"Arrrggggh! You suck!"

It's 8:40pm and from the couch downstairs I can hear you murmuring in your sleep. Last night Daddy was certain you said "hi" and a few other words in the midst of your nighttime slumber.

The sickness has moved into your lungs and now your cough is loud, wet, often. This afternoon was the first since Sunday that you didn't have a fever. You were energetic enough to balance yourself between the couch and ottoman, to drag the stainless steel pots from the cupboard, to climb the stairs and press your face between the wooden bars of the railing. You said "apple" and then refused to say it again.

Tonight you ate mashed potatoes and bits of chicken and an orange. This was a big step forward; you've mostly been subsisting on juice and apple sauce and blueberries for the last few days.

You still want to be near me, and only me if I'm available. This is both lovely and draining. I love the feel of your arms wrapped around my neck, your head turned to the side and resting on the knob of my shoulder. I try to imagine the future moments when I'll want this back, want you to display this kind of need or affection. I imagine eye rolls and blank stares and "uh-huh"s and "whatever"s, I think of the sound of your door slamming, of some as-of-yet uninvented but horrific tinny-rap-new-age-alt music shaking the marrow of our bones, sometimes I even imagine hearing the already-physically-painful-to-me phrases like "I hate you" and "you suck" and "why did I get such a crappy excuse for a mother, Monique's mother has way bigger boobs, nicer boots, and she lets us drink rum from cups with naked pirates on them as long as we promise not to drive afterward."

You can't talk yet, and this drives me crazy. You seem so willful about not communicating. And yet, so much of what you do communicate is pure, unadulterated love and affection. I should count my blessings. The naked pirates will arrive soon enough.

Empathy

Here comes the snow again. 10 inches or more predicted today. Daddy went to church to sing Kum-ba-ya (again) while you and I stayed at home and constructed a pile of snotty tissues between us.

On the way to Blue Monday I had to stop for a train that was visible only when I was half a block away. No whistle, no rattling of the tracks, just the blinking red lights and this dark blur moving left to right behind a veil of white.

You don't have much of an appetite because of the cold and when I change your diaper your belly is noticeably flatter. The gray sweatpants I tried to dress you in were too wide around the waist, kept slipping down when you walked.

You love to stand on the couch and grab items from the bookshelf that rests against the back of the couch: cell phone, necklace, wipes, water glass, mail key, brochures--general detritus. While Daddy took Luxy out in the snow, you and I examined the coupons from the Sunday paper. You were pleased by the pictures of grapes and oranges and apples, by the cartoon of the smiling dog and the photo of the monkey dressed in a green scarf and frog slippers.

Yesterday we spent 20 minutes looking at pictures in the Atlantic Monthly together. When we got to the advertisement for a fund that helps children with cleft palette, I wasn't sure what to do. Three photos of children with horribly disfigured faces. The lip of one rising up like the crest of a wave, the front teeth of another adhered squarely to the bottom of his nose. I wanted to turn the page but didn't. You pointed to the places of disfigurement, you knew immediately something was wrong. I said "ouch, those kids are hurt, they have ouchies on their faces." But I let you look. I'm not sure this was the right thing to do. I'm not sure at which point we should let you begin to witness the brutality, the unfairness, the darkness of the world. Those decisions won't entirely be up to us, of course, but sometimes we will be faced with the question of how much to let you witness.

I also know that many disabilities are no longer considered dis-abilities. Instead, many people who look or walk or think differently than the status quo want to be understood as "differently abled." A wine stain on the face is not an "ouch"--it's a cool and interesting difference--but what about these children, in the magazine, the ones who can't talk or eat well because of their contorted mouths? When is difference a lesson in empathy and when is difference a lesson in "we are all unique and beautiful creatures--hurrah!"?

I know this seems small but I saw the way you looked at the children in the magazine and then looked at my face to see how you should respond.

Re-Telling the Story

Thursday we went to the zoo. You have a cold and wanted to be held and then let go, held and then let go. The crocodile looked like a statue of a crocodile except for its eye, the pupil swinging from right to left in that optical room. You ran through a fake, hollowed tree trunk, Daddy standing in the light at one end and me in the light at the other. The black and while monkey with the long, soft tail looked like a human asleep with his face turned toward us, his features carved out of soft, black leather. The otters were hungry, running to us where we stood and opening their mouths, making plaintive meeping sounds, white teeth thin as hairs from our vantage point. You practiced running, mostly away from us, and when we called out "good-bye, Thisbe, see you later," you raised one hand, a backhanded wave, without looking back.

Now I have your head cold and we are both a little miserable, a little OK. Today before I left to buy Sudafed and Boogie Wipes and a bagel and a latte, you and I read a book about telling time and a book in which Curious George accidentally flies away in a hot air balloon but is miraculously saved by workers on Mt. Rushmore. Then we read a wordless book entitled "Breakfast for Jack" about a boy who forgets to feed his dog in the morning. One of your favorite activities of the day is feeding Luxy and so I think this book struck a particular chord, as soon as I finished reading you signed "more" so I read it again. And again. And again. It took four readings for you to be satisfied that the dog would, ultimately, be fed.

