Two If By Sea

This is the third part of a sequel started on my blog, chronicling my two year old’s voice.  Go here here for Talking Two.  And then, for part two, Talking Two-and-a-Half, go  here.

Eating yogurt with his stuffed Barnaby Bear:

Cayce: Hello!  I’m Cayce! Want some yogurt?
Cayce (as Barnaby, deep voice): Oh Yes PLEEZE. I’d LOVE some.

*************

In bath, his hair lathered with shampoo:

Cayce: Do you like my hat?
Me: Yes, I do!
Cayce: No!
Me: Oh- I’m sorry. You’re right. That’s not the way it goes. (Trying again) I do NOT. I do NOT like your hat. Goodbye!

**************

At the ship’s wheel at the playground with a girl who told him she’s from New York.

Cayce (pointing out to the harbor): There are crocodiles.  There are crocodiles out there.

**************

At Crosswinds Restaurant, watching the line cooks prepare his pancake.

Cayce: Who are those guys?
Me: Those are cooks. They’re chefs.
Cayce: Those are not chefs. Those are people.

*************

Sharing a hot dog with his little friend M at the ACK Shack:

C: This is scrrrrr-UMP-tious!
M: Hahahahahahahaha!
C: This is REALLY scrrrr-0UMP-tious!!!
M: Hahahahahahahaha!

*************

After buying a roll of wrapping paper:

C: I want to use it as a telescope!

*************

About his miniature animals scattered on the floor:

Me: Put these babies away, okay?
C: Those are not babies. They animals.

*************

Laying down on my lap to nurse with Barnaby Bear under his arm:

C: Barnda-by wants some too.

*************

Down at the water’s edge, looking at the smooth, steel blue water with small bobbing boats, water going on and on as far as the eye can see, thinking of Mickey in batter In the Night Kitchen, thinking perhaps of the boy swimming naked in that giant bottle of milk under the stars:

C: I’m not the milk, and the milk’s not me. I’m Mickey!

*************

Me pulling the car out of the drive, having finally packed it with everything we need for our outing.

Me, starting a line my mother used to say when I was a child: And we’re off--

-- like a herrrrrd of turrrrtles, my child finishes.    

My Ever So Brief Type A Moment

Good morning. This is just a quick post to say, sorry for my absence, to have been "remiss", "aloof", whatever it feels like when I don't get on my soap box and blog a bit.

I thought it would be cute and Martha-esque of me to post a pic of a Type A moment. I don't have them very often, you know, or if I do, I don't tend to brag about them.

But alas, here we are, with this photo-worthy berry muffin.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to boast my baking skills. Our baking skills, I should say, since the two and three-quarter year old helped me with it, standing on a dining chair C pulled over by himself. He beamed with anticipation, pouring and mixing ingredients I measured in a cup, saying things like Cima-mom. I love cia-mom.

Poor kid. Lately he's been getting the short end of the stick on childhood delights like pancakes, muffins and cookies, since all of it was putting my gut into a tizzy.

After numerous tests, two visits to the doctor's office and a Sunday trip to the E.R., I learned that the horrid sounding diverticulitis that I thought was raging inside me was in fact the more ridiculolus and nerdy sounding splenic flexure syndrome. [Spell check, please?]

While I'm reassured that I'm not going to die, I'm not so keen on learning that I'm officially an old, nerdy mom whose body does embarrassing things in public. It will bellow it's wind and C will ask, What's that sound? and I will borrow a line from his paternal grandfather, whom neither of us ever knew except through his famous one liners, Low flying geese.

C will laugh a wonderful, hearty laugh.

Now.

 Hopefully, by the time a few years roll around that may teach him to be ashamed of such things, I will have become a greens devouring diva whose colon won't cause a scene at school events, one who has mastered the art of a long and joyous life.

 But may that life olease include a blueberry muffin or two.

 I'm happy to be writing again. I'm also so glad to announce that I'll be writing for an exciting new Nantucket community website, Nantucketchronicles.com, which is going live this Monday. So look for me there, as well.

Going Outside

Early spring, and life suddenly takes on a third dimension. We turn outward, shed layers, and lift our faces to the sun. We penetrate distance, pull the old dead leaves away from the green shoots pushing up through the soil. Babies, babies, my wee one bleats and points..

