Or, to be more accurate, let Cael tell Graham a story.
At 3:25am.
When they're supposed to be asleep.
"Graham. Graham! Graham, get up for this story!"
"Otay..."
"Once about a time, there was a horse and a duck. And the duck was purple with orange lines-- not stripes but kinda like stripes. But not. And the duck was eating fish and stuff and the horse said, 'I want to eat fish, too!' So the horse got in the water and then a man shot the horse. And there was blood everywhere and the horse had to get out of the water because it was bleeding and it was yucky for the duck. And the duck was all red and then the horse was a bear and it chased the duck all over the lake because it wanted to eat the duck. It was a mean bear. And then the bear --RAWRRRRR!!!-- came after all of the people that were there because they were shooting at the bear.
Bang! Bang! And then, RAWR! again in the water. And then the bear was in here in our room while I was playing and you were sleeping and the bear and a dragon tried to eat you and you cried a long time and Mommy didn't come because she was on the phone and Daddy was at work, so the dragon and the bear ate you! And Barker. And Bear. And Cheeky Monkey."
Stunned silence.
"Ugh. You're gonna get in trouble, Graham. You're supposed to be sleeping. Be quiet! Go to bed!"
"Cheety Munty IS here!"
"No, he's not. He's gone forever and he's never coming back. Now go to bed!! I love you, Graham."
With the high near 70 degrees, it felt much more like May than March, and the day begged for outdoor play. So play we did, but with less than positive results.
You remember the mud pit in my backyard that beckoned to my children and caused them to roll around in it like half-drunk coeds? Yep, it's still there.
What about Lake MacForeman? Yup, full o'water. So in order to avoid a children-in-the-street incident, I packed them up and meandered about town until we found the first park with rock instead of dirt and no other children in sight. Because as social as my children are, I would rather not have to issue any more public apologies for Cael and his lack of personal boundaries.
As we pulled up to the park, Cael and Graham started whooping and hollering, winding up like an old crank siren and equally as loud. I was grateful that I'd chosen the most secluded park in town with no traffic on the street, as Cael ran at full-speed toward the equipment.
In order to fully appreciate this image, please refer to this clip from the show "Friends".
Yep. Just like that.
Once Graham was out and on the loose as well, although at a much slower pace, I began to see that there were a few potential problems. Let's tackle them in order of severity, shall we?
1) The last time we visited a park, Graham was barely two years old, and lacked the bravery and chutzpa to mount the ladders and nets on the jungle gym. At two and a half, Graham thinks he's The Incredible Hulk-- climbing with reckless abandon, jumping near the edge of steep drop-offs and exhibiting an overall disregard for his activity level and the difficulty of the equipment.
2) It was muddy at the park, too. Mud in the grass, melting snow, puddles of sludge and slush abound. Muddy, murky, messy.
3) Cael doesn't listen. He's capable of course, but chooses not to listen. And as irritating as that is, what would I blog about if it were any other way?
4) I was having a really bad hair day. This actually doesn't pertain to the story, but isn't that irritating?
So with these truths in place, we stormed the playground equipment at precisely 11:05am. I shadowed Graham every step of the way, rescuing him from the edge and a potential broken arm while doing my best to keep Cael on the premises.
We played tag, we climbed, we swung on the swings, we peeked at each other from the recesses of the jungle gym, and while I was helping Graham tackle the curly slide, it happened.
"Hey, Mommy! Look at me!"
Cael had run up to the house closest to the park, and was in hill-rolling stance. I knew how saturated the ground was and ordered him to return.
"No rolling. It's way too wet-- come back here to the park!"
And in a miraculous and obedient turn of events, he immediately did turned and ran down the hill to continue assaulting the playground. That is, until he slipped on some snow and fell, face first, into the dirt and slid four or five feet before stopping at the perimeter of the park.
So at precisely 11:15am, we loaded ourselves back in the car, mud and all, to change clothes before meeting Joel for lunch, and I mentally added one more truth to the list.
5) The road to hell and, coincidentally, the road to the park, are paved with good intentions.
I have a vivid memory of begging my mom for the gel window clings that stores manufactured to celebrate every holiday. I loved the look and feel of them but not once was allowed to get something so frivolous to adorn our window when we had wax paper and crayons at home. Because that's the same, right?
So as a symbolic act of rebellion, I have always had a seasonal gel cling on our sliding door, and my boys have come to love the tradition of tearing down the old ones and picking out the next set. Earlier in the month, I searched for some St. Patrick's Day clings but found that I do not have the luck of the Irish, and left the store with only a package for Easter.
