Breaking the News

My good friend growing up had a sister who was 6 years younger than her and I remember asking her how her parents had told her that they were going to have another baby. She had no recollection of that conversation, but I was eaten up by curiosity--how exactly does one have that conversation with a child?

In our case, it went something like this...

McMoose, showing the kids an ultrasound picture: Guys, do you know what this is?
Luke: Me as a baby.
McM: No.
L: Weston as a baby?
McM: No...
L: Well, if it's not me or Weston, then who is it?
McM: Well....Mama's pregnant. We're going to have another baby.
L: Oh. Are we sure we want to do that? Because you know, we have the kitten. Do we want to have a kitten AND a baby?
McM: Yes, we're sure.
L: The kitten might attack the baby.
Me: Well, you guys will be the big brothers. You can help protect the baby.
W: Well...I'll help with stuff, but I am NOT going to be helping anybody wipe their butt.

 It wasn't exactly the magical conversation I'd envisioned back when I was questioning my childhood friend about how her parents told her, but it fit in very nicely with our daily lives. (And once the kids got over their initial skepticism, they did warm up to the idea! They're currently arguing over naming rights and trying to decide whether it's going to be a boy or a girl. Weston is also trying to convince me that I should consider having a carseat surgically inserted into my uterus to keep the baby safe. Luke is thoroughly annoyed by that conversation because "Weston, the baby is IN WATER. It's FINE. The water protects it. Besides, how would you make a carseat that would fit a baby the size of a lemon all the way to the size of a watermelon? It's not even possible.")

Fabulously Five!

Weston turned five earlier this month and it coincided so closely with the start of our school year that he's been going around telling people that hey, did you know that he is five-years-old AND a kindergartner? And oh, by the way, he's homeschooled. Did you know that too? No? Well, he is. And then he smiles very proudly at them as if he's expecting to be congratulated. (Most people do step up to the challenge.)

He still has quite the baby face, which delights me endlessly. Hooray for slowing down this crazy fast ride! Chubby baby hands, too. Which he mostly uses to build Lego contraptions and capture the cats. He still gets scratched and nipped by the cats on a near-daily basis. Of course, it doesn't faze him in the least. The other day, he was reading me a book about a cat when he suddenly paused, petted the picture, and said, "Aww, you're so cute, kitty! I just want to hug you!" You guys, it was a black and white picture of an angry looking cat. I don't even understand.

The other day, I took the kids to a roller skating rink for the first time. As usual, Luke went off on his own to figure it out, while Weston insisted on holding both my hands AND the wall, slipped and slid all over the place, and then told me, "This is the WORST THING I have EVER done; never bring me back to this place!" And then, he lay face down on the carpet in the reception area for a good 20 minutes in silent protest, just in case I hadn't gotten the message. Luckily, his ideas about such things aren't long-lived and he has already decided that maybe he'd like to try it again. (I predict it will end similarly.)

He is a child who loves everything and everyone while at the same time, being annoyed by everything and everyone. I'm not sure quite how he pulls that off, but he manages it well. As it turns out, the most common discussion question in his kindergarten curriculum is "What is your favorite..."  What's your favorite habitat? What's your favorite animal from this habitat? What is your favorite room in your house? What's your favorite pet? What's your favorite book? And so on. His answer each time is, "Hmm...let me think...Oh! All of them." The only thing he has a favorite of is a gold car in a dealership down the road from us, which he calls "MY gold car." He fully intends to buy that car someday and every time we pass the dealership, he looks to make sure it's still there.

He is obsessed with everything to do with Star Wars and usually, his introductory topic of conversation when meeting someone new is, "Have you ever seen Star Wars? I've seen all seven of them AND my brother has read the books." Lately, he's been bringing home Star Wars early readers from the library and whoever wrote these must not know the meaning of the term "early reader," because they include words like "federation," "eliminate," "cooperation," and "via." Which child who is just now learning to read can sound out these words?! So every time he shows up with one of these books in hand, I groan internally but--interest-based learning! So I fake a smile and we slog through made-up words and un-phonetic names and somehow, he manages it.

His birthday party was Star Wars themed, which mostly meant that 10 kids ran around a wooded park attacking each other with foam lightsabers and tripping over tree roots for 3 hours. It has since been dubbed "The Most Fun Birthday Ever," and both kids want to do exactly that for all of their birthdays, forever and ever, amen. It was McMoose's first foray into birthday party planning and clearly, it was a great success!

I'm looking forward to watching Weston learn and grow this next year!

They Call Me Cat Vader

Our adult cats are now over a decade old, so I had forgotten that kittens are insane little balls of fluff and energy. If I could bottle up kitten energy, I'm pretty sure I could solve all the energy problems in the world. Plus, then the kitten might take a nap instead of constantly attacking me around every corner of the house or pouncing on my face when I'm trying to sleep. The first time that happened, I was convinced that Death was imminent.

