This week is LM’s week of “health education’ for fifth graders. I had prepped him as best I knew how, telling him that he could ask as many questions as he wanted when he arrived home and that sometimes asking in front of the other boys can be embarrassing even if the teachers tried their best not to make it uncomfortable.

Tonight, over dinner (steak and potatoes, corn, applesauce and deviled eggs) LM said he had a couple questions, did I mind? Absolutely not, I said, fire away.

He basically wanted to clarify the idea that a boys penis went into a girls butt. I explained. He had a couple other questions, but they seemed to have explained things fairly well at school. We talked about how I had always told him that sex was something that happens between a mom and a dad and how now that he better understood, he might see how it could happen between any girl and any boy and yet God intended it to be for marriage only. (Yes, I know, he’ll have oodles of questions about his dad eventually, but tonight he said he was fine not understanding that, and I was fine not explaining.)

We had some good laughs, explained some embarrassing things (he now understood about a girl’s cycle, but he wondered about me because he had never had any inclination that had been going on. I think he was actually worried about me!)

We talked about things like kissing and so forth and LM said he wasn’t so much concerned about HOW to kiss a girl (although he was quick to point out that he was in NO RUSH to do so!!) but he was more concerned with how to approach the idea with a girl. He starts a pretend conversation, “So, uh, do ya uh, I mean…” and laughs at himself. He said, “In books and in the movies it always seems like it happens over a sugar bowl.” He pantomimes pulling out a sugar bowl, filling it and pretends to set it in front of an imaginary girl so she might know that he wanted to kiss her. LM laughed at the idea. “Crazy,” he said.

Crazy, yes. But sweet!

*Update: Before he crawled into bed, he decided he had another question. If the boy’s penis doesn’t go into a girl’s butt, but goes into another hole – where exactly is this other hole? Oh my. Our discussions also led to the realization that he thought (due to the teacher’s explanation of wet dreams) that sperm could only come out of a boy’s penis at night. I think I carefully clarified all points. WHEW! LM got to giggling at one point and I could tell he was embarrassed about what he wanted to say, but he eventually shared that the teacher had given them a diagram of the female reproductive system and asked them to label as much as they could. Jacob knew the “egg” and knew another area, but couldn’t remember the technical name for it, and said he was certain the teacher didn’t want him to write down the slang term. I asked what organ he was speaking of and he blushed and said, “the boobs, Mom.” He remembered later that they are technically called “breasts” but at the time he said, it just didn’t seem appropriate to write the word “boob” on a paper for school!!

K and I were talking about Eli this morning while waiting for the bus. She was missing her early morning cuddles with one of our cats, Jonah, who now resides on top of the refrigerator as long as Eli is out (I promise you, the cats get all kinds of time during the day when Eli is crated and at night when we shut him in a bedroom to have their freedom!)

Anywho-

K wanted to know if Eli had learned the ‘down’ command yet. I told her we’re still working on it. “Does he know ‘beg’?” she asked. I explained that no, it wasn’t something he knew and I wasn’t likely to teach him that one because I don’t like begging dogs. We talked for a few minutes about how he’s doing a little better going into his crate each morning (it helps that I give him a kong toy filled with frozen peanut butter) and I said, “He’s really a very good boy, isn’t he?”

K replied, “a girl/boy you mean.”

“No, Eli is a boy,” I said.

“Nu uh,” K replied adamantly. “Eli-JAH. Boy AND girl.”

I tried to understand the rationalization for that one, but didn’t get it figured out. I tried to explain that Elijah was a boy. He has all boy parts, no girl parts. Just like boys are boys and girls are girls. No one is both (I know there are exceptions, but at seven she doesn’t need to know that!)

She said, “NU UH! There are tomboys!!”

I explained that a tomboy was a GIRL who just sometimes ACTED like a boy. That she really was a girl, with all girl parts.

I was spitting in the wind.

“NU UH!! I play basketball. That makes me a girl/boy.”

I explained that all kinds of girls play basketball, that they even have a professional women’s basketball league. That they are still girls, no matter what sport they play. This did not convince her.

“Well, I play FOOTBALL, too!!” At which point her bus pulled up and she got out of my car screaming, “Girls don’t play football!! Girls don’t play football!!”

