Where Does the Joy Go?

It’s been a privilege and an inspiration to spend time with granddaughter  Amalía during her first nine months of life, as she discovers her body (first hands, then feet) and the world around her.

Nearly forty years ago, when my own three children were born, I watched our firstborn’s first year—even took some notes that ended up in a child development text book—but by the second, there was no time for taking notes and by the third, not even a baby book stuffed in a closet in a bag filled with souvenirs.

I had forgotten until now the overwhelming joy with which a baby meets the world (as long as she’s not ill or in pain.)  To see Amalía light up and squeal with joy when she wakes up from a nap and sees your face is enough to make any day wonderful. 

She loves to eat (anything including vitamins and paper towels) and when she’s fed something she really likes, she will croon and sing and even clap her hand in appreciation.  Once she liked her food so much she stood up in her high chair and did a little dance of joy before plopping down and opening her mouth for more like a baby bird.  She’ll “read” her picture books by herself, pointing and squealing at the baby animals.

The things that make a toddler ecstatic are so simple: blowing soap bubbles, stomping in a puddle, playing peek-a-boo, feeding pigeons.  The things that elicit that throaty little giggle the ones that are at first surprising and perhaps a little scary but then turn out to be funny instead.

Until she was about eight months old, Amalía loved everyone, and when I pushed her stroller down the street she’d babble and wave to passers-by, even homeless people in doorways and construction workers on a cigarette break. Everyone responded to her as we passed: “Hey! That baby’s talking to me!”

Now, at nine months, the slightest tinge of stranger anxiety has crept in.  She won’t go into the arms of a newcomer until she’s had about ten minutes to get to know them. But if she’s sitting next to you in an airplane or restaurant or on the playground, she’ll soon pat you on the arm to say hello.

And although no bad thing has ever happened to her, Amalía’s starting to fear things that she never noticed before—like a large stuffed lion in a toy store, or the guttural voice that comes out of one of her counting toys.  A lot of her “job” these days is figuring out what is real and what isn’t.  And I know the stranger anxiety is a necessary skill—undoubtedly an instinct useful for survival.

All babies and children are filled with joy—just in being alive.  Look at puppies or colts in a field.  What a child needs to be perfectly happy is so simple: warmth, food and the feeling of security—knowing they are protected by someone more powerful than they are.  It’s such a shame that every child can’t be guaranteed those basic things during the critical first years of life.

And they need a person to interact with them—to echo their feelings and show them the world around them.   While pushing a stroller every day to Central Park, I kept seeing moms and nannies perpetually talking on their cell phones while the child in the stroller is staring straight ahead with vacant eyes.

Outside the apartment where she lives, Amalía hears someone vacuuming the carpet every afternoon, and the roar of the vacuum cleaner has started to worry her.  When she frets, I take her into my arms and reassure her that there’s nothing out there to be afraid of. 

How terrible it must be for parents who can’t tell their babies that with conviction—because the child is ill or there’s no money for food, or because the living situation is dangerous, as it is for those children who were executed in Syria recently.

But no matter how protected and cared for Amalía is, I know the bubbling joy she shares every day with eventually fade.  We’re all familiar with temper tantrums and the terrible twos.  Does anybody know a pre-teen so thrilled by dinner that they’d jump up and dance with joy?  Or laugh in ecstatic surprise at soap bubbles floating around them?

I think of people my own age who reply to  “How are you?” with a litany of aches and pains, and seem to walk around with a cloud of gloom hanging over their head.

No wonder friends have been telling me for years that grandchildren completely change your life. Just the sight of Amalía’s delight in her new world is all the motivation I need to try to take are of myself and stay alive longer than my parents did, so I can watch her grow and learn. I hope she can hold on to the joy. 

Amalía Does San Francisco (Part One)

 Recently People magazine had a page of photos of Suri Cruise, fashion guru of the pre-school set, hitting the hot spots in Manhattan with a stuffed giraffe as her constant escort (although he looks more like a deer to me.)

During the same week, my granddaughter Amalía, eight months old, fashion guru of the pre-walking set, flew to  San Francisco with her Mommy and Yiayia Joanie to hang out with her Aunt Marina (known as "Tia Marina"), attend a book event presenting her Mommy’s new novel “Other Waters” and take a quick tour of Wine Country and a hike through a redwood  forest.

She didn’t have a stuffed animal as an escort, although a teddy bear was seen atop her head at the Fairmont Hotel, and a certain mooing cow went AWOL before the flight back, but Amalía still managed to flaunt the latest fashions while partying like a rock star on the  Left Coast.

