Fall

This blog is where i get to be banal and cliche, right?

The wind blows and the leaves create ana aerial circus outside the window. Dylan and I watch from the bathroom window of my parents' house and he is more captivated by this than by Sesame Street. We go outside. "Airplane," he says, "Up dere." He points towards the bare trees. We watch a leaf helicopter down. "Fall," I tell him. "Fall," he repeats.

We sit on the carpeted landing of my parents' steps. "Uh-oh!" I tell him, sounding ominous. He squeels, starts to back away. "Uh-oh, uh-oh," I reach towards him, "I have to Squeeeze you!" We grab each other in a tight hug, giggling. He puts his head on my shoulder. We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I leave out words. He fills them in. We rock back and forth. The leaves whisper to and fro outside, settling, settling. We watch them through the windows by the front door. We rock, we watch, we don't let go of each other. Fall.

My Surfboard

I must be a nester. I just got to my parents' house for the holiday and it's so great when i come here bc i don't have to worry about mopping the floors and i don't care if certain people (ahem!) forget to put their dishes in the sink and also its big and everything works and is clean and easy and, oh yeah, dinner is magically put onto the table without my having to do anything more than say, mom, do you want me to help? oh, you've already done everything. ok. and maybe set the table if I feel generous.

it IS amazing how much time food takes out of my life. The thinking preparing shopping cooking cleaning putting away getting ready for the next day packing lunches cutting snacks wondering what goes with what and picking up those last few ingredients. My mom just had her kitchen redone and so she couldn't cook for 6 weeks. They ate out almost every meal. She's like, wow, i can't believe how much free time i have. so she's been going to yoga. now she's kind of getting back into the swing of things and we'll put her kitchen to the test tomorrow when we cook the holiday chickens. it'll be nice not to have the oven break down on us for once.

still, she was deciding what to cook for dinner tonight and my dad suggested chinese food and she was like, oh, great idea! that never would have happened two months ago. never. i'm glad. i know it's hard for me to pull back and not do stuff --- and that's a lot because of her. and that's a good thing - a compliment i mean. because i think she really taught me how to get stuff done and not be lazy or disorganized. But still, it's also important to know how to relax and i'm glad she seems more able to do that.

He Said

Bikable, mooksh, li-on, hepticopter, want it, Daddy coming, Mommy here, I miss Aunt Barb, monkey, seal, BUS!!!!, baby, mac-a-RO-lee, Dylan swimming, I Dylan, goona agoona, share (and then rip a toy out of some other kids hand), garage sale, I slide down, chocolate, ice-cream, broccoli, Gampa, Atta, My P.J., A-P.J. kissing, meow, meow-meow, titty tat, boobies, my surf board, no baf, wesh, I loyoo, pease, Maryee, Maryee up dere?, Joshua, potty, I keen it, Ashley, Michael, outside!, payground, trash!, rock, button (belly), buttons (channel changer), shockadoo, bless you, sneeze!, hapchee, hush, hello (just want to say ...), nigh-nigh, moon, star, bu-fly, cricket

Allergic

Do you ever think you are allergic to happiness? I'm riding down Walnut today and it's just gorgeous. the trees are pink and white and veined with tender green, so fragile, you want to cry and glue the petals in place just to make them last forever. And the breeze as I biked lifted up my hair and cooled my shoulders even as my back muscles grew hot and loose. I went over the Schylkill River (god, will I ever learn to spell that???) and my thighs were burning and I wanted to stop but I didn't want to stop either. I could see the joggers on the river path below, the good ones with their reddened necks and legs and their even breathing and the ones that have just crept out from winter dens, weighed down by fat and sweatsuits, gasping and waving their arms as if drowning. Just walk, I want to tell them, and the thought of yelling it makes me laugh.

I am on my way to buy tickets to a klezmer concert, except this is tough girl, all drum klezmer. I'm going with my whole family on Mother's Day and Larry's family is joining us for dinner at my house before that. Hooray, no one hates me today (I don't think...). We are going to bring the babies to the playground and the petals will fall all around us and it will be like we're in one of those snow globes, but it'll be like a flower globe.

I think about being a mother. And a wife. And a student. And a daughter. And a writer. I could not be happier. To be in my body, to feel the sun pricking red upon my nose, to taste the film of chocolate left in my mouth, to rub my chapped (always chapped) lips together and feel like a movie star because I am on my bike, wearing the sunglasses with the rhinestones (even though some have fallen out). I want to do yoga. I want to swim. I want to read a magazine in the hot hot sun and drink ice tea and wear a straw hat. i want to hike in alaska. i want to creep through the decaying streets of Fez. I want to wear a djellaba. I want a dog.

