Mama-Come-Lately

I missed writing yesterday, which I thought about sitting down to do but never actually did because apparently I go into a wormhole on Sundays. It’s a wormhole built of many tasks and activities: visiting with family, fetching the week’s groceries, doing the usual amount of laundry, plus a birthday (hence the recipe above) AND shopping for Divali.

Divali will be a needle-scratch for many of you. It’s a major Hindu holiday dealing with the triumph of light over darkness — and since my husband practices Hinduism, we celebrate it, and there are things that have to happen prior to it. Usually we source our sparklers from a kind co-worker who is better prepared and can spare a few. Picking up fruit and flowers for the puja (home offerings/blessings ceremony) is my task, and absolutely no big deal whatsoever. Apples, grapes, oranges, bananas, a bouquet of something or other, and a small container of milk. I could do it in my sleep. It’s the clothes shopping that always sneaks up on me.

Divali requires new clothes. A whole outfit’s worth. And they can’t be black, which poses a challenge for neutrals-loving me. Everyone in the house has to have new clothes, but my son tends to have a stockpile of things sent from India he hasn’t worn yet, and my husband typically holds things back for Divali.

Not me. I tromp off to the mall every year under the pressure of a looming deadline, seething with a deep hatred of both malls and trying on pants. See, typically I order 10 pairs of pants online whilst wearing pajamas like a sensible person. Then I try them on in the comfort of my own home, and return the 9 pairs that don’t work. Easy. Repeat as necessary. More coffee, please.

Not this time, though. This time I was doomed to do battle with the Sunday bargain-hunters while dodging the Christmas stuff that’s already clogging the aisles. I wasn’t that worried though, because I brought a secret weapon: my mom. She’s like a shopping good luck charm with the bonus feature of honest but kind feedback. She’s also willing to trek back to the rack WAY on the other side of the store to dig for a better color or a different size.

After a reasonable length of time I found my Divali outfit, and then I treated us to fancy coffees, because it is a Shopping Law regardless of the reason one is shopping or the degree of success: Shopping requires treats.

Today’s post is photo-driven because that’s just how I’m feeling. Also, it’s fun to walk around the house and think about why I like what I like.

My dad took this photo a long time ago at a family property in Northern Michigan; if the date is right my mom may have been pregnant with me when it was taken. It’s been with me, always in my bedroom, since at least college. Wish I knew who did the calligraphy tag, which is rather hilariously just pasted on there.

This was given to me by a student when I was teaching English in Japan in the early ’90s. She knew I loved sumo; I wish she knew I still love this clock even though I can’t quite remember which wrestler it’s supposed to be. The alarm mimics the patter of a sumo referee during a match, but the language is replaced with words that translate to “get up, get up, get up” which is actually a pretty fun way to wake up. Pushing his topknot down turns the alarm off.

My mom got wacky clocks for all three of us at an art fair maybe 15 years ago. Mine’s in the bathroom, because the crazy colors actually do help on grey mornings.

A shower curtain my husband found online when we were sprucing up the baby’s bathroom and looking for something that was kid-friendly but could transition to post-baby life. Similarly to the clock, it cheers me up in the mornings.

A wedding gift from old, dear friends. It mesmerizes me.

Ready or not, the weekend is upon us, and there are things to look forward to: downtime, getting together with friends, watching the Boo at his Ninja class (obstacle courses and gymnastics, NOT throwing stars). There are also the usual chores: laundry, cleaning, laundry, dishes, and of course laundry. Oh, and the time change.

And then there’s the funeral for a childhood friend. He died a few weeks ago as the result of addiction. He had a four-year-old son and a partner who loved him. He was massively talented, sweet, funny and kind. It is heartbreaking and enraging that he is gone, and yet in many ways he was living on borrowed time, and many of us knew that, although most of us had been lulled into thinking he was “doing fine.” But none of us could have prevented his death, because addiction is a hellish beast of a chronic disease. Those who suffer from it often feel shame around relapses, and so they hide while the rest of us carry on, ignorant of their pain.

There will be many old friends at the memorial, and words and stories, food and drinks, but there will be no Josh. I keep thinking about how weird it will be to see and hear evidence of him everywhere, but not to be able to see him except in the images pasted to foamcore and projected on screens. I am dreading it, and yet I know I need it, because the heaviness of his death has been with me for weeks and it is time for it to be lifted.

