This weekend I stopped nursing Abe. He's a very verbal 16-month-old, but somehow he hadn't yet thought to shake his head at a boob pointed at him (only at bedtimes and wakings, at this point), so this weekend I just kind of stopped offering. He could not have cared less. I should feel grateful for this - I'm sure I actually am grateful, that this won't be some long, protracted goodbye that will make us both crazy. Instead I am wistful at the end of the useful life of my breasts, which were never much before I had kids, and as such kind of liked the limelight that nursing afforded.
But what I'm not-liking even more than the end of nursing is the fact that all vestiges of an excuse for eating poorly are now out the window. I stopped dieting last November, ten pounds short of my goal, and managed to maintain that loss... until now.
It's summer - what the hell am I doing eating this much?!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Mon semblable - mon frère!
This is how my mind functions (or malfunctions) these days - perhaps a sign of incipient senility? I think of literary quotes that are just barely relevant, like the title of this post, taken from Charles Baudelaire's "Au Lecteur" ("To The Reader").
Anyway, I think of it because Jonah each day seems more and more like me. He reminds me of my four year old self. Last night while we were reading at bedtime, he asked how to MAKE a book. I got all excited, and since he has today and tomorrow off from school, I decided it would be a great project. Of course, I made a book at his age, but mine was pure autobiography, drawings of my family members, my house, etc. Jonah's project is of a far more grandiose scale. It is called Coney Island Rides, and so far there are two pages of illustrations and one half-page of text I transcribed. I am worried he has lost steam, now, and won't finish the book. I have such a strong need to staple the pages together and present it to him as the prize it is. To invest it with the meaning that my mother did for my small book, so long ago, to assess it as a valuable object - something worth saving, something worth keeping away from a marauding younger brother.
Marauding younger brother is lucky he is so damn cute. Today, extreme heat kept us house-bound for most of the day, and Abe learned how to climb up and stand on the piano bench, and also learned that from the ground he can reach the piano lid to open it and (precariously) close it. Eek. Time to find the keys that lock the piano. Not sure what to do about the bench, though. He's been unbelievably lucky with all the climbing he does, but that luck will run short at some point. Right? Or does he have an angel on his shoulder, as I feel I sometimes do?
The aggravation of having a real toddler (Jonah seems to have been an overly-cautious impostor of one) is tempered by watching my boys play together. They erupt in silly sounds, chase each other around the house, and just generally delight in one another's company. It makes my heart happy, even on an exhausting day like today. I get to the evening feeling solid, competent, yea, even optimistic.
Or maybe it was just that second shower.
Anyway, I think of it because Jonah each day seems more and more like me. He reminds me of my four year old self. Last night while we were reading at bedtime, he asked how to MAKE a book. I got all excited, and since he has today and tomorrow off from school, I decided it would be a great project. Of course, I made a book at his age, but mine was pure autobiography, drawings of my family members, my house, etc. Jonah's project is of a far more grandiose scale. It is called Coney Island Rides, and so far there are two pages of illustrations and one half-page of text I transcribed. I am worried he has lost steam, now, and won't finish the book. I have such a strong need to staple the pages together and present it to him as the prize it is. To invest it with the meaning that my mother did for my small book, so long ago, to assess it as a valuable object - something worth saving, something worth keeping away from a marauding younger brother.
Marauding younger brother is lucky he is so damn cute. Today, extreme heat kept us house-bound for most of the day, and Abe learned how to climb up and stand on the piano bench, and also learned that from the ground he can reach the piano lid to open it and (precariously) close it. Eek. Time to find the keys that lock the piano. Not sure what to do about the bench, though. He's been unbelievably lucky with all the climbing he does, but that luck will run short at some point. Right? Or does he have an angel on his shoulder, as I feel I sometimes do?
The aggravation of having a real toddler (Jonah seems to have been an overly-cautious impostor of one) is tempered by watching my boys play together. They erupt in silly sounds, chase each other around the house, and just generally delight in one another's company. It makes my heart happy, even on an exhausting day like today. I get to the evening feeling solid, competent, yea, even optimistic.
Or maybe it was just that second shower.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Melodica
Last week I conducted an experiment. I decided not to yell at Jonah, at all, no matter how much he was annoying me. It didn't necessarily shorten the length of his tantrums, or eliminate the irritants altogether, but at the end of the day I felt so much better about myself. Like I actually deserve to be in this job. Now, that's a feeling I'd like to have more often than not. Especially in the face of an increasingly risk-taking Abe (latest trick: standing up on the seat of a riding toy), I need to cultivate more calm.
