november

tom waits has a song about it.
many significant, life changing events have occurred for me, in the month of november. one year, my apartment caught on fire, and i had to move out. oh, and four years ago, in november, i had a baby! this november, i'm writing 50,000 words in thirty days. i have my doubts that the collection of letters, arranged into words, placed together haphazardly into sentences, over the next few weeks, is going to resemble anything close to what anyone would call a novel, but at least i'll have something to work with. i'll have 50k words that i didn't have before. and, i must say, i love nanowrimo. it's just the kick in the pants i needed to get this crazy story onto the page. i am writing every day, over 2000 words, and i am not editing. i am not reading what i have written. ahhh. it is so freeing.

cosmo had fun trick-or-treating, but seems to enjoy, even more, playing with the candy. he likes to sort it, arrange it, catapult it with a yard stick, move it from one container to another, build with boxes of dots and milk duds, toss laffy-taffy into a cut-out flap in a card board box, count hershey's kisses, and make letters out of skinny tootsie rolls. he never eats any without permission, and when he is allowed to have a piece or two, he just can't. decide. which. one. he wants. so, we showed him how to do "eeny meeny miney mo," "bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish," and "engine engine number nine," so that the decision making is left to chance. he loves this process, and will line up six (or nine, or thirty-seven) pieces of halloween candy, and then, through a long, arduous process of elimination, pick the one piece he will have. he alternates between the three rhymes, and says, "the one that wins, i will eat." he is always thrilled with the winner, even if a milkyway gets eliminated in the first round, and the piece left standing is one, solitary dot. i love the way he says, "MY mother says to pick the VERY best one, and YOU are not IT!"

speaking of tootsie rolls, cosmo looked better in my borrowed costume than i did, but he couldn't walk in it-- just roll. i loved the costume though, for its ease. no make up, no wig, no special clothes, just put it on, and you have an instant, and rather impressive, costume. "cheers!" to whomever crafted it, and "thanks!" to my good neighbors for letting me wear it. cosmo's ghostly cheesecloth kept drifting off his hoodie, but he didn't seem to care, one way or another. the costume was incidental to him. he still can't get over the fact that one day a year, you go out at night, knock on people's doors, they open them, and hand you candy. how can this be? he doesn't run around excitedly, but rather wanders from house to house, sort of stunned, and amazed. he says his obligatory "thank-you," but no smiles. carl called his own, last-minute costume "the haunted shepherd," he was wearing a sheep-herder's hat, from kyrgyzstan.

back at home, we were greeted by these jack-o-lanterns that cosmo and i made out of plastic water bottles. i hope to do a tutorial on those, in another post.

we checked out an awesome book from the library called "applesauce season." it's all about making applesauce, which is something carl especially loves to do. so this time, we got cosmo involved in it from start to finish, including picking out the apples at the farmer's market, and running the cooked apples through the food mill. he really got into it, in part, i suspect, because it is one of his favorite foods.

cosmo has been surprising us, on a regular basis, with his reading skills. i catch myself saying, "you can read that? so, you're a reader? you read now? okay then..." and, i have been saying this for months and months. i guess i have to face the fact that he's learning to read! very exciting. i have even seen him in his room, quietly turning the pages, and reading simple books, all the way through. gasp! he seems to get a lot of satisfaction from it, and tries to read words everywhere we go. he also made a huge leap last week, in his grasp of addition and subtraction. it started with one of the pbs kids games he plays online, but he needed help. i grabbed 5 pens, and showed him how to figure out the answer to a simple addition problem, using the pens, and counting. he was absolutely giddy when he got it. witnessing his little brain grow and expand is one of the greatest pleasures of my life.

