Cheeky Little Monkey-Bunny

Since there has been a shortage of Khoo and a surplus of Ler in the Khooler report of late, it seems about time to focus on the shortest member of our family (if Luna stands on her hind legs…) a bit. The Bunny, as she has been known to her father and me since she was born, is slowly, inexorably declaring herself, through her actions and her speech and her understanding, to be less and less of a baby. Of course, she refers to herself as a baby when she sees pictures of herself, and calls all her classmates at school “the babies.” Actually, she is the second oldest in her class, so maybe she’s just being uppity?

Besides being terribly good at walking and running, showing us that she is able to climb up onto the coffee table and couch, saying all manner of interesting words (watermelon, egg, elbow, knee, animal), and dancing, our bunny is becoming, to quote her raised-in-a-former-British-colony father, quite cheeky. She is no longer just along for the ride. When I pick her up, she dissolves all the joints in her body so that she can slide back to the floor. When I tell her it’s time to get dressed for school, she laughs and runs away. She asks for things that have occurred to her entirely on her own, like a particular food, or even, this weekend, a bath. Who are you all of a sudden?

This morning, the bunny did something entirely new, and her dad and I are still talking about it. We were reading a weird but sweet little book we got from the library, called Little Fur Family (by Margaret Wise Brown, and illustrated by the excellent Garth Williams, whose drawings you may remember from the Little House books and the truly awesome The Cricket in Times Square). In the book, a little fur child gets up, goes out to play, gets home, and gets put to bed by his loving fur parents, who hold his paw and sing him a song. I improvised the tune of the song, and Naomi wanted me to sing it over and over. I sang it about three times before I noticed that her voice, saying “more, more” sounded a little strange. When I checked her face, her little lower lip was quivering, and her eyes were filling with tears. This picture, of the fur family putting their fur child to bed, holding his paw, and singing to him, had apparently moved her to tears. Because for sure it was not my singing.

Yes, this anecdote has a high sap factor. But it is killing me, not because it’s so cute, although, geez, it really is, but because it is a glaring bright reminder that every time this little girl wakes up with an additional major synapse all myelinated, she is going to be a different person than she was the day before. And we will have to be as well. We will have to go from being cheerful parents who willingly and easily meet the needs of a fairly predictable little emotional robot, to hopefully being cheerful parents who go on trying to meet those needs while facing the fact that their little robot is becoming a person with FEELINGS. Not just reactions, real feelings. It’s hard to articulate why this feels like my parental responsibilities have just quadrupled.

Beware...Dream Journal!

There is a distinct genre of nightmares based on the premise that one shows up for class without realizing that it is test day, and is forced to take the test without any preparation. This has not only been a recurring nightmare of mine, it actually happened to me FOR REAL once in college. In Astronomy 101. I showed up for the study session (after, um, a couple of missed classes), and I was given a seat number. I actually asked the TA what the number was for. Heh. Somehow I got a C on that test. Ah, multiple choice.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I had one of these dreams, and I was speculating that it might have something to do with the fact that I was getting farther and farther away from any school-like experience. Then last night, the dream returned and handed me a seat number. But it was different from a lot of the other versions of the dream. It was closer to a bad dream than a true nightmare. Instead of a regular college class, it was the class I took a couple of years ago at Hamline University, when I was pregnant- a graduate seminar on the concept of “home.” And in the dream, it wasn’t the last day, it was somehow three days before the last day, and someone was asking me whether I got the big paper finished, the one that was due in three days. So I immediately began to scheme and plan for how I would be able to pull off this ten-page paper, well thought out and well researched, in three days. And really, it didn’t panic me the way the immediate test dreams always did. Maybe because I always waited until the last one or two days to write my papers?

But in the quick calculations for how I was going to pull this off, I had to figure in time for going to work, cooking and cleaning (such as it is), and taking care of Naomi. And I realized that it was going to be really tiring and I wasn’t going to enjoy it. Whine. Now I am wondering if this dream is somehow a peek into my slowly maturing psyche. Panic isn’t great, but there’s something exhilarating about finding yourself face to face with an unexpected and extremely difficult problem that you have no choice but to attempt to solve immediately. These days the problems aren’t so difficult, and they are much less urgent. Finding a solution is more about…finding the time to make the solution happen. Boring! But also? Good.

Supporting the Troops

Today we had a reception at work for one of our own (one of our own coworkers, that is) who is being deployed. All the way deployed, to Iraq. All the way deployed, to join his combat engineer battalion in the unenviable task of clearing roadways of IEDs. His beautiful wife and their two elementary school age sons joined him at work for this little shindig (we all donated money to give them a weekend away somewhere, and weirdly, spending money for the kids). If I imagine Jim breaking the news to me that he’s going to be going away for a while, a long while, and I’ll have to stay home with the baby and attempt to keep it all together while he puts himself squarely in the way of lethal harm, my imagined response is something like “The hell you say.” (I got all single mother huffy yesterday when I had to cook dinner and care for Naomi, while he was out mowing the lawn and talking the rescue rooter guy through his exploration of our roof drains, for pete’s sake.)

I know it’s no picnic being an Iraqi these days. But I also thought being both anti-war and supportive of the troops wasn’t completely impossible. This send-off party got me thinking, though, that it would not be so easy to look a soldier and his wife and children in the eyes and say, This is a mad, massive boondoggle you’re off to. I wish you luck surviving in that crazy mess we made for you. When I thought about what I would say if I had to say something to this man (I didn’t, thankfully), it didn’t seem sufficient to say, honestly, that I wished him well, and the best of luck. I found myself thinking all those corny untruths that people inevitably bring out in support of the troops.

