I tried to talk him out of wearing his sneakers, because it’s so hot, but he said he wanted people to see him wearing them.
No idea where he gets that.
Earlier today, with Daddy, in the rigging shop.
Bean and his uncle Bob, at my cousin’s wedding, with their matching haircuts.
Bean had just “borrowed” the Best Man’s tie.
The tired. The sandy. The waterlogged.
“Like King Kong, like going crazy.”
What is THAT, Mommy?
Lyrics, baby.
Also, out of the water.
![It’s not just that Cheryl *knows* the rules, it’s that she was there while I invented them. The night Bean was born, she stayed overnight with my grandmother, so my mom could sleep in the other bed in my room at the clinic. Cheryl was still at the house when we got home early the next afternoon. For the two and half years that followed, she spent eight hours a day, five days a week with my family. She knows me, and she knows Bean, even if she hasn’t seen him in a year and a half. She’s also the only person he remembers from our life here in Grenada. Other than his father. He even forgot mangoes.
So when Cheryl called and said could she please take Bean for Saturday, and bring him in a sports festival t’ing for chirren, I said yes, of course, because she’s still his only babysitter.
This is Bean’s first ever sleepover with anyone who is not my mother. He’ll be back tomorrow.
*
When I informed Bean’s father, he frowned. Briefly. And then he said, “You know I hear dey say Cheryl have dem wild children.”
“Wild?” Like, what does that even mean?
“Yeah, man.”
“Wild. Like the big daughter.”
Yeah, man!”
“The one who got in trouble for reading?”
He shrugged, which signifies concession.
*
We didn’t go anywhere at all the first few days. Bean fell asleep on the New York to Miami leg of our flight, so I did too, which was great, because I’d barely gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and terrible, because when I fall asleep in cars or on airplanes, I don’t move, and I wake up with molten fire in my knees and ankles, the residue of my battle with Lyme Disease in high school.
Bean was a good sport about Mommy’s feet. I had new DVDs and books, fresh magic markers, and a sketchbook that I wallpapered in Buzz Lightyear stickers. We drew frogs, houses with plants growing from their chimneys, and a dinosaur that looked exactly like the Loch Ness Monster. I restrung my red coral necklace, slipping in a turquoise bead every five chips.
I’d promised that we would go the the beach the first day, and I meant it, but I had to let my feet - too swollen even for slippers - heal.
The storm, when it came, approached slowly. Bean was exhausted from the day before, had played for *hours* in the ocean, and didn’t sleep late the following morning because he woke up hungry. He ate three hard-boiled eggs and some ham for hops and went back to sleep.
“Mommy? Where is Woody? Did you pack Woody in the suitcase?”
“Yes, baby. He’s in the box with your Legos. See?”
“Nooo.” He sniffs air out at me, hard, a horrifying expression of impatience I recognized he’d learned by watching me communicate with his grandmother.
“Not THIS Woody. This is SMALL Woody. I want BIG Woody.”
“I didn’t bring Big Woody,” I reminded him. “We left Big Woody at Grandma’s house.. She’ll keep him safe for you. Also, sweetie pie? Big Woody didn’t have his hat. A cowboy can’t travel without his hat.”
“I WANT TO GO TO GRANDMA’S HOUSE!”
That was the beginning of an epic - no, no, literally! epic. - tantrum. It lasted about sixteen hours. Highlights include:
- This is not my house!
- I need space!
- I want to go to Grandma’s house!
- I want to go to the yellow house!
- I want to go to Hickory!
- WHERE IS UNCLE BOB’S DOG?
- I want to go to the beach!
- YOU ARE NOT MY REAL PARENTS! [blatantly lifted from Coraline, I realized later]
- I hate the beach!
- I HATE MY BED. IT IS NOT EVEN A REAL BED. IT’S LONG. AND MADE OF WOOD.
- I hate this house, this sink is OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM! TAKE ME TO THE AIRPORT RIGHT NOW! COME ON, MOMMY! WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE?
- YOU SAID THERE IS ALWAYS A BEACH AND NOW YOU SAY THERE IS NOT ALWAYS A BEACH. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TELL THE TRUTH, MOMMY!
- Go out and get me some sunglasses that fit me!
He’s yelling at me like third-year Harry Potter.
I know he got a whole lot of sun the day before. I also know he’s overtired and still catching up on hydration. That he has spent well over three days straight mostly stuck alone with me and my hurty feet. That some of the food is unfamiliar and that his daddy talks funny, funny enough that he doesn’t always understand.
Yet mostly I’m amazed at how quickly he just slides into Grenada. He drinks guava-kiwi juice and eats a breadfruit chip, and I’m relieved, because he can be very particular about food, and has recently declared that he does not like! chicken nuggets! any! more! So it matters when we don’t have Cheerios, his favorite, but we *do* have Alpen, a muesli concoction from Switzerland, full of peanuts and currants, and he clears the bowl and asks for and receives three refills.
