les mots

I think the real reason we get the Post on Sundays - besides a fading yet persistent attachment to reading the paper on an actual piece of paper - is to see Frances' face light up when she finds the 'Kids Post' section of the paper and watch her scope out a quiet spot to read it in. She still prefers being read to, and so the sight of her with a book or newspaper, all wrapped up in her own universe, evokes the tenderest feelings. Nostalgia for the days of board books mingles with a vicarious excitement for all the books she has yet to meet.

Her increasingly independent reading has developed alongside her brother's growing fascination with language and books. At three, he is in love with rhyming, rhythms, the sound and look of letters. He cracks himself up with nonsense rhymes and silly words and will sit motionless, barely breathing, before a good, musical poem. In the right mood, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats transfixes him, and today I read the witches' scene from Macbeth - at his request - four times in a row.

The same witches that mention tossing the liver of a blaspheming Jew, the nose of a Turk, and a Tartar's lips into their bubbling cauldron full of hell-broth? Yes, those witches! I would not have thought of it, but the scene is included in our latest favorite poetry collection for kids, A Foot in The Mouth: Poems to Speak, Sing, and Shout. (The team behind it, Paul B. Janeczko and Chris Rashcka, have collaborated on two other collections worth checking out, A Kick in the Head and A Poke in the I.) As Gabriel explained to me, the illustration of the witches is kind of silly, so when he looks at it the words don't sound too scary.

It's the sound that entrances him, after all. His response to poetry illuminates how words are so much more than their definitions; how the sound and feel and rhythm of language is what first draws us in. I don't think I'm breaking any rules by sharing a poem here from the same collection:

The Pickety Fence

by David McCord

The pickety fence

The pickety fence

Give it a lick it's

The pickety fence

Give it a lick it's

A clickety fence

Give it a lick it's 

A lickety fence

Give it a lick

Give it a lick

Give it a lick

With a rickety stick

Pickety 

Pickety

Pickety

Pick

So I'm reading this one tonight, per Gabriel's request. (Okay, maybe I suggested it. And then asked if we could read it one more time.) Usually after dinner the children either leap onto the couch or circle the coffee table, surveying the haphazard piles of library books like vultures. (Or maybe vulture chicks, which I imagine are way cuter than their parents). They often fight over the reading selections. But this evening was different. Gabriel was holding a dinosaur book in his lap, open to his favorite picture. It was at the ready should his attention wane, or should he feel the need to assert his independence. Frances was on the other side of me, reading her own book, nearly oblivious to us, except when we begged her to listen to a really good poem. But she wasn't interested in our excellent, musical poems. There was nothing to fight over for her - nothing at stake - because she already had it covered. And that's how it is as kids grow up sometimes. They become more independent, and while independence comes with pride and accomplishment, and makes for less conflict and effort in certain ways, it's a loss and a sadness all the same.

Tonight was the first time she has ever indulged me quite like this - turning half of her attention to what we were reading and asking her to share in. Pickety pickety pickety pick! Don't you love it? She'd look sort of vague and say, sure. Yeah, that's good.... and then go right back to her book. It struck me that part of the pleasure Gabriel and I had taken in these poems earlier in the day was anticipating sharing them with Frances. We just knew she'd love them, too. But there we were, each with a book in our own lap, and the only selection that really snagged her attention - the only time I felt that language magic bind us all together - was the poetry of those nasty, scheming witches.

But really, am I complaining? Double, double, toil and trouble? I'll take it.

laura's world

Could it have been dyeing eggs with natural dyes on Saturday afternoon at the SERC's charming nature center that got us started? Maybe it was talking gardening with friends there, or remembering a certain hushed and intimate deer run-in along one of the trails last spring while Gabriel slept in my arms.

Something opened the door to the spirit of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which has been hovering about the house and moving among us these past days. Now, if you had been present to witness the piles of colored foil candy wrappers littering the dining room table after church and Easter egg hunting yesterday, you might be skeptical. Where indeed is the single hard brown cake of maple sugar at each child's place? Surely they are nibbling away at them slowly, speaking only when spoken to like quiet bunnies possessing untold powers of restraint, determined to make the holiday sweetness last as long as possible.

