Crumbs

As Gillian fills my bedroom with the aroma of Vicks and the sound of Darth Vader with a chest cold (and insomnia for me), I am reflecting on a happier scene a few days ago.

I use to think Barney was the spawn of Satan. But, as nauseating sticky sweet as it is (what with all those Elysian cheeky-smiling, well mannered, polite, and respectful children), there is something to be said for teaching my daughter this:


There are worse things than a saccharine display of adoration by your devoted (at least in that particular moment) toddler.

Other universes

Today Gillian informed me that she made a Tweety-bird sandwich, alternately saying "tweet tweet" and "bok-bok, Mama"! Then she acted like a big monster and gobbled him up. Most gleefully his head, leaving a tiny bit left which she called "baby bird". She popped baby bird in her mouth and said YUM YUM! Then she told me she had a "fat belly" and that her tummy was full.

There are more than a few things I wish people had told me before I had a child. Whether or not I would have actually listened is another story. But I wish I realized how imagining things totally does it...so much that we didn't need to buy 70% of the things we own. Case in point-Gillian adores her pet rocks. If we happen by a particular yard, which happens to have a lovely assortment of rocks for ground cover, Gillian can pick ONE rock to bring home (this decision is not made lightly-it requires time and study and false starts). These gets faces and names immediately. They have a good life here. She made them an umbrella one fine day a few months ago (when she was neck deep in her umbrella phase), then decided the umbrella and "Bob" the Rock needed a table and chairs. Then they (Bob and his friends Rocky, Betty, Elliot, and Bug) needed a pool and kick boards like they have at the city pool we were frequenting at the time. The latest is that at their parties, they need cups and plates. My favorite of things is when I am holding one of the rocks and she gets right up in its face and says something like, "Do you want to go swimming in the pool, Bob??" like she's making an offer that is impossible to refuse. At bedtime, she tucks them in (her three favorites and toy ladybug) a cradle next to her bed and covers them tenderly with a washcloth blanket.

And who needs Matchbox City when you have posterboard and a marker to draw streets, houses, schools, and grocery stores with?? Gillian would have a MUCH harder time walking through town like a "big RA RA!" if the town was anything but flat.

I love these universes where everything is sentient. Everything can speak. Everything can dream. I want to live here full time. Life would be so Chocolate Factory-like. The second best thing, though, is having an imaginative child to lead you back to Neverland.

Fall again

It's the time of year when the trees lose their hair, and the ground gets covered in my favorite canyon tones-tree petals of gold and red and brown. The fall always feels so familiar somehow, so beautifully melancholy. A transition time between lush and barren. I always remember thinking on the big changes occuring this time of year...that my life mirrored the transition I observed everywhere around me. Gillian finally came home to us in the Fall. Auspicious things are happening this Fall for us, and seem to indicate that the next year will be ours to make of it what we will-even more so than usual.

Maybe it's the crisp clean air that makes me feel eternally optimistic right now. Maybe it's seeing that same sentiment emanating from others.... like the sweetness of the very young couple at the park the other day-I could feel their new love radiating out of their shy flirtation and lingering touches, and not so vague innuendos. I basked in it. It was lovely. And the Tibetan man and his son bridging two cultures and enjoying this playground in America, Chicago, so far from home... The son wore a Winnie the Poo sweatshirt on top of his traditional clothing and had the smilingest eyes I have yet to see in a child that young. Like he already knew the Great Secret. Maybe he does... At the playground that day, there were five languages being spoken and I had one of those moments when I was struck by how I love that Gillian will grow up surrounded by and appreciating so many different kinds of people. And I am grateful for that.

So the days march forward, and we are necessarily tumbling along with them. We are purging the excesses of summer now, preparing for the cleansing cold of the winter, and the rebirth of spring. The nights are growing longer and the days shorter for a while, until the last bit of life seems still. Once we remember where we come from, everything moves actively toward life again. This cycle is beautiful, really.

