is it was

Frances requested a CD of music to listen to when she feels angry for Christmas, so Mike assembled some punk, angry songs for her. In the process he also discovered her bedtime CD from when she was a baby. So that one got included in the little sleeve as well, full of sweet tunes he had hand selected when she was three or four months old. 

Last night, on her way upstairs, Frances said she thought she'd listen to the old songs to fall asleep by, instead of Bach. I offhandedly replied that I'd probably cry my eyes out upon first listen. She looked a little startled. Oh, it's okay, I reassured her. You can still play it.

So she did, and I was transported to her pale green bedroom in Lancaster. Mike and I would read Goodnight Moon to her together, then he would say goodnight, stand up, turn off the light, find the remote on the shelf and point it at the CD player that sat inside her odd little closet across the room, turning on the music as he quietly shut the door behind him. That was the cue that it was time to nurse, nestled in the glider, to the chimes of that first song. We would linger over Innocence Mission and Sufjan Stevens, and I would always gently settle her in the crib and leave before the last song, which was, I do believe, called This Song, by Badly Drawn Boy. If I heard it begin, I knew we were off script.

Back in the nine year old chaos and swirl of Frances's present day bedroom, the chimes began, and without a thought I sat on the edge of her bed and cried. I hope I didn't freak her out too much (I did warn her, after all) but the truth is that girl soaks up any nostalgia having to do with her babyhood like a bone dry sponge. We hugged. She cried a little too. She needs reminders that she was the one and only baby once, and that my heart sometimes sings yearningly for our simpler days as a family of three...when Mike and I conjured up and perpetuated a carefully orchestrated, twenty-step, airtight bedtime routine, night after night! Can you imagine? 

We visited Mike's parents after Christmas, who have recently moved into a new home. During the visit we discovered that they live less than five minutes away from a beautiful state park. We were a bit unprepared when we arrived, but I had spent too much time inside and was driven a little mad by the warm weather and sunshine, so couldn't resist advocating for an unknown hike. It was uncomfortably close to sundown, and Mike had to sling the stroller, and I had to sling the toddler (without a sling!), but I didn't care. Trees, air, Andrew Wyeth's watery yellow light everywhere I looked! Let's do it!!

Beatrice did walk for some of it. But mostly I carried her. Mike thought we might double back at a certain point and I said no way! We can make it, and it's such a beautiful day. (It really was.) After awhile, I could feel nervousness quietly emanating from his body, competing with the sunshine's effects, but I persisted in my cheerful, plunge-ahead attitude, while secretly scanning for blue blazes to reassure me we were on the right trail and exhaling every time I saw one. Occasionally the trail split, or became so littered with leaves it was unclear if we were still on it, and I hoisted Beatrice higher, wondering every so often, as the sun sank, if I was being absolutely crazy and leading my family into a cold, dark disaster.

Along the path we'd seen a number of fresh hoofprints and Beatrice was getting increasingly excited about the presence of horses. I kept telling her we'd see some to help maintain the momentum, though I was uncertain about that. Then, midway up a rather steep hill in which the trail began to fade into the forest floor, I looked up at the ridge to see two excellent horses poised at the top. 

Horses! Look, horses! (On the trail! I thought - they must be on the trail, so we are too!)

We all walked quickly uphill to catch up with them, though their indifferent riders turned without acknowledging us and walked in the other direction. Rather unfriendly. Beatrice could not stop talking about them: there are horses! People are riding on their backs! We see horses! The horses are there! 

Soon, after they'd left our view, her assertions became questions: there are horses? There are people on horses? We see horses? We see them?

Until finally, as we continued along in their wake, Beatrice - in reference to the magical, elusive horses - said: is it was?

Woah. Is it was. She meant, I think: did it really happen? Was the past real? Can you please confirm for me that something important happened, which is not exactly happening now, but in a sense is, because the memory of it is filling my mind and heart?

This holiday season has been very sweet, very full - of open, sprawling time playing with toys and games, of meaningful family visits, of Beatrice chattering away. I won't remember what her voice sounds like now in a year's time. I can barely replicate her cadences for you here. We are all of us growing and becoming in every which way, but the children most especially so, and so remarkably fast at that. What a blessing to have slower days and lazy afternoons, complete with boredom and bickering, to look around and notice, to feel all the feelings. To remember Frances in my arms like it was yesterday, to feel hot tears in my eyes before my thoughts have caught up. 

Is it was? Yes, it was, Beatrice! And I might add, which I suspect has a slightly different meaning, was it is. Also, was it will be, and will be it is. These past days have been punctured with flashes of joy that are so brilliant, so painful - that is the potential that slowness holds. Watching my family hike up the hillside against the low sunlight filtering through stands of trees, draped in my responsibility and delight, I knew the truth of is it was, and will be. A world without end.

And our hike? I gave in and panicked about 100 yards from the trail's end. Mike joined me. Not our best moment. Then a few feet later we heard voices on the park's main path and realized we had finished the hike. A Christmas miracle! I couldn't have been happier, or prouder of my uncomplaining big kids, or more relieved not to have put in motion the harrowing true story behind Hollywood's next wilderness disaster.

Happy, happy new year to all of you. Thank you for walking these trails with me! I send wishes for love, peace, healing and joy in 2015.

rainy day snowstorm

We've had a lot of dreary weather of late. Saturday was yet another very cold and damp day, and in between errands and chores the children conspired to plaster our kitchen windows with countless paper snowflakes. I absolutely love it. Part of what I love - and am, frankly, a bit unsettled by - is that they did it nearly all by themselves. They are so very capable.

A couple of days beforehand, I showed them this apparently foolproof technique for creating gorgeous paper snowflakes. We folded and cut one batch together. I said something vague about glitter enhancements before being distracted by our little Mama-barnacle Beatrice (pick me up Mama, pick me up!) and when I came back to the kitchen table Frances and Gabriel were working on a pile. Each time they unfolded and discovered a new one I'd hear them ooo and ahh, and occasionally run to find me and show me the latest. Look at this one, Gabriel would exclaim, can you believe it?! Come see Didi's, it's so amazing!

