Call Mom.

Ok so maybe you've heard Turner is growing: up and down, here and there, left and right, all around solid, tall and thick, and I'm supposed to act "normal" and to "stop being nostalgic." Today, he calls from baseball camp, at the high school, where he is from 8-ish to 4:30-ish everyday. It's a long day out in the sun. When he comes home Monday, he is manly. He smells loud. His face is brushed with dirt. He's tired. He doesn't engage much. His posture somehow widen his shoulders. His voice even seems deeper, probably dehydration. After his shower and our dinner and a slow warming back up to the family, Turner scoots his body right next to mine on the couch and leans his head against the front of my shoulder. I take the chance to stretch my arm around his shoulder and tell him I love him. "Mom. Let's just be close, okay?" No need to draw attention to the snuggle-fest happening. I get it.

Tuesday, I get a phone call from an unfamiliar number and by some miracle I see the phone ringing and answer it.

"Mom?" There, right there, that voice is a five year old Turner who has asked his teacher if he can call me. We'd forgotten a lunchbox, perhaps. I remember how impressed Ms. Cipolla was that he knew the area code plus the number. I realize that my mind has transported me back eleven years and just as I gather my voice, he says it again. "Mahmm." This time, a little deeper and less frightened, though retaining the nasally middle vowel and the elongated "m" at the end.

"Yes. Ah, yes Turner. What's going on?"

"Uhm. The wire in my braces is poking out." I have no idea how to respond to this. Is it poking a hole in your mouth? Is the wire hanging out? Did it get caught on something? Were you eating? It is about lunch time . . . "Uh hello?" He's waiting for me to check into this conversation.

"I can come pick you up? Do you want me to come pick you up?"

"No." His tone says how absurd my suggestion is.

"Ok. Well, what should I do?"

"Nothing." He sits quiet and I know I'm supposed to be saying something else.

"I love you."

He shouts, "Mom!" I smile. Surely I'm not on speakerphone.

"Ok. I'll tell Dad. I bet he can get the wire fixed for you."

An exasperated sigh and "thank you" and the line breaks.

Doggy Pushed You.

With Turner, we had routines. We walked out on the front porch first thing, and then we had breakfast. After breakfast we cleaned our plates and dressed. We gym-ed it at certain times on certain days, and we storytime-d it at other times on other days. We brushed our teeth together and lotion'd together and took walks after dinner and read books every night. Our routines revolved around a 2:00 pm nap time. . . two or more hours of blissful quiet in the afternoon when I could write. Nap time was a rather inflexible container for creative energies and, looking back, I'm glad I valued my work enough to actually create space for it.

Mabel's life is less conducive to schedules, something I've mentioned before. Mabel naps everyday, and will nap for two hours under some pretty narrow conditions, and unlike her brother, she couldn't care less when the nap actually starts or ends. She doesn't really lose it at any point, though she does become quite resistant to discipline and her energy level spikes at points, forcing her to squeal loudly with delight. This summer, I'm trying to be more intentional to build small routines with Mabel and, thus far, this includes watering the flowers or taking a walk after she wakes up from her nap. Last night, we took a walk after dinner and watched a turtle navigate the gravel road and brush near the road for quite a bit. This was after investigating ants at various points.

Last week, Mabel woke up from her nap and the two of us went outside to water the flowers. While we were working, the neighbor's dog came over to visit. Jake is a puppy that has grown six inches in the last two weeks. No joke. He is going to be a big dog someday soon. On this particular day, though, he remains clumsy and unconscious of his size. Mabel calls him over, as usual, by screaming "Doggy" as loudly as she can. I'm watering flowers and just as I sit the hose down to supervise Jake's visit, the dog is up on two feet and the other two paws touch on Mabel's chest then her head. Mabel's hands start rowing a boat to shore, and her arms makes big circles as she tries to hang on to her balance. She falls just as I grasp a fingertip, and I save her head from hitting the concrete. She does not cry and the dog is instantly in our faces licking. "Get!" I shout, Jake's caretaker (who is actually a painter working next door) sits on his tailgate on the other side of the fence. At the sound of voice, he asks "He jumping on her?"

