JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

Of Road Trips and Yucky Jelly Beans

As the vacation miles rolled by between Georgia and North Carolina, Eli heard Harry Potter for the first time via audiobook.  He loved it -- classic good vs. evil with some laughs (and deep friendships) sprinkled in.

As the final chapter came to a close, I reached into my bag and pulled out a surprise.  I'd brought along a small box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans inspired by the book series.  For those who don't know much about Harry Potter, there are several comical moments about these candies -- little jelly beans that include not only the usual fruit flavors but also awful flavors such as earthworm, grass, dirt, and soap.  I challenged Eli to take turns with me eating one jelly bean at a time.  There was a "map" of flavors on the back of the box, but many of the pleasant flavors looked identical to the rotten ones. We agreed that when it was our turn, we'd accept whatever bean rolled out next and take a full bite.

   

Picture a mama and a 6.5 year-old rolling down Interstate 95 at sunset, passing the little rattling box back and forth, each warily inspecting the next bean before taking a hopeful bite -- a very strange (yet kid-friendly) version of Russian roulette.  "Lemon!" we'd crow.  Or "It's just orange this time!"  I'm only sorry that we were separated front seat and back seat so I couldn't get a clear look at Little Guy's face when tasting the bad ones.  I'd hear a sputtering cough followed by a huge guffaw as Eli scrambled to roll down the window.  In a rush of swirling hot air, yet one more sticky, half-chewed piece of candy was ejected to the asphalt.  (With my awful jelly beans -- and, trust me, some were simply disgusting -- I opened my window to spit them like watermelon seeds that vanished behind us instantly at 70 MPH.  "Oh, Mama!  That's cool!")  Finally, the box now empty, we stopped at a rest stop so Eli could brush teeth and put on jammies.  When I opened his car door, I found several wads of slimy beans that didn't make it out his window -- which just made us laugh like banshees all over again.

There are so many times as an adult that you have to do the hard thing, be the mature grown-up.  I'm so grateful for the times when parenting also means you get to be downright silly.  

 

   

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Monkey Brains and Swamp Water

 

One of the bizarre things about becoming a parent is that you unknowingly accept the role of Cultural Tour Guide.  The first year of your child's life that role isn't even on your radar, but soon after they start talking you realize just how much they don't understand about the world.  Take jokes, for instance.  Even wee tots get slapstick comedy, but so much of humor is based on puns, irony, pop culture, and the like.  Unfortunately, by the time you pick apart a joke or reference to explain to your kid why it is funny, it usually isn't funny anymore.  Still, someone taking the time to explain is part of how kids develop a sense of humor.

And a sense of humor is pretty important in life.

When Eli got old enough to ask what was for dinner, I started to dread the question.  Unless the answer was "pizza," I often got a frown and a downtrodden "Aw."  That's not much positive feedback to go on when you're halfway through a new gourmet recipe complete with hand-selected organic produce.  So I applied humor and started answering "What's for dinner?" with the cheerful reply: "Monkey brains!"  

Eli didn't get the joke at first.  What in the heck did Mama mean by "monkey brains"?  Then the day came when I saw a look of shock and revulsion on his face.  He got it!  He understood!  But it was still a little bit longer before I got a grin as a response.  That told me that he not only understood my words, but he got the joke.  Gross!  Mama would never really serve up the brains of a monkey.  Ha!  Ha!

Sadly, the reaction to the monkey brains joke continued to evolve.  Before long, Eli would ask what was for supper and immediately rush in with the added words, "And don't say 'monkey brains'!"  When I kept using my stale old joke anyway, Eli switched tactics.  His response became an irked glare or a dry, "Oh, ha ha, Mama."

Ah, but then today the skies parted and rays of humor shone down.  I was making Eli's lunch for school this morning while he was eating his cereal.  I wasn't sure how much he was paying attention to me, but I muttered aloud, "Hmmm.  Lunch for Eli.  How can I chop these monkey brains small enough to fit into his lunchbox?"  Without missing a beat, Eli deadpanned, "Don't forget the swamp water!"

 

My goofball, complete with antennae and a face painting of a snake... 

 

Sharing the pirate prison at Goofy Golf...

  

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The Adult Adult Week

One of my friends says that when you do things like painstakingly sorting through family tax breaks, being polite (and honest) when you get a traffic ticket, researching retirement funds, and holding your sick child all night long, you're being an adult adult.  You take a deep breath and persevere in doing the mature thing no matter how tired you are.  I just had a week like that.  Whew.

