Let's take all our clothes off and kiss and kiss and kiss

I overheard a kind of funny conversation the other day between the boy and his friend, the other boy. As I walked past his bedroom, I heard them talking about sex, so I had to listen in and see what they had to say.

The boy: Sex is when people take off all their clothes and kiss and kiss and kiss.

Other boy: No, sex is when you put your finger in a girl's, you know.

The boy: Balls?

Other boy: No, her pee-pee. You put your finger in her pee-pee and that means you're having sex.

The boy: She'd slap you if you did that.

Other boy: No, they like it.

The boy: No, girls would slap you for doing that.

Other boy: No, really, girls like it. It makes them go crazy!

The boy is seven, while the other boy is almost nine, which might explain why he has a more technical idea and a more accurate sense of what sex is than my son does.

Gee, can you remember that? The curiosity and total ignorance we once had about this super-significant, massively secret but at the same time all over the place, mysterious act called sex? At some point, sex became so ubiquitous and commonplace it's easy to imagine we were born knowing all about it. I remember, though, when I was a kid, trying to find out without daring to ask anyone who would actually know--what the heck is it and why do people do it, and especially why do people talk about it all the time?

Ah, then puberty brings enlightenment, and it isn't long before we're adults and so jaded that there isn't a sex act performed anywhere on earth that would shock us.

Don't Fear the Reaper

My fairies are moving out, sadly, and they bestowed upon the boy a gift this weekend past, a goodbye present: an impossibly soft, kitten-sized black bunny named Jack, who loved to be held and played with. So enraptured with Jack was my son that they became inseparable. If Jack was not clutched in a loving deathgrip by the boy, he was snuggled up in a ball against the boy's chest while he watched cartoons or hopping happily around at the boy's feet or on the boy's bed while the boy slept, quietly munching lettuce and leaving chocolate M&M's to show his appreciation and devotion.

After a day or so, the boy seemed to understand the need to be gentle and delicate when handling the bunny, and I no longer had to remind him, "Take it easy!" and "Use both hands!"

This morning, he asked if he could bring Jack in the car with us while we ran errands. Sure, why not? In the post office, people said, "Aww..." and paused to pet the bunny. At Lowe's I glanced over to see Jack hopping along obediently at his feet while he danced around in the aisle. In the car, he rode like a little fluffy black lapdog, perfectly content.

I sat at my desk working this afternoon, and the boy came running in, crying. At seven, he does not cry lightly but only when something is dreadfully, seriously in a bad bad way, like when he has to get a shot at the doctor's office or when the sleep-over he and his friend have been planning for days gets canceled because his friend got grounded for telling his mom to shut up.

"Mom! Something happened to Jack!"

I looked up in time to see his horrified expression. "What? What happened?"

"Jack's dead!" he cried, dumping for dramatic effect onto my lap the still-warm carcass of Jack the bunny, now indeed, unquestionably deceased.

Oh my.

Have you ever been deeply engrossed in your work one minute, only to find yourself staring at a dead animal on your lap the next and faced with the task of comforting a near-hysterical seven-year-old whose understanding of death comes from Star Wars movies and Super Mario?

"I tried to heal him," the boy said, looking at me with wide, scared eyes, clearly hoping that I could do something, that I could "heal him."
I was unsure whether to join the boy in woeful tears of loss, or launch into a philosophical discussion of the absurdity of life and the certainty of death, or perhaps lecture the boy ("See! This is what happens when you don't take care of your things!")

But, of course, what I wanted more than anything was the power to resurrect poor Jack and bring him back for my son, who had done nothing but eat-sleep-poop-walk-play-dance-talk-laugh-and-sing black bunny for the past three days.

Turns out, he dropped him. He was holding him "with both hands, Mom, I promise, I really swear!" and Jack started squirming, clawed the boy and escaped his grip, only to fall to his doom. A broken neck, I suppose, is the official cause of death.

