musing on why we make

Katie and Fawn often go walking together in our neighborhood, and occasionally they stop by our house to say hello. Or rather, one of the children spots them, runs outside and flags them down, and then they have no choice but to come in. I recently heard Katie explaining to someone that she and Fawn have a little joke about us. As they approach the house, they ask each other: what do you think they are making today? Cookies, valentines, bracelets, bread?

As I laughed at this seemingly extreme characterization, I quickly took mental stock of the last 20 spontaneous visits with Katie and Fawn and soon realized they were right. It is almost absurd. We are always making something around here. The picture above is of Gabriel, pondering a little felt Valentine heart I made him. Once upon a time, when he was a baby, someone explained to him that a heart is for love. Ever since, our affectionate boy enthusiastically reminds us of this fact whenever a heart crosses our paths. "Look, a heart! A heart - for love!" 

So of course he took to Valentine-making with gusto. But that little felt heart? Most nights, it is carefully placed next to his pillow. After Valentine's Day, he began asking me to tell him the story of how I made the heart as part of his bedtime routine - before the fairy dust and after The Song. I would tell him about the time I said goodnight to him, and then goodnight to Didi, and then goodbye to Papa, who had to work at the college. And then I took out my red felt and my white thread, and I snuggled under a blanket on the couch, and I sewed a heart for Gabriel. I stitched a G on the front so he would know it was his. I carefully poked soft white stuffing inside. And then I hid it away, until Valentine's Day came.

It is as if every time I tell the story, the heart becomes more and more for love. About love. About me, and about him, and about what it is like to quietly anticipate giving something you make to someone you love. Now it is infused with a story, a kind of magic.

I've been thinking about what it means that we are always making something. My independent grown up ventures into making stuff (homes included) have been amateurish, halting. I was never particularly crafty, nor inclined towards the domestic arts. As a teenager, my limbs would feel as if they were weighted with lead whenever my mother would ask me to come admire her flower garden, so disinclined was I then to care about columbines.

I wonder how I traveled from who I was as a teenager, reading in the hammock, perfectly content to let the material world materialize itself without my assistance, to the person I am today, spearheading all kinds of cooking, sewing, and gardening projects with my family, totally hooked on making stuff.

It gives children a thrill to create things that become part of their world, to make little assertions of who they are with glitter and paint. It is easy to understand, powerless creatures that they are. Making stuff is about having a say, making a creative mark, proving ourselves capable of producing objects of beauty and utility. I include myself here, because when we become caregivers we give up a lot of our power in the world. Sure, I empathize with the frustration my kids feel, being so very dependent. But I'm also aware that I became exponentially more dependent myself when I decided to stay home with them. Funny how taking care of powerless people puts you in much the same boat.

But there's more to it than desperate clawing at any available creative outlet. I find making the stuff of everyday life to be a healing pursuit, especially when I can do it on some level with my kids. We can so easily become alienated from our food, our homes, our neighbors - everything around us, everything we use. When we don't participate in the production of all the lovely goods we consume (which is true of me, most of the time), the goods lose their connection to other people and to the natural world. They become things we are quick to throw in the trash. But when we make things, they become part of our story. How do I get from cutting up an old tie-dyed t-shirt of my dad's in order to make stacks of small brilliant-colored handkerchiefs for my drippy-nosed children to ...reconciliation and healing with all of creation? Well, sure. It's loose. But I feel the connection deeply, and it is why I'm hooked on making oddly-shaped bread, imperfect pillows, and zany assemblages from recycling bin castoffs and newspaper bits.   

When the phone rang at 5 am this morning, my heart sank. Another snow day. I had been hoping to send my envelope-pushing eldest off to school after the 3 day weekend. But Frances was relatively cooperative (thanks in part to today's new 'kindness stickers' for the calendar  - thank you Amelia for the inspiration), and Gabriel was happy to be home together. We read books, I cooked from a new cookbook, Frances wrote stories and drew pictures. I cut up handkerchiefs, Gabriel spread the peanut butter, Frances watered the seeds. We made a lot of stuff. It was pretty nice.

keeping the sabbath

While we were camping in Vermont over the summer, marveling at the verdant landscape and the equally beautiful functionality of the family of friends hosting us, I would periodically pump the kind matriarch who quietly presided over our meals together for information. How, exactly, did she grow this extraordinary, loving family? How did she get from where I am to where she is, mother and grandmother to such distinctively delightful people?  My feigned casual inquiries about discipline, books, and her career amounted to a single plea: draw me a map. Please. Write the directions, including as many landmarks and details as possible. Point A to point B. Simple enough, right?

