foot washing day

Mike plopped Leif down beside me on the floor and took off with the kiddo for school this morning. Leif piled toys on the cat, then climbed onto my lap to paw at my shirt, so I hefted him up, tucked him to my bosom, paused to pull a chunk of carpet out of his mouth when he gagged, and as he settled in to nursing I thought to myself, well, this is a nice time to organize the events of the weekend. What a mess that was.


Saturday: Anticipating an easy weekend of baby-minding, reading, and tidying, I put Leif down on the floor in the kitchen while I swept around him and did some dishes. His stroller sits near the screen door by the stove, ready to serve as an observation/containment perch for the baby while we're cooking, so before long he scooted over to it and pulled it closer. A moment later he began cackling with laughter, then paused, then laughed again. I looked over and at first was charmed; Sookie had climbed into the basket and was peeking out at him. Then I watched as he patted the basket, Sookie shot out and wrapped her front legs around his head and attacked his face, then she sucked herself back into the basket and he broke into hysterical laughter, patting the basket for more. The child who acts like we're pulling his arms off when we change his onesie thinks it's hilarious to be mauled by a cat. Figures.

We slept together in the middle of the bed, guarded by cats. I didn't dream, slipping off to my nightly mental mantra of "no thinking at night, no thinking at night". In the darkness the ghosts get me - those that were and those that are coming.

On Sunday I let the baby and cat pull each other around the floor and made dough for brioche to welcome home the boys. At 3pm I received a phone call from the airport, where Mike and Gavin were stranded after just missing their flight home, having been delayed after a failed attempt to fix my mother's washing machine (the best thing that can be said about this being that nobody's head was crushed - Mike's presence evidently caused the shower to break, too, so he was off to a bad start already). I put the brioche in the fridge and made brownies instead, gave Leif a bath, tucked him in bed, and hemmed my new dress in front of the television. Then came the second bad phone call of the day: "Um, I'm at the car, and..." "Oh no, don't tell me you forgot your keys." "I forgot my keys." And still a 2-hour drive from home. He rented a car.

So on Monday I called in to work, woke up all the neighbors trying to deactivate the alarm on the shiny white rented Malibu, and headed to town to get the car with my spare key. Driving the Malibu was like driving a spacecraft.

Despite the beating on my wallet, I counted the trip to town and back as a success. I managed to buy Easter clothes for everyone, food for everyone, a Safeway deli chicken sandwich for myself, and still made it home in time to pick Gavin up from school - but Mike was not yet finished messing up the weekend. As I lugged groceries into the kitchen he said, "The power cord on the laptop is broken and I accidentally ran it dead in the airport watching a movie while waiting for the plane and all my files for work are on it and WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" I told him what he should do; I put a beer in his hand, made bbq ribs for dinner, then opened up a tub of Ben & Jerrys. We chucked the kids in bed and sat in front of Heroes, and suddenly the power cord flickered to life long enough to siphon all his work files off the laptop. "You're so smart," he said. Yes I am.

The rest of the week has been okay so far. Yesterday Leif horked up a chunk of rug, a hairball, and a dead cockroach (not at the same time), Gavin has had lightsaber duels with his friend from school, Sookie has been sleeping across my neck again after a few weeks of usurping Po's resting nook, and work has been eventful.
 

Time for Easter.

Spring Break

Started Monday by dropping a box cutter on my foot. Rethinking ambition to become professional knife-thrower.

Further insomnia: woke up at 1am and mentally rehashed series-finale episode of Battlestar, searching for answers to gaping plot holes and going off into angry sleepy plans to track down writers and knock their heads against the floor and demand a revised finale.

Am back from a weekend with my mother, having flown over with the kids to drop off Gavin for spring break. The house is empty without him. We both woke last night, certain he had walked into the room and spoken to us, so I phoned my mother first thing in the morning to make sure he had only been dreamwalking and not visiting as a ghost. He said he had dreamed of us, too, and didn't seem surprised we had heard him. Weird.

