"Turn, Turn, Turn"

On a morning not so long ago Baby Bootsie reaches high above her head to grasp my forefingers in her own tight little fists and tries her hardest to put one foot in front of the other.  Nearly eleven months old now, she is thinking seriously about walking.  She has watched her brother and sister do it, and she can see that it opens countless new possibilities, all of which appear to be great fun.

However, her legs won't quite cooperate.  The balance is just not there, and gravity apparently tugs too hard on her diaper.  Over and over, she lands on her bottom before pulling herself up to try once more.  After all, Sooby and Pooh make walking look so easy.

Later that same day, my brother and I each take an arm and walk our dad the short circle around 2SW.  This is code for the southwest wing of the second floor of the hospital where we were both born over half a century ago. Sporting blue PJs, Dad takes small, slow steps and pushes his IV pole along in front of him.  He is dying of lung cancer.  The cigarettes he and all the dads smoked with such carefree abandon in the '60s have come back to exact their vengeance on the unlucky ones.  He has not smoked for 36 years, but he didn't quit soon enough.

I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:1, which I first learned not in Sunday School but in a song recorded by a rock band.  "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven."  The next verse mentions "a time to be born" and "a time to die."  Presently, our family is experiencing both of those seasons as, simultaneously, we rejoice in each new birth and witness the decline of our parents.

Before long, Baby Bootsie and her siblings will welcome a new cousin, and I will be Googie for the fourth time.  Although that birth will bring unmitigated joy, I am saddened to realize that Dad will not be able to meet his sixth great-grandchild, at least on this earth.  But as the Byrds sang so memorably in 1965, "Turn, turn, turn."  The world turns; the seasons come and go.  This life is not forever.  New life replaces the old in a cycle set into motion ages ago by someone much wiser than I.

"Turn, turn, turn," sang the Byrds.  Winter succumbs to spring.  In the midst of all the turning, a sick old man struggles with his final steps even as a baby girl strives to take her first.  I am here between them, holding on as tight as I can for as long as I am able.          
 

 

Fuzzy Wuzzy Lost His . . . What?

Today's CD's seem to spin around under a closed door at warp speed.  I am sorry for modern kids who will never get to watch the mesmerizing revolutions of those little yellow grooved 78-rpm records or their close relatives, the 45's, into which we either had to insert a plastic adapter to fit the spindles of our little suitcase-style record players or twist up an apparatus on the player itself to accommodate the 45s' larger center hole.  Fellow Boomers, you will know exactly what I am talking about.  Youngsters, you won't, but please keep reading anyway.  This is really not a piece about record players.

Rather, it is about little kids and singing and the fun things we can do with words to make songs our own.  Of late, Sooby and Pooh have done much to remind me of these simple joys.  What, for instance, might Old MacDonald have on his farm instead of the usual animals?  He could have a cactus, with a stick-stick here and a stick-stick there and, well, you get the idea.  Does Little Bo Peep have trouble losing only her sheep, or might she also lose, say, her flip-flop?  Sorry if I am disturbing those well-established and deeply implanted childhood images you have carried around in your head all your life, but I am trying to prepare you for what is coming here.

Call me demented, but one of my favorite childhood songs, which I listened to again and again as it spun around in front of me at 45 rpm, was "Fuzzy Wuzzy."  Maybe you have heard it.  It goes something like this:

          Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
          Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
          Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?
          Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his mop
          In a North Pole barber shop.
          Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

Sooby and Pooh love this song.  But I had sung it to each of them only a few times before they insisted on changing the lyrics to reflect their unique little worldview.

Sooby, who heard the song first, simply could not stand the idea of a world in which a bear would be without hair.  Thus, her variation of the song had to correct this obvious deficiency:

          Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
          Fuzzy Wuzzy had some hair.
          Fuzzy Wuzzy was fuzzy, wasn't he?

As for the original song's details on how Fuzzy had purportedly lost his mop, she simply chose to ignore them.  We had to skip that part when we sang.  If a bear was not going to be hairy like he was supposed to be, she didn't want to hear about it.

