Chyna
I wonder why they say “It’s for the best.”
Rather, I know why they say it. If you’re a vet, you probably see mostly sick animals, and when they’re really sick, death is a saving grace to the pain which is your vision of that animal’s normal. If someone’s cat was hit by a car, of course you wouldn’t say “It was for the best.” When your cat gets a sudden illness, or even a less sudden illness, it is one long car accident, culminating in death. When it’s over, and you’re stroking the fur of what used to be your cat, you are still reeling from coming home to find her wheezing and lethargic, barely able to move and not interested in tuna. When the vet says “It’s for the best,” you are still thinking of uneaten tuna.
“It’s for the best” is like a slap, but a slow slap, that you can see coming.
It brings up those secret worries about snowballing vet bills. Googling “hepatitis” and the dismay at complicated and expensive long term treatment on top of the twice a day insulin injections and hepatitis has a different special diet than diabetes and there will probably be more urine and vomit and blood and probably diarrhea to clean up now. In the end you conclude she’s worth it, but when the vet says, “It’s for the best,” that little part of you that was tallying up the logistics of animal illness slinks lower down inside you, hunched with guilt.
Chyna (pronounced Chee-nuh) was probably about 8.
Back when Matt was still living in his own apartment, I had a project using a little piece poster board. The rest of the poster board I folded in half, into a rough Teepee shape and wrote “cat house” on the side. To my delight, Chyna ran right over it and proceeded to camp out. She played in that paper Teepee for weeks as it lost it’s shape sliding wider and lower, and she had to crawl on her belly to get underneath.
A pair of freshly ironed pants once attacked her, and she was afraid of pants for the next several months.
She liked to attack dust, or towels or toes under doors.
If you made the mistake of scratching your leg beneath a blanket, Chyna was there to help you SCRATCH harder. Then when you jerked your hand out from under the blanket she perked up and said, “pet me?” with her eyes.
Her meow sounded surprisingly like the word “hello” and I’d always meant to record it, but never got around to it.
She liked to carry toys in her mouth and meow around them, and often meowed in the darker corners of the house, as though she was exploring. If we called out to her, she we glance at us, then continue her expedition. Hello? Hello?
A few years ago we adopted Tricky, and Chyna, though she was eventually happier for the company, started binge eating to keep the new cat from getting her food. She slowly gained weight and started slowing down, acting old. About a year and a half ago, we found out she had diabetes, and almost as soon as we started treatment, she started acting like a kitten again, and was more loving and social than ever. The new house was likewise good for her, with more spaces, more places to climb, more perches, and spaces to crouch beneath.
With some cats it seems like the only time they come near you is when they want to be fed or they want to be pet, but Chyna would follow you around to see what you were up to. If your lap was full, she would curl up by your leg, or if it was too hot, she’d curl up a few inches away, purring and clearly just happy to be near you. Her favorite place in the world was the bathroom, and the first time she tried to jump on Matt’s lap he was in the bathroom and he was, shall we say, unprepared for a lap cat.
When Ender came into the picture, Chyna was the first cat to sniff him (though she’s also been the smarter cat in terms of keeping out of reach as he starts to grab for furry things) and when he cried she would meow at us in evident concern that we weren’t taking care of him fast enough. One of our friends brought a toddler to the house, and when we weren’t watching closely enough, she picked up Chyna around the middle, and carried her into the room, arms and legs sticking awkwardly out in front. Chyna didn’t try to scratch or bite the little girl, she just looked at us and meowed pitifully as if to say, “can you do something about this please?” I really hoped we would get a few years of trying to stop Ender chasing her around before we would have to say goodbye.
Whenever we got home from a trip, or even a long day of errands, Chyna would be sitting at the french doors, looking out for us. As we got out of the car, she would stand up expectantly, and we could see her mouth opening to meow at us.
Hello?
Hello?
Jedi Soccer Moms
Ten years ago, TEN, I saw a Star Wars onesie at Hot Topic with “Future Jedi Master” printed on the front. I bought it immediately. I knew SOMEDAY either I would have a use for it, or one of my friends would.
