centre of the universe - the dreaming

So.
Today, at 6:21 am, this kid turns ten.
TEN.
Ten.

When he was born, he looked like a grapefruit stuck to an orange by a few popsicle sticks. A friction mount, if you will. His eyes were purple and swollen shut, and he was not so good with the breathing.

Today, he looks like he's built out of bricks (and feels like it), he's starting to smell faintly of goats (particularly after hockey), and he has NO PROBLEM breathing. Especially when he's shouty.

Ten years ago, he slept in my laundry basket at the foot of my bed (technically, ten years ago, he slept in an isolette the size of a bread bin, but I'm waxing poetic here. Or something). Today, he can't fit in that laundry basket unless I smoosh him in and use some lard to help. Not that I've tried it, but...you know...hypothetically.

He is smart, funny, and caring. He smiles easily, laughs often, and gets a twinkle in his eye when you talk about farts. Or nards. His favourite books are about Samurai and adventures, but he also appreciates Calvin and Hobbes on many levels. He plays roleplaying games and he creates his own roleplaying games. Watching him skate makes me wish I could do things better.

He's grown in to a pretty amazing boy. He always was.

Happy Birthday, The Captain!

Labels: Happy Birthday, kids

Tonight, I found a picture
of a rocket ship from grade two.
I worked really hard on this
was written at the bottom.

This was the rocket ship
we were going to paint on his bedroom wall, but
my hands were full with the new baby
and then there was always more work
things got ...faster, somehow.
I could make excuses all night
and all day and for the rest of time,
but that will never be enough.
How long would it have taken to just paint
a goddamned rocket ship on his wall?
I worked really hard on this

Now I must weigh that question against this one:
How long will it take before he doesn't think
rocket ships are cool anymore,
before he doesn't want me painting anything
on his wall, before he doesn't want me
helping at all?

I need to work really hard on this
and I'm afraid it will be
too late.

Labels: Bad Mojo, kids, The Captain

I'm sorry that things didn't work out the way we all thought they did. Ha-ha, that's funny, isn't it? Yeah. Well. I know it can be tough, being something that a lot of people don't like to believe in. Maybe we can talk about it another time, over cappucino?

Listen, two trips to the hospital in as many days is just...well it's a bit much. It was bad enough having to wait with a sick and sweaty, tired four year old in a strange hospital in a down we don't know at all. But six hours in an emergency room to get three stitches?

I know I'm complaining. I shouldn't. Just...maybe...I wonder if maybe we could work something out between us - just you and me - as friends?

I'm pretty sure Stitchface would appreciate it. He's totally done with hospitals and doctors now. Really. Done.

Anyway, let's talk about it soon, okay?

Thanks,
cenobyte

Labels: kids, letters, sicky mcsickerton, The Nipper

Tuck-in time, with songs
three songs; you're sick.
I stroked your hair back
off your hot, damp forehead,
And caught a glimpse of
the man you will become.
Be good to others; if you have a good heart
goodness will follow you.
Ask many questions
love often, and well.

Labels: I have to go, kids, poems, The Nipper

This.

THIS is the day I'm very, VERY upset at having lost three years' worth of videos and photos. The kids and I cleaned out some toyboxes, and I packed up some baby toys. These are not the ones for the giveaway bin; these are the ones for the 'keeping forever' bin.

**sigh**

I'm really not good at this.

So then I was looking through bins down in the basement to see if we had a spare one for the keeping forever baby toys, and I found the bin of keeping forever baby clothes. That still smell like my babies. Who are no longer babies.

It's happening too fast. Too damned fast.

Look, I was built for the first part; pregnancy, labour, wee little sprogs. Nursing and swaddling and diapering and carrying-in-a-sling. I'm good with toddling and holding hands and singing songs and kisses and cuddles. I'm *very* good with kisses and cuddles, in fact. I'm good with staring into wide eyes, watching for smiles, listening for little coos and whimpers and watching for sign language. I'm built for protecting these little critters, and holding them.

