Voices Carry

I try to think about what it is like to have a vision, something I want done and the frustration in trying to convey that vision for someone else to execute.  It is almost impossible to get all the details right with all the pitfalls of connotation that verbal communication contains. I think of T.S. Eliot and Prufrock's love song, "That's not what I meant.  That's not what I meant at all."   I try to keep this in mind as Nori screams. 

She wants the paper folded, the food arranged, the line drawn, dolls arranged, in a proper way-the way she envisions.  I am not getting it right and she lacks the dexterity to do it herself.  So the freak out begins.  "Is is really that big a deal?" I plead.  Apparently it is.  Why else would she be drowning in her own tears, shrieking spit everywhere.

This will not change.  Sure her motor skills will improve and she will be able to cut her own food. Her verbal skills will improve and she will be able to communicate in a way that might be clearer.  I doubt it will always be clear to me.

Lay it Down

It came on slow at first, and then with more intensity, as I tried to get comfortable.  My room was pre-dawn dark as I narrowed my eyes into their habitual squint to see the clock.  3:00 a.m.? My stomach churned.  Was I drunk?  No, I didn’t think so, though two beers are enough to get me tipsy lately.  Food of questionable origin?  Before I could recount what I had eaten that night I made a quick shuffle to the bathroom and retched. By dawn I made that same shuffle more than a few times, and my state did not improve as the morning went on.  Only the wave of sickness in my stomach could propel me from bed, where I promptly returned after I could calm the storm in my stomach.  Sometime that morning I decided I would not leave my room, my bed, that entire day.

I am a just keep going kind of girl.  Pain, if not visible in the form of blood or vomit, can be ignored.  If I am not obviously ill, then I can function.  The thing is, there have been times when it was obvious to anyone but me that I was sick, and not always the physical flu kind of “sick.”  It has become easier to ignore what hurts then to let the pain take over and knock me down. What if I can’t get back up?

As the sunlight came through the curtains muffled morning sounds drifted and swirled in the room.  I could hear Bryan and my mom shushing the kids as they played and on my way back from the bathroom for the umpteenth time I almost turned at the stairs.  How could I let a whole day go by without participating?  Before I could decide, my body shoved me back to my bed, where I drifted in and out of consciousness for the entire day. Strangely, sickly, I was grateful.

People who are legitimately, seriously, bed ridden should/would find my gratitude repulsive.  To be grateful to be confined, miss out on a day of life, is/should be, awful.  But one day, a day that I knew would be one, was long overdue.  I needed to make up for the days when I should have just stayed down.  Sadness is a funny thing.  We think we are so strong when we can push through it and carry on.  But like mold it festers and grows if left unchecked.

Luckily, gratefully, I was fine the next day.  Better than fine.  If I was grateful to be sick I am even more grateful to be well.  In a dark room, cloaked in a duvet and silence, I got well in way that was unexpected and long overdue.

Say Say Say

“You are my nest,” he said, as he rubbed his little head into the fleece fold of my bathrobe. Charlie has always been a big fan of the robe, often requesting that I don it at bedtime so we can snuggle for stories.

Most of the writing lately has landed on the Jersey Mom’s Blog, but Charlie’s use of the word “nest” seemed so symbolic that I had to visit my much neglected blog. My thoughts this morning felt more personal than publishable so The Nest felt like the perfect place to put them.

When a random post of a cute kid quote appears on Facebook, I always read it. Sometimes I think, awe, cute. Sometimes I think who cares about your cute kid. Sometimes I think that there is no way your kid said or did that and that a lot gets lost in parental translation. Nevertheless, here I am waxing pathetic poetry about Charlie and his nest nuzzle.

The thing is, these cute things will probably get forgotten lest we write them down somewhere. Some, the really good ones, we will remember, but most of the day to day mispronunciations and hilarious one-liners will fall to the side once we hit the throws of adolescence. Perhaps one day when we may be lucky enough to be grandparents, our children’s offspring will trigger a bum rush of memories of our own babies and we will be able to clearly recall the nuances of our once newborns and toddlers. However, I do not trust my memory, so, annoying or not, here goes my kid quotes. I make them public just in case the damage done between my 20’s and 30’s make my ability to recall impossible and my chances of living to be a grandparent slim.

“I’ll have the grinilla cereal,” Nori’s response to “Do you want Gorilla Munch or O’s for breakfast.” If I say the “gorilla” clearly and slowly she will repeat it back, but most of the time that big hairy monkey is called a “grinilla.” Bryan wonders if one day she will go for “big grinilla juice heads.” Oh to think for a moment that our daughter could be like Snoookie. Terrifying to say the least.

