a day at the park with papa

we have sure had our differences, and i have spent much of the past six months being furious with david, but at the end of the day, i will always be so grateful to him for the existence of our shoshanna mary.  she looks just like him, those two part-cherokees with the exact same shade of brown eyes.  she gets her wildness from him, and her seriously enviable dance moves. 

pictures of david and shoshi at age two are remarkably similar, their super-straight ragamuffin hair, big ol' foreheads, and a certain gleam in their eyes.  when she flings herself from the top of a jungle gym, climbs the ladder to the pool slide fifty times a day (and would slide right in without a glance back, if we didn't grab her each time), and yells "higher!" whenever she's on a swing--that's her papa, and i'm so glad she has that side to her.  (what mother could imagine her child any other way than what they are?)  it's the same side that compels her to wave and say a fearless "hi" to anyone she encounters, from homeless men to high-heel clicking businesswomen in suits, frat boys and other little kids.  she is really so different from me, and i learn so much from her because of it.     

 

the other day i dropped off a little gift at a friend's house, and right around the corner was a house where i used to live when i was in college.  the lights we'd strung around our second-floor porch were gone, as were the little green patio table and the overflowing garden of pots our downstairs neighbor had planted on his porch.  but still, for an instant as i walked back to my car, i felt like i was back living there, about to run up the backdoor stairs and into the crowded, messy red kitchen full of mismatched plates and photobooth pictures.  and for this crazy second i thought, where's sho?  where was she during those days?  it was almost a panicky feeling, like i'd somehow traveled back in time without my girl.  which is all to say, there is sure a lot i would change about my past, but i also wouldn't change a thing, because it all lead to shoshanna mary.  how worth it it's all been!

shoshi's second birthday party

yesterday afternoon we had a little party for shosh, mostly with the little neighbor kids and a few of my friends. 

she wore the fabric strip tutu i made her for christmas and that she's been wearing ever since, and a birthday crown i whipped up the night before.  perhaps i'll make a quick tutorial for both here sometime soon, because they were simple to make and much-loved.  the balloon banner was wicked easy to make (i used these instructions), and i used paint chips from the hardware store to make the triangle pennants.  my mom was up until one in the morning making a truly epic chocolate cake and homemade funfetti cupcakes. my dad blew up a bazillion balloons using his tire air compressor, and they both worked really hard in many other ways to get the house all partied out.  

i hid some "surprise balls" around the yard (below) and had the kiddos run around finding them.  basically you buy some plastic junk that kids love, and wrap each item up progressively in a ball of crepe paper. (i got the idea from shiso mama.)  these were started off with a big pink old-fashioned bouncy ball; the key is to get sort of flat toys for the rest so they can be wrapped up efficiently.  so not only are "surprise balls" unwound to a symphony of junk hidden inside, but it's also very festive what with the streamers and plastic objects flying everywhere!  i was thinking they would be a really smart idea for a car ride or airplane trip, because it would keep kids entertained forever.  maybe they could unwrap another layer every time they saw a cow or a red VW or something.  sho really loved them and has been begging me for another one ever since.

anyway, it was a good time.  it's hard for me not to go overboard during party planning, even just for a teensy little gathering like this one.  i'm pretty much constitutionally incapable of not filling a house with balloons, streamers, and rainbow fruit kebabs for my girl's birthday, it seems.  i hope shoshi remembers her birthdays as magical times...and not as times when her mother turned into a total crepe-paper/frosting maniac.

you know how sometimes, a girl just feels like throwing a naked one-woman pride parade?  

sho totally feels you, dog.

work

i keep laughing at this picture of shoshi mama at the doctors' office last week for the dread PINKEYE.  she had this very dramatically WTF/i will keeeel you expression on her face the entire five minutes the doctor did her examinations.  stinkeye or no, being a nurse or doctor must be such hard and satisfying work....

work!  i dunno, right now i'm the receptionist at an office building for about 15 businesses (way to use that degree!).  sometimes i think about how many secrets are being told behind the walls in this building every day, between the lawyers and the psychologists and psychiatrists and the financial consultants.  in fact, sometimes i am amazed by how many secrets are told to me, the secretary!  i love those moments when a person, waiting for the lawyer and too full of grief or frustration to resist, starts telling me the intimate details of their divorce.  or the parent of a child meeting with the psychiatrist starts telling me how difficult it's been.  i trip over myself offering hot chocolate and the mason jar of crayons i brought in for the kiddos here for counseling, offer small details of my own separation so people won't feel embarassed telling me so much...those parts of my day are the best, when i can interact in a meaningful, real way with people.  one woman yesterday said, "you've helped me so much, i never thought of it that way!" regarding her straying ex.  maybe i'm just nosy but...i do love to listen.  i guess maybe i am just starting to imagine a career-life for myself beyond answering phones, however faraway it might seem....

birthday ruminations

"what is it about this day that's been so great?" my mom said last night, after sho finally fell asleep, a dreamy smile on her face (seriously). "it was better than any other day this year."  our eventual hypothesis was that birthdays are meant for kids.  when you are small and largely powerless, a day when everyone sort of caters to your wishes and treats you like someone big and important, is literally unbelievable.  i got that feeling from sho all day, from the moment she saw the streamers hanging in the kitchen, to the second when i walked into her daycare (in the middle of the day!) and all four of her grandparents were already there, about to eat chocolate and sing to her and her alone...she just could not believe what was happening to her.  the lake trip afterward with vanessa ("neesy," as she's known to us) just put the icing on the cake, so to speak.  it was such a pleasure to treat our shoshi--especially when the treats were so very cheap, and the appreciation was so great.  things are tight for us money-wise right now, but it didn't seem to matter to her at all. 

