Gimme Five

Couple of things on the agenda today, people.

First off, I kind of apologize for that recent downer of a post.  Just this parenting thing is an absolutely dichotomous mix of "YOU ARE SO ANNOYING" and "YOU MUST NEVER LEAVE ME."  Which, now that I mention it, may have been the actually Freudian definition of a schizophrenigenic mother.  I AM making the children crazy!

It is very weird.

On the one hand: "You find your goddamned shoe in the next 30 seconds or I swear on all that is holy I will staple them to your feet.  You will sleep in your shoes.  You will bathe in your shoes.  We will have a twice-a-year celebration of Moving Up a Shoe Size! and / or Changing into Winter Shoes.  I don't know for sure.  I haven't thought through all of the details of your new life, but trust me when I say that this old, shoe-losing life will be a sweet memory unless you figure out where your fucking shoes are."

On the other hand: "I would die without you."

I should probably be nicer to people that it would kill me to live without.

And I try, but when I go to take them out to dinner or to the museum, we can't go because their fucking shoes got eaten by the ether.  Or slid into another dimension through the wormhole in our boot room.  Or the Borrowers took it to use as a boat.

---------------------------------------------------

We are in the process of buying a car.

Chris when to the dealer today while I stayed home with the kids.  I didn't tell them what was up until Chris sent the message that he was signing papers on a new car.

"Where's Daddy?" asks Owen

"He's buying a new car."

"You are going to trade in the red car?" (How the hell does he know that??)

"Yup."

"So I'm never going to see the red car again?"

"I . . . guess not, little man."

He stands there.  Tears in his eyes.  Not falling, though.  He's a stoic kind of sensitive.   His lip wobbles a little as he says, "I didn't even get to say good-bye."

He says it gently.  He's not *accusing* me of anything.  Just, you know, pointing thing out.  He visibly pulls himself together a little bit and says, "It's okay.  I can say good-bye in spirit."

He literally said those words.  What 6 year old talks like that?  Do I talk like that?  Where did he COME from?

Sam had caught wind of this by this point and wandered over.  "I don't think this is a good idea, Mom."

"Why not?" Also, too late now, and I'm just listening to be respectful, but it's a fake kind of respect because there is no going back now.

"I just don't think I want to get used to a new car."

These are my children.  These are my people.  Let's never experience change, together.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Another Owen story:  We left some chalk outside and when we went outside this afternoon, some passerby had used it to make a pretty good batman emblem.

Owen saw it, and said, "Who made this?"

"I don't know Owen.  It wasn't someone in our family."

"No, sweriouswy.  Who made this?  Because they need to get a high-five."