Smrt Lernins

Today, for his World of Poetry assignment, Captain Science wrote this currently untitled sonnet:

The ground is falling, building crashing down
And houses fly like they have never flown.
A fire rages all throughout the town.
The city burned and everything we own.
The tower crashes, breaking the old clock
And waves of force are bringing down the house.
A sack of flour bursts upon a rock
And sleeping people afterwards are roused.
The blast so loud you hear it far away
And junk starts to pollute the city pond.
Debris is falling, blazes rage today
And force is snapping mighty metal bonds,
But finally the trembling terror ends
So everyone can fix the breaks and bends.

Here’s a hint…he might just be turning 10 at 2:34pm today!

I am thankful for Babypie, my only girlchild, my beautiful 20-month-old spitfire.

I have always wanted a daughter. I think it’s a testament to how close I am with my mother and how many wonderful memories I have of mother-daughter activities. I knew from the moment I got pregnant with Babypie that I was carrying the little girl I had hoped for; I felt it in my very soul. My pregnancy with Babypie was difficult — no complications, but constant exhaustion, nausea, no appetite. Her birth, even though my labor was only about 6 1/2 hours long (making it my second longest or second shortest, depending on how you look at it), was the hardest of my three children’s. Her right hand was up by her ear the whole time, a position we call “Babypie phoning it in” and which she still does when she is sleepy, and I had horrible back labor, my first experience with that particular hell. She finally came out, all 9lbs 4oz of her, and was so red and round and squishy that I dressed her in strawberry prints from that day forward, my little Strawberry Pie. Her nose was absolutely pug; she looked like Piglet from classic Winnie the Pooh, and in the video Daddyman took of us immediately afterbirth, I kept saying to her, completely thrilled, “You’re so funny-looking!”

Her nose is still a little pug, but she doesn’t look like Piglet any more.

I think, after Tank, God or the Universe sensed I needed an easy one. Babypie was the easiest baby. She was born sleeping at least 5-6 hours each night. She nursed like a champ. She was alert and interested in everyone, but not fussy or discontent. She enjoyed being held by all her family members, brothers included. She was smiling within moments of birth, usually in response to familiar voices. I had a hard recovery and it took me a while to feel “right” again, but Babypie was so sweet and snuggly and easy to care for that I didn’t have any additional stress or strain due to caring for her. She ate and grew and got ridiculously fat and developed three enormous dimples in her cheeks, plus a scrumptious cleft in her chin. I dressed her in lots of pink and strawberries, because she was all mine and I could do ridiculous things like that.

She kept on growing and growing. She started learning all manner of things in leaps and bounds. She didn’t talk quite as early as Captain Science, but was still saying a few words by seven months old. She sat a little later than Tank, crawled at roughly the same time, but learned to walk at nine months old, thanks to Patchfire’s daughter, Purple Child, who is (also an early walker) four months older and Babypie’s best friend. Babypie would pull up on PC and “cruise” along with her while she walked. Thanks, PC! I was not at all prepared for a baby of that size to be walking around, but Babypie is her own person and doesn’t really care if one is prepared for her accomplishments or not. She kept on walking, kept on talking, and her vocabulary expanded so quickly that I eventually stopped keeping track of all her words — she simply said too much.

One thing about Babypie: Babypie is fierce. A former friend once made a snide remark about certain people not realizing their children look mean in pictures. It wasn’t hard to figure out who she was talking about — I don’t think we had a picture of Babypie for months where she didn’t look like she was baring her teeth and possibly about to bite someone. It wasn’t hostile, though. Her smile was just as fierce as the rest of her. Her big white teeth and rather broad mouth made her huge smile into something of a savage smile. Nothing stops her. Nothing slows her down. No one is more determined than my Babypie. She’ll take a tumble and keep going. She can do anything the boys can do, whether she can actually do it or not. Her battle cry is, “And ME!”

She’s also a snuggler and loves her Mama (and especially her ninnies). One of her favorite people in this world is her great-great-Aunt Elaine. She loves going to visit Nana and Papa. She adores her brothers and her Daddy. We went through a bad couple of weeks where she refused to go to bed until Officer Daddyman was home from work, meaning midnight or later. She “calls” her Daddy on her play cell phone and has long conversation with him. She gives him commands that he usually follows. Babypie is the boss of everyone. She was born to be the boss of everyone and she doesn’t understand why everyone can’t understand that. “Yesh!” and “No!” are staples in her vocabulary, because they are words of command/direction. Despite her bossy fierceness, she’s also the prissiest little thing, with this funny little prance-walk-strut that she does when she’s feeling full of herself or wearing her pink princess dress with the giant fairy wings. She’ll run around in her fairy dress with a sword in one hand, a car in the other, and her water bottle and her baby doll stuffed down the front of her shirt. That’s just how Babypie rolls.

