Swinging my three-year-old son between us, my sister and I walked up the narrow paths of Sorich Park through a forest of Eucalyptus trees toward Mount Tamalpais Cemetery.

We passed a bearded man on our way. “Clear day,” he said. “I thought it would be muddy, but it’s a beautiful day.” The man looked familiar. After the man passed, my son asked, “Was that Baba?”

“No,” I said. “He had a beard like Baba’s. But Baba died.”

“Baba died?”

“Yes.”

“Like Goldie?” Goldie was our goldfish.

“Yes, like Goldie.”

“They put him underneath the ground like Goldie?”

My sister grimaced.

“Yes.”

We heard a distant sawing sound, then a crash. We looked up through the forest, where men were cutting fragile Eucalyptus trees. Once towering trees collapsed. Below us, a family held a funeral amidst the falling trees.

My son sang, “Skip, skip, skip to my Lou. Skip to my Lou, my darlin,’” as he bounded toward “Baba’s bench.” He wiped the dew off of the black granite with his sweater sleeve. I sat him next to the engraved name of my father.

“Tina, sit next to me,” my son called to my sister. So they sat sandwiched on the driest section of the granite. My son asked, “Do you want to read a story?”

This time we had not brought any books, so I said, “Why don’t we tell you a story about Baba.”

My son nodded.

“Baba and Nana used to swing us up into the air on blankets. And we would laugh and laugh. Baba loved to make you laugh when you were a baby. And he held you tight.”

My son felt the gold letters on the edge of the bench that read: When a child is delighted in, she finds herself delightful.

My sister turned to me. “Dad would be so proud of you.” She pointed to my son, “Just look at him. He is delighted in.”

“Thanks, Christina.” She commended me the same way my father would have when he was alive. And, all of a sudden, I realized that my son was my life’s work. The rest was just peripheral.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini, Baba died, black granite, cemetary, Eucalyptus tree, funeral, Goldfish

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I have met Robert red motorcycle guy, no gloves, silver helmet; I have met motorcycle guy at the Chevron; purple motorcyle French father at the art store; and guy in the parking lot who told us about motorcycles racing up hills.

I have never ridden a motorcycle. Nor do I want to.

My 2 ½-year old son can hear a motorcycle from the other side of the freeway and he has a keen sense for when an empty motorcycle will have “a guy on it and put helmet on, then do one kick.”

My son’s FBI scanning ability allows him to identify helmet color, headlights, body color, and gender in a matter of seconds. My favorite ID is, “Woman, woman on that one,” or “Guy and a woman.”

At the zoo, while his best friend yells, “Giraffe! Giraffe!” my son eyes the Suzuki in the parking lot. “Red motorcycle! Silver helmet on it!”

I’ve decided to make the most of my son’s obsession, and we’ve taken to interviewing motorcycle guys at gas stations and parking lots. I ask, “When did you get your first motorcycle?” For most, it was age 15, but they wanted one since they were 4.

My friends tell me to worry, but why not fulfill my son’s need to follow motorcycles and the guys on them? To him, motorcycles are magical, intimate, distinct. He can see the face of the rider rather than the faceless tinted windows of a car.

My husband I joke that we should follow a Harley pack for our next road trip. My son’s concentration to study motorcycles, to know them, to spot them is fierce. His body jolts as he announces his discovery. “Motorcycle! Red! Yellow helmet! Not mitts! Woman on it!”

And though I don’t want him to ride one, I want him to follow them because for now, they are his passion.

Postscript: Now he’s moved onto an affinity for musicals, such as “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Sound of Music.” One minute motorcycles, the next dancing with umbrellas and raindrops on roses.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini, Chevron, FBI, Harley, helmet, motorcycle, zoo

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My old friends and little sisters are thinking about getting pregnant.

I am mother to a three-year-old boy. They are getting Ph.D.’s, attending law school, and going to the gym.

They are very busy.

I am playing with motorcycle guys, building train villages, and possibly taking a shower.

I am also very busy.

To them, days are about productivity – how many articles did I read, how long was my run, how far did I get?

To me, days flow best without too heavy of an agenda – reading the same picture book to my son over and over again, exploring local lakes without a need to complete the loop.

I can’t wait for them to cross over into Planet Motherhood. How I want them to navigate this path with me, to make up missions of the day and invent quirky Halloween costumes.

I hope I will still be in a nearby orbit when they have newborns and my son starts preschool, or maybe I will even be starting all over again with them.

