Soapbox

I like to watch them
from where I wait in my car
as they climb off the school bus ahead of me,
hopping down that last step
book bag on one shoulder,
the jacket their mother insisted they take
but probably knew they wouldn’t wear
trailing behind them through the leaves.
The little ones bounce and hoot and dance
and dash over to their mothers waiting at the corner.
And whether the child is boisterous or sulky,
whether she is pushing a stroller, talking on her phone
or grabbing for the dragging jacket
the mother always reaches out and touches the child:
a hand on the shoulder or top of the head,
a playful swat to the backside as they run past-
but she always touches, reclaims her child.
You are mine.
We were separate, but  now you have returned to me
and we are connected once again.
I count  you as my own,
under my wing once more

I remember those days, that feeling,
the tiny, secret relief that once again
the world had taken away- and then returned
my most precious possession,
unharmed.
My children still come home from time to time,
pulling up in their car,
dumping bags and shedding shoes near the front door
sometimes still dragging their jackets
And I still reach out to touch them as they return
because I know now that they are changed,
and sometimes harmed in ways I cannot control
during their time away from me.

But this is the way of life.
 A thousand times it takes your child away
and returns them to you different-
wiser, quieter, sometimes sadder,
less prone to bounce and dance,
carrying burdens far larger than a backpack full of books and homework.
Still, you reclaim them,
because always, they are yours.

    I think the moral of the story is that no good can come of asking a woman to cook.

    I don't cook much these days for a variety of reasons: among them are that I'm lazy, no two people in my family seem to like the same foods any more and I never was a very good cook anyway. But I feel guilty about that, also for a variety of reasons: the added expense of eating out, the questionable nutrition and all those commercials about how your kids will flunk school and end up on drugs if you don't eat dinner together at the table.

    So at the last minute I decided to cook a little something Thursday night. After the meal I was cleaning up the kitchen (oh yeah, that's another reason I don't like to cook) and grabbed a few utensils that I didn't want to put in the dishwasher: two wooden spoons and the knife I had chopped broccoli with. None of them were particularly dirty, so I held them under running water and gave them a quick once-over with the little hand scrubby gizmo.
    A little too quick, and of course the next thing I know I've flung the things into the sink and grabbed a dishtowel, shouting "Ted! Ted! Oh s**t, I cut myself!" Of course it was one of those super sharp ninja-chef knives too, so as I squeezed, hard,  I was relieved to feel that my thumb was, at least, still attached to my hand.

   Ted, who was in the process of changing out of his work clothes, ran out into the hall.
    "How bad is it? DO you think you need to go to the Emergency Room?"
    "I don't know- I"m afraid to look yet!"
     "Well, can it wait until I get some pants on?"  I carefully wiggled the end of the thumb a bit and, deciding that all major ligaments must be intact, nodded.
He hurried back into the bedroom just as Steve's door flew open and he ran into the hall.
    "I have pants!!" he announced. "What would you like me to do?"
I sent him to get bandages and antibiotic ointment and Ted, now fully dressed, led me back to the sink and persuaded me to take off the dishcloth and let him take a look at the damage.

     I held my thumb over the sink and surveyed the wound. A decent sized chunk of skin and flesh looked to have been turned into to a flap.
     "Huh- it's really not bleeding much…" I murmured.
      ….3…2….1…. ghhhussshhhhh!

     After some discussion and wincing observation it was decided not to go to the hospital: as long as I kept squeezing, it really wasn't bleeding that badly. We washed it, wrapped it in gauze and I wrapped a cold pack around it and lay down to watch television.

   "Ted, I"m wounded" I pointed out after a while. "I really need some medicinal chocolate, and I don't think there's any in the house."
   "You have a son, and he has a car" he observed.
    And pants I thought, but still felt loath to send him on an M&M's run at 9 PM just because I was stupid enough to cut my thumb. At the next commercial break I went downstairs and rooted around in the freezer. A minute later I was back.
    "Never under-estimate the ability of an unhappy woman to find chocolate!" I shouted triumphantly and tossed him a mini Twix ice cream bar, one of the last 2 in the house. "Chocolate, and ice cream, and cookie-   in a 90 calorie package!" I gloated.

