Grover's Corners

Last weekend, I attended a memorial service for my friend Don. He was a writing teacher in my department, someone who taught me so much about teaching, and writing, and students, and living.  On the day I heard that he died, I wrote on Facebook that my favorite memory of him is when I went to his house for a meeting about composition papers that had been submitted for an award--his award that he established to honor students for their writing achievements in their first year of college. I almost said I couldn't go to the meeting, because my babysitting plan fell through at the last minute, and Shay--who was just 18 months--had nowhere to go. But Don told me to just bring him along, so I did. And he got out this busy box, a box with all sorts of locks and latches and secret hiding places--that he had made for his own now-grown kids--for Shay to play with. Shay loved it, and he loved Don, and he wanted Don to play with it with him. So Don got down on the floor, and played with Shay, and talked to us about the essays. He taught me about writing that day, and about teaching, and about parenting, and about personhood.

At the memorial, he was remembered by all sorts of people from all his walks of life, and they all remembered the same Don: the same kind, generous person who made each person he encountered feel listened to, valued, taught, and inspired.  One of those people brought up those last lines in Our Town, when Emily asks the Stage Manager if anyone ever realizes, ever appreciates life. "Saints and poets do maybe," says the Stage Manager--and Don, he suggested.

I've been thinking about those lines all week.  I've been thinking about the indoor theater at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, where I first saw that play performed when I was 13. I can still feel the chills, the surprising chills I felt, so surprising because I didn't expect to be so taken in by a play with so little "production." I've been thinking about Don, and how he showed me how to appreciate the fact that my motherhood was overlapping with my career and not feel embarrassed by that--but just to get down on the floor, play, and also think about writing.

Do we ever realize?

Today, the first day of February, was an unusually warm day. We had chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles in the sun this afternoon, and I realized. And I thought of my friend.

I am writing this to remind myself to remember to realize more often. To realize even without chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

Talking, and Listening

Shay was a late talker, and so when he first started talking, I was documenting everything: "I *think* he said a word! It had a /k/ sound in it, it must be car!" Now, he talks a blue streak, and stuff comes out of his mouth and I wonder how he even knows that word or expression.

"Good gracious, Maggie!  Do you want ANOTHER popover?" (to Maggie, pointing to the tray of breakfast popovers)

"We're going into the dark forest, Mommy" (starting up Highway 17). "The trees took all the sun away."

"I like dump trucks. They're big. They're heavy. They're strong! They dump rocks, gravel, sand, wood chips." (unprompted to give a list; he just seems to like to organize his thoughts in lists)

But my favorite new thing is his interpretation of Maggie's sounds, grunts, and expressions.  Maggie's only "word" so far is "mama" -- and sometimes it seems directed to me, but other times it's just a sound, so I didn't really count it as her first word.  But, then Shay, who calls me "Mommy," not "Mama," started asking inquisitively, "You Mama? You not Mommy?"  I had to explain that I'm Mommy, but baby sometimes can't say it all and calls me Mama instead.  "That's silly, Maggers," he told her. 

Earlier this morning, Maggie was a little restless, wanting to be picked up and then put down, and I was trying to figure out what she wanted -- I was offering water, snacks, nursing, a toy.  I didn't think Shay was really paying attention to us, as he was absorbed in his truck game, but he looked over and remarked, "Maggie wants a hug, Mommy."  He "interprets" her often, though I can't quite be sure if he is really reading her emotions, or attributing his own to her.  

I can't wait to hear her little voice more.

Just who is in charge around here anyway?

"Mommy!! Come look!! I got a skateboard!!" yells Shay through the monitor, 20 minutes into his "nap."  Curiosity piqued, I poke my head into the bedroom, and see that he is standing in his bed on top of a big hardback picture book, arms out for "balance," with a big grin on his face.  "Wow," he says, "that's cool," as though prompting me with how one is supposed to respond. "Wow, Shay, that's cool," I say; "now, go to sleep."  "Shhh," he admonishes me, pointing over at his sleeping sister.  "Be quiet, Mommy; baby sleeping."

