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February 18, 2005
Wonders never cease. Our babysitter problem was no longer a problem and John and I got to go on a real, honest to goodness date on Saturday. We caught a double feature at a wonderful independently owned theater (that serves beer and wine!) with a little break for appetizers between movies. It was divine. We saw ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Sideways.’ I’m going to write about both – and will do my very best to not ‘spoil’ anything, but if you don’t want to risk it, skip this part.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
We saw this movie first and I will tell you it was far and away the best movie I have seen in a long time. The last movie I saw that impacted me this was ‘In America.’ I think Clint Eastwood in a genius. I think Hilary Swank gave an amazing performance that deserves every accolade she is receiving. I love Morgan Freeman. The movie and the characters were so authentic. I liked it that Clint Eastwood didn’t try to play up emotion for emotion’s sake – he wasn’t overly sentimental or manipulative and it let the characters shine through. Before I saw the movie I had read a couple of things that gave me a hint of what was coming… I am very sad that some conservatives are trying to turn this magnificent movie into a political statement. It dealt with a controversial issue in a human way that was authentic to the characters. It deserves the Best Picture Oscar in my opinion.
SIDEWAYS
I didn’t like this movie nearly so much. My first problem was the lead characters were so unlikable it was difficult to invest in the movie. Miles was so whiney. Frank was completely lacking any sort of an emotional center. Why do I care what their struggles are? And I was very disappointed in the scenery. I thought ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ was a pretty average film, but the scenery made me long to see Italy. ‘Sideways’ made wine country look cheap, commercialized, more like a strip mall experience than I had envisioned. I am glad we saw the movie, but I left a little puzzled about why everyone loved it so much.
Between our double feature we zipped over to a restaurant to enjoy a quick drink and some appetizers. John and I started talking about our very, very busy week – then started chatting a bit about my upcoming trip to Chicago. I told him that I was very excited for the trip, but torn about leaving him and Ava for the weekend. Inexplicably I started to cry. All these things started pouring out, no doubt in response to our busy lives, about how I know I need that time with my girlfriends to recharge, that it will make me a better Mama, a better wife… I can’t wait to see my friends, but I just felt terrible about losing the weekend, my only real chance to reconnect with my family during session. John was funny – he said “Everyone in here right now thinks I’m a total a-hole” (because I was crying). Then he talked about how, with all his children, he has felt wholly inadequate as a parent nearly every day of their lives. I think I felt (feel?) sad because these days are so fleeting, she grows and changes so fast, she loves and needs me so much. There’s nothing more she wants than to sit on the floor with me, sing songs, play, talk and laugh. I just want more time. It felt good, in a way, to let those feelings out with my wonderful, supportive partner. But I will say I find the gender difference (is it a gender difference?) sort of interesting. I have no doubt that John loves his children wholly and completely, but I don’t have a sense that he feels the same wrenching conflict about being away from them that I do. I think he has a better perspective, having raised Meghan and Lane, being able to know that parenting is a long term project. He is also very good at encouraging me (us) to take care of ourselves, knowing that we can’t be good parents if we’re not meeting our own needs. I certainly feel that having him for a husband and life partner introduces a level of sanity and perspective I would be unlikely to ever achieve on my own.
A new week started with some bad news. John’s father has been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. He survived prostate cancer 15 years ago, but has apparently contracted a different, more devastating form. They’ve done some additional testing and are waiting for some results to see if the cancer is isolated in his prostate or if it has spread. This will determine his treatment options or determine if treatment is even appropriate. John has a very conflicted relationship with his father, who has a fairly significant mental illness that he doesn’t treat. This diagnosis has been hard to reconcile for him. From a completely selfish perspective, John’s mother had scheduled a trip for next week to help out with the kids while John is out of town for a trial. Naturally she needed to cancel that trip to be with her husband through these tests and subsequent decisions. But I am in the soup trying to figure out how to single parent my family while John is out of town. My parents are in South Carolina for vacation and I really don’t have any other back up that makes sense. I am trying to take a day by day view of next week, but frankly right now denial is my best friend.
Our little Patito is finally over the cold that had her in its grips for several weeks. She has been just a delight the past week. She’s had an ongoing language explosion that leaves me in awe of how sharp and clever she can be. Ava seems to love to practice her words by dragging out her favorite books and going through them identifying items she knows. It’s like she never gets tired of it. She has really stopped babbling and generally is only using words that are understandable (at least to her). She is starting to form two-word sentences occasionally – things like ‘more juice’ or ‘mama please.’ Her comprehension is enormous – it is a very exciting time to be in her life. I also think we need to push her usual bedtime back a little bit. This week I’ve heard her up in her crib jabbering away for 20 mins or so after we put her down. She’s not crying, but she is wide awake. I think we’ll start trying to lay her down closer to 8:15-8:30pm and see how that goes. One night this week John gave her a bath and brought her downstairs just in diaper. Our girl can be a real corker and that night was no exception. She was racing all over the main level or our house, refusing to put on her jammies, laughing like crazy. Then she curled up in my lap to look through one of her picture books for the 18th time that night. I just wanted to freeze the moment with my sweet girl, her long body, her pale, soft, clean skin, her damp hair all cuddled up against me. I could have stayed like that for days. We nestled in under her ‘nannie two’ and read and talked while I tried to swallow this big lump of love and emotion stuck in my throat. I am so unbelievably lucky to be her mom.
