decisions, decisions

I'm starting a new job.

I will begin as the Associate for Communications and Grants at Listening Hearts Ministries as soon as I hire a babysitter for the 15 hours a week I will dedicate to this work. The extraordinary people at Listening Hearts have responded to my concerns about balancing work with my desire to be present for my children, and we have come up with an ideal schedule. It is hard to imagine a more family-friendly, flexible and encouraging new employer. It is hard to imagine finding a 15 hr/week job doing meaningful and creative work!

And so I feel very lucky, and very excited to begin. And yet. There is the whole babysitter thing.

By the end of this week I will have spent far too much time on Care.com, reviewing profiles of prospective nannies. I will have emailed scores of young women interested in taking care of my children. I will have interviewed six of them. I will have visited two preschools, with one more to go.

This happens to be a demanding time in the semester when Mike is completely occupied by his school duties, and it won't come to an end until his spring break begins in another week. And so I have been mostly on my own, swimming in possible futures for Frances and Gabriel, feeling very unsteady in all this. We had thought that sending Gabriel to a toddler program in a preschool that offers extended care would be ideal for the fall. Hence all the school visits. But can we find the right school? And afford it? And get into it? And can we find someone excellent to care for him and Frances who won't mind the job ending in August?

And afford a second car this fall, in order to somehow orchestrate the four of us simultaneously working and learning in four different places, busily pursuing our projects in four separate little dots on the sprawling map?

This is what we do in America, right? Everyone heads out the door, each in his or her own direction, each with a cell phone in hand, and hopefully we reconvene back at home at some point, before it gets too dark outside. But not us, right? Of course we are not confronting anything quite like this, but suddenly the slope appears rather slippery.

We value simplicity in everyday life, and things are about to get more complicated. Despite the utterly ideal work situation before me, compromises - sigh! - are inevitable.

Perhaps you have some firsthand experience with some of the things I describe here. Comments, as ever, are welcome. Tell us about it.

i'll be your mirror

Last week I spoke with an excellent clinical social worker about Frances. I seem to be developing a quarterly consultation rhythm with this woman; every 3 or 4 months I call her up, desperate for some guidance, and ask if I can come in and talk about what to do with my complicated, dear little girl. Typically, Frances becomes angelic and (relatively) easy going in the interim between my call and the actual appointment, but nonetheless we always have a very productive, intense conversation in which she reassures me that Frances is only four years old, that I am overthinking things, that I need to recognize and respect her vulnerabilities/strengths (because doesn't it always seem they are one and the same?). This past visit also included some discussion of how Frances needs me to be a 'safe container' for her anger and aggression.

Ah. But what if this container is full of cracks?

That's a post for another day. Dorcas reminded me during out conversation that it is a child's duty to monitor her parents' every move and commit each gesture and phrase to memory. Forever. This was delivered with a rather grim smile. I did laugh. It is true. Lately, both my children have been reflecting parts of me that I had been but dimly aware of.

Three days ago, in the pre-dawn post-nurse dark of our bedroom, Gabriel sat up and beckoned quietly: Downstairs, Mama! Put your glasses on! I rolled over and told him I was too sleepy. Did I think he would give up? There was a couple more requests to go downstairs now. Then he pulled out the big guns. In a perky, bright tone he said: it'll be fun!
(pause)
...at the playgroup.

Mike laughed himself awake. Did Gabriel just tell you it would be fun at the playgroup? A little dose of my own medicine...he didn't want to go to that new playgroup two weeks ago, and I told him it would be fun. And it actually wasn't that fun for him, but he did it anyway. And he knew it wasn't that fun for me to go downstairs at 5:30 in the morning either, but this is apparently what we say to get around that. Smile. It'll be fun!

And Frances has been running around the house carrying a small bottle of hand lotion, applying it whenever she wants to be the mama in a game with Gabriel. She also told me she would like to start carrying one of her dress up purses. That way she could carry her wallet, some chapstick, and "just like a little snack for Gabriel, in case he gets hungry, and maybe I can have a bite too." I guess those are the things I carry around. (Except I carry snacks for both of them).

Or yesterday, when she told me that she would like to eat some peanut butter directly out of the jar, you know like you always do Mama, right off the spoon?

