Wa wa wa wa wa wa wa... C'mer Baby...

AT the bird sanctuary in Del Mar, CAL, where we fell in love with a bunch of parrots...  We love her!

when I go to Dada's on Wednesday...

"Ya?"

This out of the blue, hovering on the middle of the stairway, where he likes to do circus tricks. Pausing on his way up, lording over me at the table below.

"What's that honey?"

"I'm gonna write a comic book called 'Beast from the East'."

"Cool."

before school (6.30 am) yesterday morning

The zombie theme continues, as does talk of dreams. In between bites of Cheerios...

"Well, so, last night I dreamt-ed that me and Noah were working at Target as security guards."

"Uh-huh," I say. "You and Noah, huh?"

"Only I was about 17," he clarifies.

And Noah? How old was he?

"Oh, about the age he is now. Like 40."

"Uh-huh."

After their shift is over, they both start walking to their cars. And then suddenly—for this he has to stand up and act the rest of the dream out. "We hear a noise that sounds like this..." He makes a screeching sound.

"And then we both feel something attack our left upper leg, right here." He shows me where.

"And then we both back up like this..." He walks slowly backwards, mouth agape.

"Be careful of Buddha, honey," I say, for he gets very involved in his acting, compromising spacial relations.

He stops. "And then suddenly..."

The zombies come. It's mayhem. It's the end of the world. There's like hundreds of them. The two of them against the zombies.

"So we had to call for help. We needed help to kill the zombies."

Who did you call?

The police.

Oh.

"But there was no place for them to park."

"Oh. So they had to park far and walk, did they?" I smile, feeling in on a joke he is clearly not making.

"But then guess what?"

What?

"Well. Suddenly the entire Target parking lot was full of flesh and police cars."

Jews are like bats... who knew?

On the way to BareBones last Saturday...

"Mama, how do you know you are Jewish?"

"Well... you are born Jewish. If your mother is Jewish, you are. I am Jewish because my mom is. You are Jewish because I am. Noah is Jewish because his mom is. Dada isn't Jewish, but you are because I am. Technically anyway..."

"Oh."

"Now, we're not really practicing Jews, per se..."

"What's pactising Jews?"

"Well... like, you know, our friends L and J in St Louis Park?"

Yeah?

You know how they do Shabbat every Friday? Which is why they couldn't come Trick or Treating with us this year?

Yeah.

"Well... " So I explain how Shabbat is a time of rest. I focus on the rest. The time to be together and rest. Not to work or do, but just to rest. "They rest from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday," I remind him, adding they don't use electricity or drive or anything. I wonder if he will want to start doing this. I ponder it now and then. "You know?"

"So, they're like bats," Jude concludes.

Bats?

Yeah. They rest all day and come out out at night.

I guess I'll have to work on my explanation of our religion. Though I can't deny how much I delighted in thinking and imagining my dear friends as bats hanging upside down in their beautiful home.

I don't want to be a grown up

Why not, Jude?
How will I know how to do anything...?
Honey, you have years to figure it out. You'll learn. People will teach you. Day by day...
But how will I know how to do things?
Like what?
Like get a credit card.

on the phone at Dada's Friday night

The usual call from Mama needing to know exactly what is going on over at The Red House. I have no boundaries. I can't help it. Even though I know exactly what is going on, I have to call.

Hi honey, how are you?
Good.
What are you doing?
Playing Super Mario something or other I don't understand.
Is it fun?
Yes.
That's good. Make sure and also go outside.
I know.
How was school?
Good.
Did you have pictures taken?
No.
Okay. Was school fun?
Yes.
What did you learn?
I don't know. Dada! Here...
Dada tells Jude to turn off the video game and talk to Mama.

Time to end the call.

"I miss you, honey. I know it's only been two days, but it feels like a long time..."

"It doesn't feel like a long time to me."

at the bus stop this morning

Mama?  Do you sometimes take the alley back home after I get picked up by the bus?

We usually walk down the street to the bus stop, but when we have trash or recycling, we go the alley. I usually walk back home on the street and wave at the bus when it goes by, but sometimes I take the alley because I don't want to run into people on the sidewalk or deal with street noise, etc, that early in the morning.

