It’s funny watching your little child morph into a person of his own without any help from you. 

For instance, these days Huck enjoys dressing up occasionally, so much so that he requested we buy him a belt. Often on Fridays and Sundays he puts a lot of thought into dressing up, which includes the belt, his miniature man shoes and slightly too big pea coat. He likes to pose in positions and ask if I would consider it “fancy.”  Sometimes he works on accents and asks if he sounds fancy.  Coming from two slobs like me and Troy, I’m not entirely sure where he got this information.

Secondly, seemingly overnight Huck has adopted the phrase “OMG.”  It’s enough for me that he regularly uses “BFF” causally in conversation, but now it’s constantly “OMG.  I forgot to tell you something important.”  It’s always a straightforward statement with a period at the end.  And again, coming from two people who never, ever say or write LOL or OMG unless we’re trying to be funny, this is mysterious.

And lastly, when friends come over Huck wastes no time seating them on the couch and pulling our ottoman bench up close to them.  He sits on the bench, stares into their eyes and sings his latest jazz choir numbers.  His eyelids get droopy, his shoulders sway back and forth seductively, and the gaping hole in his mouth really, really stands out.  Troy and I don’t dare look at each other during this routine because it’s impossible not to start laughing in a really awful way for a young jazz singer.  And God bless our friends who somehow keep a perfectly natural face as they take in the aggressive performance.  I know Huck’s parents are both actors and performers, but in light of his shyness on so many other occasions this confident young singer is almost unrecognizable to us.  (Not to mention the fact that neither Troy nor I would ever sit that close to anyone and sing jazz standards with such intense eye contact.)

I guess it’s all those other little people he spends his weekdays with, giving him reasons to look fancy and talk in code and sing with such abandon.

But every now and then I realize he’s still affected by things his mother enjoys.  As January is coming to an end I’ve been talking about Black History Month, explaining that in February we celebrate African Americans like Dr. Martin Luther King and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.  Huck asked, “And do we celebrate the African American with the beautiful voice?  The one who everyone wants to narrate their movies?”  I smiled.  ”Yes, we celebrate Morgan Freeman, too.” He’s obviously remembering my delight over a recent Facebook post on this subject.

LOL!

Huck’s current obsession is Roman Numerals.  Something about those Is and Xs and Cs and Ls and Ms have him waking up extremely early (4AM the other day) because what’s the point in sleeping when you could be studying an ancient number system?  His favorite game of late is to teach me these numbers, and by me I mean Kindergartener.  I have to play like I don’t quite understand, I have to make a few mistakes along the way, and then eventually I figure it out and he is very pleased with me. And by he I mean Teacher.  At school Huck’s doing all his math work by answering in Roman Numerals, something his teacher thankfully supports.  During work time he writes 1-100 in Roman Numerals, and would go to 1000 if he had the time.  He has requested to add a “choice” at work time called “Roman Numerals with Huck,” but his teacher isn’t sure about that quite yet.  (The thought of the other children dreading that choice cracks me up a little bit.) At the playground the other spring-like day, which I had to drag Huck to by promising he could just sit on a bench and write Roman Numerals, he quizzed our friend Nancy with some very tricky questions, and she seemed genuinely happy to have learned something new. Troy, being the fantastic dad he is, has created a superhero team with Huck called The Romes, each one with a different Numeral as their insignia.  And me, well, I play Kindergartener.

Kids.  They make you care about things you never did before.  (I worked very hard to figure out the date up there in the subject heading, as well as the math problem doodle 68 + 88 = 156.  Teacher would be so proud.)

I can think of no better gift for a kid than a snow day, and no better gift to that kid’s parents than a Saturday snow day.  (Plus, January snow tastes so much better than October snow.)

While I was out of town Huck and Troy enjoyed Muscota’s all-school ice skating trip to Wolman Rink in Central Park.  Since I took the camera with me, there are no photographs of this event.  However, I did find this little gem in Huck’s backpack yesterday.  First, his writing about the experience …

And then his drawing.  That is one big ice skate.

I spent the holiday weekend with my sisters in Kansas City so we could celebrate my niece Megan’s 21st birthday together.  My sister Lori and brother in-law Steve left their Christmas tree and decorations up for the occasion, giving me a magical time-machine evening with my family.  Nearly two year old Sadie Starr was truly the star of the weekend, charming us with her adorable face, personality and red hair.  Highlights include my nearly 70 year old mother dancing quite wonderfully to the Wii with her very young daughters, surprising Megan on her special birthday by wearing matching $8 Target sweaters and magenta fingernail polish with my sister Jeni (because we’re those kinds of aunts), listening to Johnny Mathis on January 14th with my dad while sitting next to an actual fireplace, being pampered in every way possible by my amazing hostess of a sister Lori, and having wonderful conversations with nearly 15 year old niece Lauren who is wise beyond her years (and never has a cell phone in her hands).