Nothing about this fierce girl has been a disappointment. She’s a delight and a joy nearly every moment of the day. Sure, she’ll run me ragged and exhausted, but she’s so funny and entertaining while she’s doing it, I hardly notice how tired I am until we both drop. She has the best sense of humor, tells little baby jokes, makes up funny stories (sometimes about Beasts that poop in her pants), wants to be involved with everything we’re doing. No baby could be more fun than Babypie. She is the perfect compliment to her brothers. They’re a perfect unit of three, even when they fuss and fight and squabble. She brought something to the dynamic that can’t be replaced. She’s Captain Science’s ally, Tank’s sometime-nemesis, and they are both her heroes.

She’s the daughter I always longer for and more, my amazing number three, my boisterous yet dainty Strawberry Girl. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be the mother of this child.

All my babies — I love them equally and in their own special ways. None of them is like the other, but they are all treasures to me. I have never done anything as meaningful and rewarding as being their mother. I can’t imagine I ever will do anything better than that.

I am thankful for Tank, my 4.5 year old boy made of one part sugar, one part sass, one part gunpowder, and one part kinetic energy.

Five and a half years after Captain Science was born, Tank rocketed into our family…and I do mean rocketed. I had just enough time between pregnancies to completely forget what to expect, which is good, because Tank’s was completely different from Captain Science’s. I had it so easy — almost no sickness, plenty of energy, no swelling, and all the weight gain going straight to my belly — that I think I was lulled into a false sense of security. I was certainly not prepared for Tank’s explosive entrance into the world. Good thing I was planning on a homebirth, because I never would have made it anywhere else! I went from “oh, I might be in labor” to Tank’s head popping out in its entirety as my water broke. Rocket man from the beginning, he’s lucky his Nana was able to baseball slide and catch him before he took flight.

No, he hasn’t slowed down since.

My Tank was not an easy baby. He took right to nursing, which as a relief, but the sleeping thing was another story. At a month old, he turned into the shrieking colic monster. At around four months old, he decided he could only be nursed lying down; I had to trick him by latching him on side-lying and then sitting up. I don’t think he was put down for more than a few minutes until he was nine months old. He was a funny baby with a huge, gap-toothed smile, but he also had a serious furrowing brow, which earned him the nickname “Dubious D.”

If Captain Science taught me flexibility, Tank taught me patience. Everything was on his time table and his time table was completely different from what Captain Science’s had been. He sat unassisted well at 3 1/2 months, crawled by around 5 months, but didn’t walk until 13 months old…at which point he took off running. He said just enough words by his second birthday for it to be “enough” words, then his vocabulary exploded overnight. He decided to use the potty at 19 months old, changed his mind after a week, then completely potty trained again at 22 months (this time, thankfully, for good). He demonstrated excellent gross and fine motor skills from an early age, draws beautiful and intricate pictures with an excellent sense of color, but still has only the vaguest interest in learning to read (though he really loves knowing how words are spelled). For Tank, the parts are so much more interesting than the whole.

Sometimes I think Tank is my maternal grandfather reincarnated. He has the same booming Ballard voice, the same dark good looks, the same roguish grin (often coupled with a “I know what I’m getting away with” wink), the same BIG stage-like presence. He’s not a large kid — tall enough, but with a slight build that makes him appear smaller than he actually is. I try to remind myself that my hoss of a younger brother (the original Tank, btw — Tank’s nickname is technically Tank Junior) started out that way, too, and could pick me up and carry me around by 14. Tank resembles his uncle quite a bit. He also looks a heckuvalot like Officer Daddyman, especially his mouth and those brows.

Tank wakes up early and hits the ground running. He goes non-stop until bed time, when it’s a struggle to get him to stay in bed long enough to actually fall asleep. Tank wakes up during the night to demand repositioning of his blankets, the hall light turned on, a drink of water, or an answer to any of a number of odd questions. Nothing in the world can convince him that 3am is a less-than-ideal time to ask about what ants eat or whether or not ghosts have their own planet (and what it looks like, and what they do there, and how we get there). He is full of questions, day and night, and he expects a serious and thorough answer. He’s highly observant, especially about the number/volume of things/people and their social relationships. From an early age, he could sort items into perfect even piles for people to share. He asks insightful questions about why people act how they do.

