Jurassic Park & Sex Ed.

It really doesn't take much to tie these two subjects together, I promise. Really.

It all began this way...

I came home from work today exhausted from an overly-long shift, but needing to go pick up Hubby. Special Edition, who's down for the weekend, opted to come along.

Middle also asked if she could come, because she "wanted to talk to Daddy."

I was already feeling the burn of aches in both head and right ankle and could not imagine how this wasn't going to help, but I couldn't find a legit reason to say no. So off the three of us went. It was a fairly quiet car ride until Hubby actually got in the car, at which point Middle was full of news and tidbits and stories she was bursting at the seams to share.

Among them was that there is a young boy in her class who is autistic, who did not seem to grasp during a science-class discussion on Jurassic Park that getting eaten by velociraptors was not a fun thing to have happen. Our nephew Mickey is autistic, so it was a bit of a teachable moment regarding this other student—who Middle admitted is cute-like-a-kitten but not boyfriend-cute—and how he compares to her cousin, who she knows a little better.

Middle found herself perplexed about something, though. "I don't understand why I can't watch Jurassic Park."

I was driving still and trying to keep my eyeballs both inside my head and on the road. I remember my father's perceptions of the movie from twenty-some years ago, and it wasn't age-appropriate for a ten-year-old then.

Hubby explained that it was the violence and the gore and the scare factor.

Middle remained unconvinced. "I think it's just stupid. It can't be all that scary."

There was a pause, and then she asked about tree sap turning into amber. "Isn't that how they got the velociraptors?"

Yes, Hubby confirmed, in the movie, scientists extracted dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes and other biting bugs trapped in amber, and cloned the dinosaurs from that DNA.

Middle: Didn't they do that [cloning] with sheep, too?

Hubby: Yes.

Middle: Well, how'd they do it?

I was so glad I was driving and Hubby was having to answer this one.

Hubby: Well, you've learned about cells, right? And the structures inside them?

Middle recited several cell structures for plant cells.

Hubby: There's this stuff called DNA.

Middle: D-what?

Hubby: DNA. It's in your chromosomes. It's the pattern that tells your body how to make you.

Middle: Right.

Hubby: You need both—chromosomes and DNA—to come together to make a dinosaur.

Middle: But how do they get that to get the dinosaur?

Hubby: Well, you know how babies are made, right?

Middle: No.

Poor Hubby. He was banking on Middle at least knowing that it takes a mommy and a daddy whatever to make a baby.

Hubby: Well, the women...the girls...the females have eggs.

Middle: So we're chickens?

I slapped a hand over my mouth and just kept driving, just kept driving, just kept driving...

Hubby: No. [trying desperately not to chuckle] No. These are tiny, tiny eggs.

Middle: I have eggs inside me?

Hubby: Yes, you do. And inside those eggs are your chromosomes.

Middle: Special Edition, you look uncomfortable.

Special Edition: For many reasons.

Hubby: Males also have DNA and chromosomes inside them...

SE: [sighs]

Hubby: ...and you need the chromosomes from the mom and the chromosomes from the dad...

SE: [sighs]

Hubby: ...and you mix them together in order to get a baby.

Middle: And that's what they did to get the dinosaurs?

Hubby: Yes.

Middle: But how did they mix it together? Does he throw up in her mouth or something?

Hubby hooted with laughter. Special Edition could not contain herself and howled.

I sat in the driver's seat and knew I'd missed something important because they were both laughing so hard.

Me: Okay, what did she say? Because I missed it...

SE: [still howling] She asked if he throws up in her mouth...

Middle: Well, I thought maybe it's when they're kissing...

SE: Why am I always here for these conversations?

Hubby chuckled, clearly enjoying Special Edition's discomfort. Middle jumped right on that bandwagon, too.

Middle: So, how do they mix it?

Hubby: Well, you're 10 now. I suppose you should know. You know that boys and girls are different, right?

Middle: I know they have a this and we have a that. 

I kid you not; that's actually what she said.

Hubby: Did you know that this and that are designed to fit together?

Absolute silence reigned in the car for the next ten seconds, something that hadn't happened in the 28 minutes since we'd picked Hubby up.

Then...

Hubby: Maybe we should continue this conversation in the house.

Middle: Can we continue it in your room? And can Special Edition be there too? And do my sisters have to be there? 

As it turned out, Special Edition needed to get a prescription filled at the pharmacy, so we went to go do that while Hubby got to continue discussing velociraptor love.

