Bath time, pyjamaing, scripture reading, and family prayer have become some sort of a drudgery for Rachel. Perhaps drudgery is not the right word because she still enjoys doing those things; she approaches them, however, with a hint of trepidation and is sure to drag her feet all along the way because she knows what comes next.
Bedtime.
She started crying this evening soon after we finished reading the scriptures.
"No, mama! No, mama! Noooo!" she she pleaded and then, when her pleas were effectively ignored, started throwing out random suggestions. We shook our heads at each idea of hers since we had already taken care of everything from potty to snack time, "Nack! *pause* Pa-pa! *pause* Wawa! *pause* Go! *pause* Moo-moo! *pause* Nooooooo!"
"Rachel," I said, "It's mommy's turn to talk. We're going to say prayer. You need to be quiet and listen, okay?"
She's typically pretty obedient so she quieted up and we were able to get through most of the prayer. When I started closing the prayer, however, Rachel started wailing again. She's the only child I know who actually wants the prayer to go longer. Any prayer that happens right before bedtime, that is.
"I'm sorry, Rachel," I said, "The wheels of bedtime are already turning...and...it's just that time again."
Andrew looked at me funny. I did just slaughter a great quote "wheels of bedtime?" What? But, I redeemed myself.
"Bedtime alone moves the wheels of history!" I told Rachel, shaking my fist in the air one minute and pounding it soundly on the couch cushion the next.
Andrew and Carolee (who happened to be over) started laughing. Not only did I quote Mussolini, I also quoted Dwight, who, though far less historic, is much more hilarious. Rachel, tired girl that she was, started giggling. Soon her giggles morphed into uncontrolable laughter, with tears of mirth rolling down her cheeks. And then? Then she started bawling.
I don't know if it was from laughing too hard, from worrying that we had stopped laughing with her and started laughing at her, from realizing she had no idea why she was laughing, from sensing that bedtime was (still) inevitable, or from sheer tiredness, but all happiness dissolved and she ended up a miserable little baby.
So I did what I do best with children who are so tired they can't separate their emotions. I put her to bed. And that's where she is now, sleeping like a baby.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I've got the solution to America's obesity problem right here.
Andrew came home from school earlier than he had planned to today, kind of surprising me. I was just about to take a nap since Rachel had just gone down for one. He said he'd join me because he's feeling sick, too, now. What he doesn't realize is that him being sick is against the rules. He's not allowed to get sick.
Rachel woke up at around 3:00 PM and since Andrew hadn't seen her since 9:00 AM yesterday I poked him awake and firmly suggested that he go spend some one-on-one time with our daughter while I spent some more one-on-one time with our nap. Clearly both Rachel and nap time have been feeling a little neglected lately and I thought it only fair that we divide our parental attentions accordingly.
After much poking and prodding he finally surrendered his will to the cause and got out of bed. I stayed in bed but I didn't fall back asleep. Instead I started thinking about what to make for dinner. When I made my list for the week (yes, I'm back to making lists, but only for the week since going shopping for the whole month here is impossible; the fresh food rots too fast) I wasn't sick, at least not very sick, so I thought that I would have more energy than I actually had this week. I've ignored my list and focused on easy dinners that don't really require much cooking.
This means that I have a lot of produce to use up in the next few days, which is fine, except that I still feel not very energetic and chopping vegetables doesn't sound appealing. I have potatoes to use but I don't really liked baked potatoes which means that I have to chop them up somehow and that sounds like a lot of work to me.
Since I was technically still having nap time I took a little while to daydream and entered the land of "What Ifs."
You know how grocery stores, even here, have a deli counter where you order your meat or cheese and they say, "Sliced or shaved?" (I like mine shaved, personally, so I usually say, "Shaved, please.")...And then they put it in/on that cool meat-cutting (or cheese-cutting) machine and 10 seconds later you have neat little pieces of thinly sliced lunch meat?
That is totally awesome because then you don't have to spend the time slicing your own lunch meat. It's so much faster than using left-over Thanksgiving turkey in your lunch because it's basically pre-prepared, yet still fresh.
Well, what if they had some cool machines like that in the produce department?
Then you could pick out your kilo of potatoes for dinner, walk up to the slicer-guys and say, "I'd like these cubed, please." And then they'd do it in like 10 seconds in their cool dicing machine.
Or if you wanted your carrots sliced Julienne-style you'd just take it up to the slicer-guys and say so and 10 seconds later they'd hand you a package of Julienned carrots.
Do you know how much time that would save? Tons. And I think it would motivate people to eat more healthy meals. So much so, in fact, that I probably just solved America's obesity problem.
There are some downsides, like having to go shopping more often because sliced produce goes bad faster than non-sliced produce. Of course, you face that same dilemma with meat and cheese, right?
Also, Egypt has juice stands in some of their grocery stores where you buy oranges (and grapes now, too) specifically to have them squished into orange juice (or grape juice, respectively). America needs to get the memo on that one because I'm sure going to miss fresh juice when we get back...in like a year and a half.
