That’s my fortune.
The girlchild is already well into the “paper fortune teller”/ “cootie catcher” game playing era. (Here’s a pretty good set of directions how to DIY. Plus I like the book the website’s in support of.)
Next thing you know she’s going to be studying for the S.A.T., and just a blink after that, calling me up and telling me to find cheap tickets to Oslo to attend her Nobel ceremony. Whoosh, it all goes so fast.
Boy oracle, Los Angeles County Open Space, CA.
This is what happened: they found a dead field mouse whilst hiking, and buried it. (OK Mama buried it, managing to do so without touching it, no simple matter. Â Baba looked bravely on from a distance of 15-20 feet.) Â Then they gathered bouquets of lupine, mustard grass, and other wee wildflowers, Â laid them at the base of this tree, and held a ceremony for the spirit of the dead field mouse, wishing him safe travels on his journey to his next life. The lil’ peanut perched himself on a spot affording the best vantage point from which to watch the proceedings.
Some dog-walking passers-by looked upon the scene and exclaimed, “Oh, sage, please enlighten me!” or some such. Since oracles in days of yore used animal entrails (among other somewhat less grodie things) to aid in their divination, they mightn’t have been far off the mark. Â Except: as a tireless sidekick to his sister, and therefore the youngest in most any clump of kids, he is more often seeker than prophet.
Like the field mouse, I reckon that won’t last for ever.
She was following him around, interviewing him, videotaping him with my cameraphone. He was doing all manner of things with a hula hoop (other than hula-ing it). A random, blessed afternoon in which I was well aware how very very fortunate I am.
Son, almost four, Berkeley, CA.
One of the ways I’ve experienced photography, since the advent of children in my life, is that it freezes them (somewhere! somehow!) in a way that makes it possible to take their measure. Â Given that the way of youth is to be nearly constantly in motion, this is a special treat, inaccessible to us at all other times except during the stillness that settles over them in sleep (“Look how big s/he is! I had no idea!”, our voices joining a chorus of marveling parents the world ’round).
Sometimes, though, an image foretells as much about one of my kids’ futures as it does about their present. For a second I get an inkling that they’re growing older every minute, becoming somebody I might know, but don’t know. Yet.
And so it went, Halloween ’10: Hermoine (the bookish Harry Potter sidekick) at left, and the Fairy Godmother at right. Hermoine shown pre-tie, which went on moments later. And shown with books, which were jettisoned some moments after that. Â They were great as a prop for the costume contest held at our neighborhood’s annual Halloween Block Party, but too damn heavy to lug around when a person has to focus her energies on dragging a huge bag o’ candy behind her for a coupla blocks.
Cloak remained about as off-shoulder/dilapidated the whole time. She’s not one for haberdashery details.
The Fairy Godmother, on the other hand, is, and had a wonderful time, not least because he wore sensible shoes for walking, not the sparkly dress-up things he picked out at the store. Which were not made for walking.
In other news, yet again, the Halloween Candy Fairy has paid a visit to the household. What is the Halloween Candy Fairy, many of you might ask? I’m glad you asked. She/he visits the households of kids fortunate enough to have hauled in more candy than they can reasonably consume, even if meted out in small doses over a month. Â You pick out the candy you want (exact # of pieces can be negotiated; amounts vary across households), and leave the rest in your bag. In our household we leave the bags near the front door. In the morning the eager moppets hustle out of bed, dental health intact and incipient diabetes at bay, and rush to see what nifty giftie the Halloween Candy Fairy left them in their bags. The lore is that the Halloween Fairy takes your extra candy and gives it to other kids less fortunate.
Laugh all you like, but it’s a great way to eat most of your kid’s Halloween candy, guilt free.
Someone just got her first library card. Above, the haul, day one. I had to put some kind of cap on it, since we were walking home. Thank heavens for the double-decker stroller, is all I can say. Sixteen books we got here, ranging from Crocodiles and Alligators to Alligators and Crocodiles, plus gems on the sun, mud, sea otters, Passover, Chinese fables and fairy tales, the history of salt, birds, and my personal favorite title, Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution!
Meanwhile, little brother plots and plans.
Heh heh.
Voting open 'til Feb 19, 2012.
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Truer words were never splashed across a Band-Aid
Whenever he comes even close to skinning a knee — the surface of the skin isn’t even broken; maybe there’s just a wee abrasion — he calls out with a dramatic intensity on a par with graduates of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, “IS IT BLEEDING?!”
Don’t know when it will be that I stop keeping Band-Aids (the never-fail placebo) in my wallet. When that day comes, a major chapter of this parenthood will have come to a close. Of course there’ll be whole new ones to follow. Probably in which I turn around and apply the Band-Aid to myself. (“Is he even in this ZIP CODE?! This AREA CODE?! The frigging TIME ZONE!” Or, “Would it kill her to just text me back A SMILEY FACE EMOTICON SO I KNOW SHE STILL Â POSSESSES THUMBS AND EYEBALLS?!”)
That day will come. And I’ll be damn lucky to see it.
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