The other day, I was cutting up some carrots for dinner and every time a carrot piece ended up on the floor, Vader came dashing through the house, got the carrot stuck on one of his teeth, and proceeded to choke and gag, while running away from me. So of course, I had to go after him, fish him out from under whatever piece of furniture he had wedged himself, and get the carrot out of his mouth. You'd think that he would have been cured of this lunacy after doing it once or twice, but no. He now does it with every other vegetable that happens to find its way to the ground, too.

Perhaps due to his feral roots, he has no idea how to cuddle. If someone tries to pet him, he flips himself onto his back so he can bat at their hands. If someone (*cough* Weston *cough*) tries to kiss him, he bites their head. But miraculously, in the middle of the night, he becomes the coziest cat in the world and sits on me and purrs as loudly as his little body can manage. In theory, it's cute. In reality, it wakes me up and his razor sharp claws dig into me and I get very grumpy.

He climbs everything. He chews power cords. He tries to throw himself off the upstairs landing. He falls on his head. He attacks the adult cats, who are tolerating his craziness exceptionally well. And the only way to trim his little needle-claws is for one person to hold him up in the air and rock him slightly while the other person quickly lops off claw-edges.

All this to say: Dear Future Self, you're really not cut out for this kitten stuff! Stick with adult creatures, please! (Better yet, let's not add any creatures to the house for a while, hmm?)

Say What?

At a park with some friends:

Adult friend: Weston, do you want to walk over to the slip and slide with us?
W: Um...will my shoes be discovered?
F: Will your shoes be...what?
W: Discovered. Will my shoes be discovered?
F: I think it's okay to take your shoes off in the water area.
W: But will they be discovered?
F: I'm sure no one will be looking at your shoes...
W, sighing: If I step into the water with my shoes on, will the water be high enough to go over my shoes? Will the water discover my shoes?



Earlier today, as I was smelling some eucalyptus oil:

Me: West, wanna smell?
W, sniffing: Mmmm.
Me: It's eucalyptus. Remember what likes to eat eucalyptus leaves.
W: Ants? Oh, and also, Choo-alas.
Me: ....Yes....Koalas.
W, haughtily: I like to say Choo-alas.

Gardens and Dragons

• I have neglected to plant a garden this year. I did it on purpose because I know how previous attempts at gardening have worked out (spoiler: not well.) And yet, somehow, we have kale and possibly a tomato plant growing in our garden. I'm trying not to look at them very hard, in the hopes that reverse psychology might work on plants.

 

•  There was a spider in the bathtub. I liked him there. The children and I visited with him from time to time and nobody freaked out over the existence of said spider. I felt it would be perfectly reasonable to cede the bathtub to the spider, but McMoose disagreed and has moved the spider...somewhere. In the house. Now, I'm not opposed to spiders in the house, but I do prefer to know where they like to be because the worst moment with a spider is the moment of discovery.

 

• The phrase, "Do not breathe at him when he does not want to be breathed at," exited my mouth today. What is happening to me?

 

• A few nights ago, Weston put a gem sticker on me and declared me a dragon. It was a cute moment. The next day, I was at the store and a small child came around the corner, got wide-eyed, and said, "Whoa! A real dragon!" and then hurried off to tell his mother that he had found a real, live dragon. It gave me a bit of an identity crisis. I had to look at my reflection in the window to make sure I was still human.

Literal MInded

Violin Teacher: Your elbow is not invited to this party.
Luke: What does that mean?
VT: Think about if your friend invited you to a party and your parents decided to tag along, even though they weren't invited...
L: Well, unless the friend was my neighbor, I wouldn't be able to go to a party without my parents anyway because I can't drive yet. They would at least have to take me there.
VT: Ok...what if your friend's party was in a super cool fort that he had built and it was just big enough to fit you and your friend? And then, your parents not only tagged along to the party, they also got into the fort? And broke it? Wouldn't you be mad?
L: Well...no...I don't really like parties...or forts.

(I'm pretty sure he likes forts AND parties, he just likes bedeviling people even more.)




VT: You can use those crayons. All I ask is that you color on the wood floor instead of on the rug.
Weston, after frowning at her for a moment: Can I just color in the coloring book? It will be hard to clean the floor...

Splendidly Seven!

Luke turned seven a month ago--hey look, this might be my latest birthday post yet! He had his first "big kid birthday party" this year at one of those arcades with mini golf and go-karts. I think he smiled the entire 3-and-a-half hours (why yes, it was the longest birthday party in history and we should be hearing from the Guinness Book any day now) that we were there.

