Summer of Succotash

"Mama, can I be a writer too when I grow up? And at the end of every day, when I'm finished writing, I can come over to your house and tell you what book I wrote."

You said this to me as we walked from the Red Menace to your Pee Wee group at Gatchell's Playground this morning, where you are doing a week of day camp run by Parks and Rec. Today is tie dye day. You have grumbled after your first two days of playground camp, but it's only a half day long, and you get indulgent grandparent time after. 

It's been a busy start to the summer for us. After you finished Montessori in mid-June, we took you on your first ever trip overseas, to England for ten days.

We landed in London and stayed at a fancy place near Buckingham Palace, wherein you promptly developed norovirus and we spent a miserable 36 hours surfing on rivers of barf. "I hate England," you said, and we really couldn't blame you. We traded off lying with you in the room while you drifted in and out of sleep and watched Garfield on your travel tablet, while I had a couple of meetings and at one point your dad went to a museum. But! Our inauspicious beginning was soon shaken off.

First, we passed through Paddington Station and obtained a real Paddington Bear on our way to the train to take us to Hereford, just outside of Wales, where my high school friend lives with her family. We stayed at the Green Dragon Inn, which we think was very grand one hundred years ago, and which now is cooled by a lazy oscillating fan and open windows facing the street across from a karaoke bar. We roamed the streets and you enjoyed shouting "pigeons!" and chasing them with abandon and glee. The next day we met up with my friend and her two children for a day that was nothing short of magical. You and Edward both enjoy dressing up. Edward was 11, Imogen 9, and the three of you ran riot in the ruins of a castle in Wales, surrounded by a real moat choked with weeds and lily pads. We explored towers and threw pebbles down sinkholes and climbed crumbling staircases, and then we all stopped for a picnic. We obtained a costume of chainmail (the first in several costume elements acquired on our travels). Then we drove to a hedge maze. You and Imogen disappeared instantly, and I couldn't find you! I stopped by the observation platform to ask another mother if she might be able to see a small boy dressed in chain mail, as I was worried you would be scared being separated from me. HA. Instead you an Imogen solved the maze faster than the rest of us! I was pretty blown away. And THEN we took you to an arcade for the first time, where you discovered some kind of water gun zombie shooting game with your dad, and the pleasures of earning tickets, and Edward and Imogen even consented to ride the tiny spinning teacups with you. That night we adjourned home for pizza and the grownups talked while you introduced Imogen to Peter and Wendy. It was a truly marvelous day.

We also had fun in Lincoln, looking at churches and castles, and then we went on to Nottingham for the full Robin Hood experience. Nottingham castle was torn apart during the Reformation and rebuilt as a ducal estate, but that didn't stop them from having a wonderful Robin Hood exhibit, with interactive archery and stick fighting games, actors hypothesizing about the historical antecedents for the Robin Hood stories, and also a playground nestled in a shady glade. We obtained a Lincoln green Robin Hood tunic and matching hat with a real feather. And we visited Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem public house, which supposedly was a 12th century waystation for knights about to leave for the Crusades. We checked out several Robin Hood statues, chased pigeons in the market square, and read Robin Hood stories on a walking tour. We also stayed in a strange Gothic revival guesthouse on the University of Nottingham campus, also cooled by oscillating fans, with our own dining room downstairs for breakfast. We explored the woods behind the house, and pretended it was Sherwood forest. We didn't find Robin's last arrow, but we looked pretty hard. 

From Nottingham we went on to York (actually, I think we went on to Lincoln, and then York), where we walked castle walls, added a quiver to your Robin Hood costume, explored a mock Victorian streetscape, rode a carousel - your first time on a horse that moves! It was a big moment - and most importantly, went on a time machine (your words) back to the Viking era. This was at the Jorvik Viking Center, where we rode a Jurassic Park like tour ride through highly detailed, uncanny-valley-dwelling Viking animatronics. It was actually better than I expected, and I suspect this might prove to be one of your core memories (that and the zombie water guns, of course). By the time we reached York you had moved from "I love England" to "I'm going to live in England when I'm a teenager!" You and I played in a park while your dad visited another church, and then met us in a funny cafe inside a gatehouse on an ancient bridge. We stayed in a sprawling hotel by the train station, with a pool in the basement where you and I played with Muppet Babies. 

Then it was back on the train to London, where we had dinner with your dad's cousin Eren and his wife, and you and I went to bed early. We ticked off so many things from your "L is for London" book, including riding on a real double decker bus. Then a very long plane ride home where we were bumped to the snazzier class and you were given a free sack with sunglasses inside. 

