the pieces of my life

The news is, of course, depressing. Adam has been hit especially hard about the terrible events on the other side of the world. And while I find myself saddened, it’s the more horrifying events closer to home that paralyze me. Acts of nature frighten me and worry me and make me ache for all those people, especially the children. But living in the Boston area, the local news is so shocking, I can’t even begin to comment. So many murders and maimings and just, what seem to me, to be random acts of violence.

But today, today I read the story that has forced me to say, once again, I cannot read the newspaper. Not the local one, anyway. This story (which will be archived soon but the headline says it all) just sickens and scares me like nothing else. I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but I’m not sure what else I can do!

According to Parents magazine, “By 18 months, [my] baby is finally developing abilities a chimp never will.” Could that be? Is it true? Just a little over a month until my baby is smarter than a monkey!!!??!! Oh, how I’ve longed for this day to come!

We have a lovely 10-year-old neighbor, E., who wants experience babysitting. I have an active toddler who never gives me a moment to breathe, never mind blog, clean, work, etc. So we’ve decided that E. will come over once a week to work as a mother’s helper. It’s an ideal situation–I can get stuff done in the house during the day while I still have the energy to do it.

Only there’s something about hiring a 10 year old that makes me feel so, well, old! Whenever I’m around kids, my first thought is always, “Cool! Someone to play with!” But then it hits me: I’m twenty-six years older than she is. I constantly have to remind myself, I’m not a kid anymore. I may feel like a kid. I may act like a kid. But to the genuine kids out there, I’m a grown-up and a full-fledged one at that.

It’s more extreme than just the Talking Heads “And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife and you may ask yourself–well…how did I get here?” Because I stare at that little wonder wandering around the living room, the one who demands, “Ishes!” and “Up!” and just think, “Where did he come from? How did that little thing possibly come from me?” It’s just shocking. Awe inducing. This little man forming his own personality somehow emerged a long, long time ago from me. Weird.

And yet the 10 year olds still think I’m old. What do they know?

“Ishes” is Doodles’s word for “fishes,” which is of course his word for “fish.” (And yes we encourage the grammatically incorrect pronunciation–it’s just too cute to not encourage). And he gets it right… most of the time. At the Lexington library is a fish tank and he runs up making the sign for fish and exclaiming, “ishes! ishes!” When he’s hungry and wants Goldfish, the little hand goes crazy and it’s “ishes!” But then, for some reason, the baseball on Adam’s Faith Rewarded DVD, which honestly does look a little underwater-ish is also “ishes.” And in his Barney alphabet book, he gets quite excited over the squash and the zucchini, declaring with utter certainty, “ishes!” Good thing we don’t keep a garden. He’d be pulling out the zucchini, declaring them too small, and tossing them back.

The kid has become a dancing machine. And what he loves dancing to most is jazz. We have a really cheap CD player in his room, and I’ll turn on the CD for him. He’ll shake his little butt around and grin. And then he’ll lean over and turn the music off. He’ll stand for a moment and realize what he’s done, so he’ll lean back forward to turn the music back on. Then he’ll shake his little butt again for a few minutes. And then, of course, he turns the music off. Over and over and over until I can’t stand it anymore and I turn the CD off.

Another game that provides hours (well, 20 minutes, which in Doodle time is the same as hours) of enjoyment. I sit in the glider in his room, trying my mightiest to read. Doodles walks over to me with his Red Sox hat, pointing that he wants me to put it on his head. So I do. He walks across the room, tripping over whatever is in his path, to the table with his Lamaze mirror. He admires himself in the mirror, patting his head a few times. Then he pulls the hat off, declaring, “Off!” Then he walks back to me, tripping over the same toys, and demands I put the hat back on him. This can happen fifteen, twenty times. Then I give up and turn the CD player back on. Lather rinse repeat. Welcome insanity.

Doodles is at the stage where he can follow simple orders–as well as willfully disobey them. For instance, he likes to sit in our arm chair. But he has to understand that chairs are for tushies. So he’ll stand and I’ll stay in my new stern mom voice, “Doodles, sit!” (Dogs, babies, they respond to the same type of thing). He’ll look at me, smile, let his tush graze the seat and within the next second is standing again.

He also loves to answer questions. Things such as “Where’s your nose?” “What does a doggie say?” But he gets really excited sometimes to answer that he quickly answers with the answer to the previous question. “Doodles, what does a doggie say?” “Oof! Oof!” “Doodles, what does a she–” “Oof, off!” “Doodles, a sheep. What does a sheep say?” “Aaaa. Aaaaa.” “What does a bee–” “Aaaa. Aaaa.”

