September 19, 2008

Dear JackRabbit,

You will turn four this weekend– or at least you will technically. You keep insisting, “I stay three!” whenever we remind you of your birthday.

There’s a big difference, it turns out, between three and four. In the last month you’ve been a different kid. At choir you’re a good listener– you participate in all the little singing games like “sleeping” during “Frere Jacque” and all the little motions of the Echo Song. Last year each week was an exercise in me holding my breath that you didn’t cause too much of a disruption. (The week that you enlisted Brandon into running through the racks of choir robes until Mrs. L had to stop. STOP. the class and untangle the two was a real highlight…)

You seem to be doing well at school, too. Your vocabulary has exploded again– Daddy and I are amazed at how much better you are able to express yourself. You’ll tell us, “I’m feeling angry right now!” with such a scowl that it’s hard not to laugh. You’re negotiating our world a little bit more each day– figuring out that being a good listener and using good manners can be rewarding. There are grown-ups who don’t have that down, kiddo.

You still like watching your stories– Caillou, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sesame Street, The Wiggles, “The Camel Story,” and Thomas. You’ve (FINALLY!) come to appreciate Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood with me (“He’s home from working Mommy!” is what you said the other day when he took off his suitcoat to put on his cardigan). Cars and Mickey Mouse Christmas are still your favorite movies. You play with your trains and Cars cars and blocks. At restaurants you ask to play with your “lemons” wire toys and the little Mickey Mouse figures we picked up at Disney last year.

You can run very fast. You like to jump off things and climb a little too higher than I’d like sometimes. This month you figured out how to really pedal your little trike. I think it was after the day you and Trey played together that it clicked for you. You love to sing and pick up songs very quickly. Sometimes we sing whole conversations to each other. It cracks you up.

Every night you say prayers and we’ve been trying to teach you that we go to church because we love God– not because we’ve “been bad” like you say.

You’re very affectionate. You still love to cuddle us both– which is good. We can’t get enough of you. Your sweet kisses are our favorite part of having to send you off to bed.

I wish, JackRabbit, that you didn’t have to grow up quite so fast. But I so love the kid you are in this moment that I can’t really regret that you are already (nearly) four either. Our hearts have grown so much since you came into our world. We really are the luckiest Mommy and Daddy.

Love,

Mommy

Columbus didn’t actually discover anything that wasn’t already there

When Jack discovered his hands– that they were attached to him and he could make them move at will– was one of those Big Moments. Sure, it was wrapped in the ridiculously cute packaging of his mouth in a little “O!” shape while his eyes lit up with the wonder of these strange things at the end of his arms. We were charmed at his utter delight. We were crew members on an Apollo mission. New frontiers and all that.

I’ve been feeling that way myself a little lately.

My high school reunion a few weeks back was pleasant enough– there were some old pals that made it worth the $45 dollar bad appetizers. The real payoff of the night was when a couple of those old pals encouraged me to get on Facebook. (Encouraged is nicer than saying that they openly mocked my admission that “I used to have a MySpace page…” “Uh, Terri– it’s not 2005 anymore. Catch up with the rest of us.”)

Later that week I signed myself up. And now I’m in contact with a handful of people that I grew up with and then lost track of. Which is where I’m feeling a little akin to that moment when Jack was so startled by his own hands…

I’m still me. My trappings are different– I’m somewhat of a grown up with a mortgage and a job. I have Robby and the JackRabbit and the little black dog and the demanding Dorothy (for a goldfish she’s got a lot of attitude)– but underneath the new layers is still me.

I find that somewhat astonishing.

Take my pal David. I haven’t seen him for years and years– twenty probably– but in the last few weeks, plucked out of cyberspace– there he is. Still recognizably the boy I knew. He commented on the Koala entry– about his experience with the Ian McEwan’s book Atonement. And I gasped out loud because I’d felt the same way about it. The last third of that book is a bullet train. No way was I jumping off until I’d got to the end… And when I finished I sat somewhat stunned. Dazed a little at how dizzying the effect of a really good story is. I’ve told at least a dozen people they should read Atonement and there is crickets. Yet it came as no surprise that David would have loved it, too– despite the fact that I haven’t a clue as to what he’s read in the last two decades.

My pal Dehan and I like some of the same music. We did twenty years ago, too. My pal Gail and I used to write letters to each other. I have a suitcase stuffed with them. We’ve fallen out of that habit somewhere since Jack’s arrival… yet she can send me a text message with less than 10 words that has almost the same effect that one of her neatly lettered envelopes in my mailbox.

It’s jumbled– I can’t really explain it other than to say if nothing else I’ve had the good fortune to know some very good people. People that I still recognize and still recognize me. Our cores are still the same. Jack’s hands were there all along. He just had to figure out that. The only difference is about 38 years.

Note to self: Feed the Koala Bears

It’s raining out. It’s a perfect cold, September rain. The kind that makes the lights seem warmer and yellower. Robby’s working late so Jack and I are watching The Wiggles and killing a little time until the Pajamma hour.

I’m noshing on the perfect autumn snack: salty peanuts and candy corn.