And as suspected, Huck lost his tooth while I was gone!  Literally.  He went to bed Saturday night with a tooth and woke up Sunday morning without one.  We’re assuming it’s going through his digestive tract as I write.  After the tooth fairy left a dollar coin in his special tooth fairy pillowcase that he’s been sleeping with for the past 3 years, he deduced that she took the tooth out of his head the first night and left money the following night.  (This from a kid who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.)   I sent him off to school this morning with a little sign taped to a large popsicle stick that says “Guess What I Lost Over Night?” to show his friends, because he’s a sweet little toothless nerd.

Right about now parents of preschoolers all over our city are beginning the freak out process that is known as getting your child into kindergarten.  It’s one of the 879 things that drive us crazy about this place.  The reason I bring it up is that yesterday I got struck by what an education Huck (and oh so many other children) receive in a given day.  I don’t mean to single Huck out; he’s just the example I know best.  I think it’s worth remembering that while of course we want our kids learning in school, they’re also learning everywhere else.

So for Huck here’s his first grade education these days.  At school he’s learning the usual stuff, with a big focus on handwriting and spelling.  He’s also learning a lot of music from around the world through the Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers program I’ve written about, and because Troy helps with this program we have a CD of the music here at home.  Last night during his bath he requested I play it, and there he sat surrounded by Mr. Bubbles singing beautifully in Arabic and trying to teach me the lyrics.

Before that he had his first class at Storefront Science down the street where he was the one and only student.  For an hour and 15 minutes he got one on one attention from the teacher and owner, who is also a professional jazz singer, as they explored the forces of motion and gravity.  On our walk home I asked if he wished more students were in the class and he shook his head passionately and said he loved being the only one, and he began telling me about every single thing he and his teacher did together.  With a huge smile and his front snaggletooth hanging out of his mouth, he told me that after dropping items (like a chair and a cotton ball) onto the floor and realizing that they always land at the same time, he coined the phrase “Matter Doesn’t Matter.”  He didn’t stop smiling for at least an hour.

Before bed last night we got out his script of The Pizza Thief to do the required drama homework.  He’s had his 16 lines memorized since the day he brought it home, but we actors know the importance of going over and over and over and over and over and over them.  Earlier in the day I was talking about the play Troy and I wrote together and Huck told me that the more he thinks about it, the more that’s how actors should always do plays.  If you write the play yourself (as he and his classmates wrote this one), the lines are much easier to learn.  I will keep this in mind.

Today he begins another season of his beloved Washington Heights Jazz Choir where he’s convinced he will finally learn Route 66.  He has proclaimed jazz to be his very favorite kind of music ever, which has really made Shannon proud.  I can completely envision the two of them in about 25 years sipping wine at some Harlem club together.

On any given day various toys are made into elaborate optical illusions and random objects become ridiculous magic tricks that in his mind are amazing.  Just walking through our neighborhood and passing the many Orthodox Jewish families sparks many conversations about different religions and faith traditions.  On Sunday he’ll sing a beautiful song at church in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. day and tomorrow’s the all-school ice skating trip at Central Park.  I’m leaving Troy and Huck for the three day weekend to be with my sisters, so rest assured there will also be plenty of mindless computer video games and animated movies in the mix, which I’m sure will teach him something, too.

And maybe that gross tooth will finally fall out.

We had a nice Christmas break that ended just in time!  There were play dates with friends, ice skating, visits to the Hall of Science and Chuck E Cheese, Happy Feet 2 (which Huck said was more like a grownup movie), hours spent playing with new toys (some are still in their boxes ready to be rediscovered), several Shirley Temples, some restaurant dinners, a birthday party, a hike, a mani/pedi with fingernail polish from Santa, plenty of cranky moods due to overstimulation, overeating & undersleeping, the constant sound of Pappy T coughing his lungs out, and a beautiful New Year’s Eve sunset to behold.  Though he would rather stay home in his pajamas for the rest of his life, Huck didn’t complain about returning to school on Tuesday, and he happily came home today with the just completed script of The Pizza Thief that his class wrote together.  He plays the supporting antagonist character Lightening Lion and has exactly sixteen lines which he is to begin memorizing immediately.  Where’s Christmas break when you need it?’

(Just kidding, Christmas break!  See you next year!)

All kids are hilarious deep inside, what with their imaginations and ideas about the world around them.  Here are a few things that have been cracking me up lately about my own little human.  Firstly, I took him to the Big Apple Circus a few days before Christmas and we had a great time.  The two of us were most taken by the delightful clown magician duo that had us laughing one minute and gasping in surprise the next.  At the intermission break Huck said, with legs crossed like he was a fancy grownup, “Since this is my first ever circus maybe I should get a souvenir?”  Since our tickets were free I didn’t say no to spending money on frivolous things that might break before we got home, and we made our way to the front of the tent.  There behind the counter were many amazing light saber type toys, and knowing that his friend Kadin had just gotten one I suggested it.  He shook his head and kept looking, finally picking out three Big Apple Circus magic washcloths for ten bucks. Washcloths!  That’s m’boy.