Also in Nori’s vocabulary, “mazageen,” as in, “I will put Gre-Gre’s (my mother) mazageen (People) over here so she can read it to me later. Not sure what I worry about more-Nori’s mispronunciations or that special reading time with my mother includes Hollywood gossip.

Nori also has an accent, or speech impediment, depending on the way you look at it, that seems like it might be regional, yet I cannot pin it to any region we have visited. Words like Candy-corn, unicorn, more and even her own name, come out as “Candy-Kurn,” “unikurn,” “mur,” and “Nuri.” I blame the prodigious amount of Australian and Canadian children’s programming that streams through our television.

“Top Sir Hat,” stands in for Sir Topham Hat. Charlie says that he is scared of him because he is always, “so cross.” I am scared of him too, but mostly for his promotion of communism on the Isle of Sodor. Charlie also speaks in imperatives. “Mommy, you snuggle with me.” “Mommy, you get me more milk.” “Mommy, you play rescue helicopter with me.” This sentence structure, coupled with his sing song tone, make it impossible for me to say no. The combination of this early speech pattern and Thomas the Tank Engine politics could make him a fierce politician one day. Best to teach him about deleting text messages and email as soon as you read them right away.

There are more of course, but my already addled brain cannot come up with any right now. Nori’s coughing woke me up around 4:30 am giving me a chance to write between 5:30 and 7:00am. I am caught between grateful and goofy after my first cup of coffee. So I am off to get the second cup in the hopes that the creativity will continue for the next Jersey Mom’s post.

My Pulse on the First Morning

Good Morning Nest.  I  know, I have neglected you for so long.  Surely, no one will read this, for any readers I had have given up on my updates.  Perhaps I have been followed on Jersey Moms Blog, but there are other people there and who would want to weed through a bunch of writers you do not know.  Maybe someone will come back, some old fan of the Burgeoning Belly.  If they do, I hope they do, they will know that today is a big day.

The first day of pre-school.  It's only two days a week, four hours, but still huge.  It is only 6:45 am right now.  I do not drop them off until 1:00.  Luckily, I started sweating about this on Sunday, so I have had plenty of time to work my way up to an anxiety attack.  I can hear Nori begin to sing her morning song upstairs.  Let's let the day begin.

The Dog Days Are Over

I ran a five mile race on Saturday under a cloudless sky while looking out over a perfect seascape. I barely felt the impact of the Long Branch boardwalk beneath my feet. Probably because I was being lifted up by so much support, and I do not just mean from my new sports bra! Bryan and Amanda cheered as I made my first pass while Nori and Charlie waved robotically and then enthusiastically once they recognized that it was me. I spent the next 50 feet trying to run, breathe and cry all at the same time. I just could not get over how much love and gratitude I could feel right down to my bones. Once the tears were gone, I thought about the things that a long run helps to contemplate. Poems, songs, memories-good and bad. I started with Nori’s wave.

I love to look at Nori’s hands. They flutter around with such natural grace that it makes my heart ache. I just think, God that is such a miracle, the way her hands move that way, holding a crayon, feeding her baby dolls, making “hot moly,” a special brew of flower petals, grass and fallen fall leaves. Yesterday I tried to teach her how to use scissors, not expecting success, but just to get in some experience. She stubbornly would not give it up until she had (with my assistance) cut out a square of paper. In her first borrowed library book, Countdown the Cinderella’s Ball, there is a line, “Ten Fingers Touch,” and when Bryan read it to her they touched fingers, which set a precedent for the readings that followed. Every time we read that page, she extends out her elegantly tiny fingers and brushes them with mine.
I love to watch Charlie’s mind work. He sees shapes in places I don’t think to look, creating the lessons I feel like I should be providing. Then I think, “Maybe I taught him that,” and then I realize that I didn’t, but yet somehow he can identify an octagon even when it is not a stop sign. His sense of direction already surpasses mine (which I know is not that hard) but his unprompted narration of familiar routes cracks me up. Our drive from our house to the Gym is landmarked with his backseat commentary: “Haircut, ouchie. Chuck E Cheese. Get Gas. Need Money. The Gym!” I also love the feel of his weight in my lap. If he finds me, or anyone really, seated on the floor with crossed legs, he grabs a book and settles down right in the nook. Much like Bryan, he loves to tease Nori and me, far past the point of funny and right into nudgie. Yet I marvel at his already determined sense of humor.
“I do not doubt God is good, well meaning and kind.” Countee Cullen asks about the things that do not seem to make sense in this world in “Yet Do I Marvel.” So much does not make any sense, but yet there is so much to marvel.

