The 112 in 2012 Update

I've been quite lax in my updating of my list of 112 things to do in 2012. Which is a shame since the only thing I love more than creating lists is crossing things off lists. So, without further ado: 

#16 Get an eye exam. Three years overdue and finally done. Each time I went during law school my eyesight dropped dramatically so I pulled an ostrich and stuck my head in the sand until my contacts dwindled to two. Luckily? Vision remained exactly as it was. Phew and #17 Ordering contacts? Done too.

#18 Get a physical. Three years and counting, I felt quite lazy to get this done, but it doesn't hurt that the doctor's office is literally across the street from my house. I figured, if not now, when? So it's done. And the doctor is nice and its sort of awesome to have a doctor within coughing distance.

#75 Get a cleaning. Boring, dull, but done.

#19 Find a reliable babysitter. While Waleed is very easy going when out and about beyond his bedtime of 7:30pm, the issue is that whether he sleeps at 7:00pm or 11:00pm he will still wake up at 7:02 on the dot each morning. And it is then in that early morning hour that the ramifications of a late night out become clear with a very cranky child and a very tired mom for the duration of that day. As most of our friends don't have kids yet and so meetups are right after he should be safely asleep, I finally did a request for babysitters on my parent listserv to see if we could leave the little one behind asleep when we went. We found a teenager a mile down the road with reasonable rates and who made us feel comfortable as her mother was very on top of things and we were going to a gathering very close to our house.

#20 Use said reliable babysitter. My parents never hired a babysitter and admittedly I felt slightly guilty going out for an evening with friends while my child slept in his crib none the wiser. Still, going out, relaxing and not chasing a child amazed at the glasses perched on glass tables and actually engaging in a conversation with my entire attention? Totally worth it. Totally doing it again.

#32 Find a new local restaurant. There's a lot to love about the local eats here but I do miss some of my old haunts. We've tried five different sushi spots but long for the sushi of our former suburb. We've tried a local chicken place which just made us miss hokey-pokey Zaxby's so much more.  Last weekend we headed to Capozzis, a raved upon Italian eatery and while okay enough, made us miss the goodness that is Macaroni Grill. While I love the unique original spots in-town I must admit ever so softly that my name is Aisha, and I love chain restaurants.

#33 Find a local park. Um, considering there are perhaps more parks than parking spots here I've had a very easy time finding new parks though sad to say, nothing beats the toy park that is the center of our universe. It truly is divine, perhaps the divinest thing that ever really was.

#65 Remove facebook app from my smart phone. I've written before about my struggles with being far too digitally connected. Social media has wonderful benefits like the exchanging of information and great articles but it can also take keeping up with the Jonses to an international level where everyone is attempting a veneer of perfection to share with the world. More than this, I just felt myself checking in way more than I needed to so I finally removed my Twitter and Facebook Apps from my phone. Best. Decision. Ever. You don't realize just how much you check in staring blankly at your screen until its gone. Now, my check ins are down to once a day, and sometimes, not at all. The thing about social media is the more you use it the more you "need" it, and the less you use it, the less you really ever see a use for it.

#70 Bake cookies from scratch from someone. I've always been intimidated by baking as I'm an andaza se type of girl but I finally decided to take the plunge and try cookies from scratch and which cookie recipe to try than The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. They were awesome and yummy and I packed a dozen for our real estate agent who said he loved them too [though truly, what would you say if someone baked you cookies? They sucked?] One thing's for sure now that I've baked cookies from scratch for someone I've discovered the special joy in the act of it all being your own work and I will definitely be doing this more. Bonus? It helped Waleed learn a new word: Cuckoo [translation: cookie].

#95 Buy an Adele CD. Not sure what made me put this on my list but done, and from a local spot too!

#100 Try matchmaking again, even if once. Well, it's done. Don't know where it will go. But, the key? Not to take it personally either way. What will be will be!