i hope that i can always remember that, about kids and money.  sometimes, to be honest with you, i get to feeling so jealous about other blogs i read, and the lovely organic fabrics and pricey vintage clothes and hand-crafted this and thats they can buy for their children, the elaborate nurseries they create and attentive husbands whose salaries sometimes allow it all....especially when, at present, sho sleeps with me in my old bedroom at my parents' house, and i (or friends) honestly make most of her clothes and toys, or buy them on the super, super-cheap...it was good to know that she still feels pretty ballin'. 

anyway, her favorite gifts (as of yesterday) were the streamers (a few dollars), that cheap little plastic microphone, a pink care bear and some truly insane dance/ballet leotards (pictured above) that neesy found at a garage sale.  that's it.  i think the triycle & blocks love will come later.  (and, can i just send out a prayer of thanks that shoshi has neesy in her life, because...i just cannot with the pink and princessy.  but she really does love it, always prancing around and saying things are "so, so boo-ful, mama.  so boo-ful."  well, i can get down with that, i suppose.)  so i guess just: thank you universe!  for the beautiful day and my beautiful, thankful girl.  and all the people who help make her feel like an awesome little dude, everyday.  (except when she's not being awesome.  thanks for that, too.)

hap bir-day shoshanna mary!

 

[sho in her new birthday jammies, which she calls her "ballerinas"]

dude, i hope i never forget the look on sho's face as she rounded the corner this morning and saw a kitchen decorated in head-to-toe streamers and a huge stack of cardboard blocks, where last night there had just been an ordinary kitchen and high chair.  she could not believe her eyes!  she kept running around yelling, "hap bir-day uma!  hap bir-day chuck!" (that is what she calls my dad, for unknown and hilarious reasons).  we kept saying, "happy birthday to YOU, shoshi!  it's YOUR birthday!"  i tried to take a picture, but every single one turned out blurry because she was running around so much.  her little self could not even with the excitement.  i'd put out a couple little things for her to open this morning too, a little pink squishy ball and one of those cheapo microphones that echo.  i think those could be her only presents and she'd be totally psyched.  "hap bir-day CHUCK!" she would yell into the echo-phone.  "hap BIR-DAY!!!"

our shoshi is so dear, and geezy petes so easy to please.  i love a kid who can get that worked up over some streamers and a $1.99 microphone.  it's only nine o'clock and this is already one of my favorite days.  just like the morning she was born two years ago, as a matter of fact, at 8:05 am after a hazy night of hard labor at home.  by nine o'clock, already one of my very best days.

["don't wory guys.  i GOT this birthday"]

revelations (not the bible kind)

tomorrow is shoshanna's second birthday, and dudes, i am so excited for it.  i even had a hard time falling asleep last night just thinking about it, oh god i'm a nerd.  about 90% of our loved ones' birthdays have taken place in the past few months, so she has had a lot of practice with the whole birthday thang, and often runs up to me yelling, "hap bir-day, mama!"   i think i'm so excited because this is really the first "holiday" that she understands, can anticipate and truly appreciate. 

[sho and i at her first birthday party. photo by vanessa hardy]

i stayed up waaay too late last night making her a silky-soft pair of summer jammies (from a thrift store slip) with a pocket made from this lovely scrap of fabric my friend sara gave me, and scored a wink-wink deal at the salvation army when the checkout guy gave me a huge tub of big cardboard blocks for one dollar.  i also splurged (well, $27 is a serious splurge for my budget) on a nice, non-annoying keyboard to replace the 99 cent one from salvation army that she's been playing all winter.  best of all, i'm making dirt cake tonight to take to her daycare birthday party tomorrow...and then, i have the rest of the day off to take her on a surprise trip to lake michigan (i.e. "the oceant") with our friend vanessa!  dude!  i'm way more excited about this day than i was about my birthday and mother's day combined.

[vanessa and shoshi, one year ago]

so yesterday, after i picked up sho from daycare, we headed to the store for a "quick trip" to get the ingredients for her daycare dirt cake (i got gummi worms and edible flowers y'all).  holy god it was a shit show of the highest order.  sho was tuckered out and refused to stay in the cart, so we alternated between her running alongside the cart and the very short me (somehow this made it all the more embarassing) carrying her on my shoulders as i pushed our cart.  i was hot, tired, and flustered, trying to keep this kid from all-out losing it in the middle of a super-crowded grocery store.  and i try not to talk about this, but i was angry at her dad, too, for not even acknowledging her birthday yet and for leaving me to do this--all of this--on my own, every day, with no financial help to boot.  i thought, "man, anyone who sees me right now is thinking: 'that woman is in over her head.'"  and i realized that that is kind of my biggest ego trip/fear, for anyone to think that i can't handle my life or the things that are happening in it.  but dude...sometimes i can't.  so what?  we've all been there.  (or if not, your life has been way too easy.)  what on earth good does it do for me to pretend i'm doing totally groovy, with a screaming toddler on my shoulders and a spilled carton of blueberries at my feet?  i don't know, it was just a good thing for me to realize.  i can fail at this sometimes, it'll be okay.

it almost made that cluster-cuss of a grocery trip worthwhile.