Coloring with Henry.

Scene: the kitchen. Henry and I are coloring in his and my new favorite book, Scribbles. I had a book like this when I was little, and I think it was called the Anti-Coloring Book, or the Counter-Culture Coloring Book, or the Hippie Love Down With the Man Groove-Tastic Coloring Experience. I loved it so. Anyway! Henry’s drawing on a page that depicts a zoo. You’re supposed to draw the zoo animals. Only Henry’s not drawing an animal because he plays by no one’s rules. No, he’s drawing a giant cockroach. He pronounces it “cock-a-roach,” because he’s the reincarnation of Jimmy Durante.

“The cockaroach is zapping all the people with his mystic light force,” he says, drawing purple lines emanating from the bug to each hapless zoo-goer. Continuing to draw, he says, “Sometimes instead of cockaroach, for short I say ‘roach.’”

“Sure,” I say. I’m busy coloring the security guard. He’s terribly jaundiced, poor thing.

“Sometimes instead of cockaroach I just say ‘cock,’” he adds.

“Oookay,” I say.

Then he tells me, “The giant cock is taking over the world.”

At that second Scott teleports himself from his office directly to our kitchen, shouts, “That’s my boy!” and then whoosh, back to his office.

Maybe whoosh isn’t the right word. Frrring! I think that’s more like it.

We'll take a preposition with that.

At a diner in Chelsea on Saturday night, Henry communicated his preference for my grilled-cheese cooling techniques over his own by loudly declaring the following:

“Mommy can blow it! Mommy blows EVERYTHING!”

At least it was in Chelsea, where no one really cares.

A brief account of the festivities.

The piñata was one of those pull-the-string dealies, after all. I had no idea. When I bought it I assumed all those ribbons at the bottom were a festive touch. Then I saw the words “PULL-THE-STRING PINATA,” and after a few minutes of sounding it out I figured out what was up. It’s amazing I can get through the day without setting myself on fire.

The actual pulling open of the piñata was anticlimactic. The children quickly lost patience with the idea of taking turns with one ribbon each, so after one round of that we gave up and Henry yanked all of them. At this a small door opened at the bottom and exactly nothing fell out. I had to reach in and fish out the candy and toys. Piece by piece they thunked to the floor. Most of the kids were around Henry’s age or younger, and were impressed with the goings-on but didn’t fully grok that they could take more than one item. They each picked up one sticker or fun-sized candy and ambled away, asking their parents if they could really keep it. Henry grabbed a lollipop and was pleased. The lone six-year-old, the most senior party attendee and apparently a seasoned pro at the piñata, was down there grabbing everything, unable to believe her good fortune. The preschoolers sat back and admired her technique.

After the day was over, we sat down and realized there had been no tears, no bloodshed, no missing limbs. My newly minted four-year-old managed nearly ten hours of festivities (there were two parties in one day: the morning one with the kids, then the evening appearance of the grandparents and aunts and uncles) with style and grace. He greeted his guests with enthusiasm, said “thank you” to each gift, and invited his friends to share his loot. At one point he got a Woody doll and spent the night observing, “I used to have a tiny Woody but now I have a really big Woody!” We all tried not to snicker, and failed. We tried to resist the urge to get him to say it again, and failed at that too.

So in other words, all the misbehavior came from the adults.

It's raining men!

Me: "What do you want for your birthday, Henry?"

Him: "I need lots of guys."