A talk with Santa

What would you like for Christmas?
An Apple Laptop
Okay... I'll see what the elves can do... have you been a good boy?
Yes
Have you been brushing your teeth?
Yes.
Making your bed?
Uh....
Been helping mom out?
She doesn't need my help.

Oh, I think mom could use all the help she can get.

Thanks Santa. :o

In Canada, Kakabeka Falls, some 120 feet or so

"I'l give you a million dollars to jump in those from right here! I dare you!"

"Jude! I don't think Mama would survive that. Look how tall those are. Look where they go!"

Even I, once fearless, cannot get too close to the edge. He does. Sizes it up.

"I double dare you!"

Jude!

"Okay... you can wear a life jacket!"

Mama?

Why do you get those three lines up there, he says, pointing to my forehead, when you are talking strict?

upon waking and walking downstairs at 6:30 am

Mama, you know those president heads?

Mt Rushmore, you mean?

Yeah...

"Mama went there before you were born when I drove here from Seattle..."

So anyway... Well... there's a secret base inside Lincoln's head.

Really? I didn't know that. What do you mean a secret base?

You know.

What's a secret base, Jude?

Well... it's... you know. People live in there and can see out his eye.

Wow. How do you know that?

Someone in preschool told me.

mama, how do you make water?

Is it because we've spent the past hour trying to finally figure out the Icee Maker, which we do, but after hard cranking we don't get much slushy. We get a sort of cherry juice slop.

But it's fun. As a reward, he for reasons I don't understand, wants to hang out on YouTube watching the most boring, white, large, salesman dude infomercial his "I-talian Ice." He keeps saying how cheap it is to make because the main ingredient is sugar, which goes for 0 cents. ?

Later, at Lunds, always in the middle of pandemonium. "Mama, where does water come from?"

"Um...?" Okay. I'm tired; is this a trick question? "Well honey... "

"Yeah?"

"Well... it comes from the sky."

"Yeah, but how do you make water?"

"That is water, honey. Rain is water."  Right? Isn't it?

"I know, but how do you make it?"

It's one of those questions that begs a better answer. "Honey..." I talk about the rivers and oceans and streams and springs and hope to God no one is listening to me because, really, I have no idea. "You know," I say, "they make it into water by filtering it and stuff..."

Okay. That'll do for now.

Later in bed that night I am vindicated by The Hobbit, which we are reading at bedtime. Before the dwarves and Bilbo the hobbit and the wizard Gandalf set off on their merry way into danger once again, the Goblin hating shape shifting Beorn (?) who I think is also half-bear and has a house full of lovely animal servants like hind leg walking dogs serving up platters of goblin flesh, meade and the merry like to their jolly house guests, send the troop off into the dragon mountains with nuts, everlasting bread, and canteens shaped out of animal skins to hold the water until it runs out... and if it does, "there are other springs along the mountains from which to fetch more water."

Jude is almost asleep at this point, but I am so excited I knock over the light. "DID YOU HEAR THAT HONEY? SEE? WATER COMES FROM SPRINGS!"

but I don't want to go to the adult party

why not, Jude? It's by Lake Calhoun. It'll be nice.

Who's going to be there?

Family! You'll get to meet and talk to family...

No. I don't want to go. I don't want to stand around with adults and go blah blah blah blah blah. And blah blah blah blah blah. Why does there have to be so much blah blah blah blah all the time?

blah blah blah

out to breaky with Dada, Granny, down the street yesterday.

Jude finishes his grilled cheese, wants to play something on Dada's phone again. (While waiting in line on the waiting booth, I see he is racing around a car inside a track on Dada's phone, not unlike the handhelds we had as kids...)

"Phone", Jude tells Dada

"Not while we're out eating with people," Dada tries.

"Jude." I say, which he's heard a dozen-hundred times. "The problem with always playing video games and always wanting to is that you forget how to entertain yourself from within. If you are always looking for external sources of entertainment and fulfillment, you will always feel empt—"

"Dada? Can you please talk to her about this?"

It was really late, Mama

oh yeah? How late?

"It was in the middle of the midnight."

darn that Gollum!

Finishing up the final Lord of the Rings movie last night, both of us quite emotional. Finally that pesky Gollum gets his and we are both relieved.

