I keep looking for a picture of Graham that will explain it. I can’t find it. There are hundreds of pictures of him — this one shows his crazy hair, this one shows his laugh, this one shows him squinting at me like I’m an idiot for standing in front of the sun trying to take decent pictures of my kids. But none of them show what I’m looking for. He’s too busy for pictures right now, and none of the ones I’ve taken lately catch his gleam and wit and a heart so big and soft and squishy you just can hardly look at the boy without hugging him.
I know I sound like that insane mother. I’m not blind to his faults. He’s two. He’s a stubborn asshole sometimes, he throws tantrums over unscheduled clothing changes. He steals things from his brother just to watch the fun freaking out that happens. He always wants to take a bath and nearly drowned himself the other day trying to hook that up. He has a tiny potty and has tinkled and pooped in, on, and around it many times this week.
One of his mitten hands is a bad guy now, and the other mitten hand puts it in jail by grabbing it and saying “You’ll never get out of jail!”
He helps me cook, and I know Kevin is laughing at me even implying that I cook but what I mean is that Graham absolutely must help me do ANYthing I do in the kitchen. Yeah, so most of it is pushing buttons on the microwave but still. It’s cute how important it is to this kid to participate in the construction of any meal, however lame. He wants to be a part of everything we are doing, and he is working hard every day to assemble what it is the fuck we are all talking about.
But that’s not it, none of that is it. You just don’t know.
I recently realized that we have a bad habit of saying “Hey Nicolaus — look at that whatever!” because we know Nicolaus will especially appreciate whatever it is, because of his interest in knowing everything about everything.
But a couple of months ago I said, “Hey Nicolaus, look at that –” something, I forget what, and Graham pointedly said, “I looked too, Mama.”
Oh RIGHT. Duh.
Now I make it a point to always say hey guys! Check that out! Both of you! Equally!
And once in a while I lean in and point something out to Graham and only Graham. Like this afternoon. Kevin noticed some way cool sunlight shadows dancing through the trees and the blinds onto our oven. “Graham,” I whispered, “Look at the light over there.”
He looked. He looked back and me and nodded, “Wow,” he said, “That’s really neat. That’s cool, Mama.” He looked again at the shadows wiggling and waving across the kitchen, “Thank you.”
His thank yous are amazing. I never expect them, they aren’t the prompted “What do you say?” kind. He means it in a big, real way. But there aren’t any pictures of that. You just have to believe me.
There are though, pictures of Nicolaus bursting with Nicolausness. This is the cape he’s been wearing everywhere, all the time, every single day:
It’s a royal ROBE though, sorry. Not a cape. People ask him if he’s superman and he is like um – hello? Superman didn’t have all these sequins!
Normally he also wears a crown but it’s in the crown shop for repairs. Two months of daily wear is pretty impressive for a tin foil crown I think. Kevin doesn’t mess around, when he makes stuff he makes it to LAST. Still, the crown had seriously been through hell and was starting to confuse people.
Like all of his outfits, this one is growing more and more complicated. Now it’s a crown, a robe which must drag the ground, a sword, a plastic knife, drawstring pants so he can tie his sword etc to the tie thing, and a plastic owl that Uncle Tony gave him. He pretends the owl is a trained falcon. It’s all kind of a pain in the ass to account for and carry around, but ever since the naturalist scout thing turned into a minute by minute frantic search for floor-colored tiny plastic motherfucking turtles I have instituted a firm “I don’t keep up with your crap” rule. I don’t SAY crap to him, but he gets the point. All I do is help him find his socks and shoes. He appears at the front door, totally outfitted as a king and/or a knight and/or a prince and/or a falcon training dragon protector person.
Here are a bunch of pictures now, because I’m sick tonight and can’t explain why my kids are so awesome. Sorry, it’s the price of coming here.
The top two pictures he’s amazing me with his falconry. The middle pictures he’s attacking me with an invisible bow and arrow, invisible because we’re jerks and we won’t give him a real bow and arrow. Attacking me because I am taking pictures of him and/or threatening to kill a dragon for no reason. In the bottom one he’s all Rrrawr! And then stopped to explain that he’s really not a bad guy but sometimes? Good knights have to do things that are kind of like aggressive in order to protect their castle or their brothers or something.
Then I put the camera down and we had a huge sword fight all over the lawn of his art school. I’m pretty sure the people there already think I’m nutty anyway. Besides, LOOK AT HIS OUTFIT. Obviously, we’re rehearsing for a play.
I was at the pizza buffet place last week and I saw this other mom across the busy room. She was about my age, there with her own two boys. Hers were a year or two older than mine. I watched her — not in a creepy staring way, but I saw her kids getting their pizza and drinks and napkins. I saw them kicking their legs while they ate and telling her stuff. She looked tired but happy, and it felt like something from a movie montage. I wonder if she knows that these are the best days, the perfect moments, even on nights where we’re exhausted and we suck at parenting too much to go home and make dinner.
I’ve spent a lot of the last 48 hours throwing up and sleeping, so if this post feels like three different posts mashed together, that’s why. But I want to put it up without editing and smoothing it out too much because… because of because. Because I can’t find the picture that will explain it.
