Rejection

Daddy is camping with his graduate school friends in 95 degree heat. Meanwhile, Thiz, you and I have been attempting to have some quality time. Except we went to Minneapolis and Gak and Ampa took over and then I didn't really see you for 48 hours but did manage to read the first 100 pages of Lolita and write 2,000 words. So that was good.

Last night, when it was time to go to bed, I walked into the sunroom to whisk you up the stairs. You were sitting on the couch next to Gak. The following is a word-for-word transcription of our conversation:
Me (brightly): Hey sweetie, it's time to go to bed now.
You (pointedly): Book.
Me: You already read a book with grandma.
You (emphatically): BOOK.
Me (resignedly): OK, we can read one more book.
[You proffer "Bambi." I sit down on the couch beside you and open "Bambi."
You (archly): No. Gak.
Me (apathetically): OK. Gak can read the book.
You: Go. Away. Mama.

Yep, that's right. Your second sentence EVER consisted of telling me to fuck off. It was the sentence equivalent of "Bup." So I sulked off dejectedly to the computer room.

30 seconds later you came dashing in. "Hug!" you said. "Really?" I said. "Hug!" you said again in a tone that sounded like you were asking for fifty push-ups in glaring Arizona sunshine. "OK," I said, lifting you onto my lap. You hugged. You kissed. "Did Gak make you do that?" I asked. "Yes," you said, "Buh-bye!" And you were gone.

There and Back Again

We are in the midst of a heat wave. The kind that makes one's glasses fog up when one steps outside. The kind that leaves a sheen of sweat across every inch of one's skin after walking for 2.5 blocks. The kind the makes one stretch lazily on one's bed watching re-runs of cooking shows while the fan whirs and whirs overhead.

When we left Seattle yesterday it was 62 degrees. The current temperature is 90, but with the humidity it feels like 105. It's the kind of weather extreme that makes be both extremely grateful for modern temperature control but also extremely uneasy. I realize that, just as when the temps turn arctic, much of my ability to DO anything comes from the fact that I'm not spending all my time figuring out how to stay warm--or in this case, cool. Daddy is going camping with his friends tomorrow. I am feeling alternately amused and terrified that he will bake into some sort of gruesome human Hot Pocket in the tent.

We spent the last two weeks at Holden. The time was not relaxing but WAS exceptionally renewing. At least for Mama and Dada. I'm not so sure you felt renewed being at Holden. I think you felt renewed when you returned home. You were exceptionally happy today, delighted to chase Luxy around the living room, to buckle your familiar high chair straps, to lug the unwieldy children's Bible up onto the couch. You loved Holden but I think it was also overwhelming for you: the dining hall filled with hoards of unfamiliar people at every meal, the non-uniform surfaces (rocky roads, rooted trails, crooked cobblestone paths) slowing your full-throttle running pace, the loving Narnia volunteers prying your hands from my shirt every morning to engage you in play. These things, I think, exhausted you. And although we were staying in a chalet, we were all crammed into one room, a sheet separating your Pack and Play from our bed, our clothes and books and (clean) cloth diaper inserts scattered on all available surfaces. You ended up in our bed every night (sometimes at 10pm, sometimes at 1:30 or 5:30am) and I think we all grew weary from not sleeping quite fully or restfully.

But then there was the loveliness: hikes to waterfalls, baby deer napping outside our window, eternal washing in Gak's sink, bubble-blowing with Dot, squealing contests with Holden, adventures to the Hobbit House and labyrinth, chipmunks available for chasing at every turn, etc., etc., etc.

And richness for your father and I: teaching people who wanted to be taught, engaging in discussions on suffering and health care, socialism, wilderness ethics, Augustine's confessions, and the nature of hope. There was laughter yoga and dishteam and staying up until the wee hours drinking boxed wine with new friends. Your father preached an amazing mini-sermon on the nature of freedom and I talked with Toni about how to weave together a memoir about the last days of Bethany's life. We didn't relax. But for a few days we got to be parents and friends and lovers and teachers and workers and worshipers and hikers and learners in a place that didn't ask us to separate these aspects of ourselves into separate categories. I sang hymns beside the people who came to my classes, I did dish team with the woman who cared for you in Narnia. In a society that often asks us to divide into a version of ourselves for different occasions, it is a relief to return to a place where the whole self is welcomed, is sufficient at every turn. So we're not relaxed. But we are renewed. I hope, at some level, that you are too, although your main reflection on the trip consists of: "Dada. Pee-pee. Hike." Because while we were hiking, Dada peed while you were in the backpack. And you thought this was worth a sentence.

