Burning Bright in the Forests of the Night

It's taken a family tragedy to bring me out of a 6 month blog-hide.  So Jack, who is now an 18 month-old dynamo who wrestles, runs, and grunts instead of saying "yes," had this stuffed animal named Mr. Tiger.  I will tell you Mr. Tiger's story.

Last December we took Jack to see Auntie Sarah in New York, and braved F.A.O. Schwarz at

This is what love at first sight in FAO Schwarz looks like.

Christmastime.  It was magical, despite the press of humanity. Whilst walking along a corridor filled with impossibly cute and expensive stuffed animals, Jack fell in love with a baby tiger.  He was only 8 months old at the time, so it was sweet to see him respond to something so ecstatically.  However, after checking the price tag, we figured we could find it online for much cheaper than what the Manhattan F.A.O. Schwarz could get away with.  So a couple weeks later on Christmas morning Jack got a a very similar stuffed baby tiger, 12 inches long, that we found for $13 on the internet.  It was true love between Jack and Mr. Tiger from the start.

This is what love at first sight on Christmas morning looks like.

Mr. Tiger became the privileged stuffed animal very quickly--the only one Jack wanted to sleep with.  Mr. Tiger was Jack's great friend in the manifold miserable moments (how's that for alliteration) spent wailing in his crib before naps and bedtime.  Sometimes Jack would not be screaming, but be jabbering and chuckling.  I'd peek in at him and find him wrestling around the crib with Tiger, his tail flying.  One time I checked on him after he fell asleep and found Jack flat on his back, with Tiger resting his four paws on his chest, as if Jack had fallen asleep staring into Tiger's friendly face.

For 10 months Jack and Tiger have been the best of buddies--lone companions during the long watches of the night, and it has even given us comfort to know that Jack has a friend in there.  For several months Jack wouldn't go outside without Tiger or his back-up, Mr. Doggy.  I'd wait at the door while he scampered around the house, gathering up Blankie, Tiger, and Doggy, and with his great strength he'd haul them all out the door and into the wide world, where they would get muddy and wind-blown together.

Jack on an adventure with his buddies.

Then yesterday morning, we lost him.  I still don't understand how it happened.  If I were a little more superstitious or if we lived in a place with slightly more romance I would blame elves or impish spirits.  I carried Jack from our third story apartment down the stairs, out the building, down the sidewalk, to our car.  I thought he had both Tiger and Blankie (praise all good things that we didn't lose Blankie because his attachment there is even stronger than Tiger) in hand, and I saw him drop Blankie right as we were getting into the car.  I assumed he had dropped Tiger behind me, so I got Jack in and buckled, grabbed Blankie, then turned to grab Tiger, but he wasn't there.  I stepped back to the sidewalk to see if we'd dropped him somewhere between the car and the building, but I could see nothing.  I was puzzled, but I'm mostly braindead most of the time these days, and assumed Jack must have just left him in the apartment.

An hour and a half later, when we'd returned from our errands, Tiger was nowhere to be found in the house.  I put Jack down for his nap and then turned the house upside down.  I retraced my steps time and again out to the car, getting down on hands and knees in the parking lot, searching under cars.  I looked in bushes.  I prayed.  I called the office and they contacted the cleaning crew.  I accosted the maintenance guy who'd been working on the apartment below ours.  I cried.  I knocked on our neighbors' doors and asked them.  I cried again.  I prayed some more. Josh made a "Have You Seen Me?" poster with a picture of Tiger on it, and we posted it on the front door of our building.

Josh and I keep opening the front door, looking to see if somehow Tiger has magically appeared on our door step, or as if he were a real Tiger, come wandering home after hunting squirrels. 

I have come to conclude that Tiger has either been stolen by a neighbor or carried off by a hawk. When the latter thought struck me I started wandering far afield, looking for places where Tiger may have been discarded or fallen from a tree branch.  Oh the places your imagination can take you.

It feels like a family member has been lost to us.  I am tortured by all the memories of Jack looking for Tiger before bedtime, and the joyous giggle and embrace that always followed discovering him.  I would sometimes find Jack lying on the floor, looking out the window, just holding Tiger and Blankie.  Every time he'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night and we'd go to comfort him, he'd be clutching Tiger to his chest.

