“Mom,” Sean said, “I want you to take these baby toys and put them away.”

He was standing next to my desk holding a small box.

He laid the box on its side and Jay Jay and the gang came to a crash landing on my desk with a clatter.

“What’s wrong with Jay Jay?” I asked puzzled. “You love Jay Jay.”

I picked Jay Jay up.  He was missing a bit of his tail section but was just as bright and cheerful as ever.

“Well I’m big now,” he said seriously.  “I’m more into planes that really fly.”

“No!  Stick with Jay Jay!” I wanted to say.

But I didn’t.

I took the little box of airplanes and stuck them in the back of his closet.

The next day, when he wasn’t looking, I pulled them out and lined them all up again one last time and took their picture.

I recalled the day we bought Jay Jay at the Pensacola Flight Museum.  Sean was two and a half and had a head full of long blond curls.   I remembered how happy it made him and how he clutched that little plane to his chest in his fat little dimpled hand.  I remembered how happy it made me to buy it for him.

And now, so soon, he is more into real planes.

One by one, I tucked each of the little planes back into the box and then returned them to the back of the closet.

So long Jay Jay.

~sigh~

I am assuming that every family has some weird little games they play that when described to others fall into the category of evidence for the state.

We have many of these games, but the one that Sean loves most right now is called The Run Away Game.

The Run Away Game erupts. It is never planned and usually happens when we are all just standing around the kitchen grazing and looking through mail and that kind of thing.  The first parent to faint from exhaustion loses.

One of the parents picks up the child and says to the other parent, “No! You may not have my baby!”  And then runs like crazy through the house, carrying said child, while the other parent gives chase.  Eventually the run away duo is captured in a group hug. And then the capturing parent steals the child saying, “No! You may not have my baby!”  Another chase ensues all while the little boy squeals and shouts, “Run! Run faster!”

Great fun.  And a good bit of exercise running through the house with a five-year-old.

Yesterday, after a rousing round of Run Away, I set Sean down and clutched my chest and tried to catch my breath.  And I wished that either a) I was about 10 years younger or b) that I worked out more often.

As I sat on the floor panting, I thought about all the different little made up games we have played along the way, most of which he probably doesn’t even remember and I wouldn’t either if I didn’t write stuff down.

I wondered if he would remember the Run Away game and play with his own little boy some day.

I hope so.

Does your family have any made up, unexplainable, weird games/things?

Several months ago Sean had his friend Marlee over to play.  I banished them out to the backyard where they had a terrific time collecting poor unsuspecting roly poly bugs, dragging all the toys out into the yard, playing in the sandbox and digging up what would be my flower beds if I ever get around to putting in seasonal color. Unlikely.

At one point, I looked out the back windows to check on them and they were hauling sand from the sandbox up to the house and pouring it all over the stone path and the patio.  So I opened the door and asked them not to do that and to please keep the sand in the vicinity of the sandbox.

And that was that.  I never gave it another thought.  Not one.

Yesterday, I’m sitting at my desk working on my computer, and out of the wild blue yonder, Sean comes to me and puts his hand on my leg, his sign that he needs to tell me something.  I stop typing and turn and look at him.  He has his shirt on backwards and there is evidence of a blue Popsicle on his face.  My heart stops momentarily when I realize that I had a hand in this marvelous creation.

“Mom,” he says seriously, “There is something you need to know.”

I look at him and widen my eyes to indicate that I am all ears.

“Remember when Marlee came over and we were in the backyard?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it was her idea to take the sand out of the sandbox.”

I blink slowly and widen my eyes again to indicate I’m waiting for the rest of the story.

He looks at me with wide blue eyes and blinks.

I blink back and wait for context.

“And?” I finally ask.

“I just wanted you to know that.”

As I look into his face that is mine, I was impressed with his terrific memory and baffled that he would carry around an obscure meaningless event and then dredge it up for no obvious reason.

God help this child, he is just like his mother.

Then I blinked again and wondered how to teach him not to hang on to this kind of stuff, how to teach him the fine are of letting go.

Water.

Every drop as ancient as the earth itself.  Having possessed every form from ice to vapor, every drop has been swirling around and around the earth since before the moon was born.  It is the most corrosive element on the earth.  It will continue to carve and sculpt the rocks and rivers of the world until He sweeps it all away.  It cleanses us, it baptizes us, it is in every cell of our body.  It is our tears and it is the private ocean of the womb where life begins.

Water.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ~ Genesis

Before Sean could even talk, he became interested in the solar system. I have an old book on the solar system that I picked up at a garage sale or somewhere and we have leafed through it many times over.

A week or so ago, he came home from school with a Weekly Reader and he was very excited to show it to me because it was on the solar system.  He held it up to his chest and pointed to each planet and gave me a little lecture on the properties of each planet.  Verily I say to ye, I have learned more from this child than I ever learned in school. He makes learning way more fun than Sister Edwina ever did.

