Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Where does he get this?

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If any of you are responsible for the following, please let me know. You’re not in trouble. I just have no idea from whence sprang these delightful additions to his four-year-old repertoire:

“Mama, want to see my new axe?”
“You have an axe?”
“Yeah! Come on!” He takes me to the living room where he upends his scooter, spins the front wheel and holds a one-inch plastic firefighter hatchet to it.
“I just need to sharpen it so I can you.”

In the middle of a conversation, he checked his naked wrist and said, “If you’ll excuse me I have to catch a bus.”

He has proclaimed that we need to play “Safety!” From what I have gathered from days of changing rules, safety means we need to rescue something. From imminent danger. Often by squirting pretend poison on it. Maybe it should be called “Safety: as seen from the quarterback’s perspective”?

I’m pretty sure the preschool isn’t modeling axe sharpening. Squirting poison to save something is not in any of our books. And I genuinely can’t remember the last time I excused myself from a conversation to catch a bus.

Where is this kid getting this stuff? I don’t even have tv as an excuse. His British accent is from Kipper. His Southern accent is from a trip to his great aunt’s. But wtf is up with the grinding stone, poison-based rescue, and interrupting bus schedule?

Good news, bad news

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The good news: Spouse and Peanut went to an awesome Open House here, and rather than being attracted to swordmaking or glass-blowing, Peanut has discovered his calling in acrobatics. So we’re looking into trampoline and trapeze classes. Who knew there were three circus schools nearby? (Important note to animal activists everywhere: we’re talking human circus. Acrobatics and aerial dance. We’re not into animal abuse in the Naptime Family.)

The bad news: Butter can now make his way across the room…backwards. He doesn’t know he’s doing it. He gets up on his knees, can’t figure out what to do, stands on his toes, falls on his face, and while he’s furious about that, scoots backwards. And backwards. And backwards.

So I have an acrobat and an inchworm. Together. In the same living room.

Game on.

Busy, busy, busy

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It’s Peanut’s half birthday, so we’re making half cupcakes (tinfoil folded into each well in the tin) and half wrapping a half present (a toy that got lost or broken gets replaced on half birthday).

And Peanut is going around writing his half name. “Pear,” it turns out, is exactly half of Peanut. Or so he has declared.

See what I learn while inventing reasons to bake and serve chocolate in a month with no holidays except a long-distance uncle’s birthday?

Look who’s not so teeny anymore

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[Fair readers, feel free to skip this Butter-centric post. It’s way too long by blogosphere standards. But most of you have known him since he was mistaken for stomach cancer, so I hereby present this half-year, drenched in melted Butter.]

Ah, Butter. You don’t get many posts, do you? Remind Mama to tell you about squeaky wheels, grease, and why most of your baby album is hurriedly printed from a blog written at midnight after I’m done detoxing from our family.

You’re quite a creature, ButterBug. Don’t let the lack of documentation fool you—you’ve quite captivated us. Part of that is the result of your hard work. You’ve always been quite smiley and try really hard to get attention by just beaming at anyone who’ll look. And you are amazingly successful at using smiles to get what you need, ButterNut.

And it’s a good thing, because oooooh, boy, you have a temper. I love it. You SCREAM at those who don’t do everything to your standards. You SCREAM at toys when they fall or hurt you or turn out not to have a nipple.

Sucking on things is your raison d’etre, ButterBean. You wake up with hickeys on your arms and wrists. I have hickeys on my shoulders and biceps. You have a callus on your left thumb and another on your left toe. Nothing passes by your mouth that you don’t try to suck.

And this week you started sucking mushy food of a spoon. You’ve been dying to do this for more than a month, but your Mama has pretty strong feelings about exclusively breastfeeding until six months. I tried to hold off on solid food by freezing milk and scraping it into Snoopy Breastmilk SnoCones. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!” you barked; “and now may I have ravioli?” No, sweetpea. How about an empty spoon? “Oooooooooh. Now may I have a burrito?” No, sweetbutt. Soft, boring stuff first.

But holding you off even when you clearly wanted food meant that your first food was amoxicillin. Heartbreaking. You had two ear infections in three weeks, and two rounds of antibiotics even with a Mama and Papa and doctor who all believe antibiotics are a last resort for ear infections.

