I think Ikea sells those

For homework every night, Ezra “reads” a book with me. I've got that in quotes because it’s kind of a fake-it-till-you-make-it exercise. Ezra can sound out some basic words (hat, bet, mom, fuck-a-duck, for example) and he’s got a growing list of “sight words” that he can identify, but he is by no means actually reading yet.

The point of the activity is partly to get into the routine of reading, and partly to see the way letters can be grouped into words and words can be strung together on the page to form thoughts--a concept that, over time, becomes so ingrained it's almost intuitive but does in fact need to be learned.

The books Ezra gets are about eight pages long, with no more than a sentence per page. The sentence structure and many of the words repeat themselves throughout. There is also a great deal of rhyming. He sounds out or recognizes some words here and there, but for the most part he is supposed to glean the words from the rhyming and repetition, as well as from the pictures--and then touch each word on the page as he says it.

As a result, the narratives sometimes take a surprising twist.

For example, there was one book called I Like, which ended with these three pages:

I like honey [bear holding a jar of honey]
I like bread [bear holding a loaf of bread]
I like standing on my head [bear—you guessed it—standing on his head]

Ezra’s creative rendering of the text went like this:

I like honey
I like bread
I like doing yoga

Then there was Spiders, Spiders Everywhere, which featured this two-page spread:

There are six spiders on my head
There are seven spiders in my bed

Here's how it went when Ezra read it:

There are six spiders on my head
There are seven spiders in my couch

“Ezra,” I said, pointing to the word bed. “Do you see a 'c' at the beginning of that word? What does that word start with?”

He looked at the word, and looked at the picture again, and with great confidence, took it from the top:

There are ten spiders in my bouch.

Jesus was definitely not the word

Ezra’s sweet teacher called me back Sunday afternoon.

“Sorry I’m so late returning your call,” she said. “I had family in over the weekend, and today I was at church all day. We’re hosting a group of homeless women so I was helping to set up.”

For real, she said this.

And then she went on to say that the "word" that had gotten Ezra in trouble in the library last week was fuck-a-duck.

Except she totally pussied out and said f-a-duck.

I’m a little disappointed in Ezra. I’m bummed that he didn’t go great guns. Sure, he started out strong with the fuck, but then he went and ruined it with that lame-ass kindergarten rhyming action.

He was telling the truth when he said his friend Justin had taught it to him. That’s not the way we swear in this house. (Not that we ever swear, unless we’re mildly irritated or vaguely frustrated or really upset or trying to emphasize a point or tired, in which case the swearing is 100 percent justified.) When we swear, we do it with gusto; and I guess I expected the same from my five-year-old.

Truth is, I had kind of hoped that my cocksucker guess was balls on.

color me haggard

As if I needed more evidence that motherhood has taken its toll on me:

a) Last night as I was getting undressed, long after the kids went to bed, I discovered a crayon in my bra.

b) What with my formerly ample and now deflated boobs, there was room for it in that right cup--so much room that I didn't notice its presence until hours after it had been placed there.

And just the other day I was remarking to Stupid Daddy that my muffin top had become more like a fallen souffle. Talk about adding insult to injury.

just one more reason that I love him

One of the most endearing things about Stupid Daddy is that he can build or fix pretty much anything. He's framed houses and repaired dishwashers and tiled back splashes. He's completely taken apart the engine of a truck and then put it back together again. In recent weeks, he's been busy winterizing our 100-plus-year-old home--heat-shrinking plastic wrap on some windows, replacing a couple of windows entirely, weather-stripping the front door, and the like.

Another incredibly endearing thing about him is that he loves to brush and blow-dry my hair. This, however, also happens to be one of the most annoying things about him, because invariably, he forgets that there are nerves inside my scalp, and that these nerves, they feel things.

So when he's brushing my hair and he meets some resistance from a tangle putting up a good fight, he just yanks harder. And when he blow-dries my hair, he focuses on getting that one section he's working on really dry, never mind that he's dangerously close to setting my scalp on fire.

Presumably, this activity is a prelude to s-e-x. It certainly gets him in the mood. Me, not so much. But then I'm also not one to request that he handcuff me to the bedpost and drip candle wax onto my nipples.

The other night, after a trip to the grocery store, I went upstairs to find Stupid Daddy getting Lilah dressed for bed after her bath--her hair, which is now well past her shoulders, obviously brushed out and bone dry. I became concerned for her well-being.

"Does she have third-degree burns?" I asked. "Or were you gentler with her because she's only two?"

"Shut up, bitch," he said. "You're lucky I don't use my heat gun on you."

doing what little we can

Adorably and transparently, Iris finds multiple reasons each night to return to our house, if only for 30 frantic seconds. She brings one of our cats inside for us, she brings the other cat inside for us, she stops by "on her way" to deliver the compost into the compost bin in her own back yard, she wonders if she's left this scrap of paper or that somewhere over here. And then, invariably, she panics about how much time she's taken, and what the consequences will be when she gets back home.

