Tastes like chicken (and also, why I can never go out at night again)

Overheard at the Davis house at dinner, trying out a new (to-the-kids) food:

Dean: Mommy, I don't like lamb.
Me: How do you know? You haven't tasted it.
Dean: I did taste it.
Me: Really? What's it taste like then?
Dean: (Thinking)...Chicken.

(That kid cracks me up.)

And then later on before bed:

Cary: Mommy, when kids go to sleep, do parents leave?
Me: No. We just go to bed.
Cary: You don't drive away?
Me: No, honey. We're too tired. We just go straight to bed.
Cary: OK, Mommy. Don't leave!

And...now you know why I can never go on a date with my husband and leave the sleeping kids with a babysitter.

P.S. Happy, happy, happy birthday to my Dad! He turns 61 today. (Such a young man!)

As proof that I have always been a Daddy's girl, here is a poem I wrote for my Dad when I was a teenager. I can't remember how old, but this was clearly during those tumultuous years when I was aching for more freedom and he was shutting. it. down. We fought a lot then -- but you can tell from this poem (unearthed somehow by my sister last month) that I very much missed him.

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("Dumb Company" was the name of my imaginary friend when I was a little girl Yes, I had an imaginary friend. And he was "dumb," not because he was stupid, but because he couldn't talk. Duh!)

Now that I'm a busy parent, I hardly ever get a chance to talk to Dad anymore (we used to talk every day) and I still miss him.

My Dad will always be so big...so big...in my heart.

Little Brown Baby

My Granddad, who the little kids call Pop-Pop, is 96 years old. Have I mentioned this before? It's a little amazing, typing it out that way. 96-years-old. That's 4 years away from being 100. Craaaazy!
And a blessing.

Granddad is pretty stationary, as the result of some kind of stroke-like thing that happened many many years ago. But other than being unsteady on his feet, he is the picture of health. He has no chronic diseases, lives independently, eats like a horse (and whatever he wants, whenever he wants) and most importantly, has all his faculties.

In fact, my Granddad simply amazes us with his quick wit and his ability to pull random bits of information and history from his brain at the drop of a hat.

Here's just one example:

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, we went to his house to visit. We sat upstairs with him in his TV room (which is the room my Dad and Uncle Harrison shared as babies/children) and chatted about politics and current events. Cary and Dean were tired and hungry, so they were being especially clingy to Lester, and not interacting much with Pop-Pop.

To get their attention, Granddad turns to Cary, leans in close to his face, and recites a poem:

LITTLE brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes,

          Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee.

What you been doin', suh -- makin' san' pies?

          Look at dat bib -- you's ez du'ty ez me.

Look at dat mouf -- dat's merlasses, I bet;

          Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's.

Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit,

          Bein' so sticky an sweet -- goodness lan's!

He missed a few words, and I never heard him say "Maria," but for the most part, he nailed it. And then he leans back in his chair and says, "Paul Laurence Dunbar."

Wouldn't you know it is a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem, called "Little Brown Baby." Seriously, where'd he pull that from? I can barely recite my name and address if caught off guard. How does his brain retain and retrieve that kind of thing?

I'll never know -- but I hope to be half as sharp as he is when I'm pushing 100.

And I know my boys won't remember this day or that recitation, but I LOVE it that I can record the moment here, so they will forever know their Pop-Pop was a font of information and culture, and wanted to share it all with them, his great grandsons, little brown babies of mine.

Fun fact: This little brown baby is sitting on the very bed her Granddad slept on as a child. Isn't that cool?

Online class dropout

Remember "Beauty School Dropout?" That song from Grease?

I've been singing that song in my head a lot the last couple days, but with the words "online class" instead of "beauty school."

It's a little pathetic to be this woefully behind on a self-paced, online, non-graded class. But, alas, it has only been two weeks and I am nearly a full week behind. The stress of thinking about how far behind I am is getting to me.

I'm having dreams about being called on in class and not knowing the answers. People who know me will know how such a RARE occurrence would freak me the freak out! I always knew the answers, people! Especially in my humanities courses. Emily Dickinson better reck-a-nize!

Anyway, I think I will "withdraw" from this stress-causing course and let Lester tell me all about it later.  Somehow, he's able to find time to fit it all in. Mad props, Les. I'm not hating. No, not at all.

To make myself feel better about this failure, I decided to write a poem!

Dope
by Tanika Davis

I don't know what I was smokin' when I thought --
I can take a poetry class in the middle of
My Crazy Life --
This ain't Howard --
I'm no hundred-pound Undergrad.
I'm a worker.
A Mother.
A Friend.
A Lover.
A Sister, a daughter, a board member.
A Wife --
It's not my Fault, Walt.
I dwell in Reality, Emily --
Will your elaborate conceits
Change my sheets?
No?
Didn't think so.
And so --
ModPro must go.
I don't know what I was smokin'
When I took on this chore.
But I wish I could get my hands on
Some more.

Parenting poetry

Lester and I love to learn. In fact, one of the things I love most about my husband is that he tries to learn something new everyday. He reads three different newspapers, pretty much cover to cover (Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun) and sends me articles he thinks would interest me. Later, when we have time (ha!) we talk about them. It's like newspaper-club, instead of bookclub. And it's really how I stay up-to-date on most of the world's news.

So when we learned that a few top colleges (Princeton, Stanford, U of Michigan and Penn) joined to create an online university that offers courses for free, we jumped at the chance to be a part of it.
 
Through Coursera, you get the chance to study from great professors through video lectures, and collaboration with thousands of others who have signed up. For FREE. How cool is that?


So we, both being writers (at one time in our lives anyway), signed up for a 10-week course on Modern and Contemporary Poetry, by a Penn professor. We'll look at such writers as William Carlos Williams, Lorine Niedecker, John Ashbery, Rae Armantrout, Gertrude Stein, Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka, Charles Bernstein, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. And we'll get to write some poetry of our own.

It starts in September. I'm excited!! Did I mention this is all FREE?

Anyway, to practice, I thought I'd write a little pedestrian piece of poetry about how quickly my boys are growing up and away from me. I never was much of a poet, truthfully. But maybe this class will help me get better.

Storm Door

Music blares from cars outside; children hang, shriek and laugh.

My boys are rapt. 

All I want to do is keep them safe, innocent

With me.

How long will this storm door hold them?