For the past few weeks Huck has talked about a special surprise the first graders were cooking up for this morning’s Town Meeting.  He was obviously very excited about whatever it was and told me I had to bring the camera.  Since he’s never used such wonderful language I knew this was going to be good.  And best yet, the entire Tackett family would be able to come too!  All six of us accompanied Huck to school this morning (quite the entourage) and then took our place in the school gym waiting for town meeting to start.  Students filed in and we couldn’t help but notice that all of the first graders were suddenly wearing colorful t-shirts.  Before the big reveal, principal Camille took the microphone and began a serious talk about the restrooms and how they were too messy and that everyone needed to do their part to keep them cleaner, when suddenly loud music filled the room.  Camille was very confused by this unexpected turn of events, when suddenly the gym was transformed into an amazing dance party!

Now of course this was a delightful and very entertaining surprise for all of us, but I found myself yet again at a Muscota Town Meeting getting a little choked up.  Huck’s got the academics down and he probably always will.  He knows all the answers and is a natural leader (borderline bossy know-it-all) in the classroom.  But his teacher Marilyn wanted to help him become more comfortable in his body.  Their class enjoys dance parties occasionally (complete with disco ball), and while Huck enjoys the atmosphere of it, he feels embarrassed to actually participate.  Most of his classmates really know how to dance, some even breakdance, but he tends to hang back.  So after weeks of rehearsal and surprise-keeping, there he was with his people in front of the entire school, unembarrassed and moving his body in ways I’ve never seen.

Thank you, Marilyn.

And here’s another view …

Last weekend was the always delightful and impressive Washington Heights Jazz Choir concert, led by the fantastic Louise Rogers.  I picked out a nice shirt, pants, belt and dress shoes for Huck to wear, to which he responded: “Beautiful.”  It’s important for a jazz singer to look nice for his public.  Our special friend Susan came all the way from Brooklyn yet again for the concert (these are her people) and we parents got to end the show by singing backup to “Summertime,” which made us all feel just a little bit more like Ella Fitzgerald.

Last night we went to the first ever Muscota Museum of Art (MUMA).  Huck’s awesome art teacher Sasha came up with this idea as a way to raise some much needed funds for the art program at Muscota.  Over the last few months she has talked to the students about what it means to sell their art, as well as what it means to begin their very own art collection.  Each piece was on sale for $20 and we were encouraged not to purchase our own child’s work.  As hard as it was to pass up Huck’s “Roman Numeral Division” mixed media drawing, we instead bought his classmate Camilla’s beautiful work of art which is now proudly hanging on Huck’s bedroom wall.  He’s had his eye on her drawing for weeks now and was hoping it would be his.  It was very fun to see Huck’s reaction to his drawing being bought by classmate Felicia (pictured below with her new art and the artist).  When all was said and done, every single piece of art was sold and nearly $6000 was raised!  I’ve said it thousands of times before and I’ll say it again: I love Muscota and I always will!

Huck received some fingernail polish for his birthday and had me paint his nails black and green with purple Crackle, which he was very excited to try.  Apparently there’s nothing crazier than seeing a boy with painted nails, and over the last week he’s hinted a few times that he gets teased about it, mostly by girls a bit older than him.   Last night he very awkwardly told me that at jazz choir some older girls laughed at him literally behind his back as they practiced for Saturday night’s concert.  I couldn’t bear these tales and like a scaredy cat suggested we go right into the bathroom and take that nail polish off, which pretty much goes against everything I believe in but just may protect my baby from the mean old world.  Sticking to his much stronger guns, Huck insisted that he keep the polish on because he loves it so much. On the verge of tears I kept asking him more and more questions about the teasing until he finally looked at me very seriously and told me to stop talking about it or I was going to make him cry.  And with that conversation I think I just ensured that he’ll probably think twice before telling his emotional mother another sad story.

He’s barely got any hair, he’s lost most of his teeth and now this?  I feel like I’m sending him out into the world to be eaten alive.  The least I can do is stop painting his nails!

What gets me is that Huck’s been dealing with this for a while now, and I keep thinking his love for nail polish will fade away because the message that he’s weird for wearing it will win out.  But it’s not.  And while the Person in me loves and admires this, the Mother in me wants to throw his amazing nail care collection into the nearest trash bin.

Getting ready for school this morning Huck sweetly reassured me with this: “No one at school makes fun of me.”  And that’s something.

Oy, this is going to be a long life.

