Life down here on earth

You remember Jeffrey Hardy...They're about to organize a searching party.

I dropped Jack and Sam off at 7:30am this morning to take the bus to YMCA camp. It's the full-fledged kind of camp you see in the movies, except they won't sleep there. Jack wasn't nervous until the bus was late and then he had to time to fuss about standing in his sandals in dewey, fresh-cut grass so that grass got all over his feet. I wondered how he would make it through the whole day if this was the type of thing that bothered him. Then he fretted over whether they would let him sit with Sam on the bus. They didn't. They had the littlest kids crammed three to a seat, so Jack had to sit with the bigger kids.

Sam seemed fine. A little boy with a mohawk walked up to him and said, "What's your name?" "Sam," he replied. The little boy with the mohawk stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, Sam, I'm Harrison. Do you want to be friends?" Sam shook his hand and they were off. I worry that, at five years old, perhaps Sam is a little too young to be doing this sort of thing. I've always had closer control of the people he comes in contact with. I worry that he can't take off his wet swimsuit alone or that he won't be able to reapply his sunscreen or that we haven't had enough conversations about "bad touching."

I collected them from the bus at 5:30pm and they were hot and tired, but not nearly as worn out as I had hoped they'd be. Predictably, Jack had a sunburn and they both had blisters from wet sandals. In spite of that, they said they had fun. Jack learned to read a compass and had a hike through the woods. He also paddled a kayak around the lake.  I'm not as clear what Sam did, but I think it included tennis, swimming and exploring the multiple uses for mosquito wipes. "Don't touch your eyes with them!" he says.

They're going back in the morning with different shoes and instructions on how to re-apply sunscreen. I expect tomorrow they'll come home with even more new experiences and perhaps some more gems like the one Sam told me at bedtime:

Why do cows wear bells?

Because their horns don't work.

Peter Pan

Tomorrow is Sam's last day of school. Jack has a half day on Thursday. It's an awkward transitional time. Their routines are all screwed up and it's not quite summer yet, but not school as they know it, either.

As is my habit, I spoke without thinking the other day and told Sam that as soon as he could ride his bike with no training wheels, we'd get him a new one. A bigger one. It seemed innocent enough. His training wheels are bent all to heck and he's practically riding without them anyway. It seemed a small thing. But apparently, when preschool graduation is in two days and kindergarten is looming in the distance, it is not the time to think about taking off the training wheels.  Apparently, Sam would like all the training wheels he can get, actual and metaphorical, thank you very much.

Last night he called me into his room after lights out. He does this often for another hug or a lost toy or something, but when I opened his door he was crying loudly. "Mo-om...When I grow up and move away I will miss you and Dad and Jack. waaaahhh!"  I tried to tell him (while crossing my fingers behind my back) that he didn't have to move out if he didn't want to but he said he wanted to go, but he wanted me to come with  him. He went on to say he couldn't grow up because he didn't know how to do things and also he didn't want a bigger bike he wanted his same small one.   Also, if he grows up he wouldn't be able to play with Connor who lives next door because Connor wouldn't recognize him.

It was really pitiful. I wanted to tell him that I didn't want him to grow up, either. I want him to stay that little boy who says "free" instead of "three" and "constructions" instead of "instructions." I want him to stay that little boy who still believes that I have "Mommy senses" and that's how I know what he's been up to.  I want him to stay the little boy who had insisted, five minutes earlier, that his toy Yoda needed magic bedtime Mommy kisses, too. (I guess the Force doesn't keep away the bad dreams.) I couldn't say all that so I just held him while he cried a little longer and then, as if someone flipped a switch, he started to tell me about a game he and Jack had been playing. And everything was okay again.

Otra cerveza, por favor!

Greg called me from Barcelona today and said he had to speak French to his waitress because his Spanish stank and her English stank, but each of them stank just a little bit less in French.

Apparently, growing up in southern California doesn't teach you any more Spanish than, "Another beer, please." and consequently, "Where is the bathroom?"

Luckily for Greg, for the rest of his trip, he'll have folks with him who can help him decipher a menu. Otherwise, he might just end up too drunk to work.

Mom points

Greg left for Spain yesterday morning. He tried to convince me that a trip to Barcelona in the spring wasn't really all it was cracked up to be. 20 hours on a plane, blah blah blah, we meet there because hotels are cheap, blah, blah, blah, it's kindof like going to Vegas. I didn't for one minute believe that Barcelona is like Vegas, cheap hotel rooms notwithstanding. I did allow that, even in Spain, a work trip is not really worth giving up your whole weekend for.

It's Greg's job to take Jack to swim class on Saturdays (swimming being our parent-mandated sport since Jack declined both soccer and baseball this spring.) Since Greg wasn't here, the job fell to me and I was a poor substitute.