We are changing, and our girl is changing...fluid and transient. She is entering little girlhood. She likes getting her toenails painted and wearing daisy hairclips and cooking in her kitchen. As always in Fall, I wait with bated breath to see what and where the world will bring us. So far, no complaints because God is Good.

Savvy

Another little anecdote-this one is about dinner tonight. Gillian was being silly, and, being wise to the dozen cupcakes on the counter that had miraculously made it through 24 hours in the house, asked for one. I sized up how much of the food I had given her that actually made it to her stomach, and told her she needed to eat two more bites before she could have a cupcake. She then proceeded to negotiate. "One bite, Mama." Then took it a step further, picking up a single black bean from the plate. "One BEAN!" (Note: I told her that didn't count, and she did, in the end, eat Two BIG BITES with a spoon, and got her chocolate cupcake).

Grammar and Toddlers

Me to Gillian: Honey, can you give it to me, Please?
Gillian to me: NO, MY THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't help but love her clever supplemental word in the place of an object of which she cannot yet name. I told her it was, in fact, a Tupperware. To this she replied, "More tupperwares?"

Lightening speed

Gillian is growing like a weed. No, she's growing like a bolt of lightening. Quick and sharp and loud. She speaks in full sentences. She sings a good bit of the words of songs ("You are my Sunshine" and "I'm a little teapot" and (just yesterday) "Lollipop" are new to her repertoire). She draws monsters "with buttons" that have eyes, noses, and "mowfs". And she has added "Oh, Boy" to her exploding vocabulary for emphasis. For example, "Oh Boy, Mama, the monster [has] BIG HAIR" (while drawing) or "Ice cream, Mama, Oh Boy!". Since she has just recently gotten wise to gender (interestingly NOT because she has seen private parts as justification, but just because), I wonder what she thinks that expression means, exactly. Nonni happened to say "Oh, Boy Gilly!" her first hour here when they came to visit last week, and now it's an immutable part of Gillian's vernacular. But, the point is well made that we REALLY (and I mean, for REAL) need to watch what we say and how we say it. I've even taken to saying to the cat on the dining room table, "Excuse me, Kitty, time to get down" as politely as if I were talking to my grandma as to not encourage Gillian's inner hellion. Just yesterday, she told me to "wait there" and that she would "be back in a minute". Later, she told her toy Bug, "just a second" as she walked away to get something. These were before she started down the hall with her basket telling us she was going to work and that she would see us later. It is insane the clip that kids this age pick things up that adults say and do. Her imagination fascinates me too...tonight she picked up the coasters (out of the blue) and told me she was eating a sandwich. I asked her to make me one, and she brought me a book. We ate our sandwiches with lots of YUM YUM YUMs in between.

Last week Nonni and Grandaddy (who, for all intents and purposes will hitherto be called "Gaga" since Gillian doesn't concern herself with learning the proper way to say it) came to visit. I took the week off, and for the first time, really took advantage of all the help. I cleaned out my desk and my file cabinet (and if you aren't in awe, you don't understand what that means-I'm talking "insurance policies from 1993" kind of packratting). I shredded till my shredder shut down in protest, taking a nap until it could bear to eat one more electric bill from 1998. I moved my bookshelves into the living room to make room for Gillian's new playroom in my office (I am selling the desk and file cabinet. They are beautiful and solid oak, together weigh approximately 3 tons, and we will deliver in the City. Interested?). I secured the bookshelves, anchoring them to the wall in my paranoia of having them come crashing down on my child or someone else's should they decide to scale the shelves in search of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche or the particulars of atmopsheric chemistry. I also cleaned and reorganized the hall closet, which is equally miraculous given it's previous state of disarray and how claustrophobic it felt to walk in there. Now it feels simply expansive. And my cluttered head breathes easier.

