report from the village

Here I am, winding down Day Four of our week in Lancaster, sitting in my mother's blessedly clean and peaceful home, watching the light fade in the garden through the big bay window. The children are sleeping in a questionable arrangement upstairs, both of them crammed into the corner of the room where later tonight I will try to squeeze through the door in order to avoid the squeak and crawl into bed as silent as a mouse. Or as silent as a mama who really needs some sleep.

When we were first driving into town, I realized that my family moved to Lancaster almost exactly twenty years ago. We moved into the big white house on President Avenue on my thirteenth birthday. And over the years, I have come to understand something with utter clarity: longevity has benefits! My family had lived in three other cities before we landed here; when people ask me where I'm from, I hesitate. But now - twenty years! We are rooted, it seems.

And what a fertile spot to send down roots. We are having a beautiful visit (despite the face that we are missing Mike sorely, who had to return to Annapolis to teach yesterday). In the mornings Frances is going to a summer camp at a local Montessori school, carpooling with her friends Henry and Tessa. The theme is drama and she is pretty much in heaven. Gabriel is hanging out with a babysitter who is playing Titania in my mother's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and whom Mike and I first saw on the stage many years ago as an extraordinary, hilarious twelve year old chicken. While the kids are occupied, I have been either working at the charming neighborhood coffee shop or pursuing interviews with immigrant mothers for an independent project I am just beginning work on.

And what happens in the afternoons and evenings? A swim in the new kiddie pool at the park down the street. Porch swinging, sidewalk chalking, video-watching on Grandma's fabulous TV, neighbor chatting, endless playing with toys procured at a phenomenal garage sale on Saturday morning. Walking in the rain in a borrowed stroller, dining with friends, running into a lovely young man who has grown taller and more adult since the days when we were his youth group leaders. Today I went for a jog in the beastly humidity and ran past our old family haircut stop, so stuck my sweaty red face in the door and scheduled two kid cuts and a bang trim for me Thursday afternoon, which will turn into a wild lollipop-laden playdate because the salon owner's daughter Lulu will come join in the fun.

This place is a village, and my children absolutely blossom in it. It's sweet to realize that most of the village vibe we're enjoying is the fruit of our time living here as adults, back when Frances was our precocious only and Gabriel was a twinkle in our eyes. But all the connections seem to entwine in this small town - my family, the UU church, my old job, our dear F&M friends, our Episcopal church, our neighbors - and the roots support unexpected and brilliant blooms.

Gabriel is darting around and offering bits of information to anyone who will listen - a butterfly who can flit around and easily keep up with his sister. He was a shy baby and a sometimes taciturn younger toddler around new people. Now all the world gets to enjoy his language, his dancing, and his wacky sense of humor. He basked in the attentions of a sweet twelve year boy at dinner last night, building towers with him, begging to ride his skateboard, and accompanying him with a few joyful and erratic high notes during Fur Elise on the piano. And he ran like the wind down the big hill at the park, following Frances and Henry, without giving my whereabouts a second thought. This was beautiful for me to watch!

Even more interesting: he is self-weaning this week. I figured doing the whole child-led weaning thing would mean I was going to be nursing the kid to sleep until kindergarten. But the day before we came to Lancaster, he started carrying around his very soft stuffed alligator and insisting on sleeping with him. And the first day here, with his new transitional object under his arm at bedtime, he told me to "just put [him] in the crib." No song, no nurse. He has only asked to nurse once since then. We were only nursing at naptime and bedtime previously, but he has up until now been very attached to that routine. I cannot help but think the independence and openness I am witnessing are related to his readiness to give up nursing.  

Frances is also growing in indepenence, developing a new sense of herself as a kid among kids. Last night, as we walked up to our friends' house for dinner, she gazed at some older neighbor kids playing in the yard with stars sparkling in her eyes. Gracious Amanda saw and suggested nine year old Izzy take Frances with her and her friends to walk their pal Max home. Frances eagerly raced over and grabbed Izzy's hand, and I couldn't stop smiling as I watched her talking nonstop and heading down the street in the evening rain with those big-hearted big kids.

Frances loves Tessa next door, and the two of them amused themselves this morning while waiting for their ride to camp by walking hand in hand up and down my mom's street, immersed in some fleeting imaginary world known only to them. And Frances counted the seconds til it was time to go to Henry's house this evening for her First Big Kid Sleepover Ever. I bathed the kids, put them in pajamas, and wheeled them down to Mary Street, where we discovered the sleepover had to be postponed. That was a major disappointment, but it certainly wasn't the first time I'd carried a sobbing Frances down Henry's front steps (in fact our first visit to their house ended that way - it is always sad to go). Happily, it is a well-known fact that a little ice cream before bed at Grandma's house cures most every ill.

In short, they seem confident and happy, and they are heading off without me. This visit marks a time of standing back and watching, something that is impossible to do when the children are clinging to my legs. I have experienced moments of growth and separation as bittersweet in the past, but this feels decidedly good. I'm grateful that we have this special place, a home away from home, where they can go a little farther and run a little faster, safely surrounded by people who know and love us - people we know and love.