Well. I'm afraid the candy situation is the opposite of Little House living. But bracket that for a moment; let me tell you about how Gabriel begged to read Little House in the Big Woods with us on Saturday, and how he sat rapt, leaning against my right knee, for an entire chapter. And how when Frances, leaning on my left, begged for a second chapter, he chimed in and begged along with her. And how he later wandered away from the table during lunch, picked up the book and held it in his lap on the couch, saying Please Mama, please oh please read more to us.

What an unexpected bit of happiness! Who would ever think a just-barely three year old boy would be so smitten with life in the Big Woods? Reading these chapters together, and including Mike this time around, has made for the most pleasurable experience of shared family reading. Frances, having read many of these books last year, gets to be the big sister with superior knowledge while at the same time exercising noblesse oblige in inviting her little brother to partake with her in the language and imagery of the Ingalls family life. She even tolerated Gabriel's request to hear the story of Grandpa and the Panther three times (so far) without complaint. It's a pretty good story, after all.

Gabriel incorporates his favorite stories into pretend world, entering in alongside (or as) the story's characters in his imaginary play. Usually this means crashing around the kitchen as a dinosaur, or declaring he is The Red Cross knight while stabbing an invisible dragon. So you can imagine my surprise and delight as I peered through a doorway to see him asking Frances to make the beds just like Laura and Mary do yesterday (picture him "fluffing" all the pillows in the house with great determination) and then later observe the two of them playing at being industrious little helpers, dusting and cleaning and making butter with a tinker toy churn and paddle.

As for Frances, now that she is - as she will tell you - five and five-sixths years old, she is more awed by the Ingalls' abilities and accomplishments. She also notices what is missing. When we read today about Mary making a dress for Laura's doll for Laura's birthday, Frances marveled at her skill. They know how to do so many things! she sighed, then a moment later turned to me and said, but why don't they know how to read yet??

Besides a newfound enthusiasm for the domestic arts, the kids have been profoundly nature-oriented of late. Maybe it's that our more limited transporation situation has been keeping us closer to home, or it's simply the irresistible swing into warmth and growing things outdoors, but I like to think it has something to do with Laura's orientation to the natural world. We have been awash in her articulation of a child's attunement to signs of seasonal change, such as fascination with the dripping icicle that heralds spring. I know it has shifted my backyard vision.

Frances led the charge to explore under the footbridge in our neighborhood yesterday. I spied a bumpy-backed toad along the banks, so stagnant murky water notwithstanding, we all had to tramp down and take a closer look. Better still than the toad was a beautiful green speckled frog who stared up at us with copper-rimmed big black eyes for a long few minutes. We returned his gaze in awe. He finally jumped closer, and Frances begged him to hop into the apron she made of her Easter dress, but he declined.

The best part of all this good clean fun has been its salutary effects on Frances. As you may know, I had been at a loss before her puzzlingly bad behavior last week. But being with her family, lots of time outdoors, freedom from schedules, increased solidarity with her brother, and swinging and singing her wild crazy songs all by her lonesome in the backyard have brought her back to herself. Little House in the Big Woods is a long thread that has been quietly looping itself in and through all of those things, stitching them up neat and tight. 

But will the seam hold under the pressure of school tomorrow? 

(One last aside: does anyone out there use the Little House on the Prairie homeschooling curriculum? It must exist, right? With the exception of the delayed reading thing, I think it might be a grand pedagogical success.)

weed season

Now begins the season in which one charming weed after another dominates our yard, from dandelions to red clover to these tiny blue flowers that Frances likes to pick, pale roots and all, and thrust into juice cups filled with water. The first mow of our weed-meadow has yet to happen, despite clover growing knee-high on Gabriel. I hope we can resist for a little while longer, for high violet season is upon us! They are everywhere, delicate purple and white flowers peeping up just over grass level, creating an inviting sprinkling of color on the ground and endless picking opportunities. When we finally mow the lawn, we will have no choice but to cut their sweet heads off along with everything else.