She chose psychedelic clashing colors for brunching at the famous (since 1918) St. Francis Diner in the Mission District near Tia Marina's apartment.

It was Cinco de Mayo, so there was a lot of celebrating (including dancing Skeletons) in the streets.

Amalía admired the fabulous murals on nearly every wall in the Mission District.

She took in the view from the roof of Tia Marina's building in the Mission.

And in downtown San Francisco, on the roof of the buiding where Tia Marina works for BAR Architects, there was a giant heart.

From the Fairmont Amalía walked with Yiayia Joanie to Chinatown.  (It was a very steep hill.)

One day her Mommy spoke at Book Passage in the Ferry Building, about her new novel "Other Waters." That's the Ferry Building in the background below.

Afterward some friends stayed for dinner at a restaurant in the same building.

That night there was a wine and cheese pajama party at the Fairmont, but Amalía, in her jammies, was all partied out.

(Tomorrow--Partying through wine country and the Redwood forest.)

Amalía Fashionista, Chapter 2

Having challenged Suri Cruise to a fashion showdown for the title of style leader to the pre-school set, granddaughter Amalia, who’s now nearly six months old, knew she’d have to be on top of her game for several important occasions recently.  She paid close attention to the news out of New York’s Fashion Week.

When her Papou and I arrived in Miami, she rejected the ladybug hat we’d brought her, calling it “too Gaga”, but she thought better of the ladybug jammies that came with it. 

 She approved, however,  of the moose-themed onesie from Aunt Robin and Uncle Bob, who live in Jackson Hole, WY.  She said she’d use it while roughing it in Yellowstone Park.

 Valentine’s Day is a big challenge for a fashionista, and Amalía said nothing is “tutu much”  for such a romantic occasion. (Mommy is wearing Missoni from Target.)

 February 16 was a very important occasion, as well, because it was the launch of her Mommy’s new novel “Other Waters” with a reading and book signing at “Books & Books”, the renowned bookstore in Coral Gables (and several other locations.)  Amalía greeted everyone with her usual warmth and charm, but unfortunately fell asleep and slept through the entire presentation.  (But she’ll be at several more book parties, readings and signings in Manhattan, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.  For details check her Mommy’s web site: www.elenigage.com.)

 Yesterday, because her Grandma and Grandpa were staying at the famous Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, with its elegant pool, Amalâ knew she’d have to choose a swimming ensemble equal to the glamorous 1930’s ambiance of the place.  

She settled on a navy and yellow daisy-themed one piece bathing suit with a cloche swim cap and matching sandals.  It even came with its own terry robe.

Amalia spent the day by the pool, but the combination of sun and water proved exhausting, and she decided to take a power nap before dressing for dinner.

And today, like the jet-setter she is, Amalía had to choose her wardrobe for her flight to Manhattan, where her resort wear wouldn’t do at all, especially in winter’s cold.  The first thing she packed was her (faux) leopard coat.  She knows that it’s all about animal prints right now.

The Christmas Card Crunch

My pals at the North Grafton post office received me with hoots of derision when I walked in on Tuesday holding 150 Christmas cards all stamped and ready to go.  “Not already—you’re early this year!” They remember well the several past years when I’ve sent out my cards AFTER Christmas, referring to them hopefully as “New Year’s cards”.

The following day I came back with another 60 cards, and declared myself finished. This year I designed the cards, plus a newsletter with text on one side and, on the other, a collage of small photos illustrating the highlights of the year.

The highlight of 2011 for us, of course, was the arrival in August of Amalía, our first grandchild, so we included a lot of shots of her, despite the suggestion of one acquaintance: “Go easy on the baby photos.  We’ve all seen enough by now.”

Not a chance!  I just cut the critic off my list.

Why do I spend a big chunk of my precious pre-holiday time designing cards and newsletter and photo collage, addressing 200 cards, stamping them and sending them off?  Well, for one thing, I love getting cards with news of all those friends I haven’t heard from in a year.  Because we lived in Greece for five years and Manhattan for 14, because I grew up in Minnesota, went to college in Wisconsin and Berkeley, we have friends spread around the world.  About 35 percent of our cards need overseas stamps. 

