Ratatouille and sometimes you have to fight
It's New Year's Day in San Francisco. The parrots are back, squawking in the Canary Island date palms across the street. It's completely clear again, so from the top of our block we can see the Bay Bridge, Oakland, Alameda, and Mount Diablo in the distance. Yesterday the four of us chased the waves at Crissy Field, let the ocean air cleanse us of 2020.
I'm not going to say it was a shit year. I don't need to. But also, I can't say it. My son was two years old when this started, and now he's three. Since the beginning of his life—since I was in labor with him, when SJ was driving us to the Redwood City Kaiser at 11 p.m., when I had five contractions in the passenger seat of my car as he received text message after text message from an abusive person intent on trying to ruin the birth of his second child—external forces have been trying to wrest my attention from my son. This same person spent $200,000 trying to destroy our family, keeping us in court for three years, keeping my partner from his job, keeping me from my job, keeping my partner from his daughter, instilling in us the terror that we would be separated. I was scared but also furious—five months postpartum when it started, days from returning to work, days from an awful flu that would leave me unable to breathe through my nose, suddenly working during the day and breastfeeding an infant but also working through the night on an outrageous lawsuit. I was furious at the myopia of this person, the absence of compassion or empathy, the hurricane of entitlement, the deep, deep hurt, unrelated to us, that could lead a person, in the end, to burn down her own house.
The pandemic, a different sort of monstrosity, separated my son from his loving daycare, from all of his grandparents, from his loving aunts and uncle, from his friends. It took away playgrounds. It took away hugs and kisses. It tried very hard to take away fun and normal childhood development. I spent the first months in a daze, the same lightheaded feeling of going on medication—sober, but a little off, shrouded in vagueness. Is this real? After ten months, I still have intense dreams almost every night, in new locations with fantastical storylines, populated by ex-partners and former friends. Watching TV shows and movies brings a peculiar feeling of disconnect: These actors were in the same room together? Breathing on each other? When did they film this?
But when the pandemic started, I was ready, in a way. I was ready to not fall apart at the outside world trying to ruin my son's childhood, trying to hurt my family, trying to wrest my attention away, trying to draw me into despair and distraction, filling my heart with fear or hate. Instead, I'd had practice in blocking it all out to focus on my son and to enjoy him, to get to know him, to notice the funny, kind, silly, surprising kid he is and all the ways he's growing.
Basically, fuck you, external forces. You can't have me, and you can't have my son. I don't believe that anything that's happened in the last three years is some kind of blessing in disguise, but sometimes, one thing prepares you for another in a way you can't foresee, and when that other thing happens, you come up swinging.
***
In case anyone wonders why I haven't called or emailed or texted back yet: Photos of SJ trying to have a phone conversation, at which point GB decided he was going to drop his Spiderman slipper behind the futon and then look for it:
Gargantubaby, calling across the kitchen to our cat, who looks like he's about to jump onto the counter: Don't even think about it!
Three is a funny age, right? My son can't decide whether he hates me or needs me rightnow rightnow RIGHTNOW. It's a bit of both: He cries out to hold my boob, then makes a colossal show of wiping his cheek with the back of his hand when I kiss him, often blocking me completely with both hands.
"No kiss!" he says.
I nod gravely.
"I will not give you a kiss now because I believe in consent, and you get to decide who touches your body. But I might kiss you later," I say.
"No kiss."
"No promises."
On a first step to improving his mood, we're trying to get him back on some kind of sleep schedule, since over the break we've totally given up and he's been falling asleep around 11 p.m.
"Gargantubaby," I say one night after reading him three books, "it is now bedtime. You can read with the light on. But you cannot come out of your room. You just went pee, so no going to the bathroom. You have water, so no asking for water. No snacks. If you need me you can say, 'Mommy!' But if you come out of the bedroom, Mommy is going to come in here with you and turn out the light and stay in here until you fall asleep, and there will be no more reading."
His eyes well up with tears.
"That doesn't rhyme," he cries.
He has stopped hitting me (or, I should say, hitting me with the intention of wounding me), and attempting to bite me is a distant memory, but we're in a new, fun phase: He constantly tells me he doesn’t like me, and whines from the second—THE SECOND—he wakes up. Everything's wrong: "You can't say that. I don't want you to do that. You can't say that to other people!" Sometimes, unfortunately, SJ and I burst out laughing, because GB complains about anything we're talking about before he even knows what it is.
An example of his current state: I ask him to clean up the massive pile of plastic animals he has inherited from his sister and dumped on the living room rug.
His response: "Nobody cares about you."
Then this: I hand him his water before nap time (which we now call "quiet time," since he doesn't always sleep and he falls apart if anyone says the word "nap"). He asks me what water is made of.
Oh, I got this one, I think.
"Molecules," I say. "Two of hydrogen and one of oxygen."
"Oh," he says. "And the secret one … is love."
After his nap, he cuddles with me on the couch.