Of course, by Saturday morning I was pretty tired of keeping it under wraps and I did do a little yelling. But then I decided to take the afternoon and have an outing with Jonah, to the transit museum, and it was awesome (even more so because we did not take Abe, who it would have been a nightmare to keep track of there). He stretched out our visit to two long hours, revisiting each bus multiple times, looking for the "perfect" subway train (one where you can go from car to car without getting off), and even taking great interest in the photo books of old buses (which all appeared to be self-published by a bus freak from New Jersey). We saw a birthday party set up there and it looked pretty nice. Hmmmm.
Josh needed to work on a couple of songs his mom asked him to play at her father's 99th birthday party, on Sunday, in Allentown, PA. One of the songs was, "Young at Heart." On a whim, I grabbed my melodica - a pseudo-instrument that looks and sounds like the spawn of a clarinet and an accordion - and figured out the melody. Saturday night, after the kids went to sleep, we went out to the front stoop (so as not to wake them), and worked on it until we had it. OK, maybe that sounds twee. Maybe it was. But the experience of getting together with my husband and doing something fun with music - that did not involve the kids - was so great. I hope we will manage it again soon.
Of course, by Saturday morning I was pretty tired of keeping it under wraps and I did do a little yelling. But then I decided to take the afternoon and have an outing with Jonah, to the transit museum, and it was awesome (even more so because we did not take Abe, who it would have been a nightmare to keep track of there). He stretched out our visit to two long hours, revisiting each bus multiple times, looking for the "perfect" subway train (one where you can go from car to car without getting off), and even taking great interest in the photo books of old buses (which all appeared to be self-published by a bus freak from New Jersey). We saw a birthday party set up there and it looked pretty nice. Hmmmm.
Josh needed to work on a couple of songs his mom asked him to play at her father's 99th birthday party, on Sunday, in Allentown, PA. One of the songs was, "Young at Heart." On a whim, I grabbed my melodica - a pseudo-instrument that looks and sounds like the spawn of a clarinet and an accordion - and figured out the melody. Saturday night, after the kids went to sleep, we went out to the front stoop (so as not to wake them), and worked on it until we had it. OK, maybe that sounds twee. Maybe it was. But the experience of getting together with my husband and doing something fun with music - that did not involve the kids - was so great. I hope we will manage it again soon.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Plimpton
Abe is walking now, still raising his fists triumphantly for balance. He's a prodigious talker, too, so there is a sense of importance in everything we tell him now - only words that matter! Jonah is finally shedding his bad nervous habits (picking open sores until they re-bleed, chewing on already-chapped lips). I am only nursing three times a day, hoping to drop the naptime feed soon, then the bedtime one, and then say goodbye to nursing altogether. My cycle just started up again, after two years' hiatus (my body takes breastfeeding VERY seriously, it seems - same thing happened last time), so without that benefit - and with Abe so slappy and pinchy at times - it just seems silly to keep at it.
Which leaves me wondering what my next move is. A few months ago, I was sure I'd throw my energy into inventing a new baby product - one that every set of new parents in Brooklyn felt sure they couldn't do without, would have to buy new, and could never be recalled. I checked relevant books out of the library! I did a cursory patent search! I found the exact product I wanted to invent (but made for dogs)! Annnnnnnnnd, that idea went up on the dusty shelf. The shelf that has no end. The shelf holding the file box of my collected works of poetry. And prose. And my career trajectory as a librarian. And and and.
I am feeling restless. It's spring, after all, a time of renewal. I need a bit more than a hardboiled egg, though. I find myself thinking about George Plimpton - what accomplishment of his springs immediately to mind when you see his name? It's amusing, since it could be any one of a number of them. (Probably, since you weren't there, not including the time he spilled a Maker's Mark on Josh, in the darkness of a Paris Review reading held in the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, the summer before 9/11 shuttered that phenomenal space for good). I'd love to do that. Be that. Become known for any number of things, not just one thing.
Am I gearing up for a full-blown mid-life crisis come December? Perhaps. Yet I can also remember feeling just about this way when Jonah started walking, talking, and generally not needing me as an infant needs me. I can remember the first time I headed out for some alone time after leaving my job of a decade, Jonah with his favorite sitter, and it being a freezing cold, rainy day. That day, I felt I needed to do something that mattered. Like personal performance art, maybe, but for my consumption only. I took the train to Chinatown, and wandered through a flower market (it was around Chinese New Year), listening to an incongruous thing on my iPod: the Glenn Gould radio piece, The Idea of North, which I had heard about years before and had just purchased on CD. I crossed back into Brooklyn via bridge listening to the end of it.