The Wheels on the School Bus

One of Shay's favorite songs, it will not surprise you to learn, is "The Wheels on the Bus."  Right now, he thinks all buses are school buses, so we usually sing "The Wheels on the School Bus."  He likes to request specific verses -- he loves hearing "The baby on the school bus goes wah-wah-wah"; I think it helps him work out some issues about the baby who sometimes cries in our house -- and he loves hearing about the Mommy and Daddy on the school bus who go "I love Shay."  But, sometimes we exit the realm of people and sing about the fire truck on the school bus, the dump truck on the school bus, and the digger on the school bus.  He kind of polices the sound effects too: once, in a sort of tired and bored mood, I sang that the fire truck on the school bus goes vroom vroom vroom, and he promptly shouted, "No, Mommy, whee-oo-whee-oo-whee-oo!"

Today, we worked on some construction paper fire truck/school bus creations -- I cut out the bodies of the trucks and a couple sets of wheels, attached some tape to them, and let Shay choose where to stick the wheels.  Then, I got out some crayons so that he could draw on the paper, but he had other ideas: "No, Mommy, more wheels."

Your wish is my command, master.

Rescue!

Shay's play has recently become much more interactive, creative, and imaginative -- really fun to watch and participate in.  He has always liked to have company when he plays, but for a long time it was just "Mommy, sit here!" and I'd sit beside him and he'd drive some trucks around.  In the past few weeks, though, he has been using the diggers to dig up legos and the wooden trees from his Thomas the Train set and some plastic Easter eggs, and then transferring them to a dump truck, or arranging them in the play garage. And, if I'm lucky, he'll let me have one of the lesser diggers and help him.  

He has also been staging crashes with his trains and trucks -- the train cars will all "fall" off the tracks, and Shay will yell out, "Oh no! Crash!" -- or a series of trucks will "crash," ending up lined up neatly in a row on their backs.  I wasn't sure if this was creative or just destructive, but today things got more interesting: I looked at a row of little "crashed" cars, and said, "Oh no, they crashed! Who will rescue the drivers? The ambulance, maybe?" and pointed to his toy ambulance.  "No, eh-yi-copter!" he replied, grabbing the helicopter and trailing it through the air.  "Eh-yi-copter flying through the air! Rescue trucks!" He carefully tapped the helicopter on each truck, and once a truck had been tapped he turned it over onto its wheels.  Then he toppled all the trucks again and handed me the helicopter.  "Mommy, rescue, " he instructed me. 

We played crash and rescue for most of the afternoon. 

And I was thinking that this age, almost two-and-a-half, with all its communication and creativity and imagination and joy in little things, this is my favorite age so far.  And then I was nursing Maggie, and I smiled down at her and smoothed her soft hair, and she came unlatched because she was smiling up at me, and so then she was lying in my arms and smiling and there was milk dripping out of her mouth, and I thought, THIS, this is my favorite age. 

Then, later, I cleaned poop out of someone's belly button and someone else handed me a booger, and I thought, these ages really aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend visiting my parents; the kids got lots of great grandparent time. Shay bounced back and forth between the front yard and the back yard, riding a Thomas the Train scooter thing and a fire truck scooter thing around the porch, "camping" in a tent in the back yard, digging weeds, playing baseball, and I don't know what else -- I was too busy snoozing on the couch. Maggie couldn't believe that there were so many people who wanted to hold her and smile at her all the time, and she was cooing and smiling like crazy.  We had one beautiful morning at the beach, and Shay got interested in and excited about the water -- can't wait to take him to the lake this summer!  And, in the midst of all that activity, we also dyed Easter eggs, sent Shay on his first Easter egg hunt, gave the kids Easter baskets, and ate lots of egg salad.  Oh, and this happened:

Sorry, baby girl.  But you truly didn't seem to mind it.

Rainy Day Snuggles

My friend Becky has a post up about looking at a picture of her children from five years ago, and not being able to exactly remember how it felt to be in the ordinary moments with them then.  I'm sitting here with Seamus, snuggled up on the couch watching the rain pour down outside and watching Cars, and Maggie is napping in her swing, and I'm feeling a little bit teary after reading that post -- and as I looked over at Maggie, I was thinking that it's hard for me to remember exactly what Seamus was like at her age.  I know he was similar to her in many ways, but different in many ways, and I can remember some of that but what I mainly can't remember is exactly how it felt to be his mom, then.  I know it felt more new, and overwhelming, and scary than it feels to be his and Maggie's mom, now.  And I know that every day felt long and exhausting and like I was busy every single moment taking care of the baby -- and now, sometimes my parents or Patrick will take Seamus out for the whole morning and all I have to do is take care of the baby, and I'm all, am I missing something? Because this feels so easy, just having one baby to care for.

