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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Talking about "the man with the boo-boos." here is a link to the exhibit
and here is a sample of the nightmare"the man with the boo-boos"
posted by javier 5:14 PM
Monday, October 28, 2002
What a nice weekend. Galen had two days off from school just prior to the weekend, so it unintentionally started early for us. Saw a beautiful place to live in a brownstone half a block away from Central Park. It is not, sadly, enough space for us, but it was SO beautiful. Tiled fireplaces in every room, french kitchen, to-die-for bathroom and floor to ceiling bookcases in most rooms. And it's owned by a family in Vienna, so it'd be pretty hands-off. Oddly, Galen hated it. In fact, I would go so far as to say he was a bit spooked by it -- I believe it has something to do with the stairway. I must get that boy out of the city!
Speaking of "spooked" I will relate a personally heartbreaking story about Galen. The weekend before last, when Alex Bloom was visiting, we took him along up to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine to see the "Spanish Treasures" exhibit. It is really impressive, but Galen begged to leave after about five minutes because, as he told Javier, he didn't like "the man with the boo-boos." How could I blame him -- when he told me this we were standing in a room with about twelve life-sized crucifixes on the wall. So we left, and I didn't think of it again. Until the other night when he had a "night terror" (like a nightmare on steroids -- when kids have these, they scream, thrash, cry and are generally freaking out, but are still asleep, and there is essentially no way to wake them up.) We sat there with him for an hour until he calmed down and woke up. Javier finally got the story out of Galen: he was looking for us, couldn't find us, and the "man with the boo boos" was chasing him. This is what religion has done for my child so far.
On a brighter -- and admittedly more pagan -- note, we went to a Halloween parade on Sunday at Central Park North's "Harlem Meer." The kids parade around the pond in full costume, there are games and candy, crafts and a costume contest. Galen was definitely the focus of a considerable amount of attention, thanks to his stegosaur costume that Papa had fashioned lovingly of foam rubber and genius. He went with his friends, Mila and Ely (yes yes, pictures soon -- Javi???), and baby Diego, who managed to allow us to install him in Galen's old lion costume before sacking out for the rest of the day. At dusk, they light all the pumpkins people have brought, and float them out onto the pond. It was lovely. We're feeling pretty lucky these days.
I took Galen to school this morning. He walks the whole way now, and seems like such a "big boy" to me, compared even to a few months ago. He's not at all thrilled about Mondays (welcome to the human race!) but seems to steel himself for the re-entry, and takes it well. When we arrived at school, Galen hung up his coat, and went right to a table where some children were working, and began to draw on a piece of paper. I was talking to Anokeen, and signing him up for a field trip etc. so when I left, I stopped by to kiss him goodbye, and started to walk out the door. Galen called out, "Mama! Wait!" and he ran up to me and handed me a drawing he had done, then hugged me, and ran away. He had definitely made it for me to take with me, and wanted to be sure that I got it. I almost cried. It's hanging here at work now.
posted by Dorothy 3:15 PM
