Teaching a Parrot New Tricks

My three-year-old son, the star of my column Rattled, has entered into a developmental stage where he repeats the same question over and over and over and over and over. A while back I made the mistake of telling him that we’ll be going on an airplane this summer to see family in Delaware. Now, he asks, “Are we going on the plane this summer?”  Then he lists the people we are going to see there. It’s non-stop. It made it slightly more tolerable when a friend of ours with a daughter described this stage. I’ve decided to try and make the most of it.

If this is the time when his brain wants him to learn and repeat, we’re going to start learning poems – real ones. This morning I got him started on To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, 
    Old time is still a-flying : 
And this same flower that smiles to-day 
    To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

We’re working on the first stanza now. I may not be able to sneak veggies in well, but this little scream machine is going to be a Toast Master.

Rattled: The Musical

Rattled: Music lesson tests patience | savannahnow.com.

Rattled: Learning when to hold back | savannahnow.com

by Christine S. Lucas

Published April 20, 2013 in the Savannah Morning News

I am not a control-freak, but I have taken great comfort in my ability to soothe my son’s heart. I kiss boo-boos, fix food, wash and entertain him, but we finally reached something I couldn’t make better.

The saga began when I showed up at day care to learn that Elliot had “graduated” from his day care class. It seems a mother complained that he was hitting her little girl, and so my son graduated from a teacher he loved and children he’d been around since he was 8 months old. If he graduated, then his diploma must have read, “Suck it.” These were my thoughts as I went to fetch him from his new digs in the other wing.

It isn’t standard procedure for parents to be notified when a child progresses from one class to another, but Elliot was moved because of a complaint. Parents were, I imagine, kept from communicating because of the instinct to defend one’s own.

My issue is that one mother understandably expresses a problem, and her opinion is given complete weight enough to remove another child from class. Her point is taken into consideration, but it is done so while leaving another mother completely out of the loop. The end does not justify the means.

The reaction the day care staff expected, I came to resent this week. I have tried to remain positive that he has moved to a room that is good for him. His teacher is great, and he’s not languishing throughout the day. Now, however, for the first time he doesn’t want to go to school. At night he requests his old class before bed. He talks about it on the toilet, at the breakfast table, on the car ride, and mama can’t make it better. Only time will do that.

The hitting that prompted his being yanked has not continued at all in his current class. Not once. He’s learning new songs, keeping his Pull-ups in good shape, and he’s even been invited to a birthday party. The heartbreak that I couldn’t fix is starting to mend. What is replacing it, however, slowly, is a sense of pride in himself. It’s the first time he’s really had to test his coping skills, and I think he’s managing better than his mother.

The lesson of late has been learning when to hold back. The world is not a satin pillow on which my beloved can sit forever. At the park, I have to let him be his own protector sometimes.

A 6-year-old boy says “baby alert” at the approach of my child who only wants to play. On a cellular and energetic level I want to put that crummy loser in a half-nelson and make him eat monkey balls (from Sycamore trees). I can’t though, and Elliot learns to stand his ground — something very unbaby-like!

I also have to learn that Elliot can act a fool and it doesn’t reflect on me. When he furrows his brow at another child, I want to correct him. I don’t want kids to hate him. I want them to think he’s the lovable spec of God dust that happened to land before them. He’s a spirited spec, and he wants to get his way. Be compassionate. There I go trying to put him back on the pillow again. It’s so hard not to be protective.

In the constant comparison between working and nonworking mothers, this is where extra time benefits the parent. In the course of your day you see your child interact with more children. You learn whether his behavior is a one-time thing or a habit that needs more diligent correcting. When to intervene is probably the question parents ask themselves most often, and I doubt it’s going to get any easier.

At first I just wanted to keep him alive. Now he’s supposed to be a pleasure to be around, too? He’s supposed to be law-abiding and respectful? I’m going to need your help world. Be good to him, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.

I’ll try and have faith that good people will find him and good things will happen for him. It reminds me of a new ditty Elliot has been practicing of late. In his 3-year-old speech, it sounds like, “God our fodder. God our fodder.” When things we can’t control happen, we have to see the blessings among them. One is the smile that comes across my face when Elliot ends his religious tune saying, “Awwww, man.”

Christine Lucas writes about being a first-time mom and adventures with baby. Contact Christine at christineslucas@yahoo.com.

Rattled: A heartbreaker in training | savannahnow.com

Rattled: A heartbreaker in training | savannahnow.com.

In a Galaxie Far Far Away

When my Nanna died in 2006, something inside told me her 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 needed to come to Georgia. On this very blog, I wrote about our eventual desire to sell it. It had slipped down the priority list, as so many things do when a child is born.

We couldn’t sell it! For what seemed like forever, it sat in our driveway mirroring the guilt I felt for our not being able to revitalize it in the way we’d imagined. My son grew to know it has a play house where we’d sit in the afternoons. He was quite fond of it and listened while I spoke of a woman named LaVerne who had taken me for rides so many years before. It was the car we road in to Happy Harry’s Discount Drugs on Main Street in Newark, Delaware. My blanket had faded to a dull gray, and Nanna bought a magic potion that would turn it the rosiest of pinks.

I remember looking up at her in the driver’s seat. The edges of the memory are blurred. I think she had a scarf wrapped around her hair. There were sunglasses, and the world would have caved in upon her without fresh lipstick. My little boy didn’t know about that woman. He didn’t know about her heart, but he loved the knobs on her car’s radio. He loved the wheel and the lever that slid across turn to the air conditioner on.

We finally sold the Galaxie for fifty dollars less than my grandmother originally paid for it. We sold it to a charity called Limos 4 Kids. They take sick children for very special rides, and the Galaxie was going to have a new life as a Barney Fife squad car. (Click here to find the ’65 Ford Galaxie in the slide show.)

Elliot proudly showed the car off when the man and his wife came to pick it up.

We brought out the photo I’d taken of Nanna sitting on the hood. It was Easter Sunday and she was eighty years old at the time.

Then we said good-bye.

It was a little sad, but Nanna wasn’t in the car. I think she was smiling beside us in the driveway. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf. Her sunglasses were on, and her lipstick was flawless. I can almost hear her saying, “Tsk, tsk. Why in the world did you bring that thing all the way to Georgia?” It was a bridge, I’d tell her. One that we just found our way across.

A Little Drizzle Doesn’t Matter When the Tour is the Shizzle.

This lion was pithed thanks to Phil Sellers at Old City Walks tours.

I was delighted to do the Back Story Tour this morning. Martha and her grand-daughter Delaney were lovely gals who didn’t let the weather scare them off. Savannah is a city full of layers, and the challenge as a guide is to work your way through all of them. I am by no means saying I’m there yet, but it’s an exciting process. I figure when I run out of stories, I’ll just start inserting sitcom plots. That way on Trip Advisor someone will say, “Uh, that story about Oglethorpe meeting a hispanic  dancer was an episode of the Love Boat, and I don’t recall any of the Trustees being named Chachi.”

A Moving Tribute From One of Norah Ephron’s Sons

Norah Ephron’s Final Act

By JACOB BERNSTEIN

Published in the New York Times

March 6, 2013