The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Player (but only because he has an early bedtime)

We had a red letter day around here yesterday. Jacky told his first joke.

He and I were eating lunch together and in the middle of his macaroni & cheese he said, “Mommy! Night night!” and then put his head down on his shoulder and closed his eyes. Then popped them open laughing at his little scene. I laughed, too. So he did it again.

This is a big deal. A very big deal. There are entirely too many people running around out there in the world without a semblance of a sense of humor… Not our boy.

Anybody have Seinfeld’s number?

The Other Mommy and Me

Once a week this summer Jack and I have gone off to a Mommy & Me storytime. The crowd varies from week to week– sometimes it’s mostly the Nearly Two Year Old Boys and other days the little knot of girls are there, too. Jack has a good time either way so we try to make it.

This week we settled in for a nice story next to two little girls. The older sister is too old really, but everyone is too polite to point that out. Instead we brace ourselves for her inevitable hijacking of all the rheotorical answers. Her little sister usually comes in with her hands full of bright plastic toys.

I’m quickly finding out that Mommyhood comes along with an Unspoken Code of Conduct. And somewhere high on the list is not to walk into a group with toys that you don’t want to share. Little siren girl sits on the rock waving her bright playthings while my boy and the other sailors steer their boats towards her… and her Mommy ignores the potential dangers entirely. (Meanwhile, older daugher is pulling out her plastic pretend compact to check her pretend makeup. Hmmmm. Now where could she have learned that from? Her pageant Mommy?)

Poor Miss Storyreader tries to keep things together but only the adults and littlest baby are listening to her singsong tale by now. Jack’s found her box of music instruments and is happily banging away with a pair of mismatched drumsticks. I am torn between letting him be so completely happy and the tantrum that he’ll throw if I make him sit still on this fractious morning. I let him find his inner Ringo.

After the story we chat politely about our weekends. It’s an odd lot group of parents and grandparents. We would not know each other outside of this group but our children will have us crossing paths for the foreseeable future. I like the grandmother. She is easy going and laughs a lot. The girls’ mother prompts her eldest with, “Tell everyone what we did this weekend.” I’m no parenting expert. I’m not a child psychiatrist. But I’ve worked with enough preschool groups to know that you never ask such a vague question unless you are really comfortable with your audience. Sure enough the little girl’s face lit up with the drama of her weekend and she told us excitedly, “We had a BAT in the HOUSE!” I don’t think her Mommy was referring to their flying rodent issues. This is confirmed with the Mommy plastering a stagey smile on her face and saying, “oh. Haha. Yes, we did. But what did we DO this weekend?” Little girl looked puzzled and mumbled something mundane. The Mommy’s voice went up an octave, “No. Hehe. Remember the wizard?” (Wizard? From the occult? Huh. I lean in more interested.) The little girl, in all her 4 year oldness looked blank. She blinked. “Ohhhh,” she finally remembered, “We saw the wizard!” The Mommy translated, “We went to the theater to see the Wizard of Oz.” We all ooh and ahh. And the Mommy told us all how wonderful it was. I’m sure it was. Live theater rarely is anything but wonderful… I’m slightly impressed that her four and two year old children are up to the Land of Oz– my 11 year old niece is still afraid of the witch. We’re all freaked out by the monkeys and trees.

The conversation turns to birthdays because the littler girl had one approaching. The Grandmother asks if they are going to have a party? She asks this in a nice way to the little girl but the little girl is two and it’s really a question for the Mommy. The Mommy says that oh yes, they are going to have a big party with Scottish theme and a bagpiper. You read that right. I look at the little girl who, while much more verbal than my silent little man, still, I assume, lacks the ability to articulate, “Mother, may I please have a celebration using Scotland and it’s traditions as a theme?” But who am I to know. I fail to mention to the group that for Jack’s approaching birthday it’ll be a quiet, family affair with cupcakes and chicken noodle soup. Maybe we’ll walk over to the schoolyard slides or something. Woo. Woo.

This Mommy and I won’t ever be friends. Maybe Jack and her daughter will– it’s too soon to tell whether their worlds will continue to overlap. And it’s not really just this Mommy or this girl– we just don’t fit together.

I resisted the urge, in the safe car, to vent to Jack about the Mommy. There isn’t anything wrong with her– we just have different priorities. I’m sure she is appalled at me and my unmadeup face and ponytailed hair. As an adult I realize that there are lifelong friends whose parents had very different values than my parents– but I don’t ever remember my mother or father criticizing them in front of me. I may have figured it out over time but not when I was a child.

So that’s my lesson to learn for the day. That I can’t tell Jack to respect adults and then trash them. I have to swallow whatever it is that evokes envy, malice, distrust, or judgement on my part. Blah. This is one of those times that having a great childhood and a solid Christian family background really sucks.

In therapy at least I’ll be able to moan about that big Manx birthday bash I never had…

Shipshewana Shanghai

Jack and I tagged along on an outing to Shipshewana this week. My mother and her pair of foreigners (that would be her husband and his niece) Jack and I piled into her Jeep at a earlyish hour of the morning with the promise of a “big Amish lunch.”

How many journeys have started with that promise? The lure of some foodstuff not readily available under one’s own locomotion? I’m not entirely convinced that the Pilgrims were really under that much religious persecution… who’s to say it wasn’t the lure of Mayan chocolate? or tomatoes that had them washing about the Atlantic for so many months?

Off we go into the wild blue yonder with Jack babbling happily from his carseat and me enduring his braid pulling all for the mere memory of a plate of noodles, mashed potatoes, gravy, pickled red cabbage, maybe a piece of custard pie.

