My Truant Pen

Aikido kid

Last night my husband and I took advantage of the phenomenon known as “visiting grandparent” and went to see the new Jackie Chan “Karate Kid”. My beloved spouse was possibly less than enthused and set a minimum threshold for Rotten Tomatoes approval levels, which it just barely cleared. So off we went!

It was a tough story to watch from a parent’s point of view – to see a kid struggling and hurting and unwilling to ask from help from his mother. You hope you’ll never be as powerless to stop your child’s pain, but chances are excellent that you will — even if it isn’t Kung-fu master bullies. Anyway. It was not nearly as good as “Drunken Master”, is all I have to say.

It was less than 12 hours from Karate Kid to Aikido Kid. Grey has been doing Aikido, a defensive martial art since fall — before he turned 4. I’ve really enjoyed what it teaches him. You learn mostly by observation — there isn’t a lot of “talk” in the class. But the Sensei, Michael Baron brings an excellent mix of fun, humor and intimidation to the mat. The kids are expected to sit still and pay attention. They’re expected to run, jump and roll. They adore the “flaming sword of death”. They’re expected to follow rules and instructions. They’re getting VERY good at “Sensei Says”. And sometimes? Sensei cheats. That’s actually one of my favorite lessons…. that life isn’t always fair. What do you do when someone else has advantages you don’t? What do you do if everything has been carefully orchestrated to be perfectly fair your whole life, and then you get in a situation where it’s not?

Anyway, Grey had logged enough hours to test for his first belt, the yellow stripe. (Note: in grownup aikido you don’t get colored belts. There are two colors: white and black. You earn black when you’ve worked long enough that your previously white belt has finally turned black with age and sweat and dirt. But for the kids they bow to societal pressure.) But suddenly, after several months of enjoying it, he started not wanting to go. We explained he needed to practice hard for his test? He balked. I asked more questions, trying to figure out why he didn’t want to go. Finally he said, “I wish there less love about Aikido”. After waffling for a little while, we suddenly remembered he’s FOUR YEARS OLD and doesn’t need any pressure. So we told him he didn’t have to test and he could just go watch his friends take their tests.

There they were: four tiny figures on the mat. They warmed up and did some of their practices. Then Sensei asked who was ready to test, and Grey raised his hand. And test he did. He did shiko and rolls. He counted to five in Japanese. He knew tsuki, shomenuchi, kaiten, tenshin, tenkan, and several other techniques. (Note: I don’t pretend to know how to spell these terms.) He bowed appropriately. And he did very well!

When he got off the mat, he was a yellow stripe. I asked him how he felt. “I feel proud of myself.” Being proud of yourself is the greatest accomplishment you can earn, son. I’m proud of you too.

Never say never

Fashion-wise, my life is an interesting synthesis. Clothes were not very important to me growing up. In fact, I recall distinctly that being enormously unstylish was a great way to drive my sister nuts. There was one particular hideous orange shirt I wore for years because she couldn’t stand it. In junior high one of my favorite outfits was an ankle length black skirt (with black keds from Payless — I don’t remember the sock color and blanche at the thought because I don’t think I owned black socks), a white turtle neck and my volleyball windbreaker (black, with white and green writing) over it. Stylin’. Through high school I regularly wore the light blue sweatshirt with puff paint displaying a winter scene with a dominant element being St. Bernards rescuing skiing penguins. It had a little plastic penguin charm, if memory serves. Towards the end of high school I started getting fancy with black slacks and jewel-colored silk shirts, and began to wear jewelry like a trumpet pendant. And, well, the trumpet pendant. (Oh Lord, let me have had black socks! Tell me I didn’t wear all this black with white socks!)

