shokufeh is…home

Today was a Ferris Bueller day. We had blue sunny skies, a breeze, and cool and dry air. Perfect weather! Usually, when I speak of a Ferris Bueller day, I’m speaking just about the weather. But, even though we didn’t take in any ball games or perform in a parade, MrMan and I were very much out and about. We left the house at around 7:30 and didn’t get back until around 4:30. Target! Wal-Mart! Whole Foods! A kids’ boutique! Office Depot! A children’s consignment shop! This SAHM’s version of adventure. See, just like Ferris Bueller.

Except that Ferris Bueller didn’t start the day with finding out that two more mice were caught during the night. Three in less than 24 hours. This is not a good sign.

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I’ve been feeling kind of trapped. So trapped, I guess, that I’ve had trouble writing about it. But now we may rejoice and reconnect – the rodent is dead!

Just a few hours after my last entry, I was walking to the bathroom when I saw a rodent bound across the floor. I freaked out. A rodent. In my bathroom. On my birthday. The sight of it kept replaying in my mind. For the next few days, I insisted on being accompanied around the house, especially to the bathroom. Traps were set. Tension was high. Bladder was often too full.

Yesterday, I started to relax a bit, to achieve a sense of, “Rodents are a normal part of life… as long as I don’t see him, or any sign of him, it will be okay.” Then, last night, sitting in the dining room, I was shocked to see the rodent dash into the kitchen. Oh, how I screamed. Resulting in MrMan crying – out of shock or ear pain, I don’t know. More traps were set.

Now, it is better. He is dead. I’m still feeling the residual skittishness, and replaying both sightings on my cerebral tivo, but I am almost free. I can go to the bathroom by myself.

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I found a white hair! My first, in my eyebrow. I guess that seems like a funny thing to be excited about, but I look at it as welcoming the inevitable. It seems appropriate that, on this day that marks another year of my life past, I should find an outward manifestation of my increasing age.

Not much else out of the ordinary, other than the chocolate cake I’ve requested. I think that means that I’m rather content with my ordinary life.

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There’s almost a nip in the air. A nippette? Enough of a nip, especially considering that this is New Orleans, to let me know that fall is just around the corner.
After four falls in Honolulu, this is especially exciting.
There’s a part of me that would love to be further north, where leaves are changing. But I don’t know if my heart could take it.

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Dear MrMan,

Today you turned ten months old. Double digits! I still don’t understand how this happened. But, as your great-grand(-step-)mother used to say, according to your grandmother, “Time waits for no man.” A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking to myself that there haven’t been so many changes this month, that I wouldn’t have much to write about. I was wrong. They’re subtle changes, yet significant nonetheless.

You’re always on the move – crawling here, climbing there. We have a little plastic play structure in the living room. You have become quite adept at climbing its slide and steps. But because it’s so small, I was still concerned that you might not really know how to climb stairs. Silly concern. One, because, well, it’s a silly concern. Two, because you rock at climbing stairs. Last week, we went to the children’s museum for the first time, and you climbed stairs like you’d been climbing them your whole life. All ten months of it. Maybe longer than your whole life.

You have figured out that to climb down from things, you need to turn around and go feet first. Sometimes you do it a little too close to the edge, but you’ve got the idea. Another thing you’ve learned is that certain areas require you to crawl closer to the floor. Daddy sometimes brings you to work, at MamanJan’s library. You love to crawl around in the open area, and push around the wheeled stool. A few weeks ago, you tried climbing under the chairs, like you do at home. What you didn’t count on were the cross bars under the chair, that you whacked your head into. Several times. The next time you came to the library, however, you figured out that you needed to sink very close to the floor before crawling through. When you got to the other end, you were so pleased with yourself, grinning from ear to ear. Both you and I recognized that you’d accomplished something new. So, of course, we clapped. It’s nice that you take time out to praise yourself. Sometimes, you’ll pause in the middle of doing something to sit down and clap for youself. You deserve it.

You get very excited about cars and other machinery, including lawn mowers. This manifests itself in a hooting out to the vehicle, as if trying to flag it down. And you like to roll plastic cars and trucks around on the floor. Today, I noticed that this seems to be accompanied by a unique sound. Maybe this is your pretend car sound? Time will tell. You also get excited about cats and dogs, and hoot to them. There are a few cats that hang out in the backyard, so you like to spend time at the bedroom window, banging on the window and calling out to them. Last week, you were presented with the opportunity to touch a friend’s cat, and, while you wanted to keep approaching the cat, you didn’t actually want to touch it. Six months ago, you liked to be at the window and admire the curtains, but your world pretty much stopped there, maybe at the glass behind them. But now, the curtains are pushed aside so that you can see what’s beyond them. And, of course, I don’t even have to hold you at the window; I just have to make sure you don’t tumble off the bed. You have good balance and can stand on your own for a second or two at a time, but it doesn’t seem to be your focus. Just promise me you won’t take your first unassisted step without my being present.

