It Takes Disgusting To Know Disgusting

Ian and I trudged to school this morning through the wreckage of yet another Nor'easter snow storm.

It started last Wednesday night, first as a cold rain, then as a slimy slush, then pelting ice by Thursday morning that mixed with the slush and piled up in the streets and made everything around us in Hoboken look like the top of a glazed doughnut. By Thursday afternoon, the flakes were as fat as Thanksgiving turkeys and started sticking to everything - even the stucco side of our apartment building was frosted white like a birthday cake.

The flakes fell without end all through Friday until the wee hours of Saturday morning. Of course, we had no school on Friday (and yes, that is despair you detect in that sentence.)

Going out of the apartment was treacherous for most of the weekend, though we did it anyway. (Apparently, the city had warned people not to go into the parks on Friday as the trees were heavy from the glazed doughnut effect; some poor guy was even hit on the head in Central Park with a falling tree branch and killed. This Mom somehow missed the memo and took her 3 and 4-year-old children skipping into the park anyway. Like I always say to myself, only the grace of God stands between my kids and disaster. It sure isn't me.)

So this morning, trudging under the now-safe tree branches, Ian tells me all about his favorite subject these days: Rebecca.

"Mom, why didn't you put my snow pants on?"

"Because you're walking to school. You don't need them. That means I expect you not to jump in the piles of snow next to the street." (I know, it sounded ridiculous to me, too, but I said it anyway.)

"But Mom? Rebecca wears snow pants. She has pink ones. I want to show her my snow pants."

"Well tomorrow you can show her."

"Mom? You know Rebecca wears black boots," he looks down at his, "just like mine!"

Thank God I've purchased the right boots. It had nothing to do with Sears practically giving them away by the time I got around to buying them in February.

"Mom? You know what Rebecca does?"

I can't wait to find out.

"She does this funny noise with her nose, like this." Ian inhales sharply, then snorts like a pig. How ladylike. Ian is bowled over and laughs hysterically, then breaks free from my hand and jumps straight into a slushy, brown hill of snow piled up by the plows between the street and sidewalk.

Ian is still sniffing and snorting while he jumps. "Isn't that AWESOME, Mom!!??"

There's no other word for it. I'm annoyed by him jumping in the snow, but I know I only have myself to blame.

After his romp in the snow, Ian notices that he's gotten a bit of something brown and slimy on the toe of his left boot, not unlike the leftings of some dog poop. Great. I instruct him to scrape the boot around in the snow, which seems to fix things.

"Mom, that was disgusting!" Another favorite new word that Julian and Ian trade like a baseball card lately, sort of like: "Ian, you're DIS-GUS-TING!" and then Ian says: "No I'm not, you're DIS-GUS-TING!" And it continues on for a few moments like this until I've had enough and say something un-Caroline Ingalls-like.

When we get into his classroom, he decides that he needs to update Rebecca about the disgusting poop on his boot and he runs over to her with the news. Rebecca's face sours. I don't blame her.

I watch them for a moment and think that maybe I need to help Ian with his pipeline of girlfriends as Rebecca is surely going to re-evaluate after that news. And then I see something that reminds me how they must be made for each other: Rebecca starts sniffing and snorting.

I wave to Ian and he snorts back. I clearly have nothing to worry about.