New Year

You are upstairs with your dad watching the Disney Robin Hood movie, "the foxes one, not the people one, the people one is for older kids." We have been on a quest for movies with knights in them for you, and tried A Knight's Tale ("I think this one is for older kids") and The Princess Bride a couple of times ("too scary!"). Last night we did Ivanhoe, which as far as we can tell was a success, though in was a bit surreal having a forbidden exotic Jewess love subplot lying in wait in an 11th century English knight movie, with Robin Hood and King Richard and a ton of arrows and some really solid swordfighting scenes, to say nothing of jousting.

"There's too much talking, I want to see the joust!" you said. Reasonable. You also had to wear you knight costume, which consists of hauberk, cape, sash, helmet, sword, and shield made from an Amazon box. Also your "knight pants," which are sweatpants Ama found somewhere that for whatever reason have a shield on them.

You have been a little under the weather this week, though we can't figure out what's up. You are COVID negative, but have no appetite and are very tried, but insist that you feel okay. Tonight something hit you the wrong way and I unlocked a motherhood level by having you spit up at the dining table at Maddie's into my cupped hands, which I quickly secreted away in a paper towel. Fortunately we had an extra shirt.

"Look at it this way," your dad said as we wheeled you home in your red carriage. "That's not the first time someone has barfed at that table at Maddie's."

True.

Earlier this afternoon we made a snowman together, which was charming and idyllic. Your talking has gotten so much better that at Christmastime Ginger and Brian exclaimed over how much progress you must be making in speech therapy, but you haven't actually begun speech therapy. Nor will you, at this rate, given that they have no placement available for you. They keep wanting us to do interminable intakes and meetings and so far you have received zero services of any kind, despite it having been three months. All of which underscores my suspicion that early intervention is largely a scam designed to bilk insurance companies, and any advances can be explained away by growing. But I am a curmudgeon, Succotash. You know this already.

What else? We had Will and Irina and Clara come for Christmas, and it was largely a success. Clara, who is almost six, enjoyed setting up treasure hunts for you, which was adorable to see as we hunted around the house for a driedel shaped box filled with chocolates which she had hidden in some folds of the Christmas tree skirt. She had a slightly rough time Christmas morning, under the impression that you had received more presents than she did. Oh, well. I can't control if kindly neighbors wish to give you presents. So it goes.

We have started going to Old North on Sundays, which you like because of the music, and because of the lemonade and snacks afterwards.

Some terms of art: "yogurt milk" for the little yogurts you now enjoy drinking, "sticky drink" for apple cider. We are trying to wean, and when I say "we" I mean "me," because you are still very committed to nursing. "I love nursing," you will say with a wistful sigh. We've made some progress stopping nursing at night, but honestly, you're closing in on 3 1/2 and I don't want to scar you for life by carrying on so long you remember it.

Clara was also a reluctant weaner who nursed well into her third year. I tried to introduce this as a point of common interest for you two to discuss. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "I'm still kind of obsessed with my mom's breasts." So, maybe it's too late? Oh well. You do excitedly cry "Boobs! I want to nurse on them!" when I get undressed for the shower. Guessing the ship has sailed.

After Christmas we went to Houston to see my parents, and it was a really lovely visit. I got some nice footage of you handing Nana Christmas presents, and playing piano with Grandpa, and pretending to conduct Grandpa like in An American in Paris. You are largely unaware of this, but in the past week or two my mom has suffered a severe setback, in part because of her and Dad finally getting COVID, and maybe because of Paxlovid interfering with all her Alzheimer's meds. I've been very on edge for a couple of weeks, under pressure at work (three book contracts, not enough feedback, and not being paid on time), and under pressure to help my mother, for whom I can do nothing meaningful beyond traveling to see her, prattling to her on the telephone about you, and sending her a walker from Amazon. Between that and weaning, I haven't been the mother I want to be to you. For that I am sorry. I'm trying to do better. It's hard going, midlife. I'm glad it's a good long time before you are there.

Tomorrow you and I are going to Shore Country Day for a shadow visit. We applied for you before we bailed on New York after the cluster that was the beginning of the school year at Flatiron. We'll find out soon enough if you get in. Initially we'd planned for you to do another year at Harborlight, but now it seems that while you are growing socially by leaps and bounds, you aren't actually learning anything. You know, like letters, or numbers. You can't tell the difference between yellow and green. I guess we could be working harder on that stuff at home, but I think I assumed that you were, you know... going to school? 

Anyhoo. We'll see what happens. Presumably by the time you read this, should that time ever come, you will have sorted out that yellow and green are different. Or maybe they aren't different, and you have no truck with arbitrary and culturally-determined distinctions? You already reject the artificial choices that all the parenting books say we should offer to give you a sense of agency and authority. "Do you want your horserider shirt with the hood, or a bowtie shirt?" I'll ask you. "No shirt!" you will say with an impish grin, a grin that tells me that you know you have to wear a shirt, but the choice I've just offered is meaningless. I know it is, my smart boy. I know it is.