Other goals: My fifty book goal is plugging on, eight books down and 42 more to go [any recent and I'm learning quite a few new and interesting recipes, would y'all be interested in me sharing them like I've done once in the past? Debating it as its a bit of work to take the pictures and write it up, but if there's interest I might do it.

On Target, stalkers, and pink sticky mats

While I love the local independents around me and have spent more money than is wise or decent on locally sold books, CDs, and lotions, I do still love me my Target. Target is my happy place where Colorado or California the people wear red, the lights hang fluorescent, and apparently, Big Brother is always watching. Creepy. So very creepy. Almost creepy enough to make me nix my planned excursion with the wee one. Except we're out of wipes. And windex. And, as far as I know there are no locally owned wipes and windex retailers that I've come across. So, off we went feeling snooped every second of the way. E tu Target?

[L]inked to your Guest ID is . . . your age, whether you are married and have kids, which part of town you live in, how long it takes you to drive to the store, your estimated salary, whether you’ve moved recently, what credit cards you carry in your wallet and what Web sites you visit. Target can buy data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you’ve ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, the year you bought (or lost) your house, where you went to college, what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of coffee, paper towels, cereal or applesauce, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own

So freaky. So invasive. And yet, I went. The alternate options are slim.

I asked a friendly Target associate for help in locating disposable sticky mats for the kiddo, which if you haven't tried them, are a complete life savor! We typically take his booster seat if eating out since he stays corralled in it easier than than the standard restaurant wooden high chairs, but for when we make an impromptu stop, sticky mats can't be beat. Here they are, she said as we approached a sea of pink princesses:

 

Oh no, she exclaimed, as she rifled through them. It's okay, I told her, reaching for one to plop in my cart. No, she shook her head as she got on her walkie talkie we'll get you the right ones. Ten minutes later she triumphantly handed me a blue one with grinning cars and while I truly appreciate her efforts I felt a bit confused; pink princess or blue cars, they served the same function so was it really that big of a deal? Or have they snooped me long enough to know Waleed is an ultra boyish boy and I'm a gender-line-toting momma? [kidding. i hope]

Waleed has a pink stroller, a flower laden sippy cup, and a lavender tea set. I'm not a must have trucks baseballs lions type of mom but it made me think, were I to find some deeply discounted pink fairy PJs would I get them or opt for higher priced dinosaur ones instead when a) both would be used for sleeping b) I'm a sucker for sweet deals and c) Waleed couldn't care less? I'm pretty sure if presented with that either or choice I'd go with the boyish dino PJs though I don't have a logical reason why since like sticky mats the color has no bearing on the functionality and its not like I'm taking him to a wedding in a lacy tutu with a bedazzled bow. I don't think it matters and yet I don't think I'd trekk home with fairy sleepers either.

Of course, we already have all the PJs we need so we did our shopping and returned home with plaid baby tops befitting a lumberjack, blue car sticky mats and a strange unseasonal song stuck in my head: he knows when you are sleeping he knows when you're awake he knows when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake! Hm, wonder why.

What would you do if confronted with a sea of pink sticky mats for your little boy blue or vice versa? Would gender identified designs deter you from getting them for your little one even if they were sleepers or undershirts and the like? And are there other equally cool alternatives to Target in which the bullseye is not directly on you?

Motherhood, mint icecream, and sea monsters

The day I saw my son's heartbeat I wept joyful tears at the pulsing flicker on the screen. The curl of his hair, the smiles that light the universe, his first steps, hugs, and kisses, and all the ordinary ways of boys make me puff out like a strutting peacock. It is the way of mothers.

I used to photographically chronicle nearly every breath Waleed took [no really, come by sometime, my iPhotos are like a claymation project of his first year of life] but lately I'm lagging so when Waleed climbed into my lap yesterday I seized the opportunity to snap a picture and sent it to my parents who've missed the regular barrage of pictures that once were.  Ten minutes later I got a call.

Ami: We got the photo! We put it as our desktop wallpaper!
Me: I'm glad you liked it!
Ami: I love it, what a great photo of both of you!!!
Me: Well, my baby looks adorable but I'm a notch below sea monster here.
Ami: Hey!!
Me: What?
Ami: Don't talk about my baby like that!

