At our house, that’s all the time. He hammers in the morning; he hammers in the evening. I like to imagine that our live-in construction zone is giving him a penchant for hard work.

Because he’s been hammering for most of 2009, I have designs on a hammer for his Christmas tree ornament. (Last year, a red enameled drum summed up the mobile portion of Jack’s 2008.)  The one I’m searching for would be simple and safe for him to hold, if not hammer with. If you spot one, please give a shout.

Otherwise, we’ll use these cookie cutters to get on Santa’s good side and hope for the best.

My son thinks I’m cool.  I really like that about him.

“Cool” is maybe an exaggeration. But he considers much of what I do  worthy of imitation. And because I spend a lot of time with teenagers, I know I should cherish this kind of attention and interest.

He wants to turn on the lights, wash his hands. He pretends to fold laundry. He sorts through cds and spice jars, examining each one before returning it to its place (there, he might be suggesting more than mimicking).

When it’s too dark outside to let him play mow the lawn or caulk the seams or drive the car, he comes inside to pretend to pour coffee, make waffles, puree things in the blender, dry lettuce in the salad spinner.

He de-fuzzes his pants with my lint roller. He brushes his hair and pretends to blow-dry it. He flips through magazines and stares intently at illustration-free pages. He sweeps the floor.

In this case it isn’t a form of flattery at all, just sincere parroting. I love it just the same.

Jack got to spend all weekend outside, as planned, with more leaves and dirt and sawdust than even he knew what to do with.

Lots of baths were in order.

Luckily, Jack’s chilly (read: absolutely traumatized) response to the ocean does not apply to water in general, so he was okay with it. In fact, and much to my relief, he loves it.

Of course, in the tub, the water doesn’t meet the horizon. Nor does it rush toward him, or crash on him. His feet don’t sink into the bathtub. If the water is choppy, it’s because he’s chopping it.

(None of these points are any good in a debate with my dad, who believes there is something a little weird about a kid who doesn’t love the ocean, and says so if it comes up. My people tell it like they think it is.)

Not that I’ve thought a lot about this, of course. I’ve spent hardly any time wondering when we should give the beach another go, or hoping that he’ll love to swim as much as I do, or remembering how, when pregnant with him, I splashed with the dishes and took long baths and showers hoping that he was hearing, loving and looking forward to the water. And it isn’t like I’ve told and retold the story of his introduction to the beach – how he covered his ears and hid his face, and how by the second day he recognized enough through the windshield and windows to cling to the arms of his car seat, unwilling to come out without a fight.

Nope. It rarely even crosses my mind.

When he’s older and hears how early he was branded with a fear of water, I’ll sympathize. I’ve earned a reputation for being afraid of heights, when really I’m just afraid of ladders.

For now, we’ll stick with the bodies of water he isn’t afraid of – a tubful – and be glad.

If he spoke English, Jack would tell you that outside is where it’s at.

It’s where we will be for the next two days (the waking hours part).

Jack is so desperate to go outside and stay there that I can’t imagine the banishments to the backyard that I’m sure are in his future. The ones in my past always started with  “I’m bored” whines and inevitably led to locked doors and orders to GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY.  Right now we have to lock him in.

Rainy days are not easy.

When I was little, rainy days meant chocolate-chip cookies. I continue to live by that tradition, which I now recognize as one of my parents’ more universally pleasant coping mechanisms. But Jack is not old enough for cookie-baking. And luckily, the weekend forecast is sunny and warm.

Not bad for November, which is scooting dangerously close to the season during which I like to hibernate. If he were old enough, that would spell three months of cookies. As it is, I’m afraid I’ll just freeze while he frolics and plays, heedless of the wind and weather.

Reason no. 4,059 that it’s a good thing we live in Arkansas: We may get sheets of ice instead of blankets of snow, but our winters are dotted with out-of-nowhere 60-degree days.

Once upon a time, I adored Halloween. Loved dressing up, loved being safely scared, loved the carnivals and the candy and all the orange. I was a butterfly, a cat, a gypsy, a witch, and I dressed up as a princess-ballerina at least twice. But soon I lost the knack for recognizable costumes. By the time I was in middle elementary, I wanted to dress up as characters from books neither popular or classic, or famous people my parents liked (Tammy Wynette was my dad’s idea, which involved a jean jacket and a short reprise of Stand By Your Man.). Luckily I lost interest in costumes requiring narration, and by high school, listening to a Smashing Pumpkins album was probably the extent of my Halloween spirit.

Trick-or-treating in our small rural town, where a neighbor might be two miles away, was a cumbersome event of door-to-door driving. In the best spots, we could walk from one house to one or two others while Mom’s van crawled alongside us with the sliding door open. By the time Rach and I had outgrown it, the family trick-or-treating migrated north to towns with actual neighborhoods, blocks and sidewalks.

Jack is a year-and-a-half old, which means Halloween — an Official Time to Show Off Your Baby — was this year still more for us more than him.
Except for the squishy rat miniatures at my office party, which were definitely more for fun for him.

On Saturday night, we knew better than to expect any knocks on our door, porch light or no.  But the little chicken suited up in his costume, courtesy of the BFF and her mother,  just the same and ran around outside acting the part.

Occasionally I fall in love again with where we live. Where I’ve almost always lived.

This happened early Saturday morning, when we were headed out of town for the day and in a hurry. We drove south along the ridges of the Boston Mountains, over low valleys full of fog, just after the sun showed up.  (It’s is a scenic byway for a reason.) It was almost a shame to keep moving, and I said so. I said I wanted to come back the next day, to see it at 0 mph and not through the car window.

D heard me. On Sunday morning, he had already been outside painting the house for awhile in the near-dark when Jack and I got up at 7:30. D took a break to come inside ask if we were ready for an early-morning date.

We were.

Because it is WINDY, folks.

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Jack has graduated from a whistle to the woodwinds.

Well, to a bright orange plastic recorder, anyway.

When will I learn?

Never. Not when he’s so delighted and proud. Not when he holds onto it so tightly and for so long that it keeps him from following his father up the ladder, where D has been spending all after-work daylight. (It’s coming along.)

Nothing delights Jack more than pretending to fold the clothes, wash the dishes, mow the lawn.

In a few years, I’ll have to pull a Tom Sawyer to get this kind of work ethic.