Mouth guards and Multiplication

Matthew's aunt gave him twenty dollars for his birthday.  "I've always wanted money!" he cried.  Talk soon turned to what he could buy with twenty dollars and, as always, Matthew has pretty clear interests.  "Can I get a real hockey stick with twenty dollars?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"Can I get a mouth guard?"  This has been Matthew's dream for about a year now.  A mouth guard. 

"I'm not sure how much a mouth guard costs," I told him.

"Get your computer!  Look it up!" he insisted.

A few keystrokes later, "Looks like a mouth guard is about ten dollars," I said.

"Oh NO!" Matthew moaned.  "I wish I had ten dollars!"

At this point Cameron broke in.  "Matthew.  You DO have ten dollars.  Twenty dollars is like ten dollars TWO times.  You have TWO ten dollars!"

Matthew's eyes widened and he dropped his voice, leaning in to Cameron.  "Hey.  You want me to buy you a mouth guard too?"

Cameron kindly suggested that Matthew could use the extra ten dollars to buy something else.  And now Matthew is the proud owner of his very own mouth guard and Froggy Rides a Bike by Jonathan London.

Home?

So, this living in a new city is weird.  Especially when it is a new city that, actually, you grew up in so everyone is all, "Welcome home!" but you've been gone so long that it doesn't feel like home, it feels . . . weird.

Like, you're driving along a road saying to your kids, "Look!  That's where I used to buy candy!  And look!  That's where I used to go swimming!  And, what???  What is THAT?  Holy cow, since when is there a California Pizza Kitchen [or a mall or a coffee shop you've never even HEARD of or a roundabout, which is super confusing and you don't understand who is yielding] here?"

Like, you keep spotting people who look familiar and you think, "Is that Kerry?  Oh.  No.  It's not.  Kerry lives in another state now."  And then you meet your next door neighbor and you went to high school with her. High school? How can that be, since this next door neighbor appears to be an approaching-middle-age woman with a KID? 

Like, you go to the library and nobody says hi to you.  Which makes you all, "What up?" because at your old library everyone knew you and your kids by name.  (BUT, if you are THIS family, you go back to the new library a week later and the librarian says, "Oh!  Hi!  You were here last week on Tuesday!"  Because your family is sort of memorable.  I know.  We're awesome like that.)

Like, you want to take your kids to the rocket ship park that you used to love to play at.  But you need to use your GPS to get there because nothing looks the same and there are all these roundabouts. But, don't worry!  GPS can still get you there!  Except the rocket ship park HAS NO ROCKET SHIP.

Weird. 

Hello from the North

Did you miss me?
If you are my Cincinnati friend, please post a comment saying, "Yes!  We miss you terribly!  Some of the light has gone out of the city now that you are gone!"  Or something like that.  Because I miss you like crazy.

I am currently enjoying a front row seat at a little known stage show called "The Great Luigi."  I kind of had a backstage pass and, as the stars of the show rehearsed, I made a dinner of Indian Samosas and a dessert of strawberry sorbet.  We all ate together and then I assisted the smallest star (Luigi) put on his Halloween costume from last year.  Moments later, I handed in my ticket, which read "1 rOw."  The larger star of the show (Mario) then said, "Would you like to buy a commerorative Mario or Luigi hat?"

"How much are they?"

"They are twenty dollars."

"Oh, I'm not interested then."

"Wait!  I meant five!  One!  I meant one!  Thirty cents!  Fine, they're free!"

"Oh," I replied, "free? Well, I'll take one if they're free."

At which point Mario made a sorrowful face and said, "Oh, so sorry, ma'am.  I've just checked and these are our last two and they are on hold for someone else!"

Things are good here.

And yet upon closer inspection . . .

Today, Matthew noticed a man getting into a car parked next to us.  "Mom!  I just saw a guy who is blind!" he said.

"What?"  I looked around, thinking maybe he was talking about someone else.  Someone with a cane?  A seeing eye dog?

Matthew pointed as the man backed his car out of his parking space.  "See?  That guy!  He's blind!"

"Matthew, how do you know he is blind?" I asked.

"I can tell!  I can SEE that he's blind!"

"What do you see?"

"I can SEE that he has NO HAIR!  He's BLIND!"

Long absence, explained

Perhaps you have noticed I haven't posted anything in, oh, two months.  (Or perhaps you have stopped checking my blog entirely.  Sorry.)  The past two months have been . . . chaotic.  Briefly, we are moving!  If you have ever moved, and particularly if you have moved out of state as we are doing, you may understand the simultaneous excitement, sadness and stress that comes with a move.  If I ever thought I was busy before?  I sooooo wasn't.  Every spare moment is taken up with boxing and cleaning and organizing and researching.  And it so happens that I love organizing and researching.  Cleaning?  Not so much but you win some, you lose some.  So, I can't promise that I'll be posting on any kind of predictable basis until we actually are moved and settled but I'll try! 

A summary:

-- Christmas.  Awesome. Matthew was hard core into Santa this year, inspecting the chimney and experiencing great distress at its narrow diameter.  Fortunately, Santa somehow made it and much rejoicing ensued the next morning.

-- New Years.  Had a party with our transracial adoption friends.  Fantastic.  They are without a doubt one of the top reasons I am sad to move.

--Writing.  Another reason I am sad.  I have the best writing circle evvvver.  Can't even stand the thought of not being with them weekly.

-- Sickness.  Constant, unrelenting sickness here.  My purse is a pharmacy, stuffed with multiple inhalers and medications.  Home today with a sick boy.  Can't remember the last week when I didn't have at least one boy home sick.  Sick of sick.

-- School.  The internship is incredible -- tons of fun (most days!) to work with kids.  My boys are also thriving at school.  Matthew is bringing home lists of words he wrote with the movable alphabet and is doing the short chains, which blows my mind.  Cameron is measuring angles and reading all the H.G. Wells he can get his hands on.  They are fantastic!

So, that's life for us right now.  Back to the boxes . . .

I

The other day, Cameron and I were driving to school, just the two of us.  "You know what?"  Cameron said from the backseat.  "When I was in preprimary, everyone knew Matthew was my brother.  But in elementary, some of the kids haven't seen Matthew before.  Lots of times, when they do see him, they say, 'Who's that kid?'"
"What do you say to them?" I asked. 

"I say, 'That's my little brother, Matthew.'  And then they usually say, 'How is he your brother?' I think because Matthew's black and I'm white."

"I think you're right," I said.  "Lots of kids aren't used to seeing brothers that have different skin colors.  What do you say when kids say that?"

"Well," said Cameron, "I just tell them!  He's my brother because I adopted him!"

The Beginning, revisited

Last week, we had an amazing experience.  We took Matthew back to the hospital he was born at, so he could see where he was before he came home with us.  He's seen the photos and he always has questions -- where's that room?  where's that tiny bottle?  who took care of me? 

So I contacted a social worker at the hospital and told her what I wanted to do.  She came through in a BIG way!  Matthew was able to see the very room where we took our first family photo, the very nursery where Cameron first saw him, the very rocking chair that we first held him in.  The nurse who had taken care of him remembered him and wrote him a beautiful letter.  The social worker gave him a tiny baby bottle and a knit hat like the one he came home in.  Matthew was fascinated by it all and it brought back so many happy memories for the rest of our family.  And as soon as we got home, Matthew stretched the little hat over his great big head, filled the tiny bottle with water and requested that I rock and feed him like a tiny baby.  Which I did, but I will resist the urge to post the photo here, lest he be embarassed by it when he's a teenager!