Pressure

-
Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the heavy responsibility of these first few, formative months. For instance:

a) In this short time before my child becomes verbal, I must settle on the best way to read each of the children's books destined for endless repetition. If the dog in the story barks, what should it sound like? If there are words to a song, but no notes provided, what tune do I borrow? Because once my audience gains the ability to protest, I am stuck to one method per story and one method only.

b) Unlearning bad habits. I have frequently mused that young adulthood is the time to learn all sorts of bad habits not permitted while under your parents' roof that then must be unlearned before your children are old enough to mimic. Fortunately, I didn't pick up smoking, chewing, or going with girls who do, but I've begun to use horrendous amounts of cluttering... It's like I um... sort of put in words that are kind of unnecessary. And it is, you know, really sloppy speech, you see?

Oh, the pressure!

Comments

Emily (Laundry and Lullabies) said…
I can relate to point B! Sloppy speech sounds almost normal coming from adults now, but somehow hearing my own speech patterns repeated by my 5 year old makes me cringe. :( Good luck unlearning your bad habits. I'm still working on mine.
10:43 PM
serapio said…
This is your chance to replace the overused pause-filling words with innovative ones. For example, you could replace "sort of" with "tiddly-pom", and "um" with "monspati" (the 'word' verification for this comment). Also, I want to hear you use more unmentionable words, especially "unmentionables".
11:53 PM
Matthew Carroll said…
Wait until your 3 year old insists you read the story in the original language, instead of through translation.
1:01 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "No I" Phone

-
Image
It's a cheap party trick: I pull out my phone, flip it open to check the time or send a quick text, and watch for the reactions. In the decades I've owned a flip phone, people have given me a few double takes. Recently, though, when I opened my phone to squint at a photo texted to me, the person sitting across the conference table surprised me with a "Haha! I love your phone!" And I did, too. I loved my flip phone. Then, in a deadly mistake of distracted domesticity, I scooped it up with my bed sheets and dropped it in the washing machine: Eco Cold, extra spin. Oh gentle readers, the tragedy of beautiful T9 predictive text programming drowned at the bottom of the linens spin cycle! Yes, I lost saved phone numbers, the blurry store photos I'd snapped over the years to double check prices when back to internet access, the text threads with details about addresses and meet-ups... all lost. Sad, inconvenient, annoying, frustrating, all of it. But the biggest tragedy, ...
Read more

Amtrak Adventuring

-
Image
Trying to see it all, 2011 I may never look down the aisle of an Amtrak train without remembering a baby bouncing, holding fast to the seat as the train rocked and bounced even faster. All the world over, trains carry a reputation for efficiency and frugality. That has never been my experience with Amtrak.  The Adventure Begins, June 22, 2011 Thirteen years ago (almost to the day) our little family set out on our first Amtrak adventure. We thought three weeks touring the United States on a train with an infant made so much more sense than the alternative. The alternative being flying or driving (with the same infant) to a wedding in the middle of Cornfieldville, Ohio. Being young and foolish, it made perfect sense. Our baby did not yet sleep through the night, so sitting up in coach seating night after night wouldn't affect our sleep all that much. With a rolling ice chest filled with lunch sacks that prevented us from knowing in advance whether our meal was Option A, B, or C, w...
Read more

The Crazy Market

-
There is a place here in Beijing that I (not so) affectionately call The Crazy Market. Imagine four floors of wall to wall shops, one shop selling the same thing that 15 other shops are selling, all displayed with bright colors and lights and each shop having two or three people who call out "Hello! What are you looking for?" "Hello! We give you good price!" "Hello! How many coats you want buy?" "Hello! We have your size shoe!" (This one makes me want to stop and say "Oh, I greatly doubt it.") "Hello! Nice pearls for you!" If you so much as look at an item, it is immediately assumed that you will buy it and so they call out "What is your highest price? We give you good discount." The only exception to this is the very bottom floor that is filled with every imaginable and unimagineable sea creature and various sea creature parts in various stages of life. This serves as a good aroma which frequently makes its way up t...
Read more