De facto lasagna and enough with the pretend play
It's December in San Francisco. The "office" I share with SJ is the coldest room in the house, because for some goddamn reason the vent is not connected to the heater. San Francisco has pernicious, damp winter air, so I am bone-cold by midmorning. I work with a cloth headband around my forehead, take breaks to run my hands under hot water, and drink lots of tea.
After California's governor and San Francisco's mayor both were spotted, on separate occasions, eating sort-of-outside but really inside with people from multiple households at the fucking French Laundry, my city was placed under a nightly curfew WHAT and another stay-at-home order. In the space of three days, playgrounds went from "about to open" to "nah, and have fun explaining that to your toddler."
I'm not clear on the new rules and I'm not planning to get clear. My plan is to Wear A Mask. At least the Bayview Goodwill opened for a minute so I could get some bigger pants. For EIGHT MONTHS I have been shoving my pandemic body into The Size That Came Before. I didn't understand how much stress tight pants—and underpants!—were piling on. Now I can breathe (literally).
I FINALLY also got a goddamn desk so I'm not moving from room to room every hour, depending on who's taking a nap or having a meeting or doing anything that requires me to vacate, carrying my laptop and charging cord and reading glasses and water. Now I can sit in one place for eight hours and NOT MOVE, like God intended.
***
I've learned something during this pandemic. When the lockdown started, Gargantubaby was two and two-thirds. Now he's almost three and a half. His pretend play has become more sophisticated, and now it requires another person.
THAT PERSON WILL NEVER BE ME I DON'T LIKE PLAYING PLAYING IS SHIT BORING.
I would rather cut my own hands on glass and dunk them in alcohol than pretend to be the voice of a fucking stuffed marmot! I would rather talk to someone yelling "ALL LIVES MATTER" than pretend my son, the future corrections officer, is putting me in "jail" for the thousandth time. I would rather snort dirty, dirty speed and be awake for the next three days on a houseboat than say "rawr" and pretend to be a dinosaur, mostly because half the time my son startles and cries when I say "rawr," EVEN THOUGH THOSE WERE THE EXPLICIT DIRECTIONS AND I QUOTE, "Mommy, say 'rawr'!"
It shames me, but my disavowal of pretend play is fundamental to who I am. Other people describe me (including in a performance review from THIS WEEK) as "passionate," "driven," and "a champion." A CHAMPION. I have never in my entire life been described with any of the following words: "playful," "whimsical," "patient," or "nice."
I have never liked pretend play, except when I was a kid myself and had a black garbage bag full of my mother's '70s castoffs. That was dope. I don't like costumes or costume parties. I don't like plays. I don't like musicals. I don't like science fiction or fantasy or magical realism. I don't like cartoons. I don't like video games. I hate the entire concept of Burning Man. I don't even like makeup because I CAN'T DO IT and IT DOESN'T HELP ANYWAY YOU CAN'T POLISH A TURD. The office Halloween party is a painful gauntlet every year because it makes my skin crawl just to be around other people who are in costume and seem happy about it (I went ONE TIME as a scary version of a sexy Olaf and was so uncomfortable with my choices I nearly went home early).
But this child wants to play. "Mommy, play wif me," my son says, having no idea that these words bring on a surge of painful emotions, starting with I DON'T WANT TO followed by GUILT HE IS THREE YEARS OLD AND SOON HE WON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH ME OR ANYONE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY DID YOU EVEN HAVE A KID.
Most of the time, because guilt, I engage half-heartedly in "Hi, I'm Horse, what's your name?" for a total of thirty seconds. But I can't do any more than that. I drift away into other rooms, check my email, check my phone, get sucked into completely unnecessary, adult-type pursuits. Sometimes I just walk away without making an excuse, hoping my son will revert to talking to himself.
And this brings more guilt, because eventually he WILL talk to someone: his imaginary friend, Guja.
I know imaginary friends are a normal part of childhood development. And I know that even if we weren't in a pandemic that has shut down playgrounds and other meeting places for kids, and even if my son could see his sister for more than fifty percent of the time, and even if his wonderful, beautiful father who LOVES to play never had to work, my son might still have an imaginary friend. Nonetheless, I am certain that Guja is my fault, that my child has invented an imaginary playmate because his mother doesn't want to play with him, and we will both die early, him croaking, "Play wif me!" and me croaking, "It's too late anyway! Can't we just read a book?"