If only creating community and growing a thoughtful, loving family were so simple. If only there were blueprints available. Polly indulged me with lots of stories about when her children were small, and this in itself was deeply satisfying. But of course when we left Vermont, Mike and I still carried the responsibility for figuring out how to make a life for ourselves and our children, though the burden felt much lighter, having been strengthened by our time away with inspiring friends.

One particularly inspiring aspect of family life that Polly shared grabbed my imagination with a persevering grip. She and her family observe the sabbath on Sundays. I won't get into the specifics of what that has meant in practice over the years, but I think it amounted to a commitment to spending quiet, restorative time together as a family.

Whether you are religious or not, I think the appeal of special time set apart from rushing, chaotic regular life is considerable for so many of us. Over the past months, we've been experimenting with what keeping the sabbath might mean for our family. The first priority that we agreed upon was spending time together in a way that was restful - mostly at home, or places we can make it to on foot. Articulating what we wanted from a day of rest helped Mike commit to working less - or not at all - on Sunday. His work can easily ooze into any available nook or cranny in the week, regardless of day or hour. It is a gift to have a job that connects so effortlessly with who Mike is, but even vocational work needs to be set aside sometimes. Plus, we realized that dedicated time (outside meals) in which the four of us spend time together happens all too rarely. Strange, because it feels so nice. And so with our new day of rest, Mike has erected a permeable yet significant boundary between work and family.

In the late summer we began going to a new church, which fills the first part of the day. When we get home, the afternoon stretches out before us. Early in the sabbath-keeping experiment we imposed a shopping ban on Sundays. All the errands have to happen on Saturday, or else be squeezed in during the week. This has not been particularly burdensome, because neither of us like to pile into the car and drag our children around box stores (does anyone?), but we also haven't been very rigid about it. I probably break the no-shopping rule every other week, usually because I need a last-minute item for Taco Sunday. That's hardly an excuse, because Taco Sunday is nearly every Sunday, and thus easy to plan ahead for.

Taco Sunday - otherwise known as Taco Dimanche - fits beautifully into the rhythm of the kind of restorative, homey day that I'm aiming for. One fall afternoon some friends who work with Mike at the college and live down the street were bemoaning the loss of a campus institution known as Taco Tuesday. It had recently disappeared in the transition to a new campus food service provider. We decided to bring back the taco, on Sundays instead of Tuesdays, and in our homes rather than at St. John's. Ever since that conversation we have been taking turns hosting, sharing the cooking and welcoming others when the occasion presents itself. There is usually plentiful wine, guacamole, and more or less wholesome baked desserts from our kitchen. Katie shares airplanes and wooden blocks that her college-aged boys once loved with Gabriel, and her own art supplies and writing tools with Frances.

We love Taco Sunday. It feels so good to load up the stroller with beer bottles and Frances-made place cards and walk down the street together in the early evening winter light. It brings the weekend to a close with a meal that is a pleasure to anticipate and a comfortable happiness to share. There is delight in both its sameness and in the small details - a piece of china, a new toy, a salsa recipe - that inevitably change from week to week. As we learned in Lancaster, there is something so deeply connecting and right-feeling about sharing daily life and meals with friends. (And yes, what you are thinking is true. We are finding a bit of community here after all.)

So this is the shape of sabbath so far: Church. Not so much work. No shopping, no errands. Afternoon avocado-mashing, cheese-grating, and then tacos for dinner with friends. Then on this past Sunday Mike and I decided to up the ante: no internet.

Oy. This is harder for me than you might think. I discovered what I already knew but was choosing to ignore: my email- and Facebook-checking, blog-adjusting, and general whimsical inquiries (what was that album called? what will the weather be like on Monday? why haven't I read that most-emailed article on yoga or pet grooming in the Times yet?) are habitual and often thoughtless. It's a distraction, a little technique to get me through the harder moments of the day. I can always justify it because my paid and volunteer work commitments are all mediated through a computer screen. (Maybe that's a problem.) I cannot tell you how many times I felt my body drifting towards the little white shelf in the kitchen where the computer lives on Sunday. Each time I had to take a deep breath and physically turn my body around, re-commiting to whatever tantrum or inner unease had driven me in that direction in the first place.