Fashion was never very important to me. I liked to dress up and look pretty, but invested hardly any effort or money in doing so, most of the time. I had rather baroque ideas of what pretty was. I generally wore very long skirts, not feeling comfortable that I could pull off/knew how to wear short skirts. I never wore heels or makeup. Anything I did wear, barring outside examples, was liable to be put to the same rigorous use (see also: hiking, tree climbing, river fording) that was my normal activity during those days. Yes, even (or especially?) on dates.

Me in the middle - probably my nicest outfit at the time

So through the most socially insecure times of life I generally dressed entirely pragmatically, with an emphasis on St. Bernards.

Then I went to college. I met this GUY. Eventually, I figured out this GUY had parents, who lived very far away and therefore weren’t particularly relevant. However, as we got seriouser and seriouser I began to realize that when you get married you get these things called in-laws. Finally, I met my mother-in-law.

Fashion-wise, she was diametrically opposed to where I was. Here I was in baggy jeans and a t-shirt. She was wearing more jewelry than I’d ever owned and was immaculately dressed in something extremely stylish. I seem to recall leopard print. Gradually, oh so gradually, she got to work on me. First it was a few summery dresses from Thailand. Who can say no to summery dresses from Thailand? Then it was some sweaters. They were nice sweaters! Then she helped me out when I needed to clean my closets. Closet cleaning is always easier with someone else.

Easter - apparently the camera adds wrinkles. I don't have those!

By the time Grey was born, when she came to visit we were having regular sessions of “What Not To Wear”. She’d bring me an item of clothes that pushed my boundaries a bit. Maybe it hugged where I was used to baggy. Perhaps there were colors that weren’t in my standard palette. Possibly it was a little more stylish than I was used to. And of course, every time she came to visit there was a new piece of jewelry for me. Yeah, I know. I suffer. And she’d point things out. Did I notice how the fit on this dress was baggy at the bust? How about how this one caught at the hip? She wouldn’t let her aged mother out in public in those shoes: why would she let her beautiful daughter-in-law? (All the training is accompanied, I should add, with copious praise.) The clothes got better fitting and more fashionable. The shoe selection got more diverse. The jewelry got bigger.

I started to catch on — to see the fun of wearing things that look good and fit. I learned to match the elements of my increasingly extensive wardrobe together. I figured out what MY style was and communicated it back to my mother-in-law, who promptly helped me focus in on those areas. (For example, I own nothing with leopard print.) I started having fun with it.

Thanksgiving - I take the pictures so I'm rarely in them

Yesterday we went shopping together, and I crossed a milestone. You see, for years I’ve declared all capri pants strictly out of bounds. Why? I’m not entirely sure except that I’d never worn them. But yesterday she found a pair with this really cute embroidery, and urged me to just try it on. What could it hurt? Well, she was right. They’re adorable, comfortable and fit beautifully.

I swore I’d never wear capris. Never say never.

I still think I’m in the sweet spot. I now know enough about fashion to be able to present myself in the way I choose, and to feel really good about how I look most mornings. But I also still have that early sensibility, of practical over fashionable. I don’t value myself or others based on clothing, or the state of a manicure. I don’t feel unsightly because I haven’t put makeup on. I’m not dependent on my external appearance in order to feel ok about myself — I know that’s not what matters. But neither do I rule out the entire arena of clothing as something other people do.

My current style vs. functionality in a nutshell

PS – In case you love the original jewelry my mother-in-law has made for me, she does sell her work. Here’s a gallery of some of her recent creations

I’m verbing my noun

It’s been quite a week for me and I’m near incoherent tired. SOME silly people wouldn’t blog when they can’t get noun-verb agreement, but I’m far more cavalier than that! We took a four day weekend and went Camping! In New Hampshire! With a 4 year old and 18 month old! Now that most of the scars have faded, it was a lot of fun. Thane has a death-wish, of course, which seemed most evident in the water. He loves it when he has a bath and lays his head back in the water. The same move in a foot of lake water, on the other hand, has predictable effects — at least to the grownup mind. He got pretty bored at the campsite. I realized, as we packed up, that we brought umpteen toys for Grey, but hardly anything for Thane. No wonder he attempted to drink the dishwater.

