And Then There Was Willa

A full 18 months have past since my last blog post and I'm now forced to concede: I will post no more -- not because I don't love you to infinity and back, Django Rey Daillak. I do! But because our family has expanded in so many ways, so exponentially, that these pages no longer contain us. And you're such an amazing big brother, you wouldn't want your little sister to feel left out, would you? Of course you wouldn't.

So, goodbye Django Djournal. Hello to all the other amazing event -- like Willa! -- that will inevitably follow.

Back on the Horse

Forgive me, Django, it's been 11 months since my last post. It was --  I'm almost ashamed to say -- the recent publishing of an article in "The Atlantic" about your Donor Dad that spurred me back to what one commentator described as my 'fanatical' blogging.


Heeheeeeheeee. Me, as Fanatical Blogger. I love it! (It sounds like a title that ought to come with a cape, doesn't it?)


Anyway, it's not that 2011 was uneventful. We had all kinds of adventures. We went sledding in Strawberry, made Rice Krispy treats for your bake sale, raced up & down sand dunes at Ocean Beach, hiked Montara Mountain, did Disneyland with the whole family for Poppa's 70th birthday, high-fived Curious George at the Jewish Cultural Museum, mashed a bunch of guacamole, tromped through Purisima Creek Redwoods, threw water balloons off our back porch, walked the cliffs at Montana de Oro, skipped stones in the King's River, climbed Mt. Diablo's Rock City, swam and camped everywhere we could all summer long -- and a whole bunch of other things I didn't capture in any photographs. But, at the end of the summer, times got tough. Remember? I lost the twins, Armadillo & Badger, and then was immediately forced into full time work in the classroom, all in the span of 3 days. The next few months were pretty much a blur. I'd say I didn't even get back to standing steadily upright until almost Thanksgiving. And I don't think I would've made it back to the Land of the Living at all without you & Joel -- plus a LOT of red wine, and also the love and tender care of so many other amazing people in my life.


So even though a whole lot of great stuff happened last year, I think I'll end up remembering it as a disaster. The images that keep coming to mind are totally incongruous ones, like a beautiful beach landscape only with a seabird in the foreground that's been drenched by an off-shore oil spill.


But,hey. It's 2012 now. I'm saddled up again and -- ready or not -- I'm writing.

Call & Response

I reported for jury duty last week empty-handed. Intentionally empty-handed. I considered bringing something to read. I even told a few people I forgot my book, as if I needed as excuse for not having something else to do while we waited. But the truth is I really wanted to be there. By which I mean both that I wanted to be there -- as in, I was looking forward to it. And, also, that I wanted to be there -- as in, I didn't want a mental escape.

As I sat in the jury assembly room, then the courtroom gallery and finally the jury box, I was surprised to find that what started as a stranger-in-a-strange-land feeling quickly gave way to a this-land-is-your-land-this-land-is-my-land feeling and has been winding its way around my mind all week, drawing ever more emphatic circles around a no-man-is-an-island feeling.

Now my job a a juror hasn't been much at all like my job as a parent, or as a teacher. But in each of these cases the stakes are high, the facts often elusive, and perspective can be hard to find -- let alone hold. Many days, in all of these settings, the only thing I am completely certain about is my presence. I show up. I do not often shirk, or wince, and I only rarely run screaming from a room. A lot of the time, I even pay thoughtful attention. Still, I think it's the being there that's most important. The call and response.

It's such a common theme with parents, right?...You're having a nightmare? "I'm here." You're riding a horse? "I'm here" You're walking on a balance beam? "I'm here." You're climbing high on a rope web? "I'm here." You're sledding down a snowy hillside? "Hey, hey, look at that -- high five!"...We parents tend to be there. A lot. Because we want to be? Absolutely. Because our children want us to be? Of course. Because we might feel guilty otherwise? Sure. Because safety, common sense and sometimes even the law requires it? That, too.

But you know why else? You know why we I think we ALL do it -- why we all respond to the call of other living creatures? Because in those moments of being there for someone or something else -- and sometimes only for those moments -- it is possible to know, without question, that we are not each in this world alone. We are in it unequivocally together. Which means it is always possible, if you listen closely enough, that there is someone else somewhere saying: "You need me? I'm here."

