Sarah is becoming a big girl at a torrid rate! When I think of how fast it's all happened I get into a weird emotional state of bliss and regret that I can't hold on more tightly to her days as a baby. We're so, so lucky to have her. I never knew what a wonderful person was waiting for us.
Sarah just turns me to warm goo, babbling all the clichés I've heard, because the overwhelming love blows all other thought away: She amazes me every day, she is beautiful, precious, it is such a blessing to take care of her, it is unnerving how fast time slips away, etc. We are so, so lucky. She is three!
| again airplane alligator apple applesauce are arm around away baby ball balloon banana barn bath bathroom bear bed bee beep belly big bike binkie bird bite blanket blocks boat bonk book bottle bowl box boy bread brush bubbles bucket bug bunny butterfly camel camera car carrots cat cereal chair change milk | mommy cheese chicken chin clean clock close clouds coat coffee cold colors cooking couple couscous cow cracker cup daddy deer diamond diaper did dirty dog doing done door down drum duck ears egg elephant eyes face fall find fire truck fish fit flower foot fork frog funny fuzz get girl glass glasses | go goat gone gorilla grape grass guitar hair hand hat have head hear heavy help hi hippo hold home honk horse hot house hug hurt I in inside it jacket jump keys kiss kitchen knee knock kookaburra leaves leg legos light lion little lock lotion make mat mess mine monkey moon | more mouse mouth move movie my new nice night no noise nose nurse off okay on one oops open other out outside owl pajamas pants peas pee picture piece pig plate play please poop put raisin read rice ride right rock run see shave sheep shower shirt shoe sink sit sky | sleep slide snack snake snap soap sock spoon star stairs stool strawberries stroller sun sweater table take that there throw tickle tiger tired toast toes top towel tower toy train trash treat tree truck turkey underwear uh-oh up walk want warm wash watch water where who work yes yoghurt you zip |
dog - dOH-kg
hi
bird - bIR
raaar (lion)
up
meow (cat)
outside - owSI
button - bUHtt
telephone - rEH-lone
balloon - baOOn
mouse - mAoh
applesauce - AHp-saos
brush - RUsh
moo (cow)
inside - n-SIgh
walk - wOK
bye
baa (sheep)
bottle - BoH-le
baby - Bey
more - MO-ah
rock - rOK
dinner - IH-ner
apple - AP
bee - eee
night - NIgh
jacket - JAC-ek
shoe - shh-u
wheee (slide)
sock - sOK
fish - PI-sshh
hat - HAh
ride - Rye
down - DOw
see - shee
guy - gAI
mine - MIe
where - ehR
duck - dak
shirt - IRrr
knock - NO-ahc
yes - YA
bear - BH-ere
no - NEU-ooo
book - Bok
bath - BAht
chair - HAir
neigh (horse)
mess - EHss
rice - Rhy-ss
water - wAH-rr
ball - bOHl
daddy - DAthie
mama - MO-ma
Technorati Tags: baby, parent, words
There's nothing quite like taking care of my daughter to blast away selfishness, bitch-slap my inner child, napalm my therapist, etc. And I'm doing just great. Right about the time I'm congratulating myself on how far I've come is great timing for another reminder, though.
Just the other day, we had a blow out. I had fed her (well, she's pretty good at feeding herself, I was just there to make sure she didn't decide to throw the bowl) and I was eating my own food, which she wanted some of. I refused to give her any, and she put her head right down on the cold floor and wailed and cried. She kept it up, no matter how I try to distract her, and trying to hold her just made it worse. Even after a half-hour of this I couldn't comfort her, and only my wife was able to hold her and calm her down. Over my wife's shoulder she looked at me with the burning eyes of someone safe from the enemy.
We make up of course, she's fine (she's always great). But damn it all if I wasn't left with hurt feelings. In some ridiculous way I want taking care of her to be personally fulfilling. What a crock of shit! It's one of those times when I have to look at my psyche and just shake my head, sadly. (I'm not alone though. Every month we get Parents magazine for some reason -- we didn't order it and never renew it -- and in every issue there is an article about how to get the most fulfillment out of raising a child.) The latest version of my personal mantra is to take care of her:
1. ...without being a rigid asshole
2. ...while staying open and intimate with her
3. ...without being wishy-washy, negotiating with her, or becoming pedantic
4. ...while staying in sync with my wife's style and expectations of her
and above all:
5. ...with the ability to let go of any desires for personal gratification I might want for what I do for her.
