Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Back to Blog Main Page

The Stories

Posted January 29, 2008
5  | 
I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.

"Tell us about Ute!" The kids and I are playing Yahtzee, and Ute stories are part of the package. When I was a graduate student in Santa Cruz, living in a rambling and gabled Victorian house with 10 other people, Ute and I shared the upstairs. She was German and imposing in a kind of a hefty, guttural way, and my imitations of her slay the kids. "You will play Yahtzee with me!" This was her daily announcement, and it was always accompanied by her muscling herself into my room with the folding card table. "You will work later. Here. Yahtzee. I go first."

The children's faces light up over the idea of me getting bossed around. But what they're really waiting for is the part about Ute's copious passing of gas as she cursed over her missed four-of-a-kinds. "Excuse me," she used to say. "I pooped." Then she'd look up, "Pooped, right? No. No. Faaaahted. Right? Pooped?"

The archaeologists who dusted off King Tut could not have been more thrilled than these children unearthing my ancient scatological past. My parents' copy of In the Night Kitchen, for example, is a trove of crayoned relics: the poops that my friend Anna Lisa and I drew on every page that offered a glimpse Mickey's naked rear. There are also crayoned arcs of pee emerging nearly incessantly from Mickey's naked front. The kids point and marvel and crack up. "Did Grandma and Grandpa speak sharply to you?" Birdy always wants to know (I don't remember), but Ben rubs the page between his fingers, shaking his head, serious. "I can't believe this was you," he says, and life's great mystery -- a parent who was a child who drew crayon doodies -- clearly delights him.

I remember feeling the same way as a kid. We used to beg my father to tell the stories about "Uncle" Jean (Anna Lisa's father, in a not-surprising coincidence), who was once sunbathing naked on a boat when my father hid his clothes and steered the boat to shore. I could hear that story a hundred Saturday evenings in a row, and still I would never tire of the moment Uncle Jean stood up near the crowded harbor, red-faced and bellowing and prominently nude. Parents were once young people! Young, naughty, naked people. It boggled the mind.

Of course, our kids also want to hear the stories from when they were babies. Birdy loves my imitation of her shrieking, as a toddler "I want to suck the dirty washcloth!" after I used to wipe her face and misguidedly toss the grubby cloth in the bucket. Ben wants to hear about how he pooped on the stairs at his grandparents' house. Or how he used to drag his enormous picture dictionary over to unsuspecting houseguests and demand, Ute-like, "Weed dis icksinky." He wants to hear about his little friend Cyrus who used to Houdini himself out of his diaper -- it would drop out the bottom of his pant leg, inevitably followed by a gigantic turd. Or about how Ben was the last in our baby group to sit, lying placidly on his back, sucking his toes and gurgling, while the other babies sat sturdily upright and clapped for themselves. By the time he was sitting -- fat and grinning as the Buddha himself -- the other babies were off already, cruising around the sofas and end tables. Ben loves in particular the part where the other moms would ask, "Aren't you worried about him?" and I would point and say, "Do you really think I should be worried about him?" Ben with the bright eyes and the ear-to-ear arc of gleeful gums.

They want the same stories over and over. Ben, about how he used to bounce around in the backpack carrier, tangling his little fingers in my hair and screaming into the wind with delight or about the time he reached down from the Bjorn and grabbed a handful of poison oak. Birdy, about how she used to twist our noses in her little fist ("I said ‘Gen-oh!' and I thought gentle meant 'I'm grabbing your nose!' ") or how she once tumbled into the fishpond and had to be fished out by her father. "Tell it again!" she says, as soon as I finish. Or she prompts, "Was I crying and crying? And were you so, so mad at Daddy?"

Over Yahtzee now, she's reflective for a moment before, innocently, summing up my entire career: "It's not really funny? When it happens? But then it's funny to tell the story about it." Amen.

Member Comments On...

The Stories

Back to Main Blog Page
Search Recipes
300x250

About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

View My Profile View My Guestbook
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
August 2006
300x250
728x90
Please log in ...
Close
You must be logged in to use this feature.
Become a member

Thank You!

Thank you for helping us maintain a friendly, high quality community at Family.com. This comment will be reviewed by a community moderator.

Flag as Not Acceptable?

We review flagged content and enforce our Terms of Use, in which content must never be:

See full Terms of Use.