Rebel Yell

Ahhhhhh....

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Soccer time

I don't like the term "soccer mom". It's an innocent enough sounding moniker, but there are so many layers of baggage attached to it implying who you are and what you think that I feel snarly whenever I hear it. Nevertheless, Thomas shouldn't suffer just because a label makes me crazy, so we signed him up for soccer.

Right now, he's in a soccer camp for the 3-5 set. "Coach Danny" seems to understand what it takes to get a four-year-old to actually kick a ball around for an hour. He has them stay on "soccer island" which is surrounded by "sharks and jellyfish", so they shouldn't kick their balls outside of it. They kick their balls through orange cones he calls "dragon teeth" and they often have to get their ball from one end of the "island" to the other, crossing over his "pirate ship" along the way. Thomas goes there all excited and finishes each day pink-cheeked, sweaty, and eager to go back the next day. For me, it's worth the expense to see him getting some exercise that also makes him so happy. However--and this is no dig at men in general, just an observation in a limited subject pool--the dads that seem to come along to the camp have been, uh, less than satisfied with the way the camp is run. "When are they going to do some drills?" one of them asked yesterday. "I took him out of the YMCA soccer camp because they weren't really drilling them and I think this place is even worse!" Another dad saw his little girl get her ball kicked by another kid and shouted at her, "Well, now your ball's gone! Are you happy?" to which his wife replied, "Now that's unnecessary, stop it." He said back, "Well, I think it is necessary. She's needs to learn."

Now let me say again, these kids are between the ages of 3 and 5. Most of them bring little sippy cups to camp as their water source and their shinguards are about the length of one of those rocket popsicles. Am I not expecting enough of Thomas that I'm satisfied with the fact that he goes there and comes home happy and that while his soccer skills will probably still leave much to be desired at the end of the camp, he will still associate "soccer" in his mind with fun and friends? To me, there still seems plenty of time for sports to become intense and competative and I suspect that that will also be fun for Thomas at a certain point, to really test his mettle against other players and have the chance to win something for himself. I don't think that time is now. I think I'm going to wait on his signal to determine when that time is.

Coach Danny is definitely from Jersey. Check out the accent.

Tagged

Ooh--I really feel like I'm moving up in the digital world here. I've been tagged! I don't know what this is, but I suspect it's like one of those emails people send to all their friends with stuff in it like their shoe size and whatnot. What makes this less obnoxious? I didn't send it to you! You came here to read it! Or maybe not. Maybe you are navigating away, right now--no wait! There's a treat at the end of the post if you keep reading...


8 Random Things about Me:

1) I love sushi. Though I prefer good sushi, I'll even eat bad sushi. Supermarket sushi. Hole-in-wall sushi. I once got a case of full-body hives from bad sushi. Did not deter me. I try to stay away from the raw stuff now if the joint serving it is at all sketchy, but sometimes I just can't seem to help myself. All together now...ewwwwww.

2) I'm a pretty staunch conversative politically, though while I think John Kerry would have made an absolutely terrible president, someone needs give Mr. Bush a serious swift kick. There's a difference between sticking to your guns and stubbornly refusing, like a two-year-old, to notice all the mounting evidence that a particular course of action wasn't a good idea.

3) I used to think two people got married because they wanted to spend all their time together. Sixty thousand work, school, and child-rearing hours later, I've realized that if you've found someone who can make you laugh, is willing to watch a little Star Trek with you, and who doesn't seem to mind your neuroses, then you can be happy even if you don't get to see them all the time, and the time you do get to spend together seems pretty rich.

4) I'm going to be 30 this Sept. Yikes. Time for the requisite, "What have I done with my life?" self-examination.

5) What have I done with my life? I am currently working on yet another fiction novel. No, I have not had any of the previous novels I've worked on published, though I have some nice rejection letters. I love the writing part. I hate the attempting to convince someone else to put it in stores part. Nate has been threatening me to put some actual effort into that part or else (no more sushi for you!)

6) I've only responded once to one of those "about me" emails. It said "Diamonds or Pearls?" I said, "Electronics."

7) I really like cats, but don't have any at the moment. I can't stand dogs.

