Dana Carvey totally, completely creeps me out.
I would do everything in my power to make sure that Jackson never sees this man’s face, ever, but that’s like saying I’ll make sure he never falls in love with Barney, wears pants that hang down below his butt crack, or collects Mr. Spock dolls.
Mr. Spock dolls. Heh. That would be cool.
There, I said it.
I joined the group because (a) my mother-in-law seems to think that Jackson will grow up to be a social retard because he spends most of his time in the care of another social retard (i.e., me), and (b) my next-door neighbor already belonged to the group. It took me almost a year to warm up to my lovely neighbor, which is my problem, I know, I KNOW! I AM a social retard (or there’s a kinder word for it: shy). I like my neighbor, she has a master’s in statistics, she lets us use their sand box whenever we want. And I like one other mom in the group, she’s like the fourth Dixie Chick, she’s a kind of flaps-down, says-what’s-on-her-mind person who thinks almost everything I say is funny (at least that’s how I imagine a Dixie Chick is in person, based on a partial viewing of Behind the Music). But when I try to relate to the other moms — and these are moms with good kids who play nice — after about ten seconds of a nuts-and-fucking-bolts discussion about booster seats I am stifling yawns and blinking to keep the tears of boredom from running down my cheeks. And they sense that — they’re like dogs, really, and I am slowly being ostracized from the pack.
Which is another way of saying that I’m turning into my mother.
A couple of years ago I was stressed out from working long hours with a bunch of total nut-bags, so once a month I’d take a long lunch and get my hamstrings haikued and my chakras shuffled. The massage guy I’d go to, whose name was Jedediah (“Jeda” for short — like Jedi — may or may not have been just a teeny, weeny bit intentional) was a big, jolly guy who was totally unembarrassed about the fact that he heard voices, talked to angels, bonged Tibetan singing bowls over people’s heads, and laid out intricate patterns of cold little rocks and crystals on my back while I was on the table. It all sort of tickled me, because he never took it too seriously. He would say things like, “This anthracite will heal the wounds from your past lives,” and then he’d chuckle, as if to say, Isn’t that completely insane! And yet I persist! Maybe it works! Why not try it!
The massages dropped off once I got pregnant, because as the baby got bigger it became less and less comfortable to lie on my back, or side. (How did I sleep? I have an antigravity chamber. Really!) But when I sailed past my due date without a contraction in sight, I called Jeda, thinking he might be able to prod at some pressure point that would put me into labor. (I have heard from more than one pedicurist that a simple foot massage has hastened the arrival of many a baby.)
So I went to Jeda’s office and hoisted myself up on the table and he said, “I had a conversation with this child last night.” Oh, really, I said. “He wants to get going as much as you do. He’s just waiting for Mercury to go direct, it’s much more difficult to be born when Mercury’s retrograde. But it goes direct tonight,” he said. Oh, good, I said. Then he looked up at the ceiling and started going, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, I’ll tell her, jeez.” Then he looked at me and said, “This child comes from the highest ranks of angels.” Hmmm, I said. “Don’t let that intimidate you,” he said. It doesn’t, I said, thinking, It can be Jesus himself and he’ll still need me to wipe his butt and sign his report cards.
So Jeda gave me a disappointingly light going-over, but before I was out the door he pressed several things on me: two bottles of flower essences, one for the child and one for the midwives; a huge purple crystal, meant to be, if not in the birthing tub, at least somewhere in the vicinity; and two tuning forks, which I was supposed to bang together and wave around the room to, quote, clear the space.