At the big Market grounds we parked and I pushed Jack in his stroller along the first row of booths then peeled off from Mom & Co. to hit Yoder’s for fabric. Shipshe might be considered Amish friendly with their little hitching rails and watering troughs but the chamber of commerce thinks little of foot traffic. (Woe to the Amishman who’s horse throws a shoe…) Jack and I faced the onslaught of Angry Crafty Women Traffic (they drive minivans and have a frenzy about them. One gets the impression that if they WERE to run one over they’d scrap the hell out of whatever pieces they might find left.) and bravely crossed the street, parkinglots, and gravely drives to get to the real Shipshewana mecca– Yoder’s. Inside is the big department store (with a fabulous fabric area), grocer, and hardware store. On our little pilgrimage we stocked up on noodles and applebutter.

Jack fell asleep while I debated over the wool I needed. My pal Sue and I have faced the Curse of Yoders before– the wool we most want is always the most expensive. Still, we have soldiered on in the face of it. I imagine that the wools we’ve bought come from spoiled sheep who sleep on satin tuffets and eat only the finest in clover. Stupid Sheep.

I pick up the other Yoder necessities– hairpins (those Amish might not be able to work my TiVo but they know how to keep their hair pinned up) and flour sack towels– then head to the check out.

My cell phone rings. It’s Mom. They’re in the middle of the Market and have decided to “grab lunch there.” Gone go the heaped platters with chicken and potatoes, noodles, greenbeans, bowls of gravy and pickled goodnesses, pieces of pie, slabs of bread with applebutter… For a hotdog. I resist the urge to take it out on the old ladies in front of me (but just barely because they were clad in Red and Purple and drenched in some equally offensive perfume). Mom is apologetic– disappointed, too… but I am mourning the loss of my lovely, lovely meal.

This stuff happens. Look at the Donner Party. For all the theories and thesis written I think it came down to too many people in the group. Two people can make a plan and stick to it. Throw in a third and it still might work. But the addition of a fourth person pretty much guarantees that any plans will go straight out the window. By the time you get to five you’re screwed. Try to go out to dinner with seven people and you’ll see what I mean. Assume that you can get seven people to agree on a place (two will have definite ideas on where to go and what they’ll order when they get there, one will be undone by the idea of going out at all, one will be in a state of hypoglycemia and too cross to be of help, and the rest will be too polite to want to be the one to direct the others… so you end up at a standstill and seven very hungry people. By the time you DO go out (or order in) at least three people won’t really care about eating at all and the other three won’t be happy with the choice that’s been made. “Donner Party of seven…”

So I get that the original plan got a little waylaid by a hungry teenager bored at the market. And I did not complain that what I did eat for lunch that day was (and you can’t make this stuff up) a GAS STATION COLD CUT SANDWICH. What I don’t get is where that Midwestern Politeness could have so got between me and my feast served up by a delightfully capped mennonite.

Next time I’ll get it in writing. Signed in gravy.

Piece of cake

In the (unbelievably) 10 years since my Dad died I’ve been very aware of his birthday. My Dad was good at many things but he especially excelled at birthdays and holidays. He and my mother would conspire to make them extraordinary for my sister and I. That I have been cheated out of reciprocating is a constant source of injustice.

Most of the last 10 August 10s have been carefully planned on my part to include some Dad Oriented Activity. Something appropriately fun or adventurous. Yesterday might have missed the boat entirely if the downstairs toilet hadn’t started to leak. By days end we had a new little pot to… well. You know. My intestinally challenged father would approve.

That and The Jack was especially sweet.

What a difference a day makes…

(It’s okay that you’re singing it. I am, too.)

Wow. Al Roker wasn’t kidding when he said the heat was breaking. Jack and I spent the day after my last little Hullo mudpuddle stomping. He has a pair of rainboots. I have my garden clogs. And our street has a lot of hidden puddles.

It took him a while to get the hang of lifting up his little legs and letting them STOMP! into a splash! of a puddle… but once he did we had a jolly old time. Down one side of the street and up the other we held hands and stomped in our raincoats and rainshoes and gloriously rained on heads.

The next day he spent sliding down the playground slides– still wet from the rain– so that he was a dripping little mess of a boy.

Over the weekend he was introduced to the marvels of a Slip ‘n’ Slide, a baseball game, AND a new climby jungle gym that my mom found at a yard sale.

The fresh air is doing us good.

Arf already

This heat has been nuts. It’s beyond Dog Days of Summer– we’ve gone into Rhinocerous Days or Elephant Days… Big Blue Whale Days… Of course, I have a small dog.

Jack hates it. He loves the great outdoors (adding to the nagging suspicion that the dull, ugly baby that was supposed to be ours is out there with his outdoor lovin’ beautiful clever parents) and pitieously asks, “’side? ’side?” repeatedly throughout the day. “It’s too hot outside, peanut” doesn’t cut it when his little soul is longing to break free of the confines of the air-conditioned-living-room. (Sweet relief that A/C machine.)

Our outings have been few and far between this week– a quick morning run to the grocery and a foray into the cool Museum to check in with some work… Sigh. No slides. No romps in the backyard with the big inflated balls and our little black dog. No walks around the neighborhood to count trees.

We’ve let him splash down in his kiddie pool at night before he is trundled off to the hot upstairs– and even then we’ve had to add cold water to the pool.

This is why I love Fall and Winter and Spring. Because number one on those lists of Reasons Why is: It’s not Summer.

Let Al Roker come through? Let tonight be the night the humidity and heat breaks? I’m tired of being the Wicked Witch of the North End of Our Street. “No, little boy! You CANNOT go ’side to play!” I’m meeeeeelting.