Izzo: "Jingle All the Way!"

Good folks,

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE DAY!

Oh, there'll be so much more to write about tomorrow, but if I wait for that, so much else'll get lost in the shuffle.

And I've been stubbornly chipping away at this particular correspondence for days already, because I'm not kidding when I say that every little thing Izzo does sparks something in my brain that makes me tell myself what? Yep: I totally gotta write about THIS!

And I've had that thought so many times I've forgotten almost all of the instances. Which, on one hand, is horrible, that I so quickly forget the precious, magical moments that multiply themselves around here. On the other hand, it's good. None of y'all have time to read about EVERYTHING. I don't have time to write about everything. And... hey, at least I'm writing about some of it, lest I forget all of it. 'Na mean?

Anyway.

PEACE ON EARTH

My mother, Izzo's Oma, somewhat of a former Dutch hippie herself, and these days an Amnesty International-supporting dove type who voted in her first general election this past November as a brand new American citizen, has, on occasion, labeled Izzo, "a peace baby." 'Cause, I think, Izzo's got that vibe. 'Cause all babies have that vibe, and that possibility, on small and large scales. I mean, I thought that's what she was getting at. But, yeah, my mom is always right. And in the weirdest, truest ways.

Back in the day, I'd come home and tell her about this annoying girl in my new class and she'd go, "Sounds like someone you'll really like having conversations with." Or something. And I'd be, like, "Huh? Did you even listen to what I just said? This girl is soooo annoying." "Oh, then just ignore her for now."

I'd walk away going, "What just happened?" And then I'd forget about it, and, yes, do my best to ignore the girl. Two months later, the girl would join Angela Friedl and I at lunch for some of our nerdy political debates about Clinton (Bill) and Perot and Bush (1).

Ask Kit. This kinda stuff happened all the time. Somewhere between prediction, prophesy and plain ol' good advice, always delivered in such a subtle strokes that gave away nothing, including whether Oma even knew it was happening. (And, man, is that a lot of pressure!)

Again, anyway. Calling Izzo a "peace baby." Cute, right?

Yeah, so, I bought a T-shirt of the clearance rack at Target a few weeks back with peace signs on it (I am my mother's daughter, no?) and the first time I wore it, Izzo asked me, from the changing table, what the pictures on my shirt were called. No, she didn't ask like THAT, but she pointed and shone her big, ever inquisitive eyes at me to ask.

"Peace," I told her. "Peace, Izzo."

"Peace," she repeated. "Peace, peace, peace, peace."

"Good girl!" I cheered. "Apres! Peace!"

She smiled, tried the word out in her mouth a few more times and, then, she let it go.

Until last week, when she found the old black wristband with the skinny peace sign on it (used formerly as an accessory to the bright jump suits I'd wear to our local rock shows). I'd found it in the closet when I was hunting for a knit hat and/or gloves to wear to a cold (for us) high school football game I was going to cover, and a few hours later, Izzo'd found it at the top of her favorite drawer (my underwear drawer). She came running with her find. And shouting.

"Peace! Peace! Peace! Peace!"

So we put the wristband on and she wore it the rest of the day. Wore it for another couple days, actually, because when I tried to remove it around jammies time, she reached and whined to get it back on, and repeated her mantra for that day: "Peace, peace peacepeacepeace!"

Not that she understands or comprehends the notion behind the symbol, no. But Izzo's kind of big into symbols at the moment -- Lakers, Dodgers and now another key team: the peace team. Which ain't a bad thing.

(And hey, Daddy (as in Hamlet): Pacifists ain't sissies. Believe that.)

EIGHT MAIDS MILKING ... SIX GEESE LAYING ... THREE FRENCH -- FRIES?

Izzo and I went grocery shopping one night last week after I finished working and let me tell you, never had Izzo been so helpful!

She played tour guide, shouting out the names of most of the items we stopped to by: Tomatoes! Bananas! Yogurt! Milk! Juice! Cheese! Cooookies!!! Beeeeer-- oh, just kidding on the last one.

And then I'd give her the thing and she'd check it out, make sure I'd picked a good one (evidently, I always had) and then she'd turn to drop the cheese or the bananas in the cart behind her.

"Apres, Izzo!" I'd say. "Apres, Izzo!"

MY NUTCRACKER SWEET

Oh my, my.

Listening to NPR over the weekend and caught Scott Simon's little essay about his daughter, who is, like, 6, and who just participated in her first musical and who has, evidently, fallen deep in love. With musicals. The segment ended with a bit of "The Music and The Mirror," from "A Chorus Line." And I watched Izzo fall deep in love.

This symphonic smile spread all the way across her face. She lit up like the house down the street drowning in at-least $5,000 worth of Christmas attire. And then she started bellowing out song, trying her best to match the singing she hadn't heard before. When the bit of singing ended, she stopped her vocal track too, but continued quite literally twitching in her seat, overcome by what she'd just experienced.

Naturally, we've YouTubed a few more musicals since. My Fair Lady's "Wouldn't it be Lovely." And, Oliver's "Who Will Buy," and, uh, "Oom Pa Pa," which isn't exactly Little Girl listening save for the fact that she can actually sing "Oom Pa Pa."

Izzo got really, really into "Wouldn't It Be Lovely," during which time she spotted the Lakers jerseys hanging on the wall (yeah, you read that correctly), and did what she always does when she considers the Lakers: Pounds her palm on her chest and shouts "Lakers!" (We didn't actually teach her this.) Except this time, inspired by the music, she turned the chest pounds into a dramatic dance, as she spun and sung and took over the living room wailing about the Lakers, her face stretched serious with emotion, her right hand steady over her heart, in her own world, performing to a place deep and high and impressively, weirdly real. Spent that whole 4 minutes, 37 seconds of that song dancing her heart out, singing with all her being, and dedicating it all to the Lakers -- who went and lost their second straight for her that night. Bums. (They've won two straight since, it's been that long.)

But, yeah, anyway. I was thinking, on the musicals thing. How potentially appropriate. Daddy, a music-maker. Mommy, a story-teller, kinda. Put it together, maybe you do get a musical-loving toddlerbaby like our apartment's resident reigning star?

CLIMBING DOWN THE CHIMNEY

If Santa's looking for a helper for that, Izzo's so down.

Climbing down the chimney, up the chimney, over Daddy's lap, over Momomom's lap, over the new big box of diapers, and then back, the other way, over that same box, onto her stroller, up these stairs, those stairs, those other stairs, and finally onto the window sill in the living room!? Really, on all of those. Well, except maybe the chimney. We don't have a chimney -- but there are always several unsecured windows Santa can use.

A BEDTIME CHRISTMAS STORY

With the exception of one of her first full-fledged, rock-star, diva-in-training, wild-animal-turned-alien tantrums one of these nights, Izzo's been finding it possible to sleep before 10 p.m. almost every night for the past week and a half.

