Like Christmas, only mushier

The boy sits. Quiet. Thoughtful. Pen poised in mid air. He is so intent on his purpose that he doesn't even notice me standing just beyond the kitchen door, silently studying him. He hasn't even taken off his coat, so eager was he coming in from the store to catch the thoughts he has stored up in himself all week as he bugged me to death to go Christmas card shopping.

His eyes and red hair flashed in the light of the single bulb fixture above him. Fuzzy shadows stretch across the rest of the darkened kitchen. On the table in front of him, the newly purchased card. Beside it, the oversized chocolate bar. So young and already he knows the way to a woman's heart. Monroe had it so wrong, but Hershey knew.

Finally he puts pen to paper. I silently slide in to look over his shoulder to sneak a peek at what may slip through the heart deep below the still waters of red faced grins, the only reaction we have ever gotten when the subject of the little blond girl comes up. What will he say?

In middle school penmanship it reads, "Merry Christmas. Sorry so early."

Ok. So not exactly Shakespeare. Yet. Perhaps someday I may play a father version of Cirano for him.

In the meantime, he sneaks the present into her back-pack unnoticed the next day. When finally discovered, he reports that it elicited the proper squeaks of joy that he had hoped it would.

Mission accomplished.

The fun is in the Cam---it's in there. . .

The boys are a bit under the weather, Lemur and Bear.

Apparently there’s something going around rampant. Two boys from the carpool are sick as well as two of the pastor’s kids that my boys run around with. So I’m pounding the vitamin C and the echinacea.

I came home last night and no sooner had a walked in the door than Bear got sick in a bucket. Whenever our kids have a tummy bug they get assigned a stainless steel pot from old cookware to carry around all the time. Keep it off the carpet, that’s our motto. Or at least our ideal plan, which we try to stick to as best as events allow. So, as the wife went out the door, finally able to do much needed grocery shopping, I walked around emptying buckets and compulsively spraying bathroom surfaces with Clorox and washing my hands every two minutes.

The mom had the boys on their blankets where they languished watching a “making of the Grinch” special. I’m sure that watching my two sick boys while images from that annual special flashed in the periphery of my vision will taint that show for me for all time, but these are the things of which memories are made.

Eventually, the little Bear got up off the floor and wandered to his room, dad trotting after him in a panic, carrying his bucket. But he wasn’t bolting to the bathroom to get sick again, like I thought. He had just had enough, and so I watched as he walked to his bedroom and tucked himself in bed. I pulled his covers up, put the bucket beside him and covered the floor beside the bed with other blankets. I went back into the living room to get his pillow, and by the time I was back to put it under his head, he was asleep.

Lemur didn’t stay awake for much longer, but while he did he quietly watched a PBS program on ants and mosquitoes in the Amazon during flood season. I was switching channels and he had me stop on that.

When both boys were finally tucked snug in their beds, I got down to the real business of the evening. Installing the webcam that all the employees at where I work had received as a holiday gift! It was very nice. Logitech Communicator SX.

I got it working with some shareware patches because they’re made for PC (silly Logitech, get with it---cross platform isn’t brain surgery). And as I pulled up the functioning camera window in both iChat (which links to AOL’s Instant Messenger) and Skype I realized. . .I have no one to talk to.

Sigh. I’m not home enough to cultivate any chat friends, especially ones with webcams. The bloggosphere's time shifted conversations work much better for me, I just wasn't prepared for the realtime stuff. When I typed in a search for webcam meet up sites, I did get a lot of links, but the ones that came up are not stuff that I’m into (if you know what I mean).

After Kitten got home from performing in an evening of student directed scenes at school (that I couldn’t attend because she didn’t tell me in time to get the evening off---sigh again), I shut down and went to bed.

Our friends in Iowa (that came down for my daughter’s birthday and took the photos of her party) do have a webcam and have wanted us to get one for some time. We even made a Christmas gift selection via their webcam. The Mr. brought in Godzilla plushies from his comic book shop and showed them to us on the cam so we could pick the one we wanted to buy for Bear. That would have to qualify as one of the most unique purchasing experiences to date. The funny thing is that they had wanted us to get one so bad, that they had bought us one which they were going to surprise us with for Christmas. My wife remarked to them on chat the other day that I would be bringing one home . The response came back, “oh no”.

So anyway, our destiny to have a webcam is now fulfilled, and the wife is home right now on it with the Mrs. in Iowa. Did you get that? She home playing with a new computer toy that I’m not able to use yet.

There’s a switch for ya.