I wonder what she told the bus driver.

Each school year, Little Bird’s and George’s school hosts a fund-raiser that involves sending an invitation to all your friends and relatives to purchase magazine subscriptions. The kids receive a prize for submitting a certain number of addresses and those of us submitted are all instructed to simply ignore the invitations and to feel no pressure whatsoever to actually make a purchase.

My brother, G, and I both received our annual magazine subscription invitations in the mail this week. Mine went directly into the trash without so much as a second glance. G, on the other hand, took the time once again to look over the list of potential magazines that he might chooose to subscribe to and commented assuredly, “if only they offered Hustler and Playboy, this school might make a buck on this fundraiser!”

As much as I laughed it off as a bit of humor from my normally (mostly) morally upstanding brother, he might actually have a point. This fundraiser is from the same school district that offers “Donkey Basketball” as a money-maker. Offering more hicksville-friendly magazines might not be a bad idea.

* What? You’ve never heard of Donkey Basketball?! Oh, be relieved!! It means you live in a domesticated town!! My sister’s school district invites in a travelling company that has donkeys that they ride while playing basketball. Seriously. I believe the seniors and the faculty actually compete in the game, but at half time your children can also have a ride!! Note: When they took the family this year (as all good parents in Hicksville, U.S.A. would to support their schools so their children have actual pencils to use and not a piece of coal from the stove) George said he only wanted to go so he could see a donkey poop on the gymnasium floor. 30 seconds into the game, George got his wish and the family got to go home early!

Once a week I read the classified ads in Michigan (and now some in Tennessee and even locally here in PA, too, just cause). When I’m done searching for a job that will relocate me to MI, I tend to wander off to realtor.com and look over the housing options that are within my price range in Michigan (since literally NONE are here in PA).

I don’t know if the current owner knows it just yet, but this is MY house. It looks like my house, it is described like my house, it has all the amenities I want in a house…it’s MY HOUSE. I just don’t have a job to get me there so I can buy it.

Three bedrooms, THREE bathrooms, two car (two story, even) heated garage, fireplace, arched doorways, three season room, fenced back yard, basement rec room (with bathroom). Sigh. I could move in today. Look at all the windows, and the curved front door. I can even look past all the snow and say this is the most gorgeous, perfect sized house I have laid eyes on.

Sigh.

Someone hurry up and tell me something dreadfully wrong with this place so I won’t want it anymore.

The universe is balanced out again. Tuesday was terrible.

A few weeks ago, LM’s report card came home with an “N” (for “Needs Improvement”)in “turns homework in on time”. I was stunned. I closely monitor his homework each night that he is with me and I know that he does it each and every day. Well, the true story came out that there had been occasions when he hadn’t exactly brought home all of his homework. A long discussion ensued (this year, the discussions mostly revolve around the fact that fifth grade is prep for SIXTH grade when he will have multiple classrooms and multiple teachers and therefore LOADS more responsibility required of him.) He was grounded for ten days so he could show us that he could turn in his schoolwork (all of it) for ten days in a row. He lucked out, as he actually had three days off during those two weeks of school, but on the eve of being ungrounded, he forgot his homework again. I knew he had been looking forward to having his privileges back, so I was stunned. We (his dad and I) decided to up the ante and give him extra chores for the next week, hoping to keep this fresh in his mind the next time he thought about hustling out of school without the right books. THE VERY NEXT DAY HE FORGOT HIS HOMEWORK. Shows how well our parenting techniques work, huh?

So, we had another family pow-wow and decided maybe we had the wrong approach. If grounding didn’t really work, and more consequences didn’t really work, we’d try a reversal – we would REWARD him for 10 days of schoolwork completed and turned in on time!! Oh are we brilliant or what?! So, LM was GREATLY relieved when the proclamation came that there would be no punishments, that we would simply provide him with a little notebook where he was to write down his assignments each day in class, and then check them off as he made sure they were in his backpack. His dad or I would sign it each day and when he had 10 we would give him a small gift card to Lowe’s (a favorite of his) or something of the sort. Nothing HUGE, but a little incentive anyway. We received hugs and kisses and many many thanks from LM for our revolutionary parenting idea.