A crutch is not the worst thing, but it's not something to be proud of either. And no, I did not feel an inner lightness after liberating myself from the internet for 24 hours (sabbath ends at sundown; I rushed back online with a sigh after the kids' bedtime). But I had lived with an intention, one that required confronting the strength of my habit but also confirmed my ability to refrain from indulging it for a time.

It sure is hard to be present to each other and the world around us. The happy morning moments are a joy, sure, but those whining itchy late afternoon moments? Not so much. When I check something online, my body walks away to a corner of the kitchen and my brain gets to dart around anywhere and everywhere, to every conceivable place but the one I am in. Leaving my internet crutch on the shelf, while not always pleasant, felt like giving myself over to something greater. Oh, I'll just say it: like letting God take charge, rather than scurrying off to assert myself when the going gets a wee bit tough in this weird, private, no-really-I'm-in-charge-here sort of way.

And it turns out that I can tolerate being just where I am - and just who I am - without turning to excessive drink or online shopping or compulsive Facebooking. And for a whole day, too! Not without effort, not without moments of sadness and frustration - but isn't that part of the being-a-person deal? I'm about to get into bed with The New Yorker so I can read what Adam Gopnik has to say about how the internet gets inside us. He can be so very clever and persuasive, but no matter his conclusions I'm sticking to my internet-free sabbath intention. Beneath the comforts of clicking, in my heart I know I'd prefer other sources of illumination fill whatever space our quiet Sundays might create within.  

fiesta de los fruit loops

A disclaimer: the occasion for the party described herein was Gabriel's successful turn in the world as an underwear-wearer for two whole days in a row. In other words, he's been pooping and peeing in the toilet, rather than a diaper, which is cause for major celebration. It marks the end of a 5.5 year diaper-changing era for his parents, it transforms Gabriel into a full-fledged card-carrying big kid, and the earth is heaving a huge sigh of relief. (Sorry about the thousands of disposables, dear planet.) Plus - you may not have realized this - underwear (compared to diapers) is quite slimming. Gabriel has a new svelte figure for all of us to admire.

The reasons to celebrate this milestone are plentiful. But the milestone itself, I understand, is not the stuff of polite dinner conversation, nor of particular interest to anyone besides a toddler's most intimate relations. I will try to focus on the celebration from here on out. Just indulge me one tiny detail first that I cannot resist sharing: imagine Gabriel, running from the bathroom in a shirt and nothing else, yelling, "Didi! I did it! I will SHOW you!!" and Frances bounding up the stairs to meet him, crying, "You are the best pooper in the WHOLE WORLD!"

Ah! These are the moments parents dream of. Anyway. Back to Fruit Loops.

When Frances was still in diapers, she and her friend Henry had a babysitter that would, unbeknownst to the mamas and papas, walk the children in a double stroller to the Prince St. Cafe in downtown Lancaster. There the three of them would hit the cold cereal bar and fill up on Fruit Loops. No wonder they loved her. Before too long our rather verbal kiddo started asking for Fruit Loops, which sent us for - I cannot resist - a serious loop. It took awhile to figure out how and where she had encountered these rainbow-colored confections, and once we did, no one said anything to the babysitter. It is pretty fun to feed toddlers sugar, after all.

But I myself refused to give Fruit Loops to the kid, who continued to ask for them. But then one day, in a fit of potty-training desperation, I told her she could have them. After she used the toilet for...oh dear! It is hard to tell this story without using the p-word. And I don't mean pee. But you get the idea. And when she finally did the deed, weeks later, she whooped and hollered and immediately said: Let's go get some Fruit Loops!!! Which we did, and enjoyed, and that glorious day lives on in our memory still.

Frances has been looking forward to this day with Gabriel for about a year. She figured this must be the way we celebrate this particular occasion in our family, and so she began talking it up with him as soon as he could toddle. Sure, she takes pride in her brother's accomplishments. But she also was counting the days til she could eat a big bowl of Fruit Loops again.

And it was today! Frances was the photographer for our afternoon fete. Gabriel was the guest of honor. It was simply delightful.

