The Pillow

I’m sitting on the chaise longue, leaning against a pillow, scanning my phone for something wholly unimportant.

“Mama, I put something under your pillow!”

“Oh, yeah,” I nod absentmindedly. “Okay, baby.”

“You can look at it, okay?”

“Okay, baby. Mama’s looking for something on her phone right now.” Doing, clearly, something that I’ve since forgotten.

“It’s a surprise!”

Then she left it. I was clearly “busy” and for a six-year old, my daughter demonstrates an astonishing amount of patience. And discretion. In other words, she can keep her own council, which at the moment offers a welcome respite thought I’m certain I will regret that quality in the future.

I was tired. The previous day, we had had a party. I had cooked all day. Hong Kong-style soy sauce chao mian, a Vietnamese baked curry with quail eggs, some focaccia, a salmon mousse I piped onto toasts and topped with arugula pesto, mini banana bread with pecans and chocolate chips, a mango and strawberry salad, and panzanella. My daughter had had a performance at her school and I invited one of her teachers and her husband over to ask her about homeschooling for the year. Some other friends came over, too.

I was beat. Throughout Saturday, all I could think of was to lie down. My husband had taken my older daughter to a birthday party on Saturday to give me a little respite while the Bustle Butt napped. Of course, she woke the moment they left. So I didn’t get that respite.

When they returned, I made an executive decision. He could deal with them both for a bit.

“Honey, I’m going to go rest for a while upstairs, okay?”

I haven’t slept in my bed for a few days because I’ve been keeping the nightmares at bay for my daughter. By sleeping with her.

Ear plugs, or as my daughter used to call them, “ear clubs,” are essential for my sleep. Everyone snores and I’m really noise-sensitive. Sensitive to everything, come to that. So I keep a pair everywhere, including under my pillow.

As I reached under, I noticed that the pillow seemed a bit raised. I have a flat memory-foam pillow which helps with my occipital neuralgia, a result of the three whiplashes I had as a child. I lifted the pillow.

I saw what she meant. My pillow. Not the chaise pillow.

Underneath was a card that said “I love you, Mama” with a dollar bill in it, a piggy bank she had decorated that was filled with more money, two pieces of candy from her stash acquired at the birthday party piñata-grab, and a sunflower. We had given her a bunch of sunflowers after her performance the previous day.

Where does this child come from? She must be an angel. To me, anyway. As should all children to their parents. But this one. She simply floors me.

Blessed

This theme of emotional good fortune is really on my mind of late as our monetary fortunes decline. My husband's unemployment just ended and his field of architecture has laid him off for a total of three of four years. Honestly I have no idea how we will pay the rent this month.

From past experience, like the second time he was laid off after Miss Jiggle Butt was born, I know that my husband gets depressed. He functions but he becomes victimized by his old, now maladaptive behaviors he relied on when he was stressed as a boy. As most people do. They revert.

It's fatal for our relationship and for his relationship with now two daughters. He gets very irrational. Resorts to yelling a lot. Which results in crying. A lot. He doesn't notice things. A lot of things. Because the anxiety has made him check out.

So I know having been through this twice before that my previous interventions weren't successful.

This time I have a family pep talk. About love.

"Baby, mama and daddy are going to be a bit stressed this month ok? So here is what we're going to do to deal with it. We're going to love each other. So if you and daddy have a disagreement first you're not going to hit yourself right?"
"Right!" And then she smiles.
"Daddy is going to just take some time if he's really upset, okay? And I'll also help him and see if he's hungry or tired or of he just needs some time alone. Same with you, okay?"
"Yeah!" My daughter enthused, "and if mama is cranky I'll just ask you if you're tired or hungry or need some time alone." She gestures to me for emphasis, as if she is presenting me with a gift. Which it is.
"And do you know why? Because we love each other, that's why."
Here my daughter again made me marvel at her: "Yes!" She exclaimed, "because the whole world is full of love! And we love each other and everybody! Yea!" She twirled around on the floor to make her point and then proceeded to make the fatso giggle.

She was beaming the rest of the evening.

Goodness. I just don't know where this little one comes from. I just don't.

The Hummingbird

My six year old daughter has released many dormant sensations and feelings in me. Things that I have always felt, but honestly, it can be inappropriate in normal, adult conversation to say something like, “Bees are good!” Number one, there is no context, two, well, some people might vehemently disagree depending upon their own childhood experiences. In fact, my husband is one of them.

