You're decidedly less cute at 2:30 in the morning.
Cute
Friday 10 May 2013 | 0 Comments
Month: May 2013
Cute
Maria
"How do you find a word that means 'Maria'?" the nuns ask early in Sound of Music. Showing that she might understand it a little better than I initially would have thought, the Girl calls her own name in response.
Snot
Apparently, there are four sinus cavities.
And while that's three more than I was aware of, they are obviously of a limited volume. Today, though, with the Boy sneezing constantly, they seem more like they're portals to dimensions in which mucus is the dominant substance. In that dimension, scientists are trying to understand the ever-expanding nature of mucus, its uncanny ability to reproduce seemingly ex nihilo.
Fortunately, Babies 'R' Us provides the solution: a small battery-powered vacuum with nostril-sized tip and lovely clear reservoir that sucks. Literally. Graco, the manufacturer, was also kind enough to design in a little electronic distraction: the push of a second button turns the little snot sucker into a music box vacuum.
And so we fall into a routine:
- Sneeze
- Grimace at the strands of snot hanging from the nose
- Grimace at the approaching Snot Sucker
- Realize what the Snot Sucker is doing
- Relax
And of course repeat...
May Afternoon Walk
The Boy, the Girl, and I went out for a walk this afternoon, to see what we could see.
We saw all our lovely neighbors:
- the ones with the sweet but somewhat kitschy flower bed in their front yard, the bed that includes an old screen door leaning against a tree with “Welcome” painted on it;
- the ones that are installing a new driveway on the far side of their house, providing their domicile with twin entrances;
- the ones who work hard to keep the subdivision name sign clean and the planter in front of it planted;
- the ones who seem to have enough people for four houses living under one roof;
- the ones with the lovely ivy growing up their house;
- the ones who have the cute variety of flowers growing along the driveway.
And the ones, busted just today, who were cooking meth in their garage.
These fine folks were taking up the slack caused when our other neighbors (and I use this term loosely, for they all live several, several houses from us, but in the same neighborhood) got slack and were busted just before Thanksgiving 2010.
Photos by the Girl
The Girl took a few shots during our afternoon walk.
Why I should keep a journal
Caught
The Boy is sick -- trapped in the house, in short. Two ears, both infected. Talk of tubes. Worries about effects. We're all caught, I guess. Home from the doctor this morning, though, there was only one thing catching E: sleep.
After a fitful night, I was surprised at how long he lasted before the fists began digging in the eyes, before the fussing began, before the first yawn. When he's sick and fussy, the first morning nap is always a blessing: some coffee, a bit of news on the internet, a chance to catch a moment of calm. But the calm never lasts: I look around and see what a mess a little boy can make in only a couple of hours, and I begin cleaning.
Soon, I'm interrupted: a terrible squawking and fluttering just outside the kitchen door tells me that we have our first victim of the season in our raspberry bush netting. No matter how carefully I hang the netting, with such deliberate overlaps that I then secure with various extemporaneous methods, it never fails: the birds somehow get in and then, unable to get back out, just about destroy the netting in their panic.
Last year, I tried various methods, including going into the netting myself with a tennis racket and herding the bird down to a corner where I can then pick it up and carry it out. (I quit doing that soon after an unexpected turn from a bird resulting in a fluttering pile of feathers beneath the berry vines. I suppose I didn't think things through all that carefully with that method.)
Eventually, this one finds its way out.
Not unlike the Boy's dreams: he is desperate to head out after so much time inside. At dinner, he sees his jacket I left hanging on the back of a chair when we returned from the doctor's office. He grabs it, smiles at us, and begins waving bye-bye.
Sky
After several days of clouds and rain, sky, sun, blue, gold -- it's a small miracle.
Examples
Dear Terrence,
Listening to you talk about what your mother does when she gets drunk, hearing your stories about how your grandmother can curse with the apparent fluency of a cliche sailor, I begin to understand how it is you have so few social skills. You've had no one to teach you these skills, through words or example.
Yet I'm still troubled. You've been in school now for nine years (counting kindergarten and this yet-to-be-completed year). Surely you've seen other students model these social skills you're missing. So what's missing in the equation? Recognition. You see these successful students as simply have a different nature than you, and to an extent, they do. They've learned and internalized behaviors that make them seem like they have a different nature, but in fact, you could be just like that. You just don't recognize it. And unfortunately, no matter how many times I and other teachers tell you this, you won't believe us.
Ever frustrated,
Your Teacher
First
F must have heard it a dozen times today. "You won't remember your baptism," all the "aunts" and "uncles" would have begun, "but you'll always remember your first communion."
The rainy weather will also stick in your memories -- the huddling under umbrellas as you make your way from the parish center to the church, some more others less worried about getting soaked. With so much white on parade, there must have been worries about soiling the all-white outfits so many wore.
But everyone made it inside relatively safely, with F standing toward the rear of his line stiff as a soldier.
"You won't remember your baptism," he would soon hear, but those are words from people baptized in Poland in infancy, like the vast majority of Poles. "You won't remember your baptism" is much like saying "you won't remember your birth," but it's not always quite the case.
Some of us have such a memory. The same priest who baptized me two years ago gave the homily today, the same kind of warm, welcoming homily he always gives. Our dear Father Theo from Columbia, a man from whom his love of God almost glows.
"Welcome, my brothers and sisters, to this holy place," he begins every Mass, and though he says it consistently, it always sounds fresh and inviting.
But today wasn't about the homily, or the hymns, or the responsorial psalm. Today, it was about a group of kids taking their first communion -- as big an event in most Catholic families as a wedding, I'd wager.
Indeed, in a Polish family, the similarities are striking. Both are highly social events, always including a large party afterward with food and drink, conversation into the evening.