Their enthusiasm was infectious and when I said they could cover the windows they were delighted.

On Sunday the sun came out. I tried to kick them outside but instead they invited our neighbor over to "make stuff" with them. She came running and the three of them cut and sewed and glued while I made guacamole and beans, sometimes looking up to admire the snowflake shadows slanting across the pink kitchen walls. 

Frances is nine years old. She has become a new kind of child: more sophisticated, independent, funnier, steadier, kinder, and much less inclined to contradiction and defiance, especially around me. She is interested in peers, coolness, identity. I think it's all been marvelous for our relationship. She's also pointed out to me, quite reasonably (though this is not always communicated in a reasonable tone), that she has reached the age of consent when it comes to blogging. Even if I ask permission, I find writing about her is dangerous territory (see above concerns). So I have tried to avoid it, and tend to focus more on the person in the family who is not yet able to protest. But if I could, I would write and ponder more about Frances, my first born, my dear one, my complicated, mysterious, beautiful, sharp-minded girl.

So let's say these are more pictures of snowflakes. Not blogging about Frances right now. Nope. Just the snowflakes.

And for good measure, a picture of some actual snow. Inclusion in photo of abovementioned girl is purely coincidental.

thankslisting

Gabriel spent the week prior to Thanksgiving at home, sick with a persistent fever and remarkable congestion that lasted long enough that my worrying wore me down and I took him to the pediatrician, who told me that he had a virus. I guess I knew that. He needed rest and fluids. Yes. Right. Just as he was finally behaving - and eating - like himself again, Beatrice succumbed. 

She developed a fever on Thanksgiving, and the congestion was so awful that she had a hard time breathing. All she wanted to do was nurse, and it was impossible, which was terribly frustrating. The fever worsened, and the two of us were up most of the night. My poor sweaty, snotty little girl. Every time I resettled her in the portable crib at the foot of our bed, I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her awful breathing noises and coughs, torn between exhaustion and wanting to pick her right back up again.

That little conflict never lasted long because within minutes she'd begin crying again, asking for me. And really, who wouldn't? If I felt like she sounded and my mother was a few feet away, I would call for her too.

Luckily my mom was, in fact, a few feet away! The next day as I talked with Mike about leaving a day early because Beatrice was so sick, it suddenly occurred to me that that was utter insanity. My mama was here, making us popcorn while we watched movies and offering to bring me tea. She was taking my big kids out to lunch and sharing her big fluffy dog with them. When my kids are sick and want me all the time, I often dream of my mom's caring presence. Caregivers are in serious need caregiving.

So in the scheme of things, the timing couldn't have been better. No work/child care scrambling, no neglecting the other children, just enforced down time with a hot little monkey who wrapped her sticky hands around my neck and could not bear to be parted from me. 

Usually visits to Lancaster are full of visiting friends, trips to Central Market, knocking on neighbor's doors, and stops in my favorite shops, cafes, and galleries. I'm so happy to be there; I want to soak it all in. Oh yes, I tend to overdo. So to spend three days on my mother's couch, pinned beneath my flushed-face little one, watching the snow fall, snuggling with my family, talking with my aunt - it was different. 

All that sitting and holding and sleep deprivation inspired a meditative mood. I kept noticing. (One of the perks of the stillness and singletasking children sometimes demand, especially as newborns). I kept noticing little things - everyday things - and sometimes, as I noticed, I felt awe before them. Wonder. Maybe, even, gratitude. Here are a few of the things that beckoned to me during the long weekend:

-the vertiginous sight, up through the bay window, of heavy white snowflakes falling through the gray sky

-miniature marvel: a perfect, smooth, shiny acorn

-my husband's clear eyes (true windows if ever there were a pair)

-the sunburst pattern of melted snow on the windshield, water beading out in every direction as we drove home, and the pleasure of anticipating Gabriel describing it to me, knowing he would also notice (and he did, within moments)

-the fast-paced drama of the East coast late autumn sky

-listening to the Beattles, those prolific wonders who supply my children with seemingly endless favorite songs, watching all three of their faces

-wily, wonderful, irrepressible squirrels

-Frances playing the piano with pride and pleasure

-a photograph in a large frame tucked behind my mother's armoire, discovered on one of my lingering visits to her sanctuary of a bedroom: a portrait of my great-grandmother Viola. In her face I saw my mother, my aunt, my sister. Maybe even myself. It was arresting. 

-my children's growing bodies, ever longer and leaner

-my mother's profile

and finally, 

-creamy pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust. 

I hope you also had a beautiful Thanksgiving. 

xoxo

john cerutti and all the saints

As we headed out on our walk to school yesterday morning, Gabriel looked over at me across the stroller handles with November in his eyes. He sighed heavily. "First Peepiceek, then the Car Talk guy, and now John Cerutti, too."

What do Frances's mouse, Tom Magliozzi, and a former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher all have in common? You guessed it. They're dead. We cared about them, and they died.

Last week Frances and I found her mouse curled up motionless in the bedding of his cage. She wept, then didn't believe it, then wept, then repeated over and over: I want him back. Bring him back. It was agonizing. My heart broke for her. Her remaining mouse, Reepicheep, has become the object of much worried attention.

When I heard about the Car Talk guy's death, I thought immediately of Gabriel. I've always had a bit of a love hate relationship with that show and assumed others did, too - but Gabriel surprised me not long ago by confessing that he just plain loved it. I turned it off a couple of weeks ago and he protested. This is a great one! I want to hear what they say about her car!

...You do?

He did. He loved how they laughed. He loved that they were brothers. On our walk we talked about how he seemed like such a happy person, and that made it somehow less sad that he had died.

