costumes

Is it too early to be thinking about Halloween costumes? According to the various Web sites I've looked at, it may be too late. The chili-pepper bunting suits and yoda ears for toddlers are just flying off the shelves. P and I are considering dressing baby-j as Charlie Brown, since he's already got the hairstyle licked. Also, he wouldn't have to wear anything on his head. As you can see from last year's Halloween picture, he wasn't too into wearing things on his head. Or being dressed as a peapod. Not that I blame him. (The peapod costume was a gift, and not my idea.)

But I cannot seem to find an already-made Charlie Brown T-shirt. Guess I'll have to make it. I'm thinking fabric glue.

death of a tree

This morning at 8am our street was visited by Jim’s Tree Service; they were there to remove the tree in front of the house across the street. Our neighbor M came over for the first time yesterday to let us know (primarily so P could move his car). It was good to know in advance. It’s good to have some warning. It’s for safety reasons, as the tree dips precariously over the street, and there’s a concern it would fall on children (or adults… that would be bad, too, no?). Having had a retaining wall collapse and demolish our car when we lived in the Bronx, I understand such risk. I understand why this must be done. But still.

Is baby-j too young to witness such a death? I suppose the point is moot, since I let him. At first, he started pounding on the window. He screeched and yelped at the machines. Then, after a few minutes, he returned to his morning ritual of searching for (and eventually putting in his mouth) small pieces of garbage on the floor that are too small for adults to see.

I’d never watched a tree being removed before, so I had no idea what a time-consuming process it is. They chainsaw the branches off first--in the case of the longer, thicker ones, cutting them in 2-foot sections, then dropping them three stories to the street below. Once dropped, they are immediately thrown to the woodchipper. Soon the branches are removed, leaving a bald trunk that gives a first glimpse of what this street will be like without this tree. Then, the trunk is sawed off from the top, piece-by-piece, each one lassoed by rope and then gently hoisted off the top to glide down to the ground.

Oh, tree, I hardly knew ye. But there is something haunting about this absence. For a hundred years (or more?), that existing space was all tree, and now it is just space. There are things we can see that we couldn’t before. In that sense, it’s much like the end of autumn, when everything is laid bare.

dumps like a truck

baby-j has gotten several dump truck and digger-type vehicles lately, and he loves them. The latest one was given to him yesterday by our (wonderful) neighbors--the Fisher-Price "Little People" Dump Truck.

Each time he gets one of these "vroom-vroom" toys, I start thinking about gender, and find myself amazed that people can possibly deny that the differences between boys and girls are nurtured at an early age by culture. baby-j is only 1, but he's been exposed to all things "boy" from the moment he was born despite our resistance. I try to comfort myself in these moments by telling myself that if we'd had a little girl, she would be exposed to the same kind and amount of "vroom-vroom" toys, though of course that probably wouldn't be the case as P and I are never the ones to buy toys--they are usually gifts. (Of course, if we were to have a second child who was a girl, she'd have access to all of baby-j's old toys...)

Anyway, back to the dump truck. It's pretty fun, and I love that there's actually a shit-colored piece of crap that can be dumped out of the truck. My issue is not with the truck, but rather, with the packaging that encourages you to buy other Fisher-Price "Little Vehicles," including the one pictured here.

It's the Lil' Movers SUV. That's right. And it comes complete with mom and baby. Looking at the product description, you'll see that kids can "recreate the familiar experience of riding around with mom!" Developmental benefits include "early role play: being the mom figure"! So not only are we teaching young girls that they want to be moms, but that they need the SUV to do it. (Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be a mom--hell, I wanted that--but where are the vehicles encouraging boys to be fathers?)

I showed this to P, who was not impressed: "What else do you expect?" As usual, he's right (but don't tell him I wrote that). :)

Sigh. Resistance is not only futile, but also quite depressing.

neighborhood walk

One of the reasons P and I decided to buy a house was this neighborhood. It’s a college neighborhood that’s relatively quiet; it has beautiful houses that are diverse in both price and style, houses that are often more than 100 years old. We love the walking here.

So baby-j and I went on one of our evening excursions, with him chattering away the entire time. I am uncertain how exactly to handle his “talking” while I’m pushing him in a stroller. I want to reassure him that I’m close by, so I’ll often respond with:
“Really? You don’t say.”
“Tell me more.”
“What do you really think?”

This is fun for about 10 minutes. After this point, I run out of responses to his monologue. Complicating things lately is baby-j’s tendency to move beyond cute baby gurgles and into yelps and groans, rather loudly, as we march up and down the street. Blehhhhhch, he croaks. Then, louder and more insistent. Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhch. Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhch!! He starts to sound a bit demonic, which has the unintended effect of making my responses even more ridiculous, as if I’m the only one who can understand the secret, scary language.

dissertation update

Ok, I know this is not as interesting as cute toddler info, but I just have to submit an update here: my dissertation proposal is, in my advisor's words, "in very good shape." I have work to do, but it may just be manageable. This is a big deal for me, especially as I've been both
a) waiting for a bit for this good news, and
b) hoping beyond hopes that I can defend the proposal this fall. Then I "get" to write the dissertation. (The proposal itself is 60 pages, so it's a decent start once it's been accepted.)