Update: Apparently the Bear thinks this is the greatest thing he's ever seen. He was waking by the computer as mom was on and noticed his own face. Giggles and goofy expressions followed. And the Lemur is getting into the act too. I guess he kicked mom off the chat with the Mrs. from Iowa and started to try typing chat to her. It's his first hunt and peck online IM conversation.

I have a feeling it's going to get harder and harder to get a minute on that machine.

We'll just have to be extra vigilant that the young ones are covered after their baths, and not doing the streak to the bedroom as they have been known to do. Gotta keep this thing G rated, after all.

Bathed in the Light

My wife and the little Bear returned this past Tuesday from an appointment with a Behavioral Pediatrician with a disappointing diagnosis. I think I have mentioned that we have recognized that the Bear has learning difficulties. Or at least some sort of disability that prevents him from testing on par with other kids his age. Even though he is about to turn 5, he's more at home with 2 or 3 year olds. After the morning's appointment time the doctor assessed "Pervasive Undiagnosed Developmental Delay" (PDD). Basically, we can see it, but we don't know what it is.

Thanks. We could have told you that much.

But I guess now with this initial assessment we have a piece of paper that we can take to the next step, a local psychologist, and begin a more thorough assessment. Looking it up on the Internet, PDD is a very contentious term. Some say it's too overly broad and doesn't serve any constructive purpose. It points to the autism spectrum, hinging on the fact that the definitely has communication and interaction issues, but isn't specific enough to point to where the wiring is crossed and so how to best guide him towards a more mainstream lifestyle. So now we get on with the waiting for whatever comes next.

When I came home late, the kids had already been tucked in. I poked my head into they boy's dark room to check on them. Lemurs sleepy little voice said, "Hi Daddy." I came in and found him backwards on his bed with his head at the footboard. I asked him why he was all turned around? "To look at the moon," he said. Then I remembered, when the moon is big and full and rising at his bedtime, he likes to look out his back bedroom window while he goes to sleep and watch it rise. I saw that he had pulled back his curtain so he could see it all the way to the top of the window. Outside the world was cold and still, bathed in blue light even though there was no snow.

I lay down beside him, and without shifting his gaze he reached back and pulled my arm around him like an extra blanket and snuggled into me. Both his hands and his breath were so soft, and the two of us just lay there quietly watching the slow smooth ascension like it hadn't happened only a month ago and like it wouldn't happen ever again.

Earlier that day I had learned that the Lemur was back in trouble at school. He had kicked a kid at recess. He had been doing so good this year, but just that quickly we had news that felt too familiar. It made me a little sad.

Sad that he had done it. I don't like the thought of my kids hurting other kids. But sad also because I could picture in my mind the parents of the wounded kid being upset at their child having to be in class with the 'type' of kid who 'didn't know right from wrong'. The 'type of kid' who didn't know that kicking and any other physical acting out was just plain bad. Thinking of him, perhaps, as a bad kid. Being angry at him, and at us, his parents. Thinking thoughts like, "if they had just raised him better".

And why not. It's only natural. I probably would have if it was my child that had been bullied. AS a parent, you rush to protect. But we hadn't raised him differently. I struggle to explain why he is so different from what came before. I don't compare, but I don't want him to have these problems either. Lemur has an appointment with this doctor later in the month. I hope this time the doctor has more insight. Tell us what's going on. Tell us how to help. Help us. I can't help but feel like there's more at risk here.

Laying there next to him, looking out the window with him as his eyes get heavy, he didn't feel like the kid who kicked on the playground. He was a poet. He was gentle. He was needy. He was beautiful. I wanted those parents of that other child to see him now. I wanted to be sure that they understood that we were sorry for the kick and sad, but that this little boy, like all people, are complex and so precious. That everyone deserves to be painted in all their attributes and understood. And loved.

We have a whole assortment in our progeny parcel. The beautiful young artistic academic, the well liked athletic outdoors man, the hard-to-fit-in kid with misunderstood creative intelligence, and now, with the Bear, it looks like we have our little outsider who will always struggle just to keep up. Yet even as I type them I realize these labels are far too limiting. They are all this and so much more. More good, and having more struggles that could be gathered at a casual glance.

But when the people that love them look at them, they all sparkle in the moon light.

My daughter kissed a boy today

Tonight when I came home, my daughter turned around from the computer when I walked in the room. A big grin on her face.

"Guess what I did today!"

She told me how it went down.

The new boy dropped her off at the house. He giggled. She asked why. He asked if he could. She said yes.

(I thought I taught her the correct answer to that question.)

Her first kiss.

I can handle it.

I can.

It's just one kiss.

I think I'm going to go lay down.