Anyway, so Thursday was ALL PACKING and Friday through Sunday were ALL CAMPING and Monday was ALL DOING CHORES.

Normally, work would seem vacation-like in comparison, but this week we flew in a bunch of colleagues from several different continents (bonus French accents!) and spent extensive time in windowless conference rooms discussing the relative merits of SAP and Siebel. And a good time as had by all. But it involved like all my time and brainpower. I mean, I didn’t even get to read my blogs! Or my advice columns! THE HORROR! This is probably the longest I’ve gone without updating in, er, a long time.

So instead of a nice and detailed summary of camping with three maniacs and some meeting notes, I’ll simply leave you with a portfolio of pictures:

Parks, backyards & camping

My Truant Pen

I don’t think I’ve ever explained here where the name of my blog comes from. In college, I tried to memorize one scrap from every English class I was in. It was the Clerk’s Portrait from Canterbury Tales for Chaucer. For Medieval Epic and Romance, I picked my favorite sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella.

Sonnet 1:
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear she might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe:
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled stepdame Study’s blows;
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”

Sir Philip Sidney 1591

Let me introduce you to my BFF…

There are all sorts of ways that the new digital paradigm is changing how we relate to each other. If you read Advice Columns, there are lots of questions about how to deal with your wife’s ex-husband on Facebook, or what to do if your boss sends you an invite to be friends. It’s all in flux, and many of the old rules of relationships need to be rewritten to deal with new venues.

The other day, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs (which I highly recommend, by the way). I had the moment of “Squee!! I know the author of that book, Ursula Vernon!” And in some ways I do. I can tell you that her cat, Ben, has had some health scares lately. I know that she has an enormous chicken statue in her garden. I know all about her divorce, how much weight she lost through the stress of it, the amount of time she spent recovering, and her apparently pretty awesome new boyfriend. I know what she’s planted in her garden, and her favorite boots to wear to a Con. So I definitely know her. The thing is, she very likely does not know me, at all. I could walk up to her and tell her all my online identities, and she’d likely get a confused but polite expression. This happens to her a lot. She’s a very popular blogger/author/painter, and there are thousands of us who read her musings. Of course she doesn’t know us all back.

Then there’s my other BFF (Best Friend Forever), Amy Storch. Her sons are the same age as my sons! She’s gone through lots of the same things, but plenty of unique challenges too. Dude, Levar Burton once replied in Tweets to her post about the traumatic experiences she suffered with Reading Rainbow! She’s the friend you go to for advice about moisturizer choices, or who you want to get a pedicure with. We totally hang out all the time! Or, well, we would. Except once again, she may not even know who I am, although she did answer one of my questions in her advice column once.

Now, I might be feeling a little “oh woe is me no one knows who I am!” but this is an experience I’m encountering from both ends. I’m a small-time blogger (even smaller since I stopped being able to update daily). I average fewer than 75 hits a day (although much better when Boston.com puts me on the front page!) I suspect that 90% of my regular readers are people I know in real life. The rest of them are looking for radish recipes or night life advice for the Indian city of Thane. (Sorry googlers!) But I have definitely encountered people who know me quite well from my writings, who don’t write themselves. While I have some vague ideas about who they are, they know everything about me. That’s what it means, when you put yourself up here on the internet, and your friends, family, enemies, acquaintances and complete strangers can all see your life, laid out plainly.

In a real conversation there’s a back and forth. You learn some things, you share some things. In this new paradigm of online conversations, it ain’t necessarily so. Some people are only consumers of other’s writings…. they listen but they never share. My husband is one of these. Others only talk and never read. Most people do a balance of both. But all throughout the world, not only are people wrestling with what to do about the knowledge they obtained due to a drunk post by their former coworker, but they are dealing with these asymmetrical relationships, when the people they know best are not ones who even know they exist.