I love opening holiday cards and reading them, especially if there are photos.  One couple always sends a poem, to be sung to music—usually Gilbert and Sullivan.  Two couples always feature a painting by one of them. One couple  photoshops themselves and their dog into cartoon-ish situations.  A gutsy female friend manages to stalk a celebrity every year and get her photo taken along with said celebrity.  Last year it was James Gandolfini who played Tony Soprano.  The text of the card said:  “Hanukah, Xmas, Kwanzaa…Fuggedaboutit!  From Bada-Bing and Lotsa Bling.”

(Some of my more tech-savvy friends send animated E-cards—even ones they’ve animated themselves, but it isn’t the same.  You can’t store them in a closet in a shoebox to revisit next year.)

Since childhood, daughter Eleni has reveled in the cards we receive, sitting by the tree, studying them all.  This is the first year she sent out her own family card (featuring, of course Amalia—it served as a birth announcement as well.)

Eleni wrote a blog post on “The Liminal Stage” about holiday cards, called “The Ghosts of Christmas Cards Past”  and included some rules for senders of newsletters. (I know that people like Miss Manners think family newsletters are tacky, but  even so, I adore getting them and sending them.  It’s the only time of year I actually “correspond” instead of e-mailing.)

Eleni’s rules for Christmas-card writers can mostly be summed up as “Don’t embarrass your children”

Eleni wrote:  I’ve read cards bragging about stellar SAT scores (a delight for proud parents, a nightmare for shy kids). But the worst text I’ve ever seen described a seventh-grade boy’s multiple accomplishments and then added, “and yes, he has discovered girls.”

          Which leads me to the first rule of holiday card and newsletter writing, which I’d like to offer as a public service: Puberty has no place in your holiday newsletter. If you have a pre-teen, it is already all over your photos. Please, do your sensitive child a favor and ignore any references to a social life and/or physical developments. This will not only save your relationship with your child, it will spare me, the reader, from flashbacks to my own awkward years.

         In a similar vein, vacation shots on holiday cards are great. Bikini photos, not so much. I say this as a person who finally had to tell her mother I didn’t want to see my breasts on any more holiday card newsletters...

         While we’re on the topic of body image, you should know that if I receive a photo of just your children, not you and your children, I’m going to assume it’s because you don’t want me to see how much weight you’ve put on. (That’s harsh, and not in the spirit of Christian charity and lovingkindness, but I’m telling it like it is.) Your kids are adorable, but you’re the one I went to college with; I want to see your smiling face, too! Of course, this year, our own Christmas card features just the delightful baby Amalía, but that’s because it’s doubling as a birth announcement. And because I don’t want you to see how much weight I’ve put on.

         But the biggest faux pas you can make holiday cardwise, as far as I’m concerned, is not sending one at all.

Here are some rules of my own from the viewpoint and wisdom of a senior citizen:

Omit any mention at all of any significant others in your child’s love life—until they’re officially engaged.    Lines like “Susie and Oscar Vanderbilt seem to be getting serious” can look awfully embarrassing in a year, after Oscar has come out of the closet and married Rodney Thistlewaite and Susie is back on the dating market.

No matter how fascinating your year has been, even if your last name is Obama, you don’t get more than one page to tell about it.  Okay, this year I had to take my Arial 12 point font down to 11 point, but I sternly adhere to the one-page rule.

This is a biggie for senior citizens—whatever grim medical procedure you’ve undergone, do NOT go into detail.  No one wants to know.  Just sum it up in a cheery matter: “Despite having a knee replacement, Cedric will soon be back on the golf links.”

Of course if Cedric passed away in the past year, you owe it to your friends who may not have read the obituary to tell them.  In fact, I suspect the entire newsletter would be Cedric’s obituary, with a line or two from you, the widow, thanking everyone for their support and condolences.

(One more thing—if your pet passed away, please make it clear that it was a PET.  Otherwise we get sentences like, “We are still grieving the loss of our beloved Lancelot”—which leads to scrambling through old Christmas cards to try to remember the names of your children.  Better you should say, “our beloved Golden Retriever Lancelot” )

I second Eleni’s remarks about photos—we don’t just want to see photos of your adorable grandchildren, we also want to see YOU in photos, so we can judge how well that last facelift is holding up.

That’s all the rules I can think of as I recover from this year’s Christmas card crunch and await what the next few days will bring into the mail box. The only final rule I have is:

Send that holiday card.  I want to know about your kids and grandkids and the hip replacement and the 50^th high school reunion.  And if you don’t send me a card this year, you're off my list next December.

