The phone rang as I stepped in the door. Answering the phone I heard Taylor (the youngest son) say in his husky tenor, "Dad? I forgot Blankie and Monk-Monk."

It was 8:30 PM. I'd just returned from the evening class. Suspecting I might not be aware of where he was calling from, he explained, "I'm spending the night at Grandma's."

"Which one?"

"Yellow house. Shirley," he replied, distinguishing her from the other grandma, his great grandmother, who lives two doors away from Shirley in a white house.

Friday nights at Grandma's offer late-night television, uncontested control of the remote as Grandma dozes, snacks on demand when she doesn't, respite from the terrorism of his older brothers, a trip to a toy store in the morning, and other singular indulgences that I dare not dream of.

"Would you bring them, please?" He does not offer his good manners merely for the sake of expediency. They are not extorted. Or inherited.

"Do you think you could make it without them?" I feel no need to point out his age to him. He knows he's nine.

Silence.

"Honey, do you think you could make it through the night without them?"

More silence.

Blankie the blanket has been with him at night ever since he came home from the hospital nine years ago, a little pink, wrinkled amphibian, all skull and eyes. Blankie began its (his?) existence as a four-foot square of pale yellow with a satin binding. The binding has been replaced twice and is gone again, but now the fabric is so weak and gauze-like that it will not suffer another stitching. The blanket's original pale yellow has bleached to an off white, and wear and washing have reduced its size to that of a napkin.

Monk-Monk, a plush hand puppet, entered the household eleven months later at Taylor's first Christmas. He too shows some wear, but so far the only repair has been a tail-reattachment. He lost his tongue too, but he was the quietest primate in our house anyway. Life in our jungle can be pretty rough and tumble, even for a toy.

Blankie and Monk-Monk don't get out much anymore. They no longer travel to pre-school or kindergarten tucked away in his backpack. But they remain essential at bedtime, both at home and away.

The silence on the phone has become uncomfortable. His winning move now would be to ask if his mother is there, but he tries a different gambit.

"I think I could make it without one or the other, but not without both."

Checkmate.

"Be right there."

After gathering Blankie and Monk-Monk from his room, I grab my car keys from the hook in the kitchen and fly out the back door to begin the one-mile drive to Grandma's house. But not before stuffing a pen into my shirt pocket.

Odds & Ends:

There was snow on ground Friday morning that melted by noon. The rest of the weekend was spring-like.

This week strands of geese and gulls hang in the sky, and meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds have resumed their stations on fences along the highways.

Forsythia, daffodils and tube tops have blossomed.

Another Taylor Update:

A year ago last week, T attended a children's concert at KSU with his elementary school classmates, and decided that he wanted to learn to play the violin. A few weeks later, we started his lessons, renting a 1/2-size violin for him, which we recently replaced with a 3/4-size instrument.

Although he has progressed very well in his playing and although the idea to play the violin was his alone, arranging practice time can still become a struggle.

Last week, his class returned to KSU for another young people's concert, and Taylor was heard by his teacher to remark of the triangle player, "Oh my, I bet he doesn't have to practice long. And if he does, I bet he gets more bored than I do."

Oh my.

Other Journals:

For several weeks I have been reading iamamother and My Diary, linking there by way of Maggie Turner's journal, Page by Page. I've now added my own links to them, and I noticed in my morning reading that Inertia has also linked to Doug (My Diary) and offers a quick review. Both are worth a long look.