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Out of Tune

Sep 6th, 2010 by

Saturday was little Jillian’s 3rd birthday party. Jillian is one of Simon’s classmates, and holds a special place in my heart. She’s the one who cried every morning at drop-off, resulting in Simon’s characterization of each school day as “Jillian cried”, she’s the one who prompted an unexpected conversation on race last year, and she’s the one who took over the stage at KIP’s spring program last May and performed and unplanned encore.

Her family planned a low-key affair at a park near her home, exactly my and Simon’s speed. The party included a nice mix of Jillian’s family and her school friends. As everyone chatted with everyone else and talked about our varying experiences with motherhood, the conversation got loose and I couldn’t help thinking how rare such interracial socialization is in most quarters of Louisville. At least, it’s rare in my experience. It seemed sad to me that it took preschoolers to make it happen, especially since on this sunny and warm, pretty much perfect late summer day, we all seemed to be very much the same.

Kids are a great unifier, and I was awash in a sense of communitas when it came time to sing happy birthday to little Jillian. I put aside my normal self-consciousness about singing in public (my voice is weak and my range is narrow), started to belt out “Happy Birthday” with abandon, and then Oh My God! Realized that all of Jillian’s family was singing a different tune.

And I do mean totally different. And it wasn’t just one or two members of her family—it was all of them! And there was rhythmic clapping to go along with it, too. I quickly shut up, and immediately my mind began to race. Was this a family thing? A sorority thing? (Jillian’s mom was in one, and three of her sorority sisters were at the party.) Or was this a black thing?

Well thank goodness for Google. Because I sure as heck couldn’t ask Nicole at the party. If what I dug up is to be believed, it would seem that what I heard was part of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” that he wrote for MLK, Jr. It seems that it is common in some African American circles to sing this version in place of or in addition to the traditional version.

Did everyone know this but me? And if Jillian comes to Simon’s birthday party, can she sing it and teach us? Because I think this version is really awesome!

P.S. Some things never change…. Simon played with several friends at this party and had a really great time. But in keeping with his standard form, he spent the first 15 minutes or so sitting in the mulch, alone, watching others from a distance. The difference between this party and the last one we attended (a gym based party) was that he warmed up to the crowd on his own and I didn’t stress about his watching from afar or try to push him at all.

Posted in Friends, Jessica, Little Boy | No Comments »

Grief

Sep 1st, 2010 by

Thank God it’s September. What a long, strange, miserable month August was. The very first week I attended a cousin’s wedding and watched my friend Gabriel’s family reunite. Then it all crashed around me. Sudden pet death. Anticipated pet death. Family illnesses not blogged about. Two deaths related to friends of the family. Except for Simon getting off to such a great start at KIP, all the news was bad and there was a lot of it. They say bad things happen in threes, but this August they came by the half dozen.

At the risk of protracting the misery, I wanted to jot down some thoughts on grief. Matt’s, mine, and Simon’s. I keep thinking of the saying about the river–how you never step into the same river twice. Grief seems to be something like that, too. All of us are going through it, but we all seem to be stepping into different parts at different times.

Matt’s path seems to be shock, followed by existential angst and sadness. He was too ambushed to register much pain with Tristan, but the flood gates really opened when Percy declined. It was as though both of their deaths registered at the same exact moment.

I am the reverse. As much as Percy was bonded to me and very much my feline counterpart, I feel manageable sadness where he is concerned. I knew he was ill, I had time to come to grips with that, and I nursed him as best I could. When he first quit eating, I spent a large part of my day finding ways to coax him on until the fluid therapy could restore his appetite. When you have spent hours searching out different formulations of wet food, adding tuna water to it, heating it up, putting it through a food mill to make it easier to eat, and then serving it elevated to alleviate nausea—and doing that four times a day—you know you took care of your pet.

But Tristan? He lost a pound in one month, and I didn’t even notice until he quit eating altogether and staggered from weakness. I feel tremendous guilt that I let him down when he really needed me. People keep telling me not to, that it’s hard to tell who’s eating what with two cats, that cats hide their illnesses well, and all that. And I know it’s true. But I also fear I neglected him while tending to his brother, never imagining they could both be sick at the same time. I hope my friends and family are right and that this guilt is a manifestation of the grieving process that will fade over time.

