The Girl

One day, while I was getting dressed, the Girl came into the room. Pointing to my engagement ring, she exclaimed, “Mommy! I wan’ wear dat flower wing!”

“Kid,” I said, “You can have it when you’re a grownup.” I reconsidered that, and said, “Actually, you can have it after I die.”

Displeased, she said, “No! I want it now!!!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I replied.  She left in a huff.

The Boy:

Eric was putting the Boy to bed, and put on Coltrane for him to listen to as he fell asleep.  Feeling somewhat wistful, he said, “You know, one day, you’re going to be in grad school, sitting around drinking beers with your friends, and someone will put this record on for you and you’ll say, ‘Oh, my dad used to play this album for me,’ and it’ll bring back memories of home.”

The Boy’s eyes light up, and he asks, excitedly, “So, does that mean when you die I get all your music ?!”

At school, the girl’s teachers write down stories that she dictates.  They do this in yellow highlighter and then she traces over the letters.  I love reading these stories, though sometimes they can have some, er, surprises.  Here’s one from last week:

“A dragon went by a huge, huge monster. They were friends together. Now Mickey Mouse was coming near the monster to eat. So the monster ate Mickey’s eyes. Mickey was in the monster’s belly. Now the giant (yest, giant) was so tired. The nice dragon did fire at the giant. He was dead. Mickey Mouse came out of him. Then Mickey went back to his family.”

Betrayal, firefight, friendship, loss–it’s all there, people. (Or did someone have an alternate analysis?)

The other day, the kids put on a “performance” for us, and the girl sang. She does this a lot these days, making up little impromptu songs about whatever is going on at the time.  It’s sort of like living in a musical.  My personal favorite was the one where she warbled “My Mommy is mad at meeeeee…..and I don’t caaaare…”

Here’s one that’s a bit more affectionate, from that night:

Why go to the mountains for the innertube experience?

But…why should kids have all the fun?

Where I grew up, we have a fantastic public library. I spent many, many happy hours there. When I was in high school, I became addicted to Perry Mason mysteries. (Yes, that’s embarrassing, and yes, I’m a complete NERD, but you already knew that.)  My father checked out of the library with me one night, saw the stack of ten Perry Mason novels and said, “That’s it! For every mystery novel you read, you must read one book off of the classics shelf.” I am eternally grateful that he made me do this. (Of course, compared to what adolescents read nowadays, Perry Mason mysteries are practically classic literature.)

This was how I first read Jane Eyre, and fell in love with the book as many girls do at some point.  The independent soul, awful authority figures, romance, desperation…what’s not to love? I started looking up other books that had to do with Jane Eyre, and happened upon a book that had illustrated drawings of Thornfield Hall, including floor plans.  It also had drawings of other classic books’ houses. It was fantastic to see the world of the book brought to life–I hadn’t known that there were movie versions, and even then there was no Netflix and I don’t think that my friends would have wanted to check out “Jane Eyre” from Blockbuster over watching “Better Off Dead” for the zillionth time.

A few years ago, I tried to find this book. Using the magical power of Google, surely it would be mere seconds before I was in possession of this book. I even hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button. Alas, my search string led me nowhere. I tried every way I could think of to search, to no avail. I even emailed the author of the “Strange Maps” blog to see if he’d heard of it, to no avail.

And then today, for some reason, I read something that referenced Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, I thought, was in a house, was she not? I wondered if that house was also in the book.  I added “Satis House” to my search, and there it was–available through Amazon from used booksellers, out of print. Even better, the author did a similar book for famous children’s books locales. I feel somewhat ridiculous that it took me years to find a book about literary houses that’s titled, “Literary Houses.”

A few clicks later, it’ll be here in a few days. I can’t wait to leaf through it again, though I’m trying to temper my excitement. Maybe I’ll even share it with you.

Recently, the boy was drinking lemonade on the toddler chair we have in the living room, and he spilled it all over.

He didn’t mention a word to Eric, who was the only one home at the time.

A short while later, Eric noticed that the chair was soaking wet.

“Hey, did you spill something on this chair?” he asked.

“Just water, Daddy,” replied the boy.

“Are you sure about that?” Eric asked, picking little bits of lemon pulp off the fabric chair. “Are you sure it wasn’t lemonade?”

“Welllll,” the boy paused, and seemed to reflect for a bit.  Then he tilted his head and asked “What would you do if I told you it was lemonade?”