Levedy

12 Months

Dear Bean-

You turned a year old this weekend. I had always intended to act like a hippy and write down my “birth story” and force it on unsuspecting people eating their lunches in peace, but I never got around to it. You see, I was much too busy staring at you. I didn’t realize that staring can take up so much of one’s life.

You came into the world sunny-side up, that is, facing the ceiling instead of the floor. I should have guessed that you have your own way of doing things, and damn the textbooks in the process. The nurse told me that your orientation was such that if I couldn’t push you out (and fast), that they would have to consider surgery to HACK YOU OUT OF ME. That’s all the two of us needed to hear (although you probably only heard “mmph mmch mmmph HACK YOU OUT”). Twenty minutes of pushing on my part and twenty minutes of, I don’t know, squirming? on your part and you were topside. We surprised them all, little Bean. The doctor didn’t have time to get to the hospital. The nurse delivered you, safe and sound, with only a few tears (racing skidmarks, the nurse called them) to show your hasty descent.

You came out looking like Wilford Brimley after a sauna. Even though you are a year old, I still can’t figure out who you look like. You have my coloring, and your father’s blue eyes, but the rest is all you: your little chuckle in the morning when I come to get you out of your crib, your shifty-eyed-dog look when you’re about to touch a button you’re not supposed to, and the wide-eyed “Golly, you meant no? Don’t touch? Ooh, sorry. Thought you meant the opposite” fake-ass alibi looks are all your own.

You are a ray of sunshine, a beautiful butterfly, and a tricksey little minx. You love playing in the mud and wrestling with your cousin. You derive equal joy from playing in the sunshine and cuddling with me in the dark of the morning. When I was sixteen, I didn’t think that I wanted to have kids. You’ll be sixteen and convinced of your own superiority, too. But I got over it, and I’m glad. Now I have you, and I wouldn’t trade the best, carefree, teenaged-with-no-responsibilities day for the worst, covered-in-every-bodily-fluid while getting-deafened-by-shrieking-at-3-a.m. day for anything. No, really. You’re worth it.

You started walking, and nothing and nobody better get in your way. You’re a whirling dervish, and your constant battle with gravity has only brief cease-fires (some people call them “naps”, but we know better. It’s just strategic regrouping.)You alternate between fierce, don’t-touch-me-I-have-places-to-go-independence and needy, koala-bear, Siamese-twin-like clinginess. You want to bathe all by yourself, but the second that you snort (too much) bubbly bath water, you know to leap out of the bath towards me with arms outstretched like a flying squirrel. You believe that mama can fix everything. I’m handy to keep around that way. You want to do things all by yourself…fourteen inches from me.

One of my dearest memories from this month is you grabbing your farm book and toddling into my lap to read it with me. You love pointing out all of the objects on the page, and I try to tell you the Greek and English words for each of them. You’re fascinated by flowers, both on the printed page and in real life. My tongue is sore from telling you “louloudi” about a skillion times.

In your rare solo moments, you love trotting around upstairs with fists full of artifacts you pull from under my bed. You keep trying to show Ruby your treasures, and are totally mystified when she refuses to be pounded on the back with a dust-bunny-encrusted dryer sheet. If my lap is absent, you will sit down on the floor with a book and point out the flowers to the ghosts around you. I imagine that’s one of the good things that you’ve inherited from those that have come before: your passion for books…and, it must be admitted….talking to yourself.

At your last doctor’s appointment, in addition to your getting five shots that rendered you too sore to walk for two days, we learned that you weigh only 18 pounds, which placed you in the 5th to 10th percentile. I was surprised, because I thought that you were in the 25th to 50th percentile. Looking again, though, I realize that I misread the chart, which is WHY I BECAME AN ENGLISH MAJOR. You are my wee little Bean, and the doctor said that you are perfectly healthy, but small.