And maybe Daddy and I are not so different. Each year we worry about making money, about classes and grants and how we will survive. Each year we make it though. We do not lack for anything (though a vacation in Hawaii might be *nice*) and yet we continue to worry. We laugh about the toddler's compulsion to hear a story over and over again. And then we go to church, Daddy and I, so that we can hear from a different book that our lives are abundant, that we are unconditionally loved, that we will be taken care of--

Yesterday in class I taught a poem called "Lot's Wife" and when I asked my students who could summarize the story for us, only one student raised her hand. "Do you know this story?" I asked them. And they didn't. Last week we read an article about the relationship between dreams and myth. Humans who are permitted to sleep but not dream eventually go mad. Campbell argues that myths function in the same way for a society--they give us a way to process our shared (but repressed) fears and needs and desires. And while I certainly don't want all my students to become Christian, I worry about the disappearance of shared myth in our society. I think the prevalence of super-heroic films (Spider-man, Batman, The Hulk, Green Lantern, X-Men, Captain America, etc.) is the result of that longing, but I'm concerned about the quality of these stories, the ones that are becoming our common language. They hinge on the same outcome, they often separate darkness from light. They are immediately recognizable and understandable and safe.

It's a bit early, I think, for Leda or Lot's wife, but I hope these stories become a part of you someday in the way that they have become a part of me. Even if you decide not to become Christian, I hope you read the Bible, for the story of Jesus, yes, but also for the stories of people doing strange and weird and inexplicable things as they wrestle with the world they've been given.

True Grit

There's a red, heart-shaped, Mylar balloon hovering above your high chair, a half-eaten box of Godiva chocolates on the kitchen table, and a few conversation hearts strewn on the phone table (amidst bills and packing tape and pencils with pirate erasers). Ergo: we are in the last throes of the Valentine's Day season, a week which has consisted of anxiety, anticipation and disappointment. So, you know, like pretty much like any other Valentine's Day week. This one just had a little more bitterness built into it.

Last Thursday your father drove to Waverly, Iowa in a rented Toyota Camry and spent 18 hours talking to professors and deans and students and human resource folk about ethics and scripture and classroom dynamics and health insurance options. Then he drove home.

We spent the weekend in a numbed state of waiting. On Saturday we drove to Southdale and Grandma supervised your mall-running frenzy while Daddy and I went to see True Grit. The movie featured a badass, loquacious, neatly-plaited teenager who (spoiler alert!) loses her arm after a rattlesnake bites her when she falls down a mine shaft. I think those are requirements for Westerns (guns? check. rattlesnake? check. bad teeth? check. mine shaft? check. wooden porch with creaky boards? check.). Meanwhile, you rode on the giant choo-choo, ate noodles at California pizza kitchen, and tried to touch the people receiving the 10 minute Chinese massage.

On Sunday Daddy sang Kumbaya in church (a cool version, not a let's-join-hands-around-the-campfire version) and then in the evening we went back to church for the Valentine's Day dinner. I am not really so good at awkward church conversation, but I imagined a small table where your father and I could share an intimate meal. Actually, I was drooling when I saw the words "childcare provided." The teenagers run the V-Day dinner as a way to raise money for mission trips and make-out sessions in tents in remote parts of Montana--and actually, they were kind of darling. The boys in white button down shirts and red ties and fresh teenage acne and the girls in dresses far too short and tight and formal for the occasion. The dinner featured quite good food--but at a table for eight, not two. And we were interrupted just as the food was arriving by a page from the nursery (because we are living in an age when you are given a pager at the nursery)--it was 6:30 and you were tired and cranky (it was your bedtime, after all) and so I brought you into the dining hall and you sat beside us in a high chair, eating mushy carrot rounds and the broken bits of animal crackers I found at the bottom of the diaper bag. Then you ran laps around the church hall (lots of knowing, patient church smiles), giggling maniacally.

I am having a difficult time getting to the point.

Monday, Valentine's Day, was not the best. I won't go into details. Let's just say that if you have all day to get your Valentine some flowers, do NOT wait until 5:15pm when you are on your way home WITH YOUR WIFE IN THE CAR. That is unsexy.

On Tuesday Daddy got the call. No job. Somewhere, a nice, smart woman who has spent a lot of time living in huts in Africa (according to the pictures on her web site) is celebrating. We are not.

You, however, have been a champ. Good sleeping, good eating. Lots of hugs, few tantrums. And the weather turned lovely too. 45 degrees on Tuesday. And when I took you out of the car, you arched your back and screamed "alk! alk!" which I finally realized meant "walk." Or, more specifically, "put me on the ground, dummy, I can see spring edging out the snow."

Light and Salt

The windchill was -29 when I woke up this morning. When I was younger and I heard adults talking about the windchill, I thought they were saying "windshield," thought there was a scientific test done by measuring the force of the wind against the glass of a car.