Of course, it takes Momomom laying down with her (and sometimes falling asleep with her), but that she's in it to sleep and not try'n psyche me out is an accomplishment in itself, in my book.

Alas, recently got one of these babycenter.com updates that I usually enjoy and it had a feature on a mom who was trying to get her toddlerbaby to go to bed earlier. Naturally, I clicked the headline to learn more. Uh, well, yeah. Lady wanted her daughter to get to visiting dreamland at 7:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 p.m., which initially made me feel like a rotten mom, kinda, before I realized that if that were our schedule, it would have Izzo falling asleep into my arms instead of emitting the most wondrous happy piggy squeals anyone ever did hear when I got back to Tatik's house every evening. At 7:30 p.m. Sigh.


MORE IZZO CHRISTMAS STUFF

-- As reported, we jazzed up our place as much as we could, and so did Tatik and Papik. Seemed like every time I stopped by the past couple weeks, Papik and Izzo had hung more ornaments on the tree in the living room. Or Tatik had done something else to the condo to festive it up. And none of it was lost on Izzo, who pointed it all out to me on several occasions, impressed as she was.
-- Izzo just loves her little red plastic chair at Tatik's, so we planned to find her one for here, for Christmas. Looked everywhere you'd think to look, including Target, where they were selling a beautiful black leather easy chair, Izzo size. I took it off the shelf and let Izzo climb on and off of it a few times, and wished I hadn't, because she delighted in the action, just tickled that they'd make a comfy, comfy seat like that for HER! And then, to her absolute outrage, I put the chair back on the shelf. Whaaa? Whyyyy? 'Cause that seat was goin' for $80. EIGHTY DOLLARS, Y'ALL. Sorry, Izzo.

OK, I hear Izzo stirring in her bedroom, it's just 8:14, so it's early for her, but she can surely feel it, don't you think? It's Dec. 24, and though she might not realize why right now, this surely will be one of, if not THE best day of the year from here on out, the way the Nalbandyan-Swanson fam rocks it.

So, much more later. Good times ahead.

ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

And Peace, peace peacepeacepeace.

Us

Izzo: Let the good times roll...

All:

Hey.

First things first: the facts.

I wasn't there for the first time because I had to drive to work, and now Hamlet says he's not entirely sure, but we're reporting here that Izzo, as of Friday's check up, stands 31 and 3/4 inches tall and weighs in at 24 pounds and let's call it 6 ounces. Which makes her slightly "better than average," as Daddy put it.

...

Izzo was way sick last Sunday. Barfed all over everything all morning long. She got down to her very last clean warm outfit. No fever thankfully, and just her second time being that kind of sick, and through it all she was, characteristically, a trooper. Finally, she escaped to a nice, long naptime, after which she was her normal happy self, except that Momom made her take it easy still. And still, within the ensuing 24 hours, she happily downed a whole bottle of grape Pedialyte and another whole carton of juice.

...

Izzo's new thing: Dragging us along.

She will take your hand and literally pull you wherever it is she wants to see you. And, yeah, you go, Oh, how cute. Or, OK, just let her lead you somewhere and then let go.

Hardly. Little homegirl gets the vice grip on and will not let up until she's good and done with you.

To break the spell, you've not only gotta pry your finger out of her hand, you've gotta deal with the psychological warfare that comes with it: tears.

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Add pigeons to the list.

The list of things that Izzo's afraid of.

That list is two things long now. Pigeons. Sticks.

Terrifying, freaky stuff.

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The bedtime thing. Not too bad last week. All it took: 4,587 renditions of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame, the lullaby."

Who knew?

To keep me from going crazy, sometimes I switch it up slightly and root for the Nitros ('cause Hamlet's set on Izzo going to Glendale High), the Ducks (but that kind of ruins the flow of the song) and often, for sweet Izzo herself (no explanation needed.) I think I'ma start rooting for peace in the Middle East or a cure for the economic crisis, 'cause it couldn't hurt...

Sometimes, and this is weird, I accidentally root for the Angels, my childhood team. And that has me convinced that someday Izzo, as an adult, will be at a ballgame having a grand ol' time with some buddies when the middle of the seventh inning will roll along -- and she won't be able to explain it, but she suddenly will get very, very sleepy.

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More and more words all the time. Have I mentioned "lights?" Have I mentioned "waffle?" Have I mentioned "bird?" "Hot?" "Tree?" "Shoe?" "Teeth?" The more pronounced version of "shopping?" "Jersey?" "Touchdown!" And my favorite of late, "silly?" (Which sounds a little something like, "Shillllll... hahahaha!")

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Not to depress youall around the hip-hip holidays, which is why I saved this segment for last, but I gotta throw out some correspondence into the future, aimed at you, 11-, 18-, 30-year-old Izzo. Just to let you know what the heck was going on way back when...

... almost every evening lately, after I've exited the freeway and made my way most of the way down Brand Blvd., closing in on my delicious, long-desired, hello-again hug with you, Izzo, there through the banister at the top of Tatik's entryway stairway, I drive past the sparkling, glittering consumer light show that is The Americana at Brand.

Which, to Southern Californians, can be explained as "Glendale's version of The Grove." To everyone else: It's SoCal's second fancy-schmancy outdoor mall by Rick Caruso, a real estate developer who does things BIG: a million-dollar chandelier hanging above on entrance; a Disney-esque fountain show every half-hour; buildings designed (somewhat haphazardly) to remind of other famous shopping districts around the globe; bellmen manning the elevators; and oh, and the 100-foot, real Christmas tree that was lit, in the midst of Southern California's raging firestorm, to a show of fireworks...

But, unlike Los Angeles' Grove, which incorporated an old, beloved Farmer's Market into the mix, our Americana, which opened in early May, features on-site dwelling. Which is to say: Condos and apartments. Cheapest apartment? A single there above the fray would run you, when we checked earlier this year, $2,250. A two bedroom? More than $5,500 a month. Who, we wondered, would pay those prices to live at a mall in Glendale? Glendale is great, don't dare get me wrong, but it ain't Manhattan or Paris. (And phooey on anyone trying to push prices in THAT direction; rent here is steep enough!) Anyway. Last I read, the units were at, like, 20 percent capacity.

But that's not what I've been thinking about as I stop at the light in front of the shopping center and watch the lights and people going around. What I'm thinking -- rather, what I find myself imagining, is what that place would look like if it were empty.

Not all-the-stores-are-closed-'cause-it's-early-Sunday-morning empty, but deserted because, well, no one has any money. Or because the money we have left is darn near worthless.

Yes, this is totally histrionic, but I find myself imagining what The American at Brand would look like during a 21st century depression. All those flashing lights? Dark. A distant memory. All those carefully arranged storefronts? Boarded. All those folks carrying bags and talking on their cell phones? Uh, poof. Standing in a bread line someplace?

What the heck is Momom's problem this week?