I took a self-portrait with my cell phone that day, which I just discovered I didn't save. Too bad. I recall my eyes lost in my face, trying to smile but looking touched by madness. Wrapped in an unfamiliar solitude, suddenly adrift with time off I didn't quite know how to use, since the "work" I was to go back to was amorphous in the way that childcare sometimes seems.
I've been unemployed for so long (in the conventional sense) that my little bits of time off no longer feel like opportunities to "work." I wouldn't know what work I'd like to do. Yet at some point in the not so distant past, I was going to libraries, to sit and work on drafts of poems. Once or twice, I was even officially toting a laptop with me, and cooking magazines, working on a freelance project that paid for our weeklong summer beach rental.
But that was eons ago. Now I'm mired to the ankles in mental sludge. And it is time to pull my feet out of this muck, hose them down, and set to work finding my inner Plimpton. No matter how many drinks get spilled.
(Speaking of which, I'm organizing a drink with other moms on Mother's Day night. If I haven't already invited you, and you want to come, let me know.)
Which leaves me wondering what my next move is. A few months ago, I was sure I'd throw my energy into inventing a new baby product - one that every set of new parents in Brooklyn felt sure they couldn't do without, would have to buy new, and could never be recalled. I checked relevant books out of the library! I did a cursory patent search! I found the exact product I wanted to invent (but made for dogs)! Annnnnnnnnd, that idea went up on the dusty shelf. The shelf that has no end. The shelf holding the file box of my collected works of poetry. And prose. And my career trajectory as a librarian. And and and.
I am feeling restless. It's spring, after all, a time of renewal. I need a bit more than a hardboiled egg, though. I find myself thinking about George Plimpton - what accomplishment of his springs immediately to mind when you see his name? It's amusing, since it could be any one of a number of them. (Probably, since you weren't there, not including the time he spilled a Maker's Mark on Josh, in the darkness of a Paris Review reading held in the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, the summer before 9/11 shuttered that phenomenal space for good). I'd love to do that. Be that. Become known for any number of things, not just one thing.
Am I gearing up for a full-blown mid-life crisis come December? Perhaps. Yet I can also remember feeling just about this way when Jonah started walking, talking, and generally not needing me as an infant needs me. I can remember the first time I headed out for some alone time after leaving my job of a decade, Jonah with his favorite sitter, and it being a freezing cold, rainy day. That day, I felt I needed to do something that mattered. Like personal performance art, maybe, but for my consumption only. I took the train to Chinatown, and wandered through a flower market (it was around Chinese New Year), listening to an incongruous thing on my iPod: the Glenn Gould radio piece, The Idea of North, which I had heard about years before and had just purchased on CD. I crossed back into Brooklyn via bridge listening to the end of it.
I took a self-portrait with my cell phone that day, which I just discovered I didn't save. Too bad. I recall my eyes lost in my face, trying to smile but looking touched by madness. Wrapped in an unfamiliar solitude, suddenly adrift with time off I didn't quite know how to use, since the "work" I was to go back to was amorphous in the way that childcare sometimes seems.
I've been unemployed for so long (in the conventional sense) that my little bits of time off no longer feel like opportunities to "work." I wouldn't know what work I'd like to do. Yet at some point in the not so distant past, I was going to libraries, to sit and work on drafts of poems. Once or twice, I was even officially toting a laptop with me, and cooking magazines, working on a freelance project that paid for our weeklong summer beach rental.
But that was eons ago. Now I'm mired to the ankles in mental sludge. And it is time to pull my feet out of this muck, hose them down, and set to work finding my inner Plimpton. No matter how many drinks get spilled.
(Speaking of which, I'm organizing a drink with other moms on Mother's Day night. If I haven't already invited you, and you want to come, let me know.)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Just wow.
I've really fallen off the blog-wagon, haven't I? Not that there were too many people out there to notice. If you are still there, thank you.
Abe is now 13 months, and not walking yet, but poised to do so, perhaps soon. Yesterday, during music class, he stood for a full 30 seconds and even did some deep knee bends (which for him passes as dancing) before tumbling down. The sitter is with him today, and I was worried he'd start walking while I wasn't here to see it. I don't think he did (or else she's keeping it from me).