What about your online life? Are you a balanced creator/consumer of content? Do I know you? You know me, or you can know me pretty well with a cruise through my archives. Do you like the anonymity of reading? Do you wish it was more reciprocal? Comment, and turn my monologue into a dialog!

The order in which things happen

So often, through fortune and fate, things transpire like this.

1) You get unexpected money (raise, bonus, birthday)
2) Something unexpected and expensive happens (cat breaks his leg)
3) You curse fortune

Consider the same features, but a different order

1) You sign up for an expensive vacation to Istanbul
2) Your cat breaks his leg and needs emergency splitting (and xrays, and medication, and a radiologist, for crying out loud)
3) Your oil change arrives with word that you need new brakes
4) Your husband comes home with news of an unexpected bonus and raise
5) Midas says you don’t really need new brakes after all

Theoretically, the brake stuff would neutralize each other, and the unexpected costs and unexpected extra moolah would be just the same as if you’d gotten the moolah first and the costs second. But no! When it happens the other way around, instead of bemoaning fate that has wrested your so-recent money from you, you bless fate for providing you with an unexpected windfall with which to pay your cat’s vet!

So much of life, the joy or the annoyance, is wrapped up in the perspective from which you look at it. Your cat comes home with a broken leg. Do you focus on the joy that your cat came home, or the troubles of the broken leg? You need to do yardwork. Do you focus on the unfairness of spending Saturday afternoon mowing, or rejoice that you have a home with green grass for playing on? I try to remind myself often that I have only a certain degree of control about what happens in my life, but I have quite a lot of control about how I view and approach the facts I can’t change.

In more concrete terms, you’ll be glad to hear that Justice is doing quite well. We’ve made Justice and Grey roomies, so that Justice doesn’t do stupid stuff like pick fights with his sister or attempt the stairs. He’s eating, drinking, using the litter box and sleeping quite a lot. He’s ungainly when he tries to move — he can’t get far without resting — but I’m guessing once it starts to knit he’ll look pretty funny tearing around with this big blue cast on!

Launch all zig for great Justice

In the fine tradition of mommy bloggers everywhere, I made a few cryptic posts in online forums (see also: facebook, twitter) where I said things like “Justice’s life as an indoor/outdoor cat just likely came to a close. $500 later….” and “Justice is missing. I’m guessing someone has taken him in. Time to canvas the neighborhood.” and “Good news: Justice made it home. Bad news: his leg looks broken. At the animal hospital now with an unusually quiet and calm cat.” and “$500 later, the news is not so good. Looks like multiple fractures & torn tendons.”

Then, of course, I was silent all day. Well, here’s the full scoop.

Justice is an indoor/outdoor cat. For years he was an indoor only. The thing is, he’s super duper social. He was literally going berserk before we got a second cat, and even with a playmate, he still seemed really unhappy inside. A few years ago, cognizant that this was likely a trade-off between quality and quantity of life, we started letting him out. And he’s loved it. The other day we were walking in the neighborhood when one of our neighbors, whom we’d never met, called out, “Hey! It’s Justice!” Justice loves people, attention and scritches. He follows us on walks. He’s a dog in a cats body, and extremely popular.

Usually, he’s great about showing up at mealtimes. Once in a while he misses one, for reasons I’m not aware of, but shows up again promptly. He’s gone missing a few times, and he’s usually been “taken in” by someone entranced by him. One woman accused us of letting our pregnant, declawed cat wander loose. HE may have needed a diet, but he’s actually a great hunter (too good, really, he keeps catching squirrels) and has a fully functional set of claws, as my stairs attest.

But last night when we came home, he wasn’t waiting at the steps. Yesterday morning, when we woke up, he wasn’t strolling in looking non-chalant. (Note: he is of course fixed.) And then yesterday, after a very long day, when I got home he still wasn’t there. I called and called at the door. (Thane chimed in, which was cute but a little heartbreaking.) I had to wonder if he’d been permanently adopted by someone, despite his collar and chip? If he’d fallen afoul of a coyote or a car? Just as I was prepping to go call through the neighborhood and see if anyone had seen our local celebrity, I heard the tinkle of his bells. Slowly.