This week, Frances flew with my mother on a big blue and red airplane to visit her Great-Poppy (who is also my Poppy, and my mother's Dad), in honor of his 89th birthday. She had been looking forward to this special trip for weeks. I took them to the airport on Tuesday morning, helped them get their bags out of the car, partook in a very big hug, and then watched them walk with springy steps towards the enormous sliding glass doors. I felt an unexpected clutching in my heart, a wave of panic. For a minute I wanted to chase them down and haul Frances back to the car, back to her home, far from enormous pieces of shiny metal that fly in the sky with hundreds of people inside them. 

But I didn't. And as it turns out, life with one kid is a LOT easier than life with two. Gabriel and I had a lovely, companionable few days. In the evenings and mornings, Mike would join us in an alternate-universe family life that included quiet stretches of time in which no one spoke, lots of nonfiction kids books about things like dinosaurs and dump trucks, and hardly any conflict to speak of. But when I would walk past Frances' room at night with its door left ajar, its terrible emptiness spilling out into the hallway, I felt an awful ache.

Five and three-quarters is a fine age to spread one's wings and fly, even as far as Akron, Ohio. Exclusive time with Gramma is always a good thing, and reconnecting with her great-grandfather was truly special. And like I said, family life was pretty darn nice in her absence. But. But it was wrong. Amiss. A key person was amissing. She called us a couple of times, always asking to speak to Gabriel (who was, incidentally, delighted to talk on the phone for the very first time).

According to my mom, Frances' occasional  homesickness during the trip expressed itself as Gabriel-sickness. But that didn't stop her from launching into torturing him upon her return home this afternoon. At times it seemed relentless, and I could only stand back in bewilderment. Her behavior was abysmal, and though it could be explained by the stress of travel, so much of it was familiar that I felt unable to simply attribute it to that and move on. I wanted to shake her and shout: We missed you so much! You are our darling girl! Why be mean?

My daughter is a mystery. She is a tiny blue flower that is breathtaking in its intricate, delicate beauty and at the same time a challenge to the plants living around it. She cries over spilled milk; she has a will of steel. Her brilliance delights and awes; it also contributes to a level of anxiety that can be hard to live with. She's a poet, she's a terror. She's complicated.

We are all charged with figuring out how to live with the double-edged nature of our own shining personalities, and I realize that this is the work of a lifetime, not something to be settled by age six.

Still. Sometimes I wish she would.

a healthy body

 

I was dropping a less-than-willing boy off at the child care area, on my way to the treadmill, happily anticipating the opportunity to sweat out those particular toxins that accumulate when you are charged with feeding, dressing, and shoeing two children and ensuring they are safely buckled in the backseat by 8:30 am every weekday. I do love to get sweaty. But more than that I love to move, as fast or slow as I like, without anyone dragging and scraping his little shoes as slowly as possible across a parking lot. There should be a rule. Every mother should get at least 30 minutes a day to move at her own pace. 

So as I'm saying goodbye to Gabriel at the rec center, another mother I'm friendly with is dropping off her adorable two year old daughter. "Mommy's going to go exercise now," she said as she made her way to the door. "Why does Mommy exercise?" 

"A healthy body!!" responded the beaming miniature person standing at the play kitchen. She was so pleased with herself, so proud to know the right answer. All the adults present beamed right back at her. Adorable, I tell you.

For some reason the exchange stuck with me. Does little Mary Ellen have any idea of what a healthy body means? We give our kids words for things, and eventually the meaning coheres. Maybe right now "a healthy body" has to do with Mommy leaving and coming back sweatier and happier than when she left. Later it will mean something else. 

Once Frances asked me why I had to go for a jog. I told her it was so I wouldn't go crazy. My need to exercise has long been tied to the physicality of parenting small children, which requires considerable stamina yet can be so constricting. A hard afternoon makes me long for freedom of movement. In the early days with babies, I would dream of hiking all day, or swimming in an endless lake. Exercise has sometimes meant escape from the world of sticky hands. The nice thing about "a healthy body" is that it isn't about them. It's a clean and simple reason; it's about me, my body, my health.

