some quotes by my little lady...

to her pediatrician who does house calls and she is slightly in love with him:
"do you bring your lunch to work? what color is your lunch box?"
with a sly grin:
"are you going to give my little brother a shot?"
as doc is leaving our house, awkwardly because he know's it's coming and never knows how to respond:
"bye doctor wood, i love you!"

when discussing her birthday:
"and i am getting a cousin for my birthday."
me in spanish- "oh yeah, max will be a big brother and you will get a cousin"
m: "well, babies come out when they are ready to come out, mamá"

after doing anything "wrong":
"sorry mamá! but you still love me, right?"

to her little brother when they are sitting at the table eating and he throws something on the floor:
"¡en la mesa junot!"
gives item back and helps him put it on the table
"gracias, muy bien"

when pretending to play store with me:
"will you pay this señora?" ("to pay" is synonymous with "to buy" but also "to ring-up")
"do you want another one? Here's another one. do you want this? well you can't have it, you have to leave some for eli" (i think it's funny when she uses our first names)

she has started taking an interest (it only took 4 years) in speaking spanish. but her oral abilities are way behind her comprehension, so she just calls out single words like when we are walking:
 "look, mamá, 'bicicleta!'"
or she has started repeating back things she hears on a regular basis but gets it slightly wrong:
"sí, no como" (should be: "sí, ¿como no?")
or, "te quiero más en el mundo mamá"
close enough.

life and death in the mind of a two year old

m has been talking a lot about "her baby sister" (we have not confirmed the gender, so i am hoping she is not devastated if she is wrong)
some days she proudly tells people that her baby is in my belly, or will pull up my shirt before going to bed to whisper something to her sibling
i don't know how much she understands about the reality of when the baby is actually here, but i know that despite whatever challenges it presents for her, it is also the greatest gift erk and i can give her.

we have also been talking a lot about family in general. she has so many cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents that sometimes i quiz her on who is related to whom. "¿quién es la mamá de papá?" (who is your dad's mom?) that one is easy for her. but one day she realized we had gone over all the combinations except for one and she asked "who's papá's dad? where he?" i explained that his name was pop but that he had died - like chloe. i don't know how much she remembers her dog chloe who passed away last spring. she seems to have some sense and memory of her. "oh" she responded.

weeks later she brought up papa's dad again. this time more out of the blue. she asked "pop is with chloe? they playing baseball?"

maybe. the truth is i don't know any more about life and death than she does...

menchu

yesterday was a long day
it was the end of a long stretch of days
that have been busy and exhausting...the most busy and exhausting of my life thus far
i've had a lot of work
a lot of late nights
yesterday was my last late night of a workshop
last time leaving m in daycare till the very last minute
my last big paper for the semester handed in
last late night staying up to finish writing in a fit of anxiety (for now)
yesterday was busy

yesterday was also when i found out a colleague of mine, with my same name, lost her fight against cancer. a fight she had been in for 4 years.

she was the type of woman who left an impression on you. one of the kindest, most optimistic and enthusiastic people you have ever met.

yesterday i wanted to do something for her
i thought about adopting a dog - she loved animals
i decided to make my classes more fun. i changed the itinerary for the day to include more games, more exposure to culture and music. she was a master of inspiring a love and interest in language learning in her students. yesterday i wanted to be a better teacher for her.

i hope to hold onto that feeling in her memory. no matter how tired or sick i may think i feel - she is a reminder that there is always more to give.

the power of words

i was thinking about the progression of m's vocabulary which i inventoried and put into a post last february. i know it was six months ago, and six months is a quarter of her life yet i am still amazed at the rate that she learns new words and phrases every day.

while she progressively speaks more and more english over spanish (despite being home with me ALL summer and my speaking exclusively to her in spanish) there are certain things she only says in spanish like ¿hombros de mamá? which she asks as she's backing up into me with her elbows raised (a request to sit on my shoulders)

but there are other times when i remind her to say gracias to someone and she looks at me and says no, i say thank you. there is clearly a distinction in her mind between the two languages, but i am not sure how much.

some of my other favorite phrases:
you hear that? (as her hand is held up to her ear)
is that green? (about anything, mostly things that aren't green)
be careful mamá! (whenever she hears me use an exploitive - usually in the kitchen)
buster, come here! (as she smacks her leg and makes a fake whistling noise to the dog)
happy to you! (whenever it's someone's birthday - which she got to say this morning to her dad)

feliz cumpleaños erk, te queremos mucho. we don't say it enough.

mini bilingual

little brains are amazing.
the speed with which m is picking up social norms (greeting people, picking up books and speaking gibberish as if to read them)
mechanics of movement (snapping and unsnapping EVERY buckle on every kind of chair/seat/stroller she can - especially when she is not sitting in it)
and words ("yucky" "help please""pantalones")
is awesome to watch.

