A Boy in Mourning

A word of caution: Skip this post if you're feeling sad. 

My mom died back in early July and since then, Jesse's been very vocal and verbal about his grief. He talks about his Nana almost daily, and cherishes a blue, shell-shaped bowl she made and a framed photo of her. 

His twin brother, Seth, has said little about Nana's death—but that seemed natural to us since Jesse is the family motor mouth and Seth usually deals with his feelings by crying about seemingly-unrelated issues or drawing.

But today, Seth fell off the stoic bandwagon. In the playground after school, instead of doing his usually galloping romp around with his buddies, he plopped down next to a tree and stared into the sky. 

For many, many minutes. Maybe 20 minutes.

A long time for a seven-year-old. 

When two mom-friends approached Sethie, wondering why he was sitting out playtime, he began weeping. "I miss my Nana," he sobbed. 

(Thank you mom-friends, for hugging my little guy). 

He wept all the way home (I know this second-hand, via our babysitter--so my stomach is currently knotted up with guilt because I'm still in work), asking some unanswerable questions of poor Juana: 

"Is this what life is?" 

And...

"Mommy only has her two sisters now; will Mommy and Daddy die and then we'll only be the three brothers?" 

(I'm crying a bit just thinking about him trying to ponder such an unfathomable topic.)

In our building lobby, James, a neighbor's child, came up and spontaneously hugged Seth and asked him why he was so sad. 

He began crying anew. "It's my Nana, she died and I can't stop thinking about her. My heart hurts." 

Our nice neighbor mom scooped Seth up and brought him to her apartment for a playdate, which seemed the perfect antidote to his attack of grief. 

I can't leave work just yet, but my mind is with my boy, enfolding him in my arms and telling him it will all be just fine. 

But I can't alter the unalterable: Losing those you love is part of life, a lousy, crummy part—and I can't take my little boy's pain away. 

I can only help him walk through the emotional fire. 

Punkd!

With three boys and two working parents, along with activities, doctors' appointments, playdates and middle-school tours for our big guy, our family schedules are always sort of ragged.

Yesterday, Angie, our backup babysitter, was on duty with the little guys after school, while Mick took Kyle first to the doctor (yes, he's coughing, but his lungs are clear) and then to Tae Kwon Do. Our regular sitter, Juana, was in Rhode Island, overseeing the delivery of her new furniture with her fiancee.

"Did you tell Angie that Jesse has flag football this afternoon?" I asked my hub mid-morning. "And does she know exactly where it is in Central Park?"

"Don't worry. Jessie knows how to get there," Mick replied.

A little warning bell rang in my head, but I foolishly ignored it and dedicated myself to editing the article on my computer screen.

Later that afternoon, Angie called Juana in a bit of a panic. "Why didn't you tell me they had soccer? I thought it was football! Now we're going the wrong way and we're late and I'm lost!"

"Soccer? They don't have soccer. Put Jesse on the phone," Juana said.

"Jesse. You know you have football. Why did you tell Angie you have soccer?" Juana asked.

The little imp giggled. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I do have football!"

That night, he literally crowed in triumph.

Jesse punked the babysitter.

Doggie Talk

The moment I walked in the door from work last night, Seth was on me--literally and figuratively.

"Mom, is there any kind of dog you're not allergic to?"

"I don't know," I replied.

Then, the litany began.

"Are you allergic to hairy dogs?" he asked.

"Yes." I shook off my shoes and hung up my jacket,

"Are you allergic to skinny dogs? Like hot dog dogs?"

"Yes." I walked to the bedroom.

"Are you allergic to really little dogs? You know, those small ones that can sleep in your bed?"

"Yes." I picked up the ringing phone and shushed Seth.

He put his face less than an inch from mine.

"Mom," he whispered. "I know! What about smooth dogs?"

Persistent, isn't he?

Class Act

Nobody can say that we don't expose our kids to high culture. We spent Saturday playing Wii and slopping on scary makeup and participating in the Asbury Park Zombie Walk with about a thousand other people in similar makeup. Then, Mick took Kyle to the roller derby! 

