Here's the thing: Enjoying Izzo, through it all

It was a strange week, Fam. A little bit. Stranger than normal. Rolled off the last sad week and into this one, which was a little bit strange. But I already said that. Lemme explain.

Daddy sick all week. A gnarly, feverish, won't-quit cold (that seems to be finally entering the home stretch today, Valentine's Day.) And so Izzo and I tried to take good care of him and stay the heck away from him at the same time. Which led, of course, to a nighttime, sleepytime, dreamland conundrum, considering that two nights out of three, Big Girl Izzo winds up in the Big Bed at always either 3 a.m. or 5 a.m.

So, when Izzo awoke at the stroke of 3 on Monday morning, I tried what would work the next two nights but didn't that night, or the fourth night. Of the fifth. I plopped down in the nursing chair in her room, laid her on top of me, covered us both with her mini down comforter and waited till she was sleepbreathing before returning her to her bed and tip-toeing off. That worked delightfully and right off Wednesday and Thursday, but after four or five attempts over the span of an hour and a half on Tuesday and Friday mornings, we had to revert to Plan B.

Which, at around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, was, "C'mon, Izzo, we're going to the couch."

To which Izzo replied in her most curious tone, "Couch?"

"Yep, gonna go sleep on the couch."

Again: "Couch???"

... and then, we we were at the couch and snuggling in, Izzo couldn't help herself, letting loose an amused, approving, down-with-just-about-anything, Fonzie-type, "Couuuch!"

But before we could drift, Daddy stumbled into the living room and ordered us to the bed, saying he'd take the couch. Might've been something in there about his princesses.

Fast forward to Friday, 4:30ish in the a.m., Izzo refusing the nursing chair routine, Momomom bringing the news to a sleeping Daddy's attention, only to hear, this time, "My back hurts, you guys go to the couch!"

Which A) was fine, 'cause Izzo and I snuggled so wonderfully there for an hour or so before I woke up again and returned us both to our normal beds and B) Hamlet swears he absolutely didn't say any such thing, not even in his sleep.

And, finally, last night, I gave in. Izzo won. Wound up in the Big Bed. It's hard to keep this family apart, I guess.

Here's the thing: It was a little exhausting, yes, wrestling with my daughter every night, trying to get her to submit to a full shift in her own bed against her will, for her own sake. But it was a lot of fun, for real, to go back like that, back to those middle-of-the-night interruptions of closeness and cuddle. Like nursing again, minus the nursing part. As we cuddled to sleep, I thought about how strange and wrong it is that life will accomodate this for only so long, really. Made me wanna go give my mom a big hug. Made me glad I'll always have Hamlet to cuddle up close with. Made me wonder just how long Izzo'll be interested in babytoddlerspooning with her Momomom, rolling over and scooting in close, so her her head fits under my chin and the rest of her borders my frame almost down to my knees these days. Often, she'll reach for my arm, demand that I hold on, literally drag my arm over her little/not-so-little torso. And then she'll go straight to sleep. But I won't. I'll lay there, enjoying having my daughter so close.

That's the only real drawback about having her land in our bed so many nights. So many nights, I end up awake, either attempting to record and store as many of the moments of cuddle as I can, or just staring. At her. At her and Hamlet. Admiring their beautiful, similar features. Asleep, Izzo and Hamlet have the same, same eyes. Precisely the same eyelashes. Sometimes, they move their whole bodies in sync. They share the same unconscious smile, like they're inhabiting the same dream, as if they're sitting courtside together, maybe, at Staples Center, wearing their jerseys, bopping their head to a Danny Carey or Josh Kane beat, eating birdsmilk after finishing off their big plates of shrimp and watching, of course, their Lakers blow past Boston for the NBA title!

And, darn it all, I just can't take my eyes off them, even when I have to get up for work and another busy day in an hour ... ....








The new playground equipment at the park across Glenoaks Blvd. is pretty spectacular. Slides and swings for every size. Make-believe play areas built into each structure. Science museum-style devices embedded everywhere. Soft bark to catch all the overeager toddlerbabies. And Izzo's favorite part: Steps. Yeah, she's most into the steps. Crawling up, scooting back down on her tooshie, crawling up, scooting back down on her tooshie, crawling up, scooting back down on her tooshie, crawling up ... you get the idea.


We've only visited the new digs four times*, though, and I sort of hate myself for it. Izzo gets such a huge rush from going there, every day I have off, I tell her we're going. And then I look up and it's 4:30 and by the time we get there, it'll be getting dark already. Or it's raining (it's been doing that). Or, you know, life reschedules.

