Thankful Thursday | when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

I Am Grateful:

• I am grateful for the Duplo blocks that quiet Mads and capture his interest.
• I am grateful for every part of my body that jiggles because I'm made of flesh not paper.
• I am grateful when I hear sirens, for the people who make livings of helping others.
• I am grateful for my grandpa, steady and good and full of love.
• I am grateful to come home to a house full of good cooking smells after a long day at work.
• I am grateful for little gifts left in my cubby at work from co-workers.
• I am grateful to Grandma for picking us up and taking us to dinner at Martigan's favorite, Firehouse Subs, and I am grateful to her for her good humor when Mads eats only chips and does not touch his sandwich.
• I am grateful for citrus-scented dish soap.
• I am grateful for the jingling tinkle of my many charm bracelets (Christmas gifts from Grandma this year) against china coffee mugs as I put them away in the cabinet.
• I am grateful for the way salt patterns swirl on roads and look like some ancient magic runes, and like snow, impervious to sun and heat.
• I am grateful for the competing morning sounds of Uriah Heep on the turn table on one side of me (in the living room) and Wolfman tuning up his guitar on the other (in the bedroom).
• I am grateful for the tradition of wearing my husband's boots and coat (so much more practical than my own) to tromp around in the snow.

"La Vie En Rose," Louis Armstrong

Madmartigan, 3 Years Old | love like yours will surely come my way

Dear Mads,

You are three-and-a-half years old: part-time Batman, my sweetheart, winning and witty conversationalist, kung fu/break dance master, and a true blue Stinky Pete (the stinkiest of all the Petes). I love you. I love how you push my face toward yours for kisses when you think my attention has wandered. I love how you pronounce everything with a drawl, sort of English, but a lot Southern. I love your energy and your story-telling and that you want to be next to me all the time. I love standing in the parking lot and leaning over you in your car seat for last minute hugs as I leave for work. I love your high, excited voice when I talk to you on the phone. You are my everything, my every day. I can't believe three-and-a-half years have passed already since the day I first held you in my arms. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Valentine,

Mommy

"Everyday," Fiona Apple & Jon Brion

Just Joy | king of the impossible

• At the playground, I'm pushing Mads in a swing, but fret aloud about the cold. He reassures me, his hair whipping around his face, "I love the cold. I love the wind. The wind makes me wild!"
• Twice in one day, at my grandma's house and then later my own, I coax cats to me--Doc Holliday at Grandma's house, small and black, Thorn Rex at mine, large and black. I call Doc in the ringing "kittykittykitty" I was taught as a girl; Thorn prefers to be meowed at in his own language. Both cats meet my finger tips with cold noses, they both lay at my feet and offer their bellies to be rubbed, both let me pick them up and nuzzle my face into their fur. 
• By intuition or chance, on a Tuesday morning, I dressed in a skirt and blouse with the optimal amount of swish and sway in their materials and then, on my afternoon dinner break from work, I walk to the neighborhood grocery store for a deli sandwich and the wind whips about me, playing in the folds of my clothes. I nod and smile to the residents of the surrounding townhomes and apartments as so many of them take advantage of this 70 degree winter day and walk the greenway path with groceries in their arms. I sit in the grass on a hill, take my shoes off, and know I look like a witch because I feel like one.
• 'It is Preschool Story Time at Eva Perry, and our letter of the day is 'W'. Ms. Mary pulls a wolf puppet out of her tote bag ('W' is for wolf), and we all--Ms. Mary, kids, parents, puppet--throw our heads back and hooowwwl.
• We're home for the evening, and I'm sipping a hard cider. At Mads' request, I put the Flash Gordon soundtrack on the turn table, then I sit and watch him perform an athletic dance, half kung fu/half ballet.
• I've put Mads to bed and have started washing dishes in the kitchen when I hear him up and in the hallway. As I walk him back to his bedroom he tells me, "You didn't give me a big hug." I pick him up and hold him against me, his arms and legs wrapped tight around me, his head tucked into the crook of my neck, and I rock with him until he tells me, "Okay Mommy, put me down now," ready to sleep. I lay him down, tuck the Star Trek blanket his dad sewed around him, and tell him I love him and goodnight.
• It is only five minutes before we need to be out the door; the car is warming, and I have yet to finish packing up my lunch, but I am riveted watching the new snail in the fish bowl in our kitchen. For the first time in the two days since bringing the snails home (two, one for each fish bowl), I'm seeing it move up the side of the bowl, sending out a long feeler and antennae. I watch it slide along the glass, then retract and shut its shell like a door when the blue beta swims close to investigate.
• I get into the car after work, and Mads asks for a knock knock joke. He laughs mightily over my "orange you glad to see me."
• I lift Mads out of the car, hold him on my hip and point to Venus in the sky. I say, "look at that big star," and Mads says, "lets wish on it."