That was Friday.

Yesterday, LM was funny when I called to see that he made it home okay. Tuesdays he normally gets picked up from school by his dad, but this week he was to take the bus home to my house. I had to stop at the bank on my way home and decided I would get an oil change while I thought of it and had the cash in my wallet. I called to let him know. He didn’t sound very upbeat.

On my drive home, G called and I talked with him while I parked the car and got into the house. It wasn’t long before I noticed LM was pacing around the house. I finally concluded my conversation with my brother and asked what was up. LM said he had forgotten his homework again and immediately commenced sobbing.

OH MY.

I didn’t even know what to do with him. The sign for the gypsies was covered with snow, ebay had proclaimed it illegal to sell children on their site and I was fresh out of cabbage to put into a kid stew.

Words were exchanged. A new book that had been purchased was revoked. I sent him off to clean the bathroom, explaning that I hoped when he was leaving school he might think of cleaning toilets and NOT wish that upon himself again and might make the extra effort to actually put his worksheets into his backpack. (His notebook had been filled out, he just didn’t look at it at the end of the day.)

Sobbing ensued.

More sobbing ensued.

I had called his dad to explain the matter, and when he called back an hour later to check on things, LM was crying so loudly in the bathroom that you would have thought I had beat him to within an inch of his life (I swear I didn’t!! The meat is too tough to chew if you beat them before stewing!) As I explained to his dad that he was too upset to come to the phone because I made him clean the bathroom as punishment, I heard LM sob, “That’s not why I’m upset!”

I got off the phone.

I went to the bathroom.

I opened the door and asked what on earth the problem was.

“I don’t want to tell you.”

Um, yeah, well, now you have to.

“I just feel like you don’t care about me!” SOB SOB SOB SOB I swear I have never seen such tears in all my life from this child.

I told him sternly that he might look back to 24 hours ago and revisit the idea of my concern and love for him, and that if he had further doubts he might realize that if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have been at all upset over him forgetting his homework in the first place because I simply WOULDN’T CARE. I then reminded him that we have two pictures on our fridge of children in Africa who certainly have much more reasons to cry and sob than my poor child who has to have a punishment for not fulfilling his responsibilities and that he was to pull himself together and get to work.

(I sounded like my mom and my dad all in one on that one. Well done, huh?)

I went back out to the living room and sat for awhile on the couch. I counted back…2007-1996=11. Hmm…

I wondered how on earth we had made such a quick leap into the teenage years.

Mondays seem to get a bad rep anymore. LM never seems happy to know it’s Monday. I dread Mondays mainly because it means I’m back to my ever-so-boring job. However, Mondays are the only day of the week, every week, that I have with LM without any other obligations. Tuesdays are Dad nights, immediately after school; Wednesdays we rush off to church and don’t return home until after 9; Thursdays we have dinner together, but it’s rushed because his dad picks him up at 6:30; and every other Friday he’s off to his dad’s for the weekend. Mondays, in my house, are sacred.

Yesterday, due to a school delay (which means I can head in to work early since I don’t have to get the neighbor girl to the bus), I was able to get home earlier than normal. I grabbed LM right off the bus and off we went to B&N. I’ve been waiting for a certain book to be available (see the post below) at the library, but I think it will be checked out perpetually right now, so we decided to just go buy a copy. We even had a coupon. B&N is one of our favorite places to be. We did show remarkable restraint, although LM wasn’t too happy about it. He wanted three new Star Wars novels, but since he still has more than 5 new books on his shelf from Christmas, I refused to buy any more new books until those are read. I know, mean mother. I did pick up a couple books that I’ve been wanting to read that have not been available at my library, but I did not buy each and every book I lusted after.

Monday nights are also KICK’N (Kid in Charge of the Kitchen Night) when LM is supposed to cook. We decided since we were out and about, to check out the new “Fresh Market” that is located near the B&N store. IT WAS GORGEOUS. Oh, to be rich and shop for groceries in such an environment every day! They had great music playing and a wonderful store layout, and while everything was remarkably overpriced, you felt so pampered that it seemed worth the indulgence. We decided to give LM the night off from head chef duties and bought a pork roast (already marinated and cooked), some salad fixings , some fresh fruit and at LM’s request, a jug of apple cider. I splurged and bought myself some fresh flowers, an indulgence I haven’t had in nearly a year.

