Katherine's phrase du jour is shish kebab. Really not sure what she intends for it to be, but that's certainly what I hear.
"Katherine, do you want some milk?"
"Shish kebab."
"Katherine, where is your baby doll?"
"Shish kebab."
"Katherine, it's time to go night-night.. "
"No-wee-shish-kebab-no-weeeee!!!"
She also looks you directly in the eye, very seriously, and babbles incoherently for, oh, ten minutes at a stretch. If you smile and nod occasionally, and throw in a few "I know"s and "Really?"s, she doesn't require much from her audience in the way of feedback. When she's done talking, she nods definitively as if confirming that her point has been established, and wanders away.
I think she's practicing for her valedictorian speech at Harvard. Or Yale. One o' them kudzoo places.
Christmas was wonderful. It poured down rain all day long, making everything warm and cozy inside and inspiring me to shower and put on clean pajamas in preparation to spend the day not leaving the house. And I didn't!
I did, however, have to roast the turkey since Steven couldn't fry it in the rain. Unprepared for such a turn of events (it doesn't rain on Christmas!), I had to work with what I had on hand and a little help from Alton Brown on roasting times. Turns out that slathering anything in butter, garlic, and lemon juice, sprinkling it liberally with salt and pepper, and stuffing it with celery and onions yields good things. It's times like these that I'm glad I'm an ad libber in the kitchen.
I recommend that everyone have four Christmases each year. That's what we did: One with my sister and her three boys the day before Christmas Eve. Then Christmas Eve with my parents. Then Christmas the real thing, then a trip to Houston for Christmas with Steven's family. All were worth all of the December madness we all have to endure before the big day actually arrives. Alex enjoyed every second of his time with both sets of grandparents and both sets of cousins, and Katherine enjoyed the chaos, the wrapping paper, and the zoo. (Except for the part of the zoo where she approached a deceptively adorable little British boy who balled up a fist and socked her in the nose. She was not upset, per se, but she was baffled.)
For some reason, Christmas decorations and all things related to the holiday become hopelessly depressing as soon as it's over. That's why I was itching to get ours down. The tree was dismantled and taken to the recycle place yesterday (Alex was thrilled to learn our tree's new incarnation will be as a fish habitat in the Cahaba River), and I've pretty much found a home for all the new toys and assemblage of "stuff." My grandmother's cedar chest is now doing double duty as our coffee table and a cleverly incognito toy box. Although until I find some hinge locks it's not usable as much more than a digit guillotine.
I can't believe 2011 is over already. In fact, I'll probably have to write another blog post later if you'll pardon my spam. I need to reflect on the year past.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Brace yourself. This one's a downer.
As I sit here, choking down a sugary-plastic-coated Christmas-tree-shaped snack cake decorated with green sugar dots and red sugar lines, I feel compelled to write a post about death.
Wait. Don't call anyone. I'll explain.
Lately it's been on my mind a lot, usually there and gone like things we don't enjoy pondering too closely tend to do, but fleeting thoughts are thoughts, and I've been thinking. I have friends who have lost people recently: A mother. A grandmother. A baby. I know of people who have lost people recently. A son. A wife. I know people who probably won't be with us much longer: An uncle. Mine, in fact.
And then there are those who will step out unexpectedly, without warning or time to finish all those little things we tell ourselves we'll finish later. Because it's cliche, but there's not always a later. And one thing that's guaranteed is that we all, at some point, preferably later than sooner, will run out of later.
My husband sent me a spreadsheet of things I would need to know "in case." I hated that. As much as I know it's something we all have to entertain at some point in life, just looking at the words and numbers he'd entered into little Excel cells made me want to cry. I didn't, which is a small miracle. I'm known for my tendency to tear up at the very mention of tears.
My parents have told me where to find their important afterthings. I need to know, I suppose, but I don't want to know. Or, rather, I don't want to need to know. Ever. Ever.
I don't want to do it, I don't want anyone I know to do it. And it has nothing to do with my faith. I happen to believe in God, and heaven, and an afterlife that involves reunions with those who have gone before us ... including my childhood dog Bonnie, who will probably be too busy being snobbish to the other dogs to even notice when I step through the pearly gates.
