The Police Officer, and Halloween

 For some months now you have determined that a tiny police officer (sometimes a baby police officer) lives in the small door to the under eave storage at the top of the stairs on the third floor. You like to open the door on our way downstairs and check on him. Sometimes he is still sleeping. Sometimes he is there, and awake, and we have a long conversation, and then you occasionally place him in the palm of my hand (he is very small). This morning you informed me that he wasn't there, because he was visiting his other family. I wondered aloud if he had one other family, or several? You said he had one. 

"Some families have sisters, and some families don't have sisters," you said as I carried you down the stairs.

"Do you have a sister?" I asked. Sometimes you call your babysitter in New York your sister, and lately you have taken to calling your baby sitter in Marblehead - formerly "my big kid with crocs" - your sister. 

"My sister is at my house far away," you said.

We have been sort of soft-playing the idea that we aren't going back to New York to you. Mainly I don't want you to worry about the toys that we couldn't fit in the car, since they will be coming here eventually. But there are toys and books we couldn't bring that you probably miss if I draw your attention to them. I think you like the apartment, and you like your room in the apartment, but I have floated the idea that soon we will turn the small guest room in Mustard House into your room. But one thing for certain - you sure don't miss that school. What a disaster. Last week you started back at Harborlight, and every dropoff was easier than the easiest dropoff we had in the city. Your teacher Miss Sue actually knows what she's doing and actually cares about you. Everyone at the school administration knows you, and said things like "welcome back, Charles!" We went to the family fall festival on Saturday, where you got to crunch in leaves and use a play bow and arrow and were leery of the bouncy house and adored the hay ride, and while I waited for you and your dad I ran into a great woman I knew from the yacht club baby pool and another woman I know from sailing and met a mother of a sweet older boy in your class. And you know what? Nobody was shut out of coming. No limited tickets. No freaking Instagram backdrop for posing. Just a mob of kids running around eating cotton candy and a bake sale run by actual parents and a tractor hay ride driven by an actual dad and a petting zoo with a tiny, soft baby goat. 

There are things I miss in New York. There are things I will regret. This is the first time that my interests have run in direct conflict with yours I think. But there was no question in my mind that as much as I adore my shelf at the NYPL and my long-dragging-on tenure in the Center for the Humanities, and as much as I love our weird apartment with its gorgeous views and its working fireplace, it is so much more important to me that you are happy. Tonight is Halloween, and we will trick or treat with some neighborhood friends, people you will grow up with, and now you will actually know all of them because you will be around. 

We will wear our matching rabbit costumes, and Daddy will be a carrot, and your uncle will come too, and nobody will be posing for pretend experiences. We will just be living a pretty charmed life.

Changes

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks. First, we tried to go to Puerto Rico for a wedding, and for our first vacation since 2018. You adored the hotel, in part because Ama and Poppop were there too, but also because there was a huge water slide and a big pool and we just played in there all day long. It was great! You finally turned three for real, and the whole restaurant sang to you at breakfast. Ama gave you toy knights to joust with and some lovely Magna tiles and everything was fun. You stayed with them playing while your dad and I went to the welcome drinks for the wedding, where we expressed pleasure to our friends that we had never caught Covid.

Then that night you awoke in the night as warm as a bread loaf, saying "Mama, I'm hot."

Guess what. We got Covid.

Unfreakingbelievable.

We didn't go to the wedding.

We flew home, perhaps unwisely, but unable to stomach being locked in a hotel room with only three Richard Scarry books and 24/7 merengue blasting by the pool. We masked up as well as we could, fled home, and holed up in our apartment, where at least there is good food delivery and we control what music is played, and at what volume. 