Now that he's had the full benefit of Mama for 13 months, I'm ready to stop nursing. (I was going to say hang up my hat, but I don't think a hat will ever hang from this pair again...) Yesterday I challenged myself not to nurse during music class, and it went fine. Except for the long, possibly longing, look from Abe when I diverted him to clap along to the song we were singing. I remembered being in the very same place with Jonah, making the same decision, and it was hard not to cry, and even harder not to just give in.
However, this morning I was reminded why I need to end this. Abe is a delight, but he is no longer a sweet cuddly baby 100% of the time. In fact, he's a kicker, a swatter, a slapper. During the day this is merely annoying. At 6 a.m. it makes me hate him, momentarily.
Now that he's getting the hang of sleeping a whole night (after so many rounds of sleep training, I have lost count), I am aiming to cut back on the nursing. I need to be methodical about it, but I can't seem to get a handle on how many times he is nursing these days. Poor Abe. He gets changed on our bed, his clothes are housed in a bookshelf that I only half-emptied for his benefit. It's as though we weren't really planning on having another kid, and as though we have only reluctantly made room for him.
He is asserting himself through food lately - last night he plowed through an entire turkey burger while I was preoccupied with his more fidgety, finicky older brother. When I go food shopping lately I am shocked at how much more we CONSUME as a family.
Older brother has been delightful lately, perhaps owing to quieter nights from Abe. He sleeps until at least 7 a.m. these days, a great help to him during the long school day. And he's going to take a class at an acrobatics studio in the neighborhood. I can't wait to watch him do a forward roll or a handstand against the wall. He needs to learn how to transcend his body, in a way that I don't think I ever did. Last night before bed he was hopping around naked on his bed while Josh and I watched him, amused. He told us how much he loved us, and how happy he was that we all live in the same house together. Then he said, "I hope you don't fall down in dirty mud." So thoughtful.
My body is in dire need of transcendence these days. This morning I woke up achy all over. I daydream about Feldenkrais classes, but never seem to make time to go to them. I consider exercising, then wind up on the couch in my workout clothes eating a brownie during Abe's nap. The imminence of spring has me itching to do something new. I was planning to join a Brazilian percussion troupe, but missed their first rehearsal when Jonah was sick, and now I can't join until they start a new session. Just a bike ride would do me a lot of good. But it needs to stop being FUCKING COLD in order for me to consider it.
Yeah, this is turning out to be a boring read. Sorry.
Abe is now 13 months, and not walking yet, but poised to do so, perhaps soon. Yesterday, during music class, he stood for a full 30 seconds and even did some deep knee bends (which for him passes as dancing) before tumbling down. The sitter is with him today, and I was worried he'd start walking while I wasn't here to see it. I don't think he did (or else she's keeping it from me).
Now that he's had the full benefit of Mama for 13 months, I'm ready to stop nursing. (I was going to say hang up my hat, but I don't think a hat will ever hang from this pair again...) Yesterday I challenged myself not to nurse during music class, and it went fine. Except for the long, possibly longing, look from Abe when I diverted him to clap along to the song we were singing. I remembered being in the very same place with Jonah, making the same decision, and it was hard not to cry, and even harder not to just give in.
However, this morning I was reminded why I need to end this. Abe is a delight, but he is no longer a sweet cuddly baby 100% of the time. In fact, he's a kicker, a swatter, a slapper. During the day this is merely annoying. At 6 a.m. it makes me hate him, momentarily.
Now that he's getting the hang of sleeping a whole night (after so many rounds of sleep training, I have lost count), I am aiming to cut back on the nursing. I need to be methodical about it, but I can't seem to get a handle on how many times he is nursing these days. Poor Abe. He gets changed on our bed, his clothes are housed in a bookshelf that I only half-emptied for his benefit. It's as though we weren't really planning on having another kid, and as though we have only reluctantly made room for him.
He is asserting himself through food lately - last night he plowed through an entire turkey burger while I was preoccupied with his more fidgety, finicky older brother. When I go food shopping lately I am shocked at how much more we CONSUME as a family.