Here's one of those crazy Facebook memes that was just how I felt:

  

I had to be quite thick-skinned all week.  My seven-year book project got through the copyediting process and went to press on Monday.  I thought the tough part was over, but the lead editors descended upon it with final recommendations.  Those last changes were the toughest, yet I do trust their expertise and their desire to make the book stronger.  

Also this week, I fell quite behind on sleep and then got slammed by a condescending email.  This past year I took on a leadership role in a volunteer organization because they needed somebody to take the reins.  I feel I've done a good job and had few complaints until a rather relentless woman popped up several weeks ago.  She's never been active in the organization or indeed attended a single meeting, yet she feels sure she knows what it needs.  (Humph!)

The week became one of putting one foot in front of the other, trying hard to focus on being fair, kind, and openminded.  But, boy, did I feel raggedy.

When I woke up this morning, all I could think of was that I had to get through the day to reach the weekend.  Then there was magic...

 

Little Guy, rumpled from sleep but grinning from ear to ear, announced that he'd lost his second tooth!

  

Here's his letter to the Tooth Fairy tonight...

  

This morning Eli's class held a Mother's Day Tea.  If there is anything better than sitting wedged in a teeny kindergartener chair while your kiddo solemnly serves you tea, I really don't know what it could be.

 

And he made me a card.  He explained all about adding the rainbow and flowers because he knows I like nature and colors.  And the orange squares at the corners?  "Those are crackers just for you, Mama.  You like graham crackers, so I drew them on your card because I love you."

      

After school, Eli and I ran errands.  I introduced him to the joys of the car wash.  (We usually wash it at home or run it through a drive-through wash.)  He was delighted.  

     

  

About two seconds after I stowed my cell phone from taking the above picture, Eli turned around to ask me a question...without taking his hand off the sprayer trigger.  He got so flustered when he realized he was spraying me that he just stood there hosing me down.  We laughed so hard we couldn't breathe.  Exactly what the end of the week needed.

I had a lot of love and support from my guys this week, but also from my friends and the others in the volunteer organization.  It was an exhausting week, but I grew a lot.  Next week I may hide from my email account and take up wearing Groucho Marx glasses complete with nose and mustache.

   

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Gramps and Nana

 

My parents were lovely, warm people.  Watching them die was awful, but being without them has been a whole other challenge.  I was in my early twenties when I said goodbye, so there have been thousands of changes they never saw unfold and thousands of journeys big and small that they never shared.  They witnessed the first steps of my career path, but not the curves or successes.  They didn't get the chance to meet my husband or see me on my wedding day.  They never laid eyes on my child or held him in their arms.

I want my parents to still be a part of my world.  We have photos of them up in our house.  I cook the favorite recipes of my childhood so these dishes are also familiar and comforting to my son.  I sing to Eli the songs my parents sang to me.  I also tell him lots of stories about his maternal grandparents.  

I found, though, that I tripped over my words whenever I tried to explain to Eli his connection to these pictures, foods, songs, and stories.  It was up to me to help my child distinguish an invisible set of grandparents from my in-laws, the living grandparents he knows firsthand.  Yet when I added my maiden name at the end of "Grandpa" and "Grandma" for clarification, it just complicated things more. Those were the names I knew my paternal grandparents by.  My grandparents were important and beloved figures in my life.  I knew them longer than I knew my parents, and I want to share them with Eli as well.  Complicated.  I kept starting into a story only to digress and fumble: "I'm not talking about Granddad, your papa's dad, or my grandfather, but your grandpa that you didn't get to meet..."

Recently I decided that the verbal tangle was ridiculous.  Southern families usually give pet names to grandparents anyway, so I gave it some thought.  What nicknames would my parents have liked?  I told Eli, "From now on, my father is Gramps and my mother is Nana."  Eli nodded solemnly.  As I spoke, it didn't escape me that for first time in over two decades I used present tense language while discussing my parents.

The first time I told a story about Gramps and Nana, I got a little teary as I stopped to remind Eli about the nicknames.  "I know who they are," Eli said.  "They are my grandparents."  And then I got very teary.  It was the first time he seemed possessive towards them.  A connection grew stronger because a name, especially a warm nickname, removes a layer of distance and formality.  Death is a barrier enough for getting to know the generations before you.  Erasing a little bit of barrier felt like a gift to my child, to my parents, and to myself.

I feel sure Gramps and Nana would approve.

 

 

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Not long ago I was heading into my home office, eager to settle in to work after dropping my son off at school.  As I walked past Eli's bedroom, something white in the window caught my eye.  It was his sidekick, Pat the Bunny.

 

This is what flashed through my head...