Holden isn't perfect, by any means, but as people I think we live more fully and completely there, not versions of ourselves, but our whole selves, troubled and imperfect and filled with abundant grace. Or, as you would say, "Dada. Pee-pee. Hike."

Visitors!

I have been a lazy poster this month. In part because I accepted a summer school course at the last minute so I've been more busy than I thought I'd be. But also because we've had the joy of visitors. First, way back in May, John and Anna stopped by. We walked to the Cow and drank beer and walked back through a lovely rain. At the beginning of June we got to spend time touring boats and ogling tapirs with Grandma Gail and Grandpa Michael. Just this last Sunday, Martha and Sam popped by for a visit. They brought chard from their garden and freshly-picked strawberries. We roasted a chicken and feasted!

So here are pictures, without the stories that should accompany them because I am tired and/or lazy. Love, Ma.

Biba?

Well, things have turned around. You went from really sick to kind of sick to whiny to well. You are now back to full force Thisbe mode: running everywhere, demanding everything (pool, park, cookie, cracker), and by turns charming or annoying everyone. Your new favorite books are the Bible and Babar. Because you aren't yet exceptionally articulate, these words sound identical when you say them. "Biba?" you say. And somehow the conflation of the orphan who becomes King of the Elephants and the bastard who becomes King of the Jews is lovely.

Also lovely and mildly disconcerting is the amount you absorb every time we read. Let me begin by saying that the Bible is not a text that your father or I have hoisted upon you in ANY way. I have kind of avoided it, actually, in part because the children's Bible we have (thank you, Lorraine and Gary!) is direct and simple but also filled with people who look like they've been sucking helium. Bulgy cartoon eyes, bulgy cartoon hair, bulgy cartoon gestures. Eve's hair covers her boobs. Jonah's beard has five points, making it look like he has a starfish strapped to his chin. Naaman (whoever that is) wears lovely white bandages on his hands to indicate his leprosy. But you LOVE to read the Bible and you remember a ridiculous amount. When we get to the people arguing prior to the flood you say "bad, bad!" You identify the snake and the ark and baby Jesus. Tonight, I kid you not, you identified John the Baptist. Seriously. I think we read the story once. Though I suppose camel's hair is always a tip-off.

Your other favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are. You love the roaring and the gnashing and the rolling and the claws. I convinced you to wear pigtails yesterday and today simply by referring to them as "horns."

Last night Daddy and I made a grave parenting mistake. After Daddy accidentally woke you up at 10pm, you proceeded to cry and poop and cry until, after half an hour, we decided to let you sleep with us. Let that be the last time I utter those words in a VERY long time. Between 10:30 and midnight you slept exactly zero minutes. Instead, you took it upon yourself to remind us that it was dark. Over and over again. This meant you couldn't see us (duh) so you spent a great deal of time crawling back and forth between us in bed like a concerned spelunker (Dada? DADA??? Mama? MAMA???) Just when one of us was ready to hurl you back into your crib, you'd lean down and give the sweetest, most delicate kiss on whatever part of our faces your lips chanced to bump. You also spent some time stroking my hair back from my forehead and rubbing my back. It was the cute show in darkness. And though, at midnight, I made your father return you to your room, I will always remember the sound of your tiny kisses, magnified by the dark.

The Images I Know

The rain is clicking against the windows and the belly-rumble thunder is distant and occasional. Your eyelids are red and puffy and a blotchy rash is blooming down your back, across your belly, blushing out below your ears and between your fine blond hairs. Your hair itself is matted with sweat and sticky with the antibiotics that we failed to make you swallow. Your body is a fiery machine whose only job is to get better. When you are awake you are barely awake, eyes at half- mast, head rolling back from time to time, moving toward and away from a distant shore. We watch Elmo and Barney. Sometimes you want a book open too. Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham. The rhymes lull you, I think. You want only to lay on Daddy or lay on me, often squirming side to side for 20 or 30 minutes, trying to find the right position, the one that might make you finally feel better. You repeat "ow. ow. ow. ow" or "no. no. no. no" or "mama. mama. mama. mama." the tone both wheedling and hopeful and pathetic and heartbreaking all at once. You want us to take it away and we cannot and this is what it means to suffer.