We are nerds. Of varying degrees and types, but everyone I spend any degree of time with is a nerd. So Star Wars is always a hit, and as it happened, I got to use the onesie for my own baby. It got me thinking though, watching him roll around in his Jedi shirt.
Maybe it’s just the hormones. Maybe it’s paranoia. These days, I swerve between absolute joy, and horror at the possibility of loss of any kind(with bouts of boredom and exhaustion thrown in for good measure).
So, as much as anyone might wish to banish the prequels from existence (and I don’t, I’d keep them if only for the light-sabre battles), I kept thinking about Yoda declaring 9 year old Anakin Skywalker too old for the training.
When DO children start training at the Jedi Temple? 8 and a half? 6? 3? Infancy? I suspect the (fictional) answer is around 4 or 5, much as you might see of young athletes being taken for training in some places. Or, you know, Battle School.
Battle School isn’t a bad parallel. You have this child, who has in all likelihood been remarkable since he or she was a baby. Not to say that people would love their gifted children more than typical children, but a precocious toddler probably has a little extra sparkle and charm.
And then your baby tests too high on the midichlorian scale and your life is just ripped apart. You get those fuzzy bright – too sweet years, and then you don’t see them until they’re vague and peaceful calm as Obi Wan. Does anyone refuse? You leave this beautiful bright four year old to meet his destiny and 20 years later, he’s a stranger who has seen more of the universe than you’re capable of imagining. Maybe all parenting is kind of like that.
But maybe it’s not like that at all. Maybe the four year old isn’t so much adorably brilliant as he is frustratingly advanced. Maybe he constantly pushes against your artificial boundaries, ready to cross them long before you are ready to let him. Maybe all parenting is kind of like that too. But this little child doesn’t just cause trouble in school when he’s bored, he levitates, and talks his teachers into letting him have extra recess. Every day. Maybe if hadn’t been found by the Jedi, he would have been lost on a path of drugs, crime and force lightning.
And maybe you don’t have to just hand him over to the priesthood, maybe that was just unique to Anakin’s circumstances, what with Mom being a slave. I mean, obviously it’s a boarding school, I doubt they have Jedi-letts who commute, but maybe they have parents weekends every couple months. Maybe the little ones put down their training sabres and pack up for a long holiday over Thanksgiving. Maybe they make paper planets with heart stickers and glitter for Mother’s Day.
Then there’s sure to be at least a few families who moved to Coruscant to be near their Jedi tots. In fact some probably even moved to Coruscant just in hopes that their child would be accepted. They probably used special belly-headphones to play special force channeling soundtracks for the fetus. When the baby turned 18 months, they enrolled him in a class that claims to raise midichlorian levels, satisfaction guaranteed.
Do the parents ever hang out watching light-sabre kata practice? Does Dad pick his Jedi up from a match with a younger but more talented boy and scold him for not triple flipping into the opening he saw two and a quarter minutes in, or what about a little force nudge when the kid blinked sweat out of his eyes a minute later? Does Mom observe her daughter meditating and tell her maybe she needs to work a little harder at it since she always seems to need to itch her nose after only a few hours?
Why do I assume the Jedi parents would be overbearing and… awful?
I guess it’s because I know (however it is you can know something about a fictional universe) that there is no room for parents in the world of the Jedi. Parents are distracting, they are attachment, they turn Anakins into Darth Vaders.
If it’s genetics (and Luke says it is) most parents of Jedi must have had some feel for the force as well. Probably they wouldn’t have turned into Toddlers & Tiaras type psychos, they would have been sensitive, aware of nuances, feeling the subtle needs of their baby. They would have been there with a hug when the training was too difficult, they would have felt the pain of struggle, of the alienation that must be necessary to finally attain a detached calm. And the hugs might keep the student from struggling through, from learning what needed to be learned.
Was a Jedi ever allowed to be a child? Did they have time for games and giggling and stupid stunts, or was it all concentration and breathing?
The Jedi. The Jedi’s father. The athlete and her parents. Theresa and John Paul and Ender Wiggin, Mr. and Mrs. Madrid. The parent of every real world soldier, alive and slain. They give so much, and we expect it all of them. Was it worth it? What they missed, what they lost?
