And We Laugh

Cal's and my relationship has reached a really fun stage.  The kid doesn't really do much to get under my skin, other than dealing with his "issues" with general neatness and cleanliness (uh, yeah, does he HAVE to wipe his mouth with his shirt?); but even that has become fun.  I see food dropping from his mouth as he eats and I stare.  I mean, what else am I supposed to do?  I stare.  I am amazed at how unfazed he is by it.  With every crumb and clump of sauce that fails to stay in his mouth, I think about how much work is ahead of me.  My general verbalized response to this is, "Cal, you are never going to have a girlfriend if you continue to eat like that," said as I shake my head from side to side.  This is naturally followed by his wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve... or neck of his shirt... or just not at all.

Anyway, on Sunday, I was all over him about changing his socks before we went to, well, kind of my boss's boss's house for an afternoon of a little work (she and Dan had some Rebuilding Together planning to do) and a little socializing, with drinks, of course.  Why it was so important to me that he change his socks, I don't know.  I didn't have any facts to back this up, but I envisioned them being the same socks that he had worn to school on Friday and then again on Saturday because the kid only has a couple pairs of socks that he actually likes to wear.  Why wouldn't I think they were three days in to being worn before being washed?

So it was getting close to our target time to leave for their house, and I said for what may have been the fiftieth time, "Cal, did you change your socks?"  He responded by insisting he had put them on fresh that morning, but I wasn't listening.  I insisted again.  And he responded this time by coming to me, his arms outreached, and saying with his sweet voice as he hugged me, "I love you, Mama."

I got sucked right in, hugged back and reciprocated, "Aw, I love you, too, Baby Bear," setting the whole sock thing aside.  He does this.  He knows how to pull on my heartstrings.  All he needs to say is, "I love you, Mama," and I'm done.  Wear whatever you want, even that shirt with spaghetti sauce on the sleeve and Cheetoh juice on the neckline.

I told him this, that he just needs to tell me he loves me and I'll forget any issues I might be tackling with him; and he laughed, a playful yet devious laugh.  He all-encompassingly knows exactly what he's doing.  I'm a sucker for that kid.  For now, it's fun.  Battling dirty socks and food-stained shirts just gets overtaken priority-wise by enjoying a good hug and laughs with that Leatherkid.

We laughed again on Monday night during reading time.  Dan and I are back to the read-two-books-to-Ella-together-followed-by-reading-one-book-to-Cal routine.  Lately (where "lately" seems like the last two years), Cal chooses to read his Lego Star Wars book, which usually means he and I lie side-by-side at the head of his bed, Dan lies across the base of it, and I read the book to him.  Every once in awhile, Cal says that he wants to read, which, of course, I oblige.

The book is very worn and damaged (this is the one I threw against the wall a month or so ago), posing a challenge to bedtime reading as pages frequently fall out of it.  Despite its condition, this book gives the readers a good sense for how the Star Wars characters evolved, who trained whom, who moved to the Dark Side of the force, who killed whom, who descended from whom, and, in the case of the droids, who made whom.  It also describes the spaceships and general modes of transportation and tools for battle.  All of the aforementioned in their Lego forms, of course.

I wouldn't describe it as a funny book, though some of the cartoon talk bubbles have some witty banter.  There is one page that, when Cal and I hit it, makes us laugh because I just can't pronounce the word the way it's supposed to be pronounced.  It's about a spacecraft, the Executor, which seems like an easy word to pronounce but really isn't... on which syllable does one put the emphasis?  I inevitably pick the wrong one and, even after a lot of thought, awkwardly say it with the emphasis on the second syllable, "ExECutor," you know, the person who executes a will.  Cal laughs and corrects me by saying with the emphasis on the first syllable, "EXecutor," you know, the person who kills, or executes, people.

Executor excerpt

Monday night, Cal read that page.  We both giggled when he first arrived at it, knowing full well what was ahead of us.  It was early on that he came across the word, said it just as he usually does ("EXecutor") and then smiled.  Thinking he had said it incorrectly and I had caught him, I said, "wait..." and then bounced the word around in my head a few times before realizing he had said it correctly.  We laughed at the notion that I had thought that I had caught him saying it incorrectly.  As if.

Yes, despite my not-so-excited reaction to the news that he has selected it as his bedtime book again, reading this Lego Star Wars book is fun... or can be fun.  He has clearly read it an estimated million times.  Either that, or he has a freakishly good memory. Or maybe it's both.  I say this because when we hit the pages

Bounty Hunters, page 2

Bounty Hunters, page 1

Monday night that provided Darth Vader's notes (data files) on the different bounty hunters he was considering for the job of hunting down Luke, Cal recited the notes for each hunter either close to or exactly as old Darth had written them himself.  That one about Cad Bane (right) he nailed word for word with no help or leads from me.  Amazing.  And we're not always talking everyday, easy peasy words, either.  Cal laughed at my reaction to his being able to recite virtually word for word all of content from these pages; and that, in turn, made me laugh with him.

We really do have fun together these days, Cal and I.  Dirty socks, food-stained shirtsleeves, mispronounced words in a kids' book, amazing memory -- on the surface, these don't seem like funny things; but they are.  At least, Cal and I find a way to laugh about it all.