Not so good with putting away the little clothes and little toys and memories. Really, really not so good with that.

I know what you're going to say. You're going to say - learn to love watching them grow. Learn to love helping them become the people they will become. There are joys at every age. Think of how proud you're going to be when...

Yeah.

Bullshit.

I mean, sure I'm going to be proud. Of *course* I love watching how they change and grow. But this really, really hurts. I really don't like it. For all that I natter on about embracing change and marvelling at the newness of the world every day, I HATE this change. They're changing too fast, and I am changing not at all. Their worlds are exploding outward, rushing forward, while mine is growing smaller, spiralling ever quicker into its own centre. I can't hold them forever.

And these times, times like this, it is just me, however narcissitic that sounds. But that's how it is - it's just me, because I can't explain...not at all well...how terrified I am that I will never learn to just look forward with joy. How it feels like a million endings, each just as painful as the last. I have lost count of the nights I've passed without sleeping, just sitting with an empty book on my lap, trying to figure out how to write about them, about how I feel about them, about how they have and will continue to change the world. But there are no words for them, because those are their stories, not mine to write.

So I watch them. And I hold them, and cuddle them, and wonder and marvel at their growing independence. But I mourn also; at once knowing there is no greater joy than holding for the first time a new person...knowing I have been blessed twice...and fearing that the mathematical/graphical representation of everything after that point is a descending line. Each new joy is just a little less joyful than the one before it, from the moment you first meet that new person. It's by no means a steep line, but by God, how do you top that?

You don't, and that's the blessing and the curse of being a mum, I think.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised I don't burst into tears every time I look at them. Stupid mixed-up tears of happy and sad.

Labels: Bad Mojo, kids

The Captain just found out that his best friend and best friend's brother (who is about the same age) are moving away from our town next week. They're moving in to the city, but The Captain is devastated. These three have been inseparable the past few months, and The Captain already knows how difficult it is to maintain a 'long distance relationship' when you go to different schools.

It's kind of breaking my heart, actually.

Labels: breaks my heart, kids

Went for lunch with my new BFF, Wunderkind. The trick with this one is that you have to turn him upside down and jiggle him. THAT'S when he'll giggle. We had a lovely sunny picnic with thunder and lightning. Wunderkind's father came with us. He makes INCREDIBLE ice tea, and is a good guy to hang out with. Hopefully, this summer, we'll be able to do more of that.

Midges are bad this year. Their bites make me bruise.

It's hot. I need a pool. And a six-foot fence.

And I received a call from my fifth-grade teacher today. I still remember her well; she had coffee teeth and grey-toned skin. I thought she was beautiful. She was the one who had to go downstairs to tell Joey not to pee on the walls. "PEE," she enunciated when she got back up to the class, a recalicitrant Joey slouching along in front of her, "goes in the TOILET or the URINAL. Not on the walls." Joey grinned a little. Then she said, "Also, you really need to stop touching your pe...your THINGY in class."

Back then, it was taboo to say 'penis' or 'vagina'. We didn't even have them, in fact. We all had thingies, and they were as unique as fingerprints. We all knew that in general, girls' thingies were different from boys' thingies, because boys have outies and girls have innies. From there, though, things got a little vague. Boys often showed us their thingies, little pink buds like tulip blossoms poking out of their trousers. They asked us to show them our thingies, but the process wasn't clear. We'd have to take off our trousers, or just lower our knickers if we were wearing skirts, and that seemed like an awful lot of work just to catch a glimpse of a shadowy cleft.

It was, as cenobyte has been known to say on occasion, different for girls. While the boys talked about girls' thingies an awful lot, most of the time when a boy's thingy would make an appearance, all the girls would run squealing to the other side of the playground, hollering 'gross!' and 'iew!' and 'Mrs. SOANDSO! Cory's showing us his thingy!"