And just like the petals, I want to glue this feeling in place. I will go home, I will get a parking ticket, my cat will get fleas, my ATM fee will suck, my library books will be late, Larry will put his dishes in the sink instead of the dishwasher, I will get bleach on my Saturday night jeans. And it will all be over. But I dont want it to be. So I keep riding.

Sign Language

A letter from Dylan, as translated by Mommy
Re: It's so hard to be a baby!

Can you imagine what it's like? All I want is to get some food in my belly, and Mom keeps putting me down for a nap. I scream and scream, but she just tells Dad that I'm fussy. Finally, she gets the picture and plucks me from jail (aka crib). I am so releived I slap her back and she thinks I'm hugging her. Aw! Give Mommy a kiss, she orderes and I bite her cheek. She screams and I laugh. Aw, she tells Dad, he's trying to kiss me, but his little teeth keep getting in the way. She sit me in my high chair and cuts up some cucumbers. I don't want that crap. I want the baby crack, street name, Yo Baby. I'm a sucker for apple. Whole milk is da bomb, yo!

Finally, my poor little tummy stops rumbling and I can concentrate on the important part of life - finding things to put in my mouth. Of course, Mom won't let me get anything good. I pull an empty milk container out of the recycling and put it to my lips - yucky! I get a hold of Marley's toy gun and have just finagled this tiny little plastic piece off, get it on my tounge and - you'll choke! Then I see the true prize of the day - a dead cockroach in the corner. The thing is dessicated. It's mummified. It's spider food. It looks delicious! But oh, no! She nearly faints. It's about as bad as the time I found some choice ice at the park. It smelled just like doggy pee pee and I have always been so curious what that would taste like. Of course, there's no way she'd let me find out. She practically made me throw up sticking her fingers in my mouth to get it all out - so I had to bite her!

Ha Ha Ha - just let her try to potty train me!!!

Monkey Cards

My grandfather had this collection of monkey cards. You know, post cards with monkeys in suits and fat ladies in bikinis and alligators with thought bubbles. Mostly, he liked the monkeys. When I used to go over there for a cup of tea or something, he always made me look through his collection. He died a week ago today. I asked my grandmother if I could have the collection. I'm sure no one else in the family will be vying for them.

It's sometimes hard to remember who my grandfather was before dementia took him. Even before that, he was kind of a silly old man. I liked him that way, tender at times, sentimental, and sometimes angry. He used to rail against old slights for hours at top volume.

But I can remember him before that, too, if I put my mind to it. He loved opera, turtles, the fight on tv. He loved to watch the herons swoop into the manmade lake by his rented condo in Florida. He loved to drive to nowhere. He loved fruit and nuts and my grandma's chicken soup. That's my penicilin, he'd say. He taught me to stand up for myself. He slipped me twenties when my grandma wasn't looking (when he wasn't looking, she slipped me fifties). He used to carry me on his shoulders, take his teeth out and make facees, sing "Yes, we have no bananas," and riff on his New York accent. He taught me 1,2,3, cha, cha, cha. Once, my brother and I bought temporary tatoos and made him and his neighbor Ceal apply them to their biceps. Then we all posed like street toughs.

There's another monkey in this story - my monkey, my Dylan. I am so proud that my grandfather got to be at my wedding and got to play with my son. I am grateful for the last nice day we spent together. Grandma went to a luncheon with my aunt and I babysat Poppa (that's what I called him, Poppa Joey) and the baby. I fed them their oatmeal together and then took them to the park. After just a few minutes, they both got tired and we hobbled back to Poppa's apartment, where they took a nap together. Dylan will not remember that, but we have photos, and somehow, I know it will create a germ of tenderness for him.

Boy, I loved him. What more can you say?

The mom hole

So, as a mom, you often find yourself in the midst of rediculous (sp?) situations. Eating smushed banana off of your son's bib, for instance. Or, say, answering the door with your pants undone and hanging off your ass because you were breastfeeding and had to pee so incredibly bad that you had to do it with the baby attached to your boob and couldn't get your pants up in time for the dishwasher repairman. Just as a for instance, mind you.

Tonight I found myself singing (perhaps singing is the wrong word - let's say, intoning operatically) the word "socks" in various pitches, keys, volumes, speeds, tones, voices and with a variety of zany facial expressions. Sooooooooocks! Dylan thought I was hysterical. His giggle is worth a million bucks. But then, he totally stopped paying attention - he was trying to eat the protective foam corners I put on the coffee table - and - here's the insane part - I just kept singing. Soooooockkkkkkkkssssssssss! I even did a little dance. That's a different kind of silly singing and dancing from what happened earlier in the evening, which is that Larry came home to find me dancing up a storm and singing along at top volume to Skip to my Lou. But that's acceptable, because it's on a CD and I was practicing real dance moves (kind of).

Oh, who am I kidding. I've fallen down the mom hole. Where are my sweatpants?