This morning Havana was a little weepy. She held onto Ilyana's hand and explained to her that summer was over. On Monday Havana returns to Elementary school and won't be able to come to pre-school again. She offered her consolation. "Don't worry, Ily, you'll see me after you finish school on Monday."
Little Ily's response was poker-faced, as it almost always is. You never know what or how Ilyana is processing emotional information she receives. Things enter her small brain, then she reshapes it in words consistent with her own conception. To the outside world this is sometimes upside down, sometimes right side up.
Both girls are growing upwards at their own paces. Last week Havana moved out of the world of velcro and into the world of laces. This transition she conquered quickly and efficiently. Ilyana's small victories remain more primitive. "Daddy! Daddy! Sisty!" she will yell. Havana and I will look at each other. It's old news to us. We traipse into the bathroom and are introduced to Ily's latest product as if it's a work of art, which on some level it is.
On Wednesday Havana's mad arm-and-leg flailings in an indoor pool came together to create a symbiosis of floating and moving forward on water. I have never known her to be so proud of any accomplishment in her five years out of the womb. We figured one day she may possibly grow tired of her given name. That day came. She now wants to be known as 'the swimmer' or simply, 'swimmer.' I shared with her that in my teenage days some of the lads down the pub used to call me 'the fish' for my drinking abilities. She was unimpressed. "I am not a fish, I am the swimmer" she insisted.
I suggested we mark the event with a "swim victory celebration." All four of us will go see Ponyo, the Japanese Animation. Although, it is the story of a fish that turns into a girl. At least I think that is the plot. Havana was excited. It has been over a year since we've tried to go see a movie. This hurdle was not to be jumped. From a young age Havana has been quite sensitive to intense sensory exposure. Perhaps when Karen was pregnant we played our stereo too loud. (Or not loud enough?) Well, after about 5 cinema-surroundsound-minutes, the noise and images were too much, so we went and got our money back. I imagine Ponyo crossed the species threshold all the same.
So this afternoon we will instead have a Dance Party celebration of Havana's new identity as one of the world's aquatic humans. Havana will pick the music: my guess is she will pick the Human League or Michael Jackson. And without hesitation as soon as the first notes pumps out, she will without any contradiction in her head, be yelling, "louder Daddy! Louder!" And her out of water body will be flailing in perfect unison with the dancing notes in her head.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
First Phone Call
My "Hello" was followed by silence. Then the response from the other party was "Uh, who is that?" So I suggest, "Uh, you called me. Who are YOU?" This could've gone on all night. This time the long pause was followed by, "Uh, is Havana there?" Then I realized this was a little girls voice. "Oh, I'm sorry is that Tiara?" "No, its Marnay." "Hang on. I'll get Havana." With hand covering the phone's mouthpiece, I whisper to Karen, "It's a bloody call for Havana. From Marnay." Her first person-to-person, ever.
As usual Havana's parents were entertaining a bunch of lefty union people. A unionist from Columbia and another from Brazil. The girls were hunkered down in a snowstorm with Winnie the Pooh, in another room.
I pass Havana the phone. She has talked on the phone before but never got a call before. "It's Marnay." I pause the movie. Havana listens to the phone and tells me there's no-one there. I take it back and check that Marnay is still there. I nudge Havana, "you have to talk first, before the other person responds." "Oh," she nodds. ". . . . uh, Hi Marnay"
I returned to the meeting with the international comrades, giving her some privacy. And a couple of minutes later Havana yells, "Dad, I'm done with the phone!"
Later that evening Karen asked her how her first phone call went. "Well, she asked me what I was doing. I said watching a movie. Then I asked her what she was doing. And she said she wasn't doing nothing." This appeared to be the full extent of the conversation.
At this point in Havana's story-telling, she got animated with her hands, and her urban accent got ratcheted up. "What does she mean 'nothing?' I mean she's on the phone isn't she?. . . She has to be doing something. She musta been standing there or something. How can you not be doing nothing." She was perplexed. Perhaps small talk is good for the playground, but not the phone.
As the world around us are twittering and even texting, Karen and I often feel that we're not sure we want to keep up with each new breakthrough in so-called communication. But it was nice to know that someone younger than us is more comfortable small-talking in person than through some form of technology. I know. It's just one of life's temporary hiccups, but it was nice to have it while it was here.
As usual Havana's parents were entertaining a bunch of lefty union people. A unionist from Columbia and another from Brazil. The girls were hunkered down in a snowstorm with Winnie the Pooh, in another room.
I pass Havana the phone. She has talked on the phone before but never got a call before. "It's Marnay." I pause the movie. Havana listens to the phone and tells me there's no-one there. I take it back and check that Marnay is still there. I nudge Havana, "you have to talk first, before the other person responds." "Oh," she nodds. ". . . . uh, Hi Marnay"
I returned to the meeting with the international comrades, giving her some privacy. And a couple of minutes later Havana yells, "Dad, I'm done with the phone!"