Like on Tuesday morning*. I was due to go shoot video of a hoops game that night so I wasn't due to leave for work until 3ish. Which gave us the whole morning to play. And so, we got up, got dressed, had breakfast, folded some clothes, and then, off we went, with a pit stop at Starbucks for chocolate milk, and then ... to the playground!

Izzo started hooting and hollering and kicking and cheering soon as she realized where we were headed. Her little legs were already pumping as I unstrapped her from the stroller. I put her down and -- whooosh! -- there she went, making a bee line for the bopping bee that she always has to say hello to first.

But the sound of Izzo taking off coincided with the sound of my cell phone trumpeting. I saw it was our prep sports editor Tim, so I picked up, sure he had something to say about that night's game. Maybe the time was really 7 instead of 6? Maybe he wanted me to ask one of the coach's something about something? Maybe he'd told me it was at the wrong school?

Instead he asked me if I'd heard about Jeremy Lusk. Huh? Yeah, he, um, died. We're going to scrap the basketball game and need you to come in now, A1 needs a story. Ugh. Jeremy Lusk, a local freestyle motocross hero, died early that morning after crashing in a crash at a comp in Costa Rica over the weekend. Horrible, obviously. And a big story for our area. I needed to hustle to get in and get it done.

"So, uh, Izzo ..."

She plainly could not believe that I would bring her to the playground, let her free, and then tie her back up 30 seconds later like that. And she didn't take it well. She never takes it well when we leave, for one thing. But this! This! How could I? Was I just evil? I'm going to go ahead and suggest, for the record, that this might have been the first time in her life that Izzo looked at me and tried to say, "I hate you, Momom!"

Thankfully, as usual, two minutes later, she was over it. Leaning forward in her green stroller and watching the world go by at warp speed, 'cause Momomom was booking it home, where I'd have to get dressed in a flash, before zooming across town to drop Izzo and then rushing all the way to the office for a story that was due to be vetted by the news folks at 4 p.m.

Here's the thing: I don't know how much longer I'll be a journalist, but stories like this are always ... weird. To do. I don't feel as bad as I think I should feel calling up his mourning friends to ask them about it because I imagine myself and how I'd feel if someone of whom I was a big fan, goodness forbid, perished, and how I'd want to know what those around him/her were feeling, especially if they had something to say other than, "not only was he/she a great fillintheblank, but he/she was an even better person." And no one fed me that cliche, even though they could have, because the two guys I spoke with spoke from their hearts, with a real, raw perspective on what it is they do and why they do it, and in so doing, I thought, represented admirably for this guy and his sport and his community.

But I was, to be honest, quite through with funerals and sadness for a while. And now I've gotta go cover a funeral Monday.

And, to be honest, it all makes me cuddle Izzo a little closer.

......

Izzo's almost 2, you know. Gettin' there in a hurry. And, just in case we hadn't realized it, this week she's taken it up on herself to send out a few warning flares.

They sound kinda like this: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That's about how it went when Hamlet tried to take the box of grownup pens from her one night.

That's about how it went when I tried to put her on the changing table before bedtime another night. And so we wondered if she, perhaps, wasn't feeling so well, either ... but, more likely, it appears she's just getting to that combustible, volatile, Incredible Hulk phase of Terrible that everyone's had so much fun warning us about.

Here's the thing: It's early yet, but I'm not that freaked out by the freakouts. Yes, she's turned redder than I've ever seen her. She's thrown herself to the ground! She's screamed in a demonic tone that I'd never heard before! And at a volume previously unapproached!

But ... it wasn't that bad.

It was almost sort of ... funny?

Like, Drama Queen, get over yourself.

And, well, she did. Like she always has.

Went and got the freakout out of her system, and, then, with tears coating her red cheeks, just like that, she switched back to the Good Girl channel and got back to singing and dancing and kissing and hugging and reading and being OK with whatever Daddy or Momom said or suggested, after all.

It's early yet. But as long as she finds herself within a few minutes, I can handle that just fine. And I think I'll try and remember the mom I met one morning at Starbucks, who talked to me about the Terrible 2s -- and 3s -- from her child's perspective, and how just plain hard and darn frustrating it's gotta be to be growing into your own person and be wanting so much from your world and yourself without being quite ready to or capable of really grasping it all just yet ... and how if you, as a mom, respect that struggle, in the big picture, you'll be OK.

It's early yet, but I hope so.

........

... OK. So. There's more. There always is.

Izzo really digs Elmo: "Elbow! Elbow!"