Oh. Yes, like that.

My children pilfer ob tampons from my bathroom and shove them in their pockets, nibble their fingernails, use 'like' and 'okay' excessively, smash chapstick all over their faces when I am not looking (I often find the saddest, stickiest tubes of Burt's Bees stuffed back in my purse), and have acquired an afternoon herbal tea drinking habit.

I don't know why I am only becoming more aware of this now. It does make me feel a little sheepish, seeing bits of myself and my accoutrements, enacted on the stage of early childhood. Who knew hand lotion and lip balm were so central to my being?

Oh, dear children, please carry these little gifts of mine lightly!

baby steps

Frances and Gabriel are getting older, and they are friends. I realized this last week.

I was taking a shower. There were no small people trying to open the curtain or sitting on the toilet, talking to me. It was remarkably quiet and steamy in the bathroom. The children were in Frances's room, playing.

Huh.

It happened again today. After my shower, I got dressed and brushed my teeth. I went downstairs and cleaned up our breakfast dishes. I collected library books to return. I put in a load of laundry. The children played on! What was going on? I became suspicious. Or maybe I was getting a little lonely, and feeling neglected. How is this even possible, having longed for more time and space for myself, and for more independent children? The mysteries of motherhood...

So I poked my head into my bedroom, where I found them on my bed.

What are you guys doing up here? You've been so quiet.

Without looking up from her work on Artie the aardvark, Frances muttered, that's because we've been doing surgery for five whole days.

Gabriel was the nurse/surgeon's assistant, and he was taking the job very seriously. There was a lot of measuring involved.



I asked Frances to tell me what was wrong with Artie, and here is what she said:

There's a serious cold down her throat that pushes her lungs back. The white cells are trying to get in. She could get so sick, and very ill. She could die! So I'm trying to push the white cells out, back into her arms, and let the red cells be in her body. So. I'm going deep down into her throat and helping to get them out. I need her to be still. Perfectly still, for about one and a half days.

Gabriel stared at Frances and nodded in agreement during this explanation. Frances was a little irritated to have to break it all down for me. I suddenly realized I was getting in their way, so I left.

Huh.

(But not before documenting some post-operative snuggling.)

repurposed valentine crafts...and the family snowymoon comes to an end

A housebound week spent under a pile of snow translated into a LOT of crafting, using our already dwindling supplies, and so by Saturday things did not look good for making Valentine's Day treasures. Turns out being driven to the recycling bin can be a very good thing.

Yesterday I cut many cardboard hearts from a cereal box and a box that once held four sticks of butter. I punched holes in them, and spread them all over the table for the children to paint and decorate. I strung them up this morning on red embroidery thread to make a Valentine's Day garland for the dining room. I think they look lovely, and so did Gabriel. The only drawback of the recycling bin approach is that the backs of the twirling hearts say fragments of things like Safeway Select Organic Sweet Cream Butter. (This problem could easily have been solved by gluing two hearts together around the thread, but requires more foresight and dedication than this underslept Mama could muster).

Last night Mike and I returned to the recycling bin, and the various odds and ends in the kitchen, trying to devise some appropriate valentines for the children to wake up to in the morning. Frances was very excited; she made us all Valentine's cards and could barely wait for us to open them. We realized there was a bit of expectation. And so:

Behold her red rose! Mike wrote each kid a sweet 'roses are red' poem, and I made them flowers from egg carton cups and pipe cleaners, with felt greenery to give a bit more weight to the presentation. I found Gabriel's rose cast aside on our grassy green rug - knife to the heart, my boy! - but it did look sort of nice lying there.

And, I feel obligated to report this Valentine's Day evening - with a slightly heavy heart - that our shining family week of crafting, baking, and stories has come to an end. The day after my last post, that oh-aren't-we-happy business, Gabriel woke up crying before 5 am, Frances woke up soon after that, and both children were tired and grouchy for much of the day. I was too. It was gray outside, and the snow suddenly became ominous - icy in patches, holding the threat of floods to come. It felt like our happy winter family bubble had burst. Who do I blame? The four molars that refuse to emerge from Gabriel's tender gums. The four molars that have been tormenting him - and us - for weeks.