That Smell

The temperature has hovered near freezing in San Francisco for the past few days. The skies are dark, wet, and -- I don't know -- heavy somehow. Perfectly appropriate, given that it's the middle of winter, but bleak just the same.

I think I would like to lay in bed and read until spring. But I bet that would actually be really boring. Unless Django was sure to interrupt me every now and again with a particularly radiant little nugget of chatter, like he did the other morning.

This distinctly enjoyable wake-up call started much the same as they all do when they happen before 5a: "Mama...(many minutes pass)...MAAAma...(more minutes)... MAAAMAAA...(now just down to one minute)...Mama?" By the time I finally arrived in his bed, Django had a whole list of complaints. "Mama, my sippy cup is empty." Yes, because you drank it. I'll get you more to drink at a more decent hour. "Mama, I can't find my stuffed friend in the covers." Here she is. "Mama, the night-light clock isn't glowing green." That's because it's not time to wake up yet. "Mama, I don't like that smell."

Hmmmm...hadn't heard that one before. So I gamefully sniffed the air. It seemed fine to me. What smell? "That smell when I stick my finger in my booty and then I smell it."

Oh, right, that smell.

Well, why did you stick your finger in your booty and smell it? "I don't know!" The hand sanitizer is right by your Elmo potty, you know. "Will that take away the smell?" Kind of. But if you don't like that smell you just shouldn't stick your finger up your booty and smell it. "Ok." Think you can sleep a little more? "Yeah." Me, too.

Winter Blues be damned.

Boo!

I have no earthly idea how it got to be the middle of December. But I'm going to go ahead and blame my personal time warp on Halloween. I know it doesn't sound like something that would demand much thought, but I really got stuck this year on the whole concept of: "Boo!"

OK, not that, strictly speaking, because "Boo!" is pretty darned clear cut. That's the kind of surprise that jumps out from behind a closet door, costumed or not, and scares the bejeezus out of you. But this year it was "Boo!" that got me thinking about all the other kinds of surprises there are. I mean, seriously, shouldn't somebody have delineated them by now? Forget the 300 Eskimo words for snow -- or whatever the number actually is -- and the befuddling array of synonyms for the words good, bad, and sad. The lexicon for surprise is woefully under-developed.

Think about it.

There should definitely be a specific word for the surprise of seeing someone whose name you know you should remember but absolutely do not. There should also be a specific word for the surprise of a strong feeling -- whether it's a feeling of outrage at an unjust parking ticket or one of unspeakable gratitude that sneaked up on you while you were riding warmly, safely in your car to work in the rain. Or the surprise of a stranger's kindness, or a friend's hostility.There are SO many kinds of surprise...pregnancy, cancer, care packages in the mail. The list goes on and on and on.

But, given the lack of vocabulary to adequately describe it, I'm not at all surprised I've fallen into a situation that's left me rather speechless, lo these many months. So, I'm just going to spit it out now, as unartfully as necessary...

A little over a year ago, I met a smart, sexy, athletic, melodic, witty, adventuresome, mature, communicative, hard-working, fun-loving, child-friendly, stable and caring man -- named Joel -- here in San Francisco, who was then 41, single, never been married and had no children of his own. That, in itself, was plenty surprising. Since then, all kinds of other surprising things have happened, including but not limited to the fact that he grew to deeply love both Django & me. As of Halloween, we began living all together in a surprisingly cozy but also surprisingly expensive place on Coleridge St. where we seem to be settling into a surprisingly cohesive little family. "Boo!" just doesn't capture the sensation, you know?



Now, as aforementioned, it's the middle of December. I have completely lost track of time. And, yet, I also haven't missed a moment of it...If any of you have ideas for better words to describe such a myriad of surprises, I'm all ears.

Nature Boy

Nature Boy
by Eden Ahbez

There was a boy,
a very strange,
enchanted boy

They say he traveled
very far, very far,
over land and sea

A little shy,
and sad of eye,
but very wise was he

Then one day,
one magic day,
he passed my way

And while we spoke of many things,
fools & kings,
this he said to me

The greatest thing
you'll ever learn,
is just to love
and be loved
in return














I don't know anything about Eden Ahbez, nor of whom he was thinking when he wrote this song in 1947, but I know I've been singing a wobbly, a cappella, version of it to Django since he was in utero. It's a short, rather haunting, melody -- and now a jazz standard -- that doesn't at all match the joyful and carefree exuberance of these particular images. But somehow, they both take me to the same heartfelt place.

Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (Yet)

Wow. September has been a hard month.

It has reminded me of an event I attended long ago with Miranda July at the helm. It was a performance art piece at Theater Artaud, with a long, slow, audience-infused story about a couple and an adopted cat. There was a lot of bittersweetness in it, so much sadness, too. I have wished, a number of times, that I could remember the exact script of the after-piece. Bic lighters had been hidden under the seats of the guests, and in complete darkness at the end we were asked to answer the most intimate of questions with just a flicker of yes, or no. Thinking back, the only question I am certain was asked was whether we had met the love of our lives. I really can't remember whether I flicked yes or no, I can only remember now that the question gave me -- and, no doubt, much of the audience -- great pause.

I'm pretty sure, if I were asked the same question in the same dark room today, I would flick my lighter confidently. I would tell you, if you asked, that Django is absolutely, unequivocally, and never-endingly the love of my life. And it would be true, in so many senses, that it would be virtually indisputable.

But that exact question is not at all what has been drawing my mind back to that night with Miranda July, oh so long ago. It's the memory of the pause. It's the imperative of the pause. The uncomfortable realization that we sometimes need questions, circumstances, even answers to get so big that there is nothing we can do in the face of them except pause. Think. Reflect. Feel.

And, yet, keep on keeping on.

Our Crooked House

On Friday I got my first "you need to come pick up your sick kid" call from Django's school. My heart sank. Especially since I had taken due note of his watery eyes and whiny disposition Thursday evening. I waved a hand at the thought, willed it away, hoped that would work.

Needless to say, our house has been a crooked one all weekend, a quarantined one, a place where snot has been running in rivers and tears have been falling like rain. Django's little furnace is stuck on 102, and no amount of ibuprofen seems to be able to budge it. I can almost see the germy buggers inside him smirking, taunting, staring at me from behind his one especially pink eye. They are making me cranky. Very cranky. And when I make my fifth call of the weekend to the Kaiser advice center at some inevitable point tomorrow, they better not ask me again if my address or phone number has changed since the last time I called. If they do, I refuse to be responsible for what I say in reply.

This, too, shall pass. I know. Good, bad or indifferent, it always does. Until then, I'll have to keep my mind going back to Django's quip at the kitchen table this morning, when I said I was going to take his temperature again -- with our new $55 ear thermometer: "Ok, Mom. But then pop the cover off real high, because that's the funnest part!"

Hunh? What? No!

The other night -- the night before our fifth and final, out of town, summer adventure, to be more specific -- I found myself locked in another 3a standoff with Django:

Is it wake-up time?
May I come in your bed?
Can I have some chocolate milk?
I want to go upstairs!
I need to watch some TV!!
Can you turn on the light?

Even people without kids -- perhaps, especially people without kids, now that I think about it -- know there is only one answer to any question asked at 3a. It starts with a groggy "hunh?" followed shortly by a baffled "what?" and finishes with an emphatic snorting of the word, "no!"

You'd think, after the number of times Django's tried this approach with no success, a smart kid like him would give up. Or at least try something new. To his credit, he does sometimes add the word "really" or even "really, really" to his plaintive requests. But, seriously, if he thinks that's going to be enough to get me out of bed doing his bidding at 3a, he has obviously mistaken me for someone 20 years younger and softer. Instead of having the intended effect, when he starts adding reallys, I start adding cuss words.

There are plenty of nights I fall right back to sleep after one of these stalemates, but not this one. My mind got to wandering. First it started mulling over the list of things needing to be done before departure the next morning -- which triggered much the same reaction in me as Django's diatribe -- hunh? what? no! Then it moved on to wondering if Django & I should design and sew the sheet, blanket & pillow his preschool asked us to bring on his first day of school next week -- hunh? what? no!

Finally, my mind found a happy place to rest in reflecting on how amazingly quickly Django learned to use a potty. I mean, literally, one day two weeks ago he was in diapers and the next day he was telling me -- with 100% accuracy -- when he needed a toilet...What can I say? Some people count sheep. I guess I just need to remind myself to count my blessings.

Roooooooaaaarrrrrr!