Secondly, he is of course very very very crazy for magic, and somehow someone in this house introduced him to The Masked Magician.  (It wasn’t me.)  So now when he gets his “screen time” he always requests these horrible videos of exciting tricks followed by a very dramatic explanation of how it’s done.  Secretly, of course, I can’t get enough of these videos because deep inside I too am a magician.  But mostly they’re awful.  Anyway, most of Huck’s time is spent daydreaming about his own tricks, showing them to us while whispering things like “pretend you don’t know how this is done,” and then doing a very long and detailed explanation of the secret behind the trick.  Last night we took cardboard rectangles and made them into sharp blades that I then stabbed him with while he pretended to stand in one of those tall boxes where the magician takes the lady apart.  I then had to open the “door” and reveal to the audience that he was fine while he daintily strutted around the room and batted his pretty eyelashes, because that’s how the “girls” do it in the Masked Magician videos.  That’s m’boy.

And lastly, a few days ago Huck gave me a plain piece of paper and whispered “it’s invisible ink” as he handed me the decoder pen and then ran off to his room.  Here’s what the note said once I revealed the message …

“Meet me under the bed in five minutes for a meeting.”

So I met him under his very tall bed and the meeting was all about the work we had to do in our office, which is something we’ve played since he was about two.  And as I scrunched part way under that bed thinking this was all a little absurd I saw the very serious look on his face.  In his bonkersville child’s brain there was nothing at all strange about lying on his stomach completely under his bed in the dark having a work meeting.

And that’s … m’boy.

Oh 2011.  You were such a wonderful year in so many ways, and yet.  You began in the wee hours of the morning of January first with a big loud reminder next door that the Schremmers were officially tired of big city apartment living.  As we took our tree and decorations down on New Years Day, Troy and I began the first of many, many conversations that would be the theme of 2011:  ”Maybe it’s time to leave New York.”  It was a shock to both of us to feel this way and very disturbing to our small New Yorker son.  Here we are, exactly a year later and beginning to make a plan to take us to the next phase of our lives.  We think we have another year and a half in this crazy wonderful city, and then we will pack everything up again and make our way west … to somewhere.  The where and the how and the what exactly are still mysteries, but the why and the when are pretty set.

So 2012 may be our last full year in the city we’ve called home for nearly 15 years.  This means every single place and every single person are being looked at with a little extra care, and it also means all the things that drive us crazy feel a little more temporary.  These days we find ourselves sitting by the DVD fire and trying to face unafraid the plans that we’ve made …

In the meantime, it’s my second favorite day of the year: New Year’s Eve!  A day to reminisce about all the past year’s fun, like our family’s Catskills adventure in February, Aunt Jeni’s March & August visits, our movie hitting the film festival circuit and enjoying it in LA (which included Disneyland with Shannon!) and Woodstock, our big summer family trip to Kansas, visits to Ronnie and Dottie’s in Virginia, our play in the Fringe Festival, many days spent at the Bronx Zoo, Coney Island, the New York Hall of Science, the swimming pool, picnics at the river, walks through the parks, hours spent with faithful friends who are dear to us, jazz choir, kindergarten, first grade, all the Muscota activities, church activities, the Harvest Festival, a volcano Halloween, my new job, our new apartment!  See?  There’s no reasonable explanation for wanting to leave this wonderful life we have.  Except for all those family members back in Kansas …

So whether your life is just as you want it or needing a change or two, we here at the Huck Blog hope your 2012 brings you peace, laughter, and many picture opportunities.

After a very fun-filled and exhausting December, we were torn between being oh so thankful we didn’t have to pack all of our gifts and warm clothing into suitcases and head to the airport and oh so heartbroken to miss being with everyone in Kansas. We did our best to fill our Christmas weekend with lots of sweet family fun here in New York with the help of good friends who were here, too.  On Christmas Eve (my favorite day of the year) we took Huck to see the charming “Arthur Christmas” movie followed by some delicious lunch with one of our all-time favorite friends Shana, who is usually far away this time of year!  She then joined us as we traipsed all over Christmas Town and looked at the beautiful decorations and trees and lights and tourists.  We ended our time together at the Times Square Marriott Marquis where we enjoyed some Christmas Eve cheer before bidding adieu and heading back uptown for some good old fashioned gift opening and Midwest Skyping before sadly saying goodbye to our elf-on-the-shelf Dixen that no one even believes in anymore (he has to return to Santa on Christmas Eve which is actually Troy’s sock drawer) and going to bed. On Christmas morning we each found exciting surprises from Santa (my red tea kettle!) before walking down the street counting menorahs on our way to a brief church service alongside the paper crane Christmas tree.  We spent the afternoon playing with our toys and then joined our neighborhood friends for a delightful Christmas night gathering wherein I almost beat all the children and dads at Perfection.  (Darn that seven year old Jacob and his 37 seconds!)

Now back to playing with our toys.  (Like this MacBook Pro, for instance, and our brand new flat screen TV.  When did we get so fancy?!)

Happy Christmas Break!