And then I was also thinking that sometimes the kids themselves do something to help solidify a moment, a memory, that I can preserve and think of later.  Since Maggie has been born, I have been consciously and unconsciously giving Shay some extra snuggles when I can, especially right after I see a little bit of jealousy in his face or in his behavior while I'm nursing or tending to the baby. I get him on my lap or in my arms somehow in the midst of our hide-and-go-seek game, or at the table where the train tracks are set up, and get in as many kisses as I can before he starts to protest.  And I don't think I really focused on the snuggles in a specific way, until the other day he reached up his arms for a hug, and as I hugged him, he nuzzled into my shoulder, wrapped his arms around my neck, patted my back, and sighed, "Oh, mama."  And I realized that he was snuggling me in exactly the same way that I snuggle him, except that I sigh, "Oh, Shay-Shay."  And I think that moment I will remember, even if I forget exactly how it feels to be Seamus and Maggie's mom in these early days, or how Seamus's little two-and-one-quarter year old body feels in my arms today.

Calming presence

When I was pregnant with Maggie, a friend asked me if I could tell anything about her personality from her behavior in utero or how I felt with her in utero.  She mentioned that a friend of hers had felt that she temporarily acquired some of her children's personality traits during her pregnancies -- and then saw those traits in her children later.  It made me stop to think; I had never really considered this as a possibility or noticed it.

While I did notice that Shay was a pretty active baby in utero and then was a pretty active baby (and toddler) after birth, I couldn't really think of personality traits of his that I had temporarily acquired while pregnant with him.  But, as I thought about this question while pregnant with Maggie, I did notice that I felt calmer and less anxious than I have ever felt as an adult.  I was in a (luckily very minor) car accident while I was pregnant with her, and even as I was transported via ambulance to the hospital to make sure that there were no internal injuries hurting the baby, I felt calm and confident that everything would be okay.  I had less of the palms-sweating-before-teaching-a-class or before important meetings than I have ever had. I never had little anxious moments in the middle of the night, wondering if I had said the right thing in that conversation, or mailed that form in to the right place.

I sort of forgot about the question, though, until this last week, when I started noticing little minor flutters of anxious thoughts -- did I remember to do that thing?  Should I be worried about this?  At first, it felt unfamiliar -- I wondered why I was suddenly such a worrywart.  But then, I realized that I've always had those little flutters of worry here and there, save for the last year.

So, I think that Maggie's presence in my life has been a very calming one, from way before her birth.  But now I'm interested in seeing how this will translate into her behavior out in the world.  She is already a pretty calm baby -- a good sleeper, pretty easy-going, with lots of happy smiles and coos.  I wonder if or how this calmness will play out as she grows?

What about you?  If you have children, did you notice yourself acquiring any of their traits during your pregnancy with them?

Language Lessons

I know from some of the reading I've done on language development and acquisition that when a child mispronounces a word, you should say it back to her correctly in a sentence so that she hears the right sounds and context.  But, sometimes, we find ourselves using the words that Shay mispronounces in the way he pronounces them.  I don't know whether we're reinforcing his notion that a banana is really a "nana," or whether he really thinks he IS saying "banana," and wonders why we're being silly and calling it a "nana."

One of these words is "Bapa."  My parents decided they wanted to be called "Grandma" and "Grandpa," so we referred to them that way until Shay was about 18 months and started calling them "Bapa" and "Bapa."  For a while, we said the names back to him correctly, until he eventually began calling them "Grrrandma" (with a nice French rolling 'r') and "Bapa."  So, we know he can do the 'g' and the 'r' sound together for "Grandma," but he still goes with "Bapa" for his grandpa.  None of us can quite figure out whether my dad is just "Bapa" now, or whether we should still push to correct it into Grandpa.