I envision the scene that could play out if the odds were to screw us over: a bunch of people standing in a circle around our two crazy kids, eyeing them with trepidation, mentally calculating school clothes, grocery bills, and college funds, willing themselves not to be the first to say "one, two, three, NOT-IT!"
"It." Always "it." Because I don't even like to type the word. Does anyone? We euphemize the hell out of it: lost, passed, went, is gone, didn't make it ... but it all boils down to that word no one wants to say. It seems to be the most widespread and longstanding of all human superstitions. I mean, I'm not going to stand in front of the mirror with the lights off chanting Bloody Mary; I don't walk under ladders; I can't stand the numbers 3, 6, and 13 (don't ask me about the middle one; it doesn't make sense). I don't, however, throw spilled salt over my shoulder because I don't like a mess.
So I don't say that "D" word any more than I have to. Sure, the plant died. Okay, the battery died. Even, Lord help me, the car died.
But nothing else. Ever.
Sorry for the downer of a post, but it's on my mind. It. And I needed to get It out if I'm ever going to sleep tonight.
If I know you, it's pretty darn likely that I love you or at least LIKE you. (I pretty much like most people unless they are mean to my kids, rude to waiters, or carpool line cutters.) So be careful. Say your prayers. Don't break mirrors or open umbrellas inside or say things like, "What's the worst that could happen?" or, like that notorious fool on the Titanic: "God himself could not sink this ship."
Sure, it's likely nothing will happen if you do any of those things. But you won't see ME chancing it. And don't be surprised if, when I catch YOU chancing it, I body check you.
Wait. Don't call anyone. I'll explain.
Lately it's been on my mind a lot, usually there and gone like things we don't enjoy pondering too closely tend to do, but fleeting thoughts are thoughts, and I've been thinking. I have friends who have lost people recently: A mother. A grandmother. A baby. I know of people who have lost people recently. A son. A wife. I know people who probably won't be with us much longer: An uncle. Mine, in fact.
And then there are those who will step out unexpectedly, without warning or time to finish all those little things we tell ourselves we'll finish later. Because it's cliche, but there's not always a later. And one thing that's guaranteed is that we all, at some point, preferably later than sooner, will run out of later.
My husband sent me a spreadsheet of things I would need to know "in case." I hated that. As much as I know it's something we all have to entertain at some point in life, just looking at the words and numbers he'd entered into little Excel cells made me want to cry. I didn't, which is a small miracle. I'm known for my tendency to tear up at the very mention of tears.
My parents have told me where to find their important afterthings. I need to know, I suppose, but I don't want to know. Or, rather, I don't want to need to know. Ever. Ever.
I don't want to do it, I don't want anyone I know to do it. And it has nothing to do with my faith. I happen to believe in God, and heaven, and an afterlife that involves reunions with those who have gone before us ... including my childhood dog Bonnie, who will probably be too busy being snobbish to the other dogs to even notice when I step through the pearly gates.
I envision the scene that could play out if the odds were to screw us over: a bunch of people standing in a circle around our two crazy kids, eyeing them with trepidation, mentally calculating school clothes, grocery bills, and college funds, willing themselves not to be the first to say "one, two, three, NOT-IT!"
"It." Always "it." Because I don't even like to type the word. Does anyone? We euphemize the hell out of it: lost, passed, went, is gone, didn't make it ... but it all boils down to that word no one wants to say. It seems to be the most widespread and longstanding of all human superstitions. I mean, I'm not going to stand in front of the mirror with the lights off chanting Bloody Mary; I don't walk under ladders; I can't stand the numbers 3, 6, and 13 (don't ask me about the middle one; it doesn't make sense). I don't, however, throw spilled salt over my shoulder because I don't like a mess.
So I don't say that "D" word any more than I have to. Sure, the plant died. Okay, the battery died. Even, Lord help me, the car died.
But nothing else. Ever.
Sorry for the downer of a post, but it's on my mind. It. And I needed to get It out if I'm ever going to sleep tonight.
If I know you, it's pretty darn likely that I love you or at least LIKE you. (I pretty much like most people unless they are mean to my kids, rude to waiters, or carpool line cutters.) So be careful. Say your prayers. Don't break mirrors or open umbrellas inside or say things like, "What's the worst that could happen?" or, like that notorious fool on the Titanic: "God himself could not sink this ship."
