a lot can happen in 3 years...

a lot can happen in three years. for example, a boy can finish kindergarten, first and second grade and begin third grade.

a mom and a dad can realize many of their boy's . . . quirks . . . are actually signposts. clues that something is not Normal.

hubs and i knew timmy was Unique right from the beginning. seriously. we called tiny baby timmy "the observer" because he, well, observed. he was . . . separate. above it all. not really a part of the world around him, but taking it all in. the non-human parts, anyway.

today, he loves to hear the story of his First Communication. it goes like this: we were outside sitting on the lawn swing. he was wearing a denim jacket and a stocking cap because the air was fall-crisp. i left him sitting alone on the swing while i stood in front of him to take his picture. his face held no expression. his eyes looked ahead, a little to my left, and he lifted his right arm straight into the air and pointed to the sky with his index finger and held that position.

i said, "are you showing mommy the beautiful blue sky?" he remained still. "do you see that white cloud floating in the sky?" statue. "do you see the red and gold and brown leaves of the tree?" (he loved leaves. and sticks. during our daily walks, he would often hold a stick or a leaf while watching the world from the comfort of his stroller.) no reaction. "is there an airplane flying high in the sky?" nada. just the unfocused gaze and the unmoving point.

then, as i ran out of guesses, a cardinal's song seeped into my consciousness from somewhere above us in the elm tree. "bird? do you hear a pretty bird singing a wonderful song to us?" and i was rewarded with what we later called (and still do) a Secret Smile. (think mona lisa.) "the bird is singing a beautiful song to mommy and timmy! the bird sings pretty-pretty-pretty! chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp." a subtle pleased look about the eyes - we later named the expression Smiley Eyes.

my boy observed a cardinal singing his song. he enjoyed it and he shared it with me. birds! timmy liked birds! 

we bought two bird feeders and hung them outside each of his bedroom windows. we watched Mr. and Mrs. Yellow (finches), Mr. and Mrs. Red (also finches) and Mr. and Mrs. Chickadee (several sets of each, actually) for years. we loved to see patient Mrs. Cardinal and Mr. Cardinal with his sassy hairdo.  we enjoyed the scolding squirrels' antics as they tried to share in the birdseed feast. we tried a hummingbird feeder for years, but we only attracted ants. 

and we communicated. we rocked in the rocking chair beside the window as i described each bird. "that bird is yellow! that yellow bird is a finch! can you say 'finch?'" Smiley Eyes. 

"see how Mr. Finch is quite yellow, while Mrs. Finch has just a tiny bit of yellowish brown on her chest?" point. 

"see Mr. Red? he is pecking at Mr. Yellow because he wants the bird feeder all to himself. Mr. Red and Mr. Yellow are arguing because they don't want to share the birdseed. silly birds!" Secret Smile.

and, you know, there were other signs. but i am exhausted. emotionally drained and physically tired, too. this morning i was much less than the picture of perfect, patient parenting. and i have a lot of work to do, so i'll reminisce more tomorrow. or in three more years.

i am an indian princess

like my friend moon ko, one of the photos in the yearbook yourself options shows an exact replica of a hairdo i myself sported at one time.

i was not in high school, however. i was in kindergarten. while i do admit i looked pretty stinkin' cute in my little bouf, let me take you below the surface. read on, my faithful friend, for a story rife with mystery, tragedy - and comedy.

on this fateful friday, about a week into the school year, our class was to dress like indians. i'm sure we must have been learning about native american culture, but the lesson has been lost to me. buried deep beneath the horror.

my mother took so long doing my hair that morning, even though i was impatient and excited. she had no reason to hurry. she only had one girl's hair to worry about. and she was not a gentle hair stylist, either. my hair follicles still cringe in abject terror at the memory of their morning torture sessions.

when mom finally finished her masterpiece, i could hardly contain myself as i raced to the bathroom to behold what i was sure would be the most beautiful indian princess ever. long, flowing black tresses interwoven with the feathers we'd been given. maybe a few wildflowers, too.

but when i gazed into those marbled mirror tiles covering one wall of the bathroom, all i saw was a huge light brown bouf with the curl at the bottom resting on my shoulders like a stole of shame, a yellow polka-dot bow perched precariously right above the bangs. i stared, frozen in open-mouthed shock, for several seconds before i could tear myself away.

i stumbled, sobbing, back down the hall to where my mother now worked to dress one of my younger brothers. "i-, i-, i- "

"what? what's wrong?! did you hurt yourself?"

