National Geographic Keeps Me Grounded

Been getting into letting the Bub cut up old National Geographics to collage with. I was flipping through the February 1977 issue featuring King Tut when I came across this ad for Westinghouse. If Pearl Bailey could sell washing machines way back when, then hell, now, I should be able to do anything. We've come a long way, honey.

Miss You On Aisle Five

Week two, and look at me. It's only Wednesday, and I'm totally useless. Maybe it's just that time of the month, but after highballing it to kinder and feeling that first flush of freedom, now, all of a sudden, the crush of real life is upon me and I find all my new duties totally foreign.

Like going to the grocery store... it's eerie, right? Not having to scream when your kid takes off toward the candy aisle. To not have to scan items that are half eaten or empty. (Yeah, you can just go ahead and throw that out.) No one there to give you an excuse to walk up to the guy giving out the samples. (I'll take two... for the boy.) For the first time this morning, I noticed other mothers, alone, like me, wandering the grocery aisle looking calm, but lost and, honestly, a little sad. No one there to help practice their phonics. (Can you read this? D-O-N-U-T.) No one to beg and scream for a licensed-character sticker book at check out. (But Mom pleassssssssse. The animals are adorable. The bigger the eyes, the cuter they are!) No one to battle into the car seat while the cart rolls away and slams into that Audi with the sunroof.

Now, sadly, I'm just waiting breathlessly until they run that police report on me at school and I can start going there to hang out and volunteer. Read a few books to the class. Get that awesome collage project going. Hand out some Goldfish. Help blow some noses. Sounds dreamy, no?

I'm meeting a friend in a few hours, and the shear grownup-ness of having a kid-free lunch date is starting to freak me out.

Reepigee

How funny are dogs? I was thinking about Reepigee making his online modeling debut and about what a gas it is having him around the house. He really is like a living, breathing Muppet only he doesn't sing and he rarely ever dances except when he has to go to the bathroom. Though he's only been with us a month, it feels like forever. He's already doubled in size and attitude, and man oh man, if only I couldn't have warned Sugar and Spanky that they were getting a little brother who loves to wrestle more than they do.

The only downside is that with all that fur, Reepigee is definitely NOT a farm dog. He wants to go out and run with the big boys when we're out there but comes back covered in burrs and hitchhikers. So much for him being a lap dog.

Perfection

Well, friends. I am sitting here at the close of what has been the perfect Sunday in a flipping phenomenal week. A day at the farm was spent catching minnows and swimming and collecting the last crop of tomatoes and looking for toads. A mirror of awesome reflected from the week as a whole. Everyone who's interacted with me over the last few days says I'm beaming. And it's true. I'm actually kinda surprised your computer isn't catching fire from the spectacular radiant heat I am sending out right at this moment... Wait for it. Wait for it.

Oh, well. I still had a FANTABULOUS week. From the moment we cut the ceremonial back-to-school cake to an excellent birthday party this afternoon. Five year olds rock and kindergarten is the greatest thing in the whole world.

Everyday when the Bub gets in the car at pickup, I ask him what his favorite part was and he replies..

"EVERYTHING! All of it was AWESOME!"

He LOVES his teacher.

"I think I might be her favorite."

He is absolutely enraptured by all the new independence and responsibility. From being dropped at the curb and having to find his own way to the classroom to wearing his name tag and being in charge of his lunch box. Case in point. The first day of school, I put a peanut butter and honey sandwich in there along with a tub of fresh fruit. In the pocket I put three Swedish fish and told him that if he ate all his lunch, he could have the Swedish fish. At the end of the day when I checked, he'd eaten the sandwich, but the fruit was still in there. Apparently, it had gotten all mushy in transit, so the Bub didn't eat it and guess what? The Swedish fish were still in there.

"I didn't finish all my lunch, so I knew I couldn't have dessert."

Genius right? All week long he's been taking his new responsibilities to heart and bringing them home. There's been nary a whine or a fuss about anything. He cleans up his room... WITHOUT MY ASKING. The formerly picky eater has been eating everything I put on his plate... NO MATTER WHAT IT IS! The little vegetarian is eating hamburgers now, for goodness sake! When his teacher walks him out to the car at the end of the day.... she uses words like DELIGHTFUL and GREAT and WONDERFUL.

Thursday night the Bub (of his own mind and free will) wanted to draw his teacher a picture of the nephew she talks about every day. The one she loves more than anything. He put in his take home folder to give to her, and I'm not gonna gush, BUT you can guess how that went over. Really, the adorableness of this week could blind you.

I don't think I've ever been as proud of my son as I have been this week. Sure, I'm secretly waiting for the other shoe to drop. But hey, maybe it won't. Maybe the angel his teacher has been delivering to my car every afternoon is here to stay.

I volunteered on Friday in the lunch room... you know, a bunch of moms standing around opening milk cartons, strawing juices boxes and peeling back Lunchables... and looking at all those little faces... and as institutional a setting as the lunchroom might be, it was exciting to think about the future. About all those little minds growing up someday... together.

I can't tell you what a weight has lifted, passing off a small part of parenting to someone else and having it work out. Having your child be able to function separately and be OK. Actually, better than OK. Positively thriving.

Almost makes me wish I could start over again with another one. Almost.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the long awaited day when the future begins. I've bought the school supplies and the lunch box and filled out the paperwork and iron-oned his name into his emergency change of clothes. I've bought Goldfish and paper plates and collected books for the room and even sewed a couple of pillows for a few tush spots that were lacking. The time is almost upon us, and just so you know, I'm probably gonna be excited, I'm definitely gonna cry and I might just have a minor freak out, but we'll have to see.