The last time I sang this song with Pooh, however, it took on some new dimensions that the original songwriter could never have imagined.  It was Pooh's job to decide what new body part Fuzzy Wuzzy would lose next; it was my mission to find a silly rhyme that would make the new lyrics work within the established meter of the song.  Here are some of our variations of Lines 4 and 5 of the original song:

• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his nose./Sprayed it with a garden hose.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his lip/On a big black pirate ship.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his mouth./He went north and it went south.         
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his knee/Climbing up an apple tree.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his leg./Found it in an Easter egg.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his arm/In the woods on Pa-pa's farm.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his chin./Found it, then it left again.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his ear./After that, he couldn't hear.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his head./Found it underneath the bed.
• Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his eye./Baked it in a cherry pie.  (I know--gross!) 

I will stop while I'm ahead.  My point is that Pooh absolutely loved this silly game.  He loved thinking up new body parts for the song, and, as for some of those he suggested, I will leave them to your imagination.  Keep in mind that he is a boy, and even at age 2 1/2 this seems to influence his worldview.

I loved it too--the one-on-one time with him, the wordplay, the idea of our creating something unique together.  We began with a silly song and gained a rich and beautiful bonding experience.  As far as I can tell, the only one who lost was Fuzzy Wuzzy himself--and by the time we were finished, I have to admit, he had lost just about everything.     



 
     

A Pooh-cabulary Lesson

The little toy barn with the carry handle on top becomes a briefcase.  The door to the playroom becomes the front door of a house where a little boy lives, and I quickly realize I am that little boy.  Pooh is my daddy.

"I have to go to work now," he says in the most businesslike tone of voice a two-and-a-half-year-old can muster.  "Good-bye, Sweetheart."  He pulls the door closed and takes off down the hall.

Sweetheart?  We replay this scene umpteen times, and each time I rollick inside at that particular word choice issuing from that tiny person and directed at me.  Let's face it: it is hilarious when a toddler heads off to work and calls his Googie "Sweetheart."

"Who calls him 'Sweetheart'"? I ask Pooh's mama later. "Where did he get that?"  I don't recall reading it in any of the bedtime stories or hearing it in any of the Disney movies.  I am stumped, and so is his mama.

Fast forward to some point later in the day.  Pooh is thirsty, and I hear myself say, "Here's your lemonade, Sweetheart."  A fluke, I think, until later yet, I hear myself call him that again.  Guilty.  Busted.  Pooh calls people "Sweetheart" because he has heard me do it, and I didn't even realize the word was a staple of my vocabulary.

Fast forward again.  It is dusk and we are outside chasing fireflies.  A particularly playful bug gives Pooh the wink-blink and hovers just enough ahead of him that, between the ever-flitting light and the gathering darkness, he can never really complete the catch.  Chalk up one for insect insight.  This bug is no dummy; he perceives danger lurking in those little hands.  And well he should.

Nevertheless, Pooh pursues intently and relentlessly, at last resorting to sweet talk:  "Come here, little fellow," he entices in a soft, high voice.  "Come on, little guy."  I chuckle to myself at the idea of my grandson using such terms of endearment to address a creature with compound eyes and six legs.  Again, I wonder at these things he says.  Where does he get this stuff?

Fast forward one last time.  Pooh has fallen asleep on my lap in the rocker.  I carry him to his bed and tuck the blanket around his shoulders.  I kiss his cheek and run my fingers across the stubble of his new buzz-cut.  The haircut makes him look older, and he is growing up so fast.

"Good night, little guy," I hear myself whisper.  Another day done.  Another mystery solved.

Bootsie's Initiation

Up until now, it doesn't seem like Baby Bootsie, who is closing in on ten months, has had her fair share of the blogspace heretofore monopolized by Sooby and Pooh.  Although at times I have experienced the nagging fear of shortchanging her,  I have to be truthful and say there just hadn't been much inspiration.  She sat, she grinned, she slept, she ate, she went through diapers--that was about it.

