for my own remembering

shoshanna mary at fourteen months.

her favorite and most clear word is no. "NYO!" cheerful and vaguely foreign sounding, this word has many applications in the life of shoshanna mary. do all little kids have interesting accents when they first start speaking? such a reminder that they still are newcomers to this world of ours. today she had a fever, and several times woke up whimpering mournfully, "oh nyo, oh nyooo!" heartbreak city man.

she has a serious nod, slow and measured. when i turn on the car and music comes on, i look back and find her nodding solemnly in approval. she also nods when i give her a particularly delicious food. her favorite foods are watermelon, berries, and meat. she has a sweet tooth like her papa.

she is generous and likes to share the various things i give her throughout the day--a grape tomato, an interesting flower, a chunk of corn on the cob--with the dogs and cat, to varying degrees of appreciation. she rests her head tenderly on the dogs, cat, and once a stone lawn ornament of a boy fishing, her little fanny sticking out dearly behind her.

her tantrums--mostly concerning thwarted plans--are epic, throwing herself to the ground dramatically, head flailing behind her. it is difficult and also strangely wonderful to have entered a new kind of crying, a kind you're supposed to ignore. how liberating it is to just walk away, to not involve myself in the relief of this tiny person's fury. i look forward to the day when this vast determination can be applied to some use besides the pulling of dishes off tables, trying to open various cupboards and drawers of doom, and eating dog food.

there is not much better than the dancing of a very tiny one year old. or, probably any one year old. this kid is tiny though, fifth percentile, but walks and even runs these days with authority and attitude. and yet she's so small, it really looks like it shouldn't be happening. so with the dancing, she's got some pretty good rhythm, and is always willing to bust a move. occasions to dance include but are certainly not limited to: cell phone ring tones, commercial jingles, the bacon sizzling sound effect on her play kitchen. she prefers funk, rap, and soul, especially that 60's beehive hairdo soul. so pretty much anything with backup singers and hand claps. we are very encouraging of the dancing situation. she waggles her neck around a lot, wiggles her fanny, and kind of hops up and down, and we clap and clap.

this fourteen month description would not be complete without mention of the waving. usually double-handed, not so much limp-wristed as hinge-wristed, usually accompanied by a proud and beaming smile. david and i wave this way at each other sometimes, and it looks as if there is almost too much collective wave to handle. sho, an outgoing person, has recently discovered the utilization of the wave in the direction of strangers can have a desired and often predictable outcome, most often a returned wave accompanied by laughter, "why hello!" and "aren't you cute..." all of this is very much to her liking, and so right now she is what could be called an over-waver. if anyone in conversation says anything resembling a greeting, including high or buy, she waves dutifully. our unfortunate waitress yesterday was the recipient of about thirty sho waves, each one more sincere and beaming than the last.

our little chichi monster, we adore you so.

the trenches

[photo credit: dan foley]

when i think about it, i think we are in the parenting trenches. or maybe it's just all trenches from here on out? basic things like eating in peace and having enough rest are systematically routinely denied. but, strangers smile at you. a couple in their eighties smiled so dearly at us today it made me want to cry at the secretary of state. these are the best days, i thought, even though they're so hard. then sho bit a kid shortly thereafter. god she's fierce, sweet too but really fierce. i wonder who she will become.

if she was a dog, we'd be seriously considering putting her down by now.

we got a car! a black buick regal, very fine. a car after nine months of carlessness feels illicitly delicious. it really does feel like it's too good to be true. everything is so easy! i want to buy a car for every single mother carrying a baby and groceries i ever saw on the bus.  some parts of living without a car were lovely--so many adventures from walking to get there--but some parts were grindingly hard.

i'm off to fashion shoshanna the biter a necklace for her to unleash her biting impulses upon, which the internet recommended. i'm thinking some sort of knotted leather. sort of boho-chic with a splash of savage uncontrollable biting tendencies thrown in.

[photo credit: kelsey newnum]

moments in bad parenting

  

every parent has those moments (i hope).  when you're desperate to finish the final thirty seconds of dinner preparation, and hand your infant a tightly fastened bottle of vitamins (while you're standing right there, of course) to shake, shake, shake.  when your kid is coughing hard, and you ask your partner, "should we do the heimlich?  or is she just coughing?" and decide she's fine, before she finally coughs up a shiny, deadly penny, somehow alive in spite of her parents' ineptitude.  or when, during the second hour of trying to get your dear sweet eighteen pound infant to sleep, using an exhausting combination of singing, jiggling, pacing and begging, you say gently, "please, please go to sleep, you little motherfucker!" 