Here I am, the proud mama who spared no expense and bought paper party napkins for the occasion.

Fruit loops proved imperfect yet beautiful building materials.

What party is complete without prizes? I found these long-lost hair bands - originally destined for a stocking - in the glove compartment for Frances, and I found this magic stone - which once meant something to me, a keepsake whose origin I cannot remember - in my closet for Gabriel.

And here he is. Our darling dear boy, infectiously pleased and proud of himself. Please don't tell him that, contrary to my frugal housewifely inclinations, I will be burying the nearly-full box of Fruit Loops in the trash tonight. These children will have to wait til their own kids leave diapers behind before I'll buy another box of that stuff and serve it at my table. But today? Today it was the perfect thing. We'd been waiting for those Fruit Loops for a long time, and they didn't disappoint. 

school

Before I made it downstairs this morning, Frances had already taken out red construction paper and colored pencils and was busy at the kitchen table working on valentines for her class. Before I groggily shuffled to the refrigerator in search of milk for my coffee, Frances was near tears because the valentines were not working out to her liking. When I suggested we could work on them together later in the day, she shot back that probably there were lots of kids in her class that wouldn't give her a valentine anyway. I looked at Mike, feeling helpless. In response to my next feeble attempt to soothe, an unprecedented thing happened. The diminutive person standing between us in bright pink pajamas, long messy bangs adorably grazing her eyelashes, kicked the dishwasher. Hard.

In keeping with my new efforts at neutral and immediate consequence-giving, I told her she had to have a time out in her room for five minutes. She sobbed all the way up the stairs. She sobbed in her room. More shocked than angry, I hesitated a moment, then followed her up and climbed into her bed. She quieted down and climbed in with me, pulling my arms tightly around her like a blanket.

Is something bothering you, Frances? Are you worried about anything?

No.

...Okay.

I don't want to go to school. Ever. I don't want to color any more worksheets ever again. I want to stay home and learn here instead.

She stuck to this position, even after considering what it would be like to never play with her friends at school, never go to music with Ms. Sallet, and never have another junk food-fueled holiday-themed classroom party again. Granted, she was being stubborn, but the extent of her negative feelings surprised me a little. We snuggled and talked about all the fun things we have to look forward to in the spring and summer. Our talk ended when we heard Gabriel waking up in the next room, at which point Frances asked if we could have "either a new baby or a pet" so that there would be more kids and/or animals to play with at home. That would make the learning at home option even better, you see.

Though my heart yearns to give her respite from the stress of school, more holistic and engaging ways to learn, and babies and pets galore, I know we can neither take on more living creatures and nor home school right now. It's not a feasible, sustainable path for our family. I occasionally wander through gorgeous nature-oriented mama blogs featuring gentle genius children who have been successfully unschooled. They spend their days building structures from fallen branches and undyed wool, or composing music while noshing on homemade spelt and flax seed scones. There are usually chickens in the backyard and plentiful delicate hand knit sweaters no matter the season. I confess, it looks pretty darn good to me. I've been dreaming of chickens for years. Frances and Gabriel would look fabulous in those felted gnome hats. But who will make them for us?

Part of me wants to be that mama, and in a way part of me is that mama - but only part. There are a lot of other parts clamoring for my attention just now! Which is why, I suppose, we recently visited an elite and beautiful private school. Perhaps some thoughtful professionals might offer something just as good to my kids, if not better. Frances had an evaluation and classroom visit last Monday. When I originally spoke to the very gracious admissions director over the phone and she mentioned scheduling a "testing," I felt the back of my neck prickle. Testing? Well, it isn't public school, after all. It isn't for everyone.

Frances was evaluated for gross and fine motor skills, abstract thought, verbal fluency, math competency, and a bunch of other things I cannot remember. She also participated with a kindergarten class for a portion of the morning. When I picked her up, she raved about P.E. with ponytailed Mr. Dan. She clearly wasn't made to feel judged, and it all seemed okay to me.

But honest to God, I forgot how to breathe when the admissions director called me with Frances' results. Everything was reported in a neutral, steady, rapid fire. I could barely keep up. This is how the conversation began:

So, the gross motor items gave her some trouble. She can't skip. And she can't hop while remaining in the same place - though she can hop while moving around.

