Friday, September 17, 2004
The Day After
When Max walked into the kitchen this morning, his first words were, "Mommy, where's my cake?" Like his father, he's got a long memory and laser focus, and he knew that half the cake was still intact at the end of last night's party. Max was stricken to learn that we do not eat cake for breakfast. Buoyed at the sight of his birthday bounty, Max determined that he should stay home from school today to fully enjoy his new treasures. That also didn't happen. For Max, The Day After began as quite a let-down.
But all was not lost. When Max arrived home from school and noticed the green and white and black balloons still floating in the kitchen, he exclaimed, "My birthday is still here!"
And now he is ensconsed in his room with some of his birthday jewels: a shiny set of hot wheel cars with a battery-powered track, and a safari collection consisting of a veterinarian, his tent, SUV with animal cage and vet clinic, and miscellaneous jungle animals. Max took the entire outpost to bed with him last night.
In Max's world, the ultimate form of punishment, akin to being exiled to Siberia, is to have the doors to his room closed. When I put him in a time out in his "thinking chair" or leave his room for the night, his pleas often follow me down the hall: "Leave the door open, mommy!"
But today Max has closed the doors to his room himself. I can hear the hot wheel cars circling the track. Max is setting up a "farm" with his African animals. And as the musical backdrop, he has been singing dozens and dozens of times over, "I love my room! I love my room! I love my room!" What a difference a day makes.
But all was not lost. When Max arrived home from school and noticed the green and white and black balloons still floating in the kitchen, he exclaimed, "My birthday is still here!"
And now he is ensconsed in his room with some of his birthday jewels: a shiny set of hot wheel cars with a battery-powered track, and a safari collection consisting of a veterinarian, his tent, SUV with animal cage and vet clinic, and miscellaneous jungle animals. Max took the entire outpost to bed with him last night.
In Max's world, the ultimate form of punishment, akin to being exiled to Siberia, is to have the doors to his room closed. When I put him in a time out in his "thinking chair" or leave his room for the night, his pleas often follow me down the hall: "Leave the door open, mommy!"
But today Max has closed the doors to his room himself. I can hear the hot wheel cars circling the track. Max is setting up a "farm" with his African animals. And as the musical backdrop, he has been singing dozens and dozens of times over, "I love my room! I love my room! I love my room!" What a difference a day makes.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
If only so mom will get off my back....
Now that Max is thoroughly verbal, I get to laugh out loud at something he says at least once a day. A few minutes ago he produced this memorable line: "'God is great, God is good, Let us thank him for our food.' Mom, that's a prairie."
At other times, I want to burst with laughter, but for the sake of more important things, I opt for a different response. For example, on the way home from school this afternoon, Max posed this very earnest question: "Mommy, do the Wiggles have penises?"
And sometimes what's particularly funny isn't so much what Max says, but what I imagine he would say if he had the words to do so.
As I've mentioned before, when Lee and I put Max in bed at night, we swing him by his hands and feet as long as he counts correctly. For weeks now his sequence has gone like this: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen...." And each time we say, "Max, it's eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...."
This afternoon, Max and I were playing with a numbers puzzle in his room when he made the same misstep. Here was our exchange:
Mom: Max, why do you think you always forget number 13?
Max: I don't know. Because that way I forget 14, too [not that this makes logical sense, mind you, it's just what he said as he tried to sort out my question.]
Mom: Let's do your numbers together.
Mom and Max: Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. [We intoned this pattern several times in unison, like Sesame Street characters performing a rudimentary Gregorian chant.]
Mom: Do you think you're going to remember 13 from now on?
Max, with a sigh: I hope so.
At other times, I want to burst with laughter, but for the sake of more important things, I opt for a different response. For example, on the way home from school this afternoon, Max posed this very earnest question: "Mommy, do the Wiggles have penises?"
And sometimes what's particularly funny isn't so much what Max says, but what I imagine he would say if he had the words to do so.
As I've mentioned before, when Lee and I put Max in bed at night, we swing him by his hands and feet as long as he counts correctly. For weeks now his sequence has gone like this: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen...." And each time we say, "Max, it's eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...."
This afternoon, Max and I were playing with a numbers puzzle in his room when he made the same misstep. Here was our exchange:
Mom: Max, why do you think you always forget number 13?
Max: I don't know. Because that way I forget 14, too [not that this makes logical sense, mind you, it's just what he said as he tried to sort out my question.]
Mom: Let's do your numbers together.
Mom and Max: Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. [We intoned this pattern several times in unison, like Sesame Street characters performing a rudimentary Gregorian chant.]
Mom: Do you think you're going to remember 13 from now on?