8) Sethie has been whining for a few minutes while I type on this thing. I really ought to go get him, but I want to finish my own thoughts first! Har! Narcissism, thy name is me.

I tag Dan, Heather, and Kendra


So where's the treat you say? What? Wasn't all of that treat enough for you? No? Then watch this movie.

Transformers--less than meets the eye?

In a little less than a week and a half, Transformers will be storming into theaters. Poor Nate is losing sleep in anticipation of this movie. Expectations of the 20 to 30-something male set seem to be running very high and rightly so--the trailers I've seen are blustery fun, benefiting from 10 plus years of aggregate CG realism that started with a T-Rex splaying his toes in the mud.

I used to watch the cartoon Transformers with my brother Nolan, just as we watched G.I. Joe, He-Man, Thundercats, Voltron and many other archetypal testosterone-fueled 80's cartoons, so I think I understand a little when I talk to guys of my generation about those old TV shows and toys and hear the near-worship in their voices. I watch my son playing with the Transformers toy Nate got him recently and recognize the same captured imagination. He doesn't really know what an Autobot or a Decepticon is, but he knows burly good guys and snarly bad guys when he sees them.

Which gets us to the real reason, of course, that a Transformers movie is debuting right about now. Nate bought Thomas an updated Optimus Prime for his birthday, before Thomas knew who Optimus Prime was. Generation X finally has enough wallet power to make remarketing its nostalgia a worthwhile endeavor. But there's a danger in that, too. Jessica Winter has an excellent article over at slate.com that, on the surface, is about Sony's new "Minisode Network"-- offering old TV shows shrunken down to bite-size--but is ultimately about the inevitable let-down of seeing your old favorites with updated eyes. Now that we have cable and a DVR again, we've been recording reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, appointment TV with my family when I was growing up (the only show, in fact, we were ever allowed to watch on Sunday). I recognized, I think, the kitschiness of the show back then even (Geordi's visor thingamajig is essentially the banana clip hair accessory that was so ubiquitous when I was kid. I had three or four), but it definitely suffers a lot on repeat viewing. Although Patrick Stewart's booming Picard is still a kick, the themes and the outfits and the space monsters --all are painfully cheesy. Hey Deanna Troy, is your hairstylist a time-traveling New Yorker from circa Seinfeld? And check out Wesley Crusher's Y-front pajama uniform (Incidentally, Wil Wheaton does a hilarious column reviewing old Star Trek episodes at tvsquad.com. Being Wesley Crusher may have, har, crushed his onscreen career, but it set him up brilliantly for a future of self-parody).

Maybe Star Trek: TNG is too easy a target, but I loved it (and still do, I suppose. After all, I'm DVR'ing the episodes, right?) and the pain isn't just a matter of seeing it age poorly. I have to wonder: was it ever really that great to begin with? I was also a huge fan of a little anime called Robotech (maybe you've heard of it), which was leaps ahead of other cartoons in sophistication--unlike G.I. Joe whose characters always got to parachute free of their burning planes, Robotech people didn't always come home, not to mention the interracial relationships, sexual innuendo, and bad guys who weren't just bent blindly on universal domination. And yet, watching it recently, oy. The voiceover narration is ridiculous and is it too much to ask that writers give Minmei at least one additional song to perform other than the ear-bleeder she sings about fifty times?

I don't know if Transformers will be a good movie. Michael Bay is the director. He got his start in music videos and is best known for Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, not exactly plot-heavy--or even plot-at-all--movies. The characters have had their street cred logically, if a bit presumptuously, updated (Does the name Bumblebee really make sense for a Camaro?) and it can't possibly be worse than the previous Transformers movie. Still, I'm not sure I want my memories muddied. The newest line of My Little Pony toys is also out in force these days and I'm kind of glad I have little boys and not little girls. Some cows are just sacred.

Watch the theme trailer. See the movie. Decide for yourself.

(UPDATE! The little girl in the trailer is holding a My Little Pony plush toy! Not completely random considering that Hasbro is the maker of both MLP and Transformers, but at whom is this particular product placement aimed?)

