Week 6 – To Tanzania!

Monday night. I have just sent Sailor off to wash his hands. He protests and stomps away from the dinner table. I follow him and find him peeing, and so return to the kitchen.
A moment later he emerges. “Mom, you have to come see this.” He is very serious and his anger has dissipated.

“Look!” he points into the toilet bowl. “There is a too-pon stuck there.”
And so there is.
I apologize.
I flush.
I flush again.
Our new toilet has very minimal water pressure.
I grab a tampon applicator from the garbage can and use it to encourage the “too-pon” to disappear.
I apologize again.
Thank goodness the finder of this lovely object was one of my own and not a guest!

Late at night, before I make my before-bed breakfast and bring a book to bed, I am in the bathroom alone (a rarity of course, especially now that we have no bathroom door). I open the large box of “too-pons” that Sailor and I bought today and inside there is a little package of panty liners, free with my purchase. The neatly wrapped package beside the regular tampon box, inside the jumbo tampon box … it all brings me back almost 30 years to the day that my pre-menstrual kit arrived in the mail. You know the one, you had to send for it and when it arrived you took it to your parents’ bedroom and opened it in secret so your little brother or sister couldn’t see what was in your “starter kit.” All the mini pads that made you feel like a grown up just to wear one around the house for an hour and the maxi pads that were so think they scared the crap out of you, and even a belted pad to make you think twice about entering into puberty at all. No too-pons. No panty liners back there in 1978. Just a few well-written pamphlets on what to expect when you are expecting (your first period!). I haven’t thought about my “starter kit” in years. I wonder if it is still under my parents’ bed. I wonder also what puberty will be like with boys.

Wednesday
We oversleep by too many minutes. I have been turning off the alarm and falling back to sleep. I realize the reason I hate to get up on school days and today is a prime example. By the time I am done making Mac and Sailor two separate and different lunches and full breakfasts and cleaning up supplies and dishes from my work I am wondering if things might be easier if I moved the microwave and toaster over to the top of the dishwasher next to the sink. I am exhausted and we barely make it to school as the bell rings. At the enrichment center I pick up Sailor out of his stroller and tell him I want to hug him all day. “But I have a class,” says the boy who, a month ago, cried and begged not to have to attend the same class. “I will always hug you forever, even when I have to go to school, then when I am home I will hug you again.” He admits he will one day go to school. He breezes thru his class and we take a really long walk to the farm in the zoo. We had a great time there on Sunday eating beans and tomatoes with a farmer. The boys have asked to go back and while Mac is at school Sailor ands I are free to visit the garden again. And heck, the farmer was really attentive and cute. But he so busy with school groups and we can’t get near. We play for a little while in the farm house and then meet my dad for lunch.

Late in the afternoon I have Sailor in my lap again. “You can hug me forever now, Mommy.” So I do. I hold him like I will never let go. He leans back and I kiss his beautiful lips. I see a woman smile at us. I hold him tight and lay my head against his. Shortly he whispers, “Mommy? Are you asleep?”

We stop in LUSH on the way home from Mac’s piano lesson. The boys like to wash their hands there with the fun soaps. I am in the middle of learning about a $48 face cream when Mac needs a bathroom. We go back to the music school where Sailor and I bump into a mom from Mac’s school whom we have seen probably no fewer than twice a day every day all week. “We see her everywhere! I think she is a secret agent like Kornorlius,” he says, referring to a character named Kornelius in one of Mac’s Geronimo Stilton books.

We are all tired when we finally make it home after 6pm. I put a pizza in the oven and Sailor in the shower. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur so we will not go to school, which means we can blow off homework and watch a movie. Sailor and I got several movies from the library on Monday. Sailor tells Mac of my pizza and movie plan. “We are going watch a movie called Back to History.” You know the one, the 1985 classic, starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and the Flux Capacitor.

Sailor has been showing his helpful side lately by toothpasting everyone’s toothbrush, not just his own. The mess is bad but his effort cannot be criticized.

We spend our Jewish day off at the suburban zoo. Sailor helps me carry his stroller up 4 steps and I am certain the spinach is working!

Saturday morning, in two separate rooms, the boys are singing, "Upside, inside out ... I'm a believer!" It's little Ricky Martin meets the Monkees!