S and I enjoyed the help. We went out a few nights (btw-GiGi is now making a delicious Chocolate Martini at the O if anyone in RP is interested), slept in (after making a delivery of The Bean to the grandparents at 7 am), and didn't have to cook. It was heavenly. Gillian, who adores Nonni and Grandaddy, was on every day all day. She could barely stand to go to bed, and the first thing out of her mouth after calling us to come get her in the morning was something about Nonni and having a tea party. And, those of you who know my very extroverted Gillian are well aware that she adores and thrives on attention. She got plenty. We were worried about how she would do when the party was over-when the beloved grandparents had to go home-and we got back to business as usual. Interestingly, Monday she didn't seem to notice they were gone, but she didn't eat much. Tuesday and yesterday she was grouchy and still not eating much. We Skyped yesterday and when Nonni said she had to go, Gilly started crying (real tears) and telling Nonni not to go, but to come play with her (this was lump-in-throat inducing for me). So, her sadness has manifested in a different kind of way. Maybe not verbally, but she misses them. So Much.

All this has made me think good and hard about what it means to have support nearby when you are raising a family-emotionally and physically. It is really tough to be away from our family. That said, it makes us appreciate our friends and our family that much more.

Here are some moments from the past week that I wanted to share:

(Extra B-day)

Tea Party with Nonni

I wonder when the last time Gaga got on a slide was??

Playing music with Gaga

G swinging Elmo

G and Nonni being silly at Brookfield Zoo...

The 'hood

A couple of weeks ago, at about 5:40ish I heard 5 or 6 gun shots through the window. I heard a car tear down the street shortly afterward. Turns out there was a shooting ONE BLOCK away from our condo that morning. This is not the first time we have had a shooting so close (I can think of a few in the past year). The street a block away is a haven for drug dealers, thugs, and gang members. It is *almost* a ghetto near the train station. Frankly, every now and then it scares the hell out of me to have a young child near the riff-raff I see over there sometimes. One day my mother-in-law was out with G pushing the stroller through the middle of a bunch of kids on the sidewalk. They were on the way home from the little family grocery on the Sketchy Street when a car slowed down and pointed a cap gun at the crowd of kids, then they all shouted "GUN!" and hitting the ground. Even though that gun looked real, it wasn't, but it COULD HAVE BEEN.

Here's the ironic thing about gang members-they have remarkably bad aim. They always seem to target one person (usually another gang member) and inadvertantly shoot the 5 year old birthday girl, or the honor student leaving for college in two weeks, or the pregnant mother of two. It's all tragic, but my worries are about my blameless, pure-lit girl getting caught in the crosshairs. It's city living, after all...

It's funny, because in safe Florida, we didn't even lock doors. Maybe that is a thing of the past. I struggle with my concerns because I love the diversity of our neighborhood, I love this city, and I love my girl. I don't want to have to explain what a prostitute is or why she's hanging out by the stop sign on Wayne. Or why drug dealers torch fabulous new businesses coming into the neighborhood because they're afraid their unquestioned ownership of the block might be shaken. I struggle with how to maintain Gillian's innocence with the crazy city world all around us, while being truthful about what it is.

So, I usually don't go HERE, but I have to say it...

Yesterday I informed an old friend I probably won't be able to make her wedding because I will likely be deployed to hurricane responses in October (history tells me with an active season like this one has been that it is very likely). In her defense she sent a "save the date" a year ago, but I am on a response team whose month is October, and there's not a lot I can do about it (this makes me very sad, and I will go if there's any way on earth I can). Her response was, "Maybe I should start by writing a letter to George W and tell him he screwed everything up for everyone." This statement kindof left me scratching my head. What I think that meant was that she believes the current economic crisis is Bush's fault since "so many other people can't come either". Or maybe she means the hurricane?

I hear a lot of name calling when my friends talk about George Bush. I hear a lot of name calling (ignorant, idiots, "Christian neandertals" (that was my favorite, btw), etc., etc.) when I hear people talk about supporters of George Bush, or Republicans, or Conservatives-whichever the case may be (remember the front of that British tabloid in 2004, "How could 49 million people be SO STUPID?"). I pretty much think a person can have quite high intellect and lean either direction, so I don't quite get all that. I would love to see people attack the issues, the decisions, and the actions with a little bit of informed political salvo. I don't love George Bush and I don't like a lot of his politics, but I don't think he is a red neck bible-thumping Yee-Haw hell bent on destroying the country. I think he loves the country, I think he is a spiritual man (good for him), and I think he lives by his convictions (for better or worse). And, you can pretty much guarantee morons don't make it to the White House. He's not an idiot, maybe an rigid idealist, but not stupid. It's very convenient to name call when you've got nothing else.

