huck blog

two weeks early

February 21, 2009, 7:11 pm

Today we bought Huck his birthday bike! He is now the cute owner of a yellow Specialized Hotrock. You can expect to see many, many more pictures of Huck and his bike over the next several years.

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happy run

February 17, 2009, 11:24 am

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upside down

February 15, 2009, 7:12 pm

Just about every February as Huck’s birthday approaches he develops a new personality trait that drives me crazy. Troy thinks it’s because we overdo it with all the “you’re such a big boy now” expectations as the birthday gets closer, causing Huck to panic and regress into a younger, more immature version of himself. His current character is a clingy baby who likes to tightly hold onto me and talk like he’s about 11 months, usually when in the elevator with a neighbor who hasn't seen him in a while. So in an effort to remind myself of the fantastic almost four year old who lives with us, here are a few anecdotes revealing his upside down perspective of the world around him that always makes me smile.

For a while there Huck kept telling me that when I become a 100 years old I'll be so tall I’ll break through the ceiling. Now when we play games he assigns me the age of 60 and he’s either 90, 100 or a trillion. When he announces his older age he does so in a cocky manner and refuses to believe that it wouldn't be THAT much fun to be 100. He's figuring out that older (and taller) is always better.

The other day he walked up to me with a finger up on his head and said, “I spy a one. Here’s a clue: it’s on my head.” Almost daily he excitedly wants to play some form of hide and seek and will say something like, “What’s behind my back? Don’t guess ball.” Times like these I'm so thankful for my MFA in Acting. Really helpful.

He’s crazy for the human anatomy, thanks to the marvelous “Magic School Bus” books and videos, and talks incessantly about the red and white blood "selves" and the small and large "intestants." He also likes to pretend to read the "constructions" when figuring out a game, and he calls doing math "equalling."

Just today he began a new defense against all things which is to say, "It's my body." For instance, when told to stop picking his nose and wiping things on the furniture this afternoon he denied it. When told, "But I just now watched you do it," he said, "Well, it's my body. I know what it does better than you." I'm sure this is his way of making sense of what I say to him in those extra clingy moments.

It's good for an old mom to have her words thrown back at her now and then.

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new friends

February 11, 2009, 10:02 am

One of our oldest friends in the whole world is Dan Nelson. Back at Wichita State in the late eighties, the three of us spent a lot of time together doing plays, listening to U2, having innocent slumber parties and laughing into the wee hours of the morning because that was back when we didn't need sleep. Dan moved to New York, Troy and I got married and moved to Chicago, and eventually we convinced Dan to pack up and join our sweet little town. Months later I decided to go to the University of Texas at Austin, so we packed up and left Dan in Chicago where he's lived ever since. We’ve certainly stayed in touch over the years, but one thing was lacking in our relationship. Huck didn’t really know him. And if Huck doesn’t know you and you don’t know Huck, it almost feels like you don’t know me anymore.

Last weekend Dan and Michele (his girlfriend of 13 years) came to town and we finally got to spend some great quality time with them on Friday. (You may recall that Dan and Michele singlehandedly got the city of Chicago to see our movie "Chalk" and threw us a party with all their friends when we arrived for the premiere back in May of 2007.) I loved every minute of catching up with Dan and Michele, but what really got me was watching Huck go crazy over them. On Saturday we joined Dan, Michele and another old WSU friend Trent for lunch at a far away place called Teany. Again, watching Huck and Trent chit-chat over grilled cheese sandwiches was well worth the hour subway ride to the lower east side.

Since their visit Huck has talked lovingly of Michele and her wonderful hair (which he played with for a very long time) and he wonders if she enjoyed the Sweethearts he gave to her. From Dan Huck learned the art of tea drinking, and he loves to show me how Dan does it, gently dipping the tea bag while talking. The only thing Huck really regrets is that his best friend Kadin didn't get to meet them. Maybe next time.

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slightly disturbing field trip

February 11, 2009, 9:36 am

Our group FACPAC takes a field trip the first Thursday of the month, and last week was a visit to the Police Museum. It was a small turnout (me and mom Bea and three kids) due to constant illness going on in our neighborhood (I currently have a lingering cold and two pink eyes), and I'm not sure Huck, Olive and Cole knew exactly what was going on when they played like they were in jail, stood in a police lineup, and turned on very loud sirens that still echo in my head to this day. I do know that we had the place to ourselves which meant a nice half-hour snack break in the room full of fallen heroes photographs from the 1880s to the present. Maybe next month we'll go to the zoo.

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february in new york

February 9, 2009, 7:29 am

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dream come true

February 7, 2009, 9:32 am

For some time now Huck has been crazy for ice skating. He pretends to ice skate daily by shuffling from room to room on top of little blocks or books, he loves to watch ice skaters if we happen to be near a rink, and when outside he prefers to wear his slippery cowboy boots and while holding onto my hand skate along the actual ice. So last week while at the Museum of Natural History we ate our sack lunches at a table overlooking the completely empty Polar Rink. It was snowing quite hard and not ideal ice skating weather, unless you're us. So before I knew it, there we were on the skating rink and all of Huck's dreams were coming true. He barely held my hand and almost always caught himself from falling, proving he has excellent balance. He even did a few tricks, as you can see from the last picture. We stayed out there for a whole hour, most of that time having the rink to ourselves. Everyday since he has asked me if we can go back.

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