We had decided to meet at a restaurant - one of their favorites. Having arrived before they did, I stood by the front window and waited.
From there I watched as my husband pulled into the parking lot, stepped out into the snizzle, and gently unbuckled my son from his car seat.
I observed my daughter climb slowly - so very, very slowly - out through her side of the Jeep, dropping something on the pavement as she did. It went unnoticed, except by me. Under normal circumstances, I would have been impatient. I might have snapped at her to hurry up. But I today I had the luxury of standing dry and removed to see her enact the careful ritual that drives me batty every single day. And suddenly it dawned on me. She doesn't want to fall. The ground is far away.
I saw him take them both, my little daughter and my little son, softly by the hands and guide them through the parking lot towards the restaurant's front door.
I took tender note of my daughter's black Mary Janes, her brown pants, her green shirt, her red headband and the wisps of baby fine flyaways poking out here and there. I remembered the text message I had received from my husband as I sat in a conference session two hundred miles away the day before. "Which way do you part V-meister's hair? On the side or down the middle?" I had pictured then my husband standing with her in front of the bathroom mirror and tenderly, awkwardly, brushing her hair.
As they approached, I saw my children's guileless faces, one looking this way, the other that, and taking in the world around them - a flat, gray parking lot - as though it had infinite possibilities on offer. They hadn't yet noticed me and I wasn't sure if they knew that I was waiting within, just fifty feet and still a world away.
And after having been away for a mere handful of days, watching through that window I saw them, my husband and my children, for the exquisite, the ethereal, the good, the trusting souls they are.
And I was glad, so glad, to be home.
*******************************************************************************************
I attended the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop in Dayton, Ohio this past weekend. I have much to tell you about this experience, but I'm still sorting through my impressions, so it will have to wait for another day.
Showing posts with label totally unabashed mushfest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label totally unabashed mushfest. Show all posts
Monday, April 19, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Why My Children Are Bilingual
People are often surprised that J-dog and V-meister, who were born here of two American citizens, are bilingual - fluent in both English and Lithuanian.
It's not the easiest or most utilitarian of languages to learn (hello, seven noun declensions!), and really only comes in handy if you are, for example, traveling in Lithuania or wanting to talk about someone behind their back. So I often find myself fumbling to explain why a relatively obscure Indo-European tongue, one of the oldest living languages in the world today, is J-dog and V-meister's langue maternelle.
Lithuania was first mentioned in the annals of history about a thousand years ago. It saw its heyday during the Middle Ages, when, with all assorted fiefdoms lined up and standing on tiptoe, its borders briefly stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. This was and still is Lithuania's greatest claim to fame, with the bronze medal winning Olympic basketball team of 1992 sponsored by Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead coming in at a close second.
Later, there were a few hundred years of great might through an alliance with Poland, but the country's fortune began to change when it fell under the rule of czarist Russia during the 1800s. There was a brief period of sovereignty and cultural renaissance between World Wars I and II (the shining period of Lithuanian history into which both sets of my grandparents happened to be born), but in the summer of 1939, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union against her will as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Russia and Germany. It was punted back and forth between the two countries a few times during the course of World War II, but when the dust finally settled, it was Soviet occupied.
The Soviet Union worked carefully and deliberately to eradicate Lithuania's national identity (as well as that of the other two Baltic states - Latvia and Estonia) for nearly fifty years. Thousands of "anti-communist subversives" (read: journalists, artists, clergy, educators) were deported to prisons in Siberia, Russians were encouraged to relocate to Lithuania in an effort at homogenization, and Lithuania's culture and history were systematically "russianized." Outgoing mail was routinely intercepted, and people were beaten up and thrown in prison for offenses as seemingly trivial as the possession of a typewriter. (Typewriters were prohibited for private use because they could be used to disseminate anti-Soviet propaganda outside the Iron Curtain.)
Because of the looming specter of cultural obliteration, Lithuanians like my grandparents and parents living abroad made it their mission to ensure that the language and cultural traditions of their homeland would survive in exile. It's why they taught me - a second generation Lithuanian and American born citizen - Lithuanian from birth.
Growing up, it was the only language spoken in our home. Throughout grade school, I attended language immersion classes on Saturday mornings, (reluctantly) read Lithuanian literature as well as The Baby-Sitter's Club series, raced from Brownies to junior folk dance practice on Friday nights, and took back-to-back piano and Lithuanian lap harp lessons - all in the name of a tiny spark of hope that the country my grandparents had reluctantly fled some thirty years before would someday be free again.
In mid-January of 1990, Soviet tanks stormed Lithuania's capital city of Vilnius, zoning in on the area around the national TV tower where thousands of citizens had gathered in peaceful protest against the U.S.S.R.'s half century long rule. And while the international media's eyes were trained on the Gulf War half a world away, the Soviet Army killed 14 Lithuanian civilians and injured hundreds more in a last ditch attempt at snuffing out a grassroots freedom movement that had been slowly gathering momentum for years.
And less than two months later, on March 11th, 1990, Lithuania declared itself sovereign, the first of the Baltic countries to do so. To their utter joy and disbelief, my grandparents were alive to witness from afar the day they had no hope could arrive during their lifetime.
On the weekend when this occurred, it was my great misfortune to be stuck in town for the SATs while my entire extended family traveled to Washington D.C. along with thousands of others to rally for independence. So when news came at dusk that Lithuania had finally, finally declared itself free, I was home alone in a darkened kitchen, eating a bowl of Ramen noodles. And I, who only knew Lithuania from books, song and lore, stood in front of a flickering TV set and wept for her.
Lithuania went through a difficult time of transition from a communist state to a free market economy. And during the fifty years of Soviet occupation, its language inevitably evolved towards a distinctly Russian dialect. So much so, that my accent and vocabulary is two generations out of date and often deemed antiquarian by current native speakers. What's more, after fifty years of tireless efforts to keep it alive and pure, there is no longer a need to defend it.
And yet.
I continue to speak Lithuanian with my parents and even with my adult siblings. When the P-Dawg (who is not Lithuanian) and I decided to get married, there was no question that we would do the traditional Lithuanian wedding dance during our reception. And when the little V-meister was born, the words I spoke to greet her, the ones that flowed most naturally from my lips, were Lithuanian.
There was no question when I first laid eyes on her that Lithuanian would be the little V-meister's mother tongue. Though I had not shed blood, sweat or tears for the tiny homeland of my parents' birth, it felt as much a part of me as the wrinkled, warm bundle that squirmed in my tired arms.
Lately and understandably, it's getting more and more difficult for V-meister, and especially the younger J-dog, to express themselves in Lithuanian. English vocabulary is quickly replacing many of their Lithuanian words, and rightly so. My children are third generation persons of half Lithuanian descent living in a country - America - that changed their family's fate.
Make no mistake - we are American. I love America and will always call it home.
And yet . . . I will go to great lengths to bind my children to the vestiges of the long suffering heritage that is only half theirs.
It is the least I can do.
"Attack of the Killer Lithuanian National Doll"
(Click here if you want to read my family's emigration story.)
It's not the easiest or most utilitarian of languages to learn (hello, seven noun declensions!), and really only comes in handy if you are, for example, traveling in Lithuania or wanting to talk about someone behind their back. So I often find myself fumbling to explain why a relatively obscure Indo-European tongue, one of the oldest living languages in the world today, is J-dog and V-meister's langue maternelle.
Lithuania was first mentioned in the annals of history about a thousand years ago. It saw its heyday during the Middle Ages, when, with all assorted fiefdoms lined up and standing on tiptoe, its borders briefly stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. This was and still is Lithuania's greatest claim to fame, with the bronze medal winning Olympic basketball team of 1992 sponsored by Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead coming in at a close second.
Later, there were a few hundred years of great might through an alliance with Poland, but the country's fortune began to change when it fell under the rule of czarist Russia during the 1800s. There was a brief period of sovereignty and cultural renaissance between World Wars I and II (the shining period of Lithuanian history into which both sets of my grandparents happened to be born), but in the summer of 1939, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union against her will as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Russia and Germany. It was punted back and forth between the two countries a few times during the course of World War II, but when the dust finally settled, it was Soviet occupied.
The Soviet Union worked carefully and deliberately to eradicate Lithuania's national identity (as well as that of the other two Baltic states - Latvia and Estonia) for nearly fifty years. Thousands of "anti-communist subversives" (read: journalists, artists, clergy, educators) were deported to prisons in Siberia, Russians were encouraged to relocate to Lithuania in an effort at homogenization, and Lithuania's culture and history were systematically "russianized." Outgoing mail was routinely intercepted, and people were beaten up and thrown in prison for offenses as seemingly trivial as the possession of a typewriter. (Typewriters were prohibited for private use because they could be used to disseminate anti-Soviet propaganda outside the Iron Curtain.)
Because of the looming specter of cultural obliteration, Lithuanians like my grandparents and parents living abroad made it their mission to ensure that the language and cultural traditions of their homeland would survive in exile. It's why they taught me - a second generation Lithuanian and American born citizen - Lithuanian from birth.
Growing up, it was the only language spoken in our home. Throughout grade school, I attended language immersion classes on Saturday mornings, (reluctantly) read Lithuanian literature as well as The Baby-Sitter's Club series, raced from Brownies to junior folk dance practice on Friday nights, and took back-to-back piano and Lithuanian lap harp lessons - all in the name of a tiny spark of hope that the country my grandparents had reluctantly fled some thirty years before would someday be free again.
In mid-January of 1990, Soviet tanks stormed Lithuania's capital city of Vilnius, zoning in on the area around the national TV tower where thousands of citizens had gathered in peaceful protest against the U.S.S.R.'s half century long rule. And while the international media's eyes were trained on the Gulf War half a world away, the Soviet Army killed 14 Lithuanian civilians and injured hundreds more in a last ditch attempt at snuffing out a grassroots freedom movement that had been slowly gathering momentum for years.
And less than two months later, on March 11th, 1990, Lithuania declared itself sovereign, the first of the Baltic countries to do so. To their utter joy and disbelief, my grandparents were alive to witness from afar the day they had no hope could arrive during their lifetime.
