i'm telling you stories (trust me)*

i’m pretty sure i’ve found the right coffee house for me in my new town. the wall in front of me is papered in old copies of maps from around the world. there’s a bird migration in the americas map, and a beautiful topo of the heart of the grand canyon (a place i’ve never been to, believe it or not). this is the quiet room in the back with domestic lighting and a few tattered lounge chairs thrown into the mix of tables. lucky for me, my airport card is disabled, so i’m not distracted by the possibility of internet connection. for weeks now, i’ve tried to sit down and write this post in our office room in our new place. there are still some boxes in there that need unpacking, and audio cassette tape shelves to be built. there’s email to be answered, and i haven’t had lunch. i wanted to upload those pictures, cosmo will be up from his nap any minute, and before i know it, the time for blog posting is gone. today i got serious and stuffed my laptop in my back pack, jumped on my bike and headed downtown. carl’s reading in the great green chair at home. he’ll be there when cosmo wakes up, so i can leisurely drink my latte and finally write this entry.

two days ago carl said to me cosmo seems older today. i had to agree. it happens that way sometimes. they just suddenly grow up. he’s entered that wonderful age of pretend play and story telling. though his vocabulary expands exponentially every day, he doesn’t talk in sentences yet, but he somehow manages to tell stories from his day.

last night, before bed, he couldn’t stop reenacting an encounter he’d had that morning with another boy his size, at a children’s concert at the library. instead of sitting quietly in his seat in the small auditorium, cosmo had been going up and down the side aisle steps trying to coax other toddlers into to chasing him across the rows. half way through the show, he finally got a taker, and they were having a grand ol’ time running back and forth, giggling and stumbling. by this point, lots of kids were out of their seats, and dancing was encouraged. we had stopped hovering over him, and cosmo was up a few rows from where we were seated. i looked up just in time to see two small heads collide and fall. both boys were bawling by the time the two mothers reached them. i picked up cosmo, sure that his were sympathy tears. but he got louder, and really seemed to be in pain. i held him, soothed him, and rather quickly distracted him with an unplugged sound board in the back. he laughed when he saw it, recovered from his boo-boo and went back to running around and dancing. the other kid seemed to be ok too. later that day, he pointed to his head and said boo-boo so, we talked about it, and i decided to give him a chance to really work through it. i told him to go to his room and get a couple of his little people. he came back with one of the mechanics from the garage, and a power puff girl action figure. i made like they were chasing each other, then i had them bump heads, fall over and say oww! he loved it! we did it a bunch of times, he did it on his own, and eventually we moved on to marbles or went outside to play. that night at bedtime, as we often do, carl and i reviewed a few of the days events with him, including the collision in the theatre. cosmo and i read some stories and were about to lie down to sleep, when cosmo started doing something with his hands, and then smacking them together. i couldn’t quite figure it out at first. he wasn’t saying oww or boo-boo but it didn’t look like any other sign he’d ever done (and he has some pretty elaborate ones these days). i called carl in to confirm, and he too thought it was about the head butting incident. i asked him, and did it with him using his bear, and a plush toy dog, adding an oww at the end. he started doing it with the a oww too, and did it over and over and over again. finally, i assured him that i knew what had happened, that it was great that he could tell the story, but he was ok now, and it was time to go to sleep. he grabbed his sippylcup, laid down on his tummy and soon fell fast asleep.

in addition to the reliving of past events, he has also started playing with figures in a way that suggests he’s got some invented stories going on, and he’s acting them out with the toys. they may not be very complex scenarios yet, but hell, how would i know? i’m not privy to them yet. it’s something he just does on his own. it makes me so happy for him, (and envious) to see him embark on what i hope will be a rich and exciting journey into his own imagination.

another sign of cosmo’s sudden maturity is that he is learning how to make friends. sure, everyone’s a little awkward at first, but he’s really trying. here’s his technique: find someone close to your size, approach them, stand directly in front of them and look them in the face. if they look back, point in some direction you want them to run, or simply turn and run off, and look back to see if they are coming. since chase is his favorite game, this is what he usually invites his prospective friends to engage in with him. it takes the kids a while to figure it out, but eventually someone starts chasing him, and in the case of one slightly older, rougher boy, he may end up getting tagged, tackled and even de-pantsed. it’s all fun and games, ‘til somebody gets hurt (see story above). it is so wonderful though, to see him reaching out. he’ll go wondering out into the mix of kids, turn, come back to us (home base) for a hug, then head back out and try again. last night at a pizza parlor, he set his sights on a younger red-headed girl. she seemed interested, and would face off with him, but never figured out the chasing part.

