The Latest Thing

I heard a This American Life story this week about a mom attempting to communicate with her 15-year-old son. It was funny and sad and terrifying all at the same time. I can't imagine Grayson at 15. All I see in my mind is "tall." But otherwise I can't picture it. Can't picture him stripped of all the childish, goofy mannerisms and obsession with Pokemon. I've only known him as a child. What will he be when all that makes him childish is gone?

He's entering a new phase at present. A return of a phase we've experienced before, in fact. I call it "Perpetual Sound and Motion." In the past couple of weeks he has returned to the annoying habit of repeating sounds or phrases over and over, singing little kid songs, or just finding new ways to use the word "fart." In a continual stream of blather. If he's not blathering nonsense, he's talking non-stop about Pokemon. And if he's not doing that, then he's in motion: striding around the living room, or hopping from one end of the sofa to the other, despite me repeatedly telling him to stop. Dancing around or acting out things from his tv shows. All accompanied by a host of "battle sounds."

Then he flops on the sofa, panting and says "It's HOT in here," and asks for yet another snack. He's turned back into an eating machine again, also. He's always asking for something else to eat. "Can I have a snack?" is his mantra. Chips, cheddar cheese, sliced apples, crackers, peanut butter and jelly, ice cream, cheese sandwich, pepperonis.... he currently requires a constant stream of bite-sized foods administered about every half hour, usually immediately after I've sat down and opened my book. Growing again, no doubt.

I wonder if the process of growing is what makes him so hectic? You'd think he'd be tired all the time, going through a growth spurt like that. But somehow he still has the energy to buzz around like a caffeinated bee. It makes me tired just to watch him.

Hair Schmair

I need a haircut.
No, not like this. Though it's tempting. I need a haircut somewhere between this and what I've got right now, which is like wearing a well-worn mop on my head. And it's time to get rid of the gray-peppered yarmulke that I'm developing at my roots as my color grows out. More gray appears every time it grows out now.

Maybe shaving it again isn't such a bad idea...

Gray and I do not agree on my hair. He always hates it when I get it cut. And then, about the time I want to rip it all out by the roots, he begins telling me it "looks really nice."

I'm pretty sure THIS is how he'd like me to get my hair cut, and hell, so would I. But it ain't happenin'.

The Gym and Why I'm Going

I'm going to the gym tonight. Wheee.

I'm going to the gym so I won't be a weak, crooked old woman.
I'm going because I would rather lose ten pounds than buy all new clothes.
I'm going so I don't have to wear a mu-mu all summer
I'm going because August is my 10th wedding anniversary and I don't want Gray to look at me and think "O My God, What Have I Done?"
I'm going because then I can say I went.
I'm going because I can work out on the eliptical machine and the rower and watch the calorie counter and stop when I've worked off two glasses of wine worth of calories. Then I can go home and have two glasses of wine.

So there. I'm going.
Don't try to stop me.

Pick a season, any season

Sixty-five degrees today. And a forecast for 32 tomorrow. Okay, I know that we're not supposed to be able to see evidence of global warming in our day-to-day weather vacillations, but COME ON. 65 to 32? Tomorrow we're expecting freezing rain.

You know, I don't mind winter so much, but I don't like to be teased with spring and then repeatedly slapped down. It reminds me of an old Bill Cosby routine I remember from way back when (o sometimes I so date myself). He was describing a teasing woman, saying " C'mere, c'mere, c'mere, c'mere... get away, get away, get away, get away." That's what the weather is doing to us.

T.S. Eliot was wrong. At least in Oklahoma, February is the cruelest month. By April, the damned weather has made up its mind. But February, oh, no. You never know what you're going to get. But the spring teases are cruel... so cruel!

The garden center has Jackson and Perkins roses for sale, and little grape, raspberry and blueberry plants all wrapped up in their little tubes of plastic, with hopeful sprouts of green leaves reaching out from their tops. Seeds are on sale. The air smells like earth and sky and water on those days when it's warm. And then

SLAM! Bitch-slapped back into winter. Ouch. Oh, the humanity.

I have big plans for the garden this year.
I plan for something to live.
Yes, ambitious, I am. I want to plant something that actually survives the season. So far, I've had terrible luck. And I always thought of myself as a "gardener," even flattered myself that I inherited some part of my great-grandmother's green thumb. But not at this house. At this house, I've killed everything I planted. Three years we've been here, and I've been through two full growing seasons with almost no success.

First I killed a row of hydrangeas. Then I killed several transplanted peonies (never a good idea). Then I killed a whole bed of perrenial plants. I've killed whole vegetable gardens full of food, with the exception of banana peppers, which only a real frost will kill. I killed a rose bush, six bushes with pretty purple flowers that didn't live long enough for me to remember the name, a flat of impatiens, and a potted hibiscus pruned into a tree. I also killed at least a dozen lavender plants, which thrive in poor soil with no water. What next?

This past summer, to add insult to injury, the one plant that I could get to grow was a hyacinth bean vine that grew like mad, choking out everything in the flower bed along the fence like a kudzu vine, then rambling over the gate and onto the deck and choking out everything growing in the pots there, and even reaching tendrils across the deck to entwine the patio chairs and table... but never produced a single flower or seed pod. Not one. In twenty miles of rapacious vine. Not a single damn bloom. What did I do, I ask you, to deserve this?

The picture at right is a hyacinth bean I cadged from someone else's site. (sorry). It's not mine. It has blooms on it.

So.
This year, I plan on planting something that will survive. Anything. Just so long as it lives the whole season and returns the next year. That is key. It won't be a success until next spring.

I'm ready. I'm waiting and eager to get my hands in the dirt. Just put me in, coach.

My Barfy Valentine

Poor Grayson came home sick from SPARK yesterday. Gray said he was asleep when he came to pick him up at 5:30, which was a red flag in and of itself. So Gray woke him to go home and though he said he felt okay, he threw up all down the stairs on the way out. Poor baby.

He was sick all last night, and we both slept poorly, him because he didn't feel well and me because he was sleeping in our bed and every time he stirred I was afraid he was going to throw up. Then at about 5 he was up and feverish, complaining that he couldn't sleep.

Now when Grayson can't sleep, nobody can sleep. He rolled this way. He rolled that way. He tried sleeping on TOP of me. He turned sideways, curled in a ball, stretched out, turned upside down, and finally sat up in defeat. So I got up and took him back to his own bed with a story on cd to listen to. I went back to bed.

At 6:30 I heard him crying and went back in. He said he still couldn't sleep AND his story was over, so I crawled in next to him, (he was now running a roasting fever) and we both slept until 8:30.

So much for my little valentine. Gray's home with him today and tells me on the phone that he's gone back to sleep. Still feverish, but in good spirits today. He was very disappointed to be missing the valentine party at school. So I told him we could have one of our own at home when he is better. He said "At school they make hats." So I guess we'll make valentine hats.

I love that little kid. I hate when he is feeling bad. Last night I sat on the couch and just held him in my lap... all long lanky 50 inches of him, bony butt and all, and just rocked and patted him like my baby. I remember holding him when he was a baby and sick. The hot red spots on his cheeks he would get when he wasn't feeling well. How I could cradle him on one arm and pat his fat, diapered little bottom. I could not imagine then what he would grow into in seven years. Now I smooth his hair from his hot little forehead and try to imagine him at 15, 17, 20. Not my baby. Still my baby.

Always my baby.