So, this brings me to my point. Laying the blame of this financial crisis at the feet of the Bush Administration is political myopia. This problem may have started a much longer time ago, thirty years or more, under Jimmy Carter with the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act (1977). This act essentially required lending institutions to "meet the needs of communities", and paved the way for relaxing income and credit requirements for the issuance of home loans. Under the Clinton Administration, more low and moderate income families owned homes than ever previously recorded and the trend toward risky lending became even more pronounced. Although the idea of allowing everyone to get loans, regardless of whether they qualify or can afford them, to own a home is altruistic to the highest degree, it is amazing (to me anyway) that anyone is surprised that when the practice extends into overinflated housing markets that the bubble will burst eventually.

In 2003, the Bush Administration, concerned about increasing financial risks, attempted to provide more federal oversite to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it didn't fly. At the time, the congressional majority felt future planning was unnecessary, given the robustness of the financial sector. Barney Frank claimed this was unneeded because "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Then who is at fault here? The overinflated housing market caused by the stratospheric ascent of housing prices in the past two decades? The folks who took out loans they really probably couldn't afford? The "predatory lenders" who deliberately targeted lending toward low and middle income people, bending the rules for who qualifies, and who, for years were seeing record profits and bonuses for their execs (MILLIONs each)? The federal government (under FIVE different administrations) that did nothing to stop or try to oversee this dangerously swelling monster (even a little) because times were so good for the economy, and no one wanted to see it end by pulling in the reins a little?

At any rate, I almost think we are remiss to bail anyone out. I'm not interested in the government buying up that much debt using taxpayer money, even though the financial greed of these companies is only rivaled by the federal government's own desire to overlook looming risk, instead focusing on whatever it takes to continue facilitating a booming economy. Let's make no mistake. This bail out isn't for homeowners. That bail out already happened with a $300 billion dollar program to aid homeowners that will begin October 1st. This is politics at it's finest, folks. It would be interesting to see how this would be handled if this wasn't an election year.

Happier things!

Enough of politics. Since this is GILLIAN's blog, here are some things we've been up to lately:

Counting (4 and 5 are consistently skipped, for reasons unknown, and things get fuzzy after 10):


Eating apples like a monster:


Singing about Monkies. On beds:

Is my kid a jerk, or is she just TWO?

Nothing could be more timely than the article A shared with me, reproduced for your viewing pleasure, below. Because Gillian's willful stubbornness and heady sense of controlling the universe is getting worse. Much worse. I mostly feel like I have the only kid around that acts like a little monster. About everyone else's seemingly perfectly well-behaved kids, Sean says "you never know what goes around behind closed doors." This is an obvious attempt to make me feel like maybe everyone else's kid throw tantrums, pitches fits, and fights then every step of the way too. At least sometimes. It's just that, as far as I can tell, no one really seems to want to share the dark underbelly of parenting with eachother. Maybe because they feel it would somehow reflect poorly on their parenting skills if they admit that their kid has issues (or that they have issues with their kid, for that matter). Our issues for the past week (on almost THE DAY Gillian turned two) are like this: The other night, Gillian's bathwater was getting tepid and it wasn't exactly tropical around here and she needed to get out (she wasn't wild about the idea of ending her half hour of bathing her Elmo over and over with bar soap-but he was CLEAN already. JEEZ.). I was trying to dry Gillian with a towel (she didn't want to get dry) after her bath (that she didn't want to end) and she was screaming so hard and crying that she threw up. Can you imagine being that upset because you don't feel like getting dried off, and being subjected to such cruelty anyway?

