Family

Together at the End

Our trip to Hawaii was a work event for Dylan and a holiday for me and Asha so Dylan spent the entire time working his ass off while Asha and I hung around killing time watching The Circle and spending afternoons at the beach. Next time we must add a couple extra days to the trip so that we can actually spend time together at the end as a family. Dylan worked so hard we barely saw him and never got a family photo in. The only family pictures we got were on our way out at the airport in the Delta Airlines sky lounge VIP. Behold our silly selfies.

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Can’t Win Them All

Hawaii was so much fun and it’s good to be back. The dogs lost their minds with excitement when we got in. Asha is still crazy jet lagged, these pictures show what state she was in as late as noon on Tuesday. I had to get her ready for school all while she was basically unconscious. She was probably fast asleep all afternoon at school, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she spent the day slumped over in the corner or sprawled on the floor asleep. Asha sleeps as hard as she rages when she’s awake, which is to say deeply, seriously and a lot. On Wednesday the jet lag was worse, poor girl woke up, threw up, passed out again, threw up again, it wasn’t a great start. I thought about keeping Asha home from school but she had already missed so many days while we were away in Hawaii, we didn’t get back until late Monday evening, there are parent-teacher Zoom conference calls Thursday and Friday, so Asha only had two days of school this week and I didn’t want her to miss a whole second week. I asked Asha if she wanted to stay home and sleep or go to school and Asha said, “Go school.” And so we took her to school and I guess she spent the day sleeping. When I went to pick her up, Asha exited the building like a zombie, hand in hand with the teacher’s aid, looking glum and confused. I was concerned. The teacher’s aide said I should monitor her as she could barely stay awake. I said it was the jet lag. Guess I should have just kept the girl home after all. Can’t win them all. Yesterday at 1 PM we had our first parent-teacher Zoom call. I was dying to know what the teachers would say about Asha and I was not let down. They told us hilarious things Asha did in class and we had a good laugh. As expected, Asha pretty much ignores her classmates and hangs with the teachers all day. They are both Asian women so Asha says, “Mommy sister” and calls them both Auntie.

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Go Sandbox

The first few days in Hawaii Asha kept wanting to go home. She said, “Go home” repeatedly and then cried when it didn’t happen. She even got all strapped into her stroller and sat in it for about an hour waiting for me to stroll her home. We flew the girl halfway across the world to somewhere new and beautiful and all she wanted was to be home. There is a pool and Asha doesn’t want to swim as the water’s too cold. Instead she likes to circle the pool crouching alongside it and “do laundry.” Doing laundry consists of taking the yellow fly swatter and flicking the water forward. There is a green fly swatter that Asha gives to me and says, “Mommy too.” And so I “do laundry” as well and flick water with Asha. Karina gave us water guns that work like syringes and Asha loves when I squirt the water far and high. There are plastic parts in different colours and shapes for making sculptures in the sand. Asha gathered them all up and said, “Go sandbox.” Asha calls the beach sandbox. We’re a ten minute walk from the ocean and using Google Maps I was able to figure out how to get us there. Asha was in heaven but appeared more thoughtful than exuberant. She was wary of the ocean, intimidated by its largeness and the size and strength of the waves. Eventually she took my hand and edged us closer and closer until we stood in the water about knee deep for her. The waves came crashing in, the bigger ones got Asha excited and she’d joyfully squeal whenever the waves crashed high and hard. The waves crashing in was Asha’s favourite part. Then we gazed at the ocean horizon in silence seated close together and afterward I tried and failed to make Asha a sandcastle. The next day the first thing Asha said was, “Go sandbox.” After our beach visits Asha says, “Bye bye waves, bye bye ocean, bye bye sandbox” when it’s time to leave. Yesterday Asha walked around with her Hello Kitty backpack on, strapped herself in the stroller and waited for me to take her to school. She said, “Go school,” cried when I didn’t take her and then, still strapped in the stroller, she fell asleep. Poor thing just wants to get back to normal life and isn’t at a point yet where she likes vacations.