  

 

 

 

 

 

I walked over and picked Pat up, gave him an appreciative squeeze.  
He makes a darn good play buddy, bad dream comforter, and sidekick.  Then I found myself squinting at him.  Although he appears in our bed every morning for snuggle time, supervises breakfast from mid-table, and is known to frequently whiz past riding in toy cars (or flung by the ears as a cheerful projectile), I hadn't looked at him closely in a while.  

Pat isn't actually white anymore.  Sort of gray, actually.  The last trip through the washing machine tied in a pillowcase has been a while, but it is more than that.  His velour is losing bits of fluff, whole parts of Pat's hide rubbed and cuddled away to nothing but mesh.

 

Aw.

Even his nose is missing fluff.

  

I stood there for a moment thinking about The Velveteen Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and Woody from Toy Story.  I thought about little boys grown up, their sidekicks dropped and forgotten.  

Pat has been a fixture in Eli's life (and thus mine) for a half dozen years.  In a half dozen more, my almost-teen son will surely have let Pat slip by the wayside.  That will be well and good, all part of the process.  But right now?  This moment in time?  Right now there are still guppy kisses and morning snuggles and footie pajamas and dragging Pat around by the ears.  Thank goodness.

Pardon me.  There's a still-small person I have to go pick up and squeeze just now...

   

  

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The Failed Seed

I recorded this conversation with Eli in my journal a few months back.  
The other day I was cleaning out his schoolwork box and thought I'd snap a picture to go with it...

  

Eli came home from school with a plastic petri dish.  Inside was a damp slice of sponge and a watermelon seed.  As he munched his snack, Eli explained, "Everybody got a plastic round thingie and a squishy thingie and a seed.  We watered 'em and put 'em in the window.  We waited a while.  Then the seeds sprouted.  Well, everybody's seed sprouted but mine."

"Oh, Buddy."

"Yeah.  I watered it just like I was supposed to and it was right in the window with everybody else's.  I did all the right things and it just didn't do anything."

"Oh, Buddy.  I'm sorry..."

"It just happens like that sometimes.  You do the right things and it just doesn't do what it is supposed to do," he repeated with a shrug.  "That's how it goes sometimes.  There will be other seeds."  Then he smiled and zoomed off to find his Legos.

I stood there for a moment, a little stunned.  There were all these things I'd been about to say, comforting words about how hard it is being the only one and about trying hard and about Life.  But sometimes a kindergartener does just fine all on their own.  I'm thinking I might just put that now-dried-up dish and seed on my desk as a nice reminder when I get a bad book review or my new blog post stats are in the drain.

That's how it goes sometimes.  There will be other seeds. 

   

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Ah, the first day of school.  Eli was excited and went off happily.  He's back in his familiar classroom with the teacher he knows well...but now he is one of the Big Kids.

 

I helped organize a parents' post-drop off coffee this morning.  There were many parents there just dropping their kids off for the very first time.  Some families came into the school with shining eyes, the kids bouncing ahead.  Other families scrambled in a little late with kids in tow, too busy at the moment to feel anything.  Still other families arrived looking like deer in the headlights, tears from both kids and parents before the morning was done.

Such a mix of emotions swirling around that school today!  And in my own heart too.  The first day of school is a milestone -- particularly a kindergarten year.  On top of it, Eli has his first loose tooth that's he's constantly wiggling.  I feel like I've been here and been present, that I've been appreciative of Eli's early years.  I knew they would go fast.  But I still wish time would slow down a little.  We had an absolutely lovely summer full of little adventures and friends and explorations.  I hate for it to draw to a close.  At the very same time, the thought that I could go home and clean up my office and get some quiet writing done filled me with glee.  Oh, parenting -- the push and the pull of the heart with a steady march of time going on regardless of it all.

 

  

 

 

 

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Gold

This morning was our last on Tybee Island.  I woke up in the soft blue light of dawn to see Eli sitting on the bunk next to me.  "Mama," he whispered.  
"I was quiet and I waited ever so long for you to wake up and snuggle with me."  I lifted the covers and he dove in, warm and soft.  He likes to pull his knees up and become a little boy ball pressed against my side.  (Couldn't help but remember the way he felt as a little boy ball inside.)  Up so close, he smelled like his familiar baby shampoo-ish self, yet with a whiff of coconut sunblock and thyme herbal bug spray left in his hair.  For a long time we listened to the coastal birds and insects singing at the edge of the marsh.

When the light outside started to turn gold, I whispered, "Hey, Buddy.  Let's walk to the beach."  He agreed, so we crept around the cabin getting ready and tiptoed past his sleeping Papa.

