Kid Amnesiac

At the one year mark, it just should not be this hard to get out of the house. And most days it’s not. Most days either before or after Simon’s regularly scheduled nap, I put on our coats, him into the stroller, grab my keys and wallet, and off we go. One—two—three—out!

Then there are days like last Wednesday, when, heaven help me, it took several hours and three tries to manage this not-so-spectacular feat. How can that be? Here’s how:

9:30 a.m. Breakfast. We all eat oatmeal and enjoy ourselves downstairs after Simon has slept in unusually late.

10:30 Simon’s normal nap time. But he shows no signs of fatigue. So we play a bit downstairs. By 11:00, I decide it’s time to go out for a bit.

11:00 I grab Simon’s coat and go to dress him. Noxious sounds and smells emanate from him. Time to go upstairs for a diaper change.

11:15 On the changing pad, Simon starts to rub his eyes. He’s ready for that nap now.

11:15-12:00 Delayed morning nap.

12:00 Simon wakes up; I decide we’ll walk now right before lunch. Realize Simon is wet and go to change his diaper first.

12:15 Whilst being changed, Simon begins to cry and puts his fingers in his mouth. He’s hungry.

12:15-12:45 Lunch

12:45 While I clean up from lunch, Simon plays in the kitchen and scoots around. While my back is turned, he gets into the cat dish and makes a horrible mess.

1:00 I take the very messy baby upstairs to change his diaper and clothes.

1:20 Clothes changed. Diaper changed. Baby fed. We’re ready to go!

1:30 Just as I lower Simon into the stroller, he bucks, cries, and rubs his eyes some more. The morning nap wasn’t long enough.

1:30-2:20 SECOND morning nap or first afternoon nap, depending on your perspective.

2:30 He’s up and a bit pekkish. Time for a little snack.

2:45 At last, we are ready to suit up and go outside. Two naps, two meals, one change of clothes and three diaper changes later.

You just have to laugh. Thank goodness most days we’re in better synch than this

I may have to re-think my entire feeding strategy where Simon is concerned. Thus far I’ve prepared tasty, nutritious food for him and presented it regularly so he will eat a wide variety.

At the baby food stage, I had success. He happily ate yogurt, all fruits, red lentil stew, potatoes and leeks, squash and corn, etc. Then we introduced a bit of finger food with crackers and biscuits, and were also successful.

The next step is getting him onto table food, and here the going has been rougher. Some days he’ll gobble up smoked salmon. Other days not. Some days he’ll eat the broccoli in the macaroni and cheese. Other days he picks it out and tosses it overboard. He rejected my risotto and pasta and squash outright. He’s never eaten an avocado. He doesn’t like tomatoes. Many of the new things I give him to eat become projectiles before they are ever sampled.

Then yesterday at lunch, he eyed me while I was (guiltily) munching on tortilla chips and Mexican eight layer dip. So I gave him some, expecting to see the “how could you do this to me?” face if he actually put any in his mouth and prepared for the cleanup if he tossed it overboard.

Heh. He ate it carefully, then looked around for more. And more. And still more. And finally ended up eating enough to call it ½ lunch. Let’s analyze the ingredients, shall we?

Layer 1: refried beans seasoned with cayenne pepper.

Layer 2: guacamole with garlic and lime juice.

Layer 3: sour cream.

Layer 4: salsa

Layer 5: diced tomatoes.

Layer 6: green onions

Layer 7: black olives

Layer 8: shredded cheese

Later yesterday, as I was preparing dinner, I noticed that Simon had strayed from his toy kitchen and was instead playing in the cats’ bowls. He splashed the water all over the floor and himself, necessitating a pre-dinner change. But more interesting, apropos this discussion, is that I also watched him take a piece of brown kibble out of his mouth and spit it out. The boy tried to eat cat food. Cat food!

So the heck with mildly flavored, organic foods prepared just for him. I’m bringing on the Mexican, the Indian, the Thai etc. Because if he can handle cumin, chile powder, olives, and green onions—and if he’s willing to try cat food—what ever am I holding back for?

One of my favorite Monty Python sketches is the “The Ministry of Silly Walks”. It first aired the year I was born, and I’m not alone in loving it. As John Cleese got older, the silly walks got harder to perform live, and so they stopped doing the sketch when the group toured. Fans were disappointed.

It’s too bad that was so long ago, because our family is now primed to act out this skit without even trying!

My own silly walk, which only disappears when I wear a high heel, involves my holding my arms slightly behind my back, kicking my legs out slightly to the sides, and walking like a duck. Let’s just say I’m not runway ready.

Matt, on the other hand, has a little extra spring in his step and has the unfortunate tendency to bob along in any crowd. I’ve relied on his bobbing head to help me find him in crowds for years.