"noooooooooo. (sob, choke). i'm su-su-supposed to b-b-be an indian p-p-prinnn-cessss!" and i dropped my pathetic face into my little hands and wept.

my mother, ever resourceful, picked up one of the feathers, stuck it into the top of my bouf and declared, "there. now you're an indian princess. go get your shoes on."

girliness lost

i don't know what it is about me these last few days, but i've been emotional, sentimental, nostalgic. thinking deep thoughts about so many things, past and present. for example, i've been lamenting the fact that i grew up with no sisters. no girlie influence at all.

having four brothers, all the tv i watched was that which appealed to males. shows like "the incredible hulk," "a-team," westerns. i don't even know the names of any shows with a female audience from that time period.

playing with dolls? i had some barbies, but my brothers' g.i. joes usually blew them up. or they buried them in the yard. or hung their severed heads by their hair from the clothesline. i did get a holly hobby bicycle for my birthday one year, but by the end of summer, she'd been disassembled for parts for various violent experimental machines.

polishing nails, playing dress-up, putting on make-up? huh-uh. nope. i didn't even feel like i was "allowed" to dream of prince charming and a fairytale wedding. i would have been laughed at for sure. and no girl-emotions, either. no crying, no female drama.

when added to our frequent moves, this equals a serious retardation of the ability to make girlfriends. not the desire; just the ability.

i made my first girlfriend in seventh grade. she moved away. and so, coincidentally, did we. i missed most of the eighth grade due to illness, but the summer before ninth grade, i really "blossomed," as they say - got boobs and hips and had great hair and learned how to use make-up to my advantage.

i became friends with the sister of one of the boys who liked me. butch and beverly (and bev's boyfriend) and i were inseparable. such intense but innocent good times. then . . . we moved away. (note: bev and i now live about an hour apart and we see each other every year or so, although we email back and forth frequently.)

i can't remember exactly how i met angela, but we became bff's. we had a lot in common, but were different enough to be interesting to each other. our friendship cooled a bit when we both moved twice more before graduation. but we went to the same college and jumped right back into our friendship. then, toward the end of our sophomore year, something happened. a gradual distancing at first and then someone told me she'd said horrible things about me. i never asked her if it was true. but i think about angela often. i wonder what happened back in college. i wonder how her life turned out. if she's happy.

fast forward to today. my cousin vicki and i've been best friends since we've lived in the same town since 1992. i made two very good girlfriends after hiring them, debbie at one company and susan at the next. then i became friends with susan's sister sharon. susan and sharon remain good friends and may be the first women, other than vicki, who i've felt i could confide my truths to.

what's the point of all this? i don't . . . know. i think there may be no point at all. but if there were a point, it would be that tomorrow is my very first ever pedicure appointment. tim gave me a gift certificate two birthdays ago and i'm finally using it, due in part (maybe wholly due) to my recent yearning for the girliness i should have had growing up. and i am so incredibly nervous about it. dumb, but true.

sweet nothings

i like to know the stories of how couples met and fell in love, but i think the stories behind pet names are even more interesting.

tim, my wonderful husband who has had a happyccino waiting for me when i woke up each of the past two mornings, mostly calls me sweetie. (i secretly believe that's a left-over from his wild and woolly teen years, when it may have been somewhat difficult to remember each girl's exact name.) but he also calls me his little flintstone feet girl. (i have very tiny feet, but they're wide and my toes are short.) lovely, no?

