If Wishes Were Horses

My seven-year-old, Avery, said, "I wish I could bite my butt like dogs do."

.....

"I wish I was a girl but I had a boy's bottom," said Avery.

"Why?" I said, suddenly interested.

"Because," she said, "Then I wouldn't have to have a period."

The Weekly News, v. ?

Avery has tubes in her ears. I can't see the little blighters, but my eyes aren't what they used to be and I haven't really bothered looking. The surgery went smoothly and so far all seems well. She's complaining of all the loud noises. That seems to me good news. It does get terribly noisy with seven children in a small house now and again. Especially when it's too hot to play outside. Summers, sometimes, here are like a month of rainy days without rain slickers. Stuck inside the house, like firecrackers in clenched fists.

About one week left now until Everyday Is Saturday begins. I'm stoked. If teachers got paid well, teaching would totally rock. Or at least summers would. This summer I'm going to try to re-establish a couple of good disciplines I've gotten away from: daily writing, daily walking. I also want to finally teach Will how to ride a bike (if it's not too hot, otherwise he's on his own). And tie his shoes. And get Jack Henry potty trained. And read a few dozen books. I would like to get up to Michigan to see my family. It's been a while. I have two children now that half of my family has never even met. It would be nice to remedy the situation.

That Yellow-Haired Child

Yesterday, shopping in Wal-Mart, the yellow-haired child pointed at a bag of pads (yes, those kind of pads) and started singing, "One little, two little, three little bottom straps, four little, five little, six little bottom straps. ..."

The Lake Days

Rejoice, O Avery, rejoice. The Lake Days have come again.

An Idiot Is an Idiot Is an Idiot

The yellow-haired child had a visit to the dentist yesterday to get a temporary crown placed on one of her teeth. The procedure was hurting her. And when she is scared or hurt she trembles, she shakes. My wife attempted to convince the dentist that it hurt, but the dentist dismissed it as being scared. The dentist then told Avery that if she didn't stop crying that she would send Mommy out of the room and get the crown on regardless.

Silly, silly former dentist.

Mama Bear said, "Oh no you dint." (Probably something more along the lines of, "I'm not going anywhere.")

Which brings up the question: Where in the middle of a procedure do you halt a "professional" to tell them they're full of it and march out the door, scalp in tow? Fortunately (for the dentist), the procedure was completed almost immediately afterward, but we will be going elsewhere for the care of our children's teeth.

Parents, stay with your kids during doctor and dentist visits - regardless of what the doctor or dentist prefers. If they won't allow it, go somewhere that does. An unfortunate truth of the universe is that an education in a respectable field does not make one any less of an idiot. Just a better paid one.

Girls

Two days ago, the little tow-headed, ringlety haired boy who lives across the street asked my five year old if she would be his girlfriend. His name is Max. After being asked, the yellow-haired child ran inside to confer with her mother: "What should I say?"

"Tell him, 'Not until I'm 16.' "

Which she did. Apparently he was quite amenable and said they'd just be friends until then.

Is this my future with three girls - the tendrils of which even now begin to wind their way so gingerly about my neck?

Boys - one more reason to homeschool. Neighborhood Boys - one more reason to own a Louisville Slugger and to chew Skoal: "You wanna what, boy?" Ptoo. Of course, where I live, spectacles, a pipe, and a thick Victorian novel might better do the trick.

The Lake Days

The yellow-haired girl eschews todays, yesterdays, and last weeks. She prefers this days and the other days. And when she speaks of that difficult-to-wait-for future, she speaks of the next days. Some days, of course, get their proper due: Her birthday, for instance, and Christmas. But even more than birthdays and Christmases, she speaks of the Lake Days. These are halcyon days: Summer evenings at the lake. Riotous family days.

In winter, she hides her bathing suits under her clothes as she dresses, and she comes out of her room and asks when the Lake Days will come. Their absence weighs on her.

She doesn't feel the rocky beach beneath her quick, sturdy feet that so torment me. She doesn't see the cloudy water that makes me wonder about the safety of swimming in this dammed-up river. She doesn't feel the unrelenting heat and the restlessness her father feels to leave for a more air-conditioned country. She only wants it to be the days when she only wants it to be now, this day.

Oh for the Lake Days, when one casts off the too-fittedness of modernity and clothes oneself with water, buoyed up and released. There is new life in that brown river, swept down this day.

Poop

Yes, I'm going there, for posterity's sake (posteriority's sake?) - you've been warned.

---

So I was doing some, well, intensive thinking in my favorite room for meditation - my closet (in all fairness, my water closet). Baby Jack was pulling up on the tub and chattering excitedly. Then in waltzes the yellow-haired child, who, lest you raise eyebrows, is not supposed to be in the Prayer Closet at the same time that Daddy is, you know, meditating. She looks at the baby and then looks at me and asks, with potential disdain about her eyes, "Does Baby Jack like the smell of your poop?"

I said, "I suppose he doesn't mind it."

She said, "I wish I was [sic] Baby Jack," and then walked out of the room.

The Dog-Days of October

"Yes, it feels like summer, Avery, but you can't wear bathing suits all day."

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Ten minutes later I'm brought another bathing suit for her to put on. She's found a nice terry cloth cover now that she's taken to wearing as well. After all, what do daddies know about fashion? So we sleep and eat and take walks and pick up Mommy, all in a bathing suit. Even when she's wearing shorts and T-shirts or a dress, she's got a bathing suit underneath. Last night she wore footed pajamas, with a suit on underneath. I make her take the bathing suit off for Mass, but that's all I can manage. I imagine next week it will be something different, though equally incomprehensible to her daddy.