Later that evening Karen asked her how her first phone call went. "Well, she asked me what I was doing. I said watching a movie. Then I asked her what she was doing. And she said she wasn't doing nothing." This appeared to be the full extent of the conversation.
At this point in Havana's story-telling, she got animated with her hands, and her urban accent got ratcheted up. "What does she mean 'nothing?' I mean she's on the phone isn't she?. . . She has to be doing something. She musta been standing there or something. How can you not be doing nothing." She was perplexed. Perhaps small talk is good for the playground, but not the phone.
As the world around us are twittering and even texting, Karen and I often feel that we're not sure we want to keep up with each new breakthrough in so-called communication. But it was nice to know that someone younger than us is more comfortable small-talking in person than through some form of technology. I know. It's just one of life's temporary hiccups, but it was nice to have it while it was here.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Havana's Grandmother Dies
Last week my youngest brother sat bedside holding my mothers hand as she died. On Monday we buried my mother’s body. My mother was not a union steward or political activist, but she was a worker and a fighter.
When my brothers and I were youngsters my mother worked 3 part-time jobs. She cleaned a local pub, then served meals at our school and on the way home from school we would watch through the window as she waitressed at a local café. In our early childhood money was always short. We rarely missed a meal, but ate a lot of bread and jam. More often we experienced winter nights going to bed early to stay warm.
This was in a way my mother’s choice. It was this way or the brutality that marriage to my dad had been. I am grateful my mother freed us from that. We eventually emerged from that emotional shell shock.
When I was nine, we three brothers were then taken from my mum. The state deemed my mother “unfit” essentially because she had no man. For two years we paid the price of a backwards government family policy. I now know that losing your children is far worse than losing a parent.
Our economically rocky life eventually stabilized when mum got a unionized factory job at EMI. Then my brother hit 15 and left school apprenticing at a local garage, bringing in a second wage to the family. Life evened out a bit.
At the funeral on Monday I included in my tribute a word about how mothers in this world are expected to be saints. Yet, they are given neither the resources nor the respect to live up to this. Our world is hostile to women, there’s no other way to say it. Yet mothers survive and if anyone sees good in me or my brothers, they see my mother in us.
My mother was something before a mother. According to those that knew her then, she rode a motorbike all over West Wales without a helmet, apparently she was a troublemaker at school which she left at 14 and her last surviving sibling called her the best sister you could ever have.
On the day before the funeral, my younger brother and I headed up the hills behind my father’s old house. Up the winding lane to the rocks where we three each took a stone on the day we scattered my fathers ashes nine years ago. The Welsh hills right now are full of tiny white noisy lambs each coupled with their scruffy grey mothers. As urban as we are, we recognized one lamb was literally a day or two-old, judging by its spindly body and awkward gait. On that walk we saw perhaps six lambs lying listless, with mother nearby. This seemed worse than the one lamb aimlessly circling its dead mother.
My younger brother cared for my mother in recent years. Despite having his own family and children. He bathed mum, shopped for her and comforted her. He changed her in the middle of the night. In her last months she stayed at a National Health Service care home. On the way home from work every night he would pop in to see mum. He is a great son, but only the son that my mother produced.
It must have been hard for my mother to leave us and all those that loved her. Her life improved the world. She parented without judgment or criticism. She taught us not to be talked down to and she taught us solidarity and its sister, love.
I will repay the sacrifice my mother made for us by doing all I can to tear down this world that can create a billion different Ring Tones, but cannot put to work the 13.5 million unemployed.
When my brothers and I were youngsters my mother worked 3 part-time jobs. She cleaned a local pub, then served meals at our school and on the way home from school we would watch through the window as she waitressed at a local café. In our early childhood money was always short. We rarely missed a meal, but ate a lot of bread and jam. More often we experienced winter nights going to bed early to stay warm.
This was in a way my mother’s choice. It was this way or the brutality that marriage to my dad had been. I am grateful my mother freed us from that. We eventually emerged from that emotional shell shock.
When I was nine, we three brothers were then taken from my mum. The state deemed my mother “unfit” essentially because she had no man. For two years we paid the price of a backwards government family policy. I now know that losing your children is far worse than losing a parent.
Our economically rocky life eventually stabilized when mum got a unionized factory job at EMI. Then my brother hit 15 and left school apprenticing at a local garage, bringing in a second wage to the family. Life evened out a bit.
At the funeral on Monday I included in my tribute a word about how mothers in this world are expected to be saints. Yet, they are given neither the resources nor the respect to live up to this. Our world is hostile to women, there’s no other way to say it. Yet mothers survive and if anyone sees good in me or my brothers, they see my mother in us.
