That's what little boys are made of

My son is six-years-old and way too smart for his own good.

I think it comes in part from being the second child. While my oldest has had her childhood experiences carefully crafted with the help of parenting books and 'it takes a village'-esque support groups, my son has been largely left to his own devices. I've never admitted this publicly before but I never even taught him how to read. One day I looked over at him and he had his nose in a book. I asked, "do you know what that says?" He looked at me with one of those patented 'my mom is an idiot' expressions and replied, "of course I do. I've been able to read since I was four."

Oh.

I worry less with him. Okay, truth be told, it's more that I sometimes forget about him. I can't help it. He's small. As long as he's not making a lot of noise or running with sharp objects I figure thing are good.

But by no means is he an easy child. The too-smart-for-his-own-good thing becomes really problematic at school. Especially the touchy-feely, non-competitive, developmental elementary school he goes to. You see, he doesn't buy into the "everyone is a winner" concept. On the contrary, my uber-competitive child sees no point in doing something unless there can be a winner. Which better be him. And a loser. Which better not be him. If he's not challenged, he gets bored, and then god help us all.

Conventional parenting wisdom says that the trait about your kid that drives you the most crazy is the one that will be their greatest strength. And I do see it-- the boredom in school that leads him to tune out during creative movement class and instead develop a business plan for his own start-up. Or the soul-deep competitiveness that drives him learn how to tie his shoes just so he can say he was the first of his friends to figure it out. And the supreme overconfidence, which has meant that he's immediately owned every room he's ever entered since preschool, whether he knows another kid there or not.

He may not have "benefited" from my first-time mommy paranoia, but I think in a lot ways the freedom he's experienced to make mistakes and find his own path have led to the fascinating tiny person he's become.

But I swear, if he comes home today and tells me he already knows how to drive a car, I may just have to lock him up until he's ready to be sent off to college.

Max.

Back in the mid-nineties, my then-boyfriend/now-husband and I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. He was a first-year lawyer and I was a young advertising executive, and between the two of us we had way more disposable income than we really knew what to do with. We were young, had few responsibilities, and were full of self-importance.

So we decided to take on that DINK (dual income, no kids) rite of passage that indicated we were in a serious relationship... we got a pet. Specifically, we went to the SPCA and adopted a cat.

For those who don't know, the San Francisco SPCA is a big deal. They literally put cats and dogs in their own apartments (representing different styles of architecture found in the City) and they have their own furniture in those apartments. And TVs. We joked at the time that it was going to be a letdown for whichever cat we chose to have to leave their plush lifestyle and come home to our dinky apartment.

The way the process worked is that you went from apartment to apartment, visiting with the pets and deciding which one you bonded with. After you made your selection, you went downstairs and started the adoption paperwork. We spent hours there, making sure we were 100% sure. And then we fell in love with a black cat named Lucy who drooled. A lot. We rushed downstairs to announce we wanted her...only to find out that a family with a 6-year-old daughter wanted her too. They pulled names out of a hat to see who got her, and we lost.

I was crushed. And I had no desire to go back and look again. In fact, I wanted to just go home and try again another day. But my boyfriend (feels weird referring to my husband like that) insisted that we give it one last shot. So we went back upstairs and the first apartment we came to had a black and white male cat sitting by the door meowing loudly at us. He hadn't been there the first time we had gone through-- they told us later that he had been getting a bath. We walked in his apartment and he immediately brushed up against our legs, still meowing loudly (almost like he was saying, "what took you so long? I've been here waiting for you!") We sat down to play with him and he immediately jumped into our laps and started purring. And that was it. We were in love.

After a quick name change (they had called him Ricky, we decided that he was a Max), we soon settled in with our new baby. He was a cat that was full of personality. We called him "The Cat Who Thinks He's a Dog." He loved to play fetch. He slept with us on our bed each night (in between us, under the covers, with his head on the pillow). He hated being alone, and was always in the middle of the action. He was our first baby.

When the kids came along, he was a little resentful at first. But he eventually took it in stride, never complaining when a tail was pulled by eager little hands, or when they decided to dress him up (see the photo above), or thought it would be fun to pretend he was a pony and get up on his back. He was always gentle and protective.

We had to say goodbye to Max this past week, as his body gave out after almost 17 years. The constant of our lives-- through 5 different apartments/houses, 4 cities, our engagement, our marriage, 2 children, countless jobs-- was finally gone. He loved us unconditionally through almost all our adult lives. And although there is profound sadness, there is also joy, and gratitude for having had the opportunity to love him.

He was special. He was loved.

Goodbye my friend.