Part of why this has been so disturbing for Josh and me is because we see daily evidence of how the line between real and imaginary is so flexible for infants and children.  How can you possibly say: "it's just a stuffed animal, we'll buy you a new one, it's not like it's a real Tiger"?  Because he is real, and very much alive for Jack.  Just yesterday, on our morning walk to the lake, Jack and I were sitting and eating crackers next to the statue of our city's founder.  The statue looks like a jolly fisherman (although he was a very wealthy real estate entrepreneur) and he sits on one side of a bench along the lake.  When Jack first saw him, months ago, he treated him the way he treats dogs: half in love, half afraid.  He half laughed, half whimpered; he wanted to draw near, but he was afraid to touch him.  Now, he accepts him as a kindly friend.  He likes to pat his knee, and smile up into his jovial metal face.  Yesterday morning we sat next to him, with Jack in the crook of the statue's arm.  I gave Jack a cracker, and he reached up and offered it to Mr. Statue. That is why losing Tiger has broken my heart.

How has Jack reacted to all this trauma, you might wonder?  Well, I shall tell you: he has been heroic, even stoic about it.  Last night when we put him to bed for the first time without his friend, we tried a few other stuffed animals.  He pushed them away, but finally accepted my old bunny, the one with the two pink heart-shaped patches that my mom sewed on after he got singed by my nightlight back in 1985.  But when Jack awoke in the wee hours last night, and after I had soothed him and put him back in bed, he pushed bunny away, into my hands.  He was ready to face the rest of the night alone with Blankie.

Tonight, we tried again.  He pushed Doggy, Duckie, and Bunny away with loyal disdain.  He would go it with Tiger, or he would go it alone.  He didn't even cry--just clutched Blankie and lay silent while we left the room, heads downcast.

We are ordering him another Tiger tonight from Amazon.  When the New Tiger comes he will be sleek and silky, not matted and fuzzy like Mr. Tiger was after countless washings from his rough and tumble life with his best friend.  He will smell like a new toy, not like a comforting mixture of Jack's sleep smell and laundry detergent.  I wonder if Jack will see in him a counterfeit, or the ghost of his old friend, being dragged through the leaves and mud, getting applesauce in his fur, or being clutched in the trusting arms of a sleeping babe, all well in the night shared by two dreaming friends. 

On Hobbit Holes and other Nerdy Longings

I have been a bit obsessed with the idea of living in Middle Earth lately (we watched The Hobbit this weekend).  My conversation with Josh went something like this:

"I'm obsessed with Middle Earth.  I want to live there."
[Chuckles].  "Wait -- like, New Zealand?  Or Middle Earth?"
"Middle Earth.  Mostly I just want to live in a hobbit hole."

I really do.  I want the lovely round door, the larder stocked with huge wheels of cheese, loaves of bread, and tasty sausages.  I want to sit in my garden, flowers bobbing near my head, talking to Gandalf when he stops by.  I want to sing hypnotic dwarf songs around the hearth.  I want one of those dwarves to look like Richard Armitage.  I can say this because Josh has his own man-crush on Thorin--after we saw The Hobbit for the first time, we had a conversation something like this:

Josh: "Do you mind if I dream about Thorin tonight?"
Me: "Depends on what kind of dream we're talking about."
Exasperated: "Like, where we go on adventures and stuff together."
Me: "That's fine." Pause. "So long as you don't mind if I dream about Thorin."

And so the nerdiness deepens.  I've tried to figure out where it's coming from.  I've been beset with Narnia and Hogwarts longings in the past, but this hobbit-hole longing is palpable.  I mean, I really want to live there. I'm nowhere near the educated Middle Earth nerd that my husband is (he actually knows the mythology), or that my sister Sarah was (she dreamily envisioned accompanying the Fellowship as their cook when she was a 10 year-old reading the trilogy).  I am definitely not the winner when we play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit at McDonald family Christmases (sister Emily usually wins, but I think this has something more to do with Vigo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom than it does Aragorn and Legolas; her girlhood crushes were pretty intense).  My brothers could still probably sing the orc marching songs from the old cartoon version of The Return of the King.

