N in Love

Friday it hit 110 here--HERE, where we live, where we have only one air conditioner in our "living space," and that's in our living room. Baroy was at rehearsal. Em was sick--feverish, sore throated, lethargic, teary--so she, N, and I were basically confined to the living room for over 12 straight hours.

It sucked. I can't even begin to say how much it sucked.

So when Baroy suggested, this morning, that we pack up the kids and take them down to the theater where the play is being held, where they were finishing up the set and doing a "dry tech" (whatever the hell that means...something about figuring out the lights and sound cues without the actors there) and could use some extra hands, I jumped at the idea. (Well, first I took Em to the Suprise!-We-No-Longer-Take-Your-Insurance-So-That'll-Be-$50-
Upfront-And-We'll-Bill-You-For-The-Rest Urgent Care to make sure she doesn't have strep. Which she most likely doesn't. So yay on that. And THEN I jumped at the idea.) Because, after all, the theater is VERY VERY air conditioned, and today promised to be a carbon copy of Friday. Oh, and also I wanted to be supportive of this first-ever production of my husband's play. (But, shhh. Mostly it was the AC. Did I mention 110 degrees?)

It was my first time meeting the assistant director--a very nice, pretty woman who has 3.5-year-old twins. I liked her immediately. So did N. In fact, he liked her so much that he proposed to her. It went, she told me when I asked if the news was indeed true, something like this:

N: Do you have a husband?
Woman: No. But I have a wife.
N: But no husband?
W: Nope. Just a wife.
N: So when I grow up, I will be your husband. Do you have children?
W: Yup. Two of them.
N: So when I grow up, I will be your husband, and we'll have more children. Maybe like eight children.
W: Where will we live?
N: Duh. At my mom's house, of course!

Taking this as an acceptance of his proposal, N came running out to tell me.

"Mommy! I know what Brown Shirt's name is now!" (Remember, he has always had problems with names. The fact that he was able to call her by her name within just a few hours of meeting her is significant; usually, it takes days, if not months or years.) "It's W! And she has a boy and a girl. And guess what! When I get big, I'm going to marry her and we're going to have 10 or 11 kids all together!"

When Glen (our friend and the play's director) overheard all of this, he laughed and said to W, "Don't you think you're a little old for him?"

"HEY!" W replied, putting her hands on her hips. But before she could say anything more, a very serious N came to her rescue: "She's not old! She's pretty! Very pretty." (After a pause he added, looking over at me somewhat anxiously, "You're not old either, Mommy. And you're pretty. But not very pretty." Uh, thanks, son. I think.)

Now, there may be those of you who believe that a 7-year-old boy's crush on a 30-something-year-old lesbian is a bit of a reach, perhaps even a long shot. But I think the smart money's on N. After all, none of you saw the look in her eye when he gave her a kiss on the cheek as we left this evening. None of you saw her clutch her heart as he walked away. But I did. And when I looked back and said, "We may need to add an extra bathroom before you move in," all she could do was nod and say, "Or maybe two. Just in case, what with the 10 or 11 kids and all."