But I stared. I stared and stared and wondered how on earth the boys could RUN with all that malarky between their legs. I wondered about baths, and wouldn't they get confused with all that extra skin there. Then I thought, 'what if he gets it caught in his zip?' Not being one to be content wondering things, I shocked the hell out of one poor lad when he whipped out his thingy and threatened to chase the girls around the playground with it.

"Say," I began, after all the girls were away and squealing, and before Missus Soandso had a chance to haul the poor lad off by the ear to the principal's office, "d'you ever get all that stuck in your zip?"

"WHAT!?" he gasped, suddenly self-conscious.

"Well, I was just wondering, if you're, you know, in a hurry, or just not paying attention, d'you ever get that caught in your zip?"

"Uh. i dunno. Maybe? I guess?"

"Bet that hurts, huh?"

"Yeah. It hurts. Of course it hurts." He began backing away.

"Seems like a bit of a bother," I offered.

"WHAT?"

"Well, it just seems like a bit of a bother, having all kinds of flappy bits down between the legs, getting caught in zips all the time."

"Uh," he said, glancing around, hoping some of his buddies were there for moral support, or help, or something. Missus Soandso was careening toward us across the field.

"Anyway, your thingy doesn't scare me. Did you know it's called a penis?"

I got called down to the office that day. Turns out you're not allowed to say 'penis' on the schoolyard in grade five.


w00t!
I'm a gorram Five-Star General!

Labels: kids, the way of the future

Dear Diary,

Today, I missed The Captain. He was at a sleepover and then went fishing with his friends at the lake. Today was also the day I got to be a Really And Truly Librarian. I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but when I was a much younger cenobyte, I used to play Library. I made records cards, pasted envelopes into books, and kept a log of the books (by title and author - at six, I'd not heard of the Dewey Decimal system). I leant books to neighbourhood children and offered a personal pick-up service. Picture books were leant for a week at a time, chapter books for two weeks. I also leant out board games and other toys. I believe mine was the first library in our city that had comics for borrowing.

So I was excited to get to volunteer at our local library when our Regular Librarian (I am the Irregular Librarian) had a daughter in labour to attend to. I even got to stamp books with the return date!

The Captain has now been on sleepover for precisely 24 hours. I am positive he's having a blast. I must admit to being a little melancholy at how fast the boys are growing up.

In other news. after watching the Discovery Channel's "Destroyed in [relatively few] Seconds", I think perhaps helicopter rides will be much fewer and further between.

Hope the skies stay as blue and brilliant as they have bene these last few days. My birthday usually brings clement weather.

Labels: kids, letters, The Captain

The following was delivered to the Office of HMQ cenobyte, in right of Saskatchewan:

We are having this treaty because The Nipper and The Captain want peace between each other. We will try to trade every day. We will trade cudlies [sic] and toys. If anybody hurts each other (meaning The Nipper and The Captain) the Treaty is over! If eather [sic] The Nipper or The Captain don't like the deal we trade something else. Signed, The Nipper, The Captain.
Items traded this day: one cuddly dog for spinning walking with dinosaurs light

Thus endeth International Torment Your Brother Day.

Labels: kids, treaties, true story

Watching a documentary called "Painted Babies at 17". It's about these young women who were in 'beauty' pageants when they were ...well... infants. You know the kind I'm talking about. Parents and grandparents (usually mums and grandmums and aunties) tart up these gorgeous little girls and trot them out on a stage to sing and dance and trained-monkey their way into the "hearts of the people". I'm sure they haven't changed that much - four year old girls doing little waggly-arse dances and singing sexually suggestive songs.

They put enough makeup on these poor kids that they look like really bizarre, crushed-face twenty-five year old women. It makes my heart ache.

If there is a Hell, it is a constant beauty pageant, where you're never pretty enough, never talented enough, you never have a permanent enough fake smile. Someone else always has a nicer dress, sparklier shoes, whiter teeth. I can't imagine all the money that people spend on this shite.

