The words we know
One of the words we had in our family was “puny.” My mother used it when we were sick.
“Are you feeling puny?” she would ask us, feeling our forehead. Or, “Be kind to Erica today; she’s got the punies.”
Brett, who loves new words and loves to use them not quite correctly on purpose, tried to co-opt puny. He was using it every time Madison squawked and it started to annoy me.
“You are denigrating the word puny,” I told him sternly. “You’re going to obliterate it through misuse!”
He was banned from puny and all of its off-spring.
But today Madison really is feeling puny, which is a word that is a specific kind of sick. It means weighty and aching, tired and dispirited — the exact description of teething babies full of unrealized infant ambition.
All Madison wants to do these days is pull up to stand; crawling no longer satisfies her. Once she’s up, she wants to grab anything in reach to shove into her mouth or else she’ll bang triumphantly on the object supporting her. She topples over regularly then lies there on her back screaming in fury. I stay close by to rescue her. One hug and she’s off again. Her head is turning away even as her little hands clutch my sleeves. That’s my job: Chief Baby Picker-Upper.
I remember this age with Noah, too. I remember that this was when I realized that without a doubt I wanted to stay home with him and I also began to understand why another woman might want to leave. It’s an exhausting, boring stage. You’re so needed but at the same time so faceless. At this age — and for at least two years more — parenting is servitude.
I lie on my back most mornings and stare at the ceiling, waiting for my coffee to cool. I can’t close my eyes because she might sense it and lunge for something deadly; I’m a slave to my peripheral vision. I have an open paperback within arm’s reach of any place I might be in the family room, several going all at once. I pick one up and start to read and halfway through the paragraph, I’ll realize that I’m reading something entirely different than I expected. It’s like biting into an apple when you were expecting a pear — not unpleasant, but disconcerting.
I can’t read for very long — a sentence or two before I look back up. Therefore, any book I read has to hum along easily. Last week I read Nickel Mountain and The Hours and a book of writer’s essays. The essays were the easiest because I can fall back in anywhere and each entry is so short. This week its The Dogs of Babel and Kay Boyle’s The Crazy Hunter and another set of essays. One book is by the chair, one is by the table and a third is on the bookshelf. I try to read magazines, too, but the crinkling pages are too tempting for a baby in love with her senses.
Today she cried over and over again. She would pull up and crow then tip back and wail. She crawled towards a chair, bumped her head and broke her heart. I went to fix her a bottle and when she saw me leave, she began to weep. I turned to see her sitting with her head bowed, her little fists clenched as if I had abandoned her forever, heaving wrenching sobs. She woke from her nap hysterical then fell asleep again before I picked her up.
Her teeth hurt and are taking such a long time to come in. Her body won’t let her rest. The world is a rush around her and she can’t control a thing. No wonder she feels achy and sad and small. No wonder she feels so puny.
I think I still have days like that!
And there’s nothing like mama or papa to combat puny days…
xxoo
We had one of those evenings over at our house tonight. Maia was crying and clingy, with intermittent attempts to reach beyond the limitations imposed by her her too-small toddler size and hand eye coordination.
The punies describes it to a T.
That description is beautiful, by the way.
That’s the stuff that has convinced me I am not cut out to be a SAHM. I get too impatient. And I am embarrassed to admit that because I love my kid but her energy level combined with her need to be protected from herself is absolutely draining to me. Preschool is saving both our butts. For half a day someone is all about her and I can be all about me. That gives me only slightly less than enough energy (as opposed to none) to keep up with her for the rest of the day! It will be hard when I go back to work though. We’ll go from too much to too little contact too fast. Sigh.
Gads I am going to sound creepy - by always saying, beautiful entry -lol! BUT it was!
This will be so lovely for her to read someday!
Regarding making up - or using words in different ways, my husband does that TOO! I loved it before I married him, and truthfully - now, it drives me nuts
But I am learning to fall in love with certain aspects of him again…
Ditto - it was a beautiful entry. My mother too used the word puny, but funny I never have. I always liked the overstated “stricken” better. Your entry made me think about very young child psychology - how we are imprinted by our baby frustrations met with gentle support from a PARENT who is right there to hold us and hug us for no life-threatening reason but just to be there.. keep up that mommy bonding! However, I do disagree with you! Parenting is not servitude for only 2 more years, I can tell you are a mother of children still quite young - how we LIE to ourselves that once our kid gets to ____ years old, it will be so much easier. Parenting evolves, but never gets easier. -H
our babysitter says “fragile,” as in “Sophie was having a really fragile day yesterday.”
i love it, because it says how much they are to be handled gently, which is something i need to constantly remind myself– they are not trying to drive me nuts, they are just to be treated with care today.