All this being said, I blame the time of year.  There is something about the ripening of spring that makes me want to take to the open road, the backcountry, the anywhere-but-here.  It's a delight to be out-of-doors in this blessed window between the bone-wet cold of winter and the unbearable weight of a Virginia summer.  This is the time of year when I historically took all my back-packing trips overseas.  In 2001, in the bygone days before 9/11 and the euro, I wandered Europe for 5 weeks with two dear friends.  It was a heady experience--my breathless entrance upon the wide world as an almost-grown-up.  Memories of a full moon in Venice, waterfalls and white peaks in Switzerland, folk-dancing in a sunlit park in Barcelona, brioche and chocolate in Limoges, and swimming in the Scottish North Sea at midnight still follow me.

Four years later in the spring of 2005 I walked through Scotland, England and Wales with twenty-five others, and from that Wordsworthian utopia I never recovered.  When May approaches every year I think of grass-clogged hiking boots, rain-smeared journals, the smell of honeysuckle and roses, and the indefinable joy of true camaraderie.  Hiking, reading, learning, seeing, living--it was a sort of personal Eden; a removal from the world that nevertheless equipped me for the inevitable re-entry and deeper immersion into the world.

Two springs after that in 2007 I went to Iceland with my sisters--a crisp, austere, mysterious island, filled with enormously tall, well-groomed, very good-looking blonde people.  The landscape was eerie, still, and very beautiful.  It almost never got dark, and I remember sitting outside our little mountain cabin, overlooking a black-rock desert stretching to the sea, writing in my journal near midnight in sharp, clean, pale light.

Spring of 2010 saw me headed once more for a northern isle with my sisters--Ireland.  It was a week of steak-and-ale pie, buttery scones, Irish cheddar, ancestral lands, coastal hikes, windy hedgerows, and musical people.  We slept in a castle, wandered little villages, walked the Giant's Causeway, and almost sailed to Skellig, the mysterious monastic clump of rock in the Atlantic.  

And then just a year later, in 2011, I went to other ancestral lands with my newly-trothed husband.  For 10 days we hiked around Scotland, rarely indoors.  We scaled deserted mountains at sunset and ran down them again in twilight.  We skipped rocks on lochs and pranced among the bluebells (actually one of us skipped the rocks; the other pranced... I'll let you figure out which was who).  We trod past ruined abbeys, along ancient Roman roads, waving fields of brilliant yellow rape seed, and winding river beds.  We munched on apples and bread and cheese as we went; we nibbled on shortbread and pasties on mountain-tops.  Food tasted better and we slept more deeply; time wasn't measured by minutes and hours but more by the movement of the sun and the hunger in our bellies.   

I suppose every season carries historical association and the weight of memory, yet every spring I wrestle with the restless Romantic (note the capital "R") urge to be up and away.  Maybe my foreign springtime jaunts have ruined me.  But there is something about this visceral period of spring--when color is everywhere and the very air is laden with the smell of sweet growing things--that makes it hard to be an indoor, industrial-aged urbanite.  It is the time to be frolicking through blossoms, drinking nectar, getting grass stains, having dirt under the fingernails.  It is the time to be in the bosom of nature, or at the very least, cozily ensconced in a hobbit hole.

And so this year, instead of wandering the gorgeous, remote places of my girlhood imaginings, I wander Virginia's parks and playgrounds with my boy.  We pick dandelions and clover; we eat Cheerios and string cheese.  We crawl through mulch and get staticky hair from plastic slides.  Instead of Cumbrian bluebells we have Virginia bluebells; instead of wild garlic growing in primeval forests, I watch the dogwoods flower and azaleas begin to open next to trim townhouses.  The romantic wandering in lonely, desperately beautiful places is put aside for another age; for now, Jack sits on my shoulders and smashes cherry blossoms into my hair while I tell him about hobbit-holes and the good things of the earth.

Our Son, Beowulf Dalton

When I was pregnant with Jack, Josh and I would pray often for the baby to grow "strong and healthy."  It seemed the right thing to say at the time.  I remember, however, musing on the phrase one night, and saying to Josh: "Wouldn't it be funny if God took our prayers literally and Jack turned out to be an incredibly strong child?  I mean, for months we've been praying specifically for him to be strong.  What if he ends up like Hercules or something?"  We chuckled at the thought and commenced eating dinner.

