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.

Thankfully

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
– Marcus Aurelius, in Meditations

Tolliver is two

With penny colored hair and courage to burn, with q-tips sticking out of both ears and cabinet-raiding guilt written across his face, he steps out of the bathroom.  He is curious and silly and sharp as a tack.  He can hold up two fingers and say the word “two,” but when you ask him how old he is he crosses his arms over his chest as if predisposed to noncompliance.  Except he’s not.  It’s just that he has the sensitivity of a divining rod, moods like weather fronts, just that he is experimenting with independence in the way that toddlers do.  It's just that he is two.  If you ask whether he’d like to read books he sing-songs yessir, yessir and the smile that spreads across his face rivals the sun.  

On Tuesdays his teacher tries to apologize for the paint all over this clothes while sand from the playground pours from his pockets and corn kernels from the sensory table spill from his cuffs.  He is busy and bold and wildly amusing.  We derive such pleasure from his company.  Except in bed.  Sleeping with him is like sleeping with the hands of a clock.  Or with an octopus.  Something all arms and legs, a perpetual motion machine.  But during the day we derive such pleasure from his company.  Healthy and hale, he points and we realize there are exclamation marks all over the place.  With a little boy who’s seeing it all for the very first time, we are too.

from the phone

1.  we do. #everyday

2.  Uncle Adam taught Tols that pose

3.  yard work 

4.  Audubon hike #fallfeelslikehcurch

5.  cousins on a rock

6. cousins reading books

7.  first snow

8.  no reason is the best reason

9.  Franklin Park via ccoyle0977

10.  playing with his sister's doll house furniture #ghpl

11.  Hocking Hills salamanders

12.  glow sticks in the bath tub

13.  collecting candy (with hats on!)

14.  play dough for days

15.  Buckeyes and Hawkeyes #nutsbeatbirds

16.  big football fan

17.  tantrum at Target

18.  visiting Uncle John #princetonwitheinstein

19. #baddecisionswithgoodpeople via keg256

20.  ant farmer

21.  Rube Goldberg-ing #32tries

22.  grocery entertainment at the lobster tank

23.  Tollie and WALL-E

24.  best boys in the world #pb&jazz

25.  leaves with frogs

26. Garden of Constants

27.  California cousin #happylap #3Ts

28.  where choice and chance collide #idinamenzel #seeit