Izzo's requesting coffee.

Izzo is trying her hardest to jump-jump!

And -- oh yeah! -- I think Izzo might be a lefty! She's really starting to do EVERYTHING -- spoon her food; throw her duckies into the tub; toss the basketball in direction of the hoop; color and draw and stick stickers; smack Daddy -- with her left hand. And, just as I started making mental notes of this, I got the babycenter.com e-mail telling me that this is about the time where kids start to show which hand they'll prefer. So, Uncle Bobo, she might not have your OCD, but you she might be like you in another way, eh?

Here's to beautiful, cuddly, sleep-depriving, chocolate milk-swigging, Elmo-loving, fit-throwing, playground-dreaming, left-handed toddlerbabies everywhere!

Love. On Valentine's Day especially.






(Thank you, Abba, for the week of Valentine's outfits!!!)

-- Us

In her own little way, Izzo helps‏

2/10/09

Hey all.

And so it was a week of remembering and mourning for the Nalbandyan family, which turns out to be even bigger than I thought it was ( -- though our wedding should have made that click years ago.)

From the very nice, very sad service on Wednesday night at the big church where Hamlet and I were wed to the funeral and after-meal that had, literally, 31 (including Izzo) people packed, shoulder to shoulder, along a makeshift two-room-long table at Tatik and Papik's condo the next day. And then Sunday, another visit to the cemetery, followed by an official meal of salmon, lamb and vodka, along with all the other traditionally tasty items that get served banquet halls like the Marquis.

Izzo was there for much of it. There because these were our babysitters doing the mourning, and who else was going to watch her (with Kit working like crazy every day and all)? There, also, because Tatik and Papik requested she be. And so, I'm glad she was. Even though she didn't understand the exact nature of all the get-togethers, she was in fine form.

In fine form from a distance for most of the time, that is. I told Hamlet I hoped people didn't think it rude that we brought along a toddlerbaby to such a serious, solemn setting. Not at all, my always reasonable husband reasoned: "We didn't have babysitters, and beside, you basically just ended up babysitting her away from us the whole time, anyway."

This was true.

After sitting quietly for five minutes next to Papik at the church on Wednesday, she got squirmy and so she and I bailed for several walks around the big church. I brought her back in to check out the singing a little later, and there we stood in the back, Izzo at first listening intently and soon signing along, as she does, in miniature hymns. But once everyone took a seat and the priest began his sermon again, we had to leave. Leave and go to the car, where we sat in the backseat and read and re-read and re-re-read "Madeline," about the little girl from Paris who gets her appendix out -- and becomes the envy of her peers. (Izzo made me promise her that for her 12th birthday, we'd got to visit Paris. Really, this was her idea. And after some serious arm-twisting, I agreed.)

We put down the book and headed back to the long stairway when we saw people start streaming out. Ignorantly, expecting Hamlet and Robert and Tatik and Papik to be coming out in the midst of the mourners, instead at the back of the line, as the most immediate family members, I brought Izzo up to the top of the stairs, where one sad-faced person after another emerged. And so, after just having said goodbye to Perdui Nalbandyan, the next thing everyone saw was Izzo Nalbandyan in her mother's arms, following the flight of the resident dove and offering a big, oblivious grin of a greeting to everyone who passed. Er, stopped and pinched a cheek or gave a kiss or stroked a head or tickled a belly of tapped a nose and told Izzo how hamov or poopoosheek or just plain beautiful she was. And then, most of them would echo those thoughts to me, "Mirjam, your daughter is so beautiful." "Mirjam ... ," "Mirjam ...," "Mirjam ..."

And, shucks, I hardly recognized any of these folks who all knew my name. (Later, again, my reasonable husband reasoned: "Well, it's obvious who you are. You were the only white person there.")

Neither Izzo nor I attended the funeral at the cemetery on Thursday morning, though. Kit was ill, and so, again, we had no babysitter. So my daughter and I took a walk around the neighborhood instead, and thought a lot about the family just up the road at Forest Lawn in Burbank, saying goodbye to the sweet, gentle mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Also thought a lot about my grandparents, about getting a little package of photos in the mail to Amo real soon (which I actually accomplished) and about going to visit Grandpa and Grandma's graves in Orange County soon with Hamlet and Izzo ...

... but we did catch up with everyone at Tatik's, where Izzo sampled all the food in front of her and brought a few smiles to otherwise teary, drawn faces. Eventually, we all went up to Bobo's room to try to nap and keep Gigi still, alternately, simultaneously. Izzo didn't fall asleep, though, until an hour or so later, in her carseat on the way home.