Seeing myself...

I dropped Thomas off at the kids play area in Wegmans for the first time today while shopping. I don't know why I've never done it before, but I know the impetus this time: Thomas got lost the last time we were in Wegmans, the first time, shockingly, I have lost him, ever. A store employee brought him to me about fifteen minutes after we started having them frantically look for him and although I pretty much assumed he had wandered innocently away and hadn't been snatched by someone, I still got a little teary-eyed to see him again. I used to really disparage those parents who had their little kids on leashes, but once you've been on 34th St. or Times Square in the middle of tourist season, you start to see the logic of that kind of thing (yes, Thomas had a leash in NYC when we were downtown).

Anyway...kids play area. This is not a post about life lessons learned from losing little ones--it's a post about me! Inside the area, a boy was playing a video game. None other than Jeremy McGrath Supercross World, for which I have programming credits from my time at Acclaim Entertainment. I tried explaining to Thomas that Mommy had worked on the game the little boy was playing, but he was more interested in the Backyardigans toy display nearby. The woman running the play area just looked at me, bored.

Well, it was something anyway. Next I just need to catch someone reading my book at the library or some such. Of course, that particular goal would be more easily reached if I had a book published. That's next on my list of grand accomplishments. :)

Mmmmm tasty...

You may not always admit it, but sometimes as a parent, you give your kids something simply for the entertainment value of watching them react to it. "Life is full of surprises," you might say. "I just want them to get used to that idea." But the truth is, what you want is the postable reaction shot, so Grandma and Grandpa can see how cute little Junior is crying in dismay because you stuck a fuzzy caterpillar on his face.

I remember Nate and I giving a certain baby named Thomas a piece of pickle once. Thomas, like all babies, was so eager to shove everything into his mouth before investigating and vetting the object that it was a constant source of amusement giving him strongly-flavored items. Ha ha! we bad parents thought, There he goes shoving it in his mouth again! He never learns! Thomas eager sucked the pickle, then stopped, then did that full body Ugh shimmy. Then of course, he grabbed the pickle again and shoved it back into his mouth. More shimmies followed. When you can't afford to go out, you can always stay home and do this to your children. Free fun.

Yesterday I was fixing Nate his Father's Day Burger, and simultaneously feeding Sethie his regular smash-up of veggies and fruits. I laid a slice of pickle on Nate's bun, then paused and glanced sideways at Seth noshing on squished bananas and peas. I even gave the pickle an extra dip into the jar juice, just to make sure it was packing a lot of oomph. "Nate!" I called. "Come see this! I'm going to give Sethie a pickle!" Side by side, we dangled the thing in front of Sethie's mouth. Out came the little tongue. We waited, thinking maybe we should have grabbed the camera. He tasted it.

And tasted it and tasted it and then forcefully grabbed it out of my hand and started munching on it. No face. No shimmy. Just an angry fist-pumping cry when I tried to take it back from him.

Curses, foiled again.

I'm sure soon enough Thomas will be telling me he smashed up my car, just to get the reaction shot on his cameraphone for his friends. Humiliaters beware--tables turn all the time. But maybe Sethie won't. Maybe this child is immune to our deviancy. All I know is that he's happy now in his high chair if there's a pickle on the tray.

I wonder if there are any fuzzy caterpillars in the yard.

Father's Day

A toast and tribute:

To my long-time friend Daniel Grover, whose 10+ years of patient, involved fatherhood has been a constant inspiration to me...

To my brothers, Cory, Blair, Brett, and Nolan whose happy, healthy, and self-secure children are a testament to their own devotion as fathers...

To my sister Alyssa who has often had to be both a mother and a father to her three girls and all the tireless, uncomplaining effort and love she has put into raising them...

To my father-in-law, Peter, whose fearlessness, zeal for life, Christ-like compassion, and independent spirit have made me want to be a better person...

To my own father, Norman, who has always declined to tout his own accomplishments, but who is well-loved and admired by everyone who knows him, who tried hard to teach me financial responsibility, work ethic in education and professional obligations, and good humor in life, but who most of all taught me all these things without words but by his quiet example, and who blesses my life every day with his wisdom, constant mindfulness of my family, and his ability to make me laugh...