One of Tank’s greatest ambitions in life is to turn “hive” and “pay hootball.” He threw himself into soccer this year with abandon. He loves homeschool ice skating day, and even though he falls down, he gets right back up, because something as insignificant as a little gravity can’t stop him. He will run around the house when he gets excited until everyone watching him gets dizzy. He loves riding his bike. He will play hard until forced to stop. I can’t stop him from leaping onto and off of things, turning things over, dumping things out, scaling the cabinets to find a hidden piece of Halloween candy. He talks non-stop, even though most people can’t understand a word he’s saying. He is movement and energy in a boy shape. Sometimes he’s selectively deaf (two hearing tests have confirmed that any hearing problems he has are selective) and exceptionally naughty. Sometimes he’s the sweetest boy, wanting to sit in my lap and cuddle me.

Last year, when Captain Science start homeschooling, Tank wanted to badly to stay home with us. He enjoyed the little preschool he attended for a few days a week, with his best friend Dimhibbins, but what he really wanted was to be here with us. More than anything else, Tank loves us. More than anyone else, Tank adores and wants to be like Captain Science — so of course, he torments and annoys him endlessly. Tank waffles between devouring workbooks and snubbing anything resembling curriculum. He’s a Gemini, though, so duality is his way. He keeps me on my toes, which is something I probably needed to get better at, anyway.

He’s a delight and a joy, a handful and then some, a bull in a china shop, a little artist (sometimes of walls and his body, too), and an unbroken spirit. I wouldn’t trade him for anything else in the world, and I am so grateful for him.

I didn’t go all out and do a full month of thanks, but I think the days leading up to Thanksgiving are a good time to express my gratitude for some of the most awesome people in my life: my three children.

I am thankful for Captain Science, who is turning 10 on Sunday. Double-digits, as he has pointed out several times in the last few weeks. That’s a Big Damn Deal(tm).

My pregnancy with Captain Science took me by surprise and I wasn’t quite prepared to be a mom at 21. Luckily, after a loooong labor and a hard first few weeks, we got it together pretty quickly. I spent the first 4.5 years of his life as his only parent–my ex-husband left when Captain S. was 7 months old and his infrequent visits petered out to nothing and then into a request to give up parental rights–with the help of my own parents, until I remarried and Officer Daddyman adopted him.

Captain Science was a pretty easy baby, incredibly (almost frighteningly) quick to learn. I could usually reason with him, which (I learned w/ child #2) isn’t all that typical. When he was really set on something being a certain way, though, he dug in his heels and nothing could convince him otherwise. He spoiled me in the “parent as teacher” department, saying his first two words by six months (Mama and “NO!”, used correctly), learning his upper and lower case letters by 18 months, reading simple words by two, and able to read most of the young reader books in the house by three. He potty trained completely in two days. He did so well in his pre-K that his teachers encouraged me to put him somewhere more challenging, because, “He already know everything we teach.” He was always a little gentleman, introducing himself politely with a firm handshake. He loves his “women,” as he collectively referred to me, my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother — yes, he was lucky enough to spend his first three years of life as the sole member of the 5th generation of five living generation.

When he got older and went to first a Montessori and then public school, things got harder for him. His nature was too sweet to understand the bullying nature of children under poor adult supervision…or the bullying nature of petty adults in positions of power. He was on an asthma-maintenance medication for several years that contributed to the anxiety and a growing depression; we immediately took him off the meds when we figured it out. He skipped a grade and could have skipped another, academically, but emotionally, he was still a little boy, not ready for the meanness he encountered. He continued to perform well in school, but he became withdrawn and unhappy. My happy and outgoing boy was slowly becoming sullen and introverted. We put him in therapy, only to discover that the terrible social dynamics at school were his only real source of unhappiness. Home was where he felt secure. We made the decision to start homeschooling.

Oh, my Captain Science! I never would have taken that leap if he weren’t exactly the kind of boy he is. I couldn’t let the public school system systematically destroy all his beautiful quirks and uniqueness. He needed more security and more academic challenge. It scared me to death to consider it, because it was big change, and I feared change, but Captain Science has been challenging my preference for stasis and pushing my beyond my boundaries since he got here. For him, I could do anything.

Now, a year and a half later, we’re so much happier. Though we have frustrating days, homeschooling has brought us closer and made both of us lightyears happier. I enjoy him. Captain Science is a remarkable boy, growing into an equally remarkable young man. He has his moments of moodiness, when I jokingly call him “Book 5 Harry Potter” (CAPSLOCK HARRY!!!) and moments of selflessness, like how he cares for his younger sister. He loves Legos and computers and science and reading…always, always reading. He can’t sit down at the table without reading the cracker box or pass by my desk without picking up any flier or magazine. He loves language, both written and spoken, and plays with it well. He writes creatively far above his age.