Now we are settling back into summer in Marblehead, having survived a first week of Devereaux day camp, our July 4 party, and a long visit from Kett and Peter, where you and Peter mostly played together wonderfully but also drove each other slightly nuts. Such are friendships. It's exciting, watching you build these relationships on your own, really for the first time. We have finally reached the point of "you guys go play while we cook," and "hey guys! Dinner's ready!" During our party you and Peter and James up the street all dressed in 18th Century pirate regalia and ran riot with Nerf guns, including periodic bellowing raids delivered from the back porch. 

We haven't taken you sailing yet, as I've been on a varnishing tear and we've had to pull out the rotting plywood in the cuddy. But soon. I have a dissertation to write and you have day camp to attend. Today is tie dye day and I'm curious to see what you come home with, arms painted in stripes. You are growing, and changing, and a wonderful traveler.

"Mama, can we go to Paris next?" you asked. Yes, my Succotash. We can.

Adventure

Last Friday we picked you up from school and went on a road trip. You were excited to drive on the freeway, since we never get to go fast. Lately you've been thinking a lot about Spiderman, and so you are full of ideas for ways that the Red Menace (our name for our Toyota RAV 4, because we are hilarious) can morph into a superhero car, either by spouting wings, or driving straight up walls, etc. etc. We were on our way to Exeter, New Hampshire for the Exeter Lit fest, a small potatoes thing that my publicist put me up for, and which I normally would have done just myself in the afternoon without bothering to stay. But instead I got us a snazzy room in the Exeter Inn. It had a suite, and it had the biggest jetted bathtub you had ever seen. After we had dinner in the restaurant, you played in the tub for something like three hours. It was epic. 

The next day was trickier. You are generally a good traveler, but the weather didn't help - it's been cold and rainy for months now, as global warming has taken what used to be snow and turned it into dispiriting frigid rain. We went to an event at the library for kids as part of the lit fest, and your dad and I were joking that instead of the two children's authors just... you know... reading stories, they gave presentations on where their ideas come from, and how you get a children's book made. With Powerpoint. It was like being at a McKinsey deck presentation. "Now if you'll turn to page two in your packets, you will see that...." No, it wasn't that bad, but we did bail early and go find a playground. And then we found another playground. We romped through damp snow as a cold drizzle poured down gently upon us.

We had checked out of the inn already, so even when you started to lose it at the taqueria and were desperate for a nap there was nowhere to take you. You and your dad dropped me off at the town hall for my panel and then drove around while you snoozed. 

My panel - "New England in literature" - was tiresome and boring. Partway through, while the author to my right ranted about how too many new people are streaming into Maine, I saw you and your dad sneak in the door. You left almost immediately. It turns out you left because you were so upset that I didn't come down off the dais and run over and immediately give you a hug. Which, of course, is what I wanted to do. I would always rather hug you than sit on some dumb panel about New England literature. You were so upset, though, that you were still made at me even after the panel was over and we were together again. 

We dropped you at your grandparents apartment and then went to a fundraiser for Montserrat, where your Godlessfather Brian is the newly installed president. We had fun, chatting with people, we bought a cool photo at the auction, we had snacks, all was right with the world, and then we went and picked you up. 

I don't know exactly when I had the sinking realization that we had made a fatal error, but I believe it was on the drive from your grandparents back to our house. 

I realized that I had not seen Baby Faff since bedtime the night before. 

I didn't pack Baby Faff. You are too little to remember to check for things, for the most part, and so you hadn't packed Baby Faff either. Your dad had checked the whole suite, but not *in the bed.* Baby Faff tends to get pushed down under the covers. My heart sank. We got home and I immediately hid in the bathroom to call the inn. Have you found Baby Faff? No answer. I left a message. Then I sent an email. Please please please, help, we forgot Baby Faff! I looked at you, happily romping around upstairs, and realized I had to tell you that we had left Baby Faff. The trick is, Baby Faff is pretty small. He's easy to overlook. Some stuffies are large, they contain multitudes. Baby Faff is a small secondhand beanbag with a little tail and a charmingly lopsided face. With terror I realized that Baby Faff might never come home.

I started to cry. "Charles," I said, "I have to tell you something. I made a mistake."

Your face took on a brave cast, but also started to crumple. "This is why, Mama, we have to be careful with things that we love."

"You're right," I said. "I'm so sorry." We held each other, sobbing. When your Dad arrived upstairs he was baffled to find us both weeping as though someone had died.