The transition over the past month began subtly: she ate a Cheerio, she laid her head on my shoulder when I told her to, she patted a baby doll, she began to roll and pull herself around on the floor.  Then, suddenly, she was crawling up steps.  She was eating catfood.  Her social interaction quadrupled.  Bootsie was coming into her own. Hallelujah!  It was only a matter of time before she, too, would generate "story material."

I will call this Bootsie's "initiation" story--her first distinguishing act with blog potential.  It is a doozy.  She did something her brother and sister had never done, at least to anyone's knowledge.  I am so proud of her.  She has crossed that elusive line into true blogworthiness.

I will warn you that the story has a rather ominous beginning.  Several days ago, to her mother's alarm, Bootsie appeared to be choking on something--not the blue-faced, stopped-breathing kind of choking, I hasten to add.   Nevertheless, she had clearly put something in her mouth that didn't belong there and was experiencing some major discomfort as it lodged at the back of her throat.  She was unable to get the object out through the normal channels of coughing and hacking, and she wasn't very cooperative as her mom (my daughter Cookie) and dad, understandably concerned, tried to open her mouth to assess the situation.

In first telling this story to me, I believe Cookie used the phrase "freaking out" to describe the parental behavior at hand.  Finally, Cookie was able to run a forefinger across the back of Bootsie's throat and extract what looked like a twig or large piece of brown grass.  Upon said extraction, situation normal resumed in the household, accompanied, as always, by those silent vows we have all made after such perceived "close calls" to watch more vigilantly, examine the environment more thoroughly, and so forth.

As the evening wore on, the event took a backseat to those more immediate concerns of the family routine: eating dinner, cleaning the kitchen, bathing, getting ready for bed.  Bootsie was apparently suffering no ill after-effects of the earlier scare, and life had returned to the sane, mundane comfort zone of familiarity and the sense of complacency that ensues when nothing much is going on.

Indeed, it was a typical night in Bootsie's household.  Nothing new.  Same-old same-old.  That is, until, in the process of closing the house down for the night,  Cookie made a telling discovery:  a five-legged grasshopper.

Way to go, Bootsie.  You have earned your place in the annals of family lore.  Your story ranks right up there with the time Sooby put a bead in her ear and the time, much longer ago, that Cookie herself stuck a piece of cooked macaroni up her nose as I innocently mixed together a pot of goulash.

Lest I leave any loose ends here, let me just say that the doctor was able to retrieve the bead with a pair of tiny tweezers, and Cookie conveniently sneezed as I was on the phone seeking medical advice from her own doctor.

But, even as we speak, somewhere in Kansas, a confused and undoubtedly troubled grasshopper must be dizzy from hopping around in circles.

Berry Patch Wisdom

The Strawberryland  game is not supposed to be complicated.  In it, Strawberry Shortcake and her friends--Ginger Snap, Angel Cake, and Orange Blossom--march a designated number of spaces around a board, hoping to land on a round cardboard circle with the picture of a particular goodie (basket of oranges, gingerbread man, ice cream cone, etc.) on the underside.  Each player tries to be the first to match these circles to their likenesses on her card. 

Each card is different; thus, this is essentially a memory game.  You have to watch when other players land on a circle and reveal the underside, because you might need that one.  Then, you have to remember where it was, maneuver yourself around to that spot on the board, and claim it for yourself.  The idea is to find your four goodies before your opponent does.

During Sooby's recent week-long visit to Googie's, we played this game until I could close my eyes at night and see strawberries.  In my utter lack of foresight, I thought it might afford a fun opportunity to teach Sooby about rules--you know, taking turns, not peeking, not taking the cardboard circle that someone else turns over, and so forth.