In other news: Gavin learned to eat with chopsticks, Leif learned to clap, my mother and I saved a colony of enormous toads, and Mike tried to defend a bouncy castle against a horde of teenagers. Productive weekend.

In the AM

Gavin dawdles, I bark, we find sneakers, gather up homework, run out late. Yesterday I didn't feel like barking, so I snuck up to the bathroom to see what was taking so long. Gavin stood in front of the mirror with the lights out, waving his flashing toothbrush as he applied toothpaste, singing. "I'm Captain Hammer, my teeth are shiny and clean, and it's a brand new day! La lala, something something die, my teeth are bright and shiny!" Reasonable.

Last night I was cold, with dreams of being shot at and chased, and I woke up wanting to be next to my boy at 4:30am. Like I had summoned him, Gavin stumbled in and climbed into bed. We went back to sleep until morning. "I didn't have bad dreams after I was next to you," Gavin said. "Neither did I," I agreed. I wish we had a bigger bed. Maybe Mike can sleep in Gavin's room.

with a side of LIONS!

One of my ongoing quests is the hunt for the perfect wonton. So far, the best ones I've found are at the Kin Wah in Kaneohe, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and I insist on eating there every time we visit. Even though there is a blurb on the menu that says "Our meat dishes contain MSG. Extra MSG will not be added upon request."

So on Saturday we dug into our soup and plates of honey-garlic chicken, stuffed eggplant, and gau gee, when suddenly a roar of firecrackers came from the parking lot, and two Chinese lions came dancing into the restaurant with a billow of smoke and crashing drums. Gavin leaped up onto his seat, along with everyone else in the restaurant, and the two lions pushed themselves between the tables towards the birthday girl [old lady with leis up to her ears]. Mike was smashing Leif's head against his chest to protect his ears, and Leif was trying to punch him in the face to get him off. My mom gave Gavin a dollar to stuff into the lion's mouth. It was great. Best wontons ever!

valentine weekend

Alone with the kids. I woke up this morning with Leif singing to me quietly and Gavin crumpled in a tangle of scrawny boy-limbs on the other side of the bed. We slid across the floors in our jammies and socks and welcomed in our last day of the long weekend. Leif rode in his sling and watched me make fresh bread in the morning, and when he dozed off I slipped him in bed and rummaged through my stash for yarn to knit something special for our two new nephews-to-be. These days of babies and bread and home are numbered, but just think: they're here now, we get to enjoy them all day.

It's been a nice weekend. Leif has started babbling and singing - and sometimes he can actually match my bedtime tunes, and then yells "DADADADA!" when he's lost his patience with me. My kid. Genius.

 
Minimal V-day sadness, minimal "WHY DIDN'T HE LOVE ME"s, minimal chocolate. There was only one bad part to the weekend.

We swung by the gallery to admire some artwork, and threw pebbles in the koi pond for a while yesterday afternoon. Gavin decided he needed to see how long he could stay before I would force the issue, so he ignored me when I said it was time to go, said "Just a moment" when I repeated myself, and ignored me again when I walked away and said I was leaving. I waited behind the bushes for a bit and stomped back when he refused to follow. The typical mom-kid argument ensued:

"Do you WANT me to yell at you every time we need to go somewhere? Get OVER here!"
He dragged his feet, "I SAID I'd come in a moment."
"I GAVE you a moment, I asked you three times, you wouldn't come until I yelled and that makes me very frustrated and unhappy!"
"Me too!"
"Well why didn't you just listen the first time?!"
"I don't know!"
We grumped to the car, I buckled in the baby (who happily chewed on his teether), and got Gavin in the car. As I started up the engine, I asked, "Buckled up?" "Yep," he said. I looked back to double-check as I started backing up, and saw his hand clamped over his belt, holding it in place so it looked like it was buckled in. I hit the brakes.
"You're not buckled up!"
"I know."
"Why did you lie to me? You could die! If I started driving and we got hit and you died, I would feel terrible for the rest of my life because I didn't make sure your were buckled up! Why would you do that?!"
He buckled, then suddenly looked stricken, welled up, and started sobbing, looking away to hide his face.
"Oh, baby, it's ok, you're buckled up now, talk to me. "
"I don't want you to feel terrible for the rest of your life!" he creaked. My heart wrenched, and I reached back and held his hand. God, I don't want to be the mom who freaks my kid out with guilt. I don't want him to lie about seat belts or other serious safety things, either, though. We calmed down, we said we loved each other, and we drove home for a cold drink and a snack. It's a hard gig sometimes, I love this kid.

