The Never Normal

Yesterday Jonah played the blue shirt rag; that is to say he blubbered into two rags, one after another, both made from Andy’s blue t-shirts irreparably torn in an aggression.   There are plenty of t-shirt rags as Andy has sacrificed many, many shirts in Jonah’s attempt to turn them, one by one, into Incredible Hulk Halloween costumes.

And Jonah nearly often requests Andy change his shirt.  “Blue shirt?” he demand-requests, leading his father to the bedroom dresser t-shirt drawer and rummaging through to find something blue.  Always he wants daddy in a blue t-shirt, never any other color – though what passes for blue, some days, is more like grey or faded green.  Daddy only has so many shirts to destroy, and only so many of those are blue.

As a result, poor Andy gets a lot of t-shirts for his birthday (coming up soon!) and Christmas and Father’s Day, all destined to be worn and ripped in relatively short order.

So yesterday, yeah.  The blue shirt rag.   In what I considered a behavioral triumph, Jonah worked himself into a frenzy on his car ride, crying out “no school tomoww-ow!” over and over until he was a slobbery snotty mess.

Andy pulled over quietly and handed him blue rag one while I filmed a bit of the scene.  I call it a behavioral triumph because Boo only kicked twice, and half-heartedly at that, before indulging in a crying jag instead.  Poor kid.  But he worked it out, God bless him, despite a great mess of snot and tears.  Andy and I mostly sat quietly, waiting, until there were long enough pauses between the wails to insert a calming word or two.

After deeming blue rag one full to capacity, Andy whisked it away, handing Jonah blue rag two. 

So emo.

“Here,” he says, making as if to hand me blue rag one.  I stare at the goobery glob of it and we laugh.  Jonah gets his shit together in the back seat with blue rag two and Andy tosses blue rag one to the floor. 

After this Jonah is fine, as if he needed to purge the sad, sad notion of school tomorrow before getting on with his day.  After all, who among us can truly say they have not ever dreaded school tomorrow?

Thank you, peeps, for the rallying cries that leave me strengthened and fortified.  Like Wheaties.  And O, Harlow, how you do go on.  I hear you.  Who’ll stop the rain indeed?

I appreciate it all.