in other news, we are getting settled in our new place. i miss the familiarity of houston, knowing how to get around, recognizing faces. i can’t find my hair color anywhere in this town, so instead of fire red, my hair is now auburn. it’s very disappointing, however, i have found, for the first time in years, stay-free-ultra-thin-maxi without wings (thank you jesus). bloomington is a small town, and i have a bike now, with a baby seat, so we use the car less and less. we have great neighbors, and spend a lot of time outside. i feel like our quality of life here is quite high.

i’ve been reflecting on the notion of permanence. i know our move here is temporary, that we’ll be doing this again next year. i found myself telling chuck the other day on the phone, that even though i never picture returning to houston to live, i feel like my separation from him is not permanent. it doesn’t make any sense, i know. i guess it is a coping mechanism. i don’t want to know what this move really means.

p.s. it took me a week after writing it to get this post online. last week, cosmo reenacted the collision story using a jesus action figure and a small buddha statue.




*a line from the passion by jeanette winterson

bloomtown

we made it to bloomington. eventually, so did our stuff. we're still unpacking and getting settled in. i'd love to post more, but for now, take a look at my flickr page. it has recent stuff, plus old photos from my yahoo photo account.

what's new in cosmo's world?

so much.

cosmo has turned into a pretty good traveler this summer. he and i drove to san antonio to visit with his relatives a few weeks ago and he did great in the car, with no one to entertain him. after he napped for a couple of hours, we pulled into a rest stop and had a little picnic. he adjusted well to hotel living, and especially loved using the elevator several times a day. we stuck as closely as possible to his schedule for naps and meals and bedtime, and that seemed to really help him feel secure. he's not used so sleeping on a high bed (his futon is on the floor at home) and he flops around a lot in his sleep. after one fall of the bed, i ended up improvising the bedding arrangement in the hotel room. the beds themselves wouldn't move, but the top mattresses did, so i bridged the gap between the beds by pushing one over the edge of the box spring a little, and then dragging the other mattress over to make one giant bed. i had to be careful not to get on the part that was bridging, it would have sank under my weight, but it worked great for cosmo, and he did not fall out of bed again.



i think he enjoyed sea world (not my idea) and had some fun chasing pigeons in downtown san antonio.






less than a week later, the three of us flew to bloomington. carl has been hired to teach at IU in the history and philosophy of science department, so we are moving there in about a week (!) we went to find a place to live. we love the town and think we'll have a lot of fun there. we look forward to cleaner air to breathe and four seasons of distinct weather to enjoy. it is a small crunchy college town surrounded by state parks, national forest and nature preserves. cosmo was a real trooper throughout all the running around getting in and out of the car, looking at crappy student housing, and gorgeous historic homes we ended up not renting for one reason or another. we ended up with a very practical (if not terribly charming) house with a big yard on a quiet street close to the university, but more importantly, 3 blocks from the best park in town. there is even a heated/insulated workshop/studio in the back for all my projects, and a great place for cosmo to get messy. the best thing about the house (besides the washer and dryer in the kitchen) is that the floor plan includes an open loop of doors through the rooms, facilitating endless games of chase indoors. we had a chance to drive out to a nature preserve about 5 minutes from town with a lake and hiking trails in the woods. cosmo had a great time throwing stones in the water, picking wild blackberries and running along the wooded paths.



i hope his recent travel experiences prepared him for our three day road trip. we decided on a u-pack moving system, where we pack the trailer and someone else drives the truck to our destination. that way we'll all be in the same car for the drive. as excited as i am about moving to a new place, it breaks my heart to leave our beautiful community of loved ones...there's going to be plenty of tears.



ok. in other news, cosmo had his first haircut, which looks pretty smart, if i do say so myself. he's mastered the summersault, and has a scary-good throwing arm. carl and i worry that we won't be able to keep up with his athleticism. that's what coaches are for, right? he can't quite jump yet, but he tries so hard every day, he's bound to get it soon.

