I promised myself I wouldn’t write any more Palin-ontology posts. Susan, on the clothesline blog (http://www.clotheslineblog.com/) suggests that we should all shut about Sarah and concentrate instead on getting Obama elected, so that Sarah will slink back (in all senses of “slink”) to The Refuge State and concentrate on her per diem paychecks (suspended during the campaign) and on making sure that all of Alaska gets their hearts right with god.
So instead I will write … about my children. The younger one. He’s four years old and deeply attached to what we call his “little plastic friend” (or LPF, aka his pacifier). He calls the LPF his “nookie,” and boy you should see the heads swivel on crowded Manhattan streets when this child calls out from his stroller (or the back of my bike, or as he trots along beside me holding my hand), “I WANT NOOKIE! NOOKIE, NOOKIE, NOOKIE!”
I imagine grown men walk by him and mutter to themselves, “Me too, kid, me too.”
Except when thwarted in his desire for nookie, Caleb is a pretty cheerful little boy (and hey, aren’t we all crabby when we’re thwarted in that particular desire?). He’s usually all dimples and smiles — and the occasional right hook, but that’s another post.
So the other morning, as we stood waiting for the elevator to go to school, on a lovely September day, it seemed out of character for him to be frowning, mournful, as worried as a shareholder in Lehman Brothers. He chewed on his nookie like a poker-playing old man chews on a cigar.
Me: Caleb, what’s wrong? You look so sad.
Caleb: I don’t want to get old, Mommy. I don’t want to die.
Me neither, kid, me neither.