You have an increasingly good sense of what you are and aren’t supposed to do. It’s very interesting to me that you are obedient from such a young age. A number of times in the past two months, I have told you not to touch certain things. As expected, you sometimes don’t understand. Or pretend not to understand. But other times, you stop a foot or two from the object and whimper: you want it, but understand that you are not to touch it. Nothing other than your conscience is restraining you. Of course, you often do things you know you shouldn’t, because you like the attention. One of your favorite games is to find random bits on the floor, look at me, pop the bit in your mouth, and then dart off. You love the chase. But you don’t like the mouth probe. I’m learning to let you have your bits, as dust bunnies will just make you stronger. And I established long ago that the paper bits in your diet give you pep and fortitude. So much so that I’ve considered adding them to my diet so that I can keep up with you. Your appetite extends to things beyond dust bunnies and paper, thank goodness. It’s quite a hearty appetite, and recently I’ve had to adjust my idea of how much you consume. You often eat the same things we do, chewing them with your six teeth. We recently discovered that you even like raw garlic.

Given your love of food, it probably pains you that one of the areas off limits to you is the kitchen. You spend lots of time at the kitchen door, which we’ve rigged to swing only out. A few weeks ago, you figured out how to pull open the door, but you haven’t yet been able to swing it out enough to get past it. You keep trying, though, and we’re sure that one day soon, we’ll look up and find that you’ve made it over the threshold. I guess then my aim will be teaching you not to chew on the rabbit cage.

These days, I give you a lot of time to ramble away from me. But when we’re together, I hold you extra close. I know this time of closeness and cuddling, especially while nursing, won’t last forever. So I cherish it while I can.

Love,
Mommy

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Never again.
For the past two months, I’ve had a project hanging over my head. I don’t know why I consider it my project. Except that if there’s a project to be done, I feel compelled to manage it. A wall of bookcases and cabinets, needing to be stained. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if they didn’t also require sanding. Not something you can do a little of here, a bit of there, especially with a baby about. Overwhelming to the point of inaction.
But I finally started the sanding last weekend, and Anis finished it (sanding most of it, thank goodness). After clearing the room of the sawdust haze, we started the staining yesterday. Originally, we were going to go the water-soluble route, and even bought all the supplies. But, daunted by the number of times we’d have to sand everything, we returned everything and got a one-step gel stain, with the agreement that Kalani would be whisked away. Much more manageable. I think the fume-induced loss of brain cells may have been worth the saved effort. Good thing I had some to spare. Ha!

In other news of the past week, I ran into a couple of old friends. Thursday morning, I was wondering about a friend from junior high. Yes, someone I went to school with nineteen years ago. Because this is New Orleans, that afternoon, I ran into her in the teachers’ lounge. Guess I should mention that I’m now working part-time at a school.

Then, Friday, I ran into a high school friend and her kiddies at the children’s museum. Now that we’ve become members, perhaps we’ll plan a playdate for there in the future. MrMan loved it!

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I mean no disrespect – to those who died on this day five years ago, or to those who have died in its aftermath – but today I kept forgetting that it was September 11. Sure, it would pop into my mind every once in a while, but it’s lost some of the hold it once had on me. In years past, I was very somber and sad and would replay in my head the images on the tv screen and the minutiae of my version of that day. But this year, in many ways, today was a day like any other. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch much tv these days and wasn’t exposed to all the remembering. Maybe it’s because my life has changed so very much in the past five years. Maybe it’s because that day has been superseded in my emotional catalogue by the storm. Maybe it’s just the passage of time and the healing that brings.

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Last night, I saw two great movies.

The first, Little Miss Sunshine, made me laugh so hard that it crossed my mind that I should have brought my inhaler. This was only the fourth movie that I’ve seen in the theater in the past year, and numbers two and three weren’t all awesome, so my perception might be skewed. But I don’t think so. My parents watched MrMan, and Sam and I got to go out together, just the two of us. Earlier in the day, I was thinking that we probably needed such an opportunity and was wondering if my parents would be willing to babysit. And just then, my mom called from work, suggesting that maybe Sam and I would like to go to a movie in the evening. Great!

The second movie didn’t make me laugh so hard. In fact, it made me tear up a bit. With sadness, but also with hope, and with amazement that the world we live in has 11-year-olds like Kalypso Homan, who made this movie about life in New Orleans one year after the storm*. I highly recommend setting aside 35 minutes and watching it.

*It is also available on YouTube.

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I could be wrong about this, but I suspect that my father may be the only Persian man in America (and, likely, the world) to have a subscription to Essence magazine.

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The other day, I saw a bumper sticker that read:
“Be the first on your block”

No “to have…,” no “to get…,” no nothing.
It makes sense only in the new New Orleans.

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