reflections on leaf rubbing

When Frances comes home from school, we check her red folder together. The left side pocket is labeled "leave at home" and the right side pocket is labeled "bring back to school." The left side is typically jammed with papers from her day that look a lot like busy work to me: photocopied pictures that she has carefully colored in, worksheets on which she has written the letter M five times or circled all the words that start with K. Most nights, on the right side of the folder, there is homework to do. 

Given how many hours she must spend doing this stuff during the day, and the intensely structured life of the kindergarten classroom, I've taken to giving her as much freedom and run-around time as possible in the afternoons. After I pick her up, we usually stay and play on the playground for awhile. I linger because once we're home, she dives into her relatively mindless homework and the heavier lifting that is Processing Her Day. Some afternoons she talks for hours, focusing particularly on fascinating discipline incidents and the "sweet food in plastic bags" her friends bring in their lunches. (This invariably leads to questioning my stubborn use of waxed paper and little reusable containers. Why, why, WHY?)

Her post-school mood is precarious. She's often ragged around the edges and can be tough to deal with. Such was the case when I picked her up today. She got very negative and irritable when Gabriel did some things on the playground that she feels too nervous to try herself. But the day was too beautiful, the Eastport bridge too picturesque, and when she kept complaining on the drive home, I turned up the music to drown her out.

It was The Velvet Underground, and both kids grew silent during I'll Be Your Mirror. Frances asked to hear it again, and again. Listening to those lyrics as a girlfriend made me feel a little funny, but they work in a new way as a mother - especially as the mother of an intense little person struggling to cope with her feelings.  For example:

I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty you are
But ... if you don't
let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you won't be afraid

Nico sounds a little different with Frances and Gabriel in the backseat, doesn't she?

After the pop music worked its magic on us, I decided to scrap the elaborate dinner-making plans. I needed some time with my daughter, rather than moving around each other in the kitchen as we tend to our own projects and Gabriel becomes more and more unhinged. So I moved the little table to the deck for a round of colorful, satisfying leaf rubbing.

We hunted the most excellent leaves in the backyard.

 

Frances wanted to make a picture for her cousin Lily, who will soon become a big sister. We both contributed rubbings and helped each other choose colors. We used a set of gorgeous homemade crayons, a thoughtful gift from the kids' summer babysitter Kelsey, who heated her own childhood crayons and poured the wax into madeline molds. 

 

Here is Frances. I don't know if you can tell from these pictures, but she is happy. Happy working. I realized today that giving Frances space - which she uses to relive every minute of her school day through pictures, homework, and constant talk - is maybe not the best thing for her. Maybe her brain needs a little help switching gears into something more peaceful.

I have hesitated to add any "activities" to her day during the week. But good gracious, I had forgotten that we do activities together. And the kind of activities we tend to pursue are of the leaf-rubbing variety, rather than the coloring-the-leaves-green-on-the-worksheet variety. She is missing more open-ended creative pursuits, and she is missing time with me.

 Here is the girl I know. Such relief, to be with her on a Thursday afternoon! Here she was not competing with her brother (who was cooperatively playing with a truck while we worked), or with kids at school, or feeling twisted up inside. When we get out the crayons and sit in the autumn sun together, I am being a kind of mirror, reminding her of who she is, allowing that person to shine with an easy light. And yes, she reflects me back to myself too, dear girl. Making leaves magically appear on paper together, I felt down to my depths how much I had been missing her.