When I was about three years old Mr.Rogers looked right out of the television, right at me, and said, “You are special, and I like you. Do you know why? Because you’re you.”

It’s four in the morning; I worked on putting broken glass into test tubes all night. It’s relaxing work if you can get it, except for the worry that maybe you are a bad parent for getting tiny pieces of glass everywhere.

I find Nicolaus so fascinating. Sure, in that ancient and perfect way that every parent marvels at their kids, but also because he has ways of thinking about things that are startling and new and old and complex and beautiful, and simple and fivish all at the same time. Basically he’s a cool person. I like when he tells me things, and when he wonders things, and when he talks to himself, recounting these wonderful narratives. He has a talent for words that borders on superpower.

I tell him so sometimes, that most people don’t think about things that way. I tell him in a good way, I don’t point and yell “freeeeak!” because I read in a book that it’s better to tell your kids good things about them than to point and call them a freak. He’ll tell me how he figured something out, or about the way he groups things in his mind, or what it feels like to almost be asleep but not quite – and I tell him, “That is really cool. Not many people think about it that way.”

But tonight while I worked on the test tubes I was thinking, maybe it’s too much pressure. Maybe he doesn’t need to hear that he is special and interesting and creative. He talks about wanting to be famous, wanting everyone in the world to know about his inventions. Tonight as I sat at the table alone and worked on something for the total fun of making something pretty, making an old idea from my college sketchbooks into something real, I thought about Nicolaus and how kids don’t need to want to be famous. He doesn’t need to save the world. He just needs to eat mostly healthy food and drink water every day. He needs to take baths sometimes, and get muddy afterwards. He needs to practice reading and coloring and kicking a ball.

When you look at the core of who he is, he is an intensely curious, animated, creative, passionate, self aware person. We didn’t make him that way, he came that way and has never changed course. As his parents we try to find a balance between letting him be who he is, and countering it with things to help him chill the hell out sometimes. But maybe he also needs us to let him know that we don’t expect him to more than an ordinary human, that we just expect him to eat his broccoli and to talk to us in a nice voice and to try not to spill things if possible, but we’re flexible on that.

I don’t know what I’m posting this for. My parents always told my brothers and I how special and talented and artistic and creative and etc we all were. And we all grew up to be artists. So – did they do that? Or did they just notice what was there, and comment on it and buy us art supplies because we wanted them? Was it too much pressure somehow, and that’s why my brother is at Burning Man right now, experiencing the same level of responsibility and societal burdens that he experiences every day at home? Or did being considered special help us each embrace our uniqueness and fight for a creative life in a society that makes that difficult?

Don’t know. But I really like how my test tubes turned out. This weekend: petri dishes!

If you own a store, I have an idea for a cute sign you can hang on the door so people will know that you’d rather they not leave their children unattended in your shop.

Not as great as some out there, but catchy I think. Which, the first time I saw the espresso-puppy sign at a shop I was like oh hahaha, that’s so funny. Get it? Cute sign. But now the creepy thing is that they are appearing everywhere all over the country… look: Unattended children signs.

So what was initially cute is now becoming frightening. Why is this happening? How are people coming up with this independently across such a diversely populated and geographically vast nation? Is it the result of some sort of government-sponsored thought control experiment, or have we finally reached a point of cultural homogenization where this sort of thing is going to begin happening more and more? I mean, it was one thing for two or three people to separately invent the steam engine or calculus — seriously who hasn’t thought of shit like that at some point in their lives? — but a sign containing these ten words, out of all the twenties of thousands of words in the English language, which are arrangeable into infinite gramatically reasonable permutations?

It reminds me of the Calvin peeing concept that swept the nation a few years ago. The first guy who thought of it was — well, not a genius because those decals suck — but he was certainly an innovator. Haha, wow, I sure do hate Ford because my loyalty to Chevy is so distorted that I’m putting this decal on my car even though it makes me look like a weird idiot.

Then a few months later I saw another one. Then like a year later there was some sort of conceptual tipping point, and all of sudden those fuckers were everywhere. And the Ford people went hey! We can do the exact same thing but with ours, Calvin is peeing on a CHEVY logo. IN YOUR FACE, fuckers.

I hated those stupid decals so much, I wanted to get a decal for my car depicting Calvin peeing on one of those decals.
Here’s what I think of you and your stupid Calvin peeing sticker.

I was going to do it, but then I realized all I was doing was adding to the problem. I’d end up hating my own set of stickers too, and there of course would be only one way to address my hatred:

And the only way to stop it would be to eventually cover my entire back windshield with iterative self-loathing:

At this point I realized that the investment in time and energy were going to be too much. So instead I got pregnant and had kids and turned my vehicle sticker concepting energy to more domestic concerns. Now I just want a sticker that says My other car is similarly encrusted with ground up cookies and old milk.

I think there should be different words for specific kinds of tired. I was going to do a funny thing where I listed all the different kinds but now I’m too tired to remember what they were. So this is sort of a total, physical and mental, so tired I’m almost drunk and yet I have to get up and find nice clothes and go to work tired.