And you know what the parents say? The parents say "oh, she loves it! She wins cars, money, cruises..."

Right. Because a FOUR YEAR OLD needs a CAR.

Oh Christ. One of these girls is singing this song: "I see people working, and it just makes me giggle/I don't have to work; I just have to wiggle, because I'm a blonde! Don't you wish you were me?"* My teeth are grinding. GRINDING, people. **

So let's take a step back and reflect on what these parents are teaching their children - the women who will be ...well, judging from what the young women are saying now, the women who will be married to the men who will be running the country in ten years.

Value 1) Physical looks are paramount. If you have a blemish, you're going to lose.
Value 2) You are more valuable if you can sashay and wiggle.
Value 3) Your appearance will get you everything you need in life.
Value 4) Pretty clothes are more important than free will.
Value 5) The more sparkly crowns you have, and the bigger they are, the better a human being you are.

I've heard people say before that beauty pageants are child abuse. I tend to agree...not just because parents are forcing their daughters to act like sparkly blow-up sex dolls, but because they're teaching them *horrible* things. Sure, you can make the same argument for parents who push their kids into *anything*, whether it's hockey or swimming, or the army. And the minute I see a parent teaching their kids that the better you *look* as a hockey player (snicker), the better you'll do, I'll probably laugh out loud. Yes, it's a little questionable to force or to pressure your children into anything. But seriously. Pressuring your children into this horrific bleached, tanned, manicured, taped, plastic promenade is, frankly, fucking disgusting.

My friends who have girl children are teaching their girls to be strong, intelligent, able women who value justice and morality over gorram false eyelashes. I shudder to think what becomes of these pageant girls as they become women. I shudder to think.

Anyway. I'm screaming inside. What is the matter with people who think this is okay? What's the matter with people who don't see how wrong this is?

No three year old should have to ever wear makeup for any reason. No four year old should have her hair bleached and backcombed and coiffed like that. No five year old should sing those songs or dance like that, and I don't care how many people say that the only people they're performing for are judges and parents. It's disgusting.

Just. Stop.
___
* The full, horrifying lyrics reprinted here, for your viewing displeasure. It does please me that whoever transcribed these lyrics can't actually spell "Blonde":
Because I'm a blonde I don't have to think, I talk like a baby and I never pay for drinks
Don't have to worry if I'm getting a man if I keep this blonde and I keep these tan
Cause I'm a blonde yeah, yeah, yeah
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah

I see people working and it just makes me giggle,
cause I don't have to work, I just have to wiggle
Cause I'm a blonde B-L-O-N-D
Cause I'm a blond don't you wish you were me?

I never learned to read and I never learned to cook
Why should I bother when I look like I look?
I know lots of people are smarter than me, but I have this philosophy, "So what?"
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah

I see girls without dates and I feel so sorry for them cause whenever
I'm around, all the men ignore 'em
Cause I'm a blonde nyah nyah nyah
Cause I'm a blonde nyah nyah nyah

They say to make it you need talent and ambition, well I got a tv show, and this is my audition;
Umm. . . okay. . . what was it?. . . ummm don't tell me. . . oh, yeah, okay "Duck Magnum, duck!"
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah

I took an IQ test and I flunked it of course, I can't spell BW but I got a Porsche
Cause I'm a blonde B-L-I-N-D
Cause I'm a blonde don't you wish you were me?

I just want to say that being chosen as this month's Miss August is
like a compliment I'll remember for as long as I can.
Right now I'm a freshman in my fourth year at UCLA but my goal is
to become a veterinarian cause I love children
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah

Girls think I'm snotty and maybe its true
With my hair and body, you would be too
Cause I'm a blonde B-L- . . . I don't know!

Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah
Cause I'm a blonde yeah yeah yeah!

**As God is my witness, if I ever hear anyone singing this song in anything other than a disgusted or mocking tone, I'm going to break some teeth. Not my own.