Sometimes I do, honey.

Why?

Oh, I don't know...  It's—

It's quicker?

Well, no, it's not quicker... it's quieter...

Oh. Why else do you take the alley?

Well... sometimes I just want a different route. Or sometimes I like to walk around the block.... something different. It's a nice time to take a walk.

Which way are you going to walk today?  he asks.

I consider maybe that Jude would prefer the consistency of me waving to him and the bus when it goes by.

Which do you prefer I take, honey? When I wave I can't really see you, but I just wave knowing you'll see me.

I can see you, Jude says.

So would you prefer I walk down the street and wave, honey?

You could take the alley, he says.

In Lunds way too late on Saturday night

Tired, wet, hungry, caught in the thunderstorm at Ren Fest.

Mama wants candy. First potty breaks. Our friend Debmama grabs a cart, as though we will be here a while. We are all exasperated.

"Where the heck is the candy aisle?" i ask after several loops around Lunds.

"Why don't you look it up on your cell phone?"

cops

Noticing a flashing cop car parked in front of the lamp shop across the street, "What's he doing there?"

"I'm not sure honey... maybe looking at lamps."




"Mama, he's still there. Why's he still there?"
"Hmmmmm.... not sure honey. Maybe he went to get a coffee...? Police like coffee..."

"Wouldn't it be funny if a police car will come by and tow the police car?"

zombie season

Returning to one of his favorite topics, along with a growing interest in "what animals we come back as" when we die...  We are driving during this one.

"Mama, zombies are real you know."

"So you say, honey."

"Yeah. Dada has seen one and so has Noah."

He remembers everything the elders say about zombies, no matter how metaphorical, like the zombies Dada talks about where he works. The ones who work in the basement or the laboratory.

"I think zombies are stuck. People who are stuck after they die because they don't know what kind of animal to be next. So they're stuck dead."  I'm paraphrasing. He likely said it much better, but that was the idea.

My son, the shaman.

Down in the Valley...

This morning, still in a dream state, 6ish am:

"Mama, I had a dream at Dada's the other night that a tree across the valley fell down and landed between Dada's house and Gus's house. It broke the fence."

"Huh. The valley?"

"Yeah, across the street and in the valley. "

I didn't give him the word he was looking for. Valley is so much more poetic. Let alone delve into any symbolism.

He went on. It was a tree about as big as the Elm they had to chop down in their yard last month. A huge elm that provided shade for three houses. We were all sad in different ways. From separate houses.

I did say, "wow, that's quite a powerful dream. Was it scary?"

No. Of course not. Mama. He doesn't do scary.

"Well, Jude," I did say, "it's sad to lose a tree."

I did not say: sometimes when things are too sad (scary, happy, etc) to talk about they come through in our dreams.

He'll make his own sense of that in time.


Sad is also that yesterday one of the teachers at his school died following a horse accident. I wonder when he comes home today how/if we will talk about this. The school is very good about handling these things, also encouraging us to honor our child's feelings (no talk, yes talk, tears, no tears, etc).

Maybe I can tell him to look for this teacher in his dreams tonight.

Furniture Envy?

Mama?
Yea?
Did this house come with the stove and the refrigerator?
Yeah.
Did this house come with the doors?
Yeah.
Did it come with the floor?
Yeah. Most houses come with basic stuff like that.
Did this house come with the blue couch?
No. I bought that.
How much was it?
Not very much.
Did this house come with those lights?
No.
How did they get there? How did they get there and then work when you turn the switch?
Ask Dada. It's not that hard, but it involves wiring and stuff.
What did this house look like without all the stuff in it?
Just like this but without the furniture.
Oh. Did this house come with that door stopper thingee on the wall? (the thing so the door won't bang into the wall).
Yeah.
Why?

At National Night Out

Last night we went to NNO at the neighborhood next to ours and crashed their party because we don't have one in our little condo here. I wanted Jude to make some friends around the block his own age and turns out there are dozens of boys and girls his age, not to mention nice parents to go along with them.

Jude ran around with the boys for a few hours, the way boys do.

I awkwardly socialized with the grown ups who were all very nice, but you know, they don't know me and vice versa...

