sitting out

Max came home from school with a fever today. Sarah got the call at 11:20 and was at his side within 20 minutes, and she watched him bounce home ahead of her and wondered about the diagnosis.

His forehead felt fine, and he looked fine, so she gave him lunch and set him up for a nap and asked why, as Miss Lillian had reported, he laid down on the playground during playtime, then again on the carpet when the class went back inside. Miss Lillian’s right, after all. That’s not like Max.

Turns out the devil’s in the details. Turns out Max doesn’t have a fever after all. Turns out they had an exercise in democracy at the Enriching Hour today, a vote between Red Rover Red Rover and Teacher Teacher What Time Is It, and Red Rover won, which meant that Max lost. So did Isabella, but she apparently shrugged and got on with the business of Red Rover. Max, on the other hand, gave himself the rest of the morning off.

Sarah too, come to think of it.

Mia’s got another drawbridge tooth. It’s the front bottom left one, the only front tooth she’s got in her mouth, and it folds down like a movie theater seat, and Sarah can barely look without turning white. Not sure why that is, since we have that at one point or another, but Sarah says that teeth aren’t supposed to do that, and really, she’s right.

There’s another one shifting too — the right front…whatever the one next to the front teeth are is. And with the top two probably six months away from coming in, and with the bottom front two also looking sluggish, we’re starting to grapple with the possibility that Mia won’t have any more teeth by the time spring arrives. Which means she gets to eat all the candy she wants. Because. I mean.

Last week I took her and her brother to the dentist, and they did terrific — the promise of toys and stickers always puts them on their best behavior. Still, the reality of the dentist may finally be settling in. When the hygienist tried to move her tongue aside to look at the inside of her molars, Mia squealed and recoiled, and the woman reflexively pulled away. When the hygienist turned away to look for a new tool, Mia turned to her and, with all the stern authority of a cop, said very simply, “Don’t do that.” 

   

 

still not a real man

Sarah was nudging Mia to eat her chicken tonight, explaining that eating chicken (as opposed to, say, something from last night’s sugar haul) would give her muscles. So Mia ate some chicken, and flexed her muscles, elbows at right angles, fists balled up, teeth clenched into an tense grin. We could see the muscles forming right there at the table.

Then Max ate some chicken, and he flexed his muscles, his face screwed up and angry.

Then I got into the act, flexing my own muscles, and the three of us exchanged grimaces, straining to keep our muscles tight.

After a beat, Mia looked at me and said “Now really do them.”

A moment later, Mia told us all about someone’s dad at school who had muscles that went two inches out from his arm. Then she looked over at me and cleared up any potential confusion. “Not you, Daddy.”

   

 

dan solo

We rode to the library to read to a golden retriever this afternoon. 

Actually, I rode to the library. Two miles, mostly uphill, with 100 pounds of kid in the trailer behind me, and by the time I got there I was sweating so generously I was almost embarrassed to go inside. But I did, because there she was, Esther the Sweetheart – Essie, her handler called her – and she was waiting for us.

Essie’s a therapy dog – she and her colleagues go to nursing homes, to hospitals, to schools and libraries, and they make themselves available for needful hugging. She and Clifford, her big red friend, were there yesterday out in Chatsworth to offer a sliver of love in a pile of broken glass and steel and lives. But today was not a train wreck. Today was just Read to a Dog day at the Westlake Library, so we rode the two miles – I rode – and Mia read while Max listened in silence. So okay, Read to a Dog and Max day.

Parents weren’t allowed in – the idea, apparently, is to give kids a chance to build confidence by reading to someone other than their parents, even if that someone is a retriever. A napping retriever, I should add – Essie only woke up when Mia was done and I came back to pick up the kids.

No matter. Those kids have been wanting a puppy for years now – they don’t let a dog pass in the park without petting it – or in Mia’s case, barking at it in a vain attempt to communicate. So reading to a dog? For 20 minutes? Even a sleeping dog? Are you kidding?

Heaven.

***

Three hours earlier I was carrying Max on my shoulders and watching Mia lock down the goal box against vicious pressure from a team calling itself the Kickin’ Crabs. It was Mia’s second game in AYSO, and she held them off for a good three minutes before one shot finally made it through, and then another, and then two more, seemingly on the same play.

Good thing they don’t keep score in U-7 Girls AYSO.

The highlight last week came when one of Mia’s teammates got the ball on a breakaway – just her, the ball, and the goalie – but stopped mid-run to wave to her parents. There was nothing quite so spectacular this week, though a big girl on the Crabs got a breakaway of her own and almost scored before her coach reminded her that she was heading in the wrong direction.

No, this week the highlight was Chicken Nuggets afterward with Grandma and Zeyde.

***

Home from the library was easier, the 100 pounds of kid, plus five extra pounds of books, pushing me downhill. We ordered a pizza and watched Singin’ in the Rain. The kids objected – just last night they rented Thumbelina and Balto II: Wolf Quest, and they were eager to watch, but I made them a deal. If they didn’t like Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, we’d turn it off and they could watch their movies.

An hour into the film, they were standing in front of the television with umbrellas open – Dora and Tink umbrellas, for the record – and twirling, and when O’Connor did “Make ‘Em Laugh,” Max broke into hysterics (“He walked right into that wall!”). I paused it at one point and asked if they wanted their other movies, and they just stared at the frozen screen and waited. But when it was over and I fished for positive reviews, I got none. “I don’t like movies with real people in them,” Mia explained.

And yet as Max climbed into bed after a bite-sized Hershey bar and a date with a toothbrush, he was singing the title song, clear as day.

“What a glorious peelin’…”

***

Tomorrow I think we’ll try to make a volcano out of brown construction paper.