oren: mommy, put you glasses on. you scaw me.
seb: mommy, you need to get new glasses. you’re scary when you look at me with an angry face.
oren: mommy, you make me cwy!
seb: mommy, you’re pretty when you smile.
oren: something fwum the dawk scawes me!
seb: you need to let me have my decision!!
oren: i have a bad dweam!
Posted on June 7th, 2008
that i am writing. this is the first of anything i’ve written about our fall 2007 trip to the red river gorge in kentucky. it will be growing over the next few months to actually include what we did there and with whom…
Oren
He started out clean. Cherubic even. His smooth, round cheeks and chin like porcelain. His straw-colored hair and pale, pudgy appendages shining in the morning sunlight. Then we hiked up the hill from the cabin to the dirt at the base of the cliff. He isn’t clean anymore. Regardless of our vigilance in wiping his nose, the copious amounts of running mucus has attracted the dust. The groove under his nose is a muddy river leading to pouty, red lips. He stands in front of a newly-cut section of log that he is using as a drum, tap-tap-tapping away with two gray sticks, bobbing his head and sticking out his belly in time. His bright blue eyes have a glazed, feverish look to them, but he smiles showing tiny, white, square teeth. Still clutching a twig, he swipes a grubby fist across his mutinous nose painting a streak of brown completely across one cheek. I think it’s in his ear too. There the snot/dirt mixture will dry like cement, and we will have to pin him down and chip it away to make him recognizable again. Perhaps in preparation for this event, he begins a caveman-esque diatribe, howling along with the pounding in a raspy, baby-boy voice. He is a little barbarian, a prehistoric boy, if you will, aside from his multi-striped tank top– resplendent with a dark drool stain at the neck– and navy blue shorts. I imagine him perfectly content living outside in the forest, in a wilder place than our little rented cabin in the woods; at least, in a place where no one would confine him to such things as a “bed” or “clothes.” I imagine him a North American Mowgli, snot and drool landing where they may and mixing with the dirt to camouflage him from the other wild animals, whether friend or foe.
Posted on January 15th, 2008
the farmer’s wife cut off the tails of the three blind mice.
the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead deceived her mother for affection.
really, why is humpty dumpty an egg? and why, why do the king’s horses and men want to make him better? why?
and, i’m sorry, it is just never okay to eat porrige that has been sitting in a pot for nine days. really. even if some like it that way.
Posted on January 10th, 2008
i’m sure none of the readers of anklebiter can imagine this, but i am really bad at taking pictures, especially when it comes to family visits and cute cousins playing together. so you can go here instead, to see how much fun we had over the week between christmas and new years.
Posted on January 10th, 2008
it’s 4 a.m. seb, who has been sick, wakes up coughing, hacking, screaming and yelling. suddenly, all is quiet–not a creature is stirring. from the silence comes a little voice, like the coo of a dove, saying,
“there! now i can talk!”
Posted on December 22nd, 2007
soft, cozy toys
spiderman (the one the size of a two year old sleeping with seb in seb’s bed wearing seb’s thomas the tank engine p.j.s)
oren, my brother (awwww)
mommy (*sniff*)
daddy (seb, you are just so sweet!)
and all the rest of the things in the house (oh, well… that’s nice)
Posted on November 22nd, 2007
oren screams as a yellow matchbox truck hits his little big toe and clatters to the floor. he looks as his mama and screams again, louder.
“what’s the matter?” asks his mother from the adjoining dining room, tearing her gaze away from the computer in front of her. she sees that he is looking down to the truck on the floor and holds his little big toe up off of the floor. “did the truck hit your toe?”
“yeah! truck! toe!” oren screams again.
“i’m sorry. do you need a hug?” his mother suggests.
“kiss! it!”
“well, come here then.”
oren is all smiles as he limps into the dining room towards his mama. his injured toe still sticks up in the air. drool escapes his mouth because his monthly cold makes it impossible to breath through his nose.
mama picks oren up and places him on her lap.
“is this it?” she kisses one toe.
oren offers her the other. “kiss! it!”
she kisses the other toe too, and places him back on the floor. he limps back to the living room.
“are you limping, oren?” asks his mother.
