Thanks to Aunt Jeni’s annual March visit, we all had a delightful time celebrating Huck’s 9th birthday.  There was much talk of last year’s guesses at what this year would be like, what with no longer living in New York, and lots of reminiscing over the many years past. Along with a roll of orange tickets, a potholder loom, and lots of other fantastic gifts, Huck received a book of pranks that led to the two of them writing the words “I WANT YOUR BLOOD” on our bathroom mirror in lemon juice, which was just one of the many joys of having Aunt Jeni in our midst.  We took Huck and his special friends Ravi, Irene and Lydia bowling, which was quote-unquote A BLAST, and then back to our house for lemon-lemon cake, ice cream and many hijinks that left Huck’s roll of orange tickets literally in every possible nook and cranny of our house. On Jeni’s last day with us the weather gods gave us glorious spring and a perfect opportunity to visit Crystal Bridges art museum & walking trails where we got to take lots of pictures inside random frames and next to unusual art and running from fake bears.

Next Jeni sighting?  My birthday in April.  What would we do without her?

Way back when, when Huck was a fetus the size of a grain of rice or a plum or something small and edible, I began a blog about him.  As he grew into a drunk caveman, I literally recorded every single funny and sweet thing he said and did, sometimes feeling like I was infringing on his privacy rights.  I am oh so happy to report that now at age almost nine, Huck has discovered these postings and regularly requests that I read them to him.  He sits next to me laughing his new deep guttural laugh, as tickled at his young personality as we were.

Here are some of his favorites on this birthday week full of snow days …

From a few months in 2007, age 2:  This evening after his bath Huck walked up to me looking exactly like this picture, holding his beloved chapsticks that he almost always has in his hands. I shouted, “You are a cutesie pie!” And he very seriously and non-cutesy-like stated, “I am not a cutesie pie. I am a CHILD.”  He eventually admitted he was a cutesie child but not a pie.

After Huck’s nap yesterday we were cuddling together when I noticed his legs looked extra edible. I told him I was going to eat them for a snack and he got a panicked look on his face and shouted, “No! I will eat them!” and began pantomiming eating big chunks of them. This, I thought, was a brilliant defense against Mommy’s frightening eating jokes.

This last weekend Huck was playing with red and black shapes that Troy cut out of poster board and keeps in an old cell phone box (really, people, quit buying Huck toys) when he noticed his overly large plastic red shovel and apparently was reminded of the guys he watched making pizza a few weeks ago. He excitedly picked up the shovel, put the squares and rectangles and triangles and circles on it and “gently” put the “pizza” under our futon couch into the “oven.” All these years and I had no idea what good pizza that thing makes.

Huck’s new game is pretending to be Doctor to my Boss. Doctor says, “Boss, do you have any monkeys around here?” and Boss answers, “No, Doctor, sorry.” He also enjoys it when I pretend to put ranch dressing on his body after his bath, because that’s a lot funnier than plain old baby lotion. He likes to rhyme words and can’t keep a straight face when he says “branch bressing” instead of ranch dressing.

And lastly, Huck occasionally pantomimes throwing something at us real fast and says, “Here’s money” in a casual tone. This will happen while he’s coloring or playing with toys or reading books. Without any warning he just feels the need to throw money at us sometimes.

From 2014, age almost 9: He still carries around chapsticks like that.

A few things lately have caused a little time travel for me and my boy who nearly every month outgrows a pair of jeans.  First was his school musical program about Tall Tales wherein he played Babe the blue ox and sang a very sweet solo.  Back in New York, Huck was always learning new songs thanks to both his jazz and church choirs, so it was very nice to see him stand at the microphone again in his brown ox hoof gloves and all-blue outfit singing about pancakes.  He suffered from quite a bit of stage fright for this performance, so I told him he didn’t have to accept a solo if he really didn’t want to.  He replied, “I’m trying to get over my fear,” simultaneously making me feel like a proud mom for such an attitude and a jerk that I was basically advocating for scaredy-cats.

Click Here to see a portion of Huck’s Solo

The next travel back in time to a long ago place happened on Saturday morning when we joined a few friends at the public access TV station here in Fayetteville to record the first ever episode of Songtime with Mr. Troy.  Around age 2.75, Huck decided his daddy’s kiddie music was not for him.  It probably had something to do with watching all the neighborhood boys and girls flock around Troy like he was Elvis.  Now that he’s nearly nine, this music is way beneath him.  But for some reason, he completely participated in “Old McDonald” and “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” and even the “ABCs” like he was back at home dancing to Kidz Bop tunes.  He even climbed onto my lap a few times and shot me a happy smile as if we were back on that old Ft. Washington church lawn in 2007.

And as for my other boy, watching him work on his Hamlet lines and practice his children’s music any chance he can, which is pretty much every waking second that he’s at home, is taking me back about 100 years.  I’m not sure which is worse, the constant Shakespeare or the never-ending “Wheels on the Bus,” but I do know that I love seeing Troy so darn happy.  And walking in on Huck running lines with him?  Be still my heart.