And to my husband, Nate, whom words cannot adequately describe, who fills my heart so full it feels as though it will burst out of my chest with the overwhelming love I have to for him, whose unobtrusive devotion to doing what is right for our family silently reminds me that I ought always to be doing the same, whose willingness to be climbed and clobbered on proves to Thomas that he loves him deeply, and whose fearlessness in the face of dirty diapers shows what a true man ought to be like. Everyone tells me that my boys look just like their daddy--even better if they could grow up to BE just like their daddy...

To all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You bless my life and inspire me. Fathers get a bit of the short shrift out there when it comes to their contribution, but I hope you all recognize the immense good you do in the lives of your children and that they wouldn't be the people that they are without you behind them.

Father--to God himself we cannot give a holier name!

-William Wordsworth

Thomisms Redux

Thomas, starting a new level on a computer game: "Well, here comes nothing."

Thomas, poking me in the arm with his doctor's kit: "I'm the nurse."
Me: "Uh, where's the doctor?"
Thomas: "The doctor is playing hide and seek. You have to find him if you want him to make you feel better."

Thomism

Me: "Thomas, would you like to go the store and look at bikes?"
Thomas: "Mommy, can we get one with twenty wheels?"
Me: "Um, they only come with two...oh, do you mean training wheels?"
Thomas: "Yeah, those."

No reason

I just like this picture of Sethie. I put Thomas's shoes on him. For some reason, it seems very funny.

Do I have too much free time?

logical fallacies or "That's why you're still kids, cuz you're..."

Thomas, looking out the window this morning, "Mommy, I see Isaac's grown-ups getting in their car."
Me: "Well, they're probably going to work."
Thomas: "But Daddies don't go to work in their car. They go on the train."

I remember when I was kid, I was always trying to fit my observations of grown-up life into some sort of recognizable pattern. There are so many concepts which are common and well-understood at the adult level that must just baffle children. I'm sure Thomas doesn't even really know what "going to work" means other than Nate leaving us in the morning and coming back home in the evening.

The most terrifying logical fallacy I had as a kid was that when a man and woman got married, his parents died (because my father's parents had died before I was born, while my mom's parents were still living). This didn't really bother me at first, not until I realized that the person most likely to get married among my siblings was my oldest brother. Ahh! Imminent parental death! Well, I'm glad to say they're still kicking and my brother has been married twenty+ years now. Then again, is it more or less terrifying that death follows no logical pattern, can't be predicted with certainty, and instead hangs a little pallor on us all the time?

Sometimes being the knowledgeable adult isn't much better.

Another Paige in the La Barge family scrapbook

A big congratulations to my brother Brett, his wife Alyson, and their two girls Piper and Paris on the newest addition to their family: Paige La Barge. Alyson is in China right this moment picking her up. You can see pictures of her on their blog: http://threepsinapod.blogspot.com/ (or the Brett's fam link on the right). This is actually the second Paige in our extended family, since my sister's youngest daughter is also named Paige. The more the merrier!

Safe travels and lots of love, Al.

And just like the movies, we play out our last scene

My handsome man

(and our little man)

It was our anniversary last night, the big post-paper one (Why is the five year anniversary called "paper" anyway? Is it meant to say that your relationship is still fragile? Maybe the hope that both of you are still thin at this point?). For an anniversary present, I gave Nate the book "Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement" since he is my anarcho-capitalist. He gave me a ticket to a chocolate tasting from "La Maison du Chocolat", a very schwank chocolate place in the city. For Mormons who feel that, culturally, you are missing out on this whole wine-tasting phenomenon, this can be your thing. I've become a real chocolate snob in my ripening age (milk chocolate is for little children, unless accompanied by peanuts and nougat), and Nate has been bringing me home chocolate tidbits from this place for a few special occasions, so, ooooooooh, I can't wait.

We left the kids with Cat and her husband Jason (Bless you, friends, bless you), then took off for our new favorite sushi joint in Princeton--Soonja's--where we stuffed ourselves. It takes a lot to get stuffed full of sushi, but we did our best. And then, then, then, la finale, the ultimate, the one thing we had been waiting to spend these precious, fleeting moments of alone time on...

