MamaStories

We love that creepy lullaby, “Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby“. It’s featured on the O Brother Where Art Thou cd, where it’s sung by Alison Krauss, but I like Emmylou Harris’ rendition more. It’s easy to sing softly and quite monotonous and thus (one hopes) sleep-inducing. Amie requests for it to be sung every naptime and every night time.

But of course the original lyrics are too depressing.  It is, after all, a Depression Era song by a father to his baby, whose mother has left.  At the end the baby is implored to “Come and lay your bones on the alabaster stones”.

The line “Your mama’s gone away and your daddy’s gonna stay” would just freak Amie out. Also “You and me and the devil makes three”, however clever (it just rolls off the tongue!) is rather problematic. I can imagine Amie asking one day: “Who is the devil, Mama?” My first impulse would be to say: “A very, very bad man”. But then of course there would be a “very, very bad man” in her lullaby, evening after evening…

So I adapt some of the lyrics… you’ll see which ones. I leave the line “She’s long gone with her red shoes on” in because it seems to intrigue Amie a lot. She sometimes adapts it herself to “She’s long gone with the squeaky shoes on”, because she used to have red shoes that squeaked each time she put a foot down.

Here’s our own version of “Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby”:

You’re sweet little babe
You’re sweet little babe
We’re all here so no need to fear
You are my chunky-monkey baby

Go to sleep you little babe
Go to sleep you little babe
You and me and Baba makes three
You are my happy-snappy baby

Don’t you weep pretty babe
Don’t you weep pretty babe
She’s long gone with her red shoes on
You are my tired-wired baby

Go to sleep you little babe
Go to sleep you little babe
Come and lay your head on your big girl bed
And be my ever-lovin’ baby

Go to sleep you little babe
Go to sleep you little babe
Everybody’s gonna yawn then sleep till dawn
You are my billy-belly baby

Go to sleep you little babe
Go to sleep you little babe
Sure does seem like a sweet sweety dream
You are my sleepy-peepy baby

Today was a crazy day, for all three of us but for Amie most of all. I would divide it into four parts:

• Part one, in which we speak of doctors!

Amie returned to daycare after over a week of absence because of a cold. I picked her up in the middle of her lunch and we headed straight for a doctor’s appointment at 1. That took over an hour and was rather inconclusive.

At the Dr’s office she wrote on the blackboard with the chalk. She made one long vertical line and then several small horizontal lines next to it, taking care to make each start at the vertical line while muttering: “Here! And here! And here!” The result was a tall and very skinny E with too many little arms.

- Mama: “What is that, Amie?”

- Amie: “A huge airplane!” (Oh, those airplanes again!)

When I asked her to replicate it on a piece of paper, she didn’t seem to have a clue what I was talking about, and just drew her usual long, parallel-ish lines.

Then we rushed her to DH’s office where a colleague (also a Doctor, though of the “wrong” kind) wanted to do a little speech experiment with her. Due to her lack of nap and hunger, it didn’t fare so well. We promised to return after her next doctor’s appoinment, which was at 3.

This was an allergist and she got two sets of pricks. She was upset for a minute, then forgot all about it thanks to the sixties-looking psychedelic blue chair in the room. The tests were all negative - which apparently means nothing. Ha!

• Part two, in which we tell some more about the experiment

Then back to the speech experiment, which she now enjoyed.

- Even Steven (experimenter): ”Can you say ‘a heed’?”

- Amie: ”I’m not sure.”

- Even Steven: “How tall are you? Are you eight feet tall?”

- Amie: “Nooooo!” (as in: Are you crazy?!) “I’m a little girl. I’m a little bit big and a little bit small.”

• Part three, which concerns dinner 

She napped for an hour in the car on our way back - we took advantage by visiting the library and some shops on our way. But her whole routine was upset. So at dinner she didn’t want to eat. We set no less than SIX foods in front of her. Usually we don’t do this, but we felt sorry for having messed around with her so much.

1. Tortellini with pesto, lovingly prepared just with her in mind (Mama: “Mmm, smells good!”, Baba: “It’s not for you!”) She tasted one and spat it out. It’s usually her favorite.
2. Panda (soy) chocolate pudding. Also a favorite. She asked for it but hardly had a spoonful.
3. A muffin, asked for in the following manner: “I want a candle.” (It’s how we give her muffins: always with a candle for her to blow out.) “Put it on the muffin? It’s in that white bag, Mama.” Me: “Are you going to eat the muffin?” “Yah,” she nods her head, “I want the muffin for the candle.” I, the fool, gave her the muffin, candle and all. I pulled her back just in time before she thrust her face squarely into the flame. She blew out the candle. Didn’t touch the muffin.
4. Blueberry yoghurt. Okay, she ate some of that.
5. The whole wheat bagel with cream cheese left over from lunch, of which she finally ate quite a bit.