And then, yesterday, a drizzly, dark Sunday, we all met up again at the cemetery, where Izzo ran and ran, with Momomom, and sometimes Daddy or Tatik, in pursuit. Just before the priest was set to get going, though, Izzo decided she wanted to run on the rocky surface nearby. Naturally, she tumbled. Skinned her little knee a bit. So I banned that section of land. Which didn't go over well. And so Izzo was officially in a bad, complaining mood. Until the priest started singing. That caught her attention. She stopped her reckless, whiny rollicking, grabbed my hand, and quietly led me toward the group so we could stand, at attention, and listen. And so we did. Until some uncles (and/or second uncles twice or three times removed) noticed we were there and started trying to make friendly faces at Izzo, thereby freaking Izzo out. The more they tried to entertain her, the more she freaked.

All this freaking happened, of course, in a matter of seconds, which was all it took to find her laying in Daddy's backseat, about 30 yards away, getting a dirty diaper changed and ready to read ME "Madeline" a few more times.

After that, it was off to the hall for a quiet meal and a few toasts by Smbat, the grandfather of 3-year-old Lizzy, who tried desperately to give Izzo hug after hug after hug. But Izzo, so good at hugging the big people, still isn't sure what to do when offered hugs from littler people. And so it was more of a wrestling match between two little dolls in the middle of the fancy, dining floor than an effective play date distraction, but that was fine. Eventually they'll figure it out.

And it did lead to this exchange between Smbat and Lizzy: "Lizzy, be careful, Izzo is very hungry and she will bite you!" Lizzy, knowing better: "She's no dinosaur!"

Meantime, Hamlet's cousin Suro tried to talk us into getting Izzo into modeling or acting, because he could set up an account where she'd make the money and we'd control it. Or something. And I thought, Hey, if we get laid off, that sounds like a fine back-up plan. But I wasn't real worried about that last week, not after all of the family's saying goodbye serving as a sure reminder of what, in the end, is really, really important.

And so I'm glad Izzo got to hang around, because, in her little way, she seemed to help everyone forge through the sad, tough week.


Love you all.

Us

Izzo = light

Fam. Friends.

From his facebook profile:

"Hamlet is gonna miss his grandma. RIP Perdui Nalbandyan. At least you won't be in pain anymore."

We expected Saturday to end with a few empty wine bottles, a grip of dishes in the sink and the fading arc of the stimulating conversation Momom was sure would've resulted from bringing together a few of our interesting, good-hearted friends -- after a Lakers, win, of course. Instead, it ended at Tatik's house, where the Nalbandyans gathered last night to mourn the passing of Daddy's tatik, Papik's mom, Izzo's great-tatik ...

Folks came and went throughout the evening, from both sides of the family. Armenian coffee without sugar, because there was nothing sweet about the occasion. The least-decadent cookies available from the Armenian bakery down the street, and nobody really touched them. Grown-folk talk, mostly, from what I could tell. Talk of arrangements. Talk of what photos to use. All of it relatively hushed, but I don't think the language allows for exact quiet. Still, it was Robert's job to keep Gigi calm upstairs. We kept Izzo up there a lot of the time, too ... even though that probably wasn't necessary.

Izzo was light last night. Oblivious, probably, to the reason for this get-together, she delighted in delighting so that Melo commented, "You know, she's always smiling." Indeed, I nodded, "Always."

She "jumped" with Smbat. She cuddled with everyone else. She entertained herself and her onlookers by trying to beat her record for climbing up the stairs over and over again, sliding down, like Momom likes, on her tooshie, each time. She smiled and smiled and smiled and passed it along. She even found poor Papik a few times for a babytalk peptalk: "Koobykoobybobocancah!"

Hamlet's grandmother was a soft, sweet, pixie-like woman who still was dying her hair convincingly black when I met her, oh, eight or nine years ago. She was a wonderful, accomplished cook -- everyone in the family told me at least a few times. She spoke no English but I have to say, my realest Welcome To The Family moment came from her. After observing me, an outsider and maybe a seemingly unlikely match for Hamlet, for most of that first Christmas Eve, she approached me, reached up and cupped my cheeks in her delicate hands and spoke. A cousin, Nana maybe, stopped to listen, and then smile -- and then translate: "She says she thinks you're very beautiful."

I remember being startled. I don't think of myself as beautiful, really, especially not in a condo full of Hamlet's amazingly attractive relatives. But more, that she, the matriarch of this beautiful clan, thought so ... in the next couple years, she'd drop off gifts for me. Funky fun shirts she found around town and stuff. And so I knew, ya know, I was in. I was cool. And that was a big deal.