he also calls me his jolly green giant because i always think i'm much taller than i am, especially in comparison to him. (i'm almost 5'5" and he's 6'2". but it feels like we're almost the same height.)

when i was still a working woman, i wore my hair short. andrea, my stylist at the time, did whatever the heck she wanted with my hair - i had no say, but neither had i the time to worry about it. once, she cut it SO short and put SO much goop on it that when tim saw it, he began calling me his little chemo girl. mildly offensive, but what could i do?

tim has also been known to tilt the lampshades in the living room and close the miniblinds behind the sheers a little bit (i keep them closed at night and all the way up in the daytime) so that i will fix them when i walk through. again and again. and he thinks it's funny to call me his little ocd girl. nice.

rod and vicki call each other "babe." that's it. no imagination, i say. but at least it's nicer than "old lady," which is what lonnie calls sandra.

tori told me yesterday that her boyfriend todd calls her his little black-footed pachyderm. what the?! alas, there is a reasonable explanation. todd can never remember where he parked his car at the mall or a restaurant, but tori never forgets (it is said elephants never forget). tori has had a life-long aversion to wearing shoes. her friends from school called her "hobbit" because of it. and, as she explained, her feet often are filthy by the end of the day (thus, she is black-footed). he also calls her his baby elephant. now that i know the story, i think both are sweet.

tim and i used to, when we were young and carefree and had time to shop together, make up life stories for strangers in the store. part of the fun was imagining what their pet names for each other were. it's just this moment i realized we don't do that anymore. when i see him tomorrow, i'm going to convince him to take me to lunch (at fiesta, of course) and then i'm going to inquire as to whether he'd like to imagine our neighbor's pet names. i will report back.

the burning bed

domestic violence is a serious problem and not something about which to joke. no. having said that, i would like to report that my husband once threw me from a golf cart.

the day dawned peacefully and developed into a real stunner, sunny and mild. perfect for golf. normally, tim golfed alone or with guy friends. on this fateful day, however, i decided to go along, provided we use a cart. i don't play, but i like to be outside, and golf is usually a time of pleasant banter and catching up with each other.

i obliviously sipped my large iced tea with lemon and browsed through a magazine as tim's mood darkened hole after hole. his swing was off, slicing to the left, and his score suffered.

things went from bad to worse at the 5th hole. tim stomped, cursing, to the cart and gunned it. my now empty cup tumbled out, tim aimed a few choice words back toward it and i pleaded, "tim! go back! we can't just leave it on the ground!" no sooner were the words spoken than tim whipped a wicked u-turn accompanied by the most splendid of curses.

it all happened in super-slow-mo except for my thoughts, which raced at the speed of light. my inner voice calmly informed me, 'you are now exiting the golf cart. there is a slight chance you may be mangled and broken under those tires. you must save yourself.' so, of course i used every bit of strength my (at that time) quite nicely toned thigh muscles could muster and launched myself up, out and twisting free of the vehicle.

fortunately, the cart's position at the top of a hill aided me in my escape. i landed, hard, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, magazine still gripped and unwrinkled in my hand. my paralyzation (and possible death) worried me not as i gazed upward in awe of the beautiful contrast between the impossibly blue sky and the glossy leaves of the tree under which i'd come to rest.

tim's laughing (laughing!) face came floating into focus above me. his mouth seemed to be moving and seconds later the sound came to me: "sweetie, are you alright? are you hurt?" indignation and realization of my inability to breathe battled for prominence in my still-tumbling brain. the fog slowly cleared. no, i would not die today! i would live, if only to seek revenge.

tim laughed as he carried me back up the hill to the cart, kissing that spot on the bridge of my nose and apologizing profusely the entire way. he laughed while examining my extremities for injury, finding only a mildly stiff and uncomfortable ankle. he laughed as my dad approached (we'd passed him - played through?- on the last hole). he did not laugh as he explained the incident to my dad.

although tim's swing did not improve throughout the afternoon, i've never seen him - before or since - in such a good mood or so attentive. if memory serves, tim cooked every meal for a week after "the incident."