O My God It's Early

"The time is 0600. What's the O for? O My God it's Early."

The immortal words of Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam

My morning actually started at 3:30 when the helicopter with a search light arrived over our house and circled around for a few minutes. Fortunately, whoever they were seeking must have decamped or been apprehended, because it flew away and did not return. But things were loud and bright for a while there.

Then at 5, Grayson tapped me on the shoulder to let me know that "I didn't go to the bathroom before I went to bed and, sadly..."
He had wet the bed. Our bed.

So what do you do then but get up? I packed Grayson off back to his own warm dry bed, left Gray sleeping peacefully on his nice warm dry side of our bed, and got up to surf Audible.com and futz around until it's time to be functional.

This weekend is the Big Party for Grayson's birthday. Tomorrow my mom and I will create our annual birthday cake sculptural extravaganza. This year calls for Bugs. So we're making a beetle cake and a caterpillar cake. The caterpillar cake will be green inside : )
Today I go shopping for appropriate candies with which to decorate: licorice legs, Spree eyes, etc. And tonight Grayson and I will make more bug decorations out of pom poms and pipe cleaners. They're very cute. I need to pick up some party favors, too. I love Grayson's birthday. It's the best day of the year.

The Flight of the Monarchs

The Monarchs have arrived.

I saw the first of them yesterday as I was leaving work. Monarch butterflies fluttering along on their random way to Mexico. It is always one of the true harbingers of Fall for me.

At Quartz Mountain, lo these many years ago, they would come through in herds... droves?... gaggles? ... in October. In the evening they would light on the trees en masse for the night. Some years there were so many that some of the trees seemed to pulse eerily as all their many wings opened and closed. Some years there were more than others.

I always feel sorry for them when they have to fly in rotten weather, and it's been rotten flying weather the past couple of days. Rain and wind, courtesy Gustav. As if it wasn't hard enough to fly a couple thousand miles on rice-paper wings. Especially since half the time they're just looping around. They must fly three times the distance they need to, for all the random loops and dives.

Still, I love seeing them. And sometimes, if we're lucky, we'll find a caterpillar around this time of year. It has happened for us twice. Always in September. So I'll keep my eyes on the morning glory and milk weed to see if I can find one this year, as well.

When Gray and I were first married, we discovered a Monarch caterpillar on the morning glory vines in front of our house. We spent an entire early October afternoon parked on chairs in the front lawn with beers, watching it curl up and turn into a crysalis, which is a truly bizarre process.

Two years ago, we found another one and kept it inside through its metamorphosis. Grayson named it "Antenna," and we got to watch as it morphed. We kept the crysalis tied inside a collander on top of the bureau, but unfortunately the butterfly emerged without our notice, and the cats, or something, pushed the collander backward, and the newly hatched butterfly fell between the bureau and the wall, crimping a wing. It never unfolded properly, and though we fed it fruit and kept it alive for several days, it was never able to hold itself upright, and finally Gray took it outside and killed it. Grayson cried. And he still talks about Antenna sometimes.

Just one of the many small creatures we have killed over the years. Antenna can be counted among the ranks including fish, tadpoles, red-eared sliders, triops, a mouse, ducks and the kitten that Izzy killed. I'm like Dr. Death.

A bit gloomy today. Guess the weather has something to do with it. But that's part of the appeal of Fall, isn't it? The wonderful melancholy of it. It feels good to feel bad sometimes. So I feel sort of bittersweet seeing the Monarchs laboring their way south through Oklahoma in September. I always wish them well.

Our neice, Jordy, lives with her father in central Mexico, very near the area where the Monarchs go to overwinter every year. Seeing them has always been on my Life List. Hopefully someday we'll take Grayson for a visit and get to see the forest draped in millions of Monarchs. What a sight that must be.

Another arachnid pest and some labor day shenanigans

Lets talk about chiggers.
It's been years since I was actually bitten by a chigger, but recently I have had the opportunity to re-experience this unique north american summer thrill.

