Shokufeh is... home

Fashion choices

I feel a failing in that it's now been more than two months since my last "Dear MrMan," letter. Part of it is that there's too much to say. Part of it is that it's harder to delineate his changes. But maybe I'll get one written one of these days. In the meantime, perhaps I should just document things as they strike me, rather than saving them up for a letter. Along those lines....

A recent development has been MrMan expressing his preference (or dislike) for certain pieces. (That sentence was for my Ameh. For the rest of you, I will clarify that I am referring to pieces of clothing and shoes.) Two days ago, given the choice between two very similar shirts, one patterned with small vehicles, the other with bugs, he excitedly chose the vehicle one. Yesterday, he and I took a little post-prandial walk. We ate early* so it was still light out and, since Sam is out of town, I took MrMan down to the next block for his daily viewing of the neighbor's dogs. Something that is usually a father-son bonding experience when Sam gets home from work.

When I suggested that we go outside and started to grab a pair of shoes, MrMan was obviously very down with the outside part. But the shoes I was picking up were SO not acceptable to him. It took me a moment to realize that he wanted to wear his aquasocks. I bought them for him a couple of weeks ago, and they've quickly become the hanging-out-around-the-backyard-and-block shoes. I guess he's picked up on that pattern. Or maybe he established it. Whichever the case, once I put those on him, he was ready to go and out the door.

*We are notoriously late eaters. But since Sam was leaving town, my mom cooked dinner hours early, so that he could eat before departing. She was able to do so because she is one of five people in the house in various stages of sickness. Yes, every single one of us has been sick this week.

I heart the hurl

When I was around twelve, I went to meet up with a friend in the park. At some point, she realized that she really needed to pee. We were pretty far from the toilets, and I will always remember her walking, pigeon-toed, attempting to keep her liquids inside, grimacing from the effort. I was walking ahead of her, perhaps in an attempt to cheer on, to pick up her pace. As we neared the bathroom, I turned around and she was walking normally and had a relieved look on her face. My confusion must have been apparent, as she then said, good-naturedly, "I don't have to go anymore." Her cousin, who gave us a ride home, was not amused when he found out he'd just couriered a girl in her wet pants, but I always get a little chuckle out of it. I think it's also a good lesson that, sometimes, while we fear letting go, it can provide comfort.

No, I didn't pee my pants tonight. But I did something I've long avoided and feared: I hurled. For twenty-plus years, I was free of the hurl. Anti-hurl. I had an introduction to the process last year after birthing MrMan, as a reaction to the anesthesia. It hurt like the dickens, since I'd just had major abdominal surgery. Needless to say, it didn't really remove my fear of the hurl, just convinced me that it hurts.

But, tonight, I moved into the pro-hurl camp. I'd been feeling nauseated for a few hours, and was lucky to make it to the toilet in time for the blessed event. I guess that's part of the reason for my new stance on the hurl: it was well contained. But the big reason is that it made me feel so much better. I've been missing out for a big part of my life. If my body is willing, I'd even go for round two. I heart the hurl.

Just in case there is wondering, let me quash your conjecturing. I am not pregnant. I would assume that this is the same bug that hit MrMan Saturday night for eight hours.

It's a small world after all?

So much to do. But the pressure is building to post something, since I've been MIA for two weeks almost. MrMan was sick. Then I was sick. You think we could have coordinated our lethargy a little better. I'm still not, as my husband would say, feeling 100 percent. But, I must take advantage of this one day in the week when MrMan is at daycare and I am not at my part-time job. Especially since that window of opportunity was missed last week (along with the money we paid to daycare for a child who wasn't well enough to attend, grrr). So many things to take care of around the house. But!

I must first tell you about this project I'm totally excited about. If there's one thing I get giddy about, it's the interconnectedness of everybody. I LOVE running into people I haven't seen for years, and finding out people I know by different means know one another. So I was stoked to come across a wee article in the paper today about a project that Columbia is doing: the Small World Project. It's basically a study of six degrees of separation... Kevin Bacon and all that stuff. The stuff that I love.

You go to their site and sign up and then they assign you a target that you try to connect with via your current connections (one of whom may have something in common with your target and thus may be more likely to lead to them) and their connections and so forth. You can also sign up to be a target. I've already sent my first email in hopes that it will lead me closer to my target. And submitted my profile to be screened as a target. I'm really looking forward to their study's results.

Okay, to work!

Toward a new relationship

It seems my electric pump took pity on me. It up and broke on me last week. One day - pumping, however meager the results. The next - losing suction, and then refusing to pump more than three times in a row. Turning the pump on and off, over and over again, was not doing it for me.

It was the kick in the butt I needed. For the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking it's time for MrMan and I to forge a new relationship. One that's not reliant on milk and the boob. But with the various other changes going on, such as spending our days apart, it seemed like too much. I envisioned a half-bald son - like the child on DrPhil a while ago, whose parents decided to wean her and get her out of their bed when she hit twelve months old. So she pulled her hair out. Or maybe I feared a half-bald me, responding poorly to my child's tears as I denied him the one thing that, in his almost sixteen months of life, he never seems to tire of.

But the pump broke. I'm not going to shell out several hundred dollars for a replacement, especially since it will soon sit on the shelf for a while. And the manual pump was giving even more depresssing results than the electric one. So, when we're apart, MrMan will have a bottle of soy milk. I'm not too keen to make him reliant on a bottle, but I figure it's a transitional thing. (In case you're wondering, no, we're not vegans - he and I - but cow's milk is a weird thing to me. I'll do the milk products, but I'm not into drinking that which is meant for calves.) And when we're together in the daytime, I'm keeping him busy and keeping us out and about, so he doesn't have time to think about the boob. It means missing out on some of our snuggling, but I figure that will return.