To be a Jedi?
Crawling Lessons
Ender’s first Christmas was fantastic.
He (like most babies I imagine) was far more interested in the wrapping paper, boxes, and the excitement around him than in his gifts.
It was a task to keep him from eating the wrapping paper.
He loves people though, so I think having a chance to visit family was the best part.
His cousins, aunt and grandma all loved having him there and he ate up the attention. Our younger niece helped him unwrap his presents.
Our nieces, especially the older one, tried to teach him to crawl.
Not quite sure… I think he might need some more examples.
Your arms go like this, and your legs go like… what?
He’s still not quite there yet, but he was definitely watching.
Our older niece played Peek-a-boo every chance she got. Ender got so much attention last weekend I think he’s bored with just me and his Dad now.
Who Needs Sleep
Every new mother parent knows about sleep deprivation. I was curious (and fearful) to see how it would impact me. In high school and college it sometimes seemed like I hardly ever slept, but somewhere in the following years sleep karma came crashing down and I turned into a zombie anytime I got less than a solid 8 hours.
I got my first taste of long term sleep loss in my final trimester. It wasn’t so much the frequent bladder demands- I am a rotten sleeper generally, so frequent waking wasn’t too much of a change. The bigger issue was the pain… one of the pregnancy hormones, I think its relaxin (?) makes all the ligaments stretchy, and it gets excruciating in the middle of the night, mainly around the hip region (not coincidentally).
But of course a newborn is a totally different ballpark.
Things got better around the 2 month mark, then much worse for a while, then way way better (with a few hiccups) around 4 and a half months. It’s all relative though. I’ve always assumed I was nocturnal through practice rather than nature, but it seems I lean that way even given incentive to change: now, waking consistently at 7 or earlier, I still have trouble falling asleep before 1 most nights. It’s a problem.
I have certainly adjusted though. I have not (that I am aware) become a zombie. I’m pretty much always tired, but you get used to it.
This weekend, thanks to an abundance of extra willing hands, I got some sleep. Every morning Ender went down for a two hour nap and every morning I went down for a two hour nap too.
Now, I have never been a great napper, but since having a baby I have managed to start taking naps at least when I REALLY need them. When I’m especially tired I do try to take naps in the morning with Ender. It’s amazing though what a difference having family there makes. Sleep is far more restful when I’m not sleeping with my ear cocked for the sounds of him waking up. When I know that I don’t HAVE to get up right when he wakes because someone else will go and cuddle him when he starts crying. Matt usually can’t fill that spot because generally if I’m tired enough to need a nap, so is he, so
we nap together, and when Ender wakes up, we get up together.
It’s funny. Getting a bit of extra sleep seems to be like having a bit of food after starving for months. I was more dopey with sleep this weekend I think than I have been the weeks before.
Today though? I feel great. It’s hard to pinpoint the difference, but it’s not just mental, even my body just feels better. Usually holidays, as fun and enjoyable as they might be, wear me out. And this Christmas, especially seeing it as I imagine Ender must be seeing it for the first time was no less tiring than any other holiday, but I feel energized instead of exhausted
Now if I could just start getting to sleep before midnight, maybe I can hold on to this lovely feeling of rest.
Love. Hate.
Hmm. What’s this?
Yuck!
Why would you do that to me?
Well, ok.
Ugh! It’s terrible!
Hey what’s this?
Wait, that’s not…
Bleah.
Why????
Hey what’s this?
He ate like this for half an hour.
Six Months of Ender
Ender hit the six month mark on December 1st.
It’s pretty shocking how much a baby changes in such a short amount of time. I thought babies grew faster in the womb than at any time in their lives, but this is clearly not the case. Ender was born 7 lbs 7 oz and 19.5 inches. He doubled his weight at three months. At his six month visit he was 19 lbs 13 oz and 27 inches.
Every week seems to bring an entirely new phase.
We’ve given him “age appropriate” toys since he was a few weeks old (toys hanging from the baby gym to start) but it’s only in the last month or so that his actions have started to resemble anything recognizable as play, or that he’s been aware of objects that aren’t dangled directly in front of his eyes.
