I just went through a foot-high stack of papers that had piled up, and realized I haven’t seen any of Moomin’s homework since early April. At home, I mostly stay in bed reading and messing with the computer, and it’s only been in the last week that I do anything useful, like paying bills or washing dishes or giving anyone a bath. There hasn’t been much creative or affectionate energy in me either, because I’ve been in pain. Here and there I did a little bit of reading to Moomin, but mostly not even that, because it jostled my leg to have him next to me. So, that’s been sad for me. Part of it is my own fault, and not knowing how to allocate my energy.
The bits and pieces of paragraphs started… he has learned some multiplication tables and can do things like count by sevens… and here is a wonderful chalk drawing that I want to frame and put up on my bedroom wall!
And this,
I admire my mom for three reasons. First, she is creative and knows what to do. Once we had these gray, wide, wheels, and a friend of mine named Jason was going to come over. She thought that when he was we could put on a stuffed animal circus. Second, she is kind.
Oh how I’d like to know my third virtue! The essay ends!
It mean a lot to me because I have not felt that I’ve exhibited any motherly virtues lately. Especially at WisCon where Rook and the evening babysitter and the daytime kids’ programming did everything, and I felt like a frivolous mother from British childrens’ books who would whirl into the nursery for 5 minutes in a gauzy evening gown and then floatingly leave a cloud of perfume behind; except I was in a wheelchair and wearing a superhero outfit and a bright orange wig with no perfume.
His essays charm me with incompletion and hints of what will come someday. “I’d like to invent some sort of machine that can make me go inside the TV… Tigerfish are very fierce, hence the name…. On a boring day, I like to make a fort, make up books, and read books.”
I’m still stunned to know that I could possibly be interpreted as “kind”. When I’m not floating out of the nursery with a tinkling laugh wearing all my diamonds I’m stumping around on crutches yelling at everyone to stop fighting and for god’s sake shut the screen door!
My teaching job is over, so the hard months of working nights and weekends are over too! I hope I can live up to being a kind creative mom who knows how to do things again, instead of the grumpy person working from bed!
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