Career Opportunities

Tonight Lucy moved her desk away from the wall so she could sit on one side of it, and Milo could sit opposite her. For a job interview. Apparently Lucy Enterprises is seeking some dynamic small people for exciting opportunities in playing, building and being bossed around. She took notes on her clipboard. Lucy: "Buzzy, do you want to be a big-Lego builder?"

Milo: "Yeah."

Lucy: "Tell me why you think you would be good at it."

Milo: "Zub zib bah bah. Uh oh bye bye, guys guys guys!"

Lucy: "That's interesting."

The interview continued for a few more minutes, and though I moved to the kitchen where I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, it sounded like a nice conversation — which is what a good job interview should be, right? Even the part where Milo made monkey noises. When I listened back in more closely, the interview was wrapping up.

Lucy: "Will you let us know when you decide?

Milo: "Yeah."

Write Me a Love Song

Ed. note: Been a long time, people, but it's a sappy alert: apologies in advance. Love. It’s THE stuff of song. Religion (and I’d consider this a sub-category of love) and politics/protest hold second and third place to love. There’s also loss and despair, but again: sub-categories of love. There are train songs and fight songs and death songs. So many stories, so many themes.

But the greatest of these is love. The teenage kind, the unrequited kind, the illicit kind. The filial, the desperate, the forbidden, the broken.

But what about quotidian love? You know, the laundry and dishes and diapers and we’re-doing-okay kind of love? There are songs, I know.  It’s unfair to call this a totally neglected category. I just wish I could write one, or find one readily enough — a song about love's lesser worries.

Were we just mad about the trash?

Would you just hold my hand?

Thank you for folding the laundry.

Have I told you all my stories yet?

Can we be apart enough for me to write some new ones?

Will you be bored if we aren’t?

Did we fight about the fight about piano?

I think you won. Oh well.

Thank you for finding my keys for the 437th time.

Should I know you better?

Will you always hold my hand?

I forgive you 10 times before you know I’m mad. You’re welcome.

I know you forgive me 27. Thank you.

This is a little like war. Only it’s love. With us and little people.

You are the best person I know. And I know more than enough to know.

We deserve a song.

Study: The Role of Cuteness in the Evolutionary Biology of Toddlers of Prey

Fang. Jaws. Animal. All nicknames for that kid: the Biter. Milo.

He's been acting out his 18-to-24-month aggression by leaving angry, tooth-indented rings in the flesh of his classmates. It's a problem, obviously. But what's funny is that his teachers are having a bit of hard time correcting his behavior...because he's so damn cute. "That face," they tell me. This week he was kicked out of graduated from the younger toddler afternoon classroom into the older toddler room, because the girls with the little kids were entirely too charmed by him to do anything about the biting. When I picked him up last Thursday, I was met at the door by Micah, who had a giant bite-mark on his cheek (Milo) and Charlie, sporting a dental imprint on his arm (Milo). Fang, for his part, hugged and kissed both his friends/victims as I opened the door, then he ran down the hall, leaving me with my apologies to the parents of the bitees.  Milo: a lover and a biter. One has to wonder if this is what it will be like when I bail him out of jail.

The Term Paper

You know that feeling you had in college, when you had a big paper due? You'd thread through cycles of procrastination and intense effort, finding your rhythm on it at last. But you couldn't work on the paper every minute of every day: you had to go about the tasks of life and pretend to enjoy them, even as this undone business of the paper cast a grouchy pall on every meal, every chore, every moment. Or maybe you didn't have that feeling because you are a much less anxious person than I am. Good for you.

Me, the last two weeks of my life have occurred in the fog of this worry. And yesterday, at 5:33, we FINISHED the paper. Which is not to say we are done with this long-term, intricate project by any means, but the single largest discrete piece of it is done. Oh, and it's pretty damn good. Here's hoping we get an A.

Meanwhile, I can carry on with the rest of my life. And file this experience under "Reasons I Will Never Be Pursuing a PhD."

Seven

Lucy turned seven on March 12. I can hardly stand to think about it. In this photo, I can see what she will look like when she is 13. And, lately, I am getting a glimpse of how she will act when she is 13. She questions everything. "There has to be a REASON," insists. When I am not caught in the petty trap of because-I-am-your-mother-and-I-said-so, I have to stand back and admire her mind, her tenacity, her emotional intelligence. She both exhausts and amazes me, and she has since the moment she was born.

Milostone: 1.5, No Lie

Setting aside the issue of whether  to lie about one's own age, when is it okay to lie about your son's age? I only ask because I've found myself doing it these past few months. People ask how old he is and, too often, I glibly say, "One." He's small. He can pass. What's the rush?

And yet, there's no slowing down the tiny bullet train named Milo. The kid is crossing the year-and-a-half mark at a full (if slightly wobbly) gallop. He's added a few key words to his vocabulary ("mine," "Elmo" and "TV " — so proud), and he chatters constantly. He even pauses appropriately in his nonsensical conversation with you as though to say, "I know, right?"

He mimics singing and reading. He dances (sort of). He will take your hand and lead you to something he wants to show you. He will throw his arms around you and squeeze when you ask for a hug.

Sigh. He is one and a half. I have about three months to gracefully stop calling him "baby." After which point, we may just have to be weird.

Uh Huh

I'm never sarcastic. Ever. What I have come to realize, hearing sarcasm from the mouth of my almost seven-year-old, is that it's not warm or loving. While sarcasm can be used in a teasing, occasionally sweet way, it's mostly a default for nasty. Which was recently made very clear to me...

Lu: [SOME NOW FORGOTTEN DRAMATIC, SWEEPING STATEMENT USING WORDS "NEVER" OR "EVER."]

Me: Uh huh.

Lu: Mom, I HATE when you say, "Uh huh" like that. It's so MEAN. It's like you don't like me or you're not listening to me.

Me: [BLINK. BLINK. PAUSE.] It doesn't mean I don't like you, it just means I am trying not to react when you're being melodramatic.

Lu: Well, you are, and it's mean.

Sometimes, even when I am trying to respond to her overblown responses with a flat affect, thereby diffusing her intense emotions, I am snide. And it is mean. Despite the points I give myself for saying "Uh huh" instead of "Are you seriously throwing a fit about where a certain shirt was put away when I do all the laundry, and how about you do you own damn laundry while you're at it?"

I am going to be better about being sarcastic/snide with her (and everyone).

Oh, I heard that "Uh huh" you just uttered. Rude.