My house is quiet
except for the indie-folk radio station coming out of the computer speakers. Coco
is asleep in the kitchen, Paula is off on her very first day of school, Joel is
back at work. I'm well, I've showered, and I have the house to myself.
This is the first day of my vacation.
I thought I would
spend most of this morning in the bathtub, but here I am fixing up the old blog
and finally posting after taking the summer off. Sorry I didn't let anyone know
that I was going on hiatus, except in retrospect - "Uh, oh yeah, I'm kind of
taking the summer off from my blog." I thought a break would be good for everyone.
The last ten weeks
or so turned my life around. I finally had a good summer, my first in at least five
years. Hell, it had been a while since I had a good month.
Last good summer
on record was 2001, when we lived in the little apartment on Parnell and I would
sit on our back porch after work, reading Harry Potter and smoking cigarettes. Yes,
I did love a good smoke back then. And where better to enjoy it than on the porch
in the warm afternoon air, book open and Sox Park in view over the neighbor's garages?
Come on, ex-smokers, you know what I'm talking about.
That was the summer
that I started working at World
Book, my best, most favorite, most beloved job ever. I was a science fact checker
in the research department, spending my days poring over books and web sites, calling
experts on the phone with questions like, "Would you agree that coral reef
skeletons include algae?" and "Is it fair to say that the majority of
primate young take a long time to mature?" That's where I learned that the
more general a statement is, the harder it is to verify.
My job at World Book
was something that I left with a light step at the end of the day. When I wasn't
headed for a good book and a smoke, Joel and I sometimes took in a Sox game, taking
advantage of the long-gone, desperate-for-butts-in-seats prices and short walk to
the park. We enjoyed weekend barbecues with friends and family, and eating vegetarian
meals with our friends Japa and Harpal. It was a stress-free summer.
Since then summers
have been taken up with grad school, pregnancy, real estate searches, a sleepless,
shrieking high-need baby, post-partum depression, and weaning a toddler I couldn't
communicate with. I get tired just thinking over those summers.
But this one has
put the gas back in my tank.
The Parent-Infant
Institute at Illinois
School for the Deaf kicked things off. It was like spending five days on a kibbutz
for deaf people and their families. Bonding with other parents, making friends with
the staff of the school, learning so much about how to be Paula's mom - it gave
me a new sense of normalcy about raising my kid. I really needed that.
Joel was also HERE
a lot this summer since he is no longer in a band so had no travel commitments to
stress me out. Ironically, I felt like I just got the hang of making the best of
the times he was gone, then he quit the band. That's okay, though. I'm happy to
move on and learn other things about life, like how to escape being tickled when
Joel gets fed up with my extremely clever and funny commentary.
A big part of what
made this summer so much fun was hanging out with my friend Amy,
wife of my friend Jody. In mid-July Joel had St. Rita band pre-camp and then band
camp, both of which took him out of the house from 8:30 (to his new day job teaching
music to middle-schoolers) until 10 or 11 at night every day for two weeks.
So every day after
Paula had her nap, we headed over to Jody and Amy's house for an afternoon and evening
of eating massive salads and bowls of ice cream, watching Farscape
and Dr. Who,
and diffusing conflicts between my deaf kid and her autistic kid, who regularly
stood screaming and pointing at each other, "No! No! Bad! Bad!" Ah, feel
the love. Actually, Ben, the autistic kid, is a real sweetie who gave Paula a kiss
on the elbow the other day. Paula now regularly gives me a kiss on my elbow and
then makes Ben's name sign.
And Paula and I have
enjoyed each other a lot, too. In spite of an ear infection that made her right
ear ooze a green and pestilent sludge, and the daily drops of vinegar and water
that she hated, we bonded. We played with her teddy bears and play-dough. We baked
cookies, we snuggled. She challenges my skills as a parent, as every two-year-old
is bound to do, but overall it's been a great time with her before she started school.
And in the category
of pointlessness and play, I discovered a major time waster, and did waste a ton
of time on it: YouTube! Not
only did I post a bunch of mind-witheringly cute videos of Paula (see Paula
dancing to "Song for My Father," and Paula
in the park, to start), but I also found some truly hilarious clips from comedian
Keith Wann. I'll leave you
with this gem.
I hope you had a great summer, too.
Posted at:Fri, Sep 01 2006 08:56:59 AM
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