold him -- forever, my memory will be of the fact that the first thought into my mind was that he was wrapped up like a little bowling pin. I could only hold him for a moment and it wasn't enough, but at four pounds and only seven months a moment is dear.

Just this week I read, again, that premature babies face a larger number of health risks, developmental issues, learning delays, etc. etc.

Someone, very fortunately, forgot to tell my son about the article.

Just yesterday, for example, Captain Chaos climbed the hill in our backyard and began throwing rocks down it to... well, I'm not sure why really. Maybe he was testing the theory of gravity. Then, because he thought it would be interesting, he tried to pulverize a deer bone (found in our backyard, our property abuts state land) with an ancient gardening spade. After that, the rocks he tossed down the hill were moved to his new pile of dirt that is half-on and half-off of our stone patio: seven pots of dirt that once held vibrant annuals were sacrificed to make a nice pile for his Tonka trucks.

"Look how strong I am, Mommy," he called, lifting the rocks and moving them to his miniature construction site. "Look!"

Ferocious mother-love welled up, and it took all of my strength not to turn into a mess of tears right then and there. He has no idea how strong he is -- nor does he know how his simply being mine gives me strength to fight for what I need.

All Chaos, All the Time

In twenty-four hours.... just one day... two-four hours.... actually, not even... more like two hours...

My kid is either incredibly precocious and darling or headed for a life of cleaning crime. Damned if I know. Who else has a four-year-old who wakes up and stacks the dishwasher, cleans the bathroom, and prunes mommy's plants?

Wouldn't you just love to know what goes on in their little minds?

Okay, the dishwasher is already stacked and running since Mommy started it before going to work, but there are still few things in the sink! Oh no! She forgot them! No problem. Open it up, stand back to avoid the steam, and stick the mugs that are still in the sink in the bottom rack. Plastic bowls go on the top, just like she stacks them. Tah-dah!

Granted, the bathroom doesn't really need cleaning... but going over everything with a sopping wet towel can't hurt. Can't it? Look, everything is shiny and glossy again.

And that rubber tree keeps getting bigger and bigger and snagging me every time I walk by! Time to call upon prior knowledge here! When tomato plants get too big and bushy at Guggie's, we prune them. But what to do about the shears? Hmmmm.... here we go! Safety scissors! Opps, I cut too much off. No problem! I'll just stick that extra branch in the dirt. It looks like a whole new tree. Who can tell?

Hey, look, the sun's coming up! Time to wake Daddy up (daylight's a-wastin'!) and show him the everything I did today! He'll be soooooo proud of me!

How in the world do you punish a child who is trying to help?! You can't, really. You lay down the law on what "help" is... and try to keep your expression stern. Save the laughter for when he's out of earshot. It ruins the whole effect otherwise, you know....

Easy

Last night about 1 a.m., the big guy woke me up, asking what we needed to do. Our little one was in his room having a coughing fit that, if I wasn't used to his annual bout with croup, would have terrified me. A gagging, choking, miserable cough due to a sinus infection from hell is nothing in comparison to that awful barking cough we get to hear each January or February.

So I held Gavie as he cried, rubbed his back, and soothed him, while my husband set up the water vaporizer and plugged in the greatest invention of all: the Vicks Plug-In. Insert one vapor strip and fill the room with the thick scent of Vicks Vapor Rub. The cat loves it.

"Mommy, I want to sleep in your bed," he whimpered when I said I'd stay with him until he fell back to sleep. Who can argue with that? Not me. We moved operations into my room, and for the next seven hours I laid there half-asleep listening to Chaos alternate between sleeping quietly, snoring, and coughing.

And here I am now, in my kitchen, enjoying the silence while my two boys sleep upstairs.

And here I am now, thinking about how easy last night was. All I had to do was hold my baby boy and just be there. My back hurts from having a lanky four-year-old crowd me in bed, and I'm exhausted from hardly sleeping. I'm probably going to be a bit of a grouch today from the two. Gavie's going to be a bear himself; he always is when he's sick.

But someday, I know, he's going to come home crying because the girl he has a crush on crushed him. Someday he'll tell me that I can't do anything to help because I don't understand. Someday he's going to be too big for me to cuddle and soothe quite so easily.

Thus today we'll make some cookies from pre-made dough and drink some cocoa and watch a few Christmas specials on DVD. We'll enjoy being miserable because this is easy misery. Really. I can always take a nap later. I can get someone to crack my back into place. I can't turn back time, though.