I should have known when he was still in utero that he was no weakling.  I may have mentioned before that whenever I was reading with a book against my belly he would kick savagely at the binding of the book with enough force to make it bounce. But now that Jack is nearly a year old, I am convinced that our prayers were, indeed, answered literally.  Throughout the past 11 months, Jack has manifested astonishing physical strength.  On his second day of life he did a push-up off my chest while the lactation consultant was there to witness it.  Her brow furrowed slightly.

"Huh," she puzzled, "I've never seen a newborn do that before."

His power grew as his little body did.  He went through a phase when he was around 6 months old of thigh-clenching.  He would do this every time I tried to change his diaper--clench his legs together so tightly that I had to use both hands to force them apart, grunting and sweating, sometimes hollering to Josh for back-up, just so I could get the diaper up.  All the while Jack would stare innocently and curiously at me, seemingly unaware of the feat of strength that his lower body was performing.

He Army crawled at 6 months, muscling his way around the house.  Shortly thereafter, around 7 months, he began pulling himself up on things, and from there he graduated to full-scale body hangs off the edges of chairs, table ledges, etc.  He went through a Thor's Hammer Chop phase as well, where he would swing his arms violently and forcefully when either happy or irritated, bringing his hands crashing down upon whatever poor frail creature happened to be within reach (usually me).  Our friends, Brett and Lindsey Walker, watched him the night of my sister's wedding, and got to be first-hand witnesses to the strength of both his lungs and mighty fist.  Brett attempted to give him a bottle and Jack straight-up knocked it out of his hands.  "Freakishly strong," was the descriptor Brett applied to our little cherub.

I quail at the power of his terrible hand.  Look out, modern day Grendels.  When he was first learning to walk we would go around outside together, and I often felt like he was going to break my finger off--it would turn purple, and his hand was white from clenching.  Thankfully he now struts around by himself like he's conquered the world, so I don't need to have my blood vessels cut off and finger bones crushed every time we go for a stroll.

Sometimes I think he's just showing off when he walks around carrying both of my 2.5lb hand weights, one in each hand.  That's basically a quarter of his body weight.  At this point these antics have convinced us he is bound for a career in freight (or dentistry, for that matter, as he is also obsessed with teeth and toothbrushes.  Nothing makes him laugh harder than when I bare my front teeth to him).  His new move is to horse-kick during diaper changes, lashing out with both legs.  Not conducive to easy clean-up.

We usually come on the short end of Jack's stick of thumping, swatting, slapping, clawing, and clenching.  But sometimes in the quiet middle-of-the-night nursings he will reach up very gently to touch my chin or nose or cheek, and his little chubby fingers are soft and sweet.  Occasionally these tender moments end in a fishhook to my nostril or a swipe at my lip, but such are the risks in mothering a wild little Hercules such as ours.

Back with Jack

I've been working on a post for Jack for like 2 months now, and because it's so large in scope (his life thus far), it is not getting done.  So I am shelving it and just starting from now: Jack is a babbling, drooling, teething, crawling, climbing, anxious-to-walk 8.5 month-old. He was sick for the first time in his life this past week, which I have discovered is a new kind of awful.  But yesterday and today he has been back to smiling as usual, as you shall see below.

Sitting up like a jolly big boy in his new high chair:

 Trying to climb Mom's leg (note my festive socks) and showing off his new teeth:

This is our little dude!  He loves the washing machine, tinsel on the tree, the knocker on our door, and climbing things that will inevitably tip over and bring about a bonked head.  His newest thing is babbling and muttering while we hold his hands and walk with him all over the house.  It's adorable.  He is currently trying to eat the tablecloth while I type this, which is less adorable. 