On the weekend when this occurred, it was my great misfortune to be stuck in town for the SATs while my entire extended family traveled to Washington D.C. along with thousands of others to rally for independence. So when news came at dusk that Lithuania had finally, finally declared itself free, I was home alone in a darkened kitchen, eating a bowl of Ramen noodles. And I, who only knew Lithuania from books, song and lore, stood in front of a flickering TV set and wept for her.
Lithuania went through a difficult time of transition from a communist state to a free market economy. And during the fifty years of Soviet occupation, its language inevitably evolved towards a distinctly Russian dialect. So much so, that my accent and vocabulary is two generations out of date and often deemed antiquarian by current native speakers. What's more, after fifty years of tireless efforts to keep it alive and pure, there is no longer a need to defend it.
And yet.
I continue to speak Lithuanian with my parents and even with my adult siblings. When the P-Dawg (who is not Lithuanian) and I decided to get married, there was no question that we would do the traditional Lithuanian wedding dance during our reception. And when the little V-meister was born, the words I spoke to greet her, the ones that flowed most naturally from my lips, were Lithuanian.
There was no question when I first laid eyes on her that Lithuanian would be the little V-meister's mother tongue. Though I had not shed blood, sweat or tears for the tiny homeland of my parents' birth, it felt as much a part of me as the wrinkled, warm bundle that squirmed in my tired arms.
Lately and understandably, it's getting more and more difficult for V-meister, and especially the younger J-dog, to express themselves in Lithuanian. English vocabulary is quickly replacing many of their Lithuanian words, and rightly so. My children are third generation persons of half Lithuanian descent living in a country - America - that changed their family's fate.
Make no mistake - we are American. I love America and will always call it home.
And yet . . . I will go to great lengths to bind my children to the vestiges of the long suffering heritage that is only half theirs.
It is the least I can do.
"Attack of the Killer Lithuanian National Doll"
(Click here if you want to read my family's emigration story.)
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Sweet/Tart
I have two lucid memories from my First Communion day.
The first is the lemon meringue bars, a favorite dessert my mother had made especially for the occasion. I had ferreted away five or six of them while my parents were busy with their hosting responsibilities, and, basking in First Communion Day glory, ate piece after piece of sweet and tangy goodness by myself down in our cool, damp basement.
The second is getting stone cold busted by my mom for planting myself on the goldenrod yellow carpet in our living room, and, with the crisp white skirt of my dress billowing around me, loudly tallying up my communion cash in front of all the assembled guests. (ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.)
But here is what I don't remember, because I hadn't noticed it until I came across this old photo:
The look on my mother's face earlier, as I made my first careful, deliberate way down the aisle.
And that's the thing about mothers - one minute they're reading you the Riot Act in front of all your cousins, and the next, they're gazing upon you with a look of infinite love.
The first is the lemon meringue bars, a favorite dessert my mother had made especially for the occasion. I had ferreted away five or six of them while my parents were busy with their hosting responsibilities, and, basking in First Communion Day glory, ate piece after piece of sweet and tangy goodness by myself down in our cool, damp basement.
The second is getting stone cold busted by my mom for planting myself on the goldenrod yellow carpet in our living room, and, with the crisp white skirt of my dress billowing around me, loudly tallying up my communion cash in front of all the assembled guests. (ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.)
But here is what I don't remember, because I hadn't noticed it until I came across this old photo:
The look on my mother's face earlier, as I made my first careful, deliberate way down the aisle.
And that's the thing about mothers - one minute they're reading you the Riot Act in front of all your cousins, and the next, they're gazing upon you with a look of infinite love.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Remembered
Yesterday I was slicing a loaf of bakery bread and something about the way I did it - the tilt of my head, maybe, or the way the tip of my tongue curled slightly over my lip in concentration - made me think of my grandmother.
Having spent several years of her life literally living on bread and tea alone, Močiutė never took nourishment for granted. She used to bake her own European style rye and every last bit of it would be used, whether it was made into crumbs, incorporated into a soup, or turned into slop for the dog.
She always handled bread so lovingly, as though it were the most precious commodity in the world. I have a vivid image of her in my mind's eye, cutting into a loaf pulled fresh from the oven, carefully, gently, a half smile playing across her lips. I sometimes (but not often enough) think of this when I discard the crusty end of a loaf, or remove weeks old leftovers from the fridge and toss them directly into the garbage.
My grandmother died two years ago today, and I miss her.
Having spent several years of her life literally living on bread and tea alone, Močiutė never took nourishment for granted. She used to bake her own European style rye and every last bit of it would be used, whether it was made into crumbs, incorporated into a soup, or turned into slop for the dog.
She always handled bread so lovingly, as though it were the most precious commodity in the world. I have a vivid image of her in my mind's eye, cutting into a loaf pulled fresh from the oven, carefully, gently, a half smile playing across her lips. I sometimes (but not often enough) think of this when I discard the crusty end of a loaf, or remove weeks old leftovers from the fridge and toss them directly into the garbage.
My grandmother died two years ago today, and I miss her.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hands Free
Next week, after the J-dog completes his neverending Montessori orientation period, both my children will be in school together all morning. In other words: the moment I've been anticipating for the past six years of my life has arrived. This post isn't about me not knowing what to do with my time now that I finally have some to myself, or about how much I want a third child now that two are flitting about the periphery of my nest.
I am happy.
But it's increasingly difficult to remember now how their baby bodies felt: the V-meister spare and birdlike; the J-dog pillowsoft and round with a steady, humming core. I lay in bed this morning post dream, chasing the essence of their infantness as quickly as it receded in smoky wisps from my morningscape. There was an ache, as there always is, and then a quick surrender to the reality that I am best as mother of two.
I'm still occasionally startled by this fleeting, vicelike grip on my gut, a selfish longing for their baby selves. It's not another child that I want - just the J-dog and V-meister for a moment fresh and new, unsullied by the desperate, anxious imprint of a new mother and her constant longing to have two hands free.
I want, of course, to correct my naive babymothering mistakes. But also, just once again, to lift their soft, malleable, diaper-clad bodies into the air, little toes and feet ensconced in the pods of footed pajamas, to walk with them feeling warmth nuzzled in the crook of my neck, and to hold them there with full knowledge of the moment's brevity in time.
I am happy.
But it's increasingly difficult to remember now how their baby bodies felt: the V-meister spare and birdlike; the J-dog pillowsoft and round with a steady, humming core. I lay in bed this morning post dream, chasing the essence of their infantness as quickly as it receded in smoky wisps from my morningscape. There was an ache, as there always is, and then a quick surrender to the reality that I am best as mother of two.
I'm still occasionally startled by this fleeting, vicelike grip on my gut, a selfish longing for their baby selves. It's not another child that I want - just the J-dog and V-meister for a moment fresh and new, unsullied by the desperate, anxious imprint of a new mother and her constant longing to have two hands free.
I want, of course, to correct my naive babymothering mistakes. But also, just once again, to lift their soft, malleable, diaper-clad bodies into the air, little toes and feet ensconced in the pods of footed pajamas, to walk with them feeling warmth nuzzled in the crook of my neck, and to hold them there with full knowledge of the moment's brevity in time.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Nine
9-9-00
"And you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
"And you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Monday, August 03, 2009
Seconds
My parents took the V-meister on a day trip to visit her out-of-town cousin yesterday and the P-Dawg was working, so the little J-dog and I were left to our own devices. Before my parents pulled out of our driveway Sunday morning with our daughter, I made sure to remind my mother not to let V-meister out of her sight for any length of time, especially in the highway rest areas. "And if she touches anything - anything at all - don't hesitate to bathe her in this," I said, slipping her a trial size container of Purell.
A short fit of hysterics ensued when V-meister and I discovered that my dad had jerry-rigged her booster seat into his vehicle using an elaborate pulley system that did not at all match the diagram provided by our Owner's Manual. But this was quickly sorted out and then off they went, the V-meister radiating all the energy of a loaded spring at the delicious prospect of an entire day with her grandparents and sans the little brother.
J-dog and I spent a pleasant Sunday morning together. We braved eleven o'clock Mass and afterwards treated ourselves to lunch at the Nordstrom cafe. He was a perfect gentleman: coloring his menu quietly, making pleasant conversation, eating with utensils.
It was so easy, this out-and-about-on-the-town with only one kid business, that I decided to walk around the mall for a bit after lunch. We hurled some pennies into the fountain and darted into a store or two before arriving at Baby Gap, where I began perusing sale racks while J-dog peeked and poked around a nearby display as per his usual custom.
A minute later, he was gone.
I didn't panic at first, sure that he was just hiding. I had been standing at the entrance to the store and watching out of the corner of my eye, so I knew he couldn't have left. I combed the floor, looking for little croc clad feet poking out from behind a rack somewhere, but saw nothing. The store was connected through a door in the back to the regular Gap and so I did a cursory check of that (much larger) store, even though I was positive he couldn't have possibly made it that far in such a short period of time. It was a really short period of time.
Still no J-dog.
I went back to the Baby Gap and started calling his name loudly, starting to panic a little now because it was getting obvious that he wasn't in either of the two stores. I looked in the dressing rooms, the stock room, behind the counter, everywhere. People started to notice my growing hysteria and asked what he looked like, what he was wearing, what name he answered to. Before I knew it, one of the sales associates was radioing security with a bulletin and his description.
I peeked out into the mall, then ran back and forth between the two Gap stores, sure that he would appear momentarily. No longer a person anchored in time and space, I scurried frantically about and thought, "This is how it happens."
Aneternity few minutes later, the sales associate, who was still radioing back and forth with mall security asked me to follow her out of the store. I was hesitant to uproot myself from the general vicinity where I had last seen the J-dog, but she was an authority figure and I a brainless creature on a fruitless trajectory.
"They think they might have found him" she said as the two of us walked-ran towards a mall cop who was standing by a fountain in the main atrium talking to someone on his radio. "I am not a bad mother," I said.
When we finally reached the atrium, I planted myself in front of the giant mall cop. "DID YOU FIND HIM? WHERE IS HE???"
"Just hold on, Ma'am!" he snapped, still talking to whoever it was on the other end, beads of sweat popping out over his brow. "Okay, now. Up that way, past the fountain, just by the main entrance."