Simon, bless him, is sticking to denial and bargaining. At first he didn’t seem upset at all. He’s not yet four, so we understand that he couldn’t fully understand what was happening. Still, it (irrationally) hurt us to see that he didn’t seem that upset. Then we felt bad for wanting him to feel bad. True to type, Matt rationally analyzed his feelings in this regard and moved on, while I felt guilty for mine and then also moved on.

We both looked for gentle ways to broach the subject with Simon, as it seemed fundamentally unhealthy to just pretend that nothing had happened at all. The first day or so, we’d mention Tristan or Percival, and Simon would immediately and inartfully change the subject. A typical exchange:

“Do you miss Percival, Simon?”

“When I grow up, I’m going to be a bulldozer.”

Right then! He absolutely, steadfastly refused to discuss what was going on. So we backed off a bit. I did get out some old pictures to show Simon, figuring we could both get a laugh out of seeing Daddy with long hair, me with super-short hair, and Tristan as a tiny, fluffy kitten.

A day or so later, the questions came. Questions like “When will Percy jump up on my bed?” and “Couldn’t the doctor make him new and better again?” and the truly terrifying, “When I’m an old cat, will my kidneys quit working and my body break, too?” He also noted that when Caillou was sick, he didn’t go to the doctor; his mommy took care of him. He was clearly looking for a familiar context for illness and death.

Now, we’ve all arrived at bargaining. All of us are wanting to drown our sorrows in new feline companionship, and we are bargaining with ourselves and each other about the timing.

Matt wants to wait until we take a family holiday in October. He wants time to grieve Percival and Tristan properly before we adopt again. (Or to quote him, “Listen, if a widower remarries in a year or so, some people think it’s too soon, but others understand he just liked being married and it’s no disrespect to his wife. But if he marries in a month, that’s just messed up. No one thinks that’s a compliment to the wife.”) When the process is over, however, he wants kittens. Adorable, exuberant kittens with their whole lives ahead of them.

Simon wants cats now. Literally now. “Mommy,” he asked me Saturday night, “Can we go to the animal shelter and find new cats that need a home? … What will our new cats names be? I know, Brownie, and Uncle Steve, and Aunt Tia, and Nathan, and Liv, and Maddie, and Ben!” He helpfully explained using his hands that he’d like to have 2, no 3, no 4, no 5, no 10, no 20 cats.

As for me, I’m torn. I feel a need to wait. But I hate my house right now: I hate lying in bed and hearing nothing; I hate sitting at the kitchen island and staring at the place where the food bowls used to be; I hate having unfettered use of my mouse; I hate that no one is in the kittie sauna, AKA the attic. I also hate that my mind has played tricks on me and made me think I was hearing or seeing the cats more than once.

So while Matt watches the calendar, I’m going to watch my knitting needles. I just bought yarn for a project for Simon. It’s a multi-color affair, requiring me to hold more than one strand at a single time. It’s the exact kind of project that Percy and Tristan would wreak havoc with and that I never attempted after they arrived on the scene in ’95 and ‘96. I will enjoy getting to work on my stranded knitting without interference, I am going to add to my skill set, and when I am finished, by George, I’m going to start looking for new feline companionship to ensure a 10-15 year gap between such projects.

For the sake of marital harmony, I hope it takes six to eight weeks. I really don’t think I can spring another box with another unvetted kitten on my husband.

Posted in Family, Jessica, Little Boy | 3 Comments »

“Tich”

Aug 30th, 2010 by

There’s a lot going on in our house right now in the aftermath of losing our two dear pets within 48 hours. A fair bit involves Simon, and I’ll get to that later.

But I thought we could use some levity, eh? I know I sure as heck could. Especially since this morning I set myself the task of washing out all the pet bowls, hauling out the litter, cleaning the carrier, and wondering how two little companions can be here one minute and then – poof! – just cease to exist the next.

So let’s catch up with Agotich, whom I tend to think of as “Tich” at this point. Last week, amid all the cat drama, she started preschool. Recall that this child has never been away from her mother for more than a few hours, that she arrived in Louisville 18 days before school started, and that she does not speak or understand a word of English. Before August 6, all she ever heard was Dinka and Arabic.