Last week SJ was out of town for four days, so it was just me and GB. On Saturday morning I thought I would take him on some kind of adventure, but after all that solo parenting I didn't have the energy HOW DO SINGLE PARENTS DO IT EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME WTF. GB decided he would put me to bed. I thought this was a good idea. He fetched me a blanket and a pillow and lay me down on the futon in the "office." Then he disappeared for a very long time to get me some water. I listened. No crashes. Yet the last time I left him alone for more than five minutes I found him in his sister's bed, playing with a throwing knife I had forgotten about NOT A JOKE THIS HAPPENED LAST WEEK.
So I got up to supervise but immediately encountered him in the hallway, walking very carefully holding a very full mug of water.
"I think you need to get back in bed," he said.
I agreed.
He snuggled in next to me and read a book TO HIMSELF. I luxuriated in the silence. I said, "GB must care about me very much. He got me a pillow and a blanket and a cup of water."
He nodded and said sweetly, "Do you want to hold my boob?"
"Sure," I said.
He leaned back so I could "hold his boob." I thanked Jesus no one can see into our front room from the street.
"Just don't pinch my nipple," he said.
"I won't," I said. "I pwomise." We sat still for a few seconds. Then he exclaimed, "You pinched my nipple!"
"I'm sowwy," I said. I looked very sorry. He sat up and slid his arms around my neck.
"You don't have to be sowwy," he murmured.
He slept in my bed every night, and one of those nights he absolutely would not fall asleep, even with the lights off, until almost ten o'clock. He cuddled up to me and said, "I'm afwaid."
"Of what?" I said tiredly.
"Of monsters under my bed," and this just upset me because the only reason he's heard of monsters under the bed is because of our multiple books about kids who are afraid of monsters under their beds I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN WHY DID THESE PEOPLE WRITE THESE STUPID BOOKS.
"What do the monsters look like?" I said.
"Blue," he said, and we worked out that they had big teeth, but they were very small. He continued cuddling up and saying "I love you" very softly. Right before he finally fell asleep, he said, "Mommy, our two hearts are the same."
Then again, earlier in the week we were all in the car, SJ driving, and I turned around in the passenger seat and mouthed "I love you" to GB. From his car seat, my son gazed at me stoically before mouthing back, "I don't love you."
Thanksgiving toasts:
SJ: I'm grateful to be here with the most important people in my life.
Jenny: Me, too.
Stepdaughter, 11, who recently addressed me as "bruh": I'm grateful to be here.
GB: I'm gwateful for blood is not coming out of us.
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I had this recipe hanging on my fridge for weeks, and I finally got around to putting "jumbo shells" on the grocery list, and then I went to Whole Foods Pay an Arm and a Leg because I assumed they would have "jumbo shells," and guess what they don't have? Jumbo shells! Specialty grocery store my ass!
So I bought all the other ingredients and used chopped-up leftover lasagna noodles, which if you've ever made lasagna you have sitting in the back of your pantry, and I sort of hand-made some jumbo shells. It was good.
You need:
16 jumbo shells, or leftover lasagna noodles
2 cups marinara sauce (I always make this sauce) (and hey, that link goes to the very first Jenny True blog post from when I was 39, suddenly single, and freaking the fuck out about not having kids!)
1 10-oz. package frozen leaf spinach, thawed
½ 16-oz. package frozen broccoli florets, thawed
1 15-oz. container part-skim ricotta
2 oz. Parmesan, grated (1/2 cup)
4 oz. part-skim mozzarella, grated (about 1 cup), divided
You need to:
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Cook pasta. Drain and rinse. If using lasagna noodles, cut into roughly what a jumbo shell would look like if you cut it and laid it flat.
Spread sauce onto bottom of large broiler-safe baking dish.
Squeeze spinach of excess moisture, roughly chop, and place in large bowl. Chop broccoli and add to bowl. Stir in ricotta, Parmesan, ½ cup mozzarella, and ½ tsp each salt and pepper. Spoon mixture into shells (or "cups" of lasagna noodles you have delicately nested next to one another) (about ¼ cup each) and place on top of sauce. Sprinkle with remaining ½ cup mozzarella.
Bake until heated through, 10 to 12 mins. Increase heat to broil. Broil shells until cheese beings to brown, 2 to 3 mins.