Rachel woke up at around 3:00 PM and since Andrew hadn't seen her since 9:00 AM yesterday I poked him awake and firmly suggested that he go spend some one-on-one time with our daughter while I spent some more one-on-one time with our nap. Clearly both Rachel and nap time have been feeling a little neglected lately and I thought it only fair that we divide our parental attentions accordingly.
After much poking and prodding he finally surrendered his will to the cause and got out of bed. I stayed in bed but I didn't fall back asleep. Instead I started thinking about what to make for dinner. When I made my list for the week (yes, I'm back to making lists, but only for the week since going shopping for the whole month here is impossible; the fresh food rots too fast) I wasn't sick, at least not very sick, so I thought that I would have more energy than I actually had this week. I've ignored my list and focused on easy dinners that don't really require much cooking.
This means that I have a lot of produce to use up in the next few days, which is fine, except that I still feel not very energetic and chopping vegetables doesn't sound appealing. I have potatoes to use but I don't really liked baked potatoes which means that I have to chop them up somehow and that sounds like a lot of work to me.
Since I was technically still having nap time I took a little while to daydream and entered the land of "What Ifs."
You know how grocery stores, even here, have a deli counter where you order your meat or cheese and they say, "Sliced or shaved?" (I like mine shaved, personally, so I usually say, "Shaved, please.")...And then they put it in/on that cool meat-cutting (or cheese-cutting) machine and 10 seconds later you have neat little pieces of thinly sliced lunch meat?
That is totally awesome because then you don't have to spend the time slicing your own lunch meat. It's so much faster than using left-over Thanksgiving turkey in your lunch because it's basically pre-prepared, yet still fresh.
Well, what if they had some cool machines like that in the produce department?
Then you could pick out your kilo of potatoes for dinner, walk up to the slicer-guys and say, "I'd like these cubed, please." And then they'd do it in like 10 seconds in their cool dicing machine.
Or if you wanted your carrots sliced Julienne-style you'd just take it up to the slicer-guys and say so and 10 seconds later they'd hand you a package of Julienned carrots.
Do you know how much time that would save? Tons. And I think it would motivate people to eat more healthy meals. So much so, in fact, that I probably just solved America's obesity problem.
There are some downsides, like having to go shopping more often because sliced produce goes bad faster than non-sliced produce. Of course, you face that same dilemma with meat and cheese, right?
Also, Egypt has juice stands in some of their grocery stores where you buy oranges (and grapes now, too) specifically to have them squished into orange juice (or grape juice, respectively). America needs to get the memo on that one because I'm sure going to miss fresh juice when we get back...in like a year and a half.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
MadGab + Charades = My life
My brother, David, sent me this article a few days ago, proving to me that Rachel is smart. He's a good uncle/brother.
It said,
We have fun together.
It said,
Fourteen-month-old children from high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey an average of 24 different meanings during the 90-minute session.Meanwhile, children from lower-income families conveyed only 13.
Once in school, students from higher-income families had a comprehension vocabulary of 117 (as measured by a standardised test), compared to 93 for children from lower-income families.
Part of the reasoning behind that was that babies who gesture live in an environment where grown-ups communicated with them. They try to talk to the grown-ups, so the grown-ups talk back, so they talk to the grown-ups.
That makes sense to me. I'm always verbally guessing what Rachel means with all her little gestures. Always in a quest to further science, I thought I'd make a list of her gestures here and maybe when she starts school I'll see if I can get her to take that standardized test. I'm just kidding. It's really so that we can tease her about them later. I also thought it would be a good reference for our babysitters.
- She signs "more" for "I'm hungry."
- She signs "more" for "Let's do that again."
- She signs "please" and will occasionally do "thank you," but only occasionally so it doesn't really count.
- She signs "potty." (Often involves verbal cue of "pa-pa." I don't know why since she used to say "Potty" just fine. Everything is two repeated syllables nowadays.)
- She snaps when she wants a "snack." Get it? Snap, snack. What's the difference?
- She has pointed at whatever she wants us to look at since before she was mobile.
- Sometimes when she's desperately hungry (read: grumpy) she'll open her mouth and point inside.
- She signs "spider" when she sees a spider.
- She signs "spider"when she wants us to sing.
- She jumps whenever we mention frogs, bunnies, or kangaroos.
- She "dances" when she wants to watch her "Little People" DVD.
- She sits in front of the TV and points to it when she wants to watch her "Little People" DVD. (Occassionally uses verbal cue of "moo-moo" or "show.")
- She dances when she wants to put on music.
- She waves "goodbye."
- She waves "hello."
- Horses, camels, trains, cars, strollers, planes, and anything else that can be ridden has a special sign. Rachel holds her hand in the air like she's holding a whip and then she shakes it. She picked that up in Luxor. (Verbal cue of animal/machine noise so you know what she's "riding" at the time. The arm of the couch doubles as both horse and camel.)
- Birds, planes, sky, sun, moon, stars, airplanes, and anything else that is "up high," including "up high," also has a special sign. It involves a full body arch so you're looking straight up. And then you point up.