Really, Really Hungry

We have a system at our school, where parents can be automatically billed for lunch.

My kids all bring what we local parents refer to as "home lunch."

That means, either mom or dad throws together the PB and J sandwiches, cuts up the fruit and packages the cookies/popcorn/health bars every day.

I keep the automatic system in place in case we lose our minds one morning (always a significant possibility) and shove the kids out the door sans lunch boxes.

Seth has figured out  way to game the system.

When he sees something appealing on the lunch line, say, potato chips or cake, or his very favorite, salad with Chinese dressing (still haven't figured out what that is, but it got the boy to love lettuce), he goes for it. I assumed it was an occasional dip into school cuisine, sort of like the Friday pizza tradition.

But lately, I've been getting billed daily--which I thought was an error.

But no.

Seth, it turns out, has been eating home lunch AND school lunch every day.

"Mom," he explained patiently when I queried him about the double dipping. "You know I get hungry. Really, really hungry."

Henceforth, Your Name Is...

Seth has decided that he no longer wants to be called Seth.

Instead, he'd like us all to refer to him as TJ.

A couple of days ago, Seth (you notice I'm still calling him that) asked my hub how he could go about changing his name.

When he learned he'd have to wait until he was a legal adult, then go to court to request the change, he was not deterred.

Instead, Seth (that name again) asked if we could go to court and make the request for him.

I have no idea why he wants to be called TJ, and when asked, my skinny little guy has no answer.

He simply launches into his astonishingly good robot dance moves, grooving to the beat in his head and rapping.

"Call me TJ, Call me TJ, man."

TJ it is.

Nerf Wars

My kids must be just about the easiest targets for marketing tactics around. When they find something compelling, they REALLY find it compelling.

A few years ago, Kyle, my 10-year-old, was obsessed with the TV ads for Floam--a sticky, icky low-rent version of Play Doh that's apparently made only in colors that are not found in nature.

Every time a Floam mini-informercial came on, he'd run to the phone and dial the 800 number.

But, of course, the poor boy had no credit card with which to pay.

When we finally gave in and ordered some Floam (suckered, no doubt, by the bonus of a free, extra-large container of chartreuse), it was a colossal flop. The stuff stunk so badly of some unidentifiable chemical that Kyle and Jesse ran from the room, crying.

The Floam ended up in the garbage.

Since Floam, we've been through the Bakugan thing, the Star Wars thing, the Pokemon card thing and about a dozen other...um, interests.

Right now? For Seth, it's all about Nerf Guns. He knows every model and price, apparently, and talks with great insight about the differences between them. For those who care, the newest and most coveted Nerf is the Rapid Fire-Raider SC-35, and Seth is excited enough about this one to stop begging for the Nerf Tommy 20. (He's been talking about that one at least three or four times a day--literally--for months. It's a bit hard to take.)

Seth has taken to watching Nerf gun videos on You Tube, making his own Nerf-fascimiles out of toilet paper and paper towel tubes and drawing his own vision of a Nerf-filled future.

There are flowers, apparently, and many, many Nerf guns.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a most peculiar noise: the sound of a soft little Nerf dart hitting a piece of paper.

I peeked into the living room to find Seth, wearing his goggles and shooting at a paper target he'd drawn and taped up on the bookshelf. Luckily, he missed hitting our wedding photo.

His latest idea is a Nerf party, where all the kids (27 of 'em) in his second-grade class will come to our New York (read: small) apartment and attempt to whack each other with Nerf darts. Seth has it all set up in his mind:

"Mom, we can turn the table on its side and some kids can hide behind the table and shoot," he told me as I rushed the boys to school this morning. "Some kids can be in our bunk beds and shoot into the living room. I'll be under Kyle's desk, blasting. We'll have goggles for everyone and bags of extra ammo!"

He hasn't brought up the idea of a Nerf birthday cake yet, but I'm thinking that's next.

Of course, next month, we'll be on to something else.