As it turns out, I was wrong.  Sooby, it seems, had very different ideas about how the game should be played.  Here is her modified version:

1. Sooby spins; she moves Strawberry Shortcake the designated number of spaces, but some spaces are skipped in the process.
2. If Sooby doesn't land on a circle she needs, she spins again.
3. When she finds a match, it is Googie's turn.
4. Googie's turn is over very quickly.
5. Sooby repeats Steps 1-3.
6. Sooby acquires her four matches first.
7. Sooby insists that Googie play until she also finds her matches.
8. Sooby is delighted with the outcome of the game and wants to play it over and over.

As you can see, in Sooby's variation of the game there is no drama, no competition to speak of, no nail-biting race to the finish, no stress.  You might think this would be boring (I had even entertained that notion myself, however briefly), but that is not the case.  Sooby's excitement at each new discovery was genuine.  The fact that she was having so much fun caused me to stop and re-evaluate the place of rules in the life of a four-year-old who sees them as arbitrary and unnecessary and can have quite a good time without them, thank you.

I am reminded of all those rules Robert Fulghum supposedly learned in kindergarten.  Should you re-read that list, you will find that they basically fall under several broad categories, none of which are violated by Sooby's revised Strawberryland rules:

1. Don't hurt yourself.
2. Don't hurt others.
3. Don't destroy things of value.

A fourth category could include Fulghum's suggestions to look, appreciate, and "be aware of wonder."  Those may be a little abstract for a four-year-old.  A googie, however, should be able to handle them just fine.  Especially when looking across the game board at a little girl whose eyes sparkle with excitement when she sees that Custard the pink kitty is just the match she wanted.

Every-Dayness

The only grandmother I knew died when I was ten.  Sadly, there is not much I remember about her before that nebulous period of time she lay under a pink chenille bedspread dying of a disease I couldn't really fathom.  I can count on one hand those specific incidents I recall involving just her and me.  Usually, I ran my grandparents' yard and hay lot in a pack of some thirteen other grandchildren and occupied a spot, agewise, in about the middle.  It was a rare occasion indeed when I got my grandma or grandpa to myself.

For some reason, the event I think about most often was the time I went with Grandma to the chicken house to gather eggs.  One of her tools for this task was a gray metal bucket pockmarked with a lot of little dents and a skinny wire handle that allowed the bucket to squeak and sway when she carried it empty.  The other was her right hand, which consisted of long slim fingers with smooth, pale, slick-looking skin.  I watched, partly frightened and partly fascinated, as she slid this hand deftly beneath one setting hen after another as we crept along the row of nests occupying the chicken house's west wall.

When she gathered these eggs, as she had likely done every day for at least half a century, the hens would squawk indignantly and flap their wings with a fury that launched clouds of dust into the air around our heads.  To her this was among the most mundane of daily routines in a setting utterly comfortable and familiar; to me it was new and uncertain territory.

Despite her bidding, I rigidly refused to stick my nailbitten fingers anywhere near a hen who considered herself a robbery victim.  Although it was a couple years before Alfred Hitchcock would terrify me with The Birds, I could see that those beaks were sharp, and the looks I was getting from those wiggling, jiggling eyes did not convey what I interpreted as approval.  I was certain some of them tried to slap me with wings powered by sheer agitation. Needless to say, I was more than relieved when the egg-gathering was done, Grandma was carrying the full bucket, and we squinted our way out of that dark little outbuilding into the light of day.

Some of my friends talk of extravagant, memorable times with their grandmothers: a car trip to the Grand Canyon, a shopping spree in the City, a ball game between the Kansas City A's and the Chicago White Sox.  In stark contrast, the images I associate with my own grandmother are so precious few in number and so ordinary in nature: a dime scotch-taped inside a birthday card; a platter of fried fish; a mountain of warm, brown eggs stacked in a metal bucket.

Few?  Certainly.  Ordinary?  Definitely.  Insignificant?  Never.  They are all I have, and I will treasure them for what they are.  They are my only link to a woman I barely knew but who nevertheless raised my dad and his six siblings on a self-sufficient farm irrigated by a lazy little creek during the lean times of the Great Depression.