I'm finally at a place where that feels true. My kids are such big, capable people now that if anything, I feel nostalgia for the days when they rode contentedly across my body in the sling. I have enough breathing room that I've come to a healthy body breakthrough moment: I can take the time I do have and move. I have missed a regular yoga practice intensely since becoming a mother. Between work, nap schedules, transportation, money, and all the other complicating factors in family life, I haven't been able to attend a weekly yoga class with any regularity. I've nurtured some strange amorphous resentment about that fact for years, mad at a world that conspires to keep me from the haven of a yoga studio. 

But one day I looked around and realized those feelings were misplaced to begin with, and totally unnecessary now with my big kiddos. I've been practicing yoga for anywhere from 15 - 45 minutes daily for the past couple of weeks. I feel sensitized, aware of my body in space, able to breathe! Detoxed - at least for the hour following my practice. I had to get over the idea that I needed a rarified hour of privacy and stillness in which to practice. Who has those, anyway? Today, I encouraged Frances to play with the little girl next door in the backyard during Gabriel's nap so I could unroll my mat on the back deck and do a half hour of standing poses. And it worked! It made me think of watching my dad when I was five or six, doing tai chi barechested in the backyard. I wondered if other dads did weird stuff like that. At least we had a fenced backyard then! Poor Frances and Gabriel have to deal with a mother who does half moon pose for all the world to see. The eventual embarrassment they'll feel, and the fact of being that weird mom? Friends, it feels right to me!

And better yet, I'm forming a group of yogini mothers who would like to practice together once a week. I'm no yoga teacher, but I can be responsible for leading us through a sequence of poses. Someone has secured a conference room at their workplace that we can use on Sunday afternoons. Our first gathering was supposed to be yesterday, but sadly I couldn't make it. (You can read about why here). There's talk of scoping out various outdoor locations for the summer. I am beside myself with excitement.

Accepting our limitations can be so liberating. I finally stopping being mad about the dearth of excellent yoga studios with affordable classes at times that accommodated my difficult schedule, and started doing yoga. I realized nothing was stopping me from unrolling the mat in the middle of my chaotic living room. A healthy body can be about the small choices we make every day (yoga instead of washing dishes!) that quietly nurture new growth, ever-so-slightly broadening our vision.

bookworms

Gabriel has officially caught the reading bug. Just in time for the most beautiful spring day of 2011! We left the library with a stack of books this morning, and when we arrived home later he informed me that he was going to take off his shoes and read his books on the couch. I didn't get it at first. I'm going to read my books alone, he clarified. Then at naptime he selected his favorite, a slim volume on jumbo jets, and snuggled up next to it in bed with a contented sigh before drifting off to dream of jet engines.

It's hard not to grin when we watch him pore over picture books, and this new independent relationship to reading has coincided with a dawning awareness of phonics, which is very exciting. But joy of reading aside, there was no way I could countenance my children spending this glorious afternoon indoors. Luckily, after school they agreed to reading outside on our old favorite backyard blanket, a jungle-themed shower curtain handed to us free of charge at a yard sale years ago.

One of the most satisfying and long-anticipated delights of parenthood for me is revisiting beloved books from my own childhood. Frances and I read Stuart Little, then Charlotte's Web, when she was just four. Most of it was over her head but I simply could not bear to wait any longer. We gave her Little House in Big Woods when she was four and a half and gobbled it up together. I was reassured somewhat that Laura herself is four, then five in the book - see, it's completely age appropriate! (Of course by the time we got to Silver Lake and Laura was thirteen, that argument was useless.)

We generally want to share the things that are important to us with the people we care about, but this book thing of mine goes deeper than that. Certain books - the Little House series, the Narnia books, Betsy, Tacy & Tib, Madeleine L'Engle stories about the Austins and the O'Keefes, Anne of Green Gables - were a profoundly influential, orienting presence in my life. All my unruly childhood passions and inchoate adolescent yearnings got mapped onto those characters and plotlines.

