Feb
11
February 11, 2007
JB has returned to our happy household and once again Riley’s starry-eyed gaze is fixated in his direction, a fact that I’ve officially learned to appreciate because, let’s be honest, I guess all things considered I would prefer to be the Chosen One, but as long as I’m not, the truth is when a child is clamoring to be on one parent’s lap, the other parent is free to kick back and flip through Us magazine. I’m just saying. Make lemonade, that’s MY motto.
I was particularly looking forward to the first morning when it was JB’s turn to get up with Riley so that I could burrow beneath the covers and wait for the Pavlovian beep of the coffee machine—after a week of waking up going, dammit, is it my turn AGAIN?—but the first thing JB did was bring Riley into our bed. I should be clear that Riley has never been the sort of child to snuggle into his parents’ sides and sleep between them, a gloriously warm snoring puppy; rather, he goes beserko the instant he’s on the mattress. To Riley, our bed is a big expanse of bouncing Disneyland fun, and the entire concept of Let’s Bring the Boy In Bed So We Can All Sleep In A Bit More has never panned out, ever.
Not only that, but as I peered up from my previously comfortable pillow, which was now being partially stepped on by a clumsy toddler foot, I saw that Riley had a big plastic lid clutched in his hands—the cover from his giant bin of Lego blocks. “Why,” I managed to say, before I had to throw an arm over my face to block the incoming lid, which Riley was swinging around in a great giggling arc.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, muffled by the pillow and covers I had taken refuge beneath. “You not only brought the boy to bed on your morning, but he’s got a massive LID that he’s whacking me with.” I heard the sounds of a kerfuffle, then a deluge of screaming—JB had wrestled away the lid, and Riley was protesting at top volume, careening around the bed and trampling my hair.
“What should I do?” JB asked innocently, as though the flight back from Taipei had sucked every last brain cell from his head.
“You should get out of bed and take the boy with you because it’s YOUR MORNING,” I whimpered. Meanwhile, the dog scritched around on the floor excitedly, begging to go out, the cat started yowling from down the hall, and there was nary a coffee-beep to be heard.
So that could have been more relaxing. In general, though, it’s so much nicer to have another adult in the house, for companionship as well as toddler-wrangling. I did enjoy spending some alone time with Riley, but most of our conversations were fairly limited, you know?
Riley: (pointing to his ball) “BA!”
Me: “Yes, that’s your ball!”
Riley: (walking over and picking up his ball) “BA!”
Me: “Good job, can you throw me your ball?”
Riley: (hurling the ball in my direction) “BA! BA!”
Me: “Awesome throw!”
Riley: (pointing to his ball) “BA?”
Me: “Yes . . . that’s your ball. Again.”
*repeat 398657015 times*
Of course, lots of my conversations with JB go like this:
Me: “What do you want to do for dinner?”
JB: “I don’t know.”
Me: (sighing) “Chicken? Stir-fry?”
JB: ” . . . eh.”
Me: “Spaghetti?”
JB: “Meh.”
Me: “Well??”
JB: “Honestly most of the time nothing sounds good until you make it and then it’s always good.”
Me: “That’s . . . really helpful.”
JB: “Pizza?”
Me: “Meh.”
*repeat 9375713 times*
:::
Riley has started doing this thing where he pulls his hand down inside his sleeve, glances up at us with a crinkly-eyed, sly expression, and waits for one of us to ask in a boisterously loud voice where his hand is, then bursts his hand through and says “Ehhhh!”.
“There it is,” we crow, and he holds his hand out, a little pink grubby star, and marvels at his own amazing self.
Feb
8
February 8, 2007
I’ve been feeling slightly panicked all week long because I had this freelance project due today and dude, if ever there was a bad week to try and get something like that done, it was this week (seriously, I can’t hack the single parent life, I am barely maintaining a non-offensive level of personal hygiene over here and if you saw my house right now you would probably report me to CPS for endangering the child with massive amounts of Dog Hair Exposure), but oh thank Jebus I managed to wrap it up last night and my relief warrants some cutting loose tonight, if you know what I mean and I think you do (WHEAT THINS).
I’m Contractually Forbidden from telling you what sorts of articles I’ve been working on, but I just want to say this: if you ever read a “lifestyle tip” disguised as friendly chatter from a large corporate entity, the advice it contains may in fact not be written by an expert of any kind, but rather produced directly from someone’s ass, namely mine. Oh, the things I have pulled from my ass! (Say, wouldn’t that make an interesting Dr. Seuss book?) In fact, I believe I’ll fashion myself some business cards: Linda Whatsit, Ass-Taffy For Hire.
Hey! I have a new friend, who (whom? fuck, I can never remember) Riley and I visited on Wednesday. Ashley is not only totally cool and fun to be around, but her living room was filled with toy trucks (not by choice, I’m sure, she has two sons), and so obviously Riley was in seventh heaven. I cannot believe Riley’s knowledge of All Things Truck-Related, I was flipping through this awful book with him tonight and on a whim I asked where the tractor was, and he pointed at it. Ditto dump truck, fire engine, and front loader—he knows them all. This is the same kid who says “BA!” for pretty much every word in the English language, so I don’t know . . . I think he’s a truck savant, or something.
And by the way, why am I so interested in Anna Nicole Smith’s death? WHY?
I don’t want us to all get bored of the What Are YOOoooo Doing This Weekend game, so let’s do something else: what was the high point of your week? I think mine was yesterday evening when I was getting Riley’s dinner ready and he walked up behind me and put his arms around my legs and burrowed his face into my Old Navy fleece sweatpants. He just clung to me for a moment, a little koala, before reeling off after his ball (“BA!”). A brief moment of sweetness and stillness, so revered and rare in the full-tilt world of toddlerdom. Runner-up: today, when I submitted my Ass Taffy text file.
And you?
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