He is a truly delightful boy and I am so grateful that he came into my life.

He also just came over here and said, “What’s a parasite?” What? “Something you see in Paris.”

That’s my boy.

An refresher exercise in iambic and trochaic meters:

Seasons

A winter morning is a pretty sight
A snowman winking in the freezing cold
A newborn year is starting in the spring,
a garden growing full of healthy fruits
A summer noonday simmering bright and hot
A freezing pool is crowded cold and blue
The autumn time has leaves all red and bright
The benefit of seasons is the fun

[Unnamed Poem]

Evil rising on the horizon
Arrows whizzing through the air
Swords are clashing; heads are bashing
over something very rare.
This is chaos, causing slaughter
Death is spreading like a tear
He is lying. She went flying.
Whoa! Here it comes: A BEAR!

The last one’s ending caught me by surprise and made me laugh like crazy. “That’s the PUNCHLINE!” he said.

Captain Science just finished chapter 2 in World of Poetry. This is his end-of-chapter writing assignment:

Volcanic Storm

Mountain silently smoking,
Ground is starting to rumble.
Rats and pets act strangely,
Rocks are starting to tumble.
Blasting bombs of stone are falling,
Flashing lava freely flowing.
Dust is shrouding, ash is clouding.
Whoosh! The volcanoe’s slowing.

It’s National Coming Out Day! Today is the start of a new opportunity to help our LGBTQ family and friends feel supported and encouraged. Today, we can each make a commitment to create a safe space for our children to be who they are, not who we, someone else, or the world tells them they should be. We can make a promise to our children that it gets better and mean it. We can work to make those changes that will provide our children with equal rights, equal protection, and equal opportunity under the law, no matter who they love.

This weekend, I took my kids to the 40th Atlanta Pride Festival and Parade. I’d really wanted to get the kids down there last year, but Patchfire and crew bailed on me, and I wasn’t ready to brave the crowds with Babypie being so young. This year, however, we set off on our own on a grand educational field trip to the Pride celebrations.

Since I can’t let anything be just about fun (ask Captain Science; he’ll be happy to tell you that) and because I wasn’t precisely sure what to expect at the festivities, I got some conversations going before leaving and on the trip down to the parade. Captain Science and I talked about what he might see at the parade, about why Pride was celebrated, about what certain words means and what certain causes were about (like repealing DADT). We talked about how some words were originally derogatory (like “dyke” and “queer”), but have been reclaimed by the people who were once called those words — I related it to how people used “geek” or “nerd” as an insult for smart people, but now more smart people are saying, “You know what? I am a geek and proud of it!” We talked a lot about love and how it’s never a bad thing; if it’s a bad thing, then it isn’t love.

On the drive down, we talked about power and enfranchisement/disenfranchisement over U.S. history — that right now, straight people have all the rights and gay people only have some of them; if you go back 50 years, white people have all the rights and black people only had some of them; if you go back 100 years, men had all the rights and women only had some of them. We took it further back and talked about political/social power all the way back to the feudal system–when one person (the king) had all the power and nobody else had any unless the king said so–and how change in how many people have power is happening faster. We talked about ways in which more people having a part of the power is good and ways it might be bad. Tank shouted out that it could be bad because they might not do what you want them to do. Smart boy! We talked about what you do when people you share power with don’t agree with you. Captain Science was so engaged in the conversation.

At the parade, we stood next to a young man and woman who took Babypie’s picture (she was in the back carrier, wearing rainbow Babylegs and waving a Pride flag) and to an older man wearing a neck brace, who overheard me saying “at least it isn’t a coconut” when someone from a float threw bags of potato chips at us and asked if I was from New Orleans. It turned out that he’d moved from New Orleans 25 years ago to be with the man who is still his partner. Both couples helped the kids catch beads and candy and colorful bracelets. We got t-shirts and a neat rainbow bandanna that I wore for the rest of the day. Captain Science’s favorite float was one with the Peanuts characters dancing on it. Tank liked the marching band best. I loved the PFLAG groups, the men dressed as colorful fairies with giant Carnival-style wings, and especially the band of angels, who stood briefly and symbolically in front of the small group of loud homophobic “Christian” protesters with their hate-filled signs (a group that necessitated another conversation with Captain Science). The barrier they created between the hate of the protesters and the love of the parade attendees was more than merely physical.