Another one is "dickle."  One of Shay's first words was more like a repeating sound of "c" and "l", referring to bicycles, tricycles, and motorcycles: "clclclclclclclclclclclclclclc!!!!" he would yell, whenever one drove/rode by.  We would reply, "Yes, a motorcycle! Wow!" and he would respond "clclclclclclclclclclclclc!"  Eventually, he began calling them all "dickle."  One of his most treasured toys is a beat-up little plastic motorcycle toy, and when he can't find it, he'll ask, "dickle?"  I find myself responding, "I don't know where your dickle is.  Where did you see it last?"  Just a moment ago, he cried out in his crib and when I went in to check on him, he whined, mournfully, "dickle" and pointed down in between his crib and the wall.  Toys end up there a lot, and it's a hard spot for me to reach, so I told him Daddy would get it.  I came out of the room and found myself telling Patrick, "you're on dickle rescue duty. It's between the crib and the wall."  Through the baby monitor, I heard Patrick retrieve the toy and give it to Shay, telling him, "You have to be careful with your dickle. Don't throw it out of your crib."  I know we should be working harder to correct this one, before he winds up at school talking about his dickle and I get called into the principal's office.

What do you do, do you correct your kids when they mispronounce words? Or do you adopt their words into a special family lingo?

The Pea

Worrisome moment #1: I am sitting on the living room floor, changing Maggie's diaper, and I look up to check on Seamus, who is eating a lunch of noodles with peas, corn, and tofu in his highchair.  He says, "Mommy! Pea!" and points to his nose.

Worrisome moment #2: I ask, "Seamus, did you put a pea in your nose?" and he looks at me with a smile in his eye, looks down at his plate of food, and then points to his nose again. "Pea."  Though I'm not quite sure if he actually shoved a pea up there or if he just came up with the idea that it could be done, I start to wonder how I am supposed to go about getting a pea out of a small nose.  I don't think I'd be able to reach it with my hands.  Will it work to ask him to blow his nose into a kleenex?

Moment of relief #1, also known as gross moment #1: Before I have time to try to do anything about the situation, Seamus tells me a joke, cracks himself up, and as he laughs, a glop of snot comes out of his nose, and then a pea.

Gross moment #2: He picks up the pea, and puts it in his mouth.

Moment of realization that I'm just going to have to get used to this kind of stuff, now that I have two kids #1: I briefly consider trying to snatch the snotty pea out of his mouth, but realize that I'm still holding a dirty diaper in my slightly poop-smeared hand, and reconsider going near anyone's mouth.  I go with a half-hearted request: "Please don't put anything in your mouth after it has been in your nose.  And don't put peas in your nose."

And, end scene.

Big Changes

The other morning, I came out of the bedroom and left baby Maggie in her co-sleeper, wanting to greet Shay and give him a little "Mommy time" without holding the baby.  He looked at me quizzically, and said "Hi, Mommy.  Baby?" I told him that the baby was in Mommy and Daddy's room, and he ran into the room, stood on his tippy-toes to peer over the edge of the co-sleeper, and said, "Hi, baby." He then ran back out into the living room to play trucks.

Little buddy is doing such a good job adjusting to being a big brother that it makes my heart feel like it's going to explode.

In truth, many things make my heart feel like it's going to explode lately.

