books » Stop, Drop and Blog

BOOM!

Jan 102012

“Mom, can I write in my journal?”

How do you say no to that?

BigBrother brought out his journal, his crayon and pencil bag and sat down at the table while I busied myself with post-dinner and general evening clean up chores. LittleBrother saw what was going on and ran to get his notebook and writing utensils. They sat together, writing in their separate spaces and chattering at loud volumes.

I took a load of laundry downstairs. I laid out clothes for tomorrow. I finished the dishes. No one bothered me or pulled on my pant leg or whined or argued or even got out of a chair. I turned around to find them still at the table, crayons and pencils all over the all ready cluttered table. But instead of writing in two separate notebooks, they were writing in one.

“I know, I’ll write BOOM! here, next to the man.” Then he sounded out the word, helping himself as he went along. “Oo. The oo sound comes from two o’s. Boom!”

“Yeah! Now we need to draw a big circle thingy over here!” LittleBrother pointed and BigBrother obliged.

I stood in silence, taking in the moment before reaching for my camera.

“We’re drawing our own comic book, Mommy. Like George and Harold in Captain Underpants!”

“That’s fantastic.”

They continued on for much longer than I expected, even after we had an explosion of pencil shavings right after I finished cleaning up the floor. They were entranced with their story, with their drawings, with helping each other.

As we got ready for bed, they continued to talk about their masterpiece, the book that they were going to write.

“I can be the illustrator. And the writer. I can be both, right Mommy?”

I told him that he could; that he could be anything he wanted to be.

“I’ll let LittleBrother be both too, of course.”

Of course.

We finished our evening activities reading another chapter of Captain Underpants together. It’s the second book with the talking toilets. Yum yum, eat ‘em up and all that jazz. Toilet, poop and fart jokes are apparently going to be a part of my life for a long time to come, and quite possibly I’m raising my own little George and Harold. Which, if you think about it, is better than raising Harold and Kumar, right?

So thank you, George, Harold, Mr. Krupp, Captain Underpants, the Turbo Toilet 2000 and the Robo-Plunger for the hour that my boys spent creating and laughing and BOOM!-ing and dreaming of writing their own book. Don’t tell me that nothing good ever came out of toilet humor.

Because this? This is good.

Review: The Magic Room

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Dec 292011

Reading The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters by Jeffrey Zaslow during the month of my seventh wedding anniversary was a trip down memory lane.

I didn’t even want to try on the wedding dress I wore as I walked down the aisle. My mom picked it out, which knocked it completely out of my desire-range. I tried on the other four that I had picked out in our first pass of Henri’s, and they weren’t right. I put on the dress my Mom had grabbed. And it was the one.

I have fun memories of picking out my wedding dress with my Mom. I remember teasing my husband that he would need to stop drinking at our reception a few hours before he wanted to get me out of it, as it was rather complicated. I remember seeing his face. I remember feeling like a princess.

But I was aware, even then, that our marriage was more than my wedding dress. Or even the wedding.

We didn’t have an expensive wedding. We did have a big wedding because my family is rather large. But we didn’t go into debt to host our own wedding. We had a lovely day, I promise you that. We were just aware that we wanted more than just one day. We wanted a lifetime.

A few people made jokes this year, as we celebrated our seventh anniversary, that we should beware that old “seven year itch.” I was pleased when The Magic Room let me know that the largest number of divorces now occur in the fourth year. We’re safe! Not that we’ll stop trying, working on things and through things, as the book states.

I did not appreciate the commentary and underlying judgment that those women who want a white dress, even though they already have a child, are somehow in the wrong. Considering the Munchkin was at my wedding, and I was most certainly wearing white, I felt this part of the book and the discussions about what is and is not right when it comes to marriage and family and children was just way too off base.

When it comes down to it, The Magic Room might be a great gift to hand to a woman who is just recently engaged and is looking for a dress. But, as a note, there is a love that mothers also wish for their sons, and it’s more than what’s in a dress or a wedding celebration.