I will not be surprised if he walks sooner rather than later.  I thought he was going to skip regular crawling all together (he'd been Army crawling for 2 months), when suddenly a week ago he discovered his knees.  I look forward to having him steady enough on his feet that I won't have to panic about him toppling over and braining himself, which he did this morning while trying to climb my legs while I was trying to wash my hands.  He fell, I lunged to catch him, and in the process smashed my mouth into the corner of the bathroom counter.  I now look like a circus clown with this huge fat lip on the bottom (Josh may be terrified when next he sees me), and I can't say all my words right.  An adventurous baby and a clumsy mom make for a dangerous combination. 

Happy Two Years!

I am resurrecting the blog so that I can wish Josh a Happy 2nd Anniversary!  Here's to two wonderfully happy years and looking forward to many more!  These years have seen us go from this:

The young Mr. and Mrs. Dalton, crossing the Atlantic in Cunard style

To this:

An exhausted but happy and expanded Dalton family!

 My inclination on such an occasion, being more given to the use of superlatives and such, would be to rhapsodize a bit on the many virtues of Josh.  But, having come to know the man by this point, I do not wish to embarrass him. I will therefore be content to just say a few things about why I'm glad I married Mr. Josh Dalton:

(1) The Hair.  I mean . . . honestly, it's remarkable.  We're still hoping that Jack will grow some like Daddy.

Cape May, NJ, Labor Day 2009

(2)  Josh is a selfless, devoted, and attentive father.  The happiest time of day for Jack and me is when Josh walks in the door--Jack starts shrieking giggles and I breathe a sigh of relief.  He loves to do everything with Jack, and always gets up with him in the morning, changing his diaper and playing with him before work so that I can get in an extra half hour of sleep.  That is a magical time for me.   

Daddy, teaching Jack the ways of beanies and root beer.

(3)  Josh does things just to make me happy--note the three Halloweens we've spent together (Halloween 2010 was spent moving into our new apartment, a week before the wedding):

Mary Poppins and Samurai, 2009

Pregnant Mary Poppins and Chimney Sweep, 2011

Tarzan and Jane, 2012

(4) Josh is a truly loyal friend.  This is a quality I noticed very early on in our dating relationship that I loved and admired in him. I feel lucky to have such a man as my best friend.

November 6, 2010: D.C. Darlings

(5) Josh brought Asian food into my life: sushi, gyoza, ramen, mabodofu, sukiyaki, bubble tea, tofu, pho . . . all these were unchartered waters until February 2009.  Back then I gave up in a panic when trying to buy soy sauce at H-Mart; the sheer amount of options paralyzed me, and I fled to Giant and bought whatever they had.  Now I have a pantry stocked with nori, mirin, konbu, shiitake, soba, sesame oil, and so forth, AND I actually know what to do with it.  I also think I've improved with chopsticks, although Josh may not agree.

New Year's Meal with the Daltons, 2011

(6)  Josh has made married life exceed all my girlhood expectations, and this is saying something (I mean, I'm a McDonald...we don't dream by halves).  It's a joy to share life with him, even when it's hard.  His goodness and love make my life a blessed thing and an enduring cause for thanksgiving.
    

The Table, Isle of Skye, Scotland, 2011

Thus is my present to Josh, along with this year's fancy anniversary dinner, in which the crab bisque turned out quite well but the filet mignon ended up medium well instead of medium rare (yet again, grrr).  Thanks for eating it anyway, dearest.

Love,

Ann Marie

I Am Most Seriously Displeased. Where Did Grandma Go?

Vassals and serfs,

The situation has become such that I felt it incumbent to take pen to paper once more.  I have now completed the first month of life, and things have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks.  I am once again left alone with my bumbling parents after a week and a half of bliss in the company of the worthiest of dames, my beloved Grandma McDonald.

Not only did she change my diaper much more quickly and efficiently than said bumblers, but she also waited on my pathetic mother hand and foot, keeping her hydrated, well-fed, and generally spoiled.  I dined well while she was here--my meals bore the glorious tastes of homemade soups, savory pot pies, sizzling steaks, and authentically English hot cross buns.  In depressing contrast, today all I got was milk flavored by a measly lunch of toast, yogurt, and three pita chips (my mother would try to blame this drab fare on the fact that I was screaming my head off and would not allow her to put me down--utterly irrelevant, I say).  Sigh!  My prospects look rather bleak in this regard.