Technorati Tags: baby, parent, psyche
My aunt, an unreconstructed hippie (I am not insulting her; she would say so herself), wanted to do something nice for my wife and I when our daughter was born. Since she had just been in India visiting a friend there, she asked if her friend would arrange one of the thanksgiving-ritual-plays that they do. Her friend agreed and Amy passed her a picture of me, my wife, and two-month old daughter.
Apparently, they performed the play and The Hindu, a religious national Indian paper, published a story about it:
THANKS TO GURUVAYOORAPPAN -- By K. Santhosh, THRISSUR, FEB 7Of course, this story doesn't have a lot to do with reality (my aunt knew nothing of Sarah's birth until after she was safely born, we did not pray to Lord Guruvayoorappan, and still know little about the temple at Guruvayur, and we are not from New York). We do not have anything against Lord Guruvayoorappan (who is, as far as I can tell from reading information on Web sites, a compassionate and holy Lord) and I would never tempt fate by disparaging anything that encouraged a good outcome from the harrowing birth (in fact, I wish had the religious sophistication to know anything at all about Lord Guruvayoorappan, or even much about Hinduism in general, before this) but this is really more of a game of global “Telephone” than anything else.Jill Detweiler and her husband Ben Clemens believe that their daughter, Sarah, was born safely because of the blessings of Lord Guruvayoorappan. Expressing their gratitude, the couple from New York got Krishnanattom staged at the Sreekrishna temple in Guruvayur, near here, on January 29. Such thanksgiving shows are not infrequent at the temple.
The story began when the British-born writer-photographer Pepita Seth went to New York to deliver a lecture on Theyyam and Krishnanattom, having been invited by Amy Trompetter, renowned puppeteer and professor at Barnard College. “Ms. Trompetter looked worried one day. She told me her nephew's wife, Ms. Detweiler, was in labour. There were serious complications and the doctors were worried. Ms. Trompetter's family did not know what to do. I suggested that they pray to Lord Guruvayoorappan. They did,” says Ms. Seth.
The next day, Ms. Trompetter was all smiles. “Ms. Detweiler had given birth to a healthy child. The family attributed it to the blessings of Lord Guruvayoorappan. Till then, they had not even heard of the Guruvayur temple. They were eager to know about the shrine and made an offering to the temple,” Ms. Seth says.
Also inevitably, this story is now the top result for a search on my name and my wife's name (for SEO purposes, again it's Ben Clemens and Jill Detweiler) in any one of a number of ultramodern search engines, great evidence that as much as there are brilliant and spiritual meanings to be found in the connections that are now possible between old and new, technology and human, there is also just a lot of random crap out there.
Technorati Tags: baby, parent, technology
Barnard College Emily Gregory Award 2006, acceptance speech by (my aunt) Amy Trompetter
"You were born with your authentic self and your ethical integrity intact. You are moving from innocence to sophistication and deciding what are the realistic compromises that you must make in order to live in this imperfect world that you have inherited from past generations. My advice is to do puppetry, or something similar, which offers infinite possibilities to you.
"To recommend itself, puppetry offers no prestige and certainly no monetary gain. It is as labor intensive as the work of medieval artisans. As a puppeteer, you are assured of hard work and obscurity, which is very freeing as long as your passions are fully engaged in what you are doing. There is nothing to lose. The beauty of the work is its own reward and it will sustain you. Of course you do not have to be a puppeteer, but you must follow your heart. Do the life’s work that you are meant to do.
"Theater and puppetry demand not only the most labor-intensive and time- consuming dedication. Theatre workers must also study and know everything about history, art, music, movement, psychology, religion, languages, writing, dramaturgy, and so on. Theatre is by nature multi-disciplinary, and demands a life-long quest for knowledge. Every new production opens a whole new field of study. Idea drives good theater and the distillation of precise and profound idea enacted onstage is one of mankind’s most powerful means of communal expression.
"On the one hand, there is your well-developed intelligence, and on the other, the intelligence of the people and things around you. You can impose your own intelligence on your creative work, but when you begin to respond to the intelligence outside of your self, then your work will take off. There is an intelligence that is inherent in the universe, in nature, in each living being that you meet, in the materials that you work with. Puppetry has its own intelligence, which is almost too simple, and then on the flip side, it is the most mysterious and profound. It is easily missed, but not by Barnard students and not tonight. I interpret tonight’s award as an honor to a discipline called puppetry.
"These final words were left by a friend, on my answering machine as a horoscope reading before leaving for Russia. They may be the words of Gandhi. 'Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Everything your heart desires will come to you, but only if you are a brave rebel who relentlessly resists the conventional wisdom.'