Manic Digression

One of the joys of this age is that Zephyr is displaying a wider range of emotions. Instead of being joyful all the time (which I love, don't get me wrong), he's actually starting to reveal a moodier side typical of toddlers. So now, when we're playing and having a grand old time, he's prone to going from manic grins and peals of delight...

...to disgruntled sneers and indignant whining, in mere seconds. The unhappy times are usually directly related to the focus of my attention. Specifically, when my attention is on something other than Zephyr, he's mad. He wants to be held all the time, and is nursing a lot more than he did months ago. He has recently discovered that if he shoots me a soft look and delicately strums at the collar of whatever shirt I'm wearing (while uttering "neh, neh?"), that I will nurse him. Now that he knows how to ask for it, he does. Frequently.

Lately he's really into reading, which is an early relief from my fears that he will have inherited one of his uncles' demeanor instead of that of his bookish parents. It's still early, I suppose, but Scott and I have been nurturing this love of books at every turn. He loves books so much, in fact, that he will grab our fingers to point to each word and picture on a page, and now even grabs his own feet to use as pointers on the pages, which looks like he's trying to breakdance on his books. When he thinks no one is watching, he will use his own fingers and mumble to himself the words of the story.

He also really loves balls these day. "Buh! Buh!" he'll insist, and then we play a rousing game of Roll-and-Catch, or if I need a break, Fetch. He loves his big green ball so much that he will lay down with it and give it a little hug (Scott thinks he's just pressing his ear to the ball to enjoy the warped sound, but he does this to his soft toys too, and I can't imagine they distort sound much. I also choose to think Zephyr is engaging in this activity for the cuter of the two possible reasons.)


***
Lately I've been feeling really disconnected from my own family. Most of it is my own doing - I haven't talked to my father since last summer. I'm pissed that he forgot to call on Zephyr's birthday, and prior to that, he'd only called me to ask to borrow money (this was the same day as Zephyr's surgery last summer, and he never even called to follow up on Zephyr's progress). My brother and dad, as far as I can tell, think that my dysfunctional childhood is a figment of my own exaggeration, and that I should "get over it." For the better part of my adulthood, I thought I had buried most of it, and I have been pretty stalwart and callous about it all, but motherhood is dragging up a lot of heavy shit that I thought I dealt with a long time ago.

I'm furious that my father hurt me, my brother and my mother, and that he continues to gloss over all of it as excusable because he was drinking at the time. Yes, I'm still pissed about that. I'm furious that my brother idolizes a man that was so disrespectful and irresponsible to his children and partner, and I'm furious that my father allowed my only brother to walk down the same tragic, mistake-fraught path by preventing him from experiencing any of the consequences of his own fucked-up decisions. I have missed out on a brother that could have been a great man, and I am really pissed about that. I'm tired of being treated as a self-righteous martyr because I chose not to become a statistic and instead fight to be the opposite of these people.

I will do anything to make sure that Zephyr has everything I didn't have, not the least of which is stability, predictability, and freedom from violence. The other shit - opportunities to develop his talents, to have friends stay the night for pizza and too many video games, to be in sports or plays or band or whatever the hell tickles his fancy - I will make sure he has that, too, frivolous or not. If it means I need to check out of the family for awhile (or forever), so be it.

Choosing to have children is the greatest act of egomania in which person can indulge. Having a child says, "I am so important and special that more of my DNA should be in the world." To have children without at least the intention of doing a better job than our parents is smug and lazy. To be a survivor of horrible shit and to then say, "it was good enough for me, it's good enough for mine" is utter sociopathy.

I live in a hollow tree

Look who's sitting all by himself! And I couldn't help it, I had to pixellate out his junk. It totally cracks me up.

We've had a bit of warmer weather, followed by another wee cool spell. On the warm days, I like to just put a towel down and let Zephyr hang out in the buff, as is his birthright. But after he pees on me I usually get his little nekkid butt into a diaper again.

On cooler days, we like to stay in most of the day, helping Zephyr look at the world from a different perspective. He loves being upside-down now, or sometimes he'll cock his head to the side to see how things look sideways. Sometimes when he's upside-down I'll take the opportunity to snorgle his tiny chin, and this makes him squeal and laugh like a little pixie, the way it ought to.

I have such a soft spot for I am a Bunny because I had (and loved) it when I was a little girl. My beloved grandma Laverne used to read it to me. Whenever I buy books for Zephyr that I had as a child, I get a little extra nostalgic and misty, and write him a little inscription that makes me think of his future and this always makes me lose it, and I cry like a ninny. I've been making little notes to him in his Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever! that I hope he'll enjoy one day. On the page that shows different careers, I'm going to draw a girl bunny that is a biologist wearing her field vest and rubber boots.

Hey, look at him go, cramming some leaf or another into his mouth.

Still fresh on the heels of the raccoon shit brain-eating roundworm paranoia (particularly now that zomg, I personally KNOW SOMEONE who heard about a kid in her hometown THAT DIED FROM EATING RACCOON POOP!!! I decided he can eat some raw arugula straight from the garden instead of grass and clover. I was sure that it would be too peppery and that it'd staunch his desire to cram all the grassy stuff into his mouth. But whaddayaknow, he loves it!

...or does he?