Hey all!
Yo!
So, while Izzo was tripping to the zoo twice, setting up her drum set every night, learning how to pretend to lock the door, bashing her head into the hard part of the furniture and just generally being happy little her, there were a few things going on all around her. (For our literary (?) time capsule's sake:)
There was a debate! Didja watch? I caught most/much of it.***
More importantly, did you catch LETTERMAN? Yeah, well, McCain stood him up 'cause he was suspending his campaign 'n all, and this was how Dave reacted: "You don’t suspend your campaign. Do you suspend your campaign? No, because that makes me think, well, you know, maybe there will be other things down the road –- if he’s in the White House, he might just suspend being president. I mean, we've got a guy like that now!”
And that was just a slim sliver of dude's show-long diatribe. Jon Stewart, naturally, wrapped it up best: "And so it was, that on Wednesday afternoon, Sen. John McCain suspended his campaign, blew off his interview with David Letterman, and rushed back to... a different CBS building to an interview with Katie Couric, and then he left to rush back to... a delicious dinner in New York, but then he left, to rush back to... a New York hotel for a good night's sleep, but then he rushed off to... a hotel, also in New York, where he gave a speech to the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, and then because of the grave condition of this situation returned for a possible Senate vote for the first time since April 6 and as his plane landed in Washington, D.C., a mere 22 hours after his initial New York announcement -- I mean for God's sake, you could have walked there in that time -- THIS announcement greeted him at baggage claim: [News Clip: ‘Republicans and Democrats have reached a fundamental agreement on a rescue plan from Wall Street.’]
"So, to sum up the net effect of John McCain suspending his presidential campaign: angering David Letterman.”
And I KNOW y'all loved watching folks out in Washington play Jenga with the financial system, no?
I know I say this every week, but: Maaan! What a week -- and then Momom got to cover her first Angels game Saturday night, proving there are still milestones to be had. You know, first tooth, first step, first day of school, first Angels game....
Didn't seem like a big deal until I stepped in the press box and looked out on the field and at the stands where we'd spent so many summer days nights as a family, cheering our hearts out for those mediocre teams of old. I got chills, I'll admit. Certainly didn't expect to, but I did. Remembered marveling at the idea of this particular press box so many times, maybe ALL of those times, hoping that someday I'd be get to watch sports, talk to athletes and write about it. What could be cooler?
(Shooting and cutting videos to put on our newspaper's Web site, that's what! Maybe. I'm actually getting excited about learning to do this stuff, getting to play mini-film maker, to use that part of my brain, planning to label any contribution of mine "An MJ Joint" (after Spike Lee). I hope I get to stay excited about it, now that I am...)
OK, OK, OK, OK-OK-OK, to get to the point of this e-mail... last night's experience made me think, too, of Izzo, and what her dreams might be and where they might come from and whether or not she'll have a chance to achieve them, even if it's in bits and pieces, here and there, and never exactly as she pictured, perhaps, but swell and probably in the right order, anyway...
There's just so much ahead for her, it's marvelous. Caught myself watching her play the other day and trying to imagine her as a 10-year-old. Couldn't quite do it, but it's the closest I've gotten. I almost asked her, "So, what'll you be into then?" 'Cause I so wonder.
I also wonder if she'll be a G'girl -- if we're bringing up a confident, loving little being, or if we're spoiling her and creating a monster?
I read somewhere that one of the most common first few words is "No." Which made me shudder -- because I didn't want to imagine Izzo saying, "No" to me.
And so, after issuing that semi-complete list of vocab last week (I left off "Duckies" by the way), I asked Tatik if Izzo had any Armenian words yet.
Yes, she has one solid: "Che."
Che, in Armenian, means, you guessed it: No.
And then it hit me. No one ever tells Izzo "No." Even here at home, I tell her "Che!" when I want her to stop chasing Badu, or tearing up my new Sports Illustrated, or trying to open the oven door on top of her, or opening and digging into the box of (thankfully clean) kitty litter, or turning the channels on us with one of the remote controls she's mastered... she doesn't hear it ALL that often, but she hears it enough.
I don't know why I say Che, vs. No, but I think once, 15 or so months ago, I might've weirdly had the passing thought that I didn't want Izzo to learn "No" as one of her firsts... which I'd forgotten, at least consciously, till this week.
