The Men’s Room Rag

It’s an hour before M-ito’s dance recital and we’re rounding the corner of the hall in his school that leads to the bathroom. M-ito has to go – bad. we dash the last twenty yards as if in a race. There are two doors, one the men’s room, one the woman’s. M-ito hesitates and looks back at me. He has taken a step towards the woman’s room. Then, as if he realizes it’s me and not Mom-ita, he hangs his head and goes over to the men’s room.

“I guess I have to use the men’s room,” he says between gritted teeth, then scurries into the dark room where urinals, pee on toilet seats and toilet paper on the floor rule. “I hate this bathroom,” he says softly.

I have to tell M-ito to wait at the stall door while I maneuver past him (it’s a very tight fit) with a wet paper towel to wash off the toilet seat which is, indeed, covered with other boy’s pee. I think some gets on my pants leg. I dry the seat while M-ito hops from foot to foot. 

“It’s coming Dad-dito, hurry!” he says, scrinching up his face into a knot.

“Done,” I say as I flatten myself against the stall wall and M-ito spins to sit on a now clean and urine-less seat. I crouch down inches from M-ito as he relieves himself, my back pressed against the door.

“Why,” he asks me, “is the boys’ bathroom such a mess? Why is it so dirty and why is there no light? It needs to have light.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Boys tend to make a mess in here. They pee all over the toilet seats and throw their paper on the floor.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wish you were Mom-ita so I could go in the girl’s room. It’s so clean and light in there. And it doesn’t smell bad like it does in here.”

“I understand,” I say, my feelings not hurt at all. “I’d rather be in there too.”

“They should put a light right over our head so we could see,” he says looking up, his face in shadow. “Or right here on the wall. Why don’t they do that?”

“I don’t know, son.”

Ten minutes later, M-ito is lighter, walking easier, and still drying his hands on his pants legs as we walk back to the playground for another fifteen minutes of Pokémon play with his friend, Willito. Then it’s time for his ballet recital.

“Feel better?” I ask.

He nods and runs to his friend after we cross the street.

Wii Wars

Mom-ita plays a mean Wii. M-ito plays a mean Wii. I can hear them battling through five levels of animated storm troopers, alien cantinas and pod-racers. This is what it sounds like.

“Go over here, Mom-ita – follow me.”

“You have to wait for me.”

“Follow me, Mom-ita, I know what to do here.”

“M-ito, you have to wait for me.”

“Follow me.”

Or…

“Mom-ita, you have to wait for me.”

“I know what to do here so you follow me.”

“Mom-ita!”

“M-ito, sometimes you have to follow. That’s what playing together is all about.”

I step over to see them from the kitchen. I’ve just about finished the dishes. They are both sitting there, nonchucks in one hand and control wand in the other. Their eyes are glued to the TV screen which is filled with flying projectiles, coins and red hearts.

“Get the heart! Get the heart!” M-ito says.

“I’m trying to but you keep moving away from it and I can’t get to it.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”

I play sometimes with M-ito but I’m not a big fan of electronic games. I was when I was a kid and adolescent. I spent a lot of quarters on Pong and Space Invaders, Galaga, Asteroids, and Defender. But I also got lost in them and disappeared while I played for hours on end. I get worried my son will do the same. He has had a different life than me so he doesn’t have the same need to disappear that I had at that age, but I get worried never-the-less.

Back on Tatooine, Mom-ita has put her controls down and has crossed her arms, sitting back on the couch, chin tucked, brow furrowed.

“Mom-ita, what are you doing?” M-ito says as he continues to blast away at furniture and creatures, gaining coins and hearts and points.

“No,” Mom-ita says.

“I’m sorry,” says M-ito. “I said I’m sorry.”

Mom-ita picks up the controls and leans forward.

“I can do this part,” she says and M-ito nods, his mouth hanging a little open.

I return to the dishes, shaking my head. Mom-ita says she wants to practice with me at night after M-ito is asleep. She says this in front of M-ito as a joke, but also to let him know how good he is. But… I don’t think she’s kidding.

The Fork

I don’t remember how it started but now it’s a dinner time ritual.

Dinner is ready and M-ito is getting the silverware. I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He’s smiling impishly. He places one of his baby forks – his Dora the Explorer –  beneath Mom-ita’s napkin and a regular fork on top of mine and his. We all sit down to eat and M-ito starts to tell a tale of Pokemon. Mom-ita takes a drink of her water.

“Can you pick up that pencil from under the table?” Mom-ita asks M-ito.

M-ito shrugs, not stopping his storytelling for a moment, then looks under the table for the pencil. Mom-ita quickly takes the baby fork from under her napkin and places it under M-ito’s, switching his into her hand. She takes a bite out of her pasta as M-ito rises up from beneath the table.

“There’s no pencil,” he says, ending his Pokemon story.

“Try your pasta,” she says.

He reaches for his fork and finds the Dora the Explorer fork instead. A look of surprise comes over his face and then he smiles. “Hey!” he says. “Mom-ita!” With a quick movement he switches Dora with the fork in Mom-ita’s hand.

I watch from the sidelines.

“There’s another pencil under the table,” Mom-ita says and M-ito almost, almost looks underneath the table for it. But only for a second. 

I reach across the table and Mom-ita switches Dora for my fork and I eat the rest of our dinner with it.

Sometimes you get the fork and sometimes you just have to ask for it.

Rock and Sky – Heaven and Earth

We were eating breakfast this morning, wheat squares for me, cornflakes for M-ito. He was ignoring the cut up pear (not quite ripe), eyeing the squares of corn muffin (definitely wanted a piece), and holding his cup of OJ in two hands – red cup, his favorite. 

“I meditated this morning,” I said, thinking about my ten minutes of practice that I added to my yoga practice that morning. Sometimes I have to search for things to talk about with my son. I tend to be quiet otherwise – perhaps too quiet. 

M-ito nodded.

“Do you know what meditation is?”

M-ito nodded again.

“Tell me what you think it is,” I asked, curious to what he would answer.

He stood up from his chair and sat down on the floor at my feet, cross-legged, placing his left hand into a fist on his left thigh and his right hand onto his right thigh with his palm up. “This,” he said, moving his left fist, “is the earth or rock, and this,” he raised his left hand, “is the sky.”

“Heaven and earth,” I said, smiling. “Taoism – a Chinese belief, would call them Heaven and Earth and we – us human’s walk between them both trying to balance the heavens above and the earth that we walk on.”

M-ito nodded, smiling back at me. “This is Korean. We do this in Tae-Kwon-Do for like fifteen minutes at the end of class.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s excellent. I’m really glad.” I didn’t know he’d been doing this as part of his studies with his sensei – yet another reminder that my son has a life outside of mine that I know not everything about. “It’s good to have quiet time,” I added, not ready to let it go.

“Uh-huh.”

“When our world is full of noise.”

M-ito spooned some corn flakes into his mouth then grabbed a piece of cornbread and looked at me, hesitating.

“Go ahead,” I said and he added it into his mouth, bulging his cheeks like a chipmunk.