Dispatches

No more posts like yesterday. I received calls or emails from friends, family, and my spiritual adviser (who also doubles as a friend). Paul didn't say, but I wonder if he also got calls suggesting the removal of sharp implements and prescription medications.

Perhaps I was a WEE bit over the top. Things are much better today.

***

Owen's imagination is exploding in ways that make me super-happy. He's reminding me more and more of my brother, who has always been a soul unencumbered by the rules that weigh the rest of us down. Owen's newest thing is a cheap lightweight chair. We usually use the thing as a footstool when we paint, or as extra seating when we have company.

Now that Owen has claimed it as his own, he has taken to laying it on the ground and making a driver's seat out of the cross-crossy things by the legs of the chair. He'll push the chair forward, and declare that it is:
*A combine, cutting down the freshest corn
*A road paver, making a new road
*A lawnmower, giving the grass a haircut

When I tell him that it's a race car, he gives me a condescending stare and says, "Mommy, no."

***
Mothers of sons know the proper names of all large construction vehicles. Before children, I would think, "Look, a diggy-thingy." Now I'll say, "Look, boys, a large Track Excavator!"

***

I'm going to start teaching a "Writing the Motherhood Experience" class for adults at the local community center. Doing something new always gets the blood pumping. I hope that in this economy, there are enough mothers with a hankering to write to make the class a "go." Stay tuned...

***
In a fine bit of parenting, I fed my baby so much that he burst. I fed Joel some homemade organic squash (I'm not bragging--my friend made it). He was still hungry. I fed him some applesauce. He was still hungry. I fed him some rice cereal. He was still hungry. I made him play for a bit, than made eight ounces of formula for his bedtime bottle. He sucked down six ounces, than made an ungodly noise, and projectile vomited an apple-squash-formula-rice cereal amalgam of evil. I had stuffed him to the gills.

He woke up again an hour later, ravenous. It must....eat.

***
Cannot. Wait. for the season finale of Lost. I've harnessed all my nerd power in preparation. I'm also thinking of seeing the Star Trek movie this weekend. Do I need an intervention?

***
After dating for awhile, Paul and I took a trip to his family home in Virginia (this is when we still lived in Arizona). We were driving down a country road, when Paul suddenly pulled over. He got out of the car, picked up a small box turtle that was inching its way across the road, and placed it back in the woods. "I always do that," he said.

He's a keeper, that one.