kiwords

There will be no coherent thought, no anecdote/thesis/wrapup. No, what you get today are
RANDOM MUSINGS.

Overheard this morning as the boys played cars on the car-track rug behind me:
Tre: Raphi! Look at what you did! (Snort of disgust) It’s all YOUR FAULT.
Raphi: (swaggering away) YES. It IS mah fawt.
He seemed so pleased to have received recognition for his work, at last.

Those who wonder why I’m not dating need to read this. If Nicole Kidman can’t get a date, how do you expect me to? I mean, really. I’m not QUITE as gorgeous as she. I mean, it’s close *snort*, I’m stone-cold-sexy and all *guffaw*, but still…

Every night when Tre goes to bed he reads for an hour or so before he actually goes to sleep. Being the compulsive little soul he is, he must come downstairs and tell me when he’s done reading. But he doesn’t like to just come downstairs like a normal person. He sneaks. He creeps on cat feet, hoping to startle me. I almost always hear him and whip around to see him tiptoeing up to me, like a secret agent. You know - if secret agents got really giddy when they thought they were going to surprise someone. Sometimes I just call out, “I know you’re there,” when I hear him on the stairs. And do you know WHY I always spoil his fun? Because he’s getting older and in the back of my head I’m always aware that he will be entering the dreaded teen years soon. So I want him to be a bit uneasy, to carry with him the sense that I’M ON TO HIM.
BUT sometimes he actually does sneak up without me hearing him, and then his joy and hilarity know no bounds. So I figure he’s going to be a hoodlum for sure. Worse still, a hoodlum with excellent sneaking skills. You know, if I think about it hard enough, I can find a way my every move as a parent has doooooooooomed my children to lives of desperation and loss. It’s a gift.

Only three weeks ago I was standing in my garden, praying, "Please please please, God, let it be a rainy summer. We need the rain. Please let it rain."
Today I stood at the window, peering out at my soggy garden that is completely overrun by weeds, praying, "God, I need some sun, please. If the sun doesn't come out soon I think I'll lose my mind. I NEED TO SEE THE SUN."
Honestly, I don't know why God ever listens to me. If I were Him, I'd respond to my prayers with a booming voice from the clouds, "TALK TO THE HAND, 'CAUSE THE DEITY AIN'T LISTENING." But there's one more excellent reason I'm not God.

Raphael likes to have me read books to him, and although I hate to admit this, it’s a trial for me. See, he interrupts the text to point out items of interest in the pictures. I’M not allowed to talk about the pictures, but I must STOP reading to allow HIM to talk about them.
“Dere’s a dog dere. An’ he’s funny!” I wait to be sure the picture commentary has finished, and, with my pause, earn an irritated, “MAMA! TAWK!” So I start to “talk” – that is, read - but he interrupts me again, to word his order more politely. He reaches up and pats my cheek and murmurs, “Mama? Yoo can tawk now.” I wait just a beat to be sure he’s done, and he repeats in a steely tone, “NOW.” So I start to read again, only to be interrupted by a commentary on the pictures. One book could last the rest of our lives, but I (ashamedly) resort to the “turn three pages at a time” trick. So he’s growing up with no sense of continuity, and will be unable to make decisions or plot his life’s direction in the least. He’ll end up a bitter, burned out old man when he’s 43, drinking his first beer at 10:32 AM and asking himself, “How did I get here?”
See? A gift.