because we speak to her in spanish and she lives in an english world, she is getting a pretty hefty dose of both languages. the words she has acquired so far have typically been in one language or the other.

she says "medias" for socks but "shoes" instead of "zapatos"
but more recently she has gone back and forth between both the english and the spanish word for a given object or idea.

the first time was when i indicated that she had "dos" of something and she held both up and said "TWO!"

i thought at first that it was by chance that she made this connection between the different words, but after hearing her repeat this translation of the number many times in many situations i realized that she understands the concept of "two" and uses both the english and spanish word to express that concept.

similarly, at dinner the other night, she started to play the game that she has played some version of all year in which she pretends to leave and says "bye". when i ask where she is going she usually says "home". but this particular time i asked "¿vas a tu 'home'?" and she corrected me - "casa!"

on the one hand it seems logical that she would absorb both words and maybe use them interchangeably, but it struck me as particularly interesting that she wanted to use the right word in the right context - knowing that "casa" fits with the question i asked her otherwise exclusively in spanish.

finally when i went to pick her up from school yesterday, i overheard one of her classmates requesting "agua". i asked the teacher if they had started using spanish with the kids and she answered that they simply have all picked up (at least the word for water) on m's use of spanish.

as a mom and a language teacher i couldn't be more pleased :)

re-blog

there are blogs that i visit frequently.  they feed my internet addiction but also my desire to be close to important people in my life that i dont physically see as often as i would like.  their words are soothing reminders of who they are and how they are doing.

through this sometimes very anonymous technology, we can find and share surprisingly personal things; make virtual connections. the following are a few that have struck a chord for me in the past 36 hours.
 
Apparently the UES is like the Village because not one dumb ass I asked knew what he/she was talking about. As I ran across the street a woman tried to have a fight with me "That is my cab!" she yelled as I told her to f herself 


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Yesterday, I did not rush to anything no matter how late it was going to make me and you know what, it made my day to just go at my pace, not New York's. And the other thought I had, was that I'm not perfect.

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My birthday is tomorrow… And I’m pretty happy that I was born. It’s been a pretty good ride so far, and it seems as though it only goes up from here.

avocados

i recently discovered that my sister has a blog.

not my big sister - after resisting the idea of having a blog for several months, she now has two!
skip rip or play is a shared blog with friend and writer lindsey anthony; the two movie lovers review the latest and (sometimes) greatest films.
then 4321luckymamma is a personal blog, dedicated primarily to collecting quotes from any one of her four kids (apparently one of the 9 month old twins is already putting sounds together to make words, but i have yet to witness this linguistic miracle).

not the eldest of my little sisters - for several months i have been reading her personal blog la rubia liberal (the liberal blond). this blog is almost like a diary of her young adult life - reflections on herself, her environment, her feelings and thoughts on both. perhaps it's because of her age/this time period of her life, or perhaps it's because she's so damn mature - but her writing is like a map of her route into womanhood.

not my littlest of little sisters - she recently started a blog dedicated to "life on the beach". sort of like a collage, she arranges photos/videos/music into a montage of her own creation. this too serves almost as a time capsule. not only of our time but of hers - where she is in her life and what "strikes a chord" for her as a recently turned 12-year-old.

it was my middle-little sister, emi, whose photo blog i only very recently discovered. and although i knew she was a creative person and an excellent cook, i didn't know quite how talented she is. her photos are quirky,

with a great eye for angles/perspectives/voices.

and she loves avocados that's why it's the name of her blog. 

funny how much i have learned about people (even in my own family) through their blogs.

another kind of resonance?

have you ever been talking to someone who echos everything you say as you are saying it? almost like the game your older sibling would "play" with you (against your will) when you were kids; copying what you were saying in time with when you were saying it.

the only difference is that these people (grownups, who are not your siblings) aren't trying to annoy you - i'm not even sure if they are aware that they are doing it. it's as though they use this technique as a tool to follow what you are saying - like kids that run their finger under the words as they read, mouthing the text to themselves...