John Cerutti is oddly the loss I feel most deeply. We've been using his baseball card as a bookmark for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and we used it for that endless tome of an interminable story Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix too. That's a long time to hang with John Cerutti's eyes squinting in the sun, his day-old beard, his good natured, relaxed expression. Over the weeks we began to wonder about him. The card is from 1988. It states he went to Amherst and enjoys oil painting, music, and drawing. Often we would address him directly, a retired ball player, out there somewhere: John Cerutti, who are you? Where are you? Are you puttering in the garden? Painting a landscape? Are you happy, are you well?

Finally Mike Googled the man. He died ten years ago, at the age of 44. That's how old my dad was when he died. Cerutti had a heart condition. The Wikipedia article on him ends thus:
John Cerutti was known and admired for his exemplary character, good will, and sportsmanship.

When Mike and Gabriel told me what they'd learned the other night, I surprised myself and nearly cried. How can he be dead? How can he have been dead all this time? But he was so young!

What is it about just now? Proximity to All Saints Day? The sudden change in weather and shortened days, shifting from golden, warm October to wet, dark November? I feel an openness to grief, a susceptibility to sadness. We all do, in our own ways.

Tonight I read In The Night Kitchen to Beatrice before bed. It was the first time she'd seen the book. I find it to be magical, not only gorgeous (an aside: I have long dreamed of a poster designed from the illustrations to adorn our walls. Ever seen one?) but true in ways I still do not fully understand though I have probably read it hundreds of times.

Beatrice also seemed entranced. We read it once, then twice (with Frances and Gabriel, who also cannot resist). Beatrice was getting tired but insisted on reading it AH-DEN, so I perhaps stupidly turned to the beginning just once more. But as I began to read I noticed Beatrice's lower lip was trembling. She began to cry, sorrowfully and fearfully. Mickey is tired, she said. He will sleep. More tears.

Am I reading too much into it when I say that she felt her first intimations of mortality tonight? She kept crying, kept insisting on finishing the story. She became focused on his bed, his leaving his Mama and Papa sleeping tight (Mama! Papa!) and finally I had to close the book and say it was bedtime. She kept crying and talking about Mickey. While she nursed she pulled off repeatedly, that sad tremble still in her voice, saying Mickey ...okay. He is okay. Mickey is okay. She couldn't stop thinking about him.

He's not leaving his parents forever, he's not alone, he's not scared, he's not going to die. Right?

After I shut the door she wailed so miserably I had to get her out of the crib and bring her downstairs, where she ate Girl Scout cookies with her brother and sister, snuggled in my lap, and eventually calmed down.

What a few days it's been. What sadness there is in the world! Those unsettling, mustachioed bakers say "we bake cake, and nothing's the matter!" These are the same bakers who put Semitic, chubby, capable little Mickey into an oven. Something is the matter, alright, you nasty bakers. Something is very wrong.

Surely by now Mickey has died. So have his parents. Maurice Sendak has died. My dad, my grandparents, Mike's grandparents, Pete Seeger, Tom Magliozzi, John Cerutti, Frances's first pet. Name yours too. All the saints. It makes the grief even more excruciating sometimes to share it with one's children, but in that sharing it can take on a beautiful, holy quality. Blessed are those who mourn.  

hummus, deconstructed

Sometimes I think it may represent some messed up martyr-like parenting burnout wish, but despite the addition to our lives of one more kid (a kid who, at an adventuresome and wily 19 months of age, creates a stunning amount of chaos in her wake) and a pretty substantial and demanding part-time job, I cannot give up the dream of dinner. I cannot resign myself to the frozen section of Trader Joe's. I want to cook.

Take back that martyr comment above. Truth be told, the children would be quite happy with fried balls of macaroni and cheese on a Tuesday night. (There actually is something to that effect in above mentioned Trader Joe's aisle, and Frances never walks past it with begging me, please, just this once, just get the mac and cheese balls, Mama, just PLEASE, I know I love them.) The children would, at least in the short term, be a lot happier at dinner time if I snipped and heated Thai dumplings and tofu nuggets and called it a night. But I can't bear to. Even if time is short, even if Beatrice is hanging onto my legs, head thrown back, giving herself over entirely to the conviction that all will be lost if Mama doesn't pick me up right now and Frances is repeating her story about what appalling thing so-and-so said at lunch and Gabriel is moaning dramatically over first grade homework at the table, even then I am determined to somehow pull together a real dinner. This is despite the fact that though I regularly and, it seems to me, heroically chop onions and simmer quinoa in the midst of so much activity, I always brace myself when the children ask me the dreaded What's for dinner question because chances are high they will be disappointed. (And express their disappointment.) (And apologize to me when I tell them that hurts my feelings). And even though Beatrice will announce she is ready to sit in Mama's lap three minutes into the simple meal that took just about all the inner resources I had to make materialize on the table, and I will haul her out of her seat and she will climb all over me and try to feed me resulting in a great mess, even then it seems worthwhile to continue to cook - and eat - the real dinner I really made. It's absurd, but there it is.

That said, I am always trying to figure out ways to cook and eat real food that won't stress me out. Some recent developments: making a big pan of baked oatmeal on Sunday afternoons that I can slice and reheat during the week for breakfast; keeping lots of salad greens on hand so I can pack lunches that make me happy (rather than the desperate yogurt cup/granola bar/apple sort of thing that only depresses); making lots of dinner when possible so we'll have good leftovers on hand.

I've also been experimenting with my slow cooker. It's never really found a comfortable place in my kitchen. But lately I've been making dried beans in it during the day (so superior to canned, right? so worth the effort!), which brings me to the subject of this post. In its own small way this meal felt triumphant, so I wanted to share. Here's what I did: a few mornings ago I realized I would come home that day on the late side and there'd be nothing obvious to make for dinner. So first thing, I quick-soaked a bag of chick peas (covered in water, brought to a boil, and left for about an hour). Just before I left for work I drained them and put them into the slow cooker with water to cover, salt, and a glug of olive oil.