Sure, it's likely nothing will happen if you do any of those things. But you won't see ME chancing it. And don't be surprised if, when I catch YOU chancing it, I body check you.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Facebook? Yes, please.
So let's talk about Facebook. Sometimes I think to myself, "Self? You post entirely too often on Facebook. It makes you look needy/overthinky/not busy enough to do other things." But for me, it's not about showcasing my kids (though I do plenty of that) or detailing my mundanity (though I do PLENTY of that) or spouting bumper sticker platitudes (I'm honestly not sure if I do that or not, but tell me if I do and I'll try to stop).
It started when I lost my job. That sounds so innocuous, "lost my job." I, along with people I cared about and people I started caring about the second we were thrown in the dinghy together, were ripped out of the fabric of an institution that has been idealized from what it was but which, for better or for worse, has become the yardstick by which I measure all other organizations. Not that I know a lot about those, really. I got a job almost immediately after being cast out of what has become Eden in my absurdly revisionist memory.
I had some great friends there. I have those great friends still. But I wonder sometimes if I would, had I not jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.
And then it became something more. A new job that didn't agree with me and at which I was slowly losing skills I'd spent almost a decade honing, coupled with my inherent ability to miss people from the tips of my toes kept me clinging, and clinging hard.
And then it became something more. I quit that job, came home to raise a baby and try my hand at trying my hand on my own. On the days I felt like a shut-in, or on the days I felt like I was doing it wrong, all of it, and had no illusions of anything but continuing to do it all wrong till the end of time, I used it like a life raft.
And now? Now it's more about keeping those ties that would've probably been severed long ago. That, and keeping myself from going stir-crazy in a house with only a busy and often-baffling one-and-a-half-year-old and two senior golden retrievers to keep me company.
It's a touchstone. And so I use it. Forgive me if I use it too often, and if you're sick of hearing about my plans for the day or the latest weird thing Katherine did or the latest unintentionally funny thing Alex did or why I love life one day and want to run away to Fiji the next ... well, feel free to defriend me, and I'll pretend I didn't notice.
A blog, on the other hand, feels like a safe place to blather on as I tend to do if given half a chance, and so here we are. I would tell you that Alex is driving me nuts with his perfectionistic tendencies which clash spectacularly with his newfound interest in origami tutorials on YouTube, or that Katherine has started speaking Swahili, best I can tell, or that the workflow is either white-water-rapids fast or stagnant like a swamp, or that my attempts to climb back on the diet-and-exercise train have all but failed because "idunwanna" has become a viable excuse ... but it's getting on up toward my bedtime and I never write more than I can conceivably complete to my satisfaction before I fall into bed.
So this is the Julie version of the short story: Tonight Katherine was the cutest thing I've ever seen, wearing nothing but tights over a diaper, belly hanging over the top of the tights, babbling incoherently at Charlie because she wasn't taking the pieces of dog food K was trying to shove between her teeth. Tonight Alex told me I'm the best mom ever and then, later, insisted (against my protests) that I'm "disappointed at" him because he's "only" on Level L books. (Which, fwiw, is equivalent to a third grade reading level.) Tonight I had soup for dinner and pizza for a pre-bedtime snack, which is probably one of the reasons I'm not exactly meeting my weight-loss goals at the rapid clip I had hoped for.
Tonight I had a fleeting idea for a story, maybe even a book, and then I lost it because the Dexter season finale broke my brain.
Tonight Katherine decorated our Christmas tree with tampons and I found my new lipstick floating in the glass of water I keep by my bed.
Tonight Alex slipped and called Steven "Daddy" instead of "Dad," and my heart broke just a little.
And who knows what tomorrow will bring? I'll likely put the highlights (or the lowlights) on Facebook, for my own reasons and against my better judgment. I might tell the world how much it sucks that you miss someone the most when you know you won't be seeing them for a while. Or how hard it is to not tell your kid to hang on for another week, he'll have real origami paper come Christmas and not have to make his origami ninja stars out of random pieces of looseleaf. Or how my heart leaks out of my body when Katherine appears out of nowhere, wraps her arms around my leg, and says, "Mwah!" Or how Alex and I are reading books by the same author. Or how much I love my friends and their ability to say the rightest possible thing at the rightest possible time. Or how weird I think it is that spell-check didn't put a squiggly red line under "rightest" just then.
