Meeting Elmo

 













We are waiting in line to meet Elmo at a bookstore. The line snakes so far out of the children’s area that we can’t see him in the fur yet but Matt is just happy enough to see the Elmo merchandise prominently displayed at his eye level.

An employee with sample sized hot chocolate with whipped cream and white chocolate shavings on top along with wedges of lemon frosted donuts stops by our section of the line. A sugar high is probably the last thing a line full of young children needs but exactly what the parents all need.

We inch closer and closer and soon can see Elmo sitting in a chair like royalty among his loyal toddler subjects. Matthew immediately grins and waves at him. When it is finally our turn to take a picture Matthew looks both delighted and star struck.

Love

Matthew has discovered the shelves of Dr. Seuss books at the library. In other words, the puzzle table and wooden boat are now our old haunts. Today we cozy up in a far corner away from that tourist trap play area to read the Seuss books he picks out from the shelf.

“No. No. No. No,” Matthew browses through the titles, pulling them out just far enough to see the cover. His eyes flicker with recognition when he sees The Foot Book, one of his favorites at home. “Here you go.” Before I get to the second page of the new copy he back to browsing the shelves. “No. No. No…”

In the next aisle over a girl his age with whitish blonde ponytails pokes her face between the empty space of books on her side and says hi to us. Matthew pushes some of the books on our side away to make room to see her. “Peek-a-boo,” he says grinning and covering his face with an arm. She giggles and does it back. She and Matthew start chatting to each other in their sing songy toddler voices. I imagine their conversation going something like this:

Matthew: I finally found some books in this place that I can remember all the words to.

Blondie: Those are my favorite kind!

Matthew: I wonder why none of the pages are ripped in any of these books?

Blondie: Maybe nobody likes them the best yet. My mom doesn’t let me put library books in my mouth.

Matthew: Mine doesn’t either, how do we know if we like a book without tasting it?

Blondie: Quick question, do you Elmo or Abby better? On no, that is my mom picking me up just now. Maybe I’ll see you around the coloring table sometime.

“Buh Bye,” Matthew says to the girl when her mom scoops her up, casting me an apologetic glance, before carrying her back to the play area. Matthew returns to me and plops back down on my lap.

Matthew' Visits the Dentist

 







Matthew had his first dentist appointment.

The dentist office we went to had bright dolphin murals painted on the walls, a cheerful salt water fish tank, and coat rack shaped like a surfboard. The weather outside suddenly seemed a lot colder in contrast to the make-believe beach hut exam room we sat in. Matthew was cooperative and kind during his visit, only crying when it was time to go. He liked the dentist much better than I thought he would!

Cabin Fever

This past summer I read an article on Slate by Timothy Noah written in 2005 on the subject of not owning a summer home. Immediately I was drawn in by the particular style of his writing in the article, thus the inspiration behind my blog this week. The original piece by Timothy Noah is here.


As November fades and December begins, long sleeved t-shirts are traded for bulky sweaters. Matthew’s Little Tykes cottage is unfolded and put into storage under the deck until next spring. Glasses normally used for iced water are pushed to the back of the cabinet in favor of mugs more suitable for drinking hot cocoa.

I do not own a winter cabin in the woods of Maine. The winter cabin I do not own was not purchased on a whim, one sticky summer day when we didn’t happen to see a for sale sign after taking a wrong turn on our way to the beach. It’s a simple one story wood log affair, with snow shoes not hanging on nails, firewood not stacked on the porch, and a large wooden bench that doesn’t open to store mittens, hats, and scarves inside of it. I love the bright knitted afghans that don’t drape over the white slip covered couches we didn’t buy second hand off of Craigslist.

We’ve been not coming here every weekend in winter since the year before Matthew was born. We don’t engage in activities such as cross country skiing, ice skating on the pond, or sledding down a neighbor’s hill. At night we don’t sit around sipping apple cider and playing games of Candy Land or Checkers, or we don’t read the crates of books we didn’t purchase from the library sale at just twenty five cents a piece. At the moment I am not making my way though a collection of original Sherlock Holmes novels that the previous owners didn’t leave behind. These books do not have a slight musty basement smell nor are the pages yellowing around the edges.

We don’t worry, of course, that the character of the place is starting to change, what with the multi million condos not recently built near the center of town, or of the rumors that a mall is in the planning stages a mile not down the road from us. Imagine─a mall here! Drive the twenty five minutes to the Kittery Outlets, for crying out loud! We didn’t finally break down and get the internet here last year to check the score of the Patriots game. The Patriots are also the reason we didn’t break down and buy a small flat screen TV. Though I must admit I’ve come to prefer listening to the game on a transistor radio Bob doesn’t keep in the kitchen drawer.

The wealthy newcomers are not spoiling the small town charm for everybody else. They don’t show up at the hardware store all up in arms looking for special trash lids to keep the bears away, nor do they drive loud and noisy SUVs on their way to the new Starbucks that wasn’t built next to the library last year. And the ski lodges that keep popping up to cater to this new crowd’s needs─overpriced day passes, smoothie bars, plasma TV’s─ I don’t find myself avoiding that part of town less and less. I have a good mind to not write a letter to the editor of The Moose. Don’t give me Jed’s Country Store any day (although rumor doesn’t have it that a CVS isn’t going in the same plaza as Starbucks). Jed’s still makes the best homemade fudge I never tasted.

Now St. Patrick’s Day is coming. I won’t lock the doors for the last time this winter and not give the wooden floors one last cleaning, nor will I ask the year round retired neighbors to not keep an eye on the place until mid November when we don’t start to return on weekends. As we don’t drive away from the driveway not lined with pine trees, I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t not have a winter retreat. Just like the one I don’t have.