"Yeah. He did. Knocked her to the pavement." I'm brushing the dirt off Mabel's backside and inspecting her parts. On her ankle is a bloody scrape. "Oh Mabel. Are you okay?" She isn't crying but she won't talk either. She mouths a weak uh huh and puts her head on my shoulder. "Poor baby. Did the doggy push you?" She rocks her head on my shoulder, nodding yes and saying "uh huh" again.

The next morning, after a lovely slumber, Mabel wakes up and calls out to me. I retrieve her from her bed and pull her to my chest. Usually, she settles right in but on this morning she is contorting herself in order to touch her ankle. When I figure this out, I stretch out her leg and gaze upon the ouchie. "That your ouchie, Mabel?"

"Uh huh. Doggy push you."

"Oh, did the doggy push you?"

"Uh huh. Doggy push you."

"Mabel, I think the doggy pushed me. Not me."

She looks a bit perplexed, puts her head on my shoulder again, and says, "Uh huh. Doggy push you."

For the last seven days, Mabel's first thing said in the morning and after nap and just about anytime when we are riding around in the car or when she gets bored or meets new people, Mabel points to her ankle and says, "Doggy push you." Sometimes she'll repeat "me" once corrected.  What's so funny about this story, though, is that somewhere along the way, doggy started sounding an awful lot like daddy. One night, she was adamantly telling Andy about the doggy and the push and accidentally said, "Daddy pushed me." We laughed, of course, though Andy's feelings were clearly wounded. Now, when Andy is around, she says "Daddy pushed me" and points to her scratched up ankle, but she tells others it was the doggy.

Making Pie.

Both of my grandmothers were good cooks, and even my father will admit that his mother-in-law could do some magical things in the kitchen with food that even his own mother couldn't. I learned to bake at the elbow of Grandma Bow, and I learned to slam nutritious meals together in a jiffy at the coattails of my mother. When Andy and I married, pregnant on our first anniversary, I was a dreamy housewife in terms of hot meals and dessert. Once or twice a week, we enjoyed something from scratch: white chocolate cheesecake, marshmallow fudge frosted cookies, angel food cake, shortbreads, layer cakes. I kept up the good fight in Tucson for awhile, but I also had for the first time in my life the luxury of baker friends. Elise and Crystal were generally eager to share left overs, and the bakery trade went both ways.

Father's Day is tomorrow, and Andy requested a day at the pool. Perfect. But, this means the preparatory baking happens today. Chocolate pie, of course, though it took him a few days to commit. Since I'm already making one pie crust, why not slip a little peach cobbler prep into the action?

Yes Ma'am.

We've habituated Mabel to saying "Yes, ma'am." She's adorable as she says it. At first she was most prone to say it when prompted. Generally in desire of a sweet or something to be opened / closed, picked up / put down. Over the course of two weeks, though, the manners have appeared more regularly and unprompted. "Yes ma'am" coming out of a tiny two year old face gets noticed.

When Andy and I first started hanging out, the "ma'am" to ladies felt respectful, but when he called his mother that, it seemed cold and too distanced. Andy considered these terms of endearment and respect. When Turner emerged into our lives, I did not encourage him ma'am-ing me, but Andy was persistent. Turner ma'am'd and sir'd more than he didn't, and it became clear how much people took this habit as a mark of fine parenting. When Turner went to public school and I met other children and talked with his teachers, I finally *got* the importance (and rarity) of this habit starting at home.

Mabel, much like her brother, is a quick learner. Though, she resists gendering language. Where is the English version of "vous" by the way? "Yes ma'am" is her respectful phrase used with everyone, men and women, adults and children. Tonight Andy asks Mabel ten different questions at various points between making dinner (fish tacos) and putting her to bed. At each point she responds with her sweet voice and eyelashes, "Yes, ma'am."  When she misgenders Andy, we respond with "yes, sir" and generally she'll repeat it. This same scenario played out with calling us both Mommy. For months. From my arms she would look across the room to Andy, hold out her arms and whine, "Mommy." We'd sit next to one another and practice saying Daddy and Mommy, pointing to each of us, and she'd giggle as she pointed to us both and said Mommy. She knew Daddy had another name. As I think back, this coincided with weaning. Andy took over putting Mabel to bed at night since I got to snuggle with her at nap time (sharing is caring). Perhaps she associated that comfort with the nighttime physical sensations of full belly and soft songs and book stories that Mommy could offer more for the first year. I also think that Andy does all the same things for Mabel that I do, so why wouldn't she think we should be called the same thing? For now, we continue to correct her. Perhaps someday the English language will develop a "vous" equivalent that names respect and sees gender as less relevant.