So how did she do? Shockingly well, I’d say. When Alek, Agotich, and I first entered the room, she stood back and cautiously took everything in. Then she began exploring in an every widening orbit around her mother. She was surprisingly uninterested in the class bunny, but was enthralled with the balls and happy to play with little Jaxon when he tossed one her way. Then the teachers got out the play dough and rolling pins, and little Tich started making her pie crust like an experienced hand. She forgot all about her mother, so I grabbed Alek’s hand and told her it was a good time to high tail it out of there!

Upon my return (without Alek), I was shocked, but pleasantly so, to hear that she had a good day. A teacher attended to her the whole day and she didn’t eat much (the food is totally different than anything she’s accustomed to), but she played and hardly cried at all. And she was sufficiently comfortable with me that she fell asleep in the car while I chatted away to her about her day.

When I reached Gabriel and Alek’s apartment, Alek had lunch and tea for me, something I was not expecting, and explained after I admired the tea with cardamom that next time she’ll know what I like and can have it ready for me. When I demurred that this was not necessary, she explained that “It is important to show proper thanks to family friends. They have no obligation to help, so you must let them know how important they are.”

I stayed for about an hour and a half, and Alek’s English is good enough that I was able to learn how Sudanese make homemade incense, that Alek’s mother disapproved of the henna designs she had put on her arms and legs before the big trip to the USA (“She say, that is for Arab!”), and that Agotich is her mother’s first grandchild, but not her father’s (he has one or two other wives). Meanwhile, Alek cannot fathom how Gabriel’s mother would allow herself to become anyone’s eighth wife (“I say, Kwai, how could your mother do this? She was young and beautiful!”) and really misses the Mexican telenovelas she watched dubbed into Arabic back in Sudan. “I find them here, but I cannot understand them!”

She was utterly charming all around, appreciative of her new, green, clean, and quiet (her words) surroundings, and seemed eager to learn American ways. Coupled with her good English that needs only a few months to refine and build a larger vocabulary, and she is excellent shape to embrace a new life here.

At the end of Tuesday’s visit, something funny happened. I waved goodbye to Agotich, and she cried. “She doesn’t want you to leave,” Alek explained. So I gave her a kiss, and she kissed me right back—three times. Am I really going to become Auntie Jessica that fast? I might just.

Because Thursday she had an equally good day at AJ, and when I entered her classroom she greeted me with a huge smile the second she saw me. “Wow,” Ms. Barb told me, “that’s the best smile we’ve seen all day.” Then she snuggled up as close to me as she could get when I picked her up, nestled her head below my chin, and fell fast asleep before I could even get her to the car. I chatted with the cantor and office staff about how she was doing for a bit, and the entire time all they got to see of her were her three or four fuzzy little pony tails.

This week I’ll have Agotich alone in the mornings, as I’ve given Alek the green-light to send her along with Gabriel on her own. I’m sure we’ll have a bit more of an adjustment, and I’ve got some work to do to get Simon to be friendlier, but I am quite content at present to have an adorable, and adaptable, little girl in my life.

Posted in Friends, Jessica | 3 Comments »

Percival: March 1, 1994 – August 27, 2010

Aug 28th, 2010 by

Bedtime stories in the final weeks

I’ll keep this brief, as I wrote quite a bit about a Percy when he turned 15 a year and a half ago.

After four weeks of an iron supplement and two weeks of thrice-weekly subcutaneous fluid therapy, Percy appeared to have turned a corner yesterday. He had been more active and social for over a week, was moving around well, and was his usual extroverted self. Yesterday he even ate his full amount of food, a first in four weeks. He appeared to feel a lot like his old self, and I thought we just might be able to manage his condition for  a few weeks or months.

Then today, it all fell apart. He whined. He followed me around, but in a pathetic and not demanding way. His eyes looked off. His posture looked off.  He didn’t eat a bite. And then, just after we tucked Simon into bed, he meowed plaintively, hid in a closet, and threw up blood.

We acted immediately. My brother Steve came over on zero notice at 10:30 Friday night so Matt and I could usher Percival on his long journey home. We selfishly wanted one more night with him curled up on the bed with us (this is a cat that would lie next to me under the covers and share my pillow), but our gut told us he wasn’t going to have a peaceful night and that we owed him better than that after fifteen years of unwavering loyalty and love.

