Where I spent Black Friday

Thanksgiving

For family. For friends. For abundance. For love. For forgiveness. For good fortune.

For my countless blessings, I am thankful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the eye of the beholder

Yesterday when I went to pick up Sidamo from school, I found a few kids in the classroom listening to story time, but Sidamo was in the bathroom. One of the other boys saw me walk in and immediately—he was clearly just waiting to tell someone—shouted, "We saw cheerleaders!" He had a beyond-his-age glimmer in his eye when he described their magnificence, their beautiful outfits, and how much he loved, loved, loved them. I suggested that he might like to be a cheerleader someday, but that seems not to have been the direction he was suggesting.

When Sidamo returned, one of his teachers explained that they had gone to the gym for play time and found the middle-school cheerleaders practicing. Some sort of glorious hedonism ensued; details are fuzzy, as I tuned out after registering the fact that it included cupcakes. A sugar injection half an hour before you send him home? Thanks.

As I started getting Sidamo's coat on, another classmate's mom showed up, and the teacher said to her, "It was so funny—we saw cheerleaders today, and Brandon* kept looking up at them saying, 'You're so beautiful!'"

Brandon's mom looked at him and said, "Brandon, I thought only I was beautiful to you!"

He smiled at her and said, "You are beautiful mommy!"

After a quiet moment in which we all soaked up the motherly/sonly love, Sidamo, who had been watching this whole interchange very intently, looked into my eyes, flashed his loving smile, and said, "Mommy?"

"Yes, honey?"

"I wish you were beautiful."

*Name has been changed to protect the little perv's privacy.

The dreaded question

After preschool today, Sidamo asked, "Mommy, what are guns?"

I replied, "They're things that people use to hurt other people. And animals. Where did you hear about them?"

"Carter* told me. He said he plays with them at home."

So, seasoned parents, what to do? We're a pacifist household (mostly—Greg has some strikingly non-peaceful reactions to bagel sandwiches, snowboarders, and musical theater). We don't do guns, talk guns, play guns. I do know the school of thought that children, boys especially, will find/create/imagine firearms where none exist, but Sidamo just doesn't strike me as having that personality. He's generally gentle, relatively empathetic … But maybe all moms think that about their kids.

And of course I don't want to give guns some sort of mystique by banning their mention in our house. So where's that line, between outright ban and gentle dissuasion?


* Name has been changed to protect the little weapons-pusher.

Unconditional love

Me to Sidamo, cuddling at bedtime, after a particularly trying evening: You know I love you, right? No matter what?

Sidamo: Even when I'm in time-out you still love me?

Me: Yep, even when you're in time-out. No matter what, I always love you.

Sidamo: Even when I spit you still love me?

Me: Yep.

Sidamo: Even when I yell you still love me?

Me: Yep. There's nothing you can do that will make me love you any less.

Sidamo: Even when I'm in a cheetah's mouth you still love me?

Me: Yeah. Then too.

Freakshow

Have I ever mentioned …

… that I'm freakishly double-jointed?

All I want for Christmas

Will those two front teeth ever arrive? Have you ever seen anything like this?

Teenager

Can someone please tell me when my teensy, round, barely-toddler turned into a teenager? Look at him! It's unreal how quickly he's growing (41 inches as of this morning, according to the tape measure). And how he's stretched out—he used to be this compact little bundle of chubby-love, and now he's long and lean.

And he acts like a teenager, too. Always right about everything. Ev-ry-thing. He tells me how to drive and how to cook, points out my every misstep. It's gotta be neat to be a month away from 4 and to have it all figured out. I think I was at least 13 before I knew better than my parents (Daddy, feel free to chime in and correct me).

The vocabulary on this kid can stop you in your tracks. So strange to hear a not-quite-4-year-old dropping words like perhaps and perpendicular. Especially when he still has a cute little lisp and mixes up word order (e.g., "Why you said dose sings was perpendicular when dey really parallel?"—again, pointing out my every misstep.)

He's an interesting mix of over-the-top energy and focused intellect. At school he's one of the shyer, more quiet ones. At home and in pretty much every public place, he's loud, gregarious, loud, active, loud, bossy, and loud. But then he'll sit down with a book of puzzles or word searches and get lost in it for whatever the preschooler equivalent is of hours on end.

He keeps us guessing, and marveling, and buying bigger and bigger sizes of clothing.

Seriously

Isn't she a little young to have mastered the "you should be ashamed of yourself" look?

Daisy

Someday I hope I'll have it in me to write a proper tribute to Daisy—to describe her unmatchable love, her courage, her devotion. To detail how we grew—as individuals, as a family (and, in fact, into a family)—as a result of knowing her. To properly express the emptiness, loss, and grief we felt saying goodbye.

But the pain is still too fresh and too deep.