And on and on it went. Listening with every muscle in my back clenched, trying to process all I was hearing, I silently responded to every indicator that came up less than perfect. So she can't skip! Give the kid a break! What's it to you, anyway? She'll learn, okay? So she won't be a star on the upper school's lacrosse team! Big deal.

The more time that passes, the more I feel unsettled by the experience. It's funny, because generally it was a very positive report, one that ended with a note (from the evaluator) about how Frances would be an excellent fit for the school, and that the education offered her there would be wonderful for her - that it is the sort of education a child like Frances deserves.

I didn't make up that 'deserves' part. This only stirred me up further, and made me feel awful. What child doesn't deserve an education like this? Why is it only in these high-priced educational oases that there seems to be a culture of genuine inquiry, curiosity about the world, and respect for children? Why do the kids there get to learn French and music at elegant blond wood tables? You can be sure they are not given the option of buying a Justin Bieber poster at the "book" fair.

The culture of this private school is probably the closest thing - institutionally - to our own values and ideas about what is nourishing for children in the area where we live. Maybe in the state where we live. The hitch is that it is not for every child. It is only for some children, and within that group, only for those whose families can manage it financially. Does this not stick like a sliver of popcorn between your teeth? You run your tongue over it again and again but it will not budge; it only scrapes the side of your tongue raw with successive efforts to remove it. I review the extraordinary things about this school, which are considerable, but no amount of flossing will dislodge how small I felt - how fiercely protective of my kid - when I listened to those test results. And nothing can change how lame it is that Quadir and Halligan and all the kids in Frances' class will never spend the morning inspecting snowflakes outside with magnifying glasses.

It's doubtful that we will have to make a decision between private and public education for our kids, because I can't imagine we will be offered enough financial aid to make it a real possibility for us. The aid application arrived in the mail today, and we will dutifully fill it out. But come on. Why would they shell out the big dollars for a five year old that can't skip?

Sometimes, the best you can do for your kid is to climb into bed and snuggle. And listen (or distract, as the case may be). We're aiming for good enough here, right? The hard part is that within that excellent, forgiving concept of being a good enough parent, there are countless inevitable moments of pain and disappointment to endure - every time we confront the impossibility of making the world always and only good for our children.

blooming still

No deep thoughts this evening, friends; I just wanted to share the latest developments in foliage on our valentine tree. I found inspiration for the newest addition here. Gabriel and I had an excellent morning making these wax paper hearts, and we were utterly delighted with the results.

The last time I grated crayons to melt between sheets of wax paper was probably in our Providence kitchen. I have hazy recollections of looking up at my mother standing at the ironing board, sealing autumn leaves in with the slivers of crayon. A more vivid memory is the breathless awe I felt gazing at the leaves hanging in our windows when we were finished, as brilliant and luminous as stained glass. It was probably 1982.

I doubt crayons-and-waxed paper crafting technology has changed much since then. Gabriel and I used a box grater and all the broken crayon bits we could find. (It remains to be seen whether or not the colored wax can be entirely cleaned out of the little holes, so if you are going to try this, I recommend using a spare grater if you have one.) Was I afraid Gabriel would grate his knuckles off? Yes, I was. But he didn't. The ironing part, however, presented a greater challenge.

After we'd collected lots of little bits of color on a sheet of waxed paper, we placed a second sheet on top, and a towel on top of that. (We began with a towel beneath the first sheet of waxed paper as well). Gabriel really, really, really wanted to wield the hot iron. I contemplated abandoning ship, until I remembered our toy wooden iron. Happiness was restored. In the end we both had an iron, and we both passed them methodically over the top towel. Gabriel made an incredibly loud construction vehicle sort of noise while he ironed, which appeared to be rather soothing for him.

When we finally lifted the towel, beautiful swirling colors greeted us. I cut the sheet in half, so we could both cut shapes out of our own pieces. Here are some of Gabriel's.

He called the hearts I cut "outer space hearts" because the yellow sprinklings of color look like stars. We found that the hole punch compromised the wax seal, so instead used a skewer to poke holes for hanging. It was an unusually harmonious, companionable morning, and I still can't believe how much we both enjoyed the process and the product, together. For a fleeting and delicious moment, I felt myself to be exactly where I was supposed to be, and with exactly the right person, too.