he's had a verbal explosion lately, and seems ready to try almost any new word we ask him to. at night, when he's trying to fall asleep, he practices all the sounds he can make. i guess it's babble, but it seems to me more like a singer doing scales. he still signs a lot, learns new signs instantly, and he even made up a sign for fiddle, which he makes when he hears fiddle music. we got some ASL books so that we can continue to teach him sign language, even when he no longer needs it. i figure it is one way for him to become somewhat bilingual, since he's not regularly hearing a foreign language in our house.

one of the things that most amazes me about cosmo at this age is the amount of empathy he expresses. if he hears another baby crying, he will stop what he's doing, make the sign for hurt, with a worried expression on his face, and kind of moan. he got so upset one night when he saw some injured pets being cared for on TV that carl had to turn it off. he reacts to the picture in our mother goose book, of jack (of jack and jill) falling down and hurting his head. he is terribly worried about humpty dumpty and even seems to be concerned about a spot of flaking paint on a doorway in our house. he is convinced it is a boo-boo, and that the wood is somehow suffering and needs to be acknowledged. of course, he fusses over his own minor scrapes, and bug bites, and ours too. he has only recently become aware of mosquitoes as they bite him, and wants to scratch them afterwards. good timing for moving to a place where mosquitoes are few and far between.

he still shares pretty well and is generally gentle with other kids. i am sure that possessive stage is coming soon enough, but for now i appreciate his kindness. he throws minor fits now and then, if he's tired, or when he's taken away from something he likes (such as the full drum kit we saw at the salvation army the other day) but they are not outrageous (yet) and are very short lived. i treasure this rare and precious time, savor every moment.

petroleum products are cozy

this picture will probably make my friends at green parenting cringe. cosmo has recently learned to fall asleep on his own...meaning he no longer requires nursing or motion in order to drift off into dreamland. however, he now requires cuddling up to a sippy-cup (or two, or three). he doesn't always drink from them, he just needs to have one near, and protests if i try to take it away. he has also taken an interest in michael's reiki bear, the firsts plush toy he has ever bonded with. sometimes he will toss the bear, but the water bottle is always in hand. his favorite bedtime reading at the moment is a book of classic mother goose nursery rhymes. i've been enjoying trying to uncover some of the history behind them. song of sixpence apparently has something to do with pirates. who knew? cosmo just likes the part where the blackbird "snaps off her nose."

comic junky

carl gave me persepolis 2 for my birthday (i turned 40 on tuesday). whenever i get my hands on a comic i haven't read before, whether it's a gift, borrowed or bought, i devour it from cover to cover, can't stand to put it down until i'm done, and i tend to tune out everything else around me. then i want more. it doesn't matter how good the book is, or how long, comics always leave me longing. it's like a good drug. an addictive drug. i almost cringe when i am handed one...because i know what's about to happen. i don't want to taste the chocolate truffle because i know i am going to want an entire box of them, and there's only one. my appetite for good, quality comics is insatiable. so, in a sense, as pleasurable as reading comics is for me, it comes at a price.

it makes me wonder if there isn't something about the medium itself which produces this lingering hunger. i guess that doesn't make much sense really. i'm sure some people feel this way about a great record, or book of poems. it just so happens that for me, it's comics.

lucky for me, chuck and hank gave me a gift certificate to domy. i can go get one more fix before i head into withdrawals again. thank you thank you my dear friends. thank you.

in the round

cosmo's fascination with flowers has given way to an obsession with circles, balls, all things round. on walks in the stroller, he spots every single manhole cover, or water meter access point, and he wants us to push the stroller over the circle. he laughs and groans with delight. when he is walking himself, he steps on every circle he can find, and the plastic rectangle ones in the grass too. at home he has two favorite new toys, a bag of marbles and a tin full of buttons. he wants to play with them ALWAYS and cries when we put them away. "ball" is his favorite word to say, and he will point out any object in any landscape that resembles a ball.

i often catch myself trying to recreate the better parts of my own childhood. when i was a kid, my mom had a little old-fashioned marshmellow tin filled with buttons of all kinds. i used to love to spread them all out on the floor and organize them into categories, or make various kinds of arrangements. i remember really enjoying them, and i wanted cosmo to have some too. i only had a half dozen or so myself, so melanie and kate suggested that i ask friends to contribute to cosmo's button collection. i like that idea a lot, but in kentucky i found a jar of assorted buttons at a junk store, so it seems strange to ask for more since we are now button rich. however, i like the idea of buttons coming from people he loves. in any case, i was thrilled to find that he loves the buttons as much as i did (and still do) and i imagine his enjoyment of them will change over time. right now he likes to pull individual ones out of the tin, marvel and coo over them, and he also likes them in quantity...he will pour them out, and run his hands through them.