September Morn

Longstreet Farm September 2010

Besides the birth of our new cousin, our end of summer has been filled with events. We had our well visit and we are doing very well. Charlie weighs in at 23.4 lbs and 35 inches. A tall drink of water. Nori is 22.8 lbs and 33 ¼ inches tall. A petite powerhouse. We may be small in stature but we are big on personality. Charlie continues to be a lover of all motor vehicles. We went to a fundraiser this month called “Touch a Truck.” Needless to say, he was in heaven. He got to explore a fire engine, police car, construction equipment, a phone company van and an ambulance. Normally Charlie is the first one to want to go home, but on this day, he cried the whole way home. He is also an expert at direction and is the first to notice if I am taking a different way to a frequented location. He knows that Cinderella is painted on a store we always pass on the way home from the gym and will ask why we are not going home if I don’t go down that street. He knows that the Barnes and Noble has a train table and wimpers when we pass it (barely visible from the road) about his beloved trains. He began talking about “firetrucks” when we pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office. I had no idea what he was talking about until we entered Dr. Tavil’s waiting room, which, sure enough, had these two huge fire trucks that were in fact there at our last visit. Three months prior. He is still a little wobbly on his feet, but what he lacks in physical prowess he makes up for with intense concentration and critical thinking. I would love to be inside his head so I could see things as he figures them out.
Nori, I realize, is the daughter I have always dreamed of. When I would daydream about what my children might be like a picture of a determined, almost bossy, affectionate and show off kept popping into my head. I couldn’t get rid of it. And here she is, in the flesh. It is almost as if I willed her into being. But for as strong as she is, she cannot help but to fall for Bryan’s reverse psychology. If she does not want to do something, all Bry has to do is say he is going to do/use/eat whatever it is we want her to do/use eat. For example:
“Nori, time to change your diaper.”
“No Daddy.”
“Okay, then I am going to wear your diaper.”
“No, no, no, no! My diaper.”
And poof, her diaper is changed. It also works with her pre-potty training. Every time she uses the toilet she gets two M&M’s. If she goes in her diaper, Bryan eats her two M&M’s. I swear she goes on the potty just so he can’t have the candy.
So we continue to work on potty training and other skills I think may be missing out in day care or pre-pre-school while we run around town to zoos, farms, play dates and music class. Seriously, we don’t have time for pre-pre-school. We are having way too much fun.

Don't Put Another Dime in Jukebox

http://jerseymomsblog.com/author/amygils/

A title explanation...
Literally translated, Jai Ho means “victory is mine.” I felt like the song title (from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack) fit the article about Cassidy’s birth because of its sentiment but also because it happened to be playing when she was born. However, Cassidy’s entrance song could easily have been something else. Something hilariously worse.

I learned of Eric's eclectic musical taste quite by accident. Years ago, I borrowed Eric’s car to run an errand when he was blocking me in the driveway. At the time he was driving a Jetta so I thought I was pretty cute driving up River Road to pick up sandwiches to fuel us during one of our many home projects. The radio was on and I just let whatever was in the CD player play out. It was Linkin Park; so again, I thought I was pretty cool as the roughness of the music took up the space between me and the wind rushing in from the sun roof. The next song in line, however, changed the atmosphere. Enya came sailing away through the speakers. Enya? I located the track forward button to escape this new age noise only to come to Barbie Girl. Wow. I almost steered off the road trying to change it.
I gingerly broached the subject with Amanda who only cautioned me to never listen to one of Eric’s mixes again because the selection could get much worse. Perhaps a year later, on a flight from Newark to Aruba, Amanda, Eric and I were playing “Guess who’s IPod.” It is a simple game where you close your eyes and one of the other players selects a song from another player’s IPod and holds it up to your ears and you have to guess the owner of the playlist. After my jaunt in the Jetta, and knowing my sister’s very specific music tastes, I knew I was listening to Eric’s right away when Kid Rock was followed by Hakuna Matata. Country rock followed by The Lion King. Classic Eric.

So the day of Cassidy’s birth, Eric’s schizophrenic jukebox in his head was flying free and he would intermittently share a line or two of his favorite new tune, “Baby I like it” by Enrique Iglesias. (This is also the ring tone on his phone whenever Amanda calls him.) With every burst of song I could see Amanda get a little edgier. While Eric’s multifaceted music tastes are loved and appreciated by all, there may be moments when such medleys are not treasured.

However, when the doctor came in and let us know we were just about ready, Amanda asked for a little music. Eric eagerly responded with, “I got it babe,” only to have Amanda gasp back, “No, no, not your IPod. Get mine!” Even in the midst of labor Amanda knew that it was possible for her daughter to come into the world to the cast of Glee singing Don’t Stop Believing if Eric’s IPod was in use. She could not let that happen. So, in between contractions, she grabbed her IPod and scrolled for her “maternity” play list and hit play.
As if on cue, Cassidy appeared as the Bollywood Ballad bounced in the background. It was followed by When you Say Nothing at All, Eric and Amanda’s wedding song. Welcome baby girl!