Garden haiku

Squash, tomatoes, beans
now planted in my garden,
awaiting summer.

Another milestone

My son's last day of preschool is today.

He's all ready to move on to kindergarten this fall, actually sooner if he could. I, on the other hand, awoke this morning feeling like a part of me is dying.

My son has attended Summit School since he was 11 months old, the first three years fulltime except for summers which his Daddy has off. The past two years, he has attended only two days a week due to the fact I no longer work fulltime.

The morning was a blur of activity, including the additional packing of picnic lunches for both of us, filling out a form allowing the release of contact information to his other classmates, and coping with a last-minute haircut he decided to give himself while I cooked breakfast. Get ready or you'll miss your last day of school, I told him several times, trying to speed up the process of him getting dressed, putting on shoes and combing his hair.

On the drive to school, my son and I talked about the fact that today will be his last day in Miss Stacy's class (a teacher he's had the past two years) and that he'll no longer have French or physical education with Mr. Jean.

"What if I miss it?" my son asked as we slowly walked up the front steps to the school. We can always come back and visit, I said reassuringly, my heart heavy with his sadness. But then I realized, he was only talking about getting to school in time for his last day not about never coming back.

Refreshing respite

My exercise buddy and I hiked up to Fifth Falls in Gooseberry Falls State Park today.

We climbed on the basalt rocks at the base of the falls, listening to the pounding of the rushing water and feeling its cool, refreshing spray on our skin. We spied a bit of ice still tucked in a cave in the rock wall on the shaded side of the river. Our side, gently sloping hillside primarily covered in pines and cedars, was in full sun.

I turned away from the falls to take in the view downstream. I could see the fallen tree beside the river where we had sat and ate our lunch -- fresh veggies and hummus on pita and juicy tangerines.

I silently walked to the edge of rock hanging over the cascading river. I closed my eyes, raised up on my toes, stretched out my arms and imagined what cliff divers feel like before they take the plunge. My exercise buddy broke my moment of reverie, imploring me not to jump.

I took a deep breath, then laughing, explained what I had been visualizing.

Music to my ears

My son was arguing with me over who got to go first in the game of chess we were about to play.

"You're older than me," he said, asserting that the youngest player always goes first. "You're like 16 or 14, and I'm 5 and 1/2."

Play ball!

My son played in his first t-ball game tonight. It was a tied game, although technically, his team scored 18 runs while the other team scored 14. Every player crossed home base twice.

Happy Birthday Grandma Edna

My son lost his second tooth tonight, on his Grandma Edna's 80th birthday.

He bumped into me while we were dancing to the theme song of Peter Gunn.

If you recall from an earlier post, he lost his first tooth at his Grandma Diane's birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, he wanted to make both of his grandmothers' birthdays special.

I better go check our calendar for the date of Grandma Lee's birthday. (She's our neighbor next door.)

Dr. Seuss and PC

Since the advent of Dr. Seuss week at my son's preschool in March, my son has been checking out from the library every available Dr. Seuss book that we don't already own.

I've long been a fan of Dr. Seuss. As a first-grader, I checked out Fox in Socks from my elementary school library so many times that my teacher had a talk with my mother to suggest I try some other books. My husband bequeathed to our son his extensive collection of Seuss "Bright and Early," "Beginner" and "I Can Read Books" from when he taught elementary school. And numerous friends and relatives have gifted our son with such Dr. Seuss classics as The Lorax, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, Yertle the Turtle and Horton Hears a Who.

Still, I was surprised by the number of Seuss books I hadn't ever heard of: The King's Stilts, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew, I can Lick 30 Tigers Today!, McElligot's Pool. Although, after having read some, I'm not surprised they aren't as widely circulated today.

"With helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant"

"And, speaking of birds, there's the Russian Palooski,

Whose headski is redski and belly is blueski,"

-- If I Ran the Zoo

Obviously, a reflection of a different era in political correctness.