Tuesday, June 12, 2018

June Vroom!








Chaya's third summer! Er fourth! The first one was a dark hot drag (oh oh oh flaming pregnant lady ear: good times). Her first on the outside was kind of a blur. I am pretty sure there were lots of parks and stroller walks and I know there were birthday parties. The second was actually in Mt Vernon. Eek. And now this one. It's got a bit to live up to, but hopefully not in terms of hospital visits or nasty smoky air pollution. Maybe in terms of "exciting" excursions that daddy or mommy could actually manage without physical pain, but daddy's (hopefully) healing rapidly every day. And mommy is double-doing the PT with a vengeance so who knows!




I'm past any attempts to quantify where in the twoness Miss Beastie is. As far as I'm concerned we're now at the place where I can say "she's almost 3" or - if I'm feeling precise - "she's three in August." Simplifies life when you no longer feel like 2.5 is just developmentally different than where she is at two and nine months BUT it's a little awkward kind of breaking it down into fractions or months. Sure, anyone who doesn't have a child under five is happy enough grouping her as "toddler/preschooler" for purposes of  general categories.




 I think for people who don't have children around this age, really they just want enough to know "CHILD probably doesn't speak in eloquent iambic pentameter, doesn't have any sports scholarships, doesn't want to sell me girlscout cookies... and might be sporadically loud, a tiny tempest, and potentially very messy... p.s. might eat boogers or other bodily fluids. Best approach: smile, wear earplugs, and back away slowly."

But I tell ya every month makes a difference!! Except in shoe size. I swear she's had the same boots for over a year now. But in every other way we're growing up every day.

Ok... not like in terms of sleeping in a bed instead of a crib or - gasp - using the potty. Chaya's not in a hurry to grow up in those ways, despite the endless rounds of diaper rashes. She adores the compilation of potty training songs I put together on Youtube. She makes me draw picture of Chaya peeing, pooping, plunging the toilet (long story), and flushing the toilet.



But every time we ask if she just wants to sit on it, she's recently burbled out an enthusiastic NO! before running away. Too bad, since her diaper rash popped an ugly absceess that's required antibiotics, but then again the antibiotics are strawberry milkshake flavored, so that might be a win in Chaya's calculations.

Attendant to the potty-sitting aversion, she seems to have just developed an aversion to the bath. Oh how dolefully and baleful the sob "NO BUBBLES!!" can sound! We're wusses and/or compassionate parents, so we have not thrown her in the bath like a panicked house cat, instead opting for frequent wipe-baths, but it's becoming an issue in terms of her recently developed desire to have long hair. Something's gotta give here! I'm guessing it will just be mommy's cool as we spend hours brushing knots out of a sobbing and filthy little girl's tresses. Hopefully this is all because the diaper rash makes sitting in water painful. Hopefully. She actually did relent and demand a bath today, only breaking into howls of "NO BUBBLES" after a good twenty minutes of pro-bubbles.

And as for giving up the crib, that is probably nearer on the horizon. Chaya can climb out of it if she's not in a sleep sack. The sack does seem to slow her down for the interim. She really just hasn't tried though, so we don't fully know. Seems like she really likes the safety and barrier of a fully ensconced crib. Plus her room is SOOOO not toddler-proofed yet. There are chords. Expensive baby monitor cameras perched precariously atop a shelf that's built like a friggin' ladder! There's a closet that leads to our water heater. We will deal with it all. We will. Really. Soon. Maybe.

But in most other ways, we're back to various jags and jolts of that runaway train to threenagerdom.




We're riding a little wave of self sufficiency and helpfulness at the moment. Chaya is really into making food at the moment, which I love. Nothing as elaborate as actual cooking or baking. Most of my meals are 'take some premixed stuff and combine them, and then nuke or instant pot it all." But some serious mixing of food ingredients is going on at our little chef's station.

I actually tried a different meal service called Gobble that was far more our speed than Sun Basket. Everything was really simple and you just have to chop some veggies, then put things in a pan in a certain sequence. And Chaya could do a bunch of that. She's into tearing up herbs as well though she doesn't like eating them. And I let her "season" our veggies with a shaker full of sumac.

Most of the time she makes oatmeal and eggs. All day long. No matter if she wants to eat them. It's deadly serious artisanal level oatmeal and eggs (ok I pop them in the microwave to finish but the oatmeal involves bananas, chia, raisins, blueberries, squash, wheat bran, and some whole hearted mixing). I've starting just reducing the portions to minute amounts and then combining all of her days' efforts into a single bowl of tomorrow's breakfast. She does usually eat the eggs she makes.