A few minutes later, all is calm, a bit of time to reflect before returning to the Shire.

"I'm sure glad Smeagol got dead!" he says.

"Yup," I say.

He was a bad guy!

Yup.

He was a mean guy!

Yup!

He was a son-of-a-bitch!

"Jude?!!"

"What?"

"You can't say that. Where'd you hear that?" Was there swearing in Lord of the Rings? At school? We maintain a healthy awareness of swearing, but neither of us is perfect. We do not tend to say SOB, however; somehow it is more fitting of our elders.

"Honey... you'll get in trouble if you say that... not here, but in school and stuff, okay?"

"Okay! I didn't know!"

"Well, where did you hear that?"

He doesn't know. Can't remember. Jesus, honey, where? Who says that anymore?

"The Princess Bride, okay?!"

another one at 6:35 a.m.

This morning, snoozing on my bed while I got ready to go downstairs with him. I don't look my best in the morning.

"Mama? Why do adults have chins that go out like this?"

He pantomimes the thing we adults know and fear well, pulling on his face to add another chin.

"Oh, gosh, honey. You are killing me."

"Well... why do they?"

"Oh, I don't know honey... lots of reasons..."

"Oh."

I flash back on the other night when we are watching Lord of the Rings and during one of the many mayhem scenes where everyone is running and screaming, he points to a rather endowed woman with long blonde hair, and well, that kind of chin. "That woman looks like you, Mama!"

I play dumb. These are quick scenes filled in by depressed extras, out of workers in Hollywood. I know the look. "Oh that one?" I say, pointing out the more yogic looking blonde, a bit more fit.

"Nope. She's gone now."

"Oh."

Back to this morning. I hope for the best. "Does Mama have one of those adult kinds of chins?"





"Honey? Hello?"

zombies on keys

I love discovering his budding sense of humor. Before bed he was messing around with the music box, while I did some work. I quite enjoyed listening to Silent Night repeatedly while I worked.

After putting him to bed, tidying up. I'll leave it like this. Much better. Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Friends. :)

"you sound like another lady"

Walking home from the creek around 5 pm, talking about the weekend. I tell him I have to be around animals. "But not the zoo, " I say.

"Like parrots?" he says, always on to me, more so than I am at times, which I feel mixed about.

"Yes! Parrots! Parrots!" Admittedly, I say this with the enthusiasm of one of our mom friends who is known for her enthusiasm and unrelenting support toward all little ones. Still, it is heartfelt. I DO want to see parrots again; why didn't I think of it? It's brilliant! "Parrots! Yes, Jude!"

"You sound like another lady," he says.

What do you mean?

I don't know. You sound like another lady. You don't sound like you.

Who? What lady?

"I don't know," he says, "just another lady," to which I laugh, remembering the time when he was four and I took him to the Delles and we stopped at a tourist shop where I tried on a cover-up that was pink and floral and rather short and when I came out of the bathroom wearing it he goes, "Wow. You look like a lady!"

But then my laugh. He says it sounds like another lady's laugh.

What lady?

"I don't know. Hey Mama. So this thing on MineCraft..."

So... will the real lady Mama please stand up? What is he saying, that I'm a phony? That the real Mama is less cheerful? What am I, Mama Grinch?

I suddenly picture myself at home in curlers in an old bathrobe, neither of which I own, moping.

"Can we watch?"

We went to a baby shower for good friends on Sunday eve. "What's a shower?" he wanted to know, of course, as we busied around getting ready.

Absentmindedly is no way to answer questions in a hurry, but it is the law of the land around here. "What's a shower? Oh. you know... you go give presents and celebrate the baby being born... Now, where did I put the tape?"

As an aside, last summer we walked into the birthing barn at the State Fair and just happened upon a calf being born. Mama Cow's water had just broke so our timing was perfect. An hour and half later, the calf was born. We watched the entire thing and it was quite an unexpected memory, very moving, we'll never forget it, etc. The whole thing lasted about two hours, which happens to be how long I told Jude we'd be at the baby shower.  So... naturally:

"Oh, so you mean we're going to go watch?"

"Watch?"

"The baby borning?"