She started to lose her memory over the past few years, so that when we'd show up she was unsure who was whom. And she got sick too, sicker lately. A few weeks ago, we visited her in the hospital where Izzo was born and where now her great tatik was was bed-ridden and disoriented and had lost, forever, her appetite.

Difficult. Difficult.

And so, in a hard way, the family is relieved that her suffering is through.

Difficult.

...

... and, secondarily, Hamlet had another reason to be down. An hour and a half or so after learning his grandma had passed, he watched his favorite Laker, Andrew Bynum, go down in a heap, writhing and pounding on the ground and screaming out because his knee had, again, bent the wrong direction, gruesomely indicating that it might be a repeat of the injury that ended his season against the same team almost exactly year ago, that it could be an injury that makes the difference between a title and almost winning one again, and worse, that it could be something that diminishes the young center's so-so-so promising career. On TV, you could see it, how absolutely crestfallen all of the Lakers were -- and their grandmother's hadn't just passed.

All this a day after Hamlet and I both received word that between our two companies some 800 folks are going to be laid off next month, to cap a week in which 100,000 Americans lost their jobs.

Could've used a nice dinner party to lift spirits a little. We're almost afraid to plan it again, considering what went down on the day we tried it the first time, but we will anyway, I think ... and in the meantime, we've got Izzo being Izzo to keep things light.

....

"Boo-boo." "Bobo."

When she was in the bathtub one night last week, I told Izzo the little red bruise on her knee was a boo-boo. So, since then, she's been very proud of showing off her boo-boo, never mind that half the time she rolls up the pant leg of the wrong knee to display the mark that's now basically disappeared anyway.

Bobo, in Armenian, means bugger. Or, if it's coming from Izzo, it means Robert. As in Uncle Bobo. C'mon now, that's great.

...

When I produced the vacuum yesterday, Izzo not only didn't freak the heck out, didn't ball herself up in a tight knot of terrified screams, she followed me around the rooms to watch. And then, at my suggestion, she stepped up and helped me push the thing. Even applauding herself for a job well done when the machine went quiet.

In fact, Izzo was an angel as I cleaned the place all morning. She helped dust here or there, but most of the time, she either danced to the music coming from the computer speakers -- she'd run over and start high-stepping, tap-dancing, head-banging and pirouetting (simultaneously) whenever a song that caught her ear began. Particularly Raya Yarbrough's "You're So Bad For Me" and Daddy's "Dadada." When she wasn't dancing or literally helping, she was staying out of the way, emptying her sweater drawer into a heap in her bedroom or trying on all of Momom's undies in our room or reading her favorite magazines in the living room, entertaining herself thoroughly the whole time I was occupied.

....

Izzo LOVES reading. Even more than I would've hoped or imagined. And she's pretty good at it, in her way. She's sitting in her high chair right now eating some breakfast Cheerios, drinking juice and reading the "Everyone Poops" book. (Yeah, yeah, perhaps that doesn't seem like ideal mealtime reading, but this was her idea ... and think about it, in the natural, what-goes-in ... scheme of things, it does make sense?)

But yeah, she sits there and having heard the story enough times, she knows the key words, so she turns the pages and says what she sees: "Poop! Poop! Gorilla! Poop! Good girl! Poop! Zebra! Poop! Poop! Poop!" So it's like she's reading. Same with a few Dr. Suess books: "Buzzz. Splat! Hisssssss! BANG!" Or "I like them. I like them." But yeah, I feel bad because she wants to read more often than I can accomodate. She's constantly coming up to me with a book and wanting to get on my lap and read, which is such an utterly scrumptious, amazing experience, every single time. But, darn it all, most of the time we're getting ready for work and Tatik's. Or making dinner. Or folding clothes. Or cleaning the apartment for a dinner party that's not going to happen. Thankfully, though, those "Not right now, Izzo"s haven't dissuaded her in the least. And for all the Not Right Nows, there have been as many "OK, Izzo, let's do it!"s as I can muster, and happily, happily so.

....

These are a few of Izzo's favorite things:

Boxing. (The sport, as a fan, not a participant.) (But still...)

Elmooo!


OK, there's more, there always is, but Izzo's about done with her seven readings of "Everyone Poops" and equally done with her Cheerios, and I promised a pre-Super Bowl visit to the new jungle gym at the park.

So. We're off. Heavy-hearted but thankful and loving every moment and all of you.

Health and good things and lots and lots of love.

Us