Trifle and spring is a lamb
How I would introduce myself to a support group: Hi, my name is Jenny, and I put things away.
***
It's almost spring in San Francisco. The plum blossoms are right on time, snowing light pink into the pages of my book, Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun. It didn't rain in February—the first time since 1864—but on March 1, snow dumped in the Sierras. We're praying for more, but stocking up on N95 masks in case it's an early fire season.
I have extra N95 masks. I'm a planner. I have emergency kits in my garage and my car. Parenthood has kicked this quality into high gear, but it also foils my plans. As I said to SJ this weekend, I had no idea how much failing was involved in parenting.
In January, my family visited from China and Chicago, and I arranged for us to go whale watching. The night before, I didn't set my alarm. It may have been all the Klonopin I was taking to deal with said family, but I'm not a "didn't set my alarm" kind of person. So in the morning I was in a spin, panicking about making it to Monterey on time. GB was following me from room to room, crying, "I want you, Mama!," but I didn't have time to pick him up. When I needed to get dressed, I did something I never do: shut the bedroom door on him. Immediately I heard him crying across the hall, and when I came out I found him leaning over the guest bed with his face smashed into the duvet, distraught. Wailing! Gripping the edge of the bed! My sister-in-law sat next to him, trying to console him by rubbing his back. WORST MOTHER EVER. There are levels of crying, and this was the worst: rejected by someone he thought loved him. I will never recover.
A month or so before that, I yelled after he screamed in my ear. Later, I found him playing by himself in the living room.
Jenny: Do you remember when Mommy yelled?
GB: Yeah.
Jenny: I yelled because I was stressed out and then you screamed directly in my ear.
GB: (Looks at me uncomprehendingly, or maybe just waiting for me to go on.)
Jenny: Still, I shouldn't have yelled. Did it make you feel sad?
GB: No.
Jenny: That makes sense. To him, sadness means crying, and he didn't cry.
Jenny: Did it make you feel scared?
GB: No.
Jenny: Also makes sense. He didn't startle.
Jenny: How did it make you feel?
GB: Not good.
Jenny: HEART BREAKS INTO A MILLION PIECES I HAD NO IDEA HE HAD THE CAPACITY TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION SINCE HE ANSWERS MOST QUESTIONS WITH "BLUEBERRY SAUCE."
Jenny: (Dying on the inside) I'm sorry.
GB: (Looks away, embarrassed by his embarrassing mother)
***
Gargantubaby to SJ, right before falling asleep: "I love you, Daddy. I love your penis."
***
I tell GB all the time I love him to pieces, and out of the blue, he says to me, "Ah luh lou pieces, Mama."
I may have mentioned we own a life-size plastic skeleton SJ bought at the after-Halloween sale at Walgreens two years ago. I hate this fucking thing. Its name is Bob, and it's the reason Gargantubaby cries out, "Bob!," as we drive across San Francisco, home to endless images of sugar skulls. It used to live in our living room, before I lost my shit and started hiding it around the house. Last year at Halloween, SJ put it outside, and, a month ago, he thought he was going to bring it back inside. Instead, he folded it up in the garage and sighed, "Marriage is all about compromise. For me."
"Thank you" was one of Gargantubaby's first words, and recently I've been able to teach him "may I please have." If he says, "I want blueberries," I say, "How do you say that nicely?" He says, "Please," and I say, "The whole thing," and he says, "May I please have blueberries?," and I say, "Yes!"'
I didn't realize how engrained it had become: Very early one morning, a cold little body scooted closer to me, and a couple of hands searched my back for the boobs that weren’t there, and then a little voice said, "Mama? May I please snuggle wif you?"
He's learning to be polite in two languages. GB speaks tons of Spanish at daycare (I'm told), but the second he hits the threshold, he speaks nothing but English and won't tolerate me trying to speak to him in Spanish: He gets super annoyed and whines and holds his hand over my mouth. But he's been saying one thing in Spanish recently, and he says it a lot: "Con permiso." I LOVE THEM WE WILL CONTINUE TO PAY THEIR OUTRAGEOUS, UNSUBSIDIZED, CITY-SANCTIONED FEES.