But then, luckily, a flat envelope from Bamma arrived in the mail yesterday, and in it were two highly-sought after packages of St. Patrick's Day window clings. They promptly went up, providing some seasonal symmetry to our dining room, and then we turned our attention to the other content's of Bamma's box.
"TATTOOOOOOS!"
My boys are now more inked than they were after Joel's week long mustache-a-thon, and don't hesitate to show any passers-by their new tats.
"Papa, look at my tattoo!"
"Neat, Cael."
"It says, 'Kiss me, I'm Irish'."
(Insert kissing attack from Mommy)
"You can't kiss me, I'm Irish, remember?"
"Actually, you're English, French, German and Scottish."
I really wish I had a DVD player in the car. I know that they invite a whole new set of problems, but I'm ready for a break from the boys' current activity of choice in the car, locating stars in the sky and arguing violently over whether they are stars or airplanes.
Or occasionally, light bulbs.
I did get a brief and welcome reprieve from their debates last night when Cael wasn't able to spot the lights in the sky.
"Why are there only three stars?!"
"There are millions of stars, honey, but it's too bright to see them right now. Remember that episode of Curious George when George wants to count the stars, but he can't see them in the city because the lights are too bright?"
"I remember that."
"Well this is the same thing, except the sky is still too bright, and the moon is really bright, too."
"Why is the moon bright?"
This is the point at which I must make a choice. He has asked two questions, which signal the beginning of what is likely to be a long and arduous conversation regarding the space/time continuum, and only two choices remain for me. Do my best to answer his questions and hope he'll see a cow or something to distract him before I drive the van off a bridge, or respond with the often overused "we'll talk about that later" response which I am limiting myself to using only once per day.
And unfortunately for me, my one usage is up. If only he hadn't asked about how frogs have babies.
"The sun is on the other side of the Earth now, so it's lighting up the moon for us. And the moon is so bright because it's almost full tonight."
"Why is it almost full?"
"Because the moon goes in cycles. When you see the whole moon, it's called a 'full moon', and then it gets smaller again. You've seen a crescent moon, right?"
"What's a crescent moon?"
"One that is really tiny, like a piece of fingernail."
"I've seen that. But Mommy, why is the sun on the other side of the Erf?"
This discussion is getting away from me faster than Oscar chasing a rabbit.
"Our planet goes around the sun. When our side of the planet is facing the sun, it's daytime. When we face away from the sun, it's nighttime."
"And when it's really bright, it's Thursday, right?"
"Well, Thursday comes after Wednesday. That doesn't really have anything to do with the weather. But the weather does tell us what season it is."
"What is a season?"
"You know about seasons. What season are we in right now?"
"Winter."
"That's right. Do you know which one comes next?"
"I told you, Mommy. THURSDAY."
"Nope, that's a day, not a season. Next comes Spring, when the weather gets a little warmer and the plants start to grow again."
"Why is it warmer?"
"Because we're closer to the sun. Or the angle is different... but I know it has to do with the sun, Cael."
"Oh, okay."
And just when I thought he was done, when we were almost home and I thought I might have actually taught him something, he turned to Graham to share the knowledge.
"Graham, did you hear that? Mommy made up a silly story about the moon and the sun."
"I like da moon."
"Me too. I like it because the moon makes it Thursday."
I remember very few things about my first time sleeping over at a friend's house. We ate pizza, she had a rabbit, it rained really hard and I cried until my parents came to pick me up. Not so successful. Once I got the anxiety of that first sleepover out of the way, I was hooked on the marathon of giggles and braid chains that accompanied each night spent with a friend.
Thankfully for Cael, he won't have to worry about crying over his cheese pizza at a friend's house, because he already has his first sleepover under his belt. Last week, during our weekly Wednesday night Subway dinner (family tradition), my sister Amy suggested that Cael stay the night and have a "cousin sleepover". I knew that Cael would be excited, but I wondered what emotion my generous nephews would feel as Cael kicked them in their shins and demanded french toast sticks at 3am. Or what if Hurricane Cael-trina made landfall at my sister's house and all of them awoke to the washing machine overflowing with soap suds and the car crashed through the wall? This might be a bad idea.
I recommended that they have a back-up plan in case Cael was unable to wind down and refuse to sleep. It is my experience (daily) that Cael cannot relax, even with a hefty dose of Children's Benadryl, unless he is confined to a room with no toys and no lights. Maybe some day he'll make us all famous by defying the laws of science and stay awake for three months. Or maybe he'll just get arrested for stealing Unisom from a 24-hour Walmart when he's in fourth grade.