My brain is all mushy tonight. No bright thoughts or pithy observations– if it weren’t for Jack I’d be curled up in bed with my candycorn and the second half of Atonement DVD.

I think the Yellow Wiggle is sucking my will to live.

Waiting for naptime

Shhhhhh. We’re in the post-school napping zone. It’s a small window of the possibility of my small son taking a siesta.

I’ve stacked the deck by pulling a movie off of TiVo. [Three Came Home is one of my sister's and my favorite movies. It's the 1950 account of Agnes Newton Keith's harrowing ordeal of life in British Borneo during the Japanese occupation during WW2. Claudette Colbert stays crisply ironed throughout.] It’s black and white and not very interesting to my Cars loving little man.

The fact that he’s singing “(We’re going to) Jackson” to the little black dog right now is not encouraging.

Meanwhile, our adjustment to preschool is going well. Day 2 seems to be a success. When I went to pick up Jack at noon I got there just a bit early and the children were all seated on their pieces of carpet. My Jack was seated. Quietly. Who knew??? He still think his teacher, Mrs. Brown, is nice.

As for me, it felt a little less strange to be going to the office. It shouldn’t be any different then when Jack’s at my Momma’s or at Robby’s folks, I know, but it is. Besides, Fridays are a great day to work at our Museum– half the staff is always out or tied up in a meeting. I got a lot done. Plus, apparently, the not-so-best-kept-secret about Fridays at work is that there are usually breakfast brunch leftovers! Sausage!? Potatoes!? Yippeekiay!

I met a couple of coworkers near the buffet area– one asked about our upcoming trip to Ireland, “Why are you going there?” “Uh, ’cause it’s there?” Who justifies their travel?

Ahhhh. Jack’s singing “Wildwood Flower” now– that’s a good sign. He’s bringing it down. Shhhhh.

First Day

We had our first day of preschool today.

I think all three of us did okay.

I didn’t cry. (Or at least not much.) Jack made it easy on his old mother. His face lit up in the parking lot and he was all about the wearing of the very cheap Cars themed “pack back” that we’d bought for him until his grandmother’s present of a Land’s End monogrammed pack arrives. Once he had the straps slipped on his shoulders he was up the sidewalk in a shot towards the door. His teacher, Mrs. Brown, was there to enthusiastically greet him, “Hello Jack!”

I’ve dreaded this day. Last night I tossed and turned and thought only of me and wishing I could have all four years back again. Until today, for the most part, he was all ours. We didn’t have to share but for an occasional moment here or there. In the wee smas Jack fussed enough in his own bed (still his crib, by the way) that Robby brought him into our bed where he slept between us. He’s a sound sleeper. This morning I curled up around him and smelled his still baby neck and whispered good thoughts.

We celebrated the day with a First Day breakfast– Jack’s cousins brought over McDonald’s hotcakes. McDonald’s hotcakes are easily one of Jack’s favorite foods. And then– merciless clock ticking all the while– it was time to drive to school. All the way there we did the usual things– sang Johnny Cash songs and made faces in the mirror at each other.

And my heart skipped when it was time to unbuckle his car seat. For a second I thought, “we could still slip out of here… run home. Put our jammies back on… watch some Caillou and make block towers or Thomas tracks…”

Jack, however, was so gleefully excited that my heart skipped back to its normal beat– how can I wish this away from him? This tempura paint crayoned world of letters and numbers and games and new friends?

I at least got a kiss from him– his poor Daddy only rated a, “Bye Daddy!” and then, when the Daddy lingered for a minute an exasperated, “Dad! Bye!”

Jack was already on the little carpet with Mrs. Brown and a box of little trucks and cars. We were forgotten. Or at least he took for granted the fact that we’d come back for him eventually. So, not necessarily needed, we hovered for another minute or two out of Jack’s eyesight then walked quietly to our cars. I went into the office but it was a dysfunctional day– my coworkers were off in 10 different directions and I was watching the clock until 11:45.

We met Jack again on the playground. He was in the tire swing with two new little pals completely oblivious to our arrival. When he did see us he squealed and ran to give us kisses. The realization that he’d have to leave behind his “painting! my picture!” was the only dark spot in our understanding of his day. The painting was wet. It needed to dry. On Friday it will come home in his little pack-back.

Later, a very exhausted little man fell asleep on the couch next to me– Mr. Independent is still cuddling with Mommy at naptime.

That was good of him. First Days can be tough you know.

Shhhhh. She’s sleeping.

This weekend we went up to the Lake to see the in-laws. The cottage is an enchanted place– there, somehow, there is time to read and knit and sleep. Little elves make meals and do the laundry. Okay. Maybe it’s my mother-in-law that does those things.

But the end result is that I spent a large chunk of Saturday in bed. Sleeping. Reading (James Hilton’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips if you are interested). Sleeping some more. Fired up the laptop (Robby’s– mine is still driverless. What IS a driver?) and did some work. Four Hello! magazines (I like to pretend I’m in Britain when I read them.)

Robby and Jack played in the Lake. Friends came for a whitefish and sweet corn dinner. The sun took it’s sweet time slipping down past the other side of the Lake.

And did I mention that today, on my father-in-law’s satellite television there was an all day Beverly Hills 90210 marathon???