- She nods for "yes."
- She shakes for "no."
- She claps her hands to mean "good girl" or "yay!"
- She makes a pillow with her hands and tucks it between her cheek and shoulder for "sleep" and "goodnight" and "bed" and "tired" and "baby."
- Whenever we mention any body part or article of clothing, Rachel will point to or grab it.
- She blows kisses when she's really happy with you (she'll either blow it from her hand or just kisses the air and hope it makes it somehow).
- She shrugs her shoulders and puts her hands in front of her for "Where is ______?" and "All done" and "I don't know." (I don't know involves the verbal cue of "know" while doing the same sign).
- She puts her hands in front of her (minus shoulder shrug) to mean "stuck." (Sometimes involves verbal cue "tuck.")
- Waving both hands in front of her means "Hot" or "Don't touch."
- Shrugging shoulders means "Cold" (often with verbal cue "Brrrrrr.")
- She folds her arms for prayer and/or when she's hungry and/or when she hears the "call to prayer" and/or when we sing in church and/or when we read the scriptures.
- She also will sometimes "conduct" music while she is singing.
- She pulls on you to let you know she wants you to come with her. She will even go so far as to pull one leg and then the other until you're right where she wants you. She will continue to poke/push/prod until she has you in the exact position she needs you in to do whatever it is she's planning.
- She will often bring books to me and shove them in my face/lap. That one is a fairly obvious gesture. It used to be accompanied by the verbal cue "Read me, ma me," but now I'm lucky if I even get a "BOOK!" out of her.
- My favorite gesture of all is when she is so overcome with emotion that all she can do is wrap herself around my neck in a great big hug, only loosening her grip to give me a big, wet kiss. I am never going to teach her how to sign "I love you" because I'd much rather get the big hug and kiss. It happens in the middle of story time, whenever we go to Sam's house, right when she wakes up, etc., etc., etc. It's the best sign ever.
Child gesture could play an indirect role in word learning by eliciting timely speech from parents; for example, in response to her child's point at the doll, mother might say, 'Yes, that's a doll,' thus providing a word for the object that is the focus of the child's attention..."I say that is perfectly correct. My daily life is a collision of MadGab and Charades. Except I'm not like the mother in that quote. When Rachel points at things I say, "1st word, 2nd syllable, sounds like..."
We have fun together.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Oh! 'Neeze!
I've been sick the past few days so Rachel's been having a particularly busy time naming all the times I cough and sneeze. Naming bodily noises is one of Rachel's favorite things to do, whether it be burping, sneezing, coughing, or otherwise.
She'll always point at the culprit and announce, "Oh! 'Neeze!" or "Oh! Cough!" or "Oh! Bup!"
The other day Rachel passed some gas and, following her usual routine, accused herself of doing so. She grabbed her rear end and declared, "Oh! 'Neeze!"
One day we'll teach her some decorum. And that you can't sneeze out of your behind.
She'll always point at the culprit and announce, "Oh! 'Neeze!" or "Oh! Cough!" or "Oh! Bup!"
The other day Rachel passed some gas and, following her usual routine, accused herself of doing so. She grabbed her rear end and declared, "Oh! 'Neeze!"
One day we'll teach her some decorum. And that you can't sneeze out of your behind.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Broken Glasses
I slept in this morning because I wasn’t feeling well. Rachel always misses me when I sleep in and eventually Andrew gave in to her pleas and they came in to wake me up. Rachel jumped out of Andrew’s arms and gave me a big hug. I love Rachel hugs!
Whenever Rachel sees me without my glasses she gets really concerned and tries to find them for me. I think she equates my wearing glasses with “awake time.”
This morning my glasses were sitting on my nightstand. Rachel got off the bed and grabbed them, even though she knows she’s not supposed to.
“Rachel, don’t touch!” Andrew advised a little too late.
Rachel was already working on opening them so that she could help me put them on. She’s all about helping these days.
She bent one arm completely skiwampus, rending the glasses basically useless and changing the itinerary of our day. Now our #1 thing to do was to find an optometrist instead of going grocery shopping.
First, however, I had to find my backup pair of glasses. While being blind because I couldn’t wear my regular pair. That took a while.
We went to Magrabi Optical first. Andrew stayed outside with Rachel but told me it would be okay if I went in alone since they’d be sure to speak English.
I walked in and showed the man my glasses.
“I was wondering if you could fix these. My daughter twisted the arm.”
The man took my sad, little glasses. He stared blankly.
“Is broken.” He said, decisively.
“Well, yes. They are.” I agreed and then started using some big gestures because it was clear that English wasn’t going to cut it. “Can you [point to him] fix [spin an invisible screwdriver] them [point to glasses]?”
“Aiwa, aiwa!” said the man and then asked me to have a seat. I understood him because I say that in Arabic in primary all the time.
He fiddled around for a few minutes and then brought back my glasses, as good as new. He’d installed a new hinge.
“Bikam?” I asked.
