Why I Don't Go To the Movies (#38)
28 July 2005
(But yes, I really want to.)
"Danielle's coming to babysit you tonight," I said to Charlie as we walked home from summer school.
"No Danioh," said Charlie.
People say to us, "You and Jim should go on a date! Spend some time together. It would be good for you." It is a terribly bad joke: For over seven years, Jim and I said, with a laugh at our own expense, that the last movie we had seen in an actual theater was When We Were Kings, back in 1997 when I was expecting Charlie. (We finally broke our record by seeing Mystic River last summer and then really took the entertainment plunge and saw the play Doubt in the fall.) The rise of Netflix has hardly helped; so much easier to slip a DVD with Garden State or The Secret Lives of Dentists into my computer's disc drive then make all those arrangements for a babysitter. Stretched on the couch after a long subway and train ride home from the Bronx, Jim managed to watch all of American Splendor over the course of several days in segments (not necessarily in chronological order) courtesy of AMC and HBO.
Tonight, we went into the city for dinner with friends and Charlie stayed with his long-time babysitter (and speech therapist), Danielle. All afternoon Charlie was just enough on edge to make me hover nearby, especially after a broken Wiggles video in the VCR frustrated him to the point that he took it out on himself. At the pool he floated on his back, arms fully extended; bobbing dreamily in the shallow end, he accidentally knocked the crown of his head onto the metal gutter, turned around, and lightly bonked his forehead again. (As if to validate that yes, he'd accidentally hit his head.) He loitered warily at the bottom of the slide as several other children rushed down, then poked his toes in the muddy grass from yesterday's rain. He stood somberly in the shower, watching the water run over his belly. "Sweetie," I said, "Shopping cart sushi, or Mcdonald's burger and fries? And Danielle's coming tonight."
"Danioh yes, yes Danioh. I want sushi," said Charlie. "Danioh." (Okay, I bought it for him yesternight too; would that we lived in Japan!)
Charlie took the sushi up to his bed (yes, his bed, not just his bedroom; the photo shows him eating waffles, but you get the idea), went back down for the garbage can, a Blues Clues plate, and silverware. (And got some soy sauce on the sheets.) Danielle came, Charlie ran up and down the stairs saying "bye Mommy" and smiled through the window, I ran for the train.--- When we got home, Charlie was out on the couch and was carried up to bed. "You've got a calming effect on him," I said to Danielle.
Certainly it's nice to eat my Vietnamese food without racing against Charlie finishing his spring rolls and saying "Mommy, I want rice noodles" every 25 seconds. It's not an easy task to get Charlie a babysitter--we're currently searching; we're always on the lookout for some person who is glad to spend the time with our guy with his huge needs and huger heart. Jim and I are both (as he likes to say) "in the education business" and we have so far been fortunate to find college students to be Charlie's therapists and also babysitters, whether by contacting education professors via email or hanging up flyers on bulletin boards (thanks to which we found Sara, Kristen, Megan, Versha, Claudette, Shiri, Andrea, Arielah, Tara, Christie, most of whom were studying psychology, speech pathology, special education).
As students graduate and move on in their own lives, we have constantly had to look for new sitters, new people to get to know Charlie and take on the huge responsibility of caring for him when Jim and I are not present. Somehow, we've always managed to find someone: Arielah who taught him to do the hand motions for "Eensy Weensy Spider" in a half-hour; Anne Marie who was "my babysitter" until she went to college; Sam, who lives three doors down (but whom we just met a few months ago). It's a challenge for Charlie not only to get to know but to feel comfortable with a new person; to understand the different rhythms of their voices, and for them to understand him and his antics, like waffles, sushi, and hot dogs in bed.
"Since when," said Jim, coming back downstairs with a knife, fork, spoon, and plate after lugging Charlie up to his room, "did he set the table on his pillow?"
I shrugged the "it's Charlie" shrug. When Charlie was a few weeks old baby, a friend called as I watched him napping (and while I was trying to eat a peanut butter sandwich). "How's Charlie?" he asked. "He's sleeping, I could watch him all day, watching him is better than TV!" I trilled. Charlie and I may pass the majority of our days in the Jersey 'burbs, but the unexpected is forever happening. You can't make this story up, nor its cast of characters, from Charlie the Kingfish to past, present and future generations of the Friends and Fans of Charlie. Charlie likes people and having such a good-hearted crew around, I smell a blockbuster in the making.
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