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Today is a wonderful day because it is my little brother-in-law’s birthday.  He turns 30, which seems impossible because he is only 18.  He will always be 18 to me.  19 tops.  My genuine affection for him is only topped by Thor’s.  Thor thinks his uncle is the coolest man alive.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Awesome!  We love you.

(My personal Uncle Awesome had his birthday on April 1.  That would be Uncle Junebug.  Every kid should have an uncle like Uncle Junebug.  Life on earth would be better if they did.)

Happy Birthday, Uncle Junebug!

April Fools! 

I have no jokes to give.  My pranks run more to things like waiting until you turn out the light to snatch your pillow out from under your head, and that’s for a very specific audience, so forgive my lack of participation.  Sadly, I fall for just about every April Fools prank.  The year they were saying Taco Bell had bought the Liberty Bell, I just shook my head and sighed.  Corporate America…taking over everything.  And every moron who posts that they are pregnant, I congratulate like the easy mark I am. 

Easter was gorgeous this year.  Once the thunderstorms had passed, the weather was perfect, and we celebrated with a Lego party.  Thor had told his grandmother that he thought the best thing in the world would be for Mammaw (who is good at Legos), Granddad, Daddy, Grandma, Uncle Chris (who is the hands-down favorite of the bunch) and me to sit and play Legos with him.  So, we arranged a surprise party as his Easter gift.  You could not have found a happier boy yesterday.

He went to bed with the Lego spaceship he had built, and brought it to me this morning, bragging that both Daddy and Uncle Chris had helped him put it together.  He was still crowing. 

That boy is a delight.  Even when he is indulging the worst of his 7-year-old traits, that boy is a sheer delight.

I don’t understand the concept of having to pay to run in a race.  I mean, I understand why race fees are charged (charitable contribution, tshirts, and all that), but I don’t understand paying to run 26 miles.  Then again, I don’t fully understand running 26 miles.  I’m pretty sure Pheidippides would have preferred to drive.

Maybe it is because I have never felt any particular joy in the act of running.  I get a true thrill out of swimming, and I really enjoy playing tennis or ping pong, but otherwise, I’d prefer to drive.

I’ve had Junior High on my mind for the past couple of weeks, since hearing that a former classmate was in the final stages of cancer.  She passed away over the weekend, and all the colors, and smells, and sounds of 1984 have been at the front of my brain.  Turquoise and neon pink.  Polo and Aquanet.  Motley Crue and Journey.  We’re still young.  Not so young as we were then, but much too young to be dying.  Much, much too young for death.

For many reasons, I’m not afraid of death.  I am afraid of the process of dying–afraid of pain, or afraid of dying voilently–but I am not afraid of death.  I don’t want to die.  I like being alive.  I love my life, and enjoy it.  I want to be alive to experience my family and friends, and weather, and travel, and art, and music–there is a lot going on that I don’t want to miss!  On the off chance that what comes after this life isn’t nearly as interesting, I’d like to stay here as long as I possibly can.

Which is why I am drinking more water.  Even though drinking water is boring.

Yesterday, I turned a cartwheel at Thor’s behest.  I was a little surprised I could still do it.  Video replay (I did this at the Perot Museum, where my movements were recorded to be played back side-by-side with an Olympic gymnast’s own cartwheel–her form was much better) showed a little, round, khaki-colored, froglike woman spinning across the screen.  So, last night, when I wanted a donut, I asked myself, “Do you really want a donut?  Do you really want to remain round and froglike, or would you prefer to have a glass of water?”

I ate the donut.

Ha!  I’ll bet you thought I was going to say I drank the water.  No, I ate that donut and I enjoyed it, and I added it up to the count I’ve been keeping for the past month.  I still had enough to fit it in without going over my self-established daily goal.  Sometimes, you have to eat the donut.  Today I am drinking the water.

Anyway, frogs are cute.

While my memory is becoming more and more selective, I still have a strong tieback to my childhood.  It’s one of the things that makes parenting both easier and more difficult.  When I am kneeling on the floor in front of a sobbing 2nd Grader, trying to explain the importance of turning things in on time (and the repercussions of not turning things in out of fear), I am fighting my own 2nd Grade self, who did exactly the same thing, and trying to balance her out with my grown-up self who knows that no matter how insurmountable this feels to a 7 year old, it’s really nothing at all.  I haven’t found that happy medium yet.

School is the first place a child gets to exercise independence.  Mom and Dad aren’t there keeping an eye on them.  They have no one’s full attention, and are quickly clued in to the fact that sometimes the teacher turns her back.  They can push boundaries that they wouldn’t dare cross at home, and with each inch they squirm over the line, it is easier to push further and harder for them to come back to base.  I write that as a child who wiggled her way as far as you can go without ruining your chances of getting into college.

I’ve told y’all about how much school I used to skip.  If I’d had a car in elementary school, I’d never have been there either.  But in elementary school, the only way to get to take a break is to get sent out into the hall, or go to the nurse’s office.  I did plenty of both.  I was booored.  I was antsy.  I was confused.

One of the things I can remember very clearly is how it would feel when I woke up from a daydream to realize I had no idea what was going on in the classroom.  It was a horrible feeling.  For any subject other than math, I could regroup quickly (usually I’d already read the text and was at least a chapter ahead if not more–I used to read my textbooks for fun), but if numbers were involved, waking up from wherever I’d been with Mr. Spok, or the G-Force gang meant a cold shower of terror.  And because math was already difficult for me, I just fell more and more behind.  There was no catching up.

By 4th Grade, I was copying a friend’s homework on the bus in the morning, or in the library before school started.  I wasn’t cheating because I was lazy.  I wasn’t cheating because I wanted a good grade.  I was cheating because I was terrified.  I couldn’t work the problems on my own.  My parents weren’t able to help me understand the work.  I thought if I could copy Catherine’s homework that I could figure out how to solve the problems by going backwards–same way I solved mazes.  Turns out that plan worked well enough to get me through 10th Grade before I started failing math classes.  I could pull a C out of my butt with decent test scores until Geometry.  It’s kind of hard to work backwards on a graph, though.

The point is, I remember how it felt.  I remember that vividly.  I remember the fear, and the shame–oh, I was absolutely ashamed of myself for cheating.  I didn’t feel good about that at all, but I didn’t see any way out.  I remember thinking I was unworthy.  What I remember is that I was having a lot of big, adult feelings about small, elementary school things.  I was nine years old and fighting emotions that drive grown men to jump out of windows.

I think about that when I’m dealing with Thor’s emotions.  I strive to be a safe place for him when it comes to school and his social life, no matter how much of a demon he probably thinks I am when it comes to it taking 20 minutes for him to put on a single sock (it only takes 2.5 seconds to get the other sock on, so long as I stand over him bellowing ONE—TWO—THREE—)  He’s a daydreamer, too.  I hate thinking he wakes up from being the NFL Football Robot only to find himself in a different world.

I tell him about the mistakes I made, and I tell him how I felt.  I try to make it humorous for him, so maybe he can laugh about me when it happens to him.