LIQUID EMERALDS

Monday, April 6, 2009

Today I took a walk on the beach with the dogs and Malko in one of the two BabyBjorns that were given to us (it was hard fitting the dogs in, but with a bit of pushing I finally managed), and it was really freaking gorgeous. Not to brag about how great it is being on maternity leave and therefore being able to do things like go for walks on the beach on Monday, but it totally is. Was? It is totally great, and it was totally great.

As I began the walk I had all this energy and I was feeling inspired by the beauty surrounding me, and the water in particular was stunning, with good-sized, perfect waves and the most intense colors--blue and green and turquoise, all sparkling like...

"Liquid emeralds," I thought, "the water looks like liquid emeralds and sapphires. Maybe I'll write a poem about that for today's blog entry."

An hour and ten minutes later, tired and needing very much to pee, slightly less romantic language was going through my head:

"Jesus fucking christ! Where in the fuck is the stupid fucking car!"

I finally found the car (it had decided to go for a swim) and threw all the baby/dog gear into it and commanded the very sandy and very soggy dogs to STAY IN THE BACK, OR YOU WILL DIE and put Malko in his car seat and decided not to pee by the side of the road but to hold it until I got home, like a mature person, and drove home and peed and fed Malko and passed out next to him on the bed.

Joedy and Lula came home not long after and the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that Lula was talking to Joedy in a bossy/whiny/bratty way. She has a tendency to talk to him that way sometimes, and it always makes my hackles stand up because a) I don't want her to talk like that to anyone b) I don't want anyone to talk like that to Joedy. I invariably jump in and start yelling at Lula to talk nicely to Joedy and at Joedy to make Lula talk nicely to him, and it invariably gets...weird.

Instead of yelling at Lula I (more or less) calmly told her we would be taking her new dinosaur t-shirt away if she didn't change her tone. And Joedy told her it was the truth, and furthermore that she sounds "like an idiot" when she whines. When I heard him say that, I did a mental fist-pump, because it's been a while now that Joedy and I have been working to get on the same page, parenting-wise, and the fact that I did NOT yell, and that he DID lay down the law, says a lot. Lula stopped whining and was good until she decided she didn't want to take a bath and drew on her rug with a pastel crayon. And then I DID yell. And then she cried, and then I read her a story, and then I sat down at the computer and thought some more about liquid emeralds and sapphires and all the other beautiful things that surround me all day long, every single day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can just hear Lula, poor thing. "Daddy called me an idiot!"

But it sounds like a pretty good day, all in all, and I can't wait to see the rendering of those liquid emeralds.

I must say, though, having to own an extra stroller just to cram the dogs in because they're not allowed on the beach does seem a little extreme. Those Californians are crazy!

grand anonymous prout.

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