Baby Maggie was born about 10 days ago.  She is a superstar.  She was 1 week late, and since I didn't want to be induced, my doctor sent me in to the hospital for a non-stress test and fluid check, to make sure she was still doing okay -- and to my surprise, the doctors weren't pleased with what they saw on the tests and wanted me to be induced.  I was shocked and disappointed and worried about the induction, but it turned out much better than I had feared.  They put something on my cervix to help it start to soften, and were planning on starting pitocin when the cervix was ready, but just that one little jump-start was enough to make contractions come on their own.  I labored for about three hours and the contractions started to get pretty intense, but no one -- including me -- guessed that things were progressing as fast as they were.  Being in labor for the second time felt much less unknown and less scary for me, and I went into a place somewhere deep inside myself to deal with the contractions.  Maybe this sounds hippie-ish and weird, but I was picturing the contractions as ocean waves as the tide is going out -- washing up over wet sand as they came on and washing back down and away as they faded.  I suddenly felt the urge to push, and hit the call button as no one but Patrick and my mom were in the room.  The nurse came in, and felt that the baby's head was right there in the birth canal (I hadn't been measured since three hours before, when I was dilated to a big fat zero still), and called other nurses in and they all started bustling around, getting the room ready for the doctor.  Meanwhile, I was on my hands and knees on the bed, facing the wall, still in my own zone and sort of unaware that no one else knew I was really close to pushing the baby out.  I had two massive contractions, one right on top of the other, and on the second one, Maggie's head and shoulders came out, and I heard my mom yell out, "It's the head!" and she reached out and caught the baby.  So that's how Maggie's grandma delivered the baby, even though we were at the hospital, a story that strikes me at times as funny and at other times as so touching and wonderful that again, I think my heart will explode.

She is a good baby, nursing like a champ and sleeping pretty well.  Shay has moments of jealousy, but all in all, he is doing really well.  He reads books to his sister, pointing out the cars and trucks and hammers and ladders, and he gives her fist bumps, and he greets her in the morning and says nighty-night to her at night.  When she cries, he brings her a receiving blanket, and sometimes even lets her snuggle with his security blanket.  In many ways, he seems to be taking this all in stride even better than his parents are, what with his mom getting weepy every time he gives the baby a sweet little fist bump.

Conversations With Shay

Language definitely hasn't come to Shay as fast as running, jumping, climbing, putting together puzzles, and pretty much any other large- or small-motor skill, but it is coming!  He started with some two- and three-word sentences late this fall, mainly stuff like "bye-bye Daddy" and "Mommy's nose" and "More pie" (appropriately, on Thanksgiving).  Now we are starting to have conversations.  Like, for example, this one:

Shay: "Peanana!"
Me: "Mmm-hmm."
Shay (excited): "Peanana!"
Me: "What are you saying to me?"
Shay (insistent): "Peanana!"
Me: "Peas and bananas? Are you listing foods that you like to eat?"
Shay (nods, smiles): "Corn."

Okay then. And yes, this is the kid who picks the vegetables out of the macaroni and cheese -- not to get to the macaroni and cheese, but because he'd rather just have peas and corn.  Now, if only I could keep myself from finishing off the uneaten pasta, we'd be good.

What Should I Have Done?

My parents came into town today and whisked Shay off to the park and then fed him lunch and put him down for his nap so that I could have a little time to myself to get stuff done (ah, grocery shopping ALONE, is there anything better?  I'm sure some people could think of some stuff, but today that sounded like the best imaginable thing...).  I used to go to prenatal yoga all the time during my first pregnancy, but I haven't managed to get to a class this time, so since I had a little bit of freedom, I decided to walk over to the yoga studio in the morning to go to a class.  It was lovely, and blissful, to have a little time to myself and some time to think about this new baby -- now that I am past the constant morning sickness, I'm not thinking about being pregnant all the time and so I find myself sometimes remembering "oh yeah, I'm pregnant!"... and then Shay climbs up on something precarious and I have to run to save him, or he asks for a snack and I have to go fix it, so the end of my "oh yeah, I'm pregnant" thought becomes just "well, I guess that's going fine and I'll just go over here and take care of this other thing." So anyway, it was nice to have an hour to just be pregnant, if that makes sense.

But the story that I actually wanted to tell is that as I was walking home, I noticed a disheveled looking man in layers of clothing and blankets standing by a storefront about a half a block away.  He looked homeless, which wouldn't in itself have been a surprising sight on the street where I was walking, but what caught my attention was that there were two kids, probably 5 and 7, or 6 and 8, and a dog, with him.  I passed by them, and then they started walking behind me.  The man was muttering and swearing at people passing by, and cars, and trees.  The littler child, a girl, was holding the dog's leash, and I gather that she lagged behind a bit, because I heard the man yell, "Keep up! Don't make me kick your f***ing a**."  The swearing, at the kids and at stuff on the street, continued for another block, and I exchanged a horrified glance with a teenage boy walking in front of me as he turned around to see what was going on.  I wanted to do something to help the kids, but I worried that anything I might say or do to try to intervene might just make life worse for them.  So, hating myself a little bit, I kept walking and they turned the corner off the street where I was walking.