When I got home with the kids that day, the house smelled great. I decided that in the hopes of transforming a mountain of cooked chick peas into something that seemed like dinner, I would prepare them like hummus - minus the blender. I put some grains on to cook, and in a little bowl whisked lots of tahini, lemon, olive oil, salt, and garlic together. When the grains were finished, I mixed them with the chick peas and poured the tahini sauce all over everything.

And though nowadays I have less time to conceive, gather ingredients for, and prepare meals myself, I do have a nine year old I can send out to cut chives with which to make a rather plain dish a little more exciting. And a six year old who will (sometimes) cheerfully set the table. And a toddler who will search the house calling Papa! Dinner! Sit here! and so miraculously, amazingly, that night we all sat down to real dinner together and I was not a frazzled mess. Success.

Ah, readers! Remember when I used to post about these little life challenges all the time? And you would comment and share your extraordinary innovations too? Maybe this one was fueled by a bit of nostalgia for that era. Indulge me, won't you? What was your latest real dinner triumph?

With solidarity, love, and wishes for excellent meals shared with cooperative children,
xxoo
Meagan

on aging

It is so rare that we feel up to the task of watching an entire movie. And I'm not even talking about the movie theatre. I'm talking about rustling up the focus and energy to select and then watch a real movie all in one go, snuggled up on the couch downstairs after the children are in bed.

But on Saturday we watched God Help the Girl, a film by Stuart Murdoch (the Belle and Sebastian guy). The music, the story, the sweetness and honesty - it was good. I'm not sure what I expected. There are so many bands, artists, and writers that I paid a lot of attention to in college and the years after - before parenthood - that I have not plugged into for a very long time. Some narcissistic part of me assumes they all just stopped writing songs and making dances when my attention waned. Around 2005, all over New York and Paris (and in this case, Glasgow) artists could be overheard saying, Oh, Meagan isn't listening to our new albums anymore? Ah well. What's the point? We may as well settle down and get jobs and have kids too.

I still listen to the old albums I loved. Belle and Sebastian has been a constant in my life since my senior year of college, and I associate If You're Feeling Sinister with falling in love with Mike, visits to New York, and a sense of yearning possibility. I can't hear Judy and the Dream of Horses without my chest swelling; I can't sing along without my throat constricting with the peripheral presence of tears. What are those tears about? Nostalgia, loss, the strangeness of time passing? I feel so connected to that moment: being twenty and in love and in a perfect city, newly mine, listening to Belle and Sebastian, unsure about what to do and who to be. Was it really seventeen years ago?

After we watched the movie - about beautiful young people in Glasgow and how their new friendships, pop music aspirations, and troubles all mix up in a moment before anything big has happened, before any particular direction has been established in their lives - and the credits played out and we were sitting in darkness, Mike asked me if I felt sad that we were no longer young. I heard myself answer yes, accompanied by a surprising sense of tranquility. No need to be defensive, no need to regret anything, just yes. Yes, it is sad that that time in our lives is over.

What was it like? For me, a mix of vague yet passionate ambition, persistent self-doubt, powerful experiences of friendship, an uncertain, faltering, yet determined desire for creative expression, spiritual longing, confusion, love. A yearning for authenticity; for all that seemed true, good, and beautiful. I lost my dad when I was eighteen. I fell in love with Mike and graduated from Swarthmore and moved to New York when I was twenty. I was always in such a rush to figure it out, to grow up, to grow out. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. As I considered options, depending on my mood, either the prospective path or my own flawed self seemed lacking.

It was stressful and wearying, worrying so much about myself and my relationships. It's such an inward time! After Frances was born, I remember a conscious sense of relief. In my focus on her, I got a break from myself. Finally. 

But. But but. Nine years later, I still spend most of my emotional energies worrying about my kids. Do I work too much? Do they have the support they need? Are they growing in all the ways that they should be? Am I helping them to become themselves, in all their strangeness and glory?

In the rush and pull of everyday life, it is so easy to neglect to look inward every now and then. It's easy to not give myself the time and quiet to think about the person I am - good gracious! - still becoming. Maybe some of the sadness, in missing my youth, is missing what in retrospect seems like luxurious amounts of self-reflection. How to make the space for discovering what is good and true and beautiful? 

The truth is that I prefer who and how I am now. Even with my gray streaks and residual perioral dermitis (sigh!), I know I would never choose to be twenty-three again. But it's good to be reminded of what I wanted and what I still want - to grow in love. And though there is a temptation to focus so fully on my children that I slip past and around whatever difficulty is stirring in my own heart, good people and music and movies remind me to resist that limited kind of relationship. Ultimately, I think, loving my children wholly leads me back to myself.

In a good way.

go go go stop

I just got back from Back to School Night for Frances. Next week I'll go for Gabriel. Yesterday was soccer, tomorrow is Girls on the Run, the annual breakfast meeting for the St. John's health center began my day yesterday and a long faculty meeting made for a late reunion with my husband that night. This season of new beginings - all worthy endeavors - is well underway. But sometimes it feels as if I am barreling all day from one thing to the next and if I don't stop and take a breath I'll head straight over the falls.

I know I've told you lots about Beatrice's bedtime. Come to think of it, it might be the only thing I ever blog about anymore. Homemade Bedtime. Hmm. But I digress: the point is that it is a precious still moment in my day. Indulge me here - I need to revel in those moments and hold them close, to balance out all that barreling.

Mike has taught Beatrice to say I love you when they say goodnight to each other. I love you Papa. It sounds a bit like: Ah ruv you. Papa. It is the sweetest thing in the world.