Had I not connected so powerfully as a child with those books, I might be someone else today. Someone else's mother! So in a way, to know Laura is to know me. And to have the honor of introducing Frances to Laura and sharing a (thank goodness) similar breathless fascination with her pioneer life is to know Frances better too.   

Every once in awhile a picture book at the library calls out to me, and with a little shock of recognition I remember reading it as a small child, usually because there was something strange or upsetting going on in the story (as there almost always is in the very best children's books). Did you ever read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble? I had completely forgotten about that one til I stumbled upon it with Frances last year. The cover alone triggered a long lost memory of feeling intense worry. (Sylvester, a donkey, turns into a stone, and his adoring parents spend months grieving over him, unable to find him, imagining he is dead). A few weeks ago I found the Maurice Sendak book, Outside Over There. It's about Ida, who has to save her baby sister from terrible goblins all by herself. This book fascinated and disturbed me as a kid. So much so that I quickly tucked it back into the shelf before my kids saw me holding it. I'm not ready to revisit that one.

And today? I found Saint George and The Dragon, which is beautifully illustrated and features a detailed description of a bloody, violent, three day-long fight with an enormous dragon. I suddenly remembered savoring this book, just as Gabriel is doing now, mesmerized by its pictures and wanting to be alone with them so that no one could interrupt me and break the spell. So today I read it to the kids outside on the jungle shower curtain while they alternately pinched, snuggled, climbed over, and burrrowed into me - anything to help them tolerate the impossible suspense. A completely different reading experience from my first round with this book, but no less perfect.

And by the way, speaking of pioneering....I wanted to let you all know I've started blogging for the All Things Mothering community blog at www.mothering.com. Very exciting! You can read my first post, Frontier Life, here.

spring headstands

Nothing quite inspires like hanging around the house without a thing to do. Where would we be now if we hadn't logged all that time staring at ceiling fans as children? I'm convinced that creativity depends upon wide-open expanses of boredom in which it can incubate, eventually giving rise to particular expression. That's one angle, anyway. It's an argument that supports my intuitive belief in unscheduled time for children, and my persistent exasperation with the fact that Frances arrives home from kindergarten at 4 pm with homework in her backpack.

Though truthfully, no one was feeling bored this weekend. How could we, with grandparents visiting to celebrate Gabriel's birthday and so many excellent new toys to play with?

Because of the guests and the toys, we were able to enjoy the kind of time that stretches out wide before you, loose and breezy. Relatively contented children and many adoring adults made for walks, meandering chats, reading, drawing. Filling a glass bowl with purple and white violets, planting a few seeds. On Sunday, in the height of lazy afternoon-ness, I was struck by the urge to practice headstands so I could watch the kids swinging upside down.

As adults, we so rarely find ourselves in touch with that urge from childhood, to try something because it might be kind of neat. The inspiration to master a new trick, be it throwing a ball as high as you can, performing a tongue twister with incredible speed, or holding a perfect handstand in the pool longer than anyone else. Remember? Maybe it's not that the inclination fades with age; it's that the circumstance necessary for practicing tricks so rarely presents itself in adulthood. What we need is an afternoon with nothing to do.

We were supposed to go to the Air & Space Museum on Sunday. It was to be one last birthday hurrah for our resident lover of Things That Fly. Then the government almost shut down, and I prepared myself for the likelihood of shuttered museums. Then it miraculously didn't shut down, but by then I had gone too far down a different path and couldn't turn back.

It's my new anti on-the-go campaign. What shall the slogan be? Say No to Go? Don't Go? When you're on the go, you can't make papier mache, which is what I proposed in lieu of rocket ships to my children and mother, in the hopes of somehow sweetening the stay-at-home deal for them. They were skeptical, but the fact that no one made a case for the Air & Space Museum makes me think they weren't too disappointed to spend the day at home instead.

The first thing we did was shred the newspaper. That went over pretty well.