Is chewing really worth it? We're basically vegetarians. Who needs those back teeth for tofu?

Today was more of the same. This underslept family hovered on the edge of irritation (in the parents' case) and lunacy (in the children's). Given the circumstances, why oh why did we decide to go to church? Mike took Frances and Gabriel to 'Children's Chapel,' which takes place during the sermon in a room adjacent to the echoing sanctuary. All the children head back during a hymn, so it took me a minute to recognize the screaming child shouting MAMA!! as my very own Gabriel. He had gotten upset at the back of the church, and so Mike ran back and passed me the red-faced boy. I carried him back to Children's Chapel, only to bump into Frances, who was tearing out of the room, red-faced and crying herself, shouting "I WON'T GO IN THERE WITHOUT GABRIEL!!!" And so here I was, holding Gabriel in one arm - who began crying again when he saw the Children's Chapel taking place, saying NO NO NO A DIFFERENT PLACE, MAMA! GO TO A DIFFERENT PLACE! - and holding Frances around the shoulders with my other arm, who was also crying at the prospect of going back in there without her brother. By this time, as you can imagine, the music had stopped and my children's wailing voices were audible in every corner of the church.

Ah, what havoc a poor night of sleep can wreak!

We made it home. Gabriel shouted and yodeled and jumped up and down in his crib during naptime, causing my heart to sink down through my body in despair. Lucky for us, Grammy arrived for a visit this afternoon (perhaps not so lucky for her!) and both children were much much happier as a result.

Thank goodness for grandmothers. And sleep. And the return of preschool, after all, in just a few short days...

where the sidewalk ends

The end of the line. It has its appeal. The spot where I ran out of shoveling steam became the happening place to play this afternoon. Gabriel brought his trowel and paintbrush (sun or snow, they never fail to entertain him) and made snowballs; Frances built a fort. Only she can see this fort. But believe you me, it is nice.

Today was outside day. Finally! We were in dire need of one. I dragged, carried, and cajoled the children way down the icy, sometimes treacherous street to our friends' house, where we played on the snow mountain they had built with their neighbors. I felt some parental duty was finally fulfilled as I watched Frances sled down little slides in the mountain with (for her) minimal fear and anxiety. She determined sledding was really, really fun. (Okay, check that one off).


Here Frances is later at our house, as we tried to recreate some snow slides in our yard. Definitely not as cool, but we had a great time playing, and Gabriel was far more relaxed without big kids zooming past him on inner tubes and bright plastic sleds. (Zooming is relative here; think what zooming means for an almost two year old).


He got to hold his trowel and dig holes in the mountains as Didi tested our slide...


Then made lovely holes with his paintbrush all along the snowy cliffs on either side of the sidewalk. (This picture - ahem - also proves that Mike and I did do some shoveling today).

Frances and I finished Little House on the Prairie tonight. Apropos of Amelia's prairie post comment, I must say, living all together all the time has been remarkably delightful. Salutary, even, for all of us. We do have our own bedrooms; we are not even close to the Ingalls' intimacy level. But this snow has enforced lots of time together, uninterrupted by errands and schedules and appointments. We've had to make due with whatever was in the house (instead of running to Trader Joe's because we cannot go another day without those yummy whole wheat tortillas, or pink lady apples, or baby swiss cheese). I have driven the car once over the past week. A vacation from the car! The mail hasn't come, Mike has been working at home, and we can't stop baking. The whole world has slowed down, and we four have been pretty happy, watching the icicles drip.


Can you hear Gabriel? Draw a bus, Mama!

snowbound: the last four days

The scene outside on Saturday afternoon:

The scene inside Sunday morning:

We've had a pretty good run of baking, crafting, reading and games. See below for details. The most remarkable development of this snowstorm by far has been the advent of writing. Real, independent, inventive writing. Frances has been enjoying writing words and short notes for months now, but up until recently was unwilling to take risks with spelling and usually her 'notes' were made of strings of words she had memorized.