We felt so terrible that you might think nasty pink bugglegum flavored crap is your future in food, we decided to give you avocado mashed with breastmilk a few weeks before you were six months.

“What the eff?” you cried. “This is what you guys eat?” Well, no. Mommy and Peanut don’t. But it’s very healthy and Daddy likes it. “Never feed me this again,” you sobbed. So we didn’t until the next day. And the following day. It was looking like we had another child who wouldn’t eat until he could feed himself and take bites with all 20 teeth.

Then you got sweet potato mashed with breastmilk. “This is more like it.” You would not let me feed you, but you wiped sweet potato near, in, and around your mouth, eyebrows, and ear. You were quite happy with yourself and the three calories you actually ingested.

And now you have banana mashed with breastmilk. THIS is what you were talking about. You let me feed you banana because you figured out that if you clamp down on the spoon and let me slide it slowly out, then quickly cork your little banana hole with your thumb, you get lots of goo in your belly. At least a teaspoon of solid foods each morning.

And thanks to you, Mama now knows what banana seeds look like. You taught me that, ButterBubba. I thought you somehow got under the rosemary bush and ate a bunch of ants. I knew banana is an herb. I didn’t know it has long spirochete seeds.

Look at how much more world there is now that I have you.

Gravity as We Near the Black Hole

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So important.
To me.
This week.

Via @mattbucher, Monsterbeard has posted the audio of David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon speech.

Please listen. To the whole thing. If you don’t have time, just listen to Part Three.

You can buy the book This Is Water, the transcription of this speech. I, personally, don’t like how Little, Brown produced it because I don’t like bite-sized clips of Wallace. I like massive, undelineated gulps of his prose. I would have liked seven long paragraphs (single spaced) myself. But that doesn’t sell books.

I absolutely hate that David Foster Wallace is gone. HATE it. And I am nauseated that he was so tormented. Thank goodness we still have his writing. This second anniversary of his death is easier, a bit, than last year. Than the year before. Listening to the inappropriate laughter in that speech—you can hear him wince that people are amused at his description of selfish soullessness—and hearing how he gets somewhat cardboard-cut-out-ish about the suicide truths just makes the ache throb more today.

Go listen before the speech is taken down.

In which I whimper “Uncle”

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Despite an almost four year track record of ink only on paper or skin, in compliance with my simple request—oft repeated and carefully monitored—there’s blue marker on my favorite couch pillow. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on my favorite silk headband. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on the carpet. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There are long artistic streaks of blue marker on the backside of the curtains. A lot. It’ll come out. If it doesn’t, they’re cheap and replaceable. And it’s hidden.

The bigger problem is thathis was all before 7am. And then there was a relatively quick oil change at a creepy oil change chain with a tiny, depressing waiting room…jiffy, even—for an adult. But for a four-year-old it was enough time to go through all the toys, books, and snacks I brought then use coffee stirrer after coffee stirrer to spit at Mama and torment strangers and climb on the checkwriting counter and invent new songs and sing them loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when hissed at, then loudly until they called our name.

And then there was the supermarket where there was pushing the cart too hard and pulling the cart too fast and running off and responding to gentle and to polite and to clenched teeth and to threats all the same. Begrudgingly, nastily, saucily. And temporarily.

When told he would fall if he climbed on the side of the cart, he got off. When told again, and given a brief reminder about balance and gravity, he got off. When told again, he got off. And when I turned my back to load items onto the conveyor belt of “almost-done-thank-you-lord”-ishness, he tipped the cart, and I caught it with one arm just before it crushed him, righting the cart and wrenching my back all with baby strapped into the wrap on my chest. And I almost cried.

I told you. I told you. I ask everything politely and gently the first time. Second time. Third time. A million times a day you disregard and refuse and ignore and refute and sass. I still don’t know why you don’t listen. I mean…you do, then you don’t. It seems to go beyond the developmentally appropriate hear only what you like. And you totally deserve for that thing to fall on you. I hurt myself helping you. I daily hurt myself trying to help you.