Labels: Bad Mojo, just wrong, kids

THAT'S better.

We drove down a squiggly road that wound beside a squiggly river.
We took the long cuts instead of the shortcuts.
We walked along the side of the road and found treasures:
a blue thing, a red reflective deer, and pocketsful of rocks.
We knocked on the doors of every gopher hole we found (we found a lot)
but none of the gophers were home.
We heard them trilling out in the field.
We walked along the berm
We took a detour onto the train bridge.
We tossed rocks in the swollen river.
A beaver swam by, then trudged up the river, then swam away.
We jumped in puddles
and squolked in mud
There were slides down six slides, and on the way home,
We found a stick.

The laundry is flapping on the line, and our sun-warmed faces beam huge smiles.

Thank you, Spring, for this day
with my baby.

Labels: kids, The Nipper, when there's weather

In Which Stephen Hawking phoned me last night: he was Very Concerned about my water filtration service. I thought it was odd that Stephen Hawking would be so concerned about my water filtration service, since it was not he who installed it. Nonetheless, he asked me several questions about the system, the service call we'd recently had done, and our overall impressions of the water filtration system company.

Keep your eyes peeled for some Grand Water Filtration System Unification Theory. That dude is SMART. Although you'd never have known it from the way he was phrasing his questions - must have had an undergrad write them.

In Which the Canadian government is being totally hypocritical ... FOR A CHANGE: Television broadcasters in Canada are In Trouble. They're thinking they might have to move out, go to visit an aunt in Calgary for about nine months and when they return, they'll have dark circles under their eyes and fabulous hair. But rather than send them away, the Canadian government has decided that it will...okay wait. Before I get in to this, I want to make a point or two.

Point the First: The Canadian government currently calls itself "Conservative". Usually, "Conservatives" are allergic to socialism and Great Equalisers. They want no one to have the same as anyone, and believe that It Is Okay to run a country so that the people who have the most never have to come in to contact with people who have nothing. They are not really so much about making things equal. Particularly this government, who decided to do away with the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Oh wait, they didn't *do away with it*; they just cut most of the funding. Or said they were going to. They've also done things like do away with any motivation for some kind of National Daycare Program, choosing instead to give $100 to families for each child under 6 living in the house. Enough about how they don't like to make things equal.

Point the Second: The Canadian government likes to talk big about how it supports independent business and how government should get out of the business of business and concentrate on government.

Now. The Canadian Government saw that many smaller television stations in the country are In Trouble. So, in these times of difficult economic dwindles and thrusts, the Canadian Government has decided they will ...how does that expression go... oh yes. Rob Peter to pay Paul.

In Which cenobyte makes dinner:
The Captain (in a Whiny, Petulant Voice, all the way from the sitter's): "What are we having for supper?"
cenobyte, vigorously: "Turkey brains!" or "Pinecones!" or "Sauteed midget!"
The Captain and The Nipper, at home: "What's for supper?"
cenobyte, filling one pot with water: "Noodles!"
cenobyte places another pot on her head.
"Uh. Mum?"
cenobyte, in a totally neutral tone: "Yes?"
"Um. Why..." stares intently at cenobyte for a moment. "Why are you wearing a pot on your head?"
cenobyte scoffs. "Pot!!?? POT?? This, SON, is a HELMET. We must always observe the Canadian Food Guide's Recommendations for Cookery Safety. At ALL TIMES."
The Nipper shakes his head. "Mum. That really is a pot."
"Oh ye of little faith."
"Moo-oommm. You can TELL it's a POT because it has a big sticky-outy handle."
cenobyte glances up at the big sticky-outy handle. "Oh. You appear to be right." Replacing the pot on the hangar, she retrieves the steel colander. "THIS is my helmet. Remember: Safety first!"
"Mum, that ...thingy... doesn't have any padding. If something hit you in the head..."
"SUCH AS A METEOR!??" cenobyte shouts, interrupting, which is a Big No.
"Uh. Sure. Such as a meteor...if something hit you in the head, you'd still get hurt because there's no padding in there."
Cenobyte pads off to the living room and retrieves a leather fringed purse she purchased as a costume. She places it on her head so that the fringe falls down across her face, then replaces the steel colander and ties it under her chin with a shoelace.