She acts like more of an jerk with me than with Sean, most likely acting out because I am home less. I can't get her diapers on without holding her down while she shrieks in protest. If I don't play the way she wants to play, she throws things, and sometimes herself, on the ground and thrashes around. She whines incessantly. I think she says "Mama?" 10 million times a day. She gets upset when I refuse to carry her around the house (which I have refused to do for a good many months now). She might ignore me when I am sitting next to her while she plays, but if I get up to move, she gets very upset that I have the nerve to try to do something else besides avidly watching her play. She follows the cats around yelling at them until they hide under the bed. Today we have decided, after telling her "No Hitting" for the millionth time in our sternest voice and eye-to-eye contact (to no avail), that she will get 60 seconds of time out from now on when she hits (she enjoyed one of these today, as a matter of fact). During dinner she put her feet on the table, and as punishment we pushed her chair out of leg's reach, and then she stood precariously in her high chair, with that "Do you dare me?" face on. Sean told her to sit down. She howled, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". Nice.

I have a feeling that her third year of life will aptly reflect the title "Terrible Twos", for excellent reason. She is often terrible, especially since she turned two. There. I said it. My daughter Gillian often acts like a Big Jerk, and I can't even think of anything to blame it on. That doesn't mean I don't love her, or that she is destined to be an awful person. It means that, while I have known I have a very spirited, willful, and stubborn child all along (yes, tagging along with with all that awesomeness), we are in for it.

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Is my kid a jerk, or is he just 2?

My son bullies me, insults his mother and once punched an old man in the nuts. I know it's probably just a phase. But what if it isn't?
By Christopher Noxon

Sept. 8, 2008 My son pooped on me this morning.

The pooping occurred at approximately 6 a.m. after the 2-year-old leaped into bed and suggested that he'd be most grateful if I got up, escorted him downstairs and turned on his favorite program, a quasi-educational cartoon about a bilingual girl and her pet monkey.
What he actually said was this: "Daddy, up! Dora show! Dora show now!"

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On most days, "Dora the Explorer" is good for a solid half-hour of pre-breakfast calm. But not today. Today Oscar motioned to his midsection and said he "hurt." Woefully misunderstanding the situation, I kissed him on the head and loosened his diaper. At which point he tore off the nappy and grabbed hold of my leg. And then he pooped on my foot. This may or may not have been an accident. Looking up at me in the messy slow-motion moments that followed, his expression could only be described as satisfied.

I have two things to say about this. First: It is truly remarkable how tolerant of bodily waste one becomes raising small children. Before I became a dad, the news that my everyday routine would include being defecated upon would have sent me diving for a home vasectomy kit. It is some measure of how far I've come (or how low I've sunk) that Oscar's outburst prompted little more than an exasperated moan as I backed away in search of industrial-grade cleaning supplies. All of which is well and good -- there's no point getting overly worked up or grossed out over something so ubiquitous to family life that we parents simply call it "number two."

The second thing I have to say is harder to reckon with. Because the truth is this mishap was entirely in keeping with the general climate of aggression, crankiness, impatience and determined messiness that has come to characterize Oscar's personality over the last year or so. He demands. He resists. He screeches.

We've reached the point where I find myself seriously pondering the question: Is my kid a dick, or is he just 2? Because you never know. As much as it goes against the current mode of progressive, project-management-style parenting, I take it for granted that some kids are trouble right out of the gate. They're the preschool gangsters and playground terrorists, flicking boogers and insults at those they've identified as too weak to fight back. Just as some kids are born sweet-tempered and naturally gentle, others arrive as thuggish as HMO claims adjusters.
But heaven forbid you ever speak this basic truth among parents. Acknowledging a child's dickishness is truly one of the last taboos of modern family life.

A child may have "behavioral issues" or "developmental challenges," but the basic character of a kid must never be called into question. It's always, "Cody must be tired," or "Dakota needs a snack" and never, "Wow, Taylor's kind of a prick."

The trouble, of course, is that it's exceedingly difficult to distinguish garden-variety assholery from the normal psychosis of toddlerhood.