     I wasn't sure how work would go the next day with my left thumb not exactly opposable, but when I got up and peeled off the bandages, it didn't look too gruesome. I padded and wrapped it up well, to both cushion it and keep it from bending too much and perhaps breaking open again.
   By this time Ted had gone to work and I realized that I was going to have to wear slip-on shoes, because buckles and laces just were not happening with one monster unbendable thumb. (Zippers, by the way- tough with the right hand when the fly opens to the left)
   I got in the car and headed to work. The first sunglasses I came across in the van were the ones with the cute bright red frames that I got for $4 at the thrift store, but (probably because I got them for $4 at the thrift store) they sit kind of crooked on my face. The car was cold but I could only get my fingers partway in my left glove since gloving my thumb was out of the question. So I pulled up to the window at Tim Hortons, smiled at the women through my crooked red glasses and reached for my cup of coffee with my half-on glove with the flappy fingers and giant white thumb sticking up. She just looked at my hand, and looked at the cup. I hitched around and reached out with both hands for the cup.
    "I have grasping issues this morning" I said.
     "Uh…. huh…" she said.

    All things considered, I was very lucky. I was really careless and that knife was really sharp. If it had hit at a slightly different angle and bitten deep instead of sliding mostly under skin, I would have had a lot worse problems than just trying to tie my shoes. I made it through the day without banging it and seeig stars too many times, and was even somewhat productive. On the way home I thought about how sharp the blade is and remembered the way it felt when it sliced my flesh, and honestly I broke out in a cold sweat.

    So hopefully I have learned my lesson: respect the knives, and call out for pizza.

It comes bubbling forth-
not effervescent and bright, like soda
but rich and hearty, with substance-
that belly-laugh of a baby.

He leans into her stroller,
sweaty, tousled head close to hers,
makes a silly face and growls for her a second time.
She rewards him once again with that amazing laugh.
Now he laughs too, delighted with his new-found ability
to elicit this big response from such a small person.
He looks at me for approval, his blue eyes merry
and, infected, I laugh too,
with joy at the pleasure they find in each other.

And so we make our somewhat awkward way through the store-
growl, chuckle, growl, chuckle…giggle giggle.
We earn a few odd looks
but most people smile- a reflexive human response
to the sound of a laughing baby.

Small children don't laugh sardonically, or at someone else's expense
they only can laugh from joy.
What an amazing thing, that such a new person
who only recently learned not to poke herself in the eye with her own fingers
already knows such joy.
So we treasure that sound, because it means that
whatever problems there are in the world,
right here, in this small moment,  life is good.

After a few minutes' distraction, he  remembers, growls again,
and right on cue that rich laughter pours forth
like lovely chicken soup,
warm and nourishing
and I have to wipe my eyes
because the moment is keen as glass.

Friends, siblings, future companions on the family journey
through the good stuff and all the bad that awaits us-
I hope they retain, somewhere in their souls,
a memory of this time
when they were each others’ favorite plaything.
I don’t know what the future holds,
but for now, there is joy enough,
love enough to brighten the whole world
in the belly laugh of my happy baby.

So I've got this kid… who just came back from a three month stint in the wilds of Texas, fighting invasive species. Several times a week he posted photographs on Facebook of his adventures: some plants, and birds, insects and reptiles. Yes, his mother was definitely of two minds over his photos of venomous snakes they chased through the brush and alligators that swam by, but I know he is in his element then.

Right before he got back the local metroparks put out another edition of their park magazine, which included a challenge to find the top 10 reptiles which can be seen at the parks. I kept it and set it out for Steve to read the next morning, since I thought he might be interested.

When I got back from work that afternoon I asked him if he had seen it.

   "Oh, yes, as a matter of fact. And… well, I found a mistake."
    "You did?" (Why am I not surprised? )
    "Sure. It says….. here, that there are 3 species of venomous snakes in Ohio, but of course, there are 10."
     "Ten? Really?"
Yes, really, and he proceeded to name all of them.  I looked- it was a naturalist at one of the parks who wrote that story. Huh. They'd do better to hire my kid than this clown.