So I ran.
And he was there. He had made it halfway across the mall, apparently following a woman he'd mistaken for me. As hokey as it sounds, in my mind's eye our reunion happened in slo-mo, me running with tunnel vision, blurry storefronts in the periphery, towards a still oblivious J-dog who was being held by a kind looking grandfatherly sort.
He hadn't been crying, probably had only realized he had been lost when I scooped him up and wept. I sat down on a bench with him wrapped tightly around my neck and that's when he started to sob. Even on the drive home, after we had both calmed down, he'd hiccup periodically and fight to catch rapid breath. I decided we would never set foot in the mall again.
Thing is, I honestly believed it couldn't happen to me. Because I am hyper-vigilant - I've caught the J-dog from falling backwards out of an open deck door with one hand and less than a second to spare while looking in the opposite direction. I regularly intercept falling sipping cups in mid-air and, until yesterday, believed that I had an infallible second sense with regard to my childrens' position in the universe.
And I will admit to you now that in the past, upon hearing the line, "I only let him out of my sight for a minute," I shamefully assumed that "minute" really meant "five" or maybe even "ten."
But it doesn't. It's a minute, maybe even seconds. And while I know that the little J-dog was probably in no real danger at any point during our little ordeal, those moments of not knowing were a loaded eternity. I almost didn't write about this because doing so is admitting that it actually happened, that I let my guard down long enough to allow my three-year-old to wander away.
Since we've been home, the J-dog has gotten a wad of Play-Dog jammed up his right nostril and squashed his index finger in a door jamb, which just goes to show you that home is not that much safer than the big bad world.
But still. SECONDS.
A short fit of hysterics ensued when V-meister and I discovered that my dad had jerry-rigged her booster seat into his vehicle using an elaborate pulley system that did not at all match the diagram provided by our Owner's Manual. But this was quickly sorted out and then off they went, the V-meister radiating all the energy of a loaded spring at the delicious prospect of an entire day with her grandparents and sans the little brother.
J-dog and I spent a pleasant Sunday morning together. We braved eleven o'clock Mass and afterwards treated ourselves to lunch at the Nordstrom cafe. He was a perfect gentleman: coloring his menu quietly, making pleasant conversation, eating with utensils.
It was so easy, this out-and-about-on-the-town with only one kid business, that I decided to walk around the mall for a bit after lunch. We hurled some pennies into the fountain and darted into a store or two before arriving at Baby Gap, where I began perusing sale racks while J-dog peeked and poked around a nearby display as per his usual custom.
A minute later, he was gone.
I didn't panic at first, sure that he was just hiding. I had been standing at the entrance to the store and watching out of the corner of my eye, so I knew he couldn't have left. I combed the floor, looking for little croc clad feet poking out from behind a rack somewhere, but saw nothing. The store was connected through a door in the back to the regular Gap and so I did a cursory check of that (much larger) store, even though I was positive he couldn't have possibly made it that far in such a short period of time. It was a really short period of time.
Still no J-dog.
I went back to the Baby Gap and started calling his name loudly, starting to panic a little now because it was getting obvious that he wasn't in either of the two stores. I looked in the dressing rooms, the stock room, behind the counter, everywhere. People started to notice my growing hysteria and asked what he looked like, what he was wearing, what name he answered to. Before I knew it, one of the sales associates was radioing security with a bulletin and his description.
I peeked out into the mall, then ran back and forth between the two Gap stores, sure that he would appear momentarily. No longer a person anchored in time and space, I scurried frantically about and thought, "This is how it happens."
An
"They think they might have found him" she said as the two of us walked-ran towards a mall cop who was standing by a fountain in the main atrium talking to someone on his radio. "I am not a bad mother," I said.
When we finally reached the atrium, I planted myself in front of the giant mall cop. "DID YOU FIND HIM? WHERE IS HE???"
"Just hold on, Ma'am!" he snapped, still talking to whoever it was on the other end, beads of sweat popping out over his brow. "Okay, now. Up that way, past the fountain, just by the main entrance."
So I ran.
And he was there. He had made it halfway across the mall, apparently following a woman he'd mistaken for me. As hokey as it sounds, in my mind's eye our reunion happened in slo-mo, me running with tunnel vision, blurry storefronts in the periphery, towards a still oblivious J-dog who was being held by a kind looking grandfatherly sort.
He hadn't been crying, probably had only realized he had been lost when I scooped him up and wept. I sat down on a bench with him wrapped tightly around my neck and that's when he started to sob. Even on the drive home, after we had both calmed down, he'd hiccup periodically and fight to catch rapid breath. I decided we would never set foot in the mall again.
Thing is, I honestly believed it couldn't happen to me. Because I am hyper-vigilant - I've caught the J-dog from falling backwards out of an open deck door with one hand and less than a second to spare while looking in the opposite direction. I regularly intercept falling sipping cups in mid-air and, until yesterday, believed that I had an infallible second sense with regard to my childrens' position in the universe.
And I will admit to you now that in the past, upon hearing the line, "I only let him out of my sight for a minute," I shamefully assumed that "minute" really meant "five" or maybe even "ten."
But it doesn't. It's a minute, maybe even seconds. And while I know that the little J-dog was probably in no real danger at any point during our little ordeal, those moments of not knowing were a loaded eternity. I almost didn't write about this because doing so is admitting that it actually happened, that I let my guard down long enough to allow my three-year-old to wander away.
Since we've been home, the J-dog has gotten a wad of Play-Dog jammed up his right nostril and squashed his index finger in a door jamb, which just goes to show you that home is not that much safer than the big bad world.
But still. SECONDS.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Nice Try
The little J-dog, who is not yet three years old, is aching to attend Montessori pre-school with the V-meister.
Every morning in the carpool line, he enthusiastically shakes the assistant's hand (she meets every student at the car and sees him safely to the front door) and wishes her a good morning.
As we pull away, he faithfully insists, "I go skoo TWO-yeaw-ode Mama!"
And every morning without fail, I say, "You can go when you're three. And potty trained."
"I go TWO. Diaper."
"Three. Potty trained."
I see him through my rear view mirror, staring wistfully out the window, plotting ways to circumvent toilet training and age advancement in order to gain access.
This morning was no different. We pulled up to the carpool line and switched the stereo from an 80s dance compilation to NPR news, turning down the volume. The V-meister unbuckled herself and perched, birdlike, on the edge of her car seat, waiting her turn to exit. The J-dog gazed broodingly out the window at V-meister's classmates as they made their way into the building. Lucky bastards.
After the V-meister had been greeted and was skipping merrily toward the front doors, the J-dog, as per the custom, cordially extended his mittened hand.
"Good morning, J-dog," the assistant said warmly.
"Good mowning" he said. And then, in a balls out effort to demonstrate his own pre-school readiness, the little J-dog took a deep breath, stated his name, and proceeded to spell it out, clearly and deliberately. When he was done, he restated it for emphasis like some kind of pint-sized spelling be contestant, then waited expectantly, beaming with pride.
It's not the Montessori way to heap praises on children for work well done - learning is its own reward, recognized by the child himself. So there was no hint of malice or mockery in the teacher's tone when she deadpanned, "You've spelled your name. Congratulations."
But I think the little guy was kind of disappointed. I suspect his master plan had been to wow his way into pre-school at age two-and-a-half. If I'd had a gold star handy, I would have planted it, against Montessori regulation, squarely in the middle of his sweet and eager little forehead.
"Is it the hat? Because I could totally lose the hat."
Every morning in the carpool line, he enthusiastically shakes the assistant's hand (she meets every student at the car and sees him safely to the front door) and wishes her a good morning.
As we pull away, he faithfully insists, "I go skoo TWO-yeaw-ode Mama!"
And every morning without fail, I say, "You can go when you're three. And potty trained."
"I go TWO. Diaper."
"Three. Potty trained."
I see him through my rear view mirror, staring wistfully out the window, plotting ways to circumvent toilet training and age advancement in order to gain access.
This morning was no different. We pulled up to the carpool line and switched the stereo from an 80s dance compilation to NPR news, turning down the volume. The V-meister unbuckled herself and perched, birdlike, on the edge of her car seat, waiting her turn to exit. The J-dog gazed broodingly out the window at V-meister's classmates as they made their way into the building. Lucky bastards.
After the V-meister had been greeted and was skipping merrily toward the front doors, the J-dog, as per the custom, cordially extended his mittened hand.
"Good morning, J-dog," the assistant said warmly.
"Good mowning" he said. And then, in a balls out effort to demonstrate his own pre-school readiness, the little J-dog took a deep breath, stated his name, and proceeded to spell it out, clearly and deliberately. When he was done, he restated it for emphasis like some kind of pint-sized spelling be contestant, then waited expectantly, beaming with pride.
It's not the Montessori way to heap praises on children for work well done - learning is its own reward, recognized by the child himself. So there was no hint of malice or mockery in the teacher's tone when she deadpanned, "You've spelled your name. Congratulations."
But I think the little guy was kind of disappointed. I suspect his master plan had been to wow his way into pre-school at age two-and-a-half. If I'd had a gold star handy, I would have planted it, against Montessori regulation, squarely in the middle of his sweet and eager little forehead.
"Is it the hat? Because I could totally lose the hat."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Mission
It was on the day the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated that I took the pregnancy test.
We had decided just a few weeks before that the time was as ripe as it ever would be for babymaking and I, with a green light from my psyche, the P-Dawg, and the ob/gyn, made it my personal mission to beat the estimated odds of conceiving in “six months to one year.”
P-Dawg’s input and DNA would be required, naturally, for implementation, but I took greedy ownership of the planning and strategy phases with the same singularity of purpose I had once dedicated to making the Dean’s List, getting the scholarship, scoring the interview, landing the job.
To this end, babymaking books were purchased and studied religiously. Google searches employing phrases like, “How to get pregnant super fast” were performed, and morning temperatures were charted. I was tuned into my body’s every twitch and secretion in the way that only a woman meticulously planning conception can be.
One afternoon just days after our first scheduled attempt, I was driving home from work when I noticed how uncomfortable the tug of the seat belt across my chest had become. My ta-tas, as it happened, were sore in a whole new way, and they heralded a light bulb moment the likes of which I hadn't experienced to date.
