Safety in Numbers.

My friend Rachelle has a son, Julian, who is one week older than Lila, and she has posted a story on her blog that rivals Cousins Get Dressed and Go To School. Behold, Story Named Ken.

The Dullest Story Ever Told. And told. And told.

We are in a little phase with Lila at the moment where, on average of 15 to 20 times a day, Lila will say, "Tell cousin story!" This began a few weeks back, when I was driving her home from Target, and to amuse her, I told her the story of the time Josh and I met her cousins at the zoo in Central Park, back before she was born. It's no great story, I can promise you that, but something about it struck a chord, and it is still requested often and has spawned a spate of cousin-related anecdotes.




Concurrently, Lila's otherwise easygoing toddler nature has taken a churlish turn whenever it's time to get dressed. What was formerly an ecstatic love for all tights, skirts, dresses and party shoes, has become a bitter battle and outright refusal to wear any of the previously mentioned clothes, as well as no blue jeans, turtlenecks and sweaters. Basically she has one pair of purple fleece Lands' End pants, and if she can't wear those, she pitches a fit. So Josh, in an effort to outsmart her, started telling new stories, revolving around cousins who get dressed agreeably, in clothes our daughter refuses to wear. And it worked, for awhile. Lila would hear the story of Julia in the turtleneck, or Rachel in the blue jeans, and acquiesce to wearing the same items. So pleased were we that we used these narratives to force any issue confronting us at the time - the story of cousins who clean up, the story of cousins who eat their corn, the story of cousins who wear scarves, etc.




And so now, one particular storyline has become a favorite and is requested all day long to my daily devolving sanity, The Story of Cousins Getting Dressed and Going to School. This little chestnut involves Aunt Stephanie waking up the girls and asking each of them what they would like to wear that day. At which point, Lila gets to shout out the elements, and they are inserted into the story. I.e., Julia in a turtleneck and jeans, Abby in a party dress with tights, Rachel in pants and a t-shirt, Lilly in a skirt, tights and sweater.




Then one day recently, Lila announced that Abby wanted to wear a frog costume to school. Oh, madness! Now, each new version of the story has all the girls in costume, with frantic Aunt Stephanie (projecting in my own mind here - Aunt Stephanie has never shown any signs of panic) running to the basement to concoct, on a moment's notice, more and more elaborate costumes for the girls to wear to school. Among yesterday's requests for costumes: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; a strawberry; a copy of the book, "Goodnight Gorilla"; Dorothy's dog Toto from The Wizard of Oz; an animal cracker; a fork; and Lila's beloved blanket, Big Nighty Night.




And the drama doesn't end there. Once the girls have been fictionally dressed in their baroquely high concept outfits, they then have to board a school bus and go to school. This is the ruse whereby Rachel refuses to get on the school bus (a bona fide resolved fear), and all the sisters try unsuccessfully to cajole and coax her on, until Lila, the heroine, appears (Whenever this happens, Lila, oddly, always interjects, "And I'm naked, Momma!") and successfully convinces Rachel to get on the bus and go to school, where many new lessons are learned and new games are played.




The end. Until the next request for the exact same story…10 seconds later.




Please somebody, make it stop. I want to get off.

Duct Tape Baby

This is one of those photos that has been floating around the internet for years, but today it really made me laugh. As well as make think, "Why didn't I think of that?"

News from China

(The Great Wall)

Catherine and Thom have been in China since Thursday night, and Thom is doing an incredible job of setting the scene on their blog, Three Will Come Home. On the one hand, it must be a real thrill to see China for the first time, but on the other hand, it must occur to them a thousand times a day, "Yes, the Great Wall, we know, a great feat of human history, drama, culture, war, blah, blah, blah...what about our daughter?



(Bakery in Beijing)

The good news is that wait is only 18 hours longer...they pick up LiLi in Nanchang on Monday afternoon. They will be home on February 12th. Stay tuned to their blog for more pictures!

Pop Pop takes the stage.

Recently I discovered that Pop Pop stole the show as an audience participant in a Boston production of "Peter and the Wolf". Frankly, it confirmed my suspicions that mild-mannered Pop Pop has a tiny corner in his soul with thespian yearnings, and I, for one, was not surprised. The man is a ham – we all know it. Now Boston knows it too.




The program was created by composer and conductor Robert Kalikow, and it incorporates dancers (all members of Pilobolus Dance Company) to help illustrate the beloved Prokofiev musical composition.




