a top event in our day is when i play marvin gaye's greatest hits. sho never fails to commence her bouncy dance moves upon the first notes. i shake my booty in her face, and she shrieks with laughter. marvin gaye and messy art projects, the two daily standards by which i judge my parental success. today i poured some paint into a cookie sheet and let her mooosh it around, then put down a few sheets of cardstock to immortalize the artistic genius.
she seems happy.

shoshanna mary at 20 months

oh, cheeky, you are my perfect thing.

i was watching some inane television show last night where a woman's daughter was murdered, which seems to be the content of about 80% of television these days, the other 20% being the kardashians, and was surprised to find tears pouring down my face at the very idea. send me any varietal of despair, just keep sho safe please please.

despair would be my bedfellow these days, except actually shoshanna mary is, and what a lovely bedfellow she is. soft and sweet and fierce, what more could i ever ask for in a life partner?

oh the pronunciation, first and foremost. yellow is a gleeful "lalooo, lalooo!"  she says thank you all the time; my months of etiquette training are finally paying off with a most sincere, "hank-ooo!" to everyone, including sandy the pony at meijer's, and the guy who gives us a parking ticket outside the museum.  somehow the saddest of all is her "ooops...sah-wee" when she does anything from bump into you to dispense her entire jell-o snack-pack on the carpet.

oh kiddo, i'm such a mess right now. i love you so desperately, and i'm just thankful you are too little to absorb much of what i'm talking about with my girlfriends as you try on their necklaces and rings, and count their change which you carefully dispense into a yellow owl bank, while we discuss the a-s-s-h-a-t who is your dad.

but i know i don't have long for this wallowing. it's time to focus on what's real and true, mainly my love for you and my ability to do something about it. it's time to move past this dream papa i had in mind for you, and investigate the reality of the situation. which is that you are the coolest kid who ever lived, and good lord i'm lucky to have you. we will figure it all out from there, together.

dang, there's something so life-affirming about taking the plunge and buying an entire, full-size bag of funyuns. it represents a commitment to health and class that few are willing to take.

david and i aren't together anymore.  shoshi and i are living at my parents' house for now.  this is quite sudden and really hard, and that's about all i want to say about it for now.  i am thankful sho is too young to remember this.

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.