Living with a Parrot

Living with my MS is like living with a parrot. Wikipedia defines "photographic memory" as an "extraorinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images." I'm going to coin a phrase. My son must have an "audiographic memory".

Lately, he has taken to listening to two of Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson stories in the van (Mercy Watson to the Rescue and Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride). Mercy is a pig whom the Watsons adore and treat as a member of the family. She enjoys "eating toast with a great deal of butter." So, while shopping at Walmart, it didn't surprise me at all when my MS said, "I enjoy eating macaroni and cheese, with a great deal of cheese!" Of course, others nearby kind of gave him a perplexed look.

Most of the time, however, I do have to pause and figure out where his comments originated. For a while, he kept saying "Where would we be without Spiderman?" Then one day, the comment jumped out at me on the CD. Mr. Watson exclaimed, "Where would we be without Mercy?" (And what a great line that is. Perhaps that one line is what prompted Kate DiCamillo to come up with the whole character. Indeed, where would we be, in this life, without mercy?)

But, my favorite this week had to be the time he walked up to his dad and out of the blue said, "Don't just dream of beautiful skin. Make it real!" The next time I saw a Proactive commercial, I understood clearly where his concern for his father's skin came from.

Of course, I can't say that I'm always fond of his incessant talking. He has the typical obsession of three year olds for repeating my name over and over and over, ad nauseum, throughout the day. I decided to try an approach I had used with my ES when he was three. I had told my ES that I wasn't Mommy anymore, but was now called Gertrude. My ES played along with it and for a few days, I would be called Gertrude.

Not so with my MS. This time, I tweaked the game a bit. I turned to him and, in a southern drawl, explained "Your mommy, she needed a vacation, so she left you here with me, Gertrude. Now I'll take care of you while she is gone. You need anything, you just ask little ol' Gertrude." He tried to say, "You're not Gertrude. You look just like my mommy." I played along, "Yes, we might even be twins, we're so similar. But, now, you rememba ... our names is different. I'm Gertrude." I couldn't get him to call me Gertrude for anything. Plus, he quickly deteriorated into anger. He was not going to be fooled. He continued to insist that I was Mom and not Gertrude, until finally I had to abandon the game in frustration (both his and mine). Now, if only I really had a twin, Gertrude, who could come take over on days when I tire of hearing my name called and repeated for the thousandth time.