(that's 813 words, FYI)

six word memoir

robin at the other mother tagged me with a meme. the assignment is as follows: tell your life story in 6 words. i often fantasize about writing a memoir. i keep lugging around those boxes of old journals, correspondence, date books, and other precious mementos. i call it my archive, and always justify hanging onto it by claiming, i'll need all of it for my memoirs. a couple of things keep me from doing it. one, it is a big scary project. i often take on big scary projects, but i rarely get very far with them. and now, since the recent hullabaloo about "fraudulent" memoirs, i also worry about people poking around to fact-check. some of the stories from my life are hard to believe. "verification" could be tricky.

but here i have the chance to start it, and to complete it tonight. very satisfying. it was harder that i thought it would be. below is what i settled on:

if
only
i
could
forgive
myself.



the six word memoir rules are:

1. write your own six word memoir.
2. post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. tag five more blogs with links.
5. leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

i tag:
michael
texta
dodaddy
kate
le binky bitch

what i don't say

i've been thinking about the way i write on this blog, what i write about, and, more specifically, what i don't write about. i don't mention the fact that both of us will be unemployed come june, and that we don't have a solid plan. i don't write about how complicated it is to deal with cosmo's biological father, and how conflicted i feel every time cosmo and i leave carl to go visit him and his family. i rarely write about my political convictions, how disturbed i am (on a daily basis) by the war in iraq, and the many crimes of the bush administration. i haven't mentioned who i plan to vote for in our primary in may. the blog is focussed on cosmo, and on being a mom, but i don't share my thoughts on the really heavy parts of motherhood, either.

in general, i hesitate to get too personal. i guess i am still getting used to the public nature of blogging. i actually don't mind much what strangers reading this might think of me, but i do care about what my friends think, and i have a hard time being open and vulnerable, in the same way, with anyone who knows me, who might be reading this blog. i don't know if i want everyone to know how insecure i feel about the thought of pursuing a career (finally) in architecture, and what a struggle it is for me to begin to put together a portfolio of my work. it is hard to admit that i still haven't lost the extra "baby weight," and how jealous i am of my friends who have. i don't like to expose how judgmental i can be about others (especially other parents) or my issues with comparative self-esteem.



i've kept a journal since i was 13 years old. for 27 years, writing has kept me sane, and helped me work through many difficult emotions and circumstances. but journal writing is private. and i still haven't worked out what it means to share my journal with the world. in fact, i can't do that. i still keep a journal, but it rarely makes it to the blog.

what's funny is that i find that the blogs i enjoy reading the most are the ones that dare to get personal. i want to hear the rants and complaints and self-effacing humor. it can make for really interesting reading. of course, it can also be tedious and self-indulgent. maybe that is what i fear?

i'd love to hear from others on this topic (whether you blog or not).

birds and words

BIRDS

we started a tradition in our household of the "new year's drinking bird." maybe you remember these from childhood: it's has a thin blown-glass beaker sort of thing for the body, a flocked red beak and head with a hat on, and a green feather for the tail. the beaker is filled with blue fluid, methelene cloride i believe. the bird is on a pivoting stand, which makes up the legs and feet. you place it in front of a glass of water, and every now and then, depending on drafts and humidity levels in the room, it will tip forward and "drink" from the glass.how and why it works is still a mystery to me, but that's really the fun of it. if you put the glass close enough to the bird, when it tips back, the bottom of the beaker will touch the glass and go "dink." cosmo likes watching the bird, waiting for it to go, and after it drinks, he says "deeh." [trans. dink] adorable. we decided to bring it out on new year's day every year, and put it away at the end of january. a sort of post-holiday treat.





WORDS

observing as language first begins to develop must be one of the most fascinating things for parents. i am completely blown away. cosmo moves from indexing (pointing at everything that catches his eye) to pointing and vocalizing to attempting words and sounds (roar! dink.)and most amazing to me is how much more he understands our words. i am also witnessing the power of repetition. if something is present and named over and over, he learns it. if i say "cosmo, go get goodnight gorilla and bring it to mama." he will stop in his tracks, turn to where he remembers last seeing that particular book, and will go to it, pick up the book and bring it to me. he then sits down to hear the story and look at the pictures. he knows the book well, and points to characters and makes certain sounds for them. on the black page with the two eyes, he will suck in air, and say "huh!?!" with a surprised look on his face. that is what we do on that page each and every time we read it to him. pavlov's dogs? that's what it makes me think of, and it is scary. he also knows the term, concept and gesture for "hot," he waves his hands, fingers spread, and says "ha! ha! ha!" he knows to stay away, and does. all we have to say is "cosmo, hot!" and point at the object, and each time he sees the object, he will go "ha! ha! ha!"