A week ago, I received five chigger bites at an evening party in the backyard of the friends of a friend. They are still driving me mad with itching. I try very hard not to scratch them bloody, but it is a constant struggle.

I looked them up on the web to see what I could do about it. The short answer is "nothing." They do not really burrow into your skin, but inject an enzyme that liquifies your flesh. As if that is somehow better. The enzyme also causes a sort of drinking straw to materialize around the injection site which allows the little bugger to drink you like a slurpy. It's the enzyme and the tube that cause the prolonged itching, not the little critter itself, which is, by the way not an insect, but an arachnid (a mite) in its larval form. The adults hang out in the dirt and eat plant stuff.

Anyway, there's no silver bullet to stop the itching except time. So I wait, and my left leg looks like I have chicken pox or something.

Happy Labor Day. I plan to spend the day doing no labor whatsoever. I have been a good mom the past two days: Took Grayson to Norman to"register" at this great toystore there on Saturday. He is sort of a tough kid to buy gifts for because he does not really go for any of the typical 8-year-old boy stuff. Cars? Nope. Action heroes? Nope. Lego building kits? Nope. He's not into Star Wars or wrestling or army men or plastic weaponry or rockets or models or electronics or sports. So what do you get him? The things he plays with most are usually pieces of something else. Lately he's discovered how to jump rope, so he does that quite a bit. I bought him a really good jump rope.

So I took him to Copelin's and he picked out a few things. A bunch of UglyDolls, which kind of amused me. A bouncy ball, and a sort of foam rubber pogo stick. Some arts and crafts stuff. That's it. But at least it gives us a starting point.

His party is next Sunday, at the Jump Zone - one of those places with a bunch of big inflatable toys. It's a Bug party, so my mom and I will be working all day Saturday to create a spectacular blue beetle cake with a chocolate body and a red velvet head. We've invited 20 of his dearest friends. Then on Monday, his actual birthday, we'll have the family celebration with something that he likes to eat, like pizza (no doubt), leftover cake and his grandparents and great-grandmothers and whichever aunties would like to join us. So, you see, it pays to have a birthday on Monday, because then you get to celebrate TWICE.

He will be 8. He's tall and lanky and getting long-haired. He's still so skinny he can wear the underwear I bought him when he was four. He's bright and funny and happy and remarkably well-adjusted. I'm grateful every day for him. We're lucky lucky lucky.

Yesterday I took G and two friends to the Science Museum Oklahoma (formerly known as the Omniplex, which I thought was a perfectly serviceable name), where we spent some three hours. So I have definitely done my motherly service and can feel justified in lazing about indolently today.

This morning we were going through the ritual Jumping-On-Dad that must be done every morning before we can properly start the day. This usually culminates in Gray pulling off Grayson's socks and throwing them down the stairs. But this morning a new opportunity presented itself. The bedroom window was open, so Gray attempted to throw the socks out onto the roof. This failing, he yanked off Grayson's PJ bottoms and threw them out onto the roof.

This is fun.

Grayson asked us to open the window so he could climb out onto the roof ( in his underwear) to retrieve his pants. But he decided a better idea would be to go get his pointer (a stick with a pointing finger on the end of it... just one of the peculiar toys I mentioned that he likes best), and use it to snag his drawers back in through the window.

So he leans out with the pointer, forehead pressed against the glass, reaches out annnnnd....
drops the pointer onto the roof.

I completely cracked up. Now his pants and his pointer on on the roof. Finally, Gray took pity on him and opened the window wide enough for him to climb out and retrieve them both, plus a pair of plastic dracula teeth that I guess the cats carried out. But as soon as Grayson was out on the roof, Gray closed the window.

This is really fun.

Now my son, my only child, is standing out on the roof on 20th street and Classen Boulevard, in his underwear, giggling wildly, and pounding on the window to be let back in. Where's my camera when I need it?

Yes, we did let the child back into the house. It was an exceptionally satisfying morning. A good way to begin a holiday.