Parenting and Family Life: September 2004 Archives

Alicia has this neat widget on her blog -- a little picture of the moon's current phase. (At this writing it is waxing gibbous.)

I thought of it last night. We were out running errands and it was getting dark. Hambet usually isn't out that late, and when he caught sight of the moon he grew very excited: "Look! It's the moooooooon!"

So all that evening we were watching the moooooooon. He was quite delighted when he saw that it was following us, so we talked about that and about how the moooon is very far away. He wanted to know what the moooon is made of -- I told him "rocks" and Daddy told him "cheese." Hambet admonished him: "No, Daddy, the moon is made of ROCKS." He grew very upset when we turned north and he couldn't see the moon any more -- "I have to look at the moon! Where is the moon?! I have to look at the moon!" -- and was just as delighted when we turned south again and he could see it out the window. When we got back home he hopped out of the car and ran out into the driveway so he could stand, stock still, his little face pointed at the sky so he could gaze at the moooooon a little longer.

And it had been a while since I'd taken a good look at the mooooon. How crisp and sharp and chalky-white she looked! Even the horrible light pollution couldn't totally obscure the outlines and shadows of her craters.

And I found myself remembering some lines of a poem -- by Sylvia Plath, of all people. I'm not big on Sylvia, but a few lines from this particular poem had stuck with me, and they came back as I looked up:

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

"Her hood of bone." I just like that metaphor. The rest of the poem ("Edge") doesn't interest me too much -- I don't have much patience for obscure and morbid -- but it's posted in the Extended Entry if you want to read it.

After a splash in the tub this morning, Hambet rejected the clothes I'd laid out for them and stood up on tippy toes to select his own outfit for the day. He chose:

a pair of khaki shorts
a blue long-sleeved t-shirt with a truck picture
one white sock
one black sock
and his new black winter shoes
(No cartoon characters on the underwear today.)

Hambet (mournfully): "Mommy, Mommy! My Bob underwear! It's gone!"

Peony: "Well, where did you put it?"

Hambet: "I put it in the toilet and now it's gone!"

Well, sure enough, he was not wearing the Bob underwear he was wearing last night, the toilet was running, and there was no underwear floating around. I am still wondering how this could have happened; this particular toilet has a very weak flush. I tried plunging, but didn't have any success. Oh, how I hope I am not having to call a plumber later today. Please, please, please, let him just have been talking about something that happened a couple of weeks ago. (There had been a toilet training accident, and for some reason the sight of his underwear sitting in the toilet to be cleaned made a big impression -- he was talking about it for days afterward; please please please don't let him have tried it this morning.... )

Well yesterday Rosie Posie asked me the question. We were looking at different subjects in science when she declared "I do not want to learn anymore about plants, bugs and birds. I want to learn more about the human body because I have no idea where babies come from."
Posco said "they come from Mommy's belly. God puts them there."
"No, I want to know exactly how God puts them there."

Oh, just when I thought parenting could get no worse than spills, poopy diapers and vomiting. What am I going to do?

So Rosie Posie is at a weird age. On the one hand she answers a great deal of trivia questions, is well read and quite intelligent for a child her age. Then she gets up and walks into a wall that has been there since we have lived here and says "Ow,I didn't know that was there." Is this normal? I don't remember.