My love for my mother is deeper than oceans but I didn't know until I had a child that the love a child has for their parent is a different flavor than the love a parent has for their child. It's like only knowing brownie fudge ice cream all your life and then discovering the glory that is mint chocolate chip. Motherhood introduced me to flavors I didn't know existed; amazing but astonishingly different tastes to the senses.

I still call my almost two-year-old my baby so I can only smile at my mother's deadpan admonishment that I not in any way berate hers. It's hard to imagine that one day my little one might have little ones but when that day comes I'm pretty sure, like my own mother, I'll see the man he grew to be, but also the baby whose toes I tickled, and whose aching tummy I massaged. He will always be my baby, a source of more joy and love than I previously thought the world could possibly contain.

On art, developmental goals, and the utter lack of slides

Taking advantage of a groupon, I signed Waleed up for a one month Gymboree pass. While okay enough, I don't know if its $74/month okay enough. Still, today was our last session so I signed up for 'art' instead of 'play' to see how it went. I felt nervous on my way there because they've been really pushing me to renew and I have a very hard time saying no, especially when very nice people get very insistent.

Waleed made a mad dash for the play area and stared at me utterly perplexed as I led him to the art room. As the session went on that look never really left his face:

 

After about twenty minutes of polite befuddlement at sticky marshmellow [you expect me to touch that?] and finger paints [which he wiped off. On me.] he bolted out of the room. Each time I brought him back he stared at me with a look of betrayal surely wanting to say what he lacked the linguistic capability of shouting: what is wrong with you? There are slides out there. DON'T YOU SEE THE SLIDES? At the umpteenth time of rerouting my runaway child one of the workers approached me.

Bobbi: It's okay you know. They don't always like art class at first.
Me: Yeah, he just really loves the playing part.
Bobbi: It's not his fault. He's not a bad child for it. It's normal.
Me: Oh I know, he's just super active.
Bobbi: Exactly. It doesn't mean he's delayed. Or there's something wrong with him. Or that this is a warning sign for something else. Or that he's not meeting developmental milestones. Don't get too worried. It'll be okay.

As I dragged him home that afternoon  hollering his utter disbelief at having been so close to slides he could not slide, two thoughts came to mind: a) I never really thought a dislike for art meant anything other than a dislike for art but thank you very much for that to ponder and b) making an exit with an outspoken toddler amidst a crowd of finger-painted little ones makes the conversation about care to renew please please please a whole lot easier to avoid.

[As an aside, it disturbed me how some construed this post. The intent is to share a 'day in the life of' and a reflection on well meaning people who often say things that are just well, befuddling, a thing I do quite often. For the record, I'm not worried his lack of interest in art is anything other than a lack of interest in art though I reserve the right to write about things I am concerned about if I choose to]

It's all about perspective

Friend: How's the house-hunt going?
Me: It's tough, we're deciding between old houses and new ones.
Friend: Don't do old! Old houses are rough.
Me: Are they? Some say they're more sturdy, others say they have more issues.
Friend: No trust me, old houses are a hassle. We live in an old house and its not easy.
Me: Oh yeah? When was your house built? We're torn about a cute 1920's bungalow we saw.
Friend: 2006
Me: You mean, the house was renovated in 2006? How'd you deal with lead paint issues? Asbestos?
Friend: No, I mean, they started building the subdivision in 2006.

The spring chicken houses we're looking are 90's build. Anything earlier and we're staring down dirt basements and renovated attic master suites you must be comfortably under 5 feet tall to tromp about in Age, as it turns out, is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

They really do grow up too fast

Is it just me or. . .

. . . or is my little guy trying to skip town on me?

And while I fully expected debates over borrowing the credit cards and keys at some point in the parenting journey, I admit I was not expecting to have these conversations quite so soon. . .

This here life

Sitting across from each other, him watching television, me on the laptop.