I downloaded, because I'm a full-fledged, card-carrying layman (woman?) and I wanted to try better to understand, This American Life's pair of recent shows on the economy. And then I gave both CDs a good listen to on my drives around SoCal.

(If ya don't know, This American life is, to use the New York Times' description, "a public radio show that specializes in old-fashioned storytelling about local slices of Americana." They generally do shows about, like, summer camp or first days on the job. They're spectacularly entertaining, in a really wholesome, honest way. Check it out: thislife.org)

The first economy-focused broadcast: "The Giant Pool of Money" aimed at explaining the subprime housing mess. I listened to the show twice. The first time it felt kind of good, like, "Whoa, I get it (mostly)!" The second time it made me angry: "What the hell did everyone expect to happen by loaning hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars to folks with no realistic shot of paying that off? And then selling those toxic loans on up the food chain so it'd infect as much of the world's finances as possible? Uh, big fat DUH."

The second hour of programming, "Another Frightening Show About the Economy," lived up to it's billing. This one, which I'd listened to once before while cleaning the house, dealt a lot with credit default loan swaps, which make the complex, convoluted housing situation seem like child's play.

Here's a part of the show that so rattled my senses:

Reporter Alex Blumberg: "When you think about the current global crisis, is this a credit default swap crisis? Is this a mortgage-backed securities crisis? Is this something bigger than all of those and they're just symptoms?"

Satyajit Das, a 30-year risk consultant veteran for big, international hedge funds: "Oh, I very definitely think all of these are just symptoms. Essentially the world just has far too much debt. What has happened over the past 30 years is essentially the amount of debt in the financial system has exploded and I think the problem is the amount of debt that has been created has been made extremely complicated by the financial engineers. There will be enormous, enormous losses which will beg your belief. When economic historians come to write the history of this period, they will look at this and go, 'My God! How did they manage to do this?'"

... chances are you know someone who's been hit already. Lost his or her job in the midst of this crisis. Being journos, Hamlet and I know quite a few -- in and out of the shaky newspaper game. And it's cynical, yes, but especially after listening to those pair of broadcasts, it really feels like our time is coming. Hamlet's paper is owned by the Tribune Co., which went bankrupt last week. My paper is owned by a company that, like every other newspaper group and so many other businesses too, basically is hemorrhaging money. So it feels like when and not if. And then what?

I guess I'm scared.

... and so I think I'm going to let it alter my lifestyle. I might actually keep to my only-once-a-week Starbucks pledge -- or make a new one to stay out of there altogether. I'm going to stop angling so hard for a way to get out of the house to local concerts anymore. I'm going to pack my lunch more than twice a week. I'm going to dedicate myself to building our savings account.

But I'm not going to let it ruin my holiday. Not when I've got Izzo twirling and twirling, bebopping and carrolling like a pro, somehow inherently knowing these days to cover one of her ears while she sings so she can hear herself correctly, make sure she's in tune. And she always is.

See, now THAT's rich.

...

Best wishes all. Be safe, be well, be happy.

Us

As Izzo turns. And turns.

Dear Fam.

I'm simply chasing here, in newspaperspeak, trying to catch up with all the action in an overdue report, and, yes, chasing literally a lot of the time, too.

A lovely Thanksgiving blew past. Enjoyed a warm, growing gathering at Tatik's, where relatives and their significant others kept showing up, which kept giving Izzo a reason to show off: Conscious that she had the floor and everyone's eyeballs, she worked up a serious sweat (I'm serious, about the sweat) boogieing for them all.

Also, with Momom following behind, Izzo marked the day by figuring out how to crawl herself up the stairs, and went back for more more than a few times, giving us both a wicked post-turkey workout. I tried to teach her to go down the same way, for safety's sake, but, really she was more interested in going up than down. Still, I do really want her to learn the hands-and-knees approach, instead of the bipedal grownup way of doing it, because she's not quite ready for that yet and I have a firm hunch she'll find herself alone on those stairs at some point before first grade, and I want her to know what to do.

(And then I learn, this week, that homegirl Katy's baby girl also conquered the stairs on Thanksgiving -- but Sam's all of 9 months young! That's OK, though. Izzo'll get where she's going when she's meant to.)

Another lasting Thanksgiving impression: Izzo and Gigi, the unshy little champion Maltese at Tatik's, chasing each other, circling each other, kissing and hugging each other, just generally loving each other -- and Izzo's uncontrollable heaves of laughter in reaction to the fun. I hadn't seen Izzo laugh quite that hard. She'd simply fall on her bottom and sit laughing for a few minutes until she could get a hold of herse-- then, there came Gigi charging back!, continuing the joke, and my daughter would absolutely lose it all over again.

That, Tatik told me, is how it goes all day around there. And that, I must say, makes it just a little bit easier to leave Izzo in the mornings.

Izzo's all about fun. (And how I'd like to keep it this way for her forever; here's hoping.) Fun, fun, fun. Morning, noon, night. Like, midnight, sometimes.

The bedtime thing.

It's to the point where I think she's probably old enough to have a better bedtime. We've got a routine that should have her down by 9:30. I'd settle for 10. (Remember, we usually don't get home till close to 8 p.m., so...) But this little rambunctious party animal of ours ain't feeling that most nights.

I'll go lay with her, sing quietly and stroke her tummy and her face and watch her appear to drift softly off. Listen to her breathing find its sleepy, measured pace. And then, give it another five minutes or more, just to make sure. Finally, when I'm totally sold on the fact that, at 10 p.m., my toddler officially has conked out, I sllllowly and, shhhhhhh, quietly start to excavate myself from her and the bed and -- BOING! Like a jack 'n the box, Izzo's up, wide-eyed, happy, raring to go: That whole let's play-pretend sleep game was great, Momom, what's next?!?!?!

What's next is that it's Daddy's turn.

And so Hamlet takes his protesting daughter in his arms, into her own darkened room, winds up the music dial on what used to be a mobile and rocks her. Rocks and sings to her. And rocks. And sings. And sings. And rocks. For half-an-hour, until she's good and, well, limp and absolutely done for the day.

Until, of course, her head hits the mattress. Then she goes all jack 'n the box again.

But, nunh-unh, Izzo. That's it. We've had it. You're staying in your crib until you put YOURSELF to sleep. Don't care how much you beg and plead, that's where you're spending the rest of the night.

And so we listen to her (try to) jump up and down in her crib for a few minutes, listen as the commotion eventually settles and stops. Ten minutes of quiet go by, 15, 20, 25... we assume that at, oh, 11:07 p.m., she's done it, that she's actually fallen asleep. So I peek my head in to check and...

... naturally. I'm greeted by a pair of BIG, glowing eyes -- and then a stream of oversized laughter, the likes of which I heard in relation to Gigi at Thanksgiving.

Izzo knew, just knew, I'd poke my head in there eventually, and so she draped herself over the corner of her crib closest to the door and staked me out. And she got me! Ohhhh she got me. And she let me know.