Max, with a sigh: I hope so.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
A Book for the Teacher
On Max's first day in his new classroom, he came upon a large box of dinoaurs. He dispersed them across the rug, and Mrs. Foltz, one of his three teachers, sat down as he began to identify a few: T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Ankylasaurus. When Max faltered, Mrs. Fotltz helped: Pteronadon, Allosaurus, Veloceraptor. Mrs. Fotlz is a dinosaur fan, too. Then Max and Mrs. Foltz came upon an odd looking creature. Protruding backwards from the crown of its head was an elongated bone, like the prehistoric precursor to a racing helmet that Lance Armstrong might wear, but longer and thinner. Both Max and Mrs. Foltz were stumped. Max and I agreed to look up the unfamiliar dinosaur in one of his dinosaur books when we get home, and we did. And then we practiced chanting its name: PARA - SAURA - LOPHUS. PARA - SAURA - LOPHUS. PARA - SAURA - LOPHUS. It practically rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for school, Max announced that he wanted to take his dinosaur book. I explained to Max that if he took his book to school it might not make it home. And that's when he explained to me that he wanted to show his teacher the Parasauralophus in the book. Oh, so this wasn't just "show and tell"; this was in furtherance of education. I could just imagine the scene on the classroom floor: Max, holding the peculiar looking dinosaur, was saying, "It's a Parasauralophus!" and no one around him understood, or perhaps believed, and certainly didn't validate, what he was saying. But he knew this to be a Parasauralophus. Who wouldn't be frustrated and confused under those circumstances?
Ordinarily, the school day begins with a carpool line, in which the parents line up at a porte chochere, and a teacher unloads each child and escorts him or her to the appropriate classroom. The day concludes in the same fashion, with a teacher delivering children to their cars and strapping them into their car seats. I consider this a wonderful feature of Max's new school. I can remain in the air-conditioned comfort of my car on 92 degree afternoons, and I don't have to tackle the task of getting both Boo and Max safely to and from the car. If I'm early, I even have a few spare minutes of quiet and relative solitude to read a magazine or just sit and think. Sometimes those precious minutes are a highlight of my day.
Parents have the option of parking and walking their children to their classrooms, and yesterday morning I offered to do so in order for Max to show the dinosaur book to his teacher. Max eagerly accepted. We went to Max's class and he told Mrs. Foltz that he wanted to show her his dinosaur book. He turned to the relevant page, pointed to the bony head, and said, "See, it's a PARA - SAURA - LOPHUS." Mrs. Foltz repeated his words back to him, and apparently satisfied that his mission was accomplished, Max returned the book to me for safekeeping. "Bye, mommy, see ya later!" I just hope she doesn't think this was my idea.
Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for school, Max announced that he wanted to take his dinosaur book. I explained to Max that if he took his book to school it might not make it home. And that's when he explained to me that he wanted to show his teacher the Parasauralophus in the book. Oh, so this wasn't just "show and tell"; this was in furtherance of education. I could just imagine the scene on the classroom floor: Max, holding the peculiar looking dinosaur, was saying, "It's a Parasauralophus!" and no one around him understood, or perhaps believed, and certainly didn't validate, what he was saying. But he knew this to be a Parasauralophus. Who wouldn't be frustrated and confused under those circumstances?
Ordinarily, the school day begins with a carpool line, in which the parents line up at a porte chochere, and a teacher unloads each child and escorts him or her to the appropriate classroom. The day concludes in the same fashion, with a teacher delivering children to their cars and strapping them into their car seats. I consider this a wonderful feature of Max's new school. I can remain in the air-conditioned comfort of my car on 92 degree afternoons, and I don't have to tackle the task of getting both Boo and Max safely to and from the car. If I'm early, I even have a few spare minutes of quiet and relative solitude to read a magazine or just sit and think. Sometimes those precious minutes are a highlight of my day.
Parents have the option of parking and walking their children to their classrooms, and yesterday morning I offered to do so in order for Max to show the dinosaur book to his teacher. Max eagerly accepted. We went to Max's class and he told Mrs. Foltz that he wanted to show her his dinosaur book. He turned to the relevant page, pointed to the bony head, and said, "See, it's a PARA - SAURA - LOPHUS." Mrs. Foltz repeated his words back to him, and apparently satisfied that his mission was accomplished, Max returned the book to me for safekeeping. "Bye, mommy, see ya later!" I just hope she doesn't think this was my idea.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
On Being Nice
A couple of weeks ago Max and I were playing in the kitchen. From somewhere far out in left field, he asked, "Mommy, why are you being so nice to me?" I was, frankly, stunned by the question. I have no idea where he might have heard someone else ask that question, nor how he might have formulated the idea on his own. The best response that I could produce on short notice was, "Because I love you." "I love you too, mommy," was his reply.
A few minutes later he asked me the same question. I looked over at Max and he was grinning from ear to ear. "Are you being funny, Max?" I asked. "Uh, huh." Oh, so this was a game. I was starting to get the idea. "Because I love you, Max." "I love you, too, mommy. I love you so much I want to adopt you." I laughed out loud. Max laughed, too.
Where on earth did Max learn the word "adoption"? Does he have any idea what it means? You send your children out into the world and they come back with experiences and ideas all their own. And some of them are very, very funny. If he weren't my son already, I'd want to adopt him, too.
A few minutes later he asked me the same question. I looked over at Max and he was grinning from ear to ear. "Are you being funny, Max?" I asked. "Uh, huh." Oh, so this was a game. I was starting to get the idea. "Because I love you, Max." "I love you, too, mommy. I love you so much I want to adopt you." I laughed out loud. Max laughed, too.
Where on earth did Max learn the word "adoption"? Does he have any idea what it means? You send your children out into the world and they come back with experiences and ideas all their own. And some of them are very, very funny. If he weren't my son already, I'd want to adopt him, too.