Middlesex Community College, here he comes!

–My father’s screen saver is a series of twin primes. I think that says all that needs to be said about my father.

–At a large family gathering, my horrified cousin-in-law, Jennifer, said, “Ohmygod, you son is eating his shoe.” I looked down and sure enough he had his tiny little Nike crammed halfway into his mouth. And as I reminded Jennifer, a child with a shoe in his mouth is a child who is not screaming.

–Five minutes later, Jennifer, in a slightly more horrified voice, said, “Ohmygod, your child has a knife in his mouth!” I looked down and shrugged, “It’s plastic.” Call it hunch, but I don’t think Jennifer is going to ask me to baby sit anytime soon.

–If you have a house full of plastic kitchen appliances, old catalogs, and a few baby toys, what would you give your sixteen-month-old great grandson to play with? What’s that you say? Antique music boxes? Excellent! We didn’t want those for posterity anyway.

–Nothing, apparently, is more fun than balconies. Running across them. Climbing up the rails. Screaming on them. Balconies rock.

–An odd parental moment: I’m at my grandparent house where Jennifer’s son, Milo, and our cousin Brandon are playing together. Brandon and Milo had huge pieces of cake, upon while Milo added ice cream and whipped cream. He consumed it all and then headed for the fridge where he pulled out a bottle of Coke. In my pre-Doodles years, I would thought, “Mmmm!” But this odd feeling came over me, and all I could think of was this wired child at 9 p.m. So I actually said, “Um, Milo, I don’t think your mother would want you to have that.” And to his credit, Milo hung his head slightly, said, “I know,” and stuck it back in the fridge.

–Not minutes later, Adam also had a similar odd parental moment, but acted upon it with less success. Milo didn’t want to leave Brandon when his father came to pick him up. Adam, Milo, Doodles, and Brandon were in the garage playing with Brandon’s new puppy. “Quick, hide me!” Milo beseeched Brandon. After a brief consultation, Milo headed for the corner. “My dad will find me here! I’ll hide in the garbage can.” Adam, as he tells it, had this odd feeling come over him. I’m a parent now. Should I stop this child from climbing into a garbage can?. But being the obviously less-responsible parent, Adam merely said, “Um, Milo, is the trash can clean?” And when the response was affirmative and Milo was inside with the lid on, Adam did have the sense to ask, “Milo, can you breathe in there?” I’m guessing Adam won’t be asked to baby sit either.

–New Years rocked. Despite my insistence that the New Year’s party be baby friendly, Doodles got sick and we showed sans baby (my mother baby sat). And it was a blast! Oliver and Jennifer throw quite the shindig and it was a blast getting to spend the evening with some of my favorite people (and my new favorite person: Max, you are the hottest thing west of the Mississippi!).

The following blog was pre-recorded before a live studio audience. It had been the intent of this blogger to chronicle her trip back home to Miami as a live-in-progress event, but due to technical difficulties, we are instead offering you these pre-written, yet never-before seen, blog entries.

I didn’t realize until Eugene pointed it out that our friend Jason is behind CelebSafari. So of course, I had to support a friend’s site and I submited this and this. You never knew I had such connections, did you?

Adam is a geek. A card-carrying geek. It’s a well-documented fact. And, while I don’t think I qualify as a true geek, I’m certainly a geek wannabe. So why is it a surprise that our child, at the ripe old age of 16 months, is already a computer addict?

How much time does he get at the computer. Oh, I’d say pretty much none. He likes to sit on our lap while we’re on the computer and try to bang on the keys, but we discourage it. I’ll sometimes put an old keyboard on the floor for him to play with. And we do own one little kiddie computer game, but I’ve only let him play it twice in the past four months. Going to the library these days is a disaster as he heads straight for the computers and points and whines until I’m able to turn up all the keyboards and move all the mice (is that the plural for a computer mouse? Sounds funny) out of reach.

So is it any surprise that when we went to a playsapce with a computer, Doodles made a beeline for it and refused to budge from it for the two hours we were there. It wasn’t so bad when it was off, but the “kind” director said, “Oh, there’s a game on there,” and proceeded to turn the thing on before I could say, “No, thanks.” Doodles, of course, couldn’t play the game as he can’t press specific keys nor can he manipulate the mouse properly. But it’s not for lack of trying.

Other kids wanted to play with the computer. I wanted my child to run around, wear himself out good. So after a more-than-reasonable amount of time, I took him. Oh, the howls that could be heard cross town. Major meltdown time. I was able to distract him–for about five minutes. And then back to the computer. Sigh. What should I have expected?