Milkbreath and Me

So I'm going out. A few details before I do:

1) B and I played tee-ball for like, an hour and a half this morning. It was awesome.

2) Why yes, I DID kind of jinx myself with yesterday's entry. But y'know what? I still think he's doing better at holding it together. Today's shoutfests were nothing like the meltdowns of just last week.

3) B has expressed the following preferences:
Favourite taste: sour
Favourite food: lemon
Favourite colour: yellow
Favourite dessert: "I said lemon, okay? I already said that!!"

4) Lemon pie? We'll see whether I'm feeling that ambitious.

But in the last 48 hours the lad seems to have turned a mental corner. The pendulum is swinging back toward balance. I tell him things he doesn't want to hear -- Time to go home! Dishes to the kitchen please! Time for bed! -- and cringe inwardly, expecting him to burst into histrionic flames as he has been prone to do these past several months.

But he hasn't been complaining or even bargaining, let alone shouting. It's spooky.

Today he used a public washroom, for a function he has steadfastly refused to perform anywhere but at home. And there was no drama, no trauma, no wailing and rending of garments. I told him afterwards that I was very proud of him, and said, "It wasn't so scary after all, was it?"

He considered a moment. "It was scary AND not scary!"

And that's how I feel too, about how mature he suddenly seems.

So today, for the fist time ever, Byron and I managed to get our collective butts over to the Vancouver International Children's Festival. Els's spouse, Renaissance Woman, had clued us in to an act she thought would be right up Byron's alley: Kling Klang. I, of course, procrastinated on buying tickets, and when I remembered to check the webpage, it looked like they were sold out. Oops.

But we went anyway, and we went today, in the pouring rain, because I reasoned it wouldn't be as crowded. And I'm sure it wasn't AS crowded as it might have been, but school groups don't put off their field trips just because it's raining, and REAL Vancouverites aren't so easily deterred. We dress our kids in rain pants, and they could walk straight into English Bay.

We got there right when it opened, determined to get into whatever 10:30 show still had seats. Well wouldn't you know it, the only one that WASN'T sold out was Kling Klang. Maybe it's because your webpage made them look sold out, dorks! However, we didn't question our luck but snapped up our tickets and went to the show.

And I gotta hand it to RW: she called it right. Byron was utterly enthralled. I have a feeling he'll be breaking out the pots and pans tonight, and it's going to be a chore keeping him away from Scott's bike.

"Do you want to go up and meet the performers?" I asked him when the show was over, and he nodded enthusiastically. We approached the stage, amid a crowd of other kids, and Byron said, "I liked your music!"

"Let's get closer, so they'll be able to hear you," I said.

Byron, not wanting to squirm through the crowd, came up with an alternate solution and shouted: "I LIKED YOUR MUSIC!!"

I don't think they understood what he said, but they smiled and waved, and B seemed satisfied. Then we went and looked at the sound and light control boards, which were almost as fascinating to him as the show had been.

The sound-board operator recommended a tent called Sonic Playground, where Byron could push buttons and make noise. I think she was just trying to get rid of us, but she was right that he loved it, and we stayed there a long time, playing the car-honk organ and the xylophones. Between that and the do-it-yourself (!) face painting, Byron was pretty much full up. I asked if he wanted to eat there, or at home, and he chose home. He'd had enough. He had this weird glazed look, like he really needed to go digest all the wonders he had witnessed; he was completely docile about going home, eating quickly, and going to preschool.

He still looked spacey when I left him at school, like the whole experience had given him stuff to think about. Which is good -- I sometimes feel like he is so hungry, interested, and capacious that I will never be able to fill him up. But today, this was substantial enough. We'll see how long it takes to digest.

Y'know, I need to stop saying things like "I've created a monster!" -- as if I were surprised -- every time I introduce Byron to a bit of pop culture I know he's going to love.

He and I went to see "Speed Racer" yesterday, and I want so much to write, "OMG! Now we have to play Speed Racer all the time!!" -- as if this had been utterly unforeseen by scholars and pundits across the globe -- but honestly, I figured. And I don't really mind, because I get to be Racer X, sorrowful man of mystery and intrigue, which suits me perfectly, you will agree.

