Hey, hey, my monkeys are downstairs staring, with permission, at the television ("Jessie") so I can quick-punch some letter keys and make an update (actually, my heart is warmed by the clicking and clacking of Duple blocks I'm hearing along with the cheesy dialogue of Izzo's favorite show) ...
Fairly recently, Arthur saw a picture Izzo drew of a fairy and brought it to me: "Booful!" He requests "moosk" now, too, either coming to find me with the Beats pill in hand or while we're driving to or from Tatik's -- "moosk, Mommy, moosk!" And if I think of playing anything beside his four favorite "Mini Gaga" songs during those car rides, well, I'm going to hear something other than "moosk" form my boy, who might actually prove partial to the heavy stuff, the really, really loud stuff, the headbangy, moshpitty, let-out-a-monstery-growwwwwl stuff. That's all Daddy, whose son stops and smells the flowers, sniff-sniff... sniff. That's Tatik. And sometimes, life is just "trrble." Like when he drops a half-spoonful of his oatmeal between his bowl and his mouth, that, in Arthur's developing lexicon, is "trrble, Mommy, trrble."
Mrs. Lau/Arntson's class field-tripped to the Izzo-approved architectural masterpiece that is the Disney concert hall last Tuesday, which meant that day's regular library session was rescheduled for Thursday, which meant that Mrs. Arntson accompanied her class to storytime and check-out for the first time this year. And so, for the first time this year, I got to talk with Arntson -- who I've now talked with more than I've talked all year to Mrs. Lau, Izzo's front-of-the-week teacher.
Arntson beelined for me after the story ("Sky Tree") was through to, first, forgive me for Izzo forgetting her library book. Half of the class had forgotten, including the son of the room mom who'd sent out the email to remind everyone to bring back the books... and then Arntson asked how I was and thanked me for volunteering and said she wished she saw me more than her back-of-the-week schedule permits... and then she raved about Izzo's choral performance some weeks back, reminded me of how much Izzo'd shone that night and to told me how much fun she'd had watching Izzo light up like that. She asked if Izzo was doing more performing-type things, and when I told her she was doing the after-school-on-Monday-musical-theater class, she was effusive in her encouragement: This all would be so healthy for Izzo, build her confidence, and who knows, maybe this was her discovering her niche, because, really, she'd been "so alive on stage that night!"
"I like Mrs. Arntson, Izzo."
"Yeah, but Mrs. Lau is funnier."
"Funny!" Yeah, Arthur knows that one, too. When something spills, it's "trrble." When something breaks, ah, that's "funny!"
Thank you for the texts and emails and spoil-me-dearly gifts and Facebook-official love all week.
I decided to try something new: 37, y'all. And don't ask me how that happened, but it's cool. I feel good. Still not grown up, exactly, but I tried to warm up for such a thing by hosting a little dinner party in our living room-turned-dining space last Friday.
Uncle Kit aka Magic Chef delivered the finest damn vegan cuisine in culinary history (or something close to it) because I'm a dork and for my birthday what I wanted was to drink wine and eat well and enjoy conversation with Interesting People (who happened, in this concoction of characters, to mostly be veggie-only eaters from different compartments of my life.)
And I think it went well. At the end of the day, I felt, actually, kind of grown up.
And I hope that as she grows up that Izzo, who found the whole evening incredibly boring, might harbor some recollection of her Mommy loving to have smart people over to discuss smart-people stuff. So there was that, but there was also Arthur's mid-dinner visit to the "Thinking Step," a parenting ploy inspired by Abba's "Thinking Chair" that I know I've written about before only because Coach Santamaria wrote back suggesting we might turn the "Thinking Step" into a children's book. The premise: The world would be better if only everyone had a Thinking Step.
Truly, but as Izzo and I brainstormed on this for a while, we failed to figure out a way to tell it without it being overly heavy or macabre within the pages of a picture book -- the jails wouldn't be so full if there were more Thinking Steps? Wars would be avoided? Drunk-driving incidents?
But bless little Arthur and his punchy fist. A relatively rare sock to his sister put him on his seat, with an audience, to "Think." And he knows the deal (how cute he is), so he sat and he nodded vigorously to indicate he was, indeed, "Thinking," and that, yes, he'd "Thought about it," and that, no, he didn't "Think" he'd do that again, and, oh yeah, he "Thought" he was ready to get up and be nice and say sorry to his sister. Everyone tried and failed at not laughing that night, and then four days later, when a big appliance delivery got botched for one of my guests, and her husband uncharacteristically blew his top, well, he caught himself. And here's how:
"He said all he could do was thinking of Arthur sitting on the Thinking Step," was how I heard the story the next day. "And how he just needed to find a Thinking Step, get his bearings, calm down and everything would be fine. So that's what he did. He thought of Arthur on the Thinking Step."
I think we have a start. And another thing to write.