Slowly, slowly we walked east.  The sun started as a big orange ball and soon it stained the sky peachy.  Upon reaching the dunes, Eli wished aloud that he had chosen his bathing suit rather than clothes.  I looked around and hardly anybody was out -- just blurry figures far down the beach.  My child isn't quite in kindergarten yet.  "Do you want to skinny dip?" I asked.  When I explained what that meant, Eli ducked his head shyly, giggled, and said yes.  So I helped him shimmy out of his clothes and soon he was paddling around in the soft light and warm water.  He kicked up fountains and flung his arms up in excitement when a line of pelicans flew past, skimming low.  As I watched him play, I realized this is probably the last time either of us will feel okay with him skinny dipping on a public beach.  He's growing up.  Peachy-pink light on waves and seafoam and sand and little boy curves.  The deep mama hope that this boy will always feels as comfortable in his own skin as he does right now.  Then the light began to grow and the sunrise colors paled.  Some people arrived at our part of the beach with their coolers and their folding chairs and their debates on the best place to set up.  Wordlessly, Eli came to me and I got him back into his damp, sandy clothes.  We meandered back to where our suitcases were waiting to be packed.  But I won't forget this morning.  Ever.

 

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
--Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

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About once a week we venture to Trader Joe's for grocery shopping.  
The sidewalk outside the store is divided into sections -- some with pebbles and some without.  Ask any adult why and they will probably shrug and suggest it is for decorative purposes.  But when you are five you know this divides it into safe and unsafe zones.

    

Some days the pebbles are hot lava.  At other times they are quick sand or may harbor alligators.  At any rate, they must be avoided at all costs!

  

UNLESS, of course, there is a sticker left stuck on the sidewalk by some kid before you.  Trader Joe's gives out strips of stickers to kids and if somebody has dropped one, it becomes the Flip Button.  Press the Flip Button with your toe and the pebbly part of the sidewalk becomes the safe zone while the smoother part is now a wobbly platform that might have dragons below it.  Whew.  I'm so glad I have Eli to keep me straight on all this.  Without a guide, I might never make it back with the groceries!

   

Eli is also a fearless lobster hunter at Trader Joe's.  There are four plush lobsters hiding around the store.  If a kid finds one, they get a lollipop and then re-hide the lobster for the next kid.  (Eli's favorite re-hiding spots are with the watermelons or the bottled water.  " 'Cause lobsters like water, right, Mama?")

 

Some days the lobster expeditions are easier than others.  Sometimes with a sigh I find myself doing a third sweep of the store:  "Mama, I'll look low and you look high!"  

  

Someday grocery trips will go a lot faster without lava, the Flip Button, lobsters, lollipops, and fluttering strips of stickers.  But I'll really miss them.

  

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Strawberry Moon

The full moon in the month of June is called the "Strawberry Moon" or the "Honey Moon."  This year's Strawberry Moon occurred last night on Friday the 13th.  The moon phase, the weekday, and the date all have to line up for a Friday the 13th full moon to happen, so it is fairly rare.  The last one was in October of 2000.  The next one won't be until August of 2049 -- 35 years from now.

In the fall of 2000, I was in the first year of my new career as an archivist.  
I was living solo in Savannah, Georgia.  I had so hoped to be able to move back to my hometown after finishing my master's in Information Science, but with a tight job market it wasn't to be.  I recently had a life at school in Tennessee filled with exciting work and wonderful people, but those temporary years drew to a close whether I wanted them to or not.  In addition, my beloved grandfather had died a few months before and my grandmother wasn't doing well; she would live just a few more weeks.  I loved Savannah and my job, but it was one of those lonely periods in life where you find yourself fumbling with a new transition.  

Last night, the evening of Friday the 13th was marked by holding hands with my husband on the way to our favorite bookstore, strolling the streets of my hometown.  We saw a wonderful play and ran into several of my longtime friends.  Then we drove home under the full moon to thank my niece and sister-in-law for babysitting, to kiss our slumbering boy.  Later that night, I woke up in the bluish light of the full moon filtering through the curtains to find my arms wrapped around that small boy.  I don't remember him coming in.  I don't remember pulling him to me.  I just remember rising from sleep to find him snuggled up close with me, his smooth cheek against mine and his breathing soft in my ear.  I leaned back enough that I could watch him sleep a little bit in the light of that sweet, sweet Strawberry Moon.  And then the next thing I knew it was dawn.

I wonder what the next full Friday the 13th moon will bring.  Brian and I will be eighty years old and Eli will be forty.  It is hard to imagine.  But I hope we will all be as happy and have as rich of a community as we do now.

 

The day of Friday the 13th found us swimming in the lake with friends.  Perfect.

 

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