Food Thoughts

"The special tonight is salmon," our waitress told us.
"Sammon," Miles repeated. "Like sammon says touch your head, sammon says, hop on one foot?"

There is a river that we pass on the way to the beach. We note its state all year round: frozen in winter, crackly in spring, and now marshy in summer. "How it turn ice?" Miles asked the other morning. I know little about the molecular structure of things so I tried to keep it simple. "When it gets so cold out, the water turns solid."
Salad? Miles questioned.

After a long day at the shore, we tromped by a family getting out of a car with Quebec plates. Miles and Charlie were sucking on watermelon slices. "C'est bon?" asked the matriarch, inquiring about the fruit or maybe our day in the surf. "Oui-oui-oui," I called to her.

As I dusted the sand off Miles' feet, he asked,
"Why dat lady speaking spinach?"

"This is the hottest day in the whole wide!"

I had to agree, today did feel like the hottest day in the whole wide. I waded to my waist in the frigid Maine Atlantic today, and the water felt warmish.

Miles was soon climbing the jetty. I was wearing flip-flops and would not follow. I had Charlie in my arms. Miles begged to guide me to the grass on top of the barnacled rocks. "I tant believe there's gwass up here!" he shouted to me. I wouldn't budge.

"If I had Crocs like yours, with the ankle strap, I'd go with you," I explained. Then I teased him. "If you lend me your shoes..."

He stopped short and kicked off one red sandal. "It's o-tay, you have them," he said, about to kick off the other.

I assured him I was joking. He looked at me, squinted, and asked, "How much weight do you cost?"

"You mean, how much do I weigh?" I tried to decipher.

"Yeah! How much?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I tarry you?"

I was touched. "What about Charlie? Who will carry him?"

"I tarry him too."

Oh my son. I wanted to bask in and prolong Miles's enthusiasm for family beach time. A Greenhead fly landed on my forearm before I had a chance to respond to my four-year-old's request.

Green fly! I cried, over-reacting. Miles had no idea green flies are carnivorous, but my voice probably explained everything. He swiped a few blades of spiky grass before racing me to the blanket. Evidence he reached his destination. Rocks from the moon.

Later he extended his hand to me. "I got these for you," he said, in the same voice he uses when he gives me a fistful of dandelions.