I've also had some good luck inviting her to help us clean up after meals.

I've had a fair bit of luck in a variety of places, really. For an almost-three year old.With sweeping (waiving the broom around wildly, knocking some things off the table and then throwing the dust pan in the trash quite proudly). With putting away laundry (gleefully running to her room with a stack of clothes/my-bras/underwear/towels and stuffing them all in any available drawer).


 With wiping (markering the table...





...demanding I spray it with water, brushing the ink into a modern masterpiece, demanding a paper towel to wipe, markering her hand, demanding that be sprayed...



 ...dripping ink everywhere and then smooshing it all around...





 ...eventually demanding a wipe).


 With putting cutlery on the table (running around with a big handful of them and then eventually plonking them on the table). With putting cutlery in the dishwasher (actually not bad at that one).

I am skeptical that I've hacked anything or that this interest will last, but as long as it does, I'll be cultivating it. It's a big enough mess in here anyways that a little extra chaos from Chaya branded cleaning is a drop in the toddler-chaos bucket.

I like to think that Chaya is not alone in "growing up" though I suppose at a certain point it's far easier to just "get old" (me? I never get old!). I like to think all the vocabulary and verbal alacrity shed by Chay's truly made space for wisdom and insight, but I'll take "capable of forming basic sentences and able to continue dressing oneself."

I did have a brief flash of something akin to a positive insight while reading C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Which necessitates a little plot summary (SPOILER ALERT: it was all a dream... but true... but metaphor because nobody can really see eternal truth fully or know what lays before us). The narrator takes a bus from a gray town that is hell to the an exquisite eternal place where it is almost daytime. He and those who travel with him are but shades in the brilliance of this transitional place. Too insubstantial to even walk on the grass without pain or pick up the lightest leaf. They're each met by a guide from the eternal place - some earthly connection who is now radiant and joyful beings of light. They basically are there to help the shades walk and traverse towards the truth. The truth is painful, physically. All struggle and most of the shades refuse to take the journey because they are so bound by some aspect of their humanity. Whether it be a conceit of their artistry, a fear of being seen naked, a need to control, even the angry love of a mother  who cannot let go of the love that has consumed her Only one other character definitively transforms by finally allowing his guide to kill the animal on his shoulder. The death of the animal (which was the voice of his lust) was excruciating to the shade, but the dead lizard arises from death as a giant horse and the shade becomes substantial and rides furhter towards the truth. The conclusion being that all parts of ourselves will be redeemed but only after we allow them to die.

I've been ruminating on this. Even the highest most beautiful particular of a person is neutral intrinsically. If it leads us to the unity of all, then it is good. If it isolates us from that, then it becomes evil. My loves. My highest and noblest sentiments can lead me away from true happiness. And any part of self or ego can become habit and can consume the self.



I think of all the parts of myself that I've "lost" - the different versions of self I have become. And I remember my dad or others asking in a somewhat sad tone "don't you miss dancing/working/ writing?" I think of all the points of pride and joy that I no longer can lay claim to. And I've never been as sad about those not being a part of my life as I suspect makes sense. But there is always still a yearning. I think those things were ways to experience that divine something-beyond, but they themselves were not that thing. And it reminds me that all of what we are will come and go and we remain ourselves. Of course it makes me also ruminate on what does anchor and consume me from that more transcendent truth. Sure there could be doubt, pride... but I'm gonna go with Ice Breakers Bubblegum.



Wherever we can't self-improve, we can attempt some light home improvements. A month or two ago we went on a lark of a trip to a window treatment showroom to talk about better window treatments for our wonderfully expansive and assymetrical big windows. They have this feature in which they let all the light and heat in without letting much back out when it's warm. And sucking all the heat out when it's cold. I'm told black out curtains would help. And our shades are looking a shade seedy after all of Chaya's acrobatics. So we had plans. The estimate was a mite bit out of our price range (oh just double), so we asked some follow up questions and... never heard back.

In the meantime, we had our landscapers plant severa lovely new trees. They are growing beautifully, but nowhere near as voraciously as the weeds devouring our porch. So, perhaps more landscaping is in the future.



But Chaya's second-year apple tree is flowering and flourishing! I think this says all the most promising and lovely things about our future time here.

And in the meantime, we'll celebrate our PNW June by breaking out the sunscreen for midday and the gloves and heaters for the evening and take our sun breaks before the pending summer heatwaves!





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