I began groping myself right there in the driver's seat of my blue Saturn sedan, cautiously at first, then with no holds barred. Does it hurt when I press here? Yes! What about here? Yes! If I mash them together? By, God, it does! And if I press myself full tilt into the steering wheel? I just might be pregnant.
It was too early to take a test, yet impossible, from that point on, to ignore the goings on: continued soreness, strange, cramplike twitches in the nether regions, and a sharp, stabbing pain that woke me up in the middle of one night to be followed by unmistakably rosier than usual cheeks the very next morning.
I endured the requisite number of days before an early pregnancy test could be taken. On the morning of that day, with the P-Dawg still on his overnight call shift at the hospital, I planned a deliberate trip to the drugstore. As I prepared to leave, the cable channels were playing and replaying the same few clips of space shuttle Columbia breaking up in blue skies over Texas.
And in the car on the way to the pharmacy, listening to a DJ announce news of the tragedy with thinly veiled excitement, before the pregnancy test had even been purchased or peed on, I knew with certainty that a catastrophic space mission would always be entwined in my memory with the day I learned that my first baby would come to be.
The test, of course, was positive: my dear little V-meister in her earliest iteration, as evidenced by a blurry pink line. Yet I was surprised at how closely my initial joy was followed by a pang of fear and the very first inkling of the buzzing, baseline anxiety that comes part and parcel with the act of bringing a child into this world.
And I've been living with the uneasy knowledge that ecstasy and despair are never more than a heartbeat away, one from the other, ever since that day when my fervent hope was confirmed as inky smoke trails, obvious evidence of human frailty and ultimate demise, arched across a Texas sky.
We had decided just a few weeks before that the time was as ripe as it ever would be for babymaking and I, with a green light from my psyche, the P-Dawg, and the ob/gyn, made it my personal mission to beat the estimated odds of conceiving in “six months to one year.”
P-Dawg’s input and DNA would be required, naturally, for implementation, but I took greedy ownership of the planning and strategy phases with the same singularity of purpose I had once dedicated to making the Dean’s List, getting the scholarship, scoring the interview, landing the job.
To this end, babymaking books were purchased and studied religiously. Google searches employing phrases like, “How to get pregnant super fast” were performed, and morning temperatures were charted. I was tuned into my body’s every twitch and secretion in the way that only a woman meticulously planning conception can be.
One afternoon just days after our first scheduled attempt, I was driving home from work when I noticed how uncomfortable the tug of the seat belt across my chest had become. My ta-tas, as it happened, were sore in a whole new way, and they heralded a light bulb moment the likes of which I hadn't experienced to date.
I began groping myself right there in the driver's seat of my blue Saturn sedan, cautiously at first, then with no holds barred. Does it hurt when I press here? Yes! What about here? Yes! If I mash them together? By, God, it does! And if I press myself full tilt into the steering wheel? I just might be pregnant.
It was too early to take a test, yet impossible, from that point on, to ignore the goings on: continued soreness, strange, cramplike twitches in the nether regions, and a sharp, stabbing pain that woke me up in the middle of one night to be followed by unmistakably rosier than usual cheeks the very next morning.
I endured the requisite number of days before an early pregnancy test could be taken. On the morning of that day, with the P-Dawg still on his overnight call shift at the hospital, I planned a deliberate trip to the drugstore. As I prepared to leave, the cable channels were playing and replaying the same few clips of space shuttle Columbia breaking up in blue skies over Texas.
And in the car on the way to the pharmacy, listening to a DJ announce news of the tragedy with thinly veiled excitement, before the pregnancy test had even been purchased or peed on, I knew with certainty that a catastrophic space mission would always be entwined in my memory with the day I learned that my first baby would come to be.
The test, of course, was positive: my dear little V-meister in her earliest iteration, as evidenced by a blurry pink line. Yet I was surprised at how closely my initial joy was followed by a pang of fear and the very first inkling of the buzzing, baseline anxiety that comes part and parcel with the act of bringing a child into this world.
And I've been living with the uneasy knowledge that ecstasy and despair are never more than a heartbeat away, one from the other, ever since that day when my fervent hope was confirmed as inky smoke trails, obvious evidence of human frailty and ultimate demise, arched across a Texas sky.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
And it Doubles as a Bottle Opener
Before getting engaged, the P-Dawg and I didn't shop around for rings. In fact, I didn't see the proposal coming until he got down on one knee and offered up the diamond that had been burning a hole in his pocket all evening long.
Instead, on the day after he completed Part One of his medical boards, the P-Dawg simply went down to the "old neighborhood," where a family friend who owned a jewelry store/pawn shop sandwiched between a state license bureau and an ALDI supermarket set him up with some kwality gems.
After narrowing the selection down to a few engagement ring/wedding band combo sets, my husband-to-be took them to the license bureau next door, where various employees of the state of Ohio ooooeh, aaahhed, and graciously modeled each one in turn until a decision was finally reached.
To this day, the image of my beloved P-Dawg, weighing the pros and cons of each potential ring choice surrounded by the clucking ladies of the DMV warms the very cockles of my stony heart.
But . . . it's not quite enough to make up for the fact that, though I admire my engagement ring daily, I've never been able to warm up to its companion wedding band. In true ungrateful wench fashion, I feel that I was somehow gypped out of the Hallmark memory in which the P-Dawg and I shop for wedding bands together, skipping, hand-in-hand.
Also, when worn alone, it kind of resembles the tab top on a can of soda:
I know I could have bigger problems.
When the P-Dawg finally learned of my discontent, he offered to buy me a new wedding band at some point in the distant future, when financial circumstances allowed. Our fifth wedding anniversary (which has come and gone) was bandied about as a potential occasion for the big band switcheroo. But eight years later, I'm still wearing the original.
Yesterday morning I was enjoying my second cup of joe when the doorbell rang and I found myself the lucky, albeit accidental recipient of a Thanksgiving bouquet and $250 (TWO-FITTY!) gift card from a local jewelry store.
It wasn't a surprise gift from the P-Dawg. I think it was intended for the previous owners of our home, who moved out of state with no forwarding address. Apparently, they were valued patrons of a fine, non pawn shop type of jewelry establishment - we get a mailboxload full of high end catalogs for them every day.
After briefly debating the ethical issues inherent in keeping the "gift," I showed it to the P-Dawg, who only half jokingly asked me what I wanted to buy with it.
And you know what? After all this time, it may not be a new wedding band, after all.
It turns out I've kind of warmed up to the old tab top ring. This modest little band was infused with a mighty lot of hopes and dreams on that long ago day at the DMV, and I'm not sure I want to trade those in.
Would you?
Instead, on the day after he completed Part One of his medical boards, the P-Dawg simply went down to the "old neighborhood," where a family friend who owned a jewelry store/pawn shop sandwiched between a state license bureau and an ALDI supermarket set him up with some kwality gems.
After narrowing the selection down to a few engagement ring/wedding band combo sets, my husband-to-be took them to the license bureau next door, where various employees of the state of Ohio ooooeh, aaahhed, and graciously modeled each one in turn until a decision was finally reached.
To this day, the image of my beloved P-Dawg, weighing the pros and cons of each potential ring choice surrounded by the clucking ladies of the DMV warms the very cockles of my stony heart.
But . . . it's not quite enough to make up for the fact that, though I admire my engagement ring daily, I've never been able to warm up to its companion wedding band. In true ungrateful wench fashion, I feel that I was somehow gypped out of the Hallmark memory in which the P-Dawg and I shop for wedding bands together, skipping, hand-in-hand.
Also, when worn alone, it kind of resembles the tab top on a can of soda:
I know I could have bigger problems.
When the P-Dawg finally learned of my discontent, he offered to buy me a new wedding band at some point in the distant future, when financial circumstances allowed. Our fifth wedding anniversary (which has come and gone) was bandied about as a potential occasion for the big band switcheroo. But eight years later, I'm still wearing the original.
Yesterday morning I was enjoying my second cup of joe when the doorbell rang and I found myself the lucky, albeit accidental recipient of a Thanksgiving bouquet and $250 (TWO-FITTY!) gift card from a local jewelry store.It wasn't a surprise gift from the P-Dawg. I think it was intended for the previous owners of our home, who moved out of state with no forwarding address. Apparently, they were valued patrons of a fine, non pawn shop type of jewelry establishment - we get a mailboxload full of high end catalogs for them every day.
After briefly debating the ethical issues inherent in keeping the "gift," I showed it to the P-Dawg, who only half jokingly asked me what I wanted to buy with it.
And you know what? After all this time, it may not be a new wedding band, after all.
It turns out I've kind of warmed up to the old tab top ring. This modest little band was infused with a mighty lot of hopes and dreams on that long ago day at the DMV, and I'm not sure I want to trade those in.
Would you?
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Obamarama*
Even though the P-Dawg and I went to sleep way past midnight, I sprung out of bed like a toddler on Christmas morning today.
Watching the celebrations on TV, it struck me that America may have been clinically depressed for the past eight years, but didn't realize just how bad it was until we went and filled our 'script for some Barack Obama, already.
(And Canada whispered, "Thank God she finally got help.")
I zipped around town with a goofy grin and a spring in my step all day.
Considered calling my old frenemy, France, and being all, "Check out my new PRESIDENT, b1tch!" (Je rigole, cherie! Kisses!)
The J-dog toddled about clutching his "O" fridge magnet and periodically shouting "Obama, mama!"
The V-meister, completely unbidden, decorated the wall of her bedroom thusly:
And when the J-dog and I were out playing in the fierce autumn leaves this afternoon, the world, for the moment, looked technicolor bright.
*How could I resist?
Watching the celebrations on TV, it struck me that America may have been clinically depressed for the past eight years, but didn't realize just how bad it was until we went and filled our 'script for some Barack Obama, already.
(And Canada whispered, "Thank God she finally got help.")
I zipped around town with a goofy grin and a spring in my step all day.
Considered calling my old frenemy, France, and being all, "Check out my new PRESIDENT, b1tch!" (Je rigole, cherie! Kisses!)
