Evidence

"Mommy, don't...come...in...the...kitchen," he instructed me slowly in his best whisper voice, his body standing by my bed, his face so close to mine, it may have been resting on my pillow. "Okay?"

They were busy making my birthday cake while I enjoyed the gift of a nap.

"Okay. How'd you get that chocolate on your face?"

Pause.

"I don't know."

Where Walter Went

Where did Walter move? Can we go there now? Well I don’t care if you come, I’m going there today. I’m going to Las Vegas and I’ll ask the owner if he knows where Walter lives. And then I’ll live with Walter.

Oh, child. I know how you feel.

I remember the first time one of my best friends moved away. Her name was Summer. It was second grade and she was here and then she was gone. I continued on about my second-grade ways and had other friends. And it was fine. And then one night in the shower it hit me that she was really not coming back and I remember standing there crying, a wave of emotion suddenly washing over me with the warm water, and then wrapped up in my towel, going to find my mom, hot tears in my eyes, so she could tell me it would be okay.

It was still final. And I still remember these things.

I don’t know how affected you really are, inside, about the fact that your first best buddy has moved away and you probably won’t ever see him again. I know that you don’t really comprehend the gravity of “ever” or of “final.” But I also know what a great first example of real friendship he was. He was the “fuzzy haired” boy from pre-K, with whom you bonded right from the start amid bullies, pretentiousness and the teacher who lacked any control. You played trucks and LEGOs and wrestled and went to zoo camp and had fun. No biggie.

But as your mama I do comprehend the bigger picture and I am affected, thinking about how this is one of so many relationships that will come in and out of your life as you go on about it. Down your life’s path as it gets intersected here and there by the paths of others. And I am thankful for Walter, for you.

These are the things that matter. You have friends and they are important to you. You are important to them. These are some of the truths of a rich life. I see you learning this in your small ways.

I left Walter’s mom a Facebook message letting her know you had been missing your friend that day. She messaged back saying Walter had just asked if he could talk to you on the computer. That you must have been reading each other’s minds. And I wondered for how long we’ll have these little reminders. These reminiscent memories of first friends. For how long will you miss him? For how long will something spark that makes you pop your little head up and ask, “Where did Walter go?”

Walter went. But he stays. He left behind how good it feels to have a good friend. He left behind the capacity to share. He left behind the means to give and receive friendship. What a gift, that fuzzy-haired Walter was.

It's Been A While

Sometimes the things I want to say and the things I can't say pile up so high in my head that communicating even something becomes paralyzing.

In the meantime, I gaze at these two and sometimes am at a loss for words anyway...

Motherhood is a crazy thing.

The Nag Factor

My latest post is up at ModernMom.com, wherein Reid shows me he is a statistic and Fred Flintstone shows me he still knows how to hock sugary cereal after four decades! FOUR DECADES! Curious? Come on over there and read more!

And hey, I suppose you have to hand it to the marketers/packagers/merchandisers who launched Fred's face on Fruity Pebbles boxes that many years ago that they knew what they were doing... and to the marketers who still work on the Fruity Pebbles brand who apparently know that if something ain't broke, there is no need to fix it! Still? As long as Hubby Hawks isn't in the cereal aisle with us, Fred will stay very nicely nestled into his spot on the shelf, no matter what 'gimme goblin' temporarily takes over my 4-year-old's brain.

So, come tell me at ModernMom.com what you think about The Nag Factor, and how it does or doesn't impact your purchases. Won't you?

Meeting Margo

"Is Aunt Sara sick?" he whispered to Mimi, stoic and nervous.

"No, she just had the baby and she's tired," Mimi reassured him, surrounded by the hospital room's sterile sheets, linoleum floors and hand sanitizer.

He stayed quiet and out of the way. Not making any sudden moves. Not upsetting the delicate balance of the room. The universe was telling him Something Very Important had happened. His senses were heightened. His demeanor revealed it.

Later, he warmed up, softened a bit, ready to embrace his new cousin. He got to meet her first, and thus had become a Margo Expert. He schooled Graham on the fact that no, she did not say "mama" nor "dada." "Well, what does she say?" Graham quizzed. "Waaah," Reid stated, matter-of-factly.

"Can I give her a kiss?" he inquired quietly up at me, nestled in next to me on the hard plastic hospital room couch.

"Sure," I smiled, "how about right here on her head?"

He leaned in and welcomed his little Margo to the world in his delicate, direction-following way. He's gonna take care of her. Because being a good cousin is serious business, you know.

We drank the kool-aid (a.k.a. the week I became a Disney ambassador)

We recently spent the happiest week of our lives at the happiest place on Earth.

What a big statement. It surprises even me. But it's true.

Mickey knows how to pull the same strings Santa does, apparently. He left these bags in the boys' rooms. When they woke up it was time to go.

Disney kept commanding that we let the memories begin and so we obliged. Then they rushed in. And they started flooding.

Brothers loved on each other. Why not? There was just this abundance of love to go around. Seriously, Disney!

How do you do this, Disney? This voo doo that you do, so well?

My spirited boy was spirited in all the right ways.

My reserved baby made new friends.

No detail was overlooked.

We will be back. Again and again.

And again.

Hindsight

In hindsight, I should not have left the kitchen TV on the “E!” channel and walked out of the room.

In hindsight, that is really a waste of electricity.

And in my even sharper hindsight, coming back to the room quite a bit later only to find my kindergartener on top of the countertop, eyes glued to the pivotal climax in the movie Titanic in which Jack’s frozen stiff hand is pried from Rose’s, whereupon she watches his cold, dead body -- eyes garishly open of course -- drift downward to the black depths of the Atlantic? Um, yeah not cool.

And even less cool was the slow-motion pivot in which my boy turned to face me with his huge eyes, clearly questioning all of humanity. This was of course followed by the face scrunch, and then the alligator tears and deep-seeded wail. Like a one-two-three punch you could see coming right toward your gut.

“Why are you so sad?” I tried to play it cool. Like maybe he would forget about the melodramatic death he had just witnessed.

“Her friend Jack just died!” his finger jabbed at Kate Winslet on the small screen. He was beside himself. “And he sank into the ocean!” my 5-year-old wailed.

“Well, we need to get ready for your class picnic!” I exclaimed, as if tap dancing in front of a crime scene. Nothing to see here, folks, did you notice there is an ice cream truck over there! Hey kids, ice cream! Carnival! Santa! Fun!

“I think a shark bit his leg off!”

Well now you’re just making things up. Isn’t James Cameron dramatic enough all by himself?

In hindsight, when the tap dancing did nothing to help and I feebly attempted to provide my boy some text book logic (long time ago, wouldn’t happen today, yadda yadda), mixed with a definition of “movie magic” (actors aren’t real, Leo’s not dead, clothes are costumes, yadda yadda) I basically dug my own grave. My answers led to new questions as his little mind started weaving an intricate web, attempting to make sense of it all and bandage his broken heart, such as:

Why did the captain not know there was an iceberg under the water?

How does the captain see under water?

Did someone not tell him?

What is technology?

Do the boats we have today have technology?

So boats have computers?

Where are the computers?

Our car has a computer?

I probably should have stopped at “movies are not real,” even though the way the questions progressed made me think I was totally working at that distraction thing. But then he totally called me out on saying that this happened “a long time ago” and thus DID IT REALLY HAPPEN OR NOT???

Note to self! Turn the TV off! Particularly before loading up the car to drive to the kindergarten class mixer/picnic at the park where your still-weepy kindergartener will tell the other kids about Jack who died in the ocean!

In my future hindsight? I’m sure this will be pretty funny.