College Shopping

I have finally made my decision about college. And I have decided that my cousin Mo sure-as-a-seventh-inning-stretch had better come to college in Boston. Of all my cousins, Mo is my girl. She's just original and adorable, has a true set of girl balls, and will change the world for the better, propelled by her quiet passion and her awesome sense of humor. We spent the weekend touring different colleges around the Bean, commencing with a starlight tour by car up and down the Charles River, I with my gnarly driving and my Auntie N and Cousin Mo with their tired selves keeping eagle eyes out for Cheers. Of course we got their picture with that big old finger pointing down them famed stairs. Using a camera phone. At midnight. (Cool your jets, taxi, we're just making a memory as we park in your spot for 32 seconds, gah!).

We laughed so much this weekend, mostly at ourselves, a bit at the rest of the family - departed and still gracing us with their quirks and quibbles - and then we laughed some more. At one point, Loverpants was ironing in the living room and the iron emitted a loud puff of steam and Mo said, "Oh! I thought that was my mom laughing!"

We also made it to the St. Paddy's parade - the first time I had ever made it to Southie for the big march in my 7 years of life here ::dies:: - and it was worth every huffing step up the Dorchester Heights hill carting Baby Girl (who thought she was the drum major in the parade, so wildly waving were her hands). The parade was delayed for like two inexplicable hours, but the weather was sunny and warmish, and the people-watching was rare and green.

I was so sad to drop them all off at Logan, even though they needed to leave so that I could get back to sleeping more than 5 hours and eating more than half a pan of brownies. But I've got my Paddy's fingers crossed that Cousin Mo will be joining us at this time next year, meeting at the top of the hill and introducing us to her college posse, and laughing at all of the gold legwarmer rocking, green slut sling wearing teens who think they are the parade.

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Away from Her, But Not So Far Away

I read that Frank Sinatra was a person who liked to be alone, but assured that people were not so far away. He liked privacy, but with the murmurs of loved ones just beyond the closed door. I think I have always preferred to inhabit this realm, with room to be alone with my thoughts but not so distanced from my loveys that I cannot bounce those thoughts off of one of them when they those thoughts teeter on the ridiculous.

I spend most mornings doing a little impatient jig around Loverpants, annoyed that he is spreading his peanut butter on bread right in front of the trash can that I need to access, wondering why he hasn't left for work yet. And then I miss him getting in my way for the rest of the day.

I think that motherhood has changed me to a certain degree. I no longer expect to have time alone with my thoughts and the expectation has morphed into the lack of a need for it. The times when I have visited my in-laws or my mother's house without Loverpants, I feel relaxed because I don't have to listen to his constant newsfeed of articles he read from Slate, and because he is a nasal mumbler, I have to ask him to repeat the summary at least a couple of times. It exhausts. But eventually the bed feels too cold and spacious and I sometimes think that even God is getting a little bored with my prayers because they are so clearheaded and pleasant, and, well, unexciting. I think sometimes that God gets a kick out of my prayers for focus and Hang on, God, I just need to pick this wedgie of mine that has been bothering me all afternoon. But maybe God would like for me to strive for a little more solitude, too, so that my supplications are a little less distracted. All the time.

I finally watched "Away from Her" last night. As wrenching as the scenes are when Grant thinks that Fiona is getting him back for all of his dalliances in their marriage (she has Alzheimer's and takes up a romance with another patient in her living facility), there is a certain tenderness in what they both realize Being Away From One Another means. One can go away for a month, but one's mind can go away from one's self and one's partner for permanent. And in the latter case, all you get are flashes, glimmers of remembrance, and you savor those moments.

I haven't fully worked through my thoughts on this, but given the choice between being away from my family or being outright cramped by them and with the presence of mind to experience the crampedness in all of its sardine packed claustrophobia, I'm going to choose the latter, for as long as I have my wits about me to choose.

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Can't stay away from this one for too long.

Becoming a Daddy

How does one become a daddy? I know anyone can lend his special sauce and father a child. But how does one evolve to become someone that a pixie in pajamas looks up to call "Daddy"?

When I was pregnant, I used to make Loverpants set out my snack each morning, reminding him that it was for his child, like this was some home ec project that he needed to keep up with or the potato would warp and grow strange ears if left to neglect. I wasn't training him to be a daddy. I was just trying to share some of the burden of having to hold this living unnamed creature in my consciousness. It only seemed fair.

I can tell you what becoming a mommy has meant to me, and that is basically summed up by a constant feeling of awe and fear that there is a life in the world that I am responsible for loving so much it makes my entire being quake, and thankfully that love is not hard to come by, at least not right now.

But becoming a daddy is a phenomenon I don't completely comprehend. Daddies don't carry children (unless you are this guy), they don't birth children, they don't boobfeed children, they can certainly adopt children and assist in the rapid dismissal of a child from the womb to the world.

So I am amazed, truly dumbfounded by the love that follows from one daddy that I know. How did he become like this? I don't completely know. But I know this. He is always keeping an eye out for changes in his baby girl. He loves to shop online for her clothes, loves to sing to her, loves to invent new voices to capture her interest while reading books. He looks with eager anticipation at the future and all of the frisbee games and bike rides it holds on some fiery sky horizon, their two shadows so discernible, Father and Daughter, Daddy and Baby Girl.