This Into That

While not desperately trying to get someone to read him a book about trucks, or looking out the window at trucks, Seamus spends a lot of his time putting things into other things.  He has a yellow wooden schoolbus with six differently-shaped blocks that fit into it, and he is starting to master getting the circle-shaped block into the circle-shaped hole, the triangle-shaped block into the triangle-shaped hole, etc.  He likes to stack up his stackable cups in the bathtub, and sometimes he likes to change it up and stick a rubber ducky into one of the cups.  He likes to load things up into the driver's seat of his toy dump truck, too, and he's getting more consistent at getting the alphabet pieces to fit correctly into his singing ABC's fridge magnet.  Or, sometimes he gets the magnets, blocks, and cups to fit correctly into the laundry hamper.

Or sometimes he finds new places to put the things that someone else has put in the laundry hamper -- this morning, for example, I was in the bathroom washing my face while he fished two dirty socks out of my laundry hamper and threw them into the bathtub.

And, as skinny as he is, he eats a ton and he LOVES to put food into his mouth.

I don't know if you can really tell, but this picture was meant to show you that he mostly puts food into his mouth with his left hand, with his right hand sort of dangling in the air nearby, until it swoops down on the tray at the end of the meal to help the left hand smoosh the food around. While he definitely uses both his hands to play and work with the blocks and magnets and do other things that use his fine motor skills, he seems to favor his left hand right now.  [I wonder if that means he is left-handed?  When does "handedness" (is that a word?) develop?]

The "putting things into other things" came in handy at our friends Cassie and Andy's housewarming party last weekend -- Shay spent a good 15 minutes taking beers out of six packs and stocking them in the ice bucket. (And then taking them out of the ice bucket and putting them in the six packs.  And then putting them back into the ice bucket.)

It has come in less handy as he has discovered how to put things into the top opening of the diaper bin and swing the handle down to deposit the thing into the smelly, gross depths of the bin -- we've lost a stuffed koala and a stuffed bear so far.

I, meanwhile, nearly poured coffee from the coffeepot into my oatmeal this morning, instead of pouring the water from the kettle.  And when I finished eating a yogurt while working on a lesson plan, I absentmindedly stuck the licked-clean spoon into the pen pocket of my schoolbag. What things are going into unexpected places in your house these days?

Do You Think I'm Talking to Hear Myself Talk?

About two years ago, there was a Facebook thing going around where you were supposed to write "25 Random Things" about yourself. It's one of the only Facebook notes I ever wrote, but I remember having lots of fun with it. One of my "things" on that list was: "I talk to myself a lot.  I'm actually never really talking to myself, precisely.  Sometimes I rehearse my part in conversations I'm eagerly anticipating or nervously awaiting.  Other times I find myself sort of explaining recent events to an unspecific reader/viewer/listener, like I'm my own first-person narrator.  I usually don't talk out loud, but I almost always move my lips.  And sometimes I get caught.  And getting caught, animatedly but silently talking to myself, is pretty embarrassing.  This is, in fact, the one thing on this list that I'm embarrassed to share." 

After I had Seamus, I found a new way to be less embarrassed about this talking to myself: I could say the stuff out loud, to him -- I could narrate what was going on, practice conversations with him, etc., and suddenly I wasn't having to do it silently, and no one would look askance at me, talking to my kid.  In fact, many of the books I read on parenting and language acquisition encouraged me to talk out loud to him, all day long -- they said that was how he'd get the rhythms and sounds and words and structure of language.

So, for over a year, I've been talking to Shay/myself, all the livelong day, just chattity chat chat.  I talk about what we're doing right now, what we're going to do later, what color things are, what the ducky says to the froggy while they're riding in the tugboat in the bathtub, what I'm thinking about, what I might say to my students tomorrow, what I would say to Scott Walker if I could get five minutes with him (expletives removed), etc. etc.  I have stopped feeling funny asking questions that get no response, or talking and talking and talking without leaving any pauses for response.

Then, the other day, I was trying to get Shay's dinner cooked and organized, and in an effort to get him out from underfoot so that I could move around the kitchen a little, and also partially just because I was thinking out loud about all the dinner things I'd need to have assembled before settling him into his high chair, I said, "Ooh, we need a sippy cup too. Hey, bud, where's your water? Do you see your green sippy cup?"  He let go of my leg immediately, and walked out to the edge of the living room and peered out at his sea of toys.  After 30 seconds of searching, he pointed frantically at a sippy cup nestled in amongst 14 books on trains, buses, and trucks. "Hey, yeah, you're right!" I responded.  "There it is!  Can you go get it and bring it to Mama?" He toddled off, grabbed the sippy cup, and brought it back to me.  "Thank you, Shay! What a good helper you are!" I exclaimed, and he grinned, proudly I think, dropped the cup, and hugged my leg.

This morning, we were in the car heading over to the freeway to head toward my school and his "day care" with Grandma and Grandpa, and we approached three yellow schoolbuses parked outside one of the local elementary schools.  "Look, Shay," I exclaimed, pointing at the buses.  "Buh! Buh! Buh!" he replied, clapping his hands.

I have an interlocutor, it seems.