A few days before his birthday, a new kitten joined our family. Notice I didn't say we got a new kitten? Because we didn't. No, a new kitten got us. He found us in a friend's yard and climbed right up McMoose's pants, so obviously we had to bring him home. (Big mistake.) Luke is alternately terrified of and fascinated with the kitten, who was named Cat Vader at the children's insistence. (Luke has since decided that this is not how Sith naming works and really, he should be called Darth Cat, but too late.) Vader has the rather rude habit of greeting us by biting our ankles and a few times, I've found Luke perched atop his desk or the dining table, grinning and crooning, "Aww, you're so cuuuuuute!" to the ferocious little beast pouncing about on the floor in front of him.

When we go anywhere, I know that I should plan for some time to save insects along the way. A couple of years ago, we started moving earthworms from the middle of the sidewalk to the grass because he didn't like seeing all the ones squished by bikes and people. It has now progressed to moving every blessed insect he finds on the sidewalk or bike trail when we're out. Just today, we had to stop to save a roly-poly beside the car in the parking lot, a millipede from the violin teacher's driveway, and an caterpillar from the sidewalk. On the flip side, he feels no remorse killing ants that come into the house, citing the argument that when we're outside, we're in their home, so we should treat them with respect, but when ants come into the house, they might eat all our food, so they've got to go. (Other insects get a pass, apparently.)

Most of the time, he's patient with his brother, who admittedly takes advantage of that fact to annoy Luke half to death. He loves baby animals and tolerates baby humans, especially when their ages are compared with Another Baby. Anyone younger than Another Baby gets a pass for annoying behavior; anyone older is sighed at for their childishness.

His favorite extra-curricular activity this year has been to join Cub Scouts, with McMoose as his...adult-helper-person. (Sorry, but I will never remember what they're called. Pack leaders? Den masters? Troop wizards? Whatever.) He got to go camping with scouts a couple of times, which he loved without reservation. He enjoyed T-ball for the first half of the season, and then was mostly annoyed at having to continue to go. Instead of paying attention to the game, he and a friend mostly tried to push each other off the bench and engaged in general tomfoolery.

He's still enjoying violin lessons, as well--though he would very happily do without the daily practice. When he asked to take lessons, I said okay in large part because I wanted him to learn that some things are difficult, but with practice, they get easier (or at least more doable) and he's learning that nicely. His teacher asked him to practice a piece three times a day this week and he responded, "Just three? Wouldn't it be better if I did it seven times a day?"

So far, seven has been a pleasant, comfortable age and I'm looking forward to experiencing this year of growth and learning with him.

Evidence of Photographs

It's been an incredibly long time since I've posted any pictures here. And also, my phone recently threatened to quit me unless I found alternate storage for some of the pictures and videos that were on it, so I now have access to said pictures and videos from my computer. (I had access before too, through the cloud or whatever, but my brain firmly refuses to grasp the concept of cloud computing. I have had multiple people explain the concept, I have read several explanations online, but just...no. What? Clouds? And pictures in clouds? But not real clouds? But where do the water droplets go? There are no water droplets? So then how is it a cloud? What kinds of droplets are there? Who? So I'm currently not on speaking terms with the cloud. I'm sure I'll come around to it eventually, but by then, we'll probably be storing data in a virtual Hundred Acre Woods or something.)

((On a somewhat, but not really related note: we have Amazon Prime Now in Raleigh now, which means that we can order $20 worth of things and then have it delivered to our door 2 hours later. If we're in a hurry, we can pay $8 for shipping and it'll be here in an hour. One. Hour. I can't even get the kids together, find matching shoes, and drive to the store and back in that time. The other day, we ordered a book at, I don't know, midnight? And when we woke up the next morning, it was waiting at the door. What is this crazy new world we live in? And more to the point, when did I get so old?!))

Getting back to the point: Pictures. Here they are.

Luke with his new favorite book, written by his new favorite author. As a result of all this favorite-ness, I decided to read the other Michael Crichton books we have on our shelves, so as to decide whether they're appropriate for him (they are decidedly not) and he told me with great concern that he thought they might be too scary for me.

I don't know why I ever try to get this kid to smile for a picture. This is, obviously, his new favorite picture face.

Took the kids to an open gym at the local community center. This was their game of choice. It's all fun and games until someone gets hit in the face with a ball.

We took the kids to their first football game in December. This is the closest thing I have to a nice family portrait this year. Whoops. Why are the children dressed to go hunting, you ask? Well...because you try finding summery orange and maroon gear in Mississippi in December because you packed a bunch of hoodies and then it ended up being 80 degrees.

He winds up like this every time he jumps. Inevitably, the jumps are so enthusiastic that he fails to land on his feet. He has a similar wind-up process before running, but involving one arm back and one forward. I die of the cuteness. He's like a little cartoon person!