His father makes him cocoa tea, and it’s not like the Ovaltine in our kitchen back at Amherst, it is not so processed, it is unsweetened; like real baking chocolate squares that you melt in a pan, fold with white sugar. The first cup is too hot and bitter, but his father quickly learns to let it cool, then add some sweet milk. Bean drinks it, gulping, and if he notices the bits of bay leaf, he doesn’t mention it.
In this photo, he stands on the edge of his bed, his belly pressed against the painted concrete wall, his fingers angled against the bottom corner of the window. After I take the photo, I walk across the mattress on my knees, duck my head under the lace curtain, join him between it and the window.
“What do you see, baby?”
“Kitties! There were kitties. Two. They might come back.”
The garden on the other side of his bedroom wall is overgrown and exotic, a sight with or without kitties, but Bean harbors a particular affection for felines.
My head level with his behind the lace curtain, I watch my son’s face. His mouth is open a little bit, enough that I can see all his teeth. His hands are aflutter (twitter? atwitter? ha!) and his eyes are fixed on the green beyond the screen.
He’s enthralled, delighted, eyes bright with the *possibility* of seeing the cats again. He’s riveted in *anticipation* - “they might come back” - of the sight.
It’s a quality of his I covet, that ability to so effortlessly pluck joy from the world, and eat it whole.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l619b0QWEf1qzqhpio1_500.jpg)
It’s not just that Cheryl *knows* the rules, it’s that she was there while I invented them. The night Bean was born, she stayed overnight with my grandmother, so my mom could sleep in the other bed in my room at the clinic. Cheryl was still at the house when we got home early the next afternoon. For the two and half years that followed, she spent eight hours a day, five days a week with my family. She knows me, and she knows Bean, even if she hasn’t seen him in a year and a half. She’s also the only person he remembers from our life here in Grenada. Other than his father. He even forgot mangoes.
So when Cheryl called and said could she please take Bean for Saturday, and bring him in a sports festival t’ing for chirren, I said yes, of course, because she’s still his only babysitter.
This is Bean’s first ever sleepover with anyone who is not my mother. He’ll be back tomorrow.
*
When I informed Bean’s father, he frowned. Briefly. And then he said, “You know I hear dey say Cheryl have dem wild children.”
“Wild?” Like, what does that even mean?
“Yeah, man.”
“Wild. Like the big daughter.”
Yeah, man!”
“The one who got in trouble for reading?”
He shrugged, which signifies concession.
*
We didn’t go anywhere at all the first few days. Bean fell asleep on the New York to Miami leg of our flight, so I did too, which was great, because I’d barely gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and terrible, because when I fall asleep in cars or on airplanes, I don’t move, and I wake up with molten fire in my knees and ankles, the residue of my battle with Lyme Disease in high school.
Bean was a good sport about Mommy’s feet. I had new DVDs and books, fresh magic markers, and a sketchbook that I wallpapered in Buzz Lightyear stickers. We drew frogs, houses with plants growing from their chimneys, and a dinosaur that looked exactly like the Loch Ness Monster. I restrung my red coral necklace, slipping in a turquoise bead every five chips.
I’d promised that we would go the the beach the first day, and I meant it, but I had to let my feet - too swollen even for slippers - heal.
The storm, when it came, approached slowly. Bean was exhausted from the day before, had played for *hours* in the ocean, and didn’t sleep late the following morning because he woke up hungry. He ate three hard-boiled eggs and some ham for hops and went back to sleep.
“Mommy? Where is Woody? Did you pack Woody in the suitcase?”
“Yes, baby. He’s in the box with your Legos. See?”
“Nooo.” He sniffs air out at me, hard, a horrifying expression of impatience I recognized he’d learned by watching me communicate with his grandmother.
“Not THIS Woody. This is SMALL Woody. I want BIG Woody.”
“I didn’t bring Big Woody,” I reminded him. “We left Big Woody at Grandma’s house.. She’ll keep him safe for you. Also, sweetie pie? Big Woody didn’t have his hat. A cowboy can’t travel without his hat.”
“I WANT TO GO TO GRANDMA’S HOUSE!”
That was the beginning of an epic - no, no, literally! epic. - tantrum. It lasted about sixteen hours. Highlights include:
- This is not my house!
- I need space!
- I want to go to Grandma’s house!
- I want to go to the yellow house!
- I want to go to Hickory!
- WHERE IS UNCLE BOB’S DOG?
- I want to go to the beach!
- YOU ARE NOT MY REAL PARENTS! [blatantly lifted from Coraline, I realized later]
- I hate the beach!
- I HATE MY BED. IT IS NOT EVEN A REAL BED. IT’S LONG. AND MADE OF WOOD.