Yesterday began at The New School helping tiny little four year olds in adorable circus costumes get through their one and only dress rehearsal and ended at the prison listening to a room full of women in yellow discuss the novel “Winter’s Bone” and the heartbreaking ways it resonates with their lives. The day also contained some transcription, monologue coaching, dog chasing, mothering and a few minutes with the  hubs.

In the middle of it all I got to see this pretty sight on my way from home to somewhere else …

Other little unexpected delights in the midst of the everyday … being given a blanket by our server (& friend) at our favorite coffee shop because I was noticeably cold … receiving a new Christmas card every single week from our Chicago friend Dan … hearing Huck practice his Babe the Ox solo about pancakes … discovering a delicious Indian restaurant in a nearby town …  and seeing the forecast for the weekend calls for 60 degrees and sunshine.

A year ago last February we were with dear friends at their Poconos Mountain cabin, and as I walked through the winter wonderland I took a moment to take it all in, knowing for a fact this was one of the things I’d miss about living in Arkansas.  Oh, that’s a good one!

I wish I could say I had a sense of humor about our eleven snow days thus far, but I don’t.  I really, really don’t.  I’ve never been a fan of straying too far from life’s schedule of events, and all my paper calendars right now are nothing but sad Xs marking out all the things I was looking forward to this week.  Like starting my job as assistant theater director at The New School!  Week #2 of Prison Stories! Beginning the HAMLET residency for TheatreSquared! Canceled, canceled, canceled.  And then this morning after taking Troy to work, I gave Huck the thrill he’d been waiting for and got us stuck in a ditch around the corner from our house.  Every single wonderful male neighbor came to check on us, our Honda roadside assistance was on the case, and after a few stressful hours the car is safely back to normal.  Which is more than I can say for the rest of us.

The one and only bright ray of sunshine is that we have our John here with our Shana from Brooklyn, helping us all endure the winter blues and bad roads and even staying a few days longer than planned thanks to the weather.

Did I just say thanks to the weather?  Hmph.

We Schremmers have been right smack dab in the midst of lots of unknowns lately, some of which are slowly transferring over to the known category.  This combined with the January blahs, the Polar Vortex, and the tendency to worry about money can put me into a state of flustered anxiety that’s always good for a laugh later.  After a particularly harrowing morning of being 100 percent lost in nearby town Bentonville without a smart phone (we’re the last two Americans to hold out against them) and no GPS in sight, we finally marched into Radio Shack and purchased the new love of our lives, a magical little device called a Garmin (though we call her Mama Jo for reasons that make us laugh but would take too long to explain).  After testing it out one evening, we got it all set up in time for one of my early mornings to a brand new school in a town about 20 miles away.  Troy decided to take the attachment on the window down so as not to advertise our exciting electronic, which meant that the next morning I was left to reattach it.  While driving Huck to school at 7:30AM, the thing fell off the window for the first of what would end up being at least 25 times.  I said to Huck, “I know this is wrong, but I’m finding myself mad at Daddy about this.”  Huck said, “So am I!”  Reattach.  Fall down. Reattach.  Fall down.  ”No, Huck, we shouldn’t be mad at Daddy.  This isn’t his fault.”  Reattach.  Fall down.  Huck then said, “Actually I’m also mad at myself.”  Reattach.  ”When we got home last night I almost told him to put it back on the window for you and I didn’t!”  Fall down.

That evening Huck spilled an insane amount of uncooked rice all over the dining room, we realized several of our outlets weren’t working, our shower ran out of hot water, the washing machine appeared to be broken, and we still had stressful decisions to make about our new health insurance.  I had an adult sized temper tantrum about all of it before finally settling next to Huck on the couch to continue our bedtime reading of the devastating “Bridge to Terabithia.”  Seeing how upset and distracted I was, he asked if I wanted to snuggle first. I gave him a half-hearted hug and then began my bad mood monotone.  And then he did what he’s been doing to his father and me for the last year when we read to him. He watches every single word closely, and since we lose some of our reading abilities come night-time, he ends up correcting us before we can even correct ourselves.  Sometimes this happens every 30 seconds.  Always it drives us crazy.

I slowly turned my head to him and gave a very low-voiced, creepy scolding.  He apologized in a bad mood monotone of his own, and before I could go back to reading he began some deep down earnest weeping.  I tossed the book aside and began my best Mother Theresa impression, holding him in my arms and comforting him.  If only Mary Bailey was there to admonish me with “Why must you torture the children?”  I asked if he was crying because of my stressful outburst or because I told him not to correct us anymore. Through tears he said, “Mostly the first, but the second was the last straw.”  After I redeemed myself with a heartfelt apology and his crying subsided, he explained that one reason he offered me a snuggle is because it’s hard to read with the right expressions when you’re upset.

But today, my little sister Jeni’s 40th birthday, is different.  We figured out how to correctly attach Mama Jo and I made it to all my schools with nary a problem.  All the rice is picked up, an electrician is coming to fix the outlets, the hot water has returned, the washer is fine, and we’re going to finally have some really good and affordable health insurance.  Troy got cast in TheatreSquared’s HAMLET as King Claudius, I have a job interview next week at The New School, Troy’s subbing at more and more schools with some future singing gigs at the library, PrisonStories 4 begins next week, and Huck gets to go to school in his pajamas on Saturday thanks to a snow day in December.  This too shall pass: the good and the bad.  Might as well take a snuggle when it’s offered to you.