Ready nor not, here it comes.

Two days before Halloween, the Boo (actual nickname) decided he no longer wanted to be Luke Skywalker.

This was the first year I had bought him a costume, and I had mixed feelings about that. Yes, it was easy and convenient, and that’s how I like to do most of my non-grocery shopping. Three or four clicks in my pajamas, and on to the next task. But it was cheap polyester garbage with built-in obsolescence and I already have visions of it ending up in a landfill. And yet, he loved it, or more accurately, he loved being Luke Skywalker, stepping into those brave Jedi shoes for a while and forgetting about spelling tests and riding the bus.

And then a few weekends ago we decided he was ready to watch the first Harry Potter movie. It scared him a bit, and he had questions, mostly about why the Dursleys are so mean to Harry and how Voldemort gets around. But he liked it enough that he wanted to watch it again, and start reading the book (which means me reading the book to him). And so, his fickle movie-based affections moved the Halloween needle to Harry Potter.

The Boo has dark, unruly hair. He wears glasses, and though they are not round, they are dark enough to pass as black. A kind work friend, hearing my last-minute tale of woe, offered to bring in the Griffindor cloak her kids had worn when they had been Harry Potter/Hermione Granger. I sent the Boo outside to find a straight stick, dug out the silver spray paint, and we made a wand. The kids are not allowed to apply makeup when they change into their costumes at school, so as we waited for the bus I drew a lightning-bolt scar on the Boo’s forehead. (Lucky I had a black pen in my purse!)

My husband took the Boo trick-or-treating this year, and reported that the teenage girls were agog at his costume. A mom friend texted me to say how cute he looked. My family cracked up at the video of his Halloween spell: “Expectium Candium Pleasium!”

All this to say, it’s the costume he was meant to wear all along.

Ah, shit.

One of my biggest parenting challenges has been putting the lid on swearing when my kid is around. I was older than average when I had him, and pretty set in my ways, and not to blame my parents or anything but my dad was also fond of swearing. So maybe it’s hereditary. Or maybe I just don’t see what the big deal is.

See, to me, with a few exceptions for words that are overloaded with cultural nastiness, words are just words. Their job is to help us express ourselves. And swear words, curse words, cuss words, whatever you want to call them, are just nifty little options in our verbal paintbox.

I’ve always admired Will Smith for keeping his work “clean,” and I get why he does that, I think, but that is not my path in life. Which is not to say that I walk around dropping F-bombs constantly either. I’m somewhere in the middle, with a reasonable level of social sensitivity, though I have been known to say “crap” and “BS” at work.

One of my personal favorites (and what I say in front of my six-year-old every now and then, usually when I’m trying to get us out the door in the morning) is “shit.” Sometimes I substitute “sugar” if I’m in public, or the German “Scheisse,” although once I did that in the middle of Target and apparently the people with me in the cookie aisle understood German because HOLY SHIT did that mom give me a sour-ass look. Which just made me laugh really hard once they’d walked away.

See? Swear words are the gateway to fun!

I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating: I sneak into my kid’s room every night after he falls asleep so I can look at him and maybe kiss his forehead. (I don’t usually pull the blankets up over him because he’s a hot sleeper and he gets sweaty enough without being cocooned.)

Non-parents may be scratching their heads at this point. Maybe some parents, too, are thinking, “Aren’t you just glad when he finally passes out and you can go relax? He’s six and a half! What’s the deal?”

Here’s the deal: I miss my infant. Not that I enjoyed the sleep deprivation, but I mourn the simplicity of those days. Feed, change, play, sleep. Or sometimes, change, feed, change, sleep, play. But you get the idea. Nothing involving negotiations, or spelling words, or saucy new expressions learned on the school bus. Visiting his room when he’s sleeping is a way of visiting that time when things were simpler.

On the other hand, infants don’t like to play checkers, or make up silly songs, or ask, “What’s Harry Potter’s owl called”? These are definite advantages to having a six-year-old.

One night not long ago, he half woke up when I came in, long after bedtime, and reached out to me. I took his hand and held it for a moment, and then he relaxed back into sleep. He didn’t remember in the morning, but it’s interesting to think about what part of his brain knew I was there but didn’t store that memory.

Does it detect my presence every night?

Warning: This will not be an in-depth book review, because A) my kid is going to wake up soon and B) this is not the New York Times Book Review. Just so you know.

