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Joshua

 It's said that parenthood teaches you how to fail -- to fail with grace -- over and over.

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How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
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On Being Alive

Life, you’re beautiful (I say) you  just couldn’t get more fecund, more   befrogged  or  nightingaley , more   anthilful  or  sproutsprouting . I’m trying to court life’s favour, to  get into its good g races ,  to  anticipate its whims. I’m always the first to bow, always  there where it can see me with  my humble, reverent face, soaring  on the wings of rapture, falling  under waves of wonder.... This is the opening of "Allegro Ma Non Troppo," a poem by Szymborska. The speaker is a powerless courtier; life itself is Henry VIII. You try to make the King happy.  The speaker thinks she can please life itself by being appropriately joyous, soaring "on wings of rapture," falling "under waves of wonder." If you demonstrate enough wonder and rapture, you might impress God, and then God might reward you with an easy pathway. Of course life doesn't actually work this way, an...
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Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...
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