Note to Anna and All others who have the Inclination:

Glue Stick does not make good chapstick, lipstick, or gloss. It is not make-up. It does not go on your cheeks or your lips. Its use I will keep from you for a while longer. Until then, lets not glue our lips together. O-tay?

Once Again

Another year of school has found us. You think after doing this for four years, I wouldn't get a bit choked up when I drop him off. Through out the four hours he is gone (it was a short day) I wouldn't wonder if he is doing o.k., making friends, and figuring things out; then feel great relief when he climbs in the car with a big smile.

I think I wouldn't have so much to think about if he wasn't at a new school. We decided to enroll Harris in the gifted and talented program and since it wasn't offered at his school he now attends a school about fifteen minutes away. It seems if I have sent him off to a far away school, he preferably would like me to think of it as Hogwarts. Luckily,I get to see that he is safe, fed, and in his own bed each night. Yet, if he needs me I can't be there in two minutes. If he is sick he has to wait for me to get there. If there is a disaster that closes down roads, he couldn't walk home. O.K., I have put on a bit of a dramatic air with that.

He says he met a friend, Adam, that I don't know...from Adam, who lives in a different part of the city too. Their table groups are named after planets, lunch recess seems shorter, and if you talk to someone, make eye contact, he learned today. Cursive, fractions, and such are to come in this third grade year.

Harris: please remember that even though you are almost nine and can make your own lunch, that I think of you when you're at school. You might come almost to my chin but, you once fit inside my belly. You might have mastered long division but, I remember when you said things like 'baf' and "peppy-oni. "

Diapers work much better on

This morning I went to get Anna and found her sheet, her baby, her blanket, and her all wet, her unused diaper innocently lying in the middle of the pile. Yes, in a moment of stupidity I put my twenty month old girl asleep in a nightgown without anything to cover the said diaper. So we started things off quite soggy this morning. Anna exclaiming "PEE! PEE!" rounded out the whole equation. You see, after watching Elmo's Potty Time many, many times she now is educated on the terms to describe her waste. I ask her yesterday, after she has announced that #2 is on its way, if she would like to sit on the potty. "No, No." She replies nonchalantly. She is young and I really am not ready for the elusive potty training but, couldn't hurt to ask when she is so vocal about when she does her business. So, tonight it will be one-piece pajamas. That is, until she figures out how those work. Anna, if you want a water bed just tell me.

Family Picture After 5 years

So, we finally had a family picture taken in lieu of all of A's family having theirs taken. Thank you Jenni. So now Harris looks like a grown-up kid and Anna is included. In all this I have been mourning my son's growing-up. Yet, last week he got strep throat and needed me. He wanted me to take care of him. Wanted is the key word. No-I can pour milk from the full gallon over my cereal and if I fall skateboarding it is the coolest thing ever. He felt crumby and I indulged holding his fevered head in my lap. For one moment he was that four year old again

Little

My son says he is not little.
The word must leave the room
when he enters.
With his never-ending legs

he pushes that word
far from him.

Yet in fevered daze he calls me.
His constant azure eyes tell me.
He hasn’t tossed me aside or traded-up
but holds fast protecting a moment
when no one but me can see him
creep back to little .