And so, that night, Izzo fell asleep with us, like she wanted, around midnight.

The thing is. She fights for her right to paaaartay most on nights we've worked. Figured before that it had something with the two naps a day she got at Tatik's, as opposed to the one-a-day she gets with me, due to all the running around we end up doing on Momom's limited running-around time. But these days, she's copping just one nap a day at Tatik's too, and so I have trouble understanding why she still has SO much energy that late in the day. And the notion's dawned on me, not that I'm right about it, but I wonder, actually, if it's Izzo trying to stretch her time with us. Like, she hasn't seen us almost all day, and she wants and is gonna get her Momom and Daddy time, darnit. Or, maybe she senses that even though we're trying very dutifully to put her to sleep, that we, also, have missed her all day and that, in the end, we don't actually despise the fact that she so tries to stay up with us. Maybe all this subconscious stuff plays into the late-night quality time?

Or maybe she just takes after Momom as a baby? Or Daddy as a grown person? Or maybe, maybe she's really a rock star in training? 'Cause, lately, getting her up in the morning (ESPECIALLY after the later nights, but not necessarily) isn't the happy-smiley-sunshiny business it used to be, where she'd crack her eyes open, see me, and want to join me in the awakened world again right away, all smiles from here to Holland and back through Armenia.

Oh, no. Now it's like, Are you serious right now? You're waking me up NOW? Well: I. Don't. Want. To.

... at which point, she'll roll over and go back to sleep. It isn't until I've got her in the bathtub or her high chair, gotten some juice into her and some food in front of her that she's back to her familiar fun-fun-fun self.

Whatever the deal, I'm writing it here: I will get this little girl to sleep sooner -- and soon.

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...

Izzo, I think I mentioned last time, became a picky eater faster than you can peel a banana. She's got the talk-to-the-hand thing going for food she's uninterested in. Food that, in a blink of an eye, included the old breakfast staple bananas, her old favorite apples, her regular spoonfuls of late-afternoon soup at Tatik's.

We traced the change to Robert's birthday party, where two things happened. No. 1, she tried her first taste of birdsmilk cake. No. 2, she was teased by relatives for eating everything.

Tatik and I agree that the teasing made her self-conscious, and that, really, that's the problem. But just in case, we've issued up a holiday challenge to ourselves -- so sorry, Izzo -- and sworn of sweets. Sworn them off for Izzo, that is.

Until she gets back to eating almost everything she was eating before, she's not gonna get to split dessert with any of us; there won't be any special trips to the ice cream shop down the street; there won't be any vanilla cookie good-girl rewards; or, because she asked so nicely, bites of chocolate from the bar she somehow managed to spot on Tatik's kitchen countertop. Sorry Izzo, but as Daddy reminds us all, "We're raising an athlete..."
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Always loved how beautifully decorated my house was around this time of year when I was a kid... but never got into it, really, after I moved out. The night before Christmas I'd find myself sticking some ornaments here or there, but generally I was too busy and too cool (no, not really, on the last part) to full-on decorate. But there was a caveat, of course: This lameness would last only until I had a kid.

Now, obviously, I have a kid.

So I pulled out the box with all the decorations I've come to own (thanks, mostly, to my generous, sweet, inspiringly festive Mommy...) and found a spot in the apartment for everything. Looped lights all around the living area, coordinated the eight Christmas stockings (we need more children?) into the fray, found spots for other holiday trinkets and best of all, bought the mini tree I'd promised Oma I'd get, so that every morning, Izzo and I can open the advent box and pull out that day's baggie, containing that day's ornament.

Izzo's starting to catch on, too, now that, for six straight mornings, we've gone straight to the box and the tree and inaugurated a brand-new ornament to our little tree. She's all smiles when we pull down the box and, when the new piece is dangling, she likes to delicately touch all of them, and to tell me just a little something about each. It's becoming quite a wonderful little routine.

She especially totally digs the lights, though.

"Izzo, do you like the lights?" I asked her just after they'd gone up. "LIGHTS!" she glowed, pointing up and following them from one end of the room to the other, "LIGHTS!"

... and so we took her to see the light show near the zoo at Griffith Park the other night, where we walked, with a few thousand other revelers for a half-mile or so, down the road where I used to ride my bike all the time when I was riding my bike all the time, a road converted into the California Museum of Christmas Lights. All the Cali landmarks were depicted, from our zoo to the Observatory to Staples Center and the Hollywood Sign and so forth. They had Christmas music piped in too, and so Izzo sat forward in her small stroller, pointing and waving at the sights, kicking and singing along with the tunes and clapping appreciatively every time every song ended.

It's something, y'all, to be able to delight your child with an outing like that.

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Izzo's continuing level of comprehension, while perfectly normal, I'm sure, astounds me.

Yesterday I tell her, "Izzo, go get the Dodgers book." Just to see, ya know. 'Cause she's so enjoyed that one lately, I thought, Hey, let's see if she wants to read it now? And so she runs off to her bedroom and disappears for a while. I assume she's long since been sidetracked by any and all of the other books and stuffed friends in there, but nope, she was just digging through the shelves of her library, which isn't, at this point, organized according to the Dewey Decimal system, for the right title, because eventually back she came running, Dodgers book in hand: "Dodgers! Dodgers! Dodgers!"
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Oh, the ever-expanding vocab -- yogurt ("gogurt"), crocodiles ("croco"), etc. -- now features another very important word: Kobe. As in, "Ko-Be! Ko-Be!"

I kid you not.
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All right, so, I know I've gone here before, but here it is again: Izzo is really so sweet.

Girl is just constantly hugging and kissing us.

I mean, yeah, we react affirmatively when it happens, so why shouldn't she be so loving, but still... that my daughter, in the midst of a diaper change, forcefully grabs my arm, tugs me close with all her strength, then latches onto my shoulder, then the back of my shirt, all so she can pull me close enough to settle a big smacker on my cheek, is pretty cool. That she comes running with a big-little bear hug whenever I come to pick her up, pretty cool. That I turn around and see her making a beeline for Uncle Bob, who gets a big-little bear hug too, pretty cool. That Daddy will be teasing and tickling her and that she'll find it in her, in between her screams, shrieks and giggles, to pucker up and kiss the 'Lakers' on his chest, pretty cool. That Daddy will be teasing Momom about something, and Momom will be feigning insult, only to have Izzo rise and come wrap me up and drop a half-dozen big, wet, loving smooches on me... pretty cool.

And so, enough. (For now.)

Big, wet, loving holiday smooches to everyone.

Us

PEACE, LOVE AND IZZO: Every single soul is a poem

<bgsound src="NAME OF FILE"> 'Sup and Happy Thanksgiving, Mom, Dad, Kit, Ty, Uncle Bob, the rest of the beautiful fam and lovely friends...