The good thing about parenting is that you only really screw up if you screw up every day; each morning you get another chance to do things right.

infinite cupcake remorse

After watching Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist the other day, I picked out the book from our YA stacks and tore through it overnight, coming away slightly wounded. While the book was a pretty good read, I think this is the rare instance where the movie rather outshines it. This librarian recommends watching the movie and then reading the book. But for sure, do both. Especially if you've ever found yourself in a stranger's car at 3am in a big city, or made fun of Hoboken. But I will save you some trouble now with this warning: if you are reading the book at work and don't know who Johnny Castle is, don't google it. Especially don't image google it.

But now I'm torn between feeling nostalgic over our romps through New York as college kids, and feeling ripped off because I really thought we had something unique and young and glorious. That the boy at the end of my arm loved me innocently and completely. And I don't know when I'll be running through the city hand-in-hand again, unless I'm holding on to a couple of kids and trying to find a toilet. It could happen, I guess.

And this is what happens around V-Day. Heading down to the cakeshop of love, where everyone goes to press their noses against the glass and look at all the cupcakes with longing, regret, nostalgia, guilt, and anger. Stupid cupcakes.

the year in review

Just for fun, I will write this in the 3rd person.



2008 found our protagonist in Bakersfield, California, living in a one-bedroom apartment with her son and a fat black cat. In the grey of January, she developed a fever, and found herself standing in front of the wall-length bathroom mirror, wondering what her life had come to. 3 months pregnant, ambivalent about her sometimes-partner, about to face the end of her lease, heartsick, homesick, and sick with the flu, she had yet to make any decisions about the future except that it was time to stop waiting by the window and go home.

She interviewed for a position back in Hawaii, and waited. The lease ran up, and the ex-husband carried her belongings into his apartment, setting up the beds side-by-each. She couldn't bring herself to sleep next to him for the first few months. At work, the office she shared with her good friend had grown quiet, and whether this was because of the baby or the coming goodbye, she didn't know, but she let it settle between them because it seemed to be what he needed. Without any particular excitement, she signed the papers for the movers, bought the tickets home, made travel arrangements for the cats, said goodbye to the Eastern horizon, and went back.

In Hawaii, everything seemed to be where she left it, the ghosts still lurking in mirrors. Sitting with her mother, she said, "It feels like I wasted a year, that the whole move to the mainland was pointless and stupid." Her mother said, "You found out what you didn't want, and that counts for a lot. People spend their whole lives wondering." She didn't want the cold, she didn't want to be alone. Good stuff to know.

Appointed to a position in a rural library, she left her boy in the care of his grandmother for a few weeks while a home could be settled before school started. For the better part of a month, Holly and her whatever-he-is were stuck with each other's company with only an airbed, two suitcases, and a cupboard of peanut butter and rice. They played cards on the bare floor beneath the skylight, read books on the sagging air mattress on the floor, pressed their hands on her belly to feel the baby kick, and finally became able to breathe easily again.

