Word Salad

Tripp sings "Itsy Bitsy Pider" 500 times a day. If you hide in the next room, he will obligingly sing it en espanol. He is enthralled by language. Our new game is for me to read aloud from cards depicting heavy equipment vehicles that each begin with a letter of the alphabet: A is for Articulated Hauler, B is for Boom Truck, V is for Vibratory Compactor. I read a bit about each machine while Tripp studies the picture, pronounces, "I don't have one of those," then places them all in a neat stack.

On a recent Sunday, Tripp was bouncing on his new bed. His mother and I were folding laundry. Correction: I was only allowed to fold the sheets and towels, and to match pairs of tiny socks. My daughter imagines me to be geometrically impaired laundry-wise.

"Where did Mommy go on business?" Katherine questioned her son.

"Um, California!"  He pointed to me. "You say," he instructed. "Ca-li-forn-ya."

"Ca-li-forn-ya," I repeated dutifully. He launched from bed to pillow to stool to ottoman. He covered himself with his quilt.

"What are you doing, silly?" asked his mother.

"He's pretending," I told her.

"I pretending I'm a dog. Woof." The dog emitted a tiny whimper.

"What's wrong, Dog?" I asked.

"I'm hungry. I need a bone."

"Here's one," I said, scratching a place on the off white rug with my fingers. "You must have forgotten where you buried it."

"Yes," the dog replied. "Put it over dere."

"Here you go."

Another small whine escaped the bundle of quilt.

"What is it now?" asked his mother.

"I need another bone." This was followed by something muffled.

"What did he say?"

His mother's shoulders shook with mirth and she had to lean against the changing table for support.

"He says he needs another bone to take to sleep. Oh, boy, between the two of you I feel like I'm in a crazy house."

"Did I tell you?" she said to me, "Tripp has named his stuffed butterflies Bucky and Salmon? I have no idea why."

At this, the grandmother was overtaken with giggles and needed to excuse herself before she peed on the off white rug like a dog.

*

Mom was sitting in the sun wrapped in a green shawl. I was eavesdropping from an upstairs window as she and Jeanne played the alphabet game. 

"Okay, Mrs. V,  give me a word that begins with the letter O."

C'mon, Mom, I cheered her silently. 

"I can't seem to - oh, dear -"

"I'll start," Jeanne interrupted promptly. "Onion."

"Oxymoron!" I bellowed.

"The heavens have spoken," Jeanne laughed. "The smarty pants heavens."

"Oscillate," said Mom. 

"Obsidian!" I yelled. 

"What's that?" Mom frowned. "Anyway, down here we're winning."

*

Later, Mom roused from a stuporous nap to glance at her watch. An ingrained movement, requiring little thought, mere habit.

"Where's my watch?" she cried.

"Right here. See, it's right here." I touched her wrist, tapped the face of her watch.

"No, it's gone!" 

"Here it is, Mom."

"Oh... I really think I must be going. It's been lovely, but, if we want to change before the party..."

"Whose party?' 

"Well, you know..."

"Is it at Dimmy's?" I queried, referring to her grandmother, whose kindly presence frequents conversation these days.

"Yes. We'll be 16, I think." She peered ahead, as if picturing an engagement book. "You and me and of course..."

"Dimmy."

"Yes. I think I really should be getting back."

"Okay, Mom. I'll drive you home. Not to worry, there's still plenty of time to change."

Oh, good. Thank you, Sweetie. You played well today, I'm sorry I was so lousy."

"Mom, you weren't - " But, she'd fallen back to sleep. She nodded, smiled, dozed. I hoped that to whatever soiree her mind had taken her, her dinner partners were handsome, athletic and sublime, her dance card full.

*

Birthday Pesints

Tripp is "free!" Three years old.

His mother told me that when he woke up on his birthday morning and asked his customary morning question, "Mommy, are you upstairs or downstairs?" She called up to him,"Down here, Birthday Boy, and you are three years old today!" I imagine she swung her arms wide to embrace her son.

"No, I not!" Tripp wailed, rubbing his eyes. "I still two."

"Oh, okay," his mother said.

Then he noticed that a new toy had been added to his collection of Toy Story characters: the much coveted Zurg, Disney's version of Darth Vader. After some playing with Zurg and Jessie the Cowgirl and someone named Stinky Pete, "the pwospectuh," he said, "Okay, I free now."

A boy needs time.

Tripp, unlike his grandmother (in this case me) did not rip through his presents with an air of dissatisfaction and incipient sadness. He carefully explained that Zurg fights Buzz Lightyear with laser cookies. To demonstrate, he performed a series of vigorous flinging motions. I learned about Jessie and a Slinky dog and a truly frightening character named Big Baby, whose purpose seems to be to loom over the other toys in a menacing way, a death grip on its bottle.

During discussion time it is vital for me to express my comprehension of different elements in the story by repeating them, verbatim.