“Repairs is free. But, something to consider: your lenses are cheap. Perhaps you would like to purchase these [random super-coated special expensive lenses]. Observe while I put them on this paper. Notice how there is a lot of glare with the bad lens but all is clear with [random super-coated special expensive lens]. Now see as I put them up to my eyes. The bad lens obstructs the beauty of your eye. The [random super-coated special expensive lens] allows everyone to see your beautiful eyes.”
“I don’t think I can afford those right now,” I said.
He stared at me blankly again. He had no clue what I had said. So he continued with his script, explaining the cost and the lifetime of the lenses.
His whole speech was completely scripted; if I strayed from the script his English was hopeless.
“Mish inharda,” I told him. “Not today” is the polite way of saying, “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, okay. You are under no obligation.” He said walking me to the door and holding it open for me, “Repairs is always free. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
It has been so long that I’ve experienced such wonderful customer service. I walked into the store completely expecting to be ignored, ripped off, or have them tell me it would take me 2 weeks (inshallah) to fix my glasses. None of those things happened. I was amazed.
My glasses are fixed. It was free. And life is good.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Invisible Chili and the Newlywed Game
For Valentine's Day our branch had a chili cook off. It wasn't exactly my idea of a romantic evening, but it sure was fun. The priesthood was in charge of cooking the chili--the women weren't even allowed in the kitchen. There were some pretty good entries, but Andrew's was above and beyond them all.
I can’t believe we didn’t win. Clearly the judges were either stupid or not fit for their position since they weren’t overwhelmed by the piquant taste of the Emperor’s New Chili.
Andrew even had to get up and explain why his chili was the best. I don’t think he would have entered if he knew he had to do that.
We weren’t really smart and sat behind the pillar, so Carolee and Melissa went up to the stand so that they could watch everyone give their presentation. Rachel decided she wanted to be one of the girls.
Here are some of the entrants:
Andrew with the Emperor’s New Chili; Dan with a sweet chili that had some Welsh name that took him like 5 minutes to say and that I have no hope of transcribing here (Dan is Welsh); Patrick who entered Adam’s Chili (he “found” the recipe in some Joseph Smith papers); and Eric, who served up Toro something-or-other (beef with salsa).
Dan won the popular vote. Harri won the most flavorful. Patrick won for the best presentation. All we got were a few laughs, and a big round of applause. But that’s alright because we did win the “Newlywed” game.
I had to fill out a card with questions and Andrew had to guess what I put down. The McCallisters and the Levanans also participated. The questions were a little off the wall, and very similar to the survey about my father-in-law that his co-worker put up online.
1) What is your spouse’s sign?
2) What was your first date together?
3) What was your first fight about?
4) If your spouse was a superhero, what would they want their superpower to be?
At the end of those questions we were tied with the McCallisters with 2 points each (although, technically we didn’t ever get to answer the fighting question because Patrick was holding our card when Harri answered and he gave our answer away) so we had to do a tie breaker question:
5) If your spouse was a shoe, what would they be?
Both Linda and Andrew answered that one correctly so we had to have another.
6) If President Obama’s stimulus package involved giving $10,000 to each person, what would your spouse buy?
Both Andrew and Linda got that wrong, and since we didn’t want to go into triple overtime we decided that we were both winners. Melissa will be making us cookies. Melissa makes some good cookies, so I’m excited.
Andrew got 3/6 questions correct about me. Do you think you can do better?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Face plant Friday
Apparently Aden is a really good juggler, which Rachel finds very entertaining. She loves going into the spare bedroom to watch him practice. It cracks her up. Sometimes Jaehee will get out the juggling balls and let Rachel try to juggle. She holds one ball in each hand and then bops around. It’s pretty funny to see.
Today Aden decided he needed some more room to practice so left to go throw some pins at Canal Street, which is more of a park than a street. Or canal.
Rachel was pretty upset that he got to “go” and that she had to stay home. She went to the door and started knocking while pleading “Go! Go! Go!” to anyone that would listen to her.
I didn’t know where Aden had gone, but Jaehee did. She volunteered to take Rachel out so they could watch Aden practice. Rachel was thrilled.
Her enthusiasm dulled a little when I told her that she had to go potty, put on pants, and do her hair before she could leave the house. She protested gently until she realized that I was serious about her not leaving the house wearing only underwear. And then she threw a royal fit. Eventually we did get her ready to go and she left with Jaehee.
Ten minutes later I heard some wailing that sounded oddly like my baby.
“Mama! Mama! Mama!” I heard.
“That sounds like my baby,” I remarked.
“I think you’re hearing things,” Andrew said.
He always thinks I’m hearing things when I think I hear Rachel crying, especially if we’re just waking up. The crying got louder and louder, however, and soon it was just outside the door.
I opened the door before anyone knocked and found a very sad little baby. Big tears were running down her cheeks and she was, as I had figured, absolutely wailing.
“I’m so sorry!” said Jaehee, “She started running and then she fell flat on her face. I don’t think she needs stitches but there’s blood all over her sweater. I didn’t mean for her to get hurt!”
Jaehee was worried that I’d never let her watch Rachel again. Puh-leeze! All she did was land on her chin. It was bound to happen sometime.
