Priorities

An email from my brother-in-law:

Last night N told me that when the time comes, he and Em will be the ones to scatter my ashes. “Unless Em has rehearsal that day. Then we’ll do it a different time.”

As you can tell, rehearsal always takes priority in our house.

One Liner

At the circus, sno-cone cup in hand, N looks into the plastic tiger's eyes, then over at Baroy and me. "I think I'll name him Newspaper," he says.

It takes us two or three full beats before we both start howling.

More N Deliciousness

It was just after Religious School, and I'd run into our rabbi outside his office; he'd stopped to chat with me. Once N's friends had all dispersed, N joined us. Somehow, the topic turned to fruit; I think N was eating a tangerine.

"What kind of fruit has its seeds on the outside?" N asked suddenly. It's a 'riddle' he likes to bring up any time the word fruit arises in conversation; he learned it in his PE class, where the teacher throws them one or two word/logic type puzzles a week.

"A strawberry," Rabbi answered promptly.

I laughed; N is used to stumping people with that one. "Ah, see? Rabbi knew, N!"

N turned to me, rolling his eyes. "Duh, Mom. He's a rabbi. He's supposed to know everything."

Rabbi literally roared with laughter. Wiping his eyes, he patted N on the head. "Hate to break it to you buddy, but I don't know everything."

N looked at him levelly, then shrugged. "But you know God's name," he said. That, clearly, settled the issue; he turned and walked away, while Rabbi and I just looked at each other and grinned.

Dear name-of-God. That kid.

Your Son: An Email Exchange With N

[Verbatim. Because if this doesn't translate on its own--and it may not, I may be the only one guffawing here--no amount of embellishment or explanation is going to help.]

From: N
To: TC
Subject: your son

ples writght me back

love
your
n

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From: TC
To: N
Subject: Re: your son

Hi, my son! ;-)

I love you.

Love,
Mommy

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From: N
To: TC
Subject: Re: your son

ok wright more complents

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From: TC
To: N
Subject: Re: your son

I'm not sure what "complents" are. Do you mean compliments? Do you want me to tell you how much I love you? Or how good you are at golf? And how much I enjoy reading stories you write?

Love,
Mommy

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From: N
To: TC
Subject: Re: your son

to many questins

Letter to the Soldiers

(Taken directly from an email I sent my friend S this morning. Sometimes these entries just write themselves, don't they?)


We had Mitzvah Day at the temple yesterday; one of the mitzvot--in this case, it means good deeds--we do is create care packages for soldiers overseas.


The kids write holiday cards to the soldiers to include in the packages; lots of "we love you" and "come home soon" and hearts and flowers ... 


... except for N's, which read, "Dear Soldier, Hope you win the war. Beet the bad guys with your guns. Love, N."


The woman in charge of that table and I laughed until we cried. Well, after we fixed the handwriting so it didn't look so much like it said "Beet the bad GAYS with your guns."

I Swear, the Smart*ss Gene Came From Her Father

We were having a family meeting last night about Em's computer usage. She received a laptop for her Bat Mitzvah (thanks, Mom!) and while it's literally been the Best Present Ever, it's also brought up some issues that I hadn't really considered.

I've always been very anti-computer-in-the-kids'-rooms, and I still am. Except that there are actually lots of reasons for her to have to use her computer in her room: The fact that our house just isn't large or nook-y enough for her to have a quiet place to do her homework, for instance, and often she needs her computer for homework. Or the fact that she likes to listen to music while she writes, and I don't want N distracted by the noise when he's doing his homework. Or that she likes to shoot and create videos, and that noise is a problem. Or that she likes to video Skype with friends instead of talking on the phone, and that can get loud, too. You get the idea.

So the meeting last night was about addressing her needs for privacy and our needs for less chaos, and balancing them with my concerns about how much time she spends on the computer in general, about not being able to keep an eye on her online activities, and -- perhaps most importantly to me -- my need for her not to be spending all of her time at home in her room with the door closed.

It was a long and productive conversation, and we came to some decisions we all can live with. At the end, it was just Em and I at the table, and I was reiterating the main points of the agreement -- as I often, and no doubt maddeningly, like to do to be sure we're all agreeing to the same thing.

Finally, she asked, "OK. Are we done?"

And I said, "Yes, we're done. But please, do keep in mind, I really mean it about not spending all your time in your room. I need you to at least be out with the rest of us often enough that you can remember what we look like."

She was passing my chair as she came around the table to leave the kitchen, and she dropped a kiss on the top of my head.