why do i tell you these things?  the truth, it is irresistable.  and i do believe: the kids are all right.

ok here we go

man when you haven't written in awhile, it is like dragging yo ass to the secretary of state.

ok, here we go. well today shoshanna mary bit a kid for the second time at playgroup (pictured above), she is now the BITER. there is really nothing like parenthood to take you down a peg or two. if i ever for a second start feeling like awwshit i got this parenting DOWN dog!--BAM! your kid starts taking two hours to get to sleep at night and is the BITER. the worst part (how to pick just one) was probably when another mother said, "not to make anybody feel bad, but i have some parenting books you can borrow if you like." or no, probably the worst part was seeing the gnarly bite on this kid's arm, right across from the still-healing bite on his other arm from last week! she was wearing tiny pigtails and a dear little red pinafore, and all the other kids went scattering in her wake.

shoshi's favorite toys

[photo credit: vanessa hardy]

1. dog food bowls, preferably full of food she can gobble and water she can soak everything in an eight-mile radius in
2. broom and dustpan
3. six-pack of empty beer bottles
4. any available electrical outlets
5. rocks and dirt, see also plant matter
6. whatever microscopic piece of dirt or filth she can find and place lovingly in her mouth
7. shoes

how did humans make it this far?

the doghouse

i don't know about you, but sometimes i like to spend time thinking about what snapshots of my life will make the cut for the much-touted "life passing before your eyes" death show.   well, if i were in charge of the editing (and who knows, maybe i am), then i had a moment last night that might make it in.

so there are these two dogs who live at the house on the corner, and they live outside.   more specifically, they live chained up in a dirt yard, with one doghouse which only one of them can reach.   i could elaborate further on their lives but the purpose of this blog is not to thoroughly depress its readers.  the weather has been cold in michigan lately, and these dogs have weighed heavily on my mind.   i've made pots of warm bouillon for them and brought it over, and chicken too, but last night the snow just kept falling and falling and the wind was bitingly cold.   david trudged home from a long, long day of work (at his new job!) and we settled in for a cozy evening at home.   but my mind kept going to those doggles.

when we moved in here, we inherited a doghouse that has thus far been used for beer bottle storage purposes.  aha! my mind said.   let's bring it to the dogs!   david was tuckered out though, and it was very late, so we agreed that we'd move it over tomorrow.  but...i just couldn't stop thinking about that dog lying on the frozen ground, wind burrowing into its bones.  i kept telling myself it was just one more night, but it was really getting to me. ever since i was a little kid i've had this thing about the suffering of animals and lonely people in particular, where i really feel it keenly and uncomfortably.  it's kind of the worst.   i didn't say anything but i think david knew what was up.   suddenly, he got up from our warm blanket-strewn couch.   whatcha doin? i said.   moving the doghouse! he said.

MY HERO!   it was eleven o'clock at night, a strange time to move an unannounced doghouse into someone else's yard for a number of reasons, but he was totally on board with my "fuck 'em" attitude.   i'm not a violent person but i would happily punch an animal mistreater in the balls any day o the week. (consider yourself warned!)

so the doghouse turns out to be composed of two parts, roof and house, and it's hard to say which one is ungodly heavier.  not as heavy as my heart thinking about that cold dog, but real close. wheelbarrow and dolly options are both thrown out, the thing is just too big.   the snow is falling very fast and silent, and our street is completely hushed.   sho is asleep upstairs, wrapped in blankets.  the streetlights cast their yellow glow and i can really picture the north side the way it was one hundred years ago, humble houses built by the dutch farmers who would live out the entirety of their simple, hardworking lives within them.   we try rolling the house down the sidewalk, a slow, odd progress. david runs inside and comes back out with our skateboards: we are in business!   we hoist the huge doghouse onto david's new board and suddenly we are zooming down the street, running and pushing the doghouse as fast as we can, laughing with snow in our eyes.   you are my best friend! i yell.   you are my best friend! he yells back.

getting portraity

how i missed you! many apologies for my sudden disappearance. our internet was turned off, but now it's back in business. sometimes i sure feel poor, but then i look across the backyard at our neighbors whose roof consists of a giant blue tarp (in december), and suddenly feel utterly rich. who couldn't feel that way, with the little buckets of love pictured above in our house all the time?  

vanessa and i set up a little portrait studio in our living room recently to immortalize the chunky, bald-headed greatness that is shoshanna mary at seven months. it was pretty fancy. we used two sheets, some bright painting lights, and of course, two black pitbull-ish doggies who are shoshi's best friends to date. vanessa borrowed her stepdad's fancy camera and took these.

can you believe what a little dumpling she is?