ishes

A yellowish android

Today, I'm taking a break from reporting from my mother's bedside. Not that it's any different, any better there. I just can't keep talking about it day in and day out. My guts are too wrenched, they need a break.

So tonight, a little bit lighter fare; a few moments with the kids. Remember them? Yep, still got 'em.

Jacob tonight was showing me the pictures he'd drawn today, while he was home after school with Daddy. As is usual, he engaged me in conversation the best way he knows how: asking questions he already knows the answers to.

"Mom, what color is Vegeta's* hair?" I had to look to see if he had been drawn as a regular Sayan or a Super-Sayan this time. "Black honey, it's blackish."

"What is 'black-ish' Mom?"

Oy!

-ish is such an abstract concept, I think he's never going to get it, but I try...  "You add '-ish' to the end of a word to show how it is kind of, almost, but not quite all of something. You say 'whitish' about something that is not quite pure white, but on its way there, in the white family."  And left it at that.

And five minutes later...

Jake: "Mom, what color is Freeza's skin?"

I look over. "It's pink honey."

"Nooooo, it's pink-ISH, Mommy!"

And so it was.

(Never underestimate an autistic person's ability to learn.)

And then Ethan, on the loooooong way home from an East side doctor's appointment (Obama in New York = traffic from hell) decides to invent a word. Or rather, a new meaning for an old word, create some slang, as it were.

"Mom, let's make up a new meaning for the word 'Bagel' - OK?"

"OK." I say, game for any sort of game that does not involve a screen.

"How about... a special way you stab something with a sword?" He suggests.

"How about something non-violent?" I counter.

"It's a hug. A special, special hug where you wrap your arms around someone and give them a squeeze like you're the bagel and they're in the hole in the middle."

"THAT I like!"

"Give me a bagel, Mom!"

And I do.

I so do.


*If you have anything like a nine year old boy, you probably know who all these characters are. If not, you are without a clue. They're from the Japanese anime cartoon world of Dragonball Z - one of Jake's current obsessions.

I am linking this up with Just Write, because I just wrote it.