Of course, as soon as your female Greek relatives heard of your weight percentile, they (of course) took it upon themselves to call me and tell me to FEED YOU. I mean really, they must think, don’t these white women know that a healthy baby is one that rolls itself across the kitchen floor to get more dolmathes? Since your doctor appointment your female Greek relatives have called daily to see if, in fact, I have remembered to nourish you, and to tell me that I should feed you more lamb, because lamb is the panacea of all creation. That and Listerine.

Your relatives (Greek and otherwise) love you dearly, and have been remarkably resistant to overbearing me with parenting advice. It slips through from time to time, but for the most part, they keep their lips shut when they disagree with my flawed but well-intentioned parenting. After all, I haven’t left you on the roof of the car ONCE. That deserves some credit.

I have such fun bringing you into the backyard and letting you play in the dirt. You love the feel of mud squishing between your toes (okay, fine; and your gums. But who hasn’t been there?) and the warmth of the early summer sun on your naked bum. And yes, you get hosed off before you come into the house. NO KID HAS EVER DIED FROM COLD HOSE WATER, YIA YIA. STOP WORRYING.

You’re incredibly lucky to have relatives who love you fiercely. So fiercely, in fact, that they ignore all logical thinking. But that’s the grandparent’s prerogative, I guess: buy noisy toys that the kid loves but drives the parents nuts, feed the kid all sorts of interesting delicacies but refuse to change the resulting (and equally interesting) diaper, and insist upon the possible perilous ague-inducing toxicity of hose water. All to make sure that you grow up happy and healthy.

You’re very fortunate. And so am I, to have them in my life, too. Besides- the Listerine traps aren’t working.

Love,

Mama

Better than beef

Last night I made meatloaf for dinner. Normally, I make meatloaf with half beef and half lean turkey. Last night, though, I used 1/3 beef, 1/3 turkey, and 1/3 mushrooms. I buzzed the mushrooms in the food processor until they were the consistency of ground meat. Then I made the meatloaf using the other carefully measured ingredients I always use (i.e. - whatever I find in the pantry that looks good).

It was SO good. I didn't put salt in it, because I thought that the salt would pull too much moisture out of the mushrooms. The meatloaf was still pretty moist and fall-apart-y, so I'd use a little less mushrooms in relation to the meats next time, but MAN, was it good. The mushrooms took on the beefy flavor while cutting way down on the grease. The texture was great, and it made EXCELLENT cold meatloaf sandwiches today.

Who would have thought that mushrooms made it so much better?

New Bean Pictures

New Bean pictures posted while working on 12-month newsletter.

Personal pronouns suspiciously absent from this post.

Link: flickr

Postmark 4:00 am

Dear World-

I’m burning up with fever.
I don’t want to sleep.
I don’t want to be awake.
I want Lovey.
I hate Lovey.
I desperately want mama to hold me and cuddle me.
I can’t stand to be near mama.
Life stinks.

-Bean

...

Dear Bean-

MWA HA HA HA HA HA!

-Tooth

The Tide Recedes

The Greeks are gone, and fun was had by all.

My house is quiet, and the only trace of its many guests is a saucepan full to the brim of lamb fat on my kitchen counter.

Yeah, you read that right.

3:45 a.m.

Him: SSSSSNNNNNOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRE
Me: hon?
Him: NCHCNCHCNCHCN......NCHDNCHCNHNCHHHHHHH
Me: honey
Him: SCSKCJSCKCKSCKCKKKCKCKKCHCHHHHHHH
Me: HONEY!
Him: *snort* wha?
Me: Turn over. Your snoring is killing me.
Him: Turn over? wha?
Me: Turn over. You're snoring really badly.
Him: (turns) Well, then. Stop making me snore.

4/15/2006

It’s been a year since I almost killed my family in a car accident resulting from a bad left turn; the kind of left turn I’ve made a thousand times before with no problem. I still make that left turn several times a week, and, even though it’s been a year since the accident, I still have to breathe deeply and try to control my heart rate when I make the turn.

Although I don’t remember the impact itself, I remember the seconds leading up to it and the eternity after. Every airbag in the car fired, and thank God they did. Injuries ranged from none to bloody toes and bruises and burns from the airbags. I sustained the worst of the injuries (rightfully, I guess) with a pretty sizable burn to my forearm and frightening scrapes and bruises on my chest, abdomen, and legs. The woman in the other car had minor bruises.

