Red?

It was steamy hot again today. This evening a thunderstorm swept through and brought the good rich wet earth smells up and out of the ground. The smells were hanging in mid air when I emerged from the New Mom's group meeting at the hospital. Your father is at a Twins game with Grandpa Peter--or rather, they are at the stadium waiting for the game to resume (the very first rain delay in this stadium's history!). Luxy and I are all alone in the house tonight for the very first time since you were born. It is terrifically odd. I opened the windows so the good rich wet earth smells are getting into the house and I should be writing something horribly profound in my little red moleskin notebook but your absence makes me feel anxious and on edge. Like I have left the house without putting on my underwear or I have showed up to class without doing any prep work. So I'm compromising--I'm sitting in bed, drinking a Moose Drool (that's beer), looking very cool and collected, and writing--to you and about you.

But really, the point of today's post is this:

I got home from grading today, mouth a little dry from all the caffeine and sugar, little beads of sweat sprouting along my temples, computer bag slung over one shoulder, grocery bag with cookies for students in the other, car keys dangling from my lips, and your father--all casually--says "Thisbe said 'red' today." I put down my bags and put my keys in the bowl and then was like "WHAT?" The story goes like this:

You have a favorite book. Well, you have a few favorite books but this was your first favorite book. The book is creatively titled "COLORS." The first two pages feature an orange goldfish and a big slice of an orange. Daddy showed you these pages, noting the featured color in (I would guess) a patient and slightly distracted way. He turned to the next page (featuring a sporty car and a gigantic apple) and before he could say anything you said "red."

Or so he claims. I was skeptical.

So I sat you down in front of your favorite puzzle (which also happens to be your only puzzle). This puzzle features shape/color cutouts with knobs attached. You love to grab the knobs, pull the pieces from their resting places, and toss them in various directions or bang them together to make noises. Today I pulled the rectangle/red piece out of the puzzle. "What's this?" I said. You put the puzzle piece in your mouth. I looked at your father with raised "I told you so" eyebrows. Then I got up to fetch a lime bubbly water from the kitchen (lime bubbly water was really needed on a day like today) and as soon as I turned my back you said "red."

OK, maybe it sounded more like "reh." And the truth is, I still don't really believe it. You are quite a bit too young for first words. But the weird thing is, you make sounds all the time and NONE of them begin the the "r" sound. You can da-da-da until the cows come home but I have never heard you say "red" or its relatives "reh" "rah" and "rih." Yet I still don't quite believe.

The mythology and surmising has already begun though, let me tell you. I told Grandma Ricki on the phone today. "But that's an ABSTRACT term," she said, "that's AMAZING." Then we both meditated for some time on how we believe you have a very "red" personality. Passionate, stubborn, intense.

You'll have to do it a few more times before we'll truly be able to determine whether this is your first word. What's mostly been proven today is how hungry we are to understand you, to glimpse into that beautiful, luminous head of yours.

"Maybe she meant she had already finished the book, Peder. Maybe she was, like, checking it off her list. Read this. Read this. Read this. Maybe that's what she meant." Your father rolled his eyes at me. You give our lives meaning, Thiz, and we, in turn, love to create it around you.

Clap On, Clap Off

Hot and humid. When I kissed Daddy's jawbone this afternoon it tasted like salt. We spent an hour wandering around Target today, enjoying the A.C. and avoiding grading. We loaded up on organic baby food and big tupperware bins to store all the clothes I've bought for you at garage sales. It's only 7:30pm but I feel limp, feel like I should be drinking a mint julep and staring our at the wide expanse of a field of cotton. I feel southern. I feel made up of words like bayou and molasses and gumption.

I am pleased to report that you have mastered "go boom." You adore attempting to pull yourself up on any surface (couch, ottoman, dishwasher, wall, exersaucer, etc.) with somewhat limited success. The wall, for instance, has not proven to be hospitable.

The next venture seems to be your hands. When you get excited, you do a kind of clapping motion. This excites us. Then, we'll say "Thisbe, clap, clap!" and you'll look at us blankly. As I spooned chicken-vegetable puree into your mouth this evening, I caught you staring at your hand as though it didn't belong to you. There were your fingers, clutching into a fist and then releasing. Clutch, release, clutch, release--like someone was drawing your blood. It's the motion you'll use to wave "bye-bye" so of course, as soon as you started doing this, Daddy and I started waving "bye-bye." We did this through most of dinner. This is because we are exceptionally sophisticated people. Exceptionally.