Older brother has been delightful lately, perhaps owing to quieter nights from Abe. He sleeps until at least 7 a.m. these days, a great help to him during the long school day. And he's going to take a class at an acrobatics studio in the neighborhood. I can't wait to watch him do a forward roll or a handstand against the wall. He needs to learn how to transcend his body, in a way that I don't think I ever did. Last night before bed he was hopping around naked on his bed while Josh and I watched him, amused. He told us how much he loved us, and how happy he was that we all live in the same house together. Then he said, "I hope you don't fall down in dirty mud." So thoughtful.
My body is in dire need of transcendence these days. This morning I woke up achy all over. I daydream about Feldenkrais classes, but never seem to make time to go to them. I consider exercising, then wind up on the couch in my workout clothes eating a brownie during Abe's nap. The imminence of spring has me itching to do something new. I was planning to join a Brazilian percussion troupe, but missed their first rehearsal when Jonah was sick, and now I can't join until they start a new session. Just a bike ride would do me a lot of good. But it needs to stop being FUCKING COLD in order for me to consider it.
Yeah, this is turning out to be a boring read. Sorry.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Nearing a year
A year ago I was big as a house. Big, lumbering, fearful of the change about to descend into our lives.
A year later, I am not so big anymore. I am less lumbering. And the fear? That made way for equal parts delight and utter weariness. Most days, I would say, by the time the kids are in bed, I am wearily delighted. Delightfully weary.
Now if I could just regenerate my brain activity... the higher functioning portions... Someone said to me yesterday, "You're a writer, right?" I shook my head. But I used to be, right? I may be again someday? Right now I can't remember the last time I even read a poem.
A year later, I am not so big anymore. I am less lumbering. And the fear? That made way for equal parts delight and utter weariness. Most days, I would say, by the time the kids are in bed, I am wearily delighted. Delightfully weary.
Now if I could just regenerate my brain activity... the higher functioning portions... Someone said to me yesterday, "You're a writer, right?" I shook my head. But I used to be, right? I may be again someday? Right now I can't remember the last time I even read a poem.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Playing hide-and-seek with a baby
As the year mark of Abe's life, and my being a mom of two, approaches, I am hoping I can stop all of the hand-wringing that has gone on this past year and move forward into a more positive way of thinking about my approach to parenthood. I mean, chest-beating is only going to get me so far - the self-awareness of it, I appreciate. The residual (and perpetual) negativity, not so much.
So, coming off of an interrrrrminable day of having both kids home (Jonah has been running a fever for a few days), here's a bright spot from the day's events. Jonah spent a lot of time watching YouTube playlists of Sesame Street clips. A LOT. For a kid whose screen time is usually pretty severely limited, this was revelatory. When I decided that the glaze over his eyes was getting dangerous, I cut him off for a bit, and he decided he wanted to act out a particular Ernie and Bert sketch that fascinated him (though he likes to hide behind furniture to watch it, because the part where Bert finally gets out of the chair seems to scare him). He kept getting frustrated because I (Bert) would flub my lines because I hadn't watched the clip 8,000 TIMES. Plus, he seemed confused between tag and hide-and-seek. So, I suggested a game of hide-and-seek, which he enjoyed when he was 3, but we hadn't played in ages. It may seem ridiculous to play hide-and-seek in an 1100-square-foot apartment, but it is a hell of a lot of fun, especially with a 4 year old who is still not clear on how to be sneaky.
Abe was not napping at the time (his naps and sleep have gone to hell lately), so I took him with me when it was our turn to hide. I chose a classic spot: inside the bathtub, with the bathroom light off and the door closed. It took an insanely long time for Jonah to find us - he kept running right past the bathroom door. But the extra time I got to spend holding Abe was worth it. He wasn't a bit scared to be in my arms in the bathtub in the dark. Rather, he was totally thrilled by it and kept emitting happy shrieks (which Jonah kept trying to use to place us, but failing). It was the best thing he'd done all day, I think. When it came time to hunt for Jonah (who ran to his room to hide, slamming the door), it was such a delight to see Abe approach Jonah's bed and look at the odd lump under the blanket. I could see him trying to figure out what it was, as he stood up next to the bed. Then he pulled back a corner of blanket and LO! a foot! and then, a big brother! Cue screaming laughter!
I don't know if Abe understood what we were doing, but he did seem to sense this was FUN. And he does love his brother. I will choose to remember this from yesterday, and the half-hour I spent making cookies with Jonah, and the joy on his face when his entire class made a get well phone call. The rest of the day, the parts that made me look haggard beyond my years when Josh came home, can just piss off to obscurity.
