ponyo

This morning, I spied this slideshow on the Times Web site while working on an assignment for my students. I was reminded that I never posted about j’s first movie theatre experience, Ponyo. It was the end of summer, and it was oppressively hot and humid. We all needed some relief, and P had read good things about the movie, so we headed to the movie theatre on a whim, just hoping j would be able to sit still to watch it.

The feel of this film challenges our culture’s Disneyed expectations, and I imagine that’s why many wouldn’t like it (see the comments on this positive movie review in the Times)… but it was fantastic. All three of us truly enjoyed it. The scene picture here, in which the sea creature/little girl Ponyo is racing along on top of the waves, was magical and compelling. There was just something about this film for me.

j seemed thrilled to be there between his parents, digging into our popcorn and mesmerized by the film. The only time he made a sound was during a scene in which a mom is trying to console her baby. The baby looks up at Ponyo with a miserable expression, and j said “That baby is really grouchy.” (Later in the scene, the mom breastfeeds the baby. Yay!)

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

i love my students

I got this message just now from a student handing in a paper via email tonight (on time, actually, though he must've thought otherwise). Rather poetic, I think; the enjambment is his.

I apologize I did not send this
The Yankee game was on last night
And it made me not want to do anything
so my apologies

Well, you can't argue with that.

And another one this week, from a well-meaning student:

Dear Dr. xxx,
This is xxx from your xxx class. I am going to be unable to
attend classs today due to the fact that I am currently having continuous vomiting and something that comes out the end. The reason I am emailing you this is because I think that today might make my 3rd absence and I don't remember how many it takes to fail.

If there's one thing about doing crappy administrative work, it's that I realize how much I enjoy teaching and working with students, even getting the odd emails. They are often so damn funny; it just makes me happy.

birthday parties

I didn't get a chance to write about last weekend's birthday party. Actually, there were two--on Saturday, it was the McDonald's one I described earlier, and on Sunday, it was a party for two-year-old S. The experiences were vastly different.

Saturday's party was two hours long and in retrospect, j did really quite well for the first hour and a half. I guess I should've left earlier before he hit his breaking point, but I didn't want to be rude, leaving before otherj (birthday boy) opened his presents (which he never did... they were bagged up and whisked away... yet another thing I didn't know about kids' birthday parties these days). Anyway, otherj wasn't too friendly with j when we arrived, which is understandable since they don't know each other too well. j doesn't seem to care or notice, which is fine. There was the indoor playground which was a little nervewracking since about every 20 minutes another kid would be crying inside and all the adults would look up at the colored plastic tunnels that stretched to the ceiling, wondering where the wailing was coming from, whose kid it was and how we were going to get him out of there since no one could fit in the tunnels. j had his own moment when someone bopped him on the head inside the tunnel, but he was fine and calmed down quickly. Then, near the end, he was apparently kicking otherj, I think because--and here comes the mother justification--otherj wasn't paying much attention to him. Then, at the end, otherj handed out goodie bags, and j refused his vehemently (No! No!) for some reason. Then j had a meltdown and I had to pick him up to leave. I didn't know too many people there, except for otherj's mom and another mom. Some of the women seemed perfectly nice, but I didn't really have the time to find out since I was scanning the playground for j the entire time. Some other moms, however, were not so nice about his behavior.

What gets me most about being in these difficult situations is The Look. The Look that says in one moment, Why can't you control your kid, you don't discipline him enough, get him the hell outta here. I know it's all about me, this sadness about the The Look. j doesn't notice it, and so I know I shouldn't care. But I do, because I have this amazingly beautiful, brilliant, precocious little guy and I just want other people to know it and recognize it too.

