Firstly, I feel the need to apologize to my little blog here. Last night when posting time came I chose to push it aside and watch Downton Abbey instead. Sorry blog, but sometimes a girl’s gotta watch some tv.
Yesterday after school Enzo was sitting at the table. Reading a book, eating some sugar snap peas, just going about his business. All of a sudden he shot up, said “oh, I have to call Noah,” and ran to retrieve his hoodie from the coat closet. I was trying to remember a kid from his class named Noah as I watched him dig the hoodie out of his back pack and turn it right side out so he could access the pocket. At some point during this lengthy undertaking I realized that I’d miss heard him. He hadn’t said “Noah,” it was “Nora*” he was talking about. I do remember her. I did her evaluation testing while volunteering at the beginning of the school year. She counted straight through 100 without even a pause.
Eventually, with me coaching him, he figured out the tangled hoodie, reached into the pocket and found it empty. He tried sticking his face into the hand sized pocket opening so he could look around for the little paper that wasn’t there but that didn’t help much. Then he turned his attention to the closet. He was planning to search the whole thing until he found the slip of paper on which Nora had written he phone number for him. “She really wants to come to our house, mom.” he told me as he began to wrestle with the vaccuum. I pointed out that since his hoodie came home wadded inside out and stowed in his back pack the chance of the paper roaming free in the closet was slimmest of slim. I recommended he look in his back pack instead and if not there, maybe the phone number was left at school
Then, while he was busy with the back pack I quick texted Mr to share the news with him. A girl had given Enzo her phone number. Clearly he was in need of a little good-natured teasing.
This all would have been a lot more fun if Enz was aware enough of girls and boys, boys and girls to feel a little bashful about it. “Do you like her Enzo? Do you think she likes you?” “No, she just want’s to see where we live.” “doi, Mom and Dad,” said his tone.
Oblivious to teasing he continued to wonder where that phone number had got to all evening. He commissioned me to help keep a look out for it. “It’s this color mom,” he said holding up a violet red crayon. “If you see a number this color, that’s it!”
Mr and I both assured him that if he really wanted to call her he could ask her to write the number down again but he said “no.” He wanted the original copy or none at all.
Today during homework time he told me “I just gave her our address mom.” he said as though the problem were solved, and laughed over the possibility that she would attempt to dial our street address on the phone. Then he showed me the violet red crayon again and repeated his admonition for me to keep a wary eye for a phone number written in that color.
Speaking of Violet Red crayons. I can’t stand those guys. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve picked one up while searching for a true red and besmeared my coloring project with an unwanted share of violet. Red is my favorite color of crayon. Crayons and red just go together. Like bread and butter or clouds and rain.
I think two reds should come in every box but they don’t. You get the one red and then all the red variations, violet red, brick red, strawberry red etc. Of all of them I think Violet Red is the one that looks the truest on it’s own before you’ve tested it. This is why I always check the color name on the wrapper before I lay crayon to paper. That works until the wrapper gets ripped off or too beat up to read.
This is where Enzo has me beat. I was sorting through crayons with him one day trying to help find the true red for his homework. As I picked up one reddish crayon and then another turning each around to read the printed color names on their sides, he scanned the lot and said “There, that one has the lightest wrapper.” Picked it up and began coloring the desired shade.
The true red crayon, Enz taught me, has the lightest back ground wrapper color of the whole red family. I’d never paid much attention to wrapper color when dealing in crayons. Sure I look at the wrapper to discern between the really dark blues and purples that all tend to look black, but none of the wrappers really look like the color that appears when you color with the crayons. Do they? So why bother? Anyway, thanks to my boy I can now pick a red crayon out of a line up in no time flat.
No wonder Nora’s keen to have him call her.
*I totally changed that name folks.