Morning Jog

Every morning this week I've taken a morning jog. I don't wear a sports bra, or running shoes, or gym shorts, or any athletic apparel. I dress for the office and lug my lap top, iPad, wallet, lunch, and whatever else in my beat-up leather bag, and jog a mile with Roan to daycare.

Why? Because Roan now insists on riding his bike to daycare. And he rides really fast. So fast that I have to run to keep up with him. He thinks this is hilarious, seeing me run alongside him, and when he is not going full throttle he seems intent on traveling at that irritating pace where you can almost speed walk but not quite - you have to break into a jog and bounce around in shoes that were not meant to be bounced in, and ruin any chance of a decent hair day by scraping it into a ponytail, and sweat. Because even at 8 in the morning it is hot and soupy. We arrive at daycare moist and panting. The hallway is lined with the other children's strollers. The Russians offer me a burp cloth to wipe my sweaty face with. I politely refuse.

Maybe I'm too indulgent. The stroller does seem more convenient. But getting Roan in the stroller is akin to a 12 step program. There is calm head shaking denial, refusal, whining, running away, crying, temper tantrums, screaming, temper tantrums, shrieking, hitting, and finally, when he is safely restrained by the stroller straps, bribery. At first it was just some fruit. Then it was fruit and animal crackers. And orange juice. And a book. And my phone. And a squeezer. And even then, at some point he would look up from all that and reawaken to the horrible fact that he was in his stroller and lose his shit all over again. Needless to say we weren't making good time.

Now we're at daycare in 10 minutes, give or take, depending on how many buses and garbage trucks must be acknowledged. I'm sure if I stuck it out with the stroller for a week or two Roan would come around. But I'd rather just forgo all the conflict and drama. It's so easy for me to make him happy right now. He doesn't have much control over the shape of his days and there are so many times he has to bend to my will that it feels right to let him win one every now and then. Instead of making him adjust to the stroller, I am adjusting to the morning jog. I started by buying myself a new pair of shoes.

Troublemaker

Weekend Review

Art / Climbing

Pump in the Botanic Gardens

Buzz cut

Art

Today Ro made art with four other toddlers. We had washable paint with brushes and sponges, washable markers, washable crayons, glitter, and chalk. I might have been a bit overzealous in guarding against mess - I covered the floor, walls, and sofa in plastic sheeting. It looked more like we were fumigating the apartment than hosting an art class.

Everyone was curious about the plastic sheeting. Roan quickly figured out how to rip holes in it and tear it into little bite sized pieces. Taj sprinted across it, slipping and nearly falling over and over and again. Somebody else pulled it off the wall and it floated to the floor gracefully - the largest and most glorious suffocation hazard I've ever seen.

Once I got rid of the plastic sheeting, the kids finally paid attention to the paint. I put everything on a big foam mat and for the most part, the art stayed put. No one ran wild around the room, streaking the walls with marker. And best of all, the washable stuff really did wash off!

Our fridge has some new paintings, and Roan is passed out taking a monster nap (which he never does for me).The clean up took half an hour, and during that time I reflected on the sad fact that Roan will never remember this day. I often have this thought while cleaning up. If no one remembers early childhood, what is the point of all these activities that result in all this damn cleaning? I think of early childhood like a drug fueled weekend - the details are hazy, but you have a general impression of whether you enjoyed yourself or not.

If every day is rated and filed away with a thousand other days in some remote fold of a toddler's brain, only to be dredged up years later during a light bulb moment on some therapist's couch, well, I'd like to think that today we scored one tiny point for "happy childhood." If so, I guess the clean up was worth it.

Beach Day

Rite of Passage

Do you remember your first shell tops? I do. I was 13 or 14 and the shell tops helped me feel like a real hard vato. Technically, I'm not hispanic; but I paid close attention in Spanish class and my best friend was Maria Torres who, despite being light skinned with freckles and having two older brothers who spent all their time playing video games and Magic the Gathering instead of dealing drugs and getting arrested, gave me some kind of an in with the other cholas. At the very least she had some chola cousins. We never went so far as to shave off our eyebrows and draw them back on, but we used whole cans of mouse to keep our hair perfectly stiff and crunchy, lined our lips with dark purple liner, wore white crop tops with baggy jeans, and gold necklaces with our names written in cursive. Well, actually, I never did find a "Cameron" necklace. You can see how hard it was to be a gangster in Cypress, California.

Thank God we didn't have digital cameras to record my adolescence.