Frances helped whisk up some flour and water into a smooth goo. We used slightly more water than flour, playing with amounts until the consistency was just a little thicker than Gabriel's birthday cake batter.

 

Somehow we managed to collect all the newspaper in a grocery bag and bring it outside, along with two bowls of goo, three ceramic cereal bowls to serve as molds, vaseline to grease them with, and an empty cardboard toy box to serve as a workspace. (Did I mention my mom was there? This is definitely a project best undertaken when you have a 1:1 adult-kid ratio.)

After slathering the bowls in vaseline, we set to work dipping our newspaper in the sticky cake batter, squeezing off the excess, and laying strips. Everyone commented often on how ridiculously messy this all was. Gabriel finally asked at one point if we were ever going to wash our hands, because his bowl was already so very mah-SHAYED. 

Despite the low level distress that crusty flour goo caused him, he was right back out on the deck with me this morning, helping to put on another layer of sticky newspaper. Until it wasn't fun anymore, a few minutes later. He read his new book about rockets while I finished the job.

The day was gorgeous and sunny, so I left the bowls resting on old jars outside to speed along the drying process.

Tonight I managed to pry one of the bowls free from its mold. I know, it's not much to look at now, especially since the inside is yellowed with vaseline. But that can be fixed, and after we introduce these bowls to paint, glitter, and all the bling we can find in our crafting supplies, then give them the jobs of holding plastic dinosaurs (Gabriel) and drawing charcoal (Frances), I do think they will be quite beautiful. At least, they will be to me.

But do you know, I think I like those headstands as much as - if not more than - the bowls. An afternoon free of errands, during which my inner on-the-go addict was relatively quiet, so much so that instead of folding laundry I spent time on my head, complete with muddy knees and elbows and leaves in my hair? I can't tell you what it might have been exactly, but I like to think that while I was upside down, something shook loose.   

birthday's end

In the quiet, in-between moments today, Gabriel would look up at me with big eyes and ask hopefully, is it still my birthday? Since he was at day care for most of the day, busy celebrating and playing with friends, there weren't many opportunities to be still enough to wonder if the birthday might have tiptoed out the back door when he wasn't looking. But during pizza-making, and while looking for the right bedtime story, and watching the bath water drain out, he had to ask, just to be sure. Is it still my birthday?

The last time he asked was en route to his bed, after saying goodnight to his sister and his papa. I was carrying him in his pajamas towards his darkened room, where the humidifier was already humming in wait. Yes, it is, I told him. Then a little light went off in his clean, wet head.

But you can't go to bed on your birthday!! 

As if it were the craziest idea he ever heard. Going to sleep on your birthday? Come on!

Gabriel went along as I proceeded with the bedtime routine, still skeptical and a little sad, but worn out enough not to protest further. But then during the part when I stoop over him for the final sprinkle dusty and kiss, he whispered into my face: do happy birthday goodnights, Mama. Do them like this: happy birthday ... happy birthday ... happy birthday. I could feel him smiling in the dark, so pleased was he with this simple yet  brilliant idea.

Usually I say goodnight three times at his door, just before leaving the room. Sometimes I say squeak squeak squeak, if we are being a baby dormouse and his mother. Tonight I stood there and whispered happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, and for some reason it felt so silly that we laughed through every one. Despite (or maybe because of) the solemnity of bedtime, we just couldn't help ourselves.

Then I regained my composure and said, I love you big three year old boy.

And he whispered, I love you too, Mama.

Then I shut the door, and the birthday was over.

Today I had coffee with someone who told me how her very close friend's husband is dying. I have heard about a number of deaths lately that are one or two steps removed from me - friends of friends, or parents of friends of friends. What to do in the face of such tragedy and loss? It is ridiculous to go to bed on your birthday, and it's ridiculous that people have to die. Completely bewildering.