When you find an enormous bee, what better course of action than to climb it?

A blue morpho butterfly landed on Luke at the butterfly house at a local museum, which was really cool at first because we got to see it up close and they both got to hold it. It got considerably less cool when it refused to leave Luke's hand and kept flying back over to him, despite his best efforts to put it on a branch and run away. The attack of the blue morphos!

Beauty

I was recently sitting with a group of family members and someone asked about the most beautiful places and things we had ever seen. I loved hearing everyone's answers about the places they had seen and the sights and experiences they would carry with them, but when it was my turn, I found myself having trouble coming up with an answer. The most beautiful place?

The valley in Vermont with mountains all around, where you can watch the fog retreating back into the clouds every morning, where everything shines in shades of green, where the words Emerald City are never far from your mind.

Flying into the Chennai airport in the middle of the night, when you can see the lights of the ships off the coast and feel like they're leading you home.

Glaciers off the coast of Alaska viewed during a midnight sunset in July from the deck of a ship.

A path on the campus of Virginia Tech, where there is a bend in the sidewalk and a sudden, unexpected patch of wildflowers that seem always to be happy to see you.

A field covered in a foot of snow with no one around and quiet as deep as the ocean.

A beach in India that's clean and empty, where you can sit and close your eyes and listen to the ocean and feel connected to everything that has ever been, will ever be.

A stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway that's littered with tiny, trickling waterfalls and twisty roads that leave you wondering whether you should have stayed on the interstate while being simultaneously grateful that you didn't.

A coffee shop that's actually a double decker bus and is decorated with colorful bits of glass on the tables and walls.

Home at the end of a long journey. My bed at the end of a long day. My children first thing in the morning. A fire in my fireplace on a cold night. Steam rising from my morning coffee. A cardinal at the birdfeeder. The first seedlings that grow in my garden. A book and a blanket and a cup of tea. Secret, undiscovered places that make you feel like you're the first person there ever was. A sky glowing with stars that reminds you that you're not.

There's beauty everywhere. How do you decide?

 

Goats

Most of the country was watching football last weekend--good game? fun commercials?--and on any other year, that's exactly what we would have been doing, too. But this year, we went to see some baby goats. Because come on, how do you pass up newborn goats? Now see, the email that arrived from the goat farm said that new goats were being born and that the farm was planning an open barn event, but what I didn't realize is that new goats were in the actual process of BEING BORN. At the moment of the open barn. So that was...an experience. My favorite part of that experience, by the way, was this exchange:

Luke: Is that goat eating MEAT?!

McMoose: Um. It's eating its placenta.

Luke: What's a placenta?

*Every kid in the vicinity stares at McMoose as he explains what a placenta is.*

 

My takeaway from that experience is that (a) baby goats are surprisingly large and if I had to choose to be a non-human animal, I think I'd prefer to be a kangaroo or a panda, both of which have teeny tiny babies and (b) next year, we'll stick with the March open barn, by which time all the goats have been on the outside for at least a week. (And (c) I'm crossing "Farmer" off my list of potential future occupations because no.)

Hello

I've been having this conversation with myself--and usually, it's confined to my own head, but sometimes, when I'm driving, I start to actually mumble aloud and Weston says, "Mama, why are you always talking to yourself?" and then, to convince him that actually, he's having a perfectly normal childhood, I tell him, "No, I wasn't talking to myself, I was just singing. A song. From violin class! Yes, I was singing my new violin song. Didn't you recognize it?" I'm pretty sure he knows the truth, but he plays along.

Where was I? Right. Having a conversation with myself. About privacy and children growing up with all of the minutia of their lives broadcast and preserved forever and all that. You know how when a new politician comes on the scene and all of a sudden, random blogs about politics are trying to talk to that person's best friend from third grade about how, as an eight-year-old, that person was convinced that people of the opposite sex had cooties? And then, the blogs claim that clearly, that means that the politician-wanna-be is sexist and would therefore try to turn the world into a real life Handmaid's Tale? (Stay with me. I know it's hard.) So what happens when the children that we write all about on every form of social media we have grow up and want to be politicians? Or teachers? Or, I don't know, other people who have to seem/be civilized? But there on the internet are stories of the time when they ate a pine cone or went through the phase of randomly blurting out, "Poop!" at inappropriate moments. Who's going to want that kid-turned-grown-up leading their country?

And then, my conversational partner (still me) chimes in to point out that by then, it won't matter because all the kids of that generation will have embarrassing back stories that were published somewhere on the internet. In fact, adults who don't have these bizarre digital trails might be considered suspect. Maybe?

So here I am, sporadically writing barely-intelligible things once again. In the end, it's probably less damaging to the children to be written about in a minuscule corner of the internet than to have their mother mumble to herself while driving around town.