I just wanted to pop in and say, the $63 ticket I got today for parking on the wrong side of the street around the corner from SadieDey's play-cafe in downtown Oakland on this second Monday of the month between 9a-12n was so totally worth it.

Oh, sure, I would've parked someplace else if I'd actually read the sign. But at the moment we were pulling up, I happened to be trying really hard to give a cogent, truthful and illuminating (but brief) answer to Django's burning question: "Hey, Mom. Why are the sun & stars on fire?"

Having a precocious 2.5 year old is seriously distracting. Doesn't make for a very good protest to a street-cleaning citation, but it's very true.

Looking forward

Every now and again I catch myself wondering about the more distant future, not the middle one -- where I am certain to be the inappropriately flamboyant & embarrassingly geriatric mom of a teenage young man -- but the one in which Django has already found his own niche(s) in the world. For the most part, these mental meanderings of mine are classic, narcissistic, and idealistic self-projection on progeny. You know the kind, the I-always-thought-I-might-have-a-knack-for-[blank]-but-I-never-did-fully-explore-it-&-I-think-he-will!

But every now and again, I have the distinct impression I'm actually catching a glimpse of some raw talent, some unique perspective Django has on the world. I have given up (for the moment) trying to explain the more elaborate things he says that give me this feeling. Instead, I offer to you this small collection of photos he's taken all by himself. And when I say "all by himself," I really mean all by himself -- no coaching, no cajoling, no here-let-me-hold-the-camera-while-you-push-the-button. All Django, all the way.

I'd be very interested to hear what these photos say to you.

No Matter the Question

"There comes a time in the day that no matter what the question...the answer is wine."
-- Erin Smith Calendar, May 2010

I reached the above-mentioned time of day at about 2:30p this afternoon -- shortly after Django & Savanna refused to nap, despite my best attempts to cajole, browbeat and/or bribe them into it. The whole failed endeavor ended on a particularly sour note for me, when Django shouted up quite cheerfully from downstairs (where he'd been giggling and pussyfooting in my bed with Savanna for well over half an hour, I might add): "Sorry I peed in your bed again, Mama. Please change my diaper right now." The situation quickly went from bad to worse during the neighborhood walk we took instead, in which a brief squabble over turns driving a pretend school bus at the local used children's clothing store turned into a full-throttle, 45-minute temper tantrum, all the way home and then some. But, for the record, I resisted the urge to open my much-needed bottle of wine until I sat down here to type, at around 8p...The little guy, in case you're wondering, was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow at 7:10p.

These are days to remember. And also to forget.

Speaking of remembering, forgetting, and all the terrible confusion in-between, I recently finished reading a Po Bronson book I found in a free book box. You know the kind, the one in which you see a certain book and think, I should grab that, because you read or heard something somewhere, about something else entirely, by the same author? And then you think, No I shouldn't, because it's probably crap and I won't read it anyway? But you do (grab it) and you do (somehow read it) and in retrospect it seems like it was 'meant to be'? Yeah, well, I love that because it makes me feel like there's a beneficent cosmic radio station always broadcasting somewhere, even if I can only occasionally tune in with my receiver. But I hate it, too, because it also makes me feel like a New Age/Hippie. Back to the point, though, I found Po Bronson's "Why Do I Love these People" to be an absolutely spell-binding book. A daunting one, too. It's chock-full of incredible stories of family & personal resilience. Almost every story made me think, on some level, Wow. Could I overcome that? I seriously doubt it!

In other words, the stories in that book forced me to get a little -- no, ok, a lot -- more real about what it takes to be a good role model for family. So far, I think my chances of achieving such a thing are about as good as my chances of winning the lottery. But I keep trying to remind myself that, like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play.

So we play...As you can see here for yourself, we play in science museums, swimming pools, explorer's coves, patio chairs, rain puddles, kitchen tables, sunny streets and zoo windows. We play with sculptures and friends and balls and relatives and wigs and mirrors and buttons and rocks and water and baskets and worms and blocks and scissors and tape and paint and wild animals. Oh, we do play. And even though I hope that nothing more traumatic than a 45-minute tantrum ever happens to our family, if a time comes when something does, I sure hope all the loving, happy, wonder-filled moments that have gone before become glue that holds us each and all together. That would be the ultimate jackpot.