Ben is beginning his long journey with language and it is so fun to watch. As someone who loves words, it is breathtaking to wonder what word will be next. He says Ana (his babysitter); Zora (in his childcare share) mano (Spanish for hand) and Lula (the dog’s name). What he doesn’t say yet is mama or dada. We are trying to guilt trip him into saying it. Needless to say he is stubborn like his mom. He just won’t be pushed. He will say it when he is good and ready. Something tells me that time will coincide with him wanting money.
This morning he discovered the bathroom cabinet and QTIPS. He took them out individually and threw them to the ground. Josh tried to insinuate that it was a waste of money. But all I could think of is: Qtip: $1.99; being able to drink my morning coffee in peace: priceless.
Monthly Archives: May 2006
This is a picture of my friend Camille. I love it because it says so much about her to me and how beautiful she is inside and out.
I just got back from my friend Rebekah’s FORTIETH birthday party. I can’t believe we’re heading into middle age. I met Rebekah when we were 21 years old and I still see us as 21 year-olds (it’s amazing what you can convince yourself of if you avoid mirrors). Rebekah and I met in Montpellier, France on our year abroad. Since then we have almost always lived within a couple of miles of each other. It’s strange that we had to fly halfway around the world to meet each other.
We used to spend days hanging out in cafes, but now we have kids and husbands and bills to pay. How time flies. So happy fortieth Beks.
I was catching up on my Fresh Air listening today and came across a show about poetry. The poet Robert Hayden’s recording of his poem “Those Winter Sundays” was played and it is so very beautiful so I am putting it here so I will never forget.
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?