Rolling Along, Training-Wheel Style

I am noticing that the first year of life is all about firsts. Our son crawled for the first time the other day. Coincidentally, it was the same day I had a first of my own. I rode my bike to work.

My husband and I expressed some concern that he was not crawling yet. The pediatrician checked out his tiny arms and legs. His head and back and declared physically he was ready, but he needed the courage to do it.

So the day I found my extra courage to do something I knew physically I was capable of, but scared to do, he did the same.

Sure, this could be a fluke. Or maybe a reminder that he isn’t the only one in our family having some firsts and growth spurts. It sure it a whole lot easier to try something hard when someone else is stretching themselves right their along with you.

Sweet Idea

If I owned my own restaurant I would give people self-esteem cookies at the end of the meal. Wouldn't that be better than fortune cookies? The fortune is never really a fortune. The cookie sucks. So your end of meal experience ends up being a disappointment. Who doesn’t need a boost of self-esteem wrapped in sugar? No one really wants to know what tomorrow will bring. They do want to know that they are better than they are. We all want to hear more compliments.

One street person downtown Detroit has the best pitch. She starts off with a compliment. She doesn’t tell you her story which is probably a downer; she tells me how fabulous I look. She asks me if I have tried a new mascara because my lashes are ready to knock her over. She notices my jewelry. And it all works. Before I know it I am smiling ear to ear feeling great about myself and handing over wads of cash. I know I will see her soon selling the next Sham wow or easy pay religion on late night infomercials because she is that good and I love her for it.

Just imagine opening a delicious treat and seeing "you are hot...you smell great...you bake great muffins....you're so organized...your subtraction is very accurate...you have great looking gums...well-groomed eyebrows....great posture...good work on the flossing...love your meatloaf...those abs are TIGHT...those look very real…great grammar...your are always so prompt."

The wheels of misplaced anger

I always thought riding a bike to downtown Detroit for work would be dangerous because you ride through mostly shabby (not shabby chic) neighborhoods. So I meet a guy who does it and it ends up the danger is from the drivers. They yell at him. They throw things at him. They swerve towards him. They are angry about him riding his bike. He said Detroit isn’t as angry as other counties nearby.

It reminds me of the strangely aggressive and angry reaction I’ve noticed on several things. Like saying you are a vegetarian. “Do you want animals to overpopulate and starve to death? You want to make hunting illegal? Can I eat this cheeseburger in front of you? Are you a communist? So you never eat protein? Do you eat bugs?”

Or if you don’t order a drink when everyone else does, “What did you kill someone drinking and driving? You got liver cancer? Are you in some crazy church? Why don’t you just leave?”

Or when they find out you’re a Jew, “No Christmas…no tree…a Santa? What about bacon? You don’t believe in JESUS? Will they let you into heaven? No ham? No Easter bunny? Are you sure you didn’t kill Jesus? Do you have your own churches?

Nosey

I worked an entire summer at a Jewish newspaper with the obituary writer who had a nasal deformity. He had this slender white growth coming out of his left nostril. It was repulsively distracting, yet incredibly curious to me. Not only didn’t he explain the gnarly growth, he never acknowledged it as if he didn’t know it was there.

I waited all summer and got nothing close to an explanation. I might have quit that job, but hung on figuring he would break in that steamy un-air-conditioned-musty-corner left to write obituaries on typewriters that were missing keys.

He was always a little uneasy about his position at the paper since his wife was Catholic. I used to see him nervously sneaking the Catholic Chronicle into his tattered back pack each week. Now I know I should have used that Catholic Chronicle as bait to blackmail him for the story on his nose. I guess I wasn’t cut out for investigative journalism.

A Pretend Life

Like most kids I was big into the world of pretend and make believe. I had imaginary friends called Imogene, Penelope, and Wilt. Also, there was a man living in a high rise apartment building underneath my tongue.

But sometimes as an adult I find myself still playing pretend. That the dust I find on the floor is sand and we are sunning ourselves at the beach. For a while I pretended our dust bunnies were alive and I couldn’t kill them with a mop because it was obviously cruel.

Other days I ignore the cell phone and computer because I am having a pretend 1950’s day. It helps to have a lot of vintage clothes, jewelry, handbags and, magazines.

Make believe isn’t any easier now than it was as a kid. People give me a hard time and try to reason about the difference between dust and sand. People show me calendars, wave ringing phones in my face.

They used to try to sit on poor Imogene and suffocate Wilt to prove some unknown point. And all the architects in the world couldn’t convince me that you can’t build a beautiful high rise under a child’s tongue.

I'm so glad it's changed

Parents often talk about how having a child changes them…the house is taken over by brightly- colored-bouncy seats, finding sweet potato on you sleeve (just happened), lack of sleep, becoming immune to smells of poop.

Last Saturday I was at our local grocery store sans make-up and in clothes that welcome baby food-spitting fights. Trips out are not as “successful” as they used to be. I am focused on enjoying my baby. This means a combination of swinging my head around (he likes my hair tickling his face), nibbling on his socked feet, singing, and dancing. I miss a few things on the list because we are belly laughing aisle after aisle.

We get to the frozen section and my husband remembers some of what we have forgotten and dashes off. He returns to my performance of Huey Lewis’, “Do you believe in love” to our son.

What struck me funny was that no surrounding shoppers had a reaction. They kept their heads down like nothing was happening. No call for help, tossing of produce, booing, giggles, humming, hip shakes, disapproving nods, 911calls. I would have a reaction to an adult woman knowing all the words to a Huey Lewis song, let alone someone believing she is in a karaoke bar instead of the ice cream section of her grocery store.

During the brief instrumental, I wonder for a minute if this isn’t how our neighbors parent, and then go on, “I used to have you in a photograph, I’m so glad it’s changed.”

Suck Away

Being a parent has opened my world to a dizzying amount of input. One seemingly major issue is the pacifier. I first noticed it with a co-worker’s baby, someone asking “You aren’t going to use a pacifier are you?” I thought they had to be joking. Like they were saying, “You aren’t going to use a rusted-out-dagger to get that booger, are you?”

Our baby didn’t take to daggers, or pacifiers. So he is sucking his thumb. Parents gasp and look at me, tattling and pointing “He is sucking his thumb!” As if he just stole their ID or motorcycle. “Yeah, I know. Next week are going to start him on unfiltered Camels.”

Being a former thumb sucker, I don’t get the big deal. Are you supposed to be a non-sucker, or a finger-sucker, a penny-sucker? It isn’t illegal or costly. He enjoys it and no harm is being done to the environment or the stock market.

I remember my parents trying to wean me off the thumb and the blanket with extreme rigidity. I just wonder what harm I was causing. Did I look weak? Was it an embarrassment? Did they worry I would fall the wrong crowd? If that is the worst habit for stress management that you end up with, then I say suck away.