A year ago, I was in the mode where I was counting down the months until MrMan hit one year old and I would stop nursing him. Not constantly, because nursing is something I strongly believe in, and have enjoyed for the most part. But there were times when I was frustrated with the constant milk leaks and feeling "tethered" and waking up feeling drained (which I guess I was, literally). Somewhere along the way, things evolved and I stopped counting the months because I knew we wouldn't stop nursing at twelve months. I'm guessing Sam's arrival helped. As did MrMan's transition toward solid foods.

But I've recently started feeling it was time to wean him. Maybe it's my continued weight loss. Or his trying to pull my shirt up when my hands are full and we're walking down the street. Or just the feeling that I'm ready, and that he is too, even if he doesn't realize it. Yesterday, I boxed up both pumps (in case the electric one returns to life), the majority of the bottles, and the food grinder. I figure in a few weeks time, we'll start to tackle the nighttime nursing. Maybe by the time he turns 18 years months old, we'll have figured out this new milk-free relationship.

Trying to catch up

MrMan is sick. Nothing major, it seems, just a bit peaked and feverish. He seemed really mellow when I picked him up from daycare, but I chalked it up to needing sleep. It seems it was a little more than that. I'm hoping that he's feeling a little more energetic in the morning, and will be *fingers crossed* fever free. I'm not sure what the rules of his daycare are, but I'm assuming he can't be there with fever.

Last night, I saw Roya! For the first time in 2.5 years. I almost said 4.5 years, thinking we haven't seen each other since I got married, until I remembered that when Sam and I were going to Orlando a few years ago, we flew threw Atlanta. In our couple of hours in the airport, Roya and I got to catch up, and tape an entry to "The Amazing Race." We never submitted it, but it was fun to make. I love that whenever we see each other, it's like very little time has passed. Maybe it helps that neither of us seems to age much ;)

I didn't get the job. It would have been nice, but I'm sure there's something out there that's more suited to me.

MrMan had his first really good day at daycare last week. I think it helped that he went three days in a row: Wednesday was the really good day. But today went pretty well, too. Maybe, one day, he won't cry when I drop him off.

On Saturday, we went to a school fair. At the school that Maddox Jolie-Pitt attends. We didn't run into him or Brangelina, but we did have a nice time. And MrMan ate the cutest tiny cone of gelato, all by himself.

Speaking of Brangelina, it took me months, but I finally figured out some signs I've been seeing around town. They're yellow and have an arrow in the middle and the letters "CCBB" on them, once right side up, once upside down. I've pondered them for a while, wondered if they were part of some scavenger hunt... medical thing... political rally.... "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button!" With so many filming locations around town, I guess they need to let cast and crew know where to go. The format of the sign allows the arrow to point either way. I'm pretty stoked to see the movie, as I'm sure I'll recognize many spots, including a site down the street. And we spent time with one of the actresses when she was visiting a few months ago.

Oh my gosh! When I went to IMDB to look up Lois Hall, I saw that she died eleven days after we met her, a couple of days after she was supposed to go back home to L.A. So strange. We took her with us to a Baha'i meeting, and she also had a connection to Hawaii, so we had friends in common. I'm so surprised by this discovery that I can't remember anything else I planned to put on this list.

He wasn't moving

Today I called 911. I don't know that I've ever done that.

I had just left to pick up MrMan and was stopped at a red light. I noticed that, in the line of traffic going in the opposite direction, the second car had a front hood that was very smashed. Sticking-up-several-feet smashed. Wow, how's he driving with that? Then I noticed the debris in the street. Oh, he's not driving. He's been in an accident.... I guess with the first car at the light?

The light changed. I noticed a couple of pedestrians approaching the car with the smashed hood. I drove across the intersection. As I drove past, the pedestrians were talking to the driver, who seemed dazed and was clutching his torso. It seemed that the airbag had deployed and maybe there was blood. This accident happened seconds ago. I guess right before I got to the light. And then I processed what I'd seen in the front car at the light: not only was the car not moving once the light changed, the driver wasn't either. Because of the tilt of his head and the different heights of our cars (not to mention my shortness), I could clearly see only the bottom half of his face. But it was still. And his mouth was wide open. And his head was tilted back. None of those are quite normal. Together, they're cause for concern. Of course, piecing it together took me a little time. Enough time that I was a block past the accident.

The 911 operator asked me what color the cars were. I told her I didn't notice, but that it was very apparent which cars they were, once you got to the intersection. And that the MAN WASN'T MOVING. I kept wondering if I should have stopped. But what would I have done? I have no skills that would help a man that WASN'T MOVING. Was he dead? Was he in shock? Was he at that weird tilt because of the airbag deploying? And what about the second man? How could he have been driving so fast that his car looked the way it did? And that the man in from of him WASN'T MOVING? Or was it somehow the fault of the man that WASN'T MOVING?

Can you tell that I was, and still am, a bit weirded out by the fact that the MAN WASN'T MOVING? For all I know, seconds after I passed, he moved. And stepped out of the car. But I suspect that's not the case. After picking up MrMan, I couldn't help but pass by the intersection. There was a policeman standing at the light, not allowing any cars to drive in the block of the crash. Even if they wanted to drive in the lane where I had just driven half an hour before. The man who WASN'T MOVING was gone, but his car was there with the door open. Why would we not be allowed to drive in that block, unless the accident was of the very tragic sort?

Perhaps I'm overreacting, as I've watched the evening news, and checked online, and have yet to see anything about the accident. But I keep seeing his tilted face, his gaping mouth, and wondering what happened to him.