Naked

I pick up Young Ladrinka at a friend’s house, and we start heading home.  We’re walking through the West Village and he doesn’t even notice that he’s holding my hand, I tricked him, because I didn’t bring my gloves and told him that I needed to hold his glove for warmth. It’s not my fault that his hand is inside the glove.

It’s not often that this works.  He wants to do things on his own, go to school by himself, take the elevator alone, so the hand holding is huge.  One to remember forever. And for the blog.

And then I tell him that we have to stop by the store and he groans.

“I’m cold,” he says and makes a shuddery motion. Which is eerily similar to the electrocuted motion.

“You’re cold because you need a scarf,” I counsel.

“I’m cold because it’s cold outside,” he looks at me like I’m a moron.

“Yes, but the weather isn’t going to change,” I play my trump card. “But you can put on a scarf.”

“Well my neck isn’t even cold!” he tells me.  “My legs are cold!”

“Aha!” I proclaim victory.  “You need legwarmers!”  Because that blogger who let her son wear a Daphne costume on Halloween has nothing on me, apparently.

“What? I just need to go home instead of the store,” he says.

“No,” I protest, because now I am goal-oriented.  “You  need to wear something furry, like Nicki.”  Nicki is our cat.

“Nicki doesn’t wear anything,” he tells me.

“Are you saying that she’s naked?” I am mock-shocked.

“Yes, she is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you can see her butt and her thing,” he laughs.

“What’s her thing?”

“You know… I don’t want to say it.”

“Her penis?” I try.

“She’s a girl, she doesn’t have a penis,” he tells me.

“You mean her vagina?” I am suddenly a feline gynecologist.

He nods.

“You can’t see her vagina,” I tell him.  I am completely traumatized by the thought of  cat vaginas.

“Yes! When she’s stretching. You can see it.”

“Well if she wore legwarmers you wouldn’t see it.”

“I don’t think you know how legwarmers work, mom,” he says.

One year ago ...

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