So, coming off of an interrrrrminable day of having both kids home (Jonah has been running a fever for a few days), here's a bright spot from the day's events. Jonah spent a lot of time watching YouTube playlists of Sesame Street clips. A LOT. For a kid whose screen time is usually pretty severely limited, this was revelatory. When I decided that the glaze over his eyes was getting dangerous, I cut him off for a bit, and he decided he wanted to act out a particular Ernie and Bert sketch that fascinated him (though he likes to hide behind furniture to watch it, because the part where Bert finally gets out of the chair seems to scare him). He kept getting frustrated because I (Bert) would flub my lines because I hadn't watched the clip 8,000 TIMES. Plus, he seemed confused between tag and hide-and-seek. So, I suggested a game of hide-and-seek, which he enjoyed when he was 3, but we hadn't played in ages. It may seem ridiculous to play hide-and-seek in an 1100-square-foot apartment, but it is a hell of a lot of fun, especially with a 4 year old who is still not clear on how to be sneaky.
Abe was not napping at the time (his naps and sleep have gone to hell lately), so I took him with me when it was our turn to hide. I chose a classic spot: inside the bathtub, with the bathroom light off and the door closed. It took an insanely long time for Jonah to find us - he kept running right past the bathroom door. But the extra time I got to spend holding Abe was worth it. He wasn't a bit scared to be in my arms in the bathtub in the dark. Rather, he was totally thrilled by it and kept emitting happy shrieks (which Jonah kept trying to use to place us, but failing). It was the best thing he'd done all day, I think. When it came time to hunt for Jonah (who ran to his room to hide, slamming the door), it was such a delight to see Abe approach Jonah's bed and look at the odd lump under the blanket. I could see him trying to figure out what it was, as he stood up next to the bed. Then he pulled back a corner of blanket and LO! a foot! and then, a big brother! Cue screaming laughter!
I don't know if Abe understood what we were doing, but he did seem to sense this was FUN. And he does love his brother. I will choose to remember this from yesterday, and the half-hour I spent making cookies with Jonah, and the joy on his face when his entire class made a get well phone call. The rest of the day, the parts that made me look haggard beyond my years when Josh came home, can just piss off to obscurity.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Further into Four
Jonah is a memory monster!
He received a beautiful memory game for his birthday. I was always (and believed this still to be true) the reigning champion of memory, any way, any day. My game growing up was Holland Memory, with its entertaining pictures of clogs, windmills, tiles, and strange sweets. Jonah calls his "Coney Island" Memory because it has circus images.
Tonight after dinner, he bounded over to Josh and asked, "Are you in a memory mood?" Abe was safely asleep, so the three of us got to play the game uninterrupted by a marauding 11-month-old. Tonight we played with 50 cards (the full set is 72 cards). Josh, uncharacteristically, possibly because he'd had a nap, and also because he'd not been to a bouncy castle birthday party today, beat the pants off me. What really made my jaw drop is that Jonah beat me, too! I was even more amazed because he was becoming visibly tired as we played, and his body started all of its usual fidgety sensory-seeking behaviors that drive us nuts. I kept chiding him for not paying attention. And yet, he WAS paying attention, to the point that he even did, more than once I think, that amazing move where he nearly turned over the wrong card and caught himself and picked up the correct one next to it. I am humbled by his prowess, even more than I am pissed at myself for losing to my memory-deficient husband at the one game I have always ruled at.
Yesterday began with in-home haircuts for 3/4 of the family (first Josh, then a very reluctant Jonah, and then a stressed-out me). I was so proud of Jonah for rising to the occasion and letting me convince him to get his crazy mane tamed. It was not a major chop, just a cleaning up of the tangly baby hair on the ends, which were the locks that contributed to his mad scientist look. It was astonishing how quickly he transformed. I couldn't quite believe the big boy that started to emerge once his hair was cut. Once he stopped struggling, though, I noticed his body was limp and he had a smile frozen on his face. Which of course sent me to the worrying space: Did we break his will? Is he going to be scarred for life because of a ten minute haircut? The reality is probably that he was relaxed, and happy to watch some favorite YouTube clips on my phone while getting his hair done. When can I stop with the worrying?
I haven't been writing much about Abe. He is pulling himself up to standing, repeating words with uncanny precision ("cookie," "duckie," "all done") and also saying non sequiturs ("bye bye!" very clearly, while he's eating). I will never forget looking at him lying on the bed as we prepared to leave the hospital with him on Day One, saying "hi!" to him, and getting a very similar "ayyyyyyyy!" in response. He and Jonah are getting thick as thieves, particularly during car rides. They almost always hold hands, and Abe provokes Jonah into shrieking and laughter. I'm so glad we added a peg to our car.
