When life gives you LEMON! watch _Pulp Fiction_.
I’ve been stricken with some sort of stomach bug that was about as unpleasant as you can imagine for the first 12 hours (which were yesterday, thus no post from me, the newly minted Nablopomo failure). Now on Day 2, this still source-less ailment has left me in a general, nauseated malaise. I’m behind on everything and still eyeing vegetable soup and popsicles with suspicion. Or at least, my stomach is.
On the way home from school today, Henry held onto a segment of tangerine and proudly declared it a LEMON! LEMON! for the 45 minutes we were stuck in traffic. Like everything that kid does, I found this delightful. Not so when I explained that I’d be taking him home but then I had to go back to work. His response: “No. Stay home. Nurse. No work. All done work.” We’re getting to the point of more complicated exchanges like this one, which tend to be about complicated situations, and complicated emotions, his and mine. It thrills me that he understands and can communicate so much, but, I find, it’s actually easier to turn your back on a screaming infant than a child who can quietly articulate the more heartbreaking statement: “Please stay home?”
“Work” for me tonight was screening Pulp Fiction for my students at their request. That is a long movie, y’all. When they voted to watch it I should probably have warned them that it was 2 hours and 45 minutes long. But the runner up was Avatar, so I think we actually dodged the snooze-fest bullet there, friends. I was pleasantly surprised by PF, which I hadn’t seen in years and I had lost my taste for. I’m excited to see what my students make of it.
Discussion is in something like 12 hours so I’d best be getting some sleep.
Given my entire outlook on work, my kid and leaving him today, this post actually made me cry. So umm, I’ll just deflect and say:
The choices were between Pulp Fiction and Avatar? I kind of don’t know what to say about that.
Oh, man. Our kid isn’t anywhere close to being that articulate, and while I loo forward to it, I also dread those moments (which, lucky me, I’ll be back at work right around the time he’ll tell me to stay home).
Also: they wanted to watch Avatar? Who ARE these children?
Oh, man. So sorry you were sick! I think you should get a nablopomo mulligan or something.
Yes, the ability to articulate desire for the parent not to leave…started for Sam around 20 months and is still going strong. We’ve hit upon routines that he looks forward to (waving to me out the upstairs window when I back out of the driveway to go teach in the mornings, for example) which lessen the blow. But it’s hard.
Avatar — bleah! I have nothing cogent to add, just randomly surfing the nablopomo blogroll — with the lack of powers no one has invested in me I hereby grant you a barfing exemption.