No worries

I had a hot flash last night.

They've been happening here and there, but this was a bad one, and it happened while Sam was sitting on my lap listening to a bedtime story. I wanted to dump him on the floor and throw open a window, but I toughed it out.

I made a joke about the hot flashes to a radiology technician last week. He said, "Yeah, that's called...uh...[snapping fingers]...premature ovarian failure. It happens when you get chemo." He was so proud of himself. Good for you, I thought, and how kind of you give it a name. Noticing the look on my face, he said, "They come back though. Don't worry."

Yeah, okay. Right.

This morning, Sam was running around in his superhero cape. "I'm BATMAN!" he exclaimed, punching both fists in the air and blasting off for a flight around the kitchen island. (Batman doesn't fly, I thought. But we can have that conversation later. Already, my son is extending our nerd legacy. He knows more about the comic 'verse than just about any two year old ever).

Later, I was unwrapping the Go, Diego Go DVD that I got him for Valentine's Day. "Dora is on it too!" he said.

"Yeah, do you know how Dora and Diego know each other?" I asked.

Blank stare.

"Are they family?"

I wasn't getting anywhere with this.

"They're cousins," I said.

"Yeah!" he replied. "They're cousins!"

"Do you know who your cousins are?"

I'm always asking him if he knows how people are related to him. Who are your brothers? (Danny Maxie!) Who is mommy's sister? (K!) Who loves you? (Mommy Daddy Danny Maxie K Chrissy Grammy Poppy...) But cousins is a new concept.

"Susie is your cousin," I said. "And Matthew and Jacob are your cousins." There are more kids around. Most are much older, but I want him to grow up knowing who they are: Mike, Jared, Jimmy, Kelsey, Kendall, Bruce, Emily, Conrad, Everette, Ashton - a vast network of Bevanses and Marsiglias and Suhres and Seligs, many of whom (at least in the younger generations) are completely unaware of one another. And that's our fault.

We live in a big tree, but maybe my branch ends here, with a wicked smart, beautiful little boy in a Batman cape, flying around the kitchen island.