One of my all-time favorite songs ("Every Single Soul is a Poem") by perhaps my all-time favorite band (Spearhead!), long has resonated with me, well before Izzo, even. Reminded me, even before Izzo, of an updated version of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," in Spearhead's unique, hip-hop, world-music, ever-conscious key.


Anyway, its final verse, ever the more haunting:

Right from the start in a world torn apart
a baby's love leaves fingerprints upon the heart
so many think it, but never say it
"why bring a child to this planet full of hatred?"
they might not make it like the youngest departed
or worst of all they might become a part of it
involved in it, perpetuating violence, violence
and growing up in silence
seein' things they don't know how to deal with
and learnin' ways, to try to cope with it
cope with it, cope with it
and not lose hope

And with that, I'ma crawl right under my comfy little rock and focus in on what, or who, it is that makes me smile... and hope.

...



...

Is it normal for an 18-month-old to be so obsessed with watching footage of herself? Because our little girl absolutely loves watching herself on the new early-Christmas laptop, where Momom is trying to figure out how to start learning how to someday eventually edit on a professional program. It's like a very intimate Baby Einstein DVD, Izzo's relationship with what's been playing on the Mac Book Pro. She sees Badu on screen, she shouts, "Badu!" She sees herself being asked to ID her nose, her hair, her belly... and she plays along in real time. She watches Momom pour water over her soapy head in the bathtub and she ducks her head and holds her breath. She watches herself tumble in the video, and she starts to sniffle. She mostly watches herself dancing, and so mostly she kicks her heels and rocks in my lap happily.

And then, when the 40-plus minutes of video we've put on our computer ran out, she cried and cried and cried...

...

Words. Words. Words. Can't understand them all, but word is bond, every sound outta Izzo's mouth these days is a good attempt at repeating something she's heard somewhere. (Yikes?)

...

...

Izzo's getting pickier at the high-chair table.

Bananas are so last month. And corn is alllll the rage: "Kuh, Kuh, Kuh, KUH!!!"

...

Izzo gets in the fridge now. Gets in the fridge and gets her yogurt. Or her juice. Or what's left in her little vanilla milk carton. Or the big, full container of strawberries. Or, often, cobs of corn. ("Kuh! Kuh! Kuh! Kuh? Kuh? Kuh?! KUH?! KUH!!!!!" she demanded when I got home from work late last week, like at nearly 1 a.m.)

Thankfully, so far, she hasn't emerged sucking down a brew like E.T. in the frog scene...

... I'm convinced, by the way, that Spielberg and Co. based "E.T." on an 18-month-old. Hamlet had never seen the famous movie, so he watched most of it on cable not too long ago, and since then I haven't been able to shake the notion that the little being in front of me, shuffling at her own pace from one room to the next, always toting some random collection of objects and making sounds that slightly resemble the words we're teaching her (ya know, like, "phone") but sounding more like she's using a dialect from another planet entirely, I haven't been able to stop thinking of her as my own little E.T. And E.T., too, was so darn sweet, touching his finger to every booboo and making it right, loving that family so much, bringing such light, in his E.T. way. In her Izzo way.

'Cept that, yeah, Izzo's waaay cuter.

...
...

Words. Words. Words. II.

It ain't "Alk" anymore, folks. It's "Walk."

...

Izzo winds up in our bed every night. No, really. Every night. 'Round 3:30ish, I'll hear her whimpering. Whimpering as a warmup for crying, if Momom doesn't get there in time. And once upon a time, I'd nurse her back to sleep on these occassions. But that's no longer an option, so now I just bring her to bed, where she falls right back, SOON as her head hits the comforter. Thing is, she's gotten so used to the process that now when I go in at 3:30ish, she's sitting or standing already, ready for the transfer.

Not that we mind, really. Our bed might be getting increasingly smaller, but it's also getting the night's are actually starting to get the slightest bit cooler, and really, what's another warm little body gonna hurt?

And there's nothing quite as lovely in my world as waking up in the morning with Izzo balled up below my chin, Hamlet's arm resting above my head and Badu's whole heavy body outstretched over my legs. Those moments last me my whole day. Mmmmmmmm.

...

...

Izzo and I have serious beef twice a day, every day.

She comes running willingly when I announce it's time to brush our teeth, but when I try to help her -- and yes, she still does need help -- it's not fun. I have to trick her into opening up and even then, it's fleeting, for a half of a split-second. So I have to gently, forcefully/forcefully, gently brush all those little teeth. The bottom row is the toughest, because she consistently, cunningly covers them with her tongue. Any advice, anyone, for a good way to do this?

...

Potty training is coming up. And this is totally blowing my mind.

Oma says don't force it... and I won't. But I've been watching Izzo go Michael Jackson whenever she poos -- or pees -- for days and days, so I'm thinking she's conscious of whatever's going on down there. And that's a start.

...

Thanksgiving No. 2 today! Gobble, gobble! Gonna go try to contribute a couple of dishes, a corn souffle and a fruit salad, as requested (well, if she were requesting) by Izzo. Wish me luck.

...

Everyone be very well.

Wishing peace the world over.

And love.

Us



<BGSOUND src="NAME OF FILE">

Izzo Is Always On Stage

Fam, friends, fans of Izzo. Tap-tap-tap. Ahem. Drummmmmrrrrolllll, please.

The Princess wants to know: How you feeeeeeelin'?!

(Pause.)

I said, FAM, FRIENDS, FANS.

PRINCESS IZZO WANTS TO KNOW: HOW YOU FEEEEEEELINNNNN'!!!!!

(That's better.)

Now.... throw your hands in the air, wave 'em like you just don't care, lemme see your armpit hair!

Let's just say that, most naturally, Izzo provided the entertainment at Hamlet's little birthday party over here on Monday.

It started with Momom's not-so-unusual request: "Izzo, go play some guitar!"

And Izzo's very typical response, which was to make a beeline for Daddy's acoustic, set up in its stand in the corner of the room, where she proceeded to pluck a few notes and then peek back out from behind the easy chair for a reaction.

Because there were a few of us there at that point -- and because, dare I say it, Izzo's "playing" gets kinda better (more strings, more chords, more confidence) all the time -- the reaction in the room was particularly boisterous.

And Izzo LIKED that.

So she headed right back to play her little song again, and then, again, poked her head out for a round of affirmative applause, which came her way in a small roar.

And, ooooh, Izzo liked THAT.

So she headed right back to play it again, and then, again, appeared before us to receive her due props. Which she got, mixed, this time, with some hearty chuckles at just how much this toddler of ours was loving the attention, her face lit up in pure glee.

And, yes, Izzo very much appreciated our response.

So she headed right back to play more, and then, again, reemerged, ready for her coronation, which came happily, mixed, this time, with burgeoning belly laughs from an audience tickled by this burgeoning performer's self-congratulatory routine.

