Desi Candor

"I am a mistake . . . I just said I was a MISTAKE!" (laughter)

Me: How was school?

Des: AMAZING!

Sometimes Des and Zoe like to pretend that Zoe is actually a little brother. She'll get dressed in his clothes and they'll be guys together. One afternoon while they were playing this game, Des was reclining in a chair and asked his little brother Zoe, “Can you be my footstool?”

Des held up a new animal he'd gotten for Christmas, "I think this is an African Rhino or a North Pole Rhino." I responded with an amazed, “How do you know these things?” He answered seriously, “I read it in the Diarrhea . . . the Diarrhea? ..... I mean, the Dictionary."

“You’re my little sister, the only one I have, and I want you to last long in life so I can have a long life with you. I love you so much Zoe.” He said all this while standing in front of her, kissing his own hand.

While eating pizza happily, Des was observing Zoe and commented, “Wow! Did you see her? She ate that so fast! She’s feasting on knowledge!"

“Ewwwww! Your breath is hilariously stinky!”

"I love you mom, I love you almost as much as I love Zoe."

"Do I rock? I ROCK don’t I? Our family ROCKS!!"

"Do you know why I obey Jesus Christ?

Because I love him!"

"Mommy, I have a secret that I don’t want you to tell anybody . . . in real life I'm a really nice boy, but right now, I’m not so nice."

I pointed out on a early Saturday morning that Des and Zoe had awoken earlier than they usually do on weekdays for school (in which, of course, they are VERY sleepy and don’t want to wake up.) Des explained in defense, “That’s because we’d like to wake up ourselves, not a big construction of WAKE UP!”

While giving Desi a goodnight kiss, He drew back and said, “You smell like the airport.”

I asked Desi one morning, before he departed for school, how his room looked, he replied dramatically, "Destroyed, awful, experimental!"

"I love to be back scratched. Give me some scratch-backen'!"

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Maternal Crises by Foucault

Desmond Jones loves taking the bus to school. Zoe and I walk down with him every school morning and goof off until the bus comes. I always shout good morning to the driver and advise Desmond to go easy during the morning and afternoon bus bartering sessions – the toy trade is quite vigorous and I worry about what the little kindergartners are being coaxed into giving up in exchange for Desmond’s broken castoffs.

One morning this fall, the bus pulled up and the front right tire was on FIRE. I processed the information with some alarm and called out to the driver that there was fire. He looked at me and nodded. I was puzzled. He just sat there calmly, seeming to imply that all was OK. I responded, “Yeah?” and then let my son approach the bus to get on.

{Shall I pause here so you can shake your finger at me? I know, I know you would NEVER do such a thing!}

Before the bus approached, Nathan had come down the drive to take his morning run. We had teasingly pulled him into a family group hug before we let him depart – one of Nathan’s funny charms is that he embarrasses easily about public displays of affection (though he would have acted the same inside the house, come to think of it.) Anyway, he had just walked on before the bus pulled up and happened to glance back as Des was heading toward it . . .

{All embarrassment of affection shattered}

Nathan’s arms flew into the air and he began to jump and shout madlymadlymadly, “Desmond!!! DON’T get on the bus!! Get away from the BUS!”

{I just stood there}

The driver was sufficiently alarmed and got up to take a look. He saw the fire and returned in a lumbering fashion to retrieve the fire extinguisher. We watched. My arms around mybabes.

This was all seriously troubling.

I realized the bus driver hadn’t heard me and thought I was giving him my regular greeting from the road. Nathan philosophically tried to placate me by classifying the experience as a typical Foucault case: I had perceived the bus driver in a position of authority and even though I knew that FIRE was usually BAD, I conceded judgment to him as he knew more about vehicles than I did.

{Little comfort, little comfort.}



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