BIRDS

carl's father made us a bird feeder for christmas. it's a really nice one, shaped like a little house, with an extended roof to cover the tray, and a little flap door on top to pour the seed in. we've seen a few birds in the brush in our back yard, including some cardinals, and i like the idea of attracting more. i thought we might need to set it on a pole at first, but i noticed a tree limb about 20 feet or so up in the pecan tree. if we could run a long rope through the Y in that limb, we could set the feeder at just the right distance from the tree trunk to keep the squirrels away, and it would hang in perfect view of our kitchen window. late in the evening, after cosmo had gone to bed, carl and i set out to do just that.

it was comical really, to see us out there with our high hopes and bad throws, trying over and over to get that twine hung over that limb. carl had the great idea of tying the twine to the end of our foxtail (a toy made of a leather ball on one end, and a long multi-colored nylon tail). it was the perfect weight, and if it should happen to stray across the property line, and hit the neighbor's minivan, no harm done. first we tried it from our upstairs neighbor's balcony, but the angle of the roof made it difficult to see, and it was an awkward position from which to throw, especially since we are both right handed. carl went first, and then decided it would be easier from down below. i gave it a try. or two. or three. unfortunately, though i could see my target, and it wasn't that far away, i couldn't get enough force behind it, and i guess i've got terrible aim. carl tried from down below. he managed to get it up there more than once, but it kept getting caught on old leafy branches, and we'd have to pull it down and start over. still though, we were getting hopeful that it was not out of the range of possibilities. finally i suggested carl try again from upstairs. i showed him the view i had, and he agreed that it might be easier. he gave it a couple of good tries, and then, at last, the foxtail ball made it through the Y! it was stuck in some light branches, but thoroughly through the big branch and so carl began to gently tug on his end of the twine.the foxtail began to slowly loosen and inch its way down. i got so excited, i started coaching the thing, and grabbed the rake and held it high above my head, ready to snatch the ball when it got close. i am sure our neighbors thought we were nuts, making quite a commotion out there, but we were on a mission. finally, inch by inch, the foxtail made it to the rake, i swung at it and pulled it down. we had our twine hung, ready for the feeder.

once we had the feeder heavy with food and swaying lazily from the tree, i couldn't stop staring at it in awe. i felt like a kid on christmas eve that night. i couldn't wait to go to bed so i could get up in the morning to see if any birds came to our feeder. i woke up several times in the night, as i am wont to do with a night waking baby, and each time i would think "is it dawn yet? can i go check the feeder yet?" it was a big disappointment to learn that it often takes a while for birds to find your feeder. we didn't have any birds at the feeder that day. or the next. or the next. but the beautiful thing about hanging a bird feeder is that you begin to notice birds. i could suddenly hear their songs all around me, and i'd catch them fluttering around in our bushes and trees. i saw at 4 cardinals in a couple of days. but none of them noticed our gift.

last night, carl spotted the first one. a female cardinal. i raced to the window to look, but it had flown off. later we saw a male cardinal on the feeder, a couple of other birds, and what we suspect is an adolescent male cardinal. it was smaller and its feathers were kind of orange and gray instead of red, but too bright for a female. i know nothing about birds really, and i doubt i'll be getting into bird watching as a hobby or anything, but i just like seeing them in our yard, and cosmo does too. he was thrilled when we showed him the bright red bird on the little house hanging outside our window. we even trimmed the foliage in front of the window so cosmo could see the feeder from his height.


WORDS

i've embarked on a personal writing project. its a memoir really, but scaled down to sized. i have three periods in my life where such strange things happened, i find it impossible to explain them fully to anyone. so that's the challenge. three stories. of course now that i've started, i realize how challenging it truly is, and not in the ways i first imagined. first of all, there's the problem of memory. i can't recall all the details, so to fill the story out, i will have to invent. i'm not a fiction writer. i know nothing about character development or dialog. so these are things i will need to practice and learn. it will be frustrating and difficult. i admire all of my friends for whom writing is a big part of their profession. it can be so excruciating. and yet, so utterly thrilling in those moments when you know you get it right. this is how anyone making anything ever keeps on going.
as anne lamott suggests, bird by bird.