Percy died just before midnight at the emergency animal hospital, two short days after we bid farewell to his kid brother.

In human years, he was around 85. And for all but these few weeks, he has been the picture of health. The only time he ever went to the vet before this July was for an annual exam and vaccinations. So he had a good run, I know. And we gave him a good home for what would have been fifteen years next week. I know that too.

But my goodness my heart is breaking right now. For the third straight day, I’m going to bed with a headache from stress and crying. And tomorrow I face the sad task of cleaning up all the cat stuff in my house and telling my little boy that yes, “Percy has gone to be with Tristan” (his words).

We’ll all move on. We’ll grieve and bring a new cat or cats into our home to love. But right now my house feels desolate and I feel we’ll never, ever be privileged with the company of two such singular, beautiful animals.

Cheers Percy and Tristan. You were two in a million.

Posted in Family, Jessica | 1 Comment »

Boodle: May 24, 1996 – August 25, 2010

Aug 25th, 2010 by

I  had planned to write a tribute for Tristan when he turned 15, but he had other plans, took a sudden dip in health this week that we hardly noticed with all the Percival drama, went into total renal failure today, and had to be put down at age 14 years, 3 months. I wrote this today while awaiting lab results and very much fearing the worst:

Tristan is the baby in the house, an orange bundle of joy and trouble we brought home to our Ann Arbor apartment when he was three months old in August of 1996. Whereas Percy’s angst and constant vocalizations made me worry that my own anxiety was contagious across species lines, Tristan, like many second children, has been much more laid back.

When I first got Tristan, it caused some strife in our household. Matt was justifiably furious with me for going out and getting him—not because he didn’t agree to getting a kitten to keep Percy company (he did), but because we were supposed to go and pick out a kitten together. Instead, shortly before my dear friend Cindy was due to move away from Ann Arbor, I convinced her to take me to the Humane Society to drown my impending sorrows in a kitten.

The first little guy who caught my eye was a mouthy little brown tabby.

“Are you kidding me?” Cindy all but yelled. “He’s just like Percy! You can’t have TWO like that; Matt will kill you. Look at this happy little red-headed guy just sitting in his cage purring. Take him home.”

[Reader: I adopted him.]

Cindy, being a red-head, is understandably partial to orange fur. And I, missing Cindy before she actually moved away, saw the advantage of bringing a red-head into my house. The first several hours, we had to wander about with my new baby, as he had fleas and couldn’t go inside anyone’s home before getting to the vet. So he ran around the UM law quad, affording me many visits with student admirers, and then I took him to my friend (and Cindy’s brand new husband) Tim’s place for a bit.

When I arrived, Matt was already there. He clomped over to where I stood with my box, glowering at me. He continued to glower as he approached the box and had no patience for my “but I was sad!” excuses. Then he looked down and took in Tristan, with his half Himalayan/half tabby moon face, his petite pink nose, his huge golden eyes, his exuberant coat, and his broken engine of a purr, and his face immediately softened and transformed.

He was in love. And how could he not be? After much deliberation, we settled on the name Tristan. We thought the name went with Percival, as both appear in the Ring cycle and in Arthurian legend. But in truth, he’s named after the character Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small. That Tristan, the brother of James Herriot’s senior partner Siegfried, was a young red-headed lad who was constantly getting into mischief but whose sweet heart and good nature prevented anyone from staying mad at him for long.

The name suits him. He is the cat in the house most likely to get his head stuck in a Kleenex box, to get entangled in my knitting, and to eat fake plants. You cannot wrap a present anywhere near him. Nor can you cook Indian food, as the little guy is mad for garbanzo beans. I kid you not.

He is also a one-cat argument for declawing. We didn’t do it, and we won’t with our next cats either, but Tristan might just be one of the great scratchers of his time. None of the positive or negative reinforcement in the world can dissuade him from scratching, and I have the shredded chair and suspiciously covered couch to prove it. He will stoically take his punishment and resume scratching immediately. For him, a squirt or clap is a small price to pay for such joyous abandon.