A few random observations…
I absolutely love watching Ava’s chubby little toddler hands when she’s trying to wrestle with something. She really likes to do puzzles, put lids on (and take them off) things, turn the pages on her books… Watching her growing agility, her determination and her person-hood emerge is so cool.
Ava has grown pretty attached to blue baby, so now we have THREE transition items… her ‘nannie’ (small blanket) ‘two’ (the bigger version of nannie) and blue baby. In the mornings when I drive Ava to day care she gives blue baby nose kisses and then asks me to set her on the steering wheel so she can go for a ‘ride.’ I have no idea where she came up with this or how she managed to communicate to me that this is what she wanted, but I find it absolutely stinkin’ adorable.
Our girl has developed an affinity for Rice Krispies. The way she asks for them is priceless – she’s got ‘rice’ down pretty well, but then she says, what sounds like, ‘piss-pees.’ Since she loves them so I thought I’d be a good mom and make her Rice Krispie Treats. She was ambivalent at best. So here I am trying to give my kid sweetened gooey treats and all she wants is Krispies and milk, which have very little sugar.
Ava is eating applesauce by the truck load, I swear at least two cups a day. We buy the all-natural, unsweetened variety, so I guess it has some redeeming quality. (Probably a whole lot better for her than the Rice Krispie treats I tried to foist upon her) She asks for ‘sauce’ at every turn. And she says it so cute how can I say no?
When I was pregnant with Ava I ate a ton of Clementines while they were in season. I would eat 3 or 4 a day, out of the refrigerator, and they tasted like pure heaven to me. At my 22 or 24 week visit to the OB I saw a doc (who is no longer with the practice, thankfully) who told me that Clementines had a lot of sugar/carbs and I needed to be careful how many I ate – he delivered this edict in a very judgmental tone. I was very, very pissed off about that. At that point I had only gained something like 8 pounds, I am tall, fairly trim, athletic and I was eating FRUIT. It wasn’t like I said I can’t stop eating Snickers bars. Anyway, the moral of this story is that Ava absolutely adores Clementines and I smile everytime I see her eating one, thinking about the early taste of them she got in utero.
John got pink eye this week. Backing up a bit, LAST week I picked Ava up from daycare and she had kind of watery eyes, a little matter and what looked like really dark circles under her eyes. She had a pretty nasty cold and I figured she was like her Mama – I always get those dark circles and watery eyes with a cold. But pink eye was going around the day care (yuk!) and when I called the nurse at her pediatrician’s office she said it sounded like pink eye, she didn’t want to see her (they don’t see those in the office) and she’d call in the drops to our pharmacy. We gave Ava the drops one night, everything looked better in the morning, so we stopped thinking she probably didn’t have it. We’re horrible parents because Ava obviously had pink eye, gave it to John and we pretty well blew it off. And John is absolutely miserable. He’s been taking the drops for a couple of days and they aren’t helping much, which is odd because I thought that was supposed to be a pretty quick fix. I feel so bad for him.
This week I was introduced to a new phrase – ‘hover mother.’ A colleague of mine was describing her sister in law as a real ‘hover mother’ who could hardly stand to let her child out of her sight. It got me thinking – am I a ‘hover mother?’ Maybe a little. It is hard not to feel overprotective of our kiddos, especially as they gain independence. Ava was eating her Rice Krispies this morning and kind of struggling with the spoon and I found myself taking the spoon from her and feeding her. Then I stopped – what she probably needed was a little help, not me doing it for her. I want her to grow up knowing that I believe in her and trust her. I want her to feel empowered and independent, not hovered over. But if caring, worrying and fretting were an Olympic sport I could probably medal. So my vow is to be more mindful of letting Ava test her limits on her own, when safety isn’t a factor. I’m a work in progress, to be sure.
So the good news is it’s Friday, both our state and federal tax returns have been deposited (and spent!), I got a salary increase AND a bump in the amount of vacation I earn each pay period. We don’t have very interesting plans this weekend, which I am glad about. We still have some good Netflix movies to watch and our housework has been seriously neglected, so I imagine we’ll spend the better part of the weekend puttering around our house resting up for the onslaught of a week of John out of town and me single parenting next week. My grandmother’s birthday is Sunday, so we’re having family dinner. That should be fun and an opportunity for Ava to soak up the sun of all that family attention. I’m off to Chicago NEXT weekend, so I’d like to swing buy this new little boutique that just opened to see if I can find a funky top to wear when we go out in Chi-town.
Thanks for reading—
--Kate
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