Thoughts on the weather and attire

Two weeks ago, one of my students came in to class 20 minutes late, wearing fluffy ear muffs (it was in the 70s in CA then, making ear muffs an odd choice).  Since it was her 3rd late in a row, and since the rest of the students were doing some group work, I ushered her outside to have a conversation about arriving on time to class.  She kept the ear muffs on.  I kept wondering if she could hear me, while wearing ear muffs? -- obviously, she could, as she was actually apologetic and seemed genuinely willing to shape up, at least in terms of her timeliness.  But then I was still wondering if I should be asking her to take the ear muffs off, as "not wearing ear muffs" seems to me to be a more appropriate choice of attire when addressing an instructor, perhaps because they remind me of earphones, which students sometimes seem surprised to learn should not be worn in class.  But since she seemed to be listening to me, I didn't say anything, and she kept the ear muffs on, and then we went back into the room and she continued to keep the ear muffs on, all through class, actively participating and actively listening.  It is February, granted, but there are sure signs of global warming here in California and it was one of those hot, sticky days where the classroom feels stuffy and smells faintly of the sweat of a morning's worth of students.

Today, there is a buzz about snow -- people say it might snow in San Francisco for the first time since the 70s.  It feels cold enough.  Ear Muff Girl came to class in shorts today.

First Trip Sans-Baby

So, this past weekend, I went on my first trip away from the little dude since he was born 14 months ago.  The lead-up to the trip was sort of fraught for me: I was in the process of weaning him, and I thought he would probably be fine without nursing for three nights, but would he be for sure? I wasn't sure.  And would I be okay without hearing his giggle, and smelling his head, and kissing his cheeks, for three whole days?  I definitely wasn't sure.  I wondered if he would miss me, and if he would wonder where I'd gone, and if he would think I wasn't coming back.

I worried that I would worry the whole time, and not enjoy myself.

Turns out, I was wrong: it was awesome.  Heidi, Tina, and Sarah flew out to Natasha's near D.C. on Friday, and I followed them on Friday night, arriving early Saturday morning.  We spent Saturday in D.C., walking up and down the Mall to check out the monuments and memorials and buildings, going out to brunch, and visiting the Smithsonian; we also went back to D.C. on Monday before our evening flight back home to California, and visited another museum and the botanical garden, and checked out the Capitol building.  On Sunday we mainly lounged around in Virginia at Tash's house; Nate also took us on a tour of his base and we went out to dinner in a cute nearby town. I loved seeing D.C. -- I had never been there, and it was fun to get an in-person view of the sights that you read about and see on TV.  I may have pretended that I was on the West Wing, just for a little bit.  I also loved just being with my girlfriends, talking and laughing and eating.  I loved sleeping in and then lounging in the bed until I felt like getting up AND eating all my meals undisturbed AND doing whatever moved me without thinking about whether doing it would affect naptime AND having time to talk to friends AND read AND watch movies, all on the same day.  Even the plane ride home, with six hours to sit down undisturbed with a book, a magazine, and a selection of movies, with someone bringing me a beverage, was like being at a spa.

It was totally great.  I forgot to worry about whether Dude was wondering where I was.  And then, in the airport on Monday night, my homing signals started going off, and I was glad to be heading home.  When I got there, I sneaked into Dude's room to kiss the little curls above his ears.  When I heard him stir in the morning, I jumped out of bed and ran into his room to say hi, and when I came in he looked up at me with a vague smile and then looked right back down at the crib sheets he'd been examining, the new ones with the cars and trucks printed on them.  "Truck!" he exclaimed.

I don't think he missed me at all.

Gah Guck!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  It is a quiet, rainy day in these parts.

We have another new word in our house: fire truck.  It sounds more like "gah guck" than "fire truck," but there is a definite association between the word and the thing.  Dude has a little toy fire truck as well as numerous books with pictures of fire trucks in them -- he will point all of them out and announce "gah guck!"; we also live in a city and so we hear numerous sirens go by our apartment every day -- and when he hears a siren, he'll point up to the window and shout "gah guck!"  He has a fire truck printed on the shirt he's wearing today, and he showed everyone in Trader Joe's: "gah guck!"

That's pretty much all that's going on around here.  Oh, except that I'm also trying to make a custard to go with this rhubarb tart that I bought at a nearby Irish bakery, because it's Valentine's Day and Patrick loves rhubarb and pretty much any dessert that I make or buy prompts him to say, "Hmm, this would be nice with a nice custard."  So I am trying, even though custard is sort of an unfamiliar concept to me.  I feel like with desserts where I would be accustomed to seeing ice cream or whipping cream served on the side, Patrick would be accustomed to seeing custard. Is that an American/Irish thing?  Or is my ice cream/whipping cream expectation a Western/California thing?  Anyway, the recipe said it should bake for 45-50 minutes or until it sets and a knife comes out clean, and it has been in the oven for over an hour and it's still not setting.  Is that normal?  Send help! Preferably help that arrives on a gah guck with its sirens blaring, as that would really please my short valentine.

