Ideas

I have an idea,
he said, gazing up upwards, blond hair spilling partway down his five-year old back.

What’s your idea?
I asked.

My idea,
he said, scanning the skies slowly,
is that we can do an art collage on the front porch. We can call it ‘Beware of clouds.’ Do you want to do it with me now?

A five-year old paints and does collage on the front porch

The confabulation of things

I am so fascinated by the different phases kids go with objects; the way certain things are personified, or become something important or special beyond their original purpose. How much is reinforced with a thousand cartoons going back to Toy Story and beyond? I don’t know. Guessing it predates Pixar and television in general. A child’s relationship with a thing is something that’s charming in retrospect, and elusive to grasp at the time…

…elusive in both meaning and elusive in terms of a beginning and an end. Sometimes you know when something starts. But it’s very difficult to know when something ends.

He latched onto an old iPad. An old iPad with a brown cover; the first iPad we ever had, dinged up and looking vaguely antique with its scratched leather case and scratched spider web of screen. But his two-year old self grabbed hold of it and made it his buddy. And…it’s dead. It still turns on, but in this case, the battery’s been dead for months, so it literally is a leather-bound deadweight of electronics. But he grabbed ahold of it, clutching for his nap. I don’t know why, and if he knows why, he can’t quite articulate it right now, and someday, the only memory he will likely have of this day on which an old dead iPad was the most important thing to him will be what I’m writing here, and at that point he will be unable - most likely - to recall the significance of it at this time in his life.

I suppose this is a sort of microcosm of what drives a big part of who I am: reality as a catalyst - or catapult - for imagination.

I like knowing things, and I also like not knowing things. There’s a beauty and a comfort in both. I like noting and observing and acknowledging a two-year old’s fascination with a specific object for a specific period of time. That’s the reality. And I like imagining and creating a network of scenarios and possibilities of why he’s so attached to it and what it might mean. The combination and confabulation and recombination of reality and fiction.

Class from a 5-year old

He told me about his love of spiders, and how he likes to read books, and might be interested in either reading a book or making up a story about a vegetarian lion that does not eat spiders.

Apprenticeship

She taught him how to make her extra-scrumptious interpretation of banana bread, his 5-year old clean-ish hands carefully following his older-by-nine sister’s instructions. Huddled together in our too-small, too-crowded kitchen, they weave and dance their way through recipe, oblivious to extraneous interruptions and caught up in the visceral joy of engaging in a task completely.

A task that will pay off for all of us later.

Outer Banks

A special treat for a special 14-year old. Have I screened The Outer Banks, an action-mystery teen drama streaming on Netflix? No. Have I skimmed through IMDB and Common Sense.org for a sense of what it’s about? Yeah. Am I entirely comfortable or excited about everything in this show I have never seen? Not entirely.

Would I like to watch it with her? Yep.

But it’s something that’s hers. In the sanctity of her room, as she carefully, purposely assembles jewelry and accessories for packing and shipping out, she has the chance, during certain stages, to watch something interesting to her. And this is it. The Outer Banks. A show about teens and adventure and ensuing drama; there will be things familiar and things entirely not, and it’s hard not experiencing some of it with her and wanting to make sure we can find somewhere on the continuum of casual and serious dialog to discuss and analyze what’s happening.

But I don’t get to do that. It gets to be her show. Number one, I have three younger boys that make it…challenging to step away during a summer day to do something like watch television, and number two…it’s something she won’t share with me this time around. She’ll share with a couple friends who recommended it to her. I like these friends. She has learned how to build good friendships and make good friends and I like that. I like them. This show will be something that might connect them. Or it might not. But in the now, it’s something on a small level important to her.

And in the sense that frequent small conversations lay the groundwork for occasional big ones, her having this small bit of television-independence is important. I don’t know quite why. But I think it is.

I’m also very much looking forward to watching some quality scary films with her this fall.

The Misterious

Image of the Frank Darabont film "The Mist"

There’s a movie I have not seen. It’s one of the few things that could come between me and my brother. He has seen it. I have not.

It’s called ‘The Mist.’ It’s about a malevolent mist that engulfs a community…or the world? It’s directed by Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont, which lends a bit of pedigree.

But Jonny hates this film. He would like me a little less if he even knew I referred to it as “a film.”

Again, I have not seen it. My relationship with my brother would be severely impacted - negatively - if he ever learned I had seen it. I’m not saying I ever would, but if I ever did, I would need to lie to my grave about it to him, and unfortunately to you, Dear Readers of this Blog.

He loathes this film with an intensity usually reserved for nemeses, archenemies, supervillains, and mustachioed authoritarian despots.

It just came out on Netflix, and with my always-sensitive nature, I’ve tried to hide this fact from him in the hopes it won’t set him off.

Either that, or I spent a portion of the day texting pictures of it to him.

It’s a wonderful thing to have a healthy negative thing you can make a big deal out of between you and someone you love.

Other notes on a Wednesday

A two-year old with a stuffed up nose during the night - allergies? - makes up a tough night for half the family. Deep empathy and parental love juxtaposed with sleep deprivation and survival mode; dealing with tough stuff during the dark midnight hours, and always-present, knowing you’ll be dealing with tough stuff during the gray daylight hours coming up fast.

If one were to be presented with the numbers 2, 5, 11, 14, one might be tempted to guess which two of those ages - represented by these numbers - might be most disposed to quarreling over the correct amount and method of using toilet paper upon one’s buttocks; one might, however, be surprised to learn the ages who actually quibbled and bickered about this on an early summer afternoon.

Our three-year old’s negotiating skills are metastasizing rapidly. As someone who loves language and the effective use of words and communication, I give him high marks for explaining to me the following:

“Daddy, you said we couldn’t watch any PBS Kids today, but you know, Octonauts isn’t on there. So…”

Props. Big props. And yes, this household did watch some Octonauts. Which is, as he correctly pointed out, not on PBS Kids.

Further note: I do not remember specifically the reason why I said there would be no PBS Kids. Perhaps I made this statement in the throes of a battle, or in response to something, or…I really do not remember or know. I do try to be careful about throwing down lines, setting mandates, and backing myself into a corner. But when I do - or any parent does - it should mean something. So perhaps I fumbled, perhaps I made an error in issuing a ‘no PBS Kids today’ edict. I probably did. Also, I like the programs on PBS Kids they watch (Arthur, Word Girl, Daniel Tiger). What I don’t do is renege on declarations such as the one I made. That being said, however, I am also fine with being outplayed or out-strategized. That is valuable as well. Our son’s keen ear for the details and the specifics served him well.

On the misty outer banks of a summer porch.