Desperate Powerlessness

The love I have felt as a parent is one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.  The despair I have felt from losing a dear friend is one of the most crushing.  I cannot begin to imagine what happens when the two combine.

Two friends lost their baby recently.  This was not a surprise.  They knew before he was born that their time with him would be brief.  Thinking about it has been barely bearable for me.  In part, it is because...well obviously, it is just a truly horrible thing for a little baby to die.  But also, for me, it is hard to bear because my friend Camile would have loved and then mourned this particular baby.  She would have been crushed to hear of his brief life and the deep sadness his grieving mothers felt.  She would have offered them food and flowers and presents and support.  She would have taken some of the burden of their grief and carried it for them.  I can’t stand being reminded that the world is a bleaker, less comforting place for the lack of Camile.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about group grief.  It is a sad, beautiful, complicated organism.  I remember there was an Onion headline soon after 9/11 that said something like “Housewife Doesn’t Know What to Do about Terrorist Attacks So She Bakes a Flag Cake” or something like that.  It was funny.  It was lightheartedly mocking.  But, it was also a completely accurate description of the way I felt.  When horrible things happen to people you care about, you want desperately to undo them or at the very least alleviate them.  But what can you really do?  You do not have the power to reverse time and stop the planes from crashing or make cancer go away or save a baby.  All you can really do is make a flag cake or cook food or order flowers or buy someone the dvds of seasons 1-5 of a fun show.  You do these things with heroic fervor, and so does everyone else around you.  But even as you do them, you realize they are hollow endeavors.  They are like single drops of water in a desert of sorrow.  There are not enough of us to make it better.  We are—even collectively—ineffective.  I felt it all over again with this baby. 

Rest in peace, little Ellis.  There are people who will always love you, and there are people who will always take care of them.

Make a Wish

Camping Adventure

It was a while back, but Tillie and I went camping with friends.  Here is her take on camping:

Also, we made ice cream using SCIENCE!  Even though science is awesome, it was still a lot of hard work.  Tillie took the first watch, shaking the mix in a tupperware bath of salted ice for 5 minutes.  Then she got bored, so I took the subsequent 30 minutes until we had soft serve.  Pretty tasty!

Here is Tillie shakin' it (the ice cream, that is):

And, showing off her booty shaking:

Also, there was canoeing and rock throwing:

Lost in Translations

Tillie loves taking ballet with her friend Hazel. Here is what the two were like before and after the teacher chastised the goofball out of them and made them into elegant ballerinas:


Okay, just kidding--they are still both goofballs. And, the teacher is very sweet. Poor Tillie had a little bit of heartbreak after taking this wonderful class because she wanted to attend ballet every single day. There was some further tearful confusion when she thought I had said that we were going to "ballet class" but I had really said we were going to "clase de baile" (meaning her latin dance class). She pronounces "ballet" in the spanish style, which added to my confusion. We have it sorted out now, thankfully.

Latin Dance

Tillie has been taking a Latin dance class.  The first session covered traditional Brazilian dances and hip hop.  It turns out that you probably get a lot more out of Latin dance class when you know your left from your right.  And, it is also useful to know that there is such a thing as another country (besides Texas).  However, it was not a total waste of time.  Tillie liked to jump around with other kids and get a snack at the end.  I liked to watch her learn Portuguese words, make a b-girl pose, and dance capoeira.  (Capoeira is the traditional Brazilian martial arts dancing.  It is very cool!)  There was also some very cool drumming and a carnival/mardi-gras-style king's parade on the last day of class.  Tillie was told she should wear a costume, such as a king or a queen costume.  Naturally, she wore her Captain America getup.

Here are some videos of some of the dances she learned; sadly they do not really capture the charm of viewing in person.  Maybe next year, we'll do better.

Hip Hop:


Capoeira:


Maracatu:

Oh-Bots

Django has embraced our family's robot-fan culture with his own appreciation of mechanical men.  I especially love it when he identifies things that he believes look like robots around town, such as fire hydrants, emergency call boxes, and artificial moonlight towers.  It took some convincing, but now he agrees that R2D2 is also a robot, as are other round robots.  Previously, he thought that only boxy automatons--like those portrayed in his robot quilt--fit the taxon.  He pronounces robot as "oh-bot" much to my delight.

Here is a video attempting to document this cuteness:


That video is lame because Django was more interested in the camera than in recreating and documenting for posterity our fun game of chasing the robot and then yelling "oh-bot."  Was it Schrödinger or Heisenberg who developed the idea that observing the phenomenon changed the phenomenon?  I can't remember, but I will add a corollary to that rule stating that it is quadruply so with pre-schoolers. 

