It’s been a while since I wrote about Lucas, where he is in space/time.
The books say that 5 years old is a dream age. I now see glimpses of that in my son, almost as if he’s still settling into the age (he’s just over a month into 5 now).

Verbally, Lucas has adopted a couple of new quirks. He now says things like, “I SO want to do that, Mom.” Or, “I SO need to have a cookie right now. I’m starving.” It’s SO cute. He also seems just a tad more sophisticated. When he speaks now, I hear echoes of Tish-Tash (which is the handle her mommy gave her, I believe).

He’s growing again, too. I had to wrestle him down yesterday morning to cut his toe nails. His feet are freakin’ huge! Perhaps having Asher around as a contrast has made me realize how much Lucas has grown. His feet are kid feet now. They’re dirty and stinky. They have calluses and rough spots. His brown body is sprinkled with little white scars here and there. He’s lived long enough to acquire scars! He’s longer and leaner than ever before. Every week or two I put another shirt or pair of pants into the too-small pile to be stored for his brother to wear someday.

There is less tantruming now and instead he uses more sophisticated and subtle means of defiance. Lucas is a master at stalling, dilly-dallying, delaying. He can be coaxed along in dressing and the like, but we have to be rather tricky about it. We have races in the morning, for example: Can Lucas get dressed and ready for school before Daddy gets out of the shower?

Except sometimes there is a tantrum. If it gets to that point, he is as likely now to strike out physically as when he was two. His increased worldliness has brought him an inflated sense of his own physical prowess. Exposure to things like Ninja Turtles TV ads, a smidgeon of knowledge about karate and boxing, have turned him into a little fighter when he gets mad. It frustrates me immensely. Play boxing with Daddy seemed harmless at first (and Ian might still say it’s harmless), but in my opinion, it coincided with Lucas’s trying out fighting moves on me when he is pissed off. He boasts, “I’m stronger than you, Mom! I can box you!” We come down on him like a ton of bricks when he raises a hand to me. There can simply be no tolerance for that behavior. It won’t be too many more years before he is bigger than me. Fortunately, there aren’t reports of him fighting other children, but I don’t know that for sure.

Lucas is a motion machine. Not that I have an experienced eye, but it seems to me that he’s extremely athletic. As such, injuries abound. What in the world would we do without the boo-boo bag (cold pack) that we keep in the freezer?

Nobody can make Asher laugh the way Lucas can! Lucas enjoys clowning. He even gets jealous if someone else makes the baby smile or giggle. “Daddy! You’re getting all the smiles!” “Mommy, you always put Asher so he’s facing you!” What he means is we’re hogging HIS baby. Lucas is very gentle with Asher. He’s shown nothing but love and kindness to his little brother. We praise him for this as much as possible. We flatter him and tell him how much Asher loves him, how Asher is going to look up to him, how Asher is going to want to do everything like his big brother. Lucas is proud to show off Asher to his friends. He’s proud to be a big brother.

He’s also very excited to finally be “an older kid” in the Red Rose. Next fall, when school starts again, there will be new classmates who are younger than him.

Today we all celebrated five “pee-free” nights in a row. For the last two weeks or so, Lucas and Daddy have been working on nighttime potty training. Up to now, Lucas has been wearing pull-ups at night. We are delighted that he’s finally having success staying dry at night. (I wish I had known about EC when Lucas was a baby!) I’m hoping that he can completely master toileting this summer.

Lucas is doing pretty well with his new chores. He’s learning to fold his own clean laundry, and so far is doing it with joyful enthusiasm. Today, he revealed that he could help me fold sheets. He volunteered to help and then taught me the rhyme that they say in kindergarten when folding up sheets or big pieces of fabric. Wonderful!

Here’s Lucas playing his electric guitar and rocking out!

At 7:45 this morning, the very first day of summer vacation, Lucas announced “I’m bored.”

Yikes.

Lucas has two more days of school and then … twelve weeks of summer vacation. I have mixed feelings.

We went to the final parent evening Tuesday night to say “thank you” to the teachers, present them with gifts, and listen to their take on the last few weeks. The older children have been sewing their own puppets. The teacher has to make up a story that includes every child’s puppet in the drama. (Today the puppet show was practiced, tomorrow it will be told to the class’s younger children and their Little Ones.) It’s exciting to see how far they’ve all come during the year. The teachers gave each family a small book of about 6-8 photos of their child taken during the year.

Yesterday morning we were in the classroom briefly for the final Parent Tea. We were presented with a giant portfolio of Lucas’s artwork. It contains many crayon drawings and many wet-on-wet watercolor paintings. One drawing stuck out: An orange and green airplane flies through a black swirling sky. At the bottom of the picture, the teacher had written “After talking about mommy being in the hospital, ‘a brave little airplane flying through a tornado.'” It is dated 2/5/07.

I am so proud of Lucas. He has done beautifully in the Red Rose Kindergarten. I am very happy knowing that he will be held, loved and safe, in the Red Rose again next year. He has blossomed in so many ways. He has made many friends and become beloved of both girls and boys. He’s learned to be tough in the elements and to trust his teachers to take him into magical lands. He has become enraptured by the stories and myths. I’m so, so glad we’ve been able to send him to this school.

Asher has found his penis! I am so happy for him.

We Wilsons all went to Apple Hill yesterday to see what there was to see and get the hell out of town. (That was my dearest wish for our anniversary: to see something NEW.) We went to Cameron Park and ate mediocre sandwiches and good ice cream cones. The we drove to Camino and visited the Jack Russell brewery and hung out on their lawn in the hills with sunshine and evergreens all around. (Nice place. You should go there sometime.) Then we hit Boa Vista Orchards’ market and bought FRUIT.

apples, peaches, apricots, cherries, strawberries, plums
and a frozen apple pie

I’m still in my I-can-eat-anything-I-want-because-I’m-nursing-and-I-almost-died-and-it’s-my-birthday/anniversary mode, but it’s definitely catching up with me. Damn! So hard to say no to summer fruits!

“Lucas, don’t stick your fork into your penis. … If I have to, I’ll make you wear pants at the table.”

Happy Anniversary, my love. Twenty years ago we met and became friends. Seventeen years ago we started dating. Thirteen years ago were were flitting around Europe together. Twelve years ago today we were married (http://sarabellae.livejournal.com/48266.html#cutid1). Eight years ago we were in the process of buying our home. Five years ago we were new parents, struggling to figure out how to care for baby Lucas. Today, we who were two are now four: we’re loving and raising the two most beautiful baby boys in the entire universe.

I am so happy, Bascha. You are my spark and my quiet place. Thank you for being my husband. I am proud to be your wife.

It is kind of a dorky observation, but sometimes I am amazed that this baby is ALIVE. One day he didn’t exist, and the next day he did. One day I had only to take care of myself for him to continue being, and the next day I had to assume all kinds of separate tasks to care for him because he is now here.

Truly, I am amazed at his tenacity. He goes to sleep and then later wakes up. He suffers through my bumbling and smiles at me still. I ponder about how completely helpless he is. Human infants can do almost nothing to ensure their own survival. And yet, he hangs on. He fights. He reminds. He persuades. He clings to life. It’s truly amazing that any of us survives infancy.

There are a million things we do for Asher every day. When I was small, my parents did those million things for me, day after day. Yours did them for you. Amazing.

Some parents are crappy parents. Some are pathetic and ill-equipped at the beginning and gradually get better, honing their parenting skills and figuring shit out. Other parents are great at caring for cute babies but are sucky with kids and even worse with teens. But even kids of shitty parents often survive! Wow.