I remember being terrified of the smoke in the car after the impact. I realized later that it was just dust from the airbags, but at the time I thought that it was smoke from a fire. I’m told that I yelled repeatedly for everyone to get out, although I don’t much remember that.

I remember small details; like how when I stumbled from the car my left shoe was still inside. I remember cowering next to my sister- and brother-in-law while Dimitri seethed with rage and flung his keys into the ground and stormed away without asking if I or the baby was alright.

I remember being so incredibly thankful that my stupidity didn’t cause any more harm than it did, and being willing to pay any price, ANY PRICE, to move time back 30 minutes so that set of circumstances wouldn’t have happened. To see my loved ones being checked out by paramedics because of my actions shamed me, and the memory of it still makes me tear up even as I write this.

I was proud of how well I was able to keep it together after the accident. I was so busy buzzing about taking care of everyone else that I didn’t notice the flesh burned from my forearm. The Ving Rhames look-alike paramedic pointed it out to me, and told me that I should just sit down for a little while and let everyone else do his job. But he didn’t get it; I needed to buzz around. I needed to make sure that everyone was okay. I needed to make it right as best and as fast as I could. My arm could be burned, oozy, and painful later. I needed to keep busy.

I needed to keep busy or I would have lost my mind. I was so scared and so pumped full of adrenaline that I couldn’t tell if the baby was kicking or not. I refused to wrap my mind around what that might mean. I needed activity to forcibly drown out any more thinking along that line. I needed to keep busy because I was keenly aware that when Dimitri finally came back to the accident scene he couldn’t touch me or look me in the eye, he was so angry. I had to keep busy because if I didn’t I would crack. It was a crisis, and there was no one for me to lean on, so I had better not need to lean, I told myself. I felt so alone and so guilty and so unable to change things. I knew deep in my bones how close I came to severely injuring my family and a total stranger in the other car, and it petrified me. It was a horrible feeling, and I wouldn’t want anyone, not even my childhood nemesis Jim Best or that cow-from-Girl-Scouts Kim Speicher, to experience that. Hitler, maybe. But no one else.

So I sucked it up and kept my sanity loosely held together with whatever was immediately at hand. I maintained my calm and lucidity for a good 45 minutes. After that, Dim finally came to his senses and realized that his terrified, nine-month pregnant wife might need a little taking care of, and hugged me. I crumpled. I sobbed, really SOBBED, the kind of snot-inducing, chest heaving, tingly-in-the-arms sobs that they never show in movies because, hello? would Nicole Kidman agree to be filmed with snot flying everywhere? I babbled something about getting a job to pay off the car and Dim shushed me; not just because he wasn’t worried about paying for this BRAND NEW and ROYALLY FUCKED car, but also because the more I talked the more slimy and salty mess dribbled down the front of his shirt.

We walked back to Sophie’s house and tried to make the best of the evening. Once I was calmed down, and the adrenaline could go back to doing whatever it’s normally supposed to do, I could focus on making sure that the baby was still active. Dim was crouched next to me as I sat in a recliner, and it slowly dawned on me that I couldn’t feel the baby kick. All of the noise around me dulled and people moved slower than normal and my surroundings went all fuzzy. I told Dim that I wanted something sugary. Now. Seriously, RIGHT NOW. I have to give him credit: as much as he totally flunked being a supportive husband at the accident scene, he became Superman afterwards. He made a slice of Apple Pie materialize instantly, shooshed everyone around me so that I could focus, and didn’t take his eyes off of mine until I could tell that the baby was jumping up and down from the sugar high of apple pie. It was really scary, and he was right there with me.

Later he took me upstairs and lay down with me on Sophie’s bed so that I could rest and decompress. He stroked my hair and listened while I told him how horrible I felt and how I would take it all back if given the chance. He apologized for not reacting appropriately at the accident scene. We both had our hands on my belly, relieved that she was kicking up a storm, and relieved that everything turned out so well, considering.

