A few laughs

Ira is one of the funniest guys I know. Here are a couple of good ones.

Ira: If you want to wear a coconut shirt [bra], you have to have big nipples like this [demonstrates international sign for boobs].

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Me to Ira: Come on, Levy! Step on it!
Ira: Mama, what I step on?

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Ira to us: You want to see my aimer gun? It cost FIVE ONE HUNDRED MONEY.

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Ira: I got a cool movie. You want to see it? Here, look at my iPod [shows me his empty hands]. That's cool, right?

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Ira to his teacher: I'm allergic to my last banana [after finishing half of it].

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Ira singing: You got blood on your face, making me trace, dun-uh-nuh-nuh all over the place. We will, we will rock you!

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Ira: You want to hear my recipe? If you put salt and sugar on a quesadilla, that's called Chowder Sprinkles.

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Ira singing: Butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt! [Sung to the tune of the All Things Considered theme.]

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Ira while taking a midnight pee: "Pigs can't build houses."

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Chilling out

Hot dog
Originally uploaded by riblet.

Been a little stressed lately, for the usual reasons: dead people, work, parenting. I probably haven't been dealing with it effectively. I know this because I can get a little panicky. Some mysterious abdomen pains had me cruising over to WebMD to research the source. I should seriously be banned from this Website. A few minutes and several clicks through the Symptom Checker is the best way to make me overwhelmingly paranoid about my health. The good news: I'm still alive and I'm probably rather healthy. Phew. That was a close one!

I've written about Ira's picky eating before. It's my fault, really. If you plan on feeding a baby someday, DO NOT BUY SUPER BABY FOODS BY RUTH YARON. Instead, spend your money on Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton. The picky eating in our house continues to be an issue. We read a book a while back that encourages parents of picky eaters to just serve healthy food and if the picker eats it, fine if not, they wait until the next meal. It's like the "cover your ass" method of business. "Well, I did my part..." While it sounds like a brilliant and obvious strategy, employing it was excruciatingly difficult. Hungry kid whines and cries (different from bratty kid whines and cries) are too painful for me. I usually give in. Ultimately, I didn't have the heart to stick it out and Ira still gets separate meals than us. It pretty much sucks. For me, because I make two dinners, two lunches and two breakfasts. For Ira, because he misses out on awesome things like beans and pizza. He won't try them, the crazy kid! And my beans are good. Not to brag, but they are kind of legendary. It's the truth.

However, I feel inspired to start the one healthy meal, take it or leave it plan again. This is why: yesterday, Ira came home with a mostly-full lunch box and a wet shirt. I asked Leon what was up with the shirt and before he could fully answer, Ira grabbed a fist of shirt at the neck, stuffed it in his mouth and began to chew. The shirt was wet from neck to the bottom hem. Gross. He filled up on shirt instead of the nice lunch I made for him.

Have a kid, they're great®.

Mijo

Okay, maybe he looks like me a little bit.

Hearts, swelling, breaking.

Outdoorsmen
Originally uploaded by riblet.

Lately, the love I have for this tiny family of mine has been hitting me like a ton of bricks.

Since I started working again, I feel like my life moves at break-neck speed. As soon as we wake up, we're trying to get out the door, and as soon as we come home, we're trying to get to bed. When I can stop amidst the madness and be present in the moment, it's so rewarding. My boys' gravity pulls me towards them by the heartstrings. And BOOM - my heart explodes, or at least it becomes arrhythmic (maybe I should see my doctor again about that). Loooove. These two handsome faces are what it's all about.

As Ira's language is developing more and more, the person he's becoming is falling into sharper focus. He loves to laugh. He loves to make people laugh. When I asked him last week, why his feet were so stinky, he said "I ate the pickles all gone and then I put my feet in the jar, mama." Hilarious! And he still loves his mother, thank goodness. Once he found that by singing "You Are My Sunshine" and replacing the lyric "dear" with "mom" will earn big smiles, clapping and hugs from me, he sings it all the time. It never gets old. He's such a love.

Though the worrier I am, I stay sure that my whole world can change in the ordinary instant. Take the call I received at work on Tuesday afternoon. My niece rang my cell, which she almost never does, her preferred form of communication being text. I answered and she blurted out "grandpa just died!" I'll tell you what happened over the next few seconds: my stomach tensed and sank into my feet. WHAT?! I panicked. My heart went nuts, I started sweating. WHAT?! I demanded for her to repeat it. "Grandpa Tony just died," she said. Oh my. I calmed a bit. I had panicked because she calls my dad grandpa and I exclusively refer to my dad as grandpa when speaking to her. Only to his face or to my sister, do I ever call him dad these days. In one ordinary instant, I thought my dad had died and it effing threw me into a split panic. It was terrifying. Of course I'm absolutely heartbroken to lose my grandpa, and I am so worried about my dad's own heartbreak, having lost grandpa Tony on the heels of losing my mom just a few months ago. I've been finding a lot of comfort in something my grandpa told my cousin just last week. He said "when I die, I'm going to die a happy man. I've had a long and full life." What a great gift of peace to leave his family with. Last Christmas, he gave Ira a bike. It was kind of a big present for Ira, we certainly didn't get him anything that big. But grandpa Tony really wanted him to have it. He was smitten with Ira, who also took a shine to his great grandpa. And he loved to buy the boys in the family their first bikes.

I spent some time with dad the other day, bringing him a container of fideo (a Mexican comfort food dish, kind of like a dry pasta soup) and an ear to listen. I mentioned this to some co-workers after returning to the office yesterday and when I told them of bringing my dad the fideo, they all nodded knowingly and agreed "Oh, yes fideo. That's what you do." If there is one nice thing I can identify about working in the unnamed public agencies I've reported to, it's that I finally work with other Mexicans. This is not statement in cultural loftiness, but it can be comforting to be understood on a certain level. This is especially true for me, having come from an entirely different kind of office culture. Tower was comprised of all manner of misfits, nerds and extroverts bound by a common love of music or movies. Though it was free and liberal, there were not a whole lot of Mexicans in a mix like that. It was kind of like a homecoming last Christmas season, as a certain number of my new public agency co-workers would cruise by my desk after the holiday and ask if I was sick of tamales yet. There's no question if I had made any, but rather how many I had eaten or taken home and if that was enough to carry me through to the next wedding or Christmas.

Family and food. It's all about that too.