With the assembling of C’s new old play fort, down in a nook among the trees, we have literally been ascending upward. In two short days our toddler has mastered the stationary ladders and the climbing wall. He hurls himself down the slides with a new sense of daring and prowess. Almost overnight, his two year old torso's grown pecs and abs. Even though he’s still in diapers, he is suddenly a little man.

I can sense him expanding, unfolding on the inside as he masters these physical skills. He has crossed a threshold. My little destroyer has become a creator.

Perhaps it began down at the fort with his dad during the construction phase. He sat on one of the platforms with a monkey wrench in hand, cranking a real bolt into the real wood. This was a far cry from his toy hammers and saws. But more real, and palpable than anything, I know, was the sense of his father’s nearness as he took in the gentle, guiding tones of his voice, breathed in his earthy, masculine smell. Perhaps it was in that moment that he acquired this new pride of ownership. May I help? has become his question of the day.

And suddenly, instead of knocking down the tower of blocks before you could build it with him, he’s calling you into the room, taking your hand, pulling you over to the coffee table where he has constructed a tower ten blocks high. He wants to put his dinosaur puzzle together, and admire the complete picture it makes, maybe even count the number of flying taradactyls, or tell you which dinosaur is the daddy.

An old friend of Daddy’s stops by to pay a visit while we are down in those woods, pulling up roots, raking up the chopped down shrubs to make a smooth surface for the mulch. Our little C begins, in monkey fashion, to climb the high tower. Look at me, he says. I do-nin it all by myself. I stand behind him, supporting him ever so slightly, just in case. Then he whizzes down the high slide, takes Sam by the hand. Come and see, I want to show you something. Little man leads the big man to the edge of the play area. These for our greenhouse, he says, pointing to the framing poles stacked in a pile. Leading Sam past the pile, C adds, And this our garden [a little weed grown place that is still filled with promise] And this our watering can.

It’s as if our small child already knows the secret to life—that we build our happiness from the inside out. That when we tend to our environment, our yard, our flowers, our forts, we are creating the space for that inner joy to make its appearance. By cultivating a strong sense of place, we lay the groundwork for our true wildness to emerge. We create a safe, sound haven in which to fully and freely live.

Smart kid.

Why I Don’t Want to Rush This Part

Can I just say that I’m having the time of my life over here? I may grow weary, or snap from time to time, but mostly I am asking my child, Have I told you, in the last half an hour, how much I love you? These days spent with my Mini Me, this one who gets me like no other, who laughs at my silliness and mimics me in a way that makes me laugh, at myself, at him, at the wonder of it, of this that we are, this incredible loving and bonding and becoming that we are, together. This little person who makes me more myself than I ever was. Who gives light and air to my hidden flame. Who shows me the magic in things my eyes had long forgotten how to see. Who in a stubborn moment reminds us of tenderness. Or who in a moment of frustration, reminds me of the music of innocence. But I want to crack eggs, Mommy. Why not?

I love this time of piggy back rides, of learning songs with infectious inflections. You’re a meannnn onnnne, Mr. Grinch-a. You really are a heeeeelllll… bad banana… greasy black peeeellllll. Of constant dialogue about the imagined or observable world. There’s the windmill. There’s the houses. There’s a octagon, and a triangle and a square and a rectangle… I love this daily delight in the ordinary. The enormity of small things, the routine of repetition, expanded conversations with neighbors inspired by this chattering boy who pulls you in, pulls everyone in.

I won’t lie. He’s my drug. My antidepressant. The thought of letting him go in sixteen years wrenches my heart. I’m addicted. Dependent. Hopelessly devoted.

I still love nursing him, even though he’s thirty-five inches long and counts to thirteen, then skips to seventeen. Sometimes when we're out and about and I carry his dangly form on my hip, he presses his soft cheek to mine. I’ve never been so important to somebody before. To experience this so often throughout the day can take my breath away. And to see the beauty of what he learns from me played back to me in his lilting voice, in the expressions of his perfect, god-made face piercing my soul, teaching me that I am, in fact, more than I ever thought I could be. I am the mother of this amazing, sentient, delightful creature. And to be someone’s mother— well it is really something.

Everything that came before in my life was just preparation for this, these few years, this teaspoonful of hours to quote Nick Flynn, in which I get to really matter, and make a difference in the life of just one other-- my child.