Friday, January 19, 2007

Boy, Uninterrupted

Please pardon the horrible pun in my title. Yeah, I just watched that movie starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie's lips on the tube. Well, part of it--I toggled back and forth between that and Revenge of the Nerds, not because I was particularly enjoying it, but because I was morbidly fascinated by the way it deals with race. There's a thesis in there for someone at Bowling Green.

Anyway, I spent some uninterrupted time with my amazing son this evening, beginning with "Curriculum Night" at his school. I had to face the fact that I have not yet entered his classroom this year, stuff the guilt and move on. It was enjoyable--they have been studying the rain forest, so there was some reading aloud by students, a little quiz, and an art project: we made "rain sticks" with paper towel tubes into which we drove nails (!), poured an assortment of buttons, and then closed off with foil at each end. They worked!

Afterwards, we went to the stylish diner down the street for dessert (him) and dinner (me). I took a picture on my cell phone of him preparing to eat his cupcake, looking angelic-like.

You press your hands together as if in prayer,
eyes closed, poised over the cupcake that lasts
about ninety seconds. Sipping the lemonade
you bargained for, you mention the baby
that died before it was born--I didn't remember
telling you--I told you why it happened, how
mothers find out--and then we talked about Stella,
your sister--"Stella made it" her heart, why the hole
was there when she was born. In the cab home,
I tell you how they fixed it, the Gore-tex patch,
the stitch, the perfect results, the cardiologist
who moved to New Jersey. We're home, and the driver
says, "Smart boy. You'll be a doctor someday,"
and before bed we watch a comedy about doctors
singing and dancing for a patient because her brain
is broken, and then they fix it and she doesn't
hear the music anymore.

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