The J-dog toddled about clutching his "O" fridge magnet and periodically shouting "Obama, mama!"
The V-meister, completely unbidden, decorated the wall of her bedroom thusly:
And when the J-dog and I were out playing in the fierce autumn leaves this afternoon, the world, for the moment, looked technicolor bright.
*How could I resist?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
My Babylust is Fun Size
Do you know how cute a shoeless two-year old attempting a headstand looks?
Cute enough to cause a shriveled up 35 year-old mother of two who has sworn off having more children almost seriously reconsider her decision in a fit of babylust, that's what.
I've had minor ovarian twitches in the past, upon oogling other people's newborns and such, but never to the point where I was doing actual math in my head, like today during the little J-dog's Gymboree class. (July is a top-notch month, though, don't you think?)
Apparently, twenty adorable and exceptionally well-behaved two year olds toddling around barefoot and losing their shit for pure joy over a roomful of mechanically generated bubbles can totally do that to a person who may or may not be in the middle of her moon cycle, if you're picking up what I'm laying down.
But as strong as the urge was today, I know it is not a good idea for me to have more children. And I probably won't. Even though I'm pretty sure I could. I mean, I know how to do it, is what I'm saying.
I'm wondering, though: is there anyone out there reading who thought her family was complete and then decided to have a third child? Anyone, say, who had a VERY difficult time of it when her kids were babies and couldn't wait for the day when she finally had two hands free? And when that day was finally on the horizon, maybe found herself thinking that two hands aren't really all that and a bag of chips? Anyone out there who regrets a decision to have only two children? Found that the third time was the absolute charm? I await your wisdom.
Really, what I need is a mother of two teenagers, preferably one boy and one girl, to talk me off the ledge.
Rimarama, this is your Head Voice speaking. I can talk you off the ledge. How about: You're a b1tch on wheels when pregnant! And you're really not that good with teensie-weensie bobbly-headed wittle babies. You are prone to post-partum depression. And you have renegade boobies that routinely malfunction when called upon to act as vessels of infant nourishment. You should go back to work when the J-Dog starts school. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you'll have a mid-life crisis and you totally suck at scrapbooking. Was there anything else?
Rimarama: Well, there is the almost ten pounds of baby weight I finally wrested off.
Head Voice: Word.
So then I came home with an enormous hankering for smoked oysters. Which I ate for lunch, atop two slices of gag-a-licious weight watchers bread (not recommended). Afterwards, I absolutely had to have a Fun Size Snicker's bar, but found that there was not much "fun" about it until I chased it up with three or four more, at which point it became a veritable Festival of Fun. For about ten seconds, and then it turned into a Guilt Garden.
But, it helped get my mind off babies.
This pikchur was taken when I was eight months along with the V-Meister:
"Are You Freakin' Kidding Me, Rimarama?"
P.S. Don't anybody go reading anything into this post. I am absolutely, unequivocally, hands-down, NOT pregnant.
Cute enough to cause a shriveled up 35 year-old mother of two who has sworn off having more children almost seriously reconsider her decision in a fit of babylust, that's what.
I've had minor ovarian twitches in the past, upon oogling other people's newborns and such, but never to the point where I was doing actual math in my head, like today during the little J-dog's Gymboree class. (July is a top-notch month, though, don't you think?)
Apparently, twenty adorable and exceptionally well-behaved two year olds toddling around barefoot and losing their shit for pure joy over a roomful of mechanically generated bubbles can totally do that to a person who may or may not be in the middle of her moon cycle, if you're picking up what I'm laying down.
But as strong as the urge was today, I know it is not a good idea for me to have more children. And I probably won't. Even though I'm pretty sure I could. I mean, I know how to do it, is what I'm saying.
I'm wondering, though: is there anyone out there reading who thought her family was complete and then decided to have a third child? Anyone, say, who had a VERY difficult time of it when her kids were babies and couldn't wait for the day when she finally had two hands free? And when that day was finally on the horizon, maybe found herself thinking that two hands aren't really all that and a bag of chips? Anyone out there who regrets a decision to have only two children? Found that the third time was the absolute charm? I await your wisdom.
Really, what I need is a mother of two teenagers, preferably one boy and one girl, to talk me off the ledge.
Rimarama, this is your Head Voice speaking. I can talk you off the ledge. How about: You're a b1tch on wheels when pregnant! And you're really not that good with teensie-weensie bobbly-headed wittle babies. You are prone to post-partum depression. And you have renegade boobies that routinely malfunction when called upon to act as vessels of infant nourishment. You should go back to work when the J-Dog starts school. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you'll have a mid-life crisis and you totally suck at scrapbooking. Was there anything else?
Rimarama: Well, there is the almost ten pounds of baby weight I finally wrested off.
Head Voice: Word.
So then I came home with an enormous hankering for smoked oysters. Which I ate for lunch, atop two slices of gag-a-licious weight watchers bread (not recommended). Afterwards, I absolutely had to have a Fun Size Snicker's bar, but found that there was not much "fun" about it until I chased it up with three or four more, at which point it became a veritable Festival of Fun. For about ten seconds, and then it turned into a Guilt Garden.
But, it helped get my mind off babies.
This pikchur was taken when I was eight months along with the V-Meister:
"Are You Freakin' Kidding Me, Rimarama?"
P.S. Don't anybody go reading anything into this post. I am absolutely, unequivocally, hands-down, NOT pregnant.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Five: It's Pretty Good
My Dearest Little V,
You turned five last week.
Five!
Four years ago, when George W. Bush was re-elected, I distinctly remember thinking with great chagrin that my baby girl would be five years old before we could have a new president.
And I really wanted a new president, but I didn't want your growing up to be a prerequisite. Because even as I longed to set you down for just a moment and give my leaden arms a rest, I was already mourning the time when I could no longer carry you, call you by the diminutive form of your name, select delectable little girl outfits carte blanche, or kiss the warm delicious spot on your forehead a thousand times a day.
It's ironic that I've wanted to keep Five at bay. It was always your age in my dreams, when I'd conjure up the daughter I didn't dare voice a longing for until you were here in flesh, more perfect and beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
There's an important threshold that's crossed at Five, I think. You've been angling toward it for awhile now, and sometime during the past month, you arrived, crossing over into girlhood with poise and self-assurance.
I perceive this change in your daily observations about the word around you, in the way you have begun to cultivate friendships, and in the increased control you exert over your emotions.
You take Five very seriously, eager to meet its expectations of you. When you are Five, you sometimes let your brother swipe your toy, you tell me. When you are five, you do quiet work at your desk, you say. When you are five, you can have Barbie roller skates, as long as you wear protective gear and a helmet.
When you are Five, you select your own outfits, taking great pains to ensure that all available patterns and color combinations are represented.
When you are Five, you sit for hours at a time, cutting paper hearts and covering every inch of them with glitter. Each one is for your mother.
When you are Five, you want to know WHY.
You provide running commentary and astute observations about everything around you. You continue to talk after I buckle you in, close the door, and walk around to my side of the car. You begin talking when you wake up in the morning and you fall asleep in mid-sentence, while reading your picture dictionary aloud to your webkin.
You remember promises made days, weeks, months ago and hold your hapless parents accountable for every one.
You no longer fall apart at every little one of life's curve balls. You can get out of bed and dressed for school without bringing your mother to tears.
This time last year, I wanted to believe that we would round the corner. How, I wondered, could the relationship between a four year old and her mother already be so volatile, so tenuous, so fraught with emotion? I thought you were four-going-on-fourteen and I worried, little V, that our best moments were already behind us.
But while it's not uncommon for me to walk into a room to find you standing on tiptoes at the highest point you can access, holding a toy high above your head while a distraught little J-dog wails below, I've noticed a gentle outward shift in your consciousness, a kindness and concern for the fellow inhabitants of your world obviously emerging.
Of course, I've always believed you would be kind, intelligent, and beautiful in every way that counts, but now I see it's really true.
I love you so much, my dearest little V. Your baby years were everything that they were meant to be, but I'd be a fool to think that your debut into a strong, lovely girlhood could be anything less than a pleasure and honor to behold.
You turned five last week.
Five!
Four years ago, when George W. Bush was re-elected, I distinctly remember thinking with great chagrin that my baby girl would be five years old before we could have a new president.
And I really wanted a new president, but I didn't want your growing up to be a prerequisite. Because even as I longed to set you down for just a moment and give my leaden arms a rest, I was already mourning the time when I could no longer carry you, call you by the diminutive form of your name, select delectable little girl outfits carte blanche, or kiss the warm delicious spot on your forehead a thousand times a day.
It's ironic that I've wanted to keep Five at bay. It was always your age in my dreams, when I'd conjure up the daughter I didn't dare voice a longing for until you were here in flesh, more perfect and beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
There's an important threshold that's crossed at Five, I think. You've been angling toward it for awhile now, and sometime during the past month, you arrived, crossing over into girlhood with poise and self-assurance.
I perceive this change in your daily observations about the word around you, in the way you have begun to cultivate friendships, and in the increased control you exert over your emotions.
You take Five very seriously, eager to meet its expectations of you. When you are Five, you sometimes let your brother swipe your toy, you tell me. When you are five, you do quiet work at your desk, you say. When you are five, you can have Barbie roller skates, as long as you wear protective gear and a helmet.
When you are Five, you select your own outfits, taking great pains to ensure that all available patterns and color combinations are represented.
When you are Five, you sit for hours at a time, cutting paper hearts and covering every inch of them with glitter. Each one is for your mother.
When you are Five, you want to know WHY.
You provide running commentary and astute observations about everything around you. You continue to talk after I buckle you in, close the door, and walk around to my side of the car. You begin talking when you wake up in the morning and you fall asleep in mid-sentence, while reading your picture dictionary aloud to your webkin.
You remember promises made days, weeks, months ago and hold your hapless parents accountable for every one.
You no longer fall apart at every little one of life's curve balls. You can get out of bed and dressed for school without bringing your mother to tears.
This time last year, I wanted to believe that we would round the corner. How, I wondered, could the relationship between a four year old and her mother already be so volatile, so tenuous, so fraught with emotion? I thought you were four-going-on-fourteen and I worried, little V, that our best moments were already behind us.
