Veterans day.

Turner and I are sitting at the kitchen table. It is 2pm. He is 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 am typing and writing in preparation for the conference. We’ve talked about a variety of things, some of which are related to Veterans and what they do. Turner explains 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 finishes the story about D and him being an “Army guy.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?” He puts some cheese into his mouth. I look 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 throws a few cashews into his mouth and makes stacks with his square cheese and “special” crackers (a.k.a. Wheat Thins).
“Well,” he pushes his plate to the side of the table as though he wants 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 figure our story is over. I return to my paper, hoping to finish the conclusion so I can send it back to the journal before the conference (which did not happen). Turner sits for a moment more then, as though in deep thought, he gets up from the table and puts his lunch remains in the trash and puts 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 walks back across the kitchen and snuggles up to my arm. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“My belly hurts again.” Turner has been having some stomach trouble this week and he occasionally complains about it. I think it is mostly gas trouble. Before lunch, for example, he was walking 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 pull him into my lap and rub 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 purrs 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 practice this a few times. He gets closer to saying it correctly. His way is much cuter so we move on. I describe to him the work that intestines do and I talk about different kinds of food we are suppose to eat that improve how our intestines function (Turner is so interested in the inside parts of his body that he can’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 talk about the work that intestines do and how they do it, he says he wants to see a video about it. Hmmm. Google. Sure enough there are 150 videos about the small intestine. We watch two of them. The first is a scientific video that is a bit boring (to me) but fascinating to Turner. The second video is of a man dressed strangely and brightly and he is explaining the function of the small intestine in the body. The tone is more kid-friendly and the guy seems to be talking to our level, but Turner says “Mom. That one is boring. He is talking to me like I'm a baby.” We spend 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, long o and lingering l with just a hint of surprise in his voice.