Day Ninety

I've been a mother for twenty four years and two days.  I have four children whom I adore.  In the process of shepherding them safely from birth to young adulthood a lot of really funny things have happened.  Today I was with one of my daughters and she reminded me of something that happened that I hadn't thought about for many many years.  It made me wonder; if she hadn't reminded me would that memory have ever resurfaced?  How much that I've experienced is just gone now?  Here's the story she reminded me of.


How Isak Discovered the Truth about Santa Claus

Isak began throwing his voice when he was ten.  He walked around talking without moving his lips for long stretches of time, often with a foreign accent.  He was in a class for gifted kids and I went in for "Career Day" where all the little brainiacs told what they wanted to be when they grew up.  There was your regular smattering of doctors, lawyers, scientists, astronauts and firefighters.  And there was my son, big blue eyes sparkling as he declared, "When I grow up I want to be a ventriloquist."  I was hugely proud of being his mother in that moment.  So, naturally, I sought out a ventriloquist dummy, a real one.  A good one.  Santa delivered it on Christmas Eve and there was a very delighted boy in the house the next morning.  Well, it wasn't 40 minutes after he'd opened the box and named him Boomer before he got a 50 cent piece stuck inside him.  So Boomer now had a rattle.  However, rattle and all, Boomer was a charmer.  We all had lots of conversations with him.  He read books to the twins and sang songs to Reese.  He was a wonder.  Over time, he was treated more and more casually and one day I walked into the boys' room only to find Boomer on the floor, legs akimbo and head turned around backwards.  I turned into psycho mom, "Pick that dummy up off the floor!!!" I demanded.  "I paid $350 for him!"  A startled Isak looked me right in the eye and said, "I thought Santa Claus brought him."  And that was that.  The cat was out of the bag; I wasn't fast enough to recover quickly and he was too old to be duped.  As tragic as it was at the time it makes me laugh and laugh today.

Maybe sometime I'll tell you about when we drove the four kids with four Furbies all the way to Mexico....

Today I'm letting go of these five things:

1.  A nice long computer cord for connecting to the internet
2.  My brother's cell phone
3.  My old cell phone - affectionately known as the scuba phone
4.  A necktie with pictures of Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore on it
5.  A calculator

And this from a friend who found another kindred spirit out there!

The Wandering Book Artist's Gypsy Wagon

Don Vardo Plans
Gypsy Tour Map