Tonight after all the night night, I love yous, we entered her room. She turned her light off ("light OFF") (she likes to narrate as much as her experience as possible these days) and settled into the rocking chair with me to nurse and sing. She paused, looked up at me, and smiled.

I love you, Papa.

I repeated her words: I love you Papa.

I love you, Gabriel.

I smiled back and repeated: I love you Gabriel.

Hello, Didi. I love you.

I thought my smile would get so big it would start to pull my face apart. That sweet hello! I repeated: I love you Didi.

Then she just grinned back at me in silence.

....I love you, Beatrice, I said.

More grinning. Silence.

What about Mama? ...I love you Mama?

Then she said it. I love you. Mama.

Even though I'd asked her to, I still nearly choked with emotion (laughter? tears? something beyond those categories?) as I told her I loved her too.

And then she laughed! She was smiling with her eyes and nose and chin and teeth and it got so big and wonderful that she laughed. Transcendent.

Then she abruptly got serious, turned towards me and announced: nurse.

It all lasted about two minutes, and it was the most joyful moment of my day. Off the charts joyful! My heart sings with the memory of it.

a family is everybody all together

Gabriel explained to some dear friends who were over for dinner recently that Beatrice's favorite time of the day is dinnertime, and her favorite part of dinnertime is when we all hold hands and sing the Johnny Appleseed grace. She smiles, slowly scanning every face at the table, and when it is over she punctuates the song with a joyful Ah-men! 

Tonight, just before bedtime, I was carrying Beatrice to say night-night to Gabriel in the kitchen, when we passed my phone sitting on the counter. I noticed Beatrice look at it and could hear the wheels turning in her head. 

Would you like to say night-night to Gramma, too, Beatrice?

Yeah, she replied. Call Gramma, call Gramma, say night-night, night-night Gramma, night-night Bardolf!

She has only Facetimed my mom, so somehow the phone is like a magical portal to Gramma. But Gramma is in Ashland and was probably finishing up a matinee at the Shakespeare Festival when we called, so she didn't pick up. Beatrice looked crestfallen watching her own disappointed face in the phone, listening to the relentless ring that refused to end with Gramma's face.

You know Beatrice, I told her, we can call Grammy and Poppy on my phone, too.

Grammy! Poppy! Call Poppy! Say night-night Poppy!

So we did. His wireless connection was not so hot; it was short and sweet. Then Beatrice said goodnight to Frances and Michael, then we went into her peaceful darkened room, where she looked at me expectantly: Nurse, Mama.

She falls into position, so sleepy and happy. Do I love this time of day? Oh, I do. Every night at this point I say, would you like me to sing a song? And she grins blissfully and snuggles closer and sings-talks in response: vatetrain vatetrain, which means Freight Train Freight Train, which she has insisted on for her bedtime song ever since she first heard me sing it many weeks ago, which sometimes makes me sad because our song used to be Wild Mountain Thyme - which I think suits her perfectly - but she was adamant.

It's okay, I love Freight Train too. I sing it Elizabeth Mitchell-style, and sing about all the places I would like us to visit, or the places we love, or the places we are considering for Mike's sabbatical next year, or the places in the world I am so sad for. Going to Syria, going so fast. Going to Liberia, going so fast. 

But tonight I would begin singing, then she'd pull off and look up at me and say Gramma? Soon?

Yes, we'll see her soon.

Poppy? Grammy? Soon. 

Yes, we'll see them soon too.

And then ... back to the song and nursing. But then, a few moments later: tell Poppy ah ruv you. Ah ruv you.

Yes, he loves you too.

A few moments later: See Bardolf? Soon. See Bardolf soon.

Does she even like Bardolf? Last time my mom's labradoodle was here she spent a lot of time looking at him sternly and reprimanding No Bardolf, no no. But he's part of her family. And Beatrice is a connector, a lover of gatherings, a small person who is happiest in the heart of her family, when everybody is all together.

Oh Beatrice! I like it too. I like how much you like it. You help us all to see just how precious it is.

acclimating

 Beatrice loves to draw. She loves to draw all over everything.

She consistently identifies yellow and purple, and sometimes green, and every time I nearly jump up and down applauding, I am so delighted by her learning. We all are; she is in the midst of a magic, golden age. We hardly notice the hard behavioral stuff because we are so taken with her new compentencies, which she seems to aquire by the hour and is in turn delighted by, and then again, she is delighted by our delight. Back, forth, back, forth, so many grins erupt in our family every time she strings together a little proto sentence. Papa, read me! Look, Mama, I draw! What a great system.

So this is one of her new favorite places to be: standing at the kitchen table, preferably alongside her siblings, which allows her a sense of comraderie as well as the occasional opportunity to reach over and mess up whatever they are working on. 

She even likes to stand there and draw while I make dinner, which is a miracle that I should be thanking God profusely for. But sometimes I hardly notice, because at that hour the kitchen can feel like a maelstrom. The quiet sensory pleasures of simmering rice and chopping vegetables cannot compete with the nonstop voices, the flare ups of competition, the constant need for my attention. Eventually Beatrice joins in the action. I've been at work, they've been at school; they haven't seen me all day. I have to listen to what happened at gym, see what's under this Band Aid, look at how amazingly this top spins. Now. I wonder how many times I hear a plaintive MAMA! between 5 and 6 o'clock?

Is it always like this? Are we simply adjusting to work and school routines, and eventually I'll be able to tolerate all the voices heading in my direction at once, and the children will (hopefully) be more peaceful in reconnecting with everyone at home? (Say yes. Please.)

Tonight Frances was pacing around the first floor of the house while reciting a poem at an uncomfortably loud volume (her preferred mode of memorizing something - pacing while nearly shouting it). I'd ask her to speak more quietly, she'd try for a line or two, but then her voice would shoot right back up. OH HARK, OH HEAR! HOW THIN AND CLEAR! 