We got to the pool and I realized that I had left the entire swim bag at home. No goggles, no towel, no change of clothes for the ride home. (What I need is a wife at home to make sure I don't forget these things.) I quickly calculated that it would take nearly the entire 30 minute lesson to get home, retrieve the back and come back.  The situation called for some thinking outside the box. So we borrowed some goggles. When class was over, we dried him off as best we could with a handful of those tiny towels the YMCA hands out at the front desk, and let him ride home in his wet swimsuit.

On the way home Jack said, "Mom, you lose 'good mom' points for forgetting the swim bag." (Great. As a mom, you're aware that the whole world is judging you. Now my own kids are keeping score!) "But you get double points for being able to 'wing it.'

So at least I came out ahead, which is not a bad way to start the weekend.

The airspeed velocity of an unladen sparrow

Today, the kids were still really into the wooden weapons and shields from the renaissance festival. They were quite taken with the whole 'faire' experience.

Some families might use that as a jumping off point to learn the history and mythology behind the King Arthur legend. Perhaps gather together as a family and read The Once and Future King or to watch the Disney version, The Sword in the Stone.

But if you're Greg, those things don't cross your mind at all. If you're Greg, you realize this is the perfect time to introduce them to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Which they actually watched with interest. Go figure. Sam did once mutter, "This is boring!" during the reading of the instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade, but things get pretty interesting right after that, and he soon forgot he was bored.

So now they're running around calling each other kaniggets and saying, "What is your favorite color?" "Blue, no, yel--aaaaaaah!!!"  No one is going to want to play with them at school when they start ordering their friends around. "Bring me a shrubbery, you sons of silly persons!"

too tired for a catchy title

At the last minute this morning, Greg and I decided to throw the kids in the car and hit the renaissance festival. It's here every weekend this month, but the weather was perfect today, it's supposed to rain tomorrow and, we rationalized, it's only going to get hotter as the month wears on.

As luck would have it, attending the festival here outside Nashville is not so difficult as it has been for us in other locations. First of all, it only took us about 25 minutes to get there. Perhaps this is indicative of Nashville only being a medium-sized town or perhaps it's a sign of exactly how far out in the boonies we really are. Guess which one I think?  Our other pleasant surprise was that it was so shady. Shade! At a renaissance festival! Whoever heard of such a thing? Not me, that's for sure. With the shade and the 72° weather, it was a perfect day for the faire.

We hit the maze, the camel ride, the dragon swing and Jack took a turn at knife-throwing. We saw the jugglers, the magician, the birds of prey and the jousting. We ate pretzels and funnel cakes, but no giant turkey legs.

The kids had a blast and it was so much fun watching them have fun. At our last show of the day, the magician was doing a pretty lame trick involving small animal traps that might or might not hurt him when he put his fingers in them. I was somewhat bored, but Jack got up from his seat and moved to sit next to me.  "What's the matter? Are you nervous?" I asked. "Yes!" he said and covered his eyes as the magician put his hand in the last trap. So I guess the show was exciting enough for him.

The magician didn't get hurt, by the way. It is magic, after all. He said thanks when Jack put some money into his hat and then politely declined when Sam offered the peanut butter crackers he'd been hiding in his pocket.

Greg said he thought this festival had more shops and less other stuff than he remembered. I told him he was wrong. There were always this many shops. "Oh," he said, "maybe the difference is that I'm sober."  Renaissance festivals used to mean yards (and yards) of beer. Today, Greg had barely 12 inches of beer.

Instead of spending all his money on yards of beer and having yards of fun, Greg spent all his money on camel rides and knife throwing and trips to the maze and Jack and Sam got to have all the fun. But the next best thing to having a buzz at the renaissance festival is watching your kids get a buzz off a stinky camel.  So it all works out.

Of course we left with the obligatory wooden swords and shields and as we drove off, we looked back at the hill and it was so full of lush green trees you couldn't even tell anything was there.

Flattery will get you everywhere

It's teacher appreciation week and Jack made a card for his teacher. It's a folded origami card decorated with an origami heart, flower and tree. Inside it says:

Dear Mrs. ******,
Thank you for being a great teacher! You're the best teacher in the universe! You're also the best teacher that I ever had! You're the best teacher that I ever will have! You taught me well. You're great, you know that?

P.S. I'm a little sloppier because I'm writing with pen and there's no lines.

Your student, Jack

You think he's overdoing it a little?

On top of spaghetti

I had a bunch of stuff I was going to say tonight, but Greg is out of town and so I had to put the kids to bed. After I tucked Jack in, I turned to leave and he said, "Oh, Mom. One more thing." Expecting another hug and kiss I let go of the doorknob and took a few steps back toward the bed and he said, "Scientists believe that if you get sucked into a black hole, you'll be pulled apart into pieces like spaghetti."

I don't know if he thought I might need that information sometime in the night before we could speak to each other again tomorrow morning or if he just needed to rid his brain of that factoid in order to relax and fall asleep. Honestly, who could sleep with the burden of that kind of knowledge? Whatever the reason, it was important enough to call me back from the door.

Not knowing quite how to respond, I simply said, "Oh. Okay. Goodnight!" which seemed to be adequate because he rolled over and went to sleep.