LM did his homework during the ride home and then quickly took the dog out while I put dinner together. I lit a couple candles, put the flowers in a vase and poured milk into the wine goblets. We enjoyed an incredible meal together, complete with all the luxuries.

Star gazer lillies, some of my favorite flowers. (The cats are probably eating them today.)

Candlelight dinner for two. (I just turned the light on to take the picture.)

LM indulged in some gummies.

We finished the book in one sitting, LM had already heard from classmates what happens, so he wasn’t too upset or surprised. He completely agreed that “Bridge” will be our Saturday night movie night choice this weekend. We both headed to bed with warm hearts, warm toes and with the gentle mellow feeling of being loved.

I first read this book while I was in college, trying to research great books to read in the classrooms I was doing clinical hours in. I didn’t actually read it to any students until my student teaching days, when I chose to use it as the daily read-aloud book to my sixth graders. The students could choose to read their own book silently or listen along. I was amazed at how many of the kids still enjoyed being read to and listened to my reading.

I will never forget the look of my favorite student’s face (I had nicknamed him “Art” for reasons I’m cloudy about today) when I got to the sad part of the book. He cried. Huge tears silently rolling down his face as he sat in the front row hanging on every word that I read. I wanted to cry, too. But I was the teacher.

Bridge to Terabithia is a wonderful story about children. About childhood. About being afraid and about being loved. About friendship and about family. It’s a story that reminds us that making the choice to welcome in a new friend can often be the most defining moment of our life.

If you plan to see the movie, I encourage you to read the book first. There is nothing in the world like being lost in the pages of a great book. This one won’t take you long, but keep the tissues nearby. If you plan to let your children read it, I recommend reading it to them, no matter what age they may be. Paterson chose to use a few words I wouldn’t necessarily include myself, so I prefer to read the book aloud and skip over those unnecessary words. I also like gauging my son’s reactions to various things in the book – he’s a ten year old fifth grader, just like the main character, Jess.

I handed our copy of the book to my neighbor this morning when she dropped off her daughter. I gave her the same recommendations I just mentioned above. She stared at me as though I were asking her to give her daughters poison and said, “My friend read this book and said she cried and cried.” I do not think shielding our children from saddness or sorrow helps them to grow as human beings. Jess learned to face his own fears in the book, as should our own children. Saddness and sorrow are parts of life.

If you know what happens in the book, please don’t reveal it in the comments. While I didn’t want LM to suffer unnecessarily, he was disappointed last night that his friends had already told him the ending. It’s worth the experience.

I shared the other day about Eli picking out a new toy at the pet store. His frog is his new best friend. In the crate, out of the crate, whatever room he is in, Eli knows where Frog is at all times. If you call him to go outside, he’ll come running with his frog in his mouth, as if the stuffed thing would like to venture out into the snow. We take it away when we put the leash on, but the minute you let him back in the door, he bounds up the stairs and snatches up Frog in his mouth and prances around the house as if he just won Olympic gold.

LM went out to fill the bird feeders the other day in the snow, and we let Eli out on the deck for the first time. I didn’t realize he had Frog with him until he turned around. I swear, if that dog could talk he was telling me, “Na na na na na na na!!!” I sure hope Frog enjoyed his moment in the snow.

Watching a movie is one of my favorite Saturday afternoon indulgences, and Notting Hill is one of the few “chick flicks” that I have watched numerous times. I’m not sure exactly what I love most about this movie; the wonderfully imperfect characters that all adore each other unquestionably; the story of the most unlikely love being not only possible, but desireable; the setting, quaint London, full of quirks and novelties not found in my own life; the accents – it’s just a cute little package of a movie that I love. Perfect for a cold, windy Saturday.

You’ll pardon me if I go dream of my own Englishman with a cute little home with a blue door and a mail slot and a fantastically charming sense of humor (not that I’m any movie star…it just seems as unlikely for this American girl…)

Have I mentioned this movie has a fantastic soundtrack? (“You say it best, when you say nothing at all…”)