He was a mere 4 years old, I should have expected it, really. Let me start again. In a sunny California town tucked into the foothills of Mt. Diablo, just an hour outside of San Francisco, in a colorful and loud house was the place I was raising my three children. I hadn’t planned on moving away from Canada forever when we left in 2009, it just kind of worked out that way. Life has a knack for placing you where you ought to be. I disliked the dark winters in Canada. I despise cold weather and grey skies, I blamed them for my foul mood and depression, however the reality was, I was lost. It was not until I moved, with my husband and first child, to California, that I began to reckon with who I was. It might have been the distance between my old life and the new possibilities that changed me, or the gurgling and cooing baby that brought me immense joy, or the astounding resilience of surviving life as a whole, up until this point. Either way, I was in California, it was warm, the husband left, but not before making a few more kids. That is really where this all starts. I was now a single mom of three kids, and my youngest son was 4.
Ivan came into this world ready for battle. I think he had armor on in utero, or perhaps it was simply his fiery Aries nature he exuded with bravado. When he was only a year old he became deserving of the nickname Baby-Smash because he had taken it upon himself to be the sole proprietor of smashing all-the-things, which made him extraordinarily hard to love for his siblings. Luckily for Ivan he was also born with two perfectly placed dimples on either cheek which he seemed to understand how to utilize from a very early age. Within moments of destroying his siblings perfectly built Lego, he would somehow be alive. That says a lot about Ivan. As much as his smashing would commandeer anger and frustration, his sweet smile diffused detonation of retaliation, almost all the time.
As time went on, and Ivan gained vocal skills, the smashing of all-the-things, morphed into a voyage of articulate rebuttals. If a thing was considered good by Ivan standards, we were in the all-clear. If a thing was deemed not-good, it was in fact garbage in his eyes, and garbage goes in the garbage can. I would often hear loud remarking of a meal gone dreadfully wrong and deserving its trashy grave in the garbage can. In the early years, most things were deemed garbage if they were not screen-time, goldfish crackers, or yogurt with honey drizzled on top. You see, being a mom is a code word for short-order cook. All day long there are grumpy growing, grumbling, gremlins, who look just like you and chase you around asking for more food but hating almost everything you make. It can be quite demoralizing. One redeeming quality about this time in life is that it taught me astounding resilience to criticism.
In my unshakable glory I was preparing a steak and mashed potato dinner for my three young, precious, budding, creative, beaming lights of joy. As I called for my sweet loves to join me at the table to reveal the delicacy I was presenting for dinner, I heard joyful cheers from two kids, which in itself felt like I had championed the day as a whole. It was not until the third child, the boy, with the dimples, the green eyes and the fiery words saw the steak-which was garbage of course- revealed his declaration of displeasure, that I began to loosen my resolve. The mighty King had spoken, and this delicacy deserved nothing more than a nose to the sky and a turn of the heels away, far away, from the dinner table. Because I am such a resilient mother, I think I mentioned that right, I used all my motherly skills to summon said child back to the dinner table. I recited to my dear sweet child that indeed this would be the dinner he would be eating that night. After some loud exchanges between us, it was clear that my sweet young child had no intentions of eating his steak nor his potatoes. It was at that point I brought out my own fiery bravado and informed Ivan he would be sitting at the table until he ate his dinner. Did I mention he is an Aries? Ivan was up for the challenge. He watched us eat our dinner. He watched us clean up our dinners. He watched us walk away, which turned his dinner into more of a quiet time away from us.
In the solitude of this moment, my sweet little fire breather felt particularly imaginative. I love that about him. He first began to imagine a way out of this horrid situation he found himself in. He certainly couldn’t just eat his dinner, not Ivan, not today! Ivan got so imaginative he created his get-away plan, and it was fool proof. First, he quietly snuck and got an orange Crayola marker. Next, he feverishly colored his arms, face, hands, and legs, any exposed skin of his would be marked with this gorgeous new hue. Next, he would become very quiet as to allow himself to evolve into a carrot. At that point, the moment he shifts from human form into carrot form, he will no longer be detectable by me or any mere human, and he will be able to roll himself out of the house and escape the tyranny of this awful predicament.
As I walked around the corner from my kitchen to the dining room, I saw markings, many distinct markings. When I called Ivan’s name and he turned his face to look at me; I was shocked. His face was placid. His eyebrows held high, his lips relaxed, he was holding as still as possible to see if his plan had worked. Would I be able to detect his completed metamorphosis into the carrot form? His face was not as perfectly colored orange as I am sure he believed it was. In fact, around his eyes were just a few misshapen circles, some random circular and oval patterns on his cheeks and a little Crayola had made its way into his blonde hair. For a moment I looked at him, then the silence was broken with simultaneous laughter as we both could not contain ourselves another moment. The great carrot escape plan ruined; the beginnings of creative genius had begun.
Katie Vaino
