Tales from the Shark Tank

Me to Cloud:  “Why do you keep pouncing on my toes, little girl?  They aren’t cat-destroying monsters, I promise!”

J., in his best little-kid voice “She says ‘Because I’m practicing to be a lion when I grow up, Mommy’ “.

Needless to say, I cracked up.

Our son came home today, as expected, in his gold t-shirt.  I don’t know why, but I asked if he’d still had his shirt and tie on by the time his picture was taken.

“Nope” he said, blushing.  “But that’s ok.”

And it is.

Our son is once again demonstrating both that he is growing up and that he is a classic boy-child.  Required to shower and wash his hair this morning, he asked me if he could just wash his hair, and was most indignant when I said no, he had to wash the body too.  Why soap (not warm water, just soap) is anathema I have no idea, but there you go.

Then it was time to get dressed.  Of his own will, he chose a pale blue dress shirt and a yellow tie with deep blue diagonal stripes.  On the other hand, he also put a t-shirt on underneath it, so that when the photos were over he could take it off and just be a “regular kid” again.  I’m sure his hair is ruffled and his shirt and tie stuffed into his backpack in a ball by now, but I was incredibly proud of him as he walked out the door, looking very handsome and incredibly mature, completely comfortable and unselfconscious in his finery.

Me to cat:  “Are you watching kitty TV?  The Birdies in the Grass Show?”

W, passing by:  “She’s watching the Food Channel.”

As the election gets closer, the landscape has been sprouting campaign signs more thickly than goldenrod.  For the most part, I pay them little heed.  I know that their purpose is to increase name recognition, but I prefer to know more of the candidates than simply their names.  A couple of them did catch my eye, though.  One was for a judge, the other for county prosecutor.  The judge, whose name is a long Eastern European tangle of letters beginning “Vj”, has a sign which reads “Tough Name; Tough Judge.”  The one for prosecutor was similar, promising to be “Tough on Crime.”  Pretty typical slogans, for those offices, and clearly what the candidates think the voting public wants to hear.  Maybe so, but it is not what I want to hear.  I’d be happier if the judge, on the same theme, had used something like “Difficult Name: Dedicated to Justice.”  I don’t want a judge to be “tough”; I want them to be fair to all concerned.  I don’t want a prosecutor who seeks convictions at any cost, by any tactics; I want one who believes in justice, understands what “presumed innocent” actually means, and is actually interested in finding out what the truth really is, somewhere between all the various versions. I drove into town last week and took advantage of early voting, so those signs won’t affect my vote now.  But if they had any effect at all, it would be negative.  If popular opinion is to be believed, most people wouldn’t agree with me, but that’s all right.  I have never been “most people”.

There was a plethora of signs in Indianapolis when I was down there as well.  I’m kind of out of that loop already, though I recognized some of the names.  What I found noteworthy there were the lack of signs for the current governor – I haven’t seen any up in this corner of the state either – and the presence of Obama/ Biden signs thickly strewn in neighborhoods where I know that Democrats have been an endangered species in prior years.  I remember voting once and hearing a precinct judge comment that all three of the registered Democrats for the precinct had voted.  I laughed a little at the time, knowing that all three were in one household.  But in that same area, it seems like Obama signs are in every other yard.  It wasn’t like McCain signs were in evidence, either.  I think I saw two in a couple of miles.  Indiana really is split between the candidates this time.  I can’t remember when it wasn’t so solidly Republican that the candidates felt no need to spend more than a minimal amount of money here.  Change indeed.

Today is our son’s 11th birthday.  I got an e-mail recently asking if I could meet with the rabbi in early November, as it’s time for him to begin bar mitzvah training.  This seems incredible to me.  When he was smaller, I figured he’d become a bar mitzvah, but that it would happen a year or two later than is usual.  Most kids start Hebrew School in pre-school, but at that time he was still in therapeutic pre-school, and there was no way he could have handled Hebrew School.  He was still having enough difficulty learning to speak English.  He really wasn’t ready to add an additional stimulus until he was in second grade and nearly eight.  Here the congregation was several orders of maginitude smaller, the teacher worked with autistic kids as her day job, and he did so well that she thought I’d home-schooled him.  (I hadn’t.)  Everyone involved is taking it for granted that of course he will become a bar mitzvah on Shabbat after his thirteenth birthday.  I can’t take it for granted.  I remember when it seemed impossible too clearly, and I am in awe of what he’s accomplshed.  When we first got a diagnosis of autism, a psychologist told me that the only limitations on what he would be able to do would be those we put on him because of our own expectations.  I have worked hard never to say “you can’t”….and he is proving, in ways both small and great, that he can.

He’s had a fabulous birthday.  He asked for and got his very own MP3 player, which he has been listening to much of the day.  He had a cake at Hebrew School, and another in the afternoon for a small birthday party at McDonald’s.  He got toy, books and clothes, and was delighted by all three.  He got to run and play with his friends, and has spent a fair amount of time during the pauses in the day reading interesting statistics to me from some of his new books, and handing me one of the ear-buds for his MP3 player so I could hear a super special song.  We heard him at 3:00 a.m., cheering quietly from his room.  “It’s today!  It’s my birthday!”  That pretty well sums it up.  It’s your birthday, boychick, and you’re the best gift I’ve ever been given.