I didn’t drive for about a month after the accident. I used the newborn Bean as an excuse, but the truth was that I was terrified. The insurance company offered to bring me a rental car, which I refused. Dim purchased another Pilot with the insurance settlement, the same color and interior as the crashed one, and it was more than a little creepy to ride around in it. The last time that I sat in the driver’s seat the front end looked like a metal pug dog, and I had to move a deflated air bag out of the way to stumble out.

Finally, about a month afterward, I decided that I was going to have to suck it up and get behind the wheel. I left Dim and the baby napping, and forced myself behind the wheel. I had to talk myself into easing the gearshift into reverse to back out of the garage. I had to breathe deeply and tell myself that it was okay, that I could do this. I drove a few blocks to Wal-Mart, I don’t remember what for. I just knew that was one place I could get to with mostly right turns.

I left Wal-Mart, and ended up back in the garage. I rested my head on the steering wheel to collect myself for a few minutes before going inside. And that was that. I did it. I was back on the horse.

So it’s been a year, and I’m not fully recovered. I’m physically recovered, of course, and the scar on my forearm has faded considerably. I still have flashbacks of the accident, and I still get teary about it from time to time, much to the perplexity of my husband. He doesn’t understand why I hold my breath and get jittery when he makes a left turn when there are oncoming cars less than a quarter mile away. But he wasn’t there when it happened. He won’t know what it’s like. Ever. I hope he never does.

What's going on

1) Easter: I didn’t attend all of the Holy Week Services. Folks, I love Jesus and all, but I can barely get my teeth brushed regularly these days. Dressing up in fancy clothes and the one pair of dress shoes that (sort of)fit me post-pregnancy AND chasing the Bean around the baptismal font does not amuse. We went Wednesday night, Saturday night (my favorite service of the whole year – even though some dipwad messed it up by turning the lights on too early), and Sunday afternoon. Bean was pretty good for all of them. Her godmother (my koumbara, as the Greeks say) loves to hold her for as much of the service as possible. The baby comes back to me full of smiles and smelling of perfume. She could do worse, believe me.

Sunday afternoon was the agape picnic at church, and we feasted on Greek food while the babies played on the grass in the sunshine. They could do worse, believe me. I have pictures but I’m saving them for her newsletter, which will be a double issue because I could not stop chasing her long enough to type one for 11 months.

2) Walking: The Bean was decided that being stationary is OUT and racing at top speed (for her, anyway) is the only way to travel. It’s balls out or go home, as far as she’s concerned.

3) Taxes: This is the latest that I’ve ever waited to get taxes done. I keep searching for the bills of sale for our two Pilots (McCrunchy and Pontius) to get the sales tax deduction. I can’t find them ANYWHERE, and it’s making me sweat.

4) Car accident anniversary: I’m coming up on the one year anniversary of my car accident. I’ve started thirty posts trying to write about it, but it’s still very raw and oozy and rub-salt-on-it painful.

5) Siege on Troy, take II: The Greeks are descending this weekend, from two different states. It will be fun, but hectic. As always. My house will become an Athenian flophouse what with all the guest accommodations (i.e. blow up mattresses) and general noise and mayhem, but it will be good.

6) Susan – please start blogging again. I miss it.

7) Lime Jello and cottage cheese make for interesting baby puke.

8) Gardening: I am starting a container garden in my backyard. Let’s see how long it takes me to kill it.

Milton Bradley vs Johnny Cat

The cleaning ladies are here today, and since it is Spring Break, they brought along their two kids. I set the kids up with access to our game closet and various outdoor play thingers. (Frisbees, badminton rackets, nerf balls, etc.) As they picked through their options, one of them noticed the cat door hidden near the front entry. The cat door leads into a little catbox enclosure in the garage (we dorkily call it Ruby's "Poopy House").

Kid 1: "Wow! Is this a cat door?"
Kid 2: "Yeah! A cat door to neverland!"

Second turd to the right and straight on 'till morning, kids.