Counting down *

In which our Hero ends up hiding with kids as the last sands in the hourglass trickle out

Okay, so yeah, I probably had more to drink that night than I have in the previous six months, but my cousins like to mix things and I can’t leave alcohol lying around like that. But no, no hangover. Not even a headache, which honestly surprised me because I would have expected one just from the sleep deprivation.

And then I started writing this entry, before my computer went kersplat and crapped my unsaved text (what was I thinking!?) all over a nice blue screen windows had put up for me.

So today I’m starting this entry over. But it’s still yesterday’s entry. It’s a leftover holiday here today, a statutory holiday-in-lieu for the 1st which had the great inconsideration of falling on a weekend.

Things to do today. Buy new running shoes. Buy some other clothes if my patience can be stretched that far. And maybe a garage door opener. Or maybe not, I may have just figured out something.

The Middle Bob wants a camera like mine, he told me, during the family new years party. The 11-year-old had taken over my camera and was taking pictures and apparently enjoying it.

What pisses me off is that he’s got a great eye for framing shots and was taking pictures I’d not have thought of. And by the simple virtue of not being as tall as me, he found angles I hadn’t

“I like taking pictures of people while they’re doing other things” he told us.

“Candids” another cousin provided the word for him.

“Me too. They’re my favourite pictures,” I told him.

He took some more pictures and pissed me off again as he showed me the result. Some truly, cleverly artistic shots that I’d have been pleased to have taken.

To punish him, or possibly to encourage him, I’m thinking of getting him a poster of one of his pictures, or maybe just a framed print. I think he’d be very surprised. And he’ll see how pretty his picture is.

Sark is 3, and a regular at my house. Sometimes with her parents, sometimes alone. And she’s got fans of her cuteness, so having everybody over means that I find her stopped halfway up the stairs from the basement, peeking over the bannister as she talks to whoever.

I can’t explain this part. Just that it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. I scooped her up and kind of swung her in front of me, like I was washing a wall. A big circular motion, with no sound of protest or motion. So I give her another turn, and another. And then the lack of reaction is worrying me so I settle her down, and she turns to see who did that with a big smile on her face.

Of course, then I tried to take a picture of that smile and discovered that hitting 3 has made her aware of the idea of posing for pictures, which in her case means scrunching up her face till her eyes are squinched shut and her grin is stolen from Jack Nicholson’s Joker.

But there’s a charm to that too, so I took the picture.

Oven is 2, and when I come to get some dinner, he’s sitting with his mom in my kitchen, who is spooning rice into his distracted mouth as he plays with little frog toys from my mother. The thing about the frog toys, though, is that they’re actually, though not obviously, springy, and most little kids are very impressed when they learn to make them jump.

So I ask him to show me to frog and I put it down, and show him how I put my finger on the end and push and POP, the little plastic amphibian launches across the table to bury itself in a casserole to the “Ha ha…. funny” of the little guy, and Ice is laughing at me too.

I retrieve the frog and Oven and I spend the next while trying to teach him the fine detail of putting just your finger on the end of the frog, rather than a palm. So what Oven figures out is that if you mash with your palm, they go to the floor, which is because in mashing them he pulls them over the edge of the table. But he’s still eating so I keep trying, mostly just to spend the time with him.

Ultimately he only almost gets one to launch before his tank hits full and he’s back to running up and down the halls because that is amazingly fun when you’re small and have these legs just attached.

Iso is Sark’s 3 month old sister, and I’m afraid I’m nicknaming her for the fact that somehow every time I see her, she gives me this incredible sense of being boxy. She arrives in a winterized carrier that’s squared off, her little face picking out of a square port in the covering. Her fine downy hair gives a squared shape to her head, and her diaper makes for a squarish lump around which the rest of her has been haphazardly assembled from boxes found around the house.

All of which is a horrible disservice because honestly, Iso is a beautiful, darling baby, and I sit down in the empty chair in front of the carrier she’s sleeping in to catch a picture. Of course, sleeping baby means no autofocus light, and low light means slow shooting, but I keep taking pictures of her till the last few blur as her pudgy face bunches and shifts under the fast receding oceans of her dreams.

So I put down my camera and spend a while watching a new person wake up, her dark eyes searching and deep as they slowly open, and a thousand facial expressions washing over her as she figures out where she is and who this person is in front of her. And I’m talking to her in a quiet and reassuring voice, telling her that she doesn’t have to cry and that it’s okay and that mommy is actually just past the rim of her carrier so she has nothing to worry about. And Iso listens to my pattern for several minutes before my owlish niece-ish baby is absolutely certain that she’s dying of hunger and howls her rage at the skies.

Mom rescues her with a laugh. The various cousins who don’t seem to ever remember that babies like me are impressed that I could be that gentle or hold her attention that long.

And me, I’m just chuffed at getting to spend those moments with her, watching her delicate features stir to the world around her.

It was a good way to mark a new year.

*EDIT*

I fucking hate SD cards for cameras. Fucking POS consumer shit, even my cards which are not cheap. Lost about 40% of my shooting, including the boy’s creative martini. Still got L’il miss scrunchieface but I am so pissed off. I’ve used CF for the previous 10 years without a hiccough.