Here is an out-take video (one of six!):

Pho-Till-grapher

Tillie likes to take the pictures sometimes.  I like getting to see what she sees: low-altitude p.o.v.,details of interest to a four-year-old, enthusiastic portrait subjects, etc.

Uh Oh!

My mother's birthday was in March, but I never posted this video.  So cute!

Turtles

Tillie and her bud Dash took swim lessons this summer.  They both earned their turtle patch!  I can't tell you what that means, because Tillie still can't really swim without sinking beneath the water and nearly drowning every time...and turtles don't do that, right?  But, she sure loves to try.  I think that my human baby was switched at birth with a little merbaby. 

Naturalist

Django was in a nature club last winter and spring.  It reminded me that we city folks need more open spaces for kids to explore.  You never have that same combination of curiosity, fearlessness, and leisure time when you are older.  I hope that our family can summer away from the city when the kids are old enough.  (These pictures are from April--I'm not sure how I omitted posting them before.)

With Deb, the wonderful instructor:

With DJD's bud Harvey and Deb:

Look, agua!

Butterfly Farmer

This spring, it has been lots of fun raising caterpillars and observing them change into butterflies in a little mesh cage that was a gift from Django's friend Harvey.  Once they hatch from the chrysalis, Tillie enjoys coaxing them onto her finger and then releasing them.  She's pretty good at being still enough for them to chill a while on her finger.  This one escaped before she could give it a ride.  They are kind of like balloons--ephemeral friends that cannot be loved too vigorously.

Tillie's First Do

Tillie's hair grows so slowly that we only just this last spring got her hair cut for the first time.  And, the hairdresser said that it still wasn't long enough for a real cut!  So, she only trimmed off some of the split ends.  This sloth-like pace of growth is a result of inheriting the combination of Scott's curls and my inability to produce hair of any substantial length or thickness, poor thing.  At least she enjoyed the special treatment and attention.

 

Tres Leches

Guess how many types of milk are in a tres leches cake.  Three of course!  I've always known what "tres leches" means in translation.  But, because I couldn't name three kinds of milk offhand (other than whole, skim, and 2%), I figured the name was referring to something about the quantity of milk--three cups?  Or, perhaps it was about the number of steps in which you needed to add milk--before, during, and after baking?  Or, perhaps still it had to do with some old Mexican proverb about "3 milks in the cake is worth 2 in the bush" or...look, I just didn't ever take the time to think about what it meant!  Now that I have made a tres leches cake, it seems perfectly obvious.  And, these are not exotic milks--check it out:

And, by the way, it was delicious!

Observed

The first two pictures of Django below are from February.  Compare with the more recent two pictures that follow.  Let me just announce this officially:  Django is not a baby.  I know, you all have known this for a while now.  But, I'm his mother, so I've been in the dark about this transformation/loss/development.  It kind of snuck up on me, partly because he doesn't really talk like a person yet.  He does a lot of hollering mostly, punctuated rarely by a single perfectly pronounced word.  Our friend Mike described it exactly--when Django speaks, it is as shocking as if the dog had spoken.  In fact, I have caught myself in the split second after an uttered word looking at both Django and the dog to identify exactly who said "bubbles" or "yellow" or "butterfly".  The buzzcut we gave him a month ago kind of jolted us into perspective.  Without the baby bouffant, I could finally see that his cheek fat had melted off, his body had lengthened, and his tummy had slimmed.  Scott's mom said he now looks like he is 20 years old.  It's true!  He looks like a miniature dude.  When he wears long shorts and goes shirtless (or wears wife-beaters) and stirs up trouble with a devious smile and a tricky glint in his eye, I feel I'm dealing with a mischievous redneck/fratboy/skater-dude.  He even has worn an ollie hole in his converse sneakers.  How?  I don't know--I've never even seen him on a skateboard!  Who is this young man?

Soccer Stars

Tillie and her friend Dash played soccer for the Hawks this spring.  It took a few games for them to warm up, but by the end of the season they were showing great hustle and even performing assists!

Coach Mike strategizing:

Tillie, #20, in action:

Warming the bench:

The post-game snack was Tillie's favorite part.

And, in case you are curious, I use the term "soccer" loosely.  They mainly ran around the field as a pack, mobbing the ball.  Occasionally, the ball would squirt out of the mass of kids and a star player would dribble it down toward a goal (not always the correct goal).  Here's some footage to show you what I mean:


Our team lost every single game, but they were all winners for demonstrating such great teamwork.  Tillie even got a medal to prove it!

Butiful

Tillie was immediately intoxicated by this princess outfit.

Then, she insisted on wearing it while drawing a picture of what she looked like in it.