Morning

Today I will remember the three of us sitting together, lined up across the red brick steps. The October air hangs above us, crisp this morning. The cottonwood leaves flutter across our feet as we wait together on the front step. Kai wears his kelly green dinosaur footy pajamas, the ones I bought at Target right after we returned home from China. He was always cold. They still fit, but barely. In a few weeks I will pull them out of his closet only to find his body no longer matches their size, his feet will stretch past the fleece companions. I will fold the yellow, green and blue dinosaurs up neatly and place them in the pile on the top self of his closet, clothes to be placed in the attic.

Elizabeth, freshly bathed 30 minutes earlier, carries her backpack. She’s stuffed the outer pocket full of miniature books. I can hear her reading them at night after we’ve tucked her into bed. It seems no less than a miracle that she can read all by herself. Years of teaching other people’s children to read failed to prepare me for such surprised joy.

Kai holds a squirrel puppet in his hand. His teachers cut the squirrel out of card stock yesterday at school. He apparently ran a brown crayon across the animal’s body enough times to label it “brown” and then quit coloring. Several squares of fake brown fur are stuck to the squirrel like the small circles of toilet paper haphazardly pressed upon a bleeding nick while shaving.

Kai presents his furry friend to us,moving the stick up and down, dancing the rodent about, as happy squirrels do. He stops the show frequently to reassure Elizabeth and me over and over again, “Not real, not real.” Giving both of us a telling glimpse into the past. Perhaps the garish fake fur looked a little too real for Kai when he first laid eyes on it yesterday. In order to illustrate to him that we are indeed not at all scared, Elizabeth and I admire and stroke the thick, heavy swatches. Kai keeps his hand firmly wrapped around the stick. This squirrel has been domesticated.

Earlier this morning I cut up pancakes and syrup, painted fingernails, red and pink, every other nail with the special sparkle polish on top, sang to a new children’s CD telling us to “Take care of the earth, take care of the sky, take care of the water while the waves roll on by,” doled out snuggles in our over-sized navy blue chair, and grabbed a fistful of toilet paper for a bloody nose. I fielded questions, “Where is Daddy?”

And tossed out the answers, “He had to leave early for work today.” We discussed schedules, “We’ve been visiting the library on Fridays lately guys...should we head there today after school?” To which they both clapped and shouted, “YES!”

A few minutes pass outside, as the gray sky yawns open above our heads. “I hear it!” Kai shouts as the grumbling bus rounds the bend, lumbering up to our driveway, where it groans to a halt. Elizabeth slides off the step, throws Kai and I kisses, and runs down the pitch of our driveway to climb the steep steps leading her up into the bus. Kai follows her, his wide, almost black eyes tracking the white and pink saddle shoes of his big sister. All the way down the driveway, he slices the squirrel through the air in smooth figure eights for the bus driver to see.

As a parting gesture, Bob the bus driver, waves good morning from his lofty chair and then proceeds to fold up the door and my daughter, as she finds her little partner and sits down. The bus hungrily surges ahead, ready to sweep up the rest of the students who wait patiently at the curb. Kai waves excitedly until the bus slips completely out of view. Cars passing our house slow down, smiling up at my pajama boy through their passenger side windows. His exuberance must remind them of their youth, their dewy children, their own small nephew, their wide smiled neighbor boy. It is a good way to begin the day.

With my daughter safely sealed inside the warm bus on its way to her kindergarten classroom, my son raises his hands, he stands ready to lose contact with the ground and wrap his arms around my neck instead. One child leaves,while the other remains. Kai remembers his puppet and smiles at it, “Not scary!” he says, finally convinced. “Nope,” I say kissing his plump cheeks, cool and smooth on my grateful lips, “Not scary at all.”