From what I can tell so far, it seems as if the Bub's teacher is a dream, and although she might be overwhelmed by my over-involved, only-child smothering, I plan on foisting hundreds of books her way to help ease the crush. It helps that she's only in her second year of teaching so she's bubbling over with enthusiasm and resourcefulness and doesn't have a cynical eye yet for us first-timers. So this morning, I'd like to take a moment and reflect on how we got from there to here. A little recap music please...

1. The Bub was conceived on the VERY first try.
2. The Hub didn't believe I was pregnant (despite five tests telling him otherwise) until the words came out of my doctor's mouth.
3. The Hub read to me every single night from this book and often rubbed my hands and feet.
4. The Bub swam with me every morning at the Y while in utero.
5. The Bub was born totally drug-free.
6. For the first month of his life he lived at the farm.
7. His first year he came to work with me everyday.
8. His first word was aqua.
9. He'd been to Virginia, New York, Seattle, Vegas, Indiana, South Carolina and cross country once by the time he was two.
10. By the time he was three, he'd spent a month in Mexico and a summer on the East Coast.
11. He's swam in the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
12. He loves olives and pickles and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
13. His favorite color is yellow.
14. His favorite movie is Hatari!
15. He LOVES birds and books. (D'uh.)
16. He has a birthmark.
17. He's left handed.
18. He's a great storyteller and make-believe artist.
19. He loves to draw.
20. He's fearless because even though the slide at the pool scares him, he goes down it, but just before he pushes off, he screams his self-penned mantra. "I'm gonna do it no matter what I think about it!"

I know I've talked real big about him going to kindergarten and how I'll finally have time to finish my book. How I can't wait. How I'll have so much more life for me. But in truth, I'm scared shitless. I'm scared that away from my evil-deflecting embrace, some jerk is gonna squash his creative spirit. I'm scared his teacher won't love him. I'm scared that I won't be there when his second tooth falls out. I'm scared he won't eat his lunch if I'm not there to read to him. I'm scared that when he starts to read he won't want me to read to him anymore anyway. I'm scared that he'll grow up and he won't need me for anything anymore. I'm scared that he'll grow up and I'll miss it. I'm scared of the day when he'll stop wanting to snuggle me. I'm scared of the day he'll stop wanting to hold my hand. I'm scared of the day when a girl breaks his heart. I'm scared I'll forget what it felt like the first time I held him in my arms. The first time he smiled at me. The first time he called me Momma. I'm scared that he'll never know how much I love him.

Tonight, we're going to have the Bub's new favorite food (hamburgers) for dinner. We'll wake up in the morning and have breakfast and get in the car. I'll take pictures of him standing outside of the school with the lunch box I bought him with an owl on it (because I know he loves owls). I'll hug him and kiss him and hug his teacher and cry. Then I will turn around and walk away.

I'll do it no matter what I think about it.

Yo yo yo

Be warned that I'm totally tipsy. So much to celebrate... and all of it started with me saying to the Hub...

"After the Bub goes down, let's get drunk and wash my car."

Don't all great nights start like this? And so much for "after"...

Right now, the HUB/BUB are fully immersed in Harry Potter Book Five, I'm taking a short break from freelance copyrighting... and I am dreading the moment when I have to go to the freezer and extract the baby zebra finch that is currently being euthanized next to a frozen lasagna. Like a total dumb ass, I tried to keep alive a chick that was rejected from the parents only to spend the last three days trying to feed it back to health... in vain.

Now that that's off my chest... the upside is, MY SON IS GETTING READY TO ENTER KINDERGARTEN. WTF!?!

Tonight, on the eve of his meet-the-teacher, the Bub says to the Hub...

BUB: Daddy?

HUB: Huh?

BUB: You know there are two things I'm excited about doing tomorrow.

HUB: Yeah?

BUB: Yeah.

HUB: What are they?

BUB: Going to school and getting a bean and cheese taco from Taco Vallarta.

He's a brilliant, evil genius, no? I swear sometimes I could wrap him up with all his sweet, sweet sayings and hug and kiss him and put him in my pocket to warm my fingers on cold nights and he would tell me jokes and call me beautiful and would shine like a million stars and float, float to the heavens until the only sound was me and him and the beating of the moon's heart. Man, oh, man, I love that critter. Kindergarten... Mega-wow.

A taco, huh?

If anyone needs me at 8:30 tomorrow morning, you know where I'll be.

They Call Me Flipper

My pinkie toenail fell off. And this unfortunately coincided with my wanting to return to the gym after a long hiatus. So instead of hitting the machines like I had been way way back before summer when I used to go to the gym all the time... I headed back to the pool instead, fearing I might actually die from the pain of having to cram my small toe in a tennis shoe... On Tuesday, I got up at 4:50AM to brave the lane-hogging old ladies and maniac free-stylers equipped with my one piece, nine toes and a flipper.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen a toe with the nail totally and perfectly gone. It looks like a flipper to me. I was feeling old and out of shape and slightly deformed and rather sorry for myself when a woman rolled up in a wheelchair and started disrobing. She was beautiful and I couldn't tell if she was old or just really, really sick. She had on a lovely nude-colored bathing suit and a sea foam green swimming cap and she couldn't have been more than 60 pounds. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a skinnier person in my entire life, even in the movies. (And I'm counting war and horror flicks, here.) Literally just skin on a frame. When she finally lifted up off the chair, she clearly had trouble walking, but did it with a smile and more than her fair share of joy, nodding and saying hello to everyone who passed. Watching the under curve of her ribcage slide in the water, suddenly my porpoise toe didn't seem so deformed after all, and I felt like such a slug for sitting on my ass all summer and taking my ability to get about in the world freely for granted.

Once in the water, she shared her smile with me and I smiled back and I made a personal vow to myself to never, ever, ever forget how awesome it is to move. Clearly, she hasn't.