I recently read George Orwell’s 1984 — or I should say re-read, because I’m sure I read it in high school, but have no memory of that whatsover. I’m sure it made some sort of impression on my teenaged brain, but many more important and interesting things are being stored there now. Like, I REALLY need to get to Target today to get candy/a witch’s hat/dish soap/toothpaste. God, what will I DO if they don’t have a witch’s hat? I really should have taken care of that last week.

So. I recently re-read 1984 for my book club, and I have to say, wow. Orwell had some BIG ideas. Huge. Crazy, even. The book was published in 1949, 1949 for crying out loud, and he dives deep into revisionist history, the mechanisms of war, thought control, secret police — a whole bunch of things that were way ahead of the times (or so I assume).

But here’s the thing that’s really staying with me: I believed the whole thing. I was there in the grimy, scary places with Winston, willing him to be cautious so he wouldn’t get caught by the Thought Police (oh well) and rejoicing in his relationship with Julia (as weird as that whole thing was). And that, to me, is the biggest achievement of the book.

Also: I really don’t understand if he’s dead at the very end, or a few pages before the end. I really should look into that before my next book club meeting.

I am a writer, I tell people, and yet, outside of work, I haven’t been writing much. In all honesty I don’t always write much at work either but that’s another story for another day. Corporations, amirite?

Anyway. What with NaNoWriMo coming up, this seemed like a fine time to start one of those “I wrote a blog post every day for a month and you won’t believe what happened” things. And rather than wait for Thursday, when I will surely be suffering the mother of all candy hangovers, I am starting today. Shazam!

My only agenda is to write and publish something every day. No working ahead, except in my head. I make no promises about topics, quality, coherence or length. The point is to show up and do the work, push out first drafts, and see what happens. If I entertain you, fabulous. If I bore you, well, at least you’ve managed to stay off Twitter for 90 seconds. See? Silver lining. Every cloud.

This morning is a good morning to begin because my son, a/k/a The Boo, is at my mom’s house. He spends the night there every week or two and it is a huge treat for me in that I get to get up and do what I want/need to do all by myself. I love him to bits, but being six and a half he needs things fairly frequently, and lately he’s also been coming to find me at 5:45 a.m. Usually I’m up by then but last week my sleep was hacked to bits for various reasons, so getting woken out of a dead sleep when I still had 45 minutes left to sleep was not cool. Also, it made me crabby and had me weirdly craving simple carbs.

Yesterday afternoon, the Boo was dead set against staying at my mom’s for no rational reason he could or would explain. A tragic turn of events, from my point of view. Then I introduced the new Morning Policy: if he wakes up before 6:30 and sees that I am not up, he is to stay in his room. He asked if he had to go back to sleep and I said no, books are fine, but no waking up Mama.

And lo, in a delightful and unexpected turn of events, he decided he did want to spend the night at Grammy’s after all.

It’s my birthday. I’ll do what I want.

That’s a statement. How would you make that into a question?

I’m sorry.

How do you spell “rock”?

There are kids who don’t have enough food to eat. Really.

I’m tired of reading Star Wars books.

I love you, even when you’re being obstreperous.

What is a number bond?

I’m not interested in arguing with you.

I love you.

There are parents who hit their kids. Really. Yes, on purpose.

I’ll be happy to answer all your questions when you’re done getting ready for school.

Brush your teeth, or get cavities. The choice is yours.

Less talking, more getting ready, please.

Just keep in mind, it rained so the street is really slippery.

Oh honey, looks like you have a few scrapes. Let’s get you fixed up.

Dirty clothes in the hamper please.

Socks in the hamper please.

Socks. Hamper. Please.

It’s fine, I have wine for later.

We don’t need a hose repair kit, we can fix it with epoxy.

It’s been precisely calibrated.

I’m flying an X-wing. You’re in the Millennium Falcon. Is your rear gun charged?

What day is it?

How many days until the next holiday?

How many minutes until it’s 6?

Can I watch YouTube since you’re down here with me?

Have you seen the key for my tool box lock?

Mom! Mom! Mom!

I was reading about BB-8 on the bus.

First grade is EASY!

The librarian said I need to practice reading on my own since I’m in first grade.

I don’t! Need! A shower!

I didn’t do it! I promise! I’m honest!

I don’t want any of that. How about Cheerios?

It isn’t fair!

You’re the WORST!

I love you.