In his own little way, he can be as demanding as Percival. It’s just that whereas Percy would meow, pace, and stomp on my head for food, Tristan’s preferred modus operandi is to shove his face into my hand while I try to use the mouse. We call it “demanding affection,” and while it’s cute, “demanding” is the operative word. He would, if he could, have his cheek rubbed for 10 hours a day. And while he’s pretty hard to resist, no one has that kind of time.

His sweet nature and happy face has led to a lot of silly nicknames over the years. I’m (almost) embarrassed to type these all out, but he’s been “kitten”, “kitten caboodle”, “kitten dreamsicle (for his coat color) caboodle” and even “boodaru” over the years. In fact, we use his nicknames so much that I’m not sure if he ever properly learned his real name. Which is somewhat ironic, as his paperwork from the Humane Society led us to joke that we had rescued him from a life of illiteracy. (The person who surrendered him misspelled Himalayan, had actually named him “Zachery [sic] Todd”, and listed as the reason for surrender that “my three year old is two [sic] rough.” Yes, we are mean.)

Tristan is something of our secret joy. He’s shyer than Percival, more likely to stay upstairs when company comes over, and the one to generally hide his light under a bushel. He is choosy about who gets to see his uninhibited self, but if he likes you, he really, really likes you. And for the record, he has consistently shown immediate affection for those who end up being the best people I have known: This cat is a great judge of character. If Percival’s mouthy, needy extroversion is all me, then Tristan’s mellower, choosier brand of affection is a lot like Matt.

He has been, for fourteen years this week, a source of constant joy and balance in our home. He is the feline embodiment of mirth and whimsy, a living breathing smile, and—like stars in the sky—has brought more grins and laughs to my life than anyone could ever count.

I can’t even begin to imagine my house without him. I missed him all day today before he was even really gone.

Posted in Family, Jessica | 2 Comments »

Lad Lit

Aug 25th, 2010 by

In which our Anglophile trend continues and takes an unexpected turn.

Despite the prevalence of myriad American guitar and bass guitar magazines, Matt, perhaps not too surprisingly, found himself preferring two British titles. They cost a fortune at the newsstand and not much less when you subscribe. Can size A-4 paper really cost that much more? And more to the point, can this preference be genetic?

I ask because Saturday Matt took Simon out to run some errands, including a trip to Borders to feed the magazine beast. Matt picked up a couple of (British?) guitar magazines, and Simon went straight to the car section. After careful consideration, he arrived at his favorite: BBC’s Top Gear. List price £3.95. That ended up being one pricey magazine for a boy who can’t read.

Then again, he loves it. He sits on the couch and on his bed and flips through it, one page at a time, and wants me to talk about all the cars in it. This last bit is trying, as I can do nothing but comment on the colors. But who knows? If I can learn the three different Shinkansen train lines (Kodama, Hikari, and Nozomi, in ascending order of speed), I suppose I can muster up some knowledge about things automotive.

I knew having kids would be a learning experience, but I have to say I didn’t realize exactly what shape this learning would take.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy | No Comments »

Juggling

Aug 23rd, 2010 by

Many of the parents in the car-pool lane at KIP have to drop off multiple kids to multiple locations. When I look at them, I marvel at their ability to juggle overlapping schedules and feel a little guilty (and a lot grateful) for my own lazy schedule. And rather naturally I suppose, I wonder if I could manage it myself. Could I juggle two?

I’ll let you know Tuesday, which just happens to be little Agotich Akech Kwai’s first day in the toddler room at Adath Jeshurun preschool. My friend Gabriel took his newly reunited family to visit the rabbi at Adath Jeshurun early last week, and at some point, the rabbi offered Gabriel and Alek a spot for Agotich at their preschool. She’s the right age for their 14-18 month program, and the synagogue would love to have her for two days a week if they are interested.

Well, Gabriel and Alek are very interested (Alek is eager to start ESL and GED classes, and for heaven’s sake the woman has been on solo-parenting duty for 18 months straight), but they also have a transportation issue. Gabriel has to be at work by 8:00, and Alek doesn’t drive. If they are to take up the congregation of this very kind offer, they will need some help. Ideally, they will have a friend with a flexible schedule, who lives four miles up the road from them, and who passes AJ every single day on the way to drop off her own child at KIP. Someone, that is, like me.