"Of course I won't forget what you look like," she said, breezily. "I have lots of pictures of you on my computer."

These Kids Slay Me

From Em's Facebook account:

Em Lastname: I am REALLY REALLY glad that my English project is done!

Friend of hers: Changed it from Englidh?

Em: Yeah...kinda had to! ;p

Thanks a LOT, Uncle Stevie

N and I had one of our 'date nights' last night, since Baroy had a rehearsal to go to for a couple of scenes of his a local theater is doing. I baked a lasagna for the event, since Baroy doesn't eat pasta (I know!) or cheese (I KNOW!) and I try to save such meals for evenings when he's not eating at home.

As we dug in into lasagna served on our good plates ("I'll set the table, Mommy," N said, "for a special occasion" SWOON), N swallowed wrong and began to cough. He then put his hands around his throat, and bugged out his eyes.

"N!" I barked. "Say something!"

He stared at me.

"NOW!" I said, starting to rise from chair and reach for him.

"What?" he asked, smiling, and dropping his hands. "I was just kidding around..."

Relieved, I dropped into my chair and explained to him that I'd wanted him to say something, because that would let me know that he was getting air into his lungs, and I didn't need to worry that he was really choking, like bad choking.

He considered this for a minute.

"You know Daddy and Uncle's president?" he said.

"Huh?"

"Daddy and Uncle's president. He got shot in the throat. And then his head blew up and he was dead."

Oh, for...Eight days with Uncle Stevie--Kennedy-obsessed Uncle Stevie--and this is what my son comes home with.

"Oh, you mean President Kennedy?"

"Yeah, him. And then this guy shot the guy who shot him. And he thought he was a hero, but he wasn't. He was a bad guy."

"You know, N, Uncle Stevie shouldn't have told you about that."

"He didn't tell me. He showed me about it on the computer."

Oh. MUCH better.

"Well, he shouldn't have shown it to you either."

"Well, he did," N replied, matter-of-factly. "And it's in my head now, and I'm not going to forget it."

I bet you won't, kiddo.

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Several of you asked for an update on Book Decision 2009. In short, my faith in how well out-of-sight-out-of-mind works with this kid was well justified.

In slightly longer, he got upset about the IDEA of a book purge when I mentioned it in the car, and seemed a little...bemused...by how empty his shelves were when we got home. BUT I presented it to him as a surprise (he kept his eyes shut, etc.) AND he had no time to be sad about it, because the box of books from my stepfather had just arrived when we got home. So after viewing what had been done to his room (I moved a little furniture as well, so it wasn't just the book shelves that looked different) he opened the box and was SO excited by what was in there (The Dangerous Book for Boys! Dinosaur's Fat Cat! a biography of Tiger Woods! a couple of the Stink Moody books! The Houdini Box!!!!) that all I had to say was, "See? Now you can go put them on your book shelves because you have room!" He said he wanted to go by himself to "organize" his new books...and that was it.

I did tell him in the car that we kept pretty much all his books (which is true in the sense that we kept any book he would have a CHANCE of remembering), and that I would be happy to go find any of the books he wanted...All he would have to do is tell me which book he was missing. So far, he hasn't mentioned a single one.

Apparently, not so much on the permanent damage. I should have saved that angst for something else, I guess.

California Born and Bred

N is in Boston for a week with his beloved Uncle Stevie. He's breaking my heart with the bedtime homesickness phone calls, but that's beside the point. He's having a good time, even if he refuses to admit it when he's feeling sad.

Earlier, Steve emailed me to say that while they were out and about a bit, N overheard his first conversation between two true Bostonites. He listened for a while, Steve said, and then looked up at his uncle and asked, "Can those people understand English, too?"

I haven't stopped laughing yet.

The Advertising Industry is Trying to Kill Me

1. Baroy and N are watching AMC. A commercial for Extenze comes on. (The fact that AMC thinks commercials for Extenze are appropriate for the 8:30 viewing audience...I can't. I just can't.)

N turns to Baroy: Daddy, I should get some of those. They make you grow bigger!

Baroy leaves the room so that the sound of his choking laughter doesn't upset N.

2. N is in the other room. Em hears him saying, "hot, hot, hot," over and over. She calls in to him.

Em: What's hot?

N, coming into the room where we are, carrying a Sears circular from the newspaper with photos of ladies in swimwear: These girls. I want to marry them! They're so hot, dude.

Eight. Eight years old.

Oy vey.

Transgressions

Let's just say that there was a transgression on the part of my 11-year-old daughter. Let's say it was a minor transgression, as transgressions go, but that there were some untruths told in the performance of said transgression. And if there's one thing I do NOT take well, it is being lied to.

