Nobody Rings Down the Curtain on a George M. Cohan Song!

 It started one afternoon near the end of summer, when we were at Mustard House. You came to me saying that you wanted to dress like an explorer. Did we have any costumes that would make you look like an explorer?

"Actually," I said. "We have Grandpa's fatigues." 

You were immediately curious. So we went to the hall closet and I pulled out my father's old fatigue shirt from when he was in Vietnam, with the Seabees. It is threadbare and raggedy, and has our last name - his, mine, and yours - on the left breast pocket. We put it on you, and you were transfixed. You wore it all day. First we played Seabees in the pocket garden, after I explained about Construction Battalion. Then you wanted to know if there were any movies about Seabees. We tried the one with John Wayne but it didn't really take. Vintage GI Joe, however, we a hit. We went to the Army Navy store to look for Seabees regalia. There wasn't much, but we found a patch. I explained that it was a patch just for Seabees who had been to Vietnam, like Grandpa, and that we could buy the patch but that not everyone likes remembering war, and so we should remember we are getting this past because we love and are proud of Grandpa, but he might have different feelings about it. You accepted this with great majesty. 

On the drive home, you asked for Seabees music. We listened to the Hymn of the Seabees (I think that's what it's called), but then Spotify came up with "Over There," from the George M. Cohan biopic "Yankee Doodle Dandy" from 1942. It was a banger! We have now been listening to it for weeks. We finally decided we should watch "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and you loved it. We also sent Grandpa pictures of you in his fatigues, and in his dress khakis.

My dad was tickled. "You know," he mused. "I probably still have my medals somewhere. Do you think C would like them?"

One thing that is remarkable to me about this past year, which has been difficult enough that I haven't written on this blog the entire time, is that you have finally started developing a close relationship with my father. Actually, with my whole side of the family. Last February I finally took you to Fort Worth to meet my favorite aunt - you were six years old and you had never met her, not once. When we pulled up at the house my cousin's husband set off a bottle rocket, and you were entranced. Then they gifted you a real honest-to-God cap gun. We hung out, we played with Legos, we went to the zoo, Grandpa drove up to be with us, and I realized in a real way that we had been so involved with your dad's family that I had allowed mine to fall by the wayside. 

One of the great sadnesses, for me, is that my mother was already not herself by the time you were born. You never got to experience her sly wit, her brilliance, the staggering breadth of her knowledge. Last night we were watching the Muppet Movie, and you couldn't believe that I knew the names of all the cameo stars, and what they were known for. "Orson Welles," I was explaining. "He was a famous movie director. He directed Citizen Kane." My minutiae, all my cultural cross-references, those are my mother's mind, working. And now, as we discover that you likely have dyslexia too, I am thinking about how much of my mother's mind is at work in you.

A couple of weekends ago you and I met up with Grandpa at Mustard House, which I am determined to keep for you come hell or high water. We went to Appleton Farms and explored the farm and the woods. You got to show my dad around, since it's your day camp, and you are the expert. We visited the angora bunnies, said hi to the goats, hiked through the autumn woods to find the tree branch forts you made with your friends in the summer. We kicked mushrooms. You and Dad stopped to count the rings on a fallen tree stump and discovered it was more than 150 years old. Then we went to Halloween on the Hill, and roamed through all their carved pumpkins as the night fell. It was magical. It wound up being even better than actual Halloween, which was marred by your getting a burn from a smoke machine, and us going home early from trick or treating to recover.

But the most special part of that trip was when Dad brought out a box that I had never seen before. I mean in my entire life, I had never seen this box, and did not know it existed. Inside it contains all of Dad's campaign ribbons, mounted on a card with explanations, in his handwriting, of what each of them mean. It also contains his medals, and the brass bars and buttons for his rank and his uniform. He brought them to give them to you. I watched as you both bent over the box with excitement, and he let you touch them and try things on. You and Dad also played piano together, with you demonstrating your new skills at scales. Your father would always ask my Dad not to play piano, when we were still together, and it would leave my Dad feeling at a loss, unsure what to do with himself, fundamentally uncomfortable whenever he visited our house. And it made me uncomfortable too. My Dad on the piano is the soundtrack of my entire childhood, my growing up. Now it can be part of the soundtrack of your childhood too. I treasure that, and frankly, it won't always be there. I want to treasure it now, while it's here. 

I know it's been hard for you to understand why your father and I aren't together anymore. No explanation can really suffice. And I know you grieve for our time as a threesome - I do too, sometimes. And you love us both, and miss the parent you aren't with, in your time in one place and then another. I am sorry for that, and I grieve with you. But at the same time, I look at what is open to you now - a relationship with my father. With your Fort Worth cousins. With your new baby cousin in D.C. And most importantly, being raised by a mother who isn't on edge, on eggshells, all the time. I'm sorry, Succotash, to ask you to undergo this. I truly am. But it is necessary. 

I am very proud of how you have weathered this change. We have held each other in our sadness. But we have looked ahead with excitement, too.