But while it's not uncommon for me to walk into a room to find you standing on tiptoes at the highest point you can access, holding a toy high above your head while a distraught little J-dog wails below, I've noticed a gentle outward shift in your consciousness, a kindness and concern for the fellow inhabitants of your world obviously emerging.
Of course, I've always believed you would be kind, intelligent, and beautiful in every way that counts, but now I see it's really true.
I love you so much, my dearest little V. Your baby years were everything that they were meant to be, but I'd be a fool to think that your debut into a strong, lovely girlhood could be anything less than a pleasure and honor to behold.
Monday, August 04, 2008
"Thank You for Not Unsubscribing"
I've managed to keep this blog alive for a year. It's an accomplishment I'm rather proud of because there have been times when I wanted to put it through the shredder.
I think I created "Rimarama" in early 2007, posted a single (and very self-conscious) entry, then promptly forgot where it was located in cyberspace. I found the blog again in the beginning of August last year, and that's when I began fartin' all over the Internet on a regular basis.
Except that I had no idea what I was in for. At first I viewed blogging only as an exercise in creative writing and I enjoyed it very much. I looked forward to that magical one hour window every afternoon when the kids were napping or otherwise occupied to sit down in front of my laptop and flex the old front temporal lobe, which had begun to atrophy from misuse.
Then I discovered "mommy blogs," and thought that I might like to marry them. I wondered how it was that I'd survived the past three years of stay-at-home motherhood without gorging myself daily on the intimate details of other womens' lives.
I started to get greedy. Could I, too, be included on someone's blogroll? Might I cajole a hapless surfer to stumble upon my humble little web site and leave a comment? Could I get them to return and bring all of their friends? Begin selling Rimarama T-shirts and mugs? Build my own internet empire around poop and boogers?
As it happens, I cannot haz empire. But I can have a creative outlet, a sense of accomplishment, kick-ass readers, commenters, and honest to goodness friends.
I can also have feelings of inferiority, ridiculous self-imposed posting requirements, imaginary reciprocation commitments, and an unhealthy perspective on blogging in the grand scheme of things.
Now that a full year has passed, I'm belatedly asking myself what my ultimate goal is here. This blog is a chronicle of my life and that of my family that I hope will live in posterity, but I would be delusional to think I'm not writing for an audience. Knowing that someone is out there reading, enjoying, and possibly chuckling at what I have to say is my motivation for putting it out there in the first place.
As much as I would love to expand my readership, I've learned that, when it comes right down to it, I don't want to do the things it takes to actively grow my blog.
I suck at social networking sites.
I'm not willing to tailor my style of writing to appeal to a large audience.
I'm terrified of guest posting, asking for links, and generally pimpin' myself out.
And I'm generally too lazy to participate in memes, carnivals, and award chains.
I want to write when the urge hits and about whatever strikes my fancy.
I want to keep it light, and I want to get better at it.
I want to get a kick out of re-reading my own damn post or watching a smile spread slowly across the P-Dawg's face as he reads it.
If possible, I want you to leave here smiling, but if I can't pull it off, if I'm not feeling the funny, if my idea of funny is not the same as yours, even if you unsubscribe, I want to let it roll off my back.
I once told a friend that I knew I wasn't a "writer at heart" because I didn't feel a driving need to write every day. But a funny thing happened once I started writing here - I found it was hard to stop. Like exercising, the more I did it, the more I wanted to continue.
At minimum, writing regularly in this space has forced me to use brain cells that might have otherwise died watching Oprah. The act of wrapping words around my quotidian experiences as wife, mother, woman allows me to see them with a clarity and perspective that would have been lost if they'd slipped away, unrecorded.
One day soon I hope to convince myself that my subscriber count, my Technorati ranking, or the number of comments I get is not really a testament to the quality of my writing or the relevance of what I have to say. Right now, I almost believe it.
That said, I am truly grateful for every one of you who reads regularly or stops by from time to time to entertain my delusions of grandeur.
You totally make my day.
P.S. Which one of you f*ck#rs unsubscribed yesterday????
I think I created "Rimarama" in early 2007, posted a single (and very self-conscious) entry, then promptly forgot where it was located in cyberspace. I found the blog again in the beginning of August last year, and that's when I began fartin' all over the Internet on a regular basis.
Except that I had no idea what I was in for. At first I viewed blogging only as an exercise in creative writing and I enjoyed it very much. I looked forward to that magical one hour window every afternoon when the kids were napping or otherwise occupied to sit down in front of my laptop and flex the old front temporal lobe, which had begun to atrophy from misuse.
Then I discovered "mommy blogs," and thought that I might like to marry them. I wondered how it was that I'd survived the past three years of stay-at-home motherhood without gorging myself daily on the intimate details of other womens' lives.
I started to get greedy. Could I, too, be included on someone's blogroll? Might I cajole a hapless surfer to stumble upon my humble little web site and leave a comment? Could I get them to return and bring all of their friends? Begin selling Rimarama T-shirts and mugs? Build my own internet empire around poop and boogers?
As it happens, I cannot haz empire. But I can have a creative outlet, a sense of accomplishment, kick-ass readers, commenters, and honest to goodness friends.
I can also have feelings of inferiority, ridiculous self-imposed posting requirements, imaginary reciprocation commitments, and an unhealthy perspective on blogging in the grand scheme of things.
Now that a full year has passed, I'm belatedly asking myself what my ultimate goal is here. This blog is a chronicle of my life and that of my family that I hope will live in posterity, but I would be delusional to think I'm not writing for an audience. Knowing that someone is out there reading, enjoying, and possibly chuckling at what I have to say is my motivation for putting it out there in the first place.
As much as I would love to expand my readership, I've learned that, when it comes right down to it, I don't want to do the things it takes to actively grow my blog.
I suck at social networking sites.
I'm not willing to tailor my style of writing to appeal to a large audience.
I'm terrified of guest posting, asking for links, and generally pimpin' myself out.
And I'm generally too lazy to participate in memes, carnivals, and award chains.
I want to write when the urge hits and about whatever strikes my fancy.
I want to keep it light, and I want to get better at it.
I want to get a kick out of re-reading my own damn post or watching a smile spread slowly across the P-Dawg's face as he reads it.
If possible, I want you to leave here smiling, but if I can't pull it off, if I'm not feeling the funny, if my idea of funny is not the same as yours, even if you unsubscribe, I want to let it roll off my back.
I once told a friend that I knew I wasn't a "writer at heart" because I didn't feel a driving need to write every day. But a funny thing happened once I started writing here - I found it was hard to stop. Like exercising, the more I did it, the more I wanted to continue.
At minimum, writing regularly in this space has forced me to use brain cells that might have otherwise died watching Oprah. The act of wrapping words around my quotidian experiences as wife, mother, woman allows me to see them with a clarity and perspective that would have been lost if they'd slipped away, unrecorded.
One day soon I hope to convince myself that my subscriber count, my Technorati ranking, or the number of comments I get is not really a testament to the quality of my writing or the relevance of what I have to say. Right now, I almost believe it.
That said, I am truly grateful for every one of you who reads regularly or stops by from time to time to entertain my delusions of grandeur.
You totally make my day.
P.S. Which one of you f*ck#rs unsubscribed yesterday????
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I'm Just a Kid
Today is my birthday and I have writer's block. I feel that I should have something marginally important to say, but I don't.
There's only this: thirty-five is not nearly as old as I once thought it would be. But you knew that already.
There's only this: thirty-five is not nearly as old as I once thought it would be. But you knew that already.
When the P-Dawg got into medical school, I remember counting forward through all the years that would be "wasted" with school and residency before, as I then saw it, our lives could begin.
By my calculations, we would both be thirty-three when all was said and done - there would be no choice but to go straight from our apartment into the old folks' home. Yet here I am, squarely in my thirties and you wouldn't even know it, save for the trick knee.
Okay, and the metabolism. Plus that frumpy mom aura that keeps following me around, compelling me to put squares of toilet paper down before sitting on a public commode and say things like "Do you think I put those barrettes in your hair for my health???"
(Which I did say, just the other day, in fact, and I'll tell you something: it felt right. Although it appeared to have zero impact on the V-meister, who simply continued dragging her recently washed mane back and forth through a plate full of spaghetti.)
For most of my life to date, I've been waiting. But now that I'm at that place that was always just a speck on the horizon, I can't help but notice that I've covered some pretty quality ground. Every event or accomplishment upon which I place real value - my marriage, the birth of my children, my decision to write in this space regularly, regardless of how clumsy my words feel - has transpired during a period of time that I once dismissed as limbo.
Every year on my birthday, my mom calls in the morning. Usually she and my dad will get on the horn and sing "Happy Birthday" as soon as I pick up. No matter how many times they do it, I can't help but stand there holding my coffee mug and grinning like a fool at the image of the two of them huddled around the rotary phone, singing at the top of their lungs. It makes me feel as though I'm ten and just woke up to a Strawberry Shortcake bike with a glitter infused banana seat and sparkly handlebar streamers.
And here I am, thirty-five.
By my calculations, we would both be thirty-three when all was said and done - there would be no choice but to go straight from our apartment into the old folks' home. Yet here I am, squarely in my thirties and you wouldn't even know it, save for the trick knee.
Okay, and the metabolism. Plus that frumpy mom aura that keeps following me around, compelling me to put squares of toilet paper down before sitting on a public commode and say things like "Do you think I put those barrettes in your hair for my health???"
(Which I did say, just the other day, in fact, and I'll tell you something: it felt right. Although it appeared to have zero impact on the V-meister, who simply continued dragging her recently washed mane back and forth through a plate full of spaghetti.)
For most of my life to date, I've been waiting. But now that I'm at that place that was always just a speck on the horizon, I can't help but notice that I've covered some pretty quality ground. Every event or accomplishment upon which I place real value - my marriage, the birth of my children, my decision to write in this space regularly, regardless of how clumsy my words feel - has transpired during a period of time that I once dismissed as limbo.
