November

There was a roaring in the wind all night
The rain came heavily and fell in floods

It's November now, and the sun goes down before dinner. There are damp leaves blowing through the back yard, and we need to remember to close the curtains and fasten the windows at night. The grass is stiff with frost in the morning, and in the evening it smells wet with decay and darkness.

Little boys get sick with croupy coughs and wake in the middle of cold nights. There foreheads burn and they lay under blankets with bottles of old water and salt crackers in plastic dishes.

In the evenings, I still sit in a black suit on a dazzling-lit stage, looking up at splendid boxes of people towering overhead as hundreds of different sound-colors buzz above me and the the orchestra tunes up. The ride home will be warm, a car full of merry young friends bundled in coats

But when I step outside into the dark street again it will be November. I find some pleasure and comfort in the chill and the darkness. It's good to be reminded of your own mortality--how life is dangerous and the weather can be wild. It's good to see your baby's fever break and to watch them get better. It's good to get under heavy blankets with a warm wife when it's cold and dark out, and to know that the roaring wind can't reach inside your walls.

A cup of hot coffee, a child on your lap, sturdy windows, and a bowl of hot soup never mean so much as when the real world has reminded you that it isn't a tame lion.

Grocery Shopping (or, A Child In Need of a Nap)

James is sick.

He has some kind of cold, and his nose is running all the time. He walks around the apartment sniffling and sniffling some more until he can't stand the drip, and then he reaches up with his left hand, swipes left, and then wipes all the goop onto his cheek. Unless he happens to be holding George or Steven, in which case he holds them up to his face, swipes left, and then gives them a hug. Or if he's standing around a parent, in which case he grabs a fistful of clothing, swipes left, and then gives George or Steven a hug.

The past couple of days have been pretty gross.

I'm not feeling so great either. I have a sore throat, and I'm pretty low on energy. I don't know if I caught what James has, or if it stems from going back to teaching lessons. Probably a combination of both.

The hardest part about a sick little boy isn't actually the runny nose, though. It's the lack of sleep. He just can't get comfortable for a nap, so he twists and turns (making, I believe, a genuine effort to fall asleep) for an hour, then gives up on the whole project and decides he's up for the afternoon. Between the muggy heat and the runny nose, he doesn't have a chance. He's missed three days of naps in a row, and he's getting really cranky. The first nap he missed was after he stayed up until 10 PM at the baseball game, and then he skipped after church on Sunday and yesterday as well. He's all wrung-out emotionally. Either he's super hyper or flopping on the furniture barely awake. He doesn't listen, he gets irritated really easily, and he's even started hitting us.

"Hey, do you think we should all go to the grocery store today?"

It's a big deal to go to Aldi, or as James calls it "the grocery store next to Tim Horton's." It means we get a Timbit. James has been finding coins in the car and in the parking lot, and saving up for a "toklot timbit."

He did okay for the first part of the trip. He helped Mommy put the quarter in the cart, and was only getting upset when he'd accidentally drop a train into the back of the cart. (This started to happen a lot.) Then he started swatting at me, trying to take a potshot. "Don't hit Daddy." "It's funny!" "Don't hit Daddy."

I sang a little bit and tapped on the side of the cart. I had Vince Guaraldi's "Treat Street" stuck in my head.

James took this as a cue that it's okay to sing in the grocery store. He started out by singing Jingle Bells and tapping on the cart like I was. It was okay. Then he get louder. He was singing The Imperial March and banging on the front of the cart like it was a set of timpani. Some young Moms with children started glancing at him as we walked by. "Remember to use your inside voice, James." Then he started in on "I Wanna Be Like You" and was banging away on some pretend drumset as loud as he could. The passing-by Moms looked disdainfully on as their well-behaved children gawked at the out of control boy with goop running down his top lip.

J sent us to get a timbit so she could bag the groceries on her own.

"Okay, James, tell him what you want."
"A tokwat timbit!"
"And how do you ask?"
"Peeeez!"
"Okay, give him your quarter."
"And now what do you say?"
"My Daddy is gonna need a coffee too."