Gabriel's response to the absurdity of endings is a comfort to me. He accepted bedtime, but not without sadness, and not without making some creative adjustments. He asked for my help and cooperation, maintained his fine sense of humor, and said I love you. May I have the grace and wisdom to do the same.

cultivating our garden

Maybe today offered a taste of summer where you live, too. Yesterday morning I dressed my children in heavy jackets; today we ate dinner on the back deck in bare feet. Like a first day of health after a bout of sickness, we stepped into the sunshine and didn't look back. It was as if winter had never happened.

The swiss chard and kale seedlings moved into the garden beds yesterday. I was reluctant to send them out of our kitchen and into the big wide world full of nasty bugs and bad weather, but today they looked well settled. Gabriel and I have developed a seed-planting routine over the past couple of weekends that we employed as we filled in bare spots in the dirt among the radish seedlings. He tells a story about how they are having a sleepover with all their seed friends, and we make their beds for them, then cover them up and tuck them in by patting down the dirt.

Over the weekend Mike and I came to the end of our agonizing about another green shoot in residence around here. We decided to enroll Frances in the private school I told you all about. After consulting with some older and wiser dear ones, thinking about what my dad would say, considering Frances' response to the school, Mike's lengthy visit, contemplating the meaning of education, and quite a few sleepless nights, we both knew that it was the right thing to do.

A week ago, I realized how troubled I was to think that we were the sort of people who send their kids to a fancy private school. What sort of person is that, exactly? Oh, I had some inchoate notions of indifference to the poor, opting out of a valuable community experience, celebrating privilege and flaunting consumption, pulling into a parking lot full of gleaming SUVs. Alignment with the world's evil forces, I guess. Then it struck me: what exactly do all those vague associations and prejudices of mine have to do with Frances, and her experience in the classroom? My vanity was seriously getting in the way.

Happily, this place doesn't resemble my fantasy of 'fancy private school' in the least. It is a beautiful school that employs a holistic and at the same time rigorous approach to educating children. And they gave us a very generous aid package, making something I assumed would be impossible a very definite possibility. Sometime Friday evening, I knew deep down that this was an opportunity that would be wrong to pass up - a place in which Frances might truly flourish.

So here's the thing: over the same weekend that we arrived at the school decision, a small group of dedicated people braved awful weather and made the Annapolis Elementary School new school food garden work party a great success. There were new raised beds alongside the blacktop today. The students started seeds in their classrooms last week. It is just terrific. And we weren't there.

There was so much to do at home, you see. (Plus the last time I volunteered with Gabriel in tow, he cried whenever I left his side and eventually threw up in the middle of the school cafeteria.)

But as I stood at the computer in the kitchen, reading the PTA president's email describing the work party, a quiet incoming tide of sadness started to lap at my feet. It wasn't regret, but rather the glamor-less adult realization that opening a new door nearly always means shutting an old one. I am so excited for Frances to experience the new educational environment that is waiting for her next year, and I am so sad that she won't be a part of her school anymore with its kids from the projects, its view of the harbor, its new garden.

Heather recently commented that she appreciated the honesty here, even when I can't offer a happy ending. Tonight's reflections are a mixed bag. So much of this blog is dedicated, at least in part, to making sense of how I am drawn to home and children. The delicate adjustments that go into finding a sustaining balance between outward and inward orientations in the world - what we give up and what we are given. Could it be that I need to loosen my grip on the sense I have of myself as a person who heads up community garden organizing efforts?* And if I give that up, what might fill the cleared space? We didn't go the school garden work party, and that makes me sad. That said, I'm pretty sure we were where we were supposed to be - home. Just as I'm sad to leave Annapolis Elementary, and also sure that The Key School will be a much better place for Frances to grow and learn.

My children will be children but once, and this is my chance to mother them through it. I miss my old identity(ies), but I'm growing more attached to a new one that is emerging of late. Who knew cultivating my garden would be a response to that mysterious yet persistent call that beckons to our most true and really real self: come out! I know I'll have to say goodbye to hosting seed sleepovers before too long, at which point I'll figure something else out. Hopefully the community garden will still have me.

 

*Don't worry - it's still me - I'm already trying to put together a weekly neighborhood yoga practice for the summer. Local friends, please talk to me if you're interested!