"You're my best buddy, Mommy," he says.
IS THIS THE SAME KID WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE RUDE ONE.
One night we sleep together in my bed, because his bed is still wet from wetting it the night before, and SJ sleeps on the couch. In the morning, GB is straight-up cracking up in his sleep. I can't resist; I whisper in his ear, "GB, what are you laughing about?" Our heads are right next to each other. Half asleep, he tells me a convoluted story about how someone got a skateboard but then they stepped on the skateboard and flew away. Someone had wings, and there was a stage. In the middle of telling me the details, he says, "Mommy, can you see my dreams?"
"No," I say. "Only you see your dreams, and I see my dreams."
That seems to make sense to him. He yawns and stretches.
Most mornings he either starts whining with "I want you to make me breakfast" or repeating a line from The Gruffalo: "My tummy is starting to wumble."
(Only this past week has he started pronouncing his r's: He said to his sister, "Let's run!" instead of "Let's wun!" There goes his childhood.)
Another morning, he just whines. First I need to carry him to the kitchen "like a koala" (we have one hold for "like a baby" and another for "like a koala"). Then I need to make his breakfast. He wants "floppy" bread, but we only have hard-crusted bread that his dad made, so his option is cereal. I put raisins on top like we've been doing all week.
He cries for frozen blueberries. We don't have any. "Then I want fresh blueberries!" We don't have any. He cries that he doesn't like raisins.
I stare at his bowl. I pick out all the raisins. All. The. Raisins.
"Spoon," he says.
"You know where they are," I say.
"No, YOU get me a spoon."
I go to the bathroom to pee (without getting him a spoon because RUDE) because all this has transpired before I’ve been able to have my morning pee. When I come out of the bathroom, GB is happily putting all the raisins back in his bowl.
"Actually," he says happily, "I said to myself, I do like raisins."
Another day he wakes up from a too-short nap crying. I carry him into the office, and he's full of complaints about how I'm holding him: "Move your leg! Move your arm! Not like that!" Etc.
Finally he seems to find a comfortable, lumpy position in my lap in the desk chair. He's wearing only his T-shirt and a too-big pair of boxer briefs a friend gave us.
"Do you want some cozy pants? To keep your legs warm?" I ask.
"No."
"Do you want some cozy socks?"
A grumpy voice from deep within my armpit says, "I just want cozy you."
***
SJ and I get in a good old Christmas vacation fight because I picked up every scrap of wrapping paper and plastic and put them in three paper bags and put the bags and all the boxes by the front door, and instead of taking them to the garbage bins on his way out, he's angrily tripped over them twice, sending my heart rate flying. Instead of breaking down the boxes, he picks them up and throws them over the porch into the driveway.
You are so lazy! I yell. You make so much work for me!
I put my shoes on and put the box cutter in my pocket and take the three paper bags down to the driveway and break down all the boxes in the driveway and bring in the garbage and recycling and compost bins. When I get back inside, I see SJ and my stepdaughter have left their skateboards in the hall, so I open the garage door and go back outside to put the skateboards in the garage. When I get back inside again, I kick the boxed color printer SJ has left inside the door that apparently he hasn't tripped over. GB yells from my room, where he's napping. I take a deep breath, step into the room, and lie down with him in the dark.
What were you saying? I ask him quietly.
I was saying, don't fight like that.
You're right, I say. I'm sorry.
We lie in silence.
Sometimes it's hard, he says.
What do you mean?
Sometimes all the things are hard.
I pause. I say, You're right.
Sometimes you have to fight, he says.
You're right, I say. Sometimes you have to fight.
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This ratatouille is from a very old Saveur recipe from when Saveur was the most amazing magazine ever made. I haven't made it in years, but it is so incredibly easy and delicious, and I finally had an hour and a half to bake something before dinnertime. You need:
1⁄2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 TB dried herbes de Provence (I made my own! I used tarragon, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, and fennel seeds. I have no idea what savory is, and I don't like lavender in foods, and I'm sure there are some purist recipes that require one but not the other, but I like what I made.)
6 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
2 large yellow onions, quartered
1 bay leaf
2 medium zucchini, cut into 2-in. pieces (seriously—huge pieces)
1 medium eggplant, cut into 2-in. pieces (again—huge pieces)
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and quartered
1 yellow bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and quartered (just realizing I forgot the yellow pepper)
10 whole peeled tomatoes from the can, drained
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 TB chopped fresh basil leaves
1 TB chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
You need to:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat oil in a 6-qt. Dutch oven over medium heat. Add herbes de Provence, garlic, onions, and bay leaf; cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes.
Increase heat to high; stir in the zucchini, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Uncover pot, transfer to the oven, and bake, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender and lightly browned, about 1 1⁄2 hours.
Stir in basil and parsley, transfer ratatouille to a serving bowl, and serve warm or at room temperature.
This is the only picture I have of it, in Tupperware the next day (when, honestly, it tastes even better). Keeping it real since 1976!