Reading with Trish

My very much older sister was a little miffed at the last entry here. I had waxed on about my love for reading and my hopes that Jack, too, will find friends and adventures in the pages of books.

“What about the one who taught you to read???,” wondered my, again, much older sister.

When we were small– or at least I was small– Trisha was a miniature adult upon entry into the world. I don’t remember ever thinking that she was a child. It’s still disconcerting to see photographs of her before my memory kicks in– who is that tiny childlike person? By the time I came along she was a kindergarden aged little woman. So when I was small we used to play in our basement. Our house was very simple– a bedroom for Mom & Dad and one for each of us, one bathroom, one living room, one rarely used dining room, a kitchen, a breakfast nook, and a basement. There was an enclosed front porch but it was usually too cold or too hot. (My fascination with guest rooms and spare rooms comes directly from not having one as a kid.)

In the basement my Dad set up a full sized blackboard (Dad was regulation about basketball courts and office supplies.) complete with a railing for erasers and chalk. We had a tiny little folding table and chairs set that was perfect for use as a make shift classroom. My sister sat me, Whopper King doll, Rufus the lion, my baby doll, and assorted other students in rows. Prim Mrs. Beasley got the best seat. The rest of us weren’t allowed to touch Mrs. Beasley. She was probably in her own reading group. (A few years ago my sister wondered what it was Mrs. Beasley used to say when you pulled her string. She couldn’t remember. I was of no help– I think I blocked out whatever it was in some kind of self preserving post traumatic stress incident. Trish was relying on my usually good memory for detail. What she forgot was that I wasn’t allowed to play with Mrs. Beasley. Maybe if I had been I would have remembered?) Trish would stand at the blackboard (actually it was green) and teach us what she was learning in school.

We played in this way until her world expanded into other friends and activities. By the time I was nearing kindergarten she’d mostly left the basement classroom behind. Occasionally she’d still venture down to play but more likely it was to get a boardgame for she and Priscilla or Liz or later Carrie, Joy, Debbie… Even Mrs. Beasley opted out of our little school. I don’t know where she went. Probably private school.

Still. At night– when the school friends were in their own homes and the basement became creepy with shadows and strange noises, I’d crawl into her bed or she into mine and she’d read to me. Forever the scariest voices will be Aunts Spiker and Sponge– and none quite as smoothly serene as Miss Spider. We tromped through the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Claudia and James and went to the fair with Charlotte and Wilbur.

She filled my head with words and stories that she knew– not the baby words and sing song stories that my teachers thought we should know.

I think, every since, I’ve tried to find the words that would please her in turn. And that’s about the one that taught me to read– and most importantly– to want to read.

Reading with Jack

One of the greatest nonpeopled pleasures in my world is to read. A graceful novel or fat biography or thin volume of poetry or sumptious cookbook. I inhale magazines as my chief guilty pleasure (okay, one of my chief guilty pleasures. I DID sit through Skating With the Stars…). In desperation– when Jack’s fallen asleep in the grocery parking lot– I’ll read the back of a box or a tattered brochure from a never visited historic site found in the side pocket with the maps.

One of my earliest memories is of not being able to read. And wanting to.

It is a pleasure that has sustained me throughout what has been a very good life. When my father died and there was a period of dullness about living without him it was a first reading of Jane Eyre that quickened me back to the living. When we miscarried a baby there was a stack of kind books that kept me from sinking. While Jack was incubating I devoured baby books and books with babies.

One of the most surprising developments of being Jack’s Mommy is how unresentful I am that I should not have the luxury of reading all day on a day off. (Or that there are no days off.) I read now when I can and stick my early discovery to always have a book or magazine in reach for stolen moments. Paragraph by paragraph I get through.

So it is the sweetest gift that God might send this way to find that Jack loves his books, too. He is a bundled mass of concentration with his little board picture books– he’ll hunch over and quietly turn the pages. Each new picture has him engrossed– despite the fact that half the time the book is upside down. The most familiar stories have him “reading” out loud his favorite parts. Sometimes he is eager to share what he’s reading– he brings to me or his Daddy the opened book and points out the “monkeee?” or “Neighhhhhh!” and we respond appropriately honored to be included in his discovery.