While we sat and waited, I heard from him...

Middle: Boys have a penis and girls have a Virginia?


All the parenthood win here tonight, folks.

Misadventures

Today's adventures in parenting:

• Middle got a HUMONGOUS stuffed animal as a prize at church, who conveniently has a name similar to our oldest cat, thus resulting in a lot of confusion when said cat selectively chooses to hear through his ancient ears.

• All three nearly out-ate me at lunch.

• Oldest swallowed a decorative marble, which caused a state of minor emergency, until I called my mother and confirmed that this, too, shall pass. I advise a hefty application of Rule #2 here, but...

• Dinner is a lather/rinse/repeat of lunch.

• I sent the kids up to get ready for bed half an hour late, but that's okay, because there's no school tomorrow. I think.

Yee-haw.

Dinner Jeopardy!

Tonight we did a backwards dinner. It's Hubby's birthday, you see, and he had worship team rehearsal this evening. And despite my prior planning, I did not have dinner ready on time. Or even close to it. Erego, so that Hubby could blow out his candles, have cake, and open presents before he needed to leave, we did that first, and then feasted on spicy honey-glazed chicken tenders, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and green beans after he left.

Not to worry. I made sure to save some for him.

I just wish I could have saved the dinner conversation for him, in which Middle admitted to a fourth-grade crush last year.

Middle: Mom, do you know know who Legolas Greenleaf is?

Me: I know who he is.

Middle: Is it Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of the Mirkwood or Prince of the Dirkwood?

Me (regretting my lack of committing full Tolkien titles to memory): I don't think it's that, but I really don't remember.

Middle: I think it's Prince of the Mirkwood. (pause) In fourth grade, I had a really big crush on Legolas Greenleaf.

I schooled my features so that I did not react at this little revelation. I simply kept on eating my chicken, and kept my amusement private that every mention of Legolas included both his first and last name, as if we wouldn't recognize him without his last name.

Still a heartthrob for the fifth-grade set.

Me: Well, you realize, it's not so much the character who is handsome. It's the actor portraying the character.

Middle: Whatever. He's HAWT.

I was really sad their father was missing this.

Middle: I kind of want to know what the actor looks like.

I don't dare say she pretty much already knows.

Me: Well, he doesn't have long blond hair.

Middle (aghast): Crap! That was the attractive part! (pause) I'll bet he doesn't have the pointy ears, either, does he?

Me (not at all sorry): Nope.

Middle: Crap!

For those of you playing along at home, I did confess to a Legolas crush of my own (I found that incarnation of Orlando Bloom to be far more attractive than his Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), but I was far more in the Aragorn camp than anything else as a result of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Middle didn't ask, so I didn't tell. Heh.

How we then shifted conversation to The Dukes of Hazzard TV show from the 80s is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Middle: Hey, Momma. Do you remember Luke Duke? And what was the name of the other one—the blond?

Youngest: Who?!

Disgust your daughter when you can, ladies.

Middle: Luke Duke. From the old TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard. And the other one. The blond. Who was he?

Me: Bo.

Middle: Right.

She turned to Youngest.

Middle: Not Luke from Jessie.

Youngest: Ohhhh.

Middle: So, Momma, did you ever have a crush on Luke or Bo?

Me: I liked Luke.

Middle (disgusted): Really?

I just nodded.

Alex, I'll take Ways to Show You're Old for $500, thanks.

Sofaeria Pantheris

Hubby came home in the middle of the day. Forced home, actually, despite saying kitten births weren't a new thing to him and he didn't really have to go home and play feline midwife. But his direct supervisor and a coworker were both cat lovers, and they couldn't contain their own excitement on hearing that our little bundles of fluff were arriving.

He finally capitulated and came home an hour early, just to stop them from pestering him about it.

"How many do we have?" he wanted to know, leaning down to pet the panting and laboring Inoa.

"Three for sure." I crouched down next to the box where I'd placed the kitty condo that Inoa had chosen as her birthing room, the bottom opening of which could barely contain her burgeoning belly. She'd been so wedged in when I discovered her that there had almost been a pop when I'd thought to be helpful and liberated her (and, surprise, a kitten) from it several hours before. "I think there's a fourth, though. She won't let me in to check."

Sure enough, a wee bit of black fluff had arrived and had tucked away in the shadows of the condo.

And her surprise arrival was the last quiet thing about her.