Something changed. Sunday morning Mike gave her a small spiral notebook, which quickly became her diary, which she wrote in nonstop all day long. She spelled words the way they sounded to her, like 'byoodful' for beautiful, and 'lownlee' for lonely. Everything runs together; there are no spaces between her small, regular letters. Here she is writing stories on the couch...

Reporting on the morning's events over lunch...

And just closing up briefly (wearing her new recycled sweater hat, my crafting triumph from the weekend) before tearing up the stairs to pee.

How she resented enforced separations from her diary! The entries are extraordinary, and I am tempted to photograph and show you, but she told me they were private. Sorry.

That night as we were tucking her into bed she leapt up and ran to the shelf where she had left the little book. "I forgot I have one more thing I need to write down!" We said no, it was bedtime now, save it for tomorrow. Sullen, she stomped back over to her bed. I hugged her goodnight and said, I love you, little writer. She looked back up and me and said very gravely: I'm not a writer. Writers take breaks, and I do not.

In between novellas, memoirs, poems and recipes


Frances made bread with Gabriel,

Used game pieces to facilitate some imaginative storytelling with her brother,

and even played a proper game of Memory with me (our first), during which we used our pairs to make towers, making the final tally a little challenging. She double checked, and she did win.


Gabriel was the world's most enthusiastic baking assistant, requesting we get started on pizza dough at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday, and later dragging the big chair from the dining room before I even finished uttering the word brownies.

So far Gabriel and I have made pancakes, bread, brownies and spice cookies. He stands at the counter on his chair and bounces in anticipation. I need a poon! he shouts gleefully, peering down into a bowl of flour. I wanna dump it in! And also, I kid you not, a series of 'I love' statements, announced with great feeling. Every time we bake he gets swept up in the beauty of it all and has to share. He says things like I love this bowl, Mama. I love this salt. I love this baking soda! When we made brownies, he watched me melt cocoa and butter over the stove, and repeated over and over: I love chocolate. I love chocolate. Mama, I love chocolate...When it comes to food, the boy does not joke around.

The brownies, made with lots of white sugar and white flour and butter and of course chocolate, did not last long. I am certain I consumed far more than my share.

You may be wondering about the crafting. Yes, there has been crafting. Some seasonal decor came first, made of classic construction paper and felt bits that the children decorated.

You may notice in the following picture that our drying spot is also the first official Papa Craft, a frame that Mike made from PVC pipe supporting lights that will hopefully coax out our first tomato and pepper seedlings. Yay Mike!

Yesterday I took yet another clue from Ms. Soule and cut up leftover felted sweater bits, along with some felt and an old thick solitary sock. I gave the children blunt embroidery needles with long pieces of thread and showed them how to string the fabric. They loved it. I highly recommend this little project, especially for families with young children of different ages/abilities -- the toddler and the preschooler both found it fun and satisfying. The process was a pleasure. They came up with the idea of adding beads. And they were both so proud of the finished project (a 'snake' for Gabriel, and a 'glamorous scarf' for Frances) that we hung them up in their bedrooms.




And the books! So, so many books.



Frances and I continue to immerse ourselves in Little House on the Prairie (the malaria chapter: whew), and Gabriel's latest favorite is In the Night Kitchen. He jumps on the couch and chants: Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter!

Frances's writing has been amazing, truly. Gabriel's baking keeps me in the kitchen, happily. But these days have also brought an intensification of the bond between Frances and Gabriel - this has been profound and joyful to witness. They have spent so much time together, and they both seem so happy. Mike turned to me the other day and said: it's like they're on the same team now! They are naughtier together than apart, but I am so tickled by the partners-in-crime thing that I can't even pretend to be mad at them. Gabriel sprinkled curry powder on the bread dough he was kneading this morning while I went to the bathroom and he and Frances were doing nothing less than chortling - guffawing! - when I came back downstairs. Ha ha, Mama!


We've had dance parties. Tea parties. Jumping on the bed parties. Endless rounds of goodnight-wake up-good morning! In this classic game - reader, I know you remember this one from your own childhood - Frances and Gabriel snuggle next to each other, either in his crib, or her bed, or ours, or on the couch, or the floor in the kitchen. They close their eyes, announce they are sleeping, then yell WAKE UP GOOD MORNING!!, giggling. The two of them are rarely apart and have not tolerated separation well (Frances woke Gabriel from his nap one afternoon; he rushed at her door yelling Didi wake up!! at 5 am yesterday).