So, starting tomorrow, Jim and Evie’s old car-seat moves into the back of our car. Shary at KIP has agreed to have a staff member escort Simon to his class two days a week so I can drop him off without hauling a (probably screaming) 18-month-old up the stairs with me, and I’ve gotten the kind folks at AJ to agree to a slightly irregular pick-up time so I don’t have to figure out how to literally be at two places at once.

Simon, ever possessive of me and currently adversarial to the younger set, is going to hate this. Which, in a way, adds to the plan’s appeal. It will be good for him to have to help and share. I’m sure at the beginning this will be hard for me, too. I’ve never done it before, and Agotich doesn’t know me (yet). Not to mention that fact that Gabriel’s proposed drop-off time at my house is my normal wake-up time! But I’m cautiously optimistic that within a few weeks, this will be old hat to me and I’ll be “Auntie Jessica” to Agotich.

Posted in Friends, Jessica | 1 Comment »

The Third Year is the Charm

Aug 20th, 2010 by

Simon just finished his first week in the 3s class at Keneseth Israel. And whereas previous years were marked by tears, apprehension, and general difficulty acclimating to a new setting, this year has been the exact opposite.

The very first day, Simon looked a tad nervous. But we talked about it. And what with his being three, we could really talk about first day jitters and nerves and what it all means. We could also talk about his new teachers, all his friends that are in class with him, and the excitement of being upstairs with the big kids.

Once Simon reached the top of the stairs and heard his friends, we were set. No tears at drop-off. No stories about his having trouble joining in. No accounts of over-reaction. None of it. Every day the teachers tell me “he’s doing great”, and every day Simon himself seems happy and energized when I pick him up.

I give the credit to three factors. One, he’s a year older, and we’ve been working on his adaptability and coping mechanisms for a year. Two, this year, with one or two exceptions, all the kids he loves best are in his class. Had I chosen his classmates myself for completely selfish purposes, I could not have done much better. And three, his teachers are the perfect fit for him.

When I’ve asked how he’s doing, this is what I hear:

“He’s such a delightful little boy.”

“He’s so sweet.”

“We love having him.”

“The girls all like to take care of him, and he seems to like the fuss.”

“He talks so well! If we ask a question, he never says just ‘yes’; he says things like ‘sure thing!’ or ‘you betcha!’. We love that. “

And my favorite:

“You know, the only time he gets upset is if another child is upset. But as long as we talk to him about it and explain how we are making her feel better, Simon is fine. He’s just very tuned in to others and needs that reassurance. We love that about him.”

Upon hearing this last part, I nearly fell to the floor and wept from joy. Ms. Shana and Ms. Tammy get him. We’re only four days into the year, but I can tell they know who he is, like who he is, and respect who he is. I asked Simon tonight if he liked his new teachers, and he answered with a quick “Of course I do, Mommy!”

Given all I’ve reported above, Of course he does!

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy | No Comments »

Overregulation

Aug 18th, 2010 by

An early phase of language acquisition for English speaking children is the overregulation of irregular past tense verbs. In other words, kids learn that “ed” signifies the past tense in English, and before you know it they say things like “Mommy goed to the grocery.” Simon hit that phase a while ago, probably a year or more.

Now he’s doing something a little different. He is overregulating irregular verbs, but is doing so while preserving the core of the irregular form. For example, he’s not saying “I got weared out”, and he’s not saying “I got worn out”; he’s saying “I got worned out.” I wonder where that fits in?

Overregulation isn’t reserved for verbs, either. Having figured out that “ly” signals an adverb, Simon is giving that suffix an overly enthusiastic spin as well. Today’s result? “I’m going to push you down the slide really hardly.”

I laughed myself sick over that one and hope I hear it again before he grows up on me.

Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... | No Comments »

Back to School: 3s Edition

Aug 17th, 2010 by

Today was the first day of school at KIP, and Simon’s first day upstairs with the “big kids”.  He awoke a bit nervous and looked shaky getting out of the car, but once he heard his friends at the top of the stairs, all was well. Then Ruby and Greta came and got him. And best bud Baron was there. And neighbor Caroline. In fact, all of his good KIP friends are in his class this year. I am cautiously optimistic that this year’s transition will be easier than last years. Above, Simon gives me his “It’s OK, Mommy” sly grin.

Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy | 1 Comment »

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