Blankie

I give up: after trying to offer him numerous "lovies," blankets, and stuffed animals, Seamus's official security blanket is a sleep sack. He couldn't care less about satin or silky edging on the blankets that are advertised as "lovies" and that I tried to get him to buy into, but he finds zippers comforting, apparently.  He picks up the sleep sack and then twirls it around until he locates the zippered side, which he sucks and rubs against his cheek.  He carries it all around the house.  When I hand it to him, his eyes start to droop.  Here he is yesterday, ready to fall asleep yet mesmerized by the carwash.

Since he still wears a sleep sack at night, this is a convenient choice.  I'm getting the feeling, though, that even when he outgrows the sleep sack as part of his pajama situation, he'll still want to snuggle with the nice zippery sack.

Sweet February Sixth

I have a charm bracelet that belonged to my Farmor, my dad's mother.  The name "Farmor" in Danish means "father's mother"--so a Danish person could have four grandparents with distinct names: a Farmor, a Farfar, a Mormor, and a Morfar, instead of two Grandmas and two Grandpas.  Unless they have a "Bedstefar" and "Bedstemor" in there--these are more generic "Grandma" and "Grandpa"-type names.  But I digress.

I have a charm bracelet that belonged to my Farmor.  I can remember sitting on the couch in her TV room with her one day when she was very sick with lung cancer--she had to bring an oxygen tank around with her to help her breathe, and I wasn't quite sure if that was scary or just normal, for an old person.  I was eleven.  She put a little jewelry box on the table--the surface of that table was a big, colorful map, and I loved it--and out of the jewelry box she took a charm bracelet that was full to overflowing with little silver charms.  There are 28 links, and 29 charms.  She told me the story of each charm, stories that I wish I had written down, or that I could remember better.  There are three that I remember seeing for the first time, in amazement: a little pencil, which has lead--it doesn't write anymore, but you can see the nib of lead pushed down into the center.  A little harmonica, which doesn't play but which does have little teeny-tiny holes, so it looks as if it should play.  A little bicycle, with wheels that turn.

There are charms that signify her heritage and the places she cared about: there is a charm in the shape of the state of California and one of a San Francisco cable car, telling the story of her adult life in California, after she moved away from her little Danish-speaking village in Iowa to marry my grandfather.  There is an American flag, and a Danish flag, and a charm of the Little Mermaid statue that's in the Copenhagen harbor.

There are charms from trips: an Eiffel Tower, a pair of skis.

There is one charm that you can sort of tell doesn't "belong" with the aesthetics of the bracelet: it is larger than the others; it is the only one that is gold.  It's actually a neckace pendant, and it's a gold circle with a delicate edging and it is engraved "Sweet February 6th."  This one I do remember the story of: this was a necklace belonging to Annette, her daughter, my aunt, commemorating her sweet sixteen.  It lived with Annette from her sixteenth birthday on, and then came to live on the charm bracelet sometime after Annette died, which was when she was twenty-eight.

There are charms whose stories I think about re-inventing: a top hat, a cup, a canoe.  When did those come to the bracelet, and why?   For these stories, I would also have to invent for myself a version of my grandfather, a man I never met. If I invented him in writing, I would definitely use the story I've heard he used to tell: when he arrived in America on the boat from Denmark, he walked down the gangplank and saw a nugget of gold.  He kicked it off into the sea, because why bother picking it up?  He was going to California, and there was gold everywhere there.

I might also have to invent another man.

When Farmor died, she left me the charm bracelet, and some of her other jewelry.  I don't think I quite understood, at eleven, that she was telling me these stories because she wanted me to have the bracelet, because she wanted me to keep those memories--but, of course, that's what she was doing that day in the TV room: she was giving me some of her jewelry, and giving me a little view into her life.  Among the other pieces of jewelry she left me is a beautiful, delicate gold filigree bracelet made of arcs that suggest butterfly wings.  "This was given to me by the boyfriend I had before I met your grandfather," she whispered to me.

I have a charm bracelet that belonged to my Farmor.  I think I would like to write a story about it.

*I wrote most of this post in December, when I was first starting this blog, in response to a "blog writing prompt": describe a piece of jewelry you have and where it came from.  Then, instead of writing this and then saying I'd like to write a story about it, I thought I should ACTUALLY try to write a story about it, so I never posted this, but I had it saved in my draft posts. I did start trying to actually write a story about it, or at least to use that bracelet as a jumping-off point, but I'm not getting very far yet.  Maybe you'll hear more about that later.  But anyway, it started here, as a story about a piece of jewelry that came to me via my grandmother.  And though I thought of it originally as a story about Farmor, the bracelet is an object that, like a person, has complex entanglements with other people--and so of course it is sort of about Annette too. So, this is just sort of a snippet of an idea-in-progress, but I decided to "publish" this bloggy version today, on February 6th, Annette's birthday.  I can remember going with my dad to the beach on her birthday when I was a little girl, watching him write "Happy Birthday" in the sand, and watching the waves slowly lick at the letters.  He said that when the waves finally washed over the words, it was like then she knew we were wishing her a happy birthday.  Maybe, reader, when you read this, it is like you are washing over my words, and then she knows I'm wishing her a happy birthday.