So it’s not exactly fodder for small conversation. However, when you have a growing toddler, these dormant appreciations can be brought to the fore without fear of judgment of any kind.

Bees, like spiders, are creatures I appreciate. I have long since overcome my fear, despite having been stung and bitten, respectively. Unless one has been attacked by a swarm, as my husband had when he was living in Annisquam as a little toddler himself, I think these fears of said creatures are inexplicable and disproportionate. They are, after all, struggling to survive as well and I cannot imagine what it must be like to be faced with such a large being as ourselves when one is a small being such as they are.

So bees I like because they pollinate flowers. And therefore propagate plants and flowers. And incidentally, I also happen to like honey so I’m grateful for that, as well. They make our lives infinitely more beautiful and, dare I say it, gracious.

As a toddler, my daughter showed an inordinate curiosity about them. I kept telling her that they were actually quite delicate and sensitive, but my daughter could not help herself. Sometimes she would simply play with those that lost their way in our backyard and end up killing them.

A related lesson of composting, pollination, and creatures was that hummingbirds also perform that service. Despite the presence of our two kitties, hummingbirds still visit our backyard, primarily because of all the things that grow in our rich soil, including strawberries, lilies, hydrangea, jasmine, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

One day, a hummingbird decided to offer us a more personal visit. The French doors leading from the backyard were open. The sun was inviting the little hummingbird in. So, it came in.

It promptly became stressed and began frantically attempting to exit. Which of course meant that it was flying frantically all around the living room and then kitchen whilst the kitties were looking ever more fascinatingly at it.

“Mama, mama! The hummingbird is trying to get out!” exclaimed my daughter helpfully. “Oh, no, look, Pinky keeps staring at it!”

“Yes, I know. It’ll be alright.”

After contemplating the dilemma for a moment, I realized I needed some sort of net because it was becoming increasingly distressed. It was not going to fly out of its own accord. We had no net.

Or so I thought. Turns out we did. In the form of our laundry “basket,” a mesh affair that would work just perfectly.

It did. I caught it and then released it out the front door, since that was closest.

“You did it, Mama, you did it!” Honestly, how can one not feel triumphant with those kinds of accolades?

Well, that was a year and a half ago. Every day since then, the hummingbird comes to visit us. I know it’s the same one because it looks in the kitchen window, the very one it looked out of when it was trying to escape. If we are outside, it hovers near us, a greeting. And we smile back.

I now keep more plants that flower. For it. And the bees.

Lucky

My husband and I sometimes have a different outlook on the hardships we've experienced over the years. And I will admit that it wasn't my parents who started dying the minute we got married. So there is that.

But there is also just this strange blessing I experience. I honestly don't know where it comes from because when I was hospitalized for anorexia I got "confronted" by the entire adolescent ward for being too negative.

So I honestly do not know where it comes from-most likely my children. My oldest daughter constantly makes me feel grateful. I keep her company in her bed these days though I have scaled back on actually sleeping with her. But I do stay with her until she falls asleep.

She likes to hug my arm as she falls asleep. So here I am. Lying next to her. With my arm across her chest and my hand on her cheek. As she hugs my arm.

Sigh. She does make me feel lucky.

Fat Wash

It’s important to teach a baby language skills. And they say, I don’t know specifically who “they” is here but give me the benefit of the doubt, that singing is an excellent linguistic delivery system. 

So, one day, I was trying to nap. With the baby. No, not co-sleeping, she decided right around the time she weaned herself—6 months, just like her older sister—that mama was lame when it came to a) producing enough breast milk, and b) co-sleeping. I don’t know. I’m somehow not cuddly enough? I try. Perhaps I’m too cuddly, spontaneously squeezing her fat in the middle of the night when she  accidentally sticks her fat-loaf--what? Not my fault if it looks like a loaf of
fat bread--foot in my mouth. Okay so maybe that was the problem. Whatever, man. 

At any rate, her crib is in our room so we can keep her quiet and not bother her sister. Also, so we can be sure that we never, ever use our room now since it is now hers. 

But this afternoon, I was bone-tired. Determined to sleep in my own bed, not the sofa downstairs or in my daughter’s bed. I do that enough at night when she insists I sleep with her. 

