toby of the day, teacher, mother, secret lover

Toby has discovered television. ok, I guess technically that’s not entirely true because we don’t actually have a TV. and some would even argue that the TV we used to have, the one Jon brought from Japan, circa 1981 that finally emitted the last electrons from its cathode ray tube in January, didn't really count as a TV. In any case, we do watch things on our laptop, and now toby likes to do the same. He started with an online cartoon called making fiends, or “MEANDS!” as he calls it. And then we introduced him to the movie Totoro, in particular a few 5 minutes chunks introducing the totoros and the nekobus. For a while he would ask me to sing him to sleep with strange songs about concrete shoes or by mumbling through Japanese Totoro lyrics. All was good. But, while I am weirdly capable of watching the same 2 minute video clip over and over and over (and over and over and over) again, Jon is not, and in some respects, neither is Toby. So after going to youtube one day to show toby the totoro movie trailer, there was no turning back for either of them. Toby soon moved on to demanding to see a video of a girl singing the song from the new Miyazaki movie “Ponyo”. He could watch her do her little choreographed arm movements for hours. Then came the discovery that a search merging his love of robots and his love of balls results in a number of videos of knee high Japanese robots competing in some sort of robot world cup and for a couple of weeks, robot soccer was all he could talk about. Until the past few days, when the main topic of conversation became bouncy balls after jon stumbled on a sony bravia commercial from a couple years ago. As a consequence of all this, he has almost no interest in television. I'm not even sure he knows what a television is, since when he sees pictures of cassette players in his books he points to them and says “TV?” And even if we come across an enormous television, while it is playing the sony bravia commercial, he will turn to Jon, point to the laptop, and say "bouncy balls?" then wait patiently until Jon can pull it up on the screen. I’m not really sure what any of this means, except that I must admit I'm kind of happy about it, at least until he learns to type “elmo”.

toby of the day, how do you even spell borscht?

We recently had to find a new daycare. Mostly because our current daycaretaker is weak and hateful and seems to think it’s acceptable behavior not only to have a second child, but to use that procreation as an excuse to stop being our daycaretaker. Of course, she’s really not weak and hateful, because if she were it would be incredibly easy to find a new daycare. No, instead it is the fact that she is so very very awesome that makes the task of searching for a replacement, well, terrifying. So we started looking at daycares and preschools only to discover they were all either full or frightening. Panicked that one or both of us would have to stay home until a preschool spot opened up in September, we briefly considered finding a nanny to share with another family. This plan was very short lived. I cannot convey to you how entirely out of our league we were in this enterprise. It was as though after managing to make 3 of 5 shots into the toy box from the other side of our living room, I joined an NBA basketball team. And just so you know, I almost never make 3 of 5 shots into the toy basket. We quickly realized that finding our own nanny and a family to share her with would take the better part of 2009, and then after a couple of meetings with existing nanny share families, we even more quickly we discovered that we are not, and may never be, the kind of people that have a nanny. For example, the first mother we met works at home, and yet not only was she not dressed in pajamas when we stopped by to meet her, she was wearing make-up and had her hair styled. On the other hand, during our ride over on the bus, I had remarked to jon about how pleased I was that my pants had only a small quantity of food on them, and that the color of his t-shirt made the thumb sized hole in his sweater almost unnoticeable. I most certainly was not wearing makeup. This same woman explained to Jon that she stored all her daughters toys in a leather ottoman in the living room so as not to disrupt the rooms decor. That living room was also outfitted with a cream colored sofa and two glass lamps that I was pretty sure toby could shatter just by looking at them too long. Jon smiled and looked understanding, even though in our living room we keep toys in a bookcase (laid on it’s side for safety reasons of course) that we found on the street. At the second home, the family seemed a little more down to earth. But the nanny, well, let’s just say that given the look in her eyes when she snatched a telephone from Toby’s chubby little fingers, I was pretty sure he would end up in some gulag labor camp before the end of his second week with her.
But through a combination of luck and, well, luck, a spot opened up at the one daycare that we actually liked. It’s no denise, but at the same time there are a lot of equally important things that it is not. For example, it does not smell like a dreadful mix of borscht and poop, it is not the sort of place where infants get pushed around in strollers all day while inside the house, the owner did not spend much of her time staring wistfully and tearfully at a wall of photos of former attendees trying to convey to us how much she loves her kids, and I’m pretty sure that it is not the sort of place that will look down on me when I show up with food in my hair. In all, the owner, kids, and teachers all seem nice. And it was recommended to us by a woman I work with, a woman who is perhaps the most cautious and, dare I say, overprotective mother I’ve ever met, a woman whose standards could not be higher. She sent her daughter there, and still raves about it. I think it will be good. We’ll keep you posted.

toby of the day, shaken, stirred, and very dirty

At the gym where I swim, there are two showering options. There is a large, kind of open area with showerheads lining 3 of the walls, and then along the fourth wall there are a handful of shower stalls. On the door of each of the stalls is a sign that reads “stalls are for adults only, thank you for your cooperation”. Ever since they put up the signs, I have been surveying the stalls during my shower to try to determine what adult only activities I can and should be participating in but have somehow been missing out on, like a small martini bar, stash of porn, or even an accountant eager to chide me for not having done my taxes yet. But so far, I’ve come up empty handed. Then this morning it occurred to me that maybe there are no special adult activities available within the stall, but instead that it’s a metaphor, that adulthood is a cold, gray stall where you stand alone waiting for the water to warm up. I think I much preferred the hope of encountering a nice martini, with extra olives, you know, as a reward for having gone swimming. It would certainly convince me to swim more often. Perhaps I’ll write up a little comment card for the suggestion box.