Schedules Be Damned!

We spent the weekend with KiKi, which is shorthand for "Schedules Be Damned! We're on vacation!" which is further shorthand for no naps, late bedtimes, near complete spoilage, and erratic eating.

And not just for me.

We--that's Bear and me--are apparently firm believers in flexible scheduling.(As in: Be flexible! Now!) We believe children (re: our child) should be able to adapt to new situations--and new situations sometimes means that mommy and daddy stay up late "talking" and playing Wii, so that Finn, in the wee hours of his day (5 a.m.!), must fend for himself with copious amounts of early morning infomercials and whatever food he can pillage from my purse.

Sometimes that happens. And sometimes children need to deal. (That smacks of irresponsibility, doesn't it? I may have overshot.)

So part of the freaky scheduling means that Finn gets a little creative at bedtime, which is longhand for "tries to stay up late," in spite of our lackadaisical efforts. You turn off the discipline, open the purse, and they take a mile, don't they?

On our first night, I put Finn to bed while Bear and KiKi went to the store to retrieve "talking points." I read him some stories and then taught him how to go to Slumberland--you know, the spinning, the jumping on the bed, the closing of the eyes, and the subsequent spins that make you feel like your bed is about to bust through the ceiling.

I left him, eyes clenched, floating off with Nemo. And then, about a minute later, I hear Finn calling me. I should ignore him, but the Faber method never did sit well.

"What is it?"

"I'm back, mama."

"So I hear. Go to sleep, sweets."

"But I have something for you."

I enter the room,and Finn reaches into his mock pocket and pulls a pretend out.

"What is it?" I whisper.

"I brought you back a moonbeam."

My Kid Can Hear!

Earlier this afternoon, I was on the phone with Aunt KiKi, speaking to her in hushed tones about things people get hushy about and, again in hushed tones, telling her about Finn's generally naughty morning. Finn and I had already discussed it extensively, so I thought I'd let him off the hook and just relay it to KiKi whisper-like, because he doesn't need to feel any worse about what he did and because KiKi will find it amusing.

Yes, she finds his bad behavior funny. She lives far away.

"So," I whisper to her question about what Finn did today that was adorable, "here's what's not: Finn whacked his friend on the head with paperback book."

I'm in the kitchen. Finn's playing in the living room, and yet despite several pieces of evidence to the contrary--like his general and absolute nonresponsiveness when I ask him, repeatedly and at high-decibel tones, to set the table, clean his room, feed his fish, get ready for bath, clean up his transformers, put on his shoes, take off his shoes, flush the toilet, wipe his face, wash his hands, shampoo the carpet--Finn responds quickly to my hushed recap:

"I didn't hit her on the head."

My first thought, my child is insisting on being accurate, if not remorseful, about his misdemeanors. What am I raising? ("Damian?" No response from the living room. Good.)

And then, I'm like, wait, he heard that?

And it really sinks in.

My son can hear.

Crap.

I'm in trouble.

Deep.

If Finn heard that, then what else has he heard? My trash talk about my mother? (Sorry, mom.) And our very close friends that sometimes we misunderstand and get a little pissy about? About Bear?

That could bite me in the ass. I may have to pay dearly to keep that information underwraps. I'm thinking of how I can pay him to keep his mouth shut. I'm thinking of how much chocolate I have in the house. I'm seriously thinking about getting him a dog. Would a dachshund work?

Crap.

Then, I'm thinking, wait a minute, I've been played. He can hear. All those times--requests, demands, begging, pleading--he's heard me. He's mocked me. That little, well, mother-player. I'll get him. And his little dog, too. (If we ever get him one.)

And then I'm thinking, wait, he can hear.

And I realize, in one full and much too easy swoop, Finn's admitted to his crime and revealed his superhearing--a superpower that's only supergood as long as it's supersecret.

And now that secret is out.

And now I shall use my knowledge of that power to make this house a better place.

The Reluctant Goodbye

Scene: Airport. Moments from the mass-boarding of KiKi's flight back home.

"Finn, don't you want to say good-bye to KiKi?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I'm mad. I want her to stay."

"She has to go home, Finn. And I think you should give her hug."

"No."

"You sure?"

"No."

"You don't want to give her hug?"

"No."

"Okay."

We start to walk away. Finn's on my back, piggie-style. We're almost to the doors. I turn to give one last wave to KiKi. I'm so going to miss her. Finn gets a last look and throws out a last wave.

And then: "Wait, mama. Wait, mama. I do. I do. I do. I do."

I set Finn down and he runs back to KiKi, arms outstretched. She squats down to catch him, arms wide, eyes watering. And despite the throngs of people that are boarding and disembarking and otherwise dodging the trajectory of an erratic preschooler, they prove, once again, that ain't nobody gonna get between a boy and his KiKi.