Of course, someone had died. Not Baby Faff, though I do "make his voice come," as you put it, and you will often discuss your day and your concerns more freely with Baby Faff than you will with just me. I was really sobbing for your babyhood. Baby Faff was with us in Puerto Rico when you turned three, our first trip after lockdown, when we all finally got COVID. He was with us in New York. He went with you and me to Houston. Baby Faff was a handmedown who arrived in a box of other giraffe stuffies from the Vermillion kids, but something about him - his smallness, his softness, who knows what - made him more special even than his Mama Faff and Daddy Faff. Maybe it's because Baby Faff is so clearly you, the object on which you can project your own worries and concerns. Recently, while watching the Toy Story where Andy is doing off to college and gives his special toys away, you informed me that Baby Faff would go to college with you. 

You fell asleep and while you snored I frantically searched the internet for a simulacra of Baby Faff. I failed to identify his precise brand and make and model, or whatever the distinguishing characteristics of stuffies are. And anyway, you would have known the difference. There is only one Baby Faff. We slept that night with Manatee alone. 

The next morning you and I got up early, leaving your dad to sleep, and we went to the family room to watch Spiderman. Then I sneaked to the kitchen to make coffee and call the inn again.

And - heavens be praised! THEY HAD FOUND BABY FAFF. He was safe and sound at the front desk. What time would I like to go pick him up?

Two hours round trip later, during which I listened to five chapters of a now-forgotten John P. Marquand novel, I returned, Baby Faff in hand. I think I was more relieved than you were, though you did ask Baby Faff if he had made friends with the other stuffies in the lost and found. Then we all had a nap together, exhausted by so many emotional highs and lows. When you feel asleep, Baby Faff was in your left hand.

Today there is a solar eclipse, and it is also your half birthday. You are four and one half years old. There is so little I can control for you. So little I can really safeguard, or make happen. But at least this one time, with one little well-loved baby giraffe beanbag stuffie came home for you. Some faith in the world restored. 

Progress reports

Well, my sweet Succotash, I continue to worry about what to do to help you at school. Everyone at your Montessori means well, but I'm increasingly convinced that you need to be in a place with a smaller class size, and maybe with more structure. More than anything, I want you to be in a place where your uniqueness is celebrated. They couch everything in therapyspeak, about how you "continue to be supported" in this circumstance, and "continue to have opportunities for growth" in other places. I can't help but think you must sense that you're not fitting in to their schema. You seem happy and confident there, which I guess is good. I don't know. I think you are spending so much emotional energy trying to keep yourself together that you don't have any bandwidth left for learning. This is why you can memorize whole 150 page books verbatim, but can't reliably remember which color is yellow.

I'm signing you up for lacrosse, where an enthusiasm for sticks and for hopping up and down and for throwing really hard and even mowing some other kid down might actually get you praised instead of disciplined but in a way so mealymouthed everyone pretends it isn't discipline. 

I love you so much. I see your openmouthed smile and I want to shower you with kisses, and I wish I could just explain it to you. I wish I could be like, look, I know so much of this stuff is boring. I know most people aren't that interesting to talk to. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and pretend that everyone in your class is nice or worth knowing. That wasn't true in my class, it wasn't true for me. It's not even true for me now. But the fact of the matter is, you just have to cope. You can be angry. That's fine. But you can't hit people. You can need more space for yourself. But you can't get it by shoving. You have to use your brain, to secure your space. Your life will be more pleasant if you can find a way to make friends. Not with everybody. But with a few quality people. I wish I could just have a conversation with you about it. But you're only 4! 

Soon we are getting you a neuropsych evaluation. I suspect it is going to tell us that you have ADHD. I don't know what that will mean in terms of school or parenting or whatever. But I have it in my head that what you really need is a boys school. One that looks at your energy and vivacity and mile-a-minute allusions and ideas and imagination and says, yes! Yes! You are a wonderful bright kid who just needs some extra guardrails to help you cope! Also, go play lacrosse! Run some kids down like a locomotive! Do it!

I'm frustrated that your speech therapy seems to be making no difference whatsoever. Increasingly I feel that therapy is a scam. I don't know. How the heck do they measure outcomes for this anyway? 

Some funny things you've said lately: You confuse "Empire" and "vampire," so you say "Empires suck blood from ladies' necks." Which is kind of true, in a way. 

You're resisting learning the alphabet. I don't know what to do about that. 

Essentially, you are stubborn. Like your parents. You want to do what you want to do, and nothing else. Just like your parents. 