Uh, no. After a half an hour of her babbling and cooing, I decided once again that the only way to get her to nap was to make her cry. Which I did, by leaving the room. Ten long minutes later of listening to her cry while ensconced in my daughter’s bed and finally. It ended.

“Ahh,” I said to myself, “the silence of the Fat.”

Recycling Trash: a New Perspective

So the past two days the fatty has been getting into a lower cupboard where I keep my older daughter's  snacks which incidentally the Fussy Fatso occasionally shares. She has discovered the granola bars in an orange foil wrapper and has decided that they make excellent, squishy toys. 

Now the recycling bag--we use tj's bags for trash and recycling--had an empty wrapper. As aforementioned, the fatty also knows that the drawer in the cupboard is where they are kept. Thus, after playing with the trash for a bit--I really don't know why people bother buying things since trash also makes excellent toys (though perhaps this is just a genetic thing)--she decided that she needed to  put away the empty wrapper. In the snack drawer. You know. For later. Then she closed the cupboard door.

Low Blood Sugar Stupidity or Don't Try This Without Eating First

I should know by now. I mean, I've lived with myself, literally, my entire life and normally I am brutally honest about things. I look at all my figurative and actual warts and I work on them, confront them so I can constantly improve my behaviors, thinking patterns. Wine and beer consumption.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Because clearly I have an enormous blind spot when it comes to food and my brain functioning. Specifically I am convinced that I am lucid no matter how low my blood sugar goes.

Patently this is not the case as you will see from the following incidents. Now I don't like to blame my poor judgment on hormones or whatever people always point to when they describe women who are a) mothers and b) spend most of their time fulfilling the myriad activities entailed in that role and appear slightly scattered. I reject that. It is not hormones. It is a lack of food.

It's been occurring with an alarming frequency of late. The first time I met some friends and their children at the local park so we could all play. In parental parlance that means the older folks sit around and chat about how they were once cool, before children, while said children actually do play. I suggested a picnic because I wanted to share this great Mediterranean sandwich recipe and I also make these amazing chocolate cupcakes that are like ding dongs except they're filled with chocolate ganache. Well the meeting was at lunch to accommodate one of my friends who is perpetually late.

Of course I'd eaten nothing since I planned on immediately attacking the food upon arrival.

Mistake. One should not forgo food when one has two children to look after. Especially not until eleven-thirty. This is a rule. One that I seem to constantly forget.

After meeting my friends, I was informed by my daughter that she wanted her scooter. This was right after I'd asked her at the car if she wanted it and she'd said no. Obviously.

"Well, okay, but you're going to have to wait while I put this on the table, alright?"
"Okay," she answered angelically. I do hate being manipulated.

I pushed my other daughter, aka Bustle Butt, towards along the sidewalk ringing the large sand area and aimed for the picnic table. Now, the grass that surrounds the actual picnic table has grown very thickly, and its created this "curb" that is about four inches higher than the sidewalk. I'm smiling, rather stupidly, at one of my friends who had arrived at the same time as us. He's waiting next to said table. I observe the grass curb and think, "Well, we bought this ridiculously expensive stroller to roll all over the uneven streets of Beijing. Surely it can take this measly little grass curb."

Nope. Instead, I ram head-on into the curb and literally jolt my babe out of her chair. Thank heavens for safety straps.

I'm not certain if my friend laughed, but I was quick to defend what was clearly a stupid move, "It's not my fault!" I proclaim, "I'm experiencing low blood sugar!"

Now, this occurred only a few weeks ago and you'd think that I'd keep this in mind. But you see, I think my brain has slowly deteriorated over said weeks because I have since that time embarked upon a slight calorie reduction program. Only slight, mind, but given that my body is really sensitive to this sort of thing evidently, the results have been dramatic.

To wit, I've had several more episodes of "Low Blood Sugar Stupidity." Oh, the diet? That's working too. Sort of.

The other day, for example, I was driving my friend and myself to Ktown for some twice-fried in Olive Oil chicken at the original LA Kyochon, of which I've written about earlier. Seriously. The best ever. As  a salve to my conscience, I first drove us to the Galleria to go food shopping. I think I bought seven items (in my defense, I may be experiencing said LBSS right now).

I go to fast. I'm driving along Western Ave towards the mall where the grocery store is located.

"So you know you can turn right here," my friend points right.

"Oh, yeah, okay."

And then I drove right past the turn.