We saw Spiderman 3 in the movie theatre.

I love chocolate. I love sushi. I love movies. I love stadium seating. I love whispering snarky comments in Nate's ear at crucial, over-the-top moments. Spiderman 3 had a lot of these moments, just begging for a comment or two, which made it even better. When Nate and I were dating and first married, we hit the movie theatre at least twice a month. When we lived in Salt Lake on Yale Ave., we went to the Tower Theatre, an indie spot, all the time (and ate sushi at the tiny dive across from it. Three white guys rolling sushi while head-banging to heavy metal. The sushi was good for all that, too). You would think living in one of the greatest movie capitals of all time, I would have been at the movies pretty much all the time, but I've hardly seen any movies in NYC. Why? Children. Hiring babysitters is prohibitively expensive when you're students and begging off friends means YOU owe THEM babysitting next time, an obligation to be carefully weighed against the current crop of showings. Instead, Nate and I spent our precious few moments of child-free time going to book signings at the Union Square Barnes and Noble. We saw some greats (at least to us): William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, etc. etc., so no real regrets. Still, I wish we wouldn't have had to choose between the writers and the reels. As Violet sang in the movie (based on the book), "I want the world. I want the whole world!"

Maybe some day in our old age, Nate and I will be eschewing the popcorn munching for something classier (we did get to see Alfred Molina during his Broadway run in "Fiddler on the Roof", which was great, but we wouldn't have thought to go if Nate's parents hadn't been in town and I don't know if I would have cared so much if he hadn't played Doc Ock in Spiderman 2), like actual theatre, or art gallery openings, or some such. I doubt it and sincerely hope not. I heard the theme of Star Wars while in my mother's womb and it's been in my blood since. It's a good date if I get to whisper in Nate's ear, "Hold off dying, Harry, while I accept a hasty, wrap-up apology from the Sandman here." (see Spiderman 3, really)

We went home, thanked our friends profusely, and went to bed. Happy Anniversary indeed.

Trenches cont...

Thomas, Seth, and I ventured back into New York yesterday for his preschool "graduation". This past year I was a part of a group of women running a cooperative preschool for our children (NYC preschools being notoriously expensive and difficult to get into). I could go on and on, extolling the virtues of these lovely women who toiled weekly to create lessons, games, and art projects for the kids to do, but that would be a LOOOONG post. We had a lot of fun and Thomas made so many friends, he was genuinely heart-broken that we had to leave our group behind with the move. We left about two weeks in advance of the end of preschool, so fortunately, we got to venture back into the city for one last goodbye (and a little bit of pomp and circumstance).

We took the train to Penn Station, then rode the A up to 181st St. At 42nd St., a large, caucasian man with a bushy, white beard and what appeared to be an orange blanket tied around his head (it hung all the way down his back) got on our subway car carrying two garbage sacks. I noticed him, but didn't pay much attention. Once the car started moving, though, he pulled a small folding stool out of a bag and brought it over to sit by us. He was staring at Thomas. Now, I've lived in the city for about three years and I've had all kinds of experiences with people on the subway. Very few have made me genuinely nervous, but this guy was large, we were at the end of the car with hardly anyone else around and I had both boys, which makes it difficult to make a run for it. He was staring and smiling and I was waiting, hands curled into fists, for something to happen. He points at Thomas, then reaches into one of his garbage bags--and pulls out a balloon. He proceeds to fashion not one, not two, but three balloon animals for Thomas, all the while making silly faces, fooling with the balloons, and generally making Thomas laugh.

He rode with us to 168th St. at which point he got off. Thomas was sad to see "Santa" go, as he had been calling him the entire ride. I felt bad for the guy because I suspect he was hoping I would give him a little money, but the only thing I had with me was a twenty and as nice as the balloon animals were, they weren't worth my only large bill.

Again, wish I had had my camera. I haven't been able to find it since we moved. We have too much stuff--I need some kind of intervention or something.

Some preschool pics (Thomas is in the Superman shirt)