My husband claims to despise the television. He’ll stare at it with vitriol in his eyes and profess his hatred for the “blaring commercials” and “stupid plot lines”. He’ll screech about how much it rots his brain and steals his soul. However, turn on Fringe, or Dexter, or Curb Your Enthusiasm, or House, or any Rick Steves Goes to Some Random Place in Eastern Europe and Acts Like a Raging Dweebazoid, and he is glued. I mean GLUED. Try to talk to my husband while he’s watching TV and you may as well be talking to a fence post. Double concentration just doesn’t work for him, nor for my son. They’re brains become little lasers in front of the boob tube. Unlike me who was raised with a TV in her room and had never slept with one off until I met my husband, when I was 23. This is the first time in my life I haven’t had more than 1 TV in the house, nevertheless not had one in my bedroom. (Oh, the horror! Oh, the agony! Oh, the really good night’s sleep!)
On any given day, you could walk into our living room and have no idea a TV exists. Well, unless you know that TVs often exist hidden in armoires, in which case I expect you to pretend like you have no idea one exists. Preferably with an exclamation of, “WOW! I had NO IDEA that was back there! You are a GENIUS!” (Ego stroking will often get you carnitas, or cookies, or both. Just a heads up.)
I say “could” because, as of late, I’ve been turning on the TV way too much. In fact, every opportunity I get I’m turning it on. I’ve begun to judge when it’s time for The Boy’s nap, when it’s time to start dinner, when it’s time to inhale, by what time Curious George, or Word World, or God Forbid, Street Court comes on. TV is no longer an occasional fun thing for either myself or The Boy. It’s become an everyday, Good Morning, pee, breakfast, TV sort of thing. I’ve watched our days go from fun little crafts and ridiculously annoying repetitive storytimes to “Mommy, what’s going to come on next?!” It is sucking my time away with my son and it’s pissing me off. I am pissing me off.
I can always explain it away with the fact that, in winter, I am in pain. A lot of it. I start to move like the tin man before he was oiled. I’ve had arthritis in my joints since about 16. Bad weather brings on bad aches, and bad aches bring on the urge to hang out under a blanket and veg. I should be cleaning, but I can’t stand for long. I can’t do dishes because the water sends needles shooting up to my shoulders. The basement is where all my crafty mess stash is, but it’s also the most freezing part of the house. It’s easy to get complacent and not want to do crap but find out why that lady slapped that man with a knife on Judge Judy (really, though, how does one slap someone with a knife?).
But, if I’m honest with myself, there’s really no excuse for not taking an Advil and chugging along. Or, better yet, curling up under a blanket with the boy and reading all day. Or doing Starfall. Or writing. There are a million things I could be doing that don’t include turning that thing on, they just take a bit more work than pointing a remote. Bastards.
So, I’m setting a goal for the week. No TV. I want my family to talk to each other again. I want to eat dinner at the table, and not on our couch. I want our lives to be more about each other than what snarky comment Greg House is making to the newest dying patient in his ever so capable care. (FYI, if I’m ever dying of some unknown illness, take me to him. Yes, I know he’s not real. Can’t a girl dream?)
Please don’t get me wrong, if you’re a regular TV watching family and love it, that’s great. It works for you. Unfortunately, when the TV is on in our house, no one interacts. We don’t talk, we don’t laugh, we don’t learn, we don’t connect. It just doesn’t work for us.
Last year, my mom gave me a Ped Egg and something else in similar boxes. I didn’t know what a Ped Egg was at the time and I didn’t look in the other box. She kept asking if I’d used it. I kept saying no but I would soon. Finally, I yanked the sucker out of it’s box and used it the day before she was coming over. I thought it was pretty awesome, it even caught my skin sloughs in it’s little catcher egg. Cool!
I left it on the telephone counter so she could see that I’d used it. This may sound strange, but the phone nook is right outside the bathroom. Plus, my bathroom is a mess. She wouldn’t notice it in there if it had a bright orange sign on it.
When she came in and saw it, she said, “Why is the cheese grater I gave you sitting here?”
To which my husband yelled, “SHE WAS USING IT ON HER FEET!”
I wish I could say I pay attention to what boxes say now, but I don’t. Expect something similar to happen again.
The Boy’s done pretty well with weaning. The few times he called for caca (what he inexplicably calls nursing), he would quickly forget if I asked if he wanted to draw or talk about sharks. He only wanted to nurse when he was sleepy and, shortly before turning 2, he’d turned into an, “I can sleep anywhere, during anything, in any position” toddler. Nursing was becomeing less and less necessary.
