"Potty is a baby word. Big kids and grown-ups say things like bathroom or restroom. Or toilet. Or commode. Or loo." Okay, except I am pretty sure I have never said the words "commode" or "loo" out loud in my life.
Dear Lu, if it makes you feel more grown up to sound all contrived/Victorian/British, knock yourself out. In fact, henceforth, we'll just call you Loo.
There's a family of three red-headed boys, roughly ages 6-10, who live on the corner about a block down the street. They can frequently be seen in the front yard of their red-brick ranch house, horsing around, brandishing swords, playing in the mud, sometimes in various states of undress, often at odd hours of the schoolday. Jason and I have surmised that they are home-schooled, and they are making it look like a lot of fun. The notion of homeschooling is thrilling to me: the idea that parents wouldn't need an institution, or a professional, or some kind of overseer to make sure the learning is right. While it's clear the learning is not patently right in our current system, I shiver a little at the idea of doing it on my own. The parents of those red-headed boys are brave and strange.
Yesterday I ran past the red-head house during my "lunch break" at 2 p.m., the break I allowed myself after a day in the home office and inside my own head. The dad was standing in front of the oldest boy with a tackle dummy, and the boy, in full pads and jersey, was doing football drills. I couldn't help but think, "It's just so weird. Shouldn't he be in school? Doesn't he need a team?"
And then I realized, shouldn't I be in school? I am doing the professional equivalent of homeschooling. No institution, no overseer, no team, just me. Alongside the other brave, strange people who do their own thing during school hours.
Yesterday, Lu asked me what grade Trina taught, and I said, "Trina takes care of preschoolers and babies like Milo. What do you mean?" "Well, she works at a high school. Why are there babies at a high school?"
Why, indeed. As she asked this question, I was washing dishes and she was coloring, so I had some buffer time to formulate a response.
"Because sometimes the students have babies and they need someone to help take care of them while they're at school."
So. Many. Things. To. Say. About choices. About opportunity. About responsibility. About promise. About maybe getting her on the Pill when she is six just to be safe.
But I got some great advice from my brilliant friend Steve, whose kids are now in/graduated from college and have not fathered any children that we know of: "Parenting is like being on the witness stand. Only answer the very question you are being asked. Kids are smart about asking for the information they need, when they need it."
My answer hung in the air for a few (dare I say it ) pregnant moments. Then she said, "Oh."
Milo's communication skills are...limited, but improving. He's still below the composite verbal level of Clyde the Chimp, but does sweetly grunt about 20 word-like sounds. He's perfecting The Nod, approximately seven subtle variations of shaking his head, mostly in the yes direction, though he does have one very slow and hypnotic hybrid yes-no that I think he will be using to sell condos and woo ladies in the future. His default is a primate point-and-grunt/nod. He did this at dinner, gesturing desperately for more asparagus. Jason said, "He's like a foreigner."
Today on the way home from Girl Scouts, I was probing Lucy about what she wanted for Christmas (people have begun to ask). She said, "Well, I do have a Santa list, but the thing I really want is something only he can get me because they don't have it at the mall or it's probably too expensive for anyone to buy me." "What is it?"
"MOM, you KNOW, it's that flying machine I've been asking for. The space shuttle?!!"
"Oh."
Today, as I put on my running shoes, I noticed that one of my socks had a face and some stripes drawn on it. In Sharpie. A reclaimed sock puppet, apparently. These moments are frequent. Lucy thinks everything in this house — be it a sock, a medical bill, my work notebook — is just material for her art. The other day she put together a car/"speeder bike" using a security dowel from one of our windows, an Ikea stool and many, many Band-aids. I cannot argue with her ingenuity. But after a cooking injury last week, I did have to bandage myself with Scotch tape and some random gauze I found (given to us to treat Milo's circumcision scar?), because we had no Band-aids. Someone is going to suffer for her art.
...after a happy morning, after you have dropped off your genius six-year-old at school filled with confidence about her upcoming spelling test, as you take the almost-not-a-baby out of his carseat at preschool and he smells like the apple cinnamon yogurt he ate for breakfast, like an apple dumpling you just want to eat up, you are struck by the perfection of your life. But it only happens sometimes.
Lu, slightly hysterical in the morning, commenting on own hysteria: When I’m grumpy, nobody’s happy. That’s the problem. I’ve gotta get more sleep. Dad: Okay, tonight we will go to bed earlier.
Lu: No, I mean, you need to let me sleep longer.
You know how your car starts to spaz almost immediately after your warranty expires? And maybe a third of what's happening is just hypo-car-ndria: what is that noise? It's a belt. OMG, I CAN TELL BY ITS PITCH THAT IT'S A REALLY EXPENSIVE ONE. I think maybe that's what my body is doing now that we're on high-deductible individual health insurance. I have been having neck pain, most likely related to an unfortunate desk set-up, bad posture, hauling Milo around, blogging from the couch, the usual spine-abusing activities. But over the course of last week, I started to be aware of numbness and tingling in my hands. Then more. Then my feet. Then some internet detective action. Friends, don't Google "hand numbness."
So, by the time I arrived in my doctor's office Friday, I was hysterical. They didn't help. They sent me for an MRI Saturday, which included "MS protocol" (comforting!) with contrast (why spare any expense?). While chatting up the tech during the scan, Maggie used her charms to ascertain that no, I don't have MS. Thanks: that will be $895 and one very frightening weekend.
Indeed, the MRI showed no MS, just some cervical disc protrusions, probably not causing my symptoms. The current plan is take Aleve for a couple of weeks and see if I can manage whatever inflammation is causing the numbness — a course of action I could have taken for less than the grand I've now spent finding out nothing.
Oh, and I have a toothache. And a nagging cough.
[Repeated, shrill "arf" sounds from six-year-old.] Jason: Lucy, what is that sound you are making?
Lucy: I am speaking dog. With a chihuahua accent.
Jason: Oh.
[Arfs resume, accompanied by mimicked arfs from one-year-old].