But evidently, she's full of "Che" at Tatik's, even if I still have to hear it.... which I know I will, eventually, unfortunately.
..........
A couple of trips to the zoo this week. Warm, and so most of the animals were doing their best just to chill, understandably. Pretty calm in terms of crowd, too, which was cool (...to keep with that temperature analogy going.) Went with Kit and Caitlyn (Kit, it IS with a "C" right?) on Monday and again Friday, just the two of us.
Made our usual loop past the flamingos, get-along gorillas, favorite zebras, bobbing elephant, booty chimps, smiling giraffes, invisible brown bear and tigers before ending up at the playground Izzo loves so much. It's a pretty active, pretty fantastic set. Several-sized slides and climbing apparatuses that Izzo has yet to grow into. A statuesque hippo and croc peeking up out of the rubbery soft floor that modern playgrounds incorporate. A spray mister that the kids can turn on themselves -- well, the kids who can reach a single inch higher than Izzo, anyway. (Though she tries.) And, best of all, kids.
On the weekends, that place is just plain nuts. Wave after wave of kids rushing in and out and over each other like a big, bustling ant hive on fast-forward. How they manage to navigate one another (most of the time) is beyond me, seriously, a marvel of (little) man.
The scene was much more subdued Friday morning, when it was just a third-child-outta-four granddaughter enjoying being the center of her grandparents' attention for the day, a beautiful little Indian boy who smiled at Izzo from way above on his playground perch, and a 2.3-year-old blond boy who at first scowled at Izzo as she followed him under the mist, who scowled harder when his mom offered Izzo some of HIS goldfish, who scowled and scowled and scowled until he sprang to his feet and wrapped his arms around Izzo in a big little boy bear hug.
Stunned, Izzo was floored, literally.
Anyway, I was talking a little to the little boy's mom, who started the conversation by apologizing to Izzo about her boy's scowling, telling my smiling, toddling little princess not to worry, that she wasn't having much fun hanging out with him, either.
She proceeded to talk to me, assuming, I guess, because I was a mom there hangin' with Izzo on a workday morning, that I did that every day. That I could empathize with the fact that her husband "just didn't get it, just didn't understand that it's not all fun and games, spending every day, all day with the kid. That sometimes it was a drag, that sometimes the kid drove her crazy..."
Now, granted, I don't have a "terrible" (but really adorable) 2.3-year-old on my hands all day. And I won't predict that there won't be at least a few moments up the road where Izzo drives me up the wall.
But I love that my girl Katy, who works part-time up in Washington, so enjoys her time with her little Samantha Raven, who isn't 2.3, either, but who just turned 6 -- months!
I'd like to think that, when I win the lottery and get to stay home and write story all day, I'd still cherish all of my time with Izzo the same way I do now.
Not that this woman doesn't cherish her time with her son; she was just having a bad morning is all, but... I nodded and said something along the lines of "them getting ever more opinionated as they get older" instead of saying, "you know what, you're really lucky. I wish I could spend all day, every day with the kid!"
Sigh.
....................
Played at the park yesterday evening for a long time. Izzo led me on a walk all around, making friends with just about everyone there, especially an 8-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother, a talkative twosome who informed me, off the bat, that they were really good with babies because they had a 1-year-old nephew who they helped take care of and who just LOVED them! So they proceeded to shower Izzo with attention, jokes and hugs and baby talk, while breaking to tell me of their lives at school and at home and in fantasy land... it was fun.
Until we had to go.
What was I saying, earlier, to the mom at the zoo? The older they get, the more opinionated...
Yeah, well, Izzo let me and all those new friends of hers know exactly how she felt about being forced back into her stroller (kicking and cursing and crying and spitting as she went): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't take everyone's looks and comments -- "Oh, the baby got tired!" "Oh, poor girl!"
So I played the Ice Cream card: "Izzo, if you're a good girl, we'll go home and have ICE CREAM."
On a dime, the screaming, blood-curdling protests halted, and she spun in her seat and stared me down to see if I was serious. I was. So she let go a few more whimpers before taking a deep breath and launching into a new chant for the next few blocks.
You guessed it: "IceCream! IceCraem! IceCream! IceCream!"