It feels as if I’m in high school, and they are just beginning middle school. But if I wait long enough, maybe we can all be in college together.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini, busy, gym class, Halloween, law school, Ph.D, Planet Motherhood

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My son was two years and nine months old, but we were still waking up every two hours. It was time to take control of my life.

Or at least my nights.

For a month, I acted out a no-night-nursing scenario with Mama and Baby kangaroo stuffed animals.

“And then the Mama kangaroo said, ‘No nursey at night. Baby kangaroo cried. Mama held him tight.”

But when my son continued to wake me up nearly every hour wanting to nurse, I decided it was time to stop playing with kangaroos and take action.

I wore a sundress to bed.

That way my son couldn’t lift up my shirt. He whimpered, asked for “nursey,” and I held him in my arms. I offered water, watered-down juice, milk. But he wanted books. We read fifty-three of them from one to four-thirty in the morning in the downstairs family room.

I’m now twenty days into this no-nursing, sundress-to-bed routine, and last night -- for the first time in two years and nine months -- he SLEPT from ten at night until five in the morning.

Unfortunately, now that my son's so well-rested -- he’s given up his nap.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini, breastfeeding, Children's Books, naps, non-sleeping child

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My old friends and little sisters are thinking about getting pregnant.

I am mother to a three-year-old boy.

They are getting Ph.D.’s, attending law school, and going to the gym. They are very busy. I am playing with motorcycle guys, building train villages, and possibly taking a shower.

I am also very busy.

To them, days are about productivity – how many articles did I read, how long was my run, how far did I get?

To me, days flow best without too heavy of an agenda – reading the same picture book to my son over and over again, exploring local lakes without a need to complete the loop.

I can’t wait for them to cross over into Planet Motherhood. How I want them to navigate this path with me, to make up missions of the day and invent quirky Halloween costumes. I hope I will still be in a nearby orbit when they have newborns and my son starts preschool, or maybe I will even be starting all over again with them.

It feels as if I’m in high school, and they are just beginning middle school. But if I wait long enough, maybe we can all be in college together.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini

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My son was two-years and nine months old, but we were still waking up every two hours.

It was time to take control of my life. Or at least my nights. For a month, I acted out a no-night-nursing scenario with Mama and Baby kangaroo stuffed animals.

“And then the Mama kangaroo said, ‘'No nursey at night.' Baby kangaroo cried. Mama held him tight.”

But when my son continued to wake me up nearly every hour wanting to nurse, I decided it was time to stop playing with kangaroos and take action. I wore a sundress to bed. That way my son couldn’t lift up my shirt. He whimpered, asked for “nursey,” and I held him in my arms. I offered water, watered-down juice, milk. But he wanted books. We read 53 of them from 1:00 to 4:30 in the morning in the downstairs family room.

I’m now 20 days into this no-nursing, sundress-to-bed routine, and last night -- for the first time in two years and nine months -- he SLEPT from 10 at night until 5 in the morning.

Unfortunately, now that my son's so well-rested -- he’s given up his nap.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini

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My husband and 3-year-old son are asleep on the Cal King in my childhood bedroom.

The walls are still the pale blue I chose as a sixteen-year-old. The tidal blue plush carpeting is also the same, holding years of footprints. Now, stacks of children’s books replace high school textbooks.

Our move back to my parents’ house was supposed to be temporary. That was three years ago. We moved in to get help from my parents with our so son so we could sleep.

Two weeks later, my father died.

In my mind it will always be because he fell down the stairs. But it was the heart attack that caused the fall. I don’t want to leave. I need to hold the memories, to walk up and down the spiral staircase, leave the chandelier lights on, kiss the framed portrait of my father that rests on the piano goodnight.

It is 9:30 p.m. and this is my time to think. The house is dark. I turn on the chandelier and glance over the balcony at the black and white portrait of my dad. I walk into my parents’ bedroom. My mom is away for three nights and the emptiness of our vast house scares me. I turn on the light in her bedroom. Their bedroom.

I see the rocking horse my father built for me on top of the Persian carpet. This will be my last time living in this house. I sit on the Persian carpet and stare at a framed photograph of clouds my mother has left on the ground. It looks like Tahoe at sunset; the clouds are soft, protective. Without my dad, the clouds that catch me, cushion me, are gone. My dad, the man who looked like God, is gone. As a father and psychiatrist, he could hold light and dark.

Without him, the world is less secure.

On my way out of the room I pass my parents’ bathroom with the movie star lights, a photograph of my little sister staring at a stuffed owl, my father’s electric toothbrush still charging as if to say we are the same, still secure with Dad here.

By Ariana Amini

Labels: Ariana Amini

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