Our First Christmas Eve Party

 






 










Matthew is dressed in his “party clothes”, a sweater vest and corduroys. Upon seeing the fold out table being brought up from the basement and a tablecloth placed on top of it, he takes a break from stack and unstacking water bottles on the kitchen closet shelf to climb under the table and check out his new hideaway. He peels back a corner of the tablecloth to spy on me while I rush around setting out wine glasses, filling up a bowl up with chips; emptying red and green M&M’s into a dish, and other necessary party preparations. Tonight we are hosting our first Christmas Eve party.

My mother is the first guest to arrive and after putting together a veggie platter she climbs under the table to join a now smitten Matthew.

“Is your mother under the table?” Bob sounds uncertain.

“It appears that way,” I reply slightly embarrassed.

Soon after the rest of the guests arrive, presents are piled under the tree, dinner is served,  gifts are exchanged, and dessert is served. The night whirls by and when the party is winding down Bob and I go to the kitchen to wrap up leftovers for people to take home.

“Bob?” I match his uncertain tone from earlier that evening, “Is your mother under the table?” 
 

He sighs in response. Matthew has coaxed his other grandmother to join him under the table.

Goodnight Noises Everywhere

On Thursday night I am driving home from work when I turn onto a dark road. The road after that one is dark as well and I see the source of the blackout is a tree that hit a telephone pole. Just down the road is the town line and the streets behind it are lit up again. I conclude that it is a windy night, judging from a neighbor’s small tree blown over in their front yard.

Upon my arrival home I recount my tale of fallen trees to Bob, who in turn informs me that our tree in the back yard is now leaning up against the house. It’s a very windy night indeed. There are a few branches in the front yard that I offer to pick up while Matt naps the next day, and before we drift off into sleep we joke that I will also pick up the tree in the backyard.

Crack! Ten minutes later we are peering out Matthew’s bedroom window into the front lawn. A larger branch has fallen from the tree. This worries Bob more than me. He thinks we should evacuate to the basement, whereas I think the worse is already over. We return to bed or in Bob’s case pacing in a worried way and looking out the windows.

“The power just went out!” Bob awakes me at some hour later.

Crack! Crack! Crack! At three thirty in the morning Bob and I stare into the darkness listening to trees snap and fall in the woods behind our house.

“What is happening out there?” I ask him.

“I don’t know,” he replies. The trees around our house have already fallen so there is no longer a need to talk about whether or not we should relocate to the basement.

At seven in the morning I am awaken by Matthew cheerfully babbling and trying to climb onto the bed. “Did you hear all the trees fall down in the middle of the night?” I ask scooping him up and carrying him towards the kitchen to make him some breakfast.

Bob is in the kitchen and on the phone. “You aren’t going to work today are you?” I ask him, “I bet the roads are icy.” I glance outside and get my answer right away.

All over the street and in the yards are fallen icy limbs from trees. The ones that stayed upright are weighed towards the ground with frozen water. The power line is down at the end of the street and there is a tree sticking out of a neighbor’s rooftop. Bob and I take turns staying inside with Matthew and walking around to survey the neighborhood and commiserate with neighbors. Outside looks as though the Once-ler came to town.

At night, still without electricity or heat, which will be days not hours before it is turned on again, we camp out in the basement room, the only room with heat thanks to the propane fireplace that was installed just one month ago. Feeling cozy, I read to Matthew his newest bedtime favorite, the classic Goodnight Moon by battery powered lantern light before tucking him for the night into his pack n play. He does not like this new sleeping arrangement and begins to wail, making it not so cozy anymore.

“If I had to choose anyone to be in a dark room with a screeching one-year-old after an ice storm it would still be you,” I tell Bob who is lying on the floor with our bed comforter wrapped around him like a sleeping bag.

“What?” he can’t hear me over Matthew.

So I tell him again but louder.

Santa & Sundaes

There is this game we play. Matthew hands me a cotton purple soda bottle from his picnic set and I slug exaggerated gulps from it. Then I realize it is actually poisoned and promptly pass out, resulting in belly laughs.  When I “come to” Matt hands me the drink again and seconds later I’m sprawled back out on his floor.

There is a saying that having a kid is the same as agreeing to be a kid again. While Bob vacuums and dusts to prepare for our Christmas Eve party in two weeks, Matt and I busy ourselves making a fort with blankets, chairs, and pillows, in the living room. I read him Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? in our tent, both of us making hand motions to the “sound” of lightning.

Just last weekend we visited an old friend’s house to make cookies. It’s a house where I have many fond memories at and very place my baby shower was held but with a one-year-old in tow it transformed into a house of doom. Open stairwells, scissors and knitting needles menacingly poking out the tops of baskets and tote bags, glass casing around a stereo, and a piano were some of the dangers I noticed while looking around. While the rest of us made cookies Matthew roamed about wearing adult sized crocs he had thieved from somewhere, and carrying a jar of sprinkles. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him clomping towards me carrying a china teapot. Once the task of cookie decoration/feasting began to feel a little redundant, the three adults and Matthew sat down to watch Elmo’s Christmas Countdown, perhaps the start of what may become a new holiday tradition in years to come.

On the subject of traditions, we put up our tree. Then of course there was the visit to Santa. Matthew and Santa’s meeting was successful if not met by little resistance on Matthew’s part. Afterwards we enjoyed our sundae topped with the works in a room lit by Christmas trees.