Boxcar Children

A New York Times article today about books to make sure you read your kids. Boxcar Children (Gertrude Warner) is at the top of her list. I LOVE this series, written in the forties and fifties. The first volume is the best, of course. A suddenly orphaned foursome, living on their own to avoid a tyrannical grandfather they never knew. Living well on a rural railroad siding. A little suspense, with happy endings. Now that's a good life.

Makes me want to build a fort in the woods behind our house and move in.

Matteo watched the Tigger movie (Disney) last night, and the drama and suspense almost did him in. He's super-sensitized to loss and threat. He couldn't look when Pooh Piglet Rabbit faced the end-game avalanche. Tigger lost an important letter when saving his friends. Matteo couldn't let go of that, even though the Disney plot resolved it: Tigger wanted to find his family of origin, and the Disney plot carefully inserted Pooh Piglet Eeyore to satisfy that longing, but Matteo didn't buy it. He cried himself to sleep over Tigger's existential loneliness. He didn't buy Disney. He wept for Tigger, and I held him, tear welling up for his weeping. We were a sweet mess.



This is Teo's last week before Montessori begins, he's having a great time "directing" his starlet Annika in the movie of their lives. She doesn't mind doing whatever he wants. But he can't take things she has. And when she grabs something of his, it's over. The producer, Papa, gets involved: "Cut!"

Annika is loving swinging on swings, and Matteo is enjoying hitting (t-ball) and fielding balls that I throw to him on the deck. From there he can launch some pretty long throws from deep right to make the tag.

Night Shift

I was toast all day,
after getting up at 4 am to deal with Annika.

Both kids were home. Teo wanted so badly
to be doing something. The sky opened up
with some sunshine. It was becoming irresistible.

Just at the end of Sesame Street
(Teo’s one TV option – it’s so great, really)
I got Annika, full up with applesauce and formula –
to go to sleep. So we had hours of needing
just to hang around and wait for her to wake.

When Marin came home at 2, we got out,
so she could sleep.

I pushed Annika and Teo up the subdivision streets
and into the Birch Hill Cross Country ski trails.
We wanted to go “to the top of Birch Hill”
which, sadly, is an eyesore of transmission towers.

Because of two weeks of rain
the mushrooms were everywhere.

Note: we have been having a great week
of potty training for Matteo. Our HUGE stash
of M&M’s is becoming depleted.
Five for a poo, two for a pee. Yaay!
And if we go a full day – ICE CREAM!

Note 2: Last night Annika went into my care
at 3:30 am, I think. I decided to try what worked
last night, sans the movie. Rocking her in the chair
with a pacifier seemed to work.
My legs had become sticks of wood, and my butt
a bedsore by the time 6:30 came around,
and I had to pee.

We did watch 15 minutes of a Nova
at 3:30 am on how bacteria communicate (!)
and 10 minutes a program at 4:00
called “Carrier” about an aircraft carrier
and what kinds of religion goes on on the carrier.

It was a little depressing. All these Catholics and
charismatic Christians talking on and on,
proselytizing, using the ship’s closed circuit TV
to push America’s religions.
And one solitary Jew, the only one on the ship.

Nothing about the people who don’t buy it. I mean,
conventional religiousity. How about the ethics
of the present war. How about killing people in general.

There were several fliers saying, one after another,
that whatever the commander in chief orders,
they’re there to do. Consummate techno-geeks.
How does that make them any better
than the Germans proudly improving the systems
in the death camps, huh?

Oh my. Maybe I shouldn’t be blogging.
At least not on this little sleep.

Six Months

Hiroshima day...

So Annika was six months old yesterday.

Didn’t sleep much last night.
Marin has been more willing to
wake me if Annika’s noodling at night.
“Would you be willing to do some reading?”

A good thing. Marin’s sleep is a disaster,
and she’s the one who has to work.

So I took the little one at 4 am,
not to do reading, I was not waking up.

By 5, it was clear she wasn’t going to quiet.
First she’s cooing that you’re lying there

close to her on the carpet, then she’s singing, then it’s shrieking.

Marin can’t sleep even if there’s a baby vocalizing
anywhere within a half mile.

So I put “Black Book” in the DVD player.
Dutch film. About a Jewish woman trying to survive
in Holland during WWII, working with the resistance,
sent to take an undercover role
with the occupying Germans, in the final months of the war.
Very intense movie. I love movies which keep the actual languages
even though I have to read.
Wow. I love Netflicks. I was still watching interviews
when Marin awoke at 7:30. Which is late for our morning routine.

Oops.
Now it’s tomorrow. The narrative is broken.

New narrative: If I start trying to write again,
I want to keep it up.

So I’ll post this and try
not to give in to the fatigue,
no, the exhaustion,
which comes from working
(I’m doing 15 hours at the Unitarian Fellowship
along with four guitar lessons each week)
and eating and sleeping and raising
two children.