While I type this he’s caught up in a little book that Mom picked up last week in a french grocery store. No matter that the words are in french and that his Mommy has to skip some. Jack has the book on the seat of the recliner and he’s bellied up to leaning against the front of the chair in a casual way rocking slightly while he turns the pages.

And I hold my breath and hope that he should be so closely associated with words in 10, 20, 50 years.

Home again home again…

The details of our little adventure will come out in blibs and blogs but for now I’ll answer the burning questions:

Q: Why so long for a blog? Did the Information Superhighway bypass France?
A: Yeah. About that. Turns out French keyboards are different than those we use here. I’m a pretty decent typist– particularly when I’m typing from my head and not transcribing… so imagine my “quelle horreur!” at having to hunt and peck for every letter. Most of them are in their rightful places but the letters M and A in particular aren’t and– most disconcertingly– the period is accessible only by using the shift key.

And this brings me the second obstacle– I really, really hate when people send emails with goofy abbreviations and abbreviated punctuation. Stymied without my em-dashes and periods made just emailing Robby with short updates painful to say the least. A full fledge blog was out of the question.

Q: How did Jack do on the flight?
A: Well now, that depends on which flight you mean. There were three total– two on the way there and one on the way home. The first leg– from the U.S. to Amsterdam was a hellish 7 hours of a thrashing, kicking, and occasionally slaphappy Jack. He went back and forth between my patient mother and myself with little difference in his behavior or mood. Somewhere between Newfoundland and Greenland I wondered, “Dear God, what the #@%& have I done?” when he refused to sleep. It really wasn’t that bad– just enough to make me worry about the longer flight home solo. He was being Two– testing and pushing and seeing where our limits were.

On the second flight he acted like a little seasoned traveler. So the hop from the Netherlands to Marseilles was almost enjoyable. He was fascinated with the view out the window (frankly, so was I– all those canals!).

Still– I burst into tears when my mother had to leave us at the passport control/security gate in Paris for the flight home this week. Partly, of course, it was because my mother would be across the ocean from us for several weeks and it’s always a bleak thought. But mostly it was because Jack and I had a good 11 hours until we would be in the arms of Robby again and there were a lot of variables that held potential for disaster.

In the end it was fine– he was an absolute angel on the way home. Fell asleep during the take-off, slept for three hours, then played quietly for the other 6. By the end of the flight we made friends with a half dozen people in the tail section, and charmed the woman sitting behind us who had expected the worst when she saw that there was a toddler in the row ahead. He was still good enough to walk with me through passport control and to retrieve our luggage in baggage claim and we made it through customs without a peep.

I type this in hushed and awed manner– awed because I am still grateful for all the prayers some of you sent up to keep us safe and sound– and hushed because somewhere over the north Atlantic I lost my voice with a bad head cold that had started on our way to Paris.

Q: What did we eat?
A: What didn’t we? We came, saw, and ate a great deal of France. Seriously. Baguettes, croissants, chocolate, meringues, pastries, rillettes, olives, pasta, risotto, cheese, yogurt, mousse, and the unmatched “croque monsieur.” One suitcase was filled with mostly groceries– chocolates and cookies and sweets. When the customs guy asked, “Did you bring any meats, dairy, or vegetables back into the country?” I shook my head and said, “Sadly, no.” But I thought about it. All hail the gruyere and elemental cheeses.