Oh, Miss Avery

While I was changing a dirty diaper, the yellow-haired child said, "If chocolate came out of Will's butt, that would be delicious."

She's going to be five this coming month.

Update

It's our 22nd day of homeschooling. We're learning things. Mostly me. I think my daughter has a classic case of predominately inattentive ADHD. We're thinking about getting her tested, but more on that later. Pray for me to be full of understanding and kindness. All that being said, she's doing a great job. I'm very proud of both Sophie and Avery.

A laxative by any other name ...

We went to Wal-Mart yesterday to pick up some groceries for breakfast and lunch. There, where she always sits, was the elderly plastic-wrapped lady serving up her always-delectable food-like samples. The children could hardly be restrained.
     As we arrived at her table of plenty, we saw that she had samples of cheese and cottage-cheese-fruit mix. (The boy was not happy and could not be convinced that what he thought was yogurt - his favoritest food - was cottage cheese with mixed berries.) These particular dairy products had been pumped full of wonder-working bacteria that make one regular. Now, this is not a kind of product we Lyonses would normally require, being your run-of-the-mill, regular types. But it was cheese.
     We threw our napkins in the trash, and continued shopping.
     At 7:30 p.m., the yellow-haired child returned from the bathroom and said, "My butt just threw up in the toilet."
     The experience taught me three things: (1) Children make excellent connections between past experiences and never-before-encountered ones, (2) "My butt just threw up in the toilet" is much funnier at 7:30 p.m. than it is at 4:00 a.m., and (3) If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Notes of Home

Avery has a crush on her older cousin Nathan. She has for some time. Today she was putting on some GloStick earrings and wanted me to put on a pretty dress that would go with them. (Put the dress on her, to clarify.)

"Nathan's going to love this," she said.

"Nathan's not here, Sweetheart," I said.

"I know but when Nathan sees me like this he's going to say, 'What the hell is that?' " she said with a cherubic smile, and then left the room.

Have I mentioned that I need to watch my language around my children? That or teach them how to do it better.

Avery

It was 86° today and the yellow-haired child demanded, er, requested that I dress her in a unicorn costume - a costume made of heavy polyester, designed to keep one warm while trick-or-treating. It has a hood shaped like a unicorn's head and wings so that she can fly. She was flushed and sweating liberally, but a happier child you couldn't find.

Pretty Boy's on Notice

American Idol: Jon Bon Jovi night. The show begins with clips of Bon Jovi, and the four-and-a-half-year-old-yellow-haired child sitting next to me on the couch says quietly and soberly, "That guy sure looks gorgeous to me."

Avery's Calipitter

The yellow-haired child has been carrying around a jar full of grass the past couple of days - and an eastern tent caterpillar. She loves him. Though sometimes he's a her. It's all quite confusing to me even though I've been told by her and Anna how to tell the difference between a male and a female - the male has a yellow butt. Apparently.

She was quite upset, to tears, when Char or Ellafrella, fell between the cracks of our porch into Daddy-No-Gettum-Land. I was asked, with tears on her face to cut down the porch in order to fetch hi... her, but I declined.

We are currently looking for another calipitter.

Beautiful

As the bass line kicks in, the yellow-haired child begins to move. She is speaking with me, but her body is somewhere else. She is all music and art, unconscious and innocent. Beautiful.

The View below Five Feet

Whenever we pass a cemetery, the yellow-haired child points and yells, "Dead people!"

The Cussing Child and Parent

Blog-14 - for Language. You know who you are - stay away.

Avery crawled into the back of the Jeep as we were about to leave for the grocery store.

"Avery, you're going to have to get in a seat," said Laura.

"Dammit," she sighed.

. . . . .

Who the hell did she pick up that kind of language from?

I suppose I could blame it on the preschool kids. Only I'm her preschool, and she and her brother are the kids. "Maybe the neighborhood kids?" Uh, again, the only neighborhood kids are her sisters and brother. And I haven't heard Elmo swearing lately (though I wouldn't put it past the little bastard).

I suppose that leaves her mother.

. . . . .

I grew up in a culture where swearing was ... well, if you swore it was likely that you were going to hell. It wasn't a definite thing, mind you, your being hellbound, but it was a likely thing.

And now, at 36, I find myself not having too many problems with cussing. I enjoy language - even that kind of language. I find it refreshingly straightforward, and satisfyingly appropriate at times. Even literary, to be snobbish about it.

I do have some qualifications, though. And the following is where I draw my lines: (1) I cringe when someone misuses our Lord's name. (2) Coarse joking and language have no place in my life. I don't want to be around it. That does not mean that talking about some poor shmuck getting kicked in the balls isn't hilarious - because it is (even when that poor shmuck happens to be me, given enough time between the incident and the retelling). There's nothing funnier to a man than seeing another man getting dropped like a sack of potatoes - thus the popularity of America's Funniest Videos. But I'd rather people not talk about it in front of my daughters. What I mean by coarse is really lewd or sexual humor - humor that objectifies and degrades. Humor that objectifies and degrades is inappropriate even when it isn't lewd (Racial jokes told by prejudiced people, for instance). I don't like it. (3) There is a time and place for swearing. That place is not normally at work or school. That place is not in front of those who find it offensive. And that place is not in front of children.

Otherwise, it's hella fun.

Yes, I swear sometimes. And, apparently, I swear sometimes in front of the children.

I need to better discipline my tongue.

Dammit.

No More Coffee for the Yellow-Haired Child

Yesterday, while she was taking a bath, the yellow-haired child commented that she thought she was growing hair on her butt.

. . . . .

Also, I just got back from Mass - today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. (Boy, there's a can of worms.) It was nice - Sophie and Anna made the trip with me and we talked and sang. But they came along mostly, I think, for the ice cream afterward.