And it doesn’t seem to matter. Whatever you want you do. Whatever I say you don’t want to do and you don’t do. You hit me no fewer than twenty times today just trying to leave school at the same time we always leave school.

I’m so sick of this. I’m done.

Except I can’t be.

This is the only job on the planet you can’t quit.

Graduate seminar in toothbrushing

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Oh my god with the toothbrushing. Why, why, why is this such a chore?

We’ve been brushing teeth with Peanut for four years and two months. And we have tried the following tricks, in order, to win over a resistant child:

1. brush his teeth hanging him upside down
2. sing a song while brushing
3. get a flashing firefly toothbrush
4. brush like animals (elephant brushes slowly and heavily, hummingbird quickly and lightly, platypus changes each time because what the f*%#?)
5. you brush then we brush
6. count teeth while we brush
7. tell a long story while we brush
8. play red light, green light dance-style while we brush (green light, you dance while I brush; red light you stop while I brush the tough parts)

And I swear to his future periodontist, I’m gonna let these baby teeth fall out of his head before I invent another game to get these stupid, no-good, replaceable, temporary, cookie-begging teeth clean.

Sure, offer your tricks below. Please. But I can’t pretend I have the energy for anything really creative, so skip the eighteen-part games even if you swear by them. Simple, please. Be gentle with me.

Unthinkable

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I am, of course, not writing this post.

Because this post might venture along the periphery of an unmentionable, unthinkable, unseemly, untoward topic.

It’s just that I write in the evening now, after bedtime, and so the topic has raised its head for me to stifle and ignore. After bedtime battles and nonsense and bickering and adrenaline the topic begs and I refuse. I write when Peanut is at his worst and Butter is at his dreamy best but I resist writing this post.

I am definitely not writing this post, in which I might have pondered whether it’s perfectly normal to unceasingly adore a sweet, needy, small being who has a delicious temper and heart melting smile even when he is ripping my hair out at the roots, while at the same time loathing a sweet, high strung, intense, persistent, hilariously naughty, beligerent, sassy, funny, creative, ill tempered medium small being who has a horrific temper and a heart melting trill of “Mommy, I love you bigger than the Universe” even when he’s behaving in ways that make me rip my own hair out at the roots.

So I’m not asking if it’s common to find a growing rift in the desperate love of mother for child as the child individuates and tests limits and boundaries and the laws of physics. Nor am I asking if it’s typical to adore even the tough parts of meeting the needs of the completely needy infant who could, hypothetically, be causing pain or frustration.

Because I would never address the perception that pain and frustration from one child is less painful or frustrating than that of another child. Nor that mild annoyances from an older child are infinitely more infuriating than serious inconveniences from a younger child.

Especially in a blog.

Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.

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While we’ve been away…
Five days in lands far from home
Two fifteen-hour travel days
Four airports, eight hours spend therein
Two tarmac hours, all in intense heat
Ninety-four degree average over the whole trip
Three packages of baked tofu and a pound of organic hummus, plus four lollipops, four brownies, one cookie, two ice creams, and seven cups of juice for Peanut
One ear infection and two new teeth for Butter
Two movie days in one week for Peanut
Twenty dearly loved relatives
One splendid B&B
Very little sleep for Mama
And absolutely no writing at naptime.

How about you?

Seriously, Google?

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On a whim, I searched “find the right academic journal for your article.” I didn’t expect much. It was the result of a frustrated, bored, midnight rage about my unfinished projects.

The answer to which journals one should submit to is, of course, trade secret. Academics don’t give away their target journals, and often give advice like “find journals with similar articles and submit to them” or “talk with journal editors attending conferences where you present and ask if your piece would be considered.”

Um, thanks. That’s helpful. I already know that the articles I cite in my own article were published in journals that might like articles on the same topic. And I know that conferences ca be a decent place to talk with publishers. But these can’t be the only two tricks. Surely just researching within my field in two dozen or so journals doesn’t give the whole picture, right?

Of course not. So I asked Google.

The first non-sponsored link was “find the right sandals for your outdoor needs.”
The second was “find the right rawhide chew for your dog.”

I give up.

The industry assumption has been that Google technology is so amazing it knows everything. In this case: that there was no point in seeking out academic journals, but also that since my legs are too big for shorts right now I should focus on my feet.