It’s true, most of his play involves trying to figure out how best to get the object of his attention into his mouth: gnaw, suck and slobber, but it’s still play.
And he is adding new exploration: he also bats and twists and bounces and pulls and pushes and grabs and throws and drops.
He smiles when you smile, he smiles when you make faces. He smiles when he first sees you in the morning or when you come back into the room a minute after leaving. He laughs when you pretend to eat his tummy, when you pretend to throw him in the air, when you pretend to throw him on the bed. When you drag him backward by his ankles, or pick him up and hold him upside down. He’ll grin at a picture of his daddy.
He can sit up by himself, though he falls without warning. He looks like he might crawl soon, but he’s not quite there yet.
He stands easily and eagerly if held by the waist, and he climbs if there’s something in front of him, usually up my shoulder. He squirms like mad, whether he’s nursing or sitting in a lap, or especially getting ready for bed. He doesn’t mind being dressed, but he doesn’t cooperate either. He loves baths, and getting Matt’s shirt all wet from splashing. He likes slapping the pictures in books and sometimes he’ll turn the page if you’re patient. He’ll sit still when Matt reads to him, but when I read to him, he tries to eat the book.
He likes to smile at strangers and show them how happy he is. People are always asking me, “Is he always like this?”
He doesn’t often sit still, but he’s happiest when he’s being held, even if he wriggles all around and won’t settle.
He is the perfect size to hug. He doesn’t hug back yet, but sometimes when he’s calm, he’ll cling around your neck and rest his head on your shoulder, and it’s almost a hug. He doesn’t give kisses yet, but he opens his mouth wide and sucks on my chin, or my cheek, and smiles while he’s doing it because it makes me laugh so hard, and the chuckles shake my whole body and him with it.
He can turn the bathroom lights on and off, but sometimes he doesn’t feel like doing it.
He will play happily by himself for as long as an hour.
He hates going down for naps, but most mornings when he wakes up, I hear him gurgling and chatting to the birds in the mobile before I get up and get him out of his crib.
He doesn’t sleep like he used to in the car, but if it’s naptime, sometimes he’ll fall asleep after long, drawn out protests. They sound like: “Uhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhh. Uhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhh.” He doesn’t sound upset, just persistent. We think he’s saying, “I’m AWAKE. I’m AWAKE. I’m STILL AWAKE BACK HERE.” Then he falls asleep.
He has his unexpectedly fussy times, but on those long days when we fully expect him to lose it, he’s a champ. He dissolved into sobs after his six month vaccinations, and showed me that he knows how to GLARE. Fortunately, it was aimed at the nurse, not me.
He warns you with ear murdering shrieks when he’s tired and had just about enough.
He is starting to notice the cats, and they have mostly learned to stay out of reach, though they’ll tolerate him petting them for a time. He usually comes away from “petting” with a fistful of fur, but they don’t make a fuss. He likes dogs as long as they aren’t TOO eager.
He likes his stuffed bunnies and Sophie, his giraffe. (Apparently all babies like Sophie.)
He does not yet like carrots. He is traumatized by rice cereal, and unimpressed by oatmeal. Anything inedible goes directly into his mouth, but if it’s food, and it’s not produced by my breasts, he’s not interested. Actually, he’s not interested in breastmilk from a bottle either, though he’ll play with the bottle or sippy cup if given the chance.
He usually wakes up once or twice a night, but is finally starting to sleep in until 7 or 7:30 most mornings.
He likes the grocery store because there are lots of interesting things to look at, and lots of people smiling at him and telling him how cute he is.
He loves to watch other babies or other little kids and if put near them will reach out and try to touch their face.
He cries when other babies try to touch his face.
He grins at his reflection in the mirror, and at my reflection in the mirror. I say, “Who’s that? It’s Ender!” but I don’t have any idea whether he knows it’s him, or when he’s supposed to recognize that it’s him.
He isn’t sure how to react when we play peek-a-boo by covering our faces, but he SCREAMS with joy when we cover his face with a blanket or towel and pull it off so he can see again. He holds his breath when his face is briefly covered, which is a little freaky.
He likes to be held in the air, and on several occasions, has successfully dropped a drool bomb right on my eye or nose or mouth.
He loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear, even though I find the plot pretty uninspiring, and the protagonist unconvincing. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is more three dimensional, but his plight merely reminds Ender that he’s also hungry, and not interested in empathizing with someone else’s problems.
Toys that chime and squeak are fun, but crinkly things rock Ender’s world.
He may be outgrowing the play mat because when he tries to crawl, it bunches up under him and keeps him from moving.
He really wants to crawl.
Wants are much more obvious now. He reaches, he strains, he looks to me and then to whatever he’s reaching for to let me know I should give it to him. He cries when he can’t get it immediately.
In just the last few days he’s changed from aimless swimming in the air movement to pushing up on all fours. Baby development websites say he should rock back in forth in this position, but Ender bounces impatiently instead, like he’s gearing up for a race. Right now he can only stay up that way for a few seconds at a time.
Tomorrow… who knows?
Dressed for a Funeral
As it turned out, October was a dangerous month.
*We went to visit family in Cincinnati halfway through the month. A few years ago, when we’d leave town for less than a week, we’d leave out a pile of cat food and an extra water bowl. If it was more than a week, we’d have a friend stop by a couple times to socialize with the cats (if the cats were willing) and replenish the food and water. Cats are low maintenance.
That changed when Chyna, the older cat, started peeing blood. Honestly, when I brought her into the vet I was expecting the worst, so when the vet said he had bad news, I was pretty relieved that it was diabetes.
We fell into the pattern of twice a day insulin pretty easily after the first few weeks of panic, but going on trips suddenly required much more planning.
So we were pretty excited to find Dana.
Dana worked as a vet tech just five minutes from our house. She was youngish, full of energy and obviously loved animals. She was comfortable giving injections and careful with directions. We always returned from trips to happy cats and a note from Dana with anything needing our attention, or just an update on our pets’ moods.
We scheduled ahead of time, so when our trip mid-October was cut a day short, I called the night before we were leaving to let her know she didn’t need to take care of the cats on the last day.
Her sister called the next morning and informed me that Dana had passed away. She had died the day before we left for Cincinnati.
I gave her sister my condolences, and hung up quickly and awkwardly because I didn’t have any idea of what else to say to a woman I didn’t know about her sister who I only knew as my excellent cat sitter. I then guiltily turned towards trying to find out whether my diabetic cat was still alive or lying in a hypoglycemic coma.
The cat is fine. I called my friend Amy to check on her, feeling terrible and not knowing what she’d find. Fortunately the cats seem to have suffered no long term ill effects aside from being a bit pushier at meal time.
The first thing I did, after calling Amy was to apologetically call the vet. We had switched to Dana’s vet shortly after moving to our new house because it was so much closer. They were extremely shaken, and sad. The office has only a handful of staff, so losing Dana not only made them scramble to take care of their normal business, but it seemed to be like losing a family member. The vet herself had found Dana’s body when she went to check on why she hadn’t shown up to work.
Dana’s death left me feeling a bit broody. I was sad the way you are sad when an acquaintance dies, but could not sincerely call it a loss of a friend. She was so young and healthy seeming that it made me stop and wonder at the fragility of life.
William died on October 30th.
I had known William for about five years, Matt, who was much closer to him, knew him for ten years or longer. He was among the first of Matt’s friends I met. When we heard the news, we both thought it was a joke. Possibly a joke by William himself. Several of his friends thought the same thing.
It’s not just that William, a forensic pathologist, had a particularly dark sense of humor, nor that it was Halloween. It was just surreal. William was only 42 (I think) though his health was not all that good. He was constantly talking about death. Stories of especially weird deaths. Details of working with death. The politics and legality surrounding death. It was even more difficult to comprehend for Matt and I because neither of us saw him all that often. He lived on the other side of town so we would get together every few months for dinner or brunch and catch up. With the baby, that had slowed, and the last time I saw him I was seven months pregnant, chatting with his mom about the baby shower. Matt saw him in July when I went back to Oregon to visit my family. His death was a stomach sickening blow, but not a tangible absence because we just didn’t see him often enough for it to be real.