Koa, 3 weeks old

The first of what were ultimately a pair of all-black kittens in the litter, Kitten Four (as she was christened, to avoid name attachment) entered the world determined to make it bow to her mighty will.

Once she learned that mouthy cries at the door resulted in the attention of the pale-faced tall ones, she demanded we be her playthings.

Four and a half weeks old was quite old enough, thank you, for her to start weaning herself, as we discovered the morning she tried to eat her mother's kibble because nursing just wasn't cutting it for her anymore. She wanted noms! (Never mind that her teeth weren't big enough to crunch them down. Wee Miss would have all the noms and the milk bar, too!) It's hard to truly say she hogged the plastic dinner plates we used for the soft kitten food, because when no one else is even trying, it's not hogging. Unless you take up the whole plate.

Which she did.

It was around this same time that I realized both tiny bits of black fluff (her and Kitten Six, last (also a surprise) of the litter) were girl kittens. Hubby had set stipulations on this kitten-fostering. We had four cats. We were not acquiring any more. Mama and babies were all going to good homes. Okay, I agreed...unless a black male was born. I wanted a black male. In my tween years, a black male cat belonging to my neighbors had been my dearest friend. Hubby relented.

I wheedled my case for Kitten Four. In truth, she'd already decided she belonged here. She would throw herself at the baby kitten gate (a piece of modular wire shelving) and try to climb it just to try to get to us. She was first at everything: first to eat solid canned food, first to eat kibble, first to litter train.

I wanted my black kitty, even if she wasn't the nice, easy-going male I was hoping for. (Newsflash: she wasn't.)

"Tiny human, this is for me."

Hubby caved. Twice, in fact, because Kitten Four and her older sister Number Three became permanent parts of the family. (Everyone else did, indeed, find good homes.) Three returned to us as Minouchette, and Four became Koa Umalu.

Loosely translated, Koa means fearless. Courageous. Umalu means shadow. Hubby wanted something in her name that hinted at her color.

And fearless she was.

Having decided upon her goal of world domination, she found in her way one immovable obstacle: Popoki.

Po ruled the house with a gentle but iron paw. Almost three and a half years Koa's senior, she didn't have time for this nonsense, and Koa often found herself abruptly slammed back into her proper place in the feline social hierarchy with a heavy paw smack to her head. (Po had a Gibbs-slap before Gibbs did.)

A Suitable Throne

Koa merely took it upon herself to keep everybody under her in line. As she was still a kitten, this was tolerated with some amusement and the occasional headsmack from the other adult cats.

Like the others before her, we taught her to play fetch. And she would, with just about anything. She just wouldn't play return very well. That didn't stop her from wanting to play. She'd drop whatever her current object was six feet from us, and give us that scathing cat look of, "Aren't you going to go get it for me?" We would...at first. I'm now convinced that the fact we stopped is why she would bring things to us in the middle of the night, yowling at the top of her lungs around whatever she had stuffed in her mouth, and leave whatever in the bed.

She was very proud of her kills that she brought to us, too. There were many.

Milk jug rings. Pens. Pom poms. Pens. Small dolls. Pencils. Plastic silverware. Toy lipstick. Legos. Did I mention pens?

If it could be stepped on in the middle of the night, during the day, or in a sleep-induced haze, Koa was probably the source. She made as many messes as the kids.

She also had at least two extra helpings of attitude, which she would vocally express when life went not according to plan.

Koa's spot on the loveseat

She skipped the line for feline grace to get those. I've never seen a clumsier cat. She fell off a pile of blankets she was sleeping on once.

Koa finally achieved total domination of everything from the shingles down in 2012 after we lost Popoki and Keiki in rapid succession. Nobody else put up a fuss. Well, except Mika. But he didn't fuss. He had seniority, she knew it, and the beat went on. She bossed around everyone but him.

She liked the girls a whole lot more as they grew up than when they first arrived as scary interlopers. But when Special Edition came into our lives, Koa annexed her. I often found the two of them together in her room. If Koa wasn't sleeping on her side of the back of the loveseat where I often worked, she was probably in with Special Edition.

"Human, my bowl is empty."

I often wished Koa had been less of an angry little tyrant, and more of a benevolent despot, because I thought she had it in her, but she never got over getting a little brother in 2003. She did not want a personal trainer in the form of a new kitten, and she nursed that grudge for a decade.

I also think that Koa as benevolent despot would be much less Koa of her, so I suppose it all worked out in the wash. She had a personality three sizes bigger than the body that struggled to contain it all.