A couple of days ago, he was having a particularly hard time going to sleep and wouldn’t stop screaming about caca despite my attempts to redirect. So, I told him that we could try it, and made sure he knew I wasn’t sure it was working anymore.
He tried the first side (latching okay after having a particularly hard time trying to remember how to), said, “Nope, let me try the other side caca.”
He tried the second side, “No…Too bad. Now you can hold me.”
And I swear to God I nearly cried. I tried to spend the next few days thinking it was okay. He pretty much stopped asking for caca or caught himself when he started, asking to be held instead. He had figured out that caca wasn’t working, and so had I. While he seemed okay with it, I am really not.
I’ve tried to ignore feeling crappy about it for the past couple of days but I came very close to being a sobby mess while making breakfast this morning. After all the work I put into being able to breastfeed, I feel like it was suddenly taken from me. Unfairly taken away from me.
I shouldn’t feel that way. I spent the previous 2 weeks being proud that he wasn’t trying to nurse constantly. I watched my breasts become less and less swollen as the days went on. I had to expect they’d be dry eventually.
I didn’t, though. I didn’t expect there to be a time where he’d try it and there’d be absolutely nothing. I didn’t expect such a clear and concise end of such an important and tumultuous time together. It would’ve been easier if it had faded. I don’t do well with abrupt endings.
As I sit here rambling and trying not to cry, The Boy’s laying with his head on my shoulder, proclaiming, “I love you, mommy. Let’s read a book in bed before nap time.” While my immediate internal response is to stifle the gigantic blubber that’s building in my chest because that sentence recently had “caca” in place of “book”, I also have to try to remember that this is just a new chapter. We cuddle instead of caca. We talk instead of nurse. He snuggles into my shoulder instead of my chest. It’s different, but it’s not the end.
And then I think of that smile he’d give when he was nursing. That great, big, loving grin and…well, I’ve got to go track down some tissues. This is not going to be easy on me.
Growing up in the suburbs, I never once saw an ice cream truck come through. Never. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Once, the kids from our bus stop and I put together $12 to buy a box of ice cream bars from the Schwan’s truck that drove through our neighborhood. Does that count? Didn’t think so.
Since moving to “The City”, there are ice cream trucks everywhere. In fact, I am convinced there are more ice cream trucks that come through this neighborhood alone, than go through the entire city in the summer.
- There is the “big business” ice cream truck with the song that I know not the name of, but that my husband can “do do do” all the way through.
- Then there’s the “was once a big business ice cream truck but now says ‘Garcia Sales’ on it” in all it’s crudely hand-painted glory, that plays “Three Blind Mice”.
- Third on the list is the white ice cream van that had it’s writing entirely in Spanish and that my husband swears he doesn’t remember. I do. It played, “Pop Goes the Weasel”, and sounded as if it were seconds away from keeling over.
- Lastly, was the van that, to be honest, I probably would not purchase anything from, nevertheless go near. It was a converted, grey mini-van with ice cream stickers on it. It played, “Farmer in the Dell” with one note just off enough that it made my husband NUTS. It came by so often when I was pregnant, that I would go to sleep at night convinced I was still hearing it at 2 in the morning. I never saw any children stop this van and I don’t blame them one bit.
Besides the trucks, we also have the niverias that send over the Mexican summer treat carts. Men (and one or two women) come by ringing bells on their pushcarts filled with shaved ice, duritos, fruit popsicles, Mexican sodas, and ice cream. Not to mention the wonderful tamale lady from the neighborhood that walks through with her shopping cart full, hollering, “tamALEEEEEEEEEES!” For the first 6 months living here, I was convinced she was just a crazy lady with a shopping cart that came around on the weekends to holler “ALEH!” to herself. Finally, we had our windows open one evening when she came by and it clicked. I went shooting downstairs, hollering at my husband, “SHE’S SAYING TAMALES! SHE’S SELLING TAMALES! GET YOUR MONEY!” And they were good. Very, very good. Come rain or come shine, the tamale lady and her shopping cart will be seen on the weekends.
While I may not live in the most upscale neighborhood in the city, I doubt there’s any other place where you can get a full meal by just sitting on your porch in the summer afternoon. I may have my ups and downs with this neighborhood, as I’m sure everyone does with their own, but there’s enough here that makes me stay and keeps me infatuated. And it’s not just the ice cream and tamales delivered to my door. Although, those don’t hurt.
