What a 5 year old really wants

The vegan was working at a house this week where they were off loading cast away kid gear so when he came to dinner on Monday he brought Liam: a motocross helmet, a life jacket, some kind of walky-talky radio type thing that you wear on your arm and which Liam calls a watch, and a baseball glove.  He proceeded to immediately help Liam put them all on at once.  What could be better?  Liam declared them his penguin handling clothes "Because the penguins, you know, the penguins you know, they peck; they really do."  This was cause for great fun.

The vegan came to dinner on Monday because we called him on Sunday to ask him to please come over and check out the bee situation at our house.  We think we might have a bee nest up at the very tiptop of the house, right before the roof.  Of course, it's never someplace easy.  Liam and I thought we saw bees going in and out on Sunday, but by dinner time on Monday no one could see any bees.  Maybe they were sleeping.

Or, maybe some of Liam's bee elimination tactics worked. These he explained in great detail and with great seriousness to the vegan over the phone on Sunday and included:  hammering on the side of the house (at least 40 feet away from the nest if-it-is-a-nest) with his plastic hammer to send a sound signal to the bees to tell them to leave; putting the plastic hammer in the end of a 8 foot plastic pipe so he could hammer closer to the bees; and, using the bicycle pump to "shoot air at them. . .which I really thought would work, but it did not work."

The vegan is very careful during these conversations and, except for a small cough-type noise at the bicycle pump idea, did. not. laugh.  Instead he said something like "Oh my, well, you know I think we'll need to look at it together, we maybe need to get a little bit up closer to the bees so we can figure out what is going on."   It was a very sweet conversation to witness, and it was almost just as sweet on Monday when Liam wanted to explain it all again: "Well, I know, I know I told you on the phone but I want to tell you again how I tried my best, everything I could think of, but I couldn't get rid of the bees.  I tried. . .."

Liam's pictures of chickens

Lately, every few days Liam will come bursting into whatever I'm doing to announce that he needs to use my camera right away, right now.  (Why he can't use his own camera I'm not quite sure.)  So I always say, yes, of course you can use it, just please put it back where you found it when your done.

He has been taking pictures of chickens.  Somehow, they are amazing to me.

A little trim and a little lie

Tuesday I came home to scissors on the kitchen table and a lock of hair on the kitchen floor.  I didn't notice it right away.  Liam was overtired and having a fit over something when I got home, he wanted extra TV (I am so temped to just get rid of TV entirely) and he wanted a snack "Not dinner!" and who all knows what else.

When I finally got the dreaded dinner on the table and things calmed down a little, I noticed.  I looked at Liam.  He still looked like he had a lot of hair.  I looked at the lock of hair on the floor more closely and hoped it hadn't come from the neighbor boy who had been over for a play date.  It didn't look blond enough.  I decided to say something, and Liam and I had the following conversation.

Me: Liam, I see some hair on the kitchen floor, do you want a shorter hair cut?

Liam: It's not hair; I mean, I didn't; I mean. Oh mommy, I just wanted to see what it was like.

Me: I'm so glad you told me the truth!  So you cut your hair.  What was it like?

Liam: Oh, you know, no big deal.

Me: Yeah, pretty boring.  You know, Lynette is the one who cuts our hair, if you want a hair cut, we go to Lynette.  Got it?  No more cutting it on your own, you could hurt your ears or the skin on your head and it makes a mess.  Plus, you'll never have a pony tail if you cut your hair.

Liam: Okay.

To me this is very interesting.  You read about little kids and lying (Well, I mean, if you're me and you obsessively read studies on little kid behavior.) and how experimenting with lying is normal, the way questions are asked is really important, and it's important most of all for them to understand that lying doesn't work to get what they want or avoid consequences.  I thought I did pretty well with my initial question; but, still the reflex was to deny, and it took a few seconds for the truth to kick in. 

Saying "thank you"

I've never, so far up to now, had myself sufficiently organized to start to build a habit of thank you notes with Liam.  If I'm being honest, my own track record for written thank you notes, which 7-8 years ago was pretty reliable and natural, has fallen by the wayside more than I would like.  Same with my ability to remember most birthdays and other memorable days with sufficient clarity or advance warning to do much about it.  Another change. 

A digression: both these things fell away when Will first started getting really sick.  There were all these appointments and treatment so get through, and trying to understand it all so I could be a helpful and responsible advocate took so much bandwidth, really it took all I had left after work.  And for pity's sake that was just me.  I wasn't sick, or facing painful and unpleasant treatments, or confronted so baldly with the uncertainty of my life span and future. I shudder whenever I think about what it must have taken from Will, and remain amazed at how resilient he was.

So Liam is working on thank you notes these days.  I outline the letters and he colors them in.  This note is for his lovely school teacher who gifted him a piece of rose quartz.  On the inside he tends to draw a picture. These days trees are popular.