Gabriel had taken apart a pull-back car and was fascinated by the mechanism inside it. He'd poke my arm urgently until I looked, showing me how one aspect of it worked, then minutes later return to show me something else, then to show me how he put it back together, then to show me how one might create a car using the same components arranged differently. 

And Beatrice was at the table, in her spot, muttering draw draw, eyes eyes, draw eyes. She'd look at me when her concentration broke and demand Mama, draw, Mama, sit. Sit here. 

At one point, while the frozen spinach and cauliflower simmered in some last bits of tomato sauce, I did. I sat and drew a picture with Beatrice, while the Tennyson poem came in and out as Frances marched past again and again, and Gabriel brought yet another incarnation of his car study for my investigation. These are all worthwhile pursuits that might make another parent glow with pride and pleasure, yet in their simultaneity I felt utterly exhausted by them. 

By bedtime, things quieted down; we'd read together and I'd regained my composure. Somehow, I made it through. Oh friends, I suspect I join in a chorus of parents - generation upon generation stretching back through the mists of time - when I say this: good gracious, that dinner-making hour is grueling.

home improvements

There are few things duller than talking about improvements to one's home. Hinge selection? Roof repair? Sump pump in a tizzy? This ordinarily makes my brain go fuzzy and heavy, and then a bit of anxiety stirs in my belly, because if I don't change the subject or find a way out of the conversation quick it will begin to drip out of my ears. 

That's why I'm not going to tell you about all the improvements large and small that have been made around here this summer. I'll just show you. Part of why I wanted to mention it at all is that I am experiencing the sum total of our efforts as a surprisingly pleasant improved sense of being truly home. This space is more ours: more beautiful, more personal, more of a real place. Which, come to think of it, seems worth talking about! So take it back, you can tell me about window replacements anytime. Honestly. And then I will tell you about my hunt for the right drawer pulls for Frances's old/new dresser...

Did you get this far? Well. I do have one more little thing to note: tomorrow I go back to work. So obviously instead of prepping for freshman orientation I am here with you, showing you the pet mice and three-year-old napkin art that I had saved and that Gabriel and I made into a little bottom bunk banner last week. 

Transitions! May yours be going as peacefully and smoothly as possible. 

Love,
Meagan

happy birthday, dad

Last week we were in Lancaster. During the visit, I composed a blog post in my mind about why I feel so at home there, what makes that town such a vibrant, creative community (the arts! sustainable local agriculture! Mennonites!) - and why (I think) I no longer feel so bereft about living elsewhere. Why having a second home, a home-away-from-home, is something to be grateful for.

But then I thought if I told you too much about Lancaster (such as the fantastic new yoga studio or the kids' experience at farm camp), you would probably want to live there. And then real estate would be driven up and there would be waiting lists at the local private schools and it would ruin it for everyone.

So forget I even mentioned it. Instead I'll tell you about my dad's birthday, which is today.

My mom and my sister and I usually connect with each other on the anniversary of his death, but often his birthday quietly slides by. I'm never sure how to commemorate it. But this morning, on the way home from swimming class, I told Gabriel it was his grandpa's birthday. Without missing a beat, he said, "Let's make him a card. Even though he's dead. Okay?"

Okay. We gave Beatrice a piece of scrap to make her card on, Gabriel folded some red construction paper, and hesitated. What does one say to a dead person on his birthday? It was unknown territory for both of us. We laughed and considered sorry you're dead but then Gabriel confessed he wanted to be serious about this. So I suggested he just tell his grandpa - who was surely one of the best people for talking about feelings in the whole world - how he felt.

Sad. He felt sad. And that he wished he could meet him.

When it came time to sign the card, Gabriel again paused. "I could put my name, but he won't even know who I am, Mama. ...What if I write 'Meagan's son'?"

Oh no, I assured him. He knows you are Gabriel. (He does? Does he? Yes. I think.) God makes sure of that.

Frances caught wind of what we were doing and made a card too. She didn't want me to see what she wrote, because it's just for Grandpa. 

Then we confronted yet another challenge involved in making a birthday card for a dead person: how to deliver it? In the end, we build a tiny firepit in the backyard and burned the cards, in the hope that the tiny wafts of smoke might make it to heaven. We cried, a little. And then, maybe in honor of their grandpa's wild spirit, I showed the kids how to light matches for the first time. Fire is so cool.

Happy birthday, Dad.

ever farther, ever closer

About a week ago, Beatrice started responding to me with a funny little affirmative expression that sounds like yeppie. As in, Beatrice, would you like to come outside with me? She nods vigorously and grins, saying Yeppie! It's most often used when she really, really wants the thing that I am proposing: a song at naptime, a nurse, some water after coming in from the hot afternoon.

Was she making the already casual "yep" into a diminutive? Did her little toddler brain somehow get that putting "ie" on the ends of words makes them cuter? Maybe it was just her own odd little made-up word.

But then the other day, as she toddled through the house while calling Mama? Mama? Mama! (as she is wont to do) and I heard myself respond Yes? Yeah, Bea? Yeah, Bea, I'm here (as I am wont to do) - it finally hit me. Yeppie is Yeah Bea. It is the reassuring response she gets every time she calls my name as she ventures farther and farther afield. It's her toddler sonar. Mama? -Yes. Another step. Mama? -Yeah, Bea. Four more stairs. Mama? -Yeah, Bea. Top of the stairs ... then a hurtling chest-first veer into her big sister's room, where she finds chapstick and jewelry and stickers and becomes quiet in her focused destruction.

Yeah, Bea. It's okay. Keep going, keep coming back. I'll be here waiting for you.