"Flash's Theme," Queen

Madmartigan, 3 Years Old

Sir Madmartigan

A photo posted by Michelle Vaughn (@wolfpeople) on Nov 20, 2016 at 1:41pm PST

About Mads, 3 Years & 4 Months Old:

• Mads knows the difference between "right" and "left."
• Mads, under the influence of his cousin Ella, has started taunting in a sing-song, "na na na naa naa."
• Mads calls Bojangles "Bonejangles."
• Mads says, "Mommy called me Damn It!"
• On the ride to work one day, Mads tells me a little girl he saw is his friend. Then, without prompting, he sililoquies: "She is my best friend. She is my sweetheart. I wrap her in a blanket, and I kiss her." He also frequently puts his little hand on my face and tells me, "You're my sweetheart, Mommy," or, "You're so cute, Mommy."
• Mads says "awesome!"
• If I call him beautiful or handsome, he corrects, "No, Mommy, I'm cool."
• Martigan's favorite books this month: Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds & Peter Brown, Hey That's My Monster by Amanda Noll & Howard McWilliam, Janine by Maryann Cocca-Leffler
• Martigan's favorite movie/show this month: Justin Time and Justin Time Go

This little Radio Flyer tricycle appeared under our tree two Christmases ago. It's taken Mads this long to figure out how to pedal it, though we've been working on pedaling this whole time, on and off. He's so proud of this new skill, so triumphant. I'm reminded once again to trust his pace. He'll figure things out. #madmartigan #sonshine #3yearsold

A photo posted by Michelle Vaughn (@wolfpeople) on Nov 29, 2016 at 7:16am PST

Caught Mads eating chocolate chip waffles in bed, and it was so funny I couldn't really be mad. Also, he's sick so he gets a free pass, right? #momfail

A photo posted by Michelle Vaughn (@wolfpeople) on Dec 8, 2016 at 1:36pm PST

Just Joy | your generator gens but your pistons don't work

• I am sitting at the dining room table with Mads early in the AM, before the sun has risen, shucking corn, listening to The Classical Station and Lunchbox contentedly chewing his kibble. I see out the kitchen window Wolfman's lantern traversing the yard and, then, the fire he builds in the backyard fire pit.
• It is the end of the day, and I've managed, with extreme patience and gentleness, to get Mads in his pajamas and ready for bed. He sits in my lap as we look at a pop-up book Grandma recently sent over to us, a book I remember from my childhood--Jan Pienkowski's Haunted House. We turn all the wheels, fold back all the cabinet doors, discover all the ghosts and black cats and dancing skeletons in the pages together.
• I ask to leave work early, and my request is immediately granted, and I am looking at a long weekend of my favorite holiday with my favorite people, though I hadn't planned for it, and I feel like a genie has granted me a wish.
• I am swinging at the playground, my little boy in the swing next to me being pushed by his dad, and the trees and sky are so beautiful, my menfolk so beautiful. It's warm out but not hot, and we are in the shade. My stomach keeps flipping.
• I am elbows deep in greasy pizza with Grandma, Ella, and my boy, and though I know my stomach will ache later, I am so happy in this moment, and this is totally worth it.
• Mads and I are tidying his room up, getting ready for bed, and I hear Wolfman singing along to the radio from the living room. He is singing "Lets Dance" in his best Bowie voice, so Mads and I rush into the living room to dance.
• My men have let me sleep in an extra hour before waking me by climbing into bed with me and snuggling close--Wolfman, Mads, and the dog, all piled under the sheets next to me.
• Wolfman and I are alone in the house unexpectedly, our sonshine spending the day with Grandma. My love is sitting close to me on the sofa holding my hand, which he picks up to examine. He presses my thumb between his two thumbs to compare sizes and tells me, "Your fingers are so tiny," and I am reminded of the night we first kissed, when he held my hand and expressed awe at how beautiful he found it. I'm rather fond of my hands, myself, but I think because he was fond of them first.
• I am riding in the trunk of the car, not entirely comfortably, staring out the window at sky and tree tops. Periodically, Martigan calls back to me, "How are you doing back there, Mommy?" And, "Look at that sky, Mommy!" a sentiment of awe I've expressed to him thousands of times during the course of his life so far. It feels so good to hear him repeat it back to me.

"Surfin Dead," The Cramps