I’d never understood why anyone would want an open casket funeral, but as Matt and I prepared to go to William’s visitation (sounds spooky, yeah?) I realized I hoped there would be a viewing. The idea of being afraid of William’s body was laughable, and he had always been so comfortable and familiar with death that it just seemed right to pay respects in person so to speak. I also thought that maybe if I saw William saw his body, I would be able to believe he was dead.
William’s body was not at the visitation, and Matt pointed out later that most likely he, a teacher and scientist, would have donated it.
Matt had initially planned to go alone, but I wanted to be there. We could have hired a baby sitter I suppose, but I thought William’s mother, the only person in his family who we really knew, would like to hug a baby. It is hard to imagine anything more comforting than snuggling a chubby 5 month old.
On the other hand, I wondered if holding a baby would remind William’s mother of her child that she had held and snuggled 40 years ago. It is so often said that no parent should have to bury a child, but usually they mean a child. We don’t often think of the parents of an adult who dies too young, well on the way to middle age, firmly in the midst of life and career.
If anything, we think of the spouse, the children, the siblings, the best friends. The parent crouches in the background of grieving, an afterthought. William’s mother is a friend of ours as well, and I tried not to think too hard of what it would be to lose Ender at any age.
Ender was hugged, and I think he brought comfort. I know I hug him a little tighter.
(*Sappy Cat photos seemed appropriate.)
Out of Reach
One thing that has surprised me about being a parent is how fascinating babies can be. Don’t get me wrong, by the time bedtime rolls around it seems way past due, but I can spend so much time just watching Ender puzzle out the world. Even when it seems like there isn’t much going on, he’s working on putting it all together.
The most recent observation on my mind is the question of why Ender is not crawling yet. I don’t mean in terms of hitting milestones — Ender is 6 months old which is still early to be crawling. I just mean the physical and mental hurdles that are keeping him stuck like an overturned turtle.
Pediatricians stress the importance of tummy time because it allows babies to develop the muscles they need to crawl, and eventually walk. Supposedly they develop the necessary muscles around 6-10 months. It seems like the going theory is that as soon as they are strong enough, they up and start crawling, but I have my doubts.
Ender is STRONG. He was born able to hold his head up for short periods of time (and peck us like a bird, mouth agape, when he wanted to be fed) and support his own weight with his legs. The first time I laid him on his tummy, about a month and a half, he rolled over. Which is NOT to say he rolled over early. I count his real rolling over somewhere between 3 and 4 months. At a month and a half he had NO idea what he was doing, he was just angry to be on his tummy and flailed his way back onto his back.
My point is that I don’t think strength is what is keeping him from crawling. I may be wrong. He could sit with support — I thought just balance — for a long time before he was able to sit unassisted, and he was quite shaky at first. He would sort of gradually lean forward until he was almost on his tummy with his legs out next to his head (which, btw, he really did NOT like). So apparently his back muscles weren’t as developed as I thought they were. And maybe now, they still aren’t as developed as I think they are. Nonetheless, I think there’s something else going on.
A baby has no understanding of perspective. There is no near and far. There is just, I dunno, here? And not here? In my hand, (or usually in Ender’s case, mouth) or want it in my hand? It must take a lot of new brain power to understand the concept of traveling, because from the baby’s perspective, objects move to them. Or they don’t. True, much of a baby’s life is being carried from one place to another, but since the baby exerts no effort to get there, since they have no control over where they go, it is as if their entire environment is one big object being turned and brought to them.
So when you think about it, crawling is quite a leap. Even reaching is a leap. We think it’s lack of hand-eye coordination that prevents small infants from grasping objects (and obviously that is the main issue) but maybe part of it is that it just doesn’t occur to the baby that an object CAN be effected by their hands, maybe a baby needs to concentrate over months and months to understand that they have the power to move themselves from one object to the other.
Ender is not quite there yet. He is trying, oh so hard to crawl, but he just doesn’t quite get how it works. I have no idea if the motion is instinctive, or if he’s imitating other babies he’s seen at Story Time, but he makes quite convincing swim-crawl motions with all four limbs that do absolutely nothing to help him. They are so convincing that I can’t quite see why they AREN’T moving him. He’s probably further frustrated by the fact that in his crib, he gets all over the place, assisted by having walls to kick off of from every direction. I’m not even sure if, in his baby brain, the movement has a purpose, if he thinks it will move him, or if it’s just a Pavlovian response to wanting something out of reach.
