I have a feeling he might end up choosing the "do more college" track

I am, admittedly, better at jotting down the things Tollie says.  But I've tried to collect a few gems from Tucker lately, too.

Looking at a map: Remember there’s a place called “skinny island”? Oh wait, I mean “Long Island.”

Answering Tollie's request to explain the difference:  Robots just do things they’re programmed to do. The difference is, androids are known for actually being intelligent. 

The human brain is like the Sunday paper, it has many folds and is full of facts.  Surely he read this somewhere.

bedtime stall tactic number one, engaging Dad: What if there’s another universe?

bedtime stall tactic number two, engaging me as I rub Aquaphor on his upper lip, busted when Tolliver threw a plastic dinosaur at his face:
I wonder what elements are in this medicine?

random questions:  What happens to clay when it gets burned?
and random observations:  Isn't it interesting that there are nine reindeer, just like there are nine planets?

I have a joke for you. What do you call a no good vegetable? A dead beet.  Maybe he heard this somewhere.

Do you know what heaven is actually, Tollie?  It’s not a human, it’s a place.  For dead people.  And there’s gonna be, like, everything you’ve always wanted.  I believe there’s everything there.

Playing airplanes with his brother, to one of the toy planes: Pop your wheels, genius! 
Tollie, to Tucker:  Hey, are you a genius?
Tucker: No. But I do have a lot of great ideas. 

Talking to a friend with an older brother in college:  When he’s done with college, is he going to get a job or do more college? 

with feathers

Letters worth seven points in a game of Scrabble.  An assemblage of sounds that mean heaven.
When I was pregnant, nine years ago, I repeated her name over and over until it wore a smooth groove of hope in my brain, until I could hold that living, breathing bundle in my arms.
I still nurture a small seed of hope when I think of her.
The emotion, though, is a bit of a trickster.  It feels almost productive (I am busy hoping), but carries a burden of expectation, of wanting things to be different, things that are out of my control.

I have seen and felt my daughter since her death, four years ago: in a sole firefly floating through our bedroom on a dark summer night; in a beautiful morning glory clinging to a tree spotted only when I suddenly felt compelled to turn around mid-step on an island trail; in a bottle of cherry flavored bourbon after her brothers are in bed.
Her absence underlines how fortunate we are to have healthy boys.  Our sons will grow up to develop their own beliefs about spirituality and religion, about life and death, about hope and despair, and I trust they'll do plenty of exploring and inquiring in the process.  It’s okay if they don’t end up on the same page as us, it's okay if they decide it's all bullshit, as long as they find their own truths.
In the meantime, we can teach them about the good in people and about being kind to others.  We can talk to them about the wonder of life and about the beauty waiting to be found in the world.  We can help them remember their sister.

Sharing her story gives us back a small bit of control -- which private parts should we reveal, what will become her history?
We released balloons the first year, five of them for her fifth birthday, just a few weeks after she died.  It didn’t feel quite right, the letting go.  We just wanted to hold on.
The next year we collected six heart-shaped rocks to share, a way to weight her here.
On what would have been her seventh birthday we planted pinwheels, blowing a solitary wish into the universe, find a cure.
Last year we delivered donuts, sprinkling awareness and spreading kindness.

Nine years this March and we've already been working on how to honor her, starting early to make certain we do it well.
Feathers this time.  Because hope is the thing...

A crucial aid in getting through any kind of loss is the support of a strong community.
We learned recently that the Battling Batten event in November raised more than $9000, online and in person, and the total was held until a matching donation for most of it was available through BDSRA in December, making the contribution toward research more than $17,000.   
We are hopeful, and grateful.

Someone finally flipped the winter switch "on."

Although I already feel, most of the time now, like a can of refrigerated biscuits, I could not say no.  The boys have been waiting for it to snow for months, so we suited up after school and played outside.

Tollie talks.

I hope these entries can someday serve as his very own version of wrinkled yellow legal pages in a baby book, and that he will enjoy reading them the way we have enjoyed reminiscing, and laughing, over some of the things our parents took time to record when we were young.

Holding up a Lego creation:  I made a new trash can, for ghosts.  It looks just like the ones for ordinary garbage though. 

Last week, going back to preschool after break:  So I have school tomorrow? After that, can we do vacation again? 

Wait Mom, what are those explosions of lights called?   Fireworks?  I know how you make fireworks. You make dark sticks of dots and then when you send them up they turn the sky different colors.

Mad at his brother:  Tucker, shut your mandible. 

Hold on.  Lemme try again.  I lost my eye on the ball. 