[Also, for the record, let's just say that I am well aware that this was neither the first nor the last time such a thing will occur. I also imagine it's not the last time I'll hear myself saying, "But, no. But, seriously. WHAT were you THINKING?" Because, what with puberty being more than just a theoretical "one day" around here, the thought processes of my darling daughter are more and more frequently making little logical sense. How any of this is evolutionarily advantageous, I'll never know. But I digress.]

Anyway, let's just say there were phone calls between myself and Baroy, and a punishment handed down while I was still in the office, hours before I was to get home. And let's just say that Em then spent those hours in her room, because she was afraid that showing her face to her father would only make things worse. I never said she wasn't a SMART child.

She's also a very--and often unintentionally--funny child. During that time in her room, Em wrote a note to the two of us. An apology note. An apology note with lines like this ("I am upset that I couldn't go to girl scouts and that I can't have a sleepover with anyone, but I guess I just have to take it like a man") and like this ("I just want to say sorry one more time and I love you. I know that might sound like I'm trying to suck up to you, but I'm not").

Damn it's hard to come down like a ton of bricks on child who makes you laugh that hard.

Her punishment, as her note made somewhat clear, involved being grounded. She lost a field trip with her Girl Scout troop to an animal shelter, and she lost an already-planned sleepover with a friend. And she also lost any other social events for the weekend. Which seems like it would be a clear-cut sort of thing, right? And it is.

Except when it came to last night at temple. Because last night was a special shabbat service--a dinner held annually in memory of one of the key members of the congregation in days not-so-long gone by. The kids had been practicing for weeks to help lead the service; Em is one of the oldest and most vocal children in the religious school--one of the leaders in a school which has a TOTAL of fewer than 25 kids--and her not being there would have made the evening less successful.

All of which inclined me to bring her. After all, when you ground a kid, you don't keep them home from school, right?

But there was the other side...the fact that there is nothing so exciting and fun and looked-forward-to by Em as a social event at the synagogue. How exactly do you say "You're grounded young lady...except for tomorrow night, when you'll get to go hang out with all your friends for four hours in the evening and laugh and play and run around"?

There are worse things, I suppose, than having a synagogue be a place your kids look forward to going, a place they consider to be a treat. And so, after talking it over with Baroy, I took her. I told her that she needed to take time during the silent amidah to look inside herself and think about the choices she had made. And then I told her that while we were going to stay the whole time--I could have taken her home after services and/or after dinner, but *I* didn't lie to me, so I don't think *I* should have to be punished by not being able to have an evning *I* was also looking forward to a great deal--she wasn't allowed to have any fun.

It only took her a milisecond to realize I was joking...and then to make sure, every time she passed me all evening, to slow down, push out her lower lip, and say, "I'm having a very bad time, Mommy. OK?"

Frankly, what with all the planned events that were cancelled, with having to turn down every friends who's called since to ask whether she could come out and play, and with the what-must-have-seemed-interminable lecturing she got from both Baroy and myself that first night, the point is already made. Whether she gets it--whether her increasingly hormone-soaked brain is capable of getting it--remains to be seen.

Parenting. Feh.

And the Award for Best Actress...

N and I were watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit during our "date night" last night, while Baroy and Em went to see a play at our friends' theater. Jessica Rabbit sauntered out onto the stage in all her "I'm just drawn that way" glory. N's eyes grew wide. Stifling a laugh, I asked him, "Why do you think all the men are watching her like that?"

Not taking his eyes off the screen, he replied, "Because she's beautiful." Tiny pause. "And a good actress."

Yes, honey. I'm sure that's it. It's the acting.

Pimping Out His Sibling

Because Em is going to be gone for a month, and because almost-11-year-old girls are like that, there was much wailing and hugging and protestations of love and missing-to-come when we got together with The Gang on Sunday for our weekly Music in the Park session. Well, at least there was all that among the three girls. J, the lone boy in the upper-age echelons of our group, is age-appropriately Not At All like that.

Our conversation on the ride home went something like this:

Me: So, you guys were a little emotional tonight!

Em: Yeah.

Me: I saw you saying goodbye to J. Did you hug him?

Em: No! J's not like that. He's not a hugger. He's more of a put-ice-down-your-shirt [the kids' usual end-of-the-evening game] kind of guy.

N: Em, if J ever asks you to marry him, you should say no.

Em: Why?

N: Because he puts ice down your shirt too much!

Baroy: That's sweet! You're standing up for your sister, huh?

