Graham’s seeming slightly less likely than his brother to be a future poet or lit major. More of a literalist.

“I have. To. Tell you. Somepin. Mama!”

“Yeah?”

“I. Have to. Tell you. About. A. Crocodile.”

“Okay, I’m ready. Tell me about it.”

“I need to. Tell you. Somepinaboutta. Crocodile, Mama.”

“Tell me something about a crocodile.”

“My crocodile is like… My. Crocodile. Is like. Ummmmmm. Ummmmm. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

“What’s your crocodile like, baby?”

“Oh! My crocodile! Is like. A CROCODILE.”

Nicolaus grabs words and phrases from tv shows and movies and uses them.
“Graham, you’re so humble. You’re a humble humble baby, aren’t you?”

“My shoes are in the bathroom, I reckon.” You reckon? Really? Stop looking for your shoes and come here and let me hug you right this minute.

We’ve been watching these Popular Mechanics for Kids videos, because both boys love them. Afterwards Nicolaus starts talking like he’s one of the hosts of a science show for kids: “the cheese in my dinner of course has naturally occurring chemicals in it, which come from the Mariotic trench. THAT means that we can’t really tell what’s taking place inside it, at the spacely level. But it’s very realistic, and we can tell that it has those chemicals by two ways: by smooshing it together like this, or by conducting the electricity over its smooth texture. If you look closely you can see the chemicals actually taking place in the cheese – let’s take a look!”

Total Geordispeak nonsense, made almost entirely of Popular Mechanics quotes that he’s pulled apart and pieced back together to sound like something serious. As he lectures me about science, I nod eagerly and encourage him to continue because I am excited to see him eating. He eats every day now, but I never get over the excitement of seeing him put actual food into his actual mouth.

I also adore his metaphors. He’s always had a natural talent for poetic language — when he was two and he got really upset he said I made him feel like he had no bones. Maybe it’s just a part of being a drama queen and heck, probably all little kids use cool metaphors all the time and I’d just never listened to one so intently before, but I still dig it. He says he loves when traffic at an intersection gets a turn arrow because it’s like peeling a banana. Think about that one… it took me a second to visualize peel curving away from the banana to get what he meant.

We downloaded Stuart Little. Oh gosh you guys, good call. He loves it. Not as much as Trumpet of the Swan but still. After he listened to it the first time, he asked me to play Chairman of the world, where we come up with laws just like Stuart did in that bizarre, obviously pre-litigation era scene where they hired a mouse as a substitute teacher.

My first idea for a law was “Tell your mama she is pretty every single day.”

“No good,” He said, “That’s just good advice. It’s just kind of like… like a good idea.”

“Oh,” I said, “Well how about don’t ever kick your mother?”

“Nope. Advice.”

“Well how about don’t kick people?”

“Better. What’s that other word for kicking or hitting or hurting?”

“Assault?”

“Yeah.”

“No assaulting people?”

“Perfect.”

“So wait… what is the difference between advice and a law?”

“Advice is like wool, like from a sheep.” I should mention here that we sometimes play with raw combed wool and make felt, and that’s what he’s talking about, “Because it’s kind of together but it’s… like… soft. And you can pull it apart. Kind of. Like that.” He drew his hands out dramatically.

“Okay… wow. That’s cool. And what’s a law like?”

“Like a cinderblock. It’s solid. And if you try to break it – nope. You can’t. If you break a law, you go to jail.”

I’m assuming that every other blogger also hears the concluding music from Doogie Howser as they finish every post, and so feels like the post should have a neat conclusion that makes us all realize just how perfect life’s lessons are afterall.

So in conclusion, I am a mom. And I like my kid.

I finally managed to update my site with the new plexi bird design, the Montessori bird prints, and of course we must not forget – the totally inappropriate holiday cards.

This summer, Kevin was in the pool with Nicolaus trying to teach him how to swim even though that’s crazy because he already KNOWS HOW TO SWIM, as part of already knowing everything about everything we try to overtly teach him. But it’s true, as long as he wears his floaty thingy, he can swim like the dickens, who were strong swimmers I understand.

Anyway. One evening they were swimming, and another family joined them in the water. Nicolaus paddled over to their little girl about his age and told her, “You’re pretty.”

She answered, “I love you.”

And they literally swam off together, literally holding hands, literally creating a literal vortex of sweetness which drowned two residents including her mother and some old guy who was there to do laps. Literally.

We never saw her again, which is sad if you believe there is one person for everyone. Lucky thing Nicolaus doesn’t believe that, except if anything unfortunate should ever befall Kevin he has mentioned that he will marry me so I won’t be lonely.

When my friend visited a few weeks ago, her daughter and my son got along so well that we felt guilty for how easy parenting became while they were here. Instead of me being on the doomed Titanic for six hours, and Alana spending the afternoon mending broken fairy wings, the two of them sprinted off to his room delighted that they would certainly never drown when the ship sank! On account of being magical fairies with wings and all. Perfect match.

But she lives a few hours away, so it’s hard to get together. Luckily, like I said, Nicolaus is pretty fickle. He’s in all these classes, and a couple of weeks ago he told me I needed to work something out with Julia’s mom because Julie needs to get invited to our house. Oh and by the way? Someday? When they are grown ups? He and Julia might get married. Just so I know.

Guess I’m voted off the island of people he’s planning on marrying.