He received a beautiful memory game for his birthday. I was always (and believed this still to be true) the reigning champion of memory, any way, any day. My game growing up was Holland Memory, with its entertaining pictures of clogs, windmills, tiles, and strange sweets. Jonah calls his "Coney Island" Memory because it has circus images.
Tonight after dinner, he bounded over to Josh and asked, "Are you in a memory mood?" Abe was safely asleep, so the three of us got to play the game uninterrupted by a marauding 11-month-old. Tonight we played with 50 cards (the full set is 72 cards). Josh, uncharacteristically, possibly because he'd had a nap, and also because he'd not been to a bouncy castle birthday party today, beat the pants off me. What really made my jaw drop is that Jonah beat me, too! I was even more amazed because he was becoming visibly tired as we played, and his body started all of its usual fidgety sensory-seeking behaviors that drive us nuts. I kept chiding him for not paying attention. And yet, he WAS paying attention, to the point that he even did, more than once I think, that amazing move where he nearly turned over the wrong card and caught himself and picked up the correct one next to it. I am humbled by his prowess, even more than I am pissed at myself for losing to my memory-deficient husband at the one game I have always ruled at.
Yesterday began with in-home haircuts for 3/4 of the family (first Josh, then a very reluctant Jonah, and then a stressed-out me). I was so proud of Jonah for rising to the occasion and letting me convince him to get his crazy mane tamed. It was not a major chop, just a cleaning up of the tangly baby hair on the ends, which were the locks that contributed to his mad scientist look. It was astonishing how quickly he transformed. I couldn't quite believe the big boy that started to emerge once his hair was cut. Once he stopped struggling, though, I noticed his body was limp and he had a smile frozen on his face. Which of course sent me to the worrying space: Did we break his will? Is he going to be scarred for life because of a ten minute haircut? The reality is probably that he was relaxed, and happy to watch some favorite YouTube clips on my phone while getting his hair done. When can I stop with the worrying?
I haven't been writing much about Abe. He is pulling himself up to standing, repeating words with uncanny precision ("cookie," "duckie," "all done") and also saying non sequiturs ("bye bye!" very clearly, while he's eating). I will never forget looking at him lying on the bed as we prepared to leave the hospital with him on Day One, saying "hi!" to him, and getting a very similar "ayyyyyyyy!" in response. He and Jonah are getting thick as thieves, particularly during car rides. They almost always hold hands, and Abe provokes Jonah into shrieking and laughter. I'm so glad we added a peg to our car.
Friday, January 14, 2011
How to Make Mama Cry
[Dinner table, end of a semi-trying afternoon]
Jonah: You are the BEST mama.
Mama: Are you sure? What makes me the best? I don't think I'm the best.
Jonah: Because... because you TAKE CARE of us. That makes you the best mama.
Mama: [sobs]
Jonah: I know how I can cheer you up, Mama!
Mama: [sniffling] How?
Jonah: It's called Table Manners. [lifting fork, finally using it] There, now do you feel better? Please, may I please have some milk?
Jonah: You are the BEST mama.
Mama: Are you sure? What makes me the best? I don't think I'm the best.
Jonah: Because... because you TAKE CARE of us. That makes you the best mama.
Mama: [sobs]
Jonah: I know how I can cheer you up, Mama!
Mama: [sniffling] How?
Jonah: It's called Table Manners. [lifting fork, finally using it] There, now do you feel better? Please, may I please have some milk?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Four
As Jonah moves into his Four-ness (and as I read the appropriate book in the Your ___-Year-Old series), I am suddenly struck by my closeness to and affinity for this particular age.Four seems to be where I started remembering things, really remembering them. Not just the shirt, but what it felt like to wear it. Not just what my room looked like, but what it felt like to sit on the shaggy red carpet, surrounded by my mess, feeling at home in it. So I am assuming that Jonah is the same way, and that everything that happens from now on is going to stay with him.
Also lately I have noticed him repeating something either he or I have said, in a whisper, right after it is said. This is absolutely something I remember doing at his age, and I can't imagine he's seen me doing it (as I trained myself out of it long ago). Very trippy.
Another reason I'm feeling so connected to Jonah these days: our hair.
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