Later he was in the yard, helping me install a new compost box. As we dug through the layers, encountering centipedes and earthworms, I observed that at least we didn't have to worry about scorpions or snakes or lizards crawling out at us, as he would have a week ago.
      "Mom" he admonished, "That was the best part of Texas!"

    Oh right. Welcome back, son.

So I've got this dog, and I'm trying to decide- how much do I love baby spinach and fresh tomatoes?

Tucker doesn't get walked enough. I admit that. I'm sure Caesar Milan would say to just walk him (and myself) 7 or 8 miles a day and all my problems would be moot. Hah! I get him out for 20 minute walk or so (depending on weather) and frankly, beyond that, that's what I have a yard for! He runs the fence-line when dogs go past, we play fetch and he just wanders and sniffs. That was enough for Boomer.

If an idle brain is the devil's playground, a smart dog is surely demon-possessed, and Tucker proves that nearly every day. He's still technically a puppy and so of course he digs- actually mostly he scrapes little trenches and drops his tennis balls in them, which is not big deal to me. It's just dirt and can be scraped back in. I just have to be careful not to twist an ankle when walking across the yard.

He loves to chew plastic recyclables and will steal them from the bin when the door is open and dash outside with them and tear them up under his favorite tree. Socks from an unwatched laundry basket and unattended shoes will also be spirited away with great glee.

Friday I walked out on the deck and thought, Wait- what's wrong with this picture?… The large plastic pot that I plant basil in every year (the bunnies eat it if it's down in the yard) was gone. Tucker had dragged it- full- off the deck, then dumped it out a few feet away, then tore the pot into pieces. Yum!  (Bear in mind, the house and yard are full of dog toys, which apparently are inferior to the human variety.) 

OK, how much do I want fresh basil all summer?( A lot)  I could buy a new pot and put it up on the picnic table. It would look a little odd but we don't all sit at the table very often. I worry, though- will it just provide him with the incentive to learn how to climb on the chairs to get to it? Or maybe he'll just chew the chairs- they are heavy plastic, after all.

He also likes to chew sticks (perhaps he's part beaver) and will drag apart firewood stacks and brush piles left from pruning. Last week, among the sticks scattered here and there I found one of the bamboo poles from my vegetable garden that I used to let the beans climb. I had taken them down for the winter and laid them right by the fence, so I thought he had probably teased one out through the fence.

So,when I turned the soil in the bed the other day, I moved the poles away from the fence to protect them from him. 2 days ago I found 2 more poles out in the yard, and a distinct bowing to one part of the fence proved he had just jumped over and dragged them out.
Try to keep my toys away from me, will ya, lady? Ha!

Well crap. My fencing is only three feet high, to make it easy for me to step in and out, but the corner posts are taller, so Ted suggested I tie string around the garden just above the top of the fence and string empty coke cans all along it, which will clatter and clank if he hits them. He's kind of skittish of weird noises, so I thought this might do the trick.

My first clue that this problem would not be solved so cheaply or easily came yesterday when I was attaching the twine and Tucker was chewing happily the little tag bits trailing from the knots on the corner poles. He watched with great fascination as I strung the cans, so I wacked them with a stick so they'd make a noise and told him to "leave it". Then I got the bottle of bitter Lime spray and doused the cans (and the knots) with it, just to be safe.

This morning I looked out and sure enough- the cans have already been chewed down and dragged around the yard like lovely, musical toys. Apparently bitter Lime does not taste as bad as twine tastes good. Score canine 1, human 0.

I can go buy new, taller fencing and spend probably an entire day replacing what I have (while Tucker  jumps in and out to see what I"m doing and steals a few tools to see what they taste like, no doubt) but then I have to either fashion some sort of gate or do the pole-vault with my hoe to get in the garden myself. And I'm just not as limber as I used to be. Hmmm… how much do I want my veggies this year?

I could just abandon the garden until next year, when hopefully Tucker will be a better doggy citizen and stick to only jumping in the strawberry bed and eating all my berries, as Boomer used to do. What do you think the odds are of that, though?

Yeah, I should probably just go by 4-foot fencing. Or maybe 5…