Alas!  Gone are the late nights and early mornings spent in the company of my beloved Grandmother, when she would take me out of the flaccid arms of my inert mother or off the sprawled, lifeless form of my snoring father.  It was she who kept a clear head when I decided to have a minor fit of acid reflux (that may or nor may not have looked a little like a seizure--details, details!) that eventuated in a trip to the emergency room and rendered my mother hysterical (I made a point of peeing and puking all over the hospital bed, just to show my true feelings on the matter).  It was Grandma McDonald who recognized my diaper rash for what it was--again, my parents were clueless.  

Without Grandma, I'm sure I would have been poisoned a dozen times over by an unsanitized breast-pump and bottles; the dishes would have piled up, the dust bunnies multiplied and replenished, and the bathroom molded over.  She bought groceries, washed my laundry, and showered me with gifts (just wait and see what I'll be for Halloween!).

The day she left I nearly lost my cool.  I thought: "You're actually leaving me alone with these two?!"  I have since shown my general displeasure by exhibiting all signs of full-blown colic. I scream inconsolably unless I am sleeping, eating, or being walked all around the neighborhood by Dad at midnight (hehe--in the rain, no less!).  Take that, Mom and Dad, and bring me back my Grandma.

With condescension,
Jack the Terrible

 

Good News! Your Benevolent Ruler Has Arrived

Loyal Subjects,

In a world full of ego-centrism and narcissism, further fueled by social media, I am hesitant to add my thoughts to the meaningless chatter of the internet. But since Mom and Dad are passed out on the couch (they claim it's because I've kept them awake for the last four nights, but I'm guessing it's because of Dad's drinking problem), I thought I would sneak over to the computer and pen my first blog entry.

I address you as "subjects" because in the course of a mere four days, I have come to rule the Dalton household with an iron, albeit tiny, fist. I can only assume that you, loyal readers, will be the next to fall into subservient line. Anyone who doubts otherwise need only take one look at the glazed, zombie-like look in Mom's and Dad's eyes and watch them leap to do my bidding and the truth is evident: Jack's word is law.

All is not always well within the Kingdom, however. Sometimes I doubt the intelligence and competence of Mom and Dad. They don't even understand the simplest of instructions, such as: "Feed me!" "I have gas and it hurts!" and "Change my diaper!" They just look at each other with helpless expressions and say stuff like "I wish we knew what he wanted!" I honestly don't know how I can be more clear. Additionally, I have quickly grown weary of their conversations. All they talk about are sleep schedules, feeding schedules, how frequently they change my diapers... even the contents of my diaper. I cannot think of anything more peasant-like than these types of conversations.


Well, enough of criticizing my less-than-efficacious servants. We all have to play with the cards we are dealt with, and I am a patient and merciful Ruler.

Now. A little about myself. My birthdate was 1 April 2012. I was 7 lb 3 oz and 20 1/4 inches long. Most importantly of all my immediate post-birth stats, however, was my scoring of a 13 on the Apgar test (Sidenote: I got an extra three points because I karate-chopped the nurse who was measuring me in the throat). Apparently, I am also incredibly intimidating as well; once, I stared into Mom's eyes for an extended period of time and she started crying. People say I have Dad's eyes and Mom's length of limbs. I hope I did not, however, inherit their fumbling ways, because you should have seen them scrambling with my first diaper change. It was high comedy, and by "comedy" I actually mean "ineptitude" -- just because I pooped AND peed simultaneously, Mom was crying and Dad could barely hold my legs up. Talk about the embodiment of failure!

Some people (I call them simpletons) think that because I am a newborn, I have a simple personality, but they are completely wrong. I am a complicated man. A man of contradictions. I love being swaddled, but I immediately like to break loose from my swaddle and then cry about it; I scream when I want to be fed, but once I'm given the opportunity to eat, I immediately fall asleep. So like I said, I'm a complicated man. I snort like a bull when I'm agitated, I have the agility of a monkey, I growl like a tiger when I'm eating, and I have the strength of a bear. Greek origin myths should be written about me. 

Well, I have wasted enough of my busy day, which consists of eating, sleeping, and pooping, addressing you serfs. Please stay tuned for further guidance from Emperor Jack.

With disdain,
Jack Dalton