Now the children are *really* staring. Cenobyte grabs a handful of uncooked spaghetti.
"Mum?"
"Yes, son?"
"What. Are you doing?"
"Safety first."
"No," The Captain says, staring.
"The SPAGHETTI!" The Nipper shouts. "What are you doing with that spaghetti?"
cenobyte stares at her children. "Making antennae. Duh. I have to be able to communicate with Command. How else will I know when the meteor is about to strike?"
The boys stare, open-mouthed, at cenobyte.
"That's...that's..."
"Really weird." The Nipper contributes.
"No! That's BRILLIANT!" The Captain shouts.

cenobyte grabs a large steel spoon off the wall. She holds it to her mouth. "This is cenobyte, man on the street. I'm here interviewing The Captain, for your Man on the Street update. The Captain? What are your feelings about meteors?" cenobyte shoves the spoon in The Captain's face.
"Uh. Meteors are huge balls of frozen space debris that cruise through the universe at incredible speeds?"
"Pffft." Says cenobyte. "How long until TOTAL ANNIHILATION occurs, due to meteors?"
"Um. Never?"
"There you have it. The Captain believes we have Nothing To Worry About. As for me, I'm wearing a helmet, so I'm Perfectly Safe."

Moments later, The Nipper grabs the spoon and wanders around the kitchen shoving it in our faces. "What do you think about meteors?" he hollers. "WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT DINOSAURS!!???"
"Hi my name is cenobyte and I think dinosaurs will someday be destroyed by meteors thank you very much GO RIDERS!!!"

Again with the staring.

THAT was a good night.

Labels: Canadian politics, dinosaurs, helmet, kids, meteors, safety, smart folks

Here's the thing: patching torn dungaree knees really isn't rocket science. It's not like you need a grade five education to not sew your hand to your project (I did that in grade nine, just for the record). Generally, you snip the tendrils away from the torn knee and then you put a patch on from the inside. Then you do a quick stitch around the outside of the patch. Then you do a quick zigzag stitch around the border of the patch. Then you turn the leg right-side-out and stitch over the hole itself, using the patch for structural integrity.

Unfortunately, the patch I made on The Captain's torn dungarees looks like ...well... you see the thing is...I followed all those steps. I even did so sober. Which is a big thing if you sew like I do. With a few belts under my ...ummm....belt. So yeah, I followed all those steps. I even took pains not to sew the damned pantleg shut. I have Mad Skilz, I do. **Mad** Skilz.

So anyway, the patch looked like hell. I mean, it seriously looked like hell. I looked at the dungarees when I was finished and I thought, "Jeebus. These look like hell." I showed them to His Nibs.

"Oh. Um. Those kind of...look like hell," he said. He's very supportive. But it's starting to get weird that he knows *exactly* what I'm thinking. It's like he's implanted a tiny broadcasting device in my brain...probably dropped in through my ear while I was sleeping, and he has a receiver that he had surgically implanted last time he went to the dentist, because the only place you can really get micro-receivers implanted is either in your earrings (he has none) or in your fillings. And he can tune in to my thoughts with these tiny devices. All this time, I thought it was just all schmoopsy and being married and that kind of stuff. But no. It's a tiny transmitter he put in my ear in my sleep. You think you know a guy....

Anyway, so the patch looks like hell. I figured what I'd do was...I'd go find a punk-rock patch...something in a skull and crossbones motif...possibly with a pirate eye patch or some such thing. I figured I'd get that patch and sew it *on top of* the patch I sewed on the inside that looks like hell.

