New baby, new circus

Dear J,

I just had a chat with Mama before she went to bed with Julia. (I miss talking with her, but she desperately needed to catch up on sleep before Julia wakes up again.) Now, mama’s schedule is Julia’s schedule. She has to sleep when Julia sleeps, because J2 wakes up every hour or so hungry or with a wet diaper, and if she doesn’t sleep when J2 sleeps, she’ll fall behind and quickly become a zombie.

We are thinking it’s time to move you to a different school. We think you’ve become unhappy going to school because you’re getting bored. When I dropped you off today, you were trying to put together an alphabet puzzle, and asking me what the pictures behind each letter were. The ‘K’ was missing and you asked me where it was. Meanwhile, your friends were throwing the pieces of the other puzzle at each other, while another boy was hitting me with his board and yelling “C C C”. The teachers were busy, especially after one of them left, leaving them shorthanded and with a new one in training that was trying hard to look busy doing nothing and desperate to avoid making eye contact with me for fear I’d ask something from her.

But, what made it slightly urgent is we’ve become suspicious. When I was putting you to bed tonight, I noticed you were restless. I comforted you by saying that Mami and Daddy love you… if you need us, you just have to call, “Mami Daddy”, and we will come. We will always be close by. You are safe.

Then you made a statement, looking to me for reassurance, “Big bad wolf is not going to eat you.”
“No. Big bad wolf is not going to eat you. I will say NO big bad wolf, you cannot come in here. Go away.”
You said, “Daddy and Mami will go ZUP! ZUP! and make him disappear! Like Abiyoyo.”
“Yes, I will make him disappear like Abiyoyo.”
You looked calmer. More relaxed. But you kept repeating it:
“Big bad wolf will not eat you.”
“No, if big bad wolf tries to eat you, I will eat him.”
“Daddy will EAT the big bad wolf! And he can not come out of your mouth.”
“Yes. That’s right.”

This concerned your mom. She went to consult with Abu Vicky, since she’s here, and she’s a Psychology professor and all. And she returned saying they have a plan for extracting information from you tomorrow (good thing you can communicate very well), and also a scheme for getting the teachers to talk without threatening them.

I just told Mama to let me know who I should murder when they’re done with their interrogations. Abu recalls that some teachers use fear to get a group of children to comply and go to sleep all at once. As I said, no one is “too holy”. People are animals. Among the animals, teachers are a rare breed. Good teachers are even rarer.

Let’s see… how are things going in the new 4-person household. I’ve been sending you to school and picking you up every day. I take you to the park alone in the evenings while Mama stays with Julia. She misses our walks, but she’s slowly recovering her strength. I’m in charge of bath time and bed time too. Mama sneaks in for bed time when she gets a window when Julia doesn’t have to be attached to her.

I’ve been spending much more time with you and you’re bonding a lot with me. Your eyes light up and you yell DADDY! every time you see me. I say “I love you”, and I know you love me too, because of the way you say “Hi DJaDDJeeee” with a big smile over and over and instead.

Especially after we spend many days together, like this Memorial Day weekend, you look for me first thing when you wake up. Mama tries to get you to let me sleep. But on Sunday I fell asleep on the couch next to your bed after unsuccessfully trying to help you wake up. You had breakfast with Mama and Abu, then you came up and said “Daddy Mr Sun is out time to wake up! Sun is shining time to wake up! Wake up daddy. Here’s a book daddy. Read this. Sit up daddy. Stand up from the couch daddy. Want to go downstairs daddy? I made breakfast for you daddy.”

I went to brush my teeth, and came out to see you sitting at the top of the stairs. You said, “Come sit here next to me daddy.” You patted the spot next to you. “I will read Bumblebugs and Elephants for you daddy. Do you want to listen?” Then you read it to me exactly as how mama or I would read it to you. “There was a great big chicken and many little chickens. Do you see the great big chicken? How many little chickens do you see? 1, 2, 3, …
We cannot eat great big fish, only tiny little fish.”

Then you opened the book and turned it over to the cover and said “Look daddy there’s an elephant here.” You showed me that the elephant spans both sides. We never showed you… somehow you put the two halves together and noticed they formed a big elephant. “It has a trunk, and a tail, and 4 paws. It has one eye. Where’s the other eye?” “On the other side.” You nod, “we cannot see it.”

You love reading and you love books. At naptime, you fought sleep for an hour, eventually falling asleep with your Trucks book:

We were on our way to the park the other day, when our neighbor’s black truck rolled into the courtyard. Your eyebrows raised and you yanked your handlebars to the right and said, “I want to play with S & S?” Then you pedaled behind them like a tiger was chasing you. S popped her head out the back of the truck the moment her mommy unclipped her and she yelled, “MOMMY CAN I PLAY WITH JOSHUA?” Both girls run out, disappear, then reappear with their bikes and run to ride around in circles with you. S followed behind you for a long time, even though you were much slower than her. She shouted to her mom, “He rides all over the place!”

Their mom went to visit J2. I took the beast out so she wouldn’t go crazy with our guest inside. S is still a little scared of Kimi, who doesn’t help by lunging and barking at her. Still, she really wants to be Kimi’s friend. She gave Kimi many leaves from the back of her tricycle. Surprisingly, Kimi ate all the leaves.

Speaking of leaves, the wind was blowing your hair around and a bush you were looking at the other day. You yelled, “NO wind NO!” I laughed and said, “The wind doesn’t listen – it has no ears.” You went, “Oh…” then later when the door kept closing on you, you said, “The door doesn’t listen.” And when the rain made our garden wet, you said, “The rain doesn’t listen.”

And I guess I need a shave. You asked me: “What’s that on your chinny chin chin daddy? Sand? Ants?” No… hair.

There is another girl you’ve been bumping into at the park, C. She has no siblings and she adopts every little boy and girl at the park as her little brother or sister. She offers to push kids on the swing, and she loves to play with you. She runs over and tries to carry you, help you climb up and down. You want to like her, but you struggle with her being a little too forward. You didn’t like when she tried to carry you like a sandbag. I asked her what her name is. She said C. She asked you what your name was. You looked at me suspiciously, then at the floor and mumbled, “TWO YEARS OLD. My name is two years old.” Just like how POWs state their name/rank/serial number when interrogated.

J2 – you’ve been feeding like a piranha, and you’ve outgrown your newborn clothes at 2 weeks.

Mama hasn’t been able to get much sleep or leave you for more than a few minutes without you wanting more to eat.

You’re getting more beautiful every day. Your eyes are open now, and your skin’s pulling tighter around the features of your face. You’re strong. Joshua loves holding your hands and trying to show you things he learned, like the days of the week. Monday, Tuesday, … But your brother doesn’t get what you can or can’t do yet. He said, “She doesn’t say anything.”

Love,

Dad

P.S. – J2: you’re little but you’re like the mysterious sliding rocks on the salt flats. Earlier today, Mama turned away and looked back to find that you had moved from the middle of a King bed to the edge. You can’t crawl yet, so we imagine you shimmy and shuffle. You also had your 1st bath the other day.

P.P.S – J: Mama caught some of this evening’s shenanigans:

Good thing there were no “surprises” tonight, considering we played right after dinner. By the way, I have the maximum pukey points while mama still has zero. That means that every time you have thrown up since you were born, it was on me. Poor me.