You can't get enough of Yankee Doodle Dandy. We listen in the car, and when I drop you off at school we cheer each other on by saying the line "Nobody rings down the curtain on a George M. Cohan song!" In part because you love to leap up and dance along with James Cagney, next weekend I am taking you to New York to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. I've never seen it, but I feel like this is the perfect moment. Christmas is coming, Christmas for you and me, and we can go pay our respects to George M. Cohan's statue in Times Square, and imagine everything that we want for our future, together.

Conversation before bed the other night

"Sometimes I don't feel like me," you said as we climbed into your castle loft bed together to snuggle and read books.

"You don't? What does feeling like you feel like?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm you, Mama!"

"I think I have a pretty good sense of who you are. But how you feel being you is probably different from what I think. What does it feel like, to be you?"

"When I close my eyes I see all kinds of pictures and things."

"Really! Me too."

"Really?"

"In fact, I'll tell you a secret. Whenever I am writing a book, all I'm doing is making a detailed picture in my mind and then writing down what I see."

"Maybe you can write down what I see?"

"All you have to do is learn how to write, and you can write your own stories yourself. It's fun!"

A Kindergartener

 Hello Succotash! You are at school right now, with a bright spiky backpack we got at Luna Luna in New York and a blanket in the shape of a shark for rest time and the stuffed armadillo that we got on a trip to Texas with you when you were five months old. We made the move to Baltimore almost three weeks ago, and so far I think it's going really well. Your dad and grandparents went down first while you and I lingered in Mustard House and went to farm camp (well, you went to farm camp, and I hurdled logistical logjams to get your playdates with your favorite friends and our favorite grownups before we left). Then you and I hopped on a plane and flew down. You had find your seat day, where we met your teachers and found your cubby and explored your classroom, and then you had three days of half days. Last week was your first full week, with rest time and lunch and everything. And this week you start the cool after school activities that we signed you up for - Little Chefs and Inventors. You have started making friends, including a sweet kid you met on the playground named Ernest, and Axel from school. 

You love your new room, and your own bathroom, and your bed shaped like a castle, with a slide. Many nights you have just slept all the way through in your bed, which is amazing. I feel like I can already tell that you are growing. Something in your turns of phrase sounds more kidlike. And the other night at dinner you didn't want to do the preschool brain quest trivia cards - because you are NOT a preschooler!

Also, I forgot to note that you are down one tooth! A few weeks before we left, you developed your first loose tooth. The tooth fairy was all set to preserve it in a little cute bottle with a stopper to put in the bourgeois display cabinet alongside your mother's baby teeth (not weird at all, I'm sure), but what should happen? One morning you woke up, and the tooth was gone! We searched the bed, we searched the floor, we looked on the stairs - nothing. Our current theory is that you swallowed it. You and I wrote a letter to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened, and happily she understood and left you a dollar anyway. (Side note - much debate in my extended family over the proper going rate for a lost tooth, with estimates ranging from a quarter to ten bucks). 

Your dad and I are beside ourselves with how much we love Gilman for you. Much as we loved Montessori for your growth as a person, and a friend, we are so excited to see what Gilman will do for your mind. You are turning into even more of a tinkerer. I brought your gear and water tube bathtub toys, and have enjoyed observing as you take them apart and then fit them back together, working on projects. You want to use your time in the inventor class to design a contraption that will lower a hat directly onto your head. I hope they let you do it.

You are still very tall, and very muscly, and yet share your parents' antipathy to sports. The other night we went to a pizzeria that has skee ball. There was another 5 yo boy next to you, who rolled a twenty after a lot of coaching and encouragement from me. You? You rolled a 290. I couldn't believe it. 

You are currently obsessed with the movie The Sandlot ("you're killing me, Smalls"). PopPop dreams that this means you might want to play baseball. Your dad and I think you just like movies about boys doing boy stuff without grownups around. But who knows? You are blooming and changing under our very eyes. And I have never loved another being as much as I love you. 

Five and a Half

Happy Spring, my Succotash! It's been a crazy few months, and I'm sorry I haven't been blogging about you as much as I wish. We are closing in on the last several weeks of Montessori, and I think you and I were both a little wistful at the Spring Tea this year. You were an impeccable host, taking down my tea order and bringing me a little plate of tasty sandwiches. Later we will make fairy bread, which is bread with butter on it and covered in a thick layer of sprinkles, so thick it almost turns into frosting. 

You are doing well at swimming, and continue to be hale and strong and also theatrical, obsessed with costumes. Last night we went to Maddie's and you wore a PFD, just because. You also brought a new book all about snakes. You are deep in a Greek Gods phase, and when you went to Farm Camp at Appleton for April vacation you made a fast friend named Asa, who is 6, and who is also obsessed with Greek myths. One night at bedtime not long ago you and I had a whispered conversation in which you confessed you were nervous about our move to Baltimore, that you would miss your friends and were worried you weren't going to make new ones. It's interesting to me, watching you prepare yourself for this big coming change. We are going to give you two birthday parties, one early one in August so you can invite all your Massachusetts friends, and one in October, your real birthday, when we can invite your new Kindergarten classmates.