Afterward, I wondered if I should have called child protective services or something? Or, how might I have intervened myself there on the street?  If you'd been where I was today, what would you have done?

Five New Words Today!

When I was in college, one of the best classes I took was an anthropology class on linguistics -- we studied the development of languages within cultures and also the development of language within children.  Both of those ideas fascinated me, and I loved writing the big paper -- we had to interview people about their observations of their child's language development.  My dad's cousin Lynn and I had some great conversations about her kids' first words and language development (and now her kids are both in college, which makes me feel very very old...)

So for a long time I have loved thinking about how and when children learn language, and how that corresponds with biology and culture and family culture, and how it is similar to and different from learning a second language later -- and of course one of my favorite things about being a mom myself now is getting to watch the day-by-day acquisition of language, first-hand.  At first, I marveled at Shay's ability to follow directions and understand our words, even before he could talk himself.  Then, I celebrated his first word, and kept track of each new word he could say.  Suddenly, now, I can't keep track... my aunt and uncle babysat Shay today and when I got home, they said he said the word "strawberry," which I've never heard him say -- and he said it for me, too, right after pointing out a "ladder" on a fire truck, talking to me about how he was pretend-"digging" the carpet with his "wo-wel" (shovel), and announcing that his frozen teething ring was "cold."  In an hour, I heard him say at least five new words that I've never heard him say before.  Sometimes, he acts delighted with himself when he says a new word -- I can tell he is excited to be able to communicate, and to be understood.  Other times, the words just come right out without him seeming to notice, which makes me think that he thinks he's been saying those words somewhere amidst the sounds that I hear as chattering and babbling -- and that that chattering contains a lot of words and ideas that I'm just not able to understand yet.

In some ways, watching him learn language makes me remember my first experience learning French, when I was 12.  We moved to France for six months, and although I knew a few phrases and words of French, when I attended my first days and weeks of the local middle school in our little town, I couldn't understand anything -- I couldn't feel the rhythms of the language yet, and I couldn't understand questions or directions without accompanying sign language.  For example, on one of the first days of school, a girl in my class (who remains a good friend to this day) said something to me as we were walking into a classroom -- it was a friendly tone, I could tell, but I couldn't understand the meaning.  She repeated herself several times, slowly.  I still had no idea what she was saying.  Finally, she repeated herself again, slowly, pointing at herself, and then a desk, and then at me, and then at the adjoining desk.  Relieved, I nodded, and sat next to her.  She tried her best to help me understand with hand gestures and slow repetitions -- and over the next few weeks as she spoke and the other people around me spoke, I slowly began to be able to hear the beginnings and ends of sentences, and to distinguish questions from statements.  Then, before understanding the meanings of words, I could hear the beginnings and endings of words.  Then, I could understand some of the words -- and then, suddenly, with a click, I could understand everything.

If that "click" of understanding happens with babies learning their first language in the same way that it did for me learning a second language, then I know that I have already watched it happen for Shay -- he has understood and followed complicated ideas and directions for a while now.  But I feel like I am watching a new explosion of language happen for him that I can't compare to my own experience learning French.  He is exploring his ability to imitate new sounds, to use words to make things happen and get what he wants, to get our attention and to make us laugh.  He seems to be learning communication, just as much as he is learning the particular language that we speak in this house.

I can't wait to talk to him tomorrow, and three weeks from now, and three months from now, and three years from now.  He seems to have some stuff to say.

Big Brother!

I took this photo about a week ago, before we cut off Shay's cute, scraggly, tangly, baby curls -- so now, he looks even more like a big boy.  He's got to start being the big boy in the house, now that he has a little brother or sister coming in January, just under a month after he turns two!

We're excited -- and I'm joining in the excitement more and more as I begin to feel less and less sick.  I wasn't sick for a single day when I was pregnant with Shay, so this all-day morning sickness, heaving every time I encounter a toothbrush, shampoo, or soap, feeling nauseous at the thought of a vegetable or something whole grain or something containing protein, or even just at the thought of entering the kitchen and preparing food, kind of caught me by surprise. Don't get me wrong: I still gained a few pounds in my first trimester, because plain white bagels with butter and plain white pasta with butter and ice cream still sounded just fine....  But I've been able to expand my repertoire of foods this week, which feels good, and the nausea is only in brief passing moments, instead of all the time -- which feels great, as I have to chase around an active toddler all day no matter how I feel!