Because the World Spins a Little More Thoroughly When KiKi's Got the Wheel

Last night, Aunt Kiki gave Finn her first bath. Well, she's had baths before, and she generally smells quite nice. And Finn, of course, has had baths before, and he occasionally smells quite nice. But Kiki has never given Finn a bath. Ergo, the firstiness.

I started the bath water at 8:30 p.m. (note the time), with the full intention of giving my kid his bath. But when he demanded those services of KiKi, I reluctantly (and yet with a speed that would impress even Wally West) handed over the reins to this most cherished duty and ran to take full advantage of this pocket of rare time.

I cleaned.

(Hey, I heard that. A little quieter with your your disapproval, please. I'm trying to write here.)

The bath could've gone a lot of ways. You see, Finn is an unpredictable taker of the baths. He prefers, for example, to be a splasher, not a splashee, and if any trace of tear-inducing or even tear-free shampoo or really even just water shimmies near his eye, he will scream. And I use scream in that blood-curdling-thrice-the-force-of-the-Wilhelm scream-to-which-chocolate-must-be- administered-immediately sense. It could've happened. And if Finn screamed, odds are good KiKi would scream back and then I would be out of chocolate and that is simply no good.

But, we must be honest. Finn really wasn't our concern.

You see, I've had my eye on Aunt KiKi. She's been helping me hold down the fort this past week (and as of yesterday, quite literally, as a 20 ft. blanket and couch-pillow fort took over our living room). I've seen her sneak peeks at Finn's toy dinosaur eggs, glee-ing out at every crack. I've heard tales of their Monster game, where Finn chases her (the monster) with his toy chainsaw, for something like 45 minutes. I've witnessed her roll-race down our grassy hill. I was there when she made Finn and his blanket into at least six pizzas, five burritos, and one cream puff. And I've seen her fall prey to the manipulations of a four year who'd rather play with her than take his nap. (Sure, she apologized, but she wasn't winning any awards for that performance.)

So Finn really wasn't the one to worry about. KiKi really takes her godma role seriously, in that very unserious chase-the-blanket-turned-into-a-tail way that gets Finn's supergiggles going.

But since I didn't hear any screams from either boy or aunt, I just kept going, changing the sheets on the bed, putting the laundry away, dusting the lamps, mopping the bedroom and hallway hard woods, cleaning baseboards, re-alpha'ing our 400-volume library, regrouting the tile, detailing our car.

Wait a minute. What were they doing in there?

And that's when I finally looked at the clock. It was 9:20. Almost a full and quite pruny hour of bathing--for Finn and KiKi's jeans alike. And where I sincerely doubt my son was irreparably damaged by such a thorough "cleaning," I do wonder if KiKi will ever be the same. If her sparkly eyes and bubbly giggle were any indication, I don’t think she’ll mind.

(Although she may have permanently de-aged about 20 years.)

I Had No Idea

In our last episode, Bear had just come home from an emergency cauterisation surgery-type thing. We were happy, I made jokes about his new nose. Things were good.

About six hours after we got home, Barry started bleeding. Again. Two hours later, he got another nosebleed. He controlled it and I started frantically calling our ENT--who is apparently difficult to reach, as he serves all of the nether regions outside of the Kansas City's asteroid belt. We were determined not to go the ER, so I started calling other ENTs that we had visited in Bear's last episode two years ago. They wanted nothing to do with us. Then, an hour later, he got another. And that's where I packed him in the car and headed for the ER.

They admitted us on Tuesday. On Thursday, the doc (and the only ENT that serves our hospital, what's up with that?) scheduled Bear for "real" surgery. On Friday, Bear had lost so much blood from the nosebleeds (that continued after the surgery) that the doc signed him up for a blood transfusion.

Yeah, that's what I said. From nosebleed to blood transfusion. That's one way to spend the week.

So, in all and in short, Barry has spent the past five days bleeding and turning various shades of white and green, pre- and post-op, and I've spent it arguing, fussing, and hiding in the vistors lounge under the pretense of making phone calls so I could cry and generally freak out of Bear's ear shot.

Thank God for Barry's parents and my best friend KiKi, who drove and flew up special. Apparently, Kiki's spidey-sense is so keen (or I'm so very transparent) that after about five seconds on the phone with me, she dropped everything, including her tickets to see her hunk-a-tv-love Stephen Colbert and booked a flight to KC.

Yes, I have a friend like that.

And I've learned a lot that I didn't know over the past week. Like which ER you go to severly affects your after-ER care. That choosing your hospital is as, if not more, important than choosing your doctor. That getting a second opinion is excessively discouraged and some nurses will even bully and terrorize you to make sure you're scared so shitless that your husband and father to your child will bleed out in the ambulance that you won't dare to mention the request-that-will-not-be-named again. And that not even doctors will cross the Missouri river willingly.

This Is a Metaphor-Free Zone

I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, realizing that I had crashed out on Finn in the middle of What Is Easter? and Spring Easter Bugs, two appropriately seasonal gifts from his Godma K.