(Note: the video below is a rare exception. The fact that you are clapping has NOTHING to do with the fact that I am asking you to clap. It is a rare coincidence that I managed to capture on video in case I need bragging rights later. You know, in a parent bragging competition.)

Go Boom!

You have kind of exploded.

It is warm here in Northfield, not warm with the cool behind it but warm with the warm behind it. Summer warm, not spring warm. The leaves are big and full and everywhere on campus girls are laying on their bellies with i-pod buds in their ears and their hair fanned out mermaid-like around their crisping skulls. Finals have begun and so everyone is running "extreme"--extreme stress, extreme tension, extreme celebration, extreme nostalgia. Students who haven't been concerned about their grades for the last 15 weeks are suddenly VERY concerned and very good at sending e-mails expressing this concern. Meanwhile, professors are walking around with pinched looks on their faces, as if staring permanently into an abyss of yet-to-be-graded papers. I am full of longing to feel relaxed. I am full of desire to smear sunscreen on my chalky thighs. We are all just ready to be done.

You, however, are in a permanent state of "go." You've now mastered the crawling thing and you're feeling better and better about crawling out of sight--down the hall, into the bathroom, around the couch. You're also beginning to love pulling yourself up to a standing position. This morning, I turned to say something to your father and in the blink of an eye, you'd crawled all the way to the front door, pulled yourself up, and begun to engage in a massive make out session with the glass.

Unfortunately, you haven't yet learned how to get back down after pulling yourself back up. Two nights ago, you screamed for 45 minutes at bed time. Turns out it was because you'd pulled yourself up in your crib and didn't know how to get back down. This happened again during nap time yesterday. The first time, it broke my heart. I set you back down and rubbed your belly and gave you Mr. Meow to fondle. The second time I wrinkled my brow in concern and mumbled something about "my sweet baby girl." The third time, I videotaped.

It's hard for a poet-mom not to see the bigger parallel in all this. Daddy and I have both spent many years learning to do what we do and we feel pretty smart and strong about these areas of knowledge we have (tiny areas of knowledge in the scheme of things). But right now, this whole spring, we have been sad and confused and terrified because we hadn't learned, still haven't really learned, how to back away from that, how to let go.

So I've begun to practice with you. While you stand I hold onto your hands and say "go boom! go boom!" and I tug backward just a little until your knees bend and you flop down onto your diapered butt. Then Daddy and I cheer for you, loudly, because learning how to to fall, to undo, to "go boom" gracefully isn't easy.

I pray for the courage to be able to learn to do the same.

Oui Oui

Did Mommy get sick? Oui.
Did we dress you up in a beret and mustache to make Mommy feel better? Oui, oui.
Did it work? Oui, oui, oui!!!

Medicine

On the first day, there was the teething.
On the second day, there was the snotting.
On the third day, there was the screaming.
The fourth day brought two ear infections.
The fifth day was Mother's Day and small birds danced and sang.
On the sixth day, a rash emerged.
On the seventh day, a fever joined the rash.
Then screaming returned for good measure
and the snotting sang back-up through all of it.

What I mean to say is: it's been a rough week.
You had an allergic reaction to the amoxicillan so it did not turn out to be our knight in pink armor as I had originally anticipated.

Today, finally, you were back, really back to your old self again. I said that same thing in my last post, on Mother's Day, but it turned out to be a big fat lie. By the following day Dismal Fussy Sick Thisbe had returned. This was not a happy return. Plus, it was 50 degrees and rainy all week which didn't really help matters.

But today. Today is different. Today the temperature reached for--and almost touched--the 70 degree mark. Sunglasses appeared on the tops of people's heads and the residue of warmer layers manifested themselves around people's waists.

Now confident in your crawling abilities, you have returned to language. You spent much of today repeating "da-da-da-da-da-da" as many times as possible. The syllable doesn't yet have a signified (i.e. your father), it's more that you have finally discovered how to make the sound, not by accident but by design, and you want to emblazon the memory on your tongue. "Da-da-da-da-da-da"--while crawling, while sitting, while standing and pulling on the couch cushions. "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da." And cutest of all: on the way to Minneapolis this afternoon, you began to fuss in your car seat. I handed you "Where is the Green Sheep" and you held it in your hands like the holy grail and then you began to talk to it "da-da-da-da-da" only because it was a book, it seemed very much like you were reading to yourself. You kept on this way for quite some time, banging the boardbook against your seat belt buckle from time to time for good measure. I flipped through an "Entertainment Weekly" and your father talked about courses and perspective and shame. And the sunlight swam across his face and onto my lap and the green of late spring after heavy rain rushed by on either side of the car.