"Gotta go!" she'll announce, and then practically bolt out the door.

Earlier this week, on one of these whirlwind unauthorized visits, Iris asked us if we would like to come hear her sing a song at her school's "harvest festival" on Saturday.

"You're performing!" I said.

"Most likely," she said. "If I can get a ride there."

Because mom's weekends are apparently so booked with Qi Gong and chanting and all the other activities that help her be "present as a parent" (direct quote) that she can't actually be present, Iris spends both nights of every weekend at a somewhat mysterious friend's house. (We've asked her a bit about the family, and what her connection is to them, but she's always been cagey about the details.)

This particular Saturday was apparently booked with flu shots for the family's kids and Christmas pictures at WalMart, so it wasn't clear they'd be able to get Iris to where she needed to be.

I told Iris we would love to come and we could drive her there as well if her friend couldn't take her. She smiled a great big smile and practically skipped her way home.

We found out this morning that Iris would indeed be getting a ride from her friend, so we all piled into the car and drove directly (except for the getting lost part) to Iris' school.

There's Iris on the left, just before the performance began. She was pretty psyched to see us.

The kids sang their song laughably out of key, and they forgot half the words, but I almost cried watching Iris up there--because her mom couldn't be bothered to come for her daughter's performance, and also because I really do love that girl.

We spent another couple of hours there with Iris before driving her back to her friend's house. The kids bounced around in one of those portable bouncy houses that are a carnival staple, got their faces painted, went on a hay ride, toured the "haunted gym" (which pretty much scared the pants off of Levi), did crafts projects, and ate hot dogs.

There's Iris about to dive into her hot dog, which she can't tell her mom about or she'll be punished.

There are Ezra and Levi with Iris, who is proudly displaying the painted rock that her mom will make her throw away.

There's Iris just plain old enjoying herself. That will have to be a secret to. It's one I hope she can hold onto.

probably not what she signed on for

I wrote a note to Ezra's teacher asking for more details about the inappropriate language. Did he really not remember the word? Was it sometimes inappropriate or always inappropriate? Did it seem like he understood what he was saying?

She wrote back today that Ezra told her the word later (i.e., I guess, he did in fact remember it). She also said that it qualified as an always "bad" word, and she didn't want to write it down. I was instructed to call her for more information.

I left a message for her this evening. I have no idea when she'll get back to me. She's a kind woman with a school-age daughter and I'm sure they have plans for the weekend--a PG movie tonight, perhaps, with a big bucket of popcorn between them; tomorrow, a walk in the woods to enjoy the foliage, an afternoon in the yard raking leaves.

In the meantime, I've decided the offending word must be cocksucker. It's both long and unfamiliar, so it matches the description Ezra gave me yesterday.

But I won't know for sure until I hear it from the kindergarten teacher's mouth.

those words are on the SAT, right?

My previously angelic (at school) kindergartener came home today with a note from his teacher. The librarian had to "speak to" Ezra about his use of "inappropriate language."

Even though I had hoped that Ezra would loosen up enough to misbehave every once in a while, and even though I had hoped he would finally break through his shyness and be so engaged with a classmate that the conversation just couldn't stop even after the teacher had warned them twice about whispering, I got a little panicky.

The following questions screamed through my head simultaneously:

What has happened to my son? Is he turning into a derelict? Is his diet of three baby carrots a day causing him to lose all sense of judgment? Is peer pressure getting the better of him? Do I need to bring him to a doctor? If yes, what doctor would that be? Is he never going to get into Harvard?

And then this: What was the "inappropriate language"?

I asked him what it was that he had said in the library, but he wouldn't tell me.

"I don't remember," he said, looking at the ground.

"Was it a bathroom word?"

"No."

"Was it a body word?"

"No."

"Well, what was it, Ezra? I'm not mad at you, really. Everyone gets into trouble every once in a while. I just need to know so we can talk about why it wasn't okay to say it in the library."

"I told you, I don't remember."

"Is it a word we use sometimes at home?"

"No, it was a new word. It was a long word. Justin said it and then I said it and then he told me it was a bad word."

"Well, what does it mean?"

"I don't know."

Clitoris? I'm thinking. Fellatio?

I switched tacks for a minute, because even in my infinite insanity I recognized that this wasn't the most productive line of questioning.

"What happened when the librarian talked to you?"

"She put me in a time out. And I'm not allowed to take out a book from the library until next time."

He was on the verge of tears at that point, and I think that, not to blame the victim or anything, part of what upset me so much about the teacher's note was that there was no mischievous joy about the incident--even before I started peppering him with questions. It seemed like his own sense of his behavior was that he was doing something not playful but ugly.

Still, I was dying to know what he had said.

"Was it 'shit,' Ezra? Was it 'fuck'?"

"No, Mommy," he said, rolling his eyes, exasperated. "I already told you, it wasn't a word we use at home."