After the parade, we got swept up in the moving crowd and walked down to the festival. So many people, happy and dressed in rainbows! Couples and families and big groups of friends, every age, every race, all of them beautiful. Tank was complimented on his shirt (which said “Hellooo Gorgeous!”) and Babypie received all manner of comments on her cuteness and fierceness (she was faux-slapping at people in the line for the ATM, which amused the guys next to us to no end). One young man praised Captain Science for carrying the big bag full of our stuff. Another stopped us, smiled, and said, “It starts here with tolerance, young ones.” We were given stickers and candy, Tank’s fondness for trifolding brochures was indulged at multiple booths, I bought a “Repeal Don’t Ask Tell” shirt and renewed my Human Rights Campaign sponsorship, we donated a dollar here and there to a few groups, and we split a delicious rainbow-frosted cupcakes. Tank was surprised when he saw a woman whose upper body was painted in a rainbow (in lieu of an actual fabric top) and said, “Mama! She’s nekkid!” though he did agree with me that they were just ninnies (the word we use with the babies for breasts) and not really that big a deal. We came home tired and with bags full of Pride swag.

I do think that young man is correct: it does start right there with tolerance. My kids are growing up knowing that whether they are gay or straight or anything else, there’s a place in our family and a place in this world for them. They won’t have to be remembered on some future October 20th, because they are loved and they know their family won’t allow anyone to bully them for their sexual orientation or any other reason. More importantly, they aren’t being raised to view being gay (or bisexual or transgendered) as wrong or weird; it’s just another way to be. They can’t conceive of a reason why gay people should have fewer rights than straight people. I hope that by the time my kids are grown that the world will reflect that same set of beliefs.

A Tiger’s Life
by Captain Science

Hunting Prey
Tiger lying on the ground,
He makes no mistakes…
Watching an unwary prey.
Very soon he’ll pounce.
Lying low, unnoticed there,
He will time it right.
Pounce! He strikes his sorry prey.
Very soon he’ll eat.

The Journey Back Home
As he crawls back to his den,
With his hunted prey,
He tiptoes, tiptoes on his paws, and
Thinks of the long day.
Daily work is done and gone
Memories fade away,
When he gets back to his home,
He will eat his prey.

The Long Night
As the bright moon rises high,
Storms are coming in.
Howling wind and stinging rain,
Battering the den.
Yet the tiger stays untouched,
Dry and not afraid.
Staying strong and trying hard,
a barricade he made.

I think the whole thing is great, but I love his meter in the final stanza! That’s my boy.

Captain Science was an early reader.

He knew all his letters, upper and lower case, by 18 months and recognized that they went together in a pattern, and that the pattern meant something. He started reading shortly after he turned two. I actually doubted the accuracy of my memory of this, so I looked back through pictures and found one of him and Nana sitting on the sofa shortly after his second birthday, playing their word games on the Magnadoodle. She would write words and he would read them. It started with simple words like cat and hat, but I remember that these particular pictures were taken on the day she wrote–and he could differentiate between–worm, work, and word. It was slightly more than a week after his second birthday. By three, he could recognize or sound out most words. He could pick up nearly any book in the house and read it by four.

Reading is still one of his favorite pastimes. It’s his refuge and escape when he’s stressed. At times, it’s his compulsion — he’s the kid who has to read it if it’s there. Cereal boxes, junk mail, my computer screen if he’s nearby (I have to be careful!), cookbooks. I understand that compulsion well, because it’s one I share with him. I can’t not read, either.

I sometimes wonder why he took so naturally to reading. While there’s no denying that he’s a very gifted child, giftedness doesn’t always manifest as early reading (and early reading doesn’t necessarily indicate giftedness). Sometimes I imagine that a love of reading is like a nutrient, and it passed to him in utero through the umbilical cord or he drank it in when he nursed, like feeding the trained planaria to the untrained ones and having the untrained ones know how to run the mazes. Only not gross like that.

It might be because he saw reading all around him and absorbed it through some strange sort of literary osmosis. I would read while I nursed him, read whenever I had a spare moment. I read to him, Nana read to him, and the Granny Brigade (an assortment of great and great-great grandmothers and great-great aunties) read to him. My room has always been filled with stacks of books. I stick them everywhere, on the off chance that I’ll need something to read while I’m in that particular room. We have kitchen books, office books, a stack of bathroom books underneath the sink, bedroom books, basement books, and even a few car books, which I don’t read while driving, of course.

We’ve had to take his book light away, because he was staying up until the wee hours reading (and was a bear as a result). We have to check his room often for boys awake at 11pm, crouching by the door to have enough light to read. We have to police the number of bathroom trips after 10, because they’re to read, not to tinkle.

That’s a wonderful “problem” to have, isn’t it?