Confessions of a Christmas Nut – Part II

I’ve got my (four) Christmas trees up early this year—because, when daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio and our brand new granddaughter Amalía came for Thanksgiving, we knew that they would not be back for Christmas. (They’re going to Emilio’s family in Nicaragua.) So, under Eleni’s direction, they bought a Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving and decorated it the same day so we all could take “Christmas photos.” 

Here are some shots of three-month-old Amalia gazing at her first Christmas tree in wonder.  We stuck to a mostly silver color scheme this year for the “real” tree, with some spots of red. The other trees—the “antique ornaments” tree, the “shoe tree” and the porch “cookies & candy” tree are pretty much the same as last year, so I thought I’d reprise last year’s blog post and photos below.

 (The happy family--E, E & A, and in the 2nd photo, Aunt Marina, better known as Tia Marina, trying to stuff Amalía into her stocking.)

It’s great that the Thanksgiving deadline spurred me to get the trees done early, but about now, I suspect that my Christmas cards are going to turn into New Year’s cards  (or Valentines!) if I don’t get them designed, printed, addressed and sent out this coming weekend.

How’s your holiday to-do list coming?  Any secrets for streamlining it?

Here's last year's post.  Click on the photos to enlarge them.

A Christmas Tree Nut

Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees.

I also decorate doors and chandeliers and kitchen shelves and the grand piano and of course the mantel piece, but what I do most is trees.  Each with a theme.  In every room.  Well, not EVERY room because my husband has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did one year.  It shed.

I think this is a genetic thing inherited from my mother.  At Christmas time she decorated so much that you couldn't find a flat surface available to set down your cup of eggnog.

So far I've only put up, um, four.  And I'm going to show them to you now.

On the day after Thanksgiving came the Real Tree, which goes in the living room.  I realize that's much too early and it will soon be very dry, but daughter Eleni and her brand new husband Emilio, with some other elves, insisted on dragging it home and putting on the lights as soon as the turkey was digested and the cranberry sauce was gone.  I usually pick a color scheme, and this year went with silver and white, with the only color coming from some crazy peacock ornaments I got from Pier One (which has great ornaments!  Have you seen the under-the-sea collection?  Squid and fish and lobsters and crayfish and mermaids.  Now there's a theme I haven't tried.)

With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.

In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments.  And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over.  You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.

Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing.  My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree.  I still have a few of hers.  I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now.  The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap.  The  glass ornaments that were once screw-in lights were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.

In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on shoes in their collections.  

This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized) shoes, and people keep giving me more.  My favorites on this tree are the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.

On the porch I've put the  Kitchen Tree, or Cookie & Candy Tree.  This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy canes.  Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.

As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.  An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy stringing them.)

Last year  Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just  stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)

That's four trees so far and counting--I still haven't started decorating the tree in my studio that holds my stash of ornaments from Mexico and India, but that will come soon, and I haven't  shown you my Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the kitchen and the many creches we have from around the world....But let's face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.

The Baby with 1,000 Faces

Here it is November 11 and I haven't written a blog post since Halloween!  My computer & blog teacher and famous artist Andy Fish will be scolding me again, as he firmly believe in Blogging Every Day as he does on Fish Wrap.

In the last two weeks I have experienced the "Historic Storm" in the Northeast,  which downed a lot of trees and knocked out our power for four days (when the interior temperature went down to 20 degrees.)

Then I flew down to Miami to spend about five days with daughter Eleni and granddaughter Amalia (and son-in-law Emilio).  I've been planning to write a blog about South Beach and the Sleepless Night festivities we enjoyed and the art on the Wynwood Walls, but just can't get my act together. Stay tuned.

And then I flew yesterday to San Francisco with husband Nick to attend a Hellenic Charity Gala, staying in the Fairmont and exploring San Francisco with daughter Marina who is setting up her apartment here (with a kitchen that incorporates a diner theme.)

So I'll tell you about all that soon (I hope) but meanwhile will show you some more photos of Amalía, the baby with a thousand expressions, as she  approaches her three month birthday and delights us by interacting with and discovering the world.

She sits in her Boppy Pillow watching with awe as her butterfly mobile spins.

She hangs out with her parents at all the happening spots in South Beach.  But sometimes can't stay awake.

She practices making sounds as a preview to talking.

And she readies her wardrobe  for Thanksgiving, when she will travel to New York and Grafton, MA to meet all of her extended family and her parents' friends.

I promise a more serious blog post soon--with no grand-baby photos!