...except those kids don't annoy me or make me feel uncomfortable when i'm talking.

relations

erk and i went to visit my little sister, amu, yesterday for parents' weekend at her college. technically she's a half sister; second batch. my mother and stepdad came to visit too and met us there. the funny thing about this family weekend is that amu is second batch on my dad's side. my mom and stepdad have their own kid (who in turn came to visit with my dad a few weeks ago.) confused? good.

when my sister was showing us around her school she stopped to introduce us to people along the way. at first she would pause, "this is my sister" (easy) "and her fiance" (i say boyfriend, but fiance is technically more accurate) "and my....." (what the hell are my mom and stepdad to her?) "...aunt and uncle." she had considered saying "this is my dad's first wife and her second husband" but it didn't roll off the tongue as smoothly.

two things struck me about these introductions.
1.
i was reminded how important titles are to us; the need to explain a relationship through a single word. sometimes the technical term doesn't fit as well, or there simply isn't a term that exists, and so we choose our own. titles/words help us define for each other and for ourselves our feelings and understandings of things
2.
i love how "unique" my parents' divorce is; how my family feels bigger, and better, but not broken from their separation. i also love the subsequent relationships and people that came, essentially, from that separation.

namesake

last sunday i went to see the opera, carmen. it was my first time seeing it, or any other opera (unless you count the time i saw part of an opera in italy, but left before it was over...)  despite being indirectly named after the protagonist, i knew virtually nothing about the story of carmen before this past weekend.

the music was oddly nostalgic. I was reminded of piano pieces I had learned as a kid; tunes i had heard in a hum, but never knew their context. it was both familiar and totally new - as was the character herself. i had known carmen was a gypsy and that her story was one about love, but i had no idea how manipulative and somewhat villainous she was.

i am not used to hearing my name spoken when not directed at/about me - "carmen" is not that common here in the states. so, during intermission, when i overheard two women talking about how mean "carmen" was, i felt almost uncomfortable.

the opera was nice - i don't know if i am a big fan of the form itself. but finally learning the story was interesting. it felt almost like learning a bit of long-lost family history.

engagement

en·gage

   [en-geyj]  Show IPA verb, -gaged, -gag·ing.

verb (used with object)

1.

to occupy the attention or efforts of (a person or persons):He engaged her in conversation.

2.

to secure for aid, employment, use, etc.; hire: to engage aworker; to engage a room.

3.

to attract and hold fast: The novel engaged her attention and interest.

4.

to attract or please: His good nature engages everyone.

5.

to bind, as by pledge, promise, contract, or oath; make liable: He engaged himself to repay his debt within a month....

story to follow.  despite the classiness of this old ring, please note the little tie-thingy wrapped around the bottom end of it to keep the ring from falling off my hand. this cheap and elegant combination is one i appreciate.

perspective III

in chatting with an old friend today i remembered something my brother told me about when he was a little kid.  he said that before he could read, he would only see the yellow spaces around the red "s" of the superman seal - he never realized that the red formed an "s". i have been fascinated by this for a long time.

the moment we begin to learn our letters, we are trained to see them and put them together to make meaning of things. but like any training, it can potentially limit our abilities as well. most of us literate people would never look at the superman "s" (or something equivalent) and first see the shapes around the letter - our eye would directly be drawn to the letter we so readily recognize.

why is this interesting? i think that in general we are trained to see and understand things in certain ways. the more experience we have/life we live, the more this is true. this is what i love about kids and their ability to remain open to things.

arrival

remember the challenge t had given me of writing a 100 character story with the impetus of only a single word? several weeks ago she gave me the word "arrive". we have shared our struggles to live in the present and frequently talk about that theme in our lives . because its her 30th birthday, i thought it would be appropriate to write this one today, for her.

It is difficult to see if you try to look too far back or too far forward. Arrive to where you are. 

absent

part of the reason i had not written in a while was because i was/am having trouble with blogger. it no longer allows me to put in links, pictures, or anything other than plain written text (i cannot even use "bold")

another reason was because i had no internet for a while - got service only last week

and i guess the more important reason is because i feel like so many things are happening right now...and being in the middle of it, its hard to have any perspective. like not seeing the forest for the trees? sometimes i am deliriously happy and can't believe that my life is my life; i am suddenly thirty (an age in which i thought i would feel more old or wise than i do); i am living in a new place (new city, new pace, new job); in my first serious relationship/real relationship/in love for the first time

and other times i cry for what appears to be no reason - homesickness? fear?

jelly

sometimes its hard to know what to write, or how to start, unless someone gives you some direction. i have been challenged to write three 100 character stories, each using a specific word - the first being "jelly"...the problem is that i am having trouble counting out the 100 characters (including spaces), so these will be rough approximations....

she ate crackers covered with chunks of butter. she reached for one more, but this time opted for the smooth, sweet strawberry jelly instead

just realized that the computer could count the characters for me....duh. below is the revised version (the one i just wrote is 40 characters too long). the cool thing is that i adjusted it once, checked how many characters i had, and found that was exactly 100...plus i like this shorter version better.



eating crackers covered with butter, she reaches for one more- opts for the strawberry jelly instead.

it adds up

i thought i would practice what i would say to you if i grew some balls and was able to "confront " you about a couple of things that have been on my mind. here's a rough draft:

i think you're delightfully forgetful, and while i somewhat admire your incredibly free spirit - it is messing with my ocd.