Just now I was helping Huck get out the door for school, something any parent can tell you is torturous, and as usual he began a conversation that I would love to have at any other time of day.  This morning he asked, “Tell me again why Shana is here this time?” and I explained that she’s directing a musical called “Spring Awakening.”  As I shoved his coat onto his torso, he asked what it was about and I said, “Teenage angst.”  As I thrust his very heavy Perry the Platypus backpack into his skinny arms he asked what that meant, and I launched into a beautiful yet fast-paced description of what teenagers feel, saying it’s like an introduction into adulthood while still being dependent on your parents.  As I pushed his body toward the front door he said, “Oh, so like if I have a job in high school that doesn’t take out my taxes?” And then time stopped.  Laughter overtook my sleepy body as I became suddenly aware that I have been accidentally teaching Huck that grown-up stress boils down to whether or not taxes are taken out of paychecks.  It might make a good musical.

Finally I reset my internal timer, wiped the laugh-tears from my eyes and began rushing him along again.  As he bent down to adjust his sneakers I told him he was reminding me of a standup comic.  While down on the ground he gave me one of his great kid smiles and said, “More like a sit-com.”

Pretty good day so far.

Sitting here next to a borrowed space heater in our cold bedroom, I am happy to report that Huck has nearly completed an entire week of school without a single snow day or holiday, which hasn’t happened since the week of December 16th. Since returning to normal, I’ve been going to lots of preschools with Trike Theatre, more than usual to make up for the many canceled December dates, and we always ask the children to pair up for certain discussions.  When asked to talk about things we can collect (like rocks & seashells), the other day I overheard a sweet little girl explain to her partner, “NOT cut up children!” with a crazed look on her face. I resisted running out of the classroom screaming hysterically.  Yesterday morning I had another little girl with a gigantic BandAid covering her entire chin sitting so close to me she was nearly on my lap, which I wouldn’t have minded until she farted loudly and shouted “EXCUSE ME” into my bad ear.

Such is my normal.

The other day Huck came home from school with sketchy details about playing Babe the Ox in the school musical about fables. When I requested a sneak peek at his solo, he squinted his eyes mysteriously and lowered his voice a few octaves to tell me he didn’t remember it.  This from the boy who every single day applies several more layers of glittery gold fingernail polish in hopes of making it impossible to come off, all the while adding more and more home-made rubber band bracelets and necklaces around his arms and neck.  This from the boy who puts on his Origami Master Halloween costume to dispose of the Christmas tree, the boy who non-stop practices “The Cup Song” with any object he can find, and if he can’t find an object he just used his legs and hands.  I should be the one squinting my eyes and lowering my voice.

In other normal news, the all-school spelling bee that Huck insisted was happening on February tenth actually happened last Friday following a snow day which followed a return-to-school day which followed two snow days which followed two weeks of Christmas break. Though unprepared, he still spelled almost everything just right (including my all-time favorite words bebop and shiatsu) and ended up in third place.  As he was finally dismissed from the nerve-wracking, exciting competition, he made his way to me out in the audience and climbed his lanky body onto my less lanky one saying, “Both of them are going to get a trophy no matter what!” and promised himself not to make the same mistake next year.  The older Huck gets the more I depend on him to show me how to work the iPod and the camera and to know the correct dates for when things are happening at school.  This misinformation really threw me for a loop.  Thank goodness ol’ Pappy T wisely reminded me that sometimes messing up is good for a little boy who usually gets everything right.

(And maybe his mom.  I don’t know.)

And lastly, on the day the weather finally began to shape up, our beloved Shana arrived from New York for her six week stint directing at the university.  Unfortunately her visit has perfectly coincided with the anticipated release of Kidz Bop 25.  The look on Shana’s face when I broke the news that I promised Huck he could listen to his awful new music during our dinner the other night may have been worth all the gold in China.  Or at least all these normal days & nights with an eight year old.

The last day of 2013 found us with one of our favorite families on their way home to Austin from an Arkansas Christmas, a tradition we hope to continue in the years to come.  After a few hours with Chris, Haven, Hazel and Louisa, we three joined the rest of the town for Last Night Fayetteville on the square for a fun-filled evening of entertainment.  Troy got inside the enormous and beautiful Mother Earth puppet with assistance from Huck and me for the parade, which may have been one of our life’s highlights so far.  We enjoyed jugglers and comedy and music before we said goodbye to the spectacular Lights of the Ozarks and headed home to attempt a midnight bedtime, which is Huck’s yearly goal. Putting together a complicated new puzzle was the trick, with the final piece being laid down at 11:55.  Our HAPPY NEW YEAR shouts and kisses were instantly followed by the fireworks down on the square, which we could see from Huck’s bedroom window. On the first day of 2014 we slept in, sat around the fire pit in the back yard, and took a First Day Hike in our Mount Sequoyah woods which are fast becoming more and more familiar.

Best New Years Yet.

Click here for a little video of the Puppet Parade!