Christopher Columbus.

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue . . . And then what happened? He “discovered” America, which was sitting all pristine and untamed waiting for some white guy connected to wealthy people to conquer the land and colonize the people. I wanted more stories in my history classes of real people, not just the events that shaped their reality. The move toward studying history through more than one genre and more than one voice is growing, thank goodness. Reading history through a single lens objectifies moments of living, shifts in power, and emotional turmoil as just dates on a calendar. 

            

Turner and I were on the way to Kindergarten and it is Columbus day. In all the states we’ve lived in, school is out of session in honor of Columbus. All the states except Arizona. As was usual, the sun was bright as I took Turner to school that morning.

“Do you know what today is?”

“Monday.”

“Yes, but it is also a holiday meant to honor Christopher Columbus. Who is he?” I assumed they had talked a bit about him at school.

“He was a sailor. He came to some islands south of America. He was searching for treasure.”

“What treasure did he find?”

“I don’t know.”

“He found many valuable things. Sugar, gold, and people.”

“People?”

“People. He enslaved people . . .”
He interrupted me, “Why have a holiday named after him?”

“Many people say that Columbus discovered America. Do you think this huge continent was sitting empty waiting on Columbus.”
He thought while we sat through the stop light at Grant and Swan. “Indians have always been here, so he couldn’t have beaten them here.”

“Precisely.” Turner knows the word indigenous, and he knows that it applies to “old” knowledge and to lives that came before any others. But this was not the word he chose first.

“Did Columbus make Indians slaves?”

“Yes. And he, or people with him, killed the natives who refused to be enslaved or who couldn't pay.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes. And it is really sad that people in our country think of Columbus as this really great guy who made America happen. How different things would be without Columbus.”
“Yeah." He grew quiet. As I turned onto our street he said, "Maybe he was a good guy who did bad things.”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe he started racism.”

“Doubtful. Conflicts between races and tribes and regions and religions. That kind of stuff has been around so long. Some people just need to feel superior.”

“Superior?”

“People don’t always claim to be superior but they might look down on someone else for a choice or something they might do or wear or say.”

“Like being smarter?”

“Yes.”

“But Columbus wasn’t smarter than the other people?”
“No he wasn’t smarter. He just stole power. He colonized.” I paused. How to define colonize. “That means he came in and tried to make this land and these people live in the way he thought was right or best or just served his needs.” 

We sat in silence as he processed things. I dropped him off at school. I picked him up from school. He told me the things that he learned about Columbus, and none of them included slavery or colonialism. The next year, we were in a different state and a new school. First grade.

His teacher is a poised but younger teacher. She emerged from a three-generation legacy of educators. As she invited students to flip through books related to Columbus’s voyage, Turner said out loud to the class, “You know, Columbus was a murderer.” I don't know how long he contained this information, if he said it the moment his butt his the floor or after he flipped through the pages of a book.

“Turner,” his teacher made eye contact. “Let’s focus on the positive history Columbus brought to the Americas,” and she returned to reading a book to a few children sitting below her wooden rocking chair.

A couple of hours after I picked Turner up from school, his teacher called me. “We had a little incident with Turner today.”

News to me. I’m surprised and worried instantly. “Oh really? What happened?”

“Turner shouted out in class today while we were studying Columbus. He was quite disruptive.”

I unintentionally interrupted her, “Oh, is that today? Hm.”

“Yes, he shouted out and said Columbus was a murderer. And later, he told another student that Columbus Day is wrong. “

“Well, Ms. ___, can you blame him?”

Silence. I am constantly confronting my own naïveté about people's innate desire for social justice.

“Columbus did enslave people. He regularly removed the hands of native people when they could not pay him. There are many histories of Columbus.”

“Kids need leaders to look to. . . ”

“Yes, I agree,” I interrupted again, with more intention this time. “And I thank you for calling us. I’ll definitely talk to Turner about shouting out in the classroom. He must be respectful.”

Before bedtime, I asked Turner about his Columbus lesson. He smiled, as though he had forgotten. “I told the class Columbus murdered people. Ms. ___ acted like he was a hero, so, you know.” He leaned off the bed, kissed my lips, and grabbed LaLa Bear.

Feminist interruption.