It just looks like it.

He’s really a lion.  I swear.  He’s got a tail, I tell you. 

Peoples were wonderful; we went on my old trick-or-treating route, which in the country is about going to only a few houses, but spending quality time at those houses.  We saw family and friends and from a kid’s perspective got some great goodie bags. 

Normally, Halloween is an issue for me because of the peanut allergy, but my mom called in advance and let them know Jwas coming, so he got special peanut-free bags.  How awesome is that?

Friend mostly, foe this morning.  At 4:24 this morning I was sleeping.  Deeply.  The kind of sleep that was unlikely to be disturbed for another few hours, which if you knew me, you’d know was abnormal.  I’m still a farm girl at heart, unfortunately.

Ring, ring.

At 4:27 a.m., I was on the computer looking up the local number that had just flashed across the caller ID, but hadn’t left a message. 

At 4:27:30, I was silently freaking out, wondering whether or not I should call my entire family or dial back the number or quit being a baby and go back to bed.

Why was I being such a ninny?  Because the number was the number of the Sheriff’s Department. Now, before 4:30 in the morning, I am agonizing over what to do and definitely not in any condition to go back to bed, damn it.

After a few minutes of deliberation, I called back the Sheriff’s Department.  I mean, really.  What if my father had been attacked by his favorite bull? Or went missing?  Or had fallen down the stairs? After talking to the dispatcher, who in turn talked to the people in the jail, I was asked if I knew a particular person who was making phone calls from the jail.

Uh, no.

Damn  it.  I was woken up in  the middle of the night by some drunk and/or high inmate.  GREAT.

And had I not had caller ID, I’d never have known and would have gone back to bed.  Damn caller ID.

…finally, I can get some WORK done.  Sick, isn’t it?  I actually look forward to time off just so that I can get things done on my own schedule–work things.

Tomorrow, I mail a stack of orders, clean up the house, get pumpkin carving organized, invite a friend over and… hopefully, relist a lot of labels.  Oh, yeah, and clean up the list of custom designs I have to do.  I  might even, GASP, correct papers.  

As I wrote that, I thought of about a billion more thing I should be doing, but I’m going to keep it simple.  I mean, J does need a mother, don’t  you think?

Somewhere between all the crazy, long weekend and nights of design, shopkeeping, packaging–and now photo-editing–there is J.

It seems like he’s been neglected around here, doesn’t it?  Well, maybe I haven’t talked much about him, but he’s there, front and center, every morning and evening, and he’s been developing some interesting habits.

Like the bug thing.  I can’t tell you how terrified he sounds after he peers at something on the floor–maybe a bit of a leaf fallen from someone’s clothes after a round in the leaf pile or a real ladybug taking shelter from the soon-to-be-cold–and decides that it IS a bug.  

He screams a high-pitched, loud scream and freezes.  Sometimes after the freezing is done, he’ll run for me or T, shouting “Bug!”  If I’m not so lucky, I’ll be really near right before the freeze stage and he’ll grab me.  Those pinching little fists are painful, and they’re hard to dislodge in the middle of his fear.

It’s not like he’s always screaming in fear or pinching us, of course.  Yesterday, he decided he liked washing clothes in the sink or dog’s water bowl.  Both at daycare and home, he took an article of clothing (at daycare, his jacket), found a water source (at daycare, the sink), and started rinsing away at the offensive article.  T found him at the playground yesterday wearing a pink jacket with faux fur and pom poms at the ends of the ties.  I suppose he’ll learn sooner or later when the kids start picking on him that he can’t be washing his jacket during daycare.

He loves books, and every day he has a favorite that we’ll read and re-read.  For a while it was Fergus. Then, it was Click, Clack Moo.  Now, it’s Jolly Barnyard. You’d think we’d get tired of it, but it’s fun to watch him notice something new every time we read the book.

Oh, and this is cute.  This weekend when we were giving T a break from the long 2-day run of childcare, I took J outside to play in the leaves. After a while, J said, “Hand!” and took my hand to lead me around the yard.  We stopped at the Obama yard sign, and he ordered me to “Sit down!.” Then, he sat down and grabbed my finger to press the logo on the sign–and every time my finger touched the logo, he exclaimed, “BEEP!”

What a grasp of political issues my child has.

Are you supposed to be upset?  Angry?  Raging about the incident?