Playing with a small plastic toy:  The shark smells some meat.  It’s his leftover person.  He ate some yesterday and now he’s having more dead person.

Have you ever visited a bathroom park, with statues of bottoms and toilets and stuff?

Batten disease means they’re gonna die, right?  Do you think they could eat vegetables and fruit and medicine every day and get better? 

Standing on the scale:  Hey look!  I weigh 40 pounds, with a capital 4! 

Boys have a penis, and girls have tangerines, right? That’s a hard word to say, tangerine.

I’m big enough now to look at a magazine when I poop.  But only boys can do that, right?

Frustrated that he can't quite keep up with his older brother:  Yes I did lose my smart.  I must have.  I feel wrong about everything. 

I need a donut vending machine.  Maybe when the scientists invent a flying car and they find a cure they’ll make one of those too. 

big kid

It's a challenge to speak to the way he seems young and old at the same time.  And a challenge to help him navigate this blurry, big kid stage of personhood.
Standing there in Star Wars pajama pants, legs crossed, eyes glued to the screen, he vacillates between games and Google searches.  He goes from earning new cars in Smashy Road to memorizing statistics about fossil fuel use in different countries, from laughing at Siri's response to a silly question to rolling his eyes out loud at whatever I've asked of him.
He is messy and impulsive, organized and methodic, confused and confident.  
He draws comics and designs robots, emerging from his imagination for food and hydration.  He pulls his hoodie over his hair and grumbles about practicing piano music, retreating into my outstretched arms without a bit of reluctance, with every remnant of his childhood.
For his birthday he wants a Bunsen burner.  It's like he's somewhere halfway between the Lego and whiskey crowd, somewhere that makes sitting on my lap so four score, and heading off to college suddenly imaginable.
I watch him traverse this middle zone, an utterly perplexing place for all of us, and see his future exploding before him.
I want to keep him warm and safe, and he feels ready to play with fire.

the Great Green Room, take two

I love the idea that many families have lived in this little house ahead of us.  Imagining how they made it work with three bedrooms and one bathroom, with multiple children and without a mudroom or an attached garage, the aura of this-has-been-done-before somehow radiates a bit of peace.
We love our neighborhood.  Every house on the street is a not a variation of the same theme, not merely a different configuration of the same boards and bricks.  Most have predictably small closets and wet basements and higher than average energy bills, but they also have lots of charm.  We don't plan to move or to remodel to make room for one more.

Tolliver began bunking in Tucker's room last week.  Winter break seemed to serve as a good time to let the boys try sharing space.  So far, so good.  Tols still rises before it shines, so he uses "elusive maneuvers" to sneak out of bed without waking Tuck too early.  More often than not, his technique has been working.  And he asks every night if he can sleep under his skeleton blanket again.  Tonight he asked if he could share a bedroom with Tucker forever.

I hope the novelty does not wear off too soon...
And I hope that their relationship will always feel less like an obligation and more like a choice.

note: Tucker asked us to print the Periodic Table of Elements so he could tape it to his wall.
I Googled it and handed the first copy to him, and he looked at it for about three seconds before explaining that it was outdated and missing several elements.

The original Great Green Room, right before Tucker turned two (so nearly five years ago).

floating targets

The past couple weeks have been, for the most part, so pleasant.  The boys have become almost indispensable to each other, going from early morning movies to magnets to breakfast to light sabers to ball games to agreeing on lunch, all of it together.
While I love so many things winter break entails -- elastic waistbands and warm blankets, library books and leftovers -- this has been my favorite.  Their brotherhood.  Their combined laughter (mostly at Siri's expense) and their mutual creativity (exhibit endless Spooner Ballooner games) and their cooperation.

Part of me would prefer to move gently from December and the holidays to the next month, to slip simply into the new year.  That's the part of me that would also like to keep eating queso and ice cream.
The other part of me can't help giving some thought to improvement.  I could try to eat more protein and vegetables.  I could complain less and spend less and scroll less.
While it feels nice to be motivated, the other side of that sword says I am not enough, I should be more.

Tolliver is trying really hard to stay in bed until his clock shows six.  And Tucker has been very brave in tasting lots of new foods lately.  When I look at the boys, acknowledging the ways they're growing, I realize that our current selves are all pretty amazing as is.
There is nothing wrong with trying to be better, unless it makes us lose sight of that.

I want to keep swimming and to take more walks, to devote myself mostly to raising boys and reading books, to finishing hot coffee and to having real life conversations, to wishing for snow and to getting more sleep.  To remembering I am enough and I have enough.
Right now, that feels like plenty.