My favorite motion, and I’m pretty sure this is a legitimate intentional attempt to move, is his inch-worm. This is the most hilariously ineffective thing I’ve ever seen.
He does this mostly when we put him on the bed, I have no idea why, and he doesn’t necessarily do it to try to get anywhere in particular, it’s like he’s really just practicing. First he kicks his legs about for a while, like he’s trying to remember what to do with them.
Then he bunches them up under his belly, and squishes into a potato bug like ball. Sometimes he falls over at this point. Next, he sort of straightens his legs and pushes his butt way up into the air. He falls over even more often at that point. Often enough though, he balances, perched on the verge of motion.
He LOOKS like he’s going to do it. Surely, he is just seconds away from pushing himself a few inches forward and experiencing the triumph of movement.
But no. He only makes it halfway. Once he gets his butt in the air, he seems to think he’s accomplished his goal. Rather than pushing forward, or even slumping, or falling, or sliding slowly forward, his legs SHOOT back out and he ends up right where he started.
Fortunately, he never minds when I laugh at him.
Completion
My mind’s closet is overstuffed with unfinished ideas. There are inventions, drawings, furniture designs, stories, business plans, clothing concepts and half sketched websites. Cyberspace alone hosts a sad little graveyard of my abandoned projects, be it a webcomic or a writing community or a handful of sites that never got past the under construction page. (Every single one of those links is a website I “started.”) A peek back at my Big Box of ADHD post from 2009 shows a long list of things I thought were top priorities, but three years later, I’ve only finished one or two. Sometimes this feels like a moral failing.
I’m not wonderful at finishing things. Since I was small I’ve had the tendency to bound into projects too big for me, then to get distracted before getting traction, or once I’m well entrenched but lose interest, or, best of all, when I’m ALMOST done but can’t quite bring myself to seal the envelope. Most often of all, no matter how excited I am, I never even start.
I did Holidailies for the first and only time in 2008. I thought it was a little hokey and was embarrassed to advertize my participation, but I managed to post every single day. In fact, 2008 was a good year for completion for me. The wedding, while it would have happened whether or not we’d finished all the preparation, was the first time I was mostly responsible for putting together something so large and having it actually happen. Mainly due to the kindness of friends, but hey, it happened.
The most significant thing I finished in 2008 was my novel, Lost Child of Summer. I haven’t found a publisher but there is something magical about finishing a novel. Even if it’s the worst piece of hackery ever produced (and I don’t think it is) completing a novel makes you feel like you can do anything. Makes me feel like I actually CAN follow through on my thoughts if I’m careful.
I guess I haven’t been careful enough. I haven’t had much luck with completion since 2008. There are always excuses and distractions, and I just never seem to get around to doing what I mean to do.
The Plan was always for me to be a work from home mom. Matt and I, looking ahead, figured I’d take a couple years and get a freelance career going, get some illustration work here, some writing jobs there, and maybe crafting on top. Side projects on the side. Yes, it’s scattered, but I just don’t seem to aim and fire in one direction. Then we’d have a baby, and another a few years later, and I’d slow my work for a while, then pick it back up as I could.
Only those couple years passed, and now I have a six month old… the best excuse ever. And all those intentions are exactly where I left them.
I love being a mom. I am enjoying Ender like I’ve never enjoyed anything. It’s enough to keep me happy, but it’s not enough to keep me satisfied. It’s not just that there are so many things I could do… it’s that there are so many things that I’ve wanted to do. It’s pretty obvious that it can take effort and determination to do something you don’t like to do. What is less obvious is how much effort and determination it takes to do something you DO like to do.
So this year, I thought maybe a good start would be to do Holidailies again. I am sick of looking at last year’s resolutions and saying, no. Not one. Ender is getting to the age where he takes somewhat reliable naps, so it’s time to make some use of those hour long chunks. I’ll post every day for a month, and then at the end of the month, maybe posting once a week won’t seem so unlikely. Maybe drawing will be less of a chore. Maybe I’ll finally revisit my short stories and novel.