On the back he writes his name and I usually write a short note.  We've made 3 or 4 so far and I hope to continue.

RIP Reddie the Fish

 

Liam's little beta fish Red, "Reddie for short, Mommy" died yesterday.   We made the unfortunate discovery, unfortunately, very near bedtime, resulting in a rather late evening.

Once we were sure (by shaking the tank) that Reddie was gone we brought his tank into the kitchen and made him a burial box out of a cardboard berry pint.  We put Reddie's body in the bottom with some of his rocks, and then a layer of cotton, and then his fish tank plants.  Another layer of cotton.  Liam chose a spot in the yard next to some Japanese anemones and we dug Reddie a small grave.

Liam and I held hands and we said a few words about Reddie.  Then we covered the box and that was it.  Liam sobbed and sobbed, but seems to be recovering.   Reddie was, of course, Liam's "replacement pet" recommended by the counselor when we had to re-home Mollie the dog.  I guess nothing stays.  This transition seems to be made easier by the fact that sudden fish death is a pretty common occurrence among the 4, 5, and 6 year old set.  Liam described to me two other children at his tiny school who have had fish die on them, plus the neighbor-girl, who was just here the other day looking at Reddie and explaining how her beta fish had died.

Still, it was sad.  He wanted to color a picture of Reddie in his tank "So we can remember him always, Mommy" and so I drew the outlines and he colored, and we taped it up near where Reddie and his tank used to be.  And today after school he painted some flat rocks to mark Reddie's little grave.

A few things I want to remember

Our kitchen windowsill.  From left to right: jar of sea glass; plastic platypus the vegan brought Liam from a garage sale; tomatoes; star mirror which lives there to boost something based on feng shui principles, but I can't remember what; parsley waiting to be eaten; Liam's back up plastic fish; playmobil milk cow set milk hauler; water for Liam's primary fish (a beta fish), it needs treated room temperature water; a rock; beta fish water treatment. 

For some reason I've just been too tired of thinking at the end of the day to get things together in this space.  But there have been a few things lately I really want to remember.

First, Liam has had no crying at school drop off, at all.  He was nervous before the first day but we talked it through and he has been fine ever since.  Better than fine, during the first week he asked if he could go to school 5 days instead of 4, because he didn't want to miss Fridays.  So, he's a 5-day a week kid now.  (Half days, but still!) 

Second, the babysitter is now able to pick Liam up at school when needed.   She has the extra booster seat, and he just gets in her car and they drive the 6 blocks home and here they are.  Liam is totally fine with it.  (This is despite the fact that as late as August he was swearing and crying that he would never, ever get in her car.)

These two things are in such contrast to last year, when he cried every day at drop off for the first month and at least once a week for pretty much the entire year, that I still sometimes can't believe it is my life. 

Liam has had play dates after school at least one day each week.  These are so far mostly initiated and organized by him.  It is great. 

And, finally, today one of the neighbor girls stopped by after dinner to say thank you for the leftover birthday cake we sent their way last week, and she and Liam got to talking about legos, and she said, well, I have a bunch of legos I never play with want to come see them?  And Liam said "Yes! Right now please!"  So he came and found me and said "Mommy, can I go over to (neighbor girl's) house with (neighbor girl) to see the legos?"  And I said, "Sure."  And then, "(Neighbor girl) please hold his hand when you cross the street; Liam, you have to cross only with (neighbor girl)."  And then I went out on the porch and waived to her father across the street and watched them cross.  And off he went, happy as could be, without a backwards look. 

Fall birthday #1

We are hurtling towards the fall birthdays around here.  All four grandparents have birthdays within the next six weeks, about.  Starting with GG, celebrated today. 

We had a rainbow birthday (Liam's suggestion) and I wish I had thought to take some pictures because I think it looked nice.  We had pretty much the entire rainbow represented on the table with green bean and fig salad, nectarine salad (scroll down for the salad), tomatoes salad, purple potatoes, corn and zucchini succotash, and steaks.   My mother made fully half the food, which is a big help, of course.

The birthday cake was homemade rainbow chip, and I think I liked it best of anyone.  I loved making this cake; I love making almost any birthday cake, but this one really said birthday to me.  The frosting is over the top sweet, but the cake has a great texture and flavor.  From here, again. Plus, when the play date activity is making rainbow chips from melted white chocolate and food coloring you get a lot of fun mom points, which is good.   As soon as everyone left we took half the leftover cake to the neighbors.

Liam is all about choosing what he wants to give for birthdays and he had a very specific idea for GG.  Last year he gave her a small wood cat which sits on top of a picture frame in her kitchen.  This year he wanted to give a little bird for the cat to look at.