Her language is exploding; her cognitive breakthroughs astound us. With every new word she acquires, it is as if the world becomes sharper, brighter, more vivid and alluring. Everything has a name; everything is more extraordinary than she ever supposed! Tonight she identified the backs of some children in a book we were reading, then wanted to rub all of our backs. Back, back, back! After we said our goodnights I brought her upstairs, where we settled into our rocking and nursing and singing routine. She kept pulling off, looking at the door, looking at me, and smiling. After awhile, she lifted her top arm and waved towards the door, pulling off to smile and say Night night, Papa, and then turn back to nurse. It was as if she was putting it all together: even though we're in a different room,  I know Papa and Gabriel and Frances are still downstairs, and even when I sleep, they are nearby. How about that, Mama? Isn't that terrific?

Along with all her new understanding and independence - her utter delight in running away from me -  has come unprecedented fear and anger when I leave her.  The agonies of separation anxiety are nothing short of awful, for everyone involved. I never leave the house unaccompanied by screams of protest. We are in the thick of extraordinary, fascinating, delightful rapprochement - and it can be harrowing. (Especially when faced with coming up with a new child care arrangement when work resumes in about five weeks - oh dear, oh dear - but that is for another post). 

Mike thinks yeppie is, in fact, yes please. It might be. It might be yeah, Bea and yes, please, depending on the context. She is that smart, that subtle! Or maybe the manners/social cues part of her brain is starting to come into focus and the phrase is shifting in meaning. Things happen that fast around here. A sixteen month old person is a wonder!  

for that we came

Mike has been participating in a faculty study group on poetry these past weeks, and I often hear him repeating a line in the next room, or bouncing down the stairs on feet that fly in iambic pentameter, providing emphasis to a verse that he is quietly reciting to himself. But when it comes to this Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, long a favorite, he tends to belt it out, complete with poetry slam stylings.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -- 

Christ -- for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

On Saturday afternoon we brought the kids to Swarthmore. Its not a big reunion year for either of us, but it is for the institution (a sesquecentennial! how often does one get to use that word?), which attracted two of our most dear far-flung friends, which in turn attracted us. 

The campus is unbelievably beautiful. There were trees that had magically sprung up since our last visit, lush ferns and hostas spilling over in their shade as if they had been there forever. There were new clumps of native plants swaying in the June breeze along Magill, and gardens that seemed to be extensions of the grand trees of the Crum Woods, only but slightly more formal and forthright in their sense of invitation. I know there is a lot of money and planning behind these wooded areas, but on an emotional level the spaces felt inevitable in their particularity, abundance, and beauty. The trees selved. Like kingfishers catching fire, so was the movement of their limbs, the greenness of the canopy they formed. 

On Sunday we stayed at Mike's parents' house in nearby Wilmington and that afternoon, went for a long walk through a neighborhood that was formed as an artists' colony long ago. It was full of unusual gardens, old trees, and brilliantly bumper-stickered cars. There was sculptures tucked into thickets of ferns, walls painted bright colors, and houses that had clearly been built on and creatively added to more than once. Each space was deeply personal, yet connected to neighbors and community spaces so gracefully. How was it that I'd never walked those quiet streets before?

I felt like myself with those friends, in those spaces. It was a reminder of the importance of beauty - something that can get neglected in the hubbub of everyday life. Kids need to get fed, transported, bathed, clothed - who has time for beauty in this constant whirl?  But this weekend I experienced people, places, nature, and art that were stunning in their strangeness, their expression of something perfectly personal and full of grace. 

A split level in one of Annapolis's sprawling neighborhoods cannot exude the same sort of beauty and weight that I responded to so deeply over the weekend, but that's okay. It can have it's own. It seems to me a question of discerning what kind of self wants to be selved, and nurturing that process along - not only for the garden, the interior spaces, the trees in the backyard, but for each other, for our children. What they do is them; for that they came!

It's loose, I know - a hazy sense that the creative and nurturing work of growing a family and a home is simply allowing things and people to continue becoming what they are (the result of which is unavoidably beautiful) (and the enemy of which is doing what one does). But it inspired me in a broad range of activities today: picking arugula and radish flowers for the table, procuring unexpected paint samples for Beatrice's room, and thinking more about protecting the children's time so that they can do things like build fairy houses by a brook (which is exactly what they did on Sunday, with rare peacefulness and cooperation).   

marbles

Hello! Hello, hello. Remember me? I used to have two little kids, and I would occasionally write here about parenting quandaries having to do with things like school, discipline, food, community, friends, and naps. Then you all would comment and inquire, and conversations sometimes unfolded, and I loved the clarity, support, and solidarity that emerged. 

Remember that?

Now I have one baby, two medium-sized kids, and one part-time job, and somehow the time to reflect and bring my questions and insights, triumphs and disappointments to you proves elusive. It's not just about a busier life though; something about having school-aged children changes things. Their voices become ever more distinct and independent; the family conversation includes them in a new way. It's no longer me and two little irrational creatures figuring out what to do all day; it's me and four other people with countless needs and expectations, navigating a busy kitchen where we reconverge most days around 4 pm.  

But! Perhaps in anticipation of Summer, tonight I harken back to the days of yore and bring you a simple story about the latest development in our historically patchy and inconsistent efforts to get our kids to behave. Nicely. I present to you - the Marble Jar.

One day a couple of months ago I was meeting with my social work supervisor, completely distracted by how mean Frances had been to her brother that morning and how clueless I felt about how to help her behave with kindness. So I asked for her help. She works with a lot of kids and families and suggested something so concrete and so simple that we never would have thought of it in a million years.

Gabriel doesn't actually need much help on the kindness front, but I didn't want to single out Frances, and he does need to do a better job of putting his things away, so they both got a jar. Every morning I put five marbles in each jar. Five marbles just for waking up in the morning and being their own excellent selves.

Marbles are removed or added depending on behavior throughout the day. If Gabriel remembers to put his shoes away, or cooperates cheerfully when I ask him to clean up or set the table, he gets a marble. If Frances volunteers to help one of her siblings with something or is spontaneously supportive or kind, she gets a marble. 

