the youngest child that charles and marie have is caleb. i love all their kids immensely, but caleb and i have bonded in some strange way, which is unusual for me and babies that young (3 months). i like them when they have personalities and can say ridiculous things when i ask them questions like “if you were a hypochondriac, what disease would you think you have?” three years old is best. caleb is the product of a rape and his mom didn’t want him. charles and marie got him at one month old, sick and malnourished. he’s made such a turnaround, you can hardly recognize this as the same baby who came to them 2 months ago.
whenever i’m at their house, caleb just watches me. no matter where he is and no matter where i am. his big brown eyes follow me and his little mouth works and works like he’s having a silent conversation with me. and if he’s ever crying, he stops as soon as i pick him up, and he’s the most content baby in the world then. i can just let him lay in my lap and he’ll gaze up at me and smile for no reason at all.
two nights ago, i was over there talking to marie. i was sitting cross-legged, and caleb was nestled in my lap with his head in the crook of my knee. i wasn’t really paying attention to him; he was just laying there. i happened to look down at him at one point, and he was staring right into my eyes, grinning his little toothless grin. for some reason, i just started to laugh – and then he joined in! a baby belly laugh! and most importantly, his first laugh EVER! and from then on, every time i laughed at something, he laughed along with me. it was SO cute! but then marie told me that babies don’t normally start to laugh until 5 months. caleb is only 3 months, and because of how hard the first third of his life was, he has every reason in the world to be developmentally behind. but my baby laughed! : )
(caleb smiling up at me and looking vaguely cross-eyed)
i was over babysitting the kids tonight while charles and marie were in smg trying to get some visa stuff worked on. ugh. documentation related things here are awful to sort out. i won’t even go into all that. they got back around 9, and i jumped on my bike to head home. i had gone to tennis lessons for an hour and left the kids with the helper and then went straight back there after. so by 9, i hadn’t eaten anything except some rice, hadn’t showered, hadn’t been home since 7 this morning, AND it was raining. i was ready to be home. so admittedly, given the inclement weather, i was probably going just a little bit faster than i should have. (disclaimer: i’m not particularly reckless though. i realize that with a motorbike, if there’s a wreck, i’m the goner.)
anyways, i was coming up on an intersection, and i saw car headlights coming towards me, but suddenly, the car pulled in front of me, across my lane, to turn on a side street. i figured i had two options. 1. lay the bike down or 2. slam into the side of the SUV. luckily, my brain goes into overdrive in these situations. in the matter of about 1.5 seconds, i realized that there was a bike behind me. laying down was not a viable option. i’d likely take him out too. i noticed the color and make of the car pulling in front of me. a gold kijang. i also noticed that it was backlit, meaning there was another car behind it – traffic coming from the other direction. i also realized that jamming on the brakes would do no good since 1. i was too close already and 2. the road had water sitting on it.
in this state of brain overdrive, i saw an opening and i took it. my first instinct had, in fact, been to lay on the brakes (though not all the way). since the car was moving forward across my lane, i couldn’t swerve in front of it. but behind it… now there was the opening. i knew there was a car behind, but i didn’t know how close. i took a shot. reflexively, i let off the brakes. swerving on that much water WHILE holding the brakes would be disastrous. and i shot through the hole behind the turning car and in front of the car behind it. there was a split second that flashed before me in slow motion in which i actually thought i was going to hit BOTH cars, they were that close together (welcome to asian traffic), and i can just about swear that i saw my left handlebar pass THROUGH the back of the kijang.
i somehow managed to shoot through that hole. and by “somehow”, i actually mean “by the grace of God.” after gulping down a huge, shuddering breath of air, the first thing i did was yell, “THANK YOU, GOD!” and then i almost burst into tears. almost.
in my own “i can do no wrong” mind, i like to blame the other guy who used no turn signal and pulled right in front of me. maybe he didn’t see me. maybe he was exercising his right to the road as the bigger vehicle. either way, i just keep imagining the surprise of the people in the second vehicle (a black avanza, for the record) when a white girl burst into their sight from around the back of the car in front of them. i’m sure i looked like a frantic deer in headlights. a frantic, wet deer on a motorcycle carrying a tennis racket in headlights. now, there’s a pretty picture.
speaking of pictures, i drew one for you.
car two was actually a little closer to jerk, as he had already started to pass. but you get the general idea.
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