The Casual Mother

This is not something I normally brag about, but it turns out that I am a tad casual as a mother. I was first given an inkling of this possibility a few weeks ago during my older child’s two and a half week Spring holiday.

It was taxing one because most of the time my daughter was either injured—sprained ankle and mild whiplash—or sick, in this case with whooping cough. Pertussis if you’re fussy about titles. What transpired was that most days, I spent it in her room,  keeping her and my baby company. It’s not a big room. She has a lot of energy. I had also been sleeping with her every night. Yet oddly, when asked about it later, I was flooded with a joy that made me grin like an idiot and I would confess, “Welllll, I didn’t do a lot because Jl was sick, butttt…” 

The days were broken up by the occasional outing, one of which was to a friend’s house in the Valley. No, not the Asian valley, San Gabriel, where I was born, the famous one. You know, the one whose accent was made famous by that awful song, Valley Girl? Yeah, that one. So there I was, traveling “over the hill” as those from the Westside of town call it towards the great unknown. Thank goodness for the GPS which is absolutely  useless and guided me towards the mall. Um, wait, that might have been my internal compass seeking the local Bloomies…

At any rate, upon arrival, she proceeded to ply me and my children with all sorts of gluten-based foods and I continue to blame her for making me recall just how much I love crusty bread. Italian, rustic, French style, I love it all. *ahhhh*

My baby was going through a bout of intense stranger anxiety so I *got* to be her high chair for the entire seven hour visit. That was a joy. No, really, it was. She’s awfully cute and fat. At one point, my friend offered me a tangerine to then offer her. She would not accept food directly from this stranger, which of course provided me with an endless supply of embarrassment. No matter how much people will insist that they understand, parents with half a conscience feel constantly embarrassed by the people their babies are frightened by. I met one woman who said that her sister’s new boyfriend frightened the bejesus out of her youngest because he was rockin a dome. So there you are.

Russell Peters

 Now I hate to disappoint you but in reality this is not some  411 on his next secret gig in LA or anything. Sorry. No instead this is a story about how I am bringing up my younger child to provide me with an endless supply of humor. 

The thing about Russell Peters is that he gets not just accents but different cultures so well. And the one thing he has taught me is how to do a Cantonese chinese accent. You see, being a fifth gen American Chinese I just don't get how to do it. I didn't have anything against it, mind, it's simply that even though my mom is a naturalized citizen, my dad was a fourth gen from Sacramento. His family was part of that first Chinese diaspora from a little village in Taishan and you guessed it, they spoke taishanese. 

Well that is the Chinese accent Russell Peters does sooo well. I can't do it. Well, actually, now I can. Because of him. He just gets it spot in. Embarrassingly sometimes when walking around Monterey park and I hear someone talking who sounds like him I bust out laughing. And then of course I rapidly walk away because I've just been an asshole. He does this routine--it's a 45 minute routine on YouTube that I highly recommend--where he pretends to speak Cantonese and later he has a bit where he is imitating a Cantonese guy speaking chinglish and telling a really bad joke. Well he and the joke are hilarious.

Now after that extremely diverting little background we're all set to proceed with how I've made my baby a source of comic gold. The joke, which I've adapted to fit the present circumstances--my fat baby--goes like this and you must simply imagine a Cantonese chinglish accent because I can't reproduce it and do it justice in the written word: "This baby so fat, when she jump for joyyyyy, she get stuck. Ok, thank you." Now like I said, the punch line of the joke is the accent.

We have been repeating this to the Shaggy Fatty for several months now. And just like she had previously grasped and imitated both the tone and context of my irritated "Guyyy!" she's clearly been processing the context and hence humor of this as well. We enjoy recycling humor in our household, especially when it's been inspired by Russell Peters.

Afterimage of this she now thinks it is very amusing to hear this little routine which she a) clearly understands is a celebration of her and her fat, and b) that it is funny. Because upon hearing it she smiles.

Two days ago we also discovered she has been doing a little deeper processing. At five in the morning, she began babbling as she does. According to my husband--it was a night I "got" to spend with my older daughter in her twin bed--it went something like this: "babble, babble, babble, so fet (the accent here is absolutely necessary to fully understand the humor), babble, babble." It was five-thirty so initially he was going to try to remain in bed for as long as she didn't cry. The "so fet" however put an end to that and he was practically propelled out of bed. Either to celebrate of stop from laughing I'm not certain which because he didn't specify.

