monkey plus monkey
Of course, after I get the MOM-COJONES to finally post about Nora's pre-sleep crying, she goes to bed like a textbook sweetheart for three days in a row. The kid is trying to make me look stupid.
SO INAPPROPRIATE
LT and I have been working on a dirty version of Blue's Clues. We are usually mature and responsible enough to work on it out of Nora's earshot, but sometimes we just need to make a few sotto voce comments during the show itself. And I promise that I try to keep the dirty as clean as possible, if that makes any sense, so you don't have to worry about Nora coming out with, “Mommy, what's fisting?” at preschool or Grandma's house.
LT: Steve [Blue's Clues host] looks about twelve years old.
Me: He sure doesn't boink like twelve years old.
Steve: Now what could Blue want to do…with a raincoat?
Me: Bukkake!
LT: That would be very hard to draw in the handy-dandy notebook.
LT: Is Slippery Soap always drunk or something? What's with all the slipping?
Me: He used to be prison soap. He drinks to forget.
WHAT IF?
I was on the way home on the El yesterday, and the snow was coming down like crazy. It seemed like no one was reading or iPodding or even talking on their cell phones, but instead we were all just staring out the train windows at the snow. There were two girls in front of me talking about the snow and one said to the other, “What if, instead of snow, that was bugs?”
What if, indeed. While I appreciate the general sense of dread and awe that goes with this thought (which I take to be something like Eeew, Ick, That Would Be A Lot Of Motherfucking Bugs), I am having a lot of trouble with its general wack-ness, and all day I have been looking at things and thinking What If They Were Other Things? A bowl of cereal: What If This Was Paper Clips? My cat: What If She Were A Trombone? Anyone who reads this page knows that I am capable of large leaps of logic (often I just leap entirely over logic, it's quicker that way), but What If Snow Were Bugs? is one that I can't quite allow. It reminds me of a stoner philosopher who pulls his face out of the bong* and starts talking about What If We Are All Just Figments Of A Sleeping God's Imagination or How Do You Know That When We Say “Blue” We Are Referring To The Same Color or Maybe The Universe Is Really A Steak Burrito And Earth Is Just One Of The Shreds Of Steak And Dude, Let's Order Mexican. I have no patience for this sort of garbage and my usual response is epistemological: How Will We Know, After I Punch You In The Mouth, That You Actually Feel “Pain”?
*The second bong reference in a row for this diary! You people are going to think I'm a big pothead, but I am really not!
SOME MORE NORA CUTENESS FOR YOU TO CHOKE ON (NONVISUAL EDITION)
1. I really should be over it by now, but her imagination continues to surprise me. Nora has taken to wearing that damn plastic Viking helmet almost every evening while we play. We finish dinner, she yells “Mommy play!” and tears off to the living room, leaving LT to clean up (hey, I cooked), and then she immediately puts on the helmet. Must have protective headgear while playing! Last night she crouched down low and said, “Listen.” Then she made little peeping sounds, stood up suddenly, shook the helmet off her head, and exclaimed, “Baby chick!” So Nora was hatching from an egg, with the Viking helmet as the top of the eggshell. She must have hatched five hundred times, and each time I had to be thrilled to death, with smiles and big hugs for the new baby chick.
This was a very funny and entertaining game, but later it made me a bit misty. We are just starting to tell Nora her adoption story, and we look at pictures and talk about how she was living in China (we have pictures of her orphanage), and about how we got a phone call and we said “Oh boy! Nora!” and got on a plane and hugged her and kissed her and were so happy, etc. I could be wrong, but two years old seems young for me to be getting deep into things like birth mothers and Chinese social policies. So although I know perfectly well that there is a woman somewhere in China who gave birth to Nora in the usual way, and then for any one of a dozen reasons decided to give her up at two days old, and although I will happily and lovingly tell Nora all of this when the time is right—somehow the hatching metaphor, with its flavor of nothing nothing nothing and then Suddenly Nora! is just overwhelmingly sweet and appropriate.
FOR THE LAST TIME INTERNET, I PROMISE I WON'T REALLY TELL MY DAUGHTER SHE HATCHED FROM AN EGG.
2. After another one of Nora's sporadic poops in the potty (I am the slackest potty trainer ever, mostly because I am reluctant to give over so much of my daily discourse to poop and pee-pee), she stood up, surveyed her effort, and said, “Yay Nora!” Then she thought for a moment and amended it to “Yay Nora's butt!” Credit where credit is due, I suppose.
NOT SO CUTTING-EDGE
I was recently phone-interviewed, twice, by the New York Times about this diary. What year is it again? Isn't everyone done with the This Is A Weblog and People Actually Reveal Details Of Their Lives On The Internet! stories by now? I guess not. The first time was about the weblog-turned-book phenomenon, and I did my usual blithering about how the book is not my fault, and then I took the opportunity to pimp my friend Wendy, because she actually has a real book coming out instead of my flimsy collection of diary entries, and because I want her to owe me a drink. DID YOU HEAR THAT, GIRLFRIEND?
The second phone interview was about “parenting” weblogs, and the interviewer's editor had given him a list of supposedly-provocative interview questions, such as “Why should anyone care about your kid?” This made me laugh for about five minutes, and I am really glad I got the question in advance over email because I would have had to put the phone down.
(a) They shouldn't. They can always go read something else.
(b) They do anyway, but to be honest a lot of the caring comes from other parents, because we all love to compare notes. The Internet just makes it easier!
(c) It's a narcissistic generational thing! We think everything we do is fascinating! And now many of us are having kids!
(d) Why should anyone care about anything? It's my diary. I have no obligation to entertain, and if I do I treat it as a happy side effect.
(d) What are you getting at, dude? I mean really, it's kind of a belligerent question.
I HAVE NOWHERE TO PUT THIS
But I find it interesting: the government's Thrifty Food Plan (.pdf). See how your grocery bills compare. We actually come out close to the thrifty side, but that is not really accurate because we do eat out a lot. Nora would be happy on the Blueberries And Noodles All The Time plan, which would definitely not be thrifty right now at three bucks a pint or whatever.
NOW I FEEL REALLY OLD
Because I know what stuff costs at the grocery store. That and cooking without a recipe seemed the height of mom-ness to me when I was growing up. Also, when someone recently expressed surprise that I listen to Jurassic 5, I explained that one of the reasons that I do (besides their booty-shaking beats and lyrical skills) is that they are “positive.” Positive? Where did that come from? Oh these kids with their guns and their pimps and their bad words. I'll just be over here wrapped in my granny shawl listening to my “positive” hip-hop.
—mimi smartypants has Big Boi on her left, Andre on her right.