"I just don't like tea sometimes."

It started out like any other day. I woke Turner up around 7:30 am (trying to cut sleep short hoping he would take a nap at school). He is groggy and, surprisingly, willing to go to the bathroom. I shower while Turner has breakfast. Before he leaves for school I pull him to my nose and begin the series of propositions that I hope will lead to a nap at school.

"Would you like to have a tea party today?" We had discussed this during the weekend, but never got the chance to execute it (did I mention he refused to nap on Sunday).

His face lights up in that way I absolutely cannot describe. Thankfully, you all have seen it before so description is unnecessary. "Yes. Yes I want to have a tea party with you. Yes I want to have a tea party with you today."

"Okay. If you take a nap today, Mommy will come and pick you up from school early so we can have a tea party."

Turner goes to school. I go about my day. I spend an hour setting the table and preparing for our tea party. I pick

 him up a little before 3.  He is in the cafeteria having pineapple, milk, and oranges beside his girlfriend Ginger (who proudly showed me her pink fingernails and told me her mommy did them. Turner shrugged his shoulders and said, "Her toes are still white." His, of course, have pink remnants from being at Nanny's). I ask if he took a nap and without hesitation (that is a good thing) he says, "No. I didn't want to take a nap. I tried to rest but it was real hard." Now, Turner has refused to nap at school for about two weeks now (starting our third). It makes me want to scream out for La La, who never has problems getting him to nap. I think he doesn't want to disappoint her :)

Ms. Carolyn tells me that Turner, who normally lays quietly while the other children sleep, was not so quiet today. In fact, he took La La Bear and threw her into the air while trying to whistle. La La Bear must now stay at home.

On the way home I tell Turner he must go to bed for 30 minutes since he didn't nap at school. I get into bed with him, content to nap as well, and Turner wants a story. I tell him about something about a little boy who didn't always know what was best for him so he had to trust his parents (trying, desperately, to convince him to nap). He tells me the story about Aunt Amy's cat who crawled into the wall of the ski boat and had kittens and how "Pa Pa was just trying to help those kittens and that Momma was so so mad about it" in the exact tone and structure that I told it to him four nights prior. 

I wake him up almost two hours later and we go to the gym, talk to Ci Ci, and return home to our cups and saucer

s, small goat sandwiches (our new name for grilled cheese), "special" crackers (the Graham kind), and "napkins that won't stay on a big boy's lap." 

I pour the tea. 

Turner smells of it.

"Mmmm. Your Nanny tea smells so good Mommy." (I had told him during the weekend we would drink tea, like the kind at Nanny's house. Now, however, as I type this I remember he has only had tea at Ci Ci's house).

"Thank you." I take a sip of my tea. I tell him that some people stick their pinky out to make tea drinking seem like something it really isn't. He says, "I don't like that." 

I assure him, "You don't have to drink it that way." 

He says, "Good." He takes a sip of his tea. He eats around the crust of the bread ("just like Uncle Pat Pat"; a story Andy told him last week).

He eats broccoli. I eat broccoli. I sip my tea. He sips his tea. He eats all the "soft, special crackers." He eats his sandwich. I sip my tea.

 He sips his tea. We talk about what we should call my sand

wich (bean sprouts and pepper jack cheese). Turner decides it should be called "sprouting goat" and I can't think of anything more perfect. He talks to me about what was fun at school. About J

osh's trip to the ballgame. About the name of the scorpions on his cup and how one of them

 is a mommy and one is a daddy and one is the baby and how we can know they are babies because they poop in their pants. We talk about the scorpions for a good ten minutes. We give them real names and draft out their life stories. Turner has about three sips of his tea left. He has said more than once that it smells good. I've poured myself another cup. 

Sandwiches are gone. French fries (by special request) are untouched. I start to clean up the kitchen and Turner is drawing a picture on his easel. On one side is Nemo, a picture he colored at the gym weeks ago. On the other side Turner tells me that he is drawing food for Nemo because, "he said he was hungry for some tea party food."

"Should we have another tea party sometime and invite Nemo?"

"Yeah, but I don't like tea sometimes."

"Oh. I thought you liked it. You drank almost all of it."

"Yeah, I know. I just don't like it sometimes." Large emphasis on the some.