apple doof and other anecdotes

Fall brings to our house special indulgences like apple cider, and before the sun rises Tollie asks for a glass of juice.  Apple doof? Apple doof please!

It’s not yet 7:00 am and Tuck wonders aloud Mom, sometime can I get a pet roadrunner?
As soon as he's made one request, he's articulating the next: I need an enormous pot.  You know, a big one.  Enormous is a cinnamon.  Aunt Christen told me that.

The boys bathe together and Tollie cries eye bubble, eye bubble, soapy fists pressed firmly against stinging eyes.  They've emptied an entire can of shaving cream, killing time before nap by drawing on the walls and on their bodies.  I ask Tuck to be careful not to get it near his brother’s eyes.  It’s okay, when Grandpa gets it on his face he just erasers it off.  I think he meant razor.

Tollie sleeps and Tucker collects straws and batteries, wooden blocks and modeling clay, remotes and foam balls.  He's building a Rube Goldberg machine or an Angry Bird course or a computer that tells you what kind of tree a leaf came from, and although these projects are the sort of work he prefers to do independently, he finds me in the kitchen.  Can I borrow you for a minute?  I need one more piece of help.

I dry my hands and hope to heaven that they'll ask me to dole out apple doof and provide pieces of help for years to come.

I totally agree with her.

Anna Quindlen says something about being quite content with children who grow up to think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

moments, and maybes

For four and a half years, Tucker has kept me busy and kept me on my toes and kept me company.  What used to be a small pink bundle has become long legs and strong opinions.  He tells stories and sings songs and shows gratitude.  He spends most days Dickens novel dirty, flashing a smile that his grandma says consumes his entire face.  He has risen to the occasion when things have been scary and confusing and just plain not fun.  Full of innocent wisdom, he points humor at sadness, encourages us to experience life as a lyric rather than a list.

We saw friends in a wagon across the street today and he said, Know what?  Know why they got that wagon for walks?  Because they miss Celia too and they want to remember how she used to like wagon rides.  
I'm not even sure those neighbors know who Celia is, but he seems to believe the whole world misses her.  And maybe he's right.

There are moments I’d like to lift Tucker out of his grief, carry him above any pain, moments I'd like to make a path for him through trouble.  I remember the first time I felt that urge was at his birth, the moment our eyes met and I wished the world for him.  We wouldn't know for eight days whether he'd inherited the same faulty genes that sealed his sister's fate.  I tried to focus solely on his perfection during that time but was distracted by the desire to shove away hardships for his foreseeable future.  Maybe that's a universal maternal instinct.

The thing is, he has a foreseeable future.  He has jokes to tell and issues to navigate and machines to invent.  Part of being alive is feeling sad and afraid, lonely and vulnerable.  Life unspools the way life does if you're lucky enough to be living it - in cycles of lovely and painful and painful again, and I'm glad to be figuring it all out with him.  With both of them.

When I catch him being a little too rough with Tolliver, Tuck excuses flying fists with I'm just giving Tollie a nice massage.  While he was swinging in the hammock this evening he was encouraging Tollie to come closer, I'm your friend, buddy.  Come here, I'm your friend.  Tuck's plan appeared to enable him to kick but was quickly described as a chance to give Tollie high five with my foot.  Despite these examples, Tucker's love for his brother is just as ardent as it is for his sister.
Tonight at bedtime, as I pajama-ed the boys, Tuck was begging to sleep in Tolliver's bed.  He said Mom, thank you for getting us the best Tollie ever.  And it was a moment, you know?  A lovely one that made me appreciate even more his aliveness and my inability to move him through it on any path but his own.  One of those.

Saturday

spent with family before the football game.

Thursday morning

He cries out for me at too early thirty, tangled in blankets, surrounded by hard books and plush animals, hair ruffled and fuzzy.  He is a bouquet of wild loveliness.
Predawn he plays purposefully, still and focused and calm, but before long his uninhibited enthusiasm awakens, his activity becomes intense and erratic.  He begs for eggs, calls for Tucker, looks for his favorite frog book, complains about his wet bottom... and then pushes them all away, No eggie, No Da-tuck, No book, No dipe-y, in the manner of a two year old who suddenly doesn't want what he just wanted.
At the grocery he gets attention from fellow shoppers who comment on his camouflage shoes, on the toy camera around his neck, on his orange hair, who give him cheek squeezes and a sheet of stickers.  He gives them each a look he could cut steak with.  He will not speak until our strawberries are bagged and the automatic doors close behind us, Guy, big guy.  Stickies.  Bye Guy!
In the car he covers his hands with colorful circles and once we're home he pulls one off and presents it to me.  For Mama he says as he attaches it to my shorts.  By the time I have the door unlocked and get the bags inside he is under the outdoor table with the pint of berries, a single bite taken from the bottom of each before it's returned to the container.  At lunch he is in and out of his chair, sitting, standing, upside down, watermelon in one hand and Tuck's peach pit in the other, fruit juice dripped in figure eights across the patio.
After they eat, he and his brother make mud soup.  They mix dirt and water, stir in ground cherries and holly berries, fern leaves and tiger lily stalks before shoving the concoction in their green plastic dinosaur's over-sized mouth.  Chomp, chomp.
They both need a bath, and I know although he won't eat his and will instead dip it in warm water and watch it melt, I entice them in with fruit popsicles.  We read Down By the Bay and Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site on new blue sheets before he naps.  He cuddles with both books and with his blanket and closes his eyes, nestled into the spot I picked him from hours earlier.

Reminders

There are just a few freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose, a fine dusting of cinnamon that reminds me of his sister's fair skinned spots, and that make me want to plant a kiss on his face for every breath he takes.

**September kicks off the Combined Federal Campaign - designate a gift to BDSRA to benefit research by using registration number 11781.  Scientists are making strides!

**Also, see information under the Current Fundraisers tab before September 28th if you'd like to order Tastefully Simple to benefit BDSRA, or if you'd like to register for the Battling Batten 5K & Family Walk on November 3rd.

on smiling

Where's your smile? he asks me, usually when I'm wiping bath water from the tiled floor, willing bed time to come right away.  Or sorting through the back door shoe pile up for a matching pair, forgetting that should feel more like a privilege and less like a chore.
Now when he's moody or irritable or just four-and-a-half, when he's on the path to becoming someone I'm not quite sure of, I ask him the same thing.  It's hard to hide your smile when someone's hoping to see it.