shiso mama

Hello friends,

We’re off to Jamaica tonight, for a weekend of sun, sand, and work-related functions.  We’ll be back after Monday, hopefully tanner and more relaxed.  Have a great weekend! 

 xo!

A little while back, I came home to find a present on my doorstep from my friend, Lynna. It was from Tail of the Yak, a beautiful store full of odd little curiosities, which also happens to be one of the favorite stores of my friend Takako. Inside was this bag:

It’s made of Japanese newspapers, carefully folded and glued together to form a lovely tote bag, tied up with a ribbon. That in and of itself would make a fantastic present. But then inside, tucked in amongst layers of shredded tissue paper, I found a beautiful eggplant made of crepe paper. I shook it and could hear a gentle rattling inside. I was so pleased with my new fruit rattle that I promptly put it in my new cup, right next to my workspace so that I could look at it everyday while I worked. See here?

I called Lynna to thank her. “Oh, the eggplant’s not really the present,” she informed me. “You have to open it.”

Open it? It’s too precious, I thought. I like looking at it just the way it is. Every day since then, I looked at it and shaken it to hear the rattling of that mysterious present inside. And every day, F would come home and with exasperation and mockery ask me, “You still haven’t opened the eggplant yet?”

No, not yet. But I was starting to become more and more curious. Finally I came up with a solution - I would very carefully slice the eggplant open with an x-acto knife and then tape it back together afterwards. I proposed my ingenious plan to Lynna when I finally confessed that I had not yet opened her present. “It won’t work,” she informed me. “There are little presents along the way. And at this point, you may find the whole thing anticlimatic.”

Can you tell that I always saved my favorite food for last? And that much of the time, I was already too full to truly enjoy it? Well, today I took one last look at the eggplant, kissed it goodbye and started unwrapping.

After ripping through the dark purple exoskeleton, I found more and more layers underneath. They are wrapped with long, continuous strips of paper, so you become completely absorbed by the process of unwrapping, the bundle rotating in your hand as you unravel, slowly becoming smaller. So much so that I almost missed the first present that fell out:

A green Sunkist fruit gem.  And on and on I continued, finding a small present at each layer until I found a total of 9 presents.

It was such a fantastic present, so much about the anticipation of receiving such a mysterious gift that you almost don’t want to open, and the joy of actually unwrapping such a troublesome and gorgeous bundle. It makes me think of Japanese things (big surprise), where even seemingly mundane objects receive the same sort of elaborate treatment that “special” objects receive by being wrapped carefully and lovingly. Every object in the eggplant was small and plain, but it seemed so special.  In fact what was so special was the entire process. Everyone should get the chance to open such a fun gift at least once in their lifetime.

I’ve put all the little presents back into my cup and returned it to the spot where the eggplant once sat. I’m sad that the eggplant is not there for me to look at anymore, but it was definitely worth it.

Click here to watch a slideshow of all presents as they were unwrapped.

Hello, friends. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and have been enjoying your holiday weekend so far. We definitely have been.

We stuffed ourselves on Thanksgiving evening. My cousins came over, along with Fifth Aunt Grandma K. Once again I managed to overestimate the time I needed to cook the turkey (curse the internet!) and I overcooked the bird. Other than that, I think everything turned out quite well. Otis seems to be developing a curious poultry aversion, which he shares with (or inherited from) my dad, so he skipped right over the turkey and gravy and dove in and with great gusto devoured the …. brussels sprouts? My family kept asking, What’s wrong with this kid that he’s gorging himself on brussels sprouts? He couldn’t get enough until he finally tasted the sweet potatoes and realized they had been baked in sugar and butter. He ate so much that towards the end of dinner he started farting while he was eating. Appetizing thought, no?

Here he is, enjoying one of his favorite post-mealtime activities: flossing his teeth with Fifth Aunt Grandma K’s Hummingbird flosser. He loves that thing. When she comes over, he 1. asks for a drink while exclaiming “hot hot” because she always comes with a thermos full of preserved plum tea for him and 2. he’ll scrape his fingernails between his teeth while saying “bzzz,” looking inside her cavernous purse for the flosser.

Even after all that dinner, he managed to scarf down a substantial amount of ice cream, whipped cream and pumpkin pie. I had been craving Betty’s pumpkin pie, but unfortunately I am the only one with a taste for pumpkin, so I’ve been left with three quarters of a pie to eat myself (which I dutifully do, morning, afternoon and night.) The rest of the family asked for apple something, so I made a tarte tatin. It had a nice bitter caramel edge to it, the crust turned out OK (though I think I’d go for puff pastry next time) and it was great with ice cream. Lookit how nice it turned out:

*****

Fifth Aunt Grandma K came over yesterday afternoon for a little Otis lovin’. F and I took the opportunity to flee the house and go to a movie and have dinner. We went to see Casino Royale, which I’ll admit I really didn’t want to see at first, but agreed to just because I wanted to see something fun and exciting which would not tax my brain in the least. I loved it! I think it was the best Bond movie ever, a million times better than The Living Daylights, and I only loved that because Grace Jones was in it and the theme song was written by my favoritest band of all time, Duran Duran.

