Jimbo and I had our first parent panic epidsode yesterday. Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go. So I drive a shitty mom-mobile. Pen, you’ve never seen my car but believe me, it’s shit-taay. One of the shittier things about it is that it cannot be locked. Well, the car can be locked, but once locked, it cannot be unlocked from the outside. I think you know where I’m going with this. Yolanda got locked in the car while I was outside of the car. The keys were in the ignition and the car was running. But I was outside and she was inside and I couldn’t get to her. I was also locked out of the house because my keys were in the ignition. It was probably negative five degrees outside when all this was happening, but little Yo was warm inside the car with the heat on. Oh, did I also mention I was a little worried about fumes and carbon monoxide and the like? So I called Jimbo and said something like, “Yoyo is in the car and it’s locked and she’s fine but what about fumes and I’m scared.” Jimbo called a locksmith and came right home. Meanwhile, I ran to the garage and grabbed a brick in case I had to break a window or do something drastic. Within ten minutes the locksmith had arrived and opened the car and liberated Yolanda. I took her inside the house and it was over. What’s funny is that the whole time, Yolanda was unphased. She just sat in her car seat and looked out the window at me, smiling. We played peek-a-boo to pass the time. I pretended not to be freaked out. I guess I’m kinda proud of myself for not really panicking. It was so strange though… to have this physical barrier between us, to find myself suddenly unable to touch her, to actually visualize horrible emergency scenarios and the dramatic rescues they would necessitate. The good news is that I’ll soon be turning in my shitty mom-mobile for a, uh, less shitty mom-mobile. Hopefully, this one will be a station wagon. Cuz wagons are so sexy. I actually really do find station wagons sexy.
Archive for January, 2008
Yesterday I walked Brandine in the woods so she could romp around in the snow. We walked down the trail and I noticed that she took a peculiar interest in a branch that was lying there. Then I noticed the branch had a hoof at the end of it.
It was a dismembered deer leg. And now her head smells. But thank the stars she didn’t chew the nasty thing.
Over the past two months, Yolanda has gone totally verbal. She starting talking at a pretty early age, six months or so, with the basics– dada, mama, baby, socks. And her vocabulary has grown steadily ever since. Then right around November, she really hit her stride. She starting busting out words right and left. Play, blocks, down, nose, eyes, diapers, wipes, cheese, puppets, downstairs, boots. And because she’s bilingual– agua, mas, cuchara, gracias, zapatos. Now she’s all about repeating what we say. Some of her newer words are awesome, please, pizza, sushi, and alright.
Of course her pronunciation is off and there are still a few letter sounds that she can’t say, but overall, I’d call Yoyo a regular chatterbox. Here are some of her funnier pronunciations:
Ah Daiiii: All done
Oh-dirt: Yogurt
Du-Du: Choo Choo
Aaaoats: Oats
Oppy: Open
Shishue: Tissue
Dees: This (we think; it’s what she says when she wants something, as in “dees! dees!”, while she points at the desired object. )
and our favorite, Bata Bata: Belly Button
Here’s a picture taken just before Christmas in South Florida:
We are teaching her to say “plumber’s crack”.
I just want to record two conversations from the weekend.
1) I had the misfortune of watching an unbearably cheesy modern rock band that encored with…….wait for it ……….. “Time After Time.” I turned to the woman I was talking to and said, “I have a friend who played this song in order to get first chair clarinet in middle school. You know, toot toot toot!” She looked at me blankly and goes, “I don’t know what you just said just now, hama hama blah blah.” Then she said, “Who sang this again?” I told her, and she said, “I got a Cyndi Lauper tape and a Chaka Khan tape the same year for Christmas…..I was like in 3rd grade and…. because my last name is Khan, you see, and……..” And then she wandered away. And scene.
2) Monty and I shopped the local mattress district yesterday and settled on a nice firm mattress we liked. As we were ringing up the sale, the salesman looked at Monty’s credit card and said, “There are so many different types of Amexes.” He then opened his wallet up to display the many varieties of American Express he carried, and two gold magnum condoms threatened to drop out of it.
What’s been happening, darling? I miss you.
(Also Bunny makes fantastic, fattening, wonderfully terribly wonderful cookies. Thanks and yum.)
And for the record, my New Year’s resolution is to learn to play Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump.”
It’s a delicate tune, in the saddest key of all, D minor.
We just got back from our holiday sojourn to North Carolina and Florida, so I’ve been busy the last couple days just trying to get the domestic space in order and whatnot. Anyway, today was a fine, relatively warm day, so I decided to take Brandine to the dog park to work off the winter jelly roll she’s been putting on lately.
When we got there, we saw the dog trainer that put Brandine through her paces in puppy class. I asked him how his holidays were, and he said, “Interesting.” Then he asked if I knew K, a well-known dog walker in the neighborhood. Of course I knew her, since we boarded Brandine with her for Kitty’s wedding in July.
He said that he and another dog walker found her dead, sitting on her living room floor, with 3 dogs milling around her. I won’t go into any more detail because it seems disrespectful. I will say that I’m feeling pretty strange right now. K was a nice, if crusty woman. Like a lady pirate. I’m sad that she was alone and it took several days to discover her. I imagine it’s a common occurrence in city apartments, but it just seems so bleak.
Anyway, here’s a moment for you, K. Thanks for taking care of Brandine, delivering her safely back to us, smelling like weed and incense.