The movers arrived, the boy was returned to them, school started, and for a short time everything began to form a comfortable routine. On a clear night in August, Holly read the latest book by Stephanie Meyer, got mad at the writing, and went into an angsty-vampire-induced labor. The baby was born with his cord around his neck, a limp blue thing that was clipped free and immediately passed off to a nurse like a football. The room didn't breathe until he did, and the new father cried. 4 days later, Holly hobbled back to work. Her body slowly shrank back into familiarity, her two sons were beautiful and fine, and life turned into color again. She started drawing once more, and knitted beneath a sleeping baby. Her son learned to read and celebrated his 6th birthday, her whatever-he-was started brewing beer. Trips between islands to visit her mother were easy and frequent.

When the winter came again, she was not cold, or alone, or waiting. Things were comfortable - and that was, as she said, better than a punch in the neck.




In short:

Nobody died.
Drove through Los Angeles.
Ate meatballs at Ikea.
Drove through a wildfire.
Ate terrible Mexican food and bought dirt-scented candle in Fresno.
Got a new job.
Moved from California to Maui (hemorrhaging money)
Gained 60 lbs.
Had a baby.
Lost 50 lbs.
Drank most of 1 beer.
Read 22 books.
Knitted 1 cardigan, 3 baby garments, 1 tea cozy, 9 ornaments, 3 hats, 1 Christmas stocking.
Drew 12 illustrations for new book.
Drew 50 rough layout pages of graphic novel.
Made good peach jam, terrible marmalade, and 2 failed batches of guava jelly.
Cried 4 times (not jelly-related).
Had 1 panic attack while driving.
Stole 1 nun.
Gained 1 kitten.
Missed 9 people quite a bit, 3 people very much, and 2 people heart-wrenchingly.

It was a busy year, all in all.

In other news

Leif is 5 months old, and has started sitting up on his own. This weekend he ate solids for the first time. He had been diving at our food for a few weeks and making chewy faces as he watched us eat, so I finally went down and got him rice cereal and banana baby food. He immediately stopped pooping. (Now we don't need to use corks anymore!)

Also he had 3 full-blown, limb-flailing, ear-splitting temper tantrums because he was - evidently - tired of his blocks/his blanket/our laps. Bracing myself for his toddler years.

Ruffled Harpy

I'm not much of a scaredy-pants, by average standards. Bugs, snakes, rodents, and ethnic foods don't bother me, and as a librarian, my brushes with danger are mostly limited to scruffy hobos and snogging teenagers. But I've had a few real scares in my life; drunks with a rifle, a knife-wielding stalker, witness to a car accident, retrieving my blood-smeared dog from a pack of wild sheep-killing dogs before a shepherd could shoot him, violent pet deaths, spurned teenage boy with a blow torch, rescuing a drowning classmate, Gavin being hospitalized with pneumonia, Leif born with his cord twice around his neck... the threat of death marks everybody. Around here, I knew the most perilous thing besides my patrons would be the road to town, that famous 2-hour switchback drive with 300 bridges and cliff side drops into the ocean. This weekend the road finally got my hackles up.

Despite predictions of violent storms, it was sunny on Saturday when I needed to drive my mom and Gavin to the airport. After some deliberation, I took Leif along instead of leaving him home with his dad, uneasy with the distance between my bosom and my baby should anything delay me. It was a beautiful drive, the waterfalls swollen and roaring from a week of rain, and tourists clogging the narrow roads with rent-a-cars to stand on the stone bridges and take pictures. Safely packing the boy off with his grandmother for a vacation visit, I hit the mall with Leif dangling in his front carrier and spent a few hours enjoying leisurely girl-on-the-town time. In Sears I found a fancy new convertible car seat to replace the undersized baby bucket in the car, and asked a cashier if I could get help carrying the giant box, since I was already carrying an infant. After 5 pages on the overhead, nobody arrived, despite the salesmen I saw pacing the floor and averting eye contact whenever someone looked needy. Finally I knocked down the box and dragged it across the store, causing salesmen to scatter into the aisles to avoid helping. I asked the cashier if I could borrow a big man to help install it (really, it didn't need to be a man at all, let alone a big one, but it was worth a shot), and she cheerfully paged them another half a dozen times before I gave up and dragged it outside to the car myself. After a whole lot of juggling, cursing, banging, and wrestling, I finally succeeded in installing the beast myself, and did a little victory dance. Leif chortled from his new seat. The sky was grey, and mist spattered the parking lot. I wondered if I should head home before it got dark, or if visibility would be better once I could see headlights around corners. Since the baby was still wide awake and there were still provisions to be purchased, I opted for the latter.