“Now you may notice that one of the planets is missing,” he said in his teacher voice.

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Yes.  Pluto is no longer a planet,” he stated as matter of fact.

“Oh. I wonder why that is. Pluto was a planet when I was growing up.”

“I don’t know,” he said, “But Pluto is on the outs.”

Maybe by the time Sean’s kid is teaching him about the planets, Pluto will be back in the good graces of the solar system.

This here is a boy after my own heart.

We love art and words and cooking and taking pictures and telling stories and clouds and collecting leaves and rocks and silliness and hanging out together doing nothing.

And I want to do as much of that as possible with this boy before he grows up and has a change of heart.

When Sean was about two, I bought him one of those kindergarten mats at Walmart.  I’m sure you know the kind I’m talking about:  plastic, red on one side and blue on the other, folds into fours.  If you are like me, you probably had one yourself when you were in kindergarten. And that is exactly the reason I bought it — because I had one. Nostalgia, pure and simple. That and impulse.

Be that as it may, we have had that mat for three years now and so far it has not once been used as mat upon which to nap.

The first year we had it, the mat was a ticket booth. Sean would set it on its edge into a square. He would then stand inside the square and alternately take and sell invisible tickets, just like a little scalper. Over the course of any afternoon I would buy and redeem hundreds of tickets. I was a loyal and enthusiastic customer.

The next year, the mat was a boat. He would lay it out on the breakfast room floor and spend hours outfitting it and laying in supplies for the journey – a tiny lawn chair with a built-in umbrella, Goldfish, sippy cup of milk, matchbox cars, plastic animals, books — you know, all the seafaring necessities. And then he and I would set sail for far away places.

This year the kindergarten mat is a surf board. He puts it on top of the coffee table and hangs ten.  I stand on the back and shoo the sharks away.

And now, this school year is about to come to a close.  In September he will start kindergarten.

And maybe then, the kindergarten mat will be a kindergarten mat.

I love to cook.  To me, cooking is not just a life skill but a creative outlet and my way of lovin’ on people.  And Sean seems to be cut from the same cloth. He has been standing at my knee in the kitchen since,  well, since he could stand.

I won’t tell you all the things he can already do in the kitchen because I don’t want you to send blazing emails about how he should be wearing a helmet when standing in front of a hot stove with a sharp knife and what kind of mother would let …  But the boy knows his way around the kitchen and that makes me very proud.

Yesterday I picked up some strawberries at the store that were so red and fat and just as tasty as they were pretty.  Sean suggested that we dip them in chocolate and take them to our neighbors.  I love how that boy thinks.

Of course we had to taste a few first. Just to make sure.

Yummy!  And the strawberries were good too.

Yesterday morning, I was car pool mom.  I called to Sean to head to the car, that it was time to go.  When I got no response, I called out, “Sean? Where are you? It’s time to go!”

A small muffed voice cried out, “Mom! I’m in the bathroom.  Do NOT come in here!”

So I stood outside the bathroom door dying to go in.

When he opened the door, he was standing there smiling shyly with his hands behind his back.

“Notice anything different about me?” he asked.

“Um….”

“Smell me!” he ordered.

I bent down and sure enough he was pungently aromatic.

From behind his back, he whipped out a tiny bottle of aftershave.

“I used this!” he announced proudly.

“Oh. Wow. You sure did,” I did not exclaim.

“It’s my magic sauce. Miss Vicky is going to like this,” he whispered. And then he gave me a thumbs up.

Magic Sauce – a must for every ladies man.

Sending my child to school with a lunch is a lot like paying taxes. It just has to be done in order to stay on the good side of the law.

Every morning I expend a considerable amount of energy preparing a lunch I know he will not eat.  And I have to go through this exercise in futility because what kind of mother sends her child to school with no lunch? I will tell you the kind, the kind who are not afraid of the condescending looks from other moms.

My child does not eat food.  Food is for lesser mortals. My child has no need of food!  I sometimes see other children eating food and I say to him, “Look son! A child! Eating food! Wouldn’t you like to try this food eating thing? It’s fun!”  He shakes his head at me as if to say, “Silly silly woman! I cannot be bothered with eating! I have better things to do!”  My child is an air fern disguised as a boy.  And that makes me a little crazy. Would it kill him to eat a cracker to make his mother happy? Is that too much to ask?

Oddly enough, the “output” seems unaffected by the lack of input, thus proving that you can indeed make something out of nothing. To put it delicately.

Sean is now in the third year of his academic career. That means I have packed approximately 540 thoughtfully prepared, appetite-inducing, visually-pleasing lunches that June Cleaver herself would be proud of. Of those 540 lunches, Sean has eaten approximately 1. And actually, he didn’t eat that lunch, he just picked at the Teddy Grahams.

And so like taxes, making lunch everyday is a constitutional obligation I must fulfill lest I suffer the wrath of the republic and the other moms.  And just like my taxes, lunch will go right down the drain.