Ducking People

Bisous to everyone for the lovely birthday wishes yesterday. We had a great day after all. After being in my funk about yesterday, the day began with Bambina singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes to me in English and Chinese, followed by Happy Birthday in English and then Hebrew. Call me a dork, but having my kid sing to me in three languages was the coolest wake-up (albeit really really way too early) I've had in many a year.

From there the day just got more fun. We have been reading a fun and silly book called "Marc Just Couldn't Sleep," during which his mom gives him a real live duck, a parachute, a colander helmet, and all manner of things to help him not be afraid and go to sleep. This precipitated Mama's Birthday Outing to the Boston Public Gardens where we were advised that we would be "duck hunting" for Bambina so that she too could have a real live duck in her bedroom.

So off we went on the duck hunt, gently trying to prepare Bambina for the fact that, alas, no duck would in reality be making the ride home with us. When we arrived only a few ducks were there since the pond had been drained for winter, but there were plenty of aggressive city pigeons and squirrels threatening to jump on us while we sat and ate snacks on the bench. They were so close it was like being the princess in the movie Enchanted, with all of the animated flora and fauna tweeting and twittering on her shoulders and lap. Only not like that at all. And kind of more gross and vermin-y. So the day's book morphed from Marc and the duck to Don't Let The Pigeon Eat Your Crackers!

The best part of the day was being with family. The second best part was being with family in public. Boston Common wasn't too crowded yesterday since it was still a bit chilly, so it was comparatively easy for me to be there and to just dodge people walking by by about 8 feet of width. As much as people and crowds used to bug me, I have to say that there is something singularly abnormal about being away from them for months at a time. I calculated that for the past 10 months I pretty much have seen the same eight people exclusively, and that includes medical professionals. Eight lovely and delightful and necessary people to be sure. But the situation is just not normal or ideal. There's a reason solitary confinement messes with your head; humans are meant to be here together. I didn't know any of the people at the Gardens yesterday, and surely didn't want any of them really near-near me. But I cannot tell you what a balm for the soul it was just to be among other humans, to hear them chattering, to see them walking their babies, to hear kids laughing and even to hear annoying dudes yammering on their cell phones. I felt for a brief one hour span of time that I was part of the collective human race again, and it was hard to get back in the car and leave them.

But leave them we did, mercifully 'sans canard,' and Bambina and I went on one of our adventure walks. It's basically a walk around the block with a large ziploc bag where she's allowed to pick up almost anything and bring it home. It's one of the things I tried to come up with to do outside with her instead of going to the park (where I can't go if other kids are there), and it has been a wild success. We then played in the back yard, hit some nerf baseball, then came in for cake and dinner--in that order.