I think of Grandma and Grandpa sometimes when I catch myself trying to wow Sooby and Pooh.  I am always wanting to take them here or there, show them this or that, impress them with experiences that I can be sure they will recall long after I am gone.  Years from now, I want them to smile and say, "Remember when Googie did this?  Remember when Googie did that?"

But deep inside I know that what they may most likely remember are the reading of a favorite storybook, a neighborhood walk where we find a box turtle, a firefly caught and released at dusk.  These are things imbued with what I want to call "every-dayness," the simple, sweet substance of ordinary lives shared.  Such events, I have come to realize, are paradoxical in that they cause remembering without being especially memorable.   

Why else, all these years later, would I be thinking about a bucket of eggs?



 

Googie Meets Tow-Mater

If you had told me a week ago that I would ever like anything even remotely associated with Larry the Cable Guy, I would have raised my eyebrows and felt your forehead.  But that was B.C.--before Cars. 

When Pooh came to stay with me a few days last week, I thought it would be fun to expose him to his first movie theater experience.  I will be the first to admit that things didn't look good starting out.  Pooh was startled by the sheer size of the screen and the loudness blaring from the speakers.  Further, he was too light to hold the fold-up theater seat open, so he was convinced it was trying to eat him.  The last straw involved previews of other shows which did not deliver on the "talking cars" I had promised him.  The room was weird and dark and unfamiliar, and Pooh let me know in no uncertain terms that he was ready to go "back to Googie's house."

I, however, had just spent $5.50 for my own ticket (two-year-olds get in free), $3.25 for popcorn, and another $3.25 for a Pepsi (outrageous--but I won't go there right now).  Since I had made what amounted to a sizable investment, I was determined to find a way to make this work.  We moved to a secluded spot three rows from the back of the theater, and I hoisted Pooh onto my lap (I have no trouble holding the seat down).  With our popcorn perched in the cup holder to our left and our Pepsi occupying an equidistant position on our right,  Pooh began to relax.  It helped that some of the previews featured Smurfs, the Toy Story gang, and Winnie-the-Pooh.  By the time Cars 2 came on, we were pretty happily settled in.

I had not seen the original Cars movie, so I was introduced to the vehicular cast right along with Pooh.  The buck-toothed tow truck that spoke with a backwoods Southern drawl quickly became his favorite.  To my surprise, it soon became obvious that "Tow-Mater" or just "Mater" for short features the vocal, uh, talents of Larry the Cable Guy. Surprisingly, it seems that Larry, in dropping the plaid shirt along with his other more obnoxious physical attributes and raunchy subject matter, becomes a bit more bearable when he is just a voice in a kids' cartoon.

I'm sure that the subplot was entirely lost on Pooh, who has no context for things like love triangles (really!), fuel wars, and international espionage.  But he dearly loved the frequent intermittent scenes involving racing and chasing, engine revving and tire screeching.  The noise and loudness were no longer issues as he cheered Mater's buddy, Lightning McQueen, to the finish line of the Grand Prix.

I won't say our movie adventure was without repercussions.  For the next couple days two toy school buses careened neck-and-neck down my upstairs hallway, one Weeble-driven and the other belting out the melody of "Skip to My Lou" on batteries that must have been on their last ounce of acid.  A bucket of micro-machines got dumped out dangerously close to the air conditioner vent.  To my surprise, a replica of the ever-lovable Mater himself even emerged from the plastic tub where our Happy Meal-type toys live. 

When I tried taking Sooby to the show at the same age, A Christmas Carol was just a little too scary with ghosts and clanking chains and all.  So we switched rooms and took in The Blind Side, featuring lots of football action that she was OK with.  But that Winnie-the-Pooh movie should be playing next week when she comes to visit for a few days, so I think we'll try again.  At four, she knows what to do with popcorn and a Pepsi, and at her size I don't think the seat will try to "eat" her. 

However, if Larry the Cable Guy turns out to be the voice of Eeyore, we may have to go down the hall and check out those Smurfs.  I can handle him as a tow truck, but a donkey may be too close to what he really is during those times he wears the plaid shirt.