It's snowing again now. I got an email from Frances's teacher explaining that school was going to be closed for the rest of the week, and with President's Day, Frances won't get back there until next Wednesday. This would normally make me want to weep. But tonight, it feels just fine.

stirred up by life on the prairie

We gave Frances Little House in the Big Woods for Christmas. I was almost embarrassingly eager to read it with her and when we finished it, I suggested we get the next book, Little House on the Prairie, from the library. Which we did.

Frances agreed, and she is not a child to agree to something she is not interested in doing. But I am not sure what sort of impact the books are having on her. I know how they are coloring my days; images from this life on the frontier surface up at different moments and I find myself wondering about Laura and Mary and Baby Carrie. And even more than the children, I wonder about Ma and Pa.

This time around I am reading as a parent. How in the world can Ma do all that work with a baby? Is it because Baby Carrie is the quietest, least-needy baby ever to grace the prairie? Do Ma and Pa ever get a moment alone? How do they make decisions, have fights, and have sex living in covered wagons and tiny one-room log cabins with their three children all the time??

On a deeper level, I am considering the impact Ma and Pa had on me as a child. Exceeding capable, good-humored, gentle and brave Pa. Enduring, patient, hard-working and discipline-enforcing Ma. Ma never complains about the places Pa takes them too - she is decidedly deferential when he bemoans the increasing numbers of settlers and picks up his family to start all over again in a more remote land.

I realize Ma and Pa were ideals for me as a child. Theirs was a beautiful marriage! They depended on each other entirely. There was the romance of making a world together, carving a tiny human space in each new piece of wilderness. Pa was a man who could build a log cabin entirely himself, calmly ride through a pack of wolves, and play the fiddle and sing his children to sleep every night. With a man like that by her side, of course Ma would provide no protest more serious than the occasional, light-hearted 'Oh, Charles!', bending back over the washing, content with her lot in life.

I loved these books. I read them all, more than once. When I think of my attraction to farm life, wilderness, my longing for homemade and homegrown, my romantic notions about things like canning and bee-keeping (as only a city girl with little experience of such labors can maintain) I trace the line right back to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Can I possibly trace less-than-helpful, deep-running expectations about gender to her as well?

It troubles me. I still love Pa. Laura is so adoring, it is hard not to join her. Truly, there is little not to love! But the marriage...? Was Ma raging inside? Was she really happy? (For more on this, and even more on Laura's adult life and writing, see this fascinating article from the New Yorker a few months back).

Despite all this, I want Frances to love these books too. When she told me that she and Mackenzie played Little House on the playground at school last week, my heart did a little celebratory song and dance number. When she told me she got to be Laura, I gave her a hug. The Ingalls family has made its way into her imagination! Whoopee!

Do I thrill because this imaginary play connects Frances to my childhood, and to her grandmother's childhood? Yes. The smokehouse, the butter-making, the maple sugar candy! Am I also inviting her into a powerful story that might play a part in connecting her to generations of women who were unable to be - or at least struggled to be - equal partners in their marriages?

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle first brought this up for me. What stories are important to pass on to my children? I grew up in a family and a culture that encouraged me to pursue my passions and ambitions. Now here I am, reading formative books from my own childhood with my daughter, revisiting how I encountered and imagined my way into these books as a child. The experience of reading 'double' - remembering/re-experiencing the childhood reading and reading as an adult - somehow brings me to the disconnect between the sense of boundless professional possibilities I had from an early age, and what I imagined it would mean to be a wife and mother.

Don't get me wrong! I don't think anyone lied to me. I feel grateful to have grown up in the time and place and family I did, far from the frontier, speaking at the dinner table whether or not I was spoken to. I feel grateful for the endless hours I spent reading, something that was not possible - nor would it have been encouraged - for Laura Ingalls. And I feel grateful that as an adult I have been able to experience motherhood both as a working mother and a stay-at-home mother; that I had those choices to make.