Maybe I’ll remember that I’m capable of completion.
Halloween
I’m working on another post right now, that I meant to get up before posting Halloween photos, but since Thursday was Thanksgiving, I guess I’d better go ahead and post these while it’s still 2011.
I had some really cute photos of Ender sitting in a box of pumpkins, but I can’t find them now. I think my phone may have eaten them. Fortunately, Ender has no shortage of cute to make up the difference. Maybe next year he’ll let me get a picture of him in a box of pumpkins. Because toddlers are known for their spirit of cooperation.
In case you didn’t catch my obsessive Photoshop tribute a couple weeks ago, we went as characters from the movie Labyrinth.
*On the right: my friend Amy went as Martha Stewart this year. (Costume not pictured. Actually I think she went as a gypsy, but seriously, check OUT that haunted house.)*
Having a baby this size was too good an opportunity to pass up dressing him in red striped pajamas and calling him “Toby,” Matt was David Bowie AKA Jareth the goblin king (side note: Jareth was one of the names we briefly considered for Ender just because we REALLY like that movie), and I was, obviously, a goblin. Sarah (the protagonist of the show) would have been a more obvious choice, but I don’t have the hair for it, and she’s a whiny little twit, so I opted for a costume that let me make a spiky helmet instead.
When you think of babies and Halloween you imagine lots of crying and utter horror at the sudden chaos that has befallen their small and so far predictable universe, but Ender was unphased. I think he may actually have been a little too young to be frightened by scary costumes. It might be more traumatic now that he’s starting to get an idea of what the wold is supposed to look like.
His older and wiser friend had a much more pragmatic reaction to being held by a ring wraith.
Next year he may better understand his danger. I mean even without the spooky mask, check out what he’s doing to that piece of cheese! Seconds after I snapped this photo he crushed that mug into ceramic dust. Which was then put back into the tub for clay grit, obviously. Just because you’re a nazgul doesn’t mean you have to destroy the earth.
Wait. Yes, that’s probably exactly what being a nazgul means. I lied about the ceramic dust. You can’t really mix in fired and glazed clay with raw clay anyway. Duh.
Anyway, my point is that Ender really wasn’t bothered by the scary costumes this year.
He just looks bored. Probably looking for something to put in his mouth. Babies actually have quite a lot in common with zombies.
The scary costumes didn’t impress him, but he sure was happy when he found Waldo. Then we all got to try to find Ender.
We went to two Halloween parties this year, one at my brother’s and the company party at Secure State. We were in kind of a rush before my brother’s party, and Matt did his own makeup with questionable results. I tried to make fun of him for his makeup failure, but he claims he is not at all embarrassed to be terrible at putting on makeup.
I was able to get to the Secure State party a little early and did his makeup for him. Lot’s of glitter. I also spent some time trying to get the wig to look a little less like a Ludwig and more like hair metal. Apparently they don’t come out of the package looking the way you want them to look. Since I was going for 80s hair, I stuck with the classics: Aquanet to the rescue.
We didn’t stay in the main party room for too long because the music was a little loud for a baby. We could have left him home with a babysitter, but he was kind of our main costume prop, so we just hung out in a quiet area instead.
I tried to get some photos in for Photoshopping later.
Ender was not entirely cooperative, but he was, as usual, pretty tolerant.
He conked out before we’d been there for too long. Matt had a few things to finish before we could leave.
Fortunately he stayed asleep when we put him in his carseat. He NEVER does that anymore. It probably helped that he was already in pajamas.
Next year we’ll get him a more costume-like costume. This one was nice and simple though, and kept him comfortable.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was young enough to be thrilled by Christmas it was a toss-up. The fantasy and the disguises, the opportunity to play at being someone or something else for a night are more intriguing than the candy (though it’s hard to compete with Santa Clause and new toys). Next year he’ll be a little older and I would assume, a little more wary of strangers dressed as zombies, so we’ll have to play it by ear. I don’t want to terrify him. I’d like to give him the chance to love the holiday as much as I do.