As soon as she was in my arms, Rachel started to calm down. It’s amazing how magical mommy’s touch is.
The unfortunate part of her immediate calmness was that the cut was bad enough that it needed to be washed out. After I had finished washing it out, it was still bleeding and needed a band aid. Rachel flipped out. You would have thought we were torturing her!
I had her on my lap with her head between my knees. Andrew was helping hold her hands down and her head back so that I could access her chin. Rachel was doing her best to squirm her way out of our grip to claw at the band aid.
She cried for a half hour after we put the band aid on.
We gave her a “brave treat,” showed her that the band aid had kitties on it, watched Little People, read books, held baby doll, and tried coloring. Nothing could distract her from that band aid.
Soon after we stopped trying to soothe her she found the container of band aids. She opened it up and took some out to look at them and, noticing that they were harmless enough, proceeded to play with them. She gave some to Jaehee, spilled some on the floor, picked them all up, spilled them again, picked them up again, closed the container, opened the container. She had a great time.
And she completely forgot about the band aid on her chinny-chin-chin.
So that’s a win-win situation right there; actually since Rachel was happy, I was happy, and Jaehee ended up happy, too, it was more of a win-win-win.
Flashback Friday: Grandpa Layton
My little sister, Josie, recently did a "Name Game" tag on Facebook where you take various parts of your names, your parent's names, and your favorite color, etc., and mix them together to form new names.
For example, my Star Wars Name is supposedly the first 3 letters of my last name and the first two letters of my first name: Heina. My gangster name is the first 3 letters of my first name plus -izzle, so Nanizzle.
It so happens that my sister and I share the same witness protection name, which is combined from our mother and father's middle names. June Neal.
She, however, was having a blond moment when she filled out the survey because she wrote that her witness protection name was June Wayne. My mom and sisters had the following conversation:
Mom: Dad's middle name is Neal. It could have logically been Wayne, but it isn't! :o)
Josie: Right.....Dang! Oh duh, his name isn't Bruce Wayne!
Abra: But how cool would that be?
Josie: I know! Dad should change his name.
Mom: He probably wishes it was sometimes, like while watching the Dark Knight.
Last night I was telling Andrew about it while we were getting ready for bed. He likes Facebook for collecting friends and occasionally he'll talk to people, but he isn't really all that into it, I guess. He hates all the meme things, so he never reads them. That's kind of nice for me sometimes because then I have funny stories to tell him. Like this one.
"So instead of putting Neal as my dad's middle name, Josie put Wayne." I said, getting to the climax of the story, "Isn't that hilarious?"
"Ha, ha, ha..." Andrew began laughing. He knew he was supposed to laugh, so he did, even though he didn't think it was very funny. He's nice like that. Then he paused and cocked his head. His pithy laugh morphed into big guffaws. Tears were almost rolling down his cheeks because when Andrew laughs he really laughs. He finally got it.
It's understandable that it would take him a while to get it because my Grandpa Layton's name is Wayne, thus it is feasible that my dad could have been named Bruce Wayne. Plus, Bruce Wayne just sounds right. I've known of "Bruce Wayne" almost my whole life but I think I only figured out that my dad had a name when I was like 6 and could hardly fathom that my father, who I equated with Batman or Superman, had the alternate identity of "Bruce Neal." Did that mean he actually had a life other than just being my daddy kind of how Batman was "Bruce Wayne," and Superman was "Clark Kent" and didn't stop crime all the time but actually went to work and had friends? It was all a little too much for me, especially since I couldn't even spell my own middle name yet. Two vowels is too many vowels right in a row. Pearl/Paerl. What's the difference?
So I fell asleep thinking about my Grandpa Layton (whose name is Wayne, but I have never in my life called him that). He was a big kidder, from all of my childhood memories. He was always pretending that he had a bomb in his leg and would tick-tock with me on his lap and then "explode." But only just before I burst into tears because I thought he was actually going to explode. He had a lot of exploding jokes. And they honestly worried me. Every time.
There was also this one game that we played where Grandpa would hold out his hand and I'd try to touch his palm without having him grab my finger. After he caught my finger then it would be my turn to try to catch his finger. It seemed like it was always my turn to catch.
And then there was the tickling. Always with the tickling. Everytime I tried to give him a hug he'd tickle me. Everytime I tried to climb on his lap he'd tickle me. Everytime I walked past him he'd tickle me. Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle! It was enough to drive any reasonable 6 year old crazy.
Once, while we were visiting my grandparents, I remember crying to my mom, "I love Grandpa but he teases me too much!" I don't remember quite how old I was, but in my head I sound a lot like Megan Lewis, so I was probably about six, which means I could have been between 5 and 9.
My mom suggested writing him a letter when we got home--I think we were already in the van on the way home when I confessed how torn my feelings were over my grandpa--telling him that I love him and that I like it when he teases me sometimes but when he teases me too much that it makes me sad. So I did. And then we mailed it.
