Veterans day.

Turner and I were sitting at the kitchen table. It was 2pm. He was picking at his lunch (still….after almost forty minutes spent staring the food down and dancing around with a plane acting out a video game). I was typing and writing in preparation for the conference. We’ve talked about a variety of things, some of which were related to Veterans and what they do. Turner explained to me (for the third time today) that D is a veteran (which he says with difficulty and somehow adds an extra vowel or two). He gets quiet before he finished the story about D and him being an “Army guy.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?” He put some cheese into his mouth. I looked up from my work. “What’s on your mind?”
“Oh I was just thinking. I wish we lived in a story.”
“Well, we kind of do. We all have our own stories to live and to tell and when we share those stories we invite others into our life.” (I resist explaining to him the feminist philosophy about narrative as a way to bring meaning to experience).
“Oh.”
“What kind of story would you like to live in?” He threw a few cashews into his mouth and made stacks with his square cheese and “special” crackers (a.k.a. Wheat Thins).
“Well,” he pushed his plate to the side of the table as though he wanted to perform the story for me, “we would live in Kentucky and we would live in a house close to a lake. A big lake. So we could drive to PaPa’s house and ask him to come fishing. And we’d try to have a contest to see who got the most fish.”
“Interesting. Does mom get a garden in our story?”
“Of course.”
“And what is the prize for winning the contest with Pa Pa?”
“Well,” without missing a beat, “ a remote control airplane. And you wouldn’t have to eat tired eggs anymore. At all. Though eating lots is important and to winning most contests so I guess that really isn’t a good prize. But the airplane sure is.”
“Yeah. What do you think Pa Pa would do with a remote control airplane?”
“What?”
“Well, I mean if Pa Pa wins the contest, what would he do with the airplane?”
“Oh I think he would give it to me. Yeah. For sure he would want to give it to me.”
I figured our story was over. I returned to my paper, hoping to finish the conclusion so I can sent it back to the journal before the conference (which did not happen). Turner sat for a moment more then, as though in deep thought, he got up from the table and put his lunch remains in the trash and put his plate in the sink. Be impressed folks. He doesn’t always do this without being reminded, but he does always do it without complaint. He walked back across the kitchen and snuggled up to my arm. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“My belly hurts again.” Turner had been having some stomach trouble this week and he occasionally complained about it. I think it was mostly gas trouble. Before lunch, for example, he walked through the house making noise and apologizing as he went. When he got into the kitchen where I was making his lunch he said, "My butt won’t stop talking to me today."
I pulled him into my lap and rubbed his belly in the special soothing way he taught me how to do in preparation for his entire day of being a cat (which was weeks ago). He purred like a cat.
“Is it feeling better?”
“Yeah a little.”
“I think your belly is just upset. Do you feel your intestines working?”
“What are isteninals?”
“Intestines.” We practiced this a few times. He got closer to saying it correctly. His way was much cuter so we moved on. I described to him the work that intestines do and I talked about different kinds of food we are supposed to eat that improve how our intestines function (Turner was so interested in the inside parts of his body that he couldn’t see. We’ve been reading lots about anatomy of the body and talking about how the food we put in our body affects how the body works. This started after Andy and I took T to watch Food, Inc. and T started asking lots of questions about food and what it does for us and where it comes from. We have looked at pictures of meat in the cookbook and talked about which part of the animal it is. Sometimes he says it is nasty to eat these things. Sometimes he refuses to eat any more dinner until he gets a meat on his plate. Either way, it is his choice.)
After we talked about the work that intestines do and how they do it, he said he wants to see a video about it. Hmmm. Google. Sure enough there were 150 videos about the small intestine. We watched two of them. The first was a scientific video that was a bit boring (to me) but fascinating to Turner. The second video was of a man dressed strangely and brightly and he was explaining the function of the small intestine in the body. The tone was more kid-friendly and the guy seemed to be talking to our level, but Turner said “Mom. That one is boring. He is talking to me like I'm a baby.” We spent a bit longer browsing images of intestines (some Halloween decorations, some photos that look like they came from PK’s camera phone, and some really really gross images of intestines not working properly. Oh, and a picture of a diseased liver from an alcoholic man that made me want to never open my computer again. Ugh Gross. Turner saw it, though, and said it was cool, with a long and lingering "o" with just a hint of surprise in his voice.