The lanyard

My favorite poem, thus far, is "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins. Here is the line I love best:

"Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp."

Yeah. That's pretty much how it goes. I look forward to handprint turkeys and refrigerator worthy spelling tests as a testament to my daughter's great respect and affection for me.

On a side note, Alice now enjoys clenching objects in her teeth and roaming the house with her prize. Usually it is a ring shaped toy, giving her a passing resemblance to Ferdinand the Bull. Today however, as Tony washed his hands for dinner Alice slipped into the entryway, stood up to her full height (2ft+), took Tony's wallet from it's resting place next to his keys, and put it in her mouth.

Then the little bandit crawled away with her purloined treasure safely locked between her two thieving baby teeth and her accomplice gums.


Here is the poem above in it's entirety:

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

chomp

Alice bit me on the toe.

And the cheek.

I went in for a hug before bathtime and when I pulled away she had the neck of my shirt still clenched in her mouth.


She also bit the cat.

pointy bird

While taking Tony to work this morning I saw a bird fly out of Payless Shoes with a shoestring clenched in it's beak. Not an everyday occurrence so I mentioned it to Tony.

So he says, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that yesterday when I got the mail a bird flew out of our mailbox!"

Trumped again.

UD day at the Capital

Last night we went to our Alma Mater's day at the Texas State Capital, or rather Tony went to the Capital and Alice and I joined him for free drinks and empanadas at the mixer afterwards. No one from our class was there but we met friends of my Grandparents, classmates of Tony's peeps, and some local alumni that might be work contacts/friends/potential babysitters.


Alice clearly enjoys networking with her Daddy. I enjoy empanadas.



This would have been a very sweet picture but Tony was negotiating two diaper bags and the camera at the time


To our great surprise Alice had no problem being out slightly beyond bedtime. On the way home after the good times we decided to document Alice's good mood. 1st we gave our best impressions of "we are out way too late" Alice grumpface.






Here is her actual face:

Flying Monkeys

Run!

"I'm gonna get you!" is Alice's favorite game and Tony is her favorite playmate. Right now Tony is feeling down due to a cold so I instigated the game before he got home to tucker the little beast out.







This is the shirt Grammy bought Ally last week and but it also makes a handy dress/straightjacket for our madwoman.

Blessings

Alice recieved a kiss on her head this morning from Grammy who said, "This is a kiss my Great-Great Grandmother gave to my Grandmother, who gave it to me, and now it belongs to you."

Aww.

When Tony gave Alice her bath tonight I thought about all the baths his parents must have given him and how he probably squeaked happily and splashed them in the face many times.

As I nursed Alice before bedtime I rubbed her little earlobes and thought about how my Mother must have done the same for me when I was Alice's size.

Obvious revelations I'm sure, but they have some depth of meaning when you realize how blessed you are to be gently cared for and to give that care again and again for generations.