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Event

Everything She Likes

For Asha’s birthday, we filled the day up doing everything she likes. Dylan took her to the library where she ran wild and then they went grocery shopping where Asha got to get whatever she wanted. She wanted cookies and ice cream and pie. Then we went swimming and Asha was over the moon. Before swimming, Asha gave us an especially peppy version of her we’re going swimming dance. Adonis and Jan kindly stayed back to assemble Asha’s trampoline, we are so lucky and grateful to have helpful and wonderful friends. After swimming, Danny brought Rani over and Tara stopped by with her boys. Chaos ensued and poor Daisy barely made it out alive. Was very nice to have other kids around for Asha but sweet mother of god. Made me appreciate Asha’s preschool teachers who handle twenty 2 to 5-year-olds for several hours every day. We could barely handle four kids for five minutes. Made me appreciate the difference between one child and several. Made me appreciate the difference between having a girl and not boys. Eye opening, to put it mildly. Dylan made Asha’s favourite meal (noodles) and then we ate pie and ice cream, sang Happy Birthday and Asha opened her gifts. She actually found her presents stash a few days early and demanded to open the gifts at once, so she only had the remaining gifts to open on her actual birthday. Asha loved it all. To close the evening off, we brought Asha outside to jump on the trampoline and she just about lost it. The girl was born to jump so the trampoline was a massive hit. Asha loved it so much she paused to walk in a circle and give each individual trampoline pole a kiss. Very amusing and sweet, that girl is just a heartbreaker. Overall a really fun and wonderful birthday. I love celebrating Asha and making her happy, I almost prefer her happiness to my own. Seeing her smile and enjoying herself is the best. I want to have more children so that I can love them with my whole heart and celebrate their special days. Birthdays are so much better with kids, actually almost everything is. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d think this. Asha is such a blessing. She makes life worth whatever sadness, struggle and trouble there is. It’s an absolute joy to love her, take care of her and celebrate her. Happy birthday, Asha!

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God Only Knows

We were a full half hour early for our doctor appointment so I thought we might kill the time by browsing in the pharmacy next door. Then I remembered that Asha is obsessed with shopping and now that we made the mistake of entering it would be difficult to get her to leave. Regardless I did some casual browsing while Asha beelined with hectic purposefulness toward all manner of possible items to purchase. I was gazing at some concealers and foundations and musing about make up and when I looked to see what Asha was doing I saw her standing before me wild and intense clutching as many items from the shop as her little arms could handle. She had items that were plucked from the shelves as randomly as she was very purposeful in choosing and finding. I hid a smile wondering what she was thinking clutching all that stuff, like what does a 2 year old desperately need to buy from a pharmacy. Asha presented me with some of the items, I made like I was blown away and then discreetly placed the thing on some shelf somewhere. Next thing you know, Asha scooped up a magazine rack and was using it as a shopping basket. She went marching around the shop making loud figuring and considering sounds before tossing items confidently into the magazine rack. At the counter I motioned to the clerk to play along and act like we were gonna buy whatever stuff Asha had in her “basket” when of course we wouldn’t buy any of it. I got a concealer and a couple nice pairs of false eyelashes. When I made ready for us to leave, Asha threw the predictable tantrum and fought with all her might. Finally I bought her a pack of gummy worms and that chilled her out a bit. That girl sure loves to go shopping. She shops with great energy and enthusiasm and is as wanton as she is selective. The girl loves to shop, especially when she doesn’t have any money and when there’s nothing she needs. God only knows where she got it from.

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Audition

Auditioning some new eyebrows. Think these ones are keepers. They’re the right size and shape and positioned and weighted well. Let me tell you it’s not easy creating and maintaining eyebrows that are right for you. It’s taken me my whole life. Ever since I made the adolescent error of shaving off my real eyebrows. Ever since I’ve had to draw the damn things in and this can take time. Sometimes one side is better than the other, sometimes they just don’t work out no matter how hard or carefully you try, sometimes they need constant maintenance and fixing throughout the day, sometimes hats or the bangs from wigs wipe them right off. This is an ongoing story, this perpetual struggle of eyebrows. When I look at pictures of some of my past work, when I was younger and far less astute, I’m embarrassed, taken aback, aghast. Like who let me leave the house looking like that. It’s like, guys, what the fuck. Makes me wonder who the hell I thought I was back then, and who the hell my friends were. Motherfuckers supposed to have my back, seeing as I was clearly incompetent and incapable of assessing things properly for my own self. I guess live and learn, right. Christ.

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Ready, Steady, Go

Last day of school before spring break. Ironically Asha is probably going to be so upset that there won’t be school for the rest of the month. I foresee a lot of trips to the pool and the park and the library. Asha will probably demand to go to school every day and I’m going to have to explain to her that school is over for a little while. Asha will rant and rave and cry until I take her someplace else that suffices to delight. My sweet school loving baby. My marvelous rambunctious angel girl. Ready, steady, go!

