Sick Daze

I felt it brewing yesterday but tried to ignore it. Today, there is no denying it. A good ol’ fashioned summer fever and sinus infection have reacquainted me with despair and fatigue. Oh, if only I could embrace them.

For now, I’ll just let the room spin and my head throb to its own delirious beat. Until… Siraj cries himself awake, needing a clean diaper, and hungry for food. I ignore the pulsating sunlight and hold onto him while I stabilize myself against the side of his crib. Sometimes, if I am quiet and don’t turn on too many lights while I tend to him - he will promptly fall back to sleep. However, this soon became not one of those quiet dawns when Ismaeel cheerfully bellowed his own good mornings and urgent requests for apple juice and a cereal bar. Still in potty training reinforcement mode, I take Ismaeel to the bathroom while also holding Siraj. I am using all of my available energy to not fall down. Maybe I can use one of my lazy-no-good-mother cards and turn on the TV for them while I sneak back to bed. But this is Monday. There is no such thing as mercy.

I soon start packing and ironing all of our requisite items but the thought of coordinating pants and trouser socks for myself nearly put me over the edge. If nothing else, today is a flip-flop day. I email a note about my absence from work and finish packing the boys along their merry way. My husband touches my forehead confirming my (starting to slightly taper off) fever while Siraj and Ismaeel look bewildered that such a state prevents me from going with them. I wave my (still dizzy) goodbyes as they get into the elevator and bask in the quiet until I open my eyes and see the horror that used to be our home.

More cereal bar crumbs than usual have found their way into the fibers of our living room carpet. Apple juice and fingerprints have made an eerie and opaque fog on our glass coffee table. There are toys (that I didn’t even know the boys had) spilled throughout the floor. The kitchen counter is overflowing with pantry items that we bought over the weekend but didn’t yet put away. And most frightening of all, is the backlog of laundry (in desperate need of pre-treating) that might just swallow me alive.

I desperately wanted to sleep but knew the mess around me would only find a way to multiple during my slumber. And so, I started the laundry, scooped up the toys, sprinkled the carpets with deodorizer, wiped the table clean, and tackled the kitchen cupboards. In order to make space I needed to get rid of the older items in the back of the cabinets. I found myself throwing out more than a couple of boxes of expired brownie and cake mixes. Feeling like an inadequate and failed baker, I soon found myself trying to compensate by making a quick batch of orange halal jello for Ismaeel.

Somewhere throughout the day, the house got cleaned, I got showered, some schoolwork was finished, the boys were picked up from daycare, and I head out to my last class of the summer semester. My eyes are still bleary, it is nearly impossible to speak without coughing, and my whole body aches. What really bothers me most is wondering just when exactly is a good time to start taking care of myself.

For now, the answer seems to remain - not quite yet.

Toddler Mojo

Regardless of the weather, the weekends are always full of chores. Luckily, today was particularly muggy and on the verge of thunderstorms so we didn’t feel as melancholy to be stuck indoors tending to our domesticity. But bad weather doesn’t absolve us of trying to prevent a good-ol’-fashioned-boredom-triggered-toddler-meltdown. After twenty or so “time-outs” – you figure no matter what is going on with the weather outside – it is now the perfect time to venture to the store to get some “fresh” NYC air.

Toddlers are elusive beings. In one breath they will declare pants unnecessary but to consider leaving the house without their blue velcro Adidas is simply unthinkable. In the spirit of leaving quickly, I playfully wrestle Ismaeel to replace his argyle jammies with carpenter jeans and reassure him that his flip-flops are perfectly fine for a trip to the market. In case the clouds burst into rain, I make him wear his windbreaker. However, he is more than perturbed that this covers his stained but forever beloved race car shirt. He may have cabin fever but he still reluctantly shuffles to the elevator and can’t help but pretend to be glued to the floor when we get to the lobby. The doorman teased him that I would leave him behind but he still wouldn’t budge. I call back that he can pick out a treat from the café and he soon comes running.

We head to Inatteso Cafe Casano and he forgoes his regular choice of a mini cupcake with chocolate ganache to have a fresh-from-the-oven cookie instead. The chocolate chips are soon melting in his hands and even before we leave the store he has a perfect toddler sized cookie beard. Now as a proud underwear-wearing member of society, he gallantly points out every piece of dog excrement along our path. “Mommy, watch out – someone pooped on the floor. That’s dis-gus-thing!” Though I have no explanation as to why the owners don’t clean up after their pets, I still try to reason that a dog doesn’t know how to use a toilet. This hardly seems to satisfy him as he quickly retorts why can’t they just wear diapers and mutters again “dis-gus-thing!”