Some naughtiness is entirely normal, I know. The pileup of parenting books on my bedside table assures me that kids between 13 and 36 months often experience "challenging developmental steps." They're testing limits, exploring their autonomy, learning to control their emotions.

One need look no further than the table of contents of the modern standard, "What to Expect: The Toddler Years," to get a quick and terrifying picture of how toddlers operate. Whole sections are devoted to "antisocial behavior," "caveperson language," "crankiness," "annoying habits picked up at play group," "jealousy," "biting," "wall art and other destructive drawing," "toothbrushing tantrums," "coat combat," "repeated 'no's'" and "impatience (now!)"

You'd never know it looking at him, but my son samples freely from the standard menu of misbehavior. In pictures he's doughy and sweet with a mop of blond hair, big blue eyes and an irresistible grin. He couldn't be cuter, really. Most of the time, especially when he's at play, in the bath or asleep, he is by any measure the most perfect creature ever to grace the earth. Then he whacks you on the head with a spoon, laughs like a banshee and tells his mother that her new earrings are ugly and stupid.

Much of this nastiness is standard-issue obstinacy, but it mostly takes the form of an obsession with control. Control and honor. It often feels like I'm living with an embittered and incontinent samurai who must enforce his will and save face at all costs. As such, he's ritualistic and rigid, demanding that I and not his mother unbuckle him from the minivan or that he receive one red and one purple Flintstones vitamin or that his diluted fruit juice go in the cup with the frog and not the one with the rabbit. Any deviation from the script is met with screams of protest and a flurry of little flailing fists.

We've tried discipline, distraction and even strict adherence to his demands, but the maddening fact is you never really know when he's going to go ballistic. At an airport security checkpoint recently, he blew up when we removed his shoes and then found a new, more extravagant pitch of tantrum when we tried to put them on again. Later at a Chinese restaurant, he dumped his noodles on the floor and then ran among the tables, licking the tops of the Hoisin sauce containers. At a family barbecue last week, he greeted an elderly relative with a swift punch to the nuts (mercifully, he aimed left).

I wish I could say I take all this in stride, but the fact is it bothers me more than I can say. I've heard people without kids complain that parents have a blind spot when it comes to their own kids, that otherwise reasonable adults are only too happy to gush over the preciousness of their progeny while their little darlings run riot like English football hooligans.

I seem to have the opposite problem; instead of glossing over my son's misdeeds (or, say, chalking them up to standard-issue tomfoolery), I latch on to them as terribly important signifiers of my kid's true identity. Far more troubling than the chaos or general untidiness of parenthood is the ongoing agony of distinguishing passing phases from the first signs of what sort of person your child is and will forevermore be.

Never mind that his days are spent gnawing on blocks and smearing mucus across his cheek. Somehow, I can't help feeling that he came in fully loaded, that his identity is complete and while he may get better at sharing his toys and using the potty, this is pretty much it. This is him. Behold my son, the dick.

No wonder so few parents are willing to acknowledge their own kids' misbehavior. Doing so not only insults your offspring, it inevitably leads to reflection. For if my kid is a red-hot pig, what does that make me?

And the truth is I'm very familiar indeed with many of the despicable aspects of my 2-year-old. I too am often overwhelmed by a desire to kick and scream and punch creepy old strangers in the nuts. Like my son, I'm often irrational, hate being told what to do and cranky when sleep-deprived. But, really, who isn't? Aren't we all, on some deep and rarely acknowledged level, temperamental toddlers? We're just better at hiding and managing it, thanks to helpful crutches like cocktails, reality TV and cardio boxing classes.

For now all I can hope is that my son finds some crutches sooner rather than later. He just turned 3, actually, graduating out of "terrible twos" and into a period rumored to be less traumatic and tumultuous. My two oldest kids are 6 and 8, and I like to think they've never been anything less than the sweet and mostly respectful darlings they are today. If I'm being entirely honest, however, I'm pretty sure I could recall a horror story or three.

None of which lessens today's trauma. Developmental misbehavior may be a normal part of growing up, but pooping on your dad? That's just wrong.