But bigger news still is that you have been absolutely miserable at school. We think you got off on the wrong foot, hitting a classmate a couple of times, even though we had warned them that this was an ongoing area needing work. Your teachers, we think, telegraph their disapproval or disappointment, because thereafter you were hysterical at dropoff. You don't like them. They, we think, don't like you. The school wasn't willing to move you to a different classroom. You are miserable, and we are miserable because you are miserable, and I am furious at them. Absolutely. Furious. They were the only reason we were still in the city anymore, really. And when you need extra exercise, they have you walk in a circle along a line taped to the floor. Like in prison.

So, guess what? We're quitting. This is your last week at your fancy New York City Montessori. On Saturday we will drive back to Marblehead. Next Tuesday you will go back to teachers you know and love at Harborlight. We will delay our application to Shore by a year. You will have consistency. And calm. And people who care about you. 

Goodbye, New York. 

Big change, huh. 

I want you to know I'm sorry, Succotash. You know, I do these things because I'm trying to get you the best start in life. But when all is said and done, if you aren't happy, and it's not just difficulty with change but actual, not-working-out unhappy, then yes, I will uproot absolutely everything. I will burn it all to the freaking ground if that is what is necessary. 

A Morning Conversation

 Scene: we are waking up. Daddy's asleep in the other room because he was snoring.

Me: Are you awake?

You: I want to be a knight! I need my helmet.

Me: I think it's in the dress up box in the other room. Do you want to go to the bathroom with me first?

You: No, knights don't go to the potty.

Me: They don't? Why not?

You: Because castles don't have potties.

Me: Interesting theory. So what did all the knights and ladies do in the olden times when they had to go to the bathroom?

You [thinks for a minute]: They went on the roof.

Me: On the roof?

You: Yes. They would climb onto the roof with ladders and pee and poop.

Me: Where would they pee and poop.

You: In the chimney.

Me: Fascinating. I never knew that.

Interesting side note - they did, in a way, pee and poop in the chimney, or at least in holes in walls. You are a clever knight, you are.

Remarks

 A miscellany of things you have recently said:

"Is it almost snow time?" anticipating winter

"There are pumpkins. Pumpkins mean it's almost Halloween time. At Halloween time, we go to neighbors houses and they give us candy." [Sometimes, for emphasis, you will jump up and down on an especially exciting word, in this case "candy!"]

"We're going to make cake!" [jumping up and down on cake] [What kind of cake, Charles, yellow cake or chocolate cake?] "YELLOW CAKE!" [jumping up and down]

This morning: "I'm going to get some wiggles out." [climbs on sofa, which is in trampoline mode] "I'm going to count. One, two, three!" [starts jumping with gusto]

"At Christmas time I am going to have friends over." [how many friends, Charles?] "SO MANY. Like Abby, and my neighborhood friends."

"Can you pretend your hand is a baby, and [X toy] is the mommy? Can you make the baby's voice come?"

[Looking at my new Birkenstocks that came in the mail] "Those look like they'll be good for up please." [Meaning, shoes I can wear and safely pick you up, unlike my "pointy shoes."]

[After my praising you for working hard not to touch the walking sticks at Aunt Rachel's house] "Yes. And I've really been wanting a walking stick." [Which is true, you have.]

"Can you sing lullaby now?" [after we have read half a dozen books at bedtime]

"It's dark time," remarking that it's night. [You are trying to sort out the difference between naptime and sleep time. Sometimes you wake up from nap thinking it's the morning, and insist you don't need to brush your teeth. It's interesting to see. I remember reading in my own baby book that I would ask if it was "Clear dark time or dark dark time," so this must be a developmental moment we all go through.]

"Mama, would you like a red berry?" [offers me raspberry. I accept.] "We're sharing!"

"I want to watch the Robin Hood with the foxes, not with the people." [Okay] "The people Robin Hood is too scary." [Okay] "It's okay for big kids, but I'm a little kid. I want to watch the Robin Hood with the foxes." [Okay]

"This is my coffee." [drinking water from the chimney sweep coffee mug]

[What is this magazine called, Charles?] "It's called, Dance!" [It's an issue of High Five, but the word on the cover was DANCE, and my mind was blown, as you'd never seen it before!]