ever-fixed mark

My office was relocated to a different building even closer to the Moroccan cafe where I was getting my morning and afternoon coffee, so now I’m visiting up to three times a day. Ramadhan started recently, and I feel terrible coming in and ordering food and drink when all the staff are starving. Yesterday afternoon when I got my coffee I struck up a conversation with two of the workers, asking if they were fasting. I mentioned that when I lived in Tunisia, restaurant workers weren’t put in the position of serving non-fasting patrons, because most of the cafes were closd during the day.

One of the guys asked how long I had lived in Tunisia, and I told him. The other guy said, “I’m from the country right next door to Tunisia.”

“Are you Algerian or Libyan?” I asked.

“Moroccan,” he answered.

“I don’t think Morocco and Tunisia share a border,” I said.

He insisted, and even drew me a map. I contradicted him, but then one of the other patrons (not a North African) said to me, “You know, he’s right. Morocco is next to Tunisia.”

“I don’t THINK so,” I said, but I was starting to doubt myself. On one hand, I was sure that Morocco wasn’t next to Tunisia, because if it had been, I would have gone there. It was the fact that Tunisia was landlocked between of war-torn Algeria on one side and death-to-America Libya on the other that prevented me from taking any train journeys out of the country for three years. On the other hand, I’d persisted in idées fixes in the past only to have my worldview crumble when proven wrong. There was the time my mother-in-law told me that the word “restaurateur” was properly spelled without an N, and the time that my friend P. proved that Neil Young had never been in the group America. Could I have been laboring under a geographical delusion all these years?

No.

I can’t believe I backed down.

Aitch has always been wary of the kayak, but since we got back from vacation at the Tyler Place (gah! we left the day that Julie and Julia arrived! Am still imagining the Vermont Mommy Blogging summit that might have been) he has been talking about trying to paddle the kayak on his own. His counselors took his group kayaking one day and let some of the kids paddle their own boats. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do the same with six-year-olds, but I saw this as a great opportunity to get Aitch more interested in kayaking.

So last weekend, I loaded up two kayaks on the car, but I determined I would leave one on top of the car until I was certain Aitch was enjoying himself. I put one boat in the water, put Aitch in his PFD, and handled him the paddle. I had envisioned myself wading alongside him whilst coaching him on the finer points of paddle management. I certainly did not envision him striking out confidently for the middle of the pond, leaving me open-jawed on the shore.

He was in a big, wide kayak, using a big, heavy paddle, and he quickly got tired and sloppy. I held my breath as I wondered if he’d be able to turn the boat around and come back. The other boat, you’ll remember (foreshadowing!) was still on top of the car, and the only way to rescue him would be to swim for it.

Now, before you go calling DSS, I need to make this clear: Aitch was in a perfectly stable boat, he was wearing his life jacket, and he is very confident in the water. At no time was he more than a fifteen-second swim away from me, and I was perfectly capable of swimming out and towing him back. I wasn’t afraid for his safety; I was afraid that he would end up with a tantrum and I would end up with leeches. It was not the cleanest pond.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t panicking, so I told him how to paddle on one side to turn the boat around. Amazingly, he did, and he made it back to shore. Then he went out and back again, out and back again, at which time I decided not to push my luck any further, and I beached him while I put the second boat in the water.

Then I had a brainwave, also stimulated by something I saw at the Tyler Place. I got one of the tie-down straps from the car and hooked the stern of my boat to the bow of Aitch’s. Then I towed him through the water. He practiced paddling when he felt like it, occasionally bumping my boat, and cruised the rest of the time. We followed Dog around the pond, looking for frogs and spying on a big blue heron. It was really fun and surprisingly easy to tow another boat. Aitch got to have his own space, and I didn’t have to worry about him getting too tired. As a bonus, I remained leech-free.

Me (reading e-mail): Hey, it’s Occupation Week at Minor’s pre-school this week.

Husband: Darn, I forgot to pack his little Nazi uniform.

Me: Funny, that’s exactly what I was picturing.

This summer, we’ve benefited from some non-toxic pest control methods taught to us by others. (What can I say? Minor loves fruit, and the universe is his trash receptacle.) Forthwith, the only Hints from Heloise you’re ever likely to get from me:

Ants: My housekeeper kills ants with kosher salt. Works like a charm and seems to deter further infestations.