When the time came for me to drop Cael off, he could barely contain his enthusiasm. He jumped and galloped around my sister's house shouting, "My sleepover, my sleepover!" And poor Graham simply asked, "I come too?" Unfortunately, he's still too young, and he's much too gentle to be subjected to a night in the same bed with flailing, thrashing Cael.
"Graham, how about we have our own sleepover? We'll do something special, okay?"
"Otay."
I hugged Cael, begged him to be good and sleep a reasonable number of hours, and headed home to break out the crepe paper and balloons for the party of the century.
"Graham, what do you want to do?"
"Drink Propel!"
"Really? That's it?"
"Wear Mickey peejees!"
"Okay, we can do that. What else?"
I figured he'd want to play with his toys or eat some ice cream. On the way home I told him we'd do something special, so I assumed that ride home was so quiet because he was thinking so hard about how best to cash in on his one-on-one Mommy time. As he laid out the terms of our party, however, it began to seem like he was more interested in watching paint dry than having a sleepover with his old lady.
"Snuggle on yours bed?"
Now that's more like it.
As Graham and I cuddled under a blanket, I smiled at the photos my sister texted me of my big boy, nuzzled up to his "big" cousins and exceeding my expectations. He went to sleep without issue, didn't assault anyone during the night, and when he woke up AFTER 7am, the cat was unharmed and accounted for. I couldn't be prouder.
Maybe Cael is ready to be up by himself in the mornings after all.
I plucked a white hair from my head the other day. Not just gray, WHITE. Joel was snoring snoozing peacefully, the boys were tucked in their beds, and I stood before the bedroom mirror in shocked silence at the fat, long and stark white thread that clung to my scalp.
Cael in the daisies, summer 2010
Oh, heck no.
I thought about trimming it so as not to damage the follicle but I immediately had visions of my backyard daisies. Two summers ago, they grew tall enough to block the sun from reaching the black-eyed susans behind them. With my garden shears I selectively trimmed the long and gangly stalks to reveal the younger, healthier daisies within.
In two weeks' time, the daisies were four feet tall, eight feet wide, and yelled profanities at me whenever I walked by.
So here, many months later as I stood in front of the mirror contemplating follicide, I remembered my past mistakes, dropped the scissors and yanked the sucker clean out with my hand.
And I swear I heard a tiny whimper come through over the kids' monitor. I could have yanked another out to test the theory, but I didn't need proof. I already knew that every time I pluck a gray, a tiny piece of Cael's essence dies along with it.
Kind of like a twisted take on "It's A Wonderful Life", without the life-altering moral and warm fuzzy feelings.
But what is it about young children that makes them find such delight in others' misfortune? I have a theory. Earlier this week I wrote about my kids' unnatural attachment to their stuffed animals, and an epiphany I had over the weekend may explain why.
Maybe, late at night, when I think they're asleep but instead they are playing Blackjack or doing some amateur electrical work in the basement, they pull out their stuffed toys and plan out the day ahead.
"How will we torture Mommy tomorrow?" Cael might ask.
"Paint on Mommy's favorite shirt?" Graham would suggest.
So then they would yank out Bloose or Barker, or maybe even one of the lesser-loved plush "pals" in their arsenal and subject it to that day's selected infraction, willing it to happen to me. And then, sure enough, as we complete a "paint by number" that I lovingly selected as a fun activity to reward them for good behavior, bright blue paint gets splashed all over my cream-colored sweater.
I think this Mommy voodoo might also be to blame for the random and seemingly unrelated problems we've experienced in the last year. Kitchen flood? Stuffed animal in the toilet. Crashed hard drive? See aforementioned electrical work.
I could be wrong, of course. Maybe it's pure luck, or maybe it's part of being a parent. But one thing is for sure-- the cat is definitely out to get me. Cross my heart and hope to die.
Cael has been contemplating his future a lot this week. Whether it be in reference to his future career or what he'd like to name his children someday (Toot and Cheekerbottom), he has definitely adopted a long-term approach to living. And just yesterday, Cael considered that the rest of us may have a future too.
"Mommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I am already grown up."
"But what do you want to do? I want to be a train 'ductor. Or a train builder."
"That would be cool, honey. You can do that if you want."
"But, Mommy, what do YOU want to be?"
"I'm a mommy. That's my job."
"No, Mommy. You didn't hear me. What do you want to DO?"
"Cael, my whole job is to be a Mommy to you and Graham. I cook your food, clean the house, play with you and teach you things. I take you to school and to church and with me wherever I go. I get you up in the morning and put you to bed at night. That's my job."
"Oh. That's all you do? Maybe you should build trains too."
When they're supposed to be asleep. 
