A new kind of tired

Her mom came out from Mannahatta for Mother's Day. No one was sure that that was in the spirit of the 'holiday,' but as Grandma pointed out, "you're a mother, too." So Grandma rode the bus, and arrived with bagels (still warm), lox and cream cheese. (The Boy has found his muse in cream cheese, by the way. It's ten days later and he still asks, nearly every morning, for "the white butter.")

Our contribution to the Kosher Lunch Festival was a bottle of white wine that She picked up the night before. Both of 'em are lightweights, and didn't even finish the half-glasses that they poured themselves with lunch. I don't know from wine, but I know from budget; as I prepped for an afternoon at the playground, I put water in the two yellow sip cups, then dumped the remaining wine into the pink sip cup. I figured whoever wasn't driving might enjoy a little secret sauce. They're insulated! It's fun to be a covert playground lush! She didn't think this was such a good idea.

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Have I mentioned that I never drank a cup of coffee prior to my thirty-fifth birthday? It was kind of along the lines of a personal sin tax. The thought process wasn't about aversion, the way I avoided booze & smokes, so much as: okay, it's an acquired taste. Well, given that it's basically bad for me, and that in every habit I harbor, I tend toward excess, let's just not acquire it. If I stopped by your house with some small rocks, and told you that sucking them could make you pleasantly jittery and irritable, and eventually you'd get used to the taste and even like it, and it would only set you back a few bucks at the market every week, would you suck some rocks to see how well they worked?

Yes, you would. As would I. I'm on my third cup as I write this.

(An aside - I mean, not my usual digression, but a real aside - if you want to read more prattle about drinking coffee, prattle I didn't write but recommend, here's a terrific paragraph by Jim Crace.] [Link to come.]

Coffee was a conscious choice, because this is a new kind of tired. I've worked summer stock theatre, and anyone who gets the reference will know what it means: I know what it is to be tired. But this is a new kind of tired, and it's coming when I 'm closer to fifty than I am to twenty. the other day, I realized that I was sitting on the third step on the staircase, idly-but-seriously trying to parse: if cooked, would I contain both white meat and dark meat? And if not, would my texture be more like beef or lamb?

I've often compared and contrasted rearing boys to rearing dogs (including, briefly, here, but more often aloud in conversation). Having the Kid around the house is no longer like having a demure, two legged pup. It is like having a caffeinated lemur with Attention Deficit Disorder. He leaps, shrieks and grabs. There's baby proofing, and there's baby proofing, and I had forgotten how hard we had to work when we went through this with The Boy. I had honestly forgotten that it means taking down all frames with glass in them. Clearing everything off the top of every dresser because he can get there. He can get onto the dresser! He's not even three feet tall! He's like a grasshopper!

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Monday morning is a time for breakfast. It's a time to start off the week right, particularly if you're three and there are so many available ways of starting it wrong. I made waffles; I cooked bacon. I served breakfast, and got down vitamins. I started cleaning dishes when The Boy pointed out that he didn't have any orange juice. No juice! At mention of it, The Kid starts to bay jooose! Jooose! Drop everything! Here's some OJ! Here are two cups! Cut the OJ half-and-half with water! Screw on the top! Serve it up!

The Boy pulled a swig (ever try to drink from one of those things? Some work is involved) and made a face. He held it out to me with the somber observation: "Daddy, this is not fresh."

Yep, I served my three-year-old son a concoction I call a Bum's Mimosa: one part organic Tropicana orange juice, one part warm, day-old white wine.