N: I guess...

Me: Well, who do you think Em SHOULD marry?

N: I dunno...

Me: You don't think anyone we know is good enough for her?

N: Well, I think when I get to be older, and I hang out with some cool guys, then I can tell one of the cool guys that he can try out my sister.

Baroy, Me, Em, in unison: WHAT?

N: If I hang out with lots of cool guys, I can see which one Em likes, and I can tell the rest of them to go away, but I can tell the cool guy she likes to try out my sister.

Me, trying not to either laugh myself into a coma or swallow my tongue: N, what does 'try out my sister' mean?

N: See if she wants to marry him. DUH!

Duh, indeed.

Just So Wrong

I walked to the Farmer's Market this morning, and brought home a really HUGE cucumber for my cucumber-fanatic family. Baroy and Em left for the day before I unpacked it, leaving only N to gape at it's awesomeness when I pulled it out of my special Farmer's Market tote.

Except he did more than gape. He picked it up and began cradling it, cooing to it and, finally, walking around the house saying, "Hello there, my girlfriend. You are so beautiful, my girlfriend! How are you today, my girlfriend?"

I didn't even know where to start explaining just why that is so, so wrong.

(Oh, come on. I can't be the only one who had a "24 Reasons Why Cucumbers Are Better Than Men" poster over her bed in college, can I?)

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And for anyone who was wondering: I stayed home with N last night. Part of the reason was because I've been feeling sort of low-energy myself these last few days, after a frenetic week. But part of the reason was that I wanted to make sure he had a special night...and while Baroy is a gem of a dad in so many ways, his idea of "a special night" is to watch a movie on TV. (That's also his idea of a Monday night. And a Tuesday night. And...you get the idea.)

So, I barbequed sausages (for me) and burgers (for N), which we ate with fruit and stringbeans picked right off the bushes I have growing in the backyard. We played with some of N's toys and then, when it got dark, we walked two blocks over to watch the big fireworks display right down the hill from us. It was fantastic. On the way back, N said, "I want to have a party!" When I asked him what we needed to do for it to be a party, he said, "Dance! Duh."

And so, when we got home, we brought out my laptop and boogied to one kids' song and one grown-up song (Shiny Happy People), playing freeze-dance throughout. At which point I put on my Mean Mom pants and said that boys with fevers needed to be in bed, seeing as it was already past 10. Of course, Baroy and Em returned from our friends' house just at that moment, and Em and N needed to tell each other about all the fun they'd had. The fact that N had just as much to share as Em made the whole evening worthwhile.

How I Know She Wasn't Switched At Birth

While making salmon patties for dinner, Em suddenly looks up from mashing ingredients and says, "Mama, isn’t it amazing that the human body is complex enough to reproduce? I mean, reproduction is so complex itself, and yet, without reproduction, there would be nothing on the earth!"

Yup. DEFinitely my child.

Needless to say, he didn't sleep in her bed

We were on our way to have dinner with friends, after which Em was going to remain behind to have a sleepover.

N (age 7): Emmy, I think maybe I'll sleep in your bed tonight.
Em (age 10): Why?
Me: Sometimes during the summer, when you're in New York, N sleeps in your bed so that he doesn't miss you so much.
Em: Awww. Are you going to miss me tonight?
N: Yep. I think I'll want to sleep in your bed so that I don't miss you so much. I'll feel like you're here with me.
Em: That's so sweet! Of COURSE you can sleep in my bed if you want.
N: So I will. But I'm not going to wear any underwear.

Silence.

Em: Um.....Mom?
Me: Amazing how quickly that conversation went from sweet to creepy, isn't it?
Em: You're tellin' me!

Trashing the Fear

Since N was tiny, he's hated Thursdays. Thursdays are garbage day, the day when those VERY LOUD trucks come thundering down our VERY SMALL AND NARROW street. Although he is a classic boy with a love of all things truckish, the garbage trucks are just too up close and personal. Frankly, they're just too bone-crushingly LOUD. And to add insult to injury, there isn't just one truck to contend with; there's the garbage truck and the recycling truck and the yard waste truck. THREE TRUCKS. Every Thursday.

But this Thursday was different. He came rushing into the house after walking home from school with Em and Baroy and Snug, yelling back at his father, "I'm going to tell Mommy all about it, Dad!"

"Tell me about what, sweetie?"