Izzo loved the love, no doubt, and so she headed right back... again, and again, and again, and so on and so on and so on. Fifteen or 20 encores later, Izzo had officially worn out Uncle Ty, who was visiting from Portland for a few days.

He didn't clap, and just sat.

He didn't boo or throw tomatoes or anything. And the rest of us clapped. But, for the first time in the process, one of us sat still on the couch, probably exhausted from all the cheering and clapping, hootin' and hollerin'.

And Izzo froze.

She stared directly, icily at Ty for a moment before she absolutely... combusted.

She started shaking her head no-no-no-no-no-no-NO-NO-NO! (She still doesn't actually say, "No," in English, but she's gotten good at shaking her head to indicate as much, and she does surely say, as she did yesterday, "Che, Daddy.") Her eyes filled all the way up with tears. She started running aimless circles around the living room rug, still shaking her head no-no-no-no-no while mixing exasperated, forlorn glances at the rest of us with angry looks at Ty, and then, finally, throwing herself on the ground in a sobbing heap.

The sobbing heap pulled itself together momentarily, distracted by a cracker or a tickle from Uncle Rob or a television commercial, most likely. But for that moment we glimpsed what appeared to be -- oh my, oh my -- a diva in training.

............

I read that 17-month-old's are supposed to be great at throwing tantrums. Izzo's had a few in her time, but now that I've stopped to think about it, I realize she hasn't had all that many. And the ones that have come through haven't done to me what I once imagined they might've.

There haven't been many in public, for starters, save for those that come about when it's time to come home from the park -- and in those cases, I just deal with it. She'll be buckled unhappily in her stroller as we roll through the masses, but I know, in a minute or so, that she'll be distracted by something she sees and she'll forget what she was wailing about in the first place. There was the one time, of course, when she was so offended she cried for the first couple blocks home, at which point I did the irresponsible but not untrue thing and promised her, yes, ice cream for dessert that night. That, not surprisingly, turned the frown upside down in a nanosecond: "IceCream?!"

Those tantrums that've come at home have been easier to deal with: I let her cry it out for a minute or less, then I flop down on the floor next to her and bury her in kisses, and hard as she tries, she can't keep crying when she's being smooched uncontrollably by her crazy mom. Then, when she's calm, or, well, happier, we try to get to the bottom of the fussing. And let me say, there isn't much that a cup of juice -- "Chew!" says Izzo -- can't fix around here.

...........

Went to the library for Story Time on Friday, thinking it was definitely about time, actually. Got there and found that Story Time "starts in January." Which is almost as weird a statement as hearing the person who rear-ended me ask why I backed up into HER. Weird because, well, how can Story Time be starting when it's been going on since I was a little tyke, and, surely, long before that? Anyway, we'll be back for Story Time in January. Meantime, Izzo really dug the library, even without Story Time.

Dug the rows and rows of books, most of which she'd stop to simply touch with awe, without dislodging -- quite unlike she does it here at home. Dug particularly, the big-small picture book she found. Had me read her that one, with its brother and sister showing off a big bed and small bed, a big present and small present, a big bus and small bus, respectively, for several pages, a few times over.

Dug the second-story window looking out on the library plaza below. Dug the hollow sounding portion of the department -- hollow when she stomped on it, that is. So she did laps around one particular shelf, delighting every time she got to stomping on the boom-boom-boom hollow-sounding piece of flooring.

Dug the decorations on the ceilings and the wall, the big paper tree and big Curious George. Dug the stairs up to and down from the children's section, but that'a gone without saying.

And, oh yeah, she dug the glued-down toys she found the other girl playing with when we arrived. Actually, she probably dug the little girl more. Went right up to her and said, "Hi, I'm Izzo. I play guitar and love me some vanilla milk from Starbucks. Wanna play?" And the other girl, 27 months I believe her mommy said, recoiled. Used her little body to cover the toy she was playing with while staring at Izzo and talking to her mom, announcing, "Get this little pipsqueak OUTTA HERE!" The mom told her, in Korean, to relax and that it was OK. Izzo, who speaks all languages and no languages simultaneously at this point, turned to the mom: "Hi, I'm Izzo. Your daughter is very pretty, kinda like me. Are you having a nice day?" And the mom, as most folks do, lit up and laughed and answered Izzo in "Uh-huhs!" and "That's rights!" and "Aren't you adorables!" Her daughter, however, didn't seem to like that much, because she started complaining more loudly, which redrew Izzo's attention.

Izzo, I warned, She's playing with that one, why don't you come here and play with this one?

"OK," Izzo said, agreeable as usual. She came and spun the plastic gears on the table near me, the table farthest from the little girl. Played and spun a wheel, one spin causing all of them to spin. "Hey, cool!" Izzo said, with a smile up at me.

The little girl didn't like this either and dove toward the section where Izzo was now stationed, attempting now, impossibly, to cover both sets of toys with her little body.

Izzo just stood there and stared for a moment, unsure what to do until she started laughing, laughing her fake hardee-harr-harr grownup laugh that is entirely a response to grownups in the room laughing, which we were.

Then, after the other mom dimmed the lights and pulled out a flashlight, which she held up to her chin scary-story-in-the-dark style, she told me that her daughter, believe it or not, had been just like Izzo once. But now she had entered a different stage, now she was learning -- dunh-dunh-dunh -- possessiveness!!!

When the lights went back on I tried my best to sound tolerant and agreed with her assessment, "Oh yeah," I said, as if I know, "It's totally natural." Which I'm totally sure it is, but I have no way of knowing that... yet.

Izzo dared to touch the gears she'd been so impressed with again now that they belonged to Miss Naturally Possessive, and anyone wanna guess what happened next?

Miss Nanturally Possessive freaked out, of course!

And as I watched the sweet, logical mom buckle her screaming little one into the stroller, I felt genuinely bad, because it was our arrival that cut short this little girl's library time. If we hadn't come along, she would have had a swell morning there among the books and trinkets. And so I apologized, said sorry for ruining the little girl's fun. Oh, no, the mom assured me, no worries. But still, I felt bad. And, evidently, Izzo did too.

Because as the little girl carried on, tears, arms and legs everywhere, happy little Izzo got choked up too, and before I knew it, my princess was standing in the middle of the room with tears streaming down HER cheeks!

Anyone want to guess what happened now?

Yeah, that's right. We cold-hearted moms couldn't help ourselves, we both started CRACKING UP. It was too funny, these two crazy little girls making themselves and each other cry. It was, well, it was just too cute.

And, it was over quickly. With the whole children's section to herself, Izzo The Explorer recovered in a hurry after the girl and her cries disappeared, and got down to the business or touching and stomping and everything else.

............

I've lost track of the running list of (English) vocab, but here are some of the words Izzo be uttering these days: Shoes; Socks; the aforementioned Juice; Play; Cooking... and, I think I heard her say this enough times late last night that I'm convinced: LOVE. As in, "Love You Momom." Or, most accurately, "LaYa Momom."