Every year on my birthday, my mom calls in the morning. Usually she and my dad will get on the horn and sing "Happy Birthday" as soon as I pick up. No matter how many times they do it, I can't help but stand there holding my coffee mug and grinning like a fool at the image of the two of them huddled around the rotary phone, singing at the top of their lungs. It makes me feel as though I'm ten and just woke up to a Strawberry Shortcake bike with a glitter infused banana seat and sparkly handlebar streamers.
And here I am, thirty-five.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Le Divan de La Tristesse
My high school French teacher had a special couch in the sunny back corner of her classroom where you were allowed to lie down if you were having a bad day.
It was burnt orange and upholstered in a nubby synthetic fabric. There was a big, leafy indoor tree next to it, and a magazine bin full of French glossies which were rumored to contain ads with half naked women in them.
All you had to do was start crying in the middle of class, run a temperature, or complain of cramps, and you'd earn yourself a free ticket to the orange couch with its forty-five minute reprieve from having to answer any questions - en francais! - about the weather, your hobbies, or where the train station was located.
Oh, ma petite Rima! Vous-vous sentez mal aujourd'hui? Ma pauvre petite! Allez! Asseyez-vous sur le divan de la tristesse!
The old divan de la tristesse was never at a loss for occupants. In high school, someone was always having their period or breaking down in the middle of class.
Back in the heyday, I'd say I cried at least three, maybe four days out of any given week? I could cry at the drop of a hat, and I was an equal opportunity crier, too: blubbering it up in a bathroom stall during lunch break, sniffling quietly in front of my opened locker, or flat out weeping evenings at home in the privacy of my bedroom, face down into my lemon yellow chiffon bedspread while listening to the Cure.
There were so many things to be melancholy about: unrequited love, a failed Trigonometry test, the senseless slaughter of baby seals. Emotions were my bitch, always at the ready and bubbling effortlessly to the surface at every angsty turn.
I hardly ever cry anymore. It's probably for the best. It gives me a migraine, for one thing, and my eyeballs get bone dry.
What's more, a good cry hardly ever seems warranted, or even justifiable these days. Where once I might have had a full blown snotfest over a misunderstanding with a friend or family member, I'm now much more likely to be angry and irritated instead. Which sort of makes me wonder whether I've reached a new level of emotional maturity, or if I'm just dead inside.
I could have used a time out on the nubby orange couch and a copy of French Vogue today. I'm OK, really. But I miss Madame Rothe, sick days, and my old capacity for tears.
It was burnt orange and upholstered in a nubby synthetic fabric. There was a big, leafy indoor tree next to it, and a magazine bin full of French glossies which were rumored to contain ads with half naked women in them.
All you had to do was start crying in the middle of class, run a temperature, or complain of cramps, and you'd earn yourself a free ticket to the orange couch with its forty-five minute reprieve from having to answer any questions - en francais! - about the weather, your hobbies, or where the train station was located.
Oh, ma petite Rima! Vous-vous sentez mal aujourd'hui? Ma pauvre petite! Allez! Asseyez-vous sur le divan de la tristesse!
The old divan de la tristesse was never at a loss for occupants. In high school, someone was always having their period or breaking down in the middle of class.
Back in the heyday, I'd say I cried at least three, maybe four days out of any given week? I could cry at the drop of a hat, and I was an equal opportunity crier, too: blubbering it up in a bathroom stall during lunch break, sniffling quietly in front of my opened locker, or flat out weeping evenings at home in the privacy of my bedroom, face down into my lemon yellow chiffon bedspread while listening to the Cure.
There were so many things to be melancholy about: unrequited love, a failed Trigonometry test, the senseless slaughter of baby seals. Emotions were my bitch, always at the ready and bubbling effortlessly to the surface at every angsty turn.
I hardly ever cry anymore. It's probably for the best. It gives me a migraine, for one thing, and my eyeballs get bone dry.
What's more, a good cry hardly ever seems warranted, or even justifiable these days. Where once I might have had a full blown snotfest over a misunderstanding with a friend or family member, I'm now much more likely to be angry and irritated instead. Which sort of makes me wonder whether I've reached a new level of emotional maturity, or if I'm just dead inside.
I could have used a time out on the nubby orange couch and a copy of French Vogue today. I'm OK, really. But I miss Madame Rothe, sick days, and my old capacity for tears.
Friday, June 27, 2008
You Can't Take It With You
Last night I was lying in bed, sucking on a melatonin tablet and waxing nostalgic about the hut.
I thought, "I will only stare at these cranberry red walls before falling asleep here fifty more times."
And I got a little panicky. Because I haven't started packing, or even contracted a mover.
And because I suspect that leaving here, we'll leave some intangible part of our fledgling family behind, never to be recreated in quite the same way again.
The hut is where we brought the newborn V-meister, ensconced in her plastic Graco cocoon, set her down in the middle of the living room rug, looked at each other and said, "Ooooooooookaaaay. Now what?" (Moments later, she started meowling, I tried unsuccessfully to nurse her, she projectile vomited, I cried on and off for a year, and our question was roundly answered.)
Two years later, I elected to do it all over again, except this time it wasn't so much a question of wondering what do to with the newborn stranger as trying to figure out a way to keep him fed, clothed, and happy with a two-year-old, potty training V-meister permanently attached to my lower extremities.
Good times!
Darkish times, too. Like in the evenings of nascent motherhood when, the sun having regretfully set, I'd find my pudgy, leaking, yoga pants clad self sitting on the stinky brown couch and trying to nurse yet again, wondering why on earth I thought I could raise a human being, convinced that I had, in fact, known happiness, but it was over now.
Still, we lived a whole chapter of our lives here that we'll never be able to revisit. And while there's no going back in time regardless of one's environs, leaving here is a molting of sorts, like losing forever a piece of what we were during that bittersweet glimmer.
Strange, when I think about how wretched I felt during the PPD days and swore then that the world was closing in on me, I also recall eating bowls of Ben and Jerry's with a baby tucked safely between the P-Dawg and me on our cheap brown Sofa Express couch, watching the Colbert Report, and laughing in spite of myself.
And while I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't want to relive that time in its entirety, neither do I want to leave it here for good.
The Newborn Meister and I
V-Meister and P-Dawg
V-Meister, Hitting the Sauce
Little J's Homecoming
J-Dog, Six Weeks
I thought, "I will only stare at these cranberry red walls before falling asleep here fifty more times."
And I got a little panicky. Because I haven't started packing, or even contracted a mover.
And because I suspect that leaving here, we'll leave some intangible part of our fledgling family behind, never to be recreated in quite the same way again.
The hut is where we brought the newborn V-meister, ensconced in her plastic Graco cocoon, set her down in the middle of the living room rug, looked at each other and said, "Ooooooooookaaaay. Now what?" (Moments later, she started meowling, I tried unsuccessfully to nurse her, she projectile vomited, I cried on and off for a year, and our question was roundly answered.)
Two years later, I elected to do it all over again, except this time it wasn't so much a question of wondering what do to with the newborn stranger as trying to figure out a way to keep him fed, clothed, and happy with a two-year-old, potty training V-meister permanently attached to my lower extremities.
Good times!
Darkish times, too. Like in the evenings of nascent motherhood when, the sun having regretfully set, I'd find my pudgy, leaking, yoga pants clad self sitting on the stinky brown couch and trying to nurse yet again, wondering why on earth I thought I could raise a human being, convinced that I had, in fact, known happiness, but it was over now.
Still, we lived a whole chapter of our lives here that we'll never be able to revisit. And while there's no going back in time regardless of one's environs, leaving here is a molting of sorts, like losing forever a piece of what we were during that bittersweet glimmer.
Strange, when I think about how wretched I felt during the PPD days and swore then that the world was closing in on me, I also recall eating bowls of Ben and Jerry's with a baby tucked safely between the P-Dawg and me on our cheap brown Sofa Express couch, watching the Colbert Report, and laughing in spite of myself.
And while I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't want to relive that time in its entirety, neither do I want to leave it here for good.
The Newborn Meister and I
V-Meister and P-Dawg
V-Meister, Hitting the Sauce
Little J's Homecoming
J-Dog, Six Weeks
Friday, April 25, 2008
About a Boy
When I became pregnant with you, I was darn near convinced I was carrying another girl.
I already had your sister, so it logically followed that my body was of the girl child producing variety.
The Chinese Gender Prediction Chart confirmed it.
The fact that I had scores of girls' names but none for boys swirling around in my hormone steeped brain was just another sign. (One day I hope you'll agree we picked a winner, though, and let it be said right here and now: Your father wanted to name you "Zenonas.")
But when your gender became apparent during my 18 month ultrasound appointment, Daddy and I were elated.
One of each! Healthy and perfect!
We would be a Hallmark family and there would be no need for a minivan.
But I must admit, little J, that I fretted. Not just about keeping you alive on the inside and then later, forever in the endless world, but about other stuff, too.
Would I be able to love this second boy child as much as my perfect baby girl?
Would you and the V-meister be friends?
What was the protocol for diapering your boy bits?
Would you be relegated to a life of sports and truck themed clothing for the lack of hip baby boy duds available for purchase at the local malls?
And what were the odds of going two for two in the cuteness lottery?
I'm ashamed to admit these were the questions I grappled with as I lay awake nights, tossing and turning on the trusty old body pillow, my hands and fingers achy and numb despite the wrist braces I wore nightly to keep my carpal tunnel pain at bay.
And, busy with a two-year-old V-meister, I'm sorry to say, little J, that I didn't track your every gestational milestone in the infernal What To Expect literature.
Oh, you were constantly on my mind and you reminded me of your presence daily with impressive jab, left hook, and side kick combos aimed at various parts of my anatomy, movements whose frequency and regularity I dutifully tracked towards the end of my pregnancy, ever vigilant and aware of the tenuous nature of the precious little life I was sustaining.
But despite our cozy living arrangement, you were an enigma, a bit of a stranger to me. A little boy stranger who I was at times unsure I could properly love.
One evening, wide awake again, I was playing and replaying possible birth scenario footage in my mind's eye. I was about eight months along, and the primal fear associated with childbirth had begun to creep up from the depths of my very own piece of the collective maternal unconscious.
On this night, for reasons unknown, I imagined what your first cry would sound like when you finally emerged.
I just kind of heard it in my head.
This thought alone was enough to trigger tears of my own.