Those of you wondering whether this film is suitable for small children: Byron is 2 months short of five, and if I had realized the level of violence I probably would not have taken him. It's very cartoonish violence, and the camera turns away whenever anybody seems about to get HURT, but still. It was more than I was comfortable with, although it was stylized enough that Byron didn't seem to quite get what was going on.

Actually, that's a fair summary of most of the movie. B could not follow the plot.

Our lad, however, does not go to movies looking for plot. He looks for cool machines, and this movie has those in spades -- cars racing, robots building cars, crazy car gadgets. Our play consists almost entirely of us pretending to fix the cars, followed by B saying, "Speed Racer and Racer X are on the GOOD team!" Then we chase each other around the living room. Good fun.

I enjoyed it WAY more than I thought I would, and more than any adult probably ought to admit to. I had never seen the cartoon before, but I've seen enough anime that I understood much of the stylized visuals (it helped that Speed's little brother was watching Japanese cartoons early on, reminding us of the "talking head floating across a remembered scene" trope, among others). Good fluffy fun.

(Doesn't that make it sound like you ought to be giving your mothers candy skulls and papier-mache calaveras? Sure it does! And if I were your mother, I'd love that!)

Scott is gettin' out of dodge today, so we did our big fiesta last night: dinner at Raga. I told Scott I thought of Raga as my traditional Mother's Day restaurant, and he said, "What? No way! We never came here on Mother's Day before!" But, as it happens, we did. But that's OK, because I like that restaurant, and what's more Byron likes that restaurant.

He likes it even more, now, because one of the wait staff gave him free mango ice cream, just for being so goddamn cute and well-behaved. If you read that other entry, you'll see he has a long track-record of good in restaurants, but last night he was unimpeachably good. Even when the fish pakora were too spicy for him, he just gulped his water without a fuss, then asked me nicely for mine.

My friend Els has a poignant post today, about Mothers' Day in a household with two mothers, which is well worth reading. I hope the rest of my mother-readers are having a most excellent day, with mango ice cream for all!

This month at preschool, all the parents are supposed to "share their talents". I have two duty days, and I'm only belly dancing for one of them. So for my other day (today), I talked to the other mom to see whether we could pool resources.

"Both our husbands are physicists," I said. "We really should make them think of something."

"Yeah!" she said. "My husband was supposed to think of science activities for the kids last year, and he never did! He got an old VCR for the kids to take apart, and then never brought it in!"

"Eureka!" I said, and we agreed to bring in crappy old appliances to take apart with the kids.

Our alley is always full of appliances being thrown away. I found a little vacuum there last week, and Byron and I practiced taking it apart and putting it back together all week long. Then today, as we were going to school, I saw a beat-up toaster -- doesn't even have a cord -- by the side of the road, so I grabbed that and brought it along.

The other mom brought her old, broken iPod -- she'd taken it to be repaired, and they had told her it wasn't cost-effective to fix it. It looked meek next to my bigger appliances, but it turned out to be pretty amazing inside (especially since she had no qualms about completely destroying it).

All in all, AWESOME preschool activity, if any of you are ever looking for one. B loved the vacuum and toaster, but the iPod moved him deeply. The look on his face! It was like watching someone in a religious rapture. The holy microchips! The sacred hard drive platter! The divine actuator arm! (yes, I just looked up the name of that last one).

Of course, now I am stuck with a crappy old vacuum and toaster. I have informed the boy that they will be leaving for Appliance Heaven in a few days, and he seems okay with that, but we'll see. He's playing with the partially dismantled toaster right now.

The boy has made bongos of a portion of my anatomy, and is being gently warned off.

Me: Please don't touch those, buddy. Those are private.

B: But can YOU touch them?

Me: Well, sure, I can. They're mine. That's what private means.

B: But when they make milk a baby has to touch them! So they're not private then!

The boy is trying to weasel out of feeding his fish.

Me: Look how hungry she is. It's your job to take care of her. You're her owner.

B: But you take care of her, too. You and Daddy change her water.

Me: True.

B: So YOU'RE her owner!