Well, once labor hit I was a little too elsewhere to start offering people hits of flower water, and there was no way on God’s green earth that Jack was going to start leading the pagan rites, so Jeda’s paraphernalia got buried under some teeny weeny t-shirts and forgotten, not to resurface for three or four months. I kept thinking that I’d put the stuff in my car and drop by Jeda’s office when I was in the neighborhood, but at some point he moved out of his office and left no forwarding address, and I haven’t seen him since the day last winter that I was stopped at a light on Carrillo and he was standing in front of the Salvation Army smoking a cigarette. It was such a strange sight, him with his hair all scraggly and twenty pounds heavier, puffing away, talking to some girl with a bad blonde dye job, that suddenly I really didn’t want him to see me, especially since his crystal and his tuning forks in their velveteen bag were home gathering dust on my bookshelf. So as soon as I got home I put them in my trunk, thinking that the next time I ran into him I could finally give him his stuff back, but it’s been six months, and Jeda’s phone is no longer in service and I don’t know what to do. Is there a crystal rescue, with a drop box? A local hospital that needs equipment for hearing tests? Or should I get them back out of the car and just keep them as some sort of cosmic baby gift?
“Mama”
A classic, Jackson’s first word. Normally shouted at me from the back seat while I’m driving.
Possible meanings: Turn on the A/C! Turn off the A/C! Roll down my window! Roll up my window! Where’s Big Bird? I’m thirsty! I love you! I’m so happy that we finally got out of that goddamn apartment!
“Dada”
Jackson’s second word. Jack used to feel slighted by the fact that Mama came first, but Jackson has made up for this by using Dada far more often. Normally shouted at Jack when he gets home from work, all weekend long, and whenever he sees the phone and thinks he will hear Jack’s voice hollering, “What’s up, motherfucker?!”
Possible meanings: Look, Daddy’s home! Isn’t Daddy fantastic? I love Daddy! Daddy, look at me! Daddy, give me that razor/toothbrush/cell phone/beer/remote control!
“Uh-oh”
Uttered randomly as an attention-getter.
Possible meanings: Whoops! Can you get that? Orange peel tastes nasty. My water bottle is rolling away.
“Ow”
Jackson is a biter, unfortunately, and he likes to bite my shoulder after I take him out of the bath. This hurts, so I yell, “Ow! Jackson, that hurts! Don’t bite me!” Then, with great urgency, he puts his open mouth on my shoulder and very, very gently puts his teeth on my skin, and then he’ll pull his head back to look at me and with a sorrowful expression he’ll say, “Ow.” Also occasionally uttered during quiet playtime, also with sorrowful expression.
Possible meanings: I’m sorry. I love you and I’m sorry. Your pain is my pain. I am imagining what it’s like to feel your pain because I am the reincarnation of Laurence Olivier and as soon as you get the wardrobe mistress and teach me to read I will start working on my lines for “Hamlet.” Now I need to bite you just one more time so I can study your expression. I’m sorry, but I have to. This hurts me more than it hurts you.
We’ve seen a house being fumigated.
Do termites appreciate the circussy atmosphere
their infestation creates here in Santa Barbara?
We’ve shopped for two new tires.
Mommy has now learned the concept of a slow leak
and that she needs to check her tire pressure more
than once every three years.
While we were waiting for the tires we took
a little walk by the fire station.
This would be a better picture if the hedge
was actually on fire.
And one of us has napped quite a bit.
They’re growing while they sleep, you know.
I just had this inkling, you know? So I threw the Nut into his stroller and we went to the record store. (How quaint that I still call it a “record store” when they sell tapes, CDs, and DVDs.) My HipQ has sunk way below average, I am surely the Forrest Gump of hipsters, but as Forrest Gump I was able to follow my good shopping karma to used copies of The Strokes and The White Stripes. (Okay, so, I’m, like, two years behind everybody else. So? Don’t look at me like that. DON’T LOOK AT ME.) The girl at the counter was even impressed by my snagging used copies of those two CDs, and as we all know, impressing the person who rings you up at the record store is the average person’s equivalent of winning a MacArthur genius grant.