Pop Pop and Nana Linda were there with Lila’s four cousins, and when they asked from the stage for any grandfathers in the audience, the girls all said, “Go, Pop Pop! Go!” Combined with another audience grandfather, they combined to make Peter’s grandfather, and followed the instructions of the dancers on stage.




Note Pop Pop is the so-called “front of the horse”. They wouldn’t waste his talent on the back end. Ham indeed.

French Fry Fiasco

(Christmas dinner outfit)


Lila has finally isolated some favorite foods that are requested at every meal opportunity. They are, in order:

1. Waffles
2. French fries
3. Cheerios
4. Pizza
5. Birthday cake

The girl eats the breakfast of a long shoreman, anchored by the two breakfast items on her list. This morning alone she ate a waffle with maple syrup, some toast with jam, 1/2 of my egg, milk, and 5 (small) bowls of cereal. Usually it goes downhill from there. Lunch is picked over, and dinner is barely considered. The one thing she looks forward to above all is dessert, or as she calls it, "bessert" (formerly, sadly lost, was the original malapropism, "beserk"). I used to be able to trick her into believing that dessert was merely a 2nd course, and could serve her up a green bean as easily as a cup of applesauce, but now, thanks to her social calendar and the influx of friends, she has come to realize dessert's place in the meal as a treat.

In the meantime, I have struggled to make adult food for us all to eat that appeal to her as well. So the other night I tried to make her some french fries, by slicing raw potatoes into potato chip style rounds, and roasting them with sea salt and olive oil. I thought they were tasty. But the days of fooling Lila are behind me. As she held the "fry" between two fingers at arm's length, she said with the withering moral authority of Atticus Finch in closing argument, "Mommy, this is not a french fry. This is a potato."

I have since bought the frozen kind. She gobbles them up without complaint.

Blog Roll Addition

(The 5th Ward, 2006)

My good friend Cynthia has started a new blog, Culture Gulf, that highlights the rebuilding of the arts and culture community in New Orleans, where she has been a resident for the past six years. Having heard her first-hand harrowing accounts of Hurricane Katrina almost 18 months ago, it's amazing to hear how challenging, violent and unstable life still is in the city on a daily basis. Cynthia's skill at combining sharp analysis and bottomless compassion make her one of the most interesting writers I know.

Look for a link on the right column and check it out!

Pop Culture Roulette

After sitting idly by and watching the inevitable storming of Lila’s imagination by mass-marketed, trademarked characters (some of whom I adore, but I fear their inevitable omnipotence, nonetheless), I decided to make a strategic intervention last week and introduce some less toddler-focus-group-saturated narratives into Lila’s world.




Lila gets an hour of TV a day before dinner (I tried the more noble time frame of half an hour, but realized I really needed the full hour to get dinner ready) and as most readers know, Elmo and Bear (as in “Bear Blue Big House”) take up the lion’s share of Lila’s TV passion.

My friend Nancy recently told me about some other shows that she finds tolerable, even amusing, including “Curious George,” “Charlie and Lola,” and “Baby Einstein.” I TiVo’d them all, but before I could make myself pre-screen them for content, I decided to revive a previously failed experiment. I rented “Meet Me in St. Louis,” Vincent Minnelli’s ebullient 1944 musical starring Judy Garland. Set in 1903, it tells the story of the Smiths, a moderately well-to-do but humble family, as they prepare for the exciting arrival of the World’s Fair to St. Louis.




As clamors for “Bear Blue Big House” rattled our windows, I popped “Meet Me in St. Louis” into the DVD player and immediately cued it up to a party scene where the elder Smith sisters, Esther (Garland) and Rose (Lucille Bremer), host a party in their home. One dance scene is a little soft-shoe number performed by Esther and her littlest sister Tootie (Margaret O’Brien), and the other is the entire party dancing to “Skip to My Lou”, a song Lila knows from one of her revered Elmo CD’s.




Well, believe or not, it worked. The next night, Lila asked for “Esther and the pretty dresses” instead of “Bear Blue Big House”. She watched more of the music scenes and then we talked about it at dinner. But the DVD had to go back to the video store that night. The next night I pulled out my own copy of “Sound of Music” and cued it up to the scene where Maria (Julie Andrews) meets the Von Trapp children for the first time (and the mischievous Kurt plants a frog in her pocket), then for the musical numbers “My Favorite Things” and “Do-Re-Mi”. Once again, hooked.