This morning, The Captain came barrelling down the stairs. "Mum!" He cried. "You mended my pants!"

"I know!" I cried. "I cut off the bottoms and hemmed them!"
"What?"
"Wait. What are *you* talking about?" I asked him. Because I *had* done that, after I'd had a drink...I'd hemmed his other pants. That turned out *much* better.
"My pants! With the hole in the knee! You mended them!"
"Oh, yeah. The patch kind of looks like..." But before I could say "Hell", he shouted:
"THEY LOOK LIKE I'VE BEEN IN A KNIFE FIGHT!!! THAT IS SO AWESOME!!!"

So.
Get your own knife-fight pants here.

Labels: kids, knife fight, pants

I don't want to jinx anything, but...

The Captain's hockey team is in the finals for the season. They're playing on Friday for the minor hockey league equivalent of the 'pennant'.

SCREW YOU, STANLEY CUP!

THIS is entertainment

Labels: hockey, kids

1. That noise The Nipper makes when a skateboard, helicopter, truck, spaceship, boat, or other transportative device is going a particular speed through a particular environment.
   
2. It is often accompanied by the noise he makes for rapid-fire machine guns.
   
3. And is sometimes followed by the death throes and screaming, lashing about from the passengers/enemies/passers-by.
   
4. The long, long, long, long and involved explanation of what is *actually* happening, *actually*, since he is not permitted to play with guns. Those noises are *actually* lasers, not *actually* rapid-fire machine guns or howitzers.
   
5. The Nipper's rosebud mouth and very precise articulate speech, and the tender hugs and kisses he offers as recompense for breaking the 'no guns' rule.

Labels: 365 Days of Grace, kids, The Nipper

In the bathtub, as The Nipper splashed around with me, he looked at my thumb, which sported an angry red hangnail.

"Mama!" he gasped. "What's that?"

"Ah, it's an ouch I have."

"I know how to fix that!" He exclaimed.

"Do you?"

"I do."

"Are you going to put a kiss on it to make it better?" I asked, holding out my thumb.

"Well," he hemmed and hawed, "I *could*. But I know a better way."

"You're not going to advocate the chopping off of thumbs, are you?"

"No, silly," he rolled his eyes. "I'm going to fantabulate it."

"Ah." I said. "I see. Um. I'm not sure I've ever heard of fantabulation."

"Oh, well, I will explain it to you." Keep in mind, The Nipper is four. "First, I will place a kiss on your ouch. It will travel forward, into the future, and then when the ouch catches up with it, it will stop hurting. That is how fantabulation works."

"I see. Well, let's try it out!"

Damned if that fantabulation didn't make my *entire hangnail* go away.

The next night, I asked him how his day went. We always try to do a 'what was the worst part/what was the best part of your day' discussion before bed. He told me that the worst part of his day was when he'd fallen down at hockey (again) and smacked his face (again) on the armrest of a seat (again).

"Well. Now that I know about Fantabulation," I said, "I can make it better, right?"

"Oh, well, you know, this is different. Because this ouch is *much* worse. You'll have to Fantabulate four times, because by the time the first kiss travels into the future, the last kiss will have caught up and made the ouch go away sooner."

"I see. Do you think that if I Fantabulate four times right now, that your ouch will be better by morning?"

He thought about that for a while. In fact, he was very deep in thought over that for a while. Then he pointed his little finger in the air and pontificated. "Yes. I believe this kind of Super Fantabulation will work."

So, I gave him four kisses on his ouch, and a couple of extra ones for good measure. "Good night," I said. "Sweet dreams. I love you. See you in the morning."

"Mama?" he asked. "Don't you want to know about the best part of my day?"

"Oh goodness. Of course I do!"

"Well, the best part of my day," he said, staring at me with smiles in his big brown eyes with the impossibly long lashes, "was when you came home just now and tucked me in. I love you, Mama."

Labels: Fantabulation, kids