But Caroline lurks within. I admire her still, despite knowing what I now know. It is not easy to say what I want, and what I need. It is not easy for me to recognize those wants and needs to begin with. This is not helpful to me, or anyone else! I hope that my daughter grows up with more ease and facility in this department. Perhaps the answer is to read these books together for their simple beauty and startling vision of another way of life. When Frances is older, we can talk more about them. In the meantime, I aspire to be mindful of my own voice, and the need to articulate my feelings. How I live, and how I am in relationship with Mike and my children seems ultimately more significant than how many hours I work outside the home. I always come back to this. The stakes are higher now, and it's a good thing. Being true to myself is not just about me anymore. Being true to myself - difficult though it may be! - is also being true to my children.

enter the (adorable) dragon

Well, it's happening. We knew it would eventually.

The Angel Gabriel has begun his long journey into toddlerhood, a land of irrational desires, frustrations galore, and unpredictable mood shifts. For now, the boy has only his toes wet (excuse the mixed up wacky metaphors going on here) but I imagine it will get worse before it gets better.

For now, it really isn't bad at all. Besides some annoying wrestling and cajoling when it is time to get dressed in the morning, his new assertions of will are mostly completely adorable. When he disagrees, he says "yes it is!" -- as if I had just said "oh no, it isn't." Consider the following exchanges from today:

M: Is that a horse?
G: It's a cow.
M: Really? It looks like a horse to me.
G: Yes it IS!!!

M: Gabriel is singing his own song this morning.
G: No singing!
M: Oh? I thought I heard your song.
G: YES IT IS!!

Etc.

My whole day was punctuated by such exchanges, each a bit more endearing than the last. He's serious, but not too serious. Nothing that a tickle or some other pleasant distraction can't ease.

Isn't it interesting that instead of denying others' views of things (the universal NO! of toddlers), he has been emphatically affirming his own view of reality?

Oh, yes it is.

Gabriel, the huggy, kissy, chocolate-loving, sleep-deprived big scary dragon.

a family is everybody all together

This weekend was completely, entirely normal. Our ambitions were moderate; the socializing was minimal. There was cereal for breakfast, there were naps, there was coloring and cutting and glueing; there was a bit more restful time for all of us than the week usually allows.

There was a beautiful snowfall all day Saturday.

Often on the weekends we have 'grown up dinner' after the children go to bed. A break from 5:30 dinners featuring spilled drinks and spoons banged on plates to the rhythm of The Wheels on the Bus feels so very civilizing. Plus, it provides a much needed chance to talk and reconnect over a long, quiet meal.

But this past Saturday afternoon, an overtired Frances fell asleep with me in my bed. She looked downright angelic as I carefully slipped my arms out from underneath her (a vision I really needed, given how tough she's been lately). She napped for over an hour and came downstairs acting like herself. Ah! She and Gabriel played. Everything felt so peaceful, I decided we would have a family dinner tonight, with lovely views of our glittering, snowy yard all around us.

I moved our chairs into a new arrangement at the table, so we could all see each other better. I made rice and dahl, a simple, satisfying favorite. We adults didn't have our mental lists of odds and ends we'd been waiting to report to one another all day, because we'd actually seen each other a bit already. The children were unusually rested and happy. So we talked all together, mostly about the performance of Papageno (a kid-sized version of The Magic Flute) I'd taken the children to that morning. It was a real, lengthy, spirited conversation!

Frances told the story, and Gabriel would jump in with the important details, such as: the dragon JUMPED! (punching the air with his fists above his head for added emphasis) The dragon JUMPED! He JUMPED!

Which made us all laugh, and made him laugh too.

The little pleasures continued. Gabriel carefully spooned way too much yogurt onto his dahl, murmuring to himself: it's good, it's good. Frances recounted her experience as a participant on stage with great relish - how she wore a frog mask and held the hand of the opera singer who played a witch but she really wasn't a witch in real life; she was just acting. Mike and I sat back and grinned at each other.

In my mind, I kept hearing Father from the Frances the badger books (A Baby Sister for Frances, specifically) putting down his evening newspaper and saying: Isn't that right! A family is everybody all together.

That night, the stars aligned, the conditions were perfect. We were everybody all together.

Parenting young children is so hard. Being a family is so joyful.