Well Week

Dear J-

We’re trying to whip the house into some semblance of order before we host Christmas this year — it’ll be the first big thing we do since figgy’s first birthday, and we have only acquired more stuff since then: the spare room is filled with boxes of clothes and presents awaiting wrapping, to say nothing of spare parts and half-begun projects. The one thing I do manage to do consistently is take pictures to document our world.

It’s funny how toddlers think: as we were cleaning up the house she kept trying to rearrange the boxes, piling them up away from where we were working; she wants to help but doesn’t quite know how. The further we get the more fascinating it is to watch her thought processes developing; as we read stories to her she calls out the pictures she recognizes.

The development of consequences continues: she clearly understands what happens as soon as we reach a count of ten. We escalated to leaving Sea World early today (okay, only slightly early — we were all running on borrowed gasoline this morning after she got up very early and kicked us all awake before falling into a stuporous slumber later. I think we’re on another downward swing into illness, which explains the crazy past few days. Order is restored; we have reasons again.

Mike

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Three Days

Dear J-

The more unwieldy the camera, the fewer pictures I end up taking; today more true than ever, as I spent three hours hauling figgy around the canyons of the Zoo for the second day (as well as I know some paths, I’m still pretty weak on the geography surrounding the gorilla and aviaries — I managed to hit both today, but I’m not completely sure how), this time geared out to the teeth with lenses that stayed safely tucked away. It’s not a question of putting her down and leaving her to her own devices any more; she is as likely to slip through the barriers as to wander away now.

She keeps changing the rules as we go; while yesterday there was no nap, today I let her sleep in the car after coming home, but she woke up after half an hour — inconsolably tired — and after asking her what she wanted for lunch (nap! NAP!), she resumed the nap after the lucid intermission and I never got quite untracked from that. I tried to get her interested in other activities — she helped me pick up leaves on Friday, but not today. Instead with the blankets unrolled, she crawled in compliantly and crashed down for a couple of hours; perhaps the illness passes in decreasing cycles.

Try it this way, then: how can seventy-two hours leave me so exhausted, and with a figgy that isn’t at 100% energy? I withdraw into sullen silence as the days wear on, but subtlety is lost on a toddler; I’d hoped to be past my impatience by now, but I’m still stuck in the same frustration loop as ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Is it something buried in your genetics, or is it a behavior I can change?

Mike