• Part five, in which the title of this post is hopefully explained

Then, it was time to go to sleep, but not before she and I had the following mind-blowing conversation.

- Amie: “I want to play with the yellow doorway.”

- Me: “The yellow doorway? Where is that?”

- Amie: “The door” (pronounced like ”do-wa” - like “dinoso-wa”). She points in direction of rest of our apartment.

- Me: “We don’t have a yellow door.”

Amie looks at me strangely.

- Me: “Where is it?”

- Amie: “The door. Dough. Dough.”

- Me: “Dough? Yellow playdough?”

We used to have yellow playdough, but I threw it out half a year ago, after it had sat around outside the can for a while and failed to reconstitute.

- Amie: “Door. Yellow door.”

- Me: “Where is it, sweetie? The yellow door?”

- Amie: “Dough. Dough! Yellow dough!”

She was confused and getting a bit upset, but whether at herself of at me, I don’t know. Baba called from the other room: ”Are you joking with her?”

- Mama: ”You want to play with the yellow playdough?”

- Amie: “I want to play with the dough.”

I gave her the playdough (red) and it lasted less than a minute.

Life with a toddler is surreal!

From the moment Amie was born, I started a daily baby journal. I have been keeping a journal since I was 14: sometimes it’s a habit, sometimes a refuge. So it made sense that I would make a separate journal for my daughter, addressed to her and relating the events of her young life before she could pen them (or even understand them) herself.

It soon proved impractical, though.

For one, I had to write it out slooooowly so that Amie would later have some chance of deciphering my handwriting - I usually write FAST and in a kind of shorthand of my own making. Then there was the lack of time - oh time where didst thou goest?

But the biggest problem was the separation of Amie’s story from my own - her journal from my own. It was impossible. I tried writing down everything in my journal, warts and bad spelling and scribbling and all, then sifting out a cute story for her, which I penned out (semi-) legibly (judge for yourself), with a little picture of the day and even some illustrations of important objects in her life.

Here are some examples (click on thumbnails for larger view):

Well, who has time for that once the baby starts rolling over and getting into all kinds of mischief? Not me. I abandoned Amie’s Journal soon after her nine-month birthday. It looks extra bad because I was only 100 or so pages into a new moleskine!

I took up another project, however, when Amie was born, one that is still on-going. But about that, some other time…

Amie and Baba at Walden Pond (click on My Flickr to the right for more)

• The Pond

All three of us went to Walden Pond today (Amie no longer calls it “Walrus Pond”). It was 83 degrees F, that’s 28 degrees C! We had not expected it, so we were rather overdressed (long pants).

The pondwater was warm enough for Amie, who has been suffering from a cold, to go in whole. This time we did take care to take her shoes off first thing - but we were too late with the shirt. Her diaper swelled up like a balloon half her weight, but she was unperturbed. She floated and splashed and drank the pondwater (we asked her not to, but what can you do?).

We collected stones and leaves and dirt.

Walden Pond in summer can get very crowded, but as you can see from the photo, today was fine, surprisingly for such a hot Saturday on a long weekend. There were mostly families with children, many of them as unprepared for a swim as we were but goin’ in anyway. It felt rather neighborly.

• Then we met Henry

On our way back to the parking lot we visited the replica of Henry David Thoreau’s house. When we arrived the door was open but Amie wouldn’t go in. The bed, with its messed-up brown blanket, scared her a bit. She said:

“I want to see Henry!”

A young couple who were also looking in through the doorway laughed and the girl pointed at her boyfriend, saying:

“There’s Henry!”

The young man took up the role with ease and gave us a tour of his house: the three chairs, the fireplace, the table and the bed.

Amie stared.

And she stared. Was it because he didn’t at all look like the bear in D.B. Johnson’s books? Or did she stare so because she has a sense of Thoreau’s stature, or of the fact that he’s the past and, actually, quite dead…

Who knows what goes on in that little head of hers. More than we give her credit for, I’m sure!