I guess what I am saying is that it’s pretty easy to understand the “defending the American way of life” nonsense that people are always saying on the news (and by people, I mean the loved ones of soldiers who are caught up in or taken away by this particular fight), because it would take a whole different, dark kind of courage to say to your loved one, “You are risking your life for something wrong. You are leaving me here to go off to a reckless, unjustified conflict. What you are doing doesn’t make any sense.”

The News Roundup

Yesterday I took the nipper and the dog to the little local park again, and there were no neighborhood bullies outside that one house to yell at us. Whew.

That lasagna turned out great. It didn’t look very good (because for some reason we had fat free mozzarella in the house, and I used that, and although it says it melts well, what that means is that each little individual shred of cheese melts by itself in its own little space, and does not join the others), but it tasted yummy. I will definitely make this no-boil air headed uneven layered last minute turkey recipe again.

I have met the elusive baby across the street! As I returned from a dog walk, I saw the whole family out on the porch of the steakhouse. The mother called to me and asked if I wanted to meet the baby. Yes I did! He is 6 weeks old now, and has his mother’s nose. His name is Jonathan. I have since purchased little Jonathan a cute cow-themed onesie and matching bib from one of the egregiously overpriced children’s stores at the mall (I had a gift card!), and I will wrap it up and give it to them this week. Done and done.

Jim and I and our sidekick ate at the Pal Do Korean Restaurant Sunday night. The nice owner lady was not present (my guess is she was at church or a church-related activity). While we were there, we heard both Elvis AND the new Korean pop music. So, they have expanded their selections, but only by one selection.

Last but not least, I am now also enjoying hoof and mouth disease. My version is just mouth-based, so I have a weirdly sore tongue (feels like I have scalded it with hot coffee every day this week). When Jim had it, it was mostly throat and whine based (just kidding, honey!). I hope it feels better by tomorrow, when we are celebrating Father's Day with all you can eat sushi. Oh yeah.

A Party at the Beach

Naomi’s best friend forever, Carmen, turns one year old today. Happy Birthday shout-out to Carmen! On Saturday her parents threw a pretty fantastic party at Saltwater State Park near Kent. The park is right on the Puget Sound, and below the picnic tables is an embankment of gigantic rocks that tumble down onto the rocky, tide-strewn beach. The park smells aptly of saltwater, and the view across the water to the forested hills on the other side is, while not breathtaking, simply and pleasantly beautiful. The weather alternated between warm, cold, dark, bright, threatening, cajoling, delightful, glary, calm, and gusty. And yet, it never rained. Hooray.

Carmen’s parents have a lot of friends, many with kids, some with a lot of kids. So there were easily twenty kids there, maybe more, all running around with the punching balloons and bubble solution my friend had packaged into beach pails (shovel attached). I learned some things about kids and parties. They are all going to want the cake with the pink frosting, no matter what the other choices are. When it comes to certain activities (blowing out the candle on behalf of the baby), they are total team players. I also learned a couple of good jokes. Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine! And what did the zero say to the eight? I like your belt!

The food was plentiful and delicious. The gifts were reasonable and appropriate (we brought this awesome moose, and had our irrational gift-choice pride rewarded by the loving attention of the birthday girl).
The kids were jovial and appreciative. At one point, a certain little Julio saw Naomi walking toward him with her arms out, and he thought about it for a moment, then gave her a hug. Hee! Besides the unexpected hugging, Naomi’s sleep-nazi parents lightened up and let her stay at the party a full five hours without a nap (completely unprecedented!). She also got to eat her first small bite of hot dog, some potato salad, guacamole, cake, of course, and some grilled corn on the cob.

Carmen’s parents have said this is the last of the big giant birthday parties. But I hope they relent. I would go to a party like that every weekend if I could.

Animals and Disease

Is it one of the marks of a humane(r) zoo that visitors find it difficult to see the animals, busy and fairly hidden as they are in their simulated natural environment? If so, we can feel good about the zoo (Woodland Park) we visited for the first time last weekend. Naomi thoroughly enjoyed seeing the foreground animals (mallard ducks!) at the expense of the distant main attractions (real live giraffes!). She did get to see some goats and sheep up close, as well as some teeny, tiny ponies. (On the fence of the teeny, tiny pony pen leaned a grumpy veterinarian, waiting for the elderly pony to pee so she could collect a bit for a UTI test. Sounds like intern work to me, ma’am. )

Overall, it was a really good time. Naomi tromped along the zoo trails, shared my ice cream sandwich, poked around the butterfly enclosure, and patted a sheep. I know it is only a coincidence that three days after the zoo visit, the daycare called and said I had to come and get Naomi, since she had symptoms of hoof and mouth disease. Ok, not really, but hand, foot, and mouth disease sounds awfully evocative of the original. The promptly consulted doctor said it wasn’t from the zoo, that it was very contagious, and that there was absolutely no reason not to take her back to school, since all the kids were going to get it anyway.

Today for Show and Tell, Naomi would like to share a virus of hers that will give you blisters on your hands and feet, and little sores in your mouth. If you’re lucky, you will also get a fever. Enjoy!

Target Market

On my Raisin Bran box, I discovered a movie trivia question. The movie? Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I am guessing that I am about forty years and maybe a chromosome off from the consumer Kellogg's is trying to impress with this cereal box fun.