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Keep on Rockin’

Today for the first time in her life Asha actually sat through me reading an entire book to her. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t shove the book away. She didn’t shout for her iPhone or for her baby bottle or to go swimming. She didn’t try to forcefully turn the pages to skip to other pages or to fasttrack directly to the end. She didn’t keep randomly pointing at some detail on some page and insistently describe just one specific item. Instead, she paid calm and quiet attention. She showed continued interest. And then at the end, she said, “Huh.” Adding, “Yeahhhh” softly and approvingly. She looked at me with a kind of absentminded satisfaction and grinned. The book that managed to capture all of Asha’s attention for the entirety of the story was All By Myself by Mercer Mayer. Catherine, you killed it with that birthday purchase. Asha is loving the other book you got her too, The Best Word Book Ever by Richard Scarry. In that one, she keeps heroically pointing at and announcing the part where it says, “I is for Ice Cream.” I’m stoked. Finally, Asha’s interested in books again, to compete with the abiding allegiance she has to her iPhone, iPads and TV. My baby is growing up. I’m about to watch the grand finale of Drag Race UK versus the World and now that Lemon, Jimbo and Pangina are gone, I barely care who wins. This might be the blandest Top 4 in the history of the show. I guess I’m rooting for Baga Chipz. I’ll probably stop watching the entire franchise if Blu Hydrangea is crowned. At very least I’ll be extremely displeased. I never thought I could so actively dislike a queen. When I picked up Asha from preschool, the teacher’s young assistant approached me looking hassled and harassed. She alerted me to a giant goose egg on Asha’s forehead. Said Asha wouldn’t stop running around and this was the result. Then she said, “And she had a big green booger. Just so you know.” “Oh,” I said. I translated this to mean your child is sick and should probably not have come to school today. She should probably stay home tomorrow too. Gonna suck since Asha loves going to school so much. This morning she sat in her stroller a full hour and a half early all ready to go. Every time I passed by, she would alternate with saying, “Are you ready?” and, “LET’S GO.” I had to strap her in wearing her puffy white unicorn coat and just leave her sitting there in the chair in the sunshine in the backyard while I got us ready, even though school wouldn’t start for another two hours. Tomorrow if Asha misses school I’ll have to entertain her elsewise. Probably the park, the pool and the library, and it’s going to be catastrophic to get her to leave each place. Happy International Women’s Day, everyone. Keep on rockin’ in the free world. All my love to my baby, and to all you bad, bad bitches.

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Film

ZOLA

Taylour Paige is beautiful and a good actress and Janicza Bravo is a good director. ZOLA has a pretty great backstory which makes for a pretty great film. Reminds me a little bit of American Honey and Tangerine, two other films we loved. Riley Keough is also good in ZOLA as is an uproarious Colman Domingo. Fun as well to have Nicholas Braun play the hapless pathetic loser boyfriend, though he’ll always be Greg to me. Like Idris Elba will always be Stringer Bell and Viggo Mortensen will always be Aragorn. Anyway ZOLA is an engaging and entertaining movie. Recommended viewing.

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Such Beautiful Days

Monday morning Asha was ready for school hours before it was time to go and it was very hard to distract her until it was finally time to leave. About halfway there though I remembered someone mentioning a long weekend so school was probably cancelled. I hoped it wasn’t because Asha was so excited. As we got closer, it was very empty and quiet everywhere and all the shops were closed. I had to tell Asha there wouldn’t be any school. Asha was devastated to the point of being inconsolable. She took a run at the gate thinking her little body would be forceful enough to break it open. I promised Asha all the things she loves in place of going to school but Asha would hear of nothing. She kept saying, “Asha school.” I eventually was able to cheer her up by taking her swimming. At the pool Asha was exuberant. She wanted to go down the slide about a million times. She kept going back and forth excitedly between the hot tub and the pool. Afterward of course I couldn’t get her to go. I only succeeded by promising Asha ice cream and a trip to the library. When we go to the library though we have the same problem as with swimming, Asha is so hyped to be there she doesn’t want to leave. Still, it’s great Asha loves things now that don’t involve a screen. It was Family Day on Monday, that’s why everything was closed. Ironic that I didn’t remember Family Day considering how obsessed I am with family. Ironic as well that Dylan was too busy working to join us. Once Asha went to bed however we took a zombie break. We’re deep into a Korean zombie series called 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘜𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥. It’s ridiculous and fun and we love it. Such beautiful days we’ve been having, cold and clear and bright. Asha is happy and excited. Monday she was sad there wasn’t school so yesterday and today she went charging in like Usain Bolt. Everyone was impressed. The girl is obsessed. Far cry from those first few days when we took her and she’d be panicking and distraught. Now she wants to go to school all the time. Pictured is Asha in the stroller coming home from the park. I got the sweet smiles by tickling her. Asha loves to be tickled. Tickling is high on the list of things that Asha likes.

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