Me: Why can't you be romantic like Sami?
K: As romantic as who?
Me: He's just so genuine. Sure he's not perfect, but he's got the biggest heart. He wears it on his sleeve.
K: pauses TV. Who the heck is Sami?!
Me: You know him K, Sami.
K: The book you're writing? He's in the book?
Me: Yeah.
K: basketball resumes. Oh him. Right. I'll try.

And I guarantee you Sami in this particular situation? Would have promptly raced out and bought a dozen roses. And chocolates. And possibly a pink stuffed bear. The joys of marrying a writer who constantly creates characters you as their spouse are then expected to live up to.  

Happy Twenty-One Month Birthday

Dear Waleed,

Today you turned twenty-one months old and these past two months have been busy. You climb out of cribs, eat tangerines like an addict, search in rooms and on tabloid covers for nani and mamu [like Russell Brandt, which, really? Which Mamu is he?] and generally melt my heart in a million different ways like when you look at me wide-eyed asking for baby ziraffa to accompany you on outings including grocery store visits, a very new thing, and also, very cute. Also cute? How you take my receipt post-purchase and examine it for a good five minutes for what I presume are discrepancies.

Save one week, you spent your twentieth month in Florida with your nani, nana, mamus, mami and khala dancing, stomping and playing the piano to your heart's delight. It began a bit stressful with you hysterical if I left your sight for even a second. Like, panic-attack freak-out melt-downs if I so much as stood up from the table. I had imagined sleeping in every morning at my mom's house with her taking you to play but you refused saying for the first time the word nahin with an emphatic head shake. Luckily things quickly changed once you melted into their love and then it became mama? mama who? Which, was, very okay.  

They love you so much they'd do anything for you. For example, you love swings, you think they're the best thing since milk, so they decided you needed one of your very own, except all the stores were sold out. So nana made you one. Out of a crate. And while it perplexed you, you swang in it, swang your stuffed animals it, and then, when swings came back in stock, your nana brought you one, and you swang gleefully in that too while we all sat in the porch drinking tea around you.

This was also the month of house-hunting. Every weekend rain or shine we house-hunt. Recently, I've noticed when we go for our daily stick collecting excursion walk you race up to choice houses along the way trying to let yourself in. Which, for the longest time perplexed me until I realized you think its the natural way of things to walk up to homes, open them and poke around inside. Seeing you race through vacant houses makes me wistful. While house-hunting is in some ways interesting, it involves a lot of other emotions too, but for you, its just one thing, its fun. All this to say that if you grow up to become a  successful real estate mogul, this is probably why. I just wonder if baby ziraffa will come with the home showing shtick then too.

If I had to say one thing to sum up these two months its that its so much fun to be your mother. I hope you know this love, it's your birthright. There's a lot of places in life you'll have to earn your respect, you'll have to prove you belong, but when it comes to me, I am your given.

 Love,

Your Mama

On waiting your life away

The Frailest Thing recently wrote about the passing of a 3,000 year old tree miles from my parent's house. While I was saddened at this loss of a tree I never got to see, I was struck by what he wrote:

America is not a land of ruins that might engrave in our imagination a feeling for the depth of history. There is very little by which we might take the measure of our lives, and less still that might suggest to us the ephemeral nature of the days with which we have been gifted  and to discourage us from adopting the pretensions of presumed timelessness.

Living in the land of strip malls, and brand new construction popping up faster than we can sneeze can give us a sense that this here is all there is, ever was, and will ever be. It's easy in such an environment to not be mindful, and to spend our whole lives waiting as if we have all the time in the world.

To be fair, we're raised waiting. From preschool through college, we are in a state of perpetual motion not from our own selves as much as from the way the stream is flowing on our birch-like selves. From the single digits until our twenties [and often beyond] we are in a state of waiting for the next grade level, college acceptance, graduation, and then we step off the automatic forces that propel us forward to fill our days with jobs, children, and social engagements. So often we hate our jobs, or the state of our relationships or those we socialize with for the sake of weekends to fill, for things to wait for, and I can only assume we do these things and go along despite our voiced disgust because we think we're treading water waiting for the next current to take us along to something bigger and better except now? The law of physics become your responsibility and an object in motion stays in motion and objects at rest, stays, well at rest. And while with children you can feel constantly in motion, its an illusion, it's they who are moving, you are bearing witness from their shore.