Ok, baby-j and I are going to do a dance in honor of this exciting news. He doesn't know what he's boogying for, but still. He's adorable.

pots and pans

Thought I'd post this picture that P got about a month back. What is up with the opening of cabinets? baby-j is way into them; I just assume that most babies/toddlers are. He loves opening doors and pulling crap out: in this case, all of P's pots and pans. Though we've been here almost four months, there's still quite a bit to do, including some baby-proofing. Not latching cabinet doors--that would make too much sense--but rather, attaching cabinets to walls so baby-j doesn't pull them down on himself. There have been a couple of instances of baby-j almost being crushed by cheap, filmsy cabinetry in his room... but both were caught in time. I never knew I could move so fast. Once, in my younger days, I climbed aboard my father's running lawnmower and the thing took off in the backyard. I never saw your father hustle so fast, is what my mother always says.

they say it's your birthday...

baby-j had a pretty good one, even though the major activity of the day was to go to the pediatric opthamologist to check out this bubble on his left eye. It turns out it's a little bacterial infection and we were given some eye drops to handle the situation. Should be gone in a few days.

Then we had some friends over, including baby-j's babysitter K, who is just wonderful. She got him a slew of presents and a couple balloons. baby-j was great at ripping open the paper (and subsequently eating it).

We're not really doing the cake thing--trying to cut down on baby-j's sugar intake due to my family's history of diabetes. (We'll give him sugar eventually, just waiting as long as we can.) But we did stick a candle in the pie that our guests brought as sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Once we all finished, he looked around for a moment, and promptly began to cry. Guess all this birthday stuff is exhausting.

despite all my rage...

I am still just a baby in a cage.

what did you do on summer vacation?

If you're baby-j, you learned to walk! Consistently, that is. He was walking on all sorts of rough terrain when we were in Northern MI--grass, dirt, sand, concrete, uphill, downhill... coming home and walking around on carpet is now a breeze for him. Our living area is baby-proofed, but the walking is somewhat of a new adventure. So many new and exciting ways for baby-j to crack his head open.

In other news, P and I determined that it was a year ago tonight that my water broke and, consequently, I went into labor. It was 9pm, and Law and Order had just come on. Dun-Dun.

*what i've read recently...

This is where I keep track of the books I've read so I can remember them and link to Amazon reviews. As you can see, I don't get much reading done during the school year. :)

7/2007:
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (again, in preparation for Book 7!)

4/2007:
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin

3/2007:
Heaven on Earth, Sharifa Oppenheimer

2/2007:
Broken As Things Are, Martha Witt

9/2006:
Apex Hides the Hurt, Colson Whitehead
Mothering Your Nursing Toddler, Norma Jane Bumgarner

Northern MI "by the lake" reading, August 2006:

The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
Morvern Callar, Alan Warner
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Without a Net, Michelle Kennedy
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Teacher Man, Frank McCourt

Books I've read in the last couple years:
Moo, Jane Smiley
Good Faith, Jane Smiley
Caucasia, Danzy Senna
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
Straight Man, Richard Russo
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
Wicked, Gregory Maguire
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Feed, M.T. Anderson
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer (MY CURRENT FAVORITE BOOK!)
Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

some first steps

engagement

My brother got engaged this past week. That’s the message he left on my cell phone: “I got engaged last night,” in a stunned voice, as though it were something that just happened rather than an event for which he’s been preparing for several months. I don’t fault him for this; despite my poor feelings about weddings (which I will write about here at some point), engagements are, it seems to me, those kinds of moments that, whether or not you remember them, set up a course for your life. You know that in the future you’ll look back on that moment, maybe not because of what happened that day, but what it enabled to happen later.

P and I got engaged on October 16, 1998. It was, I believe, a Friday, but beyond that I’m not sure why I remember that date. The night we got engaged we went to a restaurant that was a bit out of our league, or at least we both thought so at the time.

We sat at one of the many tables for two sandwiched about a foot and a half apart along a bench that ran almost the length of the restaurant. Perhaps the couple next to us was drunk. Why else would they, knowing that we were a mere 18 inches from them, have denigrated our choice of bread loud enough for us to hear? (“Can you believe they ordered the dill rather than the rosemary?”) Another overheard whisper from this couple, as he clasped her hands on the table and looked into her eyes: “I love that we come here all the time.”

We belong. You do not.

I used to get angry thinking about that memory, but now I realize that memory is one way that night has stayed with me. What better way to recall the camaraderie that P and I shared over being amused by these folks? It is that moment that allows me to remember that night, not some awestruck memory of the Staten Island Ferry where P produced the ring 90 minutes before.

underwear do's and don'ts

Scene: just before dinner time, outside with my in-laws. It is HOT here, despite our being in Northern Michigan! All my shorts are dirty (and I mean wet, sandy, and crunchy, not just dirty from having been worn a few times), and I am unsuccessfully trying to roll up a pair of longer Capri pants that I have so I can at least breathe during dinner. “I wish I had some shorts to wear,” I sigh.

P helpfully suggests, “Why don’t you wear boxers? You can wear some of mine.”

I seriously consider this for a second before realizing how strange that will look, eating with my in-laws, outside, wearing boxers. “To dinner?” I ask. He thinks for a second. “Well, over your panties, of course.”

At this point one of my SILs and I break out laughing.

On warm nights actually, this is my pajama ensemble of choice—boxers over underwear, and a T-shirt a few sizes too big. P knows this, which is of course why he suggests this. But there is, I think, something about the word “panties” that makes such an outfit seem much more intimate that it looks. My grandmother used this word a lot when my cousins were little… for all I know she used it when my brother and I were little, too. She used it not just for underwear, but to infantilize both the word “pants” and the inhabitant of said pants, whether that inhabitant were male or female. “Gotta put those PANT-ies ON!” she would say with a little jostle of her fists.

One of baby-j’s favorite books right now is by Todd Parr: Underwear Do's and Don’ts (regardless of the strange punctuation). The first line? “Do have lots of different kinds of underwear. Don’t wear it all at once.”