Like you parents, you are something of a night owl and don't much like getting up in the morning. You are still being picky about food, subsisting almost entirely on chocolate kids protein shakes, buttered pasta, sunbutter and jelly sandwiches, and avocado maki (of course). You are excited for Camp Devereaux, though our summer is looking unusually travel intensive for us -  a week in Fire Island at your aunt's house, then later on a week and a half in the UK for my graduation (with your grandfather, God help us), and later you and I will go with Emily and Anne and their kids to Cabo San Lucas. Fortunately your last week before our move will be back at Farm Camp, which you love, and Asa will be there too. 

I'm also nervous about our move, for many reasons you aren't privy to, being a little boy. We have lately bought a second car, dubbed the Blue Oyster (in part because you were briefly obsessed with the Grim Reaper, making us play Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" on repeat and also your father tried showing you The Seventh Seal, which you didn't finish, but most five year olds don't make it that far into Bergman on their first try). I look at our summer schedule and my mind boggles. It seems shorter and faster than before. I am already stunned that at your next birthday, you will be turning six. 

The same age as Eloise.

Springtime

I have fallen down on my baby blog entries! I'm sorry Succotash. I fear I've spent more time parenting than chronicling. Right now you are at reading playgroup, as we figured out that Montessori method is not really connecting the dots for you. I am at a cloyingly feminine tea room, and I will pick you up in fifteen minutes.

News: you got into Gilman!!!! My huge project of the fall was a success! You also got into McDonogh and Boys Latin, and were invited to reapply to Park. I am so proud of you I could just about explode. We have plastered Gilman stickers all over the huge battery powered moon rover that your favorite uncle brought to Christmas, and which you enjoy driving to the fort and around the neighborhood. Your dad worries about the battery range, but I've been very impressed with your ability to navigate narrow passages on sidewalks, and even pull off a three point turn (albeit with some direction). I might even get your dad to agree to put one on the Red Menace. You are excited for your new big kid school, and though you had initially wanted to attend "Daddy's school," you came around when Daddy confessed to you that he had actually always wanted to go to Gilman. It's up the street from our new house, and they love exuberant boys there, just like you. Also, they're not fools - they bring in 30% of the class at Kindergarten, and they probably took one look at your tall and muscly self and someone thought "wide receiver." We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The football bridge. God help us.

More news: You can write your first and last name! We practiced a lot making valentines for your class (you still call them "valentimes"), and then one night you started writing them both in the fog on the shower door. 

Obsessions: yesterday you dug a blue fishnet out of the garden shed that you found abandoned on the beach last summer, greeted it like a long lost relative (there were kisses), brought it indoors and even took it into the shower with you. When I asked you what you loved most about the fishnet, you said that it could be anything as long as you used your imagination. Fishnet, jousting lance, sword, walking stick... the possibilities are endless. 

Other obsessions: Vikings. Lots of reading about Vikings, dressing up in a Viking cloak, Viking helmet, Viking shield, Viking axe (many of these Christmas presents from your indulgent aunt). I met a woman on a work trip to New York last week who, upon learning of your obsession, insisted on meeting me the following day with a miniature Viking someone had given her. You have named him Tiny Man (your dad pronounced it "Tinniman"), and he is presently attending reading class with you, with I hope not too disruptive results. 

You are excited for your own room in the new house, but still really prefer sleeping with us in the "big bed" to sleeping in "Charles bed" on the floor. You love snuggles, and drink them up to fall asleep and also adjust to being awake in the morning. I know I have to support your independence, but I just love snuggling you so much, it's hard to hold the line. Your dad is out of town this week, and I've been feeling hugely stressed due to a combination of my doctoral defense coming up next week, and other grownup things that are at times necessary but hard, so the temptation will be to put up only token resistance and fall asleep wrapped up in your gently sleeping arms. 

You still love Manatee and Baby Faff and the Paddington that we bought in Paddington Station on our trip to the UK last summer. 

You like to explain things by saying "So you see...." which your Montessori teacher thinks is hilarious.

Your best friends at school are still Penny (your fiancee), Dylan, the Boy Charlie, and Lily, but you also are partial to Holden and Alistair, who are younger. You're still friends with Paul from school last year, and with James up the street who also loves the olden times and dressing up. 

Overall, you are a fascinating growing person. I could not imagine loving any human being more than I love you.

Christmas is Coming

"What do you think Santa is doing *right now*?" This is a question you have asked me a couple of times, usually when we are getting ready for bed. We theorize that he is probably hard at work with all the elves finishing toys. 

You are very into Santa this year, and have big plans for us on Christmas eve. You want to decorate the house (we are having a little tree trimming party next week), you want lights, you want to make a gingerbread house. You have special Christmas jammies and sock and elf ears. 

Turns of Phrase

"It's a smooth as a thousand midnights," you said about something recently, though what you were describing hasn't lodged itself in my mind as much as your characterization of it has. 

Also, this morning, when I asked you if you were in the air next to your dad before you were born, as you have claimed to have been in the air next to me, you said "No, I was a shooting star, with a face."