Which brings me to Sunday, when we were among friends at the second birthday party. We were also at their home, not in public, which helped... P could take j away from the action for a bit when he needed to calm down. But j did great helping the littler ones with play (ok, so he was demanding that they play by his rules, but he was doing well). I'm sure being in a home helped, but I think it may have been being among friends, who, I now realize, have never given me The Look. So chalk it up to their being calmer around my crazy kid, or to the fact that I was calmer because as a family we all just felt so comfortable and loved there. It was a great night.

taping and baking

Last Sunday we began an art gallery on the basement wall and j had fun taping his work to it. Later in the afternoon, I was grading the endless stack of papers while j was quietly (!) working on some artwork. When I looked up, he had started to tape the means of production up there as well.
We also baked some bread together, which was a lot of fun. He's now better able to actually help and he can maintain concentration long enough to finish the job with me. Now that I think about it, bread is probably a perfect choice for him with all of the mixing, then sitting around and waiting for the yeast to expand or the dough to rise. He had time to play a bit, then come back to the mixing and kneading.

j's portfolio

We've been having a good time the last few weeks down in the basement playroom. It's been interesting to watch j's artwork evolve. Lately, he has been:

• drawing heads with legs and arms
• tracing his left hand and drawing pointy fingernails on each finger
• drawing concentric circles
• folding up his drawings and stuffing them in a bin
• writing "notes" to give to Mama and Daddy
• drawing moustaches and beards (this was originally just for pictures of Daddy, but last night he insisted on one for the Mama picture, too)
• decorating his red Crocs with masking tape
• decorating his mouth with masking tape
• decorating me with masking tape

He brings a lot of artwork and writing home from school, but even if he didn't, I would assume they do a lot since he's acquired so many different skills and ideas so rapidly. Pictured here is his depiction of me. It was the first time he tried teeth. He actually studied my teeth and bared his own in preparation for this work.

After he finished, he demanded that I give him "thirty dollars" for the picture. His art ain't free. Or cheap.

j's social life

Yesterday my mom took j (and me and P) to the circus. It was much better than I expected, and a really nice activity for j. I think he's going to be pretty good at sitting still for the theatre soon. He was mesmerized--maybe "stupified" is a better term. We had to pry him out of his seat at intermission to go to the bathroom, and he refused to leave after it was over. There were a few tears (I don't wanna go!) but eventually he let me carry him to the car.

In other j news, this morning my neighbors and fellow rowers K and D come over to assist me and P as we move our old couch to the basement (long story), and D presents me with an invitation for j to her son's 4th birthday party. I am excited: this is j's first birthday party invite, or at least his first since he's been old enough to understand what a birthday party is. (I attribute the lack of invitations to our having moved around so much in the first few years of his life.) So I open the invitation and see that the party isn't at her house, but at an address in a nearby town. I pause. "Who are the McDonald's?" I ask, curious about how the family is related to D. And as soon as the words come out of my mouth I realize that the party is *at* McDonald's, and I am (or am going to be) the crazy neighborhood mom who doesn't quite get it.

We try to avoid fast food with j, though he definitely has had his fair share in his short life. I am thrilled about this invitation, and I don't really care that the party is at McDonald's. It's just that I'm so out of things that I wouldn't even have thought a birthday party would be anywhere other than at home. The birthday-party-outsourcing is something that seems to be commonplace here. Is that true everywhere? I'm still trying to get used to this town and being a mom--or rather, a mom who talks with other moms--so I have a lot to learn.

row for the cure

It's been a week since the Row for the Cure and I haven't gotten a chance to post. It went well. My novice 8 had a respectable time of 29 min. 41 sec. for the 5K course, beating our competition by about 4 minutes. The other team was actually a fit-looking high school team, so we old-timers thought we were doomed; however, we ended up passing them easily at the turnaround. As you can see, the weather was not thrilling, but the rain was light enough that it didn't interfere too much with our row. We all got another medal (with a pink RFTC ribbon). Also, the day before the row, the organizer said she heard that I sing and so I ended up singing the national anthem to kick off the event (at 8:30 am).

Most importantly, the club raised over $12,000 for breast cancer research! Thank you to those who donated!