Our Honda has no heat. A fact which is, of course, unremarkable in the summer and fall and spring but horrible in the winter. Today, miraculously, the car started but required scraping on both the outside of the windows as well as on the inside so that, by the time I began driving, I was covered in a dusting of frost. After I had driven three blocks, I could no longer see out of any of the windows because my breath had fogged them and everything outside was a ghost-like specter of itself. I thought about the small animals and school children I might kill and then pulled over to the side of the road, turned on the hazard lights, and got back out of the car to re-scrape. When I got back into the car I couldn't shut the hazard lights off, the button stuck or frozen or both, and so I drove home in tears, unable to see but blinking like a warning to everyone else.

I got home and threw the keys on the ground and told Daddy (well, yelled at Daddy) that we are going to get a new car right now. And he sighed and went out to disconnect the lights from the battery because the car was still in the driveway, blinking.

I sat on the couch in my down coat and hat and scarf and cried a little more because it's just that time of year, when everything tastes bitter no matter what you do. You sat facing me on my lap, holding a red convertible, smiling a little, gauging my reaction, then sobering, then reaching forward to touch a tear, something like a chemist, something like a therapist, your static-ey hair side-swept and plastered to your head like a toupee--by which I mean to say, you were a small bright spot, you were light and salt in a season that feels dark and tasteless. And I am grateful for that.

Why I Became A Parent

Clearly our intentions are completely innocent.

Training

Daddy's obsession with trains has now met its match: your obsession with trains. I don't think this post needs much explanation per se. I should mention (in case, God willing, by the time you read this we've moved to a different house and you've forgotten the layout of this one) that the train is in the basement and that the basement door is generally kept closed. When you want to play with the train you stand by the basement door and make your desires known. The rest of the photos in this post depict the nirvana that is our basement. In one, you're adding smoke fluid to the train. In another, you're waiting for the train to come out from behind the couch. I should also explain that rubbing your hand in circles over your chest means "please."

On Being An Un-Fun Mother

Cold and sunny today. Streets getting that bleach-stained look from the de-icing chemicals finally drying up.

I am letting you "help" more and more in the kitchen. At lunchtime you helped me slide the raw eggs into the warm water for hard boiling. Then you got to mash the cooked and peeled eggs in your bowl. In the mornings and evenings, you bring us Luxy's bowl and then help to dump scoops of dog food into it. Often, you like to tip the scoop as slowly as you possibly can so that only one or two pellets of dog food slide into the bowl at a time. You are either enjoying the tinny sound they make falling into the bowl or you are experimenting with the art of pouring or you know it drives me batshit crazy to stand there for FOREVER while you dump a single scoop into the bowl.

Similarly, when I ask you to put your hand into a sleeve, you immediately draw your elbow and wrist as close to your chest as possible as though touching the sleeve will force you to re-live a particularly traumatic event from childhood. You will then outstretch the pointer finger on your hand, little by little, until it is almost touching the opening of the sleeve before quickly yanking it back to the warmth of your chest. You repeat this process a few times until either you finally put your arm into the sleeve or I shove it in.

I realize that my lack of patience combined with my unwillingness to clean up mess after mess combined with my fear that you will do great bodily harm to yourself sometimes makes me a really un-fun parent. Now, at times, I feel like I'm also stunting your growth.

Sometimes I try to be more creative about playthings. A few days ago I let you play with our spice rack, a contraption that consists of about fifteen glass jars mounted on a lazy susan. This was fun until you figured out that you could open some of the jars and spill the contents all over the place. Then I got all un-fun. "Spices are expensive and you might get cayenne in your eye!" I explained as I put the spices back into the cupboard and you shrieked as though you had been basted in hot oil.

Another example of creativity curtailed by my control-freak nature is the garbanzo beans. I read an on line article about creating a "Play Box" by placing treasures of various sorts in a tupperware bin and then adding barley or oats or popcorn kernels and then letting the child dig for treasures while exploring the textures of the barley or oats or popcorn kernels. I thought this sounded like something a loving and creative parent would do and plus we had a bag of uncooked garbanzo beans in the cupboard that was NEVER going to get used so--I proceeded with the Play Box. And you proceeded to sort the beans, pour the beans, dump the beans, throw the beans, and kick the beans. You really loved the beans. I did not love picking the taupe beans off of our taupe carpet. Now the beans sit in a pan on top of the dryer. When you point to them and grunt I say "how about a puzzle? or a book? or another nap?"

Or maybe it's not so much that I'm un-fun or that you're always in need of amusement, maybe we've just reached the point in the winter where all the inside toys look dull and old and all of our outside toys (the sidewalks, the parks, the grass) are still covered by snow. When we got out of the car yesterday I pointed to the ceiling of the garage where Daddy wedged your wading pool above the rafters for storage. You pointed at the pool and looked at it for a long time before looking at me with a stare that I can only describe as "WTF?" I feel the same way, darling girl.

Post-dinner Pigtails

This video, I fear, reveals more about Daddy and I than it does about you. It's obvious what a diligent-doer-of-dishes your father is and what a neurotic-Tiger-mother-vocabulary-driller I am. You just appear to be the loving, distracted, obstinate, silly toddler that you are. And the footage does show off your pigtails nicely.