There is a line duct-taped one-third of the way up the jar, and then two-thirds of the way up. These lines represent smallish rewards, and then once the jar is entirely filled there will be some kind of amazing and awesome and as-yet undefined experience in store, not to mention (I hope) a sense of accomplishment. 

Gabriel filled his jar to the one-third line first. He debated requesting a family bike ride. He considered a special night-time swim. Then he settled on the very best possible reward: an epic battle. Every knight and dragon and horse in the house vs. our family (minus Beatrice, who just wouldn't get it - so we battled during her naptime). 

Gabriel wanted Mama and Papa to help him set up every stray plastic knight, forming them into one ragtag (yet formidable) army, arrayed across the playroom floor. Standards were flying, dragons were spitting fire, and a dopey wooden king sat on the battlements and watched it all. 

Then, once it was perfect, Gabriel explained we would be using crossbows and catapults to knock every warrior to bits. Not a single knight would remain standing! Frances, who was unwilling to involve herself directly, agreed to play the musical accompaniment on her recorder while we shot and threw things at the army, eventually heaving plastic toys across the room, sending the bigger figures flying. Shock and awe, people.

In the middle of it all Gabriel looked up at me and said, Mama, I've been thinking about this battle since I was three years old. And now we're finally doing it. Let's do this every Sunday afternoon!

It was the perfect reward for him, our dear boy who wants nothing more than time with his family.

Does the marble jar system work? I'm not sure. I do think Frances has been more mindful about how mean her words can be, and she has definitely been more cooperative and willing to help out around the house. It's striking how meaningful a physical representation of positive reinforcement can be - these days, the clink of a marble dropping into a jar is a powerful sound.

Indulge me, friends, for old time's sake: now you. How is everyone behaving in your house? Has a sticker chart/marble jar/gold star system ever actually worked for anyone? And does anyone have the discipline and commitment to have actually stuck with one of these behavior modification techniques?

greener grass

On occasion, Mike (and other friends with multiple kids) and I have thrown each other knowing looks, chuckled with the satisfied been-there-done-that confidence of middle age and said, "Remember when we just had one? And we thought it was so hard? We had no idea! One was a breeze! Ha ha ha!"

Maybe that's why I thought making the transition from working during the day to mostly being at home with Beatrice would be pure, unadulterated, leisurely heaven. No more returning home at 4:30 pm to bits of breakfast left on the table, coffee grinds scattered on the counter, jackets piled by the door where a kid left them after searching for one particular item on the way out that morning. No more of the mad hurtle towards dinner: overseeing homework, loading the dishwasher, fetching snacks, chopping onions, listening to two big kids talk at once, wondering if I did the right things at work, all with a clingy baby on my hip who cannot bear to be put down.

Well, of course she couldn't bear to be put down! I had missed her all day, too.

At first, after the semester ended, I felt odd. The relentless pace quieted down abruptly, leaving space for me to wonder about things like the threadbare, stained couch cushions (couches - where does one get couches?) and the eternal problem of finding a lunch Frances will eat at school. I began checking out new cookbooks at the library again, and thinking about strawberry picking. Creative domestic energies flowed in to the small spaces that working life had dominated for so long. It's a pleasure to re-inhabit that pace and focus.

However. It turns out one baby actually is hard. Did I really look back and laugh at my hand-wringing first-time parent self, wondering what all the fuss was about?

She never wants me to put her down. She sees me all day and she never wants me to put her down. She adores Mike and Frances and Gabriel, but if she is playing with them and I leave the room she shrieks and hightails it after me. I can make an after-school smoothie with one hand, I can maneuver the stroller full of library books and backpacks with one hand - but I don't enjoy it.

I remember a good talk, years ago, with a fellow social worker who had decided to stay home full time with her son after having worked full time. She told me staying home was the right thing for her and her family, but sometimes she felt as if all she did was move things from one room to another, all day long.

I didn't get it then, but now I do. I spent at least an hour of precious naptime today moving things around my house: laundry from the basement to the kids' rooms, dirty sheets from their rooms back to the basement, a stray Lego to the Lego box, a bottle of vitamins that had been kicked to the corner back to the cabinet, a stack of old homework to the recycling bin, a stack of dirty dishes from the dining room table to the dishwasher. And one has to spend naptime moving stuff from one room to another when the baby cannot bear to be put down, because it is too hard to stoop repeatedly with only one hand free and 24 pounds of baby on your hip. So I kick and nudge things out of the way instead.

Friends, acquaintances, readers - if I ever laughed in an annoying way and suggested to you that life with a baby is way easy - I apologize. That was total baloney. 

(I say baloney now instead of bullshit. I really do.)

The Blue Angels have been flying around overhead the last couple of days. It's been a few years since they have flown during Commissioning Week here in Annapolis. I first saw them fly low, in a dizzyingly tight formation of four, while sitting with Beatrice in our backyard sandbox yesterday. She nearly leaped out of her skin. It sent me right back to being outside, watching them with Gabriel, who at two thought they were nothing short of amazing. I feel his little boy thrill when I see them today.  

And I remember all the open space we had together, he and I, in the early days of Homemade Time. I had to learn to hold onto my own agenda but lightly when I first forayed into staying home, and I am slowly remembering how to do that now. On Monday Gabriel and I took Harry Potter and a blanket outside during Beatrice's nap. It was glorious weather. As soon as we settled down he asked if we could have a conversation together instead of reading.

We stretched out in the sun and talked about everything and nothing, the sun soaking into my brain, making me feel lazy and close to my boy. Then Beatrice woke up way too early, and I felt annoyed at the interruption. But we brought her outside with us, and she climbed over her brother, showed off her new walking moves, pointed and yelped at the caterpillars he held - and it was just as perfect as it had been when she was asleep.

It could never have happened if I had been at work.