Also that either I should replace my dead cat with a dog or that I might, in some misogynistic circles of drunk frat house denizens, be unflatteringly compared with a dog.

Shame on you Google. I thought you knew better.

Because it’s too cold for sandals lately.

This week at Naptime

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I’m trying desperately to focus on client work before a trip to the center of the sun…I mean Georgia…this week.

Cat One keeps searching the house for the recently deceased Cat Two. It’s heartbreaking.

Butter is delightful. Peanut is so much more interesting now that I’m trying not to control him all the time. Spouse is many things to many people and I don’t blog about grown-ups here unless ranting about the most dreadful amongst us, so I’m not enumerating any of his qualities, delightful or not.

And the days still go by blindingly fast, with nothing “done” and so much experienced. When I focus on what I’ve seen and felt, I love this year. When I focus on what I’ve accomplished I’m crushingly depressed. Guess I have to flip a major U-turn in how I’ve always gauged my life, because the “what I’ve done today” and “how far the projects have progressed” lists have always colored my sense of self.

Must redefine to survive.

Baby Steps

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SO I told you about renewing our efforts to parent gently and patiently. With empathy. Sans coercion.

Oh my god, it worked. One day, one incident, but it worked.

I picked him up at the preschool the other day and he was, as I arrived, kicking his best friend in the head. Yup. Glorious. Exactly what I was looking for in a carefully and thoughtfully parented child. A teacher was handling it so I took a breath and waited for him. Another parent told me he’d had a rough day. I wanted to read him the code of “we don’t hurt people” but I fought the urge. Someone had already done that.

So I asked what was going on. I got nastiness and barking and snapping. I breathed. We collected his lunchbox and shoes. I asked about his day. Barked nasty snapping. I asked what he wanted for snack. Snapped nasty barks. He had a cut over his eye and I asked how it happened.

“Nothing. My eye just comes this way,” he snapped.
“Honey, that looks like it hurts. Does it?”
“NO!” he barked. “This is how my eye always comes.”
I looked at him, buckled his seat belt and wordlessly, gently, closed the car door. I took a breath in my patented breathing machine (the slow walk around a car when the children are locked inside it).

By the time I sat in the driver’s seat, he said, “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

“In the morning Casey did something not nice—he took from me when we were playing Zingo—and I went away from him to play with Miles but we were playing and [he starts crying] I tried to go in the tunnel but I hit my head and hurt my eye and I didn’t like the snack and nobody was there to kiss my sore and I didn’t have any extra long pants I only had short pants for when I got muddy!”

I looked at him in the mirror. “Babe, that sounds just awful. Do you need a hug?”

He was sobbing by now and sputtered out a “yeah.”

I stopped the car and got out, walked around to his side, opened the door and kissed his eye. I hugged him. He cried. And I told him about how some days nothing goes right. I bit back the urge to talk about Alexander and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Because some days you don’t want to hear about that. Even in Australia.

But what you do want to hear, when you’re an ass to your friend and your teachers and your mom, is that some days are like that. It’s not that you are a nasty person. It’s the days, hours, minutes that suck. Not you, little guy. It’s not you.

(Only because it was so out of character. If I saw this kind of nonsense all the time, we’d talk about a new way to roll with this behavior. But because I took a breath and a step back and didn’t correct him or diagnose him or try to fix him, he let his guard down and let me see the tiny little vulnerable dude inside. Oh, now that’s the dude I can help. And maybe one day, he’ll help a little vulnerable dude, too.)

How the mighty fall

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Peanut today declared, “Butter is my best, so he gets three stickers. Mommy, you’re my second best, so you get two stickers. Cat One is my third best, so he gets one sticker. And Daddy is my last, so he gets zero stickers.”

Spouse was miffed about being last until he realized Cat Two didn’t make the list at all. I was honored to come in second to a delicious baby, and knew it was my renewed efforts at being a damned decent parent that got me top billing and a couple of sparkly dolphin stickers.

Then, after lunch, I told Peanut, “Finish up playing, and in a little while we’ll have nap.”

“Daddy!” he called. “You’re third now, and Mommy’s last. Do you want her stickers?”