And now, we are about to debut the second generation of silly walkers in our family. Simon can’t walk yet—he can’t even cruise—but he has at last found a way to get from point A to point B. He doesn’t high crawl. He doesn’t low crawl. He scoots on his bottom. (As did I when I was a baby.)

Furthermore, he doesn’t scoot very efficiently. He puts his hands on the ground beside him, pushes himself up and down, and bounces like mad until one or more of those bounces propels him forward. Every now and again he stretches his legs out in front of him and then draws his body in to them, and those scoots are pretty elegant for a scoot. But most of the time he bounces along in his own way, giggling all the while.

And bless his heart, the presence of crawling babies around him does nothing to inspire alternative means of locomotion. Quite the opposite, he gets so excited that he bounces even more, often clapping along the way. I’ve yet to see one person watch him do this without laughing out loud. Which just goes to show you that some humor can stand up to the passing of time.

Let the silly walking continue….

More than any other day, Halloween reminds me that I’m no longer in San Francisco. For the most part, adults don’t dress up here, certainly most don’t dress up and then go to work that way. And even more certainly, there is no spot in town where two-hundred thousand people gather in public for a Halloween party the way they used to in the Castro.

“Used to” being the operative words here, as yesterday I read about San Francisco’s canceled Halloween party and about how the police barricades on Market and Castro streets—coupled with businesses closing their doors early—served to keep the party from getting started this year.

This saddens me. I have fond memories of San Francisco at Halloween. Matt and I used to meet friends who lived just off Church St., a few blocks from the action, at their annual party, and then we’d sit on the porch and watch the parade of humanity go by. Some costumes were exemplars of the art—I can recall watching grown men go dressed as Renaissance courtesans in voluminous gowns, huge wigs, and four-inch heels. And some costumes were merely witty, like the woman who wore a plain t-shirt and a pair of pants with hundreds of packages of smarties attached to them. (Little Miss Smarty Pants, get it?) My friends Susan and Jim always have great costumes; my favorite photos of Jim feature Jim dressed up as a gladiator, Jim as Colonel Sanders, Jim as Bjork at the Oscars, and Jim as Kim Jung Il (a brilliant costume few people understood).

I didn’t always enjoy the big Castro party. The last year I went, I ended up in a crowd so thick that I literally crossed a street without my feet touching the ground more than a few times. I hate crowds like that, and I was truly afraid of being trampled and hurt. But I somehow felt better knowing that I lived in a city where grown ups could dress up in all manner of crazy costumes, go out in public, find a huge party, and have all be well the next day.

Then last year the party devolved into a mob at the end, there was a shooting, and now this year it was canceled. I can’t help but think this is another example of a few bad eggs ruining it for everyone else. And I also can’t help but think that this means SF has lost a bit more of its magic. Even if I’m no longer there, I still want the place to be a kooky ideal I can associate with and dream about.

Instead, I guess I now have to make the most of the local Halloween, a family affair that involves going over to Steve and Stacy’s house for a party and sitting on their porch while the parade goes up and down Cherokee. While the big kids all went trick-or-treating—and special props are due little Sam for her Clark Kent outfit—Simon sat on the porch in his little monkey costume happily playing with boxes of milk duds while a parade of pirates, super-heroes, princesses, witches, and barely-dressed-up teenagers went by.

My family was pretty annoyed at this latter contingent of too-old trick-or-treaters, while I was mostly annoyed at their lack of creativity in costuming. Say what you will, if you are going to trick or treat on Halloween and you are 16 or over, you better take your clue from Castro queens of yore and at least dress up to the hilt! If you do, I at least will deem your efforts worthy of a few pieces of candy.

Written October 30, 2007

He finally did it! After about 10 weeks of prodding, hoping, and waiting, Simon finally got himself from sitting to standing with no help from Matt or I. Too bad I still haven’t seen it.

That’s right. I missed the action. It must have happened the first time on Monday while Jean, the new Monday nanny, was watching him. She was about to end her day, and we were chatting about how Simon played, how the day went, etc. I mentioned Simon’s lack of crawling and said something about him getting a little better at scooting lately.

“Oh yes,” Jean said. “And he pulls up real well, too.”

“He does what?” I thought. “News to me! And blast him for doing it for someone besides me first.”

Then, later that night, Matt was playing with Simon while I was tidying up. Suddenly I heard, “I think a mama needs to come downstairs and see her baby.” I got down and there he was, standing in front of the new storage ottoman.

“He pulled up on his own! He’s done it two or three times!” Matt exclaimed proudly.

Great. Now it’s time for mama to see this new trick. So we sat him down in front of the ottoman, put a desirable toy on it, and waited. I was watching with bated breath. Matt was videotaping.

We adjust Simon’s feet. We prop an even more desirable object on the ottoman.

Sigh. After about three failed attempts I breathed again, Matt put away the video camera, and we carried on with our night. Well, at least his first word was “mama”.