A lot of time passed between the mailing of the letter and the next time I saw my grandparents. They lived in Utah and we lived in British Columbia. We only saw them once a year, if that, because the drive was a long and dreary one. We had to drive through Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to get there, which only takes about 14 or 15 hours, but it feels like days when you're 6. I was a little nervous to see my grandpa again because he had never responded to my letter and I was afraid that I had offended him with what I said. Soon, though, the annual summer trip arrived and we piled in the van to make the long drive.
When we got there my grandpa was a changed man. He was very solemn and slow. And he didn't tease me once. He didn't even try to tickle me.
I had singlehandedly broken my grandpa!
I hadn't meant to! All I wanted was for him to tease me less, not stop teasing me altogether! I felt horrible for years, worrying that I had been the catalyst of this sad change in Grandpa.
Later grandpa was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, much to my relief. Not that I was happy he had a horrible disease. I was simply glad it wasn't my fault that Grandpa had changed and I knew this because, even as a child, I understood that receiving letters from granddaughters, even criticizing letters, can't make you contract a disease.
I'm always shocked now when I see Grandpa because he's so different from how I want to see him in my head. He slouches and shuffles and drools. He can't remember whether or not he ate dinner or that I have moved to Egypt (he asks for me sometimes when my family goes to visit). He uses the television remote as a telephone and the telephone as the television remote, which I think is great because Rachel does that, too!
They would probably be good friends, if we still lived close by enough to visit, just like Grandpa Conrad and Josie were good friends. A buddy who is a grown up but can't talk or walk? Awesome! (My Grandpa Conrad also had little hair and few teeth--he'd pop out his false teeth and let Josie play with them, which she thought was neat. Grandpa Layton has a full head of hair and, to my knowledge, most, if not all, of his teeth).
Grandpa has gone through several surgeries, including brain surgery and some other things, but from what I hear he is still continuing to slow down. That's what happens when you get old, I guess.
I love you, Grandpa. And I loved it when you teased me, just not all the time. But if teasing me was what was keeping you healthy and strong, please, please start teasing me again!
For example, my Star Wars Name is supposedly the first 3 letters of my last name and the first two letters of my first name: Heina. My gangster name is the first 3 letters of my first name plus -izzle, so Nanizzle.
It so happens that my sister and I share the same witness protection name, which is combined from our mother and father's middle names. June Neal.
She, however, was having a blond moment when she filled out the survey because she wrote that her witness protection name was June Wayne. My mom and sisters had the following conversation:
Mom: Dad's middle name is Neal. It could have logically been Wayne, but it isn't! :o)
Josie: Right.....Dang! Oh duh, his name isn't Bruce Wayne!
Abra: But how cool would that be?
Josie: I know! Dad should change his name.
Mom: He probably wishes it was sometimes, like while watching the Dark Knight.
Last night I was telling Andrew about it while we were getting ready for bed. He likes Facebook for collecting friends and occasionally he'll talk to people, but he isn't really all that into it, I guess. He hates all the meme things, so he never reads them. That's kind of nice for me sometimes because then I have funny stories to tell him. Like this one.
"So instead of putting Neal as my dad's middle name, Josie put Wayne." I said, getting to the climax of the story, "Isn't that hilarious?"
"Ha, ha, ha..." Andrew began laughing. He knew he was supposed to laugh, so he did, even though he didn't think it was very funny. He's nice like that. Then he paused and cocked his head. His pithy laugh morphed into big guffaws. Tears were almost rolling down his cheeks because when Andrew laughs he really laughs. He finally got it.
It's understandable that it would take him a while to get it because my Grandpa Layton's name is Wayne, thus it is feasible that my dad could have been named Bruce Wayne. Plus, Bruce Wayne just sounds right. I've known of "Bruce Wayne" almost my whole life but I think I only figured out that my dad had a name when I was like 6 and could hardly fathom that my father, who I equated with Batman or Superman, had the alternate identity of "Bruce Neal." Did that mean he actually had a life other than just being my daddy kind of how Batman was "Bruce Wayne," and Superman was "Clark Kent" and didn't stop crime all the time but actually went to work and had friends? It was all a little too much for me, especially since I couldn't even spell my own middle name yet. Two vowels is too many vowels right in a row. Pearl/Paerl. What's the difference?
So I fell asleep thinking about my Grandpa Layton (whose name is Wayne, but I have never in my life called him that). He was a big kidder, from all of my childhood memories. He was always pretending that he had a bomb in his leg and would tick-tock with me on his lap and then "explode." But only just before I burst into tears because I thought he was actually going to explode. He had a lot of exploding jokes. And they honestly worried me. Every time.
There was also this one game that we played where Grandpa would hold out his hand and I'd try to touch his palm without having him grab my finger. After he caught my finger then it would be my turn to try to catch his finger. It seemed like it was always my turn to catch.
And then there was the tickling. Always with the tickling. Everytime I tried to give him a hug he'd tickle me. Everytime I tried to climb on his lap he'd tickle me. Everytime I walked past him he'd tickle me. Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle! It was enough to drive any reasonable 6 year old crazy.