But what does Jude care about all that? He was so high on fun with the boys that as we were leaving the party he made sure to inform one of the adults, the man who first greeted us, that "I'm getting the Star Wars Death Star Lego set for xmas."

The man was good humored.

"Just in case you were wondering..." I said.

God, I love his quirks!

at the MN Zoo

"I want to come back after I die as a sea urchin."

(We have a theme evolving.)

"Okay honey, but please live this lifetime, this lifetime of being a boy and a man--a human-- to the fullest. You have a lot of this lifetime left—"

"Stop it, Mama."


Riding a camel: I feel like a medium sized Giant!

What does it feel like to be on the tip top of the bee sculpture? Like I am master of the universe!

when I get old and go to the graveyard

what will I look like to other people before I go onto being an animal?

memory of innocence

Still realizing he is getting older, not younger. First grade: gone. Two teeth: gone. Riding a two-wheeler bike: check.

How long before he grows up and gets rational and domesticated and boring? Before he stops saying things like he did over spring break when he woke up and slept funny and his leg hurt.

"But only when I go like this," he said, walking with exaggerated height in his left leg. "And it's only about a 2. When I walk normal it's about a 0."

When did he learn about the pain scale?

Then he hops on the bed and says, "but when I sit like this—in 'criss-cross apple sauce'—it's about a 2."

So he's good. This half boy, half man. This is painfully endearing... how he floats between the two worlds, reverting to pure innocence just when I think I've lost him to the manworld.

He goes back to playing Star Wars and Minecraft, not limping, not one bit.

Jude circus 2014

Where is Jude?

Mama, how many nickels in a day?

Do you mean, minutes, Jude?
No! It's an easy one—

And he goes on to explain, mathematically, how 5 times 5 nickels equals 25, leaving one, since there are 24 hours in a day, which means, "it's easy Mama! The answer is one!"

Okay Jude.

Mama? How many minutes are in 500 hours?....

funny facebook post from DADA

My son is a genius. 

We come home from a parent-teacher conference (he's doing okay, his penmanship stinks but look at his parents), He spends most (all) of the evening playing three video games, gets through a Curious George book with some help, dawdles in the tub while I try to get some Siri-clone app to work on my Android phone and he tries to engage it in a conversation about video games (we ask it when George Washington was born and it answers "Some time in the 20th century" followed by a request for money), demands a book before bed even though it's 8:50PM. Then reminds me we need to brush our teeth (yes, I'm a grown man. If I have to be) and then calmly asks me what A+A is. I tell him it doesn't equal anything. He says "It equals B. B is 2, C is 3, D is 4". This is freaking me out a little. He's in first grade. I don't think they covered variables in my day until like 5th grade. He continues to quiz me "So what is A + B? A+C?, etc ... " I ask where he heard this - since 4 hours ago we were trying to explain to his teacher why it's so difficult to do word problems when the story concerns baby panda losing track of how many bamboo leaves it still has to eat - and he tells me he just made it up. He discovered a fundamental principle of mathematics while policing my oral hygiene. I need to brush more.

listening to the Beatles last week with Aunty Paula

All of us doing a puzzle. I wanted to play him "Honey Pie" since that's what I call him these days. (If I slip and call him what I used to: "Baby," he has a fit. "I'm not Baby; I'm Honey Pie!")

Sometime after Honey Pie, Yesterday comes on. Me and Aunty Pieceee sing along and do the puzzle. Love was such an easy game to play....

"Heeeeeey! Love isn't a game!"


Smart boy. Smart in your heart, darling. Let it always be...

on the phone with Dada last night

"Well, Dada, is there anything you want to talk about 'cause I got nothin'?"


Then after Dada asked what he did today:

"Well, Paula took me to get a haircut and then we went to lunch at this place where no one speaks English (Marissa's Bakery) and we bought a pastry for me and two for Mama and bought Mama a bunch of 'aguas' (guavas) that look like pear-heads."


Earlier in the month when I called over Dada's and talked to him and then wanted to talk to Dada again, he passed the phone to Dada and said, "here Dude, have a party!"

Seven. He'll be seven next month.