Things I Heard Tonight

"Oooeigioushlalousiahedk." 6:50 am.

"You can go on back upstairs now mom. I'll be OK." 7:15 am.

"Yeah, I didn't wanna go to the gym either." 8:15 am.

"Can I have another breakfast?" 10:30 am.

"Look the sun came to play." sometime before noon.

"Can we go somewhere special now?" Post-nap.

We go to Toys R Us. I try to take a short cut to avoid mall traffic, but I am one block shy. It takes us twice as long to get there.

"Push the button by the horn and the other button. That way we can go faster."

"Are we going the speed limit?"

"I sure hope they have a Polar Express."

"The speed limit sure is slow."

He looks into the well-lit store wi

ndow. "I don't see any trains mom. We should go to the train store." I assure him. We get into Toys R Us the mecca of post-Thanksgiving sales for moms, kids, dads, grandparents alike...all from Mexico. I try to wander the store, making mental notes. Turner is fixated on trains. We are here to buy a train. There is no need to look for alternatives. 

"Can we go back to the trains now?"

"No, I don't think that is so great Mom!" With attitude.

"Does all that come in one box?"

"How far are we from the trains? Can we go back there?"

"I think that is too big for me" at the bikes.

"Can I put dirt bike on my list?"

"I wan

t to go back to the trains now please."

"Is Santa really watching to see what I touch?"

"Oooh. I want that. Can I just have that? Not put it on my list, just have it?" I pack it under my arm.

"It grows real grass."

"Mom, where are all the other dinosaurs?"

"Why do they put them in the picture?" It does seem unfair.

"How long does it take for the dirt?"

"It takes HOW long to make the grass?"

"The spike tail is huuuuungry. Sure hope the grass grows fast."

"Uh oh Mom. I got dirt on my hands. I just don't know how it got on it but you know."

With absolute disappointment, "Mom. Some ohhh mom! Some feathers just came off." He says this as I am typing this blog while he watches his seeds grow into green grass on the absolute coolest (not-a-train) toy in Toys R Us. He bumps into the mum in a vase and some petals came off. "I'll just put those back on." He does so. "I think I'll just move that on back over here." Moves the flower. 

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes...

La La came to town. We went to Mt. Lemmon to have sandwiches and pie. Now Turner keeps saying he wants pumpkin pie even though I don't think he tasted Laura's.

Book Fair

Here are pictures from our trip downtown about two weekends ago for the Make Way for Books Festival. We saw Curious George. We bought loads of books from the public library. We made things. Turner ate a mango pop. We saw Clifford. 

The Day of the Chicken

Sunday, while LaLa packed, Turner and I went to select our turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. We choose a turkey. Push it around in the cart awhile. I decide we need a bigger turkey. We select another one. I waddle to the cart with 14 pounds of turkey slipping from my gloved hands. Turner says, "Wow Mom!" with total excitement and a tad too loud "That's a really big chicken!" 

We wait in line for several minutes, time during which I explain to Turner we are having turkey, T-U-R-K-E-Y, turkey for Thanksgiving. We talk about what turkeys look like and how they sound. On the ride home we have an extended conversation about the turkey being dead. He couldn't understand that it was dead even though he knew we were going to eat it. I tried to convey to him that we don't eat things while they still have breath in their body. Then he wanted to know where the breath had went. Why did someone kill the "chicken"? How did they kill it? Where is the "chicken's" family? What will I do with the feathers?

Yesterday I disrobe the bird and start it a-soaking. Turner was fascinated. He asked question after question again trying to understand how a turkey could look like a guy with a hat as well as the pale, feather-less hunk of meat in front of us.

I show Turner the wings and lots of goodies while we cleaned the turkey. When I run the turkey's first bath, Turner asks with a sheepish grin and downcast eyes, "Can I play with that chicken for a little bit?" 

I salt and soak and salt and soak.

Today, Turner has spent some of his morning watching PBS. Mostly, though, he's been in the kitchen helping me cook. He sees me stabbing around under the turkey's skin shoving butter in all places. "Mom! Stop that."

"What?"

"Stop that. You are hurting that chicken."

"Turner, the turkey doesn't have feelings anymore because it is dead."

"You don't know that."

"Well, OK. That is kinda why some people choose not to eat meat. Not everyone eats turkey at Thanksgiving."

"Yeah but Ms. Carolyn will be disappointed."

"If what? If we don't eat turkey?"

"Yeah. She likes those kind of chickens a lot" a long pause "and apple pie."

Sick Turner

Saturday morning at the breakfast table, while eating special cereal. Cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle…T shirt sleeve comes to his nose.

Over the next three days I offer Turner five tastes of medicine. He refuses them all because they don’t taste good.