C'mon, someone give me an "Awwwww...."

............

Izzo has a favorite piece of clothing.

I've been waiting for this for a while. Waiting for her to have a favorite SOMETHING. I read, months ago, to expect her to get clingy with a particular stuffed animal or doll. But she never did. I watched to see if she became especially close with any of the toys that wasn't an animal or doll, but that never happened, either. Her favorite pastime remained making the world around her smile, and everything else was a distant second.

She's so into her clothes -- so into taking them all out of their drawers and either scattering them around the house, putting them in either her laundry basket or ours, or, these days, stuffing them in our drawers (nothing quite like waking up in the morning, digging for socks and finding four of Izzo's shirts and a pair of Izzo's jeans in the mix) -- that I thought she might pick a favorite item from that collection. But no, she hadn't.

Kinda just down with whatever, whenever. And so Momom continued to sit on the edge of her seat, waiting to find out what it would be that would especially capture Izzo's heart and imagination, looking forward to another big clue about the person Izzo will become... and nothing. Nada. Not when it came to objects and things, anyway.

Until this week, when she made a point of finding her little Lakers jersey and bringing it to me again, and again. Holding it up to me, holding both arms up, too, telling me, in not so many words, yep, Put it on, Momom, put it on!

And every time, of course, I'd tell her we had to follow the very strict household protocol. That that Lakers jersey was meant to be worn only during the games. I don't know that she understood what the heck I was talking about, exactly, but she understood enough to slump her shoulders and slink away, dragging the jersey behind her Linus-style until she returned a while later to try, and get denied, again.

Then, finally, when GameTime rolled around the other day, and I called out to her, "Izzo, we can put on your Lakers jersey now!" best believe she came running, with the jersey in hand. She'd been waiting for this! We put it on and I said, "Gooo Lakers!" and Izzo puffed out her chest, and patted the logo and just freaking glowed. Did that every time anyone mentioned the word "Lakers."

So, if THAT'S the hint I was waiting for, as far as what Izzo's favorite objects might indicate about the person she's to become, well, I think we might just be creating a pruple-and-gold monster.

...........

Izzo really loves wearing that Lakers jersey, but she's kinda game to try on just about anything these days. Like, I spread out the clean laundry to fold a couple days ago and she dove right in, which isn't atypical. But this time she fished out one item specifically, put it on over her head and spent the next hour or so -- 'cause her Momom is cruel, I guess -- walking around wearing one of Momom's... bras.

Very proudly, too, I must say.

...........

Uh, duh.

So I got to wondering where the heck all of Izzo's binkies had gone. She really only uses them when it's nanik/naptime or bedtime anymore, but still... the little binkie bowl in the kitchen was darn near empty. Where, oh, where, could she have stashed them all? That bowl had been seriously full a couple of weeks ago. I looked in the usual hiding places. Under the couch, by the TV, in drawers everywhere... and then it occured to me that there really could only be one place where they could be. In her crib!

Well, under her crib.

I pulled the bed away from the wall and JACKPOT! One, two, three.... nine, 10, 11, 12! Twelve binkies set to be washed and reloaded.

Ah, the things that make me really happy these days.

.........

Izzo and I take a walk before heading to Tatik's almost every single morning. And, almost every single morning, as we have for almost every single morning since I became a working mom, we run into David. Sweet ol' David. Older Korean dude who speaks not much English, hasn't a speck of gray to speak of, and who is dedicated, impressively, to shuffling his way up and down the block with his walker each morn. He met Izzo when she was tiny and has watched, proudly, as she grew -- and grew to recognize him. I'll never forget the morning that she sat up in her stroller when she saw him, sat up and grinned and flapped her arms and got him to announce, startled, "She knows me!"

Yeah, well, these days Izzo's doing her own walking. Walking and, ever the good girl, keeping hold of Momom's hand the whole time. Except, of course, when she sees her buddy David. He'll be 20 feet or so away, doing his stretches out in front of his complex, and she'll let go of my hand, forget about me entirely and literally race toward him. He'll hear her coming, turn, give her his patented grin and then...

... the two friends will give each other a most delightful HIGH FIVE ever!

Just about every morning, that's the exchange that makes my day, watching Izzo run up to David and watching those two sweet souls do a solid, sturdy high five.

It's so perfect.






So, high fives to everyone! Rock on. Be well. Peace.

And love.

Us.

Izzo, when you were 1, we elected Barack Obama

Fam, friends, future: What's up!

Happy... New Year?!?!

Or, as Grandpa was singing when he answered the phone Tuesday evening:


So long sad times/Go long bad times/We are rid of you at last

Howdy gay times/Cloudy gray times/You are now a thing of the past

Happy days are here again/The skies above are clear again/So let's sing a song of cheer again/Happy days are here again

So, yeah. Let's write about, oh, hmm, let's see, how about... Tuesday?

We got up early, expecting longish, at least, lines at my new polling place (I finally changed my address just before the deadline); Kit came over to join us and we all bundled up (it was, like, 60 degrees, yo!) and strolled around the corner to the Toll Middle School auditorium.

Strolled past the house on the corner, now for lease, where the woman was murdered by her boyfriend a few months ago.

Strolled, after looking both ways and then looking both ways again, and -- got that Izzo -- looking both ways again, across to Toll's campus.

Strolled past the huge memorial of flowers and cards and dolls and candles and love set out, wet after that night's rain, for 11-year-old Meri Nalbandian in front of the gym, stopped and paid respects, as a few other voters were doing, too. One of them was in tears; I wasn't far behind. Picked up Izzo and squeezed her real tight, and then turned away, tried to refocus on the day at hand, wishing, somehow, that what I was about to vote for would, in some way, honor little Meri, but I couldn't forge a connection.

I entered the auditorium blue and bummed and feeling very, very small.

There wasn't a line at all, they quickly found my name on the blue sheet, I signed, I voted with my ink-a-dot pen in my right hand and Izzo in my left arm, watching how it worked. Kit snapped a quick photo of us, and we strolled to go get our free-for-voting Starbucks coffee (Izzo got a vanilla milk packet) at the other end of the block.

From the beginning, it was a remarkable and remarkably emotional day. It just felt, well, it just FELT.

One of those so-rare just-rained days in L.A. where you can clearly and crisply see the mountains. Where the blue sky peeking out of the rapidly dissipating clouds shows brighter than usual. Cool, but not cold. One of the few days that could win an Oscar, or at least a Golden Globe, for acting like fall. And that big, big something brewing. Seemed like every conversation you heard a snippet of included the word, "Obama." We all knew what the polls told us, but still there was an edge to it. A weight to it.

And through it all, we tried, all day, to get Izzo to join in the chorus, to say her first, "Obama." We chanted and sang and 'peat and repeated O-bam-a, O-bam-a. But Izzo wouldn't even give us an "Oh."