Because of some decisions Troy and I made as parents from the get-go, Huck is now a seven year old kid slightly out of touch with his peers on most things pop culture.  We don’t have real cable, just a few basic channels, so he was denied the pleasures of Nikolodeon and Disney while instead getting small doses of PBS now and then.  Troy and I never watch our TV shows when he’s awake, so he hadn’t seen a real commericial until he discovered his beloved online physics games.  We don’t have a car which means we don’t have a radio which means we’re total idiots when it comes to knowing what songs are popular these days unless we’ve spent some time with Aunt Jeni.  And now that Huck’s in first grade it has become clear to him that he does not know what any of his classmates are talking or singing about most of the time.  Oh sure, he can sing Pete Seeger and Ella Fitzgerald, but what’s this “Dynamite” ditty his friends are always dancing to?

So our sweet little bubble has broken.  Our child is officially socialized and now begs for music that makes his old parents’ skin crawl.  We have to stop ourselves from sounding exactly like all the millions of parents over the last 60 years or so who have crinkled up their faces and screamed, “What is this awful music the kids are listening to nowadays!”

In summary, Huck’s classroom has a copy of a Kidz Bop CD wherein popular songs are cleaned up and remade to sound similar to the original.  They are learning dances to these songs and according to our sheltered little Amish-like child, he’s the only one in his class who doesn’t know every single lyric.  In an effort to win a real Mother of the Year Award, I went to itunes and purchased one of these “songs,” and finally just made a copy of the classroom CD.

There are no words to describe the difference between how Huck feels about this “music” and the soul rotting that is going on inside his parents.  Hopefully I will one day secretly capture on video the joyfully awkward dancing and singing along that these songs inspire, and you will understand why it’s worth it.

There are many ways one can receive the Mother of the Year Award, and I’d like to share my most recent achievement. 

The other day Huck looked at me with that look that says “I’m exploring something here that might make for an uncomfortable mother/son conversation.”  And then he asked me how many bad s-words I thought there were.  Troy and I have always had an honesty policy with Huck, which we almost always regret later like when he was three and often spoke very loudly in public about vaginas.  And so figuring he was referring to that famous SH word I decided to start there.  I told him how that was the main one, and that it was really just a word for poop but that people use it in other ways and so it’s turned into a bad word.  Somewhere into the third minute of my fine motherly monologue he said, “Because I was thinking of two.”  Then he quietly whispered “stupid,” followed by, “and Kimberly says the really main one is the one with UP in it.”  I paused.  “Oh.”  And then I casually added while nodding a little too vigorously, “You mean shutup ?”  Looking very guilty and naughty he said, “Yes.”

Right, right.  He just turned seven.  Stupid and shutup are the bad s-words.  Well, now he knows “shit,” thanks to his ever loving mother.

We three spent the weekend in sunny Winchester, Virginia for a special screening of AN ORDINARY FAMILY at my Uncle Ronnie’s and Aunt Dottie’s wonderful Unitarian Universalist Church’s Rainbow Pride Sunday. Fearing he might get bored and restless I whispered to Huck a few times during the screening, “Do you want to go play outside or something?” and each time he said, “No!  I love this movie!” and insisted on sitting through the whole thing for the second time.  Though the visit was a day shorter than usual, we still got to do most of our regular activities: shopping at stores you can find anywhere in the USA that are extra fun when you have a car trunk, a visit to the magic store in delightful Old Town, scooter riding in the streets, and lots of deck relaxing.  I had to keep reminding myself it was St. Patrick’s Day and not Easter as I sat outside to the sounds of lawn mowers and happy birds, the sight of flower blossoms and the smell of cookouts.  And as I sat in their church, which often feels like a lovefest, I was struck by the sign hanging prominently in the front that said: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is carrying a terrible burden.”  In the spirit of equal rights for all God’s children, I was so happy to share our movie with these very kind folks.  (And as you can see by the last picture, Ronnie and Dottie proudly sacrificed fashion in order to wear their very yellow “Standing on the Side of Love” t-shirts, which is one of the many reasons we love them!)

