Raw Drip

In sharp contrast to many American households, I’m proud to report that we are bi-lingual.  We aim to be fluent in both English and Kiddo.

But becoming a bi-lingual household is a lot harder than I thought it would be, primarily because Adam and Tabitha are both native Kiddo speakers and seem to lack any interest in helping their English-speaking parents learn their language.  While we’re making strides towards understanding each other, we often find ourselves in a verbal tug of war – parents vs. kids - with me and Dick desperately trying to teach them English and Adam & Tabitha, desperately clinging to their native tongue, Kiddo.

Some examples of our struggle:

Coco-haunt-us – translation: Pocahontas.  No, Adam & Tabitha didn’t watch a movie about a ghostly French poodle as Dick and I first suspected.  After several rounds of, “Say, what?” we finally got it – Pocahontas.  How obvious…

Da wan - translation: the van.  Equipped with comfortable leather seats, toys, books, abundant cup holders (not to mention abundant snacks ground into the carpeting), and most importantly, the DVD player, the mini-van (don’t judge me) is a little kid oasis on wheels.  So, when Dick arrives at daycare with his car, Adam has a fit demanding that he be chauffered in “da wan” so he can watch Bob da Builder for the 700th time.  Check it:  I’ve managed to string together a sentence Adam actually understands – “Da wan is wike, da coowest.” That one always makes him smile.

Harryham Winken - translation: Abraham Lincoln.  When Adam discovered the face on the penny I gave him the other day, he asked me who it was.  When I told him it was Abraham Lincoln, he looked amused and said, “Who is this Harryham Winken?”  I told him, “Harryham Winken was our 16th president and an all around good guy.  We’ll learn more about his good deeds when you can pronounce his name in English.”

Joey Peanut-butter - translation: Adam’s alter ego.  For one entire weekend last summer, Adam would only respond to the name Joey Peanut-butter.  Any accidental references to “Adam” were dismissed with “I’m not Adam. I’m Joey Peanut-butter!”  My response: “Which Peanut-butter clan do you represent, because I’m clearly loyal to the Smoothies, while Daddy is a vigorous defendant of the Crunchies and your allegiance could have a big impact on upcoming refrigerator territory discussions?”  This response has the effect of rendering Adam speechless – for a micro-second.

Prettyfull – translation: a combination of the words beautiful and pretty.  Adam uses this word to strategically praise my appearance causing teary-eyed looks of adoration from his sucker of a mommy.  This is one Kiddo word I totally get.

S-T-E-L-L- translation: spell.  A favorite Mommy & Daddy-approved TV show is “Super Why”on PBS Sprout.  This show features a bunch of storybook characters who have formed their own Super Hero Book Club to solve problems using their reading skills.  A regular segment covers spelling with a song that goes, “I love to spell – S-P-E-L-L…”, which to our great amusement, Adam routinely misspells as S-T-E-L-L.  It’s a good thing he’s cute…

Toomy - translation: tummy.  I don’t know why, but apparently saying “tummy” isn’t amusing enough for Adam, so he clings to his own exaggerated pronunciation by swapping out the “uh” for an “oo” sound.  He usually says this word while holding up his shirt, pointing to his belly button, and making kissy lips.  Even worse, he often grabs the flab that passes for my toomy and slaps it against his bare hands to watch it “jiggle”.  Afterwards, Mommy briefly subsists on sugar-free chewing gum and ice water in an effort to locate lost tummy underneath the flab. 

Trash-stick- translation: traffic.  Whenever we get caught up in the suburban New Jersey morning rush hour, Adam will point out that we’re sitting in trash-stick.  I take pains to correct his pronunciation by asking him to say “traf” and then “ic”.  He parrots back these sounds perfectly, but once strung together they are morphed into trash-stick.  I assume he won’t go off to college like this, right? 

Wagina - translation: vagina.  Tabitha is fond of constantly reminding us all that she has one, while Adam, Daddy, and Logan (the dog) all have penises.  As I was toweling off from a shower the other morning she pointed to my nether-regions and demanded, “Mommy – I want see you wagina”, to which I responded, “If daddy can’t see it, neither can you, dear.”  Oddly, she seemed to understand me.

Years ago, my in-laws played host to several students that were part of the local high school’s foreign exchange program.  One such guest of the family was Gustav.   At the time, Gustav didn’t strike me as being particularly insightful.  Frankly, my biggest memory of him was that we all just wanted him to take a shower. 

But now that I look back on Gustav’s brief time with us, I’ve come to appreciate him, or at least something he once said when describing my mother-in-law’s cooking – “Not really a meal, not really a dinner.” 

You see, with Anne’s hectic schedule, she frequently relied on quick-cook meals such as salads, a piece of grilled chicken & a microwaved baked potato for dinner.  Good, but unfussy fare requiring minimal prep time.  Apparently, this type of cooking wasn’t to Gustav’s liking.  The other exchange students told us that Gustav’s mother would prepare elaborate multi-course meals for him every night, so it’s not surprising that Anne’s off-the-cuff cooking style left him wanting.

Gustav is long gone, but I’ve found that ”not really a meal, not really a dinner” lives on.  It serves as an easily understood metaphor for all things squishy or underwhelming – like this blog, for instance .  Some more examples:

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Ashley Judd Films

While I can see that she’s a talented actress, so many of her films seem like drawn out Lifetime Movies of the Week - only with her boobs showing.  The films she’s chosen don’t seem to have enough meat to make great film, but they’re good as entertainment.  See what I mean? Not really a meal, not really a dinner.