he recently discovered a grate circling a tree outside of a restaurant, and proceeded to run around it, over and over, round and round, laughing and making himself so dizzy he'd stumble. he really loves a circle, that one.

what cosmo learned on vacation

we had a relaxing time out in the country. it was such a relief to just let cosmo run around without fear of traffic, mosquitoes or fire ants. we spent most of our time outside and cosmo had a blast. he learned how to climb a ladder, swing on a big kid's swing and run down a tiny hill. he also got to see a catfish being caught and released, ate some violets in his salad and saw fire flies for the first time. i've heard other parents report that travel often brings leaps in development, and that seems to be the case with cosmo. here are a few pictures and a video.

belated father's day post

Dearest Carl,

On this father’s day, I wanted to try to express to you how much it means to me to have you in our lives, sharing this incredible parenting experience. Your ever growing love for Cosmo is such a joy to witness. I love listening from the other room as you bathe Cosmo each night after our walk--- to hear your patient and proud voice as you ask him to trust you when it comes time to lean back into the water to rinse his hair, or ask him if he can wash his toes with the sponge…then his knees. You are a wonderful teacher a perfect playmate and a careful guardian. I love you, and I love you being Cosmo’s dad.

Happy father’s day.

travelcraft

we are going on a little trip to kentucky. we will be visiting carl's brother out in the country. we love to travel together and i'm looking forward to it. i won't have a chance to blog about some things i have been planning to, but i wanted to share some photos of a couple of bags i felted. one is a gift for dominica, who just turned one. cosmo liked hers, so i decided to make one for him too. he enjoys putting things inside, peering into it, taking them out, and he likes to grab the handle and whip the bag around wildly. hopefully the photos will give you a sense of what i am talking about. happy summer!

in the meme time

i got tagged by the other mother to do a post that lists 7 things about me that you might not know. ok, i'll bite:

1. i have moved 28 times in my life. no, i am not an army brat. only 8 of those were during childhood.

2. i like to put semi-sweet chocolate chips in my cheerios. with the milk, the texture contrast is fantastic.

3. in my early twenties, i lived on a women-only land trust for 2.5 years. we had no electricity, and only a trickle of running water. i learned how to chop wood, grow vegetables, identify wild plants, preserve food, read by candlelight and many other things. i learned how difficult it can be to live by consensus decision making.

4. i worked as a plumber's helper for a few years, mostly on large scale, industrial construction sites. during the summer, the hours were 6am to 3pm.

5. i once got hired 10 different times in one year. i never got fired.

6. if i were stranded on a desert island and allowed to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, i would choose avocado sushi cut rolls-- complete with soy sauce, pickled ginger and lots of wasabi. i am certain i could live on that. happily.

7. though i live with my share of clutter, i am a fiend for organizing. i love to sort things into containers, i love containers. i collect old suitcases and store things in them like photos, letters, videos, maps. my art supplies are logically divided and stored in labeled bins on a shelf in cosmo's room. it helps me to manage my pack-ratism.



ok. there you have it. that's my 7. now i tag chuck, magreen and greendaddy.

whistle while you work

most parents i know bemoan the fact that stupid, repetitive children's jingles get stuck in their heads, haunting them throughout the day and into the night. my friend sarah calls them earworms. i have experienced this, and yes, it can be annoying. however, lately i have been finding it quite comforting. it gives a rhythm and an upbeat mood to my thoughts. the lyrics, or rhymes are usually quite simple, so they don't really interfere with my thinking, but the steady cadence of, say, "the wheels on the bus go round and round" is kind of meditative, and keeps me moving. carl's brother recently sent us a tape of some american folk songs from a record they had as kids. it includes a bunch of railroad songs, a version of "yankee doodle dandy," and "the bluetail fly." we find ourselves listening to it even after cosmo has gone to sleep.

sleepy bear

it happened quickly, overnight you might say. i'd been fearing and dreading the time when i would finally find the courage to try night-weaning cosmo. you see, he's been nursing throughout the night for many months now. it hasn't been a real hardship on me. i always felt like i got plenty of sleep. but i knew, for his sake, that he needed to begin to learn the skill of getting himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night. i also suspected that if he learned this skill, he would probably wake up a lot less. i meant to start this process a couple of months ago, but i got the feeling he wasn't quite ready (or maybe it was me who wasn't ready?) and decided to wait. one of my friends was having great success with her daughter at the time, and she's a few months older than cosmo. it made sense to me that if i could explain to him what was going on, it might be easier...he might not feel so confused and betrayed. i wanted to wait until he would be able to understand my words more fully.

