Saturday, October 29, 2005

Costumes

My boys have been dress-up maniacs recently. Cai has been unable to decide on one costume, so each Halloween celebration we attend is also a metamorphosis. First, he was scheduled to be a vampire bat. However, he decided he was in a pterodactyl mood for pictures with his friends. For a early trick-or-treat event at a kid's amusement park he decided he wanted to be a pirate, borrowing lots of accessories from my gypsy costume we pulled that off with finesse and he has said "Ahoy Matey!" in a gruff three year-old voice one million times in the past two weeks. Next, he was Spiderman for another class party and Batman for the Halloween party he co-hosted with one of his girlfriends. Chocolate has been less picky, for most of the month he was a cowboy because he loved the hat and I had a bandana and the cutest little cowboy boots. However, he was only going Western because his mother is a slacker and had yet to finish his real costume - a little lamb. I, of course, am Little Bo Peep. Jaya was really annoyed and wondered if I was the only mother around to use her child as an accessory? I don't care - he looks ridiculously adorable and LOVES the attention he gets from admirers.

While Cai has not been the best student in karate class, we have perservered. His recent rambunctious tendencies have come as a bit of a shock to his father and I. For the first 2 1/2 years our little Mordecai was the golden boy. In all his classes he was always the most participatory and the most capable. We were quietly vain and oh-so-naive. So now our boy enjoys not participating and regularly is pulled from class by his stressed out mother. One day I videotaped the class (to torture him in later years) and he was reprimanded by ALL FOUR instructors. It was a banner day.

So last week we are driving to class. He has good days and bad days and I was thinking it was a good day. He asked to roll his window down in the car and said, "Mama, don't you just love the wind?" Well here's the truth: I do not love the wind. And while I had never really put this into words recently it had come to my attention when my father and I had a short conversation about how he and his mother, my grandmother are not fans of windy days. Anyway, of course, I lied: "I do love the wind baby, doesn't it feel wonderful?" He agreed and we continued a charming conversation until we arrived at karate.

In class, Mordecai was not in the mood to participate. Mind you, he generally just makes up his own moves and ignores what everyone else is doing. This particular day it seemed to me that he was becoming disruptive so I pulled him out of class, outside and gave him a choice: participate or go home. Smart little bastard refused to choose and after the third and last time I gave him the ultimatum he sat down on the tiny cinder-block wall outside the front door, looked out at the green field before us and said, "No, Mama, I think I'm just going to sit here and feel the wind." Writing this now I think maybe the good mother thing to do would've been to agree that his preference was indeed the best option in the scheme of things. However, at that point I was pissed and do not mistake it: the boy was working me. So I threatened the park trip which often follows class and he folded. After a particularly well-behaved last five minutes of class we did play at the park. The boy is a sucker for a fast slide.

I'm running out of tricks here. Look out Juvenile Hall, here we come. My only hope is that his teacher at preschool is right. She says he is a bright child and boys this age whose minds work more quickly than they can communicate get frustrated and push boundaries more often. I kind of buy this, but then the same day she conveyed this theory after school I asked Cai what he had done that day. His response was, "Oh, Mama... I colored and well... you can imagine the rest."

Quote of the Day

"Mama, is testicle a bad word like stupid and Jesus?"