“yah. limpin’!” oren laughs as if it’s the funniest thing in the world.
his mother laughs too, and turns back to the computer to write it down. it was pretty funny. maybe other people will think so…
Posted on November 20th, 2007
oren is grumpy this morning. everything is making him cry. i just sat down to eat my breakfast, and over he ran to sit and eat with me. earlier, i turned on a dvd for the boys so i could eat in peace, and now, i’m saying to oren, “come on, go watch t.v.” and he dissolved into tears. moment of irony: having your kid cry when you tell them to go watch t.v. hmm.
this morning, i’m remembering the great part about taking a trip sans kids: eating in silent contemplation or quiet conversation–uninterrupted for hours if we wanted–breakfast, lunch, dinner; walking relatively aimlessly, carrying only one small bag without any diapers in it; sleeping soundly knowing there is no way the kids can wake us up from hundreds of miles away; waking up gradually, not jumping out of bed to a baby demanding “milk” or “eat.” aaaaaaahhhhhh. that’s nice.
so, these are my thoughts on nyc… it’s all about the people: glamorous people; beautiful people; rich people; people who want to be glamorous, beautiful, rich; ugly people; poor, poor people; people from here; people from there. we were definitely not the only people visiting the big apple. i heard so many foreign languages and accents everywhere we went. people looking at guidebooks and maps. people asking for directions. people asking us for directions–apparently we looked like we belonged. i had wondered about whether we would fit in before we went, but i need not have worried. in nyc, everyone fits in.
walking down 5th ave midtown to times square, it was impossible (for me at least) not to get caught up in the ebb & flow of crowds crossing the streets, moving along the streets. if the cars don’t run over the people, the people run over the cars. in central park we found, not a quiet, soothing greenspace, not a hideaway from the city and the crowds, but mayhem. more people. lines of people. crowds of people. people exercising–running, biking, in-line skating, walking–along the roads through the park. people walking and trying not to get run over by other people. people riding in bike taxis. people riding in horse drawn carriages. people rowing boats. people waiting to row boats. people together. people alone. people together wanting to be alone.
and if we thought we could completely escape being parents, we were wrong. everywhere in new york city there are people with kids. kids in strollers. kids pushing other kids in strollers. kids on bikes and scooters. kids climbing up islands of rock scattered throughout central park’s green rolling lawns. kids in playgrounds. kids on the subway. the whole time i was imagining how much fun it would be for seb and oren to be in nyc too.
nyc is only a little bit about the buildings. when you’re downtown, you’re surrounded by them. they’re random, scattered. there are so many of them it’s hard to see what’s what. central park does a good job of hiding the buildings. there were only a few places to see them through the trees. when we were in brooklyn on sunday night, we strolled to the brooklyn promenade, a brick walkway, a sort of rambling park along the east river. from there we saw the statue of liberty, the brooklyn bridge, the skyline. from there the city was in clearer perspective. this view, as well as sharing it with friends, rob and susan, made getting stuck in the neverending vortex of the subway system totally worth it.
and now we’re home.
Posted on August 17th, 2007
although it doesn’t really seem like it from this website, brian and i are avid rock climbers (though i have to say brian is more of a couch climber than an avid one at this point in his life. i’ve been carrying the climbing torch for the family even through two pregnancies. this needs to be said in order that the stereotype of man climbs, girl follows will not be carried on in perpetuity. it’s one of my things. sorry. end soap box.). the “climbing” page of this website is sadly neglected. having kids has slowed us way down, and in the past two years, we have climbed outside less than a dozen times total. however, three of those times has been in the past four weeks. we have even gone camping! in a tent! things are looking up.
a few weeks ago found us climbing down at the new river gorge in west virginia with a good friend of ours we hadn’t seen in a long time, karl. likewise, we met up with some of karl’s friends. one of these friends, larry, i found out is a father of two kids who love to climb. so i had a couple of conversations with him about climbing with young ones and how to get them interested in it at a young age. seb, so far, has shown a little bit of interest in the sport, but we have trouble finding places for him to climb, mainly because he is so short. larry gave us some great advice, and yesterday at coopers rock state part, wv, we were able to try it out.
brian bought a length (50 ft) of 8 mm cord (mini-rope, if you will) that we bring with us everywhere when we go climbing now. yesterday, he scoped out a short (~15 feet tall) block with a low angle slab and lots of features for seb to climb up. seb donned his new chest harness and mad monkey climbing shoes. daddy tied him in with a mini double bow-line knot then went up to the top of the boulder to hip-belay him.*
and after that, seb became a climber. he climbed his first official route. three times. each time getting higher and higher and more and more confident. he quickly learned how to look for the best foot and hand holds without much help from us. he had a blast, more importantly.
*climbing is a dangerous sport! we do not recommend using these climbing techniques for all new beginner climbers! sebastien is 4 years old and less than 30 pounds so we can both use an 8 mm cord rather than a 10-11 mm rope and also belay him without an anchor and still keep him safe.
Posted on June 11th, 2007
yesterday, sebastien said this to me:
“mama, i’ll drive home. i’m four now.”
(!)
since his birthday, a week ago, he has really grown up.
Posted on May 19th, 2007