Well after hearing about this hilarious and adorable display of language acquisition, I began repeating that little routine to her. All day. You know, as a prompt.

It worked. That afternoon, in the middle if the routine, when I was about to say, "She get 'tuck'" she did it for me. And then she grinned.

Obviously she knows when to be proud.





     

Graduate Seminar

In case it’s unfamiliar to you, graduate school, well, in the non-sciences, anyway, consists of a couple of things. First, immense fear. Quickly thereafter, boredom. Last, and usually during seminars, a plea for mercy to end the mind-numbing effect of seminar which often results in bleeding out of your ears. I exaggerate? Please. If that were the case, then there wouldn’t be such a high dropout rate amongst Ph.D. students. They can’t take it and do you know why? Because they be smart. 

Keeping in mind that I tend to lead a bit of a hapless life, strange and amusing incidents seem to just pepper my life. I’m not certain whether this is significant or not, but it really seemed to take shape in grad school. Now, I’m perfectly willing to concede that this is because prior to that, I was not really conscious but sort of floating through life, but on the other hand, the incidents did seem to grow distinctly more colorful.

For example. Seminar. Now, I’ve written several stories about my time as a grad student. In fact, I wrote an entire volume of short stories, each a scene out of my life. Fictionalized, yes, but marginally. Although there were characters who simply begged to be fleshed out and there I did take some liberties. Like the fellow buddhologist whose name I shall forever recall as “The Saint Bernard”—he looked like one, shook his head like one and he always wore comfortable sweats. Perfect. 

But this time, I was stuck in a deadly seminar. Wait, what am I thinking? That’s repetitious! They’re all deadly. Every single seminar has but one, no, wait, I exaggerate, they have two functions. First, seminars fulfill a professor’s teaching obligation in a venue wherein s/he has to do very little of aforementioned teaching activity. Two, it is always, and I do mean always, about a subject the professor is writing about. Some imminent volume. In this case, he, has got to fill the last two hundred of a three-hundred page book and you know what? He’s plumb out of insight. 

It’s pathetic when you think about it, but there he was, plumbing the depths of first to third year grad students for some brilliant insight into, oh, let’s just say how Buddhology inflicts a slow death upon graduate students?

At any rate, and I do wish I could make this up but I am simply not that creative, we were discussing some rather complex, no, I should be accurate here, we were discussing some tedious micro-point about Indian Buddhist archaeology or something and one particularly dim-witted art history student actually said, “Do you think we can compare this to the freeway system?” 

And before you ask, no, I did not want to kill myself. I contemplated killing her, for some time because the professor’s response was sincere. I concluded at that moment that art historians are stupid. Yes, I know. Me. Indulging in generalities while I’ve grown up being victimized by racism. But honestly. How in the world did she get accepted to UCLA? What’s more since she obviously was accepted, I could only conclude that the standards for art history grad students is significantly more flexible than for other Humanities fields.

This was just my lucky day because the seating arrangement was such that I was crammed in between some woman to my right who wasn’t all that friendly—another art history grad student—and a fellow 

Buddhologist  on my left. Another classmate, who began the Ph.D. phase the same year I did, and who incidentally liked me was, for some reason, seated across the room. He kept sending me these knowing grins but honestly, if you’re going to be a bonehead and not save me a seat, I really don’t think that you should take any liberties. That one he took later, well, let’s just say I was really enjoying my Guinness on tap—tasted like chocolate beer—so not really my fault.

Now, I’m going to veer into some stereotypes here, but given that a) I’m American Chinese, and b) I’ve dealt with lots and lots of erroneous stereotypes in my life, I feel justified in throwing out one of my own. Especially if it’s about one of my people. Well, actually, he wasn’t. So here I venture forth into some daring stereotypes. You see, I’ve found that Taiwanese are rather prissy. Even the men. There’s a whole cultural thing. I read this book by David Halberstom before he died on the Korean War which does an abso-fucking-lutely faboo job on explaining how a few annoying missionaries with high government connections changed the entire American discourse on what is China (not, apparently, China, but Taiwan) because of a whole host of money, military-saving-face, and friendship issues. Annoyingly, lots of Taiwanese people like to state they are not Chinese. Fine by me is what I say. Too prissy for me anyway. And you people never seem to understand the subtleties of the hyphenated identity Malcolm X and, well, lots of other people I admire since him, have discussed. 

See? Told you it was daring! *koff*