It was dusk when I finished my sandwich and buckled the sleepy baby into the car for the drive home. Detecting this, he did his banana-baby flexing and started screaming. Hoping he would settle down, I headed out, and my heart sank when I entered the cane fields and saw what lie ahead; the mountains were black and crackling with lighting like the skies of Mordor. We drove into the rain, Leif wailing like the nazgul. I stopped to make sure he was dry and warm, but couldn't take him out to settle him or we would be drenched. I leaned over him and murmured into his ear until he quieted. He started up again as I drove on.

It was black outside, the rain barreling down on the car, drowning out the audio book I was trying to soothe the baby with. The police blocked the road while an electrician fixed a power line, standing in the rain in their uniforms without coats, soaked to the skin and resigned to it. After being waved through, the cars behind me began to disappear off side roads until I was alone on the road. Leif tired himself out and fell asleep, hitching in a sob periodically. I listened to the Kathy Reichs novel and wound slowly homeward through the rising waters on the road, grateful for the headlights that lit the way and promised passable roads ahead.

A truck passed me just before the corner up to the cliff side pass. As their tail lights receded, I drove onto the bridge, suddenly up to my wheel wells in flood water. For a horrifying moment, I thought the river had risen over the bridge, but a quick glance to the walls saw no overflow. The car slogged through, and I found myself driving uphill into white water rapids. Large rocks were scattered thickly over the road, water shooting up over them as it rushed down the road. A small tree was uprooted and lay across the right lane, so I veered cautiously into the left, dodging the rocks I could and rattling over the ones I couldn't, hoping my tires wouldn't pop. My headlights fell on the source of the flooding and landslide; a waterfall had opened up onto the road. As I neared it, it suddenly roared and doubled in size, threatening to engulf the car. My brain flared into one red thought, oh shit it's a flash flood and my car is on the edge of a cliff and my baby is in the car! I didn't have time to decide whether it was a bad idea to try to speed through and risk hydroplaning - I gunned it. The water pushed me, the wheels ground on the rocks for purchase, the waterfall splashed the car, and after 3 or 4 interminable seconds, we finally managed to clear the flood waters. I slowed at the top of the road and felt the adrenaline reach my fingers, wondered how I would taste if I were eaten by a monster at that moment. Gah. GAH.

We made it home - dry, warm, lovely home. And poor Leif is doomed to hear about this every time he tries to drive in the rain for the rest of his life.

Christmas 2008

A much better holiday than the previous two. 

On Christmas Eve I drove from work to the post office to pick up the library mail, and stopped to find a small parcel wedged in my box. Everything kind of went into slow motion when I pulled out a letter from my father. It's a strange and painful thing, caring so much about someone you've only been with a handful of times in your life. Along with the card came two enormous, long packages, which I fit into the back seat of the car on top of the library mail. 

At lunch I drove home in the rain and carried everything up the stairs to drop off milk and presents. 

Gavin said, "Look, I can fit into Granny's suitcase!" and he climbed into it, curling on his side. 

Mike zipped it and stood it upright. 

"You just turned him face-down," I said. 

"No I didn't, his back is on the bottom." 

"No it wasn't, he was curled the other way." 

The suitcase was giggling and wobbling and my mom said, "And the cat is in there with him." 

"What?" 

Mike ran, unzipped it, and Sookie came jetting out from beneath Gavin, who had been upended onto her. He poked his head out of the flap, and the suicase fell over before he could get his arms out to stop it. He was was not happy with the suitcase for nearly decapitating him, and with us for laughing instead of helping him, but we assured him that we were glad he had not died by suitcase on Christmas Eve. That would have been a real downer. 