What was supposed to happen? I was supposed to read the books, have a nice chat and song (usually one I have adapted from my favorite Shakespeare play. I know. Complete goob) and then get up, brew myself some Tibetan Eye of the Tiger, and work diligently on one of my client's projects until I hit epiphany or insanity. Often, I can't tell the two apart. I don't know that you necessarily should.

That didn't happen. Not so much.

Instead, I found myself at 3 a.m., with a book in my ribs, one in my calf, and one in my ear; with drool (I'm not absolutely sure whose) in my hair; some kind of heavy, round object (oh, that's a head) on my foot; and a few panels on a brochure left to write.

I can tell you, that was a bona fide extrication, my friend. I can tell you that with complete confidence, but, uncharacteristically, without metaphor. (Yes, me, at a lack for metaphor.)

But I can also tell you, again with complete confidence, that I love my job.

In the Wake of Books

Maybe it's time to describe Finn's book fetish.

First, our bedtime routine, and this well incontrovertibly reveal what smashing good parents we are:

1. We brush teeth.
2. We potty. Everyone. Modeling is important.
3. We read books.

And that's where our good parenting ends. Because as any good parents knows, you want your child to become more than you are. So they can pay off your lavish Ikea debts in your old age.

Tonight's selections: The Little Giant (with Angelo de Gianti and Osvadlo di Curti) and No More Monsters for Pets. Or some such. We like to read two. And keep it to two. Ours is a child who will keep us reading until the wee hours, if he has his way, and that's just, well, bad. Too much book learning can hurt your eyes--and your brain. You just to need those nip book smarts in the bud. That's what we say. Often. And loudly. And even in public to, oddly, very few snickers.

But we do compensate our illiterate ways by letting Finn take books into bed. Not the best idea we've ever had as far as finding a happy, restful toddler in the morning, but we're thinking if he stays up late reading, then we can stay up late drinking and everybody is equally cranky when the household awakes to the blazing sun in our east-facing house at, now, 6 a.m.

So, it's all strategic. Yes, that's what it is. Strategic.

By books into bed, I'm not talking one or two. I'm talking sixteen. Yes, Finn pilfers through some sixteen books, maybe more. We find books stashed underneath the covers when we change his sheets. Comics, fairytales, picture books, Frazier's The Golden Bough, E.M. Forestor's Aspects of the Novel (one of his recent favorites). He doesn't discriminate.

For someone who doesn't "read"--and he's the first to admit he can't, but I seriously doubt his self-asessment--he likes him some serious literature. He'll spend a good hour or two or three flipping through books and talking his way through pictures or not. He'll even call us, hours after we've thought he's been dutifully asleep, to fetch a David Foster Wallace that's slipped behind his headboard or to ask us what "bawling" means.

We started this enterprise, this child rearing, wanting to develop our child's love of stories. In the parlance of pedagogy, we've developed a print-rich home, magazines piled on the coffee table (that's now buckling under the weight), magazines filling a bucket by the toilet, amply stocked bookcases and backseats, cookbooks that line every inch of counter space, comic books gingerly spread on any available flat surface.

We've got books, granted many that go unread between the hours spent blogging and watching Heroes and BG and calling KiKi and Alan to discuss the aforementioned. Oh, and work, too. Yes, we work. But we do have books, lots of them, to fill the time should cable and Sprint Nextel networks give out.

But now, despite our best efforts to promote books as decoration or hypocritical claims to culture, we can't get the kid to go to sleep because he wants to "read." I've taken to given him an extra 30 minutes to "read," and then I literally have to unscrew his light bulb. (Which is immediately followed by a click-click-click and a lamenting, "Poppi? Poppi?") I have become the Evil Witch of Lights Out, the one who has to tell my son that reading time is over.

Our child is now doomed to become an artist or a writer or a pursuer of multiple advanced degrees, despite our best efforts to get him to follow in someone else's footsteps.

Wherein I Play the Straightman. Again

K: How did your evening go? Survive the pleas for pudding?

Me: Yes. We had no pudding so that helped. (Finn said at one point, "We could go to the store and get pudding. Oh, no, we don't have any money.")

K: What?!?

K: "Oh, no, we don't have any money"?

Me: He gets that they don't give pudding away for free. It was cute. He wasn't despondent or anything. He just found a little piece of logic and went back to coloring.

K: But why does he think he's a pauper?

K: I like to look at it more as we have to make choices with our money--and perhaps for him pudding just wasn't the golden goose he thought it was?

K: But you aren't paupers. Are you? I mean pudding is cheap.

Me: We'd rather spend that money on beer and cocaine. Priorities.

K: Ah.

K: It's all clear now.

Me: And hookers. I shouldn't forget the hookers.

Me: Finn likes the hookers.

K: It's really funny. The mental image of tarted-up women in knee-high boots having to contend with the phenomenon that is Finn. He'd be raiding their lipstick bags. Then he'd say he didn't want to talk to them until Christmas, and they'd be confused. Not at all pretty.