Q: How’d Jack like France?
A: You’d have to ask him– but for the most part he had a great time. He had his Mommy and Momma all to himself with the novelties of my mother’s french husband, and old family friends who doted on him thrown in. Like at home– he is two with a world of adults stooping and bowing and scraping by to make him smile and laugh and learn. He had his own set of adventures that ran parallel to mine and ours– he started speaking in tiny sentences, “Me no want” and developed a very sarcastic use of the word “okay” (when Jack says, “okay” it’s really more of a “Uh, yeah. OH-kay. I don’t think so”). He slept cuddled with his mother most nights in a big bed with pillows (except for the night we inadvertantly switched sides and he went tumbleweeding off the bed on to the hard floor without my body there to stop him. Oops.) and discovered the flaky beauty of a hot croissant. (This is notable because Jack hates hot food. Jack’s not too fond of warm food. Room temperature is pushing it.) And yogurt drinks. And potato chips. (Which– not being a huge potato chip fan I can defend because french potato chips still taste like– dare I say it– potatoes.) His little car seat was situated in the middle of the back seat that afforded him a clear view of the road ahead in the little car– it was fun to see what he’d notice when we’d drive about, “Tree!,” “Car!.” “Plane!,” “Neigh!” He discovered the echoy qualtities of an empty cisterian abbey’s chapel and the traction of a fine gravel path when running. He loved the little parks built for small children and made a friend in Paris at a little playspace off the Champs Elysee where he waved and sayed, “ByeBye!” to his new little ami who waved, “Au Revoir” back. He rode a carousel and two boats and a TGV bullet train, three planes, and survived a Paris car trip twice (never rent a car and drive in Paris. Trust me on this one). Really the only drawbacks for him was being away from “Daddy” and “Doggie”– which became apparent when we showed him a little stuffed animal of a black doggie and he pushed it sadly away in a way that broke my heart, “No doggie.” As for his Daddy– well– his entire little body lit up when we came through the doors of the US customs and saw Robby waiting with a bouquet of roses and a grin.

So we’re safe and sound and back on US soil. It’s good to be home with all my boys together under one roof.

Though I’d kill for a boulangerie run right now.

Hopping across the pond with JackRabbit

Jack and I are embarking on our most white knuckled adventure in a few days– we’re accompanying Momma back to France, sightseeing for a few days, then returning home by ourselves. He’s never been away from Daddy for so long (come to think of it, neither have I) and their are all sorts of variables. We’ll be staying with Momma and her husband– his own children are quite grown so the arrival of a Very Two year old should be interesting, to say the least. At the end of the trip we’re going to see old friends who, again, will welcome in a Very Two year old to their quiet, adult home.

My excitement mostly outweighs my worries. Not that there’s much sympathy for any worries on my part. (The words “South of France” generally instill a drippingly sarcastic, “Ohhh. Poor things!” off the tongues of most people.)

My sister sent a kind and funny email this morning reminding me that Jack and I will do okay… and how we’re passing along the same love for adventure and travel that our parents gave to us.

In my twisted evangelical/fundamentalist/liturgical/squash of Christianity I like to think that my Dad keeps an eye out for us all. Our own guardian angel. This time of year might be distracting to hope that he might look out for Jack and I– all the new 2007 models of SUVs and trucks are coming out… Dad loved new car smell.

On my wish list– Kind people on the flight. Smooth flying. Manageable luggage. Healthy Jack. Healthy me. Vigilance on my part in unfamiliar surroundings. And copious amounts of fresh baguettes, cheese, and pastries. Maybe a croque monsieur or two. And I hope the bad guys stay in their little caves or wherever it is they sit and fume.

But most of all I hope that this trip like all the others in the past two years sink into Jack’s bones. So that the world is always waiting for him to arrive.

Still. It wouldn’t hurt to have you pray for us.

Mea Jacka Culpa

Today naughty Jack opened the doors to his grandmother’s china cabinet. Nothing was disturbed in this action– it was just a forbidden thing to do. His little face was masked in guilt when I caught him and he quickly closed it. I reminded him that he should “say sorry” because he had done a naughty thing– this caused him to throw himself woefully to the floor wailing. Repeated requests on my part did nothing, so, eventually I left him on the floor and walked into the hall. My mother attempted to have a conversation with me so that Jack would realize his theatrical performance had no fans…

When that didn’t abate his gnashing of teeth (or the production of a hair shirt) I said, “Bye Bye Momma” loudly enough for him to hear and walked slowly to the door. His little tear stained face came peeking around the corner and he rushed to come, too. So we went out the door holding hands toward the car.

And then he went running back to Momma and said a rambling sentence that included the word, “Sorry.” He threw in a kiss, too.

So maybe we’re getting somewhere?

Jack, me, and the Morton Salt Girl

Today was a perfectly gloomy rainy day. We skipped tumbling at the gym and stayed in our jammies until after lunch and played inside all day long. After lunch we snuggled and took a nap. Later we read a french board book– really we just made up our own story to the pictures. We threw things for the little black dog to fetch. And clapped when he returned them to us.

All Mondays should be thus.