Important life lessons

My husband was teaching our son how to shell peanuts this morning. What a great occupation for the second day of his summer vacation.

Yesterday he painted the fire pit and cleaned out the grill, then we all went to the beach together.

Blooming peonies

Some things can't wait

As you may recall, my son has been distinguishing the birthdays of some very special people -- his grandmothers Diane and Edna -- with the loss of his baby teeth.

So I was thrilled when he announced last week that a third tooth was loose. After all, his very own mother's birthday is impending. Alas, I am not to be so honored.

Distressed by the blood in his mouth, he frantically called to me this evening. I ushered him upstairs and into the bathroom to take a look. His upper front tooth was barely hanging. I asked him if he wanted me to pull it out. He did. I lost courage and called in his Daddy for reinforcement.

My husband arrived, grimacing as he peered into our son's mouth. He, too, hesitated. My son reached into his mouth and calmly pulled out the tooth himself.

In his bedroom, he handed it to me. "Happy birthday Mom," he said five days early. The tooth, he told his grandmother later, just couldn't wait.

An endorsement

Some things you just have to share, like David's Deli Tuscan Herb bagels. Even my 5-year-old son prefers them to any other bagel. They're available in the frozen food section at local grocery stores.

Thank you, Dr. Seuss

My son can read.

He has known how to spell his name and other basic words like Mom, Dad and cat for more than a year. I've watched him distinguish between words such as on and in. And every once in awhile, he's picked up an object and read off three or four words.

But last night, I was reading There's a Wocket in My Pocket out loud to him. It's due back at the library in a couple of days and can't be renewed because we already had renewed it once, a month ago. We hadn't read the book in quite a while.

He stopped my reading of the book, just as I turned from the page of the boy talking about the friends he had found. "Mom, I can do this," he said excitedly. "Let me do it."

"...Like the TELLAR and the NELLAR and the GELLAR and the DELLAR and the BELLAR and the WELLAR and the ZELLAR in the CELLAR," he read, his fingers underscoring each word as he read it. He turned the page.

..."And the GEELING on the CEILING...

...and the ZOWER in my SHOWER..." He turned the page again.

..."and the ZILLOW on my PILLOW. I don't care if you believe it. That's the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it."

He stumbled once, on the word "that's." Of course, if you were simply listening to the words without knowing he was reading a Dr. Seuss book, you might think he was mispronouncing a lot of them.

6 + 7

I vaguely heard the knock on our bedroom door this morning, then the pad of gentle footsteps across the floor.

"Mom," my son said from beside my side of the bed, "Could you hold up six fingers?" I drowsily complied. He stood there a moment, counting to 13. "Thanks," he said. More footsteps across the floor. The door closed.

The scene soon repeated itself, with him asking me to hold up a different number of fingers.

I asked my husband what time it was. It was around 6 a.m. My husband informed me that our son had aroused him earlier to ask if he could go downstairs and get his Cars math workbook.

He knocked on our door several more times over the next half hour, each time asking me to hold up a different number of fingers and adding some of his own fingers to come up with a different sum. Each time he left the room, he told me I could put my fingers down.

Just call me sleeping human abacus.

More garden haiku

Alpine strawberries
ripening in the sunshine.
Soon to be eaten.