Then it was on to the Gap because I needed shorts. I am sorry, Jack, but I cannot wear skintight black lycra all summer, especially because skintight black lycra gives you no place to put your keys. So I was standing in line with my end-of-season sale five-pocket shorts (I guess I have LOTS of keys), when some couple with a stroller piled high with their own Gap end-of-season sale orgy of khaki goods cut in front of me! I yelled, “EXCUSE ME, I WAS WAITING HERE!” Everyone else on line heard me, and then we all stared at the line busters, but they were too enraptured with their expanded wardrobe (and was there a baby suffocating under all that prewashed cotton?) to notice. Ah, but my shopping karma was just kicking into gear! I ended up getting this very sweet cashier who took one look at Jackson’s New York Yankees cap and said, “Ah, my people.” Turns out he’s a kid from NYC spending the summer in California visiting family, and he took a job at the Gap to make a little beer money. He was so happy to see a Citibank card (another reminder of New York) come out of my wallet that he gave me a 30% “friends and family” discount. Nice! While the Nut happily dismantled a display of lotion and perfume behind me, and all the wandering Gap employees looking for things to fold came to watch and smile. Oh, we’re a big hit wherever we go, especially because we clean up after ourselves (especially in restaurants).
[link via being daddy]
Jackson lying on the floor at Barnes & Noble with a little raspberry carpet burn on his cheek, trying to stop crying, while a disapproving old lady says, “Tch, that carpet’s very dirty.”
Jackson lying on his back in our hallway flipping through Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady.
Jackson at the vet throwing a ball with a bell inside of it for a kitten to chase, and giggling in a deep, throaty, gurgling way.
Jackson in the kids’ department kicking his legs in time with a Telemann flute concerto I once knew by heart.
Jackson at the swings staring at the boy in the next swing whose mother keeps saying, “Conrad’s got a dirty laugh!”
Jackson sitting on the floor clapping while Angie, his babysitter, rocks out on his Elmo’s Rock ‘n’ Roll electric guitar.
Jackson in grandma’s pool floating around in an inflatable pink elephant.
Jackson crawling up on stage and hugging his dad’s leg at a gig last Saturday.
Walking and, for some reason, clapping his hands. I don’t know if there’s a part of the brain responsible for the coordination of legs and hands, but if there is, it finally kicked into gear. Neurons are firing, platelets are coagulating, this morning’s mouse-shaped blueberry pancake is digesting, and we have lift-off.
Creepy Playground Parent #1
The Faux-hippie Dad Who Can Find a Lesson in Anything
Faux-hippie dad and his two-year-old son at the marble maze (a wooden thing with zig-zagging chutes, you put a marble at the top and watch it roll its zig-zaggy way down).
Son, holding out his hand to show Jackson: “I found a marble! It’s blue!”
Faux-hippie Dad: “You should share your marble with the little boy, son. Remember, we all live on this big blue marble together, we have to share it!”
Jackson: (grabs marble and shoves it in his mouth)
Me (stifling urge to snatch up Jackson and run to the car): “Whoops!”
Creepy Playground Parent #2
Spanking the Monkey, Part 2: The Girls Don’t Wanna Have Fun
Emotional Vampire Mom and her Detached Cusp-of-Womanhood Daughter. Daughter is lying on her side on a low deck under the rope-climbing platform; Vampiric Mom can’t quite wedge herself in there but has gotten as close as she can because it’s time for a Big Talk.
Vampire Mom: “. . . it’s the only thing most men want. I’m not saying all men are like that, I’ve met one or two who aren’t. But only one or two. The way you’re lying, your underwear is showing . . . ”
Daughter: (shifts slightly, continues placidly picking at wood chips, says nothing)
Vampire Mom (stretches to tug at the hem of Daughter’s shorts): “That’s a little better. But you still shouldn’t be lying like that, there are boys all around here who could see you. This whole place is bad for that, if you’re up on the bridge thing, anyone could look up and see your vagina.”
Daughter: (scoots away slightly, faces away from Vampire Mom, says nothing)
Vampire Mom (insistent, pleading): “Do you understand what horrible things boys can think and do when they see that? How careful you have to be around them? You can’t just sit any way you want to, you have to be careful you don’t show them anything.”
Daughter: (trying to remember her old locker combination — or something)
Vampire Mom: (Looks at Daughter deeply, starts stroking Daughter’s calf — slowly moves hand up to Daughter’s knee; trails a finger around her knee for a moment and then begins to stroke Daughter’s thigh.)
Daughter: (so placid and emotionless that my skin is starting to crawl)
Me, to Jackson: “Honey, why don’t we run to the car and not come back here for a week or two, okay?”