"And this is Bullseye, Jessie's horse," Tripp explained.

"I see," I said.

"Bullseye," he repeated. "Jessie's horse."

"Got it," I said.

He waited.

I waited.

"Oh! This is Bullseye, Jessie's horse!"

"Yes," breathed Tripp.

I brought BOOKS, some more appropriate than others. A story about a young raven named Edgar who replies Nevermore to each request made by his mother was a good choice.

"Can you read it again? Again? Again?" And, holding up his forefinger, "Okay, just one yast time."

A board book based on Moby Dick was not. Each page contained a single illustration. First was the Pequod, labeled "ship."

"Ship," repeated Tripp with great seriousness.

There was a cotton tufted Moby Dick, labeled "whale."

"Whale," said Tripp.

But, then came Captain Ahab's peg leg labeled, as one might expect, "leg."

"That's just great, Mom," my daughter said, closing the book before Tripp could see it or the next page beside which was the caption mad.

"You can just take that one right back to Vermont."

We could, however, all agree on a collection of books about Winnie-ther-Pooh. My mother had read them to me, and I had adored them. When I read them to Katherine, Milne's wordplay and humor was as evident to her as it had been to me. As a little girl she had quickly gotten the gentle joke of Pooh living under the name of Saunders. Tripp in his turn giggled in the first chapter when Pooh slithers down through the branches of the bee tree, foiled in his attempt to garner honey, exclaiming ow and bother as he falls.

I suspected he might, he being that sort of boy.

He will outgrow Zurg. Eventually he will discover Melville. Winnie-the-Pooh is forever - or at least until next Tuesday.

*

Sisters

I met my "Little Sister" Clementine in the hallway outside of fourth grade. She was at the tail end of the line and glanced over at me with a shy smile. I smiled back at the slender long-legged child with the pink sneakers, white laces trailing. Sue, the Big Brother/Big Sister coordinator, led us down to the school's media center and we sat together at a table. Clementine pulled lunch from a bag. We examined our matching beige canvas totes, each containing a plastic cup and pen and a file with pertinent information. Sue left us with a tackle box of beads to string. Clementine plucked an elasticized turquoise friendship bracelet from a tangle. 

"I think orange would look nice on you," she said, shaking her glossy brown bangs.

And so we began: New friends, treading with care.

"I'm adopted," Clementine announced mid-munch.

"Me too!" I exclaimed, surprised.

"You are?" Clementine grinned.

"Yes."

"When were you adopted?"

"Right out of the hospital, after I was born," I replied, realizing, well, no, probably not right out of the hospital. I was brought to a lawyer's office and my parents picked me up there. And was it both of my parents, or was my father working? I seem to remember being told that my godmother went with Mom... The myth of me.

"Oh."

"How about you?" I asked, wondering if I should.

"My foster mom adopted me."

"That's awesome," I said.

I am out of practice with bead stringing and knot tying, my fingers clumsy, but Clementine helped me. I tied her friendship bracelet around her wrist. She told me that her mom surprised her with a trip to Disney in California to celebrate her adoption - a lovely, elaborate scheme, suitcases hidden from sight.

As we talked I was struck by the energy and openness of this child, and I felt echoes of a much younger me, bright, anxious to please, story spilling out.

Growing up I grappled with the fact of being adopted. It was my theme, my sadness, my pride, my isolation, my rage, my shame. Within minutes of meeting a new friend, I would proffer it - a tarnished pearl.

Or, in conversation with a new therapist:

What brings you here?

Well, I'm adopted.

I tried to sever myself from my family. I tried to amputate the pain. Rage twined with fear, with desperation, with hope. 

My practice was to ferret out ways I didn't belong, while yearning - above all - to be convinced that I did.

A few years ago around Easter my mother did that thing, that exclusion thing, that separating me from thing. It had to do with the amount of people for Easter Sunday lunch, an unlucky count of 13. I discovered the list of guests with a note written by my mother next to my name in which she hoped I might go elsewhere, so there would be 12.

"We're going to talk about this now, Mom!" I demanded in the marble foyer of her home. 

"What?" My mother demurred. She gripped her walker and tried to veer away. I followed and faced her down. 

"I don't know why you are so upset," she said evasively as we circled.

"Yes, you do! I am a member of this family!" I shouted. "I choose this family!" I belong to this family!"  I stopped yelling. There was an almost audible pop, as though unseen fingers had snapped. Poof! I was done with it. I was stunned. Laughing with relief and amazement I kissed my bewildered mother.

Was it me who had needed to choose all this time?

"I forgive you Mom, and I love you," I said, "And I will be here for lunch on Easter Sunday."

"Well, I love you too, Ame. Always have."

I will be taking Family Medical Leave to spend precious time with my mother, but this connection with Clementine seems vital. Every other Monday I will be back home in Vermont getting to know this eager, multifaceted child.

We have lots in common: soccer, reading, traveling, writing, family.

*