I hope Roan develops fond memories of his first shell tops.

Water Park

Our Magical Neighborhood

Roan, I love to watch you come home after a trip. You are so excited to see all your toys and puzzles, the bike, the guitar, the chairs, the fridge, everything like a lost pet who finally came back. Everything needs your thorough examination.

We came home to a muggy evening and a dying hydrangea, and walked to Toby's for pizza. You rode your bike and while we waited for the food you raced back and forth on 6th Avenue, stopping for dogs and planters and the old man on his folding chair who looks like he's 90 but is only 65 and talks to you in a Donald Duck voice, in Spanish. Jay and I took turns chasing you down the block and gulping beer. Every once in a while you rode inside the corner deli only to carefully back out, your hand clenched around some gum or candy pressed flat against the handlebar. The deli man just smiled at us. Everyone smiled at us. The people at Toby's all wanted high fives, the Puerto Ricans up the block all wanted to know where we'd been. "We missed you so much," they said, looking at you. "You look so tired," they said, looking at me. You just smiled and sped up the hill.

Tuesday at 9AM it was already melt your flip flops hot, but we wanted to ride. We took Frankenbike and went to the water park on Atlantic. We passed buses and all kinds of trucks, delivery trucks, garbage trucks, a tow truck, even a big semi. And some of those Access-A-Ride vehicles that you don't really know how to respond to. We even had to pull over for a fire truck that went whipping by, sirens blaring. Pedestrians waved. Other bikers waved. Even the cars seemed less threatening, almost polite. You shook your arm to the beat of the music that slipped out their windows.

It was so hot that after an hour locked up in the sun, Frankenbike was too hot to ride home. I had to take it through the water park before putting you in the seat, and even then I could hardly pump the brakes without scalding my fingers. At home we drank ice water out of bowls and almost fell asleep under the fan.

In the afternoon we took Frankenbike out again. I didn't want to but you had a doctor's appointment and the car is such a pain in the ass to park. On the way home we raced the B63 all the way down 5th Avenue (and won!). We stopped at Black Horse to talk to Phil and Kenny, local bikers who thought it was too hot to ride. They told us it was 102 degrees. 102! You peeled the stickers off your arms and put them on mine. On 6th Avenue we stopped to walk with Gary, coming home from work. On 22nd Street two fire hydrants were part open, spraying water all the way across the street. A man washed his upholstry in one. We rode Frankenbike in big lazy circles through the water, stopping for the occasional car, and you laughed like a maniac. The very first time through we were soaked to the bone. At the top of the hill kids played in yet another hydrant, open all the way, water sloshing out in a lazy burst as thick as my thigh. The Puerto Ricans were just getting started with their grilling and they said, "we have a pool in back. Come swimming." So we went. It was one of those big doughboys with a tall wobbly ladder you had to climb and we went swimming in our clothes. Do you remember, Roan? You cried and cried when we had to go.

Roan, before you, none of my neighbors invited me to go swimming in their pools. I never knew how utterly drenched you could get from running through a fire hydrant, just once. Garbage men didn't wave at me and truckers didn't honk. Deli men didn't offer me free candy and firemen didn't give me tours of their trucks. I never knew the world could be so friendly. Maybe the difference is our neighborhood, which feels downright magical sometimes. Or maybe the difference is you.

Hair Family Reunion

We were in Flagstaff for the 4th of July, at the Hair Family Reunion. We stayed in cabins on a military base. There were morning calisthenics. There were matching T-shirts. There were mountain trails full of pine trees that smelled like vanilla and sounded like the ocean when the wind blew. There were 40 kids running wild and when it got dark and I was sure they would all fall over from exhaustion, someone gave them all flashlights and they went insane. There was a long and heated basketball game between Clint and Burke (two ex-basketball players in their 20s) and two 10-year-olds. At dinner one night my mom started dancing. There was unlimited free baby sitting.

I didn't take very many photos, but here are few shots.

Jordynn shows Roan around. She's got a thing for babies and spent the weekend taking care of Roan (and Davis, though I don't have any photos of those two).

Jordynn takes Roan on the slide

Roan makes demands.

Four kids on a log

It's impossible to prepare for the amount of athletic activity my family packs into a single weekend.

Grandma Mac and Roan in Sedona

Grandpa Mac and Roan in Phoenix

We never know what he is talking about. He is possibly outraged that Grandma Mac won't let him pour water on her head.

Group photo in matching T-shirts to come!