so, i guess it was over week ago now, one night he woke up and was nursing, but he wasn't falling back to sleep. he was in fact, thrashing about, climbing all over me, switching breasts etc. it was keeping me up, and it wasn't working as the quick sleep aide that it used to be. so, i stopped the nursing and told him to lie down and go to sleep. he fussed for a bit, then did exactly that. he fell asleep. i was astonished. from that point on, there was no turning back. i still put him to sleep at night by nursing him, but when he wakes up, i go to him, and tell him to lie back down and go to sleep. sometimes i pat his back. a few times he cried and made the sign for nursing, once he even made the sign for "hurt" which just about broke my heart, but i felt so certain that i was doing the right thing for him. each time he cried, it was for less than a minute (often more like 10 seconds), and i just stayed with him and tried to soothe him, and he fell asleep so fast i couldn't really believe it--MUCH faster than if he had been nursing. then, after a few nights of this. he stopped waking in the night. he sleeps for 8-9 hour stretches now, undisturbed! once in a while he will cry out, but when i go to him, he is already sound asleep. i no longer need to assist him in getting back to sleep. he knows how to do it, and does it. once morning comes (any time after 6:30am) i'll nurse him when he wakes up, but night nursing is now officially in the past.

it is tempting to think that i should have tried this much sooner, but i honestly believe that the timing was just right. i don't think it would have gone so smoothly with cosmo had i tried any sooner. i knew i couldn't handle a "cry it out" approach, and i actually have done a lot of research on this topic. i know i had some fear which was preventing me from trying it, but i was also listening to my intuition, and i listened to cosmo. he changed. the previous methods weren't working anymore, so we moved on to something else.

in any case, i am so proud of him, and proud of us.

others people's lives (and mine)

today i found myself searching google maps for satellite views of places i lived growing up. it was a strange and surreal experience to see photographs from the sky of backyards we built forts in, and the empty fields where we played now covered in housing developments. this search eventually led me to pursue names of people i've known from the distant past. i finally landed on a blog hosted by a couple i knew long ago, who i am no longer in touch with. their lives are vastly different from mine, and different from when i knew them, yet there was some kind of common thread. i am really enjoying reading it, sifting through the archives. i've focussed on the posts by the woman i knew the most, and what strikes me is how happy she is about her life. she has lots of love around her, and she feels like she is right where she needs to be.

it occurred to me that this is how i feel about my own life. how lucky. tonight, the stifling heat has lifted. there is a cool breeze blowing, and the sky is a peachy pink, dotted with shades of amethyst. i feel good. i love my life, and i love the beautiful people in it.

in other news, last friday i took myself out on a date. carl was finished with classes and had some time to spend with cosmo during the day, so i walked up to the river oaks theater and saw the lives of others it was the perfect title for what i needed right then. i wanted to be alone, but i didn't want to be at home, where i would inevitably feel compelled to sweep the floors. i also didn't feel like sitting in a cafe and thinking about the cover letters that need to be written, or why i didn't spend my summers during grad school interning at sexy architecture firms (presumably, if i had, i would now have a flourishing career?). i just wanted to get away. simple escape into someone else's story. what better way to accomplish this than sitting alone in an aging movie theater, with a huge screen in front of my face playing a heart wrenching film set in east germany-just before the wall came down? it was perfect. afterwards i shopped at an upscale consignment shop next door, and found some summer pants (which i tried on, at my leisure, no impatient toddler rushing me to get out of the store). they were half off, which is still considerably more than i'm used to paying for used clothes, but still, a bargain. i walked home thoroughly rejuvenated. when i arrived, cosmo and carl were still out. i was at a loss.

so, i swept the floors.

sweetpea

narration: freshly picked sweet peas from the community garden! i think i'll try one. yumm! those are delicious! more. please. ahhh...this is the life.

stoop sittin'

cosmo thinks he lives in brooklyn or something. when we take little walks in our neighborhood, he likes to stop and sit on the steps of other people's porches. he has also taken to insisting that we also sit down next to him, at which point he gets up and moves on to the next stoop.

curious new habit.