There is a small possibility that I’m trying to do too many big things right now. It’s always this way, there are always ten projects going on at once. Oh plus I have a pesky part-time job. Plus some side freelance work, plus something else big and life/time/energy consuming that I can’t remember right now. It jumps on the couch and throws crackers everywhere… shoot. It’ll come to me.

Oh my god, I just remembered that I dreamed last night that Graham had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery, and I couldn’t make it because I was at work and there was traffic and by the time I got there they had released him. So I rushed home to be with him and people kept stopping me and insisting that I help them with different stuff for just a quick minute. And the quick minutes kept turning into longer and longer favors and I was OMG freaking out.

My dreams are never subtle. This one is clearly telling me that I need to cut back on the amount of fat in Graham’s diet.

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.

“Graham, please stop with the boogers. It’s nasty.”

“I’m not, Mama.”

“Okay, gross! Dude, seriously stop. Boogers are dirty — don’t.”

“I’m not doing it Mama.”

“Well STOP.”

He raised his hand up in front of his face and spoke sternly, “Stop getting Graham’s boogers, Mitten Hand.”

Then his voice deepened and Mitten Hand replied, “Oohkeyyy.”

—

Graham’s a sleepwalker. I think I mentioned that before. He’s also a sleep talker, a sleep Michael Flatley Lord of the Dance backup performer, and a sleep tumbler. But the outrageous best is sleep tantrums.

Early this morning he was in our bed and he woke us up with an impressive amount of crying, kicking, and flailing — a nightmare, we gathered, about the horror of being asked to take a bath when he didn’t want to take a bath. Which, that’s how you know it’s a dream because in waking real life that kid is always ready for a bath. Ten minutes after a bath he’ll start peeling off his clothes because hey! You know what would be fun! A BATH. If he had any interest in potty training at all, I’d let him spend all day in there but as it is I’m afraid to risk P.I.T.B.

I don’t want to spell it out in case my brother’s reading this and decides to never ever ever have kids.

Then about 45 minutes after the nightmare about the bath, he exploded into sound-asleep tears again. This time he was shouting, “NO! My name is Graham Edison Ard! I AM NOT A DIAPER.”

As my friend Nina once said about Nicolaus, I’m not sure we’re supposed to know what goes on in the brains of toddlers.

—–

Last week we went to check out a couple of different elementary schools, although I’m not sure why. It’s not like we have anyone living here who will be going to kindergarten any time soon. Weird. But anyway, we’ve been checking out the local school options and it’s been mostly okay. I’m trying really hard not to be a complete neurotic freak about sending my kids to school. It will be fine, they will be fine, and probably I’ll be fine. I have issues. They are documented. And despite my expectation that I would hate the first schools we looked at, they were really nice and everything seemed kind of… nice. Although the principal who gave us the tour kept introducing us to teachers and telling us, “Oh she was here when the first brick was laid.” or “Were you here when the first brick was laid? Oh no that’s right you got here a year after the first bricks were laid.”

I’m surprised Kevin didn’t ask them to please refrain from talking about laying bricks in literal walls in front of his hyperventilating wife, but really I was sort of surprisingly not tempted to run around freeing all the children like a PETA lab protester. It was okay.

The other schools we looked at were a little more rigid and homeworky, but even they would probably be fine. In the sense that Nicolaus would probably get a good education at any of them, and his soul would probably not be crushed and I probably wouldn’t end up on the 6:00 news following any PTA meetings.

I’m sort of a Sudburyish unschooler at heart, which is inconvenient since we live in a society and all, and since I married a person who for some reason feels that formal education is a good thing. Besides, there’s no Sudbury school around here, and the private schools are over the top. So I’m trying to approach this option with an open mind. It’s kindergarten we’re talking about here. It’s like the spaghetti of school — hard to really fuck up kindergarten, right? Besides, education has changed a lot in the last 10 years mostly for the better.

I had a point in all that which was completely unrelated. Damn. It had to do with Graham I’m pretty sure, probably to do with him wanting every school to be his school. If I pointed something out to Nicolaus, “Ooh Nicolaus look at this map they have.” Graham would tell us, “I looked at the map TOO, Mama.”

He pointed out every color and bug and number and letter he saw, Meanwhile Nicolaus did ballet up and down the halls and chatted and sort of seemed oblivious to the significance of the whole thing. Overall, the two year old was much more intrigued by the idea of public education, and every time we left a school Graham cried because he wanted to look at more schools, “…and more schools and more schools!”

He’s also suddenly outgrown all of his clothes. How does that happen? Shouldn’t we be able to see them growing? It’s creepy! Last week he could wear 18-24 month clothes. This week he’s wearing 2T pants and 3T shirts. Oh and he loves Mr.Rogers and the old school Sesame Street videos that my parents gave me for Christmas because they are awesome. After watching these videos, I’m convinced that any of the good things in the world that’s happening right now is because all the kids who grew up watching those shows are now grown ups who are doing things.

Right, Mitten Hand? Right, Tiffany!