Justice and Grey meet for the first time

From under the car there emerged a familiar figure. (He likes hanging out under the car.) But only three of his four legs were touching the ground. He looked quite bedraggled and ungroomed. And he had a serious air, quite unlike him.

I got him inside and took a look. The angle the leg was at looked anatomically improbable. 8 pm. I heaved a big sigh and called our vet, who had information on a local 24 hour animal clinic on the phone. Justice and I, and my husband’s Kindle headed out to spend a long quality evening in a vet hospital waiting room.

The vet said that yes, it was broken. The X-rays show that he fractured multiple tarsals and snapped the tendons in his leg. He’ll never have normal use of it again. We’ve splinted it, and he’s in a cast for 6 to 8 weeks. (Note: cat in a cast = very pathetic sight.) But he’s eating. He looks tired, but ok. He’s still trying to move around, and he’s purring and interested. Hopefully the damaged joint will fuse. It will never be as strong as it was. He’ll probably always have a limp, but cats are very adaptable.

We’re not really sure what happened. I suspect it took a great deal of grit for him to get home — I’m grateful that he did. The vet said it didn’t look like anyone hit him with a car. Most likely his leg got trapped, and it was the weight of his own body that did the damage. So I guess we’ll see how this turns out, and how he recovers.

To be a lover of books

What gifts and passions do we hope our children have? If we were fairies at a christening, what would we bestow? I’m coming to understand that the answer isn’t the same for all parents, that the “of course” attributes that I value are not the same ones other parents do. That’s part of what makes us so wondrously different. For me, there are some key attributes. Kindness. Integrity. Courage. Joyfulness.

But then there are the other things, the ones that I secretly really hope for, but know it’s not fair to expect. Love of music. The willingness to sing in public. Caring about what’s fun more than what’s cool. A love of nature. A disdain for hurting others. Stopping to watch the ants. Memorizing poetry for fun. And, critically, a love of books.

For that last one, at least, my parenting hopes look like they’re on track.

Last night, Grey requested the opportunity to read Thane on of his bedtime books. He selected his favorite from his room: Luke Skywalker’s Amazing Story. Starting with the title page, he read through it. He read about droids, and the Force, and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and “rebel leaders”. Of course, many of the hardest words he’d remembered from other circumstances. Let’s be honest, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a bit tough to guess phonetically. But he pronounced “Aunt Beru” differently than I did. He corrected himself when he misread a word. He paused and analyzed some of the hard words. He read with inflection and meaning, and understood the words as he read them. And I sat there, hiding tears, amazed to learn (spoiler alert) that Luke Skywalker’s father was Darth Vader! You could see the effort he put in — he actually got tired towards the end and started making mistakes out of the fatigue of his effort. But that by itself points to the reality. My son is reading! He’s a reader! He loves it! He does it out of joy! I can almost see the doors of a vast new world opening to him, whether he sees it or not.

Now let us speak of my youngest. About a year ago, Thane went into a book stage. It was one of his first words. He showed unusual focus for a small child on listening to the stories. But, probably not coincidentally, around the time he started getting the ear infections, his love was transferred over to cars. Vroom! Clearly we continued reading to him at night and sometimes in between, but it was no longer “his thing”. Then, a few weeks ago, it all changed. Thane is having a passionate love affair with books. Specifically, books that you are reading to him. And woe betide all moments not happily consumed in book-ishness. Today was a tight morning, schedule-wise, so we ONLY read him about 5 books before breakfast.