All at once it hit me: you would have a voice, you would be a person. And imagining your first angry salutation to the world, little J, transformed you in my mind from the baby in my belly to the little boy I would love.
I began waiting for my son.
And you haven't disappointed - you had me at your first indignant wail.
It's hard to fathom that once, as the mother of one, I could have ever doubted my heart's elasticity or the ease with which you could take up residence there.
You are a greater gift than I could have ever imagined. I didn't know my life had a big J-sized hole in it before I laid eyes on you.
So happy second birthday and ilgiausiu metu, J!
Thank you for choosing us, and for your perfectly guileless little boy love.
P.S. I get it now, about mother and sons. I'm sorry, little dude, but your future wife is going to hate me.
I already had your sister, so it logically followed that my body was of the girl child producing variety.
The Chinese Gender Prediction Chart confirmed it.
The fact that I had scores of girls' names but none for boys swirling around in my hormone steeped brain was just another sign. (One day I hope you'll agree we picked a winner, though, and let it be said right here and now: Your father wanted to name you "Zenonas.")
But when your gender became apparent during my 18 month ultrasound appointment, Daddy and I were elated.
One of each! Healthy and perfect!
We would be a Hallmark family and there would be no need for a minivan.
But I must admit, little J, that I fretted. Not just about keeping you alive on the inside and then later, forever in the endless world, but about other stuff, too.
Would I be able to love this second boy child as much as my perfect baby girl?
Would you and the V-meister be friends?
What was the protocol for diapering your boy bits?
Would you be relegated to a life of sports and truck themed clothing for the lack of hip baby boy duds available for purchase at the local malls?
And what were the odds of going two for two in the cuteness lottery?
I'm ashamed to admit these were the questions I grappled with as I lay awake nights, tossing and turning on the trusty old body pillow, my hands and fingers achy and numb despite the wrist braces I wore nightly to keep my carpal tunnel pain at bay.
And, busy with a two-year-old V-meister, I'm sorry to say, little J, that I didn't track your every gestational milestone in the infernal What To Expect literature.
Oh, you were constantly on my mind and you reminded me of your presence daily with impressive jab, left hook, and side kick combos aimed at various parts of my anatomy, movements whose frequency and regularity I dutifully tracked towards the end of my pregnancy, ever vigilant and aware of the tenuous nature of the precious little life I was sustaining.
But despite our cozy living arrangement, you were an enigma, a bit of a stranger to me. A little boy stranger who I was at times unsure I could properly love.
One evening, wide awake again, I was playing and replaying possible birth scenario footage in my mind's eye. I was about eight months along, and the primal fear associated with childbirth had begun to creep up from the depths of my very own piece of the collective maternal unconscious.
On this night, for reasons unknown, I imagined what your first cry would sound like when you finally emerged.
I just kind of heard it in my head.
This thought alone was enough to trigger tears of my own.
All at once it hit me: you would have a voice, you would be a person. And imagining your first angry salutation to the world, little J, transformed you in my mind from the baby in my belly to the little boy I would love.I began waiting for my son.
And you haven't disappointed - you had me at your first indignant wail.
It's hard to fathom that once, as the mother of one, I could have ever doubted my heart's elasticity or the ease with which you could take up residence there.
You are a greater gift than I could have ever imagined. I didn't know my life had a big J-sized hole in it before I laid eyes on you.
So happy second birthday and ilgiausiu metu, J!
Thank you for choosing us, and for your perfectly guileless little boy love.
P.S. I get it now, about mother and sons. I'm sorry, little dude, but your future wife is going to hate me.
Friday, December 28, 2007
It's a Wrap
Although I could have sworn that Christmas beat me up and gave me a nuggie/wedgie combo before stuffing me in a smelly locker this year, this is what I remember of it now:
Funny what three days and a photo editing software package can do.
The jagged edges of Christmas 2007 are already turning soft and blurry in my memory. It's just like childbirth! I might even work up the courage to do it again next year.
The 24th and 25th were a hectic couple of days for the Rama family.
We played the usual game of musical houses and transported an ever growing pile of toys and candy from location to location while attempting to keep tantrums at bay before finally collapsing onto the couch with mugs of tea and hot compresses when the family left on Christmas night.
The P-dog woke up on Christmas morning with a Sinus Infection to End All Sinus Infections. I was prepared to find the V-meister at my bedside at the crack of dawn, but when I skipped into her room at seven-thirty to report that the long awaited Santa had indeed swung by during the night, my four-going-on-fourteen-year-old daughter pulled the covers up over her head and announced that she was sleeping in.
The extended family were sleep-deprived and irritable at my parents' annual Christmas luncheon. And there was some (muffled) swearing when the in-laws showed up at our house an hour early for dessert and libations on Christmas night.
But this is what I'm going to remember:
promptly unscrewed and passed around the room shared with decorum.
But as I turned out my light and cranked up the white noise machine before finally going to bed on Christmas night, I may or may not have said, "Thank God it's over!"
Ah, Christmas.
You hurt so good.
Funny what three days and a photo editing software package can do.
The jagged edges of Christmas 2007 are already turning soft and blurry in my memory. It's just like childbirth! I might even work up the courage to do it again next year.
The 24th and 25th were a hectic couple of days for the Rama family.
We played the usual game of musical houses and transported an ever growing pile of toys and candy from location to location while attempting to keep tantrums at bay before finally collapsing onto the couch with mugs of tea and hot compresses when the family left on Christmas night.
The P-dog woke up on Christmas morning with a Sinus Infection to End All Sinus Infections. I was prepared to find the V-meister at my bedside at the crack of dawn, but when I skipped into her room at seven-thirty to report that the long awaited Santa had indeed swung by during the night, my four-going-on-fourteen-year-old daughter pulled the covers up over her head and announced that she was sleeping in.
The extended family were sleep-deprived and irritable at my parents' annual Christmas luncheon. And there was some (muffled) swearing when the in-laws showed up at our house an hour early for dessert and libations on Christmas night.
But this is what I'm going to remember:
- The upturned and smiling faces of the people in the pews below as our choir, accompanied by trumpet, clarinet, flute and drums, sang the closing hymn at Midnight Mass.
- The post-Christmas dinner song circle I organized and directed for the toddler set that will surely live on in Rama family lore for years to come. There is nothing like a rousing round of "Jonas turi viena plaktuka" (John Has a Hammer) or "Pasejau Dobila" (I Planted a Clover) to redirect sugar-fueled toddler energy and give the folk something to smile about.
- The proud look on the V-meister's face as she helped my mother bring out Jesus' birthday cake, complete with lit candles.
- My Uncle Vic feeding an adoring J-dog, his new BFF, plum pudding icing straight off the butter knife.
- The V-meister's unbridled excitement at the fact that Santa ate the cookies (He ATE THEM, Mama!) and the reindeer left only a few gnarled carrot nubbins in their wake. (No one questioned why a mere three shriveled baby carrots were left as offerings for twelve globe-trotting reindeer, or how a fat cat like Santa ever made it down the chimney.)
But as I turned out my light and cranked up the white noise machine before finally going to bed on Christmas night, I may or may not have said, "Thank God it's over!"
Ah, Christmas.
You hurt so good.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Rose Tinted Ramblings
I've been known to gripe and groan in this space about the trials and tribulations of life with small children.
I'm (mostly) all talk.
The V-meister, the J-dog, and their father are the best thing that's ever happened to me.
At this moment, I have everything I've ever truly wanted in life.
When you have small children, people whose own kids are grown and out of the house often gaze fondly upon your babies, replacing their faces with fuzzy, haloed memories of their own.
They admonish you to cherish this crazy, hectic, joyous, innocent, and fleeting time.
I always smile and say I'm trying.
This week alone, I was reminded by three strangers on three separate occasions to treasure it while it lasts.
Was it the V-meister and J-dog's guileless delight as the clerk at the European import store rang up the tiny chocolates they had picked out themselves that compelled her to warn me of time's swift and sure passage?
Or the way the J-dog looked at me with a proud sense of accomplishment after pressing the correct elevator button that prompted our fellow department store shopper to impart the same advice?
Was it the way the V-meister called after her dawdling little brother as we left, then returned to take him by the hand?
Maybe it was just their bare and honest joy.
Despite all attempts to freeze them in time, I know these years will soon recede behind the gauzy veil of memory.
I don't want to be the woman shaking a graying head wistfully at the young frazzled mother wrangling her tots through the supermarket line.
But one day, I will be.
Is it ever really possible to live fully in the moment and yet capture for posterity the true essence of these most poignant frames of life?
I want to push aside the grouchy, tired, and ever-anticipating part of myself, the better to recognize what is lovely and winsome about this time that one day soon will be a long time past.
I need to remember this.
I'm (mostly) all talk.
The V-meister, the J-dog, and their father are the best thing that's ever happened to me.
At this moment, I have everything I've ever truly wanted in life.
When you have small children, people whose own kids are grown and out of the house often gaze fondly upon your babies, replacing their faces with fuzzy, haloed memories of their own.
They admonish you to cherish this crazy, hectic, joyous, innocent, and fleeting time.
I always smile and say I'm trying.
This week alone, I was reminded by three strangers on three separate occasions to treasure it while it lasts.
Was it the V-meister and J-dog's guileless delight as the clerk at the European import store rang up the tiny chocolates they had picked out themselves that compelled her to warn me of time's swift and sure passage?
Or the way the J-dog looked at me with a proud sense of accomplishment after pressing the correct elevator button that prompted our fellow department store shopper to impart the same advice?
Was it the way the V-meister called after her dawdling little brother as we left, then returned to take him by the hand?
Maybe it was just their bare and honest joy.
Despite all attempts to freeze them in time, I know these years will soon recede behind the gauzy veil of memory.
I don't want to be the woman shaking a graying head wistfully at the young frazzled mother wrangling her tots through the supermarket line.
But one day, I will be.
Is it ever really possible to live fully in the moment and yet capture for posterity the true essence of these most poignant frames of life?
I want to push aside the grouchy, tired, and ever-anticipating part of myself, the better to recognize what is lovely and winsome about this time that one day soon will be a long time past.
I need to remember this.
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