Once, while we were visiting my grandparents, I remember crying to my mom, "I love Grandpa but he teases me too much!" I don't remember quite how old I was, but in my head I sound a lot like Megan Lewis, so I was probably about six, which means I could have been between 5 and 9.
My mom suggested writing him a letter when we got home--I think we were already in the van on the way home when I confessed how torn my feelings were over my grandpa--telling him that I love him and that I like it when he teases me sometimes but when he teases me too much that it makes me sad. So I did. And then we mailed it.
A lot of time passed between the mailing of the letter and the next time I saw my grandparents. They lived in Utah and we lived in British Columbia. We only saw them once a year, if that, because the drive was a long and dreary one. We had to drive through Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to get there, which only takes about 14 or 15 hours, but it feels like days when you're 6. I was a little nervous to see my grandpa again because he had never responded to my letter and I was afraid that I had offended him with what I said. Soon, though, the annual summer trip arrived and we piled in the van to make the long drive.
When we got there my grandpa was a changed man. He was very solemn and slow. And he didn't tease me once. He didn't even try to tickle me.
I had singlehandedly broken my grandpa!
I hadn't meant to! All I wanted was for him to tease me less, not stop teasing me altogether! I felt horrible for years, worrying that I had been the catalyst of this sad change in Grandpa.
Later grandpa was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, much to my relief. Not that I was happy he had a horrible disease. I was simply glad it wasn't my fault that Grandpa had changed and I knew this because, even as a child, I understood that receiving letters from granddaughters, even criticizing letters, can't make you contract a disease.
I'm always shocked now when I see Grandpa because he's so different from how I want to see him in my head. He slouches and shuffles and drools. He can't remember whether or not he ate dinner or that I have moved to Egypt (he asks for me sometimes when my family goes to visit). He uses the television remote as a telephone and the telephone as the television remote, which I think is great because Rachel does that, too!
They would probably be good friends, if we still lived close by enough to visit, just like Grandpa Conrad and Josie were good friends. A buddy who is a grown up but can't talk or walk? Awesome! (My Grandpa Conrad also had little hair and few teeth--he'd pop out his false teeth and let Josie play with them, which she thought was neat. Grandpa Layton has a full head of hair and, to my knowledge, most, if not all, of his teeth).
Grandpa has gone through several surgeries, including brain surgery and some other things, but from what I hear he is still continuing to slow down. That's what happens when you get old, I guess.
I love you, Grandpa. And I loved it when you teased me, just not all the time. But if teasing me was what was keeping you healthy and strong, please, please start teasing me again!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Playing at Victoria College
After waiting outside with a bunch of soccer moms for a guard to open the gate into Victoria College, Rachel and I walked right on inside like we were supposed to be there. And, at least according to our plans, we were supposed to be there. We wanted to play at the playground and usually Victoria College is open to the public. Usually you can just go inside any old time you want.
Lately, however, the gate has been closed. And there are men with guns standing outside it so it’s not like sneaking in is easy. Unless you happen to look like a soccer mom, which I guess I do.
Thick brick walls surround the perimeter of complex, which consists nothing really worth any protection: some fields, a parking lot, and a rundown playground. But there is a big thick wall keeping people out, anyway. The tops of the walls are inlaid with shards of broken glass, and if you managed to get to the top of the wall without cutting your hands to pieces it wouldn’t do you any good because then you’d have to climb over a six foot chain link fence.
A door too small for the average person to walk through without ducking serves as the only pedestrian entrance. There is also a gate leading into the parking lot from the street. It is usually heavily chained up with a severe-looking pad lock.
If there ever was a rebel coup here, I would hope to find myself inside Victoria College while it happened. It would take days to break in, deespite the shoddy Egyptian workmanship—they don’t use much mortar here—the wall looks pretty sturdy. People have tried to break through the wall in several places, you can tell, but the wall still stands. The guards don’t even have keys so bribery wouldn’t even help you get in.
It’s an ominous place, to say the least, and it doesn’t get much cheerier once you find your way inside. In fact it looks very much like the outside, except that they painted the brick wall pink over by the playground to help ease the feeling that you’re locked in a prison, I guess.
The slides aren’t slippery and the swing sets are a a graveyard of empty chains. Only 3 swings still have usable seats. The roof of the “tree house” has caved in and the ground is covered with trash.
But it is a place for Rachel to run around without any inhibition. She can’t break anything, at least not any worse than what it already is, and her risk of getting hurt is just as great as when she climbs onto the back of the couch and stands up. So I don’t have to referee her playtime, which is nice.
I almost had to referee the guards, though. When we walked past a set of guards, because, of course, there are multiple sets of guards placed strategically around the compound (just waiting for someone to try to climb over the fence so they can snipe them off, I guess), they were play fighting. It made me a little nervous to see a uniformed military officer armed with an AK-47 kick his friend, steal his gun and point it at him. I mean, those things are loaded…but I just walked on by, hoping that they were joking while they continued to try to wrestle each other’s weapons away.