This would be a happier thing if Thane wasn’t quite SO upset between readings. He regularly throws epic, grand-mal tantrums with 15 minutes of loud, disconsolate weeping, arching of back, and pounding of hands because you have cruelly and viciously REFUSED to read him a fourth book! Look! He has it right here! “Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus”! If he says “happy” enough times, surely you’ll understand and read it!?!? (NOTE: Books are identified by their loudest phrase. So “10 Minutes to Bedtime” is identified with “Bedtime”. In one of the Pigeon books, the Pigeon says he is “Happy, Happy HAAAPPPPPYYY!!!!” therefore all Pigeon books are “happy”. There’s a certain irony as he, tears streaming from his eyes, holds up the book and urgently says through his weeping “Happy! Happy!”) If you do not immediately oblige, the bitter crying starts. Last night when I was rapt listening to my eldest read a book, I was bouncing on my right leg a disconsolate Thane who kept bringing me different books in the fond hope that I’d finally read one to him, as he screamed and howled his disappointment.

This is, of course, a stage. You can’t multi-task and read “How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Dinner”. I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Thane has figured out how to get whole and undivided attention from the people he loves: grab a book and plop your little diapered butt in their laps. Works every time. And of course, he really does love the books. Grey loved the alphabet at that age. He actually knew it all by 18 months. Thane? He loves the reading, specifically the one-on-one time with his parents. I don’t begrudge him, even as much as sometimes it would be nice to have him sated by, oh, three or four books.

One of the memorable moments of my shared childhood experience was a car trip where my parents and siblings and I talked about all the books that the younger of us had not read and the jealousy of the elders that they would be so fortunate as to experience them for the first time. My sons’ feet are on that road. Oh, what stories await!

Constantinople, not Istanbul

Today I bought tickets for Istanbul.

In August, my husband and I will have been married ten (10) years. That seems momentous somehow. How can I possibly be old enough to not only be married, but to have been married a DECADE. So although this isn’t the time of life of the greatest free cashflow (hello daycare!) sometime last summer I decided that we would go.

In our decade of marriage, we’ve really had three kinds of travel vacations: family, beach and exotic. Family speaks for itself. That’s our backpacking, trips to Victoria, hanging out in Atlanta, etc. That usually happens once or twice a year, although perhaps not this year. Beach? We’ve made three of those. We went twice to Cozumel, Mexico — once before we had kids and once when I was pregnant with Grey. We really like snorkeling. When I was pregnant with Thane, we went to Belize to snorkel there, which would’ve been more fun if I hadn’t been wrestling with a herniated disk.

Three times, we’ve done “exotic” travel. When Grey was about 6 months old, we went to London because I’d never been and because (I think really) I wanted to prove to myself that my life of adventure wasn’t over because I’d procreated. Grey threw up about 6 times a day every day we were there. We have not traveled internationally with kids since. For our honeymoon, we went to Greece. We spent two? Three days in Athens? Then another blurry 5 or so on the island of Aegina, discovering that we liked snorkeling together and could be entirely content with a schedule that had us both reading two books a day. Then, in 2004, we went on a trip that was the best week of my life. We went to Vienna for a week. Ah! What can be said! There were museums and weapons and friends and Hungarian Goulash and alpine meadows and fortuitous pfeiffer-steak and it was just the best week I’ve ever had. We took a train through the alps to Vienna, because I had longed since my sophomore year of college to gaze up at the glimmering tongues of flame of the Pentecost, writ in gold, on the mozaic-strewn St. Marks, where Giovanni Gabrieli wrote music to fly over the heads of worshippers. And we did. We stood in St. Marks and heard music and saw mosaics and it was amazing.

We have figured out, with this scope for comparison, those three exotic and three beach vacations, that the journeys of the mind (and museum) are more worthwhile. Beach vacations are fun. It’s enjoyable to read and relax and snorkel. But it’s like the difference between candy and a meal… the nourishment of the other travel is so much greater. It may not give quite the quick hit, but it’s worth it.