i thought it didn't really bother me that despite leaving a towel for you, you consistently use mine. i was wrong. it bothers me. quite a bit. same goes for the washcloth.

that when you get out of the shower or bath you leave a trail of water marking your path.

when i come home at night i can see the coffee grain you spilled on the floor, the coffee that spilled on the stove when you left it on, and the coffee that dripped onto the counter from earlier that morning. sometimes i see evidence of your having made an attempt to wipe it up: a streak mark of brown.

i know when you are home because all the lights are on in the entire apartment, even if you are in your room; even when you are asleep

you eat my food. not just my food, but my special chocolates.

you drink my wine.

whenever there are glasses that you washed in the dish rack, i rewash them. i can tell you use my father's method of avoiding soap.

even though there is a huge sign on the door indicating to please take off your shoes, i notice that you don't always do so.

you asked where the garbage goes but have never taken it out you tell me you'd like to pay for groceries, but never give me money.

i have no idea how to say any of this without sounding like a neurotic b-i-t, but maybe i shouldn't worry about that part. i have other things i'm working on. one of them being to not dump my problems on everyone else, but rather, deal with them myself. then i won't have to bitch.

thank you for reading.

“There are no limits. There are plateaus, and you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you.”

that's a bruce lee quote

it's a great reminder about what we are capable of if we literally put our mind to it.

eli sends me articles he has read online several times a day. sometimes i don't have the time to get to all of them or read one all the way through (some are long, and i am an exceptionally slow reader). but this one i read in its entirety.

it talks about the sport of memorization. like running, most people believe they can only accomplish so much with what they have; but like training for a marathon, it's not as impossible as it seems; people can train their brains to remember unimaginable details of information in incredibly short amounts of time.

the focus of the article is really on the brain and the techniques used to train and trick it into remembering things. but it reminded me about my conversation last week about the art of the oral tradition and its disappearance since the development of publishing. indeed, the more technology we develop the less need we have to use our brain's memory power. people don't even remember phone numbers anymore, they just save them straight into their phones.

bruce lee is smart. if you read the article it will make more sense.

growing up

my niece suddenly grew up. i remember her being a fat baby that couldn't even crawl. suddenly she is a six year old who not only has advanced to walking and running, but also whizzes through more pages of reading than i do in a week (true, i don't read much, but she is reading 100 page novels)

she asked if she could feed bik the fish (the last time we checked we thought he was dead and found out he was alive). i reminded her that there was the possibility that he might actually have croaked this time. she went into the living room to check and came back with a piece of something in her hand. "i found him," she said. indeed, it was the sole-remaining (and unidentifiable) piece of our beloved bik. i thought that was pretty hard-core of her to scoop up that piece in her fingers. i'm going to go ahead and assume it was that episode that made her suddenly consider mortality. a few minutes later i found this on my bed:

evolution

while talking with a colleague about facebook and the way in which it is reshaping our culture and the affects it has had on our society, she made an interesting point-

every new thing was controversial in its time.

she noted that even when books were invented, the idea of the oral tradition being lost was somewhat of a travesty.
i had never thought about it quite that way.
while i can recognize and appreciate the duality of the loss and the gain with every new "development" we make in technology/society, i still get nostalgic for those "old school" ways.

i got home tonight and opened my mailbox to find a real piece of mail. not a bill, not a magazine or an invitation printed off a machine, but a real, hand written piece of mail. i love the usps. and as much as i love the efficiency of the internet and i email and type more than hand-write; i know there is no authentic replacement for the old school version of things.

great minds

i was recently reading a friend's blog that touches on the worst-case scenarios she catches herself thinking about. morbid things like being pushed onto the subway tracks. while i don't think i've envisioned that particular scenario, i have thought about what i would do in the event that i found myself on the tracks and a train was coming. i know how far away the train would have to be to justify my trying to get out, or how close it would have to be to inspire me to lay down in the rat-infested depression between the tracks.

even as a little kid i would imagine morbid shit - horrible deaths for all the people that i loved; what my last words would be at their respective bedsides. in some cases what my last words would be from my own deathbed.

what a ridiculous and intimate thought to share so publicly, except that i heard a man sharing an almost identical thought on the radio. and it was at that point that i thought: if i can think of such a thing, there must be others, having the same, or at least comparably ridiculous, thoughts.

similarly, when listening to ellen degeneres talk about her experience using a toilet with automatic flushing capabilities i laughed uncontrollably because i identified with her story. she talked about how annoying it was to get up and not have the toilet sense her movement; it didn't flush when she was done. ellen preceded to imitate her attempt to "trick" it by pretending to sit down again and get up again. hoping it would engage those motion detectors. i laughed because her description was one of my own experience. and it must have been the experience of many others.

i think any art, including comedy, is about finding our common denominator.