'Tis the season

With March nearing its end, the looming deadline of April 15 has been weighing heavily on me and that pile of incomplete forms sitting on my table has been calling me every night.

What I didn't realize is that my Darling Boy has caught tax season fever too.

Yesterday, at church, as the boy tried to amuse himself while our priest gave his homily, my little guy pulled out of my purse - a pen and the blue notebook, where he's allowed to scribble his own little writings and drawings.

The boy said, "I'm going to write 'tax.' "

Knowing his Montessori-based understanding of letters and their sounds, this is actually not a difficult word to put together.

I smilled and nodded while I watched carefully.

The boy thought it through, sounded out each letter one at a time.

"Tuh" he said. Then he wrote a T

"Aahhh," he said. And he worked his way around making a round-topped A

"ixxx" he said. And then he made the criss-crossed letter.

And there it was - his first attempt at spelling a new word and he did it without any help from me.

I was so proud.

And then I wondered if this means he'll be an accountant. It is certainly a story I'll tell the grandkids some day if he does.

Just posing

Years ago, my mother-in-law bought us the most darling book, Babar's Yoga for Elephants.

Our favorite regal pachyderm takes up yoga positions to find peaceful moments in his busy life.

It is one of the dozens of books that sits on my son's shelf but one that he does occasionally pick out.

Some of the story line is long winded and he gets so bored, he asks to skip some pages. But what he lives for is the chance to try out yoga poses, as demonstrated by the elephant.

Mind you, he's not quite doing the complete Proud Warrior, but he likes to study the step-by-step poses that Babar demonstrates and he picks out a part of the sequence that he likes and does that.

For his age, I think that's probably sufficient.

What's doubly fun is that his other stuff animals - Mama Monkey and Baby Monkey - join us in the posing. We all take turns trying out corpse pose, or rotated triangle.

We had another fun night getting through the book. In the last section, Babar and Celeste perform their yoga in their worldly travels, by the MOMA, the Louvre, a Greek amphitheater.

There is a page showing the pair practicing cobra, face to face, in imitation of the Golden Gate bridge. It was our last pose of the night and my boy and I were going to try it. We laid on his rug, pushed up on our arms and stretched up our torsos. We looked at each other, happy to be there, happy to see the other one simultaneously posing.

It was a lovely moment of peace and harmony.

Bonehead

My son has taken an interest in the Presidents of the United States of America.

No, not that band, but the actual guys who served in the Oval Office.

His school did a lesson about the presidents last month and my boy has, of all things, a plastic placemat, displaying all the photos, names and basic facts about them.

One night, he studied the placemat, pointing to random photos to ask their names. My husband patiently answered.

The last face he pointed to is the person Garrison Keillor refers to as the Current Occupant. To which my husband named, "Bonehead." I shot my husband a look of horror but my Darling Husband - ever the tree-hugging, long-haired, vegetarian environmentalist - smiled to himself, enjoying this little joke.

A few days later, though, one of my boy's teachers relayed the day's funny school story. During a lesson about the presidents, my son proudly proclaimed that he remembered the name of the Current Occupant.

"Bonehead!" he volunteered.

The only thing I'm thankful for is that the teacher involved is liberal enough, and had a decent sense of humor about the little bit of misinformation.

Real conversation

Curling up with my little couch potato, I started to wrap myself in the couch blanket. It was a cold evening (at least for Florida standards).

My little boy jumped onto my lap, declaring he was cold too.

Me: "Yes, it's been cold all day today. Were you cold at school?"
Son: "Yeah. Were you cold at work?"
Me: "Yes."

I couldn't say much else, so shocked at this little bit of caring displayed.