blow by blow

Drew has been blowing on people like the Big Bad Wolf. I cannot remember if it started at the dinner table when I was making a big blustery deal out of blowing on some hot food so Drew wouldn’t summarily reject it altogether even after it had achieved temperature equilibrium. It might have started there. Or it may have started during peek-a-boo session with Drew and the blanket he loves to wrap around my face like a berka before ripping it away in delight.  (He blows on my face to fix the hair that gets messed up in the process—apparently because his highest ambition in life seems to be following in the footsteps of Ken Paves.)

The game, however it originated, is this: Drew blows at me and I act as if Derek Jeter has nailed me in the face with an aluminum bat. It’s pretty simple. And you can imagine how amusing this is to a toddler. Drew will blow at me from his car seat, from the other room, from anywhere. And Gordon too because that is even FUNNIER.

Drew thought he would expand his repertoire this week and blew at the grocery clerk on Tuesday. She just laughed, and as you probably guessed, did not slam her head back as if being punched in the face. You can’t blame her because the rules of Drew’s game are not readily apparent to the casual observer. After all, Drew also blows on flowers instead of sniffing them in a rather dyslexic use of the senses, so what he is trying to achieve with all this huffing and puffing is somewhat hazy. Drew blew at his preschool teacher Wednesday and she cooed and made the generic comment that all adults say to children with whom they are not related but whose parents are standing in the vicinity: “aren’t you cute!”

Later in the day, Drew blew at a little fellow toddler at the park. She stared at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. I might need to educate him in the ways of women. Or just give him a breath mint. 
 

Getting Malled

“Cupka,” said Drew, holding out his clammy paw, reaching for his cup. (My son is apparently German, now). He sucked on his water. We were heading through the mall like nomads, treading the new territory of the Dropped Afternoon Nap.

We stopped at the Food Court where Drew ate blueberries and Goldfish I had packed. A little old lady flashed Drew a mangled grin, her head popping out of the red turtleneck that went on for miles around her.

We had just entered through Nieman Marcus, the only entrance at the mall with handicap buttons that open automatically for rich handicapped people, and for moms with strollers. On my way through to the mall, I actually picked up a Christian Louboutin pink satin sandal in all its $795 majesty. (I didn’t buy it, I literally picked it up off the table, turned it over to see the price, and put it back like it was Lenin’s nose that had fallen off). Nieman’s is like the cold, shiny surface of Pluto. And like Pluto, it was devoid of life that day--except those of us using the handicap doors.

Once in the mall, we walked along the broad skylight-lit corridor where everything smells like pretzels and warm glass, and made our way to the food court for a snack, and then on to Dillard’s to take the elevator down. (Drew loves elevators, and I’ve had some close calls with escalators.) We were heading for the indoor playground, the only oasis of entertainment I could think of to fill the time Drew used to spend sleeping.

A blond eight-year-old girl and her younger be-speckled sidekick were playing some type of blood sport, flailing and falling and rolling like boys. One of them knocked Drew down hard on his bottom. He began to fuss a little, mostly to sympathize with the look of horror on my face. The girl didn’t realize what had happened, but her friend the blond one did, and made it her goal for the rest of our time to make amends.

She pushed her friend, the short one with glasses, right on up to me where I sat on the long cushioned bench around the perimeter of the play area. The girl was grinning with terror. “Ask her!” hissed Blondie. Nothing came out. Her friend persisted, “She wants to know if we can play with your baby.” Right. I was really going to turn my son over to the Reservoir Dogs.

“You want to play with my baby?” I repeated dumbly.

“We want to play DAY CARE.”

“Um. Well. We’re just about to leave.”

“I go to day care, after school,” she announced proudly. Why, then, are you here, terrorizing toddlers?

She persisted, “I know another baby named Drew.”

“Really?” My comebacks were ever so wickedly pointed.

I believe they could sense the mother bear in me ready to stand up on her hind legs. They backed off momentarily. Meanwhile, Drew had stolen the shoe of a baby his age and I attended to its proper return.

When Blondie and Bumbling made another attempt to play with Drew (this involved jumping around him like monkeys---I believe he was supposed to have been a puppy in their messed-up third grade jungle), I snuck Drew out of the play area. I needed a time out.

After we got home and Gordon had come home, he asked if his mother had called the house. I didn’t know, because I had been out. I checked my cell phone and sure enough she had called that too.

“Mom thinks the house next to us is running a meth lab.”

Excuse me? (Insert sound effect here: screeching halt of tires on asphalt).

“She saw a thing on the news. People who put trash bags up on their windows are a dead giveaway.” (We live in an “eclectic” neighborhood). Gordon began to rehash the conversation he had had with his mother—assuring her that we did not notice a lot of “activity” at their house at night and that the trash bags, though an assault on the eyes, were really just for insulation.

But the seed had been planted in my mind. I went directly to www.remax.com to look for new houses--an activity not unlike methamphetamines to my own weak psyche—and Gordon began playing chase with Drew.

I soon gave up and realized that whether it’s crazed prepubescent gal pals or shady neighbors, my sweet Drew will never be completely insulated from real life.

Unless. UNLESS WE MOVE TO NEIMAN MARCUS, AMONGST TRINA TURK, THEORY and PRADA. And we shall eat at The Zodiac every meal and sleep on the chaise lounges at night. And all will be right with the world, and my child shall always be impeccably dressed, forever and ever. Amen.

(Man, I need a cupka with something strong right about now…)