Being faced unexpectedly with comforting the grieving boy, I was also suddenly aware that I needed to figure out what to do with poor Jack's remains. Must I really perform a proper burial, a bunny funeral, right now in the middle of a busy afternoon? Or can I simply dispose of poor

Jack as efficiently as possible, say a few kind words of farewell as I wrap him in newspaper and dump him in a trashbag at the curb? It was clear as I sat there blinking at the dead bunny, I needed to decide quickly.

Now, hours later, the boy is still mourning. "I lost my best friend," he said to me with eyes most solemn and forlorn just a few moments ago. "I miss Jack."

Our Taco puppy appears to be taking Jack's passing better than we; he wants to play. And after a heavy sigh, the boy shuffles off with his dog to find the stuffed dolphin they like to play fetch with.

I have a Dream

“We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.”

The boy got a note in his folder yesterday from his teacher. Such notes usually say things like “The boy crawled upon his belly like a reptile in the cafeteria line. Please speak to him,” or “The boy used inappropriate language on the bus.” Frankly, I find these school administration types here in Texas to be a little uptight and eager to tattle on the children to the parents, as though they themselves never developed a post-first-grade mentality or as though they expect us parents to “do something” about every little thing our child does at school.

Yesterday’s note said, “The boy told another student that he doesn’t like black people and doesn’t like Martin Luther King. Please speak to him.” I spoke to the boy, who said he didn’t say he doesn’t like black people, but he might have said he doesn’t like MLK. He either said that or he said “I’m tired of hearing about MLK,” or perhaps “I don’t care about MLK.” If he actually said he doesn’t like MLK, then what he meant was he’s sick of hearing about him, and I can’t say that I blame him.

My son, a white boy, is a minority at this school. This is, in all honesty, a situation I probably would hardly notice at all, since I myself grew up in a black neighborhood, except there have been racial undertones churning underneath the surface from day one. When we first moved here, the boy was the only white child at the bus stop in the mornings. The other children (African American) were shockingly rude and mean to him from day one. He’d try to get their attention, they’d turn coldly away. He’d try to play with them, they’d mock him. They were so rude and nasty, I wondered how truly awful they would be to him if I weren’t standing there watching.

Eventually, more white kids moved in until the racial mix was almost even at the bus stop. Something surprising happened. Instead of becoming a melting pot where the blacks and the whites and the Mexicans all tolerated and learned to appreciate each other, the bus stop became even more drastically segregated. When the number of white children reached four or five, the eight or nine black children began waiting for the bus inside their parents’ cars. They don’t even mix with the white folk now at all. When the bus comes, they file out of the cars and go stand quietly in line, ignoring everyone. I’ve watched this situation develop in fascination over the months, and I wish I could provide an explanation for it.

Anyway, having seen this, and having heard my son come home from school day after day talking about Martin Luther King, I have no doubt that he’s telling the truth when he says he’s just sick of hearing about him already. Clearly the school made a big, big deal out of this historical figure, as a show of how racially tolerant and diverse they are. (Even in a mostly-black school, most of the administration appears to be white.) The kids at school—the same sort of rude African American children I see at the bus stop—picked up on the underlying “tone” or significance of MLK and began waving the words around like a flag. Ad nauseum. Any interaction with a white kid will be peppered with the words “Martin” and “Luther” and “King,” driving some kids to say something along the lines of “Oh, I just don’t care about Martin Luther King!” or maybe even “So what? I don’t like Martin Luther King!” which prompts the little black person to gleefully run to the teacher and inform her, “Joey said he doesn’t like black people.”

Just like in the adult world, an accusation of racial prejudice or intolerance must not be ignored and must be nipped in the bud. It’s treated in a very serious manner, with a somber note from the teacher and an expectation that the parents will give proper attention to their child’s racial sensitivity.

I’m probably the most racially non-offensive person I know. Like I said, I grew up on the “dark” side of the tracks, and race and color aren’t typically something I notice or think about when I meet new people, but even I am sick of Martin Luther King types and ready to get out of this neighborhood and its undercurrent of hostility.