Went home and shared a "Healthy Choice Fudge Bar."
...........
Izzo does this thing now where she pulls all of the pan lids out of the kitchen cupboard where they live and brings them to the living room, where she arranges them just so on the coffee table. Arranges them, I kid you not, as if they were a cymbal set on her drum kit. I'll send a photo if you don't believe me... but she seriously in the habit of building her own drum set around here.
Izzo does this thing where, if she can get her hands on them, she'll take Momomom's keys straight to the door, attempt to stick them into the bottom knob and clink away until Momom has thanked her and announced that the door's been locked, or unlocked, whatever the goal might've been. It's such a successful moment of make-believe, Izzo's figured out she can accomplish the same task with HER plastic set of keys. Eh?
Izzo does this thing now when I pick her up outta her high chair: Hug. Tight, real, full-on hugggs. She'd been in the habit of coming up to me, every now and then and again, and again, and wrapping her arms around my legs and pushing her face into my legs, in the most wonderful little quick Izzo hug. But now, now she's giving grown-up hugs, tight, come-close, I-love-you hugs. Nice. (Maybe it's too early to say so, but I think Izzo likes me. I sure like her.)
Izzo also does this thing now where she'll come sit next ON you. She'll climb aboard, and lean back and relax, having found just the lap she's looking for. Awesome! Awesome! I can't tell you how Awesome!
Izzo is becoming somewhat of a bookworm. She not only follows us around the house constantly with one of her 50 or so bookies (whoa, how'd that happen?) in hand, begging for a re-reading, but she didn't want to depart on our walk yesterday without "The Pilot Flies Her Plane," one of the books Uncle Kit bought for our trip to Oregon that didn't make it on the trip because it stayed behind in the trunk of Momom's car, instead. Anyway, Izzo was so into it yesterday, she didn't notice we were headed to the park until we were almost there. She was that immersed in "reading."
.................
*** the debate: crash.
Yeah, so while Oma kinda started to fall asleep during the not-quite-riveting debate (seriously, though, if you've been paying attention, you learned nothing at all), I missed the last chunk of it because Uncle Kit came over.
He was going to come over and watch the end of it with me and Izzo (who I tried to let run rampent, basically, while I tried to watch the tube, hoping, actually, that Kit would hurry up and show so that I could really focus on the debate, 'cause, really, I'm not good yet at totally ignoring Izzo).
And, so, naturally, Kit came and Izzo, excited, went running for him, tripped over his foot, and fell, forehead first, into the hard wooden leg of the easy chair, that spot that's scared me for months as Izzo learned to walk, the spot that proved innocuous enough as Izzo avoided it during her wobbliest moments, the spot I'd stopped worrying about until I saw her head, headed straight for it...
"WWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Go get ice!"
Whenever Izzo hurts herself, I take her outside.
Not sure why, except that it works.
Interested neighbors, all of them big fans of Izzo, poke their heads out to see. This is weird, but for starters, seeing their friendly, concerned faces helps distract her from the drama.
But more than that, being OUTSIDE distracts Izzo, who in this case was in real need of distracting.
We let her lead us on a walk out into the front and down the block a bit, kicking at crunchy leaves along the way, and sniffling not at all. Then we let her lead us back to the apartment after a few cool-down minutes of fresh air distraction.
As soon as she stepped back inside, she started pointing to the left side of her forehead, where she's got a big, red, Frankenstein gash now. It didn't bleed, but it's THAT kind of bruise/mark, poor baby.
I corralled her and sang to her as I held her as still as I could as I attempted to hold a wash cloth of ice on the wound, her thrashing and screaming again. Eventually, the ice numbed the pain and Izzo got up and went to play a bit.
Twenty minutes later she was back, though, tugging on my shorts and pointing at her forehead. Telling me it hurt. Asking me to fix it. I held her and kissed her and sang to her and eventually, she went off again.
But for the rest of the night, Izzo kept coming up to me, pointing at her head. Telling me it hurt, asking me to help. It was plain awful -- even as it was impressive, in the twisted parental way, that she's learned to communicate now when something hurts and where the hurting is.
.................
And so on and so forth. I could write forever. But then I'd never take a shower.
Besides, Izzo is telling me I'm done.
Lots of love!
rock on be well peace
Us
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