For now, I'm going to read a chapter of my terrible teen horror novel, wish that I had the patience and the time to write one of my own, and then hope I can sleep and that Katherine's snot doesn't wake her up so that we're both equally cranky in the morning.
Because I have work to do. And she has messes to make.
Life is sweet, messy, maddening, and worth it.
It started when I lost my job. That sounds so innocuous, "lost my job." I, along with people I cared about and people I started caring about the second we were thrown in the dinghy together, were ripped out of the fabric of an institution that has been idealized from what it was but which, for better or for worse, has become the yardstick by which I measure all other organizations. Not that I know a lot about those, really. I got a job almost immediately after being cast out of what has become Eden in my absurdly revisionist memory.
I had some great friends there. I have those great friends still. But I wonder sometimes if I would, had I not jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.
And then it became something more. A new job that didn't agree with me and at which I was slowly losing skills I'd spent almost a decade honing, coupled with my inherent ability to miss people from the tips of my toes kept me clinging, and clinging hard.
And then it became something more. I quit that job, came home to raise a baby and try my hand at trying my hand on my own. On the days I felt like a shut-in, or on the days I felt like I was doing it wrong, all of it, and had no illusions of anything but continuing to do it all wrong till the end of time, I used it like a life raft.
And now? Now it's more about keeping those ties that would've probably been severed long ago. That, and keeping myself from going stir-crazy in a house with only a busy and often-baffling one-and-a-half-year-old and two senior golden retrievers to keep me company.
It's a touchstone. And so I use it. Forgive me if I use it too often, and if you're sick of hearing about my plans for the day or the latest weird thing Katherine did or the latest unintentionally funny thing Alex did or why I love life one day and want to run away to Fiji the next ... well, feel free to defriend me, and I'll pretend I didn't notice.
A blog, on the other hand, feels like a safe place to blather on as I tend to do if given half a chance, and so here we are. I would tell you that Alex is driving me nuts with his perfectionistic tendencies which clash spectacularly with his newfound interest in origami tutorials on YouTube, or that Katherine has started speaking Swahili, best I can tell, or that the workflow is either white-water-rapids fast or stagnant like a swamp, or that my attempts to climb back on the diet-and-exercise train have all but failed because "idunwanna" has become a viable excuse ... but it's getting on up toward my bedtime and I never write more than I can conceivably complete to my satisfaction before I fall into bed.
So this is the Julie version of the short story: Tonight Katherine was the cutest thing I've ever seen, wearing nothing but tights over a diaper, belly hanging over the top of the tights, babbling incoherently at Charlie because she wasn't taking the pieces of dog food K was trying to shove between her teeth. Tonight Alex told me I'm the best mom ever and then, later, insisted (against my protests) that I'm "disappointed at" him because he's "only" on Level L books. (Which, fwiw, is equivalent to a third grade reading level.) Tonight I had soup for dinner and pizza for a pre-bedtime snack, which is probably one of the reasons I'm not exactly meeting my weight-loss goals at the rapid clip I had hoped for.
Tonight I had a fleeting idea for a story, maybe even a book, and then I lost it because the Dexter season finale broke my brain.
Tonight Katherine decorated our Christmas tree with tampons and I found my new lipstick floating in the glass of water I keep by my bed.
Tonight Alex slipped and called Steven "Daddy" instead of "Dad," and my heart broke just a little.
And who knows what tomorrow will bring? I'll likely put the highlights (or the lowlights) on Facebook, for my own reasons and against my better judgment. I might tell the world how much it sucks that you miss someone the most when you know you won't be seeing them for a while. Or how hard it is to not tell your kid to hang on for another week, he'll have real origami paper come Christmas and not have to make his origami ninja stars out of random pieces of looseleaf. Or how my heart leaks out of my body when Katherine appears out of nowhere, wraps her arms around my leg, and says, "Mwah!" Or how Alex and I are reading books by the same author. Or how much I love my friends and their ability to say the rightest possible thing at the rightest possible time. Or how weird I think it is that spell-check didn't put a squiggly red line under "rightest" just then.
For now, I'm going to read a chapter of my terrible teen horror novel, wish that I had the patience and the time to write one of my own, and then hope I can sleep and that Katherine's snot doesn't wake her up so that we're both equally cranky in the morning.
Because I have work to do. And she has messes to make.
Life is sweet, messy, maddening, and worth it.
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