We ran out of bread, so on Saturday morning I woke up to huevos rancheros in progress. GB ate all his eggs and beans, but as SJ and I talked, GB ripped his tortilla in half and gave them both personalities. Both halves walked across the table and stopped at the smoke alarm that needs a battery.
GB: What's this?
GB: I don't know. What's this?
Together the tortillas dragged the smoke alarm closer to inspect it. Then when GB was ready to eat them, he politely warned the tortilla halves.
GB: All right, don't be lying down yet! I'm gonna roll you up! I'm gonna eat you!
GB: OK!
He has memorized a book: I'm Invited to a Party, by Mo Willems. He can do simple puzzles, and he's remarkably patient (legend has it I was never patient, even as a toddler). He tries many pieces many ways. He made it through three 12-piece puzzles one morning.
When he fits a piece, he tightens his fists and makes his body shake with happiness. When he gets frustrated, he says, "I can't do this anymo-wer. I’m too small." Rarely, he throws himself back, howls, and says the most intense thing he can think of: "Bless you!" (Somehow, when he really needs it, he can't remember, "Holy fucking shit.")
One day, he couldn’t fit the last piece of the bird puzzle. To my surprise GB's chin wavered and he burst into tears.
"I want it!" he cried.
I pulled him onto my lap and snuggled him. After a minute, he sniffled, "I want to do the bird. I don't want to cry."
And he got off my lap and tried again.
***
Just because the weather has been so sweet, and last night I got the first real night of sleep in weeks, I’ll end with a song GB sang to himself yesterday, his stream of consciousness that includes objects in his view, recent memories, pretend, lines from books, and a touch of nonsense, all in a sweet, high voice that sometimes has a little tremolo when he’s trying to sing prettily:
My penis
My penis
My penis
Is very good
I love the
Monster
On top of
Mommy’s head
Boom
One day
We go to the farmers’ market
Then we had fun
We had fun before that
Had a apple
So leggo
Tickle one
Look to the forest and said
Oh there’s a dinosaur
So there’s a dinosaur running at him
And he like, AH
Little silly dinosaur
Don't walk to the cave
All by himself
(noise) A window broke
A door was busted
Bring! Alarm came off
If I could be the American to bring this trifle recipe to the U.S., my work here would be done. I talked my stepdaughter into making it together, which was easy because 1). it’s super easy to make, and 2). she got to eat it later. This is my favorite dessert, and I’m not a dessert person. It’s adapted from a recipe I loved from childhood so much I wrote it down and memorized it at the age of 10 or 11, from Hevina and Tony Chamberlain, both now deceased, a kind and funny couple my family knew in Wales. They had a cozy cottage on the Penrhyn Estate near Bangor, Wales, with a grumpy little terrier and a piano and fireplaces in both sitting rooms, which were laid with rugs and stuffed with books, and outside they had roses and an enormous gooseberry bush, which is a sour fucking excuse for fruit, and upstairs were bunkbeds and a big hardcover book on the history of Barbie, so basically the place had everything I needed from the ages of 10 to 14.
You need:
Ladyfingers (A little hard to find outside the U.K., so this time I used pound cake.)
Sherry (I will never drink this stuff otherwise, so borrow mine.)
Raspberry jam
Custard (Also hard to find. This last time I used vanilla Jell-O pudding.)
2 bananas, sliced
Heavy whipping cream, whipped into heavy cream
Chocolate powder (like Hershey’s)
You need to:
Layer everything:
Ladyfingers (sprinkle with sherry)
Raspberry jam
Custard
Banana slices
Whipped cream
Chocolate powder on top (A tea ball or small sieve is good for not overdoing this.)
And then you, and your stepdaughter, are very, very happy. Your husband, who “has the flu,” won’t eat any. And Gargantubaby, Mr. “I want ice cream” and “I want cookie” and “I like sugar” will take one bite and look uncomfortable and say, “I don’t like it.” FINE MORE FOR ME.
(If you’re very, very smart, you will make this in a glass dish with a cover, so you can see the layers and then have it ready to go into the fridge. Boom.)