Henry David Thoreau

(July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

We love Thoreau around here.  Ever since our visit to Walden Pond, Amie often asks to be read her books about “Henry David Thoro-ow”. We have several children’s books about Henry, but the core of our collection is the series written and illustrated by D.B. Johnson:

1. Henry Hikes to Fitchburg
2. Henry Climbs a Mountain
3. Henry Builds a Cabin
4. Henry Works

We love these so much, I wrote a raving review about them for Suite101.com. Go have a look-see!

It’s rare that one comes across a book of essays that grips you so tightly that, even though you’re a WAHM running after a toddler, you can’t put it down - or at least, you reach for it immediately once the toddler is asleep.

I had never heard of the poet, Lucia Perillo, though she won many awards. I let most poetry come to me, through recommendations and lucky finds in bookstores and libraries. Perillo never crossed my path, until I was sent a review copy (unasked) of her new book of essays, called I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing.

Being a bit of a, uhm, pessimistic, no, uhm, okay, glum (sometimes) person, I was intigrued by the title. Two sentences into the book, I was hooked. It certainly lives up to its title: Perillo writes about how she lives with disease (in her case, Mutiple Sclerosis), and she does so with the darkest sense of humor I have ever seen on paper. I laughed out loud, I wowed an insight, and in the end came away with great uneasiness.

I hope I got all of that, in more detail, in my review of the book on Suite101. You can read it here. Enjoy!

I am going to scour the second hand bookstores for her poetry books.

One more follow-up on Simon Says… 

We’re at Peet’s coffee shop and Amie is on my hip while I try to order and pay. She keeps pulling on the tip jar, which is (a) full of cash and (b) made of glass and (c) very close to the edge of the counter.

I tell her three (3) times to stop it. The fourth time I get desperate and say:

- “Simon says: don’t touch the jar!”

And she stops!

She’ll listen to Simon, but not to me.

Please tell me this is a phase…

I haven’t slept two nights in a row now. It’s like back in the newborn days, with one difference: Amie sleeps. But I don’t. What’s going on?

For over two years now we have been cosleepers (”sharers of the family bed”). Many time I have thought of writing a co-sleeping entry or article about how I love it, and how it is a privilege and a joy for all three of us. It is however such a complex, and emotional issue, that I never found the words for it.

Now, if I don’t hurry and write something about our it, I might never do so, because…

On Saturday we bought Amie a bed.

Well, a mattress, really, crib-sized, since an actual bed - even the smallest one - wouldn’t fit into our bedroom.

We had been talking about it, but not at all insisting. On occasion we asked Amie: “Do you want your own bed?”, like this or that friends of hers. She always said no, and we always let it go.

But on Saturday morning DH said: let’s go and have a look, it can’t hurt to have a look. So we drove to IKEA and roamed around the baby-toddler’s bed section. It was a propitious moment, because Amie got to witness at least two other girls, “much” older than she (5 and 6?), enthusiastically try out all the beds, voice their opinions and dreams, and choose one.

After her nap, we set up the mattress next to our own bed. We made a big deal about the sheet and the box with the books and the pillows and the blanket, and she was so excited.

“I am going to sleep in my own bed!” she kept insisting. “I have a big girl bed now.” “I am a big girl. I little bit big and a little bit small!”

Throughout the day she visits her bed - “I want to go see my own bed”. She sits down on it to read a book to her bear, or pretends to sleep  - “I woked up!” - or straightens the blanket.

We told her: “You can sleep in your own bed. And if ever you want to sleep in the big bed with Mama and Baba, that’s ok too.” We want her to know that.

But she’s all for it! She slept in it, that very evening! DH lay down next to her - it’s tiny but quite comfortable - and she went to sleep as usual. She even slept till 5 am, without waking up at all. Then I lay down next to her for 15 minutes and she was off again, till we got up.

Last night was a different story: a night terror and the fact that she had refused to take a nap in the afternoon ruined her night. When she woke up for the third time I didn’t get down but just patted her from my vantage point above her. She scootched over and patted the space next to her and said:

“Mama come down lie next to me. This is a big bed for you to sleep in too.”

I explained I wanted to sleep in my own bed, just like her. She was probably too tired to insist and went back to sleep.

But I haven’t slept at all. Our bed seems too big. There’s something missing. I keep expecting her to wake up, and she’s not within finger’s reach - she is within arm’s reach, but comparatively that is about ten times as far away than she’s used to. Than I’m used to.

Maybe writing about why I miss sharing our bed, now that it’s over - and why I think it’s a good idea right now, as long as she’s up for it - will help me sort out what I want to say about the issue…