Apr
12
Posted by: Josh
Dear family and adjacent people in my life who for whatever reason feel obligated to do me SOMETHING for my birthday, whether that obligation derive from a genuine liking-ness of me or a dull persistent nagging guilt stemming from an immediate blood relationship: these are your options.
- iPod Touch (I’ll take the cheapest one (8GB) and I’ll LOVE it. But please do NOT buy me a nano or a shuffle or a classic. It’s Touch or no iPod.)
- Books (i.e. gift cards to fine Booking establishments).
- Dates. Mostly with my wife. You can facilitate this with the following goods & services: Movie gift certificates (Regal Cinema (Edwards) only please), Restaurant gift certificates (Maru or Sisley please, both within drunken stumbling distance of afore-mentioned movie house).
- Cash money.
Note: your avid consumption of photographs of my baby does not in any way obligate you to celebrate my birth with gifts. Please continue your guilt-free enjoyment of my baby. Also, don’t tell Maggie I was here asking for iPods. Thanks love you bye!
Oct
20
There isn’t much that makes me feel happier in the world than swinging. It feels like joy and freedom and magic.
One of the things that I remember very clearly from when I was in elementary school is the times when my mom would drop us off at school early. I used to go to the playground and just swing. I think I’ve always been a little bit of a loner. I really like being alone. I always have. So maybe I liked it so much because it was a solitary activity. And maybe it’s because of my disability that there wasn’t a lot I could do on a playground, but I could swing.
There was this extremely tall swingset or maybe it just seemed so tall because I was so small, but I felt like I could swing so high. It was great. I would swing and swing and close my eyes and imagine myself as my favorite characters from the books I read. I’ve always been a reader. I would imagine I was Matilda Wormwood, or Ramona Quimby, or Anne Shirley. I wanted to be brilliant, and strong, and sassy, and brave, and witty like those characters. And when I was swinging I could imagine myself that way. And I felt free and happy.
Swinging always reminds me of being that little girl obsessed with the characters in those books. But swinging also reminds me of being a teenager.
It reminds me of being in love for the first time. I was sixteen. I think it was always a Friday or Saturday night and we would to go to the grocery store and buy a quart of Ben & Jerry’s and some plastic spoons and then go to a park, sit on the swings, and eat ice cream and talk and talk and laugh like crazy and just swing. And I was in love and it felt like magic.
And now I love to see Eleanor swinging. The wind in her wild hair. The silly smile on her face. I wish she liked swinging more than she does. She’s too active to sit in one place for very long. I think she’ll appreciate it more when she can do it all by herself. But watching her swing makes me so happy. I think that one of the best things about being a parent is that you get to be a kid again too. At least a little bit. You get to experience all of those wonderful little things about childhood all over again. You only get to watch this time, but it is still pretty amazing.
Jun
17
I took Eleanor to story time at our local Barnes & Noble yesterday. I was very concerned about how she would do. I expected there to be a lot of older kids who knew how to sit still and listen to a story. I expected her to be so excited about the other kids that she would disturb them by poking and prodding them and talking to them and telling them about Elmo and poo poo in the potty. I expected to have to take her out early.
As it turned out, Eleanor wasn’t the only baby with the attention span of, well, a baby. The only baby who seemed to pay attention to the story past the first 30 seconds was the one who wasn’t walking yet.
I thought that there would be a larger and older crowd, but there were only four other babies and the oldest was only a month older than Eleanor. Throughout the stories the kids wandered around the children’s section looking at other books and each other. I felt bad for the woman who was not a B&N employee, but a volunteer, who read to these uninterested children out of the kindness of her heart.
Although the other children did not seem interested in the story Eleanor was the only one who talked through it. All the other parents commented on how much she talked and how big her vocabulary was. I think they were just being polite. I’m sure what they were thinking was “Does this girl ever stop talking?” The answer by the way is no, unless she’s eating or watching Curious George.
Eleanor did at least pay some attention when she walked up on the stage and acted as if she was the only child being read to, completely blocking the view of all the other children.
Then she decided that she should sit with our storyteller and help read to the other children.
Of course Eleanor’s favorite part was the other babies. She especially liked this little one. She kept telling her “up, up.” I’m not sure if she wanted to pick her up or vice versa. They got along pretty well until Eleanor poked her in the eye when the story lady asked the baby where her eye was. Eleanor was just being helpful.
Eleanor also made another baby cry by touching his shoulder. I don’t think she was being rough, I just think he was a little sensitive, and she can be pretty intimidating. Poor little boys can’t handle my big bold, aggressive girl.
