Lil J calls J “Asikee.” When he’s wheedling it’s more like “Asi-keeeee.” When, for example, it looks like J’ll do the dishes before Lil J can pull his chair over to help, it’s more like “AH-sikee WAIT.” I’m very consistently “ah-TI-ris.” When he doesn’t want someone near him he’ll tell them to walk [away]. “Walk-a-Mama, walk. Walk-a-Mama.” Or “Stay Back.”

The first night, I wasn’t used to him playing imagination games — that’s apparently new within the last couple of weeks — so I was in an even more handicapped position for understanding him when he was say “Br fissing — br fissing — br fissing.” He was getting upset when J finally figured it out and asked “You’re a bear going fishing?” By that time he was too frustrated, hand over his mouth in the sign for “angry,” and starting to cry. I said, “It’s frustrating when I can’t understand you, I know.” He nodded, hand over mouth, crying. I said, “I’m sorry, I’ll try harder.” “Try HARDER,” he agreed with a whimper. Luckily, he’s usually pretty easy to redirect with offers of things like feeding the cat, feeding the bird, or looking at pictures on an iDevice.

Unluckily, his requests for pictures have gotten a lot harder to comply with. He used to run through whatever nouns he was interested in: trains, stars, tractors, trucks, cars, balls (be sure to search for “billiard balls”), girls, boys, babies, etc. Now he does all that plus things like “blue bike? … trumpet on airplane? Mommy on tractor?… Baby on truck?… diapers? … poop in diapers?…” (yes, that last one yields a million extremely gross pictures that Lil J did NOT want me to move away from, not even with promises of pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine. So the iPad is still his on-demand picture book, but it’s gotten a lot more complicated.

One night after too little nap and too much chest cold, he was having trouble making it through dinner, so I took him in the other room to look at pictures on the iPad with me. At one point he asked for Baby Signing Time, so we hopped over to YouTube for that. Then he wanted “movie deer? movie deer?” So I searched for “deer” and the first title looked so promising: Cranbrook Deer. It involves a cat befriending a tiny fawn. What could go wrong? Well, I’ll tell you what: a few minutes in the mommy deer suddenly charges a family’s pet dog and starts beating it horrifically while a woman screams in horror! Meanwhile I’m jabbing my finger seemingly ineffectually at the iPad screen trying to get the video to STOP FOR THE LOVE OF TODDLERS STOOOOOP.

He was a little disappointed that there was no more deer on his screen, so I clicked on a video in the sidebar that said “Mother Deer and Baby Deer…” Whew, peaceful forest scene with a mother and two fawns ambling happily beside an old train track. What a relief. Then I glanced down at the now-full title: “Mother Deer and Baby Deer Hit By A Train.” ACK STOP STOP STOP.

So then we just looked at still pictures. Turns out, there are no more videos on atIris’ iPad. Too bad.

On Saturday A came for nearly the whole day. We even played half a game of Liverpool Rum, which we used to play at least once a week as a family but haven’t played all together in probably 10 years. I looked around the table thinking about how last time I was probably in grad school and everyone else in college or high school, and now we’re professionals and have families and house insurance and car payments and office politics. It’s so odd.

The bird started molting while we were there, poor thing. For the first few days she was having a grand old time as the center of doggy attention. If Sophie-the-Dog ever looked away or got tired, the bird would call her back. I’ve never seen her so jazzed up. But then yesterday she just hunkered down in her swing and didn’t really want to play, and sure enough there were little yellow and green feathers all over the bottom of her cage. Today her face is starting to look spiky with pinfeathers. So she’s in for a miserable stretch here as the pinfeathers poke through, poor thing. Other than that, though, she withstood the traveling very well, sitting in her swing in her travel cage in the car and not complaining very much at all. The cat could take some lessons from her…

I never thought I’d be one of those people who obsesses about food. Never say never. I have now become one of those people who will bring my own bunch of bananas on a visit to my grandmother’s house, even though I know full well that she will have bananas there. Hers might not be just right you see, and then what would I do? Oh, and I brought my own peanut butter, too, to put on my own bananas, because I just know her peanut butter wouldn’t be just right. And then I’d REALLY be in a pickle. Which reminds me, I should probably bring my own pickles…

I’ve got a wacky set of new dietary restrictions, you see, which means that even in a household overflowing with food, I might just starve if I don’t fend for myself. When friends invite me over for dinner, I bring my own dinner but join them for the company. When friends invite me along to go out to eat, I either decline or eat first and then hang out with them while they eat.

Why? Because I’m no longer allowed to eat most of what goes into a normal meal. No grains at all, no sugars but fruit and honey (no fake sugars), no dairy except for a few special cheeses and special yogurt that I have to make myself (because it has to culture for at least 24 hours), no canned things, and no starchy things like potatoes or corn. So yes, I’ve become a true carnivore.

I eat meat and veggies and nuts and fruit, and bananas have to have speckles on them or else they have the wrong kinds of sugars/starches in them. And I can eat some specific dried beans but only if they’ve been prepared a certain way. So it’s not the end of the world, but I have to be so very strict about everything that it’s just easier if I have complete control over every ingredient.

And so I brought my own bananas to Grandma’s house, because what if hers aren’t speckaldy right now? Then what would I put my just-peanuts peanut-butter on? Then what would I eat for breakfast?

So if you see me pondering bananas at the co-op, you’ll know what I’m weighing. How many more days will my stash at home last? Will this bunch be speckaldy by then? Will this bunch be just the right size to eat while it’s speckaldy but before it rots? Oh, and will I run out of nuts to munch on before I need more bananas? Because if so I should really restock the nut supply today…

I’m sitting here in a chair my mom bought for me because she wanted me to be more comfortable in my long hours of resting, wearing the shrug she knitted for me, drinking tea she bought for me, reading a book she recommended.

She visited a few weeks ago with the sole purpose of stocking my refrigerator, cooking for me, and cleaning the house. One morning we were joking about something or other that involved saying “I love you” and she got serious for a moment and said, “You know, I don’t often say it, but I do love you.” And I pointed to the breakfast she’d made for me and the lunch she’d packed for me to take to work. “I know,” I said.

Some combination of the fairy tale I’d been reading and the book I was currently listening to, both set in bygone eras and told in soothing tones of quiet industry, made me think of my spinning wheel last night.

I have a wonderful spinning wheel, carefully chosen to be both beautiful and supremely functional. Many spinning wheels sacrifice either beauty or function, but mine manages to look like it was plucked straight out of a fairy tale’s illustrations while also managing to keep a steady rhythm with very little effort. Very little effort, that is, until I adopted a cat 6 years ago. Ever since then the idea of fending off a crazed feline or listening to him yeowl from behind a closed door has been enough to make me flip on the TV or pick up a book rather than touch the wheel.

But yesterday evening, as the sunlight angled steeply from the west and the cicadas sang to me from the trees, I carried the wheel and a nearly-forgotten bag of roving outside, sat down under my tree, and began to spin. What I had thought was a bag of generic white sheep’s wool (utilitarian spinning at best) turned out to be buttery merino. What I had thought would feel horribly conspicuous (who spins outside even in a tiny little city?) felt cosily tucked under the tree, beside a hedge, and behind an aging picket fence. Even the ants stayed away.

And so I listened to several chapters of my book on iPod and filled half a bobbin with milky white strands of merino wool.

I think I’ll do that again this evening if the weather cooperates. Besides, summer won’t last forever, and I need new mittens.