Back at work, the afternoon dragged by, marked by a handful of sad tourists looking for wi-fi for their "lol I'm in Hawaii ur in snow" holiday emails. (Note to visitors: when you go to the farthest, most remote corner of the rainforest, don't be surprised that nobody has wi-fi. You're lucky the library doesn't have a tin roof.) At closing we scattered like rabbits to our homes for Christmas Eve dinner; a loaf of fluffy french bread and stinky french cheese waited for me, and as night fell and the lights of the tree winked on, a huge roast beast was pulled from the oven. We feasted, we nogged, we watched Ralphie shoot his eye out, plunked the kids in the bath like dumplings, and by 10pm everyone was in bed, listening for scruffling hooves and rustling bells. 

 I woke up at 5am, expecting to hear the sound of little boy feet, but there weren't any. By 5:30 I got impatient and snuck into Gavin's bedroom, where I heard heavy sleepy breathing in the darkness. My mother followed me out into the livingroom, where we turned on the tree and sat drinking tea and coffee. Mike carried Leif out a bit later, and finally the boy came staggering sleepily from bed to investigate the lights and voices. He rubbed his eyes, and frowned, "Why are you all out here?" "Because it's Christmas!" He froze, his eyes turned, followed by his head and body, and he jumped straight into the air when he saw the stockings and piles of Santa presents. He ran to the advent calendar, knocked down the toy soldiers he had put on duty, and we all grabbed our stockings. 

We made out well this year. The tiny sweater I had knit and laid out with Leif's stocking had been filled with a teddy bear overnight, and Santa gave the telling gift of a Nintendo DS game. Gavin does not have a DS, so he started scanning the pile of presents beneath the tree. The rest went very quickly. Light sabers! iPod! Sewing machine! Blueray! DS! Beer-making kit! Blinky baby toys! It was a huge mess. Mike and Gavin voooshed and crashed around with light sabers, we ate too many Shmidt truffles, and Leif wore himself out studying the mechanics of plastic duckies. 

In the evening we visited the landlord, pawned off the gross absinthe on his caretakers, then came home to eat Christmas meat pie and bread pudding. I even got some knitting in. The rain came down, smelling like snow. 

Today it was work again as usual, and I drove to the library in the early morning in the winter storm. I was soaked to the skin while unlocking the school gate, and blown sideways with slashing rain while running inside. It's a day for cuddling with mugs and admiring your presents, not being at work. Oh, well. 

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve

My Yogi tea bag says:
Love has no fear and no vengeance.

Haaahahaha.

Yesterday I was deposited at work without an escape vehicle as Mike packed up the kids and made the journey to the airport for grannie-retrieval. I worried about the low milk supply being sent along with the baby, knowing Mike would have to crack open our first can of formula and risk rejection and a 2-hour drive with a screaming starving baby. As it happens, he slugged down a bottle of the canned stuff like a frat boy with a bottle of beer. My breasts are mildly insulted.

I love having my mother in the house, loud and happy with coffee cup and grandson attached to her. It was announced by the governor last week that her school has been slated for closure due to the economic woes, and I am hoping this means she will transfer over here so we can have our family back together permanently. These intermittent visits over the last year have emphasized my mother's worsening cough. She's always had trouble with her lungs, but the occasional cough I was accustomed to as a kid has turned into chest-rattling fits every time she laughs. This time I notice that she coughs deeply whenever she uses breath to exclaim during conversation. She's still in her 40s. I'm worried about where this is going.

But Christmas eve is here! And I must go to work. Bah. This morning, Gavin unloaded and flipped the last box on the advent calendar, and my mother has her eyes on the enormous slab of beef in the fridge for roasting with yorkshire pudding. People in the library are flirting (although not with me), and the snow that melted on the way down is misting across the ocean onto the mountains. It's a lovely day for Christmas.