I don’t know–all I know is that J has been bitten, and more than anything I’m fighting feelings of uncertainty. Let me explain: there’s no mark and J doesn’t seem to worried about it himself, but now I find myself thinking more and more about things I’ve seen at daycare and attaching dark meaning to them despite the probability that I’m probably witnessing normal toddler behavior.

I’ve found J playing alone on the playground.

Bigger boys telling J he couldn’t play with them.

I’ve seen J be too close to another boy as he was sitting down; the other boy threw a screaming fit and flailed his arms to get J away from him.

And now, the biting.

I’m sure there are great reasons, and I talk to him about them even though he can’t talk back to me about such concepts.  I told him that the bigger boys telling him to get off the play equipment was all about the rules and how they were big kids, and they were just making sure he followed the rules and didn’t play on the equipment that was too big for him.  I told him the classmate who yelled at him while he was sitting had a bigger personal bubble than him.  And we talked about the bite–that the boy who bit him was just acting out his frustration because he didn’t know how else to deal with it.

And I hope that’s it. But the mom in me worries–he’s the second-youngest kidlet there, and he’s not a big talker.  I hope he’s not being picked on.  I hope he’s being accepted.

And although all my experience as an adult makes me want to believe what I’ve been told by the teachers in other buildings–that kids don’t break into racially divided groups until about fifth or sixth grade, I worry a little that race does play a part in how he’s treated.

And I’m probably crazy.  But this is my first time being a mom, and even though I’m doing my best, I don’t always know what to do or what to think.  Adding race issues I’m not used to having think about makes it a little extra complicated.  Or maybe I’m just complicating it all. 

What do you think?  Am I nuts to worry about this already?

Important lessons learned between 6 p.m. and midnight last night:

1.  Don’t slack off for a full day.  Ever.  This weekend, I had a lull in orders and by Saturday I only had three orders to print off for yesterday.  I decided to wait to print until an undefined later. So, when on Sunday I galavant off to school for most of the day, damn the consquences, I didn’t realize that would mean I’d be sitting, bleary-eyed and clumsy of finger, at my computer at midnight the next night filling orders that issued from the bowels of Etsy while I was gone.

2. Past 10 p.m., there’s no point in sealing up envelopes because you’ll be so dazed that you won’t trust yourself to put the right shipping sticker on the right envelope.  It took three torn-open envelopes and half a roll of tape to figure that out.  Smart one, aren’t I?

3. Those beautiful bottles of refill ink you researched about and finally broke down and bought? While they may make fantastic prints, learning to do the refill takes more time and patience than I need on those Fun days with the toddler of the house. Plus, the stinking gloves may make it difficult to work, but they would have prevented this new look I’ve got going–it looks like I have some sort of skin fungus now.  Yay.

On the positive side, all the orders from customers who approved their proofs by 11 p.m. last night are printed and ready to be mailed.  Now, that’s a real yay. And, I shipped off a few of the beauties above.  I love them.  I really, really do.  

Happy Tuesday!

It’s the end of a busy weekend, and for once, I feel GOOD about staring Monday in the face. Yes, I wish I were independently wealthy and that Monday meant I could wake up, head to my office in my jammies and dabble with some designs while sipping a Diet Coke laced with the barest hint of brandy.  A calm, sweet J would play by my side, gazing adoringly at me from time to time.  I’d also have time to make and serve fresh-squeezed orange juice and something fantastically delish for breakfast.  (So fantastically delish that I can’t even imagine what it would be right now, since I’m still mired in my current existence, which includes a bad Packers game playing on the TV and a few tablespoons of chocolate chip cookie dough from a tube.) Later, J and I would create arts and crafts in a beautiful, spacious and bright studio.

Somewhat unfortunately, I am not living that existence.  I’m still happy, though.  Today my dear husband gave me the time to go to school and Get Work Done.  It took 7 hours, and I only got home about an hour ago, but I got all my grading done–some of which got a little piled up that week and a half I was sick. Plus, I got a few other odds and ends done around the classroom.  Yay.

Plus, not only did J and T come to school to eat dinner with me, but we got to walk around school while J pointed out all the tigers (his favorite animal aside from the all-important bovine) and acted like a perfect, little cherub.  T even called when it was bedtime and coached J to say, “I love you”  and “Good night” and “Bye-bye!” It kind of made me melty.

So, although I am back to living the life of an underpaid and overworked teacher, at least I’ve got two men at home that make me melt inside–just a little bit.