After our free coffees, Izzo and I took off for the, yay, flu shot. Stopped behind two cars at a red light halfway there and got rear-ended. Tapped, really. Enough that I noticed, but not enough that Izzo appeared to, thank goodness. Still, I motioned for the driver behind me to pull over, and when the light changed, we moved forward and pulled along the side of the road, where amazingly a big stretch of curbside parking was available.

I got out, told myself I was gonna be cool about this as I turned to greet the woman getting out of the gold Lexus SUV behind me. It was one of those moments where you tell yourself, OK, I get to be an adult here. OK, I get to be a good example for my daughter here.

One of those moments where I was thrown completely off my game because she said, "What were you doing?! Why did you back up into me!"

Huh?

Long story short, there was no damage, except to my faith in my fellow women. The chick immediately went and called her husband! And put me on the phone with him! And then he tried to bully me: "If there's not really any damage than I suggest you just drive away, we don't want to make things hard on you." Oh, the things I wished I said to him in retrospect, after telling him, "That's nice, but I don't want to make things hard on YOU."

No damage, except to my faith in democracy. Maybe, I thought as I watched the woman nearly collide with another car as she hurriedly pulled away, we shouldn't actually give the American public a voice in really important matters. Television ratings, yeah, we can handle that as an electorate. We deem that American Idol will be huge. But Presidents and major state constitution-amending propositions? Maybe that's better left to actual smart, responsible people?

Flu shot went fine, as far as flu shots go. Izzo conked out for a couple hours when we got home and I did something I hadn't in months: reclined on the couch and read the newspaper. Then I ordered pizza (including one Hawaiian-style, for the man of the hour), picked up Robert, welcomed back Kit and got into election mode.

Fox News couldn't stop showing shots of a pair of guys they were IDing as Black Panthers, though I was never clear why they were showing them except for the overhanded attempt to scare white folk. Them folk at MSNBC seemed extra chipper. Both MSNBC and CNN decided to use these bizarre, offensively bad green-screen digital sets that didn't exactly reek of a stringent focus on reality and truth.

And still, Izzo refused even to give us that "Oh."

The action, naturally, picked up when the first polls closed on the East and the tallies starting coming in. For a minute, McCain led. But before you knew it, Fox News, of all networks, moved Obama in front.

Fresh off voting in his first general election, Uncle Rob controlled the television and gave us his own commentary from the numbers that were coming in at latimes.com on the laptop. The numbers started piling fast, so fast that within a couple hours, before Kit was done cooking up yummy couscous and chicken, with the polls in our West Coast blue states still open, it became clear: Obama was, indeed, gonna get to that 270 electoral threshold, no problem. Obama was gonna win this thing.

And still, Izzo wouldn't say it. Wouldn't even say "Oh."

We pleaded and nagged and teased and taunted, O-bam-a, Izzo, O-bam-a!

She laughed at us. And danced to us. But she wouldn't join in the chorus.

Instead, at around 6 p.m., she started her own chant: "BrrakBrrackBrrackBrrack! BrrakBrrackBrrackBrrack!" Which she followed with a necessarily sassy bet-you-didn't-see-that-comin'-didja smile. Seriously, ask the boys.

At 7 p.m., we turned away from the supposedly serious networks to Comedy Central, where the Daily Show/Colbert Report went live, offering the same updates as the networks, but with funnier, probably better analysis.

And suddenly, party girl Izzo, whom I can't get to drift off before 10 p.m. on a really good night, wanted up into my lap, where she curled herself into a ball and went right to sleep.

Maybe the emotional weight of the day exhausted her? Maybe she saw Jon Stewart and registered that as her bedtime? Either way, she slept the rest of the night.

Slept through the cheering and partying and champagne-swigging that happened over the next couple hours, during which both Daddy and Caitlyn showed up. Slept through Obama's amazing speech in Grant Park, so that I'll have to tell her what that was like someday, how it was the type of inspiring moment that I never imagined I'd get to witness, a moment I thought they didn't make anymore, a moment sharing words and the spirit of Lincoln and King, a moment where great things actually seemed possible, a moment that Izzo can already claim, 17 months in. And how that thrills me!






I'll tell her, later, how I find myself feeling differently about President Elect Obama than I have about other presidents. It's a strange sensation, actually, to not simply be preferring one guy to the other guy, but to be believing in the guy. To be trusting the guy. To be trusting him to take good care of us.

And I was a Hillary supporter.

... of course, it's all a bit tempered by the narrow passage of Prop 8 here in California. It's odd, to be hearing the incessant and wonderful talk of our great civil rights victory and have this issue wedged painfully into the mix. The increased irony, of course, is that exit polls tell us that 7 out of 10 African-Americans voted in favor of Prop 8, voting on the basis of religion rather than party, and that so many African-Americans turned out to the polls to support Obama likely made the difference.

Talking to Hamlet about it afterward and my husband tells me, "It's just marriage. It's not that big of a deal."

To which I get to reply, "Gee, thanks honey. And what do you mean, it's not that big of a deal! Everyone should have the same rights as everyone else. Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. That's what Amo told me, all that she lost in World War II taught her you have to beware of and fight discrimination in all its forms, all the time..."

"What I mean," he says, "is that gay people won't be equal until one of them can be elected president. That is a big deal."

"What!?" I hadn't seen that coming. "C'mon man, I won't live to see the day..."

And then I stopped myself when I realized just how many times (hundreds, easily, literally) that I'd heard just that statement uttered on airwaves and in real life over the previous 48 hours or so.

Progress. It's slow. But it's real. And Izzo, your generation will get the baton next, whatever that means and wherever that takes us.

....................

Izzo is afraid of sticks. Loves leaves and flowers and plant life in general, but if you want to hear her scream, introduce her to a stick.

Izzo weights 24 pounds, 8 ounces. Or she did, the morning Obama was elected.

Izzo is saying more and more words in Armenian -- and English. Not counting Brrack, which actually, probably, was mostly an accident. Maybe. In English, the vocab is growing, too. Lately, she's added Shoes, Chew, Bye-bye, Baby and Doggie to her collection.

Izzo can take off her pants and socks by herself (almost) now.

Izzo's newest thing is throwing away stuff. Stuff like our socks, our mail, my unused Christmas cards, bookies, newspapers, magazines, canned food, her shoes, just about anything she can lift high enough to dump in the trash can. I just know someday I won't be able to find my keys or cell phone...

Izzo has a very distinctive whine for "I'm stuck." I recognize it immediately, this muffled but borderline frantic "Nnnnnnnnnhhhhnnn!" It comes when she's managed, somehow, to squat underneath one of the dining room chairs, and can't get out. When she's caught in the laptop chords. Or, lately, when she's almost completely submerged under the couch, for who knows what reason.

And there's more, of course, but my goal was to finish this before The View comes on. So I'm about to head over and make Hamlet watch it with me.

Good times. Great times. So, so glad Izzo is here to experience it, sort of, with us.

Love,

Us