As most of you know, I am not as smart as my 7 year old, but I do know that today is March 14th and that’s also 3/14 which is apparently a very special day for people out there who love numbers like my toothless child.  Add to the equation that Huck’s school, Muscota, is also known by the New York City code name of “PS 314.”  Plus the first graders are in charge of Town Meeting for the month of March.  All this equals the following: Huck not only celebrates his favorite number Pi all day long, but he and his classmates did a Pi Dance with parachute for the rest of the school this morning.  What is a Pi Dance with parachute?  I don’t know.  But it has to do with a parachute because it’s a circle and there are some movements back and forth and some Enya music playing in the background and it’s VERY EXCITING!  Also our lobby benches are almost in the shape of Pi.  And it’s Albert Einstein’s birthday.  And just now Huck got a prize for showing up to Storefront Science for his Newton class and reciting the first ten decimals of Pi, which he memorized after school in approximately ten minutes.  (3.1415926535 if you’re interested.)  All of this makes as much sense to me as my MRI results that say something about the area of osteochondral injury at the far anterolateral aspect of the medial femoral condyle and a partial tear/grade 2 strain at the origin of the medial head of the gastrocnemius.

I should just ask Huck what all that means.

Happy Pi Day.

I was telling one of my friends about my sister Jeni’s annual tradition of visiting Huck for his birthday weekend and leaving her own kids back home.  My friend nodded and said, “So she’s a great aunt and a bad mom?”  Obviously she was joking about the bad mom part — my sister is one of my mom heroes & has taught me much of what I know in this department — but she was right about the great aunt part.  Huck is one lucky kid!

Since Huck’s birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, we got to celebrate with Aunt Jeni for several days after.  While this made the birthday event seem never-ending and rather exhausting (so much lemon-lemon cake!), it was of course the stuff that the very best memories are made of.

And as if all of Huck’s birthday excitement wasn’t enough, our movie “An Ordinary Family” finally got its New York City premiere last week, and so Jeni and I pretended we were young and energetic and traipsed out to Rerun Theater in Brooklyn for the encore show at 10PM on her first night here.  (The first show was earlier in the week and sold out quickly thanks to some really eager and supportive friends.)  Look how wide awake we are here!  (Especially my neck bones!)

And as if the birthday and the movie weren’t enough to ensure our desperate need for catnaps, we joined Huck at his all-school ice skating field trip in Central Park on Jeni’s first full day here.  We like to remind her that this is, indeed, the city that never sleeps and always has achy feet.

And then there was our annual Indian dinner far away on the lower east side where Huck got to try out his newfangled glasses straw that made him look exactly like a totally bonkers (and thirsty) scientist.  There was also the annual Indian restaurant birthday song/siren/light show that always makes Jeni laugh so hard she looks like she’s in pain, which is the goal.

And while we’re at it, why don’t we just go ahead and throw a little birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese?  So relaxing and quiet!  Huck began planning this party last April while celebrating another friend’s birthday, and I’m happy to say it lived up to his expectations, although he nearly got a paper cut on his eyeball in the Ticket Blaster.

And then there were, as always, the wonderful ordinary moments of posing in silly glasses, reading optical illusions books, practicing Roman Numerals, drinking coffee in the sunshine, eating chilled Rolos, climbing rocks, arguing with the toilet, and playing “Keep the Wipe in the Air.”  Also the stuff fine memories are made of.

And since all good things must come to an end, here we are on Jeni’s last day, walking through Ft. Tryon Park to Muscota New School.  I always feel a pang in my heart when I see Jeni and Huck kiss and hug goodbye.   But lucky for us, the whole Tackett clan will be coming to visit in a few short weeks!  I better start napping now.

This picture really sums up our brand new seven year old and the birthday he had …

We asked him how he wanted to celebrate his Golden Birthday (7 on the 7th) and he said he just wanted to stay home all day in his PJs and not go anywhere.  I reminded him that his beloved science class was on Wednesdays so he quickly altered his plan: stay home all day in his PJs, go to science class, and then back home to his PJs.  What about dinner? I asked.  Can’t we take you somewhere fun for dinner?  ”Oh, just a slice of pizza.”  After practically presenting a Power Point presentation, I did convince him to let us go to a nice pizza restaurant, but in the end we went down the street to trusty Fivo’s where we could be in and out in 20 minutes because let’s face it: that’s what the birthday boy wanted.

He got all kinds of wonderful presents and spent the day playing with all of them.  Here he is in his idea of heaven, at the kitchen table doing various math puzzles and mazes and science workbooks. Fun stuff!

And here he is diligently working on snap circuits while his mother tries hard, really she does, to understand what in the heck is going on here.

And here we are making his annual lemon-lemon birthday cake ….

… complete with Roman Numeral candles sent by the ever clever Aunt Jeni.

And here he is with his ol’ dad post-science class, pre-quick slice of pizza birthday dinner.

And now we wait for Aunt Jeni’s arrival to make the birthday weekend celebration complete!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR SCIENTIFIC MATH LOVING JAZZ SINGER PJ WEARING MAGICIAN!