My mother was something before a mother. According to those that knew her then, she rode a motorbike all over West Wales without a helmet, apparently she was a troublemaker at school which she left at 14 and her last surviving sibling called her the best sister you could ever have.
On the day before the funeral, my younger brother and I headed up the hills behind my father’s old house. Up the winding lane to the rocks where we three each took a stone on the day we scattered my fathers ashes nine years ago. The Welsh hills right now are full of tiny white noisy lambs each coupled with their scruffy grey mothers. As urban as we are, we recognized one lamb was literally a day or two-old, judging by its spindly body and awkward gait. On that walk we saw perhaps six lambs lying listless, with mother nearby. This seemed worse than the one lamb aimlessly circling its dead mother.
My younger brother cared for my mother in recent years. Despite having his own family and children. He bathed mum, shopped for her and comforted her. He changed her in the middle of the night. In her last months she stayed at a National Health Service care home. On the way home from work every night he would pop in to see mum. He is a great son, but only the son that my mother produced.
It must have been hard for my mother to leave us and all those that loved her. Her life improved the world. She parented without judgment or criticism. She taught us not to be talked down to and she taught us solidarity and its sister, love.
I will repay the sacrifice my mother made for us by doing all I can to tear down this world that can create a billion different Ring Tones, but cannot put to work the 13.5 million unemployed.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Bedtime Malarkeys
“Mama! Mama!” Havana called from the girls’ room. Its 8 O’clock. Bedtime stories are done and its essentially mummy and daddy time. That’s the theory. It is also fairly routine for us to pop back and hear some badly-constructed reason that is preventing the descent into sleep. This time Havana tells her mom: “I don’t know where Ily is!”
Ilyana sleeps in a beautiful white crib with long bars on all sides, somewhat like an ornate cage with no lid. Since she was 3-months old this has been her place of rest. In recent days Havana has been climbing in and Ilyana's crib has become another venue for “showtime.” “Shows” in our house invariably involve what could loosely be called acrobatics, dance and/or dress-up, or some combination thereof, where the grown-ups are compelled to watch. Ilyana has consequently now learnt to climb into her crib from the head of her sister’s bed which is beside the crib.
So when Karen is informed that Havana does not know where her sister is, she looks at the crib and for the first time in Ilyana’s entire long life, our 2-year old is not in her crib. Next to Havana is a large lump of gathered bedclothes and some life form evidently squirming underneath. Like a jack in the box, Ilyana’s head comes to the surface yelling, “I’m here!”
So the girls get to sleep in the same bed. Havana likes goofing off as much as any of us and two in a bed almost too small for one, is a recipe for such malarkeyness. However, unlike her sib, Havana likes her sleep. And so an hour later when we visit the girls, to cover them up, on our own way to bed, we see a quiet, subdued but wide awake younger sister. It was too much excitement for her. Havana is dead to the world, fast asleep. Ilyana is lying awake possibly wondering what would be the next frontier to be broken, now that she has graduated, albeit by escape, her crib.
Ilyana sleeps in a beautiful white crib with long bars on all sides, somewhat like an ornate cage with no lid. Since she was 3-months old this has been her place of rest. In recent days Havana has been climbing in and Ilyana's crib has become another venue for “showtime.” “Shows” in our house invariably involve what could loosely be called acrobatics, dance and/or dress-up, or some combination thereof, where the grown-ups are compelled to watch. Ilyana has consequently now learnt to climb into her crib from the head of her sister’s bed which is beside the crib.
So when Karen is informed that Havana does not know where her sister is, she looks at the crib and for the first time in Ilyana’s entire long life, our 2-year old is not in her crib. Next to Havana is a large lump of gathered bedclothes and some life form evidently squirming underneath. Like a jack in the box, Ilyana’s head comes to the surface yelling, “I’m here!”
So the girls get to sleep in the same bed. Havana likes goofing off as much as any of us and two in a bed almost too small for one, is a recipe for such malarkeyness. However, unlike her sib, Havana likes her sleep. And so an hour later when we visit the girls, to cover them up, on our own way to bed, we see a quiet, subdued but wide awake younger sister. It was too much excitement for her. Havana is dead to the world, fast asleep. Ilyana is lying awake possibly wondering what would be the next frontier to be broken, now that she has graduated, albeit by escape, her crib.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Mom makes Dresses 4 Christmas
Karen made 3 dresses for Havana for Christmas. She's been working on 2 quilts of squares from Havana and Ilyana's baby clothes for the girls: a total of 950 4-inch squares! Yes, 950. So Karen took a break during December to make 3 dresses for Havana as shown!
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