When we made it past that set of guards, we had to pass one other set of guards to make it through the tiny door. The playground was deserted but Rachel and I made our way over to it, anyway; the guards eyed us suspiciously. Clearly we had gone the opposite direction the rest of the soccer moms were heading.
We tried our best to ignore the stares and play at the playground normally. Rachel actually had no problem in this department, but I was a little nervous about what I would say if the guards asked what I was doing there. A few moms filtered over after a while, giving us some company and making a good decoy.
A little Chinese girl was there with her mom. She was probably a year or two older than Rachel since she was much better at climbing around and seemed to be able to talk a lot better than Rachel. Since I don’t speak Chinese I’m probably not the best judge of her speaking ability but she seemed to be making sense to her mother.
It was about at this point that Rachel decided she and the other girl were friends and that she would share her snack. She bravely took a goldfish cracker out of her bowl and walked over to the little girl, fully intending to give it to her.
With every step she took, however, her hand moved closer and closer to her mouth. By the time she reached the little girl she had already chewed and swallowed the goldfish. She held her empty hand out to the girl and smiled her invitation of friendship. Then she looked at her hand and frowned quizzically.
She ran back over to me, grabbed another goldfish, and tried to deliver it again. This time she held her arm out straight in front of her. Slowly but surely her arm bent closer toward her mouth with each step she took and the goldfish, once again, disappeared into her tummy. She was clearly frustrated when she got to the little girl.
What had happened to her goldfish?!
She did this 5 or 6 times and was almost crying before I helped her walk the whole way to the little girl without eating the cracker first.
It was so hilarious but she was taking it so seriously; it was all I could do to not laugh at her. She hates it when we laugh at her when she doesn’t think she’s being funny.
She must be her grandmother’s granddaughter,though. My mom once bit the head off her very favorite paper doll without even realizing it. She searched high and low for it and eventually ended up blaming my aunt for taking it. While she was hiding and sulking she decided to pray. She wasn’t really expecting an answer because she was already convinced that Auntie Arlene had stolen it, but she felt a strong prompting to look in her mouth. To her surprise the doll’s head was stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Thinking of that made me laugh out loud. Rachel heard me and assumed I was laughing at her so she screamed at me and bit her hand—that’ll show me. She was having a hard time recovering from having her own mother laugh at her for no apparent reason and it was getting dark so we decided to leave the confinement of Victoria College before all the other soccer moms did and we were either questioned or accidentally locked in. (Or before Rachel progressed from growling at other children to biting them).
Normal playgrounds are one thing I miss about America. I would love to be able to just go to the playground and not have to worry about sneaking in or only going on “free” day. I suppose finding new things to do with Rachel forces me to be adventurous, though I’m not sure I need much more adventure here…
Homespun gymnastics
So I seem to still be suffering from acute writer's block. It took me like 5 hours (or longer) to write a 3 page story. (Is that normal?)
Perhaps my dilemma stems from spending too much time with my wild and crazy Rachel. (Is that possible?)
Rachel and I have started doing yoga together more often. Andrew got us some yoga DVDs for toddlers and the workouts are amazingly taxing. We get up to the letter G and I'm already worn out. Rachel, on the other hand, is still full of beans by Q. I don't think she has ever made it all the way to Z. She always wanders off and starts doing other things by then. She has, however, made it to the letter V.
Part of me thinks this is probably good for Rachel. Part of me wonders if I can't find a gymnastics class to stick her in so that I can sit down and watch her run wild for a few minutes instead of having to invent new ways to channel her energy myself. I realize that I used to coach gymnastics and should know how to deal with a child like Rachel. The only problem is that when you're the coach you only have to deal with the child for half hour to an hour, but when you're the mother you have to deal with the running, jumping, climbing, spinning, hopping, falling, etc. for the entire day. It wears me out!
Today we played at the playground for about an hour and a half. Rachel must have gone up and down that huge green slide at least 50 times. And then we went swimming for an hour. She was still a goofball when we got home. But at least she took a nap!
Perhaps my dilemma stems from spending too much time with my wild and crazy Rachel. (Is that possible?)
Rachel and I have started doing yoga together more often. Andrew got us some yoga DVDs for toddlers and the workouts are amazingly taxing. We get up to the letter G and I'm already worn out. Rachel, on the other hand, is still full of beans by Q. I don't think she has ever made it all the way to Z. She always wanders off and starts doing other things by then. She has, however, made it to the letter V.
Part of me thinks this is probably good for Rachel. Part of me wonders if I can't find a gymnastics class to stick her in so that I can sit down and watch her run wild for a few minutes instead of having to invent new ways to channel her energy myself. I realize that I used to coach gymnastics and should know how to deal with a child like Rachel. The only problem is that when you're the coach you only have to deal with the child for half hour to an hour, but when you're the mother you have to deal with the running, jumping, climbing, spinning, hopping, falling, etc. for the entire day. It wears me out!
Today we played at the playground for about an hour and a half. Rachel must have gone up and down that huge green slide at least 50 times. And then we went swimming for an hour. She was still a goofball when we got home. But at least she took a nap!
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