After chasing each other through the tiny aisles in Gristedes and completing our shopping list, we went back towards home. To avoid the earlier messes of non-diaper-wearing dogs, we decide to lollygag by walking along the water on the South Cove. It wasn’t raining but you could feel the storm brewing nearby. The Hudson River was higher than usual and each wave was spilling onto the boardwalk. The troublesome clouds were darkened but the sun was still trying its damndest to shine through. So, all in all, it really wasn’t your picture postcard day. Nevertheless, my brooding inner poet begged to linger. But this was quickly silenced by the ever-so-practical-reminder of ice-cream soon to melt in my grocery bags. And, oh yeah, my blatant irresponsibility for letting my child be nearly exposed to the elements. Just imagine if he got wet on a summer day. What would the neighbors think !?! Then came along Ismaeel’s mojo…

Even when there are no cars around and he doesn’t have to, Ismaeel still enjoys holding my hand. I like to think it is simply because I am the one he loves most but the reality is he knows that to ask for something while caressing my thumb pretty much always guarantees a yes. And so, when he points to the bench about to be splashed by another choppy wave and says, “Mommy, it’s so nice. Let’s sit...” – I can’t really argue. I know my brown bags will likely tear if they get splashed once more. And I know our wet clothes will have to go straight in the laundry. But as we sit upon that not-so-dry bench, he flashes his china closet grin and tells me he loves me. Is there any greater sound? And all the while squeezing my hand, he snuggles in a little bit tighter, and says, “now let’s look for sharks!”

Sigh, so much love and excitement.

I really can’t think of any better reason than to let milk spoil in the sun…

Mourning Glory

For years, I worked in retail. Every two weeks, I would enjoy the thrills and late nights of setting up the visual displays and store windows with new merchandise. I knew the body details of each mannequin (whom ironically have plenty of their own “flaws”). And I couldn’t help but snicker at competitors’ windows filled with poorly styled, wrinkled, or minimally layered outfits. The following mornings would always be a flurry of markdowns and my employee discount was greatly appreciated. So, you can imagine when I left retail I had more clothes and shoes than I had occasions to wear them.

With my first “desk” job, I quickly lost some of the vanity that came along with trying to maintain my fashion sense and size zero figure. I was enthusiastically heading towards a new sense of practicality and professionalism. Some outfit choices started to fade entirely and I no longer feared the occasional chocolate malted milkshake (with a dill pickle on the side, of course). Still I tried to hold on to some of my hipster elements. I never left the house with less than three layers, my trousers were still crimson red, and my shoes were always at least four inches tall.

So, even though it would have been perfectly acceptable to wear sandals on a particularly sunny September morning – I was excited to wear a new pair of olive leather Kenneth Cole boots instead. I didn’t know planes would be crashing into towers or that I would need to walk nearly twelve miles back to Harlem. And I didn’t know my feet and ankles were covered in blood until my cousin told me.

Some days just rattle you to the core.

In the weeks that followed, I needed to work from home. I had just moved into my apartment so there were boxes everywhere. I found my desk and chair and left the television unplugged. I worked endlessly because there was no more commute. No mid-day urge to take a walk to the Square Dinner. And there was no rush to end the workday just to get back home. Horribly and lonely, I was already there.

The novelty of working in your pajamas fades quickly and I considered it an accomplishment to maintain a somewhat decent sense of basic personal hygiene. It was hard to look at some of the items in my closet. There were my stained boots and the many hangers of the frivolous. It is questionable whether it was a matter of respectful utility or simple laziness but I started to commit to a daily uniform of flip-flops, jeans, t-shirt, and cardigan sweater (note: only two layers).

And boy, did I commit. Shoes and socks became an artifice that I had absolutely no interest in. In fact, my current employer maintains a policy of “business appropriate attire” which means I can never ever wear my flip-flops to meetings (or even in my own office). In protest, I have been known to let my Halloween socks peak out from my shoes wildly and inappropriately during the off-season. The minute Friday becomes the weekend – I reach for my flip-flops and have them handy until Monday rears her ugly head.

Today, nearly ten years later, I finally said goodbye to those J-Crew skinny wedge flip-flops. Their plastic began to loosen to the point they would disassemble. Still, it felt odd to throw out a relic from my pre-marriage and pre-motherhood days. I begrudgingly started to cut the tag off my not-quite-identical replacement pair and realized I didn’t really want to wear them. While my habit may (or may not) have sprung from a place of depth - it would require only shallowness at this point to maintain it. Perhaps the time has finally come to reopen the closets and indulge in some frivolity…