Dada's Day / Mama's Day

To use one of your Grandpa Mark's favorite phrases, Thiz, this weekend has been filled with highs and lows.

Saturday began on a low note. You woke, fussy and rather inconsolable. I suspected an ear infection. We drove, the two of us, to the clinic and spent two hours pacing the waiting room, waiting for our five minutes with the doctor. As long as I was holding you, as long as we were moving or looking out the window, you were relatively content--but if I tried to sit down, to let you play on my lap or on the floor, you were full of reproach. Two hours later we left, with a diagnosis of an infection in each of your ears and a prescription for amoxicillan.

After you took a nap and we fed you your first dose of that Pepto-Bismol pink medicine, we all proceeded, through traffic and some random errands, to the Model Toy Train Museum. This was Daddy's chosen birthday activity and we figured that staring at the choo-choos might distract you from the pressure pulsing against both your eardrums. We were right, more or less. Daddy carried you in the Baby Bjorn and explained to me the difference between various gauges of train track and the hypocrisy that exists within the Model Toy Train community. Those who collect trains "built to scale" apparently fancy themselves a little better, a little more refined, than those who collect Lionel trains. To the naked (aka my) eye, the Lionel trains do not appear to be much different in size than the scale trains. I made sure, however, not to make this observation known within the confines of the train museum. I feared I might be tarred and feathered.

To be honest, Thiz, I had been dreading a little bit the excursion to the train museum. And it was actually OK. Much more peaceful and frenzied than many kid friendly places. Perhaps because the energy of the kiddos (mostly little boys) is tempered by the presence of the 60-years-plus men. It was kind of lovely to see these older men crawling on their hands and knees below the train display so that they could pop up in various locations, surrounded by track and miniature trees and houses and cars.

In a different building, where the Lionel trains were housed, there was a display that permitted the viewer to push buttons, thereby setting into motion the arm of the train crossing guard or turning a light on in a tiny model home. One button made a tiny harmonica play in a "hobo camp" display; another opened the door to an outhouse, permitting a glimpse of a man crouched on the toilet, reading a newspaper.

We ate Culver's for dinner and then watched Betty White host Saturday Night Live.

Today is Mother's Day. When I walked downstairs this morning, there was a vase of flowers and a card waiting for me on the dining room table (nice job, Daddy!). I spent the morning drinking coffee and grading papers at Blue Monday. Then you and Daddy and I walked to the Ole Store for brunch. After brunch we took Luxy on a walk through the natural lands behind St. Olaf. You rode, facing me, in the Ergo carrier. I like to be able to look at you this way, like to be able to easily kiss your forehead and whisper sweet words in your ears. It's chilly today, maybe 55 degrees, but sunny too, and everything green and still new.

This funny thing happened at brunch. You started to laugh. To giggle. On the walk you kept craning your neck to see Daddy so you could flash him a smile. We didn't even realize these things had been missing from you the last three days. I mean, to a certain extent we did--you were fussy--but also so focused on crawling--so determined! Seeing the joy come back into you today was the best Mother's Day gift. I would love you without this, of course, if you were a more serious or somber child I would love you all the same. I have loved you deeply these past few days even though your joy (or as Daddy says, your "mojo") has been absent. But what a gift to see it return to you, what a gift to walk through trees with new leaves, hand in hand with a husband whom I love, a panting dog whom I love, and my baby girl, smiling up at me, all troubles, for a moment, at bay.

Mobile

Yesterday was dark and stormy. After a wake/fuss/wake/fuss night you slept until 8am. So did Daddy and I. None of us were quick about anything. Groggy showers, groggy Luxy-feeding, groggy coffee making, groggy cereal eating. I groggily wiped dried snot crust from below your nostrils and groggily set you down in the middle of the living room rug.

And then you started crawling. And Daddy and I were not nearly no groggy anymore.

You are now officially mobile. And today, you truly figured that out. Yesterday you learned the physical motion, but today your face showed knowledge of the new autonomy. You are capable of moving from one place to another: from the table legs to the dog's water bowl, from the comfort of my lap to the rigidity of the kitchen floor, from the foot of the stairs to the ottoman's edge. You are migratory.