Fruit flies: My friend K, who has a winery and three children who also love fruit but shun trash cans, showed me this. Put some apple cider vinegar, dish soap, and hot water in a cup, filling it to the brim. The little devils are attracted by the vinegar, but the soap bubbles trap their little feet. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

If you use this in your wine tasting room, though, warn the patrons so they don’t dip their bread into it, thinking it’s olive oil.

Aitch’s school is required to calculate each child’s body mass index (BMI) and then notify parents of the result, presumably to help parents of children at risk for obesity to take action early. We got a letter today saying that Aitch’s BMI was in the “86 - 90th percentile” for kids his age, and thus he is at risk for being overweight.

I had to laugh, because this is what Aitch looks like these days:

His BMI is high because the kid is ripped. His upper body is a slab of muscle. He tries to scale every vertical surface he encounters, and I’m constantly telling him to stop climbing on the cabinets, the fences, the fountains, DUDE, do you think you’re Spiderman? He has this trick of dangling from the monkey bars with one hand while he susses out his next move. He has a fierce set of calluses to go with his triceps, but the nurse didn’t even notice those.

The first thing I noticed about my high school boyfriend was the tortured posture he adopted while writing. I sat next to him in Latin class, and when he took notes, he hunched over in his seat, right arm curled over the top of his paper, approaching the left side of the page almost upside-down. Later when I got to know him I asked him why he sat like that, and he told me that he had been a natural lefty, but his parents forced him to switch to dextro from sinistro, because, you know. The left hand is the devil’s hand.

Unfortunately, this coercion was not uncommon practice in the rural parts of that Pennsylvania county, fifty miles northeast of Philadelphia, just down the road from Medieval Times (the period, not the theme restaurant). Since my boyfriend’s parents were already correcting his toddler self for the grave fault of being differently-handed, you can imagine how they reacted later on to his atheism and recreational drug use. Good times!

I think of that sometimes when I see Aitch writing his letters. He’s been left-handed ever since he learned to hold a spoon. The doctor told us that children often switch hands, but his left-preference has never wavered. That didn’t surprise me, though, because somehow he just feels like a lefty. He’s never been a traditional learner. He’s never hit a cognitive milestone on time: he didn’t wave bye-bye, play “so-big,” use signs, put two words together, use pronouns, etc. at the designated timepoints. He’s not a typical visual learner, and he isn’t necessarily auditory either; his style is more social/experiential. He dislikes being taught and really has to arrive at a solution in his own way. His approach has always been oblique, but it gets him there. What other five-year-old is so accomplished at complimenting women on their pedicures?

Minor, on the other hand, was completely neurotypical. It wasn’t until we had him that I realized how oddl Aitch had been. Minor learns by observing and imitating, like most kids. He doesn’t plug up his ears if he suspects you’re trying to teach him something; he loves to try new things. So I was surprised when he, too, turned out to be a lefty. His preference never seemed to be as marked as his brother’s. Minor would, for example, hold his fork with his left hand, but pick up odd bits of food with his right. We called him “Ambrosedextrous,” but whether it was that or pure slovenliness, I can’t say. For awhile I was convinced that he was just using his left hand in imitation of Aitch. But now he seems to be favoring his left the majority of the time, and when he plays soccer he naturally kicks left.

Husband and I are tickled at the thought of having two lefties. I’m not sure why. I suppose we’ve bought into the notion that lefties are more intellectual and artistic. Maybe we just appreciate the slim odds of two southpaws, especially since they aren’t even genetically related. I mean, how lucky are we? Two kids with the devil in ‘em!

BTW, if the post title reminds you of a certain television story arc circa 1980, I offer my kudos on your misspent youth.

At 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, I was jolted from sleep by a smoke detector. We had already been through one round of Musical Beds; thus I was confused both by the sound and by finding myself in our guest room. Husband and I met in the hall, and he took a quick tour to sniff for smoke while I stayed with the kids. We couldn’t smell anything, but I called the fire department anyway, knowing I wouldn’t be able to go happily back to sleep while suspecting that a fire was smoldering in the basement or behind the walls.

The dispatcher told me to get everyone out of the house and wait for the fire truck. We grabbed blankets for the kids and took them outside on the porch.

That’s when they woke up.