But anyway now there’s another girl… he doesn’t know her name but she wore a very naturey vest one day. He wants to be her partner whenever the music teacher sings “Take a little partner!”

And he says, “I don’t just want to be her partner for that song, for the class. I also would like to be… her PARTNER.”

This could be serious.

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin made himself a huge pot of smalltown boy soup. I’m not excited about soup. I have no particular problem with it, it’s not gross or anything… I just always go mmm yeah soup. Or! Oooh! Something else!

Well it was a really really huge pot of soup see, and our schedules that week were all kinds of fucked up so I was basically on my own to figure out what to eat. The boys are easy, I make them a tray full of everything with cute sandwiches and cheese cut into star shapes and they are happy. Then they went to bed, and I ate whatever I wanted.

And it turns out that left to my own whatever, I will eat the same thing every single day:
1. On the Border brand tortilla chips
2. Ground beef mixed with organic whole foods brand salsa
3. A chopped tomato
4. Some kind of cheese or, God willing, a chopped-up avocado

I mix #2-4 in a bowl and then I eat it with chips and go oh man that was awesome. What? Beef and avocados are high in fat? What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome this tastes.

Then for dessert I eat something so gross I don’t even want to tell you. It involves cookie dough mix. And a little water.

OR I might make cinnamon toast, which I tell myself is healthy because I’m using whole wheat bread and raw sugar. And half a cup of butter. But it’s real butter!

No wonder I look five months pregnant all the time.

So this week I decided that I was eating too much ground beef lately. We were at the park last weekend eating our Wendy’s drive-through picnic. Nicolaus had ordered a bacon cheeseburger, and then sat there and stared at it trying to figure out how he could eat it and still be a vegetarian. Finally he opened it up, scooped the bacon out and wadded it all into his mouth. He looked like a dang baseball player as he chewed his giant bacon ball and as he chewed he explained how see? I just… eat… (chew chew) kind of like less meat.

And I thought: Now that there is a form of vegetarianism I could get behind.

So I tried it. At the beginning of the week I announced that for one week only, I am a vegetarian. No more ground beef bowls of awesome for dinner.

Monday was great. I don’t remember what I had for lunch… paper maybe? but for dinner we had lightly stir-fried vegetables over brown rice. Lovely. Filling. Just what I needed.

Tuesday I had a bacon and cheese baked potato and a salad and a coke. Oooh and all-natural onion rings! Proof that vegetarian + natural does NOT equal healthy.

Wednesday I shared fajitas with Kevin, which sort of involved a little bit of chicken, but you know I skipped the beef slices and only ate one little strip of chicken. So mainly I ate beans and rice and guacamole and tortillas and more guacamole.

Today we had pepperoni and roma tomato pizza. Which pepperoni… yeah, technically is sort of beef. But it’s red, not brown, so that’s totally different. And for dinner I had chicken and herb ravioli but the chicken is pulverized into a herby paste so it’s not like you would ever guess it was meat if not for the yummy taste which might be the herbs.

So yay! Success! Except you have no idea how badly I want to go buy a pound of ground beef and a quart of picante right now.

In other news, California is on fire.

And a little girl named Julia is Graham’s friend. We went to the art school today, and Graham was hoping to see Nicolaus’ future bride. “Julia is my friend.” he said in that lovable halting way he has. “Julia. Is. Brother’s. Friend. TOO. I. Like. Julia.”

But Julia isn’t here today honey…

“Why not?”

“Well… because she’s at her house. Remember Julia’s house?”

“Yeah. Member? That? Dog?”

Shit! I launched the Julia’s dog recollection sequence.

We three shuffled our way into the building. Graham believed me that Julia wasn’t there, but somehow he got it in his head that everyone at the school knows Julia. So he proudly told every adult he saw: “Julia! Is! My! Friend.”

And they all went mmm-hmmm… like um…?

He and I had an hour to wait while Nicolaus was in his class. You might wonder how many times a small boy can tell various strangers that Julia is his friend in an hour, and until today I would have guessed not that many times.

In other news, Graham hates the game tag. He wants desperately to play and to run with all the other kids, but if they touch him he stops and shouts, “NO!! I CANNOT LIKE THAT.” And he marches over to me and sits down on my lap. Until all the running around looks too fun to ignore and then he does it all again.

Also, there is a war going on. And a serious drought! Everyone in Georgia is freaking out about the water. It’s hard for me to believe though because everything here is so green. If they were smart they’d spraypaint all of the grass and trees and all brown so it would look more serious.

But people are really stressed out about us all running out of water soon, and I can’t help but feel responsible because if it weren’t for Graham spending the month of September learning how to use a drinking fountain I am pretty sure there’d be plenty of water.

In other news! My parents came to visit and it was really fun. Even though my dad, my father the airline pilot, my father who has lived in hostile deserts and in Alaskan tundra, my father whose hobby as a child was making and igniting small bombs… is afraid of trains. We didn’t know. None of us knew. My mom has known this man since she was fourteen and she had no idea. He sat in the living room and visibly cringed every time a train whistled and clicked past our living room windows. My mom couldn’t believe it. “I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were scared of trains?”

When a train goes by it is like thunder that lasts for five whole minutes. “I don’t know,” he said weakly, “I didn’t know it was going to come up.”

It’s late. Kevin’s at work. The boys are in bed, asleep, finally. I miss my parents. I miss my ground beef and avocados.