I noticed in June that she was losing weight at an astonishing rate. We had just come through the crisis with Mika and his abscess and miraculous recovery. We couldn't afford more vet bills. And Koa had been having other health issues as well. I knew her time was drawing close...closer than any of us wanted to admit.

I will sit here and be cute.

After all, Hubby and I had had Koa her entire life. Longer, really. Those three weeks while she was still in her momma's belly counted, too.

Koa didn't want to do the stairs much, although she did them. Usually to leave unpleasant messes for me to clean up. She didn't want to get back up on the back of the loveseat; the cushion next to me was close enough (and definitely in the way enough) to suit her.

In July, I warned Special Edition. I sent her a picture showing how much Koa had deteriorated. And, I promised, she could be there if and when we made the call.

It was about four weeks after that when Hubby finally admitted that Koa had to be suffering, as she was down to skin and bones. So I called and made the appointment with the vet.

Special Edition was devastated.

So was I. As I'd spent time typing up and polishing an old manuscript, Koa had often kept me company. She'd watched over my shoulder as I added scenes. Koa had been a near-constant companion in my little home office.

She really got herself wedged in there once.

We promised Special Edition, who went with us to the appointment, that we would get information first. We wouldn't just do and make a decision without talking to the vet. Dr. C, who had examined Pa'ani and helped lay him to rest, examined Koa.

Her kidneys had shrunk. Koa was in end-stage renal disease, if not outright failure. She also had a tumor on her thyroid.

"But you can fix it?" Special Edition asked desperately.

Dr. C shook his head slowly. "Her kidneys would be far too scarred."

And so, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, after more than sixteen years together, we said goodbye to our dear stubborn friend.

She was stubborn to the end, I can tell you. I was there for the passings of Popoki and Minou, and Hubby was there for Keiki and Pa'ani.

Koa held on to that last breath, hanging on, until she finally, peacefully, let go.

Because, by golly, she wasn't going to go gently into that good night. Not if she could help it.

I wouldn't expect anything less.

Koa Umalu

May 4, 2001 ~ August 15, 2017

A Precise Definition

Several weeks ago...


Middle: Mom, what does obstinate mean?

Hubby: Go look in the mirror.

Me: Stubborn and unmoving.

Middle grinned impishly and without apology.

Father's Day Vignettes

Father's Day is difficult for me. It's one of three hard days lumped very closely together—Dad's birthday, Father's Day, and the day of Dad's death. They usually fit into the span of less than a week. This year was no different. Even my mom elected to come join us on Father's Day in an effort to stay busy.

However, we needn't have worried too much. My kids provided all the distraction we needed from the day.

First, they performed their own version of a vaudeville show, singing and dancing to several songs. If you've never heard VeggieTales' Mr. Lunt covering Jars of Clay's "Flood," you haven't lived.

Then we sat down to play a rollicking game of Big Picture Apples to Apples.

In the course of the game, these happened:

Me [picking nail polish remnants off the table surface]: It's nail polish.

Middle: Speaking of nail polish, don't look at Kimo's foot.

I looked at Hubby, who looked at me, and I grabbed my phone...to go look at Kimo's foot. (Kimo happened to be conveniently snoozing in the dining room, where we were playing.)

Sure enough...

Blue sparkly nail polish. 

Poor Kimo.

*     *     *

Middle [seeing Koa]: Oh, look, it's a cat. Moo. Oh, wait, I mean, meow.

The rest of us: [Unrestrained laughter]

*     *     *

The cards in play:

Hubby [the judge]: There's all these things...and the armadillo. Somehow, I don't think he's useless.

Mom: When it costs you $700 to remove one, armadillos are useless!

(Mom had armadillo problems down in Florida earlier this year. Not a cheap proposition, as she discovered. I really thought my bendy bench—the card you can't see—should've won. Hubby thought it looked comfortable.)

*     *     *

Hubby [reading card]: Ugly. Not pretty, unpleasant, unattractive.

Middle [with snark]: Like you! [beat] Burn!

Ancient History

"Hey, Mom, look at this really old quarter I found!"

I peered at the thing.

1987.

I was twelve then.

"I'm older than the quarter!" I exclaimed.

"Whoa," Middle said.

Hubby asked to look at it, and then pointed out it's not so much that it's old as it is beat up.

At least he didn't laugh.

After all, he was older than twelve in 1987.