I'm worried your current school sees only your behavior, and not your potential. That's what it comes down to. I need to figure out how to get you somewhere that will see all your infinite, astonishing potential, and unleash it. 

Travel

 Needing a change of scene and craving friend time for both of us, I scooped you up and we flew to Houston for February break, just the two of us. I got you your very own suitcase, with a built in scooter, which was really genius. You loved it, quickly mastered steering, and could largely handle your belongings yourself. And when you were tired, as you sometimes were, you could ride and I could push you and my own suitcase with relative ease. It felt freeing. You are in that cusp moment, of still part baby in some respect - needing snuggles, still reaching for my breasts for a stealth grope or kiss out of strong somatic memory for when they were the source of all comfort, still liable to an occasional meltdown when too hungry or too tired. But then, who among us isn't? And you are also a great companion now. 

I packed our schedule with playdates for you, and it was actually marvelous. We went to the zoo. We exhausted ourselves but refused to miss riding the train. We tried napping but it was too exciting staying at my aunt's house. We saw Grandpa play a piano recital. We played in a backyard fort. We hit playgrounds. We went to friends' houses. At one of them you ran around wreaking havoc with a water gun while I gave a phone interview to some magazine in Florida, and then we all ended up back in the pool. Then you and two friends dressed in full pirate regalia and ate buttered pasta while watching Muppet Treasure Island and I sat outside on an elegantly lit patio and spoke with adults. We even went to a color museum with Grandpa, playing with huge balloons, throwing confetti, dancing with headphones on, and wading through the biggest ball pit I have ever seen in my life.

I was exhausted by the time we made it home, but I'm so glad we went. We got sun, and fresh air, and wore shorts, and went swimming, and ate different food (that part was a little hard on your tummy, poor guy), and had so much practice just being with other people.

Maybe it's my disillusionment about not getting into Shore. I am furious at them, still, weeks later. You are testing at benchmarks ready for Kindergarten a full year early, Succotash, with the exception of knowing your letters. We're going to have you checked for dyslexia, as I've noticed that to you lower case p, b, d, and q all look the same. I'm sympathetic - they look the same to me too. Don't worry, we'll sort this out. But I have to tell you, I have never felt a rage as pure and unadulterated as the fury that gripped me when I felt that an institution was standing between you and the opportunities I want for you. I have no wish to be a snowplow parent. I love watching you push yourself. Take little risks. You're liking climbing more, you are testing your independence. I'm excited for you. I felt like you grew up, a bit, as we traveled. Your brain drinking in different experiences, different places, different people.

It's all left me thinking more seriously about Baltimore. A city. A real one. With art, and culture, different people, different food. If we moved there, you wouldn't have to miss your dad two days a week. They have schools there that seem to understand boys, and I'm increasingly convinced that your boyness is part of why you haven't been well understood by a school yet. We could keep Marblehead, still have our summers here, still have sailing and summer camp and nothing says you couldn't go to boarding school for high school if that's what you wanted. There is a community of writers there. Universities. A bigger world. 

But it's a big change. 

I don't know. We'll see. 

Theories

You, last night: "Mama, you know where I was before I was born?"

Me: "Where?"

You: "I was air! See?" *points at picture of me in college* "There I am! I'm the air right next to you."

Coziness

 A new year! Yesterday we had a lazy day while you had a sniffle and your dad's arrival home was delayed by a huge snowstorm. We awoke from a long nap to discover the snow was finally here, and put on our snowsuits and went outside anyway even though it was getting dark. I pulled you on your sled around the garden, and then up and down the sidewalk, then we stopped to shovel and salt the sidewalk, and we decided we needed to go sledding, so I pulled you to the fort and we made snow angels and ran around and threw snowballs and played.

This morning your dad was finally home. "Daddy! You missed all the snow fun yesterday!" you said.

Lately, like your mother, you have been resisting getting out of bed before your due allotment of snuggles. You tend to wake up, ask for a chocolate milk, and then want to lie under the covers a little longer.

The other day you were snuggling with your dad, and he asked you if you were ready to get up.

"No," you said. "I still have some coziness to get out."

I love that idea. That you get so full of coziness, and nothing will relieve it but snuggles.

Tomorrow is your visit to Shore Country Day. I'm worried about how early in the morning we will have to get up, and am wondering about the ethical and parenting implications to using leftover Christmas Godiva chocolates as a bribe. We shall see.

Holidays

"Can I tell you the reason I had to come into your bed last night?"

"Sure."

"It's because kids have these things called realities."

"Realities?"