- I hate this house, this sink is OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM! TAKE ME TO THE AIRPORT RIGHT NOW! COME ON, MOMMY! WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE?
- YOU SAID THERE IS ALWAYS A BEACH AND NOW YOU SAY THERE IS NOT ALWAYS A BEACH. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TELL THE TRUTH, MOMMY!
- Go out and get me some sunglasses that fit me!
He’s yelling at me like third-year Harry Potter.
I know he got a whole lot of sun the day before. I also know he’s overtired and still catching up on hydration. That he has spent well over three days straight mostly stuck alone with me and my hurty feet. That some of the food is unfamiliar and that his daddy talks funny, funny enough that he doesn’t always understand.
Yet mostly I’m amazed at how quickly he just slides into Grenada. He drinks guava-kiwi juice and eats a breadfruit chip, and I’m relieved, because he can be very particular about food, and has recently declared that he does not like! chicken nuggets! any! more! So it matters when we don’t have Cheerios, his favorite, but we *do* have Alpen, a muesli concoction from Switzerland, full of peanuts and currants, and he clears the bowl and asks for and receives three refills.
His father makes him cocoa tea, and it’s not like the Ovaltine in our kitchen back at Amherst, it is not so processed, it is unsweetened; like real baking chocolate squares that you melt in a pan, fold with white sugar. The first cup is too hot and bitter, but his father quickly learns to let it cool, then add some sweet milk. Bean drinks it, gulping, and if he notices the bits of bay leaf, he doesn’t mention it.
In this photo, he stands on the edge of his bed, his belly pressed against the painted concrete wall, his fingers angled against the bottom corner of the window. After I take the photo, I walk across the mattress on my knees, duck my head under the lace curtain, join him between it and the window.
“What do you see, baby?”
“Kitties! There were kitties. Two. They might come back.”
The garden on the other side of his bedroom wall is overgrown and exotic, a sight with or without kitties, but Bean harbors a particular affection for felines.
My head level with his behind the lace curtain, I watch my son’s face. His mouth is open a little bit, enough that I can see all his teeth. His hands are aflutter (twitter? atwitter? ha!) and his eyes are fixed on the green beyond the screen.
He’s enthralled, delighted, eyes bright with the *possibility* of seeing the cats again. He’s riveted in *anticipation* - “they might come back” - of the sight.
It’s a quality of his I covet, that ability to so effortlessly pluck joy from the world, and eat it whole.
Current status. At the beach bar with Bean.
He’s pouting because he thinks YouTube would be a better use of this WiFi.
Over the weekend Bean informed me that he wasn’t going to climb down from that tree, oh no, even though I’d asked nicely, because he is a monkey, and I am “not the boss of monkeys”.
He’s not wrong.
I’ve posted this photo before, but I usually crop it. The lady in the gorgeous green and gold dashiki is Cheryl, who took care of Bean and also my grandmother.
This was Cheryl’s wedding day. My mom made her dress. She didn’t use a pattern. She claims that the dress just sort of sprung organically out of the fabric, which sounds kind of wacky, but she’s not kidding. I was there. She has a gift for sewing.
So I’ve been on a Google binge. Self-publishing related. I’m having book anxiety. It’s not that it’s not finished, it’s that I need someone to read it. It can’t be someone who knows me, or reads this Tumblr. Complicated. I read this article about ISBN numbers and e-books that totally freaked me out. And THEN I read this other article about how it’s impossible for anyone to know if their own work is finished. Good enough. Ready. And it went on to explain that most people get that wrong, and that the worst thing an unpublished writer can do is self-publish a book that’s not ready. So I’m kind of worried and focusing on cover art right now. Which, apparently, is about as important as what’s actually written on the pages.
Last night I found out that there’s a guy who lives across the street from me who teaches at Smith and is a poet laureate. Maybe he doesn’t have anything to read right now. I should explore that.
“I AM CAPTAIN HOOK! GRR.”
~ Bean
Inspecting his handiwork. He’s a hell of a candle-blower-outer.
Even so, while I watched him huff and puff at his cake (that’s actually apricot bread), I wondered why we spit at birthday cakes.
Why do we spit at birthday cakes?
I’ve mentioned before that I was kind of appalled when Bean was born and hardly had any hair. When I was a newborn I looked like I was wearing Dick Clark’s wig. Bean’s father is one of the few people I know who actually has more hair than I do. Those two facts plus a raging case of pregnancy heartburn led me to expect a baby with lots of hair.
Here, he’s a bit more than a year old and is finally started to grow his mane. Also, Cheryl, who I adore, and whose idea it was to snap this photo.
GPOYW We Have Teeth Edition
I wasn’t going to post this, partly because it’s not Wednesday anymore and partly because I promised myself I wasn’t going to keep using badly lit Photo Booth shots in which my forehead is out of frame.
But the thing is, we’re smiling.
