When it rains

It seems dreadful luck comes in packs.

I've lost Mambo. On Sunday I took him outside to get some fresh air and sunshine. I set him down on a log inside a circle of garden fencing and did a little work on a flowerbed nearby. I moved over to the garden to plant one plant. When I came back to check on him, less than ten minutes later, he had vanished.

Oh! Grayson's face when I told him! I spent four hours looking for Mambo, turning over every stick in the woodpile, feeling under every bush and even climbing over fences to search neighbors' yards. Nothing.

Every morning and every afternoon I come home and look for him. Sometimes at lunch I come home and just walk the perimeter of the yard, hoping I might catch him out in the open, sunning on a log or something. I just can't imagine he can have gone far. But chances are he's already dead... taken by a hawk or a neighbor's dog. Poisoned by eating a pesticide treated bug.

I just can't believe I was so stupid and careless. I told Grayson it was okay to be mad at me for letting Mambo escape. In his typical fashion, he told me he wasn't mad at me. Just like he forgave Roxy for killing the chickens. He has forgiven me. And I'm reminded again of what a remarkable, gentle kid he is. I swear he has the open, forgiving nature of a saint. I'm amazed sometimes at how good he is.

Oh he's not perfect. He watches way too much television, whines about his homework, and is recalcitrant about cleaning his room. Like any kid. But his bad guys always turn into good guys, and he's prepared to see the "nice" in everyone he meets. He is eager to please people, flexible in his ways, and forgiving. Always forgiving. I love him so very very much.

So why did I bite him?

Yes, I bit my son. In my defense, I was asleep when I did it. It happened like this:
Grayson often still crawls into bed with me in the wee hours of the night. Most of the time he doesn't even disturb me enough for me to be aware he's doing it, I just wake up and there he is. Well, Monday night he had climbed into bed with me, and I was having a dream that someone was trying to abduct me: he was trying to stuff a rag in my mouth and shove me into a car.

So I bit him. I bit down through the rag in my mouth onto his hand or finger or whatever. Only it was Grayson's elbow I was biting! I guess he had his elbow out and it was pressing against my face and so I bit it!

Grayson sat up in bed and said "What happened?"
I came to in a kind of fog and realized I'd been dreaming, and then that I had probably actually been biting something and that something was likely Grayson! "Did I bite you?" I asked.
Grayson: dazed, groggy: "I think so..."
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, did I bite hard?"
"kind of."

Turns out I bit him hard enough to break the skin. He has two tooth marks on his elbow! But in typical fashion, he forgave me. He wasn't upset or scared or angry... in fact, we both laughed about it and went back to sleep. That's my boy.