On reflection, the destination for this adventurous 10th anniversary trip was decided by a pair of books, the Sarantine Mosaic series by Guy Gavriel Kay. I read them in Victoria last summer. In college I’d taken a course in Early Christian and Byzantine Art, and amazingly we’d studied Byzantium as part of it. I’d loved it. I drank it in. I dragged my new husband to every church I could find in Athens, including quite a few that were by no definition Byzantine. These two books really touched on an authentic feeling of what it was to be Byzantium (although it’s a fictional setting, it’s clearly Byzantium. I highly recommend the series. Keep your eyes open for Procopius!) And I wanted to dig deeper, and drink more fully from that history.

So it came together — a journey to a place of great history and depth. Byzantium. Constantinople. I want to stand in Hagia Sophia, great wisdom, and see what she has become and imagine what she once was. My husband has placed a vote for The Sinking Palace. We’ll be staying at a hotel that overlooks the Bosporos. I’ll likely bring along the Iliad, and perhaps we’ll make a day trip to Troy.

Can we catch lightening in a bottle? Can anything ever be as amazing as Vienna was? I don’t know, but it seems like there’s no better place to find out than Constantine’s New Rome.

Pictures and Vignettes

My digital life is all behind. My work life is very, er, fulfilling these days. And my personal life is what Professor Willauer used to call “rich and full”. (Read: I’m still doing bills at 10:45 on Tuesday nights.)

But the thing is, I’m not using euphemisms. My life is fulfilling, rich and full. There’s laughter, giggling, serious discussions, rough-housing, beautiful spring days (at least through a window), lilac-sniffing, Miso-soup-eating, meeting-attending, project-planning and baseball-watching. Sure, I had 492 pictures to go through last night, multi-tasking as my husband and I watched Red Dwarf (we’re up to Season 6). Granted, I haven’t ordered prints in like a year, and my digital picture frame shows a little immobile bowling-ball of a Thane. And yes, my retirement funds need to be reallocated and the IRS sent me a nasty notice (I believe I’m in the right on that one, which just makes it worse. It’s easier, although much more expensive, to be wrong.) But hey, I’m never, ever bored. And really, it’s quite a joyful tumult, except the bit about cat vomit in the morning.

In the vignette department, I would like to record for posterity that this week marks the first time Grey begged for a cell phone. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If you ask me now, in the throes of preschool and my own fuddy-dud-ness, I’d say that maybe 14 would be an appropriate age for a cell phone. One without a camera or digital plan. That’s 10 years from now. Do you remember where we were 10 years ago telephonically? It was my senior year of college. We had an outrageously expensive plan in our dorm rooms, and I remember one or two people my senior year actually had their OWN cellular phones. For real. One of my very friends had a (wait for it!) car phone! It was so expensive you only used it in extreme emergencies, of course.

So that is to say that in 10 years from now, who knows what telephony looks like? I can’t predict what will be normal and expected. (For example, in less than 15 years email has gone from a cool thing that some people had to pretty much mandatory for civilized life.) So I can’t say what choice I’ll make about when it is appropriate for Grey to have his cell phone. All I can say with confidence is: not now.

In other communication news, Thane has started speaking in very short phrases this week. I will record as his first sentence this one, used to communicate key information to a babysitter on Monday night: “Dis Mama” (pointing at me). Yes Thane! I am proud to be your mama!

In funniest baby phrases of the week, Grey was asking what a copy was. You try defining a copy with out using a synonym. So my husband, reaching into a vast store of knowledge, explained that a copy is like “Echo Echo” on Ben 10. Grey got the concept, but Thane immediately blurted out “ECHO ECHO!”. Perhaps you had to be there, but the irony of your little echo saying echo was, er, ironic.

So with no further ado, the pictures. I didn’t have time to caption them or to edit them quite as much as is my wont, but I did shut my computer off for the second episode of Red Dwarf, so I regret nothing:

http://picasaweb.google.com/fairoriana/May2010#