of note

A total close to $5000 was collected at the Battling Batten 5K last month, and will be shared with BDSRA in memory of Celia.  Thank you, again, to all who participated and contributed.

This holiday season, if you happen to be looking for alternative gifts, please consider a potentially life-saving gift to BDSRA.  Every dollar donated through December 31 will be matched through this year's annual fund campaign.

Another good way to give to BDSRA is to complete virtual transactions via Shop for your Cause.  We selected BDSRA as our beneficiary through SfyC and, for example, 3% of each Amazon purchase is reserved for research.

So much work remains.  Thank you for helping scientists seek a cure, and for looking, with us, toward a more hopeful future.

foggy night

I put him to bed and he yells from his room, "Soo-gee, Mom-mom.  Soo-gee!"  Suddenly he's fighting sleep.  Our child who has always been so easy to put down - a book, a big big hug and a big big kiss, lights out, eyes shut - is not.
Excuse me, Mama?  He calls for my attention for minutes on end.
Do I go, or not?  How long should I wait to go?  Wait, I shouldn't go...

Although he's our third, parenting-wise we still have no idea what we’re doing.  We just happen to have lot more experience doing whatever it is.
EL Doctorow compares writing to driving a car at night in the fog.  Parenting is like that too, isn't it?  You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can, hopefully, make the whole trip that way.

A moment of metaphysical speculation

So if Celia hadn't died, Tollie wouldn’t be here?
Fortunately he is not accustomed to me having all the answers.

golden days

There are ten Swiffer refill boxes lined up at the bottom of the basement stairs, an economical bulk purchase turned Rube Goldbird project. "Ready to watch?" Tuck wonders, standing beside them, poised to roll a matryoshka Santa down the backside of a puzzle to set off the giant dominoes.
Later he hollers from the other room, muffled words from behind the tree where he’s apparently checking plugs. I walk past Mary —who’s standing on her head on the coffee table, with Joseph balanced on her feet, just part of their circus act, I’m told — to see what he’s pointing at. He’s worried there’s not a GFCI outlet for the twinkle lights since there’s water in the stand benext to it. "You know mom, water and electricity are a recipe for disaster."
Tollie stands on his bar stool, done with lunch. "Meem eat apple. Meem eat crackers. Meem eat..." And then giggling from behind sly hands covering his mouth, "Meem eat Mom-mom’s feet."  I’d just teased him about nibbling his toes if he kept his feet on the counter.
Later Tollie squats in front of the fireplace. I’ve told him ten times already today not to get too close, demonstrating where it’s safe to stand. Andy gives him the same reminder. "Mom-mom’s bottom too hot?"  he asks. "Yes," Andy agrees, "Mama’s bottom is hot."

We’re as hot as a mess comes, all four of us, a veritable performance art rendition of Dante’s Inferno. A circus act, a recipe for disaster, whatever we are, I feel like we might be smack in the middle of the good old days. Is there a way to know for sure before they’re gone?

I Swear

Several months ago, Tucker found a caterpillar at the pumpkin farm. The fuzzy critter released its bowels on Tuck’s palm, and he promptly named it Mr. Poopy. He proudly showed the caterpillar to other children at the patch, and shared its name with the ones who paid attention. One little boy looked immediately at his mother, who raised her eyebrows and said “We don’t say that word at our house, do we?”

I don’t really subscribe to the idea of good words and bad words. Any word can be used for good or bad effect, any word can impoverish rather than enrich. I was careful not to cuss in my classroom, but I’ll admit, both boys have heard me use unladylike words at home. We don’t swear angrily at each other but we occasionally resort to profanity when we’re frustrated. We will discourage the boys from dropping the F-bomb in polite company, and we will discuss rules of etiquette dictated by society, like maybe not swearing at school or at church. But the tolerance we have for colorful language probably ought to have a correlation to the example we set. There are worse things than kids who curse.

Tucker tells lots of stories.  He makes them up and I write them down, and then we read them together.  And we read lots of books.  He wants to know what words mean and how to deploy them. He has an amazingly extensive vocabulary. And his brother’s is growing fast.

Tollie calls his motorcycle guy a mother fucker. Tucker calls an ill-fitting lego piece a pain in the ass. As both boys dip their toes in the profane end of the language pool, I wonder whether we should identify some forbidden words. I think I’ll be hard-pressed to ever tell them to stop talking. As long as their words do not berate, I can’t quite bring myself to deprive them of even a small part of oral expression.

I’m convinced that mom at the pumpkin patch must teach her son to say shit instead of poop. And I feel certain we’re raising boys who will learn, from us and in spite of us, to raise their words and not their voices.  Or their eyebrows.

tree

Last week was full to the brim with happy thanks, and this week we're merry-ing up.
Step one: We got a tree.

Stuff I want to remember:
At the nursery there were lots of decorated firs, and lots of angel ornaments.  Tollie pointed to a few and called each one "butterfly guy."  He calls everyone guy, girls and boys and ladies and gentlemen alike.  And the angels had wings sort of like an insect, so it made good sense.
Tolliver also got a new motorcycle toy this week, with a rider whom he refers to as mo-fo-ca guy, really fast.  We're working on that.

Once the tree was secured to the top of the Jeep I said, "Okay, we're all set."  Since then, each time we get in the car and buckle up, Tollie does the round:  Meem all set.  Mom-mom all set?  DaTuck all set?

Tucker wrote another letter to Santa, prompted primarily by a Bill Nye video he watched, this time asking for "an electrical thing what's safe for kids, like for me and my dad to build stuff like electrical circuits with."  This sounds a little more doable than his somewhat confusing earlier request of "a bow and arrow like a fishing rod like a line to hold the hook and you shoot it first."

Tuck's been experimenting with creating his own jokes lately.  His best recent riddle goes: What’s red, and looks like bended cylinders?  Santa's boots!  This seemed remarkble because he's four and his jokes are usually very bad.  Like What do you get when you put monkeys in the vent? Broken glass! bad.

But these boys?  They're so good.  The best gifts ever, really.

Takeoff

He identifies shapes and brushes his teeth, shoots baskets with more enthusiasm than accuracy and is heavy with all kinds of awesome.  He’s considered, yet not too careful, warm-hearted and wondrously perceptive.  He thinks that scotch tape can fix anything and he asks for ketchup with everything.  He's taken off in so many ways this second year, in so many amazing directions.  I mean, he wants to take off his pants, the ornaments, my jewelry, but he shed his infancy faster than he can peel off his shirt, so quickly it's hard to pinpoint when it even happened.  He is a big big big big boy, his words, so eager to learn.  At the rate he's going, I have a feeling home could someday simply mean the soil under his shoes.

Although he really wanted to fly, he settled for watching from the old control tower.

brothers make the best wingmen

"meem bi-pane" (his favorite)

I love watching him take off, love the idea of sending both boys out into the world to live a life different from my own.  I love him.  And I can't wait to see where he'll go.