A small brown haired head with flecks of blond leans down. My son’s nose is almost touching a bright orange flower, its torn pedals sprouting from a huge green stem. In the middle of the flower, there’s a fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee butt sticking out. It has its whole face immersed in the flower, guzzling down nectar. My son watches it in wonder, occasionally speaking to it.
“And make sure not to get Kelloggs,” I commented to my husband as we were putting together the grocery list.
“Why not Kellogg’s?” my older son said, looking up from his book.
“Well, the people who work for Kelloggs are on strike. That means they aren’t working because they want better work conditions, like better pay. Remember in Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type?” I explained, referencing a hilarious children’s book. In it, the cows and chickens go on strike and refuse to give the farmer eggs and milk until he gives them electric blankets. They use an old typewriter to express their concerns. We’ve read it a bunch of times.
If you give a mouse a place to live (not on purpose), you may not be able to catch them.
If you have a mouse that you cannot catch, then they may try to hide under the dishwasher.
If they hide under the dishwasher, you may try to set a trap there to catch them.
If you set a trap there to catch them, you will have to pull out the dishwasher to check on the trap.
If you have the dishwasher pulled out to check on the trap, your rabbit may try to go under the dishwasher.
If your rabbit goes under the dishwasher, they will definitely chew on the cords under the dishwasher and get nearly electrocuted. (And get you nearly electrocuted trying to get them out.)
If your rabbit chews on the cords, you will need to call an appliance repair person.
So that’s why we’re still waiting on the dishwasher repair person to get in a part.
“Hi!” my older son chirps to people walking by on the sidewalk as he pedals by on his bike. A few minutes later, he yells to me about the injustice of how short the green is on this traffic light – we’re stopped at a red light *again* – and how we have to wait for it. Honestly, of all the things he could get angry about, it’s pretty harmless. Throughout the ride, my younger son chatters away sitting behind me, telling me all the observations he held in during class.
Dear couch,
You’ve served us well and bear the marks to show it. The ripped fabric, the unraveling cording, the mysterious stains, the foam picked out down to the wood. There are so many memories embedded in these scars.
“I just wanted to thank you,” said an unfamiliar voice beside me. Looking left, away from the informational plaque I was reading, I saw an older woman standing next to me. “I was behind you and heard you explaining all of the information to your kids and they were so interested. I heard other kids saying that they were bored and I knew your kids weren’t. I even learned a lot!”
“Uh, thanks!” I responded, very flattered. We were at the Whydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod, a very good historical museum with a wealth of information and artifacts. I had been guiding my kids through by summarizing the informational plaques and connecting the information to concepts my kids were already familiar with. They seemed to be genuinely interested until the very end when my five-year-old understandably began running out of steam. I was too busy carrying on my patter and keeping my kids entertained that I hadn’t even noticed the woman behind us.
“Why do all of these people already have friends?” I thought to myself looking around the elementary school cafeteria during parents night for kindergarten. Clumps of parents sat at long tables, chatting away. Even my anti-social husband had wandered off to talk to someone he knew from preschool. I stifled the urge to get out my phone and stare urgently at the screen. Instead, I read the multi-colored handouts with an intense stare. Being there brought back so many experiences that color my perspective on my kids today.
He runs up to me, his hand loosely grasping mine. I go to squeeze it and he’s gone again, dashing away from the oncoming waves licking at his red and blue sandals.
I stand firm, the water pulling on my feet, flowing back out to the ocean. He darts around me, unpredictable, coming and going, coming and going. The waves can’t be predicted either – sometimes they stop feet from me, sometimes they wash over my knees, pulling me out to the endless water.
“Look, there’s a bat!” I exclaim, my finger moving as a dark silhouette flits across the sky. My younger son and I are sitting on the back steps of our deck, looking up into the darkening night sky.
“There’s another one!” he points out.
“So Bowser would be chaotic evil, right?” my older son asked as we sat on our front steps, referring to the villain of his favorite Mario Bros video games.
“Hmmm, I think so. He just wants to cause chaos and hurt people rather than follow any laws while doing so. Maybe neutral evil,” I replied, talking in terms of the alignment chart from Dungeons and Dragons.