And thus began a much-better-than-it-was-but-still-not-entirely-quotable-if-I-want-you-to-understand-it N speech about the garbage truck that had come down the road as they were walking, and how N had decided to wave at the truck driver, and the truck driver "WAVED BACK, Mommy, because he knew that it means he's my best friend now, it was a signal" and how the driver then smiled at N and N "wasn't scared anymore, except I don't love garbage trucks still, but I wasn't scared at all!"

And then he stopped, wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, and said, "Whew. That was a close one." And then he went skipping out of the room to turn on Spongebob Squarepants. Because there's nothing like a little Squidward to reward yourself when you've conquered your fear of garbage trucks. For this week, at least.

Commando

N's teacher waylaid me on our way to the car from the school yard today. It's Reading Night at the school, when the kids all come in PJs and various teachers come and read them bedtime stories. (It's also the culminating event of Book Fair week, which means the evening will end up costing me serious buckage. But all for a good cause, right? And what kind of meanie cheapo would I have to be to say no to kids who are begging me for JUST ONE MORE BOOK MOMMY?)

N's teacher is going to be reading tonight, and apparently she mentioned this to the class, and also reminded them to come in PJs. At which point, as she recalled when she pulled me aside this afternoon, N looked up and said, "But I only wear a big T-shirt for my PJs."

"That's OK," Mrs. N said. "Just wear whatever you usually wear."

"But I ONLY wear a big T-shirt for my PJs. No underwear."

It was at this point in the conversation that I buried my face in my hands. Mrs. N leaned in closer to me. "So I told him, 'That's too much information for me, N. I don't want to see you going commando to Reading Night. Make sure you put on some underwear and pants, OK?'"

One more time, so you can get the full effect: N's first grade teacher was forced to utter the words, "I don't want to see you going commando to Reading Night," to a 7-year-old. I'm pretty sure this is not one of the things they cover in those education courses.

I may eventually recover from the embarrassment, but it won't be any time soon.

In the Waiting Room

We had an appointment with a surgeon today to discuss whether N needs surgery on his hernia and sometimes-undescended testicle (which today was present, though high, leading to a decision to hold off on surgery for another few months and do a recheck at that point). The surgeon was about half an hour behind schedule, however, owing to an emergency appendectomy, so N wound up playing for a long time in the waiting room. He was doing really well, sharing one of those weird bead-roller-coaster thingies with a couple of other kids, when a little boy--who, I later learned from his very sweet mom, had just turned three--joined the group. The boy decided that he wanted to play with every single bead N touched, and it was frustrating N to no end. N and I talked a couple of times about how he had to share, but the truth is that no matter what N did, no matter how many times N let the boy have one bead and just moved on to another, the boy would grab for the bead in N's hand. His mom was trying very hard to redirect him, and even gave him a couple of time outs. But at one point, when N put his hand on a bead that the boy was just about to grab for, the boy just suddenly lashed out and whacked N in the face.

Appropriately, the boy was scolded and taken away from the toy for a long time and made to come over to apologize to N, and all was more or less well. Except that N doesn't recover quickly from such things, and so kept sobbing and being dramatic. I had him on my lap and was talking to him quietly and finally said, "You have to understand sweetie, he's still just a baby."

"Yeah, I know," N said, his voice full of tears. "But he's a mean baby."

Hair of the Dog

Here's a conversation I wasn't expecting to have this morning. We were leaving the house in a bit of a rush to get to the private speech assessment, and N said he was thirsty, so I told him to go have a quick drink of something and meet me out by the car. Baroy was lagging behind to lock up the house.

N, coming out of the house: What was the funny thing in that soda, Mama?

Me, helping him into the car because he was moving sooooo slowly: What funny thing?

N: In the soda I just drank. It maybe tasted like wine, I think.

Me, getting into the driver's seat: I'm sure it wasn't wine, honey.

N: Well, it tasted like it. It was in that soda can, the red one.

Me, suddenly stopping dead in my tracks, thinking What do we have in the house in a red can? We have diet ginger ale in a white can and diet coke in a gold can and...oh, shit...: Open your mouth and breathe out for me, honey. (A pause.) Holy...

Yup. My not-yet-7-year-old kid knocked back a full swig of beer at 8:30 in the morning. (In his defense, we usually only have beer in bottles, but one of our friends brought over some cans of Tecate the other night, so I'm not surprised he didn't recognize it as off limits.)

And so I dragged him out of the car, brushed his teeth, and washed his face. Because dayum. The kid smelled like a frigging BREWERY. And then spent the ride into Pasadena trying to figure out how to explain this to the speech therapist..."Well, no, actually, the slurring isn't normal for him..."

And that, my friends, was the beginning of my day. How's yours going?