I see family members not on speaking terms for petty grievances, people unhappy at where they live, or who they socialize with and the truth is we're all waiting for that aha moment when things will magically improve, except, these are futile motions. Nothing will change unless we change it lest we wake up two decades hence in the same place we are now; and how sad to wait your life away.

I can't expect relationships to bloom in gravel, for empty careers to fulfill my soul, and for change to any dissatisfaction I may have to magically self-resolve. Looking at that tree puts my own life in sharp relief, and I realize I'm going to blink in the span that tree grew a branch, and it's over. This is one of the guiding principles of my life, it's the reason I took a leap to leave work to raise my son and work on my writing, it's the reason my social calendar is slimmer than many. It's because this here is all there is and all that matters and its a shame to wait for joy or resolution or meaning where you can't find it instead of seizing it for myself, or trying to, anyways. The tree is a reminder to be present. It's a reminder that life is incredibly short, shorter than I can fathom. And while it's a blessing to be alive its a goddamn miracle to be living- so few of us really are.

There's a lot of things that can kill a man. There's a lot of ways to die. Yet some are already dead and walk beside me- Ray Lamontagne

Intown. Suburb. And the dilemma of heart and mind.

Our house hunt continues in full force and though we've narrowed our lengthy housing options to two, it's not making the decision any easier since the two we heart are diametrically opposed to each other.

I love where I currently live. I love our local park and the faces now becoming familiar. I love Waleed playing with other kids, regulars like him, and I love the front porches of the charming bungalows lining the streets. I love the school system, the walkability and I want to live in this area more than anything in the world--- but:

The homes are old and small [at least in our price point, we wandered into an open house for a Tudor and had to pretend to nod straight-faced as the agent informed us the 2,200 sq ft home was approximately 900K. That's all? Hm, if it wasn't for the kitchen I'd make an offer today. Hideous darling. Get me my mink we're out of here] they also have no garages and our parents would probably pass out before they crossed the threshold.

For these reasons we expanded our search to another area, equally close to K's job, but more suburban in feel. Definitely close to highways, good schools, [and while some intown folks scoff at chains, I do admit I love me some Macaroni Grill] and most definitely we could get double the house for the exact same price--- but:

When we go to the in-town showings, neighbors stop and say hello. They coo over Waleed and tell us we'll love the neighborhood [which, is so amazing in the South. To be brown. And wanted] We see children riding trikes while mothers plant petunias and well, our eyes gloss over and the world looks rose colored and we just would rather not live anywhere in the whole world.

I like both areas. But I like them for completely different reasons. One appeals to my heart. The other to my practicality. I want Waleed to grow up amongst wonderful neighbors and culture. I also would love a spacious bathroom an open floor plan instead of a series of boxed rooms and a two car garage. But I can't have both.

Some scoff at the 'suburban' concerns saying community is earned not inherited which is probably true to a point but I've lived in suburbia [albeit that one was a true 'burb not remotely near the city] and I know sometimes you just can't make community happen. But multiple children in a 3/2 bungalow will get incredibly tight.

It's so hard to decide between community or house. I worry I'm making too much out of community since one does live in their house. Or making too much out of house since good community has intangible benefits. Our agent jokes he's providing us the buffet of options but we have to pick which dish to eat. Except unlike a meal, home buying is a semi-permanent decision involving a lot more cash than tacos and the two choices are so vastly different, K and I just sit there wondering which way to step, afraid if we pick one we'll regret the other, and if we pick the other we'll regret the former. And regret leaves a bitter aftertaste. My heart screams intown. My brain gives a stern no. And since these two halves make my whole, I'm a very confused individual indeed.

What would you do?