See, we usually cook dinner for ourselves after the boys go to bed at night. About once every two weeks, this activity sets off the fire alarm. The boys have become so habituated to the sound that they now sleep right through it.

I always thought this was a good thing, but now I realize that when they move out and live on their own, they’ll have to install the kind of smoke detectors that flash lights and shake the bed.

This morning, when I walked out of the parking garage at work, I was confronted by a mother duck and eight ducklings, just hanging out together on in the middle of Cambridge.

I called Husband and told him of my find. “Are they named Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack?” he asked.

“They’re standing on a curb, and I’m afraid they’re going to waddle into the street and get run over,” I said.

“Why don’t you call Officer Clancy?” he said oh so helpfully.

The mama duck looked very confused, as though she had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque. The funny thing is that the ducks were only about half a mile from the island near the Longfellow Bridge where the ducklings in the book make their original home. They had traveled in the opposite direction from the Public Garden, though.

Am I the only person in the Boston area who is not that fond of Make Way for Ducklings? I find the back-ing and forth-ing of the ducks kind of confusing. They visit and reject the Public Garden, then end up at some nameless island in the river, and then…why did they go back to the Public Garden again? Why not just set the whole thing at the Public Garden and contrive some other reason for the ducklings to cross the street?

Apparently I’m not the only one.

On the days I pick up Aitch from school, we sometimes hang out at the playground for a half-hour or so afterwards. He plays while I chitchat with the other parents. I find it strangely awkward to be in a social situation where I am on a “nodding acquaintance” basis with so many people. It’s easy to talk to people you know; it’s easy to ignore people you don’t know. What’s hard is talking to, or ignoring, people you sorta know.

There’s one group of kindergarten mothers there who are very good friends. I think of them as the Mommy Posse, or the Mosse. They’re not the Mean Girls; you can walk up and join them, and they’ll be perfectly friendly. (I want to be clear on that; I can’t stand how whenever more than two women are in the same room, people start using words like “catty” and “cliquey.” I participate in a lot of groups — book club and the dog-walking group and the movie night contingent — and all of them are perfectly civilized.) It soon becomes evident, though, that the Mosse is tightly intertwined, and it’s hard to join the conversation when it’s all about what they’re doing that evening, or after soccer on Saturday, or for brunch before church on Sunday. They’re not trying to be exclusive, but they are friends, whereas the rest of us are just other mothers who happens to be standing in their vicinity.

At times, I’m envious of the Mosse. It would be nice to have a permanent group of friends, and for the boys to have permanent playmates. Imagine: we would never have to go out of our way to arrange a play date (something I’m bad about doing in advance) or a parents’ night out with another couple. We would always know what we were doing on the weekend.

On the other hand, the Mosse seems like a commitment I probably couldn’t handle. That’s a lot of Cheever-esque suburban togetherness. Let’s be honest: I wasn’t good with exclusive social groups in high school, and I’m probably not any better with them now. I have my groups, as noted above, but I don’t want to hang out with any of them on a permanent basis.

Do you have a Mosse? If so, what are the advantages and disadvantages? If not, would you join one if you could, or do you consciously keep away?

Our neighbors who live two houses down invited us to a Kentucky Derby/Cinco de Mayo party yesterday— mint juleps and nachos. It was an afternoon-sliding-into-evening, kids-plus-adults affair. There must have been 20 small boys between the ages of 2 and 10 there, and our guys had a blast. The adults mostly hung out on the back patio while the throng of boys ran from the front yard through the house and out the side door, brandishing croquet mallets. As long as no one was crying, we were happy to leave them to their own devices, and consequently throughout the afternoon we went ten and twenty minutes at a time without seeing them.

At one point Husband walked into the alley to have a cigarette, and he spotted Aitch coming out the back door of our house. “What are you doing in there?” he asked, thinking perhaps I had walked Aitch over for some reason.

“We’re having a party at my house!” Aitch said with pride. Husband and he went into the house just in time to see ten or so little Lords of the Flies exiting through the front door.

Apparently, Aitch had lured them over en masse and they spent a happy unsupervised half-hour playing cars and eating tortilla chips they had brought from the real party. There was a trail of chip crumbs across the floor. Also (I am not making this up), one of the five-year-olds had thrown up in the bathroom.

Husband summed up the situation in a word: “Harbinger,” he said.