We took you to the doctor for a battery of tests today and nothing was conclusive. High white blood count, blood oxygen 94 (lower than it should be), a slightly pink left ear, a ruby red throat--but no strep. No pneumonia. Likely just a virus with lengthy fangs. We put you on antibiotics just in case the infection is bacterial. But so far three days of this and no improvement.

As usual, there is so much more to mention. A visit from Grandma Gail and Grandpa Michael. Trolley rides and ship tours and forays into the wading pool. I spent a fantastic weekend in Iowa. Daddy spent time considering golf clubs and inserting rubber pieces into the wheels of my car so the steering wheel doesn't shake when I hit 70mph. But right now, those events seem like they happened ages ago. Sick time stretches out on either side of us. The wheels on the bus go round and round and round and round.

I also started teaching a class called Women's Writing, a class I kind of hope doesn't exist by the time you get to college. Anyway. We discussed Anne Sexton today. A poem called "Fortress" that describes a nap with her daughter. Here are my two favorite stanzas:

Darling, life is not in my hands;
life with its terrible changes
will take you, bombs or glands,
your own child at
your breast, your own house on your own land.
Outside the bittersweet turns orange.
Before she died, my mother and I picked those fat
branches, finding orange nipples
on the gray wire strands.
We weeded the forest, curing trees like cripples.

...

I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
A pheasant moves
by like a seal, pulled through the mulch
by his thick white collar. He's on show
like a clown. He drags a beige feather that he removed,
one time, from an old lady's hat.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take away that.



I love you, sweetest darling Thisbe. Sickness makes the love acute, and harder.

Narrative!!!

Today you created your very first sentence. And then you said it approximately 50 times because you were so proud.

On your walk this morning with Da, Luxy ran into a deer and the deer promptly chased Luxy until Luxy got behind the deer at which point the tables were turned and Luxy was the chaser and the deer was the chase-ee. Super exciting.

When I arrived home from the coffee shop, Da prompted you to tell me about your excursion and you said:

Dee. (long pause) Chis. (long pause) Ux.

[Translation: Deer chase Lux]

Daddy and I were slightly elated. So were you. And even though you haven't said any new sentences (you've just been repeating that same one over and over), you are beginning to experiment with saying one word slightly after another, trying to figure out how they make meaning side by side. I have to say, it's pretty awesome. Way more awesome than just a single word, which essentially communicates only knowledge of an object or an action. This was a memory! A story! A sentence so close to being grammatically correct that it could grace the front page of a small town newspaper!

I have been able to complete this blog post with you in the room because you are so obsessed with fastening the buckles on your high chair. I write a sentence while you buckle. Then you sign "more." I unbuckle. We repeat the process.

It's Memorial Day. Heavy and humid and hot. Thick, thick air. You're wearing shorts for the first time this year. Yellow cotton ones that tie in the front. Your onesie is pink with tiny blue and red stars, which is as close as we get to being patriotic. Gak and Ampa Peter are on their way home from visiting the gypsies in France and Gail and Ampa Michael arrive on Wednesday. Tonight I am bringing cucumber salad and watermelon to a barbeque which means I think I can safely, finally say: summer is here.

Picture Roundup

It's often hard to post more than a few pictures per blog post because the uploading takes FOREVER and then often isn't successful. Anyway. Here are some lovely shots from the last few months, you with Grandma Judy and Grandma Dot and Grandpa Ark. The painting in the Grandpa picture is titled "Yawn" because it is so incredibly boring. Just FYI.

In other news: today you choked on a piece of chalk and then went to a hymn sing at Olaf hosted by Garrison Keillor. At the hymn sing it was revealed that you are not a true Lutheran because you were completely unimpressed with Big G and demanded to go outside instead. Blasphemy.

Also: it's finally beautiful outside! Hurrah!

And: you are developing a complex musical sensibility. In the car, when I start to sing, you interrupt and say "Da. DA!!!" The other day, when I tried to sing your lullaby to you in your crib, you screamed "no!" and then made the sign for me to give you a back rub instead. You better have a good little voice yourself, little lady, because I ain't takin' no criticism from someone who can't even sing "Twinkle, Twinkle."