Laughter

My baby boy cried the very first day he was born. It's taken eighty-five days for him to figure out how to laugh. I hope he never forgets.

May none of us forget how. To laugh. 

Real Men Love Pink

I have a baby boy. He's just over two months now and what a blessing he is. My oldest, a girl, had colic and cried non-stop. When I say non-stop, I mean NON-STOP. It was horrible. I think I only survived because I didn't know any better. In comparison, my second (also a girl) was an angel. At least I thought so until now. Now I have this brand new baby and my, oh my. He's the happiest baby I ever did see. Of course he cries. Of course he had nights he doesn't sleep. Of course he had times when he's fussy and just won't settle down. Mostly though, I'm able to comfort him and meet his needs. 

He's been smiling for a while, but lately he coos too. It's my very favorite thing. The cooing, the smiles, the way his face lights  up. There is joy here, just all of us watching him. 

He takes a binky, which my girls never did. We have a couple blue ones, a green one, a yellow one. But the one he loves most is pink. Bright pink with a purple handle. It was one of his sister's before him; it was never used, until now. He, however, chomps away at it, his legs kicking and his arms flailing like he's leading a choir. Someday soon, the binky will wear out. I can't find any just like it in stores. Someday too, he'll look at a baby photo and be horrified, I'm sure, that I let him have a pink binky. Oh well. Someday when he has a colicky baby of his own he'll understand. In the meantime I'll tell him that real men love pink.

Weird Thing

This is weird. Today I was thinking about Death of a Salesman, and how I love that play. It's been forever since I saw it or read it. "I should read that again sometime soon" I thought to myself. 

Then tonight I log onto Writer's Almanac. I don't check it much. Somehow the poetry is not the same in my head as it is when Garrison Keillor reads it on air, with a voice that is only his. I scroll to the bottom and read this:

It's the birthday of Arthur Miller, (books by this author) born in New York City in 1915. His family was wealthy, but they lost all their money during the stock market crash, so they moved to Brooklyn and lived with the whole extended family. Arthur's uncle was a storyteller and a big liar. He became an inspiration for Arthur, who said, "His unpredictable manipulations of fact freed my mind to lope and skip among fantasies of my own." While Arthur Miller was writing his playDeath of a Salesman (1949), he went to bed at night and realized that his face was wet from crying, and his throat was sore from speaking and shouting the lines of dialogue as he wrote. He said, "The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life."

Hmmmm. Weird. 

Amazon.com

Never get on Amazon late at night when you promised yourself you'd be writing your own masterpiece. It will only make you regret not buying a copy of The Underneath when you had a chance, even though it seemed like too much money at the time. Now it's been nominated for a national book award and you (meaning I) haven't read it. It's written by Kathi Appelt who was at the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop this past summer. When she read from her memoir My Father's Summers I gasped audibly because the writing was that good. Audible gasping good. It takes a lot for me to gasp audibly, believe me. Oh, I do love writing that makes me gasp. It's sort of like a cross between tasting the world's finest chocolate and having the wind knocked out of you. 

Unintentional Mistakes

Growing up there were three apple trees in our backyard. I loved one tree the most. It's apples were red--not yellow and green like the others. The apples from that tree were crisp and tart, unlike any apples I've ever tasted. After a good frost they were cold and juicier than before. 

One day, as a child, I found a small knife. It was silver with a pearl handle. Unlike the pocket knives my father used to cut string from hay bales, this knife didn't fold up. I liked the way the knife felt in my hands. I liked using it. It was light and comfortable. I took that knife and began stripping the bark off the apple tree--my favorite tree. 

I stripped long strings of bark from the trunk and main branch. I watched the bark curl, exposing the fleshy wood underneath. I thought nothing of it, until my parents found me knife in hand, carving into the tree. They were not happy. What was I thinking? 

My parents explained that stripping the bark from the tree had made it vulnerable. I'd exposed it to disease, to insects, to the elements. The tree, they said, would probably die. I cried and cried. I loved that tree. I loved its apples. I hadn't meant it any harm. I hadn't understood that I was doing something wrong. 

It was the first time that I remember making a big mistake without realizing I was making one. Until that point I honestly thought that I'd have a clear understanding of my choices; that I'd always clearly know wrong from right. Instead I'd made an unintentional mistake.

The tree lived. For many, many years it bore the scar I gave it. It may still, although I think it's grown over. I still love the apples from that tree. I wonder how many unintentional mistakes I've made throughout my life, and I wonder when I'll realize that I've made them. I only hope it won't be too late. 

Bedtime Chats

My oldest daughter and I like to have bedtime chats. I snuggle down next to her in bed and we talk. Well, we did. About the time my tummy was too big with the baby and I was too uncomfortable to duck under the bunk bed our bedtime chats stopped. 

Tonight we had one again. She told me about her day: school, how she doesn't like computer class, and how she made a tote bag at enrichment tonight. (Someone took my girls to mother/daughter night--how nice). 

Since our new baby was asleep in his crib, I ducked down and we talked. It was nice. It really has been hard with a new baby to give my girls some one on one time. Tonight, though, at least I tried. When I said goodnight and left her room I had a full 30 seconds before the baby started crying. At least, though, there was time for a bedtime chat.  Sleep tight.

Ineptitude

 My husband and I know so little about computers that we shouldn't even own them. The same goes for cars, and probably houses. Our PC is currently AWOL. I have no idea how to fix it. I'm afraid trying will only make it worse. 

One of our cars needs to be fixed before winter. (Oh, winter, stay away). 

Then my father-in-law visits and says that I need to get my husband (his son) to fix something that is wrong with our front door. When I tell my husband he says, "How on earth do you fix that?" I shrug. I have no idea either. 

So just what are things we should own, given our areas of expertise?

Him?: Any and all camping / hiking equipment. Funny how he can take all that apart and put it back together. He also does OK with his bike and his trombone. He wants an electric piano just because it won't need tuning. 

For me: a pencil. I get a notebook, too. Maybe.

Other than that, we're pretty inept.