Ironically, unlike linear, path-oriented you, a mobile (the noun, not the adjective) is capable of moving on only elliptical paths, around not toward. In this way, the earth is mobile and Mars is mobile and the moons of Jupiter are mobile. You go to sleep under a mobile. A yellow lion, a brown bear, a tan and white striped zebra, a blue elephant: these creatures revolve around a stuffed replica of Noah's Ark. And the revolving is meant to soothe. A mobile's motion is predictable--your motions are not.

And I can't help thinking today, at this point in time, of the other Mobil. The gas corporation. And though it's not their oil, not their fault, I can't help thinking of the millions and millions of gallons of oil that are leaking into the ocean at this very moment. That motion, that movement, is not linear or circular. I imagine the oil's motion as the rhythmic shoving of the waves or outward rippling of a drop of blood fallen into a warm bath. Dispersing, digressing.

I am so proud of your new mobility, Thiz. I have taken approximately 23 videos of you crawling in the last 48 hours. Thisbe to duck, Thisbe to dog bowl, Thisbe to ice cream container, etc. I announced your new development to my friends, to my classes, to the Facebook universe. And yet, in watching this new motion rise out of you, I am already longing for stillness. For you, for me, for the world. I hope that I don't push you forward too much, too fast, too hard. I pray that I honor your need to pause--to watch the afternoon light play on the silver Mylar balloon, to lick the leaking snot from your upper lip, to pick at the dog hairs in the carpet. I hope that in our effort to teach you motion, we do not forget to teach you how to honor its absence--I hope that you learn stillness of mind and body and heart.

Next: the Triathalon

I Would Be Glad To Help You With That

Today was Daddy's birthday. He is 38 years old. Your favorite parts of the day were the balloons and the cake. Also, the wrapping paper. And the box the cake came in. I am too tired to write any more today but I wanted to post a few pictures. Happy Birthday, Peder!

Feels Like a Fang

For two days I was feeling a little high-and-mighty.

"Oh," I was saying to imaginary mothers in my head, "your child is fussy while teething? You're having a terrible time? Huh." At this point in the imaginary conversation I would shrug while also looking supremely compassionate. "Thisbe didn't seem to be bothered by it."

And God saw that conversation in my head.
And God was like, "Ooooooohhhh reeeeeaaaaalllllly???"
And then the shit hit the fan.

It is difficult to tell if there is more liquid coming from your nose or your mouth, but cometh it does. Much of it. We went through 5 bibs today so quickly that I had to put them in the dryer. Without washing them first. That's right, I dried your snotty bibs and reused them.

In addition to the liquid overflow (you vomited tonight, just to add to the orifice expulsion fun) there is your refusal to nap. You gave us a mere 30 minutes this morning, a mere 15 minutes this afternoon. I pray you sleep through the night.

But just in case God is still in "ooooohhhhh reeeeaaallllly?" mode, I've purchased a bunch of infant drugs as Walgreens. And I'm not afraid to use them.

Catching Hummingbirds

Today we went to the zoo. The wind was before us and between us and around our legs and twisting wind mustaches over our faces and curling wind tendrils of hair behind our ears--but we persevered. The bears were asleep today but the leopard was not. He sat on a rock in the sun and stared directly at the children on the other side of the glass. There was a rock ledge in front of the glass and so I let you bounce there and the leopard saw you bouncing. He watched you carefully. And every so often he would twitch; I swear I am not exaggerating when I say that I could see the reflex rise up in his body (the reflex to pounce, to prey, to continue forth with his existence in the way leopards should), and he would twitch and then continue staring.

Later, we went to Menards. We bought a battery for the smoke alarm and safety locks for the cabinets. The irony was lost on me. Safety is always relative.

I am writing to you again today, not because something of particular import occurred, but because you are moments away, you are so close, you are just on the cusp of crawling. Tonight, as Daddy and I ate frozen pizza, you practiced on the carpet near the dining room table. Belly to hands and knees and then sometimes up onto your tippy-toes in a sort of Downward Dog Yoga position and then tonight you moved one arm and then one knee and then collapsed.

The cheers Daddy and I internalize at these moments--so as not to frighten you or interrupt your learning--are outrageously loud. We do arm pumps in the air and silent high fives and open our mouths wide enough to catch small hummingbirds inside.

We are rooting for you, as we always will, every step (or half-step) of the way.