But I'm sure that taking care of an active toddler and a brand-newborn, and dealing with all that sleep deprivation, will be just fine, right?  Right?

Language, and laziness

There is an explosion of new words around here. Lately: tea, bubbles, kid. As in: "I wanna watch that YouTube video of the kid and the bubbles and pretend to drink tea out of Mama's empty cup," which is what is happening as we speak.  So yes, this language and this desire stems out of me letting Shay sit on my lap at the computer and watch YouTube videos on one side of the screen while I try to look at e-mail or play my scrabble moves or update this blog on the other side of the screen.  I feel mildly guilty about this, like, I know I should be reading to him or taking him to the park or something -- but then, sometimes Mama needs to drink tea and read email for a sec. And, apparently, my lazy behavior is helping him learn new words, right? Right?

Okay, my short companion is shouting "Car!" now, so off I go to the other side of my computer screen to watch the "Cars" trailer for the eleventy millionth time.  Hope your summer is educational so far!

June so far: reading, and truck-watching

This morning, just after Patrick left the house, I noticed that Seamus was being very quiet, and I couldn't see him from the chair where I was sitting, which can sometimes be a bad omen.  But, luckily, nothing precarious was being climbed, nor anything important being shoved into the depths of the diaper bin.  Instead, he was sitting in his room by himself, surrounded by a pile of books, reading.

That's my boy! (By "reading," of course, I mean pointing at pictures of fire trucks.)

Now, he is back out in the living room, where he can see trucks and men doing work on the street.  About a month ago, some city workers came and dug a huge hole/trench on one side of our corner, exposing a big pipe/water main thing.  It took them days and days to dig it up, and every day they would put a big metal slab over their hole and seal the edges with concrete, and then come back in the morning, pry it off, and dig some more, then stand around surveying their work for a few hours, and then dig a little bit more.  Then, there was work done on the pipe thingamajig while the nearby fire hydrant sprayed a bunch of water all over the neighborhood, the hole was filled in and resurfaced, and the trucks drove away.  Then, two days later, they came back and started digging trenches up the hill and working on pipes up there, and finally got all that filled in a few days ago.  This morning, the jackhammers and diggers and dump trucks were back, and they're tearing up a different side of the corner.  It seems like poor planning to me; wouldn't it have been more efficient to all the jackhammering/digging at once, and then all the pipe repair work at once, and then all the resurfacing at once?  But it is like entertainment central for a toddler: week after week after week of real live trucks, right outside our apartment.  Shay keeps running from the front window to the side window, surveying the work.  He has two little steps he can stand up on to see out better, and sometimes he has one at each window, but then sometimes he picks one up and carries it to the other window, so that he can have two side-by-side for a while.  Variety is the spice of life, I guess.

Anyway, that is what is going on here.  That, and I'm staring at about 8 more portfolios of writing that I still need to read -- they are the only thing standing between me and summer vacation, so I know I should just power through them and get it done, but I am at the point where I feel like I can't possibly read any more student work until I've had a vacation.

The Zen of Fears

Seamus and I went exploring in the Japanese Tea Garden this morning -- I am into "things you can do for free with kids in San Francisco," and one thing is that if you get to the Tea Garden between 9-10am on a weekday, there's no entrance fee.  So, since we were over in that neck of the woods dropping Patrick off at the dentist anyway, we decided to go exploring.

We hiked over bridges, climbed up stairs, "jumped" from stepping stone to stepping stone, sat in dewy grass, smacked irises to make the glistening dew rain off them -- you know, your usual zen morning.  We also saw some big carp swimming lazily in the pond, and made fishy faces at them.