"Yes. They're like these tiny things that live inside your bones."

"Okay."

"They live mainly in the bones in your feet. And they're like eyes. I have one here." *points to the third eye spot on your forehead* "And last night my realities made me come in here."

I'm sorry I missed Thanksgiving notes for you, my Succotash. I am afraid that I had a book come out right before Thanksgiving, and then I was on the road for it, and my work ate my brain. For Thanksgiving this year we had kind of a big crowd actually - Ginger and Brian, Rhod and Vicki, Ama and PopPop, Miss Margie and Mister Bob, and us three. I put out your great grandmother's silver and all the old linens, and it was really quite beautiful, even after one of the leaves of the breakfast table collapsed and doused Vicki with red wine. 

Then for Christmas we had Grandpa and Aunt Rachel and her new boyfriend Dave staying over, and on Christmas day we added Ama and PopPop and Uncle Eli and Aunt Jenny - newly engaged at last! - and the volume of presents rained upon you was truly staggering. By far the biggest hit, however, was a George Washington costume, with a waistcoat and tricorn hat and bootlike leggings which you then wore for two days in a row. As I write this now one of the buttons from the waistcoat sits next to my laptop, waiting to be sewn back on. I got some pretty great pictures of you by the cannon at Fort Sewall. You also got some long knee socks which I think are technically meant for soccer, but which you have decided are "stockings" to wear with your clothes from "the olden times." 

Right now you and your dad are on your way outside to play with your new remote control car. Other items of note: you and I appeared in the first annual Old North "no rehearsal Christmas pageant," which was less chaotic than I was led to expect. You and I were sheep, and to be a sheep you determined to wear your rabbit costume, which still fits two years later. You actually informed me that you were a "Wererabbit," and that you were going to burn the meeting house down. Your father was very proud.

As we were getting ready for dinner on Christmas eve I had to put in you in a time out. Why? Because you were so insistent on being allowed to play with your great-grandmothers fragile silver coffee pot that you tried to throw a chair when I wouldn't let you. So, in some sense, though this was our first Christmas without my mother here, your penchant for delicate decorate art objects means she was here all the same. I offered you a silver sugar bowl or creamer instead, but you were adamant that it had to have a *lid.* I tried to explain, while you were in time out on the stairs, that it was so fragile even I am not allowed to play with it. You were mournful in your promises that you wouldn't break it, and I tried to assure you that I believed you, but that it was *so* fragile it would be hard not to break it on accident, and that we wanted to keep it safe for you to give to your children. As I said this, however, I heard the lunacy of it - we had to keep it safe so you could also tell your children they couldn't touch it? Is that a ridiculous position? Maybe it is. I don't know. I'm doing my best here. The salient point is, you really love sterling silver hollowware from 100 years ago. 

Today after church we walked the Murphys home - there was a lot of infighting among them and whining from you because you didn't have a hat and didn't want to go to the grocery store - but we survived and obtained buttermilk and black eyed peas for me to make for luck tomorrow. I haven't made black eyed peas in several years. I secretly worry it's this oversight that has contributed the horrors unfolding in the Middle East right now. So many horrid world events have unfolded in your short life span. I would give anything for 2024 to be a year of boredom and lack of news. That's my wish for us, and for the world at large - no news. Please, God, no news. 

You are getting more willful, but are also struggling with the tension between your growing desire for independence, and the anxiety that brings up in you. You will loudly announce you are not afraid of ANYTHING, but haven't been able to go longer than two hours sleeping in your big kid bed alone. You want to do things yourself, but haven't figured out that some things require practice before they can be mastered. You deal with your social anxiety by pretending to be someone else, which on some level I don't understand, though of course I do the same thing, but in my work, and also in my professional persona, which is related to, but different, from the person I really imagine myself to be. We are applying to Tower and Shore for you for next year, hoping a smaller class size and a more teacher-led curriculum will give you the calmness and structure that we suspect you really need to feed your voracious, observant, and introspective brain. We should know by February if either of those is happening. 

So. Here we are, on the last day of 2023. You are four years and almost three months old. I just had to step away for a moment to have a huge throwdown with you because you wanted someone to go to the bathroom with you and read a book. I'm in the unfortunate position of having to teach you that the world does not exist for your entertainment and convenience. You don't like it one bit. I don't either, frankly. But while I try to erect a scaffolding around you that makes you feel safe and secure, well loved and known in your community, I am also keenly aware that the world can be a cold and unfeeling place. And I want you to be safe and secure in yourself there, too. Because I love you more than anything in the world.