The Presidential Race

John McCain – not really a meal, not really a dinner

Mike Huckabee – not really an appetizer, meal or a dinner – just gravy

Mitt Romney -  not really a meal, but listed as one on the menu

Hillary Clinton – not really a meal, not really a dinner

Barack Obama – dinner*

John Edwards - 8×10 glossy of supper on the cover of a cooking magazine

*I don’t want to get too political here – that’s not what Raw Drip’s about – but just let it be known that I think Obama is probably both a meal and a dinner. Whatever you call him, I think it’s nice to have another choice on the menu.

Morning News Shows

Granted, I grew up in the Jane Pauley/Bryant Gumble era of morning news shows, but didn’t they use to spend more time on, well, news?  Remember news?  That was the stuff that used to be brought to us several times a day, providing important information about global events – not just stuff happening in the U.S.?  These days,  the morning news reader only gets 60 seconds every half hour to brief us on the day’s news so we can get back to important information like the latest trends in hemlines.  With today’s “news” focus squarely on entertainment without, lets face it, actually being all that entertaining, I’m left with that “not really a meal, not really a dinner” feeling… 

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See how “not really a meal, not really a dinner” just works?  It smartly captures the subtleties we often struggle to describe – the difference between a meal & a dinner, between art & entertainment and between seeming different, but sounding the same. 

So here you go.  Take Gustav’s term and use it freely- it’s my little gift to you.  I only ask that you cite Raw Drip as its source so, maybe some day I can pay for a meal, maybe even a dinner.   

My mother-in-law once put it best, “A child is born with the instinct to the kill themselves, and it’s your job as a parent to stop them.”  Sounds ’bout right to me.   

Whenever Dick and I talk about the prospect of a third child, I always secretly imagine having another boy.  Don’t get me wrong – I adore and love my children equally – really, I do (the dog is my favorite, truth be told).  But, I worry about Adam.  He’s prone to rash decision-making, gross underestimation of his physical capabilities, and a fascination with turning anything he finds into a shooting weapon.  He routinely exhausts himself running, kicking and jumping and then climbs to dizzying heights, leaping with abandon only to crash to the ground, injured.  Five minutes later he’s up and at it again.  Surely these are signs of someone who’s not long for this world.  So while he’s warm, sweet and utterly irreplaceable, I think it might be nice to have what I call a “back-up boy” – just another one waiting in the wings in case Adam succeeds in his mission to kill himself.

But, just when I’ve determined that the next child should be a boy, I waffle.  Having and raising Tabitha is wonderful.  Her gentle, quiet nature veils a brilliant mind that effortlessly grasps concepts far beyond her two years.  When I imagine another daughter in the house, I start to think how great it could be to have a house full of caring, bright women – my own sort of ”Little Women” clan at my feet – with me the wise and steady hand guiding them to greatness.  Besides, with the dog neutered and clearly loyal to me, another woman around the house means we’ll have majority rule when it comes to restaurant selection.   

But there’s a downside to all this female bonding - more women in the house equals more competition for resources such as clothing, food & jewelry.  I don’t get jewelry all that often from Dick so the thought of any competition for my supplies concerns me.  An even more serious downside of daughters would be the heartbreak of watching as they emotionally climb to dizzying heights and leap with their hearts, only to crash to the ground, injured.  Great physical leaps are foreign to me having been a reader, sketcher, couch-potato type all my life.  I think that’s why the “back-up boy” idea holds a certain allure.  Being a woman, I know what it’s like to scale emotional heights and make those leaps and the thought of being so close to all of the fear, guilt and self-doubt again is pretty terrifying.  Stopping my boys from climbing trees seems easy when compared to the prospect of stopping my girls from emotionally killing themselves.

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As Dick was driving the kids home from daycare the other night, our 2-year old, Tabitha, muttered from the back seat, “I not kill you today” followed by spooky little girl laughter.  Creepy.  Later at home, Dick relayed her Bond villain statement to me saying how pleased he is with the quality childcare $2,000 a month buys these days. Daycare is a bit of a scapegoat.  The fact is a lot of parents might be worried about such disturbing utterances from a 2-year old, but Dick and I know that neither Tabitha’s threat/promise nor any of the questionable behavior our children exhibit has as much to do with the quality of daycare as it does with the viral nature of life, itself. 

Without ever seeing or talking about guns in our home, Adam builds them and plays “shooting” every chance he gets.  Instead of saying, “Where did we go wrong?”, we try to chalk it up to the fact that, somehow, they manage to pick this stuff up despite our best efforts.  So, my take on parenting is a little different than my mother-in-law’s since, as far as I can see, my job is to help them avoid injury and use the delay to prep them for the impacts I can’t help them avoid; it’s a stance that recognizes the futility in believing I can really stop them now that they’re on the loose. 

Ugh. It’s all too bittersweet for me.  Before we start working on a third kid, Dick and I should stop second-guessing ourselves and make peace with what seems to be our live and let live parenting style.  The fact that our boy practically kills himself to have fun while our daughter threatens to kill others to have fun is of little consequence when we are steadfast in our belief in the benefits of gentle guidance over iron rule in raising decent people.

Or maybe, we’ll just abandon the third kid idea and get another dog.  In fact the more I think about another dog, the more I like that idea.  I could use another mute player on my team – someone fiercely loyal and with no affinity for designer accessories.