The horizon is brightening. Now if I could just convince her that the Beatles would be as much fun to listen to in the car as Elmo.

I’m taking suggestions for other musicals that she might enjoy, so send any thoughts my way. Particularly favored themes involve children, dancing and animals.

Jim Henson, you clever bastard, you.

(Bear and Friends)

Lila has a new obsession, and it's another happy, singing Jim Henson production named "Bear and the Big Blue House". Thanks to the collective referred to as "cousins" (i.e. "Where cousins at?" and "Tell story about cousins at the zoo, mommy!"), we have been gifted with two lovingly used DVD's, each with three episodes of the show, that I believe aired in the mid- to late-nineties on the Disney Channel. Like Sesame Street, it has perfect pitch for what toddlers like: brief storylines, funny voices, furriness, singing, and characters that talk directly to the camera.



(Tutter the mouse)

Lila was a little under the weather this week with a stomach bug, so she got to watch more than the usual daily quota of TV before dinnertime. Consequently, in recent days since, every other request she makes is "Bear Blue Big House?" As I have showed merciless resolve, she has resorted to somewhat sneaky tactics. Examples:

Lila: Mommy, can I touch your nose?
Mommy: Yes.
L: Mommy, can I touch your chin?
M: Yes.
L: Mommy, can I touch your cheek?
M: Yes.
L: Mommy, can I watch Bear Blue Big House?
M: Ye-- Hey, wait a minute! No!

Also:
Mommy: When we get home we can read a book before naptime. Do you know what book you'd like to read?
Lila: Read Bear Blue Big House?
M: Well, that's not a book, that's a TV show.
L: (batting eyelashes) How about watch Bear Blue Big House?
M: No.

Also:
After Lila trips and falls, she cries. Mommy goes to pick her up. After a few minutes, with tears still wet on her cheeks, she looks up sadly and says:
Lila: Mommy?
Mommy: Yes?
L: Watch Bear Blue Big House?
M: No.

Poor Elmo. He got dropped like a sack of hot rocks.

Museum trip.

Before the holiday, I took Lila for her first visit to the Natural History Museum, where Aunt Claude has given us the great gift of a family membership. We met up with Lila's friends Arlo and Sarah, and they all got to run around like ninnies in the cavernous exhibit rooms. It made quite an impression on Lila.

For those who haven't been, the museum showcases many of the animals of the world stuffed in lifelike dioramas. They line large rooms that are dimly lit and Lila just went from one to the next exclaiming, "Ooh! Lookit dat! Mommy, what dat?"




Not the greatest pictures, but we'll definitely be going back for more.




And Arlo (seen here in repose on the museum floor) lives across the street!

Happy New Year!

We're ringing in the new year on the couch, thanks to my terrible cold and cough, which is hopefully peaking today. We canceled our early fondue dinner, and now Lila is asleep, Josh is reading a story that is scaring the pants off him ("The Ruins" by Scott Smith), and I'm watching Norman Jewison's "Jesus Christ Superstar" on the Sundance Channel.

And so, with no other audience than you, reader, I submit my 2006 favorites:

Best Book: "Everyman" by Phillip Roth. (Honorable mentions: "The Brambles" by Eliza Minot, "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel)

Best Movie: "Prairie Home Companion" (a flawed choice, I know, but a sentimental one with the recent passing of Robert Altman. Not much of a story, but warm, deeply felt performances, and great songs. A more technical choice: "The Queen" which was remarkably executed.)

Worst Movie: "Freedomland"

Best TV Drama: "The Wire" on HBO

Best TV sitcom: "30 Rock" on NBC

Worst TV Show: "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" on NBC

Best Album: (tie) Jenni Lewis "Rabbit Fur Coat" and Cat Power "The Greatest"

Best Single: Tift Merritt "Good Hearted Man"

Best Children's Album: Randy Kaplan "5 Cent Piece"

Best Children's Book: "And Here's To You" by David Elliott and Randy Cecil

Best Pop Culture Moment: Keith Richards falling out of a coconut tree.

Runner Up Best Pop Culture Moment: Keith Richards denying that he fell out of a coconut tree.


Happy New Year to everyone. May this be a year that marks a turn toward more peaceful times in the world.