The only thing that was annoying was that this group of 6 adolescent boys kept up this constant chatter through the entire movie and though I asked them to be quiet, I had to resist the urge to climb over the seats and sit between them, which is only a thought that would have occured to me since I started teaching AND became a mom. The crazy thing is that I was sitting here thinking, and I realized that the last movie I saw in a theater was the Bourne Supremacy (which I also enjoyed). Release date? July 23, 2004. Yikes, that’s a long time. When did a small popcorn become $5.25?

*****

No Fashion Show Sunday pics. It’s rainy and cold, and I think Otis is coming down with something AGAIN and he’s been sleeping a lot today. Should I be worried? He never sleeps late in the morning and takes a going-on-3-hours nap in the afternoon. I hope he successfully fights this one off for once, since we’re leaving on Thursday for Jamaica.

A two-part post, one crafty in nature, the other parental.

I finished the baby man-purse for our baby friend, Emmett. I opened my big mouth too soon, and his mom knew of things to come, so it was not such a big surprise for them. Emmett’s bag is made of a denim-y linen material, with royal blue cotton contrasting fabric. It has a dropped lining, which looks much better than the lining I made for Otis’s man-purse, and Emmett has a little elephant to keep him company, which can be tucked into a patch pocket on the front and won’t get lost since he’s attached to the bag by his “tail.”

Emmett was carrying it around some by the end of the evening, and at one point, I found a sippy bottle tucked into it. I think he might take it with him when he goes grocery shopping. You never know when a baby might find himself in need of a man-purse.  Maybe I’ll get pics of the baby men and their purses at an upcoming farmer’s market.

*****

Fair warning: here starts the parent-y angst section of the post.

We were at Emmett’s birthday party (which was one of the most enjoyable kids’ parties I’ve ever been to, by the way, with the greatest, most fantastic-est ice cream cake EVER), and there weren’t too many kids tearing the place apart - just Otis, Emmett, and Emmett’s friend Maya. Both Emmett and Maya are four months older than Otis, but they are smaller in stature (how did we manage to have a ginormo baby?).

Everyone’s playing well. Otis becomes obsessed with a diaper wipes box full of bottles caps, depositing them in the box and then shaking it over his own head to feel the cascade of showering coins wash over him. Emmett and Maya are just like siblings, squabbling and then getting along in turns. Otis tries repeatedly to hug Emmett and otherwise molest him throughout the night. He also tries to molest Maya and once, I just hear a tiny little squeak of protest as she is crushed by his enveloping arms. At the same time, though, he also wants to shake the box of coins over her head, nearly whacking her repeatedly over the head. He also wants to grab things out of her hands, and do other things that I find somewhat aggressive.

At one point, Lynna, Emmett’s mama, says to the kids, “Hey, work it out.”

It was kind of a surprising thing for me to hear, and something I would never consider saying to the kids, or rather, to my kid. No, whenever I see Otis engaged in some sort of struggle, or even about to engage in some sort of struggle, I always intervene, encouraging Otis to give a toy back to another kid, or just to let another kid have a toy when they try to grab it. It’s worked out fairly well for us so far since Otis is a pretty easygoing kid, and when I see him doing it, I feel proud that he is being courteous or generous, and that perhaps I am teaching him to be well-mannered.

But F points out that at this age, he does not understand these concepts, and that I am instead teaching him, in a way, to just follow adult directives. That really, in order for him to actively act in a courteous or generous manner that he has to make these decisions for himself. And that he will figure these things out by engaging in a series of kid-directed interactions, without worrisome parents hovering. He thinks that “work it out” is a good policy, unless, of course, that means “fight it out.” But still, there are lots of fine distinctions, and neither of us can figure out how to teach our kid to be polite without being a push-over. And plus, I’ll also have to admit that my opinion about this whole thing would maybe be different if Otis were a girl, that maybe I would prefer to teach a daughter to stick up for herself and take what’s hers. A double standard, admittedly, but maybe a corrective double standard if you worry about societal norms being self-fulfilling.

And anyways, am I really teaching him to be the things that I consider to be admirable qualities? In thinking about it, it seems like I am teaching him to be passive, and to always let other people have their way. I cringe when I see aggressive behavior in kids, and I am trying to do my best to avoid that, but I’ll admit that I often jump in before Otis even has a good chance to work out any aggression. I have an overly heightened sense of politesse, and I suppose I unrealistically extend these expectations to Otis. Plus, I worry about the “me, mine” phase of toddlerhood, and although it’s a developmental phase that can’t be avoided, I’m hoping to be able to temper it a little.

My father likes to tell the story often that when I was little, maybe 6 years old, that he would always tell me to let younger kids have their way. And I would turn to him and ask him, “But tell me why.” It drove me crazy even at age 6 that he could provide me no logical explanation for why this was the proper way to act. And I can’t say that I would have a better explanation for Otis, were he to ask me the same question today.

PS - And by the way, Lynna’s a trained professional and shit, and I have nothing but respect for her opinions and her parenting, and man, that girl buys good ice cream cake!

Plus a special Mama edition of Fashion Show Sunday:

It’s so gray here today, raining or drizzling off and on, and Otis and I are both sick again. Between the weather and the car off, being serviced, we’re getting a little bit of cabin fever. I’m working while I can during Otis’s nap, listening to This American Life. Here’s a sneak peek - I’m working on a new baby man-purse for a baby friend, whose birthday is this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have pics of the two together by the end of the weekend.