Seamus is usually nearly fearless, running off to explore new things, running up to new people to smile at them and see if they'll smile back at him, squealing as he runs up to dogs to say hi.  But lately, I've started to notice him having more fears -- this morning, for example, just 15 minutes after greeting a couple of dogs, he backed away in fear from a squirrel.  I don't know that he's ever seen a squirrel up close, so I guess that's part of it -- but I was surprised when I pointed out a squirrel running across the path toward a tree about 15 feet in front of us, carrying a nut in his mouth, thinking Shay would love to watch him run up the tree... and instead Shay sort of wimpered, turned around, and clung to me.  I tried to explain that he didn't need to be afraid of the squirrel, but he just wanted to wave bye-bye to it, which, in this context, means "let's get the heck outta here."  So we left the squirrel and walked up the hill, and then I crouched down to toddler level and pointed out a big statue of the Buddha, sitting cross-legged in the shadow of a tree near where we stood.  He barely looked at it before turning around to cling to me.  He refused to walk by the Buddha, and insisted on being carried past that area.

I guess it's good, for him to have fears of unknown creatures -- and that Buddha is a little scary-looking, I'll give him that.  It makes me feel safe that he runs to me when he sees something unexpected or feels unsure -- I mean, at least it makes me feel safer than knowing he will run fearlessly into anything.   He did, however, try to climb over a rock so he could get into the pond and make fishy faces up close to the carp, and I tried really hard to seem calm while I held him back.  We are both working on the zen of our fears.

5k!

Today, I ran my first 5k.  I succeeded in all three of my main goals:
1. I finished it.
2. I ran the whole way; no stopping/resting/walking.
3. I had the cutest cheering section at the race!

It was actually way more fun than I thought it would be! It was a great atmosphere -- very positive with lots of cheering for all accomplishments.  The event was for women and girls only, and there was the 5k I ran as well as a 10k, a half-marathon, an 18-mile race, and a 1.5 mile kids' run.  There was actually a good-sized group of young girls running the 5k as well, which I thought was really cool. The race was alongside a lake in a park in the East Bay, and it was nice to run outside, which I haven't gotten the chance to do in my training -- definitely makes the time pass by more quickly to have something pretty to look at! It was harder to keep track of my pace, though, without the treadmill to set the pace for me.  I have no idea what my time actually was -- I couldn't see the clock as I was finishing, but Patrick says I finished "fast" so hopefully I managed to keep a reasonable pace!  (Though I think Patrick's "fast" comment is more about being proud of me than about my actual speed...) I'm hoping they'll post it online so I have something to try to improve on next time -- because suddenly I've decided I like running more than I thought I did!

I loved having my little dude out there to watch me run my first race -- a great Mother's Day gift!

Good Old Days

This last weekend, we went down to PG for the "Good Old Days," one of the town's "major" festivals (i.e. two-block parade, local bands, two-block arts-and-crafts/food booth festival).  Seamus is obsessed with watching fire truck parades on YouTube, so he had fun going with his grandparents to watch a real-life parade with some fire trucks.  There were also members of the local high school marching band and dance troupe, local kids marching for the library, and old classic cars.  Oh, and belly dancers, the Senior Center tap class brigade, and the Castroville artichoke queen -- you know, your typical parade fare.  What's a parade without belly dancers on a float?

We stood across the street from the fire station to walk the parade, and Dude got a new junior firefighter sticker.  Here we are:

He then spent much of the next day and a half standing up on my parents' couch and looking out their front window onto their very quiet street, announcing "Fire truck!" Or playing with my dad in his studio, looking out the window into the backyard and pointing out "Fire truck!" Or, maybe he wasn't announcing or pointing out; maybe it was wishful thinking?  An attempt to summon?  Or maybe "Gah Guck" doesn't mean fire truck after all -- maybe it means outside? Red? Awesome? Music? I don't know; I'm a little confused.

But he had some good parade-watching time, hanging out in the studio time, playing on the porch time, going to the park time, and general lots-of-attention-from-grandma-and-grandpa time.

You could tell he had a great time, because when we drove home on Sunday afternoon, he looked like this:

When we got home, he ran delightedly through the apartment to the living room, and pointed right at his red fire truck: "Gah guck!" He then ran to the window, climbed up on his stepstool, and looked out at the crowded city streets.  "Ck! Ck!" he shouted.  I think it means truck.  But, you never know.