Monday I am at school all day. I give the runny, wheezy Turner a breathing treatment and require him to take an entire dose of cough medicine that is pink but not bubble gum and not cherry and not anything that tastes good. He obliges and sucks the liquid down. I scramble around packing sandwich baggies of snacks to get me through six hours of class. In one bag I put “special” cereal (Lucky Charms).

“That for me Mommy?”

“No buddy. That’s a snack for Mommy later while I’m at school.”

“Can I have some special cereal?”
“You already had breakfast. And, today is Monday.”

“I know. Can I have some dry cereal? As a snack, later?”

“Yes. You may. Maybe after your nap.”

“Okay.”

I go upstairs to get my gloves and the rest of my stuff. I pass Chiara in the hallway. When I come back down to the kitchen Turner is seated at the kitchen table, arm deep in a box of Lucky Charms.

“Whatcha doing buddy?” I ask as I pull the box away from a devilish little smile.

“Nothing.”

“Uh. Turner. I asked you.” Chiara looks at me. “He said ‘Mom said I ate a good breakfast so I could have special cereal dry.’”

Intuitive rhetoric. 

Chiara takes him to Build A Bear so they could build a dinosaur, but Turner was not convinced they would have fun. He refused to stay. Perhaps he was concerned about La La Bear’s feelings.

Instead, he wanted a train.

They leave the Build a Bear store and buy a train just like Pa Pa’s. Chiara loves it! I am sure I will too…someday. Turner, of course, really does love it.

Before they leave the mall, Dairy Queen appeared. Chiara asks Turner what he wants. After a quick skim of the pictures, he points to the Oreo Brownie Sundae.

“I want that, without the chocolate.”

“So you just want white ice cream?” Chiara asks.

“Yeah. Without the chocolate.”

At the house and a semi-frustrating building of the train track, Chiara has Turner seated at the kitchen table. His medicine from the morning is wearing off. His eye lids are flapping together in total fatigue.

“What do you want for lunch?”

“Couscous.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yes you do. It’s the white stuff.”

“Well, I’m not Mommy. I can’t make the things that Mommy makes. I can make a grilled cheese, hotdog.”

“I’ll take a cheesestick.”

Done. Then, a nap that lasted close to three hours. Play time infecting the little girls next door with snotty noses and hacking coughs.

Turner’s fever broke at midnight. He was up at 7 refreshed and like a new little boy. I get out of the shower and hear him screaming at his train, “On the boooooard!” (all aboard.)

Deserving Goodness

All this social theory that I've been reading is getting to me. And, it is working to Turner's benefit. Sometimes the best way to bring about change in one's behavior is to reward that which was previously off limits of reward. Engage the argument rather than shut it off...

What better way to engage the argument than through the belly. At least, that is the most direct path for me.

Turner has had a rough week at home. His behavior at school has been good (naps some days even), but once he gets home and around both Andy and I, he is transformed into this little being with a large opinion and desires who adamantly refuses to compromise or adhere to rules of anti-embarrassment. His table demeanor, for example, has been a space of strong resistance for more than a few weeks. So, last night I suggest to Andy that maybe we, as a family, should go out to eat and be on our best manners. 

Dinner was not pretty.

Today I pick Turner up from school and he has not taken a nap. Ms. Carolyn reluctantly spills the news about time out and hitting and well, you get the drift. He starts to lose his cool about not getting a treat out of the treat box. I sit in the floor with him. We talk for more than a few moments about respectful behavior. 

There are times in my life when I have been a less than ideal friend and, yet, I am surrounded by the most amazing friends. We all deserve goodness, sometimes even when we least expect it.

Turner and I drive down Broadway; not the usual way home. We pass Target. "That's where we get toys sometimes."

"Yes, Turner it is. But we aren't getting a toy today."

"No. I know. But someday. Someday when I don't hit."

"You are a good boy buddy. Everybody has bad days."

"Yeah. Today was a bad day." 

Yes. It was.

"Was it a bad day?"

"Yes Mommy. I was bad all day."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I was just mad all day."

We pull into a parking lot. We walk to the front door. We sit on tall stools. We look at the dessert menu. Turner points to the chocolate cake.

"You want cake?"

"No. I just want that. That white stuff." He points to the whipped cream. I ask him to order it himself. He does: "whipped cream with ice cream and the yummy stuff on top [chocolate]. white ice cream."

We sit in silence for a bit. 

"I'm sorry Mom."

"It's OK buddy. We all have bad days." I go on and on about how special he is and how much fun I have when he goes places with me and acts so nicely.

We read the USA Today (about Rick Pitino's tough road as #3 in a conference of otehr rockstars) . 

We talk about politics for a bit. Me explaining the wise move of Obama's chief of staff.

The ice cream comes and for the next twenty-three minutes I read the paper in silence as Turner ensures every drop hits his mouth.

On the way home Turner says, "That was a great surprise Mom. Thanks for taking me with you. If I act big will you always take me with you?" 

Yep